Orene (Ellis) Farese was born May 20, 1916, in a farm home in Choctaw County between Reform and Mathiston, Mississippi, to William A. Ellis and Mamie Ethel (Haimes) Ellis. She was the youngest of four girls: Eleanor (Ellis) Hester, Orlene (Ellis) McGlamery, and Jackie Lorene (Ellis) Eudy. There were three younger brothers: Howard (who died at two years of age), Herbert and Hugh Fred.

Orene started school at Reform, Mississippi, and after her third year, the family moved to Mathiston, Mississippi, to be near good schools. Her grammar school years were at the local public school, then the high school years were at Bennett Academy which later became Wood Junior College, a Methodist Missionary School.

Orene attended two years at Holmes Junior College at Goodman, Mississippi, from 1934-1936. It was there she met John B. Farese of Lynn, Massachusetts, who was also a student.

From Holmes Junior College, Orene finished her last two years as an English and speech major at Blue Mountain College, Blue Mountain, Mississippi.

She began her professional career as a high school English teacher at Ashland, Mississippi, in Benton County in 1938. When John graduated from law school in 1939, they announced their marriage and became citizens of Benton County.

Orene became active in home demonstration club, the Ashland Baptist Church, P.T.A. and civic projects.

When World War II became imminent, Orene was appointed chief clerk of Benton County Draft Board by Gov. Paul Johnson where she served until John volunteered in the Air Corps. During the following four years, she did civil service clerical work at several stations where John was assigned. During this time John Booth and Kay were born into the family.

After the war, coming home to Ashland, both she and John became interested in politics because of the school situation. He was elected senator in 1948. They both ran and were elected to the House in 1952 becoming the first couple in the United States to be elected to a legislature. Orene then was elected to the Senate in 1956, and her husband was elected back to the House.

Two more boys were born into the family during this time, Steven and Jeffrey. Jeff arrived during Orene's last term of office.

Orene served in many civic capacities, organizing Ashland's first P.T.A. and serving two terms as president, serving three times as den mother in scouting, organizing the first arts festival in Benton County, sponsor of local baseball programs, 4-H Clubs sponsor, sponsored trips for graduating classes to the state capitol to observe "Government in Action," and countless local civic projects.

After their legislative careers, both she and her husband remained active in community services.

After John died in 1994, Orene moved to Memphis to be near her daughter, Kay. She lived there and was active in the Second Presbyterian Church.

In the spring of 1998, Orene returned to Ashland to be near her sons who live nearby. She is at present still serving in mission organizations at Second Presbyterian, is member of Salvation Army, and is active in the Ashland Baptist Church.

This is an interview for the Mississippi Oral History Program of The University of Southern Mississippi. The interview is with Orene Farese. It=s being recorded at her home in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 18, 1997. The interviewer is Charles Bolton.

Bolton: OK. Thanks for talking to me today, I appreciate it. I guess first I'll just start off just with a very basic question if you could tell me just when and where you were born.

Farese: All right. Choctaw County, 1916. And at that time all births in that area of the country were at home. And a Dr. Kellum from Reform, Mississippi, which was three miles away, was the family doctor. And although he was called early that morning he didn't arrive in time, and I've been on the run and ahead of them ever since. (laughter) But I came into a family of three older sisters, and later three boys were born. The first, [Howard] two years after my birth, died when he was two. I still remember playing with that brother.

Bolton: What did he die of?

Farese: Pneumonia. See, there were no sulfa drugs, no antibiotics to take care of problems then and mostly home remedies even the doctors would prescribe were so far out now when we think of the medicines that we have.

Bolton: Do you remember any of those remedies?

Farese: I remember Vick's salve was very heavily ladeled onto anyone with a cold of any type. And then they had these flannel cloths that they would put on the chest. And of course the fumes from the Vick's salve - do you now what Vick's salve is?

Bolton: Is that like Vicks Vaporub they have today?

Farese: Yes, very strong. And the fumes from it, you know, when you breathe it really did open up your head. And I don't know what else the doctor used on him but my mother was expecting another baby at the time that he was ill. And when he passed away she had to go to bed herself because she had just worn herself out, you know. And I can remember the funeral of that child. My father took the three older little girls and myself. The church was two miles from our house and a bitterly cold November, last part of November, and one of the few times that I could remember in my lifetime when it snowed in Mississippi in November. But there was a driving wind and a pelting snow, not heavy, but snow nevertheless during that funeral. And since it was the only boy in the family my father was so grieved and for a long, long time didn't recover from it. I think when the other boys came along it helped some, but he really grieved over that baby. I don't remember seeing a man grieve as he did over that child.

Bolton: What did your father do?

Farese: Farmer.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: Um-hm.

Bolton: What kind of farmer?

Farese: Well, he had cattle, he did cotton farming as everybody in that area did. Grew everything that we ate with the exception of things - now this to me is so interesting in retrospect. In the wintertime after all of the crops were gathered and you had staples like potatoes and fruits that had been canned - the only things that you bought were flour and meal and sugar and salt, you know. But also, Sears Roebuck - and there was another company, Wards - Sears Roebuck and Wards both carried a grocery line. And I can remember mother and dad ordering these huge boxes of crackers and peanut butter and, you know, things like that. And dad didn't mind having a little nip every now and then. He would order him a few bottles of whiskey.

Bolton: You could order all of that through Sears.

Farese: You could order that back in those days, out of Chicago. There were no Sears branches as we have now.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: But these came from out of state, and fortunately no one opened the mail because there it was coming into dry Mississippi. But of course I remember that back then there were also people who bootlegged as they did up through the years. They had their drinks one way or another, you know. Some made beer. I didn't know any bootleggers until I got older enough to know who was who, you know, in a community. But it was always whispered around, "So-and-so makes whiskey." (laughter) And of course they were not exactly accepted in the social circles. They were looked at with - you know how people cut their eyes when someone comes around and the eyebrows raise.

Bolton: Right. Were they bothered by the law enforcement people, or did they pretty much leave them alone?

Farese: Do you know I never heard of raids until I was in high school. Now, whether it was because I was too young to think about it or they didn't mention it in front of me, but I never heard of such a thing until I was up in high school. And then later in life I found out that this black lady who had been helping me for years, they say, and I never have confirmed the rumor, that she sold, she dealt in the liquid joy. And when we were in the legislature this woman worked for us. For forty-five years [she] helped me raise my children. I should say rear. But back to the era. I think my life is divided into really compartmental segments that I recognize. One being from birth up through my tenth year. We lived in this particular neighborhood that long and I started to school there.

Bolton: What was the neighborhood called?

Farese: Pumpkin Center.

Bolton: I'm sorry.

Farese: Pumpkin Center and we named it.

Bolton: Pumpkin?

Farese: Pumpkin Center.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: And later on it just became Punkin, you know, Punkin Center. And no one else knew it by that except our family. We had a rather large family, uncles and aunts who lived in that area. And when we sold the place one of the uncles bought it. And then when he sold the place the other uncle bought it. And it was used for cattle and so forth as time went on, you know. But I started to school in Reform, Mississippi, aptly named. (laughter)

Bolton: How close was that to Pumpkin Center?

Farese: Oh, about two miles.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: About two miles. We were between Mathiston and Reform. And the county line, Webster and Choctaw County line, runs through the town of Mathiston. So we were over on one side in Choctaw when I was born. Then we moved over into Webster when we started to school and high school and so forth. But Reform school, I remember clearly a two-story frame building. And I would say there were no more than a hundred students.

Bolton: But this was a consolidated school.

Farese: A consolidated school.

Bolton: It was not a one-room schoolhouse.

Farese: No, no, no, no. It was a consolidated school, and we had good teachers. They were neighborhood ladies who had gone away to school. And the schooling back then in Mississippi, a lot of them were called normals. Have you ever heard that term?

Bolton: Yeah, that's what USM originally was was the normal school.

Farese: Was a normal school, a normal school. Well, the teachers had all graduated from normal schools. And so of course they were well qualified, I mean well qualified. But our heat was pot-bellied stoves, and in the wintertime it got cold. Your feet would freeze, literally freeze. We went to school, we rode to school in covered wagons. Can you believe that?

Bolton: I've seen some pictures. They're kind of like trucks with a wooden thing built on it.

Farese: A wagon. And it had these, just like you see in the movies when they were going west.

Bolton: OK, these weren't trucks then?

Farese: No, no, these were wagons.

Bolton: These were pulled by horses.

Farese: Mule-drawn wagons.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: And the man who drove the wagon was idolized by all the children because he told wild stories all the way to and from school.

Bolton: That must have been a lot of fun.

Farese: It was fun. Listen we behaved well. Especially if it were cold my mother would heat brick and wrap them in a towel and put them in there for me to put my feet on to keep warm going to school. And when I think back of all of the things you had to do to just be comfortable, it's amazing. If you felt bad, if you had a cold, she would fix chicken soup. And put it in a jar, wrap it with something to keep it warm, and that would be your meal for the day so that you'd get well. And that school was the beginning of education.

Bolton: Did you have - I know you later became a teacher - did you have a sense that you thought you wanted to be a teacher when you were going to school or did that come later?

Farese: At that point I didn't, at that point I didn't. I had no idea. We moved to Mathiston and dad bought a farm and a home just behind - do you know where Wood [?] Junior College is?

Bolton: No ma'am.

Farese: There were two roads. One that went right by the college and another little street back behind it. And our farm was on that road in the country still a mile out of Mathiston. But I could walk less than a quarter of a mile right across to the school. All of us - that was known back then up until the year after I graduated from high school it was Bennett Academy. While I was in high school they added the junior college area. After I graduated it became just a junior college. But that school was originally organized in a little town [Clarkson], above Mathiston and was there until they had a fire and then they moved down and built in Mathiston. I think the interesting thing about that school is that it was organized by a northern Methodist Missionary Society right after the War Between the States. And the purpose of it - you're going to like this - the purpose of it was to educate us southerners and show us the right way to live, you know.

Bolton: OK. They were also doing the same thing, educating the freedmen after the war too, a lot of the northern -

Farese: But they were wonderful teachers.

Bolton: So were the teachers still northern teachers at that time?

Farese: They were northern teachers. They sent their own down, oh yes. You think you're going to use southerners who've been tainted by their -

Bolton: So this would have still been in the '20s, 1920s, they were still using -

Farese: I moved to Mathiston when I was ten years old, and I went to a grammar school there until I got in high school. Thirty -

Bolton: In the '30s, OK.

Farese: - thirty. I went to high school in 1930, graduated in '34. There wasn't a teacher in that school with less than a master's degree.

Bolton: Wow.

Farese: Two, three had doctorates. So I was really fortunate, very fortunate in getting a good undergraduate studies. I went to Goodman Junior College, and my English teacher recognized that I had been to a good school. She asked me after a week or so when we were in school there to stop by her desk. And I thought, oh gad, what have I done now? And she said, "Do you mind telling me something about your high school?" And when I told her, she said, "I knew, I knew that you had been to a good school." Mrs. Van Osdel, she was from Winona, Mississippi and an excellent English teacher. But after that I got along well with her, did very well with her. I met my husband at Holmes Junior. He had come down from Boston with a group of boys to play football.

Bolton: He came down from Boston to go to Holmes College, junior college.

Farese: Well by a circuitous route. It so happened that his older brother was in the University of Alabama on a boxing scholarship and he was going straight through summer school and all. And during the summer our coach from Holmes Junior went over to get some graduate work and happened to room with his brother. And they talked sports of course all the time, and he said, "Well, Al, why don't you just bring me down some boys to play football." So Al said he would and he goes back and he talks to some of these big boys. The street they lived on had an Irishman, an Italian, a Jew, and I don't know what their other racial backgrounds were, but it was a neighborhood that had all mixture of people. Five of them came down. John had an old second-hand car. They came in that car with everything they had strapped on it, and they looked like a bunch of gypsies when they arrived. But he played football there, and all of them went back home except John. They couldn't take the heat. Some of them lasted three weeks, some of them lasted - you know, September was hot as you know what - and some lasted three weeks, some lasted a month, and one lasted six weeks. But John stayed on, and that was the beginning of our -

Bolton: What did he think of - coming from the North, what did he think of the South? Did he think it was -

Farese: It was at a time - and of course you would not recognize this particular thing because you were living so near New Orleans and knew all races. But at that time John was the first Yankee. Not only a Yankee but a Catholic, and he had a hard time until he proved himself physically, I mean physically. (laughter)

Bolton: He had to fight people to -

Farese: Right, right.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: They really were rough on him and when he finally - John was not a person who liked to fight other than box. He loved to box. But he was a calm-type person. Had rather talk you out of it than to, you know, and could out-talk you, and he loved to do that. But if push came to shove, well, he would take care of it. And was a boxer, and they didn't know that, and he cut a few of them down to size. So then he got along well.

Bolton: What was the nature of the objections that people had? I mean, he was a Yankee. I mean, they would just call him names and that's how -

Farese: Not just a Yankee, a damn Yankee. You know. You know country kids. I think you do, don't you?

Bolton: Oh yeah, sure.

Farese: They were tough guys. But the coach saw three or four of them jumped him one day after practice. And John offered to take one at a time. And he knocked one of them out. And the coach came around the corner about that time and stopped and says, "What's going on here?" and found out what the story was. And he said, "John, you want to fight?" He said, "I don't want to, but if they want to I'm here." And coach let them fight. And he beat the fire out of them. Coach stood there and made them stand aside, you know, one at the time. He took care of them, and they didn't have any trouble after that. But he got along extremely well. He was an outgoing personality and he liked people. Didn't mind doing people favors. And he got along real well.

Bolton: Now, you said he was Catholic. What was your religious background?

Farese: Baptist.

Bolton: Baptist, OK.

Farese: Don't you love it?

Bolton: I'll bet that went over real well.

Farese: Not with my family it didn't, I'll tell you right now. My oldest sister, when she saw that we might be getting serious - you're going to love this - hired someone to go and check out his background. And she hired a Baptist preacher in Massachusetts to go around and visit the family. And they wrote John and told him about it, and he wouldn't tell me for the longest while. He was all upset about something. Finally he told me. And for the longest while I resented that so much. But after I was grown and had children of my own I understood. Because back then how were they to know what type of people they were.

Bolton: Yeah. Well, I'm sure it was unusual because most people probably married people from the same neighborhood.

Farese: Sure, sure, from the same neighborhood, exactly, exactly. And when I moved to Benton County I found out that it was not unusual at all for cousins to marry. So it was a very close-knit county. But we graduated. He went on to Ole Miss to law school. And I had planned to go to Ole Miss myself and had managed to work and get myself a scholarship there. But my mother and another sister, who was teaching there at Goodman at the time, decided that I was going to Blue Mountain. And they had it all arranged and my room reserved and so forth. So I went to Blue Mountain, but fortunately it wasn't very far from there to Ole Miss.

Bolton: Well, why did they want you to go to Blue Mountain?

Farese: Well, I was dating a Catholic and I was from a Baptist family. Can't you put two and two together?

Bolton: They were hoping that -

Farese: Right, that that romance would fade, uh-huh.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: But it didn't. I either managed to go to Ole Miss the weekends, and although we had to have written permission to go anywhere other than home back then, I managed. I could write real well.

Bolton: You wrote your own notes?

Farese: Wrote my own.

Bolton: That's great.

Farese: And in fact by the time I had gotten into politics I was invited back to Ole Miss to speak to the women's group, the student body and was introduced as an alumni. (laughter) This lady who had invited me was dorm mother of the girl where I visited, and she thought until she died that I had gone to Ole Miss.

Bolton: (Laughter) She saw you there so much she thought you were -

Farese: Right. I didn't tell her any different; I just let her dream on.

Bolton: Now was Blue Mountain, was that a women's college?

Farese: At that time it was a women's only, Baptist school. It's at Blue Mountain, Mississippi. Now it's coeducational, and they have a lot of ministerial students there now.

Bolton: And you went to be trained as a teacher, is that what you were -

Farese: Well, I guess so.

Bolton: Or did you have other ambitions?

Farese: I had other ambitions, but I didn't have the opportunities that I would have liked. I enjoyed I took speech at Goodman. Had a good speech teacher and I majored in speech at Blue Mountain. I had a double major. English and speech and two minors. Business - business didn't take much with me because I've never been able to really catch on to a lot of that, especially math. But when I was - I had to work to go to school. The Depression years were very unkind to us. When the banks closed - if I can go back a little bit.

Bolton: Sure. Yeah, I was going to ask you, I was going to go back to that.

Farese: When the banks closed, my father had three dollars and sixty-eight cents in his pocket. And he had six children, two of whom had graduated from college. The two older girls both had jobs, and within a year they both lost their jobs. We were all at home. My sister just older than I, she and I were in the dormitories there at Mathiston. Mother and daddy had managed to send all of their children to private schools, this Bennett Academy. It had started off with, when it was first organized, it went from grade one through twelve. So the two older girls were sent there when we were living down in Choctaw County and lived in the dormitories their entire school years from one through twelve. And Jackie and I, the sister just older than I, and I lived there during our two years in high school. And then when the bottom dropped out economically, we went home, and we could walk to school. But it was good training in a lot of ways to have lived in the dormitory then. For one thing we learned how to take care of ourselves physically. We had to learn how to do our own laundry. On Saturday mornings the girls - they had a big laundry room and ironing boards set up. We were all taught to take care of our clothes, and we had to take care of our rooms. And we had a strict procedure of going to the dining room and eating properly. And you know at the time I thought it was a bunch of you know what, but after I grew up I realized what a blessing it was, because I could see by then that our manners were a little better than others who had not had the opportunity. And it was very obvious by the time we went to college that we had a leg up on the rest you know who had not had that opportunity. But those Depression years were very interesting. As I mentioned we had our fruit, we had our meat, we had our milk. My mother canned meats. Remember now in the country we had no refrigeration.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: Up until I was I guess the last year in high school maybe I was either - I know we were out of living out of the dorms. So we had electricity to come through. The rural REA.

Bolton: The New Deal program?

Farese: Oh, God bless them, REA, God bless them. We got indoor plumbing. I mean it was great. But that's when we got our refrigeration.

Bolton: So you didn't have I mean electricity before then?

Farese: Unh-uh. No, no, we had - dad ordered these lamps. This morning I'm trying to think of what they were called. They were gas lamps and they had a little white net - like things. I haven't seen one -

Bolton: Like propane kind of lamps?

Farese: It might have been.

Bolton: Yeah.

Farese: But it was a very bright light. And we had a round dining room table, and that light was put in the center of that table. And we sat around that table to get our lessons, and we didn't get up until we got them either.

Bolton: I guess you didn't have the advantage of a radio either if you didn't have electricity.

Farese: No indeed, we didn't have a radio. Listen, I can remember well the first when the radios came. We had some friends by the name of Oswalt, and the oldest son of that family and my oldest sister were good friends. They were not dating or anything but they were very good friends. He was interested in anything that he could work with his hands. Well, he had read about radios and he ordered one. Invited us over. We went in and all we heard was squeaks. And he was down fiddling with little knobs, you know, all night. "Oh, listen to that." I could hear a voice somewhere and a squeak. It was hilarious. But we didn't miss that. I read a lot. I used to bring books home for the weekend. I'd bring two or three for myself and two or three for my mother. We'd sit and read.

Bolton: Excuse me just a second. I'm about to run out of tape. Let me flip this over.

Farese: OK, all right.

(The interview continues on tape one, side two.)

Bolton: OK.

Farese: I'll fix us a cup of coffee if you want it now.

Bolton: Maybe in a minute if that's OK.

Farese: Sure.

Bolton: Maybe do a little bit more.

Farese: All right, sure, I'd love to.

Bolton: OK. I forgot exactly where we were but -

Farese: We were talking about the Depression days. The things that I remember most clearly was not anything to do with food. Though I've heard other people who went through those years talking about how hard it was to get things, especially if they lived in cities.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: And we did not have that problem, our problem was clothing. Our shoes - and now here we got six children here to take care of. To have one pair of shoes do you all year long now would be real trouble, wouldn't it?

Bolton: Sure.

Farese: But then that was the situation we were in. And I remember one time my dad had been - he was a great trader. He loved horses, he traded horses and he bought cows and you know that sort of thing. He had been away and stopped by - an uncle of ours had - his brother had a store in Mathiston and there was another merchant there who sold dry goods. And he had gotten in, I'm sure, some rejects from some store in Chicago or somewhere, and he had a sale for shoes. Well, dad not knowing our sizes guessed at them, and he brought home a box of shoes because he got them cheap. He was very good on buying if he got a good price. So he brought those shoes home, and he wanted us to wear them. Well, there wasn't a girl there that would put them on and wear them. We put them on, to please him, just showing that they were not for us, you know. He was so put out with us. "You girls," he would say when something happened like that. "You girls," and we'd slink off in a corner knowing we'd been chastised. But I'll tell you we had a hard time with our clothing. When I graduated from high school in '34, my family was unable to buy me a new dress. But my mother was a seamstress, she had made clothing for all of us girls. And she had a piece of organdy and she made a petaled collar, looked like a little flower petal, to put on a dress I had, and that was my graduation outfit. I didn't feel sorry for myself for this reason. Everybody else was in the same shape. I mean there was only one child, only one in our group of friends, who had - and her father was a merchant and the mother - they had she had plenty of shoes and she had plenty of clothes. Her mother got materials and made them for her. But the rest of us we just accepted that's the way it was. And we accepted it. But the blessing with that to me has been I have appreciated everything I have ever gotten in life. I really have appreciated it. I had to work to go to college.

Bolton: What kind of work did you do?

Farese: Well, I set tables at Blue Mountain. The first year I set tables, and the second year I got a real soft job. Since I was taking speech I took care of the clothing, you know, for the actors and so forth. We had a big wardrobe that had to be kept up. And it was just a matter of sitting in there in case someone wanted to run in and get something for it. I'd do my studying in there, and that was real good. And then when we had productions I had to do the makeup and I got to travel. When they put on operettas and so forth, they'd go all over the state at various places and put on their operettas, and I'd get to go along because I did the makeup. (laughter)

Bolton: Was that a good job?

Farese: Yeah, that was great. Besides I learned a lot doing that.

Bolton: Let me ask you one other question about the Depression. Was there any sense that any of these programs that were being, that FDR came out with, were they helping at all with the conditions?

Farese: Yes, the WPA. My mother helped with a program that was really excellent. What was that called? It was under the umbrella of WPA but it had to do with going out in the community at various, well, usually it was a church and teaching the ladies how to can to use the tin cans.

Bolton: Kind of home extension work?

Farese: That type of thing. And we were the only ones who had these big pressure cookers, big things. And mother used to order tin cans and pressurize - we had these sealers. That was the children's job, we sealed the cans, you know. But she and another lady went all over - it was Webster County at that time we were living in - and went all over the county. And taught these women, black and white, how to do that canning, and they could put up their foods. I've often wondered, though, in retrospect whether the government furnished the cans for them to use. They must have because I'm sure that there were many of them who couldn't afford to buy those cans.

Bolton: Sure, yeah. And then she would get paid from the WPA to do this work?

Farese: Yes, she was paid, yes. She was paid I don't know how much now but meager compared to today I'm sure.

Bolton: But it helped.

Farese: But it helped, yes indeed, yes indeed it did. Our mode of travel, I can remember the first car we owned. I was in, I think I was in high school, somewhere along there. It was before - we owned a car before the Depression. So it was, I know I was fourteen. It was before I went to high school. It must have been when I was twelve or thirteen, and it was a Model A Ford.

Bolton: Were there a lot of cars in your neighborhood at that point?

Farese: Oh no, oh no, no.

Bolton: Were y'all one of the first then?

Farese: Well, my uncle had the first in the family and his was a Model A too. The roads were horrific, you know they were terrible, mud, mud. I can remember when my grandfather died; I was ten. We didn't have a car but Uncle Noah had it. And we got one the next year, that's the way that was. Uncle Noah took us in his car. When I say us, I'm talking about dad and my sister just older than I and his three young children who were around our age. They packed all of the kids in the back seat, and daddy and Uncle Noah were in the front. Well, Uncle Noah and dad had always been at opposite poles politically and that was back when Murphy was running for governor. So all the way to the funeral, the funeral was held down in Nebo at a community church named Nebo in Choctaw County. All the way down and all the way back they argued politics. And coming back we got stuck on a sandhill and that car was down in sand and wouldn't budge. So all of the kids were told to get out. So we got out and dad got out was going to push while Uncle Noah - see if he could do it. He couldn't budge it either, and the more he pushed the madder he got about politics, you know. He got all of us kids to push and got something or other to put under there and finally we got the car out. And when dad got back in the car he used - the first time I remember hearing him use profanity. Uncle Noah said something to resume the conversation, and he used an expletive that I had not heard before. We sat back and we didn't let out a peep. We were scared to death. But Uncle Noah said, "Now, Eck" - he called daddy Eck. "Now, Eck, we're not going to get into this anymore. We're just not going to talk about it anymore." And daddy said whatever he said, you know. They finally said, "Well, let's do this. You vote the way you want to vote and I'll vote the way I want to vote and we're not going to talk about it again."

Bolton: Was your dad active in politics, I mean other than -

Farese: Local politics.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: From the time - I don't know how he became, but from the supervisor's race on up to the governor's race, he was a politician. It's too bad that he had not had the background educationally. Because he had a lot of wonderful ideas, and we got to hear them all around the table, you know. But he would bring, regardless of who they were, whether we knew them, whether mother knew them or not, he'd be in town talking politics and get interested, and he'd bring them home for lunch. So we met all of the politicians, local and so forth.

Bolton: Would he support - I know there was kind of that Hill/Delta split, you know, traditionally in Mississippi politics - so would he have been a supporter of say Bilbo?

Farese: He was a Bilbo man and Uncle Noah was not. In fact the only time I was ever permitted to cut school was one time when Bilbo was coming to Mathiston to speak. I was fifteen, I remember it clearly. And I told dad, I said, "You know I sure wish I could hear him." And he said, "Well, I'll just write you a note and tell them that I need to see you downtown." And I did and I got off. I'm sure they figured it out, but I went to hear Bilbo. And I don't know, I guess I caught the bug. I loved it, I just loved it.

Bolton: Well, did you give any thought or was that an impossibility about yourself going to law school?

Farese: I would like to have at one time, but at the time that I could have gone I was unable to do so.

Bolton: Were women not accepted into the law school at Ole Miss at that time?

Farese: Well, by the time I got there I think I could have gotten in. I had the grades for it and at that time you could just go to law school. But John and I had gotten married secretly; now the story is out.

Bolton: Secretly?

Farese: See, they sent me to Blue Mountain and he went to Ole Miss.

Bolton: So when did you get married?

Farese: And this was - that junior, Christmas time of that junior year. See, I was a junior at Blue Mountain, and he was at Ole Miss the first year of law school. Back then they went from two years college right into law school, so he was in law school. And when the Christmas break came, I caught a bus to Ole Miss, and we were going to go to Memphis and get married. Well, by the time we got on a bus, we didn't know what the bus schedule was until we got down to check on it. We realized it was going to be so late by the time we got to Memphis that those offices would be closed. So when we got to Holly Springs, we got off three o'clock in the afternoon. And we'd concocted this wild story where we were from because if you're in Mississippi, see, you had to wait. We told them we were from Arkansas. And I had coached John - he didn't know a single place in Arkansas - I said, "Let's say we're from Black Oak." We got in there, and he forgot where he was from. (laughter) But we asked - we got our license, and we asked if there was a minister. Well, they called and he was not there. So by that time it was getting late and we were getting desperate. So we said, "Well, how about a JP?" So we were married by a JP in Holly Springs, Mississippi. We honeymooned in the hotel in Holly Springs, which was right across the street from the courthouse. The next day we got on a bus and went to my home. We didn't tell them anything. We'd always - mother and dad had always allowed us to bring friends home anytime we wanted to. In fact they would rather that we bring them home than to let us go anywhere, and that was really the practice. So John had visited our home before, and so I told mother and dad, I said, "Well, he couldn't go home and I invited him to come." So he spent Christmas with us. We didn't announce it until after he graduated from law school.

Bolton: So that'd be another year.

Farese: Two years.

Bolton: Two years.

Farese: Two years.

Bolton: Wow. That must have been difficult.

Farese: It was difficult especially, see, when I took - that's why I went to Ashland. At Christmas I graduated, had gone straight through. And I was ready to graduate at Christmastime except for one course that I lacked. So I told Dr. Lowery, who was president of Blue Mountain at the time, I went by this office. And I said, "Now, if anybody calls you in my field wanting a teacher please call me," and I gave him my phone. He called me and he had two places. He said, "I've got two places now and just take your choice." One of them was at Lucedale, Mississippi, down in Greene County and the other one was at Ashland. So I got out my map and you know of course who won (laughter). I went to Ashland because it was just a short distance away from Ole Miss. And when I went I had to go back to Blue Mountain and all of my luggage was there, you know. And the principal called me after Dr. Lowery had told him that he had someone to fill in. And the principal called me, and I said, "Well, I have no way of getting to Ashland." There was no buses running over there. He said, "Well, I'll send my son and he'll come over to Blue Mountain and pick you up." He did. Raining cats and dogs that day. I mean raining so hard you could hardly see any. We started through the country to Ashland. The roads were terrible, but we knocked along, knocked along. I thought we'd never get there and when we did my heart dropped. There was a two-story building next to the school, which was the Teacherage. That's where the teachers lived.

Bolton: Was it a requirement for teachers to be single then, female teachers? I know that some places it still was.

Farese: Well -

Bolton: I mean, did they know you were married, is what I was asking you.

Farese: No, no, no, they did not. That was when it became difficult for me.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: I moved into one of the upstairs bedrooms with a music teacher as a roommate. No indoor plumbing but we did have electricity. We had little pot-bellied stoves in each bedroom that you had to bring in your wood and build your fire to keep from freezing to death. The first week - I have never been a crying person, but the first week I cried. I said, "What have you done to yourself? (laughter) You are way out now, I mean way out." But the people were so nice, and the principal and his wife lived downstairs. So the teachers, the single teachers, paid fifteen dollars a month. That gave us room and board, and it also paid for a lady who came and did the cooking for us. She planned the meals, cooked the meals, had them on the table for us. And really it wasn't bad once you got used to it. It was not bad at all, and the teachers were a lot of fun mostly. And the problem was getting to and from Ole Miss. I didn't have a car of course. John didn't have a car at that time. He was on a boxing scholarship going to law school and needing to study. We didn't see each other as often as we would have liked. And when we did there was no hotels around anywhere near, and it was rough, it was rough. But the first year that I taught there when I went in at Christmastime the lady that I replaced was expecting a child and retired. I was to do the senior play, I was to be senior sponsor, I was to teach seven hours a day. And in addition to that remember I had to study for a course that I was taking correspondence in order to graduate in the spring. And that was a difficult time. On top of that I caught measles from my children the first two weeks I was there (laughter). So to say that one learns from hard times, you know, I think that could be said sure enough.

Bolton: What was the reaction of your family when they finally did find out that you had been married for two years?

Farese: Dad said, "I knew it." (laughter) Said, "I knew it all the time." Meanwhile John had made a big buddy of dad's, he liked to play cards. Both John and my dad loved to play cards. And every time we'd go home he and dad would have a big card game, and so they had gotten to be buddies. And as time went on he won them all over, needless to say, and became a favorite. But it wasn't hard going there. One of the interesting things, on one of his, well, I guess the first visit that he made to our home - do you recall ever seeing country butter?

Bolton: I don't believe.

Farese: Well, neither had he. Mother had a butter press that made a pretty little round, about a pound of butter. And it had a little design on it, oh, you know, looked real pretty. But to him he didn't recognize it as butter. So sitting around the dining room table the butter happened to be in front of him. And mother had brought in the hot biscuit and dad was waiting impatiently to get his buttered. Finally he said, "John, wouldn't you like some butter?" And John said, "Yes, I would." So he still sat there, you know. And dad had to ask him about the third time before he himself realized that the boy didn't know what butter was, what country butter was. And when he pointed it out to him we all had a good laugh at his about not knowing anything about country ways. But he loved that country cooking that mother did. I'll tell you she was a good cook.

Bolton: So I guess after your husband finished law school then he came to Ashland too.

Farese: When he finished law school, by that time, see, I was teaching and living in the teacherage. We went home to Massachusetts, to his home, and announced our wedding and came back to my family. And so when we came that fall, well, we came back before the fall, actually we came back about, I think it was July. And there was no place to rent there in town. So we asked one of the school board members who was a friend of ours and a banker there in Ashland about using the home economics building over at the school, which was an upstairs - at that time the ag building and the home ec building were one, ag below and the home economics above. And so we lived in the home economics building that summer. I did my first entertaining there, and it was quite a place. We put in our own bed. Of course they had no bed up there, but they did have sewing machines. And they had an old cook stove, wood burning cook stove, and no indoor plumbing. So the little boy [who] lived down the street there from the school, an only child and lonely, about thirteen years old, started coming up there, and he was my wood boy. He'd bring in my stove wood for me. But the stove was not in very good repair. The door wouldn't close completely, so you had to take a piece of wood and lift up on it and kind of prop it up. That didn't stop me. I invited the judge and court clerk and anybody else John wanted to bring with him home for lunch. He was in his first courts, you know, and dutiful wife that I was I was going to help things along. I cooked and served a meal up there. The lady who was the court clerk had been for many years. Her name was Miss Daisy and appropriately named. She was an unwed lady, and I would say by that time she was fiftyish or sixtyish, hard to tell, you know, back then but a very outspoken person. She looks around at my home, she says, "Well, you've done extremely well I think." Which led me to know that they had been discussing it somewhere about the young couple living in the home economics. But she and I got along real well. I served them my chicken. You know everybody knew how to cook chicken. I knew how to make biscuits. So I knew how to open cans of peas. I was ready. But I enjoyed it and I think they did too. We entertained there just like we had a house. In the fall we moved in with a lady who had a store uptown. I was telling her one day, I said, "Well, you know there just aren't any places to rent here." She said, "Well, I could" - she was living alone - she said, "I could rent you part of my house, I guess." And I said, "Oh, that would be wonderful," before I had seen it. And it was not a bad house, it was just very small, and the kitchen was even smaller. So we worked out a deal, though, where we would cook our meal and get out of her way and do it that way. But there were no closets in this house. And at the time I loved to ride horses and wanted John to learn to ride as well. I had riding boots and things like that and I stored them under our bed along with everything else. And if you had taken the trouble to lift up the spread you would have been seen half of our wardrobes under our bed. But we lived there for about a year. And then another place, larger place but still in someone's home, became available, and we moved down the street about two blocks. And the following year a little house was on sale and we bought it. We paid a big price for it and were unable to put it all up at one time. It was eighteen hundred dollars. A little two-bedroom and a bath, real running water, the whole nine yards. We got it, so we moved in.

Bolton: This would have been I guess about -

Farese: The second year we were married.

Bolton: Would this be in the 1940s?

Farese: John graduated in '39 and this was '40.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: In the fall of '40 when we moved in there. We were unable to buy a big lot of furniture. Sears Roebuck was very handy. We got us a bedroom set from there, and he had a case in Jackson the day that it came in. And so we moved everything in, put the mattress on the floor. We slept on that mattress on the floor that night and got up real early and drove to Jackson and back the same day. Because you didn't go in a hotel unless you had money and we didn't, so you came home. But those first years were so interesting. The schools back then in Mississippi, the public schools - that was my first encounter with the public schools, [the school at Ashland].

Bolton: Right.

Farese: There were so few books, library books, that the room, the English room had a shelf about the length of this area right here. Oh, fifteen feet or so, two shelves.

Bolton: That was the library?

Farese: That was the library. And I remember -

(The interview continues on tape two, side one.)

Bolton: OK. OK. Well, should we move ahead a little bit and talk about your, I guess -

Farese: Sure, the political?

Bolton: Yeah.

Farese: Yeah, all right. Let's go to that.

Bolton: How did you get interested in politics?

Farese: I was interested mainly because a selfish reason, really the school system. I thought that surely we needed someone who was interested in improving our schools. And I thought I knew certainly something about the direction we should go, from experience as a teacher and from having had the opportunity to go to a real good school. The fact that I had children to educate and I wanted the best for them naturally. By the time that I decided that I would run too, John had already served four years. And the people who were in the legislature at the time, he became interested and that I was interested were local people, good people, but they had poor background. And one of them, the one that I ran against, was a blind man from a good family. The man was a good man. And his cousin was the one that John ran against. The cousins, you know, that thing always played a part. And the more I thought about the man, the blind man being down there the more I thought, well, I can do a better job than he. And if I can't I'd better roll up my ball of wax and quit because it was pathetic, you know. He had to take his sister along to read the bills to him and, you know, that sort of thing. He was incapacitated. So I ran and had not a lot of problems there. But unfortunately we learned, as we went along, the man that I ran against and the man that John ran against were both related to the banker who was a good friend of ours. And being outspoken I told John I said, "You know, we'd better talk to Booth." And John said, "We can't afford to. They're related to him." I said, "I can. If you won't, I will." So I did. And I told him I said, "Now, Booth, we've all the respect in the world for these people. You know and I know that we need qualified people in Jackson and I think that you're intelligent enough to overlook the relation bit. And at least if you can't vote for us I mean don't work against us." Because he was big in the Baptist church and the cards were stacked against us, you know, as far as - we had no relatives there and they did. So whether he did or whether he didn't, we will never know, but we were - John was elected and served four years and then I ran. And before I announced I went down to talk to one of our neighbors who lived two streets away, a Mr. Walker who always told it like it was. And I knew that I could depend on him to tell me what he thought. And I asked him, I said, "Mr. [John Will], I want to ask you something." He was sitting on a stump out there, he'd been working in his flowers. I said, "I'm thinking" - and he never looked up - I said, "I'm thinking of running for the legislature and I want to know what you think about it." He sat there with his head down and in a few minutes he looked up at me. And he said, "Tell me something. Are you willing to be called everything in the book whether it's right or wrong and just go on anyway?" I said, "Well, I don't know. I've never had that experience, but I think I can." And I said, "I've been a schoolteacher and you know how kids hate schoolteachers." (laughter) He said, "Well, you're going to get an opportunity I can tell you that," and I did. And when I announced, everybody began to give me advice then, I mean I got advice. And it kind of intimidated me because the first speaking - back then you ran a race by going to every community. They would have speakings and usually an all-day affair. And the women of the church always got to make money that way, they sold lunches. Well, our first speaking was in the first district, which was notorious for selling votes, and I was notorious for talking against it. And John said, "I'll tell you if you go up there and say what you're thinking about this you won't get a vote." And I said, "I may not get a vote, but I'm going to say what I think about it," and I did. When I finished the crowd got awfully quiet while I was talking and I didn't - I talked like I'm talking to you. I didn't try to be blustery like a lot of people do when they get up on the stump. And I just told them the pros and cons about a citizen's responsibility and why a bought vote doesn't always get what you're paying for. You know what I mean? And one of the guys that I knew to be guilty as sin and had had it pointed out to me that I'd better not cross him, after it was over I went around and spoke to him. He wasn't cordial but he wasn't abusive, so I took that as a fair sign anyway. But I found out later that he was related to one of my former students that I had helped some. And I went back to him to speak to him after, and I told him, I said, "You know, I know so and so. She went to school to me and it was my pleasure to be able to help her one time. And I've always been glad that I did because she had what it takes to go on and be something." And I said, "I want to ask you to do something for me if you will, if you can." And I said, "I would like your support and I would like it because I want to help other boys and girls just like your niece." And he said, "Well, I'll think about it." Whether he did or not we carried that box.

Bolton: Did anybody make an issue of you being a woman?

Farese: Oh yes, oh yes. I said, "That's true I am a woman. I will always be a woman. (laughter) I don't expect to change. But I'm a woman who can see issues and I think I have the training and I know that I have the nerve to do what I say I will do." I was brought up that way. My father was a very good dad in a lot of ways. He had his faults like we all do, but he taught us strict honesty. And he always said, "If you give your word on anything don't ever back up unless you are proven to be wrong. And when you are, admit it and go on." And I thought that was one of the best lessons he ever taught me and I tried to live by it. Because if you can't be trusted to do what you say you will do in politics or anywhere else, but more especially in politics, that's a public trust. And it's one which we should take, I mean we really should take to heart when we say we'll do something. John had some interesting experiences. Being a Yankee, of course, they threw that at him and threw the fact that he was Catholic. And he would tell this old joke about a black man [when] he was traveling. Said, "I was traveling through Corinth one day and the train stopped and this black man came on selling chicken." And said, "It looked so good I bought a box." And said, "To make conversation I asked him, said, 'tell me where'd you get this chicken, it's good.'" Said, "He looked at me and said, 'you is a Yankee ain't you?'" And he said, "Yes, I am, but how did you know?" He said, "Ain't no southern gentleman going to ask me that." (laughter)

Bolton: What about race? Was that an issue in the campaign? I mean of course this is a time when people are beginning to think there's going to be some changes.

Farese: The first race that John ran, it was not overtly mentioned. But by the - and the first race that I ran we didn't have any problems. But the second and John's third, it was very, I mean we were going through -

Bolton: That would have been after the Brown decision.

Farese: Right, right, it was bad. We were in the legislature at a most interesting time historically. We had begun to work on an equalization program, and heavens knows it was needed. We were a pro on that, and it was a hard dirty battle. And it didn't help us at home to vote for a bill that would give fifteen dollars per child to twelve for the white. Fifteen for the black, and that didn't help much. We were not clairvoyant, but we had been around enough and knew enough to know that it was coming and to try to soften the blow in equalizing - there was no comparison in the schools. In the physical plants it was terrible, and if we had few books you can imagine what they had. Their textbooks, if they had them, were second and third and fourth and fifth hand, so a lot of half torn up, and the facilities were very poor. My husband had a magic show while he was in - this was back when he was in Ole Miss. He and another guy, who turned into a young lawyer and was in Jackson, Mississippi, for a long time until his death, what is it? Kirby? I can't think of his last name right now.

Bolton: Walker?

Farese: No, no, no. It'll come to me after while. But anyway, he and John, and John knew a lot of magic tricks, and they would go around and put them on at schools and make a little cash, you know. So when he came to Ashland he went out one night, and one of the guys there in town was his sidekick and he'd go and help him. They were putting on a magic show out at the black school, and the windows half of them were out and it was a fall night. And some of the high school boys were sitting up in the windows and so forth. John was doing one of his tricks in which he had a card that would fly across the room, you know. And when that card flew across the room, all of those black boys jumped out of the windows and ran. They thought it was a ghost. So I tell that to show the development at that time. They believed in ghosts and what little education they'd gotten certainly had not eradicated that. And they were still believers, still believers, and they enjoyed that. But back to the legislative issues. We got the equalization program through, but that was not a stopgap and not in time. It was too little and too late. And so then we were in the throes of - well, the lawsuits came after we got out of the legislature. But from the time John went to Ashland until he died, he was attorney for the school board and attorney for the supervisors. And he would get feedback, of course, from both areas on all that we did or didn't do. We lost the election, I was running again. Our counties, when all of the counties are so set up so that in the smaller counties you may have two counties, you may even have three. When I was in the senate I was representing two counties, when I was in the house I was representing one county. So if you had a proposition that was of interest to one county it might not be in another.

Bolton: Right, that can be tough.

Farese: So you would have situations in which you had to tiptoe through the tulips (laughter) and be careful how you voted. One area that you definitely had to vote against always was the liquor bills. Regardless you had to vote against it because all of the counties in our part of the state were against very vehemently. The churches all flocked down there and they worked against it. Another one, though, talking about you might vote might be for one county and the other county be interested in something else. Back during those periods we were working on a three day waiting period to get married. And all of the people in the counties that dotted the state lines the chancery clerks, circuit clerks selling licenses, they were getting wealthy. They were having a good time. But the other counties who were not they didn't like it a bit. They were voting against it. And that went on and on and on all during our experience in the legislature. We finally got a three day waiting period. I had entered, by that time I was in the senate and I introduced it in the senate and we got it through. And Betty White I believe, no, John Kennedy took it in the house and we passed it. But the funny thing was years afterwards - isn't it interesting you look back and see how silly it was. Now they just sleep together and they don't get married. They don't even wait three days, do they? (laughter) Those laws don't always stay.

Bolton: When you first went to the legislature, did you know you know how things worked, you know? What were the different factions and who were the, you know, the powerful people?

Farese: I certainly did.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: See, John had already been in.

Bolton: That's right, so he kind of was able to -

Farese: Yes, and we were both in the house then that first time I served. We were seatmates, and Bill Winter was my seatmate on my left hand. So between those two young lawyers I got steered in the right direction most of the time. We had an interesting thing come up the second year that I was in the house. We had a group called the young turks and I was a young turk too. We were going to try to upseat Walter Sillers.

Bolton: Right, speaker of the house.

Farese: Yeah, and we were going to run William Winter, Bill Winter. We worked and we worked and we worked and we thought we had it within a vote or two. The night before, I don't know what Walter did but he skunked us. And he had not made the committee assignments for the year yet and you could imagine -

Bolton: The young turks didn't do too well.

Farese: - the young turks didn't do too well. But they had to put the lawyers, all the lawyers got put on judiciary regardless because they had that right. But to say that I was a minor on the committees, oh, I made education and that was one I really wanted, but not too well. But that group they were the cohesive group in the house on any bill that came up of any, you know, if it was really controversial.

Bolton: Are you talking about the young turks or the old guard?

Farese: The young turks and the old yeah.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: But you asked about the Delta section and the Hill. That's where it was most prominent. In the educational field we had to fight them all the way to the creek banks. And if you went to the Delta you could understand in a way, thinking at that time. But it's always puzzled me why educated people couldn't foresee what this was going to do to our state in the long run. If you are not educating a segment of society -

Bolton: You're talking about having separate schools?

Farese: Right. Well, I'm talking about not giving them good schools in the first place.

Bolton: OK, yeah. You think the schools were even worse in the Delta for blacks than they were say in the Hills of Mississippi?

Farese: Yes I do, I do for this reason. You had the big plantations down there whose main idea was to keep a workforce. And in order to keep a workforce the families had to keep the children out of school. And the school boards were made up of the whites, and the school boards were the ones who voted to build or not build schools. And you can see readily how the situation would really be more difficult there perhaps than in the Hill section.

Bolton: I notice later when that, after the Brown decision I guess, there was that amendment to abolish the schools that had been proposed, and that I know that you were opposed to that and it seemed like -

Farese: Abolish them. Not only that, but this was while I was in the senate when [a senator] of Marshall County was the one who introduced the bill to tax any church that allowed blacks to come in.

Bolton: Tax a church? I don't think I've heard of that.

Farese: Well, they had it worded in such a way that it didn't appear any institution, see, but what it was aimed at was the churches. And I was unaware of the bill coming to the floor until one of the newsmen, Bill - oh, he's just retired.

Bolton: Minor?

Farese: Minor, Bill Minor came to me. And he said, "Did you know they're going to bring this bill up today?" I said, "What?" I said, "Well, it doesn't mention church." I didn't see it you know. And he said, "Well, that's what it's all about." Said, "Read it again." And I went to my desk right quick and he came back by me, and he said, "You've got to speak against it." Said, "Nobody else is going to say anything." And within ten minutes the thing was - we went into session and that was the first thing called up. This guy from the Delta was a co-author. What was his name? I don't guess I should mention these names - introduced the bill. And usually when they were trying to slip things by they'd say, "This is just a little minor bill. It doesn't affect most of your" - you know, gave us that line. And Gartin wanted to know if anybody wanted to speak to him. I said, "I do," and I didn't know what in the world I was going to say. And I got up and I told him that I had just become aware of what the bill actually intends to do. "And what it intends to do is to tax your churches if a black person comes in. And frankly I don't see any of you being able to vote against a bill to do such a thing when you all are giving money to your churches to send to missionaries to their country to try to win them over to Christ and yet you won't let anybody come in your church." I said, "I don't know about you but as for me I'm not going to stand in my church door and tell anybody they can't come in and worship God, tax or not tax."

Bolton: I'm a little confused. Was there, like I know this is in the '50s, was there a lot of blacks trying to go to white churches at the time?

Farese: Well, I went on to say, I said, "Now, as you know I have joined a Catholic church with John when our children came along. I belong to the Catholic church in Holly Springs, and it's true that we have some blacks in there. But I have never really thought anything about it when I'm saying my prayers. I figured that they're praying to the same God you and I are, and I think we're all trying to go to the same place." And, you know, just along that line. And we sent it back to committee but that defeated me. Did you know that? That was the thing that defeated me, yeah.

Bolton: So they brought - so I guess you ran - did you run again in '59 then?

Farese: Uh-huh.

Bolton: OK. And that was brought up -

Farese: Uh-huh, John and I were defeated on that issue.

Bolton: Did they say you were in favor of ending segregation or something?

Farese: Well, not only that, I was a nigger lover. Let's put it like they said it: "She's a nigger lover."

Bolton: Your opponents said that in the campaign?

Farese: A man by the name of Crawford, and he had moved back to Ashland. He was from Benton County originally, his family was from Benton County. And he too was related to the banker, brother-in-law as a matter of fact. He had worked for the Veterans Administration in Jackson. And of course it was in the papers. So he had his excerpts from the papers that he used and added to, you know. And I couldn't imagine winning actually, but I came within, well, I won in my town, in the town of Ashland, but I lost by two hundred votes.

Bolton: Wow.

Farese: And John lost by, I think I lost by two eighteen and he lost by two nineteen.

Bolton: Wow. I know that you were opposed to that amendment to abolish the schools and yet that didn't prevent you from being reelected in '55.

Farese: Well, the thing about that is your argument against that is that "Not a one of you out there, if I'm talking to you and your family, how many of you sitting out here can afford to send your children away out of the county to private schools. If you can, vote for that. Don't hesitate, vote for it. If that's the way you are going to run your life, if you can do that, if you can afford it." They all need a school. The schools back then were the center of the social life in the small communities. I don't know whether it was true in yours or not. But all of the social activities took place in school, and nobody's going to want to do away with their schools.

Bolton: So that wasn't necessarily an unpopular stand.

Farese: No, not really.

Bolton: Although I noticed -

Farese: I'm sure there were those who mumbled, "Well, if we could do so-and-so."

Bolton: Yeah. But yet there were only a handful of people in the house who actually opposed that bill.

Farese: Um-hm. Well, you've got to - it's hard for you and your generation to realize just how politically explosive that subject was, it really was. And even today there's a segment of our society, if you get out in the boondocks, who are still bitterly opposed. You don't find them talking publicly about it anymore, but back then they did. They brought it right out, right on down home with any public gathering.

Bolton: I know that some people said that, you know, especially after that Brown decision, that time when you're serving that, you know, a lot of the state's energies were used up in trying to deal with that issue at the same time other important things were ignored. Would you say that's a fair characterization?

Farese: That is more than fair. From a personal standpoint I can speak to that because John was in federal court for four years fighting integration for Benton County. We had three high schools in Benton County. We had little grammar schools out here, but we had three high schools. Hickory Flat had one.

Bolton: I'm about to run out. Let me change this tape.

Farese: All right.

(The interview continues on tape two, side two.)

Bolton: OK.

Farese: We had three high schools in Benton County. Hickory Flat was an all-white, Ashland was an all-white, and Old Salem was all-black. So we knew, and then people knew that when integration was forced that both white schools were going to be destroyed one way or another. Because the majority of the blacks, even if you divided them equally, would still be in the majority. But as it turned out Hickory Flat High School was not really - there weren't as many black in the southern part of the county. So they sent them all, maneuvered so that they were all sent to Ashland. They made Old Salem a grammar school and Ashland the high school, and we now have 85 percent black.

Bolton: Do you think there was a better way that that whole issue could - I know you weren't directly involved, but did your husband think there was a better way that it could be handled?

Farese: Yes, I think there is a better way. Even with full integration, we had freedom of choice in our Ashland High School during the years that my second son was in high school. And they had very few who went because they wanted to, you know. And usually the case was the better students came, were the ones who integrated. So there was no social stigma or anything else on either side. In fact, one of the boys who graduated with Steve was one of his good friends and has remained so all through the years. But the thing you asked, could it have been handled differently. The thing that would have saved that throughout the state, and throughout the nation I might add, had they required qualified teachers by testing methods, had they done that we wouldn't be in the shape we are in today with the dumbing down of the school systems. And when we were still in court John was invited to speak to a federal judiciary in San Antonio, Texas. He and - who was the lieutenant governor at the time? Oh gad, the mind's the first to go, you know. Turn it off just a minute and I'll think about it. Oh, Charlie Sullivan.

Bolton: Charlie Sullivan, OK.

Farese: John and Charlie Sullivan were invited to speak to the whatever district it was in San Antonio, Texas, and we all flew down. And the night before the federal judges meeting we had dinner at a nice restaurant there. And I was seated between Judge Smith from Corinth and Keady from Greenville. And of course that's all that was being discussed, it was that time in history. And Judge Keady turned to me during the meal and he said, "Now I have not been saying much because after all it's a bunch of lawyers." He said, "What do you think? Can this thing work?" And I said, "Well, you asked me what I think and I'm going to tell you." I said, "What y'all have done" - and I turned to Mr. Smith because Judge Smith was the one that had enacted had acted in our courts - I said, "Y'all have destroyed our schools." And he said, "Well, what do you mean?" And I said, "Well, you've destroyed them because you have taken, you have forced the good teachers out of our schools and you're putting in anybody. And all of those who have been teachers in the black schools, who were not qualified to teach in the first place, and you're putting them in all of the schools. And you're going to find out in ten year's time that you have ruined, literally ruined, all chances of the young people in Mississippi of being the real leaders in years to come." I believed it then and I believe it now that that's exactly why our schools have been so, they say "dumbed down." They've had to lower the expectation of the youngsters. Not that I'm saying this against the blacks because they didn't have the opportunity.

Bolton: I was going to ask you that. Do you think the effort that you were trying to make in the '50s to equalize the schools, if that had been done earlier, they wouldn't have had as much problems?

Farese: If we had been - during the entire time that we were in the legislature John and I featured bill after bill, introduced them to try to force them to test the teachers, white and black, across the board. Get the teachers - how can you have a good school if you don't have good teachers?

Bolton: That's true.

Farese: But we failed, and that's the one place that I feel so sad that we were unable to prevail. These other things are peripheral. You know, marriage licenses that sort of thing, that's peripheral. But one thing I am proud of. It was during that time that I was in the senate and I introduced this bill to put women on the juries. Did you know that -

Bolton: No, I didn't know that.

Farese: Betty Long, I think is her name, from Laurel was in the house. She was on it in the house and I was on it in the senate and we passed that. Now it had been brought up every year that I was in the legislature until I was in the senate and it finally passed. That was one thing, accomplishment, that I thought was worthwhile.

Bolton: How many other women were there in the legislature when you were there?

Farese: In the house there were Betty, a lady from Tupelo, one from Oktibbeha, four or five. And in the senate I was the second lady in Mississippi to be elected to the senate. But while I was serving two of our senators died and both of their wives were given those positions. So I had, after the first year I had two more ladies there.

Bolton: Was it difficult being kind of in a basically a male-dominated type of institution?

Farese: It was, it was. I was a seatmate with Stanton Hall from Hattiesburg. And he and John had been friends when John was in the senate. And I think when I first went into the senate Stanton wanted to be very careful and not to appear to be friends with me because of the other guys, you know. Did you ever know Stanton?

Bolton: No ma'am, but I know that he was interviewed for our program a while back.

Farese: Stanton was a great old guy, he was a great old guy, funny, funny, funny. So he sat - I was in a left hand seat and this is his seat. Stanton sits something like this for the first -

Bolton: Almost turned his back to you.

Farese: - several months, and I just let him be. I just pretended he wasn't there, you know, and went on. And after a while he sat like this, you know. And if I had something come up that I thought I could ingratiate myself I would ask him a question and what he thought about so and so you know. And there was a lot I didn't know (laughter) and still don't know, but we got along real well. I say on the whole I've learned one thing and I think I've known this all of my life about Mississippians in particular. But I think southern gentlemen in general, you could say this, or it used to be this way. I don't know what it's going to be in the next generation or so but back in those days, in the good old days, I didn't have anyone treat me discourteously ever. I didn't have anyone say anything unkind to me. Ignore me, yes. But when Valentine's Day rolled around I told John I said, "You know, I'm going to give these guys a luncheon." So he was right in for it. So back then the Robert E. Lee was the nearest place that had a nice restaurant. So I arranged and invited them all to a Valentine's Day luncheon, and all except two or three came. And what I didn't know was that back then - who was this guy that was always the jokester of the crowd, Kelly Hammond. You ever heard of Kelly Hammond?

Bolton: It sounds vaguely familiar.

Farese: Well, Kelly was a jokester, but he was also an old, he was an older man. He was an old Bilbo man, he adored Bilbo. He could mimic him to perfection in making a speech, and they elected him the speaker for the occasion. So he got up, and he had all these big flowery words that he would use, you know. And I know you've heard of Flavius Lambert.

Bolton: Oh yeah.

Farese: Flavius was much along the same lines in personality, very outspoken. So he made a speech, and we had a great time down there, and things kind of loosened up for me. And Gartin, who was lieutenant governor at the time, was always, always such a gentleman. He was very helpful.

Bolton: I was just wondering if there were if they kind of thought that there were certain issues that, you know, maybe a woman couldn't deal with. I mean obviously education that would be something that, you know -

Farese: No, no. Well, they didn't put me on the penitentiary committee, and I appreciated that. And there were committees that I think that I would not have been. And frankly I am not a feminist in the sense of the word that these -

Bolton: Well, this is even before feminism -

Farese: Yes, before it was recognized, given that term.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: But I've always been of the belief that a woman should stay in her place as a woman, of a lady, if she can. There are times that she may not feel that she can be a lady when people mistreat you, but I didn't have that experience. And I'm glad that I didn't because it left me with a kindly feeling toward Mississippi men, that they are gentlemen usually, and that was the case with me. I didn't always get the support I wanted in everything, and I didn't expect it. You know, people have their own opinions and they have their own interests. As a whole I got support where I wanted it, and the women juror bill was very pleasing to me, it just went over well. There was a bill that was a little controversial that worked out well for me. I had a bill in for special education for children who were deformed or, you know, had physical problems and got a special appropriation for that. And you can't imagine this, but it was during that time that the first audiovisuals were used, were introduced and used in the schools. And I introduced that bill and got it through with -

Bolton: The buying, like, equipment and stuff?

Farese: Yes, yes.

Bolton: Wow.

Farese: Wasn't that interesting?

Bolton: Yes.

Farese: It was to me. Having been a schoolteacher, of course, it was very gratifying. But there were a lot of things that - well, one thing that was always controversial. And you're talking about between the Delta and the Hills, the gas allotment, the gas severance tax, was always a big issue, and we didn't always come out too well. We were a poor county and had no gas, had no oil. We were fighting for some, we wanted some too.

Bolton: Wanted some of that money.

Farese: We wanted some. We got I think it was fifty thousand dollars for our county out of that one year, and we just thought we'd done so well. Back then fifty thousand dollars was good.

Bolton: Sure.

Farese: I mean it was good.

Bolton: What about -

(telephone rings, brief interruption)

Farese: - for lunch?

(brief interruption)

Bolton: I was just going to ask you about, I know when you ran in '55 of course Coleman was coming in as governor, and you said your father knew him. Did you campaign for him at all or did -

Farese: No.

Bolton: OK. Did he help you in any way?

Farese: Yes, he did, as a matter of fact he did. I had a personal thing with Coleman. He was a good governor in a lot of ways. I knew too much about him, about his personal life I guess. But we got along, I can get along with anybody. I think he made a good governor as far as it went. I think he could have gone further had he not been so ambitious. He was in politics all of his life, and Coleman was a very ambitious man with all that that implies.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: And I won't say anymore.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: He was a good man.

Bolton: I know that one of the big things he was pushing for in his administration was a constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution but he lost on that. Did you support that effort of his?

Farese: I think you can get into all kinds of problems when you start messing with the constitution. And there are things - it can be avoided. I think laws can be made that you can avoid problems without having a - when you start stirring that up you've stirred up a boiling pot.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: So I don't know.

Bolton: I know that some people think that him pushing for that and then losing that kind of maybe hurt his effectiveness as governor. Do you agree with that?

Farese: You know, I hadn't thought of it in that respect so I couldn't say. I couldn't speak to that, I couldn't speak to that. There's an interesting thing going back to Wright before him, Governor Wright. Our county at the time that we went there did not have a telephone system. There was only one phone in town. We didn't have a paved road in our town, through our county.

Bolton: No paved roads?

Farese: No paved roads.

Bolton: Wow.

Farese: So during John's first legislative career in the senate he introduced a bill to pave the road from Ashland to Holly Springs. And it was during this winter the children and I lived in Jackson. In fact we lived in the Robert E. Lee. We were going home; it had been raining terribly. And from Holly Springs to Ashland we became stuck in the middle of the night in the middle of the road. It was cold weather, rainy weather. And during that same rain that same period, that week, a man died there in Ashland, and it was so muddy they couldn't get his body out to the funeral home. Well, that gave John all the grist he wanted, when he introduced the bill and he told that story about the body that couldn't be taken to the funeral home. And he asked for money from the general fund, which has never been done, had never been done, and has never been done since. And John got along with people real well. He was talking to a bunch of guys and got them all revved up from the house, you know, yeah, they'd support him. And Governor Wright came in and they were telling him what they were going to do. And he said, "Sure, John, you get it through." He knew said he just knew he couldn't get it through. Said, "You get it through and I'll sign it." John said, "You promise me you'll sign it if I get it through." "Yeah, I'll sign it." Well, he got it through both houses and came time for the bill to go over to the governor and John followed it. Right when they took it over he went with it with the other guy who was from our county and a number of friends, and they asked to see the Governor Wright. And went in and said, "Governor," said, "I brought my bill over." Said, "I got it through the house and the senate and you said you'd sign it. Well, we just thought maybe you'd like to sign it." He came up out of his chair, and he said, "John, you know I can't sign that." Said, "I can't take money out of the general fund. It's never been done." John said, "That's true. But this is a case in which you said you would and I know you're a man of your word." He said, "Yes, I said I would," and he picked up the pen and signed it.

Bolton: Wow.

Farese: And that road from Holly Springs from Ashland to Holly Springs was paved for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Bolton: Out of the general fund.

Farese: Out of the general fund and it lasted - now, this is how good a road they built for that kind of money back then - it lasted until fifteen years ago.

Bolton: Wow.

Farese: And that road, after John died that road was named for him, a memorial. But he was quite a person. And another funny story about roads. We had another road through Benton County, 370, that led from Ashland across to Faulkner over in Tippah County. And it was used - it was a farm-to-market road, and it was used by a tremendous amount of people. And we wanted to get it paved. So the only way we could figure out, let's get it on the highway list, the Mississippi highway. So we finally got that through, and we thought we would never get that paved. So John said, "[We'll name it.] Well, Nathaniel? what? Bedford Forrest? He named it -

Bolton: Oh, Nathan Bedford -

Farese: Nathan Bedford Forrest Highway. He said, "We'll name it the Nathan Bedford" because he had had a home there in Benton County, you know. His home was there and his wife and mother lived there. In fact the farm that we later bought, he had moved them during the war had moved them back into the woods and built a log cabin for them. And they lived back there secluded until the war was over. But anyway we named the road that and got it through, got it put on. So we got us another paved road.

Bolton: That's great.

(telephone rings, brief interruption)

Farese: - [a neighbor] who was with our opponents.

Bolton: In Ashland?

Farese: Yes. Told us in years later, he told John that he had been sent by our opponents to listen in on our conversations at night. Can you believe this? And he told us that he actually crawled under our house and lay there for hours while we were in our living room to hear if we would have anything to say. I couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe it. [This was a local man in politics spent to spy.]

Bolton: Did he ever hear anything worth telling your opponent?

Farese: I don't think so. That would have been bed talk. (laughter) But another thing of interest that happened while we were in the legislature, a scandal broke there in our county. The superintendent of education had become interested in gambling and some money was missing. And some of the citizens called us and wanted to come down and wanted us to sit in on a hearing with the attorney general.

Bolton: Is this the state superintendent of education or was this your local -

Farese: No, this was our local, but they wanted the attorney general's office to investigate it.

Bolton: I see, OK.

Farese: And we arranged to get Patterson, who was the attorney general at the time, and we arranged the meeting and did sit in with them. Well, we began to get threatening calls, telephone calls. And one man who had been, we later found out, a go-between called John and told him that he had heard a threat that we were going to be ambushed on our way home some night.

Bolton: My goodness.

Farese: Because they thought we were spearheading the investigation, which we were not. We were just doing what we were supposed to do for our Benton County. That's when they asked us to make an appointment. So this went on, well, up until the man was finally arrested and he was sent away. But years later after he had - it was nearing the time for him to get out, he got one of his cousins, which was the banker again - I'm telling you they were connected just like -

Bolton: Close-knit community. (laughter)

Farese: - to ask us to go to see - this was when Coleman was governor. And that's when I said, "Yes, he had done something for us." This is what he did, one of the things - to go see Coleman to get his citizenship restored, to pardon him just before so that he could - and we did. We left Ashland and drove to Choctaw County to Ackerman and met with Coleman and drove back home that same night. And the reason I remember, it has always stood out in my mind so. We ran out of gas on the way back home. And it was about two o'clock in the morning, and we were down around Ecru, Mississippi. I was scared literally because we were out in the country, and I didn't know what we were going to do. And John said, "Well, there's nothing left to do." Either sit here all night or me to get out and go somewhere. And I was scared to stay and scared to go. But I stayed, and he walked to a house and got us some gas so we could get home. So I've always remembered that incident, but that man got out. And he never became a close friend, but he did show his appreciation I'll have to say that. He didn't make any threats. (laughter) I'll put it in a nice way. But he got along with John. And it was sort of funny in a way and yet gratifying in another way to have an opportunity to do something good for that person. Because we were not guilty of what he had accused us. And of course I'm sure he had had fire added to it by those who wanted to tell him these things. But one of his cronies got involved with the feds on a whiskey-making charge and lost his truck and was under indictment and John was able to help him. So we felt like maybe we got out of politics, but it was a good thing we did because we went out helping those who had kind of done us dirt.

Bolton: Yeah. Did you ever think about going back into politics? I know you lost in '59.

Farese: I was asked many times to be mayor of Ashland but I wouldn't - no, I did not think about going back for obvious reasons. I felt like, Charles, that that was God's way of telling me that I needed to be at home taking care of my children during the years that they were in high school. And it was true, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I didn't like it, believe me I didn't like it, it hurt. Anybody that says that they were glad to be defeated, they're either lying or there's something wrong with them emotionally because you don't like being defeated.

Bolton: Sure, yeah.

Farese: But it was the best thing for John. He had been trying to carry on his law practice. We'd go home on weekends and he'd work all night and all day Sunday and that was not a good thing for him. And when we got out he began to make a little money and that was nice. (laughter) And our home life was a lot better. You know, that stress. Politics is stressful. Did you know that?

Bolton: Well, I've never been a politician but I could imagine.

Farese: Oh, I got ulcers and ultimately had to have a bypass heart surgery.

Bolton: Really?

Farese: Later but not -

Bolton: You think it was related to the stress.

Farese: I think it was related to stress. Of course, I'm no doctor but I thought I was. I figured that had a lot to do with it I really do. We've been blessed to have lived through the most interesting time our state and our country has ever had. Think of the things that we have seen happen. Radio, television, people with cars, airplanes. We even had our own plane, and we still had it for the office. And just a lot has changed so tremendously during our lifetime.

Bolton: Yeah, well, let me - this might be a good way to maybe we're getting towards the end of this tape. Looking back on it what would you say has been the biggest change both first for the best and then on the other hand in a negative way what do you think has been the biggest change that you've seen?

Farese: The most progressive things would have to be transportation, the road system. We saw the road to Jackson, Mississippi, from north Mississippi when it was gravel, when it had its first paved road through the state. Now we have four-lane high-

(The interview continues on tape three, side one.)

Bolton: You were saying with communication.

Farese: Well, in communication alone, although in retrospect even when we lived down at Choctaw County we had a telephone line. It was a party line.

Bolton: Party line, um-hm.

Farese: And I have to tell you the funniest thing. The operator, you always had operators. And this little lady who was the operator handled - she lived in Mathiston and so all of that phone system hooked into her - Maude, by the name of Maude. She's gone now, God bless her. But Maude knew everybody and she knew everybody's business because she listened in on the party line. (laughter) If my mother was talking to a friend of hers and they got into a, "Well so-and-so did this and did that, didn't they? Wasn't that the way it happened?" Maude would chime in, "No, that wasn't the way it was, Mamie." My mother's name was Mamie. "Mamie, that wasn't the way it was." And she'd proceed to tell exactly what had happened. So we not only had a telephone but we had a system of communication that we could find out what had happened in the whole community through Maude. She was central station. But we went from that from the party line telephone to radio as you said to television. And now with everybody being able to even communicate by TV, through their TVS. Isn't that something?

Bolton: That is.

Farese: Isn't that amazing? It is amazing. There are a lot of good things that have happened. I think that our educational systems are coming along if they will only do what we wanted to do in the first place. If they will test the teachers, test them. If you - and I don't mean, do you know your math and do you know this? But we have people right now who are writing in papers and magazines and books who can't even construct simple sentences or spell and that's pathetic. But I think that we can if we can once get that across. I was hoping and praying that Clinton and the Congress would set up a standard for teachers. That's what should be done. It should be done in federal -

Bolton: You think it has to be done at a federal level?

Farese: I think it should be, I do, for this reason. If you leave it with the states - now, I'm a states' righter, I am a high believer in states rights - but if you leave it to the states to set up their own there's too much politics involved.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: Not that there isn't in Washington but -

Bolton: At least you don't have fifty different politics.

Farese: Right, exactly, exactly. It means should be all the way across the board for everybody. But I think that the bad things that I would have to say would be again in communication in the media. I think you can't prohibit people from saying or writing what they think. But I do believe that there has to be some way of keeping so much filth out of the media and out of the theaters. I don't know how to handle it and I don't think anybody else does. We've jumped so far so quickly that we didn't see what was going to happen.

Bolton: Partly maybe and some of that good you were talking about the rapid increase in communication.

Farese: Yes, it came so quickly, so quickly. I don't know the answer. I do know one thing I think is bad, and that is that they have removed from the school any opportunity for teachers to teach what is right and what is wrong and establish a firm moral code for the students to live up to and to see that they live up to it. How else, if you don't teach children, how else are they going to become responsible adults? They're going to take with them what they've learned or haven't learned as the case may be, and that's what it is now. I think that's the reason we have so much crime among the youngsters, bound to be. "Train up a child in the way he shall go and when he's old he will not depart there from." That scripture's always been true and always will be, and always will be. Although I'm not a Baptist now, I'm not a Catholic either, I'm a Presbyterian. (laughter)

Bolton: So you've been through some religious changes.

Farese: I'm an ecumenical.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: Well, after all I went to a Methodist high school.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: And a Baptist college and I married a Catholic.

Bolton: Right, you've covered your bases pretty well.

Farese: But I've covered my bases and I found out one thing. We're all trying to do the same thing. We may have different recipes, but we're all trying to go the same way I think.

Bolton: OK. Well, I could probably sit here and talk to you all day, but I know that we've got to eat lunch.

Farese: We've got to eat.

Bolton: But is there anything else that you think is really important that maybe you haven't had a chance to bring out that -

Farese: Listen, I pulled out, I had a box of files one for me and one for John. We'd had a very interesting life and I don't know that - the industrial revolution almost, you might say, in Mississippi has been very interesting. And that's one we have not touched on at all.

Bolton: That's right, yeah.

Farese: We had absolutely no industry in our town at all, in our county, in our entire county. And it was our good fortune to help bring in the industry that they have. Not all of it now but the first industry they had we were instrumental in getting that.

Bolton: What was the first industries that came into Benton County?

Farese: It was a dress factory.

Bolton: Oh, OK.

Farese: Um-hm. And then we've had we have ironworks now, and we have an automobile, in fact we have a national recognized automobile - what is that? what is that called? I don't know enough about cars. But anyway it has to do with the racing industry, some mechanism that they use. And they make those there in Ashland now, and in fact they enter a race car in all of these races. Isn't that interesting?

Bolton: That is.

Farese: And we have several, we have now a branch of the junior college, Northwest Junior College, and my husband was instrumental in getting that.

Bolton: There's a branch in Ashland?

Farese: Yes, there's a branch there. And we have a rug factory, we have a furniture factory, pottery, we have pottery. Not a lot but certainly better than it was.

Bolton: Of course you've served under Hugh White, who of course was, I think so many people consider the father of -

Farese: Of industrial, yes, yes. An aunt of mine was his secretary before he became governor.

Bolton: Really?

Farese: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Bolton: Did you ever have any dealings with Governor White? I mean did you get a chance to form an impression of him, be around him?

Farese: Well, one of my brothers was named after Hugh White. My baby brother was named after Hugh White. No, I didn't have any personal dealings with him at all, nothing personal. But I think that he was for his time he was a good governor. He was a far-seeing man having - you know, he was a businessman.

Bolton: Right, right.

Farese: And he was in the lumber business down in Columbia.

Bolton: Right. He had been governor before too.

Farese: Yes.

Bolton: He was on his second term, I guess, when you were -

Farese: Oh, there's just a lot that of course we haven't touched on. But we haven't touched on the KKKs for instance and -

Bolton: Were they active in Benton County?

Farese: Undercover. They only had one public meeting. This was during the period when everybody was so upset about integration. We heard that they were having one out at the fairgrounds. We had a friend who had a house near that and with binoculars we could see. So we went out to visit her and I took my children and we showed them. And Steve, the boy that called me while ago, well, actually who had called me last night, said, "Now be sure and tell him about the KKK." He thought that was neat you know. He was just a young kid then.

Bolton: Would this have been in the '60s then or in the '50s?

Farese: Had to be in the '50s.

Bolton: In the '50s?

Farese: Late '50s.

Bolton: OK.

Farese: Late '50s.

Bolton: And was there a big crowd there?

Farese: About seventy-five to a hundred.

Bolton: OK. So the Klan was not that active.

Farese: Not that active, but they were, as I say, undercover. But the FBI, it was active enough that the FBI was in there checking on them. And one weekend they came by our house to see John. And they had it understood that there was going to be some problems there in the county and which there was a group of people down on the square hanging around. And from their observations they thought that was the crew that would cause the trouble, and they wanted John to go down and get them to disperse. And John told them said, "Well, I know some of these people, and the ones I know would not listen to me anymore than they would to you. I don't mind helping you if trouble comes up, but I'm not going to go and tell fellows they can't stand on the side of the street. I'm just not going to do it." So he didn't.

Bolton: But what about the Citizens' Council? Were they ever active in Benton County?

Farese: I'm sure there must have been people who were members but we didn't know. We would be able to say at the time we could have pointed out the ones that we suspected that were organized. But in fact the one that I ran against when I was elected to the senate and who was on the board of supervisors we felt sure was because he had statewide connections. And when he was defeated he had been supervisor for twenty-something years. I was running from Benton and Tate Counties, and when I defeated him I don't know that brought it on but he had a heart attack the night that the election was announced and died.

Bolton: He died the night of the election?

Farese: And you mean, I felt terrible.

Bolton: My goodness.

Farese: Because it was a bad -

Bolton: That's incredible.

Farese: It was terrible. Well, I don't know, I've always wondered. But I know that [he] drank a lot because John had been attorney for the board, as I mentioned, and we had gone to Jackson with them to meetings, and he would always be drinking, always be drinking. I mean not just having a drink. When I say drinking I mean drinking.

Bolton: Just always drinking.

Farese: Yes. But I think that was a sad time for me because we had mutual friends. And I hated it but I couldn't help it.

Bolton: Right. No, nothing you could do.

Farese: No, nor nothing you could say in a situation like that.

Bolton: Sure.

Farese: I went to the funeral and even felt ill at ease because even those that I knew to be my friends they were not going to show it up that day.

Bolton: Right.

Farese: It was a sticky wicket there.

Bolton: I can imagine. Well, shall we stop there?

Farese: I don't want to stop on burying [this person]. Let's think of something pleasant. (laughter)

Bolton: OK.

Farese: That would be bad. We were trying to sum up the good things or the bad things. The bad things we agreed on was the media, right? I don't know the solution, and I don't know that anybody in this country knows because they're not doing anything about it, are they?

Bolton: Unh-uh.

Farese: I think one thing that we have not discussed, and we could never have enough time to discuss this, and that is the relationship of the activities of churches and Christian people now on politics and on general activities in the state.

Bolton: Um-hm.

Farese: I think that's an interesting area that has not been explored very much.

Bolton: Um-hm.

Farese: Either from fear on the part or apathy. I don't know which it is. But I don't believe that you're going to be able to quash those who are really believers and keep them from expressing their opinions and in fact working for people they believe to be qualified and capable and representative of their thoughts. I don't think you're going to be able to keep them out because they've got rights too.

Bolton: Sure.

Farese: But you can see very easily how the liberal press has cast us all - and I say us because I'm in that group - they have cast us in a position of ridicule almost, and that's a terrible thing. When a country that was Christian and founded by Christian people who gave us a school system itself are not able to speak out without being called right wingers (laughter) with derision. That's sad, that's really sad. But we know one thing: regardless of how bad it gets we know who's in charge ultimately. If God were not in charge ultimately I'd grab the gas pipe, (laughter) I truly would, I truly would. But I have all kinds of hope for the ultimate ending to be right, the ultimate decisions will be right. I've enjoyed talking to you.

Bolton: I've enjoyed talking to you very much. Thank you again.

Farese: Um-hm.

(end of the interview)