Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Dixie Accord Interview

John Hennen: Today is June 7, l989, this is John Hennen for the Matewan Development Center Oral History project. I'm in Huntington, WV, at the home of Mrs. Dixie Accord, who grew up in Matewan. Her address is 144 Jefferson Park Drive in Huntington, WV. It is approximately 11:00 a.m.

Dixie Accord: I was born in Louisa, Ky. on July the 18th, 1912. My parents were Fred and Eclestia Webb...

J: You mean E.C.L.I.S.T.?

DA: E.C.L.E.S.T.I.A. Eclestia Bates Webb. I was a Bates. My mother was a Bates, excuse me. My mother was a Bates and I, my grandmother Webb brought me to Matewan when I was a year old and kept me 'til I was 14. And there's were the biggest portion of my life was spent in Mate-wan. And I did not live with my father until I was 14 years old and my mother, uh...was always close by though. Uh...and so was my daddy. And I had three uncles who were real grand but, two of them were union. My daddy was union but one uncle was a boss and he could not belong to the union, but the day...

J: What were their names?

DA: They were Jink, Jim, and my daddy's name was Fred. And Blucher the young one, now he didn't count much cause he was very young. He didn't, uh...he was too young to take any part but Jink and Jim were the ones that worked...turn...(phone rings and tape cuts off).

J: Which of your uncles that you were mentioning was the company man?

DA: Jink...

J: Jink. Is that J.E.N.C.K?

DA: J.I.N.K.

J: J.I.N.K.

DA: Jinkens Webb...

J: Oh, Okay.

DA: He was a boss. He was a mine foreman at Thacker, WV. And, uh..., he was not a union man. My Uncle Jim and my daddy were union men. My father was not in town the day of this massa-cre. He was up at Stony Mountain putting his furniture back in, on, the porch. They set it out in the rain. They said all the...the Baldwin-Felts detectives set everybody's furniture out in the rain ......

J: Uh..., this is in Matewan or Thacker?

DA: No, Matewan...

J: In Matewan.

DA: Up at..., between Red Jacket and Matewan. It was called Stony Mountain Camp. The mines that was involved in it this day was Stony Mountain right there in..., below Matewan called Stony Mountain, and, uh..., my father was not in town that day, thank God, and they couldn't involve him in it and uh... he was up there putting his furniture back on the porch, it's all we had. That with...with seven or eight more children, he had to save his furniture, and we were standing there and my grandmother was watching her two sons....

J: Okay. Where was this you were standing...Where was...

DA: I was standing on...in front of John Robinson's meat market in Matewan. Diagonal to the station. But we could see down under Chamber's Hardware at the...where they was in... under, a shelter where a brick...where a porch was built out above and they all congregated under there out of the rain. It was misting. It would..., it didn't rain to what you...pouring or nothing like that but you had to get out of it. So my grandmother turned to me and she said, "You go home."

J: Who, now who was gathering here. Were these the Baldwin-Felts ...

DA: Union, the union and the, uh...Baldwin-Felts Detectives and word got out that they had warrants to arrest Sid Hatfield and Mayor Testerman that evening and take them to Bluefield. They were from Bluefield. And that's east of Matewan. And, uh...they were, uh...their, their, their intentions was to arrest them, serve the warrants on them and arrest them and take them to Bluefield on 16 which come in about between 5:00 and 5:15. And my grandmother couldn't find her two sons. And, so she told me, she turns around to me and she tells me to go home, and I went; I knew to mind. And I started walking home. Now that distance from John Robinson's to this house right here, (pointing to diagram) and I walked as fast as I could for an 8 year old girl and when I set my foot upon our front porch there was a thousand shots fired in ten minutes. My aunt was at my house. My youngest aunt. My grandmother's youngest daughter was at home. And we ran to the back facing Tug River cause we lived between the N & W railroad and Tug River and that was Kentucky over there. And I saw at least twenty people come out of Matewan and swim Tug River and get into Kentucky. And one of them was Everett Harmon 'cause I rec-ognized him. He was a, he was the coal operator at Lynn, WV above Thacker, above Matewan cause he always wore a white riding pants and boots...leggings. And I recognized him and they was at least 20 people swam that River. Now, in the picture it shows one man in New River pad-dling around .....

J: In the movie you are talking about...(movie filmed at Thurmond on the New River)

DA: In the movie. I thought that was ridiculous. So, it all died down. Now the battle took place around this hardware (surveying pamphlet). And here's the bank. Here's the main street coming through...it went, and this goes into the river, the...the ...down there where the..., and there's where...

J: Was there a road down to the river, a path...

DA: Yes, there was. There was a road. Cause the, uh...water company was down there. The uh...the uh...water...that furnished the town of Matewan ..., the water, it was down. Oh yes, they was mostly, there was not many cars. But they was several cars there in Matewan. Mostly the, you know, the wagons and things they had to have a way down there. And when the river was down the river, the, the uh..., wagons would go across the river into Kentucky, and uh..., but, now, I didn't see anything other than hear the shots. But my grandmother came home. She brought her boys with her and ...

J: What were their names?

DA: Webb. Their name was Jim and Jink...

J: Oh, okay. You told me that. DA: Yeah, you have that. James, well we called him Jim, and Jink, and Jinkins was his real-ly...really his name. And uh...then that evening, now they was a non, and during this battle, C.C.(Cable) Testerman was shot. He was our mayor. He was a nice looking man. He had a jew-elry store there on the corner. Uh...of uh... right on down here where the steps went down to this uh... main street. He had a nice jewelry store. Mr. Testerman was a, uh... fine looking gentleman, back in his time. And uh...he was shot. Tot Tinsley (14 or 15 yrs. old) was killed. He was just a bystander. And on around the corner here at the back of this uh...uh...dental office, it's over Chamber's hardware. Dutch Rherer, he came out and came down, and he was shot. But he did not die. Dutch is dead now but he did not die from that. But, C.C. Testerman when 16 was stopped below Matewan and held up on account of this battle; But when it come through Mate-wan, they put CC Testerman, my grandmother said, on that train and sent him to Welch. That was the quickest train. There was no ambulance then. Uh...to the hospital. But he died. C. C. Testerman died in Welch hospital. I assume he was still alive when he got to the hospital. It's been so many.., I wouldn't know. I couldn't remember that.

J: Um-hum.

DA: Then at 7:00 or maybe a little after, No. 7 comes down from Bluefield, going west into Cin-cinnati making all the stops. You know, the little stops, Thacker and Matewan and Williamson and they took doors, new doors out of the hardware and put those Baldwin-Felts detectives bodies on them 'cause I saw it. And put them on that, in that baggage car. I saw that.

J: Put them all in one baggage car. Where were the bodies when you first saw them?

DA: Right, right where they were shot. Some were shot there and some the hardware and some was around here in the back. They were shot. They were seven of them killed and I believe two or three of them were brothers. I don't know. Albert, and I don't know whether one brother or two. I cannot say.

J: I believe it was two.

DA: I believe it was two. It was two. I am sure it was. Uh, Uh...I should've kept a diary on this 'cause we talked about it for years. It was something to talk about. Now I...I tell you, before this, uh...uh...that night I don't think anybody slept. I don't think any.. They expected the Bald-win-Felts detectives to come in there and blow the city of Matewan up, was what they expect. Well they would've never got very far 'cause, Matewan was fortified, and those mountaineers didn't take it easy. They didn't take no for an answer. J: So did people come to town after the shooting and...

DA: No, uh...people came...people scattered out. I can't say how many stayed down there, er...,nothing at all about it, because I didn't get to go back down there until after 7 that evening. All this happened between 4:30 and 5:00. Then about 5:15, Sixteen come in going east, going towards Bluefield, and that's the train they put Mr. Mayor Testerman on. But he died in ei-ther..on the train or on route to Welch or after he got there, uh.., I can't remember. Now, Sid Hatfield was there. They was going to arrest Sid. They was going to arrest uh...Testerman. These were bogus warrants, you see. They want...they knew they was the ringtail leaders in that and they wanted to get them out of there. They finally killed them later on the steps of the court-house in Welch and their wives. Tthese [sic] pictures that you see right here those two women were with them and they were witness. Now I was in Williamson the day that happened and my uncle, was an engineer on the N & W Railroad came in and told us we had no communication like you have now. And uh...but now that all happened in a matter of minutes there and it was, back then, that was horrible. To me I will never forget it for as long as I live all those shots being fired. I never, well it just...it just seemed like the end of the world to me. And if my aunt hadn't been with me, I guess I would have run and hid somewhere. But she, she was with me. Now, we, we did not see any of the actual stuff only I saw the men running down this alley here. It was a street into the river. The water works was down there and uh... people brought boats over from Kentucky and we have a bridge, I understand there is a bridge there now. And uh...that uh... that was a horrible time, those miners really uh...struggled to organize the union and I know that I saw uh... I saw enough. That I'll never forget it as long as I live. My grandmother was a woman that seen where her children was and that's the reason she was down there to look after those two young, those two boys of hers and uh, but my father was not in it as I stated before. Poppy wasn't in it. He probably would have been accused but I don't think he would have picked up, I don't think Poppy...he would have sympathized with them but I don't think Poppy was the type of man that would have picked up a gun and used it, but that's my opinion. And, but he was up in Stony Mountain Camp putting our furniture back on the porch. I say ours because he was my, it was my mother and father, but I didn't live with them. I lived with my grandmother. And uh...

J: Now did he, was he able to move back in that house?

DA: No, no. He moved a that tent right down on R.W. Buskirk's property. Right below my grandmother, in this house. He had a field down there and he, he let.., I guess Poppy had to rent it from him, I don't know, and he put up two tents. One was to sleep in and one was to cook and eat in. And he lived in it two years, but he built it nice yet it was all, it was all faced up about 8 foot high, but it was close to us. See, R.W. Buskirk owned most of Matewan. He owned that Urias Hotel. He was a good man. He was good to the poor. He often said he was going to give my grandmother this house, but he didn't live and uh.., that's another story. But he was real good and my grandmother had a beautiful home there for 10 dollars a month.

J: That was owned by Mr...

DA: R. W. Buskirk, who owned most of Matewan.

J: This is the same Buskirk who owned the saloon across the river.

DA: Oh, yes. And when West Virginia went dry, see that building this side there are...the...uh...the Urias Hotel used to be a saloon.

J: Oh, it did.

DA: Oh, yes. When West Virginia was wet.

J: Which ended in about 1912, was that correct?

DA: Yeah, and then when it went dry, he moved, he lived in Kentucky. He went over there. He built a swinging bridge above these three houses here across and built a big saloon with apart-ments above it. I've been all in it.

J: And that was the Blue Goose?

DA: And that was the Blue Goose and...

J: Do you.., do you, by any chance, know what the name of his saloon was in Matewan...

DA: No I don't. No I don't...

P: Before 1912.

DA: I know the Urias Hotel was the name of the hotel, but I don't know what the saloon was. And...and...and if I, uh..., never given it a thought, uh..., uh..., remembering it. But, uh... it didn't, uh..., it was uh..., he put a hardware store in there later. And when I left Matewan it was a hard-ware. And uh..., of course Mate Creek coming out so many floods and then..., then uh..., the uh..., Tug River coming down there making such a terrible sweep into to, inward in there is what's ruint (ruined) Matewan. And I understand that the uh..., they're either going to build a flood wall or do something there. That's what ...now John McCoy's father was the bar...was the...took care of the saloon The Blue Goose in Kentucky because he married a relative of R.W. Buskirk and I believe either ..., either Josie McCoy, Sailor's wife was a sister to R.W. or she was a sister to Meldy (Iwelda) Buskirk, I don't know. I don't remember that. I knew at the time but since then, and see R. W. kept going to Hot Springs for his health every year and he married Ruby Buskirk. I don't know what Ruby's name was. She had two grown daughters. Inez and Mildred and she brought them back to Matewan they were very nice girls. Now, Inez married Dan Chambers at one time, Chuck's grandfather. And uh..., they divorced but I don't know who Mildred married, and then Bob, R.W., and Ruby had one boy and his name is Robert. And his name.., he is Bob Jr. And I don't know..he's, he's living somewhere but I don't know. See I have-n't been in Matewan but about... I was at my husband's job. Took him back to Majestic, Ken-tucky during World War II and I was in Matewan, uh..., several times during that time. And I don't, uh.., but this..., this sort of thing was never discussed after I graduated and left and mar-ried and I spent 5 years in Detroit, and when I come back I.., most everything has changed in Matewan.

J: Okay. Let's uh..., backtrack a little bit. I's like to get some more of your personal history docu-mented here too. When did you started school, approximately and where did you go to school?

DA: I.., my first school was the uh..., uh...,uh..., in uh..., uh..., Magnolia High, uh..., Grade School up at Mate...in Magnolia ..on Magnolia Hill uh..,to Hattie Phillips. And it was a one room school. And she taught from the first, I think, to the sixth grade and I had two uncles in there with me. I had this uh... uh...uh... I had two younger uncles and myself and I couldn't go to school unless they went because we had to walk and uh..., but Hattie was a wonderful teacher. All the Phillips' uh.. uh.. were very well educated people and they made good because I know after I came back and moved to Majestic that I had... one of the girls lived in Majestic, too. Her husband was an engineer and I...and...and... uh..., we got acquainted over again. But now my...then I went down to Matewan uh... to school to Nancy Hatfield and I went to Nancy in the fourth and fifth grade and then I went over in the other building to Pauline Chancy .

J: And where was that building...

DA: Across the street. Oh, that was there in, I guess, it's torn down. The uh.., but the one..the brick building with the big columns in it was the high school building then, and I went to it to Pauline Chancy and to Mrs. Phillips in the sixth grade and then I graduated into the seventh and eighth...eighth to Mrs. Hoskins.

J: Now who owned the school building? Was it the town or the company...

DA: OH, no no. The board of education.

J: The board of education, okay.

DA: Oh yes. The board of education owned it..

J: But they weren't owned by any of the coal companies...

DA: No...no...no...no...no...no...no...that was, it was the private, it was the uh.., uh.., no uh.., the coal companies was right, the closest coal company like I told you was down there in the lower end of Matewan up on the hill and the um.., the camp was up Red Jacket uh.., between Red Jacket and what's called North Matewan now. Now we uh.., uh.., and there's where the camp was the uh.., uh.., and some of the houses, and of course, some of the houses are still standing I understand from Jerry Chambers that her mother died in one of them but they had rebuilt or uh..., moved out of Meador and moved down there. Now Charlie's been gone I understand a long time but her mother just died in '88.

J: Jerry's mother?

DA: Jerry's mother. And she was a Luxemburger. He married her and brought her. I shouldn't say that. They may want to tell you that and they'll know more about that than I do. She was a beautiful blonde, a natural blonde and I can remember her when I was real young how I admired her hair.

J: Is this Jerry's mother you are talking about?

DA: Jerry's mother. Jerry don't look like her mother. Uh, uh. Jerry looks like the Kiser's, but she doesn't look like her mother, and then I haven't never seen none of there other family. But the Chambers', I grew up with them. I grew up with Boots. I graduated with Boots. And that was a younger one and all the Chafin's have about gone and they...they...see Dan Chambers died in Florida, that's...that's uh.., Jim's daddy just this past year. He'll give you.., he'll fill you in on all that and that will be more accurate than I can tell you. And uh.., we had uh.., Johnny Phillips' store and uh.., we didn't have but two grocery stores I don't think there in Matewan and we was lucky to have those. And we had company stores. See my grandmother traded at the private stores a lot but then, my uncles worked, my uncles didn't work for this Stony Mountain people, but my daddy did. And, but my uncles worked up..in at the Auburn, McCarr, Kentucky. And they walked to and from to work. And that was in Kentucky. You went up in McCarr, uh..., uh.., and you crossed a bridge over in Kentucky and now, my grandmother did most of her trading at the company store.

J: In...

DA: In Kentucky.

J: In K..., in Kentucky.

DA: Uh, huh. Right above Matewan. Called McCarr Ken...Carr... Auburn ..or uh.., uh.., McCarr. McCarr was the post office and uh.., that was owned by Buck Young. I remember him. And now this Everett Harmon I am telling you about who was a coal operator. He was a coal operator about four miles on up the river, on up the Tug River at Lynn , L.Y.N.N., and he had a coal mine there. Now I saw him with my own eyes, swim Tug River. And I knew it was him.

J: Do you know...remember the name of his company?

DA: Uh...I...I just..I'd have to study...was it Lynn Coal Company?

J: Okay. DA: That would be accurate enough. And you see you had Rose Siding before you hit Thacker. But uh...I don't know whether there was a mines at Row's Siding it was more of a stopover for the N & W...the...they dried sand there. And the trains had to have the sand you see. Just...'cause after you left Thacker and going on toward Bluefield you had a incline and coming down uh...was worse you see.

J: Um-hum.

DA: As you went on from Thacker on up uh...past Devon and all that uh...you had an incline you gradually went up. Because after they put in locomotive uh...uh...the diesels...it took two to climb it. One steam engine could, I guess they made it. And but it took two diesel.

J: And what function did the sand serve?

DA: Well sand kept it from sliding...kept the...they let it down on the rail you know and put the uh...brake on. It kept the wheels from sliding backwards.

J: Okay. Uh....you mentioned a little bit earlier that your father lived in one of the tents for a couple of years. Was his tent solitary and isolated or was it in one of the tent... DA: No...no...

J: cities...

DA: He wasn't in the tent colony down at uh...uh...huh-uh...Now the state police come in there and fired in on those union men too one night. Because I know one of the state police called Ray McClure. My grandmother raised him. And he was in that. No, Lick Creek that was above Wil-liamson. Between Williamson and Matewan where the tent colony was.

J: Um-hum.

DA: They uh...but no my father like I told you he...he put the tents...he had...right below my grandmother's property...on R. W. Buskirk's property and he was...it was private.

J: Um-hum.

DA: And he...he did not go into the tent colony. But now the tent colony was at Lick Creek.

J: Is the L.I.C.K.?

DA: Yeah. Plain Lick Creek, that ran out into Tug River about uh...uh...oh...I'd imagine it would be between seven and nine miles above Williamson.

J: Now when the uh...when the strike was going on, were the schools closed?

DA: Oh no.

J: School kept operating?

DA: School kept...there was no...no activity much during the day ...that...all...the only activity that caused a disruption was this battle. That you could say. The men stayed in the mountains guarding the town, I understand. And Mag Daniels cooked for them and sent their food to 'em.

J: Where...where was this cooking done?

DA: In her restaurant right there in Matewan on that Main Street.

J: And which building would that have been in?

DA: That was uh...right beside the uh...Testerman's jewelry store on...facing the railroad. And she had a restaurant and she had rooms above it. Now C. E. Lively came in there for nothing in the world and opened up a restaurant you know I...I wouldn't know too much about him only what I've read about it. And to get information they...their business was to break the union. Now that was their main object to break the union. They never broke it. In fact they took them out feet first.

J: And he was later involved in the shooting?

DA: Yes and...

J: Sid and Ed?

DA: Yes he was the main instigator of it...in Welch.

J: Uh, now what was the woman's name who did the cooking and...

DA: Uh...Mag Daniels.

J: Meg?

DA: Maggie Daniels.

J: Oh Maggie.

DA: Maggie...Maggie Daniels.

J: So everyday she would have food...

DA: Well, she cooked...she...it was a known fact that she cooked and sent food into the moun-tains for the men to eat. If there's any of them a living they'd know it. I doubt if there's any of those men living. Uh...you all see my people are gone. Uh...I don't have an uncle nor a aunt that I could talk...well I wouldn't have but one aunt that I could talk to, because the others were not close. And all...and my father and all my uncles are gone. And uh...

J: Did your father uh...stay in the mines...

DA: No...

J: the rest of his career?

DA: No he didn't. My father wasn't uh...uh...he didn't. Because Poppy was injured in the mines. In Coretta, West Virginia. He never done much more mining. And uh...he uh...worked for him-self he had uh...uh...he had two wagons that he drayed. That's what you call ...see this...the local would come up and stop there at the station and put their...the uh... the merchants...uh...things off...that came from the warehouse. The wholesale house in Williamson and you had to come around under the...the uh...now they didn't have the uh...the uh...that little underpass that was built...that wasn't there then. Poppy would have to drive clear around uh...to get into Matewan. Over into town. Now I can remember well uh... when they built that. I lived with my grand-mother uh...down in town then in the apartment house facing the station. And uh...that was an apartment house because she couldn't...we couldn't...she and I didn't have any business in that big eight room house up there. And my uncles moved us down there. And uh...I remember...I was in high school when they built it. They built it narrow. It's too ...you went through it.

J: The underpass? Yeah.

DA: The underpass is too narrow. Now I witnessed that every day of my life 'til it was started 'til it was finished.

J: Is that right?

DA: Yeah. Cause I walked the street there every day to school and I was reared in that Method-ist church over there against the hill. I went to school...I went to church there.

J: So the underpass was built around 19...late twenties then?

DA: Yes, in the late twenties.

J: Who was the uh...uh...pastor of the Methodist church when you were there?

DA: The uh...uh...Mr. Gose.

J: Was that...

DA: Reverend Gose. G.O.S.E. That's the last minister I can remember.

J: Had he been there for several years?

DA: Well, yes, several years.

J: What was his uh...position on the union. Do you know?

DA: I don't know. They didn't uh...uh...it wouldn't been wise for them to express their opin...opinion anyway. I don't think.

J: Why is that?

DA: Well, if you uh...they were not involved. They had sympathy, I guess, for both sides. But, uh...they uh...had friends on both sides and uh...see the Chambers' is there now. They owned the bank and my opinion, they were...their opinion...their sympathy went with the miners cause there's where their...there's where their business was. I wouldn't know because I was too young to realize that. But I knew Dr. Whitt, he was our den-tist. I knew him well. Him and his mother lived right above this hardware where all this shooting took place. Now his wife, I guess, Fonnie is still living. He married in later life. He married Fon-nie Scott.

J: She is living?

DA: Yeah. Yeah. I've been invited to go back to Matewan by uh.. Bea and John McChesey. And uh...go back to church. And uh...they want me to go back.. I'll go back with them sometime...

J: You should...

DA: Yes, I am. uh..and uh... Id like to see Fonnie because uh...when my grandmother lived here, Fonnie and her people lived in the second house. I grew up with them. And uh...

J: These are part of the three houses across the railroad tracks?

DA: Yes. Uh...uh...going toward the swinging bridge that went over into Kentucky. I walked that bridge every day of my life because we didn't have drinking water in the house. We had riv-er water running in the house. Only to wash with and take a bath or something with. We couldn't even brush...brush our teeth uh...and we carried water from R.W.'s well over in Kentucky and it was...I had a chore to do. I had to fill up the water buckets. And I did it. And uh... after...

J: Now that was every day? Once a day, twice a day?

DA: Well, I had it once a day. I don't know how many more that my grandmother and my uncles carried it, but I had once a day. I had to carry water and I car-ried....

J: Did you carry one bucket at a time or did you....

DA: One bucket...Oh, I just carried one bucket. My grandmother never made it too hard on me, but I knew what I had to do.

J: What else...what else did you do during the course of the day. What did you do for fun...kids in Matewan?

DA: Play. Play out in front between the railroad and the house and played ball and...and uh...I learned to swim when I was real young and I caught a bullfrog with my own hands down there in Tug River. And my grandmother made me throw it back. She wouldn't let me keep it. I learned to swim real young. You either swam or you drown. You had to learn to swim so I learned real young...

J: In the river there?

DA: Huh?

J: In the river?

DA: In the river. It was a nice...there was no pollution in the river then. It was clear as crystal and uh...I had a good life there. It was...I didn't have nothing...It was, I guess , what...children now-adays would look back oh, but I had a good life.

DA: I want to tell you about...I graduated with Nolis, John's sister .

J: John McCoy's sister?

DA: John McCoy's sister...

J: Okay, okay.

DA: See I'm older...lots...lots older than John (actually only one year). I don't know how many of the family is living. See, John had two...three sisters...four sisters. Josie, Nolis, Nell, and the one that married Frank Allara. What was her name? I can't remember right off. I...I Mat. and uh...Mat was a teacher and I think Nell was a teacher. uh...

J: That's uh...She's always known as Mat. What is her...Was it Matilda?

DA: It might be Matilda. See, there's a lot uh...in uh... uh...I don't know. We always called her Mat. They were very nice looking girls. And uh...very well mannered. And Nolis was a wonder-ful girl. I graduated with her...Nolis, and uh... course, I... there's not many of us living now that graduated. Uh... I'm one of them. After my husband passed away uh...it was in the paper and I sent it back to the Williamson Daily News and to the Logan Banner and uh...to the uh...Charleston Gazette cause I was in Logan uh...Dixie Webb Accord, you see, and I got a call from uh...the Mitchell girl who lives here. Ger-trude Mitchell is still alive; she lives here in Huntington, but she did not live close to Matewan. She lived up at...above Red...she lived up at...in Red Jacket at this time and uh...Gwendolyn Boggs and Bill McCoy, Mat's brother, married, but she died a couple of years ago, I understand. I saw that in the papers. Now I got calls from several people that knew...that found out that I was still living and where I live and uh...but uh... there's not many of us from that class still liv-ing.

J: What....

DA: Eleanor Boyne, from Sprigg. I graduated with Eleanor and she still living as far as I know. She's a nurse in Williamson hospital on the hill, but she wouldn't know nothing...anything about it cause she lived at Sprigg in the Appalachian camp down there.

J: What class uh... high school class did you graduate with?

DA: The class of '28.

J: '28.

DA: Um, hum. I graduated...

J: What size was your class? Do you recall?

DA: About '40. About '38 or '40. I could count them if I had time. Uh...uh...I should have. Uh.. I...Oh I have, but in...moving down here I lost my annual. Oh, if I had it. It was pictures and ...and everything but I lost a box off of a truck. I had a man to move some things for me and I never did find that uh... my class... my senior annual the uh...my class annual. I never seen. I played basketball for Matewan High School for two years.

J: Is that right?

DA: Uh, huh. And I loved it. And I was class president my... it's when C.P. Gose was there. Now C.P. Gose was uh...the uh... principal when I went upstairs. You went upstairs after you finished the uh...seventh and eighth downstairs uh...to the uh...uh... and then uh...I graduated under uh... Mr. Montgomery. He was the principal there. A very nice person uh...Carl Montgo-mery...he is since deceased.

J: Um...Was...were athletics for women a pretty big deal at Matewan?

DA: Yes...yes. Uh, huh. Yes...

J: People came out to see the games?

DA: Oh, yes. And it was rough, tough, and nasty.

J: Is that right?

DA: Yeah.

J: Who did you play against?

DA: Oh...I played against Beaver High in Bluefield.

J: Uh, huh..

DA: I remember and Welch and Ieager and all of them and we had... we had a wonderful home econ...home economics teacher who went with us as a chaperon and then uh...uh... Jimmy our coach went with us too. Uh...I played two years and I enjoyed it.

J: Did you have a bus you would ride to these games?

DA: No. You had to ride the train. Even the students that came in from Vulcan and from Sprigg and different places had to ride the train. We had no buses.

J: Was the...the uh... the train, then, sort of the center of the town?

DA: Yes it was. It was the only transportation we had in and out.

J: Did people go down to meet the train?

DA: Oh yes. And No. 3 came through at 12:02, at two minutes after twelve...two minutes after midnight and you'd be surprised at the young people that would stay up and sit on the uh...on the trucks down there the...the express trucks and watch No. 3 come in and go out. Then you...and then you had No. 4 of the mornings coming through about 4:30 in the morning and going east and then you uh... we had plenty of transportation but you had to ride the trains. I don't care if you was just going ten miles, you had, unless you wanted to walk. We didn't know any better. We didn't have any better communication and uh...we made good what we had.

J: How about uh...movie houses?

DA: We had one in Matewan. Uh... I...it was a nice movie. We was allowed to go on Saturday night only.

J: Was this uh...talking movies?

DA: No...No...No...uh-ah.

J: Silent...

DA: I was in Detroit when uh...uh...I was married and in Detroit when the first talking movie that I ever heard was at the Fox Theater in Detroit.

J: When did you marry? In...in....

DA: I married in '28.

J: And your husband's name?

DA: Uh.. Theodore Accord.

J: Where was he from?

DA: He was from Delbarton. He was previously from Matewan. He had most of his education but he graduated from Burch High. That's in Delbarton.

J: So you married right after high school?

DA: Oh, yes. And then I went to summer school that summer and went to school that...the fol-lowing winter.

J: And then you graduated.

DA: And uh...uh...no I didn't graduate from uh...We left and went to Detroit. My husband had a chance to learn a trade up there. My uncle was head of one of the uh...departments and he got my husband in as a, to learn to tool and dye making. And we left and we stayed in Michigan five years. My son was born there in '30. November in '30.

J: Now your husband, you indicated earlier, had a...later on he went uh...in government service or had a government contract?

DA: No. Well see he...well this is the way it was. When he... they had to register during World War II, he was a year ahead...too old for the draft, so they controlled his job. They sent him to Newport News. They sent him to um...where's the next place they sent him. Sent him three plac-es. Newport News, not Richmond. I believe they sent him to Langley Field. Newport News, at the naval yard, as a machinist and uh...Richmond and then sent him back uh... See the coal com-panies wanted... all of their machines were drafted and so Majestic, Kentucky uh...uh...they sent him there and we lived there 18 months. And that's up uh...in Kentucky. And then French Workman put in an application for him at Loredo, in Logan County, at Buffalo Creek, where the great flood was in 73. I...uh ...we went there and we stayed 14 years and I...we lived there when the war ended and my son graduated form Man High School and then he went to Morgantown. He went to West Virginia uh...Tech one year and he finished at Marshall then he went into ser-vice and spent 20 years in the air force. And uh... but my husband was a tool and dye maker, a machinist. You call that machinist here in the coal company. He uh...uh...and uh...he made Coal Age (publication of the coal industry) nearly every month.

J: Uh, for what reason?

DA: Because he...of his outstanding work. He was voted best machinist in the coal...in southern West Virginia one year. I forget what year it was. It could, it had to be between '42 and '58, but I don't remember the year. Probably kept a book and didn't take care of it.

J: Now you worked in Detroit also...

DA: Yes...Yes

J: What kind of work did you do?

DA: I uh...uh...I didn't go to school because I...before I uh... knew I was going to have my boy, I was floorlady for Henry's Dollar Store there, but I didn't get to work very long because I was ill all the time and...before my boy was born, and uh...I never worked anymore until after Bobby got through high school and then I went back uh...uh...started to go back and take...to school for teaching, but then I went into politics and I like it better.

J: So you're a political organizer?

DA: I certainly am. I'm... I was uh...I worked 5 1/2 years as deputy assessory in Logan County for Tom Gobey. I worked 13 1/2 years as a state auditor for the division of foods in Logan. I re-tired and my husband retired and he only lived 5 years after he retired. And then we moved down here. I owned a home and an apartment house both in Man and we sold them and we moved here and I had a son, and a daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren. Now I don't have a soul that's a blood relative to me in this city. But I like Huntington and I put my uh...and my husband died in '81. April the first in '81. And I put him in the crypt. We had those ...we had those crypts bought in the mausoleum in Highland Memory Gardens in Logan and last October, his birthday is in October...and I only got to go about 3 or 4 times a year. I don't mind that drive to Logan. I'm used to them...those crooked roads, but I just realized that that was an imposition and that I and none of my children, my grandchildren, or my sons in California would ever go back. So I made up my mind I was going to move him. April the first of this year, I moved Ted to the mausoleum in Highland...in uh...Forrest Lawn Memorial Park in...and I have him down here..

J: So he's close by you.

DA: Oh, it's, yes. I've been there twice since April the first. It's no...it's no bother to me and I feel so good having him so close uh...we uh...my husband was...he let me do as I pleased...I mean he knew where I was. I was in politics and he...he when I was committeewoman. When I had to go under civil service and I had been out of school so long and I am made a wonderful grade and I had to, at that time, I had to give up my uh... committee uh... position, I was committeewoman in Tridelphia district and I had to give it up 'cause then...but they changed the ruling now a whole lot and Ted said....

J: Now, was this down in the Logan area?

DA: That was in the Logan area. Tridelphia district is where I lived. And he said "now don't you put that off on me because I don't want it." And...and of course I didn't they gave uh...uh... uh.-..they was someone else taking at it and he needn't give it up. And uh... but I loved politics. That's why I was at the meeting last night.

J: Did you develop this interest why you were living in Matewan? This interest in politics.

DA: Yes. My daddy liked politics. We've always been southern democrats.

J: Was he involved in the electoral politics?

DA: No. He didn't ...he never ran for an office but he was always interested in getting his...the person...the...the...the better people elected.

J: Who succeeded, since you're,...you're sensitive, to politics who succeeded uh...Mayor Testerman as mayor of Matewan. Do you recall?

DA: Right off I don't.

J: Maybe not directly but some of the others down the road...

DA: I bet you John could tell you. John could tell you. You keep that question open for him. I was so young then, you know...you know to tell you the truth uh...uh...that was a hush hush thing there for a long time. People was afraid to talk about it too much ...too much you know. Afraid they'd get involved too...someone might get involved.

J: Now you knew uh.. Testerman's widow. Is that correct?

DA: Oh, yes. I knew her. She was a beautiful woman. She was from Naugatuck. Had...she was a beautiful woman and uh...they had one son and I never knew where uh...uh..uh..after...after Sid and Ed were killed, I never knew too much about their business after that. I never...my grand-mother was a type of person that I only knew what she wanted me to know.

J: Um, um, She kept things secret...

DA: Yeah. And when we she had company and they wanted to talk about something, she told me to go close the back door I went, 'cause I wasn't supposed to be...It's not like it is now a days. Kids sit and listen to everything and they know more than you do uh...

J: Do you remember the reaction around town after Sid and Ed were shot?

DA: Yes, it was very...the town was in mourning for a long time. It was uh... it was...it surprised me since I had grown up that there wasn't another reprisal of that, but there wasn't. I guess they uh..uh.. I guess they thought better of it but that was cold blood murder up there now on those steps at the courthouse. Have you ever seen the courthouse steps?

J: I haven't been there yet, no.

DA: Well, the courthouse is up on the hill and you go up, there's a wall there, now they may have changed it now and then they's steps up against that wall that goes up there and I seen where it ...I've been there. After I grew up, I went up there and I looked. There's only two streets in Welch, too. See, my family...I had some family that moved to Gary, up Gary Holler. And uh...well, in fact, my husband was offered a job at Gary and he went up and looked the situation over and he said "this isn't for me"...and we left. But now I've been I...I...and Sid was a man that wasn't, you know he wasn't afraid of anything. He was a big, tall, rawbone man and he was...he was really one of the Hatfields of the Hatfield and McCoy Feud, now.

J: Do you remember seeing him walking around the streets?

DA: Oh lord, I remember him. Why I recognized Sid Hatfield before I would recognize anybody here, and uh...but I don't (looking at brochure) recognize Matewan, though. These buildings now. But now I bet you John's got some pictures that'll go back, take you back. He wants you to call him..he wants you to come up.

J: Jim Chambers. DA: Jim Chambers. I call him John. I don't know why I do and uh... he was at the meeting last night. Jerry and him both. And but, now, Chuck wasn't there. If Chuck was there I...but they was over two hundred people there, but I think I would have saw...uh...would have seen Chuck because I mingle quite a bit and uh...uh... when we had three radio stations there and two televi-sion stations taking pictures so I don't think...it might be on at 12:30 or 12:15 now. Uh...uh..the pictures on channel 8...it was uh... WSAZ and I think channel 13 was there and uh..then uh...(phone rings)

J: You indicated on our phone conversation yesterday and with a couple of statements that you made earlier that you didn't think the movie Matewan was a particularly accurate portrayal...of the events that day. What are your criticisms?

DA: I don't think so. I definitely don't. Well, it was made in the wrong place the first thing cause Thurmond does not own a brick building and it doesn't have a street to make it on and another thing it...it doesn't portray any of it 'cause I saw with my own eyes the men and...of the union and the uh...uh...the uh...detectives uh...meeting under that dental office porch there and I stood up on John Robinson's uh...sidewalk, which was wood and it was built up. He had two or three steps to go up. And I stood there and watched that with my own eyes with my grandmother and they never showed nothing like that and showed when they had...never showed a shot being fired, you know that, and they met on the railroad. Now that's a lie. That is a definite lie, and I'd tell the producer, whoever put their money in it that they're lying. And I don't...and I don't be-lieve that people that's involved in that battle in Matewan would let 'em make it and that's my opinion and you can't keep me from expressing my opinion and I'm a pretty ...uh... I believe in free speech and I'm going to have it and I don't believe...and that picture wasn't worth a dime. I didn't go to the theater, but my grandson in Lexington bought the tape and put it in his VCR and when I seen that, I was so disgusted.

J: Now why do you think that the people in Matewan wouldn't want...

DA: Well I don't think it was the Matewan people that didn't want it. They would've liked to have it. I think it was the other side of the picture 'cause they have such a loss, and they didn't win and they didn't want their..their...they didn't want nothing brought back to life or exposed.

J: So you're speaking of the representatives of the coal companies...

DA: I am. I am.

J: Do you have an idea of, now I know you said you were, you didn't see the shooting, you heard the shooting?

DA: No...I heard it no...I was in...

J: Where has...what is your impression of where the actual shooting began? Was it inside the store or outside?

DA: Oh...out...oh all of it...some of it run into the uh...dental office uh...to the bank and hid in the doctor's office and hid and some of them followed them in there, so I'm told and...and uh... but none...none...all of the shooting took place mostly right there. The man is dead that fired the first shot but I am not going to repeat his name because he told me because he later married into my husband's family and I don't want to repeat his name but he fired the first shot because he told me he did, and I believe him.

J: Okay. One last question and we will catch the news. What is your reaction to the charge that Sid Hatfield shot Mayor Testerman?.

DA: I don't believe it. I don't believe it. He could've been shot accidentally. It was never proven who shot him. Of course they made a story out of that because he later...later married his wife. And...but, I think, out of sympathy, that he uh... that was all out of sympathy that uh... I can't see that. I can't see Sid Hatfield uh...if he'd have wanted her, he'd have took her right on front of him. Now, he wouldn't had to kill him. He's that type of a man. He wouldn't done that, but he...he might have been, in my opinion, that Testerman was shot accidentally like Tot Tinsley was. I've never heard Tot's name mentioned. He was a young boy about 20 years old and Dutch Rherer was a elderly man and I...I'd say he was in his early fifties.

J: How do you spell that name?

DA: R.H.E.R.E.R. And he was from Alma Thacker, in Kentucky and uh..he was later...my youngest...my youngest uncle married his (Dutch's) daughter and but, now Dutch wasn't...Dutch was...and he just walked down out of the dental office, Dr. Whitt's office and was shot. If he'd stayed up there, well I guess he thought the shooting was over with.

J: You said earlier, but I forgot, was he killed or did he survive?

DA: No, he was just wounded. He was just wounded and he left.

J: Did Testerman carry a weapon to your knowledge?

DA: To my knowledge, I don't know. I wouldn't know and uh... nothing was never said. No. Uh, I guess he uh...he uh... he just walked down there, you know, 'cause the news, the word got out uh... one of the chambermaids down at the hotels told that she overheard them...who they had warrants for to arrest and take on 16 to Bluefield and that was Sid Hatfield and Testerman and uh... uh...and Ed Chambers all and uh... that...see they wanted to get the ringtail leaders out of Matewan so they could break the union. But, now, Sid Hatfield is not the man that killed Al-bert Felts...Felts I can tell you that, but I...

J: Is that right?

DA: No. Man, I told you that he is dead now. They're all dead, but I won't repeat...

J: Oh, that fired the first shot?

DA: Fired the first shot and he killed Albert Felts.

J: Now later on, a hotel operator, Anse Hatfield was killed...

DA: Anse Hatfield , yes he was...

J: Did you know him?

DA: Yes I did...Yes I did. See, the Urias hotel had a recess porch back in. It wasn't out open uh...uh...it was recessed back in there and they had a tile porch and they kept chairs out there all the time. Everybody set out there, and coming out of Red Jacket every night...the shifter came out to the...that was the track where that trestle...where you had to go in under to get to the sta-tion before the new one was built and that train come out real slow. Nobody heard that shot be-cause that shifter had to blow every so often coming out of there. It only just barely moved about ten miles an hour and somebody picked him...'cause, you know why they picked him off, he was going to be a star witness for the Baldwin-Felts detective and they...somebody killed him.

J: He was...it was pretty generally known in town that he was sympathetic to the...operators.

DA: Oh yes. He kept them there in his hotel. They stayed there the couple of days that they were there and this chamber maid, who was there, she's the one broke the news to the union men, what they were up to.

J: Do you recall her name? But you won't tell me?

DA: No.

J: Okay.

DA: She might still be living. I don't know. Her...her...I don't think any of her brothers are living, but she's got relatives over there. I'd rather not say..

J: Was she the same maid that informed Testerman?

DA: Um-hum.

J: Of what was going on?

DA: Um-hum...um-hum. Of course they all tell Sid Hatfield. They all loved him there. They trusted him because he was just like a father to everybody and uh...and Charlie Kiser was one of the best persons that I know of. He really protected the people in Matewan.

J: Did he come from outside the area as an organizer or was he a local?

DA: He was local. He was up at Meadow. He was up at Meadow where the Kiser reunion was held. Right there's where he raised his family. In later years, I didn't know that Mrs. Kiser had moved down into uh... uh.. this uh...there's where the old Stony Mountain Camp was I didn't know she had moved down there. But I guess she was uh...it was so far to get up there. Trans-portation, of course they got a nice road in there now and uh... but Jerry told me her mother lived down there and she's not been dead too long. Just this past year.

J: Um-hum. Yes. Very recently.

DA: Very recently.

J: Did you know Reece Chambers?

DA: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, Reece and Talt.

J: What sort of man was he?

DA: Uh... Reece was lived over across the railroad tracks. Now, it was his son...Ed's his son...Ed's Talt's, Ed's Reece's son and he had two beautiful daughters. One named Kate and my Uncle Jim always liked Kate. He dated her a little bit. She worked in the drug store. And uh... I just barely can remember it, uh... it...it is...as the years go by, it gets...I don't remember...but I re-member walking the streets in Matewan barefooted and with shoes on. I was so little that I would go barefooted. My grandmother'd let me go bare footed sometimes and sometimes she wouldn't, but I didn't care whether she did or not, but now, my father was strict on us girls, too, cause you know man that raised 9 girls has to be strict on 'em, and I was the oldest and uh..he said if we went down town after school, we had to be at home by dinner time, but on Saturday night, we could stay out 'til seven o'clock at the movies. 'Til first movie was over.

J: Was this all year around, you could stay out?

DA: Yeah. Sometimes. If he gave his word. And if we got in trouble and was...uh...and was pe-nalized we couldn't go to town and that was a...to go to town and sit in drugstore whether we went to the show or not, we didn't always have a quarter to go to the show and uh...Poppy didn't believe in that and he didn't have that kind of money and if he did he wasn't going to part with it for the theater and um....I remember Joe Shaffer and Berman's and all them in there and uh...they uh... we just thought that was the grandest store ever was. Now Nenni's, I think's in there now. Now, I graduated with 'Tilio Nenni, too, and he's dead and uh...they's not... three or four of us girls living out of that class...

J: What was the name of the drugstore?

DA: Leckie's.

J: Leckie's?

DA: Leckie's. Frank Leckie.

J: Is there anything else you want to include before we finish? We can do another interview at another time...too, I know you have a lot to talk about.

DA: Well, if you, if I think of anything. I think I have told you about everything that happened that day and that's all...you're not ...but I tell you, I grew up in Matewan and when I went back it had changed so, and I said to my sister Thelma, "What would have happened to us. Jukeboxes here and jukeboxes there." I never heard a jukebox when I was growing up in my life. I said, "What would have happened to us if this had been here when we grew up, Thelma?" She said, "Poppy'd have killed us!" (laughing) That's exactly what she said and he would've. He was strict. See, we had no beauty shops. We all got our hair cut and we went to barber shops and Poppy took two others at a time and sat with us 'till we got our hair cut and Poppy didn't...

J: So you went to the same barber that the little boys went to?

DA: All the time. Yeah. Yeah. Men. All. Poppy'd take us and set us there and get our hair cut and he'd bring us home. We wasn't allowed to go in the barber shop by ourself and the Police Gazette was out of the question. We wasn't even allowed to even pick it up. Mom would say "Don't you pick up that Police Gazette. You're daddy will take it away from you" and course, Thelma and I could read, you know. And it was always on pink paper. I knew where it was, but we didn't touch it...

J: That was like a pulp magazine?

DA: Yes, you know, it's just like uh...these uh...sex magazines now but it was..it wasn't..it wasn't too nice and it wasn't too bad. It probably was more pictures than anything else, but we wasn't allowed to bother it.

J: Did they sell that in Leckie's drug, uh...Leckie's drugstore?

DA: Yes. they sold...Now the paper. I learned to spell "Mississippi River" from a calendar when I was six years old that my grandmother had in the house and I learned to spell Cincinnati Post from the paper we got.

J: Oh, you took the Cincinnati paper.

DA: Cincinnati Post all my life and I read "Tangle", the story that ran in it, for ten years.

J: That was a serial...

DA: That was a serial and my mother and I watched that uh... for ten years. The news is on now at 12:30.

J: Okay. We'll, we'll..

DA: Are you through? Now you don't make no difference. We don't have to watch it uh..uh...let me put it..(tape stops to watch the news)

DA: Uh... years ago when that was the saloon there, when we had a saloon there by the Urias hotel there was two policemen that had their differences...

J: Now this was before he opened the saloon across the river?

DA: Oh, yes. This was long before the Massacre too. They met each other there, face to face, and killed each other.

J: Two town...local police?

DA: Two local polices, two Matewan Policemen. You'll have to ask someone in Matewan what their names was. I'm sure they have a record of it and will know who they were. I wouldn't know who...Up until a couple three years ago, it would come to me uh...I can't... I, I'm a kindly hesitant to repeat any names 'cause I might get it wrong. Put they both met each other. I heard my grandmother talk about that. They thought that was awful. Well, when the Massacre happened, they forgot about the policemen killing each other and uh...

J: What was the background of that...

DA: Well, they just had a grudge at each other in the police department. You know jealously causes a lot of that, and greed and, what their trouble was, we uh.. I don't know but I know those two policemen met each other right in front of that saloon and killed each other and I was...

J: Just like in the movies?

DA: Just like in the movies. Well that was a regular teardown, knockdown, and drag out affair there and uh...but uh... it was a hush hush thing. It never amounted to much because I guess both of them is to blame. And uh..., but I don't know what their names was. You...you can find out if you investigate very much uh... they uh... they someone around there who remember.. I don't...I don't... see John McChesey, John Martin goes to my church up here, he is older than I am but he was reared in Red Jacket. See, I've only met him and knew him...he went...come down there and went to school...and um...he wouldn't know. It would take someone older... older than John to know and uh.. it's uh...wonder how long uh... Does Sailor and them...Does John and the old McCoy home still living there? Still on the Mate Creek back there, goin' up...where the old high school was? I think Chaucy's and Hope's house and all of it's gone.

J: Okay. I've got it running again now.

DA: Okay. You ask the questions.

J: Okay. When uh... this would be just stuff that you heard, hearsay, since you were...you'd have been such a little girl but, when uh... West Virginia went dry, I think it was 1913, then the saloon would have opened up across the river, otherwise...but uh...what about access to...to moonshine or bootleg liquor in the area even though West Virginia was dry?. Was there much of that uh... going on?

DA: No. They uh... Buskirk kept it under control. They brought it up the river in tug boats. Up...up...from Cincinnati and I've seen it come up, but they didn't come on the West Virginia side. They came up the Kentucky side and unloaded it over there in Kentucky. No. It was pretty well controlled. They went over there and bought it though and that bridge was built, now, when I come to Matewan. And uh... I can remember the bridge very...very well because...

J: Now this is the swinging bridge?

DA: It's the swinging bridge and uh...we played all around it because it was wider...it was real wide and cars could pass between where we lived and the railroad. It was wide there. Then above the swinging bridge the road wasn't so wide and R.W. had a row of little houses...they're all gone now and uh.. you know...as I remember, everybody took their whiskey home.

J: They'd buy it at the Blue Goose and carry it home?

DA: Yes. And take it home. Carry it home. They uh... they used it very conservative, of course there was a lot of drunks. You know there were and they were every...uh...lot of people are going to drink to an excess no mat-ter who they are and where they are... but I think Matewan was kept under control pretty good, Uh...people bought their whiskey. Either...they either stayed there and drank it or they took it home with them. Now, R.W. didn't allow no, any rough stuff. Nah, they knew better and uh...that was the only saloon I know of in miles...that's the only one I ever knew of. Might been some in Williamson but I didn't know it. Is that Okay?

J: Yeah. That's fine.

DA: Well...uh...That's about all unless you have some more questions.

J: I'll ask you one more question about...I keep saying that but you...you got so much I want...I like to hear um...about recreation and I've got a particular interest in the coal camp um...baseball teams. Did you ever see any of that going on?

DA: Well Red Jacket had one. Oh yes, we used to walk up there. It was three miles up there. They had a movie house up there too and it was out...you only ..and uh... when it didn't rain, they had movies. And uh... they had a baseball team. Red Jacket uh.. was owned by Ritter Lumber Company and it was a nice coal camp. It was nice and uh... but we'd walk up there and go to the ball games and of course we... if the movie was in Sunday afternoon we could go but we was never up there night but I'm sure the people that lived in Red Jacket uh.. went at night. It was an open air like our uh...uh...open air theaters. Now...

J: Oh. Was like a drive in.

DA: Like a drive in theater but I...I don't know...I can't remember...I don't think they had speakers, they wasn't no cars. I think you set and watched it and uh... but now...the baseball teams...but now our high school team was always...we had a good high school; strict. When you graduated from Matewan High School, you knew something. And.. and...uh...you didn't go in there and waste your time. Now, I've never been at the new high school down at New Howard. It's below the tunnel down at the bend of the road and I've never been there but, if I go back with McChesey's...If this friend of mine hadn't moved to California, she's from Man...and we intended to drive over...Opal didn't know much about Mingo County. She's Logan County but I meant to take Opal with me. I know where to go, but I don't want to go by myself. Uh...sometime when my grandchildren comes up here...especially the oldest one. He's my admin-istrator...Uh.. I...I'm gonna take Ricky with me and were gonna' go over there. I'm gonna show Ricky where I was raised... where I was reared and where I spent the biggest part of my young life and the biggest part...up until I graduated from high school. I left there pretty soon after I graduated from high school. Now, there wasn't the programs like the government's got now. I'd've went into one of those programs instead of getting married, I think because I...I wanted to travel, and I knew I needed uh..more education. I wanted to raise above..my level...that I was used to. I knew there was something more important in life and uh...so, course, I got married and I am not sorry about that because I had a good husband for fifty-two years. Never had a...never...he let ...and when Kennedy came in to Charleston, I was in the motorcade. Ted could have gone. He didn't want to. He said, "You go ahead. I'll stay here." I was the second to shake Kennedy's hand, in Charleston.

J: Is that right?

DA: And uh...

J: This is before the primaries?

DA: Yeah.

J: In 1960.

DA: Before the...and I went up...I lived in Laredo then and I come down... I seen some man on top of the.. uh.. hood of a car talking. I comin' down. I thought, "Lord are they on another strike" you know that's what you see and then I recognized him. Clear as I seen him. I said that's John F. Kennedy. I just parked my car and got out. Stayed a while and...now, he was a fine gentlemen. I been to his grave in...I seen the torch in Arlington Cemetery. My husband took me there. Any-where I wanted to go, Ted took me. We got along beautiful. I couldn't have married anybody in the world that was any better to me and made a better living for me cause I sure was brought up, very little and very ...I was... our means of living was very meager and we all knew it but we made the best of it. We didn't...we had a roof over our head and that's all people expected then. The...the young people, now, expect an automobile. I know my son did. (Laughing) And uh.. of course I spoiled him and I am not sorry of that. I only have one son, Bobby, and uh.. he's fif-ty-two and he lives in California and he is...he is doing real well. And I have three grandchildren and I have five great-grandchildren, and the youngest one is one year old and the others go up to five.

J: Do you go out to California to visit?

DA: I've been there twice. See I had to go... I went three years ago and stayed three months. I don't like California. They can give it back to the Spaniards for all I care.

J: Too far from the hollers, huh?

DA: It's too far from uh.. uh...they live too fast I wouldn't live five years out there, although I drove out there. I've driven fifty-five years and I'm not afraid to drive...I had to drive... then I went back this December and stayed 'til the fifth day of February. My son had a quadruple by-pass in uh...Hollywood and uh...Kaiser-Permenty Hospital, and I stayed over five weeks with him and...but he's getting along beautiful now and he changed his way of living. He lost weight, he quit smoking, he changed his mode of living and he has just a good of chance as you and I have now.

J: Has your son ever been to Matewan?

DA: Oh. Yes. We lived...when we lived at Majestic. I didn't send him to Phelps, Kentucky school cause they put them in a truck and took 'em. I sent him on the city bus back to Matewan to school.

J: Oh. So he went there to school, too?

DA: He went under Carl Montgomery, just like I did and they was shocked to...they was tickled to death. Carl Montgomery even met me on the streets of Matewan and told me...how nice it was to have Bobby there.

J: So he graduated high school there?

DA: No. In Man. Man, West Virginia. I moved back to Logan county. He went his freshman year in Matewan because I lived at Majestic. I forgot to tell you that when I was talking about it. No. The Phelps, Kentucky was the closest high school to Majestic. They put 'em in a truck...open truck and took 'em. They even tried to get me to teach the fourth grade over there and I asked them how much they'd pay me and they said eighty-five dollars a month and I said oh no, I'll just stay home and cook...I wouldn't put my clothes...I couldn't have the car because my husband had to use the car in his work and they furnished the tires and gasoline. We had a gasoline book, you know. And I couldn't take that car for my use, and I knew I wasn't going to ride no truck. So I bought Bobby a uh...book by the month of uh...stamps, tickets and he rode the County bus to Matewan and back for one year 'cause we was there eighteen months. And then we moved to Logan County, Loreda and stayed there fourteen years and Bobby graduated from uh...Man High School and he was the youngest one in his class. He was a...and uh...like I told you, he fin-ished college. He went into the air force and he spent 20 years in the air force and uh...he's...Bob-by's doing alright. I wish he would come back here but he likes it out there.

J: It's pretty settled out there, now, I guess.

DA: Yes. It's pretty nice. It's not for me though. And I sold my property in Florida after Mr. Accord passed away. We had a home down there and six lots and I sold them cause I've never been back. I don't have no desire. If I go to Florida, I'll rent a place. And uh...uh...I have uh...I have some relatives down there but I don't believe...If I go, I'll rent me a place. But, I like uh...I like West Virginia. I like Huntington. You see my car. I got a sticker on the back of it says...I love Cabell County. (Laughing)

J: Did the circus ever come to down, in Matewan?

DA: Yes. Carnivals...carnivals, It wasn't big enough town for a circus and uh...I tell you, they was a man uh...had a dry cleaners shop there and uh...he was...he and his wife, Mary, and if I... my grandmother didn't believe in going to places like that, you know and...she was Baptist. That was an iniquity. But if I got to go uh...Mary and her husband took me for a while and she'd stand on the porch until I got back. I wasn't allowed...and if I went to the movie on Saturday evening, I had to go early and be back before dark, and it cost a quarter and that was a whole lot of mon-ey then. But, yes...Bobby...Bobby came through Man...I don't think he...he uh...realizes now what Matewan was...I don't think... I think he just got off the school bus and got on...I mean on the county...the county bus picked him, not school bus. See, the people went to school there that lived in...up there and lived in places, had to ride the train and they only got to go a half-a-day.

J: Um-hum.

DA: Cause I had to share my uh...drawer and, uh...table with the ...in the...uh...in the uh...algebra room...not the algebra but the biology room and...and I know the boy made a minister when he graduated. His name was Mitchell and I said to him, "Who is this. Who is Cecil MItchell." See, he was sharing my uh... seat and everything uh...'cause I had uh...I had uh....biology of a morn-ing, he had it in the afternoon. And, that's where I got acquainted with him, you know, and uh...we'd leave notes for each other, you know, you know that's...it is no different then, they it is now.

J: Did he graduate in your class...same...class?

DA: No. I don't know whether he ever graduated. He did later. He wasn't with uh...No...I graduated...

J: So, he was your boyfriend?

DA: No. He's just a friend.

J: Oh.(Laughing)

DA: I didn't have any high school...Henry Downs was more of a boyfriend than any of them and I did...He was just a good friend... We all grew up together and played together and uh...but I never uh...but I remember when I had a boyfriend in Richmond, Virginia. He was working for a coal company during the summer and he'd come see me and I'd be out with Ted and Mom would say, "there ain't no use you waitin' on Dix, she won't be back 'til late".(Laughing) And uh...uh...I often wonder about Rich, Emmett. It's been over fifty-five years since I seen him and uh...but I never heard from him anymore...No, cause...In Matewan, when you went through the main town, you know, is the steps still there going up to the uh...?

J: Yeah.

DA: I fell on the steps a many and a many at a time.

J: Is that right?

DA: I hate to tell you how many times I've skinned my knees on those steps.

J: Running up the steps?

DA: Running up the steps and falling down them I...I...you know, It's kindly hard to fall up steps, (Laughing) , but I have and my grandmother used to get so mad at me, she could die cause I'd fall up steps. My grandmother'd get ready to go to...to store...you didn't have paper bags...you had to take your market basket. She put her gloves on and her market basket on her arm and I tagged along behind. But I had a good life. I don't...I don't regret it a bit.

J: You mentioned your grandma was a Baptist...

DA: Oh, Yeah.

J: Did she ever take you to a revival meeting?

DA: Oh yes. And keep me all day and starve me to death. (Laughing)

J: Where did they hold the revivals, do you remember?

DA: Over there in Matewan was a Baptist church...but that one over back of the station there...back uh...on the bank here. It was Methodist, there is where I attended Sunday school and I went there in the cradle roll and...

J: Cradle roll? What's that.

DA: That's the young...that's we called it the cradle roll and you set on little chair. That's the be-ginners and uh...and then uh...mostly where she went to revivals was up above...up McCarr, Kentucky. They'd have big revivals up there. All day on Sunday and I'd never have a bite to eat 'til I come home. And uh...boy I tell you now, it was rough and uh...I guess that's the way they lived.

J: Save a lot of souls?

DA: Well, everybody seemed to be saved that was there. (Laughing) It's uh...Now I joined...I'm Presbyterian. I belong to this Presbyterian church right out here. They was so good to my hus-band. When I moved down here, he was ill. My husband died with cancer and uh...uh...they were so good to...Reverend Stra...Not reverend ...McGinnis was so good to me. He come down here at least twice a week and that was the first funeral he preached and he told me later, that he did a beautiful job. Went all the way...we had him in Chapman Mortuary down here and then we moved him...I...If I was to have...Ted didn't want me to raise, he didn't think he was going to pass away but I knew when the diagnosis came back..what it was ...I knew it was just a matter of time, 'cause it was in his liver and lungs and uh...and uh...I could have sold those crypts then and moved him..and he would have been here but he didn't...but now I just couldn't make it...the trips back up there. And my grandsons, both of them, are going to buy in this...in this Forest Memorial Park over here. They married Huntington girls. They'll always be coming back here.

J: These are the boys that live in California?

DA: No. My son...

J: That's your son in California?

DA: Yeah uh... Ricky lives in Lexington. He's with Lexin...He's with Ashland Oil. He's a com-puter programmer for Ashland Oil. Jim's in Atlanta, Georgia and he is with American Medical and they'll always be coming back to Huntington and I am gonna help them buy plots down there cause I'm gonna see, of course, you know after uh...we'll both be in the crypt, though. We've inside 'cause Ted didn't want to be put in the ground. I wouldn't put him in the ground for nothing. I brought him down here and uh...course things are...I bought in on the ground floor up there twenty years ago and it didn't...but they paid me...the cemetery bought my crypts back. Paid me every cent I had in them and I thought that was real nice of them (Pause in tape). Now uh...Matewan was a close knit little town. It had its...it had its...it had its differences, I guess. R.W. BUskirk was the richest man there and the Chambers' were too. The Chambers' and R.W. Buskirk had the money. There was other people that was in business, but nothing like they had. And uh... but...they were good to the common people. Common people could go in that bank and get a loan anytime. If you were just, labor, you could get a loan to what you...to what they thought you could pay for, of course , you know they didn't ask for too much, and but... R.W. Buskirk was a friend to the poor. I told you he promised that he'd give my grandmother that house. She rented from him for over thirty years but he...he died. R.W. died and uh...you know, since I've been gone and went to California and come back...I have a sister in Oklahoma, in Okla... We left her house one morning and I said "I'm going to Hot Springs. Tess says "why do you want to go to Hot Springs for?" I says " 'cause I want to go see where R.W. Buskirk took his baths. (Mineral booths at Hot Springs)

J: Uh-hun.

DA: 'Cause we thought he was the grandest person that ever was; and he was...he was a good man. The McCoy's were good people there, too. They were fine people and uh...the McKenseys. I understand most of the McKenseys , now I graduated with Zelpha, too, and she's gone. And uh...but...and Bill... Bill McCoy...Bill and Gwendolyn graduated together and they were sweet-hearts all through high school. It was real...it was but...back then you expected that, and but you know uh...I had to get home and go to work. I did all the cookin' and cleanin' and my mother was a seamstress and my other sisters are seamstresses, but I can't sew a straight seam.

J: Is that right?

DA: I don't...I don't like to sew. I hardly ever done that. But uh...Matewan was a nice little town to be in. I'm....and you know what, I told the mayor of the town (Huntington) the other day that he couldn't take the rubbing from Boone County that I give someone and I said, "well I have to take it from letting people know I'm from Matewan and I can take it, I can dish it out and I can take it." And I can, too. And uh...but uh...see, Bobby Nelson's from Boone County. He's from Madison.

J: Um-hum.

DA: And uh...but not uh...I like Matewan but I wouldn't want to live back there now because my friends are all gone. It'd be...now Fonnie Scott, I might find...all the Shaffers, Rows...all the Shaffer brothers are gone...they...they migrated, I think. And the Bermans. The Bermans came to Huntington but what happened to the Bermans, that had the other store...I don't know. But I did know the Shaffers real real because we traded with them all the time and uh...and Johnny PHil-lips had a nice grocery store. Bateway Hines had a...that was the only two stores that I can re-member ever being in Matewan,at that time. You either bought one or the other and uh...but now, Matewan was a nice little place to live in and we always had a night policeman. We always had a day...had a jail. And 'course they took care of the drunks. THere was very few I imagine. I don't know anything about that, but I know where the jail was.

J: Yeah. Where was the jail?

DA: OVer there back of the station, against the hill, where John Nenni built a house...a home.

J: Was it a wooden building or was it a brick?

DA: No. It was cinder block or some kind of...of...of it was not wood. Is the old ice-house still there in Matewan?

J: Um. I don't know. Which...which house..

DA: As you go back, ask them where their icehouse is.

J: Oh, the ice house.

DA: Ice house. They made their own ice there. We had...we had one drugstore and then Harris married Leah Chambers. They put up a drugstore but I left there right soon after that drugstore went in. That was on down toward where the uh...lower end where all this battle took place but that was a long time after that. I was in high school then.

J: Was this jail standing when Sid Hatfield was the police chief?

DA: Oh yes. Oh yes. Uh-hun. We had a jail. And it was a...I never was over there but I know where it was.

J: And, how about the icehouse, was it there at that time?

DA: Yes. THe icehouse was there, you know, you come up the street and come down some steps to the icehouse, there, then you went on up there and all these stores above it had the concrete steps to go up to it. And you say those steps are still there?

J: Um-hum.

DA: They know...there isn't any way to get up there on it.

J: Yeah. That's it.

DA: Have they got the front street paved yet?

J: Um-hum.

DA: Well, it wasn't paved, that was all dirt in there.

J: Oh. Now wait you mean...

DA: Between the railroad and the....

J: Oh. No...no...that's gravel...that's gravel.

DA: That's gravel. Well that old wooden building's gone out of there, though, isn't it? There's no...John Robinson's meat market. That's where my grandmother took them two boys, now, those two sons of hers and went in there and laid down on the floor when the battle began and she made me go home, 'cause she knew my Aunt Vinnie was at home by herself and she knew I did-n't have any business down there and...

J: So...so your grandmother and her two sons stayed down there in that store?

DA: Right there. They was right down there during all of it, they did... they was inside John Robinson's meat market.

J: Now I've heard stories, particularly in a book that Howard Lee wrote a few years ago that...that night...before the bodies now... the Baldwin-Felts bodies, you said were picked up at about seven o'clock. Now I've heard stories that that night before the train came and picked up the bodies, that people were dancing around, firing weapons and drinking,...

DA: No. That's not so. That's not so. That's a lie. They might have been somewhere hidden and rejoicing or doing something like that. Some of the drunks might, but, I tell you it wasn't...it all scattered. It was very quiet. It was very quiet. It wasn't so.

J: So they didn't have a big party.

DA: No. They didn't. No. That town was patrolled that night. Now, I'm gonna tell you some-thing, you shut that off. I don't want this on there. (tape cut off)

J: I talked to Hiram Phillips yesterday and he told me that he used to sell baby chicks by the hundreds. Did your father...

DA: Yeah. My father has bought them by the hundreds and raised them and he uh...that's the only food...the only meat we had besides hogs. And he killed a couple of hogs in the winter-time, and we had no refrigeration. We had just an ice box, nothin' to freeze it, but on the back porch, he built an enclosed place where it was rat proof and animal proof because the win-dow...the whole side was open, but he had...double rat wire on it and he'd cure those hams and those ribs, what they didn't can and hang in up there and I peeled a many a turkey and tied its feet up the clothes line and cut its head off and let it bleed to death and pick it 'cause Poppy was out a working and my mother was a workin' sewing. I remember Hiram Phillips, real well. I don't know whether he remembers me or not but he'll know my daddy, Fred Webb, and uh... that's uh...we always had plenty to eat and Poppy had a green thumb. He would go in sand bar and raise uh...the biggest uh... green peppers you ever seen. We always had a garden. He always got a spot somewhere and raised a big garden and uh...we always had plenty to eat and he bought things by the barrel and...and...and uh...when we made molasses, he'd buy a barrel of molasses. They didn't through the winter because of too many to feed uh...and uh...yes, I remember most all of the older merchants in Matewan uh...you see, I didn't leave there until '28. July in '28 and I came back, then, in '42 and stayed eighteen months...I mean I stayed at Majestic and I was in and out of Matewan. Now, Frank Leckie and his uh...and his nephew...and he married Edith Boothe. The boy...the...the young Leckie married Edith Boothe. They remembered me, but they couldn't remember my name. I went back and took my coat off and set down in the boothe and ordered my lunch and George come back and he said, "now, we know we know you, but we don't know your name" and I said "well, now you ought to know me. I come from a big family and we was in here and out of this drugstore everyday of the world" and he still couldn't remem-ber...and when I told him who I was, everybody come in. They'd say, "that's Dixie Webb back there" and they'd come...course everybody in Matewan calls me Dix. They don't call me Dixie, but uh...I have an awful temper and so did my brothers. Lot of people might think that...but I still have an awful temper. That's one thing that I still have but I think I need that to protect my-self 'cause I don't take...maybe I don't have patience but I think I have plenty. My son said I don't have any patience but I think I've had plenty with him. (Laughing) And uh...but I had...I have two nice grandsons that are just like my children. Now, my sons, I wouldn't turn my hands over but my granddaughter is a beautician and she's not...she is not...I wanted her to be petite and..and cuddly...like a girl, 'cause I come from a family of girls...but she's rough as pig iron ...she can play football with these boys, she always did.

J: Did the girls in your family participate in the hog killing, also?

DA: Oh, no. My daddy always did that away from home.

J: Is that something that was pretty strictly much a man's job?

DA: Men's job. In men's work...men's work. Not with my grandmother. She saved everything from a hog even made salve out of the hair. No...my grandmother overseen everything in her home and when she put...the boys put the water on to boil of a mornings...heat under the fire...and she went to the store... we...those two young boys had to have their clothes washed through the first water on the board when she got back or they'd...

J: She had it all timed, Huh?

DA: And I had to make the starch, and out of flour and I hated it and I said if I ever got mar-ried, I'd buy Argo starch or they wouldn't be no starch in my house.

J: How did you make starch?

DA: Well you pour your water and have it, starts to simmer and then you thicken it with flour and then you have to run it through a sift to get the gra...to get the lumps out of it. And I had a red calico dress that she made me wear every wash day, and I hated it (Laughing) I was raised strict now, don't you think I wasn't. But I was raised good and I appreciate it now.

J: Tell me, we mentioned ...you mentioned this off tape, I'd like to get this recorded. Tell me about the deliveries from Hartman's, that came to your grandmother's house.

DA: Oh, my grandmother ordered all her furniture from Hartman's. It was uh...it was uh...uh...furniture store, by mail, you know. And they'd send it in by the local and I know that...I know that her stove and uh...and living room suit and bed things...now, these bedskirts is nothing new to me and cafe-curtains...my grandmother took bleach and made cafe-curtains and hung them up and we had curtains around the bed. They call them bedskirts now. Now she made them and fixed them when I was a girl and I was raised...and I was raised in there and in bed...a brass bed...a half bed and it was beautiful. Brass beds are nothin' new to me. She had...I slept in a room with her. She had a full size bed and I had a half-bed but all of her beds were brass and she...we lived...we had...we had a good comfortable home and then in wintertime, uh... we had matting on the floor to keep it warm you see but in the summertime, we took that matting up and rolled it up and put it away and scrubbed the floor.

J: Un-hun.

DA: It was cooler.

J: But the train would stop right outside your house...

DA: Right outside my house....right in front of my grandmother's door and bring it? The truck was right there and here was the road and her house was right there and carry it in and put it in the house for her.

J: Now, would this be a passenger, combination passenger and freight train?

DA: No. Hit was just local. It delivered uh...uh...freight.

J: Oh. I see.

DA: Freight. It was a...drove real slow. It never got...it never..see, in between the stops, it wouldn't get up very fast it would have to stop again, but now they uh...my grandmother was going to catch fifteen going west to Williamson or somewhere to Louisa, and she didn't get there in time and it passed her, she waved at the engineer and he waved, but he'd wait 'til she got down there and got on it, but she was always late. There's too many things to take care of before she left home. Had me right behind her. See, we'd go to Fort Gay on the train and cross...walk over the bridge and get on B & O and go up to Van Lear and I want you to know that I've been to Butcher Holler where Loretta Lynn lived. I've been to Butcher Holler years ago...years ago. Its in...south of Van Lear.

J: I want to be sure. You might have told me already, but I want to be sure to get your grand-mother's full name and maiden name.

DA: Oh. Bell Compton Webb. She was a Compton.

J: Is that C.U.M.P.?

DA: C.O.M.P.

J: C.O.M.P.

DA: C.O.M.P.T.O.M. She was a Compton. She was a Louisianan Cajun French.

J: How did her family get to Matewan? Or to the Tug Valley.

DA: Well, now this is the...story of it. My grandfather Marion Webb was from...

DA: Uh..my grandfather...Marion Webb, died in 1900. I had one uncle be born uh...in 1901, af-ter he died. He left her with ten children now, he was a logger on the Labossa River and he took pneumonia and died in 1900 and my grandmother uh..raised those ten children by herself. Of course, the older ones were old enough to do work, to help out, and she lived in Dunlow and uh...'course, people was good to her and they helped her and she lost two children. One got killed with a train, Taylor did, and uh...I can't think of the other one that drowned. Taylor drowned and I can't think of the other one's name. They were the two oldest boys, that got killed with the train. Trying to get home... My grandmother got on a mule and rode to where he was and got him. They lived... these pioneer women lived a tough...hard life. They had to be... hard and uh...and then my grandmother got to...she had four girls and six boys. And uh...she got to goin' with these transportation, after the girls got big enough to travel with her and cook for these transportation..they go somewhere to do a job and she'd go and do the cooking and the cleaning and the boys would get, maybe, fifty cents a day for their work, you see. (transportation men were contract laborers, sometimes scabs)

J: Now, what were the, who were the trans...

DA: The transportation was labor. People'd come in there and get they called them "transporta-tion" there, and she first migrated into Ohio and that's how come...into West Virginia...they came to Chattaroy and to Howard Colleries and she ran a boarding house there with her girls for years and that's how come her to be in Matewan, because then the boys got old enough to get jobs in the mines and they got a house and put my grandmother...their mother in it.

J: And that was Mr. Buskirk's house?

DA: That was Mr. Buskirk's house. She lived in that house thirty years.

J: Now the Levisa River, where her husband...

DA: Levisa.

J: Levisa...was that down in Louisianan, there?

DA: No...no... That was over in Kentucky. That, Levisa joins the Big Sandy and runs into the Ohio at Fort Gay.

J: Is that L.E.V.I.S.A?

DA: L.E.V.I.S.A. Levisa. And my grandfather worked and he died in 1900. You know he was-n't but forty-five years old.

J: Did she ever take boarders at her house in Matewan?

DA: Yes...yes...yes...yes...right there in that big eight room house. She kept boarders and she laid the law down to them and she was the boss and I can...I wasn't allowed to get up of a morning 'til the boarders left.

J: Laborers?

DA: Laborers, every one, laborers, miners. That's all they're was around there.

J: Do you recall any immigrant laborers staying there or was it mostly local ....

DA: Pack peddlers out of Williamson.

J: What are those?

DA: That's the men like uh...you know, the uh...furniture store's down here now, what is it? First furniture I ever bought came from that, from Williamson. They were pack peddlers. See they get their pack on their shoulders and go from...walk and go from place to place and they could stay at my grandmother's house all night and eat breakfast the next morning for a dollar. And many of them, many of them stayed there. But they had their own place...to...to sit until they went to bed, 'cause our living quarters were to one side and there was the other...and that's how she made a living by keeping boarders and..of course she always had two sons in the house and they stayed upstairs and uh...I'm trying to think of...of this furniture store in Williamson. It's still there and they have a branch right down here in Huntington uh..that they were pack peddlers before they, B & L Furniture. I Beinhorn and...Beinhorn and Lovitch I knew I'd remember it. Beinhorn and Lovitch. B & L...They got it...their grandson...Phil's not even in it...uh Beinhorn. Now they opened up in Williamson, I guess, in the early twenties and I don't know what they sold, bed-spreads, you know and uh...you'd buy sheets and pillow cases and bedspreads and uh...the sheeting by the yard and that's why I told you my grandmother made all of her stuff and uh...now....old man Beinhorn and old man Lovitch would stay, maybe once a month and they's sell my grandmother, maybe, five dollars worth of stuff and she'd pay a dollar down and next time they come she'd paid another dollar. You know, they paid it as they could. But that was...that's how Beinhorn and Lovitch made their living and then they opened up this beautiful furniture store in Williamson.

J: And they walked in?

DA: They walked with that pack on their back. That's the reason they called them pack peddlers. Now, the younger generation don't know about them... see, I uh...I do. And when I talk to my insurance man, down here, and then when I went down, he said "Miss Accord I can't believe you're as old as you are uh...talked to you on the telephone." I said "well I got a birth certificate to prove it" and uh...but you know, like I say, uh...you are just as old as you feel, and I don't feel a bit old and I square danced a many and a many a night all night long with my daddy and my mother, too. My Daddy was a caller. He always called square dances for the Matewan fair as long as he was able. Poppy was a good square dancer. And uh...

J: Where were the fairgrounds? Or did it move around from place to place?

DA: It was up...it was in, in Matewan, in Magnolia up above the uh...I tell you...up above the Matewan city limits like you're going toward Red Jacket, 'course Red Jacket doesn't look like it used to. Red Jacket, they had a place in Red Jacket had a lot of families in there. Not many col-ored people, but they had alot of good ones. Had a lot of good ones. They could be trusted and they were good. R.W. Buskirk had the best bunch around him that I ever knew in my life, but they were good to 'em and they took care of 'em. That's one thing about him. He was a good man and uh...don't make many men like R.W. Buskirk was. They don't make them any more.

J: Who played the music at the uh...square dances?

DA: I don't know. Oh, well different people...different people. Always tried to dance with the caller, 'cause he led out, you know. You always got to dance every dance and uh...I danced...I danced a many a night.

J: And your grandmother went to these?

DA: No. My mother and my daddy.

J: Your mother. Okay. (Laughing) She was a Baptist? (the grandmother)

DA: She was a hardshell. She was the one that washed feet. I've seen her wash feet a many a times.

J: Now tell me, what is a hardshell Baptist?

DA: Well, they don't...they have a strict...you're either good or you're bad. There's no in between. And my grandmother...you either was a good person, or you was a bad person. Now they didn't allow for nothing, and you was churched over nothing. I've seen them meet a many and many a Sunday at her home and...and church people and put them out of the church for something...

J: Now what does that do when you church somebody, you...

DA: Well, you put them out of the church.

J: Have like a little hearing?

DA: Yeah. And you uh...dispossess'em from the church. They're not a member of your church any more.

J: And they used to have these meetings at your grandma's house?

DA: Yeah. Oh, yes. She was a great...she was I know and uh... they...those preachers would eat up everybody's food and there wouldn't be nothing left for us. And my uncles got so that they got wise to it and they said "now you feed Dix and these two young boys here and you keep the rest of it." 'Cause they was buying the food.

J: When the boarders came in, did she more or less lay down the law to them...

DA: Oh, sure.

J: Before she'd let them in?

DA: Yes. You..."this is the house rules and you'll abide by them. There's no drinking, there's no cursing, the lights have to be out by such and such a time and when I call for a meal, I expect you to be here and I don't serve any meals after that time." Oh, I can remember...we had a coffee grinder, you know I want...I don't know who..why I didn't get the coffee grinder that stayed on the wall. I don't know what happened to it.

J: Um-hum.

DA: They'd grind that coffee every morning. 'Course she had two young daughters helping her you know. My Aunt Dovie and my Aunt Vinnie and but I wasn't allowed out of the bed until the house cleared, but I could go if my uncles first did.

J: Now, why was that? 'Cause you were the....

DA: Well I was young...and...

J: The youngest.

DA: ...This was all men and I had no business in there.

J: uh-hum.

DA: I just didn't...well, there was a fireplace in every room. They was a nice fire in our bedroom and I could get up and stay in there, but that's the only place I could. And I was so hungry and uh...

J: But then after they left did you need to help clean up or anything?

DA: Well, yes I had to make my own bed. I learned to make my bed and I do that now. I never go to bed and leave a mess. Listen to that! (She's referring to the expression "leave a mess")

J: You get that from your grandma.

DA: Yeah. And listen to that Appalachian, "leave a mess." (Laughter). You know mess could be anything and and you know, my grandmother always said, "what if something happened during the night and you'd have to call a doctor or if you had to run out." She always seen we had de-cent, nice clothes and they were clean, and I'm the same way.

J: Who was your doctor?

DA: Doctor Sorrell and Doctor Goings in Matewan, you might mention that.

J: Goings. G.O.I.N.S?

DA: G.O.I.N.S. Goings....uh...I.N.G. G.O.I.N.G.

J: Goings?

DA: Dr. Goings. They had a little hospital there.

J: And Sorrell?

DA: And Sorrell. S.O.R.R.E. double l.

J: They had a hospital in Matewan?

DA: They had a little hospital when I was about ten years old. I can remember it in Matewan.

J: Where was that?

DA: On the riverbank back in Matewan. Dr. Sorrell had a little hospital there. They was goin' to take my tonsils...I used to have tonsillitis so had...They was going to take my tonsils out and my grandmother said "no way are you...Uh...I never had them out and they never bothered me anymore, either.

J: Was this like a little one room...

DA: Oh, it was pretty nice. I can remember seeing it. They were surgeons but they made office calls...they made house calls. That's the first car I ever seen in my life that those two doctors drove.

J: Doctors?

DA: I never was in a car until I was about twelve years old. I wasn't allowed in a car, and it was my uncle's. He bought a Ford.

J: Did they treat the people who were wounded at the massacre?

DA: I don't...they wasn't at that time.

J: They weren't there yet?

DA: It was Dr. Miller. Oh, that was before the massacre. Dr. Miller was the doctor and uh... Dr. Hodge were the doctors in Matewan. Dr. Hodge had a clinic there then. A little clinic on down the street where Dr. Smith...and it was Dr. Miller, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Hodge.

J: So uh... Sorrell and Goings were there before the massacre?

DA: Early and I was...oh, yes...early. I just barely can remember the first car I ever seen in my life and they had it.I think that was...I can remember that car and really I was afraid of it.

J: Um-hum.

DA: And my grandmother, I went...anywhere she went, I went. She never left me at the house with my uncles, nor the boarders. I went with her. Course, it was a pretty good idea that I go with her, and then my aunt soon married, the ones that I told you, but then she lost her husband and she was back home when this massacre came. It was the same aunt. Now they seem more like my mother than really my mother did, 'cause they raised me and they was good to me.

J: Was this Aunt Dova?

DA: My Aunt Dovie and she's dead now and my Aunt Vinnie...my Aunt Vinnie died in, she's been dead fifteen years. She died in Williamson and my Aunt Dovie died in Columbus. I had plenty of nieces and nephews but I hardly know who any of them are and uh...(tape cuts off)

DA: Now they...they established...is it on? They...the Burg...you take the three Burgraff brothers, and my daddy, and Charlie Kiser, and those men and the Chambers boys and Sid Hat-field and those... they laid the groundwork for the union and they fought for it and they estab-lished it, and in the twenties, and people have never forgotten it. And it will never die out be-cause people...they won't let it, because it...freedom from ...I would say it's freedom from fear, and freedom from starvation, because that song that was written, "I can't go right now because I owe my soul to the grocery store," now that's the truth. If you drew twenty dollars a payday, they wanted to know why you didn't draw more scrip. Now the company stores wanted every cent you made, and those boys really established the groundwork of a firm union and the people are living off of it today. And if it hadn't been established in Logan and Mingo county it a...it would have never survived.

J: Did the downtown stores, say for instance, Chambers' Hardware, even though I know they weren't company owned...

DA: No, privately owned.

J: But would they...did they trade in scrip as well as cash?

DA: No...no...no...Only the grocery stores...only the commissaries had scrip and you know I did-n't say, even after I went to Loreda in forty-two, they had script, but I...I did not...I had a charge. I charged over to McCuskey, they called it the McCuskey system and they took it over the payroll. I didn't draw scrip. But I should have saved some of that scrip and they uh...now I...when I lived at Ethel, I lived at Ethel ten years and if my husband drew twenty five-dollars every two weeks, they wanted to know why he didn't spend more with the company. Now, they were slaves and they (the companies) bought up the land. Island Creek Coal Company bought up land that belonged to my husband's people, and cheated them out of it, 'cause I saw the deeds and they disappeared, now I don't know who took the deeds. Is was some...it was some of the people ... some of the Ted's people had to because Island Creek didn't come into your home and get it. They was taken for that. And I know they got it. Now, Trace Fork and Pigeon Creek, my husband's people owned all of that and uh...they let a fortune slip through their fingers and don't...don't need to talk about today's people being crooked, it's been like that ever since there's been a world and uh...but now...the grocery store...we never did...when, I only lived in two coal camps, well, I only lived eighteen months at Majestic, whether I wanted to or not, I had to. But I lived at Ethel and I lived at Loredo, but not nicer people in the world at Loredo than French Workman and his family now...It eased up, you had good union then, you know.

J: Now, was French Workman he...

DA: No.. The superintendent. Uh-huh. It was owned by the Johnsons out of Columbus and they were very nice people.

J: This was later during World War II?

DA: Yes...yes...yes. We moved there in forty-two and stayed 'til fifty-eight.

J: So after the groundwork that was laid by Charlie Kiser...

DA: Oh, that. All those young...all those men back there...when this battle took place in Mate-wan, that laid the groundwork for your union, now, that laid it and it made a foundation for them to build on and they've never forgotten it and I haven't forgot it either. 'Cause I'm drawing three checks from my husband from UMW, but I wouldn't have if he hadn't been...if he hadn't been UMW and I'll draw it as long as I stay single and that's what I expect to do and uh...they been good to me and I have free hospital...I have my hospital card and I don't expect...they never turned me down for nothing. My hospital bill was two-thousand, two-hundred, a hundred and ninety-eight and seventeen cents. I paid twelve dollars of it. Now you can't...now that is, but I told them...they wanted me to go in as an outpatient. I said "no. I live by myself and I can not go home tonight. Not knowing what...the results of this will be. If UMW, my insurance does not want to pay for it and my Medicare, as old as I am, I'll pay for it. Some way, I'll pay for it" and they said, "Well, she's too old to stay by herself. We'll pay for it." I paid twelve dollars and I had a private room for one night and a half a day, and a day and a half and I was, they kept...all my records is sent there.

J: So the union paid for...

DA: Oh, they paid for it. They paid that and I got a bill that was uh...what I owed on the private room. Twelve dollars. I thought that was pretty nice. (tape cuts off)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection