Conversations with the Reverend 1

Conversations with Rev. Timothy Claude Dodgeson, born in Jasper County, South Carolina on September 2, 1912, recorded April 1 – 21, 2008 at Azalea Cottage, the Cottages at Brushy Creek, Greer, South Carolina. Recorded with a Sony ICD-P520 Digital Voice Recorder (256 MB), transcribed by the interviewer and transferred to CD, available on request at wylie.tom@gmail.com. Rev. Dodgeson was a reverend and high school history teacher in the piedmont area of South Carolina from 1934 to 1977.


There is only one thing that you need to know about the presidents of this country and that is all of them. You need to know all of them if what you want is to impress people and make them think you know more history than maybe you do and you don’t need to know much more than their names, though if don’t know that Washington was a general and that Lincoln freed the slaves then the rest of knowing the names might be a waste of time. You need to know a single basic thing about the important ones and even the ones of no count, like this president now being the son of his father, which is all you need to know about either. But learning the big list is not difficult though it does take you some time. Takes some people some more time than others. You need to group them, you see? First off you have the first five that is a lot of only what some people can remember. They would be Washington and Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Getting that far is easy for anyone and brings you up quite a ways in American history because all but Adams of those five served two terms. Washington got started in 1789 and Monroe finished off the group in 1825. I’m talking the actual time each was president, you understand? Not the election that brought each one in as president. But if you know the first five by election dates that’s fine, too. It’s the same thing but less accurate. That’s how a lot of people do it, though, maybe because four can go into the election years, and five and 10 and 20 into a lot of them. But then you have your next two, the first being John Quincy Adams, who was the son of the first. Neither served a second term. Then there’s Jackson. Now Jackson is the first president after Washington that you really have to know. Washington was the first and Jackson the seventh. Seven presidents. Most people find seven anything easy to remember and Washington and Jackson served two terms like all the others except the Adams. They didn’t have any family luck in that matter. Then up to Lincoln in 1961 there’s not a lot you have to remember because you had a long stream of presidents who didn’t do much, just let the country grow and let things slide with the races and the Indians until things came to a head in 1961 with Lincoln and the Civil War. I always had a memory device like kids use to remember things like Roy G. Biv for the rainbow and it was, “Jack van Buren Hated to Poke Two Fine Pudd Butts.” You might not know what a pudd butt is, though. That is J for Jackson, van Buren for van Buren, then Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Filmore, Pierce, Buchanan. You can use any other sentence. I don’t know why I settled on that one. I think it was just the first I thought up. Then you have Lincoln. Lincoln was killed in office and in terms of the small things you need to know that he was killed in his second term so that strictly speaking he was a two term president, only he died in his second, like McKinley. But Lincoln then Johnson, just like Kennedy then Johnson, who was his VP. Both shot, both Johnsons. Then you had Grant and Hayes and you should be able to remember that last one easily enough. Now in terms of numbers you have Washington 1 and Jackson 7 and Lincoln 16. After Hayes you have the GACHC group of Garfield, who died in office, shot, and then Arthur Cleveland Harrison and Cleveland again. Did you see the movie Unforgiven? We watched it at the old home about 10 years ago. You did? Then you can remember Garfield as the president who was shot, who English Bob was making fun of on the train. You remember that? I can remember just about everything there ever was in a Clint Eastwood movie. And of course you want to remember that Cleveland was president twice. Now for the next five it should be easy for you. Your name is Txxxxx W. Hxxxxxx. If you add mister to the beginning then you have M and R for mister and TWH for your name, and the presidents you want to know are McKinley, Roosevelt for “r”, Taft and Wilson and Harding. All the rest I remember very well because I remember when they were president so I don’t have any trouble with them but I reckon for you that might not be the case. If you want to go up just to WWII and until you were born then I can’t help you much in a way to remember them. Just that there was Harding and Coolidge and Hoover. Harding died in office as did every president who was elected in a year that ended in a zero all the way up to Reagan, who just got shot but didn’t die. That would be Harrison in 1840 and 20 years later Lincoln, then Garfield in 1880, McKinley after him, then Wilson and Roosevelt and up to Kennedy. So, Harding died and then Coolidge was Silent Cal who let things be and the depression hit hard just after Hoover was president, so people tended to blame him. After Hoover you have 12 years of Roosevelt and World War II, then he died and Truman dropped the bomb and like I say after that since I lived through it I never put together any way to think of remembering them because I didn’t have to.