Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Rosa Wolford Interview

BECKY BAILEY: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center. Friday, August 3, 1990. I'm in the home of Mrs. Rosa Wolford, the mother of Jimmy Wolford in Kentucky. Um...Mrs. Wolford, for the record, would you state your full given name.

ROSA WOLFORD: Rosa Belle McCoy Wolford.

B: And when were you born?

RW: 1910. April, 1910.

B: What were your parents names?

RW: My father's name was James McCoy. My mother's name was Vergie Jude McCoy.

B: And where were they from?

RW: Well uh...my father was raised here at Burnwell. They used to call it Stringtown. That's where he was born. And so uh...his mother died when he was one year old and his father married again.

B: How many brothers and sisters did he have?

RW: He just had one whole sister and he had several half brothers and sisters. I wouldn't just exactly know let's see, if you want me to give you their names if you've got that much time. One is named Dewey McCoy, Noah McCoy, Abe McCoy, John McCoy, Docky McCoy. That's the brothers. The sisters is named Maudie McCoy, Linda McCoy, Ollie McCoy. That was his half sisters and half brothers.

B: Okay. Now, how did um...do you know why his mother died? Did he ever tell you?

RW: She had pneumonia.

B: Now, what was your father's father's name?

RW: Uriah McCoy.

B: And how was he related to Randall McCoy?

RW: Randall McCoy was his uncle.

B: So Randall's brother was Uriah McCoy's father?

RW: Randall McCoy's brother was Uriah McCoy, Randall McCoy is my father's, my father was Randall McCoy's nephew. I'll give you that much.

B: Okay. And uh...did...did you ever hear stories about Randall McCoy when you were growing up?

RW: No. Not when I was growin' up. By my, people would never talk too much about them, my uh...great uncles done more talking than my father because my father, he didn't know too much, you know.

B; What did you hear from your great uncles about him?

RW: Well, all I can say that uh...they uh...they were both sides were hard-working people. The Hatfields and the McCoys and uh...so uh...they got into a, the Feud, they say over a hog. Now uh...I don't know that, that I've heard another story so I don't know whether that's true or not, but they say over a hog. And uh...so uh...my great uncle told me this, his name was Mitchell McCoy.

B: Okay. Did people in your family, did they talk about it much when you were growing up?

RW: Not when I was growing up.

B: Do you know why?

RW: We, uh...I do know why. My father and mother was religious people and they always wanted the past to be behind. That's all I can tell you about them. They didn't want to hear about the...

B: What religion did they belong to?

RW: Baptist.

B: Was it any particular kind like Freewill or Missionary?

RW: Uh...they belonged to the Primitive Baptist.

B: Were your mother's people from this area?

RW: No. They wasn't from this area. My mother was uh...mostly raised at Matewan, West Virginia and her father was raised on Wolfcreek, Kentucky.

B: What um...go ahead.

RW: And her mother was raised uh...in Kentucky also but farther on up the river and she was a full blooded Cherokee.

B: What were your mother's parents names?

RW: My mother's parents names was Polly Blankenship Mullins and his name was Elijah Mullins. They...they came from North Carolina from the Indian tribe.

B: So your grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee?

RW: Cherokee.

B: What did your mother tell you about her parents?

RW: Well, she had, we know about her parents uh... her father, her mother rather died at our house when she passed on to be with the Lord. She died at our house and uh...she was just a good, old religious woman and she taught you how to uh...prepare a lot of Indian food. And uh,,..my grandfather, uh...the Jude that she married, he was a great hunter. He loved to hunt and he was also was a tree man or logs, ever what you call them. They can cut the timber you know and would make rafts and take them down to Louisa, Kentucky. Catlettsburg.

B: What kind of Indian food did uh...she teach you all to cook.

RW: Mostly, mostly stuff that was made with corn, now you, a lot of people will roll their uh...chicken after they slice their chicken, they roll it in flour and fry it, but she always had her some corn meal to put in with the flour.

B: What did she look like? Do you know?

RW: She was six foot tall, she had long black hair and parted it in the middle. She had brown eyes. High cheekbones and dark skin.

B: Did she wear her hair down?

RW: She wore her hair twisted up in a twist and sometimes she would wear it down occasionally.

B: Okay. Now, your mother's father, was his last name Mullins or Jude?

RW: Jude. Jude. Un-hun.

B: Alright. How come your mother to be raised in Matewan?

RW: Well, her father and mother was raised not too far from Matewan and then uh...as the mines begin to build and the railroad begin to come in, then when people tried to find work you know, work back then, I've heard them talk. I was too young to remember all of that stuff. But they begin to build the railroads and they begin then to uh...cut timber and then begin to build houses and company stores. Then after they got their railroad all fixed, we had a lot of trains to run and so they would go from place to place where they could find the best work.

B: So, was your grandfather, did he, he work in the logging business?

RW: Yeah. Logging business. Un-hun.

B: Did he ever work in the coal mines?

RW: No. He didn't work in the coal mines. My father was a coal miner though for fifty-three years.

B: Was there a reason why your grandfather didn't want to work in the coal mines?

RW: Well, he just was a good, come natural to him uh...workin' in the timber and stuff like that the way that he was raised you know. And so I guess he thought that that would be the best way for him to go.

B: Do you know who he worked for?

RW: No. But there was several that worked, you know, with him. Several men. Lots of men. They'd be crowds of men.

B: I've had uh...ladies tell me that when they cut the timber, they floated it down the stream.

RW: Yeah. That's what I said. Made the raft. They made the raft and took it down the river, is what I told you while ago. Down to Catlettsburg, Kentucky and they put it then on a bigger raft to go on out where they could have a wood to build, big cities. That's the reason big cities is made out of wood from back here in the mountains. Where the level country was, there was no timber. Tall timber.

B: Um...what did your...your grandparents ever tell you about what Matewan looked like.

RW: Well, uh...it wasn't very...very much. They were a mines, uh...Daddy what was the mines that my...uh...my daddy worked in up there. Up Matewan. Stoney Mountain. Stoney Mountain. My father worked at Stoney Mountain mines in Matewan. And they were uh...before him and my mother were married, she was what they call a chambermaid. Now, you wouldn't know what a chambermaid was. Now they call them, you know, the girls that works in a motel that cleans up the beds and things. But back then, they called them chamber maids. My mother, she was a chambermaid and she worked for Bob Buskirk at his uh...hotel and that's where my father met her.

B: Did she ever tell you about her work there? What she did?

RW: Well, it was hard work because they didn't have no uh...bathrooms in the rooms, okay. They had what they call chamber (pots) and so you had to take care of that, you understand. (husband - they did that and made beds too.) Yeah. They made beds too.

B: Did uh...did she ever tell you what Bob Buskirk was like?

RW: Well, he had a saloon and that's the work, kind of work that he did,as far as I know. I don't know whether he did any other kind of work or not.

B: Did she ever talk about what he looked like or what he acted like?

RW: He was a big, I heard her say that he was a large man. That's all I know.

B: Did she ever tell you how much she got paid for that kind of work?

RW: Let's see, no I don't believe she ever did.

B: Okay. How old were your parents when...when they met?

RW: I don't know how old they were when they met but I do know how old they were when they married. My Mother was eighteen and my Daddy was twenty-one.

B: And when did they get married?

RW: Well, I'd have to count that back, cause my Daddy's been dead four year and he was a hundred year old when he died so I'd have to count back.

B: 1907.

RW: 1907.

B: Okay. Did they ever tell you what Matewan itself, down in the town looked like?

RW: It was just a one way street. Just a one way street and uh...they was a few little stores around and then when the mines come in there, on up toward Red Jacket, they had a big store they call the company store where the miners would go and get their food.

B: Did your mother ever tell you what the inside of the Urias Hotel looked like? Did she ever talk about it?

RW: You mean the...the, Bob Buskirk's hotel? Well, all I know, that part of it is standing there today. And I never, she never did say anything about the inside. But part of the old hotel stands today on the right hand side as you go up the street. And I, right up over it, it tells you Bob Buskirk's Hotel. That's where my mother worked. If they wanted to take a picture, that would be something.

B: Did um...did your parents ever talk about how people got in and out of Matewan before the railroad..?

RW: Well, they mostly, horseback and wagon back then. And they'd cross the river from the West Virginia side over on the Kentucky side, they went by boat. Then whenever the trains began, they got the trains all started then we'd have plenty of trains to ride. They could go anywhere they wanted to. I had a great uh...uncle that went out west in the gold rush days. His name was Sam McCoy.

B: Did you know him?

RW: No, I did not know him. I wish I had.

B: I talked to his grandson, Orville, and he said a lot of McCoys went west.

RW: Yeah. There were a lot of them went west.

B: Do you know why or anything about it?

RW: Gold...gold and silver...copper...I've been in gold mines and I've been in silver mines and I've saw the copper mines but I haven't been in it but I've been in the gold mines. I've even uh...my husband and I have a son that lives in California and my husband and I, we h...we uh...sifted gold in some places and we got a little bit.

B: Um. Okay. Let's see. How many children did your parents have?

RW: They raised eleven and they had fourteen. And I don't believe you asked me what my great grandfather's name was. Pierce McCoy.

B: Okay. How far back do you know your family.

RW: Back to my great grandpa and my great grandmother.

B: Your great grandmother's name was?

RW: Melinda Hunt McCoy. Now do you want the name of my great, great, I mean, my great uncle and my great.(aunt)

B: Yes, ma'am. Whatever you know about your family.

RW: Well, since your on that, I'll give them to you.

B: Okay.

RW; I told you my mother raised eleven children and had fourteen. Okay. I'm the oldest one living. I'm eighty year old and my great grandfather and great grandmother, I'll tell you their children's names now. Since I've told you their names. They had one girl named Martha, Francis, Elizabeth, Pricey. Their sons were named uh...Mitchell, Compton, I have to kind of think. (tape cuts off) Les McCoy. That's all they had.

B: Okay. That's seven children.

RW: My great grandfather died when he was not too old. And my great grandmother, she raised the children.

B: How did he die?

RW: I don't know what he died with. I never did hear no one say.

B: Okay. Now, you had um...three siblings that died. Do you know why they died? Did you...did your mom ever talk about it?

RW: Yes. One died with spinal meningitis, the oldest one.

B: Okay.

RW: The other two died with pneumonia. Back then, children died with stuff like disease like that.

B: Okay.

RW: They didn't have the medicines and the doctors and the hospitals like they've got today.

B: Un-hun. Okay. You wouldn't know what years they died in would you?

RW: No, but if my oldest brother had of lived, he would have been uh...let's see, I'm eighty, he would have been eighty' three year old.

B: Okay.

RW: And his name was Sherman.

B: Do you know how old he was when he died?

RW: Ten months old.

B: Okay.

RW: I had one little sister to die. She was three weeks old. One died thirteen days old. They had pneumonia.

B: They weren't twins were they?

RW: No, but one was...belonged to a twin but the other little boy, he lived.

B: Okay. Do you remember World War I?

RW: Yes, I remember World War I. I remember when my daddy got his call. And the reason that he didn't go in World War I, back then they needed the, they needed the machine men to cut coal. They don't have, didn't have the machinery as they've got today. They call them miners today, in the mines, they call, they cut the coal. But back when my daddy cut coal, they was machines and my daddy was a...cut coal in the mines and they kept him here to supply coal for the country. So he didn't have to go in the World War I.

B: Okay. Um...I have to back track a minute and ask you, were you born at home?

RW: Yes. I was born at home. All of my mother's children was borned at home.

B: With a doctor or...

RW: No, with a midwife.

B: Okay. Do you know anything about those mid...the midwives?

RW: The midwife, I've heard my grandmother talk about them. How many hundreds that she had bivthed [sic] before she died. And I mean hundreds. She lived 'til she was eighty-nine.

B: What um...so did your grandmother help your mother deliver her children?

RW: Yes. She helped deliver her children.

B: Okay. What did she call it? When she helped deliver a baby.

RW: Well, she just, she called herself a mid-wife.

B: Okay.

RW: And she said there wasn't nothing to it. So, That's it.

B: I've heard someone that said they call it catchin' the baby.

RW: Catchin' a baby. I guess so. I guess that's what they called it.

B: Okay. Did she have any old fashion beliefs about that...that process?

RW: Well, uh...she didn't have, they wasn't no other way hardly out, back in them days and by her being an Indian and from a tribe, that's the, their belief and that's the way they did.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Did she do anything special?

RW: Nothing special. She always uh...she would always have everything sterilized. Plenty of hot water. Plenty of, everything had to be clean and spotless clean when she birthed the baby.

B: Okay. What about things like uh...my great grandmother didn't believe in taking a baby out until it was certain old, you know, because of its' eyes and things like that.

RW: Oh, yeah. You had to put drops in their eyes. Eye drops.

B: How long did your Mom stay in bed when she had...

RW; Oh, they...they thought you, back then, they thought you had to stay in bed nine and ten days. Now they get you up the next day.

B: What kind of house did you have when you were growin' up?

RW: When I was a growin' up, my house when I was a growin' up I lived in a coal camp in a real nice house. A big house because my daddy, he was a pretty big shot in the mines. We had uh...we always had plenty. We had electric and we had runnin' water and uh...we had anywhere from five to six rooms in the houses that we lived in. In the minin' camps, cause they always would give my Daddy just about the best there was to give him. Because he was a hard worker and he made big money for the mines which they were a lot of people that couldn't have done what he could do. And so then after that, my Daddy then bought a little farm over here. Up on the hill. It belonged to my great grandfather. Okay. And uh...we had seven rooms and he drilled a well. We had runnin' water and at the time, we didn't have electricity built through here but we had oil lamps and carbide lamps and candles so.

B: Did you all make your candles or...

RW: No, we didn't make our candles. We just bought them by the gross.

B: Okay. Was your father workin' for uh...the Stoney Mountain Coal Company when that problem, the shoot out and stuff happened down in Matewan?

RW: Uh...partly, un-hun. Partly he did. And then he come on back down into uh...Merrimac, West Virginia. And then uh...he, we worked in several mines. He's worked for Ford Coal Company. That was the biggest mines there were. Ford Coal Company. The one that makes automobiles and everything.

B: Um. Was um...was your father, did he believe in the union or.

RW: Union. Yes. They were union. Full-blooded. Strong union man.

B: Okay. So were you all livin' in Matewan when the Massacre happened?

RW: No, I wasn't. I wasn't old enough. I wasn't that old. No. I didn't know nothing about it you know, that was before my time. You know, they...they knew a little bit about it but not me.

B: Cause you would have been about ten when it happened.

RW: No, I wouldn't been ten years old when it happened (tape cuts off) McCoys uh...everyone knew my daddy and everybody from uh...all over Tug River knew my daddy cause they knew what he was. He was a machine man and they would try to get him from one coal company, another coal company would try to persuade him to go to their's because they knew what kind of a worker he was.

B: Un-hun. Okay. So not many people back then knew how to run the machines?

RW: No. No. Hun-un.

B: Where did you start school when you were growin' up?

RW: Merrimac, West Virginia.

B: What was your school like?

RW: We had a right nice school. We had uh...uh...it was a made out of wood but it was nice wood uh...you know, uh...like lumber today. And uh...we had a big long hall. We had three big rooms and we had a nice school when I started to school. And we, I went to school there until I was in fourth or fifth grade before we started moving over here. (tape cuts off)

B: How long did you go to school?

RW: I went to school down here 'til I was in the seventh grade, that's in Burnwell. Til I was in the seventh grade, there was no high school here then, then we had to go to high school at Belfry, Kentucky.

B: Did you finish high school?

RW: No. I didn't, I lacked two years a finishing high school. But I had a good education cause I was smart in school.

B: What do you remember about going to school? What subjects did you like?

RW: I love geography and history better than any subjects and I still today love geography and history.

B: Do you remember any of your special teacher's that you got along with really well?

RW: I don't got, let's see. Mr. Green, he was a good teacher, and uh...Rose G. Smith was a good teacher, and Wort Burian was one of my, a good teacher. He really liked me because I love geography and all of that.

B: Do you remember how to spell his name?

RW: I guess Wirt, W, I guess W, O, R, T., or W, O, R, A, T. I guess.

B: Okay.

RW: Burian. I don't know how, B, U, R, I, A, N. Burian.

B: Okay.

RW: Just figure it out the best you can.

B: Okay.

RW: I had some good teachers though. I've forgotten all their names.

B: Were they from...

RW: Anderson, one was named Anderson. Her name was Greek. Greek Anderson. She was a good teacher.

B: Were they from around here, your teachers?

RW: Uh...they had to live around here. They'd go from place to place. Maybe they'd teach two or three years at one place then go to another place.

B: What kind of games did you play when you were growin' up?

RW: Well, mostly ball. I, now, I was just a real old tom boy, to tell you the truth about it. I loved to play ball and I loved to play horseshoes. And in my little days, young days, when I started school, we'd play ring around the rosey and...and things like that. London's bridges all fall down and fell down and so on and so forth. But this, you know, as you grew older you done older things and then we'd have on Fridays, uh...I think this would be a good subject, on Fridays, we'd have what you call a spelling match every Friday and I was a real good speller. I'm bragging now a little bit on myself. But uh...they'd always put me in the bunch with the larger kids, the older kids too because I could spell real good.

B: Did you get a prize if you won?

RW: We got the little card that would have maybe picture of, like a picture of Jesus on it or a picture of a cross or a little angel or something like that. They'd have little stacks of cards and you'd get a little card, a little, maybe three by four or something but that was a lot for us you know.

B: Okay. What kind of uh...food did you all eat for lunch? Did you go home for lunch?

RW: No. Didn't go home for, now when I first started in school, we got to go home for lunch cause we lived in, mine...the mining town. But when we moved to uh...over here to my great grandmas's old home place, we uh...mamma would, we, she'd make her own light bread, as I told you, she was a full blooded Indian, you know. She'd make her own light bread. We would uh...fry apples, put between our light bread and make jelly and we made our apple butter in a big old thirty-two gallon copper kettle.

B: Did you have to cook outside with it?

RW: Yeah. We had to cook our apple butter outside and make it. Make things for the winter that was comin' on. We had...we had good food. We had real good food.

B: What kind of uh...did you all grow crops and...

RW: Yeah. We growed crops. Plenty of corn, hay, and...and uh...beans and cabbage. And then we, of the fall of the year when the cabbage got ripe enough to cut the heads off, then daddy, he would dig a big hole and fill it full of hay and stuff and put it down in there and we'd have fresh cabbage in the winter time. We uh...we'd take thirty gallon, big thirty gallon barrels and thirty gallon stone crocks and make uh...pickled beans and pickled corn, pickled kraut, pickled tomatoes. We'd fix all kinds of food for the winter. We'd make our own molasses.

B: How did you do that?

RW: Well, you uh...you would push your molasses stalks in a big thing and a mule would pull it around and around and the juice would come out in a great big uh...fan, labeled. (husband - Cane Mills) Cain Mills and you, they would stir it. (husband -squeeze the juice out and boil the juice down and make molasses)

B: Okay.

RW: We done that and then uh...we dried a lot of beans. We'd take thread and a needle and dry a lot of beans and have dried beans for the winter. But still, my daddy worked in the mines. He was still a miner. And he made good money.

B: So you all didn't have to buy much at the company store?

RW: No, we didn't have to. He let, always let his money get green. Put it the bank. But he was a good deliverer, he was a good provider and we never done without. We always had good clothes to wear and uh...when he'd go to get our shoes, uh...he would always get two pair. One, uh..we'd call them our Sunday shoes, our other's was our school shoes. So, we had...we had good clothes to wear and my husband knows that we did.

B: So did he...did they buy you all's clothes or did your mother make them?

RW: Uh...she made some of the dresses and gowns and things like that but we bought a whole lot. We used to buy clothes uh...up at Schaffers' Department Store at Matewan, West Virginia. We used to, when Luther and I got married, my husband and I got married, that's where I bought my wedding dress and it wasn't no white wedding dress. You didn't know what a white wedding gown was then.

B: Why was that?

RW: In the coal mines, you just, you know, you never seen nobody wear white wedding veils and things. I...I was married in a...a blue georgette crepe dress, with little white pearl buttons all down the front. And a pair of my shoes they called them candied apples.

B: What did they look like?

RW: They were beautiful. They were, made something like that. I wore nice clothes. I wore...I wore fur coats. Flapper clothes. Mostly flapper clothes. That'd be the best word to put it.

B: Were there many flappers in that area?

RW: Yeah. They were a lot in that area. And our, you would want to know what we do for uh...entertainment. We'd go to bean stringings, and corn shuckings, apple peelings, and we'd go from one farmer would do, go from house to house, we'd go from house to house then after we'd get all of that done, then we'd square dance. You talk about square dancing today. They don't know nothing about square dancin' like we did. Boy, we can...

B: Where'd you all square dance?

RW: Oh, we could square dance. Square dance. I've square danced 'til two or three o'clock in the morning. It was clean, nice fun because no boys knew what cigarettes, they didn't know cigarettes, they didn't know drinking, no dope nor anything back then.

B: Okay. Back then in the '20's, it got really popular for girls to cut their hair. Did you cut your hair?

RW: Oh, yeah, I had shingled bobs and, yeah.

B: Now, in some places it would have been scandalous for a girl to cut her hair.

RW: Yeah. A long back, that's what I say, long back, you know, as uh...the days, as things begin to progress, you know, and things begin to come in and all, things begin to change. When me and my husband met each other, he said all I had, all he could see was one eye because I wore my hair, you know, like a flapper, over your one eye. That's how I wore it and he said, though, I was right good lookin'.

B: How old were you all when you met?

RW: Oh, we were, I guess I was about sixteen when we met. He was older than me though. He worked on the railroad. Norfolk & Western Railroad for fifty-seven years.

B: Um. What did he do?

RW: He, at first just started out as a, what did you first start out at on the railroad Dad? (husband - uh...I come to Williamson in November of '22 and I started out as a helper) As a helper. (husband - working the coal trains) Then he was an air man. (husband - that's mostly a mechanic later. I worked the air and inspected the cars and inspected passenger trains) And then during the...the last war that we had, he could take the trains to Bluefield, which is a hundred miles because they were a lot of uh...uh...troop trains they called them. They's a lot of soldiers and sailors that traveled them and he would, could uh...take them into Bluefield and could be, also be a, a fireman or a brakemen, or just ever what they needed him. He could do anything that was done on the railroad. He was like my Daddy. He learnt the hard way and he knew how to do it. And we lived in Williamson, West Virginia. That's where we lived. That's where all of my children were raised. They all went to Williamson High School.

B: Okay. How did you all meet?

RW: Do you want to tell her how we met? (husband - I come over here to, one of my dad's first cousins lived down here a couple three houses. And I happened to be lookin' out the door on Sunday and I see her come buy with a bunch of kids and uh..I asked my cousin, I said, "Who is that good lookin' girl there?" She told me says, "She lives up there". Well, he kept pushin'," We'll meet her after while." I said, "Okay." That's the way we met.)

B: How long did you all court?

RW: We, a little over about a year and a half. The first date he asked me for, I wouldn't let him have it.

B: Why?

RW: Well, I wanted to get acquainted with him and he seen me with this bunch of kids. But I always gathered all of the children in the neighborhood that I could and take them to Sunday school on Sunday morning and that's the way he met me.

B: So your parents, being religious people, they didn't mind that you cut your hair?

RW: No. Hun-un. They wasn't, that kind wasn't their belief. You could do what you wanted to. My mother never did cut her hair though. She had big long pretty, beautiful hair.

B: What about wearing makeup? Did you ever wear makeup?

RW: Yeah. We...we...I wore makeup some, not too awfully much 'til after we married then after we married, you know, it was back then, I was having my babies and I had six, four girls and two sons. So then I began to use makeup and get permanent, fix my hair. So on and so forth. I had one, I had long hair at one time since me and him's been married.

B: Why was that?

RW: Well, I just took a notion to see how I would feel and look whenever. I'll show you the picture after while. See how I looked with long hair and I didn't like it and I cut it off.

B: When did you all get married?

RW: Uh...we got married in nineteen and twenty-six. February, 1926.

B: Where did you all set up housekeeping?

RW: Williamson.

B: How long was it before your first baby was born?

RW: Let's see. We was married in February. One in February, October, November,, let's see, we was married the twenty-eighth of February, let's see the twentieth-eighth of February we was married and she was, we was married about a year and a half before she was born.

B: Did a doctor or...

RW: A doctor.

B: Did you go to the hospital?

RW: No. At home.

B: Do you remember what the doctor's name was?

RW: Yes. Un-hun. Just a minute.

B: Dr. Salton maybe.

RW: No. Saunders. Dr. Saunders. He had an initial but I don't know his initial.

B: How much did he charge you?

RW: Uh...twenty dollars. Twenty for all of my babies.

B: Okay. Were they all born at home?

RW: All borned at home.

B: Did you have any complications with any of them?

RW: No complications what so ever and they were all breast fed babies.

B: Did any of them have any childhood illnesses?

RW: I think just uh...ordinary measles and uh...and whooping cough and chicken pox that's about all. And I had one that had pneumonia but it wasn't the real bad kind so she got over it.

B: What stands out in your mind about the Great Depression?

RW: Well, the Great Depression, the Great Depression was very hard, it wasn't too hard on us because my husband had a truck and he didn't get too many days of work on the railroad but uh...the days that he didn't work on the railroad, he made his truck to good use. He would haul coal for people and wood, or somebody wanted to be moved from one town to another one, he would move them in his truck. You didn't have to have no license for them to move people back then. And uh...so uh...we uh...we had pretty good food except we had to have money to buy it. If we could have got a hold of it. But it was hard to get a hold of. You didn't never hear talk, uh...crisco, you didn't know what crisco was. It hadn't come out yet. They called it lard. That's what you'd call it. They called it lard and...uh...But, I done all of my baking and when I would bake, I would send his buddies on the, over on the yard, I'd send them some of my baked stuff too, because my mother, as I told you, she was handy and she taught me how to cook when I was real young. When I was six years old, I could make biscuits and they didn't have self rising flour then, but she would but so much in...in the flour and so much (tape cuts off) Uh...the baking powders and all like that and uh..then uh...she, we had our own buttermilk and then she'd show me how to do it and then I would put my biscuits in a pan and I was so tiny and little, and my daddy didn't want to push me in the coal oven to bake. You ought (tape cuts off)

B: Just another quick question is, what is in your political believes through the years? Are you a Democrat or...

RW: Democrat. I'd run if I knowed I had a vote.

B: Was that, what was your Daddy was he uh...

RW: He was a Democrat, honey, always, full blooded, like he was a McCoy.

B: Okay. Why was that? Do you know? Did he ever say?

RW: Yes. He...he told us children why. He was raised that way and then after the Depression uh...the, Republicans was the ones that brought on the Depression so that's what caused him to not never vote a Republican ticket.

B; Okay. Did your mother ever vote? Do you know?

RW: Yes. She voted.

B: Okay. Did they ever talk about how they were gonna vote when you were...

RW: Oh, well they always would say, I wonder who would be the best man. Poppy'd say, I don't know who will be the best man but we'll vote Democrat ticket. He was boss.

B: When you were growing up, were the boys and the girls raised different? Did the boys have chores that they did and the girls have chores?

RW; Yes. Yes. We had chores.

B: Okay. How was that separated?

RW: Well, the boys would have to cut the wood, bring in the coal and clean out the fireplaces for ashes. And the girls would have to milk, which I had more sisters but they none would milk but me and they couldn't milk and I had to milk two cows of the morning and two of the evening and after Luther and I was married, they had to sell one cow because she wouldn't let nobody milk her. So then the one's that couldn't do the milkin', they'd have to do the dish washing. They didn't have dish washers back then, you know.

B: Okay. Who did the makin' of the beds and...and stuff like that?

RW: Well, we had uh...we would uh...one would get on one side and one would get on the other after we got big enough and we would make beds and we'd always have feather beds cause we had a bunch of geese and we'd have to pick the feathers off the geese to make the feather beds. I've got a feather bed now.

B: Alright. What about um...let's see, the...the quilts and things? Did your Mother quilt?

RW: Yeah. Homemade quilts yeah. Homemade quilts. My mother quilted and sometime a bunch of women would come in and help and then she would go and help the other women when they got theirs ready to quilt.

B: Who controlled the money in you family? Did your Father or Mother?

RW; Well, both. Both. They were, they never did racket and fuss about the money. When my mamma needed money, she knew where it was at and when my daddy needed money, he knew where it was at.

B: How did they deal with it. Did they discuss?

RW: They put it in the bank. They always put their money in the bank.

B: Okay. Okay. Let's see, what else, um...when did your parents die?

RW: Well, my Daddy died four years ago this February.

B: And when did you...

RW: Dad what, what year did mom die? (husband - mom died in October of ?) thirty (husband - '76.) October the thirtieth. (outside voice - uh...uh...'66) '66. I knowed she was dead a long time before (meaning she had died) my daddy died.

B: How did...how did he deal with her death? Did he miss her a lot?

RW: He missed her. He grieved and missed her terrible. He uh...he lived a long life after she died but I imagined that he lived his life a dozen times after she passed away. Cause they were close to each other.

B: Did they ever fight? Dis you ever see them fight?

RW: No. Never. Lord no. We didn't know what that was.

B: Okay. You say your parents were religious people?

RW: Religious people.

B: I don't think your father ever drank, did he?

RW: Oh, no.

B: So he never went to the Blue Goose?

RW: No, honey. Nor to the Red Goose either. They would have fought if something like that would have happened.

B: What did you know about the Blue Goose?

RW: Not anything.

B: Cause we've heard stories that that's where married people went to meet other married people when they wanted...

RW: I never, no we never, we never did drink. I never did drink or smoke in my life and I'm eighty year old.

B: Just a couple more...(questions)

RW: I might be a McCoy but I never done that.

B: Okay. Were the McCoys known for their drinking?

RW: Yeah. They were known for their drinking' just like the Hatfields, 'cause they bootlegged and they uh...made their own moonshine. So both the sides done the same.

B: Just a couple quick questions, when you were a young married woman, what did you do for recreation? Did you get to go out much after you had babies?

RW: No. Oh, no.

B: Did you all ever go to the movies or anything like that?

RW: We went to the movies occasionally when there were a good movie that would come on. They don't have no good movies no more. Most all the movie things is closed down and everything. You know, TV has taken over, we'll put it that way.

B: When was the first time you saw television?

RW: Oh, I guess I was about four or five...Television? Oh, I guess we were the first in town to ever buy a television don't you imagine (husband - uh...they bought one our first uh...about '53. Television wudn't no good when it first come out here. It was good for fifty miles or so. I come into Roanoke Virginia one night and they said there's gonna uh...that was in '49, said there's gonna be a man on television from Richmond. And the restaurant had a television and when he came on at seven o'clock, they announced it and it looked like it was a man, outline of a man standing in water up to his neck.{laughing} That was in '49, fall of '49 and I didn't buy one 'til they got pretty good)

B: You said, you started to say about when you were four or five. Was that when you saw a radio or went to the movies?

RW: Went to the movies. Went to the movies when I was a little girl.

B: What do you remember about that?

RW: Oh, I just, you know it was, no, you couldn't hear, nobody talk. Okay, it was a silent movie and uh...so I was so little and uh...I could see the pictures but the...the writing would go by so fast 'til I couldn't uh...read fast enough to know what was said. (laughing) That's gonna be a funny one now.

B: Okay. Let's see, um...

RW: People on this river read fast. (laughter)

B: What uh...just to ask you a couple uh...questions about your family, what do you think of uh...people that are still interested in the Hatfield and McCoy Feud? Why do you think people are still interested?

RW: Well, they want to know, well, they want to know more and more. And just like I told a man the other day, by the name of Blankenship, he called here and uh...he called far, far, far away from here. I don't know, you know, my son's knowed all over the country, all over the world. Just about, from North Africa, he's known and uh...so I told him, if you was to uh...set down and try to figure everything out, you never could really figure it out right. But I wish they would. They had it, one Hatfield and McCoy movie, that was not right. But, I wish they would make a real good Hatfield and McCoy movie so people'd know what it's all about and if anybody knows what it's all about, it's Jimmy Wolford cause he's went to, the jumpin' off place to find out.

B: Okay.

RW: He went to the capital of the state and got all the pictures. I'm gonna give you one. Well, she's heared him sing. Now, everybody's heared him sing. He writes all of his music. He's got his own label. Wolford labels.

B: Well thank you for talking to me today.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection