60
L: Missouri, I guess.
P: He was a Missouri man.
L: Yes, he was a Missouri man.
P: I guess Matherly brought him in, because journalism was then
part of the College of Business Administration.
L: Yes, I remember he came about 1927.
P: So, he followed Catts around in '28.
L: Yes, and 0. K. wrote some anti-cracker stories. I don't know
what church he belonged to. I think nominally he was Presbyterian,
come to think of it. He was Presbyterian in Gainesville and
I knew him quite well. He became involved in a study of slavery
and traveled around the South interviewing ex-slaves. I think
perhaps he published a book on the memories of former slaves.
I came back to the South, to Waycross, Georgia one time,
with him from Washington to Waycross. We had a hillbilly
preacher from up in the Ozarks that he picked up and he would
sleep in the car. We got stuck in Camden, South Carolina, just
outside of Camden, and our car had to be worked on. I knew a
boy from Camden, one of my best friends in college and one of
my friends today named Steven Miles Montgomery, and I called
his father and he came down to the station and invited us to
spend the night with him. We went over and spent the night.
And while we were there, the question of the Civil War came
up. 0. K. was making this tour around the country and he
brought up the subject and mentioned it, and 0. K. said something
about, "Well, that feeling is all over now." Mr. Montgomery
says, "It's not all over now. Some of us still don't like the
way the South was treated after the end of the Civil War. We
still remember it, Mr. Armstrong." We didn't have any further
discussion on the Civil War.
P: Armstrong wrote a biography of Dr. Murphree.
L: Did he?
P: After Murphree's death. I have a copy of that.
L: I would certainly like to see that.