• Holly Workman interview, part 3

• Holly describing his mother’s education

• Juditha’s lineage; where Hollie’s siblings are buried

• Back to his mother’s education

00:00 [HDWv5: Holly describing his mother’s education (00:00-01:29)]

Holly: I have no idea where she went to school. I knew she had gone to school to the 3rd grade, but I have no idea where she went. I have been asking all the family, and none of them knows. I think she told me one time that old Ramsey school where you come the hill up there where somebody lives there now in a trailer, I think. And almost all my family went to school there at one time or another, all the brothers and sisters went to school there at some time in their life, even Ida. She was 102 when she died, and she went to school there. But none of them could remember if the school would have been there when Mom was going to school. That would have been well over twenty-five years ago, you know. But it runs in my mind that Mom told me one time that that school used be down here at Eakle, on the creek, and it was called Buffalo School. I know she told me, that on the front of it, if you had the siding off it (that they put on it after they moved it up there) that it would have said Buffalo across it. I always wanted to take that siding off, but they tore that thing down, and I wasn’t around when they tore it down. So, I don’t know what it was. But she told me it said Buffalo right across the front of it. Nobody else seems to know anything about that. I’d like to know more about that, and I wondered if that wasn’t where she went to school. She lived at that place where Marmel lives now. She lived there all her life, until she married Dad. She never was away from there.

01:29 [HDWv5: Holly describing Juditha’s lineage; Ramsey cemetery; where his siblings are buried (01:29-03:29)]

Mike: Now she was a Hamrick?

Holly: She was a Hamrick. My Grandma and Grandpa…of course, he was a Hamrick, and my grandma was a Ramsey. And that Ramsey cemetery up there…he was the one that gave that cemetery. It was supposed to be family cemetery, you know. But it wasn’t long before the community was buried in it, and, of course, none of our family would have said anything. There are people buried in there from all over the county. The last time I was up there, there were infant babies buried in there. They couldn’t get a cemetery somewhere else, so they just brought them up there.

Mike: Are there many Workman’s buried in there?

Holly: There is a lot of them in there. Yeah! But there are some of them not very well identified, too. But there are more other people than Workman’s. I’ve got two sisters buried there and no brothers. My brothers were buried in different places. Like Walter, all the way up to Ansted.

Mike: In fact, we were up there yesterday.

Holly: Donald’s buried way up in Sutton, a little cemetery above Sutton. Edna is buried on Camel’s Creek. Oba, cannot think of the hollow, somewhere near Summersville. Eugene is buried at Sunset Memorial down below Montgomery. That is all of them, isn’t it? Oh, I haven’t been buried yet.

03:29 [HDWv5: Holly continues describing his mother’s education (03:29-05:15)]

My mother was smart, too, I mean, for the third grade. When they went to school back then, they got an education for each grade. They didn’t just go through it, they learned. They had to know it. We used to get her to spell words for us, because they spelled them and pronounced the syllables in them as they went, you know. I couldn’t do it at all, you know. I could spell the word, but I couldn’t get that syllable and then spell the rest of the word, and then pronounce two syllables and go on to the next word and pronounce two syllables. She would pronounce each one of them, you know, just kind of a ritual type thing. We would get her to do that a lot. Now she could mathematically figure almost any kind of a problem in her head. But she didn’t know how to put it down on paper. She didn’t know how to write it down, but she knew how to figure it out in her head and give you an answer. She was good at it. Now my dad was really good at mathematics. He had it. He could put it down on paper, you know. He went all the way through 8th grade, and that was a pretty good education then. In a matter of fact, he could have gotten one of those certificates for high school at that time. There was one boy I knew after I went to work at the farm store, who got his teaching certificate from an 8th grade education. They had to go to school afterwards, you know, but they could start teaching. I can remember when they taught with a high school education, and then they had to attend school during the summer. They could teach nine months, and go to school in the summer until they got some kind of a degree, you know. Then they could slow down a little.

05:15 [HDWv5: Nathan Melvrie’s occupations (05:15-07:05)]

Mike: So, what did your dad do?

Holly: Well, basically he was a farmer, but he did a lot of things. He did a lot of timber jobs. He made things like crosscut ties and cutting timber. When he was first married, he worked on this railroad down here. But he did not like that for some reason or another. He quit. I remember one time he told me a tale about an old fella that worked down there, an old man called Hewey Fitzwater. He lived in the community until he died. He said they were working on the railroad down there, and they stopped for their lunch one day. And he had a tomato in his bucket and not many people ate sugar on a raw tomato. And my dad did, he put sugar on it instead of salt on it. He said he took that tomato out and sliced it and little thing…I don’t know what he had his sugar in, but he took it out and he just covered the top of it. And that old man he said “Melvrie, I don’t understand how in the world you could eat that much salt on a tomato.” He said, “The more you put on it, the better it tastes.” The next day that old man come down to work and he said, “That’s not true, Melrey. I tried that when I went home, and I couldn’t eat it.” He hadn’t told him the truth about it. He didn’t know, but what he put salt on it. I don’t know if he ever did tell him or not. It was kind of funny. He generally went to bed early. He was one of those fellows that went to bed with the chickens and got with them or got up before they did. But if you got him started, he could tell some of the funniest stories…you know, really interesting. And he would just sit and laugh.

Mike: What kind of stories did he tell?

07:05 [HDWv5: Nathan Melvrie’s story telling (07:05-08:15)]

Holly: He just told stories of what happened to people, you know. A lot of them was things like being out before the place was settled around here. There would be bears and panthers and all that. He said he was riding a horse through just a trail, I forget where he said it was at, but it was in this general area. I think it coming from Muddlety through the woods there…and he said he was riding along and all of a sudden that horse bolted with him. And he said when it bolted, it threw him backward, and he caught the glimpse of a panther. It hit that horse and jumped, I guess it jumped with him…just barely missed him, because the horse was a moving on. But he said he almost lost him. As kids that was really…we just sat there scared to death, you know. The stories were really interesting to us, of course—we had to make up our own entertainment. Some like to tell tales. That used to be a real art.

08:15 [HDWv5: No electricity, but a gasoline powered washing machine (08:15-09:33)]

Mike: You wouldn’t have had electricity…

Holly: Oh, no, we didn’t have electricity until we moved up where Marmel lives now. I started to say, yes, we did, but we didn’t. We had a washing machine that worked by gasoline, and I thought yeah, we had electric, but we didn’t. And another thing, after we moved up there, we converted that gasoline washing machine to electric. I guess she probably used that thing another thirty years, I have no idea. An old Maytag. It just lasted and lasted forever.

Mike: I don’t know if I have ever seen a gasoline washing machine.

Holly: I doubt very seriously. Right at that time wasn’t probably ten years after that. I guess they actually are still available, to tell you the truth about it. But they are hard to find. You can buy one of those things, but it would be really hard. That was very common then, you know, because 90 percent of the people in this area didn’t have electricity. They had it in Clay, but not in Dog Run. Actually, they had a little bit in Widen, because they manufactured their own.

09:33 [HDWv5: Hollie’s schooling (09:33-14:07)]

Mike: Where did you go to school?

Holly: I went to school…in grade school went up here to a school up here on Robinson. When we lived on Robinson, I went to the Ramsey school. I didn’t finish high school. I started at Clay, but we moved into Lockwood, and then I went to Summersville for a year. Then I moved back over here, so I didn’t try…could have gone to Widen, but I didn’t. Walter and Bertha tried to get me to come stay with them…and of course, my dad really didn’t want me to because they really needed us around.

Mike: Now when you went to Clay, was my dad there at that time or was he…

Holly: No. Oh yeah, he was there. No…yeah, yeah, he would have been there. After Mary Belle and I was married, we went to Morris Harvey, in Charleston. We went down there for a while. We didn’t go very far; the biggest part of my education I got it on my own. I learned by myself, after I came back from army. Mary Belle, she didn’t graduate either. She went to Clay High, but she didn’t graduate. We both got started late was the reason…we just kind of felt out of place, you know. But anyway, when I came back from the army, we decided to get our GED type diploma. We had to go to Glenville then to get it. She and I and Earl and Irma McKinney went up there one day. They wanted you to spend three days to take the thing, you know. We went up and they give you three hours the first day. I went through the whole thing in an hour and a half. I quit and walked out, and the instructor there said, “Oh, don’t give up so easy. Go ahead and fill out your time. A lot of people have to come back the third day to do it.” I said, “I’m done.” He said, “Oh, no, you’re not done now.” I said, “Oh, yes, I am.” He said, “Where is your paper?” I said, “It is laying on the desk.” He said to get it for him, and I went and got it. And he run through that thing…he said I have never seen that high a score of anybody in an hour and a half. He said, “I cannot believe it. I just thought you had just given up and quit.” Mary Belle finished in the three hours, herself. And Earl and Erma had to go back the next time, but they went back and finished theirs, too. He said, “I don’t know of anybody before that finished it in an hour and a half.” We didn’t study for it then; now they put you through a curriculum of some kind before you take the test. We just went with no instructions whatsoever, as to what there was even going to happen. We didn’t have any idea…

Mike: Well, that shows how smart you are.

12:44

Holly: But it just came naturally. It was easy to do, to me. I thought at the time, though, that if the rest of high school had been that easy, I could have done it. But you know, I never took a book home with me in my life. Never did have a book home with me, to study during the time I was in school. All kids were saying where’s your book at?” I could answer truthfully that I didn’t have any. I might use the school’s book if they loaned them to me. But they took them home, I just didn’t need to. I didn’t have any use for them. Most things like that, I never had any trouble really picking it up. I had a chance with a GI bill, of course, after I got that GED. I could have gone to college, but family was coming up next for us. I was almost twenty-one years old, and I just thought four years from now. And then, a college degree didn’t mean as much as it does now. I was expecting to work around here either on the railroad or coal mine. A grade school education was all you needed, so the rest of it was just wasted.

14:07 [HDWv5: Hollie worked on the farm and for other people (14:07-16:15)]

Mike: When you were growing up, did you have a job, or did you work on the farm?

Holly: I worked on the farm. There was enough other people around; we hoed corn for people. Whatever was going on if they needed some fences built or whatever. But our work wasn’t like kids are today, if they would work today, most of them wouldn’t. But we went and instead of paying us, they paid my dad. It went to the family whatever was to be bought. He took it and decided, no matter if I worked, I didn’t get it necessarily. If somebody else needed a pair of shoes, it went to them. Or if they worked and I needed it, it was the same way. It was a family thing, the whole thing. On the farm, we would pick a calf or a pig or something and raise it and call it our own, but when it was sold it went into the family coffer. It didn’t go to us. You know most kids get it all anymore, you know, and they still won’t do it. Now we were glad to do it…to give it into the family pot. Never thought anything about it, really. We never said anything.

Mike: Never probably realized how poor you were, did you?

Holly: No. And I mean we had plenty to eat. Never went hungry. We wore patch upon patch, but we always had clothes, enough to cover us up. Never really bothered us, as a matter of fact, we were poor, but so was the rest of the neighborhood. So, it didn’t make that much difference. Now maybe some people that had steady jobs, well-to-do compared to us in a way. But still they just lived like we did. They still had a garden and still maybe had a cow. It wasn’t that much different between the ones that had money, except maybe they had little extra money. Here we didn’t have it.

16:15 [HDWv5: Don’t know much about their ancestors (16:15-17:30)]

Mike: Did either one of your parents ever tell you about their ancestors?

Holly: Not that much. That is what I say, I had all the opportunity back then to ask them those questions, now I wish I had. I really didn’t know anything, hardly anything about them. I know more now than I did while they were still living, because I just thought I would always be able to ask them anything I wanted to know. I remember them talking about people, but I had no idea who they were. I didn’t bother asking them because I was not that interested in it. Now I would ask them a bushel of questions. And even Ida, she had seen a lot…she was 26 years older than I was. And she had seen a lot, see she lived here a whole century. She was born in 1899 and died in 1902. She went through one whole century, plus a couple of years.

[Some discussion was going on between Mike and Dianne about the kids.]

17:30 [HDWv5: Discussion about technology (17:30-19:15)]

Holly: These new-fangled gadgets…I can’t hardly operate my camera let alone all that other stuff.

Mike: You know what I wish is that we had the interest in this kind of stuff when we were young.

Holly: Yeah, or even had it available, because kids grow up with it now. That kind of stuff is just…they just know exactly what they are doing. A whole lot of digital stuff, you know. But me, I got to learn it. I didn’t grow up with it. It is all new to me, everything I do…everything I do on the computer I’ve got to learn it. See, I didn’t grow up with it. Now those grandchildren of mine…my grandson is going to the Valley Fork Elementary School over here when he was seven years. Mike [Hollie’s son] got a whole bunch of computers from Carbide down there and brought them up to him. He was in management there, where he got a chance to get stuff like that, you know. He brought them up there and the teachers didn’t know how to use them. He had to show them how to use those things. He went from class to class showing them how to do those things. He was just barely started his employment, but he’d been on those computers ever since he was born. It’s just natural with them. I will ask one of them a question, “Well, you don’t know that?” Don’t know anything about it.

Mike: You are right, they grew up with it.

Holly: It is nothing when you grew up with it. I had thing, that I would talk about that they had no idea what I was talking about. Never seen anything like it.

19:15 [HDWv5: Family recollections; courtship rituals (19:15-23:25)]

Mike: Do you remember anything else about your childhood or family, anything interesting?

Holly: No. I didn’t have a very interesting life. I didn’t lead a very interesting life.

Mike: Well, that is probably relative, but.

Holly: No, not really. I don’t know of anything particularly interesting.

Mike: Did your folks ever own a car?

Holly: No, never owned a car. That is another kind of funny thing. My Uncle Raymond, he bought a new Model T Ford. He lived over there just over the hill from where we lived. He bought him a new car (well that was before we lived up there, bought him a brand new one). He brought it up there, and he thought he’d learn to drive that thing. He would take it out in field to learn how to drive it. They told this on him anyway and I guess it was true, it was always told on him. He would take it out in the field and drive it around. He was coming up to a stump, and he forgot to get around the stump. He had driven straight for so long, he nearly forgot how to steer. And they said he was hollering, “Hey, Gee Haw, Gee Haw…and that thing wouldn’t go Gee, nor Haw...just run right up on that stump. He just got down and said, “Ah, shaw, I don’t want nothing like that.” They said he never did drive it again. Some of the family took it away. It is sort of like your great grandpa, Albert—he never drove a car, but he always had one. He always had someone to drive him.

Mike: That’s right, that’s right.

Holly: He would take somebody right off his job to take him to town.

Mike: Did you grow up with dad? Or did you just see him occasionally?

Holly: Just seen him occasionally, cause Walter was married and gone before I was born. Because I can remember when I was three years old, he wasn’t there, anyway. Maysel was the last…not the last oldest, but the last one home when I was born. She was just there a little bit. I can remember her and Roy and their little courtship…didn’t amount to much back in those days. We lived up on the hill there, and he came up on the hill one night. At three years old you won’t think I’d pay attention, but I remember that vividly. He came up there, and my dad had a gnat smoke built out in the yard, about like that from the door where you went in the house. And Roy came up there. Dad had a couple of chairs out there hoping someone would come along awhile, you know. He came along and just went over and set down there in that chair. His courtship for that night was sitting right there talking to my dad, until he got ready to go to bed. And when my dad got ready to go to bed, that ended the courtship. He didn’t allow the girls to be outside or even in the house with a boy after he went to bed. So, he had to leave, and I remember he barely did get to say good night to her.

Mike: Now, who was that?

Holly: Roy Litton, married my sister Maysel. And even as little as I was, I remember the other brothers and sisters kidding Maysel about Roy coming to court Dad, you know. That was the only one who saw him; Dad was the only one he talked to. But sometimes they would let them come inside and sit side by side in a chair. But they had to stay in the house. They didn’t go up on Poplar Hill or out along the ridge. They didn’t walk out…or get in the car and go off somewhere.

Mike: These weren’t arranged marriages?

Holly: Oh, no, they made their own choices. But they were expected to live up to whatever they were going to do. If they made the mistake, they were expected to rectify them…not to wait for somebody else to.

23:25