DorothyJonesHall.txt

-n -n -n - New Dorothy Jones-Harlan. - Harlan County, May the 14th, 1994. It's about 20 to 12 Eastern Standard Time. - I need to do you. - Keep it at you. - I'll leave right there. It'll pick you up. And I just need to ask you, first, I need to find out about your mother and father and grandparents. The word--was it your grandfather? - My great-grandmother. One of my great-grandmothers was a full buddy. - Well, before we get into that, though, I just need to get the names and the family name. As much as you can remember from the Kentucky Historic Society about just grandparents and kids. Could you give me the names of both your grandparents? Both sides, you remember? - Yes. On my daddy's side, it's with a kindan. Let's see. My daddy's name was Arthur Jones. And my grandmother's name was Mary Leg. And she was--and her mother was--was in it. Then on my mother's side, her name was Lily Cole. And my daddy's name was Arthur Jones. So my daddy's mother died when he was four years old. So we didn't know too much about that. But I remember my great-grandmother. And she was real old, but she was full-blade Indian. So we think she's Cherokee. - Such a great-grandmother. - Yes. - When did you--when did you-- - They always-- - My mother was from Pittsburgh, Kentucky, about--Postal London. And my daddy was born in Pinesfolk, Kentucky. But he had run away from home and went to--right before World War I. And so he had--actually came back from the service where my mother worked at the Venom Post Office. And so my daddy worked at the Mines at Venom. And later he worked at Lynch Mines. So that's where my mother and daddy met, was at Venom. - So your dad was coal miner? - Yes. He was coal miner from the time the World War I ended until he was in his 60s and then your dad was in his 70s. - The three questions I usually ask, of course, I'm going to answer some of these things. Obviously, we got a whole lot of these today. But what was it like when I was in the coal fields? What was it like now? What was it like? Oh, by the way, do you have any brothers and sisters? - Yes, I have. There were seven of us. We--yes, one of my brothers is dead. But, yes, I grew up in down, Kentucky. And we had five. There were five girls, Jim, Holly, Louise, and Margaret. And two brothers was Harold Jones and Rob Jones. Robert L. Jones. He was named after my grandfather. And so when my daddy left Lynch Mines, he went to Pentecost, Virginia and was a mine foreman at Kentucky Derby Co. Company. So my daddy took the mine foreman's course when he was in his 40s. So when he left Lynch, so then he was the mine foreman there. And I was bookkeeper at Kentucky Derby Co. Company for five and a half years. And then I started working at the Harlem National Bank. And I worked there for nine years. - What was your life like at the time? - Well, we felt underprivileged. But we all--because at Cumberland, at that time, the best units seemed like we didn't feel as-- don't put this in the book. But we didn't feel as--life we were as good as other people. But my mother and daddy worked real hard. And they worked--if they had no--works real hard. We couldn't put all seven of us through high school, really. Yes, yes, we all--we all graduated-- I graduated from Cumberland at Cumberland, Kentucky. - Right. When you say "bust," what do you mean by bust? - Well, we had--well, yeah, like in grade school, we had to walk two miles to school and two miles back. And then my son's seventh grade, while we started, we went to taught school and we rode the school bus while we felt disfined. But we went to Cumberland. We felt like that we weren't hardly as good as the other people. - Did they make you feel that way? - Well, I don't know. I don't know where it was just me. I just been us that we felt like that. But if my mother and daddy hadn't worked so hard, we couldn't have had as good a chance as what we did. - Well, what was it like--what was it like on a day-to-day basis for our folks? I mean, did you have lots of chores? - Yeah, yeah, we worked real hard. My mother can 500 cans every year. So my daddy had to do all this work, you know, getting the stuff. So we helped raise the staff. We helped can. - Really? - Yes. We broke up the beams and everything. - Peel-abble. - So, yeah. So we worked real hard. And my daddy raised chickens. He built chicken houses. After he came in from work, he worked till dark on raising those chickens. And I raised strawberries and different projects in the Forage Club. That meant a lot to me. I learned a lot by being in the Forage Club. - Did--when you said what time did y'all get up? Did your dad get up early? - I think he must have got up at 4 o'clock. I think he always left at about 5. And so I had--when I first started riding the bus, it was about 6 o'clock in the morning. So we got up real early. But-- - Did you get to bed early too? - Yeah, we had--yeah, we had to get to bed early. So we--I still go and help take--you know, stay with my mother's son. She's 91. And so she kind of--now she's kind of going back to that time. But she always says she thinks we had a good life. It's hard work, but it was a good life. - Yeah. - When you started--you say it was your great-grandmother that was full blooded in you? - Yes. - Do you remember--how was it? Was it something that y'all talked about in your family? - No, I was proud. I was proud of it. And in fact, when I was born, mother said my daddy wanted me to poke on us because my hair was real black, my ass brown, but that it kind of showed up in--it didn't. But he didn't talk much about it. But that's one reason I've enjoyed this, because I like to find out about their heritage. And so I've taped a lot of what they've been having on TV, you know, at the end. - Is that why you--is that what got me down into reverse from the first-- - Yeah. - Find out more about your work. - Yeah. - Have you--what have you found out? Have you found out what you set out to find out or-- - Well, I've found out a lot. I've taped nine. And I've seen--everyone that I tape, I see that Indians were treated. And that makes me feel a little bit more prouder of the heritage, because they were treated. I think they were treated badly. - In a way, they're kind of like--I just didn't realize that Native Americans are kind of like holocaust survivors. - I think that's why we work halves of some of the ways that--some of the things that they've learned about holocaust survivors might help people in our situation who are-- - Yeah. - --public and--fultiable. - Sort of put down. - Put down. - Yeah. - Oh, really? - Oh, yeah. - That thought was heard. - Yeah. - So you work around everybody, but it wasn't something that you advertised? - No. - Oh, we did. - But everybody in there knew you all the way. - Yeah. - That was like where I come from. Everybody knew you were holocaust. - Yeah. You were part Indian, but-- - How did you--did you ever--did you ever--that was part of--that was part of--this feeling that you have as some of these--they held low down. I think that's where it's-- - I believe--I believe it was. - It's like there was something wrong with you, but you didn't really know what it was. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Everybody else knew. - Yeah. - Yeah. [laughter] - We must have grown up with it. - Never did you grow up? - No, I was getting across. That's the same way I felt it. - Like-- - There was something wrong with us, but I don't know what it was we did. I did that. - Yeah, like-- - I remember doing anything anyway. - Like we--I felt it stood up. It's good, you know, to, you know, just to be sad. I remember I'd kind of look down the floor, look at the window, you know, just--what they used to call inferiority complex. Now they call it self-esteem. So I guess I just had low self-esteem. - First you had inferiority complex. Now you got low self-esteem pretty soon. You'll be normal. [laughter] - About time to die. About the time to die, you'll be normal. - Yeah. [laughter] - You'll keep checking on the time. - Yeah. - We were laughing and said that the profit at first, which was growing under, they had inferiority complex, and she says now they call it low self-esteem. I said, yeah, by the time it's time to die, you'll be normal. I said, keep moving up the ladder. [laughter] [laughter] - I think so. I really enjoyed this. - How have you encountered what kinds of things have you done to fight inferiority complex? - Well, I don't know that I've done anything much, but I see my grandchildren are proud that they're part of Indian. - And it's something they talk about, they discuss. - Yeah. Whenever I've kept those grandchildren for the time that they were born until they got ready to go to school. And so I didn't even know that they noticed that. - How about your daughter's children and grandchildren? - Yes, yes. And so one day I said something about somebody liking the same things I did because he liked going to the beach and things like that. And she said, well, does he like Indians? [laughter] So see, without me even saying anything, they had noticed that I was taking up attendance. So I've always taken up attendance. - So you've always had a positive or bad attitude in terms of the health and the care of the animals. - Yeah. - Well, I'm sorry I can't ask. I'm sorry I don't know much about people. That's not the whole interview. You know, because living in Harlem and going to the field. So this is just a point. What do you call your high position in the Department of Health and Human Services? - Yes, I like, you mean... - Do you have a visual problem? - Just a problem of sick. I was altering my clan mother. But I really enjoyed this because I've learned much about it. - Have you traveled anywhere to become a white Cherokee? - I've gone to Cherokee several times, but I never have got to see the drama under these hills. I won't go there and then I won't go to that museum. But whenever I was in Arizona, I really enjoyed going to all these little curio shops from the Navio Indians. And then the skirt that my granddaughter has on was a seminole. - Oh, that's a seminole. - So I just enjoy going to all those different crabs of the Indians. - And you think some of the problems that they've had in their lives, how do you call those criminals, depression, suicide? Do you think a lot of them used to be in this cultural dislocation? - Well, I think so. - I guess what I'm going to say is that that's not the backside of the problem. - Feeling put down. - But at the same time, it's like, for instance, the inability to deal with that kind of business. - Mm-hmm. - The Native Americans, they don't have that ability. So we think that that is also going to drive the people to kind of dislocate those same problems. So this is what I'm saying. - Well, I think that they'd have to feel inferior because every trap has been treated so badly, haven't they? Everyone. - So regardless of what crabs are? - Mm-hmm. [chatter] - I kind of think it's going to get larger. - Well, yeah, we've been having-- I don't know what to say, I mean, well, we'd have all this table built up and then, you know, about half of this table. - So about 25% of the person who's thinking about it. - Mm-hmm. I believe it's about 25, I guess, more like that. - But as time passes and the provision of the program, can the Indonesian having any sort of facility of your own, at some point, you say, to go with the group? - Well, I don't know about that. - Nobody's? - I haven't said that. - Bro, that's it. [chatter] - Oscar Hoskins and his-- they always say Oscar Crazy Wolf Hoskins. So I really don't know very much about him, but one thing about this group, they're very humble. Have you noticed that? - Yeah. - Is he? - I think he's-- I don't know where he's originated from, but I think it is of near-events. His wife told me that he was high-chirking, high-fragile. So-- - I don't know what you're saying. [laughter] [chatter] - Well, I'm real proud that my parents were Christians, and that all my life, it was hardly a Sunday missed in church. And then they wanted us to get as much education as we could for what-- you know, co-minors, you know, what we could do. So they really encouraged us to get as much education and to learn as much other things, all that we could do growing up. I can't ever remember my parents being-- not doing anything. It was always work. And so I'm proud that I've had good parents like that. - That brings us an interesting point in terms of religion. [chatter] - I don't know a whole lot about it, because my parents were Baptist, missionary Baptist. And mostly that we know about is the missionaries that go to the churchies and the other Indian tribes. So I don't know what-- I'm not-- - That brings up a question that I'm very interested in, and I'll ask somebody else about it. I know that that would be interesting, but I might have to-- - I'm buying these books, you know, one month of these books on that, on all these different things. And I know it's the last book I got was on that. It's from Time Lapse Books. - And so it has all of their biblical insistence. - Yeah. - That's interesting. - Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]