1 50 7 https://oralhistory.eku.edu/files/original/f64fe5c2fc8897986d60aa5055b6cca0.mp3 20cacac4c1e0522066c7b309b31eb6fe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The Blue Herron Coal Camp, also known as Mine 18, in McCreary County, was run by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company from 1938 to 1962. Company managers, miners, and their families discuss coal mining and Stearns, but the interviews focus on the quality of life in the camp and the lives of the women. Blue Herron is now an outdoor museum in the Big South Fork National Park and Recreation Area. The interviews were collected for the United States Army Corps of Engineers for use in the exhibits. Title A name given to the resource Blue Heron Coal Camps Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Berge, William H. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Childers, James Theodore Location The location of the interview. Revelo, KY Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:20:07 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1984 OH 060 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/25/1984 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Theodore Childers Blue Heron Coal Camp coal camps coal company stores Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The focus of the Coal Company Towns Project is the social life and economic conditions in eastern Kentucky coal towns, primarily those owned by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company in McCreary County and those in Harlan County. Residents of these coal towns, some no longer in existence, discuss their personal histories and coal mining; there is an emphasis on the lives of women. Title A name given to the resource Coal Company Towns Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Berge, William H. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Jasper, Mary Location The location of the interview. Van Lear, Ky Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) :58:34 Restrictions A notation on restrictions placed by the interviewee. none XML This field is for OHMS XML files 1983oh045-jasper.xml OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer). https://omeka.eku.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=1983oh045-jasper.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1983 OH 045 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/2/1982 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Mary Jasper coal camps coal company stores Consolidated Coal Company education medical care Railroads World War II Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The focus of the Coal Company Towns Project is the social life and economic conditions in eastern Kentucky coal towns, primarily those owned by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company in McCreary County and those in Harlan County. Residents of these coal towns, some no longer in existence, discuss their personal histories and coal mining; there is an emphasis on the lives of women. Title A name given to the resource Coal Company Towns Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Perry, Anna Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Perry, Lula Location The location of the interview. Indian Creek, KY Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:01:13 Restrictions A notation on restrictions placed by the interviewee. none XML This field is for OHMS XML files 1982oh034-perry.xml OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer). https://omeka.eku.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=1982oh034-perry.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1982 OH 034 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/22/1981 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Lula Perry coal company stores coal mining coal towns Twila World War II Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The focus of the Coal Company Towns Project is the social life and economic conditions in eastern Kentucky coal towns, primarily those owned by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company in McCreary County and those in Harlan County. Residents of these coal towns, some no longer in existence, discuss their personal histories and coal mining; there is an emphasis on the lives of women. Title A name given to the resource Coal Company Towns Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Berge, William H. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Curls, Jan Location The location of the interview. Somerset, KY Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:08:32 Restrictions A notation on restrictions placed by the interviewee. none XML This field is for OHMS XML files 1981oh117-curls.xml OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer). https://omeka.eku.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=1981oh117-curls.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1981 OH 117 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1/26/1981 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jan Curls Blue Heron Coal Camp churches co-op mine coal company stores doctors Frank Thomas McCreary County KY Recreation Schools World War II https://oralhistory.eku.edu/files/original/8ffcab41a3d2d515a82a895f82c3f9f4.mp3 9315f4ba78acc8c421376e25e8705741 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The focus of the Coal Company Towns Project is the social life and economic conditions in eastern Kentucky coal towns, primarily those owned by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company in McCreary County and those in Harlan County. Residents of these coal towns, some no longer in existence, discuss their personal histories and coal mining; there is an emphasis on the lives of women. Title A name given to the resource Coal Company Towns Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Berge, William H. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Neal, David, Mr. & Mrs. Location The location of the interview. Whitley City, KY Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:01:59 Restrictions A notation on restrictions placed by the interviewee. none Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1981 OH 099 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/3/1981 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Mr. & Mrs. David Neal clothing coal company stores movies Pearl Harbor Schools telephones World War II Yamacraw Coal Camp https://oralhistory.eku.edu/files/original/609699c6acf245dc13a54ea53c48bdb0.mp3 d9ab9fe2d555c61ea4f764662b2777a5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The Blue Herron Coal Camp, also known as Mine 18, in McCreary County, was run by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company from 1938 to 1962. Company managers, miners, and their families discuss coal mining and Stearns, but the interviews focus on the quality of life in the camp and the lives of the women. Blue Herron is now an outdoor museum in the Big South Fork National Park and Recreation Area. The interviews were collected for the United States Army Corps of Engineers for use in the exhibits. Title A name given to the resource Blue Heron Coal Camps Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Berge, William H. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Trammell, Nola Location The location of the interview. Sale Creek, TN Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) :50:15 Restrictions A notation on restrictions placed by the interviewee. none Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1984 OH 081 Title A name given to the resource Interview with Nola Trammell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/17/1984 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Blue Heron Coal Camp coal camps coal company stores Recreation https://oralhistory.eku.edu/files/original/7bfcbb68961ded9d0a7b5e90dad8fadd.pdf bbbebbc0fb955b5e451fb46411aeaccc PDF Text Text Title: Identifier: Date: Interviewer: Project: Interview with Christine Davis 1984 OH 079 1984-10-12 William H. Berge Blue Heron Coal Camps The following is an unedited transcript of an oral history interview. Please listen to the actual interview to verify the accuracy of the text. UNKNOWN: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Christine Davis. The interview was conducted by Dr. William Berge for the Oral History Center at Eastern Kentucky University. The interview was conducted at Connelly Bottom Resort Area on October 12, 1984 at 10 o’clock AM. WILLIAM BERGE: Christine, I guess you don’t mind if you call you Christine, I want to thank you for talking with me about it. Let’s do the same with you as we did with Hoyatt. You tell me your name and where you were born and when. I know women don’t mind telling when they were born and all that kind of stuff and then we’ll talk about, you can tell me when you first saw Mine 18 and why you saw it so early and all that kind of business. CHRISTINE DAVIS: Ok. Um, my name is Christine Frady. My dad was Claude Frady that was killed. I’ve heared a lot of stories about how he was killed. He was a deputy sheriff and . . . well, I’ve heared different stories about it but the best I remember was he was a deputy sheriff and he was, I heard later on that he doing some work for the company and he, well, you don’t know, you don’t want to know the how but anyway I know we grew up as orphans and we were, I was born in ?, Kentucky which was up around Fidelity someplace, I don’t know what house or anything but I was born August 24th, 1930 and I remember living there and I remember living on what they called Trace Branch. But the first, you don’t want to know anything about my childhood. The first I remember seeing Mine 18 was my foster dad was ? Waters and we lived up on top of the mountain which was called Bald Knob. And he was the night watchman down there and we’d get to go down and spend the night. He had a little house, a camp, a little house, a batchhouse, he called it. BERGE: Alright. Now, let, you can tell me this all over again so I’ll have it in one continuous thing . . . DAVIS: Ok. BERGE: but when you’re talking about he was a night watchman down there, you mean at Mine 18. DAVIS: Yeah. When they first started . . . BERGE: Alright. Is Bald Knob the same as Beech Grove? HOYATT DAVIS: Mm hmm. DAVIS: Yeah, I guess so. HOYATT: It’s the same ? It’s the same ? Page 1 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �BERGE: It’s a, people talk about that area and their talking about the same area. Ok. DAVIS: Ok. Bald Knob was a house right at the top of the hill going up from Mine 18. There was just a little path, there was no way to drive a car up there, it was just a little path. And then Beech Grove was on around, maybe two or three miles around there? HOYATT: Mm hmm. DAVIS: Is that right? The best I remember is when I was just a little girl. HOYATT: Well, I think you better reverse that though. Beech Grove was before you get to Bald Knob. Bald Knob was on out where you went to school. You went to school at Bald Knob. DAVIS: Ok. HOYATT: So this was . . . BERGE: That’s what I mean. When people talk about that, I get the idea they’re telling me about the same place and they use the words interchangeably. Is that right? HOYATT: Well, Beech Grove Church was just back towards where she was raised, where she stayed, lived with ( ) and Lilly Waters. BERGE: Well, ( ) Waters lived out in there too, didn’t he? HOYATT: He was on back in there. BERGE: Ok. HOYATT: Right. BERGE: Ok. Ok. HOYATT: Back in the old Water’s place there. Now that’s back, Bald Knob was where the school was on out a little farther what they called Bald Knob . . . BERGE: Later on those people came to school down at Blue Heron. DAVIS: Mm hmm. HOYATT: Right. That’s right. BERGE: Ok. Now tell me, like when, when ( ) went down there to be like a night watchman and where that little house was, that batchhouse and all that kind of stuff and then start telling me about seeing the tipple being built. Page 2 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �DAVIS: I think this was in about ’30 probably ’39, late ‘30s was when he was a night watchman down there because he did work at Fidelity until they started this down there so he was chosen to be the night watchman when they started building the place and he built just a one-, little one-room shack for his batchhouse and we would go down, my foster mother and I, we’d go down and spend the night with him sometimes because . . . BERGE: Do you remember where the shack was? DAVIS: Yeah. It was right down about where the store was. And then if he heared a little noise during the night, he’d have to get out and go see what it was. Just a little pecking or anything, he’d have to get out and go and we was scared, you know, I remember just sitting there in a panic wondering if he’s coming back because we didn’t know if someone was trying to steal something but it was his duty to go see about it. I wasn’t very old then. I was only eight. Seven or eight years old when he first started down there. BERGE: Do you remember when you first saw Hoyatt? DAVIS: Yeah. BERGE: Like when would that have been and how? DAVIS: That was in, the first time I saw him, that I knew who he was, was when I was a little girl. We was afraid to go past their house. [laughter] DAVIS: Because they were mean, they had, they throwed rocks at people. [laughter] DAVIS: My mother would take us, this was back when where we left Fidelity, when I was . . . BERGE: Oh so you knew him way back then. Ok. Ok. DAVIS: Yeah. Just knew of Charlie Davis’ family. BERGE: Uh huh. DAVIS: The boys, there were a whole bunch of them and it was hard for the mother to keep up with them and they threw rocks at people that went down the railroad past their house. HOYATT: That must have been the older boys. I was always the best one, I guess. BERGE: Yeah. William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 3 �DAVIS: But the first time I ever knew him personally or singled him out was he singled me out. We, I was going down to Mine 18 with my aunt, I was going down to stay with my uncle and aunt, Arnold Ledbetter, and he was helping his dad build a pig pen. BERGE: Where was the pig pen? DAVIS: On the side of the hill just above the house down at . . . HOYATT: What they called . . . DAVIS: Comargo. HOYATT: Down below Comargo at, what they called Bridge One. BERGE: Ok. Ok. That’s when you lived down there. HOYATT: That’s where we moved to when we came back from Indiana. BERGE: Ok. Ok. DAVIS: But then I didn’t see him anymore until July of, the first part of July that I recall of when they had one of the big festivals of Fourth of July picnic or something. It wasn’t Fourth of July because they always had the carnival out, that was our big event . . . BERGE: Yeah but they did have the Fourth of July thing down at Blue Heron a couple of times. DAVIS: Yeah. HOYATT: That was a K&T picnic. That’s what it was. DAVIS: Mm hmm. And this was in ’45. BERGE: About a year before you married? DAVIS: ’46. July ’46. BERGE: Oh, the year you married. DAVIS: Yes. I was down there with another boyfriend and he picked at me all day and he, you know, took me away from ? BERGE: I guess that’s the reason, that’s the thing I was wanting to find out now. You know, its very hard for most people who were raised then, because, you know, we’re the same age and I was raised and not, not in a rural area but the little town where I was raised was almost like a city compared to where you all were raised. William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 4 �DAVIS: Mm hmm. Yeah. BERGE: That’s what I was wondering. How did, like courting, how did people meet and where did they meet and what did they do? For instance, I’ve never talked to a girl down there, from down there, who was raised there, who can ever remember going to a dance. DAVIS: Mm hmm. BERGE: Or anything like that. DAVIS: There was no dances to go to. That was, if you went . . . HOYATT: That was outlawed ? BERGE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. DAVIS: If you went to a dance you was, . . . BERGE: You were banned. DAVIS: you didn’t go to ball games either. There was no such thing as going to a ball game. BERGE: Yeah. DAVIS: The only place we got to go was to church and to the movie. We got to go to the movies be they had to be well chaperoned. I mean, the only time I was allowed to go to a movie with him was when Grace and Evelyn come out to go with me so . . . BERGE: So you really knew her, you knew who she was then when you started to pay attention to her already. You already knew who she was. HOYATT: When I first seen her, now I had forgotten about her, I didn’t remember her from childhood, you know. BERGE: When you threw rocks at her. HOYATT: And when she came over the mountain she was walking and no I don’t remember throwing rocks at her. When she came over the mountain I remember very well. I guess you would call it love at first sight, you know. I guess that’s what you would call it. But we were building a pig pen like she said there and I remember what she wore, I mean the dress she had on at that time. And boy, I was just, I just thought she was the prettiest woman in the world, you know. So I still have to say that because she’s sitting this close, you know. BERGE: Yeah, yeah. William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 5 �HOYATT: But anyway this is the way, then I, I don’t know, I just wanted to date here. I mean, if she would date me, you know. BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Well like for instance, like when you two started to date or you called it dating, you met on that day when you had, when you were there with another boyfriend. Then did you two start keeping company right then? HOYATT: No. DAVIS: No. Not until my, another aunt, see, I was by being an orphan, when one of my aunts . . . BERGE: You almost had more relatives than anybody because you had foster relatives as well as relatives. DAVIS: Well, I was, I stayed with my, after my foster parents and my, I got to go stay with my grand parents a lot and when they need a hard girl, when one of my aunts needed someone, a new baby coming along or something and needed extra help, why, I was always floating, you know, they’d come after me. So this other aunt, Gerty, was, I think she was expecting or she’d been sick a lot and I’d go down, get to go down two days a week and do her laundry and ironing . . . BERGE: Of course you’d seen miners and then you’re right there at the tipple. DAVIS: Yeah but, but there was a revival going on so that was just great, you know. I got to go to church while I was down there. So that’s really when I met him. He asked to walk me home from church. ( ) BERGE: Were you one of those guys that hung around outside the church or were you going to church then? DAVIS: One night I heard this little noise at the door and it was a little hissing noise and, you know, I raised up, that’s when they were down praying so I raised up and looked and he was standing at the door motioning for me to scoot over in my seat. So I scooted over and he slipped in and set beside of me and asked if he could walk me home. And back out before they got through praying. HOYATT: Had to be fast. BERGE: Uh huh. DAVIS: So from that on, why, we kept in contact and that was the revival we were saved in. BERGE: Did you ever have any real dates like, what did, where did you go or what’d do when you two were courting like what was there to . . . DAVIS: To the movie. BERGE: Where’d you go to the movie? Page 6 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �DAVIS: To Stearns. BERGE: Did you go with other young couples or did you go by yourself or how’d you do that? DAVIS: We never went by ourselves. HOYATT: Wasn’t permitted. She wasn’t permitted to go unless somebody went along with her. BERGE: Uh huh. Like who would go with you? DAVIS: Uh, Grace, my cousin, Grace Waters and Evelyn and, because my grandparents were really strict, we didn’t go anyplace. BERGE: Who were your friends, Hoyatt? Who were the fellows you hung around with? HOYATT: Well, before I was saved, it was, the best friend I had, I guess that we run around together was Clayman Marlowe. Clayman and me were real good friends. Then I was a little bit, you know, I, of course, Christine never went to dance or anything but before I was saved, why, I’d stay all night at dances out on the mountains on up there where the law couldn’t get into us too much and I don’t want to call a name but some of the finest people I ever knew they were, they had a lot of fun and most of them now, I got to be in church with one last Sunday at White Oak Junction. One that, you know, that we used to dance maybe all night and about all night but that dancing was tap dancing or square dancing . . . BERGE: Clog dancing and that kind of stuff. HOYATT: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody had a good time. Of course everybody had to mind their own business, see, everybody had a good time. Maybe we’d just have a banjo. I don’t remember. We had one little girl in this home and I don’t want to call no name but their, she wore overalls all the time and she could play the banjo better than anybody there. And she’d play a while and then she’d quit and, what’s the matter, we want some more music. Somebody roll me a cigarette. So we’d roll a cigarette and let her smoke and then she’d play again for us, you know. And it was really, as I look back over it, I don’t understand a lot of things and we had a lot of fun and that’s all it was, you know. BERGE: Yeah. HOYATT: All it was back in there. BERGE: Let me just ask you two when, you were about, you were 16 when you got married. Well, 17, just 17. DAVIS: Yeah. 16. BERGE: Yeah. 16. Was that early for then or was about average? William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 7 �DAVIS: That was about average or, my mother married at 12 and my aunt Lilly married, I think when she was 12. But this was . . . BERGE: About for your time, that was about average. DAVIS: Yeah. Mm hmm. BERGE: When you all decided to get married, who’d you tell? DAVIS: I didn’t tell anybody. Because I was afraid grandpa wouldn’t permit it. [laughter] BERGE: Did you tell anybody? HOYATT: Yeah. I told my parents, yeah. I told my parents. BERGE: Where did you get married? HOYATT: Where did we get married? At Stearns at, a fellow by the name of Williams was the magister. We got married at Stearns. BERGE: Who was with you? HOYATT: My dad had to be with me because I wasn’t old enough to get married without him being with me and also . . . BERGE: You were just 17, weren’t you? DAVIS: Mm hmm. HOYATT: I was 18. BERGE: 18. Well just 18 though. HOYATT: Yes. BERGE: Because of your birthday. DAVIS: A couple of days before I told my Aunt Dorothy and she come out and went with me as my witness. BERGE: Who’s Aunt Dorothy? DAVIS: William Ledbetter’s wife. William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 8 �BERGE: Ok. Ok. DAVIS: So she come out and went with me. BERGE: Mm hmm. HOYATT: We had to go to Somerset to get our blood test so we was up there all day. BERGE: How’d you go up there? HOYATT: Taxi. Borrowed 500 dollars from some loan company. Household Finance, I believe. Dad had to sign for that. But it didn’t take all of that but we had some things we had to clear up, you know, some bills and . . . BERGE: Sure, I understand that. HOYATT: So that’s, a fellow by the name of Floyd ( ) was driving the cab. So I went to Oneida before that and to tell this and get the rings and I got our clothes to be married in, see, I bought them. Well, . . . BERGE: Do you remember what you wore, the two of you, when you got married? DAVIS: Yeah. He brought, bought me a suit and brought it out there and it was about three sizes too big. And he said he thought he was getting a woman but I’m still a little girl. Um . . . BERGE: Well, what’d it look like? DAVIS: It was a, it was a blue suit, well, a kind of a teal blue so we took it back. I . . . BERGE: Oh, you didn’t wear that suit then? DAVIS: No. I went, I slipped off from my grandparents lived right down from the hill where I was staying with my aunt, Velvy Ledbetter. So I, you know, we went up the hill and we slipped off and I went with him that night without their knowing it and traded my clothes. Got a smaller suit. BERGE: What was that like? DAVIS: It was blue. It was a blue, two-piece wool suit. BERGE: What’d you wear, Hoyatt? HOYATT: I wore a pin stripe, what they call a hickory striped suit. I’d never owned a suit. I’d never had a suit until I was getting ready to get married. And we had a fellow that came from Tennessee, he’d come around to the miners and measure up, you know, and get the suits so a fellow by the name of Duncan and I ordered me two suits and, before we got married and it was a hickory striped kind of a gray with a pin stripe suit. Two piece suit. William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 9 �BERGE: Ok. And then you got married. Tell me about your life then down there when you were married, Christine, did, like, tell me, what did you do during the day? What did a woman do down there during the day? This, I’m talking about after you’ve all lived by yourselves in the house there, like when you lived up there in Lee Baker’s house, what was an average day like for you? DAVIS: Well, it was, really wasn’t all that bad because I was used to staying home and doing what any good woman is supposed to do; keep house, clean and have dinner ready and her husband come home from work but I crocheted. My Aunt Dorothy taught me to crochet and I had, I learned to crochet real well. I had nine dresses crocheted for my first son when he was born. BERGE: You were ready, huh? DAVIS: And I did a lot of sewing. I kept myself busy. BERGE: Like, in a course of a day, like say he was working the day shift, did you work the day shift? Ok. When he was working the day shift, what time did you all get up and he go to work and, tell me like, did you talk to other women or did you just sit in your house or did you walk around? Like, what’d you do? DAVIS: Well, I’d go down to his mom’s sometimes and my Aunt Gerty lived down below me. After I’d get my dishes washed and we’d go down and we’d visit, we’d walk around the tram for, take a day’s, except when the motors were running and everything, we didn’t dare to go around there when everything was busy but we didn’t visit around very much. BERGE: Why not? Why do you think they didn’t? DAVIS: I really don’t know. I guess it was because, well back in them days, you know, a woman’s place was at home and . . . BERGE: Of course the women had a lot of children, probably had so much work to do they didn’t really have time, did they? DAVIS: And back then, you know, women didn’t have all the freedom they got now a days, there’s just be what their husband told them to and that was it. Stay home, cook, wash. Listen to the radio. We finally got a radio but . . . BERGE: Was that a big thing? DAVIS: Oh yeah, that was, that was great because I remember the first radio my grandfather had, nobody was allowed to touch it but him, you know. It had a battery and he’d turn it on and listen to the news and none of us kids was allowed to touch it because we’d run his battery down. BERGE: When you all were young, can you remember when you were housekeeping by yourself finally, the first time you had company for dinner? Or can you ever remember having company for dinner? DAVIS: Yeah. We always had company, didn’t we? William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 10 �BERGE: What’d you feed them? DAVIS: Beans and potatoes and, we was lucky if we had a steak but mostly soup beans and potatoes and cornbread. That was a big meal. BERGE: If you were really going to have a big thing, like if you were going to have a special deal and have people in like say Thanksgiving or, I can’t even think of when but let’s say you were going to do that. What’d you have? DAVIS: Probably chicken and dumplings. BERGE: Where’d you get chickens? DAVIS: We’d go, well one time I remember we went down to have a big dinner at Gib Slaven’s house, we gathered down there one Sunday and we got chickens from a friend of theirs raised the chickens down there. HOYATT: Harvey Boyd. DAVIS: And they weren’t home, yes, Harvey Boyd’s, and they weren’t home so we just went ahead and got our chickens and told him about it later, you know. We got ? . . . HOYATT: And they didn’t even like, they didn’t even like for the chickens to, to pluck the chickens or take the feathers out. She wanted the chicken skinned because she didn’t like chicken skin. So we skinned the chickens that day and we had fried chicken. DAVIS: But if someone around had the chickens, we, you know, we’d always buy our chickens. I don’t remember what we had to pay for them or anything like that because that was a long time ago. BERGE: Uh huh. Was the, did you buy meat at the store there? DAVIS: Not very much. HOYATT: You could if you could afford it. BERGE: What kind of meat did they sell at that store? HOYATT: Well most of the main meat that they had there, when I, might I say this, I guess what the miners bought really more was the DS meat, Dry Salt meat. That’s what they call back then they called it old sow belly. BERGE: Yeah. My wife calls it strips of lean. HOYATT: Yeah. It is DS meat. Yeah. Dry Salt meat. BERGE: Yeah. Page 11 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �HOYATT: And you could get other meats. BERGE: Like baloney, did they sell that? HOYATT: Yes. Yes, you could. DAVIS: But the most meat we had was what you’d get out and, was squirrel and . . . HOYATT: Squirrel. DAVIS: rabbit and HOYATT: Groundhog. We’d eat groundhogs. BERGE: Were you a hunter? HOYATT: Yes. Yeah. Fish. We ate fish. DAVIS: Fish. Oh yeah, I remember when we’d go fishing. One time we went fishing and we left the kids down at his mom’s and we caught enough fish to supply the whole family, the whole camp. HOYATT: Really. BERGE: Did you like to fish, Christine? DAVIS: Yeah. BERGE: Did you all fish much? DAVIS: Yeah we did. HOYATT: Quite a bit. DAVIS: When I could go. H: We ate a lot of fish. DAVIS: He wouldn’t let me go when I was expecting a baby because he was always, these old tales about if, you know, marking a baby ? . . . BERGE: Yeah. You catch an ugly fish you’d have an ugly baby. DAVIS: Yeah. BERGE: Or something like that. Page 12 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �HOYATT: Frogs. We’d gig frogs. DAVIS: But the last time that we real good time we had fishing, I didn’t tell him, I knew I was pregnant but I wouldn’t tell him because he wouldn’t let me go. And, you’re putting that on tape. And anyway, his mom kept the boys and we had, it was real, real rough. The river was up and we put our traut lines out and we stayed at the scout cabins that night and we’d run our traut lines and I almost got drowned that night and he was about, oh, he was about to get me. He put this big fish over in the boat and I was afraid it was going to flop out and I just hanging on to it. I almost went out of the boat and the river was up so big if I’d had went out, that would have been the end of me. BERGE: Are you talking catfish? Are you talking about catfish? HOYATT: No, this was a drum. Drum. BERGE: Mm hmm. Is that what you caught in those traut lines? HOYATT: You could catch drums on them but this was, the traut line we caught the catfish mostly but you could catch a drum most of the time. Now, . . . BERGE: What’d you use for a boat? HOYATT: We had a boat, homemade boat. BERGE: Was it yours? HOYATT: We made it, yeah. Well, no, it wasn’t mine. I just, whoever had a boat, I just, they never kept them locked up, you could use it, you know. Like I’d tell somebody, I’m going use your boat so this one particular fish she’s talking about was, I don’t know how much it weighed, I don’t know how long it was but a number three washtub, if you know what that is, what they called back then, we could lay the fish in there and its head and tail, it wouldn’t lay down in the tub. I would say from guessing it’d weigh 12, 15 pound. And it was on a throw line. It was a big bush, kind of there, and it was just about, you know, I’ve tried to throw line on that and let it go down kind of on a sandy bottom because drum feeds on bottom, I thought. And I put a big soft craw on it, see, and when I’d, when I seen that bush was really acting, you see, why, I knew I had a good fish and so the river was coming up and it was high then and it was so hard to get out there, it took all I could do. BERGE: Like what night of the week would you all fish? When you all went fishing, the two of you, what night of the week did you go? HOYATT: Made no difference. We went . . . BERGE: Would you go when you were working? HOYATT: When I was working no, we wouldn’t go that night if I worked the next day because we got up at 5 o’clock. Page 13 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �BERGE: So you’re talking about when work was falling off and you weren’t working all the time. HOYATT: Yes. Yes. Yeah. BERGE: Ok. Ok. Now I was going, the reason I was going to ask you, you wouldn’t fish on Saturday would you? Saturday night because that’s when church was, wasn’t it? HOYATT: I would never fish on Sunday. Hardly ever. BERGE: Yeah. HOYATT: Well, I wouldn’t fish on Sunday because our church came first and still does. BERGE: But in the church down there, Saturday night’s the big night for church, wasn’t it? HOYATT: Sometimes. Now, some Saturday nights . . . BERGE: One month, one night of the month, one Saturday a month or something like that, wasn’t it? H: Yeah. We had a business meeting once a month. Brother Carmel Stanley was our pastor. I believe our first pastor was Oscar Owens, our first pastor. Reverend Oscar Owens that lives in Cincinnati, I think, now and our next pastor we had was Brother Robert Silvers. And that was the pastors we had while we were there. BERGE: Did you ever hear Bill Simpson preach? DAVIS: Mm hmm. BERGE: Did you ever hear Bill Simpson preach? HOYATT: Oh yes. Bill Simpson was a colored man and at Co-op, I’d like to go back there for a moment if I could . . . BERGE: Ok. HOYATT: Since you mentioned Bill Simpson. I thought he was one of the greatest, among the greatest men I ever heard preach and I always loved to hear him preach. I believe he was one of the finest men that we had in McCreary County. I really believe that because when I was just a boy, Bill Simpson came to Co-op to preach a revival and his shoes was almost off of his feet. I got out in the camp and went around in the camp and made up money to give that old man to buy him a pair of shoes. And I don’t know what size he was. I thought he had the biggest foot of any man . . . BERGE: Was he a powerful preacher? Was that the kind of preacher he was or . . . William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 14 �HOYATT: Yeah. He was, he really got into it, I mean, he was a, he was not a, he didn’t have to hunt for words. He was really gifted and I believe it was call man of God. I do. BERGE: Of the, of the men you’ve heard preach, at, this is not to say anything bad about the other men, but of the men you heard preach in the church, in the church of Blue Heron, who would be the most impressive one or two that you heard down there? HOYATT: Well, I guess the most successful man in his ministry there would be Brother Carmel Stanley. BERGE: Down in Oneida. HOYATT: Yes. In my stay at Mine 18, he was a, he preached in tears. He was a real humble man and he just, he was just a wonderful man. The other men were wonderful men . . . BERGE: I understand that, I understand that. HOYATT: Yes. But Brother Carmel Stanley had a way of getting his message through to you even through his tears. He was such a humble man. BERGE: Of the . . . did you, either of you ever go to singing school? HOYATT: Oh yes. DAVIS: Oh yes. BERGE: Tell me about that. HOYATT: Sunday school? BERGE: No. Singing, that singing school that they had there. DAVIS: Singing school, yeah, we both did. HOYATT: Oh singing schools. Yes. BERGE: Tell us how that worked and how it came about and what it was like. HOYATT: My first singing school that I went to, I was nine years old, if I’m not mistaken, eight or nine, I think it was nine and that was at White Oak Junction and a fellow my the name of Millard Fipps taught that school. And at that time I had a voice, you know, just a child’s voice and my dad thought I ought to take first tenor or what they call high tenor or second tenor in a male quartet. So it costed him, I believe it was two dollars for that week for us children to go to school and he attended too. It was, but we had to really get in on that and learn to sing the shape notes so it was really interesting. Its something that you can, it just gets in your blood, you know, if you get with it ? BERGE: Christine, did you ever go to singing school? Page 15 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �DAVIS: Yeah. BERGE: Tell me where you went and how it was. DAVIS: Up at Mine 18 after we was married, when we lived in the house with his mom and dad, his dad made me do things just like he did the rest of the kids because I was one of the kids, you know, while we stayed there. BERGE: Well, his dad’s a strong man. DAVIS: Yeah. BERGE: You should have heard him talk to me the first time I was there. He fleshed me out. He said, now you don’t know anything about this, you just sit here and listen, you know. HOYATT: That’s dad. BERGE: Yeah. So tell me about this now. What it was like and who ran it and who got the people to come in there, I wonder. Do you know? DAVIS: Um, I can’t remember the man’s name because I really wasn’t interested in the singing school, why . . . HOYATT: Walter Duncan. DAVIS: You know, but I went . . . BERGE: Where was he from? Do you know? HOYATT: Tennessee. Down at, he was from Winfield, Tennessee. His, they run his son run a store right on 27 in Winfield there. DAVIS: Because I was never that good a singer. I couldn’t, I never could learn the notes. BERGE: Oh, Duncan’s store that big gray, big building? HOYATT: Right. His son used to run that. I don’t know whether its still there or not. BERGE: Yeah. He is. I was talking, I was down there the other day talking to him about it, about the singing school. HOYATT: Walter Duncan was a fine man. He was a great man. He was also a minister but he was also a music instructor. He was a teacher. BERGE: Did you ever become a singer, Christine? Page 16 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �DAVIS: No. No I could never sing. BERGE: Now your family all sang. HOYATT: Yeah. And Christine can sing too she just won’t own the corn. Our family used to sing quite a bit. Christine has a beautiful voice and she just never did get interested enough to it, she just never did learn the notes. She just . . . BERGE: Hoyatt, did you ever sing with the Blue Heron quartet? HOYATT: Yes I have. BERGE: Who sang in it when you did? HOYATT: Well, now I just sing with them as a, Lee Baker sung base and Bill Pryor did the soprano and I forget the man that sung tenor, at this, Donald Schuteman. Donald Schuteman’s son . . . BERGE: Now I’ve heard people mention the Davis quartet. Who was in that? HOYATT: That was myself and Betty Lou and Charlene and Israel. BERGE: Did you sing a lot? HOYATT: Not a great deal. Not a great deal. Now we sung, we had a quartet also with Prince Stevens was, he was kind of the emcee for us, you know. And we sung with him for a while. Then I sung in a quartet with Fred Stevens and Tate Hansford and Link ?’s wife. I forgot her name. We sung around different places. And then I directed the choir at Mine 18 for a while. And we’d put the shape notes on the board maybe once a week. We had a lot of fun doing that. It’s a lot of fun because you know, its just, it’s a great thing to learn, I thought, at that time, but we didn’t have no piano or organ or anything. We just had a chromatic pitch pipe and we got our sound from it. I never used a tuning fork. I always used a chromatic pitch pipe to get my sound, you see, of the letter and then we’d go to the doh instead of saying saying G we’d say doh, you know. So this is, this was a great thing. So we’d put, we would just go for the beginners music, you know, because I could never teach advanced music and we didn’t sing any miner music then, see. So some of the old timers sung miner music and this was pretty lonesome, all drawn out, you know. Pretty lonely but shape notes was, instead of singing the musical alphabet, you just sung doh ra me fah sol lah ti doh, you know. BERGE: When you all sang, when you went to those singing schools, was it all shape note? HOYATT: All shape notes. I’ve never, we, I knew one fellow that I attended a school that he used round notes. Round notes, you sung by the lines and spaces. So he did, he could teach and that was ? Fipps. He could teach advanced music which would go by the musical alphabet and not the shape notes at all. So, but, what little singing I did and still do is mostly by shape notes. BERGE: That was a, that’s an interesting thing to me. How long were you choir director? Page 17 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �HOYATT: Oh, I don’t know. I’d sing in a choir, you know, and lead the choir and then I’d change back and sing base and, you know, and then Mrs. Ross, Pearly Ross would lead the choir. She was also our church clerk there. The whole time I was there she was our church clerk and she would lead the choir and it wasn’t hard to lead because you had, we had the soprano setting together, the tenor together, the alto together. We put the people in their specific place where their voices could blend and we tried to get everybody to sing with their voices until their voices was level with everybody next to them. We had a real choir there. BERGE: Did you practice much? HOYATT: Every week. Practically every week. Once a week. BERGE: Did you ever sing in the choir, Christine? DAVIS: Not very much. Because I’d usually have a little baby and I’d have to get back somewhere and keep it quiet. BERGE: Mm hmm. Did they have any social things around the church? HOYATT: Never. That bothers me now as I look back. I don’t understand why they didn’t. It was just a church and forget it, you know. BERGE: Do you think it was because the early leadership didn’t believe in it? HOYATT: I never did, we never did say nothing about it, you know. They had a very strict ? Very strict. BERGE: When did you first think about preaching? HOYATT: Well, I suppose just immediately after I was saved. I felt the urge, you know. This is hard to explain. I wanted to preach and I could get no relief in my mind, you know, and I just, I felt that God had called me to preach. I still feel that God did call me to preach. I feel its gifts and callings are, of course, ? but I could sing a little bit before I was saved but I, you know, I just wanted to be a minister. BERGE: You got ordained, did you? HOYATT: I was ordained . . . BERGE: Where? HOYATT: I was ordained in Muncie, Indiana at 19th and Pierce Street at Bethel United Baptist Church and I was ordained June the 25th 1960. I wasn’t in the ministry when I left here, when I left the coal mines and I didn’t start preaching until ’59, in ’59, I started. BERGE: Did you ever come back to Blue Heron and preach? William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 18 �HOYATT: Never did get to. Never did. You see, our life, all of our life, its, we, I guess, we got started off on the wrong foot, you know, in the coal mines and this is a time when the coal mines began to fade out, phase out, you might say. BERGE: Why do you think so many people from this country became preachers? It’s amazing the number of people that worked down there at Mine 18 who are preachers. HOYATT: I really hadn’t thought of it like that. BERGE: Now just think, just start counting, how many preachers you know from Mine 18. HOYATT: Since you mentioned it yes. Yeah. BERGE: Wonder why that was? HOYATT: I don’t know. I really don’t know. Since you mentioned it, there was a lot of them. BERGE: Oh yeah. Just a world of them. HOYATT: Might have been because they was rough when they were younger. I don’t know. BERGE: Do you ever remember anyone being ordained down there at Mine 18? HOYATT: Not to my knowledge. BERGE: There have been four, three or four, I think. DAVIS: ? , was he? HOYATT: Oh yes. I’m sorry. BERGE: ? . I’ll tell you who was ordained there that I know of. ?, HOYATT: Yes. BERGE: Ronald Tapley. H: Ronald was the blind boy. He was ordained after I left. BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. And Cak Slaven. HOYATT: What Slaven? BERGE: Cak Slaven. HOYATT: Cak was ordained after I left. Page 19 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �BERGE: Yeah, but at Mine 18 though. HOYATT: Yes. BERGE: And there was one other and I can’t remember who it was. HOYATT: See when the mines reopened, I didn’t come back. BERGE: Yeah, I know that. Did you ever go back to that church one time after that? Did you ever, were you ever down here on the weekend or anything? DAVIS: Hobert Vaughn. BERGE: And Hobert Vaughn is the other one. HOYATT: Hobert Vaughn, yeah. Seems that I was but I can’t remember who was preaching now when I went back. BERGE: Which church up in Sydney is the bell from that church, do you know? HOYATT: Is what? BERGE: They say the bell from that church is in Sydney ? HOYATT: It is on that, its out in the First Baptist Church in Lockington. BERGE: Oh. HOYATT: That’s just out of Sydney a little ways. BERGE: Do you ever go over to hear it? HOYATT: Yes. I heard, when I heard it, I went there to visit . . . BERGE: Did you recognize it? HOYATT: that church and I’d, I hadn’t thought about the bell at Blue Heron. I went to visit that church. The bell at Blue, that we had at Blue Heron is a bronze bell, it has a different sound, a ring to it than any other church bell I ever heard. And I’d heard it so many times but I hadn’t heard it for years. And I went to visit that church and they rung that bell and in my mind that’s the Blue Heron, that’s the way the Blue Heron bell, and I began to question where’d that bell come from. Where did you get that bell? And the man that helped ordain me there in Indiana, he said that’s the bell out of the Mine 18 church. ?, how’d you get it? So I talked to him about it. I knew that bell. I mean, I knew the sound, it might not be the bell but it sure did sound like it used to and . . . William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 20 �BERGE: In other words it has a distinctive sound. HOYATT: Yes. He said, Harvey Boyd, if I understand it right was the last clerk of that church. BERGE: Yeah, and when they tore it down, I guess . . . HOYATT: Yeah. He was the last . . . BERGE: I guess that’s how the pews got out there at East Apple Creek. HOYATT: Yes. And the bell was given to these fellows providing they was going to put it in another church and . . . BERGE: You know the steeple is still in existence from that church. HOYATT: No it’s a different steeple. I don’t know where the steeple is. BERGE: The, I do. HOYATT: Where’s it at? BERGE: Its in Doyle Winchester’s yard. HOYATT: Is that right? BERGE: Uh huh. HOYATT: Is Doyle still living? BERGE: Yeah. Uh huh. HOYATT: Old Chaunce is the one that got killed. His brother, I guess. DAVIS: If they restore that church house down there, I think it’d be nice if everybody would donate that stuff back to it. HOYATT: I’ll do everything I can to get that bell back for that. BERGE: I was thinking about that. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? DAVIS: Yeah. Mm hmm. HOYATT: Sure would. But that’s a, that was donated by the Southern Railroad. DAVIS: That would draw a lot of . . . William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 21 �HOYATT: to the church. BERGE: Oh, is that how they got the bell? HOYATT: We didn’t buy that bell. Southern Railroad, this is the bell that goes on one of the Southern Railroad engines. They donated us that bell. I know, I was on the building committee. That’s how we got it. BERGE: Do you remember where you had the pews built? HOYATT: No I don’t. I don’t remember where we had them built. But they were the nicest pews as there was on the Stearns Roads at this time. We had a nice church. We was all proud of it. BERGE: Have you been in the East Appletree Church? HOYATT: Yes. BERGE: Oh so, you know that the choir pews are still up, they’re still up there and everything. HOYATT: Well I didn’t notice that since I’ve gone back there a few times before I was back there the last time Luther Ledbetter, before he passed away, he was, he and me went over there. Hobert Vaughn was a pastor at that time. BERGE: Still is. HOYATT: And you was talking about Ronald Tapley, he sung that night and anyway, I didn’t notice those pews but I, the ones I set in back there wasn’t the Blue Heron pews ? BERGE: They weren’t? HOYATT: No. They might have been the ones up in the choir but the one, did they take all of them out there? BERGE: I think most of them are there. HOYATT: It might be . . . BERGE: Not all of them but most of them. HOYATT: It could have been and I just didn’t pay any attention, you know. When I started to leave Mine 18 as I started to tell you a while ago, it kind of chokes me up, you know. BERGE: Oh, I know. HOYATT: I had these boys in my Sunday school class and they really loved me. We worked together and I had, well I had the girls too in this particular class and we’d go back up and we’d sing for the Page 22 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �worship service. My class would sing, you know, and it was a great joy, you know, and we had, at one time, we had a pretty good group of children down there. BERGE: How many people would attend church down there when you all were there? HOYATT: Well, at times I guess there would be probably 50 people or more. DAVIS: Just about everybody in the camp. HOYATT: Yeah. BERGE: Christine, let me ask you something. Did you go to school at Blue Heron? DAVIS: No. BERGE: Did any of your children? DAVIS: No. BERGE: They were too little, I guess? DAVIS: Yeah. BERGE: Can you remember, could you describe the school to me? DAVIS: The best I can remember, it was just a little one-room school house. BERGE: What color was it? DAVIS: It wasn’t painted. Just dark wood. BERGE: Do you think it’d ever been painted? DAVIS: I don’t think so. Like it’d been oil treated or something, it was just dark, dark wood. BERGE: Do you ever remember any pie suppers down there? DAVIS: No. HOYATT: Oh yeah. BERGE: Do you? HOYATT: Yeah. BERGE: Did you ever go to any down there? When you were living . . . Page 23 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �HOYATT: Yeah. I auctioned the pies off. One time for the school teacher. DAVIS: My brother went to school down there. HOYATT: And I didn’t know whether it was against the law or not because the law was awful strict and I was up at auctioning the pies off, you know, having a good time and in came the law. BERGE: Oh really? HOYATT: Yeah. But, the best I remember, we sold every pie, too, before it was over so we had a good time and that was our way of raising money to help out some in the school, you see. Yes, we had pie supper and then what we called box suppers. Different things in the boxes, you know, and we had a great time at that. That was a great event because we had the prettiest girl and the ugliest man and so on like this . . . BERGE: Yeah, I heard about those contests . . . HOYATT: We had a great time, you know, back then but that was about all there was to do, you know. BERGE: Uh huh. You lived right close to the tipple, Christine. Now tell me this, just tell me in one swoop without me interrupting you or anything what it was like living next to the tipple. Was it noisy, was it dirty and how’d you handle those things? DAVIS: It was noisy and it was dirty. We had to keep the doors closed and the windows down. Then after they’d shut the tipple down of the night, of the evening when the tipple would shut down, I’d open up the front door and sweep all the coal dust off the front porch and sweep the front wall down. We had to scrub the porch, I scrubbed mine about twice a week because it was just a hopeless thing to try to do it everyday. And you didn’t let the kids out on the front porch or back porch if you didn’t want to see their faces all black like the coal miners. BERGE: What did you do with your children during the day when everything was running there? It must have been dangerous for them to get out of your house because your house was right close to tracks and everything. What did they do all day? DAVIS: Mine stayed, played out in the back yard. BERGE: Was it fenced in? DAVIS: Yeah, mine was. After we moved down to Lee Baker’s house. Of course, they were small when we lived up in the other house and they played on the back porch. One morning, Claude went down the back steps in his stroller. Cut his whole head on the rock. We had a little gate, you know, to latch the gate to keep them off, keep them from going down the steps but after everything would shut down then we’d let them out and play but then I never let mine play out around the tipple or anyplace because I was always worried . . . William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 24 �BERGE: When you lived in Hoyatt Davis’ house, when you lived in Lee Baker’s house, was that house built up in the front? DAVIS: Not . . . BERGE: It was set right on the side of the hill, wasn’t it? Did you have many steps to the front porch? DAVIS: Just three or four to ours. Gerty’s the one that had the big high steps. BERGE: Ok. Ok. I knew one of them did over there. DAVIS: Yeah. And then our back porch just went right out on the ground. BERGE: What color was house? DAVIS: It was supposed to be yellow but it was covered in coal dust. BERGE: Gerty’s house was yellow wasn’t it? DAVIS: Yeah. Yeah, it was more of a, it was a darker yellow than Gerty’s house. Gerty’s was a light yellow and ours was a darker, more of a gold I guess. It was a deeper color. BERGE: When you went to the store, just pretend that I’ve never known anything about that place, when you went to that store, describe what it was like going there and what it looked like inside. DAVIS: Well, it was just like any country store. Just a small entrance, go up a couple of steps and up on the porch and it was a wood floor and the counter was, I remember one time especially when Alvin was just a little boy, he was about two. He could just walk across the railroad tracks. And I took him to the store and it was almost Christmas time. They just got in the displays and they had these, had a little toy cars, like they put the little, what do they call them where they load the little cars up on them, a car carrier. What do you call them? Had the little cars about this long and there’s six on there. Well, when I got home with him, he had one of these little cars in his pocket so I knew that would never do. I said, where did you get it and he said it was on the counter so I give him a spanking and made him take the car back to the store and give it to Theodore and tell him he was sorry but he couldn’t remember that. He thought he’d got a candy bar and he was telling us the other day, that he thought he’d got a candy bar that he wasn’t supposed to get. But I had him, I spanked him and made him take the car back to the store and give it to Theodore and Theodore didn’t even know he’d got it. But I knew if I let him get by with that he would, you know, may pick up other things. BERGE: Was Theodore a pleasant man to deal with? DAVIS: Um, well, he was, yeah, I guess he was. BERGE: I, you know, I just wondered, you know. You hear awful things about company stores and . . . William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 25 �DAVIS: He wasn’t going to, at the time when we moved, I’d got permission, we didn’t have our furniture paid for when we started to move out from there and Hoyatt was already in Indiana and he’d sent the men back with the truck to get our furniture and Theodore didn’t want us to move it because . . . BERGE: It wasn’t paid for. DAVIS: we still owed about two hundred and something dollars on it but we’d already gotten clearance from Store One to move the stuff and finish paying for it when we could. So Theodore come up there and told me I couldn’t move the furniture and I said, well, the truck’s setting there and we’re going to move. And he said, no, you’re not going to so he went and got on the phone and called and the company told him that they didn’t want that stuff out there, they already had enough ? stuff that they didn’t want ours. So we moved it on to Indiana and it kind of irritated me because I already had the clearance and I didn’t send any payments back for a long time so finally we come in one morning and went in the office out at Stearns to pay our bill and his dad wanted us to pay his, his dad owed the company some too at that time so he told us while we was coming, he said clear our bill up too and he give us the money and we went in out at the office . . . BERGE: In Stearns? DAVIS: Yeah. And they looked and looked and looked and they come out and they said you don’t owe us anything. He said, it wasn’t our fault that the mine shut down and when the mine shut down, our bill was clear. So we couldn’t find, they had no bill against us what so ever so I’ve always wanted to go back and tell Theodore that but I never did. I thought, well, you know. BERGE: That’s amazing. DAVIS: But at that time, it was bad times, and I thought, you know, he didn’t have any right to come and try to keep us from moving since we already had clearance. BERGE: Sure. When you all moved, you know, people moved a lot in those camps. Like when you wanted to move from one house to another, how did that come about? How did you do it? Or who’d you talk to or, I guess you talked to Lemmy, didn’t you? HOYATT: We talked to the mine superintendent. If we knew that house was coming empty, why, we would go and they’d give it to whoever they wanted to give it to. So we would go and talk to the superintendent of the camp of the mines is the man that took care of that, see. So we’d talk to him and then when the people moved out, if we knew they was going to move, why, if we could get there first and he liked us well enough, we got the house. BERGE: That’s the way it worked? DAVIS: If, his wife had a lot to do with it too. If she liked you, you’d get the house. BERGE: That’s just the way it worked, huh? William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 26 �HOYATT: That’s the way it was. DAVIS: But, see, Lemmy and John Wright and all of them was really my uncle. Great uncle. Because my grandfather really wasn’t a Ledbetter, I mean, you don’t want all this on here but I guess everybody knows it. He was a half brother to Lemmy and John and all of them. BERGE: Oh. DAVIS: John Ledbetter was. BERGE: Uh huh. Well that was a, back in those times, most everybody, all of you were sort of related to each other because that’s who, you just met people down in there, didn’t you? You’d, there wasn’t a big variety of people for you to meet and . . . HOYATT: No. No. BERGE: end up marrying or anything. DAVIS: I don’t think we’re any relation. I hope not. BERGE: Doesn’t make any difference but . . . DAVIS: No. After 38 years it’s a bad time to think about it now. BERGE: Yeah. No, but what I mean is that everybody is related to somebody, everybody else by marriage or something because there were few families in there, weren’t there? HOYATT: Yeah. BERGE: Really was an amazing place, when you think about it. For instance, you two, you lived down there when there was no roads. HOYATT: That’s right. Right. I helped, I donated . . . BERGE: Did you ever have a car before, when you lived down there? HOYATT: No. I never had a car until after what ’50 probably ’51. And I . . . BERGE: Oh, right at the end down there you got a car then. DAVIS: ’53. HOYATT: ’53. BERGE: When you left there. William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 27 �HOYATT: ’53, I had the car, I had to let the car go for a grocery bill. I owed a grocery bill, you know, and I let the car, and the car, the way I got the car, I traded a hog and a radio for it. It was a ’29 A-model. BERGE: I wonder what those would be worth now. HOYATT: Oh, boy. DAVIS: And then when we started to leave, we owed Jimmy Lawson a hundred dollar grocery bill out at the, he’d let us, he was nice enough to let us have groceries on a credit out at Whitley. So we give him that car to pay our grocery bill. HOYATT: It was a hard time. BERGE: I’ll agree it was. HOYATT: I’d cut timber, mine timber by myself. I’d go up in the hills, you know, and cut the best I could, get somebody to help me saw, you know. BERGE: Yeah. A lot of people don’t remember that there were hard times after World War II. HOYATT: Yes. Real hard. BERGE: Particularly in the coal areas ? HOYATT: That’s where it was, yeah. Real hard. BERGE: I bet you were amazed when you went back up to Indiana and there were just all those jobs then. HOYATT: Yeah. Then, you see, things went down there then. I got laid off again so it was just bang bang bang and after 22 years in the packing house, the packing house went down and I had to move again. It just seems like its been, stay awhile. That’s the longest I’ve ever worked in my life without, you know . . . BERGE: Uh huh. That was a new, a trade, did you, this is the last think I’m going to ask you all because I’ve, I need to be going and I know you all need to enjoy your vacation without me being, using it all, but when you were down there, see, that’s, people are going to come to that place, tourists are, and they’re going to say this is the most beautiful place in the world. It must have been wonderful for these people to live here. Did you know it was beautiful when you were there? HOYATT: When everything was going good and we was making a good living, we was, I was getting to work plenty, it was a just a heavenly place. It was. We, everybody knew everybody and everybody was getting along most of the time and it was just nobody was having any feuds or anything, everything was going good, you know. And if anybody was sick, everybody would go in and help. If anybody passed away, they’d go and set up, they had to keep the corpse at home and we never . . . William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 28 �BERGE: That’s another thing. I wonder why they didn’t bury people from churches. HOYATT: What? BERGE: I wonder why they bury people from churches like they do now? HOYATT: Uh, well, let’s say down there it would be kind of rough, you know, to get in and so far to the cemetery. Now, we carried a little girl, Luther’s little girl, Katie, we carried her from Mine 18 to way back out to what they called the Kid Graveyard, possibly five miles out there is where we buried her. So, but, wherever we buried them, and as far as officiating or having a funeral services at the churches, it was very seldom . . . BERGE: No, didn’t do it. HOYATT: very seldom because the church was built too far from the cemetery or, now, if the cemetery was close to a church, we did, you know, they did but not, now I remember my aunt and some of them out of Smithtown we had it at Pleasant Rock Church but down in there was too far from the cemetery. There was no cemeteries close to the down in the coal mining camps that close. There was at Fidelity. There was at Fidelity but this was a ghost town now, you know. So we up on Rock Creek . . . BERGE: No, but what, I guess what really what I was meaning though is were you all aware of the scenic beauty down there or were you more concerned about the work and the coal and stuff? I mean, did you know how pretty that country was? I mean, its going to be beautiful when they go in. HOYATT: Its beautiful now but then we didn’t realize that because our concern was making a living for our family. This was our only source of living was the coal mines. That is, poor coal miners like us. BERGE: How did, when you’d see big shots from the company, how would they treat a guy like you? When you’d walk by them, when they were down in there? Were they personable people or . . . HOYATT: Now, the big shots, if you’re calling the big shots would be a fellow like John Wright. BERGE: Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. HOYATT: L.C. Bruce. BERGE: Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. H: People like these, they were just as, John Wright was just as common as any man in that country. He was a wonderful man. And he loved people. Now, he loved joBERGE: he did his job well, I thought as I look back, but he love people. He actually loved people and he’d give people many breaks. I remember one superintendent was a big shot at, when my brother, maybe I shouldn’t tell this but when my older brother before he became a Christian, when he was in on a leave from the Marines, he was kind of a little rough in the camp and this superintendent wanted him moved out of the camp, his family moved out of the camp, you know. So John Wright said, let him alone. John told me in later years about it setting at his place before he died. I visited John on up until the time after he took his bed. When I’d Page 29 William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 �come back, I’d go visit John Wright, where he was a great man for me and he gave me a lot of good advice. But anyway, John Wright said let him alone. He’s got good blood in him, that’s what John would always say, he’s got good blood in him he’ll make you a good man some day. And he did. He did. He became a foreman. BERGE: ? he knew the people who worked there. John Wright did. He knew the . . . HOYATT: He knew all of them. He knew all of them. And John was a man that picked the men to be the foremans and the superintendents and so on like this, the group leaders, you might call them now. BERGE: Let me ask you one more question. This is the last question, Christine. DAVIS: Ok. BERGE: Were you glad to leave? DAVIS: No not really because to me that was, from the life I’d had before, it really wasn’t all that bad down there because, you know, an orphan grows up they don’t have ? BERGE: And that’s what you knew, wasn’t it? DAVIS: Yeah. So really, and it was, it was really, wasn’t that bad for me because, well, I knew John Wright and them. I was the housekeeper at John Wright’s before I ever met him. I was their housekeeper and worked for them and to me that was down there with more, and I got to be with my family more with the Ledbetter’s, see that was my mom’s, Luther and Everett and Arnold, all of them was my mom’s brothers as well as Gerty was my dad’s sister. BERGE: Yeah, yeah. DAVIS: So. BERGE: Well, I want to thank you then for talking with me. Its really a pleasure to meet both of you and talk with you about these things. [end recording] William H. Berge Oral History Center | Interview with Christine Davis | 1984 OH 079 Page 30 � https://oralhistory.eku.edu/files/original/dee197931349248d9be7e05d8bfd90af.mp3 86489fcf5c5c4a7d933e2fd4124ccf74 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The Blue Herron Coal Camp, also known as Mine 18, in McCreary County, was run by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company from 1938 to 1962. Company managers, miners, and their families discuss coal mining and Stearns, but the interviews focus on the quality of life in the camp and the lives of the women. Blue Herron is now an outdoor museum in the Big South Fork National Park and Recreation Area. The interviews were collected for the United States Army Corps of Engineers for use in the exhibits. Title A name given to the resource Blue Heron Coal Camps Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Berge, William H. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Davis, Christine Location The location of the interview. Conley Bottom, Ky Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:00:04 Restrictions A notation on restrictions placed by the interviewee. none Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1984 OH 079 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/12/1984 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Contact <a href="mailto:archives.library@eku.edu">Special Collections and Archives</a>, Crabbe Library, Eastern Kentucky University for reproductions, rights and permission to publish. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Christine Davis Blue Heron Coal Camp churches coal camps coal company stores family World War II