BRITTAIN: My daddy would have me go with him out to the field and he would be tending the crop while I would be [de] bend corn and follow him row after row. Then in the fall, we lived in a log house, and it was covered with board. Then you had to make your own boards, you had to make a roof for it. I would go with him to help him saw, help him pull the crosscut saw and I would stack them for him, on up until I was going to school, and we walked about three miles to school.
WOLVIER: Are you the oldest of twelve kids?
BRITTAIN: I’m the oldest of twelve children, I went to school--went to high school and past the examines [exams] and all in the six[th] grade.
WOLVIER: ls that as far as girls went?
BRITTAIN: That’s as far as I went. My mother got sick, and I had to take care of the children.
WOLVIER:: Can you remember their ages?
BRITTAIN: Well, they was [were] from two to three years on up to six and seven, I had to take care of them. Then, she was so bad off that the doctor said she had to go to a hot climate and to have her help and in 1907 we moved from Whitley County Kentucky to Norton, Virginia. I would walk them about two miles to school each day and I would watch after them and mother was
still sick. On the weekend[s], I would take the children to Sunday School. I would go to Sunday school every Sunday for years. Me and the oldest one, we tended the garden while daddy worked on the railroad. I tended it and watched after mommy, took care of the children and we tended the garden. After that then I was about fifteen, I guess that was the way it was form 1907 till 1913 and 1913 I met my husband.
Q; Where did yous [you] meet?
BRITTAIN: I met him in Norton, Virginia at a carnival, he was a stranger to me. He asked me and my sister to have a ride on the ferist [ferris] wheel. I was scared of the ferist [ferris] wheel. My daddy was involved in it some way, we got in [for] free on my daddy. The carnival was there for a week and so we went to the carnival and there I met my husband and we courted there and it was the Fourth of July.
WOLVIER: So that was--fireworks?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, so we courted then, and he would come visit me every weekend then until the 24[th] of December in 1913.
WOLVIER: Was [Were] you chaperoned?
BRITTAIN: No.
WOLVIER: Did he have to come to your house?
BRITTAIN: He[‘d] come to the house, sometimes we would go to the top of the hill I[‘d] and look over into town and we would talk. So then on the 24[th] night of December of 1913 he ask[ed] me to marry him and we come [became] engaged then and that was the first time he ever kissed me. He was afraid to ask my daddy for me, so he got his friend. We had a square dance and he brought two of his friends with him and he got one of his friends to ask him for me. When Mr. Cotton took my daddy out to ask for me my husband, he grabbed him by the arm and ran into the dining room. He said, "you recon they’ll let me have her". Then the 25th was Christmas night, so we got married on Christmas night and that was the first time I ever rode in a car. We went from south side of Norton to Stoney Lonesome, Virginia and got married.
WOLVIER: How long was that?
BRITTAIN: Well, about four to five miles.
WOLVIER: So, you all knew each other for about a year?
BRITTAIN: No, we just knew each other from July to December.
WOLVIER: And you were fifteen?
BRITTAIN: No, I was nineteen in October, and I was eighteen when we met and then we went to housekeeping then right away, So then on, he worked in the mines continuously. Sometimes I would be afraid he would get killed and I would walk three or four miles to the mines and call him out and every time I did, somebody got killed. So, we were married in 1913 and then in 1915, we had our first child.
WOLVIER: Would you care to tell me what your pregnancy was like?
BRITTAIN: I just went on as usual, did all my housework and did whatever I had to do.
WOLVIER: You didn’t have any trouble?
BRITTAIN: No. We moved from Norton to another mining camp.
WOLVIER: Was [Were] you by yourself when he was born, and did you have a midwife?
BRITTAIN: I had a doctor--a mining camp doctor, he would come to the home, and I had all my children at home.
WOLVIER: How was [were] you prepared--now we’re put up in stirrups, how was it for you?
BRITTAIN: It was normal with my mother and my family.
WOLVIER: Did you have a long labor?
BRITTAIN: No, I didn’t have to much trouble at all.
WOLVIER: How did it work back then?
BRITTAIN: When the labor pains came, I went to bed and my husband got the doctor we were prepared, I had the clothes and everything and back then the boys wore dresses.
WOLVIER: You made all [of] that stuff?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, I made them with my hands and my mother helped me make some of
them.
WOLVIER: So, you was [were] twenty-one when your first baby was born?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, I was twenty-one and then and in them [those] days, we didn't have bathrooms and I would always try to help him carry water and have it ready for him for a bath when he would come in from the mines.
WOLVIER: How did you feed your babies?
BRITTAIN: Breastfed them.
WOLVIER: Do you remember how old they were when you started feeding them off the table?
BRITTAIN: Well, they was [were] about eight or nine months old.
WOLVIER: Can you remember how old your first one was when he started walking?
BRITTAIN: He went to walking when he was thirteen months old and then my second child was born in 1918.
WOLVIER: How long did you breastfeed your babies?
BRITTAIN: Well, some of them was [were] two years old, but when my second child came, he would fight him for the breast.
WOLVIER: How did you wean the baby?
BRITTAIN: I just took him off and started feeding him from the table—well what we brought was heal thy for a baby.
WOLVIER: What kind of things did you feed him?
BRITTAIN: Gravy, mashed vegetables, mashed potatoes, you can stew potatoes and mash them, and you can fry potatoes and mash them, we didn’t have everything [in] them [those] days like they do now.
WOLVIER: You cooked everything?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, we cooked everything for them, we would make mush for them like bread and cornmeal and make mush.
WOLVIER: Did yous all [you all] eat together?
BRITTAIN: Yes, well we didn't have highchairs then, sometimes we had to hold our babies in our laps, then the time did come we got a highchair, but we didn't have the modern things like they have now.
WOLVIER: Could you tell me what a typical day was like for you when your children was [were] little?
BRITTAIN: We had a cow. I would get up about 4:00 in the morning and get my husband off to work. I [would] have went back to bed and lay there to [till] daylight and then get the kids got up and eat [ate] breakfast, I would go milk the cow and strain the milk and fixed milk for the churn. Somedays, we would have to churn, and we would have butter and buttermilk. When my oldest child got big enough, I let him churn.
WOLVIER: You had to include them?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, as they got older, then they could help me, we didn’t have our coal brought to our house where we lived, close to the slate dump me and my children would go get coal and carried [it] the days before winter started. They would help me, and we always tended a little garden. I had four boys and they got big enough to help me.
WOLVIER: Did you can?
BRITTAIN: Yeah.
WOLVIER: Did you raise hogs and chickens?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, we had them and we had horses and we had cattle, chicken[s], just about anything and then there was [were] times we didn't have [any].
WOLVIER: When the hard times came, what was [were] your feelings of being a mother at that time?
BRITTAIN: There was [were] times that it looked like we couldn't make it. Everybody [in] them [those] days were pretty well in the same boat. There was [were] times that we didn't have very much and the times were real[ly] bad. It look[ed] like we couldn't make it and my husband he said to me "honey we’re going to starve to death," and I said, “no we’re not, the Lord, he will make a way for us.” Then there was [were] times that it looked like we didn’t have no [any] clothes and I patched, sewed, and quilted.
WOLVIER: Did you enjoy being a mother?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, I enjoyed it. I felt the responsibility to do that, and I enjoyed it. I don't think I ever got too discouraged at any time, but you know, it felt like our duty to do what we thought was best. And we did our washing on a washboard.
WOLVIER: Women don't have nothing [anything] to do now?
BRITTAIN: No and you know, I think that’s why people are so lonely now, there was nothing to do, there is no labor, everything is done automatically.
WOLVIER: Everyday you had a routine [that had] to be done?
BRITTAIN: Yeah. On Wednesday[s], I would wash and then maybe the next day I would have to work in the garden, each day we had something planned to do.
WOLVIER: Every day you had a different goal you had to reach?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, we did, my husband, he retired. During World War II, I had four boys in the service, in the war.
WOLVIER: You had six children?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, I had seven, four boys and three girls.
WOLVIER: Were your babies ever sick?
BRITTAIN: No, I never had no [any] serious sickness with any of them.
WOLVIER: Is there anything that you can remember if one was sicker than the other one?
BRITTAIN: They did have measles, chicken pox, but they never did have the smallpox.
WOLVIER: How about diphtheria?
BRITTAIN: No.
WOLVIER: Typhoid?
BRITTAIN: No, they would have a bad cold ever[y] once in a while.
WOLVIER: When your children had a cold, was [what] remedies did you use?
BRITTAIN: Well, there wasn't much that I could [do]. Usually went to the camp doctor to get something and there was [were] a lot of times that I made tea for them.
WOLVIER: What Kind of tea?
BRITTAIN: Well, there is cat nip tea and pennyroyal tea.
WOLVIER: What is that make out of?
BRITTAIN: It is a wild weed and catnip, I guess that is all I would doctor them with.
WOLVIER: Did any of your babies die as infants?
BRITTAIN: Between the two youngest girls, I miscarried, they all lived to be grown [up]. In 1941, I lost a boy in a car wreck, he was coming back from the war.
WOLVIER: Today our children, you go to the store and there is [are] millions of toys, did your babies have toys?
BRITTAIN: They would empty fudge spoons and we would take a piece of elastic and combine them together and make a little tractor, that’s all the toys they ever had. We didn't have no [any] money, but we would try to get them some candy or something.
WOLVIER: Did you have time to play with them or did you combine playing and working together?
BRITTAIN: I would take time to play with them, we would play ball and I
would run and hide. I played with them and tried to make them happy as I knowed [knew] how to. We learned to work them.
WOLVIER: Did you tell them nursery rhymes?
BRITTAIN: No.
WOLVIER: Did you sing to them?
BRITTAIN: I would sing and rock them.
WOLVIER: Do you remember any of the songs?
BRITTAIN: “Rock-a-Bye Baby.”
WOLVIER: Back then, did you read to your children, like the bible?
BRITTAIN: Yes, I taught my children the word of God. They wore dresses till they started walking. We had to make their clothes.
WOLVIER: How did you potty train your children?
BRITTAIN: I learned [taught] them to tell me and I would take them out. If I was learning [teaching] them, before they would take their diaper off, I would ask them if they wanted to go out.
WOLVIER: At what age did you start?
BRITTAIN: Usually about two years old.
WOLVIER: Did they take naps during the day?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, they took their naps of the day.
WOLVIER: Did you have anybody around to help you with the babies?
BRITTAIN: No, just my husband.
WOLVIER: Did he help all he could?
BRITTAIN: He helped me real[ly] good.
WOLVIER: So, he was like an advanced father?
BRITTAIN: Yeah.
WOLVIER: How has discipline changed that you can see with your grandchildren now that is different from your children?
BRITTAIN: I raised my children to correct them[selves] and make them mind. I see parents today that they let the children rule them. The children rule the parents when they say, “I want this and I want that,” no matter what it cost[s], they usually get it. Children today, every day is Christmas to them, they don't know--in my way, it don't [doesn’t] matter to them.
WOLVIER: What are some of the other differences that you can pick up that my children done [did] this, but people don't do that now [any]more?
BRITTAIN: I don't know if I can bring it out exactly what, but I do see so much difference of [in] children today than back then.
WOLVIER: Do you feel like mothers were happier then than they are now?
BRITTAIN: I don't know if they were happier than that, you see, they can have--if they want something, they can get it and we couldn't get [it] and we didn't want things then like we do now, because it wasn't on the market.
WOLVIER: Do you think televisions [television] shows us ways at my age that back then you
Would of not [have] known?
BRITTAIN: Well, I don’t know [how to] explain how I see that. There was no such thing [as] like that or radio. Up into the 1920's, l think we got a radio. My husband don’t [doesn’t] like TV, and I don’t like it much, but things are so much [more] modern today, we didn't have things back then like we do today and there is [are] some great changes since I was a child and now, really, I’m not educated enough to say.
Qi During the Depression, what was it like for you?
BRITTAIN: It was a hard time during the union problems, it was awful. It didn’t look like we would make it. I was married in World War I and then from World War II and there was no work and people were starving and people were naked and there was so much violence, it was really a terrible time.
WOLVIER: Did you ever see a time that you didn't have a thing [anything] to eat?
BRITTAIN: Yeah, I did.
WOLVIER: What did you do then?
BRITTAIN: That was the beginning of World War II and my boys, they helped gather iron and metal to sell to help us keep food. Then the best we could do is that we come [came] up with food and my husband was scared that we would starve to death, and I affirmed that we wouldn't. I believed in God strong enough that the Lord even spoke to and [an] evangelist and told him to come to me an[d] the Lord sent them at a midnight hour to see. They come [came] and we didn't have anything to eat and there was [were] two carloads and when they come [came] to the door and I got out of bed and they said to me "sister Brittian tell us before we leave," and I said "just look" and they gave me money then to go to get some groceries. Yeah, the Lord has been good to me. We didn't have shoes; we didn't have clothes. The good lord Just made a way that we got some, there ain’t [is not] a thing that I haven’t went through.
WOLVIER: I guess you have to live through it.
BRITTAIN: Yeah, it is hard to talk about it, I didn’t want people to Know. I have seen many hard times, but the good lord had blessed me.
WOLVIER: If you could pick out one thing in your lifetime change [changing] for- the better- what would it be?
BRITTAIN: My husband worked on the WPA [Works Progress Administration], then he got on that. He sprayed gardens for people and that way we got our food when there wasn't no [any] work.
WOLVIER: Did you ever know [of] any herbs that were used?
BRITTAIN: No, my mother- as long [far] as I know she never used it. People did use some of them, but I don't remember- them. There was a lot of it [that] that went on.
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