Oral History Interview with Zada Tram

ZADA TRAM: Meant a lot to me.

CASSIE MULLINS: Well that's good, because I think that's the best way to find out things. Now let me say, the date's July the twentieth, nineteen ninety-eight. And I've gone ahead and turned this on, to get it going. If you don't care, just state your name and where you are living right now.

TRAM: Zada Tram and I live at eight thirty-two Kingsbury Road in Lexington, Kentucky.

C.M.: Okay. Now let me make sure your microphone is working all right. If you don't care, why don't you move that up a little bit closer. You can just clip it onto your shirt, any way you want.

TRAM: Is that better?

C.M.: Let me see. I think it's going right. Let's see, yeah, just say your name again. I'll see.

TRAM: Zada Tram, eight thirty-two Kingsbury Road, Lexington, Kentucky.

C.M.: Okay, it's fine. It picks up my voice so much louder.

TRAM: Well, I can talk louder.

C.M.: I think I'm just a loud person. Okay. Now, of course we are talking about 1:00your years going to the Hindman Settlement School. Now, did you live on campus?

TRAM: I lived in Hindman, so I went to school from home. But my dad moved to Clear Creek to do some lumbering, and I stayed at the Hindman Settlement School when I was in the eighth grade.

C.M.: Okay, let's talk about that first. I bet that was pretty interesting. How, what did you think about having to stay there?

TRAM: I was tickled to death to have to stay there. I just couldn't believe. And my job was to wash the tea towels. And you did those down in the kitchen, in the back. And Miss Elkins was the dietician. And she was really, really particular. But when I came from school, they would be frying croquettes. And we'd never had croquettes at home. We ate more traditional stuff And they smelled so good. And I didn't do a very good job of washing the tea towels. But I had fun down there and it was fun doing that. And then in the dining room, we ate at individual tables 2:00and we had a faculty at each table. And we had, two of the things we had often were peas and something with mayonnaise on it, which I didn't like either one. But they served our plates and I learned to eat them and learned to like them, which was good. And then Sunday night we had, we sat around the dining room in chairs and we just had sandwiches and fruit punch. But they put, apparently fruit cocktail or something in, and if you got the end of the pitcher, you got that fruit in your cup. And I was always waiting and hoping that I'd get near the end, so instead of just getting the juice, I'd get the fruit. And I stayed at the Little Girls' House, which I should have been up at Hillside, but they were filled. So I stayed down there and I was one of the older ones.

C.M.: So, what was it like living there? I guess just in the dorm standing like. How many girls?

TRAM: I can't remember how many girls. But there were two I remembered, 3:00Antoinette Hayes and Clela Drawn. And Antoinette was a pretty, little red-headed girl. And Clela was dark and had straight hair. And Antoinette looked at her one day and said, you know they say if you are pretty when you are young, you'll grow up to be ugly. You sure will be pretty when you grow up and look what I'll be. [Laughter] And I lost track of both of them and I wondered how they grew up and what they turned out to be.

C.M.: That's funny. Actually, Antoinette, she lives in West Virginia, because I wanted to go talk to her. But I don't know if I'm going to make it out there. Just somebody was talking about her, so that was kind of funny that you mentioned her.

TRAM: Yeah.

C.M.: So when, I guess in terms of how the rooms were set up. Were there several girls in a room?

TRAM: Yes, I can't remember how many. But there were many girls and we had an outhouse. We didn't have a bathroom there.

C.M.: What was that like? 4:00TRAM: I never had a bathroom.

C.M.: So, it was no big deal.

TRAM: No big deal. I would have been surprised if we had, had a bathroom.

C.M.: Okay, now what year did you graduate in?

TRAM: Thirty-four.

C.M.: Thirty-four. That's what I thought.

TRAM: And then my folks moved back to Hindman. I can't remember, but some time in a year or so, they said I'd have to go home to live. And I didn't want to. And I went and talked to them. And I said, "I don't want. Let me stay at the end of the year." And they said, "okay, you can stay." So, I stayed to the end of the year.

C.M.: So, what did you like about it so much? What was ....

TRAM: I guess I just liked being with all the girls. Because I was the only girl at home and my brothers were much older than I--and I guess I just liked the sociability. And Miss Elkins drove me crazy. But I still learned so much I think there, from how to do things. And we had to wash dishes. In front of her there were three or four different stations. And you had go to a sink, there was 5:00only one sink in the dining room. And you had to take your dish pan there and rinse it out and wash it. And then you'd go back to her and she'd take it on her hand and hold it up and spin it around and do like this. And if she could make a mark, she'd say that it was still greasy and you had to go back and wash it again.

C.M.: Oh, no.

TRAM: And I think now, I think you'd make a mark. They were enamel pans, if I remember correctly. Because of the heat and the different temperature in your finger. But I'd have to go back and wash that. I'm sure I didn't do a good job anyhow, but I had to go back and wash that. And I always had a horror of being late. And I would hurry and think, I'm sure going to be late and I'd pour the soap in that old pan and wash it again. And finally she'd say okay. And two, she would not let you put, let two pieces of silver hit together.

C.M.: Really?

TRAM: It had to be perfectly quiet. You picked up one piece of silver and you washed it. And one day I was cleaning the table off and I took a hold of a glass by opening the palm of my hand and putting it over the glass 6:00and taking a hold of it with my fingers. And she screamed, "Keep your dirty, filthy hands off that glass!" And I was going to take it to have it washed. We had eaten already. And to this day, and if you notice, when they bring your glass to the table, often they've got their fingers on the top of that glass. And I still cringe and think, don't put your dirty, filthy fingers where my mouth's going on that glass.

C.M.: You still think about that?

TRAM: I still think about that.

C.M.: That's something.

TRAM: That what I think. I learned a lot from her. When you think about that, you wouldn't want their fingers on your glass. And she made me aware of many cleanliness things that.. ..Do you know what happened to her?

C.M.: No.

TRAM: Somebody said that she ended up in a sanitarium. That she kind of went off.

C.M.: Really?

TRAM: And I kind of wondered, because she really was strict. But it was good for me. I have no qualms about it.

C.M.: And this is Miss Elkins?

TRAM: Uh huh.

C.M.: What else, I mean what was her personality, other than being strict? I guess could you describe kind of what she looked like? 7:00TRAM: Oh, she was tall and thin, if I remember correctly, and always wore white, starched clean, neat, nice. Everything in that dining room was immaculate, except those tea towels. I know I didn't wash those very well. [Laughing] You had to wash them by hand. And I was only in the eighth grade and you know an eighth grade kid is not going to wash tea towels very well. But I think everything else in the kitchen and the dining room were clean and neat. And the food was good. I liked the food better too.

C.M.: Did you? What sorts of things did you ... .I mean I've asked several people that. Some people have said they thought it was good and some people have said that it just took a while to get used to and they never did like it. So I've gotten kind of different things.

TRAM: They had biscuits. And if I remember correctly, they made the biscuits down there where I was doing the tea towels. And it seems to me like they had something like a wringer, you know, an old fashioned wringer from a washing machine, that they rolled that dough through there. And then they cut out little biscuits like this. And I thought they were excellent. 8:00And all I remember the food, is those croquettes that smelled so good. And I loved them. I think they were salmon.

C.M.: I bet they were.

TRAM: And I remember the peas, because I didn't like peas. So I don't remember anything, except I liked the food, and I remembered the Sunday nights when we had the sandwiches and the fruit.

C.M.: Let's see, were there any other people, I guess on campus other than teachers and people like Miss Elkins or maybe like a faculty or just a member of the staff that stands out in your mind?

TRAM: Eda Kay Smith stayed in the Little Girls' House. We had faculty there and she stayed there. I can't remember anything much about her, except that she was there. And I remember the kids got some lice while they were there. 9:00C.M.: Oh, no.

TRAM: And they washed their hair with, can't remember who was the house mother there. But she was a sweet, old lady. And they washed their hair with kerosene. And I ran around with a little girl, Maude, I can't remember what her last name was. But she was a pretty, little girl and she was my best friend. And she came to me one day and she said, "Zada, I don't think we better play together anymore, because I've got lice." And I said, "Okay." But I got a fine tooth comb and I had long hair. And I had lice, too.

C.M.: Oooh.

TRAM: So I thought well, maybe I gave them to you. And I never told a soul, but I went to that little outhouse with my fine tooth comb and I combed and I combed and I combed. And I guess I got rid of them. They never knew.

C.M.: So you did it by yourself. [Laughing] TRAM: I did it by myself and I felt so guilty. Because I thought that little, sweet Maude, she tells me not to play with her and I probably gave them to her. And I never did tell her that I had them. 10:00But I didn't get the kerosene treatment.

C.M.: I don't blame you. [Laughter] Well, in terms of, like the health care and things that were provided for you, when you lived on campus. What was available to you?

TRAM: I don't think I was ever sick or ever went to the hospital. I remember though at the hospital they took tonsils out. That was when I was living at home. And everybody, almost and my folks said to me if you want yours taken out, go ahead. And I thought nah. It's fun, it's the thing to do. Everybody's going.

C.M.: Isn't that funny? I can't imagine. They would have had to drag me down there, I would think.

TRAM: Well, I don't know why the other kids did, but almost.. . .It seemed to me like all my friends had their tonsils out.

C.M.: Well yeah, I've talked to several, several people that had theirs out. And they just said it was a big line. I can't imagine.

TRAM: And I don't know how they got there. Did the doctors say they needed to take them out, or did they just go?

C.M.: I don't know. A couple of people I talked to, 11:00needed to have it done, because they were always sick. But it was like you said, it was just, I guess it was kind of like preventive medicine or something. I don't know. I would think that you'd have to drag me down there.

TRAM: But the school, I thought was excellent. I went to Kindergarten. And I think that was most unusual for somebody my age to have gone to Kindergarten.

C.M.: Really?

TRAM: Yeah.

C.M.: Did many people not do that?

TRAM: They didn't have Kindergarten. Well almost anybody my age now, never went to Kindergarten. Miss Applegate was the teacher and I remember Kindergarten as a real fun thing, too. I guess I just liked the school all the time and everything I did was fun there.

C.M.: So, did you do, you were in Kindergarten until you graduated from high school? There at Hindman?

TRAM: I didn't stay that long in Kindergarten! [Laughing] C.M.: No, I mean like there at Hindman, from Kindergarten through. You stayed there all the way through?

TRAM: Yes.

C.M.: So was there. Let's see, you had Miss Applegate in Kindergarten.

TRAM: Yeah.

C.M.: What was that? Are there things that you remember 12:00from that?

TRAM: I just remember playing. And I don't remember this, but you probably have the newspaper, when they did a memories of Hindman, back at some anniversary. And I've got the paper at home and she wrote in there, I felt like I was a success when little Zada finally joined in the games we were playing. So I must have been very shy. I don't remember.

C.M.: You know I think I read that. Now that you mentioned that. I looked at all of those and I'm thinking, I heard that before. So that was you, she was talking about.

TRAM: She lived in Cleveland. Marsha knew her after she left town.

C.M.: That's neat.

TRAM: And then I had Miss Eddy in sixth grade and she was from Massachusetts. And the first thing we had to do was to learn to spell Massachusetts. She could not believe that we didn't know how to spell that. So, we learned that the first day of school. And then she was amazed at the dirty, nasty pigs that 13:00were in the road down there, when she'd go out. [Laughing] You know, we'd seen them all our lives and ...

C.M.: It was no big deal.

TRAM: No. The pigs and the cows and the geese were all out wondering in the roads. I think she was from Boston, so I can imagine how, what a culture change that was for her.

C.M.: Did you have several teachers in grade school that were from?

TRAM: Uh huh.

C.M.: New England.

TRAM: I think most of them were from. I had Marsha's Aunt May, and I believe she was the only one that I had that was from our area.

C.M.: What was that like having these teachers? At that age, that would seem really far away. Pretty much than it was. That was a totally different place.

TRAM: Yeah, but I don't think it made any difference to me where they came from. When you start school off, you don't know your teacher anyhow. And where she came from, I don't think, made any difference to me. Except that one that made us all learn to spell her state, which was such a hard word for me. [Laughing] C.M.: I'd say, I think that's pretty hard to spell now. I thought maybe 14:00it would just be, just a little bit different. What did they think about the way you all talked? Was there anything, did they ever try to correct the dialect? I mean, I don't know.

TRAM: I don't remember if they did. But I remember one time, these were not from Hindman, but they were going to, I don't know, one of the settlement schools up above us. And I was milking the cow. And they'd picked these ladies up, down in Hindman and taken them in a wagon to where they were going. And I was out milking and I can imagine what that was to them. And they said, oh look at the little girl milking the cow. And that kind of insulted me, so I turned and tried to throw the milk on them. [Laughter] C.M.: That would teach them, wouldn't it?

TRAM: I couldn't reach that far, but I tried.

C.M.: Now, did other people in your family go to Hindman?

TRAM: Uh hmm.

C.M.: I guess, well tell me a little bit about your family. 15:00TRAM: I had three brothers, and my youngest brother was eight years older than I, so it was almost like an only child. And he, my brother Kel, did you know him?

C.M.: No.

TRAM: You know Paul and Jim Fields?

C.M.: I know those names.

TRAM: Okay, well this is their father. He dropped out of school when he was in the .... finished the seventh grade, I think. And I can't remember my folks' reaction, but apparently they didn't think this was any big deal. He was about grown up, if he didn't want to go to school. And then Miss Hollis came there to teach. And she went out in the community and found all, there were several boys, Kel' s age that had decided it was a smart thing not go to school. She came out and gathered those kids up and got them back in school. And I think she should have a star in her crown. And he did, he appreciated it. And he kept in contact with her, 16:00as long as she lived.

C.M.: Hmmm. That's amazing.

TRAM: It is, I think so, too. If there was nothing else done with that school, it was she going out and getting these boys. I don't remember who else, except my brother Kel.

C.M.: And that was Miss Hollis?

TRAM: Uh huh. Miss Hollis, yeah. And her, he went through school there. And my brother, Shiloh finished there. He's still living. He came down to see me last December. C.M.: He did? See, I would love to get to talk to him.

TRAM: None of them went on beyond high school.

C.M.: Well, that's pretty neat. Let's see, are there any other teachers you had, maybe in grade school?

TRAM: Miss Cox was my eighth grade teacher, and I remember her. She was a little, redheaded gal, and I liked her real well. And I can't remember anything, I just remember little, 17:00just liking her. And on April Fool's day, I tied her coat sleeves together. I thought that was the neatest thing. [Laughter] C.M.: That wasn't too mean, I guess.

TRAM: No.

C.M.: Not too bad. I guess, let's talk a little bit about being in high school. Actually you went on to high school and you'd had that year of course, living on campus. So was that kind of weird for you to go from living on campus, to not being there with those people all the time?

TRAM: I can't remember. I think kids that age adjust to whatever. I would have liked to have stayed on at the school, if they would have let me. I don't think I asked to stay on after that. Because at that time they said they needed the space for kids who could not go to school if they were not staying on campus. But I guess that late in the year, they let me stay because it would have been kind of late to bring someone in anyway.

C.M.: Okay, let's just talk about those years a little bit. Like you were saying before, you have certain 18:00instances and things that stick out in your mind. So, I didn't know if there were any specific stories from those years or ....

TRAM: Well, I had Miss Foote, was my algebra teacher. And I thought she was excellent. And as I talked to other people, they learned formulas for algebra. You know, if it's a plus, you make a minus. She never taught us that. She taught common sense. If you add these two things together, they're bigger, so you use the minuses and the pluses. And I just liked her. And she had a scar around her neck and she always wore the prettiest silver necklaces made out of little leaves. And I thought she'd probably had surgery on her neck and that's the thing I remember most about her. And then we had, Smith was the principal. I was not very good in chemistry. And we did an experiment one day 19:00and the next day he said," Zada, tell what we did in chemistry yesterday." So I stumbled through it, and said we heated whatever it was. And he said, "We did not heat that and that's how lies get started." And he went on talking, and talking and talking about how terrible that was that I would say that. And I was so embarrassed and felt so bad. So then we got Mr. Potter. And you know how some people just, you have personalities that go well? Well, Mr. Potter and I went together good. Well, not good. And I thought, if I had said that in his class, he would have said, well sometimes it's heated, but this day we didn't heat it, Zada. He went ahead and started, and was the Head of the college, that they started over in Hazard. So, I went over there and visited him. But I really liked him. And the thing I remember about Mr. Smith, every year at the first of school. You know that poem, Maude 20:00Muller Muller, on a Summer's Day? Summer's Day? Rake the hay ....

C.M.: No.

TRAM: Well, it's the story of a man, who fell in love with a little girl, that raked the hay. But then because of circumstances in his life, he didn't marry her. He married somebody more high in society and with more money. And he read that every year at the beginning of school. And I always thought, you know, I bet you married the wrong woman.

C.M.: He kept reading that, make you wonder.

TRAM: Yeah. [Laughter] That's the most I remember about him, him reading that and him telling me that's how lies got started.

C.M.: Hmm, that's kind of odd. Let's see, are there, maybe stories or things that stand out in your mind from those years being in high school at Hindman? I guess in some ways it would just be exactly like being in high school now. You go to class everyday, you have homework. But in other ways it would be different, because it was such a small town. 21:00And I'd say you knew everybody in the whole school. [Laughing] TRAM: Jim Still came and was the librarian the last part of my school year there.

C.M.: Really? Did you get to know him very well as a teacher?

TRAM: Yeah, and then I knew him, I went to Morehead. And he was at Morehead, also.

C.M.: What was he like when he was there? When you were there in high school?

TRAM: I can't remember anything except he was just the librarian and helpful. But to me, he was just another young fella, little bit older than we were. It seems a lot older, when you are in high school.

C.M.: I guess he really wasn't that much older at all.

TRAM: No.

C.M.: Now, when you were in high school, were there, I know that there was weaving and things that were offered. How much emphasis, do you remember being put on things like that? The crafts and maybe cultural things? Did you take weaving classes? Or was that offered?

TRAM: I didn't take weaving classes. 22:00I remember home ec. And I learned a lot in home ec. that helped me. And sewing. We took sewing in, I think it was the third or fourth grade.

C.M.: Really?

TRAM: I think I had sewing, I believe through all the grades, starting there. The first thing I made was a dresser scarf. And got Indian head material and we pulled threads and I did it in red. And it was so dirty, by the time that I got through working on that. [Laughing] But I was so proud of it and I had it for years and years and years. And then in sewing, and I still wished that I had kept it, but I did not. We made a book, and we took a piece of material and made all different kinds of stitches and then wrote underneath how to make them. How to make a buttonhole, and I can't remember how many different stitches there were. But now when I'm hemming or something, I think there's a stitch we used. But at that age, I didn't think I'd ever be sewing and I didn't keep it. 23:00And then in home ec, we divided up in groups of two or four, I can't remember which, and we cooked many different dishes. When they had PTA, our home ec. class prepared the refreshments. And they had PTA right after school. And we made potato chips. That was the first potato chip I ever saw or heard of, but we made it in our home ec. class. And then we made a salad and that was the first time I ever heard of pimento. We took pineapples and cut them in half and put the round parts together and made a butterfly and put olives on for dots on the wings. And pimento for the antenna and put it on a leaf of lettuce. And we did real neat things for as long ago as that was.

C.M.: That is pretty neat.

TRAM: And we got to eat what we cooked. And I thought that was great. But it was real fun preparing 24:00for the PTA, cause that was sort of fancy and nice. And I bet a lot of the parents that came had never had, I almost sure, none of them had ever had potato chips. I thought those were the greatest things I had ever eaten in my life.

C.M.: How helpful do you think that class was, thinking back on it now?

TRAM: Oh great. The sewing and the .... and then we had home nursing, too. We went over to the hospital.

C.M.: Oh, tell me about that, I hadn't heard about that.

TRAM: And the boys had, I don't know where the boys went. They went somewhere else. But we went and she told us, we had sex education there. She was a young, single woman. And I remember asking her questions and after I think back now, I know she didn't know the answer to them. [Laughter] But they were real personal questions, because we were just kids and didn't know a thing. And back then parents didn't talk to their children much about. ..

C.M.: Things like that TRAM: No. That was just sort of a no-no thing. But we were curious and whispered among ourselves, so it was great to have her there, to 25:00answer all our questions. And she did.

C.M.: That's neat you had the opportunity you had somebody to talk to, I mean. Like you said, that probably wasn't very popular to bring it up. [Laughing] TRAM: No. And it wasn't a giggly class. It was a class that we really needed. I don't remember what year that was, but I believe it was grade school. I'm almost sure it was grade school.

C.M.: That's interesting, nobody had told me about that before. Now, what kind of memories do you have about Mrs. Watts? Miss Watts, I guess I should say.

TRAM: The thing I remember most about Miss Watts was, she would go over to the settlement school to eat lunch and I would wait until it was time for her to come back, and run and meet her at the gate, when she came in. Because we were fenced in and couldn't leave that area. And hold her hand until we got up to where she went in the building. [Laughing] And I thought that was a great privilege. But I can't remember anything, 26:00I think, would she have been principal at the time of the school? I believe.

C.M.: I think so. Yeah. I can't keep it all straight either. [Laughing] TRAM: I don't know whether anybody's told you this or not too, but one of the things that was punishment for the boys, maybe the girls. But I don't remember girls doing it. If they misbehaved in some way, they had a big wooden gun, about this long. I mean not a really gun, just a whittled gun.

C.M.: Uh huh.

TRAM: And they had to walk up and down, up and down, like this, so many times as punishment for whatever they did, along the fence of the school.

C.M.: If they got in trouble?

TRAM: Yeah. [Laughing] C.M.: Oh, that's funny. No, nobody had told me that. Did you ever have to do that? Did you ever get in trouble?

TRAM: I was pretty good, I think. I usually just did what somebody told me, still do.

C.M.: Uh huh. What about Miss, were you around Miss Furman any?

TRAM: No. Mother talked about her, though.

C.M.: Really?

TRAM: She wrote a book or two while.... And mother talked 27:00about that. And I had a sister that died before I was born. And mother said, Miss Furman or somebody told her, that a character in that book, was my little sister that died. So, I've always wanted to get the book, but I don't know what book it was. And I don't remember Miss Furman at all.

C.M.: What about Miss Burns? Was she there?

TRAM: Was she in charge of the little boys? the Little Boys' House?

C.M.: Well, I think Miss Furman did that. But Miss Burns might have done it, too. She was also in charge of the grounds, like the flowers and things. I don't know if you ....

TRAM: I thought my uncle, Doc Pratt, was in charge of the grounds.

C.M.: Yeah, he was in charge of that. I guess she kind of oversaw some of the work a little bit.

TRAM: Okay.

C.M.: Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned his name, because a lot of people have talked about him. Or said they remembered him.

TRAM: Of course, he was my uncle.

C.M.: Tell me a little bit about him, like what he did at the settlement school.

TRAM: I don't remember much about him. I mean I was at his house and with my cousins, 28:00and all, a lot. But all I remember is him just always out there working and the grounds always looked nice.

C.M.: So that was, he was in charge of all that.

TRAM: I thought he was.

C.M.: I'm pretty sure you're right. She... .I guess when people talk about her, some people say that she was in charge of the grounds. But he was the one that I think was .... TRAM: He did the work. She might have been ....

C.M.: She had to oversee the students that worked. I think she mainly did like, beautification things, you know like the flowers and the grass, making sure all that was so-so.

TRAM: I just remember walking around and he'd often be on his knees down doing something with the flowers.

C.M.: I think that is always neat to hear about. What did the campus look like?

TRAM: It always looked pretty to me. There was always flowers. We had vegetables, too, if I remember correctly. Didn't we have a vegetable garden? I think he took care of that, too.

C.M.: And were the buildings clean?

TRAM: Yes.

C.M.: I know I've heard people say that the 29:00floors were scrubbed, I mean they spent hours.

TRAM: Yeah. I worked there during the summer.

C.M.: What did you do? [Laughter] TRAM: I scrubbed the floors.

C.M.: You did?

TRAM: Emptied slop jars.

C.M.: Uh huh.

TRAM: Because that is what the teachers used, you know, at night time. And washed the windows, and got ten cents an hour, thought it was a great job.

C.M.: Did you use that to .... or was that just like, extra money for you to have?

TRAM: That was money, I got that old Sears Roebuck catalogue out and ordered me a wardrobe. I didn't get paid until the end of the summer.

C.M.: Really?

TRAM: I sat down, I could hardly wait until the mailman came with all those pretty things from Sears Roebuck.

C.M.: So you bought, so you bought your clothes with it. TRAM: Yeah.

END OF INTERVIEW ZADA TRAM (b) INTERVIEWED BY CASSIE MULLINS JULY 20, 1998 HINDMAN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL BEGINNING OF SIDE A, ZADA TRAM, TAPE 20 A33b CASSIE MULLINS: Okay, we'll just get this tape going, too. We were just talking about things 30:00that you said you did growing up, for fun. Did you all ever go anywhere?

TRAM: We didn't have any transportation. If we went, we rode a horse. I was never good at a horse. I guess our main entertainment as we got older was candy parties. On Saturday night we'd get together and make candy and make that pull candy. And that was always fun and make fudge. We'd crack walnuts, gather the walnuts and crack the walnuts to have walnut fudge. And then we would have square dancing. And then we just, there was a big cave up on our farm, and that was a good Sunday thing. We'd all walk up there to the cave and just visit and pick mountain tea berries on the way up and eat those. Sometimes we would take something along for sandwiches and have a picnic. And no, I don't remember going anywhere, except Hindman. [Laughing] Up in the woods and back. We didn't have any place to swim. Sometimes 31:00there was a little place up there that was deep enough to swim, but not much, but the streams were all clean.

C.M.: Well, it sounds like you all kept yourselves busy though.

TRAM: We did. Never thought about being bored. Of course, we had a lot of work to do around the house, too. We had the garden and that stuff to do, and canning and drying and all that, that kept... Mother had plenty for me to do anytime I looked like I might be bored.

C.M.: Yeah. I'd say you didn't have much time to get bored. Well, what was town like back then? I mean the town itself, the downtown part.

TRAM: Oh, it looked different from what it does now. There was a dirt road and we had trees down there. I remember when they cut the trees and I went downtown and I was sick. I thought look what they've done to this town. They've cut all those trees down. But we had grocery stores. We didn't have any refrigeration. When we wanted fresh meat, somebody would butcher 32:00and then they'd bring the meat in a wagon and just sell it along the road. They'd stop at our house and mother would go out and buy a little beef. And we bought. At our house we would never eat beef, because it was terrible. And I found out, as I got older, that beef has to be aged, before it is edible. And we didn't know that. You know, pork, the quicker you eat it, the better. But the beef, we'd buy beef and it was tough and terrible. Beef was not a food we had in our house very often. Had sheep and chicken and salt pork. We butchered our own pigs and had salt pork. Salt pork was often a meat by itself Mother would fry it.

C.M.: Yeah. We still do that sometimes.

TRAM: Do you really?

C.M.: Yeah, I love it.

TRAM: I do too. I'm surprised you like that.

C.M.: Oh, I mean .... well that's what.. . . I eat probably about the same things. We do that sometimes, too. 33:00Well, one thing I've been asking people about is like special occasions, like Christmas or graduation or things. I know the people that lived on campus, they said that Christmas was always a big time, very important. Maybe tell me a little bit about that, what you remember about Christmas, things you all did.

TRAM: I guess what I remember most about Christmas was the presents we got. Because I never got very many presents, and the school always gave us presents at Christmas time. And the one I remember, we had a Christmas tree over in the grade school, that used to be upstairs in the upper part of it. That was before we had the separate high school. I don't know, maybe ... I guess they had the little log cabin was the high school. But I got a doll. And it said, under the lid of the box, here is a doll, dear little girl, you'll have no trouble to keep her hair in curls. And it was a little China doll, probably four inches long. 34:00And I was so pleased. I thought that was the best gift in the whole wide world. And then I remember going up to the Hillside, is where they, I guess things were shipped in from, donations were made. And going up there and they'd let you pick out clothes that you wanted. And I remember one time picking out, they weren't really in fashion then, but somehow they fascinated me. Shoes that laced up, way up above the ankle. And I thought those were just real neat. Nobody was wearing them much then, but I liked them.

C.M.: So, you got to go pick out these clothes? Where did they come from?

TRAM: They were donations from, I imagine back east most of them, probably from people that came there to the school to work and teach. I think their friends sent a lot to the school.

C.M.: Did many, is that how a lot of kids got their clothes? Or was that put to good use? All those donations? 35:00TRAM: Yes. I think some of them were, and I better not say that, because I'm not sure. I thought maybe some of them were sent out in the county and they sold. But I'm not sure about that. But I know we went up there and got them free. Because I remember them sending for me and telling me to come up and I could pick out things. And that was like getting to go on a big shopping trip to Lexington for you. Getting stuff free from the stores.

C.M.: I think you're right thought about maybe selling it later, maybe after. I think that somebody mentioned it, that sometimes they would, I guess after they would let all the children go through and get what they needed. That maybe they had like what we would call a yard sale now, something like that. They might have done that though. People have talked about that.

TRAM: June Johnson was a friend of mine and her mother lived over around Lackey or somewhere. And she sold clothes from the school, because I always looked at June and always thought she looked so pretty and dressed so nice. And I thought 36:00her mom probably could sew well and had made these. I don't know. But anyhow she always looked pretty. And I always thought well, she gets the pick of those clothes that goes over there, probably.

C.M.: Well, I've asked you mainly my questions that I wanted to get down. What are some things that you wanted to talk about, about your years at the settlement school?

TRAM: I think I've told you about everything that I can remember.

C.M.: Have you?

TRAM: I remember Miss Applegate. I've got a picture at home. I looked for it, before I came over here, but I couldn't find it. Janet may have it. But I carried my lunch to Kindergarten in a little lard pail. And I had a primer and I had my lard pail handle in my hand and my book in that same hand. And Miss Applegate said, "Why don't you carry your book in one hand and your lunch pail in the other hand?" And she said, I looked at her and thought a minute 37:00and said, but if I fell down I wouldn't have a hand to catch with. [Laughter] And I still talk that way. When I say something today, I think that's the same little girl that wouldn't have a hand to catch with. So, she took a picture of me, that's why I remember that.

C.M.: Oh, that's neat. Well, I guess thinking back on it now, what kind of impact do you think the settlement school's had on your life? The aspect of being a student and kind of being a part of it, because you got to live there for a little while. What sort of impact do you think it had on your life, being able to go to school there?

TRAM: I think I got a good, basic education. I couldn't believe when I went to college and got in a music class, that some kids there didn't know how to read notes or anything. And we learned to read notes. I can't sing a lick. But I knew where to put the sharps and the flats and the notes, because we had music and art, always, up through grade school. 38:00And I think just the influence of the people that were there and the whole thing has impacted my life, my whole life through.

C.M.: So you went, where did you go to college after you finished?

TRAM: The first year, I went to Jackson to Lee. Mr. Van Meter ... I didn't know when I got through high school what I was going to do, and Mr. Van Meter came up. He was president of Lee's College. And he told me, he would give me a scholarship, which I think he gave to everybody, a work scholarship. And I went there, and then I don't know why I left there and went to Morehead. But then I missed Lee's, because Lee's was kind of like Hindman. Everybody knew everybody and you stayed in the dorm. The boys and the girls stayed in the same dorm. We all ate, they just had one dining room. So I went back there and finished there. And then I decided maybe UK was where I should go, so I came to UK and finished. But each 39:00year, I started teaching after I had one year at Lee's. At that time, that was all the education you needed. And then I would teach. I taught every year after I finished high school and then one year at Lee's, until I finished college. It took me a long time to get through. I'd go back and just go to summer school, or sometimes, I'd get through and go the spring term and summer school.

C.M.: Yeah.

TRAM: So, I didn't finish college until forty-one.

C.M.: But still that would be challenging, I think, to teach and try to do that too.

TRAM: That's what I thought, I ought to be smart. I worked my way through college and sent three kids through. We used my husband's money to live on and my money to send the kids to school. So, I've got four college educations.

C.M.: That's something to be proud of, I think. [Laughter] Well is there anything else, that maybe I've left out, that you think would be important, that you thought about, while we've been talking? 40:00C.M.: Well that's good, that's good. I just like to make sure, because sometimes people think of things and I don't want to interrupt them. Okay, well I'll tum this off.