Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Gladys Hood Interview

Becky Bailey: I'm Becky Bailey from the Matewan Development Center, Friday, June 8, 1990. I'm in the home of Mrs. Gladys Hood and we are going to discuss her life here in Matewan and how she came here. The first question I have for you Mrs. Hood is when and where were you born?

Gladys Hood: I was born in Logan County in...do you want the date?

B: Yes.

GH: I was born March 5th 1921.

B: Okay. What were your parents names?

GH: Uh...Howard and Elmira Henderson.

B: Where they originally from Logan?

GH: No, they well lived there all their lives after they were married, they were married over there, but they were both borned in Kentucky.

B: Do you know where in Kentucky?

GH: My mother was born in Blaine, Kentucky; and my father was born in Oliville, Kentucky.

B: Do you know their birth dates?

GH: Uh...Let's see my mother's is October 12, but right off hand I couldn't tell you the year, yes 1899, and my father's is December the 27, 1902.

B: How did they meet?

GH: Well, I think my mother's sister was running a boarding house at Freezefork in Logan County.

B: Uh..huh.

[GH:] uh...and my mother came up there and visit and stay with her sister a little while and they got married.

B: Was it a long....

GH: There was no...

B: Oh. I'm sorry go ahead.

GH: There was no long courtship.

B: How long did how long did they court do you know?

GH: ah...Mom said "about four or five months" I think, and they uh got married at Wayne in Wayne County. My mother at that that time my mother and her family where living at Eastland, West Virginia that's down in Wayne County. My father was working in the mines, he was just I..I think daddy was fourteen or fifteen when he went to wor...well, he was nine years old when he first went in the mines. He was trapped in the mines when he was nine years old; then uh...I think he was fifteen when he and mother got married. My father was from a broken home, his parents had divorced and uh...he..him being the oldest child uh...he tried to keep the others together, but with his father but they just couldn't do it because there's too many of them and uh.. when him and mom got married I don't think they took any of the children but, I was, I was the second child that was born, I had a sister that was born in uh...I believe she was born in 1920, and I was born in 21.

B: How many brothers and sisters did your parents have?

GH: My mother had six of each, and six lived; um.. four boys and two girls only all that lived.

B: Did they die of sickness or...

GH: Uh...some were yes, they didn't uh...I think one child lived to be about eight months old, and the oldest one died when she was two weeks old and one that was older than me and then then next one was next to me she died when she was eight months old. And uh...we didn't know but, my mother had uh...Rh is it positive or negative?

B: I'm not sure.

GH: Positive, which ever is the rare type, and my mother never knew that until after my father passed away; and she had to have surgery for cancer and that's when she found out her blood type.

B: Okay. You say your father went to work in the mines at nine uh...how long did either of your parents go to school do you know.

GH: My dad only went to second grade, uh.. well it would be the first grade know, he would of went to the primary and then to the first grade. But, my mother uh...finished the eighth grade.

B: Did she work before she married your father?

GH: I think she worked at Duncan Box Factory in Huntington a little while. I've heard her say she did.

B: Did she ever talk about that work, about what it was like?

GH: No...she never talked much about it.

B: Okay. How about your father, did he ever tell you anything about working in the mines when he was so young?

GH: Well he...he told uh.. story uh.. he used to tell us about he was trappin' in the mines and uh.. and he worked with a black man and uh.. had rules, and uh...some..something went wrong, he did something, he must of lied and this black man took a whip and whipped him with it; because he didn't do what he was supposed to be doing and uh...nine years old you know a kid wouldn't know too much too do.

B: Did he ever tell you how much he earned, for that work when he was so young?

GH: No...I don't remember him saying what his wages were.

B: Did he ever tell you the name of the company that he worked for?

GH: He worked for Wood's Coal Company at Freezefork, Wood Coal Company. That's in Logan County.

B: Okay. Well, uh...When your parents married how long did they stay in Logan, what did...?

GH: Well they lived, they lived in uh...Logan County oh...that's all I remember. I think, I don't think Dad ever, ever that I can recall worked over in this area till about uh..1940, when my dad came over here, he was sent over here by a mine inspector. Uh... my Dad was certified mine foreman, my mother had taught him to read and write. And uh...and everything that uh...all the education my dad got was from my mother she had helped him.

B: Did he study at night that kind of (unintelligible)?

GH: At home yeah, my mother, my mother was a very brilliant person and uh.. and she taught, helped dad with all the work...with his, when he was going to Charleston to take his mine foreman's uh.. exam, she helped him, I can remember, her sitting up at nights helping dad with his papers and help him and things he needed to do, things he shouldn't do.

B: Alright. Well after you were born, uh...what to you remember about your childhood, how long did you go to school?

GH: Well, uh...I went uh...I went, from back then we were going to the primer and baby ray and all that stuff you know. And uh...I went, I went to school about the eighth grade and that's the far as I got the eighth grade. My mother was sick then and uh...somebody had to take hold of the household. And it was me to do it.

B: uh...huh. Was that when your mother had cancer?

GH: No...my mother didn't have cancer until uh...I believe my mother had cancer, I believe it was...sometime in 1964, 1965 my mother had cancer as well as I can remember the date.

B: uh...huh. Okay, but she took sick when, when you were in about the eighth grade?

GH: Oh Mom was, I...I think it was uh...childbearing what was wrong, think she had too many children to fast. You know back then people didn't know too much, they didn't know how to prepare ya, they didn't have all the things they have now and uh...she had children real fast and uh...but it was her blood type that was causing losing all these children.

B: Did she see a doctor when...when you all were little?

GH: Just a company doctor that's all there was

B: Okay, Do you remember his name?

GH: uh...huh...W.T. McClellan.

B: What did your mother think of him?

GH: Well, he was just, he was just uh....I guess he was just a Godfather almost because he delivered all the children all over the place over there...and all over Logan County tha...that was his job by him being a coal company doctor see and everybody used him. He made the house calls see they delivered the babies at home.

B: What was it like when a woman uh...gave birth to a baby back then we've, heard stories how uh...sometimes women wouldn't let the babies' eyes catch any light until they were older. What kind of things like that could you tell me?

GH: Yeah...I ca..I can remember uh...I think uh..um...I don't remember if they put anything in babies' eyes back then or not. I can't remember, but uh...babies didn't go outside, you never took a child outside when they were about 3 or 4 months old and you kept them in the dark, keep in...no bright lights in their eyes or anything like that and I can remember my mother making uh...catnip tea for her babies, and givin' it to 'um break'em out with hives so she called them hives, you know, and I can remember all that and uh...course children never went to the doctor very much because uh...well they didn't give shots and things like they do now, you know, Health Departments and all, they didn't have those things then. Uh...children had measles, mumps, whooping cough, and all those child diseases uh...I think we had all of it mumps, measles, and all those things then ourselves, and you just kept your children in. Especially, if they had measles you kept them in a dark room there was no such thing as dark glasses, or anything like that, that I saw. and uh...Mom would make us stay in uh...out of the light and you couldn't get into the light.

B: um...What about, did they ever talk about the flu epidemic of 1919? I know you and your sister...

GH: Yes! I hear Mom and Dad talk about it uh...I know she uh...heard her say uh...one whole family uh...I think about all of them died, maybe one or two that was left in the family ,but it was so contagious that people didn't go around and didn't go visit and stuff and I can remember Mom tellin' about that, how awful it was uh...

B: What was school like when you were little?

GH: Well, its certainly was alot different than what we have now uh...we walked about uh...I did uh...the year I first, the first few years I went to school. We walked to we wudn't allowed to ride the school bus the only school they had....that time was the high school children that went to Logan...went to uh...high school down there and we walked about...at least uh...mile and a half or two miles all the whole year around.

B: How big was your school? How many people were in it?

GH: Uh...I don't...uh...We...they taught to the six grade in uh... in the grade school building it was quite, quite a large building then had a basement with a furnace heat, coal heat they had uh...restrooms in the basement and um...over in the next building they had uh...a...another the high school senior it was junior I...I think it was to the ninth grade, seventh, eighth, ninth and from there you had to go to Logan and uh...we had swings, teeter totters, things like that, races we had quite a lot of races in school.

B: uh...huh. Did the boys and girls play together, when you were little?

GH: Yes, um...huh. B: What kind of games did you play?

GH: We played Hopscotch, marbles. I liked to play marbles, I was the tomboy. (both are laugh). I liked to play marbles, we played ball, they didn't have uh...ballgames then like they do now, you know, junior leagues they didn't have those. Then when at gradeschools, nor they didn't have over at the high school either.

B: uh...huh. How do you play marbles? Would you tell me how, how to play marbles?

GH: You've never seen anybody play marbles?

B: No.

GH: Always...You can draw a round circle however, so many...well a whole lot of kids can play and uh...you put all your marbles in the center and you kept out your favorite one that you use to shoot with and you get back to the uh...edge of the ring and you shoot and got your uh...however how many and uh...I can't remember how uh...oh yeah! If it didn't go outside the ring you didn't win anything and somebody else had to play and then you ha...had a square box, you could make a square box like that and a X in the middle and you put your marbles in those, and you played...four people could play you know shoot'em out, but you have to get them outside if you could, if they hit in the inside you didn't get'em they were yours.

B: When um...When you left you school how long was it before uh...you courted with (door shutting in background) anybody or uh...you got married?

GH: Well uh...I think I dated my husband about 17 months, I was just a kid, but uh...I felt like I was grown you know, 'cause I was uh...had takin' care of a home for my mother and dad and uh... I got married when I was sixteen, the first day of May, 1937.

B: How would you all met, how did you met him?

GH: Well, uh...living in a coal camp, you know, houses on both sides, we call 'em Alleys they were just little roads up between 'em up, straight up and uh...if you ever been in a coal camp, course you don't see those know, they're all, they've tore them all down. But there was uh...usually four room houses all of them, most all of 'em, except maybe the official, mine foremans or somebody like that, would have uh...uh...foremans down to uh...uh...what we call a two story. And uh...he lived in one of those houses there close, I met him there.

B: How old was he when you all married?

GH: Well, he was uh...21 when we got married.

B: What was his name?

GH: Wylie Hood. W.Y.L.I.E.

B: Do you know anything about his family, where they come from?

GH: Well, now there uh...originally from Olive Hill Kentucky, also and uh...that about all...his father died when he was fourteen and uh...his father died in Logan County they were living in Logan County at the same time...that I'm telling about him, his father dyin' and they moved over in...lets see, just another coal camp there where they moved too, as well I can remember Wylie tellin'.

B: You say that you wanted to talk about that going to the company stores or something?

GH: Uh...huh.

B: Okay.

GH: Ah...this is when we lived at Freezefork, and I was...I wasn't very old, I could remember my Dad, at that...this particularly time he was mine foremen and he was makin' two....two dollars and ninety-five cents a day, that's when my brother, my second brother was born 1933 and uh...I would have to wait till the time she would come in in the evening, before the would issue you any script, which was paper, dollar, two dollars, five dollars whatever, you know, and uh...I...my mother would tell me to go to the store and uh...draw a dollar scrip and get a small bag of flour and I would have to wait till the time she...the bookkeeper would go up uh...to the tipple just above the store and uh...and get the time sheet and bring it down and then uh...he would let you have scrip. I won't the only one that would be waitin' there, and I can remember they use to have bananas in a crate, they would take them out an hang 'em up in stalks in the store, and they made they had a big butcher block they called them and uh...up in meat, the meat department and uh...they would cut off, and lets just say you want so much pork chop, or bologna, or whatever and bologna come in big rolls and it was hanging up, all this stuff is hanging up, in the store like pictures you see over seas or somethin'. And uh...milk came in bottles you could get I think it was a pint, quart, and I don't remember getting a halfa gallon, I think you got two quarts of milk in a bottle and you would take your bottle and wash your bottle and bring it back the next day, if you wanted milk the next day, you would have to bring your bottle back to get your milk. They charge five cents deposit on those milk bottles.

[B:] What kind of things would be in a company store back then, could you tell things like uh...

GH: Uh...they carried uh...well, if you wanted furniture they would order it for you and it would come in a boxcar to the store and then you get it from there uh...you um...they had your staple goods, they had your major produce, and you could buy clothes, shoes, and things. That's were everybody bought their children's clothes to start school in at the company store, because their never was very much money to go anywhere, to buy anything at those times then.

B: Do you remember how much a pair of shoes cost at this store?

GH: No, but I could remember um...I always liked shoes and uh...I would always, if I needed a pair of shoes would always get on Dad's lap and I'd show him the worse pair of shoes I had, and he'd say well, okay tell your Mom to give you the scrip card, that's how you got your scrip you see, you had a scrip card with the man's name and number on there and it arrives in thirty days. Then he'd would say tell your mother to give you the scrip card and he'd go get you a pair, I'd always get a pretty pair of black patent leather. (They both laugh).

B: Okay.

GH: Also, there was a theatre down at Ethel below, below us there an you, they sold, sold tickets at the company store, and that's how we, uh...it was silent pictures and that's how we got to the movies, but we couldn't go by ourselves, there was always an adult with us, Dad would always go with us, Mom didn't go very much. Daddy would always go with us.

B: Do you remember any of the movies or any of the movie stars that you liked?

GH: Uh....Uh...I could remember Hoot Gibson, oh, Lord...I'm trying to think, right off I can't think of too many of 'em, they were mostly westerns, that all they had and they were silent. Dad would read for us, they'd always go so fast, you know, it would be hard to do,

B: What do you remember about the Great Depression?

GH: That's in the 1930's, (sounds like she's saying 1930's) Well, I know uh...my second brother that I was tellin' born in '33 '32 or '33 I think he was born in '33. I can remember tryin' to raise a garden and uh...my Dad never was good a that he jus...just wasn't a garden man, he just wasn't that type, and he and mother tried to raise some potatoes I remember, and when they went to dig them,they were just little tiny things, they didn't make much. (Both laugh). But it...it was really rough, sure was, I can't ever remember of well, we cooked alot of Mom cooked alot of food, pinto beans, potatoes, and things like that, but I can't remember if my Dad and Mother if they ever received anything from the government or any kind of aide or never, I can't ever remember anything like that, they never did. Fact I don't think there was anything back then.

B: I...I don't think so. I just wondering some men that when the mines well they couldn't get regular work or go work on the C.C.C. Projects?

GH: Well, my dad was the type, well my dad the type of uh...was a good worker and if he couldn't, if he couldn't do enough work there at that local place there at Freezefork, he would go to...Ethel (unintelligible) or other places. I know one time before I was married, he went to Lobata, which was uh...a long ways to Lobata, you would go this way to Lobata (showing directions with her hands) and uh...he worked up there a would come on the weekends and bring groceries.

B: um...When you were young was work steady for your father?

GH: Well, it...it got better after uh...Hoover went out and and it got better, uh...uh...and course there was times, you know, different times, during our, my growing up the mines would get down low of course you just have to do the best you could do, you know, you...you didn't own a car, nobody had a car, unless somebody had money and money wasn't to...too much money floatin' around, you know, and dad didn't even own a car at the, and I can remember then, during the Depression, we didn't have a car, we didn't have much of anything of course you didn't buy much of anything. You just done...you made do whatever you had I can remember my mother uh...taking uh...my dad's pants that would wear out and he she... would take the legs out of 'em and make my oldest brother short pants to wear, she made my dresses for school and my sister, I had a sister five years younger than me and uh...I can remember Mom making our clothes. I can remember her taking uh...unbleached muslin and making things for us, that's the only panties I ever had for many many years. They were made out of unbleached muslin. and that's no hanging crime I think...I think its something to be proud of that you have, and I can remember the first pair that she ever made for me had pockets on them, and I thought that was the grandest thing ever was.

B: How old were you then?

GH: Oh, I must of been eight or nine years old, I guess. I couldn't been very old, those are things that, you know, your memories what's so wonderful for you.

B: My mother's mother made some of their dresses out of...of the feed sacks...

GH: Yes, I've had them made out of feed sacks, sure have.

B: What did the...they look like, she said sometimes....

GH: Oh! some where uh...there were flowers, there were uh...had print on them and they were really nice, and uh...they were uh...what I think it was cow feed, and stuff like that you got in 'em pig's feed it was like a muslin what they were they were real nice. You were lucky to get those. Too many people didn't get rid of those. There was no yard sales I tell you that, (Bailey laughing) no garage sales.

B: Um...What did your parents did you ever hear them talking politics, was your father a Democrat or a Republican?

GH: Uh...I think, in 19...I don't know what year it was that Hoover the the election for Hoover was up and President Roosevelt had put his hat in the race, I can remember my mother they were Republicans at that time, I can remember Dad coming in and he told my mother, "Elmira, were going...there's going to be an election and uh...you know, if I'm keep to the job and I'll have to vote like the company told me too," and she said, "you can vote whatever you want to vote and I've eat pinto beans and rice until I'm tired of it and I'm going to vote for Roosevelt and I think he's the man that'd do good," so dad had to go with mom.

B: So, he actually said I'll have to vote the way company tells me too.

GH: Well, you did, yes you did, and I'll tell you something else when we lived there in uh...the coal camps how it was. You wasn't allowed to leave the porch light on after it got daylight and if uh...they came by your house and you had too much company they would tell you to get rid of your company or you'd get fired.

B: What did too much company mean?

GH: They just didn't want people they just didn't want you to have too much company (dog barking in background).

B: How did your father know that the company wanted him to vote Republican?

GH: Well, they had already told him, you know, you either vote, they were all Republicans, all big uh...companies like that are Republicans, but uh...you had to do what they said do. You was really uh...bossed, I can remember someday tellin' in the camp, that the uh...electrician the chief electrician, come by and caught somebody's light on their porch after it got daylight and he took a rock and knocked it out.

B: Um...how long was it after you married you came to this area?

GH: I can here in 1941.

B: So you and your husband had been married four year.

GH: uh...huh. He was born in '34 and she was born in '37. We came over here uh...the first day of April in 1941 we had two children a son and a daughter she was only she was just...she was born...she was four months older

B: And how old was your little boy?

GH: He was two.

B: When you all were first married uh...your husband was a miner then.

GH: Uh...huh. He was working in the mines when I met him.

B: And what company was that the...

GH: Chiltin Rock? coal company at Ethel West Virginia.

B: Okay. Where your children delivered by a company doctor?

GH: uh...huh

B: What was his name?

GH: Doctor McClellan, same doctor. Now uh...Janice, was born at Emmett, West Virginia it was still Logan County, but uh...we had moved over there my husband went to work at Emmett. He didn't work very long over there we move over here then from over there.

B: What, why didn't he work very long there?

GH: I wasn't happy there was no the only way you could get out of this little camp anywhere you had....to own a car or either catch the train, you...it would come up once a day, about twelve-thirty in the day and it didn't come back in there anymore

GH: until the next day, so there was no....(something happened to the tape).

B: What about life at Emmett and you were saying...

GH: Uh...well there just wasn't no way out a there, and...we didn't own no automobile and I was expecting another child and the only way you could get in or out of there and you would have to catch a train twelve-thirty of the day and it would come as far as the company store, and uh...back out and uh...there was no way unless you hired somebody to bring and, you know, back then tha...that much money running around or flowing around and uh...so my dad had been sent over here to number five mines at Red Jacket by the mine inspectors and uh...we just come over here when Janice was 10 days old and we come over here and uh...Wylie got a job in the mines here at Red Jacket, we've been except maybe, we moved away one time, back to Ethel, stayed just a little while I wasn't happy back over there, because Mom and Dad was over here, so we moved back and we've been here since well...we been here forty-three years. I believe its been about forty-three years, long time. It seems a long time to me.

B: uh...huh.

GH: My kids, started school here, they...they both gra...duate all three of my children graduated here, I have three children.

B: And what did they do when they grew up and uh...graduated from high school?

GH: Well, my son enlisted in the Air Force, spent 20...20 year and a half and he never came back here to live. At the time he went into the Air Force he was just seventeen and uh...fresh out of high school and uh...there was no jobs for him, naturally there wouldn't be a kid a seventeen years old and uh...so he enlisted in the Air Force.

B: uh...huh and your other two?

GH: Well my daughter uh...the next one was my daughter, she got married and uh.. and she moved next door 'til she...she, we lost her two years ago.

B: And your youngest one?

GH: She's here with me, she's got she....she's divorce, she worked for Welfare Department for awhile, 'til...well,in fact she was working for the Welfare Department when she got married, and she has two uh...little boys.

B: What did uh...your father think about uh...the unions becoming legal? Was he a union man?

GH: Uh...well he was a union man uh...Dad believed in and he helped the union but uh...he always uh...his job was always was he was either mine foremen, electrician so he just uh...I don't know if Dad ever he probably was back when the union first come Daddy was a union man at that time and uh...my Dad my Dad could just about do anything in my eyes. He was a machine operator....

B: uh..huh

GH: cutting machine operator he was a section foremen, he was mine foreman, and he just...he could do about anything in the mines.

B: uh..huh. How about your husband?

GH: Well he's uh...(unintelligible)

B: Okay. How long did he work in the mines?

GH: Uh...lets see he started when he was fourteen and he got hurt back in '64 so you can tell from there he hasn't worked any since '64, so that will be about...how many years? Uh..He wor..worked in the mines close to forty years.

B: Okay..What kind of jobs did your husband do in the mines?

GH: Uh...he worked on the machine, he was a..he cut coal in the mines and he work on conveyors, he was working on conveyors when we got married...

B: uh..huh

GH: that's when conveyors first come in the mines and uh...he was a roofbolter and he loaded coal, hand loaded it, he'd hand loaded before, a while before, then he had gone in to the mines and worked where they didn't have conveyors and was a pick and shovel and they used carbide in the mines, the had carbine lights for uh...many years. I can remember mama sending to the store to get a nickels worth of carbine. When I was a little girl.

B: How much was that worth a nickel's worth?

GH: Uh...you never seen a miner's light? They were little round lights like that and they put carbide down in the bottle, they unscrewed and they had a top on them and you sit that top down on it had a little hole in top that you could flip open and put water in it and it had a face on it uh...like that (showing size with hands) and it had a flint in that face and you strike that flint you see and let some water down in there, and uh...I guess gas from that carbide strike a light, and that's how men used it. I guess a lot of other people told you that haven't or have you interviewed other people.

B: uh...huh...Okay, how did the equipment change over the years from what you saw from when you were young and the kind of equipment that your father had.

GH: Well, I...I th...think the change was great, I think that it's help considerably, but I think that a lot of people got lazy with the changes, you know, I...I don't believe that the younger generations would ever go back and do what older people that's why I...I felt like that when Black Lung came out the men on that...in the 50's the years they worked they put the older them in the 50's years they're...they're pensions is not as large as the men that is working now, and those are the men that shot coal, they had augers they bored in the mines, they used black powders, scrip, they use carbide and they're the ones that really did pave the way for people now, and I...I don't think its fair...not that I...I want them to help me or do anything like that, but I...I always felt like that men that worked like that knew mining and I...I felt like that the men deserved the same as the men that's getting now that have all this mechanical stuff to do things with. You don't see carbide lights, and you don't see that stuff anymore. They have all those safety things to do with, which they didn't have when my Dad and my husband first went to work they didn't have those things.

B: What uh...did..did you ever hear of any accidents, mining accidents did your dad or your husband worked.

GH: Yes, ya uh..huh.

B: How did...How did you know when it happened.

GH: Uh...Usually it came from the store, usually they would uh... nobody had a telephone. Now dad had one in the house, one of those great big ones that would ring, you know of course, they didn't ring and tell us but they would tell somebody at the uh...office at the company store there, would hear about it and uh that's the only way I knew, I know one boy that lived beside of us got killed in the mines and uh...I can remember the hearse bringing him home after the, you know, the funeral home from the funeral home, up there. They brought people to homes then they didn't keep them at the funeral home, but uh...quite a few people got hurt in the mines, but seems to me like there about as many now than then or maybe more.

B: uh...huh. When he (the neighbor's son) died how did the community react to it?

GH: Oh...well everybody, we had love, everybody had love for each other and sympathy, and you didn't lock your doors, uh...nobody ever locked their doors, and uh...in the coal camps because everybody was just like a family, they were a family and uh...what ever...somebody was to have problems everybody tried to help do what they could do. It..it's somewhat like that now, in this local area here uh...all these people around here I just feel like their my people because we've been together so many years. And my children grew up here with these children here and we just all...if anybodies' havin' any problems, sickness or anything of uh...death in the family, everybody just pitches in and helps. Wh....Which you don't see that in a city.

B: No, no. I was just wondering if you all did anything like sit up with the family or uh...

GH: Uh...huh...uh...huh (meaning yes)

B: Could you tell me about that the things like that or wha...what would you....

GH: I can't remember when I was a child goin' and sittin' up uh... with a corpse, I can't remember that. But I can remember, uh... uh...my step grandfather died and uh...of course I was married at that time and I went and stayed all night, I reckon' my grandmother died and we set up with her just staring, they didn't keep'em up very long, one night probably, as well as I remember, and my dad had two sisters to die and uh...we sat up with them, you know, everybody that went and stayed.

B: Uh...huh...What...about in..in these coal camps did the uh... different ethnic groups live together did the Italians, or any did...did, you all know any Italians or Wetbacks? (Hispanics)

GH: Well, yeah, uh...uh...it wasn't so much Italians or uh...Hungarians or uh...everybody's else it was the blacks that lived by the tipple and if you uh...moved up there, you know, if...you wanted to live fine, but they didn't say anything about it but all the black people lived there at the tipple.

B: Was there a reason for that?

GH: I can't remember if there was, they just lived up there, all of them did.

B: Okay. So your saying you didn't notice if their was Italians or anybody?

GH: Uh...I can remember havin' Italians and Hungarians too, but uh...they all lived in the same camp where we lived.

B: Okay...let's see. When you all moved up to to Red Jacket what had you all heard about Matewan what kind of?

GH: Oh...gracious I was scared to death when I moved here because my dad told uh...told my husband this was Bloody Mingo. (Telephone ringing in background.)

B: Okay. This was Bloody Mingo?

GH: Bloody Mingo, yeah because I've heard quite a few stories uh...course uh...you know uh...when I was, I think mom said the year I was borned, 1921 over in Logan County, Mom and Dad lived, they were living there of course I was borned over there. And she, I heard her tell about Dad staying up all night uh...course he was quite young you know and uh...that's when they were having all that fight on Blair Mountain, in Logan County, and everybody was scared to death, and Mom said "nobody went to bed", they just..they just didn't know what to expect, you know, whether they were going to come on in the coal camps or what? I can remember her saying my Dad stayed up all night outside watching to see if they was any... anybody going to come in and do anything to 'em or in around where they lived, but uh...I thought I was at the end of the world when I come over here, because I haven't been anywhere, I...was just well, I was just a young girl, you know, with two children or two babies. I didn't dared to go anywhere until I learned that the people, some of the people were real nice and I guess they felt bad about us because we came from over there, maybe some of the older folks thought well they didn't know what we were doing over here, but uh...I learned to love the people here and they're a part of me and I'm part of them uh...I really love the people in this area...I know there's been alot of things happen through the years uh...but uh...I...I been happy here.

B: What kind of stories had your Dad told ya about this area?

GH: About this area? Well...he told about the Hatfields and the McCoys all the mean things, you know, and course Devil Anse, was from over uh...on Island Creek, in Logan Creek, he always, he got a good name Devil Anse. (She laughs) and I guess it was hectic, the things....things that happened, I think it uh...nice that uh...after the years everything cooled down and the Hatfields and McCoys married each other and uh...McCoys married the Hatfields and the Hatfields married the McCoys and uh...they helt grudges for so many years, you know, I use to hear them say that uh...In fact I was talking to somebody not to awful long ago, that are you one of the Hatfields that was in trouble or what she said "no we're from...we're called Creek Hatfields, uh, so I thought I'd leave it at that, I didn't know what she meant that she was a Creek Hatfield, I had never heard that expression before.

B: Were the stories about people like Devil Anse were they used to scare little children into being good?

GH: Oh yeah, yeah and you know where his monument is, have you been over there? Dad would take us up there and I thought that was the cruelest lookin' man standing there and uh...that I ever saw in my life, of course that...things always, you know, people make things bigger than what they really are I guess. I've been up there and I took my children up there too. I've never took my grandchildren up there but I plan on takin' them there and let them see that. Of course this thing in Matewan if it pans out, like you all have got it its going to be nice. Course, its certainly not looking like it did when I came got here.

B: What did it look like when you first came here?

GH: Well, you had grocery stores, and uh...you had uh...places you could eat, you had the movies to go too, and which was real nice, there's just a lot of nice things that uh...nice flower shop and you could go down there, and uh...they had the one bank of course it was small, of course to me it wasn't small then, you know, it was quite nice and the bus run from uh...you could get a bus from Matewan over to Delbarton you could go to Taylorville and you catch a bus...to Logan, or Charleston or wherever you wanted to go to Huntington, or anywhere and also go to Williamson on the bus from Matewan and you could get a bus, in any direction you wanted they were comin' from all directions, Pikeville, Huntington, and Logan, and which was real nice, it's not like that anymore, either you have a car or you don't get anywhere around here now...if you don't drive like me, you're just hurting.

B: Did you never learn or do you not drive?

GH: I...use to drive some uh...but, um...I always stayed busy with my children, and my brothers, and my sisters stayed with me when Mom and Dad moved back to Logan County after uh...I think maybe the two boys, two older boys were in school, I think that's when Mom and Dad moved back over there, and uh...the...they wouldn't, didn't stay over there. They had learned to like this area and they came back too and nobody when my kids went to school everybody thought that those Henderson boys and my son and my daughter were brothers and sisters but, they never could get that unraveled just how that comes out (laughter) and my oldest daughter thought my brothers were her brothers all the time, she never knew the difference for a long time. We never did, you know, we never thought about discussin' anything and she knew she had uh...grandparents and....and she called my mother and dad, Mom and Dad, and she called me, mother and daddy, her daddy, daddy and me, mother, and I...I don't think kids really ever tried to uh...get into things like that, she knew that was her grandparents, and uh...they visited us and we visited over there.

B: How close in age were your youngest brothers to your children?

GH: Well, uh...my oldest brother uh...let's see uh...I was born first and then I had uh...my oldest sister was born first then me, then....I had a sister to die at eight months old and then my sister that lives in Huntington, and then my brother, Bill I believe he was born in '29, as well I remember and then Sam in '33, and mother had several children to die. Then all together she had six to die and then she uh...there was Tom and Jim I think there's two years between them and her last baby was a little girl it died when it was about six months old. She never had anymore children.

B: How old was she when her last one was born?

GH: Forty-four or forty-five.

B: uh...huh. I heard my mother say that her grandmother never let on when she was going to have a baby.

GH: I never...never heard my mother mention anything like that was never talked about in our house. Uh...things that our kids now see and telling their parents on television and we never heard that, and I...I've kept alot of those things myself I never told my children and I know my two older children, see my last child this ones here with me now, there's fifteen year difference between her and my oldest daughter and I never told my daughter I was pregnant, I wouldn't dare too, I just wore loose clothes and uh...as I began to gain weight I started wearing larger clothes, and I never told it and uh...I...I think it I was about uh...I was five months when she found it out five or six, and she cried and she was fifteen years and she cried. And she said "mother I think its a shame that you haven't told me," and I said, "I could never talk stuff like that to you at all," see older people didn't do those things.

B: Did you know when your mother was going to have a baby...

(Daughter talking now with Becky)

I knew mom she was I knew mother was fat, but uh...you didn't dare say anything about things like that then. I don't know whether it was good or bad, I don't whether it was good for children that when people come to visit my mother or drop bye, we never stayed in the house we always went out and play and we was never allowed there in uh...where they were talking.

B: uh..huh. Was that did they shared information about uh...?

GH: They probably did uh...huh.

B: Okay. What kind of change did it did it make for a girl when a girl got married did did all of sudden, could you stay in the house when your mother or other women would talk or what was the change?

GH: Oh yeah, after you got married, but uh...you already learned to keep your mouth shut and get out of the way. So I just didn't hang around, my mother was uh...uh...uh she mom was she never told you anything, you know, she uh...I guess she and other women talked about the things that happened, you know, uh...mom was never the type of person even after I had my child, she never talked about things like that.

B: How did girls learn then, uh...about life?

GH: They usually had a friend, I had a older girl older than me I was only 11 years old and she told me things I needed to know to take care of myself, and uh...that's how I learned, I wouldn't say I done the best job but you keep trying.

B: Where their any old crafts or anything that passed down through your family, did any of your family quilt, or can or sing or anything?

GH: Yeah, my mother quilted, and uh.. she canned an uh...and my husband's mother was one, she always won blue ribbons at the fair for uh...crocheting she could make anything she wanted to make, she was wise, I never could crochet, I could embroider or something like that but I never could crochet.

B: How did you learn to to embroider how did you learn how to do that?

GH: How to do what?

B: How did you learn to embroider?

GH: I guess watching other people, you know I had a neighbor that was good at it and she uh...she would uh...she told me I should maybe you should take up this and that let's do that which was a great help to me and uh.. that's how I got started I guess. But you don't see much of that anymore...that's all hand painted now, you don't see much just hand work like that of course your hand work it runs in different areas different categories there's alot of ceramics I never seen anything like, see I've didn't see anything that I never seen ceramics, 'til just late years. But I do, do the quilt but I'm not an expert at it but I do love...I love hand made quilts.

B: What religion was you raised in?

GH: Church of God, that's was for my mother, my dad wudn't anything.

B: What was he uh...not a church goer or was he a atheist or was he uh...

GH: No he wasn't...he believed in God and uh...the Trinity but he just, I think uh...really I think there was always a block in my dad's life because his mother had left him and his sisters and brothers to shift for themselves and married another man and uh... they never was close after that, he and his sisters and brother were close and him and his two half-brothers were real close and we were close, of course, my grandfather got killed when I was just three weeks old. He got killed in '21 and uh...uh...my grandmother, Mom was telling me all this, my grandmother had already married and had both of these children which were dad's step-brothers, and uh...one of them is still livin' in Denver, Colorado which he uh... is very close to me had one the other one the smaller one he was he contacted malaria fever and died after he came out of service, he died in Richmond or Roanoke....Roanoke, Virginia in Veterans Hospitals but uh...we was always close, the younger one was a year older than me, so that made us, you know, grow up together, and uh...course my mother always, she'd always take those boys in they were just...just part of the family, same as my dad's real brother he had only one brother to live through all that uh...

B: What War did the uh...the young man die of malaria after uh... was it uh...World War I or World War II?

GH: He was in...the...second World War.

B: So the uh...your father's mother didn't move that far away when she divorced her first husband.

GH: No, no she didn't uh...I think they moved her and uh...she married Dan Sider after she left my grandfather and uh...they moved to Kentucky and bought a farm in Olive hill and then they came back the old man, Mr. Siders, I called him Dan, I never called him grandfather because he wasn't a grandfather to me. I guess I just picked that up from the rest of the kids. Well, Dad called him Dan and that's what I called him but I called my grandmother grandma uh...but uh...they moved back to Logan County and that's where both of 'em died over there.

B: What um...I know there's there's different branches of Church of God could you tell me something?

GH: Yeah, I was Church of God of Prophecy, you see this brick building right down there that's where uh...my husband's membership was and mines there and my daughters in there.

B: Uh-huh. How was it different from other churches?

GH: Well there are some that aren't organized. Our church is organized with uh...with the head of course in Cleveland, Tennessee. And uh...their church rules are different and uh...church rules are different and we uh...Church of God of Prophecy doesn't take people in double married they don't wear rings, and when I..I got saved they didn't cut hair but they do it now, and, you know, I'm not saying that to be smart and when I first got saved they didn't wear pants, which I don't wear pants, I guess I just one of the old timers, uh...I believe, you know, I'm the type of person that uh...no matter where I go to church whatever their rules or regulations are I abide by them, that's their church and if I go there that's the way I do it. Uh...if I went to your church, whatever your belief is I would abide by what you say.

B: Okay. What does double married mean?

GH: Well, like uh...I'll use me and my husband. If he had been married before or if I've been married before they wouldn't let us take fellowship because, we only believe in one...to one

B: uh..huh

GH: One man, one women that's all we ever believed in, if your husbands dead that's..that vow's 'til death do part, so we just don't believe in it, so that's why we just don't believe in it, so we just don't believe in it. Deaths the only thing that gives you a right.

B: So if you were widowed you could marry again?

GH: Yeah, that's the...the only way you could

B: Okay.

B: What about people who were divorced and then come to the religion, you know?

GH: Well, they just can come and uh...have and, you know, and they could come and...to church but they couldn't be a member at that local church the Hardshell Baptist is like that, they call them well that's what they call them Hardshell Baptist people I don't know there brands of them too, they don't take people in like either. See that's what Gods for if you get.........................................(Tape goes silent).

B: June 8th 1990 were discussing religions specifically, Church of God membership.

GH: Okay uh...I forgot where I left off at...

B: We were discussing the Hardshell Baptist.

GH: Oh yeah, they don't uh...they won't uh...let anybody other than their faith and order take part in the worship service you might be there you know in the congregation but as far as taking part in their service you don't. But now, we are not like that, anybody can come that wants to come but uh...if you got a living companion, married to another you couldn't be a member uh..huh to the church your welcomed to come, and we'd treat you just like we do everybody else but uh...that's the difference with us and the Delbarton Church of God 'course we don't wear jewelry.

B: Okay. What about say being saved or salvation, those people that come to the ceremony can they be saved and then can they go to heaven?

GH: Well, I don't feel like, this is my, my idea I don't think God would turn anybody away, he said uh...you know, it's salvation is for everybody and uh...that is their rules and regulations which they have and uh...course my daughter is uh divorced well and uh she's not married again but her membership is still available, but uh...I have a brother two of my brothers have living wives and married again and uh...you know I don't want to see them lost..

B: uh..huh

GH: and or anything I just keep telling 'em hangin' in there with the Lord and trust him and that's all he can do I wouldn't hurt anybody if they had five I wouldn't try to knock them down, I wouldn't do that that's not my job, that's God's job.

B: (We had to pause for a moment) But uh...we are discussing different aspects of Church of God faith. Uh...one question I'd like to ask you is. Do you believe in healing by faith?

GH: Uh...huh I sure do.

B: Can you explain something about that?

GH: Why I believe that? Well, the Bible and New Testament is full of it. Uh...I think, uh...I uh...uh...I use doctors if you don't have enough faith you better get to a doctor but, I know I've been healed by the power of God I believe that uh...that uh...God heals and its through and by the Holy Ghost that does it. I believe in layin' on of hands...using oil in the name of The Father and Son and the Holy Ghost, an uh.. there is power...the Holy Ghost is power.

B: Okay. Where does the laying on the hands occur do you have to be at church or can it be at home?

GH: Oh, it can be anywhere, when uh...you need prayer and need to healed uh...it can be anywhere.

B: Okay. What about so many times people think of Appalachian religion and you think of snake handlers, what does your church think about that?

GH: Well, we don't practice that and I thank God we don't, (laughter) people has got the wrong idea of mountain people, they have made us look like that we are ignorant and unlearned but there is some I...think some of the most intelligent people that come from the mountain areas uh...they're hard workin' people and uh...uh...their all, most all of 'em are Christians, what they believe they hang to it uh...An I don't know why that uh...other places feel like the mountain people are so dumb. You go to the city especially uh...uh...to mills and places like that to get jobs, they find out that that mountain people can outwork any of the city people uh...they've been taught that all their lives, most mountain people course uh...the younger generation aren't like that, but you take most of your, I call old time people, the hard workers you can't find very many lazy people back then. They had to till the ground to live, they raised big families...and they had to do it, and uh...and they call us a little bit fanatical but I bet they got some snake handlers in some other states as well as West Virginia. Of course, you can't down those people for that... you can't say a thing about it and I won't because, I don't know if they....if they can do it more power to them 'cause I don't believe in trying to condemn other people's salvation, everybody don't see things alike.

B: Well, what does...what does your church feel about non-christian religions and how do they discuss that say like a Muslim or Hindu somebody that doesn't believe in Jesus Christ being a son of God?

GH: Well, you couldn't uh...I'm going to speak for myself, I hadn't heard anybody in church to uh...talk about those things really, but you know there's no that you could be saved only by Jesus Christ, he's the mediator between man and God and he uh...What about these people how could they...what, it wouldn't be a religion, it would be a religion alright, they have that right but its uh...their not goin' anywhere, they're just beating the wind they're not goin' anywhere because uh...you have to borned again that's what he told Nicodemus that you have to born again and uh...

B: What about the role of women in your church how do women fit into the church?

GH: How do they fit in?

B: Yes. Uh...huh...

GH: Well the women do most of the work (they both laugh)

B: Can the women preach?

GH: Uh...huh

B: How does the church service work out, is can you describe it say an average church service to me...

GH: You mean the role, how they operate.

B: Uh...huh

GH: Well, we've have singing, we first have prayer, then we have singing, have congregational singing, then we have uh...special songs and uh...they give the minister the floor, whoever it is that's going to bring the message, then they have an alter call after that...usually that's on Sunday nights unless there is a revival going on uh...Sunday night is the First of the Evangelistic and uh...they have an alter call and uh...we do pray for people if they are sick. People that comes in or anybody that wants to be prayed for all they have to do is just jump out of their seat and go up front and pray for 'em and we pray for them.

B: So when you say or whoever is going to give the message do you all have....

GH: Oh, we have sometimes we have special speakers now, last week we had what uh...was called community a revival. It should of been in uh...the ball park in Matewan but uh...the rain and the weather caused us not to be able to do it so they went to different churches and they had uh...up here they had I believe it was three nights, three or four nights service and they had uh...our Pastor, Sam Saul was the first one, one night and they had uh...Mike Matney there the young boy that uh...singing and testifying and telling how that uh...God have saved him...him and another group was there singing with him and uh...I believe Mr. Taylor, I not sure if Rev. Taylor come preach one night or not but uh...that's the way they did it, we're trying to get together, see this business if people and uh....(telephone ringing) we had uh...we had Fred Taylor from the Matewan Church of God, Full Gospel Church he preached one night, and I don't think its the plan of God for people to be all separated...and I've always been thinkin' that...(tape paused for interruption)

B: I think we were talking about the church service at your church uh...lets see what kind of what kind of messages does your minister normally preach what does he talk about?

GH: Well, we have a lot of teaching, quite a bit of teaching, he's a good minister, good teacher uh...and uh...we're learning a lot about uh The Old Bible, and how the schoolmaster is bringing us to Christ to bring us over into the new it's...it's about the same. B: Okay. I guess I'm almost done with the questions for today, I just have a couple of things I like to go back and ask you some more about. Did your father ever tell you more what it was like to work in mines when they used mules how much did he talk about the old old days like that?

GH: Well, they had to wear soft hats they didn't have the hardshell hats soft canvas like hats caps...uh....he didn't uh...Dad... Dad he enjoyed it, you know, ever job has things about it in time that you really don't care for things that you have to do, but he said it was long hard...hard hours. I can remember when he worked on...on the machine and cut coal and uh...he would uh... come in at two or three o'clock in the morning and he would tell my mother to get up and build a fire in the cook stove and he would lay down behind the cook stove and go back while she fixed him some breakfast he would go back, and wouldn't even take a bath and work the next day, in order to coal for 'em, the mines, things that they needed to get done and uh...they worked long, hard hours they uh...I can remember, just before I was eleven years old I had an attack with appendicitis and had to have surgery uh...I was in Logan General Hospital, Daddy took me down there and I didn't see my Dad for fourteen days, he worked all that time didn't get to come to the hospital to see me. That was some long,long days, long nights course I don't think now I wouldn't have to stay in there that long, but back then they did.

B: Did you ever hear the expression "Bank Clothes"?

GH: That's what we called mining clothes, bank clothes, sure.

B: Do you know why?

GH: Yes, because uh...old people use to, I can remember going down the country to visit my mothers' folks down there they would have a little opening to side of the hill where they would go in and get coal out for their fires they would call it a coal bank.. that's why it was called bank clothes.

B: When your father and your husband worked did they ever work in any shaft mines?

GH: No, my oldest brother did but I don't know anything about it. It was when he was married the first time.

B: What did you all call the other kind of mines, there are textbooks that would call them driftmines...but I've heard them called straight-in mines.

GH: I think that's a drift...this is my idea I'm not sure because they used to call over the mines where Daddy worked, I could hear him say about when he goes in driftmouth, I think it went in and went down, but the one that went straight ahead would be straight in. I heard daddy talk about entries things, off at the side, rooms that they would put in the coal uh...I think.I think that I believe that's your idea of a drift mines.

B: What about the Battle of Blair Mountain? Did you all know anybody that marched with the miners?

GH: Uh...I don't really know, I just knew about the Chafin that lived over there. Don Chafin uh...over there and was a union fighter, and all that stuff and I heard Daddy talk about him being a union fighter. A lot people, I hear them tell, that they were just company folks and things like that you know uh...I guess people were afraid to call names all the time they didn't know whether they would burn their house down or shoot through it or not you know, I heard him say Don Chafin being a union fighter.

B: Okay we were talking about Logan County and Don Chafin, did your father ever say anything about him? About what kind of man he was?

GH: Well, he certainly wasn't for the union, he was a union fighter, and the coal companies were...they were union fighters, they didn't like the union.

B: How about Mother Jones, did you'll all ever?

GH: I heard my dad talk about her before but I didn't that's something I didn't even care about. What dad and I've read some books how good she was and all but uh...I knew he had much respect for her.

B: Okay. So you told me he sta...stayed up all...all night when they were...

GH: fighting

B: fighting, did he fear the union men or uh...

GH: No he didn't fear the union men but, it was the people that...non union you had to fear.

B: What would they do, wha..wha...why would you fear the non union men?

GH: Well, think they feared their jobs more than anything else and their families uh...because they didn't know if, you know, if they took a part in it and they wanted them out. But uh...what would become of 'em you could get unless, Dad feeled that uh...the union didn't work if they didn't work out see nobody, (phone rings) you would get a bad name where ever you tried to get a job, you know, where people would call and get a reference for what kind of person you was. It's just like they do now you have to fill out a bunch of stuff now uh...but uh...that's what people feared more than anything that uh...it took us time to get one of us there but uh... I admire those men what they do uh...they've made life alot, the union people could have something where as, they were kindly considered down low class that you had to dig for when you were small, you know, you just, your Daddy makes a livin' diggin' coal but uh...now share and share alike which I think is great if something else don't turn up.

B: What um...was your family a little better off than say other miner's when your dad became a foremen or was it still different from saying a bosses' daughter?

GH: You know that's one thing that never bothered me. If dad had a good boss or a if he cut coal it didn't any difference to me because, I didn't...we also got, I think that the electrician's daughter, of course the superintendent he lived in the house, he was separated from the rest of the poor folks. But uh...we went to school together, you know, she was my friend at school.

B: Okay. Well, is there anything else that you can think of it that you would like to talk about.

GH: Probably, I could think of alot of things, you know, if uh...I can remember that uh...if you needed, if your house, the floors needed repaired or anything that you have to go through a hassle to get even a carpenter or something, to fix your house and they just treat you like a stepchild uh because you had to have something done to your house or something or if they had put tar on your roof. Of course everybody had a outside toilet, that's what we called 'em, a lot of people called them johns, but we called them toilets, outside toilets and uh...most all of 'em were double they set 'em the middle of the, where the fence went through the ones that were double which I never cared for.

B: uh..huh. Where they open inside or uh...?

GH: No they had like a partition, just like a room..you know.

B: When did you all get indoor plumbing?

GH: I think the first one that we ever that we ever had the uh... bathroom, but my Dad put one in the house when my uh...let's see I think it was about uh...thirty-six. I think Daddy put one in our house uh...Mom was pregnant and uh...I can remember that, it was before Jim was born uh...my brother that lives in Huntington, and Daddy put one in the house and uh...we had to carry water from uh...a spigot a hydrant. It was a little old thing you stick a handle in a pull down and get water from, like uh...most city, you know, they have uh...where the fire trucks hook up on to it, something to that, and then we had pumps, now and uh...right in the middle we had a pump sometimes you would have to dip water a glass of water tryin' to pump it, it would get down so low that go down and pump then you could get you some water out.

B: uh...huh Well what we could do is we can close off today's interview and uh...give you one of our business cards and you think of anything you would like to add I'll come back out.

GH: uh...huh. Okay.

B: Thank you for talking to me today.

GH: Well I've not been much help to you, I don't believe.

B: When I cut off the tape, I found out that uh...you know something about the day Sid Hatfield was killed would you tell me that story?

GH: Yeah, uh...huh Mr. and Mrs. Hood lived at Haraco and their oldest son Mack he was a big old boy, he was down I guess down there he was nosin' around where he didn't have any business and uh...they where having some trouble and he...run under the steps and when Sid Hatfield went up those steps, they shot him and he rolled back down the steps, and Mack was under those steps, my brother was.

B: Um...did he say there something we're trying to find out um...was it just Sid Hatfield and Edd Chambers there that day or was any other people there did he say?

GH: You know I...I couldn't say because, I heard Mack tell it and I heard Wylie tell it but I...I don't Wylie tell it but I don't remember them saying anything about anybody.

B: Okay. Thank you for sharing that with me, that's another side on our story.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection