BEFORE EXPLORING THIS FOLDER, I suggest that you review the folder Nathan Melvrie Workman & Juditha Totten Hamrick…(Historical Narratives Described).
Nathan Melvrie Workman & Juditha Totten Hamrick, 1877-1965 (Damon Workman Interviews)
About This Folder:
This folder documents interviews I had with Damon Edward Workman, in July, 2003. They were recorded in various locations in Clay, Nicholas, and Fayette counties. Damon was a grandson of Nathan & Juditha, the fourth of seven children of Walter Workman & Bertha Mullins. Walter was the second child (and first son) of Nathan & Juditha.
Damon Workman Interviews
My conversations with Damon are organized by general topic. A table of contents is listed below:
• DEWv8: Nathan & Juditha Workman recollections, by Damon
• DEWv8: Nathan & Juditha’s family
• DEWv8: Recollections of Grandma Juditha, by Damon
• DEWv12: Nathan & Juditha’s log home, 1
• DEWv8: Nathan & Juditha’s log home, 2
• DEWv8: Living in the log house
• DEWv8: Juditha’s death; other family history
• DEWv8: Workman family history; life in Enoch & Eakle areas
• DEWv8: Robinson Fork area
• DEWv8: Holly lived in Maysel before moving to Florida
• DEWv12: Driving on Devil’s Backbone Mountain; commentary on the area
• DEWv12: Antioch Baptist Church; camping with Bertha
• DEWv12: Mt. Ovis Methodist Church murder
To hear Damon tell a story, click the audio button. If you want to see the transcription, click on + sign in the “accordion” bar below it.
Damon & Mae Workman
Nathan & Juditha Workman recollections by Damon
This segment and most of the succeeding ones were recorded in my vehicle, as we traveled from Fayetteville to Eakle (to attend the Workman family reunion on Robinson Fork, July, 2001).
Nathan & Juditha Workman
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Mike: I can remember Nathan Workman.
Damon: Yeah, this is on the Mullin’s side see.
Mike: Yeah, your grandfather, my great grandfather.
Damon: He died in…Grandpa Workman didn’t die until ’58 or ’59. [Actually, it was August 21, 1961] See you would have been 10 years old or so.
Mike: I can remember going over to that place, that old homestead. What do you remember about him?
Damon: Grandpa Workman? We used to go to his house and visit with him. Grandma was always good to the kids. She never said “no” to you…she was real quiet and everything. But she was always good to kids.
Mike: Now her name was Juditha?
Damon: Juditha! But Grandpa was kinda like the old Indian. He would plow Juditha’s garden, and his work was done for the summer. She did the planting and the harvesting and all that. That was just kinda the way it was, you know. That was a women’s work, the man done his work. So happened he didn’t do too much. [In Holly Workman’s account about his parents, he made the point that Juditha didn’t want anyone else working in her garden.]
Mike: What kind of man was he? Quiet man?
Damon: Oh yeah, yeah! Studied his Bible a lot and sat on the porch. He always had a lot of quotes out of the Bible. Of course, I didn’t know anything about anything or what he was doing. But he...he traded quite a bit you know. I don’t know if he made any money at trading. I can remember him coming up to Line Creek one time and getting a job cutting post timber. {I think he worked for Albert Mullins on this job.] That was really the only work I remember. But I could have missed a lot that I didn’t know.
Mike: Now where that old house was, is that land that they had a garden on?
Damon: Oh, yeah, they gardened every bit of it. I cannot remember why those old timers back there didn’t hunt up a better piece of land. If it didn’t cost anything back then. Of course, they would settle on account of water…maybe find a good spring. Or a good place to hunt. I wonder sometimes what caused them to settle in certain areas, you know. And then they wanted to get back out of other people’s way, you know. They move back 15, 20 mile back in the woods.
Nathan & Juditha’s Family
This is an interesting little soundbite. Damon says that the entire family was together at only one time. Fortunately, we have photos that document that event.
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Mike: Now they had how many kids? Thirteen?
Damon: Thirteen. And all of them was home at one time. You think of fathering 13 or mothering 13 kids. That’s what they tell me, and that they were all living. Every one of them was living; and their mother and father had never seen them all together but one time. That what they’ve…that’s what I’ve heard.
Mike: Now there is a picture. I got one. You’ve got one, too. All of them together.
Damon: All of them there.
Mike: Who was the oldest?
Damon: Aunt Idy [Ida}. She lived to be 102. She died here a couple of summers ago.
Mike: Where was Grandpa Walter?
Damon: Second. Yeah, he was the second. He was born in 1900, and Aunt Idy was born about 1898, along in there somewhere. See, Grandpa Workman was about the same age as Grandpa Mullins.
Mike: There are only two of them living now, right?
Damon: No, there’s Holly and Alton and...there is another, Alta Brady. She’s living. But I believe that is all of them. Alton, Lord, I wouldn’t have any idea how old he is? I went to see him one time and that’s been years ago. I mean he was a powerful old man then. I don’t even know how they come in age, but Aunt Idy was the oldest and then Daddy. And then I would say probably…I don’t which…maybe a girl and then Alton.
Mike: And Alton is still living?
Damon: Yeah, I mean he wasn’t at the bottom of the family he was way up in it. He was way up in the family.
Mike: He has got to be in his 90’s anyway?
Damon: Alton’s got kids as old as I am or maybe older than I am. See, I am 74. Of course, he still could be 94 or 95 and have kids twenty years old, you know. But he has kids as old as me.
Recollections of Grandma Juditha, by Damon
Tobacco was a staple of the Workman household. While Nathan was the primary consumer, Juditha was apparently the producer.
Juditha Workman
Nathan Workman
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Mike: What do you remember about Juditha?
Damon: Grandma Workman was a real, real quiet person. Well, I mean around us. She might have been fiery when she was stirred up. But she was always very gentle and loving around the kids, that I could remember. We would go there and expect to get the very best treatment. Now she did not have much to give you. But she was good to you. I remember going there one time…she was a big ole tall, skinny…she was skinnier than a broom handle, you know. She made me a pair of mittens. They put that wool…they had those big old spinning wheels, you know. Made that wool into strings and rolled it up and then knitted it back into whatever, scarf or whatever. But she made me a pair of mittens. And I went back a long time after that to stay there, and I thought I might get her to make me another pair of mittens, see. She had broken her hand. She couldn’t make any more mittens.
She had a cow. That cow switched its tail around and smacked her right in the face. She hit that cow right in the side of her head with her fist and broke her hand. And she just got up and set her bucket down and just walked away.
Mike: She must have been…well with Grandpa being the oldest or next to the oldest, she wouldn’t have been too old then when you….
Damon: No, she worked a big garden and hoed. Now, she really took care of Grandpa. You could look back and see she really took care of Grandpa. They didn’t have much, but she would plant his tobacco. Grow it, take it to the barn and hang it up to dry. And tobacco was a pretty particular thing to handle, you know. Certain…all them bottom leaves had sand in them, you know. I do not really know how they did that, but you just used a very choice leaves for the chewing tobacco. I guess smoking tobacco wouldn’t make any difference, if you had a little sand it in. You were just smoking it. But she would dry that tobacco and then she’d lay it out and sprinkle water on it with molasses in it. Put a little molasses, mix it…sprinkle it with her fingers on that tobacco. Leave it, I cannot remember…two or three days. Sprinkling, if I remember right something like you were getting ready to iron clothes or something. That tobacco would be too brittle to do anything with it until you sprinkled it a little bit. And then the reason she used the molasses—that is the only thing she had I reckon—to make a flavor. And then she pats it when it was damp, you see. Take a big, long piece like that and twist it. Then when you got it all twisted up, you would start again here and plat it. We called it plat, but it really was just twisted. You twisted it down until come here to the end, till you run out. And that is why you started right in the middle, come down there and twist that end real tight. Then you hung it back up and dried, right in that twist. Then he would take his knife and cut him off a piece of chew. He was chooking off, you see? [Damon is laughing.] But she took care of all of that. Dried all the beans and all that stuff.
Nathan & Juditha’s Log Home, 1
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Mae: Right there is the old home place.
Mike: Right there?
Mae: Stop here just a minute or at least coming back on.
Damon: How much time we got? Oh, it only five after…
Mae: That little log cabin.
Dianne: Now when we say the home place, who lived here?
Damon: That was Grandma Workman, that was Walter’s parents.
Mike: That’s Nathan and Juditha Workman.
Damon: Juditha lived there when she was a teenager. A high stepping young lady, see. Big tall, slim girl. That was where Grandpa did their sparking!
Mae: And Damon and I came here, had a meal.
Damon: Right back, if you look right back out from the building, there is a flat place. That is where the kitchen was. The men stayed, and the women went to the kitchen.
Mike: Who lives there now?
Damon: That’s Aunt Ida’s daughter.
Mae: Aunt Idy was Walter’s older sister.
Damon: She lived to be a 102. What was her daughter’s name?
Mae: [She is talking about Marmell O’Brien in the background…that was Ida’s daughter’s name]
Nathan & Juditha’s Log Home, 2
According to Hollie, his parents lived in many different houses and in multiple locations in eastern Clay County. The most iconic domicile was the log home pictured here. This hand-hewn log cabin was originally built around 1845 by Abner Ramsey. For more information about the building and the Ramsey family history, see the menu tab Ramsey History.
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Mike: Was that house pretty much the way it is now when they were living there?
Damon: No, that old house I cannot remember that much about it, but they had some kind of weather boarding on it. Anyway, they had remodeled it and put, maybe if I am thinking right, strips up and down the outside of it. And then put weather boarding or some kind of board on it. And, then the people that went in there to restore it, they were in the family you know. Now I believe Kenneth O’Brien and some of them really went in there—that would be Daddy’s sister’s boy. And they tore all that off it. See, they wanted to get back to the original look on the outside as they could. Fixed all of them big old stones up under it good. But the bad thing about it, we went up there one time. That is something you really don’t notice when…but we went up there and it looked real good. I believe me and Doyle and my family and his family, believe that’s who went. I took a roll of film, you know. Came home and sent the pictures off and got them back.
An old lawn mower, old gasoline lawn mower, was in every picture. Didn’t even notice it when I was taking the pictures. You didn’t notice it then, but honest to goodness, got them pictures back and boy I wanted all that old scenery and everything. And I declare if right there didn’t set a lawn mower…right there on the floor. In every picture! I didn’t see that lawn mower when I was taking the pictures. Boy, it stuck out though. I bet you I have some of them out here, got the lawn mower in them.
Living in the Log House
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Mike: Now I know that there is a stream right down below that old house. But there must have been a spring or something?
Damon: There was a spring…when you went into the front of it there was a spring up that way. I remember. I think I could walk right to it, to where the spring was. But now that house had a kitchen back in its younger days. Of course, I never did see it that way. But the kitchen was built out away from the house. Then, when you got real luxury, you built a shed…a breezeway out from the house (I don’t know what it was called back then). Then the women folk could go from the house to the kitchen without going through the snow. That is when you got up in a little luxurious living, see. And they’d get up of the morning and the wife would go to that kitchen and build a fire, cook breakfast.
Mike: That is about all they did was cook?
Damon: Yep, and the men folk according to what they had been fed, company and anything they had a parlor. They sat in there and drank their…. I never really did know Grandpa Workman ever doing that, but historically back there they drank their drinks and smoked your tobaccos and so forth. Wouldn’t bother the women.
Juditha’s Death; other Family History
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Mike: Now when did she die?
Damon: Juditha died the same night that …let me think just minute and I will tell you when she died. She died about two nights before Brenford was born. I remember Dale and Betty lived down below Montgomery, way down in there next to, can’t think of the name of the little town they lived in down in there. Marmet. Somewhere down in that section. And Dale took Betty to the hospital, and Brenford was born. He got his picture. You know how they do that with a newborn. And he was up there the morning that grandma was buried, and he was showing everybody the picture of his new baby.
[Juditha died January 21, 1965.]
Mike: I do remember one time going over to that house and Dale was there, and you may have been there, and I was sitting outside talking. I would have been just about in college at that time. That may have just about been the time that Brenford….
Damon: That may have been what you were there for.
Mike: That may have been why I was there.
Damon: Now, see she died quite a while after Grandpa did. I was living down in Bentree when Grandpa Workman died. Gosh, we lived right here. I cannot get the date right off (I have it wrote down in there, of course), but we bought a new refrigerator. Sears and Roebuck delivered us a new refrigerator. I went to work that morning, and when I got to the plant somebody from over in that area told me that Grandma Workman had died. Well, you got paid for three days for being off to attend your grandparents, or your dad, or brother or sister, immediate family. So, I could work or come home either one. I could come back home and get paid for it I just caught the return bus coming back bringing the midnight shift back, you see. Rode it back up to Fayetteville. Got off and come out here. Sears and Roebuck delivered us a new refrigerator that day. We bought it was coming that day. So, I remember that real well.
Mike: Where were they buried?
Damon: Right there on top of that…you know where that old house is. You are looking at that house from out at the road. You go to the left, up there and there is enough room to turn around. Pretty nice little cemetery there. [This is the Ramsey Cemetery.]
Mike: Now there must be others up there besides Workman’s?
Damon: Oh, yeah! Eugene used to go up there and mow. Eugene spent great big percent of his life right there in that cemetery mowing and cleaning and keeping that cemetery up. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know what might happened. But I know he really spent a lot of time up there.
Mike: Now there must be others up there besides Workman’s?
Damon: Oh, yeah! There were a lot of people, families, and different people that I didn’t even know. I went through there and looked at a lot of their names. It’s called old Hamrick Cemetery. I believe that’s what it is. You see Grandma was a Hamrick. Now Grandpa Workman, I don’t even know where his home was. Grandpa Workman didn’t have a very big family. And if I am thinking right, now that is when you could have gone back, and Grandma could have told you all about it. But that kind of stuff is done left now. There wasn’t nobody ask, I don’t guess. Unless Bernice might answer a few things like that. She might tell you a few things.
Workman Family History; Life in Enoch & Eakle Areas
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Mike: I was thinking from this one book that Doyle has, that Wyoming County or someplace down in there, that somebody came from that area.
Damon: Well, I think the Workman’s came up, you see around…down in that section. There are a lot of Workman’s down in there, and one of them stayed off down in there. And I believe that as the story goes (now this is way I am thinking) that one come on up Elk River and out there to about the mouth of Birch. And he settled in there. Now I believe that is right. And Grandpa had one brother. Maybe he didn’t even have no family. He didn’t raise a family. So, there wasn’t any cousins or uncles out of that family at all. And one of them, I think he had a sister. I don’t believe Grandpa Workman (now I could be wrong and very possibly I just don’t know) but I don’t believe that. In other words, Daddy and Eugene and Holly I don’t think they had very many uncles and aunts and cousins on the Workman side. It was all on the Hamrick. What they had was on the Hamrick’s. But Daddy never did tell us anything about the Workman’s. And you know, what I was saying there about Grandpa. Maybe the right job just never did come along just right for him. But you know, Daddy was a good worker. Holly, those kids down the line you could just name just any of them and they were excellent workers. I mean they was hustler workers, you know. And Grandpa didn’t just get much excited about it.
Mike: Well, maybe you saw him when he was…
Damon: When he was relaxed. That is very possible, too. But I can remember going back there, that was one of our favorite places to go.
Mike: Now, you would have had a car by then, right?
Damon: Not when we first started going there, no. When we lived up on Buffalo.
Mike: How would you get there?
Damon: Walked. We walked up there. Mom would go with us, and we would go up there. I don’t know how they corresponded. Think about them writing letters, but I don’t know how they did. But anyway, they’d knowed when we was coming. And Mom would walk up there with us. A couple of us, maybe me and Freda and Dale or something and leave us and her or Dad would come back and get us. Just walking.
Mike: How far is it?
Damon: It was a long walk buddy. To walk up there and back in a day was a long walk.
Mike: I would have to look at a map, but my goodness that has to be 15 miles anyway, isn’t it?
Damon: I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t, yeah. You see by the time you, if you walked up…we would go up Hamrick’s Run and cut across the hill and come out over on Dog Run. Then you went to Enoch, up Dog Run. Then you’d cut back around the hill and come around, and that is where that old Hamrick place was. Then on off that mountain, Robinson, where Grandpa lived when we were kids. You see he didn’t live up on that hill when we were kids, see he lived in Robinson ‘bout all the time. That is one reason we liked to go there because we could play in the creek. That Robinson was pretty good size…little...but you would have to go in swimming, fishing, and all that.
Mike: What is the name of that little creek there where reunion is held?
Damon: That is on Robinson. Dumps into Buffalo Creek right down below it.
Mike: Because my boys, they were asking if we were going to go over there and get in that creek.
Damon: Oh yeah, Eddie’s boys used to like to go up there and get in that creek. Wasn’t anything up there to make it dirty, I guess. It was always cold. Oh, I been in that creek years and years ago, but it seems to me it was always cold, that Robinson was.
Robinson Fork area
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Mike: What is the name of that little creek there where reunion is held?
Damon: That is on Robinson. Dumps into Buffalo Creek right down below it.
Mike: Because my boys, they were asking if we were going to go over there and get in that creek.
Damon: Oh yeah, Eddie’s boys used to like to go up there and get in that creek. Wasn’t anything up there to make it dirty, I guess. It was always cold. Oh, I been in that creek years and years ago, but it seems to me it was always cold, that Robinson was.
Holly lived in Maysel before moving to Florida
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Mike: Where did Holly live before he moved down there to Florida?
Damon: He lived out at Maysel. Holly and Mary Belle lived out…went right out to top of Maysel Hill and then turn on a little dirt road. Right up there a little piece is where they lived. Then they lived there awhile, and then they moved on down by the main road, by Route 4. They built a brick house down there. Pretty nice house. Then it had some fire damage and they remodeled it and rebuilt it. His daughter-in-law, I am sure it is straightest story, their son was old enough, was married and the daughter-in-law had a car. And where you would come into the house, you would come in the garage in the back. Looking at it from the road, it looked like it was all house. She pulled her car into the garage and got out—came into the house and her car caught on fire. Course, when the car caught on fire it wasn’t long until the house was on fire.
Driving on Devil’s Backbone Mountain; commentary on the area
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Mike: Now tell me about this road we are on.
Damon: Daddy and all of them called it Devil’s Backbone. Now, just go right on up this hill, I don’t know what this hill is called. It’s got a name, too.
Mike: When you get out here a little bit you are right on a ridge.
Damon: You’re on the Devil’s Backbone, that is what they called it when he was growing up. And you can look over one side, and you are going down in one watershed. And you look over on this side, and you are going down in the other watershed, and it is just enough room for a horse and wagon. I guess that’s where it got its name, Devil’s Backbone. They have done a tremendous road project through here you know. I mean, from nothing to what they got now.
Mike: It is still a pretty twisty, turning road.
Damon: Stopped up here hunting one time, had that blue GMC truck and a little camper on it. Come out here and found me a nice place to hunt.
[Mike got the children’s attention and told them we were on what was called the Devil’s Backbone.]
Dianne: What County are we in?
Damon: Nicholas County.
Mike: We will be in Clay County here pretty soon.
Damon: But I stopped up here to hunt. Parked my truck and got off a little place and everything. Come back to the truck that evening, and there was a big sign on the windshield, threatening me, putting me in jail and don’t know what all—for parking on company property without a permit. So, I got looking at it, and I thought I believe I know that handwriting. It was Eddie. Eddie was the land agent here, see. [Lots of laughing!]
Mike: Look over here Dianne. You can see off in one valley and back over here.
Damon: You are looking way down…this valley goes down into…
Dianne: This is company property here?
Damon: Yes, this is all company property through here.
Mike: There are not very many houses in this...
Damon: No, there ain’t enough room to build a house on top of the ridge. The mountain is too steep. But when you get out to the end of Devil’s Backbone, you see some pretty land. But back at one time before they built any roads, that ridge was so narrow…they flattened off the top of the ridge. You can see how narrow it was. You just look down the mountain on one side and down the mountain on the other side.
Dianne: Uncle Damon, did they ever mine this area?
Damon: No, they never mined it, they just got it for nothing. Down here in Lily when you got out here a little way, I’ll show you where you turn back to go down in…it’s got one of the biggest blocks of coal probably, in fact, it’s too big of block of coal to mine. And they haven’t yet decided how to strip it. I believe it’s sixteen feet thick. They never mined an inch of coal, as far as I know. Now they did strip a little bit out here. Stripped a little bit, but everybody was against stripping it, you know.
Mae: You did not come out here last year either, did you Mike?
Mike: No, we didn’t.
Antioch Baptist Church; camping with Bertha
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Damon: Now is that…I am not sure, Mike. I don’t hardly believe that was the old Methodist church. Yeah! That building down there used to be the Methodist Church. And right here was the community, or are we…there is so much going now I can hardly…no, I believe I spotted it too quick, I think. See a lot of this stuff, Mike, has been built since you come here one trip from the next. I might have spotted that Methodist Church too quick. Yep, that was it. Here is the Baptist Church, now. Here is where you turn up the hill now.
Mae: Here is where we used to come to the Workman reunion.
Damon: You have heard that song about “On this rock, I built my”…now that’s solid rock right there!
Mike: Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.
Damon: And I have come up this road here when you had to hold hands, to keep from getting stuck up walking. Because the bus turned around right down there, and anybody on out that way or out there had to come out there to get on the bus. Poor old Granny Workman [Bertha], Mae and I come through here with her one time in a car. Her mind, she could remember things happened years before, but she couldn’t remember what happened yesterday. We was coming right up through here and I said, “Now Mom, right here is the old McGraw farm. This is the old McGraw place.” She said, “No, that’s not what that is.” Of course, I did not want to argue with her, you know. I said, “Well no. I believe you are mistaken.” So, we went on talking and Pa Workman [Walter] said, “Well, now she is getting technical with you. That man was born out of wedlock, his name wasn’t McGraw, so that wasn’t the McGraw place.” And every time we come up here with Daddy, he’d right along up in here somewhere he’d say, “Now I’ve hoed corn right around through there. He told me that twenty times I bet you.
Mike: Where all those trees are?
Damon: Yeah, he’d point us over to that, “Hoed corn right around that flat right there.”
Mae: Damon and I brought Bertha and Walter up here, and we brought our camper. And Doyle brought his camper. Well, for some reason Doyle planned to stay some, wasn’t it Damon? Him and Barbara and Barbara’s sister (I think I am telling it right, I may not). But Barbara’s sister had died. Well, we had done planned to bring Granny and Pa, and Granny’s mind was bad then.
Damon: ____ got an engineering degree and he is a state road engineer now. He lives right there.
Mike: It is a nice little house.
Mae: I brought [Damon and Mike overtalking Mae]…fixed their breakfast and do everything for them. And Doyle, left his camper, and he was going to let them sleep in his camper because his was bigger than ours. Well, you know what kind of running back and forth doing this and getting her in bed and all of that. But we did it every bit, and Doyle had to leave
Damon: This is the old Scott place. Always remember the old Scott place.
Mae continues: I got up and fried chicken and all that.
Mike: Look out there Dianne.
Damon: This is the Scott farm.
Mae continues: I probably had some kind of salad or something.
Damon: Right here is one question you don’t ask anybody, is how they mow that field right there. The mowing machine…you would be hanging on.
Mike: Have to strap yourself in.