Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Robert Huff Interview

Becky Bailey: This is Becky Bailey from the Matewan Development Center, Tuesday July 17, 1990. And I'm interviewing Mr. Robert Huff, Mr. Huff, for the record will you state your full name and when and where your [sic] were born?

Robert Huff: My name is Robert Norville Huff, I was born August 20th, 1918, it's almost my birthday. Uh...Burbank, Ohio.

B: And who are your parents?

RH: My parents are Madge Chafins, and Alva Huff.

B: Do you know when they were married?

RH: They...oh, I could find out, but I can't actually, around nineteen fourteen...

B: Okay...

RH: in that neighborhood.

B: Okay, where you there first child?

RH: No, I'm third.

B: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

RH: I have one brother and one sister. One brother living.

B: Okay, um...When you all where born do you know, did your mother have a mid-wife or did a doctor deliver?

RH: Doctor.

B: Doctor...How old were you when you moved to this area?

RH: Well, my mother was from this area, my dad is from Wayne County. And uh...first time I came here, I was about a year and a half old, came back to West Virginia, well came to West Virginia, I was about an year and a half old. And then my mother and dad separated, I came to live with my mother, I came out when I was six years old, 1926 I came out, or 1925, I came to live with my mother and my dad kept my brother.

B: Okay...did they ever divorce or did they?

RH: They divorced yeah, both remarried.

B: When did they remarry?

RH: Well, my mother married in '25 and my father he was about 23, I think 22 or 23 in that area. I was eighteen months old when they divorced.

B: What did your dad do for a living?

RH: Well, he was, worked a match factory there in Burbank Ohio, last time, I mean when I left out there...in '25.

B: Okay.

RH: Worked for Ohio Match Company.

B: In what...how did they meet?

RH: I don't know, well, my dad came to Red Jacket and he was, went to work in the mines, work in the mines a while, and I reckon' that's where they met. And uh...they got married, and they went, they moved to Ohio then.

B: Who married them do you know?

RH: I don't know, I know who married my step-dad and mother. Preach...Preacher Joe Hatfield. He might of married my mother and dad.

B: What denomination was Preacher Joe Hatfield?

RH: He was Protestant, I don't know, I think he Bap...Baptist, he preached there at Red Jacket Church, years and years, and it was nondenominational but I think...(tape messes up)

B: You know something, you brought a list here of names, and I...and I suppose this is your mother's family, right?

RH: This is my mother's, well, this all is my mother's family.

B: Okay, would you like to tell me about it, I know you have, your list starts from Ephraim Hatfield?

RH: Ephraim Hatfield was a Nancy Vance, that was man and wife, the first child was Valentine, the second child was Elizabeth, and the third child was William Anderson, which is known as Devil Anse. Then Ellison was the fourth, Elias was the fifth, Emma was sixth, Bridget was the seventh, Smith was the eighth, Patterson was the ninth, and Nancy and Thomas was the last two. Well, Ephraims fourth son was Ellison, he married Sherly (Sarah) Staten. Their first child was Elliot, known as Indian, everybody around this part of country called him Indian, then Valentine is Hatfield and Polly, Floyd, Emma Jane, Nancy, Lydia, Lydia is my grandmother, Lewis Wetzel and Kirk.

B: Just some quick questions, which Valentine Hatfield was known as...as Wall?

RH: That's the one.

B: Okay, he is the one that died in prison.

RH: No, no, no not this one...

B: Which Valentine is he?

RH: Uh...I don't know...

B: Okay...

RH: I know his grandson lives on Pidgeon Creek, right now. We call him Little Wall or Junior, that's what.

B: Okay. Was this Floyd, Ellison's son was that the one that was known as Hog Floyd?

RH: No, they called him Dictor. He was never married, he stayed with uh...Uncle Kirk...(actually Floyd was a grandson of Ephraim) still he was....now Floyd was, was uh...a brother Ephraim. I've got a lot more of papers and things on stuff like this....but uh...I just brought the family, because I've never had seen any of them listed... from all the children...I...I thought that would be one thing....I have...I have almost, the ages of most of 'em...

B: Uh-huh...Okay.

RH: My daughter works in Charleston she's uh...works in the Women and Children's Hospital there in Charleston, now she went over to the Capitol, and joined this daughters of the Civil War...because she was...descendant...she runs, she went through all the records there. (unintelligible tape interference). She's got Ellison's less than honorable discharge

B: Why was that do you know?

RH: He stayed gone all the time. (unintelligible because of tape interference).

RH: chewing tobacco, smoking tobacco, he was a good innocent person, Uncle Kirk was a (unintelligible) for years and years.

B: Uh-huh...How about Wetzel what do you know remember about him?

RH: Well, what I can remember about him, he died when we was...when was very young, why he died when Dutch and all of them was a very small church....

B: Uh-huh

RH: But, I can remember he came to Matewan, when mother and I, when the...she came back to West Virginia, he had a old Roadster a, T-Model Roadster...and I can remember it, then from here to Mate Creek, you had to go in the creek, creek most of the way... and he was very uh...and I liked, I like that old...I mean played with Dutch, not Dutch, but Willard and Teddy, and we all was about the same age and Dutch's sisters and we...they have done leave town, cross, right at Chafin's Branch, you know where Chafin lived up in there where the seven, well, right below there the bend of the railroad house, see they moved that creek, another creek, and they lived over across the creek. And they had a big sawmill, and Dutch and I, I mean Willard and Teddy and I use to get out in that sawdust pile and build a tunnels. Could be very dangerous but they didn't...

B: Uh-huh...What did uh...what do you remember about your grandmother Lydia?

RH: Oh, I wonder sometime, she wasn't mother...

B: Okay...

RH: I was, uh....I...liked my grandmother more than I did anything, my mother even...

B: Uh-huh

RH: But uh...my grandmother was a interesting person she was always, how that she done it, I don't know, but she always had a bunch of kids, they always a bunch of children, at her (house)....young people not a kids, but young people at here home every weekend as long as she lived. And she could always fix the best meal, she always had enough food, but how, I don't know...and uh...I know my Uncle Lee, his boy.....(unintelligible, due to interference)....

RH: She had a local newspaper...

B: Uh-huh...

RH: of all the clippings of all the old people, I (unintelligible, due to tape)..............It was gone, she had a picture of my dad, I guess it was thirty-eight inches square, and she's always, get tellin' me, tryin' to get me to take it. I said "no Maw, it's yours, when you die I will come get my picture in the trunk," I never did get them so, it was history burnt...

B: So the trunk got burned in your old house, could you tell me about that?

RH: Yeah, my uncle, I went back to the trunk, my uncle said well you won't get your trunk, because well you won't get your trunk, because it was taken out to the back and burnt, my picture and everything. Which right now it would of been awful nice things for people to know...I always have...I have a different view on the Hatfield and McCoy Feud on what happen...other people, a lot of people, why people don't, didn't care for after, but I say if Ellison Hatfield was my great grand dad, had kept his nose away from Ransom, Kentucky on Election Day it would of never happened....But uh...turn right around take the bottles hanging, which says that what will be shall be...

B: Uh-huh

RH: And that's, I reckon it was just one of those things doomed to happen anyway.

B: Did you alls family ever talk about the feud, when you were a little boy?

RH: Well, not uh...to much, I talked to my grandmother quite a bit, I'd asked her questions and I asked what Uncle Tom Mitchell, he was, one of the Hatfield, with the Hatfield clan, the Hatfields and McCoys had certain people, you've read that and you know that, well Tom Mitchell, I asked him he had is hand, two of his fingers shot off, when my Uncle Pete, I was about same age, he was born in November, I was born in August, I believe we nailed Uncle Tom a day, and so we sat him down and we got to talking to him, what happened to your hand, now we don't want no story we want the truth, we hear rumors, you know, and he said, "why, I'll tell you what happened, I was at Randolph McCoys house the night it burned, he said I standing at the crib barn, out where the cows lived, with my hand up...only thing you could see of me was my hand, my fingers and my hand, and so they was good shots, why the shot my hand off..." and I said was now is that the truth he said, yes that is the truth, and he was uh...I believe him because we had no other thing, to believe no lie because we was going to pin him down anyway...

B: Uh-huh...

RH: and he was uh...one of the fellows I talked to and always enjoyed, I always enjoyed talking to the older people when I was a kid. I lived in North Matewan, (unintelligible) I went to school at Matewan and all the old people, I could talk to any of the old people, where a lot of kids couldn't....I respect 'em.

B: Did you um...every talk to any of the people that have been involved in the Massacre?

RH: Well, no, I haven't except uh...'cause I didn't, I knew about it, I was, I lived at Junior Camp....Junior when it happened... my grandma, I was staying with my grandma at the time,

B: Uh-huh...

RH: she lived up the mouth of...of uh...Shop Holler, and that's were I at when that happened down there...

B: Uh-huh...What did her husband do for a living, what?

RH: Well, my grand dad worked at a tipple there for a while at Junior, I don't want he done...I never known him to work after he worked the Junior Temple...and uh...he picked slate on that tipple, and uh...they used to have slate pickers on the temple and they think it was a kind of, the coal came down on the incline, and on the belt, he would throw it, I would go up there my uncle and I would carry his bucket, and we wanted big enough to carry, so we would have to drag it, bring it up for dinner... and my grandmother always told us, now you know, if you don't hurry back Uncle Eaf Varney is going to get both of you, we all was scared, we was scared of Uncle Eaf Varney, they wudn't no use to, no reason to be...but uh...he was one of the old men, that all kids by, why I don't know.

B: What was his name again?

RH: Uh...Eaf Varney. But, and then on my grand dad's side uh...uh...Devil Anse married my grand dad's Chafin's aunt. Levisa Chafin was my grand dad's aunt, so it was brother and uh...my grandmother's uncle and my grand dad's aunt. I never did get, I never get to talk or see uh...Devil "Anse" or her either one. but uh...

B: What kind of stories did...did your family tell about him though?

RH: Well, they never in my, the only person that would talk was my grandmother, I never knew other people, I never did ask questions about him, 'cause I knew if I wanted to know anything my grandmother would tell me, she said her and her mother, both, well all of the children, both bagged Ellison not to go to Kentucky that morning...'cause she knew two weeks before they'd have what they call association, I want you to know what association was, that's where they have horse swopping, church and dinner and drinking and all on the grounds of the church, I mean that's where that was, and they do dres...horse swopping and the men would drink and the women would fix the meals and he, two weeks before that he was over there, and they were drinking and of course they got in to an argument. And they told, Ellison was for one side while Uncle William Anderson, that uh...Hatfield that lived up there, he was a preacher he lived at Ransom, that was not this one, a uncle to William Anderson, William, Devil Anses'...and he told him that he was for one party and McCoys where for a different person and said well, said uh...you stay away from here 'cause grand dad, said he was going back over election day and vote for this one...outfit and they told him to stay off there, 'cause he didn't have no business there. Well he went anyway, and that's when the trouble started.

B: How's uh...How old were your grandmother and, and her brothers' and sister when he got killed?

RH: Uh...my grandmother I think was about thirteen, approximately, somewhere in that area, I could almost, I could get the dates out, the birth dates out and tell you but, I didn't tell you but uh...see Kirk, Lewis Wetzel, in 1950,(means 1850) I think it was, or 1970 (1870) census he was two months old...and after that Kirk was born, and I think my grandmother in 1950,(1850) was thirteen or 1970 (1870) census, was thirteen, so...I'm not positive, she was six...

B: Okay...

RH: so that was uh...about seven years later, whatever it was...

B: Okay...

RH: But she...she was old enough to know that what it was all about, but they begged him not to go over there and they figured it would be trouble, which it was, everybody knowed it, but you know the men back then, they ruled the roost. The women didn't have anything to say about it, the women didn't vote, and they figured well, I reckon' the wanted it that way...they stayed home and raised children and raised family, worked it's not like it is now, the women and men both work. My grand dad Chafin, I think there is about eight or nine of them in that family, see Ellison, there was this Cotton Mounts...that was suppose to been Ellison's bastard son...which there are rumors, nobody every did prove it, they say they're much like him, but he was sort of a mentally retarded and he wudn't all there and they talked him into anything...

B: Uh-huh...What happened to your grandmother and her family after he got killed, did anybody take 'em in or go on their own?

RH: No, that's just uh...they all stayed and worked together, and lived right there, they lived at Newtown, about the mouth of Double Camp, that's were they...my mother was born in Double Camp and uh...that's Aunt Sarrie...granny Sarrie and...lived there in the mouth of Double Camp, and Uncle Kirk when he got married he just stayed, stayed right in that house.

B: Do you remember your great grandmother at all?

RH: Mmm...no I don't..

B: Okay...

RH: I don't remember, oh my yeah, yeah, I remember her...

B: You remember her, what do you remember about her?

RH: I remember she was just a typical housewife that took care of her children, and she was not, no one, didn't get out associate too much with everybody, she stayed most, the kids went around her...but we always hit Newtown, when I went to Newtown and my grandmother Rosta...But I had been, I have seen granny Sarrie.

B: Did she wear like the old fashion clothes?

RH: Oh yeah, yes, yes, my grandmother, she always smoked a pipe too, a stone pipe...and my grandmother did.

B: Did they grow their own tobacco, or did they buy it?

RH: They most of the time they bought it, what they call a shoe peg, the old twist...and they could tell the difference in twist, and you couldn't give them a one time and tell them it was that, they knew the difference.

B: Did the men smoke too back at that time or did the?

RH: They smoked, and chewed...my grandmother she use to set there on the porch in Newtown and I know you've been up by there and, she would just sit there and she would get her pipe out, handful of tobacco and smoke and then she would get her out some chewing tobacco, and sit there and chew...She'd never go into the kitchen when she was chewing or smoking. But one day after I was married a old lady named Emma Simple, she was about eighty-five, came up the house one day, (?) secretary, I was filling out papers for her, and her husband's name was Joe, I was sittin' there, I hadn't got them home, my wife see was sittin' there talkin' to her and she was dressed in, a black hat, black everything, everything black, she just, my wife (unintelligible can't understand anything) she said honey, do you mind if I smoke, my wife said, so she got her little stone pipe out and got her twist tobacco out and put it in there and lit and smoked it...they, was all from Beech Creek, and Logan, you know, family and you knew everybody and everybody knew everybody else.

B: Oh, there is a simple way to go, something that was involved in the Glen Alum robbery, did you ever hear about that?

RH: Oh yeah.

B: What do you know about that?

RH: I don't know anything about that, all I know is, that's a one, I just like this uh...being in Matewan and I was union local officer for several years...several years at Red Jacket. And John L. Lewis and I, are personal friends, now that's uh...not very many people say that. I went to the convention several times, and I don't, first time I went down to the Welfare, the hospitalization thing started, and they started having strike of Widen they were trying to get support for the people in Widen and the organizer, I don't know why but they wouldn't give 'em them no support, I just wanted to know why, they wouldn't give them no support, they says delegates I want to see you next week you see, can you make it at seven o'clock, I said yes, I'll be right here. So, I went that evening you see it was just a convention dinner for the evening, about five minutes before I got up and left, they already put (?) wives and for her to leave and not let him find her, (unintelligible can't understand it) I went out through Cincinnati Garden, they was having Charles fighting on, and I watched the fight, about ten minutes to seven I walked in Netherlands Plaza Hotel, his room was in the other plaza, and here was four men from Charleston District seventeen, they were sitting there waiting on me, "where you been?" I said I've been in Netherlands Plaza, watching Everett Charles, "now we been looking for you"...I said "I figured you had, that's why you couldn't find me." Well, I went up and seen him and I walked in a sit down, and he (John L. Lewis) said now tell me what he trouble is? I said Mr. Lewis such and such day I was in the...District Office, talking to him (Bill Blizzard) and his secretary walked in and she told him, he said I will tell you what to tell people for Widen E.H. Pulley is one of them, is was the organizer, he said "They won't want be in until this morning, you tell him I'm in Washington. I left last night." Well, that sorta made me, in between, I wondered what was coming off here, I don't know whether he made the statement out of not thinking, that when I got to the convention, I told him what happened, he (John L Lewis) said well, "I think that Mr. Blizzard has used, has outlived his usefulness for the United Mine Workers, he said, "you've been a good man, but he's not able to be useful, so I think you need to go on vacation, permanent vacation, I said, "well, you're the boss, and we set there and talked, I asked him about the hospitalization, I said, "Now Mr. Lewis, I want to ask one question, hospitalization, is a wonderful thing...(unintelligible, can't understand anything)...for years, they are to hire another person, but they have...when I came home about two weeks after I got back I got a letter from John L. Lewis and Bill Blizzard, he went on permanent vacation, he retired, I told some of the men, I knew that, and they said, "how did you know?" I said, "Mr. Lewis told me." They said, "you're crazy you didn't know him that way." It so happened every time he would get to come into Charleston, so happen I'd be over there that morning to talk to him, and he would walk, I would walk in, he would walk in that door, and I would be sitting down stairs in the reception room, and he said well let's go upstairs and talk...and of all the people, be a bunch of men sittin' there, that's been there, that's something unusual, he picks that man out and go up there and talk with him, and we were, we were very good friends, whereever I'd meet him, he knew me. We...have to stop and talk...

B: Uh-huh...We uh...I heard a lady speak one time and she said he was a life long Republican, do you know why he would of been a Republican and now that the U.M.W. seems really closely aligned with the democrats?

RH: He always did...he was for, Franklin Roosevelt...

B: Uh-huh

RH: he was a strong Republican, he was for Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin Delanore Roosevelt, he uh...made the statement that I heard him say, "well we got the organization, we got it through Franklin D. Roosevelt, he made a promise to me, if he was elected, I could come in and talk to him and I could organize the work place." See John L. Lewis started all this, he would actually he organized, A.F.L. and C.I.O...will all but be the United Mine Workers, they was already organized but....they were on paper they wudn't organize then, they was on paper...Now he organized the other...(unintelligible) wanted for the union people would be working for nothing...That's my opinion, people would be neighboring class, in the early phrase (unintelligible) at Red Jacket (unintelligible) he was general manager, people set and sell stock on Pigeon Creek, we all three going to high school, (unintelligible, can't understand it)......I keep working, I worked after I graduated, we worked about one day a week a dollar and eighty cents a day, I worked there until 1981, then I made one hundred and thirty dollars a day. Big difference.

B: Prices have changed.

RH: I worked with, I tell my little boys, well their not little boys (unintelligible)..........

B: Uh...

RH: Then I decided I would go in service, I made good money too, I got eighteen seventy-five a day once month. (unintelligible)

B: When did you go into the service?

RH: '37, December 23rd.

B Did you go in the Army or?

RH: (unintelligible, can't understand it)

B: I talked to Venchie Morrell this morning and he said he served (tape cuts off)....about the war experience in the Marshall Island.

RH: I was in, I was in Baisden, on the Marianas I came back up there enlisted in Baidsen once, but uh. I've been in the third rank...They had, the island was three fourths a mile long, half a mile long.

B: Uh-huh...

RH: (unintelligible, talking about the Air Force)...

B: Uh-huh...

RH: (completely unintelligible)

B: Okay. What uh...what stands out in your mind about your War time experiences, I know my uncle he didn't like the standard issue gun he was issued, I mean little things like that stand out in his mind.

RH: I was in the Indy(?) Air craft...

B: Okay.

RH: (Completely unintelligible).........

B: I've heard uh...they did make people from like boys from West Virginia they'd make them the sharp shooters and things like that, because they knew how to handle guns, is that true?

RH: They had.......Unintelligible....the ones from West Virginia, Kentucky, or Tennessee, that he would, people from New York, Pennsylvania, and from cities, they would have to survive in the New York....

B: Uh-huh...What uh...when did uh...did you come out in 1945, after the war was over?

RH: Yes, I came out.

B: Did you ever get wounded?

RH: Well, (unintelligible)....

B: So if you got wounded what did he call it?

RH: Forget about it, I got trapped in the leg....

B: How long did it take you to get come, when the war was over?

RH: Uh...about two weeks, (completely unintelligible)....had to go to Indiana. I was came around (unintelligible)...everything went bye, some of the soldiers, (unintelligible)....out West, I remember we stopped one time in the morning (unintelligible).... no way to get 'em, they're to fast to catch.....(unintelligible) August twenty-five will be (?) I enjoyed ever year I was in there. You would never see me...I get out, always doing something, always at the pool, (unintelligible)

B: (Unintelligible)

RH: (unintelligible)

B: (Unintelligible)

RH: .....I was fresh out of high school and I didn't care, my favorite teacher, Granny Hoskin. (?) High School. I was, she taught my mother, taught my own children aunts, an one time she.... (completely unintelligible) Margaret Hoskins, you find out all these things, Granny I said, cook and big diner for me, I'm afraid, I knew your old and I was afraid....she would laugh, (unintelligible) and all the other kids would be afraid of here, why I don't know, I never was, so I'd get her to tell a story, we are going to have a test tomorrow in English, or (unintelligible) or Geography, and I would get her tell about her husband and about the battle here in Matewan, she could tell a big story, and she could always carry, it took her two days to tell a story, it was the same story over and over. And so, her husband (unintelligible).....she my Aunt Helen...(unintelligible)...so he, Tom worked in the mines,....(completely unintelligible) he said now two men are going to come looking for me, they was riding horse, when, they knocked on the door he said I will be with you in a minute, I put my shoes on, so she went and told them, he went out the back door, cow, they always had cows, and they had the old barns and had a opening there in the door, if they had spotted him going in the barn, they start shootin' at him, (unintelligible), I reckon they went to the pin for a while but not too long.

B: Uh...

RH: My mother was staying with Ellie and Tom. That's the only thing I could do to get her to tell me about anything like that.

B: Did your mom tell you about the flu epidemic in 1919?

RH: No.

B: You would of been just a baby...

RH: I was just a baby...See I was in Ohio at that time.

B: Uh-huh...

RH: (unintelligible)

B: What stands out in your mind, when you think about, when you were a small child about here in Matewan, what did the town look like?

RH: The town was uh...I couldn't describe it, it's nothing like it is now...You had everything was filled up, and, and all up above the underground you had plenty, there was houses and I...I sorry I never did get pictures of it...well back then nobody, thought about things that happen would, I remember the floods here in Matewan, and I remember the '50's and the '30's and.... when the floods hit back then up there, we had bad floods in '36 and '37, I remember them.

B: There was a flood in '36 and '37?

RH: Yeah...

B: Can you tell me about how far in went and...?

RH: Well, it went and uh... it didn't get up too much in the town, because the creeks run off as fast, and the wa...water washed houses out of Mate Creek, several of them, and uh...I know I was fooling around the creeks and everything....We came to Matewan but it was, we couldn't get through the underground, I can remember that....But in the '50's I can remember '50 floods there...I know we came down five times, helped the Coach Ellis Feely, lived down here next to, well far uh...Nenni had a house down there, and Ellis lived there and a much of us from the shop we all liked Ellis, I worked at Red Jacket at Mitchell Branch Shop...we came down there five straight weeks, helped him clean his house, they told him in the plum beginning, clean it out or move out.

B: What he...was that the '57 flood?

RH: '57. Many years it was five weeks in a row there it flooded, but it didn't get up to deep, I mean it just got up in the lower, sections...

B: Uh-huh...What uh...was there, I heard there was a flood in '63?

RH: '63, there, it was about ever four years...bad ones about every ten. Sixty, thirty-six, thirty-seven,...

B: Uh...My next question I have for you is, Venchie Morrell says the first theatre that he remembers isn't the one right here across the street but the one down toward the river bank the creek bank...

RH: Yeah....

B: Do you remember that?

RH: Yeah, there was one down there, but and they use to have one at Red Jacket, up there at Mitchell Branch, an open air theatre, I mean open top it didn't have no top on it...just a wall. We'd go there alot, but there was one over there next to the river bank, then there was one built right over here. Tom....Tom Carol worked there for years and years and Frank Allara bought it out. And they used to have a bank night over there, I think it was on Friday night or Tuesday night, I don't remember when it was, and I down all the, I printed all the tickets up, when they started there...I bet you I didn't have over two tickets in the barrel. I'd come down and go to movie, I would never have to pay, I'd just go on in, I take a sliver of something to um...and I'd go on in and I printed all, we done a lot of commercial printing in that printing department, and...which it made money for us, and we...enjoyed it. And Matewan National Bank, I've been doing business with them since 1934, since I was in high school, I go to somebody and I...they say...they "won't you go somewhere else for your banking?" I said, "Well, no, I won't go somewhere else 'cause I can go to Matewan, they all know me and I know them and their family". So that makes a big difference and some people they just won't, don't want to have anything to do with Matewan National Bank, well I don't...

B: I know we had one person say that, when the bank holiday closed during the depression, that the Matewan didn't...

RH: They didn't...

B: didn't close.

RH: In '29, no. 'cause it was a family owned bank and the people is the family in it, was uh...was all the Chamber's, the Chambers'...pretty well taken, taken care of there people around and they, I know I could go in their many of times, many time anytime I want to go in there and talk to anybody in there and, well, I,...like, I was over in Logan the other day, and I haven't been, to the Logan bank, Matewan over there in town...I walked in. I had my car in over at the garage, and that receptionist there, "what could I do for you?" I said, "You can't do anything, I'm just going to hold it up," and she laughed, she said you are going to hold it up and I said, "yeah," she said, "you just don't take me hostage," and I said, "I won't," and I told her, "I haven't been in that bank that's why, just to see what it was about." And I started carryin' on a bunch of junk...See my wife's postmaster over Varney...and uh...I'm over there, I go in there, the people come in, I talk to them and act a fool with and just enjoy myself...I reckon that's what life is about.

B: Okay, what do you remember, it sounds as if Halloween was a big holiday for the young people here in this town, what do you remember about Halloween, we you were young?

RH: I can't remember that much about Halloween, I remember one Halloween night...I was working at the high school and a fellow that worked with me was Charlie Disman, he was janitor and uh...that night they had what they call the down bomber there, up at North Matewan, at Molly Johnson's beer joint, Charlie had a motorcycle, a big motorcycle, he said how about going up and getting something, something to drink, I said okay, he gave me his key, I got his motorcycle, we I'd walk home, North Matewan, walked down and I rode, I just rolled a big log across the road...Well, when I went back nobody moved that log, and I went around that curve, guess what happened, I hit that log. I went on the other side of that log and motorcycle and I got out and checked it out, it was alright so I moved the log out of the road and went on up and got the beer and told Charlie, he laughed, I said, "you know that breaks me," he said what, I said, "I won't put anything else in the road"...and that was one of the tricks we all would do, Charlie, Charlie Disman he was a janitor and brother called him Walter Williams he was, he lived right across from it, and they where janitors and we used to do do a little partying there every once and a while...

but at the school, but go in the furnace room and have a little party, and nobody would be around and enjoy ourselves...but Halloween, that's all about anything I remember, except I can remember one time about five years old in Ohio, we had a time but that was, they'd take a old man maybe about twenty-five of us and put it on top of the barn and but it make together, but uh...but here, I just uh...I worked most of the time, when I was in high school, made pretty good money, I reckon' for that time and we always got tired we'd do something too much...I know after I was married, lived in North Matewan, Tom Varney lived up on the hill and I could always get along with kids, that's that's the main thing and these boys in North Matewan, they had bunch a bunch of pretty mean, couple of those mean boys and they come down and they wanted go down block the main highway...I said boys there's no use to doing that, I tell you what I will do, I help you block Tom Varney's road...I lived right off the hill I knew if anything, say anything happened, I'd be there...So they set there awhile and they agreed to that, so we got up and we blocked the bridge, and when Tom Varney come off the hill...and that satisfied them, but that kept them from going out in the main highway and doing something they...but I was Scout master at Red Jacket for twenty-six years...

B: Gosh...

RH: Generally baseball coach for eight years. And still belong to Scouts, seventy-two years old and still belong to Scouts.... I was over at the Scout camp three times this past week, at Logan.

B: Uh-huh, Did uh...when did you get married?

RH: 1947, June the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth rather, my wife she...she argued with me and said the twenty-seventh and I got the marriage certificate out and showed her, we been married what? forty-two years, forty-three years...Forty-three years.

B: How old is she?

RH: Fifty-nine. Oldest daughter is forty-two. And the youngest boy is twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-five yeah. We have three in between them. Janice, Connie, Connie is the oldest, then Janice, Bob and Terry and Ryan.

B: Okay. Tape cuts off...

B: Tape two of Robert Huff interview. How did you come to get involved with the Scouts, Mr. Huff?

RH: Well, I had a half brother he was uh...nine years younger than I was, he came back out of service and they, in '45 he was in truck wreck, no '46 he was in truck wreck and had his neck broke, well I thought as much of him as I did anybody, 'cause I always tried, you know when I was in service, I'd send him an allotment for uh...go to school, and he was paralyzed from his neck down, from his nipple line down...and the doctors I reckon, it shook me up so bad that uh...I went to the doctors They told me to get...involved with children and boys, some boys. Well, I got started in the junior league baseball, which helped me a lot...and we went from there and graduated to the Scouts...I

I worked hard Scouting, you know, they say I was one the best Scout masters in this country...alot of, everybody says the same thing. 'Cause I went out, all out, my whole family was involved in Scouting, my daughter, my wife....my whole family, I just went from there, and I had a eagle, added a eagle every year which is almost impossible...But I remember I had twenty-six years and twenty-six eagles...My oldest boy, Bobby, he's the Scout master down in Huntington, and Chief Logan and I have every award that you can get in Scouting, as of...I have several eagles and all the other awards for that you get just for being counselor...and I the night, the day, I got, the evening I got the beaver, I said well it's, well I didn't...There won't know call for it, I didn't expect it...But uh. I had (unintelligible)........... my daughter...my wife was...(unintelligible)

B: Uh-huh...Do you think that might have anything to do with the Hatfield any, because I heard of some different Hatfields, that the Hatfields were known for there sense of humor, they like to tease people?

RH: I never seen one that didn't...not at the time, I been in (unintelligible)....

B: Uh-huh

RH: a half nobody every knew it.

B: Uh-huh

RH: I went to work, the first thing I would do, I find (unintelligible)

B: Uh-huh

RH: So he would ask me don't you fell bad, I (unintelligible)

B: Uh-huh

RH: .........on Pigeon Creek (unintelligible)

B: Uh...(unintelligible).....Red Jacket

RH: Well, I worked there, (unintelligible for a while) So uh...that was about...

B: Uh-huh..

RH: when I worked with the union, I filed out the first set of pension papers, then after I retired, for pension from Red Jacket.

B: Do you remember John Collins?

RH: Oh yeah, old man John Collins.

B: What do you remember about him?

RH: I remember he was nice old man, I can....he lived here at North Matewan...Johnny Collins, his son, Preacher, Bill Walder... Them and Bertha, we all grew up right there together...and he was, he worked with the W.P.A there, he was...he quit working in the mines, they wouldn't let him work in the mines....For years, I mean he was banned because he was on in that union strike in the twenties....and they didn't hire, but the boys all worked, but uh...he had a truck and he'd haul coal and he had uh...he would go to these, he worked on this P.W.A...Public Work Administrations and graveling roads...and hauling people so, he was I'd go over there and he used to be butchering cows and I know he was all around them boys we always...Have a bigged eyed time.

B: I was wondering was he a uh...ever talked about what went on here in Matewan?

RH: No, I don't know why, you just couldn't get him to talk.

B: Okay.

RH: There is him and his brother Steve and....John I don't know whether Joe was around this part of them or not....Joe was in Cincinnati until he died...I knew him but I didn't know, I mean I, used to come, we lived in North Matewan and Willard, that was Steve's boy, that lived right next door, and Joe would come up there and visit once, John and he'd come on over Willard's....

B: Uh-huh

RH: and Virginia,

B: Uh-huh

RH: I Elliott's sister...

B: Uh-huh

RH: and we was all right there in the same little area...and where they, you know...I don't know if you know where John lived or not, but uh...right mouth of Rutherford, Beech Nut we always called it...John Collins lived right straight across there, where a fellow by the name of Hardin lives there now...But John, I knew John well.

B: What kind of a person was he, because I interviewed Bertha last summer and uh...she told me about her father being with Sid and Ed's that day, but she really didn't say anything about what his personality was like?

RH: He...he was good, good man...I...very condemn and very uh...well, community minded, he was one that you'd like to be a neighbor with, he was just a good neighbor.

B: When you worked up at Red Jacket, I guess this was before the union, I don't know, we heard stories that people would uh...they would tell the men how to vote...

RH: Oh, yeah, yeah...

B: was that?

RH: I have to, Scott Hatfield was Justice of the Peace for years and years and years he was a Republican, now if you didn't vote, for Scott he was one of the company men, he was, want every the company told him, he done it...And uh...I laugh at Tom C. Chafin, see Tom (?) see Truman Chafin and I are first cousins, Tom Chafin was a big boy and he working and he didn't work, the mines didn't work much....well several years ago Tom called me up, I've always been Democrat, I registered Democrat and always was...Tom he called me up he wanted me to work in the house over, the last time he run for Sheriff he wanted me to work in the house, over in Varney for him...He asked my wife, and she said, "I reckon you have to call him and ask him. But I figure he would," but she said, "you know Tom, he won't take anything for you. If you get it, you get it and that's all you'll get." She said, he said, "well, that's what we want." Him and Wade Bronson, Bronson was runnin' for judge so, that evening, Tom called me. Everybody said, "oh, I want him to change his politics and be a Republican." She said, "now, Tom, you know better than that," so, but said you'll have to call him so he called me. I said, "Tom, you know I won't change my politics. I'm gonna stay what I am. He said, I said, but can you say that you've been a democrat all your life? He said, Yeah. I said, now, Tom, you're lying. He said why's that? I said I remember when you run around, used to run around and haul voters and worked for Squire Hatfield, you had to be a Republican to do that. OH, he hung the phone up. (laughing) But uh...you take the Hatfield's all were republicans. See, I was always a republican family until later years and t changed over to democrats after they seen the light I reckon, as they call it. But see, uncle Kirk was republican. He was constable and he was republican and well, old...old Governor Hatfield, the doc Hatfield, se, he was one of the best governor's I reckon in the state of West Virginia and he was a republican and he was a doctor. He said he was a doctor first and a governor second. He went to camp for (unintelligible), just the storied I heared that he went, when he went into Camp Creek, they told him he couldn't go up there. He was governor of the state of West Virginia and he told whoever it was said you can't, said, I'm the governor of the state of West Virginia but I'm also a doctor and I have to go.

B: Un-hun. Was that during the epidemic or...

RH: No, during the, well, it's when they had the camp creek went in there, all the people had that camp, camp up there and in the winter time and kids are suffering what and all and so he was a doctor.

B: Un-hun. Oh. What do you um...what do you think of the reputation that Mingo County politics has?

RH: (laughing) Do you want me to tell you that? (laughing) I just think they're getting caught up in their meanness. I knew that a long time ago. I worked, used to work the election grounds all the time. But I always, I worked in the house and it was like I told them, I said, to get a vote, they get a vote. I don't take nothing but I don't want nobody else to take anything, whoever got the vote. When Tom Varney, he run, he was runnin' for Board of Education. Mr. Lawson was running for Board of Education, well, Russell and I, and T and I, we all grew up together. We was all right there in North Matewan. One big, family and I liked Russell and I liked T. See, T and, he's kin, they were all kin. It's all Hatfield on that side, so Tom was running for Board of Education and Russell had the, they had the lumber company right there above the underground so Russell called me in there and said, "you work in the house?" I said, "yeah." He said "I'll give you a hundred dollars to work for daddy." I said Russell, "I'm not working for your daddy. How am I gonna take you?" Said, "I'm gonna make sure if he gets anything. He'll get it. They'll be nothing taken away from him. But I'm not giving him anything." I'm trying to get some change and so I walked out. I didn't make enemies, but Frank Allara, he was working in the house up there and Terry Hope, now we had all, we act a fool and carry on and Terry and Frank were Republicans and I was a Democrat but that doesn't change our being friends and we would, talk about different things, and we made sure everything was straight and that's when the politics, but somebody else who got in there and the first thing I know, here this is what we, if I...if I just wanted to, I can switch a few votes for somebody else, but I wouldn't do it. I never would. I always been, if you can get it, get it like it's supposed to but politics in Mingo County has always been rotten, even back, I can remember when Greenway Hatfield was sheriff, he had his, down here below the tunnel, at the tunnel, he had his farm. He'd bring his prisoners up there and I was a big boy and the bunch I run around together, three of us always run together. Roscoe Fitch, Johnny Burgraff, and myself and we'd go down, we'd go to the river and go swimming and fishing and Squire, the Sheriff, he had dogs and he had prisoners. He'd bring his prisoners up there to work on his farm and he'd sell the produce himself. He wouldn't turn it back into the county or give any part of it. The county would have to pay for the prisoners feed and everything and that was just not right. It was dirty politics then. Dirty politics in future years and it's still dirty politics in Mingo County and it might, they'll clean it up to a certain extent but they'll never clean it up like it's supposed to be. If they, when they get some of the people, you can't hand it down from one family, on hand to the other. That's the way it's always been.

B: What do you remember about the floods of '77 and 1984?

RH: I know I've got pictures of them. In '77. My daughter was working at, along at the Lock, Stock, and Barrel in Williamson. Now, an she's x-ray technician, but she didn't like being an x-ray technician, she was working a the Lock, Stock, and Barrel when that flood hit. And we went and I have a sister-in-law lived over in South Williamson. I had a '76 Ford pickup, a new Ford, one ton truck, and we'd got to Williamson over in, and the people and we'd get their furn...house uh...clothes and haul them to Williamson and home over at Varney and warsh their clothes and take them back to them and we helped clean up I don't know how many houses. My daughter, myself, my sons. We went all, and my wife, we'd go in there and uh...well, Clyde McCoy, one of my sister-in-law's was married to Clyde McCoy and we helped them clean theirs out and we helped several people right there. Their neighbors clean their houses out and warshed their clothes and we hauled drinking water from home down to Williamson. We would take it out of our well and take it to Williamson to people who wanted and needed water. Gathered up every jug we could think of.

B: About how long do you remember the clean up um...taking after the '77 flood?

RH: I don't think they ever did get it cleaned u. (laughing) About two months, at least, I mean, to where people could move back in. My boys said they invested, to flood proof Matewan, go up there to the bend of the river, channel the river right through, come out there at the tunnel. That would be the best flood proofing for Matewan. I don't reckon the state of Kentucky agrees to that although they say it would change their boundary but why...why not put up a wall if they want to keep the boundary.

B: Un-hun. Okay. What do you remember about the um...say, some of the fraternal organizations here in town like the Odd Fellows and the Mason and Redmen and people like that? RH: I never did belong to Odd Fellows and Masons or Redmen but uh...I don't know, I never did, never got interested in it. Only thing I'm interested in is, I belong to the Kiwanis Club. That's a civic organization which is I think, one of the best, best civic organization there is. We have uh...seventeen members now in the Red Jacket Kiwanis Club. I'd like to invite you up as a guest some Thursday evening. And uh...I'm secretary of the club. I'm secretary of club. I joined in 1956 and I've been president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. I dropped out in '74. I got work in Kentucky Carbon. I was driving, leaving the house about six o'clock in the morning. Driving to work as the electrician mechanic. I didn't have no quitting time. I was a union man but I had no quitting time. If I had a break down. I stayed with it so I had to drop out of the Kiwanis at that time. I had to quit Boy Scouts at that time. Although I, I mean, I quit being active, I was still stayed a member of the Boy Scouts because my two, I mean, (unintelligible) but the (unintelligible) come by, just couldn't be active and you don't, if you're not active, you don't want to, you don't pay dues.

B: Right.

RH: So uh...I dropped out in '85. I went back in Kiwanis after I retired and next year I was secretary and I've been secretary since then so I've been about twenty-five years in Kiwanis and.

B: What's the difference between the Kiwanis and the Rotary Club.

RH: There's nothing. No club. It's no different. You just uh...you can't belong to both of them. You can belong to one or the other.

B: Oh, okay.

RH: Why, I don't know but uh...that's...that's the Kiwanis requirement. You can't belong to the Lions, you have to, if your a Kiwani, you belong to the Kiwanis, you don't belong to the Lions and you don't belong to the Rotary. Which they're both good organizations. Both civic organizations, which that's what they're supposed to be and, like the other night they, we had the boys from Logan to capture the Scouts over there and they're doing, they're doing a, they're trying to do a renovate the camp buildings and things. One thing Kiwanis Club at Red jacket never has. We never had no big money, we just have three or four hundred dollars in the treasury cause, as soon as we get it, we boys got something we spend it on. We put it out for some other, something charitable something charitable, we sent Boys State and the Girls State and the scholarship. We give a $750.00, six, $500.00 scholarship each year to North Matewan High School which, you have to work to get the $500.00.

B: Yeah. Yeah.

RH: We put on, well, this year, we had a pancake fry and it took in about $750.00 which is in the bank on interest as on our scholarship fund. Maybe next year, we don't have to work so hard to make up the $500.00 and then we have uh...hot dog sales. fruitcake sales. First one thing then another that uh...and then the scouts we have them, I took a dollar, a hundred dollar donation over to the boy scout camp the other night and told them that we come out of there. And, the Kiwanis, every year, we're supposed to make a budget up for what, how much we're gonna get, how much we're gonna spend and approximately and so it's uh...to stay within that budget, we have to do a little skimping. And then we have ever...ever Thursday evening at Six thirty we have a meeting. You're invited as a guest any Thursday evening and we'll feed you and we'll fellowship with you.

B: Speaking of, oh, I'm sorry.

RH: go ahead.

B: I was gonna say, speaking of fellowship, what religion were you raised in? Were you raised in a religion?

RH: I, I'm protestant. That's all I an say. I don't have no, no church. I don't go to any church. If I want to go to church, I don't care whether it's Jewish, Catholic, Protestant. I mean, Methodist, Baptist, if I happen to decide to go to church, that's where I go. When I was in service, I buddied with a bunch of Catholic boys. On Sunday mornings, we'd go up, I'd get up and go to mass with them. At nine o'clock, we'd go to protestant church, but the Catholics wudn't supposed to do that then.

B: That's true.

RH: But we would. And in the evening, we'd get out and get drunk. Well, not get drunk, get to drinkin' (laughing) so you couldn't uh...you couldn't beat that. That fellowship.

B: Un-hun. Okay.

RH: But I went, I used to go to church there in North Matewan when I was a kid there, Church of Christ. I came to the Methodist Church over in Matewan a lot.

B: Speaking, if you don't mind me bringing it back up, speaking of the uh...drinking that you did when you first came home, I notice my great uncles did that too. Do you think that was a way of calming back down after being in war?

RH: I think so. I think so. Yeah. I think it was. I...I...I...I reckon that's what it is. You just don't uh...well, you don't think about it. I reckon that's what it was, you just didn't, you thought, well, I'll just set around. I like to read. I always did like to read and that's uh...if you're setting and readin', and you've got something to drink, then you might, you'll set there and drink it and you don't get drunk. I don't think I was ever drunk in my life and I drank an awful lot of whiskey. Ab Burgraff. Ab, old, he lived there in North Matewan with Johnny and...and I was good friends. We stayed, we stayed , we come to Matewan, had several places people sold moonshine and whiskey and we'd come down to North Matewan. Ab Burgraff had an organ. An old organ and we'd get a half gallon of moonshine and go back and set it up on the organ and Ab would play the organ and we'd play cards. We played casino or something uh...some uh...fun games. Setting' back. At that time, we'd sip out of that 'shine out of a fruit jar. I reckon uh...let's see, she married Pansy's Dehart, well, Pansy, see, is Ab Burgraff's daughter and uh...we'd always, we had, I guess we had fun. It was just uh...socialize. Just like, Harry Roberson and Bill and Mose and John, all of them, we was, we all, well, John, he come up there to Ab's all, a lot of times and he'd sit, he's be sittin' there and played cards. We lived in the old Stoney Mountain, what's called the old Stoney Mountain camp there at North Matewan.

B: Did you know Houston and Hawthorne Burgraff?

RH: Oh, I knew Houston well. Houston, and (unintelligible), Johnny, and Pansy's brother. He was a boy and he was a big kid to all of us right there together, but Johnny and I and (unintelligible) we always, we's always buddies. We'd pick berries together and we'd do everything together.

B: Un-hun. Um...by the time you were, say a teenager, were people still traveling in uh...Matewan basically by train or had cars taken over?

RH: They was...they was traveling by train. Most people went by train. And, you walked, we lived in North Matewan. Once a week, we'd walk down here and catch a train or we walked. Had to walk to Williamson a lot of times. But we'd go down and go through the tunnel went through the short cut and walk into Williamson and election night on nineteen and, when uh..yeah, Al Smith and Johnny and I and (intelligible) and I don't know, a whole bunch of us, we walked to Williamson to listen to the election returns. We walked. People won't walk now. But uh...that's the only alternative transportation was train. Very few cars. Well, Roscoe Artis owned trucks and Donald and I used to get out and get the truck out every once in awhile and take off. Steal it on Sundays. Donald, I mean Roscoe and his wife would go somewhere in the car, well, Donald and I, we'd get to get one of their old trucks. (tape cuts off)

B: Tape 3, Robert Huff interview, July 17, 1990. Uh...Mr. Huff, one of the things we've been doing is asking people about some of the stores here downtown and uh...what people remembered being in them and what they would buy at the different stores, and I was wondering, did you all get your groceries down here in town when you were young?

RH: Uh...Bert Shannon, I don't remember where the store was, right down the street here, he had a store. Old man Bert and he had a son named Jim and one named Bert and he had a daughter named Eliza. Eliza was a school teacher at Red...up in Matewan. I went, took English to her but we'd come down there now they had a, they delivered. Bert Shannon delivered and we bought quite a bit of stuff from them but, the company, now Red Jacket, all the coal company, if you worked for the coal company, they wanted you to buy from their, from their stores. And they could put you in debt so far that you couldn't get out and you had to buy it from them. Well, at one day a week or at the most, at, you now, you didn't have much money and they, so they, people will go in debt to the company stores and the old song, "Sixteen Tons..." whatever it is. Well, that was the way it was. So in uh...people like my, well I didn't have to because I was uh...working on myself, out in private and finish school up here and making money and my, I'd buy quite a bit of stuff. I generally come to Bert Shannon's or the grocery stores here in Matewan, which Bert was the one I always remember and then they had, Old man Saunders, he had one and uh...there was one, I don't remember who had it first, Overstreet, Clare Overstreet, up end of town. He had it there for a while had a store and uh...but most of the trading we done was at Bert Shannon's and they delivered and when Jim would come up through there in the truck and he'd go to Newtown, and I was a kid, I'd crawl in that truck and go with him. Then at North Matewan, later in the later years, in the 30's, there's H. R. Link had a store and the old man John McClutchen and Herbert Akers daddy was, run the store there for Ling for a while and then he went after I went into service, he went, Mr. John McClutchen but when he had things delivered, he'd always holler for me or one of the boys there in North Matewan to go with him and we'd crawl in that truck and go with Herb, uh...Walter up to the head of Mitchell Branch and Fridays was always was his fish day and he always had that big barrel of fish and fry, and ice and they'd go up to the head of Mitchell Branch. It didn't take long to get rid of all it. Those colored people, they loved fish. And we'd help him and I told some of the kids, I said, I used to be able to take a hundred pound of feed on each shoulder and take up off the mountain where people bought feed for the cattle and their cows and things. Most people had cows and they always fed them middlings to, and I'd take a hundred pound on each shoulder and take off up a mountain. Kids today can't take fifty pounds. But uh...I used, I, lots of time I'd come to Bert Shannons. He was the main store in Matewan. grocery store. Then you had uh...Hopes variety or ten cents store and then they had, right a couple doors up, well right there on, where Nenni's is, they was (unintelligible) Schaffers. We'd trade and do, I'd buy things there. And then there was the old man John Nenni. He had the ice cream parlor and the beer joint and they had the, well after they got back, beer got back in and he had a shoe shop.

B: Where was his beer joint?

RH: It was right up there, upper end of town, I mean, upper, last one up, after the...most of the time it was a beer parlor then but uh...I mean, ice cream parlor and then they had, when the beer, they put beer in. Then there was uh...John Brown. John Browns was over here in the back alley had his cleaners, naturally, he always, we always went and got our moonshine.

B: Okay. Did you ever um...Venchie Morrell this morning was telling me about, I think it was his brother going down to the Curtis Club and dancing? Did you ever go down to the Curtis club? You were a little bit younger than him.

RH: (unintelligible) No I never did. I never did go around (unintelligible)

B: Un-hun.

RH: I remember the old Blue Goose Saloon.

B: Where was that?

RH: Across the river up here uh...go up (unintelligible)

B: What do you remember about the Blue Goose?

RH: I just remember it was an old brick building, I think uh...the basement of it may uh...yeah. (unintelligible)

B: The Leckies?

RH: Leckies. I think the basement that put the uh...swimming pool in the basement of the old Blue Goose Saloon. Water proofed that and made them (unintelligible)

B: Un-hun.

RH: I hadn't been...I hadn't been over there since they tore it down and the swinging bridge is gone. We used to have to (unintelligible). And everybody hated the swinging bridge.

B: Un-hun.

RH: We would have a big time.

B: Un-hun. Um...what um...did you ever hear of Aunt Carries?

RH: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

B: What do you remember about Aunt Carrie?

RH: I just knew she was a colored lady. I always, she sold, she sold whiskey but I never did, I always went to John Brown. He's, fellow sells them second hand and they say, well, I can go to Aunt Carey and she'd put be to bed if I was drinkin', which I reckon she would. Like my Aunt Roxy Varney, my grand dad's sister. She'd go up, you 'd get to drinkin' and you could go to her house up Newtown and she'd put you to bed and next morning she'd get you up, feed you, and send you on your way. I never forget, Ira Cooper, he was state police for a year or two in Matewan and they went up to raid her one time, they said that she'd been, Aunt Roxy'd been sellin' liquor and they went up to raid her and she says "uh...well, have you got a search warrant?" And what Aunt said, Aunt roxy says uh...we have, we come here to search your house, said you, they got a report you was sellin' whiskey and, she said, "do you have search warrants?" They said "no," she said, "well, alright, one of you S.O.B's set here on the porch and the other one go get a search warrant so Cooper said he set down there and said he set there and talked to her and talked to her and said, well, this trooper came back with a search warrant and said that she had told them, just a minute, she was sittin' on the porch a sewin', said just a minute, she walked in the house and got her 30/30, come back in and put shell in the chamber, okay, you all can go now, but I want you to make sure one thing, everything you take apart, take out, you put back just exactly like you found it, so, they searched her house, came back out and said Mrs. Varney, said we didn't, she said, didn't you all, you S.O.B.'s find anything? They said, "no," We didn't," She says, well, said, one other thing, did you put everything back like you found it? "Yes, Miss Varney, we did." They started down the path, and she hollered at them, "hey wait a minute, they turned around, she say's I'm gonna tell you somethin', see my gate there?" "Yes, Miss Varney, we do." She said, "I want you to jump it. Don't open it. Jump the fence." And stood up with that rifle in her hand said, "because you'll wear out my hinges." I said Cooper, "what did you do." He said, "we jumped the fence." (laughing) but that was that was Aunt Rocky she would do the same thing...Aunt Carrie would put them to bed and next morning they would get up and be on their way...I don't know, I never was, I never did visit aunt...Aunt Mrs. Carrie, Aunt Carrie, but uh...I say that uh....I reckon she did...I won't disturb their word (laughing).

B: What do you remember about some of the police chiefs here in town?

RH: Well, I knew Steve Collins, John's brother....

B: Uh-huh

RH: He was, I always liked him, I always, just like I said we grew...visit there Violet Collins, that's his daughter that married the Hardesty boy and then Kathleen she lives on Pigeon Creek...and Frank he was killed over, in service...And Willard was next door neighbor and I liked, well I never seen one I didn't like, I can get along with all of them, Ernest Hatfield, Ernest I guess was the one that was so, so as far as I'm concern, I didn't like him, I went to school about, he went to school just graduated before I did, but he was so, so as far as I'm con....in by book...Pro nor Con, but then there was uh...uh...preacher, not preacher, Glenn Meade, he was police for a awhile and...I don't know, I mean, I'm trying to think who all rest it was...And David Straten, I get along, good with David Straten, I think he is a fine boy...I call him boy, he's alot...lot younger than I...

B: Okay...You wouldn't know, have...have you ever heard who was police chief after Sid Hatfield got killed?

RH: No, I never did. That's...that you know I never even thought about that...but I will find out...

B: Okay. Because whoever was has been completely over shadowed because nobody could think of who was chief after Sid?

RH: I can...I knew...I find out somebody I know and...and if I do I will find out.

B: How did uh...when I talked to Dutch last summer, he said he...well I was a old man when they asked me to take it and I was wondering...

RH: Oh yeah, Dutch was for uh...

B: Uh-huh, he seemed really popular, and you seem like he was a older fellow and nobody really gave him trouble.

RH: Well, I remember when uh...several things happened here in Matewan, Steve Collins who was that he shot...uh...Babe somehthing [sic], right here in the railroad tracks, my step dad was working this place, night place...And but uh...things you know, Steve was uh...a high strung fellow...now he was in during the strike and he was one of the people that uh...you didn't mess with too much and if liked you he'd do anything in the world for you...and that's uh...the way I feel by Steve, he was just high strung, on count of the time he spent in prison, he spent time in prison and uh...he was good fellow...and Dutch he was alright we're cousins, he...he, just so, so, I...I am...have nothing against Dutch he's, I could say things I, judgemental about him but I won't do it because I always got along with him...but he was, he never was uh...inter...I don't reckon tried to find out about his people, his parent, I mean his realtives [sic]...now his...his mother was a wonderful person and Aunt Irene was a wondreful [sic] person...and she was a Long, Irene, her last name was Long, and...Irene Long... and the other police chief quit, I don't know who it was during World I, I was in service...I knew that I got along with all of them, I gert [sic] along with State Police, I never have any trouble with State Police, they have, just like yesterday a wreck over there on Pigeon Creek , I went up and I was directing traffic, other people stand around, look like they don't know what to do... But I'm gonna find...I never even thought about who was Chief Police after...Sid, Sid was...

B: Okay...

RH: That's some...something to think about...(laughs) something work on...and I will find out...on that on that uh... I don't...pressures...what ever you want to call it...Curisoity [sic], curious.. But when...

B: What...go ahead...

RH: go ahead.

B: I was going to ask you uh...what do you remember about the Fourth of July, because when we talked to Howard Radford last summer, he said that the Fourth of July use to be a big holiday in this town?

RH: The Fourth of July use to be a big holiday everywhere, but now it, was like I, where was I? I was out in Ohio...just somewhere along about the Fourth, out to my brothers, not this fourth last fourth, and uh... he was out and we was riding around, flags all over the place...everywhere, come back, and I think we counted coming from...last, before this year, my wife and I had been in Charleston somewhere my wife and I been to Charleston we had our granddaughters us and they decided they was going to count the flags...wudn't too many... (laughing) they take one, uh...wife and one grandaughter [sic] on one side and the other side was helping the youngest daughter and they was counting flags on each side of the rode...and I think maybe forty five, fifty flags all we've seen all the way from Charleston, well from Hunington [sic] up through Charleston, back over...Which wasn't very many flags for that many peo...that big of area... they used to have a parade, use to have a fox roast over in uh...at uh...Ragland, they have, you go up there up there they have a opera every Fouth [sic] of July....and we bunch of us kids we get on, catch a ride or walk, or what other over...then they had Mountain Lake right over across in Taylorville they used to be uh...damned creek, dammed up...us boys from North Matewan we walked across the mountain, we'd pull our clothes off, we had our swimming trunks under our clothes and pull our clothes off, it cost you if you go in, go over, go in and...we'd, they hit the lake from the mountain side...But they have, they fox roast, just like I said fox roast at Ragland every year...and everybody, a alot people would go, and always have picnics and everything... But I would like to see, were this will never happen, we used to have at the Hatfield graveyards, up Newtown...every year they would have a big reuninion [sic], family reunion, a big eveything [sic] on the ground, everything....that would be around Fourth of July... and there would be people from everywhere, how they got here I don't know, they...they would...I know my cousin, I have a couple of cousins in Cleveland now...my mother's sister's boys and all of them we was at the my Aunt Janes funeral we was sitting around talking, and she said, let's get a reunion organized, I said well, okay who is going to be the chief of it, they said well we'll make you, I said well, if I can get around to it, I've got to much other things I got on my chest...(laughing)

B: Uh-huh

RH: maybe in a couple years, maybe next year we will try to get to together and everything and have one...Invite everybody from everywhere...

B: When you were growin up uh...Venchie said that there was uh...a curfew at night for kids in Matewan...

RH: Oh yeah...

B: what do you remeber [sic] about it?

RH: I don't, see we didn't live in Matewan...but they wouldn't uh...I think it was about nine o'clock...they had, had a curfew, people didn't, kids getting into so much meanness...and uh...make sure, well if you were at a certain age...which I thought was a good thing...Which I lived in North Matewan, so we didn't, nine o'clock we generally at home or in North Matewan someplace in somebodies house there...and in that area...

B: Okay, speaking of Ira Cooper again uh... I heard some people say he would uh...he would have people arrested , he'd watch people that went into the bars and clubs and stuff and he, when they came back out he'd have them arrested for being drunk in public, did you ever hear about him doing things like that?

RH: Who was that?

B: Ira Cooper.

RH: Well, now Ira Cooper, I like Ivy (Ira) he never did me that way...and uh...I don't know whether he did or not...I do know that Iry Cooper was if he was a fellow that was, if he likes you...he'd do anything for you, the first time, first time I ever saw, he came to North Matewan, he sold insurance for a long time...He had uh...a I don't know what kind of model car it was, he said take my car and go some way amd [sic] I said Irie, I don't want to drive your car...he said well walk then, I said okay, it wudn't very far, I think it was around old Kenny Browning's somewhere over in there...Down in the back alley, wanted me to take his car, I drove but, I drived but I didn't feel that safe being out in his car..so I walked over there and got whatever he wanted, but Irie, I liked Iry, you never, I could never say anything about him, because always, whether he did or not, he might have but uh...

B: Okay...How about Noah Flyod [sic]? Noah FLoyd?

RH: Noah Floyd? Well Noah's alright he was a politician... he was a politician and they have, I reckon they had their cliques and that's always been, that's like when they talk about cliques, just like when I become a Scout master, had a bunch of boys and uh...these kids were in every organization, I don't care what it is...certain people, so the kids asked me, "who's going to be in your clique?" And that sorta stunned me, I never thought of it that way...I said okay, let me think about it for a week, next Monday night we had scout meetin' and I done forget about it, so they brought it up again...so I said okay, I'm going to start naming all the boys off that's going to be in my clique, I started with the youngest one, the first one that just started working there a Tenderfoot...and I got them all over in one group...and they looked at me and said, "who's going to be in your clique" and I said, "you all are, and that't [sic] the way it was, just like in politic there is a cliques and a slate and uh...they call them slates but there are cliques and if you're in the cliques you got it made and if you're not, you don't have it made and the word for is one of the ramrods, and that like in his hayday [sic]...Just like Mattie Varney over there on Pigeon Creek, here and there they was in the clique they had, they was the kingpins in Mingo County politicians, Mattie was one of the, she was a Hatfield, she was kin to the, I think she was old man Wallace's daughter...and that was the clique and she was a kingpin and her husband was supposed to be really was supposed to be the man in the charge of the policitics [sic] in Mingo County, but Mattie was the boss...and uh...they just handed down, I reckon, I don't know whether Truman is their boss or what...but he seems to be, I don't believe in it, I believe in everbody having there own way...I go the election ground and vote like I want to and nobody, anybody approaches me they might as well forget about because, I'll tell them right back, and my daughter and my sons they ask me who are going to vote for...I reckon I'm the boss in the family and when the way they vote...and they ask me who are you going to vote for and they'll set down and we will study them all out and my wife and all of them, will figure up all of the people that we think is the best people and I say we vote for them...and uh...nobody ever approaches us when we go to the election area...which is, the way it should be...

B: Uh-huh...What do you think of the uh...the good things of Matewan as community should be remembered for?

RH: I think Matewan has always been a good place...I think, I always think, I've always liked, I never had thing, my boys, my children graduated all from Matewan High School, well except one he was went through to the tenth, elventh [sic] grade in Matewan and uh...I got into the wrong group...and we made him transfer him to Burch and he quit in the first thing he had quit in the first semester [sic] and he quit the second semester, and first thing you know we didn't say a word to him and he decided in he would finish high school on his own...and he went back and finished high school and all of my children I have one daughter that is nuclear technician in Charleston General Hos...C.A.M.C the Women and Child or town center she is in charge of the whole nuclear an ex-ray [sic] technician. I have one daughter that works in K-Marts, she is assistant manager at K-Mart over there Williamson, she is an ex-ray technician...but she don't, don't like it so she went to work in the stores, and she's been at K-Mart since then, I have one boy he is the Chief propation [sic] officer in Wayne County... I have one son that's working for Long John Silvers, he's assistant manager he's been there about five years now, that's Ryan he's the youngest, and Terry never could get him settled down anywhere, he's in Columbus now working on construction job... My wife is postmaster at Varney...and I'm retired. (laughing)

B: You just kinda float around.

RH: I float around. I do all the things, I do everything that nobody else will do.

B: Do you remember the uh... the trains how they would come through here in town?

RH: The trains they would come they was about five a day... and well, you had your locals and you had sixteen and twenty-four and twenty-three and number four and number three, they...they most of the time at night, then the latter years, pow(?) time which is twenty-five and twenty-six...and people got around better and it was uh...a good way of transportation, I know I use to crawl under a train, the first thing after we got somewhere where we could got had have dinner, I would got to the diner and that's where I would sat and eat...and...If we went there, take a...you know a trip like to Richmond or...always take you practically all day...and I always ended up in the diner and drinkin' beer and eating...I got on a train, here in Matewan going to Richmond and I had a half-brother that was in the hospital there in Richmond, two colored boys, that was before segregation started...and there was colored boys on the train and so I wnet [sic] back and sat with them, they was soldiers...and people they'd look at me, like it was, but there is nothing unusual for me, I worked with 'em, so why should I be any different than, and I sat there and we got up, and I said well let's go back to the diner, we went back to the diner and I said uh...you boys want something to drink and they looked at me and I said, I already ordered three beers for us, and we sat there and drink beer...We got across Virginia line see, West Virginia it was 3.2, Virginia had 6.0 beer and they had this waiter he would come back and he said well you all can have better beer now if you want it, and I said okay, and they brought...ordered it and they all them, them other people on the train see they didn't uh...they thought it was somethin unusually, go back and sit down with those two colored boys, they was soliders [sic] and I knew what they was representing... and I enjoyed them...I talk...talked to them, about there, where they was from and everything, and I enjoyed things like that... but a lot of people don't. And right now, I have good friends and colored friends, always did and always will I reckon.

B: So when it crossed over into Virginia, they didn't make you move because I know Virginia was much more strict than about... segretation [sic] ...

RH: I don't, they didn't make us more...we just...we just, we wouldn't of moved, I wouldn't of moved no how...we would of had a fight more than likely...But I always believed in the right thing, I believe in...regardless what color you are, you are human...every man is born equal.

B: Venchie said he can remember, and we were talking this morning about the Klu Klux Klan, now really being a race oriented group down here but, he said he can remember them marching through town, do you remember them...

RH: Oh yeah...

B: marching?

RH: yeah...

B: Where did they march?

RH: They went right down the middle of the street, right up through, into North Matewan...then, my dad was a memeber [sic] of the Klu Klux Klan in Ohio...and I used thought it was money....I thought they called them the uh...Georgia Wildcats...and I would see him get up and get this outfit out...and they go out and the next day you would read the paper where somebody had a bunch of switches standing on there front porch...and I reckon that's why they called it, give them warning...

B: Uh-huh...I want to see what your going to say, what they would leave switches for, what did they leave switches for?

RH: That was uh...if the people didn't straighten up the next time they went they used them...

b: Uh-huh...But what kind of things would they do that to people over?

RH: What, several things, one maybe a fellow wouldn't take care of his family...and then they'd have the uh...the women...I reckon they caught the women of the street now...and they was always hard on Jews, I don't know why...I don't know why the Klu Klux Klan is always hard on Jews...they're human.

B: Yep, was that here, I mean was the Schaffer Brothers or...or the Burman family where they, did they, where they harrassed at all, here in Matewan becasue [sic] the Schaffer's where Jewish?

RH: Yeah, they had a store here...and I got, right along where uh...

B: Nenni's

RH: yeah Nenni's, somewhere in there, there was three or four stores in there...and but they was no, they was always very nice people, I mean, we got, I always got...I went into the store a lot of times.

B: But did the, the Klan didn't brother [sic] him?

RH: No, no they didn't bother anybody, just uh...going on demonstrations...

B: Uh-huh...But in other places, like say where your father was, they...

RH: oh yeah, yeah...

B: didn't like Jews very much?

RH: Why I don't know, actually their wasn't to many....I can't remember but one colored family...In Wodsworth Ohio. But he was a good old man...She I have a brother that lives in Wadsworth yet, my oldest, well the only one I have living...he still in Wadsworth and I write to him or call him, he calls me and it's never been real close, because the distance between us, we was raised in different parts, and different...under different circumstances, the last time, well one of the last times I saw my dad, we have several people that live in Wayne County...My oldest aunt's daughter lives down there, he called me up, said we're coming to Wayne, will you come down and see me, I told my wife, I said we might as well, and we got in the car and went down, got ready to leave.....

RH: if, I always thought it, but I never did say it to him, got ready to leave and he started tears are coming down and he started crying and I looked at him....(tape cuts off)

B: You say when your father say you, you started crying, and...

RH: Yeah, after he got ready to leave, I said uh... I got one thing to say, I got my own family, I take care of my family, don't get sentimental with me now becuase [sic] I don't need you, because when I did need you, you wudn't around for me...and I just couldn't, drove off and my wife said, "I shouldn't of (have) said that to him a 'tall, I said, "well honey, I thought it for years and years, years..." that was the proper time to say it... well he died in '68 he was in California, Riverside California, and I wudn't even going to the funeral but my daughters Connie and Janice, Janice lived in Columbus at time, said let's...we're going to the funeral, I said I don't want to go...she said you're going anyways, so Connie's husband said if you don't want to go, he said if you want I will go with you...we'll go but I don't want to...so we went Columbus, and made arange...I already called for tickets, went out to the airport and I laid out the ticket for the price of the ticket and had gave them nine one hundred dollar bills...that's Columbus...for round trip for three of us, the guy looked at me, no he says do you want to pay cash, I say yeah, I lay him out nine one hundred bills...He made some kind of remark and I said well I can show you about five more, five thousand more, one hundred dollar bills, if you want to see them...and he looked at me, right, ignorant, thought because I was a coal miner and that couldn't, didn't have much...and we went out there and stayed for the funeral and came back, and I have uh...two half brothers and two half sisters that live in California...ah, we never correspond they just those are different, there the different family, Huff family...

B: Uh-huh... Okay I think I've better much exhausted all the questions I could think of to ask you are there any...

RH: I'd just like to say...

B: things that you would like to say?

RH: You've heard of, you've read of the old faith doctors... Well my granddad, my dad's, dad Hendreson Huff was a faith doctor...he was uh...he took care he traveled by horse all over the country, he was a cancer doctor, he would take the cancer off of people, external cancer, internal, external cancers... he removed me he had some kind of potion and nobody everybody ever knew it, I mean he wouldn't, he didn't pass it down to anybody, it was either, it was to be passed down to him and the oldest son was suppose to been passed on to him the remedy... Well, if it ever was we never, my brother and I never...But uh...the story on him, he was riding up Island Creek one time, he told me and my brother both we was talking to him and he said he was coming up Island Creek, got right at the edge of dark...how this was Devil "Anse" Hatfields own, see (?) pull up the road up to the house and ask the old man, said can we stay all night with you...I'm from so and so and can we, Grandpa Henderson he says hollered at one of the boys, and said take the old man, the gentlemen's horse down, rub it down and give it uh...a feed of oats and put it in the barn...Then, went in the house sittin' there talking to the old man, got ready for supper and he went to bed and said the old gentlemen had a bear on the side, sittin' on the table, sittin' right beside his chair, he said he'd reach over there and feed him once and a while, and they never asked any questions, never asked him who he was or anything, so he got to talking and said one thing I always dreaded coming through this part of the county, he had been through there several times, the only person I never dread of meetin' was Devil "Anse" Hatfield, said the old man "well anytime your ready to go to bed," says the boys will show you up stairs where you can sleep, so they took him up there and showed him his bed...he slept good, night sleep, got up the next morning said one of the boys already saddled his horse for him, got up and ate breakfast, and said I'd liked to know, I said know gentlemen now who do I owe the privilege to staying all night with, he said well you owe the privilege staying all night with that man you've been dreading to meet with, Devil "Anse" Hatfield, I said what did you do? He said I enjoyed every minute I was there with him...

B: (Laughs)

RH: he said I was the wrong way and he was uh...he was what they called the old faith doctor of cancer...but that's uh...I went and stayed and talked to him, talked to my granddad an awful lot...about this travel...but he never would tell us what the remedy was for cancer...Which would of been an interesting thing...

B: That would of....did he ever talk about, I know some people in my mother's father's family they would, they could rub things off, like rub a wart off?

RH: No...he, he was, I don't reckon, I never did that.

B: Since you talked to uh...this has got me on a different subject, uh...since you talked to alot of older people, did you ever pick up say what, the old women would use for remedies for medical remedies and things?

RH: Well, I was sittin' in class on time and Granny Hoskins, now she was the old teacher and we all talked and she asked, well what would, does anybody know what is good for the measles? Well, me I heard it all my life, I said yeah, I know what's good for them and she said what's that? I said sheep manure tea... Well I didn't say it in that words...and all the little girls they started "hee hee" and I laughed and she said that's right. (Both laugh) and I guess it was good for ya...but, any hot tea would be good for me...somebody come out and ask me if you want to play cow...and that's uh...

B: Uh-huh

RH: Astifedeh a pouch around your neck...

B: How do you spell that, do you know?

RH: I don't know, then they had what they called the groundhog grease they put around your neck or grease yourself in it.

B: What was th [sic] groundhog grease for?

RH: Uh...they always say croup...I think that's the same thing as flu and...

B: What was that astifedeh pouch for?

RH: That was for croup, keeping you from coughing and they had thousands of ex...But it stunk, I know that much...

B: Really...

RH: Yeah... (laughing)

B: What about uh...what did, did you ever here of a treatment for the shingles?

RH: Unh-hun.(meaning no)

B: Okay, I think that some of the much older women I talk to, said that they use to take the blood of a black chicken...

RH: I never did...

B: to get rid of the shingles?

RH: We never got, now we got that, I've got books on the old time remedies, I do alot of, I go to Parkway, Blueberry Parkway, and the Smokey mountains, and you can pick up all kinds of books on stuff like that...and it's, we enjoyed it, enjoyed our books.

B: Were there ever any old timey musicians in this area, people that would play the banjo and fiddle and...?

RH: Well, I don't know if there was or not, there was lot of people, they played, they all played in the musician, we had uh...one fellow, well he wudn't even an old man, well he was, Charlie Kiser's brother...Pauline's Uncle Willie, he went, him daughters, him and his daughters and son's they sang alot and they went to, they went to Nashville, two or three time uh...yeah, can't even think of his name now, he use to be a representative in the union, he, he'd go down, he took 'em down... they was performing in Nashville, several times. But uh...I don't know if any played much...musical instruments, Albert (Burgraff) played the organ.

B: We heard a story I think he was the one, when the children were gettin' out of school at the time of the Massacre, that he took, he took some that couldn't get back out of town to the church and played the organ, and kept them busy?

RH: Well, more likely he did...say the school they, likely that happened when twenty-two, twenty-one?

B: 1920, yeah...

RH: I reckon they was having high school here in, in town, I don't remember where in later years, it was moved up there across from there....They had high school, the old wooden buildin' was the high school there for a while, then they built the high school across the brick building and used for the grade school... I don't know exactly when those buildings where, the great, white building was or wooden building was built, I wudn't here then.

B: What do you know, and the rest of the family feel, how do you all feel about, reporters and other people (that) come in and ask about the Feud, how do you feel about it, do you try to keep thing stirred up?

RH: No, no I don't. I think uh...I got stable McCoy people and my friends...so is Hatfields my friend, I think everybody is friends eveybody [sic] is neighbors, you don't have friends you have neighbors, I know I laughed, my daughters, my children are my friends...and alot of people think it's unusual, they decide they want to go somewhere, any one of the children, they decide they want to go somewhere...they always wanting mommy and daddy to go with 'em...on any kind of a trip, daddy and mommy would go with them...and you know that's not very often, that' that's uh...unusual, but as a family...when they were growing up... we was always family, we always went...they went as well as we did, if we decide to go on a trip, my children didn't stay home, they went...and uh...somebody made the remark, said they told me that they was in the middle of the Sahara Desert, they liable to run into you, that could be...Do you go that much, I said yeah, well I got a '87 Mercury Station Wagon, it's got eight thousand miles on it now, I've got two other cars over there I drive, so you know we go...yeah, but my children they always, they always everything is planned they plan mommy and daddy along with it... and so I told them, I said we're, that's our friends...we have friends but not that kind of friends, you know...sociable friends...Everybody is I...I'm a friend to everybody...and I try to get along with everybody...

B: Uh-huh. Well, thank you for talking to me today.

B: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development. Thursday August 9th 1990. I'm doing a follow up interview with Mr. Robert Huff because of technical difficulties involved with his first tape. Um...Mr. Huff the first story I'd...I'd like to ask you about is uh...that we missed in the earlier tape was your grandmother's brother Dictor could you tell me something about him again.

RH: Well, he was uh...I think he...he...he was suppost to been crazy but I think he had more sense than I did or anybody else, 'cause he never worked a day in his life. He always stayed clean he always had plenty of smoking tobacco, he smoked what they called the twist the shoe peg twist. And uh...anytime his picture was taken if he got to see it it was his, he took it, he wouldn't...he wouldn't...you couldn't keep his picture. So very few people got pictures of him. I don't have...I took alot of pictures of him but I don't have his pictures. He stayed with Uncle Kirk 'til he died and I believe he might have been about the fourth child in the family, Floyd was...he...his name was Floyd actually.

B: Okay.

RH: He was I think the fourth or fifth child I'm not positive which one. You know, the list I gave you he's on that and and and rotation. Uh, go ahead.

B: Do you know why they called him Dictor?

RH: No, I don't. (Both laugh) I don't.

B: Um. Could you tell me a little bit more about Ellison Hatfield what you know about Ellison Hatfield.

RH: I know very little about Ellison. Except he was that he died over here in the mouth of Warm Hollow uh...the buil...(building) the building...the home is still there the house is still there, and uh...I'd liked to know more about. Which alot of people would have.

B: Right.

RH: I know he had a large family. Him and my grandmother had a large family. My great grandmother rather had a large family.

B: What do you think...I remember when we talked before that you said that you had a a opinion independent pretty much than everybody else.

RH: I did.

B: When he died...

RH: I did. Just like my grandmother I talked...I was her favorite nephew uh...uh...favorite grandson. Alot of people didn't you know they always had to pick granny. and I would talk to her and she said her mother and her begged 'em not to go to Ransom (unintelligable [sic]) over in Kentucky on election day. Well, they was strong headed as they were all of them all the old people are strong headed and he decided that he would do it anyway and that's...he was over there he was for one side and the McCoys was for another and (unintelligible) that's politics and that's when it all started. And I said if he would have stayed home he wouldn't uh...it wouldn't of happened. (Bailey laughs) I have my opinion alot of people they think maybe I'm a little out of line. It's...that's like my opinion of it.

B: Uh-huh.

RH: If he would have stayed where he should have been (Both laugh).

B: Okay. The next story that I want to get back on tape again is uh...your story about a lady called Ema Sipple. Would you tell 'em her story again.

RH: She was well...well her husband was by the name of Joe Sipple. We call him poor folks. That was his nickname. Everybody called...I don't know why the guys called him poor folks. And uh...she was quite old and I (unintelligible) office in Red Jacket. Started out filling out papers for the...when the welfare and the dependent fund came for the United Mine Workers. And she was in my house one day and I was gone and so she sit down waiting so she's standing there and she started squirming around and she asked my wife, "Honey, said you mind if I smoke" I said she said, "Why no Mrs. Sipple, you can go ahead and smoke and she got her little clay pipe out and she got her little twist of tobacco out and she broke her off some and she stuffed it full, and sit there and smoked her cigarette...smoked her pipe and relaxed. She was the old lady that always wore nice black dresses and that's the way she would wear her little black hat on her head. (unintelligible) Pert woman. And I reckon she was right in her seventy's at that time. That was oh twenty, twenty-five years ago. She is dead and alot of them is...most of the old folks are. I'm one of the old folks now. (Both laugh).

B: Okay. Let's see you talked quite a bit about John L. Lewis the last time and the part...that is really missing off the tape is um starting with what you are telling about John L. Lewis and the hospitalization for the miners.

RH: In the hospitalization and the welfare fund started 1948. I mean that's when the uh...brain child, well the brain child was a long time before that John L. Lewis had ideas that nobody else had. I was in the Cincinnati Convention and we got talking and I said, "I went to his...I had a private meeting with him in his suite at the Nepulin Plaza Hotel. We sit talking and I asked him "Mr. Lewis" I says, "I want to know one thing." He's the man I call Mr. because he was quite old and he was older than I was and he was smarter than I was (unintelligible) knew how to use his ? better than I did, maybe. So we was talking and I asked him, "Mr. Lewis if the welfare and the hospitalization, don't you think if the men would pay into the hospitalization that it they would protect it more," and the remarks he made he says, "Delegate Huff I think if you would...if it would...they would and in the future years they will have to. Which in use now they do. But, if as long as we can get anything free were going to take everything we can get. And that was the way it was. Well, if the welfare fund, hospitalization fund was very badly mistreated. 'Cause I know people that worked at the hospital and they carried off whole loads of stuff. Which was taking money out of my hospital plan.

B: right.

RH: And the other mine workers plan. And John L. Lewis and I was very personal friends. I could meet him anywhere, you know... knew my name...he talked to me we'd have meetings. He would come into Charleston...I always get the word that he was coming in I would go over and talk to him. And I know the men...several times he would be over there and older alot of older men old men sitting there and he'd come in (unintelligible) Secretary, Treasurer would introduce start introducing he'd get to me and say I know him he's Robert Huff from Mingo County. (Bailey laughs) And well, his brother was R.O. Lewis for year he was Secretary Treasurer District 17 then he was president. And we had a personal relationship of good corporation. John L. Lewis was a man that was uh...he looked ahead I think he was one of the best men in the United States. I've always got a gripe John L. Lewis done more for the laboring class. Your dad was a miner wasn't he.

B: My grandfather.

RH: Your grandfather was a miner. John L. Lewis done more for the laboring class of people than any other man in the United States. He organized the CIO, the AF of L, the United Mine Workers, well he didn't organize the United Mine Workers but he organized the CIO and AF of L as a branch of the United Mine Workers. And my gripe is there's a man that done more for the United States for the working class people than anybody that I know of. Yelp you got a fellow like Martin Luther King never done anything but cause trouble wherever he went they idolize him by making his birthday a national holiday. I don't approve of that. (both laugh) Not everybody knows how I feel about it but I don't I don't beat around the bush about it. I have some good friends that's colored people and we've had a good relationship. Well, I have a good relationship with everybody.

B: Well, what do you think, I've...I've heard people say though that people like John L. Lewis because they were involved in labor it's something to do with this country and and politics, they tend to think of labor activists as not being wholly American. You know what I mean?

RH: Ah, no way. I'm one...I'm always I still are and I'm all American. This...this flag burning you know that wouldn't happen in West Virginia. 'Cause people like myself would not...would not stand for it. I know up at the fair the other night I'm the only...one see I belong to the Kawanii's club so I took a flag and at our booth I hang the flag up on the front of the booth. (both laugh)

B: What do you...have you ever heard of people saying that unions and other organization like that are communist. Have you ever heard of that.

RH: Ah...they say that but don't never let anybody believe that. Because uh...in World War II I spent forty-six months over seas. And we had good relationship. Now we were...those things went on in the service that I didn't like. And there's things that go on out here in civil...civilian life that I don't like. And uh...I don't think there's any labor union. Well, maybe some that's communist but not as a whole. You don't have communistic feeling in everything. Just like there's good and bad in everything. There's good and bad in churches, there's good and bad in anything you go at. And you know that in politics, politics there's more bad than there is good. No, I won't...I'll take that back. There there is alot of good people in politics. But uh...

B: It tends to bring out the bad in people.

RH: Huh?

B: ...it tends to bring out the bad in people.

RH: It brings out the bad in people. And uh...but I don't think there's any communist in in the United Mine Workers I know there's not.

B: Alright. Uh...my next question and it's going to be a big question. Um...most of what we talked about with your experiences in the service are gone, could you tell me about going in the service again and where you were.

RH: In 1937 I graduated from high school at Matewan. I worked at Red Jacket I was drawing a dollar and eighty cents a day at Red Jacket and we was working around one day a week. And uh...I laid around and I said, "Well this is not for me", so I went in the service. I joined the Army went to Ft. Monroe, Virginia. Coast Artillery we was anti-aircraft our outfit Artillery outfit. And uh...I tell my boys I worked I went in the Army I was working for a dollar eighty cents quit the mines and went in the Army and I was drawing eighteen seventy-five a day. Once a month...they thought that was something unusual but actually it was more money that I could make it in working. 'Cause I had all my food and clothing my board and everything is paid. And I stayed in service until 1945 and my outfit went over seas. We left San Francisco in January '42 we went to Hawaii was heading for the Philippine Islands was down two days below the Hawaiian Islands and I was setting at the radio room listening to what-in-alls going on. I was always noisy I reckon that's why...and we got orders to turn back we couldn't go in the Philippine's they was a block-aid in it. We came back to the Hawaiian Islands I went on the big island my outfit landed on the big island of Hawaii. That's Helow (sp) and we set up they had seventeen home guards men at Helow so and old 3 inch anti aircraft gun. I'd been afraid to fire. (Bailey laughs)

B: Why was that?

RH: Well, it was so old and not well taken care of. And in March that's '42 the Japanese sub came up and they had two million tons of raw sugar stored in the at the warehouse at the dock. They throwed two torpedoes at it and missed both times which was lucky 'cause the island Helow would have been blowed off the...raw sugar you know is nothing but pure alcohol. And they went back we didn't have a gun...one of our guns were somewhere else. We had ninety millimeter guns...my outfit did...and we lost or we hadn't got them yet...had fifty calibers, so I'm mad, the fifty calibers I was waiting for them to come in. Which couldn't...we could have took care of them with our fifty caliber machine guns. 'Cause submarines don't carry to many people. (Becky laughs) And I was in...I went to the...down to Royal I watched (?) when I was settin' in my transport...army transport ship. We never did go in on Tarwa.

B: Could you spell that for me?

RH: Huh. T.A.R.W.A. I think something. I saw...I saw they... they read the books. It tells about the uh...Marines...so many men at Marines getting killed there and the blood. Well the beach... the water wasn't red with Marine blood...American blood...because they got caught in a crossfire. Had a machine gun they set it up in a little huddle of a Japanese ship off the ocean. They got in between there and they opened up and we went to the Marsh....we's at Gilbert the Martials I was on the Martial and we landed on the Martial Islands it was the...the island I was on. Had a...is a half a mile wide and three quarters of a mile long...had eight thousand imperial Marine force which was the Aircorp over the Japanese and there they was all six foot and better. Now everybody thinks Japanese is small but the Mar... Japanese the Marines were always six foot and better they wouldn't take anybody under six foot and they was air...the air corp. We, they, Japanese sunk all of their ships, their planes they took them out in the lagoon...in the lagoon and sank them (unintelligible) and treated their planes and motors so they could raise them up and put them back in operation. If they ever came back, which they planned on retaking Martial Island, which they never did. And the intelligence out of Worshington (Washington) they come down and they wanted a couple of those planes, so three of us, we was always in the lagoon swimming and things...so we went down and we raised one...what they call the Zero that was that fighter plane...we raised it, they brought it back, loaded it up and brought it back. The Japanese was the greatest people in the world for booby traps. Which I was dumb and my buddy's was too, we didn't check that plane for booby traps, which we was lucky then. And then we went down and got in one of the observation planes what they call the Petetobs(?) observation planes. But we did check that one for booby traps. And they brought both of those back to the Hawaiian Islands and they studied to see what made them. And we was...I went to Marianna's from there from Quadlin(?) I went to Marianna's camp. And from there came back to Hawaiian Islands. We was in the tenth army, after we left Marianna's. And three days before we suppost to board ship to go sail for Marianna, I mean Quadlin, Okinawa they took us out of the tenth army and put a colored outfit in our place. That colored outfit, I was gun commander, I was chief of gun section, I was gun commander. And always noisy, that's why they all call me...always running my mouth and always checking on everything that's going on. So this colored outfit, I was sitting in the office and the war department bulletins come in so I start reading and the out...(outfit) this colored outfit went to Okinawa in our place. My gun the one I would have been commanding my that gun crew got blowed up, they had a direct hit. I looked took orders out and I said, "boys look at this, that could have been us as well as anybody else."

B: Uh-huh. Um.

RH: And we was thankful, but we was on three invasions so they figured they'd put some new outfit in.

B: What were the three invasions you were involved in.

RH: In Marianna's, the Martial's [sic], and the Gilbert's.

B: Where were you when you heard about the bomb being dropped.

RH: I was in Camp Davis, North Carolina. Our equipment was all loaded ready to go. I mean the...ever...uh...

B: Have you ever seen...

RH: No, we was in Martial Islands. We was in the Martial Islands when that happened. And thank God for Harry S. Truman. Yeah, I'm a Democrat. (Both laugh)

B: But, wh..why do you say that.

RH: Well, Harry Truman was one of the greatest Presidents we ever had, bar none. If it hadn't been for him the war would have been going on for a long time more. But, when those bombs dropped that stopped it there.

B: Would you have been part of the invasion.

RH: No.

B: On the main island...

RH: On the where...

B: On the main island of Japan.

RH: No. No. We was in back in, I would have liked to of been. If they would have invaded it. I'd liked to of been. I don't know but now that...that...that...that sounds stupid but I tell you since I was I was the regular Army. I knew what it was about, I trained for it and I would have liked to have been in on the main island invasion. Which it never did happen, I'd have to. They'd already give up for that outfit being invaded. And uh...I think it'd been...I'd been an experience. I know when the ...when Korean war broke out I'd come home. I was married had one child so I was...got to thinking I said well I'm going to go back in service. I went to Williamson the Sergeant down there I was talking to him, he looked at me, said, "Well what...how much service do you have.?" I told him, almost nine years, he says, "Oh, we don't want you." I figure it was because he'd read the paper and where...says I's married and had one child and that was the reason. And I didn't say anything I said, "Okay", said, "We can always get you...yeah you can for ten years, I'll be in regular on active reserve list for ten years. He said, "well, we'd rather get these boys that's eighteen, nineteen years old that's never had any service." Well, I thought it was a stupid idea because somebody with experience and new what it was about, new how to take care of themselves would be better than ten young boys that didn't. So I thought it was just because I was married that he said no. I went to Huntington I filled out the application talking to the first lieutenant he was the recruiting officer down there. I left married place blank and the children of dependents blank 'til after I got through. We sit there and talked and I told him he asked me the same question, "How much service do you have," and I told him. He said, "Well we don't need you now, we want to take these young boys and give them some experience." Well, I said, "That's what they told me Will... that's what they told me in Williamson." (both laugh) And I said, "I figured it's because I was married and had one child," he said, "No that's not it." If I would have went in I would have stayed in.

B: Um. What did...I know see that one of the differences that people point out about say World War II and Vietnam is that when somebody went into the war and World War II I mean you...you were there for a while you weren't gonna get mustered out after a year. What was it like though for somebody that had been in the service before the war to somebody that was drafted.

RH: What was it like?

B: Uh-huh. Was it different...

RH: it was much...

B: say to somebody like you?

RH: It was much different. After war was declared I was a disciplinarian person. I like...I mean I believe in discipline. After the war started and the draft started the discipline went so bad you couldn't tell a private if you was (unintelligible) you couldn't tell a private to do something you could tell him if he's refuse. Okay, there wasn't much you could do about it. When I first went in if I would have told a sergeant or a corporal that I wudn't gonna do it he took me out and worked me over. And they'd been nothing said about it. Then you can, after war was declared you couldn't do that. I know I had...I did before....

B: Why was that...why do you think it changed.

RH: Well, I don't know, yeah, the...the draftee was a civilian in the service he wudn't a soldier, he wudn't a soldier, he was draftee in service. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to be there. The regular Army people like myself when war was... we wanted to be there or we wouldn't of been there. That's my way of (saying) it. I was...I never...I never finished college or anything but while I was...when I first went in I went to school in Fort Moner Virginia. We had two different schools, I went to Clerical School one year and I was pretty good at being a clerk. But I didn't like it, I didn't like to be pinned in an office. So second year I went to electrical school and I made top grade in my electrical course. I made 99.9 which was a good good uh... score, well when automatically I made tech sergeant I was already a staff sergeant from the year before that when I clerical school because I made a chief of staff raiding. And the only thing...way I could be busted was by act of Congress. 'Cause them appointments was all from...through Congress. And my outfit was not I was in was not charged with my raiding, I was just a extra raiding getting paid as and I was working as a gun commander and chief of gun section. I had four guns, four ninety millimeter guns I was in charge of. Although I wo...I had one gun myself and I enjoyed it. I was in Fort Myne(?), Camp Davis when war (unintelligable [sic]) well before war...and they was building these dupont powder plants down in Chiltersburg, Alabama. Being an electrician...there was...and we had thirteen of 'em in my outfit, or in my patulin not my outfit, we were drafted to go to Childersburg, Alabama to work on this civilian project because they didn't have enough electricians, we got civilian pay plus our Army pay.

B: Can you spell the name of that place in Alabama.

RH: Chiltersburg? Oh, let me think C.H.I.L.T.E.R.S.B.U.R.G. an...and dupont built all those powder plants and after war they bought them all back...from the services from the Ar...from the the...the uh... services or for ten percent. They was operated as powder plants and then took and made cellophane out of...they turned them, see you make cellophane is made by the same process that gun powder is.

B: Oh my goodness...

RH: (Mr. Huff laughs) It just takes very little changing over to to make uh...and I enjoy things like that. Well, I right now when, well, I don't do much elect work. But, when I go to do an electrical job I never take (unintelligible). I work with the power on it. And when I worked the coal mines, I worked the coal mines...I was an electrician. I'd go into a piece of equipment... I'd go into a panel board and my...I'd take my finger and check where the power was... then after I found trouble I'd always pull the power and work on it. But uh...and then when I came back to my outfit and when that was when war was declared I was went for over seas.

B: Well, the last question I have about your Army experiences, well I have two questions, I'm sorry. The first question is when you came home can you tell me your process of how...how you came home...how you got out of the Army and....

RH: I came to uh...we came...left Ft Cam(?) in the Hawaiian Islands on the what was it the 4th day of...of September, 1945. Landed in Cresco and when we were out to Devil's Island...they had a camp out there that...you know you got your Alkatraz (sp) and they got another. And they had a big...they had a fort there and that's where we had uh...setting there and had a rein orientation program you know they come back in the civilian life which wudn't no great deal. We had...had some boys come in from England ...we...oh the auditorium was full. And we had this major he was talking and telling us what and how to go about going back in civilian life. And had this one boy sitting in the back of the room was a colored boy. He looked at him and he...as....the major asked him, "you have any questions, anybody have any questions." So this one boy he stood up and said, "Yes, major said I have a question, said I'm married and have one child over in England. Well said, "that's no problem servic...veterans administration pay for their expenses back"...no he had two children. Says well says what said, "I have two children", said, "Well... they'll bring them back too." He said, "But major my wife is white an English girl," says, "Well, as long as the community doesn't kick that'll be alright." "Hey...but my ques...my problem is one of my children is black and one of them is white." And major said, "son you have got a problem." (both laugh) But when I left I came into camp we came from Cresco over to Camp Adabry(?) (unintelligible) I was discharged Camp Ad...Camp Adabry, Indiana. Well I came on home and I stopped in Cincinnatti over for a couple of days and drinking a little bit and looking the place over. Came on home and when I got home I decided I'd find out about a job. And I went to Red Jacket Coal Company. I talked to the president of the company William Ritter was...he was the service man. And he had already come so I asked him I told him I says, "William I said I'm looking for my job back." He said, "okay" and I laid my papers down, he said, "I'd like you to go in the shop as electrician mechanic" said "since you have electrical experience," I said, "okay, he said," when do you want to start to work." I said I don't want to start to work right now but I want a couple of months off, I want to catch up on my drinking and reading." He laughed, "okay, just take as much time as you want to" but says, "go down tell L.E. Simpkins" he was pre...personal man, said, "tell...L.E. to put your name on the parole as of today." I said, "okay," I went down L.E. said, "well you'll have to go down and take a physical," I said, "no I don't have to take a physical, I just took one...when I came out of the service." I said, "the man told me to tell you, the boss told me to tell you to put my name on the parole as of today and get his check number, "I said, "I'm not going to start to work for a couple of mon...a month or two anyway." L.E., well I knew L.E. for years and went to school up Matewan the same time. He kept hemhauling around about the...I said, "the boss told me I didn't have to take a physical that I was hired as of today." I said, "I guess William Ritter is still the boss." L.E. said, "Yeah, I reckon he is" and he just...that was it. I got the check number or parole number as they call it and that was when...well, I was laid off I didn't work for about a month. And we'd get up and have a whiskey stroll over here in Matewan. Every morning I'd get up and I'd come down and get me two fifths of rum and I'd go back home. I lived in North Matewan, mother and step-dad lived in North Matewan. I'd go in and I'd get a carton of Coke-a-Cola and I set there and I'd read and mix Rum and Coke and I'd drink all day. (both laugh) Didn't get drunk...didn't get out and run around and after a month I said, "I'm tired of it."

RH: Told my mother I said, "Get me up in the morning I'm going to work" and I told my boys I said, "Well, I went to work in '34 and I was never out of a job until "81 when I quit, retired. (Pause in tape) But the best one, though, I had my experience in...my experience coming home, I got on a train in Cincinnati coming home and before I left I ran into a couple of women they got me a couple of fifths of whiskey. So being a soldier didn't care for much of anything or anybody. If I was sitting drinking I wanted everybody else to drink. So I opened one of those fifths and I offered everybody a drink. Wudn't never few drinking until two ol...two well they was middle age ladies they was sitting in the train one of them got up and came back there and said, Soldier I'll drink with ya." I said, "Okay." and well she broke the ice everybody did. Well, come up to go to some part up this side of Portsmouth and they was gettin' off and they walked... when they walked by my seat one of them stuck a pint of whiskey down beside my seat for me. (Bailey laughs) and those...I mean it was just enjoyable it was enjoyable trip. I've always enjoyed life, I reckon that's the main thing about living.

B: Well, speaking of whiskey, I remember one day you stopped by to uh...talking to to us and you mentioned a place called the Fuzzy Duck.

RH: The Fuzzy Duck that was at Newtown, it's a church now. Well, it was a little bit...that was built oh...back in the early twenties by a fellow by the name of Jesse Dillion. And and he was the only man in NewTown that had electricity only place that had electricity. He had what they call a Delco System for his electricity. And I knew him all all my life I practically. And he was a nice old fellow, but uh...then they he sold it the fellow by the name of Elfanso Hatfield. And Elfanso put what they called the Fuzzy Duck and after Fan...lef...they left he went out to church up at the Church of God at NewTown and they bought it and they got a church up there now.

B: What did it look like?

RH: It was just a regular tile building. But it's still up there.

B: who...who went to this place

RH: Uh...have you been up through NewTown.

B: Uh-huh.

RH: Alright. Do you know where the post office is.

B: Uh-huh

RH: Alright. That Cats(?) branch theirs a big white two story house the church house is sitting back off the road. You mig... you've seen it. If you went up through there. It's right above...

B: Did they have live music or Jude Box...

RH: No, they had Jude [sic] Box, radio, that was just a place to go and drink and and dance or whatever they do. Sometimes they'd have live music go in and...

B: Did anybody that wasn't from NewTown go to it.

RH: Oh yeah...oh yeah...everybody. I know Howard Chambers and and uh...Paul Hoskins went up there one night. I had a when I got out I bought the newest car I could buy, which was a '72 cheverlot [sic]. Oh ya a '42 cheverlot. And I was up there and it was about twelve o'clock the bus they used to have transportation bus and I think twelve O'clock was the last bus went up that way. Until I was sitting and wudn't drunk I hadn't been drinking. I never when I was out and running around driving I was never drinking. The only time I drink I was home. So Paul and Howard came in both of them drunk man they couldn't hit the they couldn't hit the ground if they had to if they would have been straight down. And the bus it went back down they got to worrying around how we going to get home and I said okay let's go and I got them in the car stopped down the road put took Howard input him in bed pulled his clothes off put him in the bed. Went on down the lower end of town there was another Al Hoskins, Pauls brother lived down at the lower end and his house. I took paul in took him and put him in bed pulled his clothes off put him in bed aw...three or four days later I run into them did you bring us home the other night. Yeah, I didn't want you to get in trouble. I brought you home, said how did we get in the house, I said I took you in and put you in bed. And told you I'd beat your brains out if you got out (both laugh)

B: Okay. Um...

RH: But they was they was a place to go and drink and nobody bothered ya.

B: Buck Harless told me of about a place in North Matewan called the Cabaret that was near the...

RH: Well, the Cabaret was build...I don't know in...sometime in the '30's. I don't know who build it. I know I was there several ...but I never fooled around in North Matewan. That's where I lived. You had a habit you don't stay around your own home when you was...well I mean when you was drinking was out running around. You always went somewhere else. (both laugh)

B: Where was this? Where was it though. Do you remember?

RH: Alright. Uh...do you know where the Motor Inn is? There was a house right between it and the Motor Inn and then the Cabaret. What a cabaret! The old building part of it's still there. Well, I think it burnt, maybe rebuild. It was burnt down then it was rebuilt. Well, I don't know what they call it now. It's Twilight Zone or Twilight Inn or something. I don't remember. Then above there was the Brown Bomber which was the which the uh... building still there only it's under another these colored fellow and his wife which build it run it for years and years and years there. Their both dead, Molly Johnson was the ladies name and she died not to long ago down here in the hospital. I mean nursing home. She was quite old.

B: So was that a club for blacks, the Brown Bomber.

RH: No anybody, everybody went in I drank there many a night many a day and many a. Oh well, I didn't drink to much I always drank Coca Cola when...but I came home I was coming from work after I came back out of the service and I stopped there. And knew Molly and she knew me since I was just knee high to a duck as the sayin' is. And I says, " Molly" and she, "what do you want honey", I said, "I want two beers" she says, "Okay you want to take them with you" I says, "No, I you to open them both." Well she opened them...uh hot and I op... drank one pretty fast and the other one I just stood there and sipped on. When I got ready to leave she said, "Honey child, I've known you all your life that's the first time I've ever seen you drink anything besides a Coca Cola." (both laugh) But the old people in North Matewan when I was a kid all liked me I always liked them, always respect...I respect the people that's older than I was. And all the kids liked...liked me but I aggrieved them. They was al...l they knew I was....I'd aggrieved them but I wudn't let anybody else do anything to them.

B: Okay. Would you tell me about um...Granny Hoskins.

RH: Granny Hos...Hoskins was...is...is a one of a kind. She was an old teacher. She taught my mother she taught me she said she wanted to teach my children. But, I don't believe she ever had any of 'em in class. I was a pet. She was one woman that never had very many pets. And we was...I would go to class...and I don't know how old she was she was quite old and she had her birthday and I told my mother, "I want a birthday cake baked" she said. " for who", and I said, "Granny Hoskins." So she baked one baked chocolate cake and you know you hardly ever bake a chocolate cake for a birthday It's always these fancy things and I round up sixty-eight candles and put on...put on it. Well, everybody knew what was going on. And I was late that morning for school. And Margaret Hoskins she lived down here in the lower end of Matewan. She was in the class an she had her seat was next to the door. They knew when I knocked on the door that she'd get up and open it some. And I knocked on the door and had that cake and had all those candles lite...lite them up in the hall way in the old grade school. I opened that door and I walked in she looked at me where you been and everybody started singing happy birthday to her I said Granny I know that your older than what these candles are there's sixty-eight on there and I know your older than that I'm afraid that it'll sit a bon fire if we put anymore on there. Well it...it...it was just a ball and I reckon maybe that's why I was always done things that knew what she would like. And wha...and so she had we'd get her class...she'd always tell us the day before were going to have a test. And we had...I had Geography and History to her. And them two hours and all...everybody everybody else was afraid of her. I wasn't I never afraid of her. I never afraid of anybody. So somebody come to me you get her to talk talking telling a big story in the morning the first thing that's okay. So I'd ask her about experiences and she told us setting...talking about how her husband got killed. Well I'd ask...start something and she'd tell the story over and over and over and never be changed it always be the same thing evertime. And she told how her husband...she told how she met her husband. Said he was...her husbands name was Remine (?Raymond) Hoskins... said he was worked for her daddy. Said she always took the people that worked for them out in lunch out at dinner time. She crawled up in a tree and he came right down under the tree and said I didn't have any panties on either. (both laugh) We all everybody was rollin' laughin' at her. She was just...she was an enjoyable person but she was one of the. I came back out of service I was setting in class one day and we were chewing tobacco and we had. You never seen a Rumpkin Baking Powder can have you? It's kind of...it had two different sides it had a great big one...us boys always had these old big and these old ink old desks had ink wells in them so we'd reach over there and spit in that ink well. She looked back at me one day and I had just put a chew tobacco in my mouth ...Five Brothers, at that. I was one of the strongest tobaccos ever...she looked back at me and said, "Bobby Boy"...I was Bobby Boy to her from time...all my life when she knew me. She said, "what have you got in your mouth", I said, " I don't have anything Mrs. Hoskins" well, I made the wrong move when I said Mrs. Hoskins, cause I always called her Granny. She said, "you'll find out", and right back here she come. When she got back there I had already swallowed that tobacco. Well in about thirty minutes she looked back at me says, " Bobby Boy" said, "your getting sick aren't you?" I said, "yes Mrs. Hoskins", she said, "you can be excused". I went in service...nine years in service and came back and she was still teaching. And walking down the street up in front of the school house and she says, "Bobby Boy what did you have in your mouth when I asked you that time." Along time see, I told her, I guess fifteen years, I told her, "chewing tobacco", she said, "I knew it, I knew it". (both laugh) And then my wife was going to school a time when they'd have these auditorium they'd have the meetings. And she found out about that we was going together she'd get...go in the auditorium sa...set down with her and start talking. And Carl Montgomery was a principal and oh he would...he would (both laugh) look at her.

B: What happen to her husband.

RH: Well he was shot. A fellow by the name of Tom Chafins at Newtown. Now not the one that wa...used to be sheriff here but the old what we all called the old Tom. He was married to my great Aunt Ellie, my granddad's sister. And she was a Chafins and he was Chafins. And Remine and Walter Music had been sort a datin' her and trying to...and they say she was a tough little woman, I don't know. I always liked her can...you can't cause she was good hearted to you. So you don't hurt...what she does is her business. My mother was staying with Tom and Ellie at the time. And so Remine and Walter Music...Remine Hoskins and Walter Music went to a rest home they was alone. Tom was at the mines so they went to the mines to get him when we come out. And somebody on the outside they went in to tell Tom that they was out there waiting on him. They didn't intend to question him they was aiming to shoot him. They was aiming to use some pretense (?) to get him to do something, so he came out a back entrance. You know when you go in a mines...your daddy...your grandaddy knows that you always had two or three ways outside. And he came out the back entrance and came home. And he went in took a bath got his guns out and started cleaning them. Put his clothes on had his everything...he laid down in the bed and he told my mother, "they's two men going to come here looking for me you tell them I'll be right out." And when they came up...they road horses up to the gate...and got out and come in the house mother said well said "they want to know if Tom was in...says yeah, he says he'll be right out." So he went out the back door. And they had a cow barn which was a log barn. Had big holes...the logs was not close together you could see through them. And they happen to see him go in that barn so they started shooting at him. Well he shot back and killed both of them. He spent some time in the pen but not much. 'Cause they claimed it was self defense and...He was a good old man. He made whiskey he drank alot until his later years. And I think he joined Church and become a Christian or re..Christian, I hope so. But, he was an enjoyable person I mean he was. When I was a kid I was...I had an uncle...I have an uncle named Pete, well his name is Allen and we all called him Pete all his life. And we hit the mountains there in Newtown we knew all the liquor...where all the liquor stills was. We knowed the ones we wanted to take a drink out of and the ones we didn't want to take a drink out of. Because people was not...when they made moonshine whiskey they didn't...wudn't to clean about it... wudn't to sanitary. They'd leave the mash barrels open and rats and bats and birds and everything else could get in them. And well, when they ran it through the still...well, it just it purified it. Because that steams what makes whiskey you know. Comes off...through your drum through your...and right through your thumping and into your drum through your core into your thumping carried and it was always purified. But old man Tom, he always kept his mash barrels covered good with a pretty white rag an old medallion sack. Where they had cows and they'd worsh them and bleach and he kept his all clean. He always kept a dipper on hand and if you wanted a drink of his mash you took the dipper and got you a drink. (both laugh) Now that's the one we always went to.

B: Okay. Well my last question for you is would you tell me again about the Beaver award?

RH: I have a...I was in scouting for twenty-six years, scout master. Well, I'm still in scouting...I still belong I'm still a member of scouts. And I was uh...the Beaver is one of the highest awards that you can get in scouting as a volunteer. I mean just a regular scouter. Now there's two other larger than that that's Silver Buffalo and Silver Antlo. Put...that's your money that get's them...you have to donate alot money. I worked in scouting for twenty-six years, I didn't expect to be wher...what I was in it was for the good of the children, the boys. And I enjoyed it my family all enjoyed it. I got the Silver Beaver in 1968 and I looked for it the other day and I couldn't find it I said son...my boys he's in scouting and hunting. He's scout master and hunting troop and he'd been up there digging in all my scouting stuff. And taking what he wanted I forgot to ask him last night if he took my Beaver award...my Silver Beaver to show it off. He's always showing things off. I have Silver Beaver I have wood badge beads. I went to wood badge training course the wood beads is...is the Silver Beaver is nice but the wood badge beads is more important. You can take the beads from the wood badge if I go to England I go up to the Palace I show those beads I get a interview with the Queen.

B: Really!

RH: Oh yeah. See this started, you know, the scouting program started in England. Even the United States....scouts and boy scouts of America actually started in England. A fellow by the name of William Powell, Lord William Powell was the originator of what they call the scouts. And uh...he was...they have a...what they call the Wood Badge Training. 'Course you always...anybody that goes to...if they go to the...I went to the National course which is tough. 'Course which I liked the tougher it was the better I felt. And I got my beads and uh...I...I cherish them more than I do anything else. Except my knowledge of what I have done and how I have worked with the kids and how they right now I've got boys in several places in the United States during Christmas time I get a Christmas card from them. They they remember and they all...they all like me. I was tough. I was just like I was the in Service. I was tough on them boys when I told them to do something I wanted them to do it. And I take take thirty-five forty boys camping I took my apple limbs with me. Now you can't do that. (Mr. Huff laughs) It's just like in school but the Silver Beaver is...is a nice award. And I have all scouting everything you could get in scouting. I was never a Eagle.

B: Okay. Well, thank you talking to me again.

RH: Thank you dear. (Mr. Huff laughs)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection