Oral History Interview with Frances Belcher

FRANCES BELCHER: The year I went to the settlement. It was in the thirties.

CASSIE MULLINS: If you don't care, right before we get started, just state your name.

So, we'll have it on here. Go ahead.

BELCHER: I'm Frances Ritchie Belcher, from Hindman.

C.M.: If you don't mind, tell us your age.

BELCHER: Seventy-eight.

C.M.: Did you live at the settlement school when you went to school there?

BELCHER: Yes, I did. I 1:00went to school at Vest and lived in the country. There wasn't a lot of competition, to let you work for it, you know. So, after I came in the eighth grade. I came to Hindman Settlement School. And that was a new type of life for me. Because I lived in a family, and I was the youngest. And I had to get used to being supervised. And of course, I was small, and of course I got to scrub floors, 2:00since I did that. And that was all new to me. I never scrubbed floors down with a brush and a bucket of water and a cloth. Scrub the floors. So, I had to learn how to do that. In the Orchard House, where I stayed, which is now the May Stone Building and whatever, they had a long hall. And Saturday was my job to scrub that long hall. You took it down three times, heavy bucket and water and all that. And you scrubbed three 3:00planks and the base boards and begin at the top and go all the way down. Then next one, you went three planks on the other side. And the last plank of the stretch, you scrubbed it over again in the middle. Do you understand what I mean, now?

C.M.: Yeah.

BELCHER: Okay. And that took you most all day.

C.M.: I'd say so. So, you had, that was your job each Saturday?

BELCHER: And then we scrubbed, during the week we scrubbed one room, somebody's room, you know. So, 4:00I never had been used to doing that. I had to learn. And it was good for me, of course sometimes I griped about it. [Laughter - Mullins] And let's see, what else?

C.M.: Let me just move this a second, make sure I get your voice. There we go.

BELCHER: So, that was Saturday's work. So, on Sunday we got up. We got up an hour later, then 5:00we had to get ready and come downstairs. I don't remember what I did during the morning. Then we ate breakfast, did a little bit of work. I don't remember what it was. Then, we went to Church. After we came back from Church, some of the girls had put the meal on the table and so we ate. After that then we had a rest period during the afternoon. We rested. And then maybe we could take a walk with a chaperone. We 6:00had nice teachers.

C.M.: Yeah, tell me about some of them.

BELCHER: They came from the New England states, where Miss Watts is from. And we had some very nice teachers. And so I had an unhappy experience there. During I believe, the second year I was there .... oh well, the second semester, I didn't like that one at all, because I had never cooked before. And we had a practice house, 7:00we stayed at the hospital. There were six girls. And I don't think either one was a good cook. And we were supervised by the Home Ee lady. And she was pregnant there. She didn't take much interest in teaching us anything, just growled. I think her poor, old husband took a lot of it. But she growled at us a lot. And I guess she ... we deserved it I guess, because we couldn't cook very well. But 8:00the semester before, some of those girls, they were older than me and they had, they could cook. And so that made it kind of hard on us. There was Tracy Prather and two more girls. I've forgotten who the other two girls were. Maxine Hughes and her mother, Maxine Hughes' mother, was also a cook down at the Orchard House. So, we loved it when could get a chance to go to the Orchard House to eat. Of course, I had been used to eating what I wanted, and we didn't have, we didn't have too much to eat. But I had a charge 9:00account downtown. That saved me, I think. But we would sneak food out once in a while. Well, we had to, we didn't have enough to eat really. It was there, we could have, she made out the menus mostly. She said we did, but I don't think we did.

BELCHER: So, the second and the 10:00next year, I came back, and I had to work. I came a month before school began. And when school was, we had to work for a month, doing chores. And after that, well I think I was there about two weeks, and I got sick in the middle of the night. And I upchucked and so, I was really feeling bad. And I went downstairs, and I told her, Miss Elkins, was our house mother and she didn't know anything about girls. But she thought she did. So, I told her I was sick. 11:00So, she said, "Oh, you've just eaten some green apples." We had apple trees outside. I was always used to apples, but I wasn't fascinated by the green apples anyway. So, she made me go on to work. I think I worked over at Eastover and I got worse and worse. So, I think I went to the table. And I ate at Miss Watts' table. And she asked me why I didn't finish my food. And I said, well I was sick. And she said, "Well, I think you'll go to the doctor." So, she went and told Miss Elkins that she was sending me to the doctor. 12:00So, I went downtown to see Doctor Duke. And he was our, he had been our doctor a long time. His wife had grown up with Dad. And so he had an interest in me, of course. So, he said you'll have to come back. I got a little bit better. And then Mom and Nana came up. And Mom said, I just have time to go up and see Frances. So, in the meantime, I had written her and of course, at that time, our mail didn't go through. 13:00So, Mom came up and she told Miss Elkins she wanted to see me. Miss Elkins said, well she's been sick, said I think she's just eaten too many green apples. So, when I came out to the screen door, Mom said, "What's wrong with you?" And I said, "Well, I've been sick and I've written you a letter." She said, "Well, I think I'm going to take you home. Are you homesick?" Of course, I'd been homesick the year before, all the time. And so I said, "No I'm not homesick. I don't want to go home now." She told Miss Elkins, she asked Miss Elkins if 14:00she could take me home. And she said, Miss Elkins said, I think she's had too many green apples and so forth. So anyway, Mom went up to see Miss Watts. Miss Watts said yes, she was sick and didn't eat breakfast at the table. She said, I think she said, she should be taken to the doctor. So Mom went down to see, I went down with her to see Doctor Duke. And Doctor Duke said, "She was supposed to come back." And Mom 15:00said, "Well she tells me that Miss Elkins wouldn't let her come back to see you." So he said, "Well you can't take her home. I think she's got appendicitis."

C.M.: Oh gosh.

BELCHER: Then Billy Boggs was a taxi driver then, or he had a car. So I went on to Hazard and the doctor said they were ready to operate right then. And my Dad said, well I think we will wait another day. So, they waited another day, because he couldn't make up his mind, he was so worried. And my brother had been operated on the year before that and it wasn't for what they diagnosed 16:00it to be. Well, I just lay between life and death for about three or four days. And it was peritonitis. I got peritonitis. So, I had to stay out of school. I had to stay out of school that whole semester and I didn't graduate with the class. But that's the sad part of it. But anyway, I learned a lot. And I learned how to work, because I didn't have to at home. [Laughter] C.M.: I think that happened to a lot of people. 17:00BELCHER: I didn't have to do anything at home, except unless I wanted to. I did the errands. And they knew, I don't know how they knew that I was good at errand girl. But I would take quarts of milk, or some of the teachers lived off in a little house. Where the Craft Shop is, there was a house way back up there. And our Home Ee teacher, see she went home and had the baby. And then she came back with the baby, and she didn't teach that year. And Mr. Potter, he taught 18:00seventh or eighth grade, I don't remember which one. He was teaching there. It was during the depression years, and jobs were hard to get. So, they lived in Tennessee and he came back for that job. I used to take them milk up there. And then they would send me to town for things. They'd send me to somebody's house. That was on Saturday. Always on a Saturday afternoon, I had an errand to do for somebody. We had real good teachers, real good teachers. 19:00And Miss Standish was a, she had taught everything, except Home Ee, in that school. She was an English teacher, and she was a Math teacher, a History teacher, whatever they had. So, she stayed there several years. We'd have visitors. I don't know what else.

C.M.: I was trying to think. You were talking about your teachers. You told me about Miss Standish. Were you around ... well, first of all, what did you think of Miss Watts?

BELCHER: Well, we 20:00were all scared of her, for one thing. None of us wanted to ever be sent to Miss Watts and I don't think we ever did. Jim Still was there. And I think he came up there because I guess, the jobs were not very plentiful where he came from. Alabama, I think. And so, I don't know too much about him. We thought he was, some of us girls thought 21:00he was a man about town. [Laughter- Mullins] Betty Combs, her name was Betty, can't think of her name now. She came in and right off the rail, she dated Pearl. And he was my next-door neighbor, from over on the farm at Vest. And that made it nice for me. He always liked me real well. He ran around with my brother. When 22:00he got Betty, I was tickled that he was dating Betty. Of course, we all liked her. She was real nice to us.

C.M.: Did you ever have Miss Cobb for anything?

BELCHER: Yeah. I had her for a History class. And she was nice. She wasn't one of my favorites, but...she wasn't one of my favorites, but she was a likeable person. I liked to talk to her, better than hear her teach. What else do you want to know?

C.M.: Well, I'm trying to think. You told me a 23:00lot of good stuff I guess maybe, try to think of some of these people. You told me about your teachers and your classes and things like that, and living there. That's a big thing, just what it was like to live there. You said you were homesick that first year. How did you like it overall the rest of the time you were there?

BELCHER: I liked it. Of course, I think my Junior year I stayed with my uncle and my aunt down at Cary. I didn't like going on the school bus or anything like that. I stayed down there. And my Senior year, I lived with my brother. And he lived up above Carmen Neese's, up 24:00that way. Your know where Carmen lives?

C.M.: I think so.

BELCHER: Yeah. That was better than the settlement. Miss Elkins wasn't, she was, she was. She never trusted anybody. For one thing, they said, her sister took her boyfriend and married him.

C.M.: Uhoh.

BELCHER: So, she never trusted girls. Had you heard that?

C.M.: No.

BELCHER: Well, that was the rumor. But she never trusted anybody. She 25:00was kind of pitiful. She was an old woman. She had to take care of.. .. she was a house mother. She took care of the dining room, the food, the food that was brought up to eat. Let's see what else. Oh, she took care of the garden.

C.M.: She had a lot of responsibilities.

BELCHER: Yeah. And I think that she was old. And she couldn't, you know, she couldn't just walk out and get a job, 26:00and so, she just stayed there. I really felt sorry for her. And I did feel sorry for her at the time, because she had too many responsibilities. I don't know what kind of pay she had. But if she got room and board at that time, that meant something. I think that she, will you be talking to Mattie Martin?

C.M.: Maybe. I'm not sure yet.

BELCHER: Well, she ran into her when she went to U.K.. And 27:00she was trying to, let's see, now this is just hearsay. I don't know, but I think she stayed at her sister's house. And I think her sister thought that she should have had a little bit of money for working all those years over there, but she didn't. And so, Mattie ran into them, ran into her. And I think she was living with her sister down in Lexington. 28:00And so, it was a sad time for her. Well, she had a lot of responsibilities on that account. It wasn't quite fair. And I think she was overworked.

C.M.: I'd say so. It sounds like it.

BELCHER: Yeah, she was really overworked.

C.M.: Well, what did, I guess what has your education from the settlement school meant to you? Being there and being part of it?

BELCHER: Well, 29:00I got to know people, a lot of people, and a lot of girls. I learned to work. That was the main thing, was my work. [Laughing] So I, don't know what else. Just overall, I thought it was pleasant at times. So.

C.M.: Well, that's all the questions that I have. Is 30:00there anything else that you would want to .. .I don't know, maybe something, that's popped into your head since we've been talking, that I haven't asked you about? Anything like that?

BELCHER: Well, one of the funny things that happened. Miss Elkins, we had to report to her, you know, in the morning. And we would have dusting or whatever. And Antoniette Hayes, and that's one of Lib's friends. And she's going to see her, this coming, in about a week or two, about two weeks I guess. Her mother and father separated and so, of course she 31:00made her home at the settlement. And then in the summer, she would go to, well her daddy was here in town. She'd go to her mother's. So, one morning, there was a little entryway, just a little small one. There was four doors in it. You'd come in and there was four doors. You could go to the dining room, you could go, there was Miss Elkin' s office. And sometimes they'd have the food prepared there, you know, just fix it together to put it on the table. And then there was the Orchard House living room, and then there was downstairs, the kitchen. So there was just four doors, just a small space.

C.M.: Okay, 32:00wait let me turn this tape over real quick.

BEGINNING OFT APE 20 Al3, FRANCES BELCHER, SIDE B C.M.: Okay.

BELCHER: So, Antoinette came in the door and she was talking to Miss Elkins. And Miss Elkins got onto her for something and she said, well you just go butting around. You don't look where you're going, you just go butting around or something. And the door was not closed, going down to the kitchen. So, Miss Elkin said, well you don't know where you're going. And she butted, Miss Elkin was trying to mimic her, you know, and she butted the door. And the door swung open and she went, she went all the way down 33:00those stairs.

C.M.: Ohno.

BELCHER: Now let's see, how was that. Oh, the reason she said that Antoinette was butting the door. Antoinette started to go down the stairs and she met one of the cooks coming up with a big skillet that had bales on it, of fried apples. We had the best fried apples. And we had good biscuits with them, too. This cook had this bales of, big kettle. It 34:00was hanging down, because she was handling it with the bales. So, Antoinette stepped in that. Antoinette stepped in the little, hot apples. And Miss Elkin was mad. And she said, you just go butting around and everything. That's the reason she just butted the door, and she went down the stairs. I can't, I'm not a good storyteller. [Laughter - Mullins] So, Antoinette, oh it burned her feet up, just about.

So, she got a rag and wiped over her feet. So, Miss Elkins went all the way down to the landing.

C.M.: Did she get hurt?

BELCHER: Oh, I don't why she didn't get killed. I really don't. It 35:00was a terrible thing. Of course, that went around like wildfire around there. Everybody told it.

C.M.: That is a pretty good one. [Laughing] BELCHER: So, maybe if you got hold of Antoinette, maybe she could tell you more about it. I went down to Sophia Holliday's, no Sophia Smith's. Sophia Smith 36:00she was a ...

END OF INTERVIEW