Interview with Aunt Leroy
Date: Sept. 14, 2001
Conducted by: Rebecca Webb Knox
[If you have ever tried recording a conversation
with one or more persons, then you will know how they talk up a storm until
they see you push the record button.........]
RK:
The recorder is on. DON’T TALK!
LR:
What do you want me to tell you?
RK
Tell me the story about when your Daddy (Gash) died in the coal mining
accident. You were how old?
LR
I was three weeks old when he was killed. {see
newspaper article detailing the coal mine accident)
RK
The coal mine was where?
LR
In Spadra. Then it was Spadry Coal Company. There are a lot
of coal mines there. And my Dad was ...... well I cannot
remember the name of the Coal Mine company but I know he worked in the
coal mine there in this little camp. There were a whole
bunch of little houses there. Rows of houses that belonged to the
coal company. And after my Dad was killed, the company moved
my mother up there in one of those little houses to live. You
know, compensation.
RK
This was before Welfare, right?
LR
Right. No welfare. The community took care of each other.
There was no other way. She had four little kids. Everett was
9,
Opal was 6 1/2, Raymond was 3, and I was 3 weeks old. Raymond said
he could remember riding a train, one time, with our mother.
That is the only thing he could remember about our mother. He did
not know if it was when they came from Bauxite up to
Clarksville for the funeral or if it was after the funeral to get
her stuff to bring it back to Clarksville.
RK
Where is Bauxite?
LR
It still exists. It is southeast of Little Rock, AR.
*note: Bauxite is known for aluminum mining.
RK
That is quite a ways away.
LR
Yea. My Dad and my uncle had gone down there and bought this land
and they were planning on building houses there. Actually, they
had just two tents. They had built up about 4’ high and the
tents were the top. They were trying to get enough money together
before
winter. I was born in June and I think it was the 7th of July he
was killed.
RK
According to the newspaper article I found states the accident happened
July 7th, 1917. Even though I like to say you were born in
the year 1817!
LR
No honey, not 1817! {laugh} My mother got back
up to Spadry (Spadra), after she died all us kids were there and somebody
had to
take care of us. So my daddy’s half brother, John Gene Gash, [pit
boss at the same coal mine] had us all at his house. Well he had
family and little ones and four more kids at that time was a lot of mouths
to feed.
RK
No food stamps to fall back on!
LR
Right. No food stamps. So my Pappa, John Sparks, was
working in this tipple in the coal mine and he saw my Dad, Delbert
and a
whole bunch of them were in the cage in the coal mine. One goes up
and the other goes down.
RK Like counter
balance?
LR: Yes.
And they were bringing out a machine. And when they pushed the machine
off the cage at ground level, Delbert and some of the
rest were there to help get it off, my Dad was on the cage and when the
weight of the machine went off the cage the other cage went to
the bottom and this one went to the top and it threw my Dad off across
the slate field. When they got to him he was dead. Delbert
and
my Pappa, John Sparks, was in the tipple and saw the accident happen.
In May of 1918 my Mother died (Mrs. Gash), that left four
orphans. I was 11 months old. I do not know why they (John
and Eliza Sparks) decided they wanted me. Maybe it was because they
knew that Uncle John Gene could not keep all of us and that somebody was
going to adopt some of us. So Momma & Pappa made up
their minds they wanted me. I don’t know why; Momma & Papa’s
kids were all grown. Dice was their youngest child and he was
16years old. So why would they take an infant?
RK Probably because
they knew that I was going to come along some day and need an Aunt!
{bright kid huh?}
LR Oh I bet that
is it!
RK Didn’t Eliza,
have a baby about the time you were born and it died?
LR Yes.
She had a baby in December or Nov. of 1916 before I was born in 1917.
It was a several months older than me.
RK So she would have
already had a baby a 1 1/2 year old child any way.
LR Yes. Since
she had Lillie, Delbert, Charlie and Dice. Like I said, Dice was
16yrs, Charlie was 18yrs. I was brought home on Charlie’s
18th birthday, May 18th, 1918.
RK Charlie died 3mo later
in the Spanish Flu epidemic. So I guess everything worked out the
way it was suppose to because there you
were.
LR There I was!
I was loved. I was petted. But I was not spoiled.
RK Yeah right!
LR {laugh}
RK Didn’t you say
you once lived in a house that Dice or Delbert lived in the other side.
Something like there was a hallway separating the
two living areas?
LR This house we lived
in when Momma (Eliza Sparks) died was a great big house. It had a
living room, a hall, and another room.
The living rooms were 20x20 and across one side were side rooms.
After Momma died Dice and Elsie were living with us and they
moved in to the one big room and little kitchen room. Pappa and I
lived in the other four rooms.
RK And you were 13yrs
old when she died?
LR Yes. 13 years
old. She died the 12th of August and I started school in September.
I did the cooking, washed the clothes and I know for
a fact it rained every Saturday from September to May! Every Saturday.
That was when I had to do the laundry.
RK Your dryer does not
work on Saturdays when its raining does it?
LR No. But
in the winter time we had this big pot belly stove that stood real high
and set right in the middle of the living room. I took the
quilting frame and laid them on 4 chairs and that is how I dried the clothes
in the winter time.
RK No electric dryer
either?
LR No.
RK Couldn’t go down to
the laundry mat?
LR No. There
wasn’t such thing as a laundry mat. {laugh} Now it is all I
can do to go out put the clothes in the washer and turn the knob.
RK You were gripping
about that too weren’t cha?
LR Of course.
RK When did your Momma,
Eliza, die?
LR 1930.
RK That was at the start
of the Great Depression. Did you know you were depressed?
LR No. {giggle}
RK That was the year
before my Ma (Martha Gray) was born. She was
born in 1931.
LR I was just
13yrs so it was 1930 when my Momma died. When I start telling that
I had to walk all the way from home to Hays
Chapel to
school....
RK Yes. Up hill
both ways. I’ve heard that story. Many times {groan}
LR What are you
trying to say?
RK I have been to Hays
Chapel a lot and I have been looking for that hill.
LR {tolerates smart
niece very well} Now you know it was not 5 miles but it was
a long way for a little girl.
RK If it was raining
it would seem like you were walking 5 miles.
RK Was your place over
by Skaggs Road? {Skaggs road is off Hwy 64, west of I-40 exit in Clarksville}
LR Yes. A red
house now sits were our house use to be. I use to walk down to the
old black bridge. It is not there any more. They have it all
fenced off.
RK I remember the little
bridge. You could cut across and head toward the Spadry. When
it rained a lot you could not get through. Most of
the old road was lower than the land around it.
LR And it was just a dirt
road. When they built the 64 highway through there and paved it we
were really in high cotton then! Pappa had 2 or
3 teams of mules. The highway was built with mules. They didn’t
have graters and all that stuff with engines in them then like they do
now. And when they got so far down from Skaggs, east, they boarded
the mules there at our place. Over by were Muriel’s
house is. We
fed them, water them and in the morning the men would come and gather up
their mules and go back to work. When they got past Hays
Chapel, that was getting a bit far for them to work mules from our place,
they moved the mules further up the road.
RK Poor mules.
LR Pappa did that when
they built the railroad track out the Green Persimmon mine.
RK Your Pappa was a man of
many trades. Add Mule Sitter to the list.
LR And Pappa farmed.
We always had cotton.
RK Did you have to pick
cotton?
LR No. I did not
have to pick cotton.
RK You were too busy
washing clothes.
LR Going to school and
washing clothes. Cotton picking was about the time school started.
RK Wasn’t that convenient!
LR {laugh} Oh
yes!
RK My mother said she
use to have to pick cotton. Maybe that was because she did not have
to walk to school up hill both ways.
LR Could have
been.
RK I remember her telling
about digging up potatoes and getting chiggers.
LR You get those from
picking black berries too. Between where I lived if you went across
the field about a mile toward Hess & Lillie lived
there was a creek and along the bank is where the black berries grew.
RK The creek behind Muriel’s
place on Skaggs Road?
LR Yes.
Between Lillie and me we would decide to pick black berries and I would
meet her there and she would bring Muriel and whatever
kids that wanted to come along and we would pick black berries. Wild
black berries. They sure were good.
RK Skaggs road is named after
the people who had the grocery store on the corner. I do not remember
the grocery store ever being open
for business. It was shut down when I was a kid. Now
the building is gone and a car lot is there on the corner.
LR Yes. The Skaggs
family.
RK Is that where your
boyfriend Pretty Boy Floyd showed up? {laugh}
LR No. Across
from Skaggs was another store. Eddy Hart was this mans name and he
was kind of “monied”. So he had a beautiful home
built there and a grocery store. Eddy worked at the coal mine and
he hired someone to run the store. One time we were up there at
Eddy Harts store and that is when Pretty Boy Floyd came in. Harts
was a real nice store. Skaggs was just, well, they had a little building
and then they built on and added more.
RK A project in
development?
LR Yes.
And at Harts is where Pretty Boy Floyd came in.
RK You saw him?
LR Yes I saw him.
RK Was he pretty?
‘Cause the pictures I have seen of him he didn’t look none too purdy.
LR He wasn’t
all that pretty and I was scared to death.
RK You knew who
he was?
LR Yes.
We knew who he was.
RK But you didn’t have
TV. Did you recognize his picture from the radio?
LR Yes {laugh}.
Silly! The Wanted Posters. They were all over the place.
Really. I was honestly scared to death. I just knew he had
come
in there to rob the place.
RK What did he do?
LR Came in there
and bought some pop and gasoline. Back then they put the gas in for
you.
RK WOW!
LR And he came
in while they were servicing his car and bought some pop.
RK Did he give
you a pop or candy?
LR No, No
he didn’t.
RK Bum! Isn’t
that amazing how a gangster like that can just walk in to a store and buy
something and just go about their business when
they have a price on their head?
LR Yes.
RK And didn’t he
think someone would do anything?
LR I guess
not. When he died, I don’t remember how many years later, he was
finally captured, but when he died they had his services in
Sallisaw (his home town) and Bud Ross had a big truck with a bed with side
boards and he took a whole truck load of people up there to
Sallisaw to Pretty Boy Floyds funeral. I didn’t get to go. I don’t
remember the reason.
RK Why did they
want to go all that way? Just to say they had been there, done that?
LR I guess
so.
RK Not that they
felt a great loss.
LR No.
But you see he was the guy who was like Robin Hood. Robbed the rich
and gave to the poor.
RK He did?
LR Supposedly.
RK But he didn’t
give you any candy when you were in the store!
LR I was
over to one side! But we all knew who he was when he came in.
RK Who was there
with you?
LR Whoever
was running Harts store and several other people. Calvin Junior Gean
was one of the guys because he was the one I went up
there with. It was a big deal. We would walk up there
in the evening and get a pop....
RK How old were
you?
LR Well, probably
16 or so.
RK And you Pappa let
you walk out with some guy with three names?
LR Yes!
RK .....to the
grocery store to get a pop? You should have been home washing clothes
or doing your homework.
LR
I really do not know who all was in there but I know Calvin Junior and
I had gone there to get a pop.
RK No movie theaters?
LR No
RK When did they get
a movie theater?
LR We had a little
show that came to Hays chapel school certain nights a week, one or two
nights a week. And they would should 8mm
films on a sheet on the wall. It was before they got talkies.
They would have this little thing of what “she” said and over here would
be
what “he” said. They were doing that when I was so little I could
read one but not both.
RK Couldn’t pick up on
what they were both saying?
LR That was so
boring to me.
RK Confusing!
LR They probably
had the same thing in the Clarksville theater. They did have a theater
downtown.
RK Didn’t that
building catch on fire? Didn’t they tear it down recently?
LR If I’m
not mistaken they have rebuilt a power plant or rather their offices there.
But when they got that down in Clarksville, when I got to
go to THAT show, Pappa would go to town every Saturday to take the milk
and eggs that would be our spending money. The theater
was 10 cents. I would get 10 cents to go to the movie while he was
trading in the afternoon. They he would give me another dime for
pop or candy.
RK That is about what
it is now. Costs as much for the pop as it does the movie.
Maybe more.
RK Did you attend
your entire school career at Hays Chapel?
LR No.
I went 8 years out there.
RK Hays Chapel
just went to the 8th grade and then you went to another school?
LR Yes.
RK Where?
LR Clarksville.
RK My Ma went to
Hartman. She said Clarksville was too big for her.
LR When I started
to go to Clarksville. I kept thinking the city kids would make fun
of us country hicks. I just knew I did not have clothes fit to
wear down there and wouldn’t know how to act. I swear I was better
dressed than the majority of the Clarksville kids. I don’t mean I
was
the best dressed kid in school. All the little country schools around
there were bussed in to the high school.
RK THEY HAD BUSSES!?!
LR YEAH!
RK What about those
mules?
LR {laugh}
Well they didn’t have busses to take me out to Hays Chapel to school that’s
for sure.
RK Couldn’t get them
to go up hill both ways. So you got to ride a school bus to school.
Wow! I didn’t even get to do that.
LR You had to
walk?
RK Yes...I had to walk.
LR Oh gosh!
Well, I had to walk to Sid Skaggs.
RK With that guy
with three names?
LR Yeah.
And then I went on to Clarksville high school and graduated. You
wouldn’t believe it now.
RK Hey, you do crossword
puzzles!
LR I do! And I
enjoy doing them. I have always done a little bit of cross word puzzles.
Even when I was going to school. I don’t know if I ever
told you this but after I got out of high school I would read novels and
make book reports for other kids.
RK Ummmmmm {shame}
LR Of course you would
not want to tell Mr. J.B. King or Mr. Agee that.
RK Where they your teachers?
LR Yes.
RK They did not
recognize the handwriting?
LR No.
The other students would re-write them. But you see I liked to read.
When I got home from school, fixed dinner, cleaned the dishes
including the dishes from breakfast because there was no time to clean
up in the morning. You didn’t open up a box of cereal and drink
a glass of milk for breakfast you had to have biscuits, eggs, hog meat,
gravy and the whole nine yards. Any way, after I got all that done
and my lessons for tomorrow I would sit and read until bed time.
I was always a night owl.
RK How would you
read? OOPS dumb question. I mean what did you use for light?
LR A lamp sitting
on the library table. Kerosene lamps.
RK Ah so kerosene had
been invented. You were not using olive oil.
LR {laugh}
Really, we had a kerosene lamp. Eventually we got a gas light that
hung from the ceiling that had these manuals on it that you
put gasoline in it and pumped it up.
RK That sounds dangerous
LR Yes.
RK Ka boom!
LR It was hanging
up about this high {points to forehead} because one time I went running
through the house and knocked myself out. Fell
over on the floor.
RK: BOING!
LR: That was before Momma
died and she put this library table under this lamp. I still have the library
table. Pappa made it out of an old
wooden bedstead.
RK He liked to
work with wood, didn’t he?
LR Yes.
And my cedar chest I have out in back, there was a cedar tree behind our
house and it blew down in a storm and Pappa took the
trunk of the tree and made cedar chests.
RK My Ma had a chest
he made.
LR It was made
from the same tree.
RK When did you graduate
from high school?
LR 1937. And they
had high schools back then! {uh-oh she’s on to me!}
RK When did you meet
Uncle Gene? (Eugene Turner, LeRoy's future husband)
LR I knew him
my whole life. He went to school at Hays Chapel when his Daddy would
let him go. Gene’s brother Joe were the same age
as me; Gene was about 5 years older.
RK We would have
been related even if the Sparks had not adopted you. The Turners
and Sparks are related.
LR Yes.
RK You see...you
still would have been stuck with me!
LR Yes.
R
Hey!
Until next time...........
Rebecca Webb Knox
aka PvtSparks
Return
to main Johnson County Page
Martha Marie Gray Webb, daughter of Lillie &
Hess Gray, mother of Rebecca
Muriel Gray Reeves, oldest daughter of Lillie
Belle Sparks and Hester McKinley Gray
Hes(ter) Gray and Lillie Sparks; Lillie was oldest
daughter of Eliza and John Sparks
Delbert Sparks, son of Eliza and John Sparks
