Oral History Interview Betsy Dienes & Ed Dienes

Interviewer: Today is March 17, 1985. My name is Teka Ward. I am interviewing Betsy and Ed Deines. We’re at 2228 Bonnycastle Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky. Our tropic is Lou Tate and The Little Loomhouse. As we begin, first tell me something about each of you all.

Ed: Go ahead.

Betsy: I am the head of the Highland Branch Library and I did study art. I have a degree in Art Education and then I went back later and got my degree in library science and so all the while these years I’ve had a lot of interest in art and crafts related subjects. Before I was at Highland, I was head of the Fine Arts Section at the Main Library, which I really enjoyed.

Teka: And what about you, Ed?

Ed: I have a degree in chemistry from the University of Louisville. Both the BS and the MS I’ve been working in chemistry in relation to catalysts at the University of Louisville. I uh, became interested in the uh, arts, crafts dating back to a fair at St. James Court, one of the early St. James Court Fairs. I uh, became so enthused about the spinning and Meridan Meise was more or less working with small children at the looms, one of the Lou Tate small looms and uh after spending time watching and that Meridan sort of took me aside and said uh, “would you mind coming and giving me assistance at Lou Tate’s in dying- that part is after she found out I was a chemist and uh the following Sunday Betsy and I went out to help and helped her with the dying. Primarily, I was a pot pull mover. I moved pots from one place to another because they were pretty heavy and there were a lot of pots there and uh it was sort of exciting because I knew what was going on and uh with my chemical background became of the different chemicals that are used as mordents for dying. I sort of played the part that I didn’t know much but the more I was there, I saw these colors coming out and that I sort of became real excited after that. I guess I became a natural dyer! (Laughter)

Betsy: The children would uh, for Lou and the other groups of people out there would have the children spin something and then they would take it to the pot, this little strand and Ed would have to dye it for them and then they would mark it some way- like tie a knot in it and sometimes I’m sure they get their little strand back so that they would have a color strand to take home with them.

Teka: When would you say this was? How long ago?

Betsy: Oh God, how old was Leah?

Ed: Well, the Little Debussman girls, they were what?

Betsy: Leaha was about seven and she’s twenty-two now.

Ed: Yeah, seven.

Betsy: She was the one we couldn’t get away form the loom, the loom and that another reason that we went back out there again was because she was so interested. Our daughter, Leaha, was so interested in the weaving and we couldn’t get her away from the loom and so when they asked us to go out there and help them, we were glad to go out to see what was going on at Lou’s.

Teka: So did she take lessons from Lou Tate, learning how to weave?

Betsy: I don’t think she ever took lessons. She just liked to play with it.

Teka: She caught on.

Betsy: Um- huh.

Teka: But she’s musical, so…

Betsy: Yes, so I think she wanted to get away from (ha) the arts and crafts that we were so interested in it and sort of got her own way but ah she at that age I think most children are interested in doing something like that to see that they could actually make a piece of cloth or even a part of a piece of cloth. Just fascinating for them.

Teka: What did the Loomhouse look like that first day you all went out there?

Betsy: We were outside most of the time.

Teka: What did you remember about it?

Betsy: Rustic (laughter)

Ed: Ah, I think you could find anything you wanted at the Loomhouse if you knew where to look for it. Ah, the uh fact that uh you saw all this cloth- especially the coverlets and that, uh, the different, uh, uh, I guess weaving patterns and that, uh, just the rustic outdoors of the place, uh. There were successive open houses and the first open house was on a Sunday afternoon and there was the spinning and the weaving and uh Meridan Meise was doing the dying demonstration which I helped with. Seems like either the following Sunday or the Sunday after that there was an open house where she had tie-dye so actually uh, that which called double exposure- natural dying one Sunday afternoon and uh, tie-dye the uh the following Sunday and the Sunday after that so it really was two beautiful Sunday afternoons.

Teka: Was Lou Tate glad to have people coming out there and helping her with the dying for instance?

Ed: I think Lou just liked to have people be at her place and for them to bring other people back. Ah, she was uh, a person who liked to give of herself. And uh, she wanted people to know all about uh, her place and what she had to offer the community and uh, she really enjoyed having visitors.

Teka: You said that you would hear her discussing history and talking about her knowledge of weaving in the past.

Betsy: Well, sometimes after everyone would leave we would take a bottle of scotch and we’d all sit around and talk for a long time- for just hours, just a group of us and I was always amazed at how much history she did know and I didn’t know she uh, well, I assumed she had studied history and then of course she would tell stories about Eleanor Roosevelt, everyone, well, she told that one quite often and different people who’d been out there and what they’d done and what she was hoping that she could leave the cabins to the community and uh how she had worked in the school system and all that sort of thing.

Ed: She also had this, uh knowledge of the geology and the lay of the land, uh, where the Loomhouse was located and all these, uh, what do you call these little uh, things.

Betsy: Fossils

Ed: Fossils, yeah, and she’d have the children up there and uh scratching around in back of the Tophouse, uh, picking up these fossils and all that and uh there you had an afternoon of spinning, fossil hunting (ha-ha) weed gathering. I mean she made everybody real interested, especially children- and adults but she had this knack for working with children.

Teka: Tell me who would be present at some of the open houses you all attended.

Betsy: You talkin’ about the potlucks or the others?

Teka: Either one

Betsy: Okay, well, sometimes we’d have a potluck and everybody would bring their favorite foods and then after the “visitors” , so to speak, left, the “regulars” we would just sit around and we would get to talk to one another and uh the Conklins, Ruth and Russ Conklin from the down around Shakertown and Brother Kim of course he didn’t bring any food- I don’t think- ha-ha.

Ed: If he did it was some of the Gethsemane cheese (laughter)

Betsy: Yeah, and uh Sally Moss and the Debussman’s and uh, Hal Tennny and uh, his wife. Marshes.

Ed: Marses, Dan and Diane Wibble.

Betsy: Wibbles, he was always talking photographs.

Ed: Unintelligible

Betsy: And uh, Meridan Meise was there till she lived out of town and uh, Martha March and uh, there’s so many people it’s hard to remember them all. And Mike Kirk. Let me think.

Teka: You were saying that it was almost like a catalyst, her cabins and her activities, just her.

Betsy: Yes, I think that she not only introduced people to things that maybe they had a latent interest in it like I had sat down in art but I hadn’t been doing anything because you have to be really good to draw and paint and I did have an interest and I think it just spurred me on to go ahead and here’s something I can do and it’s gonna be fun and I’m gonna enjoy it and with Ed and his being a chemist and uh the vegetable dying was so akin to that it got him interested and so we worked together then and I think a lot of people she did that. I don’t know that her, she would, uh, not that her lessons and things would teach you everything you wanted to know but it would get you started and then you would go on your own. Also bringing the different people together who had various backgrounds and we would learn from one another and this is real exciting, especially Meridan Meises was one of the people I think that got me started and got Ed started because she was such an enthusiastic person and Lou was too. She would make you think you could do something even if you couldn’t and you’d keep trying and pretty soon you could do it. Don’t you think?

Ed: Oh yes.

Teka: What would you all say you would go out there? How long- over how long a period of time?

Betsy: Oh, once a week for what, ten years?

Ed: Seems like it was at least, uh, uh.

Betsy: Or twice a month anyway.

Ed: Two or three times during the month usually on Sunday afternoons, uh, Saturday or Sunday, uh.

Betsy: And sometimes both, if there was a workshop going. They’d have a spinning weekend or a dying weekend or both a dying weekend. (Laughter)

Teka: Did you teach the other people what you were doing with the dying or did you just do it?

Ed: Oh no, uh, with the dying , the uh, it’s a matter of getting children excited about what they’re doing uh, other than just sticking a piece of spun washed wool onto a color- uh, they have to know where these colors come from number one, so gathering the plants and ever, uh, getting the dye by taking them and soaking them in water and then bringing the water to a simmer in order to extract the color out, uh, while you’re doing that uh, the uh, uh, different uh wools, uh, whether they’re small strands or large strands, uh would go through a uh, uh, well they were the wools would be mordanted and uh usually in the mordanting uh, I would set up at least three different types of mordents in order to get a color range with a particular dye plant. Now uh, you may want to know what a mordant is, well a mordant is a uh, uh, a chemical, whether it’s a chemical that is within the plant itself or a small amount of a metal salt which makes the natural dye permanent to light and washing. The uh, mordents that are, uh, you normally find in your natural plants, not all of them, especially in the woods and barks would be tannin, tannic acid, the uh, chemicals that were used was, uh, alum, ah, which you normally would find in the drugstore or in a uh, uh, a country store, I mean I think they use alum for pickles, uh, pickling, cucumbers, something like that, uh, these uh the other metal salts would be uh, uh, bluest, one, which is copper sulfate which is used for uh, keeping algae down in ponds, uh another one would be uh, copperas, uh, uh, which is an iron sulfate. So, uh, with your uh, with your chemicals which you could get rather inexpensively, uh, you were able to make a uh, a variety of colors with the alum giving you the brightest if you were using a dye that would normally give you a yellow, uh that would give you brightest then your uh, copper sulfate would give you a sort of another shade which is a sort of a, a bluish-green cast to it and the iron would make it sad, uh, the coppers would make it sad, so uh, with a particular color uh, you could then if you had too much of one color, you could uh change to it if you had a red, uh, there are natural reds but uh, they don’t come very easy, uh, uh, the one that most people always think of is poke betties except it’s, it’s hard to uh, get to where it’s fast to light and washing and when it does fade, it fades to a nice beautiful color. I mean still natural looking, still beautiful but uh, uh, using combinations of reds with the yellows, you would get oranges. If you had the yellow with the blue and blue would be the indigo, which is a natural dye, you could get greens, so, uh, by getting a, a number of these basic colors, I mean you get all, all the colors like an artist with his paint brush, I mean you could make all the different shades that you…

Betsy: We would go out and gather the plants and like even here at the house. You can’t believe the smell. Like coreopsis, that yellow plant that you see in the fall just you know fields of it, just like oceans. And even do a big pot, say of that and then you’d have your different wools in different pots with the mordents. Now they wouldn’t just look like they were white and then if you put them all in this one pot that has the plant in it, they would all come out a different color because of the different mordents. Since I’m not a chemist, I thought I would tell you the way it would look to me and that would explain it a little more.

Ed: Uh, there would be the uh, little girl that her strands of uh, thread and they all came from a different mordant pot and she puts them all together and she comes out, she’s got all these different colors. I mean It’s really it’s, it gives you a sort of excitement and…

Betsy: (both talking) Try this one- I think we’ve got some jewel weed down on the hill or something. We’d collect it right there on her property- we’d collect different things and she’d say, “Have you ever tried this?” “Have you ever tried tomato plant?” “Have you ever tried tobacco leaves?” Different things and of course you’d have to have a great amount to make dye.

Ed: A lot, I mean you know and walnut hulls and things like that.

Betsy: She had those.

Ed: Well that of course these were things you could gather right up there. It was an adventure (pause) on the, the uh, tye dying, with the tye dying that also became an adventure too. And uh, this is where Betsy and Meridan and a number of people would uh, more or less show the, the young child exactly, you know, how to make different designs and that. Now, I was the pot, the man who took care of the dye pots and uh, tried to make sure that whatever came out of that pot was something that was exciting to the child that the child would be proud to wear that. Ha- ha. But uh, with that experience, uh, it was a good experience for the children and they became pretty, pretty good at uh coming up w/their own designs and that and uh, they were fairly creative. And it was a creative thought for Bets and I because we actually got into it, uh, real seriously and we actually from there we got into the Louisville Craftsmen Guild and the Kentucky Guild for the Artists and Craftsmen and uh used it uh your work with batiks and uh your “soft” pieces and that. It was sort of like branching off I mean. You got into uh other groups. As Bets says, I mean the place had a sort of magnetism, a sort of effect that it made people reach out.

Teka: We have here a 1972 Spider page and your name is mentioned on this. Evidentially you made this spider web.

Betsy: Yes, it was a lot of fun. We uh, it was something that Lou wanted us to try to do. She wanted it. I think for the children but once I got started I was just so fascinated I kept working and working and I even went so far as to make a spider to go on it. I’d macramé it. The legs and everything. Then, once it was finished, it really did look like a giant spider web that maybe a spider had made. I couldn’t ask any spiders but it was just another thing that we did. In fact, it had been so long ago, I had forgotten all about it.

Teka: Here’s a picture of Lou Tate right here in this, on this page.

Ed: There’s Martha March.

Betsy: Uh-huh

Teka: Now here, she seems to have on a blouse and a skirt but generally that isn’t what she wore.

Ed: Uh, I have a hard time describing what she wore but, uh I should have thought about like what you’d find back in Colonial Days and uh, she uh she always seemed to I believe it had a, uh, a skirt along with the shirt and a little vest.

Betsy: Like she cared how she really looked. It was just not an important part of her life. Uh, her hair looked like it was cut w/a bowl (laughter) She didn’t take care of her teeth but she loved to smile.

Ed: Yes, uh, she had that sort of grin on her face. She looked sort of impish- like, like uh some mischievous, I guess you’d say. But, uh, she was thinking uh, uh of something and more or less uh, uh, get you involved in it and then after you got involved with it, she’d went and tried, tried something else on another person. I mean, uh, she a had a way of stimulating and getting people into things and then after you were involved, she let you carry the ball. (laughter) And she’d call on you to come out and help her to keep that ball rolling at the old Loomhouse. Oh, she was good.

Teka: You mentioned the chili suppers.

Ed: Yeah (laughter) Those were good times down at the bottom house.

Betsy: That was the only time we were in that house was during those times. She didn’t like people going in there.

Ed: I guess we were…

Betsy: That was her private area, I think.

Ed: We went to at least two of ‘em and uh, uh, usually the Tenny’s the ones that were her close neighbors, was it Mickey, Mickey Lawson, uh the neighbor over the Tenny’s, Mike Kirk, Bets and I uh can’t think of uh, some of the others, but uh, what I remember is that after having chili and wine and cheese and a belly full, we sat around the fireplace and just, just talked about any thing. (laughter) and with the group that were there, I mean the, the subject matter would wander all over, uh, um.

Betsy: The world. (laughter)

Ed: The world.

Betsy: It’s a big round- It’s almost like going back in Colonial Times Because it’s a huge fireplace and we’d sit at this long table and that was about the only furniture in there and she had these gorgeous, uh, coverlets on the walls, probably to not only keep warm but I think to hide her piles of research papers that and things she was always working on because she had a great deal of paper work. It was just a different experience because I don’t think we even used electric light in there as I recall, do you?

Ed: Probably with all those coverlets hanging around it kept the cold out because I’m sure that those kerosene the for heating and that, uh, couldn’t keep ah, the place warm especially on some of those could winters. But, ah, it was a very unusual experience.

Teka: Did she make the chili herself?

Ed: Oh yes! She had one of those big, big bowls that they use.

Betsy: I don’t know what they’re called (laughter)

Teka: She would have it cook all day long on the stove- I mean on the…

Ed: She cooked down at the bottom house- now where I don’t know.

Betsy: It was a tiny kitchen and a sink and…

Ed: I’m not at all sure she wouldn’t use her fireplace for something like that because I Think it would have been suited for it.

Teka: She had it there all day long probably cooking.

Ed: I remember the State Fair an exhibit that the State Fair had Lou and the Loomhouse ones uh, put on, uh, I don’t recall what year it was but it was an exhibit that lasted for the entire week. It consisted of showing these old coverlets along with the date that they were made and who would make them and uh, some history on the pattern that uh, each un something about hem and uh then there was a demonstration of spinning and weaving and uh, during the sheep shearing uh over in the sheep shearing part of the uh, the uh, her demonstration was in the East Wing and the sheep shearing was in the West Wing. The, uh, the wool from some of the sheep came from the sheep shearing over and uh, was used for the spinning uh, the uh, some of the ones, I recall being there was Conklins, came from uh, Bergen and helped in some of the demonstrations both in spinning and weaving uh, I think Martha Henry, uh, I don’t know why I was there because I don’t think I did any dying or anything like that. Except I could talk to people and if necessary some I knew enough that I could talk about what was going on and uh she needed to have someone who could more or less talk to the people and let them know about the uh…

Betsy: They had dye- sessions about dying.

Ed: The spinning and weaving- whatever.

Teka: Now you wanted to say something. You wanted to say something about the vest you were telling about.

Betsy: Well Lou, because Ed had done so much of the vegetable dying for her, wove a vest for me and one for Ed and mine was all different shades using the conch nil which is a spider from Mexico or she called it a spider- I just called it a bug. It is a natural dye because it is a living thing. And his was shades of gray and yellow, all from the goldenrod plant. I was really pleased because I don’t think she did a lot of weaving for people and I still wear mine and…

Ed: I still have mine- I don’t think the moths have eaten yet (laughter)

Teka: This is the end of the interview with Betsy and Ed Deines concerning Lou Tate and the Little Loomhouse.