Interview with Herbert Colwell, December 2, 1979

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 Keyword

Beeswax Born in Perry County Chickens Corn--Milling Eggs Elections Ginseng Goose feathers Grassy Branch Great Depression Logging Lumber trade Recreation Rural churches Sold cattle Timber--Rafting United States. Works Progress Administration. Wild roots World War I World War II

Interview LC Subject

Appalachian Region--Economic conditions Appalachian Region--Religion Appalachian Region--Social conditions Appalachian Region--Social life and customs Coal miners--Kentucky--Leslie County Coal mines and mining--Kentucky Depressions--1929--Kentucky Education Employment--Kentucky Families. Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Hyden (Ky.) Kentucky--Politics and government Leslie County (Ky.) Medical care--Kentucky Medicine, Rural Occupations. Rural schools--Kentucky World War, 1914-1918 World War, 1939-1945

Interview Rights

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Interview Usage

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