Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Tom Blankenship Interview

Paul McAllister: This is Paul Mcallister, it's June 1, 1990. And we’re interviewing Tom Blankenship. Okay. Tom would you give us your name and where your born and what year and month.

Tom Blankenship: My name is Tom Blankenship. I was born in Matewan WV, November 23, 1917.

P: Okay. where abouts in the town.

TB: The present time the present home site now is occupied I believe by a couple called by uh...Mike Edwards and Judy Edwards.

P: Okay. Ah. Your father was the sheriff of Mingo County. Is that correct.

TB: My father was a railroad agent, express agent, telegraph operator. And he'd taken a leave of absence and I don't know exactly what year that he was elected sheriff. He took a leave of absence to run for sheriff and was elected. But I do know that he was sheriff during the that we have here in Matewan with the Baldwin-Felts detectives in 1920-21. He was sheriff, I know that. Now whether he was sheriff a couple of years prior to that or a couple after that, I don't, ah, I can't recall.

P: Okay. uh...what kind of uh...memories do you have of that period of your father telling ya.

TB: My father, telling me.

P: Uh..ha

TB: Well, I's approximately three, maybe four. That's, see, that's the mine wars and say twenty, twenty-one. I approximately three and a half years old, I do remember grandmother Chamber's taking me and my brothers or rather brother down in the cellar. I can remember the shooting faintly, uh...I remember my father used to tell me that uh...he was sheriff when all the trouble started here. Those days you didn't have cars. Like we do now and alot of times you'd travel by horse back or you rode the trains. And daddy being sheriff of county seat being of Williamson, his office was down there. That afternoon he came home from the county seat and stepped off the train, he told me that there was ten people laying dead in the streets, here in Matewan. I think uh...most of them were Baldwin-Felt detectives that they was a miner, the mayor, Mayor Testerman, ah...that ah, another thing was that uh...my mother and daddy knew Baldwin and knew Felts, uh...I think from a social stand point, I mean that they were friends over the years, I suppose. I do recall my father uh...when the trouble all started was offered money not to deputize people to use, be used, against the miners. Which he refused uh...my mother told me that she knew the wives of the two detectives. One, crawled, and she told me crawled through the yard, the yard down to our home ah, you know how the railroad out here is in relation to the town. Came right by our back yard and everything. One, was them that crawled in our yard was wounded I don't know which one it was, I can't recall. She helped them put him on the train, to get him out before he got killed. I recall, people talking about uh...when we had the old homestead over here used to set out front there in rocking chairs, you know, and the trains come through, the passenger trains, the people coming through they say would lay down the horn on the train, the isle of the train, cause there's always somebody shooting under the train or from the train. Doctor Simpkins, I believe it was, a Dentist was sitting on the front of the hotels and got shot through the jaw, if I recall right. Ah..I don't know whether if from the train or from the mountains or what.

P: Uh..well let ah..ah

TB: I grew up here uh...it was uh...not like it is now actually. Ah..when I was growing up as a kid I lived all over Matewan and uh...I,I had a good childhood here. The town was clean, it was a small town where people, everybody knows each other, ah..families watch each others kids, you know, If you was to come in from school and some mother saw you doing something she'd tell your mother and you'd get taken care of when you got home. Stuff like that.

P: uh..huh

TB: And the mines were working good ah..they always had a good baseball team, they'd give these boys that come in here to play, you know, in the summer time, give them jobs at the mine. Used to have alot of recreation ma..meant restrict the summer time.

P: Who had the teams?

TB: Who had them? Well Red Jacket Coal Company, all the coal companies around would have baseball teams, they'd have little league and they used uh...the coal company down here, New Howard, we call it. I guess it's Lobata is that the same name. They had a baseball team, Matewan had one, Red Jacket had one.

P: Matewan as a town had a baseball team.

TB: Wa..ah

P: Or was it.

TB: Red Jacket, I mean Red Jacket had a good baseball team.

P: Uh-Huh.

TB: Uh...as matter of fact we had a Hatfield boy, Blance Hatfield, pitching. uh, he, he was major, major league material, believe it or not, he was a hell of a basketball, I mean baseball player.

P: Where were the games played?

TB: Where they played? Well, Now, uh...then up at Red Jacket cross from where the Junior High School is up there or use to be up there..I guess its Elementary School now they had a baseball diamond, nice one. I remember Daddy use to take me up there on Sundays you know. Drink pop, eat candy and you know. Hot dogs and things in that nature and people turn out for them, Lord they had a wonderful place for a baseball game. Back in those days all your mining areas in West Virginia, I remember that before I went off to College that, uh..uh.. up in Northern West Virginia, up uh.. Fairmont, West Virginia, that uh.. all the mining area team's had uh.. good baseball teams. They played each other on weekends you know and everything.

P: uh..huh

TB: And these are kids, college kids and local kids, were giving jobs at the mines to play baseball, by the operators.

P: You mentioned uh.. your homeplace here in Matewan was uh.. Did your father build that house.

TB: Yes! to my knowledge he did, yes.

P: Do you know about what time?

TB: Well, he and mother, lets see I imagine around 1902, 1903 somewhere along there I don't know too tell you the truth Paul.

P: Okay.

TB: I was born there.

P: But it was, nobody owned the house previous to your....

TB: No, I think daddy built it, yeah.

P: Uh, Who was your mother?

TB: My mother was a Chambers, Georgie (Georgia) Chambers uh... Her father was S.T. Chambers, who owned the Har...Hardware Store where the confrontation took place between uh... the detectives, detectives, two detectives and uh... Mayor Testerman said "Hatfield" uh... My grandfather owned the store, he is the one that started the funeral business here, Chamber's Funeral Home, it's been in the family all these years uh... Well my brother-in-law bought the, Geraldine my sister, come home for the funeral, when her husband bought the funeral home, it was the understanding that when it was sold to them that it would retain the Chamber's name or it has and I guess it will always will be. Mother was uh... one of two girls in the family and then she had (unintelligible, sounds like naming the children) about uh.. four or five boys and two girls.

P: How would she of been related to Ed Chambers?

TB: Ed Cha...Chambers I believe Ed Chambers was Uncle Reece Chambers, not well we call him Uncle Reece, son. And Uncle Reece was a brother to to uh... I don't know if he is a brother to my grandfather or not I can't remember. I knew Uncle Reece real well, I mean he, the stories they would tell about him would uh... He lived over that alley down there were uh... were uh... that little brick house down there uh... Well I think uh... it's (not intelligible) Well right straight across the street from where Gerald Dean used to live, our home place across there. Ah, Un.. Un.. Un...Un.. Uncle Reece lived over there in the back alley. And years they say, years after the, the mine deal and everything that uh..he'd scream at night, I don't know where if he'd have nightmares about ah...ah..about the mine wars or and (not intelligible)through some Virginia. And when he'd go to Virginia he'd go into descize (?) on the train going through McDowell County,and down in that area.

P: uh...huh

TB: They'd tell me, I don't know whether this is true or not. They'd tell (ah...from a crowd of people) du.. du..during the day that took place when they started all that shooting and everything he and another group of men came across the river in a boat down there where old Uncle Thurman used to live there was a lady by the name of Miss Duty ran a boarding house. A two story house I think it was front porch on it swing, chairs they got out of the boat and came up the alley. They was two detectives...were sitting in the chair and I think they were wounded. And these miners walking up the back alley, streets see Uncle Reece as a miner, Uncle Reece said I'll be along in a minute. He stopped, now this was told, I don't know whether it was true or not. Ah.. they said they heard two gun shoots and he joined the miners on up the alley a piece there. That way if somebody went by there they found two of them dead, ha..I don't know.

P: Huh

TB: You know you heard so many things in those days that I suppose..somebody took a little bit and just kept adding to it I guess. But some seem to think that maybe Uncle Reece remembers that and just had nightmares over it. So I don't know.

P: You mentioned a story about ah.. over hearing something over the telephone, the operators.

TB: Well, the book I got is the Hatfield and McCoy Feud and back towards the end of the book is a few chapters says "Entitled the New Error Takes Over" and its about the mine wars between 1920 and '21. And it tells about ah..ah..Sid Hatfield being the chief of police and Mayor Testerman the Mayor and the competition in front of Grandfather Chamber's store with a warrant for Sid's arrest that Testerman ah..looked at it wadded it up and through it at their feet and said it wasn't worth the dawn paper it's written on. So they turned and went back to where the hotel is. And I had a cousin named May Chaffins on the switch board. They went back to the hotel to get their guns, so the story in the book. Ah..and she overheard them make the remark ah.. said I'm going to get ah.. Testerman, Hatfield, and Blakenship before we leave town. Cause (not intelligable) rough with the chief of police and the mayor and daddy being sheriff. Daddy was in Williamson while it took pla...I mean the shooting took place, got off the train that afternoon and saw the bodies in the street ah..Mu..for years I can remember..where the..right straight across from the bank..what's over there..post office isn't it. No, new post office up there. I mean really right straight across on the corner. Used to be the bank years and years ago.

P: Hu..huh

TB: When I was growing up I would remember ah..ah..Here's Main Street and here, here's that building. Right.

P: hu

TB: Here's a window and ya.. down in the corner. Here's the street going down there and here's a window. I remember..I remember years after Paul that one of the miners or one of the miners might of got shoot, I don't know. Somebody fired through that, through that window and hit him in the back of the head and killed him. And that bullet them bullet holes them bullet holes stayed in that wall for I can't remember for, hell when I was a kid I could remember that thing I don't know how the damn thing stayed there for years I guess. Hu..they say it was a long (not intelligable) time, I don't know.

P: uh..huh

TB: And only what I read and what my father and mother told me and uh..uh..but I know when I was growing up here was..it was a good town, good people. uh..it was a nicer town, of course it was a nicer town than it is now.

P: uh..huh

TB: And when the project, I've been reading in the paper about you all.. uh plus the thing I got this morning that comprehensive plan that you all. Hey, that..that becomes a reality boy it it's going to be nice. I tell you it's going to be nice little town. If it ever comes to being.

P: There's going to be some opportunities for.....

TB: oh..ya. Let's see we've got,got all these trees, I mean lumber, Lumber industry, coal industry, one thing I'm sure of though they're not going to get a damn thing in here if they don't do some road building.

P: uh..huh

TB: You know that as well as I do.

P: That's for sure.

TB: uh..uh..

P: Back to the old age, do you ever remember seeing ah.. Sid Hatfield or Ed Chambers or Mayor Tester....

TB: I may have seen them when I was ah..ah little fellow, I can't recall it, I mean I wasn't old enough to

P: Right.

TB: Maybe I mean down through the years I may around four or five of course they got killed later on you know. They,they did finally get them to go to Welch for the trial. Uh..they begged them not to go.

P: oh

TB: Of course, here again there was rumors about Sid having an affair with the Mayor's wife. They did't want to print something like that but uh..

P: no

TB: Uh..it was rumored that uh..well..uh..uh..uh..she was married Testerman and after Testerman was killed she married Sid. I think.

P: They had a son...uh...Testerman and uh...

TB: Chester....

P: His son was named Jack Testerman...

TB: I don't know...

P: I...I think he was about your age at that time, five years old when the shooting happened?

TB: Uh...me I was about twenty, twenty-one, I was three or four, three and a half, four years old...

P: Okay, I was just wondering...

TB: I faintly remember she, my grandma and my mother lived across the river from each other.

P: Uh-huh...I just remmeber [sic] if you might remember as a kid playing with this Jack Testerman?

TB: Uh...no, I played with my own cousins, 'cause, I'm glad you asked that uh...one, one of our relatives came, came to Gerri's (?) funeral today,she was telling people down at the funeral home, said she was talking about this place and everything, mine war, and daddy and all of them, she said when Tom was little, about she said three and half or four years old, said me and her brother and some more of the kids in the neighborhood down in the end of town down there, we where playing down in the alley down there, dirt street, well the shooting began, and I kindly, like I was tongue tied or something and they started shooting and she said God Damn Paw said run their shooting again... So, I don't know whether I said it or not, she says I did...

P: Uh-huh...

TB: But her mohter [sic] told her that she said, and uh...'course I guess we ran to the house and my grandmother took us down to the cellar and...

P: And your grandmother was?

TB: Sally Chambers, S.T. Chambers' wife, she lived in, well Grandfather Chambers we was up close to ninety and he died and grandmother Chamber's she said she was hundred or ninety-nine or hundred years, I say she came close to a hundred and two when she died, she uh...Geraldine was alot like a sister, believe it or not, she kept an eye, we kinda slip up the back alley, she lived down on the corner, you could see everywhere we were, we tried to slip out and she yell John get back here, she keep an eye, she always looked out after you. I was in college, I would come home on I'd always go see here and she reach up under that pillow and she would be, she wore a long black dress, long old granny's dress, white apron around it and a black bonnet, and a little lace hang from the lace collar, and when I go see her when I was home from college for holidays or something, going back she reach under that pillow, she gave me a five dollar bill, ten dollar bill you know, when she died we found, uh...uh...stuff that we have given her for mohter's [sic] day, Christmas, all the gifts, you know she keep them all in the chore and everything, you know, neatly arranged...

P: Uh...but she did, open any new offices, is that correct?

TB: Grandmohter [sic] Chambers?

P: Uh-huh...

TB: No, Grandmother Chambers and, and Grandfather Chamber's run a boarding house where the bank is, now.

P: Oh, okay...

TB: that's where daddy was staying when he came from Teennesse [sic] up here, and that's wehere [sic] he met mother and they got married about a year or so after they came here...

P: Uh...

TB: and he came here about 1899, or something with the railroad. Room and board and washing was I think five dollars a month.

P: And they actually lived in the...?

TB: He lived in the boarding house there yeah.

P: And your rmember [sic] that boarding house?

TB: No, I wanted even...

P: Well, was it still standing when you werer [sic] a kid?

TB: Not, not that I recall, no...

P: Okay, where did your grandmother live when you were growing up?

TB: Down, uh...we they, Uncle Therman Chambers who was sheriff, down where uh...the bridge going to Buskirk, was a big two story house, it use to be there, come as you turn the corner and go across there was a big house, that was Uncle Therman's house, across the street caddie corner, that's where grandma Chamber's and, and lived, 'course and grandmother use to live in Huntington for years, before they come back to Matewan, grandmother Chamber died down there, and when I got married that was the first place I lived in my Aunt Helen, my grandmother's daughter, lived in Dingess(?) Kentucky at the time she rented the house, when my uncle died and that's the first place I lived, when my wife and I first got married, uh...

P: Who is your wife, is she from...

TB: She...she's from up at Newtown she was a Sipple uh...I don't whether you know, Cornell Banks over Delbarton, her sister well she's on the executive committee here in the county, she was a retired school teacher, uh...that's here sister, uh... I met Boo, when I came back after the war, I went to t college and got my degree back here on coached for five years, where I lived.

P: He name is?

TB: Here name is Arbuetius(?), but we call here Boo, that's here nickname, that's easier to pronounce, a lot of people kindly think that's a odd name, I did to, I said if I was you, I would have it changed, her little newphew [sic] couldn't pronounce Arbuetiuse either he would say Boo, and that's how she picked up that nickname Boo, and uh...that's what she's been known as all these years, and she taught here in the high school, I met her at a faculty meeting, and we got married about six or eight months later, a year of something like that.

P: When, what year was this?

TB: We got married in '48, and I coached there fifty, I came here in '47, I was uh...Physical Education and History teacher, and I coached the junior high school here, went to state, first time we ever had a team in the state tournament, uh...

P: What year was that, do you remember [sic]?

TB: Fourty [sic], I quess it was the basketball season, '47 or '48 and then on made head coach in '48.

P: at the high school?

TB: football and basketball and baseball, I stayed five years, had...had a lot of success had some good ball players, particully [sic] basketball, well, we never losing season, when I was here so , of 'course in bassketball [sic] we lived up until that time he never got out of the (unintelligible) (?) what we called it then, uh...they uh...regional finals and this horse rider said, by the Charlest [sic]Gazette, in State in our class, I thought I did, I'm not bragging, I thought I did, that boy I'm telling you uh...here agbain [sic], polititcs it's still here like it waws [sic], what we'be [sic] been reading about in the papaers [sic] here, I think it hasn;t [sic] chnaged [sic] a damn bit, in my opinion, it went on back in thsoe [sic] days a d they asked you for contributions, you know, the board memebers [sic] would, I told them,I wouldn't give them an damn cent that's one reason I let, they took my basketball job awasy [sic] from me, I had 24, 4 season, they took me and said I wasn't pleasing the fans, of course with politics, you only given a credit is one of the board memebers [sic] , so I told my wife, we don't (?) we going to make a move, so let's make it, I said I'm tried of doing thid[sic], and uh...I wrote every county for an application and filled them out, we had the junior, senior prom, when prom was over, I left here about three o'clock in the morning, nobody knew where I was going except Geraldine, and, and fmy [sic] sister.

P: When was this?

TB: '52, and uh...uh...and daddy, and I visited oh, high school coach had me assistant coach here, had me in high school, he was coaching (?) and I went down and stayed a week with him, he tried to find me something and he couldn't and uh...Boo, called me and said that was a application that was agreeable for me, I didn't know what was agreeable was, I wanted to get out of uh...Orlanda, Citrus things grew you know, and I'm glad I didn't since Disney World moved in down there, uh...so she called me and said there was an opening, set up an interview for me at Greenville, I didn't know wehre [sic] that was but I was bound to finmd [sic] it, well I'll stop there on the way home, and I did, sawmill town nothing there a bunch of blacks, littl wudn't as big as Matewan, uh...I said well, he said the jobs yours and your married, said I understand you siad [sic] you recorded at quite a bit and uh...uh...the university anin't [sic] to far away, said you can go on weekends and get out of town, I said well I'm goint to go back home and talk eto [sic] my wife, and I'll will call you Monday and let you know, I comer here or not, but I went back to Florida, I said if we are going to back to Florida, let's get into the system, let's take this job, I said you're not going tot like it, the town, but uh...I said let's take and work from there, well they had a hell of a time keeping us there for a year, and boy she cried that night wehen [sic] she saw that house, I said we'll go back in the morning if you wnat [sic] to go, but uh...after a good nights sleep we've been traveling all day and so I stayed there a year and uh...we went down and played (?) baseball, I have a buddy of mine, I wasn't teaching I was helping him, I wasn't coaching I was just teaching, I was helping the coach and we went to Perry, playing baseball, i turned around there he said, Tom said uh...of course I refered [sic] alot of ballgames down there and uh...he said how to like to come here and coach, and I said I'd go anywhere to get out of Greenville, well he siad [sic] were coming up to play you all now in Greenville, so I will lwt [sic] you know something, so he came up the next week in return game, and we sat over there smoking and , he said Mr. Hall wants to interview you and your wife, I'm getting out of it and he said they did a assistant coach down at the Perry, I said I told them about you and he wants to talk to you tomorrow morning can you come down? I said yeah, I'll be there, I went down there and Mr. Hall hired us. And the next winter, I mean next sum...end of the summer I was meanwhile I was working on my masters up in Nashville, and Boo was too, but her father had lukemia [sic] and she didn't go, she didn't come to me first semester, stayed home with her father died, and she joined me down, we've been here ever since, we didn't make much of a move, twenty-eight miles, but it's a lot better than Greenville and I enjoy where we are, it's a small town, clean town, it's clean industry cook book like a...(unintelligible)...couple of them of them a matter of fact...plank a lot of good fishing and hunting area, see that's not what you need to know.

P: What has grown up in the Matewan, did you uh...what was the Tug River like, was that a place to...?

TB: Oh, hay, hay, we could fish, when I was growing up in the water, I mean the water was clear uh...you could swim in it...uh...going up toward Newtown uh...people use to go up in that area to picnic, you didn't have the polution [sic] and the uh...duck dust, I mean the coal dust and everythin [sic] like we do today, at these mines if they throw that stuff out, always clean up our creek, picnic, city trees and everything, we use to swim in the river all the time, cause right over here, above the (?) and down at the, no, right down straight acreoss [sic] from city hall, uh...then down here at theose [sic] alleys old farm place years ago adn [sic] down the tunel[sic], but coal under we use to have a time, getting, you know, tire and tie the tree and swing out there and jump, and oh...I had fun, when I was a kid Paul, kids, you know, they don't have that today. They don't have it..they got swimming pools, uh...(Unintelligible) like a Hunkle Berry Fin exsitance[sic], you know, I...I enjoyed, enjoyed this place when I grew up...

P: Uh-huh

TB: Course I left to got to college I finally got away, Imean [sic] i was away then see, I lived here what seventeen years, then went off to Fairmont to college, I come home in the summer time uh...of course you go away you change, course you come back the town has changed, in your mind it has, uh...course I love it up until I went offf [sic] to service in 1940, and I stayed in service six years, '40 to '46 all through the war and then came back and of course doing all that (?) travel all over the world and you know, and them ships, cruisers, uh...come back an course Matewan was like a small place to me, becaue [sic] it had changed to, a lot of people I knew, is gone, that I grew up with, I saw George Booth, do you know him?

P: Not by name.

TB: Well, I call him Ko-Jack kinda of lost his hair he uh...uh...I saw him down the funeral home last night he wa [sic] in my graduating class, in 1936, I...he's the only one that I can remember, Ernest Hatfield use to be chief police here, he...he...

P: How many were in yur [sic] class, do you remember?

TB: I think we had the largest graduating class, at that time, we graduated in '36, I think we had sixty-eight, course now they have hundred, but uh...we had the largest class at that time, uh...Ernest...I don't know where you do all the(unintelligible) Glenda, not Glenda but uh...little Hatfield girl that's works over here in the Bank, I don't know if she's married or not, uh...it's her father,

P: Uh-huh

TB: Ernest Hatfield, he played tackle on the football team with me, uh...I remember him being in my class, and George, there is very few I can remember, to tell you the truth. We had a new high school, good teachers, this was one, not like today.

P: Who was the principal at that time?

TB: When Iwent [sic] ot high school we had uh...a man named Carlos Montgomery, uh...then there was a principal there wehn [sic] I was in junior high school, grade school named Zek(?) Hatfield, oh he was uh...a fellow named Moore, that Moore was one that was mean, uh...buddy I tell you he with you, Mr. Montgomery was strict, I mean the difference was we respected teachers those days, and we don't go aroudn [sic] and buddy, buddy with them now, you know, the girls come up and hug you, and boys come up and put your arm around a women teacher, they don't mean anything by it, but that's just the way they work, not those days, we...we got away from them, you know, we didn't want to be around no teachers at lunch hour or around girls or aroudn [sic] boys, the boys got off to theirselves and we get off ane [sic] they get off to theirselves, and like I say discipline, you play football, you took you classes, you play athelitics[sic], you would...the difference because you was an athelte [sic] or not, you did everything else everybody else did, he had a lump of time in high school, I did, we had good teachers. Geraldine taught me, my sister in....in Grade School, right on my tail, I said wait until I get you home, you know.

P: Uh-huh

TB: But I, daddy get me then, when she tell him how I acted in school when I was in Grade School, I was just like anyother kid you know, like you know, just come up and get in trouble, like it was day to day, just mischievious [sic] stuff you know.

P: What do you know about downtown Matewan, when you were a kid?

TB: I...I was talking about that today day, with somebody, I said, Grace, you know Mrs. Stonner(?)? Grace is from Pennsyslvania[sic], come here years ago, I believe she's ninety-one years ago, I believe she's ninety one years old, she married uh...a guy named Duey Hatfield, over here where that Claire's Boutiques, whatever that place Claire's Boutique...

P: Uh-huh

TB: They had a pool room and a resturant [sic] for uh...they made the best sandwhiches [sic] and turn meals that I ever have eat, in the back of the pool room, well my brother use to go back there to shoot pool, I did to when I was a kid, uh...uh...serve beer, it was nice out front, had good sandwhiches [sic] and good lunches, cheap, compared to now, everything was cheap. Had a movie theater nice, fifteen cents, take a quarter, take your girl, get a coke cola, and a bunch of popcorn, it take a quarter or fifty-cents in those days, two drug stores, one drug store, (unintelligible) well excuse me we had two, had uh...Hope's Department store, liquor store, grocery store, where what's there now,

P: Buskirk...

TB: Right, right next to the uh...right, right next to uh...where the Clair's Bontique [sic] was, cause uh...Abyis(?) department store, Abyis(?) Men shop....(Tape cuts off)

P: That was in the Buskirk Building?

P: Oh...

TB: I said right in there where the Claire's Bountique [sic] shop is...

P: Across the street here.

TB: Yeah,

P: Okay.

TB: uh...we had uh...(Tape cuts off)

TB: Right next to the Claire's Boutique, I mean what ever that Claire's Boutique, right here...

P: Right across the street....

TB: right here, there was a Kroger and a theater...

P: Uh-huh

TB: years later Kroger left, and then years later Kroger left, the last time, I use to come back here, Abysis had a department store, a men's shop there, anyway then there was a resturant[sic], next to the theatre, below the theatre, then there was drug store, nice drug store, booze back in the back, you know, and sold all the sundries, the was supposed to sell, you know, newspapers, magazines and all that stuff, uh...next to that was Hope's deparment [sic] store, and next to Hope's department store was the state liquor and I think it's still there, and next to that was a real little grocery store, and next building was Urias Hotel. That was way back there then, eventually became a drug store, George Leckie, Frank Leckie opened it up, then the last building on the end down Buskirk building, which uh...my brother in-law and his brother ran the hardware, Allen Reems and Ed Reems uh...we got some pictures out here, one of your folders of it but...

P: That hardware store was different than the one that was?

TB: Grandfather...grandfather's uh...uh...uh...store was where I am right now. Uh...where's that church thing out here, they's a little church place right here where there used to be a grocery store there

P: Right.

TB: I don't know if it was here when you came or not. Bob McCoy I know, had a grocery store in there.

P: Right. Yeah. The (unintelligible) McCoy building.

TB: Right next to that building was Grandfather Chamber's, I don't know whether he had that room next to that uh...church, below the...the room below that was the hardware store in there...

P: Uh-huh...the bank now has it occupied.

TB: Well I don't know what's in there.

P: But that was your grandfather's hardware store?

TB: yeah,

P: This...this.

TB: Now, I don't know where, oh, I don't know where...

P: But the uh...Hardware Store at the end of the street in the Buskirk building was by your uncle?

TB: No, that was my brother in-law...

P: Brother-in-law.

TB: And his brother. Allen Reems, Gerry's husband, uh...and Ed Reems, they...they both dead now, and Sherwood Rings, another brother that was here with him, but he went back to Virginia, some of his people here today for the funeral...

P: Un-huh

TB: Uh...

P: So there was uh...two, two different stores?

TB: Yeah, I remeber [sic] two, four of them being here, now, I don't know when Allen went out of business, but he had it by himself, for years, then uh...Duey Hatfield, Grace's husband, then Allen, after they went out of the business there. he bought the building over here, I don't know whether it's still over there or not. Next to the Methodist church, used to be a building there was a feed store.

P: Okay. What we call it the old warehouse now.

TB: Okay, uh...Allen had that and I remember when I was a kid I when a, a feller named uh...who in the hell had that? I remember when I use to play hooky, school they had they uh...shoot where you slide bails of hay down it, you know, load it on the trucks out there, we use to go up there and slide down, and oh, it was as slick as glass, got the hay from that hay and uh... then Allen got it, run it for years, the business, flour and feed and all that stuff, and then he sold it to Duey, I think, Grace's husband, he ran that. Allen came down here uh...down below the bank, right down here at the, goin' down that alley. Is it still over there?

P: There's nothing behind the bank now.

TB: N ot right behind the bank, caddy cornered to the bank. THere's a tin building there or something or it might have got washed away during the flood.

P: I think it's gone.

TB: Well, Allen had a feed store there. And then he bought the funeral home after that.

P: And this was Allen Hatfield?

TB: Oh, Allen Reems.

P: Allen Reems. Okay.

TB: BUt, again, like I told you while ago, the understanding that uh...it retained the Chambers name. Uh...we had uh...on this side of the street uh...it was a post office. Grandfather's Chambers and Uncle Therman's Grocery Store, I mean, hardware store. Mr. Shannon's grocery store over where that church thing is uh...we had a drug store, let's see, John McCoy, where John McCoy, I mean, this little restaurant here. It's...

P: CHatterbox?

TB: Is that what they call it. John McCoy used to have it?

P: Un-hun.

TB: ALright. Used to have a little drug store in there.

P: Okay.

TB: Years ago. Uh...then Mr. Shannon had the grocery store and then they had the uh...O. P. Sisson had a...a shop. A radio shop or TV shop or something, I don't know what it was, I think next door and O. P. Stewart, is that his name, STewart, I know that his name was Stewart, had a dry cleaniung [sic] place where that...

P: This building here?

TB: Huh? THis place.

P Right underneath here.

TB: No, not underneath her.

P: The, well, the entrance was ther [sic] but the dry cleaning was in the basement. But the...

TB: Hun-un.

P: It was not? Okay.

TB: WEll, now, that might be the time it caught fire.

P: Oh, tell me about that.

TB: Well, I got, well, I got, I remember from him. Remember talkin' bout him. Johnny Fuller.

P: Un-hun.

TB: Mother Helen, John, you know John Brown or John Browning.

P: I've heard of him, yeah.

TB: Dry cleaners over here?

P: Un-hun.

TB: Best black family, they as mucha part of theis [sic] community as anybody, well thought of and respected blacks. I've always thought GAye, of course Gaye's dead was Johnny's mother, but it's not. Helen's his mother and I want to go see her too. Then watchacalit just died here a couple of weeks ago. mary did uh...John, they had a, here, along here somewhere. Wood, it's wood. It wasn't uh...this is all new, this...this part, no. New parts uh...the McCoy building.

P: Right.

TB: They had it in there where that um...where the uh...Chatterbox hooks onto the Hatfield building. Right?

P: Right. This is the Hatfield building.

TB: Alright. Where the...alright, where the, where the uh...Chatterbox is, now, I think there's a wooden building in there in those days. John had a...I believe that John Brown had a dry cleaning and pressing place. And that caught fire and it was two boys, Gaye, I mean uh...yeah, Gaye had David and curtis. What was Johnny tellin' me that boy was that burnt up. she dropped the baby comin' down the stairs or something and it burnt up in the fire. And John went across, back over behind over, uh...I can remember that all the apartments was filled in this building, in this building when Ray Hatfield.

P: un-hun.

TB: OH, yeah. Had uh...we had a Schaffer brother's department store. That's on down the street here. Good store. Uh...

P: Do you remember the inside of that store?

TB: Schaffer brothers? Yes. Yes. I can remember it.

P; What was it like?

TB: Typical dry goods store, I guess, in those days, uh...uh...I did all...all the buying when I bought clothes, then, that's where we went, daddy, you know, took us there to get shoes. I can remember, I can remember, there's a two story building there, in fact, they had a second floors to it up where the, they had things up there, you know, I can't remember whether there's suits up there or the suits were downstairs.

P: Was it open? In the center?

TB: Yes. Yeah. Un-hun. Uh...I think it was if I remember. They sold ties and shirts. Suits uh...you know, general merchandise you get in a department store uh...a fellow by the name of Ben Aaron, well, Joe Schaffer was from Cincinnatti. They were Jewish people. Good people, uh...Ben Aaron was, ran it for years and years and Ben was a Jewish little short boy. I remember he uh...one of my childhood memories of that is uh...Ben had a big car in those days, you know. This is the '30's. Big Chrysler, one of them that had the VI, I don't know what it was. They had no (unintelligible) then. Every Sunday night, he'd take me or a a couple of the boys, young boys, he just wanted somebody to ride back around with him at night time cause, down to Williamson to the movie. Had a big cigar. Typical Jewish, you know, he had a cigar. But one of the biggest hearted men you ever want to meet. Even though he was Jewish, when he left Matewan, he went to Texas and had a department out there but he got investin' in the oil wells or something and he, they'd always sent money back to the Methodist Church. Every year. Year after year.

P: And this was?

TB: A fellow by the name of Ben Aaron.

P: Ben Aaron.

TB: The old timers would know him and uh...they had that store in there uh...on the corner down there where the Nenni's got a store now. Well, even though I was growin' up, the Nenni's had a, had a shoe shop, well, when I first, first time they, John Nenni came here. Italian. Had twelve children. Six boys and six girls. And I went to school with most of them. Harry now, Harry graduated with me. Harry's a doctor now. Bill was assistant coach here when I was playin' football and he got the head coachin' job over Gilbert and he was having spring training and now, they had, we use, we use to go to Gilbert and swim. They had a little beach over there on that river. Guyan River. And he was headin' down there, workin' out in the sand, you know, and everything, playin' follow the leader and divin' in the water, and he dove into the water and had his hands behind him, hit the bottom and broke his neck and I remember John got a iron, iron lung. Had him in it and they kept him alive for about a day and he died. Uh...I remember that very vividly uh...John came here as a shoe repair, I guess he was shot by Miss B. Paul. Around on the backside of the street here. Right up here. A little piece above here. Uh..all at once, he, he had a pop factory. Bottled Nehi.

P: Un-hun.

TB: Well, I don't know whether he, down below John Brown's, a little towards Warm Hollow. THat big, big, building over there.

P: Right. There was a, actually a bottling...

TB: Bottling, bottling plant. Yeah. They bottled Nehi. Grape, orange, and all that stuff. Right here, the room next to the church. The little church office here, got here on this street here.

P: Un-hun.

TB: Got a bakery, had a bakery and the first thing you know, we had a damn department store, the first thing you know, he knocked them walls out and entended [sic] the damn thing, only he's got two right in there. And had a shoe shop in the back of it. I guess, the shoe shop still up there?

P: Yes.

TB: Uh...John Nenni, a little short fellow, uh...Atilio was the, he ran the store, now uh...

P: Atilio was...

TB: His son.

P: His son.

TB: And he died uh...what's the boys name here?

P: Eddie?

TB: Eddie. Eddie walked over to me last night and he, I didn't recognize. Him and that damn hair as long as it is. Eddie's always been engaged in music, you know. He plays instruments and things and uh...down, hell, it's not there now, as you, you used to have steps go off the end down there where Nenni's department store, before, before Nenni's put a department store down there, there used to be an old restaurant there.

P: Un-hun.

TB: They had a pool, a pool room was what it was. Probably sold beer and you could get a sandwich if you wanted it. Pig's feet or something like that out of a jar and, steps run down and they had, what we call the ice house. A flat thing and uh...down in that thing was a, used to be a barbor [sic] shop and incidently, the barbor [sic] shop was right along here at one time. It was...

P: It was in the Hatfield building.

TB: huh?

P: It was the Hatfield building?

TB: Yeah. Along in there somewhere, I can't, if I'd get outside, I probably could point it out uh...down there, the barbor [sic] shop down there was a, it was real cool in that place down there because there used to be an ice house, you know, and it was little and a flat roof uh...then they had a, down the end of, where Alan had his hardware and that last building, the Buskirk building, as you go down town there, and turn that little turn. Go up where you go under the (unintelligible), the big gasoline station set there. E. E. Brown ran it. Frank Allara's brother-in-law.

P; What was his first name? E...

TB: E. E. Brown. Emit. Emit. That's where I did all of my business there. Right there. He had a nice, nice service station. I see the old tanks storage is still there in the same place. Still there and then, where the service station was, as you come out, right over to the right, there, there used to be the bus station. A big building, Glen Tiller, out state senator, Lenna Harris. I don't know whether you know her or not, but she was a Chambers. She's my cousin. She married Glen after her husband died and Glen's wife died. They...they were thrown together through all our associations with each other. Glen and I were very close friends. I looked on to him as a father uh...he influenced my life quite a bit uh...incidenly[sic], his daughter was here for the funeral

P: He was mayor of Matewan at one time.

TB: One time, he was mayor, yes. And he was the house of reperesentatives[sic], house of delegates uh...and then he became State Senator and he's, Glen's wife died and he had those three children and of course, (unintelligible) that they brought out of the funeral today. Glen uh...bought our home. My home, where I was born. Our home place. Edward's bought it from, I don't know who in the hell the Edwards bought it from. I don't know whether it was Glen, but well, Glen's been dead. I don't know who owned the house at the time that they bought it, anyway, he and Geraldine, my sister, was very close. The preacher brought them out that dya, he said, Gerry, Gerry used to be a early riser. And Glen, Glen slept half the night and write letters when he was in the legislature and drink that coffee and he worked and cooked, he raise them, well, everybody helped raise them kids, me and, me and Boo, my wife, we used to babysit when he went to the legislature, we just move, I'd move back up to my own home, see, we'd stay up there and close our place up, down the street and keep the children uh...uh...but every morning, they'd wave at each other over coffee. They'd look right straight across the kitchen window's at each other. He bought that. I thought it was nice that he bought that up down there. (unintelligible). Uh...Like I say, he influenced ry life a lot. He got me, of course, I played ball for him, but he got me officiating. He got me, helped me get in college, you know, you always have a role model. You always want to be like somebody, you know, when you're a kid and I always wanted to be like Glen. That's the reason I got, the only reason I got into teachin' profession was because I wanted to coach on account of him. And uh...but, comin' back to your home town to coach, the worst place you can start, you know. Cause everybody still thinks of you as Tommy. Frank Allara always called me Tommy. Uh...I don't like to be called Tommy. I like Tom and my mother used to get mad at me, she called me Thomas. But uh...uh...it's hard to come back and people know you and watched you grow up and everything and it's hard, hard to make a name for yourself, you know.

P: Did you know any of the uh...Buskirk's?

TB: Oh, Robert Buskirk and I grew up together and I was disappointed. I saw his name on the book yesterday when I got in here, uh...went down to the funeral home. The second name on the book was R. W. Buskirk, well, I went in to see Bill, I said, is, was Robert here? He said, I don't know, but his name is on the book. Well, he must have stopped in and signed the book, well, Pat and I got down there after, we see Gerry before the public got in and, I was hopin' he would show up last night or show up at the funeral today. Yeah. He and I, we was brought, my mother and his mother was very close friends. You know him?

P: I met Bob once.

TB: Well, he's a, he's my age or a little older, I guess. I guess Bob's about seventy-three I guess. May be severnty-four[sic]. I don't know.

P: Do you remember ever meeting his father?

TB: No...no, that was before my, see, Mrs. Buskirk was married, I don't know who she, I can't remember who her first husband was. She had two daughters. Inez and Mildred then she married Mr. Buskirk and Robert is out of that new (*unintelligible) see, so Bob, Robert and uh...Bob, now Bob was uh...step-son. Step bother, step sister to Inez and Bob. Uh...Mr. Buskirk, well, what I read and what daddy told me, Blue Goose, he ran the Blue Goose Saloon up the river here, go across Kentucky. That swinging bridge across there. I remember the bridge.

P; You remember the bridge? Uh...do you remember being in the Urias Hotel?

TB: Yes. They used to have dances down there on Saturday nights. There was a ballroom up there, upstairs. Yeah. And there was a regular lobby downstairs at that old, pretty, tile, you know, it's still down there, a lot of it is in that floor.

P: Did they have a restaurant upstairs or just a ballroom?

TB: I...well, I think the ballroom was a dining room too. You know, they convert, they turn it into a dance place at night, I guess, on Saturday night. Oh, yeah, I been to many dances up there.

P: They had live music?

TB: Yes. Well, see back then, they had live bands, you could (unintelligible). I'm the old school. I mean, I've been a Miller and Tommy Dorsey fan, you know, that kind of music.

P; Did any of those big bands ever come into Matewan?

TB: Yes, indeedy . When I was growin' up, that's one thing they used to have. They used to bring Morris Harvey and uh...where you from?

P: Clarksburg.

TB: Clarksburg, oh, yeah, you told me. Used to bring Morris Harvey and concord him here every year of a certain number of years to play ball and in the gymnasium, one's tore down up there where I coached then up there, uh...Glen Tiller came here as coach when they built that new. And that was the best gym in Southern, well, about the whole damn state for a high school and the biggest, believe it or not. You know, we was about the second high school in the state to have night football.

P: I didn't know that.

TB: Uh...Glen, we had swings, and all that acrobatic stuff in that gym. We played softball in it when it was new. Martin, (unintelligible) oh, it was a baeutiful [sic] thing at that time. They built a (unintelligible) and swung it up there to let it down, you know, they pull it up there, you ever hear of Ben Bernie?

P; No, I haven't.

TB: Huh? Well, he was a big name band just like uh...like the uh...Dorsey and the uh...uh...Jacob and all that, he just a little before there, his time, old mistro, mistro they used to call him you know. Big name, big time, buddy. They had him in here, always had a big name band in here, then they have this big dance after the ballgames, see.

P: And it would be held at the high school?

TB: Yeah. In the...in the gym. And they'd be an airplane up in the air and the spectators paid to listen to music. SEt up in the bleachers. And then, the dancers out on the gym floor dancin'. Course those days, I think, a couple could get in for five dollars.

P: So you'd either go to watch or go to dance?

TB: Yeah. (unintelligible) Paid just to watch.

P: Was it two different prices?

TB: I think it was cheaper just to be a spectator. You know, just...

P: How often did this happen, once a month, once a week?

TB: WHat the dance? No, this happened once a year when they brought the big name bands in uh...for the ballgames. I mean, it was a big affair, you know. College teams come to a little small mining town like Matewan uh...and uh...

P: This was a dress up event?

TB: Yes, uh...them girls come out in them evening gowns on, men in suits. Oh, they brought other bands well known uh..bands that uh...played good music, I mean, they weren't uh...like we know them, Glen Miller and that type but they was good. Come out of Charleston. Bluefield. Huntington, somewhere like that. Come up here and play. Oh, yeah. We had the community building at Red Jacket. Hell, they had all kinds of good dances up there, boy. I tell you. THey had a time. That's what I liked about going. I was a good dancer when I was a kid. My daddy and mother let me, I didn't drink. My brothers did. They used to take me on, along to drive, see. They'd get drunk and I'd bring them home uh...but I...I, oh, I was a good dancer for a kid. I was a good dancer in college. Uh...smooth dancer. I mean, I can jitterbug, but uh... I can't do this stuff there doin' now. I'm too old for that uh...but uh...don't like that type of music anyway, but they used to have a...a good...god dances here. They was formal. It wudn't none of this stuff...this is what's wrong today uh...it make me so mad there in Florida, you know, it's a state where everything is so informal that you know, it gripes me when I see a person walk in a nice restaurant with a pair of damn tennis shoes on and shorts and a baseball cap and set down at the damn table, it's got crystal and a white table cloth on it. HIm sittin' there with his damn hat on eatin'.

P: Was there any um...formal restaurants in Matewan at that time?

TB: Formal? Other than uh...I guess, eatin' at the hotel uh...uh...I can't uh...recall any uh...what you call a formal restaurant, no. Uh...I don't recall.

P: Where...where would you get dressed up and go out to eat or did people do that?

TB: they go to Williamson. They go to Williamson to eat dinner if you ws [sic] goin' out to eat and dance then, go down to the Mountaineer Hotel or you, which was nice at that time, then they had the uh...Kapoureles restaurant down thre[sic]. Usually after a dance, after mid...back in those days, they held dances from ten to two. That's, ten to two, start dancin' at ten o'clock and dance till two o'clock and if you wudn't tired and the music was so good, they'd pass a hat, get them to play another half an hour, hour, see, all on account of how much you take up. Hell, use it, the damn thing run 'til three thirty sometimes and uh...then after that, they'd drive to Williamson which is thirteen miles and eat dinner down at that restaurant. It stayed open all night. Day and night restaurant. That's what it was. Good steaks uh...well, they had two or three nice restaurants in...in WIlliamson in those days. Ben used to take us down to Movie's like I said when I was a kid. This one restaurant over there next to the station in those days, it was stop there and eat something before we come home.

P: Did you take the train to Williamson or basically drive?

TB: We, (unintelligible) I mean, we didn't take the train to go down to eat or something like that uh...usually drove, uh...the uh...used to take the train to go shoppin' you know, get on a train here. They come in through here about ten thirty in the morning, I guess, goin' down that way and get on it and you could ride the trains back at four o'clock, four thirty in the afternoon. So you put in a day, you put in a good two hours down there shopping.

P: When your father was sheriff, did he take the train to uh...

TB: he took his train mostly to work, yeah. Then after he was determined sheriff, we went back to railroad. See this back side of the town at that time was things took place mostly. That was in front of the stores out there. Not like it is here now. Oh, may think of some of the entrances are the same, and the back have the same kind of entrance but they, you know, people today, if they read about the...about the massacre, uh...in our, saw pictures of it. It's not the mainstreet out here. The mainstreet was back here then.

P: We are discovering that as we work on this buildng[sic], that this building here was designed, this was the fornt [sic].

TB: Yeah. That's right, because, they could get their stuff off the train easily then, see. Daddy was express agent. OH, I felt, many of them ways a movin' them trains, before they had these trucks comin in.

P: What did the express agent do?

TB: Well, daddy, daddy was a telegraph operator, uh...in those days, uh...people shipped by train uh...Paul, not these big trucks you see on the highways, they, that's the only way they got shipments in was through the uh...express got here quicker than, than their freight. Freight was always, I mean, a slow method of delivering sruff[sic]. Well, express come in on the main train, you know. It was up in our express car and you'd unload that stuff off of the big wagon. Had a big (unintelligblr[sic]) a tongue you call it and you unload it. Right here on top of that, elelvation [sic] place out there?

P; Uh...I think it's gone.

YB [TB]: Well, you know, there's something like a platform. Like a platform only it's centers on top, you know, where you parked your wagons on there and unload your trains on both sides of the railroad. You had a crosisng[sic] there, you had uh...

P: what was that made of? Was it (unintelligible)

TB: WEll, it was dirt or, but you know, a lot of cinders only from the train. In those days a steam engine, it's not these damn diesel. Daddy used to cuss them things when they changed over, you now, he worked for the railroad for about forty-five years uh...we set on the front porch, oh, he hated it. He liked them steam engines. I did to. See, when I was a kid, I was fortunate see, daddy worked for railroad and I'd get a pass, I'd go anywhere cause it was, (unintelligible) with other railroads, you know, they would say it was acceptable and I got fed a lot when I was a kid. All the other kids didn't get to do cause I could go free on the trains, see. I went to college, back and forth to college. Uh...the uh...course, it was a tragedy. Never (unintelligible). Never commune like Dr. Whitt uh...see where the church is you know, you have to go across the, I don't know whether they, have they got anything there when you throw something across the railroad up, right up here.

P: Not, anymore.

TB: It's gone too.

P: It's gone.

TB: Well, you know, use to have, like uh...boards in there or something you could pull, like a photograph or something. I don't know what happend [sic] to Dr. Whitt, but uh...he'd been to church. Fifteen was a fast train that came through here along about uh...noon time. CHurch was out and uh...here's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. See, it was, and here's these wagons, see, and here was the, the, I mean, where they took stuff in there and kept it. The people come to pick up trucks come to pick up there order. Whatever, whatever was shipped to them and down here's the main office. But here's where Doc Whitt got killed.

P: Just walkin' across?

TB: I think he walked, he walked right in front of that trian[sic]. ANd uh...he was a hell of a good dentist and he was up here int he old, well, above the hardware store, uh...that's uh...uh...hardware store is, the second, it's the second building there. See, Schaffer brother's? Drug store. Alright, let me see now. Let me see what his, what this was now, let's see. Alright, there was that, damn, I don't believe that's the way that restaurant is. They just had a restaurant. That...

P: Testerman, there's a restaurant here...

TB: There's a jewelry store that was Testermans. He was a jeweler. THat's right, that's right. He was, that's right. You're right. Jewelry store, then...then the restaurant was there uh...then Schaffer brotheres[sic]. I can't remmeber [sic] what now. John Nenni had that shoe shop back on this side here, I don't know, when was this taken on her. No.

P: Had to be taken before 1920. That's all I know.

TB: Yeah. yeah. But, here's the kind of ground. You ask what it was like, see, this is built up above this. See, I don't know whether, did they tell you about the time the boy ghot [sic] killed here. Teh[sic]...the chief police shot him?

P: Hun-un. NO. I haven't heard that.

TB: well, now that was, hell, that was in nineteen, I was coachin' here so it had to be in the late '40's uh...uh...the early '50's. A boy named BAbe McCoy and he's a good buddy of mine and his paw and I was good friends. His sister, Mildred, I don't know whether you know her or not. She, I don't know whether she's still around here or not. She might be. She used to work for George Leckie in the drug store for years and years and years. I used to call her Hatfield and make her madder than hell, anyway, uh..Ernest Hatfield, I was tellin' you about a while ago. His uncle was chief of police. Thing I remember when I, of course, this...this is not when Iw as a kid. THe things I remember as a kid was the miner's used to come from Red Jacket down here on the weekends. THey didn't pay them in money. THey paid em in scrip and you know what scrip is.

P: Right.

TB: And they didn't have no money to buy liquor or...or, you know, buy stuff in the stores downtown, so what they'd do, they'd go to the company sotore [sic] and charge five or six cartons of cigarettes to their account and bring them down there and sell them and the laws would get money. I worked in the drug store. Bill Harris, Lenna Harris's husband, married Glen Taylor, later on.

P: which drug store?

TB: Iw s [sic] down here at the, below the, where the theater, two doors below the theater.

P: That was Leckie drug store?

TB: Leckie started in there then he eneded [sic] up doen [sic] there next to the hardware store. ANyway, down the hotel, old hotel.

P: Okay. When you worked in it it was Leckies?

TB: OH, no, it was Harris.

P: Harris. Okay.

TB: Yeah. Uh...what the hell was I gonna tell you. Scrip. He used to come n the drug store there and they'd give me a dollar scrip and I give them fifty cents. I drunk sodas in there when I was in high school. Then, when Monday morning came, back up to Red Jacket up there, hell, we get a dollars worth. They...they did that to get money, well, they was a miner, the McCoy boy, one of he and his buddy come in and those, we don't serve drinks over the bar in West Virginia like they do...(tape cuts off)

P: Okay, while were back on this story, this is uh...Tom Blankenship, tape two.

TB: We could, Miller gives a couple cokes in an empty glass pour a drink, make a drink and give it to you and take a drink and chase it with coke. Like in the moose. So Babe and his buddy I guess were here town and they got them a bottle. They had to buy a bottle in those days, gives you a lot more than a drink or two and that's all, and then but, to get it, you had to have a whole bottle and of course you ain't gonna pour it out. You're gonna drink it. And, they got onto and I think one of the policeman arrested...arrested the (unintelligible) and this, the jail sets over here, it did. Down below John Brown's.

P: It still does?

TB; It's still there. the jail is? No, the jails on the river bank.

P: Well, the building still is.

TB: Oh, yeah. We're okay. And evidently, I don't know ehter[sic], he brought them up where, between the post office and the building there, where the post office is now, at that side of the street. I don't know. I can't remember. But the, it took place out here, somewhere, if I remember right. He was gonna arrest, well, he did arrest him. Takin' him to jail and Babe and the police man arrested his buddy and they got to wrestling and I don't know if maybe he was tryin' to get his gun or anything or drunk and didn't know what the hell he was doin'. This Hatfield was behind him and uh...put right back of his head and pulled the trigger. Killed him right there in the street. Well, the big, time newspapers put it up. Pittsburgh Trails, Chicago, New York, Feudin' in the mountains again. The Hatfields and McCoys. That was the headline on one of them stories, see.

P: He was Ben McCoy. He was a coal miner?

TB: Babe, yeah. And his daddy and I was very good friends, now, Babe, I knew Babe real well. I know where his sisters still at.

P: And this Hatfield was Ernest Hatfield's father.

TB: Uncle.

P: Uncle.

TB: He left here. He didn't stay. He may, (unintelligible) but he moved...

P: Uh...this happened after you were in, while you were in high school?

TB: Oh, while I came here as coach and I was coachin' here.

P: So this was a...

TB: nineteen, it was either late 1940's or there business.

P; I see.

TB: Uh...the uh...I think Ernest, ERnest became chief of police if I remember right. I know one itme[sic], he was chief of police. I don't know when, if he'd had the right (unintelligible) for that or not. But, there was a fellow named Ernest Ward used to be chief of police here too. Years ago. Uh...uh...but ERnest was at one time. Nephew of this fellow tha [sic] did this. Uh...oh, this town's got a lot of history to it. Been away. I don't know why but it does, I mean, see, my wife's a Hatfield, I mean, her mother was a Hatfield. Her grandfather was in the feud.

P: What was her grandfather's name?

TB: Uh...Grover.

P: Grover?

TB: Yeah. uh...daddy knew Devil Anse. Daddy used to tell me about him all the time. Devil Anse was supposedly a religious man. He didn't, you know, he was a preacher, I think, he was a very rteligious [sic] individual. Cap was one that was mean. He was mean, boys.

P: Did you ever meet Cap or see him.

TB: No. Not to my knowledge, No. uh...daddy knew him. Daddy jknew [sic] all of them uh...Cap or...Sid, I didn't knoiw [sic] him. I'd not only called on him, uh...I was kid, i might have seen him out you know. He went, I can' recall who he was. I was too damn (unintelligible) uh...Testerman. I didn't, I only called him only when I needed him. I jsut [sic] ordered a book. I was tellin' you taht [sic] this morning. I think. Thunder in the mountains uh...this is one of the second. Call me back after I gave him my credit number and ordered that morning and that uh...afternoon, a man called me back. He said, Mr. Blankenship, they had to take on the printing set uh...you still want uh...I said, well, you already got the water out of the things, when it comes, I'll send me a copy. But I didn't know you's people have got a copy. You all got a copy of it.

P: One of the first copies, but University of Pittsburgh press has picked it up so it's being reprinted. It won't be out til late this year.

TB: That yours? That yours?

P: What's this?

TB: That US Air?

P: That's yeah. Something we use.

TB: Well, I have to buy my other coat. That's why I'm flyin' you know, uh..

P: Oh.

TB: Uh...I thought maybe I lost mine or something.

P: Oh, no. That's something just lying around.

TB: Uh...all I remember as kid that uh...uh...pay rides, weinney roast, I mean, you know, like I told you while ago, creeks and rivers were clear uh...my mother used to have big um...uh...orchard down this side of the Aunt Halley's farm. Over the Halley's farm. Delicious apples. I mean, those type of apples was delicious uh...they used to sell them off the truck. We used to go down and raid that orchard when we was kids, you now, on our way down to the swimming hole.

P: WAs it on the West Virginia side of the river?

TB: Yeah. Then down below there, now, the tunnel, Greenway Hatfield had a farm down there where all them houses are now and they had a big watermelon patch down there and we used to swim right down below there uh...down below the tunnel down in the shows, where the sholes come into big (unitelligible[sic]) We'd steal them watermelons down there when we was kids take them down and put them in the sholes where they stayed cool while we was swimmin', see. He got uh...got us out of place in a hurry. That bug shot though. He'd shoot at us, you know.

P: What do you remember about Greenway?

TB: I.. I remember he's a big man. Uh...he's a republican. My dad and him were political rivals uh...uh...he...I...I can't say exactly what Greenway was like, I mean, I knew him. I mean, I'd seen him, uh...knew about him through daddy's conversations and newspapers and, uh...if I remember right, he had a newspaper. I'm not for sure. Uh...just...just a newspaper with republican, they's always backin' Greenway. A fellow name Booten was the editor and he later on became the editor of the Williamson Dailey News years later. Uh...But he ran for sheriff, then there was (unintelligible) Hatfield. He used to, become Governor, I knew him.

P: And that was Greeway's brother?

TB; yeah. I think so. He was related to my wife's people. Uh...uh...who else, I remember, we used to go over to the, I don't know, the reunion, the Hatfield reunion over there where Devil Anse is buried. They got that big statue. Have you seen, been over there?

P: Yes, I have.

TB: That thing was made in Italy. You know, it was shipped over here.

P: Un-hun.

TB: Lookin' down the valley. Well, it was in the newspaper the other day wudn't it? I get the paper down home. That was one of Gerry's my sister's always sendin' me a christmas present, Williamson Daily News so I can keep, you know, I kept track of the athletic teams up here. I followd [sic] them for years cause I lost. well, I don't know any of them now. So then, I'd keep track of...see, I'm seventy-three years old. Seventy-two years old. I'll be seventy-three in October. All of my friends have gone up here too, see, and the one's I really know are the old timer's or the kids my age, that I went to school with, too, I (unintelligible) with you last night, like I told you uh...But they uh...oh, it was a good town back in there. I loved it back in those days, but after, after the war, well, everything changes, you know, and people change, and your thinkin' and your social things changes, well, the society today. Life had gone to hell as far as I'm concerned. (laughing) But uh...it...well, I'm just from a different area. That's all and the young people in today, I...I, I got a better education than what they gettin' today. The high schools throught [sic] out the county (unintelligible). I had better teachers.

P: Any particular teacher in Matewan that you remember as being really outstanding?

TB: I say, my coach. He talked, really taught history or civics. Taught government.

P: This was?

TB: Glen. Glen Taylor. Our senator uh...Mr. Montgomery was a good teacher. I always, always liked him uh...Bill uh...Lord, what was his name, Bill uh...the biology teacher. I always liked that fellow. Mrs. Talbert was an English teacher, lived up here in the apartments in the, where Dr. Whitt's dentist office used to be, you know, Katie, Katie, Katie Talbert. She taught for years here in the high school. Uh...Herb Boner was assistant coach, big influence on me. Taught me history. Uh...I had some good teachers and I respected them. I didn't, hey, they didn't get no, I didn't do nobody any backtalk, I know, you knew better. In those, days, not like today, I mean uh...uh...they carry a tale up to that board and nothing's ever said about it. Now adays, you touch one of them, you...you're in trouble. You know. HRS employment, why, they call you a child abuser if you paddled a kid and leave a bruise on it.

P: Times have changed.

TB: Oh, you can say that again. I wouldn't go back to old times at all.

P: Hum. Uh...I guess that's about it uh...the sports teams of the old baseball teams. Do you remember a stand out player. You mentioned somebody at Red Jacket was good.

TB: Lance Hatfield.

P: Lace Hatfield?

TB: Lance.

P: Lance.

TB: He was the grandson of...Anse was his name. They call him Devil Anse, his name was Lance and Lance, uh...pitcher. He...he...he was an outstanding ballplayer.

P: Played for Red Jacket?

TB: Yeah. I had his son when I was coaching baseball. He was a pitcher. Pitched me a couple no hitters. A high school kid. We just played six innings. Uh...I remember, he shined shoes at the barber shop when I was a kid. You don't have that anymore. Uh...there was a fellow named McCrutchen. I don't know what his first name was. He could catch it. He caught baseball for the team at Red Jacket. I'll tell you one thing I remember always can remember, the barber shops in town, two of hem, one up here and one down there, had showers where you could come in and take a shower, change clothes. You get a shave, you don't shave people anymore, you know, you din't see that much anymore. uh...you get your hair warshed, you know, and all that stuff. Had a shoe shine stand. ANd McCrutchen always come in and he had, of course, shine for a dime. Shined nickel shoes. You know, ten cents was a lot of money then uh...he always gave me a quarter. Me, I got (unintelligible) I mean, he always was nice to me. I always remembered him. He was always nice to me. Uh...oh, he's probably dead now. Uh...he was a hell if a good ball player. I can't remember all those people played ball back then. I's just a kid. Hey, you're talkin' about fifty years.

P: I know. I was just curious if you knew, remembered a stand out. That was all.

TB: But, I remember him. I remember him, Devil Anse. I think uh...Lance stll [sic] livin' if I'm not mistaken. Uh...Dervil, I mean, Debvil Anse, we called him Devil Anse, uh...who else. Well, the Clusky boys here, you know, Joe...Joe played for me. I saw his daughter-in-law in the bank today. Her name, plus she married, she married Tony. I don't know Tony. I don't know his son. I said, are you Joe Clusky's daughter. She said, no, I'm his daughter-in-law. And, of course, that takes back a lot of memories. Uh...I can't...my brother died here in over here in the Methodist Church of a heart attack in '73. And that's the first time I'd been back home. I hadn't been. last summer, summer before last, I came back. That's the first time I'd been back home since, then, back here. Came back here to, kids I was coached those five years, had a forty year class reunion. That was all, it was a five year period of classes, you know, and they ask me the thirty-fifth one when I went to Europe but I told them that summer, I said, let's go. I haven't been back home in fifteen years. I guess '73. How many years? "73 to '87. FIfteen years.

P: Fifteen years.

TB: Uh...and I had a wonderful time. Saw all the kids I coached in high school. Jim Melmidge down there used to be superintendent of school. Do you know him?

P: Yes, I do. I know him.

TB: Oh, he's a good baseball player. Good athlete. He played football for me. Basketball and baseball. Jimmy Whitt. You know Jimmy?

P: I've not met him. I know the name but I don't think I've met him.

TB: Jim was a big league prospect. Brooklin was interested in him. I took him over to uh...Abic, Virginia, the home of Brooklin, (unintelligible). They wanted him. He ended up goin' to Morris Harley. Went to, went into the service, come back here and went to college, finished. Became coach here and outstanding basketball game. Finally got into politics and become superintendent of the school. They say he was a good one. And here again, politics is gonna come in with, you know, and them executive committees, you know, you don't do this and they get in (unintelligible) for you. All that business and uh...give them a raise a year ahead of time, people didn't like that. I read that in the Williamson Daily News all the time, down in Florida. Raise them up to fifty thousand dollars a year. He's makin' forty five, I think it was and they raised it a year ahead of time. Hell, two weeks later, party. So I, you know, stuff like that, put up with. But uh...Matewan's always been a political town. I guess, his county's always been political. I guess the corruption and events that goes on in town, will continue to go on. Hell, they ain't gonna do nothing. Don't get me started on that. I ain't got anything to do with what you wanted to know anyway. uh...but uh...it was uh...it was a good town when I was a kid. I mean uh...you heard them speak of Martha Hoskins? she taught my mother and she taught my sister. SHe taught me. she taught my two brothers, hell, she didn't retire until she ws eighty some years old I guess. That's the reason today I can name all my state capitals. I...I never have forgotten them. I was pretty good in geography. STill am. I can find places in this world. I keep readin' about these college students, hell, they can't find there way from one state to another, you know, they don't even know where it is. But she'd put you up to that board with a pointer and she'd have a pointer and buddy, you better, when she called out a state, you better put that point on it, you...(unintelligible)

P: Did you have a Mrs. H. S. White as a teacher?

TB: Yes. I didn't have her for a teacher, but her son and I were good friends. Henry.

P: Now, she was the wife of the state senator?

TB; I think she was. I think he was a senator one time in West Virginia.

P: Is her, is Henry still alive?

TB: Now, somebody, I ask about him, somehow, I think they told me he died. Uh...he was fighter pilot during the war. I got, I got pictures of him he sent to me from Mount Walley Canal, of these natives. He said, Tom, one, he said I'm the one's that's white he said. You know, had them bush women, what ever they were . I don' know. But, no, Henry, yeah. Henry uh...Frank Allara, you know Frank, cause he, he...we been friends for years. His mother and my mother were close friends. My mother's birthday's the twenty-fifth of November and mine's the twenty-third and Franks November 25, and for years, mother would cook dinner for me and Frank or cake or something to celebrate our birthday. And even I, and Frank was one of my big supporters when I came here as a coach, course, he watched me grow up and he used to come up there and scrimmage with us. He just put on a helmet and got in his street clothes, believe it or not. He was a hell of a feller, I tell you. He...you see him now as a sick man, you know, he's a sick man now. But he had, hey he's got his asset to this community, boy, I tell you. This community owes a debt of gratitude uh...smart business man. A good man. I cried the summer before last. I went to see him, he...he...he...he didn't know me. He just, I think, he knows but he can't get it out, you know what I mean, he..he I guess in the back of his mind, he said, taht's [sic] Tom but I can't tell him, you know what I mean, and he used to take me to football games down at Marshall. WE'd leave here at noon time and he'd pick up me or somebody else you know and we'd take off and go, check in the hotel. He's pay for the hotel, and we always had a place to loaf to the game at night. And uh...come back that night, buy dinner. Great jokester. He used to pull jokes on people uh... I had a son, played football and he made all state.

P: This was?

TB: Vic...Vic...Vic uh...dam roughs of (unintelligible) I'm tellin' you, he's roughs them at forty-five. He'd get with it, he would be, he was named after Glen Taylor. Victor Field's was his name. Glen, got that, Glen, Glen Taylor was my (unintelligible) and my coach.

P: His name was Victor Glen Taylor?

TB: His name was Victor Glen Allara.

P: Oh, okay.

TB: But I say Vic got that Glen, from Glen Taylor. Frank named him, him and Frank was great friends, uh...Frank was one of my biggest supporters of football. God. Like I say, this community owes him a great, great debt as much as he's done for them and he done on a lot on the side nobody knows about, see, there's other stuff too. He's a good man and I hate to see him in the condition he's in. Course Frank's what, I guess he's in his '80's ain't he.

P: I believe so.

TB: Uh...I always used to call him form Florida on his Birthday.

P: I would say he'd be about eighty-seven.

TB: I imagine he, I guess he is. I used to call him every year or send him a telegram to wish him a happy birthday and the last time I calle dhim [sic] in, he sid who is this, I said it's Tom, and then, Mattie got on the phone and said Tom, he don't remember, but always before, the year before that he knew me. I'd call him up and I'd say, what the hell are you doin' you know, oh, settin' around you know, he had a funny voice, Frank did. He said, who is this? I said, Tom Blankenship. Oh, yeah, he said, and then we'd talk, chat about five or ten minutes. But he's done a great deal for this town. A great deal for it over the years. Good man. Good man.

P: That's what I've heard. Well, I guess, I...

TB: I don't whether I've told you anything of interest or not uh..

P: Oh, quite a bit actually.

TB: I hope you can delete, you know, our own, my modern day stuff I talked about but uh...uh...I hope I told you some things uh...(tape cuts off) You might have read this yourself, I don't know, anyway, I told you I had this book here, the Hatfield and McCoy Feud.

P: Un-hun.

TB: That, written my professor up at the University of North Carolina. I don't know whether you've seen it or not.

P: Virgil Caraton Jones.

TB: You read it.

P: Yes.

TB: well, you probably read then where Devil Anse was up in the mountains here in the stream somewhere waterin' his horse and another fellow rode up on a horse and got off to water his horse had a white duster on. He wanted directions to Bluefield, West Virginia.

P: Right.

TB: And Devil Anse just pointed the direction and said, two men, let's see, two most famous men in history met each other and didn't know who they were. Jessie James and Devil Anse Hatfield.

P: I've heard that story.

TB: Well, it's in that book. I'm just quotin' what's in that book. Jessie'd been down to Huntington and robbed a bank, he and his gang, I don't know how they got out of West VIrginia, I don't know. And they got lost in the mountains and then Jessie came through this section, I guess, evidently and, I...evidently supposed to meet in Bluefield, I don't know but they said the two famous men in history never did know each other.

P: Un-hun. Quite amazing isn't it. I remember that story.

TB: And...and that's that same book uh...Paul, that same thing's in there about daddy I'm tellin' you about. About the Blankenship. Testermans and Hatfields and I'm gonna get up.

P: I'll go look it up. Now in the meantime, tell me who this...

TB: Well, in the back part of it, says a new era takes over.

P: I remember the chapter, I've read it, but...

TB: Hell, they had the army and uh...planes in the air over Blair Mountain, over in (unintelligible)...God damn I tell you they...they was going at it son..

P: Got serious.

TB: Yeah, they was mad (laughing)...tape cuts off...

Matewan Oral History Project Collection