Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Hiram Phillips Interview

John Hennen: Today is...is it... it's Tuesday? Tuesday, June 6th 1989, this is John Hennen for the Matewan Development Center Oral History Project. I'm in Phillips' seed store in downtown Matewan. Uh... conducting an interview with Mr. Hiram Phillips a lifelong resident of the Matewan area. I will begin with some general questions and then we'll get into probably some more specific areas. Uh...Mr. Phillips uh...what was your birth date and uh...where were you born?

Hiram Phillips: Born in on...Sulphur Creek, 1915, October 26th.

J: Alright. Uh..what were your parents names including your mother's maiden name?

HP: Hiram Phillips and Esther, E.S.T.H.E.R. Scott Phillips.

J: Okay, Uh...were they lifelong residents of this area or did they move from somewhere else?

HP: No they were from uh...Narrows Branch on Pond Creek.

J: Okay, Did you have brothers and sisters?

HP: Yeah there was thirteen of us.

J: Thirteen. My goodness.

HP: Now one of them was born dead and one died at six weeks old.

J: Alright. Well, I won't ask you to recite all the names and ages. Where did you fit into the family profile?

HP: I was next to the last one.

J: You were next to the youngest child?

HP: Uh-huh.

J: And how much older was the oldest child than you approximately?

HP: Well I got a sister that's ninety-three. And I'm seventy-three so that's twenty years older.

J: Is this sister still living?

HP: Um-hum. Oldest one is.

J: What is her name?

HP: Hattie Redpath Phillips.

J: Does she live in the Matewan area?

HP: No, she lives in Florida. She was uh...graduated from Matewan High School in the first class that was ever graduated. At that time it was the high school only, but they graduate from high school.

J: Okay, so that would have been approximately, about 1912 something like that?

HP: Probably. Yeah.

J: First class?

HP: Um-hum.

J: Have any idea what the size of the class was?

HP: There was about seven. I've seen the names, but I only remember one name, it is Broggs Chambers, a brother to Dan Chambers.

J: So that...that was seven in the graduating class.

HP: Uh-huh.

J: Alright. Did you all live in town or uh..outside of town?

HP: No we lived uh...on Sulphur Creek at that time.

J: Oh, Okay, so you grew up on Sulphur Creek.

HP: No uh...we stayed there six or seven years and I grew up at uh...Blackberry City.

J: Okay, Now Blackberry City was the location of the miners colony was it not?

HP: It was the location of one miners colony. There was two miners colony, one at North Matewan, and one at Blackberry City.

J: Do you have any childhood memories of uh...of those areas?

HP: I remember living in the tent. And uh...my father didn't work at all for, I really don't know for how long, probably four years or five. Cause we lived in tents for four years.

J: For...all year round?

HP: Yeah.

J: So your father was a striking miner?

HP: Yeah.

J: ...with the union.

HP: Yeah, he was.

J: Tell me if you will something about what it was like living in those tents. Just what was your day to day routine be for instance.?

HP: Well I was very...I was very young and I don't remember very much about it. But I remember that uh...we only had a floor in one of the tents, and the other two tents didn't have a floor in it. In either one of them. And we uh...I don't remember being hungry but I just remember not having any clothes to wear. And uh...we were all...all the time sick, it seemed like it, some of us were sick all the time. And uh...poor just everyday I...I don't know I just don't remember, I was too young really too young to remember anything about it.

J: Do you remember approximately how many people were living in each tent, or in your tent for instance?

HP: Well uh...no I don't...I don't uh...I don't remember. I just remember that we lived in tents and I remember the floor in the kitchen and the other two rooms didn't even have a floor in it. And I had...there was at that time there was probably eight of us at home. And uh...the girls, they usually worked at one of the stores in town, one or two of them, and that way we would get... they would give us...give us the money and buy a few groceries.

J: Uh...as you recall what...what stores were there in town...

HP: Well uh...

J: Not only at that particular time but down the years a little...little way.

HP: Uh...the store that my sister worked at, one of them particular, was Schaffer brothers.

J: Remember what building that was in?

HP: They still call it uh...no they call it uh...Eddie Nenni uh... I really...I don't know which one. But there were two stores...one of them was uh...Schaffer Brothers store and another one was Shears, Shears and they were foreigners, and uh...they had two dry good stores, each one had a dry good store. But as to which building it was, I mean which store it was I don't...just don't remember.

J: In that block of buildings generally where Nennie's Department Store is now.

HP: Yeah that's right.

J: Okay. Do you remember the names of any of the other children who lived in the tent cities with you or...or who you later went to school with?

HP: There was Osbornes. I remember Osbornes real well. Tom Osborne one time went was the...president of the United Mine Workers of the uh...local union and uh...lets see, I just don't remember...you know, I played with them from day to day...it's been so long I just completely forgot. I remember them right now who they....playing with them but I just don't remember their names.

J: What sort of games did you play?

HP: Well we played horseshoes, we played a lot of tag games back in those days you know. Everybody knows what tag games is. And uh...seemed we...after we got all the exercise we could use we would happen to be gettin' out and playing and runnin'. So uh... wasn't for lack of exercise that we were sick we just didn't have enough food and enough...if we got sick we were just sick that was all. We didn't need to have aspirins, lots of times we didn't have aspirins.

J: So then you couldn't uh...contact a doctor to make the rounds to come up into the camps.

HP: Uh...the doctor would come, but we didn't have any money to pay so he knew he wasn't gonna get paid when he come. Doctor Hodge come to see me when I had uh...pneumonia fever he gave me some medicine. Come back two weeks later to see how I was doing he said "I believe he's gonna be alright.

J: Was doctor Hodge uh...a doctor who was favored...or did he do a lot of work with the union.

HP: Oh yeah he was uh...he was an Army doctor. And I'm sure he understood everything about uh...the conditions. So he knew he wasn't gonna get paid when he come to the house.

J: Was your father uh...a strong for the...strong union man...

HP: Oh yeah...he knew...

J: ...was he an officer at all?

HP: He never worked at...no he wasn't no officer just uh...just uh...union member.

J: Loyal union.

HP: Yeah he never worked...Okay,..he never worked a day 'til after uh...they come out, they stayed out.

J: For those four years.

HP: Uh-huh.

J: How long did he live?

HP: He was sixty-four when he died. Sixty-four.

J: Do you remember what year that was?

HP: It must have been about nineteen and uh... forty...thirty... yeah nineteen-forty.

J: What was life for uh...the miners like around here, say after the strike and then up into the thirties when the union was strong again here, do you recall that?

HP: Well it just uh...nobody had anything or you know in the tent city there was a few people that had houses you know and they scraped up a few dollars maybe uh...get some kind of check or some another, now there's no such thing as a welfare check...I mean a welfare check or....they had social security checks, there's no... I never did know what...what they were, and I don't suppose anybody else did.

J: So during the strike years people were pretty much dependant on their neighbors and whatever they could get from the union or...

HP: What ever they could get...what ever they could get. I've known my mother to go out with a teacup under her arm to borrow uh...enough flour to make some biscuits with, she didn't go to borrow ten dollars she just went to borrow a little bit of flour or meal. Of course she went to her brother's house and uh...she...she didn't borrow all that she could she just borrowed what she had to have. For she knew she'd have to go back again. And I guess that borrowing from family to family is a thing of the past, I never heard of it in years.

J: Did your older....did your older brother and sisters uh...stay in the area...

HP: Yeah...

J: as they reached maturity...

HP: Yeah...I've had as much as three sisters working right here in town at one time, and that's been uh...well its been fifty years ago. And I had one...one brother that uh...worked for the power company...he....he wouldn't take a job at the mines you know...so he worked a few days at the power company. Diggin' uh...power pole ...pole holes I guess to put up new power lines. It's just so damn long ago I don't remember...you know it's just....I just remember sketches here and there.

J: Well that's what we're after. We get a lot of sketches and then we can put together a picture see. Uh...now you would have been living then....as...as...as...as I know you uh...say you don't have any real specific memories but you would have been in the camps at the time of the uh...the shootings...

HP: Oh yeah, yeah...

J: ...of the gunfiring.

HP: Yeah I remember one time we was living in the tent city up there at Blackberry City, our tent was pitched on my brother's property, but it was adjoining the tent city. And uh...the shootings started on the Kentucky side on that ridge behind McCarr. So we started to get out and get across to...over the hill where they couldn't hit us, and they shot our house...we was living in a house at that time that was really after the strike, I mean after the, yeah, after the strike. And they shot our house all to pieces. And I got up on the ridge just ready to go across the hill you know, and one of the girls had to stop and get her dress or clothes or underclothes or something or another and my mother was hollering at her to "come on Ethel, come on...come on", and me standing on that ridge and I could hear those bullets whizzing by my...I felt like they were by my head...and I wasn't scared...I didn't have... you know, so young, it just didn't scare me. But I think about it now...he was probably shootin' about ten foot above my head I guess, cause I could hear the bullets whizzing by. But as far as uh...being in...in any of the action I was too young for anything like that.

J: Were there many casualties during the...

HP: You know I...

J: firing into the tents?

HP: ...I heard that there was a state policeman killed from Lynn and uh...I don't remember anybody getting killed. Of course you know I just....if you heard it you heard it, and you didn't, why, you didn't pay any attention to it. People...if they'd heard something like that they'd say it's best to say nothing about it.

J: Do you remember your father or your mother or any of the older folks or friends of yours even, discussing the...the Matewan...the socalled Matewan Massacre?

HP: Yeah I've heard the...I heard more about it after I got older; when it happened I don't know I must have been too young to anybody say...say anything much to me about it. But these older men, Jess Boyd in particular, he told me several things about it that...he said he...he watched it all from an upstairs window or something.

J: Who was Jess Boyd? I've heard that name...

HP: He was a friend of mine. He lived at Blackberry City when I knew him. And he was just...he was a coalminer and he was...he was a pretty old man.

J: Is he still living?

HP: No he's been dead for six...uh...six...seven years.

J: Were you able to attend school or was your school...

HP: Yeah I went to school but uh...went to school barefooted a lot of times in the winter...in the...well frost be...frost on the ground.

J: Where was that school?

HP: Matewan. That's where I remember particular I was going to Matewan School at that time. And I went to school with...frost would be on the ground in the morning, now in the evening, why, it be warmed up you see. Frost would be gone.

J: Did you keep a fire going in the school house?

HP: Yeah they had...they had uh...uh...water heaters...water heat in Matewan school, but uh...there was another school that I went to...Magnolia hill where Terry Hope lives now. There was a schoolhouse there. And uh...

J: Where is Magnolia hill?

HP: That's uh...well, the best way I can describe it is where Terry Hope lives now.

J: Um-hum. (laughing)

HP: That's it...they building...his daddy built a nice big house there right where the schoolhouse was.

J: Close by here?

HP: Yeah, it's a mile out of town.

J: Okay. Uh...yeah I'm interested in the school...was the...was it a one room school or more than that?

HP: One room...one room, two bathrooms. And a potbellied stove... there's several people around here that went to it. Emma Fitzpatrick was the teacher that I remember.

J: Oh, I was gonna ask your teacher. She taught all subjects then.

HP: Yeah...

J: ...taught all those things, all the classes?

HP: Yeah.

J: How about uh...later on did you stay in school?

HP: Yeah I finished high school. And it wasn't easy because I wore the same pair of blue jeans and a shirt for week, take home and put on a old pair of ragged pants while my mother warshed that pair...blue jeans and shirt, wear them again next week. And you just got shoes any way you could. You didn't have no Salvation Army to go get shoes, you had...I had a brother-in-law that uh...he worked in a store and he was uh...you know he made, a probably three or four hundred dollars a month and he could afford a new pair of shoes so he would give me his old castoff shoes they were good to me and he would give me his shirts. I wore his shirts for years.

J: Did your mother spend a lot of time patching those clothes?

HP: Oh yeah. (Laughter) Yeah she uh...she tried to keep them patched up. Well she had other...she had five...six other children at home at that time you see, and she had to take care of them too. But then my father and mother had separated by then. She got tired of living in a tent and burned the damn thing down and moved in with one of her sons.

J: And did she take the children with her?

HP: Oh yeah, yeah we all went with her. In a three room house. Of course I'd...you see, my brother had no children at that time. So uh...well, he just took in about five or six from mother, three or four children, five. But uh...you'd think that his wife would be jealous and mad and puffed up about it but uh...she was always nice about it.

J: Where was that house?

HP: Blackberry City.

J: Is it still standing?

HP: Yeah, yeah it...it...his grandchildren live in it.

J: Is that right?

HP: Yeah. Yeah he's got grand...grandchild lives in it. Then they've got a,...oh, that don't concern this. But uh...he lived there 'til he died and then my brother did and uh,...of course we moved out into a house the one that I was saying that got shot up during the fighting that uh...McCarr was shooting over here.... Thug... was shooting off of that ridge over, back behind McCarr. And they were hitting the houses, it was at night time so they wasn't shootin' at nobody, they just shootin' at the houses.

J: Did your father and mother stay separated or....

HP: Yeah...they was...they were separated when they died.

J: What sort of uh...how did your mother support herself after the separation?

HP: We farmed all the time, raised a garden then uh...as I say we had sisters that worked at the stores, I don't know what they made but uh...very little and they would uh...you know, keep us meal and flour. Lard that's about all we needed.

J: So you could...kept a garden every year then?

HP: Oh yeah, we had...we had plenty...of stuff out of the garden and we canned our blackberries and everything. Everything that you could get, why, we canned it.

J: That raises a question...not a really important question but uh...why is Blackberry City called Blackberry City, do you know?

HP: The only....only thing that I could think about that would be that there were lots of blackberries there.

J: Yeah that would make sense. How uh...how long did your mother live?

HP: She was uh...seventy-nine so uh...she was seventy-nine years old.

J: And she died in what year? Do you recall?

HP: No, I don't remember.

J: Did you continue to see your father around?

HP: Oh yeah, he...he lived nearby. He was...he was uh...well I think he just had so many durn many children and he just got so discouraged that uh...he didn't see no way of ever taking care of them. And uh...he just give up. And that's when, after my mother pulled out and left him, why, he...he didn't work no more but he did sell Blair products.

J: Excuse me sold what?

HP: He sold Blair products. "Blair products."

J: What were they?

HP: Well (general) products, door to door selling.

J: I see. Things for the house.

HP: Yeah.

J: You mention the term...I know this is a common expression but uh...the firing from across the river was done by thugs.

HP: Well, that what they called the Baldwin-Felts "thugs." And they were...they could have been company guards you know. And companies had guards over their property. But they was...they were all called thugs.

J: Did you call them thugs even as you recall when you were a child?

HP: Oh yeah, yeah ever since...that's...that's all I ever heard 'em called was thugs

J: Did your father work for Stone Mountain Company?

HP: No he worked for uh...Magnolia Coal Company. Magnolia Coal Company.

J: Do you recall the name of any uh...of any of the many of the companies...coal companies around here at that time?

HP: Stony Mountain, Red Jacket, Magnolia Coal Company, and there was a coal company at Lynn, and I don't remember the name of it. And uh...that's all I remember right in this area.

J: Did you ever go into the mines yourself?

HP: Yeah I've worked some in the mines.

J: When was that? Approximately.

HP: Uh...nineteen, forty-three, nineteen...fifty-three, nineteen and sixty-two.

J: Now you worked constantly in the mines during those years or were those different times?

HP: No, I worked...mined inside and outside. I worked around the mines.

J: For app...almost, around twenty years then.

HP: Um-hum. Seventeen, I think it was seventeen years.

J: Now that covers...I assume some...some boom times and some not so good times. Were you ever out of work during those periods?

HP: Uh...yeah I was laid off for a year. One time straight through for a whole year.

J: And you were able to subsist on...

HP: Well I...

J: union benefits at that time?

HP: I worked at odd jobs and wherever I could get. I drawed unemployment for eighteen months you see. And I worked in a car factory a little bit.

J: Where was that?

HP: In uh...California.

J: You...you left for California then?

HP: Uh-huh.

J: When was that?

HP: Well I have to start back in sixty-three, fifty-eight...fifty-eight.

J: How long did you stay out there?

HP: Six weeks...six weeks. But uh...they've...they laid us off to change over or change models, 'til they they'd call us back and they never did call me back.

J: Um...

HP: So I come back home.

J: What company were you working for?

HP: Uh...Chrysler.

J: That was a bad year for cars wasn't it?

HP: Oh yeah, yeah.

J: Fifty-eight. So you came...how did you come to go to California in the first place? Did somebody tell you about work over there?

HP: Yeah. I had a brother-in-law who was out there working he told me to come on that he...help get a job...which he did. But it, come cut off time why they cut me off work you see.

J: Last hired first laid off.

HP: Before they ever called me back why I was work...back working at the mines.

J: Did you intend...when you went to California...were you pretty sure that you would come back here?

HP: Yeah.

J: Did you have a family at that time?

HP: I was married,...yeah I was married, and I don't remember if I had a child or not. I guess...no I didn't have...yes I did, I had one boy.

J: And how do you spell your wife's name?

HP: A.I.L.E.E.N. Aileen...Aileen.

J: And her maiden name?

HP: Ball.

J: Was she also from the Matewan area?

HP: She was uh...when I knew her she was from the Matewan area. But originally she was from uh...Ball Fork on Pond Creek.

J: Pond Creek Okay, Okay. I'm gonna back track again here uh... you attended...was it called Magnolia High School?

HP: Um-hum. Magnolia Grade School.

J: Magnolia Grade School and then was it called...it was Matewan High School, was that correct?

HP: Yeah. Matewan High School, right here.

J: And you graduated there in about nineteen, thirty-two I guess?

HP: Thirty-eight...thirty-six...thirty-six.

J: Okay, nineteen, thirty-six.

HP: I missed...laid out a couple of years.

J: Was that during the strike time that you laid out or later on?

HP: No...no...after the strike was all settled and everybody was working good.

J: When you were out of school were...were you working around the mines then or doing other...other work?

HP: No, I was farmin'.

J: Farmin'? Okay. What was it like....this is a general question it will probably lead to specific ones...what was it like for instance in downtown Matewan in the late thirties, or early forties, say before World War II...what sort of activities were....

HP: Well they had showhouse that's all they had. The pool room up John Nenni's...the pool room.

J: What building was that located in, do you recall?

HP: Uh...where Eddie Nenni is located now.

J: Okay, that same big building. Okay, Much gambling around those pool rooms?

HP: Well I don't know cause I didn't have any money to gamble on and I don't know what uh...went in...what went on behind closed doors, yes I know there's gambling around there but I don't know who done it.

J: Did you shoot pool yourself?

HP: Yeah.

J: Pretty good pool player?

HP: Naah.

J: What other kinds of recreation around...I've heard a lot...well I haven't heard a lot...

HP: We...we uh...in the summertime we'd swim all the time...,swimming and fishing. Climbing mountains.

J: Did you swim in the river?

HP: Yeah.

J: I've heard some, or a bit about the uh...coal camp baseball teams in the area. Was that pretty big?

HP: Well not here, now it could have been at Red Jacket...It was at Red Jacket but uh...but, up there at Blackberry City there's nothing there but people you know. And there was no mining, everybody had to go to Red Jacket to work or Mann, or McCarr to work. Or come to Matewan and work in a store. We had Sandbar League ball... ball games.

J: What was that, Sandbar Leagues?

HP: Sand Plant...Sandbar League.

J: What's that mean?

HP: Played baseball on a Sandbar. Sandbar, river sand bar.

J: Um-hum. When the river was low?

HP: Um-hum.

J: Was that some kind or organized thing or strictly pick up game?

HP: We'd get tired of doing everything else, play Sandbar League.

J: Okay, tell me a little bit about this sandbar league...would this be something that people would hang around and watch while they're going about their business?

HP: It be a few people watch. But it would just be usually the ones who were playing. We were just playing baseball.

J: You were a catcher, do you remember who your pitcher was? Different guys I guess.

HP: Uh...Roy Sizemore.

J: Roy Sizemore?

HP: Um-hum.

J: Who were some of the other ball...or guys that played ball I realize it was amateur but...

HP: I don't remember. Fern uh...Russell...Russell Boyd. That's all I remember...Herbert Lambert.

J: Landers.

HP: Lambert.

J: Lambert? Okay.

HP: And uh...Graydon Hamilton. Graydon Hamilton.

J: Okay. Is that G.R.A.Y.D.O.N. Graydon? I talked to um...Ernest Hatfield the former police chief he said there used to be a lot of saloons in downtown Matewan?

HP: Well that's uh...that's before my time, I wasn't allowed down in Matewan at that time. Saloons were uh...outlawed before I...before they let me come down here.

J: Oh during the prohibition I guess?

HP: Uh-huh. It's uh...uh...

J: How about later on say during World War II...how did the war affect this area, did many of the guys leave?

HP: Yeah...yeah there was uh...there was a lot of young men...went in the Army from here, a lot of them didn't have jobs and so they just went joined up.

J: Now coal production I assume pretty...pretty high at that time?

HP: They was gettin' all the coal they could get. That's how come me...I could get a job at Red Jacket. I passed...I didn't pass the army...to go to the army, 4-F...so they...I went to Red Jacket and they just give me a job and told me to go on to work. Army ex- amines.

J: Now did the uh...was transportation provided by the company, did you have to provide your own transportation?

HP: No uh...you...you furnished your own transportation. There's quite a few car pools you would ride with somebody else you know and pay them uh...dollar a half or something that would help them with their gas.

J: Do you recall what car dealerships were in town during the war?

HP: Um...

J: or after the war?

HP: Yeah...Pearlie uh...Pearlie Epling. Uh...W & E...W & E is what it would be. Then there was uh...well it was uh...derived from uh...Williams...Williamson.

J: How about the uh...church community here what...what...what uh...churches were represented in Matewan?

HP: Now there's always been a Methodist, and there's always been Baptist. And then there...then there's uh...outlying church they were all holiness churches, I'd say the majority of them are holiness churches.

J: Revivals ever come through the area?

HP: Oh yeah...yeah they had revivals every week somewhere. You see they, the holiness churches.

J: Did you ever attend any of those meetings? John McCoy told me the circus used to come to town every year?

HP: Yeah, but uh...we'd have uh...big uh...circus, usually come to North Matewan.

J: They set up in North Matewan?

HP: Uh-huh. Yeah I remember that very well.

J: Was that a pretty big time?

HP: Yeah that's....take all the money you got. Then you go under the tent. (Laughter)

J: Go under the tent?

HP: Yeah.

J: what do you mean?

HP: Yeah to get in you go under the tent.

J: So the circus would come to town even....when you were a kid?

HP: Uh-huh.

J: And kept coming year after year I guess?

HP: Oh yeah, they...they still...they have a revival during the summer months all the time here, last a week, two weeks as long as they keep an audience.

J: Now that's revival or the circus?

HP: Well they call it revival at uh...you know some time they get a lot of new saints.

J: New saints?

HP: Well new members.

J: Yeah.........Okay, when did you get into the business you're in now, the seed business?

HP: Uh...nineteen, sixty-two.

J: Did you purchase an already existing business or start it up yourself?

HP: Well this fellow that owned it he died, a Mr. Wallace, and I bought it from his wife. And it was....it wasn't uh...well it just wasn't anything, It's not much now but it has been good. But uh... her husband died and she couldn't handle it herself so she wanted to sell it and I bought it off of her, I was unemployed at that time. And no chance to get anything else so I just started selling seed and baby chicks.

J: Baby chicks?

HP: Uh-huh. Now things have changed so much that you could hardly buy a baby chick in Mingo or Pike County. There's just a few places that have them. And it's uh...I believe there's less farming right now than there ever was.

J: Yeah uh...that's something that interests me how about just the ...the family garden patch do people still do that even?

HP: No they do not. I don't reckon they do it I don't uh...see no signs of it they don't buy no seeds off me.

J: Now why do you suppose that is? Do you have any...

HP: I...if I told you what I think about it I'd have everybody in Mingo and Pike County mad at me.

J: Go ahead and tell me. Nobody's gonna be mad at ya.

HP: (Laughter) Well if you can eat without working, why you will won't you?

J: I see.

HP: That's...that's the whole thing.

J: So it's sort of diminished the need for people to keep those gardens up?

HP: That's right. If they can make more staying home in bed than you can out working why, you better take the better of the two. Of course now, we've got a lot of people...a lot of people they are not... not able to work.

J: Um-hum.

HP: Physically and mentally. And they...that old, and they need to be taken care of.

J: Has the uh...the black lung legislation which I assume went into effect in the late sixties has that been uh...a stabilizing thing for the economy around Matewan?

HP: There's a lot of people that would not be here they'd be out, ...a lot of them would be dead if it wasn't for the black lung checks. They wouldn't have enough money to go out hunting for something to eat. And uh...this...this economy is uh...tied right to the black lung checks. And the coal miners they get a welfare card they can go to the hospital any time they want to. If they got the right requirements. I don't know anything but the uh... miners' checks the UMW has been the saving of this uh...this southern West Virginia I know...I know that for a fact. We hadn't had UMW we'd all be somewhere else besides here.

J: Are you, I assume when you worked in the mines you were in the union, of course.

HP: Huh?

J: You were...you were a union member?

HP: Oh yeah at that time you had to be there was no...there was no questions asked, you had to be.

J: Did you retain your union membership?

HP: No, soon as they cut...the mine shut down I knew I couldn't get a job any where else so I just quit paying the dues. Which was a big...big mistake because I could have kept the dues paid up and uh...held onto a welfare card which meant medical payments.

J: Where is the miners hospital around here?

HP: At South Williamson.

J: Is that ex...exclusively uh...uh...a UMW Hospital or is it a community hospital?

HP: No, they'll take anybody.

J: So about the time you...you quit working in the mines is when you got into this business?

HP: Um-hum...

J: About the same time?

HP: Yeah...yeah. Well, yeah.

J: Were there any other seed businesses or baby chick outlets...

HP: No...

J: when you started?

HP: Nobody else there was one place up about ten mile up the creek...up the river. And that was the only one, and you could hardly...there was one in Williamson. But they were so far away that there was...there was no competition. Now we've got K-Mart across the river, South Williamson they sell everything. Then we've got three flower shop in town that sell flowers. And uh...do a good job of it too. That's...it's not uh...it's very competitive business any more.

J: Um-hum. Do you pretty much depend on a regular core of customers that you've had for years?

HP: Uh-huh yeah, my customers been with me for fifteen years... twelve years, stuff like that.

J: So they probably prefer to do business with you rather than the K-Marts.

HP: Uh...I like to think that. Uh...they know that I do have good, good merchandise. And so they don't ask me the price they just come in and say "I want this" and "I want that."

J: Now getting back to the comment that you made about the baby chicks, I assume people would buy baby chicks in order to... eventually they'd have eggs.

HP: That's right.

J: Okay.

HP: Then eat the chickens. Everybody it seems that everybody bought a hundred baby chicks. And they would eat the roosters right off to keep from feeding them you know. And they'd keep the hens 'til they maybe three years old and they'd kill them and eat them. And every year why they'd refurnish their stock with a hundred baby chicks. Kept new ones coming on every time.

J: How long has this building been here? Do you...are you sure?

HP: Uh...they'd tell me that it the oldest building in Matewan. Now that don't necessarily mean it's old...oldest building that ever was here because some of the older buildings burned down and this is the old...oldest building that's uh...here now.

J: So by that standard it would of....it would have been here in the early twenties then?

HP: Oh yeah...

J: And before that probably. How did you uh...how did the seventy-seven flood affect your business here?

HP: It just got about half way up in it.

J: Oh did it.

HP: I mean it cut...tore the ceiling down, I'd say a little above here. I thought it was gonna warsh away but it didn't. Being on wood.

J: So you lost your stock but not...not a whole lot of damage to the building?

HP: No I couldn't tell any difference in the building.

J: Do you live upstairs?

HP: No. No I just store flowers and seed up there grass seed especially.

J: So where, do you all live in Blackberry City now?

HP: No we live right there next door.

J: Next door?

HP: Yeah.

J: You all have any children?

HP: Got one. Three grand...three grandchildren. They live in Oklahoma.

J: Oklahoma. Did...where...son or daughter?

HP: Son. He works for Cities's Service Occidental. He'd been workin' fifteen years and they transferred him a year ago to Oklahoma.

J: Was he working around here before that?

HP: Char...he was working in Charleston.

J: Did he also go to high...Magnolia High...or the high school here?

HP: Uh-huh. Yeah he...he graduated up here. And I had uh... doubts as to whether he would be able to make it in Chicago in uh...college after from graduated from the Matewan High School. But he had no trouble whatsoever in college he said "daddy I work hard." He said "I stay up 'til two o'clock. But I have done five years work in four. So Matewan High School must be a pretty good school after all." And that's what he thought about it.

J: You...you say after all does has the school come in for some criticism?

HP: No, not necessarily, but, at one time they were you know as all schools are there...somebody criticizing whether you've done something wrong or not there is always somebody there to say something about the way it's done. But I was told by a very important man in the town...I asked him...his wife was a school teacher, and I asked him if he thought that uh...my son would be capable of going to college and making the grade after he grad...after he had graduated from Matewan? He said I don't think he'll have a bit of trouble. And uh...he's...he's very important in the town of Matewan. And his wife was a good school teacher and I guess my son was average. So he made it real good in college and got a good job, been working for fifteen years, three children.

J: Where did he go to college?

HP: Uh...University of West Virginia. Now he said "Daddy I worked. And I stayed up lots of nights 'til two o'clock."

J: Did he work around the store when he was a kid at all?

HP: No...no he wouldn't do it. (Laughter) I made a mistake when I first...first customer he tried to wait on I made a bad mistake and after you do it you just do it...you've done it then nothing you can do about it. Uh...he's waiting on a customer...customer handed him the money...he'd made the change alright and he had just stuck the money into the cash register I said "Petie your supposed to put that money on top of the cash register until you give the customer his change." Well that's...that put him in orbit. And he never did come back in the store to wait on another customer. And that's the... one and only time he worked in the store.

J: Um...

HP: I tried to give it to him several years ago. He said "daddy, I don't want nothing to do with it...don't want nothing to do with it and ain't gonna have nothing to do with it." Said "keep it." I guess...I guess I just ruined him by you know for trying to wait on a trade. He said "if I have to take that kind of stuff from you I ain't gonna fool...I'm not gonna do it." Also tried to get him to be a coalmining engineer. He said "daddy, never did work in the coal mines don't want to work in a coal mines and I ain't gonna work in a coal mines." I said "what are you goin' to do", he said "want to be a petroleum engineer," that's what he is.

J: Well it sounds like he's determined anyway.

HP: Well, he's done what he wanted to all his life, when he was a child he took care of himself. We'd both go off to work and leave him. Go back during the day and see about him. He stayed... stayed home. Had a good place to play.

J: Is Matewan uh...pretty good place to raise a family?

HP: Matewan and Blackberry City is two of the best places in the world to raise children.

J: How come?

HP: Well, Blackberry City I can speak very strongly, your children could go out in the street and play in the sand, in the alley's we call them...they'd go out and play and make their sand castles, and play there for hours at a time, a car don't even come by, 'em if it does it goes around 'em. And uh...there's no danger of getting hit by a car there's no danger of anybody bothering 'em. And uh...you go off and leave them all day you come back, he's not there he'll be home for supper time. You won't have to worry about him. And uh...it's been the same way here in Matewan with us he just done as he please, come in when he got hungry.

J: Has it pretty much always been that way around here?

HP: As far as I know it has since I've been here. Nobody worries about their children they say "well, they'll come home when they get hungry." And I don't know of any...any...any crime that's been done around here. There probably are, maybe I just forgot it. But I don't know of any crime against children that's been done around here.

J: I have one last question about uh...the...the...the strike period and the period of the Matewan Massacre and the subsequent shooting of Ed Chambers and Sid Hatfield uh...did your father as uh...as a strong union man did he ever discuss these events with you later on in years?

HP: No. No, I never was around him any. Never, I just don't remember of ever talking to him. I...I know I've well I don't remember of being...I was sitting down talking...I've been in his house. And uh...that's about it. He never told me "you'd better do this or you'd better do that." Was going some where some time ...one time and I went over and talked to him a few minutes and he said "well take care of yourself." That's all. I was gone about two weeks and got a letter that he died.

J: Is that right?

HP: Uh-huh. He was a very uncommunicative person.

J: Quiet...quiet guy.

HP: Uh-huh. And he was...by that time he was getting a little bit of age on him and he was...never went to the doctor you know he was sick.

J: I was gonna say was his health uh...affected by the years he put in the mines do you think?

HP: I don't think he was affected by the years he put in the mines because they didn't have any dust in them days. I mean uh...there was no dust...they'd shoot the coal I'd...I think the night before they'd go in the next day and load it you see and the dust would all be gone. And uh...my mother said she never saw his face dirty. And he loaded coal. And there was an old man told me he said uh... uh..."I loaded coal with your daddy" and said "he never got a speck of dirt on his face." Said, "he'd load just as much coal as the next person would." But uh...so, I just assumed it was because he never touched his face with his hands or gloves. I never did ask him, just what I assumed.

J: So the dust came later with the machinery?

HP: Machinery yes. When he worked in the mines why they didn't even...they didn't have load...loading machines or cutting machines either I don't believe...don't believe they had cutting machines, they just shot from the solid as I understand it. I don't know very much about working in the mines. I never worked enough to know anything about it.

J: Before the mechanization.

HP: Uh-huh. Yeah.

J: Did they ever use uh...ponies or donkeys, mules in the mines too?

HP: Oh yeah. I had a brother started working in the mines when he was nine years old. J: Is that right?

HP: Driving ponies. Of course my daddy got him a job. I don't remember it...I just heard...you know...just family talk.

J: This was a older brother I guess?

HP: Uh-huh.

J: What was his name?

HP: Butler. He's got uh...he's got children up here at Blackberry City.

J: Okay.

HP: In my opinion they could uh...well the one...he could uh...tell you probably a lot of things maybe that his daddy had told him.

J: Is that Kenneth?

HP: Um...hm. Yeah.

J: Okay, yeah...yeah I've met Kenneth.

HP: Well he could tell you a lot of things that...he's somewhat younger than me but uh...he was living with his daddy, why he could probably tell you a lot of things.

J: Just one last question I'm on...I'm interested in the mechanics of mining. What size fellow was your father? Was he a big guy or smaller guy?

HP: No he was uh...he was uh...probably uh...a hundred, fifty pounds...hundred and fifty...but not over a hundred and sixty. As I remember...remember him.

J: I guess being small could be an advantage for a miner?

HP: Well, I would think so. See, he was out of the mines for years before he died. And uh...he stayed thin which he cooked for himself a lot, I guess that had a lot to do with it too.

J: Was your mother a good cook?

HP: Oh yeah...yeah. She'd take...she uh...found out you're coming half an hour before you get there she'll have...she would have you a chicken cooked and chicken gravy made. Yeah, she was a good cook. Of course it was very simple, all of her life you know she didn't learn cooking because she didn't have the cook book. And she never, couldn't even write her name. Said she went to school a day and a half or something in her life. Pretty hard to imagine ain't it? Not being able to read a word.

J: Yeah.

HP: Can't even write your name. She couldn't even write her name. My daddy couldn't either...he could read it. I think he could read some but uh...he might could have written his name. I doubt it.

J: You mentioned uh...a little bit earlier that fishing was one of your main pastime recreations?

HP: Yeah we'd...they'd...we'd go to the river bank. Oh everybody went to the river bank. And we, when fishing season was in we'd fish. And uh...hunting season in, we'd hunt. When apple season time was in we'd steal apples.

J: Apple stealing time.

HP: (Laughter) Oh we lived on that river bank we'd...there was twenty-five of us boys. And we lived on that river bank ever summer. And we'd sold that man's apples. We had them all piled up we'd get rich right now selling them.

J: Who's orchards was that? Do you know?

HP: A. G. Simpkins. Old man A. G....A. G. Simpkins.

J: Did he ever catch you stealing apples?

HP: No, we was always too slick for him. He couldn't do nothing about it, what could he have done? He'd say "you all better stay out of them apples or I'm gonna shoot ya everyone of ya." Had a old big dog he kept down on the orchards all the time. That dog went home to eat...get something to eat. Why, we'd hit the apple trees.

J: Did a lot of people keep dogs at that time?

HP: Yeah I guess about everybody had a dog. Yeah everybody hunted, you know. Or at least one...one in the family hunted. There was some poor people back in those days...the good people were poor. It just seems...when you get to think about it no... nobody could hardly afford a pair of shoes. Of course now there was always these...somebody that had a job, you know, and that family'd get along good. People up Red Jacket way they worked up at the mines you know and they got along good enough. They'd work now and then...I've known them to work one day a month and live on it. I got a picture I want to show you.

J: Okay.

HP: Have you seen the picture "Matewan"?

J: The movie? Uh-huh.

HP: Movie. I want to show you the real Matewan.

J: Picture of the town?

HP: No picture where we lived.

J: Okay, we'll go take a look at it. Is there anything else you wanted to uh...talk about?

HP: No.

J: I appreciate it. You've given us a lot of help here.

(Picture of his brother and sister outside their tent in Blackberry City tent colony, 1920, 1921)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection