Oral History Interview with Mary Tisdale

BETSY BRINSON: This is an interview with Mary Lillian Tisdale. The interview takes place at her residence in Park City, Kentucky, and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson.

BRINSON: Ms. Tisdale, just so we get a voice-over, would you give me your complete name please?

MARY TISDALE: My name is Mary Lillian Tisdale.

BRINSON: Well thank you very much Ms. Tisdale, for agreeing to talk with me today.

TISDALE: Yes.

BRINSON: I know Secretary Helm met you, and thought that you had some very interesting stories to share, and asked me to come bring my tape recorder and see what you could tell us here.

TISDALE: Yes ma'am.

BRINSON: Let me start, if I could please, tell me where and when you were born?

TISDALE: I was born December the 16th, 1919.

BRINSON: And where were you born?

TISDALE: Here in Barren County.

BRINSON: Barren County?

TISDALE: Yes ma'am.

BRINSON: B-a-r-r-e-n?

TISDALE: Yes ma'am.

BRINSON: Okay, so you were born in 1919, that makes you, how old?

TISDALE: Eighty.

BRINSON: Eighty years old.

TISDALE: Yes ma'am.

BRINSON: And have you spent most of your life here in Barren County?

TISDALE: Yes ma'am.

BRINSON: Okay. Um, tell me please, what you know about your ancestors, your parents, your grandparents, how far back you might know?

TISDALE: Well, my father and mother lived, well not too old, but I had a great-grandmother that lived to be a hundred and three. She was a slave.

BRINSON: What was her name?

TISDALE: Ellize Edwards.

BRINSON: Ellize Edwards, and can you spell Ellize for me?

TISDALE: E-l-l-i-z-e.

BRINSON: Okay, and where did she, where was she a slave?

TISDALE: Here. Here in Park City, in Barren County.

BRINSON: Did you ever know her?

TISDALE: Oh yes. She lived with us for a while. She was blind, and my mother and father, after my grandmother and father died, my mother and father kept her.

BRINSON: Okay. How, how old was she when she was freed from slavery?

TISDALE: Well I do not know that. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: Was she a little girl, or . . .

TISDALE: No she was grown, I know she was grown because when she passed she was a hundred and three.

BRINSON: Okay, and that would have been about, when did she pass?

TISDALE: Yes.

BRINSON: How many years ago, approximately did she pass?

TISDALE: It's been several years ago, several years ago, ‘cause I was a young girl.

BRINSON: Um, did she ever tell you any stories about slavery?

TISDALE: Well she just mostly talked about these white people that she lived with, and they uh, took care of her on down through generation and generation. After so long a time, well she decided she wanted to stay with my granddaddy and mother. Then she came to stay with them, and they passed, and then my mother had taken her. And then on my mothers side my father married a young woman, and we was living in his house taking care of him so we moved here, in a little house over there that they tore down; and we lived here and this woman that he married was rather young for him, and uh, they just didn't take care of her like they should. Because she had children and they just neglected her. ‘Cause she was blind ever since I knew her, and we put her at the breakfast table and tell her that we was fixing to eat, and she had a aluminum cup for us to put her coffee in; and we'd start putting it in there and she'd holler, "Whoa." She didn't want but just a mouthful of drink, I guess you would call it, at a time. And then when somebody would come to see her, they would bring her apples, and we'd have to get her a knife and let her scrape that apple and eat it. And then if they'd come back she told them she hadn't seen the apple. And then we'd have to correct her back, because mom and dad didn't allow us to mistreat her at all, because we was all crazy about her, because she wore old, slavery clothes. All of that got destroyed.

BRINSON: What, can you describe um, what were slavery clothes like?

TISDALE: Well they was a lot of ruffles, and long, and the blouses was a lot of ruffles and buttons, and then she had those shoes with a, like some of thems coming out now, they was buttons and buckles on them.

BRINSON: Okay. Did she ever talk about the people, the family who owned her? Do you know their names?

TISDALE: Once in a while she would talk about them, but she didn't really tell us no names. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. Did she ever talk about what kind of work that she had to do while she was a slave?

TISDALE: Well the most she done while she was a slave was housework, because I think she lost her eyesight early. Uh-huh, and she done housework.

BRINSON: Did she ever learn to read or write?

TISDALE: No. No, she couldn't read, neither write. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay, um, do you know anything about any other of your ancestors?

TISDALE: Well, now that was the oldest one that was in our family, that you know, was in that shape. The rest of my family was in pretty good shape. They, my father and mother farmed, and momma done day work. My granddaddy on my daddy's side, he had a big farm here in Park City, ‘cause my other granddaddy had a farm up in back of me here. I-65 has got it now. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: What kinds of crops did they farm?

TISDALE: Tobacco and corn, gardened, and both of them had an orchard with a little of everything in it.

BRINSON: Like apples and . . .

TISDALE: Apples and pears and grapes, Damsons [plums], yeah. And of course then they had horses and cows; their own milk and butter.

BRINSON: Any pigs?

TISDALE: Yes, oh yes, they raised pigs too.

BRINSON: When you were growing up, did you ever have to work out, help out on this farm at all?

TISDALE: Oh yes. Oh yes, I worked all the time. I been working before I got nine and after I got nine years old, I worked for some white people here in town and walked almost two and a half miles every day for a quarter.

BRINSON: And you were nine years old when you started that?

TISDALE: Yeah. When I went to work there. And my sister, that's my sister in yonder, she went with me, we both worked for these people. Dressed chickens together, gathered combs, suckered tobacco, and all kinds of work like that.

BRINSON: So you did primarily farm work there too.

TISDALE: Yes. I didn't get any education because my father got sick, and I got no further than the fourth grade; but my sister there, she left from here with the Reverend Dr. Rousey and his wife and went to Omaha, Nebraska, and she finished her schooling. And then she moved to Phoenix, Arizona, got married, and went to teaching the Indians until somebody come in there and took it over cheaper. So then she just run from different states, backwards and forwards to Conventions and Associations, and come here and stay a while, and like that.

BRINSON: Was she your older or your younger . . .

TISDALE: No, I'm the oldest.

BRINSON: You're the oldest.

TISDALE: I'm the oldest, she was the third. I have a brother that was next to me, he and I neither one got no education, ‘course he's deceased. And then I have another brother, now he's, well he's in a California, no Virginia.

BRINSON: Is your sister still living?

TISDALE: No.

BRINSON: What was her name?

TISDALE: Mattie Green

BRINSON: Mattie Green?

TISDALE: Yeah. No, no my sister has been dead several years. My daughter, I have a daughter that lives down here, between here and Bowling Green. She and her husband and I went there by plane for the funeral. Buried her in Phoenix, Arizona, ‘cause her husband died first. And of course they buried both of them there.

BRINSON: You said that she started school here, and then moved with the Reverend. . .

TISDALE: Yes, Dr. Rousy and them. Yeah she went to school here, oh well the school used to be out yonder on that road, and then when she got out of school there, she went up here at Horse Cave.

BRINSON: Okay, I want to have you tell me what you can about the school over here.

TISDALE: Well this school over here, it was just a wooden schoolhouse, and we had a cistern outside of it; and uh we had to go up a bank to go get into the school. And everyday we had to get out the railroad because the little train went from Park City to Mammoth Cave. They've tore all that down now, part of the trains out there at Mammoth Cave. And uh, well we had several different teachers.

BRINSON: Let me stop you just a minute. Um, we were talking about the school over here, how long, was there a teacher over there?

TISDALE: Oh yes, yes. We had teachers there until they moved the school over here, up here in the back of where you turned around at our church, that back room there was our schoolhouse. My daddy sold that to them for a schoolhouse, and they moved over here.

BRINSON: Now the first school, over here, how long did it operate during the years?

TISDALE: Well it operated until just in ahead of I-65. See I-65 condemned just about everything out back.

BRINSON: And that was about when? When did I-65 go through here?

TISDALE: Hmm, it's been a long time when they went through here. It's been a long time.

BRINSON: Maybe the fifties, sixties. . .

TISDALE: Somewhere back in there. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: But this little school, um, how many students would go there at any one time?

TISDALE: Well all the children here in Park City and then we had a few come from Rocky Hill, here to school by bus, you know school bus. And of course we didn't have no running water in our school, we just had a bucket of water in there, but the teachers was well equipped. You washed your hands, and when we got ready to start our school, everybody said a bible verse. And them days, well we all had a glass with our name on it, to drink water out of; so everybody carried their lunch in a sack or bucket, or whatever, and that's where you'd eat. You didn't go to no restaurant.

BRINSON: Uh-huh, and you were about how old then?

TISDALE: Uh, I don't know. I guess I was about five or six. Yeah, because some of the children, well we lived on this farm where I was working at, and we'd walk through this man's field and came down and hit the railroad and these other children would meet us there; and we'd all walk to school. We never had no bus. We walked everyday cause my daddy didn't buy a car until later on, he bought a Model T Ford, and then he got sick, well he wasn't able to drive. He was in the bed all the time, what time he wasn't in the bed at home, they put him in the hospital. He had several operations, seven.

BRINSON: Umm, okay. What do you remember about the teacher at this school?

TISDALE: Oh we had a lovely teacher. Yeah, we had a lovely teacher there.

BRINSON: Do you remember her name? I know that's been a long time.

TISDALE: Betty Boards was one of our teachers, and then we had another teacher named uh, what was that woman's name, Estel Laskie.

BRINSON: Okay, um did you have any books to use?

TISDALE: Yes, we had books and penny pencils and uh, tablets, just a brown sheet tablet. That's what the most of us had. Um-hmmm.

BRINSON: And so, did you go to school there until you started to work on the farm?

TISDALE: Yes, yeah, I went to school, that's almost as far as I got was that school over there. And on this side of the school, we had a church there. It was a Methodist Church, and the old man that owned the church wouldn't, didn't live too far; and we couldn't go over there on that church ground ‘cause he'd holler at us. And uh he say if we didn't get off of there, he would tell our parents on us, and we'd get a whuping, back there then. Yeah.

BRINSON: Now when you went to school over here, did the school have a name?

TISDALE: Well if it did I don't remember no name. Just Barren County School is all I know.

BRINSON: Oh, Barren County School, okay.

TISDALE: Um-hmmm.

BRINSON: Um, how much of the year did school last?

TISDALE: Well they went, well they didn't go as long as they do here now. But they went, you know I don't know how many months it was. It's been a good while ago.

BRINSON: Was it three or four months a year, or was it more than that?

TISDALE: Something like that, it might have been a little more than that, yeah. And they didn't dock nobody for not being there everyday like they do now. No if you wasn't there, you just wasn't there.

BRINSON: And this would have been in the 1920's for you. . .

TISDALE: I'm satisfied, yes, um-hmm. ‘Cause the teachers they'd get paid whether you come or not, but now, it's different. They tried to see all children homeschooled.

BRINSON: Um, I looked at, up in the census information to see how many people actually live today in Cave City, and what I saw was about five-hundred and sixty people. Does that sound about right to you in terms of. . .

TISDALE: Well yes, yes I guess it does sound about right. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: Um, has there been more people here than earlier?

TISDALE: Oh yes, yeah. We've had more people live here, they've died out, moved out; a lot of young folks left from here and went to the cities and went to work. You know some of them didn't finish they schooling, but went anyhow.

BRINSON: Okay, how many black people live here today, approximately?

TISDALE: Umm. . .

BRINSON: Of those five-hundred and sixty people, how many of those would you think are . . .

TISDALE: Umm, I really wouldn't know how many we would have here now. ( ). Well they are still a quite of few of us here. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay, do you belong to a church?

TISDALE: Oh yeah, I go to this church right back here.

BRINSON: It's a nice looking church.

TISDALE: Thank you, I have a lovely pastor. My pastor is the reason I'm sitting in this new home right now. He visit all of us, and he seen we was living on the ground; and that they was nothing that we needed, ‘cause I had them put a bathroom on that old house over there, but it still wasn't warm; and I tried to heat it with gas, and it got higher than my check; and I took that out and put me a wood stove in there, and that was work. My front porch was long like this one I have now. It stayed full of wood, chips, and kindling already seasoned until it warmed up. And so then he got busy and went up to Frankfort and got enough money to build these new homes.

BRINSON: And how many of these . . .

TISDALE: Let me see there's, one, two, . . . seven. Well we got two trailers and the rest of them is homes.

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me the name of your church, please.

TISDALE: Zion Hill Baptist Church.

BRINSON: And about how many people go to church there.

TISDALE: Uh, we have a nice crowd. Some Sundays we have better crowds than others, some just don't come but about once a month. I go every Sunday. And I've got my son now, since he had this accident, he goes and we go to Prayer Meeting. Of course I don't go tonight, they have bible study tonight for the teachers, but Wednesday night we'll go up there. My Pastor lives in Louisville, and we can call him and tell him we had to be rushed to the hospital or anything and he's here. Johnnie on the spot.

BRINSON: Now when most people come to church, how many people is that, approximately? Is that like twenty people, or. . .

TISDALE: No, no, we have more than that.

BRINSON: . . . Fifty people or . . .

TISDALE: Yeah, we have about seventy-five people there steady, or maybe a little better, ‘cause our church is large inside.

BRINSON: And it's an all black church?

TISDALE: Yes. Well we have some white members. Yeah, he'll preach to anybody. Yeah, he's nice to anybody.

BRINSON: Um, Ms. Tisdale can you recall for me, at what point do you remember that you realized that you were growing up in a segregated society in terms of black and white?

TISDALE: Well you know when I was coming up I didn't really pay it no mind because we got along all right. The white children and us got along all right; we just had trouble with one bunch of children, wanted to call us out of our name, and we broke that up ourselves, and that was it.

BRINSON: They called you a name?

TISDALE: Um-hmm. Called a quite a few of us, uh you know we was getting out of school, and they was getting out over here passing us over there on the road, and they would call us out of our name.

BRINSON: And what do you mean, call us out of your name?

TISDALE: The would call us Negroes. Yeah.

BRINSON: And, and how did you handle that?

TISDALE: Well we'd just shove them in these here, whatever they called them, kidcars or something; some things that they had on that railroad there, they had knocked them up. Then they got to treating us right.

BRINSON: And that was when you were going to school over here?

TISDALE: Yes. ‘Cause I had a older girlfriend going to school as I was going and she didn't let nobody run over us. ‘Cause we'd all be walking, of course, going or coming back.

BRINSON: So you didn't, you weren't really aware of segregation when you were little?

TISDALE: No, no.

BRINSON: When you got older?

TISDALE: Nah, I didn't pay it no mind then, ‘cause I worked for the richest people in Park City, all over they house. And one bunch I worked for had two daughters, and they was spoiled and they couldn't do too much with them; so I got them on the right track, ‘cause I worked at the motel sixteen years down here in town, Parkland.

BRINSON: Parkland.

TISDALE: And then uh, when I'd get off from down there, I would uh go to her house, if she needed me. If she didn't, I would come home. And directly I'd look, and here she come after me; and I'd go back, and we'd either do some work there in the house, or go to Bowling Green or Louisville shopping; and if she took the girls, she'd had to have me with her to help her, so they wouldn't act up.

BRINSON: What was this families name?

TISDALE: Mr. and Mrs. Fred Pardoe

BRINSON: Fred. . .

TISDALE: Fred Pardoe.

BRINSON: How do you, Perdue . . .

TISDALE: Pardoe.

BRINSON: Like P-e-r-. . .

TISDALE: P-a-r-d-o-e, yeah.

BRINSON: Okay, and how did they come to be so rich?

TISDALE: He run a grocery and his wife's mother and father had plenty of money, and they both died and then that made him--well he owned three buildings up there at the red light; and also he owned two stores, I mean two houses, I'm sorry, in the back of the store. And he had a grocery there. Anybody could buy groceries there because he ordered big quantities and he sold them, you know, where you could buy them. You know now, we don't have anyway to buy nothing but down there at Shell's, and they ain't half the time got nothing you want, and they too high too.

BRINSON: So how do you get groceries today?

TISDALE: I go to Cave City, Kentucky, and get my groceries.

BRINSON: Um, so, so you worked for them, and you worked for the motel, but at what point in your life do you think that you became aware that um, as a black person you didn't have the opportunities that white people did?

TISDALE: Well the first thing I became aware of, because I didn't have no education see, and I couldn't get no good job. ‘Cause I went away from here and stayed a while, but I got a job at the Five and Ten Cents Store . . .

BRINSON: Where did you go?

TISDALE: At Louisville. And I worked at the Blue Boar.

BRINSON: The Blue Boar Cafe?

TISDALE: Yeah, yeah, I worked there. Started out on dish machine, and I told my boss, I says, “I want a better job than this.” I says, “I wash dishes at home,” and he laughed, and then he come to me and asked me, “Would I like to work in pastries?” And I told him, “Yeah, it sounded better.” So my girlfriend, she stayed in the silverware and washing dishes; and I went in the pastry shop and stayed there until I left Louisville.

BRINSON: How long did you work for Blue Boar?

TISDALE: I worked there a long time. I don't know how long it was, but it was a long time. I worked long enough to get a vacation, and I come down here and stayed with mom and dad, and run around; and then I got married and I moved to Dayton, Ohio.

BRINSON: Do you remember about how old you were when you started to work at the Five and Dime in Louisville?

TISDALE: Well I was about seventeen.

BRINSON: Seventeen, okay.

TISDALE: Um-hmm ‘cause I got married when I was nineteen, yeah.

BRINSON: Okay, and you stayed there until you were about how old?

TISDALE: Well I guess I stayed there until I was nineteen, because I got married at nineteen; and I left Louisville and went--my husband he worked for Sealtest, and they transferred him from Louisville to Dayton.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to ask you some questions about the Five and Dime. What did you do in the Five and Dime?

TISDALE: I made, well I started out, you know I told you on a dish machine, and then I went in the pastry shop.

BRINSON: Well maybe I had not, maybe I don't understand this, is the Blue Boar the name of the Five and Dime?

TISDALE: Oh no, no. The Blue Boar is a restaurant, a big, nice restaurant. Yeah, I made salads at the Blue Boar, all kinds of salads.

BRINSON: And you would have been there about 1937?

TISDALE: About that, yes.

BRINSON: And um, at that point, they would not have served black customers?

TISDALE: Oh yes.

BRINSON: They did?

TISDALE: Oh yes, yeah.

BRINSON: How did they do that at that point?

TISDALE: Well you know--they just--they didn't have a rest room, at the Blue Boar. They had a rest room because that was school children, and they was all together. They didn't separate them, no. And some of the boys and girls at school, when class was over they'd come in and work. We had to really teach them, ‘cause they didn't know nothing to do.

BRINSON: But they would serve both black and white?

TISDALE: Yes, out there in the cafeteria.

BRINSON: And they could sit down together and what-not?

TISDALE: Yeah, they'd sit down and eat and laugh and talk. And I'd be out there packing salads up, and they'd be waving at me.

BRINSON: Huh. Did that change somewhere, because I really thought that, I know by the sixties, I don't think the Blue Boar was serving black people.

TISDALE: The Blue Boar that I worked at, all the cooks at Blue Boar was black, and the pastry lady was black, and they had a second pastry lady, she was white. And they just treated all of us the same.

BRINSON: Now where was that located in . . .?

TISDALE: In Louisville.

BRINSON: Downtown?

TISDALE: Along the street downtown.

BRINSON: Along the street, okay.

TISDALE: Um, wait a minute, I'll take that back, it was located on Chestnut, on uh yeah, Fourth Street. Yeah between Chestnut and Broadway is where I worked at.

BRINSON: Okay.

TISDALE: It's not there anymore.

BRINSON: Um, so you, did you move to Dayton with your husband?

TISDALE: Yes I did. Yeah, I worked at a cleaner there. I didn't stay there too long ‘cause he got up there and got to acting a fool, and I come on away from there, yeah.

BRINSON: He started acting like a fool, is that what you said?

TISDALE: Yes ma'am.

BRINSON: I didn't hear the rest of that is why I asked.

TISDALE: Yes ma'am, that's what I said.

BRINSON: And then did you move back here?

TISDALE: Nah, I moved back to Louisville and stayed there a while and then I moved on back down here.

BRINSON: And you've been back here about how many years?

TISDALE: Well I went back from here ‘cause I got me another job in Louisville; And I went back up there and stayed until umm, until my mother and father got sick and I had to come home and stay with my mother. And then I had to go back and come back and stay with my father. So finally I was working in Louisville at a cleaner and I got sick myself. And I seen I wasn't able to work; so I put in for my social security. I had done got old enough, and uh start drawing it. And I just kept on getting sick; so I have a daughter that lives in Louisville, and I told her, I says, “Well I'm . . . “

END SIDE ONE TAPE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

BRINSON: . . .Village Rest?

TISDALE: Village Rest in Louisville, uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay and that would have been about what year, do you remember? Or how old you were?

TISDALE: Oh Lord, I was old, past sixty-two see, ‘cause that was when I retired. It was in the mean time during that--before that, that I had all my rest of my teeth I had in my mouth pulled at Thirteenth and Broadway; and I stayed up there long enough to pay for my teeth.

BRINSON: Okay. Were you um, living and working in Louisville in the sixties when some of the sit-ins and the demonstrations started downtown? Do you remember those at all, when blacks tried to open up restaurants and stores and, . . .

TISDALE: Yes, I was there, um-hmm.

BRINSON: What do you remember about that?

TISDALE: I remember this one black man, he opened up a nice restaurant. A ( ) I guess is what you'd call it.

BRINSON: A what was that?

TISDALE: Where you'd sell beer and whiskey . . . Top Hat.

BRINSON: Like a packaged liquor store, or . . .

TISDALE: Top Hat. No it was a big nice place where you go in and sat down and you could order beer and shots of whiskey. At Thirteenth and Walnut, and this man had quite a bit of money, and out in the front of his building he had marble on the sidewalk. And he and his wife was in good shape, ‘cause he bought the best car they had. I don't know what kind it was, but it was some kind of foxy car; and it winded up somebody killed him. And his wife, she tried to run it for a while and her mother got sick so she had to let it go. ‘Cause finally they had left anyhow, because they had tore down all that stuff and built all these projects and different things like that up there.

BRINSON: So Louisville from here is about, what a hundred and . . .?

TISDALE: Ninety-eight miles.

BRINSON: Ninety-eight miles.

TISDALE: Yeah.

BRINSON: And you came back and forth a lot. How did you travel?

TISDALE: By train.

BRINSON: By train.

TISDALE: By train, we had trains stopping here then. And I run over to L and N depot and caught me a train and come down here, and went back that night. Caught it up here in town at our depot at eleven o'clock.

BRINSON: Did the train have any rules that said that as a black person you had to sit in special places?

TISDALE: Not really, no. ‘Cause my uncle was a porter on the train. Most of the times he was on there. He run from coast to coast. In the beginning now they had a coach on there just for black only, and then one for the white; but after they cut down, well they just had a coach on there for everybody ‘cause they had baggage mail cars on there.

BRINSON: And could you sit wherever you wanted on that single coach?

TISDALE: Yes I could. Yeah.

BRINSON: Okay. Um, have you ever voted?

TISDALE: Oh yes, I vote every year.

BRINSON: Has that ever been a problem for black people in this area, to be able to register to vote?

TISDALE: Not as I know of. Only problem is they won't register so that they can vote.

BRINSON: And do you vote for a particular party?

TISDALE: Well I try to vote for somebody that I think is going to help us.

BRINSON: So you vote for the person, you don't vote whether the person is Republican or Democrat?

TISDALE: Yeah. ( ) I believe I am a Democrat, I believe.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. Did your parents vote?

TISDALE: Oh yes. Oh yes. Yeah everybody voted around here back in them days because they had a man hired to come and take you up there; and everybody was registered and everybody voted.

BRINSON: So he came and provided transportation to the polls?

TISDALE: Yes, yes.

BRINSON: Was there ever any attempt to um, to buy your vote, to get you to vote a special way?

TISDALE: No, no, you know, I was up there, I never did see nobody, some of the town people that was running would ask you to vote for them.

BRINSON: But nobody ever did say, offer um the men mostly, offer them some whiskey to vote a certain way or, . . .

TISDALE: No. No.

BRINSON: They never offered to give you anything for . . .

TISDALE: No. No.

BRINSON: Okay.

TISDALE: ‘Cause see it's dry here. Um-hmm, yeah. Closest place you can get a drink here is Bowling Green.

BRINSON: Okay. Bowling Green is about how far?

TISDALE: Twenty-five miles from here.

BRINSON: And could you take the train there, too?

TISDALE: If you wanted to go, yeah you could go to Bowling Green on a train. ‘Course when you got off down there to go into shop you had to get a cab to take you in, ‘cause you was too far from he stores; but the liquor stores was so close there at the station.

BRINSON: Okay. I'd like to ask you some questions, if I may, about Mammoth Cave, since that is such a big attractions here in the area.

TISDALE: Oh yes, it's a wonderful place out there at Mammoth Cave. I've been out there several times, I have quite a few friends that work out there. White and black, and they just had a good time. ‘Course they had some slaves out there too.

BRINSON: Well I want you to tell me what you know about that.

TISDALE: Yeah, those slaves, well they bought those slaves out after they got the cave started like. They bought them all out and they had to move from out there, ‘cause some of them moved here. ‘Course they gone now, they deceased.

BRINSON: Do you know what kind of work they did as slaves out there?

TISDALE: Well most of them was cooks, and uh guards take you in the cave, and walk around over the land and check to see that they's nobody doing anything doing anything they wasn't supposed to do. ‘Cause see that's, Mammoth Cave has a lot of deer's.

BRINSON: Deer?

TISDALE: Yeah, a lot of rattle snakes, all kinds of snakes. Uh-huh, yeah, see I used to work out there, and this white guy I worked for and his wife they kept me out there till dark and he brought me home; and I seen a snake going across the road and I says, "Why didn't you run over that thing Joe?" And he said, "I can't." He said," The prints of that snake get on my tire and they will arrest me." I said, "Oh, well I don't tell nothing about being out here after night." Next door to them this lady had a deer out there and she was feeding a deer out of her hand.

BRINSON: Why would they arrest him if he had snake skin on his tires?

TISDALE: ‘Cause they don't want them killed at that park.

BRINSON: I see, I see.

TISDALE: No, they want them all to stay alive, so there a lot of animals out there.

BRINSON: Are there any stories here that you've heard that the slaves did any sort of mining down underneath the cave?

TISDALE: Well they might have at Mammoth Cave, ‘cause they had to dig that out in the beginning, yeah, they might of have. I don't really know.

BRINSON: Did you ever hear of a slave named Steven Bishop?

TISDALE: No.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. Um, so Mammoth Cave was actually a big tourist attraction?

TISDALE: Oh yes. Yeah, Mammoth Cave, when I was working at uh Parkland Motel, we had a lot of people stay there and go to Mammoth Cave; and then some of them would go to Diamond Cavern out here, it's a cave too. And they would split up, yeah, ‘cause Doctor Rousy was running Diamond Cavern then.

BRINSON: Now this is your minister?

TISDALE: No, this is the man that my sister left from here with. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay.

TISDALE: So after he died, well they started off trying to run it, and they's sister got killed--his daughter rather--got killed by an airplane crash. So that just left a brother and mother and her daughter. So they finally sold-out.

BRINSON: Now when you were working at the Parkland Motel, how did the tourist get back and forth from the motel to the cave?

TISDALE: Most of them had cars, and then they was on the bus; he brought there and unloaded them, and then when they got ready to go to the cave he load them back up and take them out there. He stayed down there at the motel too.

BRINSON: And that's about eight miles from the motel out to the . . .

TISDALE: Yes, out to Mammoth Cave.

BRINSON: Okay, and at one point, I think much earlier, back in the 1900's, was there like a stagecoach that went back and forth there?

TISDALE: Yes. Yeah that was that little train.

BRINSON: A train?

TISDALE: That little train, yeah. That was there train. Yeah, ‘cause we rode it over there. Yeah, it ain't nothing left now, but the engine and one court, sitting over there at Mammoth Cave is falling down. And they done took up all the track, all from the town plum out to Mammoth Cave. Um-hmm.

BRINSON: How do people today in Park City make their living?

TISDALE: Well the most of them, different places out of town. And ‘cause my son worked for the I-65 at the rest stop, then he found a better job over here at Glasgow making oil pans for a car, and uh, he worked fourteen hours and had an accident, tore his car up, hurt him and another guy, so if he ever gets able, he'll go back there to work.

BRINSON: And this is your only child?

TISDALE: No, I have two daughters . . .

BRINSON: That's right, you said you had daughters. Do they both live in Louisville?

TISDALE: No. I have one that lives in Louisville and she works at Sam Meyer's up there, it's a big tuxedo place. And then this one here, she works at a factory down here on the highway between her home and Bowling Green.

BRINSON: Have your children been able to get further in their education than you were?

TISDALE: Oh yes. Yeah, one of my daughters graduated, and my son up here graduated. My other daughter got to the tenth grade.

BRINSON: Did they go to school here, or in Louisville?

TISDALE: Yeah, they went to school here. Yeah.

BRINSON: Um, were you here when the schools integrated?

TISDALE: Yes.

BRINSON: What was that like?

TISDALE: Well it was--they got along all right. Yeah because see they all had to ride a bus, when . . .they just kept--went to school over here so long, then they took them to Glasgow. My son graduated and my daughter did too at Glasgow, um-hmm.

BRINSON: How far is Glasgow from here?

TISDALE: It's ten miles from here, yeah.

BRINSON: And what happened to the black school here?

TISDALE: Oh, they just closed it.

BRINSON: Did they tear the building down eventually, or . . .

TISDALE: Well they did over yonder, but up here they didn't tear that down. See I-65, our church was over there too, on the land where I-65 went through, so we had to bring our church over here and hook it onto the school. Mr. Sam Crump runs this warehouse up here, he seen, had our work done up here for us. ‘Course he's deceased now, both of them. Just a daughter living now, granddaughter.

BRINSON: Okay, are there other stories that you shared with Secretary Helm that you would. . .

TISDALE: Well yes I did say that we do need a nice restaurant here. I don't know who it was, but we had one person that knocked us out of getting a Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel wanted a stop here, ‘cause they stretched the distance between them. They had one at Bowling Green, and they wanted to stop here; and then they had Elizabethtown, but Cave City got them. And they have the business, they have the business. And I don't know who it was that was against it. ‘Course that's the way with these homes; they all up in the town making like that the Mayor got us these homes. The mayor didn't have nothing to do with these homes, not one thing. But look, ‘cause my pastor got the money, and then they got these contractors that bidded on these, to build these houses, and they got it. Had some real nice men in here and some boys. You'd be surprised how these boys could cut lumber, and these men was up on top of this house, ‘cause I watched them.

BRINSON: This is a very nice house.

TISDALE: Oh yeah.

BRINSON: How long did it take them to build it?

TISDALE: It didn't take them too long ‘cause see, the most of the lumber, they laid it out there in my yard and it was already cut. Some two-by-fours and different things like that, them boys had to cut it, and they had three carpenters and these two boys, and they was good. Yeah they had to raise they salary after they started to working here. This house was the first one built, and they had to raise them boys salary cause they was so good.

BRINSON: And how long have you been living in this house?

TISDALE: Oh I've been here over a year.

BRINSON: So it's still very new to you?

TISDALE: Yeah. Yeah, I've been here over a year.

BRINSON: And you have how many rooms here?

TISDALE: I have two bedrooms and complete bath upstairs, bedroom and bath back there, this and my utility room there.

BRINSON: And just you and your son live here?

TISDALE: Well I'm just by myself, he's supposed to be moving somewhere, but after he got hurt I had to take him in because he didn't have nothing to do nothing with. I'm trying to get a medical card on him now ‘cause I've got to have some help, and they won't let me have food stamps. Can't have two-cents in the bank that they don't want to take your money.

BRINSON: Is your only income social security?

TISDALE: And SSI.

BRINSON: And your not eligible for food stamps?

TISDALE: No. ‘Cause I was getting them and they, I had to pay back three hundred and some dollars. Now, when I got this house I went up there to the bank and borrowed some money to get me some--well my washer and dryer, and I got a new bedroom suite in there, and curtains, blinds, and things all here; and I had, they claimed I had too much money in the bank and don't you know they took it away from me. Every month when I get my check they done took my money out of SSI, and they said they shouldn't give my money back ‘cause I was eighty years old, and wouldn't go along with it and took it. So I haven't went over there to see about no more food stamps since all of that happened. ‘Course I don't know whether he could get them or not if he'd go over there.

BRINSON: Do you ever think that you, um, maybe should have stayed in Louisville, or are you glad that you came back here?

TISDALE: No, ‘cause the rent is too high in Louisville and they is too much going on. No, I'm glad I came on back home. Yeah, ‘cause they never did think I would come back and stay, but I fooled them. ‘Cause now why would you want to stay up there and pay somebody two hundred dollars for an old, broke-down, wreck-mess house. Come back here to your own. My daddy was nice enough to make the home to me, and I enjoy it because I don't have nobody close to me keeping up a whole lot of racket; and when I go to bed, I can go to sleep. Up there, well you was wondering what was going on cause somebody was a hollering, blowing horns, playing music all night long.

BRINSON: And you have your church close by?

TISDALE: Oh yes. I love my church up here.

BRINSON: Do you have any grand children?

TISDALE: Oh yes. There's seven. No I go six, I'm expecting one this week or next week one. I got six right now.

BRINSON: But they all live in Louisville.

TISDALE: Well my daughter here has three daughters. One of them lives in down there beside of them, the other one moved to Nashville on account of her job, and the other one is in the Navy.

BRINSON: Oh, so they're grown.

TISDALE: Yeah they're grown. And my daughter in Louisville, she's got two sons, they're grown, they just got married this year; and I got to go to both of they weddings. And my youngest grandson up there, he's in jail up there; and her daughter she's expecting again at anytime.

BRINSON: Oh, okay. How about your friends here?

TISDALE: I have a lot of friends here. Well different places all around. Yeah, I have a lot of friends.

BRINSON: Well you're very fortunate.

TISDALE: Yeah. We have a lady, a colored lady that just bought a house here in town, across the railroad up there; and of course I've been knowing her for years, and so I talked to her last night. She'd promised me she'd be at church. She'd been sick, so she didn't make it to church so I thought I had better call and check on her, ‘cause I tend to missionaries at different places. And we have it here too, it's next month, well the second Sunday night we will have our missionary anniversary up here at the church. That Sunday after we have morning service, well we'll go to, well I' don't know where we're going--somewhere in our church van and eat dinner; and then we'll come back and go up here to our church at night and have our missionary program. We'll have two sets of singers up there, and I'm the President of the missionary, been it quite a bit. And then they had another lady they made President, and she got married, my cousin, so now I've done stepped back up ahead again.

BRINSON: Do you have special duties as the President you have to do?

TISDALE: Well yes. I have to open up with a song and prayer and read out of the bible; and then I have my minutes read, and then I have to get a motion and second if they don't see nothing wrong with the minutes, you know so it can be approved. And then we have old business, like if somebody wants something from the old business, and if we don't have no old business, well we ;start out with the new.

BRINSON: And how often do you meet?

TISDALE: Once a month, every second Sunday, and then we all give a donation every second Sunday, two dollars , we put that in the Treasury in case we want to do something, we have money.

BRINSON: And what kinds of things would you maybe do with that money?

TISDALE: Well now we mainly, our pastor has put it all together ‘cause you get more interest up here at the bank. But anyhow, when we need it, like we want to donate for another church missionaries, or the missionaries here in our communities get sick, well we give them money, flowers, card, we see that everybody gets a card, and the like of that. We just do whatever we think we need to do with it.

BRINSON: Ms. Tisdale did you ever belong to the NAACP?

TISDALE: No. I attended the uh Senior Citizens at Bowling Green, I used to go to Cave City to the Senior Citizens, I used to go down there; but I never did join, um-hmm, ‘cause the lady would be there all the time talking about it, but I never did join.

BRINSON: Did you ever go to any of their meetings?

TISDALE: No. Um-mm, ‘cause I didn't have anyway to get there. See we went from the center on their van, but the girl that drives the van just drives it for the--so many hours every day.

BRINSON: What do you do um, for fun?

TISDALE: Sit here and sew, sing, and piece quilts.

BRINSON: You make quilts?

TISDALE: Um-hmm, tops. Got gobs and gobs of quilt tops. And the TV and I got a book shelf and my table, spell words, you know. Sometimes—well now tomorrow I'm going to Evansville, Indiana, my son and I--a whole bunch of us going from Cave City Senior Citizens. ‘Course he's not no senior citizen, but he can go ‘cause he's twenty-one.

BRINSON: Now what are you going to do. . .

TISDALE: That's gambling down there.

BRINSON: Oh, have you ever done that before?

TISDALE: Oh yeah, I've been every time they go.

BRINSON: And how often do they go?

TISDALE: They go once a month.

BRINSON: And what kind of a winner are you?

TISDALE: Well now I hadn't been doing too much until last month, I had good luck.. Had my son with me, had good luck. But I've just been going for the sport of it. I just take so much money to spend, and I spend it. If I win, I win, if I don't, I don't.

BRINSON: What do you play, the machines or . . .

TISDALE: I play the twenty-five-cent machines. Tomorrow I'm going to play the fifty-cent machines.

BRINSON: What's the most you've ever won?

TISDALE: Well this time, last month I won ten hundred and thirty-eight dollars.

BRINSON: You did, Wow!

TISDALE: Yep. I didn't dream of it, but I did. I told my, and also we write our name on a paper dollar on the bus and put it in a big grocery sack and this girl shakes it up and then whoever don't put a dollar in, she lets them draw it out, and I got that, fifty-one dollars ($51). I brought every penny of that back with me, course I've got my dollar right now to put back in the sack with my name already on it.

BRINSON: Use the same one if it's lucky right.

TISDALE: Yeah, yeah.

BRINSON: That makes sense.

TISDALE: I have won on that bus three times, ‘cause all of them knows me on there and they say you're going to have to start staying in Park City. [laughter] Yeah I just laugh it off.

BRINSON: [laughing] They say if you stay home then you can't win all the time.

TISDALE: That's right, that's why they tell me they want me to stay here.

BRINSON: Have you ever traveled outside of Kentucky ,Indiana, or Ohio?

TISDALE: Oh yes. Yeah, I love it, I've been in Dayton, Ohio, I've been to Phoenix, Arizona, I've been to Nashville, Tennessee.

BRINSON: What took you to Phoenix, Arizona?

TISDALE: My sister lived there. I went there to her funeral. Well I went before she got sick and stayed two weeks with her; and then I went back when she passed and I stayed a month there. And I have several uncles that live there in Dayton, Ohio, my daddies brothers, and they all deceased. Ain't nobody left now but my auntie and I, and she's ninety-three.

BRINSON: And where does she live?

TISDALE: Cave City.

BRINSON: Okay, but you come out of a big family.

TISDALE: Oh yes, yeah see there was six of us, four children and my mother and father. Yeah, and then Reverend ( ) come over yesterday about when we come up every Sunday morning. Everybody hit the floor and got ready, eat there breakfast, get ready, everybody got in line and went to church; well that's what we done. We didn't stay up all night, ‘cause if we'd stayed up all night we didn't get back in ‘cause my daddy was very strict. So I can remember the first time that we went to a show, my cousin Candice; and we was so happy to get on a Greyhound bus up here in town, we stood up till we got to Cave City, that's were the theatre was at. We stood up looking at that bus. Yes.

BRINSON: When you were a little girl Ms. Tisdale, were there any Klu Klux Klan members or White Citizen Councils, or were there white people here that um, acted out against blacks?

TISDALE: If they did, I didn't know nothing about it. ‘Cause I used to sit up at the red light at Square D Lumber Company in that yard there with Jane Otterburg, she and I sat out there on the quill and played. My auntie worked up there.

BRINSON: And you were a little girl then?

TISDALE: Yes. Yeah, I was little, little girl then. My auntie worked there. We didn't have too much trouble with the white children unless it was poor grade like us, they would sometimes get off their rocker.

BRINSON: What do you mean by that, get off their rocker?

TISDALE: Talking about your color and all of that stuff. And I told them that I can go just as far as they can on a dollar, all you got to do is have it.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay, well I think I have asked just about everything I know to ask. Is there anything else that you would like to add to this that I haven't thought to ask you?

TISDALE: Uh-uh. Other than we would sure appreciate it if they'd put a restaurant over here, ‘cause we need a restaurant bad. ‘Cause here our people over here in town trying to fix that old building up over yonder, and I don't see a thing that would be worth; ‘cause I wouldn't give a nickel to walk over there an look at that rock. There's no restroom in it, no windows, no doors, they didn't get the money, they went up there after it, but they didn't get nothing, and I don't feel like they going to get nothing.

BRINSON: Okay, thank you very much.

TISDALE: You entirely welcome.

END TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

END OF INTERVIEW