Oral History Interview with Pauline Reynolds

Lawson: Tell me a little about yourself.

REYNOLDS: My name is Pauline Reynolds and I live on 92, and I'm 58 years old.

LAWSON: Where did you grow up at?

REYNOLDS: At Barbourville.

LAWSON: How long did you live up there?

REYNOLDS: Till I [got] married.

LAWSON: What year did you marry in?

REYNOLDS: 1948.

LAWSON: How old was [were] you when you got married?

REYNOLDS: Twenty years old.

LAWSON: Did you move down here then?

REYNOLDS: Yes, moved to Whitley County.

LAWSON: How old was [were] you when you had your first child?

REYNOLDS: Twenty-two.

LAWSON: Where was he born?

REYNOLDS: My oldest was born at home.

LAWSON: How many did you have?

REYNOLDS: I had nine children.

LAWSON: Was [Were] they all born at home?

REYNOLDS: Some in the hospital, some at home.

LAWSON: Tell [me] what a typical day was like for you back then?

REYNOLDS: It was kind of rough taking care of them.

LAWSON: Could you go through a typical day for me?

REYNOLDS: I'd get up to cook breakfast and I would have to build fires, if the baby woke up, I would have to get up and carry it around in my arms while I was cooking and most of the time, I wore a sweater and I would roll it up in the sweater to hold on to it while I was cooking. And then, it would go to sleep, and I would put it to bed, and I would have to do my work and most of the time, I had to wash on a board, didn't have electric all the time. I would have to get up to get wood to cook with, go to the mountains and drag wood to cook with, it was pretty rough going.

LAWSON: Did you ever have anyone to help you with it?

REYNOLDS: No, I had to do it myself.

LAWSON: Did your husband help you with it?

REYNOLDS: Sometimes he would stay with the kids while I got out and got wood or doing my work.

LAWSON: What did you feed them?

REYNOLDS: Breastfed all but one.

LAWSON: Haw long did you breastfeed them?

REYNOLDS: About a year to thirteen months.

LAWSON: How did you wean them?

REYNOLDS: Well, I would go by the signs to wean them, and I would catch the sign down in the legs or in the feet and wean, they would get in the[ir] head they would be weaned.

LAWSON: How did you know what to feed them?

REYNOLDS: I Just fed them what I had to feed them, what I could get to cook for them, I would feed them.

LAWSON: What age did you start feeding them solid foods?

REYNOLDS: About the time I would wean them.

LAWSON: What did they like to eat?

REYNOLDS: They would eat about anything I would cook, for breakfast, they liked their homemade syrup, or they liked chocolate gravy.

LAWSON: Could you tell me how you made the chocolate gravy?

REYNOLDS: It's been so long ago, but I can tell you how I made the home-made syrup. Put you some sugar in a stew cup and let it brown, you have to stir it till it browns and then pour you some water in it and let it boil and it will boil down into syrup.

LAWSON: Was [Were] there times when yous [you] didn’t have enough to eat?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, there was. We had to get commodities and I had to raise a garden for our food.

Lawson: Did you can anything?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, I canned my food.

LAWSON: When you had meat and stuff, what did you do with it?

REYNOLDS: I fried it or cooked it.

LAWSON: Where did you store it at?

REYNOLDS: Well, I would salt it down and put it in a cold place.

LAWSON: Did you have chickens that laid your own eggs?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, I had chickens.

LAWSON: Could you tell me some of the illnesses they had like colds, colic, anything like that?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, they had the colic and had bad colds and my oldest one had the whooping cough; and he was about a year old and my youngest one had the whooping cough when she was about a year old.

LAWSON: Did you take them to the doctor or the hospital?

REYNOLDS: We just doctored them at home.

LAWSON: Do you remembered how you doctored him?

REYNOLDS: Well, we made him cough syrup out of pine needles. We would get the pine needles and boil them down and sweeten that and make syrup out of that. The youngest one was in the hospital when she had the whooping cough.

LAWON: Did the pine needles seem to help him?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, it would help him when I would give him the cough syrup.

LAWSON: What did you do for diaper rash?

REYNOLDS: Well, I would brown flour--take flour and brown it and put it one [on]

him if I couldn’t get no [any] powders.

LAWSON: What about diarrhea?

REYNOLDS: Well, I would have to get him Pepto-Bismol.

LAWSON: Did they ever have any accidents?

REYNOLDS: Well, the youngest one had her arm broke[n], she was the only one that had any broke[n] bones.

LAWSON: Did you take her to the doctor?

REYNOLDS: Yes.

. LAWSON: Did any of them have any typhoid fever?

REYNOLDS: No.

LAWSON: Could you tell me some of your favorite home remedies?

REYNOLDS: For colds, I would go up to the mountains and I ' d gather herbs,

gather stuff up to make tea to give them. I would get some willer [willow?] switches and make tea.

LAWSON: Did any of your children die as infants?

REYNOLDS: Well, I lost two, I miscarried two.

LAWSON: Today, kids [have] of hundreds of different toys to play with. Could you tell me some of the things your babies had to play with when they were small?

REYNOLDS: Well, they would play with just whatever they could get a hold [ahold] of, cans, Prince Albert tobacco cans, spools and the boys would make them sleds and the little girls, they would cut out dolls out of books and play with them, just whatever they could find to play with.

LAWSON: Did you ever help them make[any] thing to play with?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, I would help the little boys make sleds and I cut the girls dolls out of books and let them play with it.

LAWSON: Did you ever read or sing to them?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, I would sing gospel songs to them.

LAWSON: Did you ever read to them?

REYNOLDS: I read the bible to them and little stories.

LAWSON: About what age did you start reading to them?

REYNOLDS: Well, when they get up big enough to understand.

LAWSON: Did you make their clothes?

REYNOLDS: Yeah, I made their clothes. I would make their clothes out of flour sacks and feed sacks.

LAWSON: What did you use for diapers?

REYNOLDS: Well, I used white rags or pieces of sheets.

LAWSON: Did you ever have any cribs, playpens, highchairs, strollers, walkers?

REYNOLDS: l got an old second handed [hand] baby bed and it went down through three or

four of them--of the children.

LAWSON: How did you potty train?

REYNOLDS: Some of them were easy and some were harder to potty train.

LAWSON: Was [Were] they easy to get to go to sleep of the day [everyday??]?

REYNOLDS: They would go to sleep during the day.

LAWSON: Was there anybody there who helped you with them?

REYNOLDS: Just me and my husband.

LAWSON: Did he help you a lot?

REYNOLDS: No he wasn’t there a lot.