Oral History Interview with Lorraine Tomko

CASSIE MULLINS: It starts working or we hope so at least.

LORRAINE TOMKO: I can see it moving on the top there.

C.M.: Yes, but it's doing something funny here though. Let me make sure. There we go.

They make these contraptions with so many buttons, you don't know what's going on.

TOMKO: You want to set that over here now?

C.M.: Oh, I can set it right here, that way I can watch the .... I can watch this move and make sure it is working right. Okay, if you don't care, just state your name.

TOMKO: Lorraine Pratt Tomko.

C.M.: And what years were you at the settlement school?

TOMKO: I was never actually 1:00at the settlement school as such. I went to the Hindman school.

C.M.: So, you didn't live on campus.

TOMKO: Starting in the grade school at grade five.

C.M.: And what year did you graduate?

TOMKO: In nineteen forty.

C.M.: So, did you live on campus?

TOMKO: No, I never lived on campus. I lived at my mother's place right there and we walked to school until we were in high school, because the buses wouldn't pick up grade school students.

C.M.: So, you lived here on Mill Creek and how far, how long did it take you?

TOMKO: Well, it was three miles there and three miles back. So, we walked. We always started so we wouldn't have to really rush. And in the wintertime when there was snow graders or ice removal we skated on the highway, almost 2:00all the way to school. And then they had board sidewalks from Hindman up to our old grade school building. Which is where now the library or whatever is there now, before you go down to the ballfield on the right. Whatever building is there. So, then I went there to the eighth grade. And then started high school. And then I was allowed to ride the bus. So, we didn't have to walk the three and the three.

C.M.: So, who else in your family went?

TOMKO: My brother, my one brother, Phillip. He lives in Huntington, West Virginia now.

And of course, a lot of cousins. Melvina Pratt and Edna Foster and Andrew and that whole family all went to that school.

C.M.: Now when you, I guess 3:00you kind .... I’ve asked some people how they heard about the settlement school.

TOMKO: It was there from the time we remember. It was always there. But we lived close enough to where we didn't live in the settlement, you know as such. But we were allowed to attend school, even in the grade school, as I said.

C.M.: Now when you were in .... I guess since you went to school in Hindman from grade school on, you can talk about any years that you want to. Who were some of the .... you said you remember some of your teachers and things like that. We're trying to get memories of teachers and people that were there, that we can't talk to, because they've been gone for a long time.

TOMKO: Okay.

C.M.: Like, who were some teachers that kind of stick out in your mind?

TOMKO: Okay, my uncle, Bennie Dyer, but he was teaching 4:00here at this little, old schoolhouse over here, before I even started with the Hindman school. And Devon Pratt. And his wife was a nurse at the little housing there at the mouth of the hollow, which was called a nursing home, I guess. She was a registered nurse. But Devon and my Uncle Ben were in my primary years most effective for me and with me. And then in the eighth grade we had a teacher named Mr. Potter. And he was quite good and quite memorable. He 5:00had a tank at the end of the schoolroom on the second floor of the old Hindman Elementary School. And he had a small alligator in that pool. And he fed that alligator every morning before classes started. [Laughing] C.M.: What did he teach?

TOMKO: The whole curriculum, whatever you have in the eighth grade.

C.M.: Was that how it usually was going all through the grade school?

TOMKO: The grade school. Now in fifth grade we had a lady called Dixie Bailey. And she was the only teacher for the fifth grade. And the sixth grade we had a lady called Clara Teasel. She was the only one for the sixth grade. Then from there you moved up to the second floor for the seventh and eighth grades. And we had a Jean Mckinsey, who lived at the settlement at the time, I think, for the seventh-grade teacher. And 6:00then Mr. Potter mainly for the eighth grade.

C.M.: So then when you got into high school, what were some of the ... .I guess you pretty much took the same classes that they take now.

TOMKO: Yeah, I guess so. Algebra was Pearl Combs and History was Eda Kay Smith.

And Pearl's wife, Betty was, I think she was English. And then French was Frances Grover, who was from the settlement. And I think Spanish was Miss Cobb. I'm trying to go back quite a ways now, which is kind of fuzzy. And Professor Smith was our principal at the school. And everybody was scared to death of Prof. Smith.

C.M.: Why?

TOMKO: Oh, if Prof. Smith called you to the office, you'd better be ready for a good lecture or whatever he 7:00set out for you. Whatever, you know, disciplinary action that he wanted to put out to you. [Laughing] But I never had to go to his office. Of course, it was mostly the boys that always ended up there. And then we had for Home Economics, we had a lady, Miss Hadley. And I'm trying to think of some of the other teachers. But for the most part, I think I've named most of them for at least the first, second years of high school there.

C.M.: Which ones do you remember that kind of were your favorites?

TOMKO: Well, I guess the Home Economics teacher. 8:00And I always went to sleep in Miss Eda Kay Smith's History class. She had me in the front row, because she was always calling me. [Laughing] And I was sitting there going like that. "I don't know." She was a good teacher, I guess. But her voice was the same monotone all the way along, you know. And it put me to sleep, almost every day. Sorry to say, I probably missed out on a lot of things [Laughing] that I should have learned from her.

C.M.: What did you like so much about your Home Economics teacher?

TOMKO: Well, I don't know. She was just so kind and so understanding. And she just let us do all kinds of little things, you know. Foods that we had never heard of before prepared at home. And of course, I did a horrible job in the sewing bit of it. I had to put. ... three times, sleeves in a pair of lounging 9:00pajamas, to get them in right. And my mother was not a good seamstress, because she always had, when I was young, my clothes made by an aunt of ours.

And so she wasn't that much help to me. But she did really try to help us in every way she could. She had not much formal education herself, but she had a good head on her. She could read and she could write. And of course, at that time we had no electricity. We studied by lamp light. Of course, we had no radios to detract us from our studies. And of course, we had coal burning fires. And she made sure that we would get our lessons. And she would .... she afforded us somehow or other on the measly, little income 10:00that we had, an old, manual typewriter. And I remember that very well, an old Underwood. And then another thing that she got for us, how she knew about it or where she learned about it. And my brother just picked that up this year, because he wondered what happened to it after Momma died. It was called a Lincoln library. And it was like a big, thick book of just all types of different information. And when we couldn't solve anything or couldn't learn anything that we should have about a subject, she'd ask us to go to that and refer to it. And it was a very valuable single book. And I just gave it to him this year. I said, “I think you'll appreciate it more than I do. But I'd like you to have it.” He said, "Well, I've wondered since Momma passed away, what happened to it." I said, "That's 11:00one of the things that I got out of the house from her."

C.M.: So, what kind of. . .I guess the fact that your mother valued education.

TOMKO: She was instrumental. My father wanted us to, but he never had the push that she had behind her for us, to be sure that we got a good education. So, my brother went on. He was inducted, of course, into the service, into the Air Force. But when he got out, he got his Master’s degree from Texas School of Mines, in El Paso, Texas. So, she was real proud. I didn't go that far. I went to a commercial college in Charleston, West Virginia for two years. And then I went to work for the government in Washington, D.C. 12:00But she was still proud of us.

C.M.: I'd say so. That's important. I'd say a lot of kids didn't have that.

TOMKO: No, they didn't. And we just didn't have the funds. Actually, I borrowed from the Bank of Hindman, the amount of money for my .... Not the entire amount of college that I took in Charleston. But just to get there and get in. And I can remember my mother taking one good bedspread in our house off the bed. And sold it to buy my brother a little, simple graduation suit from school in Hindman. She was so sacrificing and so good to us. And pushed and pushed and wanted us to be the best we could.

C.M.: Well, that's definitely commendable. Because I know, even now, some people don't have that. That's definitely important. Now 13:00we've talked about your teachers and what kind of classes you took. And I've talked to several other people and done some interviews. What were things that you all did for fun? I know that you worked hard all the time.

TOMKO: Oh, my goodness. Well, even as a small girl, I can remember the old schoolhouse. It's still standing over here. I'm sure you saw it. We would play marbles. We would play hopscotch. We would play, what's a simple term for baseball now, it's called Round Town. Where you batted the ball and if it went far enough you made all the bases. [laughing] And then you scored a run for that. And then a few people in the neighborhood had bicycles. I've still got scars from trying to learn to ride a bicycle. [Laughter] There was two goal 14:00posts at the end of the field over there, where the trailer sits now. I'd start at the upper end, and I'd invariably hit the one at the farthest end. Couldn't ride that thing for the life of me. I finally did learn to ride though, after getting a bunch of scars, etc. And then we would go hiking. And we would even try and fish in a little stream we had here. Didn't have minnows that long. Still doesn't have much more than that. That's .... And 15:00then Ante Over, we'd throw the ball over, up .... this group would throw the ball over side. I've forgot how you even play it. I think you come around and try to tag every member that you could on the opposite side, if you caught the ball on your side. Simple little games like that, that's all we knew. We didn't have, as I said, radio back then. We didn't have T.V. We didn't have any luxuries whatsoever, so we just played our own little, simple games. Everybody had a little bag of marbles, and they had a favorite they called the "taw". And that was the one that you used to get the marbles out of the ring. I'm sure you've heard of marbles before.

C.M.: Oh yeah.

TOMKO: Okay. So that was mainly what we entertained ourselves with. I've burned many a pone of cornbread, that my mother would be in the field working and she'd tell me to watch it. And I'd be over there playing on the field with the boys. [Laughing] And I'd run back to the house. And I'd go walk in the front door, oh my God, I've burned the bread up. It's 16:00all true though, it really is, because she worked so hard. They had a field back in this hollow here, where they raised corn. And my mother would get up, fix breakfast. I'd do the dishes. She'd go to the field to hoe corn. And then we would go later on. And she would come out. And we usually had workhands. That was neighbors that would come in and help you hoe your crop out. And then when it came their turn, you'd go and help them do the same thing.

C.M.: It probably took a bunch of people.

TOMKO: Yeah, it would take four or five people to hoe, because it's a great big, long haul. It's still there. It's wooded over now. I've not been there for many years. Yeah, it did, it would take .... And then hog killing time would come along. Everybody would pitch in to do that. If they had a house raising, everybody would pitch in, bean stringing, apple peelings, all of those things that you remember. And 17:00there's nothing like that, that goes on today. You don't have time hardly to say hello to your neighbors. But those were my years here. And when I left here, right after graduation. As I said, I went to Charleston, West Virginia to school there in a commercial college, Capital City Commercial College, for two years. And then I went to Washington, D.C. and worked for the government. And then I was back and forth in different positions there with different organizations. And then decided to go into service. And went into service for three years. And got out and just roamed around for a while. And then got married [Laughing] two or three times. Tom's my third. My second one died in Japan.

C.M.: Oh really.

TOMKO: First one and I were divorced. Had the two boys, and both of them graduated from Hindman High School. Harold Wately and then 18:00he went into the service. He's in Germany. My youngest one, Tim, played with the band, won awards in Pikeville when they had music festivals. He was good on the piano, good on the guitar and good on the drums.

C.M.: My goodness, he's talented.

TOMKO: Very talented, very talented. And could walk out there and dismantle a motorcycle down to the last bare frame and before morning, assemble it and ride out on it again. My mother used to say, "Oh, he'll never ride out on that thing. He couldn't. He's got a thousand pieces out there, strung out on the carport." But he did. Very, very talented. But my years at Hindman. And I can remember when they had the soup kitchens. 19:00C.M.: What were those?

TOMKO: That's where they provided lunch, in grade school. Monday, we had oatmeal and prunes. Tuesdays we had rice and raisins. Wednesdays we had vegetable soup. Thursdays or Fridays, I'm not sure which, but we had graham crackers and peanut butter and hot chocolate. And that was everybody's favorite day.

C.M.: I'd say so. And that is when you were in grade school?

TOMKO: Right, in grade school. Hindman High School we took our lunches, or some of the kids had time, I guess to go into town. But I always brown bagged it. And usually, it was a fried egg sandwich or a baloney sandwich. We didn't have much back at that time 20:00to make a sandwich from.

C.M.: Now when you were talking about things you all did. I've heard some people talk about how basketball was even popular back then.

TOMKO: It was, because we had two goal posts over there. We had those right from grade-school. And even on Saturdays or Sundays, all the local boys would come in and just shoot or play one on one. Or if they had enough of them, make a team. An A against a B or whatever. Yeah, it was very popular even back then.

C.M.: What were clubs and things popular back in school?

TOMKO: We didn't have anything that much. I can't even remember, well there was a wood working club. But that was included in your class work. Mr. Jethro Amburgey used to have a shop there on the grounds. But as I said, well I guess you could go and take it after 21:00school hours. But most of the time the boys were in those classes. Well, my brother made just a settee like thing. It was down there on my mother's back porch. I haven't seen it for a while. I don't know what they did with it. But he made that at his class in woodworking.

C.M.: What were special.. . .found these old newspaper articles and things like that, I've been reading. And one of the things it talked about a lot was the May Day Festival.

TOMKO: That was one of the things, yes. That was on of the big things at the settlement.

C.M.: What was that all about?

TOMKO: Well, that was the day they had the maypole event, with the streamers from it. And the children, you know, lined up and intertwined until they made the braid all the way down to the bottom of the maypole. That's 22:00about the most I remember about it. But to us it was a big event. That and of course, graduation time was a big event for everybody.

C.M.: What was the graduation like? I mean what did people wear?

TOMKO: Well, the graduating class wore white, but they didn't designate any specific form, you know. You just had a white dress and white shoes. And then they had the rhododendrons. They always had the big whites and the big pinks. And then you carried a white or a pink or a double of them, rhododendrons across your arm at the graduation ceremony. And of course, the presentation of the diplomas. And they always had speakers. I don't remember any of them, [Laughter] too far back. But other than that the 23:00graduation ceremonies were real nice. And then we had .... What did we have? Oh, we had junior-senior prom, I guess at that time. But I don't remember what all we did. We didn't do too much, but everybody tried to wear nice clothes, you know. Have a nice dress for that. So, ask me something else.

C.M.: I just don't want to interrupt you. I know sometimes ....

TOMKO: Well, sometimes I just run out of what to say about a certain event.

C.M.: Now, things that you all did with school. I know sometimes communities get involved in things that go on at school. Was there much community involvement that you saw?

TOMKO: Actually no, not that much. The community itself would get involved in things, but 24:00they weren't really, actually connected with school necessarily. We used to have what we called box suppers. Do you know what a box supper is?

C.M.: No.

TOMKO: Okay, in the schoolhouse over here, they would designate a night to have, they called it entertainment. And of course, they would have some country music along with it. But each girl would make up a box and tie it in pretty bows and ribbons and crepe paper and all that. And they would auction them off. And whoever bid the highest on the box, the boy got to eat what was in it with the girl. That was what was called box suppers. And that was a big event because all of the parents would bake pies and they'd make fried chicken, and they'd make all this good stuff to go in the box. And most of the time, if the boys had an interest in that girl, he would bid the highest of course on it. And he would get to eat with her. [Laughing] It was fun. 25:00And then afterwards a lot of times, they'd have what they called an old-fashioned square dance. They would move the desks out all around the room and leave the middle of the room for the dancers. It's similar to what they have now, as far as that goes in square dancing. Of course, they have what they call western type and then they have other types. I joined Hazard Black Gold Chainers, years ago, over there and went to classes. And got my little ribbon thing and was a designated Black Gold Chainer. But then I moved away from here, after I left the Carr Fork Dam, after it closed over there. My last job there, and I moved to Shelbyville, Kentucky, to work the last two years 26:00on the project just below there. Can't even remember the name of it now. Taylorsville, Taylorsville Dam, okay. So that's where I last worked and that's when I retired. But the square dancing was very similar. And the callers were similar to what they had back in the old days. And I guess they made up most of the dances they had and most of the calls they had. But they had good country music to do it by. The banjos and the guitars and fiddles.

C.M.: I guess I don't know exactly which people were there the same time you were there. Did you know Miss Watts?

TOMKO: Oh yes.

C.M.: What did you think about Miss Watts?

TOMKO: I thought she was nice, but she was very strict. [Laughter] C.M.: That's what everybody said.

TOMKO: She was very strict, absolutely.

C.M.: What 27:00was it like to be around her?

TOMKO: Well, she was pleasant to be around. But not being in the settlement, I didn't understand how strict she actually was. But I've heard a lot of the people that stayed in the settlement say, you better not cross Miss Watts, because she'll really get on to you. And Miss Grover was one of the housekeepers, I think, there in one of the buildings. And they had what was called the Little Girls' House. And in the summertime a lot of the students would go there and work. And we'd get a small pittance, not much if we didn't live in the settlement. But I remember working there and we'd get down on our hands and knees and scrub those floors, wooden floors, until they were white as this pillowcase here.

C.M.: You did that in the summers?

TOMKO: In the summers, yes, yes.

C.M.: Did you ever do any other kinds of work there?

TOMKO: Well, no, not 28:00except just cleaning things, the windows and the floors, those kind of things. That was in those buildings. There was Eastover and there was the Little Girls' House. And I can't even remember all the buildings' names now that used to be there. Over the years some of them have been gone. It's kind of hard to get back. But I can remember where a lot of them were located. So yeah, during the summer a lot of us earned a little bit by doing that, you know.

C.M.: Were you around Miss Cobb?

TOMKO: That was the sweetest lady that ever breathed air, I believe. She was so sweet. She was just all bubbly all the time, every time you saw her.

C.M.: And what kind of things 29:00did she teach?

TOMKO: You know what? I can't even remember what Miss Cobb taught, unless it was English or Spanish. But in the later years there, of course she was there in the high school before I went to high school. But later years, it was mostly Pearl's wife, Betty and him and a bunch of other teachers, you know. And we had a French teacher once from Delan, Florida. And everybody, I don't know if he was gay or not [Laughter], he certainly acted it. And everybody always thought it of him.

C.M.: A little suspicious of him.

TOMKO: Yeah, uh huh. I can't even remember his name right now. They had teachers come in from the New England area there. And some would stay a year and then they'd be gone. And it 30:00was kind of hard to remember all of them. Because if you didn't have a class under them or what not, you weren't really ....

C.M.: You might not see them really.

TOMKO: Yeah.

C.M.: Okay hang on, I’m going to turn this over real quick.

END OF TAPE 20 A 5, LORRAINE TOMKO, SIDE A BEGINNING OF TAPE 20 A 5, LORRAINE TOMKO, SIDE B TOMKO: There was a guy named Mr. Fletcher. He was crippled in one leg and Jack Adams, he was the brother-in-law of Don Adams. Don was a poet. And we visited him several years ago in West Virginia. He was at one of the park places there. We were coming back from Myrtle 31:00Beach, South Carolina. And we found out he was there, and we stopped to see him. And for some reason he always had the name of being connected with the communists. And his brother-in-law, Jack Adams, was sent to Spain to fight for the communists and he was killed there. But Mr. Still and Mr. Fletcher and Jack Adams, they came here. And they made a big impression on the young boys of the area. They got them together and they promised them, asked them to promise never to start smoking. And all those boys, not one of them to this day has ever smoked. I'm on my third week of the NicoDerm patch.

C.M.: Well good for you.

TOMKO: I haven't had a cigarette in two weeks, Tuesday night.

C.M.: That's great.

TOMKO: But anyway, going back to that. They 32:00took them on camping trips. And they were just a big influence on us. They weren't here all that long, except Mr. Still. Mr. Still stayed on.

C.M.: Did they do other stuff besides that? Took them on trips?

TOMKO: Mostly they just had .... They came to Sunday school classes over here at the old school. And then just as I said, take them on camping trips and talk to them. And just be a moral thing for all of them. And evidently, they did a good job. Because my brother has never smoked a cigarette and none of these other boys that listened to them has never smoked.

C.M.: How was Mr. Still? Going back to when 33:00you had him in class.

TOMKO: Oh, he was good. He was very good, very soft spoken, very kind. Never chewed you out if you made a boo boo or anything. Just tried to help you, correct you and go on with it. Oh, he was very good. To this day I consider him one of my good friends. I won't say closest, but good friends.

C.M.: Yeah, he's a neat one, that's for sure.

TOMKO: I've been going to try and get back to the Marie Stewart there and get the portrait. I was there last year, and I wanted it, and I didn’t. We'd been .... Don's friends from New Jersey had come to visit and we just went by there. And of course, I didn't have any money at all that day. And I said, "Well, I'm going back there and I'm going to get that." And I still am. Cause I feel he's one of my dear friends.

C.M.: Were there any other people that stand out in your mind that I haven't asked you about? I mean I'm sure there's, like you said, so many different ones that you came in contact 34:00 with.

TOMKO: That's right. At that time that was in here. But, it’s hard to go back much further than that. Outside of, as I said, my own mother, who really was the focus of our education. My father wanted it, but he never pushed it or encouraged it, like my mother did. And of course, as I said, Devon Pratt and my uncle, Benny Dyer, who later taught at the elementary school in Hindman. And Devon, I guess, I think he taught in high school too. If I’m not mistaken. But as I said, he and his wife, Frances, who was the nurse. Mostly, I guess I'd have to say Prof Smith too. [Laughing] C.M.: Why 35:00is that?

TOMKO: Really, he was a very dedicated educator. He was there for a purpose. And he wanted you to be there for a purpose, to get yourself a good education.

C.M.: Well, thinking about it now, the fact that you got to go to Hindman and get your education and be a part of that. What has that meant to you?

TOMKO: It's meant the world to me. If we hadn't of had that school.... All we had here was just a little elementary grade school. And I don't know why, but my mother insisted when I started in the fifth grade to walk to Hindman, because maybe she thought I would get better there than I was getting over here. Because I was going to a one grade, to the fifth grade. Over 36:00here there was eight grades in the one little room. So, yes, yes it meant very much to me.

C.M.: And what.. .. this is just kind of a general question too. Thinking about the settlement school, the things that it did for kids in this area, because it was there for the people who lived there or in your case to just come and go to school. What kind of impact do you think that, that's had ... .it being here's had on Knott County?

TOMKO: Oh , tremendous, because I had friends in my classes that were staying at the settlement school from back in Quicksand and Hueysville, Kentucky. And Rock Fork and places that could not have attended 37:00had they not been able to stay at the settlement school. Even from just as far down as Aerie, Kentucky, friends of mine that I was with in school there, that stayed in the settlement. Yes, it has, it's meant a lot, absolutely. Because as I said, a lot of those children would not have been able to have come to the Hindman School had they not been able to stay in the settlement. And work for their board and room or whatever it was. And it meant a lot to them too. And I know several of them that have really gone on and done well, done well. They have become teachers. They have become good in other professions, doctors, lawyers, all that. 38:00C.M.: Well, that's all the questions I had written down, but are there any things .... Of course I can't ask every question I'd want to ask. I can't even think of all of them at one time.

TOMKO: I probably couldn't answer all of them anyway.

C.M.: There may be things that I haven't talked about, that you think are important that people might want to know about being there. Just something that you remember that was special to you. That's what we want to get are people's stories.

TOMKO: Well as I said, it was all special to me. Had I not gone there, I probably wouldn't have gone further in my education. Heaven knows I may have married at sixteen-seventeen, been up one of these hollows with half a dozen kids. [Laughing] Not that that's wrong.

C.M.: No.

TOMKO: But I got to go places and do things that I probably would have never been able to do had 39:00it not been for my schooling there. And I'm sure there's many, many others that say the same thing. And I do remember it all and what I do remember was very, very good. I loved it.

C.M.: Well, that's great. I'll turn this off here.

END OF INTERVIEW