Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Vicie Blackburn Interview

BECKY BAILEY: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center, Friday August 3, 1990. I'm in the home of Mrs. Blackburn, the sister of Dutch Hatfield. Uh...Mrs. Blackburn for the record would you state your full name including your maiden name?

VICIE BLACKBURN: V, I, C, I, E. Vicie Hatfield Simpkins Blackburn. I was married to the Simpkins the first time.

B: Okay. And when were you born?

VB: June 21, 1910.

B: And what were your parents names?

VB: Wetzel, Louis Wetzel and Irene Long Hatfield.

B: Okay. Were you born at home?

VB: Un-hun.

B: Did your mother had a doctor or...

VB: My mother, my doctor was a midwife. Tom Mitchell's wife that was in the Hatfield and McCoy Feud so prominent. Had a thumb shot off in the Hatfield and McCoy Feud. His wife was the doctor...the midwife.

B: What was her name?

VB: Nan Mitchell. Nancy I guess.

B: Was she an older lady?

VB: Un-hun.

B: Did she charge people for helping them give birth?

VB: I guess that they maybe give her five dollars. I'm not sure but I figure she got something. I think she had a license. You had to have a license.

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

VB: I have four brothers and two sisters. One brother deceased.

B: Are you the oldest child?

VB: Un-hun.

B: Okay. Since I already know that your father's from this area, let me ask you some questions about your mother. Where was your mother from?

VB: From the Shenandoah Valley. She was in Roanoke. She lived in Roanoke before she married my father, but originally, she was from the Shenandoah Valley. Her parents were. Then they moved to Mercer County, West Virginia several years before she married my father.

B: Do you know why she moved to Mercer County? Her family?

VB: They bought a farm.

B: What were her parents names? Do you know?

VB: Jerry and Virginia Long.

B: Do you know how many brothers and sisters she had?

VB: Oh, I think there was twelve in the family. She's one of twelve children I think. Maybe six brothers and five sisters, but I'm not sure about that, of course if I've made a mistake, they're all dead anyhow.

B: Okay. Um...how much education did your mother have?

VB: Uh...that I don't know. She just went to grade school and I don't know how much of that.

B: But she could read?

VB: Oh, yes. She was very, she was very intellectual. She, I mean, she was an intelligent person. She had to be to raise us children and she sent us all to school.

B: Okay. Do you know how uh...your parents met?

VB: She, no, really, except that she was visiting a friend in this area and met my father.

B: How old were they when they married? Do you know?

VB: My father was twenty-nine and mother was twenty-four.

B: Had he been married before or...

VB: Hun-un. Neither one.

B: First marriage for both of them.

VB: Only marriage for both of them.

B: Do you know what year they got married, by any chance?

VB: In nineteen and nine. July the fourteenth.

B: Do you know who married them?

VB: No.

B: Were your parents religious?

VB: Yes uh...they were of uh...I guess you would just say Holiness. It might have been this Church of God, this Holiness, but it's Holiness. That's all I know. I don't know what else to put.

B: Okay. And um...let's see, you say your...your father died when you were about thirteen?

VB: Un-hun. I was thirteen and a half.

B: How did he die?

VB: He had appendicitis, down in the Williamson hospital.

B: How old were your younger brothers and sisters?

VB: My youngest, the baby was seven months old when he died.

B: Did your mother ever remarry?

VB: Hun-un. No.

B: Now, your father was one of the sons of Ellison?

VB: Ellison.

B: Okay. Did he remember his father at all?

VB: No, he was only two years old.

B: Did his mother or any of his older brothers and sisters ever talk about the feud to him? Did he ever talk about it?

VB: No, I don't think so but uh...Granny always, she talked to me, If I'd had listened, I could have written a book, but I didn't pay any attention. She told me and showed me the rock cliffs up on up this creek where she had taken food to them when they were hidin' out. And see, now, you know all the history of the Hatfield and McCoy's, you know Randall, you'd know Hog Floyd. Alright now, my grandmother and Hog Floyd's wife were sisters and see they was supposed to be some strife and envy there, I think maybe. I don't know about that, but anyway, I don't know if that, don't put that down uh...but anyway, they were sisters and they started tattlin', you know, and carryin' news and started it all, I don't really know about it. They were sisters. They were Statens and their mother was a McCoy.

B: Was their mother related to the McCoy's that were involved in the Feud?

VB: Un-hun. Un-hun. Un-hun. I think so. I think that my....I think that my grandmother had a brother that was killed by the Hatfields in the Hatfield and McCoy Feud. I'm not sure, but I think I'm right. Billy. Billy Staten, of course, I could be wrong. I couldn't prove that.

B: Okay. When you were growin' up, did people talk much about the Feud?

VB: No, not that much. Everybody seemed to know about it but they didn't talk very much about it. But we, when I was a child, we, we still had a little grudge, you know. We were Hatfields, course, some of them still have it. But I never did have any. And you see, when I was growin' up, when I was a tiny child, we had the Baldwin Felts men here in Matewan. When Side Hatfield was killed at Welch and I was a little tiny girl and I remember when they had the tents down here.

B: What do you remember about that?

VB: Oh, I just, I had the, I remember that my father, that they...they had men watchin' all the time and I know we lived just above the camp up here and there was a colored person, lots of nights, would be near our home watchin' because my father was, he liked the union and he...he wasn't radical about any of it but they were just afraid.

B: So, the men that would watch, you say they were watchin' to protect people from the Baldwin Felts or they were watchin' for the Baldwin Felts?

VB: No, I don't know whether they had anything to do with the Baldwin Felts but it was when the union when uh...when the old lady, what was her name in the union, I've forgotten now.

B: Mother Jones?

VB: Mother Jones was very active and I know, we went to Williamson. We had to ride the train to Williamson and as we came back before we got into Matewan, the conductor came through and he said," Everybody below the windows. Everybody below the windows because we don't want to go through Matewan with anybody seeing you." It was that bad. And uh...when they had all of the big shootings, (Matewan Massacre) my, I had an aunt lived in the lower end of Matewan and the next morning uh...one of the Baldwin Felts men had taken her garbage barrel and had put it over him that night and slept under it. Course, I was just a very small child. It was a big thing. It was big and I don't remember that much, but I do remember all the tents there and we had a store down in North Matewan. They called it Cheap John's, where everybody went to trade.

B: Where were the...the tents, where were the tents placed down...?

VB: They were in North Matewan. There was no houses now that's fully settled, but then there was. There was just open fields.

B: About where that bridge is down in that bottom?

VB: Just a few houses. All down through North Matewan, it was tents.

B: Do you remember, some people have, they've been trying to tell us what time of year the people lived there?

VB: Well, to me, it seems that it was in the fall, in the summer and fall, but I could be wrong, as I say, I was small.

B: Do you ever remember seeing Sid Hatfield when you were in town when you were a little girl? Did you...?

VB: No, I don't remember Sid.

B: Okay.

VB: I remember Testerman that was shot. I vaguely remember him. I think he was a jeweler. I believe he had a jewelry store.

B: What do you remember about him?

VB: I just remember seeing him. He...he was a fine lookin' man.

B: Un-hun. Did your father, do you remember overhearing your father say anything about that shoot out that they had down there?

VB: Hun-un. He wasn't in it.

B: Okay. We've just heard reports that um...after that happened that a lot of miners and...and men in the area went down the next day to make sure there was no other trouble and I was just wondering if....

VB: I never heard anything about that.

B: Okay. What else do you remember about going down there to Matewan when you were a little girl?

VB: I don't remember that much. I remember goin' down through while the tents were there and I remember the store. They called it Cheap John's. And I was fascinated because it was such a big place and they had everything, my father bought me a white hat and I thought I was queen of everything and...and I don't remember, they didn't let us talk too much about it, my mother and daddy didn't and they tried to keep us from thinkin' too much about it.

B: Okay. Do you remember where in North Matewan that Cheap John's store was?

VB: Well, it seems to me that it is near where the Pizza Hut is. Faye's Pizza. Seems to me that it was but you know, that's been a long time and I can't say for sure. I can't tell you any of this for sure. It's been a lot of water over the dam since then. See that my first husband was sick twelve years and this man was an invalid for about seven or eight, so I haven't had too much contact with the outer world at times.

B: You said when you first went to school, you went to the Red Jacket school. Where was that?

VB: Just right where it is now. Different building. And old big wooden building on the same spot. Three rooms. Two down and one up.

B: About how many children went to school there with you do you think? Was there a lot?

VB: Yes, you know, the coal camp usually had a lot of children in it and this was a big camp. Yeah, they was, it was three rooms and I'd say there was a hundred and fifty.

B: Okay.

VB: Of course, that's not many now and uh...at that time, they gave us a diploma from the grades, from the eighth grade and I was among the first graduating class up here and that was in 1921.

B: And where did you go to high school?

VB: Matewan.

B: And where was the school at that time? The high school.

VB: Where the old high school is. Where they've torn it down but it was just that same area.

B: Did you graduate from high school?

VB: No I didn't, I...I uh...took sick and had to quit the last part of the last year. So I didn't finish. I went about three and a half years.

B: So about how old were you when you quit? When you had to quit?

VB: I was um...six, wait, I was sixteen. Almost sixteen. I was eleven when I got my diploma from the eighth grade up here. Then you could skip as many classes, you could, you know, if you was kind of bright or you could bluff your way, which I did.

B: Un-hun. Now, when your father died when you were thirteen and a half, and you said you started going to work at the time?

VB: I worked at, I started workin' when I was about, well, the last year I was in school, I really wasn't old enough to work but they let me work cause my daddy had always worked here (for Red Jacket) and he had a good job and then from that, I worked, I worked for Red Jacket. I was workin' the store first, for a long time as a clerk and then, then they sent me to one of the other stores as cashier to take care of the credit.

B: When you say, at one time, Red Jacket had four stores?

VB: They had the big store, the Number Five and Junior, and Number Six. And that's four here besides in other parts. They had some in Virginia, you know, but over at uh...Keen Mountain and then they had one in Wyoming but they had four here.

B: And how big was the payroll?

VB: When I went to work at Junior as a cashier, there were sixteen hundred men on the payroll. Sixteen hundred names. That was all of them in this area.

B: (tape cuts off) Now, when you went um...to work as cashier, is that when you started checking the miners' credit, I against what they'd charge?

VB: Well, you see, when they came to the store, they would get a ticket. I had to write a ticket and at that time, maybe they'd work two days a week, they didn't have much credit, so I had to see that they didn't go over what they had in the office and I would mark the ticket. If they were good for four dollars or six dollars, whatever, I had to put that, mark it so the clerk would know not to go over that.

B: And so, they didn't go over it.

VB: Hun-un. Not unless we got an okay from somebody higher up.

B: Okay. Did that happen very often? The people got an okay?

VB: A lot of times it did.

B: Okay. Uh...some historians have said that the, the goods and things that people bought at the company store were not as good, were not of the same quality as other places and that the store was overpriced. What do you think?

VB: I don't agree. I do not agree with that. I think they had the best merchandise and I think they did the very best they could by their men that were workin' for them. I think that, I think Red Jacket was especially good to all their miners. Now, some people might have thought they were over-priced. I don't know but I didn't. I don't think so. They may have had to pay higher prices, I don't know, but they did have good merchandise. Very good. They carried brand names and they had all the dry goods. Everything. Furniture and everything that these miners needed, they could get it form the store and they would get what's called a lease and they'd pay so much down and they'd pay so much a month. It was taken out at the office. Over the payroll.

B: I've talked to people who have worked at other coal mines in different areas and they said that uh...if the company store didn't have what a miner wanted or needed, they would order it.

VB: They did. Un-hun. They did. Now Red Jacket took care of their men. They really did. 'Cause I was on one job thirteen years until I married this man.(pointing to the photograph of second husband)

B: Okay, now um...have, since you've worked at the company store, how did you get paid? Were you paid in scrip like the miner's...

VB: Hun-un. Hun-un.(meaning no)

B: Or were you paid in cash?

VB: The men, the miners' were not paid in scrip. All the scrip they ever got was when they would go to the office window and ask and they would get two dollars scrip or four dollars or whatever they wanted and they took that out over the payroll, off their earnings. That was the scrip, then at the end of every two weeks, they paid those men off by check or money. And I was paid by the hour and if you want to know when I started workin' for them, when I was, I guess I was about uh...well, I was very young but I started for forty-five cents an hour.

B: My goodness.

VB: But I thought I was rich.

B: Since you were so young and living at home, you probably helped your mother.

VB: I did. I helped mother all the way through. Un-hun. because I was the oldest.

B: Okay. How did...how did she support the family between your father's death and the time you went to work?

VB: Well, he left quite a bit of real estate and...and different things. He had, he was very thrifty and I'll tell you how we did. Now I went to school at Matewan High School and if a lady in this community anywhere would have a baby then they all had them at home, I would stay home for a week and take care of that woman and baby and she would give me, well, five dollars is the most I ever got for a week, you know, at a time. Then I'd go back to school the next week and I'd make my time up and I was, had enough common sense, I guess, so I got by. I made it up. But I did that all through high school when I wasn't working for Red Jacket, in the summer or somewhere. And uh...mother had a garden a big garden and my brothers worked all the time. And another thing, if there was...there was three, about three families in the community that we knew real well and they were prominent and they could afford it, my mother washed their clothes and we helped. And I wore hand-me-down dresses. I learned to sew when I was real little and I wore hand-me-downs. Our friends would give me a dress and I wasn't very big at that time and I'd make it over. But we were the happiest family that ever grew up in his country.

B; Why was that?

VB: Well, if...if we, we had a lot of company. A lot of children, and as we grew older, uh...we had lots of it and no matter what we had, my brothers would smoke stud tobacco, come in little five cents bags and when they smoked, maybe four or five little orphan boys, they'd just come by and they smoked too. Mother was always that way. She shared everything we had. If we had a big table full of beans and potatoes, mother shared that with all of them. And...and we just, we were happy and whatever we wanted to do, mother would let us do and she was always there with us. We had an old white mule and we hooked that mule to the sled many nights after midnight when the snow was on the ground and ride him all over the bottoms. That sounds silly but it was a good life. It was a wonderful life because we enjoyed everything and mother did it with us.

B: Did she mourn much for your father?

VB: Yes, I think so. I think so. She was a very lonely woman. I think that's why she liked all these children to come and be with us all the time. She was known as Maw Hatfield and she has taken care of many a little child that didn't have a place to stay.

B: I've interviewed people and some of the people who said they called her Aunt Irene.

VB: Yeah.

B: And Everybody...

VB: There's a lot of them but most everybody, they'd say, when they would come to our house and be there so much it was Maw Hatfield. When she died there was just so many people that they couldn't even get into see her and it was Maw Hatfield. It was either that or Aunt Irene.

B: (tape cuts off) How old were you when you got married the first time?

VB: Nineteen.

B: Okay. What year was...that would have been 1929.

VB: I believe it was '29.

B: Close to 1929.

VB: Un-hun. December.

B: Just to back track a little bit before that,

VB: Pardon?

B: Just to back track a little bit before I get into asking you about your children um...do you remember World War I?

VB: Very faintly. I remember two people that had to go and that was Julius Chafin and uh...Charles Kiser. You may have heard a lot about Charlie Kiser.

B: Yes, I did.

VB: Alright, those two and they were young men and it broke my heart because I was a little girl and I hated so much to see them go and I remember waving at them when they went by that morning.

B: When did..when you...

VB: But they both returned home.

B: Okay. Were they walkin' out to catch the train or...where did you see...

VB: They were walkin' when I saw them.

B: Had they gotten their uniforms yet or...

VB: No. Hun-un.

B: What do you remember about Charlie Kiser?

VB: Well, I just remember him as a young man that I had always known and I liked him. He was, he was very, he was a nice man, but now Julius Chafin was a nice man and Julius was more down to earth with children. He was friendlier. Now Charley Kiser was always more of a business type fellow. More sincere about everything, to me now. But I liked them both.

B: What do you remember about the flu epidemic?

VB: Well, my father took it first, the night he took it, they pulled his bed up in front of the fire place. He was takin' chills. We'd been out in the mountain with him that day just roamin' around, it was in the fall. That night, we had a big fire in the fire place and we, he was very religious and he wanted us to sing, well we could all sing very well. Us children was big enough, got under his bed and we sang that night until way late and he was so sick but that's what he wanted. Then he took pneumonia and he almost died and at that time, all the community come in and helped and that's where everybody centered, was at our house. All of us took it and the neighbors were there an awful lot and they took care of my father. He almost died. He was sick quite a spell, and we were all real sick and we had a pear tree out in the back of our yard. It had some pears on it. Still hanging on it. And they were very careful with us, the neighbors taking care of us and they told me to be real careful and of course, I got up and I saw those pears. I'd been in the bed for about a week, saw those pears hanging on the tree and they looked real good to me. I went out there barefooted, now that was in November, I think, late November, I went out there and got me some of those pears. Barefoot, it didn't hurt me. But I remember all the neighbors cooked for us and carried it in and so many people died, so many people died that we knew.

B: Do you remember any of the families that lost people?

VB: Well, I remember of uh...Richard Ferrell, no it wasn't, it was Richard's brother, Alvis Ferrell and his wife Cordelia and she was a Hatfield. She was old man Floyd's daughter. Hog Floyd they called him, and she and her husband lay corpse (died) at the same time and they had one child. She was little. They left that child but they were dead at the same time in the home. And that, I mean, that stuck with me. I remember that and there was an awful lot of people died. But those two people, it made an impression to me.

B: Some people said in some communities that they, that they buried people at night or...or...

VB: They didn't do that up here.

B: Okay.

VB: There was good people. Good neighbors and they took care of everybody that passed away.

B: Speaking of being sick um...with your father dying when you were so young how did your mother take care of you all when....(tape cuts off)

B: (you would) Get sick cause I know doctors must have been too expensive.

VB: She just did it. She just took care of us.

B: Did she have any home remedies or...

VB: All of them. Groundhog grease. I've been bathed in that and castor oil and turpentine and burbafuge, that old worm medicine, oh, gosh, and just all kinds of home remedies.

B: What did they put groundhog grease on people for?

VB: For bad colds. For chest colds. (tape cuts off) Used a lot of Vicks Salve.

B: Was there anything they tried to treat people with during this (influenza) epidemic.

VB: Not that I know about, I don't think.

B: Okay. Okay. Alright, say, you married your first husband in 1929?

VB: Un-hun. Guy Simpkins.

B: Can you spell his first name for me?

VB: G. U. Y.

B: Was he from this area?

VB: Over at Beech Creek.

B: What did he do for a living?

VB: He was a miner. A motorman.

B: How did you all meet?

VB: We'd always known each other.

B: Okay. How did you all decide to get married?

VB: We just, I don't know.

B: Did you all get married in the church?

VB: No, we were married at my grandmother's, at Ellisons wife's home.

B: Okay. Who...who married you all?

VB: Joe Hatfield. Rev. Joe.

B: And you have three children?

VB: Un-hun.

B: You all got married right before the Great Depression.

VB: Honey, we sure did. My...my father-in-law made us a homemade table and we had a bench that set on the back of that and we had a little tiny, what they called a step stove and I don't know where we got the bed but that's all we had. Just very little and we made out with that for a long time. Until the Depression was over I guess. We grew...we grew all our vegetables. We had a garden and we, now, his father, his father was a boss here at Red Jacket, and too, he was a farmer and he made molasses and all this stuff and they helped us.

B: Un-hun. Where did you all set up housekeeping when you got married?

VB: Up here in the upper end of Red Jacket. Two rooms at my mother's house. She had a big house.

B: How long did you all live with her?

VB: Oh, not a year.

B: When were your children born?

VB: Well, Ira was born in 1930 of December. We were married December 29, he was born December 30 and then uh...Patty was born uh...two years, not two years, in three years and three months I had three.

B: Do you know why you didn't have any more or...

VB: Well, I was a very sick woman.

B: From having them so close together or...

VB: I guess, I don't know. I was sick. They didn't think I was gonna live, the last one.

B: Was there complications with the birth or...

VB: Before. It was before hand. I don't really know what it was 'cause back at that time, you, you just got sick. If you didn't get better, you died, they, didn't pay that much attention then, not really. And I remember at that time, we paid the doctor bill over the payroll. A dollar a month. Didn't that sound strange now. I go down to my doctor once every three months an it's eighty dollars just to take your blood pressure and check my sugar. I'm a diabetic.

B: Now your first husband had a long illness and then he died.

VB: Twelve years and when he died, I kept him in Beckley in the sanitorium for ninety-nine days. They run all the tests. We didn't know whether it was tuberculosis or what but he didn't have tuberculosis. They just said, whatever was the same on each side of his lung and then later we found out it was called black lung. And that was from the sand from the motor. The dust that came up. And he run the motor all the time.

B: How old was he when you all got married? Was he older than you?

VB: Un-hun. One year. He's born in 1909.

B: What year did he pass away?

VB: Well, I believe in January of '53. I believe it was.

B: What stands out in your memory about World War II in this area?

VB: I don't remember anything about it. I really didn't uh...World War II. I had four brothers. They had to register. I guess that's World War II. My baby brother, which is now in his late sixties or early seventies and he had to register and he had to go, but the day before they, he had to go, they did away with the draft in his age and he didn't have to go. Mother didn't have a child that had to go but they had to register. But I don't remember that much about that in fact, I didn't pay that much attention.

B: Now, when your first husband took sick, did I understand you right, you say you went back to work when he got sick.

VB: Un-hun. Uh...not at first. Uh...not for a while. We, he was sick a while in work and then in later years uh....he wasn't able to go to the mines and they let him take care of the service station when he was able to be out. I mean, he just did the book work. And uh...but the last twelve years that he lived, I worked.

B: Okay. When did you meet your second husband?

VB: Well, do you want me to just tell you the truth? I had known him. He was our pastor and at that time, he was married and his wife passed away. Two years after my husband, and I'd never thought about him but you know, he baptized my first husband and he preached my first husband's funeral. We were very good friends. His wife and I. They visited our home a lot and I never thought about marrying him until he, his wife had been dead and he came back here from Michigan. I hadn't thought about marrying him. I wasn't going to marry anybody, but that was it.

B: But you all were drawn together.

VB: Yes, we had a wonderful life. Thirty three years even though he was an invalid the last part, we had a good life.

B: We've talked a little bit before off tape about um...the Primitive Baptist church and I was wondering if you could tell me some of the things that you believe like uh...do women wear pants...?

VB: Yes, they do and if they want short hair, they have short hair. And uh...they're not, not like a lot of people had said they were, they, I think they're broad-minded but they have been painted as being different. But they are of a close, just like if you belong to their church and they were havin' communion, you know what I'm talkin' about? Washin' feet and taking bread and wine, well, nobody that doesn't belong to their church can't come in with them. Just their members is all and they believe that God has all power and man has none but that's common sense. I don't think that, if we just really get down to the nitty gritty, we know that we can't do anything about any of it and unless we're helped by the good Lord but we believe in an all powerful God and that man can do nothing by himself. And they believe strictly in the resurrection of these bodies. Both the just and unjust. That's the way they write if you want me to put it that way.

B: What happens to the unjust vs. the just people?

VB: Well, I think, they, I believe they think they all are dead. They're all asleep and at the resurrection and the coming of Christ, then they are resurrected, both the just and the unjust. And the unjust go to an eternal punishment. Everlasting punishment and uh...the good people, his people are resurrected to be with him, but they do believe in a, in a general judgement and a wake of punishment for the wicked.

B: Okay. Um...

VB: They're liable to put me up to preach in the area church, you know. They don't believe in women preachin'.

B: Why's that?

VB: They just, they don't. I don't know why but they don't have any women preachers.

B: Do women speak out in church?

VB: Oh, they can. Yeah. If in business or whatever but they don't preach. They even have uh...some for the woman are um...clerks in the church and different things. Un-hun. But it didn't use to be that way.

B: Could you tell me what an average service would be like. How you'd start out the service and then move through it.

VB: Well, by a few songs and then they had one to hold prayer and then they had two to speak. And they're not, they used to be long and drawn out but they're not anymore.

B: Okay. What kind of um..ideas and things did the ministers preach about? What did they talk about when they preach?

VB: Well, honey, I can just, there's so many things, I can't tell you. But uh...it's all good. It's the good things that the Lord has done for his people and the things that we should do. Just like everybody around they preach here.

B: Okay. When um...the church, when they're singing, is it just the choir or does the whole church sing?

VB: No, the whole sings, everybody sings.

B: Now, I've heard, I can't keep it straight which church um...some people line in music...

VB: They do, they line their songs. Now, they don't line them all anymore. But at one time, they lined them all but they line only a few now. They still do line their songs. And they don't have music in the church.

B: Now I've heard there's one group of Baptists that will not eat in the church either.

VB: Well, that's not the ones I know. They have always, we have dining rooms and we always had dinner there.

B: Okay. What's the uh...belief on the use of tobacco or alcohol?

VB: Well, they don't believe in alcohol but they might chew or smoke or whatever, everybody lets their conscious be their guide when it comes to that. But they don't believe in alcohol.

B: In...in any form or just...

VB: Drinking, you know, I guess.

B: You can't drink at all or you can drink.

VB: Not supposed to, I think of them does it every now and then. They're not supposed to. Now, it used to be, when I joined the church, about every woman had long hair and you see, I've got long hair, but I had short hair. I had all the years, I had short hair when I joined the church. I've been in it over fifty years and I...I had short hair when I joined the church, then after my first husband died, I let it grow and I had real curly hair and I let it grow, and then when I married this man, he just liked it that way and he always begged me to never cut it but we didn't, it wasn't because we didn't believe in it.

B: It was a personal preference.

VB: That's right. He preferred it long or short. And now since he's gone, I think my hair would maybe look a lot better if it were short but since he begged me not to cut it, I'm not going to. Not as long as I've got enough to stick up.

B: Okay.

VB: I think long hair's beautiful. Mother had long hair all of her life that was her (unintelligible) to my father.

B: Un-hun. Do you know how your brother Dutch got his nickname? How did he get that?

VB: We always called him that from the time he was born. His name's Clarence, but they never called him that. Always just, always called him Dutch and I don't know why.

B: When you were young, I know money was...was probably tight after your father died but did you all ever go to the movies or anything like that?

VB: Yeah, we did. We had, we had a theater up here where the big store was and it didn't have any top on it. When it rained, you couldn't go and we got to go to the movies quite often, but you know, I tell you what we'd do, maybe we'd do odd jobs for people and get us a little bit of money. That's what made it so good I guess. We knew how we were gettin' it. Of course, I was the oldest and there wasn't a tree I couldn't climb in this country. Had four brothers and I, mother always said I started them out being mean and I told them all mean things to do.

B: Now, Dutch was older when he took the job as police chief in Matewan. Did you remember, what did you think about it when he took that job?

VB: I didn't think, I didn't care, I don't know, I didn't pay attention. But Dutch worked for Red Jacket. He worked in the mines for a long time and then he drove a truck for the company store at the same time I was workin' as a cashier, he was workin' some then. Red Jacket left here and sold out to Island Creek and Dutch, then, I don't know, he worked for Island Creek a while, but...I did to. But uh...I don't know how come Dutch to quit.

B: Was there a different atmosphere around here once Island Creek took over?

VB: Yes, ma'am.

B: What was different about it?

VB: It just wasn't half as good as Red Jacket.

B: Un-hun. Why is that?

VB: They just didn't treat their men as Red Jacket did.

B: Did they treat them more like numbers or machines?

VB: No, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it was the people that were prejudice. 'Cause Red Jacket done sold out. They'd all been here all there lives and...and we resented the fact that Red Jacket was leaving. Maybe that was it. I don't know. A lot of people liked Island Creek real well, but I didn't. I only worked for them about four or five months.

B: When did they take over?

VB: In '55 I believe. In the fall of '55 I think that they took over in '55. They had some mighty good people workin' for Island Creek but we just resented it, some of us did. Those people are all gone just about it. Very few people living.

B: Were you all living up through this way, were you all ever flooded when the floods went through?

VB: No.

B: Okay. (tape cuts off)

VB: This is home to a lot of old settlers like me. People that have been here all their lives. Just like my daughters, this one's retired. (points to photographs) She and her husband, the baby and the one that lives there will retire next year. Now, her husbands a certified public accountant. He's in Charleston, but uh...he has a big job up there but she stays here and teaches in the winter. She just doesn't want to leave here. This is home.

B: Um...let's see, when you remarried, how old were your children when you remarried?

VB: Well, to tell you the truth, I don't even know my children, the year they were born. Ira was born in '30. I guess Margaret must have been born in '34. She's the youngest one between them and Margaret was not married. She must have about uh...twenty-two or three when I married.

B: So they were already grown.

VB: She was teachin', my baby was teachin'.

B: So they didn't, you didn't have to, they didn't have the step father adjustments...

VB: Hun-un. No. Hun-un. No. And they loved this man, he was uh...I heard that one of the son-in-laws and the daughter said that since he's passed away that it, to know that man, was wonderful. That he'd had an influence on all of them. I had a mighty good man the first time but this one was older.

B: Alrighty.

VB: Now, they adored my husband. They really did.

B: That's good. Now, you say he had been a minister for fifty years?

VB: Fifty years...over...some over fifty years. And he pastored four churches at one time. He got to one every month for years and years.

B: How did um...how did he support you? Did he have another job?

VB: He worked in the mines. He worked the coal mines for forty-two years.

B: So he was a coalminer and a minister then.

VB: Now, the Primitive Baptist Church, they believe in supportin' themselves if they can. If they can, but they don't get a salary. But they are real good to their ministers. All the members of the congregation. Then all that time, I used to make an awful lot of quilts and sell them and gave them to all the children and uh...I sewed for people. You wouldn't think I ever kept house for lookin' at this one, it's bad.

B: Well, thank you for talkin' to me today.

VB: It's been nice talkin' to you. You have a beautiful handwriting.

B: Thank you. (tape cuts off)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection