Oral History Interview with Judith Clark & Janie Downey

“Stories From the Balcony”

Interviews about the Grand Theatre in Frankfort Kentucky

Interview on Video with Judy Clark and Janie Downey and Pat Stewart

Pat Stewart is at the end of Tape 0016

On Location at the Grand Theatre

TAPE 0016JTH_DV

Conducted by Joanna Hay

November 7, 2006

This project has been supported by the Kentucky Oral History Commission

and Save The Grand Theatre, Inc.

HAY: I’m just about ready to wrap up, but before we do, could you each, we’ll start with you, Janie, give me your parents names, grandparents names. The sort of family history.

DOWNEY: That I can remember. My father was in the service in World War II and he was stationed in Georgia. Fort Jackson, in Georgia. And my mother, at the time and her sister, decided to go to meet some of the soldiers down in Georgia. And believe it or not, two people from the same county, she was from the Peak’s Mill area and he was from the Bald Knob area, met. And they got married, this was after the war and then, as I said, Dad’s family was from Bald Knob, they were some place out there called Harp Pike, that’s where my ancestors, the Harps, it’s a little windy road, and they had a log cabin out there and I remember it as a child, going to the log cabin, my grandparents were still alive, I don’t remember my great grandparents. And my mother’s family, my grandmother had twelve children. She was part Cherokee from her father’s side, I believe. I do remember him. He was my great-grandfather. They were from Franklin/Peak’s Mill-Owen County, so from that area. And they lived in Peak’s Mill for a while, where I now reside. My grandfather had a store, a little country store… and we would go in and get candy. The barrel candy and the old stove in the middle of the floor, the wooden floor. I remember the store as a child. This is around the 50s I’m speaking of and he died in the 50s at a young age. But my grandmother lived to be 85 and she also lived toward that area. When she died she was around that area.

HAY: What were their names?

DOWNEY: I’m sorry, their last name was Riddle. His name was Russell Riddle and her name was Beulah Riddle. And she was the Indian blood and he was from, English.

HAY: These were your mother’s parents. And your mother’s name.

DOWNEY: My mother’s name is, I’ll make this quick. Lula, she died, I was born, and my sister when I was three she was pregnant with my brother and she went to Kings Daughters Hospital to have my brother, which was 1949, end of March. She bled to death, they evidently thought they had the placenta, everything out, but they must, I don’t know what happened. But overnight she bled, bled to death. And so, my grandmother, who lived in the country, my mothers side, took my sister and my brother, my sister, my brother and me and raised us for three years out in the country. Well, like I said, she had twelve children, my aunt, who was about eighteen at the time, married my father, about five years later, after my mother died. So my mother now, is really my aunt. We kept that family line now. My Dad, like I said, lived in a log cabin, his last name is Downey, John Downey was his father and my grandmother’s name was Eliza Jane. And they were the ones that lived in the log cabin out in Bald Knob. So, that’s about the extent that I know.

HAY: And what about you, do you have children?

DOWNEY: I have three children and five grandchildren. At this time I am not married.

HAY: Can you give me their names?

DOWNEY: Sherry lives in Lawrenceburg, Melissa lives in Lawrenceburg and John is on a ship, stationed in Hawaii, in the navy. I went there a couple of years ago got to go visit. Then, my grandchildren. John has a little girl, Hayley. Sherry has two little girls, Brittany and Megan; and Melissa has a little girl and a little boy, Autumn and Todd.

HAY: And their last names, same as yours?

DOWNEY: Sherry is Hale and Melissa is Pickett and John is Hale and the grandchildren’s they’re all different.

HAY: It’s going to be in the historical society so it’s nice to put all the families together and their names, should somebody down the road come and say, now what about tha name, Hale?

DOWNEY: Now, Robert Hale, my first husband, they were from Frankfort and Dad worked with his father. And we married, I was about twenty. And we were married for about ten years. John’s, the Pickett family is from Shelby County, that’s the difference.

HAY: And what about you?

CLARK: My maiden name was Harrod. My grandfather’s, well, my father’s name was Dennis O’Dell Harrod, I think is what his middle name was. And his father, was Abraham Harrod. And he died when he was like 95 years old. I never really knew him as a matter of fact. This sounds a little strange. I never referred to him as Grandfather or Grandpa or any loving name like that, we called him Mr. Harrod. Now, why? I think that was because we were never really around him. Like I told you earlier, my Dad, Dennis drowned in the Kentucky River in 1947, when I was two years old. Now, my mother’s name, her maiden name was Stigers. Hazel Stigers. And she’s one of nine children. Now, her mother’s name was Della Wainscott, Della Price Wainscott. So, we have Wainscott and Stigers and Harrod. Now, I married, let’s see, I’m trying to think. The Wainscott, there was a judge but I’m sorry I just can’t remember, he was a nephew to my Grandfather Ira Wainscott and along the Harrod line, within just the past twenty years, Robert Harrod, Judge Bobby Harrod, he’s a cousin of mine. So, that’s the only line that I know of that would be of any interest as far as history goes. Now, I married at twenty to Billy Lee Nesselrode. A set of, well, a boy, Brian Nesselrode and then I have a set of twins three years later, Lisa and Lee Todd Nesselrode. Now, Lee Todd lives in Lawrenceburg and this is really strange, she we are talking about segregation and integration, he’s married to an African American. So I have two absolutely beautiful grandsons. Now, Lisa, still is single and she lives in Lexington. Now the oldest son Brian Nesselrode, he lives in Versailles and he has one daughter, Hayley Nesselrode. And I remarried, I was married to their father for fifteen years, was single for five years and then remarried 21 years ago to Joe Clark from Woodford County. That’s my story.

DOWNEY: I didn’t tell you my mother’s name is Ida. I was sitting there, I told you, her younger sister. But there is a governor somewhere in our line, my sister knows but I just haven’t kept up with it.

CLARK: Oh, I know one thing of importance. I am a descent of James Harrod who settled Fort Harrod in Harrodsburg.

HAY: The first Kentucky family.

CLARK: Yay for me! [laughter]

DOWNEY: I don’t know the governor’s, my sister would know the governor’s name, I don’t but there is a governor somewhere down the road. But I just don’t know.

HAY: Guess where I live?

DOWNEY: Where?

HAY: Harp Pike.

DOWNEY: Do you? Do you live on Harp Pike? Well, Dad showed me the papers, one time when I was about ten and we lived in Thorn Hill and he was sitting outside and he had this little thing full of papers and he said, we owned every bit of Harp Pike. He said, the sold…. [interruption] He told me a few years ago, he died last year, he told me that they had sold an acre for like a cow, or some land for a horse. He said, they finally got down to twenty acres plus a cabin or something. He had all the papers, where they had written all that out where they had sold everything on Harp Pike. But my aunt, he had a brother, Neville and he has a brother Neville, and their house recently burned out there. Off 421. The Downeys.

HAY: I know the house. I’d never met them. So that was your uncle.

DOWNEY: That was my uncle and aunt, is my uncle, and their daughter, Judy is married to Judy’s cousin David. That’s’ the way it goes around Frankfort.

[CAMERA TURNED OFF AND BACK ON AND PAT STEWART AGREES TO ANSWER A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS SHE IS STANDING. YOU SEE PART OF HER BODY PART OF HER FACE]

HAY: your voice is going in. Pat, tell me about your experiences in the balcony with your friends.

STEWART: Okay, the only thing I can remember a lot of when I was young. We lived out in the country. My Mom would shop and my Dad would bring me and my sisters to the show. He loved Westerns and we’d see the reel every week. Well, when I got to be a young teenager, they just gave up on me, because they knew I was crazy. But anyway, I had a couple of black friends and they would sneak me up into the balcony. And we’d drop popcorn down, and then they’d sneak me back down. And then I can remember being here and the guys would get real rowdy and the manager would take them out that door or this door and kick them out, put them out.

HAY: How old were you, when you remember that?

STEWART: Now this, a young teenager.

HAY: What year would that have been? What year were you born?

CLARK: In the 50s?

STEWART: It would have to be?

HAY: What year you were you born?

STEWART: 62, 1944

HAY: So, tell me your full name, for the record.

STEWART: It’s just Pat Stewart.

HAY: And you were born in 1944, here in Frankfort.

STEWART: Right, and I will be glad to come out and talk to you any time.