Oral History Interview with Ruby Dean Allen

RUBY DEAN ALLEN: I have this here for a purpose. And then I made a few notes here that I can glance at.

CASSIE MULLINS: I've gone ahead and turned it on, so it will get going. And if you don't care, just before you start, state your name and the years you were at the settlement school. Just whenever you're ready.

ALLEN: My name when I went to Hindman Settlement School was Ruby Dean Bollen, now it is Ruby Dean Bollen Allen. I went to Hindman in the Fall of nineteen twenty-eight. A road had not even been built into Hindman from Dwarf. We had to go part of the way in the creek, in what they called a mail hack, which was new to me. And I stayed until I graduated in nineteen thirty-four. So, six years is what I spent at Hindman. And you can see why it's a second home to me really. Because when you go to a settlement school, 1:00you're taken, you no longer have the parent's relationship. You are with other people, and it does become your home, you know. Of course, the parents keep up with you and write you letters. And you go home on vacations. I don't mean that you get rid of your parents. But as you live day by day, you don't have the parents looking over you. But I remember so well when my father took us to Hindman to ask Miss Stone if she had room for the three of us. My brother was older, he graduated in the class of thirty-three. And my little sister was just eight years old, and maybe a little bit young to go. Because it was a little bit harder for her to adjust. But I just want to .. .I think this, that I wrote about my 2:00first going to Hindman will express it better than I can tell you.

C.M.: Okay, that's fine.

ALLEN: It was growing dark on that Sunday in nineteen twenty-eight, when I first met her, May Stone, co-founder of the Hindman Settlement School. Poppa had led the three of us, my I brother, twelve, my sister, eight, and me, eleven, on the cobblestone paths and up the steep wooden steps to Hillside to find her. The three of us sat on the short, unpainted bench in her office and listened as the two of them discussed whether there was room in the dormitories for us to live and attend school, which was to start the very next morning. This was on a Sunday night before school was to start on Monday. My father had been in the first graduating class in nineteen eleven. This was where he wanted us to be. The picture of her that night remains vivid still. Her white hair, flat and wavy above her low forehead and drawn back into a bun. The 3:00gold chain hanging from her pine nezs glasses over blue eyes that were pleasant, alert, surveying, but also accepting. Her gentle, low voice. Her blue and white flowered dress with its white lace collar. Her matronly, buxom figure.

ALLEN: I had never felt so dignified a presence. It exuded from her and filled me with awe. It did not take long for her to tell poppa that she would make room for us, ask if he would speak at the opening exercises of school the next morning and directed him to the dormitories that would be our home for the next few years. That night we started to incur a debt; we would never be able to pay. We had entered a new world. And Cassie, one of the advantages of being older. I'm now eighty. I'm going to be eighty-one in August. One of the advantages of being older, is you can, there's 4:00not many advantages. But this is one of them. You can look back over your life and see the decisions you made and the things that happened and how one thing led to another and so forth. And I am just so grateful that they put us there. I never really understood for sure, I think, especially one teacher, seemed to resent the fact that we were there, since we had come from Hazard, where they had schools nearby, you know. But I think Miss Stone was very understanding and realized that my father was on very rough times with four children and renting and trying to practice law right near the Depression. In fact, once I asked Miss Watts, when I visited her in Knoxville at the retirement home. I said, "Miss Watts, you know, I can't remember much about the Depression. We 5:00never heard it discussed at Hindman. How did you all do? How did you keep us all up? How did you feed us when we were there in the Depression?" You know what she said? She said, "Well we had this wonderful man in town, Elijah Hicks, who ran a grocery store. And he would just let us run the credit, until we got enough money to pay for it." Isn't that wonderful?

C.M.: That is wonderful.

ALLEN: Well, I'll just get rid of these little pieces that had written these things. And I thought, that when I saw that you were coming, I thought well maybe. In fact, I wish I could give you a copy of this. This is the letter I wrote to Miss Watts on her hundredth birthday. My husband had a stroke and a heart attack, and I couldn't go to Tennessee. But I did so want to. So, I have said to her in this. I, of 6:00course, congratulate her. The settlement was home for almost six of these eighty-one years, but it laid the groundwork for my life, fashioning me into the person I was to become. You, Miss Watts, were central to that training. Memories come flooding back. Thank you. And here I have a list of the things, that really ... This came from the heart. Colonel stories you read to us and taught us to love.

C.M.: What were those?

ALLEN: We lived at Hillside. And this wonderful person that was so busy and burdened with so many worries, would gather us. I think there may have been about eight girls at Hillside. Who lived up there on the same floor that Miss Watts' room was. Her office was downstairs. But 7:00she would gather us, tired as she was, on every Tuesday night. And we would get together and sing ballads. And she helped us compose, later she helped us compose a whole little collections of old folk ballads. But then also she read to us, the Little Colonel stories. That was a series of this wealthy, little southern girl. And they were so interesting. I can just see her now. And listen. I can almost hear her voice reading those stories. It was a different world from what ours was. But I guess she was trying to broaden our view and know that there was life like that outside. Now someone wrote a book. I wish I could remember the title and the author. But in general, he criticized settlement schools for trying to uproot us out of our culture and give us ... you happen to know the name of that book?

C.M.: I'm trying to think. I've heard my dad talk about it before. 8:00ALLEN: But because of this letter I wrote to Miss Watts. I don't know how he learned that I had said it. But he puts me in the index. He quotes me, that she had read us the Little Colonel stories, and how awful that was, because she was trying to rip us out of our own backgrounds. Well, I tell you. None of us had much of a background to, that would have been dangerous, I mean bad to rip us out of I resent that criticism. He really didn't know what he was talking about. They gave us a whole new world and I hope that will come out in this interview, the things that I am really grateful for. I was thanking her specifically for these Little Colonel stories, and for the ballads you taught us and typed. She typed them herself for our little collections. And bowls of hot cereal served on wintery, Depression mornings. I can just see her now. We sat, Cassie, ten 9:00at a table, what we called a lady on each end. We didn't call them teachers. We called them ladies. And then there were five students on a side. And so, the hot cereal would sit in front of her. She would serve our bowls and pass them down. Thanked her for Spring tulip beds, purple iris and pink peonies for graduation. The path from the Orchard House over to the cabin. I can see it now, just lined in the Spring with these beautiful, deep purple iris on both sides.

ALLEN: And then for graduation, caps and gowns hadn't come in yet in nineteen thirty-three. In fact, class rings had never been heard of by most of us. But one girl in our class, who must have had a little money, had a class ring. We thought she was kind of strange. Who would want a ring? But anyway, for graduation, all the girls wore white dresses and carried three peonies, maybe a white, a 10:00red and a pink. Those colors, we carried three. I just think back to how beautiful we must have looked really. And the fellows, of course, had to wear their suits. But another thing I wanted to thank her for, was silent climbs up rest time hill on Easter mornings to greet the sun. We would go up that little cow path of cobblestones. There was a house up there then called Rest House, where teachers would go to get away, I guess, on weekends. Sometimes they'd do their own cooking and relax. You see, folk games came to Hindman after I left. There's a recreation house I think, up there now. And the rest house has long since gone. But we would file, nobody spoke a word, went single file. And we lined up, I don't know if we'd rehearsed. I don't think we'd rehearsed. But we lined up, all facing the east, and then someone 11:00who knew when, would start an Easter song. We'd sing that. And then throughout the group, somebody had been asked to read a scripture. And still as we were facing, nobody up front directing us. I shall never forget that. Well, a friend who lives on the same street, Sophie Holiday, said, well Hindman has just ruined me for sunrise services. She meant she could never find another as satisfying as that was. And then we would file downhill. And on Easter mornings we had scrambled eggs. That was a treat. We didn't have scrambled eggs any other time, except then. I wanted to thank her for that. And then Sunday evening prayers, hymns, and scriptures to cherish. Sunday night for supper we didn't sit around the tables. We sat in those beautiful homemade chairs, handmade 12:00chairs, facing each other in rows.

ALLEN: And she would sit in the middle of one row. And then we would either be facing her or be sitting by her. And those scriptures that she would read to us, stick with me to this day. And the songs that we sang. And then sometimes there would be little printed leaflets, but they were just simply, became just a part of us. And then of course, breathless Christmas mornings with stockings, presents galore, stocking presents galore. As Mildred Davidson once said, we had a pillowcase full of toys in that. It was just so wonderful. Even if you were a senior, you got a doll. I liked that, because I loved dolls. But then this was sweet, huddling around your radio to hear Big Ben striking all across the Atlantic. Now you see, radio had just come in. Television 13:00had not been heard of, at least in the Kentucky mountains. And so, she would ask us to come down. And in her office room there at Hillside, we could hear Big Ben in London striking. We just thought that nothing could be more, that technology had fulfilled its purpose. We didn't think there would ever be any more developments in technology. The list is endless. A herald to the fact that the settlement answered the needs of a growing girl. That's what it did. It answered the needs of a growing girl, value, acceptance, and ambition.

ALLEN: I said a moment ago that we were taken away from our parents, of course, voluntarily. I was thinking. I never heard a child scolded. I never felt all those six years anything except acceptance by anybody. And Miss 14:00Watts, see they were really in charge of Hindman Settlement School, Hindman High School, at that time. They were supplying the teachers for Hindman High School. That was a wonderful thing. Because she was importing people from all different states. People who wanted to come and I'm sure they didn't get paid very much. And so, they brought with them, their own cultures, and attitudes. And that broadened our horizons. And furthermore, they were better trained for teaching, because Kentucky hadn't had a time to do much with teacher training. And so, I think that was really, being a teacher myself, and knowing a lot of graduate schools, and how teacher training has been in the past. I think that was a very wise thing they did. And they were just such wonderful people. And even in the classroom, always acceptance. Never looked down upon, never felt to feel, made 15:00to feel inferior. I think that is marvelous. Because you've seen movies and so forth of boarding schools were they were always ... Never a cross word from anybody. Now that is something. If I had been home, I would have gotten some cross words from my mother occasionally. [Laughter] There must have been wearying days for you, along the way, Miss Watts.

ALLEN: This settlement girl is grateful that, day after day, year after year, you kept on. Your stamina and commitment were as firm and steady as the rock filled hills nestling the settlement. Therein lies your greatness, Miss Watts. Please admit it, accept it and glory in it, as I and countless others do for you, on this very special day. And I signed it, Ruby Dean, because that is what everybody called me back then. And I'm not going to read anymore. But that's what, I did want to pass those along, because it 16:00states it better than I could have myself And I really, I believe that Jessie Stoddard has a copy of this, Room for the Wagon. Have you heard that beautiful story of Miss Stone on the way to the Hindman Settlement?

C.M.: I've read some of it, yeah. I know about it.

ALLEN: And a man by the road with his children, and they made room in the wagon. Well, you see, that's what she did for us that night. She made room, even though school was to start the very next day. It must have been exasperating to have three children, three more children walk in the door. I don't understand why. We'd been over to see my grandmother that weekend. We didn't even know that we were coming to Hindman. I don't believe that we were even aware that's what we were going to do. And I imagine it was, in a way, a hard decision for him. But I think it was financial problems, is what I think it was at home. And he saw that we couldn't cope with the expenses 17:00of living in Hazard at that time. But the things that I have listed. I've already mentioned the staff and how they were just models for us. They did such wonderful things for us. They influenced us by their friendliness, by their speech. You know, I can still remember how I would learn a little bit about dialects. I remember we had a, the a ... .It's made me very sensitive about dialects. And my aim is, in fact, I taught a unit in dialects, when I was in Louisville. Because they say that eastern Kentuckians are very sensitive to different dialects, because they are a little worried about their own. But then I learned that everybody speaks in a dialect, you know.

ALLEN: But I learned Pennsylvanians spoke just the way Miss Carter did. 18:00She was a lovely English teacher. She pronounced her "wh's" just the way they do in Pennsylvania. Where were you that night? You know they don't say "wah". They don't do the "wah" sound the way we do down here. Then they would do so many extras for us. They would take us on walks into the hills. On Sunday afternoons, we'd have a quiet hour. I thought that was good. They'd get us lying down and resting. We called it the quiet hour. We would sometimes go to the hills. I have a picture of my eighth grade up there. We're just sitting on stones. And some fellows were with us. And we just look so happy, our lives stretching out before us. And those ladies didn't have to do that. But that was just something they wanted us to enjoy. 19:00Sometimes they would take us down the highway, and we would walk as far down as Ogden. I don't know if you know where Ogden is. And then when I was even in Little Girls' House, when I first went. I guess Miss Stone, because my sister was just eight years old, thought that I should be in the Little Girls' House with her. And that pleased me. She slept on the top bunk. And I remember one night they got us all up. I don't know whether, maybe just the older ones of us. And let us go up to the women's room to watch the eclipse of the moon.

ALLEN: And I had never even heard of an eclipse. I didn't know what one was. But just think of how awesome that was, awesome in the old sense. And how unselfish it was of them to give us that experience. And then on top of that, they asked us to write it up. And my first sense of pride was when 20:00my description of the eclipse of the moon was put in the little booklet that they put out. I can remember the color yet. It was yellow pages with a green cover. And it proved several things to me. It made me feel like a Hemingway, you know. But I had, had a very good background, the first six years in Hazard in grammar. And I think that. ...

C.M.: Wait a sec. [tape adjustment] There you go.

ALLEN: And then you know when I was in Orchard House, this lovely Miss Gallagher. Oh dear, she picked out four of us girls and taught us to knit. And bought us enough yam for a little short sleeved sweater. And she chose the color. We were all in the same class, maybe we were seniors. I'm not sure. I guess it was a little touchy. I 21:00imagine she figured out how to make the others not feel slighted, you know. But she chose the colors to suit us. I remember mine was yellow. And I don't know how many times we went to her room. And we all ended up with these hand-knit sweaters that we had done. I just could go on and on about the extra things that they did for us. Just their kindness, their extreme kindness and just making us feel at home and accepted, never making us feel inferior. I still have a beautiful ring that Rachel Mackelwayne gave to me. She was one of the secretaries at the Hindman, at the Orchard House. She just gave it to me because she wanted me to have it. I guess I was a senior. And 22:00she knew that it was something that I could never buy for myself. So, you just have lasting memories of these people.

And then I was thinking. I'm not letting you talk much. Would you like to ask me a question?

C.M.: No, that's fine. You just keep going.

ALLEN: Well, I was thinking. I'll run down this first. Wordsworth speaks of spots of time, and when you get this old, you look back over, there are spots of time that just stand out over the others. And I have already mentioned the sunrise services. They were absolutely .... When the sun came up, just imagine how wonderful that feeling was. Us all standing there facing ... .I see, I think more of the dining room than any other place. Around the table. I 23:00guess to have ten teenagers sitting around your table, you wonder what you are going to talk about. So, we would play games around the table. We played ghost. Have you ever played ghost?

C.M.: No.

ALLEN: A word game. You start a word, and the aim is to not end it. Because if you end it, then you've lost. You have to drop out. And so, we played that. Sometimes we came up with ... .I remember one time we were picking out things from the Bible, and just giving initials. And making everyone guess what it was. Like the "A" would stand for the Ark. I came up with "COMC" [Laughter], coat of many colors, you know. I think somebody, I think somebody guessed it. And another spot of time is study hall in the Orchard House, and we actually studied. If we didn't study, we read.

C.M.: Was that something you had to do every day?

ALLEN: Every night. Well, 24:00I'm not sure about Friday night. I'm not sure when we had study hall on ... .I don't remember that. But I just remember I can see exactly where that table was and where my chair was. Study hall, I don't know how much it lasted. And then I can see us on the Circle. I miss the Circle when I go back. What we called the Circle, that is the area right in front of Orchard House and Eastover and the hospital and Hillside. We called it the Circle. It was not a circle, but it was a beautiful lawn. In the middle of it was a well. I'm sure your father can tell what happened to that well. But the big stone wall around it. And we would go up there and sit on that wall after supper and sing. Always singing at Hindman, always singing. I think that is where I learned so much about.. .. where I got the love of music. Of course, I come from a singing family. But we sang in the Circle. June 25:00Johnson could play a guitar okay, and we could harmonize. And I think of how that music must have reverberated. Because in the hills, you have more reverberations of sounds. And I have a feeling that the ladies enjoyed that. Another spot of time is on Miss Cobb's porch. And it can't be anybody else's except Miss Cobb's.

ALLEN: The second porch up in Hillside, a big, long .... And Miss Stone used to sit over in the comer of it. She would sit there where she could survey the whole settlement. And I often thought as I'd see her there, what she was thinking of as she .... You know the story of how they lived in tents when they first came. And young men shot up the town. That was the kind of culture we had here. So, I don't blame them at all for trying to lift us up out of that. But Miss Cobb slept out there. She slept out on that porch. She had a cot there. 26:00And when I was a senior, I had the best job of all. I got to work at Hillside. And I was a big boss of all the other girls, you know. I was in charge of all the others who worked under me. I felt very much like an executive. Because the places had to be kept spotless. We actually scrubbed the floors with soap and water and then rinsed them with cloths. And we didn't object. I never heard a child complain about working, never, we were just glad. Somehow, we knew. We were only paying ten dollars a semester for tuition. Just ten dollars. And so, things were kept spotless. But I can remember going out there to wake .... My job was to wake everyone up. Miss Cobb would be out there. I think now in the zero weather they would talk her into staying inside. Please stay inside.

ALLEN: But she loved that fresh air. It was not screened in, 27:00you know. I actually can remember some dust of snow on her covers, and she would still be there. Then speaking of singing. After supper the teachers bonded with us, some more than others. I can remember the Manzart girls that were from California. One taught me my first note on the keyboard. She was the pianist. And then the sister was an elementary teacher. But I can remember our sitting on the porch of Hillside after supper, singing and harmonizing. And the steps and the porch were painted a bright orange, which blended so beautifully with the brown of the building, you know. But 28:00I can just remember one song we sang. And I'm just going to sing a little verse of it if you don't mind.

C.M.: No, go right ahead.

ALLEN: [Singing] In the evening by the moonlight, you could hear the darkies singing.

Okay, that's finished. Yeah.

C.M.: We might want to move. [Vacuum] But just think how this sounded with all of us young girls. I've always said the eastern Kentucky children can sing. When some babies are slapped on the back they cry. But eastern Kentucky babies start singing. I used to tell my glee club that. And I think that this love of singing that I had and then I did have a glee club at Napier High School. And I think it was just a girl’s chorus. But we sang at Hindman Settlement School. They invited us to come over once. And we went to Lee's College, and we sang in the churches and in the drive-ins, sunrise 29:00services. And I'm sure it was rooted right in there. Anyway, one of the songs that we sang on the steps of Orchard House, at Hillside, I remember. [Singing] In the evening by the moonlight, you could hear the darkies singing. In the evening by the moonlight, you could hear the banjos ringing. How the old folks did enjoy it, they would sit all night and listen. As we sang in the moonlight, long ago. That tune has just haunted me. All the way down. It belongs right there on that porch at Hillside. And then in the Circle. And then we 30:00had, this lovely Manzart lady, had a glee club too. And we didn't sing songs that were familiar to us. They were more or less classical excerpts, like Cheri Beri Beri Bim, and taken from the classical music. And I think that she realized that eastern Kentucky girls could sing. And that's what she helped us to do.

START OF TAPE 20 A 9a, RUBY DEAN ALLEN, SIDE B C.M.: I thought it sounded fine.

ALLEN: Well, it's a lovely little tune. I think that really the settlement was so beautiful in its simplicity. And I think that really, I got my love of the simple life there. I don't really, have never really yearned for the richer things. 31:00Handmade things, quilts and so forth, homemade furniture.... because Mr. Amburgey used to have a shop over there. My brother, we mentioned we were talking about my brother, Charles Bollen, who went there. His prize possession is a little bureau of drawers, maybe four big drawers. It's his prize possession in his home right now. And I imagine his four daughters are going to fight over it whenever he's gone, unless he puts it in his will. And I think that it also, I wasn't as conscious of the hills at home in Hazard.

ALLEN: Of course, we have hills all around us. I learned the love of the hills, too. I can remember now, I'm not just spoofing here, this is really true. At that age 32:00with this spiritual training that they somehow had imparted to us. Just with our prayers at the dinner table, our Sunday night devotions. We were allowed to go to church in the mornings and then those sunrise services. They attended to our spiritual needs without being preachy or coercive. And I can remember standing on Miss Cobb's porch where Miss Stone used to sit, too. All by myself out there and looking at that hill. I can see the rim of it now. And just saying, I will lift mine eyes into the hills, the psalm. Now this is a teenage girl. I graduated when I was sixteen. Well I was going to be seventeen in August, but it sounds better. But 33:00I just am thankful for that. And I wonder. I wasn't perfect, you know. I had my faults, you know. I don't want you to think that I was such a perfect individual that I was. But it was just somehow moving to look at the hills. I think I learned my love of them there, more so than in Hazard. Because we walked as I said in them, on the Sunday afternoon with the teachers as chaperones.

ALLEN: So, it's just a never-ending story. I can see so well now, after all these years how it really molded me. They looked after our academic interests see, like importing the teachers and even the principal and so forth. They built on my strength 34:00in English. The foundation that I had. And we, at that time, would have little contests, county contests. Every school would send a .... And I always got to go in English. And a, then came the day of graduation and I have a picture. Mike, you father, was good enough to lend me the pictures, so I could have a copy of it made. And then from my copy, I've had copies made for the members of my class. And I look so sad, because my mother was in the hospital at the time in Lexington. But you know she had thought maybe she could have it in Louisville. And Miss Stone allowed her to come to Louisville and spend the night in her apartment with her. The night before she was to go into the hospital. But then for some reason she changed over to Lexington. So, nobody 35:00was at my graduation, except my baby sister, Katherine, who would be a good one to interview too. She lives in Abingdon. Just the three of us left. My little brother that we left at home. I so wished he could have gone with us. His life would have been so different.

ALLEN: Thirty-one years old when he died. And we're still grieving for George, because he never had the privilege of going to Hindman and having these influences that I am talking about. Then after Hindman, after I graduated. I can't remember for sure just how Miss Watts did it. But she told me at the end of high school, that she would like to recommend me to Science Hill, Science Hill Preparatory 36:00School for girls. It no longer exists. It was in Shelbyville, which is thirty miles from Louisville. Evidently, they allowed Hindman to recommend two girls to come down. I didn't realize it at the time, to prepare for Wellesley. I didn't know that was in the picture at all. I just knew that I was going to get to go to another school. And my, that was a marvelous experience too. There I experienced a culture I had never seen before. Lovely family. Wealthy girls throughout the south. But it was known as one of the best preparatory schools of the south. And its main purpose was to prepare you for College Boards. And get you ready for these, not all ivy league colleges, but you know, the better colleges. And that was a really wonderful experience.

ALLEN: I 37:00had to stay two years, because I hadn't taken French at Hindman. See, I have made some mistakes in my life. I took Latin all four, three years, I guess, through Cicero. But Hindman, I mean Wellesley required an ancient language and a modem, so I had to take two years in order to get my two years of French at Science Hill. Most of them would just stay one year and go on. The girl that went with me was Frankie Smith. It was wise I thought that they allowed two of us to come. Because then we had a little touch of home. That was a marvelous experience. I still didn't realize that I was there for Wellesley, because it never entered my mind. I remember when Miss Julia called me in one day and with the same atmosphere there, acceptance all the way, acceptance, 38:00acceptance. These two little girls from the mountains mixed in with all the others. But I could build on my piano experience. Had two years of wonderful piano lessons. And Miss Julia called me and said, "Ruby Dean would you like to go to Wellesley?" And I said, "Where is that?" [Laughter] I had never heard of it, never heard of it.

ALLEN: But the strange thing is, Cassie, you've never heard of this very often. But not many people got the choice of Wellesley or nothing. It was either Wellesley or nothing with me. And nobody had ever mentioned Berea, my going to Berea. I guess maybe we couldn't even afford to go to Berea. I guess my middle name is Cinderella. I guess I just 39:00wonder why all these opportunities .... As you get this age, you wonder why. I believe, you see, that God kind of guides you in life. I just don't think I deserve all that I have received of other people's help and their money. And I think that really is influencing me now. Because for forty-eight years I have taught something, for forty-eight years.

ALLEN: For a while when we were living near Washington, near my daughter to help her with an unexpected grandbaby. I was teaching SAT prep and GED. Then I came back to Hazard after nine years and I taught in a college, English, of course. Then I stopped after my two full years to part time, because of my husband's ... . I 40:00was fearful for him living here alone, when everybody else was leaving for work. That he might have an unfavorable visitor some time at the first of the month when your new checks come. I began to think I was putting him in danger. So, I went part time at the college. But then a few little health problems, not anything to amount to much. Shortness of breath kind of scares me. I turned down a class at the college this year. They wanted me to teach again, but I've just been substituting.

ALLEN: And adopted a little boy down at the alternative school on March sixteenth. I asked the teacher if I could come and work with him one on one. I could see that he would never be able to do anything with the whole group. So, I gave about fifty or something hours, just with him. 41:00And that's still an ongoing project. But I think all of this wanting to pay back, pay back. And also, to be of help until I die. [Laughing] I don't know how many more years I have, you know, when you're this old. I'll be eighty-one in August. But I'm not really worried about that. I've been blessed with health and strength. And maybe because of the good nutrition at Hindman, you see. But my mother was a wonderful cook. We were never hungry. I think the grocery bills were hard to pay at home. She always tried to have a balance diet. And then I think if you just stay busy. And if you teach school, I think teaching school keeps you young, so to speak. It doesn't stop you from being eighty [Laughing], but I think it does something to your outlook, and your own understanding and 42:00acceptance of people. I have a real tendency to look at the reason a child says the wrong thing. Or if he, it comes from just asking a child a question. If he gives the wrong answer, then you think, now what's making him say that? What is in his mind? And I would never be able to be on a jury. [Laughing] Because they wouldn't want me on there. Because I would always, even a child, who .... these shootings and so forth. I keep thinking, now what behind in this child's background caused him to do that? And it would just be hard for me to be a fair judge, I think. I'd just have to reason out, why did people do and talk the way they do.

C.M.: How much do you think the influence, how you say .... Because you obviously have a great love for teaching children and for helping.

ALLEN: Oh yeah.

C.M.: And this great appreciation 43:00to see that others get an education. Now what kind of influence, I guess, did being at Hindman have on that?

ALLEN: Oh, I think that it was simply because I felt that we had wonderful teachers. I was just naturally curious. I would just go to the library. And they had a beautiful library in the new high school. I must tell you, when I started as a freshman, the high school was an old log house down by the cabin, where they have the crafts now. I guess they've tom it down now. They used it for a shop a little bit, I think after we moved out of it. I remember the day. The students, we just picked up our chairs and books and moved it over ourselves. They didn't have a big moving van. We just, everybody pitched in, and we moved to the new high school. And there was this big thing called a library. It was a wonderful place. My father's picture was hanging on the wall. He graduated in 44:00nineteen eleven. I saw someplace not too long ago, that the first graduating class was nineteen and two. I don't quite .... He always thought that he and Miss Hale. She thought so too. That they were. She was the director of Homeplace. She graduated in his class. That their class was the first one. Maybe there had been other graduates, but I don't believe a formal graduation.

C.M.: Yeah, I don't think so either.

ALLEN: But he was very proud of that. I think that I can remember just spending a study hall sitting and turning through an encyclopedia. Can you see some teenager now doing that? I think just part of it was my mental curiosity. They had just shown me that there was another world out there. And of course, James Still came right about in 45:00thirty-one, shortly after I got there. And he was a wonderful librarian. The only thing I regret was, he started teaching typing the year after I graduated. So, I have never been to a college or school that taught typing. So, I still don't know the touch system. [Laughing] I just have my own. Even at Wellesley I would have to borrow someone's typewriter to type my themes. And I'd hunt and peck at three o'clock in the morning and so forth. It would have been so much better if I could have had typing.

C.M.: What do you remember about Mr. Still being there? He came about the time that you came there to school.

ALLEN: Yes. He was just as quiet, a handsome, young fellow. And I think he could have taken his pick from any of the girls, the female workers. I don't know what the word is to describe Mr. Still. He seems 46:00to have such inner depth and such a presence in the room. When you're in the room with him, his presence just fills it. I would see him walking on the campus. And sometimes with one of the ladies. But he didn't teach anything. He was just purely librarian, the year I was there. So, I don't know of him as a teacher. But he was very friendly with the .... He lived in Eastover, where the boys lived. And I think he was a very good influence on them. In fact, I understand in World War II, when he was in Egypt, in that theater of the war, that he received a medal for being such a good influence on his fellow soldiers. I don't know what the name of the medal is. I didn't know the Army gave that. But he did receive that. I 47:00didn't know, of course, that he was writing at all. That hadn't been .... He was not writing at that time. I guess he started later. I knew that he had, I think I knew that he had. Didn't he come and help in the Sunday school or Bible school or something at Hindman and then decided to come back?

C.M.: Yes, I think so.

ALLEN: I dearly love him as a person. He .... After I went to Wellesley, I memorized one of his short stories. And I wrote him. [Laughing] I wasn't going to memorize it unless he knew about it. For a speech class, we had to memorize a short story, word for word. And I chose his. And I wrote him a letter. I wish I had saved the letter he wrote back. But the fact that he would take time to write such a long letter back, really impressed me. I think of it. 48:00Know some letters I've gotten from students and some of them maybe I never got around to answering. But his influence on me, maybe just the fact that he was not a lady. He was a man working there. And of course, acceptance all the time. I think, I kind of wish .... Of course, it's hindsight. Of course, education back then was not so involved in leadership. I don't think I have ever been a leader. I think that we didn't have many opportunities to show our leadership. We were always in groups. I don't think that I have leadership. But I read once, that a father writing about his daughter, trying to get her in college. Said, I don't think of her as a leader, 49:00but she's a good follower. So, I've always thought of myself as a follower. [Laughing] if I have an idea. I don't know if that goes back to living with so many ladies and superiors.

ALLEN: I just maybe felt. ... I lack a little bit of the freedom to speak my own mind. I don't know if I should tell you this or not. But this was one time when Miss Watts called me in to talk to me and I couldn't tell her the full truth about it. You know teenage girls when they're going through the big change in their lives. We didn't have money to buy the sanitary supplies that you need. I believe that they supplied 50:00us with some sort of clean cloths and so forth to use. But I had a highly prized box of brought on sanitary supplies. [Laughing] I was living at Practice Home that year and the worst thing you could do would be to take one of those, because they were so cherished by you. A girl I was living with did. And I made the comment, I just wish she would leave my things alone. And bless her heart, she grabbed a bottle of alcohol and came running at me. And was just furious and was going to hit me with this bottle of alcohol. And all I knew to do to protect myself, was just fall back on my bed and maybe try to protect myself with my feet. This is awful. [Laughing] And accidentally I guess I hit her ear. And I think she had ear trouble or something. But anyway 51:00 ...

C.M.: Oh, no.

ALLEN: The word got back to me that I had burst her eardrum. And so, Miss Watts called me up to talk to me. To try to explain to her, I didn't have the courage to do it. I just took the rap myself.

C.M.: Rather than tell her what...

ALLEN: Rather than tell her. I don't know if that came from living in the settlement, my little bit of. . .I didn't feel cowed down in any way. And yet I don't remember that I felt the real freedom to express. Now this is not a criticism. Maybe it was just because I was so sensitive. Maybe it is a personal weakness of mine. I didn't have the .... And even to this day if you disagree with me, I will kind of, you know, pull in. I think that's right now. I've noticed. I can't trace. Well, it might be .... You see I was in three schools. At Science Hill, I was with wealthy 52:00girls, you know. The only time that it bothered me, was when I was in a piano recital. I remember I played that year. And I loved that song, piano solo. And I remember, it was the only time I ever really worried about being with wealthy people. The only dress I had to wear was this little organdy dress with three tiers and a skirt that a cousin had made for me when I graduated from high school. I guess I wore it on class day or something. We had a class day, a graduation class day. And I reached my breaking point after I played it. And I played it beautifully, I think. But these wealthy girls' parents had come down from Chicago and they looked like little princesses, you know. That was the one time when it hit me, that I was so different. But I decided I was never going to let it.. .. I went sobbing 53:00to my room afterwards. And that was a breakdown on my part. I'm not proud of that. I didn't feel that at Wellesley at all.

ALLEN: Of course, Wellesley has a working dorm, where .... See Science Hill controlled money at Wellesley. Their uncle had left money to Wellesley to be used for girls that Science Hill recommended. So, I could not live in the working dorm. Because my scholarship was full, you see. It had to be for people who really needed it. But I never felt that anymore. In fact, I think that people who have been wealthy all their lives, have never been associated with poor people. They just think that everybody has money someplace. So, they don't really know about it. I had a job at Wellesley of going .... They would put their shoes that needed to 54:00go to the shoe shop outside their door. I would go down the hall saying, "shoes for Alexander's". And if they didn't have them out, they would bring them out. And then I would get a commission, you see. I would take them down. And so I learned very quickly that wealth ... .I visited once in the home of a very rich Wellesley—I went home with a very lovely girl from Buffalo on spring vacation, when I didn't have the money to go home on. I visited a very rich. She took me over to see another, our mutual friend.

ALLEN: I'm talking about wealth, where the maid comes in and fluffs your pillows, with the little, white cap and the black uniform. And puts your orange juice on the table. But that was an unhappy home, that was an unhappy home. I learned early that money does not necessarily make a happy home. And I think maybe Hindman 55:00kept me from marrying in New England, when I was there in college. It was a girl's school, of course, then. I think boys attend now, but don't live there. But the campus was full, swarming with boys on the weekends, from all these New England colleges. And there were opportunities, but I knew all the time that I did not want to try to fit into a culture that wasn't mine. I thoroughly enjoyed every day the beautiful campus. My daughter visited Wellesley campus and said, "Mother, it's the most beautiful campus I've ever seen." I said, "I've been trying to tell you, honey." And she took a video of it to let me .... I've never been back.

C.M.: You haven't?

ALLEN: No, I don't. You see, I knew. I keep up with them. I write regularly to some of them. I was just passing. It was a chapter in my life, where I was just passing through. And I knew I was going to end up back in eastern Kentucky, 56:00where I felt at home. I have seen, you know, movies and so forth have been made of how it just didn't work out. An actress, I think, from Harlan tried that and it didn't work. I don't think you can mix cultures.

C.M.: It would be hard.

ALLEN: Well anyway, down in eastern Kentucky was a nice young man called Everett Allen, who was working at Homeplace. He graduated from Berea in thirty-one, a major in Chemistry, straight A's. And came to visit his .... He graduated in thirty-one, and between that time, he came to visit Homeplace. You know where that is? His sister was working there. And so, Miss Hale asked him if he would come and help her with the library project that she was getting 57:00started. And so, he came in thirty-three and stayed there thirty-eight years. And after we were married, I knew that whatever happened to our marriage, it could not affect his wonderful work. We absolutely could not let his beautiful work stop. Such feedback as he had. We'd go to Walmart, the girl in layaway would say, aren't you the book man who used to bring me books? And Cassie honey, this is the sweetest story. On the day that he died, the little nurse that gave him his last bath. She said, "I think Mrs. Allen, if it's all right with you, I'll bathe him. I believe if we move him around a little, it will make him feel better." And I said, "Anything that you think." So, as she was working, I said. I didn't think he could hear me. I said," There's a lot of people going to have fond memories of this man." 58:00And she said, "I'm going to have fond memories of this man. He used to save back the nursing books for me on his book truck and I read these nursing books." And here she is a nurse, she said.

C.M.: Isn't that something.

ALLEN: So, he was a true educator. And I finally convinced the Homeplace Board of that. He was more than a truck driver. He knew his books, but more than that he knew .... What is education unless you can find out the abilities of children. The level of reading and find out their interests. And fit the book to the child. That's education. So many have said. The pest man came. You know in these old homes you have spraying occasionally. And he said, "Mr Allen, you used to save me the Cowboy Sam books." Bye. Is he here honey?

VISITOR: He'll be here in just a minute. 59:00Nice to meet you.

C.M.: It was nice to meet you.

ALLEN: Norma honey, try to get some rest. And thanks again, thanks again. [Laughing] You know how I appreciate it. Couldn't do without you.

C.M.: Well, this is .... You've given me so much information. I don't know ... .I'm going to stop it just for a second. Okay, go ahead.

ALLEN: Another spot of time I guess I should have mentioned is waiting for time to actually enter the dining room at Orchard House. And the teachers would all be out there waiting with us. And Miss Watts and Miss Stone would have to make the walk, all everybody, three times a day, down and back. I guess it was good exercise, but we hadn't heard much about exercise then. I used to think how hard it was on them. But that was a time of close association with the teachers too. I 60:00think they, without feeling superior or anything, they would just talk to us and bond with us, even closer. In the dining room you just knew the one at the head of the table and the one at the foot of the table.

C.M.: Oh, Okay.

ALLEN: Such wonderful, happy memories. And I guess I can tell you another. They not only took care of our ... .I could talk all day about Hindman. They took care of us academically with our study halls, our libraries, our reading, our teachers, imported teachers, that were just wonderful people in the first place. I'm sure they didn't make very much money. That they came for practically nothing. And they were highly dedicated people to begin with, fine characters. They took care, not only of the academic, and I mentioned the spiritual, and all these extra kindnesses they did for us. Helping us to appreciate 61:00nature by going up into the hills, walking in the hills with us. They also helped us ....

BEGINNING OF TAPE 20 A 9b, RUBY DEAN ALLEN, SIDE A C.M.: Okay, now we can get started again.

ALLEN: Tell me when.

C.M.: Oh you're .... go ahead.

ALLEN: At the end of the other tape, I was kind of summing up how Hindman had helped us academically and spiritually, and in our love of nature and so forth. But I failed to say that they 62:00looked after our health needs, too. And my grandson has just gone through this horrible experience with abscessed tonsils, at age eighteen. But fortunately for me, Hindman brought in doctors, I suppose from Louisville. On a volunteer basis, I feel sure. And they would come in and just remove the tonsils of. .. We had a resident nurse at Hindman. She lived in the hospital.

ALLEN: You would go to her for minor things. And then she would go to the doctor in town, call him in if we needed anything she couldn't give us. And his name was Dr. Duke. He was a saint and worked closely with Miss Watts. That was wonderful, the way Miss Watts and Miss Stone had this wonderful relationship with the town. They really had expertise. And I see that now. I wasn't aware of that 63:00when I was there. But the way they .... As I have said, brought in the teachers. And then how they let us go two by two to Science Hill, rather than alone. And then how they .... But this is the most wonderful service they rendered us. They brought in these doctors from Louisville to remove tonsils. And I have to tell you the method. Because now with all of our technology of removing tonsils, but this one worked. First, we would line up. The nurse would have checked. Maybe the resident doctor in Hindman had looked at our tonsils and decided we needed to have them taken out. And then we would go in one by one and let them inject. The needle to me looked a yard long. I'm sure it was not quite that. But they would inject each tonsil with a, you know. deadening. And you sat.. .. The main 64:00doctor, who's the surgeon. Just little girls. you know. And you would sit between his knees, as close as you could get to him. And then Dr. Duke, this Hindman doctor would hold your head for you. Helped you steady the head, you know. He wasn't holding you down or anything. But then they would inject this, some kind of anesthesia in your tonsils.

ALLEN: And then you would go back in the hallway of the hospital to wait your tum to have them removed. And as you, others would be following you to go in and get this injection. All this time your tonsils would be ... .it felt as if they were just swelling up. And you just thought you were going to choke to death. So, by the time it came for you to go in and get them cut out, you went willingly. [Laughter] Because you felt as if.. .. But I think I went when I was eleven. I'm not sure. It must have been the next year that I had mine out. Then you would go in and sit the same way. And this lovely, 65:00kind doctor, who evidently was volunteering his services, and the nurses. He brought his own nurses. Maybe two or three doctors, but I just had the one. And then he just cut them out. Mine was so large that they showed them all over the hospital. [Laughter] So that's another little. I had to get my fame in there too. I'm famous. But then he said, now let's look up and see if you have any adenoids.

ALLEN: And of course, he knew I had some. And so, he clipped them out without anesthesia. I can still feel that little twitch. But now that was a real service. Because I had been sick with those things at home in Hazard. I remember one, the infection from them, I think. One morning I woke up and I couldn't lift either leg off the bed, except my left leg I could lift about an inch off the bed. And I'm sure that was from those infected tonsils. And we just didn't have the money to go in for surgery or anything. People didn't talk much about tonsils. I 66:00was so relieved to get rid of those. And then they also gave us what they called hookworm treatments. You know we ... .I don't remember going barefoot when I was that old in the summertime. But I guess that was a very good thing too. There came a time when none of us really liked it. But, you prepared a specimen and they would give you the hookworm treatments if you needed them. That was a weekend affair, and I can still taste the medicine. Monday morning when it came time to eat, you were ready for something to eat. I guess it was necessary.

C.M.: But I'd say that people really had never .... didn't really have that kind of healthcare before.

ALLEN: That's right. And everybody went barefoot. When I was little, you just put your shoes away when school went out and then you got new shoes when school started, you know. Of course, except on Sunday when you dressed up. You had shoes, 67:00you just didn't wear them. And so that was something I wanted to put in and it was really wonderful. They looked after the whole child. You talk about the whole child now, but Hindman really looked out for the whole child.

C.M.: What do you think? I guess in your opinion, after we've talked about all these experiences you've had. And of course, if there's anything else as we're talking you just feel free to put it in, that's fine. But how do you feel about the settlement's impact on this area as a whole? From the educational point of view. It's impacted Hindman and Knott County. But how has it affected just the whole area? From your experience, from being there, being a part of it. What do you think about it?

ALLEN: Oh, I think that its effect was tremendous. I think that the way they were able to accept children. Lift 68:00them out of their environment and bring them into a healthy, safe .... by healthy I mean well-nourished and sanitary conditions. It was just wonderful. But you have to remember the impact then was not publicized as much as it is now. It seems to me with the writers and all the visitors coming in .... you've got to remember there were no telephones. Even when Everett and I married in nineteen forty, there was no telephone between here and Troublesome, the Home Place hospital. There was no telephone even. And Miss Watts .... the radio was just coming in and that's when she would call us down and help us to listen to Big Ben. We were very proud of that little box radio. Silently (??) I guess .... you know what Foxfire is? I think really Hindman 69:00was just there. And it was in, like Foxfire, it was in a dark, damp forest and yet it was taking root in so many people's lives. And then they're the ones who have made the impact. But they were the instigators. And just think of the hundreds of children that they have .... whose lives they .... got them from their own environments at home and got them up and got them on their way. I wish. There were no guidance counselors then, you see. No. I think somebody said ... .I don't think there were any organized cheerleaders even.

ALLEN: We had the Yellow Jackets. We would walk over to the ball games in the gym of the new high school. When I was there, it was an entirely different society. But their impact at the time was not publicized that much, because there was no television, no communication. The 70:00only people that knew about it, was the fathers and parents of the children. But my, just think of the impact now. It was just slowly growing and glowing just the way Foxfire does. And then it became brilliant in the lives of its students that went on out. Because somehow their commitment, even Miss Stone's and Miss Watts' commitment, aside from all the staff, you picked that up. And I don't want to try to wave any flags here, but I really do think that inside I have a deep debt of gratitude that I'm trying to pay. Well, like for instance, I have just stopped working with my little boy, one on one, since March sixteenth. Before that I was substituting in all of the .... whoever called, you know. Perry County, I guess. Just want 71:00to do everything I can in the years left. I've always had that feeling of giving of myself because I saw it so at Hindman in them, you see. They never told you, never talked about it. No guidance counselor to help you to know what characteristics you should have. You just picked it up from them. And that was the impact on the students, a big impact. Newspapers were not that widespread. I'm sure there wasn't a Troublesome Creek Times. I can remember as I was older, there was a Hazard paper. The Cincinnati Post, I can remember that. That's what we all liked the funnies in. We didn't get that at Hindman. But in the summertime, we'd read the funnies in the Cincinnati Post, which I don't know what the price of it would have been. An entirely different era, when you could buy .... the best pair of shoes would cost four dollars and ninety-five 72:00cents, you know. Pound of Maxwell House coffee, thirty-five cents. Even when we were married in nineteen forty, an A&P Coffee just cost twenty-one cents a pound, so we drank A&P coffee. You going to get that now?

C.M.: No.

ALLEN: So, it was an entirely different era, but in a way, it was a wonderful era. Because you were in a wonderful place, and you were finding out, and being trained. You were finding out what you were good for. Having all this wonderful training and inspiration, because of their inspiration. The impact now, as far as communications is concerned can't really be compared.

C.M.: Exactly.

ALLEN: Of course, the women's clubs that influenced Miss Stone to come and so forth, I'm sure that they knew all about that. Now there was a rivalry between Hindman and Caney, we didn't call it Owsley then. Because 73:00we felt that Caney's method of raising funds was unethical. In fact, this girl with whom I had the little run in about my sanitary supplies, had been on one of their crusades. And I had her word for it, that she had to tell things that were not really true. She had to exaggerate.

C.M.: Do you feel that ever happened at Hindman?

ALLEN: Oh no, I do not. There were never any crusades at Hindman. I think there have to be letters asking politely for contributions. Never any exploiting children in any way. I think it's exploitation in a way, sending them to exaggerate, and tell things that were exaggerated or maybe half true. Because Eunice, 74:00the one that.. . .I regret that I've always been a little timid to really speak my mind and to defend myself, really. I don't know where that came from. I don't know. I wish I had told the truth of that to Miss Watts when I was in Knoxville. But you know another thing, Miss Watts was so able to .... she understood. She and Miss Stone were both very accepting. Now, we didn't see Miss Stone much. She came in the summer and relieved Miss Watts. When Miss Watts came back. She came about her birthday on May first. We danced the Maypole for her and so forth. And my, she was an awesome figure. She just looked like a queen, always lace. She 75:00didn't finish at Wellesley, and Wellesley itself wondered why. I was talking with an office there, and she said, we just wish we knew. It must have been because after she heard of the opportunities here. She decided she'd just finish the three years there. But when I was at Wellesley, she came to visit me.

ALLEN: She came to Wellesley. The little town is Wellesley. And she came to my dorm room. And some friends had some teacups and goodies and helped me give her a little tea party, you know. They came in and met her. I know she left a bit of money to Wellesley, two hundred and fifty thousand, I think. I always kind of wondered about that. I think the hardest thing of all, was getting scholarships to go someplace and 76:00not having the clothes or the supplies to go on. But the church women down here gave me a wonderful shower before I went to Wellesley. Hindman gave me one thing I remember. It was a trunk that wouldn't latch. The little tongue wouldn't go in. Everybody had trunks in those days. The neighbor fellow, he just tied it around with a great big, something like the Navy uses, [Laughing] those big, old ropes, you know. That was the trunk I used all through Wellesley. It was put in the attic. I was a little bit ‘em harassed by that. You learn your own acceptance when you don't.. .. When one thing outweighs the other. It was more important for me to stay in Wellesley and get prepared to teach and help the situation at home, than it was--was to worry about a trunk. So, you learn to ....

C.M.: That would definitely be first.

ALLEN: Cassie, I'm afraid I have kept you too long.

C.M.: No, you haven't kept me too long. 77:00END OF INTERVIEW