Appalachian Woman-Beverly

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]You work on cars. You had to pack in coal, cut the grass, cut wood, and of course, we all had to cook because mommy was always drunk. So, yeah, we had it rough. Pretty rough.

[00:00:21]>> All right, Beverly.

[00:00:22]>> Yes.

[00:00:22]>> Beverly, where'd you grow up? Where are you from originally?

[00:00:25]>> Harland County.

[00:00:26]>> Harland County, Kentucky.

[00:00:27]>> Uhhuh.

[00:00:28]>> Tell me about your family growing up.

[00:00:29]You had mom and dad?

[00:00:30]>> Yes, I did. But they were alcoholics.

[00:00:33]>> Oh, really?

[00:00:33]>> But my dad worked every day in coal mines for 29 years.

[00:00:38]>> And what was that like for you?

[00:00:40]>> Well, you couldn't really make friends too good because they would jerk up and go to another co camp because he got more money or whatever. And we just got out and played stuff like other kids, you know. But except when they was drunk, then you got into a lot of stuff, you know, like >> that makes your childhood really rough, doesn't it?

[00:01:00]>> Yeah. And when I was seven, my daddy got run over by a train >> and it cut the top of his head off around here like this >> and he had a metal plate in his head and they to Yeah. He survived. Yeah. He worked in co mines after that.

[00:01:17]>> Yeah. How do you get run over by a train?

[00:01:19]>> He got drunk and passed out on the railroad tracks.

[00:01:22]>> Yeah, he did.

[00:01:23]>> That'll do it.

[00:01:25]>> But, you know, we we didn't have it as hard as a lot of kids that grew up in co- pimps and stuff. It was just normal, you know. Um I had nine sisters and brothers.

[00:01:39]>> Wow.

[00:01:39]>> So, that's a lot. But yeah, we fit and played and we cut car tops off cars and go down the river in them and um just crazy stuff. We used to go to a a railroad trestle and slide down in between the tracks and they'd be like a square there, right? So we get down and my friends would get down in there and listen to radios and she smoked but I didn't. But yeah, we and nobody worried about where we was or nothing. I mean, >> it was a different time then.

[00:02:11]>> Yeah, it was completely different. Not like it is today.

[00:02:15]I never locked my doors or nothing. Ever when we lived in that co ever. And one time when I was about 12, they the they started picking in the coal mines that my dad worked in. And he left us there in that coal camp and people over there shooting guns cuz there was a bridge. You had to go across the bridge to your house. Uh they was shooting people. Actually one man got killed doing that. But daddy just left and went somewhere else work till it was over. But he left all his kids over there and I think the oldest one was maybe 14 something like that. I mean they just let us do anything they wanted to. They didn't they was good parents because you know if you got that many kids some somewhere down the line if you drink like a fish um you know you going I don't know they just kept us all together and I think that was very fortunate. Well, when I was 22, my mom was in the hospital and she got out. They was having a New Year's Eve party and she thought they never shot.

[00:03:26]She thought she was in a morg. So, she took a pair of nail clippers, took the screws out of the window and fell out from the fourth floor and hit a there was a thing that covered ambulances up.

[00:03:37]She hit it first and it paralyzed her from her neck down.

[00:03:41]>> She thought she was in a morg. Yeah. She thought she was in the morning >> and she was in the hospital >> and she was trying to get out. Yeah. And uh >> she ends up jumping out of her window and paralyzing hers.

[00:03:50]>> Yeah.

[00:03:51]>> And it was snowing. It was like uh January 1st and it was snowing and they started missing her at 11:00 that night.

[00:03:59]They didn't find her till 3:00 that morning. So she laid out there in a hospital down on top of that landing and it's snowing. But she made it. She's tough. I mean, they said the longest anybody had made it in the shape that she was in was 5 years.

[00:04:17]>> And she was in the she was in the hospital for what?

[00:04:19]>> She was having heart trouble and that's why she was in the hospital.

[00:04:22]>> She didn't realize it.

[00:04:23]>> Uhuh. Okay. Um, you talk about changing somebody's life. It changed it all lives. But they done surgery on her and she got to where she could walk on a walker. But she was like that for 24 years.

[00:04:36]>> Did she keep drinking?

[00:04:38]>> Nope. That's the day she quit.

[00:04:40]My dad did. He He drank up till a day.

[00:04:42]He died. But you know, he had lung cancer.

[00:04:45]>> And of the of the 10 kids, how many of them are drinkers?

[00:04:50]>> Drinkers.

[00:04:50]>> Yeah. Or or on drugs?

[00:04:52]>> Four.

[00:04:54]>> And not you?

[00:04:54]>> Nope.

[00:04:55]>> Good deal. Did Did growing up around that kind of teach you not to do it?

[00:04:59]>> Well, it's like this. I had a sister that was year older than me. Angie would say, "We might as well drink cuz mommy and daddy does it." Well, I would sit there and think, "No, I don't want to be like my mom and I'm not gonna do it."

[00:05:11]You know, it's all according to how you look at things.

[00:05:14]>> But yeah, I had one brother that was a bad alcoholic. Then I had another brother that smoked pot and drunk. We talk about that. Then I had sister that was an alcoholic. And another sister, she took a lot of pills and drunk. So it take makes an impact on you, the people you're around or where you're at or whatever, you know. But we had learned to make friends quick.

[00:05:36]because they would move us somewhere.

[00:05:39]So, say getting bored? No, we didn't.

[00:05:44]I woke up one morning and there was a donkey tied up beside my bedroom window in a co camp.

[00:05:50]>> In a what?

[00:05:51]>> In a co camp. We lived in a co camp house. Yeah. Okay. Daddy got this horse one time and he was over six foot tall.

[00:06:00]>> He had to get on top of his car to get on that horse. Can you imagine how big it was? And I was probably 12. To me, it looked humongous, you know. And but he was always doing stuff like that. We had a monkey growing up.

[00:06:12]>> You had a monkey.

[00:06:13]>> Yeah. When I was about eight, my daddy bought it off somebody he worked in coms with and his name was Charlie. And he hated daddy. So every evening when he got off work, he when he come home, that monkey spit grape holes at him all time. It didn't like him. And my mom had a bed, a bed and she had an old I know I don't say it right, old banjo. And she'd lay that banjo down.

[00:06:38]That little monkey would go around dinging ding ding ding ding just playing that old thing. And we took it to school for show and tell one time and it was a pulling little girls dresses up and everything. Could you imagine somebody having a monkey that now? I don't know how daddy even got that one.

[00:06:52]>> What kind of monkey? Chimpanzeee or >> No, it was a small monkey.

[00:06:55]>> The small one.

[00:06:56]>> Yeah. Uh he ended up trading it to somebody for a mandolin cuz my mom could play and it got burned up. It got burned up.

[00:07:06]>> But you know how weird it was to have we more or less had a zoo everywhere we lived. You know, you had to raise a garden. You had to work on cars cuz I'm a big uh muscle car nut. Um you work on cars. You had to pack in coal, cut the grass, cut wood, and of course we all had to cook because mommy was always drunk. So yeah, we had it rough. Pretty rough.

[00:07:34]>> Do you like living here?

[00:07:36]>> Yeah. I actually moved out of Harland County, moved to Virginia and stayed a log house and I stayed over there three years and I ended up This is so weird.

[00:07:46]The property where I'm at now, I owned it with my first husband. We got divorced.

[00:07:52]My second husband bought it off my brother. So that one piece property, I owned it with both my husbands.

[00:07:59]That's weird.

[00:07:59]>> Are you married now?

[00:08:01]>> No, my husband passed away in 2014. He had a heart attack at work. He didn't work in coal mines. He worked at a a mine supply place downhill.

[00:08:10]>> But yeah, he had a heart attack.

[00:08:12]>> No, I'm I'm I'm not married no more.

[00:08:14]>> Do you do you love this part of the country?

[00:08:18]>> Yeah. Yeah. Life's simpler here than it is, you know, like maybe in Indiana or somewhere. Things are just it's slower pace. Um if it wasn't for the drugs, you could turn kids out and leave them out for days. They'd always come back home, but not more. But it's not that bad. I like it here.

[00:08:38]>> Yeah, I like it. I think it's beautiful.

[00:08:40]>> Do you?

[00:08:41]>> I do. Yeah.

[00:08:42]>> Wow.

[00:08:43]>> I've been to every state and I think Eastern Kentucky, like Eastern Kentucky only. I'm not talking about Western Kentucky, but Eastern Kentucky I just love. Wow.

[00:08:51]>> It's beautiful. The people are beautiful.

[00:08:53]>> Yeah. People are these people around here. If they know you need something, they're going to make sure you got it some way. Okay. It's like, they're my friends. I wrecked my car and told it. I bought a Blazer and he come up there and put brake shoes on it, put new um brake pads, calipers, um change my oil and he paid for all of it. I didn't even have to pay for it.

[00:09:22]>> Yeah.

[00:09:22]>> Now that's friends.

[00:09:23]>> That's the kind of people that are here.

[00:09:25]>> Yeah. That's it.

[00:09:25]>> I've seen I've heard those stories so many times >> that about people >> Yeah.

[00:09:30]>> helping each other.

[00:09:30]>> Yeah.

[00:09:31]>> You have to because there's nothing here, you know, like you can't run to a big old hospital or nothing like that.

[00:09:36]You just got to take care of yourself more or less. Now, where I live is probably about 15 miles from here. And >> where do you live?

[00:09:46]>> I live at Martin Fork. There's a lake.

[00:09:50]>> It's you go on across the bridge here at Haywood and go up. Okay. Um I have a cook stove in my kitchen.

[00:10:00]I have cursing lanterns.

[00:10:03]Uh you have to learn to survive and take care of yourself around here because like up where I live electricity go off style for two three weeks but see I've got heat and a way to cook so might be dirty co's dirty but you know but I I burn farm and co burn wood and coal so it's it's not real bad but around here you got to keep that stuff >> I mean unless you want to get unprepared you know some people don't hear, but I'm worried about stuff like that. Plus, I've got dogs. I've got cows. I've got, excuse me, four cows.

[00:10:42]>> No children.

[00:10:44]>> I got a daughter. She's she's grown and gone. She moved off. She actually moved to Tennessee.

[00:10:51]>> And uh but that's the only kid I had. I raised two steps, a boy and a girl. Uh, the boy actually lives up above me now.

[00:11:01]But Stacy was three. That's my daughter.

[00:11:04]Uh, Angie was four and Brad was five. So I have three, four, and five, you know, and they really wasn't even mine. But I raised him.

[00:11:14]>> Yeah.

[00:11:16]>> You know, cuz he's like this. I was single and had a kid. I couldn't look at him and say, "You can't fool with me if you don't care about take care of my kids." You know, you I don't ask nobody for nothing unless I can do something back for them in return because it bugs me if I don't, you know. Um, but it it's hard around here. People need all the help they can get really.

[00:11:42]And but it is a nice place to live. Y come back when snow's on up here. It's beautiful up there where I live. There's lakes and all kinds of trees and everything is beautiful. Ducks.

[00:11:54]>> You're driving up through there sometime. Look at it. I live in a loft house.

[00:11:58]>> I've actually got a 100y old love house.

[00:12:01]>> That was a boy's office. So, I went and stole it. I didn't steal.

[00:12:05]>> How many acres? How many acres do you have?

[00:12:06]>> I got about two acres.

[00:12:07]>> Two acres.

[00:12:08]>> But I've got four houses of it.

[00:12:10]>> Yeah. But you you get used to this place. I don't think I can live anywhere else. I really don't think I could live anywhere else.

[00:12:20]But, you know, there's not a lot of jobs here and people have to leave because of that. They there's just no jobs. When they cut all the coal mining out, that's how pe how people lived and they started cut out.

[00:12:34]And they don't really I think it's wrong for a woman to sit and ask a man to go back in a black hole and work for I my second husband that weren't mine.

[00:12:48]And I'm glad because I would never ask a man to go back in there for me. I wouldn't because it's just think about they're putting their lives in danger every day.

[00:13:00]Rocks fall. My daddy got hit by a rock and broke through his toes and through his ribs, but you know that stuff happens. And maybe not as much as it used to, but stuff happens, you know, but as far as living in a coal camp, you you probably paid 500 $5 a month for rent. And you know, it's just like a four room house. Some of them we didn't have water in, some of them we did.

[00:13:27]Sometimes we didn't have plumbing. You know, we had outside out house and uh but it was it's hard living here. It really is. It's hard. And but I wouldn't want to live nowhere else.

[00:13:41]>> What was your favorite decade of your life?

[00:13:44]20s, 30s, 40s.

[00:13:47]>> Can I ask how old you are?

[00:13:49]>> I'm I'm 65.

[00:13:50]>> 65.

[00:13:51]>> Yeah.

[00:13:51]>> What was your favorite decade?

[00:13:54]>> Probably 70s.

[00:13:57]>> 70s around.

[00:13:58]>> 1970s.

[00:13:59]>> Yeah. No, he said would be it cuz you think about all the all these drugs and stuff that floats around anymore that none of that was there. They had some but not like it is now. I mean the cops just arrested a guy over at that store while ago throw him on the ground. He was screaming every breath and he was on something on what he was on. I mean they basically th knock him to the ground.

[00:14:20]>> What do you think of the the drug situation here?

[00:14:24]>> I hate it.

[00:14:27]But honestly, most of them's either died from an overdose or they're in prison.

[00:14:32]So it if you don't fool with somebody, don't fool with them. It don't don't affect you too bad, you know. But I mean, I know it's there, but I I try to look at the bright side of things instead of, you know, think, oh god, everybody around here's on drugs, which what else have they got to do? You know what I mean?

[00:14:50]>> Mhm.

[00:14:50]>> Half of them can't find a job because there's no coal mines left, you know?

[00:14:57]But it still ain't that bad here. It It could be a lot worse.

[00:15:02]>> Yeah.

[00:15:03]>> I mean, it really could.

[00:15:05]>> What is your biggest regret in your life?

[00:15:10]>> Married my first husband.

[00:15:13]You ask.

[00:15:17]Yeah. But I did get a daughter out of it, so I done okay, I guess. But no, listen. When I I got married, I was 17 years old.

[00:15:26]I was a kid.

[00:15:29]I was a kid trying to play house more or less, you know. Oh Lord, when I married him, I was cooking on a heating stove every day, heating bath water every day cuz we heated with cold wood. And the house we we lived in didn't have a bathroom. You had to go outside. Do >> you have electricity?

[00:15:51]>> Yeah. Yeah, I did. But no TV, nothing.

[00:15:57]I mean, it was kind of hard. You think, could you go through your whole life and not have TV >> really? Could you do it?

[00:16:06]>> I mean, the equivalent of that is now with a phone.

[00:16:08]>> Yeah.

[00:16:08]>> Internet.

[00:16:09]>> Internet.

[00:16:10]>> Had neither of those.

[00:16:11]>> Well, we didn't have either.

[00:16:13]>> Yeah. You know, but there's nothing to do. You was bored all the time.

[00:16:18]>> So, I'd go around cutting people's grass and stuff in their yards to keep myself busy. I did. That's when electric weed eaters first come out. So I had one as this old woman moved down the road from me and uh she was out there one one day cutting weeds with a pair of scissors.

[00:16:36]So I went home, got my weed eater, got her plugged up for me. I cut all along the fence line and everything. You know, people have to help each other. Nobody is beyond how asking for needing help.

[00:16:49]Nobody. I don't care who you are. I don't care how rich you are or what you do in life or nothing. Everybody needs help sometimes. So, yeah. And I was married 5 years before I got pregnant.

[00:17:02]And so, yeah, it it ch that changed my life big big big cuz like I said, I I'm the youngest in my family. My daddy petted me. He did. And even though drunk, he worked every day of his life.

[00:17:19]A lot of times when he would go to the coal mines and somebody would stop there and tell my mom, uh, Basil's working overnight, you better send him some lunch. I've seen him do that for three days, not come out that MS for three days in a row. Well, you just send his lunch up to him. He just daddy was a hard worker. He really was.

[00:17:42]And but you can't do that stuff now.

[00:17:46]Could you imagine? I won't be stuck back in the hole for three days. Would you?

[00:17:52]I don't think I could get out of there real quick. You know how if I seen a snake? I'd get out of there somehow.

[00:17:59]Believe me, I'd get out of there somehow. I hate snakes. I'm not scared of rats. I'm not scared of bats or anything like that. Just snakes. I am so scared of snakes.

[00:18:10]Other than that, you know, thous because we go out in the woods and play and nobody ever where we was going or what we was doing or nothing like that, you know, they just it was just normal.

[00:18:22]So, we used to go pick chestnuts off tree and sold them. I'm talking like when I was 10, 12. Uh what else did we do? We got those chestnuts off. Sold them. We sold bags of popcorn. Uh what else?

[00:18:38]something else we sold.

[00:18:41]But anyway, we found ways to keep herself busy doing something all the time. Of course, you had mommy and daddy in the background fighting her. He's hit me with his fist. He's hit me with extension cords cuz he he'd start hitting on my mommy. I throw myself on top of her so I could hit her.

[00:19:00]So, he hit me a lot. Not on purpose. He was drunk. He was He was drunk. If people thinks it's hard living in a co camp, it's harder living in a co camp with drunks.

[00:19:12]I mean drunks.

[00:19:14]Like I said, my dad's drunk up until day died and he was 61 when he passed away.

[00:19:20]But would you like to live here?

[00:19:24]>> I don't know if I could live here. I love visiting here.

[00:19:26]>> Oh, >> I love visiting here.

[00:19:29]>> It's different when you live here.

[00:19:31]>> I'm sure it is. I'm sure.

[00:19:32]>> It's harder than you think when you first come here. You think, "Oh, what a cute little town, I guess." But no, it's different when you live here.

[00:19:41]>> Yeah.

[00:19:41]>> But we didn't have it back growing up.

[00:19:44]We didn't. My dad worked hard. I've got a check st that he had when I in the 70s. He made $100 a week.

[00:19:54]That's to raise 12 people fed cuz there was nine, no, 11 people. That's how many ate at our house because there was nine of us and mommy and daddy, you know, and usually my brothers had friends coming over and staying with us. They they live with us for weeks at a time. I mean, that's how they done stuff back then.

[00:20:17]We'd all go to each other's houses and they had parties and stuff like that, like birthday parties and stuff. We go to their house for that and stuff. So, it wasn't that bad. Of >> of your 10 of the 10 kids, how many still live here?

[00:20:31]>> Three.

[00:20:32]>> Three. Yep. I got one sister that lives in Tennessee, but the rest of them lives here.

[00:20:37]Um, my one sister is almost 70, and she's lived in the same place since 1977.

[00:20:50]>> So, 10 kids.

[00:20:52]>> Mhm.

[00:20:53]>> Three of them left town.

[00:20:54]>> No, one of them left town. One left town. The rest of them stayed.

[00:20:57]>> So, they all live here?

[00:20:59]>> Yeah. I got a sister who lives right down below me about a mile. And I got nieces and nephews and everything down there cuz she rents trailers. Uh they're all down there. And then I got a brother that lives at Putney. And then me, you know, but that one lives in Tennessee, she she been over about 15 years. So she lived here most her life. She's 77 >> and it's hard. But you learn to adapt to things. You're tougher than you think you are. You just got to get pushed in the right direction to figure out how tough you are, you know. But I couldn't imagine not living where we live, where I live. I couldn't imagine I I hated I lived in Virginia for 3 years and I hated it. You didn't see nobody out. You didn't talk to nobody cuz they wouldn't speak to you. The only time you see them out was cutting the grass or getting in the car. Other than that, the unfriend people I ever seen in my life.

[00:21:56]People around here, they ain't like that. Most of us got big mouths, you know. We most of us got big mouths.

[00:22:05]We never see a stranger. I mean, >> but yeah.

[00:22:09]>> Let me ask you one last question. What would you say is the most important lesson you've learned in your life?

[00:22:17]>> Um, not to drink.

[00:22:22]>> I'd be a horrible alcoholic.

[00:22:24]I'd be a bad alcoholic cuz think about it that runs in my jeans, you know. And when my husband passed away, I I got this close. I I mean, I got so close.

[00:22:36]And then I was standing there and I thought I was getting ready to pour me some wine or something. And I s thought if you start drinking, nothing's going to go away. Nothing's going to get better. And if you start drinking, that's just going to add to your problems. So God saved me on that one.

[00:22:52]He did. But yeah, we had we had tough, but in some way or another, everybody has the tough, you know, it's just different ways. But I think people need to be better to each other than they are now. I do.

[00:23:09]>> Yeah.

[00:23:09]>> But I ain't really around a lot of people, so it don't matter. It's unusual for me to get out of holler. Yes. I said holler, not hollow. Holler.

[00:23:21]>> We talk different, don't we? Yeah, we do. You guys, you speak differently than anybody here.

[00:23:26]>> Uhuh. Yeah. How do you fit in though? I mean, what do you do? Just go see cuz I got a big mouth. I just walk up and start talking to somebody like I've known them all my life. But how do you get to know people?

[00:23:41]>> I just have to I'm very very shy, but I have to force myself to just get over that >> and just say hi to somebody and and make something >> and go on, you know. Yeah, that's right.

[00:23:50]What? It's not my nature, but I can do it.

[00:23:53]>> Yeah. So, see, you're like me. I am a little bit shy until I get nervous, then I ain't shy no more.

[00:24:03]>> Or if you make me mad, then run.

[00:24:05]>> If I don't make something happen, then nothing happens. I turn around and go home.

[00:24:08]>> You know, you have to you have to do what you're doing.

[00:24:12]>> But you can where you're pushed in a corner, can't you?

[00:24:14]>> Yes.

[00:24:14]>> You can do it.

[00:24:15]>> Yes.

[00:24:16]>> I push myself into this corner.

[00:24:17]>> How long have you had how long you been over here? Uh well on this I've been here like 30 40 times >> in Harlem.

[00:24:24]>> Yeah. Well, usually I come to like Harland or Hazard or Leslie County or West Virginia or sometimes Tennessee, but normally Kentucky, these counties are just my >> I went I was born in a two room log cabin by nurses that rode horses.

[00:24:42]It was called Frontier Frontier Nurses.

[00:24:45]>> Really?

[00:24:46]>> Yeah. Yeah. And I lived in a little two little two room house and I'm the baby.

[00:24:53]So that means all the other kids there too. You imagine like people in a little small house about as big as that right there. That's funny. We fit a lot.

[00:25:02]>> I bet >> we did. But you know it is what it is. I hope I wish that Harlem would pick back up. You know where a lot of people ain't out out of jobs and stuff like that. But I think coal mining is a thing of the past anymore. I had every one of my brothers worked in coal mines.

[00:25:24]Uh my daddy, all my uncles, um my brother-in-laws, they worked in at the same coal company for years.

[00:25:36]So what kind of legacy is anybody else got now from here? Nothing. Nothing. I feel sorry for people now.

[00:25:44]I've already lived my life, but they're going to have to grow up and it keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

[00:25:50]What do they do? This may end up being a ghost town.

[00:25:54]>> Yeah, >> cuz a lot of people's leaving.

[00:25:57]>> That's really sad.

[00:25:58]>> Believe me, if my house wouldn't pay for I wouldn't live here.

[00:26:02]>> No, I'd move my I've got a little little small cabin. It's like a hunting cabin and it's got a sleeping loft in it.

[00:26:08]>> Where would you go if you left here? I'd pick my cabinet and find me back in the hills somewhere with nobody around me and die happy. Just >> just deeper in the hills.

[00:26:17]>> Yeah.

[00:26:17]>> You just go deeper in the house.

[00:26:18]>> Yeah.

[00:26:19]>> Yeah. Away from people, >> right?

[00:26:22]>> Ain't some crazy people in Harlem.

[00:26:24]Really crazy.

[00:26:26]You may have just met one of them.

[00:26:29]>> I'm joking.

[00:26:29]>> All right, D. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

[00:26:31]>> You're welcome.

[00:26:32]>> I hope you have many happy years. You too. Thank you. It's good to meet you.