Oral History Interview with Virgil Bell

Gatewood: This is one of a series of tapes sponsored by the Kentucky Folklife Foundation, in cooperation with the Kentucky Oral History Commission on the subject of healthcare in rural in the twentieth century. I’m in the home of Mr. Virge Bell, who knew Dr. John Hill, the country doctor, in the thirties and forties. It’s Tom Gatewood doing the interviewing. Mr. Bell, you now are the owner and operator of a store here, aren’t you?

: A grocery store, yeah. Kind of a general store.

Gatewood: When did you get into that business?

: 1966.

Gatewood: Did you, prior to getting into the grocery business, what kind of work did you do?

: I was logging trucking.

Gatewood: Did you, how did you get to know Dr. John Hill?

: Well, he was a doctor around here when I was a little kid. I’m 69 years old, born in 1913. And my dad got some medicine for some of the family when I was about ten years old, I guess from Doc Hill. He met him in . My dad was a teaming and he met him and told him about, he met him in and told him about some of the family being sick. And he gave him a little bottle of medicine of some kind, and it straightened them up. And I heard Doc say in World War I, flu, you know, broke out and killed a lot of people. And he say he rode a horse up and down this little South Fork River and used Vicks salve and you know, laxative stuff, and cured a lot of people where a lot of people died with it, you see. In other words, he was doing a better job than the big doctors that people go to and let them die.

Gatewood: Do you know whether or not Dr. Hill, do you know whether or not he ever went to school or not? Or did he just study−

: Oh, yeah. Yeah. He went to school. I don’t know, he went to . He got a high school education some way over there, I guess. Then he took some college on medicine and stuff. And of course he had a diploma. But it wasn’t a real doctor’s diploma. He had a diploma showing that he had studied medicine and stuff like that. And he was very good on toothache, pulling teeth, and childbirth. He was our doctor, our family doctor here whenever me and my wife− we were married in 1939. And three kids were born to us. And he was the midwife on all three of them. Five dollars, he charged five dollars for birthing a kid, you know, on the two first ones. And after that time, by the time the third one come around, he’d gone up five. He charged ten. And what does it cost you now? A thousand dollars? Two thousand? Around twenty-five−

Gatewood: They say up in , if you don’t have two thousand dollars, you better not have a child.

: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. It takes you around twenty-five hundred, I think, after it’s all over with. Going to the doctor, all of that junk. Well, our kids have been as healthy on average, and the lord has blessed us with them. They’re in good health. And all three of them got a good education, college education. And they all made schoolteachers. Done just as well as the average family anywhere, I’d say.

Gatewood: That’s good. That’s wonderful. Dr. Hill’s family, do you remember any of his family being in medical work?

: No. They never did anything more than just common labor. Common labor.

Gatewood: I wonder how he got interested in it. I guess maybe when he was at college or something.

: Well, his father was a good hustler. Good liverer. He owned, he lived in , and he got a hold of some of that land cheap, maybe inherited it. I don’t know. But anyway, they had plenty of money. But he had a terrible big family. He grew two families. Doc had a bunch of half brothers and sisters, some of them still living. He got one brother that still living. And I believe, a little bit believe he’s got a sister living, also. Half sister. Louis Hill. If you go around Bell Farm, , Louis Hill lives there. He’s a half brother. I guess the baby brother.

Gatewood: Well when did Dr. Hill come into this community in this area?

: Well, he lived all through here. He’d move a little while. He’d live one place, then he’d move, maybe a little somewhere else. And he, like I said, when I was a kid about ten years old, he was riding horseback up and down from here. Of course at that time, he lived at . And he would live up around , and then he’d move over here around . And then he’d finally move right out to adjoining farms on this one. And then they sold that and he needed to move. And old lady Kiz Barrier? she sold him a little patch about seven acres for a hundred dollars. And he’d be at this house right out here. And that’s where he died.

Gatewood: And he’s buried right behind the store.

: Yeah, he was buried on his own property there.

Gatewood: Did he do a little bit of farming to supplement his−

: Oh, he used to farm big. He had his farm big, and then he’d, then he’d go out of business and go back on horseback, you know, riding. He got over here and go on to building a barn, getting some cows. They kept a cow or two, two or three cows and a horse or two. Pair of mules. And he’d get out and ride down these roads, doctor a little, and then he’d quit.

Gatewood: Was he always subject, though, to call? If anybody needed him.

: Yes. He was good to go. Anytime in the night that you called him, he was always ready to go. Ready and willing. He never grumbled.

Gatewood: To your knowledge, did he, how did he get his medicine? Did he get it at the drugstore? Did he order it? Or did he−

: No, he could write prescriptions. He’d write prescriptions at the drugstore. Or he carried pill bags, you know. I a little bit believe he ordered a lot of that medicine because you know, big old red bottles that come in gallon size, something like that. They was scattered all over the place. Now he could have bought them, by that gallons, at the drugstore. I don’t know. But I never did know where he got his medicine. I figured that he could have ordered it, just assumed that he bought it from the mail. And, but now he kept his little paper bags, you know, that you put pills in, the way a doctor does. And then he’d write you directions out on them. And he could just do that like a city doctor. Like a graduated doctor.

Gatewood: Did he have an office at all? Or he just mainly worked out of the house?

: He’d just set it down in his lap and had a little thing, you know, maybe his pill bags. He’d turn the lid back and write on that. Or if you’d go to his house, why he’d go in the house, maybe had a little desk or something in there, you know. He had a little safe he kept a lot of his stuff in, you know.

Gatewood: You said that he charged five dollars to deliver babies, and then went up to ten later on. How much did he charge for other types, did he charge, maybe you don’t know specifically, but−

: Oh, I believe he charged a quarter for pulling a tooth.

Gatewood: Good grief! [laughs]

: And maybe, you know, depending on what kind of medicine he give you, he more or less charge you for the medicine. Well, maybe a dollar for the whole thing. Sometimes maybe two dollars, if it was strong medicine or something, you know.

Gatewood: Suppose he stayed up with a person a long time. Real sick, watching a bedside around. Did he charge a lot per hour?

: Well, he’d usually charge you a dollar a trip, two dollars, something like that. If he had to come to your house and then the doctor had him a patient there at the house, you know, and he would come there and doctor a while. If he didn’t give you too strong a medicine, I mean, too costly a medicine, it would just be a dollar. Sometimes a dollar-and-a-half, a dollar-and-a-quarter. Different prices, you know. He had money all the time. He lived good, as far as that was concerned, but he never got rich, you know.

Gatewood: And he mainly, you say transportation, he walked a horse−

: He had a horse. Yeah, he’d always ride his horse. Yeah.

Gatewood: Did he ever get an automobile?

: Yes. Finally he wind up and got him an automobile. That’s about when he went up to the ten dollars on delivering a baby. He got him an automobile. And he learned to drive, too. He could drive around pretty good. He was way up in years, but he drove around quite a bit. Sometimes he’d get somebody to go with him and drive.

Gatewood: Did he ever open an office in town in ?

: No. No, they wouldn’t let him. The other doctors wouldn’t let him, you know. He had to do his doctoring out in the country. Of course, they didn’t want that job, you know, down there then.

Gatewood: Yeah. I’ve heard tell that he did open an office there and he was run out. But that might be folklore. It might not be true. I don’t know.

: I don’t believe it is. Maybe he wanted to. Seemed like he wanted to one time, and they bucked against him, and he had to go back to the country. If he did, it seemed like I heard something said about it. But I know that the rumors was that they wouldn’t let him doctor in town.

Gatewood: That’s the significant thing. I know, I’ve interviewed Mr. Roscoe−

: Coffey?

Gatewood: Coffey.

: Yeah.

Gatewood: And he’s a real old person. And he says, he remembers, and he’s a very, seemingly a very honest man, though he still could have been a rumor. But he said that he did actually open an office there and he was getting so many patients, they ran him out. [laughs]

: Well, I never heard nothing about that. I know that I always heard that he, that they wouldn’t let him doctor in town because he was getting close to those qualified doctors, you know.

Gatewood: I talked to Dr. Duncan about him, Frank Duncan, and he says he practiced. And said he wasn’t licensed, but he practiced out here. And he said he knew of him.

: Yeah.

Gatewood: As a matter of fact, I think he was his doctor. Dr. Duncan.

: Yes, I think he was, too. Yes, I believe he doctored with Dr. Frank Duncan.

Gatewood: He came out when he had that cancer. And then he died. Must have been, must have been a tremendous man. It seemed like he−

: He got a, he got a good name of skin cancer, too. Being a skin cancer doctor, you know. He got a big name on that. He got a hold of some sort of a remedy that would take them skin cancers out, you know. And there was an old lady on Rock Creek. She was a Blevins. She came over here and stayed with him. He didn’t charge her much, wouldn’t charge her much board, you know, and all that. She would just be covered up with great big ones, big as half a dollar, silver dollar, you know. And he’d take them out. They said whenever they come loose, the roots of them would look like a spider or something, you know. Going every direction. But they finally killed her. She just, they got all over her so bad. And then there was another old guy. He was just, I don’t know, some called him a tramp and some called him a bum, you know. But he’d just go around and about place, stay wherever he get to. Beryl Terpin was his name. And he moved in out there with Dr. Hill, and stayed with him for a good long while. He had a different cancer. It wasn’t a skin cancer. It was a (?). But he didn’t do it no good. It finally got the old fellow. And then that was what killed Dr. Hill, too. His left arm had went haywire. I believe it was his left arm. It went bad on him, you know, right in the muscle. It just hurt like everything all the time. And when they took him out, and took him to the hospital, I went out there and helped load him in the ambulance. He was complaining about don’t bother his arm, you know. don’t pinch his arm. And when they got up there and X-rayed him, they took him to , I believe, or or someplace. I don’t remember. Anyway, the ambulance came out here and got him and took him away, went to . And they shipped him on to or or someplace, I don’t know where. And they found out that he had a cancer and it had eat the bone in two, you know. Bone cancer. And of course he never did come back home. That was the end. Four or five days, that’s as long as he lived after that.

Gatewood: In regard to that, it seems like his house was, in a sense, almost a hospital for some cases. He’d let people come there.

: Oh, yeah. Well, yes. They always did do that, you know. They’d have somebody, let him stay around, let them work or something, you know. They kept a big bunch around. A lot of times, you’d see three or four different people around.

Gatewood: And he had wife and children himself?

: Oh, yeah. Yeah. They had, they growed a big family.

Gatewood: Did his wife kind of help him around there?

: He was a housekeeper, you know. Anna. She was a close one. She was an awful close woman. They were a bit hardy, but she was awful close, watched after everything. Garden, you know, she made a big garden, done a lot of canning. Kept chickens. And she kept, she milked cows, you know. If she could, she’d sell butter and milk, chicken and eggs, it didn’t matter. Just so she’d get a dime out of it. She was looking for the money.

Gatewood: Probably what kept him going a lot of times – close watch.

: Well, it did help. Yes, it did help. Mm hmm.

Gatewood: I’m wondering, and you may not know about this, but in regard to the hospital. Of course, there weren’t many hospitals around in that time, but clinics and things. I wonder if he sent some of his people to the hospital, to the clinic. Did they recognize him to−

: No, no. He never did do that. He never would send nobody. Talking about labor. Delivering babies. There used to be quite a few midwives around here, you know. Well, some localities they use them. And if Doc Hill was close, of course they’d get him. And I know one lady over on Big Sink in here. She was some of my relations. She went on a labor case one time and the baby was, needed to be turned to , you know. And she was afraid to tackle it. So she told him, she said, “You’re going to have to get Doc Hill or a town doctor.” They went and got Doc Hill, and he just chained into that baby and borned it there within a couple of hours. And it was all right. So that was how much they all knowed about it, you see. They just didn’t go there and let the laborer, I mean, let nature take care of itself. Why, if it needed help, they could do it, you see. And they knowed what needed done at that time. And of course if it got too far along, they’d have to go to a hospital or something, you know. Any more now, why, it seems like one can’t be born unless it is in a hospital or somewheres, you know. Dr. Roberts, he’s still, or I don’t know if he does right now or not, but it ain’t been but just a short time back that he would still go to their homes and born these kids.

Gatewood: Yeah, he’s done a lot of it. I interviewed him.

: Did you?

Gatewood: Yes, sir. And I’m sure he’s delivered a lot of babies out in the county.

: Oh, yeah.

Gatewood: I don’t believe he does now. He’s trying to, he’s trying to retired. He’s getting pretty aged.

: Yes, his age is getting way up there.

Gatewood: But he has a place in his home where he’ll see people. And he still delivers at the hospital.

: Yeah.

Gatewood: He relieves Dr. Duncan, I think. Dr. Frank Duncan. Both of them are getting old. And when they go, there’s no young man there to even deliver them.

: That is right. That is right. And I’ll tell you that it seemed as though you could just pick up somebody on the streets and do just about as good a job to me.

Gatewood: Well obviously these midwives seem to be able to handle− as long as there’s a way, it seems, from what I know, and of course I’m not a doctor and don’t know. But it seems like most babies − I know I raised hogs and I helped animals − most of them were just a natural thing. They just need somebody there to keep things clean and everything.

: That’s right. Mm hmm.

Gatewood: But then if there is some complications, you need a way to get to a doctor.

: That’s right. yes.

Gatewood: But what, seems like what’s breaking down here is all these midwives we used to have are gone.

: They are. Yes.

Gatewood: And all the country doctors are gone.

: Country doctors is gone. And the good doctors that used to could give birth to a baby, I mean, labor, you know, do the labor part, they don’t do the job like these old ones used to do.

Gatewood: What relative was that of yours that was a midwife?

: She was a Roberts. Polly Roberts.

Gatewood: I’ve heard of her.

: Polly Coffey. Her husband name was Elishy Roberts. And she was a Coffey out of this bunch of Coffeys on . And she was a good one. And then there was the old lady that was, done my, you know, my family doctoring, like that, was Ann Burkes. Annie Burkes. She was a Blevins. And married a Burkes. She come off in the Big South Fork Railroad, probably out of . But now she was a good one. And she had a daughter, Bertie. Bertie Burkes. Bertie married a Gilbert. And she took up the work. And she done good for a long many years. I’ve heard people say that she’d get in the bed with them, right up in the bed with them on her knees. And God, she’d just stay right there until the thing was over with. Good, accommodating people. They were awful good. Of course, they’d charge a little something for their work and time. But then they was good with the children. They’d clean them up and wash them, you know, and take care of them. See that everything was all right. Maybe drop back by and see how they was getting along.

Gatewood: Did they usually, did they usually come before the baby was born, too, and kind of talk with the mother?

: No, they’d wait until the time. And of course they’d already be spoken to, you see. And whenever the time come, why, if it happened in the night, you’d just get your horse and go. And they’d crawl on a horse, maybe of their own. They would call Annie Burkes. She had an old swayback mare she rode. And Polly Roberts did, too. She’d get on that old mare at and go for ten miles if it was necessary, you know. It didn’t make no difference.

Gatewood: Through some very rugged country, I guess.

: Yeah. Yeah. Well, of course, had little trails all over these hills, you know. Whichever way you went. There used to be road, ride a horseback and a wagon road, went right out up through that hill there and around. Used to be fifteen or twenty homes back through there, you know. And if they lived over here, why it’s no telling what night they’d be called out to go back that way. Of course, they lived on down the river and back over there.

Gatewood: People don’t live back in there as much.

: No, no. There’s not but one person live back that way now.

Gatewood: There’s no roads to there.

: The road’s still there. You can still go in on a horse, or walk. Of course now, then, they’ve got another road made that you can go back in a car back that way, too.

Gatewood: Is that by going down here and coming down−

: The next store, and go across, and head right out through there.

Gatewood: I’d like to go back in that area and just see, you know. Maybe some of the old houses still there, or something. Or have they been torn−

: They’re all about gone but the one this guy lives in. And there’s another one that’s still there, but it grewed up, you couldn’t even get to it, I don’t guess, walking. Yeah, my grandmother Coffey lived there. And Roscoe’s father and mother. See, Roscoe and me is first cousins.

Gatewood: Oh, yeah? I didn’t know that.

: Yeah, his mother, I mean, his father and my mother was brothers and sisters.

Gatewood: Was Dr. John, was he a member of any church?

: Yeah, he was Baptist. He was a Baptist. When he lived in Palmersville, why, he was a Sunday school teacher, and leader of the choir, you know, singing. And after he moved out here, why, he took a good spell out there. And he’d get up on the porch every Sunday morning and sing. You could hear him all over the place. Yeah. Then he would break away, you know. He liked his drink. And he’d get drunk and break away.

Gatewood: I’ve heard he liked his drink. Someone told me that, you probably know the man, I can, he said that, I talked to him, that’s right, he told me you’d be a good one to talk to. He said you used to be a drinking buddy of Dr. John. [laughter] He’s a nice fellow. I forget his name now. But I’ve got it down here somewhere. You probably know him. He said he’d be willing to talk with me about him. But said you would probably really know him better. Mr. Burnett, Johnny Burnett, do you know him?

: Johnny? Yeah, yeah.

Gatewood: He wouldn’t talk with me Monday about it. But you’ve given me some awful good information. I think this is going to be very, very helpful. Can you think of anything else that might be helpful?

: Well, that’s about all that I could tell you, I guess. He was just a very handy man around here with the poor people, you know. A lot of people couldn’t have gone to the, to and around, I mean, the doctors wouldn’t go that far. Of course, most of them people up in there, Burnetts and Browns and so on, they had money to bought the hospital, or bought the doctors and so on if they’d wanted it. And then there was a lot of just labor class people, work for fifty, seventy-five cents, a dollar a day, and so on, you know. They just couldn’t pay it. And the doctor out of went up there back in the thirties. Why, he got fifteen dollars, you know. Doc Hill go up there for two. And do just about the same thing, you know.

Gatewood: And knew many of the people probably better.

: Yeah. You take pneumonic fever or typhoid and all that stuff, a lot of typhoid fever broke out along about then, you know. And he was just a genius on that. And he was good on pneumonia, too. And he could, he could stop you right now. I mean, break it up on you.

Gatewood: Let’s see what we got here. We got just a little more−

[28 minutes]

[End Side A. Begin Side B. End session.]