Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

William Taylor Interview

(B) Ms. Bailey is interviewing William Taylor, Director for Chambers Funeral Home in Matewan at the Matewan Development Center.

(B: where were you born?)

William Taylor: At Kermit, West Virginia.

Becky Bailey: And were you born at home or were you born in a hospital?

WT: Oh, I was born at home.

B: Did your mother have a doctor to help her with the birth?

WT: Yes, uh huh.

B: Okay, and what were your parents' names?

WT: Uh...father was William Franklin Taylor, and my mother was Alice Smith.

B: Alice Smith. Okay, and were they natives of...of the Kermit area?

WT: No, uh...they uh...my mother came from southern Pennsylvania, and my father he was from uh...Wetzle [sic] County, West Virginia.

B: What had brought them to Kermit?

WT: Uh...my father followed the uh...gas fields and the oil fields down in here.

B: Hmm.. hmm.. okay, how had they met, do you know?

WT: No, I'm afraid I couldn't tell you that.

B: Okay. How many brothers and sisters did you have?

WT: I've got uh...three brothers and one sister.

B: Okay. Did your parents ever uh...share with you any memories of the uh...flu epidemic of 1918, 1919?

WT: No, no.

B: What do you remember about the Great Depression?

WT: Well, we were living in Huntington at that time. I was in uh...grade school. I started grade school in uh...nineteen and twenty-nine. Er...excuse me '27, and uh...I remember that uh... my father was working in the gas fields at Inez over in Martin County. And uh...our home at that time was in Huntington, and I uh...re...do recall that we had it pretty rough. He uh...didn't make much money, and what little we did get uh...went for rent, stuff like that. And uh...I...if I recall correctly, we didn't have any welfare, anything like that. We had to pretty well uh... exist on what we could do ourself. And uh...my father uh...we did pretty as long as he was working, but he was hurt in a gas field explosion. And was sick and laid up for about two years with that, and they didn't have compensation or anything like that. And so uh...that just added to our woes, but we uh...we moved to Inez in '37, and things started getting a little better for us.

B: That's good. Umm...what stands out in your mind about World War II? Did you serve in any of the services?

WT: Oh yes, yes, I was an aerial gunner in World War II. Uh... flew on the Flying Fortress, the B-17. And uh...course I didn't have it near as rough as a lot of boys did, I realize that. Uh, but uh...you just have to do what you were told. And fortunately, why I didn't see any combat, and uh...I was mostly in the training end of it.

B: So you didn't go to, say the Pacific or...or...or to Europe?

WT: No, well, I's uh...we...I finally went to the European theatre, but uh...the war it had uh...just about quit when I got over there. I was in uh...training capacity, training other gunners and stuff like that.

B: So how long di...were you actually in the service, when did you join up?

WT: I went in in June of '42 and uh...I think I was discharged in March of '47. And then I stayed in the enlisted reserves for three years after that.

B: Why did you serve until 1947? Were men not let out of...out of the service for that long?

WT: Well, uh...I was discharged, but we...we joined the reserves, you know, in case anything else would break loose, why they could call us back. A lot of the veterans did that, got time towards their uh...army service.

B: Hmmm...let's see, how far did you go in...in...in school? How fa...far along did you go? Did you go to college?

WT: About two years of college. Hmmm hmmmm.

B: Okay, and what college was that?

WT: Western Kentucky in Bowling Green.

B: Hmmm hmmm, and what did you study?

WT: Uh...my major was commercial art.

B: Did you ever pursue that professionally?

WT: No, no I...I dropped that after the war, and never...never took it up after that.

B: Do I understand correctly, you're a mortician?

WT: Yes.

B: Is tha...okay, how did you come to that profession?

WT: Well, uh...the wife and I were married in '48, and uh...at that time I was working in the gas fields as a tool dresser on a drilling rig. And as long as uh...we had a location was drilling, we made pretty good money. But then the man I worked for had about uh...fifteen string of tools, and we would just, when we'd drill in, then we'd have to wait 'til those other fifteen got a location, and then our turn came, and sometimes maybe it would be, a couple of months before we'd get to work again. So uh...I came up to Williamson uh...looking for work, and uh...I just happened to run in to a friend of mine that I had served in the army with. And he told me uh...that the Ball Funeral Home in Williamson was looking for work, or men to work for them. So I went there and uh...and applied for the position and Mr. Ball put me to work, and...and apprenticed me, and that was in uh...March of '50. And I became licensed then in uh...'53. And then I stayed there until '62, and I came up here.

B: Right. So to become a mortician is it...was it an apprenticeship type, and...and then you...you worked up from there? And then you had to...

WT: Yes, uh...you had to se...back in those days, you had to serve two years apprenticeship, or you had to have uh...sixty hours college before they would let you apprentice, and then you served two years apprenticeship, then you went to Mortuary School for a year, and then uh...you took your state board and became licensed. Well, now uh...I think it's the same requirements only there's just one year apprenticeship. Everything else is practically the same as it was.

B: How did you come to uh...come to Matewan?

WT: Uh...they was a gentleman at that time, it was the husband of Mrs. Reams, the owner of it now, uh...was...uh...had...th...we had a...a colored man working here at that time name of Buster Darwin. And uh...I would run into him at the hospital and we'd maybe meet on an ambulance call or something like that. And he tried to get me to come here about five years before I decided to make the move, and uh...so uh...when I...I got dissatisfied where I was working, and so I came up and talked to Mr. Reams, and he put me to work, and uh...so that's uh...more or less just through dissatisfaction or something is the reason I came up here. An...and I'm glad I did I...I really uh...done well since I've been here.

B: This might seem like a crass question, but how much money does a mortician make? I mean is...is it a go...is it a good profession to go into?

WT: Oh yes. Uh...of course uh...there's a whole lot of variables there, you understand that, uh...it depends on...now if you own the funeral home, of course, naturally uh...it's uh...it's a paying thing. Uh...and uh...if you're an employee, it depends on who you're working for. Now uh...Mrs. Reams has been just like a mother to me, she just uh...has just treated me like I was her son uh... paying me top wages. Just about pays all my expenses except my uh...groceries and stuff like that. And uh...has just turned the business completely over to me just like it was my own, and so most...most uh...employees just doesn't have those benefits. Now I have no idea at all uh...what the other funeral homes are paying their employees, but it's uh...it's steady work, uh...no matter how bad times get or how good it is they're going to need your services.

B: Right.

WT: And so you'll always have work, and uh...it's...it's not a bad profession at all. I think it's became uh...in the last twenty or twenty-five years it's became a uh...respectable profession, and uh...you uh...you can make it what it is or you can be a butcher and stuff like that with it you know.

B: Hmmm hm, okay. Uh...what kind of...what kind of hours does a mortician have to work, is it more like a doctor, are you on call all the time?

WT: Well, we're on call twenty-four hours a day and uh...of course, the uh...the amount of business you do in a year depends on how much you have to work, but it uh...my particular business here uh...right at this present time, now we run between seventy-five to a hundred cases a year, and that uh...averages out about one every three days, gives us time to uh...service the people good, give them uh...uh...extra ordinarily good service, and then gives us time to clean up and everything in between the next service. And uh...it's just an ideal amount of business uh...you don't rush it to much and yet you have a little time on your hands too.

B: Alright. How um...you know th...they talk now about doctors being under a lot of stress because of the nature of their work, do you...do you as a...as a mortician, do you ever feel under stress because say in a small community?

WT: Well, no...

B: ..you know the people you might be burying?

WT: No, well, uh...if you have a real close friend or uh...babies get to me. I...I uh...they hurt me awfully bad to have to uh... work on the little fellers'. Uh...if you have a close friend why you'd rather maybe somebody else would do the work, but yet you feel like that uh...you oughta do it because then you know that it's going to be done right. And uh...not that I feel like I'm the world's best or anything, but when you do something, you know what you have done. Somebody else does it, you don't know what they have done.

B: Okay. What uh...what do you know about...about the history of the community? What have you learned coming in from the outside?

WT: Well, just about uh...I've learned more about it really, in this last year or two then before that I uh...never knew anything too much about it before I came in this area, and uh...like I say I guess in relation to the history of this place I'm really a stranger in here. Although I've been here twenty-seven years now, but uh...there's a lot of...been a lot of people here that uh... knows about things that I would never even dream about.

B: Okay. Um...I guess a question we'd like to ask people from the outside is, is there anything different about the people of Matewan, so that you've noticed from living in other places of West Virginia?

WT: No, uh...I was uh...told...I was uh...they had an old gentleman working here before I came here that uh...discouraged me from acoming up here before I did. Told me that these people in here were awfully hard to get along with, they would uh...me being a stranger why they'd run me outta here and all that sort of things, but I found that wasn't true, they...these people here uh...in this community is just takin' me to their heart. Treated me like a king almost, and uh...and it's just, they're just the finest people in the whole world, and uh...all the people in this general area are more or less like that, of course you have some uh...that's always uh...treat you mean no matter where you go, but all in all this is the perfect place to live as far as I'm concerned.

B: Okay. On the personal side uh...would you give me your wife's name? Would you...

WT: Yes. Uh...her name's Kathleen. And she's a Martin County girl. She's from Inez. And I met her after I came out of the service, and uh...we've been married uh...see, I was married in '48, that would be what? Forty...

B: ..one years.

WT: Forty-one years. And I've had uh...two daughters and I've got five grandchildren.

B: Umm umm, that's great. Uh...how did you all meet? Do you remember how you all met?

WT: Yes. Uh...when I first came out of the service uh...we established a dry cleaning business at Inez and I met her by delivering, picking up dry cleaning. And uh...uh...I uh...we met through that way.

B: Okay, hmmm. When you say your father followed the gas and the oil, is that something that uh...is that business tied to the coal industry or ....

WT: I don't believe it does, it uh...it might have uh...a link in there somewhere, but uh...I don't think uh...I understand that they make some uh...some health gas and stuff like that from coal but uh...this natural gas...I don't think it has anything uh...in relation there...I might be wrong but I don't believe there's any relationship there.

B: Ok. Just to back track a little uh...were you in the uh...in the army or the Air Force?

WT: Air Force.

B: In the Air Force, Ok, so the Air Force was a separate service by then...was it?

WT: Uh...when the war first broke out they were incorporated as the army air corps well then uh...several years pasted and I don't recall when it was but they became a separate branch...and we had our own generals and everything like that.

B: If you don't mind I'll ask you some questions through that.

WT: Uh-huh.

B: Uh...did you enlist or were you drafted?

WT: Well...I was in uh...when I was in college uh...I was in what they call the R.O.T.C. and uh...war broke out and they told us all uh...we want you to sign these reserve corp papers so we can keep you in college and let you get your education because if you don't they gonna draft you.

B: Right.

WT: And so I think that was uh...March uh...after Pearl Harbor... that's March of '42 and so I signed the papers in June, I's gone... and uh...(Laughs)

B: (Laughs) They took you anyway.

WT: They took me anyway. So it...they they have me down as being enlisted.

B: You say you trained other aerial gunners uh...where did you go say for your basic training and where did you go from there?

WT: Well I went to Atlantic City, New Jersey for my basic training. And uh...then I went to Denver Colorado uh...I had put in in the meantime for uh...aviation cadets I wanted to fly somewhere nother (or the other) and so while we were waiting to be processed I went to clerical school and then as soon I finished that then my time came up and I went into the flying end of a...for pilot training, and uh...I went to finish my basic flying and then uh...I... what they say, washed out in uh...the basic, and then uh...I still wanted to fly, so I applied for aerial gunner school, and uh...I went through that alright.

B: How did you wash out? Were you too tall? Or did you not pass the test?

WT: Na...well, that was part of it, but they...they claimed it was academic. But I think at that time they had more pilots than they...at least I want to think that.

B: (laughter) Right. What kind of...I've heard stories about you know there's physical tests that people also have to pass to... to stay...to be able to go up in an airplane, and especially a combat airplanes. Did...were those tests uh...back then...did you have those tests back then?

WT: Yes, we had to pass a pretty rigid physical, uh they uh...the only thing that uh...I had to have done uh...I had to have wisdom teeth pulled and my tonsils removed, other than that I was...I was alright for flying.

B: Okay. How about uh...where did you...where did you serve once you became an aerial gunner? Where did you train other gunners?

WT: Well, I trained at Kingman, Arizona, and we...and I stayed there I guess uh...oh about...we trained...I don't know how many uh...if I recall correctly this training at that time took about nine months, and uh...we trained, I'd say five or six classes before I was transferred uh...I went overseas then from there.

B: And where did you go when you went overseas?

WT: Well, I first went to North Africa, and uh...stayed there awhile and then uh...they flew us up into Fugi(?), Italy. And then I went from there over into England, stayed up at Leagues, England fer' oh...I guess for four or five months, then I was sent over to Germany.

B: Did you train anybody that participated in...in...in the uh... D-Day Invasion or anything like that?.

WT: Well, that I don't know, honey. I...I wouldn't have any way of knowing, but probably so.

B: Okay, uh...what were your impressions of the different places you were sent overseas, what did you think of North Africa? What did it look like?

WT: Oh...it...it...it was a terrible place far as I'm concerned. It was     _______. I'd went to a place as near as I recall called City Bellavez(?). Uh...and it was just a desert, very, very hot, and of course after we...we never got to stay anywhere up close to the coast, but it uh...looked to me like, uh...if we'd fly over that that it was uh...pretty fertile, uh...pretty nice along the coast, but when we got over into Italy, why it was real nice over there. Of course, a lot of the places uh...that we went where it was already torn up through battle and stuff like that. And uh... but uh...England was beautiful, it just...oh...it just spit and polished you'd just...everything neat and trimmed. France was nice, uh...but it uh...it...I didn't like it near as well as I did England. Uh...Germany reminded me...uh, the part I was in, I was in Hessia(?). Uh...it reminded me of our country here right where we're at.

B: Oh, really? Okay. Uh...if you don't mind I'll ask you some questions about, say some of the figures in...of World War II, and...and see what you remember hearing about them at the time. Say in North Africa, did uh...was Patton in North Africa at that time?

WT: Hmmmmmm. I really don't know. I remember uh...the British... I believe we had a Montgomery in a... in there. Now the Americans, I don't believe that uh...if I recall, uh...whether Patton was there at that time or not. Uh...I know we's...there's quite a bit of talk about Rommel. And uh...I think it was mostly the British and the Germans that we were more to talk about then...we didn't stay in there only about uh...three or four days. Then we come on out.

B: What did you remember hearing about say, say, Rommel? What did you remember hearing about him?

WT: Well, we heard that uh...of course I think he's uh...a... reputation was right, he was the old "desert fox" they called him, you know. And uh...he uh...he was a pretty smart cookie on tactics and stuff like that and...and I think that the big reason that uh...they beat him at all, he just run out of equipment an' we just out equipmented him and.....

B: How about Montgomery? What did you hear about Montgomery?

WT: Well, he was uh...a real smart general, I think, although I think he thought he was better than he actually was and uh...but he...he was a fine general.

B: Okay. What do...what did you base that opinion on? Did you actually...did you ever see him or...or what you heard about him...

WT: No, never did see him just was the scuttlebutt that came down you know, what we'd hear men talking about and uh...he uh...I think he wanted to run the whole show over Eisenhower(?), but we didn't care too much about that, you know.

B: How about Eisenhower(?), what do you remember a-about him?

WT: Never did meet the man, but I know that we uh...we had all the confidence in the world for him and uh...we were just glad that he was our general and was on our side. And I think the Germans uh...feared him and uh...I think uh...that when the war was over uh...I think he made us a fine president.

B: Okay. Hmmm. If you had to pick, say one general that stood out in your mind, who would...who would you...who would you pick to say that you admired him, or that you thought that he was...

WT: Well, uh...I liked Patton because, you know the Americans seemed to be meely-mouthed, they don't want to do nothing, they want to pacify and everything like that and...and I'll go along with that to a certain extent, but uh...the way, for example, the way the Iranians and everybody's doing us over there today and we're not seem doing anything about it, and Patton if he had something, buddy, he went and done it. And he got it over with and uh...that may not be the right way to think but uh...I think that uh...most Americans has had them right up to here. And uh...I think we're just too lenient on people, and letting these little countries slap us around and....

B: What did you hear about his death? You were still in the service, what did you hear about Patton's death?

WT: Patton's death uh...if I underst..stand it correctly that he was killed in an automobile accident and uh...uh...I don't know the details or anything like that we just got word through our little newspaper that we had. Well, of course, it... the news got out before we read that and uh...he uh...we were just really sorry to hear that. Uh...after 'im being all through that combat and everything, that just didn't seem possible that anything like that could happen.

B: Right. Right. Okay, hmmm, what do you think about how since the war Germany and Japan have become two of our allies, what... what's your feeling on that?

WT: I think that's alright. It's uh...I'd rather have 'em allies than against 'em, against us. Uh...I think they uh...business wise has been a whole lot smarter than we are, and uh...but then again see we're Americans, that's our way of doing things. And we...we are a great country so maybe it's alright.

B: Okay, well not to jump back, but I guess the best question I... I should leave us with is uh...where is the Chambers' Funeral Home, is that still the name of it or is it...?

WT: Yes. If I understand correctly uh...there was uh...Mrs. Reams' grandfather originated the firm Chambers, and uh...maybe there's been five or six different owners down through the years, but uh...none of them has ever attempted to change the name, they just kept it right on and we're presently located down in Hatfield Bottom. And we moved down there in uh...'63, built new. Uh...our old funeral home was uh...do you know where Don Matney lives?

B: Yes sir.

WT: Now, that was the old funeral home when I first came here. So we built new down there and went down at that time funeral homes were tending to go to the outskirts of towns, and that's how come us rather putting right in town moved out there.

B: Was there a reason for that, was it a health code?

WT: It...no, uh...it was just seemed like a trend at...that was going on back in those days. They wanted parking space and everything like that. Get out of the hubbub of the city.

B: Okay, well thank you for talking to me this morning.

WT: It's been my pleasure.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection