Jackson D. Hayes - JH Cjdhayes. wpd) 1. Going Off JH- Thenwhmtheywentout(Har1eyHayes)... towestvirginia.

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1 Jackson D. Hayes - JH Cjdhayes. wpd) 1 JACKSON D. HAYES (JH) Biographical Name: Jackson D. Hayes; born March 5, Father's name: Harley Hayes Mother's m e: Rossie Hayes [My father's people] came fiom NC, around Wilkesboro, down in Wilkes County; I don't where my mother came fiom. Mother's occupation: she gardened and helped farm. Father's occupation: Worked for Hassinger. Going Off JH- Thenwhmtheywentout(Har1eyHayes)... towestvirginia. 1 know a lot of them walked into West Virginia to get jobs in cod mines and they couldn't get [them]. Forest But, he went into digging rhododendrons and sending them up to a guy in New Jersey. First, he sent them to a guy by the name of Anderson. Tmk a car load of them. They'd dig them and get a railroad car down the creek and load that thing up and... INT - Put them in buriap bags or something? JH- Right. Hedidthat. Andthenanotherpycamealongfrom up in there and he went to work for him, helped him out. And that's when the Depression came and they lost everything. TNT - You mean, during the Depression all that laurel gathering, all that stopped? Oh, yeah. I think he had about two or three carloads already shipped out.

2 Jackson D. Hayes - TH (jdhayes.wpd) 2 Farming JfI - People lost about everything they had. INT - So what did your father do?.. We just farmed enough to keep us going. If you didn't grow your own stuff, you didn't have anything to eat. Church My father, he joined the Seventh Day Adventist. School Well, I went to public school in Konnarock for about two years. Then the Adventists came in, and then I went to the Seventh Day Adventist School. INT - How many years did you get over there? Jn - Well, I didn't get too many. I didn't go until about the 6th grade. Well, what we had to do, yau know, back then. Going Off Dad and them would have to walk to West Virginia, you know, out hunting for jobs--the only way they had to get. Maybe two or three of them walk to W. INT - Did they hitch some? Oh, waked all the time. They could buy a mule or something and they'd ride it. But, they had to walk. And then in the '30s there, the CC Camps still came in, WPA.

3 Jackson D. Hayes - IH (jdhayes.wpd) 3 School They went to the CC camps. I did. I tried to get in when I was 15, but I had to quit school, My oldest brother, he went to CC camp. He was gone. He came back. 1 had to do the plowing. I had to lay out of school to help get the crops in. We went to get them. Why, we had to lay out, so I quit. Trade Then I went to work in the sawmill for Ely Pennington for 50 cents a day. When I got old enough to go in the CC camp, I kame 17 y ms old on the 12th day ofhlarch. I think it was the 4th day of April I went into the CC camp in INT - Were you happy about that? Oh, yeah. I stayed in there. I went in there... about 2 years was abut all you could stay. But, I wanted to learn to cook. And what I done, I took the dirtiest job there was... cleaning wt the stove, skimming the grease out. So, then I got out of the kitchen and got to waiting on tables... then I got in the kitchen and watched them cook. And then they sent me to a cook and bakers school up in New Cumberland, PA, right out of Harrisburg. INT - How long were you in that school? About 6 weeks. Then I came back. I was down at Basset, VA, down at Firestone State Park, and I stayed there 25 months. I went up there and I came back. Then they sent me down to Beach, VA. What do you call it--chesterfield County, about 22 miles out of Richmond. JW - Were you working for CC camps over there, too? Yeah. Just like the army. They transfer you. And then I was on a baseball team. I was the catcher. I broke my ankle. We was playing for the Third Corp Area Championship in

4 Jackson D. Hayes - JH (jdhayes.wpd) 4 Maryland, and I broke my ankle up there and came home. then we moved.. to Fort Hustus???, VA. INT - You were done? JH- Well,I'dstayednearly3and%ym. Icameout. Icame home and I stayed (I don't know how long), and then I went up to Maryland and Pennsylvania and looked for a job. A bunch of us did. Then, I worked in Cambridge, Maryland in a navy base up there. TNT - Just did construction work? JH- Yeah. Going Off Got out [of the Army] on the 27th of November INT - What did you do then? T came home. INT - Were you planning to come home and try to make a living in Komrock? No. I came home and went to Ohio and worked in the coat factory. We stayed up there a couple of months. ~uitap there and came back. One day, Elmer, where you was at yesterday, over at my sister's. Him and I thought we'd go up around Fairfax up there and see if we could get us a job. We could afford to take us to Chilhowie. We hitched. Trade INT - So you didn't work in Ohio but just a couple of months???78 cents an hour. MT - And did you think that was pretty good money? TH - Well, about as good as you get. I think they was going to give us a little raise. Then we went to Fairfm and we got 90 cents.

5 Jackson D. Hayes - JH Ijdhayes. wpd) 5 INT - What were you working at in Fairfax? Started out [in] uphalt, pouring concrete... and working around the asphalt plant. They had a place where they'd bring down railroad cars. They'd dump it in there. Recreation People would help shuck the corn. They used to play games-- you find a red ear. Church A lot of people up there didn't care for the Adventists,.. yet it was a tough time for them to go through but they was some that didn't associate. It's the same way right now. There's some people who don't want to associate. Organization TH - [Corn shucking would last all night. Whoever they were shucking for would fix a big meal like chicken and dumplings.] Some of them had a big fire built up. INT - What month would that be? November. Trade Now my dad had a sawmill. INT - One ofthose little ones you're talking about that people used to have back then? JH- TheyhadsmallmiUs[whichwere] Dad had one that was a steam tractor... had the big steel wheels on it that pulled itself. Had a big chain, a big steering wheel you drove that thing with. He had it right there above the house.

6 Jackson D. Hayes - JH Cjdhayes.wpd) 6 INT - So, it was like a portable s8winill'l That tractor would pull the sawmill? No, you had to anchor them down. But what it did, it pulled itself. It was just like a gas tractor out here. You know like the old Ford tractor that used to have steel wheels on them. Well, this is what this had. It had a big steering wheel and a big chain. It was chain driven.... You'd turn that thing and this chain here would get tight and pull it, you know, if you was going this way, just turn that wheel that way, that chain would tighten up. Well, did you ever see the old trucks that had the chains? INT - Yeah. And Mike Pennington, he had one. INT - They'd sod of contract out the people? No, they'd buy the timber md then saw it. Then Dad took a lot to Wilkesboro where they made fiuniture. INT - On the train? No, on the truck. You know, them single-axle trucks. We called it curly maples. They'd take maples and then when you sawed them it looked like they were curly. Posts they'd cut out. We cut out 4 x 4s. He'd take bedposts and boards to make bedroom furniture out of. Hassinger Lumber Co. INT - I think ofthe Hassinger Company as leaving, because they cut all the timber. But, they hadn't cut all of the timber, had thep There's still yet a little virgin timber up there, but it's down in hollers like that which they can get them out now better than they could then.

7 Jackson D. Hayes - JH (jdhayes.wpd) 7 Communication & Transportation IH - [Mr. Lee Waters, mailman] used to have a truck. He went from there down to Creek (???) Junction to catch the train and got it. INT Togetthed? IH - The mail... back then. INT - So, the b.ain wasn't coming tokonnarock... theyjust picked up those tracks? It was only running to Damascus? Yeah, arer the Hassingers went out... The old post office used to set across the road on the other side, right where the Fire Department is now. School INT - Do you think the schools helped hold the community together? JH- IthinktheTraining Schooldid. Alotofthekidscameoutof NC and went to school there. The boys worked on that big fann. Back in there as yw are going up on the leflhand side, they had a big cattle barn back there. They had apple orchards. After they started dropping down, the Waters bought the farm. They kept letting it go down and it went down Like it is. It was a good barn; the houses were good. INT - You remember the Training School? Yes, I went down there two years. Juanita Carmack was my first teacher and she left, went up into Arlington Co. in '42 and retired. Her daddy was a professor at the public school in Konnarock.

8 Jackson D. Hayes - JH (jdhayes.wpd) 8 Going OTC (Lmcoln Furniture plant came into Damascus. That changed a lot of people in Konnarock.) It used to be in Marion and it burnt out. My daddy worked there, too. Forest0 We used to coon hunt and fox hunt. My cousins had hounds. Recreation When we would go to the ball games on Saturday, you wouldn't believe there was that many people come out of those woods. I had a gad time playing baseball back then. I don't know why but when I went to Konnarock School I really enjoyed that. We got big snows back then. Up above the old house and we had sleds, we rode tires. After we got bigger we would take an old car that had been stripped down, and a whole bunch of us would get somebody with a horse and pull it up to the top of Elk Garden and then ride that thing back off. Survival of Konnarock JH- I think that's it [a lot of people never want to leave Konnarock]. The old people had a home; they bought that land there and could farm enough to make a living. Back then they would go to WV and work in the mines.

9 Jackson D. Hayes - JH (jdhayes.wpd) 9 Fomb We used to sell elderberry flowers. - Who would you self to? The stores in Konnarock. Marion used to have a big herb store over there, like a wholesale house. They would buy it and then ship it to where they made medicine. INT - Weekly, would people do that? Oh yeah, every day they would. We used to go back there on Sundays and get us a bag full and carry it back and dry it. It would bring '/z cent a pound. You didn't get any money. You would get a due bill that you could use to buy something. MT - The cherry bark ran out? Beebwood bark. They would take the leaves, the bark and everything. The leaves last year was $1.37 a pound. l'nt - What's that? I'll have to see what the other name for that is. How tall? feet. INT - What did they use the leaves for7 Make herbs out of them. A guy from Carolina comes througb and picks it up.