Interview with William Corpew O'Neal I1I
February 22, 1996



 was not very successful. My mother opened a boarding house out on West University
 Avenue, which was very successful.

C: And that saw you through the Depression days -- and beyond probably. 0: Yes.

C: So your mother lived how long? 0: She was sixty-seven.

C: Were you in college? Was it after you graduated from high school? 0: Oh yes, it was after. It was after I was married. C: Okay. Well, that was a good while. Well first, let me ask you. Do you remember the
 big fire in Gainesville in 1938?

0: Yes, ma'am. I was away at school. C: You went to college then? Where did you go to college? 0: To Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. C: And you stayed there for the four years? 0: No. It was sort of a one-year university. I believe it was in that time that everything
 burned. Thomas Hardware burned down.

C: So after a year at Cumberland, where did you go? 0: Well, I came back to Gainesville and went to work for a lawyer. C: Who was that?

0: Zach Douglas, who was a highly successful criminal lawyer, a trial lawyer. He had a
 brilliant mind and a brilliant memory but couldn't handle John Barleycorn. He could sit through a three-day trial or a four-day trial without making any notes. When getting in an argument about testimony that had occurred three days prior to the argument, he could quote exactly what the witness said as opposed to the exact opposite the other person
 might claim.

..