Willistine McClain - Holiday Memories (clip)

Interviewed by Monica Palmeira on January 25, 2012

Willistine McClain (WM): [The] thing that sticks out most in my mind is her fruitcakes.

Monica Palmeira (MP): Fruitcakes? She made really good fruitcakes?

WM: She would always make fruitcakes at Christmas. And she would make fruitcakes for just about everybody in the neighborhood.

MP: Oh really? She would make them for, people would ask her to make them?

WM: Yes. And they would bring her this material and she would make the fruitcakes. She would start the day after Thanksgiving to making the fruitcakes.

MP: Really, so she would make fruitcakes for a month?

WM: Yeah, because she would put them in something like a tin can, stain and cover them up. She would baste them with wine, I don’t know how regular now, I don’t even remember, but to keep them from drying out. And of course on Christmas, on Christmas Eve night, they would always cut the cake.

MP: And they were real good?

WM: Yeah

MP: Nice

WM: They were always moist. I understand that wine…

Tags: audio clip, holidays

Oral history interview of McClain, Willistine conducted by Palmeira, Monica on January 25, 2012 at Chapel Hill, NC.

Citation: Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “Willistine McClain - Holiday Memories (clip),” From the Rock Wall, accessed October 23, 2025, https://www.fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/williestine-mclean-holiday-memories.