Oral History Interview with Elizabeth Cornett

CASSIE MULLINS: If you don't care, before we get started, just state your name and your age. If you don't care, so we can have it on here.

ELIZABETH CORNETT: Yeah, okay.

C.M.: You can go ahead.

CORNETT: This is Elizabeth Smith Cornett ("Cornit"), here in Knott County. "Cornett", out of eastern Kentucky, I'm a Cornett. [Laughter] And I've lived in Hindman all my life. And just oh, about 1:00a quarter of a mile right up from the Hindman Settlement School. Of course, I've been connected with it all my life, because I went there to school all of my life. I said, I guess I was connected with it really before I was born, because my older sister, one of my older sisters, Emma, was in Miss Watts, Elizabeth Watts' class when I was born. That was back in 1919. And she named me after Miss Watts.

C.M.: Oh really?

CORNETT: So, my name is Elizabeth Watts, I mean Elizabeth Smith Watts, after. I don't mean Watts. I mean Cornett. But back then I was Elizabeth Smith. And so, I've always been closely connected with Miss Watts. And then I think about things that, of course, they were built before I was born. But I can remember. I was trying to go back as 2:00far as the things I could remember. And of course, all of our lives, since we've been little children even in kindergarten, why I remember the Christmases. Going to the Christmas, we called it the Christmas tree. We'd go to the Christmas tree every year and they had it, they used to have it in the old grade school building, the old, brown grade school building. They'd have it upstairs. And that, it would be so crowded that they were actually afraid of falling in. And so, everybody in the whole county, just about who could get there, would come to the Christmas tree. And when we left, everybody had a bag or stocking and candy. And everybody got one, grownups and everything else. And Miss Watts and them from the settlement school would always have that, you know. And they would always have the Christmas play too. But that was just, I can just barely remember things back then. And, but 3:00I remember too, the old log house, going to kindergarten there where, right beside of the grade, I mean right below the road there. I think the chimney's still standing there.

C.M.: Yeah.

CORNETT: Is that chimney still ...

C.M.: Near the library ...

CORNETT: No, I...yeah .. yeah near the library, on out that way, near the settlement school. And it was a great big open building. And it had a little ... we went in the side room on the back, next to the settlement school, there was a small room in there. And that was what we called the cloak room and you'd put your boots back there and shoes and things if we had to take them off in the wintertime. And our coats, we'd hang them in there. And then we'd go on into the big room. It was a great big open room, and it had that big fireplace there where that chimney was. A huge fireplace and they'd put logs in there. That 4:00was the coldest place that ever was. It was cold in the wintertime. When ...

C.M.: And that's where you ...

CORNETT: It was kindergarten, and my first kindergarten teacher that I can remember was Susan Applegate, from Boston.

C.M.: What was she like?

CORNETT: She was tiny, very, very Bostonian. And she married my first cousin, Oliver Stamper. And so, she was my first kindergarten teacher. And I remember when she and Oliver were engaged. I guess he went to school either at Harvard Law school either .. .I think it was Harvard, could have been Yale, but I believe it was Harvard that he graduated from the law school. And I remember during the summer that, looking out, there came Oliver and my mother and 5:00Oliver's mother, which was my Aunt Betty. They were coming down the road. And of course, Oliver was coming to see Susan. And he had come in from school and he was coming over here to see her. And I remember when he came into the kindergarten, why, him kissing her. And oh, I thought that was the awfulest thing there ever was. [Laughter] And then they were married, and I think they went back to Boston. He became ... and they moved to Cleveland then and he was attorney there for years, for some big bank in Cleveland, I think it was. But anyway, the next kindergarten teacher I remember having was Sophie Sturdivant. And she lived down below town. And I can remember Lauren Kelly being in kindergarten with me there. And I remember Sophie's brother Frank Sturdivant. And 6:00we thought we could do anything we wanted to under Sophie, because she was Frank's sister and ..

C.M.: He was in school with you.

CORNETT: He was in kindergarten with me and he and I ... And Sophie and my sister and I think my sister Gertrude was teaching maybe third grade or something at Hindman now. And she spent half the time at my house. And I thought I could do anything too, you know. So, Frank and I, everyday she'd have to whip both of us. And they way she'd whip us, she'd make us come up to her and hold our hand out and she'd take that paddle or ruler and whip our hands. [Laughing] And I told her about that too. She was in the nursing home at Hindman. I told her about it. I said, "Sophie, you used to whip Frank and me, every day." And I said you'd bend our hands back and whip us with a ruler. And she said, "Oh did I do that?" And I said, "Yes, but we needed it." [Laughing] And so those are two 7:00of the kindergarten teachers that I remember. Then we played out and around there, on that hillside all around there. And then I remember too, the old cabin that set down there for so many years. We called it the weaving cabin. And I remember that and then right beside it was the old high school. The old log high school. I remember seeing my older sisters and my brothers all coming and going in and out of that high school. And then I remember too, when I was in, I guess it was, I don't remember if I was in grade school or the first grade ... kindergarten or first grade, but there was a principal. The principal at the Hindman school was named Miss Johnson. They had a lady teacher. And she must have been pretty tough, but she needed to be then. And so, the way she would punish the older boys, when they had disobeyed 8:00or maybe late or something I don't know. But I remember seeing them. There was a fence right along the side of the road up there in the playground and it was all fenced in. I remember the grade school had a fence practically all the way around it. But I remember that she had a big old wooden gun, a huge gun and she'd make the boys, whoever had misbehaved, if she wanted to punish them. She'd make them march at recess, out in front of everybody. She'd have them, march them backwards and forwards across that, across in front of that fence.

C.M.: Who made them do this? The principal?

CORNETT: The principal at the time of the school, of the high school, of the whole school was a Miss Johnson. And I don't remember anything about her, except that. I remember, I remember kind of what she looked like. But that was her way of punishing and I remember seeing the boys carrying that 9:00big, big wooden gun on their shoulder to march. That they were marching backwards and forwards, all during recess, across the road, I mean the school grounds. And seems like I remember Craig Bailey. And seems like I remember B. Amburgey a doing that. And I was real young, you know. And then going to grade school there. See at that time all, nearly all the teachers came from up east and a few, I remember both of my sisters taught there.

And like I said, Sophie Sturdivant, the kindergarten teacher. And I went to first grade there. And first and second grade was down in the lower part of the building. Our teacher's name was Miss Treadway. I remember going to school with her for two years. And then right across the hall was the third and the fourth grade. And 10:00Miss Vera Mannshart, a little tiny woman. She was pretty strong. Because I remember she had a big paddle with holes in it. [laughing] She was little, but boy she could whip that paddle. And she was the third and fourth ... she was from California. I think she was here for several years. And then she had a first cousin that came, after she had been here a few years, I think. And she was the music teacher. Naomi, Naomi was the music teacher, and they were first cousins. And I don't know whether Naomi, she didn't stay here long. And then we went on ... thinking, let's see some of the other thing I.. .. There was a manual training teacher there in the old, I don't know if they ... can't remember if they, after they built the other high school or if it was at the same time ... they had a manual training place 11:00there and it was log. And I remember Jethro Amburgey, he was a teacher there, for that. After, they built other buildings there. The girls, Oh! They had an old outside toilet. And I was scared to death of that old outside toilet. Because it was digged deep, deep. And half the time it would be broken on top of it, you know. And I was afraid to go in there. I was afraid of that thing. And it was, it was dangerous for young children to go into that. And then the teachers was on the other side of it. But now the one for the children, the girls on this side, I remember it was dangerous. I was always afraid of it. And then the boys was on the other side of the boy's 12:00playground. The playgrounds were divided. The buildings, I guess that was most of the buildings they had around there, except the old powerhouse, right down from the ... near where the library is now. The old library right across there right down in the ball field, right down at the beginning of the ball field. There was an old powerhouse there and that was for the electricity. They had electricity then for the settlement school and then a few people in town, downtown and up to Frogtown. A few of them had electricity. But that was all the electricity in this section of the country, in Hindman then. So, I remember that old, big powerhouse. And I remember that every morning, early in the morning if we'd be up, we'd see Winton or Mr. Willie Hale coming down by the road. 13:00Going down early in the morning to get, to put up that fire to get that electricity up. To get the fire going and then I guess it was a steam or something engine to have electricity for the settlement school and for the people, you know. I guess they could have so many hours in the morning or something. I don't quite remember, because we didn't have it. And then the old barn. The old barn down there for the settlement school was down in there, right near there. There was two buildings. And I remember the, of course they had their own hogs, and they had their own cattle. And they'd take the cattle up the hollow there, across the road. They'd have to cross the road and if you were coming up or down the road, you'd just stand and wait for all the boys that worked at the settlement school. That was their job to take care of those cattle and they'd have to go up and get them and bring them out to milk them and leave them over night. And after they'd milked them in the morning then they'd have to take them back up and turn them loose in those hills up in there, up above the settlement school. Now let me see what else. I'm trying to think ... then 14:00the third and fourth grade was Vera Mannshart and I told you about her sister. And then I remember too over to the settlement school itself, now the buildings that I can remember was the first one. It was ... we called it the kitchen, most of the time. It was the Orchard house. Known as the Orchard house, but everybody referred to it as the kitchen. And it was the place where they did the cooking downstairs and the laundry and washing down there. And then they had the dining room upstairs. They had to cook the food downstairs and then carry it upstairs. And one morning they had a big, old, a big iron skillet of fried apples and my friend, Annette Hayes that practically lived her whole life there. They took her in, 15:00when she was about the youngest person ever been in the settlement school. That's her picture in your father's office. Hanging over the desk. That's Annette Hayes. And she opened, she didn't know it, the apples were sitting there, and she opened the door and stepped in the middle of a skillet of apples. [laughing] Miss Elkins was the head, was the lady that was in charge of the Orchard house and the cooking and the washing and the girls that roomed there. They had so many rooms there at the orphan's house that they, where the girls lived there. And Annette was there for many, many years. She was from a broken home. And she and her sister, Wilma, lived there. And so, I think Wilma lived at the Hillside, but Annette lived down there first. It was the little girls' house too. I 16:00can remember at the Orchard house, the swings. They had big apple trees out there on the other side of it. And had swings that the children would play in and swing. In the summertime, [coughs] excuse me, I and my two older sisters, Alma and Em, Emma, would work. All the children around here, over there at Hindman, would go to the settlement school in the summer and they would hire them to work. And they would it seems like it was ten cents an hour they'd get.

C.M.: What sort of work?

CORNETT: They'd work, clean up to make them some spending money. And then they would clean the settlement school. They had to scrub the floors and do all the work you know, cleaning the place up. That way they got to, some of them worked all summer and they would have enough money in the fall then to 17:00have them so clothes and things to start back to school. So, I remember one time I decided I wanted to go over there and get a job. Miss Watts was standing there doing the hiring and I guess she felt sorry for me and so she gave me a job. [laughing] I was little. I was young, you know.

C.M.: What did you do?

CORNETT: So, she put me to working for Miss Elkins, the one that had, in charge of the Orchard House. And so, Miss Elkins, that morning was putting me to scrubbing the floors with a big brush and some sand. I think I scrubbed the whole morning on a little spot, and she'd tell me to do it again. [laughing] And at about noon I got tired and ate lunch. Then I asked her when she wanted me to come back or something. And she said you don't have to come back at all if you don't want to. She wanted to get rid of me I guess and so that's all I needed. I got up and went home. That was the last of my working career at the settlement school. 18:00[Laughter] But before that, when my sisters Alma and Em, Emma, worked there, why my mother would cook their dinner. And I could, she'd send me with their lunch. Phone rings. I'll just let it ring. She'd send me with their lunch and I would take their lunch. I remember she'd send me; they had a certain time that they had to have lunch. And so, she had to have it down there. And I remember I'd be hungry. See most times she'd send me, and I'd have to go back home and eat. And I remember playing on those swings. I'd swing and everything and play out there, while they were eating their lunch. And then after they would get through and I remember getting hungry on the way home and I'd open up their buckets. I'd open up their buckets, they'd 19:00have anything left, why I'd sit down and eat it before I got home. [laughter] But all the town children would come there and work during the summer. But I remember Miss Elkins too. Always talk about Miss Elkins' pretty flowers. She loved, evidently loved flowers. And she had beautiful flowers. And the big walkway of the pathway that led in front of the cabin and the old high school and it was a gravel path down that way. And she always kept the beautiful iris, had the most beautiful iris down there. And that was a garden, down in there behind the old cabin and things. That was where they had the garden they grew. She always had these beautiful, beautiful flowers there. And over there around on the grounds in the circle, the raised circle was out there. Sort of, I think they called it the great circle. And 20:00there was a well I think out there in the center of that. The stone well, you've probably seen pictures of it. And they had, that's where they had the May Day dances too, all the time. And she had beautiful flowers in there. And Miss Elkins, she was a little tiny woman, I think. I can remember she was a little, tiny woman. And she uh .. .I remember the beaten biscuits. They had beaten biscuits all the time. And there were the best things there ever was. Those beaten biscuits, everybody just loved those beaten biscuits, that they had at the settlement school to eat. And then, let me see what else I can remember. Up on the hill was the old reservoir. They had a reservoir where they pumped the water up there. And then they had a rest house up there, where the teachers were allowed to go. And I guess just to relax and get away, you know, away up on that hill there. 21:00I remember the old rest house and the reservoir that was up there. Then the Hillside, well the Hillside was on the, going up, it was on the right up there where Miss Watts is buried. There was the Hillside and that's where Miss Watts lived. And I remember Miss Cobb lived there. And then some of the, most of the teachers I think lived there, that wasn't house mothers or anything. Then they kept some of the girls lived there too. But every year too, after Miss Watts had come and, in the fall, I'd make ... My mother could make the best pies in the world. And she would make Miss Watts a lemon pie. Miss Watts loved lemon pie. And she'd make Miss Watts a lemon pie and let me take it to her. And one day I was taking her the lemon pie and I dropped it and spilled it. But I scooped it up and 22:00took it on and give it to her. I was determined to take Miss Watts that lemon pie. [laughing] And I remember now, I can remember Miss Watts laughing, when she saw that pie. I remember her laughing. And usually when a child would go up there for anything, she would have apples or something that she would give you. And then she would always give me a present at Christmas, because I was named for her, you know. And I remember one time she gave me a little gold ring. And I dropped it. I remember where I lost it in the comer of our garden at home, where I was playing. I never did find my little gold ring, but I grieved over that little gold ring, that she had. And then my sister that's older than I was, she said, she'd get mad. She got mad once because I got the presents from Miss Watts all the time. And she told my mother, said ... Well, Miss Cobb was one of the teachers there. Oh, 23:00she was a dear. Everybody loved her. And she said, "Why didn't you name me Miss Cobb?" [laughter] So she'd get a present too, you know. And then, but I remember the old Hillside, and the pictures now .. .I think some of those pictures in the dining room, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them didn't come from the Hillside. I don't remember.

C.M.: I've always wondered about those.

CORNETT: Uh huh. There were old pictures, I remember those. Those pictures they had, and they had some more, that I remember. Of course, I remember pictures very well. So, I remember those pictures that they had. Then the old hospital...! remember the old hospital. And once a year, this doctor, seemed like he was Dr. Brown or somebody, would come from Louisville. They would come from Louisville, and all of us that had bad tonsils had 24:00to go up there and have our tonsils taken out. Everybody went to have their tonsils taken out. And I went up there to have ... Because I had earaches. I had a lot of earaches when I was little. I guess the only thing they knew to do was take your tonsils out. And of course, I probably had throat infection and everything. I can't remember. But anyway, I went up there and had my tonsils taken out. And the way they took them out. They'd take you in this room and they'd take that big, long needle and give you a shot into each tonsil and deaden them real good.

C.M.: While you were awake?

CORNETT: While I was awake and then they'd take you out in the hall and they'd sit you there in the hallway. And I remember shaking, you know, just sitting, shaking. And then they'd take you back in and by that time you were, they were deadened, but you were very much awake. And I remember them taking my tonsils out. And 25:00then they put us to bed and would let us stay a few hours, you know. Make sure we were all right. And then we could go home later in the afternoon. And some of them would come up there to get their tonsils taken out and they would get scared, and they would run off. But, they had me.

C.M.: I would.

CORNETT: They had me and I had my tonsils taken out and then I think my sister too. I think she did too. I think she had hers taken out at the same time. I can remember that. Some of the girls too, they always had a nurse there, every year. Some of the girls lived up there at the hospital too. And the oldest at the Eastover, and over on the left-hand side is where the boys lived. Oh that they, I can't remember ... Miss Jones was the one that I remember that was in charge of the boys home over there. And she has here for several years, I think. And the glee club from the high school always met over there. They had a piano up there and the glee club always met up there. And had their class there. And then the home, the 26:00hospital, whoever the nurse was, would teach home nursing. And I remember when I was in the seventh grade, no I was in the sixth grade. Seventh grade I guess it was that they had a lady. I don't know where she was from, let's see. I think she was from Switzerland. And she spoke with a broken accent and her name was Zigentoller. Miss Zigentoller and she had, she taught us home nursing when we were in the seventh grade. And I remember, see I always lisped. And so, when I first started going to class up there one time she told me she wanted to talk to me and for me to come back late that afternoon, after school come back over and see her. Well, I was scared of her anyway.

CORNETT: She had that broken accent, and I didn't know what in the world she wanted to see me about. I remember she 27:00took me into the hospital, in a room. I told two of my friends, I said, ''Now you wait down here on this bridge. And if I don't come back pretty soon, you come see about me."

Mildred Taylor and Mildred Perkins. And so, when I went up there, she took me way back in the back in a room and went over and pulled the window shades down. And put a chair in the middle of the floor and closed the door. And I was scared. And what she wanted to do was, I lisped. And she wanted to tell me how maybe that I could learn not to lisp, to talk correctly, you know. And she was telling me about somebody, back in history I think, how they put gravels in their mouth and learned to talk that way. Correcting their speech, I don't know if they stuttered, but correcting their speech. But I remember, boy I was really glad to get out of that place. [laughter] She was just 28:00trying to help me, you know. But, and they had epidemics. I remember a fellow. Oh, what was his name, Bailey, that had .. .I've forgotten what he died with. I think he died in that same hospital. I can just remember that, when I was real young, you know. And then I remember Miss Watts wrote a letter. And back in nineteen and twenty, it was early twenties. Itold you I lived not far up above the school. And we had a big lumber barn, built right beside of our house. And one night it got on fire. And all the settlement boys, they all came to put it out. But it burned down and caught the house on fire, but they put it out. A huge fire. 29:00And Miss Watts wrote in one of her letters that she ... she had found it. Once when I went to visit her in Tennessee. And she had found this letter, where she had said one of the neighbors, her neighbor's barn burned down last night. And all the boys went up to the bucket brigade, you know trying to put it out. Trying to help fight the fire. So, they would go out, you know. Somebody would call there was a fire or things like that the boys would all volunteer, of course and go out to help. And let's see I was thinking about, what else. The third, I told you about that. And then the fifth grade, my teacher was Miss Hill. I remember Faith Hill; her name was Faith Hill. And she was a very nice teacher. 30:00And then the sixth grade. I don't remember much about the fifth grade. See, the settlement always hired the teachers. Always brought teachers in here, some very, very good teachers from up east.

C.M.: Hang on just a second let me turn the tape over.

END OF TAPE 20 A 7, ELIZABETH CORNETT, SIDE A START OF TAPE 20 A 7, ELIZABETH CORNETT, SIDE B C.M.: Okay go ahead. 31:00CORNETT: Let me see, I was thinking some more about the buildings of the school at that time. And nothing there at the old Orchard house. Wilson Young was just telling me. He can remember the big black pot that was out, they had out in, to boil the water in. To boil the clothes in, had to wash them by hand and board. And the students had to do that. And then a cousin of his, Colby Amburgey, at this time, it was his job to keep the fire going under the pot. And keeping the water hot. And he was just telling me about that, he can remember that. But I was just trying to remember, they had to have some place to hang their clothes. Hang the sheets and things, all the clothes, you know, they had to wash. I can't ever remember seeing clothes over there, hanging out. But they had to have them there somewhere. Because they had to do that in those days. I 32:00don't remember where it was. But now on the Orchard house they had a bell. And when it come time for breakfast and time for lunch and come time for .. .l don't know about lunch, but I guess it did. Because they had to get out of school and come over there. And then in time for supper, they always rang that bell. Because everybody ... the students were out working. They knew it was time to come for supper or dinner.

C.M.: We still ring that bell.

CORNETT: Still ring the bell! Well, is that right? [laughing] C.M.: We used to ring it every night for supper. And now we just do it in the summertime. We had those big groups of people.

CORNETT: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Oh yeah. Well, now in the grade school, the old grade school building. They had a bell in this tower. And you could hear it all over town. Especially up where I lived. And in the morning, they rang three bells. And the first bell we knew to get ready. The second bell, we 33:00knew that it was time to start to school. And the third bell was when you had better be there, because it was time for school to go on. It was time to go to school. [laughing] And then at noon, they rang two bells. The first one, they gave us about ten or fifteen minutes, you know, between the bells. And when the second one rang it was time to take up school in the afternoon. If they were in town, they could hear it, you know. Even up to my house, where I lived, we could hear the bells ring. And I remember that old bell, a listening for that old bell. Oh Lord. And the Practice Home, I forgot about the Practice Home. It was over there where the craft center is now. That was the Practice Home, only it was down there closer to the road. They had girls. The first one I remember that I can remember being in charge of that was Miss Van Meter. And 34:00she was there, I think for several years. And they would, the girls ... they'd take girls over there and train them about housekeeping, how to keep their house and everything. Now my mother sold milk and butter and eggs to the Practice Home. And so my sister and I, Sue. We had to take it to them. Every night after my mother would get fresh milk, after she'd milk. She would fix a bucket of milk and butter, when we had butter for them and eggs, extra eggs. And we'd have to take it to them. I remember one night in particular. We'd always take it to them, so they'd have fresh supplies, you know. They'd empty out our bucket 35:00and we'd bring our bucket back home. So, we'd carry it halfway. She'd carry it halfway and then I'd carry it halfway. And so, we got in an argument over there, across from where Virginia lives now in that road. So, I decided, one of us decided it was halfway and the other one decided it wasn't. So, we got in an argument over it and we set the bucket right down in the middle of the road and went on home. We got home and my mother made both of us turn around and go back and get the bucket. Of course, I got to thinking well, we set the bucket in the middle of the road and no cars, you know, only had wagons and horses then. And so, it could sit there for weeks, and nobody would have bothered it. [laughing] But my mother made us both go back and get the bucket of milk and take it to the Practice Home. I guess if it hadn't been for that I'd never have remembered taking milk and butter to the Practice Home. And then I remember that after Miss Van Meter 36:00taught there, oh I don't know several years, I guess. And then I remember, let me see, who else was next. I remember the Potters were there one year. At the Practice Home and Miss Van Meter, and then seems like it was the Potters, Mr. and Mrs. Potter. They were there for about two years. Now he was a teacher at the ... the principal of the grade school. That was when I was in the seventh grade. He was a teacher at the grade school. And he taught the eighth grade. But he taught the seventh grade. He taught arithmetic. And Betty Perkins Pratt, she was a teacher there. She was our teacher in seventh grade, but then she would teach English, I think. She was an excellent English teacher. And she would teach English to the eighth grade, and he would teach arithmetic. So, I guess they traded around, you know. And he was the principal. 37:00And then they had, they ran the Practice Home. They called it the Practice Home. But, I remember trying to wave her hair, it was black and stiff and not a curl in it. And I'd try to weave (??) it for her. She'd boil flax seed, just to put on her hair, you know, and I'd try to wave it for her. I could wave my sister's hair, but I sure couldn't get a wave in hers. [laughter] That was just one of the little things that I remember. They stayed here two years, the Potters did. And then I just don't remember who had the Practice Home after that.

C.M.: Now what was the Practice Home all about?

CORNETT: It was to train the girls to home, in home keeping. And to ... we called it Practice Home. 38:00Things to practice to learn to do in their homes ... cooking and I guess cleaning house. And just how to keep a home. And that was where they were trained, they were supposed to be trained to do that there. Then I remember the whole settlement school. They went there in the Fall and some of them, people, didn't have money to pay and sometimes I guess their parents would bring in maybe pigs or something, you know, to help pay their tuition. They had to pay a little bit. But each one of them had to work to stay there. So that way a lot of them could go there. Some of them could pay it, you know, a little bit. But they had, every one of them had to work. But 39:00that's the way they learned. They learned to do all these things they taught them. So let me see now ... Oh! I remember now. After Miss Van Meter was over there. Professor Smith and his wife, now they lived there for years, years they lived there. Because he was the principal of the whole school. He started, he was the principal of the high school. Now he came here, I remember, after this Miss Johnson that I was telling you about. After she was principal for a while. And then when she left. Of course, the boys, I guess they kind of run over her, being a woman, you know. And he had some tough ones to deal with. And one of them was my brother. [laughter] Everybody called him Prof, Prof Smith, but Professor Smith was his name. And he and his wife, and then they had two daughters. Maybe one of them, they 40:00might have been both born here. I can't remember. And they lived there at the Practice House for years. When he became the principal and as I said, he had some tough ones to deal with. And then he stepped in there. And he gave some of them some really good whippings. I think he kind of made believers out of them. But, boy he was tough. But I'll tell you what, he got that school straightened out. He got...they needed somebody like that I guess, to step in. He was a good school man, a very good school man. But he did lose his temper, sometimes. He had one bad fault of losing his temper, but he was a very good school man. And we had a good school too, as long as he was there. I remember he'd come in that room, and we'd be scared to death. You could hear a pin drop, when he'd come in the room. 41:00Of course, when he whipped them, everybody in the school knew he'd whipped them. Back in those days, they really could whip them, you know. But he was a real good school man. And they lived in the Practice House. They kept the Practice House for several years. And then I think the Potters came after, two years after that. And then that's about...I can't remember. Let's see if I can remember anything else. And then the sixth grade was, Don West and his wife were here. I don't remember. It seems like Don West taught manual training, but I'm not sure what he taught. But his wife taught the fifth grade. And she was an artist. We just loved her, 42:00all that year. She was an excellent teacher. Now I don't know. They just lived in the settlement, I guess. I don't believe they were at the Practice House. I can't remember that.

CORNETT: And then when I went in the seventh grade ... the seventh grade was ... Betty Perkins Pratt taught that, and Mr. Potter helped teach. And he was the principal of the grade school at that time. And Professor Smith was just the principal of the high school at that time.

And then after that in the eighth grade a Miss Atlen came. I don't know where she came from, up east somewhere I think, Pennsylvania seems like. She was such a good teacher. A nice teacher, and then Mr. Potter taught some too, of the eighth grade. And then we went into high school, at 43:00the old high school. I remember too, in the grade school, a thing that happened in the grade school back in nineteen thirty, I believe. Or thirty-one. Some fellows from here in town, that were going to a ball game in Lexington. And they had a wreck down by Winchester. And, let's see, there was three killed at that time. They were university students. Three killed at that time and then that was Hagan Smith, Joey Smith's son and Clint Wallen that was Faith and Billy Wallen's son, at the end of town there and Wendell Smith. The Smith's that lived down here at the flashing lights, over in there. And they were all university students. And then also my first cousin, H. Stamper. He 44:00was in the ... He died about a week or two later. And then Bill Smith was the only one that lived out of that. But he lost his eye at that time. I remember the three that died at one time. They were there. They had their funeral up at that old grade school building.

CORNETT: And I remember it was such a crowd there. They were worried to death, afraid the school was going to fall in, you know, because there was such a crowd there at that time. But the old grade school, it has many memories for me. And of course, the teachers were all there from the settlement school. They had excellent teachers. They had excellent teachers. I was trying to remember some more things that happened at the settlement. But 45:00I believe that's about it. I can remember the old powerhouse and the old barn down there. I believe I can remember some of the other teachers. A Miss Jones was at the boys over at the Eastover for years. I think I told you that. I believe that's about as much as I can think of, right now. But it sure is one of the .. .I don't know what we would have done, what this place would have been like if it hadn't been for the settlement school. Because all my .. .I had ... There was six girls and I had one brother, and several of my cousins, practically all of my cousins the ones I said, Oliver Stamper and then his 46:00sisters, Alta and Selma and Bea, and then the Smiths, Dale and Rob at that time came from Clark. And a lot of times they couldn't get in. The settlement school would be so full, they wouldn't have any place for them. And sometimes they would live with us about a year. Alta did I know. CORNETT: Then, they usually ... a lot of them after they graduated from Hindman ... then the teachers and things would connect them up, with people up east. And they were able go to school and got a real good education. In fact, Oliver, I don't know exactly, I think he went to Harvard. He graduated from Harvard; I think.

C.M.: That's amazing.

CORNETT: And then his sister Alta, she went to Science Hill and I'm sure it's through the settlement school that she got into Science Hill, and 47:00became a ... oh, it was during the war, and she went into the Navy. And she was a lieutenant or lieutenant commander or something in the Navy. So many of them that went on because of the connections with the Hindman Settlement School. I guess most of Hindman, and Knott County. They would come there from all over Knott County. They would take all they could. Because they couldn't get in, they didn't have other schools out in the county, you know to go to. And they would come to the settlement school, and they would take them in, all that they could. And educate them and they lived there. When 48:00you think about it, I just don't know what would have become of the people in Knott County, if it hadn't been for that settlement school. Miss Watts .. .I don't remember Miss Stone and Miss Pettit, but Bill's mother said that when they first came here. She lived ... they came, and they had a tent up there on the hill above the courthouse, back behind the courthouse.

CORNETT: You know where Ethel Sturgill lives there. Right up on that hill there, you see they lived. I guess Mamaw, we called her Mamaw. They lived down there in town. They knew they went up there. And she said they taught them up on that hillside, how to make beaten biscuits. That's where everybody learned the beaten biscuits. They would teach them to make things. And 49:00these young girls, they would go up there and they had a tent up there, before they ever. . .I guess before they even went to settlement school. And Bill's mother, she remembers how they would go up there and be with them and the things they would teach them. I don't remember Miss Pettit. I remember Miss Stone, I remember seeing her when I was there. Of course, I've known Miss Watts all my life. And some of the older ones ... My daughter, I mean my sisters all went there. They were all connected with the settlement school all the time. It was a great blessing I can tell you. It was a great blessing to have the settlement school down here. I 50:00tell you what I intend to, in two weeks from today, I'll be going up to Annette Hayes in Morgantown, West Virginia.

C.M.: Oh you are?

CORNETT: I'm going up there. Her husband is real sick. I'll see .. .I'll try to get her to write up ... to write up something for you.

C.M.: Yeah, that would be great.

CORNETT: And she if she can ... Oh, she can remember it all, Annette can. Cause she lived there all of her life, you know, in the school.

C.M.: Now where does she live?

CORNETT: Now? In Morgantown, West Virginia.

C.M.: I would love to go see her.

CORNETT: Yeah?

C.M.: You know I might try to figure out a way that I could go see her. Because there are so many people that live around here, like you, they walked to school. And they can tell me everything. I mean like this stuff you told me is just great. I 51:00didn't even ask you one question. I didn't need to. [laughter- CORNETT] CORNETT: You got that turned off, haven't you?

C.M.: No, I still have it turned on.

CORNETT: Oh me! Why you know what, I'm planning on going up there in about a week and I need a way home. Why don't you come up there and interview her and I'll get a ride back home with you.

END OF INTERVIEW