Frankfort’s Craw Oral History Project
Interview with Vivian Fallis
April 2, 1991.
Conducted by James Wallace
© 1991 Kentucky Oral History Commission
Historical Society
Kentucky Oral History Commission
100 W. Broadway Frankfort, KY 40601
502-564-1792 (fax) 502-564-0475 history.ky.gov
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should be corroborated with the original audio recording if possible.The following interview is an unrehearsed interview with
Ms. Vivian Fallis for "Frankfort's 'Craw:' An African-American
Community Remembered." The interview was conducted by James E.
Wallace in Frankfort, Kentucky, April 3, 1991.
[An interview with Ms. Vivian Fallis]
WALLACE: Today is April the 2nd . . .
FALLIS: Third.
WALLACE: The third, thank you very much. And we're here with
Ms. Vivian Fallis to talk a little bit about her remembrances of
urban renewal in the Craw and the Fallis family. Can you tell me
. . . do you remember when you met Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis?
FALLIS: I think it was around January, 1950.
WALLACE: Do you remember how you met him, what . . .
FALLIS: He was standing on a street corner downtown. The old
Fire Department was on Main Street.
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: Along in, uh, oh, across from the McClure Building.
I don't know if you remember where all of that was or not.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But it was there then. And, uh, so I was going down
the street and he, uh, said hello and thought I was my sister.
[Laughter - Wallace] And my sister knew another fireman, a
younger one, a Peavler boy that worked there at the Fire
Department. And I said, "I beg your pardon, but I'm not Carolyn,
you know."
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, so, we struck up a conversation and one thing
led to the other; and the first thing you know, he asked me to
come and go to church with him. And I thought, well, you're the
first man ever asked me to come and go to church with you.
[Laughter - Wallace] And I said, "Well, all right." So, I went
with him, and it was the first Pentecostal Church I'd ever been
to. I had heard of them, heard them called Holy Rollers; and we
used to go out to the fish hatchery swimming when we were all
younger . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: . . . and they'd be out there having a baptizing,
just shouting on the creek bank, you know. And my girlfriend,
that I went with her parents, and they'd say, "Oh, that's those
old Holy Rollers." And I didn't know . . . but little did I know
I was going to get involved with the Holy Rollers and found out
they were the finest people that ever was and they wasn't what
people really thought.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: So, anyway, that's how I met him. And, uh . . .
WALLACE: When did you all get married?
FALLIS: Uh, wait a minute. [Laughing] July the 1st, 1951.
WALLACE: 195 . . .
FALLIS: No, 1950, because I met him in January, and, then, I
married him in July, yes.
WALLACE: And was Mr. Fallis at that time living in the old
section, the Craw section of Frank- . . .
FALLIS: No. He didn't live in Craw. He owned a house in
Bellepoint just as you go in next to Hale's Grocery, old Hale's
Grocery.
WALLACE: Oh, I see. I see.
FALLIS: On Kentucky Avenue.
WALLACE: So, you all set up housekeeping over in Bellepoint?
FALLIS: Yeah. We, uh . . . well, he bought about that time.
He decided to rent that house out and he bought one on the corner
of Major and Kentucky. And that's where we moved in to start
living.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, then, after . . . along in the spring, later on
the following year, we had a baby girl, Bendaline Bates Fallis;
and after she was born, we bought a house down on 874 Kentucky
Avenue.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: That was on down in front of Mr. Isaac Locke's
property. He was our neighbor.
WALLACE: Oh, okay.
FALLIS: Mr. I. N. Locke. He was one of the oldest, most
respected neighbors. And we lived there for about 25 years.
WALLACE: Well, can you tell me a little bit about . . . you
had mentioned to me that you were pastor of a church. What
denomination and . . .
FALLIS: Well, I was raised in a Baptist Church; and, then,
after Bixie [Benjamin] asked me to come and go to church with him
and I started. After we married, I started going with him to
this Pentecostal Church that was up on the hill, Pentecostal
Church of God. And his mother, of course, was a Pentecostal
minister. And, so, we went there to church. And it wasn't long
until I . . . of course, I really got saved. I had never really
been saved in my life. I just had gone to church, never
experienced, uh, just coming to know Christ as my own personal
Savior. And, then, uh, along about that time, I received a call
to the ministry.
WALLACE: Ahh.
FALLIS: But I couldn't, uh, I kept rejecting it because, uh,
my people, they about made me leave home. They didn't believe in
a woman preaching; and, on the other hand, they didn't much want
a lot to do with me then because I went to that church on the
other side of the tracks.
WALLACE: Where on the other side of the tracks was the church?
FALLIS: The other side of the tracks was from down at the
trestle . . .
WALLACE: Okay.
FALLIS: . . . railroad trestle that divides the . . . it runs
across Broadway . . .
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: . . . and divides Wilkinson Street. And from the
trestle on down toward Hemp Factory Hill . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: . . . that was the other side of the tracks. And
that was going down through Craw.
WALLACE: I see.
FALLIS: And where I started the church was just a little down
beyond Craw up on the hill of Wilkinson Street.
WALLACE: Okay. Would that be sort of . . .
FALLIS: Across from the sand bar.
WALLACE: Oh, okay.
FALLIS: The sand lot, Goedecke sand lot. And, so, of course,
they didn't like that. And I told them that the Lord God called
me and the Bible said that I should fear God more than man, and
they could just run me off or do anything they want for getting
saved and going to church. I said, "You didn't approve of me
drinking and dancing and partying and running around; and now
that I got saved and I've give up all of that and I want to work
and live for the Lord and you're not pleased with that either.
[Laughter - Wallace] So, I'm going to do what God's called me to
do."
WALLACE: Did they reconcile themselves to your decision
after . . .
FALLIS: Finally. I became a very, uh, believer, a believer
in prayer and in the Word of God. I read the Word and what it
said. I believed that it said do that. And, uh, so, then, uh, I
began to pray for God to really save my family. I said, now,
they . . . they say, "I'm a Baptist, I'm a Methodist, I'm a
Church of Christ," but, I said, "You all don't go to church."
WALLACE: Yeah.
FALLIS: "We don't . . . don't never see you sit around and
read the Bible and don't never hear you pray. But you claim to
be such good Christians." And, uh, so, anyway, I really prayed
and one-by-one . . . then, my father got down on his deathbed and
had a stroke and heart attack, and they called all of the family
in. And Bixie [Benjamin] and I went out. Well, my father, he
couldn't talk, and he motioned, grunting and motioning me in to
his bed. And I went in, and I began to pray for God to touch him
and save his soul, not let him die unsaved.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: I asked my father, I said, "Are you a Christian,
Daddy"; and he said, uh-uh just like that he couldn't talk. It
affected his speech. So, he motioned me closer. And I said, "Do
you want me to pray with you?" "Umhumm." So, I prayed with him.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, then, he wanted me to read the Bible to him and
I read him the 23rd Psalm and my father got saved. So, then, uh,
little by little, it took awhile, but they didn't much appreciate
me going to Pentecostal Church; but little by little when the
members of the family get sick, they'd want me to pray.
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: They found out that . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
FALLIS: . . . when I prayed, things happen.
WALLACE: Can you tell me about your congregation, uh, who
composed the congregation? Were they residents of the Craw or .
. .
FALLIS: Yeah, most of them, most of them.
WALLACE: Black and white and . . .
FALLIS: Not many black. Uh, some of the black would come in
and visit and sit on the back seat and visit, but they didn't
participate. Of course, there were black churches around in that
area . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
FALLIS: . . . that they went to. But after I got the call to
preach . . . and Chick Perkins built this church. And, then, he
wanted to go out on the field in, uh, evangelistic work. So, the
board asked me if I would take it; I had a call, would I take it.
Well, from the day I got saved and got my call, I began to walk
the streets of the Bottom and knock on doors and ask people to
come go to church and if they were saved; and asked them if they
weren't, let me pray with them. So . . .
WALLACE: What kind of conditions did you find as you went?
FALLIS: Oh, they were . . . you know, some of the conditions
were so pitiful. There was this one man I kept wanting to win to
the Lord. And when I'd go to his home, in this front room, this
front part of the house, they would have coal piled in there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And he would be sleeping on that coal pile and there
would be tin cans and chicken bones and everything, just throwed
in there, and just lived in that. And he was black as the ace of
spades, but he was a white man.
WALLACE: Uh.
FALLIS: And he was covered with sores. So, I asked him
if . . . I said, "I'm going home and I'm going to get some", uh.
. . I got a scrub brush [laughing] a jar . . . a bottle of Clorox
and some clean clothes of Bixie's [Benjamin's]. And I went back
down there and I told his wife, I said, "You see that he gets in
the tub of water and you see that he's scrubbed and clean and I'm
coming back and take him to church." Well, I want you to know he
agreed to go; and when I went back that night to get him, took my
kids with me, I didn't recognize the man. The neighbors had
gotten so thrilled over him being willing to go to church and
seeing what had happened to him, they were out there on the
sidewalk shaving him and had him ready to go. And he got in the
car with me and I took him to church, and everybody was shocked
because my pastor used to live his life down in that Bottom
before he got converted. And, uh . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: So, anyway, that was the beginning of it.
WALLACE: Were those kind of conditions, the ones that you just
described, typical or atypical of residents of the Bottom?
FALLIS: Not all of them. There would be, uh, some of them,
their homes was clean as a pen.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: You could have just about, it looked like, eat off of
their floors and their homes were spotless.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, uh, but this was just one particular incident
that was . . .
WALLACE: Memorable.
FALLIS: . . . exceptional, [laughing] living in filth. But
that man really did get saved. And I preached my funer- . . . I
preached his funeral. I think it was the first funeral I
preached. And, uh, they wouldn't even let him be . . . his wife
and them wouldn't let him, uh, be buried at the funeral home.
And they asked me to have a graveside funeral, and he was put in
an old pine box.
WALLACE: Ahh, I see.
FALLIS: And I cried; but then, as I read the scriptures, I
thought of the angels of God carrying him home to the bosom of
God, you know.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you some more about your . . . your
evangelistic work there in the Bottom. Uh, did . . . did . . .
were the residents pretty receptive to your overtures?
FALLIS: Yes. You know, and to be a woman minister, I was . .
. there was a few that said they didn't believe in a woman
preacher and I'd quote them the scripture that a woman was the
one carried the first message of Christ's resurrection from the
tomb.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: So, they couldn't argue with the Bible. But, then,
most of them, they came in to the church. We had ten people
coming when I took it over when Chick left. And it grew until we
was overflowing, and we moved the church then from down in the
Craw, as you call it, to over in Bellepoint. And we bought the
old Nazarene Church.
WALLACE: Umhumm, umhumm.
FALLIS: And, then, I got down sick and had to give up the
church and put the church in to the Church of God.
WALLACE: Ahh.
FALLIS: Affiliated it with the Church of God.
WALLACE: Had it been independent prior to that?
FALLIS: It had been an independent church, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Well, let me . . . let me stay on this subject a
little bit about Craw. Uh, in the sense that it was a community,
was . . . did . . . just from what you saw down there, were
people . . . was it a neighborhood where people were neighborly
to each other or was it mostly vagrants or . . .
FALLIS: They were more neighborly to each other than people
like we live around where . . . well, of course, this
neighborhood is wonderful. It's unusual, the people here are so
neighborly. But, uh, most places, somehow or another, they did
for one another and looked after one another.
WALLACE: There was a sense of community . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and those people did sort of take care of each
other.
FALLIS: Now, if they didn't like you, it was Katie barred the
door.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. They would . . .
FALLIS: And I had a brother who is now dead that, uh, was an
alcoholic; and when he'd get on his drunks, he would head
straight for the Bottom. And when he did, every one of those
people would take him in and take care of him. And I was pastor
of the church; and one Sunday afternoon, one of the men come over
and said, uh, "Sister Fallis", said, "your brother is laying on
the front porch in Catfish Alley and," said . . . it was pouring
down rain. And, said, "He's out cold and they're stealing his
clothes, his shoes and everything off of him." So, I called
Johnny West at the jail. He was the jailer. Johnny come down
and got him for me.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But that's the kind of people they were. They looked
after their own.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But when I went down there . . . and I carried my
Bible in front of me because I was scared to death.
WALLACE: Was it a violent place, a . . .
FALLIS: At times, yes. Mur- . . . my brother, when he
sobered up and found out I was going down there and going
door-to-door and walking the streets and going in those homes and
all and talking to those people about the Lord, he said,
"Whatever you do, Susie, you keep your mouth shut, don't never
tell anything you see going on down in that Bottom," Because," he
said, "if you do, you'll wind up here in the Kentucky River with
a concrete block tied around you." He said, "Now, I'm just
warning you."
WALLACE: He makes it sound like there were people who had . .
.
FALLIS: There were . . .
WALLACE: . . . a vested interest in sharing the things . . .
FALLIS: But I was so ignorant of what could have gone on, I
didn't know, you know, all that . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: I never saw anything go on to tell, for one thing . .
.
WALLACE: Yeah.
FALLIS: . . . other than . . . because, I guess . . . when
they'd see me coming, I was an outsider. So, they began . . .
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: . . . to shut the doors . . .
WALLACE: When were you doing the work, in the late fifties
[1950s] or . . .
FALLIS: 1951 till, let's see, what year was the church . . .
whenever the slum clearance came, they called it. When that
ended, then, I did . . . that ended my work down through there.
WALLACE: What . . . how did you react when you heard about the
slum clearance? I mean . . .
FALLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: . . . do you remember how you heard about it and what
your reaction was?
FALLIS: Of course, it was in the papers and they, uh, you
know, were letting us know that we were going to have to move our
church. We were going to have to sell our church and find
another one.
WALLACE: How did you react to that news when you heard it?
FALLIS: Well, I thought it was a better thing for the town,
for the community and for the people down there that they would
be moved out into better places than what they're . . . every
time the flood came up, the water came up, it would get . . .
that would be the first place to go down in there, those homes
around from the trestle on down. And my husband had a statewide
transfer business, and he'd be the first one with a truck down
there having to move all of those people out.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, uh, so, it was . . . of course, they called it
the Craw because it was always filled up with crawfish and
everything else every time the river come up. And, uh . . . but
he would move them out. He . . . I did have some of his papers
he received from the Red Cross for his services he did all down
through there. But that's what it was. And . . . but I walked
the streets and knocked on doors, invited people to church. And
one man, Ike Quire, he's dead and his wife and all of them gone
now. And I went into their home. His wife was coming to church,
but he said, "No, nobody will never get me in there." Well, I
went in his home one day and I knelt on my knees in front of his
rocking chair and began to tell him how much Jesus loved him.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, you know, tears started streaming down that
man's cheeks. And it wasn't long till that man come to church
and we baptized him.
WALLACE: Well, did you attend any of the public hearings that
they had about the urban renewal?
FALLIS: My husband took care of . . . see, we had a board;
and, so, I let the board and my husband, that's the part of the
church he helped take care of.
WALLACE: I see.
FALLIS: And, uh . . .
WALLACE: So, you didn't participate in any of the business at
all.
FALLIS: Not unless it was necessary for me to be in the
business meetings. Now, when the church was put in order in the
Church of God and we had to go to Bob Harrod, who then was the .
. . I'm not sure if he was Judge then or not. But, anyway, he
was the attorney that my husband had, and I went then. I had to
sign some papers to get it affiliated with the Church of God.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But, uh . . .
WALLACE: So, the affiliation took place at the time that you
all relocated?
FALLIS: Yeah, umhumm.
WALLACE: Okay.
FALLIS: Right after that because just as the church itself,
the people, they weren't satisfied in moving. It's hard to move,
uh, a group from one location that . . . a life they've always
lived and the kind of people they've always been.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: I learned right then, it's difficult to uproot them
and put them into a totally new environment. They don't accept
that readily.
WALLACE: So, maybe urban renewal had . . . was sort of a mixed
blessing to some of those people. If they didn't want . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . to see their church uprooted and . . .
FALLIS: Their home . . .
WALLACE: . . . they themselves.
FALLIS: . . . you know, the homes. To them, those homes were
little ramshackle places. Like I said, some, they scrubbed their
linoleums clean and whitewashed what they could, and, uh . . .
but they loved it. And when they were uprooted and thrown out to
other places, some went . . . couldn't have been any worse. But
they just all scattered.
WALLACE: Umhumm. That's a theme I've heard from a lot of
people that, "Yes, our homes weren't the most modern and
up-to-date; but it was a neighborhood and it was our home." And
I've heard some people reacted adversely to urban renewal because
of that. They lost that neighborhood, that sense of . . .
FALLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: . . . being a home. Uh . . .
FALLIS: That's the way it was.
WALLACE: Would you consider the Craw a slum?
FALLIS: What would you term a slum?
WALLACE: Well, that's the tricky part. Uh, I guess solely on
the condition of the housing and the utilities servicing the
housing and the state of the buildings. Some people will go on
that definition, if the housing doesn't meet a certain code. Uh,
others will say a slum is a place where lower socio-economic
classes live, where there's excessive violence, gambling, vice,
an area of high crime or prostitution.
FALLIS: It was all of those things. It was all of those
things. And Alex Gordon, when I was a little girl . . . and my
mother and father moved to town, lived over on Third Street in,
uh, Vogler's. We rented a home from Vogler's; Doc Vogler's
mother. I can't think of her first name now. And, uh, Alex
Gordon's wife and family lived on the opposite corner from us on
the corner of Logan and Third Street. But Alex run a place down
in the Bottom. He lived two lives.
WALLACE: Oh, really. What place did he run now? Which place
was it?
FALLIS: One of the worst . . . gambling . . .
WALLACE: Blue Moon . . .
FALLIS: . . . saloon . . .
WALLACE: Like the Tip . . .
FALLIS: . . . vice, prostitution. You name it, it was all.
WALLACE: Like at Tiptoe Inn or the Blue Moon or something on
that . . .
FALLIS: That's what it was.
WALLACE: The Blue Moon?
FALLIS: And I don't know if that's what they called . . .
I've forgotten if they cal- . . . anyway, John Fallis and my
husband had a place along in that same block close to Alex Gordon
when John Fallis was living. I've got a newspaper clipping from
. . . I've forgotten whether it's State Journal or one of the
others. It had a title that tall, "John Fallis, czar of the
underworld, is killed."
WALLACE: Huh.
FALLIS: And I had that pinned up on my wall in my antique
shop one day, and I came home and that was gone. Somebody stole
that off the wall out of my shop.
WALLACE: Good grief.
FALLIS: Well, now, the State Journal, I've got some pictures
and writing I got from their paper, but I don't remember whether
this must have been a Lexington paper or Louisville paper. And,
then, the Courier-Journal, they had let the Historical Society
have a picture of the man that shot John Fallis.
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: And they gave me a copy of that. So, I've got that.
WALLACE: Is that [Everett] Rigsby?
FALLIS: Rigsby.
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you. You say before your husband
met you and came to the Lord, he was involved with his . . .
FALLIS: Oh, he got . . .
WALLACE: . . . dad in running a place.
FALLIS: Well, after his daddy died, and, of course, when . .
. I think when his daddy got killed, he was too young to run a
place. But, then, as he got older, him and John Hackett run a
place together. John Hackett worked at the Fire Department, too.
WALLACE: Was that the Peachtree or do you . . .
FALLIS: You know, I don't know the name of it to my . . .
well, my daughter, somewhere, has got another album that belonged
to Ms. Fallis. She's not home. But it had a lot of things,
pictures and information in it. But, anyway, he run a place.
And every time they would, uh . . . he would bootleg. It was
during what you call prohibition.
WALLACE: Prohibition.
FALLIS: And he has told me that he would fill up a second gas
tank, what looked like a gas tank, and he would run booze that
way.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And he and John Hackett, if they'd hear that a
revenue man was coming, they would pour it all down the sink and
flush it down the sink or down the commode.
WALLACE: So, this would have been the 1930's probably. This
was after his daddy . . .
FALLIS: Evidently. It was before I met him because I didn't
meet him until 19 . . . the first part of 1951, '50 [1950] or '51
[1951]. I believe '51 [1951]. And, uh, anyway, he bootlegged;
and, then, he said he got saved just before I met him.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, uh, so, then, he give up. He said he . . .
well, he was still married to his first wife, and he said he
poured everything he had down the sink and put a padlock on the
door and walked out when God saved him. And he never went back
to it.
WALLACE: Never went back?
FALLIS: He didn't drink or smoke himself.
WALLACE: I had heard in his . . . you know, from stories from
R. T. Brooks and others that John R. Fallis was something of a
Robin Hood. He could be very good and . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . passionate and kind to people and . . . and
when . . . people down and out on their luck, he would carry them
at his store or something like that. And I've heard similar
stories about your late husband, Bixie [Benjamin], that they're
sort of cut from the same mold; could be very good. And I've
heard that . . .
FALLIS: High-tempered, extremely high-tempered.
WALLACE: And he came by that probably from his daddy. But I
understand at one point that he got into a conflict with the Fire
Chief and was shot.
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: In some kind of dispute over . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . repairing toys or something.
FALLIS: Didn't like to be told. Didn't like to be bossed or
told. He always took things too . . . now, how should I say the
word . . . but he would get . . .
WALLACE: Personal?
FALLIS: Yeah, maybe. And, uh, you had to be awful careful
how you said whatever you say to him. If you didn't, well, he'd
be quick to knock your block off.
WALLACE: I heard a story and I'll just relate this to you. Do
you remember Charlie Hines?
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Used to run the Historical Society years and years
ago. Charlie, for some reason, went out . . . I guess to your
all's house. This would have been the late fifties [1950s]. And
Bixie was sparring around with . . . I don't know, one of . . .
maybe did you all have some sons or maybe from the previous
marriage or something. And he got so excited. He was sparring
around with somebody. He turned around and knocked . . . hit Mr.
Hines and knocked him to the floor [laughter - Fallis]. And
Charlie leaped up and said, "Why did you do that, Bixie?" And he
said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't . . . " He just got caught up in
the moment, I think [laughter].
FALLIS: Didn't mean to do that.
WALLACE: He was apparently . . . you know, he was good with
his fists and . . .
FALLIS: Oh, yes. He was . . .
WALLACE: . . . he exercised.
FALLIS: He was a very good-hearted person. And I always
called him a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When he was good, he was
just good as he could be and as thoughtful and helpful to
everybody in the world as he could be.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But he could get so mad. One day, I stepped on his
toe and just . . . he knocked me flat.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
FALLIS: Just that quick. Something would rile him.
WALLACE: And he'd just . . . something would snap.
FALLIS: But, then, he'd turn around and pick you up and want
to kiss you. And I said, "No, once you hit me, don't you try to
kiss me. You leave me alone till I cool off." [Laughter -
Wallace] I'm that way.
WALLACE: Well, I heard there was a . . . I guess it's in the
back of this. There's a text of a newspaper article. It doesn't
give the exact date. It's on the last . . . or second to the
last page where apparently . . . and this is before you met him
probably. Someone shoved Mr. Fallis, Bixie's [Benjamin's], wife?
FALLIS: Un-huh, down here on Broadway.
WALLACE: And there was a . . . oh, a horrible fight.
FALLIS: Yeah. Uh, Carlos, you know, was quite a fighter,
too, the other brother that was state representative.
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: Well, he came along and he got into it. So, it
turned out to be there's . . .
WALLACE: What year?
FALLIS: I think I've got a write-up.
WALLACE: Do you know what year that was?
FALLIS: I wish I'd got out that folder before you came that
I've got all of the Fallis stuff in it. And, uh, a lot of
clippings and everything. Oh, that was forties [1940s], thirties
[1930s], forties [1940s] . . . forties [1940s], I reckon. But
I'd have to get that paper to be sure.
WALLACE: Apparently it was quite a donnybrook, though.
Somebody hit, uh, Bixie [Benjamin] over the head with a shovel or
something. [Laughing]
FALLIS: Lord, I tell you. They were scared of him. And they
knew that he was like his daddy and he'd fight to the kill.
That's the kind of person he was. And, uh, I . . . I loved him
and, yet, I was afraid of him. He was that . . . that . . .
WALLACE: Temperamental.
FALLIS: . . . temperamental.
WALLACE: Let me ask you a little bit more about Craw. I'm
taking up a lot of your time here. Were most of the folks that
you encountered when you went door-to-door doing your
evangelistic work, were most of them poor or do you know what
economic status you would . . . they would have had?
FALLIS: Well, being poor and living in the Craw section, if
they did the underworld things that some of them did, it gave
them money that wasn't . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
FALLIS: . . . brought over. But on the whole, they were
considered poor.
WALLACE: Umhumm. I just wondered if it was integrated. Were
there blacks and whites that lived down there?
FALLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: That's what I thought. Some people had told me it
was strictly blacks, but I didn't . . .
FALLIS: No, it wasn't. Black and white both lived down in
there. And the black was just as good to me as gold, treated me
with respect. And I'll tell you another thing that I . . . that
I look up to today. Mayor Paul Judd, I asked him right after we
moved the church from the Craw over to Bellepoint . . . you know,
they were talking about atom bomb shelters and stuff.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And I said, "Would you consider coming to our
church," which was a very poor congregation . . . illiterate. I
taught a lot of them to read and write. I said, "Would you come
and speak on the atom bomb and bomb shelters and stuff?" Well,
he did one Sunday morning. And that man, when service was over
and everybody left, I looked at the . . . at back at the door as
I was preparing to leave and there he stood holding his hat in
his hand. And when I got back there, he looked at me and he
said, "Sister Fallis," he says, "I'm not the kind of Christian I
ought to be. Would you pray for me?" And, you know, when that
man would see me up town in Frankfort Drug on Main Street or
anywhere, that man always tipped his hat to me. And that was
the most humbling feeling from anybody to think the Mayor of the
town tipped his hat to me. And I'll never forget that just
before he started tipping his hat, he told me one day in the
drugstore, he said, uh, "You know, you're going to have to hold
the noise down of that Pentecost Church over there in
Bellepoint;" says, "People that go . . . live around over there
and go to the ball game are complaining about the noise." And I
turned around real quick and I said, "Your Honor, let me tell you
one thing. If anybody holds the noise down, you're going to have
to tell that football field [laughter] to hold that noise down.
We can't hear the preacher or the singing and the people roar by
there in their cars and disturb our services. So, if there's any
quieting down, you do the quieting of that neighborhood."
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
FALLIS: He looked at me.
WALLACE: [Laughing] He was probably . . .
FALLIS: "Yes, ma'am." From that day on, that man tipped his
hat to me. [Laughter - Wallace] But he never no more ever said
another word about us holding noise down. I said, "We're
shouting and . . . for the glory of God." And I said, "I don't
know what you all are shouting about down there at that ball
field, but it sure makes a lot of noise, and I can't even sleep
where I live down here at the other end of Kentucky Avenue."
[Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: I haven't . . . I need to find some people that knew
Mayor Judd because apparently at one point during the slum
clearance project, uh, Mayor Gerard, John Gerard . . .
FALLIS: John Gerard.
WALLACE: . . . went out of office, sort of lost out to Mayor
Judd, and the slum clearance project got into a little bit of
political controversy there and Mayor Judd wanted all of the
people on the slum clearance board to step down and he wanted to
appoint all . . . I guess his people.
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And I've never really . . . I haven't talked to
anybody yet who knows what was behind all of that. I . . .
FALLIS: You know, it's funny how many things that I forget
that I hadn't even bothered . . . wasn't any use to think about,
I reckon, all that stuff.
WALLACE: Well, it's interesting to me. Let me read you a few
names of businesses and churches down in Craw and see if you have
some reactions to them. The Tiger Inn. Remember The Tiger Inn?
FALLIS: Tiger Inn. I can't think of that one, but I knew a
lot of the others; "Twenty Grand's".
WALLACE: What was "Twenty Grand's"? I haven- . . .
FALLIS: "Twenty Grand", you know, they run a place, I guess,
about as ornery, if you want to use that term, [laughter -
Wallace] and wicked or whatever, corrupt or vice. But that man
and Grace Sarven, I don't know if they ever married or if they
just lived together. I've never really found out.
WALLACE: Who was the man?
FALLIS: "Twenty Grand", they called him.
WALLACE: "Twenty Grand".
FALLIS: They called him "Twenty Grand". And what his right
name was, I'll . . . I don't know to this day. But all I ever
knew him by was "Twenty Grand", and he run what they called
"Twenty Grand's". It was his place.
WALLACE: Where was that?
FALLIS: Right down in the middle of Craw on . . .
WALLACE: What, Washington or . . .
FALLIS: No, it wasn't on Washington. It was on Clinton or
Mero, the . . . where all of the rest of them were along there,
across the Wilkinson . . . no, let's see. Wilkinson Street
School now. I don't remember if it was Mero or Clinton. What's
the first one after you leave Broadway going down that way? Do
you . . .
WALLACE: Clinton. Clinton parallels Broadway, and that's the
first one.
FALLIS: I believe it was on Clinton, I believe. Well,
anyway, to make a long story short, he sent for me one day. I
was scared to death. The Bottom scared me to death. And I would
say, "Lord, your word said you'd send the angels of the Lord to
take care of us and they encamp around about them that fear you,
and just go with me and I'll go." Well, he sent for me to come
to his place. And he said, "I'll have a man at the bottom of the
stairs to see that no harm comes to you. I want you to come and
pray with my . . . my wife." He called her his wife.
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: And I got down there and my eyes rolling around
looking, you know; and, sure enough, there was men down there and
took me up the stairs and into the room and he had me pray.
There she was, real bad off in bed, and had me pray over her.
And he sat there at the foot of the bed, tears streaming down his
cheeks.
WALLACE: Can you . . .
FALLIS: They were some of the most wonderful people, to be
wicked as they were supposed to be.
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: Humble.
WALLACE: Can you describe "Twenty Grand", what you saw when
you went in there? Do you remember it?
FALLIS: I didn't get to go in the place. I went a stairway
that run up the side.
WALLACE: Oh, up the side of the place.
FALLIS: There's a stairway . . .
WALLACE: You didn't have to go through . . .
FALLIS: . . . like you got a . . . like you come up my
stairs.
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: Well, there was a partition . . . where my rail is,
there was a partition between there where I came up and through a
door into her room.
WALLACE: Um-hmm.
FALLIS: And beyond that partition was where the rest of
"Twenty Grand's" was. So, I didn't get to see in the place and
which I really wasn't anxious to. [Laughter]
WALLACE: No, I wasn't implying that you were.
FALLIS: No. But, I mean, you know . . . well, curiosity, I
guess I should have been, but I was just kind of frightened of
those people.
WALLACE: But, yet, you seem to indicate they almost led double
lives; that there could be all of this wickedness and sin going
on . . .
FALLIS: They were wicked. It's like you step on a snake, I
guess. Automatically that snake is going to defend itself. The
only thing it knows to do is bite or curl up or something, to
attack.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: So, if I went in a different attitude than . . . and
they were God-fearing people.
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: I don't believe to my remembrance I ever met one that
really wasn't God-fearing. There was this one man by the name .
. . I believe it was John Phillips. He lived in an old shanty at
the end of this street I'm talking about. What did you say,
Clinton?
WALLACE: Clinton, yes.
FALLIS: Down on the river.
WALLACE: Side, okay.
FALLIS: Right at the river bank. Well, they told me, says,
"Now, whatever you do, don't you go down there now knocking on
his door because, oh, he don't want to be bothered with any
Christian people. He don't want nothing to do with God nor
nobody. He killed somebody."
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: Said, "He murdered somebody." Well, you know, one
day, I can't exactly remember just where I met him, but I met
him. And I began to talk to him about the Lord. And that man
gave his life to Christ. Now, those are the kind of people that
was in the Bottom.
WALLACE: It sounds like if you took the time and had the
courage to approach them and work with them that things could be
accomplished.
FALLIS: I tell you this much. I know your time is short,
too, probably. You have to go to school. But, uh, while I had
this church down there on Wilkinson Street in the Craw, I was
just ignorant enough, I reckon, to simply believe that what I
read in the Bible was true and if it said whatever you could do
if you did it in the name of the Lord, you could do it, except I
never did raise the dead, nothing like that. I've seen a lot of
sick healed. But, anyway, these people could not read and write.
Well, that broke my heart. So, I went and bought pencil and
paper and I went bumming and everything for help . . . to people
to get me stuff to help teach these people how to read and write.
Well, there was some of them that I saw it was going to take a
lot of teaching, and Christmas rolled around and I wanted to put
on a Christmas play for them. So, they were old and young alike.
They did not know how to even sign their name.
WALLACE: Was this members of your congregation?
FALLIS: In this congregation of these people from down there
in the Craw. Well, I always heard that a picture is worth a
thousand words. I'm not a professional artist, but I began
to . . . to draw things for them just to teach them that way.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: Draw pictures, illustrations.
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: Chalk illustrations. And for this Christmas play, I
worked with those people, men, old men. It would touch your
heart to see these old men as the wise men. We made . . . and
they helped make whatever I needed for the wise men for that
whole play or to decorate it. They worked constantly at night,
coming in after they worked or whatever they did, to learn their
parts just by memory because they couldn't read anything.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: We had one of the best Christmas plays I have ever
been involved with in my life and was the proudest. Even my
brother . . . I got him out of jail to come to it. [Laughter -
Wallace] He would . . . had gotten on a drunk and was locked up
and I called Johnny West and I said, "Can I come get him and
bring him down to church?" He said, "Yes, Vivian, Ms. Fallis."
So, uh, I went and got him and brought him down to church, and,
uh, he sat there through the whole play. And when it was over,
with tears in his eyes, and he said, "Well," said, "Susie" . . .
he never would call me by my first name. He said, "Susie, you're
doing a wonderful work down here;" said, "I never would have
believe it." And he said, "This play is just something special."
I said, "When you see people that don't know how to read and
write," and here they are, they're old and they realized how mu-
. . . how much they have let pass them by.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: You know, without learning and doing and, uh . . .
learning to read is a key that unlocks the door. Knowledge is a
great key to learn.
WALLACE: Were there children . . . the children of the . . .
FALLIS: They had children and grandchildren and . . .
WALLACE: Were they in the same state as far as education?
They didn't have . . .
FALLIS: Their children went to church. Here in the last two
or three weeks when I . . .
[End of Tape #1, Side #1]
[Begin Tape #1, Side #2]
FALLIS: . . . and at that time was still young and single and
not married. And, uh, I want you to know, those people, they're
just as good as gold; and to this day, they remember me and then
and remembered their daddy and all of that. Those people, they
come to church. They didn't live maybe like somebody up town.
They did . . . they did the best they could do by what they
learned and . . . but, now, a lot of them, like I started to tell
you about these girls. They raised their children up in school.
So, now, here they are with pretty good jobs and a pretty decent
education.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Well, that's a story I've heard . . . a lot
of instances where people who were either born or lived briefly
in the Bottom or Craw moved up in the world.
FALLIS: But some never escaped it because . . . but it was
the younger one. Like Mr. Quire's daughter, Emma, and Buncie
and, uh, all of them. They, uh . . . they didn't never really
escape it. They may now be living out a better way of life. I
don't know if that's called escape or not.
WALLACE: Escape it in what sense? You mean the life that they
were living . . .
FALLIS: Well, I mea- . . .
WALLACE: . . . or the . . .
FALLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Okay. The conditions . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . of their home might have improved when they
relocated . . .
FALLIS: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
WALLACE: . . . but the same . . . the life they led . . .
FALLIS: I don't know. But, anyway, now, they're more able to
buy for themselves and their children and to do a lot of things
they couldn't do then.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But, of course, a lot of people's financial state, I
guess, after that period of time have improved and work around
Frankfort possibly improved and . . . but, now, their children,
Emma and them's children, they're a lot better off. They haven't
lived down in there . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: . . . and known all that. So, I call it escaping.
There may be a better word for it. But, uh . . .
WALLACE: Well, you told me about some of the places there. Do
you remember a place called Robb's Funeral Home?
FALLIS: Yes, and my husband . . . every time Mr. Robb wanted
his organ moved, he wouldn't let nobody move it but Bixie
[Benjamin]. [Laughing] And, uh, I sewed some for this mother.
WALLACE: Ms. Robb?
FALLIS: Umm.
WALLACE: That was rather a substantial place, and one of the
black residents remembered very well because it was one of the
few black-owned businesses down there. Uh, are there some other
places that stick out in your mind when you think of Craw;
businesses or places . . .
FALLIS: There was Christopher's Grocery. It was on the
corner there of Wilkinson and Clinton, and . . .
WALLACE: Who was running that?
FALLIS: Christopher . . . or was that his last name? They
called it Christopher's Grocery.
WALLACE: Can you just sort of describe it for me?
FALLIS: It was just a little frame kind of store on the
corner there, just a small place; one-room place.
WALLACE: Sell produce and meat and dry goods?
FALLIS: Yeah, and groceries. Well, I don't know if they had
any dry goods. He just, uh . . . I can't remember any of that.
But groceries. Just staple foods, I guess you'd call it.
WALLACE: Mostly for the Bottom . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . residents to come and get their . . .
FALLIS: But I tell you one thing; that when I . . . when I
married Bixie [Benjamin] and I started meeting people, they would
say, "You're John Fallis's daughter-in-law?" And I'd say, "Yes."
"Well, let me tell you one thing, don't you never say anything
bad about him to me. He's one of the finest men that ever lived.
When my family was hungry, he brought loads of groceries; and
when the winter come and we run out of, uh, coal, he brought coal
to our house;" and said, "He's . . .," that was the story that
people I would meet.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: Don't you . . . and I didn't dare open my mouth. I
was scared. I didn't know who was what.
WALLACE: Yes. [Laughing]
FALLIS: John Fallis is a fine man.
WALLACE: Was he . . . I know you've said, you know,
temperamental and could be moody. Did he do these acts of
kindness and generosities solely because that was an aspect of
his personality or did he command loyalty from the community by
doing these things?
FALLIS: I don't really know.
WALLACE: You know, sometimes . . .
FALLIS: If I had lived and known him personally . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
FALLIS: . . . I could have told you. But I don't know
really. Uh, like I say, I just go by what these people . . . he
had their loyalty.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: But they called him the czar of the underworld. He
ruled.
WALLACE: Yes. I've heard many . . .
FALLIS: He ruled.
WALLACE: . . . many stories that . . .
FALLIS: I did have a pardon. He signed his own pardon.
WALLACE: His own pardon? [Laughing]
FALLIS: I had that somewhere, and I don't know. In the
papers if it's some . . . I've moved several times since my
husband died and, uh, sold my property and everything, and I
wound up here in an apartment. But I had a lot of things that,
uh, I don't have no idea where they are now.
WALLACE: I'd love to find . . . if you ever know of anybody or
can direct me . . . someone who took photographs of that area
prior to its destruction in the early sixties [1960s].
FALLIS: Oh, Lord, I've got pictures of . . . haven't you ever
seen any pictures of the old store where John Fallis lived and
where he made his famous escape? [Laughing]
WALLACE: I've seen . . . the only picture I've seen is the
one . . .
FALLIS: Let me see right quick.
WALLACE: Okay.
[Interruption in Tape]
FALLIS: . . . on or what.
WALLACE: Was he convicted of the murder of John R. Fallis?
FALLIS: He got away with it. He got away. They never did .
. .
WALLACE: Sentence him.
FALLIS: . . . sentence him, whatever you call it. Let's see.
This is what you've got a copy you showed me?
WALLACE: Yeah. I was going to leave that with you, but you've
already got that.
FALLIS: I've got that. That's some information. That's my
husband and he run for jailer and there's his mother. That was
when he was in service. That's his daughter that died of cancer.
And this is our daughter that we had.
WALLACE: There he is there . . .
FALLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . with the family dog.
FALLIS: Uh-huh. Some of these . . . I couldn't get it very
clear. I had to get it in sections about . . .
WALLACE: This is August 18th, 1929.
FALLIS: Umhumm. See, John . . .
WALLACE: John Fallis killed.
FALLIS: . . . Fallis killed. And some of the other . . . I
got it in pieces.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: See . . .
WALLACE: It was so large. They . . .
FALLIS: When they tried to give me . . . and there's the
store and . . .
WALLACE: Yeah, and I've seen . . .
FALLIS: . . . and Mr. Fallis. Have you got that?
WALLACE: I've seen that one, yes. That's a dandy one.
FALLIS: Well, I've got the original, but I . . . or I had the
original, I think, unless I gave that to the Historical Society.
WALLACE: Now, I've seen the original over at . . . I think you
must have given that one to us.
FALLIS: I must have donated that. If I did, my daughters
nearly had a fit. [Laughter - Wallace] They said, "Mamma, don't
you give him everything you . . . you copy stuff. Don't you . .
." I said . . .
WALLACE: Do you think they'll ever do a book?
FALLIS: I don't know. I . . .
WALLACE: I wish someone would. I . . .
FALLIS: Well, Bixie [Benjamin] always wanted . . .
WALLACE: You ought to undertake it.
FALLIS: . . . it done. And that was my son that's dead and
our youngest daughter.
WALLACE: Oh, there?
FALLIS: He wasn't Bixie's [Benjamin's] child.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: He was little when Bixie [Benjamin] and I married.
And there's Mr. John Fallis.
WALLACE: Ahh, there's his picture there.
FALLIS: But I just . . . my daughter must have the photograph
album with the old pictures and everything in it and she's at
work. And that one.
WALLACE: Well, you gave me the . . .
FALLIS: Now, here was where a part of . . . a part of that's
gone, but I had all of that and that was the old place outside.
WALLACE: Now, is that from a newspaper article at the time of
the murder?
FALLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: Wonder which paper that was? Do you know, by chance?
It's probably Courier or Herald-Leader.
FALLIS: The Frankfort paper, I think.
WALLACE: Okay.
FALLIS: And this is bars and liquors in the Craw section of
Frankfort were closed. That was April 22nd, but it don't say
what year. But, I . . .
WALLACE: April 22nd.
FALLIS: In the Craw section of Frankfort by city police and
state highway patrolman after a series of street fights
[laughing] involving Negroes and whites, Chief of Police, Guy
Wainscott. So, you could determine the year by when Guy
Wainscott was in.
WALLACE: Okay.
FALLIS: The Chief said he acted under orders from Mayor
Arthur Jones, and that's . . .
WALLACE: That was really . . .
FALLIS: Oh, that must have been fifties [1950s]. Let's see.
"James Owens, Negro, a student at Kentucky State College was
booked on a charge of disorderly conduct." The Chief said, and
he suffered head and face cuts. Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis, a City
Fireman, was hospitalized with head injuries. Patrolman Walter
Gritton said the trouble developed after Fallis came to him and
reported that three Negroes pushed his wife off the sidewalk and
said something to her." So, then, that was all about that.
WALLACE: Yeah. As a matter of fact, the text of that article
is in that little handout. We can get the date from Mayor Arthur
Jones's term in office.
FALLIS: This one is about, if you've read it, John Fallis,
primary election day, "gunfight with a policeman has resulted in
one dead and se- . . ."
WALLACE: Do you have a year on that one?
FALLIS: August the 8th, but it don't have the year on it
either. I don't know how come. I think these were all in her
scrapbook, Ms. Fallis's scrapbook.
WALLACE: Well, we know it must have been before twenty-nine
[1929].
FALLIS: Here's the picture of some of the policemen and all
about them.
WALLACE: Okay. Was that . . .
FALLIS: And when he shot . . .
WALLACE: Oh, barricaded himself in . . .
FALLIS: Mr. Fallis, umhumm.
WALLACE: Do you know when that incident took place by chance?
FALLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: It must have been sometime prior to '29 [1929], of
course, but . . .
FALLIS: Yeah. It was before '29 [1929]. Let's see. That
was the home down there on the corner of Wilkinson, but, doggone
it, part of it is missing. I ought to have a better picture than
that somewhere. And this picture here is Mr. Fallis, I think,
and one of . . . and his brother. But it was from an old
tintype. But they he, uh, I think, what do you call, barricaded
himself in here.
WALLACE: What...I was told by R. T. Brooks that maybe one of
the boys had gotten in a row . . . the police were looking for
John . . .
FALLIS: Looking for Carlos, I think, for getting into the
ball field or something. And I don't know. It all . . . there
was several different occasions. This is the names and pictures
of the policemen that were shot and how they all, uh, riddled
both buildings with bullets and all of that stuff. Fallis
escaped and it's not . . . [laughing] . . . captured. So, I
don't know, but you could, uh . . .
WALLACE: Okay. That just . . .
FALLIS: I've got more than this somewhere. But, like I say,
my daughter must have some of it. I don't have . . .
WALLACE: Well, maybe sometime I could arrange to meet you
someplace at the Society and make a photocopy of the file.
FALLIS: Some of the stuff that you want.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And I'll see if I can get . . . we've got a whole
book from Ms. Fallis, and I'm sure Charlene's got it somewhere.
WALLACE: Well, maybe you can check on that.
FALLIS: But I had started . . . my daughter . . . I've got
more than this because we did a genealogy work-up for my daughter
because Mr. Fallis was her grandfather. Let me see if on here is
any date. According to Mr. Fallis, he was never in the wrong.
[Laughter - Wallace] That was the way my husband was. And
several years ago, a boat was blown up. Fallis's hat and coat
were found near the explosion. He was supposed to be dead. A
year later, he reappeared in Frankfort. Oh, Lord.
WALLACE: I know. It definitely deserves a mini-series if not
a book.
FALLIS: So, I mean . . . I don't guess I've got any more
copies of this, but I'll see about getting some if you're
interested . . .
WALLACE: Well, I'll tell you what . . .
FALLIS: I'm trying to see what else . . . but the Craw, it's
a lot of . . . a lot down there. There was, uh, Charlie . . . I
think his name was Spaulding. I knew his family. He's another
one that always told my husband, he said, "Don't you never worry
when your wife comes down here because me or some of my men is
going to be looking out for her welfare."
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: So, said, "Don't you worry nothing about her getting
hurt when she's down here." And I thought, "Yeah, the Lord
appointed you all my guardian angels." [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: A strange assortment of guardian angels.
FALLIS: Umhumm. And, uh . . .
WALLACE: Did you say you had a map where you drew in the
places that were down there? I'd love to see that.
FALLIS: Uh-huh. What was on Wilkinson Street and all down on
the river?
WALLACE: Yes.
FALLIS: I was trying to, uh . . . Kentucky River Mills and
where it was on down . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And what was along there.
WALLACE: Did you go on in to town?
FALLIS: T. E. Kenney's [T.E. Kenney and Sons Lumber] . . .
let's see, now. That's where the . . . the bridge and Bellepoint
and the sawmill and the planing mill was along here, and here's
Wilkinson Street . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: . . . from the trestle down, starting down. The
books they had them in were so big that I couldn't get them on
the copier.
WALLACE: Oh, you probably looked at those old Sanborn
Insurance maps . . .
FALLIS: Those old insurance maps.
WALLACE: Yes, okay. I know what you're talking about.
FALLIS: And see what . . . the distillery and what was where
and everything.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: The sand traps and all and . . . Wilkinson Street,
here's another part of it and what was . . . it was the river and
what was places and . . . places I didn't know were there, Shoats
and Grim.
WALLACE: A lot of them probably went out of business before .
. .
FALLIS: Oh, Lord, yes.
WALLACE: . . . you ever came . . .
FALLIS: Lord, yeah.
WALLACE: Ever came to Frankfort.
FALLIS: And all of . . . I just got lots of them. I was
trying to reconstruct all of it. So, anytime you want, you'd be
welcome to look at them. What I've got . . . and I was trying to
draw the whole thing of Frankfort.
WALLACE: Oh, good grief. That would have been quite a . . .
quite a project.
FALLIS: It's all changed so much, even from the time that I
was a girl. This was 1882.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Do you remember Corinthian Baptist on Mero .
. . Corinthian Baptist?
FALLIS: Isn't it still there?
WALLACE: Corinthian Baptist Church? Umm . . .
FALLIS: There's a Baptist church still down there. What's
the name of that?
WALLACE: That's on Clinton, First Baptist.
FALLIS: That brick? What's it . . . isn't that Corinthian .
. .
WALLACE: Yeah, ahh . . .
FALLIS: . . . or is that AME?
WALLACE: That's St. John's AME at the corner of Lewis and
Clinton; and, then, farther on up at the head of High and
Clinton is the First Baptist.
FALLIS: Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: The Corinthian moved over to Murray Street.
FALLIS: Oh, that's . . .
WALLACE: Second and Murray.
FALLIS: That's the one that's over there, that new one that's
built over there. I bet they done that when the slum clearance
come along.
WALLACE: It is. It's a . . . yes, ma'am. They did. I just
wondered if you had been in the old one before it got tore down?
FALLIS: No. I never was inside any of them ex- . . . let's
see. I know one time when I pastored the church down there on
Wilkinson Street, several of the colored ladies from some of
those churches would come in and sing or play the piano and sing,
visit with us. It was along about the time they were beginning
to try to make the change.
WALLACE: Integration, yeah.
FALLIS: And my husband was so bitter against colored people.
I would tell him it was a shame. Some of the best friends I've
got are colored people.
WALLACE: Which is strange because, I mean, he sort of probably
lived and grew up in an area where there were colored people.
FALLIS: Yeah. Well, him and Mose Marcus and all of them
played ball on the ball diamond down there on Wilkinson Street.
And when Hyman Marcus had the jewelry store, they would all laugh
and talk when I'd go in there with my husband about a ring or
something. They'd laugh and talk about the fun they had and the
ball games they played and . . . uh, uh, I can't belie-. . . I
know when, uh, I helped to vol- . . . worked as a volunteer with,
uh, the Alzheimer's group out at the center, and Mr. Hyman
Marcus, they brought him over there for two or three trips,
times. And when he saw me, he'd begin to go on about the good
times him and Bixie [Benjamin] had together when they was growing
up, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Is Elliott Marcus kin to . . .
FALLIS: Elliott is a son of Moses, isn't he?
WALLACE: I think so, but I'm not 100% sure.
FALLIS: Well, I'll tell you how you can find out all of that
history. On the centennial paper that was put out here the last
time one was out, uh, little Sam Marcus told me that all of that
was a write-up in there about all of that.
WALLACE: I see. Okay.
FALLIS: About his daddy and granddaddy and all of them when
they first come to Frankfort.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And I went in there, I said, "I want to put you all .
. . I'm writing . . . I'm trying to write a book called The Old
Out of The New. And, uh . . . or The New Out of The Old rather,
and vice versa." I said, "I want to put like the new places that
are here now where the old ones used to be. I'm trying to write
about it." And they said, "Well, it's already been put in the
centennial." I said, "Yeah, but not the way I want to do it."
So, anyway, that's when he gave me a copy one time and showed me
that, uh . . . I think I've got it down in here. I get things
all mixed up when I'm doing genealogy. Uh, here's the old bridge
between . . . goes over to Bellepoint, the old Bellepoint Bridge.
WALLACE: Umm. It's about . . . it's rusted away now, isn't
it?
FALLIS: Yeah, all rusted away.
WALLACE: Not much left to it.
FALLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: I've asked you a lot and I've taken up a lot of your
time, but what really excited me is I have not met a minister
from the area and I had . . .
FALLIS: You hadn't?
WALLACE: Did not realize that they had a woman pastor.
FALLIS: Well, like I said, my family came to accept it and
treat me with great respect. But, uh, at first, I went through a
lot of . . . and I'll tell you something else. My husband, when
I told him that I was called to preach, he literally run me off
from home.
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: He said, "I'm not going to be married to any
Bible-toting preacher." Said, "I want a wife that will stay
home." And I said, "All right." I said, "I'll just leave you in
the hands of the Lord and I'll pray for you." So, there was a
Bible conference at Paris, Kentucky. My pastor and this other
lady minister that was in the church, Emma Cammuse, she and I
took my car. And when I went and picked her and her little girl
up, I had my son with me. He was my oldest child. And I said,
"Bixie's run me off from home, not going to let me come back."
But, I said, "I'm just going to leave him in the hands of the
Lord." So, here we go, two women, just a singing and a going off
down the highway; just, boy, we was going to the Bible
conference.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: That was something. I had never been to one. Well,
we got down to the Bible conference, and I told them all down
there at the camp meeting what was . . . what had gone on and
they made me preach my first sermon. I didn't begin to know how
to get the sermon together. But I did the best I could and got
to just talking about things. They . . . and I preached they
said for an hour. So, then . . . well, anyway, they went on and
the camp meeting was over and time come to go home. Well, there
got to be a little knot right up here. And I said, "Well, I'm
agoing home because the rest of my kittens are there and my mamma
and daddy is there and I'll go out Mamma's if I'm not welcome
when I get home. I'll go out Mamma's. But I just believe the
Lord has moved." Well, when we got home the next morning and I
pulled in the driveway around toward the back door and I went . .
. started to slip in the back door.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: Well, there he stood shaving, standing in the back
door, and the mirror hung on the door and the sink was there in a
corner, and was shaving. And, uh, well, he said, "Hello, honey,
how are you?" And I said, "I'm fine." "Oh," he says, "Baby, I'm
so glad you come back home. I didn't mean what I said." And he
went in the other room and come back and he had ordered me a
Thompson's Chain Reference Bible.
WALLACE: A Bible.
FALLIS: He said, "If you're going to preach and you're going
to do what the Lord has called you to do, I want you to have the
best to preach with." And he said, "God bless you."
WALLACE: Yeah. Sort of illustrates how different his . . .
FALLIS: So, from then on, it was . . .
WALLACE: He was supportive of you.
FALLIS: He was proud of his wife for preaching.
WALLACE: Well, I thank you so very much for giving me all of
this time and what I'd like to do sometime . . .
FALLIS: Well, I feel like I've talked too much about too many
odd things, maybe not exactly on the subjects you want to hear.
But if I can . . . maybe we can get together again, you know, and
kind of get more of a sketched outline of what you really want to
know and . . .
WALLACE: Well, I've got, you know, other questions here on the
slum clearance project; but I sort of got the sense that your
congregation business leaders handled that rather than you.
FALLIS: Yeah. There was a board and they're all gone.
WALLACE: You know, I've read . . .
FALLIS: About all of them is dead and gone.
WALLACE: . . . in the newspapers where a lot of the residents
in the community resented the project and fought it. They got a
petition up and people signed a petition.
FALLIS: I think they did. I can't remember.
WALLACE: And they even had some lawyers come over from
Lexington. And it may have been the blacks more so than the
whites.
FALLIS: I don't remember for certain on that.
WALLACE: Yeah. They . . .
FALLIS: I was so busy involved in the church program and
getting it moved.
WALLACE: Do you know if the church felt like they got a fair
price for their buildings and relocation?
FALLIS: At first, we didn't. So, Bixie [Benjamin], I think,
went to a lawyer and they upped it, but I don't remember how much
they gave us more than they had first offered.
WALLACE: Oh, really. So, you had to . . . to . . . to get
back and dicker with them on it?
FALLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: They didn't actually condemn your property, did they?
FALLIS: They were going to take it, clear . . . they were
going to tear it down, see.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Could they have it declared . . .
FALLIS: They had to tear it down because it was right on
Wilkinson Street and they were going to clean all of that out.
WALLACE: I know some of the businesses and people, the City
bought their property and they had to rent from the City until .
. .
FALLIS: Well . . . .
WALLACE: . . . they could find relocation housing or a new
place for their business. Do you remember if the church had to
pay rent to the City or . . .
FALLIS: No, we didn't have . . . because we sold the church
and moved to Bellepoint. So, we didn't have to do anything like
that. It broke my heart when they tore it down. Been a lot of
good times down there and a lot of friends made and a lot of
victories won and a lot of battles fought against the Devil.
WALLACE: Is the church that relocated over in Bellepoint still
going and the sa- . . .
FALLIS: No. After I put it in the Church of God, you know
what they done?
WALLACE: What?
FALLIS: They sold it.
WALLACE: They sold the building?
FALLIS: Sold the property. Put the money in the Church of
God's fund, and put it into another church somewhere.
WALLACE: What happened to the congregation? What happened to
the people? They just scattered or . . .
FALLIS: For a while, they kind of scattered; and, then,
uh . . . I don't know if Tommy Barnes still has it or not. But
he bought the property, I believe. He was . . . come out of the
Baptist Church and became an independent minister and has been a
minister for a number of years now. And I think he's still over
there. Maybe some of them is still going there to his
congregation. I don't know. I've never been over there since
the day that I walked out and they . . .
WALLACE: Umm.
FALLIS: I got down sick is how come us to put it in the
Church of God. I couldn't any longer pastor.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: And, uh, I had to give up pastoring and I never have
gone back to pastoring. I did some evangelistic work over in
Whitesburg and different places for a while. But I was sick for
a long time and, uh, so I never did do that. But I don't know if
any of them are going over there or not. But so many of them are
dead and gone.
WALLACE: Yeah. When they relocated all of the families out of
there, do you know . . . did they tend to put them in one area or
did they scatter?
FALLIS: They just went wherever they wanted to buy or go or
rent. If they didn't own their place, they had to just fi- . . .
a lot of them went out here to Bald Knob.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: They often call that the new Craw . . .
WALLACE: Oh, I see . . .
FALLIS: Because so many of them went out that way, out Bald
Knob and out that direction.
WALLACE: I had not heard that.
FALLIS: And when I had the . . . when I was working and there
would be people come sometimes over by the hospital. And this
one man, he said, "Oh, that's somebody from out to the old Bald
Knob bunch." Excuse me.
[Interruption in Tape]
WALLACE: . . . thing and, then, I'll be out of . . . now that
Craw is gone and we've had the Capital Plaza Tower for almost 20
years now . . .
FALLIS: Has it been that long?
WALLACE: Yeah. It opened in '72 [1972] or '73 [1973]. So,
we're looking at 18 years.
FALLIS: I guess it did because my husband was still living
and we went down to the sports thing to, uh, shows and things
they had.
WALLACE: Umhumm. When you look back on it, what . . . was it
a good thing for the community or . . .
FALLIS: Well, it was bound to have been, Jim, a good thing
for the community. People are reluctant to change themselves or
their surroundings. Sometimes they have to be forced into it.
And some people did grudgingly like a lot of them probably did
and, uh, didn't want to accept the change. I'm that way as I've
gotten older. I . . . I hate change. I have, uh, regretted ever
having to give up the home where Bixie and I lived in Bellepoint
for 25 years. It was the first real roots. It wasn't a modern
home, but it was where we put labors of love into it. And we
bought it. I could see things. I'd . . . I'd fixed new floors
and I'd tore out a wall and I'd done this and done that and
papered, and I'd entertain. We always was having the church,
come on and go home with us and we'll all eat out in the
backyard, and, you know, and things like that. It had so many
memories. But, yet, on the other hand, common sense told me
there wasn't any way in the world or any reason for me to live
there after the family was grown and Bixie [Benjamin] was gone.
WALLACE: And maybe that's . . .
FALLIS: It had served its purpose.
WALLACE: . . . the same with these folk, you know. It was
home, but it had served its purpose and it was time to . . . to
change.
FALLIS: Yeah. But they didn't know anything else and didn't
have a lot of, uh . . . or anybody or anything to pull them out
and give them any better way of life. If you take away
something, you've always got to give somebody something back in
place of it.
WALLACE: I guess you have to decide if what they were given
was of more value than what they had.
FALLIS: We can look at it and say, yes, it was a lot better
for every one of them; but, on the other hand, knowing a lot of
these people, the older ones, as I did, they couldn't, uh, adjust
to the change. They probably died in their bitterness and doing
the best they could, not being accepted where they moved out to.
WALLACE: Did you meet anyone that was sort of in those
circumstances; I mean, talk to anyone afterwards that said . . .
FALLIS: Yeah, 'cause, of course, they came to the church over
there for a while after the slum clearance program. And, uh,
they were scattered out and here and there, and they always would
. . . "Don't see why they had to take our church, why they had to
take our home. Everybody just wants too much anymore; everybody
is just getting proud, you know." If you get anything better,
they called it, "being proud".
WALLACE: So, some of them just evidently did not accept it.
FALLIS: Didn't have any vision for the future. Didn't want
any better education or any knowledge. That's why people remain
in the shape they're in. They don't have any vision. The Bible
said, "Without a vision, my people perish."
WALLACE: I've read that quote. That's a good one.
FALLIS: And, uh, but with me, I always had a vision to do and
to better . . . I'd look at them and I'd think, well, you're
ragged, I have to run home and make you something or I'll get
something of Bixie's [Benjamin] to make it all better, give you
something clean, lift you up. But with them, they, uh, they
didn't particularly want to do that.
WALLACE: Or they didn't see the need to do it.
FALLIS: They couldn't look in the mirror and see how filthy
they were.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
FALLIS: I mean, filthy. If they had, they'd got up and done
something about it.
WALLACE: But like you said earlier, they may not have known
anything else.
FALLIS: That's what I'm talking about. That's the only way
they lived. The Bible said, "Don't let . . ." about a hog return
to its wallow. Well, why did he do that? Did you ever think of
that?
WALLACE: Out of ignorance.
FALLIS: He didn't know anyplace else to go, did he?
WALLACE: It was comfortable. He was comfortable.
FALLIS: That was comfortable.
WALLACE: Well, let me say this to you. If we can get together
again sometime and maybe, uh, not necessarily talk, but I would
like to see if you had . . . if you found Mrs. Fallis's scrapbook
and wouldn't mind letting me look at it or maybe we can meet at
the Historical Society and I could arrange to get parts of it . .
.
FALLIS: Copies from it.
WALLACE: . . . photocopied. That would . . . I see two
articles coming out of this. One research paper on the Craw and
the relocation, and eventually a paper on John R. Fallis and his
life and times. And I'm talking about a short research paper for
maybe . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . the Register of the Historical Society or
something like that.
FALLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: If the family wouldn't mind me doing something.
FALLIS: What I wonder, I'm a . . . I'm a daughter-in-law. Of
course, I've got a daughter that's his granddaughter, John's
granddaughter. So, I don't know how has the authority if there'd
be anybody question that. He had . . . Bixie had a younger
brother, Ishmael, that was in Chicago. I haven't seen him since
the day of Bixie's [Benjamin] funeral. I don't know if he's dead
or alive.
WALLACE: R. T. Brooks doesn't know where he is either.
FALLIS: He doesn't know either?
WALLACE: No.
FALLIS: If anybody would know, R. T. and Betty would because
they're the only ones that I know of he contacted when he come to
Frankfort.
WALLACE: Well, he's been married three or four times . . .
FALLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and just kept switching things around and they
don't know exactly where he is now.
FALLIS: Of course, Betty is the great- . . . is the
granddaughter.
WALLACE: Daughter, yeah.
FALLIS: Granddaughter.
WALLACE: They've got a picture, I'm sure you've seen it, of
John R. Fallis's casket when Bixie [Benjamin] had it relocated.
FALLIS: Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. I had all
that. I had the original pictures. I don't know where they are.
WALLACE: If you happen to stumble on to them, I'd love to get
with you and make photocopies of them sometime.
FALLIS: I know I had a fit when Bixie [Benjamin] had him dug
up and reburied. Mrs. Fallis, she said, "I don't never want to
live with him no more. I don't want him buried by me when I
die." Well, Bixie [Benjamin], then, he couldn't have it the way
he wanted it while they were living. He dug him . . . dug him up
and had him buried next to Mrs. Fallis at the cemetery. And I
said, "She ought to raise up and haunt you." [Laughter -
Wallace] Because she didn't want nothing to do with it that way.
WALLACE: I never understood why, uh . . . you know, she was
such a religious woman and she must have known what . . .
FALLIS: She was a good woman, good woman. Why, honey, he
would take . . . he took Anna Lee Blackwell [Anna Mae Blackwell]
and lived in the other end of the house, that big house down
there, the old Fallis place. Had her in one end of the house and
Mrs. Fallis on the other.
WALLACE: My goodness.
FALLIS: And Bixie [Benjamin] would tell many a time about Mr.
Fallis going and getting Mrs. Fallis and pulling her out of
church by the hair of her head and taking her out and gonna kill
her, and him and somebody went and told Bixie [Benjamin] and
Carlos about it and they followed him and found him and they
rescued Mrs. Fallis from him. He'd a-killed her. Oh, Lord, the
hair-raising tales my husband has told me and Mrs. Fallis has
told me. No wonder I've lived scared to death till they all
died. [Laughter - Wallace] I've been reprieved, [laughing] but
don't you put that on there.
WALLACE: Let me stop . . .
[End of Interview]
1:00