The following interview is an unrehearsed interview with Ms.
Evelyn Carroll, Ms. Linda Anderson and Ms. Emma O'Nan for
"Frankfort's 'Craw:' An African-American Community Remembered."
The interview was conducted by James E. Wallace in Frankfort,
Kentucky, April 5, 1991.
[An interview with Ms. Evelyn Carroll, Ms. Linda Anderson and Ms.
Emma O'Nan. EDITOR'S NOTE - Portions of an interview with Mr.
Kenton McDonald precede and follow the Carroll interview. Those
utilizing the Carroll interview should zero the counter on the
recorder and fast-forward the tape till the counter reads 32. A
separate transcript of the McDonald tape is available]
O'NAN: If we just had TV now, to put you on. [Laughter -
McDonald]
WALLACE: I'll tell you, there's a man in town here . . .
CARROLL: Don't push me to it.
WALLACE: Well, I . . . I'm not going to . . . oh, I'm not
going to do it. Don't worry about that. [Laughter] But there
is a man in town here, you know him. Dr. Gene Burch, the
dentist, who's over . . . has an office over in Capital Plaza.
And he is a big video buff and he's talking about going around
and doing video of people who lived in Craw or new people; so . .
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.
O'NAN: Yeah.
WALLACE: Be on the lookout. He might be . . .
CARROLL: Don't you dare. [Laughter] You've done got me into
two messes.
ANDERSON: I . . . only one. She's . . . she's laughing.
Somebody wrote the library and wanted to know about the hemp
factory.
CARROLL: Yeah.
ANDERSON: He had been . . . he writes a column, and, uh, he had
been over here to Jim's Seafood and saw the marker. So, he
wanted to know about the hemp factory. And I got, uh, her in. I
gave him Ms. Carroll's name and address and I gave him Bill
Hubbard's address, of people who had been associated in either
working, uh, with raising . . . Mr. Bill Hubbard raised hemp.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ANDERSON: And, uh, Ms. Carroll was a little child playing
around when her mother and daddy were working in the factory here
processing it. So, she has had a lot of fun out of that, that
he, uh, uh, printed what she sent him and, then, he sent her a
copy of the newspaper.
WALLACE: Well, let me . . .
O'NAN: It's an interesting story.
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CARROLL: I like history myself and I . . . [laughter] I enjoy
all that.
WALLACE: It's fun to get together and reminisce. Uh, let's
see. Let me get some particulars here on the tape. Today is
Friday, April 5th. We are at the home of Evelyn Peyton Carroll
with Linda Anderson and . . . let me get your name for the . . .
O'NAN: Emma O'Nan.
WALLACE: Emma O'Nan. And we're here to share some
reminiscence about Craw and John Fallis and . . . and, uh, some
other characters. When did your family come to Frankfort, Ms.
Carroll?
CARROLL: Been here all my life.
WALLACE: You were born here?
CARROLL: In Bellepoint.
WALLACE: In Bellepoint. Okay. I notice you all said you
lived on Wilkinson Street. Where exactly did you all live on
Wilkinson?
CARROLL: Just on Wilkinson Street up on the bank.
O'NAN: Right in . . . going towards the hemp mill.
WALLACE: Oh, okay. You lived on the hemp mill side? Okay, on
the river side.
O'NAN: On the same side as John Fallis' store, on the right
hand side, going down.
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WALLACE: Ah, okay. So, you were neighbors, really, with Mr.
Fallis.
CARROLL: Yeah, but he was here when we lived here.
WALLACE: What remembrances do you have of John, John Fallis,
or the family?
CARROLL: Oh, we thought he was everything.
WALLACE: Why was he everything?
CARROLL: Well, he kept us out of trouble. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Did he . . . did he . . . was he neighborly to you
all?
CARROLL: Oh, yeah. He was to everybody.
WALLACE: I know you've got a story here about the children
would . . .
O'NAN: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . would gather in front of the store and John
would come out and . . .
O'NAN: Yeah. See what was going on.
WALLACE: And toss you all pennies or maybe candy or something.
O'NAN: Yeah. [Inaudible] he'd put his hand in his pocket.
We had a . . . handful of change and pitch it up and let it hit
the street. We'd all scramble for it. The ones that didn't get
any, he'd go back and get some more and give them some, too.
CARROLL: We all were satisfied. But we didn't do it every
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day. We just . . . when we took a notion to do it.
O'NAN: Then, we went somewhere else and done something.
ANDERSON: What would you buy with your nickel?
O'NAN: Huh?
ANDERSON: If you got a nickel that way, what would you buy with
it?
O'NAN: Candy and bubble gum.
WALLACE: Did you spend the money in Mr. Fallis' store?
O'NAN: Yeah.
WALLACE: It come right back to him, so he knew . . .
[Laughing]
O'NAN: Yeah, yeah. [Inaudible]. He'd go back in there and
get his candy.
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: Where was the Wilkinson Street School? I've heard
several people talk about it, but . . .
CARROLL: Oh, that was on . . . on the other side of John
Fallis' store going towards town, but it was on the same side of
the street John Fallis' store was on.
WALLACE: Okay. Can you describe his store? Do you remem- . .
.
O'NAN: It was about two blocks from his store.
WALLACE: Can you describe the interior of his store? Do you
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remember what it looked like?
O'NAN: No. Oh, yeah, it was a great big store, I remember
that.
WALLACE: It was large.
O'NAN: Yeah. Seemed like the counter was awful high. Of
course, we were small.
WALLACE: When would this have been, the 1920's or teens
[1910's] or . . .
O'NAN: Yeah.
WALLACE: You got, uh . . . okay. [Laughter]
ANDERSON: Yeah. Tell him about the, uh, time that your cousin,
uh, your aunt's little baby died.
O'NAN: About what?
ANDERSON: One of your aunts. Your aunt and your uncle had
moved in with you all and the little . . . little child died.
John paid for the funeral.
O'NAN: I don't remember that. You probably got that from
Corinne.
ANDERSON: Okay.
WALLACE: I've heard some of her stories, that he would . . .
when the family was too poor to pay for, like, a funeral or . . .
CARROLL: Oh. Well, he done everybody that way. If they was
hungry, he'd see they got something to eat.
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WALLACE: Well, was that just in . . .
CARROLL: And if they needed clothes, he'd see they got
clothes, and he'd see that they had fire.
WALLACE: What was . . . I mean, what was his motivation in
doing this? Was he just generous or did he get . . .
CARROLL: I don't know. He just . . . he just wanted to do it
to help you.
O'NAN: He really liked people and he had to . . .
CARROLL: He just, uh, liked people.
O'NAN: . . . [inaudible] helped them, didn't he?
WALLACE: Umhumm.
CARROLL: He hated to see them, you know, that they didn't have
enough to live on. And, see, back then, it was the Depression.
You didn't get much.
WALLACE: I heard that he was a political force in Frankfort.
Do you . . . have you all heard any stories about John and the
polls or turning out the vote or anything like that?
CARROLL: And, see, back then, we didn't have W . . . we didn't
have welfare and all of this and that and the other, you know.
WALLACE: So, people had to do for themselves.
CARROLL: You had to kind of get it yourself, you know.
O'NAN: Uh-huh. Like . . .
CARROLL: But he . . .
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O'NAN: I don't remember . . . remember anything about, uh, .
. . I asked this lady the other day, I said, "Did you know John
Fallis?" She said, "Yeah." Said, "He did more good than he ever
done bad." That's what she thought of him, you know.
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: A lot of people have said that.
O'NAN: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Blacks and whites, that he was very . . . sort of had
a Robin Hood quality about him. He made money from things that
you might not find . . .
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . morally agreeable, but he turned around and did
things for the community as a result.
CARROLL: Umhumm. And then, we would, uh, you know, go around
and collect bottles and bones and rags. We didn't get many
bones, though.
WALLACE: Do you remember, growing up in that area, some of the
things that, uh, the children would do for recreation or play?
CARROLL: That's what we done.
WALLACE: Collecting bottles?
CARROLL: We had fun doing that. And where we got our rags
from, the city dump was on Wilkinson Street, and there was
furniture and everything dumped on it. And us kids would get
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the, uh, rags in some kind of cloth sack or burlap sack and just
cram it as full as we could. Then, we'd tear out to the Bottom
with it.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
CARROLL: Craw. They'd weigh the sacks and give us money for
it. Sometimes, we'd get a right smart. So, we got a better
idea. We wet the rags. [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: Smart kids. [Laughter]
CARROLL: And we'd lay them out so they wouldn't drip, you
know, and be real heavy. [Laughter] And put it in the bag.
We'd put so many rags. Then, we'd put some wet ones and some dry
ones and some wet ones.
WALLACE: Who . . . who paid . . .
CARROLL: They knowed they was something wrong because we'd
usually have them in just about the same kind of a thing, or a
shirt or a skirt. We'd tie it, you know, to hold them in. But
when they put them up on the scales, they'd be heavier.
WALLACE: Yeah.
CARROLL: Yeah. Went down through there, and he caught us.
They was wet. So, instead of giving us all the money we was
supposed to have got, we just got half of it.
WALLACE: Oh.
CARROLL: Now, that stopped us from that. A lot of people put
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rocks in, but we didn't.
O'NAN: Tell him where he sold them to.
WALLACE: Yeah.
CARROLL: [Laughing] We'd go in and get these bottles. And
we'd get one penny a bottle. We'd take it to John Fallis' store
and they'd lose . . . and, uh, or James Dean's store. He would
give us two pennies. Well, some of them's got around with them,
but other people would be ahead of them. [Laughter]
ANDERSON: Now, who bought your rags?
CARROLL: Huh?
ANDERSON: Who bought your rags?
CARROLL: We sold them at the junk yard.
WALLACE: Oh.
O'NAN: Up in the middle of . . . up here on the Craw.
ANDERSON: Who run it?
CARROLL: Yeah.
ANDERSON: Who ran it?
WALLACE: Did the city run the junk yard, or some private
fellow own it, or . . .
O'NAN: Yeah.
CARROLL: I'm going [inaudible].
O'NAN: Mr. Marcus.
ANDERSON: Mr. Marcus?
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O'NAN: Yeah.
CARROLL: Yeah. You know Mr. Marcus? [Laughter] Got a store
up here?
O'NAN: His grandpa.
WALLACE: Oh, Elliott, Elliott Marcus.
O'NAN: Mose Marcus. [Laughing]
WALLACE: What was his first name?
O'NAN: Mose.
WALLACE: Mose Marcus.
CARROLL: No, it wasn't Mose, was it?
O'NAN: Elliott. No, Elliott's his son.
WALLACE: Elliott is still with us, isn't he?
O'NAN: Yeah, yeah.
CARROLL: Well, it wasn't Mose. It was old Grandpa, wasn't it?
See, Mose was Elliott's . . . Elliott's . . .
WALLACE: Daddy?
CARROLL: . . . brother.
WALLACE: Oh, brother.
CARROLL: Yeah. He was older.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you. Growing up in Craw, was it a
violent kind of place? I mean, I've heard stories of violence.
Were you kids afraid to walk the streets down there?
CARROLL: Well, no. You see, before then, they called it the
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red light district.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
CARROLL: And you could . . .
O'NAN: Well . . .
CARROLL: [Inaudible] down there, I don't believe.
O'NAN: . . . wasn't around there, I don't think.
CARROLL: At the time, it had calmed down some by the time it
was Craw, time we was growing up, see. [Laughing]
ANDERSON: Her nephew, Ms. Corinne's boy, is, like, in his
thirties, and he said when he was a little boy growing up that he
had to get way away from home if he wanted to get into meanness.
Said this, uh, black woman would stop and look at him and say,
"Aren't you Mr. Nelson's little boy?"
WALLACE: Yeah.
O'NAN: Yes.
CARROLL: Yeah. [Laughter]
ANDERSON: Said everybody . . . all the women watched the kids.
O'NAN: Yeah. They wasn't allowed to go to these rough
parts, I don't imagine.
WALLACE: Well, there were blacks and whites living down there,
wasn't it?
O'NAN: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
CARROLL: Umhumm. Yeah.
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WALLACE: Did they, uh . . . blacks live off by themselves, and
the whites, or was it integrated?
O'NAN: No, they mixed.
WALLACE: They mixed?
O'NAN: Be black in the bottom and white in the top of an
apartment.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Did the races get along okay?
CARROLL: Umhumm.
WALLACE: No problems . . .
O'NAN: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: . . . between black and white? That's one of the
things that sort of struck me as different; you know, to have an
integrated community that early in Frankfort's history.
CARROLL: Yeah. But it was. It was.
WALLACE: Most of the folk, were they working people? Uh,
where . . . did they they work at the hemp factory or at the
furniture mill or, uh . . .
CARROLL: Yeah, and, uh, in a shoe factory and hemp factory and
Model Laundry. That was it.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
O'NAN: Most of the people worked, didn't they?
CARROLL: Uh-huh, umhumm.
O'NAN: Of course, they didn't take much money, I guess, but
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they give them work.
WALLACE: Did the gals . . . the mammas have to work, too?
O'NAN: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
WALLACE: What kind of work would be available for women?
CARROLL: I don't think, uh . . .
O'NAN: The shoe factory.
CARROLL: If women had a husband, wasn't too many worked, was
it?
O'NAN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
CARROLL: And, see, back then, it wasn't . . . we had gas
lights.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
CARROLL: And they'd tell you to be in at nine o'clock, and you
was in.
O'NAN: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
CARROLL: See, that . . . they was strict rules then. I mean,
they did, really they did.
ANDERSON: Did your lights . . . would they turn the lights off
at nine?
CARROLL: No. The gas light burnt all night. And, uh . . .
O'NAN: But you couldn't see nothing [inaudible]. [Laughing]
CARROLL: We'd take the, the chalk from the school, and make
hopscotch. You know hopscotch. [Laughter] And, of course, when
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people were going up and down the street, they couldn't. While I
was playing hopscotch, they'd have to go out in the street and
walk.
O'NAN: Then, we'd play Shinny and they'd play Hide and Go
Seek.
CARROLL: But, nine o'clock, we was in.
WALLACE: What was your all's house like? Do you remember what
it looked like on the inside, the one on Wilkinson Street, the
house you lived in? Can you describe it to me?
CARROLL: Frame. Old frame house.
WALLACE: Did you heat with coal or . . . or did . . .
CARROLL: Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: You have indoor plumbing facilities?
CARROLL: No, no. Nothing like . . . the hydrant was outside.
O'NAN: It was [inaudible].
WALLACE: Oh, I see. Even your water, you had to go out- . . .
O'NAN: Umhumm.
WALLACE: So, you didn't have no tub or anything inside.
CARROLL: No.
WALLACE: Nothing like that. Us softies . . .
CARROLL: We had fun, though. [Laughter]
WALLACE: . . . if we'd have made it.
O'NAN: We'd never made it. Of course, I lived through, you
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know, some of that; but we lived in the country and there was
different.
WALLACE: Umhumm. But you were growing up on Wilkinson Street.
What . . . about what time span were you down there in the, uh .
. .
CARROLL: We was down on Wilkinson Street. Then, we was at
Bald Knob.
ANDERSON: Yeah. Tell him what your birth date is.
CARROLL: Huh?
ANDERSON: Tell him what your birth date is. When were you
born?
CARROLL: Me?
ANDERSON: Yeah.
O'NAN: You lived in Bellepoint and then moved to Wilkinson.
CARROLL: I was . . . I was born over in Bellepoint.
ANDERSON: In 1913.
WALLACE: In 1913.
CARROLL: 1913.
ANDERSON: When did you move over on that side of the river?
WALLACE: Yeah. When did you come on to this side?
CARROLL: Oh, we didn't. We went to Bald Knob; then, come back
to Bellepoint . . . come back to Wilkinson Street.
ANDERSON: Well . . .
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O'NAN: And what year is that?
CARROLL: We moved out on Hemp Factory Hill.
ANDERSON: When? When did you move to Hemp Factory Hill?
CARROLL: Humm?
ANDERSON: When did you move to Hemp Factory Hill? 1920? 1918?
CARROLL: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: You were still pretty little, though, weren't you,
when you . . .
CARROLL: I . . . I was seven years old when I first . . .
WALLACE: Ah, seven. Okay, so, you were here in '20.
CARROLL: Well, 1920, because I was born in 1913, see. That
was about '20.
WALLACE: Thirteen [1913], okay. Thank you.
ANDERSON: I know when she was talking about playing around the
hemp factory that she was a little child.
CARROLL: Umhumm. That was when we lived on Hemp Factory Hill.
ANDERSON: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: And, then, see, we moved up there, in the little
house. Then we moved over in the big house. [Laughter - O'Nan]
WALLACE: Were most of the folks that lived down there poor, or
was it middle-class folks or poor people or . . .
O'NAN: Just like we was. They had to work for a living, you
know.
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CARROLL: Umhumm. Course, now, I guess we was probably luckier
than some of them because our daddy was in the Spanish-American
War and he drawed a pension. Course, he didn't . . . $10. But
$10 is a whole lot. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Money. Whole lot of money. [Laughter]
CARROLL: That meant a whole lot. But, yes, he worked, too.
WALLACE: Did you all own that . . . own that house, or did you
all rent . . .
CARROLL: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: You rented it?
CARROLL: And, see, we lived next to the Baptist Mission.
WALLACE: Can you tell me about the Mission? I've heard about
it, but nobody's really described it to me or . . .
O'NAN: Uh, it wa- . . . it was a brick building and, uh,
Brother Farmer was the preacher there.
WALLACE: Did you all go? Did you attend?
CARROLL: We went there.
O'NAN: Uh, Ms. Carroll, wasn't it, uh . . . the First
Baptist Church, didn't they . . .
WALLACE: Sponsor the Mission?
O'NAN: Yeah. Sponsor the Mission, help with it? Didn't
they?
CARROLL: No. It was the Mission, you see.
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O'NAN: I thought it was a mission of the First Baptist
Church.
CARROLL: Uh-huh.
O'NAN: You really think it was?
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: Did blacks and whites go, or just mostly white or . .
.
CARROLL: Well, I guess the blacks went there, too, because
they did the Salvation Army, too. See, we went there to Sunday
School. Then, we would go home and we'd eat lunch. Then, we'd
go up to the Salvation Army, which is up on Mero Street.
[Laughing] Then, we'd go back home and about four o'clock, back
to the Salvation Army. All the children off Wilkinson Street,
they brought them from everywhere, and there was an old man that
beat the drum. And, of course, all the kids wanted to go hear
him beat the drum. And play the horns, and their tambourines.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: Then to the Bottom we went.
O'NAN: Went down through the middle of the Bottom.
CARROLL: So, we all stood up there and sang and done what they
done. Then, we'd walk back home again. Then, we'd come home.
Every Sunday, we went to the Baptist Mission. Every Sunday
during the month, to get a little bitty card to go to the picture
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show at the YMCA, silent picture. We sat on the floor.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: If you didn't go to church, Sunday School, you didn't
get to go to the show because you had to have that card. You
couldn't pay to get in. You had to have that little card.
This a way, everybody went to Sunday School.
WALLACE: That's a strong incentive for a young [laughter] . .
. young person.
CARROLL: But, see, they don't do that now. They just say,
"You go."
O'NAN: Well, no. YMCA, over at the end of the bench.
CARROLL: Old YMCA. We sat on . . . that old YMCA is still out
across the bridge.
WALLACE: Yeah, on the other side of the Singing Bridge. Yeah.
CARROLL: Umhumm. Umhumm.
WALLACE: Do you remember, besides John Fallis' store, any of
the other businesses that were down there in that area? You
mentioned a couple of grocery stores, I think.
O'NAN: Just the grocery stores, yeah.
WALLACE: What about, uh . . .
CARROLL: And, of course, the hemp factory was at the end of
Wilkinson Street, you know; down there where Jim's Seafood is.
They . . . then, it was the hemp factory.
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WALLACE: What was it like inside the old hemp factory? You
told me you were playing in there as a girl? Can you describe
sort of what it looked like in the interior?
CARROLL: Oh, it was just old big machinery, you know, and, uh,
fastened up to the wall. And these screws, just like I got
there.
WALLACE: Umhumm. I can see them. Ah, yeah.
CARROLL: Yeah. They was from down there.
O'NAN: [Laughing] And, uh, course, it, I reckon was just
laying with big bales of hemp . . .
CARROLL: Yeah.
O'NAN: . . . in the back, wasn't it?
CARROLL: Yeah. Yeah, and tied it up with, uh, wire or rope or
something. Just stacked it up like that. And they had little
things like gate that would fold up that they put around the hemp
to keep it from scattering on the floor.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: That's what I crawled up on and went to sleep.
O'NAN: And this was . . . I think she told you in there
that, uh, that, uh, power was supplied by the river down there.
CARROLL: Yeah. That . . . that big wheel, on that picture you
got.
WALLACE: Yeah. On the . . .
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CARROLL: And, you know, you got . . . he didn't have that.
He's got Johnny's store [John Fallis]. It's another man got that
picture. [Laughing] But, see, we couldn't get into trouble,
while . . .
WALLACE: Why?
CARROLL: Right below us, about the fourth house, it was a
policeman lived there, Mr. Rucker. On the other side of us was a
fireman lived there.
O'NAN: Was he, uh . . . what was his name?
CARROLL: Mr. Peavler, John Peavler.
O'NAN: Yeah.
CARROLL: And on across from them was the church. Then, here
was Johnny. Here was another church. See, they had us trapped.
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Religion surrounding you on two sides and the law on
the other.
O'NAN: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: And the river to your back; so, you were . . . you
were trapped.
O'NAN: She told me about these little mischievous things
they did and I said, "Well," I said, "There your name is on the
record over at the Mission and up at Salvation Army." [Laughter]
You'd know that couldn't do much wrong, could they?
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WALLACE: Where was . . . is that Salvation Army building, was
it at the location of the current Salvation Army building, or was
it somewhere else on Mero?
O'NAN: Down on Mero?
WALLACE: I know where the one on Mero is now.
O'NAN: That's where it was then.
WALLACE: Oh, okay.
O'NAN: Yeah. Yes.
WALLACE: Same location.
O'NAN: It's a new building.
CARROLL: Yes. And, see, we lived down on Wilkinson Street.
Then, you had to walk wherever you went, you know. So, we'd go
cross in front of where we lived on Wilkinson Street. Then, come
back and go up there to that one, and back to the Bottom.
O'NAN: Well, Ms. Carroll, was, uh . . . the policeman, was
that . . .what's his name?
CARROLL: Rucker?
O'NAN: What was his name?
CARROLL: Did I have it? I . . . I remem- . . . he's kin to
Danny Rucker down here.
O'NAN: Forrest. Forrest Rucker.
CARROLL: Yeah. I had on here we all walked down to the . . .
the Bottom, or Craw as it was called at that time.
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WALLACE: Well, did you all have any trouble with the water
coming up and getting in your house? I mean . . .
O'NAN: No, because we was way, way up on the bank.
WALLACE: Ah, okay.
CARROLL: On the bank, yeah.
WALLACE: I know there was a lot of problems with people
getting flooded.
CARROLL: Oh. On the lower side, it did. On the lower side;
but, see, we lived way up on the bank.
WALLACE: Ah.
O'NAN: You . . . you've been down to Wilkinson Street.
WALLACE: Yeah.
O'NAN: Well, where all the current houses is sits up there?
WALLACE: Yeah.
O'NAN: That's where we lived.
WALLACE: Okay. Where Riverview Terrace is now.
O'NAN: Now, uh . . . right . . . right . . .
CARROLL: They called it Hill Street, didn't they?
O'NAN: Umhumm. Right where you're coming up Wilkinson
Street, only you'd have to be going down. The last turn there as
you go in that building, you know, underneath there . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
O'NAN: That was Hill Street.
�
WALLACE: Okay.
O'NAN: Yeah. You can look on that picture and see.
WALLACE: Yeah. There was Hill Street . . .
CARROLL: And right there by Johnny's store [John Fallis],
right there was Hill Street.
WALLACE: And the next street over was, what, Blanton? didn't
Blanton parallel Hill Street? And, then, uh, Mero?
O'NAN: It went from Blanton to over there, I think.
WALLACE: Then, Mero and Clinton? And, as you work your way
east from the river, there was, uh, Wilkinson and Center Street,
which had another . . . what was it, Long Lane or, uh . . .
O'NAN: I'd say Clinton Street was where the Bottom was.
WALLACE: Did you kids . . . I know you said you went down
there with Salvation Army, but did you go down there other times
or you stayed away from it?
O'NAN: Oh, no. No. Oh, we went down selling our rags.
[Laughter] But they wasn't one of us went. It's always a bunch,
you see.
CARROLL: Because you wasn't allowed to go very much.
O'NAN: We, uh, we was sharp enough not to . . . we knowed
better than to go.
WALLACE: Traipse down there on your own?
CARROLL: Umhumm.
�
O'NAN: Yeah. Oh, yeah, because we was told and we knowed
then to do this and that and the other.
ANDERSON: Well, did you ever hear some rough stories about the
Blue Moon?
O'NAN: [Inaudible].
ANDERSON: What did you hear about the Blue Moon?
CARROLL: Well, that . . . that . . . that was where Johnny got
killed, right across from that picture on there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
CARROLL: See, where the Blue Moon was, right on that corner,
was where we would stand and have our church.
WALLACE: The Salvation Army.
O'NAN: Umhumm.
CARROLL: And now, when I ride the bus to town, that little
"peach" stand down there, we'd call it. I'd sit right there and
that [laughing], that's right in the middle of where the Bottom
was.
WALLACE: Right there on Clinton Street where they have the bus
stop, behind the, uh . . .
CARROLL: Umhumm.
O'NAN: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . "Y" [YMCA] building, I guess, is where it is.
�
CARROLL: Yeah, right behind the old Watts Building where they
. . .
WALLACE: Do you all remember when the urban renewal project
was . . . came into town?
O'NAN:
CARROLL: Yeah, I remember about the time that he . . .
ANDERSON: I do. I . . . when I came in '69 [1969], there was
still an alley that went from Lewis back to Clinton and a-,
another one that shot through between the old Capitol and the
Watts Building. I know there was one, uh, winter day it was
snowy and slick that we couldn't get out that alley and we had to
back around and go back out and go out Lewis Street the wrong
way.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ANDERSON: We just couldn't get up that little hump to get out.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ANDERSON: It was snowy and slick. And I remember when they
were starting to tear down the, uh, house where Sharp was killed.
WALLACE: Over on what used to be Madison Street, wasn't it?
ANDERSON: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: They had the John Harlan house . . .
ANDERSON: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: . . . and they had the Sharp-Beauchamp house, big
�
brick mansions, really beautiful old places.
O'NAN: I remember some of them big old bricks down on that
street.
WALLACE: Well, the urban renewal came in in about '57 [1957],
'58 [1958]. And it was somewhat controversial, and I re- . . .
was going to ask you all if you remembered how you reacted or how
your friends and neighbors reacted when they heard that the
Bottom was going to be cleared out.
CARROLL: Well, they say Bottom's going to be scattered all
over town. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Oh, I see. Some people were afraid that those folk .
. .
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . that were confined down in the Bottom were
going to be spread all over Frankfort.
CARROLL: Yeah. That's what they said, wasn't it. "They're
scattering the Bottom all over town." [Laughing]
WALLACE: Is that ultimately what happened to those people?
Where did they wind up? They just scattered everywhere or . . .
CARROLL: They do. They're out at the black college. It's, uh
. . . and in some housing out there.
WALLACE: Sutterlin Terrace is . . .
CARROLL: Yeah.
�
WALLACE: . . . out there behind Kentucky State.
CARROLL: And different places, you know.
WALLACE: Some said they went out to Bald Knob. Some of the
people moved out there.
CARROLL: Yeah, they did. I think they went to the country . .
.
WALLACE: And East Broadway.
CARROLL: . . . and there were . . .
O'NAN: But, you know, some of the people that lived down
there in that Bottom or Craw or whatever they call it, owned
their places. They owned it.
CARROLL: Yeah. And you was good to . . .
O'NAN: And there was good, decent people lived down there .
. .
CARROLL: Yeah. And, then, when they tore these houses down,
you see, they give them money to buy a place.
O'NAN: Yeah. Wasn't that, uh . . . the black funeral home
used to be down there, Robb's?
CARROLL: Robb's, yeah.
WALLACE: Do you know Jack Robb?
CARROLL: Wasn't Jack . . . he was in charge of that, wasn't
he?
WALLACE: He was. Jack Robb was the relocation officer and he
�
was appointed about 1965. Is he still . . . or has he gone on?
CARROLL: I don't think he's living, is he?
WALLACE: Oh. Well, and there's a Charles R. Perry, who was,
uh, head of the Frankfort Slum Clearance Agency. He's still
alive here.
O'NAN: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Frank Lewis was involved in the project. I don't
know if you all know Frank.
CARROLL: And Yount.
WALLACE: Yeah. I've got . . .
O'NAN: Robert, Robert Yount.
WALLACE: Bob Yount was mayor, wasn't he?
CARROLL: Out at Benson, you know, where them houses are now.
WALLACE: But he's dead now, isn't he?
ANDERSON: Yeah.
WALLACE: Bob Yount's gone. Well, they said some of those
homeowners, like you were talking about, Ms. Carroll, felt like
they didn't get as much money for their houses as what they
thought they should . . .
CARROLL: Right. Right. Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . should have got. Did you ever hear anybody say
that or express that to you all, that they felt like they . . .
�
O'NAN: No, I didn't. Did you really know some of them that
sold their homes down there?
CARROLL: No.
ANDERSON: How . . . how did . . . how did Corinne feel about
selling her house on Wilkinson?
CARROLL: Huh?
ANDERSON: How . . . how did Corinne feel about selling her
house on Wilkinson?
CARROLL: Well, she didn't like it; but she had to, you see,
because, see, they took everything on that hillside, just like
they took Dalene's over in Bellepoint. See, that new road took
Dalene.
ANDERSON: That's right, sure.
CARROLL: But, yet, she got her a place here on Moss, see, Moss
Avenue, you see.
WALLACE: So, she did get enough money to buy another house?
CARROLL: Yeah, yeah, which was really better than where she
was.
ANDERSON: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And that's a comment I've heard, that even though
those people were scattered everywhere, they did . . .
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . get better houses than what was down there.
�
O'NAN: Yeah, because a lot of them . . .
CARROLL: They wasn't . . . they didn't just . . .
O'NAN: Or in the new apartments and different places.
WALLACE: Now, did they . . .
CARROLL: They didn't just come in and . . . and just take what
you had and put you out. They give you a price and helped you,
you know, try to find a place.
O'NAN: I don't . . . most of the time, they do that when
they're buying people's homes for something.
WALLACE: They'd generally get three appraisals and, then . . .
O'NAN: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: . . . they'll give you what they consider the fair
value, and if you don't think it's right, you can take them to
court on it and slug it out in the courts.
CARROLL: Yeah.
O'NAN: Uh, I think a whole lot of times, people are
dissatisfied with it because it's been their home for so long.
CARROLL: Yeah.
O'NAN: And that was one thing that they can't . . .
WALLACE: I've heard people say . . . I've interviewed about
five people now, and they said, "You know, we didn't have nothing
but a shack, but it was . . . was our home."
O'NAN: Yeah.
�
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: And a lot of people were upset because they . . .
O'NAN: It's the idea of giving up what you had, your home.
WALLACE: What you know and are comfortable with, too.
ANDERSON: That's right. And you're giving . . . you're giving
up the closeness with the neighbors you have, too, you see.
CARROLL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, that's another thing. The blacks in particular
said, "When we lost that neighborhood, we all got scattered
everywhere and we lost a lot of friends that we just . . . even
though we're in the same town, we just don't keep up with them
any more."
CARROLL: Yeah.
O'NAN: Well, Ms. Carroll, you was talking about the school
at Wilkinson . . . Wilkinson Street. Did the . . . the black
children didn't go to school with you all, did they, down there?
CARROLL: No. No, no. Uh-huh. No.
ANDERSON: What was . . . it's not . . . was it Robey? What was
the school they went to?
O'NAN: Well, where was it? Was . . . where was their
school? Wasn't it down there somewhere?
CARROLL: I can't remember.
WALLACE: There used to be a Clinton Street School for Colored
�
Children.
CARROLL: Yeah. Maybe that's what it was.
WALLACE: And this was a predecessor to Mayo-Underwood. But I
don't know exactly . . .
CARROLL: Was it Rosewald or something? Those were all the
other side of the . . .
ANDERSON: That sounds right, Rosewald.
CARROLL: Something like that.
ANDERSON: There is, uh, a annual get-together for those
Rosewald graduates, I think; and I believe Big Jo went to Mayo-
Underwood, too.
WALLACE: Now, Big Jo went to Mayo-Underwood.
O'NAN: Yeah, yeah.
CARROLL: That's what Corinne called it, Mayo-Underwood School.
See, I wrote that in there.
WALLACE: Well, do you think, uh, the Capital Plaza tower and
all of that project that's been built, do you think that was a
good thing for Frankfort, or was it worth relocating all those
folk and losing their homes and all that? I mean, what do you
think? The outcome of it, was it worth it all?
O'NAN: Yeah. I think so, don't you, Ms. Carroll?
CARROLL: Yeah. It, uh, it's better for the young because . .
.
�
O'NAN: I do, too.
CARROLL: The houses there had . . . wouldn't stood very much
on that side.
O'NAN: No, they wouldn't. Now, I mean, they was old, wasn't
it? You know, went down and, of course, then they didn't have
gas and lights and electric and everything, you know. And . . .
CARROLL: And they'd of had . . . to fix the houses up to have
got it. And, see, they couldn't. So, they was better off in
taking it.
O'NAN: That was really the . . . part of the first
settlement of Frankfort, wasn't it? Uh, Fort Hill and . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
O'NAN: . . . uh, Hemp Factory Hill and . . . what was it
they called that, Leestown?
ANDERSON: Umhumm.
CARROLL: Yeah. And Wilkinson Street . . .
ANDERSON: Leestown was even older than the rest of the town.
O'NAN: Well, the Leestown is now, down there where all these
houses were. But it wasn't when we lived down there. But every
bit of that was sulphur wells. They called it the Leestown.
CARROLL: It was just ground. It wasn't no houses in there.
WALLACE: Umhumm. I think they built that first public housing
project about 1940, the old Leestown project; just about the war
�
year.
CARROLL: A long time, yeah. Umhumm.
O'NAN: Then, see, when they took the houses off Wilkinson
Street, they built that. Now, part of that was for the colored
people.
WALLACE: Umhumm. The Riverview Terrace.
O'NAN: But, see, there's two bunches of houses down there
now. The whites up here and the colored there and, then, coming
on up Wilkinson Street, see, they're colored. And, then, they's
one up . . . two or three up in the other way that . . .
[End of Tape #1, Side #1]
[Begin Tape #1, Side #2]
WALLACE: Oh, I'm having so much fun with this project. I
think I mentioned maybe that a black woman called me by the name
of Henrietta Gill. And I don't know if you know Henrietta, but
she lived down in Bottom and, uh, gave me the names and addresses
of 30 people. She said, "You must talk to all these people."
CARROLL: Well, I declare.
WALLACE: And I found a woman who has photographs.
ANDERSON: Great.
WALLACE: Of, uh . . . she lives out in California now, but she
went around in the mid-sixties [1960s]. A lot of stuff was
already gone by then, but she took pictures; so, I . . . I'm
�
finding more and more.
ANDERSON: Great.
CARROLL: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Do you all have any photographs of that area of
Frankfort? I've been checking to see if people will allow me to
copy them, if they do have photos.
ANDERSON: Uh, well, you would come around and set your camera
up . . .
WALLACE: Oh, yeah, they would . . .
ANDERSON: . . . here.
WALLACE: They wouldn't . . .
ANDERSON: Uh, she's got one of the front of the hemp factory.
WALLACE: Oh.
CARROLL: Yeah. I showed him the pic- . . . she blowed it up,
you know.
WALLACE: I have a Xerox of it.
ANDERSON: Okay.
CARROLL: You all never did have any pictures with Carol of the
. . . that was taken down there when you lived there?
ANDERSON: I've got one or two of the school . . .
CARROLL: Of the kids or anything?
ANDERSON: . . . but I . . . I looked and I don't know where it
is, yeah.
�
CARROLL: You know, the books and [inaudible] and all of that
stuff.
ANDERSON: Uh-huh. Uh, Fronie Glass [Saphronia Glass] was
talking about, uh, that area of Clin- . . . that part of Clinton;
and she said they were neat little houses and that people would
have their trees and their rocks out front, white-washed, and in
the summertime and it'd be hot, they'd be sitting out on their
porches kinda talking. It was kinda quiet and somebody walked by
and they'd holler and joke with them a little bit.
CARROLL: Fronie [Saphronia Glass], she didn't live down there,
though, did she?
ANDERSON: No. She . . . I think she lived there on, uh,
Clinton; down around Clinton, a little while and, then, she spent
most of her life out on Wallace.
CARROLL: Did you put that in the, uh. . .
ANDERSON: I think she was raised out there.
CARROLL: . . . Senior Citizen's paper about . . .
WALLACE: Yeah, I did.
ANDERSON: Well, uh, have you talked to a Woodrow Harp?
WALLACE: No, I have not. Would he be a good one to talk to,
Woodrow Harp?
CARROLL: Well, he could . . . he was one of the gang. That's
all I can say.
�
ANDERSON: Ms. Carroll, where does Woodrow live?
CARROLL: I don't know.
ANDERSON: Was he raised in Bellepoint, I mean . . .
CARROLL: Well, at Wilkinson Street and [inaudible]. He . . .
ANDERSON: I don't know.
CARROLL: I hadn't seen him till, you know, Coleman died.
ANDERSON: Umhumm.
CARROLL: And I . . . I knowed the voice, but I couldn't place
it. And R. T. Brooks says, "That's Woodrow." And, of course,
she went to school with him just like she did with R.T. . . .
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CARROLL: . . . R. T. But, Lord, it's been years since I've
seen him.
ANDERSON: Where were you that time that . . . was that out at
your aunt's when you all were, uh, fixing the, the fruit; the
plums?
CARROLL: Oh, that was down Bald Knob, down at [inaudible]
Church. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Well, let's see if I've got . . . I think you've
pretty much run through all the questions that I had on my mind.
CARROLL: Huh?
WALLACE: Do you have any other John Fallis stories or
[laughter - Carroll] Bixie [Benjamin Fallis] or Carlos or any
�
other Fallis . . .
CARROLL: No.
ANDERSON: Corinne had the story about, uh, their cousin. Times
. . . I guess it was back in the twenties [1920s] . . . times
were hard and, uh, the, uh, aunt and uncle and their set of kids
moved in with Ms. Carroll and her mamma and daddy and all their
set of kids. They were . . . had two families in one house and
it was sort of close quarters. And one of the, uh, cou- . . .
little cousins got sick and died and John Fallis saw her dad out
on the street and said to him, said, "Who's going to bury the
baby?" And he said, "Well", says, "I guess it'll be up to us,
since they . . . they're not working and they haven't got any
money." And he said, "Well, I'll take care of it." And he paid
for the casket and the, the whole funeral.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
CARROLL: Yeah. See, Uncle Mark had died. Aunt Bertha had
nowhere to go. And they sold ev- . . . what they had, and they
lived in Shelby County. And we lived on Wilkinson Street,
three-room house; two families. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Shew. How many people all totaled were in there?
[Laughter]
CARROLL: I'm not telling you that. [Laughter]
ANDERSON: Well, it was a whole bunch, wasn't it?
�
CARROLL: Yeah, a whole bunch. Bunch of them. But that's the
way that people done it then.
WALLACE: Well, you didn't have any . . .
CARROLL: And had fun. But, you see, Aunt Berthie, you know,
kept house and cooked for us and seen we went to school.
ANDERSON: And, then, your mamma . . .
CARROLL: We didn't never have a chance to do nothing only
behave. [Laughter - Wallace]
ANDERSON: Your mamma was working then?
CARROLL: Huh?
ANDERSON: Was that when your mamma was working?
CARROLL: Yeah. Mamma and Daddy both was working. Well, that
was good in a way, wasn't it?
WALLACE: That she could look after the kids.
CARROLL: Uh-huh. Had somebody to look after the children.
[Laughter] It wasn't wall-to-wall furniture, even the beds
weren't. [Laughing] Yeah. But, see, back then, everybody, you
know, it was like that and wasn't nothing thought about it.
ANDERSON: People shared with their families then, didn't they.
CARROLL: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
ANDERSON: What was it Ms. Corinne said about buying fish from
the men that worked down . . . that fished down on the river?
Your daddy would go down and come back with great big . . . was
�
it one great big fish or a big mess, several fish?
CARROLL: No, it was one. And put it in a tub, washtub, and
set the tub under the old pressure hydrant; turn that water up on
it. Rinse it.
ANDERSON: You have a big fish fry? Uh-huh, rinse it real good.
Uh, he'd buy it, what, on Saturday morning? When did you cook
it?
CARROLL: Well, we cooked it the next meal, you see.
[Inaudible]
ANDERSON: [Inaudible].
CARROLL: You remember that Ballinger that lived down behind
the church? He always . . . he was the one that always caught
the fish.
ANDERSON: Cut it up and stuff.
CARROLL: Fishing
ANDERSON: Umhumm. Uh-huh.
CARROLL: Brought these great big to- . . .
ANDERSON: And I . . . I think 12 of those Ballingers were
related to Berda and Gay?
CARROLL: Yeah. Yeah. Of course, they all were, I'll tell
you, because of they liked to see the fish flop the water.
ANDERSON: Yeah. [Laughter]
CARROLL: Back then, yet, we had fun. It was really fun to us.
�
WALLACE: Well, you didn't . . . didn't have any other
knowledge of anything.
CARROLL: Yeah. But, you know, now, I think they do have too
much. They don't know what they want to do next. [Laughter]
ANDERSON: And she said that when they moved . . . living out in
the country, that she enjoyed . . . she and Corinne liked it when
Mamma and Daddy moved because they'd have new stuff for their
playhouse.
WALLACE: Oh.
ANDERSON: They'd go up the little broken dishes . . .
CARROLL: Yeah.
ANDERSON: . . . and my little knickknacks that had been throwed
out in the trash, heap.
CARROLL: Yeah. And one of our cousins used to come home every
year, you know, and stay, oh, several weeks at a time. So, he
didn't come.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CARROLL: So, we thought he'd died. We dug his grave.
[Laughter] We put some apples in the grave and covered him up.
ANDERSON: So he'd have something to eat.
CARROLL: Then, he come back [laughter] so we went out and dug
him up. We laid Johnny, but old Johnny come back to haunt us.
ANDERSON: You never did . . . you never did tell him that tale.
�
[Laughter]
CARROLL: Did you want it?
WALLACE: Yes, I'd . . . [Laughter - Carroll and Anderson]
ANDERSON: Yeah, tell it. Tell it on the tape recorder, about
when . . .
CARROLL: It was funny.
ANDERSON: . . . about Johnny showing up.
CARROLL: Oh, I think we did say . . .
ANDERSON: Okay.
CARROLL: I don't know whether it's on there on not.
WALLACE: I don't . . . no, I . . . if you would tell it, that
would be great.
ANDERSON: Yeah, do it. Don't read it. Tell it.
CARROLL: Well, it was a tale that you heard. You couldn't
swear to it, but you heard it, didn't you?
ANDERSON: We heard it spoken, yeah. [Laughter] And we said,
"Oh, our Johnny's [John Fallis] dead."
WALLACE: Big Johnny Fallis?
CARROLL: Why we . . . him, I don't know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
CARROLL: I don't know . . .
ANDERSON: And everybody down there was running to the river
bank.
�
CARROLL: [Inaudible].
ANDERSON: You tell him about it. Yeah, go ahead.
CARROLL: His clothes was just up there in the tree and up on
the river bank. His shoes was up there.
WALLACE: What, this tremendous explosion and all this stuff
was blown . . .
CARROLL: Yeah. We thought they'd blowed Johnny up and his
clothes was up there. And, I guess he knowed about what time the
freight train is going; so, he swum the river and he goes over to
the old water tank, gets on that freight and leaves. Of course,
they're dragging the river and we was all crying and going on.
Well, we didn't see him for several months. And, oh, here come
our Johnny [John Fallis]. [Laughing]
ANDERSON: Well, wasn't it Corinne that seen him at the
Georgetown . . .
CARROLL: [Laughing] No, Mamma . . . Mamma said . . . it said,
uh, it was several months later and up pops John Fallis. My
sister must have saw him first. She ran to tell Mom, but Mom
didn't believe her and she said, "You come and see." So, she did
and we all saw John Fallis. And the last time they had seen
anything about him, you know, his clothes over there in that tree
on the river bank.
WALLACE: Everybody thought he'd been blown to kingdom come.
�
CARROLL: But, see, he got elected.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CARROLL: And he . . . he prom- . . . him . . . and he puts his
clothes in the river and got them wet and throwed them up there.
WALLACE: Yeah.
CARROLL: So, they'd think he was blowed up, you know.
ANDERSON: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: And, then, he just wanted to leave.
ANDERSON: But her sister was the little child standing at the
door and she, uh, called him Johnny Foddis. And she went back to
the kitchen, turned around and said, "Mommy," says, "I see Johnny
Foddis" and her mamma says, "Oh, honey," says, "Don't say that."
Says, "Johnny's dead." She says, "No, Mommy. I see Johnny
Foddis." And, uh, her little mamma . . . her mamma was, what,
weighed about 98 pounds dripping wet?
CARROLL: Little bitty was the way I looked at it.
ANDERSON: A little bitty woman.
CARROLL: Yeah.
ANDERSON: Just full of smite as she could be. She went to the
door and looked out and there he was, grinning. [Laughter -
Wallace] And she says, "Well, my goodness, Johnny," says, "Where
in the world have you been?" And he said . . . he put his hand
up to his elbow and says, "I've been where the bananas grow that
�
long." [Laughter - Wallace] But, of course, they was glad to
see him back.
CARROLL: Been to South America. He was their good friend,
wasn't he?
ANDERSON: Uh-huh. But he had to come tell them that he was
back.
WALLACE: Well, why did he blow . . . why did he fake his own
death? What led him to do that?
CARROLL: Well . . .
ANDERSON: Oh, I think the law, probably . . .
WALLACE: Was after him.
O'NAN: But I guess when he went away and stayed awhile, you
know, he probably just had a good way of standing in with the
law. It ju- . . . it was his friends and neighbors. Everybody
liked him. They just forgot everything, I guess.
CARROLL: We was glad for him to come back, so we give him some
pennies. [Laughter] We couldn't stand to think he was gone.
ANDERSON: But I think he missed you all, too.
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: Did you all know Mrs. Fallis pretty well? I mean . .
.
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: Do you have any memories of her, what . . . what . .
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. what . . .
CARROLL: She was a beautiful woman.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
CARROLL: She could really preach, too. We went to her church,
too. [Laughter - Wallace]
ANDERSON: Where did she preach?
CARROLL: Huh?
ANDERSON: Where did she preach?
CARROLL: In a building right next door. Well, for a while,
she'd have her church in her own house. Sure did.
ANDERSON: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Was she Pentecostal?
ANDERSON: She was? Okay.
CARROLL: Umhumm.
WALLACE: So, you actually sat in on some of her sermons?
CARROLL: Yes. All the churches . . . that's why we didn't get
in trouble, [laughter] we had too many churches.
WALLACE: Well, did Mr. Fallis attend those services, as well?
Did Johnny . . .
CARROLL: Yeah. Yeah, when he was there, he'd go to church,
too. [Laughing]
WALLACE: That's the . . . sort of the contradiction of the
man, that he could be generous and he could be . . . [laughter -
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Carroll]
CARROLL: Yes.
WALLACE: . . . church-going and at the same time be involved
in bootlegging and violence and . . .
CARROLL: I reckon that people didn't know him, that would be
hard to believe, but that . . . that was really true.
WALLACE: He had two sons.
ANDERSON: He had a way with people, didn't he?
WALLACE: Yes.
CARROLL: Good or bad. [Laughing] Yeah, and he seen they
didn't go hungry.
O'NAN: I never did know him, never did see the man; but I
can remember when we was kids at home, hearing, uh, when he . . .
something about I couldn't remember.
ANDERSON: I asked Ms. Carroll if he'd got killed or killed
somebody. I remembered something like that, and I can remember
hearing somebody tell about him, how good and generous he was
with people. The river didn't get him, but the Blue Moon did.
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Well, they said when he died, the headlines in the
paper . . . "John Fallis Killed", or "Czar of the Underworld
Killed." It spanned the whole front page of the paper. I mean,
he was . . .
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CARROLL: Great big . . . great big print.
WALLACE: Yeah. See, he was that important, that, uh . . . or
that much influence.
ANDERSON: Just a [inaudible].
WALLACE: And I had heard that he was politically a very
powerful man in Frankfort.
CARROLL: I guess, everybody in town is probably . . . was at
his funeral [laughing] or was in the building.
WALLACE: Did you all go to the funeral? [Laughter - Carroll]
ANDERSON: Isn't it strange, how anybody would be that
interesting to everybody?
WALLACE: Did you . . .
CARROLL: We knowed we wouldn't get no more pennies.
[Laughter]
ANDERSON: You went to . . . did your daddy go? Where did they
have his funeral?
CARROLL: Huh?
ANDERSON: Where'd they have his funeral?
CARROLL: I sa- . . . I just don't remember because, you see,
the funeral homes are not where they was then. See, even Rogers
ain't.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
WALLACE: But you say everybody in town just about to- . . .
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CARROLL: Everybody, I reckon, was there. [Laughing] The
funeral home was full. They couldn't all get in, but they . . .
ANDERSON: Well, what year was he supposed to have died?
WALLACE: He died in August of 1929. And he was shot by a man
by the name of Everett Rigsby, a man from Lexington. Apparently,
they were in some kind of gaming, like a card game or dice or
something, and a dispute arose and Rigsby shot him down.
CARROLL: Well, I declare.
ANDERSON: It was cards, we heard.
WALLACE: Yeah.
CARROLL: 1929.
WALLACE: That's what I heard.
CARROLL: I was, uh, I was about 10 years old then. My sister
was born in 1930. That was during the Depression. [Laughing]
Oh gracious. But, then, later, at the Union Underwear, when we
worked there, I can remember . . . it wa- . . . I don't remember
what . . . but it was somebody worked there, seemed like, that
had . . . was kin to somebody . . . well, that woman that he had
the child by.
ANDERSON: Was that Blackwell?
CARROLL: Yeah.
ANDERSON: Umhumm.
CARROLL: I remember that Blackwell name, but I didn't ever
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know the particulars.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CARROLL: It kind of seemed to me like that she had a . . . it
was one of the girls. Her sister worked up there at the factory.
ANDERSON: Well, uh, when that Blackwell woman . . . wasn't she
kin to Kathleen, or married a Blackwell?
CARROLL: Yeah. Well, it wasn't . . . wasn't . . .
ANDERSON: Wasn't that one?
CARROLL: See, she married a Fallis. Diana married a . . .
suppose . . . I . . . I think old John Fallis' son, that younge-
. . . one of the youngest ones.
WALLACE: Ishmael, probably, or . . . well, Ishmael's been
married two or th- . . .
CARROLL: And they had two children.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
CARROLL: They had two boys; one of them named Johnny. Do you
remember what the other little boy's name was? Johnny and, was
it, uh . . . let's see. Well, I can't think what it was now.
ANDERSON: Bixie [Benjamin]?
CARROLL: No. I believe that these children we're talking
about would be Bixie's [Benjamin's] nephews.
ANDERSON: Okay.
CARROLL: Johnny. Johnny Fallis. And they used to live here
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in Frankfort, them two boys. I don't know whether they do or
not. It'd be old John's grandchildren, I think.
WALLACE: There's a Scotty Fallis here in town.
CARROLL: Johnny and Scotty?
WALLACE: Could be Sco- . . . no, Scotty's real young. I'd say
he's in his late twenties, early thirties. He lays carpet for a
living. But I don't know what kin he would have been.
CARROLL: He could be one of their sons, couldn't he? These
kids that I'm talking about would be about, uh, let's see. Well,
maybe 45 or something.
WALLACE: That range.
CARROLL: I think, about my son's age.
WALLACE: Well, there's very few Fallises left around here,
very few.
CARROLL: Well, probably those that are left are his
grandchildren.
WALLACE: Yeah.
CARROLL: Well, and, some of them, I don't think are . . .
they're in town any more. I'd think Louisville or somewhere
else.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, they say the 1937 flood really changed the
configuration of the houses and the buildings in Bottom. It just
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washed out a lot of . . . lot of homes and things.
ANDERSON: Then . . . then, that old prison, too, you know.
CARROLL: That they never did bui- . . . rebuild.
WALLACE: Build. And they say when the prison shut down after
the '37 [1937] flood, fewer people would come down out of the
mountains to . . . to live in Bottom, you know, because,
originally, people were coming to be close to their loved ones
that were in the prison.
CARROLL: Umhumm.
WALLACE: So, really, after '37 [1937], it . . . it changed a
whole lot.
CARROLL: Umhumm.
WALLACE: There's almost a whole different story for Bottom
prior to 1937.
CARROLL: Can you imagine that flood being as deep as it was on
Holmes Street? [Laughing]
WALLACE: Did you all see the flood?
CARROLL: Yeah. Uh, that was '37 [1937]. That was the year I
went to work at Union Underwear up here on Holmes Street, the old
place, and . . .
WALLACE: Didn't it flood?
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CARROLL: Yeah. We . . . we came to work one morning and we .
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. . we couldn't come . . . get down here to Fincel's, old
Fincel's. The water was up, couldn't get through there, and went
around Steadmantown Lane and come down the hill and down Holmes
Street and it was up just about to the running boards on the car.
And, uh, so we had to turn around and go back. And, then, one
time after that, I come down on East Main and looked over in
there at all that water.
WALLACE: Yeah. They had to . . .
CARROLL: It was up to the second floor in that old Union
Underwear building.
WALLACE: Whew.
CARROLL: Then after we went back to work, they had this old
material that they had sent somewhere and, I reckon, had it
washed and dried. And we had to sew that. [Laughing] It had
all the starch out of it. It was the awfullest job there ever
was. Terrible.
WALLACE: You say there was water up in the Old Statehouse
yard?
CARROLL: Umhumm.
ANDERSON: I've seen a picture made down St. Clair and the old
Capitol looks like a fat frog on awful little skinny lilypad.
CARROLL: Uh-huh. That's it.
WALLACE: Where it's at.
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ANDERSON: Yeah. It does.
WALLACE: They say when the water would come up, it would start
coming up down there in Clinton Street, down in the lowest area
down there.
CARROLL: Yeah.
WALLACE: Back up through the sewers. I have to stand up. My
legs get all stiff. [Laughter - Carroll]
CARROLL: Yeah. That was really a terrible time.
ANDERSON: It was.
WALLACE: Well, I thought I'd click this thing off, unless you
all have some other remembrances that you'd like to . . .
[End of Interview]
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