1980 Second Husband Ed Brandon

1980 November 20 – Married 2^nd Husband, Edward Sommers Brandon 2/29/12

It was the summer of 1980 and I had gone fishing at Freeman Lake. This bald headed man asked me what I was fishing for. I thought that was a really dumb question, I was fishing for fish, right. And that is just what I told him, “I’m fishing for fish!”

He said, “No I mean what kind of fish, blue gill, crappie, cat fish, you know like that.” This was a real puzzle to me, I thought you just fished and took whatever came your way.

Anyway, the man proceeded to tell me how to catch catfish, which were my favorite fish to eat. As I was getting ready to leave I said, “My name is Alberta Thomas. What’s yours?”

You could have knocked me over with a feather when he said, “Yes, I know you Alberta; I use to work with your husband Harold on the tanks. I just retired about a year and a half ago, after my wife Dorothy died.” So then we had to talk about old times and how much we both missed our spouses; and how Harold got his nickname of Tune-up Tom. Seems Harold was working on a tank that no one, him included could get to running exactly the way they thought it should. Harold finally got tired of fooling with trying to adjust the throttle and took a rubber mallet out of his tool bag, smacked it lightly on top and said, “That ought a tune her up boys.” Sure enough it did; and from that day on everyone started calling him Tune-up Tom instead of just Tom.

It wasn’t long that Ed was bringing me fresh vegetables from his garden and the catfish that he caught, cleaning them and then I would sometimes cook them for the two of us. But truth be told the man was as good a cook as me. (I don’t agree with this statement. Ed was a good cook, but nobody could cook like mama. Anne T.)

One thing led to another and November 20, 1978, I married my second husband, Edward Sommers Brandon. Ed didn’t like to dance or listen to music; but he loved to farm and laid a garden every year on a double plot of land that I had near the house. Since I loved to can and “put by” stuff that could be shared with family and friends it was a good working relationship. The only thing we didn’t agree on was some flowers that he considered weeds. Our biggest argument was over some morning glories that I had planted three years back and he uprooted the whole flower bed because of those pesky weeds, the morning glories!

1979 - Tornado and Fried Green Tomatoes

1979 - The Tornado and the Fried Green Tomatoes

Ann and her girls were staying with me after she had divorced her first husband, Heinz. We had decided we would have a yard sale.

We had set everything up, including a tent which we were going to sell; when a tornado warning came over the radio. We closed up the yard sale; putting most of our items inside the tent so they would stay dry.

We went in and started cooking supper because we didn’t know how close that tornado was and I get nervous and start cooking. We fixed pork chops, mashed potatoes, and fried green tomatoes. We had turned the two green love seats upside down in the living room to get under in case the tornado hit.

We had just started to sit down to eat when it got as dark as night outside and the wind started howling. When they say a tornado sounds like a freight train they are telling the truth. We made the girls get under those two love seats; but Ann and me were too nervous to get under there with them and stay.

I was nervous and hungry and I kept going into the kitchen and grabbing one of those fried green tomatoes. They sure were tasty. I was reaching in and low and behold I found another hand in that bowl doing the same thing I was; reaching for another fried green tomato. But much too both our surprises there was only one of those fried green tomatoes left. There was nothing to do but to share it.

When the storm had gone on to the next county and the girls got out from under those two love seats they accused us of putting them under there just so we could eat all those fried green tomatoes by ourselves. To this day when a tornado warning sounds the girls will say, “Is someone frying green tomatoes?”

That storm cut through right in front of the house. It had picked up our tent and carried it across the yard. Everything in it was ruined.

1978 - Winning Recipe

1978 – Won Recipe Contest

I entered one of my recipes in a contest for Potpourri of Cookery. The prize wasn’t for money, just to have your recipe appear in a cookbook.

My recipe was for Apple Coffee Cake and appears on page 244 under Breads in Potpourri of Cookery.

APPLE COFFEE CAKE

3 eggs                          1 Cup Mazola oil                     1 Cup buttermilk

1 Cup Applesauce       2 Cups Flour                           1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. soda                   1 tsp cinnamon                        1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. allspice               1 Cup black walnuts, chopped

Blend sugar and oil and buttermilk. Sift flour, salt, allspice and cinnamon. Slowly add buttermilk, blend well. Mix in vanilla and nuts. Pour into well greased and floured cake pan and bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

SAUCE TOPPING:

½ Cup buttermilk        ½ tsp. soda                  1 cup sugar      1 stick butter               ½ tsp. vanilla

Mix ingredients together in sauce pan. Cook 7 minutes. When cake is done, punch several holes in it and pour sauce evenly over the cake. Serve hot or cold. Serves 12.

Alternate Topping from Frances Thomas

CARMEL FROSTING

1 cup brown sugar       1 stick butter   3 teaspoons milk         3 cups Powdered Sugar

Boil 3 minutes; stirring constantly. Let cool then add 3 cups powdered sugar; beat until right consistency to spread.

1978 Pop Shoupe's Death

1978 – June 14 – Father Leonard Edgar ‘Pop’ Shoupe Dies

Jim and I had first bought a house on Nall Lane and later, in 1976, we bought a house on Bardstown Road, off of 31W. We were living in that house June 14, 1978 when we got a call that my dad, Pop Shoupe, had died. Jim’s cancer had not moved as fast as the doctor had said it would; but he wasn’t able to travel that far either.

Darline, who was pregnant with her third child, stayed with Jim while I went to Pops funeral. Pop was buried in Ohio. Jim’s health started to deteriorate and he started spending more and more time in the hospital than at home. I called his daughter, Harvey Francis and tried to get her to come and see him. In the morning hours on the 22 of December, 1978, J. C. Jennings died from the lung cancer.

Mid morning of that same day I got a call from the hospital that a woman and three children had come to the hospital to see Jim and they had told her he had died. I thought that it had been Jim’s daughter but found out later that it had been my oldest daughter, Ann, and her three daughters. They stayed over for the funeral. Jim was buried outside of Maysville, Kentucky. Dana Darline Thomas, Darline and Danny’s youngest child was born January 5, 1979; just weeks after Jim died.

1973 - 1974 Living in Ohio - Jim has Cancer

1973 – 1974 Moved to Ohio to take care of Jean – Jim Gets a Cancer Diagnosis

My youngest daughter had gone through an illness and a divorce and was not able to take care of herself so I had sold my house in Corbin, quit my job at Cumberland Falls, left my boyfriend, Jim hanging, and gone to Ohio where Jean was living. I found us a nice house to live in, paid all the deposits and moved my furniture in.

We had been there almost a year, it was now early in 1974, when there was a knock at the door. It was Jim Jennings and he didn’t look so good. Jim told me the doctor had told him he had lung cancer and that his prognosis wasn’t very good. He wanted to move in with us but Jean didn’t want him to. I reluctantly turned Jim away.

It was down into fall that I got a call from a friend in Elizabethtown who called and told me Jim had collapsed and was in the hospital at Hardin Memorial Hospital.

By now Jean was dating a GI by the name of Gary Fisher. Since I felt Jim needed me now more than Jean, I left my furniture there for her and Gary to bring to me later and went to Elizabethtown to see what I could do for Jim. After Jean married Gary Fisher, January 22, 1975; and they found out he was being shipped to Germany they brought me my furniture.

1971 - 1972 Cumberland Falls

1971 – 1972 Working for Cumberland Falls Through the Kentucky State Parks System

I worked at Cumberland Falls for the Kentucky State Parks System for quite some time. I remember years after that I took one of my picture albums and went back to visit with all my old friends down at the restaurant at Cumberland Falls. As I showed my pictures and asked about each one I was told that they were either dead or had retired a long time ago. I guess that means I must be getting old enough to retire too!

1971 - Working for Rose's in Corbin

1971 - Working for Rose’s in Corbin, Kentucky

As I said before, I took the money from the sell of the house on Cherrywood and put the money down on a house in Corbin, KY, where I had taken a job with Rose’s. I was originally to work up ads that I would take to have printed in the newspaper; but I wound up being a combination ad manager, human recourses manager, and security guard.

November of 1968 Jean had married her first husband, James Howell, another military man for the family. When he got out of service they moved to Ohio where his family was. William ‘Bill’ Thomas Howell was born there May 20, 1970.

Dan and Darline’s second son, Tim, was born just a little over a month later on July 23, 1970.

I had settled in pretty good, doing my best to forget about J. C. Jennings, the rat. One day there was a knock at the door and it was Jim. His wife’s family had gotten a divorce on behave of his wife (he had the paperwork to prove it) and he had quit his job at the paper in Elizabethtown and was now working for the newspaper in Corbin. We started dating again.

Jim loved music and dancing almost as much as I did. In our search for a place to go to listen to music and dancing we discovered that the lodge at Cumberland Falls State Park served a great meal. We ate there pretty often. I eventually went to work there as a manager for the restaurant.

1969 - J C Jennings

1969 - Meeting J C Jennings, Photographer for The Elizabethtown News

I was working for Rose’s in Elizabethtown, Kentucky and use to go early and meet a bunch of my friends at the Moo Dairy Queen for coffee. There is a print shop and dry cleaning store where the Moo Dairy Queen used to be; and a bank and post office where a vacant lot and parking lot used to be.

It was fall and I was wearing a new red sweater that I had bought at Rose’s. There was a tall, dark haired man that kept watching me while my friends and I were having coffee. Shaheen that lived across the street from me on Cherrywood came in and spoke to the man as he started to go past him. The guy grabbed Shaheen’s arm, said something to him, then came on over to our table with Shaheen.

The man’s name was James Collins Jennings; he was a photographer for the Elizabethtown News. His pictures all had “Photo by J. C. Jennings” on them and all his friends called him “Jim”. After that I started running into Jim all over town.

James Collins Jennings was born April 8, 1910 there was an age difference of sixteen years between us. ” I had always said that I would rather be an “Old man’s darling, than a young man’s slave.” Jim sure did prove that was true. I had ironed even Harold’s underwear; but Jim thought I should be on a pedestal and not do anything that would “mess me up”. There didn’t seem to be anything he wouldn’t do for me. He loved my kids and they loved him.

We had started dating; and Jim taught me how to take photographs, then how to develop them. I had a spare room that he turned into a dark room for me. I started taking pictures of newborn babies at the hospital. I sure did enjoy that.

It broke my heart when I found out that Jim hadn’t been on the up and up with me. Jim was married, granted his wife was institutionalized, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a wife; even if she was living in another county. I also found out that he had a daughter. I asked for and received a transfer from the Rose’s in Elizabethtown, Kentucky to the Rose’s in Corbin, Kentucky.

I used the money from the sell of the house on Cherrywood to purchase a house in Corbin.

Mammoth Cave Wax Museum

Mammoth Cave Wax Museum - Cave City, Kentucky 

I forgot to tell about helping to set up the Mammoth Cave Wax Museum, Cave City, Kentucky. I did this while I was working at Rose’s, and taking pictures of newborns at the hospital.

I would research each individual that the museum wanted and then I would have a seamstress to make the clothes for the wax figures. There was a man that was making the wax figures and let me tell you he was good. He would place each of the hairs individually on the heads of the figures and then trim them himself until they were to his satisfaction.

I especially liked working on the Lincoln figures and JFK. When the owner had all the figures set up in the museum like he wanted he planned a grand opening. The owner wanted me to manage the museum. He had a suite built upstairs of the museum that they wanted me to live in; but I got to thinking about how all those figures had been set up to move and talk and I just didn’t think I wanted to live there.

1968 – January 14 Death of First Husband, Harold Lee Thomas

In November 1967, Harold had taken a complete physical for a $5,000.00 life insurance policy; and except for arthritis and back problems he was perfectly healthy.

Then January 14, 1968, he sank over the steering wheel and died of a heart attack. He was 42; I was 40. All I owned outright was a trunk, my antique rocking chair, clothes, dishes, no furniture, and no major appliances. The insurance company was giving me trouble over that $5,000 life insurance policy Harold had just taken out in November. They finally paid out, but not until they had investigated to their satisfaction. I had used the money for a down payment on a house on Cherrywood Drive in Elizabethtown, KY. On the day that Jean was to graduate, I signed the paperwork to sell that house. I hadn’t really wanted to take the time to negotiate because I was doing so much about Jean’s graduation, but the realtor brought me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

1967 Birth of Grandson - Christmas 1967

1967 – Birth of First Grandson 

Danny married Velda Darline Sherrard on September 21, 1966. Our second grandchild, Harold Danny Thomas, Jr. was born on September 5, 1967. Harold and I went to see him as often as we could. Harold was still working for B. L. Taylor at the E’town Bowling Lanes. He had gone to school up north to learn how to fix anything that went wrong with the mechanics of the bowling alleys.

I had inherited a rocking chair that belonged to my grandmother’s brother John Lanter who had lived up in Pennsylvania. We had to go up there to pick up the things that had been left to me and Mom. Harold had rocked our children in that rocking chair and now he rocked both our grandchildren in the same rocking chair. I so love when history and real life come together.

Heinz had gotten out of the Marine Corps and he had taken Ann and her daughter Christina, who we had nicknamed Tina, to Ohio to live. Heinz had a job driving a semi with Sue’s husband, my brother in law, Buck McVaney.

Heinz was on the road but Ann and Tina had come from Ohio to spend Christmas with us. Tina kept taking the ornaments off the tree and had broken several; she loved the sound of the breaking glass. Ann had tapped Tina on the butt and told her not to touch the tree ornaments. So she didn’t. Instead she walked up to the tree with her hands behind her back and bit them off the tree. After we had cleaned up the glass, moved the glass ornaments higher up out of her reach we had a good laugh about not touching those tree ornaments. Tina was almost fourteen months old when she did this. She always was good at figuring things out.

1966 - 1968 First Grand Child

1966 – 1968

1966 – October 31 - First Grand daughter Edith Christina Booher Born

Our oldest daughter, Ann, had gotten married December of 1965. Her husband, Heinz Booher was a Marine that had been stationed in Hawaii. Ann was expecting our first grandchild.

Harold and I had moved to Dayton, Ohio after Ann went to Hawaii to be with her husband Heinz. Harold was managing a service station that one of his brothers owned.

We had moved a trailer in next to our house on Old 31W and rented the house to Danny and his wife Velda Darline Sherrard Thomas. I was working for W. T. Grant’s and we had finally caught up on our bills and had a good Christmas.

I wasn’t too happy that Ann was living in Hawaii, and was pregnant with my first grandbaby. Harold had all ready told me that I wasn’t allowed to go there to see them. It was just too expensive. I was getting pretty homesick for Elizabethtown. My mother and father were living there, my son and his wife were living there now; and we got the news that Ann was coming home with our granddaughter, Edith Christina Booher, who was now ten months old. This was Mother’s Day 1966; that we found out she was coming home. So we went back to Elizabethtown to live.

Harold started working for B L Taylor at the E’town Bowling Alley. We had sold our house in the country, sold the trailer, and we had rented a house on Mantle. Jean was in beautician school. We had decided when Jean finished beauty school and graduated in May we would take the money we had saved and travel. 

1963 - Getting Fired

1963 – Getting Fired

I was a union officer and pretty good at that job as well as my job for the coil company. I was making eighty cents an hour.

I kept getting sick, but didn’t miss any work. I finally went to the doctor and found out that it was my gall bladder and that I was going to have to have surgery. While I was in the hospital I got a letter from the company saying that my job had been terminated.

It took a while for me to get back on my feet and for the doctor to release me. In April when the doctor finally released me I went in and signed up for unemployment. I was told that the company said I had quit. I showed the letter of termination that I had received to the unemployment office and they sent a letter against the company. I wound up having to have a review about my job. Ed Shaheen, who was from the Frankfort office was a witness for me. He told the unemployment office that I had never missed work and never been late.

The decision was in my favor. The company had to pay me back pay from the time that I was released by the doctor and had to reinstate me to my job. This was on down into the fall and getting close to Christmas. Then on December 23 we received the money from the settlement. Without that we would have had no Christmas. I never did go back to work for the company. I didn’t like the company had fired me while I was in the hospital; nor the fact that the union hadn’t stood up for me against the company when they fired me.

1960 - Working for MacAfee

1960 – Working for MacAfee

Harold and I went to work for Mr. MacAfee at the 222 and 31W intersection. MacAfee had opened a service station there. Harold did the mechanic work and I ran the cash register and sold groceries, snacks, and soft drinks.

We had moved in a little trailer next door. And I do mean little! It was so small that when you sat down on the toilet your head was just about in the sink! But it gave us a place to rest when we had a chance, and Harold a place to shower and clean up before we went home for the night.

Harold always had a big a heart and if someone was broke down and it was going to take a while to fix their vehicle up he would sometimes bring them home with him to feed. We met a lot of people this way. There was one couple that worked with the carnival. We stayed in touch with that couple for some time after Harold had fixed their vehicle up.

There was one man who was driving a Volkswagen that broke down. Back then Volkswagens were hard to find parts for and it was going to take awhile to get the parts to fix the fellows car. The man had an engagement that he had to keep and then he came back for his car. We were to hear a lot about him as his fame rose. The man was famous for “Great Balls of Fire”. His name was Jerry Lee Lewis.

1952 - Remodeling the House

1952 - Remodeling the House

The house that we bought had an indoor bathroom and four rooms; living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. We had three children so it was really too small.

We decided that we would dig a basement under the house, add an attic, and more bedrooms. The first thing that Harold did was to dig the basement. He started out working like he had in the mines; on his knees with a pick and shovel. After awhile he hired an old man that everyone called “The Human Mole”, because he liked to dig and he was fast at it.

That old man, Mr. Smallwood, that was his name, wouldn’t sleep inside the house; he slept in what was to be the basement on a pallet that he made up himself. Mr. Smallwood said that way if he woke up with a notion to dig he could just start in digging and he wouldn’t wake anyone up. It didn’t take him long to get that basement ready for Harold to pour the walls.

Harold had started inside the house. He made an attic room and while he was working on that he fell through the ceiling. He had straddled one of the 2 X 4’s when he fell. There didn’t seem to be anyway he could get loose himself and we couldn’t get him loose from the bottom because we weren’t strong enough. It was a good thing that my brother in law, Herbert Hannah, came in, saw what had happened and got him out.

By the time we got through with the remodeling job we had four bedrooms, a sewing room, an attic room and a full size basement in it with a summer kitchen for canning. It took awhile but it really was nice by the time Harold got through with it.

1951 – 1952 - 1954 Buying a House & Working For Ingrahm

1951 – 1952 - 1954 Buying a House

1954 – Went to Work at Ingram Coil Plant in Elizabethtown, KY

We had moved from the two bedroom place with no bathroom into a storefront building that had its own outhouse. There was a pump on the back porch and that was where we got our water from. The outhouse was something we were use to, since we had an outhouse when we were growing up and it was a lot better than sharing a bathroom with sixteen other families.

The family next door was named Chesser. There was a mother and her son, Otis, living there. Otis farmed and took care of his mother; who we all called Grandma Chesser. Grandma Chesser made some really good biscuits and the kids use to go over to see her so they could get one of those biscuits. If one of them didn't go, the one who did would ask Grandma Chesser for a biscuit to take back to the other one. She always let them have one to take to the others.

When I went over Grandma Chesser would make tea in her favorite teapot and we would “sit a spell” and talk. We all really loved that old lady. Later when we started to move she gave me that teapot.

Harold was still working at Fort Knox as a mechanic and Ann had started school at Rineyville, Kentucky. We decided we would try to buy a house using Harold’s VA. We looked until we finally found one that we thought we could afford. A couple was selling out because they were getting a divorce. The house was on what was called Old 31W then; I think it’s called Sportsman Lake Road now.

We put a loan in at First Federal Bank in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Then there was a drugstore on the corner; now it’s an electric company. First Federal Bank said that we needed more money to buy a house, so I went to work at the White Dove bakery, and they approved the loan.

Later I got a better paying job as a manager at Kroger’s in Radcliff, Kentucky. I think there is a car lot there now. Anyway I worked as a manager for Kroger’s until the Ingraham Coil Plant opened in Elizabethtown. That was about 1954. I worked for them nine years; when I had surgery, went into a coma and they fired me. I’ll leave that story for another day.

1953 – Harold Goes to Corbin, Takes His Hotdog and Runs

1953 – Harold Goes to Corbin, Takes His Hotdog and Runs – 2/13/2012

My first husband, Harold Lee Thomas was born in Gatliff, Kentucky but was raised on the farm that came through his mother’s side of the family. Her name was Rachel Elizabeth Powers Thomas.

I don’t remember much more about when they started living on the farm. What I do remember about the farm is that back in 1941, when I first started going there to visit; the farm was all ready well established and they had two horses that Harold used to plow the farm with.

Those were the same two horses that pulled the wagon to Cumberland Falls when I came down one week end. There were four of us, me, Harold, Harold’s brother Arville, and Arville’s girl friend at the time, Thelma Faulkner, from Martin's Fork. Thelma Faulkner and me were in the same school together; originally we went to Hall High in Harlan County. It was a really nice day when we started out. The weather was a little crisp, but we had quilts that we bundled up in. But as we were coming back home it got so cold that day that it started to snow. But we still enjoyed that trip.

Anyway, Harold and me had come back to the family farm at Rockholds, Kentucky and Harold had gone into Corbin to get a hotdog from a place there. He really liked their hotdogs and always made a point of getting one there when we were in town. With being in the war and having to do without a lot of things; he sometimes indulged himself to things like that. His other soft spot was ice cream; he would stand over a heater in the winter so he could enjoy his ice cream.

So, Harold went in, sat down at the counter and gave the waitress his order. While he was waiting for his hot dog he heard these two guys start to argue. He thought the one fellow was saying the other fellow had been running around with his wife. The argument was getting pretty heated and by the time Harold had gotten his order and paid for it they were slurring each others family and reputations pretty good.

Harold said when one of the fellows pulled out a pistol that he did the thing any smart man would do. He grabbed his hotdog and ran. When he told this story back at the house there was dead silence and then everybody roared. Harold was a pretty shy fellow when it came to making rude comments and everybody took this one the wrong way. He was kidded on up to the time he died about the day he took his hotdog and ran.

1951 - December 7 - Death of Youngest Child

1951 - December 7 - Sharon Gail Thomas Died

2010     December 7 – From Mother’s Tape, that date –

About this time in December 7, 1951, I found my youngest baby dead in bed. This time of year is always rough on me, because of all the deaths that have occurred in December. My mother died December 1^st, 1989; Sharon December 7^th; my grandmother, my mother’s mother died on December 9^th, Ed, my second husband on the December 10^th, my best friend, Francis on December 22^nd; then Harold, my children’s dad, my first husband, died on the 14^th of January 1968. He slumped over the wheel and died within a half hour of having a massive heart attack. So there are about six weeks that I have to stay real busy to keep from being depressed. That’s why I do so much decorating for Christmas. Every one of them loved Christmas, so I try to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, during that time and it helps me keep busy.

1951 - September 19 Birth of Fourth Child

1951 – September 19 My Third Daughter, Sharon Gail Thomas Born

We were living in Harlan; Harold was working in the mine. I was great big with my fourth child and had to go to the company store to get some supplies. I was carrying Jean, had Danny holding on to my skirt on one side and Ann holding on to my skirt on the other side. This was the way that I always walked if it was just me going somewhere. We were following the railroad track down to the company store.

We had almost gotten to the company store when my foot got caught in a spike on the railroad track and I fell. I protected Jean’s head the best I could and got to my feet. But in protecting her I managed to fall across the track and I could tell that I had broken something in my stomach. Some of the neighbors had seen me fall and I passed out as one of them took Jean from my arms. When I woke up I had a new little baby girl that I named Sharon Gail. The fall had ruptured my belly button which the doctor had to take out.

When the kids were growing up they use to charge a quarter for kids to see that I didn’t have a belly button and when my great grand daughter Kaylee was about three, she made me a belly button out of bubble gum. Teri still has a picture of that hanging on her frig. It is the first thing she takes down and the first thing she hangs whenever she moves.

1950 - December 9 Grandma Bettie Dies

1950 – December 9 – My Grandmother, Bettie Lanter Montague Vaughn Lowe Died

My mother’s mother was Bettie Lanter. Her first husband had been a railroad man by the name of Robert Ottinger Montague. They had two sons, Robert, Jr. and Grover; and a little girl named Pearlie. Pearlie was struck by lightning inside the house and killed.

After Grandma Bettie divorced Montague she had married my grandfather, Albert Vaughn. We had always been told that Bettie was so jealous of Grandpa Vaughn that he had felt smothered and that was why he had left her; he just couldn’t take the jealousy.

After that she had married a man with the last name of Lowe. It’s been so many years I can’t seem to recall what his first name was.

But what I’m getting to is that when Mom had gone to see Grandma Bettie on her death bed; Grandma Bettie had greeted and said, “Honey, I was a tryin’ to get you a new daddy; but I took sick and didn’t get the job done.”

1949 – November 14 - My Second Daughter, Clara Jean Thomas Born

I had my third child today, a little dark haired baby girl. There was this foreign woman in the hospital at the same time as me; that had a baby on the same day as me. She and her husband owned a jewelry business. Well that woman and her husband had six sons and she kept trying to convince me that the little boy was mine and that the little dark haired girl was really hers! She really did want a little girl. I named my daughter Clara Jean.

1948 - May 17 - My Only Son, Harold Danny Thomas is Born

I had gone shopping and ran into our local doctor at the store. I was big as a cow with my second child and not really paying much attention to the fact that I was past my due date.

“Alberta, I was wondering why you had either had this baby at home or had another doctor deliver it. Haven’t you noticed that you’re two weeks past your due date? You need to go on into the hospital and let us help this little fellow get on into the world.”

So on May 13^th I checked into the hospital to have my baby. Just like Ann had done that little fellow took his sweet time getting here. It was three days and four nights later that my second child, a boy, arrived in Harlan County, Kentucky. As I had promised myself all those years ago I named him “Danny” after the song Danny Boy and Harold after his daddy; Harold Danny Thomas.

I had forgotten but Harold had remembered. Just like he had promised back in 1945 when we got married and couldn’t find any yellow roses for my bouquet; Harold brought me a dozen yellow roses to the hospital.

Harold Danny is grown now, married with two sons and a daughter. His oldest son is named Harold Danny Junior.

I was sitting here remembering something that Danny did when he was growing up. It was Christmas and we had gotten him this little carpenter set for Christmas. Everything was made out of plastic; so he couldn’t hurt himself or anything else.

Well we had this cannon ball bed that had four posters. I missed Danny and found him with that little plastic saw. He was working on one of those cannon balls trying to cut it off. Much to my surprise he was more than half way through one of those cannon balls! He always was that way. He would make his mind up to do something and would really work at it to get the job done.

1931 - 1939 -Growing Up In the Coal Mine Camps

1931 – 1939 – Growing Up in the Coal Mine Camps

I thought I would give a little more background about the mining camps that mother was raised in. I believe it was this raising, which gave her part of her strength of character as well as the way she looked at the world. Her attitude was always “If life hands you lemons; make lemonade.” I added to that attitude my own philosophy that if life handed you lemons and you didn’t have sugar for lemonade; make lemon water. Lemon water was good for you. I was born in Harlan, Harlan County, Kentucky; and spent my first five years living in coal mine camps like Yancy, Nancy, Golden Ashe, and High Splint. I guess you could say there has to be a little bit of coal running in my veins.

The following is from: John W. Hevener’s, Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978). "Harlan County and Coal." American Decades. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 22 Jan. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Company Rule

Harlan County's seclusion and lack of well-paying manufacturing jobs worked against its residents. The coal mines became the major source of income for area families. People could not afford to become union activists because the operators had too much power over them. The coal companies virtually controlled every aspect of their workers' lives. Coal miners lived in company-owned houses, shopped in company-owned stores, and even worshiped in company-built churches. Workers who tried to start unions faced the full wrath of the operators and were discharged, evicted, and blacklisted. Most workers were deterred from unionism when faced with the option of having a job without a union or organizing and never working in Harlan County again.

Anti-unionism

Coal operators and miners both contributed to the antiunion spirit in Harlan County. The coal companies viewed unionism as a northern conspiracy to destroy the southern coal industry. They believed that the northern coal operators used the federal government and the United Mine Workers (UMW) to force the southern companies into having standardized wages and hours. Higher wages and periodical strikes, imposed by the UMW, would cause southern companies to lose contracts to northern competitors. Operators used the "North versus South" imagery continually to keep the miners from organizing. The 1920s also saw Harlan miners prospering. The thinking of the typical miner helped foster anti-unionism. Many were first-generation industrial workers and found the activity and fast pace of the coal camp more exciting than the isolated mountain cabin left behind. Trading impoverished hillside farming for mining greatly increased one's wealth. Until the Great Depression, Harlan County miners profited from the rich coal mines in the region and from lack of unionism.

Misery and Depression

Deteriorating work conditions, low wages, and wholesale unemployment, all resulting from the Great Depression, opened the eyes of the coal miners to unionism. The workers began to see that the hardships following from the Depression were beyond the control of themselves or the paternalistic coal companies. When low wages, irregular employment, and unemployment brought poverty, hunger, and disease to Harlan County, coal workers finally realized that they needed help. As a result of falling wages and severe unemployment, 231 children died of malnutrition in Harlan County from 1929 to 1931. If not for a child-feeding program launched in the fall of 1931 the number would have been much higher. One mine owner sadly remarked, "The miners' families are still able to eat and keep warm, but I don't pretend that they are living as they ought to live." Other miners felt despair because they were unable to feed their families. The coal companies aggravated the harsh conditions faced by the miners by imposing a 10 percent wage reduction on them in early 1931. Harlan miners decided to unite against the operators and felt that they "might just as well die fighting as die of starvation." The resulting battle began a ten-year struggle for unionization.

Fighting Authoritarianism

The battle for unionization in the 1930s was an attempt to improve working conditions and a revolt against the arbitrary economic, political, and social power of the operators. The local mine owners increased their influence over the lives of workers by virtually owning every sheriff, politician, and judge in Harlan County. Every law enforcement agent would then fight against any attempt at unionizing. Sheriff John Henry Blair reported that during the strikes of 1931-1932, "I did all in my power to aid the coal operators/' The operators felt that they acted as benevolent patriarchs caring for the workers. As long as miners adhered to the company's moral code that prohibited prostitution, theft, drunkenness, and unionism, they provided a reasonable amount of social security. Unionism gave miners their only chance to fight the authoritarian control of the operators. Two-thirds of the county's labor force mined coal, and the companies employed or controlled most lawyers, ministers, teachers, and law-enforcement officials; thus, the struggle became one of "us" versus "them." Harlan County's violent heritage ensured that the battle for unionism would be bloody. During the 1920s Harlan's homicide rate was the highest in the United States.

Intimidation

The United Mine Workers used the 1931 wage reduction as a springboard for organizing in Harlan County. The operators fought back, however, and used spies to ferret out union sympathizers. Hundreds of men were fired and then evicted for wanting to join the UMW. Most of the displaced workers moved to Evarts, one of the three non-company towns in Harlan County, and it soon became a center of union agitation. William B. Jones, the secretary of the local union, emerged as the leader of the organizing movement. Hungry strikers, fired by the operators, began raiding company-owned stores to feed their families. Miners were also suffering at the hands of mine guards and deputies who were employed by the operators to intimidate the workers. Rumors circulated alleging that company guards abused miners' wives and children and openly displayed firearms to cower any opposition.

The Battle of Evarts

Tension escalated between miners and guards, and by March 1931 gunfire became commonplace. Both sides were armed and willing to use their weapons in any dispute. Ambushes, snipers, explosions, and robberies rocked Harlan County, and a Knoxviik News-Sentinel headline warned, "Flare-Up in Harlan Area Is Expected." Sheriff Blair, responding to a reporter's questions regarding the use of guns, said, "Hell, yes, I've issued orders to shoot to kill," The fight between miners and deputies came to a climax on 4 May when the "Battle of Evarts" broke out. A group of ten mining officials were ambushed by seventy-five union sympathizers, who exchanged gunfire for more than half an hour, resulting in several deaths and a state of chaos in Harlan County. For two days there was no law and order in the region. Public schools closed, and many families fled the area. Gov. Flem Sampson called in the National Guard to restore order to the county. The Battle of Evarts was produced by hunger, the abuses of the private deputies, the operators' unrelenting opposition to unions, and the spontaneous nature of the strike. The battle, however, galvanized the resolve of the operators, and the military occupation undermined the strikers' resolve. UMW officials realized the use of National Guard troops would effectively end the strike without the miners' grievances being remedied. Sheriff Blair and his cronies continued to harass union sympathizers and, in fact, rounded up and jailed all the major union leaders on trumped-up charges relating to the Battle of Evarts. Many union miners who were not permanently blacklisted were forced to return to work. Those who refused to relinquish their union ties were left either to starve or flee Harlan County.

Government Intervention

The historic passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 and the Wagner Act of 1935 placed the authority of the federal government behind the efforts to unionize. The notable exception to the movement remained Harlan County. Harlan posed a serious threat because as long as it held out against collective bargaining its competitors in Virginia, Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and Alabama threatened to terminate their union contracts. Thus, the UMW had to keep up its organizing efforts in Harlan so its entire southern region would not evaporate. At the time of the Wagner Act, however, the miners had made no real strides toward organizing. Eventually, concerted pressure by the Roosevelt administration and the UMW combined in 1937 and 1938 to open Harlan to unionism. New Deal legislation resulted in the abolition of the private deputy system and gave union organizers the freedom to enter the county. Violence in labor disputes gradually gave way to mediation and negotiation. The New Deal did not transfer power from the operator to the worker in the 1930s, but it did create a new balance of power that greatly benefited the miner.

Final Battle

The turbulent decade closed just as it had opened, with a strike. It began as part of the UMW's national strike to obtain a union shop. In Harlan a fifteen-week strike ensued that pitted the operators' association against the county's nine thousand union miners, supported by the federal government, the UMW, and the nation's public and editorial opinion. When the strike began on 3 April 1939, every county mine closed in Harlan County for the first time in history. Union officials, realizing that a return to the violence of the 1931 strike would destroy their cause, urged members not to resort to violence, even after union zealots forcibly baptized nine nonunion miners "in the name of the father, the son, and John L. Lewis." By the strike's seventh week all national operators had signed a union-shop contract except Harlan's. The governor intervened and sent the National Guard to reopen the mines. Remarkably, the union miners showed great restraint, and little violence occurred until a 12 July picket of five mines. National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed miners in picket lines, and two men were killed and three others seriously wounded. The event was dubbed the "Battle of Stanfill," and the violence was blamed on the Harlan operators who refused to conform to the interests of national coal companies.

Balance of Power

Intervention on the part of the Roosevelt administration and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins resulted in a settlement being reached on 19 July, the strike's 109th day. The key issue was union security, which Harlan officials conceded. Operators recognized the UMW as sole bargaining agent for all employees, and strikers were immediately rehired. The agreement covered forty-eight hundred workers at twenty-four mines. The 1939 agreement, aided by the wartime coal boom, ended the ten-year struggle in Harlan County and brought a new balance of power in the county.

Success

Without government intervention, Harlan probably could not have been organized. A decade of violence produced several deaths and countless injuries. Unionism, however, brought significant economic and social gains to miners. "Bloody" Harlan County lived through the decade of strife and emerged a better place for miners and their families.

Source: John W. Hevener, Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978). "Harlan County and Coal." American Decades. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 22 Jan. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

1931 - 1939 - The Union and the Mines

1931 – 1939 – The Union and the Mines

The union was trying to get in for better wages, protection of the workers, better working conditions, and better medical. Pop was a union officer; in fact he was a pretty big deal in the union.

The union was trying to get in and called for a miners strike; but there were a few men who didn’t want to strike. The ones who did not want a union and wanted to keep on working were called scabs. The National Guard was called in; they carried machine guns. In fact, there were guns pointing down into the valley on each side of the mountains above me as I grew up. Men fighting the ones in union, and there were ones who didn’t want to battle. My dad wanted the union.

Where the National Guardsmen were staying was in the recreation part of the church. Ms Annalee, my friend who had taught me how to cook, was the cook for those men from the National Guard. I was in 8^th grade and a uniform really looked good to me. I would go by as I went from school, to peel taters, apples, or whatever Ms Annalee needed me to do, to help feed those men in uniform. I guess Pop would have killed me; because I was helping to feed men that were helping to keep the union out of the mines. Most of the time the National Guardsmen worked in shifts day and night; keeping someone at the mine to keep the peace.


Yes, I know Pop would have killed me.

NOTE: Mother is talking about a time in Kentucky History when Harlan got it’s name as Bloody Harlan. The miners were starving, but the mine owners lowered their wages even more. I think that since Pop Shoupe had another way of supplementing the family income, with the grill, service station and garage, they didn’t feel the lowering of the wages as bad as some of the other miners did.

1931 – Battle of Evarts - exerts from “The Kentucky Miners Struggle, The Record of a Year of Lawless Violence. The Only Complete Picture of Events Briefly Told; American Civil Liberties Union May 1932” – it sold for 15 cents

The immediate cause of the miners’ resistance in Harlan County in February 1931 was a wage cut combined with increasingly unbearable conditions of semi-starvation. The men at the Black Mountain coal Company walked out of the pits. Helpless, unorganized, knowing only that they would “rather strike and starve than work and starve” they called upon the United Mine Workers for aid. Meetings were held, and in a short while 3,000 men were organized. The operators (men who managed the mines) began evicting union men and union sympathizers. Others walked out in protest. Sheriff Blair swore in mine guards as special deputies imported others from neighboring counties to tour Harlan in heavily-armed cars, bullying and terrorizing the miners. Thus did the operators hope to break the union and with it the spirit of rebellion.

But the miners continued to go to union “speakins” and they continued to march in protest from one mine to another. By April the bitterness between the miners and the deputies was intense. On several occasions shots were exchanged. Then, on April 17^th, near the town of Evarts, came the first killing. William Burnett, a striking miner, who was fired upon and wounded by Jesse Pace, one of a group of deputies, who accosted Burnett and other strikers as they were sitting on a railroad embankment, returned the fire and killed Pace. He was acquitted on trial.

A few days’ later sixteen vacant houses owned by the Three Point Coal Company were burned. On April 23^rd, and on the two following nights, stores were looted by hungry miners. On April 27^th, the Black Mountain Coal Company, which had been discharging men since early in February for membership in the union, locked out all its employees and evicted their families to make room for strike-breakers. Additional guards were placed on duty at the camps. The tension was becoming unbearable. It broke on the morning of May 5^th in a sudden flurry of pistol shots.

                        The Evarts Battle

This is how it happened. The miners who had been evicted from the camps met at Evarts, on “independent” ground. There they formed a picket line, turning back strike-breakers who sought to reach the Black Mountain Coal Mines. One day Deputy Sheriff Jim Daniels, head mine-guard at the Black Mountain Coal Company mines, and his men drove through Evarts, with rifles pointing a warning at the striking miners. Soon after he sent word that he was “coming down to clean up the whole damned town.” On May 5^th three carloads of deputies, armed with machine-guns, sawed-off shotguns and rifles, drove into Evarts. The miners were ready. No one knows who fired first. No one saw the armed men who shot at the invading crew from behind the bushes on the hillside. But when the battle was over, Jim Daniels and two of his aides, together with one miner, lay dead in the roadway.

Immediately Harlan County entered upon a state of siege. All the mines in the vicinity of Evarts were shut down. The schools were closed. Many families fled before the terror of the deputies, whose guns became the law in Harlan.

This battle at Evarts resulted in wholesale indictments for murder and conspiracy to murder against miners-none against deputies. They, and an earlier case, are the only cases yet tried in Kentucky as a result of the struggle.

1962 - Blood Clot

I never was a complainer; that just isn’t my way. I always took care of other people and myself right along with that. My job at the coil plant required a lot of sitting. Most of the time this was ten hours a day; then the fifteen to twenty minutes of travel time each way.

I had been having some pain in my leg; but I didn’t miss any work over it, again just not my way of doing things. I was always healthy as a horse. Then one day at work I was sitting in my chair one minute and the next I was being picked up off the floor. Everyone insisted that I needed to go to the doctor, and it’s probably a good thing that I did; because I had a blood clot in my leg, and there was danger of it moving to my heart. I don’t know if it moved to my heart or not but I wound up in the hospital and in a coma for a week.

When I woke up enough to be in my right frame of mind; I started thinking about a gallon jug that I had been saving little notes in. I had in mind to write a book or my memoirs about growing up hard in Harlan County. I think someone else has written a book and that is what it was called, “Growing Up Hard in Harlan County.”

Let me get back to that jar and those notes. They wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else but to me they were little reminders of things that had happened to me as I was growing up in Harlan County. Any one else reading them would probably think I had lost my mind. I decided that as soon as I got out of the hospital I would destroy those notes.

I was in the hospital a total of about ten days and was back to work in fourteen days. The very first thing I did when I got home was build a fire and burn all of those little notes. Since I started talking to the recorder I sure have wished that I hadn’t done that. There were a lot of little memories there and I’m sure I have forgotten more than I can remember.

1960 - The Chicken Killing

1960 – Thanksgiving and Killing Chickens

I was working at the coil plant ten hours a day, six days a week. on Wednesday I had gotten off work early for Thanksgiving. I hurried home and got my cleaning started so I could rest then start baking.

Harold had to take a medical leave because of his back; but he was working for Garland Harlow at the hatchery and up at the egg house. There were a bunch of hens who had slowed down about laying. So Garland told Harold to crate them up with twenty five chickens in a crate for twenty five cents a piece; when they bought the crate.

I smoked back in those days so I had finished cleaning and was going to rest while I smoked and had a cup of coffee. I had just sat down with my cigarette and coffee when Harold came in looked around at everything shining and said, “I got a surprise for you. I bought twenty five hens at twenty five cents a piece. I figured we could kill and clean them for the freezer tonight. It won’t take long.”

I didn’t say anything but I thought to myself that tomorrow was Thanksgiving and like always we were expecting a houseful of people. I was really aggravated but I went along with what he had planned but I was really aggravated.

We had a gas stove in the basement; there were cabinets down there too; along with the freezer. It was easier to do the canning and putting up stuff for the freezer there than in the kitchen upstairs. Harold went on down and put the water on the stove.

Harold couldn’t have killed the chickens if he had too, not even a fly if he had to I don’t recon. He just couldn’t do it. So the chicken killing was up to me. I couldn’t wring the chicken’s necks the way that most people did. My method was to stand on the chicken’s feet, stretch their heads, then cut the head off.

We got started out; we had five chickens done but the necks were getting shorter and shorter; because I was thinking what a mess I would have because I had worked in the basement all night instead of being upstairs getting my baking done. I just kept thinking about that house full of people coming the next day.

Harold could see that I was mad because those chickens necks were getting shorter all the time. The neck was his favorite part of the chicken. So he finally said, “Bert, I think the rest can wait until after Thanksgiving. We can feed them in the crate and they will be okay.” So we waited until after Thanksgiving and I got my baking done.

We had to cut corners back in those days and those chickens really made good eating, fried chicken, and chicken with dumplings.

1946 - March 5 - Getting Married

1946 – March 5     Getting Married

March 5, 2010 - I remember what I was doing back in 1946 sixty four years ago. Harold had picked me up early so we could go get our blood test. I wanted yellow roses for my bouquet but there were no yellow roses to be found in Harlan; not even a yellow rosebud. Harold promised me that when we had our first boy he would get me a dozen yellow roses. I forgot all about that promise until Danny was born; but sure enough when Danny was born I got a dozen yellow roses.

Leonard Powers, Harold’s first cousin, and his girlfriend at the time, Betty McKeon, went with us as our witnesses. Leonard and Betty married later on. I worked at greyhound bus station; Leonard worked at Modern Bakery across the street. Betty McKeon was one of my friends; she was one of the ones that would bring her towel, shampoo and stuff to get her Saturday night bath at our house. We had a bath house under our house that Pop had built by boxing in under the house we lived in. So all us girls could use that bathhouse.

I’ve always hated the sight of a needle; and always passed out at the sight of blood. The kids knew that if they wanted to get doctored they had to go to their dad not to me. When we went for the blood test I would kill over every time that I saw the needle. Until finally Harold had me to lay down on a couch that was there. Harold held my one hand and put his other hand over my eyes until I finally got the blood test done. Yes, sitting here rocking has brought back a lot of memories.

We went to the preacher’s house and they were eating supper, so we had to wait. Harold was holding our marriage license; he had chewed on the corner of it until Leonard told him, “You’re going to eat it up before you get married, while they are eating supper. Give it to me.” The next thing you know Leonard had it in his mouth. The preacher and his family finally got through eating and we got married.

We had borrowed his cousin Clyde Hill’s car. Clyde had been out of service for a little while and was going to college. We had borrowed Clyde’s car for the whole week so we could run around for the blood test, license, and to go to the preacher to get married. While we were inside someone had let the air out of the tires. I always believed it was my little brother and his buddies, but I never really knew for sure. Willis never confessed. 

1945 - April - Ernie Pyle Killed

1945 – April 18 War Correspondent Ernie Pyle Killed

I knew that Harold was in Ie Shima, but I didn’t know until years later that he was only one fox hole over from Ernie Pyle when he was killed. It was said that the jeep he was in came under sniper fire and that they all jumped into fox holes to get away. Ernie Pyle raised his head to ask if the man in the fox hole across from him was okay. The sniper took his life with the next shot he fired.

There is a monument that was erected by the unit he was covering at the time of his death. It says, “On this spot the 77^th Infantry Division lost a Buddy. Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945”.

1947 - 1948 Dr. Begley

1947 - 1948

I thought I would do a little recording here. I thought I would talk about Dr. Burkhead; he was the doctor for the coal mines. Dr. Burkhead had an office upstairs in the company store. He was the one who delivered Ann. We moved to a little town called Golden Ash, which is a little out from Harlan, where Mom and Pop lived. My other three children were delivered by Dr Begley, who made house calls.

When Dr. Begley would come and check on me, one of my kids, or whoever else he had in the community to check on; he and his wife would come by so they could take Ann with them. Ann sat in the car with his wife, who was from Australia. They had no children, and they both thought that Ann was cock of the walk. So they would pick Ann up and she would sit and talk to his wife while Dr. Begley did house calls. They took her a lot and so did Mom and Pop who kept Ann every other night. Mom wouldn’t ask she would just come in and say, “It’s my night.” Then pick Ann up and take her to spend the night.

Dr Begley moved from the company store at the coal mining camp to Cumberland Avenue in Harlan. Harold and I would go back to Harlan to visit Engle Davenport’s mother and sister. Engle Davenport was the boy I was dating before Harold. Engle was killed June 1944 in Germany.

One time when we were passing through to visit Engel’s folks, Harold says there is where Dr Begley use to live. I wonder if he still lives there. So we stopped and visited, they still didn’t have any babies. But we had a good visit; they still thought a lot of Ann.