Interview with Evelyn Fawbush

William H. Berge Oral History Center

Interview with Evelyn Fawbush

November 18, 1981 (1981 oh 144)

Conducted By William Berge

Transcribed by Laurie Wilcox

Side 1

William Berge (W); Evelyn I want to thank you for letting me come by here this morning and, and tape this and I'm sorry the first ten minutes we did we wasted because the batteries were weak and I want to thank you for doing it over again. Let's start of by you telling me about yourself, your name and where you were born and when and that type of stuff and then we'll go from there.

Evelyn (E); All right, uh I'm Evelyn Powell Fawbush. I was born in 1929 March the 18th right outside the small coalmining town by the name of Cardinal, Kentucky in Bell County.

BERGE: All right now, like Cardinal was the company town?

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: All right now, who owned that company? And what was the name of that company and who owned it?

FAWBUSH: It was Cardinal Coal and Coke Company and it was owned by Strauss'.

BERGE: Mm hm. Spell that again . . .

FAWBUSH: S-T-R-A-U-S-S.

BERGE: Do you remember his first name?

FAWBUSH: No.

BERGE: All right now Evelyn, like how far was Cardinal from Barbourville? What section of the county is it in? I guess that's what I'm asking you.

FAWBUSH: Well it's uh; it's about eighteen miles from Pineville, Kentucky.

BERGE: I meant Pineville. I, I said Barboursville I was thinking uh. . .

FAWBUSH: It was about eighteen from Pineville and about eighteen from Harlan. It's about midway between each.

BERGE: Ok, Ok.

FAWBUSH: On 119.

BERGE: Ok. It was like going down toward a, oh, where just as if you were going to Harlan now on the new road . . .

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: It's down in the same general area. Now Evelyn when you were, uh were there, uh tell me a little bit about your family. Like your father's name was Powell but, but what was his first name?

FAWBUSH: His name was Roy Marvin.

BERGE: And where was he from?

FAWBUSH: He was from the best of my knowledge um he came from uh Indianapolis, 2:00Indiana. He worked for Falcon Construction Company when they were building US 119 between Pineville and Harlan.

BERGE: That's where he met your mother.

FAWBUSH: He worked on the road and the working crews stayed with the people close by, whoever had places for them to sleep.

BERGE: Ok, and what was your mother's name?

FAWBUSH: My mother was Anna Pow, Anna Howard.

BERGE: Ok. And she was from, as you said, an old family from . . .

FAWBUSH: Yes, they . . .

BERGE: Pineville. Her mother's from Bell County.

FAWBUSH: She was born right there and so was my grand, my grandmother was born about a mile and a half--

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: from where she lived.

BERGE: Do you remember, what was your mother's father's name?

FAWBUSH: My mother's father's name was James E Howard.

BERGE: Uh huh. What kind of work did they, those people do? Do you know remember?

FAWBUSH: Farmed and . . .

BERGE: Logged and that kind of stuff? Did they do any of that?

FAWBUSH: Yes they did a little of that but my father, that, grandfather and them 3:00they were always in the store business. They had stores.

BERGE: Ok. Ok.

FAWBUSH: And uh . . .

BERGE: Did they have a store around Cardinal there?

FAWBUSH: They had a, right where my grandmother lived and where I was born, they had a store which had ceased to be a store before I was born. But uh . . .

BERGE: But it had been one?

FAWBUSH: But it had been a, a real good uh . . .

BERGE: In fact, probably about the time the coal company came in there . . .

FAWBUSH: That's right, that's right.

BERGE: and built there own store.

FAWBUSH: They had the store before the camp . . .

BERGE: Yeah.

FAWBUSH: Came in, and then once the camp came in my grandfather was killed and my grandmother no longer ran the store.

BERGE: Ok.

FAWBUSH: And uh so.

BERGE: Did your father ever mine?

FAWBUSH: Uh, No.

BERGE: Mm hmm. What kind of work did he do after they built the road?

FAWBUSH: Uh, he married when he met, after he met my mother and married her then 4:00he uh worked for my uncle who had trucks and they did hauling. They hauled timbers and logs and they did a lot of long distance hauling at that time. Now they would go to uh Georgia and get peaches . . .

BERGE: Oh! Oh, oh.

FAWBUSH: and different things like that, you know. Bring them in and sell them, and uh...

BERGE: Uh huh. Look, Evelyn, can you, you can remember Cardinal pretty well?

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: Where, describe it to me.

FAWBUSH: Well it was a town that was a built on the other side of the railroads opposite from 119, cross the river then you cross the railroad and then the town was on the, sort of the hillside. Although it wasn't all that hilly; it, there was a lot of level in there and the mine was right there too. I mean, it was just right in the town. And.

BERGE: What was in there besides houses in the camp?

FAWBUSH: There was a store and a post office and the doctor's office and there 5:00was an office building and there was a boarding house. And they were all real nice at that time. I remember them, they were white trimmed in green but uh thinking back uh it was a new camp. It . . .

BERGE: It should have been nice?

FAWBUSH: You know, so it was nice. They were fairly new buildings. We had a . . .

BERGE: Did it have a restaurant or is that in the boarding house?

FAWBUSH: No there was no restaurant ever that I know of.

BERGE: Who lived in the boarding houses? Men whose families weren't there?

FAWBUSH: Yes. Uh huh. They, they brought in uh miners from different places at first, you know, to get started and uh then there was men that worked that uh moved out like younger men that started working in the mines and wanted to move away from home.

BERGE: Evelyn do you remember different nationalities of the men who worked there?

FAWBUSH: No I don't. I, I don't remember any of those strange different names from us. I don't . . .

BERGE: Uh huh. Were, were there any blacks?

FAWBUSH: No.

BERGE: You don't remember any in Cardinal?

FAWBUSH: None except the, the hired help that the Strauss' had.

BERGE: Uh huh. But there were no black miners or anything . . .

FAWBUSH: No, not that, not that I remember. We had no black children in our school.

BERGE: Uh huh. Well, Evelyn when you went to school, you went to the Cardinal school?

FAWBUSH: Yes. They built the school but it the teachers were hired out of the county.

BERGE: Uh huh. Do you remember your teachers there?

FAWBUSH: Yes, um my teacher was my cousin. She was Ms. Julie Tye. She was she was a Howard also before she was . . .

BERGE: T-Y-E?

FAWBUSH: Right. And then another lady by the name of uh Lauder Eva Lauder. And they taught for years and years there. We had two rooms in the school and the cloak room, water room. We had a nice big bell. Big yard, big . . .

BERGE: And even though you didn't uh live in the coal camp, you could still go 7:00to the school . . .

FAWBUSH: Right. We . . .

BERGE: That was the closest school?

FAWBUSH: Yes. We walked . . .

BERGE: Uh huh. Do you remember uh like for instance even though you didn't live in the camp, you could shop in the company store I guess though didn't you?

FAWBUSH: Yes. We did.

BERGE: And you used cash?

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: Although you did, told me it, when we did have the tape recorder on before, before we found out it wasn't working that sometimes you did have scrip.

FAWBUSH: Yes. We did have scrip. My grandmother sold eggs and butter and milk to people from the camp and they paid her in scrip and then we in turn spent the scrip at the store.

BERGE: Did you think scrip was, a nickel scrip was worth a nickel? A regular nickel?

FAWBUSH: Uh yes, I did.

BERGE: Well did your mother trade that way? Err, your grandmother? She had to have more scrip. Do you remember?

FAWBUSH: She got more in scrip when she sold something than she did . . .

BERGE: Then she got in regular money.

FAWBUSH: Then she did regular money. But uh then we would go to the company 8:00store and a nickel was worth a nickel. If we had five cents in scrip we could buy five cents . We bought our uh lunch occasionally at the store which would consisted of a can of potted ham and a box of crackers for a dime. And that was a big treat . . .

BERGE: Oh yeah.

FAWBUSH: Cause most times we took biscuits and jelly [laughter].

BERGE: Yeah. Potted meat seemed like a big deal to people--

FAWBUSH: Yeah it was.

BERGE: who didn't get it, I guess.

FAWBUSH: The, I remember the store. I remember how it looked inside. I remember the, it had . . .

BERGE: Can you describe it?

FAWBUSH: Well it was, of course, long. I mean you would go in . . .

BERGE: Long and narrow? It didn't seem narrow then but it probably was narrow.

FAWBUSH: All long and narrow and big counters down the side and the one side, on the right, had all the can stuff on the edge, you know. And on the left you had your uh dry goods, bread and uh the post office was in one end of the store . . .

BERGE: Of the store.

FAWBUSH: There when you went in the door. Mm hmm. And um it had wooden floors. . .

BERGE: Did you remember brand of the store?

FAWBUSH: No I don't. I really don't . . .

BERGE: Do you, did they have a pool room?

FAWBUSH: No. There was no kind of entertainment at all.

BERGE: Where'd you go to the movies?

FAWBUSH: Uh, about once or twice a year, we went to Molus which was a.

BERGE: M-O-L-U-S?

FAWBUSH: Right. About a mile and a half on above my grandmother's house and uh they had a movie in an old building up there that was . . .

BERGE: Did you like the movie?

FAWBUSH: Yes. Oh yes it was fun. We sat, we had benches like uh church benches, hard wooden benches. Everybody just go in, sit down. I'm, I'm not sure but it seems like it was fifteen cents. I'm not sure.

BERGE: Yeah, I was gonna ask you that. Like who would go? Just young children or the the whole family?

FAWBUSH: No. Everybody went. I mean . . .

BERGE: Everybody that had fifteen cents? [laughter]

FAWBUSH: Yes. Everybody uh, we were, uh my cousins and I that lived at my 10:00grandmothers, most of us, there was usually enough of us to take care of each other but uh there was whole families. I don't remember my grandmother ever going.

BERGE: You uh told me before that your father died in '36.

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: And after that your mother remarried and then you all left there.

FAWBUSH: Yes.

BERGE: In '39?

FAWBUSH: Yes. Mm hmm.

BERGE: So you lived there about ten years?

FAWBUSH: Mm hmm.

BERGE: And during the thirties?

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: Can you remember, what's your recollection, do you, did you remember things, times as being bad or not?

FAWBUSH: No. We had no bad times.

BERGE: People working in the mines? Were they working around there?

FAWBUSH: Uh there was bad times and there was people that were hungry but . . .

BERGE: You yourself didn't . . .

FAWBUSH: We did not go hungry. My grandmother was the salt of the Earth and there was always food on the table.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And we had a cow which was rich at the time, you know.

BERGE: Did you milk?

FAWBUSH: Yes. I learned to milk young.

BERGE: Did you, uh what kind of chores did you do?

FAWBUSH: I did everything. Uh we shucked corn and fed the stock and goat. One thing, the earliest thing I can remember is going to hunt for the cow, very young. If she was not at the gap . . .

BERGE: Where she's supposed to be.

FAWBUSH: Mm hmm. And we uh, I, I was always sort of aggressive, I guess. I wanted to do everything that was done so I learned how to chop fodder and chop kindling or anything. I just, I always wanted to be in the middle of everything.

BERGE: Were you raised with any other children?

FAWBUSH: Yes. I had several cousins at um my grandmother's and the reason I keep stressing my grandmother's is because that, uh we lived just in one of my grandmother's rent houses. When my father died and it was just uh--

BERGE: So, you were essentially living with your grandmother.

FAWBUSH: It was like three or four hundred yards from my grandmother's house and 12:00then after that then I lived with my grandmother all the time after that. Except for just a little bit of time.

BERGE: Did you hate to leave when your mother remarried and moved? Were you, did you hate to leave your grandmother?

FAWBUSH: Well, um I hated to leave but it seemed like something exciting to do and um . . .

BERGE: Did you go into another part of, the next county, huh?

FAWBUSH: When the weekend came, I always wanted to go every weekend, back.

BERGE: Did you?

FAWBUSH: No. We went a lot, my step father, would a, course his home was there in east Pineville and he liked to come down pretty good too . . .

BERGE: Oh, so he was from around Pineville. What was his name?

FAWBUSH: His name was Ed Brock.

BERGE: Spell it.

FAWBUSH: Ed Brock. B-R-O-C-K.

BERGE: All right, and so when, when you all moved, you moved up to Benham or near Benham?

FAWBUSH: We moved uh to a little uh town called Clutz, C-L-U-T-Z.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: Which had been a little, had had little mines there at one time and it 13:00worked out.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And uh it was, uh we lived on the Looney Creek which is the creek that runs through Benham and Lynch. Starts up at . . .

BERGE: How do you spell that?

FAWBUSH: L-double O-N-E-Y. And it starts at uh Pine Mountain there. Or Black Mountain, it is.

BERGE: Yes.

FAWBUSH: Black, big Black Mountain, and uh...

BERGE: Well, tell me this, Evelyn. Uh do you remember any labor problems when you were living in uh Bell County?

FAWBUSH: No, no. It was-- you mean like union-wise?

BERGE: Yeah, uh huh.

FAWBUSH: No. There was none there but uh I remember them in Benham.

BERGE: Ok. I'll ask you about them then.

FAWBUSH: Ok.

BERGE: All right, so you were about ten when you lived up in Benham?

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: Now when you first got to the Clutz-Benham area, do you remember how you 14:00compared it to where you came from?

FAWBUSH: Well, uh it was just really nice. Real different, I mean, you know, it was like uh almost like night and day.

BERGE: Uh huh. That was, Benham, the Benham-Lynch area was really sort of a model place.

FAWBUSH: Yes. It was modern, real modern compared to where I came from.

BERGE: Now I've seen pictures, I guess of the hotel must have been at Lynch, big big hotel. Or was that in Benham?

FAWBUSH: Well, they both had one.

BERGE: Which was the biggest?

FAWBUSH: I suppose that . . .

BERGE: Stone, I guess it was . . .

FAWBUSH: Lynch's was bigger uh.

BERGE: What was the one in Benham built like?

FAWBUSH: It was wood. Uh it was great big square just as square as it could be.

BERGE: Was it better looking than the one, say at Cardinal?

FAWBUSH: Oh yes, uh huh. Yes, it was real nice. It had bathrooms and . . .

BERGE: Now you said that when you lived at, near Cardinal, the house you lived 15:00in was better than the ones in the coal camp.

FAWBUSH: Uh yes.

BERGE: How, how about at Benham?

FAWBUSH: No. The Benham houses were much nicer than the, than the house we lived in in Clutz even.

BERGE: That's what I meant.

FAWBUSH: Yes. Now we lived in a very um shack I guess now. It seems just like a shack. I suppose we had . . .

BERGE: It seemed nice to you then, I guess [unclear] . . .

FAWBUSH: Well we had three rooms was all, three rooms and a front porch and a back porch. And um we were right on the creek bank and of course you know we, we heated with a coal stove and cooked on coal stove. And um we had a radio but, uh . . .

BERGE: Now you lived in, you say you must have had electricity too then?

FAWBUSH: Mm hmm.

BERGE: So when you lived in Clutz, how long did you live there?

FAWBUSH: Well let's see. We lived there uh [pause] well seven years, I guess.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: that I lived there in Clutz.

BERGE: You lived there until you were seventeen? You finished school, school?

FAWBUSH: At Benham. I went to Benham . . .

BERGE: That's what I was gonna ask you. So when you went to Clutz, you when to Benham School?

FAWBUSH: I went to Benham High School, right.

BERGE: Did a, how would, how would you compare the schools at Benham to the school you went to in uh Cardinal?

FAWBUSH: Oh it was, there is no comparison. Benham is the same school now as it was then. It was a brick, modern, uh good heat, you know, uh forced air heat, and we had, oh, everything. Library, lunch room, little store, gym. Um it was, it was just, too me, at that time, it was the most fantastic thing I'd ever had any dealings with.

BERGE: You met, and that was probably your uh first acquaintance, with let's 17:00say, high school athletics and that kind of, the two, football and basketball.

FAWBUSH: Right, yes.

BERGE: Did you attend those kinds of things?

FAWBUSH: Oh yes. That, I liked it all, involved in everything. Of course, uh it was a small school and it was run, it was, the teachers were hired out of uh county but they were also paid by International Harvester.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And so we had the best of teachers.

BERGE: Yeah.

FAWBUSH: We had things . . .

BERGE: They paid for the . . .

FAWBUSH: Right. We had things uh at Benham when I went there that a lot of schools don't even have now.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: We had all the advantages and the best of teachers. It was really a terrific school.

BERGE: It was a good experience too, I guess.

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: Now, Evelyn, when you uh were at Benham, did the, what percentage of the 18:00children would have been like you who didn't live in Benham, at the school?

FAWBUSH: Oh, I'd say five percent was all that went out of the camp.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

FAWBUSH: No more. I mean I don't remember . . .

BERGE: The rest of them were in the camp?

FAWBUSH: Yes, uh huh.

BERGE: Well, how did the . . .

FAWBUSH: See, we had this thin line between where I, where I lived at Looney Creek or up there at Clutz, uh you were only a mile from Cumberland, Kentucky which also had a high school . . .

BERGE: Yeah.

FAWBUSH: And then on up there was Lynch that had a high school.

BERGE: Yeah, uh huh.

FAWBUSH: So the, most of the kids that lived in my neighborhood went to Cumberland.

BERGE: Oh they did? Why did you go to Benham?

FAWBUSH: Because Ed worked at Benham.

BERGE: Ok, Ok.

FAWBUSH: And . . .

BERGE: So your step father worked at Benham?

FAWBUSH: Yes, mm hmm.

BERGE: That's the reason why you went down there.

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: All right. Tell me this, was, uh do you think you were better off to go to Benham to school? Looking back or was it about the same?

FAWBUSH: No. Yes. I was much better off . . .

BERGE: Benham was a better school, you think, than Cumberland?

FAWBUSH: Yes. Oh yes. Uh huh.

BERGE: Of course Lynch was you thought was a good school too?

FAWBUSH: Yes, Lynch was a good school.

BERGE: Evelyn, describe as much as you can your first impressions of the, of the town at Benham. Uh, like what did you see? It was a lot bigger, I guess, than Cardinal.

FAWBUSH: Oh it was much bigger. Uh I was gonna tell you a while ago I didn't think there was over thirty houses maybe in Cardinal.

BERGE: Ok. That's, that's what I was wondering.

FAWBUSH: And uh, I don't know, I'm, I'm really not sure about this but I guess there was like 150 or 200 houses in Benham.

BERGE: Or maybe more even?

FAWBUSH: Yes, maybe even more. It was uh . . . I want to say uh it was like going into another world which uh . . .

BERGE: It was, I guess.

FAWBUSH: It really was, uh huh. And I was excited about all of it. It was just, uh everything was so overwhelming to me.

BERGE: Did you notice when you were younger and living at Cardinal, I guess it 20:00would have been hard for you to notice, but boys and girls who were of dating age, what did they, how did they date or were there many people for them to meet or what?

FAWBUSH: I don't remember ever . . .

BERGE: Seeing anybody?

FAWBUSH: Dating anybody.

BERGE: You weren't enough, probably.

FAWBUSH: No, I wasn't old enough but I don't, the only people that I can remember dating was uh in my family.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: The family members that dated people would bring them on Sunday to . . .

BERGE: Yeah, uh huh.

FAWBUSH: To my grandmother's and, of course I remember having sweethearts when I was going to Cardinal.

BERGE: Uh huh, yeah.

FAWBUSH: When I, just uh different, I can even remember some of their, you know, names even. Even at this point and they, uh some of them still live around there.

BERGE: Who did they marry, local people?

FAWBUSH: Yes. Mm hmm local girls.

BERGE: So you probably even know the people they married?

FAWBUSH: Yes, uh huh.

BERGE: Now, when you went to Benham, uh what was the situation there? Did it seem like there was more uh for people to do there or, or was it more of a . . .

FAWBUSH: No, Benham um. . .

BERGE: Like . . .

FAWBUSH: We had a, a nice theater. Uh, we had a Y that was like an ice cream shop. It had a pool room in there. Big building.

BERGE: There, there was more for young people to do.

FAWBUSH: Oh yes, we had a tennis courts in front of the school and the bandstand and um there was always something to do. You know, during the daytime there wasn't much to do at night.

BERGE: Now how old were you when you married?

FAWBUSH: Uh, eighteen.

BERGE: All right. Now your husband Jack, how much older is he than you?

FAWBUSH: Four years.

BERGE: All right. Has he been in the service or anything before you and he married?

FAWBUSH: Yes, he had been the Army and returned home when I met him.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And I was working at the Benham Theater.

BERGE: Well that's what I was going to ask you. How you met him.

FAWBUSH: Yes.

BERGE: Did you know him before?

FAWBUSH: Uh no. No I did not know him . . .

BERGE: Because he'd have been out of there and gone by the time you got in high school.

FAWBUSH: That's right, mm hmm.

BERGE: Well how'd you meet him?

FAWBUSH: At the theater um. There was, that was the biggest thing to do at night was to go to the movie and I was . . .

BERGE: That was it, huh?

FAWBUSH: And I was selling tickets. Uh huh. He was . . .

BERGE: How'd you get that job?

FAWBUSH: Uh, just kept being persistent (laughter).

BERGE: Just wanted it, huh?

FAWBUSH: I wanted it [laughter]. And I sold popcorn.

BERGE: Did you get to see movies free?

FAWBUSH: Mm hmm.

BERGE: So it was a pretty good job?

FAWBUSH: Yes, mm hmm.

BERGE: Let your boyfriends in and all that kind of stuff? [laughter]

FAWBUSH: Uh, yes we did. We let a few of them in when the . . .

BERGE: When the manager wasn't there, huh?

FAWBUSH: I remember his name and it was always so hard to say his name without 23:00uh getting mixed up. His name was Moren, M-O-R-E-N, Galloway.

BERGE: And everybody said moron?

FAWBUSH: And we would call him moron all the time, you know, and it was uh . . .

BERGE: Did he work for the company? Or was it just the theater, do you remember?

FAWBUSH: Uh, no it wasn't, he worked for the company and he, he retired there just a few years ago.

BERGE: Oh from National Harvester?

FAWBUSH: Yes but not from the theater, but he worked in, you know, different uh jobs around the camp.

BERGE: So, I guess when Jack came back from the service, he just came back there to work?

FAWBUSH: Uh, he came back and went to Eastern and enrolled in school.

BERGE: Oh, did he? I didn't know that.

FAWBUSH: And, we started dating and then um, then he wouldn't go. And he went six weeks.

BERGE: And then, then he . . .

FAWBUSH: Then he came home and got a, his father was a pullman there at Benham 24:00and he got a job in the mines.

BERGE: Ok so he went to work.

FAWBUSH: He went to work in the deep mine.

BERGE: And then, that's when you and he moved to Benham or he just, where did you live then?

FAWBUSH: Uh We uh . . . we married in June of 1947 and uh we rented in the camp like there was two-story houses and we rented downstairs, two rooms under a family. And then lived in the two room, is it running?

BERGE: Yeah, it's all right, uh huh.

FAWBUSH: until uh the following uh April when Mike was born.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: Then we, by that time, he had applied for a house and you had to start 25:00with your houses, you started with the ones the farthest in the hollows or down . . .

BERGE: Yeah.

FAWBUSH: in what they call New Benham. And you moved up, you know. So we got a little house on Schoolhouse Hill.

BERGE: Way down there, huh?

FAWBUSH: No it was way up. It was up right uh at the foot of the mountain on Schoolhouse Hill and it was a shotgun house.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And uh we didn't have a bathroom or water. But uh that was the first thing, they put water in the house before we moved in and we put a bath in the house.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: At our own expense.

BERGE: Oh, yeah, I was going to ask you. You did that, huh?

FAWBUSH: We did it.

BERGE: Do you remember how much rent you paid?

FAWBUSH: Our rent and lights was six dollars a month.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: That was . . .

BERGE: What was your rent when you had that half a house?

FAWBUSH: I don't remember. I, I don't remember what Jack paid than . . .

BERGE: Then this would have been in the late forties then?

FAWBUSH: This was '48.

BERGE: Do you remember what Jack was making then? Can you remember?

FAWBUSH: Um--

BERGE: 250 a month? Did he make that much?

FAWBUSH: Yes, he made that much, I guess uh.

BERGE: So that was pretty good just to pay six dollars.

FAWBUSH: Yes, it made about uh . . .

BERGE: Small, paying much, people paying much higher percentages of their income now for housing.

FAWBUSH: [unclear]. I know, I can't remember what he made. And . . . when you talk to him, he will though, he'll remember it right down to the dime. I remember one time my grocery bill that I charged before I worked in a grocery store with some other people, a private grocery store before I was married and um in fact I was working there when I married, but so I went back to trade with her and I traded that one week and charged and it was twelve dollars.

BERGE: Twelve dollars for the whole week's groceries?

FAWBUSH: The whole week. And Jack says no more of this. That's too much. We're not going to charge groceries any more. [laughter]

BERGE: Too much, too expensive, huh?

FAWBUSH: You just buy too much when you charge it.

BERGE: Well, did you keep buying from her? Did you,

FAWBUSH: Yes.

BERGE: or did you buy from, which was cheaper?

FAWBUSH: Uh, she was cheaper and then eventually after the children came we graduated to the A&P at Cumberland.

BERGE: Uh huh. Did you, did you all have a car when you got married?

FAWBUSH: Yes, we did have a car, mm hmm and um.

BERGE: So you were in a much better set up than most people?

FAWBUSH: Yes. I guess [unclear].

[Pause]

FAWBUSH: . . . car, when Jack first came back from service, cars were hard to get at that time.

BERGE: Yeah, I know.

FAWBUSH: And uh Jack's father was a real good friend of the man who ran Black 28:00Motor Company in Cumberland. And uh, Mr. Disney, and so Jack went to work in the mines and his daddy, they got a new car in and it come running. It was a '47 Dodge uh coup and um, but then when we married, uh Jack sold the new car, it just, and um bought a cheaper car and that way we paid them for all of our furniture that we then bought which wasn't a whole lot at that time because all we had were two rooms . . .

BERGE: So when he married you, you all were in much better shape than most young people up there getting married at that time?

FAWBUSH: We were. We were in real good shape.

BERGE: When Jack started at Eastern and then quit to get married, is that the time, did his brother go to Eastern then?

FAWBUSH: No, his brother was the, the same age that I am so he was uh. . .

BERGE: He wasn't quite ready for it . . .

FAWBUSH: He wasn't really and then he went to the Navy and stayed four years before he entered college.

BERGE: Ok, so he didn't go until the fifties then?

FAWBUSH: Yes, right.

BERGE: Ok, Ok. Uh I guess Jack's mother was the one that was always interested in education.

FAWBUSH: Yes.

BERGE: Because she had been a teacher and everything.

FAWBUSH: Uh, she was interested in education. Jack's father, um I'm not really sure what his education consisted of but now . . .

BERGE: Let me turn this over, Evelyn (recording stops)

SIDE 2

BERGE: talk about Jack's father and his family.

FAWBUSH: His family were also educational people. They were in the school system in different places.

BERGE: Were they, were they upset when Jack decided to get married and not go to school?

FAWBUSH: Very upset.

BERGE: I figured they probably would.

FAWBUSH: Very upset. . .

BERGE: And I, you know, I've never heard you say it but uh I figured they would have been.

FAWBUSH: It was a terrible mistake to them.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: But I don't think it would have mattered who it would have been, it . . .

BERGE: Oh, I understand.

FAWBUSH: It would have been the same situation.

BERGE: Oh, I understand that.

FAWBUSH: But I was from a different uh . . .

BERGE: Does that hurt your feelings [unclear]?

FAWBUSH: No.

BERGE: I mean, you knew why it was, because he was just, to go to school, I guess.

FAWBUSH: I've, I've never been . . .

BERGE: Of course he wasn't about to go to school anyway was he . . .

FAWBUSH: I've never been one to brood too much because uh ever since I can remember I have liked me. I've liked me better than anybody. So it isn't tough and I know what I am so . . .

BERGE: (laughter). Yeah, yeah, yeah. No didn't, I meant did it bother you that they were so upset about you getting married?

FAWBUSH: No, it, I didn't know it right at the time.

BERGE: Oh, oh.

FAWBUSH: Not right then because uh but the, the funny thing is Jack and I we, he just came down one Thursday night and he said let's go get married tomorrow night. I said Ok and uh we did and uh . . .

BERGE: Of course he never was interested in school the way his mother was [unclear] . . .

FAWBUSH: No, not then but uh he would have been a good school person . . .

BERGE: Yeah.

FAWBUSH: because he retains all he . . .

BERGE: Yeah, uh huh.

FAWBUSH: Learns you know but we married on his mother and father's anniversary but we didn't know it at the time and he didn't know it.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: We just ran off and . . .

BERGE: Where did you go to get married?

FAWBUSH: We went to uh Jenkins, Kentucky and got our blood test and our license 31:00and then we came back to Harlan, Kentucky that night and got married in Harlan County.

BERGE: We had some friends married and I did too, ran away to get married from Harlan County and they went to Rosco, Georgia.

FAWBUSH: Oh. We had to get back before we were missed. [laughter]

BERGE: So, how long after that that was it before Jack started to work for the company?

FAWBUSH: Well he was working for the company when we married. He started . . .

BERGE: He'd already quit school?

FAWBUSH: Yes.

BERGE: Oh. Okay, okay.

FAWBUSH: Yes. He went to school when he first came back out of the Army when he was discharged . . .

BERGE: For six weeks, you said.

FAWBUSH: Yeah and he, he just, um I suppose that would have been the fall of '46 that he enrolled at Eastern.

BERGE: Oh, I thought he was still in like going to Eastern and he came home one weekend and you and he got married. That's why I asked you.

FAWBUSH: No, no. He, he quit the school. He wouldn't stay away.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: I don't know from home or what but he . . .

BERGE: He liked you better than he did them [laughter]

FAWBUSH: Yeah, I think he did [laughing].

BERGE: Did, what kind of friends did you all have?

FAWBUSH: Oh we had . . .

BERGE: Like when you were all down there living in camp. A young couple like you, who would you hang around with?

FAWBUSH: We had lots of young couples. There were so many of the kids that went into the mine . . .

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: That were in high school with me . . .

BERGE: Jack, uh huh.

FAWBUSH: and Jack, uh huh and we had, we still have friends, you know, that . . .

BERGE: Was most of your friends people your age or Jack's?

FAWBUSH: Uh, mine.

BERGE: A lot of Jack's friends were still away, I guess.

FAWBUSH: And they were away and they were in college.

BERGE: Yeah, and they came back out of the service and went to school. Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: Right.

BERGE: How long did you and Jack stay in, in Benham?

FAWBUSH: We lived, the first time we left in . . . we left in '53 . . .

BERGE: Now did the company still own the houses then?

FAWBUSH: Yes.

BERGE: Ok.

FAWBUSH: We moved to uh Jessamine County in . . .

BERGE: What did you do there?

FAWBUSH: In 1953. Jack's uncle, Jack wanted to get out of the mine and his uncle had a farm and Jack, we wanted to try our hand at farming and we went down there and stayed one, one year.

BERGE: Doesn't take long to get that farming out of your system, huh?

FAWBUSH: No it didn't take long. And so then Jack came back and applied and was 34:00rehired and then we moved to um Benham again and again on Schoolhouse Hill but in one house below where we lived before.

BERGE: You were getting close then, huh?

FAWBUSH: And we also put a bathroom in that house.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And then we lived there.

BERGE: You had two, both boys by then?

FAWBUSH: Both boys, uh huh. My boys twenty-one months apart. They were both born in Benham.

BERGE: Mm hmm. How long did you stay there?

FAWBUSH: We, we built a new house. We bought some land and we built a new house up on the 119 from, going from Cumberland to Whitesburg.

BERGE: Yeah, I know where you mean.

FAWBUSH: About five miles out. We built a new house there and we moved into it in uh--1960, I believe.

BERGE: Mm hmm. When you uh and how long did you stay there before you moved out of there?

FAWBUSH: Well, we lived there sixteen months and sold it.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And . . .

BERGE: Move to Louisa than?

FAWBUSH: No, we moved to Pineville at that time. Jack wanted to try his hand at logging. He had a bulldozer and he was doing private custom work for people with a bulldozer and doing real good and my grandmother had land that needed to be logged.

BERGE: Uh huh.

FAWBUSH: And so he bought the timber off of my grandmother and he logged for a while when we lived at Pineville. And then, when we were at Pineville and Jack got sick and with his back. He had calcium deposits on his legs actually; he thought it was his back but . . . and had to go in the hospital at Pineville.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

FAWBUSH: They, he wanted to go to the VA hospital in Johnson City so we 36:00transferred him to VA and they found out it was calcium deposits on his knees.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

FAWBUSH: And they got that cleared up and in the meantime our daughter was born, Susanne, she was born at Pineville. And Jack was at home and knew a man, a union man for construction work came by and so he was hired for that and then from there he went to Louisa, Kentucky on a power plant.

BERGE: Uh huh. And that's why you came here?

FAWBUSH: And we left Louisa and came here to London.

BERGE: I have some other questions I want to ask you about but its 10:30 and you need to get ready and stuff. I'll, when I come back and interview Jack, I'll take a few minutes to talk to you and finish it up.

FAWBUSH: I'll go ahead if you want to. A few more minutes, I . . .

BERGE: No, I don't want to use up your time.

FAWBUSH: I got time. All I have to do is just dress.

BERGE: Yeah, and I'll need to get some stuff done back at up the cabin before I 37:00go to Richmond anyway, so . . .

FAWBUSH: Ok.

BERGE: I'll be sure to get back and talk to you some more but so you left what year finally when you all last time you left Benham?

FAWBUSH: Mm. I can't tell you that to be exact. I could guess but I, I just better wait and let Jack tell you that. I can't--. about '59. I think it was '59 when we left Benham.

BERGE: Uh huh. And how long did you stay up at Louisa? Do you remember?

FAWBUSH: Two years. We lived at . . .

BERGE: So you weren't gone from this area too long anyway.

FAWBUSH: No. Never.

BERGE: Well I want to thank you, Evelyn.

FAWBUSH: You're welcome. [recording stops]