Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Sallie Dickens Interview

BECKY BAILEY: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center, Friday, July 20, 1990. I'm in Ashland (unintelligible). Mrs. Dickens, if you would, would you tell me your full given name?

SALLIE DICKENS: Sallie B., for Byrd, Dickens, that's B, Y, R, D. and my maiden name was Chambers.

B: When and where were you born?

SD: Matewan, West Virginia, April 21, 1922.

B: What were your parents names?

SD: Thurman Chambers and Josie Chambers.

B: What was your mother's maiden name?

SD: Price. It's Josephine Price.

B: Do you know when they were born?

SD: Uh...mother was born in uh...'89, February, '89 and daddy was born in uh...June 22, 18 uh...1890.

B: Was your mother a native of Matewan?

SD: No she came from a small town called uh...Crist, or River Kentucky. It was located uh...between Louisa and uh...Paint¬sville, Kentucky.

B: Do you know where they met?

SD: Well, her father died uh...my mother uh...father's name was Richard Jessie Price. He died when she was three years old and uh...their house burned down that night and they went down to her brother's house, Tom Price, and uh...her uh...her mother left her with uh...a family by the name of Brown. And she said, Mrs. Brown, if you will keep Josie and send her to school, uh...I want to go to work up at Pikeville, and she said, when I come back, I'll give you my cow. That's all she had left because the house had burned, so mother stayed with the Browns and went to school and she said she always remembered one Christmas so vividly because all she wanted was a candy cane and so when she got up Christmas morning, her stocking was hung on the mantle and something was in it and she ran and grabbed it and put her hand down in the stocking and pulled out a corn cob and she said I cried all day and it wasn't, they didn't want to be cruel, they just didn't have money for candy, you know, so she lived with them until her mother came back and got her when she remarried and she married uh...James Perry and he had grown sons. His wife had died. He had grown sons and one son was named Theodore. THey called him Thee and Mr. Perry had three boats and they sank in the...in the Big Sandy River so he built a...a three or four decker house boat and on the...on the bottom level was the engine, the steam engine that Thee operated and they had a cow uh...they kept a cow so they would have fresh uh...milk and butter and she was in a stall and they take the saw dust from the ...the mill. He had a huge saw and he would strip the bark off of trees and cut it into lumber and it was a circle saw. A big saw, so they used that saw dust to put in a cow stall and mother said she had a pet chicken that would dance for corn and she had a pet pig (laughter) and she would put a bonnet on it and it would lay in the doll bed and play dead with his feet stickin' up you know, and when she'd say, come on, let's go eat, it would hop up and run after her like a puppy.

B: Oh.

SD: So she was allowed to go to any school the boat stopped at and one year she went to five different schools. And, her mother cooked for all the deck hand and uh...they uh...one time a mouse ran out from the kitchen, out on the deck and her mother, mother said run Josie and...an see if you can see the mouse and when she went out on the deck, she slipped and went into BIg Sandy and there was mush ice on the river and her daddy jumped in, her step-father jumped in in his over coat into the mush ice to pull her out. She never could swim. And he built her a little boat and she pulled oar up and down Big Sandy and uh...she wanted to go giggin' with the boys and they wouldn't let her go. They didn't want to be bothered with her cause she was so much younger so her daddy made her a little tiny gig, it was like this you know and she through it at a frog one time and caught him by the hind legs and when he started croakin' so mournfully, she pulled out the gig and torn her petticoat and wrapped his leg up and turned him loose. (laughing) . Her mother died uh...I'm trying to think of her name, Franklin, she was a decedent, Betty Franklin was uh...my mother's mother. She was the decedent of Benjamin Franklin and uh...she died when my mother was uh...thirteen. And uh...her sister had been uh...Richard Jessie Price, had a wife. Her name was Jane and she died and then he married her sister who was Betty Franklin. He married sister's so mother had some step-brothers.

B: What happened to your mother after her mother died?

SD: Well, she went to live with her half brother at Thacker, West Virginia. He had a boarding house for minors and uh...she had only one dress so she would wash the dress at night and iron it in the morning and she would get up at four and five and pack miner's buckets. SHe had to bake bread and fry pies and uh...pack miner's buckets and uh...do almost a days work before she could go to school and she stayed there, I think about three years or longer. Must have been longer and uh...that's when she came to Matewan and when she heard about the job for a telephone operator and she stayed at my grandmother's hotel. The Harris Hotel where uh... ¬Sallie and Tom Chamber's operated it and that's where she met my father. Thurman Chambers.

B: Did she ever tell you how she heard about the job?

SD: Well, I can't...think some of the miner's told her. The miner's told her that as hard as she was workin' she could get paid for it down at Matewan and so uh...I don't know whether she wrote Mr. White at Williamson or not but he was the , evidentially, the manager or had something to do with telephones and so, when she went to Matewan, he said, now Josie, they have run off three or four telephone operators and she said this is one telephone opera¬tor they won't run off and when she uh...had been there a while some of the ladies of the town offered her money, quite a bit of money if she would let them listen in on their husbands conversa¬tions and she refused. That's against the law you know. And she said, I can't do that and so they all got mad at her. She...she wouldn't let them listen in on the conversation.

B: Un-hun. um. WHen did she go to work there?

SD: Well, she was uh...she must have been about eighteen, or younger. She was eighteen or younger.

B: Did she ever tell you about how long she work during the day, I mean, did people just call during the day or did she have to work at night?

SD: No, I don't think she worked at night. Just during the day.

B: Did she ever tell you about the machines that she used? Did you ever...

SD: Well, it was the kind that you plugged in.

B: Un-hun.

SF: You know, it had wires to them and they, they plugged in the thing that sat up.

B: Did she say what building it was in where she worked?

SD: Well, it was there where uh...between um...George Blanken¬ship's home and Dora Chamber's home. It was a vacant lot there with a uh...feed store on the back side of the lot and the uh... telephone office was upstairs and there was a lady, Mrs. Maynard, who was the telephone operator and she taught her how to use it.

B: When was uh...Liddy Bilby the telephone operator?

SD: Well, that was later.

B: Okay.

SD: In the '20's, Jenny said in the 1920's, she was the telephone operator.

B: Did your mother fever say how many um...telephones there were in Matewan when she worked?

SD: I think our store had the number 19. It was either 14 or 19 and the number was our house number.

B: Un-hun. Um.

SD: 14. One was 19, one was 14. One was the house, I guess that was our store number 14. And the house number was 19.

B: Okay. How did your parents, did they ever talk about their courtship? Did they ever talk about how they actually met?

SD: Well, they met there at the hotel. The Harris Hotel but uh... Thurman Chamber's would sleep 'til eleven o'clock uh...they had hired help, you know, and uh...he would come downstairs and got mad and throw the cold biscuits across the floor because they were cold and so mother chastised him and she said that uh...if he belonged to her, that she would certainly wouldn't' cooked him and he'd get up and eat when everyone else did or he wouldn't eat at all and he laughed at her and then one day, he asked her to go for a walk with him and he was wearing a cap because his hair was so curly, he hated it and he'd take his hand , you know, and kind of hold it down and it was real kinky so he wore a cap and she said, I'll go for a walk with you if you'll take that cap off and he did so they started datin' and uh...he was very jealous and uh...he would give her a locket, you know, and necklaces and rings and then when he'd get jealous of whoever she was talkin' to on the tele¬phone, he'd take, give me my jewelry back, so one time he did that, and she said now, if you ask for them back again, she says, I won't have them so one day she was talkin' on the telephone and he came up the stairs and he said un-hun, I heard you, I heard you talkin' and so he was jealous, you know, so she took all the jewelry and threw them out the window into the rose bush and he begged her to take them back and she no, I told you I'd never take them back so he started cryin' she told me that. So, I don't know what year they got married but they had, mother and daddy had eight children. The first child was uh...Claude and uh...he was a beautiful baby and when he was fourteen months old, he became ill and uh...his neck grew back. My mother thought he had spinal menin¬gitis and he died. And then, I guess two years later, she had my sister, Thelma and she had black curly hair like my daddy and he worshipped, he worshipped the ground she walked on.

B: How far apart in the age were you and your, did you have any brothers?

SD: Oh, yes. After Thelma, uh...two years after Thelma was born, my brother Roy was born and three years after Roy was born, my brother Howard was born and then two years later, my brother Paul, two years later, my uh...sister Ruth, and then I was born in '22 and then my brother, Thurman, Jr. was the younger one. So he was born in '24. Now, by brother uh...Roy and Thelma lived in a house up town close to where the bank is now or close to where Bill Varney's barber shop was. They had a house. I remember mother saying her house burned five different times so she must have lived in five different locations at least four before they built...built the, lived in the house down where the bridge is now and so they built our big two-story house around three rooms. Uncle Reece Chamber's uh...built houses from the bridge down to the railroad. There were three big two-story houses uh...my brother Howard's wife, Virginia, was Virginia Compton. Her mother had a big two-story house and Al Hoskins had a big two-story house and it burned down one night.

B: What did your parents tell you um...about what happened during the Massacre? In that time period. Did they ever talk about it?

SD: Well, no, uh...we didn't hear about that when we were children but uh...when my mother went to live with us uh...in recent years, she told me about it. I do remember some of the things she told me one time she said when they lived up town and Roy was a small child uh...they couldn't keep him in so they put a six foot chicken wire on top of the other fence and one day she heard him yelling, mother, look at me and when she looked out, he was swinging at the the top of a chicken wire fence. Six foot up over the other fence. And when she lived up there, uh...the only time she could iron at night was from nine until twelve o'clock because that was the only time the generated was on over at Stoney Mountain Coal Company across the railroad tracks and so she was ironing one night and she heard someone come up the boardwalk and they tried to tear down her screen door and she screamed and she kept talking to him and asking what he wanted, are you gonna go to sleep, I think I'm putting you to sleep.

B: No.

SD: uh...she said what do you want, and he never spoke to her but he kept trying to tear down the screen door and uh...it scared her so and she ran in and got the gun out of the drawer and uh...she went back out to the screened in porch and pulled the trigger back, well, in the meantime, the city policeman who was Mr. Massey heard her scream and uh...he told his wife, you forget to tell Josie to keep her door locked, didn't you? And she said, yes, I did. Run quickly so when Mr. Massey ran and saw mother with a gun, he said don't shoot Josie, the man doesn't know where he is and someone had beaten the poor fellow, she said, he was covered in blood and she said, I would have killed him. I was so scared because she had young children, you know, so, the next day, they found him walkin' in the middle of Tug River, just walkin' in the middle and they took him, I guess, to Huntington to the state hospital and she never knew who he was.

B: But that happened at that time.

SD: Yes. Yes. Now, another thing my mother told me during the miner's war, the miner's were put out of their company houses in the winter time. It was snowin'. I don't know how deep the snow was but it was a terrible time and uh...they were living in tents. There was a Morrell family uh...Joe Morrell and Sophia was her name and they were in a camp directly across from our house on the other side of the railroad where the tipple came down and she was expect-in' twins and Dr. McCoy was so worried about Mrs. Morrell that he begged her that if anything happened to her, would she please let him take the baby and rear them and she told my mother later, she said, oh, Miss Chamber's she said, I thought I would die but she said, I had my babies and she said I crawled out to the cow and milked the cow so my other children could have milk. In the movie Matewan, it does not show that it was in the winter time, which made it, the situation, very bad for the miner's because they put out, they'd been put out of their homes. They took there furni-ture. They would not let them use the company scrip for money and everything they tried to do uh..to form the union uh...the company was against it, you know. And so, my daddy had the uh...the hard¬ware store close to the depot. There were gun and racks on the wall. They had glass over them and were locked and underneath the uh...the gun racks, under the uh...gun racks uh..there was a counter under the counter, there were drawers with the bullets in it so the miners came in and took the guns out of the racks on the wall and got the bullets out of the drawer. My daddy could not stop them, you know, and so uh...there was a door in the back of the hardware store and I believe in the furniture side so uh... then, you know, they were all shooting toward the depot with...and the uh...Baldwin Felts Detectives.

B: Un-hun.

SD: And uh...my mother said, she saw a man fall head first in a rain barrel and they saw another man swim Tug River so I guess that was a detective trying to get away. I don't know which one... (tape cuts off). Um...my brother, Paul and his cousin were the same age. They were about three and uh...at this time, mother and daddy and uh...our grandmother Sallie Chambers lived down below the bridge and so uh...Paul and Tom would play out in the yard and stay out until the shooting would start again and then Tom couldn't talk plain but he would say "wun, Paul, wun. They's shootin' adain." And they would run to the basement. And uh...another time, grand-mother told me that uh...she was across the street, evidently, from daddy's store when the shootin' started and she ran to the store to see about her son, my daddy, Thurman Chamber's and his brother Arthur and when she walked through the door, they shot the glass out of the (unintelligible) and the glass fell in her head, she said she picked glass out of her head for a week.

B: Um. So this was, did...did all this happen on that one day or...or was there shooting in town at other times?

SD: Yes, there was shooting other times. Sometimes people would shoot from across the river into the town.

B: Okay.

SD: Uh...Rosie Nenni recently told me that uh...people would just shoot into the town for no reason, you know, and so uh...I guess eventually, they had to declare Marshall Law to stop that. (someone speaking in background)

B: What did your mother ever tell you about that? Did she tell you about the soldiers being in town or anything like that?

SD: No.

B: Okay. I want to see if I understood this correctly, was your father's store was one side of it...

SD: There were two stores. One side was a hardware and the other was furniture.

B: Okay. But it was side to side, it wasn't the two different fronts on the street. It wasn't halfway, say, it was...

SD: Well, the hardware store was built first and the...there was a vacant lot beside it and then in later years, they built the uh...furniture store. They added on to it. There was a doorway between the two and each one had a front door and a back door.

B: Do you know, do you remember when he built the furniture store?

SD: No, I don't. It was before I was born.

B: Okay. Did your parents ever talk about um...say, some of the men that were involved in the massacre or did you remember any of them?

SD: Well, a few years ago, my mother had cancer and she lived with us three years before she died and uh...she talked a little bit about it um...of course, everyone felt that the miner's had been mistreated and of course, uh...Ed Chamber's was my great uncle's son and when they sent for him and uh...Sid Hatfield, to uh...come to Welch, West Virginia for a trial, there wives went with them and uh...they were never allowed to go, to be tried. They were killed on the steps at Welch and one of the uh...detectives or one of the men who had been active in the fight for the uh...detectives and pretending to be a friend of the miner's, he came with a pistol and shot uh...Sid in the head while his wife was right there beside him. And she kept begging him not to shoot him but he did.

B: Was that Sid or...or Ed, because...

SD: That was Sid. Sid Hatfield and Ed was killed right there with him and his wife was with him so they weren't allowed to go to trial.

B: So Reece Chamber's then was your father's...

SD: My great, my great uncle, my father's uh...he was my grandad¬dy's brother. My grandfather was Thomas Chambers and that was his brother, Reece.

B: Do you remember him?

SD: Uncle Reece? Oh, yes.

B: What do you remember about him?

SD: Well, he had several brothers and my mother said that grand-daddy who was Tom Chamber's she said he was the best of the bunch. He uh...they all came to Matewan because of the lumbering business. They were in the lumbering business in Virginia and uh...grandaddy had the general store and then he and his wife, Sallie uh...ran the uh...Harris Hotel and then uh...he built the first general store. He helped build the first church and when he had the old one, Methodist Church in Matewan, he built tiny parish for the children and helped build a church over there. Sallie Chamber's was the sister, she was a Mitchell, she was the sister of Henry Mitchell over at Logan and I think he was in the lumbering business. And he was the one that was married to uh...what the hell, say, Devil Anse Hatfield. Youngest uh...son, sister's kid. Betty Mitchell was her name. My grandmother's name, she was a Mitchell and I was named after Sallie Chance, she then became a Chambers so I was named after her.

B: What do you know about the rest of the Chambers family? How, are you related to the Chamber's that started the bank?

SD: Oh, yes.

B: How was he related?

SD: Well, Dan Chamber's was his nephew. Dan was the president of the bank and his brother, they called him E. B. CHambers had a uh...(tape cuts off)

B: We were talking, do you, did you ever know E.B. Chambers?

SD: Oh, yes. He was my uncle. He was Dan's father, my uncle. He had a large family. He had uh...Edgar, and Everett, and uh...Edgar and Everett and one they called uh...Polly and Vern, and Dan and Lenna and Pearl. I think that's all of them.

B: How many brothers did your father have?

SD: Well, there was uh...E. B., they called him Ed, and Uncle John, and Jim lived in Huntington, Uncle John uh...sold shoes for Buster Brown and Uncle Jim was in real estate business in uh... -Huntington and then there, when I was little there was Uncle Tom Mitchell, Uncle Lee, and Uncle Arthur. They were the older ones and then daddy had a sister, Georgie that married uh...Geraldine Blankenships uh...father, the one that came from Jelicho, the telegrapher and then Helen, he had two sisters.

B: What was the name, the first name of the Blankenship that he came and was a telegrapher...

SD: George. George Blankenship. He was the first telegrapher in Matewan. He came from Jelicho, Tennessee and he had a big family. There was George, Jr., and uh...Geraldine, and Andy and Tom.

B: Okay. (tape cuts off)

SD: And different families. Uncle uh..E. B. had uh...Dan and and uh...Edgar, Everett, Polly, there was Lenna and Vern and Pearl and they...they had a big family and of course there were eight in our family and then uh...Pearl, the youngest of his family, she had a large family when she married Clare Overstreet.

B: What do you remember about him because he just, in the picture of the Massacre defendant, he just doesn't look like he fits in with the rest of them.

SD: Who, Clare?

B: Un-hun.

SD: I don't know much about him. I really don't uh...he uh...I don't know, I...I...he worked in the post office. (tape cuts off)

B: While we had the tape cut off, Mrs. Dickens, you were talking about what a wonderful town Matewan was to...to grow up in and you had talked...started talking about some of your teachers.

SD: Oh, yes.

B: Okay.

SD: Is it on? Uh...when we were children, in Matewan, West Virginia, it was a wonderful time, just to be there and grow up and we felt safe and secure on, everyone was protected and everybody helped everybody and when a...a woman would have a baby all of the woman from the missionary society and all of her friends and neigh¬bors would go to her house for a week at a time and they would take care of her and cook her meals and take down her curtains and wash 'em and wash her clothes and give her her medicine and, and it was just like having other sisters or aunts that would...would help and take care of and strip the bed and bathe the baby for a week at a time, they would do that and one time, my mother had uh...typhoid fever and her hair came out and her brother came up uh...from Williamson and stayed with her weeks at a time and fed the children and...and dressed the baby and helped bathe, my mother mother was his half sister, you know, and he stayed with her and helped her and uh...when we went to town, the children always felt like, everybody know's me, you know, if anybody bothers me, I can run in a store and...and...and they wouldn't dare bother me if I went in a store and told them you know, and we could go in and go swimming with tad poles and minnows around our feet. We could see the bottom of the river, it was so clear and we'd go swimming and we'd go up in the hills and take our lunch and stay all day. No-body bothered it and we would gather walnuts in the fall and sometimes, we'd make uh...there used to be a water fall up close to where Miss Hoskins lived and uh...I used to get a ball of mud and I would uh...put moths around it and punch my thumb in the middle and then I would gather violets and little ferns and wild roses and put it down in and make a little basket out of it, you know, and there were cliffs up over the other side and we'd go in there, you know, and we'd hunt for leaves in the fall and uh...we used to cut our Christmas trees up there and oh, there was one place, there were two seams uh...top seam and a bottom seam that had tram roads around where the little coal cars, would bring the coal out to the tipple and then it would go down the conveyor belt down to the tipple and empty into the coal cars and but up on the top seam, there was a, a pool of water and it had a huge flat rock, it was about three feet tall, the rock, up over this water and we would lie down on our tummies and cup our hands and drink that icy cold water, oh, it was so good. It was so good.

B: Was this up at Warm Holler. Up where that was?

SD: Yes. Yes.

B: Okay. Okay. Would you tell me the story about um...Miss Talbert, your English teacher.

SD: Katie Talbert, they called her Katie, she was uh...a real short little lady, I doubt she was about five foot tall and she made Shakespeare, Macbeth, and all of those wonderful stories com alive and uh...when she was uh...teachin' us Macbeth, she would act as the witches, you know, when they were brewin' and she would use her hand to stir and she would cackle like a witch and she would say, "Boils, and bubbles, toil and trouble" and we would get so tickled, you know and she made our classes so interesting and she uh...she was the one who directed all the plays in high school and uh...I remember, my sister said one time, they were givin' a play and...and they were supposed to be drinkin' wine, you know, so naturally, Miss Talbert thought that grape juice was being used, well, actually, they were drinking wine (laughing). She didn't know it but the students had sneaked in a little bit of wine and so there they were drinking wine on the school stage and Mrs. Talbert didn't know it, but she was a wonderful teacher. She made you want to come to class and then we had a teacher, Marion Mont¬gomery, who started the uh...Quill and Scroll uh...the journalism class that I took in, I guess I'm the oldest member of Quill and Scroll up at Matewan and uh...she was a lovely lady and...and she...she made our...our school years good and uh...you now, every¬one cares. If a person has a death in the family, everyone would go and have (unintelligible) so that (unintelligible) and when anyone died, they had to put the casket on a boat, a flat boat and they would, they had an iron uh...uh...cable across the river and they would pull hand over hand across the river to get this casket across Tug River and I remember looking out our kitchen window and I could see the men tryin' to hold on to the casket and pull uh... the boat across the river and I made up a poem one time and I said, hold past the rope, because some day it might be me in that casket and then they would carry it up the hill, all the way up to the cemetery on their shoulders and there was a Mr. Taylor that was so big, they couldn't get a casket big enough for him and I don't know, some said it was a refrigerator box, I don't know what it was but, it was, he was such a large man, they couldn't find a casket to fit him, but when I saw them carrying him on their shoulders, I just thought, oh, my goodness. Be careful, if the casket would get away from them, they'd be down the river and sometimes, the river would be at flood stage, very swift and I was so afraid a casket would go off that little boat into the water, and one time, mother told me, that the river froze solid and she saw wagons coming over the river and they used to take big saws and cut out blocks of ice in the river and they stored them in the ice house in saw dust and it would stay frozen until June and July and I remember Matewan when, before they...they paved the road and Uncle Bob Compton had a nice wagon and he would bring ice to our house and when he'd take the big tongs and take a big chunk of ice on his shoulder and go around the house, then my sister Ruthie and my brother Junior and I would run to the wagon and get slivers of ice. (laughing) And ever two days, he'd have to bring another fifty pound cake of ice to put in the top of the ice box.

B: I don't suppose in the early years, that you probably had a mortician working here. Did they (unintelligible)?

SD: Well, grandaddy was the first person when he has the general store who would order...he would order pine boxes and he would line them with cotton and put white muslin on the inside and black muslin on the outside and put cotton underneath it and then when my mother went there and married my father, Thurman Chamber's, she would help grandaddy fix the casket and she said they lined it with cotton bedding and put white muslin inside the casket and black muslin on the outside and that was the beginning of the Chamber's Funeral Home. And of course, I guess if it was a baby's casket, you know, they would do the same thing. They would put white cloth inside and black on the outside. I remember one time, my uh...Aunt Emm, she was Arthur Chamber's wife, she got uh...men¬ingitis and uh...no one was allowed in the house and they would not let them take her to the church after she died. So they had the funeral services out in the alley around her house. They had to have the funeral that way.

B: did your parents ever talk bout the flu epidemic?

SD: Well, my mother got scarlet fever one time, and uh...no, it was diphtheria, she got diphtheria and it seem like everyone in town was sick and uh...someone knocked on the door one day and when daddy went to the door, it was Meg Daniels. (tape cuts off)

B: You were telling me off tape about uh...you and your brother and your sister, you would get teased about being a red head?

SD: Oh, yes. Uh...Thurman, Jr., was uh...three and I was five and my sister Ruth was seven. Two years between us and when anyone would tease us, they would say, redhead cabbage head, five cents a cabbage head and we'd fight, oh, we'd get so mad, we'd fight and another thing I remember, when I was little, I'd say mother, can I go play? and she'd say, when the churning's done. And I hated to churn, but I thought, well, the only way I'll get out is to do it so I would sit and churn for about an hour. It would take an hour and I would get so weary and finally I'd get desperate at the last and I'd start singing, churn butter churn, churn butter churn, Johnny's at the garden gate waitin' for a butter cake. (laughing) Oh, me. And Lucy Hoskins was from Virginia. She had a (unintelli-ible [sic]) and when her husband would get a little tipsy, she'd get real angry and she'd come up to my mother's house and she would huff and puff and she'd say, Josie, he doesn't have to drink, all he has to do is smell the cough. (laughing) and she had a little song, she would sing, if you'll sing it with me, I'll tell you how it works. You sing and repeat the words I say. Will you?

B: I can't sing but I'll try.

SD: Yes, you can. You can sing. Just repeat what I'm saying. Uh...Phil Grogen's goat.

B: Phil Grogen's goat.

SD: sing loud.

B: Phil Grogen's goat.

SD: Was feeling fine.

B: Was feeling fine.

SD: Ate three red shirts.

B: Ate three red shirts

SD: Right off the line.

B: Right off the line.

SD: Phil took a stick.

B: Phil took a stick.

SD: Gave him a whack.

B: Gave him a whack.

SD: And tied him to.

B: And tied him to.

SD: The railroad track.

SD & B: The railroad track.

SD: The whistle blew. The train grew nigh.

B: The train grew nigh

SD: The old Grogen's goat.

B: The old Grogen's goat.

SD: Was sure to die.

B: Was sure to die.

SD: He gave three bleeps

B: He gave three bleeps.

SD: Of mournful pain.

B: Of mournful pain.

SD: Coughed up the shirt

B: Coughed up the shirt.

SD: And flagged the train.

SD & B: And flagged the train. (laughing) She used to sing that when we were little and we loved her dearly.

B: Was she related to Aunt Martha Hoskins?

SD: They were married to brothers. Al and Remine Hoskins were brothers and uh...Aunt Martha Chambers was her sister. She was married to Jim Chambers and he was a brother of Reece and Tom Chambers.

B: Before I forget um...did your parents know H. S. White.

SD: Well, I think H. A. S. White was Dora Chamber's brother, if I'm not mistaken. And she married E. B. Chamber's. Let me (tape cuts off) My mother went to the eighth grade uh...she studied McGruphy readers and when she was eighty six years old, she could quote the McGruphy reader about uh...how did it go about uh... ¬underneath the chestnut tree, the tree, the billy sniffy stand and she quoted one day, she quoted the little poem about a little violet. I've still got the poem here, she loved poetry and I do too. I have written a lot of poems about people in West Virginia, in...in Matewan about Mrs. Jackson and the big pie she made.

B; Who was she?

SD: Well, she was our morticians wife uh...Mr. Jackson worked for my father, Thurman Chamber's for nineteen years. He was like a brother to him. His name was Hiram Jackson and her name was Zelma and when I would come home from school in the evening, she'd say, hey, Sallie, come over a minute and when I would go over she'd say, come on in and I'd go to the kitchen and she'd have a big piece of pie about two or three inches high and sometimes it was banana cream pie, or uh...chocolate pie or uh...oh, they...they, it was just wonderful, and the funniest thing she would say, that's the best pie I ever et, and I'd say mother, how can you spell et. I had never heard that expression before, but she loved me and I loved her too and Mr. Jackson worked for my father for nineteen years and my dad always wanted one of my brothers to be a morti¬cian. There were four boys you know, but they all said no, no, no, and one night my daddy, no my brother Roy came home for supper and while he was settin' there, daddy walked in and he said Roy, did you see the light on up the funeral home. And Roy said, yes, dad, he said, well, why didn't you go in and turn the light off. And he said, dad did you see the light, he said, why yes, he said, why didn't you go turn it off. The light stayed on all night. (laughing) Neither would go in the funeral home because there three bodies there.

B: About what time period was Mr. Jackson a mortician?

SD: Well, my daddy died in uh...'57, he worked for him nineteen and twenty years or longer.

B: One of the questions that we can't seem to get answers, nobody remembers them, who was police chief after Sid Hatfield died?

SD: Mother mentioned a...a Mr. Massey. Uh...he lived close to her because when this crazy man was wondering, he ran to her house. And she could only iron from nine to twelve because that was the only time the mine generator was on at night, so otherwise, they had no electricity. (tape cuts off). We were having outdoor plumb¬ing. I don't ever remember that when I was growing up in '22. You see, before that, Paul and Ruth were born in that small house when they moved down from town and uncle Reece built the big house around those three rooms and so I imagine, he he put the bathroom when he built the big house.

B: You mentioned before, did he build several of the houses?

SD: Yes, he did.

B: Who's houses did he build?

SD: Al Hoskins, and Logan Comptons, and our house and he built a big house a close to the depot, a two-story house and across the, you know where the bottling plant, where the Nenni's were up..up toward uh...Warm Hollow, there's a big two-story house where Aunt Martha Chamber's Hatfields mother and daddy lived. He built that. He built a lot of homes in Matewan. He was a good carpenter.

B: Did he do it all himself or did he hire a crew or did any of his sons help him?

SD: I don't think his son's did because uh...his wife died when Marcus was born and uh...Dr. McCoy took him, Dr. McCoy at Hunting¬ton took him and his sister Elsie, I think, and bred them and the older son was Palat, he was a miner. I don't think he ever did carpentry work. Uh...there was another family, the Hendricks were carpenters. Fred Hendricks and oh, what was his name, there was a big family and Hendricks boys that were good carpenters, they could make cabinets and...and put roofin' on and they were good... good carpenters. Now we had...we carried water for a long time until daddy built a well. I remember when they dug the well and it went through blue clay and rock and everything, you could see it comin' up and uh...it, the water, though, was uh...had iron in it and it turned our sheets yellow so then we had city water piped in but we always had a bathroom in our place.

B: Un-hun. Okay. And that's one of the things I think about living in town that was a little different from living out in some of the coal camps like when, the next county where my mother grew up, they didn't put indoor plumbing in for a long time.

SD: Well, now at Red Jacket, Red Jacket was made up of little sections. Of different uh...nationalities. The blacks had their section, Italians and hungarian. You know, they had different uh...little sections they lived in. I doubt they...they didn't have indoor plumbing in their house. My...my mother and daddy both went to the eighth grade and (unintelligible) and in that day and time, you could teach school. Mother said they'd keep you on a lesson a week. You had to...to...to learn a word, how to spell it backwards and forwards. You had to use it in a sentence. You had to hyphenate it and use a (unintelligible) you know, uh...and...and she said sometimes they'd be kept on a lesson for a week. But when you got through with it, you remembered it, you know, and uh...I went to uh...I finished uh...high school at Matewan and then I went down to Bowen Green Business University, down here at Bowen Green, Kentucky and my sister, Thelma, taught school for twenty-five years. Virginia Howard's wife taught school for twenty-five years and Lenna and Geraldine, my cousins, they taught, taught school 'til they retired.

B: When did you graduate from Matewan?

SD: '40. 1940. And I graduated from the business university in '42. May '42.

B: Where you and um...Mr. Dickens, were you always sweethearts from childhood on up or did you ever have other boyfriends?

SD: Never. I never had another boyfriend.

B: How old were you when he became your boyfriend?

SD: He took me and my sister, Ruthie, to the...to the Junior-Senior prom and the banquet because there weren't enough boys to go around. There weren't. There were more girls than boys. (unintelligible) And then after he graduated in '39, uh...they moved up near Welch to a town called War. His dad was workin' out there for Piggly Wiggly and then, when I went to Bowen Green, he went to the air force and he graduated from Devil Air base that was in California and then he flew to uh...I think it was Preskile, in Maine and then they went out uh...Greenman (unintelligible) and uh...he through fifteen missions from England to Germany and on the fifteenth mission, they were headed toward uh...Swangford, Germany and before they reached it, it was a ball bearing factory they were trying to destroy. Before his plane reached it, uh...the flat caught two of the engines on fire. None of the men had ever used a parachute so they had to bail out and before that, one man got his arm shot off at the shoulder and the pilot put a parachute and pushed him out of the plane in the hopes that the German's would find him and help him. Well, he almost had a nervous breakdown worrying about this man but later, he turned up. The German's found him and they saved his life so uh...my husband had never used a parachute before and when he bailed out uh...he hit the side of a mountain. Injured his knee a little bit and he hit the parachute and the gun he had and his maps and things, and he started up to the crest of the mountain and when he got up there, this man was awalking toward him with a gun and a lot of school children had seen the parachute come down and they found him and so they captured him, so then, he wound up in that German prison camp for nineteen months and uh...he didn't know it at the time, but his neighbor from War, West VIrginia, was in another barracks in the same compound. All that time, and neither knew the other was there. What a comfort it would have been had they known, you know, that they, (unintelligible). And, after the war was over, the Russians would come in from one side and the allies and the others, the Americans reached them first and released them and uh...they found warehouses of food, the red cross had sent and they wouldn't let them have it. (tape cuts off)

B: You were talking about your husbands experience in the prison camp and you said that Russian's ate the...

SD: Ate the guard dogs. The police dogs. The barracks were full of fleas so they tried to stay outside as much as they could but it was in the winter time and it got fully cold and of course, when they could show, it was in ice water and finally they forced them to march about a hundred miles in the snow and a lot of the men fell and they didn't know if they shot them or whether they froze to death and uh...my husband help drag them in many miles until his knee gave way on him and they put them in box cars for three days and nights. No food, no water, no toilet facilities, packed in there like sardines and uh...it was a bad time.

B: Will he talk about it very much?

SD: Yes. I think he would we uh...attend a group meeting once a month with POW's and their wives (unintelligible) and so when he cam back on a ship uh...from the horror of France, he went to a hospital in France and then uh...he came on a train and uh...we were married in uh...July 26, 1945.

B: Up until when he was captured, did you all write to each other or...I don't suppose, he didn't get to write you once he was...

SD: Hun-un. All the mail was censored. We had form letters we could write on. And we had four girls and one boy. My oldest daughters a nurse and uh...her husbands with the bank of Ohio. That's Judy. Melinda is a computer analyst in uh...Atlanta. My daughter Peggy is married and has two children and her husband works for some big factory, I don't know, they make TV's and elec¬tronic equipment and then uh....Jamie is training to be assis¬tant manager out here at one of the new shoe stores at the mall and she's five foot eight, believe it or not. I'm 5'3". (laughing).

B: Now, what's your sons name?

SD: Well, his name is James H. Dickens, II, but we call him Jim. He has a darling little boy, Jeremy, who will be two next month.

B: Did you and Mr. Dickens live in Matewan after you were married?

SD: Yes. We lived in Matewan. We lived in Williamson. We lived in War which is two mountains over from Welch and uh...then uh...he started working for Metropolitan Life Insurance and we moved back to Williamson and then to Huntington and then down here.

B: Did you ever work during the war? I know a lot of young women during World War II worked.

SD: Well, after I finished business school, I worked a little while in Williamson but my transportation became a problem. I don't drive. And uh...then I worked a while at the Matewan National Bank and then after I got married, I worked with the State Hospital in Huntington for awhile and then when we moved here to Ashland, I worked at several different places uh...one was newspaper. I worked uh...part time at several stores. I work at the YWCA for two years and I'm now a volunteer over at the uh...Hillcrest Roust Mini¬stries, they call it. it's a, a low rent housing develop¬ment over there in the uh...Methodist Church built a building and uh...we have people who come from half ways to uh...council people with uh...mental problems. Children, women with children, we have a kindergarten. We have uh...access to a clothing pantry and food supplies and they tutor children after school, they send them to uh...camp and church retreat and they uh...have kindergarten and we give rummage sales and bake sales and do all we can to uh...to uh...get money to send them to camp in the summer time. We do alot of good things down there. They have uh...arts and crafts room where they uh...have quilting and sewing and make pretty little things, and we have bizarres around christmas to make money.

B: Would you tell me about um...the celebration that they used to have called May Day in Matewan?

SD: I don't know too much about it. I do remember that they had a May pole and it had ribbons tied to the top and people would walk in and out and weave the ribbon down the pole. I remember that. And they had a king and a queen that they chose who was head of the uh...festival.

B: Were you in high school then or were you younger than that?

SD: No, no. I was ten years younger than my sister so she was uh...a senior I think when she was in it.

B: What do you remember about uh...how different holidays growing up in Matewan? We hear that Halloween used to be a really fun time for the young people.

SD: You'll have to ask my husband about that.

B: Was he involved in some of the pranks.

SD: Everyone was afraid of the funeral home. The children were always afraid of the funeral home. Especially if they knew there were bodies in there, you know, and Mr. Jackson, the mortician, would sometimes go out and get a body, he always had someone help him but he had this huge wicker basket and they put the body in the basket and cover it up. Well, they would bring it and put it in his living room and he'd go to bed. You know, sometimes, it would be at night, a miner would get killed or someone would die and it would be late at night so they would just put the wicker basket in his living room. He would go on to bed and in the morning, they would take the basket out the funeral home and he would embalm the body.

B: Un-hun. Um. He must have had nerves of steel.

SD: Well, it just didn't bother him.

B: What do you remember about the different um...stores in town, I know um...Mrs. uh...Virginia Chambers put together an incredible list and I was wondering if you would go through that for me? (unintelligible)

SD: Well, Reams Hardware is owned by Ed Reams and his brother Alan and Alan Reams married my cousin, Geraldine Blankenship and uh... years later they bought uh...the Chamber's Funeral Home. I think the Urias Hotel was next to Ream's store, but then there was Landon Kessee and Mus Stafford had an uh...barber shop next door to the Urias Hotel and when we were little, mother would say, go up there and get your hair cut and so my sister Ruthie and I would go up and he would put a board across the arm of the chair, we were so small and we had to follow mother's instructions and she would say, tell him but your bangs, clip it up to your ears and shingle in the back so that's the way we...we got our Dutch boy haircuts. (laughing) Uh...next door to that was a pool room. I don't really remember who owned that at that time. This was in the '20's then there was uh...Harley Hopes jewelry store. Later it became a department store and then there was Frank L. Leckie's Drug Store and his son, George ran that years later. Then there was uh...Mr. Compton's grocery store, Logan Compton was his name, and next to that was a vacant lot and then there was uh...I think they called them maudlin ...maudlin uh...stores or shoes...maudlin Shoes. And Vern and Polly Chambers uh...ran that store and then there was an empty store uh...where a lot of the uh...people from the church would have church dinners and serve meal there, then there was Meadows Jewelry Store. Jewelry and repair. I...next to that was uh...a grey house, which was uh...behind Mr. Easterlings house and there was a Dr. Miller and a Dr. Coleman who had offices there and next to that was an old store, the General Store, that was run by uh... Tom Chamber's and Sallie Chambers and uh...in front of that, no, let's go on the backside, there was a brown house, and that, where ...was where uh...the Harris Hotel was, great grandmother and granddaddy ran. They leased it and ran it.

B: Can you say about where that would, where that would be now? Do you know of anything that would be standing there about now so we'd know a little better about?

SD: Well, you know where the flower shop is at Matewan?

B: Yes, ma'am.

SD: It...it was uh...let's see...

B: Okay.

SD: Next to the hotel there...there was a...a road that ra...ran toward the river and then there was Aunt Martha Hoskins house and Dude Bochman and Uncle Tom Chafin and a small house where uh... Allie Chafin lived in the front and then the Odd Fellows Hall which was upstairs and a funeral home underneath and then there was a...a...a small lot and an alley to the...to the back, next to Dr. Smith's house and then uh...H. S. White's home and uh...Fitzpatricks was the next house and then John L. Justice had a house there next to the uh...Misonic Building.

B: Un-hun. Okay.

SD: And then on uh...on the front then, was a, in front of Dr. Miller and Colemans office was Easterling's house and then uh...a garden that belonged to Thurman CHamber's and there was an alley between it and uh...the house where Thurman and Josie Chamber's lived and the next house belonged to his daddy, Tom and Sallie Chamber's and uh...the next house belonged to a family called Isom. Isom. And then Al Hoskins house. Now you want this other side where the old ice house was?

B: Yes, ma'am. Please.

SD: Well, up...up town there was an old ice house and Joe Morrell and uh...Mack Paterson were owners and then there was a wide step that went by it, between it and the pool room which had apartments up over it and I'm not sure if Nenni's owned that or not. THey may have and then Meg Daniels had a restaurant next door to that and then Joe Schaffer had a big department store, a big department store there and then the Hatfield building, there were several apartments up in the Hatfield building and then there was a little place called the Dew Drop Inn. I guess it was a restaurant. And then there was uh...Compton's bakery. I guess that was Logan. Virginia's daddy at one time had a bakery in t here and that was next door to daddy's hardware store and then there was a vacant at that time and later, that became the furniture store. Chamber's furniture store and next door was the post office. It was first in uh...back of the building and they moved it up to the front. Then there was a road and then Dan Chambers house. Do you want to get this down? I see. And then Aunt Dora Chamber's home and then there was an empty lot and that's where the warehouse or feed store was on the back of that lot and that's where the first telephone operators worked there and the next house was George Blankenships and next to it was an empty lot, but later his daughter Geraldine, built on that lot and uh...Dr. Hodge had two houses there and then uh...Liddy Bilby had a house across the alley from the, from the uh...Matewan Clinic where Miss Jackson lived later and it was a C & P Telephone Company and then there was uh...this looks like STafford, I'm not sure but Bill and Cleo Varney lived there later but I believe she...no, she had Schaffer's, Joe Schaffer's must have lived there and later, Bill...Bill and Cleo Varney lived in that house then there were two small houses and a vacant lot and then Fonnie and Dr., Whitt lived in the next house and the Uncle Lee Chambers live in the next house and then my mother had another uh...no, the next lot had fourteen garages that daddy owned. They were ten garages. It's a big log there.

B: What did people use them for?

SD: For cars.

B: So other people parked their cars there?

SD: Yes.

B: Okay. I was just wondering if your, cause, the way it sounded, it sounded as if your father had all those cars.

SD: No. He rented the uh...garage and then next to the garages, mother had a garden in there and then Al Hoskins was justice of the peace and he had a little building there close to the railroad where the road goes up to the railroad and they would have trials every now and then and that's the way Virginia remembered Matewan and this was in the '20's.

B: My goodness.

SD: Now, I don't remember some of these but I remember Joe Schaffer and uh...Ben Aaron. He was good friends with my daddy.

B: What did he do?

SD: Well, Joe Schaffer had a, a big department store and uh...I could tell you some things but I won't. Ben Aaron worked for him.

B: Okay.

SD: For years and uh...he was my brother Roy's idle. He loved Ben Aaron.

B: We had one person tell us that the...the Schaffer's went out of business and left during the depression. Is that about the right time for their departure?

SD: I don't really know.

B: Okay.

SD: I remember one time, their son Bernie went to uh...Greenbrier Military school with my brother, Howard Chamber's and they were supposed to stay several weeks and he came home early and when they ask Bernie why he was home, he said, that crazy Chamber's boy said he'd kill me. (laughing). I think they teased him because he weighed about three hundred pounds.

B: Oh, my goodness.

SD: And Howard won medals in sharp shooting and swimming and I don't know what all up there and they had a good time. Bernie was kind of spoiled.

B: Un-hun. When did your father become sheriff?

SD: I don't know what year it was. Uh...my uh...how was it, he was sheriff and then my cousin Dan, was sheriff and then he was unable to finish his term so daddy finished out his term and then uh...he ran again and was elected but he didn't get to fill his term because he died. He had three heart attacks so my brother, Howard, finished his term and then his, he was sheriff, and then uh...my sister-in-law Virginia was sheriff. One of the first sheriffs, women sheriffs in the country.

B: Okay.

SD: People from Matewan are very proud of West Virginia and when we read things in the paper about crooked politicians. It's very hurtful. Uh...I guess in proportion to the number of people who live in West Virginia, there were more men who went into service and died during the wars than any other state, that is in propor¬tion to its size, and uh...we had friends in my class who died, Chester Lowe, Bernice Copley uh...Dallas Cook, his brother Fred Cook. They were brothers and many others in our town were killed serving their country and so when we hear people who criticize West Virginians as ignorant hillbillies, it's very hurtful. Very hurtful.

B: How did the miner's and...and their children get along with people like your father, the merchants and...and you and the other merchants children because seems like you all had some advantages but you had some disadvantages.

SD: Well, we had advantages during the depression. We had a good income because dad has his businesses you know, and uh...the miner's uh...I guess the merchants in our town were dependent on the miners for uh...their incomes, you know, and when the mines didn't work, then it effected the economy of the town and uh..I remember one miner came into daddy's store and uh...mother took his little granddaughters by the hand and brought them back to daddy's desk, and he said, she said, look here, Thurman, here's Sallie, Ruth and Lorraine and that was my name and my sister's name and my little niece's name and uh...and our house, when uh...anyone came to our door who wanted help, I never saw my mother turn anyone away and when we had someone plowin' the gardens or scrubbin' walls or washin' windows or mowin' grass or chopin' wood or whatever they did, but she put dinner on the table, she would say, come on and eat and it didn't matter if they were black or...or if they were of a different faith, they were always welcome at our table. I think God everyday for my christian mother. She took me to church. Taught me right from wrong and I never will forget one time when I was about four or five years old and the lady lived close to us, they had a grape arbor and they looked so good, I climbed her fence and I got a bunch of grapes and mother was watchin' me out the kitchen window, so when I came in the back door, she said, what have you got there. I said, just some grapes and she said, where'd you get them. I said, out in Miss Duties garden. SHe said, take them back. I said, why. She said take them back. So I took them back and I knocked on her door and I said, Miss Duty, here are your grapes. I said, I took them and I'm sorry, and she looked at me and grinned, and she said, oh, honey, you can have those old grapes. And I said, no I can't, I said my mother said no. So I gave her the grapes and I went home very ashamed but it taught me a lesson. I never took anything after that that didn't belong to me.

B: Did all of the children in town, we've heard someone say that the children always called the older people aunt so and so or uncle so and so?

SD: Un-hun. Uncle Bob Compton delivered our ice and Aunt Liddy Hatfield had her uh...farm down close to the tunnel. I went down one night and spent the night with her granddaughter, Betty Jane STigner and they had a big feather bed and they had a little uh...step up stool, I guess you call it and we'd climb up and throw our arms out and we'd jump into the feather bed and it's go shah. We socked it good.

B: What do you remember about the floods in Matewan? Were you living in Matewan when the floods hit?

SD: OH yeah. Oh, yeah. My father died in uh...February, I think it was of '57 and we took him up to Matewan from the Williamson hospital. Appalachian Regional Hospital at eleven that morning and we took him to the funeral home, the Chambers funeral home and uh...at five o'clock that evening, we had a flash flood.

B: Um.

SD: And uh...we had stopped at our house to pick up the electric peculator and we went up to Geraldine Reams house and uh...my sister, Ruth and my mother went back down to the house and when Thelma and I started to go down, my hus...my husband Harold waved us back and I could come down there and we could see water shootin' up through he sewer this high and they had to walk the fences to get back up to the railroad and they walked the railroad and came back up to Geraldine's house and in a few hours, the water came over the bridge and uh...before it was over, there were only a few yards in Matewan where the bank is now, up to where BIll Varney's barber shop. Just those few yards was the only place in town where there was no water. And that night, we watched the water creep the steps up my cousins house across the street and about two o'clock in the morning, we heard a screeching sound and I said to my husband Harold, listen, that sounds like a belt on a pump slipp¬ing, you know how they screech and so we went out the back of Geraldine's house and started lookin' for this sound and it was comin' form the Matewan Clinic and we went over there and banged on the door and we couldn't get anyone and finally we found a window unlocked and we went in and we kept hearin' this awful screechin' sound and so we started banging on doors an yellin' and finally a girl came down form upstairs and my husband said, where's your elevator and she said, I don't know, so we started opening doors and suddenly, he opened the door and the smoke billeted out in our faces and the elevator was goin' up and down into the water. The sparks were flyin' and the smoke awas boilin' out and he said, I'm goin' down there to cut it off. I said, do you want to get electrocuted? So he said, he asked the girl where is the switch to your elevator. She said, I don't know and so we went outside and found the meter, you know, on the outside and pulled the switch to stop the elevator. Some people sat in a car for hours and hours and hours and I went out and I said Mrs. Eanes, are you having problems. She said, we can't get out of town. So, the town was blocked at both ends, so I ran and got the key to the church and opened the church and people slept in the church and we fed them in the church.

SD: And Benny Ackie had a grocery store full of food and most of it was saturated with water and he had no way to cook it. Our house came off the foundation and it took a bulldozer and pushed it over the hill and my (tape cuts off)

B: You were saying on the other side your sister's house hit the bridge and it exploded?

SD: My sister Ruth's house. She lived uh...in Williamson. My sister THelma's house was built real up high, but it ruined every-th¬ing she had and it came half up on her living room windows. The water ruined everything.

B: How long did it take you all to get it all cleaned up?

SD: A long time. Months and months and months.

B: I suppose thing were never the same.

SD: There were cars, refrigerators, bridges, trees , houses, tunin' like an ice jam comin' down through that river. New cars. It...it just, it was horrible and years later, you could see, plastic jugs and toilet paper up in the trees. Up in the top of trees where the water had been. We got um...water down here from Johnson's uh...Dairy, they put water in milk jugs and we took them up there and uh...Parson's Department Store sent over a thousand dollars worth of underwear and clothing and everyone was sendin' food to the churches, all the different organizations were trying to help every way they could and I went to huntin' for my cousin', Geraldine and uh...I found her over at the Methodist Church with her friends and they were having church services and there was mud all over the floor.

B: Um. If you don't mind me backtracking a little bit, how did your father decide to become sheriff? What made him decide that he wanted to try it?

SD: I don't know. He'd been on the board of education for four-teen uh...sixteen years, I think and he just decided to get into politics and my cousin Dan had fluidities in his legs and uh...he wasn't able to finish his term I think that's the way it started. And then he ran and was elected. He went to Delbarton one day and there was a little boy over there, a little fellow looked up at him and said when I grow up, I want to be just like you are and daddy said, why honey. Well, I want to be a sheriff. So the next time my dad went over there, he took him some guns and holsters and put it on him.

B: Cute little boy.

SD: And daddy would call the house and he'd say, Josie, I know there are clothes up there that the children aren't wearin'. Put them in a box. I'll be there in a few hours and he would come and get those clothes and take them to Warncliff, Thacker, and all those places and give them to them. Can I tell you about the car my daddy bought?

B: Oh, I'd love to. That's a great story.

SD: Well, my Aunt Helen married Jim O'Conner. He was a Baldwin Felts detective too. So when the trouble started in Matewan, he said, he was comin' over there and he'd straighten out the dam miners and my grandmother Sallie CHambers said, if you know what's good for you and you want to keep your head on your shoulders, you better stay over at Jenkins where you are. So he stayed. Anyway, after Aunt Helen's husband, Jim O'Coneer died, she went to Florida and she was down there quite awhile and she bought a car but she never could drive, so she had it shipped back to Jenkins, Kentucky cause her daughter lived there but she couldn't get it over the mountains to Matewan because there were no roads. People traveled by horse back and up and down the river and so uh...daddy had it shipped by rail to Matewan and if you've ever seen the movie "The Reefers" with Steve McQueen, you remember how they brought the big car in on a flat car, well, that's the way they brought this packard in. It was a bright green, it was a packard and it had uh...you know, a four door. Big car. I believe you're goin' to sleep.

B: I was tryin' to think about what, what a packard look like.

SD: Well, it was long and the sides were open and it had no glass for windows but it had icing glass, what they called icing glass for windows.

B: That's what I wanted to ask you about. Was that the kind of cars that had the little um...things with flowers on the inside where you could hang flowers. Okay. Little (unintelligible) on the windows?

SD: No, it was just open on the side. And so, since there were no roads, dad would drive the car up through the middle of the creek bed. Bumpity bumpity bump to Red jacket and we would go tot he ball games up there and eat hot dogs and drink pop and scream all day and then we'd go bumpity, bumpity, bump back down the creek bed. It was about five miles but out us , it seemed a long way.

B: It probably was a long way by creek bed.

SD: Yes, so one Sunday, my brother Roy and my sister THelma decided they would steal the car and go for a ride, so he put on my Uncle Johns derby hat and she put a big flowered hat with fruit on it you know, and a frilly thing around her neck. Hi, darl¬ing ...this...(tape cuts off)

B: This is Becky Bailey from the Matewan Development Center, Thursday July 26th, 1990. This is a follow-up interview with Mrs. Sallie Dickens. Mrs. Dickens just for a few more questions uh...would you tell me the story again about your father's nickname, because most people in town, thought that was his real name, that we know now in town.

SD: Well, my father's real name was Allen G. Thurman Chambers, uh...most everyone knew by that name Thurman, but uh...his daddy had a general store and uh...when he went up there one day, and asked his dad for a pair of dress shoes, so he can wear them on Sunday...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: when he was courtin', my mother...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: His daddy said no, he didn't need fancy shoes, all he needed was a pair of Brogan(?) and he was a pretty big boy at that time, and he got so made he cried...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: so the salesman in the store laughed at him, so after that they would call him Broggs, so he went by that nickname for many years, Broggs Chambers.

B: Okay, another interesting story that we talked about was uh...your cousin Geraldine Blankenship Reams, her father was the Sheriff of Mingo County when the Matewan Massacre happened?

SD: Yes, that' right.

B: And she was in town the day the Matewan Massacre happened, is that what she told you?

SD: Yes, yes, and her father was in Williamson.

B: What did she tell you that day?

SD: Well, she said that when the shootin' started, uh...she was uh...staying with Carey Burl, a black woman and the women was so frightened that uh...she grabbed Geraldine and pulled her under her bed, and she had her arm around Geraldine's head and neck and was holding her down...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and uh...they stayed there for hours...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: because of the noise of the shootin'.

B: Her father was in a delicate position being Sheriff of the County?

SD: Yes, he was. The Baldwin Felts Detectives, offered my Uncle George BLankenship, twenty five thousand dollars to leave, they just wanted him to get on a train and leave, so they could go into Matewan and kill the miners...

B: Uh-huh....

SD: and he refused he said I'm not going to do that, he said I love the people here and he was married to uh...Georgie (Georgia) who was Thurman Chamber's sister...

B: Uh-=huh...

SD: and he had is business there, you know, uh...Uncle George was the first telegrapher(?) to come to Matewan, and he meet my aunt Georgie...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: there at the Harris Hotel, and uh...they were married, he uh...was in Williamson, when the shootin' started over at the depot, and uh...I guess the uh...I guess the Baldwin Felts who had been killed had been put on a train at Matewan and sent to Williamson, and they were put on display...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and when they started the train back toward Welch, Uncle George was on that train and when he got back to Matewan it was four o'clock in evening, and uh...most of the shooting was over.

B: Uh-huh... Okay, was the uh...Harris Hotel was that in existence same time as the Urias Hotel?

SD: Yes, the Urias Hotel, is down close to uh...uh...Ed and Irene store...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and the Harris Hotel was up close to uh...where uh...Bill Varney's Barbershop was at, was at one time...

B: Uh-huh...

SB: Mother said there was fourteen rooms...

B: Uh-huh....

SD: in the hotel and a huge dining area, with a great big table in the center. And I suppose people uh...who stayed there, came in on horseback or up the river...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: I thank Thacker was the biggest town at that time.

B: OKay, and this would of been in there early 19 teens, would it been at that time?

SD: Well, maybe about nineteen fifteen...

B: Okay...

SD: I don't really know dear, I just know what mother had told me.

B: Uh...the only other uh...personalities are left really to ask you about, are uh...some of the doctor's in town, or some of the dentist's in town, there is one dentist, that was quoted in a book named, he, he told a absolutely horrible story, about Matewan and the night of the Massacre he said that the people built bomb fires and danced around and celebrated ?

SD: I don't believe that.

B: His name was uh... Dr. Hall, he was a dentist, put he supposed¬ly left Matewan shortly after the Massacre, but nobody remember him bein' there.

SD: I don't remember and I doubt seriously that, that happened...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: people were grieving...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: Uh, people had died and uh...people were afraid...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: I don't think they would of been celebrated...

B: Uh-huh, okay. No one has ever said uh....backed that story up.

SD: And the only dentist that we knew was Dr. Whitt...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: He was there in the '20's, because he was uh...a Shriner...

B: Uh-huh....

SD: and went to Charleston with my daddy, Thurman Chambers...

B: Uh-huh....

SD: and Bill Copley...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and (?) Parker...

B: Uh-huh....

SD: and uh...Dr. Whitt...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: they said went with them...

B: Uh-huh, okay. Do you remember Dr. Coleman or Dr. Hodge or any of those?

SD: I remember Dr. Hodge.

B: What do you remember about him, he seemed to deliver a lot of the babies, and helped a lot of people in town?

SD: Well, a lot of people like him and a lot of people didn't...

B: OH...

SD: He and Dr. Smith worked together for years...

B: Uh-huh....how many say, that at any given time when, when would you say there was the most doctors in town seems like, now with their not being any doctors in town, Matewan at one time sounded like it supported two or three, was there?

SD: I really don't know..

B: Oh, but...

SD: I just know Dr. Hodge and uh... Dr. Smith...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and Dr. Whitt, the dentist.

B: Uh-huh, okay. SO uh...did Dr. Smith and Dr. Hodge did they share cases or did one have a specialty that the other one didn't work on or?

SD: I don't really know.

B: Okay, uh....Well my last question is about talking about medicine, is any of, it's similar topic but it's more along the line to superstition or did, did your mom, like my grandmother would, if she spilt salt, she would through it over her shoulder or she would give uh...brew up teas and things like that before, when we get sick, before she would want us to go to the doctor?

SD: Oh, my mother had a lot of concoctions(?) that she gave us for illness...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and in the spring time you got sulfur and molasses...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: that was suppose to been uh...blood purifier...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and uh... there was lots of things she gave us for our colds and croup...

B: UH-huh...

SD: one was onions and she mixed sugar and onions and boiled them together...\

B: Uh-huh...

SD: to make a syrup and that would bring out the phlegm in your throat...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and she put mustard plaster on my daddy, evidently they got pretty hot, because he would beg her after two days to please take them off...

B: UH-huh...

SD: I guess there was many other things that she did...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: I don't know uh...I know she tried to give me caster oil...

B: uh-huh...

SD: and it always made me deathly sick and I would sleep with her...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and she would say oh, your just doing that...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: you know, so uh...finally she found the medicine that tasted a lot better...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and I could keep it down.

B: Did you know any ladies in town that were superstitious or anything like that?

SD: No.

B: One thing that we heard of and this probably, I know it really better dates you uh...is people killing black chickens to treat people for the shingles did you ever hear about that?

SD: No.

B: Okay, I thought it predated. Okay, well thank you for talking to me again.

SD: Your welcome. (tape cuts off)

B: This is a postscript uh...Mrs. Dickens asked me if I wanted to add the story about uh...particular flat boat that, that was known in the Matewan area?

SD: It wasn't a flatboat.

B: It wasn't a flatboat?

SD: It was a archboat.

B: Okay...

SD: Uh...my mother said that uh...Bob Buskirk owned a large boat and when the river was at flood stage he would bring the boat down to Cattlettsburg, Kentucky...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and buy whiskey and other supplies...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and then they had to hurry and get back to Matewan because, the river would go down uh...fast...

B : Uh-huh...

SD: and if that happened they would of been stranded...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: in the shoals, alot of men in Matewan would catch logs that the lumber companies would cut the logs and they wold [sic] tie the logs into a raft, and float it down the river to Cattlettsburg(?)...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: they would sell the raft and buy tools and salt and sugar and other supplies...

B: uh-huh...

SD: and then the would push a flat boat back up the river to Matewan when they came to shoals, they would get out and wait.

B: Did the men pull it along with poles or did the use mules or do you know anything about that?

SD: They had poles, long poles. My mother's half-brother, uh...Bass Price would catch the logs and tie them, and her father you know had the big boat on Big Sandy, they use poles, when he had three boats and the sunk, and he built the houseboat...

B: Uh-huh...Would you spell Bass for me?

SD: His real name was B.A.S.C.U.M. the called him Bass. He had a big farm above Louisa, Kentucky with a swinging bridge. Now she had a ouija board...

B: Really, oh my goodness...

SD: and we would put our fingers on it and it would move to the A's...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: to the A, b, C's you know...

B: Uh-huh...

SD: and there was yes, on one side and no on the other...

B: Uh-huh....

SD: and the ouija board was always warning us children, to stay away from the river...

B: really?

SD: I had never seen one before.

B: Was this your brother's wife?

SD: That's my uncle's wife, over in, he lived at White House, they lived over at White House, Kentucky.

B: Uh...okay.

SD: Have you ever heard a song called the West Virginia Hills?

B: Uh-hun, yes I have.

SD: I just wondered, wish they would make this out state song...

B: It isn't?

SD: I don't know I'm not sure.

B: I, I think it is.

SD: Well, that's good.

B: Well, I think I can cut this off now, so think you for talking to me again.

SD: Your welcome.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection