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The cassettes have been digitized. Digitial files are the first-use copies.
Biographical/Historical:
Hattie Murl Clark Musgrove Kennedy (1908-2001), known as Murl, was the eldest of Walter Simion Clark and Susie Zelma Neel's seven children. As the daughter of two rural farmers, her youth was spent working on several farms throughout the South Georgia and North Florida region. In 1918, at the end of the First World War, her father fell ill and died of the flu. After moving to Jackson County Florida, she met John Bunyan Musgrove (1903-1952), a farmer and carpenter. They married on December 29, 1929, and had four children. In order to find work during the Great Depression, they moved their family to Tallahassee in 1939. After John's death, Murl remarried Harry Kennedy (1908-1988) in 1958. She died on July 15, 2001, in Tallahassee at the age of 93.
Susie Mildred Musgrove Coleman (b. November 30, 1930) was the eldest daughter of Hattie Murl Clark Musgrove Kennedy and John Bunyan Musgrove. She spent her most of her childhood in Tallahassee, Florida. On December 24, 1950, she married William Faulk Coleman. They had three children: Rebecca Sue Coleman (b. 1952), William Forrest Coleman (b.1953-1978), and John Lamar Coleman (b. 1957). From 1997 to 2001, Susie recorded and collected stories of her mother's life from the 1910s to the 1940s.
Summary:
This collection contains seven audio cassettes of an oral history interview with Hattie Murl Clark Musgrove Kennedy, conducted by her daughter, Susie Mildred Musgrove Coleman, from 1997 to 2001. Discussing life from her youth to motherhood, Murl talks about family, farming, rural poverty during the Great Depression, World War I, rural health, her family's illnesses during the 1918 Flu Pandemic, and recreation in South Georgia and North Florida. The collection also contains a transcript and summary of the interview, a printed genealogical booklet of the Clark-Neel families and digital copies of photographs of the family. The printed genealogical booklet was created in 2003 and provides supporting information to the cassettes, including family trees, photographs, and family memories.
Finding Aids:
Folder listing available.
Additional Physical Form:
Audiotapes from this collection have been digitized
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Subject Access Fields:
Farm life. Rural poor Florida World War, 1914-1918. Youth Florida Family Florida Recreation Florida. Oral history Depressions--1929, Rural health,
Electronic records (digital records). aat
for detailed listing.