William H. Berge Oral History Center
Coal Company Towns Project
Interview with Anna Bell Walters
Feb 23, 1982 (1982oh098)
Conducted by Ivel Parker
Transcribed by Laurie Wilcox
WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mrs. Anna
Bell Walters, the wife of Ponce DeLeon Walters. The interview is conducted for the Oral History Center at Eastern Kentucky University by Ivel Parker. The interview is conducted in Mrs. Walters home in Lynch Kentucky on February 23, 1982 at 10:30 am.TAPE TURNED OFF
THERE IS A CONVERSATION IN THE BACKGROUND
IVEL PARKER: Okay, um. I'd like to know first of all your name.
ANNA BELL WALTERS: Anna Bell Walters.
PARKER: Have you lived in Lynch all your life?
WALTERS: No. I'm from Birmingham, Alabama.
PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: I attended Parker High school.
PARKER: Well have the Walters family lived here a long time before-
WALTERS: Leon.
PARKER: Married into it?
WALTERS: Leon and his father came here in 1924 I believe.
PARKER: Is that right? And were they from Birmingham too?
WALTERS: They were, the suburbs of Birmingham.
PARKER: Uh huh.
WALTERS: They were living in Birmingham because he said they lived on Sixth
Avenue so.PARKER: And they came here to work in the coal mines did they?
WALTERS: Yes. [Unclear] after his mother died they came, work got slack in
Alabama and they came up here [unclear]PARKER: Uh huh. And then were you married down there?
PARKER: No. This is my second marriage. My first marriage was in Birmingham and
my husband and I had one girl and we separated. And then I came up here to visit my father and we met.PARKER: I see mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm.
WALTERS: We was divorced.
PARKER: Uh hm. And so you were married up here then?
WALTERS: Yes.
PARKER: Uh huh. And do you and Mr.Walters have children?
WALTERS: No, he adopted my daughter.
PARKER: I see. How old was your daughter at that time?
WALTERS: When he adopted her?
PARKER: Uh huh when you moved up here?
WALTERS: Oh she was four years old.
PARKER: Uh huh, I see so she grew up here in Lynch?
WALTERS: She finished school here.
PARKER: Uh huh.
WALTERS: And then we sent her to Nashville to Tennessee A & I. She could study
there as a she took social work at first. And then she went into to a leader [unclear] and then she took up uh men-she taught mental retarded children.PARKER: I see.
WALTERS: She was in special education.
PARKER: Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm. And was she your only child then?
WALTERS: Yes she the only child. She has three children now though. She lives in
Denver, Colorado.PARKER: And was Mr. Walters married before?
WALTERS: No he was not. This is his first marriage.
PARKER: This is his first marriage. I see. You've lived here a long time then
haven't you?WALTERS: Now I came here in 40, we got married in 40.
PARKER: I see, and he'd lived here for a while?
WALTERS: He was here before I came.
PARKER: Uh huh uh huh I see.
WALTERS: He finished high school down in Milton.
PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: Yes West Milton. He was a great football star.
PARKER: Is that right? They had quite a football team in those days didn't they?
WALTERS: Um hm. Yes they did.
PARKER: Oh, okay. How did you feel about the school closing up here?
WALTERS: It was it was sad. It hurt my heart. It just broke my heart because, I
don't know. They had been an independent school so long and they were offering them more than they were offering in the county.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: They were able to give them more.
PARKER: Um hm. Um hm. Um hm. Um hm. Well um we'd like to know if you wouldn't
mind telling us what it's been like to live in Lynch all these years. Now, you of course didn't work in the coal mines as your husband did. What was life like for you in Lynch during those years?WALTERS: Well at first when we first married it was you know the war. Once that
was, after we got married you know the war broke out. And um it was kind of rough because um.PARKER: Was your husband away?
WALTERS: He, no, he didn't get the company had him deferred. They said they
needed some good workers here. And they did, he was called but when he went to the induction center they uh, they didn't call his name and he found out later that the company had him deferred. And they were, they hadn't problems getting organized as United Mine Workers and a lot of times they'd go out to work and they have to come back. And that kept, not having good livelihood, you know. But we barley, we went through it very well and it has paid off.PARKER: Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm.
WALTERS: And Ah well, we haven't had a lock-since they got the got the pallet we
have a lot of things that, a couple of things that we can attend and enjoy. But at first we didn't have all this culture things to, to go to. And we had to adjust to, too. See I was raised in Birm-raised in Alabama and in Birmingham, we had a lot of different things [unclear] And because my daughter, she said that that I was so much different from the other mothers. They let their children do anything. I said well I was reared in Birmingham where children had to have guidance from their parents and it was a fami-two or three families and if one family couldn't take the girls out the other family took them out. And I had always been used to that and I carried her everywhere that she had to go.PARKER: Um hm. Um hm.
WALTERS: [unclear] thought she wanted to.
PARKER: And the other mothers didn't think that was necessary?
WALTERS: No they just sent them.
PARKER: Where did they come from? If they were not from Birmingham than?
WALTERS: Oh well some of them were from Birmingham and some were from the
suburbs and but I guess we just had different ideas. Different backgrounds I think that was something.PARKER: Um hm. Um hmm, yeah.
WALTERS: And she resented it. And I think sometimes, now I notice some things
that she does with her children I think it, it shows in her resentment.PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: But now she'll tell us we were the best parents in the world. But she's
a little lax on her kids.PARKER: Is that right? You said, you mentioned that in those years when United
Mine Workers were trying organize the mine that um things were rough at times, off and on.WALTERS: Well see, they were trying to get them organized. Now I am from a
United Mine Workers family in Alabama. My grandfather helped to organize the union in Alabama and I was used to but you know when they were first trying to get organized and they would go to work and they would pull out [unclear] one man would pull out his water and that mean they was turning around coming back, you know. And it was kind of rough you know because you had to do without to many things cause the men wasn't able to work. But after it got, they got organized good I think everything has been great.PARKER: Was there any real um, did you really feel worried that somebody might
get hurt?WALTERS: Get hurt that's what that was what . . .
PARKER: Was there any real violence?
WALTERS: You know they shot on Benham
PARKER: In those days?
WALTERS: You know they shot on Benham people down there. It was ridiculous how
they do it. And it wasn't the miners here that shot on them it was the people that came in, trying to get them to organize. But they never win Benham at all. And I think that, that brought a barrier between the two communities, you know, ah.PARKER: Uh huh I see.
WALTERS: Cause it at the time it was[unclear] and I didn't . I thought they
realize that it wasn't us it was the union coming in trying to get them organized but ah, as I've grown older I realize it that there's something. You can see that there is something you can see that there is something between the communities.PARKER: That the people in Benham thought maybe the Lynch people were trying to,
were doing some of the. . . Um hm. I seeWALTERS: Um hm.
PARKER: I see. Now um the Lynch mines were organized earlier than Benham were they?
WALTERS: Yeah they, they were organized much earlier than Benham. At the time,
they were telling me that Lynch organized at the time that they was doing all of this violence in Benham, you know. Lynch people were kind of slow about becoming organized at first but when they started locking the men up in the, in the powder house then the superintendents told them all to join the union. They didn't want anybody to get hurt.PARKER: Which men were locked up? Was your husband actually one of them?
WALTERS: I don't know whether he got locked up or not. He was working on the outside.
PARKER: [mumbles]
WALTERS: Now in those days he doesn't discuss with me.
PARKER: I see yes. That was men's business hum?
WALTERS: Um hm.
PARKER: Did you worry about him?
WALTERS: Yeah, sure I did. I was worried here thinking maybe that would be the
last time he'd go out and come back. But now when he was, when he started working inside of the mines I felt a little more safer. Because when he was on the outside I said they can get up on the mountains. And he had to send supplies into the mines for work.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: And I was always afraid that somebody would take a potshot at him.
PARKER: Yeah a dangerous spot to be in.
WALTERS: But after the mines got organized it wasn't.
PARKER: It's been a very nice place to live from that time on you think?
WALTERS: Yes. Well when I finished high school in 1932 and I wanted to take up
nurse training and uh I had been admitted, accepted at [unclear] in Atlanta but I couldn't get $60 to get in school.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: And uh so I when I came here, after I married and came here, and had my
daughter. Before Leon and I married I talked about it, I said now when I would finish high school I wanted to go to college and I couldn't get 60 dollars to get in. And I said I always made a vow that I was going to make preparation for my child and if you don't have the desire to do that, well there's no need for us getting married cause I'm going to have to work and see to her needs, and he said now for you and your daughter and I will do whatever I can to.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: And so I never had any problems there. Every payday we put up so much
for her education. And then when she finished high school and she went into-She didn't want to go to school at first when we first talked with her about it. Because she thought we didn't have the money, because a lot of things I wouldn't get because I wanted to have the money for her school, and she thought we didn't have the money to send her. One day while she was in her senior year I asked her about sending out and getting the catalogs and things to find out what school she wanted to go to. She said that she didn't think she wanted to go to school because she didn't want to put us in a strain. So that evening when she home from school a day or two later. I said I think you ought to know the financial condition of the family. And I want to explain to you, and ah, so she rest assured showed her the insurances we had taken out on her. And our insurance, her educational policy that we had money that we had put in her name. A day or two later she came in and said she decided she wanted to go to school. After she got in school we didn't have no problem. I told her now I said you're going to school learn but I could teach the teacher's there to teach. And I want you to got there and learn and get everything that you can to help yourself. Because it has come to the point that education is the thing that everybody needs. And I said I don't intend to send you there to horse around. Go and get your work and come on out and go to work and take care of herself. So that's what she did. She's thankful for it now. We tried to get her to on and get her masters but at the time that she finished high school Leon wasn't working. You know when they had the big layoff in Lynch. Well he was one of the men that was laid off. It was her senior year and uh she said I don't want to go to school, I don't want to go. I said well go on and get your masters while you mind is active. because after you finish school and get out your mind gets dormant, you know. [laughter - Parker] And maybe you get a husband and then you get children and then it becomes a problem. I said go ahead on while you're in there. No she was going to work and help us. So she went to work, and to leader. She worked there ten years and then she left and went to Denver.PARKER: And did you ever do your nurses training?
WALTERS: Well when see when the war was going on, well my mind was . . . I tell
you when the war came and they were asking for people to come in and take nursing and I wrote to [unclear] not thinking that I should have written to some other school. And I told them that I was married and I was interested in going to school. And they said they didn't take any married women. So that, that put a wedge into my getting my education. But I really have gone on if I had written another school and found out that they would have taken married. I thought all schools were against taking married women-PARKER: Mm hm.
WALTERS: and I, I didn't get a chance to go into medicine. But I went into
cosmetology. I took up cosmetology and got my license to do hair.PARKER: Um hm. Um hm.
WALTERS: And I worked at that.
PARKER: So did you run a beauty shop here in Lynch?
WALTERS: Yes, I'm the only registered beautician in Lynch.
PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: Black.
PARKER: And how long did you do the, run the shop? Was it down on the main
street then?WALTERS: No I ran the shop in Harlan.
PARKER: I see.
WALTERS: I had it down there about 15 years. I worked, I had a shop Mrs. Key
fixed up her basement and I had a nice shop in her basement. And I had it for about 15 years.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: You know when the bus, never bought a car. Never wanted a car until
after I stopped working. Always thought a car was too expensive. [laughter - Parker] And I had plans for my money and I couldn't see myself buying a car and having a whole lot of it repaired. So when I uh after I stopped my shop and [unclear] . My uncle brought me a car, he.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: He bought a new car and he, he brought me his old car and I learned.
PARKER: Did you know how to drive?
WALTERS: No I learned it after he brought me the car [laughing]
PARKER: [laughing] Is that right?
WALTERS: And after I learned how to drive then Leon bought me a car.
PARKER: Oh. But you'd closed your beauty shop by that time and then?
WALTERS: I just do a little work just to keep in practice.
PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS :So if, I told Leon if push come to push and I need to go back into it I
wouldn't be, you know just completely forgotten what.PARKER: Mm hm, mm hm, mm hm. So you have another profession but not nursing.
[laughter] You've enjoyed it?WALTERS: I've really enjoy. Well Leon tells me that I'm a nurse I'm a doctor,
because my customers they'll call me to come and do things for them, you know. And he said I take too much on my shoulders. But I enjoy it. I just, I enjoy doing for people.PARKER: Uh huh. Did you find when the hospital was here did you find that that
was a good place to get the healthcare that the family needed?WALTERS: Yes, we use the hospital.
PARKER: Do you?
WALTERS: I used to work at the hospital in the kitchen. I worked up there for
two or three years before [unclear] finished high school.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: And that, I think that they go and help me to get more saved on her education.
PARKER: Right, so you worked most of the years she was in school, didn't you?
WALTERS: Um hm yes,
PARKER: You worked some place or other. Uh huh did other wives work around here
too or-WALTERS: Well they have started.
PARKER: Were you unusual?
WALTERS: They, they, have. I mean it's more working now than it used to. It used
to just depend wholly and solely on the mines, you know.PARKER: Yes, yes. Were you about the only woman who worked when you started?
WALTERS: There was several of us that worked but it wasn't a best number.
PARKER: Um hmm, and I I'm interested in the houses. These are such nice houses,
it seems to me.WALTERS: Well now these houses were company houses. In 1963 they sold these
houses to us. The thing that I've never liked about when they sold us the house. See houses were all up on the hill and we were living in one up there. We had our own little [unclear] house over there in number three and they were fixing to sell the houses. They moved all of us from number three and all the people that wasn't working they had them removed away and give us the houses that were working. Well if uh, if they were planning to sell the houses they could have let us stayed on in our single house, because we had a corner house and I had much pride for that little old corner house. But I had to move, you see. People live on the other side they sold them their side and sold us our side, we never have a home, you know.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: But we did some remodeling and fixed it up. Now my daughter, she
brought in Denver and she's begging us to come to Denver to live, but we have lived here so long and all of our friends are here. And we're connected to the church and the Eastern Star Lodge and the Masons and we enjoy the fellowship among those people. And I told her that we'd come out there, and then she had her friends and her associates. And you don't make friends as fast as you get older as you did when you are young.PARKER: Uh hm.
WALTERS: And she bought a house hoping that we would come and take it, you know.
She bought her house and then she bought two more houses and she said she bought one for us so that we would have a place to stay. She still got them rented out. They got some beautiful homes out there and.PARKER: You don't think you'd like to live out there though?
WALTERS: I wouldn't, Leon is crazy about it. He really he really would go right
now and stay. But I told him I don't believe I would enjoy it. Because she has her own and she, she has started a nursery school in her basement now. And she would be confined to her little nursery school. And uh she introduced us to a lot of black people that had were living out there that we would have for our associations and everything.PARKER: Um hm. Um hm.
WALTERS: But ah,
PARKER: Could you keep up your work with the Masons and the Eastern Star, your-
WALTERS: Well I would just-
PARKER: [unclear].
See I , age has gotten to the point if I admit to that area then I would lose my
benefits of this area I would just be paying them in this lodge here.PARKER: Um hm. I see. So you'd rather not go for that reason. How about the
church is there um?WALTERS: Oh well the church.
PARKER: Which church is this and would you have the same church, the same denomination?
WALTERS: Baptist. I could easily adjust to that but uh get in the church and get
busy at the church and uh but.PARKER: You think you'd like to stay here?
WALTERS: I think my friends are here. [laughter]
PARKER: Uh huh. Uh huh.
WALTERS: And I think I would like to stay with my friends. We go out there every
summer and stay six or eight weeks. And we really enjoy, she just take us everywhere.PARKER: Uh huh. Uh huh.
WALTERS: She tires to keep us in things of interest, and ah she just has
somewhere to take us and when she was going to, in the summer, summer school and working on her masters. And finishing now she said be ready now when I come in I'll be here at 12 o'clock. And when she'd come in she'd take us all over. And she's supposed to be taking comp She's supposed to have taken her comp last month for her masters. For getting her masters. I told her, I said now this don't make sense when you could have had your masters and then you get your doctorate. And she said well I didn't see it. So you know you se a lot of mistakes you make after you make them. [laughter]PARKER: You mentioned that here in Lynch you can go to a lot of thing s over at
the college, is that in Cumberland?WALTERS: College of [unclear].
PARKER: What kind of things do you to over there?
WALTERS: You know when they have these art, usually musicians and things come in
we go over there.PARKER: Uh huh. Uh huh.
WALTERS: We go there. Now I, they have a exercise program I told Leon I was
going to get into, and um, but I never did go. It they, most of the time they have them at night and I don't like to drive at night. And he doesn't drive at all.PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: Sometime you can meet some of these young people driving so fast and
reckless you know, and I just don't like to drive at night. No I don't mind driving on highway at night but I don't like to.PARKER: This road too narrow?
WALTERS: Yes. And we get over there, over there near the college it's narrow.
PARKER: Um. And they don't do the exercise class in the daytime, you couldn't go over?
WALTERS: I haven't heard of it being in the daytime.
PARKER: Um hm. Can you take classes over there if you want to?
WALTERS: Yes I can go.
PARKER: Have you done that?
WALTERS: No I haven't yet, my mind ,you know what. I don't remember things as
well as I did when I was young and I'm afraid I get in a class and those things I'm supposed to remember I wouldn't know them. [ laughing]PARKER: [laughing]
WALTERS: Now I when I was young I could read over something and as soon as I
finished reading it would register on my mind just like I was reading it, But now that doesn't stay with me that way.PARKER: Mm hmm mm hmm.
WALTERS:I read it and two or three hours I forgotten what I read.
PARKER: [Laughing].
WALTERS: I've been taking some classes in gardening and Bible classes and I
study and those things that I knew in the Bible that stayed with me but those new things that I'm learning, they don't stay with me, you know. When they ask me questions about it I just go blank.PARKER: Is that at your church or do you?
WALTERS: At our church. We have a BTU, Baptist Training Union.
PARKER: Yes.
WALTERS: [unclear].
PARKER: Do you um, during the years that you've been here have you gone away to
meetings of any kind with church groups do you rather?WALTERS: Yeah I used to go you know when they were. The National Baptist
Convention, I used to followed them around, but it got so expensive and so I'll just stop going.PARKER: Now you're a member of the American Baptist Convention are you?
WALTERS: National Baptist.
PARKER: National Baptist. I see uh huh. I think I'd better begin.
INTERRUPTIUON
[Side 2]
PARKER: Now we were talking about shopping a moment a go and you were telling me
that you went to um Harlan and Cumberland to shop?WALTERS: Um hm.
PARKER: Tell me about grocery shopping.
WALTERS: [laughing] I like to shop down at Foodland.
PARKER: That's in Cumberland?
WALTERS: In Cumberland. The things are cheaper in Harlan but when you count up
the expense of going to Harlan you haven't saved too much. And then if you buy any foods, any perishable foods you got to come straight home to keep them from spoiling you know.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: And so I just go to Cumberland to Foodland and when I get through
shopping I come home. I don't have to worry about I being spoiled by the time I come home.PARKER: Um hm. Do you usually go shopping once a week and do a whole weeks
grocers, something like that?WALTERS: That's the way I shop. I shop once a week. Sometimes I'll forget
something then that I probably need for preparing a meal and I have to go back and get one item.PARKER: Where do you go then?
WALTERS: I still go to Foodland.
PARKER: Do you?
WALTERS: Mm hm. Now we have a, Lawson has a market down there but he's so high.
PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: You pay double what you pay at Foodland for. But a lot of people trade
with them and he has a credit business. And he has to charge more in order to come out ahead.PARKER: That's down on Main Street, the little store up there?
WALTERS: It's on back street you know right if you come up the big clutch and
you take that bridge going across that way before you get to that little cliff.PARKER: Okay.
WALTERS: Now he's a very nice fellow, I like him. But I just can't afford to pay
his prices.PARKER: Mm hmm, mm hmm. So even if you want a quart of milk or a loaf of bread?
WALTERS: You get a quart of milk you pay 99cents for a quart of milk and you can
get a half a gallon for $1.17 down [unclear].PARKER: Um hm. That's quite a difference isn't it?
WALTERS: Uh hm.
PARKER: How is it when you were shopping at the commissary at the, um, yes that
was the commissary-WALTERS: Commissary.
PARKER: wasn't it?
WALTERS: Well at the
PARKER: You must have spent a lot of years shopping there?
WALTERS: At the time we way shopping at the commissary, it was a life saver.
Because you could go and we could , if the men would work you could draw scrip. And uh if you didn't have any money you could use that scrip to get what you needed, you know. And you buy your supply of groceries and then when you got paid ,you had, you could take your money and use to for savings and other things that you wanted to do. At the time you didn't have a whole lot of money you know. Five dollars was like a whole lot to you then.PARKER: And you said there were times when you didn't work?
WALTERS: Um hm. And you didn't have cash money on hand [telephone rings]. Just
like now, you want to cut that off.INTERRUPTION TAPE PAUSED
PARKER: That's alright; um we were down in commissary store shopping when we
were interrupted for a minute.WALTERS: Oh, well you could get your furniture and you could get you food, you
could get your clothes, all at the commissary. And you could get us voucher and go get clothes that you needed and if you needed any furniture you could get that. And then they would cut you so much every payday and it wouldn't be so hard on you. And uh but the food was high but we had good food.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: We, we managed to, to. When things began to get better. When Leon
started drawing a little bit more money then we, we stopped trading at the commissary and started trading at the store.PARKER: Oh even when the commissary was still there?
WALTERS: Start trading at the [unclear].
PARKER: So when you had a choice about it you went to the other place. Uh huh,
uh huh.WALTERS: But we still could if we wanted to get anything we could always go.
PARKER: Uh huh. And it was pretty good, it was a pretty good deal for you when
your really needed, that kind of thing.WALTERS: When we needed it. Well maybe, where you was gong to draw $5.35, well
you couldn't do nothing much with that $5.35, you know. But you, you learn how to manage your money in a way that you could make it do little bit more.PARKER: Uh hm.
WALTERS: And we were trying to save at the time, So we just use whatever was
left after we had traded, well we would try to put so much of it.PARKER: What about the people who worked at the at the commissary store, were
they all, were they um pleasant to do business with?WALTERS: Yeah they were, they were real nice. It seemed just like sister and
brother situation you know. You'd go in and they knew what you liked and they'd show you what you liked.PARKER: Did they hire blacks and whites alike to work in the store?
WALTERS: Well it never has been a situation where they had, the blacks were the
custodians and the drives of the trucks and things like that. But they never had them to work in the offices behind the counter as clerks.PARKER: I see.
WALTERS: But now in the drug store, uh the man that ran the drug store he had a
black boy that he thought a lot of and he'd go, if there'd be a crowd in there, you know he'd help with the selling and things. And was honest and he thought a lot of him.PARKER: I see. Uh huh. When you were, when your daughter was younger and you
were uh bringing her up. Did you do a lot of, did you do sewing? Did you make her clothes at home and made your own clothes?WALTERS: No we always bought our clothes-
PARKER: Did you?
WALTERS: at Harlan. I sewed a lot but I didn't, it was making aprons and things
like that not.PARKER: I see. And did you um ever grow any of your own food in the summer time
or put up any?WALTERS: Well when we were in number three we had a nice garden.
PARKER: Did you?
WALTERS: Leon had a beautiful garden and we would put food in the freezer and
that would save money that way. But ah, my mother got sick and I had to go home. She had an operation and the operat-uh the intestines erupted and then she had to lay flat on her back until that healed because the couldn't resew it, you know. And I had to stay there a long time with her. And it was right at the harvest time of our garden. Somebody went in there and picked it and Leon hadn't had a garden since. He said he worked hard to have this garden then somebody come and get it.PARKER: Oh.
WALTERS: He told my daddy to go and harvest the stuff. When he got over there
somebody had already got it. So he didn't put up a garden since. I enjoy the garden because there's nothing any better than fresh vegetables.PARKER: Do you have room for one here if you wanted one?
WALTERS: Oh yeah I could
PARKER: Is there any room where you could have one?
WALTERS: In my back yard I could make a nice garden in the back yard. But Leon
likes his grass and I Don't worry about it. I told him he was going to give me a little spot because vegetables are so high now. I said I can take a package of greens and have enough greens to do us all through winter. See the dogs were running around [unclear] . [laughter - Parker] People don't take their dogs up in the evening. They just leave them out in the front yard for a bathroom. And he said if you had a vegetable garden they'd be using that vegetable garden. So we don't have a gardenPARKER: It isn't a good idea anymore to have a garden?
WALTERS: Now when he was out to our daughter, well see she has a California
redwood fence around her yard. And he ah, he enjoyed fixing a garden. He just enjoyed doing things for her, you know. He repairs all the things that has to be repaired and fix the garden, keep the yard and all that. Now he just enjoyed, an that's what I said he would enjoy going out there. He love to. And she's got a little boy that's twelve years old and he and the little boy are real close. So I thing that he, I told him I said well if you want to go and you want to be with them and I said I'd go out there. He said now I don't want you to go if you don't want to go.PARKER: [laughing]. Is your daughter married nowadays?
WALTERS: Yeah she's married and has three children. She has two girls, she got a
girl in Howard University.PARKER: Is that right? So you have a granddaughter in Howard University?
WALTERS: Uh huh. And she had a birthday first of March and she called me and
asked me to bake her cake. And I said I don't know if I'm baking you a cake if you getting good grades. She said I got three A's and two B's and one C. Then I said well okay I.PARKER: You'll bring it up to Washington? [laughter]
WALTERS: Well she's. I said what did you get a C in Functions? She said yeah
that math is killing me. She always was slow in math. But she's doing real good. And I said anything you can do for it you do it. And then anytime you call her she, she picks up the phone she says "this is Alisha" and I said "what are you doing", "I'm studying".PARKER: So you think that Lynch was a pretty good place for your daughter to
grow up then?WALTERS: Yeah I think it was.
PARKER: Do you think it was for other young people too?
WALTERS: Well I think, I think the outcome of some of the children that came
from Lynch has been nice they have done real well, we have quite a few that has real quite a few accomplishments, you know, doing real well in other places, you know.PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: I think it was a real good send off for some of them. Then some you
know they fall into the well just like sowing seeds. Some fall in fertile ground and some falled in barren ground.PARKER: You think things have changed a lot since you were growing up yourself?
WALTERS: Yes they have. I think, well when I was growing up sex was a no no, you know.
PARKER: Yeah, um hm.
WALTERS: But it's permissive now. Like my granddaughter says, Granny said, uh,
they're not doing like you did when you were growing up. Said we know all about sex. And ah, but I know that I can't indulge in sex and live in my mother's and father's house. So I know all about it. She said I know all about the don'ts that everybody's just fooling with dope and everything. Said I even tried it till I found out it wasn't a nice thing to do so I went clean. Said I'm glad you found that out before it took advantage of your life. The brain is too good of a thing to lose.PARKER: Uh huh.
WALTERS: She, she was a they'd had a coming out party for the outstanding
students at Denver and she was one of the girls [unclear] . And I was real proud of her last year. It was 23 girls that they introduced to society.PARKER: How many, how about the other two. You have two other grandchildren?
WALTERS: The next one is Delisha. The oldest one is Delisha and the next one is
Ladonna, and Ladonna going to finish her school this year. But she's undecided. It costs so much to go to Washington. And she Betty says she's me all over. Said she squeezes that dollar till it hollers [ laughter - Parker] And uh she thinks it's too expensive to go to Howard. It's a good school but she thinks it's too expensive. And she has worked and uh she's investing in stocks and things like that. She counts up the costs of things before she jumps into, she's so much different than the two kids. The oldest girl I said, I said D. why don't you go to school in Denver, or in Colorado? They have good schools. She said and it's not as expensive as it would to go out of state. I said when you go out of state you've got to pay an out of state fee. She said that's for people don't have no money to pay it. My mother has got my money to go to school and I'm going to Howard. I want to go to Howard. I said go to Howard you got the work. She's proven you see. But Ladonna, she counts up the cost of everything before she jumps in. She works. She keeps a job and she saves her money. Her mother says she saved every penny she ever made . She won't spend it for her own needs. I said she can't make it just on her own needs cause all of us got to supply our needs.PARKER: Uh huh. Uh huh. And then there's a third one?
WALTERS: That's a boy.
PARKER: Is that a boy
WALTERS: Uh huh. He's a boy. And he's the baby and he's spoiled. [laughter -
Parker] Everybody caters to his wills. But uh I told him he was lazy and when I was up there last summer and I told him pick up the yard, you know. And he went out there and picked up one or two things and said ' It's hot out there Granny' I said ' You got to learn hot to work in the hot sun and work with the [unclear]' . He uh he, called me and asked me for $10 like its [unclear] . Give me $10 I want to get such and such a thing. I said 'You got to work for it'. Just can't hand it to him without any question. And he has so many white friends. Their parents are doctors and lawyers and you know their high income bracket so he thinks he's supposed to keep up with them. I said [unclear] cause his mother and father both, his daddy working for the government in the Justice Department and his mother was teaching mentally retarded children. And she said she had taught 20 years in the retarded field and she thought it was about time to get out of it. And that's the reason why she opened a nursery school. This last year in her teaching, see she had always taught the she said the lambs, the young ones and last year they put her teaching the older children and she didn't like that. Because uh she said if she had had these older children from the time they were little lambs up until they got to be teenagers then she figured that she would have had train them in the right direction. But when they got to be teenagers and they were hard to handle. Because one little boy picked up a chair and hit her with it. And she got out if it. And she's petite, she wears a size 12. She's very small, short like me and um she, she said that he was a little black boy and of course she felt closer to him, but she didn't think any difference in race creed or color but he couldn't have his way and he picked up the chair and hit her. So she just stood there she said 'alright now you got when someone tells you to get in a big chair and come and your momma will carry you to a funeral home. So she carried him to the front room and refused to teach him any more. And his mother come to the school and begged her to take him because he was giving her fits. So she took him. Why we were out there last year she had a she brought a class over to the house for me to meet her class and I prepared treats for them. I really didn't see how she could handle them because these were really untrainable children. They were and Betty felt like the reason that they gave them to her was that everybody had refused to teach them.PARKER: She's probably good at what she does isn't she?
WALTERS: She's real good. The principal told her, her principals were not
anything she acquired in school they were God given principles of knowledge that she had for handling those small kids, but uh and he gave her a real good evaluation. But she said that twenty years was long enough and so she's got nine children in her nursery school and she's just started it this year. She said she didn't want but ten and she's got nine.PARKER: Good begin with right.
WALTERS: And it's called the Academy. The Minnie Pro Academy. She said she was
going to send me some materials pf her work, she's going to send me stuff.PARKER: Would you like to go out there and help her?
WALTERS: Well I told her I'd come out there and help her. She said she had to
give them a meal. She gives them dinner and then she gives them a snack, and she would like me to come out there and do that for her. She might [unclear]. [laughter - Parker]PARKER: Back when she was growing up in Lynch in those days um they had this
park out here, this club or park ?WALTERS: They had the park down here at the school grounds.
PARKER: I see.
WALTERS: Well now when they were growing up they had. You know they integrated
the year she graduated from high school.PARKER: Is that right?
WALTERS: And they had, they had wonderful teachers and those teachers had so
many things to keep them active, you know. And they made [unclear] and things like that and they had operettas. They just kept them busy doing something. One year she was Cinderella in the operetta and it was real good. It was just lifelike, you know.PARKER: I saw the one school done there that, the colored school.
WALTERS: It's, it's
PARKER: [unclear].
WALTERS: Uh huh, it's club now.
PARKER: I see.
WALTERS: Uh huh. It's a southeastern some of the members of Lynch got together
and organized it as a southeastern club. And each year they they go from city to city and all the people that used to live in Lynch they gather together on Labor Day weekend. And they have those three days that weekend.PARKER: Sort of a home coming?
WALTERS: Uh huh and its Southeast all of them let's see there's one chapter in
New York and one chapter in Cleveland and another chapter in Detroit, and one in Toledo, and one in Dayton, and one in Louisville. And they all get together on Labor Day weekend.PARKER: And these are people who used to live here and went to that school?
WALTERS: Used to live here. You know used to be, used to be 3000 men worked in
the mines at one time. And now when they put in mechanical work well they cut off a lot of men. A lot of them didn't get back. In fact Leon got back. Well Leon would have never been cut off but uh when they were cutting off if he had listened to his boss. But his boss didn't tell him what was going to happen, you know. He told him he was transferred to the mine number 37 I believe, they were transferring him to. And he said that where he was working he could walk everyday. And if they transferred him up there he was going to have to pay somebody to go to work. And he told him he'd rather stayed where he was, not knowing that they was going to shut that mine down see. And he said he would never do that anymore if a man told him he wanted to send him someplace. Well I guess the man couldn't tell him that they were fixing to shut the mine down. Else they would have spread it, you know. They were trying to keep it a secret. And that kept him, he stayed off about four years.PARKER: Is that righ?
WALTERS: Um hm.
PARKER: What did you do during that time?
WALTERS: Well see I had a I had a shop in Harlan. And I was going to Harlan to
work and I had a friend, in Harlan , that was working for Mrs. Bailey. Did you know Miss Bailey, Doctor Bailey? Ah,PARKER: Um hm.
WALTERS: Doctor Bailey Doctor Bailey's wife and Doctor Bailey had died and he
had a whole lot of offices in Harlan and so he, she asked me would Leon come down and work. I said I don't know I'll ask him. So he went down. And she wanted him to wash all these windows in all these offices and strip the floors of wax and wax, and do all that. Every night he would come in from work and ask me how to do this and how to do that. [laughter - parker] And he did that. And he was pretty good at it. Miss Bailey wanted him to move to Harlan because she had him working for her sister for her and doing those offices and carrying her money to the bank. She trusted him and she.PARKER: Why didn't he do that? Why didn't he want to move to Harlan?
WALTERS: He told her if he moved to Harlan she had to get him a place to stay.
If she would get him a place and he would be sure that he could buy it and everything then he would move. But as it was she never tried to get him a place because she had plenty of property she could have, you know.PARKER: Uh huh.
WALTERS: Seen to him having a place but she didn't thought so he just stayed on here.
PARKER: You wouldn't have minded moving to Harlan if it had worked out?
WALTERS: Mm hmm, because it would have been [unclear].
PARKER: uh huh.
WALTERS: But ah, but see Harlan was they don't have no nice places for blacks to
live. After they put the projects in you know that did make better condition. Well.PARKER: Here in Lynch?
WALTERS: In Harlan.
PARKER: Oh I see.
WALTERS: And ah but those were shacks and shanty's that they were living in in
Harlan, those little houses standing up on wood stilts and uh every time a flood come and wash them away. I wouldn't want to. Just like them, she can have him a decent place to live then I would have gone.PARKER: I noticed the houses in Lynch were all really big houses and nice houses.
WALTERS: Well US Steel had really, I think US Steel was one of the companies
that were really concerned about their mines. They see these houses were theirs and they had nice houses all over. All up on the hill and everywhere and they kept them up pretty good you know.PARKER: Uh huh.
WALTERS: I think uh, a company that's concerned about their miners or their
workers really made people happier than they do where they said you work and I pay you and I don't care do what you do with all that.PARKER: Uh huh. So they just never did have those houses up on stilts that
you're talking about in Harlan? They just didn't have those.WALTERS: Um hm. They had. These houses were theirs, we just some of them have
put siding on them but they're almost in the same condition they were when they were there.PARKER: I see. You didn't have to do much to yours when you bought it?
WALTERS: Well you know I put that out and cut that out and just added a few
things, that's all. Put a bath on the back porch took the back porch and used it for a bath.PARKER: Did they have indoor plumbing in the hoses?
WALTERS: No they had.
PARKER: Back in the old days?
WALTERS: No we had outdoor houses.
PARKER: I guess most houses didn't in Kentucky.
WALTERS: Uh huh.
PARKER: And did you have to put the plumbing in after you bought it or was that before?
WALTERS: Well we had water in the kitchen.
PARKER: I see.
WALTERS: But that was all. We had hot and cold water. But we didn't, we had to
go outside to the bath. I mean when we put the bathroom Daddy bought me a little plaque to go on the wall it cost a lot of money to do this bathroom, move this house into the house and pay as you go five cents. [laughter - both].PARKER: And.
END OF INTERVIEW
