Oral History Interview Doris Tipton

As we begin, first tell me a little bit about yourself.

Doris: Well, I am 62 years old and I’m married. I’ve been married for 45 years; happily married to the same man. And I met Lou Tate at the Wesley Community House. She was judging what they called the country fair.

We had a contest, we had weaving as well. So Tate had come and judged the fair then. And our teacher knew just very little about weaving. She would go out and get a lesson and she’d come back and teach us.

Well, I had just married, I was sixteen years old and all them ladies--I call them old ladies now, they were about five, six seven, eight years maybe, older than I am. My mother-in-law belonged to the club. In fact, she had to talk them into letting me join the club because I was so young, they didn’t want that youngster in their club!

Well, when I went in, naturally I was young, and all the dirty work, they put on me. But that was to my advantage. I learned. Because whenever Mrs. McDowell learned something, she taught me and I did it. I put all the warps on my loom. I did all that kind of stuff, anything like that had to be done, I did it.

All right, there was Mrs. Janice Thatcher who was also at the Community House there. And she went out to Lou Tate’s; she was a Loomhouse lady; she had enough money to be a Loomhouse member. So she started going out there and I started going out with her. In fact, Mom Thatcher couldn’t drive and so I did do the driving.

At the time I didn’t have the money to buy a loom. I worked my loom out, making warps and like that and teaching other people, doing work at the Little Loomhouse. In fact, I worked my loom out, and worked my lessons out, and everything out at Tate’s. I guess I was called her protégée; she wanted me to learn well enough that I could weave coverlets; that’s what she had in mind for me.

Well, as I say, I was fifteen years old and I worked there from ’39 to ’55 and another one of our weaver friends,-- in the meantime the Hobby Weavers was started up and all that, and one of the ladies there,--she went to the King’s Daughters Home. She was a King’s Daughter.

She said, “Doris, the lady that works there is leaving and I need someone to help me fix looms.” Well, I started volunteering and helped them fix looms. So when she left, they asked me if I’d go to work till they could get somebody. Well, I went to work for two weeks, but I went out and talked to Tate first. I said, “Now, Tate, do you think I can handle this job.” I said, “You know they have a lot of looms.”

She said, “Now Doris, on a loom, I’m not worried about you. If you can handle the craft part of it, all right, and if you have any problems, you come to me. I said, “All right.” She said, “You never--you [can] always adjust your loom; you’re what you’re doing to your person, to your patient, always remember that.”

Well, I had a man who couldn’t read. I knew he couldn’t read. And I wanted to put him on pattern weaving. Well, I didn’t know what to do with him. And I couldn’t embarrass him because I knew he couldn’t read. I had been there long enough. I knew the man couldn’t read.

So whenever I could I said, “Tate, I’ve got a problem and I just don’t know what to do with him.” She said, “Well, what’s he got that he can’t do weaving?” I said, “I’ve got a man who can’t read and I want to put him on pattern weaving. He demands me. He’s somebody that you have to give a challenge. And this is something that I’ve got to do for him, but I don’t know how to go about it.”

She said, “All right, let’s start thinking.” She said, “Did you ever think of color?” I said, “Color? What would I do with color with weaving?” She said, “All right, now I’m going to tell you, you think of color. This is your project and that’s is your patient.”

So I went back and I went to the loom and it came to me, between the two of us. I painted the pedals in different colors for one-two; two-three; three-four; and one-four. A different color for when I got ready to give the man directions, I just put in the blocks with the colored pencils. It just worked out perfect. Prettiest pattern you’ve ever seen in your life. He won all kind of ribbons at the state fair and all.

So I said to him--he was such a man I had to be awfully careful with him. I said, “Joe, you know I’m going to school. You know I’m still going up to the Loomhouse.”

He said, “Yes.” I said, “I’ve got a project and I’ve got to work it out, but you’ve got to help me. He said, “All right, tell me what you want.” I said, “I’ve got to figure this out, this will be my lesson. I’ve got to paint your pedals and I have to fix your directions. And if you’ll help me, maybe I’ll pass the course.” So see, he was helping me and all the time I was helping him and Tate was helping both of us. So, I mean, any problem I had, I went [to Tate].

And I went for two weeks and I stayed for eighteen and a half years. And we had all kinds of looms and I had about seven or eight patients who wove and were good weavers. They won all kinds of ribbons at the state fair. We did. We won lots of them and in just regular categories, too. We really did. So I enjoyed my weaving.

I’ve done more talking than I ever wove. (laughter) But I enjoyed setting up the loom more than I enjoyed weaving, really.

Teka: By setting it up, you mean?

Doris: Getting it ready to weave; putting the warp on and all…

Teka: You enjoyed doing the warp.

Doris: Yes, and I guess I did so much of it, and then after I went to work, it was my challenge to keep something new for them; new patterns, new colors, something different, so that I was always working around someone there handicapped, trying to keep something new, something pretty for them to weave on. I never entered the fair myself, never did.

Of course, if I had of, I’d be competing against my own patients and my own ideas and so I just never did and then I worked one month and then the next month I had a stroke and I’ve just been lazy. I just never really got back to weaving. As I say, I taught it, I love it, my friends who’ve been weaving, have been my life. But as far as saying, I’ve done a whole lot of weaving, I haven’t, I’ve fought it. And every seminar, and every class, as far as you can go anywhere, I went to it.

Teka: Like what, what kind?

Doris: Well, we went to Amherst University in January, last January up in…

Teka: You mean Amherst University in the East?

Doris: We went to every one of their seminars.

Teka: And when you say-we-?

Doris: Rose Perot, myself, and Elmira (?) Geary, were three of the Hobby Weavers. They also went to the Loomhouse. And we’d go up for their seminar. They’d be two weeks.

I had a camper. We’d go sometimes and stay in the rooms and sometimes we’d stay in the camper, just the three ladies and myself and my husband. We’d go stay two weeks in the camper and we just brought women who had been my friends; my main friends who are all good weavers.

Teka: And all this started when you were sixteen.

Doris: And it started at the Wesley Community House.

Teka: And Lou Tate came there to be a judge.

Doris: Yea, to be a judge. That’s where I met her.

Teka: And then do you remember the first time you went to the little Loomhouse? Or was she on Third Street then?

Doris: Well, she lived on Third Street. But she already had the Loomhouse.

Teka: And you would go out there to take lessons? Were you ever at Third Street?

Doris: Yes.

Teka: What was that like?

Doris: At her house? Well, Tate---her love was weaving and if you liked weaving, all right, and if you didn’t, she didn’t talk about anything else.

Teka: Oh, she would just talk about weaving.

Doris: Weaving was her life.

Teka: Now, did you ever get to meet her mother or her father?

Doris: Yes, I met her father and her aunt, yea.

Teka: Now her aunt, did her aunt ever help her get coverlets or have something to do with coverlets? It seems to me that I got a…there’s a…

Doris: Of course, it belonged to the Loomhouse, but I went to the Frankfort Training Home to a meeting with Tate and to see their weaving up there. The weaving was good, but what impressed me, of course, by that time, I had begun to--in fact, my first three dollars I ever made teaching weaving was teaching a handicapped person with Tate. And she said, “Now Doris, you sit back and don’t bother her because she’s a very nervous person. You weave and you watch her.

And that helped me a lot when I did start working. I got me a loom and got back behind the person and I wove too, and I watched her and saw what she did and when she made a mistake, I could tell by her feet and her hands what she was doing. So then when I went to work with handicapped people I could sit at my desk and I could tell what they were doing, when they were weaving, by their hands and their feet and I’d get up and I’d go to them and say, “Do you need help?” and they’d say, “Yes, I do. How’d you know that, Mrs. Tipton?” I said, “Well, your hands and your feet weren’t coordinated.” I mean, that was from work she taught me when I was learning out to the Little Loomhouse.

But I outsmarted myself. I made three dollars teaching weaving and I still have it. She asked me one day, did I want a check instead of the three dollars? And I said, “Oh, no, I’d just keep the three dollars.” I’ve wished a million times since I’d taken the check (laughter) instead of the three dollars, but that’s..

Teka: You still have the three dollars?

Doris: I’ve still got the three dollars downstairs pinned up on …the very three dollars; I’ve still got the three dollars. I wished I’d taken the check now with Tate’s signature on it, but you don’t think of those things. You just think well, Tate’s a little older than I was, but you just don’t ever think about anybody dying. You don’t, not when you’re-- let’s see I was sixteen. I guess Tate was twenty-five, maybe, thirty. Like kids with their parents, I thought she was ancient, but she wasn’t that much older than I was. When you get older you begin to think that.

But, back to the Frankfort Training Home-- (sigh) I’m always known for looking around and I walked to the window and I said, “Tate, what are those people doing out there in that pen?” And she said, “What pen?” I said, “Out there, look out there. There’s a group of people sitting out there in the yard in a pen-like. They had a little enclosure; they had about--I guess they had men and women both because they had on straight dresses; straight shirt-like things, and that’s where they exercised them. They let them out in the sun and they were wearing clothes where they could sit or walk around and then when they left, they’d clean it up. But that really impressed me, those people there. Well, for some reason I have always followed the handicapped or people who needed help. That has always been my life; that and weaving, pertaining to Lou.

Teka: When you would go to visit Lou Tate, did you take lessons yourself, regular lessons, or …

Doris: Yes, but Tate’s kind of lessons…

Teka: What kind is that?

Doris: Well, if she needed an order, she chose a loom and if it needed threading, you threaded it. Put so many yards of warp on it with a certain pattern and you wound them off and there was a game we all played with Tate. She could always,-- I don’t care how tight you wound the warp, that woman could always come up, take a hold of that and twist it and get out some slack in it. And I was always stout and I’d say, “This is the one time you’re not going to do it and she would walk up and she could always get another turn on it. And I could always turn the warp as tight as anybody’s but she had strength in her arms. She’d always walk up and get some more tightness on it.

Teka: Did you have a regular day when you were supposed to go out there?

Doris: Yes, but I really don’t remember what day it was. It seems like maybe, like a Wednesday. Of course, Mom Thatcher and I went and we went every week.

Teka: Would other people be there?

Doris: Yes, and if someone came in for lessons, we knew more about it than they and we taught them. It was the way you learned. After we were there for a year, Rose Perot and I taught at Nazareth College, as student teachers. I was putting on a warp down there--in fact, I was warping and the girls really laughed at that, because I’m the one always wanting to put on more yarns, put on lots of it, so we were down there with Sister-we had so many students and Tate; when she told you something you did not do otherwise. You did as Tate said do! That’s good in a teacher. Real good in a teacher, but we gathered little adventures.

I kept asking Sister, “How many Sisters do you want to make (garrets?) for?” She kept saying, “Sister So-and-so, Sister So-and-so, Sister So-and-so.” I said, “You’re going to need more warp than that, at least (?). We’re going to run out of warp,” And I said, “Sister, if you have ever prayed in you life, you pray for both of us. If we run out of warp, Tate will kill both of us!” She said, “I sure will pray.” Honest to goodness, we ended up with some but two inches.

She prayed right, because we didn’t run out of warp. We made it. But I thought, oh, if we run out of warp, Tate will kill us.

Teka: Because you hadn’t done….

Doris: I was a student teacher and I should have done what she told me to do.

Teka: And this was at Nazareth?

Doris: This was at Nazareth College and I went ahead and did some on my own. It hadn’t been too long ago since we went out to Central State, volunteered and doing some of that. So I told the girls, “Let’s put lots of yards on.” Well, we did and we ran out of warp out there and they all teased me about that. So I’m in the habit of doing it.

But when I worked, I’d put on sectional warping and I’d put on just as many yards on as I could so I wouldn’t have to rethread it, because your time is valuable and when you had so many patients; you had to keep your looms threaded up and so I put just as many yards as I could on it. But I had plenty of warp and so I mean I didn’t have to think, but Tate just bought so much for that loom and she told me what to just put on there and I put on more than I should. And if I’d been the teacher like she was, I would have graded me as wrong on that, I really was.

But the Sister prayed just right and we didn’t run out of warp. (laughter)

Teka: When you would go to see Lou Tate and you would take lessons, as you say, you did different kinds of things though.

Doris: Oh, everything. We washed windows, we scrubbed floors, we picked flowers, we--in fact, the windows up at top house, my husband and I, we bought them some place on sale for her. We came home, we had a truck, we got them on the truck, we hauled them up. Somebody else put them in, but Tate, she had to do everything. She didn’t have the money to do things, so you did everything. And I mean, whatever was to be done, that’s what you did. And if ever the day of (leven?), lots of days we made drafts-- all day long. And some days it was really lessons. Other days it wasn’t a thing pertaining to weaving as such. If you said you went to take your weaving lesson, and you did not get your lesson, maybe you washed windows all day.

Teka: I’ve seen a picture of you and Rose Perot and some others. Do you want to tell me about that photograph? It was concerning the graduation.

Doris: Oh, from the “Lou-natics?”

Teka: Yea.

Doris: Well, we had a regular graduation, I mean we had it--we had certificates, we had a regular--about seven of us graduated from the Lou-na-tech College. There’s not too very many that do that! Ha. Ha. (laughter) not from a Lou-na-tech college, anyhow!

Teka: How did she get the idea?

Doris: You never know what Tate…She had a wonderful mind, she really did. And, as serious as she was, you wouldn’t think she would ever graduate you from a Lou-na-tech College. That’s what it said on the certificate; she had them printed! We got certificates and everything.

Teka: We have a photocopy of that, and you have one yourself, don’t you? And you had a cap that you wore then. Had Lou Tate made those herself?

Doris: Yes, or had them made, one of the two. She had the certificates printed and everything.

Teka: Were you all surprised by the graduation ceremony?

Doris: Yes, we were.

Teka: Tell me about it.

Doris: We were very surprised about it. We knew we were working towards something because we had goals that we had to meet. The different things that we were supposed to do out at Tate’s. When the graduation ceremony came up, she said you had be out here at a certain date for your graduation. And we thought, graduation? And she hadn’t told--it was hard for her to keep a secret; usually she told some of us, but on that, she didn’t. It was really, I think, a surprise to all of us. There was Church, Rose, me, Jane Burns, --I think there was a picture in some of the things of all of us.

Teka: Yes, there is, and we have a picture in this oral history project. And Rose Pero named all of them. There was one on the far left that she couldn’t remember the name of. Maybe some day we can get together and we can say the names.

Doris: It was a surprise, but it was a wonderful surprise. And when we had our twentieth, or twenty-fifth [celebration] of our Hobby Weavers, why I took my Lou-na-Tech thing out there to show it to them.

Teka: Oh, did you take it out there?

Doris: I don’t know if I could find it right now, but.. I do have it.

Teka: We have a picture of that, too. Where did she hold the ceremony? In the Top house?

Doris: It was in the Top house because we were on the steps that go down stairs, where they teach at now; we were on the steps where the pictures were taken. Oh, and Sue Kendrick was in that.

Teka: Now when you said you all had assignments: things that you had to do, do you mean you were working towards something? What do you mean by that?

Doris: We had so many looms that we had to fix, we had so many drafts we had to fix and so many papers to fill out and drafts to finish out.

Teka: Were these in connection with her publications?

Doris: Yes.

Teka: Well, tell us something about these publications.

Doris: Well, you know she made her books, but most of those--we were the guinea pigs. We were learning, but we were guinea pigs, too. We worked the papers out. Most of them, before she printed, we had it on the loom. We did the sample work and all, before she printed the pages. And that way why, it was all proofed, woven before it was finished. We all learned and it was really something. When you started taking drafts off a piece of material, the way Tate taught us to fill in these drafts and all, it really taught you how to pick a piece of material apart to really know what threads they were. And it was just something you learned that nobody else could have taught. Well, I guess you could, somebody else, but I mean of all the places I went, I was never taught like we learned out at Tate’s. She had her own way and I was just fortunate that I got my sixteen years in that nobody but God could take away from me. Really…….

Teka: So how did she begin to teach you to take apart that?

Doris: You just went in and most of the time she started you on tying on a warp and we started on the door, to start with. She had pegs on the door and she set the table and the loom there and she had a dummy warp. When we first started off we all had dummy warps on our loom and we tied from the dummy warp; you put your warp on the door. Well, you started then on where you had the regular stand. Then she had trains, anyway that you could put a warp on, Tate had spread out there. Well then, when I went to work, that came in handy for me.

Then when I got a reel, it was easy for me to convert to that because I knew all the other ways. And when I got all the different kinds of looms, I knew I could convert it. Of course, I had done so many different ways out there and then we had a frame--she came up with a frame when she was selling so many looms, and we would put dummy warps on that. It had the heddles and the reed and you threaded that and she could just take that off and put it on the loom. The next fellow could come along and tie the warp on and than she’d have another loom to send out. We were really in production for a while, we really were, because that was when she was really active, when was selling looms and was really active.

Teka: I heard that she didn’t like to part with her looms.

Doris: She didn’t, she didn’t. They were all part of her and her patterns were part of her. And I thought Tate would teach you so far and then she would stop. I thought of that many times. But since I’ve got older and since I’ve learned, I know there’s basic things she was teaching you and you had to go from there. It wasn’t that she taught you so much, it was the main basic things and you were supposed to go from there You were supposed to use what she taught you.

Teka: One of the looms were painted. Do you remember any the reason for that? I heard that maybe she would paint the ones that she would take in to Fort Knox. Did you ever go to Fort Knox with her? We’ve kind of wondered why some were painted and some weren’t.

Doris: Well, when we went to Fort Knox, we went down there for a demonstration on sectional warping and that’s where I learned how to do sectional warping, was down at Fort Knox. And I had an old WPA loom that I had got at the Wesley House. As I said, I came from the Wesley House. I came from the east end. My husband made us a living, but he did not make money to buy looms and threads and things, so I worked for my loom and for my thread and stuff.

So when I went to Fort Knox with this demonstration on sectional warping, I came home and told them about it. I had gone up to the Wesley House and bought a whole truckload of looms up there and threw them down. You should have what you can pick out. Well, I had learned enough at Tate’s about looms that I could pick me a loom out of that bunch of wood laying there.

So I had picked me out enough stuff and my husband put it together for me. I told him how they did sectional warping so he put sectional warping on my loom.

Well, I didn’t have enough money to buy--you know in sectional warping you put two inches at a time; that’s twenty-four spools of thread. I didn’t have money to buy twenty-four spools of thread so I walked from east end to Sears Roebuck and I bought twelve spools and came home and put half sections on that, and I said, “God surely watches after fools and people that don’t know things,” and put my sectional warping on, and that sold me on sectional warping.

But I didn’t have enough money to buy twenty-four spools, so I bought twelve spools and carried them all the way from tenth and Broadway to Shelby and Washington Street and that is a long way, but at that time I was young and I was interested in weaving. So I did it.

Teka: And your husband put the loom together?

Doris: Yea, my husband could do most anything, he always could and always has.

And talking about Peggy Lumpkin, there--

Teka: Yes, right now we’re looking at a cup which is identical to the cup that we have a picture of in the Rose Pero interview. It’s a cup made by Mary Alice Hadley and you want to read the inscription on that?

Doris: It says, Lou Tate, 1953, Peggy Lumpkin. I’ve got one of them, too. And it’s downstairs somewhere. And Peggy Lumpkin is now in a nursing home and her husband used to call her a lunatic all the time.

Teka: After she’d gotten that award, he started using that as a nickname, uh-huh.

Doris: He was really awfully proud of it.

Teka: What is the story on when you all received [the mug]? Did you get surprised once again? There’s a picture of the Little Loomhouse. Rose Pero doesn’t really remember the circumstances and she said some of them stayed at the Loomhouse for coffee and that they weren’t supposed to leave.

Doris: It’s a picture of Top house on the cup. And it was made by Mary Alice Hadley. We used to go up there. I went up there with Tate. And I went up there to the funeral at the Wesley House.

Teka: You mean to Mary Alice Hadley’s?

Doris: Yea. We knew her personally and she used to come out to Tate’s. She was a beautiful little French lady. As I say, everybody knows me. I guess that Mary Alice was thirty and she had, I thought it was gray, but it was peroxide blonde hair, she wore it in a knot in the back and she was a beautiful, petite little person. And I still think of plenty times of other pictures I could have had of her. That was just part of living, a part of our time.

Teka: Were she and Lou friends, or they were contemporary; they were both artists?

Doris: I think they were artists, because Mary Alice belonged to our Louisville Craftsman’s Guild and I met her lots of times there, too.

Teka: Now was this something that some of the other people who went to the Loomhouse joined?

Doris: Yes, nearly all of them; Rose Pero, Peggy, myself, Edna Rahm, nearly all the main weavers.

Teka: And it was not just weaving?

Doris: No, it was all hand crafts. All crafts. In fact it’s still going now. It’s at the Water Tower now.

Teka: And it that where it meets?

Doris: Yes.

Teka: Did you join it?

End of Tape One, Side One.

Beginning of Tape One, Side Two.

Teka Ward: We are continuing our discussion of the Louisville Craftsmen’s Guild, which started in 1958.

Doris: Nell Peterson came out to the Loomhouse and gave us lesson on color and we were supposed to apply it to our weaving. And she said, “Well, you know , I have always thought of what I was going to make ,and then applied my color or my design.” Well, Nell was an artist. She wanted you to pick a color and then do it. Well, I never was real good at that so I didn’t do too good on that lesson, but anyhow.

Nearly all of us are weavers; I think Peggy, Rose, myself, Edna Braum (?), they’re all weavers, all Loomhouse weavers; all the real old ones that went out. They all belong to the Louisville Craftsmen’s Guild. We’re all charter members. So we used to meet at Nell Peterson’s house.

They taught at the University. Nell and Daniel both taught, I’m sure. But I know Nell did. And her mother wove some. She had a big loom land she did weave some. I think her mother was more the weaver, than Nell or Daniel, but as I say Nell was the artist and I think the taught art: painting, at the University of Louisville, but she did come out to the Loomhouse and give us lessons on color. But my color; I always have to think of what I was going to use it for, my pattern, and then I think of color. But that’s the way an artist thinks of color, but I don’t think that way.

Teka: Did Lou Tate have different people come out and speak to you all on different subjects.

Doris: Oh, yea. She had different people come out. Then we had algebraic expressions. She had people in from California. Nearly every book she’s got; they are from different people who have come in and Rose Pero and I, when we went to Nova Scotia, we would buy…well, I guess words have left me!…

Teka: Oh, that’s all right, I didn’t know you had gone to Nova Scotia. Tell about that.

Doris: Oh yes, we went up to Amherst, to one of their universities. Then from there we went to Nova Scotia and we went by to see the lady who was down here. The one…

Teka: Was it Mary Black?

Doris: No, Florence Mackley. We went by to see her.

Teka: Did you see her?

Doris: No, she was down giving some lessons in the United States when we were there. We missed her. But she is a lovely person. In fact she was at Lou Tate’s for a month or longer.

Teka: Teaching weaving?

Doris: She was teaching weaving and learning. They all come in for lessons; they give lessons, but they also learn from Tate. They always take something back with them.

Teka: Even if they left something here.

Doris: Of course, I think Tate and most of us are traditional weavers. Our patterns; we have traditional patterns. We liked Ada Dietz and all. Hers were from arithmetic. Well, when we got to really messing with it, we decided it was more to traditional. Even Florence Mackley. Now, her patterns were more traditional than Ada Dietz’. But the different people that came in we all had to do it.

Teka: What do you mean by traditional, as opposed to what else?

Doris: Well, some people use stripes or colors. Ours are designed, more designs, traditional designs; colonial designs, I would say. More like coverlet patterns and things like that.

Teka: You had said that when you first met Lou Tate, that she had in mind for you to learn about the coverlets.

Doris: And she had lots of coverlets and lots of coverlet patterns and that’s where we took off lots of drafts from these papers. We’d take the old draft and take the draft off of them and put it on the paper and work them down. That’s where a lots of these hot pad patterns that’s in one of these books come from, off the different old covers. Then, as I say, we would thread the loom up and weave it and try them out and she’d spread the pages(?) We were learning and she was getting her pages, too. So it was two-fold. She was getting things and we were, too.

Teka: So she was right when she spotted the potential in you and at your early age, she could tell that you could go on.

Doris: Right then, that I could go on with handicapped people. Because, of all the people coming out there, I don’t know why she picked me for this one certain lady who was handicapped.

She said, “Now Doris, you’re quiet, you’re patient; I want you to work with her.” Well, I did it and the lady did weave and she is still weaving and it has meant a lot to her. And I went on and worked eighteen and half years at King’s Daughter’s Home.

Teka: That was really Lou Tate who found that potential in you.

Doris: It really was. And I said that if there ever was one who was her protégée, I’m one of them. Of course, I came from the Wesley House. I made a living but I did not have the money to buy my loom nor pay for my lessons. I worked them out.

Teka: Did she ever tell you about the Little Loom and how they came about? Did she ever discuss that with you? Was it the Girl Scouts and Mrs. Hoover?

Doris: Hoover? Yes, she used to talk about all of that but, I mean, you remember but so much of it. To me the little looms are the handiest. I’ve got bigger looms, but I like teaching with the little looms because I can thread it up; I can put it in my car, wherever you want them, you can flop them. You can get them around. And my big loom, you can’t move it. Well, you can move it, if you take the trouble.

Teka: Have there been little looms around before Lou Tate started making them popular or making them available? Because in the really old days they only had the big looms.

Doris: Big looms, yea. If [there were little looms,] I really don’t know. But they would prefer covers: rugs, covers

Teka: Did people make clothes with these little looms?

Doris: Yes, in fact, I made material for a dress on one; my mother-in-law did; and Marme Geary did and Rose made a skirt.

When we went to Amherst, why that was one of the projects. You had to have something that you’d made and you would `have to wear it in a style show and Rose had pictures where she was in the style show, she and Elmira. No way would I get into a style show because I’ve always been heavy.

Teka: You weren’t in it, but it was fine to take part in it and not do that.

Doris: And then when we had our fifteenth--or one of our anniversaries, anyhow, we wove the material and we made up white roses and I took them to the florist and had them arranged in a container and we had our sticker and all and we had made corsages out of them.

We did get that idea from Amherst ‘cause on their table out there they had irises and everything made out of hand woven material and we just brought that idea back and applied it the needs that we had at that time. We needed flower arrangements for the tables for our anniversary, and corsages, so we just wove the material out of white linen, made our flowers up--I’ve always worked in crafts so I had everything else so we just made up the flowers and had them arranged in corsages and all and presented them to the lady who’d come down and spoke to us from Frankfort. We gave her a corsage and she took it to Frankfort.

Teka: Did you ever go back and talk to Lou Tate after you’d been to Amherst or someplace, and discussed with her what you did and discussed what happened and what you did?

Doris: Yes, she said, “Well, you’re just trying to further yourself along.” And I said, “Yes” Well, I did as long as I worked; every year, I took something different. Because I married young; I wasn’t a college graduate and I knew it. So I always felt like I had to keep learning and I did, as long as I worked. Like I said, I worked eighteen and a half years and I enjoyed every minute of it

Teka: Did she ever discuss with you her experiences of recovering these coverlets, finding these coverlets and getting them?

Doris: Yes, but I don’t really remember.

Teka: Did she ever talk to you about the young people, on teaching them?

Doris: Oh, the children, she loved to teach the children. She really did.

Again, she saw that in me where, I never did particularly like to teach the young people, I was more for the older people. And if there was an older person, or something, I got them and the other ones got the children. So she saw that; she knew more about me than I did because I didn’t know that I had that in me, but she did.

Teka: Did she enjoy teaching the children?

Doris: Oh, lord, she did. And I had one son and he went out there and she taught him and he’s in some of the pictures where he taught.

Doris: You’ll find most of our patterns here in Kentucky are traditional patterns. People brought them in from other states and other countries, but they are traditional patterns. Different people have expanded on them and that’s what they are today. But there are certain sections that stay true to traditional patterns.

Teka: Do people in Nova Scotia--are they traditional or…?

Doris: They have lots of traditional patterns, they do, especially Mrs. Begley.

Teka: Now the hobby weavers, do they have a certain idea about weaving?

Doris: Well, most of us were traditional weavers because all of us learned from under Lou Tate, all of us at one time or another studied under Tate, so we all pretty well thought the same way and wove the same way. We just had a little different idea in the way we wanted to go than the Little Loomhouse, so we started our own organization. I think it’s twenty-five years old now.

Teka: The people in the Hobby Weavers are twenty-five years old, the people in Amherst, are they traditional or…?

Doris: No, there are some traditional weavers, but very few. They are more modern weavers, there are damask weavers, there are multiple harness weavers.

Most of the people around our area are from two to eight harness weavers and up in Amherst and all, they have more harnesses on their looms. They go even more into more designs than what we do. We usually stay within a four block design or an eight block design, where up there they go into sixteen, twenty-four, and all like that.

Teka: Do people come from all over the United States to weave?

Doris: Yes, that makes it nice, too, because you meet the different people and then they have the different ideas and you get to see what they’re weaving and the different teachers, and all. It really makes it wonderful.

Teka: Now at these state fairs, the things that would be presented would be the Kentucky things?

Doris: Yes. But where I met Tate was at a neighborhood; a community house fair.

Teka: Now I know the Little Loomhouse had a Country Fair; the Little Loomhouse Country Fair. Was that held at the Little Loomhouse or at the Fairgrounds or …?

Doris: Well, when she fooled with it, a fair, why that’s what she called it, because that’s what ours was called at the Wesley House; was the country fair. And then she came and judged the weaving; in fact, I won first prize on my bag and I’d be ashamed to get it out an show it to anybody now, but I’ve still got it. And than I wove a napkin on it; in fact it’s out of scrap yarn that somebody had given to Wesley House, so to make the ends match, I took whatever yarn I had and rolled it into two balls so I’d have some at both ends. I’ve still got it.

Teka: And where did you win the award for your purse?

Doris: At the Wesley House.

Teka: Oh, you did!

Doris: Yes, one of the first fairs that Lou Tate judged at the Wesley House. They don’t have the weaving program there now. They sold all of their looms; that was sad, but you have to have people who are interested in weaving. I mean, weaving, most of it, if it wasn’t for the Little Loomhouse--it’s an investment. And when you get into the big looms and all, it’s a big investment.

Teka: I heard that Lou Tate didn’t like to part with her little looms.

Doris: Well, she really didn’t. She sold--had some sold, but when she had them threaded up in patterns and all, she just as soon set them all over the shelves and looked at them. But in her main house down there, it was just like going in and looking at caves. She had threads sitting all around her; her room where she sat. I said it was just like an artist out in the woods or something.

She had all the different colors sitting there so when she was sitting and designing something she could look up and see here threads. She had shelves built around in her living room; the room that she mostly stayed in and it had a big fireplace in there. You’d go in there in the wintertime and she’d have a fire in the fireplace and all the threads around.

But it was like my house, it was never straight and if you’d ever straightened it, she’d have died because she couldn’t have found anything because she had her own filing system; she had her own way of doing it. Her house was her home and she kept her threads all around her and kept her looms around her and it just felt good when you went in there. You really did.

And when you went to Top house, that was the way it used to be It was cut off in little sections and rooms, and all but in every room, the walls were just full of looms and everyone had a different design, a different color, and that was where the students worked.

Teka: And that was where you all worked.

Doris: Yes, sure was.

Teka: Did you ever down to her house just to talk or to chat--in Bottom house, Esta? Or that was here home and if she wanted to be alone, that’s where she would go?

Doris: Yes, if she wanted to be alone she would go down there, but usually you stopped by there as you went up to the Top house and got your instructions, what you’re supposed to do for the day. And if she was in a talking mood, why, she went with us and sometimes we stayed there and worked. We did most of our draft drawing down there. And most of all of our pages that we filled in and all that, we did down in her house. And she had some looms down there but most of the looms that we worked on were in Top house.

Teka: What did she do in Wisteria, in the middle cabin?

Doris: It was more of a storage place. And then when we got ready to have our country fair out there, why then she put an exhibit on the walls. We cleaned it up and washed the windows and scrubbed the floors and straightened it out to get all the squirrels out of it and it made a beautiful place for an exhibit because you know we went in there and Wisteria used to be beautiful out there. They were long and purple and would hang down and were just gorgeous.

And then when the children were out there working--most of the children come after I went to work after ’55. And she would put them out on-- like a patio, right out there at Wisteria, and she put them out there with the looms. It was beautiful out there with all the children out there. As I said, my son went out there for that and there’s a picture of him putting warps on, someplace.

Teka: I’m sure there’s one in one of the publications at the Bottom house right now. I’m sure there is. We’ll incorporate it with this interview.

Doris: It was a privilege to go out there, I mean…

Teka: Why did the children mainly start not until after 1955, do you remember anything about that?

Doris: No, maybe, because I was educating myself. So I didn’t pay any attention to it.

Teka: Yes, that’s right. You mean, after that, you might have thought of them as children.

Doris: I was such a kid myself. I had my son when I was seventeen, so I was a kid myself.

Teka: Did she ever talk about having been in college in Berea?

Doris: Yes, she did. She talked about being there and how she used to have to weave for experience and all. She talked about weaving.

One day, oh. I wasn’t complaining, I was simply making a statement about I was tired and she said, “You ought to see how much I used to have to weave when I was in college at Berea. We wove just yards and yards and yards of it.” And I said, “Well, I guess you did at that.” I said, “The thing about it, you learned well.”

And she said, “Yes, I did, and I said, “I’m learning well doing it. She said, “Yes, you are, but that’s the way to learn is to actually work.”

Teka: And is that where her interest began in weaving?

Doris: Yes, in Berea.

Teka: And so then she went to graduate school? Do you remember where?

Doris: Yea. But that was engineer. She was a graduate engineer.

Teka: Oh, she was?

Doris: And that’s why she’s so good at drawing drafts. And she had --foresight--getting things the right size, cutting it down, you know, for drafts and things. She was just smart. She was just a smart person.

Teka: But then she was able to get the pieces to the little loom, and figure out how to put it together but your husband was able to put it together.

Doris: But he was a man; he was an engineer. He could work with his hands. My husband was a marker(?) worker(?), so that was part of his life. She was a woman and how many women have a degree in engineering?

Teka: How did she ever happen to come to Kentucky? Just because her father was living here?

Doris: Her father lived here. He worked on the railroad.

Teka: And then she made it her home.

Doris: They lived on third street; that’s where I first knew that she lived. Otherwise, she talked of her life, but, not that she didn’t I was just trying to learn and I didn’t pay any attention to it.

Teka: When was the last time you saw Lou Tate?

Doris: At the nursing home.

Teka: Oh you did see her at the nursing home?

Doris: Yes, I went to the nursing home and saw her. And even then she was trying to set up a program out at the nursing home. Even then.

Teka: To teach people to weave.

Doris: Yes.

Teka: Did she have a loom out there?

Doris: No, but she was teaching with paper and different things, yea. Even then she was trying to teach weaving.

Teka: Was she glad to see you?

Doris: Oh, yes, we always had a--as I say, I think she always thought I was her child. I really do, because I was young and then she was always trying to teach children. I was a middle-aged child, all of the other ladies were … Nearly all of them are dead now, or in a nursing home. They were probably about twenty years older than I am; a well grained group. So I was really the baby in the group. So mine was ‘31 to ‘55 when I went to work.

But if I needed help, I knew she was there. All I had to do was go out. Well, even after I quit work and I had my stroke, after I got to feeling better, I got to thinking about teaching weaving in my basement because I do have plenty of looms and I have an eyelet (?), I just don’t have the energy anymore. But I respected her enough, I told you I went out and said, “Now, Tate, would you care if I start to teach weaving in my basement?” And she said, “Well, why do you ask me, Doris? You don’t have to ask me that.” I said, “No, but I respect you enough that I wouldn’t start without asking, because I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t taught me.” And she said, “Why, sure, go ahead, the more we teach, the better it is.” But I would not have started teaching without asking; I felt I owed her that much, I really did.

I will always treasure what I learned as a weaver from Lou Tate.