Interview with Mary Smith

William H. Berge Oral History Center

Coal Company Towns Project

Interview with Mary Smith

January 27, 1983 (1983 oh 042)

Conducted by William Berge

Transcribed by Laurie Wilcox

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mrs. Mary Wattenburger Smith. The interview was conducted by William Berge, Director of the Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University. The interview was conducted at Mrs. Smith's home in Corbin, Kentucky on January 27th, 1983 at 8 pm.

WILLIAM BERGE: Mary, I want to thank you for letting me come down here today. The last time I was here you told me a bit about yourself you told me I think you were born in 1931.

MARY WATTENBERGER SMITH (SMITH): Right.

BERGE: And you were born in Crummies.

SMITH: That's correct.

BERGE: Now do you spell Crummies C-R-U-M-M-I-E-S?

SMITH: That's correct.

BERGE: Ok. In Harlan County. And your father's name was Carson Wattenburger. W-A-T-T-E-N-B-U-R-G-E-R.

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: And your mother, who was Olive?

SMITH: That's right.

BERGE: What was her maiden name?

SMITH: Irvin. I-R-V-I-N.

BERGE: I-R-V-I-N. Ok. And you told me they were married in 1911?

SMITH: I think that's right.

BERGE: So they were married twenty years when you were born?

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: Ok. Where were they from?

SMITH: My mother grew up on Catterns Creek which was another area from where we, from where I grew up.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Was it in Harlan County?

SMITH: It's in Harlan County, yes. In fact they both grew up in that same general area.

BERGE: What did her father do?

SMITH: I'm not sure.

BERGE: Uh huh. Was he dead when you were born?

SMITH: Yes.

BERGE: So you don't remember. . .

SMITH: I never knew him.

BERGE: And . . .

SMITH: I never knew either grandparents.

BERGE: Yeah, because your parents were fairly old when you were born.

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: So how many brothers and sisters did you have?

SMITH: I have, I had four sisters and three brothers.

BERGE: And one, just the one brother was younger than you? The rest were older?

SMITH: There were two younger than me.

BERGE: Oh.

SMITH: But one, the youngest child died.

BERGE: Oh.

SMITH: But I had one . . .

BERGE: But, Charles was the only one younger than you?

SMITH: That's right.

BERGE: Ok. Before when I talked with you, you were, you told me a lot of things about the the town at Crummies. But I want to, I'm going to ask you some, some of the same questions that I, but maybe some different ones. But can you, it's a very, this is a hard question to answer. But what are your first recollections of, in your life? What are the first things, like when you're trying to think back to when you were a kid, or some of the, your earliest recollections. What are they of?

SMITH: I guess just growing up in a large, and with several people in the family and uh.

BERGE: You mean they're in the house mostly?

SMITH: Yes, uh huh. Now some of them were, my older brothers and sisters were married when I was very young but I can remember them being home on weekends. So there was always a lot of people around.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: It was almost like you, like a party.

BERGE: Yeah.

SMITH: A good deal of the time.

BERGE: Do you remember things inside of the house or outside of the house best from the earliest memory?

SMITH: I think I remember more outside. Because we played a lot outside, more than, than it seems like the children do now.

BERGE: Uh huh. Can you . . .

SMITH: We played in the mountains and . . .

BERGE: Can you remember your first house that you lived in?

SMITH: I rem . . .

BERGE: Do you remember what it looked like?

SMITH: Oh yeah. I remember what it looked like.

BERGE: You were going to describe it to a stranger, how would you describe your house. Like say somebody was going to paint a picture of your house and that had never seen it so they wanted to make, paint a picture, what would you, how would you describe it to them?

SMITH: Ok, it consists of a, an inner room which it began, the whole house began with just this one room. Before we lived there, there was only one room, I think, at one time. And it was a big log room with a fireplace.

BERGE: And this is a company house?

SMITH: No it wasn't a company house. It, it was, it was right on the border of the company property.

BERGE: Oh.

SMITH: But it was owned by an individual.

BERGE: Oh. But that's, but that's the first house you remember?

SMITH: That's the only, yes, that's the house I grew up in.

BERGE: Oh. You always lived in that house.

SMITH: I always lived in that house until I was, until my father was dead, I was, I was in high school. Like a junior in high school.

BERGE: And, and your mother and father never lived in a company house?

SMITH: No.

BERGE: Even though he lived in the town?

SMITH: They lived in a company house after my father died. My mother moved into a company house.

BERGE: How'd she get that?

SMITH: I'm not sure. Apparently . . .

BERGE: That was the house that I'd been to. That one she moved into is that, did she only live in one house in Crummies.

SMITH: Probably, yes.

BERGE: After she, after your father died?

SMITH: Uh huh, uh huh, right.

BERGE: So I was, yeah, I was up there once with you.

SMITH: Oh were you up there when I?

BERGE: Um hmm.

SMITH: Ok but this other house was a, it consisted, it started with this large log room that had a fireplace in it. It was real warm, comfortable room and then from there they had built a kitchen on one end and, let's see, two bedrooms on the other end. Large bedrooms.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: And there was really not a living room as you think of now. It was more like a family room. This big log room was used more like a family room.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Who owned that house?

SMITH: Virgil Eversole.

BERGE: And did he always own it?

SMITH: Yes. He still owns it, I guess.

BERGE: Hah. Is the house still there?

SMITH: Oh yeah. The house is still there.

BERGE: Huh. Well, Mary, you didn't live in a company house and your father worked for the company.

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: What was the name of the company? [Unclear].

SMITH: Crummies Creek Coal Company was the name of the coal company.

BERGE: What was the names of the people that owned it?

SMITH: LP Johnson, I think.

BERGE: Now look at, when you lived in that, in that house, were you at, were you eligible for the other company things even though you didn't live in a company house?

SMITH: Oh yeah. We were eligible for the electricity and everything. It . . .

BERGE: Oh, you had company electricity?

SMITH: Oh yeah. We had company electricity.

BERGE: Uh huh. Yeah, I thought so because . . .

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: I thought I'd seen your father's pay card . . .

SMITH: Uh huh, right.

BERGE: Where it was deducted for the electricity.

SMITH: Uh huh, yeah. I don't know how they worked that but this was the only house in the whole area that was not owned by the company. So apparently they just allowed him to use their . . .

BERGE: Run the electricity . . .

SMITH: Facilities, uh huh.

BERGE: Did you uh, was your house as good or better than the company houses?

SMITH: It was larger.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: It was more of a, more like a farm house.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Do you think it was as well made as the company houses?

SMITH: I think it was, uh huh.

BERGE: Did you go to the company doctor?

SMITH: Oh yeah. We had all the company medical facilities.

BERGE: Who was the doctor?

SMITH: Dr. Burkheart and Dr. Roland.

BERGE: And when you ah became ill, for instance, and had to go see the doctor, did you have to pay him anything?

SMITH: No. That all came, we paid monthly medical through the commissary, through the coal, you know, the office there. I guess through the commissary office. And we just, I mean, it was just like, we never had to pay, not even office visits like you do now. Like, you know, we do now.

BERGE: When you lived there, how big was the company town at Crummies?

SMITH: Oh, it was a good sized community. I, gee, I can't, you mean, you thinking in population?

BERGE: In number of houses yeah.

SMITH: In number of houses, maybe? Oh maybe 150 houses.

BERGE: And then you could be off, it could have been more or less?

SMITH: Yes. But, more likely more than less.

BERGE: Uh huh, uh huh. What, what, have you ever been in any other company towns around Harlan?

SMITH: Oh yeah, I've been in lots of the company towns.

BERGE: Name some of the others.

SMITH: Liggett, Bardo, Mary Helen, that's the three that I can . . .

BERGE: Was Wallins a company town?

SMITH: Wallins was not a company town.

BERGE: All right, these other company towns you mentioned, what, were they as big or bigger than Crummies?

SMITH: Mary Helen was probably as large as Crummies.

BERGE: And the others were smaller?

SMITH: And the others were smaller.

BERGE: Ok now when you, when you were in that town and you, you lived there, where'd you go to school?

SMITH: I went to school right there in the community. We had our own school. And it was through the eighth grade. It was a four, it was four large rooms and it was like open classrooms that we think of now.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: It was diff-you know, two or three grades per room, of course. We had a ball court on the side of, clay court of course.

BERGE: Basketball?

SMITH: Basketball, mm hmm.

BERGE: Did they have a basketball team?

SMITH: Mm hmm. Had a basketball team . . .

BERGE: And

SMITH: cheerleaders.

BERGE: Did you?

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: Did they have a baseball team?

SMITH: Don't think they had a baseball team.

BERGE: They . . .

SMITH: They just played basketball.

BERGE: Did you play your games outside?

SMITH: Oh yeah.

BERGE: Who'd you play, what kind of teams?

SMITH: We played Cawood, Bott's Creek, Lenarue, Mary Helen, all of the little communities. Not necessarily coal mining communities, now Cawood was not a coal mining community.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: But they had, they played their teams.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Did you play in any, in any gymnasiums or were they all outside?

SMITH: They were all outside.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Now like when would this have been? This was in the '40s, late '30s probably?

SMITH: In the late '30s and '40s, uh huh.

BERGE: '30's '40s.

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: When, when you went to school there you walked to school, I guess.

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: All right, where'd you eat lunch?

SMITH: We took our lunch. Only sometimes we'd just go home for lunch. We got maybe an hour for lunch and we could go home if we wanted to. But most of the time we took our lunch. Toward the end of my school there, there was a little lunch room set up.

BERGE: When they started having lunches?

SMITH: Started having lunches.

BERGE: Um hmm.

SMITH: Just, I think it was just sandwiches and soups.

BERGE: Um hmm.

SMITH: Light lunches.

BERGE: Did you eat there then?

SMITH: We ate there then. Now sometimes too we would go to the commissary and just buy. They had a little snack bar in the commissary which was, oh maybe a tenth of a mile from the school. It's just a block from the school.

BERGE: Mm hmm. How far was your house from the school?

SMITH: About a half mile.

BERGE: Oh it was, it was quite a ways, isn't it?

SMITH: Oh yeah.

BERGE: When you'd gone to the commissary, I guess you charged the stuff?

SMITH: Oh yeah.

BERGE: Did your folks alwa-did you ever charge anything they didn't know of?

SMITH: No.

BERGE: In other words . . .

SMITH: One, one girl did. There was one girl that every recess, she'd go to the commissary and buy treats for the whole class. [Laughter]

BERGE: How long did she get to do that?

SMITH: She did that all year. I don't know how her father could have afford that because she was just one of the poorer kids in the community.

BERGE: Mm hmm. But it didn't bother or keep the rest of you from taking the treats too did it?

SMITH: [laughter] No, no not at all. We really liked her at recess time.

BERGE: Her father probably never got any pay, he found . . .

SMITH: Probably not.

BERGE: Like Tennessee Ernie Ford. The only soul in the company store, I guess. Mary when you were a young girl, do you have good memories of the company store?

SMITH: Oh yeah. It was, it was, it was a fun place to go. I remember it as being a fun place to go.

BERGE: Why?

SMITH: Well you saw a lot of people and, and you knew a lot, you knew everybody in the community and it was kind of a place that I just always enjoyed going.

BERGE: When you were a girl and you were going to ever get a, a nice dress, say, where'd your mother get the dress? Did she make it or did she buy it?

SMITH: Often times she made them.

BERGE: Mm hmm. But let's say you were going to get a really fancy one . . .

SMITH: Mm hmm.

BERGE: and she was going to buy it, where would she buy it?

SMITH: She'd usually go to this, to Harlan.

[Clock chimes in background]

BERGE: Yeah, but why? Why would, why would she go to Harlan rather than the company store?

SMITH: Well mostly the selection. There wasn't a very good selection at the commissary. And what they did have was overly priced.

BERGE: Mm hmm. In other words, that's one thing you do remember about the commissary?

M: Right, uh huh.

BERGE: Or the company store. The prices were higher at the company store.

SMITH: Right, right. There was a peddler that would come and he would bring these things to the commissary but his prices were at least a third maybe a half again as much as they were in, in town.

BERGE: Mm hmm. So if you could, if you had cash, you tried to buy somewhere else?

SMITH: Mm hmm. Right.

BERGE: Were there any other stores around Crummies besides the company store?

SMITH: No other stores at all. There was some, there was a store in Cawood which was about two miles away and they had real nice clothes there but there again they were higher priced than they were in town.

BERGE: Mm hmm. How far were you from Harlan?

SMITH: About twelve miles.

BERGE: Twelve miles?

SMITH: Mm hmm.

BERGE: Did you go to Harlan a lot or not?

SMITH: Not a, not a whole lot. But as, growing up, oh, we might go once a week or maybe once every other week, you know, but not real often.

BERGE: When you went there, how'd you go?

SMITH: On a bus.

BERGE: Did your father have a car?

SMITH: My father had a car. Most of the time, we rode the bus though.

BERGE: How long did it take to go in there on bus?

SMITH: Oh, about 25 minutes.

BERGE: Did all the coal camps have a busses to go to Harlan . . .

SMITH: Yes.

BERGE: or was Crummies the only one?

SMITH: No they all had busses.

BERGE: So you weren't quite as isolated as you would have been in the situation where there weren't busses then?

SMITH: No, not at all. We weren't isolated at all.

BERGE: Did you ever, when you were young, now, I, I don't know when, but I would say your early teenage years, you know, maybe seventh eighth grade, maybe even later when you started going into the county high school. I guess that you did go to a county high school.

SMITH: Yes. County high school.

BERGE: When you and the other girls would talk, just about things, you know, did you talk much about getting away from there?

BERGE: Not really. No, the girls in the community were quite happy and contented people. I never thought of it being a place that you were, you know, were anxious to get away from, really.

BERGE: But didn't you ever, did you ever think that, that you have, did you ever remember having any conversations like anybody saying I'm when I get out of here, I'm, when I can, I'm going get out of here and go somewhere or were people pretty well contented there?

SMITH: Most people were contented.

BERGE: When you were first beginning what you were going do after you finished high school, what did you think you were going to do?

SMITH: Oh gee, I can't remember making any definite plans about what I really wanted to do. I didn't feel at the time that I had an opportunity to go to college because there was no financing for it and I don't really think I considered, I think I was looking maybe more for a job than for a way to go to school.

BERGE: Mm hmm. And you had no certain kind of job you thought about?

SMITH: No, not, not really. I guess, well, when I was in high school, I started working at a clothing store and . . .

BERGE: In Harlan?

SMITH: In Harlan. I rode the bus to Harlan and then I went from there to a, when I graduated from high school I started working in a hardware store. And from there to a furniture store in an office there. This time it was in an office and that was the last job I had until we moved to Richmond.

BERGE: Until you married then?

SMITH: Until I married, uh huh.

BERGE: Mary, what were the very best jobs that a girl who didn't get to go to college could get in, in Harlan? I mean, what would, like if you were really thinking about a good job in Harlan and you were say an eighteen year old girl who finished high school and hadn't been to college, what would be about the best you could hope for then?

SMITH: You mean in salary-wise?

BERGE: No.

SMITH: Or you mean . . .

BERGE: What would be the best kind of job?

SMITH: The type of job?

BERGE: Yeah. Who had the best types of jobs in town and what did they do?

SMITH: Any type of office work, I'd say, would be the best jobs unless you had more training than would have gotten in high school.

BERGE: So maybe a secretary or . . .

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: or a bookkeeper or something like that?

SMITH: Mm hmm.

BERGE: would be the best jobs?

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: Not a, something where you wore nice clothes?

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: So in other words that would probably be the things that really distinguish a good job from a bad job is that right?

SMITH: Right, right. Uh huh.

BERGE: Mary, what, when young, say like you were a young woman there in Harlan, you were nineteen years old, you're out, you've been out of high school a year or so and you, you and your friends talked. UH, in those days, about most girls thought about marrying somebody who would, you know, they probably live with the rest of their lives. You didn't uh just think about money but surely girls talked about the kind of person, if they wasn't someone specific, I mean, the kind of person would be the best person to marry. Did you ever think of marrying somebody who'd take you out of Harlan or did you think that, you know, still, was that not a factor with you?

SMITH: I, I don't think that was really a factor even then. I don't think I ever, I never really thought about leaving, I guess.

BERGE: Was it partly because of your mother?

SMITH: Probably. Probably so, I think I. . .

BERGE: The fact that your father was dead . . .

SMITH: Yeah, yeah. I think I probably felt responsible. But it, it, it just never dawned on me that, you know, that things might be better someplace else than they were there.

BERGE: Did you have any friends that, who thought they were, did you ever have anybody who just couldn't stand it there? Any of your friends say I'm going to get out of this hole or anything like that? Did, was there any of that stuff?

SMITH: Well, there were a lot of them that really wanted to. To get out, wanted to go uh leave the county and go someplace else. They just weren't, I guess, I don't, I think a lot of it was your home life more than, than your uh surroundings.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: I think it was your home . . .

BERGE: In other words in some of the ones who felt the most trapped it was because of their situation at home-

SMITH: I think so.

BERGE: rather than generally?

SMITH: I think so. Because in a community like that you do find some families who have a real poor homelife. Even though they had as much as some of the others materially, their home life was not too good.

BERGE: And when you went into the county high school, Hall was the name of the school, I think it was?

SMITH: Uh huh, Hall High School.

BERGE: Do you think you had as good a background from your, your school as some, as almost everybody else?

SMITH: I think I did as far as all of the rural kids were concerned but I think the city school had better, had a better school system than the county schools.

BERGE: And so in other words, you think that that, in, at least after you became more aware of things it was apparent to you that you might have done better by your education if you had gone to a, say a Harlan City School-

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: rather than a county school? In your, and it's hard to remember things like this because you didn't think this way but, when you were living, when you were younger while you were living in Crummies, did you feel that, and even in retrospect, do you think that you were given short shrift or were short-changed because you lived in that little company town rather than say in the city of Harlan?

SMITH: No, in fact, I think um growing up in, in the county and then going to town and getting a job, I think often times you were maybe accepted better than some of the kids who grew up in town if, if they grew up, let's see how do I say this. Some of the kids who, that grew up in town that had no more than I grew up with in the county were not accepted quite as well as I was because they knew their families.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: You know, if they were in town, they were, they were pretty well classified by what they had.

BERGE: Categorized-

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: socially-

SMITH: Right.

BERGE: and every other way.

SMITH: and I didn't, I was confronted with that because they didn't know my family situation.

BERGE: Mm hmm. And so in other words, if you were going to be back in the '30s and you were a child, if you were going to be raised in Harlan, and you were going to be as poor as you were-

SMITH: [unclear]

BERGE: You'd have been better off being raised in Crummies than in the city of Harlan.

SMITH: Much better off. Much better off. Because after I grew up, growing up as poorly as I did and moving into town, I was accepted much more as I say than some of the kids who grew up with a whole lot more than I had.

BERGE: Mary, where did the doctor that you had in Crummies, where did they live?

SMITH: They lived just outside the coal property.

BERGE: But they lived right there . . .

SMITH: Yes, they lived right there.

BERGE: in Crummies. Did they have children?

SMITH: They had several children.

BERGE: Where did they go to school?

SMITH: They went to the same school we did.

BERGE: They went to Crummies School?

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: Uh huh.

BERGE: Did they go into Hall High School then when they were in high school or . . .

SMITH: Some of them did. Now, yes the doctor's kids did. Some of the personnel who worked in the commissary sent their kids to the city school.

BERGE: You don't remember any of them going away to a prep school or anything like that?

SMITH: No, none of the kids went to prep schools.

BERGE: Uh huh, uh huh. But the physician sent his school, children to the, to Hall High School?

SMITH: Right and to the local elementary school. Where we went to.

BERGE: Mary, what was your first recollections, how old were you and what are the first things you remember about labor problems and strikes?

SMITH: Oh, I must have been at about the second and third grade. So, I would have been about six, five and six, about six and seven, because we started school with primer which would be kindergarten now.

BERGE: So you're talking about 1937, 1938?

SMITH: Mm hmm, right.

BERGE: Ok. What do you remember about that?

SMITH: Well what I really, what really sticks out in my mind is we would already be at school most of the time when the pickets would arrive on the scene and they would come in in carloads and my older brothers and sisters who were already out of school would come to the elementary school and pick us up. Because the commissary was so close to the school that they closed the school when this, when the pickets arrived, they, they sent all the kids home. So my brothers and sisters would come to pick us up.

BERGE: Where did the pickets come from?

SMITH: They came from all the other surrounding communities or Cawood. It would be a, see not all of the miners lived in Crummies. A lot of them lived in little surrounding towns like Cawood and Bob's Creek and those places so they would come from those areas.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: Where ever they just came from their homes, you know, to, to try to stop the mines from operating.

BERGE: And who, who would be working?

SMITH: Well the salaried men. Now my father was one of the salaried men. So he and some of the other fellows would be, would be running the operation.

BERGE: And were you scared?

SMITH: Not really. I just never th-I guess we learned to respect what was going on but really were never taught to be afraid as such.

BERGE: Uh huh. Did you, well did you ever witness any, did you ever remember seeing any violence or anything?

SMITH: Oh yeah. One time we were still in school and a man was shot at the commissary and he came to the school.

BERGE: After he was shot?

SMITH: After he was shot. And came in, in the classroom to get away from them. And they didn't come in after him. That, that time we hadn't gotten home until they started shooting.

BERGE: Do you remember the guy's, the man?

SMITH: I just remember vaguely seeing him.

BERGE: You don't remember who he was?

SMITH: No I don't remember his name.

BERGE: Which side was he on?

SMITH: Oh he was working. He was one of the men who were working.

BERGE: Oh, he was shot by the picketers?

SMITH: He was shot with the pickets, uh huh.

BERGE: Uh huh. Do remember company police?

SMITH: There weren't really any compaly, company police. They called in the National Guard. And we lived up on a hill so they put a a, they stationed a machine gun down at the foot of our hill so the people who lived in the lower area near the mines came to our house. The wives and children came to our house and I remember s--children sleeping on the floor and it was just like a party.

BERGE: [laughter] Is that right? That's how it, that's how you remember it?

SMITH: That's how I remember it.

BERGE: Mm hmm. That's how you thought of the Battle of Harlan?

SMITH: Yeah, right.

BERGE: Having a party?

SMITH: Having a party. Back in, but I can remember the wives were worried. You know you could see . . .

BERGE: Probably about their husbands, I guess. Did you all, did your dad have any friends who were pickets? Most . . .

SMITH: He had a brother who was a picket and some nephews.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Well that must have been a strange kind of . . .

SMITH: It was a real strange situation. In fact, I really think it hurt their relationship.

BERGE: After?

SMITH: After, uh huh.

BERGE: In other words, that didn't, that was never the same after that?

SMITH: Well that, I don't think they quite had the respect for each other. You know, I think they each felt the other one was in the wrong. So I don't think they ever really had the type of respect for each other that they should have had.

BERGE: Did your father carry a gun or anything when he went to work?

SMITH: No. He didn't carry a gun.

BERGE: What would he do when the pickets would come? Do you remember?

SMITH: Well they usually didn't go where he would be. He was the conveyor operator and usually they didn't go up to where he would be. He was at the top of the mountain.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: And usually they just came to the tipple and tried to stop the people there who were loading the coal.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: But it, at one time, I remember one time a person came up where he was and they had a little fist fight but no shooting was involved.

BERGE: Mm hmm. The uh, when you were young and you lived there uh, what did you do for entertainment?

SMITH: We played in the mountains mostly. We played out in the woods and....

[Recording stops]

SIDE 2

BERGE: Do you remember, we were talking about entertainment, do you can, can you remember ever having ah plays or anything like that at school? Did they have anything like that?

SMITH: Oh yeah. I remember distinctly when I was maybe a first or second grader, I was in a play at Christmas time and I got measles and couldn't be in the play. And I can still remember how disappointed I was. And the girl who took my place I remember feeling very resentful because I really wanted to be in that play and I guess I really resented her for a while because she got to be in it and I didn't.

BERGE: Probably had a big part like you might have been chief snowflake or something . . .

SMITH: I, [laughter] I think I probably was. I think I was an angel that was my only chance to be an angel.

BERGE: [laughter] Mary, did, did they have anything like dances or anything like that at all?

SMITH: We had, oh yeah, we had, had dances at school, is that what you mean?

BERGE: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah we had dances. And uh.

BERGE: Was there any-

SMITH: Box suppers.

BERGE: Box suppers? Any of that?

SMITH: Box suppers, uh huh. And . . .

BERGE: How old would you have been when you would have been involved with that?

SMITH: Still in elementary school with those, uh huh.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: So it would have been eighth grade or under.

BERGE: What would they have for older people living there like let's say you had some older sisters at home or older brothers, what would they do?

SMITH: Well there was a theater at Cawood and most, that's just about all they did was go to the theater.

BERGE: Mm hmm. So there was no theater in . . .

SMITH: No theater in Crummies.

BERGE: No theater in Crummies.

SMITH: No.

BERGE: Now tell me this, uh did, you had electricity, did you know any people in the county who didn't have electricity?

SMITH: There were nobody in, in our community that had, that didn't have electricity. No, let me take that back. There was. Way up on the mountain there was a, a crude house up there that we used to like to go up there and and look around because it was really on the top of the mountain.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: And they didn't have electricity.

BERGE: Who lived there?

SMITH: The Brays.

BERGE: That wasn't a company house, huh?

SMITH: No it wasn't a company house. In fact I think they may have built it. It was like a little one room shanty and a whole bunch, a whole family lived in it.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Then, when you a, one time you told me that you thought that, say living in that company town, you know was superior to say people you knew who lived in in the rur-on farms.

SMITH: Right. I felt like they had better medical care and it was easier to get to town because the busses ran every fifteen or twenty minutes. We had our own little church right there and our own school. It was just a little developed community.

BERGE: When, what were some of the games you did play? What would, do you remember any specific games you played?

SMITH: As children?

BERGE: Yeah. I don't want to-

SMITH: We played.

BERGE: know about the adult games. [Laughter]

SMITH: [laughter] We played, we played ball a lot because I had brothers. At home we played ball a lot and leap frog and hide and seek. That's about, that's mostly what we played at home.

BERGE: Do you remember any of your brothers, did all your brothers and sisters stay around there or did they leave?

SMITH: Most, they all stayed around pretty close.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: They, in fact, all of the brothers, the two older brothers worked in the mines or around the mines. My oldest brother never did anything else. My youngest, the brother next to him, in later years, farmed. My youngest brother never worked in the, in the mines. He, he worked in the drug store and and is now a manager of a finance company. But that's, he's pretty much been office and store personnel.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Of course, when Charles came along the mines were about gone weren't they?

SMITH: Yeah, they were about, they were about finished.

BERGE: The, did many of the girls that you knew in Harlan that are not in Harlan but in Crummies, did they tend to marry younger or about the same as a town girl?

SMITH: About the same.

BERGE: About like how old were they when they married?

SMITH: Oh sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

BERGE: Younger than . . .

SMITH: Mostly out of high school.

BERGE: Younger than you and I think would be normal now though?

SMITH: Yes, oh yeah.

BERGE: Wonder why the married so young?

SMITH: I think a lot of it was because, well a lot of them were from large families and and didn't have very much and maybe looking for a better opportunity.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Did they marry local guys?

SMITH: Most of them.

BERGE: Did they ever meet any people from out of Harlan? Was there, there was no way for them to ever run into other people was there?

SMITH: Well, not really no. Very few. I mean they meet pe-kids from other, see the county high school covered a large area so they, a lot of them met and dated and married persons from other parts of the county but not really out of the county, not many.

BERGE: How about the National Guardsmen, did they ever date those guys when they were there?

SMITH: My sisters dated those guys. One of them married one of them.

BERGE: Where was he from?

SMITH: He was from Winchester.

BERGE: Were there, were there any other girls that were marrying those National Guardsmen during . . .

SMITH: Yeah a lot of them. A lot of the girls in the community married the National Guards.

BERGE: I imagine they seemed kind of romantic to a . . .

SMITH: Probably . . .

BERGE: Yeah.

SMITH: Probably. But these were the older girls and when, when this was going on I was still just a little girl.

BERGE: What was the biggest, uh what was your favorite holiday?

SMITH: Christmas, I guess, and Fourth of July. We really had a a a good time on the Fourth of July.

BERGE: What did they do?

SMITH: I can remember fireworks and ice cream and soft drinks. They'd put soft drinks in tubs of ice and . . .

BERGE: Who would?

SMITH: My father. Because there was a lot of us. At that time several of the older children were married and they'd come back on the holidays and with their children. I've got nieces and nephews who are a couple of years younger than I am and they'd be there so it was, it was like a just a good time to get together with family.

BERGE: Did everybody else do it or was it, was that the big holiday for everyone else?

SMITH: I don't, I doubt it, really. I, I can't remember the other kids.

BERGE: Oh. Where was the fireworks?

SMITH: In our area, in our yard.

BERGE: Oh it wasn't something that the company did?

SMITH: Oh no, it was just the right there in the family.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: Within the family.

BERGE: What was, what did you do on Christmas? What, what was the Christmas like there?

SMITH: We didn't get a lot for Christmas. I remember maybe one item per person but the, the coal mines, the owner would give each family a basket and it would have like a ham and I can't remember what else but there would be other food items in it. But there would always be, they would deliver this around to each house on like, on Christmas Eve. And each child in each family, if you had ten children, they each got a big brown paper sack filled with candy and fruit and one toy, one small toy.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: And then the family, for the family, there was a basket with food items in it.

BERGE: Do you remember that as a big thing and did you like getting that basket?

SMITH: Oh, oh yeah. I remember that being a real treat.

BERGE: Uh huh. How'd they deliver it?

SMITH: In a coal truck. Uh huh. What they delivered the coal in. They would, it was a, it would be a great big flatbed truck not like we think of a coal truck today.

BERGE: Uh huh. Well like when you were getting your bag of candy and toys, did they bring it in the house or did you run out to the truck and get it?

SMITH: We ran out to the truck. They'd bring it right up to your door.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: And all the kids would run out to the truck and get their bag.

BERGE: Screaming and . . .

SMITH: It's like Santa Clause.

BERGE: Yeah [laughter].

SMITH: [laughter].

BERGE: That was a big thing, huh?

SMITH: That was a big treat.

BERGE: The uh, when you started to get to the age where you'd date boys and you lived up there in the coal camp, what kind of dates did you have? Where'd you go and what'd you do and that kind of stuff?

SMITH: Mostly they came to the house. Now, really before I started dating much, we had moved from from Crummies.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: So I was, we moved from there when I was probably up, I must have been a junior in high school . . .

BERGE: Do you remember your sisters dating?

SMITH: Oh yeah.

BERGE: What'd they do?

SMITH: They, the boys came to the house.

BERGE: Did they go into Cawood to the movies or they just.

SMITH: Sometimes they would go into the movies and sometimes they just sit home and play cards. They played cards a lot.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: And listened to the radio. Of course we had no TV.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Was the radio a pretty big deal? Did everybody have a radio?

SMITH: Oh yeah, everybody had a radio.

BERGE: Uh huh. [Unclear]

SMITH: Sometimes they'd just make candy or do things in the kitchen.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Do you remember when the company sold the town?

SMITH: Uh yeah, I vaguely remember when the company sold, started selling it.

BERGE: Like when was that? Do you have any idea?

SMITH: Well it was after I left there but um.

BERGE: Uh huh. Well you left there, when? What, the year you finished high school or?

SMITH: Yeah we moved from there the year, I was thinking it was the year before but it was the year I finished high school we moved into town.

BERGE: Your mother did?

SMITH: My mother did, uh huh.

BERGE: And then but she eventually moved back to Crummies?

SMITH: No she never did move back to Crummies.

BERGE: Oh she didn't.

SMITH: No, she lived at Dressen which was about a mile from Harlan.

BERGE: Oh, Ok, ok. Oh, that was the house I went to then.

SMITH: Yeah, that's where you came to, I think.

BERGE: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah, now she never did move back to Crummies. But she never was really happy after she left Crummies.

BERGE: Is that right?

SMITH: That's right. She always grieved about her home in Crummies.

BERGE: Wonder why? Is it just . . .

SMITH: I think it may be where she, you know, raised her children. She had all her children while she lived there.

BERGE: What, did she still have more friends there [unclear]?

SMITH: And she still had friends there. Not a lot of friends though because most of the, her friends would have either moved or passed away.

BERGE: How old were you when your mother moved into the company town, house?

SMITH: I, I was born there.

BERGE: No, the company house.

SMITH: Oh moved into the company house. I was a sophomore in high school.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: So I was about sixteen.

BERGE: And you don't remember how she got a company house even though there was nobody in the house working in the mines then was there?

SMITH: You know, I'm not sure that that that really was owned by the. I, it was in the company area but I don't believe it was really owned by the mines. I think it was owned by same man that owned the other one . . .

BERGE: You think it was after they started selling those company houses?

SMITH: I think it might have been. I think he may have bought, there were a couple of those houses right beside each other and I think he may have bought two of them right there together.

BERGE: Uh huh. When the company subsold those houses off, do you know how much they sold them for?

SMITH: Oh about 500 dollars each, I think.

BERGE: Do you remember black children in Crummies?

SMITH: Oh yeah. There were some black families that lived right, well there was a black, they called it the colored camp.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: Which was nothing more than just a street or a little hollow . . .

BERGE: On the edge of Crummies?

SMITH: On the edge of Crummies and all the blacks lived there. Except one family that lived right across the railroad tracks from where I lived.

BERGE: Mm hmm. What was their name, do you know?

SMITH: I don't know. I can't remember. They called the man Redcap but I can't remember their name.

BERGE: Mm hmm. Did they have children your age?

SMITH: Had a boy our age.

BERGE: Did you ever talk to him?

SMITH: Oh yeah. We played with him. He played in in our yard most of the time.

BERGE: Uh huh. Where did he go to school?

SMITH: They had their own school.

BERGE: In Crummies?

SMITH: And they had their own church. Uh huh.

BERGE: [unclear] It must have been a little school.

SMITH: It was a very small school.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: Uh huh. But they had their own school right in their little edge of town where they lived.

BERGE: The uh, who were some of the people who lived around in Crummies and do they still live around there?

SMITH: The, they still live at Crummies? There's nobody lives there now. Really. I think there's maybe, there might be one or two houses left there.

BERGE: Mm hmm. What did they do with those houses?

SMITH: They just tore them down.

BERGE: Wonder why.

SMITH: I really don't know.

BERGE: People bought them didn't they?

SMITH: Well, they got, you know, they, now they didn't buy all of them.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: No they didn't. They bought some of them and some of them were moved but most of them were torn down because they, they just, people would move and and they just got in such bad shape, I guess, that they just tore them down.

BERGE: In other words, it wasn't, it didn't stay like say Lynch did or anything like that?

M: Oh no. No, in fact none.

BERGE: Those houses were never as nice as though the houses in Lynch, were they?

M: Some of them were, uh huh. Yeah there were about three streets that were real nice.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: And the people who lived in those houses were the people who worked in the office and and in the commissary mostly.

BERGE: Those were the good jobs weren't they?

SMITH: Those were the good jobs.

BERGE: Well, tell me, why didn't those houses stay, I wonder. Why, are they gone too now?

SMITH: They are all gone except maybe one. There might be one or two of those left.

BERGE: Uh huh. Who are some people who lived around there who are still in say Harlan? Are many of your friends, girls that you, and boys, a few of the girls that you were raised with in Crummies still live in Harlan County?

SMITH: I don't know of any. Let's see. I can't think of any that I went to elementary school with that are still there. One of them lives behind me here on the street right behind me here. Uh.

BERGE: Why did they leave, I wonder?

SMITH: Jobs, I think. A way to . . .

BERGE: It's not because they were that dissatisfied is it?

SMITH: Oh no, I think it was just a way, you know, they just had to leave to find work.

BERGE: Mm hmm. What's the name of the woman who lives here in Corbin?

SMITH: Wilma Dugger.

BERGE: D-U-G-G . . .

SMITH: D-U-G-G-E-R.

BERGE: Was that her maiden name?

SMITH: Uh huh. No. Her maiden name was Noe.

BERGE: N-O-E?

SMITH: N-O-E, uh huh.

BERGE: She's the one you went to school with?

SMITH: Yeah, I was just thinking though she didn't go to elementary school with me though, she went to high school with me. Because she lived at Cawood.

BERGE: Oh, she didn't move from Crummies . . .

SMITH: No, no, no she didn't. In fact, I'm not sure that her father was even connected with the mines.

BERGE: How long since you've seen anybody that, your age, that lived in Crummies?

SMITH: Gee, it's been a number of years. I, twenty years, I guess, or longer.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: It's been a long long time.

BERGE: Well, look I want to thank you for letting me interview you and it's been a pleasure to come down here and eat your chili and drink your beer and all that stuff.

SMITH: [laughter]. Well, I've enjoyed having you.

BERGE: Ok. [Recording stops]

[Recording resumes]

BERGE: [recording begins in the middle of sentence] Mary, you were saying, no stay here Bruce, stay here just a minute. You, you were saying that you remember people, the ambulances coming in when people, when there was, so there was more than one person shot when this was happening?

SMITH: Oh yeah there would have been several people shot. They seemed to do most of the shooting around the commissary. And.

BERGE: Did you hear it?

SMITH: Oh yeah, you could hear it. And they had a machine gun set up in the top story of the commissary. And Jim Black Howard who was one of the, he was supposed to be one who was doing most of the shooting from the machine gun.

BERGE: He, he, who, who, was he working for the . . .

SMITH: The Company.

BERGE: Uh huh.

SMITH: He was, he was, working in the commissary and he shot at the pickets but the ambulances.

BERGE: Mm hmm. The companies had machine guns then, not the National Guard, huh?

SMITH: National Guards had machine guns also.

BERGE: Mm hmm.

SMITH: The National Guards had theirs set up in, in the, the yard. So there was one in our yard.

BERGE: You said that you saw people being hauled off?

SMITH: Yes. Uh you would, after they would be shooting in the commissary yard you would see cars go down the road past our house. We lived about a half a mile from the commissary and you could see the cars going down the road and people with their feet hanging out of the cars. And then the ambulances . . .

BERGE: Were following the car?

SMITH: Yeah. And the ambulances would, would come and pick up people.

BERGE: And you weren't scared?

SMITH: I don't remember really being scared.

Unidentified Male: That's probably why you're alive, you know?

BERGE: Well that's . . .

SMITH: I guess I felt . . .

BERGE: I guess that comes from living in a big family.

Unidentified Male: Yeah. [All laugh] You're used to violence. [All laugh]

SMITH: I think I, you know, I maybe have felt secure because the National Guards was planted in our yard, really.

BERGE: And they were dating your sister.

SMITH: And the were dating my sister. [All laugh]

BERGE: That's a funny thing that living something like that where they were literally hauling people away who'd been shot and not being scared.

Unidentified Male: Yeah.

BERGE: It's hard to imagine isn't it?

Unidentified Male: Yeah it is.

SMITH: Well I can't even-

BERGE: Well.

SMITH: remember being afraid.

BERGE: About how long of a period do you, do you think this was happening. Like how many times did you ever hear gunfire and how many times did you ever see people were shot? Do you have any idea?

SMITH: Seems like it would be for several days at a time, you know, maybe two or three days at, at a time . . .

BERGE: Then let off for a while?

SMITH: And then it'd let up for maybe a week and then it would, would happen again. And each time it would happen, there would always be a large number of people at our house so maybe this is maybe I was distracted from . . .

BERGE: And you were getting out of school too sort of like a snow day.

SMITH: Right, right.

BERGE: A blood day instead of a snow day.

Unidentified Male: Today's shooting day.

BERGE: Yeah. Well thank you, Mary.

SMITH: [unclear]

RECORDING ENDS.