Oral History Interview with Thomas Waddell

CASSIE MULLINS: If it will go. There we go. And just to get started, if you don't care, just state your name and your age.

THOMAS WADDELL: Thomas Waddell, age, born twelve, sixteen, sixteen, now eighty-one.

C.M.: What years did you go to school, like at Hindman?

WADDELL: At Hindman? Nineteen thirty to nineteen and thirty-four.

C.M.: Now did you live up there at the settlement school?

WADDELL: I lived. I lived right here. The highway 1:00was out through this mountain here. And from there on to the top. It was graded on the other side. But this mountain, it was over a year building the road through here. So, I went to the settlement and stayed with my uncle and aunt, as I said, Hayes, was Joe, was Jeeter. And I lived with them until I got a job, an opening at the settlement school. I went to Eastover. The name of it.

C.M.: Have you always lived in Larks Lane?

WADDELL: No.

C.M.: Is that where you grew up? Where 2:00did you grow up?

WADDELL: I grew up. I was born down here in Thom (??) County. And then we lived right out here until nineteen and twenty-one. And we went to Ohio and stayed until nineteen and twenty-eight. And nineteen twenty-eight to nineteen thirty, I was in the seventh and eighth grade down, up at Jones Fork School. And Vinnie Dar was the teacher down there, of the upper grades. And he lived at Leburn. And rode a horse from 3:00Leburn to over here to the barn over here. And back and forth for two years. And I was in the seventh and eighth grade and spent half my time teaching the first and second grade. Well, it was just a one room school at the time. Vinnie couldn't do them all. But anyhow, then in nineteen thirty then, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Why, I went to Hindman and graduated there in thirty-four.

C.M.: How did you hear about going to school over at Hindman?

WAD DELL: Well, that was the only place to go, if you were going to, after you passed the eighth grade, was the Hindman School. Carr 4:00Creek had a Carr Creek one, had a Caney one at that time. We had four high schools. They had four high schools in the county at that time. But Hindman Settlement School was the only place that I.. . .I wouldn't have gone then, if it hadn't been my mom made me.

C.M.: What did you think about that?

WADDELL: Hmmm?

C.M.: What did you think about your mom making you go to school? Did you not like that?

WADDELL: Well I knew it wouldn't be ... .I should do it. But there wasn't a person around here that went to high school. I was one of the first in this section to go to high school.

C.M.: Did anybody else in your family go to school over at Hindman?

WADDELL: Prior 5:00to my family, I was the third one down. Lloyd, my older brother died. He was born in nineteen and eight. And then the next one was nineteen and ten. And the next one was nineteen and thirteen, and then me. I don't think either one of those went to high school. The older one had; I think one year maybe. But then after that all the rest of them got college degrees after I went and got a college degree. The other three younger ones have college degrees.

C.M.: That's something. I ought to get my questions out. I'm sitting here, trying to do it by memory. I'll forget something. Now 6:00you were telling me you lived at Eastover when you were at Hindman. What was that like? Living there with a bunch of boys? What kind of arrangement?

WADDELL: It was a very nice. It was a two-story building. We had a house mother there. I don't remember what her name was, I should. There was a Miss Jones that was in charge of the Little Boys' House. There was the Little Boys' House on the other side of.. .. Eastover was fine. When you had to ... .If you were upstairs and you had to go out, the door, I mean the shed over back of Eastover there. A roof over the porch. All you had to do was go out your window 7:00and walk out on that and jump out onto the hill there. [Laughing] C.M.: That would be an adventure.

WADDELL: It was used for that quite a few times.

C.M.: How many people were in a room? How was it set up?

WAD DELL: There were ... .let' s see now. Downstairs they even got four to a room, I think. Different sized rooms, too. It was not a bad set up at all, at Eastover. I liked it there. Then there was one section downstairs, too. It was built on a hillside, you know. 8:00C.M.: What were some of the rules you all had for living over there? Maybe like bedtime and things like that. What were some rules that you had to follow since you lived on campus?

WADDELL: None of that. I just don't remember what we had back then, because it wasn't a bad bunch of boys. We went to bed early. I was just talking about that window. I don't think I ever went out that window, but I know that some of the boys might have. But I didn't. No, I stayed there, I stayed there until my senior year and at that time, my grandmother, who lived right there 9:00in Hindman. Just right behind the courthouse .... right behind the jailhouse, the old jailhouse at that time. That hollow road goes right up through there now. She lived there and she wanted me to live with her. So that's what I did the last year, was I lived there. And then I went home a little more often like that.

C.M.: Did you like living at the settlement school? On the campus?

WADDELL: Oh yeah. No, I did. The thing about it was, the loneliness, the homesickness.

C.M.: Did you get real homesick?

WADDELL: Yes, I did. That was the worst part about the whole thing. And you only went home once or twice a semester. I don't remember now. Of course, back then 10:00I had to ride home on a mule. No roads were there, just old broken-down roads. I had, one of these brothers of mine would, over the weekend if I couldn't get over there or something. He'd get on an old mule and ride from here to Hindman over the weekend, to just visit with me.

C.M.: That's good.

WADDELL: I appreciated it at that time, too.

C.M.: I've talked to different people, you know, that lived there. Some people said at first, they were a little homesick, but then it never did bother them. But I know it's different for everybody. That would be hard.

WAD DELL: That's it, I think. About the only association with people was with my own family right up here, when I lived here. Of course, that was my cousins that were at Uncle 11:00Dan's. In fact, there's one of them still living. She lives down at Lake Cumberland. It was .... homesickness was the only thing that bothered me.

C.M.: Maybe talk about actually being in school. Are there any classes you took, that kind of stand out in your mind? Classes that you took in high school that you kind of remember or your favorites?

WADDELL: I did .... you had the regular sixteen hours. 12:00But I think that the Latin did more than anything else in the curriculum.

C.M.: Why is that? Who taught you that?

WAD DELL: Because, well, I had two years of Latin. And from that the English language was such a great help. Because half of the English language came from Latin words. And the conjugation of a sentence. Latin had a lot to do with it. I think that. And then I took a lot of math. The math in high school, too.

C.M.: Were you pretty good at math? Or did you like that?

WADDELL: Well, I must have because when I came back. No, that was down at Caney 13:00College, over at Alice Lloyd. I took enough over there to get a teaching certificate. There wasn't much math in that. But when I came back and went to the University of Kentucky. I had two years of college. Why the first semester I took Algebra II, College Algebra. I took Trigonometry. I took Physics and one more class, all of them in one semester.

C.M.: That's hard.

WAD DELL: Now you talk about a load.

C.M.: So, did you feel like you were pretty well prepared to be in those classes after going to the settlement?

WADDELL: I made fair grades in it. But that's what I was always 14:00more interested in was math and science. It was just better for me. But I was in the Education School, and you didn't have to have that much.

C.M.: Are there any teachers you had, like favorite teachers or ones that stand out in your mind? From high school?

WADDELL: From high school?

C.M.: Yeah, when you were at the settlement.

WADDELL: Teachers .... oh, high school teachers?

C.M.: Yeah.

WADDELL: Well, Miss Foote, F double OT E, was the Math teacher there at Hindman. And she was real.. .. she knew her math. Miss 15:00Foote, most outstanding one to me. Of course, what was the other lady? Miss Foote, I remember her, but the other one was a teacher, that. ... She was very outstanding, but she was English, I believe is what she was.

C.M.: I'm trying to think. I've heard a bunch of names, but I can't remember. Somebody mentioned a Miss Standish.

WADDELL: Miss Standish. Miss Foote and Miss Standish, both were math over there.

And then there was one that.. . .I've got a book that she wrote.

C.M.: Ann Cobb?

WAD DELL: Ann Cobb, Miss Cobb.

C.M.: What did you like about her?

WAD DELL: I just liked her personality is all. [Laughing] She was a wonderful 16:00little woman.

C.M.: Did you know Mr. Still? Was he there when you were there?

WAD DELL: Mr. Still. I was there before Mr. Still came. And he taught me Library Science, that first year that he was there and started teaching. And of course, I've known Jim Still all my life now.

C.M.: What kind of teacher was he?

WAD DELL: He was very intelligent and a very .... You know he was never married. 17:00He lived his life in his work. Built that cabin over there on Carr Creek.

C.M.: What sort of things did you all do when you weren't going to school, when you lived over there? Like activities? What were the things you did for fun? Do you remember any certain things that you all would do?

WADDELL: The older ones, we had a basketball team.

C.M.: Did you play on that?

WADDELL: No. I lost a dollar. Some of the boys lost a dollar on me, the year I graduated from high school. There in Hindman, Benton Newlin had a store, that had corn, hundred-pound bags of com to weigh, 18:00weigh it out, mule feed and so forth. They were talking to me. Some of the parents there. I was in that store one morning. And they bet them a dollar. They saw me out there. They knew .... that was the year I was graduating. And bet a dollar, one of them bet a dollar, I didn't weigh a hundred pounds. And the other one took him up. I didn't know what was going on. And so, Ben hollered at me on the outside, "Tom, come in here a minute." Said, "I want to weigh you." Put that hundred-pound weight on that old scale and asked me get up there, get on that scale. Well, I couldn't break a hundred pounds. So, he had to back it off 19:00to ninety-eight. And it was at level then. So, they had the biggest time out of that dollar. I didn't know what was going on at first.

C.M.: Did you go to the basketball games?

WADDELL: Yes, I did. There at school. Yeah, I remember them. Knew every one of the players. But they were, me a freshman and sophomore, and some of them seniors. Forrest Johnson and Rick Johnson, they were real good. And they were at that time Mount () residents. There long before I graduated, Copper John Campbell was over there. Copper John was a good ball player. Of course, he was a coach too, later on in life. 20:00They had some good ball players.

C.M.: Was that a pretty popular thing to do, I guess? Go to the ball games?

WADDELL: Yeah. We didn't.. .. it was the sports activity. I think I was still homesick, I didn't know a thing .... home more than anything else. But we had to work there in the settlement.

C.M.: What kind of work did you do?

WADDELL: I worked in that dam chicken yard.

C.M.: Tell me about that again, because we didn't get that on here. What did you think about working in the chicken yard? [Laughing] WADDELL: Well, see my Aunt Raney was () under Miss Elkin at that time. And 21:00she .... what was I going to say about it now? Well anyhow, Miss Elkin, through her I had to take care of the chickens. They had two pens of both hens and about half a dozen roosters. And those things, they got so close to you, they, well they just spurred you. But other than that, I think that's about the only thing I had to work at while I stayed there. The three years I guess that I was there, really.

C.M.: Did you stay there during the summers, too? Or did you come home during the summers? 22:00WAD DELL: I came home during the summers.

C.M.: Because I know some people would stay and work. I didn't know if you did that or not.

WADDELL: No, no I didn't. I just remember that last year. Part of that year, that I.. .. this highway over, as I said, the concrete stopped, the blacktop stopped right up here. And from there on to the top of the mountain was just a broken-down piece of hill. But from there on, it was still blacktop, from there on to Hindman. And I had an old bicycle that I'd walk to the top of Jones Fork Mountain. And the 23:00bicycle was in that little building up there. I'd get on that bicycle and ride to Hindman.

C.M.: So how long was the trip? How long would it take you to get from your house up to Hindman?

WADDELL: Well, from my house ... .It would take longer from the house here, to walk from here to where my bicycle was, then it was on the end. From there it was about five miles there into Hindman. And about three miles from here up to there. It's eight miles from here to Hindman.

C.M.: That would be a pretty good trip then, wouldn't it?

WADDELL: Yeah, I'd do that. I remember one time my mother wanted a gallon of vinegar. I had a basket on the front of the old bicycle. And I put a gallon of vinegar in the front of that thing, in that 24:00basket. And I hit a rocky spot somewhere or another and broke the gallon of vinegar. [Laughing] C.M.: What kind of. . .I guess one thing we've been trying to get from people is, how important has it been to you that you got to go to the settlement school and get an education?

WADDELL: Well, it was very fortunate that I, or why I ever decided to go on to school.

But my mother, she was an old, retired .... she was a schoolteacher, herself, until she was married and had a family. She had to take care of her family. Old Professor Clark 25:00there in Hindman with so many courses, they'd automatically give you a teaching certificate. And she taught for quite a while. I don't know where, of course. But whenever the children were born, she had to quit. But that's one of the reasons she always wanted me to go to school.

C.M.: I've just one more question for you. You've pretty much lived around here, like you said, for a long time. And you're part of the settlement school, because you went to school there. What kind of impact do you think that the settlement school's had on this area? At that time maybe?

WADDELL: I don't know at that time .... the settlement school was .... there were no roads or anything. It was about the only place if you wanted 26:00to go on to high school in this area, was you had to go to Hindman, you know. After nineteen thirty-four it was not bad, because the buses went, after nineteen thirty-four. But from nineteen twenty-nine, twenty-eight on, then it was hard to get to Hindman.

C.M.: I'd say so.

WAD DELL: Several times it would be raining or something. I would leave home to walk to my bicycle. But I'd get up right to where the gap in the mountain is right now. And there was a little path up that hill to where a big rock cliff was up on that side 27:00of that hill. And I spent several days a week, one or two days a week up there under that rock cliff. In other words, my mother would think I was going to school that day. I'd go up and lay around in those woods up there. And have that place to get out of the rain. If it was raining, I'd head right up the hill to where that big rock cliff was, instead of riding down the road in the rain. I did that quite, several times during that year. Of course, they didn't know.

C.M.: 28:00That's all the questions I have. But is there anything maybe that I haven't asked you that you think would be important to have on this maybe? About your time in the settlement?

Or any specific memories maybe you had?

WAD DELL: The only memories I had were about the old rooster. I remember him very well. [Laughter] And then of course, we still had that old dairy barn over there, where they had their own cattle and milk. Of course, I didn't do that. And back then they didn't have .... the electricity was made there at the settlement school. 29:00I'm very proud of that. And very glad of it, that I was a member of it. I'll tell what, that part of it, right now, I think more of it. I don't think a thing about the new Hindman, Knott Central High School. It's all the old school that we had when I went to school. I got there the last year. They got into the new school building, which is the old one right now. The old block building there. Nineteen thirty-two, I believe is when we 30:00got classes in there, in thirty-two. I've been very fortunate in having enough intestinal fortitude, I guess to stay with it. And at the time, really, I didn't know why, except I didn't want my mother to be disappointed.

C.M.: That's a good reason I reckon.

WAD DELL: But that went on to thirty-four, that's when I graduated. 31:00Then I went two years on to Alice Lloyd.

END OF INTERVIEW