Oral History Interview with Lou Belle Hunter

ANN COX (AC): Okay, so this is Ann Cox interviewing Lou Hunter on March 10th, 2004. Okay. All right. I’ll get you to start out by telling me the year you were born and where you were born.

HUNTER: Okay, I was born in 1931, I was born in—at Breathitt County, near Jackson. And the name of the community was Camp Christy on the north—I’m sorry Cope Fork of Frozen. And I lived there with my parents and three older brothers until I was eleven years-old.

AC: 1:00Where did you go when you were eleven?

HUNTER: At that time my father moved our family to Norwood, Ohio.

AC: Why did he move you guys to Norwood?

HUNTER: Well, actually, it was to find employment. The community where we lived, there was actually no factories or types of employment where the residents could really support their families and it was really, really a struggle in those days for parents to provide even the bare minimum to sustain their family. There just wasn’t much to do and that’s his reason for moving there.

AC: How long did you stay there? 2:00HUNTER: I was there approximately three years and then when my grandfather passed away we moved back to Jackson, Kentucky.

AC: Was this your mother’s father or your father’s father who passed away?

HUNTER: It was my father’s father. Our property joined his farm. And it was, it was a sad occasion because we lived so near them and everything and my dad wanted to be near his mother so, look after her, so, and that’s why we moved back again.

AC: So when you were growing up, you were always around your grandparents?

HUNTER: Yes, an awful lot. It was my favorite place to go, actually. In earlier years I think around the twenties, 1920, things were booming in that community because the different sawmill companies and lumber companies 3:00had moved in and bought all the virgin timber in that area and they had sawmills all over and actually, there was demand for the lumber even from overseas and there was all kinds of employment at that time. And so my grandparents actually moved to that there farm there because my grandfather was going to be the superintendent of that particular location of, of logging. And they needed a general store in the area so my grandmother established a general store and there was lots of trade at that time. But as time went on and the lumber was all worked out of the territory, 4:00people began to move away and there was not much money flowing around again so. . .

AC: What was the name of your mother’s general store? Was it just, probably. . .

HUNTER: It was just The Hatton, Hatton General Store. Uh-huh. That’s my maiden name, Hatton. It was, Auburn Hatton was my grandfather and Lou Ellen Hatton was my grandmother and I, after she closed the store, I still remember, she gave me a pair of patton leather slippers that was still in stock and I just thought that was pretty neat and I kept them for a real long time as a souvenier.

AC: Mm-hmm. What else would they sell at the store?

HUNTER: They sold just about any kind of item that you would need in the way of groceries. 5:00They, they sold, of course meal and flour and staple items and so forth. Salt and sugars and what have you. They also sold dry goods. A lot of dry goods. People in that area usually made their children’s clothing, especially for the girls and there was a pretty big demand for it. And I have a little thought that goes along with that. My grandfather would often go into Jackson and order supplies and my grandmother needed some voile material and he forgot the name of it, so he goes into this store in Jackson and tells the manager, who was a very good friend, Jim Jett, said, “Lou needs 6:00some Violey.” [laughter] And he looks at him and he says, “She needs what?” says, “Oh, you know, that dress material Violey,” and he says, “Oh. Mr. Hatton, you mean Voile, don’t you?” And my grandmother never let him live that down. But they, they kept gardening tools such as hoes and end picks and post hole diggers and nails and just about anything that you could think of and they also sold a certain amount of meats that they provided from their own livestock and they had boots and men and women’s and children’s shoes and there was always a big demand for the overalls because of the farm work 7:00that people did and. . .

AC: So compared to Camp Christy, where was it located?

HUNTER: It was located in Breathitt County. It was actually located on the cope, that’s C O P E Fork of Frozen. Actually, Cope Fork takes in both Strong Fork and Camp Christy area. But we were from Camp Christy location.

AC: Well, what other families lived in that location when you were growing up there? That you can remember?

HUNTER: The names of the families?

AC: Yeah.

HUNTER: Okay. Actually, people had come in from other counties, other states, even some Italians had come in from distant states to work in the log woods and lumber company and 8:00there, a lot of them left after the work had been completed, but then there were others who stayed around and the ones I can remember best are the Barney Back family lived a little beyond us. Myrtle and Barney Back and their sons Everett and Orville and Arnold. The boys went to school with my brothers and they were very good friends and did a lot of hunting and fishing together and all of that. There was the Miles Hollon family, the James and Mattie Rhode family, Herbert and Belle Holbrook. Herbert was my uncle and at the time I was entering school, he was the teacher at Camp Christy. 9:00And there was Nate Hatton and Dena and Luther Creech, Thomily and Mollie Holbrook, Joe Walters family, Polly and McKinley Varmit family, Gevedons, there were two different sets of Gevedons, the Harry Gevedon family and the Esther Gevedon family, the Henry Back family, actually every little hollow and branch in that are there was a house and there were just a lot of kids in that community to be such a small community.

AC: Yeah. You named a lot of families.

HUNTER: Yeah, right! Uh-huh. Those are the ones 10:00I can remember best, some of them.

AC: I think when I was looking at your book you had pictures of each of those families that you named.

HUNTER: I did. As many as I could accumulate. I thought it was interesting to look back at them and see the different groups of school kids and Sunday School classes and so forth, yeah.

AC: So what was it like? The Camp Christy School that you went to when you were younger?

HUNTER: Camp Christy was a two room school. They had two teachers that did the teaching of all eight grades. One had maybe from kindergarten, or as they called it, primary, all the way through [clock chimes] ( ) it was just like the 11:00residents, it didn’t have any electric lights and it didn’t have heat but we managed and the older boys usually took turns coming to school a little bit early in the morning in order that they could build a fire and have it warm by the time the other students arrived. They were usually rewarded maybe with a quarter a week or something along that line or given a little extra privilege of getting out of school a little early or a longer lunch period or something and that way even the little ones, when they got there, they were able to be warm and comfortable. My uncle was a very strict teacher, a strict disciplinarian, but he was an excellent teacher and very knowledgable and he took his work very seriously. 12:00But actually they had to have complete order to effectively teach with that many different age groups. So that was back in the time when teachers were allowed to apply the switch or paddle if necessary to get the cooperation of the children and it was an interesting venture, actually.

AC: When I interviewed Hubert Hollon he said he would start fires there when my mom’s aunt was teaching there and that she would give him a nickel everyday for doing it, or a nickel a week.

HUNTER: I know, I can remember in later years that my brother married Margaret Martin and while 13:00he was in the military she taught there at Camp Christy for a while and she mentioned the Hollon’s went over because they lived nearby and would get the fire started early for them.

AC: Can you describe the house you grew up in?

HUNTER: Yes, my, originally my grandfather had it built from the lumber that came off of the property. Some people called it a ranch type house. It was one of the first of that style in the community. It was kind of a U shaped house. A long front porch with a swing at either end and then down one side were the bedrooms 14:00and the living room and then at the very end, which turned to make the U shape, was the kitchen and the dinning room and then out to the sides within this U shaped area was a huge sycamore tree that I have a lot of good memories where my grandfather had hung a swing for the grandchildren to play on and that’s pretty much where I grew up.

AC: What did your parents do to make a living?

HUNTER: For the most part, my parents were, were farmers, my mother was a very devoted housewife and mother and my dad, his favorite thing was agriculture, but he did work at various times when the opportunity presented itself, public works. 15:00My, at that time social security and any kind of aid along that line had not been put in place and it was up to the individuals to more or less make their own crops and do their own thing as far as providing for the families. But then they came along with what they call the WPA project where they employed a lot of people in the county to improve the county roads and that was really good news to the community and nearly all the men became employed for several months, or actually several years. My dad held a job of time keeper, where he would go to the various work areas and record the number of hours that each worker had put in, and then also 16:00he maintained a warehouse in Jackson where they housed various types of equipment and materials and he kept inventory and record of where the equipment was and who was responsible for checking it out and so forth.

AC: Mm-hmm. When did the WPA come to be? Do you know?

HUNTER: The exact date, I’m not sure, but I would say probably in the late thirties is when it began and it probably finished up, at least the part there in Breathitt County, they did their work and was finished, I would say about 1940. There abouts. 17:00AC: What did your, how close did your other grandparents live? Of your mother?

HUNTER: My other grandparents lived about a mile out of Jackson. A community called Panbowl and my grandfather on my mother’s side died before I was born and I think I was eight years old when my grandmother died, so I really didn’t have the privelage of being with them a great deal but that’s where my dad met mother, he, when my grandmother had the store, she sent my dad into town with the wagon and so forth to bring back supplies and 18:00sometimes they came in by crate and other times he would buy materials from the local stores there in Jackson and then bring it back home to his mother. And many times this was, you know, a trip, to where it might even be well after dark before he could ride that car.

AC: So when you went into town would you go by foot?

HUNTER: Actually, it was too far to walk, probably twelve or fifteen miles from where we lived. The road conditions were really bad back in those days. Our road was just a dirt road, it had not been graveled and certainly not black topped for a lot of years later and people, besides not being 19:00able to afford a car, they could not have used it in the winter months because there was a lot of traffic by horseback and wagon and they kept the roads quite muddy from the horses hoofs and the wagon wheels cut ruts into the road and when it rained it was really a mess. So people would actually ride their horses down to route fifteen and perhaps catch a taxi or something from there on, or the greyhound bus on into Jackson.

AC: Would a lot of people do that? Or did people just mostly stay where they were?

HUNTER: They didn’t do it too often because most of the people raised the things that they ate and 20:00the ladies did a lot of canning. They would can lots and lots of vegetables and they would make preserves. My mother and grandmother had a huge orchard of apples and plums, peaches, pears, what have you, and they would make jellies and preserves and all of those things we would use during the winter months. And also, they raised hogs and cattle and so pork was always available and they really went into town mainly for clothing or some kind of staple food that was not available in the area. And then once my grandmother’s store went out of business for lack of customers, that meant we had to travel about four miles 21:00to the nearest grocery store and that was always, if you could do it you would, but you didn’t do it unless you had to. So there was a lot of horseback traffic and they didn’t really have a whole lot of supplies but they kept the things that people use most.

AC: What sort of things did you do for fun?

HUNTER: [laughing] Ooh, that’s a good story. Well, as you can imagine, being in a community where the economic state was really a serious one, there was not money to buy a lot of toys and things of that nature and games and all but that didn’t really keep us from having a lot of fun. My youngest brother was close enough to my age that he 22:00came up with some pretty good things to do and was usually pretty willing to do, play with me and so forth. But his ideas just always surprised me. We would get together with some of my cousins and I recall one time he said, “Let’s play church,” and I said, “Okay,” and he said, “I will be the preacher,” “Okay,” he said, “You and the cousins can be the choir, you can sing,” and, but he said, “I want to have church up on the porch roof,” and I said, “On the porch roof? How are we going to get up there?” and he said, “Well, dad left a ladder out there so I will just take some of the chairs from the porch and carry them up and you girls can come on up.” So he did that 23:00and we were up there I guess singing our little songs and so forth [laughter] and mother was busy in the kitchen preparing lunch, so my brother, he had a little podium of some kind up there and he stood up and began his little message, and the portion I can remember best, he was quoting actually from the Bible and he had heard some of the country preachers, which only came around at Memorial Day or at some reunion or something once or twice a year, but apparently he was paying attention and he was quoting. He said, “. . . and there’s a time to weep, and there’s a time to mourn, and there’s a time for all things,” and about that time I heard the screen door slam and mother came out and she said, “Yes G.L., 24:00there is a time for all things,” and she said, “right now it’s time for you to come down from there and bring the girls with you.” [laughter] So it was just like I said, he came up with some pretty good ones.

AC: Yeah! [laughing] HUNTER: Oh, and, we, my cousins and I, if he was handy and not out with my brothers doing boy stuff, we would talk him into playing house with us, and of course he was the papa and we were the mama, or it might be he was the doctor and we were the nurses, another game that we kind of slipped around and did, we weren’t supposed to play in grandma’s parlor, but when they were back in the dining area having fellowship and talking, we would go in there and she had this 25:00really big, long, studio couch that made out into a bed and my brother G.L came up with the idea of setting up a funeral home and he said, “This can be the casket.” So we’d take turns lying on the couch and then he would turn it back down and we would be down underneath. Well this was fun and we took turns doing it and then one day it was my turn and all of a sudden we heard footsteps coming down long porch and we figured it was either my grandmother or my mom [clock chimes] so they quickly shoved the couch back against the wall and lickitee split, before she sat down, and I was down, I was against the wall and couldn’t get out. So I was kind of scared to say anything because 26:00I knew everyone would be in trouble so I would just hoping they wouldn’t forget me there but I was kind of fearful they might, but they waited a few minutes and came back and I escaped.

AC: That’s good. So your brothers were G.L. . . .

HUNTER: G. L., uh-huh, he was named after my father, whose name was General Lawton Hatton, but for short he was G.L. Jr.

AC: And your other brothers?

HUNTER: The middle brother was A.B., named after my grandfather Auburn Hatton, but he carried the nickname of “Slick” all of his life. My uncle was the one who instigated this whole thing. He had measles when he was a small child and when mother took him to visit my uncle 27:00he had, his skin had become real slippery to where he had healed from having the measles and my uncle remarked, “Little slicky boy.” So the name stuck and I didn’t know the difference until I was probably five or six years old. But we were very close. He did a lot of things with me, and I guess you might say, tolerated my childish ways. Probably more than the others. If he was going to make a little trip down to my grandfather’s and was going to ride Prince, their favorite horse, I always managed to hitch a ride down there with him. At first he’d say, “I don’t have time to be bothered with you,” but I guess I put on a pitiful look or something. He ended up letting me go with him. And 28:00he taught me a lot of things that I might not have known, like recognizing the different kinds of timbers, actually we didn’t have fieldtrips like we would today in arboretums to, where kids would identify what each tree was and so forth, we just automatically learned these things by living there. And all the interesting plants and he would sometimes take me to the Walnut trees, we had lots of those on the farm, and one of my favorite things was eating black walnuts so he would crack them and I would eat them as fast as he could furnish them. And he would get the black stain from the walnut holes all over his hands and it was really hard to get off. But he took time to do that and actually taught me a lot about 29:00how to properly mount a horse and. . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO HUNTER: . . . I can remember he let me hold the reins while he let me ride in front of him and made me feel really important that I was guiding the horse, I thought. And if he was doing some kind of a chore, like using the hay rake, I always managed to talk him into riding on that with him and so he was just a buddy to me, really. And he, he was kind of a shewd person too. He loved teaberry gum and we had a patch of teaberry plants on the farm and we would to go this little area where it was moss all over and it’s a really neat place to play, and 30:00gather teaberry plants and little berries that came on it. And he also liked teaberry gum so he saved all the wrappers he possibly could and sent it into this company who told him that if he would save a certain amount, that they would mail him a whole package of like twenty packs. Well, he did this and waited, and waited, and finally he gave up that they weren’t going to send them, but they did and this, I think he must have kept it on hand at least a year and if he wanted a little chore done, he would offer me or my other brother a stick of gum if we would do so and so chores for him. So he made that last for a really long time.

AC: Wow. [laughter] Clever.

HUNTER: But he took me to look for Paw paws on the farm. 31:00This was fun too and taught me a lot about the different trees that might have poisonous root on it and those that didn’t and so forth. And then A.L., my older brother, he was always kind of quiet and reserved, but I always felt real safe when I was with him and he sometimes let me go to see his girlfriend Margaret Martin with him and that made me feel really good because I enjoyed being with her and she later became my sister-in-law. And the thing that he resented, I think, was when I would sneak into his room and read his love letters from Margaret. That was a no-no. And, but he, 32:00he would sometimes take time to play with me in the hay loft and when he was feeding the animals or something, he would help me find hen’s nests and it would be real exciting if I could carry home an apron full of little chicks or eggs or something we had found in the hay loft.

AC: So how much older were each of your brothers than you?

HUNTER: My oldest brother was seven years older and the next one was five years and the younger one was three years older. I was the youngest and the only girl in the family, but I always thought it would be so neat to have a sister, but in later years I would not have traded my brothers for anybody and it was, I just really have fond memories of growing up with them. 33:00AC: So A.B., was he the only one who went back to live in Jackson after you all moved?

HUNTER: My younger brother G.L., he lived there for a while and then he moved to Lexington and never did return there to live and yes, A.B., Slick was the only one who went back to live. He worked in the Dayton area for about fifteen or twenty years, but for health reasons he had to take a retirement and that’s how come he moved back there.

AC: So he’s no longer living?

HUNTER: Right. Sadly all three of my brothers are deceased. I have no siblings at all. I really miss them.

AC: Yes. Let’s see. 34:00When you found out when you were leaving, going to have to leave Jackson when you were eleven, is that right?

HUNTER: Uh-huh.

AC: How did you feel about that?

HUNTER: Okay. After my dad finished the work for the WPA program, he took a temporary job, actually, at Fort Knox, Kentucky, there was an armed force training group facility there that was in the process of phasing out and it would be temporary work, but they needed some clerical help for several month. So my dad was placed there to finish up that job and then in turn he found employment in Norwood, Ohio. He went there upon the urging of the cousin. He told him, he says, 35:00“Well, you’re out of work again, this would be a real good opportunity because I know they’re hiring at Trail Mobile, where I work and I feel you could be successful at finding a good job.” And it turned out that he did and dad worked there for several months before he decided to move us. But one weekend he came home and just suddenly announced that you’ll be going home with me, and we didn’t quite know what to think, we didn’t expect that, but it turned out that his cousin was inducted into the military and that this apartment became available and there were provisions for us to move right into it. And actually, I was thrilled and excited to have this idea that we would be living in the city 36:00as opposed to all the country life I’d been exposed to. And I remember when I turned in my text books, it was a little harder to say goodbye to my school mates than I thought it would be and, but we went ahead and moved and I did miss my grandparents but got settled in at Norwood and there was a lot of new things that I remember about there that I hadn’t done before.

AC: Mm-hmm. So you were there for three years?

HUNTER: Uh-huh. And actually around Jackson, the tallest building, I think, was three stories high, and needless to say, when we rounded the curve, we were traveling by greyhound bus, which was the main mode of transportation back in those days 37:00in eastern Kentucky. The big skyscraper type buildings that loomed in the distance, it just really surprised me, it looked like something from a fairy story book because I had never seen so many huge buildings all lit up and beautiful as we crossed the bridge. And it, it was just unbelievable to me for a while and, but I got settled into school and I liked it. It was different because we had never had a lunch room before at our school, at Camp Christy. And all of the sudden you could have hot lunches and all this and that and another little funny thing that comes to my mind, we were taking a walk one day and there was a particular little restaurant that served 38:00my favorite hamburgers and the name of the place was Uncle Ben’s Café. Well, we didn’t have anything called a café in Jackson, there was just a restaurant of some type, but that name, that term was new to me, so as we got close to the restaurant, I told dad, I said, “Oh, let’s stop at Uncle Ben’s Café [pronounced Calf] and have a hamburger.” [laughter] AC: So you mispronounced words too, like your grandfather.

HUNTER: Mom looked at dad and dad looked at her and they smiled and, and mom said, “Honey, it’s café, not calf.” [laughter] I said, “Oh, well that’s new to me. I didn’t see that word ever before.” So. . .

AC: Can you remember other stuff that was new to you just from living in Jackson? 39:00HUNTER: Yes. I had never been to a circus. That was new and exciting. We did not have amusement parks around Jackson so dad took us to Coney Island one weekend. We got on the boat there at Cincinnati that was called Island Queen Boat and rode it down to the old Coney Island area and we spent the day there and it was really, really a big deal for me and my younger brother. We rode the roller coaster and the Wildcat, the ferris wheel, and all these things were just extremely exciting for me. And that was something that I just, well I had no idea just how exciting it would be until I tried it. 40:00But I, I didn’t like the roller coaster that well, it kind of scared me. And ( ) the movies, it was very seldom that we got to go into Jackson to see a movie so being able to do that on a frequent basis was a treat and all of the new, well I shouldn’t say new, but the available equipment and so forth was just really a blessing for the family. Mom had always had to resort to doing laundry by hand because we had no electricity at Jackson at that time [clock 41:00chimes] ( ) we were able to ride the city buses and street cars where as we would have to travel by horseback usually, then catch a bus into Jackson. This was a convenient arrangement, being able to shop at a close grocery store was a nice thing and just everything in general was different. And we had our first telephone, we had no telephone’s at Camp Christy, the phone lines had not been put in at that time.

AC: And so you moved back three years later?

HUNTER: Uh-huh.

AC: Because your grandfather 42:00was sick, or because he had died?

HUNTER: He had, he had passed away with a heart attack. And my grandmother was there alone and quite elderly and so my dad felt like he wanted to move back and besides that, he loved agriculture anyway. So I finished school at Jackson High School. I stayed, actually, with my aunt most of the time who lived in Jackson because the school buses didn’t run in our direction at all, the road conditions were just too rough. And if the car would try to go up the road and they weren’t familiar with the road, most of the time they ended up getting stuck and had to be pulled out with a mule or a horse or something, so 43:00there was just no purpose in having an automobile in the family.

AC: Was it strange for you at all coming back?

HUNTER: In a sense it was. I had sort of become acclimated to the so-called easier way of life and the conveniences and so forth and some of the things, by the time I came back, were available, ( ) phone-lines and electricity and so forth, but a lot of it was still the same routine and even, even with that it was a difficult life for the people to provide for their families because of no industry.

AC: So when you 44:00came back did your parents mostly farm for the most part again?

HUNTER: For the most part, yes, uh-huh. Yeah. And I would look forward to coming home on the weekends. It was convenient to stay with the aunt, but I, I preferred being home where I could enjoy my own individual family and see more of my brothers from time to time and visit with my sister-in-law Margaret who was teaching at Camp Christy school and kind of renew friendships with some of the other people. But a lot had changed because of the war. People who went off to service and later came back, they usually found a job in the cities 45:00and most of them remained there and started their families and so forth, so actually Camp Christy area was never really the same as when I was a very young child.

AC: So do you think the war was the biggest thing that changed that area?

HUNTER: Yes. I think so. Because there was such a demand for defense work. It was, it was enticing to the young people to go and find work where they could have steady employment and a certain income that they could depend upon because farming, some years you’re successful and other times you’re not. And then there were a lot of people who were not fortunate enough to own their own properties and the only option they had was to be a share cropper and this meant that they 46:00were responsible to plant and cultivate all of the land that they rented, but they only got a third of the harvest and the rest went to the landlord so people on that level in particular wanted to go where there was public work.

AC: So what did most of the families that lived around you do? Did most of them go into public work or. . .

HUNTER: A lot of them moved away and went into public work, yes, and then those that remained were mostly land owners who were able to make a, not a good living, a living that was adequate to support their family and they just liked the country life and as they were getting older they 47:00just wanted to remain there. But many of the young couples never came back. Unless you were capable of teaching school, and then a lot of times you were sent out into the remote areas of Breathitt County. There just was not much to do, maybe a few jobs in the bank or a restaurant job or something like that in Jackson.

AC: Did you, for high school did you go to, was there only one high school where you went or. . .

HUNTER: Actually there were two, there was what they call the Jackson City School, it was for the people who lived in the Jackson area, the city of Jackson, and then there was a, a Breathitt County High School that was established the same year that my two brothers 48:00started into high school and they went there and they had an awfully long walk down from our house to where they would catch the bus. Three or four miles, four or five miles each way, and they had to leave really early in the mornings. The Barney Back sons would start out, they lived beyond us and they would come by our house, sometimes it would just be maybe barely daylight and my brothers would join them and they would proceed on down the road and different ones would join in. By the time they got down to the area where they would wait for the bus there would be quite a group of them, maybe twenty or thirty young people and 49:00in the winter months it was tough because it got really cold and there was a gentleman by the name of Sylvester Howard that had a general store and he opened up his store and let the young people wait inside for their bus, otherwise it’d be really, really hard for them.

AC: But you didn’t go to this school?

HUNTER: No, my, my aunt lived in Jackson and my dad had gone to school with the principal when he was a young man and they just at that time felt that it would work out better and that the school system in general was a little bit ahead of, or superior to the county school and that I would have a better opportunity for maybe 50:00a somewhat better education if I went to the Jackson City School.

AC: So what was it like going to high school there?

HUNTER: It was, it was fine, the people were receptive to a new student and I discovered I had a couple of cousins going there that I didn’t know existed and it wasn’t long until I made friends, but it was a very small school. Actually I think there were only a total of sixteen in our graduating class. So we had an opportunity to get to know each other pretty well.

AC: What did most people do after they graduated?

HUNTER: Most of them went away to Lex, a lot of them went away to Lexington to attend the University of Kentucky. 51:00Some went to Eastern. It was called the Eastern State Teacher’s College at that time. And some went to Moorhead and a good many of them became teachers and one I think established some kind of a business where he had some kind of garage and the sales of automobiles and what have you and most of them did go into a better way of life, I think, to where they could make a good living.

AC: What did you do after you graduated?

HUNTER: I taught my, well, for three months I worked for the circuit court clerk during vacation period and I was a 52:00secretary ( ) and recorded depositions and did a lot of filing and typing and what have you, and then my brother, A.L., or Al as we called him, and his wife Margaret came to visit and I talked my dad into letting me come home with them to Dayton and I had planned to go back and go to college at Lees College in Jackson, but instead I decided to stay here with the permission of my dad. And I became employed at the Standard Register Company and I worked there for four and a half years until my first child was born and afterwards I became employed by the federal government by Defense Electronic Supply Center and at that time was called Chentily 53:00Air Force Station. And I eventually retired from there.

AC: So how did you meet your first husband?

HUNTER: It, I was riding to school, this was one period when I was not staying in Jackson, I briefly stayed with another couple that lived not too far from the general store that I was speaking of, my husband had been in service, in the infantry, had seen all kinds of battles and been involved in them and so forth but fortunately he had returned home safely and he had decided to enter Lees College and I was in my last year of high school. It just so happened that the person I was riding to school with, 54:00that my husband also got a ride into town with this same person. So I had met him one time, but I didn’t realize who it was at the time. When he was attending high school with my brothers he came home to spend the night with them and I was actually ten years younger than he was, but he could remember me being there, a little girl, so. . . When, when they pulled up to pick me up and take me to school, this young man, very erect and military looking, I would say, sat down in the car and was holding the door for me and I thought, “Who is that!?” [laughter] And so I got in the car and he introduced himself and 55:00he said he was Warren Gillium and when he found out that my maiden name was Hatton, he said, “Oh, did you by any chance have brothers?” and he named their names and I said, “Oh yeah, those are my brothers,” he said, “I went to high school with them,” and he said, “As a matter of fact, I visited with, with them over night one time.” And then he gets this blank look on his face. He pointed his finger sort of and he said, “Oh, you’re not that little,” and then he stopped and then he gulped a little bit and he said, “That little girl who ran and told her dad that the boys are out behind the barn smoking?” [laughter] I said, “Probably, because I was the only little girl around there.” [laughter] And he couldn’t believe that [clock chimes] ( ) So it just started out as a casual friendship and 56:00we walked from downtown Jackson up to the high school and the college were real close together and as time went on our friendship developed and increased and when, about four years later we were married.

AC: So, but you were married, were you married here, were you married in Dayton?

HUNTER: No, I came to Dayton after he got out of college. He took a position of teaching in a rural area in Breathitt County, I think it was called Hunting Creek, but I had decided to come home with my brother to Dayton and I stayed here and, and began a work career and 57:00it was later that we, we got married and once we had made our plans known to my mother and dad, they asked that we be married at home in order that they might attend our wedding. And this was kind of a, a time of anxiety for my husband Warren. He had not yet spoken with my dad about marrying me and how he felt about it and so forth, so, he told me, “I’m going to ask for your hand, do you think your dad’s in a good mood today?” I said, “Well seemingly,” and we had a special tree we called the Beech Tree down near the barn where my barn had a special little place there he liked to sit and chat with people, so they had wondered off that direction 58:00while mom and I were preparing the meal and so I gave him time, I thought would be adequate to make his requests known to dad and then we had this big old dinner bell in the back and I asked mom, was it okay if I ring the bell to let them know that lunch is about ready. She said yeah so later he told me, he says, “Boy, was I ever glad to hear that bell ring,” he said, “I had just finished my question,” and he said, “I didn’t know what kind of an answer I was going to get,” and he said, “That really saved my day, or at least helped me to relax a little bit.” [laughing] AC: Oh my gosh!

HUNTER: So anyway. . .

AC: So were you about twenty years old, is that right?

HUNTER: I was nineteen. Nineteen, yeah.

AC: So, 59:00what did he do ( ). . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE HUNTER: He finished the school year, as I remember it, and came up to Dayton and joined me. We found an apartment and he found a job and became employed by Chrysler Air Chip company, but later he transferred to the federal government as well and worked there along with me for several years.

AC: What sort of things were 60:00different, do you think about your parents attitudes toward raising you and your attitudes toward raising your daughters, if there were any. What was different about growing up than your daughters growing up?

HUNTER: Well, actually there was not very much entertainment or places that we could go to as young people when we lived at Camp Christy. Everything that went on was sort of centered around a school activity, an occasional school activity, that is, or someone in the community might decide to have a square dance or a party at their house, but I was never 61:00permitted to go unless one of my older brothers was with me so that was a little bit different because when my children were born and raised in the city, of course there was automatically chaperones available at the school and so forth where the parent didn’t have to be concerned. I don’t know that there was a whole lot of difference. I think the character building ideas was a carry over from what my mom and dad had taught me and the values of life and so forth that I seemed to inherit that same type of thing and in turn, I tried to instill as many good qualities as I could remember into my children. 62:00AC: So your daughters were born in the late sixties, early seventies?

HUNTER: Yes, my older daughter was born in ‘61 and her name’s Elaine, and Karen, the younger one, was born in 1964.

AC: And your first husband passed away soon after Karen was born?

HUNTER: Karen was five years old and had just started kindergarten. Elaine was nine years old when he passed away. He had a massive coronary on Thanksgiving Day, 1970. He had gone out on a farm near Xenia, Ohio to go on a hunting trip 63:00with a colonial that he had become friends with at the Defense Electronic Supply Center, and he started feeling badly and decided he had better come home and the colonial had wanted to drive him home, but he says no, I’ll go by myself. I’ll be okay, I think, I just need to go and lie down, but he only made it part way and had call back and ask the colonial to pick him up and bring him on home. And he recognized that something terribly was wrong and the colonial drove him out to the hospital in order not to delay action any more than he had to in waiting for someone else to come and pick him up. So when I arrived at the hospital everything seemed to be okay although I hadn’t been able to speak 64:00with him, but they told me that they had, that he had had a heart attack, but they had it under control and that he said he felt much, much better and that I could go in to see him shortly. And so I waited and by this time a couple of friends as well as our pastor from church came to be with me and we waited for what I thought was an awfully long time and then I became anxious about it and enquired in the window as to when I could go in and the nurse I could tell was very uncomfortable and she came out and told me that something had transpired, that they needed to talk with me about. She said, “I’ll let you speak with the doctor.” Well, the news was that as soon as he said, 65:00“I feel okay,” he totally collapsed and died and they were not able to bring him back again and they didn’t know, you know, exactly what happened except it was a massive coronary.

AC: And this is the first time he had ever shown signs of. . .

HUNTER: Actually, he had complained of having pains down his arm and left shoulder and he had gone to the, the doctor on base and they did not detect any problem and his family doctor also had checked him, but saw no reason for concern, and then later when I enquired, “Well, why weren’t you able to detect it? The fact he was having heart problems?” And they said, “Well, it was of such a nature that unless 66:00he was having pain at the very time that they were examining him that it was not evident and could sometimes be overlooked.” AC: Gee. Wow.

HUNTER: Yeah. So that was really a shock.

AC: It seems like so many things were unclear back then, even though that wasn’t that long ago.

HUNTER: No, not really, not really.

AC: Did you go back to visit Jackson often once you lived. . .

HUNTER: Not as often. We usually went back for holidays and so forth and as a matter of fact, at the time that he was stricken ill, he had called me from work, I had taken a, a leave of absence when my youngest daughter was born and he called me from work and said, “I don’t feel too great. I don’t know if we should 67:00leave to go to Kentucky for the Thanksgiving Holiday or not.” And I said, “Well, you know, you just decide for yourself and it will be fine with me.” And so when he came home, he was also the choir director at our church, he went ahead and held his choir practice and came home and then went on this hunting trip the next day and we, we often would go, but after his death, why, I didn’t got that much, but still made it a point to visit his parents and their family at Winchester, Kentucky at least a couple of times a year. And I drove down with the girls probably once every two or three months to see my family.

AC: So now is the only relative you have there your niece? 68:00HUNTER: My niece is the only one I have there now. It’s very different. The old homeplace and everything is still there but without the fellowship of family and the things we used to do together it’s, it’s a wonderful place to go and reminisce and think about the times when we were all together as a family. But it will never really be the same.

AC: Let’s see, when you were living in Norwood for that short period of time, what did you miss the most about Jackson? Do you remember?

HUNTER: I do remember some of the things I missed. For one thing I loved the outdoors, I loved to trail behind my dad as he 69:00looked at the crops on the property ( ) and so forth. I loved to horseback ride and just run in the meadows and ride in the hay wagons, or whatever. When I moved to Norwood, that was my first experience at having sidewalks and such. I had gotten used to the sticky roads and that was nice. You had clean shoes all the time and everything, but all the sudden I was longing to put my little bare feet in the meadows of my grandparent’s farm again and on my dad’s farm and I missed that, I really did We were somewhat restricted about the freedom that a child might enjoy. We had to be extremely 70:00quiet in the apartment because this was the rule of the landlord. They had other tenants in the building and you were not to disturb any body else and I was not used to tip toeing. And this was a little hard. And the lady next door was always spying on us when my brother and I would go out in the yard to play under the sprinkler and she would tell the landlady that we were wasting her water so this, this type of thing kind of gave me a restrictive type of feeling so when summer vacation came around my brother and I were about to [clock chimes] ( ) and that was, that was fun.

AC: Yeah. 71:00When, did you ever, after you moved to Dayton permanently did you ever think about going back to Jackson to live?

HUNTER: It had crossed my mind. But I never really had a real deep desire to because as far as finding employment, that really didn’t change any. There was just absolutely nothing to do to make a living and I felt that if I was going to settle in and have a family and everything that I needed to be where I could have a reasonable income and a comfortable income and 72:00that we would not have to be confronted with trying to make a living through farming.

AC: So I guess could you just tell me what your daughters do now although I already know. [laughing] HUNTER: I know some of what they’re doing, yeah. My daughters, I remained in the Dayton area after I lost their father. They actually didn’t know a whole lot about my home life in Kentucky but they did like to go to visit and kind of get an idea of how things were and they enjoyed doing that but their life style was totally different than from what mine was. They went 73:00to school and became registered nurses. Elaine went to Kettering College of Medical Arts and now works for a cardiologist group at Miami Valley Hospital. And Karen moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and has been employed at Baptist Hospital as an RN for about fifteen years.

AC: Do you remember what Jackson looked like when you were growing up there? Like the actual town part?

HUNTER: Yes, I remember fairly well, I didn’t really get into town that much because of the transportation problems, but from time to time my dad 74:00took me in to visit his sister. He, she had a millinary shop in Jackson and it was fun to go visit her and she always had lots of dresses and stuff that she kept in the store and usually she would give me something exciting to bring home with me and so forth. Jackson had very few restaurants at that time. One that was my favorite was a little place called The White Flash, and really all it was, was a hot dog stand, but I dearly loved their hot dogs and of course dad always took me there. And down on down the street was a hardware store that the owner had long been friends with my grandfather 75:00and my dad. Graham’s hardware and June Jett Drygood’s Store where grandpa bought the violey [laughter]. They were very good friends and I can remember the old first national bank building and the old college buildings and everything, and my uncle had a barber shop on College Avenue and my dad always went there for a haircut and it was, I can remember it very well.

AC: Yeah, people I interview, they always mention the White Flash. [laughter] HUNTER: It’s a favorite spot and even in high school, it still was. And. . .

AC: Do you remember was the Corner Lunch there when you were there?

HUNTER: Yes, 76:00yes it was. The Corner Lunch was there. In fact, that’s where my first husband Warren Gillium and I spent quite a few hours. We would get into town fairly early and would usually have coffee and doughnuts or something when it wasn’t quite time to go to school. So we sat there many times and chatted and my family as well would go there during the war days, I think is when we went there most. And I remember the old post office building. I would go with my aunt to pick up the mail. And I had a cousin who lived across the river and she had a studio, a portrait studio, that was Vergie Sizemore, 77:00and that was a popular place to go because all the school kids went there for their photographs and so forth. But I guess going there for hot dogs and ice cream was a big deal.

AC: Did, did you feel like when you were growing up there, there was a big difference between the people who lived out in the country and the people who lived in the town part of Jackson or was everyone ( )?

HUNTER: I think there was a difference. I don’t know if it was self-inflicted thought or what, but it seemed that the youngsters who grew up in town, in Jackson, sort of had an air of superiority to the country children. Not all of them, but a good many of them. 78:00And I guess the term might have been a little snooty at times and kind of made the country kids feel ill at ease but they did not like country music, they frowned on any of us who did, [laughter] and, I don’t know, they just tried to assume the attitude that you might find in the larger cities even though it was just a very small country town. But I, I can remember very distinctly a difference.

AC: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well I don’t really have any other questions unless there’s anything you want to talk about, anything else?

HUNTER: Okay. 79:00I don’t. . .

AC: I mean, I know there’s lots of things to talk about.

HUNTER: Probably lots of things to talk about.

AC: It would take hours to talk about everything.

HUNTER: Yeah, it really would, I guess. But the memories of the people in the community of Camp Christy, it’s a lingering one, and I don’t think there were very many big I’s and little you’s so as to speak. They were all pretty much on the same financial level. And you didn’t feel intimidated by anyone in the area. The families made due with what they had and the children enjoyed each other as fellowship. One thing that always stays with me too is, the type of lunches they had at school. We brought lunches 80:00from home and sometimes it might be biscuits and jelly with fruit and so forth and other times it might be a sweet potato and ears of corn and tomatoes, but the really popular and favorite thing for kids to bring was a bucket of milk and bread. That was milk and bread mixed together and the lunch pail, or bucket, was actually a little lard bucket, four pound lard bucket, that the mother’s kept for that purpose, and the majority of the children would bring that and then at lunch period they would gather under the silver maple trees and just really enjoy having their lunch together before they went off to the ball court to play ball or do a favorite game. 81:00AC: Did that have a name, the milk and bread mixed together?

HUNTER: That’s just what they called it, milk and bread. Bread and milk, milk and bread. [laughter] And it’s really only, well it’s crumbling cornbread into milk to the consistency that you liked and it was kind of like a soup consistency more or less, but it was very nourishing and good thing to eat and the children all seemed to be healthy and as a result of it.

AC: Yeah. Was there any, what, big sicknesses that happened when you were growing up there? Do you remember?

HUNTER: Yes. From time to time there would be sicknesses and so forth. 82:00There was a time when there was almost a flu epidemic and I know my grandparents were very, very ill and they pulled through and some people around the community I think actually lost there lives because of it and the neighbors were very supportive of each other, they would go and do what they could to help out, or if someone was extremely ill they would relieve the parents and sit with this person. Just whatever they could do, they were caring people. Very caring. And they shared whatever they could with their neighbor. It was not unusual for a, one of the ladies, as long as she was just kind of tending to her family and not 83:00having to go into town or anything, there really wasn’t a need for a lot of clothes but occasionally they would not really have what they needed to wear into town, so it was not unusual to go to your neighbor and ask to borrow a pair of dress shoes or a nicer dress or a hat or whatever they needed. It was just like, kind of like sisters, they would share. And they, they just cared an awful lot. And I remember when a cousin was, Esther and Pearl Gevedon’s daughter named Martha Belle, she got burned really badly when she was just a little child. I think she was just barely in school age but that day she was home for some reason and standing in front of the open fire place, her little 84:00gown caught fire and she was burned severely and died three or four days later and during that time people were really supportive of her parents. They didn’t have any kind of funeral home or anything that was nearby. Of course, in town they did have, but usually people did there own thing by, the men in the neighborhood would make the casket and I remember the mother of this little girl was an excellent seamstress and she sent to Jackson and bought the material she needed to line the little casket and to make her little girls dress and this was, really had to be a hard thing for the mother to do, but she did 85:00such a beautiful job, she did some shearing like and placed in inside the casket with white satin and made a, a little long white dress and put pink ribbons on it and everything and with her angel white hair, she really did look like a little angel and it was, it was sad. As the old country preacher led the congregation up the side of the hill to the little family cemetery and they were singing “Will the Circle be Unbroken?” And it just seemed like even the birds stopped to listen. [clock chimes] AC: ( ) HUNTER: Yes, yes I did. Margaret was living 86:00in Dayton, Ohio, she and my brother, actually, I was with Margaret, I was the last one with her before she passed away. The Saint Elizabeth Hospital was near our house and it was just a few months prior to my wedding and I had gone out that afternoon to see how she was doing when my brother was working and she had become terribly ill and was put under an oxygen tent and she soon became unaware of what was going on around her and I can recall sitting with her an attempting to communicate and she, I think, recognized me, but she was never able to talk. So when I was with her she, she passed away, then shortly after 87:00her sister Lorrine came. And then it was a sad occasion when my brother had her taken back to the homeland for her burial and it was, he rode on the train with her, with her body, he accompanied her body, he and her brother Luther Martin and my dad often referred to the sad occasion of when they got word of her death and my dad and the family was at the little Jackson Train Depot to receive her and we then had the funeral and she was placed to rest down in Kentucky.

AC: In Quicksand? Is that right?

HUNTER: I believe 88:00it was Quicksand or Knockturn, I’m not sure.

END OF TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO, SIDE TWO HUNTER: I believe they said it was a Lazur-Back graveyard.

AC: Wow. I didn’t know. .. I always found her really intriguing because I always looked at pictures of her when I was little and I always thought she was really pretty.

HUNTER: She was. She was a really beautiful lady, but just as beautiful inside as out, she was a very sweet person and since I didn’t have any sisters of my own, I felt I was really blessed to have her. And I admired her and looked up to her an awful lot.

AC: I bet she felt the same way about you. [laughing] HUNTER: Hopefully. Right. Uh-huh.

AC: Well, I hate to cut you off, but I think the tape might actually run out of tape [laughter] 89:00in about five minutes.

HUNTER: That’s okay.

AC: All right.

HUNTER: I probably wondered around here and didn’t make a bit of sense to you.

AC: Oh yeah, it did.

END OF INTERVIEW