Skip to content
Vol. 8, No. 3: Fall 2002

“God Giveth the Increase”

Lurline Stokes Murray's Narrative of Farming and Faith

by Lu Ann Jones

“‘Honey, in our way of life, there ain’t no banker’s hours, and I don’t find in the Bible there’s no such thing as an eight-hour day.'”

In 1986, as I began conducting oral histories with older southern farmers about changes in rural life, I asked an agricultural extension agent in Florence, South Carolina, to recommend some likely narrators. He was eager to help, but his first list included only men. “What about women who farmed?” I pressed. Without hesitating, he replied, “You need to see Mrs. J. W. Murray.”

This article appears as an abstract above, the complete article can be accessed in Project Muse
Subscribe today!

One South, a world of stories. Delivered in four print issues a year.

Subscribe