VirginiaBeavers.txt

-n -n -n Unknown Speaker 0:02 Today is March 19 1994. We're in Caretta. Kentucky or corretta. West Virginia. Becky first interview 1012 Eastern Standard Time am Virginia Elizabeth beavers PO Box 20 COVID, West Virginia 248243042972000 phone number. It's being done for the Kentucky Historical Society. Okay. Okay. If you could go ahead and tell us who your who your parents and grandparents are here.Unknown Speaker 0:50 Well, my maternal grandparents are from Smith County, Virginia, and they were Sam and Annabel Armstrong. I personally did not ever meet either one either. They both died before I was born. And my mother was Janie Elizabeth Armstrong. And she married ot Smith. And he was also from Smith County. But at the time they met, my mother was writing scripts in the Gary district, Gary West Virginia, and I'm sure that was US Steel, even then. And she was about 1617 years old when she was doing that. So you can see they hired people, very, very young. And they were married and moved all through the coal fields. And Daddy worked in mines, where they actually use the mules. And I know at one time when mother was pregnant with her first child, my older brother, they lived in Glen Allen, West Virginia. And that's when the men had to shoot their own cowl, and then go in the next day, and loaded and Mother said that when she was pregnant, she would go in with daddy late at night, and he would shoot code and she'd go in and twist the newspapers or ever what they had to do then. And then he'd go back in the next day and hand load it. And from Glenn alum, they moved into the Mac bear county area and lived in coal wood then for probably 65 years, I guess. And my father has been dead about 25 years and my mother just died a year and a half ago.Unknown Speaker 2:39 Okay, could you tell us what, what year to just kind of get some of these things? You remember about what you're approximately your dad, we're, we're visiting here. You saidUnknown Speaker 2:52 that that would have been back at really? About 1919 Because daddy had just come back from First World War. And he started out working and working in mines.Unknown Speaker 3:06 Do you remember who your dad was your this is your father. Right? Yeah. Do you remember his father and mother'sUnknown Speaker 3:18 his mother's name was Sarah. And his father's name was Jacob Smith. And they lived over around Chatham he'll Virginia. Just daddy moved his family. He was the he was the only one of a large family to come into the cow fields.Unknown Speaker 3:39 And then the venture venture letters.Unknown Speaker 3:45 Maternal that was Mother's people never came into the cow field. They both died relatively young. And then that is well his father lived till he was about 70 for 95. But they never came into West Virginia. YourUnknown Speaker 4:02 mother was the first one. Right? Right. SheUnknown Speaker 4:04 came here before Dad Dad. Right. And sheUnknown Speaker 4:07 were and you're saying that she would have met married him like aroundUnknown Speaker 4:12 1919 I think so. Many brothers and sisters. I have two brothers and one sister, two brothers. My older brother is JC Smith, and he was an engineer worked in the coal mines. Then went with Norfolk Southern and worked in Kentucky for a long time. He's now living in Mesa, Arizona, and my other brother Bernard. He still lives in coal wood and he worked in the mines retired out of the mines. And my sister Evelyn lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Her husband was a coal miner up until about 35 years ago, and then he went with Bethlehem Steel. You're in Birmingham and where they still live. But coal mining has always been on my father's side of the fire familyUnknown Speaker 5:09 ever we got a move into the gallon. What year?Unknown Speaker 5:16 Why don't I say 70 to about 1922 2122 22.Unknown Speaker 5:27 To go,Unknown Speaker 5:28 Well, they didn't come actually to Colwood until a sound was born in 3220. About 1927. I think they've been in COVID since about 1927.Unknown Speaker 5:42 Okay, so mostly you grew up in the 40s. Right? And if you weren't and tell us what it was like growing up during World War Two, and right after that.Unknown Speaker 5:54 Well, to me, my childhood was wonderful. Colwood was the greatest little community. We had our own Dr. Aaron Danis era library. We had what is commonly called the company store, and you could buy anything you want. And they are we had a drugstore, you know, with the booths and the old fashioned drugstore. We've always had a lot of churches in Kellwood and still do for the science community. It is we had a theater, Arrow newspaper, Motion Picture theater, and tennis courts. The swimming pool was built in one early 50s In the early 50s. So we really had and lots of people, and before we had swimming pools, we just dammed up the creeks and with swim. But it was it was a great childhood, you know, went to elementary school and junior high schoolUnknown Speaker 7:01 was in the county. Schools are difficultUnknown Speaker 7:03 know, the county, those were county schools by then. And the school that that is their nail is empty. But it was first a high school. And then they turned it into grade school and junior high. And then we had to go about seven or eight miles to war, West Virginia to finish three year high school. And yes, and one year 1950.Unknown Speaker 7:32 Okay, so people were You were one of the things that we've discovered in our interviews, this was the idea of the company store, Doctor not bogged down into technical debt, that seems they seem to have resented that I hear people saw that as a very thing. Oh, you know, that it was it? Was everybody that cold company pretty much everybody's needs an adult. Absolutely. And it wasn't the cut the store wasn't a repressive,Unknown Speaker 8:02 it was not a rip off, you know? No, no, I don't think so. That that's never been the concept,Unknown Speaker 8:10 different kinds of reality, in terms of what we need another placeUnknown Speaker 8:15 now, from my memory of things have heard prior to the U M. W. You know, that may have been true, but in my childhood, it wasn't.Unknown Speaker 8:26 Do you remember the year that you hurt your father sheikh of the year this year, and w became relaxed? It was what, like in 38 or 40 year?Unknown Speaker 8:34 I can remember long strikes. But I was so young. They didn't affect me, you know, with the child's naivete, you know, but I can remember at one time, they had been striking for a long time and it was the winner. And my dad was standing guard in the garages behind some houses and he had a shotgun because that fascinated me and mother and I walked down there it might have been a quarter of a mile in the wintertime to take daddy some hot food. And they but they were giving food out to the striking miners. Now. If there were hard times say that was just everyday life. It didn't seem that way to me as a child.Unknown Speaker 9:25 For sure. Your fundamental recollection of growing up in Poway. Very positive. Oh, and you had fears.Unknown Speaker 9:38 We really did. And so you were allowed to have livestock at that time. And my daddy came from a farming family and we had chaos and I can remember peddling milk and butter. And we had chickens and hogs. They they canned nearly everything we use the only thing we ever bought at the store was like salt and sugar. And yeah, flour, cornmeal. And so to me, you know, there will never be anyone have that kind of a life again, I look back at mine and I have no regrets.Unknown Speaker 10:19 50 What what happened in your life?Unknown Speaker 10:26 Did you stay stayed in this area. I got married shortly after graduation. And my husband has also been a coal miner. He started out working as a Rodman in the engineers, and he wanted to make more money. So we went in the mines, and he was the section foreman. And he was inside the mines for like 28 years. And then he came out and went into their training program and retired after 35 years with the same company. Old good coal company, they changed names LTV is the present name, but they changed. Worker Oh, go. Uh huh. And that's how it's still listed. I think you know, I'm on retirement. And we have three daughters, who are all married. Vicki, who is now Vicki Gilman, Terry, who is now Terry Sokolow. And Tony, who is Tony Robbins. And the youngest one, her husband is a coal miner. He's the section foreman in for US Steel.Unknown Speaker 11:38 You raised it did all three of your kids graduate?Unknown Speaker 11:40 Absolutely. One has just finished. She's 38 yearsUnknown Speaker 11:49 old. So you you then have your experience as a kid growing up in Tokyo was very positive. Your husband and you live in Colwood? Raise your hand. Right. All your You said three very daughters already graduated from high school was graduating from college. When did the engineering I guess were in there growing up time during the 50s and the 60s? What was life like in COVID? During the 50s? And the 60s was it was it at the end of the 60s when both started going down?Unknown Speaker 12:27 Yeah, I'm gonna say closer to seven days, you know, maybe in the early 70s, mid 70s. But actually, it didn't have I don't think that much effect. Now my girls. They say they, they just love the way they grew up in comparison to cousins of bears that lay up like in Chattanooga, and Richmond and, and different places, you know, and we've always managed to take the children places we go on vacation every year, we we still have like a family reunion at Daytona Beach, you know, and my brother and his family, and we have six grandchildren. And they're all happy. You know, we're straight A students in school. And my oldest granddaughter has graduated from Marshall. She's now working on her Master's at Marshall. Counseling and rehab, and she's got a GA position works 30 hours a week in a bank and just she's 23 Stolen fan. And then the rest of them are smaller.Unknown Speaker 13:46 The thing that we that we've heard people talk about in the interviews yesterday was was that before the coal industry came to this area, it was just a rough bargain. It was hard to make a living off anything within JackUnknown Speaker 14:01 Welch, you couldn't find it.Unknown Speaker 14:02 So then the coal industry came. And and the thing that you described, the third were all of their needs were met and became very dependent on them on the phone. Then when power went out in the mid 70s, then, to a large degree, many of these people for whatever reason, shifted that dependency from the from the company to the government's right. And now we're at the point where they're trying to become independent of both the gold companies and the government and move into something else. Yeah, there's that kind of go along with what your experience has been. AndUnknown Speaker 14:43 what I'm saying is the people that have stayed that weren't totally dependent on the coal industry, they they had no desire to leave the area. They didn't have the confidence or the ambition. So therefore or a lot of them have been completely dependent on like, welfare, or that the government to take care of them just like coal company used to they were so used to that. They don't have a lot of initiative. It's almost like guiding a child, except that they're more stubborn. Because I've talked to adults, no, you could do this. And you could do that. They're really not interested in changing your way of life. Right? Because it's not going to and even our community who, which was always like a model community to make has really changed, you know, we're getting a different element, you know, that they aren't interested in the aesthetic appearance of anything. You know, weUnknown Speaker 15:50 remarked, as we go through here, folks, out how neat and clean and how well cared for the houses on people, or that we saw, you know, different things different than different things in the yard. And it lets people take pride in their, in their homes and in the community. And we've had this crop up two or three times talking about this new element, there was this new element from outside or is it is grandchildren SamiUnknown Speaker 16:18 is and some of it, some are like out of state. I mean, particularly Ohio, New Jersey,Unknown Speaker 16:28 are these people who moved away, they're coming back aUnknown Speaker 16:31 lot of them areUnknown Speaker 16:34 and what has happened to them? So they're not being accepted into theUnknown Speaker 16:40 community, probably not into a urban neighborhood, you know,Unknown Speaker 16:46 what's creating this from the fly? Why do you think this folks are,Unknown Speaker 16:53 some of them are like, third generation, just, I don't want to do anything. And you have that percentage, a low percentage we've always had, but they, when the coal companies had these communities, those kind of people and this sounds real dictatorial, they were really kept out of sight, they were moved up to the head of house, you know, and, and if you had someone that lived on the main street, that didn't keep their grass cut their place, they moved him out, you know. But see, now, you can't do that. And we're not incorporated, which is what we should have done about 20 years ago, but we aren't. And, and I think that a lot of it is just absolutely, they cannot change their way of thinking that I am going to have to do for myself. They were so used to see years ago, when the coal companies on the houses, they came around made all the repairs, they gave you the paint for, you know, they took care of you. And now they have to do it, and they just don't want to they just don't see the need, you know,Unknown Speaker 18:13 when these people came back, you know, you got this element back in here. Do you suppose those people were exposed to a welfare state mentality that that created to a large degree these, this value system of dependency that somebody had to do besidesUnknown Speaker 18:38 them? Right, I really believe that.Unknown Speaker 18:41 So what you're saying is that that attitude is indigenous to West Virginia and came from so far.Unknown Speaker 18:48 Except for a small percentage that never had theUnknown Speaker 18:53 view that right everywhere,Unknown Speaker 18:55 right? They didn't even have the initiative delay. It's, it's really hard to believe it's true. I mean, you have that, but you take when when we travel and go places. It's like, every one day, they make you real defensive. You know, everyone in West Virginia is grouped together as illiterate, barefoot. You don't go to the dentist, you know, and this kind of thing. We'll see. That isn't my concept at all.Unknown Speaker 19:30 That's probably what they've seen. You know, as I sit here thinking about my family, moved to break out migration. But to a large degree, my family was socioeconomically one step above the lowest of the world. And, you know, I guess successful people didn't leave. You know, all those that have roots that have good jobs. They stay Right, those that were kind of on the fringes were the ones that left. So in a sense, and certainly some of my relatives in the immediate family, we're not going to be. So in a sense, what they saw was the worst of what we had, I guess. And that maybe is why they got those bad attitudes. It's like, gosh, look at these folks, a whole bunch is that way, when in fact, we weren't representative of the large, right, like you're saying, the ones that say, in West Virginia, were successful and had this good experience.Unknown Speaker 20:32 You know, what I saw as a child, no one expected anyone to give them anything. And to me, a lot of this happened, and maybe I'm just too conservative. I won't say what my politics are. But a lot of it happened, I think, in the 60s, when so much was given. For free. Even my mother cooked at the air, little local school in cafeteria for a long time. She fought the lunch, the breakfast program. As long as she could, she didn't wander she said it only makes the mothers lazy. Anyone can get up and cook a bowl of oatmeal. True, because the children throw away half of what you gave them. You know, I worked in the school system for 16 years as an early childhood aid. And you could pick out almost to the exact number out of a kindergarten class a five year olds, the ones that were going to do well, and the ones that weren't. You cannot change a child just in school without parental and home backup. And people used to be so proud. What I'm seeing is they given up their pride for dependency. They traded they've traded it and they will never get it back because now they're teaching their children. There is the rare child that will come out of a welfare home. That's angry at being there. Yeah. And we'll workUnknown Speaker 22:21 through something about coal barons Did you were you as you said worked at theUnknown Speaker 22:26 know that Carol de Haven works at that? Do you have her on there? As she works down at the office?Unknown Speaker 22:34 For them, their mother just said Coburn's? Maybe she mentioned something about working cooking at their at their retreat or something likeUnknown Speaker 22:44 that. Now, now that isn't me.Unknown Speaker 22:48 Okay. What I guess what I'd like to do is get into You said you've worked at the well. You've worked with the this course he does a headstone.Unknown Speaker 23:00 Now, she's had started obviously in the public school system. Okay, soUnknown Speaker 23:04 there, she just got, okay. What was it tell us exactly what you did in the public schoolUnknown Speaker 23:09 system? Well, at first started out, I was just secretary for the school, and just did route to things, you know, transcript typing, that filing that kind of thing. And then when our county started, free kindergarten, error code, Error Code School was a pilot program. We had it one year before anyone else in the county. And then that's when I became an aide for early childhood education, and stayed in that 16 years. And it was, it was really great. You know, I loved it. But that's basically what I did. We took a few classes, little psychology classes and couple of math classes and things like that. And right, I don't know some of that you really needed that's true. But then we had a government funded remedial reading center. So I worked with first through fourth graders, you know, on phonics and their little workbooks, the ones that were having trouble that needed the one on one. Support every success that it was, it really was because there were some children that were just a little bit slow, and all they needed was someone to sit down with them. And like when I was in grade school, I had never heard of phonics. I can't remember how we learned to read we just my sight, I guess. But a lot of the parents really didn't know, phonetics. So we took some low classes on that. And that was basically what I did kindergarten in the morning and just remedial reading instruction in the afternoon. And yes, it was very rewarding you Uh, frustrating.Unknown Speaker 25:04 So you, you say let's say you work for 16 years real quick what you're about here?Unknown Speaker 25:11 Okay, my daughter was in the second grade that she was wanting to say. I started in about 64 and quit and about 80.Unknown Speaker 25:22 And so use you saw? In a sense, you went through using all the early childhood programs that were tried during Johnson administration, during the Nixon administration, during the Carter administration, and, and and beginning with the right windows, right. What did you see? Did you see tremendous changes in early childhood programs? And I guess what I'd like to do is address whether from your perspective, you know, tell us what was good and what was bad and what was needed to be changed? You've kind of done that already. But I wanted to refocus in the thing of this program. Okay. Wasn't 64 DREW say, you know,Unknown Speaker 26:12 I'm not really good at dates. I remember, like, when the free lunch programs came out. Little things like, it seemed to me and I would take up money in the lunch room, I had to take my turn, and I did bus duty, you know, all these thingsUnknown Speaker 26:30 were used up getting fed before the free lunch program. Absolutely not. Do you feel like there was no was Was there any child in the community who was not getting fed before the free lunch program?Unknown Speaker 26:43 If there was, I certainly wasn't aware of it. And homes that we went into when we thought that children were being neglected or abused. It had nothing to do that much with finances, as with parental neglect, for their alcohol, narcotics and dope have never been that big. For me to know, I know now, you know, through through my children, see, when my girls were in high school, I didn't even hear ABA thing, it was just coming into this area in the early 70s. But we had children that their parents were there to get anything they could get free, even to the point of lying on the applications. And you know, once it, it's there to take, let's take it, you know, and we found out and this was also my mother used to say this, the children that were getting the left free lunches, were the one that complained about the quality of food. I mean, that that was just standard. They were the kind that you can't say that to me, we'll sue you. They just weren't being taught ethics at home. And like I said before, you can't teach that. Very seldom in school, there has to be, I read one time, that child is basically what they're going to be by the time they're three. And I thought to Well, I thought that's ridiculous. It isn't really true, I think so.Unknown Speaker 28:29 The the things that they see in school, they, they base against what they bring what they bring to the county come here. And if they don't bring something good and prepare it, and I think they're very, you know, and they stay to this anger that you I kind of get, you know, I taught I pray for for seven years. And I've always said that I felt like the worst thing in the world was to get anybody. And I don't think just necessarily, it's the kids that are on free lunches. I don't see it all at work in the West. So IUnknown Speaker 29:04 say I did that as a kid. But we all need the step food up on potatoes. Right.Unknown Speaker 29:15 And it was a uniform. And I think in a sense that what we've done is create a lot of the problems that we've tried to use to get rid of class structure has reinforced it. Absolutely. And for some of the wrong reasons why people aren't misusing it to get reelected.Unknown Speaker 29:36 But that's my opinion. But we would give out like free paper, free pencils. And Ms. Bolt was Secretary and I helped her in the morning you know, before school actually took up giving out things like that. After the bell rang and the halls were empty. You could go down the hall and brand new pencils for snapped and throw them you know no appreciation of the help they were supposed to be getting, you know that. That's what I saw.Unknown Speaker 30:06 Okay. So you saw all these pros, those are the changes here. What do you say now in the what do you see in the future?Unknown Speaker 30:17 Oh my, well, I don't know, through my grandchildren who are in this same school system. They have upgraded and you know, they're using computers, I guess from kindergarten up. And I'm computer, computer illiterate, you know, and they just seem so intelligent to me because they know all this and it doesn't it doesn't intimidate them at all. And, and I do see that, and I don't think our schools have or Ambleside schools in this district in Big Creek district. I don't think we have the discipline problems, you know, that that maybe an urban or metropolitan school system has isolated incidences? And I think, actually, when I listen to the children of my nieces and nephews, I think we've got the best thing going so far. I mean, I liked the small.Unknown Speaker 31:15 So you see here, you see a future now in terms of economics, you know, the coal industry here is imagined as the press like it is everywhere else. And as you mentioned earlier, you don't see it coming back in the way that,Unknown Speaker 31:31 you know, my husband says that he thinks in five or 10 years, he always prefaces that by saying we won't live to see it. But he says the big man's he thinks we'll come back and watching C span I hear things about energy crisis and coal, and that there may be a future it may not be right here. You know? Well, it's it was so mechanized. Now, that's what ruling party say there used to be my husband kit, payroll, when for a long time. And there was like, well over 2000 people, Meighan employed at the corral commands. And there was like just under 2008, Colwood. You know, and then I guess that was in Middle 50s, late 50s, that some of the continuous monitors and those kinds of things, and started replacing man, well, it went along pretty good for about 10 years, and the German longwall came in and that got rid of a whole section of me and, you know, so the mechanization is here, I don't know how they can reduce it any more. They've got computers and everything above ground that keeps track of everything underground, not here, but grandi does have heard about them?Unknown Speaker 32:57 How do you see the what direction do you see the economy going in? It? It's not going to be a cold hour, you mentioned that computers at school? Do you see technology as being the wave of the future?Unknown Speaker 33:09 Not for not for Mac now County, in my opinion, I'm just mentioned the computers because the children are getting an education to blend them into the mainstream, you know, so that they are not computer illiterate. And when they go to college, they don't stand there. Yeah, so So I'm saying that they are being prepared to go on. But I think their future is basically out of Mac Bell County.Unknown Speaker 33:36 So you see them that, that we've had this period of code, and it may or may not come back, but you see most of the jobs, you see out migration as a continuing pattern that's going to occur, and that the the best thing that we can do for the kids in the region is to prepare them to function somewhere else if they have to.Unknown Speaker 33:57 That's why now you've got well, that Yeah, you said it, you said it better than I do. Now, there's always going to be some that will never want to leave here. And you can't everyone cannot be a computer expert, a doctor lawyer. There's got to be some Indians down there somewhere, you know, and some while there, there will always be enough work here to maintain the county. But I don't think that, you know, like, I don't think anyone will ever like my husband worked 38 years for one company and retired. I don't think you'll see that happening. It'll be working more and more. There'll be Yeah, moving around.Unknown Speaker 34:39 I guess we're getting to the end of this now if you'd like to leave us with if there's one thing you'd like to leave us with one folks setting it all up good, bad, happy, sad. In you know, whatever you this is your one chance to. How would you sum it all up and one big?Unknown Speaker 34:56 Well, personally My childhood, my adulthood, I wouldn't change anything. I don't think there will be many people, even even my grandchildren that will ever have as calm and as good alive as our pay and right in the coal fields, don't regret any of it. I've never been ashamed of it. And I'll stand up and fight anyone. That puts it down because it's been a great life for me. And that's certainly a personal experience.Transcribed by https://otter.ai