forked from Hmknipp/Women-of-Coal-Revisited
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
Copy pathVernaMaeSlone.txt
1 lines (1 loc) · 45 KB
/
VernaMaeSlone.txt
1
-n -n -n >> Yeah. >> Okay. $15 per month. >> How much--how much is it all? >> $15. >> Yeah. They were average. I guess the one I was with them was a little smaller. >> I bet it was like the one over there. He didn't have thermostat on the floor. >> Probably did. >> That's what I wanted. >> Oh. >> There's so many--some of my friends that, you know, who usually at night you take sleeping pills and you sleep soundly. Two of my friends at the house of Cubs of Hot, they find them dead next morning, you know. >> Oh. >> Or the--no thermostat. >> Uh-huh. >> And they're like, "I'd like for you to just hold that." And can you hold it, you know, like this microphone right here? >> Oh, that's a good one. >> Right here. That way, I don't want to sit here and hold it up like that, but it'll pick up better if it's right under you. >> Okay. Let me speak right in. >> Yeah. >> And if you would just-- >> He looks so much like one of my grandson. I just have to be looking at him. >> If you would, just tell us who you are and where we're located. >> Today is October the 17th, Saturday about-- >> Nice Friday was my birthday and they give me a surprise birthday party in my long hair. >> Last Friday what? >> Saturday. >> Huh? >> For Saturday. >> Well, I'm getting off a close date. I can hear the angels singing. >> How did you know? You know, when I was here before, you know, I talked to you about my leukemia and stuff, how'd you--how'd you look like you're dealing with it? >> Well-- >> With your anemia. It wasn't anemia, you know? >> Mm-hmm. >> I have to take shots once a week. >> You're sure? Okay. >> Well, I'm like an elevator, I'm up someday. [ Laughter ] >> Today happens to be a good day. >> I think today we were here before wasn't a particularly good day. >> No. >> I don't think we're feeling real good today. >> And-- >> Well, Miss Sloan, actually what we were--as I told you, I asked everybody the same three questions. And for the purposes of this, and you can go off and tell whatever story you want to tell, that's always the best stuff to get. But the three questions we've been asking are, how do you think the coal industry has affected the climate in the region in the past? How do you think it's affecting them today in the region and what you see out there in the future in terms of how the climate are going to be affected by the coal industry in the future? Or their families, you know? >> As either wives, mothers, daughters, workers, just in any role that you-- >> Like I say, my own family, my husband worked for a gas company and we use gas and my son's work is the same job my husband has. But now, I had three sisters that each lost a son in the coal mine. >> And when did that happen? Was that in the earlier on the century or--? >> Well, the first one died when I was about 17, so that would have been in the mid-20s. And the next one died in probably the late '60s. And the last one in the early '80s, I guess, he was crushed up. When they first brought the coal mines to A&E, he was-- his job was driving a bulldozer and was pushing-- they blow the coal and then he pushed it into the scrucher and they don't know what happened. He just-- they just found him in the scrucher. And they think that he went to unplug the electricity line and got executed and fell in, but they had nothing on the mine. >> So you had three nephews that were killed in the coal mines? >> That were killed in the coal mines. But my father and my brothers-- one of my sons worked a little bit in the coal mines. He started to teach school and he had been taught to not whip kids and so he was just about 17 and the kids had been taken over and he wouldn't whip them and he just quit the school rather than whip the kids and worked in the mines just a little bit. >> So all the whippers. >> Yeah. And when we came, then he came back and told his daddy, he said, "If you'll send me on school to Pikeville," he said, "I believe I'd rather use the lemmas of shovel." But, you know, he was 17 and the graders, he had some almost larger C-waves and he just resigned rather than-- >> You said that you all were in-- your family was in gas. >> Mm-hmm. >> Now, did you think natural gas? >> Yes. My husband, he first began work and driving a bulldozer, a clearing the roads to the gas wells. They were drilling a lot of gas wells, sure. And they didn't come through and low-cake would be the best place. Someone in Pittsburgh just took a pin down on the map and sometimes that would be right on the edge of a cliff, right on top of a hill or wherever it was and they'd have to build roads to it. And that's what he done for a long time. But he had to stay away from home so there were no roads through here then and so he just would come home for the weekend and stay away. And when they began building roads where he could get in and out, then he transferred and began working as they called it a well operator. He would go around-- now, not to the half meters, he'd go around to the well meters and read them and keep that all together, you know. Keep the-- there were little meters on the well that told how much gas come out from each well and he kept them repaired. And now one of my sons does the same job he does. And we also use gas. We don't use cold. Cold's too expensive. You could heat your home a month on gas that would do a night with cold. Cold's so expensive we couldn't use it for him. After-- now a long time when my-- back at-- when my father and back when I was home we'd have what we was called coal banks. We'd just open a little opening inside of the hill and get out enough coal to do the family. And my father would do that. We saw some people doing that up here today. There were some coal just coming out of the side of the mountain. And then some people would have picked up truckmen and loaded them behind the alfalfa buckets. I guess it's taking off a huge-- Yeah, well even up and down the creek here there was some coal little out-- growing coal. I hope the strip miners don't find out about it. They might come strip my house away and get it. And sometimes maybe through the summer if it get a little cold I might go out there and get a little cool I might go out there and just dig me out a little bucket of that coal and skinned beans or washing outside or something that I needed or far outside. I'd go up and down the creek banks in there and pick me out a little bucket full of coal and use it. But really I don't know that much about coal mining. That's what we're actually-- we're not-- we're not looking so much about coal as we are about women. The focus of the project is really on women. I guess if you've got any thoughts on what it's been like to live here as a woman raising kids, going to church, so what are you-- Well I live-- --going to tell about women or-- I live for it, ma'ala. I really didn't go to church that much. I'd take my children to church but I told them about Jesus at home until they ended up three of them, out of the five of them being ministers. And of course I don't take the honor of that. I know Jesus is the one who saves their souls but I also want to start them on the right path. And but as I say, you know, a lot of my brother-in-laws worked in the coal mines and a lot of my nephews still do. And in fact, when I divided my farm here with the five boys, we divided and gave to them, one of them still owns the coal on 18 acres but he's promised me that he won't have it stripped mine as long as I live. Because I hate to strip mine. You're down on strip mine. What bothers you the most about it? Well, it's leaving their mountains the way they are. It's just drawing their mountains from that. We were just recovering from where our grandparents had stripped the mine and stripped the surface, got the trees all off to farm and pester and so on. And we just got our trees started back into growing a little. And, you know, they've stripped mine. They promised to come back and fix it. I've never seen any they fixed it. Maybe I don't travel enough. If I travel enough, I'd see them but I've never seen any that they've replanted and re-stored. And I think, of course, you know, the danger of their children and their husbands working in the mines, all of that pressure was on the women. I've seen my sisters, you know, just under so much stress, I see in their family go back in under the mines and then when they hear that whistle blow, I know that there's been a cave in or someone killed, you know. You know, the pressure was all on them and the danger of coal miners. And then three of them did? Three of my daughters lost. Lost us in the mines and another one has lost two to black clown. Well, when you say that you've not had much to do with coal, you've not had anything directly to do with it but your family certainly did. My family did. My family did. They affected by it. They affected by it. In a very negative kind of way, did they have, how did they feel about them other than the fact that the women were under a lot of pressure? How did they feel about them? Did their husbands make good money? Did they have a good living? After we got the union, they did. But before we had the union, they were just slaves. The union just saved us from slavery. They just had to take what they could get. And the coal companies had their own store. You had to buy the stuff from the compensaries. And it twice higher than you could have got it somewhere else. And you had to use the company doctor, where that was the one you wanted or not, because they cut from your check so much for the doctor. So much was for Dr. Bells. And once you rented, you just about had to stay, because they would keep you in debt. You always owed them instead of them on you at the end of the term. Of course, I was small at that time, but I visited my sister and I had a cousin that was a bank boss, and me and his daughter were real good friends. So I visited a lot around the mines. And I hated those little yellow houses and those outdoor toilets. Two or three together for two or three families had to use it. There was just no privacy. You know, I hated it when I visited them. So I don't guess I'd be a very good... [laughs] I don't have a very good feeling towards the coal companies. Well, that's okay. You're allowed to feel happy. You ought to be close. But then in another way, I know some of my sister's boys works in the dry coal trucks. And I can see lots of families that are educating their children that otherwise might have been on welfare if it wasn't for the coal. So I can see the good side, too. So you see that economically it's helped some people since the union came in, but it's also done a lot of environmental damage. Yeah, that's what I look at. [inaudible] Well, one thing I remember... You know, my mother... I mean, this is just my sister's told me this story when my mother died when I was born. I never knew my mother. But the way people... We were supposed to be starving to death according to the way people were older about us, but one day they come up a storm and there were seven men going through Bear Home and going from Harlan County to Floyd County to work in the mines. And the storm come up and they run in my house, and my father invited them to eat dinner. We were at the table, and all my mother added to the table were seven extra plates, and still everybody had all they wanted to eat. That was the way they... That was the way they were starving to death. So there was plenty of food. There was plenty of food. Enough for seven extra people. She had already put on the table enough food. There were a lot of people that were hungry that were... You know, you all had plenty. But did you know of people that didn't have plenty? Do you think they just kind of ticked out the one or two that didn't have... Well, I'll say in... I'll just take a guess. In the average of the people that I knew, the people that lived around here, at a 100% average, we were about 85. There were probably 15% people that lived better than my parents did. And they lived worse? And then they were 85% that lived worse. But we didn't let anybody starve. Because if we knew of some... If they knew of some man that just wouldn't work, but was able to, the first night they left a bunch of switches at his door. And if he didn't pick up and go try to take care of his family, the next night or two, they took him out and gave him a good thrashing. If he just wouldn't work. And if he was sick and couldn't work, they went in and hold his cornet for him. And some of them would bring a bunch of chickens, and some of them would pig, and so on, and help him out. So we really... We didn't let anybody starve, one way or the other. We saw... We saw that older folks saw that they did... The kids did have something to eat. That's a great story. I like that's the kind of story I was talking about. Now that you're... As you said, you had your 78th birthday. Now that you're sitting here looking back on all these years, what was the best time here for you? And the worst time, or is it all run together? Well, finally, of course, me and my husband married during the... We married in '36, during the Depression. And the first year, but he was a person, even when other people... Even as a single boy, I never knew of him not being with that money because he always found a little something to do if he was just hauling rocks and putting them on the road or something like that. But the first... The first year or two, we had plenty to eat because we owned this farm and we raised plenty to eat. But we had to... We had to get a hold of cash money. I never knew of him being without money, but I've known of him getting down to maybe $10, or as much as we had. And... But after he wants to begin working for the gas company, we live... We had anything we wanted. We bought cars for our kids and we sent them to college. And... Maybe we didn't have as much as other people would have wanted, but we had bought them. We wanted them. We managed to buy all of them home. And... You know, divided the farm and... And this is called Sloan Highland, here in the Forte-Bainte-Goules. This is called Bunyan. And I named this little place where we live, Sloan Patch. Because all of us are Sloans that live right here. Well, in fact, all of them are right in this one little hole here, in my family. How many kids did you have? We had five sons and no daughters. And their names were? Milburn, Orban, Losses, Willie Verlin. I used both of their names to make his name. And then they were almost grown in God's name, extra bonus, Lynn. Now, Losses, how do you spell that? Just like the verb, L-O-S-S-E-S. And the way I come by the name, like I say my mother died when I was born, and my sister, she was only 14 years older than me, but she raised me, kept me. And for some reason, I don't know if there was some medical reason or just a coincidence, but she had to, I think she had about 12 kids, the girls who'd live and the boys who'd die. I don't know why. Well, finally, at least, you know, later, she had, but at first, all the girls would live, and she lost two little boys. And so they would be born dead or just live a few hours or something. And I don't know if it just happened or if there could have been some medical reason for it. And she named one of them Losses, just for her Losses. And then to please her, I named one of mine that. Well, is it the one that she named Losses that he lived? No, he was the one that died. Then your son lived? My son lived. He's 50 years old now. He's the only one that lives away from here. He lives in Indiana. And he goes by that and he goes by Losses. And sometimes people think it's a girl's name. And he didn't thank me for it. He don't like the name. But one thing I tried to find, there were so many of us Lones, we were all the time getting each other different people's smiles. In fact, I got arrested once for making whiskey in my house because another woman by the same name was. And they mistaken it for me. And I thought, you know, I knew the judge. That was judge, my cousin. And I knew everybody at home. And so when the sheriff come to arrest me, I want to go to home on that day anyway. So I just got out and went with him because I knew, you know. I got in another judge. So you got the wrong pig by the day, only. It was another very slow. And I got, we'd get her male mixed up and everything, you know, there were so many Willie Sloan's and so many Bernie Mace Lones. So I tried to give them strange names so that they wouldn't have so much trouble. I kind of did the same thing with my kids. I didn't give them, I wanted them to have names that did them. And I named my daughter Blake because I didn't want her to have a real feminine name. And it's worked out real well because she's kind of athletic. And it fits her. And I named my son Charlie because everybody had ever met that would name Charlie was kind of a hail fellow well met. And I wanted him to be, and he is that kind of guy. You know, everybody, Tristan, oh, here comes Charlie. So it's worked out real well. I think names are, there's a lot of thought that goes into them. Well, if I'd gone back, if I'd known that he'd had the same influence on him because losses, he's lost his own home three different times completely. And he lost one to, through divorce. And, you know, his wife got it. And one guy burned down. And so I wish I'd named him Gaines. [Laughter] It's a little lozenge. So maybe that name does have some... Does he harbor much resentment towards you about it? Oh, no, it's just a fun thing. But it's, well, let's see. And your husband's name was? Willie. And he passed away, when was it? He passed away. Three years and two months ago. Well, that was about the time my father, he died in August of... '88. My husband died in August of '89. Yeah. And I got sick about a year after my dad passed away. He had that prostate cancer. My husband had the most horrible things look like it had happened to anybody. First he got shot, then he got a chemical burn from where he worked for the gas company and blown these wells. He got his complete body chemical burn. And for a year, he was just out of it. He doesn't remember that whole year. How old was he when that happened? 62. And after that, they think that may have been what brought it on. You know, he wasn't getting moved about very much. And so he had open heart surgery. And after that, he got his fail and got his back broke. And after that, he had cancer, where he was sick for 13 years. But he was the most courageous person that I ever saw. And he was the most intelligent person I ever met. He didn't have very much education, but common sense. He had it by the bushels. Is that what attracted him to you? Was his intelligence? Yeah. It was. Because, well, I really picked him out as my fellow when I was five and he was eight. I tell about that in one of my stories. But it took me about 22 years chasing him all over North County to get him to realize it. To convince him? Yeah, me and about four more girls was that street. You said he got shot by that, was that an accident? Yeah, a friend of his accidentally shot. A lot of people attempt to get shot, but it's generally not an accidental. Well, this was accident. In fact, the bullet hit a rock and then hit him. And split. Real shape. Yeah, real shape. It didn't hurt as bad as it would. Well, they couldn't remove it. It was close to the heart of his leg and he still had the bullet in. If he had tried to go on a plane that... The thing would have gone along. Yeah. Well, let's see. And you had no daughter. So you raised son. Do you regret not having any daughters? Well, I hoped everyone would have. I named him every one, Sir Allen before it was born. That's why I named a little girl in the book, Sir Allen. They're going to reprint that book. They promised me to let me know in November, but they're changing the name. They said a personal name is not catchy enough, like in the library. You go through and just a personal name, so they're going to change it. I had a chance to read it all, but I started reading the things my heart wants to tell. I started it, but I've just been... We see how much more catchy that would be if you were going through a bookstore. They'll leave her name, Sir Allen, but they've changed the name of the book. I suggested that they change it to Lonesome Hollower. That's what they tell you. And the name of the place where she lives is Lonesome Hollower. And not Hollow, Hollower. I had trouble getting... It was accepted by the new republics, but they went out of business and didn't publish it, and I had published them all. And that was from that editor of ours from New York, and I couldn't get him to understand what a holler was. And he said, "That's not right." He said, "I'm afraid that went sell." I said, "Well, Loretta Lynn made a fortune on Butcher Hollower. Why can't I get by the Lonesome Hollower?" And I said, "Well," I said, "I'll tell you what a holler is. It's a place where there's a little bit of sunshine and a whole lot of moonshine. And the less sunshine, the more moonshine. If you get enough of that moonshine, you don't care about the sunshine." [laughter] Let's see. Contemporary, is women at France that you grew up with women... Do you still have a lot of friends that are still alive, and are women at your age? Well, I've lost a lot of my friends. In fact, I lost one of my dearest friends just last week. That would be in France forever. I don't have as many close... I have a lot of casual friends, but I don't have as many real close friends as I have had in my past that I've lost. I wish... There was a senior citizen who lived just next door to me, and she's moved, and that house seems so lonesome now that it's so empty. I could have a lot of pen pals, but I don't like that. I think I get along with more young teenagers than senior citizens. My grandpa was that way. He used to. He enjoyed it. My grandmother, she was that way. I think if you're still thinking about living, enjoying being around young kids, I think if you've got your mindset on dying, then you spend more time with old people. Swap rocks and gravels and... Yeah, and aches and pains. But I've noticed that I've noticed that people that spend time with kids seem to enjoy life more and live longer, and that those that don't, they... I love young people better. I think they enjoy being with me, too. I have a lot of groups come in that I have a lot of fun with. They talk to you about your writing? Uh-huh, and visit my log house. I think this is the fourth day this week that I've had visitors. Isn't that funny? You can sit here and people just come and see you. Uh-huh. How do you feel about that? Oh, I love it! [laughs] They kind of... And this is not an easy place to buy. No. You know, they kind of beat a trail to your door. And, uh, no, it really hits hard to find that... The hard part is the driveway. It's the driveway. Well, if I had it worked on just the other day, and it's a little better, some friends came from Lexington, North Carolina, and had to go... Went over the hill and had to get a... What is it called? The records are coming to pull them out. You know, the road is hard to get down over in. My son wants to take my old rail fence, and up there, you know, there's a little parking place up there where we used to have a... I run a gas station at a small grocery store there for years and years. And he wants to take my rail fence and just make a little enclosure there and put a sign that the Burnham-Aichelon lives under the hill. [laughs] So that people can find it better. Uh, women riders... Well, first riders in general, have you had a lot of contact with other riders in the region? Well, at the Highman Settlement School, they have a riders workshop. And for a week, for a while, I went and stayed the whole week, and people come from all over. And I've got to meet a lot of real... Like, I met Harry Donnell, and a lot of real well-known riders. And she was one that wrote "The Doll Anchor." And I read that, and I saw the movie. I was more impressed with the book than I was the movie. I was too. And I was really skeptical of Joan Fonda. I'd gone... Because, you know, knowing her other movies... She played a good part, but her... her "Doll" was affected. I thought it was obviously... Some of my friends said, you know, when we watched it now, now she does talk like us. And I... Oh, it wasn't half a... It wasn't half a through to... Like, she's talking about a rug. She said, "A new one?" We'd said, "A new one." And I caught a lot of mistakes. And the same way with "Coleminer's Daughter." In fact, when they began that, they'd come and ask for some of my boys to play the background music for that. So they're musicians? Oh, all five of them. My husband and all five of my sons. And I felt like a duck had been... He hadn't been said on "Duck Eggs" because I said... I'm tone deaf. But I'm one of the best listeners you ever saw. What instruments did your husband play? Banzer mostly. But after he got burned, his fingers were so tender he couldn't use them. You see, the... So he was pretty much miserable after he got that chemical burn? Well, I hope I keep him happy. I mean, he had problems? Yeah. Yeah, he couldn't even... Like, you know, money, he couldn't separate. And I kid and say, I can let him handle money. And like, open even a garbage bag. You know, how you have to open a plastic garbage bag. Mm-hmm. So it's interesting about the music. Well, now I was going to ask you about writers, other writers, women writers, why do you suppose you've had great success getting your work published? Why do you suppose... And whereas other women have had a very difficult time getting it? I never asked anyone to publish it. They asked me. Because I didn't have any idea that he would be published. I didn't write any intention for it to be published. And they asked me both times, you know, New Republics asked me, could they publish it? And then University Press asked, could they? In terms of your writing, what do you think is the driving force behind it? What made you want to write? Well, I saw my kids growing up, believing all this degrading stuff about the mountain people. And the stuff that had been written about them, and I wanted them, was one reason. And one reason I just love my father so much, I wasn't willing for him to die. I wanted him to know what a wonderful person he was. And not just him, he was just one out of many. And we have been created so much that I wanted to know the real truth about those mountain people. But I had no idea. It never entered my mind that he would be published. They called me and asked me, could they publish it? I just meant to make twenty copies for my grandchildren. I had thirteen at the time. I've got eighteen now. They keep having grandchildren. You'll keep having them a print more of a book. Yeah. That's why since my husband died, I tried to make every one of my great-grandchildren, and my younger grandchildren. As the older ones, I got married, I'd give them a quilt. I make quilts. And I've been busy making my great-grandchildren. I finished one just last week, and after I got them all made one, then they had three more grandchildren. I mean, my husband had decided to not have any more grandchildren. But they surprised us with three extra ones. So you're making more quilts. I'm making more quilts. I'll tell you something exciting that happened. To me, this Christmas, my grandmother died almost twenty years ago. And, well, now let's see, it was in '78. So it'd be about fifteen years ago. And she had made a quilt for all the grandchildren, except for me and my sister. She had stitched the pieces, but it had never been quilted. For a Christmas present, my mother took it to somebody and had them quilted and stitched it. And we had these beautiful quilts. And I could see the stitches where Granny had, her name, oh, used to sit. I'd remember them sitting around this frame. And boy, they'd talk and do this and do that. You could see the stitches that get a little off here and there, where she wouldn't pay attention to what you had to go back and fix. I'd say their tongues clinked and their needles clacked. Their tongues clinked and their needles clacked? [Laughter] Well, I went to my log house and basted together, put mine in frames just like you're doing. And basted them together, but I bring them back over here and then quilt them. Is that what you basted? It was when you took the pieces. No. What you were talking about is making the top. No, I took them and put them in the frame just if I was going to quilt them. But I just took big, long stitches enough to hold them together. Can you see how these are? Now you're doing the little stitches over here. You see? Less lovely. What the pattern they did for me was that one I got to think was the double ring. That's what a double wedding ring? Yeah. Well, that's what I made for her. My little name-said just finished it last week and she came and got... I mean, she didn't come and got their mother did. My latest grandchild. Great grandchild. This is called a log cabin. Log cabin quilt. I'll let you call a quilt a log cabin, but now my house is not a log cabin. It's a log house. A log house. I charge everybody ten dollars a cozy cabin. I think he's going to want it. If you feel like walking over there, I think he's going to want to shoot your picture over there. He's a great photographer. You were talking about musicians. He plays harmonica. He's a wonderful harmonica player. He plays blues harmonica in the country. We listen to the country music all the way up here. He's done all the things. Well, my sons, they've been in different bands. They had a Sloan band and they've belong to different bands. But two of them, you see, are old regular Baptists. They're church or want to allow music. I saw that. Why did they call it old regular? Because they didn't just don't have music or... No. We're supposed to be the first Baptists. And the other Baptists broke off from it. I don't know. The Church of Christ, as I understand it, also broke off of the old. That's one of my sons. The one who lives in Dano, that's what he belongs to, the Church of Christ. Is that what they broke off of? I imagine so. They could back around the turn of the century. Does that sound about... And they had the United Baptists, the primitive Baptists, missionaries. One of my sons belongs to what's called the Missionary Baptists because they send missionaries. And then they have different associations in the regular Baptists. Right now, our church don't belong to any of that through us out. About 26 more. We belong to what was called the Indian Bottom Association. And we don't belong to... Our church is still the church, but we don't belong to the association. Because we begin allowing women to cut their hair and wear pants. And double marriage was another thing. They didn't allow divorce. They still said you had to live in women or two living men. And they didn't allow that. And so we became a little more modern, would you call it, a little more liberal. And they... our association is disconnected from the New Salem Association. I really don't understand it. You just go to church. Yeah, let them have the trouble. I tell them I don't serve a church, I serve Jesus. That's one reason I quit going. I got tired of... I'm a firm believer in God, but I've not got much use for theology. Religion. Religion is the devil's best tool. That's the best tool that the devil's got to work with. Do you find your spot? Oh yeah. Did you bring your home on? No. They didn't bring it. I wonder if I've got a picture that I could find that quick. You're going to ask about your writing. Do you do your... Is it right on a typewriter or handwritten on a typewriter? At the first start, I wrote with a typewriter, with a long hand. But I taught my sift to type. And I've got my typewriter and my copy, my little small personal copy and everything. But they're over at the greenhouse. I don't bring anything over here except just what I really have to have. That way, I'm not living here. That's my home. I'm just staying here. That's home. But it's just too sad to stay there without my husband. After... You see, I had a complete nervous breakdown last year. Some people won't own that, but the doctor says that's how you're getting well is on there. But I wish I did have one of Mike's pictures. You and him look so much alike. You even have the same grin and all. Well, now he's from Paris. He was born and raised in Paris, France. I didn't like it. So I thought you were. No, that's it. He was born in Algeria. But his dad's French. So there's no way I could trace him to be a kid. [Laughter] The French slow. [Laughter] Well, I had two brother-in-laws. I spent a lot of time in France during the war. [Laughter] How do you think of women in terms of the things that they did during the war? What's their role been institutionally in terms of supporting the government? Are they proper or anti? Well, you know, here in the mountains at that time, we didn't even have... That's what my husband was deferred because his job was more central to the war effort than it had been fighting. So he didn't have to be deferred. They just did driving the bulldozer, building roads and getting in and out. That he didn't have to serve but two of his brothers did during the Second World War. So we really didn't have that much to do with it. We stayed here and our husbands went off to work or went to the army. We really...we saved our scrap iron and our empty toothpaste tubes and things like that and did what we could. And, you know, we had the ration stamps and all that. But that was as much as it really affected us. You didn't stand for gas like everybody else did? Well, there was only one truck on Caney at the time and they concentrated it. Is that the word? It. And so we didn't even have any way in and out of Caney except to walk. They took the only truck we had. And at that time, you know, we were a lot more isolated. So I didn't even know that the war was over until next day. My husband went out to work and, you know, crossed the heat and went across the air and went to work. And they had to give him the day off. And so I didn't know that the war was over until next day. And then I got out and used my life a little bit of sugar to make apple pies and kill some fryers and fix to big dinner. Even if it was just me and my husband and kids, that was the only way I could celebrate that the war was over. But, you know, we didn't even have radios. A few people in the community had radios and they would tell us the news, you know, really important news the way the war went. But we hadn't heard it was over until next day. Well, let me ask you this one question before we close. What do you see in the future out there ahead for women in the region in terms of seeing things getting better, staying the same, changing a lot? Well, I really would hate to express my feelings about all of this abortion and teenage pregnancy and the homosexual sex, all of that stuff. It just scares me to death to think that my little grandchildren are growing up seeing all of that and that our government even goes along with it some of them. It scares me to death. Sometimes I think, well, maybe the world's just not going to stem us. But God's not going to let this go on any longer. God's not going to cause me, call me crazy or cranky or whatever you want to. But go on back through your Bible and on back through history. God allows this stuff like that to go on so long and then he says stop. And if you want to stop when we're there, there's just too much of that. My mind is not computed to even accept abortion. There's nothing that's so awful that I can't even, I can't accept the thoughts of it. Well, on the reality. The reality. You suppose that's because you all had such a hard time getting kids and raising them? To us, no matter how many was in the family, a child was a blessing. It was a bundle of joy sent from God. In fact, with my last child, I had had so much trouble like that. I'd already had a heart attack and my body was, they didn't think I could carry the baby. They wanted me to have an abortion. I said, "No way. We both go together, we both live." And he was a nine pound boy and I don't know what I'd do without him now. He's the one that him and his wife, someone, take care of me. They bring my food to me and she comes, she's in there, she comes and gives me my shots. They'd just spoon feed me if I'd let them. So your thoughts for the future then are? They're scary. We'll stop with that then. That's it. They're history in the old times because I'm so glad that they will carry on. The same thing that I'm trying to do, they will carry on after I'm gone. So that's what you were talking about. What was that quote exactly you were glad to hear? There was others to pick up the torch after I had to lay it down. And when you're looking 80 in the face, you can hear the angels from there. How do you feel about that being a little scary? No, really, I usually lay down and I say that sort of that little childish saying, "As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul keeps, and if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul will take." I usually say that, but I really ask him, I really would rather, if it could just be his will, I'd rather go on then. I really want to die. I don't want to commit suicide. But it's hard to live when you just soon be dead. Well, after you lose someone that you've loved as much as I love my husband, as close as we were, you're only a half person. You're not a whole person anymore. You're just not whole. What do you think he'd want you to do? Oh, he'd want me to be happy. He'd want me to not cry about it. He'd want me to be happy. I always said he wanted to be the one to go first. And in a way I did, because I thought I could take care of myself better than he could. I think any woman could take care of herself better than a man can. What makes you think that? Do you think women are good? You know, emotionally it's a slang. Well, I don't know, maybe I was just raised up to it. Women were supposed to take care of their men. I did him, I petted him, took care of him. He started to dress. I was the one to run the belt through his pants and unbuttoned his shirt off the rack. And when he started to eat, if we had corn on the cob, I cut the corn off. And if we had peaches in hives, I sliced the peaches up, I waited on him. You know, in fact, when he came out of the hospital, they asked him, "Did he want a home nurse?" He said, "I've already got a home nurse." [laughs] But that's not when women were raised to believe that we were supposed to. And I can't understand why people don't want to. I love to. I've got a pleasure out of everything I've done for him or everything I've done for one of my boys. Of course, I didn't raise thisies now. My boys, they were taught to cook. Everyone of them knows how to cook. They know how to keep house. And they know how to sew. And they were not cesties, but still. I can't understand why a woman don't get pleasure out of waiting that when they're a husband. I don't either. [laughs] I'll go home and play this for him. [laughs] I hear those programs on TV where it says women's rights and all that. Well, that was... Maybe it was just grand them and grew in me because that was the way we were taught. But I really did. I enjoyed it. Do you like doing brothers? Doing brothers beats? Yeah. Well, I think... But my daughter-in-law said I raised boys up that I expected to be waited. [laughs] Did your husband or your boys, did they drink? Were they drinkers or non-drinkers? My husband drank before we were married, but he quit afterwards. And I've got one son. He's not an alcoholic. He's not. But he does. He loves his beer. One. I tell him he's not a black sheep. He's just a little gray. [laughs] Is that lost? Yeah. How'd you know? I just knew. [laughs] It was lost. No, that's... I used to drink. I quit drinking. No, that's fine. Well, he lives up north. People up north drank a lot. You know, I was raised in Ohio. They do a lot of drinking in Ohio. I asked him, well, he quit drinking for about six years, and I asked him not too long ago. I said, "Are you being a good boy?" And he knows what I mean. He said, "Well, Mommy, you'd rather I tell the truth, wouldn't you?" He said, "I still have my beers." But he said, "I don't go out to bars and drink and so on like that." That's so improvement. And when I'm... Are you sure I have a little article for the Troublesome Creek Times called now and then? And I'd just pick up anything that happened now. I'd say, "Well, for instance, have a bus strike." And I'd go talking about that. And then I'd go back to have... We used to have to walk to school. And when the waters come up, we'd have to go around the hills. I remember one place where we had to walk right through a woman's porch, if the waters was up. You see, I wrote this little article down there. How long did you have to walk to school? Two miles. It was half way. I had to walk. And when I'm writing in these articles, I don't use my children's name. I'll say number one son, number two son, number three son. They don't like for me to use their name and they like the Japanese. So I have five. Well, Mike Mullins, he's... I don't know what you'd call it. But he takes care of the Heinemann Settlement School. He's the head of it. And I go with her a lot. He sent me a bunch of flowers up there for my birthday. And said, "From your number six son." [laughter] I really like that. How far is he tied to the Settlement School? About five miles, I guess. Just down here in the left back? No, it's in Heinemann. Oh, it's in Heinemann? It's in Heinemann. I may go by there and look at it. I don't remember. I go in and look at all the quilts. I may dole them. That's well. Now, what, do they do anything there during the year or just this summer? No, they do all the time. They used to have a school there and even taught up to high school. But of course, I went to school down here. I just got one year in high school. I quit at second year high school. You went to Alasloid? Well, it wasn't called Alasloid then. It was just not County High School, you know. But he was there at her school. And I've lost my train of thought now, whatever I was going to say. Oh, you were going to do high school? No, Heinemann Settlement School did have a complete school. And then taught high school. But now they have this... What is this for? They teach the special ones? Special education? No, my son teaches that down here. It begins with an M. What is that word? M. M. M. Oh, like... He teaches the ones that read the backwards. Oh, dyslexia. Yeah, that's one. They teach that. But then they teach this other two. And then they go out to schools and teach music. Malfunction. Malfunction. I know the word, but I can't. That's one thing that happens after my stroke. I forget words. And they teach that in the school. And then they send teachers out to all the schools for to teach art and music and things like that. That the regular school doesn't know how they send teachers that and certain things like that. But my son's the one who teaches the special education. Which son is that then? Orban. Number two son. Number two son. And he's a carpenter by hobby. He's built several houses. He's built a half-sum. He's been working on it late to finish in there. And the... Whose house is it? The one that I'm from? The log house. That's just a log house that I had built for a Sloan Museum. A tiny Sloan Museum. And people come from all over. You wouldn't believe it. It's a house. It's not a cabin. No, if you call the cabin, I'll charge you ten dollars. But I'll let you buy it twice for fifteen. Our folks didn't call them log cabins. My grandfather built it. He was built on another farm and I had it moved. And they called them... You either lived in the log house or a plank house. And if you used to find an Indian tomahawk, would you call it a hash-eater, or would you call it what the Indians call it? Well, we called it a log house, so why change its name? James Steele, don't like his... Do you know James Steele? I met him one time. How far away did he live from you? He lived in Hydenman, Salem, Moscow. Oh, really? We may... If you stop, ask them to see the quilts in the great hall. I sold them a quilt collection to start my log house. How many quilts did you sell? Well, I sold them fifteen. That paid for the logs. So there's fifteen of your quilts hanging out there? I think it keeps ten up at a time until it changes. We'll go shoot at it. That would actually be the best shot. It would be her standing in front of fifteen of those quilts. That'd be good, wouldn't it? I'll wind up one right behind the other. How many got the shot? I'm really not able to go over. He's got one, I think, in line for the house. You don't have to go across? Yeah. And they have two of my quilts. He comes last week and got two. That's the first riding that I've tried to do for a while. I got to where I didn't do anything. I did get back to my son. My children judge my health. But what I do, if I feel real well, I ride. Second, I sew. Third, I read. And when I quit reading, they take me to the hospital. [laughter] So I have got back to someone. It was a family quilt, a family history quilt. He had all the grandchildren's handprints on it. Everything in it meant something to the family. And I wrote that up. And he's taken it to...he had another one of my quilts. Another one that he had over there. To this bicentennial celebration of the heaven. This historical thing for Kentucky. Where is it at? Louisville, Lexington? He's taken those two quilts. Well, I guess we'll go ahead and stop this. [MUSIC]