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Interview no. 001
Restrictions
Project
The Lebanese in North Carolina Project
Date
Interviewee
Saleeby, Callie
Occupation
DOB
Ethnicity
Lebanese
Interviewer
Khater, Akram.
Abstract
Transcript
Yes
Transcript
Access
Online.
Number of
Pages
21
Subject
Topical
North Carolina—Lebanese
Subject Name
Listening Copy
Audio Access
Listening Copy File
Type
Medium of Originial
Department
of
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919.513.2218
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Duration
Approx. 66 min.
Notes
Family history
Yes
Field Notes
Tape Log
Supplementary
Material
Citation
Interview with [Callie Saleeby] by [Akram Khater], [Interview
date][Interview number], the Lebanese in North Carolina Project
Collection in
Repository
Repository
Host
AK: …it was unusual for you to marry a non…basically somebody who is not
Lebanese/Syrian so I really would like to hear that story and to hear more about Eli, what he
was like and if he had relatives, so on and so forth. That’s the first part. The second part, I
want to hear the story of the book. How you put it together, and all these details that we’ve
been talking about. So well do the first part, we’ll take a break, have something to eat, and
we’ll do the second part. Is that ok?
CS: Anyway you want to do it.
AK: We’ll do it that way.
CS: You’re the manager…and the first part we’re going to start on now is talking about Eli?
AK: Yea, you meeting Eli…about him, how you met him, uhh and also you know, just the
early years, the things you remember and the church…that you talked about a little bit, the
church issues, all these issues, early years before he passed away. So that’s what I’d like to
talk about.
[almost inaudible interruption—correcting volume issues]
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CS: Well, let me tell you what I got now to support this for you, I’ve got an article that was
written by me about the depression period, and how I lived through it. And I’ve, got…if you
remind me now, I’ll give you that to you….umm. then I’ve got um something telling about
the research I did on the early church history.
AK: Mhmm.
CS: I’ve got, umm, my story in there written out for you.
AK: Great.
CS: From the time I was born until now.
AK: OK.
CS: and I’ve got my story with Eli written…
AK: Alright.
CS: …and how he died. And my story was Leyton is written and how he died.
AK: Ok.
CS: And what we did through the years and how it affected Leonard’s life. And Leonard
always came first to me, I never…I raised a lot of, you know, I had to raise the children that
was left when my mother died when I was twelve. And I didn’t um, I had to stop school,
cause she had a baby just three weeks old. Now she’s uhh, got a family of her own. That’s
the only one that’s left of my brothers and sisters. There was seven of us. And that’s the only
one that left. Me and Mary. But Mary was three weeks old when mother died. And umm I
had a difficult time because we were told we were coming from school, five children coming
from school, riding the school bus in the country. And we’d get off the bus and walk a little
distance to our house. And umm…and my father met us and he said…I hate to give you
some bad news, but your mother’s dead. And uh, she’s…and…of course you know we went
running to the house and um, so um, so it was awful sad. It was sudden, she had cooked
dinner, even though the baby was just three weeks old. She was up and around and doing her
work…and she had cooked dinner, the little brother of two years old was sitting at the table
eating and he got a piece of pastry that wasn’t cut in two…and he was trying to do that, you
know, and eat it, and she was standing there laughing at him and turned around and fell dead.
So the old doctor came to our and he said “It must have been heart trouble. Must have been.”
But we don’t know what work it was related to. Anyway the next day…I didn’t do anything
much as a child, you know, we had wonderful experiences…lived in a neighborhood of just
families, we owned a lot of property…and um, had hundred acres of just cotton. And was
just lots of forrest land and other kinds of crops, you know. And uh, everybody that lived
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near us was either an aunt or an uncle either from my mother’s side or my daddy’s side. My
mother was a Davis family and my father was a Ratliff family, you see….
[5 MINUTES]
…and um, so they owned about 14,000 acres up and down Rock Fish Creek, near the old
waterfront. And um, I don’t think…back then, you know, it was just streams, you would fish
and hunt and do that sort of thing. Anyway, the next day I had to stop school. My older sister,
it was her senior year and my daddy told em “we gotta let her go to school and finish…her
year through.” And so she went to school, and she finished. And when she graduated she got
married and moved away. The older brother, he went to the service cause there was no jobs
for anybody, and he’d go to service and he went into the service, so they were gone. I was the
only one left, I was third…to take care of it all. And so, I never, my mother had told me,
don’t play with scissors…don’t mess with a knife, you’ll cut yourself, well the next day I had
to slice the bacon. That’s how rude…abrupt it was…how sudden our childhood changed
completely and I had to become an adult at twelve years old. I had to…the old doctor came
and he said, uh, and he told us that he had to uhhh, teach us a lot of things, especially me, we
had a great big stove, cook stove, and big old iron kettle, and he showed me how to hold the
water and pick up the kettle so I wouldn’t scald myself. He said because you got learn how to
sterilize the bottles and how to make the formula and all that. And he said “But you can do it,
I’ll show you how” and uh, so he kept checking on me. And making the formula, you gotta
sterilize everything otherwise she’s gonna die…and you can’t let a fly or mosquito get on
her, cause she’ll die! He had to emphasize it, the importance of it all. And I said, “Just tell me
how in the world I’m gonna keep every fly and every mosquito off of her? Tell me how I’m
gonna do that.” He said “We’ll fix it.” So next day he came back with a mosquito net and we
put it over her crib. He said “now, when you carry her around, get you a pillow case, and you
carry her around in a pillow case…just stop it up here, you know.” And so umm, that’s what
I did.
AK: And, what year was that? What year was this going on?
CS: Um..that would have been, I was twelve and I was born 1920, so what would that be?
AK: 1932.
CS: That’s right. She died April…uh, May the second, 1932.
AK: So how was it that you go from taking care of your family like this, all on your own, to
working in the restaurant that you were talking about earlier?
CS: I wanted to tell you about that. That’s exactly what I got written for you. And uhh… I
went, and I always thought “What in the world can I do…I want a job or something.” And I
was told you had to wait till you were sixteen...you had to wait till you were sixteen. And
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um, in the meantime, I, you know, I took care of them. And then I finally went to um, it was
uh, well I disagreed with [inaudible], they didn’t want me to do it…I went to stay with my
sister, she was married and uh that’s when I got the job, you know, in the restaurant, that’s
when I went to apply for Steve and got turned down and he sent the little Pep. That’s where I
was, the Little Pep restaurant, when I met Eli.
AK: And this was in Fayetteville?
CS: Uh huh. And so, uh, and he carried me home. He said “Kid you want to go to a movie
sometime?” And I said, “Yeah that’d be nice.” And then he had told me about his business he
used to have in Wilmington and you know…we’re getting into his life now. And we had the
business in Wilmington, he said, and um, and when his wife died he had a big home, a
beautiful home there, but he lost, you know he was depressed, he lost everything and he had
come back to stay with his brother…
[10 MINUTES]
…and they had a business in Fayetteville too, so they would work, you know, together, and
that’s where I met him. And um, anyway, um, one day he took me to Wilmington to take a
look around. He said “sometime I’ll take you to Wilmington if you want to go” He said
“better than that, maybe you’d like to go to the beach?” I said, “I’ve never seen the ocean. I’d
love to got there.” And so he took me, and um, and while I was there, or…meeting different
people, you know, and um,…to his relatives, he had all those, but you know we weren’t
thinking about getting married…nothing like that, but I was meeting people, and then I said,
well why don’t I just rent a room and get a restaurant job here in Wilmington? And that’s
what I did, in one of the finest restaurants and so I got a job there and another waitress and I
rented a house together, I mean a room together. That’s all we had, a room, and we’d ride the
bus backwards and forwards to our work, so we could do it there, we could make it. And so I
got…saved a little bit…saved my money that I made, I got lots of tips, I sent them home to
help my daddy with the other children. And during the depression it got real bad, you know,
so um…then it was a matter of survival. It was a matter of everybody surviving. And so we, I
got that whole story written up, I’m gonna give it to you, but um anyway we got through the
depression and everything.
AK: Now, how long did you work in Fayetteville before you got married?
CS: About a year.
AK: A year, and then you moved to Wilmington after Fayetteville…
CS: Yea because I had visited there, and I decided “well I can get a nice job there” and I
liked to live there, and I’m still not too far from home you know, and I could help…I could
make some more money and I could send it home and help the others. And I used to go down
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during the depression, you know, and get clothes from a place where they had a community
sewing room for the children. I would take those home. And uh, they did them for needy
families, you know, and um, I helped them still with canning food. Go over to the cannery
and where they would can your food for you, and they would take a certain portion out, that’s
the way you paid for it. Or they would grind meal and flour for you, and uhh, you could uhh,
you know wheat…and you’d make a portion to them. Those are things we had. And the
schools then had the soup kitchens in them. You could have soup if you worked in the soup
room. So…
AK: So, where you courting, was Eli courting you while you were living in Wilmington?
CS: Um, he would come…cause he had relatives there. He would come and visit, but he’d go
back to Fayetteville, but pretty soon he moved to Wilmington. He said “You know I’m gonna
start my business here again.” And I mean I think I encouraged him, I think he uh…I don’t
think…didn’t see that he had any intentions at that time of getting married or anything like
that. It was just a matter of friendship and we just passed the time. And so I would go down
to the beach and um, the other young Saleeby boys would come you know, and they said,
“Here we are looking for a girl and Eli’s got…” he’s an old man you know, they thought…
“he’s got the best looking one here!” [Laughter] Anyway, it was quite funny, my life was
quite funny. And how to lived with it all and still be true and raised Leonard like he ought to
be raised. Leonard came along about a year after I was married. Anyway, we’ll…is that
enough of that?
AK: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about, because it is a bit unusual for, you know, a young
lady like yourself growing up in the south at that time period to marry someone who is a
foreigner, in essence….
CS: Well….the answer to that is, he wasn’t a person that aged….
[15 MINUTES]
…He wasn’t…he was a jolly person, a happy person, and he was a person who taught me a
lot of things…how to count money. He would say “Now hold this money…now you can
remember that you held that much money in your hand!” You know, he would do things like
that, and um, then he’d tell me “why don’t you start a business of your own?” and uh, then of
course I didn’t do it then, Leonard came along and I couldn’t start a business right then. But
um, later on I did, I started Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio. And it was the first one in North
Carolina, and you had…and I wrote to the company and I wanted to carry the product, I
wanted to sell the product. They said “You can’t sell our product unless you have a studio.”
And uh, well then you had to have money if you wanted to buy a studio, you had to have
money to pay rent and to buy dressing tables and display cases…you had to have money to
do that… you had to have a place for people to sit and a place to give demonstrations. Well, I
got all that, finally, God, I found I could do all that, but they said “Well, no, you got to go to
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California to get the training.” I said, “I can’t go to California” and they said “the nearest
studio is Columbia, South Carolina.” I went there for my training and when I finished that I
started the studio. I rented a place, started, was very successful with it. And um, it didn’t start
immediately as successful, I was striving. And Eli, in the meantime, you know we were
married then, and Eli then was making a payments and everything and helping you with
everything and of course he…we took Leonard a lot of times with him, we got some help
along with the house, and um managed and um, and when he died suddenly, went down to
the market and fell down on the sidewalk, and…he’d come back off a trip from Florida and
he had, uh, came back with a little produce…he had a driver, and um, but he came back and
his legs were hurting him and then uh, um, you know, from that, that clot that was hurting
this legs, went immediately to his heart, lungs…and um, he died suddenly, he was going
down to the market in the morning and um, fell down on the sidewalk, and the people picked
him up and carried him immediately to the hospital, and they called me and said “You better
come to the hospital, I think your husband’s ill” and so, she didn’t tell me he was already
dead. So that’s…and then the next day, see, there I had a little boy, by myself, we were still
paying off the house, and I had a business that wasn’t supporting itself, yet. I had that. And,
you know, payments to make for that house and Leonard. How was I going to raise Leonard
and stay home and take care of him, and cook and do all those things and then go to…how
am I gonna do that? I tried everything, you know, nothing worked, didn’t get anything to
work. And one day we were…I was still keeping the studio going though, and so one day,
Eli…this was after Eli died now, after Eli had died, now, and Leyton came. I came home one
day from work, and Leyton was in the…my neighbor’s backyard fixing Leonard’s tricycle.
And I said “Who is that man?” and then I…then so, I met him, Leyton, and he said “Well I’m
visiting my cousin here, and she told me about Leonard’s tricycle and I’m fixing it.” And, uh,
he could fix all things. And so, uh, he fixed it. And then one day he said “You know, would
you like to go to a movie or something?” I said “Yea.” But anyway, it was pretty fast, we
dated about a year I reckon before marrying.
AK: Uh, let me take you a little bit back to the Saleeby family, that you married into. So Eli,
your husband, had a brother who worked in Fayetteville. But you also mentioned that there
were some Saleeby kids who were living in Wilmington?
[20 MINUTES]
CS: That’s right.
AK: So there was a big family all together there. When did they first come here? I mean,
when did Eli first come here and how did they get to be here?
CS: well I don’t know exactly when he came here, but uh, he was about sixteen I think when
he first came here. And, um, he had mother and a brother that came with him or pretty soon
came with him, and then he must have…he went back to Lebanon and um, married his
cousin and brought her here. And so, um, um, he did…he was born in Lebanon, he was
baptized in the Jordan River. And so I went to Israel and I was baptized in the Jordan River,
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and I wanted to go over to Lebanon…you couldn’t go from Israel to Lebanon, and I didn’t
get a chance to ever go there, but anyway I know a lot of people over there and correspond
with them. I know a lot of people in New Zealand and I correspond with them. You know,
sometimes by email, sometimes on the phone and sometimes they just call me. And
then…it’s amazing how I’ve got two big families and all of them good. Now I
stayed…whenever I married a Saleeby family and uh...you know… I say I married the whole
family, because they came you know…they would come. And of course, I didn’t cook
Arabic food. I didn’t cook Far Eastern food. And um…but, uh, Eli was a wonderful cook. He
could cook all of those things…and one day I decided, “Well I’m gonna teach you some
manners” and uh… “dress the table up just how it ought to be and I’m gonna fix dinner.” So
I…his nephew had come over to eat, and well, it was true that the napkin was put in the right
place, the silverware in the right place, it was the right kind of china, and the tablecloth was
fine, but…the food was terrible. [Laughs]. And I said…”I won’t try that again.” Anyway,
you can see what it looks like. They finally found out they had to learn how to put napkin
place…in the right place and how to do this and that and the other. And I found out a whole
load about what good food is and how you cook it! And he told me “Look, kid, you don’t
know anything.” That’s what he’d tell me. “Kid! You don’t know anything!” You know,
he’d bring some sawdills or whatever…all that stuff, and I said “What in the world is that?”
and you know he …. “Well, you don’t know anything.” He says “one of these days you’re
gonna go to Lebanon…one of these days I’ll take you to learn something.” He was just
teasing me cause he knew I knew a lot. But he, but he was telling me “When it comes to
Lebanese food don’t talk about it, just eat it!” And so, I enjoyed it, he was a good cook and
her…so that’s the…and then anyway the neighbors and old families would come together
and during a storm they would usually come to our house.
AK: So these are the Saleeby families…they lived nearby and they would come and visit…
CS: In Wilmington, some of them, and the came all often, you know. Yea….there was one of
them I chose to be the Merle Norman woman of the year, you know, put her picture in a
frame and put it in my studio in the window, and she was glad of that. And from then on I
had a Merle Norman studio Girl of the Month or something like that, you know?
AK: Did they, obviously I mean, when you married Eli, you know, he was coming from a
community of Lebanese, did you feel welcome there, was it strange to be…and Anglo-Saxon
person marrying into a Lebanese family?
CS: Well I felt…my family felt very much that way.
AK: They did?
CS: Well any…well in my country, where I was, in the Sandhills, um…it was even strange to
talk with somebody from the north… “There’s an old Yankee,” you know? What in the
world are they saying and what in the world are you going to buy from them, you know? And
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um…yea they were even that kind. And they were certainly um, well they were strict people,
and when I married Eli of course my brother got a acquainted with Eli too and he liked him
and they did a little bit of business together and um...
[25 MINUTES]
…that was the breaking point, and then one day um, you know, umm he met my family and
my home and everything and um…but he knew that I never had much experience with
anything, you know, and he taught me and he encouraged me and this is the reason I said,
you know, I had lost my mother so early and had lost my father almost because he got
depressed and you know, he could only do so much, he finally lost a lot of his land and that
depressed him too. So all of these are in the story I’m gonna give you. But anyway, getting
back, you want to talk about the Lebanese people. Well they were all old friends of me, and I
made…I was a member of their family. And then when Leonard came, he was a little baby
laying in his crib, they all came… “I want to see that little Saleeby!” and if he’d been red
haired I don’t know what they would have thought. But anyway, you can look at him and say
“He’s a Saleeby all right!”[Laughs] Anyway, they were straight people, but a little bit offish
too, you know, just “How’s this gonna work, you know? Why’d Eli marry that girl?” and uh,
so, they accepted me, made dresses for me, uh, would come and help me with anything, came
to work with me in the studio and so, I mean, I just had another family. And my father would
come and…he liked him…very much liked Eli, buy you know, it was something strange for
a Scotch-Irish to marry out of your race, you know, out of your class, too. Completely out.
Everything was different, but I found out he was just like the rest of us. I mean people are the
same, um… and I have uh…and I’ve met a lot of different kinds of people now. But, uh, I
was telling you about trying to get to Lebanon, being baptized in the Jordan River, and I
thought… “He used to tell me…” he’d see all the cosmetics and everything I’d buy and he’d
tease me, he said “Look, I don’t have to buy all that deodorant and perfume and everything, I
was baptized in the Jordan River and I won’t ever stink.” And so I thought about that when I
was in Israel, I was baptized there, and um…I then I went to Jesus’ tomb, and I did all those
things. I took a cruise on the Sea of Galilee and I went to the Dead Sea, you know, the lowest
place in the world, and uh, went in there and it’s true, you can’t…you can’t…you won’t
drown, and I can see why Peter might have walked on the water, you know, but um, I mean,
that’s just kid thinking. Um, anyway, I did do all those things and uh…I…that’s after
retirement you know, had time to do these things, went to Australia, took a long trip, tour of
31 days, big class…private everything…
AK: That sounds wonderful.
CS: All right, while I was teaching, too, while I was teaching I would save a little bit of
money, and I would buy a little bit of land, and when I was teaching…I never thought of
myself as a good teacher, but I always wondered well what…I loved my students, I always
thought of myself as more of a guidance teacher, a guidance person, but I’ve always
wondered what effect did I have…and recently I had two contacts…
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[Interruption- Phone Rings]
AK: We just need to wait till…
AK: OK, go ahead!
CS: OK. I don’t know where we were, where were we?
AK: Uh, you were talking about these student who came and uh…
CS: Oh yes, these two students…I saw one student not too long ago, went to a nightclub, was
there you know, just eating dinner, and this girl came down and I thought “I know that girl” I
said “My goodness…” and I remembered that she was one of my students. And so
waited…cause she had her guest too, you know…
[30 MINUTES]
…so she went to the restroom and I decided I’d go and talk to her, so I went to the restroom
and I said “I know, I know you.” And she said “Yea I know you, you’re Mrs. Stanley.” And I
said “Yea” and I said “while we’re here it’s wonderful to see you, but while you’re here, will
you tell me if you remember anything that I taught you…do you remember anything that you
want to tell me?” She said, “Yea, you had my teeth fixed.” She had ugly teeth, she was a
pretty girl but had real ugly teeth and I told her, “You need to have your teeth fixed because
you’ll have a hard time holding a job until you do that.” And um, she said, “I can’t, my
father and mother can’t afford it and I can’t afford it and they don’t want me to do it.” And I
said, “You ask them if we can do it.” And she said “Sure, if you want to do it.” So I took her
down to this dentist, this is my student now, I took her down to the dentists, to one dentist I
knew, and I sad “Look, this girl needs some help. Can we work something out? I’ll get her a
job and she can pay some…you know…a little bit along as she can.” He said “That’ll be fine,
I’ll be glad to do it.” Beautiful job he did. Then she had beautiful teeth. And that’s what she
remembered. And see I got her a job, and it taught her to be responsible, and it also taught
her to make the payments of everything.
AK: That’s great.
CS: And then, I just got a letter from another girl. I said “I remember that girl, I remember
that name.” It was an email that came, she said “I want to know if you’re the Callie Stanley
that used to teach in Gastonia?” and then I wrote back, “Yea…this is me.” And so she sent
me some emails backward and forward, I still correspond with her. And um, she said, um,
“You’ll never know how much you helped me.” And I never asked for this. She said, “You
know, I’ve…every year when I have my students…” she’s a teacher… “every year when I
have my students, I tell them to write to some teacher and let somebody that’s teaching them
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now that they appreciate what they are doing.” And she said, “When I would do that I would
think about you and I’ve tried to find you, I’ve checked Gastonia and nobody knows where
you went. I checked in Raleigh, where I finally found you…well nobody knows you’re
there.” And she happened to see the website, the Saleeby website, and remembered
Leonard’s name and so she went on there and found me, and uh, cause my address is up there
too.
AK: That’s great.
CS: And she contacted me, and she said “You know, you don’t know how you helped this
poor girl.” She said “When I was there, I was having all kind of a hard time, and my mother
and father couldn’t afford to do things, and you were telling me how you had trees growing
everyday that tree would get bigger on that land, and while you were teaching, it was still
making money.” And she told me things I told her, she said “I remembered all that, and she
said I remember hanging out at your house all the time, cause she felt secure.”
AK: That’s wonderful. Let me, perhaps, shift a little bit. I want to ask you something about
the church that Eli went to and then…we’ll stop with that and then we’ll take up with the
second part, which is the book you wrote. So, when Eli was here in Wilmington, when he
was still alive, did you attend the Greek Orthodox Church in Wilmington, or…?
CS: Just one or two times, not much, because he was Methodist.
AK: He was.
CS: He just really wanted to have him baptized there, he wanted…we stayed in touch with a
minister for awhile, and when Eli died, they would call and check and see if I was doing all
right, and so uh…and his church, where he and his earlier wife had gone…that church was
not very far from us. But he joined that…and I said “Well, I’m Baptist…” so I joined… I was
a member of the Temple Baptist Church and uhh…so I uhh…
AK: So why did he become a Methodist? I mean, what lead him to become a Methodist when
he was born and raised Greek Orthodox?
CS: I don’t…well because again, because there was no Greek Orthodox Church when they
came here.
[35 MINUTES]
AK: I see.
CS: And everyone…that’s what people did. They joined something else, whatever was there
and a place that was convenient for them to go. And so he…his wife joined that, they were
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married in the First Methodist Church in Fayetteville, and he and his wife...and that day…I
heard about that, the day the got married, they um, everybody in Wilmington, I mean
Fayetteville, anybody who passed by their store, at that time they had the Palace of Sweets,
they got ice cream, and everything was free, they set it out on the sidewalk. Everything was
free that day, when they got married. So…
AK: So he started out with this store in Fayetteville but you said he also worked in groceries,
so he would go to Florida, pick up groceries, and bring them back up here?
CS: Well, he would bring produce…
AK: Produce.
CS: …mainly, it was still…he went…after he went from the Palace of Sweets, and they’d
sold that place, that was near the old markethouse downtown, and that place is still there. I
mean the place is still there, but its something else now, but it was the Palace of Sweets then
and when they built the warehouse, that was over near the railroad at um, in Fayetteville, and
that was a big place, and they had a place outside where they could…show food you know,
produce, different kinds. And a day didn’t go buy when they didn’t fill an order for
uh…that’s how that was.
AK: How many siblings did he have? Did he have only one brother or did he have more than
one brother, Eli?
CS: He just had one brother there…
AK: One brother…
CS:…and his mother came with him, his father had died and was buried in Lebanon. And so
they came here and they still own, they still owned property at that time in Lebanon and they
stayed there…and that’s in the book, you’ll find it, pictures of the church they went to and
pictures of uh…and that history…the church history that I had done on everybody is in there.
Umm. Well, it’s just a wonderful thing to have two great big families. And since I’ve been
married, I’m real close to then, they come all the time to see me and my little niece, little
Saleeby niece went to uh…went…worked in Merle Norman studio for me for awhile. That’s
her first job and uh, and now she’s eighty years old herself. And uh, but she’s here. She still
comes to see me and we stay very close…and Leyton loves the Saleeby family…they accept
him right off, I thought I was gonna have problems…haven’t had any problems, so and you
know what? I got Saleeby friends everywhere…and these people I feel like they’re my
brothers and sisters almost. And um, the Stanley family is the same way…and the Stanley
family got acquainted with them and the two families get along fine! And so I wrote the long
big Saleeby book, I wrote the Ratley book , I wrote the Davis book, and um, that’s three.
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Um…I’ve just been writing for them. And what we do is our ancestors…we refurbish the
cemetery…fix them up like they out to be, put wrought iron fences and gates and uh…build
cement roads, whatever it takes to get there, we did that. And um, and then, Eli’s buried over
in Crosscreek Cemetery…
AK: Crosscreek Cemetery?
CS: And uh…and so, his family’s buried there and he’s buried beside his first wife because
they had bought the places you know, they had put stones there and so, he was buried there
and then um, when Leyton died, Leonard said “I want to keep my two daddies together.” So
we bought some plots over there and um, and Leyton is buried there…and um my stone’s
already up there… even though I fixed places, these other ancestors’ things and really
worked a long time on it and leader of getting all the money of getting them…
[40 MINUTES]
…people to donate, and um, we know I can’t be buried there. I’d love to be buried there
because all my ancestors going back for…almost to the Revolution and um…but uh…well
we bury there. Anyway, that’s the story. The families…was just one, even though the Stanley
family and the Saleeby family, different they were, all got along good. And all intermingle.
AK: Let me ask you one last question during this segment of the interview. Is there any of
the Saleeby family left in Fayetteville, or are you the only one?
CS: That one niece I told you…she’s here.
AK: She’s here? What’s her name?
CS: Mary Elizabeth Saleeby Council.
AK: Mary Elizabeth Saleeby Council.
CS: Alright now…and she had a sad story too. She had, um, um, well she got married and
her husband died early and left her with a family.
AK: So she’s had a difficult time?
CS: Well, you know, kind of…but um, not like I had it.
AK: Well, let us stop here, we’ll stop here and then we’ll get something to eat and um, finish
the interview by talking about the book and all the work you have done.
CS: OK…
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[Break. The tape jumps to CS discussing a house in Richmond.]
CS: I’ll tell you about this house in Richmond…and it’s the Saleeby family, and um, it was a
great big mansion on uh…Monument Avenue. And um, so what, there was a lot of things
went on in this house. This is a kind of typical, good story…a lot of things went on in this
house. For instance, they were selling Persian rugs, and they had a little storage place in the
back. Well, fancy merchants, you know, from everywhere, they got real famous for their
Persian rugs, all kind of rugs…oriental rugs, and um, so they would come there to buy rugs
from them, and then when immigrants came here, a lot of time he gave them a home. They’d
board him until he could get them started somewhere in business. Sometime selling linen,
sometimes clothes, sometimes they had to haul it on carts, sometimes, you know, later they
had trucks or whatever. But this was a home for immigrants too. He had a big house, and
they would go and stay and uh…talk and he would have them get started in some place of
business. Now this was true for a lot of people in each town…there was usually one older
person there who the immigrants…it was someplace for somebody to go and how to get
started. They had to have somebody…some connection, something to do when they got here.
And um, so, um, they would stay there and then he would get them started in business…we
had the rich merchants coming, we had the immigrants…poverty stricken coming, living in
this house at different times of course, but I wanted to tell you…then family members would
go, it was a place for families to go and uh have a conference or something. Anyway, the
reason I wrote this story was in memory of that house. And um...a memory...what made this
house. And it was recently sold out of the family. The youngest son sold it. And um, he of
course got a brand new house. But uh...he’ll never be home again. He moved part of his
home and his house, but its not home again. Anyway this is what I wrote. We express
homage to this: “They passed this way, the rich merchants and immigrants and the blue
bloods of Virginia. Walked these halls…” and I got the halls there…
[45 MINUTES]
… “walked these halls and sat at the table, and warmed their feet at the fireplaces. The
peddlers and the rich merchants sold their stories…told their stories at night, and family and
friends left their footprints. This mansion at 12…3224 Monument Avenue serves as a mecca
for friends, family members and their descendents for generations. And even when lights are
low…were low and during the storms of the past, they found their way around the halls and
stairways and they peeped through the doors and the windows and watched the traffic of
Richmond’s famous Monument Avenue. As we close this chapter at the Saleeby/Saleeba
home and we march to new quarters…may the roses and sweet shrubs welcome those who
pass and may the…spring breeze sweeten the air and may the snows of winter fall softly on
its towers.”
AK: That’s beautiful.
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CS: I wrote that. Do you like that?
AK: It’s beautiful.
CS: I thought you’d like that and then this man’s picture now…is not of this one, but he’s
another man that did a whole lot. He lived in Sailsbury, North Carolina. And this is his story
and his life…
AK: He’s also a Saleeby? He’s from the Saleeby family?
CS: Yeah. So this is yours… [Hands paper to AK]
AK: Thank you, now this story is part of the book you put together? This is part of the book
you put together? It is?
CS: [nods] Yea. And the family pictures…I’m gonna give you those…or did I give them too
you?
AK: So uh…
CS: Oh wait a minute, just a minute…let me see. I’m missing something… [goes through
papers]. Dedication: “The book is dedicated to the memory of my husband, Eli Saleeba/
Saleeby in honor of our wonderful son, Eli Leonard Saleeby and his wife Elaine Parker
Saleeby. And to the benefits of Saleeby/Saleba association of families. And in recognition of
those individuals who have served this association in leadership roles and in those families
who have supported the operations of the association with monetary contributions. So this is
reason I give it to the association see? And so they own it now…I got five hundred that I’m
selling for them. And so that’s my contribution to the family. And here’s umm….that is
umm…I don’t think you need that. We’ll it’s the sequence of that book…
AK: Right.
CS: Oh…here is one of the people that documented my work.
AK: Well perhaps we can talk about how you came to write this book…because it is a
magnificent accomplishment and I wonder if you could tell us a bit…
CS: I’ll tell you the truth, the Lord helped me. And it moved from not too much…to
much…to terrific.
AK: Well can you tell us from the beginning how the idea for the book came and how you
ended up writing it?
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CS: …the association….we gave them, we started collecting the first meeting here. I started
collecting material and telling them we need to know about the families. I collected material.
And I asked them for pictures…they gave me pictures. It wasn’t too long then, years later,
you know, they said well “Where are the pictures I mailed you…that I gave you. Those are
the only pictures we have. Where are they?” I had to scrounge to try to find those pictures
everywhere. And by that time, they were kind of scattered you know. Well I said “Lord, this
ain’t going to work. I’ve asked for things…I’ve got myself into something.” I said, “This
thing’s not going to work!” and I got all those [inaudible] people looking at me for
something! So I…that was the reason I wrote the book. ‘Cause I already had myself
obligated without knowing it. I thought somebody else was going to write the book…
[50 MINUTES]
…Because there was a daughter of the first one who wrote the book and she said uhh…you
know…it was her father, so he wrote the first part…of I mean, the old book. And I thought
well, she should do it, not anybody else, and the association said she should do it…she
agreed to do it, she kept it for about a month, and we had to buy a recorder and everything
and did that and then she came back with it all…she said, “It’s too much for me, I can’t do
this.” Then we got somebody else to agree to do it…
AK: What was her name? Do you remember?
CS: Helen Saleeby. Her story’s in there.
AK: And she’s from Fayetteville too?
CS: Uh…she’s now in, um, yea she’s in South Carolina and um, and uh…right now
I…anyway her material is in the book. You’ll find her. Her whole family is in there. and
she’ll be identified and you’ll see her. And she’s still living, she’s about 91 or 2. And
anyway, she gave the book up, she said “I can’t do this.” And uh, just the things…we didn’t
have that much…but anyway I was obligated because I had…I was the one who got the
pictures. And uh, and they came to me. And then we got somebody else to rewrite the book.
Wasn’t long before it came back, and it said, all the stuff, I said…and then they said “Well
mother, can you put it together?” So I didn’t just get there, I was thrown there, but I had
started it early without even knowing I was starting it…by asking for material. I said we
ought to keep and we ought to get to know each other’s family and somebody ought to put it
together….and then…somebody ought to take this, an old book, put it together…no luck. So,
I had to do it. And so, I um, started with it and the…the deeper I got into it, I wasn’t going to
do that much. I was just going to do the ones, the families that I knew. And I started off
those, so I started off with those and chose those and started getting mail from everywhere.
And different people and different ones would talk and say “She’s writing a book, she’s
doing this…” and word got around. And I said “Well…” And one day my girl that was
working with me on the computer, I hired her full time, we would start from the morning ‘till
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night and didn’t do anything else. Type and work and keep going. And she was recording.
And that’s when we had to come up with a system to create a database…go back to the old
book and get everything you can, go back to the family trees and get everything you can, and
put it together, and go back to the old history and study it and put that together. Make sure
you got it right. Uh…I had to do all the research, and she did the typing, see, and recording,
and then we had to get a program, we used Family Tree Program, and um Family Tree is
fine, except it doesn’t allow you to put pictures in it and it has a place, though, where you can
tell about each generation. A little place in there, I’m telling you this because your study can
look…you can use this material. Whenever you start looking at them, if there was something
in a story that people wanted to say that was worth writing, if they didn’t write it, I would
write what I knew about them. Or what I could find out about them…and it was a place
where they call “notes.” And so, I could put something there, but to get there pictures of the
family together, that still had to be done differently. And I got pictures and there’s
families…each one’s got the leadership page and a chance to write their own story and
sometimes they did write the story. And sometimes they didn’t, I had to ask for information
and I wrote the story. But anyway, I was getting research and working with people and she
was typing and recording. And when we got our database established, then we could go back
and somebody would write to us and say they are so and so and was born so and so and we
could look back and see well, which line did he come off of? Well we found the family tree,
you know, we finally, through the old history, designed a way…these are the people that all
these people came from. And so, um, there was one name...um...Simon and he…
[55 MINUTES]
…his crowd went to [inaudible, Arabic] and the rest went to [inaudible, Arabic]. You know
the…you can pronounce those words…I’ve never learned how. I can spell them, but I can’t
pronounce them. And anyway, that’s the way it is…and so we went from that point on as we
would…then one day the lady said, “You know, this is getting to be worldwide!” And so, she
named it herself…the Saleeby/Saleeba Family…Worldwide Family From Ancient to Modern
Times.” So she had named it “Worldwide” but it was…and just put that down, thinking we’d
change the name and then I said, now…and it got advertised a little bit and people said
“She’s teaching…” we’re writing a worldwide book. Then I had to say “Well how am I
going to justify writing a worldwide book?” You can see what a mess you can get in to? So
that’s the reason it got to Metropolitans, ok, if he’s in charge of one area and he’s in charge
of this area and he’s in charge over here and he’s in charge over there and who took over
after he got started…and you see you’re getting into who did what and where? And how did
the name get to be Saleeby, Saleeba, Saleebaa? It’s spelled so many derivatives of Saleeby.
Then I had to find out, “Well, what was the first name?” If it was a derivative of Saleeby,
how’d I know that? Go back to old history and find out. Who was oldest in history that was
mentioned? You go back to biblical times, and so he was a Saleeby. And what happened,
they would sell the merchandise and follow the old trade routes and they would associate
with other people and they would go to college, foreign colleges and…the foreign languages
spelled it a different way and then they had to adopt that name because the credentials were
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made that way. I found out how…another reason they came to this country and had different
names…Saleeby names…and then the next big development was the Saleeba name, well my
husband’s name was Eli Saleeby Saleeba. No, Eli Saleeba Saleeby, so I had to go back to his
ancestors…
AK: Ok, she needs to change the tape….
FINISHED WHOLE TAPE. [57 MINUTES TOTAL]
BEGINNING OF PARTIAL TAPE
CS:…this is why, that I had to have personal contacts with family. For instance, a
Metropolitan knows more about who the families are than anybody else, see? So I said,
“Well…we have a cousin who was a Metropolitan…”then I got looking and all the
Saleebas…where they were…everywhere…well they were in charge of whole countries of
it! And I said “Worldwide we can justify the name…” and so we, and then when I went back
to old history, when you can see from ancient times to modern times, you got to have the old
history. So I had to have the old history and I had to have the new history, and how the
names came about and what church they went to. I got to looking at that and said,
“Lord…how these Baptists and Methodists going to think about when they read about…see
all this pictures about Orthodox Metropolitans and uh…and…everything she’s writing about
is Metropolitan….and we’re Baptists…we’re Presbyterian…” then I had to find out why they
were Presbyterians, you know. I had to do the church [inaudible]…so that’s what I gave you
that little story about the church.
AK: Approximately how many Saleeby family members do you think there are in North
Carolina?
CS: What?
AK: Approximately how many members of the Saleeby family are in North Carolina,
today…do you think? Do you have any idea?
CS: Um…well South Carolina’s got a lot. And, uh, North Carolina has got a few. But see the
older ones are dying out now and have died out. And um…but um…there’s more of them in
South Carolina. Now Helen Saleeby lives in South Carolina and when Eli came here, he went
first to Hartsville, South Carolina. And the reason he went to Hartsville was his uncle was
there. Now Hartsville was just little small place at the time. It’s much larger now. But
whenever he…he had there a merchandise company and a produce thing and you know he
started out just selling from a cart or walking and carrying a bag on his back. And that’s the
way he started, but he got where he owned two or three lots there and he had a merchandise
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business and he had a candy company. So Eli and his brother went there cause it was his
uncle….it was a place they could stay, see…
[phone rings in background]
CS…so that’s where they stayed at first. He learned how to make candy, that’s why the
Palace of Sweets, see? He moved from there, I knew something about candy making, and
then he knew something about produce because he was taught that, he knew something about
marketing, cause he had tried to market things for them. But anyway, to run a business he
had to know more than that. But you see, he stayed there…he not knowing where he was
gonna go…with his uncle. And that’s why I say, there’s a person always in a town that helps
somebody else…and that’s the way they did. And now I know you know about Coming to
America, that book, and I got copies of that myself. And I read their stories and its
not…uh…it’s interesting but its not family-style. But this way each person had to
write…could write, their own story, and I invited everybody to do that, to write their story
and send their pictures and each place I’ve talked to…the people who have sent me the
pictures. Um…and anyway…now what was your question, now, get me directed the right
way…?
AK: Oh it’s quite alright. I was just wondering if you know how many people from the
Saleeby family live in North Carolina? But if you don’t…
CS: I don’t know…
AK: It’s not important.
CS: We don’t have as many as many in North Carolina…I don’t think. There are probably
more than I know, you know, or… more that I can come up with immediately. Um, but there
are more in South Carolina, and the ones in North Carolina mainly got their training under
that AB Saleeby, I gave you his picture…
[5 MINUTES ON PARTIAL TAPE, 63 MINUTES TOTAL]
…connected with that other one, and so he was one too who furnished places for them to stay
and eat and teach them how to do things. And he was the one who almost established
Sailsbury…
AK: He almost what in Salisbury?
CS: Almost established Salisbury…
AK: Oh really?
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CS: And he had a cousin there, Eli Saleeby, who bought early stock…they asked him
for…they had helped the Saleebys and one day they asked Mr. Eli to buy some stock with
him and he couldn’t hardly afford it, but he bought some stock with him, in Food Lion, so he
ended up being a very wealthy man.
AK: Ok, let me shift to another topic. You…mentioned and your son Leonard mentioned that
the local church here has had a festival a [Arabic] every year and it’s associated with the
Saleeby family reunion. Do you remember when this started? And how it got started and
what exactly is the purpose of this festival?
CS: Well, um, it was started by…I tell Carol Borrell is the person who has function as the
coordinator for that project. And she has a long list of people, but a lot of them are just
Americans, you know, they’re not Lebanese. But there is some Lebanese. And what she
would do for this occasion is have some Lebanese hors d’ouvres for greeting time, and
family members would go together and make grape leaves…make the hummus and different
things that you make you know, little balls, and make all those kibbeh balls and she…kibbeh
neyyeh too, to have all of it you know, for people to do what they wanted to…to get what
they wanted. And that was mainly for the Lebanese, see. So that buffet course, everybody
was invited, but if you bought a ticket to go there, that was included. And then she put on the
[inaudible]. Now that was for a church…they had a church sponsor for that…Saint Michael’s
church. And she gave all the money that she made, I mean all the money made there went to
the church. And so the church was sponsored, and then it got where it wasn’t making much
money, and we had to reach down into our pockets…Leonard had to do that, one or two had
to do that, cause the rooms got to be so expensive in the hotel and everything went up…you
know, you just had to find another way of doing it. So we did that for a while…for a long
time, then they finally say, it’s just the…the church just doesn’t want to do it anymore,
doesn’t want the obligation. And we’d advertised it as a church function, you know. And so
that’s kind of history of it.
AK: How do you spell Carol’s name, last name?
CS: Borrell, I believe it is. I got one of those folders…I can give you that, I’ll see that you get
it.
AK: OK.
CS: And I can give you her number anytime later. I don’t have it right here, right now.
AK: Well, I think that about covers most of the stuff we wanted to get. So, I wanted to thank
you so much for being generous with your time.
CS: I was so glad to do it and would be interested in how all this comes together…
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AK: We will…
FINISH [66 MINUTES TOTAL]
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Edward and Callie Saleeby Papers
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p>The Saleeby-Saliba Relief Association was created in 1916 with the objective of unifying and supporting members of the Saleeby-Saliba family across the Lebanese diaspora. The association sponsored members who emigrated from Syria and Lebanon, aiding them in their transitions to new countries. The association (now called the Saleeby-Saliba Association of Families) focuses on preserving family history and culture, especially through genealogy. Members of the extended Saleeby-Saliba family have documented the family’s diasporic history, including N.D. Saleeby's <em>A Brief History of the Saleeby/Saliba Clan and Their Branches</em>, published in 1950, and its updated version, <em>Worldwide Saleeby-Saliba Family from Ancient to Modern Times</em>, published by Callie R. Saleeby Stanley in 2008.</p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p>This collection contains three autobiographical accounts of members of the North Carolina branch of the Saleeby-Saliba Family, including iral history and written testimony. The collection represents inter-generational experiences of members of the Saleeby family in North Carolina. The subjects are descended, by blood or marriage, from the same Saleeby ancestor who lived in Souk-el-Gharb in modern-day Lebanon.</p>
Relation
A related resource
<a href="http://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/collections/show/38" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Saleeby Family Papers</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Processed by Khayrallah Center staff. Collection Guide content contributed by Claire A. Kempa and updated by Allison Hall, 2023 December.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Autobiography
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Edward Saleeby
Callie Saleeby Stanley
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001-2013
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0047
Access Rights
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Dublin Core
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Identifier
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Callie_Saleeby_Transcript_CP
Title
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Callie Saleeby Transcript
Subject
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Lebanese--United States
Emigration and immigration
Description
An account of the resource
Transcription of interview with Callie R. Saleeby Stanley, conducted by Dr. Akram Khater. 66 minutes (see PDF).<br /><br /> Stanley married into the Saleeby family as a young woman. She was the author of <span>the 2008 genealogy </span><em>Worldwide Saleeby-Saliba Family from Ancient to Modern Times. </em>This interview encompasses her marriage to Eli Saleeby, the birth and childhood of her son Eli Leonard Saleeby, and the circumstances under which she came to write the Saleeby/Salibi genealogy.
Creator
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Akram Khater
Source
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The Lebanese in North Carolina Project
Publisher
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Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
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2013
Contributor
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The Lebanese in North Carolina Project
Rights
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The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Format
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Text/pdf
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Immigration
Interviews
Lebanon
North Carolina