Oral History Interview with Al Stewart

CASSIE MULLINS: All this microphone madness first. All right, I got it. Okay, today's date is June fifteenth. If you don't care, just go ahead and state your name.

ALBERT STEWART: My name is Albert Stewart.

C.M.: All righty.

STEW ART: Sometimes I put an "F" in the middle.

C.M.: Sometimes? [Laughing] STEWART: Uh huh.

C.M.: Make sure we're all on here. Okay Al, I guess to start off with, we just want to learn a little bit about you. Why don't you tell me where you grew up, maybe a little bit about your family.

STEWART: I was born over on (),where I live now. And I was five years old when I came over to the settlement school. 1:00C.M.: I'll just move this a little bit.

STEWART: You'll have to tum that up a little, I guess.

C.M.: No, I just had it covered up. There we go.

STEWART: And I don't really understand, because I came down. I had a brother, older brother, who was here then, staying at the settlement. And two sisters, who were about three years older than me. So I don't know why my brother ... .I can remember when he came over there home, either on a Saturday or a Sunday. And he talked my Dad into letting me come over here to the settlement school. And I don't know why he did that, unless he thought that he'd get all four in the family left over there together, you know or something. I don't know what it was, I just had to make that up. But anyway he talked to my Dad. I was five years old. And he asked him to let me come to the settlement school. Well, I went and of course, I didn't know what was going on. I was scared and I cried half the way over. [Laughing] So I came and that's .... the Little Boys' House was over there then. That's where they kept the little boys. And my brother, of course, he was about 2:00eight years older than me. He was my big brother. He brought me in there and Lucy Furman came down. She was house mother then. You've heard of her, haven't you?

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: And oh, she cooed and cawed about me. I wasn't big as nothing. And not now either. And so I think I got satisfied, because I didn't know what was going on. And that's how it started. And I stayed. What do you do with a little fellow, that little? I wasn't big as nothing. I was five years old. And Miss Stone and all of them worried about that, you know. What are we going to do with this little fellow? I was too little to work. And they decided to keep me. I still haven't figured that out. I started thinking about that. Why in the world did my brother come over here 3:00.... and my twin sisters were here. And he was here. And I was the only one in the real family left at home. I guess that was the reason, I didn't know. So he got me on. I think he gave the school a big talk, that he'd come over home and get some eggs, or he'd get something. They'd always send out a bucket. When he really intended to come and get me, I think. Well, anyway he did, he got Dad's permission. But, boy I dreaded that. But once I got over here, I kind 4:00of got used to it. Stayed and I was a little pet of a thing, years, because I wasn't bigger than nothing. And I went to Kindergarten. The building is gone. You see where that big smokestack is over there?

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: I went there, Kindergarten. Miss Applegate was the Kindergarten teacher. And she eventually married one of the graduates of the school. [Coughing] Now what do I do? But anyway, I went to school half a day, that was all Kindergarten was. And when I'd get out.. .. the rest of the kids didn't get out until about three or two-thirty or something. Do you remember 5:00that picture they used of me, the little fellow?

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: Well, that's how that got to be. I was wandering around by myself, because everybody else was in school, you know. And I sat down, down there. And this woman, I can't remember her name. I remember her. I think it was Miss Southfork, I believe. But she was one of the field workers for the school. And every time she would come in from the field .... she'd been up to Boston, I think or somewhere like that. She saw me sitting there, waiting for school to be out. I was all by myself and she took that picture. And that's how that came to be. It's been going on ever since.

C.M.: So, what would you do with yourself, when you got out of school? Do you remember?

STEWART: Well, I got out, see I got out early. The rest of them wouldn't be out for two hours. I'd just wander around. And sometimes Miss Furman wouldn't be too busy and she'd give me something to do. But she just let me wander around. Then about between two-thirty and three, when they turned everybody out, I had plenty to do. They always said I was too little to work. But I didn't like that, because everybody else had little jobs. Gosh, I wanted to work and made up jobs for me. And 6:00I didn't do anything. One job was to go around and pick up papers and stuff. They gave me a big spike of a thing, I could stick in the paper and pick it up. I didn't have to bend over. Another one they gave me was working at the barn, because I wanted to work at the barn. They gave me, I was custodian of one of the calves. They called me the calf boy. So, that's what it was. And it got rough and it got worse, and I got meaner. But it was pretty good. See, I'm not big now and I wasn't big then. All these big, grown girls, big as you, come around, like I was their little baby brother or something. Everybody was good to me, I know. It wasn't that.

C.M.: Now, 7:00you said you had a brother and twin sisters that were here too, right?

STEWART: Yes.

C.M.: Did you interact with them much?

STEWART: Yeah, quite a bit. Of course, my brother, for a while, he stayed in the same dormitory that I did. The Little Boys' House, they called it. It was the first building the settlement had when it was here. All the people lived there. Later on it was just reserved for the little boys. They had a room for the teacher, Miss Furman and 8:00then a living room and they had one, two, three, four rooms for boys. And then about four boys in each room. So, we had about a pretty good little crowd over there, you know. That went on until I got.. .. well, let's see, when was it. Lucy Furman, before she left here, she built a little house. You know where Still lives now? She built that little house. She moved up there. She took four of the little boys and kept them up there. We had one room up there, a big porch and she had one room and a fireplace between them. And I stayed there. I don't know how long we were there, before she left. But then we stayed there a year or two after she left. 9:00And she was no longer house mother, of course. And Jethro Amburgey and his wife, they were just married. And they were the house pa and house ma of the house. See, then it was two rooms and a big porch. And Miss Furman made us sleep out on that porch, rain or shine, snow or cold or whatever.

C.M.: Why?

STEWART: Well, you needed to get good air, you know. [Laughing] That's the way they used to do, what do you call them, patients that had lung disease, you know, some of them. So, we slept pretty warm. But boy, we had to get up in the morning and run in our room and get the fire going and get our clothes on. It was all right. It was fun. I guess that was more 10:00.. .. she slept out there with us. There was the five of us in a row on that big porch. So then she took off and went to Battle Creek, Michigan or somewhere. I don't remember. I was too little to remember all that stuff. And later on, when I was in the third grade, she got me to go to Florida with her. I spent the winter in Florida with Lucy Furman. I think one of the ways she got.. . .I know I got.. . .I was no longer living on the hill over there. I was still with her regular little boys. Let's see if I can get it straight. So she got permission for me to go to Florida with her. So, that's the first big trip I ever took anywhere, you know. And my brother, my older brother, who got me over there to school was then working in Detroit. He came home on a visit and had a new car, you know. Model T Ford. They took me to Lexington and left me and my sister down there. That's when Miss Furman came by and took me to the train to Florida.

C.M.: What did you think about going to Florida? What was that like?

STEW ART: Well, it was a big 11:00to do to me, you know. To travel that far and ride in a big train. You know, you heard about trains, you'd never seen one. Well, I guess I had seen a train when I'd been taken over to the coal counties, where they bring in trains with coal and all that stuff in them. So, I spent a whole school year down there and came back home.

C.M.: What did you do down there?

STEWART: I went to school, let's see, fourth grade. And on the weekends, on Saturdays, and old friend of mine, who kept.. .. You see I was on the St. John's River and it was about a hundred and twenty miles south of Jacksonville. And when he made friends with me, he'd take me out on his boat on Saturdays, when he worked his lights on the river, so the boats would know where to go at night. He'd take me with him. 12:00And I had that big experience. And he'd call me captain. Where do you want to go now, Captain? [Laughing] Aw shucks. And sometimes he'd take me on kind of a hunting expedition too, up in those little side rivers. We never caught anything. We got a look at them. So, it was a pretty good experience. I liked that. But I went back to Florida next year, to another place and I didn't like that. I came back home. I didn't have a friend. I didn't know anybody, didn't know anything. I was trying 13:00to go to school, but couldn't. So, I just got so gosh darn homesick, they sent me back home.

C.M.: So, you came back to the settlement school?

STEW ART: No, I came back over home. Let's see, what did I do. I came back. What did I do? I guess I did come back to the settlement. That would have been a great big job for me to come all the way from home, wouldn't it? Later on I went back home and stayed there and then came to school from home. But that time I think I came back to, yeah, I came back to the settlement school. There was a different house mother. A good house mother.

C.M.: Who was it? Do you remember?

STEWART: Oh gosh, I'd have to think for half a day.

C.M.: Okay, that's all right, I was just wondering if you knew.

STEWART: I'd remember it, if I just sat down and thought about it. But she was a good house mother. 14:00So time went on. They finally got jobs for me. They made up jobs for me. I told you about that.

C.M.: Uh hmm.

STEW ART: And finally I got big enough where I really had regular jobs, you know. You'd clean up places or you'd pick up trash or you'd clean up this and that and so on. 15:00Sneak out and play basketball when you got a chance.

C.M.: Did you play much basketball?

STEWART: I played. I never was much good, but I played for years off and on. All of us did. We'd play over on the hillside over there where that.. .. the Little Boys' House was sitting on a slope. And we had our .... one basketball court up .. .. one goal up here and one down below. It was about a three or four foot drop.

C.M.: How'd you play ball on that?

STEWART: If you let the ball go, you had to chase it all the way to the end to get it. But it still was fun. We did all kinds of things. We played basketball. At that time, they've got pictures of this building, 16:00the old school, the grade school building. You've seen pictures of it. And everybody in the neighborhood could come if they wanted to walk, anyway to get there. They could come to Hindman School. And so a lot of them .... Well at the settlement at that time, I think they had a total of about one hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty-five, counting the faculty, the workers and the students. I'd say pretty close to a hundred students. So it was quite a thing. We ate over in that big dining room, sort of like that dining room there, but a little bit bigger, I think. A little bit bigger then. And the teachers were .. .. each teacher would be assigned to a table, you know, which is all right.

C.M.: Well, I'm kind of interested. You were talking about, you know, when you were a real young boy here at the settlement. I think that's so interesting, that you were that young. And obviously all these people just took up with you and took care of you. And I know that, I guess, that Lucy 17:00Furman was your house mother. She took care of a lot of the boys, the younger boys. What was she like? I guess what kind of relationship did you have with her?

STEWART: Well, just to tell you the truth, she's almost like a mother to you, to all the boys. She treated you, just like her children, you know. And she practically adopted me. In a sense, she did adopt me, but she wasn't going to try to do that. That's the reason she took me to Florida. She'd have taken me again, and I might have gone again, but I just wanted to be home. When I went to Willaka, that little town on the river down there. I liked it. The small town and the boys. I knew the boys and we went to school together and we played a little bit of baseball. Of course, I couldn't play much baseball. We tried, we thought we could. And then I'd get to go down to the river and see the 18:00boats. The fishing boats would go and catch catfish and come back in and clean them up. We go down and watch that going on. So we had plenty to do. And then they could walk out in the country to a big spring. What did they call them? The water boils up.

C.M.: Like hots springs?

STEWART: It wasn't hot, but it boiled up there and you could go swimming in that and play around and dive in. And walk back through the sand, through the Florida sand. So that was pretty good. And I had a fourth grade teacher that I liked very much. She was a very good person. She .... all the children .... all the little kids loved, they just loved her, that woman, she just.

C.M.: Your fourth grade teacher?

STEWART: Uh huh.

C.M.: Who was that?

STEWART: Ah, Geraldine Rorals, 19:00"R", "O", "R", "A", "L", "S", Geraldine Rorals. She was actually from Georgia. She was a Georgia native. And she had come down there to teach school.

C.M.: And that's who you had while you were in Florida?

STEWART: Yeah, and the next, when I went back the next year to Green Cove Springs, when I didn't stay, I don't even remember the teacher.

C.M.: You must not have liked it at all.

STEWART: I don't even remember any of the names of any of the students, or I never did meet any of them or anything. That's the reason I didn't want to stay there. There was nothing for me to do. I had nobody and Miss Furman would be writing all day. She didn't realize I was out there by myself with nothing to do. If she had gone back to the little town in Willaka, I would have stayed there.

C.M.: So this time she was writing.

STEW ART: She was writing.

C.M.: Working on things.

STEWART: That.. . .let's see now, 20:00I don't know what she was working on. The first year I was down there, we stayed in Willaka, Florida, on the St. John's River. She was writing, On The Lonesome Road, her last novel. I read that manuscript.

C.M.: You did?

STEWART: Yeah. And she'd be working on it and I'd come in, in the afternoon, and she'd still be working. And I'd pick it up and, "Do you mind if I read this?" "No." It tickled her to death. I read it and read it and read it. And so I knew the story. Before she ever even got it done, I knew the story. She had one character, old Doc Ross, in there, if you ever read it. Read it some time, read it just for fun. It was kind of modeled 21:00on my grandpa, old Doc Ross. Yeah, I read Lonesome Road and then of course, I got.. .. at one time .... whenever she'd publish a book, she'd give me a copy of it. And autograph it to me. So, I had the four, no I had-yeah, I had four books. The one that I didn't have, was one that was published, a short novel, Sight to the Blind. That was the first one she printed over here. So, I never had a copy of that one, but I had the other ones, Quiet Women, The Glass Window and Mothering On ( ). and let's see, what's the first one. Mothering On ( ), that's the first one she wrote. The full novel about the settlement school. Stories about the boys, she was the house mother of the little boys, you know. And it's fun, I'll tell you. 22:00It's worth reading any time, I think. And she had Quiet Women and The Glass Window was kind of funny too. So, I had all of those () school. A lot of those books of mine disappeared. So, I've got part of them now, but at one time I had all the books except one. It was just out of print. She didn't know that. But they're fun. If you want to know, kind of how it was when I was here at first. You just read that Mothering On Pearliss, C.M.: Well, you say- oh, I'm sorry go ahead. You were talking about how that book's fun and the things that went on. Tell me a little bit about it. Why was ....

STEWART: Well, it's telling all about these little 23:00strange things these boys would do. They'd come from out back in the country, had their own dialect and notion of things that were right. And so she had a big time with them.

C.M.: What were some of the things she thought were funny about you little boys?

STEWART: Well, I don't know whether she thought it that funny, but she thought they were interesting in their little differences, you know.

C.M.: Okay.

STEWART: She found out the boys .... she had one boy that would .... was a natural born treasurer. [Laughing] He treasured on everything there was. And she finally caught him up .... and of course, part of the story. But she told about how the boys felt and how it is .... certain things women would do and men didn't do. Women cook and wash and all that stuff 24:00and men didn't do that. When they'd make these boys go out and do things that women did, they didn't like that at all. But they finally got used to it. But it was funny. If you get a chance to read it, it's just fun to read. So, it's a lot of wonderful experience.

C.M.: So, how many years did you live here on campus? About how many years?

STEWART: Well, I was .... when I first went to Florida with her ... .I was nine years old, I guess, when I went. So, when I came back I would have been ten. I guess that's right. So, I would have been here five ... .I came here at five and stayed through my ninth year. That gave me four years. And then I came back later on 25:00when Miss Furman left, and stayed through the eighth, seventh or eighth grade, I think. And then, what I did then, you see, I moved. 26:00I made it old enough then, I was moved over to what they called .... the building up here called Eastover, then. That's where the large boys stayed, at Eastover. So, I stayed there. I don't remember how many years. So, the early days on campus I knew pretty well, the old buildings they had, you know. Eastover, over there for the big boys, and the Little Boys' House over there and Westover for the little girls. And the big girls stayed in this building up here, which used to be the Orchard House. Orchard House, because there used to be a bunch of trees, apple trees planted all around. You see some of the old pictures, you can see them. And next they had the hospital. The earliest little hospitals 27:00they had over there in the bottom. Let's see, over there they had a shop house. They had a barn, kept something like fifteen cows. Pasture them in these hills and milk them. That was part of the boys' job, milking them. And they put them in a pasture up in that hollow up there and put them in a pasture on this hill up here. Turn about, you know, and milk them. And they had a regular barn for them. And they had a silo where they'd chop up com and stuff and make what they called a silage to feed .... which people around here didn't know how to do. They'd feed the cattle that, and then they'd have hay too. And so on. So, you learned a whole lot just by being there. You did learn a lot 28:00of things.

C.M.: What sorts of things did you learn about, that you think are important now?

STEWART: Well, I'd say .... of course, one thing was you were taught how to take care of the land, and to use it well. I guess, that's one. And to get along with people, too. That's important, you know. Of course, a lot of funny things happened. You know I had to ... .I reckon I'm right about this. The year before I went to Florida first time in April, I got the Scarlet fever. Where I got it, I don't know. Nobody else had it but me. They put me in that hospital up there. And I stayed in that hospital about six weeks.

C.M.: Gosh.

STEWART: At the end of school, I was still in the hospital at the end of school. I wasn't sick. I was only sick about two or three weeks. But they were afraid to tum me loose. Afraid everybody else would catch it. Where they think I caught, I don't know. And so I stayed up there in that hospital. Nobody could come to see me. They could come, some of them could come by outside, look through the window and wave to me. That's all they could do.

C.M.: Oh gosh, that would be awful.

STEWART: The only buddy I had was a dog. They had a dog over there, everybody called, "Old Rabe". 29:00And he found .... he was my buddy. I didn't know that for sure, until he found out where I was. He came and stayed under my window. As long as I stayed there, that dog stayed with me. When I went home, he went home with me. We'd get out in the day, after about three weeks, there wasn't anything wrong with me much. But they just didn't want me to spread it. And so we'd go on a day that was pretty and walk through these hills, me and the dog, by ourselves and come back. It was kind of lonesome, you know.

C.M.: Yeah, I'd say so.

STEWART: That was the big hospital. The one where the hospital is now, same building. But the first ones, the first ones were built on the other side of the creek, small, small log buildings. Pretty log buildings. And when 30:00they first came here, the doctor came from Lexington. He'd come up here and give his time free to help at the hospital, you know. And typhoid, that sort of thing, boy it was bad in this country. And then, you know that ground up there, where the road goes around that way? There used to be a big well sit up there in the middle. You've seen pictures, I guess.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: Well, that was a well and they used to get water out of that well. You, that's where they got the typhoid, too.

C.M.: Oh, is it?

STEWART: Yeah, and they closed the well. And how it got there nobody knows. How do you know? How'd I get the Scarlet fever? That's it. Nobody knows. But Scarlet fever, it wasn't that bad. 31:00It was painful for a while. You'd have a little fever, you know and be kind of red and swollen. But that was all. After about a little over two weeks, you were practically well of that. So I got out of that. I finished the third grade. But that teacher, teacher of the third grade, she came over there and gave me some lessons at the end, so I could pass the third grade.

C.M.: So, she would come and see you in the hospital?

STEWART: Uh hmm, yeah. So I passed it. Oh, it was interesting. There were all kinds of things going on.

C.M.: What are some other things maybe .... you were just talking about interesting things, maybe that you thought of, while we've been talking.

STEWART: Well, I'll tell you what, Lucy Furman, 32:00she was interested in these boys. She'd tell tales, you know, read to them. And especially on Sunday and weekends .... the boys .... the women did the washing, the dish washing and all that sort of thing at home. And they didn't like that. () The girls, the big girls would come over and do the laundry, but the boys would have to carry the water and heat the water for them. [Laughter] So that was kind of funny. Miss Furman .... some of the boys would kind of follow one of the little girls and then they liked to help. Lot of, lot of things that went on.

C.M.: You said that Miss. Furman would tell you all tales.

STEWART: Yeah and she'd to--everything--she'd read books 33:00and she read about the Greek stories--the great Greek heroes and so on. And if you read Mothering on Pearliss, you'll see what I've brought out. Two of the boys would get in a fight and she read the story about Hector and--and his death and so on. And they got up and got in a big session one night and they were about to tear everything all to pieces. And the old boy rode up--rose up and said, I'll, and he called him Hector and they called the other--what's his name--Paris or--no, not Paris, what was the other name? He says, "I'll show you Hector ain't dead yet." [laughter] C.M.: One of the boys that you were living with then?

STEWART: Yeah, "I'll show you Hector ain't dead yet." [laughter] C.M.: He must have liked those stories awful well.

STEWART: Yeah. Oh, shucks [laughing]. That's funny. But--they--were 34:00brought up that way, they say, in some ways you could insult them and boy, they wouldn't take that at all. Now, so we are kind of that way now, we don't like to be insulted, do we?

C.M.: Not really [laughs].

STEWART: And then they--going home, they just don't wanna go home--some of them [would] get so homesick, that they couldn't stand it.

C.M.: Really? What would Miss Furman do with those--cause I mean, you were five and, I mean--I imagine there were other little boys, what did she--how did she handle that when you all got homesick?

STEWART: Well, she would--she did a lot of little things. She'd tell them little tales or she'd--she--she'd send them down and get a little bit--buy a little bit of candy or something like that, you know, from the store. And had all kinds of little things, tell little tales and--but 35:00some of them would get homesick and leave.

C.M.: Really?

STEWART: And then in a day or two here'd come their mommy or daddy with them and they'd say--. [tape cuts off] END OF TAPE 20 A 16a, AL STEWART, SIDE A BEGINNING OF TAPE 20 A 16a, AL STEWART, SIDE B C.M.: Okay, we were talking about Lucy Furman and--and homesickness and things.

STEWART: Well, you know she--well if you'd ever read Mothering on Pearless, how she got along dealing with these boys, you know. And all their--not in a sense--in a sense inherited, the traditions they had believed at home and the boy's place and the girl's place and all that. And--some 36:00of them were just plain funny. One--one boy, his mother was living--left, I don't know where she was, living in Virginia somewhere and he--he was a big trader and he--he was a good trader--he was a sharp. And he--he saved up money--he was gonna save up money so he could go and ride a railroad train to visit his mother in the summer. [chuckles] And--like the one--and they'd say some pretty nasty things to each other too--and they'd trade marbles, you know. And one--one boy was so good she had him--he was just a manipulator. And he couldn't play marbles very well himself, but he could--he'd 37:00have the marbles and they'd--and they got--in the springtime when they started playing marbles, playing keeps they called it. You know what that means, don't you? And--he'd--he knew he couldn't win himself, but he'd find these other boys that were good players, and he'd stake them in the game, you know. And they'd win--he'd win more marbles, he kept getting more and more. And some of them, one of the boys got, made him so mad, "where you been getting all these marbles you--" [laughs]. And he'd take him up on it.

C.M.: Well, how did Miss Furman handle, like discipline problems? How did she keep you boys in line?

STEWART: Well, she would, sometimes she would spank your hand a little bit. She'd do me that way. 38:00I'd tell her, "You're not going to whip me. I've got big enough I can whip you." I was big as she was.

C.M.: What did she say to that?

STEWART: She didn't like that. I felt ashamed of myself, to tell you the truth about it. She had, she'd take away a certain privilege you had, you know, one thing. Or if you were little, she'd have you hold out your hand, and she'd take a little paddle and beat you on the hand. Teachers would do that too, you know. And she'd take away some privilege, like you'd have to stay in when everybody else went out playing, or something like that.

C.M.: What were some of the other privileges maybe, that were the worst to have taken away?

STEWART: Hmmmm?

C.M.: What was the privilege that you didn't like ... .I guess what would be kind of a bad thing to have taken away? Something that you all ....

STEWART: Well, 39:00I guess the most, biggest thing is, you would have to stay in your room and let everybody else get out and play, would be one of the biggest ones. Because everybody would know it, you know. And of course, she'd .... well, she didn't, she wasn't that mean. They were pretty good and she enjoyed those boys' tricks they had, you know.

C.M.: Did you all ever play any tricks on her?

STEWART: Oh, yeah.

C.M.: What did you all do to her? [Laughter] STEWART: They used to .... let's see what did they call it? They used to go around a house and tie a special little string to the 40:00screen window and they'd go away. They'd put rosin stuff on it and they'd go way back off, maybe fifty yards or more and they'd make music on that string, you know. You'd hear that um, um, um, um. What's that? Sound like a ghost or something. [Laughter] Serenade her, you know. She finally learned what it was. When that happened, she'd take one of us, if she had one of us, just go and walk around the house. And what you'd do is, you'd run into that string and break it. [Laughter] Oh shoot.

C.M.: Were there other tricks you all played on her?

STEWART: Yeah, well. I guess that was one of the main ones. Of course, she would take us .... of course, the rules and regulations here. You had to have quiet hour on Sunday afternoon, 41:00two o'clock. They'd ring the quiet hour bell. You couldn't, you couldn't whisper. [Laughing] What are you going to do with a dozen little boys?

C.M.: I was going to say, what did you all do?

STEWART: She'd take us and walk us up in the country. We'd go way up the road and sit down and tell tales [Laughing] and play or whatever you wanted to do .... jump. And then not come back until the quiet hour was over with.

C.M.: So, you all didn't have quiet hour, you just went and in other words, she didn't enforce it. You all would take off somewhere.

STEWART: Well, she'd be with us.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: Well, if we stayed there, she'd have a .... the other thing she'd try to do at that time, if she had to stay there - she'd read to us. She'd get us out in the yard or somewhere to be quiet and read to us. And that's how some of those stories 42:00about.. .. Greek tales on how the boy said, and he got mad and stole something and the boy, he said, "I'll show you, Hector!". And he did. [Laughter] C.M.: Well, what was that like, having such a, such an influence like that? I mean obviously she read to you all. I guess mainly just for you personally, since you know, you're an author and all.

STEWART: She read .... she'd get the whole group together and read to them too. And that was one way of entertainment. Sometimes in bad weather you couldn't get out or anything. She'd gather us all in the living room. It was big enough, so we could sit in there. And she'd read to us that way, if we couldn't get outside. And sometimes she'd take us outside when it was good and get in a group and read. And then she'd take us up on Sundays. Take us on walks, 43:00so they could run and jump and do everything, you know. Take their exercise. But she sure spent a lot, she spent a lot.. .. and she listened to them. You read Mothering on Pearliss. you'll know she listened to them C.M.: What, she listened to the boys?

STEW ART: She listened to them. She knew how to talk. Just like the boy getting up in the middle of the thing, saying, "I'll show you Hector" and he did. Sticking his fist right under this fellow's nose. "I'll show you Hector", when he was about to get in a fight.

C.M.: What made her such a unique lady? I mean, not a lot of women could have done that, you know, taking care of a dozen or so little boys. What do you think made her so special?

STEWART: Well, she was just.. .. that 44:00was just kind of her nature, taking care of people. Well, she was lonesome for one thing, when she came here. This was like her family, she adopted them, just like her family, you know.

C.M.: Did she not have any family? What was her background?

STEWART: She was kind of an orphan herself. Her aunt raised her. Her sister .... she had a sister. And her aunt raised the two of them. You see, her parents had died. So that effected her. She knew how it could be to be lonesome. And so what she did, when she came to the book, she tells it the way it was. She adopted these 45:00boys like a family. That's what she wanted, you know. And it just gave her something to do, to be interested in. And it's hard to tell how much she did for some of those boys. Like me, she did a tremendous lot for me. Because she didn't need to do it, wasn't compelled to do it or anything. But she had other boys came, she'd save money to send them to college. Give them money to go to college.

C.M.: Really?

STEWART: Oh gosh, yeah. And even when I went to Berea, she gave me some money to go on, spending money. Of course, she didn't have as much money then. She'd spent a lot of it. She had a house. When she moved here, she gave up her house, that she'd inherited over in Henderson, Kentucky. 46:00She sold that house and took the money to send the boys to school with, to college.

C.M.: That's something.

STEWART: One way she built that little house up there on the hill, the Lucy Furman house. One of the boys she liked very good, he was ready to go away to college. And she hired him to work on that house. In the summer, he worked and got that house built. Of course, he had some help, but she paid him the money that he could go to school on.

C.M.: So, where did she get money from? I mean, she couldn't have made that much.

STEWART: Well, she, her books were selling, you know.

C.M.: Oh, okay.

STEWART: They sold pretty good for a while, considering. Oh, she didn't get any money from school at all.

C.M.: Okay.

STEWART: She had, she had donated all her time. And even brought her own food. She was on a special diet. She wouldn't eat everything 47:00that other people would eat.

C.M.: What was she on? Why was she on a special diet? Was it a health reason or .. ..

STEWART: Yeah. I don't understand all that, but she'd talk .... She knew about food and health, back in those days, more than most people know now. She had studied it, you know.

C.M.: Did she oversee, like ... .I guess how should I say this? Did she kind of use that knowledge to help you all too? Maybe with your food, or did she have any control over that?

STEWART: No, she would encourage us to eat all the food, because she thought.. .. the settlement tried to fix good food for the kids. And it was pretty good. It may not be exactly like what you want at home. It wouldn't be fat meat and stuff at home.

C.M.: Right, because there was a lot to feed.

STEWART: You'd get more healthful food. 48:00One I didn't like. [laughing] I'd think, how in the world am I going to get out of it? They used to have spinach. It was canned spinach and it was sour. You've eaten it haven't you?

C.M.: Oohh, I hate spinach.

STEWART: Oh my gosh, I hated that stuff. And she'd make us eat it, because it was good for you, you know.

C.M.: Lucy? Miss Furman did?

STEWART: Yeah. [Laughter] Eat your spinach! And I ... .I loved muffins, com muffins. So we'd have .... you could leave a com muffin, she wouldn't say anything to you. So what I would do, while they weren't looking, I'd just take my com muffin apart and I'd take all the inside out and I'd stuff my spinach in that lid. [Laughter] Oh shoot.

C.M.: That's a pretty good plan.

STEWART: It was, it was ... .it was quite an experience. I'll tell you.

C.M.: What did, 49:00I guess one thing I've gotten a lot of stuff about Miss Furman from you, and that's great. I mean learning ... .! think it's so important that we know what she was like. What did she look like? Like what was her physical description?

STEWART: She was about as big as a little wren bird. A pretty, little woman, wasn't big as nothing. I'll tell you, sometime take time to look at some of the pictures. One where she's standing, she's got boys that are half grown and they're as tall a she is. And one picture they've got, where she's standing up there, this side of the hospital, in that road that comes down there. It's a wonderful little picture of her. She's just like a little bird, standing on, big as nothing. Of course, if she tried to whip one of them, she couldn't whip them. She'd make them hold out their hand and she'd give them so many rulers smacks 50:00in the hand, you know.

C.M.: How did she dress? Did she, since she was taking care of so many little boys, I mean.

STEWART: Well, when she first, it'll tell you in the book. When she first came, she was in mourning, you know, because her aunt was dead and all that. And she'd lost most of her family and all that. So then, she finally found out the boys wanted her to dress up a little bit. And she started dressing up finer, not just black things, you know, for mourning, but something with color to it. So then she did dress pretty nice, not elaborate or anything.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: But it was nice. It was tasty. The woman had good taste. 51:00She had a lot of experience. She had worked as a secretary for law courts and so on, before, when she was younger. And she was writing, even then. She wrote one book that was published. And then she quit writing when her aunt got sick. Her aunt was like a mother to her. When her aunt got sick, she went off and took her off to the South, where the living would be easier for her, you know. And all that stuff.

C.M.: Yeah, better weather.

STEWART: Yeah, and she spent all her time with her that way. And gave up her writing and everything for that. And that's not the usual person that would do that, you know.

C.M.: Yeah, I think so.

STEWART: So, she 52:00made quite a little bit of money, but she made it through her own writing. Course her writing, she wrote about her experiences here at the school. And the last book was different. The Lonesome Road was one that didn't have anything to do with the settlement school. The other four had something .... The first book was set out in western Kentucky, but it's very much like this place. Because these people, they're just as crazy out there, as they are here. [Laughter] And she had a sense of humor.

C.M.: What was her sense of humor like?

STEWART: Well, she'd take these little tales, you know, that 53:00people, who would do ... .like the boys would do. She had one little story, Uncle Rollo's drawback. His drawback was he was supposed to be a good Christian, you know. If you were a good Christian and belonged to the church he was supposed to belong to, you couldn't chew tobacco. And he had a hard time giving up his chewing tobacco. And so she made a story about that. She had a number of those .... that kind of thing, you know. She was good at that. Just like, well one of the stories she wrote about the glass window here. The old woman .... when the settlement people came in, they brought in some glass windows to give to people, just as a little present. Wanting to help, you know. And they brought one, supposedly for Aunt Elsie. Well, she was afraid to take it home. Because if she took it home, her man was an old, regular Baptist and he didn't believe .... he wouldn't 54:00saw a hole in his log walls to put a window in. [Laughing] So they stored it up in a barn loft for her. She spent the whole year almost, trying to convince him about how bad she needed a window, you see. [Laughing] She pretended she couldn't see her weaving. He wanted her to make a little bit of money weaving. [Laughter - Mullins] She pretended she couldn't see to do her weaving, and all that. She'd be borrowing his spectacles and all that stuff. Poor old fellow, drove him crazy. Finally, she got a window. [Laughing] Oh shucks.

C.M.: So, Miss Furman would write about these things going on in this area. How did ... .I guess, cause I mean obviously you knew her just about as well as anybody probably. How did she feel about the people here? I mean like what was her sense ....

STEWART: She loved them. 55:00C.M.: Yeah?

STEWART: Oh yeah. She would have them .... she was .... she was very particular about doing anything that would go against the grain with them, or upset them, you know, like she was trying to make fun of them or anything. She wouldn't do that unless it was just fun that they would have.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: And she had some of these old fellows, who would come to see her and talk, you know. Say next time you come to town, now you be sure and come to see me. She'd ask them all kinds of questions, you know. Find out things she wanted to know and make notes on it. So she, she was a researcher at the same time. I know she'd .... she found out my grandpa was a famous, old doctor. And she wanted to meet him. Doc 56:00Duke was the name of the doctor around here at that time. And she told Doc Duke, says if old Doc Stewart ever comes to town, you be sure and let me know, so I can come down and see him. And so, he came one time. And Doc Duke sent word, said, Doc Stewart is here now. You can come down and see him at my house. And she went down there and talked and he invited her home. She told me. I just know what she told me about it. He was a great talker. And he invited her to come see him at home, that's what she told me. Said, Miss Furman, when you come to my house, you'll find all the British poets there. And somebody said, what did he mean by that? And I said, "I don't know what he meant by that." And nobody else knows now. 57:00But I said, "I can guess at it." I said, "I can guess." I said, "The man had a memory that would go from here to kingdom come." [Laughter - Mullins] And he had read all these things and he never forgot them. And I guess what he was going to do, was talk to her about them.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: And I think that was right. Because when she put him in that book, she had him doing that sort of thing, you know, too. But he was a little different [Laughing] kind of character then what she made him. He wasn't quite as good as what she made him. [Laughter] He wasn't quite that good.

C.M.: Now did she have any other duties other than house mother for you boys? Did she do other things at the settlement school?

STEWART: Well she was in charge of gardening the grounds.

C.M.: Oh, that's right. How did she ....

STEWART: She had experience in that, you know, growing up. She had these boys, they'd thin, make little walkways with .... save 58:00cinders. Didn't have gravel, so we'd get cinders and have cinder walkways. They'd plant gardens and all kinds of things she'd have them do, gardening the grounds. And flowers. She'd had experience in that sort of thing growing up.

C.M.: Yeah, so what did the campus look like under her supervision?

STEWART: Well, it was nice and orderly, I'll tell you, pretty things around. I wish I had some good pictures of ... .It was clean as a pin though, no paper around, no junk, no nothing. But then you'd have these walkways, they'd haul these cinders. They got a lot of the cinders from 59:00their, what you call it.. .. the .... oh what did you call it. The house where they made the electricity. See they made their own electricity.

C.M.: Yeah, there was--was there a powerhouse?

STEWART: Powerhouse, yeah. And they made electricity by burning coal, you see. And of course, you had those good--not just plain, old, white ash, like wood would be, but.. .. And they made a good walk, and she kept those on and all down through the road, everywhere you needed to walk on the walkways. But clean, she'd get right out with them in the afternoon. What she would do in the mornings, the boys went to school at eight o'clock. Of course, she'd have to see them up, go and get breakfast 60:00and then they'd come back and go to school at eight o'clock. And sometimes they'd have some little duties before they went to school. And then when they got school out, from there, three to five at least, or maybe a little more, they'd work. All kinds of little duties, around from making better walkways, making gardens, planting things and all sorts of things they did.

C.M.: Somebody was telling me once, while I was in these interviews, that there were all these beautiful flowers.

STEWART: Yeah, they'd have whole rows of them down through there by the walks, you know.

C.M.: Was that Miss Furman's responsibility too? Did she oversee that?

STEWART: Yes, yes she did it. She loved flowers. She loved flowers. She [Laughing] it's 61:00kind of funny. She was such a tiny, little creature, but she was in charge of that sort of thing. The settlement had other people who took care of their, say, the buildings and the grounds, where they were going to plant gardens and all that stuff. Now, Lucy would do some gardening, but she would do some, but she had say - Doc Pratt, who would come up. He was a man gardener. He would plant com, all these sort of things, you know. And raise to feed their cattle on and raise to eat themselves. All kinds of tomatoes and cabbage and everything. Because you couldn't go to the store and buy that sort of thing.

C.M.: So, was it kind of odd that Lucy 62:00would have been in charge of the grounds and gardens, rather than a man? Since that was ... .like you were talking about, the men and women it was, definitely, they had separate jobs they did. What was that like?

STEWART: No, they didn't, they didn't pay much attention to that. The men, the men did, what we called, more farm work, you know, like your raising stuff to eat and so on. And Lucy Furman was mainly making things comfortable and raising pretty flowers and that sort of thing. That's the way I remember it. And keeping things in order. She did. It was a good looking place. I can remember that. It's changed a whole lot, of course.

C.M.: How much of her influence do you think has, I 63:00mean just from knowing you personally, I know that you have a great love for the outdoors and flowers. Do you ....

STEWART: I think that must have had something to do with it, because my attention was called to it pretty early, you know. It's hard to say, you know. But I used to .... I loved the old country over there at home, when I was a kid, you know, the flowers and the trees. I was aware of that. And part of that would have been due to her, I guess and some other people. I'd say most of her influence was good.

C.M.: Yeah. When you say that it was good, in what other ways do you think that she, just her, just having her as your house mother was such a good influence of you growing up, maybe?

STEWART: Well, 64:00I think, I don't know whether I'd be trying to write, if I met her or not. I 65:00give her part credit for that, although I didn't try. I remember the first time she ever really commented on any writing. I was in the seventh grade and she was gone from there then. But I wrote her a letter. And I was in the seventh grade. I had a teacher in the seventh grade, that I liked very much. I appreciated, I said, well I say I liked her. I thought she was a good teacher. And she was really interested. And she'd have us write. She'd have me .... she'd teach us .... The thing of it is, some of them would just, but this one would take .... For instance, if she wanted to teach you sentences, she wouldn't just tell you something. She'd take a sentence and she'd show you the different kind of sentences and how you could use them and so on. And give you examples. And that was real teaching. Her name was Miss Black, but she was really white. [Laughter] And 66:00I wrote that letter to .... after I'd had all this instruction about the different kinds of sentence structure, you know, to Miss Furman. I guess I was in the seventh grade then. And she wrote back, oh, this is a marvelous letter. You really ... .I didn't know about that, but it was fun that she recognized it. Because I had worked at it. I took it seriously, partly I think because I liked the teacher. And I thought she was really interested in trying to help us, you know and teach us some sense.

C.M.: And so Miss Furman kind of recognized that.

STEWART: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yes she did. She 67:00used to encourage me, when she found out I was trying to write poetry. She encouraged me for that. And I guess the first poem I ever got published was in the Ladies Home Journal. She sent it to them, told them they ought to take it and publish it. And they did. And they paid me.

C.M.: She sent it in for you?

STEWART: She sent it in and told them. And they published it. Seems to me, she told me, I ought to be sending it in to them. Well, it wasn't a high class literary magazine. It was a good magazine.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: Good stories and so on. I think maybe .... maybe they published another one of mine. I don't remember. It's been so long ago. 68:00C.M.: So, did you stay in touch with her, pretty much, after she left and you were still in school?

STEWART: Oh yeah. We corresponded as long, as long as she lived, to some extent. Of course, when she got real old and feeble .... She stayed in Frankfort for a long time because she wanted to be close to people she knew. And then finally, she got.. . .let me see now, if I can tell how that is. She was going to .... well, she came back and stayed, spent the summer with me over there on the farm. And then I took her back to .... and I went back to Morehead to teach down there then. And I was going 69:00to try to get her a place to stay where I did. But she said no, I want to stay in Lexington. She had friends in Lexington and knew Lexington. And I thought, well that's better, if that's what she wants. And I took her over there to a place where there was her friend. And I told her, said, "I'll pay your rent. You don't have to worry about paying rent. I'll pay it. And so you've got enough money to live on." But the next thing I heard, people over in the country called me up - wrote me a letter and said I ought to come over there. And she'd gone over to some friends. This woman, whoever she was, I never did meet her, had just told Lucy Furman, she didn't want to keep her. I never did go into details, because I didn't want to. It would have made me so mad, I would have, no telling what I would do. I just forgot about it. But she was over there with friends 70:00and they'd called, wanting me to see what I could do about it. Well, what could I do then? There wasn't much I could do right then. But I would still have got her a room somewhere. But she decided she wanted to go where her sister lived in New Jersey. She wanted to go and stay with her sister the rest of her life. And that's what she did. Because she had gone up years before, and stayed with her sister when she was very sick and took care of her. So they were pretty close, you know.

C.M.: She went back to live with her?

STEWART: And so she went up there. And in a year or two, she died up there, about eighty-nine years old.

C.M.: I think this tape's about to end. Let me stop it.

END OF TAPE 71:00TAPE B, Side A CASSIE MULLINS: Alrighty, I've got it turned on. Now, we've done one interview together. We've done one interview together and this is going to be our second one. So, just go ahead and state your name again, so we'll have it on here.

ALBERT STEWART: My name is Albert Stewart.

C.M.: Okay.

STEW ART: [Laughter] Is that all you want?

C.M.: Yeah, that's good.

STEWART: I think that's what it is.

C.M.: And I'll just say today's date is June the seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight. And last time we talked, we were talking about Lucy Furman. And you said you still had some more things that you wanted to talk about, about her.

STEWART: Yeah, I just wanted to say a few things, otherwise people would be mistaken. When she left here .... All of the whole story, I don't know all that. But she left here and was in the hospital a while. I don't know about that. But she started going to Florida to spend the winter. And that's when I went with her. And then later 72:00on she quit. ... she .... well the last. ... when I was with her in Florida that winter of nineteen .... what would it have been? Why, she finished that book. She was writing On The Lonesome Road. the last novel she wrote. And she didn't write anymore. She quit writing after that, because she was so interested in wildlife, you see. And she started working against field traps and all that sort of things. Just kept people in Frankfort stirred up all the time. Because she'd go over there to all those meetings and show them what would happen when these little animals would get caught in a trap. Get a fox in a trap and hold him for a week, he'd gnaw his whole leg off, you know, to try to get out. And that sort of thing. So, that's why she worked at it. She was kind of head of that. And she worked at it, until she got so, she couldn't do anything. And she 73:00did a lot of good I haven't got a copy of that, but I would love to have a copy of. ... When she died, the Courier Journal wrote a little requiem thing about this, what she did. And it was really good. Maybe I can find a copy of that in this. It would be good for you to have. So, that's about all. She wrote one more story after that, but she didn't....she had this little bit of money and at that time, it did all right. But by the time it got into the inflation and so on, it wasn't enough money. And so she was always living very frugal, well she was always living very frugally. She'd rather spend the money on somebody else than on herself She had to live frugally, whether she wanted to or not But she did that. And she had a little income. And that one story she wrote, was published in Ladies 74:00Home Journal, I guess. Which was the highest paid there is. And she got something like a thousand dollars then. She immediately put that in her retirement fund and that's what she had. It wasn't much, I don't know how much of a retirement fund she had, but that's what she did with it. Because she wanted to be sure. So that was about it. As long as she was able she worked for this Federation of Women's Clubs about cruelty to animals and so on. She did some of that up here, but people didn't know much about it. She used to get these boys, that she kept over there sometimes. She didn't like cats, because they killed birds. And she would give anybody who'd bring her a dead cat, she'd give them a quarter.

C.M.: For a dead cat? [Laughing] STEWART: Yeah, bring her a dead cat, she'd give them a quarter.

C.M.: I'd 75:00say there was a lot of dead cats found then.

STEWART: Yeah, they got a few of them. [Laughter] Cat country was getting pretty scarce then. Aw shoot.

C.M.: Well now, after, we might.. . .I think we talked about this a little bit in our first interview. But how did you keep up your relationship with her, after she left?

STEWART: Well, we wrote, we corresponded with each other, as long as she lived. That was the only way. Well, she, toward the end, when she .... after she went to Florida with me and gave up writing, and in the real sense of the word. She came back to around Lexington, because Catherine Pettit, who was her great friend. That was one of the reasons she came to this school. And they had gone to school together in Lexington, at old Sayre Institute, which was a family school at that time. And they never forgot each other. They were just kids almost then. And they kept correspondence all their lives. 76:00And Miss Furman moved primarily, one of the reasons she moved to Lexington was because Catherine Pettit was there in the hospital, dying of cancer. And she stayed there, so she could be near her. Now that's a pretty good feeling, you know. So she wrote that last story, which is a good one. She hadn't written a story in, I don't know, Lord knows how long. But that one was set in the Pine Mountain Settlement School over there where Miss Pettit was, instead of being set here. Which is the same kind of story, not much difference. Now, what else was I supposed to tell you?

C.M.: We were going to try to see what you remember about other people that were here, maybe other teachers or administrators.

STEWART: Well, of course, I don't think anybody could have been here for any length of time without knowing Ann Cobb. 77:00Everybody cared, everybody loved her. She was good. And the thing of it is, she was a good teacher as well. And she knew so much. Boy, she knew Latin. She taught me Latin. She'd teach Geography. She'd teach Literature. She'd teach anything. Japanese! She'd teach Japanese if you wanted to.

C.M.: Really?

SIEWART: Yeah. And she was just kindhearted. You know how she kept order in class? If a big boy made too much noise or something, her eyes. She said my eyes would puddle up, like she was going to cry. And boy. they'd quit right there. And they got to the point where if they saw anybody say something to her and they hurt her feelings - those big boys would take him outside and give him a thrashing if he needed it. So she had no discipline problems whatsoever, really.

C.M.: And why do you think that was? 78:00I mean, why do you think that was? How did she have such good control over them?

STEWART: Well, they knew she was such a good person, for one thing. And they didn't want to hurt her feelings. And they knew she would do anything for them that she could. And she was working her head off here, for.. . .I suppose if she'd wanted to, she could have gone somewhere else. where, maybe a big University. I don't know what she could have done. But she just liked it here. And she started out asking people .... Some of her writing about people are just wonderful. She had some little sketches that were just wonderful. And she and Miss Furman were really good friends too. And I suspect that they interchanged information one to the other. And I.. .. it wouldn't surprise me .... of course, you never read it, but in The Lonesome Road, there's a sort of a ballad that went through that book. Which was sort of the theme 79:00of the novel. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised., what Ann Cobb put in part of that, that ballad. But of course, neither one of them would care, they wouldn't worry about that. you know. Life is a tong and lonesome road, don't set your hopes too high-o, For many a snare is lurking there. For many a sigh .... is a sigh-o. That's the main thing. But then it will tell you the whole story. And then a little song tells you the man's story about what Lonesome Road is about. So it's interesting. I never ... .I didn't ... I'll say one thing. Either Lucy Furman wrote that story herself, or she and Miss Cobb wrote it. Because they did, some people got it and learned it later, and they were singing it over here on Carr, somewhere. Singing 80:00that song. They didn't know where it came from originally. I said, "I can tell you where that song came from. I know where it came from."

C.M.: So Miss Cobb and Miss Furman were pretty big friends, good friends.

STEWART: Oh yeah.

C.M.: What were they like when they were together?

STEWART: I don't know. They just cared for each other, you know. And they just talked. Of course, Miss Cobb was a good talker. And Miss Furman was a good talker, you get her started, too. So, they'd ask each other questions and oh and ah. Last century phrases like, let's see what would it be, not gracious, but something like, "oh gracious, what did you do that for?" I can't remember what some of them they used. But they were wonderful people.

C.M.: Well, what was it like having .... you had Miss Cobb as a teacher. What was it like, just being in her class? I mean the way that she 81:00interacted with you and.

STEWART: It was, in a sense, if she could make classes fun, it was fun. She never said anything mean to you. And she was ready to help you anytime she could. And she knew everything. She kept....what did we read? We read Latin. And she taught French, as well as, History and other things. So, she could speak them both. It was just... .she'd make them fun, if it was possible.

C.M.: Well, maybe who were some other people do you think?

STEWART: Well, the main ones I guess that I remember were the teachers I had. The teachers.

C.M.: Uh huh.

STEWART: And 82:00I remember Prof Smith very well, because he was the principal. He lived over there in that.. .. well the house is not there anymore. Where they had the, what do you call it. in the Practice Home, the Practice Home. He lived over there, he and his wife. And somebody else was there to take care of the kids and teach them how to make a home. He didn't do that, but he had his office over there in the main building. And I liked him. He was good to me. In fact, one time I got sent in to him, for talking and making a noise in class. I didn't make it, but they thought I made it. The teacher said. a Miss Eloise, what was her name .... Eloise ... .I'll think of it in a minute. She said will you go up and see Mr. Smith? Okay, I went. And he said, 83:00"What are you doing here?" And I said, "The teacher said for me to come in here. Said I was making noise. And I wasn't." He said, "All right, let's go back." He took me back, opened the door, nodded his head and that was it. [Laughing] That kind of makes you like somebody, doesn't it?

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: He, gee whiz, some of those grade school boys were mean. He had a paddle as long as from here to you. But if he needed to use it, he'd use it.

C.M.: Really?

STEWART: He'd burn you up. Of course, I never got to feel any of it. Because he was always good to me. So I always liked him. A lot of people, a lot of students didn't like him. They were afraid of him. But I always liked him. And a had a Math teacher, Miss Foote. I liked her. She was a serious teacher 84:00and she knew her Math. I guess I learned a little bit from her. And then the English teacher, the one that sent me in to see the Prof I wasn't talking. I wasn't doing anything, but somebody close to me was making noise, you see.

C.M.: And you got in trouble.

STEWART: She couldn't tell the difference. I didn't blame her for it. But I just told him the truth. I said she thought I was doing something when I wasn't doing something. Somebody else was doing it. And he said well just go on back. [Laughing] Oh shoot So, he trusted me, that made me trust him even more, you see. What else was I going to tell you? Oh yeah, I already told you about my teacher in Kindergarten, Miss Applegate. She was the cutest, little woman. She wasn't bigger than a handful of minutes. But she'd dance around and have us prance around like ponies. you know and all different things. 85:00Oh shucks. She finally, one of her people from Cleveland came down. No, she came from Cleveland to teach, temporarily give us her services. One of the graduates of the school had gone off to college and had become a lawyer. And he met her and they got married. He lived up there in Cleveland with her. And for a long time. he was on the Board of Trustees of this school.

C.M.: That was Miss Applegate's husband?

STEWART; Uh hmmm. What was his name? Well, I'll think of it after a while. I remember them too. I remember the last time I saw her. She had come down .... she was getting older then. And l don't know where 86:00he was, maybe he was in a meeting over there and she was out looking around. And I saw her. I came by and she was getting out of a car. And I said hello. She didn't know me then. I said, "Can you tell me where the Kindergarten is?" [Laughing] And she said, "Oh, I think it's right over there, but it's not all there anymore." And I told her, "Well", I said, "You ought to know." And when she found out who it was, it tickled her. Well, she was there, while she was doing that, her husband was meeting in one of the meetings or something. And then, when she found out I played a joke on her, it tickled her. Just a little thing. Oh, let's see, what was another English teacher that I liked? Well, I told you about Miss Black, who was the seventh grade teacher, that taught me at the beginning more about writing than I ever knew before. 87:00All the different sentence patterns, you know.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: She'd demonstrate them and let you practice them. You didn't just get told about them. She let you write them and she'd tell you. That was good. You had the different kinds of sentences, simple sentences, you know, all that, different kind of clauses and so on.

C.M.: And that was in the seventh grade?

STEWART: Hmmrn?

C.M: That was when you were in the seventh grade?

STEWART: In the seventh grade. And she made us .... the first time she made us give little speeches about something we read. It scared me plumb to death. But I made it. And I don't know what all I made up. I wasn't much good, but I was glad to get it over with. [Laughing] Oh shoot. The main thing I remember about the eighth grade, let's see, what was her name? Miss .... no not Miss Foss. What was her name'? 88:00But she read to us a lot. She would .... of course, she was a good teacher. But she would take time out of every day or so and read maybe from a good book she thought we ought to know about, for nearly an hour, a whole period maybe. And we liked her for that. Who else am I supposed to tell you about?

C.M.: It's whoever you remember, I'm trying to think. Maybe not necessarily, well teachers too, ones that you remember. Maybe just people that were special to you, while you were here. Maybe like a friend or just other people that were at the school.

STEWART: Well, some of the boys there, like Charlie Cobb, four .... with Miss Furman, four of us small boys stayed in one room. And they were her, in a sense they were 89:00her favorites, simply because they were young and needed more help she thought, you know. And one of them, Charlie Cobb, boy she liked him, because he was good. He was better to her than any boy she had. He was a lot better to her, than I was. She tried to whip me and I got mad, you know. Stick my hand out and take a beating with a .... and I'd say ... .l'd grab the paddle, the thing out of her hand.

C.M.: Uhoh.

STEWART: She'd say, «you're mean." I'd say, "No I'm not. I don't want you beating my hand to death." [Laughter- Mullins] There wasn't much of that, just every once in a while. And one time, I'd get a little bit mad when she'd beat my hand for something I didn't do. Of course, she'd think I did. We had some people who would tell a lie, tell her a lie. And I'd never tell a lie, that was one thing I wouldn't do. I know we had a little argument out there on the grounds, an older person. And got in a little fight. He tried to whip me and Miss Furman knew about it 90:00and she called us in. And he just turned around and lied to her. Made it every bit my fault and it was all his fault, you know. And I didn't like that at all, but there wasn't much I could do about it. And I told her later, later, later on. I said. "Do you remember that?" I said, "You hit me, for his lies." And she said, "Well, I guess I did." [Laughter] Because I said, "I never told you a lie to get out of a little whipping." But he accused me of breaking a rule or something. He's the one that broke the rule. I didn't break it. Oh my. I'll tell you another. This one I'll tell you .... but they hadn't.. .. up there on the hill, where that same building is now, old man Kraft lived there and his wife. And she was a nurse, 91:00county nurse. They had tales about him. He kind of went off his rocker a little bit, you know. And sometimes a kid would get out there on the school ground and play around. And some of them would start hollering. He'd be out looking around, you know. And they'd holler at him and call him names. And he'd get up on that hill and throw rocks on the school yard. [Laughter] Oh shucks. And I tell you, I stayed away from there.

C.M.: Did you ever go up there?

STEWART: Rocks as big as your fist, going whoosh. He sure had a temper, but basically he was a good man. He just kind of lost part of his marbles, that's all. Because he was one of the early ones, when they, when the buildings burned and they wrote them and tried to get them to come back and start the school over again, 92:00and try to help them. They did. He's one of the ones. He wrote one of the nicest letters. You can find that letter in the Knott County issue of the Appalachian Heritage. I copied his letter and put it in there, where he wrote them. So, I don't know. The way he wrote the letter, you know, the man was .... he was smart, no doubt about. Something happened. Somebody can have a little .... something can happen to your brain, you know. And I felt sorry for him. I couldn't more call him a name like that than nothing. Because I thought he was a good, old man. I didn't.. .. when they boys .... shooh .... he'd start throwing rocks. I'd get out of the way. But we had a lot of people.

C.M.: What are some other things, maybe that 93:00you remember like that? Things that you all did. Because, I mean, you grew up here. What kind of mischief did you get into? Or things like that?

STEWART: I didn't.

C.M.: Or maybe not mischief, but just, you know, things that boys do.

STEWART: Oh, when I was a little fella, you know, these people would put me up to do things. Sometimes I'd do them, you know, didn't know any better. I thought I was being smart. [Laughing] I know one thing, one time. I think I was probably still in first grade or not a lot. Some of the boys would tease me. The girls wouldn't do that, they'd try to think I was a little baby or something. But the boys would tease me and put me up to do things. And they taught me a lot of bad words and so on. [Laughing] And told me to hide and jump out on somebody and say all these words and scare them. Well, I did. I don't remember what all the words were. But 94:00they couldn't believe that I did that. Come to think about it, I can't believe I did it either.

C.M.: Did you get in trouble?

STEWART: No, I don't think they ever told on me. They told and laughed about it. They told, everybody knew it all over the county. They'd ask me about it and I'd, I'd just shut up.

What could you do?

C.M.: Well, I guess, let's talk a little bit about, just things in general here in the settlement. We've talked about some of the people and things. But one thing that I've thought was interesting, and we probably talked about this a little bit last time too, was the way you all ate your meals together. And things like that, like all coming to the dining room.

STEWART: Well, you see they had them divided up according to like, little boys. Little boys stayed at one table, you see. And the big boys would be scattered at other tables. And you had a French 95:00table, people taking French. They'd sit there and practice their French, while they were eating if they wanted to. And you had all that scattered around. That was pretty good. But gosh, how many tables did they have? I don't know. But they had a lot more than what they've got over there now, up here. But they had that big. long .... as I say, because that was called the Orchard House then. And the dining hall was on the second floor. And upstairs was a dormitory for girls, the older girls. And the entrance was kind of a lobby, where you come in and you can go into the dining room or you can go up into the steps to the rooms upstairs where they stayed. And you could do the same sort of thing in the back, 96:00if you go up the stairways, you could go up that way. And they had French and Latin, and whatever you were interested in, they would assign you to a table if they could. And if you were taking a certain kind of history, a certain kind of language, they'd make you, a club out of you. And you'd go eat there and talk French. That's about all I remember about it [Laughter] Didn't talk much myself. Because I didn't know any French worth anything.

C.M.: Well, I know I was talking to some people and they told me how you'd have eight or ten at a table. And then you had two teachers or two adults.

STEWART: Yeah. You had at least one teacher. I don't know whether you had two all the time. You always had one, and sometimes two. 97:00They were kind of monitors, I guess. And most of the time they tried to divide them up, so they would have similar somewhat interests, that you were teaching sort of the same thing. I know Miss Watts' table, when she was the head of things, for years you know. And her table .... everybody was scared to death of her. And I can't remember. She didn't eat much, but she'd stay there and see that we ate. She'd do what was right. And they always had songs, you know. And prayers before, before we'd eat.

C.M.: What was - oh sorry, go ahead.

STEW ART: Hmmm?

C.M.: Go ahead.

STEWART: What 98:00was I going to say? Some of them were old timey religious songs, you know. Oh it was, "Night is Drawing Nigh," or something. "Courage is almost like a prayer", you know.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: And it sounded pretty good. They'd all get in on the singing.

C.M.: Who led things like that? Who was in charge of singing and things at dinner?

STEWART: I think the music teacher usually did. Of course, there were ones that could do it, but I think the music teacher was usually the one that would .... we'd all know that this was going to happen, when we were standing by the chairs. We'd do this, go over and sit down and sometimes sing a song, a 99:00little religious song or a prayer. They'd have a prayer too, you know. Somebody would say a prayer. Merciful ( ) in our lives and our service, that sort of thing. And it wasn't bad. It was pretty good.

C.M.: What was the food like?

STEWART: Well, I don't reckon, I don't think you could say it was really the best in the world. But considering the situations, it was pretty good, I think. We had com muffins and some meat. But they tried, they tried to make it wholesome food, you know. Didn't give you a whole bunch of fat stuff. And so it wasn't bad. It's like I complained about things at the time. I didn't 100:00like spinach, it turned bitter, you know. Spinach, it was canned, it would get bitter. Ooooh, I hated that stuff. And I'd have to eat it. You were supposed to clean your plate up. The only thing you could leave .... everybody loved com muffins and so you could leave a corn muffin if you wanted to. Nobody would say anything. But if you left something else, they'd say you didn't finish you food. [Laughing] C.M.: What kind of rules were there for being in the dining room? Were you all expected to behave a certain way?

STEWART: Well. We were supposed to have good manners. You know what that means, don't you?

C.M.: Uh hmm.

STEW ART: To think about others, and that's about it. And you didn't get out and holler and say 101:00nasty words. [Laughter] You behaved and acted ....

C.M.: Well. how did you all, I mean did they teach you the proper way to behave, like etiquette and things like that?

STEWART: Well they, yeah they would do that. They'd teach you how to say thank you and all these things, where you're supposed to appreciate something. But that wasn't too hard, you had a little bit of that at home, some did. But they taught you how to say thank you and will you please pass the junk. If you said "the junk", you'd get passed yourself. [Laughing] C.M.: Uhoh.

STEWART: May I have some more of this or that?

C.M.: Well, thinking back on that now, do you think that was a good experience, 102:00I mean?

STEW ART: Well, it wasn't bad, I don't think. No. One thing it kind of did, it kind of, it did make you think like you belonged to a group, you see, rather than just completely individual, is one thing. That's one thing it was doing. Of course, another thing or two about it too. I was always somewhat kind of shy. I was afraid someone was going to make fun of me, you know. And I was going to say something wrong, and all that. But you didn't have to worry about too much, it was all set up at the Little Boys' table. Everybody was just about as dumb as you were, you know. [Laughter] And they had a Little Girls' table, a Little Boys' table, a French table, all the different things and a Latin table. Miss Watts' table, where everybody 103:00really was stiff. And I don't remember the rest of them, because I didn't sit at any of the others.

C.M.: WelI, let's talk about Miss Watts a little bit. I think we might have just a .... we talked before a little bit about her. But what do you remember about her? Or from being around her all those years?

STEW ART: Phew. Do you want me to tell you the truth?

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: I never did like her much.

C.M.: Why not?

STEWART: Well, the first thing I remember when she, before she became the head, she was the principal of the grade school over there. And gosh almighty, she'd look at you. And some of the teachers would be good to you. She would never be good to you. She was afraid to, I think is what it was. And she was stern, 104:00what you call stern. And--you were under consideration all the time. And--so I--was--and of course, when I got a little bit older, that part didn't bother me as much, but I never learned to overcome it. Even when I went down to visit her, and I learned to like her when she still was down in a rest home down there. I still--I forgave her for all those mean things she said.

C.M.: Why do you think she was like that? So stern and things?

STEWART: I think that was--self-preservation action she made, I think. I think that's what it was. And--when--of course--but she thought she had to keep her position and dignity and so she was afraid she would lose some of that. 105:00I always felt that, even when I was young, I felt that. She did this because she was afraid not to. And--but I may have been--being wrong, a lot of people liked her, and I liked her later on but, I'll tell you maybe one other thing. I didn't--she and Lucy Furman didn't like each other. And that might have been one of the reasons, but I--I just felt that later on, as I got to know her that a part of this was a cover-up for her shyness, from her own position and her own background. Because, basically I think she was a good woman.

C.M.: Okay, hold on just a second.

END OF TAPE 20 A 16b, ALBERT STEWART, SIDE A TAPE 20A 16b, ALBERT STEWART, SIDE B STEWART: But, 106:00she just simply wanted to be there and she had a little bit of money, evidently. And she had that work done and she stayed in that little private room up on the second floor of the hospital ward next to the little hollow that comes down there.

C.M.: Now, who exactly was this Miss Gartreal (??) STEWART: She was a woman that came in there to stay the night, I don't know--I don't know if she did anything for the school. She might have. Maybe she had--gave them a little bit of money, but she paid her way there and stayed there. And I don't know whether she got them any money, she might have. Of course, I was a kid, I wouldn't have known that, you know.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: But, we just thought she was strange and odd and so on. Why didn't she come down to eat with us? [laughter] She's too good.

C.M.: So, she didn't come down to eat with you all, she stayed up there.

STEWART: Yeah. Miss--Miss Watts would go up and 107:00sure as it could be, and she'd sit there and never eat anything, pretend maybe. And when she got--everybody got out, and free to go, she'd walk up there and you'd see her going to the hospital (??) we didn't know where she was going.

C.M.: Are there any other people that maybe stick out in your mind for being here? I don't know specifically which ones to ask you about cause I'm not sure.

STEWART: Well, we had--most of the--well, the house mothers I had after Miss Furman left, I don't remember them too well. I remember one, I stayed a little while with after she left, I guess at the little boy's house--no, I think maybe I didn't. But, when she left, Jethro Amburgey and his wife, he just had married, they came up there 108:00and stayed up there in a little house in Miss Furman's room. And they were--they were our--what do you call them, bosses.

C.M.: What were they like?

STEWART: Well, Mrs. Amburgey was pure doll, she was good to kids as could be and he was mean as a snake. He hated us boys. We were in his way all the time. We gave him a little bit of trouble, we did.

C.M.: What things would you all do to him?

STEWART: Oh, we'd just do things he didn't want us to do. Like maybe he'd call us down, and why didn't you do that? Well, we forgot it. We'd just make up something. And he'd call us in .... he didn't want us, he didn't want us to do anything or disturb .... not disturb him. 109:00I reckon they slept out on the porch. Oh, I don't know. I don't think they did. And when we, when Miss Furman was there. All the kids, al1 four kids slept out on special beds, asleep out on that big porch, you know, at night. Winter, snow, rain, shine - whatever. And we'd get up in the morning and run to our room, where we had a little bit of fire to put our clothes on, to change clothes. But he didn't like to do that, as well as I remember. So, I don't know. I think I just had one year of him. Of course, I had two or three years of shop work under him. He was ....

C.M.: What kind of teacher was he? As a shop teacher.

STEWART: Well, pretty good, I guess. 110:00He could do, he wasn't much of a teacher. He could do the work and sometimes he could show you, but he didn't have much patience with kids. And I don't think the younger kids liked him very much. They liked his wife. Of course. she wasn't down in the shop. She just liked kids. He didn't so much.

C.M.: Yeah, tell me a little bit more about his wife. She sounds pretty interesting.

STEWART: Well, I don't know that much. She was a kind, kind person. And a pretty good size. She was a lot bigger than Jethro was. Jethro was a lightweight. She was a heavyweight. [Laughter] She was good to us. 111:00He finally, he became ... . I don't know how long it took him. He became head of the shop, you know, the woodworking shop, all woodworking. He was pretty good. He could do good woodwork. He got into dulcimer making and spent most of his time making dulcimers. I never made but one thing in the shop that was worth anything. I made a big swing. By golly, it was pretty good. But you made these things, if you didn't have the money to pay for them, what the wood cost and all these things, you had to leave it there. Well, I didn't have the money. And I finally went home and some way, I either told my dad or somebody, I needed 112:00to go back and get my swing. I went back over there and you know what he was doing with it? He was fixing it for himself.

C.M.: Hmmm.

STEWART: Now, if it was now, I'd go and take it away from him, then I didn't know what to do. He just got it. I'd done all that work on that thing and he got it for himself. So, I thought. Why Jethro, I don't think you're such a good man. Never did like him much. I felt sorry for him sometimes. Because he, he was just.. .. Jim Still liked him. That ought to tell you something.

C.M.: We won't get into that.

STEWART: Hmmm?

C.M.: I said, we won't get into that.

STEWART: I don't think we ought to. [Laughing and Coughing] C.M.: Now let's see, who are maybe some friends or people like that you remember? Just friends 113:00that you had while you were here, maybe as a little boy or even when you got a little bit older.

STEWART: Oh gosh. Well, I had the Ritchies and I had ... .I don't know how many Ritchies I went to school with, boys. Some of them I went home with, some of them I didn't. Some of them could make music and some of them could tell tales. And one of them was Jim Ritchie. Of course, he was a whole lot bigger than me. But he came over there. He was the son of, what's his name .... Ritchie .... what was his name? He was the son- I'll think of the name. Was one of those ballad singers. He was one of those ballad singer families. Lived over on Bow. Big Benson Bow. 114:00So, Jim could pick the banjo and he could sing some of those ballads, himself Well, he got something wrong with him. I don't know what. It was like he had a breakdown, a nervous breakdown or something at school. And they were giving him special treatment. He didn't act like he had all his marbles with him. So, I don't know just what happened with him. But he lived on later. I remember his dad coming up there. Miss Furman would have these people to come out, that had a lot of knowledge. And she would talk with them. That's where she got a lot of information about ballads and language and so on. And she kept notes on different kinds of sayings and expressions they'd make. And she liked him, because he was pretty well educated too, you know. He could sing these ballads and 115:00make music. He was the brother to Jean Ritchie's father, I think. if I've got it right.

C.M.: Okay.

STEWART: So, he was a good source of information. Of course, he had been to school himself, you know. And he practiced law, not all the time. But whenever court came around, he'd have a case or two to deal with. The rest of the time he owned a farm. I don't know what all else he did. Jason Ritchie, that was the name. I liked him. I just remember him very well. ( ) C.M.: What sorts of things would you all do together, maybe? Not necessarily just you and Jason Ritchie. What did young boys do together?

STEWART: Well, we would hop and jump. And we would wrestle. And we would get 116:00mad and fight, [Laughing] and so on. And play marbles. And we played fox and dog.

C. M.: What's that?

STEWART: Somebody would be the fox and they'd put you on a hill. And you'd have to run to get away from the dogs, you know. And you'd get on the hill and they'd have to try and catch you. And you'd lead them way off and have a big chase. If you weren't a pretty good runner, you'd better not try it.

C.M.: So, did you all spend a Jot of time up in the hills and things?

STEWART: Quite a bit, yeah. That was kind of our free time, we had time to play some. Of course, we had to .... at night we had study hour. Even the little fellas had a little bit of study hour. And you got a little older, they had about an hour of study hour. You had to study your lessons for the next day. I 117:00guess once they got out of the Little Boys' House and got over to the other one, they had to do more of that. [outside noise] I don't know what's going on. What else do you want me to say?

C.M.: Well, trying to see here. I might turn this off for a second.

TAPE RESUMES STEWART: Went to high school down here and some of these good looking new teachers coming from up North somewhere, educated, you know. They'd go together. They'd court each other. We'd try to slip in and catch a whiff of that. They'd hide out and meet somewhere over by the building. And they would talk and so on. And we'd go by where we could hear. And then we could pass by and boy, they'd straighten up in a hurry. 118:00C.M.: So, you all tried to spy on them?

STEWART: Yeah, we'd spy on them. They really weren't supposed to do that, you know. But the boys were old enough. And these young ladies from the cities and places.

C.M.: How old were some of these teachers when they got here? These ladies?

S1EWART: Well, I'd say some of them, of course some of them were old. They retired some of them. Usually the house mothers and so on were older and some of the teachers that taught classes in Music or something, would be younger. So they were in a marriage situation possibility themselves. And I know I remember one that I liked so much, because I corresponded 119:00with her for years. Miss Applegate, who was the teacher of the Kindergarten. And I told you about her. And I corresponded - no, I'm telling you a story and I'm telling you the wrong story. It was another one who did that. She taught us English. And I remember she'd teach us Chaucer and we had to memorize part of it. Canterbury Tales you know, say them out loud and all that stuff. But she was young too. And she sort of had, I don't really think she had an affair. One of the former students here, who had been in the Army, and got wounded and came back. And he wasn't well. 120:00A very fine man, really. They tried to get him to come up and teach. But he couldn't stand. And he was wounded. And they kept him out a while and let him go to school, while he was recuperating. He got his law degree, I think. But he said he wouldn't practice law, said, "I can't practice law." Said, "I get up there and start to make a law speech and everything just goes wild, just like it was when ( )." And so he wouldn't. They tried to get him .... they did a little while, to come and just teach at the school. I don't know if he ever really taught, but he did coach the basketball team. He was crippled. He was still young, you see. He was crippled, and I remember him running up and down the field. That was the old fashioned way of basketball. Where you'd play 121:00up and if the other team got the ball, you'd break and set up your defense before they got down the floor and all that. It wasn't man to man. And I can remember him running down there and hollering, "break, break, break." And the boys would know what he meant. They'd know to run and head down for the intercept or defense. Poor fellow, I liked him very much. And I still felt sorry for him, even though he was an older man. I'd say he was probably in his middle twenties, or a little later than. I don't know. And he had a little younger brother. I guess a younger brother, who had been in the Anny too. But he wasn't wounded. He came up there and worked for the school, the little fellow. Morgan he was. This one was John Morgan. And he sort of went to, sort of had a little affair with my English teacher. Of course, he knew English too, you know. 122:00He was an educated man. But nothing ever really came of it. I reckon nothing. But I corresponded with her for a long time, after that. Of course, I really liked the English. And I liked her. of course. She was the one. I reckon that sent me in to the president, I mean in to the principal. I believe she was, but she forgave me. [Laughing] C.M.: That's good. Here I'm going to ....

STEW ART: I don't think I ever told her that, what happened.

END OF TAPE B TAPE C, Side A CASSIE MULLINS: Okay this is, today is June nineteenth, 123:00nineteen ninety-eight. And this is the third interview with Al Stewart. And what we were talking about before Al, first let's talk about the town boys.

ALBERT STEWART: Oh yes.

C.M.: You were telling me what it was like with them.

STEWART: Most of the time, that I remember there was an enmity between the town boys and the settlement boys. I don't know exactly how it came about, but that was an old .... That was developed from an old thing. Because people used to ... .I've heard them talk about, early people, talk about going through Hindman. And the people in Hindman, if they didn't know them, they'd challenge them, you know. They'd have to fight their way through it. And I guess, that's partly the way these town boys did, because they couldn't come up on the settlement. And these settlement boys were kind of special. And so if they came down there, they'd harass 124:00them, you know. And do all sorts of things to scare them off And fight them. I went down there. I've been in fights down there myself.

C.M.: Tell me about some of those.

STEWART: It's just hard to believe. Even going to Church. I know we went to Church one time, came down. They were bound to have a ruckus, those town boys. And at that time I was in pretty good shape. I was pouring it on this boy. And I didn't start it, he started it. But I said, you're going to leave me alone and that's for sure. And his brother came around and pulled him loose and said, " You, d better get away or something. He's going to beat you to death." [Laughter] I wasn't big as nothing. And that's the sort of thing that went on. They just wanted to pick, pick on you over here, like you were something special. Anything special or different or they thought was foreign. 125:00Same way that as I said, when sometimes the country boys would come to town or have to go through town. They'd have to fight their way through. That's kind of hard to understand, but I can understand it in a way. Because they thought of them, in a way they developed this, a stranger, who was maybe spying on them or something. Although these people weren't spying on them, but they had that sort of feeling about it. And I suppose that's part of the feeling that the town boys had against the settlement boys, because they were separated and special, you know. They'd have big rackets, big fights and everything. One boy came down to town, they'd want to run them out of town. They'd laugh at them. They never ... .I wouldn't run out. I'd say, boy I'm going to fight you. You're not going to scare me.

C.M.: Do you think there was any jealousy 126:00 maybe?

STEWART: Well, that would have been some of it, I guess. Sometimes they thought whether those school boys think they're better than we are. I don't know how they got that in their head. Because nobody thought that really. That's the way the undercurrent worked in those days.

C.M.: Yeah. Well, another thing we were talking about before is the daily schedule. You said you were on .... they had a real strict schedule.

STEWART: Yeah, they did.

C.M.: Describe that a little bit. What you all ....

STEWART: You see they had electricity. The first electricity for a lot of people in town. But they controlled that. The lights went on, now wait a minute, I may be wrong. The lights were on, they went off. They came on in the morning at five o'clock in the morning. They went off at nine o' clock at night, no matter where you were. 127:00That was the day, from five o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night That was the day. The lights were on and you could use electricity and so on. That worked all right. That was really something for town people to have electricity, you know. Because plenty of these towns, bigger than Hindman didn't have it. So, and of course the settlement paid for it, too. I don't think they charged them. I don't think they got any fees for the electricity or not. But it was a convenience. It was like a telephone. When you've got a telephone, you're in connection with the outside world, you see, so to speak. 128:00I can remember when we didn't have but say, one telephone or so in Hindman. And when I was just a kid, we had a telephone at home, because we were on the line that came over in Floyd County, over this way. And it came right by our house, and we were on it. But it didn't last long. I don't remember, but it wasn't long until that one went out and they got some more in. And the Thackers up here eventually started .... Uncle Will Thacker for a pretty long time kept telephones and so on going. That's how the Thackers got into the big business, just kept on going.

C.M.: As far as the schedule we were talking about, how was it different on the weekends?

STEWART: Which one now?

C.M.: We were talking about the schedule. Like you all had a strict schedule.

STEWART: Oh, on the weekends. 129:00Saturday of course, was a day to work. Most of Saturday was a work day. And the kids, we all had a job, a little washing and scrubbing and all that sort of thing going on. And they'd work until one o' clock. And I mean, then of course, you'd take out for meals and all that. From one o'clock it was all over, kind of a place or a thing. And then of course, you could go home. If it was your time to go home on a Saturday afternoon, you could go home. Twice during a semester and come back on Sunday. And once you could go home on Friday evening and come back on Sunday. So that would give you a whole day and night at home, you see. And those were great times, I thought of them, you know. And 130:00they had, I talk about the Christmas celebration too. You see, they had these Christmas trees. The settlement school was the one that sponsored the little Christmas trees in all the little schools in the county. They'd get a group and go out there. And they'd have little gifts and so on. It wouldn't be too much. But anything is something, you know, if they're giving it to you. And sing Christmas songs and have decorations.

C.M.: What else went on here for Christmas? Just on campus. What did you all do?

STEWART: Well, of course they had singing. Singing of the Christmas songs and hymns and that sort of thing. When I, I don't know .... we had .... most of them went home for almost two weeks, us children did. 131:00So there wasn't too much that went on there, except whatever the faculty did. And some of the faculty may have gone somewhere too. But most of the kids went home for almost two weeks, and then they came back. And they celebrated at home. But they didn't. .. at that time, the people here didn't have Christmas trees and they didn't have celebrations the way the settlement had. They'd celebrate new Christmas and old Christmas, you know. But the settlement people didn't know about that, the first they came here. And they started telling about old Christmas time is real Christmas. And you had to pray and you had to behave yourself and supposedly new Christmas, people would get drunk 132:00and they'd have a heck of a time.

C.M.: Well.

STEWART: Shooting guns around and all that sort of thing. And when supposedly when they got to old Christmas, everybody behaved themselves. That was the real, true, religious Christmas. And that's when, as I said, when the cows get down and pray at midnight. [Laughing] I don't know what else would go on.

C.M.: Did you all have like plays and things?

STEWART: Yeah. they had Christmas plays. We used to have those plays a whole lot in the schools, you know. regular classroom like. Miss Cobb was always putting on plays. They'd have some kind of Christmas play. You'd have that over there, in that big auditorium they had. And they had a big Christmas tree. It was kind of a play, anyway. 133:00you had the manger, where the Christ child, and I told you they tried to get me be in that and I wouldn't.

C.M.: They wanted you to be baby Jesus?

STEWART: Yeah, told them I didn't think I was qualified. [Laughter] Oh shoot. It scared me. I don't know why. I felt embarrassed to make me be something I wasn't. But it was, it was kind of funny. And I'll tell you another thing, sometimes in those Christmas trees--they had a bigger Christmas tree. They had it in the auditorium over in the big grade school building then, that was set pretty close to where the library is now. And it was a great big building. You've probably seen pictures of it. A great, big building, it had one, two, three - three or four 134:00 stories.

C.M.: Oh wow.

STEWART: And the upstairs was just a big auditorium and a big stage. And you could have a class in the back, if you wanted to. We had a class I know, where eighth grade used to meet in the back, but we didn't take up the whole building. If you wanted to have programs or so on, you could. And so we had that, and Christmas songs. And they did some pretty mean things at our Christmas .... these boys, they played tricks which sometimes were pretty nasty, I'll tell. They put something ugly, or some girl that was too pretty--pretty or something. They'd put something on the Christmas tree for her, and she'd open it up and it would be an ugly () to make her feel bad. They'd do tricks like that. I didn't like that, but they did.

C.M.: Who did that? The other kids? 135:00STEWART: Yeah, some of the kids, some of the boys would do that. And I can remember that sort of thing happening. They'd do that same thing, same way if they didn't like certain things about the school downtown. They'd do something mean to the boys, if they could when they came down there. Or the girls too, I guess. But the boys is the one I know most about. When they'd fight and run them back to the school and that sort of thing.

C.M.: I know you were telling me earlier when we were talking about Christmas, how everybody had a stocking. Tell me about that, how that worked.

STEWART: Well, everybody was given a stocking, Christmas, the night before Christmas. We'd go up to the, what you call it building.

C.M.: Hillside? Was that it?

STEWART: No, no the building there now.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: It's the one where the library 136:00 ....

C.M.: Yeah, I think that was Hillside, wasn't it?

STEWART: Hillside. Yeah., that's what it was.

C.M.: Okay.

STEWART: Hillside. They'd go up there, and they had that big room in the back and a fireplace. And they'd hang these stockings all around there, you know, with your name on it. And you'd come back the next morning when you got up. Let's see, I don't know if it was before ... .I guess it was after you had breakfast. Then you'd go up there and get your stocking. And celebrate that and then you can go home for Christmas. It wasn't bad. It was pretty good. We didn't always, we didn't always get the things we wanted then. But they tried to give us things they thought were good and we needed. you know.

C.M.: Wait, I'm gonna .... okay go ahead.

STEWART: They would take .... they'd go to the little county schools and have some kind of little Christmas celebration for them. They couldn't get everything. They'd have little gifts for the kids, you know. 137:00Especially if the teacher, they'd get the teacher to send in lists of the kids and their age number. So, they'd try to get little, some kind of little something for each kid that would represent his age and give him some kind of little Christmas gift. And they'd sing songs, Christmas songs.

C.M.: How did they .... where did they get these gifts from? How did they pay for it?

STEWART: Well, most of these things that they gave away were sent in. People from [the] outside would send in things. And they encouraged them to do that, send them in for Christmas, you know. And they, d have a lot of stuff. Wouldn't always get what you wanted, but you'd get.. ..

C.M.: So did everybody get something?

STEWART: Just about everybody got something, mostly kids though, mostly for the kids. It was pretty nice. And 138:00sometimes a girl would get a little doll, you know, and oh, they thought that was the greatest thing in the world. Poppy doll, they thought that was the greatest thing in the world. And in a way it was. They'd never had anything like that. And it was just like having one of their own little children, you know. I can remember that, those kids.

C.M.: Now, you told me earlier that Miss Furman would take you boys out to sing. Tell me about that.

STEWART: Well, she would get us all, wake us all up early in the morning, Christmas morning. And we'd go around to houses in town. There wouldn't be too many we'd have to go to. And we'd sing Christmas ballads, Christmas songs. We'd stop at each door and sing those. Merry, merry Christmas to you and so on. [Laughing] And 139:00we'd put on, as I remember, we put on heavy wool socks, so that we wouldn't make any noise when we walked in. And we'd be very quiet until we got there and then we'd just start singing, just like it came out of the air, you know. We didn't like that as well as we thought we probably ought to. It would be pretty cold. We'd rather be in the bed. But most of the people thought that was good It had a good purpose, you know, trying to spend the Christmas spirit with somebody. That helps. I think those things that someone did were pretty good for general opinion. 140:00It makes people feel better, feel at home. I told you they had a difference, the people here had a difference in, the ladies, when they first came here. They didn't know about such a thing as old Christmas. I mean they knew old Christmas, but they didn't know it was old Christmas. They didn't know new Christmas. The old Christmas was just a regular Christmas they always had, you know.

C.M.: So, what was new Christmas exactly?

STEWART: It was the Christmas when they changed back in the .... oh what.. .. sixth ... .I forgot what century it was, they changed the calendar.

C.M.: Uh hmmm.

STEWART: And set the birth of Christ up twelve days.

C.M.: Yeah, the twelve days of Christmas.

STEWART: The twelve days of Christmas.

C.M.: So they celebrated both of those?

STEWART: Yeah, they celebrated both of them. And you had 141:00the twelve days of Christmas, those were celebration days. And of course, the focus, the real Christmas, the old Christmas, that came on the sixth of January. And that's when the cows would kneel down and pray and probably calves would bawl. [Laughing] And dogs might bark a little bit once in a while. [Laughter] There's a lot of good literature written about that, like .... oh what is his name? Old Christmas, The Ballad of Old Christmas. It's pretty sad. But people go visit each other on Christmas. This one woman went to visit her neighbor 142:00and she wasn't there. It was her ghost that came to visit her neighbor. She had been killed. This woman's husband had been out and he was getting shot. This woman, she met him down there somewhere, is what it was. And they got into it, and she shot him and he shot her. They were both dead up there, but her ghost came on to her neighbor and told her about it. And the end of the ballad says, "You'll find us there dead. Find me there dead by his side."

C.M.: Oh, that is sad.

STEWART: That's pretty sad, but it was an old story.

C.M.: So do you think .... were people around here, before the ladies came in from the settlement school. Did they bring a lot of Christmas traditions with them?

STEWART: Well, they brought some old fashioned, but not as much 143:00as they used to have over in England. They brought some with them. And some women, I didn't know too many. What I learned, most of what I learned, was here. But I know some places, they had more old fashioned Christmas celebrations in other places than they had here. People remember. I know people thought of old Christmas as holy, but new Christmas, that was the time that you raised hell, if you wanted to, you know. Shoot, drink, everything. Have a big time. Part of that, part of that is tradition too. Because people used to shoot, way in olden times, they'd shoot Christmas in, because they'd scare the bad things away. Make a lot of noise, scare them away. But when it carried over, it didn't look very good the way 144:00they did it here then. They'd forgotten part of what they were doing it for. They were scaring the old, bad, evil spirits away. You'll see that. You read Shakespeare, he'll tell you about it.

C.M.: Well, I think that's neat, I mean, hearing about the Christmas celebrations here and things. Seems like that was an important part of the school almost.

STEWART: Oh it was, sure it was. And of course, they'd celebrate other holidays too, like pumpkins and so on. But Christmas was a big one. And these ladies just thought, they didn't know about it. They knew about old Christmas. They didn't know it was old Christmas, because people 145:00here called it old- that was the real Christmas. And this new Christmas, the ladies who came in here, most of them had never heard of new Christmas. They knew, knew Christmas was the only Christmas they knew. They never knew about old Christmas. And that was strange to them. And I can remember the o1d people talking about it, old Christmas and new Christmas. And it changed the calendar back and I forget. ...

C.M.: Yeah, I guess I have heard of that before.

STEWART: The calendar changed, set it back two, well almost ten days, set it back almost two weeks.

C.M.: Another thing we were talking about before, that I know you were around a lot, is the tradition of folk dancing and crafts, like that. Did you all have many dances and things? 146:00STEWART: They had quite a few of them here. They were somewhat careful about that sort of thing here, because too many people wanted to come that didn't belong. They would come and drink and so on. But they would let, they would have some old-fashioned folk dances. They didn't use the ones that were favorable out in the county, where people got drunk. But they had a lot of little, old-fashioned play games and so on. Plenty of them, they were a lot of fun. They even use some of those in the school too, you know, in the classroom.

C.M.: What about learning ballads and things like that?

STEWART: About what?

C.M. : Did you all learn ballads?

STEWART: Yeah, well, yeah we did. 147:00We knew them ....

C.M.: I guess you probably knew them. You grew up with them.

STEWART: Yeah, we learned all the folk kind of things. And they taught us French. Had to learn a little French song: Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, Donne vous, Donne vous, Samela [Laughing] Oh shucks. We didn't know what we were doing. But they told us what it meant. So, we'd sing those things. So, we got introduced to a lot of things. They celebrated Christmas in the old, what we would call the good, old-fashioned way. No drinking, no .... it 148:00was more of a prayer time, you see, and singing old religious songs.

C.M.: You've mentioned several times about, I know things, that things were wilder, back then. as far as .... Well maybe not wilder, but like you said, the things here, they didn't have drinking, and things. What was the rule on like alcohol?

STEWART: You didn't have it. That was a no-no. That was a no-no. If you got, if they caught you drunk, you went home. And if you got back in, your parents had to bring you and swear you'd never do that again.

C.M.: So, I guess they were pretty strict on that weren't they?

STEWART: They were strict. But there was two reasons for that. One, because they just thought it was wrong and bad for people to drink and go crazy, go crazy drinking. People would lose their sense. And so they didn't 149:00want.. .. The school was first started by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, you see. And they were against alcohol.

C.M.: They were against alcohol all together, weren't they? In any form or fashion.

STEWART: Any form or fashion. Strange, well it's not strange either, but that's one reason why some people out in the county disliked the school. Because they wanted their whiskey. If they wanted to make it, they wanted to make it. If they wanted to drink it, they wanted to drink it, wasn't nobody's business. Of course, I didn't believe that. We never had any drinking. Now my grandpa used to like his drinks. ( ) Long before my time, my daddy used to have a drink, too. But he quit when they passed the law against whiskey. He quit. Because he was always a law-abiding 150:00man. That's what he wanted to be. So, I never saw him drinking or drunk or anything like that at all. People said that he would go, when he was younger and just little children. He would go out on these big wagon trips, hauling stuff, you know. That's the way he made part of his living. And somebody gave him a little bit of whiskey on the way and he'd come in feeling pretty good, you know, on a cold winter night. And he didn't go to the house. He'd put his mules up and climb up in the hay and went to sleep.

C.M.: Well, he's hiding out. [Laughing] STEWART: That's what they told on him. So it was a long time before I realized that Dad ever knew a thing about whiskey. But everybody knew it then.

C.M.: So, what were some other rules that you, if you all were having a dance, or like a folk dance or something like that, how were you all expected to behave? At anything like that.

STEWART: Well, we were expected to behave like we were gentlemen. 151:00Learn how to bow to the gals, you know. Because some of those little folk dances would have bows, that would be part of the song. You bow to your .... what did they call them. And they'd teach them how to bow, the boys. And it would look pretty good. Those little folk dances, a lot of them were planned. And they were, the school encouraged that sort of thing. And as I say, they didn't encourage the big, wild dances, where everybody would get drunk and maybe have fights and all that sort of thing. But a good play game, some of the play games were dancey. We 152:00learned, of course, a lot of them we learned from our own folks. That was natural. But they would permit that, because there was nothing wrong with them at all. Just nice little games, you know, singing games you play.

C.M.: Why do you think it was so important for you all to do things like that? Why do you think the ladies had you all do folk dances and learn ballads?

STEWART: Well, one of course, was to get us acquainted with tradition. But the other was, these were much nicer things than we liked to get into at home. Now later on of course, a lot of times, people, the only thing when it came to Christmas. The new Christmas, as I said, they got drunk. And they would shoot off guns. 153:00And part of that was a tradition going back to Elizabethan times. Because they would shoot guns and make a racket back in those days to scare the bad spirits away. We were just doing it for the hell of it. They'd forgotten about that. But there were a lot of games, nice games that the old fo1ks knew and people played. And kind of little dances, you know. And I used to know some of them. If I sit back and think a while, I could figure some of them out. And they used to use them. They'd teach them in the little grade school. too, later on. Let's see .... one of them .... they'd have to tell you to bow 154:00to one end of them, then bow to your lover, for we have gained a day, and that sort of thing. And you'd go through these motions, kind of acting the parts out.

C.M.: Yeah. Did you enjoy stuff like that?

STEWART: Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Some of it kind of scared me a little bit. And the most, we used to play, we kids played them on our own too. We knew them. We knew a lot of good, little games we played. I remember one of them, we had one, we had to go forward and now greet your lover [Laughing] And that was kind of embarrassing to a little fella. [Laughter] C.M.: Yeah, I'd say so.

STEWART: But most of the time it was the little, older ones that did that. But those were old, old English play songs.

C.M.: So, what kind of job do you 155:00think the settlement school was doing, helping you all? Because these are all, like you said, traditional things that they were doing. What kind of job do you think they did helping you all preserve your heritage and things?

STEWART: Well, I thought they did a good job. l don't think that any people ever spent much time at the settlement school without being better for it. Because they encouraged them not to do things. Well, like drinking, they encouraged them not to drink, and not to say bad words and do bad things. What we called bad things. Learning how to be courteous and kind and good to people and all that sort of thing--you know. We learned that---that was something, well sometimes you can learn that at home, too.

C.M.: Right. 156:00STEWART: That's not always.

C.M.: I guess that's--maybe some people didn't get that at home.

STEWART: That's right. Some people, they got a smack in the face. Especially if their daddy got drunk on Christmas, he might--there's no telling what he might do. But some of the--some of the old--the old customs were pretty good. I can pretty well remember them, and the settlement encouraged those, I think. Not the bad things.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: And, I think that was the main thing. And they--of course, they gave you a good education.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: Too.

C.M.: Okay, hang on--. [Tape cuts off] END OF TAPE 20 A 16c, AL STEWART, SIDE A BEGINNING OF TAPE 20 A 16c, AL STEWART, SIDE B 157:00C.M.: Okay, you were also saying that you got a good education. On top of all those other things.

STEWART: Well they--they taught them good manners. Of course, some of the old people had good manners to begin with--a little old-fashioned, but they were good. But, they encouraged that sort of thing. --To--speak to older people and to be courteous, all that sort of thing. And--I think some kids are normal. A lot of times, there's some pretty rough characters [laughter] that came over there too--or they came from rough families--I don't mean--but 158:00most of the parents that sent their kids, they wanted them to learn something, you see. They wanted them--to get this training and--some--some of the mothers and dads would go to great expense to keep their kids in school.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: And most of them, they had to pay a little, it wouldn't amount to anything at all.

C.M.: Yeah.

STEWART: I know--I think I had to pay ten dollars tuition a semester. And you know how I paid mine?

C.M.: How?

STEWART: I came back in the summer to work for them.

C.M.: Did a lot of kids do that?

STEWART: Yeah, several of them did. I came back and worked for them. I worked--I don't remember now--I worked through it all (??), but I remember I'd come back and work for two weeks at a time. And that paid my tuition. But 159:00that was just a matter--matter of course to--just to let them know that--it was just something that was able to pay for it though (??). It wasn't really--I never thought of it as so much as well, you couldn't get along if you didn't pay your tuition. Of course, that was nothing to what they spent on you. But that was just a part--that was a part of the training you could--well, it helped your sense of--it helped your dignity, in a sense. Well, I paid for that. I'm working for my living. I'm working for my education. Yeah, I remember coming back and working. cutting grass--and weeds down in there. All up around the place. we cleaned up good, for two weeks or so. 160:00Pay your bills, they'd give you credit for it.

C.M.: So, did you have to work the whole summer to pay for it?

STEWART: No, I worked ... .! don't remember exactly. I remember coming and working in two week spells. And I don't remember for sure whether two weeks paid for my one semester or paid for both of them. Because I had, I guess it paid for both of them, when I figure about it. Because you could do that in the summer, rather than the school. And I paid for my tuition for the past year. Come back over here and work two weeks. What we'd do, cut grass, clean up and so on. They always found plenty for you to do. C.M.: 161:00Trying to think of something. Or there may be other things that I've not asked you about that you've been thinking about, that you remember from your days here. Stories, or ....

STEWART: Well, I don't know. I think that we have to realize that these .... What we need to know first, is that these women, especially Catherine Pettit and May Stone, came here first. And they had camps, summer camps. The first one they had over at Hazard. And part of this story is true, I think. Uncle Solomon Everidge walked over to see these and got them to come over here, because they came. But 162:00Uncle Solomon Everidge said it was his son-in-law, was the one that got them to come. His son-in-law, I can't think of his name. Well, I'll think about it later. But anyway, his son-in-law was the clerk, the county clerk. He knew Uncle Solomon was interested in these sorts of things. He was old then. And he told him about it, about the women being over there for several weeks during the summer, with all these programs and so on. Teaching people how to cook, teach them how to dance, teach them how to sing and all that. So, he went over to observe it and I think his son-in-law was the one, that ( ) got him to go. And of course, he never gets any 163:00credit for that. He didn't care about it.

C.M.: I'd say not.

STEWART: Well, being a kind of clerk, things, he'd get onto news that other people wouldn't know about. So anyway, Uncle Solomon did make the trip. And they did come here and have that big thing on the hill, back by the courthouse up there. They've got pictures. You've probably seen pictures of it.

C.M.: Yeah. I've seen some of those.

STEWART: And boy, people came. Gee whiz. They'd teach them a little bit about cooking, teach them about singing, teach them this and that, you know. They had a good time there. You can go look at the story, the list of people that visited there, in this new book about the settlement 164:00that they put out. They got a whole lot of that in the early part. Some, a little bit, a few things are wrong, but Jesse didn't know. She should have asked somebody who knew more than she knew. But they would do that. They'd have singing. They'd have cooking lessons. And they'd do all sorts of things like that. And the kids, kids loved it. And then they went. That year they were here, and the next year they went over to Sassafras.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: And they had a big session over there. But that's the time when they got them to come back. They had a meeting over here. When Professor Clark had his school, 165:00before he started up there. About...well, right beyond where the library is now, he had his school there. It was already built. Professor Clark and the towns people built that school. And so they came to one of his meetings about education and so on. And they encouraged these ladies to come and start a school there. And so he left. He gave his school to them. And they used it. And I've got, well, ifs not really a photograph, ifs taken from a photograph. One of these little booklets he wrote about his school, you know. It showed his school 166:00the way it was over there, that they had built. And at that time, the little house over there, it came to be the Little Boys' House. That's where the ladies stayed in. And they agreed, they bought that. I don't know. They didn't pay much for it. But he turned it over to them. And they started the school. But then part of that, that the townspeople went over there to Sassafras and begged them to come back. So, I think the townspeople deserve some credit. There were plenty of them that didn't want them, you know. But there was a lot of them that did.

C.M.: Sounds like it.

STEWART: And they gave up a whole lot to get them to come. And helped them, helped them, gave them lumber to build with, and helped them to build and all sorts of things they did. 167:00C.M.: Well, thinking back on that now, and how you're ta1king about how it all started and the way people wanted, obviously they wanted to learn and get an education. And that's what the settlement's job was. What has it meant to you to have the settlement school? To have gone to school here? I mean you grew up here basically. What had it meant to you?

STEWART: Well, I think I would have been a lot different person if I hadn't come here, I think. I would have gotten the same kind of education if I had gone to a good country school. Because they had a few good country schools. But you didn't have the opportunities that you had here. And you didn't get to meet with the kind of people that you met here. Because that was a lesson in itself, you see. So, 168:00even though I liked the country and I liked the farm. I liked the stuff at home. I still learned a whole lot. I learned a lot from Lucy Furman. I learned a lot from Ann Cobb. And I learned a lot from a lot of the other teachers there. An awful lot of them. Even Professor Smith. [Laughing] He just said, "Well let's go back in.", when I told him my little tale. He just opened the door and nodded. And that's all there was to it. And I appreciated that. I thought, gosh I'll go in there and he'll jump all over me. Because he did paddle some people. He never paddled me. He looked at me. He said, he knew, someway he knew, I was telling the truth. And he never said a word, well let's see, 169:00we'll just go back in. He just nodded his head to the teacher and that's all there was to it. [Laughing] And I told that teacher later, I said, "I didn't do that. And I didn't do anything. You thought I did, so I didn't blame you."

C.M.: Well, how did you think .... this is kind of a different subject a little bit. How did being here affect you? Because you're a writer now, an author. What kind of influence was that? I mean, I know you were around Miss Furman and things like that. But how has being part of the settlement school shaped you as a writer? Or has it?

STEWART: Well [Laughing] it was bound to, because I was introduced to writers, you know, and to poetry and stories, Lucy Furman. But I don't know that I ... .it's hard to explain, because I got interested. I 170:00don't think I realty thought I was going to be a writer. I got some experience that I told you about, where they told me how to write different sentences and all that sort of thing. But we never, when I was in grade school and so on, we never wrote little poems or so on. Which I think we should have, some, not much. You don't have to, wouldn't have to force it on them. But I think that would have been good for the kids, but we didn't do that. We did a little when we got into high school, some of the teachers were beginning to do a little bit of that stuff. But that was because they did it somewhere else, you know. That teacher that sent me in to see the Prof, she turned out to be one of my best friends. And I guess that 171:00had a little influence, but just the fact. .. .I know that Lucy Furman in The Lonesome Road, which I read when I was very young. She had this young doctor, young man, who goes out and studies to be a doctor and comes back. And then in one of his journeys from visiting a patient somewhere, he gets kind of an inspiration and he writes a poem. And he sends it off, and it gets published. And he wrote some more and got them published, you know. And she didn't write the poems. I didn't see the poems, so I don't know what they were like. And she didn't either. She just had that in there. And I guess that's the thing first to put in my head that I might do something like that. That was a long time before I did. But when I went to Berea, I was old enough 172:00then to be a little more interested. And I had a teacher down there that encouraged, well she taught creative writing. But I drew on this background here, that I had, too. And I started trying to write. I had written some little things here, say when I was twelve, thirteen or fourteen, I tried. It wasn't very good. but I tried something. I don't know I was encouraged, it was just because I was interested, I reckon. But I never really got much serious about it, until I went, got older. And got to thinking about The Lonesome Road and the young doctor coming back and writing his poems and so on about the people. So 173:00that's kind of the story in a nutshell. [Laughing] C.M.: Well, is there anything that. .. .! guess that's basically all the questions I have for you. But is there anything maybe that you'd like to add? Maybe something I've left out or haven't asked you about? That you can think of, or maybe that's just popped into your head while we've been talking today?

STEWART: Let's see, I told you about the people calling it the college, you know. It's some funny things that happened. They'd say, I believe I'll go see what's going on over at the college. [Laughing] C.M.: Yeah, tell me that again, because I don't know if we had the recorder on then. I think we were just talking.

STEWART: Yeah, well, people would, a lot of people out here didn't call it the settlement school. They'd call it the college, or something like that.

C.M.: I wonder, why did they call it the college?

STEWART: They thought it sounded big, I guess. 174:00If you went to college. And in a way, it lifted it up a little bit above an ordinary country school, I think. But it was a lot of fun. They'd come and visit. And they would come to some of the programs, too. You'd have plenty of people at all the programs they had, like the Christmas program and play. Of course, some of the plays, they weren't open to the public, because they would just have them over there at the school.

C.M.: Right.

STEWART: Or in the classroom, and so on. Things like that influenced me a lot when I started doing teaching. I would have them put on little plays and so on to encourage the kids. And start having them write little 175:00things early. Even when I taught grade school over there in the country school at home. I had these kids putting out a little magazine every month.

C.M.: Really?

STEWART: Yeah. And they loved that. I couldn't believe it. They couldn't wait. They'd get that little magazine done and they'd ... .if I didn't.. .. [Laughing] If I handed them out right then, they'd, every one take off and go right home. Only way I could keep them for the rest of the day was to hold out. And the last thing I'd do was to give them this little magazine. And they'd grab that, say, «Hey Momma!". and they'd head down that road. [Laughter] C.M.: I guess because it had their names in it and things.

STEWART: Every kid in that school had a little something in that.

C.M.: Well, it's always nice to see your name in print, I guess.

STEWART: One little kid - All you have to do is write a sentence, in the first grade, you know. He'd write a little sentence. So he wrote me a sentence. Is this all right? He didn't have a period. I said, "What goes at the end?" He said, "Oh, a dot." [Laughing] C.M.: A dot. 176:00STEWART: I said, "Okay." But they'd grab those when they'd take off to go home Friday afternoon. They'd be hollering Momma, as hard as they could go.

C.M.: Well, talking about all this, I mean we've done several hours now of interviews and talking about all your memories. What, maybe, and I guess this might be a hard question to answer. I don't know. It might not even be that good of a question to ask you. But thinking back on all of it now, and your years at the settlement and living here - what do you think has been the biggest impact on your life? Like the most important part of living here? What affected you the most? Whether it be a teacher or any experience or anything like that?

STEWART: Well, I think, of course, living here was something. But Lucy Furman and what's 177:00her name that taught me freshman English, well high school English. And well, Ann Cobb. There was just a whole bunch of people that I respected, teachers. And some that came just a short while. They just opened up the world for you, that's all. A lot of them did. And of course, for the most part I was a shy, little fella. I was scared to death to get up in front of a group, you know. And finally got up enough nerve to do it. But that's something you don't forget. The kind of experience we had. And even if some of the experiences were bad, like being in the hospital for so long. Well, they took care of me. I 178:00wasn't the only one in the hospital. We'd have a whole gang in the hospital at the same time. All with the chicken pox or something like that. All scratching - big knots on you. [Laughing] And some of them had real serious illnesses. typhoid, you know. Just a few did. And of course, I had my little illness, which was scarlet fever. It's not as serious at the time. You get well pretty quick and you' re all right. But some of the after effects on it are pretty effective, pretty permanent.

C.M.: Right STEWART: I know one time I went, one time when I came back home. I was teaching over here 179:00below Hazard. And went up there to the dentist to have my teeth checked. And my dentist looked at me and saw these white spots on my front teeth. Real white spots, but the rest of them weren't so white. And he wanted to know, said, "Did you have scarlet fever when you were about nine or ten years old?"

C.M.: He could tell?

STEWART: Yes buddy, I did.

C.M.: Hmm, isn't that crazy?

STEWART: So, you never know about things. My teeth, they were pretty good teeth. And they were shaped well enough. But it just hit me at the time, I reckon when they were forming, the enamel. and it didn't form right. That's the only thing. I believe he had studied about that in school. 180:00He asked me about it. But there's a whole lot of kind of odd things.

C.M.: Well, I guess that's about it, unless you can think of anything I've left out.

STEWART: Well, it's about the best I can do right now. unless I sat down and wrote everything.

C.M.: Okay.

END OF INTERVIEW