Oral History Interview Kitty Tenny & Hal Tenny

KT – Well, I remember when I, we read about her in the Courier Journals out here and her weaving. We had a young daughter in grade school and we lived in the South End so we took Ellen, our daughter, out there to see Lou and to learn something about weaving. And we just took to Lou right away. She was such an interesting person and she knew so much about weaving and Ellen just took right to it and was very good at it. So we started going back. And I took Hal, my husband, out there. And we all went. We went several times. And then we found a house up there above her on the hill. We didn’t realize that that house was close to her ‘till we went to look at it, which was for sale. It was a log house with little woods and we thought, gosh this was just our dream house. This was exactly what we want, you know. So we went up there and later we bought the house. So Lou became one of our greatest friends. She just became like one of the family and Ellen spent half her time, maybe more than half her time, down at Lou’s weaving. And then after school she’d go down there. And it was just a wonderful association we had, with Lou. And we became great friends as I say, and she’d come up to our house on Christmas, Thanksgiving, all the parties that we had, and of course she was up there all the time anyway. And, so, once you take up with someone. Hal, what do you want to say?

HT – Well, one of the things that impressed me about Lou was that it wasn’t just her knowledge of weaving and fabrics, but she’s a great historian. She could tell stories about the history of Kentucky that you would have a hard time finding in the history books, but if you look hard enough, they’re there and she really knew these things. And she liked the kind of life patterned after the way pioneers lived, I mean she had most of the modern conveniences, but not all of it, she got on a lot without, If water

Pipes froze up that was alright too, she would go carry some water up to her house. I remember one time we up there, by the way, our house was on Possum Path, which I think is great. And another thing that was great about the house, it was built in 1893 by two sisters named Hill. When we bought the house although it was in the city of Louisville, in the city limits, the street had no street numbers and was just known as Hill House, Possum Path, Louisville, KY. And I thought it was because it was way up on the side of a hill, that was why it was called Hill House, but it wasn’t. The sisters’ name was, were Hill and they were Patty and Mildred Hill. Patty Hill wrote in the year 1893, the year that the house was built, Happy Birthday, so we, when we found out we were more thrilled than ever. And we just lived maybe 100 yards from Lou’s Tophouse, the weaving cabin. Lou was really a surrogate grandmother to our daughter, Ellen. And Ellen, both Ellen’s grandmothers, her real grandmothers, died before she was born and so she never knew them. And Ellen would go down there after school (the family hill?) after school and she would weave and she would play with the other kids who came to weave. And Lou had a little dog, what was the dog’s name Kitty?

KT – Skipper.

HT – Who?

KT – Skipper

HT – Skipper was a little cocker spaniel. He got a …

KT – Well, the kids would go down to weave about (?) and Skipper would always be around and so in the middle of the afternoon when everybody was a little bit tired, Lou would have taken them all, she had a big beat-up station wagon and she’d take them all in her station wagon and take Skipper (?) the dog down for an ice cream cone and she always bought one for Skipper too. And the kids just loved that going and getting an ice cream cone for Skipper every day. And it was always good when things like that and always getting Cool Aid for him, and lemonade, and taking him for ice cream. So they just really loved him.

HT – And when, then when she, I, gosh, guess she’d been weaving about 4 years by the time she was 12, I don’t know who made the arrangements, but she went out to Fort Knox, and (tried?) a class of basic weaving, which I thought was a great experience for her as well as those kids. Lou met a remarkable lady at Fort Knox. Her name was (Diana of Kenwell?). She was married to an army sergeant and she was Panamanian Indian woman. And she lived at Fort Knox and every once in a while we’d meet at our cabin because we had a great big kitchen which was about 20 by 30 feet and we had a big trestle table in the middle of the kitchen and she’d taught us how to make very crude pottery in our kitchen. Lou was there and Kitty.

KT – Hal, you’ve got to explain how Diana happened to be coming out here because she came out to Lou’s to learn weaving first. And Lou got to be friends with her. And naturally she took up the weaving very easily. And Lou got to be friends. And through the two of them we decided to meet once a week out there and have our pottery making.

HT – We all had dinner together.

KT – We had dinner together. We’d go out to Fort Knox and pick her up and after dinner it’d be 10 or 11:00 maybe by the time we got through and take her back to Fort Knox. So that was 4 trips to Fort Knox and back almost every week. But it was worth it for all we learned.

HT – Not that we ever became great potters. But what we were doing in our lives, we had our shop, our craft shop. It taught us what a lot of people were doing who were making pottery for us. At that time we represented the Alliance for Progress for the state of Kentucky. And we were very (?) of hand made pottery from South America. So we got to know. We dug the clay out of the ground.

KW – I was going to ask you that, did you get the clay with the (?), where Kate lived (?) you dug it up at her house as well? (several people talking, it was hard to understand what was being said)

HT – Both houses. And we fired it in our fireplace in a big piece of sewer pipe.

KT – Small pieces, she would take the large pieces out to Fort Knox and fire them and bring them back.

HT – But we, I’d build a fire in the fireplace and put the sewer pipe right in with the fire and keep the fire going. And half the time I was trying all night to keep the fire going so the fire, the fire, not so you could use it at all, but so, it was …

KT – And she also make dyes and painted things with dyes that she picked along the road coming back from Fort Knox. Sometimes she’d say “Oh, stop the car, Kitty I see something over there that would make a good dye.” So I’d let her pick whatever it was she saw. And if she saw some clay along side of the road she’d get out and dig and some clay and bring it, you know. Just anything she saw. She never missed anything. And she would get it and use it. A lot of different dyes that she painted uh, pictures on um, (static?), well this, static. This is painted with clay.

KW – Tell me the name, this one again.

KT – “Diana of Panama”, that’s the way, she uh, yeah, signed it.

KW – And she would take the clay…

KT – clay in her hands, uh-huh. And Lou was the one that introduced us to Diana.

KW – Now why was Lou Tate going to the, um, how did she get with you to Fort Knox in the first place?

KT – Well, Diana came to her in the first place to learn weaving. You see she had heard about Lou Tate and she wanted to add weaving to her other skills. Evidently she hadn’t done much weaving in Panama. She knew a lot about it, I’m sure, but she had a lot of (San Block?) tapestries they were made by the (San Block?) Indians, that was where she was from and uh…

KW – Is this how Lou Tate first started going down to Fort Knox?

HT – Now, Lou was…

KT – No, she had been to Fort Knox before that.

HT – Lou was, Lou had been to many places before, for instance, I was speaking to a girl just about a week ago who was from Bowling Green, and Lou taught a class down there in one of the schools down there.

KT – Teaching weaving.

HT – Weaving.

KW – You know, you all, because you were so close to her, you knew the kind of things she did, the activities.

HT – Right.

KW – How did she ever start going to Fort Knox in the first place, was it the veterans, or the World War II vets, or people that were handicapped, do you remember?

HT – No, no.

KT – Maybe it was through Margaret Montgomery out Pine Grove.

HT – No, Margaret had something to do with it, but actually it was, it wasn’t the veterans, it was the probate (?), the enlisted men and the officers who were at Fort Knox and their families, their dependents.

KT – And then she would drive down there in that car that she had.

HT – That’s right.

KT - Now we drove out there to get Diana.

KW – You and Lou Tate?

KT – But I knew when she was going to drive…(Several voices, can’t understand)

HT – She went herself, yes.

KT – She went in her car. (Several voices discussing her car.)

KW – Well, do you ever remember her talking to you all about that early major loom, how it first came about or anything like that? When Lou came she had those little looms there and that’s what she taught on …

KT – Yeah, she told us who made, Mr. uh,

HT – Helninger? (other voices in background)

KT – They made them especially for her.

HT – She designed them.

KT – Yes.

HT – Before, so that she could see challenges, and particularly for children.

KT – Even the small children could reach the pedals, the treadles, I guess they’re called, and could weave on them.

KW – So Ellen took to weaving but she also took to Lou Tate. And did Lou Tate have a special way of teaching the children?

KT – Well, I can’t describe it, is a special way, it was a special way. Lou just had an affinity for children and children had an affinity for Lou and she gave a lot of freedom in their expression. She didn’t say, you can’t put red and green together, and you can’t put purple and orange together. She let the children pick the colors and she let the children pick the patterns. She taught them the basic things and she watched them, you know. But other than that, I mean, the child would go the right way. You wouldn’t have to teach that child, you wouldn’t have to take, let the kid put purple and orange together because the children just instinctively, she was teaching them the same way that the, Pilgrim people did things.

KW – Would she tell the children this?

KT – Yeah, she’d give them a big basket of yarn and “pick out your own yarn and the colors you want yourself”. And she said sometimes she’d look at the colors they, kids would pick out and, oh, my gosh, this is terrible and then when it would come out in the weaving she said it would be beautiful. And that’s the reason she let them pick their own out, because the children instinctively knew what went together or they didn’t care. They put things together that she, well, maybe she would, but other people wouldn’t think of putting together, ‘cause, you know, but they would come out in the weaving beautiful. (laughs) Just let them have it. But Lou also was a disciplinarian. She kept a, uh, what am I trying to say, uh, a watchful eye over them and she made them mind. If any one of them . . .

HT – She had an iron hand in a velvet glove.

KT – (laughs) You could say that, yeah. But she was so nice, they all loved her, but if one of them did something wrong, she didn’t mind telling them off, you know.

KW – Which cabin did the children use to weave in?

HT – The Loomhouse, the Tophouse. (Kitty in background)

KW – Everyone would be at the top?

KT – But not in the summertime, the cabin got hot. She had the looms outside and the picnic tables outside where they did their weaving. And then they could run, take time off to run out in the woods and they could play awhile and then have a picnic lunch and she’d always have some Kool-aid or something to drink and give them breaks. So they, and then they’d have sessions when she’d tell them about American History and all that kind of things. So it was just, it wasn’t just the weaving, it was the other things that she taught with the weaving.

KW – She really did (have a knack?) for the teaching of American History?

KT and HT – Oh, yes, oh, yes.

KT – In fact she studied American History in college.

HT – At Berea.

KT – At Berea. And that was one of her main subjects, was American History. And she knew it. She knew all about it. She told about the Indians being on the hill, you know, all that kind of things, the artifacts that were there.

HT – There were fossil beds up by that hill at that time they had all been destroyed.

KT – We used to take the kids.

HT – She used to take the kids up and they would pick up fossils from millions of years ago. And she’d explain to them what they were. And she would explain to them what the different kinds of rocks were. Used there was a quarry up there at one time.

KT – And there were geodes all over.

HT – Geodes all over the place. And you’d crack them open and they were just gorgeous on the inside. And uh, she knew all about those things. I (?) she had about geodes and looked up about fossils that she knew.

KW – Did she do a lot of reading?

KT – Oh, yes.

HT – Well, she did a lot of reading most of her reading was mystery stories.

KT – She stayed up late at night reading mystery stories. I think every mystery story in the library, the branch library, Iroquois Branch Library. They would keep back any new ones they got and I would take Lou down there and say, “Well, here’s one you haven’t read, Lou.” She would read those, lying in bed, late at night, read mystery stories, she loved them.

HT – Lou was a remarkable lady. I just don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that made such a deep impression as she did for many reasons. Uh, she was a little bit difficult for some people to get along with. Well, from what we’ve said I think you can gather that. Uh, I’ve seen honest people who’d come up there and try to tell her how to do her job, or how to live her life. She was living her life the way she wanted to live her life. I thought she’d done a magnificent job of it. UH, she apparently worshipped her God in her own way. She never went to church that I know of and, but, it didn’t make any difference, I mean, she really did worship her God and she appreciated what her God had done for her. That hillside was absolutely gorgeous in springtime and still is. And it wouldn’t be that way if it hadn’t been for her. She, she did that. She had to fight against people. People tried to take her property away from her. And real estate developers, you know how they, they would go up there and they’d say, “Now, you’ve got 10 feet of my land one side or the other.” Another one comes from the other side and says, “you have 10 feet of my land on this side.” And she fought them tooth and nail and she won. She was right and she wouldn’t let anybody (tape cuts off).

KW – You mean Lou Tate planted a lot of things around the property?

HT – Yeah, she had, oh, many, many varieties of jonquils and spring flowers and things that you can grow in the area. You can’t grow everything in the area because you don’t get enough sun. But, she had varieties of jonquils that she had planted there that I had never heard of, let alone seen. And they’re still growing there. She gave us some; we have some that come up every year here at this house. And the road, looks like a driveway because it goes to the Tophouse, originally was the road going up to the quarry, which was up beyond that, beyond her property, up towards the top of the hill. And it’s just a gravel road, but she maintained it for years and years and years, as long as she lived at that house. Rather interestingly the, that was the property line on wood side of the house. And when you came out on the other side of the house, going back before there was anything such as indoor plumbing up there, there was a little outhouse and some of the snootier neighbors who moved in afterwards wanted her to tear that down. But that was one of the property markers.

KT – Um-huh, property line.

HT – That was her, she wouldn’t tear it down there was no need to. It wasn’t causing any difficulty. It wasn’t falling down. It was kind of rustic looking. It was a typical outhouse with a half-moon carved in the door and that was the property marker and if she tore it down there wouldn’t be a marker left. I’ve seen a plat, a plat of the property on that hill. It was way back around 1900 and it had her property on it. It had the property that we had on it. But it was later, you know, we bought, and it had some houses on it that no longer existed, that had burned down. But -

KW – About what year did you all move into that Hill House?

HT – In 1958, Ellen was about 9, wasn’t she?

KT – I think she was around 9; she was still in grade school. She went to Auburndale.

KW – So, by the time you met Lou Tate she’d lived there for (several voices).

What about her home? And she lived in bottom house, Esta. Did you ever, (pause) and her mother had been dead for awhile. Was her father, by the time you all met her, not alive anymore?

HT – I think he was dead.

KW – And did she ever talk about how she happened to come there to these little house or -

KT – Her father, I think it was, bought the house for her, the first house, the one she lived in. And then she must have added the other 2 cottages. I’m not sure about that, but her father was still alive when she went out there to live. But I don’t know how much longer he lived after that. But she lived out there all by herself. She had an aunt, she called Aunt (Lizzie or Effie,?) I think, that she talked about a lot.

HT – She had a half-brother, didn’t she?

KT – She had a half-brother, (Willis?). And she talked a lot about them, but we didn’t know too much about them because when we met her she was living all alone and it had been quite awhile since the had died, I think.

KW – By that time did she have her, she had a collection of coverlets by then.

KT – Oh, yeah, she had those for a long time, even long before we knew her. She might have added some more coverlets to her collection after we knew her, but she was an authority on the coverlets and all these drafts of coverlets.

HT - She had quite a collection of the – what do you call it (Essage, maybe Lamoge?) china and silver, that sort of thing. Some of which she had inherited right down through her family. I know she had. She used to like us to come to her house with some other friends and she would fix chili for us and we would stand in that big living room in her house with that great big fireplace going. Of course it was all fired by wood up there at that time. And in the winter time we’d sit around, dinner time we’d sit on the benches that she used for the looms.

KT – And the table would be the loom stands put together with a linen tablecloth.

HT – Yes, that would be the table with a beautiful linen table cloth, the Lamoge china, the Reed and Barton antique silver and we’d eat chili.

KT – And she had that beautiful big soup tureen, (both talking, can’t make out some of the words). She served at the end of the table and we thought that (?) everybody just like a little (?) (?) place. (Again both talking, can’t make out the words) And she had a big silver tea set that she would use when she had teas once in awhile.

HT – When she died she willed the Lamoge china and the silverware to our daughter, Ellen. She uses it and we added to the silver, so she has all the pieces, you know. But Ellen has to do a lot of entertaining because her husband’s business and so she has very elegant china and –

KT – It was from Lou Tate.

HT – Lou Tate.

KT – Oh, she wouldn’t take anything for that.

HT – She had, (pause in tape). Mrs. Fredericka Donovan and I were two of the last of her friends to see Lou alive. We were at the hospital on a Saturday night. Just five years ago, almost exactly. And uh, she had a cancer, and our daughter was expecting a baby so Kitty had gone on to Salem, Mass. which is where the baby was born. Which is where they lived at the time. And I was going to join as soon as the baby, I was going to try to get there by the time the baby came. And I left on Friday, uh Thursday from here. Arrived in Salem on Friday and we got the message that Lou had just died. But (Adam?) was born the next day. So the new life took the place of the old life, in our eyes. And I really have one big regret about that and that is those two little boys never got to meet Lou.

KT – Yeah, but (Jarris?) did.

HT – Jarris did. (Both talking)

KT – He was crazy about Lou because he realized how much she knew about American History and his studies at Georgetown –

HT – He had a Master’s Degree in American Studies.

KT – Yeah, his degree is in American Studies and he was amazed with what Lou knew about American History, uh,

HT – So, it seems our lives were pretty closely intertwined. Somehow, I don’t know, it seems like we were destined to meet and know her and get to know her as well as we did. I remember one time, well you can’t get much closer than this. One time it was a very severe winter and, both these houses were pretty high up on the side of the hill and just to drive (the roads?) to get up there and narrow one-lane roads. And it snowed, and snowed, and snowed. And there was no way we could get a car in or out. And we were running out of groceries. I couldn’t even go to work at all. And we were all out of groceries. So, we decided we’d try getting down the hill and out. We managed to get as far as Lou’s, Kitty and I, just the two of us. And, uh

(Kitty says something in the background)

She wanted, she needed groceries, we needed groceries. So, she had, where she got it I have no idea, but she had a big pack basket and we put it on my back.

KT – She even had snowshoes.

HT – She had snowshoes, she put them on. I didn’t have snowshoes, but I had some high top boots. We managed to get sown to the bottom of the hill and there was a grocery store down there. And we went to the grocery and just loaded that pack (?) up with groceries for the two families, and came back, hiking like a (?). I was exhausted by the time we got up, back up again. But we always had things like that happen and it was, it was, really it was a lot of fun. At that time I was in the music business. I was selling musical instruments. And it was right around the time when arts and crafts stores started. And Lou was very much in love with crafts with her weaving and (?) and so forth. And we got the idea that this would be a marvelous place to have an art fair, an art festival. And where, there were some here in Louisville in the springtime, Anderson Folk, but nothing was happening in the middle of winter, in the middle of summer. And our house was on a very steep part of the hill. And we had, it was terraced. And we had a deck open out in front of this big old log house. I remember we had a dogwood tree growing out, right through the middle of it. And we would have musicians come out because obviously I knew musicians, you know. And they would go out and play music and we had paintings hanging on the sides of the cabin. And then Lou would have a workshop going on at the same time. She had, I remember there was a monk from St. Meinrad’s, Brother Kim.

KT – Brother Kim, um-huh.

HT – And he would come down and he would give a workshop in spinning fabrics. And I remember one year they even brought some sheep up there. And they took the wool from the sheep, they carded it, they spun it, wove it and they dyed it. They did it all in one day. And the dyes were made from plants and vegetables that came right out of the side of the hill. I mean like, wild things, like goldenrod, and walnuts, and all kinds of things like that. And it was very exciting. The problem was we had a very hard time finding places to put cars to park. They had to park all around the bottom of the hill. Fortunately we knew a man who a long time ago was a police officer. And he had us to direct traffic and it worked beautifully. We met a lot of interesting people. Some of the people are still around town, you know, painters, and weavers and dyers. And one session we had, a session on tie-dyeing. I remember Ed and Betsy Dienes conducted the classes and, uh, that was really exciting. One of the things that developed from all these art festivals, we called it the Midsummer Festival because we had it right in the middle of July or towards the end of July, and uh, one year we had jazz and another year we had, uh, well most of the time we had folk music and by the time we had done this about four or five times we had people coming from as far away as Huntsville, Alabama just to play, free I mean, they, they , they played all night and you know, they’d start playing at 1:00 in the afternoon. They’d be playing (?) in our living room, but at 3:00 in the morning. Um, it was just a tremendous experience, a living experience for us. I regret having lost the house because of the water damage but we had 15 years there. And

KW – Is that how you all, I was going to ask you how long you lived there and why you moved.

(Both talk.)

HT – Yeah, the severe damage was cause, water down, You see the top of the hill had been graded, and they’d taken all the underbrush and a lot of the trees out and when it rained and they build these big houses, you see, And when it rained the water just came off the tops of these, came down the hill.

KT – Right under our house and undermined it. The same thing that’s been happening to Lou’s.

HT- Yeah, it didn’t happen suddenly, you know, it looked like (?) after an earthquake, the earth dropped about 4 feet from under, directly under our house.

KW – Did you lose any of your possessions?

HT – We lost the house.

KT – We lost the house, we managed to get (Both talk, can’t understand all the words.)

HT – I figure it cost us about $25,000.00.

KW – That must have scarred Lou Tate about the future of her cabin.

HT – Oh, it did.

KW – Yeah?

HT – She was worried all the time.

KT – She was going to court and everything about it. But they finally built this, uh . . .

HT – Retaining wall.

KT – Retaining wall, but that was after Lou died that they built that.

HT – Yeah, the city built that.

KW – Oh, she had died by the time they built that?

KT – Yeah, by the time they built that big retaining wall.

KW – So, we, the end of her years some worrying went on.

Both – Oh, yeah, sure, oh, yeah.

HT – The (?) died, not just a year or two.

KT – No, this went on for several years.

HT – Yes, she was harassed.

END OF SIDE ONE OF TAPE

KW – This is the beginning of side 2. Please continue, we were talking about the children coming to visit them, the (?).

KT – We were talking neighborhood kids at first, but it wasn’t just the neighborhood. It was girl scout troops and boy scout troops and grade school kids, kindergarten kids, the teachers would bring them out there for an afternoon. And they’d bring a little lunch with them and weave. And sit out under the big oak trees and weave on the, the little looms. And then they’d run through the woods for awhile, have fun, and finally Lou would sit down and talk to them about history. Big tales about the Indians being up there and all that kind, and the kids would just love it, you know. And she was teaching so many children in this town a lot about the type of history, you know, American History. And they learned a lot more than just weaving. She was such and interesting talker. And I remember she took kids on tours. I went with them once to help chaperone when we took a whole bunch of kids to Mammoth Cave one time. And she was a (?) of that. I don’t remember which, it was a bunch of grade school kids. I don’t remember how many there were. But, I only stayed, I’ve forgotten where we stayed that night, it wasn’t right there at the Park. It, I don’t remember, anyway, we took a trip and stayed and she did all kinds of things like that, different trips. And she was, things that they could learn about their state.

KW – I think also, I gather that she, after the children learned, wanted the children to teach.

KT – Oh, yes. (Both talk.)

HT – They, if they learned well enough and they stayed with it, she would insist that. She urged them, and every one of them would do it, you know.

KT – Because they would learn a lot more by teaching someone else.

HT – Yes, and I think they learned a lot teaching each other. (Both talk)

KT – I think and interesting little side light would be to tell about when Ellen went to the Smithsonian, to the exhibit of weaving. One day on her job or something when she was first at Georgetown, and she went to the Smithsonian and thought she’d go to the weaving exhibit. And the woman there, uh, she asked her, “Do you mind if I sit down for a minute and weave a little bit?” And the lady said, “Oh, yeah, sure if you want to”, you know. And Ellen sat down and she started weaving and the woman was amazed and she said, “Where did you learn to weave like that?” And Ellen very casually said, “Well I lived very close to Lou Tate in Louisville and she’s the one that taught me how to weave.” And the woman said, “You learned to weave with Lou Tate! She’s the very best weaver in the country!” (Laughs, says something but the tape is distorted.) And I really thought about it, I think that she realized how hood Lou was but she didn’t know that she had such a reputation with people at the Smithsonian and like that.

HT – Yes, Lou didn’t just teach the children she taught a lot of adults and, I mean, she taught Mrs. Herbert Hoover and Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, so she had some (? ?)

(Both laugh and talk)

KW – Tell me about that.

(All three talk)

KT – Lou was a young girl at that time. That was back during Herbert Hoover’s administration. That was a long time ago. She was a young girl then. And Mrs. Hoover had some kind of a project for helping underprivileged girls, uh, I can’t remember exactly what it was she had, but she put Lou in charge of that. And so she spent several years there in Washington and close to Washington.

HT – And then Eleanor Roosevelt (?) (?) .

KT – Yeah, yeah, Eleanor Roosevelt was at the Loomhouse

HT – And the Loomhouse has some pictures of that. (Pause) We uh, the second dog that we had, after (?), our dogs loved Lou Tate, both of them. We had two of them while we lived there. They both loved her. The first dog we had was a deaf Dalmatian. She was gorgeous…but she had hand signals. It was incredible. I mean this dog understood you when you’d see her but you could fire a cannon off behind her, she wouldn’t hear. The second dog that we had was a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Which is a variety of dog which is rather unusual, they get to be very big. And they were bred originally to hunt lions in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. I guess we ought to change the name to a Zimbabwean Ridgeback, but it’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback. (Kitty laughs in background.)

We had another Rhodesian Ridgeback but this one, her name was Benny, and she adored Lou Tate. And after we had gotten this dog, about the time we got this dog we went into business for ourselves. We opened an art gallery and craft shop here in (?) called (Port of Call?). So we were both gone a lot and the dog would be up there all by herself with about 6 cats, but they (?) (?). But invariably the dog would hunker down to Lou’s and when we would come home

KT – Sometimes 10 or 11

HT – Sometimes 10 or 11, 12:00 at night, the dog wouldn’t be around our house at all and we would call Lou and say, “Have you seen Benny?” And she would say, “Yeah, and as a matter of fact she’s here in the bed with me.” And she would just say, “Well, your mommy and daddy are home now, go on.” And the dog would come up the hill.

KT – She’d say, “Just call her.” And she’d come. But Lou would be lying in bed reading her detective stories and she always read those, oh, late at night. And the dog would get in bed with her and keep her company while she was lying there reading her detective stories. If we didn’t call her to find the dog, she would call us. She’d know when we came up the hill. She’d see the car. “Call your dog and I’ll let her out.”

HT – And she loved animals, everything but squirrels. The reason she didn’t like squirrels was because the squirrels could get into the cabins and get into the yard.

KW – Oh, really?

HT – And they did a lot of damage, so she really didn’t like squirrels. They’re pretty, but that’s all. But she knew about animals, she really knew about animals. She could tell you all about them. I mentioned the fact that our house was on Possum Path. And actually it was never a road, it was a trail. It was a horse trail that went from our house down to the bottom of the hill. In addition to Possum Path, and they met right in front of our house and the added into a road and it was called Coon Trail and uh . . .

KT – We loved to tell people we lived at the intersection of Possum Path and Coon Trail. (Both laugh) That really got a lot (?) (?) back and forth. (Several sentences with laughter, cannot make out the words.)

HT – Yeah, that’s where Ellen was born, grew up there (?) (?) (?) this was 5 years, so anyway. And uh, I was sent to Fort Knox.

KT – I remember that, that’s a long story.

HT – Then I was sent to Washington and that’s where I met Kitty.

KT – You and I met each other.

HT – Yeah, she was working for the F.B.I.

KT – (laughs), I remember that, otherwise I wasn’t going to let you go when you left (?). You would have brought me back for protection.

KW – And the Fort Knox commission, is that what made you come into Kentucky?

HT – Yeah, I had had a host, on a radio show from Fort Knox in 1942 and most of 1943, which was a coast to coast show. We had a (blue light?) national broadcasting company and uh, (Belmar Marshall?) was the president and director of WHAS, which at that time was an NBC affiliate and WAVE was a CBS affiliate. Now they’ve switched, the two stations switched, of course it’s WAVG now instead of WAVE on radio. But I was supposed to come, to come back to Louisville to work for WHAS because Mr. (Weston?) liked me so well. Well, we came back after the war and I went to WHAS and uh, then I asked the receptionist if I could see Mr. (Weston?), please. And she said, “Mr. Who?” And oh, my goodness, so anyway I . . .

KT – And there you are. (laughter)

HT - . . . and we couldn’t go anywhere, get everybody to leave, we had a few (challenges?), so we stayed.

KT – Change is good.

KW – Kitty, did you hear (?) (?) (?) (?) with Lou Tate about weaving?

KT – Uh, yes, I did. I didn’t do much weaving though. It seems every time . . . well, she taught me how to warp the loom, she always wanted me to do that because she always needed somebody to warp the looms. So I would work and work and get a loom warped so I could weave and by the time I’d get it warped she’d give the loom that was warped to somebody else and let them weave on it and (laughs), I just warped her loom. So I didn’t get to do much weaving. I got a little bit done on one, just a few little pieces. But I was relegated to the warping most of the time.

KW – Is the warping the hard part?

KT – Yeah, that’s the hard part. It’s not the (?) part, it’s the hard part. But it’s gotta be done, you know. Wind the yarn all around and getting it through the little, uh, not shuttles, but,

HT – Pedals.

KT – Pedals. And it takes a lot of time. It takes you maybe a week or two to warp a little (?) as skilled as I was. (laughs) But Lou was teaching me how to do it and it was interesting work. But I would have much rather have been sitting down weaving some pretty pieces. But our daughter did that, so it was alright.

KW – Would show me, some pretty pictures, uh, we have some pictures of some things that Lou Tate wove a runner and some table mats. Do you have any stories that you remember about anything in particular about those or . . .

KT – I know one is a big, long runner that I have, she made that especially for us because in our shop we had just gotten in a shipment of beautiful enamel-ware plates and cups and mugs and things. All different bright colors and we needed to display them in the shop. So she wove a great big, nice long runner for us to put them on to display. (Technical problem with the tape, lose a few words)

KW – We also have a picture of a chair which you say Lou Tate gave you.

KT – Oh, the chair, yeah, uh. One day I went down and they were weaving outside like they usually did, summertime, she had moved out under the trees and there was this chair sitting there. And it was pretty, very unusual. I was looking at it and talking about how much I liked it and I had never seen it before. And so the next day I came home from work and walked in the kitchen door and there was that chair sitting in the middle of the kitchen, sitting in the middle of the kitchen and, uh, she’d just brought it up and took it in the kitchen and gave it to me. Anything you saw, you really liked, if she liked you she’d give it to you. (laughs)

KW – And then you have that pretty bowl which you also have a picture of.

KT – Uh-huh. It’s called an (open?) bowl, that’s what she said it was, the big brass bowl and it was out in her garage with a lot of junk out there. One day we were looking for something and I asked her what it was. It was pretty dirty and everything. She said well, that’s a nice brass bowl, it’s an (open?) bowl. Would you like to have it? I said sure, (several words that are too quiet to hear) But I cleaned it up and it’s a beautiful bowl.

KW – We also have another photograph of a picture of you and Lou Tate and she has on an unusual looking coat.

KT – It’s a Seminole Indian coat, which she got when she was in Florida, made by the Seminoles.

KW – When was this picture taken?

KT – It was at a, either a Thanksgiving or Christmas party, I don’t know which. She always come, would come to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, Easter, any other time. But I think it was at Christmas time when it was made at he, at this house.

KW – At the house you live in now.

KT – Yes, uh-huh. That wasn’t too long before she died.

HT – Yeah, because we moved into this house 7 years ago this coming Christmas and she, we moved in the 13th of December, I know that because that’s Kitty’s birthday.

KT – Uh-huh (laughs).

HT – And we moved into the house on her birthday. And, boy, it couldn’t have been much before that because she died 5 years ago this month, May.

KW – And you were telling me about that, we talked about that earlier.

HT – Yes, and my grandson. I was, uh, Kitty was in Salem Mass. which is where our daughter and son-in-law were living at the time and she was expecting her first child. And so Kitty went up there to be with her and I remember that Saturday before the child was born, Fredericka Donovan and I went to the hospital to see Lou and we were the last visitors, I think, that she had other than the medical people. I drove up to Salem and shortly after I got there, which I think it was on either a Wednesday or a Thursday that I arrived in Salem, we got word that Lou had died. And the very next day our first grandson was born. So the new life took the place of the old life and I think it was one of those (?) (?) (?). I really think there’s the hand of something greater than any of us had met. I’m sure I don’t know, other than that. What would have felt the effects of her life or a good life.

KT – To our daughter.

KW – And so when you and Freddy Donovan visited her on Saturday she was so ill that she just . . .

KT – She kept wanting you to stay, didn’t she. . .

HT – We would go to leave and she would make us stay and we had only intended to be there a few minutes, because they told us, she knew that she was dying. But we didn’t think that it would be good for her if we stayed too long, but every time we’d try to leave she would take our hands and make us sit down again and stay with her. And she was conscious; she knew what was going on. There was no question of her being just in a coma or something like that. She knew exactly what was happening.

KW – Did she express concern about the future of the Loomhouse?

HT – She didn’t then, she had before.

KT – I think she probably left a lot of (her?) things expressing the fact that she’d like for it to go on.

HT – Yes, I think she knew that she had a lot of friends, a great many friends, who were concerned about it. But we didn’t feel like we knew anything about how to perpetuate it. But a lot of her friends got together and we all decided that we would have a memorial for her, which we had at the Loomhouse, at Tophouse. And I uh, gave a little talk which several people spoke and

KT – David Banks

HT – David Banks who is a former president of the Board of Aldermen and is also an Episcopalian pries, officiated and, um, he’s a good fellow. He’s known her since he was a child. And it’s amazing because every time I walk in Lou’s house I can feel her presence there, she’s still there. She’s not going to go away. There’s no chance of that happening. She’s very, very obviously there.

KW – She was buried, when she was in the one ceremony to do with her death. She had on the bead jacket that we have the picture of.

HT – Right.

KT – Um-huh. Standing in the doorway I think of the Tophouse or something.

KW – And she had on that jacket and then . . . so she . . .

HT – I think wasn’t that when . . .

KT – Someone was there and they gave her the plaque.

KW – Oh, she wore that to Landmark. This is when Landmark

HT – I think that’s what it was, Landmark quotation, yeah.

KT – I believe that.

HT – (several talking at once) ___date and plaque.

KW – So then before she dies she wanted, that’s when she decided who would get what, she didn’t wait.

HT – Oh, she didn’t, she didn’t have things the in her will, no, if they, no, no, no. She gave things away before she died. She wanted to be sure, she didn’t know who was going to be able to take care of her things, you know. She just called the people that she wanted to have certain things that she gave them to her, to them. She had people going in her garage, which we were (?) to know, but she would, we always went with the big dogs, and she wouldn’t give too much, so she gave to (Freddy Donovan?) also a dear friend of hers. She gave the china and silver to our daughter.

KT – In her lifetime.

HT – In her lifetime.

KT – Not too long, (?)

HT – She told everybody that she wanted Ellen to have those things.

KT – And they said that (?)

HT – And they saved them. And I took them with me when I went to Salem, in the back of the car and, uh

KT – With the (?) and (?) (?) the (?) (?).

HT – That she gave Ellen.

KT – She gave Ellen the patio urn, the beautiful silver that was in her family, her family silver. All the pieces are there and we’ve added to that. But the Lamoge china was beautiful. Some of the great big covered bowls and uh,

HT – the (?).

KT – There was service for 12, I think, but the only thing that was broken was a lot of the teacups which . . . It’s natural, you know, for teacups to get broken, so, if, if, we’d added to the teacups for Ellen she’d have had serving for 12 and, it’s beautiful.

HT – If they would find matching pieces, if the would come

KW – So she put her, well, she put her death in order.

(Both talk, can’t make out the words) Yeah, (?) (?) (?) (?)

KT - . . .She put her life in order and in plenty of time to plan.

HT - She knew that she was going to die, she knew that she had cancer, probably more than a year before she died.

KT – We don’t know how long she had it.

KW – But she didn’t tell anyone about it though.

HT – No, not at first, not at first. Uh, of course when it got to the point where she had to go to the hospital then everybody knew.

KT – But living alone like she did, you know, having so much time, she had lots of time to think about who, who she wanted to get what and I’m sure she put a lot of that down.

HT – But really it’s a paradox because Lou was not, the most formally of people, I mean she would have, uh, things scattered all, all over the houses and, uh

KT – But she knew where everything was.

HT – She knew where everything was, but after she died it was very hard to try to sort things out. Well, one other thing that was great, she was able to uh, get people to contribute things to the Loomhouse, not for her, but things like yarn and I don’t know how she did it, but she did it. These big cartons of yarn and the people would just be sending it to her, you know, the manufacturers, maybe it was a discontinued uh, number or something like that, but they’d send her these big boxes of yarn and

KT – I know that she got a lot of linen thread from the army, it was khaki colored, the thread that she used a lot to make some beautiful things.

KW – And some of the letters that we have may have (?, all three talking, can’t make out the words)

KT – . . . pictures of, were made of that khaki colored thread.

HT – But, that’s you know, part of it, I mean, she’d also weave into it the colors.

KT – But she was a great one for buying in great quantities too, (laughs). She’d never buy anything in small amounts. Like uh, well it wasn’t long before she died, she wanted me to get her some paper clips. And I said, “How many do you want, a couple of boxes?” And she said, “Oh, no, get me about two dozen boxes of paper clips.” I didn’t know when she was going to use that many paper clips but that was the way she bought things, you know.

HT – But we found

KT - . . . so many were . . .

HT – We found, I don’t know how many penny postcards, you know, those kind you buy at the post office, they were already stamped with one cent stamps. Now, you know how long ago that was when you could mail a postcard for a penny.

KT – (laughs) (?) (too quiet to hear)

KW – Now in Wisteria, what did you use Wisteria for, the Wisteria cabin for mostly?

HT – Well, she was using it for storage mostly, I mean, uh, it was her dream to restore Wisteria and use that as a gallery. And she did, before she died, she did that. She cleaned it out and she did have pieces on display there. And very unusual things, and not just weaving but all kinds of crafts, that meant things, specific things to her. Like, for example she wasn’t able to maintain that building, I mean, and that was the least important, from a practical point of view, of the three. She lived in one and the other one was the teaching, uh, Wisteria, I would say, was probably the most beautiful of the three.

KT – It was, um-huh, it is, it is.

HT – Uh, at first (?) wisteria itself, I’m not talking about the cabin, I’m talking about the plant. Unless you control it it’s a very destructive plant. And I think there’s a lot of damage to that cabin. And there’s an awful lot of wisteria on that hill, on all the hill. I saw an oak tree that was big as an (?) (?) with wisteria on our property, just die.

KT – Just die.

HT – It’s a gorgeous plant, gorgeous flowers.

KW – We also had a picture of these stamps that she had saved that you all found in (a picture?); I mean that, well, one cent stamps, you said.

HT – (?)

KW – Yeah, the stamped postcards. Did you all go back and help put things in order afterward?

HT – We did, a little of it, not much. There’s a lot of people that did a lot more than what we’ve done. I’m ashamed to admit that, but it’s true.

KW – Oh, but you go back to the Open House and

KT – Oh, yeah, yeah, we, we. . . that place will always be dear to us, you know, we can’t just, uh, we couldn’t stay away if we wanted to.

KW – Have your grandchildren ever visited (Louisville that was there?)

HT – Oh, yes, they’ve been here.

KW – Have they been to the Loomhouse?

HT – I don’t think so.

KW – That would be, um

HT – That would be, no, see the oldest one is just 5 this month so, uh,

KW – They would like it now.

HT – Now, I’m sure he would, I guess the younger one too, but he, he’s only 2 years old.

KW – Yeah, that’s still awfully young.

HT – Although those two have both traveled a lot.

KT – And seen a lot of places.

HT – I just want to say for both of us that I think that both of our lives as well as our daughter’s life have been enriched by just knowing Lou. Uh, she’s had a very pleasant effect on us, on our relationship with each other and things. And that’s the important contribution.