Oral History Interview with Pryse Venable

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. Pryse Venable of north Tennessee. The interview is conducted by William Berge for the Kentucky Oral History Commission, at Cumberland Falls State Park. The interview is conducted at Cumberland Falls State Park on September 29, 2000, at approximately Three Thirty PM. Mr. Venable, what is your full name?

PRYSE VENABLE: Pryse—P-R-Y-S-E—Venable.

BERGE: No middle name?

VENABLE: No middle name.

BERGE: Ok. Where were you born and when?

VENABLE: I was borned in Jackson County, Kentucky in 1919, April 13.

BERGE: Whereabouts in Jackson County? Any special place?

VENABLE: Near McKee, Kentucky, right near McKee, Kentucky, my granddaddy owned a farm there. We moved in there from Virginia, 1:00and owned eighty-five acres of land, and gave the county enough land to build two school—two school buildings.

BERGE: Whereabouts were the schools? What did they name the schools?

VENABLE: Muncie, Kentucky.

BERGE: Ok.

VENABLE: It was Muncie then, but now it is New Zion, Kentucky.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

VENABLE: And he gave them enough land to build two schools. At the Muncie, Kentucky Post Office there, and a voting house, and a church house.

BERGE: What was your dad’s name?

VENABLE: Charles Lee Venable.

BERGE: Where was he born? Same place?

VENABLE: He was borned in Kentucky, but he was borned In Island City, Kentucky.

BERGE: Where is that?

VENABLE: Island City, Kentucky it’s near—that’s in Owsley County.

BERGE: Ok.

VENABLE: Near Travellers Rest.

BERGE: What was your mother’s 2:00maiden name?

VENABLE: Maddox.

BERGE: First name?

VENABLE: Maggie.

BERGE AND VENABLE: Maggie Maddox.

BERGE: Where is she from?

VENABLE: She was from Bourbon County, Kentucky.

BERGE: Born over there? In Bourbon County?

VENABLE: Hum-hum.

BERGE: Now you said you were born in 1919?

VENABLE: Hum-hum.

BERGE: 1919? Where did you go to school? At that school you were talking about?

VENABLE: Muncie, Kentucky, about right out there, that’s where I went to school. Yeah, that’s where I went to school until I was in the eighth grade.

BERGE: And then where did you go?

VENABLE: Well, ah, I went to—I worked for a guy over in McKee—delivered coal, driving a wagon and team for six months, and a buck a day.

BERGE: A dollar a day.

VENABLE: Yeah. Stayed with them. Stayed with them. Then after that 3:00I went to the CCC’s.

BERGE: I guess you know where Avery F. T. Collar is then?

VENABLE: Oh, gosh yes. Yeah. Used to work on one of them.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Did you know where Horse Lick Creek is?

VENABLE: Horseley? My father has a cabin on Horse Lick Creek.

BERGE: Is that right? Whereabouts?

VENABLE: Right down, you turn down from the tower?

BERGE: Huh-huh. And you get—you go down—what is the name of that creek?

VENABLE: Horse Lick?

BERGE: Before, you take another creek down there.

VENABLE: That, huh-huh.

BERGE: I’ll think of it in a minute. It goes right down to Horse Lick.

VENABLE: Yeah, that’s ah, ah … BERGE: I know it as well as I know my own name. That shows how old I am getting—I can’t remember things like that.

VENABLE: I can’t remember hardly. Darn it ..

BERGE: I don’t have Alzheimer’s, I have Half-Timers. (laughter) Can’t remember, I’ll think of it in just a minute. It’s Raccoon Creek that … VENABLE: Raccoon Creek. Raccoon.

BERGE: Raccoon goes out from the (??) towers.

VENABLE: Raccoon Creek, yeah. 4:00BERGE: I used to fish for those red-eyes in Horse Lick Creek all the time.

VENABLE: Oh, I did too. I used to catch a lot of them.

BERGE: That is the first place I ever saw those water dogs. Did you ever see those?

VENABLE: Yeah. Yeah. We … BERGE: They are pretty aren’t they?

VENABLE: We used to go gigging on the river there, down, where it runs into it.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: And this guy he—we had—we was bare footed you know … BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: And they are gigging, and this guy he hollered, “hey, Lord come here, they is the awfulest thing in here I ever saw.” And he was coming out of there.

BERGE: Oh, they are ugly. They’re ugly. You know it is scary, you know when you first …. Did you ever see one of these?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: What?

BERGE: A water dog?

VENABLE: A water dog.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yeah, I saw one.

VENABLE: We got over there and my goodness, a big red one in there—I guarantee it was that long. It was the awfulest looking thing.

BERGE: Oh, they are awful.

VENABLE: It scared him just about.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 5:00VENABLE: But we got a lot of fish.

BERGE: What year did you go in? You said 1936, in the three C’s?

VENABLE: Yeah. Thirty-six.

BERGE: How did you hear about it, or—I mean you knew about it, but what did you think about going in?

VENABLE: Well, actually, times was pretty hard then you know, it was back there in the depression, and that twenty-five dollars a month actually coming home would be a large asset.

BERGE: That was the big thing wasn’t it?

VENABLE: They was nine kids and everything.

BERGE: Yeah. Huh-huh.

VENABLE: Dad worked a little bit on the WPA, and I thought, well, I better go to the CCC. And I we went over to town, and he went with me to McKee; and I had always been, 6:00you know, stayed around home you know, and I trapped in winter and done things like that you know. And I loved being at home. But anyhow, I thought I would go to the CCC. Went over there, and the guy said, “well now if you don’t want to leave home,” he says, “you can stay right here in McKee, there is a camp up there. See, you can stay right here,” and I said, “well, that will be fine.” I signed up, and Monday morning we was to meet over there at that camp, and they said that old Captain Birch, he come out there, and he said, “the names that I call”, he said, “you fall out over here, you will be shipped out.” Well my name was the third name. (laughter) BERGE: Well, he did tell you the truth, he did let you go to McKee, for a day. (laughter) VENABLE: Well, I wound up going to Montana. And you know that was a … BERGE: It is warm up there in the winter, in Montana.

VENABLE: Oh, yes, four below degrees.

BERGE: Below zero. 7:00(laughter) VENABLE: Yeah. And … BERGE: Did you get word back to your folks before you shipped out?

VENABLE: No, I never got—never shipped—they never heard anything from me till I got to Montana. I went to Fort Knox, now first. I went to Fort Knox and shipped out from Fort Knox.

BERGE: Got your uniform from Fort Knox.

VENABLE: Yeah. And shipped out of Fort Knox up into Montana and God that is a great country.

BERGE: Yeah. It is.

VENABLE: And I went right up in that Lewis and Clark National Forest, right up between two big mountains you know, and they had a little ( ) track railroad up in there and a little small black top road. And fish—trout--we was on Belt Creek, and they was fish up in there and deer, elk, 8:00wild horse, see all that stuff was something new to us. We had never seen anything like that.

BERGE: Sure. What was the name of the camp?

VENABLE: Ah, BERGE: Do you remember?

VENABLE: No, just the number of the camp, it was 3552, Knee Heart (??), Montana.

BERGE: Knee Heart.

VENABLE: Yeah. Knee Heart, that is back up in the mountains.

BERGE: Did you ever get down in that side country in Montana?

VENABLE: Yeah. I went back to the CC’s later on.

BERGE: You signed up later on, and you went to the same place?

VENABLE: Well, I stayed there at Knee Heart--there in that camp for seven months, and we killed deer. Some of the guys that lived there was in the camp and they farmed and things. They would get out there and kill deer and bring them in there and we would cook them up in the camp you know, the whole deer and bears—had 9:00to guard the garbage to keep the bears out. It was quite exciting, and a real good life, we got plenty to eat and … BERGE: Did you fish?

VENABLE: No, I didn’t fish, but I’d go over to the creek there you know, and ( ) them trout would jump out of the water something awful.

BERGE: Oh, yeah?

VENABLE: There were plenty of them in there. And I stayed them seven months and we did—we built fish dams … BERGE: Where did you build those? In the creek?

VENABLE: Yeah. Up in the mountains, up in them streams, we would build fish dams in there, and the water would run through there about all the time, see. But we built fish dams you know, and the fish you know would hibernate and stay in there, and--a lot of beaver there. A lot of beaver 10:00you know, beaver dams and then we , you know ( ).

BERGE: What other kind of work did you do besides building those fish dams?

VENABLE: Well we built some roads back through … BERGE: Back to the fish camps. (laughs) VENABLE: Back in them mountains, well the soil up there was kind of mushy you know, and we’d cut trees and lay them side by side, and build a corduroy—a corduroy road they called it. You see so you could drive through then ( ). Then we had roadside clean up crews. Then we cut wood. We burnt wood you know, there were a lot of crews cutting wood, all the time during the summer.

BERGE: To burn in your camp and your barracks.

VENABLE: Yeah to burn in the barracks. We had two big … BERGE: When you got up there was the camp already there?

VENABLE: Yeah. Yeah. It was a new camp.

BERGE: But it was already built?

VENABLE: Yeah. So… BERGE: Were you the first people in it? 11:00VENABLE: I really don’t know. I guess we were.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

VENABLE: Because back then in thirty-six, they hadn’t been built—they … BERGE: But a couple of years.

VENABLE: …they had a lot of new camps, I think we were. We had a dam up there—built a little dam up the creek there, on the side of one of the mountains—it was where we got water you know.

BERGE: How far were you from a town?

VENABLE: It was fifty-five miles to Great Falls. Thirty miles to Monarch.

BERGE: Yeah. And when you got there you weren’t anywhere. (giggles) VENABLE: Pardon?

BERGE: When you got there you weren’t anywhere.

VENABLE: No, Great Falls was a pretty good town.

BERGE: No, I meant Monarch.

VENABLE: Oh, Monarch. No Monarch was just a little bitty town. Lehigh was a little bigger. And Lehigh had a lot of history, it was a mining town, you know, a lot of gold mines, silver mines … BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: And 12:00they wasn’t operating them much at that time, but we would get out and locate them you know; and look around you know, and get a lot of fool’s gold and stuff like that.

BERGE: Yeah. Montana didn’t have many people when you were there.

VENABLE: No, there weren’t many people there, and up at ( ) there were a few people, actually along the road. You could travel for miles and there wouldn’t be a house.

BERGE: Yeah, when my wife and I came back from Alaska, we stopped in Miles City and had a five hundred mile check up on our car--we bought a new car in Seattle--this was fifty years ago. And when we got to the five hundred mile check up, we got a five hundred mile check up at Miles City, and then we thought we would stop for lunch, and this was about ten’ o clock. And we never saw a restaurant till six o’clock that night. (laughter) About eight hours. 13:00But you know when I went to Vanderbilt, a professor there was going to go back to Montana, and run for the Congress and I told him, I said, “well you will just have to run in your Congressional district, but you know they do Congressman by population, and Montana had two senators and one congressman.” There were so few people in the place that they just had one congressman.

VENABLE: Yeah. It was a desolated country up there.

BERGE: beautiful though, didn’t you think it was beautiful?

VENABLE: Oh yes, it was beautiful country. Nice country. Nice place to be , I loved it, I got used to it you know.

BERGE: Yeah. And you said that you stayed there seven months.

VENABLE: Yeah.

BERGE: And then what did you do?

VENABLE: Well, I come back home; back to Kentucky. And I stayed out three months, and I went right back over and saw the same guy that I had enlisted under … BERGE: 14:00( ) VENABLE: “Oh,” he said, “we got your papers mixed up,” he said, “I’ll see this time that you can stay right here.” (laughter) BERGE: Did you believe him again?

VENABLE: I signed up you know, and I told my dad, I said, “I don’t much believe him.” But I signed up, and you know where I went? Right back to Montana again. (laughter).

BERGE: What place back there?

VENABLE: I back to Wynette, Montana, to what they call the prairie, prairie, prairie, country … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. You can see and see … VENABLE: … for miles, and miles.

BERGE: Animals jumping up … VENABLE: Yeah, all over the place. And some of the bad lands … BERGE: Yeah. The bad lands.

VENABLE: And that Wynette was a small little town. Not many people in it, they … BERGE: You wished you were back in the mountains did you?

VENABLE: Oh, yeah. Yeah, 15:00I ( ) too much alike all over.

BERGE: What did you do in Wynette?

VENABLE: We—course, I worked in the garage there—when I got there, I met a guy there that was my neighbor … BERGE: From Jackson County?

VENABLE: Yeah, well, he was from Owsley County. I knew him see. And we worked on old cars and things ( ) there. And he was working in the garage, so he got me in the garage. And I worked in the garage about all the time I was there.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

VENABLE: Which was a lot of good experience you know. I was interested in learning mechanics.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: And I got a lot of good training there. Learned to drive a truck, and work on motors, and … BERGE: How long did you stay at Wynette?

VENABLE: Ah, a little over three months.

BERGE: And then what did you do?

VENABLE: I come back home, and signed up again, and went to Bald Rock. 16:00BERGE: So you finally went … VENABLE: No, I went to L5, to London up there.

BERGE: Ok. So you finally did stay fairly close to home, after a while.

VENABLE: Yeah. I finally--because the best thing in the world sent me to Montana--I just didn’t have no sense back then to know it.

BERGE: To stay there.

VENABLE: Yeah. I got to see a lot of the country and everything you know. It was a … BERGE: Yeah, you are always thinking about home, I know. When I was in Alaska I thought about getting home, and after I got home I was wondering if I would ever get back up there.

VENABLE: Yeah you didn’t know what you were in such a hurry about.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: Yeah, it was a great thing the CCC was. We had a lot of fun. Now you talk about boxing, now we did some boxing and … BERGE: Yeah, it was a big thing wasn’t it?

VENABLE: Yeah, my brother and me we were always boxed. We had our boxing gloves there at school, you know, and we, we were good. There ain’t no doubt about it.

BERGE: Boxing was a really important—seemed 17:00like there was about as much of that going on in the CCC as anything wasn’t there?

VENABLE: Yeah, we boxed all the time.

BERGE: Yeah, I mean like in the army, they ran the three C’s, and they liked boxing.

VENABLE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) (laughter) BERGE: You weren’t fighters you were lovers. (laughs) UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) stationed in Europe.

VENABLE: Well, nothing wrong with that.

BERGE: Well, Mr. Venable when you were out there, and finally came back, and you went to—first over to London and then to Bald Rock—how long were you in that London area in those two camps?

VENABLE: Well, I was in L 5 there, that was five mile from London, I was ( ) … BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: They just called it L5. I don’t know if that was the reason, or not, it was five miles out ( ).

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

VENABLE: And 18:00I stayed there till they closed that camp. I don’t know how long it was, probably be three months … BERGE: What kind of work did you do?

VENABLE: I was a forestry clerk, worked in the Forestry Department and ( ) forestry clerk.

BERGE: And then when you went to Bald Rock what did you do?

VENABLE: When I went to Bald Rock, I also worked with the telephone company, we kept the telephone lines all—full service lines all … BERGE: It is amazing the different jobs that people have when they … VENABLE: Oh, man they … BERGE: I know Mike Franklin there did one job full time the whole time. Most of them were like you they put them in one thing then another.

VENABLE: Yeah. I learned a lot in there man, I would say—I went to school too. I got around the Educational Department, and went to school at night.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

VENABLE: ( ) it done a lot for me.

BERGE: I talked to one man here today that ended up getting a high school diploma from some school out in Oregon, when he was in the three C’s.

VENABLE: Well, I come almost to getting mine. I just, moving 19:00around you know … BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: Kept me from getting it.

BERGE: Was Bald Rock the last place you were in the three C’s?

VENABLE: No. I went—after I went to Bald Rock they sent us to F 11, out towards ( ) Somerset.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

VENABLE: And we stayed out there, I don’t know how long we did stay there.

BERGE: They had a lot of three C camps around London didn’t they?

VENABLE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There was one at Bald Rock. One at F 5, one F 11, and I believe they had something up around London out there—they might of had a camp, or a side camp, or something up there around that park, didn’t they?

BERGE: Levi-Jackson?

VENABLE: Levi-Jackson … BERGE: Oh, Yeah. Hum-hum.

VENABLE: Seemed like I remember 20:00that they had a something up there.

BERGE: What did you do when you went to F 11?

VENABLE: F 11? Oh, I tell you about one at Bald Rock too, I run the fire plant there at Bald Rock.

BERGE: What kind of fire plant was it?

VENABLE: Just a big old generator. Ah, you ah … BERGE: What kind of fuel?

VENABLE: Gasoline.

BERGE: Gasoline.

VENABLE: Yeah. Gasoline. ( ) you know and ( ) a generator—generator engine, and that’s all the electricity we had; and about dark of evening all you could hear was “hey, Venable come on with the generator.” “Hey, Venable come on with the generator.” BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: All over camp they’d all start turn on the generator, about the same time you know.

BERGE: You had batteries all over the ( ) getting charged, did you? Or how did that work?

VENABLE: No I just … BERGE: Had big generator.

VENABLE: Big generator. And I would go in there, and crank it about one time, and it would fire up, and throw that lever switch, 21:00and light up the whole company. And you said when I went to F 11?

BERGE: Yeah. What did you do there? Do you remember?

VENABLE: F 11. I worked in the garage.

BERGE: Ok. The same that you did up in Indiana.

VENABLE: Yeah. I worked in the garage part of the time. And then I quit the garage, and I went on a const—we built a road from Bald Rock down to the Cumberland River. And I done the powder. I shot the ditches line. From the powder department you know, I had a certification from the State of Kentucky that I was a high explosive operator. (laughter) ( ), I was a going with my wife, and they was a building—they built a new house, and a big stump in the back yard, and I told my father-in-law … BERGE: That you could blow that out 22:00for them VENABLE: I could, I said, “I will blow that out for you.” Well, he worked in Cincinnati, he come home on the week ends. I went over there and I blowed the whole end out of the house. (laughter) I shore did. I blowed the ( ). Man, I never felt so bad in my life.

BERGE: Yeah. Father’s-in-law aren’t the kind that ( ) when you make a mistake anyway. (laughs) VENABLE: I fixed it all up when he was gone, you know. I went and got the roof and boards, you know the hip end of them boards ( ) you know … BERGE: Just lifted them … VENABLE: Just lift ( ) I fixed all that roof you know, and washed the ( ) and stuff off the end of the house. I had it fixed when he got back home.

BERGE: When did you get out—when did you finally leave the CC’s?

VENABLE: McKee?

BERGE: No, when did you finally leave the CCC? When was the end of your CC …?

VENABLE: I don’t know exactly, but I know 23:00that—I forget—I left from F 11--was the last camp was in at the Indian Trail Park there—you know the Indian Trail Park there? And that is the last CCC camp I was in. But I was in thirty-three months all together.

BERGE: And where—you would get out about when then—about thirty-eight? Something like that?

VENABLE: I wish I had my discharge BERGE: Well, don’t—it doesn’t really matter. What did you do when you got out? That is what I guess I was wondering about.

VENABLE: I went to Cincinnati, my father-in-law and me and—course I married the girl after I blew the house.

BERGE: Yeah. I figured you did.

VENABLE: Well, then he and I—he was working in Cincinnati—so we—we went to Louisville to try to get a job see, it was hard to get jobs. 24:00And we couldn’t get a job in Louisville, so we went on up to Cincinnati, and driving a little old Model A Ford coupe. And he got a job at a dollar an hour, and I got a job for fifty-three cents an hour, and worked there till the war started.

BERGE: A dollar an hour was pretty good back then.

VENABLE: Yeah a dollar an hour, he was in good money. We figured that was pretty good money you know.

BERGE: Yeah, he was making a hundred and seventy dollars a month, something like that.

VENABLE: And I was making fifty-three cents an hour, and for the ( ) Company, there on ( ) Road.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: And then the war started and I got … BERGE: Did you and your families move to Cincinnati, or did you go back and forth?

VENABLE: No I would go home a lot of times on the weekend and then go back to … BERGE: Come down twenty-seven 25:00or twenty-five I guess, twenty-five.

VENABLE: Twenty-seven and twenty-five. We’d go both ways, both ways, pretty slow when you got traffic. And then they started that ordinance, the Blue Grass Ordinance the Depot?

BERGE: In Richmond?

VENABLE: Yeah. And I went back and signed up there. And I had the Certification from the State of Kentucky, as a high explosives person … BERGE: Oh, yeah, you were an expert at that.

VENABLE: And they started at a dollar and thirty-five cents an hour or something like that. And when I went in they just gave me sixty-five cents an hour, I think it was.

BERGE: Huh.

VENABLE: So I said, “there is something wrong here.” They said, “well, we can’t do that we give you sixty or whatever it was, you know, it was what the Department of Labor—but anyhow we was making good money you know, for that time you know.

BERGE: Yeah. Sure. 26:00And then how long did you stay there at the Blue Grass Ordinance?

VENABLE: ( ) year. And I had three children, and I built me a house up there in ( ). And … BERGE: You drove down Big Hill every day to go to work? Did you ever see that new road?

VENABLE: Oh, yeah. Just the other day.

BERGE: I can’t believe that.

VENABLE: Isn’t that nice?

BERGE: It was only four or five miles, but it cost how many million dollars? Wow. There is no road like that in America.

VENABLE: They went down fifty foot in solid rock.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: At least..

BERGE: Boy, I’ll bet you wish you had that now, when you were working at the Ordinance.

VENABLE: Oh, I shore do man. 27:00Yeah, we get the snow ( ) off of that hill down in the road, and block the road you know, it was really rough you know. I worked there at the Ordinance Depot for two year in the garage, and then I got called to the army. And I went back to Fort Knox—no I went back to Fort Thomas.

BERGE: Up in northern Kentucky.

VENABLE: I went up to Fort Thomas, and stayed there a few days, and then shipped out.

BERGE: To where?

VENABLE: To New York.

BERGE: Whereabouts up there? Do you know?

VENABLE: I don’t know. We got on a boat there in New York—no, no I shipped from—let’s see now, I went to Fort Knox … BERGE: From Fort Thomas to Fort Knox.

VENABLE: Well, let’s see now—pardon?

BERGE: Did you go from Fort Thomas to Fort Knox?

VENABLE: No, I went to Fort Thomas another time. 28:00BERGE: Hum-hum.

VENABLE: And then—then I went to Camp Blanding in Florida. I took my Basic Training at Camp Blanding in Florida.

BERGE: Did any of the CCC training help you in Basic Training at all?

VENABLE: Yeah. You got a lot of discipline in the CC’s. You already knew—that was just a little bit of a military feeling in the CCC’s.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: It was kind of ( ) army officers, you know, and you stood retreat you know, and paging, and all that and it helped. It was the craziest thing to the country that ever happened ( ). Sure was.

BERGE: Where all did you serve in the service? What were some other places you served?

VENABLE: I served in Belgium, Holland, Poland, France.

BERGE: Huh-huh. When were you there?

VENABLE: 1944-45. 29:00BERGE: You were there during the Battle of the Bulge.

VENABLE: I went up to the Battle of the Bulge.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: So was I.

BERGE: Where were you? ( ) where were you during the Battle of the Bulge?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Germany and France both.

BERGE: My … UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) they used ( ) Holland.

BERGE: Holland.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That’s where we were dispersed at.

BERGE: My—I had an Uncle who was just a couple of years older than I was, in fact, my Mother and Father kind of raised him. He was captured in Luxembourg, during the Battle of the Bulge.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ).

BERGE: So when did you get out of the service?

VENABLE: I got out of the service in forty-five.

BERGE: Then what did you do?

VENABLE: I come back home and went back over to the Ordinance Depot, and saw Mr. West, Tim West, was my foreman. 30:00And I said, “Kenny, can I get job back here?” “Yes sir,” he said, “you go right down there,” and he said, “you’ll have to fill an application out but you go down and fill the application out and we’ll hire you right off.” In between his—between the garage and the application office I changed my mind. (laughter) I said, “I don’t want to work here.” I said, “I’m going back home and I’m going in business for myself.” And I went back and I rented a little garage there on END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE VENABLE BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE VENABLE BERGE: You said you went back there, and you got in the garage business.

VENABLE: Yeah I got in the garage business, and built a small garage there, and worked up there for I guess a year. And I did a lot of work for Roger Coal Company, get their trucks going, and then 31:00a guy was ( ) and—you going upstairs?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I got to shave.

BERGE: It’s been a pleasure to meet you, and I will see you again Mr. Snowden. Yeah, we’ll send that tape to you.

SNOWDEN: Ok. Thank you. Ok.

VENABLE: Frank, tell Margaret where I’m at. And I was there about a year, and then I went—I ( ) ( ). I worked it I guess two years. And then Dean’s ( ) up there in Sandgap, Kentucky they owned a business there, ( ), but they was brother-in-laws, and they didn’t seem to be getting along too good, so they decided they wanted to sell their business. So I bought them out. 32:00A big garage and big steel ( ) … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. I know what it was.

VENABLE: Well, I owned that for, I guess fifteen years, and did a lot of school bus work. I did all the school bus work, see, because they had a, they had a—I had a big two ( ) hoist in there you know, and that was the only place around that could hold a school bus.

BERGE: Do you know Barry Bolers up there?

VENABLE: Pardon?

BERGE: Do you know Barry Bolers … VENABLE: Oh, yeah, Barry Bolers, yeah. Yeah, I know Barry and Tom … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

VENABLE: Tom Bolers used to be—he’d have us work on his truck, and he said, “now, I want you to paint it black with red fenders.” He said, “they ain’t no truck that will outrun a truck with black body and red fenders.” And he had a big ( ) too.

BERGE: Yeah, I heard that.

VENABLE: Tom 33:00was a nice fella.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, what was the name of the man in Sandgap that had a little store there?

VENABLE: Tom Swain?

BERGE: No, he … VENABLE: Tom Jones?

BERGE: No, he saved arrow heads and stuff. Kenny was that his name?

VENABLE: Who?

BERGE: Was his name Kenny? I can’t remember, but … VENABLE: He had a store?

BERGE: Yeah, some kind of store in Sandgap. He had a lot of arrow heads I remember.

VENABLE: Ah, I remember Clark Little, and Tommy Jones, and Herbert Brockman, and Gilbert Isaacs.

BERGE: I can’t remember who he was. I remember that he—I had a class—maybe he just worked in the store—I don’t remember. But I knew a lot of those people from long time around. 34:00( ).

VENABLE: A mean place back in there … BERGE: What was that little Markham guy, what was his name?

VENABLE: Ralph Markham.

BERGE: Ralph. Yeah.

VENABLE: ( ) little town in … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

VENABLE: I was talking to a guy down in Tennessee told me he was up there the other day, he said, “we went up a big holler in there.” He said “that guy wasn’t at home but them other guys went on in there and looked around.” He said, “man I wouldn’t go in there, I was afraid to go in there,” he said, “I was afraid to go in there.” BERGE: He didn’t look around?

VENABLE: Nobody was home.

BERGE: Yeah. Ralph was one of the students down there at Eastern, you know.

VENABLE: Yeah. Nice guy. Plays the fiddle a lot.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

VENABLE: He played at Renfro for quite a while.

BERGE: So what did you do then? Worked around there most of your life. Around Sandgap and … VENABLE: Well I worked there and then I sold that business out. I 35:00did I kept ( ) Coal companies trucks you know, ( ) they was hauling to the distilleries in Lexington.

BERGE: Yeah.

VENABLE: And I serviced their trucks, and serviced the school buses, and I had a good business there. And then I also got the International Truck Agency there, and I sold quite a few trucks and school buses and things like that. Well, then I quit the truck—the dealership, the International. Then sold the business out, and went to McKee, and put up a car wash, and another service station, and a service—a little convenience store like, altogether there, and it is still operating. But I don’t own it now, I moved to Florida.

BERGE: My wife, when she was teaching at Eastern, taught nursing, and she used to have students in the office of, oh that Doctor Rye up there, she used to go … VENABLE: Yes, yes, that Doctor 36:00Rye he was Mom’s doctor.

BERGE: His wife worked in the drugstore in Eastern.

VENABLE: She did?

BERGE: Hum-hum.

VENABLE: Did you ever know a man who worked in that drug store by the name of Cox, Walter Cox or Fox, no Cox?

BERGE: Fire insurance?

VENABLE: Hum?

BERGE: In Richmond?

VENABLE: Yeah, he worked in the drug store there for years and years.

BERGE: Seems to me but I just can’t re … VENABLE: Well, that guy that worked ( ) was a ( ) at the army depot—Carol Richison.

BERGE: Oh, yeah.

VENABLE: You know here then. He was killed ( ) … BERGE: Yeah, when the war was on there were people from Richmond that worked at the Ordinance.

VENABLE: Yeah. Huh-hum.

BERGE: When you were over around Sandgap 37:00in Jackson County, did you ever know a man ( ) Gilbert?

VENABLE: Woodrow Gilbert.

BERGE: He was ( ).

VENABLE: I knew just about everybody on Horse Licks but … BERGE: Well, they actually lived on Dry Court, which ran down into Horse Licks.

VENABLE: The name sounds familiar, you know but, it has been quite a while. I used to know a guy who lived down ( ). And some of the Lakes’.

BERGE: Yeah, I remember that.

VENABLE: Did you see the picture where the Lakes, they had their reunion down there at the old church?

BERGE: No.

VENABLE: In the Jackson county ( ).

BERGE; No, I didn’t see that.

VENABLE: They have a reunion there every year.

BERGE: When did you finally pack up and move to the north from Florida?

VENABLE: Well, about, 38:00let’s see—in the seventies—no, fifty-two, I believe it was. No, no it wasn’t then. Anyhow fifty-two years old and I am now eighty-one now.

BERGE: So it was about eighty. Oh, no. Thirty years, it was about seventy-two.

VENABLE: Seventy-two. I believe it was seventy-two. We just … BERGE: Picked up and got out of there.

VENABLE: Doctor told me, he said, “you need to get out of this.” He said, “you are going to have a heart attack” Said if, ( ). I—you know Watts, that have the trailer sales out of London out there, between London and Lexington?

BERGE: No, but I know who they are.

VENABLE: Well, I sold trailers for them. I had fifteen mobile homes sitting there on the lot, and that service station, and car wash and store, ( ) I 39:00just had too much to do.

BERGE: Yeah too much.

VENABLE: So I just up, and let my boys take the business over, and we moved to Florida.

BERGE: Whereabouts in Florida did you say you were?

VENABLE: We are in Leesburg.

BERGE: Oh in Fruitland Park.

VENABLE: We live in Fruitland Park, it is on the edge of Leesburg.

BERGE: Yeah, a lot of Kentuckians in Florida aren’t there?

VENABLE: Oh from Richmond, where we live there about all from Richmond and Garrard County.

BERGE: Well, I’ll tell you let’s get back on the subject of the CCC’s. I guess you could say that being in the three C’s had a great impact on your life.

VENABLE: It sure did. When I went in the CCC’s my teeth were all—rotten you know and had bad places 40:00… BERGE: And they fixed your teeth?

VENABLE: They fixed my teeth, liked to kill me. And I was ( ). And they drilled on my teeth, and drilled on my teeth, and I still got all my teeth in my mouth. I think I got three teeth out.

BERGE: Huh-huh. That was the amazing thing that particularly that came from a part of the country that there was nothing going on, there was no place to work or anything like that ; you know just some incredibly good things.

VENABLE: Yeah good training. A lot of them guys you know you could go work in the garage, or you could work with heavy equipment or dozers … BERGE: A great number of them did the same thing after they got out that they did in there didn’t they?

VENABLE: Yeah. ( ) on that Chevrolet, Britton, Britton Chevrolet?

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

VENABLE: He got his start at camp McKee.

BERGE: Oh, yeah?

VENABLE: And he worked in the garage, there at McKee 41:00, now he’s got that Britton Chevrolet.

BERGE: Yeah. Big business. Well, I tell you Mr. Venable I really want to thank you for coming in here, and talking to m e, it really has been a big help. I need you to sign some stuff.

VENABLE: You are surely welcome.

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE VENABLE END OF INTERVIEW.