Oral History Interview with Ben Moore & Taylor Hay

“Stories From the Balcony”

Interviews about the Grand Theatre in Frankfort, Kentucky

Interview on Video with

Ben Moore and Taylor Hay

On Location at The Grand Theatre

Tape 2 - 0008JTH_DV

Conducted by Joanna Hay

October 31st, 2006

This project has been supported by the Kentucky Oral History Commission

And Save The Grand Theatre, Inc.

“Stories From the Balcony”

Interviews about the Grand Theatre in Frankfort, Kentucky

Interview on Video with

Ben Moore and Taylor Hay

On Location at The Grand Theatre

Tape 2 - 0008JTH_DV

Conducted by Joanna Hay

October 31st, 2006

BEGINNING OF TAPE 2

MOORE: That typewriter was a pretty darn good one.

HAY: Well, he had to get somebody because you were the youngest of your three, right?

TAYLOR: Now I was only accidentally hurt by Ben…

HAY: […]

MOORE: He was uneducated.

TAYLOR: I hate to bring this one up, but the only time that I was accidentally hurt by Ben is when we were out in the front yard, raking the yard, and he was doing the work. I was just sort of behind him. And he had the rake on his shoulder and it went up and down. He was sort of swinging it like “Hi Ho, Hi Ho” and so forth, and the rake caught me in the lip. Do you remember that?

MOORE: No

TAYLOR: It cut my lip. And you were so sorry. But you don’t seem to feel that way now. I don’t even have a hair lip. I don’t even have a scar.

HAY: Ben, will you tell me about your mother’s generation. A little bit about each character.

MOORE: Priscilla was the greatest person. She was the oldest. She was the greatest person for advice you’ve ever found. She lost an arm when she was of childbearing age. She only had one son. One child. And if you ever had a problem, or even if you didn’t even pose it as a problem, Aunt Priscilla would be able to give you the problem handed back to you, and let you come to a good conclusion. And she would curry and get you to get the right answer. And I thought that was a marvelous facility she had to help people. It was marvelous. Aunt Virginia was a person who was interested in nature. Very much interested in nature. She lost her husband in 1935. She had one daughter. She also liked dogs. She had Deek and Duncan. [Chuckle] And she liked working in the garden. She lived in Louisville on Lightfoot Road, and it’s still a nice road to go down. It’s right off of Brownsboro Road close to…right close to…By the way, I was looking at a map in the paper this morning and Hollow Creek was in there and I thought of you.

TAYLOR: Really?

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: I used to work…that’s where I broke…I cut my teeth.

MOORE: I knew that’s where you did that.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: And Aunt Virginia would dig in the ground for grubs and stomp them. [Laughter] And if a dog came, when she was living at Murray Street, and after her husband died and mother got married in 1945. She always said, “I’ll never get married until all three of you children are out of the house.” And so in 1945, they were all out and she got married.

TAYLOR: And they had a wonderful marriage, didn’t they?

MOORE: Yes, they did.

TAYLOR: John Allen was courting her for how many years? Fourteen years?

MOORE: Oh, no.

TAYLOR: Twelve years?

MOORE: No. No

TAYLOR: How many?

MOORE: Short time.

TAYLOR: Was it? Oh, it was not. It was forever.

HAY: Where did they live after they got married?

MOORE: In Louisville.

TAYLOR: Puritan Hotel

MOORE: That’s on Fourth Street

TAYLOR: Yeah, sure.

MOORE: Aunt Virginia came to Frankfort to take…to be living with Grandmother and us. Mother was gone. She was a very alliterate person and she could play the piano. And she knew what an ageratum and a lantana were. They’re flowers. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: I thought that was something that had to do with music.

MOORE: Then, Priscilla, Virginia, Jane came…uh…Priscilla, Virginia, Rose. Rose was a gorgeous…she was a renowned beauty.

TAYLOR: She was a Powers model in New York or something.

MOORE: Every one of the daughters were beautiful. I know that because of the pictures. Rose had a good time. She lived in California as well and she told me that she played Bridge with Richard Dicks. Richard Dicks was one of the big stars, and I was impressed by that. [Chuckle]

0: 1:00 -0: 2:00TAYLOR: They all had beautiful voices too.

MOORE: Aunt Rose had…she sold Dorothy Perkins lipstick and powder and paint, you know. Priscilla, Virginia, Rose…Ben…Then came Ben. Uncle Ben…

HAY: Can I backtrack to Rose? Who was she married to?

MOORE: She was married to Dick Stall. He was the father of Lylie that we spoke of. I never have seen a picture of him. Only thing I know is it was Dick Stall.

TAYLOR: And his family had money and they were from Lexington.

MOORE: Yeah. I don’t know about the money.

TAYLOR: Was he a doctor?

MOORE: I have no idea about him. I know nothing about him, so…

TAYLOR: Supposedly he was a rich guy that inherited.

MOORE: Could be. I have no idea.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: But I know there was a guy who lived here named Jimmy O’Rear and he was always after Rose, but he never caught her.

TAYLOR: Jimmy O’Rear was a cousin of ours.

MOORE: No

TAYLOR: Isn’t he?

MOORE: I didn’t know him.

TAYLOR: Yeah, Jinx O’Rear. Jinx is my cousin. Jimmy O’Rear.

HAY: […] Taylor’s side

TAYLOR: Yeah, they’re our cousins. [Chuckle]

HAY: So then there’s Ben.

MOORE: Jinx is gorgeous.

TAYLOR: Yeah. Jinx’s father was Jimmy.

MOORE: Yeah. So…

HAY: So Ben was your uncle…

MOORE: So, Uncle Ben had a good time. He had a…they say he had the most beautiful tenor voice. But I never heard him singing. But, he was on the race track. He liked to go to races. [Chuckle] So he lived the life of Rally. He’d come back to Frankfort, and he lived in a barn that was at Murray Street out back. He was…he had an appreciation of the finer things such as a good life. [Chuckle] Uncle Ben would take us swimming or stuff like that, you know. He was Grandmother’s saddest experience because he drank. But Uncle Ben was a swashbuckler. He would open the door like this, you know, with full attention to him. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: And his voice was like a melody. His voice. Remember that?

MOORE: And he rolled his own. He was a cigarette smoker and he rolled his own.

TAYLOR: And he married a girl named Stella. His second marriage. He had what? One child?

MOORE: His second marriage was to Aunt Marian. He married her twice.

TAYLOR: Ok

MOORE: As if it…he ended up doing it again. And so, Mernie, who’s still alive, is my double first cousin because Uncle Ben was married to Aunt Marian who’s sister…uh…who’s brother was my father. So that was…

HAY: Say that again.

MOORE: Two out of the same family married sisters and brothers.

TAYLOR: Marian’s father…Marian’s brother was a Moore?

MOORE: He was my father. Rogers Thomas Moore and Marian Williams…I mean Marian Moore Williams…

TAYLOR: Were sister and brothers? Dang! I didn’t know that. Did they get introduced through the family this way, or did they meet each other…?

MOORE: I have no idea. I guess it was proximity. [Laughter]

TAYLOR: Well, I’ll be darned! Because wasn’t your dad a mountain man to start with? A mountain lawyer?

MOORE: Uh…they moved to Hazard. He grew up in Central Kentucky and he went to UVA.

TAYLOR: I saw pictures of him, boy. He looked just like you and Rogers.

MOORE: He looked like Podge. He parted his hair in the middle. I thought that was a marvelous touch.

TAYLOR: Yeah. He looked like The Great Gatsby.

MOORE: I never knew much until he died. He served in the Army in World War I, so when he was ready to die, he came to Louisville, and on Zorn Avenue was the Veteran’s Administration Hospital there.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: And they called and I found out about it. And I went out there and I spoke to him for the longest time of my life. I spoke to him for about five minutes. And during that short time that we talked, he said, “Anything that went wrong with your marriage…with the marriage between me and your mother, was my fault.” So I give him passing grades on that.

TAYLOR: Oh, Bless his heart. Bless his heart.

MOORE: And also there were his wife and other five children from their second marriage. And that’s the only time I ever saw them in my life.

TAYLOR: That’s your half brothers and sisters.

MOORE: That’s right, and I have no wish to connect up with them. I didn’t at that time.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: But, I don’t have anything against them, but I just…

TAYLOR: Where are they?

MOORE: They are Cincinnati people.

TAYLOR: Yeah

HAY: They all live in Cincinnati?

MOORE: As far as I know. I’m sure they’re spread around. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: What a wonderful thing though, in five minutes for him to say that. That’s wonderful.

MOORE: Yes, and he was dying of throat cancer. He was a drinker and a smoker.

TAYLOR: Yeah. Jane didn’t ever take a drink or smoke either.

MOORE: Ah! She didn’t smoke.

TAYLOR: Did she drink anything?

MOORE: Let me put it that she didn’t smoke.

TAYLOR: Ok. I don’t remember…

MOORE: Mother liked uh…well, when we were growing up, if we thought we were having a sore throat, she’d give us orange juice with bourbon in it.

TAYLOR: Oh, that’s the best thing in the world.

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: Hot tottie

MOORE: Mother always kept a medicine bottle of Scotch in her pocketbook. You know, four ounces or six ounces or whatever a medicine bottle is.

HAY: A dose

TAYLOR: Yeah, well, that’s good. Well, she was discrete because I never could find it. If I’d known she had it I would have…

HAY: So we got to Jane and now we’re at…

MOORE: So Virginia, Rose, Ben, Jane, John. My mother was a marvelous person. She was discrete in everything that she did, and she raised us at the same time that she was learning to live with her mother and grand…and father again. And she studied to be a stenographer at Miss Stella Shaw’s on Murray Street. She found out how to do shorthand and all that kind of stuff. So she was in the Attorney General’s Office there.

TAYLOR: She was a court reporter. She was one of the top…

MOORE: So as time went by, she became a court reporter, which requires you to be on your toes. So she was with…Even though she was a Democrat, Judge Wallace Downing, in Louisville, had her to be his secretary. So…

HAY: So when she married…

MOORE: So she retired at seventy years old, and she came back to Frankfort and lived at 503 Murray Street…

HAY: Again

MOORE: …and carried her…Aunt Virginia had a stroke when she was about seventy or seventy-two, or something like that. And she had to be carried everywhere. And mother carried her.

HAY: At seventy

MOORE: Yes, all the time. Aunt Priscilla was there. And you know Aunt Priscilla was…she was the one who gave advice so well, and sometimes advice is not what you need. [Laughter] But, they all got along. They loved each other.

HAY: They all kept coming back to…they kept coming home to 503 Murray.

MOORE: Murray Street. Oh, Yeah.

TAYLOR: Yeah, but I’ve got to interject something here. I don’t want to take away from what he’s saying because I’m really interested. I’m learning a lot.

MOORE: Proceed.

TAYLOR: But here we are. Here’s Jane here. Virginia can’t talk. And Priscilla over here. And Jane and Priscilla would talk about things that they knew darn well that Virginia would disagree with. And Virginia couldn’t talk and she’d just get tears drop…and she’d cry. They were just talking. They knew darn well what was happening. But I will mention this. That the Williams’s never would tell, me at least, when there was something going wrong. I said, “How’s Priscilla, Mother?” “Well, she’s fine. She’s in Louisville right now.” And I said, “Why?” “Well, she’s having her thumb operated on, and she’s in the hospital.” I said, “What?!”

MOORE: She only had one arm.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: Down to here.

TAYLOR: She lost that arm because they stuck the needle in her arm and gave her blood poisoning when she had a baby, and she lost her arm. So anyway, here’s…I said, “What?!” So, anyway, I’m calling to say, “How’s Virginia getting along?” “Oh, she’s in the hospital. She had a stroke.” I said, “What?!” You know, you just call and they say, “Oh…” You know, nobody called around. And so I ran over to the hospital, walked in, and there was Virginia by herself. Lying there in this bed. And I said, “Virginia, can you talk?” And she said…(Taylor nods his head to show Virginia’s answering “No”). And I said, “Oh, yes you can.” And she said…(Taylor nods again in the negative). I said, “Are you mad that you can’t talk?” She said…(Taylor nods “Yes”). I said, “Then say…repeat after me. Oh!” She went, “Oh!” And I said, “Hell!” And she said, “Oh! Hell!” And I said, “Now, say it again.” And I got her to say it two or three times, and I said, “Try, “Oh! Damn!”” “Oh! Damn!” And I had her talking “Oh! Hell!” and “Oh! Damn!” I called Jane on the phone and I said, “Virginia can talk if you just work with her.” “No she can’t!” You could hear the Williams’…”No, she can’t talk!” I said, “Jane, I was talking and she could say “Oh! Hell!” “Oh, she’d never say that.” But, I had Virginia saying “Oh! Hell!” and “Oh! Damn!” in her bed, in the hospital, right after she had her stroke. And that was the last time she ever talked, as far as I know, because nobody said she could talk. And nobody encouraged her. Patricia Neil, who will be here the tenth of November, was completely that way, and her husband, I guess it was Joanna, made her talk again and she became an actress again. But, go ahead with your stories. I just had that as an aside.

HAY: We were on Jane.

MOORE: Uh…she lived until she was eighty-three. She’s in the Frankfort Cemetery. She was very good at keeping the lines open between different members of the family. As Taylor will tell you, she liked to write the letters and she did that.

TAYLOR: She was an extraordinary woman.

MOORE: She was a horse when it came to strength…physical strength…for a little lady.

TAYLOR: Oh, she was extraordinary.

HAY: Were they all little like Ruthie?

MOORE: Uh…I never thought of any of them as being little. I never thought Ruthie was little. I never thought my mother was little.

TAYLOR: Jane had a beautiful build because I used to watch her swim and dive and stuff, and she was very strong. They were all very strong.

MOORE: So Jane. John. John was…[Chuckle]…he was another. He had all of Rose’s drive and superiority, but not her beauty. Being a man, he wasn’t pretty. He was just a regular guy. And he worked for…Aunt Priscilla’s husband, Duddy, managed the cigarette plant in Richmond, Virginia which was the biggest plant they had. He was a big deal. He had a chauffer and all that.

TAYLOR: He was on the Board of Directors, I think.

MOORE: Yeah, American Suppliers.

TAYLOR: Yeah

MOORE: So Uncle John managed the cigarette plant in Durham, North Carolina. And he would come to Frankfort at Christmas time, and sometimes during the races. He liked races, and there was a guy by the name Billy Bruce Isaacs that was a friend of his, and he’d always…they’d get together. But, John drew a hard line. He’d arrive in town and…I’m sure he got this from the colored people…he’d say, “Smell your master!”

TAYLOR: I know it! [Laughter] He did that to me, too.

MOORE:…and he wasn’t kidding. He would say, “Smell your master!”

TAYLOR: Yep

MOORE: And I was maybe five years old and I thought, “Wonder what he’s talking about.” [Laughter] But then later, as time went by and I learned how to drive cars, he would have a big, nice car. He would put the keys on the brass tray on the front hall, and I’d get up to deliver the papers before anybody else in the house was awake, so I’d get those keys and take that car out. [Laughter]

TAYLORS: Now, here’s his advice…

MOORE: But he died of emphysema and cancer of the lungs. And so his end, he was over a little table like that, breathing oxygen, and hardly even…that was hardly a life, but as he…as Taylor has said, he was married to Mun who was a renowned beauty out of Danville, Virginia. The Knoll sisters, they were.

TAYLOR: She was originally married to a Duke who gave a lot of money, and so John had a lot of money that he could have gotten. Supposedly though, John kept accounting and never would spend a dime of hers. But, Mun was twenty years older…something like that?

MOORE: Yeah, something like that.

TAYLOR: And they said, “How can you marry an old woman?” Well, John had already dropped…his body had gone on…here Mun came to visit down at the farm. Here was this animated, beautiful, lovely person that Grandmother Williams…I didn’t keep that letter because it was really a tough letter…I realized that Rose and John and all of them got their toughness honestly from their mama. And when she was castigating John for wanting to even marry Mun, John told me one thing, which I have used all my life. “I want you to remember, son, I want you to remember this.” I was about fifteen. “When poverty walks in the door, love flies out the window.” [Chuckle]

MOORE: And he’s the one…both John and Ben went to Culvert Military Academy up in Indiana…Northern Indiana. And they’d say, “The football team runs over your chest when you go up there to Culvert.” You know, that was their…and they also went to Cavanaugh over in Lawrenceburg. John was a tough customer, and so when Podge went to work, John said, “Come on down here, and I’ll put you to work.” And Podge worked for the American Tobacco Company all his working life.

HAY: Your brother.

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: And I begged Podge to go into business with me in Real Estate, and years later he said, “I wish I had, Taylor.” But you know what Johnny Williams said to me? Because I’d worked there two summers in a row, and I said, “I’m going to be in the tobacco business.” And he said, “Taylor, stay away from the tobacco business. It’ll kill you.” And you know when he said that…because I had that ambition to carry on this tradition…he said, “It’ll kill you.” And he was looking at me with a real sincere look…not the orderly look…but he just leaned over and said, “Taylor, it’ll kill you.” We were outside someplace.

MOORE: Well, it killed him. And it killed Duddy. Duddy died at…

TAYLOR: Sixty-three? Sixty-two or three.

MOORE: Sixty…something like that out playing golf on Crescent Hill Golf Course.

TAYLOR: Podge was a sick man. Yeah. Al Creek.

MOORE: Crescent Hill. There wasn’t any Al Creek in Louisville.

TAYLOR: Al Creek

MOORE: That’s out in the next county.

TAYLOR: No, Al Creek is in Anchorage. Ok, what I’m saying though is Podge told me about…they had finished playing, Duddy sat in the car and said to Rogers, your brother, “I’m not feeling real well.” And Podge said before he could get back in the car, Duddy had died. He died in the car. Is that true? Or was that…

MOORE: I never heard that part of it.

TAYLOR: Yeah, because Podge…

MOORE: It was told to me that he died on Crescent Hill.

TAYLOR: They wouldn’t play Crescent Hill. Would they?

MOORE: Well, Crescent Hill is a good course.

TAYLOR: I know, but I don’t think they’d play that. I think they’d play Al Creek.

MOORE: Well, they would have to go out in the country.

TAYLOR: That wasn’t out in the country.

MOORE: It’s out in the country. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: That’s just what I remember.

MOORE: Well, that’s good enough.

TAYLOR: But, anyway, I’ll tell you what happened. They quit playing because Duddy said, “You know, I’m getting tired.” They didn’t finish the golf game. I think they were half way through the second round or something like that, and he said, “I think I ought to go.” And he sat in the car and died right there.

MOORE: Crescent Hill was a good golf course because we…

TAYLOR: I used to play it.

MOORE: We used to go sleigh riding there.

TAYLOR: Well, you and I used to…

MOORE: I never played…

TAYLOR: We played tennis someplace.

MOORE: Played tennis, yeah.

TAYLOR: You and I played tennis.

MOORE: Up on Crescent Hill

TAYLOR: You tried to teach me how to be a tennis player and I was a lousy tennis player.

MOORE: You were not.

TAYLOR: Were. Go ahead with the rest of them. Tell us some more of their stories.

0: 3:00 -0: 4:00MOORE: So John died…uh…his end was because of his connection with tobacco. And Priscilla, Virginia, Rose, Ben, Jane, John, Patty…Patty is the one who died at age 5 from playing with matches and caught her dress on fire and it killed her.

HAY: What was her full name?

MOORE: Mary Samuels Williams, but she was called Patty. Then, Priscilla…uh…then came Ann. Ann Howard. And she was one of my favorites. She lived in Louisville. She and Aunt Virginia lived on the same street on Lightfoot Road. And I was visiting Aunt Virginia one time so there was a little boy across the street named, Sunny Shallcross. And Sunny said, “Let’s make some money.” I said, “Ok, let’s pick those flowers in your mother’s garden.” So we picked flowers [Laughter] and started down the street selling flowers from door to door. [Laughter] We got to Ann Howard’s house and we said…and Aunt Virginia was there with Ann Howard. And they said, “Come in this house!” [Laughter] And the worst punishment they could inflict on you was making you sit in a chair for an hour. And she made us sit in the chair. That was a horrible punishment.

TAYLOR: You know something? I bet Sunny Shallcross was John Shallcross’s father.

MOORE: Probably was.

TAYLOR: Who was in the same crowd we were both…So they caught you all selling flowers?

MOORE: Yeah. His mother’s flowers. [Laughter] They were the best. The Best!

TAYLOR: That is so funny. What do you know about Ann Howard? She was my favorite too, by the way, as far as vivaciousness. She was a little taller than Mother.

MOORE: She was married to Bill Duncan. And Bill Duncan was a sweetheart, and Uncle Charlie was Aunt Virginia’s husband. And Uncle Bill and Uncle Charlie would come from Louisville, and I’d look up at them. They looked like they were as tall as telephone poles.

TAYLOR: They were tall weren’t they?

MOORE: Oh, my God!

TAYLOR: Well, Bill was tall. Bill Duncan.

MOORE: Their legs went up forever. [Chuckle] They were both so gentle and so kind. Let’s see…I’ve forgotten who we’re…

HAY: Ann Howard

MOORE: Oh, Ann Howard

TAYLOR: She looked a lot like Mother.

MOORE: And Uncle Bill…his father had a paint factory down there and…

TAYLOR: […]

MOORE: …and he sold paint to the hardware stores throughout the South. So he would leave town. And so Ann Howard would come up to Frankfort and get me. I guess so she could see what boys were like, I don’t know. But, I would always wet the bed. I’m sure that [Laughter] was entertaining for her. I was quick to make up the bed when I got up in the morning. But it never worked because they were on to my game.

TAYLOR: You remember how much she looked like Mother?

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: She surprised me and came in…She took me to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. You know when we were talking about that earlier? Now, do you know how she died? Or why she died?

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: Tell me.

MOORE: Well, I was out playing in the street on Murray Street, and Janie came out one Sunday afternoon and she said, “Prepare yourself for a shock.” And I thought, “What in the world is she talking about? I don’t know what a shock is. How could I…” So, she said, “Ann Howard is dead.” And I couldn’t believe it, you know. She was going to have a child, and she already had one. And she didn’t want the second one and so she got an abortion and it did her in.

TAYLOR: Supposedly, Bill was the one that forced her into it.

MOORE: I couldn’t say that. I don’t think…

TAYLOR: I can. That’s what Mother said right before she died. Mother didn’t tell me…Mother never told me anything until right before she died.

MOORE: Well, nobody ever tells little boys anything.

TAYLOR: Even big boys. But anyway, she died from blood poisoning.

MOORE: I don’t think Uncle Bill would force Ann Howard to do anything. He was just a kind gentleman. He was called the Blue Bird Man in Kentucky.

TAYLOR: No, in America.

MOORE: I don’t know about that.

TAYLOR: Coronet Magazine wrote him up as the Blue Bird Man of America. I’ve got the article someplace.

MOORE: You’d see letters to the editors in the Courier Journal about the Blue Bird Man who would go anywhere in the state of Kentucky and put up a Blue Bird house…a proper Blue Bird house…and place it in a good spot for Blue Birds. For their surroundings. He would do that and…go ahead.

TAYLOR: Well, the Coronet Magazine is no longer in business, but was like Reader’s Digest. And the Coronet Magazine, because I read the article, called Bill Duncan the Blue Bird Man of America. And in Coronet Magazine they said, down there, if you will write such and such and so and so Bill Duncan, he will send you for free a Blue Bird nest.

MOORE: You mean a house.

TAYLOR: Box. Blue Bird box. Isn’t that amazing?

MOORE: Yeah, it is. I didn’t know that. But I used to…

TAYLOR: But, I read that article and I’ve had a copy someplace. It wasn’t my magazine. It was somebody else’s.

HAY: Who was their child?

MOORE: Stewart. And I got word that Stewart is dead now.

TAYLOR: He died about a month and a half ago.

MOORE: Just a short time ago. He was a lawyer. He lived in Chattanooga all his married life. He went down there.

TAYLOR: Did you know what…who was it that said Stewart was glad that I had called about him?

HAY: You had called the week before he died, and Elaine had told you. Elaine had told him. And then Elaine had called us to say that he had died. But it was a fluke that Taylor had called there that week. He hadn’t probably talked to him in three years…in a couple of years. It was weird.

TAYLOR: One of the most gracious people. He was so nice. He was so…we stayed with them twice?

HAY: Yeah

TAYLOR: We stayed with them twice and he was just…You know he was the last of the real Williams’, because if you had…I never did know your granddaddy. Did you know Ben Williams?

MOORE: Yeah

TAYLOR: What was he like?

0: 5:00 -0: 6:00MOORE: He was a very kind fellow.

TAYLOR: What did he look like? The picture I see…

MOORE: Aunt Virginia, and Ruthie, and Ann Howard look like him. Don’t you have a picture of Granddaddy?

TAYLOR: Yeah, but that’s like George Washington, the old seventy year old guy. They called him the “little, black bull.” And when I looked one time at Stewart when we were down there, I saw this powerful Williams that had all the tough features, and those dark black, or dark brown, piercing…

MOORE: Well, Uncle Bill had black hair.

TAYLOR: Uncle Bill?

MOORE: Stewart’s father.

TAYLOR: Bill…uh…Bill Duncan. But anyway, I don’t know why they called him the “little, black bull” because I don’t know whether Judge Williams had black hair.

MOORE: No, the only…I don’t know either…the only thing I’ve ever seen about, or heard about, Granddaddy was they called him “Fiddlin’ Ben” because he was the Circuit Judge here. So, you had to get elected. And he would play a guitar. And so they call that a fiddle, you know. Ignorance. Ignorance is rife. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: “Fiddlin’ Ben?” That’s funny.

MOORE: Yeah. So he could play and entertain the electorate. Here’s something about…you’ve seen that picture of Stewart with the Easter egg? It’s so good. He’s about four or five and he’s holding up this Easter egg he’s found on the Easter egg hunt. He’s holding it up like that. He’s so proud. [Chuckle]

TAYLOR: That is so funny. I used to leave the girth loose on Stewart’s pony when he’d come out to visit the farm so he’d go upside down.

HAY: [..]

TAYLOR: So alright, who have we got now?

HAY: Ruthie

TAYLOR: Ok, so what was your opinion of Mother? My opinion of Mother changes over the years.

MOORE: Shut up!

TAYLOR: My opinion…

MOORE: Shut up! Unless it’s changed. Last time I talked to you.

TAYLOR: What?

MOORE: If you haven’t changed, I don’t want to hear it.

TAYLOR: Well, I haven’t changed.

MOORE: Ok, then, I’ll tell about Ruthie.

TAYLOR: Ok

MOORE: Ruthie was highly entertaining. [Chuckle] She could sing, and she would sing. I can hear her now, “A thousand miles, A thousand miles, Baby won’t you follow me?” And she was musical, and she had a good time out of anything, you know. Just being with Taylor and Marybell and me out there on that farm. She was the one that was running the farm.

TAYLOR: She held the family together…she tried to save her marriage for sixty-five years. [Chuckle] Never did. But, you know what was interesting? We were going down Town Hill and I’m in the backseat. She’s taking us to school. And you know how Town Hill…traffic…this was when we were in school and she would drive us someplace. She turned around and said, “Aren’t we so lucky to live in America?”

MOORE: That is true.

TAYLOR: She just turned around and her eyes flashed, and she just smiled. And then she’d start driving again. She had these wonderful, just outpourings of what do you call it? Just…

MOORE: Good feeling.

TAYLOR: Uh, man! And when Daddy wasn’t around, she was the most extraordinary woman that ever lived. When Daddy was around, uh…she tried to save her marriage. [Laughter]

HAY: What was you dad’s name?

MOORE: Taylor

TAYLOR: E.H. Taylor Hay was his name. Edmond Hayes Taylor Hay.

HAY: And your brother and sister are?

TAYLOR: Marybell Hay Harwich and John Williams Hay, my brother. Marybell is a year and a half younger, and John’s twelve years…fourteen years?…younger. Fourteen years younger. I was born in ’30. He was born in 1944. Now, here’s…here’s the way I…

MOORE: John was everybody’s favorite because he was so pretty.

TAYLOR: He was so cute. He still is. [Laughter] He’s so cute.

MOORE: He was!

TAYLOR: At twenty-five paces, he still looks twenty-five years old, and here he is…I’m going to put a big…one of those big, Mobile signs that flashes that has the tires on it that you can get that are lit up…”Happy Sixty-fourth Birthday, John!” That’ll kill him, because the girls think he’s forty. Anyway, here’s the way I’ll rate us. The best athlete in our family was Marybell. The second best athlete…let’s forget about pound for pound, or whatever we did…was John. I was third best. The smartest person in our family…the most creative…is Marybell. The second smartest intelligence is John. And third on the list was me. Now, I’m not going to deal with common sense because that’s in the eyes of the beholder. But, I’ve always ranked myself then…but the one thing that I have is determination. So, I took what little I had left…whatever that was…and I was the eldest, so I guess they reserved…Mother and Daddy reserved the best for the last two. But, I was determined to use as much as I could of what I had, so I did a little with it. But they were ranked…Marybell was an extraordinary athlete. When I was fifteen years old, Ben, she could outrun me. She could run me into the ground. John Hay…for instance…you know how big a shot Murray is? You know, big with guns and stuff?

MOORE: Yeah, I understand he’s international.

TAYLOR: He’s international. He was the world’s champion, unofficially, for live pigeon shooting. So, they take John Hay and me up to one of these live…what do you call them? These sporting clays. You know, where you walk around and the clay pigeon runs across the ground or jumps up in the air and does all this kind of stuff. And Charlie Black and they had David Collins and they had Murray Harwich. And there was John and me, and a couple of other big pros. So we go up there, and John hadn’t shot a gun for years. I got very few. John out shot them all. They didn’t talk…they didn’t even mention it. He got something like sixty-four or sixty-five out of a hundred, and they were in the forties or fifties or something like that. But, John is a natural athlete. He always has been. And so I always envied that. I thought, “With my determination, and my particular size…” because I was a little bigger than John, “I would have been All-American if I’d have had their abilities.” [Chuckle]

HAY: Ben, where were you born?

TAYLOR: Oh, this is the guy that’s got the athletic abilities.

MOORE: Right in town.

HAY: Frankfort?

MOORE: Yeah. When you get to the top of the hill on Main Street, there’s the Public Health Building across…and across from there, there’s some that is now apartments now. King’s Daughter’s Hospital.

HAY: Ok, and could you…so that was King’s Daughter’s Hospital. Hey, Bill!

MOORE: Hey, Bill!

HAY: We’re almost finished up here! Where was your house?

MOORE: 503 Murray Street

HAY: So you were born from there? You’re family lived there when you were born?

MOORE: I don’t know where they lived, but…where…uh…they were in Hazard. But I was born here. I guess Mother came…

HAY: So you’re saying that your mom and dad lived in Hazard, but your mother came to Frankfort to have you?

MOORE: I guess. It’s murky.

TAYLOR: Now, Ben, could you tell me what your record was in tennis. When you were over seventy, where were you ranked in singles in tennis?

MOORE: No, I can’t tell you.

TAYLOR: Come on, please.

MOORE: I don’t know.

TAYLOR: Twentieth? Thirtieth? Fortieth? Fiftieth in the world? I mean in the United States.

MOORE: Oh, I wasn’t even a blip on the horizon in the world.

TAYLOR: Yeah, you were.

MOORE: I’m not now.

TAYLOR: In the United States, where were you? Over seventy? Come on now.

MOORE: I don’t know.

TAYLOR: Alright, now you’re number eight in doubl…in singl…

MOORE: What’s happened is, all the good players have died.

TAYLOR: And you’re outliving them.

MOORE: They’ve come to end their lives.

TAYLOR: Longevity is the name of the game.

MOORE: And…well, I can still run.

TAYLOR: “You don’t smoke. You don’t chew. You don’t go with the girls that do.”

MOORE: And I have continued to practice. I continue to try to improve. And, there’s a guy from Louisville. I play him every Monday. His name is Elton Wheast. He moved here from Baltimore…to Louisville. And Elton found out about me, he came up here, and we’d play up here. And then I said, “Elton, there’s no use in you coming up here. Why don’t I just come down there early, and we’ll play at Seneca, before I sing with the Thoroughbreds on Mondays?” And so we do that. And the reason he likes me as an opponent, is because he beats me. He’s just seventy. And so he beats me. The score was three and four yesterday.

TAYLOR: Wow!

MOORE: And so, I want to improve and I study the game, you know. I try to pick up stuff. And so, he likes that. And he likes the fact that I am competitive.

TAYLOR: Did you ever tell anybody that you lied about your age? Now, does he look eighty…one? Eighty-one? Look, his nose hasn’t even grown. He hasn’t got any…look at his hands! Look at those tough hands. Look at his tough hands.

MOORE: There’s nobody who doesn’t believe me when I say what my age is.

TAYLOR: If you smile, you look like you’re fifty.

HAY: Alright, I’m happy.

MOORE: Ok

TAYLOR: Ben…wait a minute. Ben, give me your hand. Ooooo! What a grip!

MOORE: Yeah! [Laughter]

TAYLOR: Give me a hug!

END OF INTERVIEW