Interview with Herbert Colwell, December 2, 1979

Project: Frontier Nursing Service Oral History Project

  • Description
  • Play Interview
  • Rights & Request
  • Citation

Interview Summary

Herbert Colwell was born in Perry County in 1905 and lived for a time on Grassy Branch in Leslie County. At the age of sixteen or seventeen, he went to work in the coal mines. Colwell gives details of mining and logging in the early part of the century. He indicates that people could sell cattle, chickens, eggs, goose feathers, beeswax, ginseng, other wild roots, and anything else they had, to get money for such items as shoes. Colwell also asserts that during this period a man's word would be taken for truth and that people paid what they owed. As part of a WPA program, Colwell worked as a stonemason, building culverts. His family made use of food distributed as relief, although reluctantly. Colwell believes that if the Depression were to happen again, many people would starve or turn to crime because they would not know how to manage. People in his area had their own milk, butter, and molasses. They ate well and dressed warmly, and they made their own chairs, baskets, sleds, plow handles, and "almost everything else they had to have." When the FNS came to the area, his family came to depend upon the nurses, and he praises the services they provided.

Interview Accession

1982oh021_fns164

Interviewee Name

Herbert Colwell

Interviewer Name

Sadie W. Stidham

Interview Date

1979-12-02

Interview Rights

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.

Restriction

No Restrictions


access interview in full screen  

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Add this interview to your cart in order to begin the process of requesting access to a copy of and/or permission to reproduce interview(s). 


Colwell, Herbert Interview by Sadie W. Stidham. 02 Dec. 1979. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.

Colwell, H. (1979, December 02). Interview by S. W. Stidham. Frontier Nursing Service Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.

Colwell, Herbert, interview by Sadie W. Stidham. December 02, 1979, Frontier Nursing Service Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.





You may come across language in UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center collections and online resources that you find harmful or offensive. SCRC collects materials from different cultures and time periods to preserve and make available the historical record. These materials document the time period when they were created and the view of their creator. As a result, some may demonstrate racist and offensive views that do not reflect the values of UK Libraries.

If you find description with problematic language that you think SCRC should review, please contact us at SCRC@uky.edu.

Persistent Link for this Record: https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7tx921g51q