Kate’s notes:  Some four years before his death in December of 1989, Marvin Gilliland provided this glimpse of growing up on a farm in rural Alabama. There are no romantic notions of “the good old days” here but a recollection of how a man and his family persevered even through difficult times, through hard work and sacrifice.
    Marvin was a son of James Thomas and Mary Etta (Morton) Gilliland.

The Gadsden Times
Gadsden, Alabama
26 August, 1985

Times Profile
Marvin Gilliland

By Brenda Childs
Times Staff Writer

    Marvin Gilliland of Attalla, formerly of Greasy Cove in St. Clair County, is one of a growing majority in the U.S. he is one of the older generation.
    In a day and age when Americans are said to be living longer because of improvements in health care and a changed lifestyle, Gilliland said it is old-fashioned hard work which has kept him going for 73 years.
    “I’ve worked hard all my life,” said the now-retired farmer and steelworker. “I helped my dad to farm when I was young, as soon as I was old enough to get behind a plow or on a tractor, and I’ve been working ever since.”
    Gilliland said he and his family grew cotton, corn and many other crops during their years in Greasy Cove, a rustic hamlet located at the foot of Chandler Mountain.
    “There was a little two-room schoolhouse, but I didn’t get to go too often,” Gilliland said. We had a big family and after my father took sick, when I was still pretty young, everybody had to do their share of work to keep the family going. And too, farming just never paid that much. You don’t get rich farming.”
    Gilliland worked the fields when cotton was king in Alabama and remembers the opening of Chandler Mountain’s first gin at Inspiration Point.
    When he wasn’t working the family farm, Gilliland worked the land for others and found that wages for farm hands in those days was not very inspiring. He said that a youngster putting in a “sun up to sun down” day of hard labor in the sweltering summer heat was lucky if he made $1 a day.
    Gilliland said he thought he was making pretty good money because a dollar would buy a lot back then. “You could buy a pair of brand new overalls for 49 cents, a brand new work shirt for 49 cents and a Coke was a nickel.
    “I just don’t believe the way the price of everything has gone up,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t think people’s salaries have kept up with the prices and I don’t think you get your money’s worth these days. No, I don’t.”
    Gilliland said he developed serious allergy problems and left Greasy Cove in 1964, but not before he was forced to leave farming for steelworking.
    “I worked at Republic Steel for 30 years, from 1944 to 1974, loading steel onto boxcars,” he said. “It was hard work but it paid better than farming and the pay was regular.”
    Now, Gilliland said, he has put hard labor behind him, although he and his wife, Cleo, evidently spend much of their time maintaining a beautifully kept house and spacious lawn in the Camp Sibert community in Attalla.
    The Gillilands lost a daughter, Sue, to an illness 18 years ago, but her two daughters and two daughters produced by another daughter, Wanda, are the light of their grandparents’ lives.
    Gilliland said he is most happy with his life and has only on regret.
    “I just wish I had got more schooling, had learned to read better,” he said. “I love to read and it takes me a little longer than most folks, but I think I probably get more out of it by taking my time.”

-transcription by Kate Maynard, 2013