At the turn of the 20th century, the South Carolina State Farmers Market was simply known as “Columbia’s City Market,” located on Assembly Street in the capital city. It was there that George Oswald and his family labored daily, arriving before the sun rose, then packing up well past sundown.
On April 1, 2024, George and his daughter, Lynn, sat down to share some of their memories with StoryCorps, a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. This excerpt was selected and produced by Linda Nunez.
TRANSCRIPT:
George: South Carolina’s State Farmers Market was located in the middle of Assembly Street in Columbia. And when I was a young fellow with my dad, we went down there and sold produce and bought some stuff too at the same time.
Lynn: When did they have to get up in the morning to start?
George: They had to get up in the morning about 4 o'clock in the morning.
Lynn: 4 o'clock in the morning. Did they have to pack the wagon the day before with all their stuff? So they had--
George: Yeah, they'd have to put it all on there and get ready to go. So when they got up at 4 o'clock in the morning, they would, get started and they'd have to, go ahead with bounds and lead the mules or horses down there because they didn't have no flashlights back then. I had a cousin that stayed out and guard the market whenever they closed up at night. I think they stayed open till about 11 o'clock. And when they closed up, there was a fellow named John Taylor that was a cousin of mine. He was a guard down there on the market because he got in a railroad accident and got his arms cut off.
Lynn: Oh no.
George: He had to guard that market after they locked up down there.
Lynn: Holy cow. And he did that with no arms. Well, good for him. He must have been an industrious fellow.
George: He'd stay there and guard that market until the next morning.
Lynn: Thinking back, what's one of the proudest moments coming up in your life, you think?
George: I guess when I decided to go in business for myself, I used to work for other people. And I got to the point where I got tired of doing all the work and they getting all the money. I decided to go into business for myself. I think that was probably about the most important thing in my life.
Lynn: I, remember you working many, many days all by yourself and, yep, to support us. And I know it wasn't easy. Cause early on when you had to work for somebody else and feed us, you had to go away and do it. And I heard you had to…live in a car for a while…in order to feed us.
George: Oh, yeah, I had to. I took a job from up at Becker County Sand and Gravel Company. And I didn't have money to go back and forth. Cause it was about 80 miles up there. And I went out there and the guy over there next door to where I was working at had a patch of watermelons and tomatoes. And he said, “You can have all of them you want.”
Lynn: Had to live off the land and.
George: I lived off the land there, ’til I got my first paycheck, and that was a month away. I had to work a whole month before I got a paycheck.
Lynn: I'm really proud of you…a whole bunch.
George: Okay.
Lynn: And I love you a lot.
George: Yeah, well…
Lynn: You did good.
