Oral History Interview with Alma Pigmon

CASSIE MULLINS: Okay, now today's date is July the twenty third, nineteen ninety-eight. Now go ahead and state your name.

PIGMAN: I'm Alma Pigman.

C.M.: Now, Miss Pigman have you lived here in Hindman?

PIGMAN: All my life.

C.M.: All your life.

PIGMAN: I've lived in this location right here. I was brought here when my father died. I was eight months old. And see the cabin up there, the log house?

C.M.: Uh huh.

PIGMAN: Well, it stood right by this one, between this house and the garden. And my mother came back home with the two of us. 1:00And Vertie was a little past two and I was eight months. So, I've been here, except for a short period of time. I went away to college, just for a few-months at a time.

C.M.: Yeah.

PIGMAN: This has always been home.

C.M.: Okay. Now tell me a little bit, I guess about growing up here. I've talked to your sister, but it's always nice to hear different things.

PIGMAN: When I can first remember, living was awfully hard for people around here. There was no mechanical things, I mean everything was horse. The crops were raised with plows, horse drawn plows and things of that sort. Hard work in the garden. Everybody had 2:00plenty to eat, they always raised gardens. And they were warm and comfortable, but we didn't have the pretty things that other children had, you know, things of that sort. And I was thinking this morning, when I went to school, we always, our dresses were all handmade. Our aunt lived here too. And she was a good seamstress, so she made our clothes. There were no such things as patterns you could go and buy. You looked in the Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalogue and saw a dress you liked and that was the dress you got. And she was a pretty good imitator. [Laughing] C.M.: That's neat, though. That she could do that.

PIGMAN: So, that was the type of dresses, but I was thinking, we always got a new dress or two for school. And that was a thing we looked forward to all through the summer. I can remember, 3:00I couldn't remember, I think when I was between three and four, but I remember very distinctly when I was five, getting ready to go to school. And what an exciting time it was. And of course, it was a country school. But you want to know more about, I guess how we played?

C.M.: Yeah, just some things ....

PIGMAN: With the neighbor children? We didn't have many places to go, of course we had no playgrounds or none of that sort. But for our recreation, we made up our games a whole lot. We played over there on that hillside. We'd build our playhouses, stack up rocks and make the houses, and even make the furniture. And we used moss to upholster 4:00the furniture. We had the prettiest, green furniture you ever saw. [Laughing] And then we played in the creek a lot. We waded up and down the creek and we played, make little imaginary boats. We used different things to float. One time we got our cousin in what had been a pig trough. We thought it would float. [Laughter] We got her all wet. And we got soaked. We were in more hot water from that one.

C.M.: I'd say you were. Well, it sounds like you all managed to find things to do.

PIGMAN: We did. And we played in the sand a lot, pile it up and make sand castles and things of that sort. And we used the willow tree for horses to ride.

C.M.: Well, how did you, you said that you were here with your mom and your grandparents and your sister. How did you all, how did you 5:00make a living?

PIGMAN: Farming. They raised big crops of corn. And raised horses, not raised horses, but kept horses, raised cattle and sheep and hogs and chickens, and sold those. And when the settlement started the Fireside Industries, they wanted somebody to help, get the idea, to bring all the old patterns and way to weaving, hand weaving. And they asked my grandmother to help with that and she did. She went out over the country. She went way up over to Ball and way up on Carr, to talk to some older ladies, who would remember about it. She had woven quite a bit when she was young, but she said she just lost the skill and had forgotten about a lot of it. 6:00So, she did help, and she helped revive it.

C.M.: Oh, so she helped, actually revive that at the settlement school then, I guess.

PIGMAN: Oh yes, she did. See now, that's her picture up there. And that's one of the covers, that's one of the covers she wove.

C.M.: Oh, that's neat. That's a great picture.

PIGMAN: And that's uh, oh what's her name? I'll think of it in a minute. Famous photographer from New York and that's one of the last things she did. She was here and then I think she died about two weeks after that.

C.M.: Really?

PIGMAN: Anyhow, her collection, they have a collection of her pictures at Berea. And they have them, I know they've been on exhibition in the library at Berea and at UK and different places. And some of these are included.

C.M.: And your grandmother's in there. Isn't that neat.

PIGMAN: Pardon?

C.M.: And that's your grandmother, in those pictures?

PIGMAN: Yes. That's Letitia Hays, everybody knew her as Aunt Tish. 7:00It was customary to call all the older people around here, aunt and uncle, even though they were not related. So my grandparents were Uncle Wes and Aunt Tish to all our playmates. Well, we visited back and forth. I guess, there were several families around where they had children our age. They'd come up and play with us on the weekends. We didn't get out during the week. Weekdays were work days. People didn't get out and loaf then, you worked all week, some Saturdays some people took. So we raised the food, we raised the gardens and canned. We canned the apples and beans and berries 8:00and peaches. And we had dried beans and dried apples, pickled beans, smoked apples. And some of the things like turnips, some apples and cabbage, they would make beds in the garden. And put them up to where it would be dry and put hay under it, and then cover it over with hay and then dirt on top of that. And they were kept during the winter, in that way. And potatoes were done, although they were usually heaped up in little piles, I guess you'd call them.

C.M.: So is that what most families did around here? Is that how most of them lived?

PIGMAN: That's the way they made, that's where their food came from. Of course, they always kept cows and everybody had a pasture, raised a lot of corn and used that. And everybody had to be busy. 9:00C.M.: Sounds like it.

PIGMAN: All day long. You got up, you had .... they didn't have electricity then, and you had to do fires in the stove for heat or in the fireplaces, and in the stove for cooking. And you had to bake the bread, there were no stores. I mean, you couldn't go and buy a loaf of bread. You had to cook everything from start to finish. And then for the women, there were the chickens to feed, the cows to milk, and the dishes to wash, the garden to hoe, the washing to be done, which had to be done on a rubbing board.

C.M.: Right.

PIGMAN: All very 10:00primitive, I guess you'd say. And that didn't change, we didn't get electricity until in the thirties.

C.M.: Yeah, that's what people, a few people have said different dates. But I guess it just depended on where you lived.

PIGMAN: Well, it came through, the big power line came through up here in thirty-two or thirty-three, I guess. I'm not sure just which. I know I got my first radio in nineteen thirty-four. But that's another thing, we had no radio, no television. Our granddad played the violin, or the fiddle, that was the most music we had.

C.M.: I think that would be pretty entertaining.

PIGMAN: It was, it was. We just loved that. And they were good story tellers, telling about the old ways and grandma especially talked about that, how the things that they did. 11:00Granddad didn't tell us so much. He'd tell about his dad going hunting and the things he and his brothers did sometimes. We didn't get so much from him.

C.M.: Well, let's talk a little bit about your school years.

PIGMAN: Okay. I can remember, as I said a while ago, I could remember how exciting it was, you know when we were getting ready. I know we always got one or two dresses. We thought we were dressed up and we got a penny pencil. Have you ever seen a penny pencil?

C.M.: I don't think I have.

PIGMAN: They were brown, of course they were ordinary length. But the eraser was just maybe glued down in the top. It was just a little, tiny pointed, little bit of an eraser there. But they cost a penny. But we got a penny 12:00pencil and a tablet for the first day of school. And our granddad would take those pencils and cut a little notch around, just below the top and tie twine string around that. We'd put it around our necks and believe it or not, that penny pencil lasted us half a year.

C.M.: Really.

PIGMAN: We had to hold on to them. We didn't get a pencil every day, like they do now.

C.M.: Now where did you go to school in elementary?

PIGMAN: Out, you know where the barber shop is out here? And just a little bit this side and down below, it was down the bank a little bit. And I went to school my first day there and I taught my first day there.

C.M.: So how many years did you go up there to that school?

PIGMAN: I went until fifth grade.

C.M.: And then did you go to Hindman?

PIGMAN: And then I went to Hindman. We walked from home, 13:00and it was a muddy road, you know, snow and all, we had to go up around the open.

C.M.: How long did it take you to get from here to Hindman?

PIGMAN: I think about forty-five minutes.

C.M.: Wow. Now you can drive it like two minutes. [Laughter] PIGMAN: Of course in the country schools, we had all eight grades. One teacher would have sometimes fifty, seventy children in all eight grades. And we sat in double benches, not benches, but seats. I can remember when we did have some homemade benches, where the carpenters made them. But these were ones they bought from supply houses. And we'd sit, Vertie and I usually sat together. At that time, the county 14:00didn't furnish the textbooks. We had to have our own, buy our own. And they were handed down from the older children to the younger. Felt real important when you got a new book. [Laughing] C.M.: What are some things you remember about being in school up at Hindman, when you went up there? Maybe some...

PIGMAN: Over at Hindman?

C.M.: Uh huh. Maybe a teacher or somebody.

PIGMAN: Well, when I went down there, Lula Hale was my first teacher. I entered the fifth grade. And she was such a kind, good teacher. I remember one project she had was studying the flowers, the mountain flowers. I guess we did that in the spring of that year. 15:00She took us on a hike, down in Cowtown, up that branch and back up to the top of that hill and then we followed the ridge back to the Perkins' high rocks and came back down the hill, back of the settlement. And of course, we gathered flowers and identified them on the way and that was one thing I remembered especially. I can remember the county fair.

C.M.: What was that like?

PIGMAN: The thing I remember about myself, Miss Hale had us all get little spelling pads. And I was surprised when I went down there and found my spelling pad on, because I had....[Laughing] 16:00More people entered, from out in the county, you know, they entered things they had grown. The school children all participated and learned yells and songs and things of that sort. They let each school that wanted to, demonstrate their achievements. And of course, they had contests, athletic contests, races and things of that sort. But the ladies all took in their home canning, fruits and vegetables. They took in handmade quilts and dresses. The men, of course, brought their animals, chickens and pigs and cattle. It was very active. () do now. There wasn't too 17:00many other things you did then, and so everybody participated. It was quite an active thing.

C.M.: You were talking about, you said that sometimes the school children could do things. Did your all's classes ever do anything? At the fair? PIGMAN: I remember we wrote songs, school songs. Sang them. I don't remember. I remember my sister's was one. One that she wrote in high school then.

C.M.: Oh, that's neat.

PIGMAN: Of course, we would have like races, foot races and tug of war, things of that kind. 18:00But I don't remember anything that our grade did especially to demonstrate.

C.M.: Well, okay. Well now talk a little bit about what you got in high school at Hindman.

Now did you graduate in nineteen twenty-nine?

PIGMAN: That's right.

C.M.: Okay, I was making sure I had that. I had looked that up, but I wanted to make sure. I guess maybe, I think it's neat to hear stories and experiences that people had, especially in high school. Because that's what we're trying to find out about, what it was like going to school there and about the teachers. So, maybe let's start out with classes you had, that you remember enjoying.

PIGMAN: I remember algebra and Latin. Of course, I had Latin under Miss Cobb. She was the sweetest, nicest person. The most gracious person you could imagine.

C.M. : Really?

PIGMAN: She made you feel, if you felt you made a break, she managed to make you feel comfortable 19:00with it. Just now I see what you're talking about, oh yes I see, but really I think if you think about it in this way, you'll see that. She was such a considerate, good person. And Clark Pratt taught algebra. He was very good, very kind, considerate. Eda Kay Smith taught health, now I'm getting the years tangled up, but..

C.M.: That's fine, yeah that's fun.

PIGMAN: Professor Smith taught, I had biology under him. And if he told us to go and catch worms, I went and caught worms. [Laughing] That was why they mentioned in the class prophecy, that I would be in Africa writing a book on ants, because I 20:00took an active part when he wanted specimens for the class. I did get out and find him spiders and all kinds of crawly things.

C.M.: I guess you didn't mind bugs and all those things.

PIGMAN: No I didn't. [Laughter] C.M. : That's funny.

PIGMAN: I gathered them. I can remember going over there by the road, under those beech trees, got a lot of wiggly things over there. [Laughter] Let's see Prof was one of the teachers. Miss Foote taught geometry. I can't remember. Miss Rider was an English teacher. I remember one time, a funny incident. We were down at, we had over what was the workshop we had, I mean what term was later used for the manual training. We 21:00had classes, that was our high school building, really. We had classes down there and some up in the grade school, too. But there was two rooms upstairs and a door that was made of some kind of plywood, something thin. Anyhow, somebody had burst a hole in it. They had just oiled the floors. One day we were, it was our algebra class, that was in the back room. We had to go through the room, Miss Cobb's room in front of it. And Miss Foote was late coming to class. And Ashton Smith and Tim() were always playing tricks on each other. Tim got up and went to peep 22:00into Miss Cobb's class, because our teacher wasn't there. And Ashton slipped up behind him and gave him a shove, where the floor had been freshly oiled. Tim went sliding on right through into the other class. (Laughter] Miss Cobb was kind of surprised seeing him coming through that way.

C.M.: Let's see, one thing I've asked people about is, I found it's a good way to find some interesting stories, just talking about their friends. People that they remember spending time with when they were in high school. Who are some people that. ...

PIGMAN: Of course, in our class I guess we were more together, spent more time together than with somebody else. And since I didn't stay in the settlement, I didn't spend so much time 23:00with the people down there.

C.M.: Yeah.

PIGMAN: Marie Stewart and Gertrude Magurd were the two girls in my class. And we spent our recesses sometimes together. Now let's see, now Grace Baker was a friend of mine, who lived in town. We spent some time together. Huba Thacker was Bob Thacker's sister, was a very good friend of mine. See, we didn't get together on weekends much, it was just at school mostly.

C.M.: Oh really? So you didn't really do things outside of school with your friends?

PIGMAN: No, not much. Our class had a, for 24:00commencement the senior class usually sponsored a play, ours was, "As You Like It". We enjoyed that. Of course, it was hard for me to go for practice. I spent some nights with some of my friends, some of the times we had to practice down there.

C.M.: Yeah.

PIGMAN: One year I stayed at Hiram Tabeler's home. He was kind of superintendent and he had to ride horseback to go out and visit the schools over the county. So he had to spend time away from home, some nights away from home. And since they had a new baby, he wanted somebody just to be there with his wife, you know and the children. So he asked me if I'd stay and I did. I enjoyed that. It was different. I came from the other direction. They lived down below Hindman, just below 25:00the new housing development, across on the other side. If you know Donna Turner? She was the little four year old or five year old. I brought her to Kindergarten. Of course, the boys played basketball. The boys in our class were on a team, Andrew Hammond, now I'm not sure they all were on, but the boys were Andrew and Beckham Miller, Kyle Hammond, Bill Slone, and Orvin Pratt. Kyle didn't graduate with us, he went to Caney, I think, at the last year. But he was with us all up until the last. 26:00C.M.: Did you all go to watch many basketball games?

PIGMAN: Well, the only ones we could watch were the ones that were played there. Because we couldn't, we didn't have cars, you know. [Laughing] The boys went out in the county to play, but we didn't get to go with them. But we did watch there. Oh, we were very excited then. I can remember seeing Miss Furman walk around.

C.M.: Did you know her very well?

PIGMAN: I was not too well acquainted with her. I knew her, of course, just a speaking acquaintance. See her and her bunch of little boys.

C.M.: Did you know Miss Watts very well?

PIGMAN: Miss Watts was my seventh grade teacher. She was Principal at that year. And one of the things I did, I was behind really, 27:00a year, wasn't that dumb. I just got here, we didn't, we weren't promoted, we just put ourselves in whatever grade we wanted to be in.

C.M.: Right, yeah.

PIGMAN: My mother didn't want me to try to be bigger than I was. Since when I went down there I went in the fifth grade, but then we entered the sixth. Miss Reed was our teacher and she had a big group to start with, but then she had several of us who were overage for that grade. And she chose about five or six and she said she would help us after school if we would go on to the seventh grade at the second semester. So we did that. Several of us started, but Marie and I were the only two that went on. We entered the seventh 28:00at the second semester. So Miss Watts was the principal at that time, and Miss Underwood I guess, was the other teacher. And Miss Watts taught, she taught arithmetic and health and civics and Miss Underwood taught the others. And the eighth grade, that's when they changed. Miss Watts went over to the settlement. Well, she lived in the settlement anyhow, but she went over there to take charge. And we had a new teacher, Miss Johnson, Frances Irene Johnson, from Louisville. And she was a dedicated teacher. She really put us over the road. But she made us learn. 29:00We respected her. She was good. She was the one who had the idea, of having the boys and the girls too, anybody who needed discipline for any reason. She had a wooden gun carved, a rifle, and during the noon hour or the recess period, we'd have to march back and forth across the playground. She called it, doing guard duty.

C.M.: Uhhuh.

PIGMAN: And if you misbehave, you got to do guard duty. If you didn't do your work, you got to do guard duty. I got to guard duty one day, when I missed a spelling word. [Laughing] And that was the funniest thing. We never had any noodles, I'd never seen them. 30:00I had no idea what it was. But I always studied my lesson, but that.. ..

END OF INTERVIEW