Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Buck Harless Interview

Becky Bailey: This is Becky Bailey from the Matewan Development Center, Wednesday August 1, 1990. And I am in Gilbert, in the business office of Mr. Buck Harless, and Mr. Harless, for the record would you give me your full given name?

Mr. Buck Harless: James Howard Harless.

B: And when were you born?

BH: October 14, 1919.

B: What were your parents' name?

BH: P.J. Harless and Bessy Brown Harless.

B: Where were you born?

BH: Taplin(?), in Lodgan [sic] County that's right below Man.

B: What did your father do for a living?

BH: He was in logging and uh...timber.

B: Was that a business that his family had been involved in or do you know anything about his family background?

BH: Well, uh...I was adopted when I was four months old, and wasn't around my dad a whole lot uh...my mother died then, but his family had been uh...working in uh...gas drilling fields mostly in the early part of the century and uh...I don't know that much about him to be honest with you.

B: Okay. Okay, now uh...when Mr. and Mrs. Harless were they your adopted parents, were they you natural parents?

BH: No, no my, they were my natural parents.

B: Okay. Uh...do you know much about where your, your family had come from originally, were they from West Virginia?

BH: Yes, there's a long story connected to that, I didn't know until back in the early '70's, man walked in my office here from Texas and was trying to buy our company, he uh...at the end of the conversation he said uh...what's your language Buck, I said "I'm English" he said "no your not, your German" uh...turned out he was from the family of Harless',

B: Uh-huh...

BH: uh...the, the uh...family came over where the old man and his wife from Germany, and four sons, her name was Harkis, H,A,R,K,I,S,

B: Uh...

BH: and uh...they settled in Virginia and those for sons moved out, went to uh...Lincoln County in West Virginia, one in Boone County, one went to Texas and one to Alabama, and uh...so I from the Lincoln County...

B: Okay...

BH: somewhere along the line the name was changed to Harless, H,A,R,L,E,S,S.

B: Uh-huh. Do you know how much education your parents received?

BH: Uh...my father, I think went to through the eighth grade.

B: Okay.

BH: My mother, I think about the same.

B: Did you have any brothers or sisters?

BH: Oh yeah, had a whole bunch of 'em, and uh...my father was married three times, first time he had two boys and girl, by my mother he had two boys, and a girl, and he was married the third time, he had eleven children...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: by that marriage.

B: Okay. You wouldn't know your parents birth dates would you?

BH: No, I wouldn't.

BH: Having not lived with him them, I just never knew...

B: Uh...

BH: I knew by how old, I knew how old my mother was, she was only twenty-one when she died.

B: Okay.

BH: My father was sixty-six, but I don't remember when they were born.

B: Okay, so your mother married quite young then?

BH: Uh-hun...

B: Okay...

BH: I think she was seventeen when they got married.

B: Do you know anything about how they met or?

BH: No.

B: Okay, okay, and then you say you were, well then were you fostered out to someone?

BH: Yes, one of my aunts took me...

B: Okay.

BH: raised, my mother's older sister.

B: Okay, what was her name?

BH: Rosa, Rosa Ellits, Rosa Brown Ellits, R,O,S,A.

B: Do you know why your mother died?

BH: Pneumonia, following my birth, she never did recover my birth and she took pneumonia and died.

B: Okay, you were born uh...right there at the end of World War I, did anyone in your family serve in World War I, you knew of?

BH: Uh...yes, I had some uncles that served, my dad didn't serve but I had some uncles to serve, both on my mother's side and my father's side too.

B: Did they ever talk about any of their war time experiences?

BH: Uh, not much I had one uncle that was in the Navy, Uncle Roy, he talked quite a bit about it, he was quite a character...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Uncle Roy was.

B: Do you remember anything that he had told you?

BH: No.

B: Did anyone in your family, excuse me, talk about the flu epidemic of 1919, 1920?

BH: Uh, I'm, sure they did, but I don't remember as if they anything about.

B: When you went to live with your aunt, uh...what community did she live in?

BH: Little town called Mawry(?) in Logan County that's just up the creek from Man. And I...they moved to Gilbert when I was two years old and I've been here every since.

B: Okay. What do you remember about growing up in this area, when did you go to school?

BH: I went to school at Gilbert of course and, and of course it was very difficult times growing up because there was no industry around here,

B: Uh-huh...

BH: the uh...there was only one mine down the road here, Tamplit(?) it went broke in 1929 and closed down and then there was no industry except few small saw mills...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: up until nineteen and forty,

B: Uh-huh...

BH: when the Gaye Mining went up here on Horsepin...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and jobs were very few and very difficult to get...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: difficult times.

B: Okay, what did most people do for a living were they farmers or miners?

BH: Well, farmers and timber,

B: Uh-huh...

BH: most of 'em were timber because uh...in the early nineteen hundreds, the biggest industry here was timbering...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and they rafted the logs out of here, down Guyandot River...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: to uh...Cattlicksburg [sic], Kentucky, that's where the uh...big coal and crane mail was...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: they received all their logs by water, like they still do in the Emerson Valley...

B: Uh-huh. Do you know what they used that timber for back then?

BH: They sawed it into lumber, that was a big, big ban miller, and they produced lumber, and then it was shipped I'm sure all over the country from there, see that's the way, their were no railroads in this part of the country then, no roads to pick up...

B: Uh...

BH: these old settlers that's how they got their supplies back then, they would raft, ride the raft out the logs and buy their flour and salt and real necessities...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and bring it back on a push boat...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: from all the way from Guyandot.

B: How did they, they get the boat back up stream?

BH: Pushed it with pulls...

B: Ummm...

BH: they had to wait to the water went down of course before they could do that.

B: Did your uh...aunt's husband, did, did he work in the timber business?

BH: He did, uh-hun.

B: What do you remember about him, say about his work schedule or anything like that or was it steady work through the year...?

BH: No, very orectic, and uh...it was a matter of survival...

B: Uh-huh...how dangerous of a job was it (phone ringing)?

BH: Very dangerous, rafting and timbering back in those days very dangerous, particural the rafting because the rivers wild you know...

B: Uh-hun...

BH: alot of times the rafts break up and them a lot of people lost, killed...

B: Uh-hun...

BH: When the rafts break up in these rough soles.

B: Did he make uh...good wages or?

BH: Yeah, twenty-five cents an hour...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: when they worked.

B: How large was their family?

BH: They had one daughter and uh...the each had been married before...

B: Uh-hun...

BH: My aunt had one daughter and my foster father had uh...four boys...

B: Uh-huh...So you joined a pretty good size family.

BH: Uh-huh, but of course they weren't, the boys only one of them was reared at home when their mother died they were farmed out to...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: So they were raised by foster parents....

B: Okay...

BH: so their was only real three of us at home.

B: Did your aunt every tell you why say your father, didn't bring you back when he remarried into his family?

BH: Well, we had the, I guess there is no particular reason, except he took my brother, kept him...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: he was older, year older, year and a half older than me, and another one of our relatives took my sister she was raised in Charleston, he was raised on a farm in Southpoint Ohio, and uh...course I was raised here...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Uh...it was just one of those things were mother dies, families broken up and he felt he couldn't keep all three of them I guess...

B: OKay, did you ever have much contact?

BH: Well, I saw him regualary [sic], he came to visit uh...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: but uh...he didn't seem like a father, my foster father, was my father.

B: Right, okay.

BH: His name was George Erastus Ellis.

B: Could you spell his last name for me?

BH: E.R.A.S.T.U.S

B: What do you remember about him?

BH: Very kind, caring uh...person who devoted his life to uh...to his wife and to me...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: we uh...we were very poor, but uh...no one, no youngster could been raised in better environment of love and caring than I was raised in, they couldn't give me no money, but they gave me a lot of love.

B: That's uh...many sociologist and historians say that Appalachian quote and unquote father's are not know, or their closeness with their children, what stands out in your mind that made you feeled loved when you where little?

BH: Well, just the way cared for me and looked after me, petting me, spoiled me, uh...course in our family, my mother, my aunt, I call her my mother...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: she was the boss and uh...not only the old man Ellis, but uh...everybody else in the household, and she was the same type of person (unintelligible) very compassionate person, she very strong willed...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: also.

B: So your foster father must of been pretty easy going person?

BH: He was.

B: Do you know much, did he ever talk much about his family and where they were?

BH: Well, I knew them, they were all from Gilbert, the Ellis' of course that's old, his father was one of the early settlers in Gilbert...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: so, I knew all of his family well...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: in fact they seemed to be my uncles' and aunts in so forth, more so than my real ones did...

B: RIght. In, in many places in West Virginia, where the earlier business was timber, alot of the families came out of Virginia in that reason, is that were his family come from?

BH: Yes, uh...in the middle eighteen hundreds, his great grandfather, came into this area and.

B: Something I should asked you a moment ago, when you were born do you know, did anyone tell you whether you were delivered by a mid-wife or a doctor?

BH: Mid-wife.

B: OKay. A little about your childhood uh...how long did you go to school as a youngster?

BH: I been, I went through high school over at Gilbert. Back then, youngsters didn't have opportunities to go to college like they do now, they uh...didn't have the scholarships...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Now, scholarships are available, were athletic scholarships.

B: Uh-huh...

BH: I tried out for football scholarship at Marshall and I wanted quite good enough...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: so I didn't make it. I often tell a story where I went to college I tell them I didn't, I took marriage for career, I got married a year after I got out of high school.

B: Actually uh...for this area to have been in high school coming, like you said your parents being for, that's was actually quite a accomplishment, how did they, alot of parents would actually make their quite school because of family reasons?

BH: Not mine, my mom was very insistent that I attend school and I learn, I was fortunate to be a good student and straight a student and she was very proud of that, she keep pushing me to maintain that "A" average all the time. I lived right across from the high school and grade school so, I didn't get up until ten minutes 'til nine and make to school on time, so I was fortunate in that respect.

B: Do you think that nay uh...the course that you took, when you were in school, did they influence your choice of career?

BH: No, no not really, certainly the math uh...and English courses that I took, paretically math had been in the work at I chose...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: it been uh...outstanding help to me of course, that's the reason why I encourage youngsters to get all of the math and english and learn to read, you know that they possibly can, it's so important.

B: OKay, where there any particular teachers at you think where instrumental in teaching you math and english so well?

BH: Well, one of my grade school teachers was uh...she's still living by the way, Mrs. Thelma Hatfield, it was Thelma Blankenship then, uh...she was uh...very strict teacher and uh...very good teacher and she uh...fifth grade as she got me into study habits and uh...that were very valuable to me...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: as, as I went on to school...

B: Uh...

BH: she was one, Margaret Hatfield, she is still living...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: taught me in the high school, uh...Mr. Britainart(?) who was Presbyterian minister here, taught me Algerbra [sic] and both uh...first and second year of Algebra, and so they were, I had some good teachers. And Frank Hatfield here who worked at Red Jacket in the mines he got politics, politics in the school and he had to quit and he went, that's how come me to get a job at Red Jacket they live right next door here, he was my football, basketball and boxing coach, Frank was, is a fine man, and very honorable person, and he had great influence on me.

B: Uh...just a couple more quick questions about your childhood uh...you were about ten years old when the stock market crashed uh...and started the Great Depression, what stands out in your mind in as far as memories?

BH: Uh...in Gilbert the stock market crash was a thing that had a little effect on, on their minds of people as I could think of it, I'm sure there's not anyone in Gilbert that had any stock, at that time and that was just something you read about uh...course naturally did have influence on later on, because they brought on the Great Depression...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: But uh...uh...I would say that immediate factor was nail in this force people in Gilbert concerned.

B: What kind of uh...probably the long reaching effects of the Great Depression, what influence did the Great Depression have one, or the depression years have one life in Gilbert?

BH: Now, let me see, it was just, life is so economic it was very difficult...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: But as I look back, uh...on the '30's, when I was in high school uh...probably some of the best years of my life because they were happy years...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: we had uh...nothing uh...my foster father had no job he farmed raised cows, pigs...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: we had enough to eat...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: barely, but uh...uh...outside of hard years as for as having things and providing the comforts of life, uh...they were not bad years.

B: Uh-huh...okay...

BH: We, we put so much emphasis today on material things that uh...we forget to see the quality life sometimes uh...with the dollars...

B: right.

BH: They were difficult years but, I look back now they were happy years...

B: Uh-huh...One of the things that people from the outside don't realize is in towns like Matewan, the people that lived in town even at that time had indoor plumbing and electricity and things like that, things that people today really don't think of most West Virginia has, and I was wondering uh...you say you lived across from the school, did you all have electricity and?

BH: We had electricity, but no indoor plumbing...

B: OKay.

BH: we had the preferred john up on the hill.

B: When you were in high school uh...what kind of after school activities would you be involved, were you involved in any clubs or did the teenagers have any little hang-out place or anything like that?

BH: Oh we had, we had what we call a drug-store in town it was not a drug-store, it sold patent medicine but (unintelligible) uh...ran by some people who moved here from Princeton, it was the hang out for all the kids at that time, Cromer Drug-Store uh...play, mention that because I ran to her, he (unintelligible) I ran into her nephew at the Greenbier [sic] at the banker's meeting, and she called me, she is in the nursing home, and i'm going to see her as soon as I can get free, she's eighty-nine years old now.

B: That's great.

BH: But there was no, there was no activities...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: you played ball, had a bat and a glove uh...there were no clubs or anything that kids volunteer...

B: uh-huh...

BH: a church uh...we had church activities, the Presbyterian Church was formed in 1897, it's mom was a Methodist...

B: Okay.

BH: Her family was all Methodist, from down here on Huff Creek...

B: Uh-huh...Okay, you say you married a year after you left high school, uh...this to your child-hood sweetheart or?

BH: Yeah, yeah we had uh...as she calls it walked around when we was in the seventh grade, we dated all through high school, so we got married the year after she graduated....

B: Uh-huh...

BH: she was a year behind me in school.

B: What was her name?

BH: June, June Montgomery. She lived at Isaban, that's a coal camp over across the mountain on the MacDowell County line..

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Her father worked in the mines there.

B: So she would of been born in 1920?

BH: Uh-huh...

B: Okay.

BH: She's coming home today, she's been in Florida for about six months, she and my dog, she had my dog with her, their coming in today.

B: Uh...do you all vacation there or do you have another home there?

BH: We have uh...I built apartment complex there and we use one of them and one of my nieces looks after for us...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: She as not been well, she down where she's close the doctor's and my sister-in-law is a retired nurse...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: stays with her when, she lives right across the court yard in another apartment...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: but she stays with her when I'm not there...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: they spoil her to death, so I don't if I'm gong [sic] to be able to live with her when she gets home or not, but she's down, I go down about every other weekend...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: while she's down there.

B: Did she ever talk, was her father ever involved in Isaban, I...I know had some, some violent incidents during the mine wars in 1920, 1921?

BH: He wasn't over there then, he worked at this mines down here, uh...

B: Okay.

BH: went broke in 1929 at Tamplit(?)...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: then when they close that down, he went to Isaban, I say about '33 or '34 somewhere along...

B: Okay,...

BH: '32.

B: Even though she lived across the mountain, did those kids from Isaban come here to go to school?

BH: School? they were bused here uh-huh...

B: Okay,

BH: See this was Stafford District, and all of Stafford District all go to Gilbert High School.

B: Okay. (tape pauses) About how big was the high school that you all attended, about how many students where there?

BH: I graduated in '37, we had seventeen in my glass graduated in my class...

B: Uh-huh.

BH: I would imagine at that time there was about one hundred and ten or hundred twenty in high school...

B: Okay. How did you and your wife come to decide to get married?

BH: We uh...she had gone to Martinsburg to visit her sister and uh...she was to far away and I thought when she came back I better talk her into a marriage, I might loss her, so uh...we afraid to, of course we couldn't get her parents permission, which we eloped, went over in Kentucky and got married. (tape cuts off)....

B: Why couldn't she get her parent's permission?

BH: I had no job...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and it didn't seem much of a future, and uh...Buck Harless is far as they are concerned and I understood that, and I was hot water with them for a while but they got over it and they were very good in-law...

B: Okay. What do you remember about the day you eloped?

BH: Well, I remember then, she had, June had told her mother that she wanted to spend the weekend with one of the teachers, one of our, her teachers, never did teach me, lived her in Gilbert, so then the teacher and her husband went with us to get married uh....I was working in the garage, this you won't believe, I was making a dollar a day,

B: My gosh...

BH: I got a thirty dollar cash advance to get married on, uh...and uh...so that was a real strong beginning. SO the beginning years are very tough it turned out alright, we celebrated our fifty-first wedding anniversary last February...

B: That's fantastic. When you returned from getting married where did you sit up house keeping?

BH: In my mom's house we had two rooms upstairs...

B: Uh...

BH: had boxes for chairs and little flattop coal stove that we cooked on, and uh...the very bare in necessities.

B: Did her parents try to cut her off, or did they?

BH: NO, no there were, they loved her dearly, they were very upset and disturbed and concerned about her, uh...but I think when they saw that we was happy that help uh...bring them around.

B: Did you all ever have children?

BH: Yeah, we had a child, ten months after we was born, married uh...we have a daughter, that's her pictures over there when they were seniors in high school, on the left and right, that's my wife in the center uh...my son has two boys and my daughter has two girls, one of my grandsons has a boy four and a half years old, and a little girls that's uh...five months old now...

B: My goodness...

BH: I have two great grandchild.

B: It was uh...through you cach you came to move to Red Jacket?

BH: I never did move to Red Jacket...

B: UH-huh...

BH: see, I stayed in the club house, those were war years and uh...beginning the war and during the war, there just wanted any house available, so I boarded in the club house...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and came home on the weekends, but he was the one that helped me get the job...

B: Uh...

BH: in fact, he was driving to work everyday and he said that he believed if I would go with him, keep going with him that I would get a job...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: He worked at what they called a junior mine and uh....there was and old gentlemen there that was superintendent, Fred Cook, he was the old mine superintendent, they were kings, you know back then...

B: Uh....

BH: they ruled the roust. And uh...left here at four thirty in the morning and I was over there by five thirty, and then in the mine office by six, and that's about the time Mr. Cook came to work, I would be sitting there waiting, Mr. Cook have you got anything, no son nothing today, thirteen consecutive days I was sitting there, finally came in and he said "damn it don't tell me your here again". Yes, Mr. Cook I need a job real bad, he turned to the mine foremen, he said give that damn boy a job, he wearing me to death.

B: And what did you do there at Red Jacket?

BH: I worked on what they call a bull gang, uh... it was really tough work, we clean steel and all worked out places, we had slate falls in the main line, they'd rush us in and clean them up and beat of the slate and get the main line unblocked, it was very difficult work...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: I only did that about six months so, and then I got a job dumping coal there at Junior Mine, and did that about six months and then I got on the engineering force...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Then, I worked the rest of the time up until the 1947...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: with engineering or coal preparation the last two years.

B: Were the wages making there, where they better than what you would of earned if you would of tried to stay in the Gilbert area?

BH: Oh, goodness yeah, yeah. I was rich, I think I went to work making up five dollars and thirty-six cents a day, the first work a did....

B: That was five times what you were making in Gilbert...

BH: I belong to the union you know, U.M.W.A job...

B: uh-huh...

BH: Oh yeah, I was rich.

B: How did you wife deal with the separation?

BH: Very difficult, but uh...it worked alright she stayed home with my mom...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: So it, it worked out alright.

B: I hope they got along okay, did they?

BH: Oh, beautifully, my mom thought as much as her as did me just about, petted her to death, yeah the were great buddies.

B: OKay, what was it like living in the club house during the week we haven't had many people tell us about the club house up there?

BH: Well, they had a good clubhouse there, good food...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: we were fed well, uh...the rooms were comfortable, you had a bunch of fine people stayed there, most of them were white collar workers that stayed at the clubhouse...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and I only started staying at the clubhouse after, after I got on engineering force, because I rode with Frank...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Hatfield, for the first two years I guess, then I started staying at the clubhouse uh...it was, it, well it was a good live really, couple rules and good people to associate with uh...we played cards and played games, it wasn't bad at all...

B: Uh...Did they allow the men to drink alcohol?

BH: Uh?

B: Were men allowed to have alcohol in the clubhouse?

BH: They were not suppose to, but they did.

B: Okay, uh...say when you were driving back in forth how long was you day been?

BH: We left here at four thirty in the morning and we go home, is was around five in the evening...

B: Okay. What kind of uh...trip was it back then driving, (unintelligible)?

BH: It took about an hour, have the same roads today as we did then, they haven't changed today...they're the same roads exactly, maybe straighten a curve or two out, on Horsepin Mountain on the other side, that's all.

B: When you went to work at Red Jacket uh...I know there were actually a few men that had been involved in, in the Matewan Massacre still talking about that area, did you ever hear people talk about what had happen in Matewan?

BH: Uh... I heard not in great detail, yes, there, there was people still working at the mines there that who were in the union or fighting to get the union...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and of course Red Jacket remained non-union quite a while I remember, I early remembering that they had one big room there in the main office, what they called the arsenal room...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: they had oh goodness, they had hundreds of rifles in there uh...they got rid of those in, up to forty-five they sold them all or gave them away, I remember one day they were gathering up all that, I don't remember they sold them or what, but they were non union for quite a while after they were not union, I don't believe up until about 1936 '37 somewhere along through there.

B: Did you ever met a man, I think he was the first uh...union president when it became legal was John Collins, did you know John Collins?

BH: I knew John Collins, I just knew him, I didn't know him well, I knew who he was.

B: OKay, do you remember anything about him?

BH: No, I worked with some, some of his boys though, Johnny for one.

B: What were they like?

BH: Oh they were, they were fine people uh...very strong union-oriented were dedicated to the union cause, but uh..that doesn't take anything from them being good people.

B: Uh-huh, did anyone every tell you about how he, the elder Mr. Collins spent time in the penitentiary for union activities?

BH: I knew about, but I just knew he spent time, but I didn't know any details.

B: Okay uh...when you stopped working at Red Jacket uh...I really don't know how to start to ask you about your move through business, what did you do after you left Red Jacket?

BH: Well, I was uh...I had reasonably good job, uh...had a couple of friends here at Gilbert that had invested in a saw mill with a third party, he was running the mill...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: he wudn't doing a very good job, they were afraid they was going to lose their investment, they offered me a third interest in it...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and if I would come and rent it. I came one weekend and looked at the timbers over Wyoming County and wudn't much of a saw mill and I had worked on the saw mill some as a kid you know, so I knew a little something about it...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: But I they convinced me, I should do it and I did, uh...so that was a beginning and after about a year I bought one of the partners out and after two years I bought the other partner out...

B: Uh....

BH: so that was the beginning of Gilbert Lumber Company...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and involved in all the other things in...

B: Uh-huh...okay, about what time uh...in your life did you become acquainted with Frank Allara from Matewan?

BH: Well 1940 when I was first at Red Jacket, I didn't' know him well, up to about '43, but uh...we became very close friends uh...he taught me to fly,

B: Uh-huh...

BH: he had a couple of airplanes down at Borderland, he was teaching flying...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: he taught me to fly and I would pay him when I could and when I couldn't it was alright...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: (Phone ringing) so we became real, real close friends...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Uh...I remember once, evening down at the drug-store Luckie's Drug store, Frank came in and I heard he had a new bouncing boy up to his house, I said Frank I hear you got a knew arrival at the house, yeah said their ain't going to be no more, I said "I've heard that story before, he said me Matt, that's his wife, me and Matt just found out what was causing it, (laughing), but explains Frank and his humor, he was, he also had an answer for you, you would never get ahead of Frank in a conversion.

B: At the time you got to know him, was he still running the theatre in town?

BH: Yeah, he had the theatre, and they was there, uh-huh, and they had one at Delbarton, and also he was uh...he was building about shortly after, I got to know him well he built the drive-in theatre over at the Chicken Kentucky...

B: Uh-huh...Do you remember how you all came to meet?

BH: No, I really don't know, the first time we meet, but uh..we would uh...Frank was doing well and uh..I had very little money, Frank was real good to me, he would take me to Columbus to football games and...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: paid most expenses and uh...we just sort a cliched very good as friends and we enjoyed each other's company, we spent a lot of time together whenever we could, and of course I just continued up until his stroke, he always come over to see me ever Wednesday, the week before he had his stroke he was here and I could tell he wasn't well, but he uh...if it was Wednesday right at the first of the month, he had to buy lunch because he got his Social Security check that day, or that week uh...Frank was a very solid person very, a man of great integrity...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: He uh...he was just as honest as he could be, very stronged willed and very determined uh...he got an idea in his head he was going to follow through, a great community man, he was always in the middle of everything that was happening in the Matewan area...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Well he was in Mingo County for that matter.

B: Mr. Shewey said he really learned alot uh...dealing with people from being around Mr. Allara and he heard that he always had a joke for people or was always teasing, what kind of, I know you've already told me the one little story, but was he always doing that?

BH: Always doing that, he was the life of the party, even just in legend conversation he was uh...everybody Frank's company...

B: Uh-huh...did he every talk much about his early days in Matewan to you?

BH: Yeah, some, some he was related to me he was about twelve years old in this Massacre thing, and he was in town there and someone told him as I remembering him telling me that he better get out of town, he was going up the railroad, where the shooting, just above the station there...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: as I remember him telling me, and he heard all of the shootings and he took off then. I don't think he actually saw it...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: but he was right there when the beginning of it.

B: What stands out in your mind about say the Matewan area in the 1940's because in the earlier years people have kind of pertrated [sic] as a Western border town kind of, on the weekends it was lawless, everybody came (phone ringing) drinkin' and going into the bars and things, was it like that, by the time you had come here?

BH: Yes, it was still pretty wild, uh...back in the '20's you didn't have a whole lot of law, you had law but the didn't pay much attention to things...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and uh...in the early '40's uh...they had bars and beer joints were poppin' on friday and saturday nights, you could always find uh...trouble if you were looking for it, no problem getting into a fight.

B: Some of the uh...businesses that we know in Matewan in the '20's and '30's are people would go to drinkin' and things like that around the Dew Drop Inn or the Curtis Club or Aunt Carrie's did, where those places still in existence when you?

BH: Yeah, Aunt Carrie's was and the Caberway(?) up at North Matewan was very popular place for everybody.

B: What do you remember about that place we haven't heard anything about it?

BH: The Caberray?

B: Yeah..

BH: Well, I'm surprised, during my time at Matewan it was the popular place, or uh...the had a dance, they had a pretty good dance hall...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: and booths and uh...had a lot of fights every night, uh...Nicklodeum, band of course, uh...but it was, yeah it was a very popular place for the hang outs, I surprised nobody has mentioned to you?

B: No, no, none has mentioned it, where was it situated?

BH: North Matewan just there uh...across from the railroad before you go up the hollower...

B: Okay...

BH: there at uh,....I forget the name of the holler now, uh...it's the, the building is still there...

B: It wasn't Rutherford Holler was it?

BH: Yeah, Rutherford, near the mouth, just across the railroad, the mouth of Rutherford holler...

B: Okay, so was it years after you and Mr. Allara actually became involved in business together or how did you all come to be involved?

BH: I was uh...in 1966 I sold the, was in the process of selling my lumber company to Georgia Pacific and I decided that, start in the coal business, or serve a hobby in uh...and uh...I didn't need investors, 'cause I wasn't going to put a lot of money into it but I got Frank and Fred Shewey and myself and a fellow named Davis...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: down at Ran who was a good coal man, he was retired...

B: Uh...

BH: superintendent and we each put up three thousand dollars a piece...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and started Dash Coal Company...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: Davis, Allara, Shewey, and Harless that's were the Dash came from and so the coal business grew from that twelve thousand dollar investment...

B: Uh...

BH: and from that day on, of course we've been associating in business uh...we uh...invested you know mills in South America...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: Emerson Valley one, Equator, Qutamala [sic], and we moved our Lumber headquarters to Mobile, Alabama and our son, my son runs that../

B: Uh-huh...

BH: he still there...so it's been that kind of relationship, very close, we were together every week practically.

B: I was going to ask you with the four partners like that where you the person actually in charge of running the business, or did you each have a division?...

BH: I ran the business, they conceited all the authority, but they contributed, don't miss understand me...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: I was on, on the spot all the time, there were somewhere else, you know...

B: Right...Okay, uh...with your uh...different interests in Lumber and in coal, are each of these interests ,I don't know much about business, I kindly grasping for ideas, are each of these interest run as separate company then?

BH: Well they are ran under the separate company but they're all owned by international industries...

B: Okay...

BH: and they are separate corporation uh...you got, we've got uh...about uh...eight or nine different divisions...

B: Okay...

BH: one manufacturing and coal division, two in the coal division...

B: uh-huh...

BH: one insurance company and we have an office insurance in Bermuda...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: manufacturing, one manufacturing shop gun, one manufacturing truck bodies and beds, and of course the saw mills, lumber yards, you have four lumber yards, scatter around in different places in the county...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: so we're rather devastated in the county.

B: If, excuse me, if you added up all these divisions, how many employees would you say that you had?

BH: Well, we've sold the mill in, in we sold all the mills, two of the mills, Tearistis(?) took the one in Quatemala and compensated it and ran us out but uh...at one time we had over eight thousand employees operating those mills down there, so were out there, I would say around three thousand employees total...

B: Uh-huh...What do yo uh...since you've had business interest in South American, what do you think about this new movement of environmentalist talking about American Exploration of about the South American raw materials, what as a business man, how do you look at that?

BH: Well, they, they are first people of course they are very uh...strong in the Emerson Valley, and they strong in the rain forest, the unfortunate thing is there are dead wrong...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: the Emerson Valley, there only about four or five out of two hundred species of timber...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: that are merchantable and economical and feasible to harvest..

B: Uh-huh...

BH: but take mogomy for interest, you'll have one tree about every two acres so in this tremendous force, you know if you cut that one tree, you would destroy the forest...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: by roll of is another species that's rolled out and Argoga is another one, there is three principal species, the things destroy in the rain forest in the Emerson Valley are the farmers, who have to eat out of living, the soil is poor the only support they corp to season...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: To get land to farm they cut all the timber down and they burn it, they farm it two season, maybe five acres or six acres you know, they move up they cut all the timber down again...

B: uh-huh...

BH: pile it up and burn...

B: right....

BH: and they farm two years and they move on, that's what is destroying the rain forest not the timber people because the timber is not merchanible they's you can not economically bring it up...

B: uh-huh...

BH: and all the timber has to move by water....

B: uh-huh...

BH: and unless it will float, you can't get it out, and about three-fourths of the species won't float they sink...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: we put in the water, so the people they got, they got their information all wrong...

B: Uh-huh....why do you think they concentrated their efforts on the businessmen rather than say the peasants, you hear on the news about explorers?

BH: Well, it makes headlines much more uh...if they jump on bug business people, their is nobody going to uh...put him accuse him of, of damaging the livelihood of the peasants that would be a different story, you wouldn't get much sympathy there, but they get a lot of sympathy, if they put out misinformation and jump on what they call the giants of industry, the rape in the land and so forth. That's the reason why you never hear them say anything about the peasants, there wasn't t.v., t.v. just about a month ago though, playing out this very importance of timber...

B: Okay...

BH: it's on I believe on the National Geographic...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: I didn't see it, somebody else told me about it.

B: When you live here...excuse me, your interest in coal, uh...do you operate or did you all ever operate union or non-unions mines?

BH: We, we had one division here as union and the new operation Hampton, is non union...

B: Okay...having worked in a union situation in the early years how do you feel about the non union controversy, it's really raging in West Virginia?

BH: Well, uh...I have nothing against unions, I am perceived to be anti-union person...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: I am against (phone ringing) leadership of the union that will not face realty of the union...

B: uh-huh...

BH: and recognize times, conditions have changed...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and that they must change with those times...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: unfortunately they have not done that...

B: uh-huh...

BH: in Cashca(?) they just opened up the whole field, for non union operations, they're responsible for the non union operations...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: because uh...they took the stands you know we are not going to make any concessions....(tape cuts off)....

BH: even though he couldn't compete...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: everybody else was taking the orders because they could produce cheaper...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: and it's not a matter of wages, it's a matter of other costs, work rules...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: health costs...

b: Uh-huh....

BH: and thing that people are non-union mines working make more money than the people working in the union mines...

B: Uh-huh../

BH: so it's not a matter of wages, it's work rules and productivity uh...completion and world of competition, it you don't keep productivity, growing and improving, you are not going to be able to compete, you are going to be out of business...

B: right...

BH: that's the problem I have with the union...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: it's uh...they have destroyed...(tape pauses)....

B: Okay, because I haven't had the opportunity to ask anyone, what do you see uh...do you think there could be in the future unions and management getting along the same, the coal industry and, and better relations, do, do you think there being a future for the unions, in American business?

BH: Oh, I think, uh...the, the history talking about the '22 Massacre...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: the reason that the unions were able to move into the coal fields was the men were being terribly mistreated...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: low wages, housing conditions were terrible they had no job security, all those things, put together invited the unions in...

B: right...

BH: now, uh...the operator it on themselves they brought the unions in....

B: right...

BH: unintentially of course, but hen [sic] the unions have done exactly the same thing only in reverse, now until the attitude of union leadership and this is particularly true in the united mine workers, until there attitude changes, no, there will never be situation exist where they can be compatible they gave their reason, when Trumpcan was excepted has second uh...term as president, his acceptance speech in Atlanta, Georgia, three years ago, I believe it was he pointed his finger at his people out their people out there said don't you ever forget, that the damn company is the enemy, a dn [sic] you always treat them as an enemy, now how can you get coporation [sic] and his spirit when he tells his people...

B: Uh-huh....

BH: that the company is always the enemy, and that's the way the precede, and that's the way they drill it into the men...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: and you got to have a spirit of understanding, corporation, and you got to be able to believe the men, the men got to be able to believe you...

B: Uh-huh...

BH: when you say something.

B: right...

BH: and uh...they drill into the men to believe

[This is where the transcript ends.]

Matewan Oral History Project Collection