Oral History Interview with Mildred Collins

MILDRED COLLINS: he interviewed me.

I guess it was close to eighty when?

CASSIE MULLINS: I'd say so. Okay, if you don't care, just say your name on here. Just go ahead and state your name and your age.

COLLINS: Would you say, just say Mildred Slone Collins? Okay.

C.M.: And how old are you?

COLLINS: Seventy-nine.

C.M.: And today's date is May the twenty-eighth, nineteen ninety-eight. It's good to have this on the tape. All right now Mildred, let's see. Now when you went to the settlement school. How did you first hear about it?

COLLINS: Well, my daddy was working here in town. He had a, he had a business, I think. And of 1:00course, we knew about the settlement school, that's just been part of Knott County.

C.M.: And what years did you go to school there? Like what grades? Do you remember?

COLLINS: It was from the time I was a sophomore until, oh you wanted to know the years. I graduated in thirty-eight. So, I guess it would be thirty-five and thirty-six and thirty-seven, would probably be the years. Wouldn't it?

C.M.: And then you graduated in thirty-eight?

COLLINS: Yeah.

C.M.: Did you live over on campus?

COLLINS: Yeah, part of the time.

C.M.: What years did you live over there?

COLLINS: I don't know.

C.M.: You don't remember?

COLLINS: I don't remember. But there was a couple of years that I stayed with Carl Perkins' mother. And I 2:00worked and helped support myself. Probably paid fifteen dollars a month. And then I worked to help. I helped her to help support myself in school, you know, for room and board. And then there was another older lady that I stayed with. It was Nan Baker. And they were all real good to me. And then I stayed in the settlement too. It was good too. We had our dining room, and then we had our time when we would gather in our meeting room to study at night. We 3:00worked too at the settlement. You could always work and pay part of your expenses. Because money was hard to come by. So that's the way it was. I enjoyed all of it.

C.M.: Now when you lived there. What was it like living in, living up there? What did your room look like? How many people? Do you remember? If you could kind of describe what it was like?

COLLINS: I think three of us to a room. And it was a real close relationship. I can't remember exactly who I roomed with, but I remember the ones I graduated with. It was Janice 4:00Park and Anna Bea Frances. I mean it was Janice Moore and Anna Bea Moore and Maddie, Maddie Martin now and Janice Moore and Anna Bea Frances. They were three sisters. So, we had a good relationship.

C.M.: Do you remember kind of what some of the rules were? Did you have special rules you had to follow, for when you lived on campus?

COLLINS: Yeah, we lived on the campus. And the best I can remember, we could come to town, maybe about once a week. 5:00But we just had to come and go back. There wasn't, we weren't permitted to stay in town. We could come to town the best I remember about it. We had to, we had a certain hour to eat, certain hour for study period and a certain hour to go to bed. And it was pretty well regimented, I guess you'd say.

C.M.: Did you like that? Did you think that was good for you?

COLLINS: Of course, it was good for me, but at that time, you know. At that time, there were some things. For instance, we washed dishes. And 6:00we had a Miss ... I forgot her name (Laughing) But anyway, she was real picky. And she wouldn't allow us to make any noise at all. We had to dry our dishes with two dish towels, like silverware and stuff. Because she wouldn't allow us to make any noise at all. You know it could get quite noisy with everybody.

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

COLLINS: So, we. It was good training for us. But I don't say that we always enjoyed it.

C.M.: I'd say not. You usually don't enjoy the stuff that ends up being good for you, I think.

COLLINS: Well, always on Sunday evening we would have Sunday evening services, you know. It was something like church. It was just always by someone who was one of the faculty.

C.M.: Well, let's see now. I've got some other questions. Did 7:00anybody else in your family go to school there?

COLLINS: Yeah, my sister did for one. I don't know if she went one year or two years. I can't remember. But it was my older sister.

C.M.: What were some of the classes that you remember taking maybe, ones that stuck out in your mind that you liked or didn't like?

COLLINS: Well, we just had English and Algebra and Biology. We had History 8:00too and Horne Ec. And that's about all I can remember. We could ... on the weekends they'd have basketball games. And we could go to the basketball games and of course come right back. Basketball was a big deal then.

C.M.: What was it like, going to those games?

COLLINS: It was real exciting. (Laughing) Real exciting, because we'd have competition. Had Carter Creek and Hazard and we wanted to beat them. So, it was kind of a social thing too. It was fun. We always enjoyed our basketball games. And there was a huge attendance too.

C.M.: Really.

COLLINS: Uh 9:00huh. Yeah, everybody was loyal to the basketball team. We had Copper John Campbell and Bill Cornett, I think. He's Lib's husband. I think he played. And Paul Johnson. It was real nice.

C.M.: Let's see, what else. Tell me about your Horne Ec. classes. I know I've talked to a few other people. It seems like it was a lot different than the Home Ec. we have now. What kind of things did you all learn?

COLLINS: We had to learn to sew, and we learned 10:00to cook too. I think you ought to have Home Ec. They don't have it now, do they?

C.M.: I think at some schools they do. I never did take it. We didn't have it.

COLLINS: It's something that you can use, you know. We had a good teacher, too.

C.M.: Tell me about some of the teachers you had. The ones you remember maybe.

COLLINS: Well, I think Miss Hadley was our Home Ec. teacher. And we'd learn what colors looked good on us. It was about a whole hour. It was something that you enjoyed.

C.M.: Were there any special teachers that you remember? Maybe ones that kind of meant a lot to you?

COLLINS: Well, Ann Cobb.

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

COLLINS: She was always 11:00smiling and pleasant. And very conscientious. We had Eva Kay Smith, too. She wasn't, I guess she could teach, but she wasn't always pleasant. And we had a real good principal, a Professor Smith. He was, he had good discipline. We were never permitted to throw any papers down anywhere.

C. M.: Oh really?

COLLINS: And it was really neat. There wasn't any discipline problems that I recall. All of them in our class, it was more like a 12:00brother and sister relationship. We just all had good relationships. And there were ... we had a basement up there. It was up at the middle school. We had a basement. We had some girls that would go down in the basement and smoke, even then. So, one day I thought well, I'll see what a cigarette tastes like. So, I tried one, but I didn't want it. They taste terrible. They taste terrible. (Laughter) C.M.: I'd say not.

COLLINS: I saw the rest of them smoking, and I thought well I'll ... I'm glad they didn't have drugs back then. You could try a drug and that would be it, wouldn't it?

C.M.: That probably would. Now if people did get in trouble for something, what kind of punishment would there be?

COLLINS: Well, you'd go to the office and 13:00the principal would talk to you. And they had ... you know you could get a paddling too.

C.M.: Oh really?

COLLINS: Yeah, but everybody respected our principal. And it was a big deal to even go to the office. He was no frills, no foolishness. We were there to get our education. And it meant a lot to us.

C.M.: Well, let's see now. You were talking about how basketball was so popular. What other kind of things did you all do for fun? Like, I was talking to Ursula Davidson yesterday, and she was telling me that there were different clubs and things that people could be in, like sewing club and the traveling club. What kind 14:00of things like that do you remember?

COLLINS: I can't remember.

C.M.: You don't remember those things?

COLLINS: No. She was in school though when I was. I think maybe she was a year or two behind us. They didn't. They used to bring the school bus to town, I think. And then they walked on up to the middle school. I remember that she was always handicapped. And it was something to see her going to school because she was so handicapped. She's always been a joy to me. She's an example for the whole, for everybody. 15:00I tried to get them to write a book, somebody to write a book about her.

C.M.: Did you? Well, she's pretty interesting. Let's see what else I had down here. When you were talking about when you lived over on campus and everybody had a job.

COLLINS: Yeah.

C.M.: What kind of work did you have to do? When you lived over there?

COLLINS: Well, they had cleaning. And then they had a Practice Home up there where you were supposed to learn to cook and stuff. And there was the dish washing and things like that. 16:00C.M.: You told me that you remembered some of your teachers. Did you know Miss Watts?

COLLINS: Yeah, I knew Miss Watts.

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

COLLINS: Well, I've thought about her. She ... I always sort of kept my distance from her. (Laughter) I suppose she had so much responsibility with all of us. She always looked so serious. You never saw her smile much. But she was real sincere and real dedicated. So, she, and a hard worker, too. I 17:00don't know all what we would have done around here without ... Some of us wouldn't have had an education if it hadn't been for the Hindman Settlement School and Alice Lloyd College.

C.M.: And why is that?

COLLINS: Hmm?

C.M.: Why do you think that? What kind of opportunities.

COLLINS: It was difficult to get to school. My sister walked three miles from our home down to Whalen. And she didn't want to leave home. But I didn't care. Whatever it took to get to go to school, I didn't care. come over here. Everybody was good to me. I was willing to.

C.M.: Do you remember, and I don't know if these people were here at the same time, you were. What about Lucy Furman? Was 18:00she around?

COLLINS: No, I didn't know her, but I knew of her. Betty Coombs, Pearl's wife was here. And Eva Kay Smith. And Pearl Coombs was teaching here. She came. Let's see who else. A Mrs. Stahl, that was Ellen Pigman's mother. She was the housemother here. There was several, but I don't remember all their names.

C.M.: So, what kind of, I 19:00guess in your opinion, what kind of impact did the settlement have on you? When you think about it, what kind of thoughts do you have? About being there.

COLLINS: What kind of thoughts? Well, it was good for me and helped me to get an education. It was good training, too. It's an important part. You know, I've said next to the church, the Hindman Settlement School is the most important place in Knott County. It's something. A lot of good things originated from it. We, ... you couldn't name them over the years. At first, whenever I was going to school, there wasn't any bus service to 20:00our house. And so, we had to go to a boarding school, where you had to walk three miles through a country road, wintertime. My sister went to Wayland, but I didn't. I didn't go there.

C.M.: When you were living there, how often did you go home to see your family?

COLLINS: About once a month.

C.M.: Do you remember being homesick?

COLLINS: What?

C.M.: Did you ever get homesick?

COLLINS: Oh yeah. It takes. It took me about three weeks to get over it. It's really tough to be homesick. Did you get homesick when you left?

C.M.: Yeah.

COLLINS: It's such a change. It's such a leap from high school to college. You're not prepared for it, are you? 21:00C.M.: No. And that must have been hard for you because you were just in high school.

COLLINS: Yeah, it was difficult. But you learned to cope with it. But it was difficult.

C.M.: What made it ... How did you start to cope with it? What things kind of helped you, once you got to the settlement school?

COLLINS: I guess as you made friends, you know. And you kept busy. And then you had your goal, that you wanted to get your education. You knew why you were here. And you couldn't waste your time. I guess that's your motivation.

C.M.: That's true. What kind of education 22:00do you think you got, from going to school there?

COLLINS: Well, as good as one as there was available in this area. Of course, we didn't have the things to work with that they have today. And the teachers didn't have the training that they have today. It was as good as could be gotten in that day. And I had come from over there at Salsbury, from a one room school, where they had all eight grades. I think it's a miracle that you ever got an education, because you didn't have much of a background. You had to study hard, I did. 23:00And so it was, just the years went by.

C. M.: What kind of, we talked about your experience there. You've been around the settlement all of your life, living here in Hindman. And you've always been active in the things that they do. In the summer you come to the programs and things like that. How do you think, what kind of impact do you think that the settlement's had on this whole area?

COLLINS: What kind of impact?

C. M.: Yeah, has it had, maybe on Hindman and just Knott County, from you being here your whole life?

COLLINS: Oh I think, I think that the settlement, like I said, next to the church, it's been an educational, a 24:00cultural and a unifying thing in the county. It's an asset, because they offer so much, like music and art and stuff. We didn't have that when I was going to school. They offer a lot more now than they did then.

C. M.: That's true. I've asked you, well, I've asked you all the questions I had. But maybe, what are some of the things I've left out, like memories? I know there are so many memories that you have from being at settlement school and going to school there. Maybe what are some questions that I haven't asked you, that you think would be important?

COLLINS: I just am proud 25:00of the Hindman Settlement School and all that it stands for, and glad to have had the privilege of going there. And I want to support it in any way that I can now. Because it is an ongoing thing.

C.M.: Right.

COLLINS: And that's about all I know.

C.M.: I'll just ask you one more thing. What's really unique about this, is the book will hopefully come out in two thousand and two. And that will be the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement school. And you know, lots of schools like that kind of popped up around the country. But many of them haven't survived and managed to do the things that the settlement school's doing today. 26:00What do you think about that? The fact that in a couple of years it will have been there for one hundred years. Here in eastern Kentucky, in a place where nobody would expect such good things to happen. What do you think about that?

COLLINS: Well, I hope it will be around for hundreds more. As long as it still has the ethics and the leadership that it has. I'm very much in support of it.

C.M.: That will be it then, Mildred.

END OF INTERVIEW