Interview with Blanche Back

ANN COX: This is Ann Cox interviewing Blanche Back on October 12, 2003. Can you start out by telling me when and where you were born?

BLANCHE BACK: I was born February the 23rd, 1946 at a place that was called Watts Kentucky. The post office was called Watts Kentucky. It’s no longer there. Many of the little post offices have been consolidated to larger post offices here. I guess that’s where I was born and where. 1:00AC: Where is Watts compared to Jackson?

BACK: To Jackson? It’s about, um, I guess it’s about midway between here and Hazard. That would probably be Fifteen miles probably. Twelve or fifteen miles from Jackson. It’s southeast.

AC: Did you come to Jackson directly from there?

BACK: No, I grew up, I was a Watts from Watts who grew up on Watts.

AC: Oh, okay.

BACK: I was there until I was 18 years old. When I was going into third grade we got a road. I went to a one room school prior to that. And we got a road just up that way, um, it was a gravel road 2:00and they consolidated the schools more. At that time I guess there were one hundred or more small community schools, and now we only have, oh, I guess there’s about three or four elementries; there’s one high school and one middle school now in the county. So they bused us in. We rode the bus for over an hour.

AC: What brought you to live in Jackson?

BACK: I guess I, I went off to college and I, to Morehead in Northeastern Kentucky. Then my husband was drafted into the Vietnam era and at that time I was teaching at Lees College. And of course being the youngest, 3:00and the least experienced, when there was a reduction in staff, when the enrollment no longer supported my job I lost my job and my husband was a PVT and drafted into the military. So I was here and of course my family was here and then I went with him and the military and we ended up in Virginia and in Kansas and we stayed seven or eight years in Kansas after he got out of the military then the coal boom was actually what brought us back. The coal boom has now gone bust as you probably know in Breathitt County. And we were, I came back and worked in the schools. In the vocational schools, the high schools, the elementary schools, I taught all different 4:00levels of schools and different positions and my husband worked for the coal company. And it was a really exciting time and it was in the mid to late 70s and 80s and in the early 1991 I think the coal business pretty much shut down. Or slowed down. Very much. But it was an exciting time and I’m glad that having grown up in Breathitt County that I had that opportunity to participate in that boom cycle.

A:C How old were you when you were married?

BACK: I married, uh, I had finished college and taught for a school year, so I was twenty-two years old.

AC: 5:00Can you talk a little bit about what it was like growing up in this area?

BACK: Well, I can show you a model of the house that I lived in, let me show you.

AC: Okay BACK: My, uh, nephew is artistic and he, he actually made it out of matchsticks and it’s quite, quite, uh, quite unique. (long pause while she goes and gets the model) 6:00It looks very much the same today except one of my older brothers owns it now and nobody’s living in it right at the present time. He does rent it from time to time and he had painted it a different color but, I guess you’d call it a farm house, and it was a great big farm house and it was probably one of the nicest houses on the creek there. It still has these real pretty aluminum shingles on it. Then it had two chimneys and a front porch and a back porch and you don’t see this quite often in eastern Kentucky, not until I was in college did we get our first bathroom. And you would think they often take in part of the porch to make a bathroom. And when I was like in third grade these two rooms were built on and we called them the living room and dining room because I had such a large family 7:00that these four huge rooms, the house was primarily L shaped with four huge rooms. And then we added two other good sized rooms and a big front porch and a big back porch. It’s a big house. And a nice yard, and there’s a stream called Tiny Holler that runs this way and the main creek it called Littlewood creek, it runs this way. And we had bottoms in this direction and up here and my father gave land that a old regular Baptist church was built on and for years he was like the treasurer of the Church and he and my mother both, uh, I grew up when they were baptized and became members of that church. And my grandparents had started the church I think. When they met in school houses and 8:00their homes. And my dad was fairly progressive for his time, he was a great reader, he always took uh, at that time the Lexington had two papers, the Lexington Herald and the Lexington Herald Leader and he usually took the Courier Journal and the Lexington Herald. Both came every day and that was just really unusual for that time period while I was growing up, for people to read like that: how he did. He bought lots of books and, so I was exposed at an early age to lots of printed material. And we had over here a barn with a horse named Old George 9:00and uh, I can still remember him and we had later the barn and the crib, I remember getting snake bitten in the crib and the mountains were over here called the silver mine area and they even farmed and had orchards on the top of the hills. And then later I was still pretty young and, like in second or third grade he built a huge barn over on the other side where the road went through. The road went around this way. Actually the road was the creek. And people just walked to the side of the creek. And this actually is the front of the house, but then the road came around the back of it and kind of changed things.

AC: Did your parents have the same job?

BACK: My mother had the same job, she was a mother and a home maker and a very good one. Always. And my father was a grater operator. He worked 10:00for the state highway department for years and years and retired there. He usually operated the grater and I can remember being little and, when he was grating on our end of the county he’d bring the big grater home with him and park it right out here and we played on the big grater.

AC: Did you only have one brother?

BACK: Oh no, I’m number ten out of thirteen full term babies. And they raised eleven of us to adulthood. And my mother even claimed the two that she had miscarriages with, she even claimed those as her children.

AC: Did you all live in that house?

BACK: As far as I know I was conceived there and born there, she birthed all of us there and usually my grandmother, who was a midwife, delivered us. And uh, there was another midwife on the creek if my grandmother was not available a few times.

AC: Where were, were your aunts and uncles nearby?

BACK: Oh of course. Uh, actually the Nobles and Watts’ intermarried and uh, they settled the whole creek. As a matter of fact the Nobles 11:00settled that end, my family settled that end of Breathitt County, they were one of the first families in Breathitt County.

AC: So your name was Blanche Noble?

BACK: No, Watts. And my mother was a Noble. And of course they were, almost everybody on the creek married some distant cousin.

AC: Is that how you met your husband?

BACK: No, he’s not a cousin, he’s from the other end of the county. I don’t claim any kin to the Backs.

AC: It seems like there’s so many Backs I can’t keep them all straight.

BACK: No, there aren’t that many Backs in Breathitt County really, compared to the Nobles and Watts’.

AC: How did you meet Hazel Martin? My mom’s cousin?

BACK: How did I meet Hazel? Well, I was teaching 12:00over at Breathitt High and Hazel’s cousin Addie Martin Murphy was teaching next door to me and uh, I said to her I really needed somebody dependable to help me clean my house and she told me, I asked, who’s doing yours? And she told me that her cousin Hazel was so I said, do you think Hazel would help me? And she said yes and that turned out to be just a great relationship and it lasted until I moved from that house, about nine years.

AC: Did a lot of your relatives leave? Have you seen a lot of them leave?

BACK: Oh yes, I’ve seen them leave and return and leave and 13:00return. And there’s something that’s really the same as I have. Due to economic reasons and matters of the heart. It seems that we’re constantly drawn to this beautiful area of the country and it’s because our people are here and uh, it was always a sad thing to have to leave our families to go and get work and like your grandfather, if he could have found a job he would have never left here.

AC: Do you think all of those people…how do you think all those people leaving affected the people who never left?

BACK: Well, I can tell you that 14:00it was exciting when I was growing up. My older brothers and sisters when they graduated from high school, some of them went to college, several of them have college degrees and advanced degrees in my family. But generally they wanted to go to the city to find out what it was like there, and to get a job, to get a car, and to get material things. And learn a thing or two about the world, different cultures. And how it affected me when I was growing up is that, my sister would buy me things and come back on the weekends and I found it terribly exciting that she had new clothes. She would tell me about things that were going on there and really exposed me to a different way of life, 15:00not necessarily better, but different. And that was enriching and good, I felt. My parents of course, the parents were sad because they lost their children and it was always exciting when they came home and seems like we always had a big garden and we thought it was important to can lots of stuff and give them lots of garden food and things like that to take home with them, part of home to take back to the city with them. And I really felt like upon reflection after I had grown up that a lot of times, and they spent so much time, the roads were so poor, coming home, that they didn’t really have time to become a real member of that community. And I felt like that there were really, a lot of times, 16:00their goal was to come back here and buy a piece of land and have a home here; that was really where their heart was. And a lot of them I felt like, drank a lot because of that, when they went to the cities and I felt like they maybe gathered in little enclaves in the cities that were poor parts of the town, and the men drank too much especially the men because of it, and they didn’t really participate or learn about the museum or the cultural kinds of things there because they were spending all their time and effort trying to get back to eastern Kentucky. They’d come home on the weekends and see their families. So that was, I felt like that 17:00was, that was not that they were torn, and that was not a good way to spend their time and energy necessarily, and that it contributed to drinking more.

AC: How did all of those, the fact that all of those people left. . .

BACK: There was a great influx during the coal boom AC: And that was in the seventies?

BACK: And eighties. mostly the eighties was boom time, mid seventies through the eighties to the nineties. That was the big boom time, and actually a lot of them had so far to come financially that they didn’t handle their prosperity very well, 18:00a lot of times they’d wasted the good salary that they made and really they weren’t, they were making a good salary but it seemed like they had big wages compared to not having had that great of job in the past. But they were very good wages and it was also very hard work and my husband says that the employees were the most efficient and dedicated (and he’s worked lots of other places) that he’s ever seen anywhere. So many people came, and I quote, “came home,” and that’s what brought us back, because when we had just turned thirty years old, we were doing very well out in the mid-west; we had a brand new home and two rental properties and two very good jobs but we chose to give that up and move back, to take our chances on getting a job at the coal company and we don’t regret doing it.

AC: How long 19:00were you gone?

BACK: Well, basically since I was 18 years old. I went off to college, then I came back. My mother died and I felt obligated to come back and take care of my dad and my little brother which is kind of typical of eastern Kentucky, not necessarily right or wrong, that’s just the way it is, and I stayed home and taught school when I was twenty-one years old. And then I got married and left and went back to school and finished graduate school and came back and taught at the college here for a short period of time and then Ken was drafted and then the year he was finishing officer training school I taught in an adjoining county, after I lost my job 20:00from staff reduction at the college. And then I left with him and followed him with the military and we stayed in Kansas for seven or eight years. And then we came back and my brother came back from Ohio and were doing absolutely, I saw their pay checks and my eyes lit up and my husband went back and quit, and then came back and I went to work of course in education and he worked for the coal company for, until it closed down and then they re-hired him and he worked up in the corporate office a while.

AC: Did you have family who never left?

BACK: Oh sure I had family who never left. And actually they’ve done very, very well for themselves here in Breathitt county.

AC: How did they make a living when everybody was leaving?

BACK: Well they left too.

AC: They left too?

BACK: Yes, they did. And they went up to Cincinnati and mostly around 21:00the Cincinnati area, the Newport, Covington/Cincinnati are and got jobs in the factories and, and did quite well for themselves. Then with the coal boom, just like I came back from Kansas they quote, “came home.” We always called it “coming home.” AC: But they never actually left? They just worked in Cincinnati?

BACK: Oh they had apartments up there and some of them even had homes.

AC: But do you have family that never left?

BACK: A few.

AC: What did they do?

BACK: Well, actually, they had their stint in Cincinnati and then came back. I think we all left and did some working out of state. And then chose to come back. 22:00AC: Do you know what, like, my mom’s cousin Hazel, they never left, do you know how they survived at that time?

BACK: Well I think her husband worked in the saw mill, and I think Hazel, I know Hazel cleaned my house for money and was absolutely fabulous at it. She was just so smart. She, I still do things she taught me how to do you know? And actually, if you’re asking what are the jobs here? In Eastern Kentucky in the seventies and eighties and even now they’re really service related jobs. And you either work in the school system, 23:00you work in government, county or state government, or like for the highway department, now we have a lot of fast food places that, where people work, or restaurants. But it was mostly, we have almost no manufacturing jobs. We have a little struggling factory over here in that, but it’s never really been a huge employer. It’s either extracting the timber or minerals or coal or whatever or it’s service related jobs.

AC: Has there ever been a time since the 50s and 60s when a lot of people left?

BACK: Well, yes, there was the timber boom which was way before my time 24:00when, Ken’s grandfather came in here with the timber boom. And there was virgin timber and they timbered the place. Like the winding road that comes across the frozen hill? That was a timber road I understand at one time. And on up there right on the creek above where Sarah Jane lived, was called Camp Christy, it was a big logging camp. So, that was a boom bust cycle and you know at Quicksand where U.K. owns the experiment station of agriculture up there, the timber barons that came in here when he, you know, left his estate there and the coal reserves here, 25:00the Robinson forest they always talk about, that was another boom bust. I guess you could call it that. Kind of like, when I was growing up a little bitty girl, a lot of men in our area also went up like Ken’s daddy. Ken was raised until he was in third grade in the coal camps. 26:00These coal camps were in Perry county. And Harlan county had lots of mining activity, like in world war two and even world war one. But they always said Breathitt County didn’t have any coal, well, as I recall it was strip coal where you actually used large equipment and construction type equipment and you actually literally excavate the mountains and get the coal. But I think the 27:0070s and 80s took, quote, “the easy coal” to get in Breathitt County. So I was really surprised when I came back as a young woman and found out that Breathitt County had coal!? And as a matter of fact, it just absolutely boomed. That was an exciting time. The women, you know, with the boom, they called it ( ) a brand of leathers and so-forth. They became quite taken with those kinds of things.

AC: Do you think now that that boom is over that people will leave again?

BACK: No, I don’t. I think that has changed. And I think the government has changed that because back then 28:00there was an attitude that it was a disgrace, and I still hold some of that, that it was a disgrace to accept money from the government. That you shouldn’t take welfare checks and live on welfare. Well, that has completely changed and I, I think sadly that young people think it’s their right to get anything off the government that they can, whether it’s food stamps or, I mean, it’s from all social strata that I see this attitude. But I was raised that that was wrong and that you should work and make your own way in the world. And that attitude is gone with the wind. Through all social classes and especially here. And why would anybody want to go to a city and work at McDonalds when they can work right down here? And live better with much more freedom 29:00and beauty around them? So no, I don’t see that happening, that there’s going to be a mass exodus. And some of the more ambitious kids, of course being an old educator, I don’t see why there’s any reason in the world why anybody couldn’t have a career because they have average intelligence and want to work but the ones that want to be doctors and lawyers, I don’t buy this stuff that they couldn’t do it. They could do it if they want to. And we have many students here that it really has to do with their ambition, how ambitious they are because we have a UK extension right here, two years, they don’t have to leave and many students never leave Breathitt County and get a B.S. degree right here in Jackson. And a lot of them, if they mess up or get pregnant, 30:00then the first thing they tell them, when they go to the welfare office, they say, “well we’re going to send you to school.” You really have a free ticket. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy if you got a job, but there’s no reason really, that’s what I personally think, of course I come from a different place about those things, like I said, the attitude is: give me everything that I can get and I’m entitled. And I was not raised with that entitlement kind of attitude. I thought it was a disgrace not to earn your way.

AC: Do you think that since people are staying that the numbers will actually get bigger?

BACK: No. For several reasons: a lot of our young people just plain don’t want to be, there’s to many things to do other than raise children and we have birth control. And we really have a very self-absorbed, self-centered generation of young people 31:00and I don’t mean that as ugly, I love young people, but it’s just the truth. They don’t want to spend their time when they can ride four-wheelers, when they can watch television, and they expect a higher standard of living then their parents and grandparents were raised with, and feel entitled to it, whether they earn it or not. And for that reason I don’t see them, unless they just have accidents, having that many children. And it’s born out in our enrollment in school. The schools keep dropping and dropping and, you know, in enrollment. And I’ve heard it said that 32:00eastern Kentucky has old people and young people, and I don’t know how much of that cliché, or of that generality is true, but there’s some truth to it. And some of the more technically skilled people, we certainly need them here. But I can see why those ones that don’t have an education don’t want to leave and I see why those who have an education choose to come back, because family’s family. Why would living in a ghetto somewhere, 33:00or living in a poor part of town be superior to this? It wouldn’t.

AC: So you think more people came back than stayed away?

BACK: No, the county would be running over if they came back! What happened is, just like you, your folks hailed from this area just like mine did, but you establish roots and your children grow up in a different culture and you want to stay near your children. So they stayed because of their children.

AC: Did you have children who…?

BACK: I don’t have children.

AC: Oh, you don’t have children? Okay.

BACK: But I taught all different levels of school you know, and had children around me.

AC: So you actually had 34:00lots of children.

BACK: Yes. And also, drugs are absolutely destroying our young people in eastern Kentucky. And you know, drugs really started in my generation in the sixties and there’s several of those that are fifty years old that are using drugs. Of course they grow their own marijuana here, but the drugs of choice now are doctor’s medicine like OxyContin and Hydrocodone and Xanax. Of course we had them in the school too, and this has been going on for years, OxyContin especially is, is really lethal, and so many of the kids that I taught have just died from overdoses, 35:00and it really knows no social class or age group from fifty years old on down.

AC: During the sixties were there any other sort of changes?

BACK: Well the roads were the big change. When I was in college Highway 15, that you came up, that was built. Prior to that you would have spent 6 hours coming here on a little 2 lane road that winded and made you sick at your stomach getting here. So that was one of the biggest changes. And of course the internet and the consolidation 36:00of the schools. But the roads were one of the really big impacts. But television and telephones and just the infrastructure that we have now. Black top roads, man that’s still highly prized in this area. I think it really started taking place when I was just a small girl because in the fifties it started because we got our road and then the consolidation of the schools began. And I think those two factors are some of the biggest things that happened and also 37:00more people started going to college and becoming more educated and because they had access, they always had the ability.

AC: So the roads were… BACK: The roads, the telephones, the infrastructure, that kind of thing was just, the education and consolidation of school, the education, and the roads, I think were probably the two, and the coal boom was just tremendous, you know? It brought new buildings, new lifestyles, you know, to people here. Kind of spread the money around a little bit. We got an airport. And 38:00also, we got things like the hospital and the nursing home. In the past 30 years we’ve gotten those.

AC: What about electricity? When did that…?

BACK: Well, really in the early fifties was when most electricity came through. I was just really so little I don’t remember. And of course we always had a little electric stove and we had water. A little kitchen. Which was really progressive. Most people on my creek didn’t have that.

AC: Why do you think your family had that?

BACK: Well, I think my father was very literate and they were a little bit better educated, the Watts’ were. A lot of them were school teachers and I think that had something to do with it. And 39:00my dad, he just tried real hard, you know, to get things and work consistently. I think those probably are…and the state and federal regulations also, and the advent in eastern Kentucky also caused a trail of mobile homes had been a big deal. There’s a lot of mobile homes in eastern Kentucky. It seems now that a lot of people that are retiring are selling their homes out in the country, their land, that they can’t keep up and are getting them a mobile home and come into town and the people that…young people, and I can see why; a mobile home is immediate, it has 40:00all the basic conveniences, and there’s land available so we have an awful lot of mobile homes. And what they do is they just set them up a trailer out in their mommy’s yard.

AC: Yeah, my mom’s cousin Josephine…her home is right next to her mom’s house.

BACK: Because I remember when I was teaching ninth grade and I said…one of the prompts that I gave for a writing assignment was; if you had a million dollars what would you do? And I just grabbed my head and said “oh no, don’t we have bigger visions than this?” This kid was real serious and one of the things she would do was buy herself a nice trailer and put it out in the yard at mommy’s house.

AC: 41:00Do you think when you were young and you can remember people leaving, do you think that since there were less family members around that every day life sort of changed in some way?

BACK: Well of course it did because the family didn’t have as much help. And I know my brothers and sisters, and I’m sure others did, would send us money. They financially helped their families and now it’s just the other way around. Young people think that their parents owe it to them to help them. And there was more of that kind of helpfulness, like most of the dresses I got my sister worked at the telephone company in Cincinnati and bought them for me. 42:00Otherwise they came from the opportunity store, the second hand store, my mother was a good seamstress and she worked them over. But to get a new dress was a big deal. Especially from the city, you know? So it did change and I saw of course as soon as people could quit raising fields of corn and milking cows and so forth, they quit. And they had fewer kids to do it and help raise the crops and so forth and of course more welfare programs. That’s about the time the WPA program came in here. Lyndon Johnson’s poverty program. And I can’t tell that they had much impact on any body except at the time, I guess, you know, that it gave them a little money to pay for…but 43:00lasting effects; I don’t see it.

AC: So were these programs a direct result of people leaving?

BACK: Oh no, I don’t think it was a direct result of people leaving because they were poor when they left.

AC: Okay. When you were young, did you have this notion that people were poor?

BACK: No, I didn’t feel poor and I don’t really think I was. And we always had, I had great pride; my generation must have been the last that had any of it. And I grieve for that because I don’t like the entitlement attitude of, well, I don’t think I’m that old but, that I see in the next generation out from me and the next. I really grieve for it because 44:00I think it’s a sad thing. I think it’s a loss of pride and I don’t care if anyone thinks it sounds hokey or old fashioned, I believe it, that it is a loss of pride and a loss of ambition and to let the government give you milk for your children instead of going out and getting you a cow and raising it, or whatever, or working for it. I think that’s more honorable. I just happen to believe that way and now it’s like their entitled to it! And their entitled to all of this stuff.

AC: When you were growing up, did, did you live by what your parents grew? By subsistence?

BACK: Well we did both. My daddy always had a job. And being 45:00in a large family, of course times got better, I’m one of the younger ones, because they were born during the depression era and you had to do subsistence farming to live. And moon shining was a way you got a little money as I understand it, I wasn’t there, but from what I hear there wasn’t a lot of cash going around. But we had much better food that I grew up on…prepared better. We probably ate too much pork and too much lard, but other than that it wasn’t half as bad as a big mac at McDonald’s. Like at this time of the year we’d have apples and apple pies and ( ) And squash and turnips and 46:00mustard greens and in the summer, oh man, we had tomatoes and we had green beans and corn and we had corn bread and we even had, this house that’s over across the stream that I was telling you about there, we had the community meal where they brought their corn and ground the meal. Now I could just barely, I was so small that I hardly remember it. And my dad would take what they call a toll? Which is so much of their meal to pay for grinding it. And, how did I get off on that? But anyway, we had wonderful food and my mother canned everything you can name. And the diet was so much better then. Like I said, the only thing I can think of, and that’s not really any different, was that 47:00we ate too much of the lard when we killed the hogs and so forth. And people around here didn’t much like bacon. They didn’t like to eat very much. They mostly ate chickens and people hunted squirrels and ate squirrels and groundhogs and actually the way my mother fixed them, they were quite good. They came to town about every Saturday and I mean, we had the bologna and stuff too and hot dogs, but my daddy thought that was snack stuff that you didn’t put on the table.

AC: Do you know when that all started changing? When people started changing their… BACK: When people started changing? 48:00I think with packaged pizzas coming in here in the 60s. That was one example of changing and I think welfare and commodities and food stamps. Why, food stamps changed all that. Why should you raise a garden when you can get the government to give you food stamps? We’d had all kinds of gardens if they didn’t give out those food stamps.

AC: How old were most of the people who left when you were… BACK: Almost as soon as you got out of high school. And if you didn’t get out of high school, as soon as you were old enough to get employed.

AC: So would this leave a gap of 49:00people that age around here, do you think?

BACK: No, there were plenty people my age. As a matter of fact, the enrollment now in high school has dwindled compared to when I was in high school. There was a decrease because of the size of the families. I mean, the health department gives out free birth control pills.

AC: When did that start happening?

BACK: In the 60s they, was the advent of birth control pills.

AC: Are your parents still alive?

BACK: No, no, my parents are gone.

AC: When were they born? Do you know?

BACK: Yes, they were born in 1902 and 1909.

AC: And they always lived here?

BACK: Yes, they did.

AC: Do you think when you were little 50:00that there was a strong sense of community?

BACK: Oh yes, because you were a kin to everybody. They were your cousins. Great loyalty. If we killed a hog we took a mess to the, you know, people. If someone was sick you’d go sit up all night with them. We had a fan when we didn’t have air conditioning and an old man was sick and dying and we took out the fan and gave it to him.

AC: Were communities just your family, or would you…?

BACK: Oh, there were people who were distant cousins, but basically there was a blood, or some kind of family relationship 51:00in some way. It was almost tribal.

AC: How do you think people…I mean, did this change a lot when people went north?

BACK: Yeah, they started bringing in different…even some Mexican names popped up and biracial. . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE B BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO, SIDE A AC: So it pretty much stayed a community though, even though they were leaving 52:00and coming back? You still had that sense of. . .

BACK: There’s still a sense of community here and I think Wal-Marts, that has really changed the landscape in eastern Kentucky and other places too because the mom and pop stores have gone out of business and we used to kind of, we all went in to town to shop. That’s no longer true, it’s along the road in these little strip malls. And now instead of going to the courthouse and standing around the streets and talking on Saturdays, you go to Wal-Marts to see everybody and talk and so forth. And Wal-Mart’s put them out of business, local stores.

AC: Were churches a big source of community?

BACK: Oh, absolutely. 53:00Churches were and they still are. There was a, what we call “dinner on the ground” and foot washings and baptizing and. . . And a lot of times, the churches for years, the old regular Baptist churches, you only met like once a month because of the distance and so forth. The preachers would come in and it was just difficult.

AC: Are most churches Baptist?

BACK: No, there’s all kinds of churches. You’ve got Pentecostals, you’ve got Baptists. I go to the Methodist right now. I went to the Christian church forever and there was a Brethren church. We have a church just abut on every street corner, on every little road and community. Which I’m glad.

AC: Was that 54:00how it was when you were small?

BACK: No, it wasn’t. There weren’t any, there weren’t a lot to speak of and they were just little, rather primitive buildings and back when I was very, very tiny, we didn’t have a church house and my daddy gave the land and helped get the church started there on our farm. And they met in one room schoolhouses, churches did. Sunday schools.

AC: Were they all different religions, or. . .

BACK: Well they were all Christian religions, not necessarily with the Lutheran or Brethren or all that tacked on the door, it was mostly people who taught basic Christian doctrine.

AC: 55:00So, the people who left, the way you kept in touch with them was because they would come back and visit. . .

BACK: Oh, they came back almost every weekend and they wrote letters. And there weren’t there were so few telephones that that wasn’t, and of course the internet hadn’t been discovered or created at that time.

AC: Mm-hmm. Can you remember how you felt about the experiences they would share with you? I know you said you thought they were exciting.

BACK: Oh they were exciting! They were exciting and my sister, the first time I had really ever been out of the state of Kentucky was like seventh grade and she took me up for a week with her to her apartment in northern Kentucky, Cincinnati area. And oh, I thought that was real exciting. 56:00[laughter] AC: Okay., let’s see. . . So when they, when you would go up and visit and would get really excited, would that make you want to do what they were doing or. . .

BACK: Well, education was always very much emphasized in my family and I knew that I wanted to be educated and I got the opportunity through scholarship to do that so I did. But yeah, I, I wanted pretty clothes and cars too.

AC: And did all of your brothers and sisters, did they go to college?

BACK: All of my brothers have at least been to college. And half of them have advanced degrees and 57:00I’m the girl that went.

AC: Oh, okay. Are you the only girl?

BACK: No, I have two sisters. And of course they have finished high school and have done very well for themselves. Probably smarter than I am [laughter].

AC: Where do they live now?

BACK: Well, one lives in Mount Sterling and one lives here in Breathitt County. And after her stint in Cincinnati, when she got married at twenty-two, then from eighteen to twenty-two she lived in Cincinnati, then she’s been back in Breathitt County. She married a school teacher and raised two children and her daughter practices law over here in Jackson and her son is like the head teacher 58:00at the detention center over here.

AC: Do you think she would mind giving an interview?

BACK: Well, she might talk to you, I can send you up there if you want to talk to her.

AC: Okay. What do, what do your fam, what do your brothers do now?

BACK: Well, my oldest brother is retired from education, he was a school teacher, a school principal and a central office person, administrator and he’s retired. My next brother, he worked in the school system and for mental health, then he had his own business and he still is mainly into real estate and that kind of thing. My next brother 59:00had a coal truck and of course he’s retired now and then my next brother is still working, he had a coal truck and after that he just went back to teaching school and he teaches school still yet, and he’s in his sixties and he’s teaching. And then my next brother is a licensed land surveyor and he works for the, with engineering, for the state highway department and my next brother is disabled, he has schizophrenia and lives in a personal care home. And I have two sisters.

AC: 60:00What do you think has stayed the same about this area?

BACK: What has stayed the same?

AC: Yeah, since you’ve been little.

BACK: Well, some good things and some bad things. Like any other area. Just like in other parts of the country, I don’t think we pick the best political leaders in Breathitt County. They’re still vote-buying and vote-selling, not to the degree, perhaps that as it once was, and the merit system with the state has certainly helped with and the federal regulations have helped with, like not losing your job. I remember when, prior to the merit system, my daddy worked with the state highway department, unless you supported the right governor for four years, I remember we had a very hard time because 61:00he lost his job because he didn’t support the right man for governor. And that is a good thing, I think. And I think there’s entirely too much political patronage in this area in terms of getting jobs, in terms of how they county’s money is spent, and I better not say much because my husband’s county treasurer [laughter]. But that’s just my opinion. Some of the things, the roles of women have and are changing, some for the good and some for the worse, just like in the nation. The education is, I really believe if you want to get a good education here you can get about as good an education here as you can about anywhere if you really work at it and are motivated 62:00to do that. Just like anywhere else. Because I have taught in western Kentucky, I retired in the Bluegrass and I spent most of my career here in eastern Kentucky and I don’t see that much difference. As a matter of fact, believe it or not, when I went to Paducah and to Bluegrass, we were more advanced in technology in Breathitt County in our school system, educational system, than they were there and one of the reasons is because of federal money that we got. And so we were talking about how things have changed, I really hate this attitude that’s changed that I call, and it’s there in all of our society, not just eastern Kentucky, is this sense of entitlement. That the government owes me and has to do this for me and I’m 63:00entitled to this instead of working it out on your own and, by merit. I think it’s a thing of the past. And in some ways I do believe that, in giving people an opportunity, like I went to college, I thought it was fair, I could borrow the money and pay it back, and I could work. And I think that really is enough. Maybe that sounds hard-nosed to some people, but to me that’s enough. Now, and then this having babies and going to health department and getting the food for them and all this stuff, I see pros and cons to that. It’s good and it’s bad. I don’t want anybody to go hungry but I think people ought to work and there’s not a great rush to do those kinds of things.

AC: Mm-hmm. 64:00But you feel, do you feel like that sort of. . .

BACK: And I do still think that men have the leg up as far as anything in eastern Kentucky, but one of the main things that’s changing now is the educational system. Girls are higher achievers academically than boys at eastern Kentucky.

AC: Do you think that’s. . .

BACK: That’s good and that’s bad. There’s, I don’t think that’s necessarily good, it’s good for, I want them both to achieve but definitely I was raised where women were not valued as much, girls were not valued as much as boys. It’s just the way it was.

AC: Do you think it’s, 65:00a woman can get a job in Breathitt County as easily as a man?

BACK: Well a lot of times it, it depends on who, just like anywhere else, it depends on who you know and now it’s more subtle, the discrimination is more subtle. Just like in the bigger society.

AC: So do you think you’re gong to stay here?

BACK: Oh yes, I’ll stay here because I chose to stay here. I left the beach to come here because to me this is much more beautiful than, I could look out my window and see the ocean, which is kind of nice, but I’d rather look out and see these beautiful leaves and trees and I have a stream that way and I have a stream this way and I have a paved road and actually, the truth is, 66:00I also have wonderful medical, a doctor here, medical care that you wouldn’t think, the stereotype is, you know, that this is a poor place and you live terrible, well, this house in the Bluegrass and what I’ve got here would cost twice as much and twice the taxes and I’m sure I’d be paying a homeowner’s association fee for that road out there and other things. So there are advantages. I can live less expensively here and I can see my friends and neighbors when I go to Wal-Marts and I can have good medical care and I’m only a little over an hour from Lexington and I can do just as much on the internet as anybody wherever I am and so I feel very blessed and I’m very happy here. And 67:00I have a church that I enjoy. I don’t know what I, I would be, I’ve already lived other places. I don’t see that I would miss a lot. There’s no place that has everything, but this has many benefits and I’ve noticed that a lot of people my age are retiring and coming back to this area. Not in great droves or anything. And I certainly could live anywhere I wanted to, but I chose to live here.

AC: Okay, I don’t really have any other questions unless you have anything else you’d like to talk about.

BACK: Not really, you know, I love this place, 68:00the beauty of it, the people and I am aware that certain stigmas have been attached to being Appalachian and in a way I think it’s their loss because they just don’t know.

AC: Mm-hmm. It’s true.

END OF INTERVIEW