Oral History Interview Ed Jungbert Jr.

Today is March 21, 1985. My name is Teka Ward. I am interviewing Ed Jungbert Jr. We are at 2141 Southside Drive, Louisville, Kentucky, the location of the Jungbert Corporation. Our topic is Lou Tate and the Little Loomhouse.

T.W. I want you to tell me some about when your daughter first went up there.

E.J. Well

T.W. You all walked by there.

E.J. Yeah

T.W. because…

E.J. Because as my daughter grew up she always worked with Miss Tate’s business. As my daughter got older and Miss Tate got older they were both strong willed people and always very, very good at weaving. She grew up when Miss Tate had a group of young kids. She asked Laurie to come up after school and have her help teach it and she loved it. But Miss Tate was, uh, if she felt bad she’d jump on Laurie pretty good and Laurie would jump back on her. And Laurie would come back and she’d say “Daddy, I’m never going back up to Miss Tate’s again.” Well, that would last about a week or so and Miss Tate would call and Laurie would go back up there because she felt like she’d be missing something, uh, and uh, they’d get back together again. But, Laurie, she is very talented and it’s just something. And in fact, she’s at Murray State now and she had to take a weaving class because of her major. And it’s worked out good because her teacher thinks that Miss Tate’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to the industry. And Laurie grew up beside her and, uh, it’s just a neat situation. In fact Miss Tate had no clothes, you know, she had that one day (a meeting) that she wore for 50 years and that’s what we’d get her for Christmas, something to wear or a new bottle of wine

T.W. Do you think that her not letting other people get involved, the banker, the lawyer, and you was she protecting her faculty, was she…

E.J. Yes, she was, she was protecting. She never wanted to let go. She never, she lived her life like a hermit and everything. Course we never knew how much money she had. We didn’t know if she had enough money to eat. I don’t know if she was on food stamps. I don’t know anything. We could never find out. She would never let anyone close to her. And, uh, you know, what can you do when something like that?

T.W. We have a picture here of the, uh, well, it’s a 1972 spiral page, but your name is mentioned on it “that was before E. Jungbert began having the parking area enlarged.” Tell us more about that.

E.J. Well, the, we live on a hill that’s always been a problem, in Louisville. It’s Kenwood Hill. And we’ve had a lot of wash, so there’s a road behind Miss Tate’s cabin and the Tophouse. And the road kept inching over her property and started moving the cabin. And she fought city hall for God knows how many years. But we had to divert the water, uh, to get it away from her place. So we started building over the years, started building a new parking lot and expanding it and getting the water further away from her house. Uh, we had to open up ditches, uh, where the mud had washed in. And finally, she, I don’t know which mayor did it, but somebody built a new road up there and blocked off and got everything pretty stable up there. But even brand new houses on the hill have slid, some of them 2 or 3 foot. And uh, the cabins have withstood it because they’re (dealt, stood ?) with it a little bit. But they’re all getting old and basically, I think, they’re rotten. You know, I’ve always had the opinion that, what’s the name of the society in Louisville that takes care of, uh, Filson, the Filson Club. I think that the Filson Club or Kentucky, or Museum, uh, that we had downtown, should take all this stuff and display properly and have a room for it. And the way we can make money is to sell that property and abandon it, uh, and in lieu of, uh, putting more money into it. Because, uh, you know it looks nice and, uh, it’s beautiful and weavers used to weave in the trees where the Easter lilies are, and, uh, in the (Fall?), but I don’t think the houses are controlled, uh, humidity wise and to deep those patents and there’s a lot of stuff. I imagine when you start really digging that you’ll find a lot more things that she’s got hid because she hid everything. She’d stick it in corners and behind walls and, uh, she knew where it was. I never did understand weaving. I didn’t understand the big patterns. But I understand, I went to the Smithsonian, somebody up there knew her, you know, Miss was known everywhere. Uh, she evidently knew her business and was an originator of a lot of this stuff.

T.W. Well,

E.J. Well, my mostly interest, my basic interest be, uh, started as a neighbor.

T.W. That’s what I was going to say, when you first walked by that time…

E.J. Uh-huh, uh-huh

T.W. And you were aware about how the neighboring people felt about her and the people in the community.

E.J. Well there’s only 2 or 3 people in the neighborhood that really talk to her, uh, she wasn’t friendly with most of them. She minded her own business and when she had people up there they’d park cars all over their yards and everything and it irritated a lot of people. Uh, you had to really know her well and forget about all that stuff. But, an interesting thing – I was born right here where we were and we, my dad and my sisters and I, would walk straight up that hill. There was nobody there at all and we ventured away a little many, many years ago and walked way over the hill and got lost and we ended up at Miss Tate’s house. And she told us, and I’ll never forget this, that if we stayed there for too long that the Indians would get us. And she called my dad and they came back so we went from there to there and got lost. I mean it was wilderness then. Now we’re talking, we’re talking 40 years ago.

T.W. So you remember seeing her when you were a little …

E.J. Oh yeah, yeah, but I didn’t know her until I moved up there.

T.W. What was your first impression of her?

E.J. Uh, back then I was glad to see somebody, you know. But I, I admired the lady for what she knew and, uh, and what she tried to do, you know. I had no interest in weaving. To me that’s the last thing I, that I would ever do, you know? But I think you know, that there’s a place for everybody in this world.

T.W. Do you think that it was a combination of uh, how the things built up and growing and her getting older that caused her to be, as you put it, grouchy?

E.J. I think so, I don’t think she, didn’t really, she never took care of herself, you know. She’d take care of everybody else before she’d take care of herself. Uh, I really don’t think she’s felt good for many, many years.

T.W. Now tell again about taking the, uh, she would call you up and want you to take a little loom somewhere.

E.J. Well, she, she’d call up there , she, she’d go out on schools and she’d call up and she’d say, “Ed, I need Laurie this afternoon and I need you to pick up a loom and to take it to either Doss or Auburndale or Kenwood or other schools.” And, uh, she’d say that you can pick me up about uh, 6:30, 7:00. Well, we would do it, you know, we would do whatever she wanted done because she, she was a nice person and uh, we did that for years, we did that for years.

T.W. And then you had her to your house at Christmas.

E.J. Had her at my house at Christmas and we had to go get her and actually uh, had, (her?) up there, she wouldn’t go but once we got her up there she had a good time.

T.W. Do you think that uh, if we sold the place up there, I mean this is a controversial idea, don’t you think that it is? I mean, I think that it’s hard for people to let go.

E.J. Well, I don’t see why it’s hard for people to let go because who’s got a hold of it? I mean who’s really got a hold of the place? Uh, is there some organization? Do you know?

T.W. Well, we (made an appeal?) at the last board meeting and we taped the last board meeting and because this is an important part, the Lou Tate Foundation, Inc. owns the premises and I think that you think they’re beating a dead horse.

(laughter)

E.J. Uh, as I said, that’s one person’s opinion and I’m looking at it, number 1, I’m in a lot of uh, volunteer group, I’m in (last ___?), Kentucky Derby Festival and everybody wants to be there on a Sunday for the big show, but it’s hard to find them on Saturday or Friday to get ready and find them on Monday to help clean up. Uh, I don’t really know how much we, we think everybody should be interested in it, but how much interest really is there? I think you’d get more masses of people if it had a nice display somewhere, uh, some place that this stuff could be protected. I don’t know the value of it, as I say, I don’t know anything about it. But, uh, I think that it should be somewhere where, all you have to do is have one kook go up on the top of Kenwood Hill Road and drop a match and everything that everybody’s worked for is gone cause there is no way that anybody could save it.

T.W. Do you think that we should try to open up, um, Do you think that we should take some of the money that the foundation would get and have another place where we did our weaving and people taught weaving or …

E.J. I don’t think that you should ever buy, invest in property because I think that there should be a place in the museum or you’ve got the Speed. I don’t know, I’ve never been in the Speed Museum in my life, but my wife takes the kids there, or some place at

U of L. There should be some place where you could get space and everybody could see and the money that would be taken from selling that property put, invested, and use that to further their education uh, to you know, to keep it progressing.

T.W. I see. So that the people who, where the money would go, would be the people who were teaching the weaving, for instance.

E.J. Well, if they got paid for it, but it also, help uh, maintain a place, or uh, certain portion of a place to keep the patterns and keep all the stuff. No, I don’t think if the place were sold, I don’t think the place, that the money should be put back in another piece of property. I think the money should be invested and used as, use the interest for whatever came out, you know, that would be your budget, and use that money to perpetuate this, this down the line. You see people, I talk to people and they come out and they bring their children to see it, but you’re off the beaten path, there’s no way to park up there, ain’t but 5 or 6 cars. I sent a plumber there yesterday and he had to pack everything up, up top. You can’t drive up there. Uh, you can put a ton of rock under it or 10 or 20 tons of rock, but it’s not going to stay there, you know. So, I don’t know, uh, I’m just (predicting?) and this stuff if it’s as valuable as people say it is, it should be moved.

T.W. Uh-huh. Next week, uh, 2 weeks from now we’re going to have another board meeting and we’re going to be discussing just this topic.

E.J. Uh-huh. I probably guess I’m probably the first one to mention it.

T.W. You are the first person and (sound) it, (Pause) may start them now to start thinking because we worry about the 3 houses all the time.

E.J. Have you looked at them?

T.W. Of course.

E.J. Do you think they’d burn easy?

T.W. I never even thought of it.

E.J. Well, those garage doors, uh, where she kept her car, underneath the house, in the first house, you can take a knife and just slip right through it, it’s rotten. I have never been up there since they’ve remodeled the Top House. I’ve never seen it. I disagreed with it and didn’t, you know, I tried it once and figured that’s all I can do, so I stay out of it. Uh, I wasn’t even interested in doing anything and I told Sally and, what’s that other gal that was out here?

T.W. You talked to (Mur Murmel ?) on the telephone.

E.J. Well, of course I never met through the lines. But I uh, will be glad to do anything we can do as far as maintaining it, within, within reason. She (wants or has) the key to all 3 of the places. Like I say there’s still a leak in the bottom house, but I don’t know if you all even use it any more at all.

T.W. No.

E.J. OK, so

T.W. We had a caretaker family living there for awhile.

E.J. I never saw it or him.

T.W. No, he didn’t do much. And we’re getting ready for our Open House April 14.

E.J. See, everybody that’s involved in it is so busy, do they have time. Do they have time? That’s just one little part of your life, you know. You might try to get the different community or city organizations in this area. We would have the president of each one of these organizations to serve on the board and they would rotate it where they got a little pressing. But, my theory on that is that we’d have a big manpower pool, as many a 500 people or even more, and each one of those could take a month to do this. Or, you know we have to do so much civic work in Lions as we work with the eye foundation, but we have to do so much civic work, and let’s say today is the Lions Club’s day to go up there and do whatever they want to do and the next week is the Optimists’ and uh, next month is somebody else, Beechmont Women’s Club or Beechmont uh, Garden Club could decorate the place and uh, it would be a community effort. I wanted to do it while she was alive so we knew what we were doing. You know, she know it and when she died it went with her except for the stuff she left. I don’t know if she kept a diary or not, I don’t really know. But it was a shame, you know, she just basically faded away.

T.W. And you wish that you all could go up there and she could show you the weaving, she could show you what was going on.

E.J. Yeah. In other words, that would be like the interest in a different organizations because you know, we all, we just, like we have farmers day at the schools. I even you know, have goats here. I take my goats to the schools, uh, or they come over and get them for show and tell and it’s all part of it, it’s part of it. Uh, a lot of kids nowadays don’t get to see all that stuff, but it’s funny that my daughter grew up next to weaving and go back to it. Though tomorrow I end up paying for it. Uh, but it’s an important part and I think I, you know, as I say, I don’t know that much about it, but I think it’s coming back in decorating. A lot of people, uh, she’s taking some course in uh, hanging, what’s the name of it? I don’t know what the name of it is. I do send money, but she has to make something for decorations and so I think it’s coming back now.

T.W. When you go up there in the old days you said that you would sit near the park benches.

E.J. Yeah. Uh-huh. We’d just sit there and talk, learn about everything.

T.W. Did you ever, did you ever go to some of the Open Houses and you would see the people there? Or you would just go up there on…

E.J. Most of the time when nobody was there. Uh, a lot of those people, uh I had nothing in common with at all. You know, uh, they were just a different group of people than I was with, used to be with. But there was a lot of nice people, but I don’t know, I’d go up to some Open Houses too. I furnished uh, the cooler for the lemonade and this kind of stuff a lot of times. Uh, whatever Lou Tate wanted we’d (keep?) ‘em with, no question.

T.W. Did your daughter exhibit, did she go to the schools and show young people the weaving?

E.J. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Umm, did it for years. In fact Mrs. Tate was very sharp in a sense. She, my daughter, uh, she called my wife and she said you know, Mrs. Jungbert, your daughter, there’s something wrong with her, uh, she can hardly walk up this hill. And, uh, we didn’t know what she was talking about. Uh, she’s a very active girl. She said there’s something wrong with her legs. So we took her to our doctor and our doctor said, yep, I think she’s got a problem. We took her to Dr. Lynn and she had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. But Mrs. Tate was the first one to notice it. Isn’t that something. She’s the first one who knew that there was something wrong with tat girl’s legs. And uh, our doctor, I thought was pretty sharp to diagnose what it was, and too, Dr. Frank Lynn, the arthritis. So, I had to fix her a whirlpool bath and she took a 20 minute whirlpool bath every night for 10 years. And she’s worked out of it. But we were lucky we got it many, many years ago. And she used to walk down there and walk up that hiss and Miss Tate thought that she was too young to be having that trouble. Isn’t that something?

T.W. mm-huh, yeah.

E.J. Miss Tate called several times and as I walked by she’d talk to me. She’d say, Eddie, we need to get the community involved, and she was the one that spearheaded the, me, she kept telling me. She liked me and she respected me and she kept telling me, she said, we need to get the community involved in uh, this uh… Miss Tate would call and see me as I walked up and down the street or stop me and I’d pick her up and run to the convenient and take her home. And she said, Eddie, I need somebody, we need to get the community involved, how can we get the community involved? And this is what spearheaded all of this. It was her idea. She wanted to, but yet she never would, you know. But she definitely wanted it and she was very disappointed at a lot of people. But I never listened to all that. I listened to it from my grandmother. All older people I guess are like that. But you know, nothing works out the way they want it to work out. But you know, what interests you, it might not interest everybody else. But Miss Tate was a mover and that’s the reason I came up with the idea, that was Mrs. Shingle, that if we had, we could cover a bigger territory and all the presidents of these clubs could sit on the board. And uh, but that was it, she wanted it done and yet she didn’t want to let go.

T.W. Because when she would get other people involved…

E.J. Too many people would know her business. She was a hermit and she stayed in that home. No telling, no telling what she had put away there at all.

T.W. Do you think she felt that she could call on you for volunteering all these things because she’d known you as a child?

E.J. No. I think she knew that when she called me, uh my daughter, basically, I think that when she called me she knew that I had trucks, uh, she knew that when she called me it would be done. Uh, in other words when she was cold, we lit the furnace, if she had and oil line break, we’d fix it. I didn’t let her wait. Uh, we, there was never one penny changed hands between Lou Tate and Jungbert Corporation. I never thought she had any money. I don’t know whether she did or not. Uh, I don’t know how she existed. In the old days we used to take food down to he. But that got to the point where we figured it did, she, we, it just did a little good. Why we re we taking her food? She’s older than we are and she’s probably got more money than we got. Uh, but we’d save some things for her. We’d have something special. We did, a lot of the neighbors did, a lot of the neighbors did. She wouldn’t go to anybody’s house to eat except Sue Kendrick and uh, once in a while maybe Miss Shingle would get her up to her home.

T.W. The people in the community would come to you to get your help about what to do with the cabins because they knew you knew her.

E.J. Yeah. Most of it was initiated by Mrs. Uh, Shingle and Mrs. Kendrick. And Mrs. and Miss Tate but you know people lived, they lived up there beside her and they just accepted and really didn’t care. The interest wasn’t in our neighborhood, it was in these groups around town. They had more interest in it. But once they left it was gone. I think that uh, it’s really neat that I had the experience and my family had the experience of growing up around uh, Lou Tate. And uh, she was just something. And you just sit back and think of Lou Tate in the 18th century, you know, where everything’s hand made and the weaving. You don’t think of that in the 20th century, or at least I don’t. But the neat thing is that my daughter uh, had the experience of it and uh, and ended up a class, and if she don’t make an A out of this it’s going to be her fanny, but she’s actually going to be on the Dean’s List and everything, but that one she can slip by, but she says that it’s really becoming important now again. The weaving and all of it started from Miss Tate and uh, basically a neighbor. And she was just a nice person and nobody would like to see her stuff saved more than me, but I think that we have to be practical about a lot of this stuff. And the people all involved in weaving, a lot of them are not very practical when it comes to the whole sphere of things. But uh, she was a nice gal.

T.W. This is the end of my interview with Ed Jungbert Jr., March 21, 1985.