[Begin Interview]
Blalock: Well, I will start at the beginning. I started work for the Kington
Coal Company and at that time, it was all hand loading. The men loaded the coal by hand. No mechanization had come around then. They all mechanized now. But you loaded the coal by hand. They pulled the coal with mules and bank cars, little mining cars, and used track. And the men loaded the coal to start with, seventy-five cents for a place cut twenty-two feet wide and four foot eight, as a rule, was the height of the coal. Twenty-two feet in width, and four foot [feet] eight in height. Twenty-two foot wide. They would drill, undermine that with a cutting machine, a punching machine, run by air on a cylinder that run backwards and forth where the fork had bit on it, and undermine the coal first. Then they would drill three holes: one in the center and one on each side and use black powder and shoot that down. The men would load that whole twenty-two-foot place. And for seventy-five cents. They’d load that for seventy-five cents a room. Well, a good stout man, a good healthy man, could load two of them places in a day. That would make him a dollar and a half for those two places. They called them rooms. They called them rooms. And he could load two of them if he worked hard. Well, in latter days, later on, they got to paying by the ton. Nineteen cents a ton. They quit loading it by the room. They went to paying nineteen cents a ton. And the cars, as a rule, held two tons if you could load it up big. And you got nineteen cents a ton for that, if you’d load a car up big. And they would put so many men in one room loading together that no one could make very much. They didn’t want them to make very much, because they could get it all back to the company, (they cut offs law?), because they’d have so many men loading tons, you couldn’t get many tons. You couldn’t load many. Because they crowded, and kept it crowded, so no one could make very much. Well in that a way, what you did make, they got it all back. Because you would have to spend it with them to live. And then, later on, they’d haul that coal outside with the mules to the tipple and grade it. And they wanted (?) coal back in them days. The slag didn’t sell. Pine coal didn’t sell at all. They’d have to stockpile it. You remember, Virgil?Kington: Yes.
Blalock: They’d have to stockpile it outside.
Kington: Even stockpile some on the inside.
Blalock: Yeah. And then it would catch afire outside in hot weather, and catch
afire sometimes, they’d lose the whole stockpile. They usually had a drag line would turn it, stir it, to keep it from catching afire till they had a market for it. Then if they got a market for it, they would load that in the railroad car and ship that. But they wanted choice lump way back then. That’s all they wanted, a big choice lump. And you would take the mules, they had mule drivers. And they kept the mules outside in a stable. And oh, they had several mules, of course they had several drivers. And you’d take the mule out of the stable in the morning, the driver would go get him. And they would have the mule, the harness would be on the mule, all but the bridle. They didn’t have him bridled because he had to be eating his corn and all without the bridle. And the driver would put the bridle on the mule and take him over to the mines. And the men would get in these little cars, and they would go in the mines. The mules would take them to their working place. Well then, you’d work ten hours. And at noon, they fed the mules in the mines. They’d take corn and hay and feed them at noon time for thirty minutes. While the men were eating, the mules would eat. Then that afternoon about five o’clock, well, we got off by five, it’s ten hours. They’d bring the mules out and they’d have a long trough outside, watering trough, about four feet wide. And there’s an incline on each end for the mules to walk down in. Of course, the mules would get mud and dust and stuff on them in the mines, and the copper swatter had a tendency to eat their legs and their body. Well, they would go through this pit, and it would wash them. And they were very anxious in the afternoon. They’d look forward, them mules did, going through that. Well, that washed that stuff off of their legs and all, and they’d go through there. And then, later on, they got paying thirty-eight cents a ton. It went from that hand loading (?) seventy-five cents per place. Then it was nineteen cents. Then they got it to thirty-eight cents. Well, the men got to doing a little better. They got to doing a little better. Well, then they would still keep the mines crowded.Blalock: When they got thirty-eight cents a ton, they tried to keep it crowded
then so you couldn’t make too much. Because they didn’t want to have to be out much cash when pay day comes. Of course, they had cut all your grocery bill off, and all your house rent and your doctor bill and anything you’d bought. They’d cut that off. And usually, there wasn’t much left for you. Well, and they paid off in cash envelope about that long. And you sealed it up. And they didn’t have no statement or anything on that to start with. Finally, they got to putting a statement on that. A statement telling sort of about what you had done, in the latter days. But they didn’t do that on the first. They just gave you a statement and just whatever they wanted to put in it is what they put in it. And that went on. And as times got better, well, they got to paying more. Well, the men wanted the union. The conditions were so bad, they wanted to organize. Well, the company fought them on that because they didn’t want them to have a union. And they bring guards in to guard against anybody coming in trying to organize us. They bring guards from up in the mountains, (?) and I guess they would have killed you if you hadn’t have just obeyed them. And they’d fight the union. And if you, there’s a fellow trying to organize in the mines. And he went around, I never will forget it, he went around. And I was foreman most of the time, after I got old enough to be foreman. And he had a little short pencil about that long. And he would put that pencil in his mouth so the foreman, some of the foremen seen him. I guess he would have swallowed that pencil, because he was putting their names down that joined the union. And he’d put their name on it, he was going around, see how many had joined the union. If they ever found out that you had joined a union, or went to a union meeting, the next day that was the end of you. The company would get shed of you. Some stool pigeon in the bunch would say that they [had] seen so and so at the union meeting.Blalock: Well, that’s all they wrote for him. Well, it went on that a way, and
they’d fight the union, they’d fight the men. And it went on till finally they did, Roosevelt passed that law, that they couldn’t fire you for joining a union. You had a right for collective bargaining. Well then, they began to get the union started. After he passed that law, they couldn’t fire you. Well, they still if you didn’t watch, they’d still find some fault. If they didn’t fire you, they’d find fault to your work and make it so disagreeable that they didn’t have to fire you. You’d just quit because it would be so disagreeable. And you couldn’t go nowhere else. Most of the time you had to take whatever they put on you, because if you went to another mine, their conditions was just like it was at this one. There wasn’t none unionized around at that time. If you went to another one, why, the conditions are the same way. Well then after they organized, if you give any trouble, well they’d give all these other mines around, they’d send them word not to hire Virgil Kington or whoever it might be. “Don’t hire him because we had trouble with him. He believes in the union.” Well, then they got where if they fired a man, they’d asked him what he thought about the United Mine Workers. Well, if he said he believed in it, they didn’t need nobody. They didn’t need any men. Well, if you said, “Oh, I don’t care nothing about that damn union. I don’t believe in unions,” you got a job. They’d take you. Because they didn’t want men in there, enough men to get the union. They could keep it that a way. Well, it finally got where that played out. They got so strong; the men got the upper hand of it. Well, it went on. And they finally unionized. And they got paying a pretty good price. And men got to doing all right. And people got to building little house of their own here and yonder. And they got where they wasn’t so hard on you. And in fact, after they got the union, the companies done better their self. Because when they paid that scrip, they didn’t have any union. And they claimed they were nearly busted, the reason they had to pay you scrip so they could operate. To tell you the truth, after they got the union, they prospered as well as the men did. I was right there. Their conditions picked up. He knows that. Their conditions picked up. Their (tonnage spaces?) all picked up. Because the union meant for them to treat you right, and you do a good job for them. That is the principle of the union. For them to quit treating you so bad, and you do a good job. Well, it’s grown and grown and grown now, till it’s mighty near got the other way. It’s might near got[ten] now to the shape that the younger staff, all they believe in now, now I’m just telling you the (facts?). All they believe in, the union’s got so strong, is to do as little as you can, and get just as much for it as you can. Well, then that causes the tonnage to go down. And most of them don’t care if the tonnage does go down. I’d have men, the company would get after me about the tonnage wasn’t up. And I’d tell the men they were fussing me about the tonnage. And they’d say, “Ah, I don’t give a damn whether they run anything or not.” That would be some radical fellow.Blalock: And most of them were the ignorant ones that didn’t know their names.
As a rule, they were the ones that caused the trouble. Now a man that had a real education, or any at all, usually he wasn’t the one causing trouble. It was the one didn’t know straight up, you couldn’t tell him nothing, he believed everything, he just believed it his way and you couldn’t show him no other way. And them were the ones who would cause the trouble, even after we go the union. They’d go down there and find some little fault. And one of these hot heads would (throw his water out?) while the rest of them, the rest of the hot heads, would throw theirs out, too. Well then it got to where the other good men, they’d throw theirs out because they that threw their water out were roughneck and hard and would call them men scabs and threaten them. And lay switches around at their doors because they did so and so. Because they sort of leaned toward the company. And now that’s the case, and now it’s got to where the men is just about as unreasonable with the coal company. A lot of the men, they wouldn’t like for me to say that. The union men now wouldn’t like for me to say that. But it’s got to where they just about as unreasonable for their demands as the company treated them back in them days. And yet I’ll tell you this: the companies will say, they would then, and some of them say today, they’ll say well, they’ll do just as well by you if you don’t belong to a union. Well, that’s not a word of truth in that. If they didn’t have the union, they wouldn’t do as well by you. [pause]Interviewer: The business of having to meet in secret.
Kington: That was before the Roosevelt days.
Interviewer: Yeah. And when a man was coming around and organizing, and had to
keep his pencil hid and all that sort of thing, where were the union meetings held at that time?Blalock: Well, you would just go to the schoolhouse or out in the open, or in a
barn somewhere. I’ve known them to meet in a barn on a farm down there (Tom Browning?), across from (?)Kington: Yeah. Yeah.
Blalock: Just somewhere where they thought the company wouldn’t know it. And
yet, somebody would be there and tell that they [had] seen so and so at this meeting. They had to slip around to even go to these meetings to try to organize.Kington: Until Franklin Delano Roosevelt–
Blalock: Made a, passed a law–
Kington: With the (NRA?) where you had a right to meet and organize and had a
right to work as organized labor.Blalock: Without them bothering you.
Kington: Without them bothering you. Now that’s when that, that’s when all that
stopped. Now they have a meeting, we have our local right in, well now my local is meeting in the (Irvington?) fire department, a city building.Blalock: They can meet anywhere they want to, now.
Interviewer: Now you were talking about, you mentioned another thing, putting
switches around.Blalock: Well, that would be, when they were trying to organize, if they caught
a man that went to work at the mine, say if they was on strike and some one of them went back to work, he’s liable to find a bunch of switches on his porch the next morning, threatening him what they’d do to him for going back to work, or if he did go back to work.Interviewer: If he was scabbing.
Kington: Yeah.
Blalock: That’s right. If they was on a strike to try to better their
conditions, and I’d say if this was me and I happened to be at work, they liable to find a bunch of switches on the door telling you--you better not go to work no more. A lot of switches. That’s the way it was. They didn’t run regular back then.Kington: Back then in the summertime, it was one or two days a week.
Blalock: I worked one time, one day in three weeks. It was that bad. They didn’t
run. Couldn’t sell the coal, didn’t run. They’ve done better ever since they’ve organized.Interviewer: Now that’s when you were living in a coal–
Blalock: In the coal camp.
Interviewer: Coal camp. The homes in the coal camp, home in a coal camp, were
you married when you were living in a coal camp?Blalock: My parents and them in later years–
Interviewer: Was your father a miner, too?
Blalock: Yeah. (?)
Interviewer: Tell us about your home, home life.
Blalock: Well, it would be a three-room house. And you’d pay the six or seven
dollars. I don’t remember what it was. But you’d live in this house and live in the camp. And they’d blow a whistle for work time, and they’d blow the whistle at quitting time. A steam whistle. Everything was steam. And the machines and all in the mines were air, run by air. And they’d blow this whistle when the miners go to (?). Big (coarse?) whistle. Well, the men would just get up and get ready and go to work, and work for ten hours. First ten hours. They finally got to eight hours after Roosevelt. You know when the eight-hour day passed. But you’d go work for ten hours and come home and take a bath in a tub, an old washtub. In the wintertime, you’d just about freeze to death. You’d have to set it right square in front of the fire on the hearth. Had coal fires. And you’d take a bath. They didn’t have bath houses. And you’d freeze generally to death taking a bath in the tub because the houses were not insulated, built very shabby and all. They was usually three-room houses.Kington: (?)
Interviewer: During that period, can you remember what men did sort of as
recreation around the coal camps, when they did have time off?Blalock: Well, there wasn’t much to do. Because you couldn’t go nowhere much,
because you didn’t have any money to go nowhere. You couldn’t get out and do much because you didn’t have money to do it. I remember a few times when some of us was aimed to go fishing and we couldn’t get up enough stuff at the company store, enough different things to take with us to go fishing, and we couldn’t go because the stuff that we took to go fishing, we needed to leave at home for our families. You couldn’t get a hold of enough stuff. Because you had to buy a lot of stuff to go fishing, you know.Interviewer: In other words–
Other interviewer: Let me follow this through. Because this is where we’re
really weak. We need something on the coal towns, and sort of the way the people live, not just at work but how they played and everything.Blalock: I can say that I don’t know that there was too much gambling going on.
They’d play (?) and checkers.Kington: They didn’t have the money to gamble with.
Blalock: And (?) I remember one time a fellow down there they gambled a little.
There was a fellow by the name of Jack (?). And there was some boys that gambled a whole lot, and they kept after him to have a crap game. And he said, “I don’t have any money.” And they thought he had some money. And they, he come to me, and he borrowed fifty cents. So, he got in this crap game with these boys, they were miners. And he only had the fifty cents he borrowed from me. And he won about eleven or twelve dollars off of them. And he told them, he said, “Now fellows, if you all had of got every penny I had, the game would have been over when you got my fifty cents.” They didn’t do much gambling. And they’d have recreation that you’re talking about, they’d get around and get up a crowd and go to people’s houses and see if they’d let them have a square dance. They square danced a lot back then. Old time square dances. Guitar and fiddle. And they’d dance maybe all night, half of the night, and maybe up into the morning. And not too many times there was any trouble at all. Once in a while there’d be somebody get a little on the drunk side. But not, they didn’t have too much of that.Kington: Usually they was pretty darn–
Blalock: Pretty quiet all the time.
Interviewer: What about singing? You’re talking about square dance. What was the (?)
Blalock: They’d sing just old-time songs, and guitar players. Not as much of it
as there is now. They didn’t sing as much then. They’d just play the tunes on the violin.Kington: (?) get a fiddler and a guitar player.
Blalock: And they’d just make music for that dance. And there had to be a man
calling the dance and all, (?) them call.Interviewer: How about–
Blalock: The Jew’s harp, they called it. You ever see a Jew’s harp? They play
that. And there wasn’t much recreation going on.Kington: No, but they didn’t have, they didn’t have (?) one-eyed (Jack?), as he said.
Interviewer: Tell us about one-eyed (cat?)
Kington: Well, it’s (?) the one boy is doing the bat, and they’d bat this old
ball that they made back at, if he caught you three times or (something like that?), you had to get out of (?) and they come in. That’s the sports.Interviewer: I still don’t understand. Can you explain that again, the one-eyed
cat game?Blalock: Well, the one-eyed cat, they would have home plate where the pitcher
was at. Well, you would pitch it just to the batter, and he would just bat it back out to you. You know, and there would be one or two around. And when they got three, caught him three times, three outs, well then, he was through batting, and the other fellow that caught him went to bat. That’s what we called one-eyed cat. And then they used to play a game we called (shinny?). Shinny. They used tin cans. And they would have holes around and a (?) to it. And they’d take tin cans and a broom stick. And the game was you had to take this stick and try to get this can in that hole. Well, the other fellow, the other side, was trying to keep you from getting it out of it. I would think it was sort of like that (?) or soccer, or something like they play so rough on the TV. You know them games that they play so rough? And you’d try to knock that can in there, and your opponents would try to keep it out of the hole. Just things like that.Interviewer: Were you, did you come from a large family?
Blalock: No. And they’d make stilts, wooden stilts, was sort of a sport. You’d
first start make you some wooden stilts to walk on. And the more you learned, the higher you’d get them. I have seen them walking on wooden stilts, it looked to me like ten feet high. They’d make them, you know. And if you went fishing, if you ever did go fishing down to lake, I mean (pond river?), it wasn’t a lake then, they didn’t have Kentucky Lake, you’d make you a boat. You’d just get you some old lumber and just make a boat and cork it with tar or something like that. Made the boat that you fished in. That’s all the (?) And that’s way back early now. That was way back. [pause?] Just anything you needed. Groceries and clothing and furniture. Radios. They sold most anything you wanted. And a lot of them would have to save that scrip up. And to get face value out of that scrip, dollar for dollar, you could buy some of that furniture and all. But if you got any cash, you had to discount it. If you got hold of any cash, you had to discount it twenty cents right in their office. And they’d give you eighty cents for the dollar.Interviewer: On the– [pause?]
Blalock: Went to work in overalls. And they had tin dinner buckets made out of
tin. And the top was for the food, and the bottom part was for water. It was about fourteen inches high, I guess. And it had a basin set in the top for the food. And it stopped at a certain place, and in the bottom of that was water to drink during the day. And you carried that with you. And the light you used, first light you used in the mines, was the oil light. They used oil. It had a wick in it. An oil light. It had a little spout on it, and a wick. And you wore a cap, and you hooked that in a groove up here in your mining cap, just like the miners hook their electric lights now. And you hook that in there and you use oil in that light, and you had a wick in it. And they use what they call lard oil. Lard oil that they burn in that wick. And then, later on they got what they called a carbide light. You used carbide in it. And that was a great improvement when they got the carbide light. And then they got shed of the old oil light. Well then as time went on, they got shed of the old, the carbide light, and they went to using a battery light. That you carried on, you carried the battery on your belt. And the light usually last eight or ten hours. And they would charge them at night at a place that charges batteries. The head light and electric light. They finally got to that, using that. And they charged them at night, and you used that electric light.Interviewer: The– [pause]
Blalock: Just wore them till they wore them out. Just wore them till they wore
them out. I’d say as a rule most of them did, just wore them till they, now some, it depends on, just like it is now. Some people were more clean [cleaner] about things than they are now. Some would wash them more often than others. But some would just wear them till, I know one fellow wore them, I never will forget it. And every time a hole would come in a pair, he would just get another pair and put it on over them. And I have known him, a few times, to have on three pairs of overalls. And that would be three (?) over, and he didn’t, he wasn’t married, and he didn’t have anyone to patch them. And he just put on a pair over that hole. He’d wear them out, and just put on another pair. And he’d have on three pair, a lot of times.Interviewer: Well, was a lot of work done on your knees?
Blalock: No, we didn’t have to–
Unknown: Not in that particular–
Blalock: They didn’t have any coal that low. It’s four-eight. Four foot eight.
That’s fifty-six inches.Interviewer: Mr. Blalock, can you remember the first appliance you had that you
bought? Did they have battery radios here? Or–Blalock: Yeah.
Interviewer: When did that start coming in?
Blalock: Well, I don’t remember. The first one I ever had, the name of it was
(this brand Martelli?).Kington: It sure was. That’s one of the first ones–
Blalock: (Bremertelli?). And it was a battery. And we had put up an arrow
outside. We’d just go to the woods and cut up a big high pole and sink it in the ground. Antenna, you know, for the radio.[End Side A. Begin Side B.]
Interviewer: Okay, we’re in Morton’s Gap on reel three, talking, continuing our
interview here. Talking about the radios and radio show.Blalock: Why you can get a hamburger for a nickel. And I mean a good sized one.
Interviewer: Let’s get some more on the radio. Either one of them gentlemen can
do it, with the radio.Other interviewer: I’ll start over here. Some of the radio shows that you
listened to and restrictions that your folks placed on and the fact that you had to bring your battery into town and charge it. Tell us all about that.Blalock: Well, we had, as I said, we’d usually get about three weeks, that’s how
I remember it. Maybe four. It all depends on the restrictions they had, whether we could get it or how much use had been done on it. But got his–Interviewer: Okay. Again, please.
Blalock: We got our radio; I would have been about twenty-three or twenty-four.
Maybe a little later than that. But it was around twenty-three or twenty-four. I was born 1911. And I was twelve or thirteen years old whenever this happened.Interviewer: What were some of your favorite radio shows?
Blalock: Well, Grand Ole Opry and Barn Dance at WLS. And then the (Renfro?)
Valley Bunch always come on. String music, and things like that.Interviewer: Okay. Tell us about your memories with the radio and all that.
Blalock: Well, my first one was the (Bramatelli?) and we’d sit up and listen to
programs and we’d listen to Nashville, WLS. Then we’d, Chicago was WLS. Nashville, WSM.Unknown: That’s right.
Blalock: We’d listen to that on the radio. Maybe sit up, oh, all night,
sometimes. (?), we’d listen to that. And that was about the only thing that we got any pleasure out of for a long time, till they finally got other things. TV, you know.Interviewer: Did you plug it into the wall?
Blalock: Huh?
Interviewer: How did you run your radio?
Blalock: It was a battery. Didn’t, wasn’t nothing to plug it in. There was no
electricity. It was a battery. You didn’t plug it in. They didn’t have any electricity then. But finally, they did improve them so you could plug them in. Later on, we could plug them in. But all the (?), you had to just use a battery on them.Interviewer: And I’d like to hear something about the restriction.
Blalock: Well, these batteries could be recharged. At that particular time, I
believe it was seventy-five cents.Unknown: I don’t remember.
Kington: That we had to pay to get this battery recharged. We’d get about three
weeks for it, I’d say.Unknown: That’s right.
Unknown: And if you wanted to hear some special program, you’d just stay off of
it so you’d be sure and have a battery sufficient to give you the concert to listen to it.Blalock: However–
Interviewer: Okay, you want to start with that again? The loading by hand.
Blalock: The loading by hand was hard labor on the back, especially. It was hard
on a person’s back. Well then, they mechanized the mines, and got to loading it with loading machines. However, when they got them, that knocked a lot of men who had loaded by hand back where they had so many men crowded in the mine to try to get enough tons, because the best I remember, about seven or eight tons by hand was what they figured per day by hand loading. About seven or eight tons. But they had to have a lot of men to get very many tons. But that kept it so crowded that you couldn’t make much money. But then after they got mechanizations and these loaders, joy loaders, they called them, loaded by hand, I mean, mechanization, well, they’d operate that with, one man would run it. And then a helper was two. And then the shuttle driver that went with the car was three. And the driller would be four. And the bottom lifter would be five, and the machine man and his helper would be seven. And about–Unknown: The shooter.
Blalock: The shooter would be eight.
Unknown: Hammer man.
Blalock: Nine.
Kington: Ten or eleven men.
Blalock: About ten or eleven men to each unit would load as much coal, oh, lord
have mercy, they’d load as much as twenty-five or thirty.Unknown: Twenty-five, thirty of them.
Blalock: By hand. Now they knocked them, some of them, out of jobs. For a while.
But not too many of them. They finally would get jobs doing other things. And they all went right along with it. And it helped them a lot. I couldn’t say that any of them had any (fault?), made any complaint about them.Kington: The biggest complaint they made was the fact one of the (?), they
complained about the (?) cut so many of them out of work.Blalock: Out of a job.
Kington: That was their biggest complaint.
Blalock: Which it did.
Interviewer: How did the unions feel about the mechanization?
Kington: Well, at the time, they weren’t (?) position there. Why, unions, they
wasn’t running unions down there then. So really, I don’t know. That’s where I was working.Blalock: They started mechanization before they got the union.
Interviewer: I see.
Blalock: Yeah, they had a boarding house for people that would come and get a
job (?) and that was the company’s, the boardinghouse was also–Kington: Sam Jones, (?) running that for a long time.
Blalock: Well, and Mr. Gatlin. Boss Gatlin.
Kington: Yeah, yeah, (?) Gatlin.
Blalock: And you’d pay board. And they’d cut the board off (?) And they’d pay
someone to run that hotel, you know, for them. They had a big, well, good big boarding house.Interviewer: Did they ever have a movie house in town?
Blalock: No. No, no.
Interviewer: They ever have a soda fountain.
Blalock: No. Not down there. They owned the whole thing. They didn’t have
nothing like that.Unknown : Didn’t have nothing in the way of (?)
Blalock: No.
Interviewer: What about doctoring? How was that handled?
Blalock: Well, he charged a single man seventy-five cents a month, and a married
man with a family a dollar and a half a month for the doctor. And the doctor would go and see him, and he carried the medicine in a little thing in a (grip?). He carried all the medicine himself. Anything you wanted; he issued right out of that bag. That’s the way they handled sickness.Interviewer: Did they charge you for the medicine? Was there a charge? Or how
was that handled?Blalock: Well, I’m not certain about the medicine. They didn’t use nothing but
pills much. Best I remember, I don’t remember about how they charged for the medicine.Kington: I don’t think they did. I think that was in the call.
Blalock: And he’d go see them when they called.
Interviewer: Did they have hospitals?
Blalock and Kington: No.
Unknown: [pause] And churchgoing.
Interviewer: And churchgoing.
Other Interviewer: Right. We’ve not talked about that.
Blalock: Well now churchgoing was pretty good. They went to church better than
they do now.Kington: Again, they didn’t have anywhere else to go in lots of respects.
Blalock: That’s right.
Interviewer: Okay. Can you tell us about churchgoing and then about funerals?
Blalock: Well, they’d go to church in a wagon. They’d get up their family. They
had no other way to go. Some had what they called a surrey. And some would have a horse and buggy and use a horse. And some would have to use a mule to the buggy. They’d go in wagons and surreys and things like that. And they’d go to church, and sometimes they’d go and stay all day. They’d have church that morning and stay and have church that afternoon. Have all day meeting. And they’d take your families.Interviewer: And have dinner on the ground?
Blalock: Yeah. Have dinners on the ground, and all that.
Interviewer: Was there, describe one, if you can remember, one of the dinners.
What your mother or your wife or whoever would fix.Blalock: Well, they had what they called the association. You remember them?
Kington: Yeah.
Blalock: They’d have associations. The churches all formed associations. At
certain times they’d have an association, and they’d cook every kind of thing. Good meats and vegetables (?). And they’d take it to this church and have it on the ground. Dinner on the ground that day. I never will forget one fellow; he wasn’t that bright. His name was Dunes. And he come back home, and his mother said, “Well, Oliver, what kind of dinner did you all have today?” She didn’t go. He said, “Oh, they had fine dinner. They had four kinds of meat. They had ram, lamb, sheep, and mutton.” Well, that was all the same meat. Ram, lamb, sheep, and mutton. I never will forget that. He was sort of a moron, you know. He said they had ram, lamb, sheep, and mutton. [laughs]Kington: Back then, most all of their Sunday meals, the people (?) had their own
hogs. And most of them had their own chickens. Eggs, things like that. But now, you didn’t see too much beef. But it was principally hog and chickens. And I’ve seen dinners where they’d bring out squirrel.Interviewer: (?) Okay, let me phrase the question. (?)
Blalock: When a person died, they didn’t have undertakers and all. Some of the
neighbors would go in and dress this person and lay him out, what they called lay him out, and put quarters over his eyes to keep his eyes closed. They would wash him and get him ready. And they would dress him and get him ready for burial. And they’d put him in this coffin, a real cheap casket back then. And they would set up all night with him to get ready to bury him the next day. So, they didn’t embalm him, and lots of times the odor got pretty bad, because they weren’t embalmed. And I know you would have to fight the cats away from the windows. They would get the scent of the dead person. But then, when they carried them to the graveyard, way back, sometimes they carried them in a wagon. Then they finally got to carrying them in a horse-drawn hearse. Something similar to our ambulances now. It was a horse-drawn hearse. They would put them in that, drawn by horses. And take them to the graveyard, where they had had the neighbors, all would go dig the grave wherever the people had preferred that they be buried. They’d dig the grave, and they’d just take boards, flat boards, after they put the casket down in, they’d just take flat boards, just cut with the grave. And lay it over that. Cover the casket over with boards. And then put the dirt on that. Mound it up and put the flowers on it and go home. Now that’s the way they did it.Interviewer: Was there a religious service connected?
Blalock: Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: And why did they put, tell us about this flat board (?)
Blalock: Being right square on the casket.
Kington: In other word, give it pressure. Pressing down on the casket.
Interviewer: Why?
Blalock: Hmm?
Interviewer: Why?
Kington: That just the custom.
Blalock: Yeah. They didn’t want dirt right on the casket. I don’t know why. They
didn’t have vaults. You know, I remember (?) vault back then. Some of people still today go around the graveyard, look at the tomb rocks, and read the epi what you call that?Interviewer: Epitaph.
Blalock: Epitaph. And they do that now. Which back then they did. But most, back
then, the tomb rocks would be a slab of (sand?) rock. And they’d cut that date and all in that sand rock (?) way back then. They didn’t have the granite and material that they do now. They’d just take a (sand rock?) and put a slab up there with their name and all.Interviewer: (?) picture the mine, the miners.
Blalock: Well, it wasn’t (a lot of wood?). You remember that big, long one that
had all the (minerals?), I don’t know who’s got that. I’ve got some here now that (was taken at the mine?) in these latter days. Not way back then. Now that big, long one was way back then.Kington: (?)
Blalock: Yeah. (?) And I remember, you’re talking about hospitals and all– [pause]
Interviewer: Okay. This is side two of reel four. And we’re still in Morton’s Gap.
Unknown: (?) on the farm, where all the neighbors would come together and had to
do a particular task.Interviewer: Do you remember the first automobiles in the area?
Blalock: Yeah, the first one I remember was a (Saxon?). The first one I remember
being here. It was a (Saxon?) and it had (wire?) wheels and (?) on it. What’s his name, (?)Kington: Reeves?
Blalock: No. Carl.
Kington: Carl Miller.
Blalock: He had a little (Saxton?). But the first one, I believe, Dr. Davis had.
Kington: Well, I’ve always been led to believe, I don’t recall it, that Dr. A.W.
Davis had the first automobile (?) this part of the country. I didn’t hear.Unknown: (Coal?) is the name of the car.
[End Interview.]
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