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Interview with Henry S. Hankla, August 4, 1992

1992-08-04 Interview with Henry S. Hankla, August 4, 1992 1992OH305 FF 295 2:07:25 FF009 Kentucky Family Farm Oral History Project Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries Hankla, Henry S. (Henry Scott), 1903- Family farms--Kentucky. Farmers--Kentucky. Agriculture--Kentucky. Perryville (Ky.) Education--Kentucky--Perryville. Danville (Ky.) Boyle County (Ky.) United States. Rural Electrification Administration. Dairying. Laundry. Guineafowl. Butter. Swine. Sausages. Bridges. Agricultural machinery. Rural electrification. Sheep industry. Turkey industry. Sheep--Diseases. Corn--Planting. Vegetable gardening. Eggs--Production. Woodlots. Hemp. Telephone--History. Henry S. Hankla; interviewee Steve Fricker; interviewer Heritage Farm Project 1992OH306_FF296_Hankla 1:|18(2)|52(3)|71(8)|107(3)|132(3)|151(7)|175(4)|197(3)|234(8)|258(2)|283(11)|301(4)|328(4)|344(12)|366(9)|381(11)|404(3)|420(8)|443(13)|473(7)|502(2)|515(6)|543(3)|564(8)|574(7)|590(4)|601(4)|619(2)|628(10)|637(2)|651(6)|668(8)|688(2)|706(8)|722(9)|733(12)|754(4)|763(8)|771(5)|788(5)|811(1)|824(5)|852(6)|862(11)|890(9)|902(9)|913(6)|924(15)|938(10)|962(6)|976(11)|1008(10)|1038(2)|1045(5)|1065(3)|1087(5)|1116(13)|1136(5)|1144(5)|1164(8)|1192(2)|1200(10)|1209(2)|1221(5)|1232(8)|1243(4)|1253(2)|1267(14)|1275(12)|1283(12)|1292(15)|1300(12)|1310(8)|1321(8)|1334(4)|1341(14)|1361(3)|1375(8)|1397(2)|1411(5)|1423(10)|1443(7)|1460(3)|1481(4)|1514(10)|1525(7)|1537(10)|1559(7)|1572(2)|1591(3)|1605(2)|1629(11)|1668(2)|1696(3)|1710(9)|1722(4)|1731(2)|1749(11)|1768(14)|1780(1)|1791(6)|1802(2)|1818(9)|1842(5)|1854(6)|1869(2)|1882(3)|1896(7)|1908(13)|1923(2)|1936(6)|1958(2)|1974(14)|1982(12)|1999(3)|2009(7)|2019(3)|2042(11)|2058(8)|2074(6)|2083(13)|2094(13)|2105(13)|2144(10)|2169(3)|2178(8)|2189(7)|2198(8)|2220(8)|2234(3)|2249(5)|2267(10)|2278(6)|2304(5)|2324(11)|2339(6)|2358(5)|2378(3)|2390(7)|2400(10)|2410(12)|2419(8)|2441(13)|2453(2)|2460(7)|2476(2)|2490(5)|2513(2)|2526(10)|2545(5)|2558(8)|2571(7)|2592(2)|2608(9)|2629(2)|2637(7)|2656(4)|2678(1)|2714(6)|2725(12)|2742(7)|2774(4)|2801(4)|2829(2) audiotrans FamFarmKy interview FRICKER: This is Steve Fricker. It is August 4, 1992. Tuesday, approximately 9:15 a.m. Eastern Time. I am meeting with Mr. Henry Hankla at the living room of his home at 504 Maple Avenue in Danville, Kentucky. This is for the oral history of Kentucky farm families project. And this is Henry Hankla, interview one, tape one. Would you please state your full name? HANKLA: Henry Scott Hankla. FRICKER: And when were you born? HANKLA: September 30, 1903. FRICKER: 1903? And who were your parents? HANKLA: Lorenza Goodnight Hankla and Laura Elizabeth Langford Hankla. FRICKER: And what was your father's middle name again? HANKLA: Lorenza Goodnight Hankla. FRICKER: Goodnight? G-o-o-d-n-i-g-h-t? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Okay. And--be one second here. [Pause in recording.] FRICKER: Okay. When we paused there to switch microphones we were talking about your parents. Did you have any brothers and sisters? HANKLA: Yes, I had two brothers and two sisters. FRICKER: What are--what are their names? HANKLA: Oldest child, oldest sister is Nancy. You want her married name or-- FRICKER: Sure. HANKLA: Nancy Hankla Harmon. FRICKER: Harmon? HANKLA: Harmon. FRICKER: Okay. HANKLA: And my other sister was Jessie Hankla Martin. And Willis Goodnight Hankla was--and Edwin Lester Hankla. FRICKER: Edwin? HANKLA: Edwin. FRICKER: And are you married? Are you married? HANKLA: No. Widowed. I have been married. FRICKER: Umhmm. What was your wife's name? HANKLA: My first wife was Martha Webb Hankla. FRICKER: Okay. HANKLA: And Virginia Pettus Hankla. FRICKER: How do you spell her maiden name? HANKLA: Virginia? FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: V-i-r-g-i-n-i-a. FRICKER: And how about her--her--her maiden name? HANKLA: P-e-t-t-u-s. FRICKER: Okay. When were you and Martha married? HANKLA: Nineteen twenty-six. FRICKER: And did she die or-- HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: When did she die? HANKLA: In 1939. FRICKER: Did you and Martha have any children? HANKLA: Had one daughter? FRICKER: What was her name? HANKLA: Martha Scott Hankla. FRICKER: And is Martha Scott still living? HANKLA: Yes. She married John McGee and lives in Pittsburgh. FRICKER: Do they have any children? HANKLA: Yes, they have four. FRICKER: What are their names? HANKLA: Johnny. The oldest child is Johnny, and Laura, and Ann, and Jim. FRICKER: Jim? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Are any of Martha and John's children married? HANKLA: Yes. Johnny--and Ann--that's all. FRICKER: That's all. Only two's married. Do you know Johnny's wife's name? HANKLA: ----------(??). FRICKER: It's okay. How about Ann? HANKLA: Kathy. Johnny's wife's name's Kathy. FRICKER: Okay. And how about Ann's husband? HANKLA: Let's see. What is his name? Perrin. Dan Perrin. FRICKER: Do Johnny and Kathy have any children? HANKLA: Yes, they have two. A boy and a girl. FRICKER: Umhmm. Do you know their names? HANKLA: Let's see. The girl's name is--hmm. FRICKER: That's okay. As long as I know it's a boy and a girl. That, that's fine. HANKLA: The boy's name is Henry. FRICKER: Henry? HANKLA: They call him Hank. And brother, I can't think of that girl's name-- FRICKER: That's okay. That's okay. How about Ann and--and her husband? Do they have any children? HANKLA: Yes, they have--they have--let's see one or two. They have two. Two. FRICKER: Do you remember if they're boys? A boy or girl or-- HANKLA: A boy and a girl. FRICKER: A boy and a girl? Okay. Close enough. How about--did--did you and Virginia have any children? HANKLA: ----------(??). FRICKER: You and Virginia? HANKLA: Yes, we had two boys. FRICKER: What are their names? HANKLA: Henry Scott Hankla, Jr., and William Lorenzo Hankla. FRICKER: And is Henry Scott, Jr., is he--is he married? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: What's his wife's name? HANKLA: Mary Patricia. Mary Pat. FRICKER: Mary Pat? HANKLA: And do Henry and Mary Pat have any children? HANKLA: Yes, they have one girl. FRICKER: Do you remember her name? HANKLA: (laughs) It's funny. I can't think of that. Wait a minute. FRICKER: Alrighty. HANKLA: Kristen. K-r-i-s-t-e-n. FRICKER: And is Kristen married? Is Kristen married? HANKLA: No. FRICKER: Okay. HANKLA: She's eleven years old. FRICKER: About eleven years old. HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: She's not ready to get married yet. (laughs) How about William Hankla? Is he married? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: And what is his name? I mean what is her name? (laughs) HANKLA: Renee. FRICKER: Renee. Renee is William's wife's name? HANKLA: William's daughter's name. FRICKER: Okay. What's William's wife's name? HANKLA: (laughs) Faye. FRICKER: Faye? Okay. And William and Faye have a daughter named Renee? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: And do they have any other children besides Renee? HANKLA: William was married before and he has one daughter named Heather. FRICKER: Okay. The--the farm that--that's listed as the historic farm in the program, how did that come into--into the family? How was that-- when did that first come into the family? HANKLA: My father bought a hundred acres and the house first. And then he bought forty-three acres adjoined it on the back . . FRICKER: Umhmm. When did he--sorry. HANKLA: --from different--from people. FRICKER: From different people? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: So your father first bought the farm, and he first bought a hundred acres and the house? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: When did he--when did he purchase that? HANKLA: In 1893. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: Eighteen ninety-eight. [Pause in recording.] FRICKER: So your father--we paused there to talk about the date that your father first acquired the farm, and we finally determined it was in 1883 that he bought the first hundred acres. About how long after he bought the first hundred acres did he buy the other forty-three. HANKLA: Pretty soon after the first farm. FRICKER: Uh-huh. How large is the farm today? HANKLA: That particular farm is 143 acres. HANKLA: Umhmm. So it's the--it's the same 143 acres today. HANKLA: Yeah. Umhmm. FRICKER: If you would, explain to me how--how did you wind up with the farm? Was it--was it--how was the decision made for you to continue farming that area? And your brothers and sisters, how--how did it pass down through the family? HANKLA: When my father died, he left it in his will to all of us. And I bought the--everybody else's interest in it. FRICKER: Umhmm. In--in this area, how--how is inheritance normally handled among the farms in this area? Is it--is it usually divided among the children, or do--do other brothers and sisters buy each other out, or how does that normally work in this area? HANKLA: Well, I suppose it's different ways. The--some of the children buy at public auction-- FRICKER: Umhmm. So it-- HANKLA: He left this to all of us. And I bought everybody else's interest in it. FRICKER: And when--when did your father die? HANKLA: In 1920. FRICKER: 1920? And was your mother still living at that time? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: When did she die? HANKLA: I believe it was `65. FRICKER: Around `65? HANKLA: Nineteen sixty-five. FRICKER: Umhmm. Now, we talked about--about your brothers and sisters. Where--you said Nancy, Jessie, Willis, and Edwin. Is that the order that they were born in? Nancy is the oldest? HANKLA: Yes. And then I'm next. FRICKER: Then you're next. Okay. HANKLA: Then Jessie. And Willis. And Edwin. FRICKER: Okay. Where did you go to school? HANKLA: Well, we went to a one-room country school. Providence. Until we were in the fifth grade, I believe. And then we transferred over to Perryville School. FRICKER: Tell me about the one-room school in Providence. What was it like? HANKLA: Well, of course, we had only one teacher, and--I don't know. It's hard to describe. (laughs) FRICKER: Uh-huh. So when you were in the--I'm sorry. HANKLA: We had--we had a man teacher most of the time. Jim Sharp was our teacher for two, three years. And then Pat Best. P.H. Best for quite awhile. I believe he was the last teacher we had there. FRICKER: How far did you have to go to go to school? HANKLA: Well, to Providence, it was just about a mile. And then, when we started Perryville School, it was about two and a half miles. FRICKER: So you started the Perryville School after the fifth--after the fifth grade? HANKLA: I believe that's right. FRICKER: Uh-huh. Did the--did the Providence School only go up to the fifth grade, or--or-- HANKLA: The Providence School went to the eighth grade. FRICKER: Eighth grade. So what--what prompted you-all to switch to the Perryville School? HANKLA: Well, it's just I guess a better school. I don't know what else-- I thought it would be better for us to go to Perryville School. FRICKER: Umhmm. And how long were you at the Perryville School? HANKLA: Through high school. FRICKER: Through high school? When did you graduate from high school? HANKLA: Golly, I've forgotten. FRICKER: Okay. When you got out of high school, what did you do then? HANKLA: Well, worked on the farm. And took a correspondence course in electricity. And I went to Hazard one summer and worked with my uncle and another fella. We were putting in main sewer lines in--in the main streets in Hazard. And then I went to Lothair, [Kentucky] and worked in the electrical repair shop; Mine Service Company. FRICKER: So the--the correspondence course in electricity, when did you start that--when did you start that? How long after you were out of high school? HANKLA: It was about--right after I got out of high school. FRICKER: Umhmm. Do you remember where that correspondence school was located? Or where it--what-- HANKLA: It was Chicago Engineering Works, I believe was the name of it. FRICKER: Umhmm. And how long did it take you to get through that correspondence course? HANKLA: Well, about--I guess about a year. FRICKER: Umhmm. When you were growing up and going to school, did--did your parents encourage you toward one career or another? HANKLA: No, they didn't. FRICKER: Were--were you encouraged to be a farmer or-- HANKLA: Well, I wasn't encouraged. I just--we lived on the farm and it was just the farm. That's all there was to it. FRICKER: How did you get interested in--in studying electronics through the correspondence? HANKLA: Well, I thought that was interesting. And it was. The place that I worked, at Lothair [Kentucky], Mine Service Company, was an electrical repair shop. It was quite an experience. I worked there most of the summer. And then into the fall, and my father was dead then. And the other children had to go to school, so it didn't leave anybody at the farm to keep up with the work. And I came home and started working on the farm again. And then I had a call from a friend in Perryville, a doctor. And asked me to come into--he wanted to see me. And I went in and he offered me a job in a bank. He was one of the directors in the bank in Perryville. And I took it. And worked there for awhile then came to Danville to work in another bank. For twenty years. FRICKER: Uh-huh. How long were you at the bank in Perryville? HANKLA: Less than a year. FRICKER: Less than a year? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Do you remember about when that started? HANKLA: About 1924, I believe. FRICKER: So it was around the mid-`20s? Thereabouts? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: About `24? What type of work were you doing in the bank? HANKLA: The main--my main job was bookkeeper, individual bookkeeper, and posting machine. FRICKER: And you said after you left Perryville, you came to work at a bank here in--here in Danville? HANKLA: Farmers National. FRICKER: Farmers National? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And how long did you say you worked there? HANKLA: Twenty years. FRICKER: Twenty years? And what did you do there? HANKLA: I went from the posting machine to--to the window as a teller. FRICKER: And were you a teller for the remainder of your time, or-- HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Did you have any other jobs at the bank besides teller? HANKLA: Well, I had--I had the checks to go through, the incoming checks, mailed from out of town banks, and also the local banks; had to go through them for amounts and dates and everything, signatures and so forth. That was in addition to working at the window. FRICKER: Umhmm. And when--when did you leave the--the--the bank in Danville? HANKLA: 1944. FRICKER: 1944? What did you do after that? HANKLA: I bought an interest in what was then the Farmers Supply Company. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: And we had seed, feed, farm machinery, International Harvester farm machinery, hardware. FRICKER: And where--where was that located? HANKLA: West Walnut Street. FRICKER: West Walnut? And how long were you associated with the supply company? HANKLA: Ten----------(??) years. FRICKER: Ten years? What sort of things did you do while you were with them--associated with them? HANKLA: I was a member of the firm. I just waited on the customers, and it was my job to keep the feed prices up to date, which changed every week; went up. Got to be, we had to put up new prices every Monday on feed. And we handled coal and all kind of hardware. FRICKER: You also handled coal? HANKLA: Coal, yeah. Umhmm. FRICKER: Coal? So you were with them for--for ten years you said? HANKLA: Ten years. [phone rings] FRICKER: And when did you leave? Do you remember the date that you left? HANKLA: Yes. Nineteen and--1954. FRICKER: Okay. And how about after you left the supply company? What did you do after that? HANKLA: Went back to the farm. FRICKER: Went back to the farm? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Now, the time that you were working with the bank, at the banks, the supply company, were you also farming as well? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Were you living out at the farm? HANKLA: No. I lived--lived in Danville. FRICKER: When did you--when did you move from the farm? HANKLA: Let's see. I left--I guess I moved from the farm about 1926. FRICKER: And where were you--where did you move to? HANKLA: Moved to Perryville. FRICKER: Perryville? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And--and-- HANKLA: And then after I married, I moved to Danville. I been here ever since. FRICKER: In this--in this house here? HANKLA: No. I lived--we bought a house on Alta Avenue. Lived there for-- FRICKER: How long did you live there? HANKLA: --about ten years. Then my first wife died and I sold the house then. And I rented a house on East Main Street, and then I believe in `43, 1943, we bought a house on Windsor Court. And I did a lot of house trading. After I married again, I believe it was in `43, we bought a house that my brother had built on Windsor Court. And he was working out of town and he decided to sell it. And he sold it to us for what it cost him to build. And we lived there until--with my second wife we lived there until--we had one son. And we sold that house for a profit and bought one on Fifth Street. We lived there until the second son was born, and then I traded that for this house. FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: This had more rooms for kids, and [was] back from the street a piece. And that was much better because the kids wanted to ride tricycles all the time and couldn't keep them of the sidewalk in front. So much traffic, that this was a better place for kids. We moved here. Now, this is just right. FRICKER: Umhmm. And about--when was it that you bought this house? HANKLA: Let's see. That was in, see, `5---I forgot. FRICKER: Okay. The--the home place out on the farm. Was anyone living there? HANKLA: No one lives in the main house there. FRICKER: What about after--how long has it been since anyone has lived in the main house? HANKLA: It's been, let's see. I don't remember just how long. I used part of it. I'd go down there and spend a lot of time there. Have electric heat and city water. I had--had run a pipeline to the--over to the--to the highway; little over two thousand feet of pipe. Got a two-inch pipeline, so I have plenty of water, and electric heat, and what used to be two rooms, I took partitions out and made one. There's a fireplace and electric heat both if you want to use it. I don't use the fireplace much. FRICKER: Yeah. Did the--when did--when did electricity come out to the farm? HANKLA: Eectricity, I don't remember the year, but it--it was quite a while ago. FRICKER: Umhmm. Were you out of high school then? HANKLA: Yes, umhmm. FRICKER: So it was after you got out of high school that electricity came out. Tell me about what it was like when electricity came to the farm. HANKLA: Oh, it was wonderful. The best thing about it was lights at the barn. You're always in the barn feeding and doing other things, and then you had electricity to run drills and pumps and whatever; air compressors. It was--it was wonderful; couldn't do without it. (laughs) I remember we used to--before we had electricity, my father used to read the paper at night. And he had an oil lamp on a little table. And, of course, in the wintertime, all of us kids was playing around there and he'd hold the lamp with one hand and the paper with the other. We got pretty rambunctious, so he'd make us sit down and be quiet. (laughs) He was afraid we'd turn that--get that table and upset it. And then in nineteen and seventeen [1917] or `18, I've forgotten which, he bought a--a farm electric plant. And we had electricity. And that was wonderful. Had lights at the barn. So he thought that was wonderful. And it was. Just turn the light on. It's just one of those farm plants that lasted for quite awhile. It was really wonderful. Then it finally played out. Got so the engine wouldn't run and I don't know what all. Then the REA came along. So that took place of it. It was--the REA, the RECC. Was a wonderful thing for farmers. FRICKER: Tell me about it. HANKLA: Well, we just had electricity everywhere. No problem. No more oil lanterns that'd turn over or--upset at the barn. And you had good light. But a farm without electricity now would just--well, everybody has it. FRICKER: Umhmm. When did the REA come to this area? HANKLA: I don't remember the year, but-- FRICKER: You mentioned that your dad bought a light plant. Do you remember where he bought that from? HANKLA: Yes. He bought it from Chatom Brothers in Harrodsburg. It was- -it was the same--the same principle as the Delco. I--I think the Del, they still make that I guess. But the Laoly, Laoly, L-a-o-l-y, was the name of ours. It was a combination generator and gas engine. We mixed oil with the gasoline and we'd usually run it at night so we'd have-- it'd charge the battery, keep the battery charged. And it was a 32-volt arrangement. But it was wonderful. FRICKER: Did you-all ever use acetylene for lighting? HANKLA: No. No, we didn't have that. We considered that, but electricity came along about that time and the type plant for farm use. It was better than acetylene. FRICKER: When you got the light plant, was it--did you just put in lights, or did you use it for anything else besides light? HANKLA: No, that's all. That's the only thing we used it for. FRICKER: How about when REA came in? HANKLA: Well, that was much better; more dependable and no trouble. It was--it was so much better. FRICKER: You mentioned oil lanterns and--and--and fire--and fire. Was that a problem, oil lantern fires? HANKLA: Well, it--it--you didn't get much light from it. You--you could get by with it. But it was a problem; always danger of fire [if] you turn your lantern over or something. And you didn't get much light from it either. FRICKER: Umhmm. Did you-all ever have a problem with fires from turning the lanterns over? HANKLA: No, never did; never had trouble with fire. FRICKER: What about the folks that lived around you? The other farms that--that you knew about? Did you know of any of them that had--had that sort of trouble? HANKLA: Yes. Occasionally you'd hear of--of a lantern turning over and setting something afire. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: It was a problem. And you didn't have much light either. FRICKER: What sort of chores did you have when you were growing up on the farm? HANKLA: Well, the one that I didn't like most was milking. We'd have to get the cows. Sometimes they'd come up, sometimes we'd have to go get them. But that was a job that I disliked more than anything. My mother used to be a big help when it came to milking. She could do it so much faster than we could. FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: I remember one cow that we had that would kick just about the time you got through, and sometimes she'd make you spill--spill your milk, and she was a problem. We got rid of her. But you have all kinds of trouble sometimes with cows milk---when you have to milk by hand. But people don't do that anymore, I don't suppose. FRICKER: You said you have all sorts of troubles when you're milking by hand. Tell me about them. What-- HANKLA: Well, we'd usually feed them at the time. And sometimes they'd get through eating before we got through milking and they'd want to walk off, and it was a problem. I just don't even like to think about that. (both laugh) FRICKER: How many milk cows did you-all have? HANKLA: Well, I think one time we had five or six. But--and my mother usually sold butter then. And she spent an awful lot of time on that butter, working it and getting it molded, and she'd take it into the store in Perryville. And a lot of people wanted it, because she had worked it and got all the water out and it was nice yellow butter. Looked like butter. FRICKER: Tell me about working butter. What--what did she do? HANKLA: Well, after--after you churn--now, that was another job I didn't like was churning. That's usually a kid's job. And we had--we had a patented thing to put your churn in; you turn a crank and that was fun for awhile, but then it got to be a--really a chore. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: But I don't want anything to do with anymore milk cows, one way or another, less it got a calf that follows it. And I haven't had one forever. FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: Don't want anymore. FRICKER: When did you get rid of the milk cows? HANKLA: I don't remember; as soon as I could. (laughs) After--after my father died we didn't have anymore milk cows. FRICKER: What about water? What was your source of water on the farm? HANKLA: Well, now, we have the pipeline that goes from the farm over to the Perryville-Mackville Road. Battlefield Road we call it. But when they ran that pipeline from Perryville out to the Battlefield, I thought I'd ask them if they would run it over to the farm. And they looked at it, said, yeah, they'd do it. And they put a two-inch line from the highway over to the farm. It was a little over two thousand feet; had to cross the river with it. They had to channel the rock and put a pipe through the--under the water, and they covered it with concrete. So I've got a two-inch pipeline from the highway over to the farm. But I just used that water for the house. I didn't use it for stock water. In fact, the river makes a--makes a horseshoe around our farm. And then there's a county road that's been abandoned since then, goes along one side of it. So it--there's only one small tract of land, the bottom, of that three acres that joins our farm. The river and the road go the rest of the way around it. The road has been abandoned now, but it's still there; grown up in weeds and so forth, bushes. FRICKER: You said you didn't use the--the two-inch pipeline. You only used it for the house. What do you--what do you do for stock water? HANKLA: I had a storage tank that's sixteen feet across--yeah, sixteen feet across. And it's down in the ground so stock can drink out of that. And that also feeds three other tanks by gravity with floats on the tanks; waters the rest of the farm. FRICKER: And what's the source of water for that tank? Where does that water-- HANKLA: I pump it now from a spring. FRICKER: Umhmm. Have you always pumped it from a spring? HANKLA: Yes, to fill--no. When I first installed it, I pumped it from the river, down on the back side of the farm. But I had to use a gas engine, and it was trouble to go down there and start the engine to pump that water. And then we had a big flood one time that washed my pump house off, and turned the pump over. So I moved it some other place on this spring. And put a switch on it and cut it on and off as it pumped the water out of the basement. FRICKER: And when--when did you switch over to the spring? HANKLA: I don't remember what year, but--just sometime later. It was more convenient. I put an electric pump on it. FRICKER: Yeah. Was it in the the `50s or `60s or-- HANKLA: I guess about then. FRICKER: About then? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And what about the house before you got--got the water line ran--run in there? When--excuse me one minute here. I need--need to switch the tape. [Tape one, side a ends; tape one, side b begins.] FRICKER: We were talking about water. Before the--the water line came to the house, what--what--what was the source of water for the house? HANKLA: We had a well. FRICKER: Had a well? HANKLA: Yes. We had trouble with it, keeping the pump in shape. It was pretty deep, 115 feet. And it was hard to pump. And just little bit sulphur and salty. We were having so much trouble with that pump that when they ran this water line out to the Battlefield, I thought if I could get it done, I'd do that. So that's been much better. I have city water for the house. FRICKER: Umhmm. When was the well put down? HANKLA: The well? FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: I don't know. A long time ago. FRICKER: Did you put that down or did your father? HANKLA: No, no. It was--it was there during my father's lifetime. FRICKER: Umhmm. Was that a drilled well or a dug well? HANKLA: Drilled well. FRICKER: Drilled well? HANKLA: It was so deep that it was just hard to maintain. FRICKER: Let's--let's move back in time a little bit. You said that you--when you worked for Lothair, the electrical repair shop--what was the name? HANKLA: Yeah. Mining Service Company at Lothair. FRICKER: Lothair. You said that was a really interesting job. What-- tell me about that. HANKLA: Well, I was new at the job, and I was more of a helper. I remember the machine shop we had in connection with it. And worked on armatures and stripping--we had motors come in from the mines that were burned out and damaged and we repaired so they--they could rewind most any kind of a motor, and rebuild them. They--they had all kinds of motors come in; rotary converters and so forth. The mines would--they had those rotary converters; they would run on alternating current and generate direct. They used direct current to operate a lot of their mine machinery. FRICKER: Where--where--where is that located? Where was that-- HANKLA: About a little--about a mile up the river from Hazard. FRICKER: From Hazard? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And then after that, you said you went into the bank at Perryville. You were doing bookkeeping, I believe you said? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Had you had any training in bookkeeping? HANKLA: No, I was operating a posting machine posting individual accounts. That was my first job. FRICKER: Umhmm. So while you were working, you were also working on the farm as well? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Tell me about that. How did you balance your off-farm work-- HANKLA: Well, about all I had time to do was--in the morning before I went to work, was do the feeding and so forth. And after I got out of the bank, I had more to do at home. And we usually rented the tobacco to somebody, the tobacco crop; raised it on the halves. And we didn't raise no corn, I don't believe. Had--usually had some cattle. Buy some steers in the spring, sell them in the fall. I used to raise a lot of hogs. FRICKER: Did you? HANKLA: Used to feed hogs all the time. If I didn't have some that I raised I'd buy some. Buy some hogs and feed them. Buy corn. At that time, it looked like just about everything was going up a little bit. You could make a little money. Not much. FRICKER: Umhmm. How many hogs were you--you keeping? HANKLA: Usually twenty; maybe twenty-something or thirty. It--it takes quite a bit of corn to feed them, and have to buy corn and hogs too as long as they were going up a little bit. Had an up-market. It's a different story now. I don't think there's very many hogs raised in this part of the country. You very seldom see 'em. I don't think we have a hog market at the stockyard here now. That's another important thing that happened to this community. We had stockyards. We used to have to--sell your hogs to some buyers. Some people come around and buy them and you would have to drive them. Didn't have a truck to haul them. It's hard to get a hog across a bridge, or sheep across a creek. It was quite a problem. FRICKER: Tell me about driving hogs. What was that--what was that like? HANKLA: Well, you could do all right on the highway if you were driving hogs until you got to a bridge. And hogs didn't like to cross a bridge. They can see through the cracks--they were all wood bottoms. And they didn't want to cross that bridge. They'll turn around and go back the other way. Only way you could get them stopped was to get ahead of them, run ahead of them till he got ready to stop. Then you get him turned around and drive him back and let him stand there and look at that bridge for a long time. But they didn't like to cross a wood bridge that had cracks in it; lot of trouble. And if you had sheep, you couldn't drive sheep across a creek either. You'd have to catch one and carry him across and hold him on the other side, and then maybe you could get them started. They didn't like getting in the water. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: And it's a problem then. But you would meet big droves of hogs on the road. You'd just have to sit there and let them get through. Just stop and let them past you. Otherwise they'd turn around and run back the other way. You had big problems. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: And you used to drive turkeys that way. When they'd buy turkeys, they'd drive them, till the time came to go to roost and they'd end up in the trees or under a fence or wherever you'd have--had trouble with them. FRICKER: How do you drive turkeys? HANKLA: (laughs) Just like you drive anything else -- just try to keep them together. But you couldn't drive them now on the road. Too many automobiles; scare them to death. FRICKER: Did you-all raise turkeys? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: How many turkeys did you raise? HANKLA: Well, we had maybe 35, 40, 50. FRICKER: Where would you have to drive the animals to? HANKLA: They'd drive them to--either to Mitchellsburg or Brumfield. That was the closest place to--to the railroad. And they usually had stock pens there. And the railroad would pick them up, take them to Louisville or Cincinnati and sell them at stockyards. FRICKER: Now, you--you--would you drive the hogs, sheep, and turkeys all to the same place, or would they have different areas-- HANKLA: We--we would let the buyer wherever they were going to take them and they'd--I don't know, they'd take them first one place then another. That's the closest place to the railroad. And they'd usually have stock pens there to hold them and load them on the cars. FRICKER: Umhmm. So the buyers would come to you then, to buy the-- HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And whose responsibility was it to drive the animals? HANKLA: It was their's. FRICKER: Their's. Okay. So you-all did not do the driving? HANKLA: We'd just help them. FRICKER: Oh, you'd just help them. HANKLA: We'd just help them get out to the highway. FRICKER: But after that-- HANKLA: They were on their own. (laughs) FRICKER: How far was it to--did you have to drive them to the highway? HANKLA: Well, let's see. It was about--about half a mile. FRICKER: Umhmm. How many men would it take to drive, say, hogs to market? HANKLA: Well, it was usually--there'd be at least two or three. Sometimes you'd need someone to go in front. If the road turned off, somebody had to be there to keep them from going the wrong direction. FRICKER: Umhmm. How long did you keep hogs? HANKLA: You mean how long did we-- FRICKER: Yeah, did you--how long did you raise hogs? How-- HANKLA: Well, we always did. Always--oh, up until a few years ago. FRICKER: Umhmm. Did you quit keeping them more than ten years ago or-- HANKLA: About maybe--no, it was longer than that. Yes, I guess it's maybe ten or twelve years ago or longer. FRICKER: How about the--the turkeys? HANKLA: Well, we didn't have turkeys. Haven't had turkeys for a long, long time. FRICKER: Umhmm. Did you have them after World War Two? HANKLA: World War Two, no. FRICKER: So you stopped keeping them before World War Two? HANKLA: Yes. Umhmm. FRICKER: What about the sheep? HANKLA: I don't remember--I sold the sheep. I had a hundred and-- something over a hundred, maybe fourteen or fifteen. And I went down there one day and there was an old sheep down on her knees eating. And I knew she had something the matter with her feet. And I saw the fella that I bought them from. He was a sheep man. And I told him go down there and look at them. I--I wanted to sell them. And they had--this sheep had a disease they call foot rot. And if that gets started through--through a bunch of sheep, you're in trouble. And he went down there and looked at them and came back. Told me what he'd give me-- give me for them. And I just told him to go get them. And I haven't had a sheep since. Because if--if you get that disease called foot rot in a herd of sheep, you're in trouble. I think you can cure that now. They have a method or remedy for it, but I don't know. I haven't had any sheep since. FRICKER: Umhmm. About when was that? About when did you get rid of them? HANKLA: It was about--in the early `40s. FRICKER: Early `40s? HANKLA: Yeah. FRICKER: What about the other farmers in this area? Did--did they continue keeping sheep through the `40s? HANKLA: There's not many sheep here now. Used to be in the spring, the truck would come into town to the stockyards with the lambs and had long lines--now, they don't have them. No sheep. FRICKER: Umhmm. About when did they--when did the sheep disappear from this area? HANKLA: I guess maybe `40s, `50s, somewhere around there. There's still some sheep but not very many. FRICKER: Why--why did the folks in this area get out of the sheep business? HANKLA: I don't know. I don't really know. They're a lot of trouble. FRICKER: Are they? In what way? HANKLA: Well, they get--they get sick and you have this foot disease. And I don't know, people just got tired fooling with them, I reckon. FRICKER: Umhmm. You mentioned the stockyards were a big thing to come into the county. When--when did they come into the county? HANKLA: I don't remember exactly. But it's been quite awhile ago. FRICKER: Was it before or after World War Two? HANKLA: It was before. FRICKER: Before? HANKLA: Yeah. FRICKER: Yeah. Like ten, fifteen, twenty years before? HANKLA: At least that much. FRICKER: At least. HANKLA: I'm not sure. FRICKER: What about hogs? Did you-all have hog killings at the farm? HANKLA: Yes. Yes, we killed our own hogs. FRICKER: Tell me about that. What was that like? HANKLA: Well, before I got big enough to do anything to help, it was fun. But after I got big enough to help, it--I hated it. We had a hog scalding box. We did all of it. And we could usually get a lot of help, a lot of people that were experienced in it. People used to do that all the time. I remember one year, we had--I believe we killed twelve hogs. We just happened to have that many the right size. And we were feeding them. And we just killed all of them. Of course, we didn't have any trouble selling them. The people that helped us butcher the hogs, several of them wanted two, so we just killed all of them. And that was a big day. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: But after you get big enough to help, it's not much fun. (laughs) I hated it. FRICKER: How big were you? How old were you when you were big enough to help? HANKLA: Oh, about fourteen, fifteen. I was pretty strong then. I--but it was no fun. (laughs) FRICKER: What about the--you said--you said you had a lot of folks to help. Were these--who were these folks? HANKLA: There were about, oh, I believe seven families of black people that lived in the neighborhood. I don't know how many--how so many happened to be in that neighborhood, but about seven families of black people. And they were all--it was just a picnic at hog-killing. But after I got big enough, I didn't like it; scalding and scraping the hair off and all that kind of stuff. But we used to--Father could cure the meat, and we didn't have any trouble selling it. There was always somebody wanting hams. We had one--a doctor that used to live here but moved to New York. And he all--he wanted a four-year old ham. I don't know what he'd want with it. Just looked like an old stump or something. And I remember my mother scraping and cleaning and fixing and wrapping that ham to send to this doctor in New York. I didn't think much of it. (laughs) FRICKER: You said at one time that you all killed something like twelve hogs. How many would you normally kill in a year? HANKLA: Oh, about six or seven. FRICKER: Six or or seven? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And would that be meat that you-all would use for yourself, or would you also sell it? HANKLA: We--we used it for ourself and also sold it, too. In the summertime, a lot of people want bacon, you know, and--lard used to be another thing that people wanted. But not anymore; use other things besides lard. That would be something you wouldn't know what to do with, I reckon, now. FRICKER: Umhmm. You said you sold some of the meat. Who would you normally sell to? HANKLA: Just neighbors. FRICKER: Neighbors? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Did you ever give any meat away? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Who would you normally give it to? HANKLA: Well, usually people who lived in the neighborhood; tenants and so forth. A lot of people wanted to buy hams, country cured hams, salt-cured. It--it was--it was a big day when we had hog-killing. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: I'm glad we don't do it anymore. (laughs) I don't want any part of it. FRICKER: You said it was a big day when they did hog-killings. Tell me about what a typical hog-killing day was like. HANKLA: (laughs) Well, it's hard to describe. Usually shoot the hogs. We did, with a .22 rifle. And you--you--you had somebody that knew just where to shoot, no problem. But that was the way we killed them most of the time, with just a .22 rifle; and scald them and clean them and all that. Don't do it any more. I don't suppose anybody kills their own hogs anymore. I guess they do, but--you have to fix your----------(??). We had a place that we used every year. And we'd work on that maybe about two, three days before. Get the box, fill the box with the water, and the night before, we always made the fire; had the water warm, ready to go. And it was a problem to get your box set right so you won't burn it. We still have our scalding box. It's a--was a good one. I don't know where it is now, but--whether it would hold water or not. (laughs) I'm not gonna try, I know that. (laughs) FRICKER: You had enough of hog-killing, huh? HANKLA: I've had enough of it. Yeah. No more hog-killing for me. But during the time you get, you didn't have any trouble getting help. All those black people, they liked to help and they'd want part of it and give them the liver or whatever they wanted. We didn't eat the hog livers. I don't know why, but never did eat it. I guess they do now. I don't suppose you'd know the difference. But I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore. FRICKER: (laughs) When did you stop hog killing? HANKLA: I don't know. I was ready to stop soon as I got big enough to help. Didn't--didn't get a kick out of it anymore. FRICKER: Well, in the hog killing, who would--who would have what jobs? HANKLA: Well, most anybody could--could do any part of it. You have to take all the insides out. You have to hang them up by that--back feet. And we had special sticks for that -- I think we still have some of them -- in the smokehouse. And after we--we'd saw off the meat. And after we left it there for awhile--depend on the weather. If the weather was not too cold, it would absorb more of the salt. And you'd have to be careful about it getting too salty. And take it up and wash it. Get all the salt off. I don't know. My father used Borax. I don't know what for, what part that played in it. And then they hang it up and smoke it with green hickory wood and corn cobs; just smoke, not too much fire, for awhile. And you could leave it hanging till you got ready to use it. Hang it up with string. [Pause in recording.] FRICKER: The--what about the women? What--what sort of work were--would the women be doing during hog killing? HANKLA: Well, after you--after you take it up out of the salt, you had to wash it. Get all the salt off. And you hang it. And then we smoked it with the green hickory wood and corn cobs. Just the smoke. I don't know how long you do that. I guess that added some flavor to it. And that's all there was to it. We didn't have any trouble with it then, but people used to----------(??). FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: I expect they would now, though. FRICKER: Umhmm. Would the--we were talking about who would do what. You said just about anybody could--would know the different jobs in hog killing. Would the women be working with the men in the hog killing as well, or-- HANKLA: They--let's see. There wasn't much they could do the first day. Then after you trimmed it, you had to shape it up and you had the sausage to grind and lard to make. You had to cut all that up in pieces and cook it in those big black kettle. And we'd usually do that outside if the weather would permit it. But if it wouldn't, we had a fireplace in the kitchen that we could hang two of those big black kettles. And we--we'd put the pieces that we cut up and make lard out of that. And trim the meat for sausage and so forth. We'd have to grind the sausage after the meat was trimmed. We killed one day and then do that the next, and hoped it didn't get too cold to freeze or anything before it cooled out. What they call animal heat get out of it. And then you could trim it and shape it up and grind the scraps into the sausage and lard. The fat part you'd make lard out of it, out of the trimmings. Your sausage you'd grind down in one of those old square--wasn't square but it was an elongated sausage mill, so slow. But it really ground it fine and made good sausage. And one of the black men and his wife that helped us with that part of it had--they were--well, when they first married, they moved in the house that--there on my father's place, and she helped us with the washing and whenever we needed help. They're both dead, he and his wife. They didn't have any children. I know it was always a big picnic when Emma came to wash. We had a lot of fun. We used--thought more of her. And she wouldn't eat with us. She wouldn't let us eat with her. She wouldn't eat first. We'd have to eat dinner and then she would eat. And--and it was really fun when we were kids when Emma came to help with the laundry. Sometimes her husband--if the snow was on the ground, her husband would come with her and walk in front and he'd have sacks and I don't know what all tied around his feet and legs; make--make tracks for his wife to follow in the snow. And we had a swinging bridge, a wire bridge across the river. And that's the only way to get in and out sometimes, to cross that bridge to go to school. The bridge is gone, now, though. It--it's hard to maintain. So many kids from other places come down there to cross, swinging on that bridge and kept it loose. Couldn't hardly keep the planks fastened in the bottom of it. But it was something, that--that swinging bridge. You'd walk across. You couldn't--didn't have any way to get across if the creek was up. You had to stay home until the creek went down. And you walked out across that bridge. You had to have that to get to school. And the river was up not long ago and lost the--the--two posts that were put there on one side where there wasn't any cliff. Were there until--well, this summer they--we had a big flood down there; washed those two posts out. They had been there since nineteen, maybe, fourteen or fifteen, somewhere along there when it was put up. But it it swept them away the other day not long ago, and washed out the other bridge out, too. We had a bridge 115 feet long. That took that all out. So I can't get to the farm now. Only go around, got a long way around to get to it. Have to cross the creek again to get to it. We've had some people looking at it. This bridge put back--I don't know. We had one bid, I think, $25,000 to put a bridge back there. FRICKER: Wow. HANKLA: I don't know--I don't know yet what I'm gonna do about that. I'm not gonna spend that much money. I know it. I haven't got that to spend. But we had a good bridge here and--thought it was a good one. But the water was higher, not long ago, than it's ever been; since I can remember. I never seen it like that. It took it, it took it completely out. All the beams. We had four beams; four twenty-inch beams to each span. There's three spans to it. Took one of the--one of the piers out. I don't understand that. I don't know how it turned it over. But it's out. The beams were bent. We've got a problem now. That's not right. FRICKER: How long had the bridge been there? HANKLA: I believe I built it in--sometimes during the 40's. I'm not sure. I think that's when it was. FRICKER: Did you build it yourself or-- HANKLA: No, I had--Mr. Tevis. Henry Tevis built it. The--I got the beams from some people that were building a double track railroad to Lexington from here. And they had--they went broke. Got bankrupt, I think, by the time they got through. And they left these three steam shovels in the railroad yards down here. And they finally decided to- -to junk them. And the man that was doing the--doing that--I talked to about a bridge, and he came in the bank where I was working and said he had found some beams that we could build a bridge out of. He noticed them while he was junking those three steam shovels and they had beams under, and I bought them from him. And he built the bridge. FRICKER: You said that it was gonna run some--one bid that you got to replace it here lately was around $25,000? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Do you remember how much it cost you to get it built back in the Forties? HANKLA: Yes. It cost about eighteen hundred dollars. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: It washed out once before, and put it back. It cost about that to put it back. And I raised it two feet; made it two feet higher. And if I put it back again, I think I'll raise it maybe three or four feet more. But I don't know whether I will or not. There's one man had some beams that were 65 feet long. Might be that I can get those and--I'll have to see. Haven't investigated that. FRICKER: What'd you-all do for a bridge before you had that one built? HANKLA: We didn't have one; had to cross the river. The river's a problem. FRICKER: Tell me about that. HANKLA: Well, to--to cross the river with an auto---automobile, it--it's bad business. And--in fact you just can't do it very often. So much of the time the water's too high. Then it's hard on the automobile going across the creek. It can ruin your brakes, and [in] bad weather they freeze and I don't know what all. But I'll have to do something. I'll either have to make a low concrete bridge -- that might be the best thing. I don't know yet. But in the meantime, I've got to fix a way that I can get across. Get down to the river and--had a man look at that yesterday. He's gonna do it, fix it so I can get down to the river and cross for the time being. FRICKER: Now, which river is this? What--what's the name of the river? HANKLA: Chaplin. FRICKER: Chaplin River? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And then before the bridge, you would--you would just have to cross the river in the--in the automobile? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: Was that the only way into the farm or-- HANKLA: Yes. Well, I--I can get in the other way, but I have a--a--a long way to go. Still have to cross the river at another place. The county--county has abandoned part of the road that runs through-- through our place. FRICKER: Umhmm. What about draft animals? Did you-all have horses and mules when you were growing up? HANKLA: Yes, we used--we used to use horses. We had mules. Umhmm. FRICKER: Tell me about that. HANKLA: Well, that--not much fun anymore, [to] think about having to do something with horses. You never get through. I bought a tractor in 1948, "H" Farmall. I still have it, and I use it for my horse. If I want to go over the farm, I just get on that tractor. It's a whole lot better. FRICKER: Umhmm. Was that the first tractor to come to the farm? HANKLA: Yes. No, let's see. Before that I had the Ford--Fordson. Yeah, I had a Fordson. I had a mule colt. I sold him for a hundred and fifteen and bought that old Fordson tractor for a hundred and twenty- five. And I thought I was doing pretty good. And it was one that you had to crank it. And it would crank. Some of them you couldn't get started. Take me half a day to start one of them. But this one would crank. You have to be careful. It's a good place--broke an arm. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: But it would--you could start it all right. I traded it off and got an "H" Farmall in `48. FRICKER: Interrupt you here and change the tape. We filled up the tape here. [Tape one, side b ends; tape two, side a begins.] FRICKER: This is Steve Fricker. It is Tuesday, August 4, 1992, approximately 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time. I am meeting with Henry Hankla in the living room of his home at 504 Maple Avenue in Danville, Kentucky. This is for the Oral History of Kentucky Farm Families Project. And this is Henry Hankla interview one, tape two. When we stopped there to switch tapes, we were talking about the--the tractors that--the first tractor you'd bought. I think you said you had purchased a Fordson after you had sold a--a mule colt. Where did you buy that--that Fordson at? HANKLA: It was a used tractor, let's see--I don't remember where I--who I got that from. I bought it from some farmer. FRICKER: Umhmm. So you bought it from another farmer instead of a dealer? HANKLA: Yes. No, wait a minute. Let's see. I believe I bought that thing from Durham Hardware. Yeah, that--that's where I got it. And they had--they had sold somebody a new tractor and took this in on a trade. That's where I got it. I bought it from Durham Hardware. FRICKER: And how about your second tractor? Did you buy it new or was it used? HANKLA: It was--it was a used one. It was a Super A International. I bought it--I bought it when we had a--when we had another farm on Stanford Road. And I bought it from somebody in Lincoln County. I still have it. FRICKER: So one time you had another farm as well? HANKLA: Yes. We had a farm on Stanford Road in Lincoln County. FRICKER: In Lincoln County? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: How large a farm was that? HANKLA: Hundred and eighty-two acres I believe, on Hanging Fork. FRICKER: Was that one that you bought, or did your father buy it or-- HANKLA: Yes. We--we bought it. My wife and I bought it. FRICKER: When was that? HANKLA: I--I don't remember. It must have been in the Fifties. HANKLA: Umhmm. Was that your first wife or your second wife? HANKLA: Second wife. FRICKER: Second wife? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Did you-all just farm that or did you live out there? HANKLA: No, we just farmed it. Didn't live there. FRICKER: Uh-huh. Do you still have it or-- HANKLA: No, we sold it. FRICKER: About when did you sell that? HANKLA: I--I've forgotten. FRICKER: What type of farming operations were you running on the other-- on the--the other--this-- HANKLA: Well, we raised corn and tobacco, hay, cattle. We had a herd of registered Angus cows. And we had--we had Angus cattle out there and at the farm at Perryville also. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: We had, at one time, about a hundred. Pretty good bunch of cattle. And we sold our--we sold our steers, steer calves. We--and we'd keep some of the heifers. We sold them for breeding purposes mostly. We sold the steers at the stockyards. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: They were money-makers at that time. Angus cattle were pretty good. Good market for them. Sold a lot of heifers [for] breeding purposes, lot of bull calves. FRICKER: You mentioned you were--you were growing corn and tobacco. How much tobacco were you growing? HANKLA: We had--at both places I guess there was something over five acres, maybe six, something like that. It's--it's been--it used to be allotted by the acre. And now it's by the pound. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: We have an allotment now of a little over eight thousand pounds on the farm that we have at Perryville. We've increased that farm down there. We've bought a farm--that farm at Perryville now consists of three farms; what was originally three farms, about 325 acres. FRICKER: So in addition to the home-place, you--you also got a farm in Perryville? HANKLA: Well, that--that's--the home-place is in the Perryville vicinity. FRICKER: Oh, okay. HANKLA: It's all--all one farm down there. FRICKER: So you--you've now got 325 acres that--that includes the home-place. HANKLA: Yes, umhmm. FRICKER: When did you--when did you increase the size from the hundred-- the original 143 acres? HANKLA: Well, there's--I had the home-place of 143 acres. And I bought 110 acres on the west side. And then this boy that owns a farm on the east side that I tried to buy before I bought the other one. And he didn't want to sell it at that time. He called me one night. He--he was working in Lexington. He was a machinist. And he called me one night and he said he'd sell, gonna sell me that old farm now that I wanted to buy. And I didn't have any money to buy it with, but I thought I better buy it. And I made him an offer. I thought sure somebody else would buy it. And he said he'd let me know by--later. And then he called me one night and said he he's gonna sell it to me. And I didn't have a nickel to buy it with, so I had to borrow all the money. And I'm glad I did now, though. It was cheap enough, way it's turned out. FRICKER: About when was that? HANKLA: What'd you say? FRICKER: About when was that? HANKLA: I guess it was in the--in the Fifties. I've forgotten. FRICKER: And are you operating the farm today? HANKLA: Yes. Umhmm. FRICKER: What type of operation do you have today? HANKLA: We don't have any cattle, but we have corn and tobacco and hay. FRICKER: How much--how much corn are you raising? HANKLA: We've got about twenty--about twenty-five acres. And about-- well, I think we have around eight thousand pounds of tobacco. We've got around four acres. Looks good. And I think it'll--I think we'll have our allotment. FRICKER: Umhmm. Have you had any problem with that blue mold this year that I've been reading about? HANKLA: I haven't heard [from] him. The boy that's raising it hasn't said anything about it. I don't know whether he does or not. FRICKER: How about hay? How much hay are you raising? HANKLA: Well, we're cutting (coughs)--let's see, one fella's cut--let's see, about how many do we have? I don't know. Grass hasn't grown this year like it usually does. He's--he's still cutting. I think he had--one fella had sixty-some rolls. And they're great big rolls; big, tight. And I expect the other one--another fella has about that many rolls. There'll probably be three--three hundred rolls. FRICKER: Are you actively farming yourself, or do you have the farm-- HANKLA: No, I'm letting somebody else do it this year. FRICKER: Are they doing that on a shares basis or-- HANKLA: Yes. Umhmm. FRICKER: How do shares work in this area? HANKLA: Well, I believe it's a 60/40 basis. He does it all, with his machinery and everything. FRICKER: Earlier, when we were talking, I think you mentioned something about tenants? Did--did you-all have tenants on the farm when you were growing up? HANKLA: Used to have. Umhmm. FRICKER: How many tenants would you normally have? HANKLA: Well, when we had the farm on the Stanford Road I had three. But now, we don't have the Stanford farm and--Stanford Road farm, and we have one--one fella does it. I rent the rest of it to him. He cuts the hay and raises the tobacco and corn. FRICKER: Umhmm. Does he live on the farm or-- HANKLA: No. No. FRICKER: So he lives off the farm? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: What about the family farm when you were growing up? Did you have tenants up there? HANKLA: At the Perryville farm? FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: Yes. We usually had one man. FRICKER: One man? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: And he lived on the farm? HANKLA: He lived on the farm. FRICKER: Now, the Stanford farm, you said you had three. Was that three different families that you had or-- HANKLA: No. I believe it was just two. FRICKER: Two? HANKLA: I had a man out there and one man at Perryville. FRICKER: Were the tenants--were they black? Were they white? HANKLA: No. They--they were white. FRICKER: They were white? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: What about in your--your--when you were growing up as a child? When your dad was running the farm? Did, did he have tenants as well? HANKLA: He had one man. FRICKER: Had one man? HANKLA: Umhmm. Always had one man. FRICKER: Umhmm. How would you go about finding a tenant? HANKLA: Well, there were usually people looking for places. They'd move. Tenants would move from one place to another. Some of them would stay more than one year, and we had a man that--usually our tenants stayed for a long time. And then sometimes they'd think they wanted to go somewhere else. Maybe they'd come back. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: We had one fella that lived with us when he--lived on the farm when he married. And he stayed there for quite awhile, and moved somewhere else. He thought he'd find a better deal. And then he came back two, three years later and--used to be tenants just moving from one to another. FRICKER: Umhmm. What about other--other farm labor that--that lived off the farm? Did you--did you-all make use of-- HANKLA: Yes, if we needed--if we had a--if we were cutting hay--before we had these balers, why, we had to put the hay in the barn loose. And usually that would take several people, maybe three. FRICKER: When did you--when did you stop using loose hay? HANKLA: Quite a while ago. Didn't have many balers. I remember the first baler that we had come to our place was a horse-drawn affair. Had a big winch with a--hitch a horse to it and it went around and around. And you had to poke the hay in and it was quite a job. Man had to stand there, he had to haul hay up to it, and a man had to stand there and put the hay in the baler and put in the blocks and it was slow go. FRICKER: Umhmm. Now, was this a baler that you-all owned, or was this a custom-- HANKLA: No, this belonged to somebody else. He'd go through the country baling hay. That finally got to be a good deal. Get your hay baled. Put in bales. When you put it in loose, that was a big job. Had--had to pitch it off the wagon in the barn loft with a pitch fork, and it was hot, heavy. I remember one time we were putting in hay and they'd pitch a big lot in the front window, one man would. Pitch it off the wagon in--in through the--in the loft. And there'd be two people inside. They'd get a big pile and they'd push it back. Scoot it on the floor. And I was up--up in the loft, and I was running to get out of the way of those two people that was scooting some hay back, and I guess I stepped on the only plank in the loft that wasn't nailed. And I fell. Went through hit the ground. I remember my father carrying me to the house. Cut a big hole in my head back here. I hit a rock or something. And my--had the doctor down there and he was looking at it. He said, "Well, I could sew it up." And like to scared me to death. I didn't know what was going on. (laughs) But it got all right. FRICKER: Did he ever sew it up? HANKLA: No. (laughs) But I thought he was going to. (both laugh) FRICKER: About how old were you then? HANKLA: Oh, about three or four; just old enough to get in the way. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: I had no business being up there in the first place. But I was and I--I was running to get out of the way of those people who were coming back that--scooting that big pile of hay. And I stepped on this plank and I--I can remember that. They thought I was killed, I guess. (laughs) FRICKER: Yeah. (laughs) HANKLA: I did, too. (laughs) FRICKER: Well, how about your brothers and sisters? Did they work on the farm, too? HANKLA: Yes, all us kids worked. We just did odd jobs and everybody had things to do. FRICKER: What sort of jobs would your sisters do? HANKLA: Well, they helped milk and do the housework and--we had to thin corn then, too. That was another job. That was the way my brother and I made our money. We'd help--we'd help other people thin corn, set tobacco. Had to do that by hand. Get fifteen cents an hour if you could set, and maybe ten cents an hour for dropping. One fella'd carry the plants and drop them, and another one used a peg or finger and make a hole in the ground and set the plant in there. FRICKER: Tell me about thinning corn. HANKLA: Well, you usually plant--you'd want two stalks of corn left in the hill, and usually plant three. And you'd have to go through there and pull one of them out. Leave two stalks. That's what you wanted to do. Don't do that anymore. And used to plant it so you could plow it both ways. Just in--they'd have four hills. It'd be square. So you'd plant--plant maybe three--three grains with your planter that had plants in it. Plant different amounts. You plant more than you wanted to leave because you wanted to ensure the germination and so forth. FRICKER: You said you wanted to - (clears throat) excuse me - you wanted to plant--you wanted to be able to plow it both ways? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. What-- HANKLA: Well, you had what you call a chain. It was a wire with knots about--between thirty-six and forty inches apart. And you'd thread that--you stretched that wire across the field and then you could thread that wire into you corn planter, and as it--as it passed those knots, it would trip it and drop your corn however. And--but if you kept you tension on your chain about the same, you'd have to move it over every--at each end. And if you kept your tension about the same, you'd have it so you--you would be square both ways. You'd have just the four--four hills. It's hard to describe, but that wire that you stretch across the field you called a chain with those knots on it. And when you threaded that in the machine as you went along, those- -past those knots, it would trip it. It would slip, turn the handle back, and then as it passed the knot it'd fly back over. FRICKER: Umhmm. And when it tripped it, it'd drop the--the seed? HANKLA: But now it's just drilled. You just plow it one way. In fact you spray it. You don't plow it at all. FRICKER: When did they start doing that in this area? HANKLA: Well, that's been several years ago. I don't remember just the year, but several years ago. FRICKER: More than twenty or-- HANKLA: You don't plow it, you spray it and that's all there is to it. Now they have no-till. Just plant--and it's a heavy type that has a disc that penetrates the hard ground. And you--runner that drops the corn from very low in behind it. And you--you don't plow it. You just spray it. Plant it in grass or whatever, knee-high or higher; just plant right on through it. FRICKER: Were you using no-till when you were--when you were still farming? HANKLA: No. No, that's a late thing. FRICKER: Umhmm. When did you stop farming yourself? HANKLA: Just last five or six years. FRICKER: Umhmm. How about a--a garden? Did you-all have a garden? HANKLA: Yes, we had two. FRICKER: Had two? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Whose responsibility was it to take care of the garden? HANKLA: That--we--I remember I--I got my distaste for working in the garden--when we used to plow corn, we wouldn't--we'd wait'll it dried off some. You'd get wet going through the corn, you know. And Dad would say, "Well, we better work the garden out this morning." And he'd get his horse--we had a horse we called Old Colonel; a black horse. And that horse knew more about plowing than we did. But he--he could take that horse and plow the garden and never--he'd never step on anything. He wasn't fast. He--he was no trouble, plowing with one line. And he knew gee and haw and (laughs) he could plow the garden with him, and we'd have to pull weeds out around stuff that you couldn't get through with a plow. But I never did like working the garden. (laughs) I reckon that's the reason. I'd rather go out [in] the corn fields and get wet. FRICKER: Rather do that than work the garden, huh? HANKLA: (laughs) But we--he'd get Old Colonel and plow, and then we'd hoe and pull weeds or whatever was around the plants and so forth. But we always had a good garden; both of them. An awful lot of work. FRICKER: What size gardens did you have? HANKLA: What size? FRICKER: What size? Uh-huh. HANKLA: Well, I guess one of them was--one of them was a long narrow garden. It was about, maybe, seventy feet one way and maybe a 125 the other. And the other one was about square. It was about, maybe, 120 feet square, in kind of a low place. It was a good garden. And in the winter, we'd usually cover them with manure. Clean the--clean the barns out, cover them with manure. Kept them in good shape. FRICKER: What sort of things did you grow in the garden? HANKLA: Everything. Sweet potatoes were one thing. My father used to make a ridge for sweet potatoes. And the--I never did like making that ridge. He--he could make a good one, big one. FRICKER: Now, you say make a ridge for sweet potatoes. What do you mean? HANKLA: Just rake the dirt up to a point. FRICKER: Umhmm. And that's where you would--that's where you would grow the sweet potatoes? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Where would you store things like sweet potatoes and other potatoes? Onions, things like that. HANKLA: My mother used to dry those sweet potatoes. I guess she cooked them for awhile. I'm not sure how she did that. But she sliced them, and I guess they were cooked to a certain degree. I don't know. But anyway, they were dried. And she would put them--put them in a cloth bag, and then when she got ready to cook them to eat, she'd put them in a pan and put some water in them, I guess, and then she'd--I don't know whether she baked them or what. They were good. I don't know what she did. FRICKER: What about potatoes? How would she store potatoes? HANKLA: We--we would bury the potatoes. Make a hill. Or--we'd usually get a lot of straw, cover these potatoes good. And then we covered them with dirt, quite a bit of dirt over top of that straw. Just keep digging around the outside, and cover them with dirt. And then we'd get some boards and set up--just cover them up with boards so the dirt would stay there. And they wouldn't freeze. And when you wanted potatoes, you'd go out there and move a few boards and dig in there and get them. Be just like they were when you put them in. You keep them covered with straw and, and this dirt on top of that. FRICKER: Did you-all have an orchard? Any fruit trees? HANKLA: Yes. We had--we had an orchard. We have a place that's still called the orchard but there's not an apple tree in it. They're all gone. All the apples are gone. We had an Early Harvest that was a favorite for everybody. They--we had--if we had work hands, they'd almost cleaned it up--cleaned them up. I've got one apple tree. It needs pruning and I'll do that this winter. FRICKER: Umhmm. How would you store the--the apples? HANKLA: I--I don't know. I think my mother canned most of them. She-- she processed them at the time. We didn't try to keep them. FRICKER: How about ice? What did you-all do for ice, before-- HANKLA: We had ice. We had an icebox, that would hold a--a great--I don't know how much it would hold. But it's just like a chest. You could put fifty or a hundred pound block of ice in it. We had an ice plant in Perryville. You'd go to town and get ice. And this--this chest, mother could keep milk and butter and stuff like that. FRICKER: When did you-all get the first--your first refrigerator? HANKLA: First refrigerator, electric refrigerator? Let's see. I don't guess we had a refrigerator until--oh golly, I don't know. Don't remember. FRICKER: You mentioned that Emma would come out and do the--do the washing? When would she do that? What--was there one particular day that she would be washing? HANKLA: Yes, umhmm. Yes. I don't remember what day it was; a certain day of the week. She--she had several places that she went. She'd come to our house, and I know there's two people in Perryville that she worked for. And she just went from one to the other. FRICKER: Umhmm. Where would she do the washing? HANKLA: Where? FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: Well, in the wintertime, in the kitchen. The big kitchen. And she heated--she'd heat the water on that fireplace. And if it was warm, why, she'd do it outside in the shade. FRICKER: How would she do it? HANKLA: On just a plain washboard. FRICKER: The--when we were talking about the draft animals, the horses and the mules. Where would you-all get your horses and mules at? HANKLA: Where? FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: Well, I don't know where we got our first team. We had a mare and a horse. Black--this black horse, Old Colonel. And then we had a saddle mare. I believe it was the easiest riding horse I've ever been on. Snip. Her name was Snip. She had a stripe, white stripe--bay with a white strip down her nose. And they--they were our main team. We had about six or seven horses. We could hitch up three teams. We had--we had one mare we called Old Topsy. And she's the one we used to raise our colts. We could always sell her colts for about two hundred dollars. That's a pretty good price for colts then. She's the harness type, buggy type. We never did have any--well, we had one--I started to say we never did have any mean horses, hard to break. But we had one that was a regular outlaw. I've forgotten whatever happened to him. We let somebody have him to break. And I think he broke that man's leg. He was--he was--he was just an outlaw. I don't know whatever happened to him. I know we didn't do anything with him. (laughs) FRICKER: What about mules? HANKLA: Mules? FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: Yeah, well we had quite an experience with mules. I--when I got big enough to do something, I wanted a team mules. We'd never had mules. And Dad traded a great big mare that we had for a team of mules. And they were--they were two-year olds. And this fella had worked them. They were poor and then--of course we didn't work them hard. First thing you knew they got to feeling good. I--I remember plowing corn with a cultivator, riding cultivator. And I got something hung on the plow. I stopped the--raised one plow to get it cleaned off and the mules took a notion to go to the house. And they just turned around in the field. I had one of my plows down in the ground, the other plow up of course. Finally I got them stopped. They--they--they just turned around and started to the barn. I got them back. My dad was plowing too, below me there, and he says, "Well, just turn them around. Don't let them stop to rest or anything." And I didn't. I just kept them going. One was a good mule and the other one was--wasn't. He'd jump every fence. He'd go everywhere he wanted to go. Open--tear up gates. We had to drive nails in the top of gates so that would keep him from pushing them over. He'd just get up against a gate and keep pushing. Break something. Go somewhere else and my experience with him was not too good. But the other--the other mule was--well, he lived up to his name. Dumb and I don't know what all. But he was a good worker. And I decided--I didn't know whether you could ride them or not. And I decided one day to try and just see what he'd do. And I jumped on him and he didn't pay any attention to me. I just rode him like he'd been ridden all of his life. And I got through--through using him one day, one morning, and I thought I'd take him, just turn him out. And I jumped on that mule and riding him, and first thing you know he started bucking and I hit the ground just--he just set me down. Like to broke my back. So I didn't try him anymore. I don't know what happened to him. And he never paid a bit more attention to me when I was on him than anything. But that morning, I guess he was celebrating; I turned him loose so he turned me loose. He--he liked to [have] killed me. FRICKER: Did you try riding him again after that? HANKLA: No, I didn't. (both laugh) Wasn't long after that 'til I got rid of them. FRICKER: About how old were you when you got rid of them? HANKLA: Oh, I guess about seventeen, eighteen; somewhere along there. (laughs) FRICKER: What about hunting? Did you do much hunting when you were growing up? HANKLA: Hunting? FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: Yeah, but there wasn't anything to hunt. Find a rabbit now and then. I didn't spend too much time at that. Felt like I was wasting-- wasting my time. I guess I was. FRICKER: You mentioned the river. Was there much fishing around that area? HANKLA: Yeah. We used to do a lot of fishing. Used to go swimming nearly every day. But we didn't catch any big fish; those little old brim. We called them perch. We'd save everything we caught and take them home and mom would scrape and scratch and carry on trying to clean them. Finally she said one day, "Now, you-all just fish all you want to. And bring them to the house and clean them. And I'll cook them." So that put me an end to the fishing after a little bit. FRICKER: Long as you didn't have to clean them it was okay, huh? (laughs) HANKLA: We found out what she'd been doing, trying to clean them. But boy, were they good. I believe they're better than any fish I ever caught, those little sunfish. Those little red ones and other kind. More fun to catch. They just have a fit. FRICKER: What about (coughs) peddlers. Did--did you get much peddlers by your--by your place. HANKLA: Peddlers? FRICKER: Peddlers. Traveling salesmen. HANKLA: We had one. We called him Old Peddler George. I didn't know who he was, but he'd come to the farm. He had a wagon, covered wagon. And he came down there one time and Mom said, "Now, I haven't got time to fool with him and I don't want to buy anything." But she could tell him she didn't want anything; didn't have time or something. And she happened to think that we had a lot of guineas. And they're noisy as I don't know what. And they wouldn't go in the henhouse. They were kind of wild. And they roosted out in some trees down there. And Mom thought, well, he had something that she kind of liked. And she wasn't paying much attention to him and he wouldn't stop. He--he'd bring that big leather package in, set it down, start unbuckling it and getting it out, and he'd lay stuff out there and--and she happened to think about those guineas. And she said, "I haven't got any money. But I'll have to give you some guineas." And he said, "That's all right." And she says, "You kids go get some corn. See if you can get those guineas in the henhouse." And we did. Of course we pitched corn down. Stayed away back. And the guineas kind of went down there and went in the henhouse, and [were] just eating, and [we] slipped up there and shut the door. And he had a pole with a hook on it to catch them with. And we started catching guineas, and he had a--a place in his--false bottom in his wagon and he put chickens and things in--in that, you know. Had screen around the outside. And we caught guineas, I'm telling you, that he said, I never will forget it, "Too much guinea, too much guinea." We filled his wagon full of guineas. (laughs) That's the way we got rid of the guineas. Didn't get all of them but we had a lot of them. But they were the wildest guineas you've ever seen. And we had--I was feeding some hogs. And I was out there one day, and that bunch of guineas would--I couldn't run them off. They'd go around the hogs, keeping--keeping on the other side. I couldn't catch them. And I got a rock, and we had one white guinea rooster, and I threw it. I hit that guinea right in the head. And he fell over and kicked like he's dead. And that would like to scared me to death. I thought, "My goodness, I've killed the white guinea rooster." And I went around to see about him, and I was standing there looking at him, and finally he jumped up and ran off. I just knocked him out. (laughs) But I--I really knocked him. But I didn't throw any more rocks at them. You couldn't run those things off. FRICKER: Couldn't run them off? HANKLA: No. They'd go around and they'd stand there with all--hog biting an ear of corn. They'd almost clean all the shattered corn up that he shelled. FRICKER: Let me just pause here and turn the tape over. [Tape two, side a ends; tape two, side b begins.][End Tape #2, Side #1] FRICKER: Well, we were talking about the guineas that you had on the farm. And we talked about things like cattle, sheep, and hogs. What other livestock did you-all have on the farm? HANKLA: I guess that's all, cattle, sheep and hogs. FRICKER: How about chickens? HANKLA: Yeah, we had a lot of chickens. FRICKER: How many chickens did you all normally have? HANKLA: I don't know. Don't have any idea. FRICKER: Were these for your--your own use, the family use? HANKLA: No, we sold eggs. FRICKER: You sold eggs? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Where would you sell the eggs to? HANKLA: We sold them in Perryville, the grocery store. They had a poultry house at Perryville who bought that kind of stuff. FRICKER: Umhmm. Who normally--whose responsibility was it to take care of the chickens? HANKLA: Everybody. FRICKER: Everybody's? HANKLA: Umhmm. We had a corn-sheller. We'd shell corn. And feed 'em shell corn. FRICKER: So you shell your own corn, then? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: What about magazines and newspapers when you were growing up? HANKLA: We always had the Louisville paper. I don't know whether it was the Louisville Times or Courier-Journal. And we had the local Advocate at that time. FRICKER: Other magazines or-- HANKLA: I don't--yes, I guess--we had a magazine, I've forgotten the name of it; Ladies' Home Journal. I think that was the one that Mom had. Yeah, we had--we had the local paper, The Advocate and one of the Louisville papers, [either the] Courier-Journal and Louisville [Times]. And don't remember which it was. FRICKER: What about mail order catalogs? HANKLA: Let's see. We had a--a Sears or--Montgomery Ward's I believe it was. I bought a bicycle from it. Fancy bicycle. FRICKER: About how old were you when you bought the bicycle? HANKLA: Well, the first bicycle I had was a--was a girl's bicycle that I--that--one of the neighbors had two girls. And this--this was a small girl's bicycle. I think Dad paid five dollars for it. And we learned to ride it. I learned to ride that thing after I got home from school. I happened to find it. (laughs) He'd--he'd hidden it from me. And I don't know how I found it, and I learned to ride it before dark. It didn't have a coaster brake. Pedals turned all the time. You had to hold it back going downhill. We rode that thing and rode it. I think I sold it for five dollars, too. I remember the boy that bought it. It was--it was a lot of fun. FRICKER: How about the bicycle you bought through--through the catalog? HANKLA: It was--it was a good-looking bicycle. It was--much different from the ones I'd had. But it was hard to pull. I never will forget that. It was awful hard to pull. It had a brake on it, a coaster brake, everything; tool box. I rode it many miles, I guess. FRICKER: What about your brothers and sisters? Did they have bicycles as well? HANKLA: Well, no, they didn't all have bicycles. We could all use the same one. Everybody learned to ride the same one. FRICKER: The house itself--how did you-all heat the house? HANKLA: With coal. FRICKER: Coal? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: How long--how much coal would it take to get through a typical winter? HANKLA: Well, about two wagonloads. We'd buy that from somebody that have a car come into Mitchellsburg or Brumfield. That was four miles from Perryville. We'd have to haul it about six miles. Then we--we usually--we'd usually get about two loads, two wagonloads. We always had coal. FRICKER: Did you ever use--later on, use anything else besides coal to heat the house with? HANKLA: Yes. One--we had fireplaces in the--in the rooms down at the farm. You could burn wood. And on Sunday in one room, we'd make a fire out of wood. Just for the novelty of it, I guess. And I remember my brother and I told Dad we'd like to burn wood all winter. He said, "All right, if you-all will cut the wood, we'll burn wood." And we'd have a great big pile of wood, [or] what we thought was a big pile. We'd have it ricked up on the porch, back porch. And [it] wouldn't be anytime till that was all gone. And [we] wouldn't be warm either. So we didn't do that but one time; that--that stopped. We--we cut wood all the time. My brother and I did. But we got through the winter, but that's the only time. Next time we made a fire in that room with the fire, in the fireplace, it'd be on Sunday just for the novelty of it; but no more everyday business. That's too much to do. FRICKER: Umhmm. You said your mom died around 1965. Did she continue to live out at the house? HANKLA: No. She moved to Perryville. FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: After every--the kids all--well, my older sister was teaching school. And I was working away from home and got married. And my younger brother was--let's see, he--he went to the University of Kentucky one year and then went to Morehead. And we were all gone. The youngest brother, let's see, he was born about 1915, I guess. He was a just a small chap. And let--she was at home by herself and everybody was away and she moved to Perryville. FRICKER: Umhmm. About when did she move to Perryville? HANKLA: That must have been about 1925 or `6 or somewhere along there. FRICKER: When she moved--`25 or--1925 or `26 when she moved to Perryville? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: After she moved to Perryville, did anyone continue to live out at the farm? HANKLA: No. Well, let's see. My older sister was married and she and her husband lived there one year. Yeah, one year, I guess. And then they--let's see, they rented a farm down here on Cross Pike, after Needmore. And they lived there awhile. Then they moved up here to the children's home. They operated that farm. He had a--he was a--he was a good farmer. I think he raised about sixteen acres of tobacco one year out there. FRICKER: Out at the children's home? HANKLA: Yes, out here at the children's home. What's the children's farm now. Mr. White owned it. And he--Gilbert operated that farm for him. FRICKER: After your sister and her husband left the farm, did--did anyone continue to live there or-- HANKLA: None of the family. FRICKER: Did you rent the--the house out? HANKLA: Yeah. Well, we had tenants that lived there. FRICKER: The tenant lived there? HANKLA: Yeah. We still operated it. FRICKER: So we--we talked about the house using coal, and then you said one winter you tried using wood. Did you ever, later on, convert to anything else, or was it always-- HANKLA: We went back to coal. FRICKER: Stayed back to coal? But never did use fuel oil or anything like that later on? HANKLA: No. FRICKER: Later on in years? HANKLA: Uh-uh. Now, there's no one lives in the house now. But I use the back part of it--it has electric heat and it--it also has a wood fire if I want to. FRICKER: Yeah. HANKLA: But I don't use both of them at the same time because if I make a fire in the fireplace, it takes all the heat right out up the chimney. Just as well to turn the electricity off. Better turned off. So I don't make a fire in the fireplace anymore. I just use electric heat. FRICKER: Umhmm. When did you put the electric heat in? HANKLA: I don't know. It was sometime after the--sometime after we left there. FRICKER: Umhmm. Did--did you-all ever cut timber off the farm? HANKLA: Yes, we sold walnut logs. Have a lot of good, big trees there now, but one of my boys don't want to cut them. Says just leave them. We've got a lot of big oak trees and so forth. We sold a bunch of walnut trees. But if you don't know what you're doing, you be giving them away. They're worth a lot more than a lot of these people that buy them offer you for them. We sold a lot of walnut trees after my father died, and we didn't know what they worth. We thought the man was giving us a pretty good price, but found out that he wasn't. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: Give us half of what he should have for them. FRICKER: How about later on? Did you-- HANKLA: I sold a fella in--I had some trees that had blown down. And he got a big load of--of logs. I didn't get as much as I should have for them. If I sell anymore, I'll get a price on them before I sell them. I'll get two, three prices. I'll find out what--I'll find out what they're worth. But I'm not going to tell them that, but one of the boys said he'd just like to leave them. He likes those big trees. FRICKER: Were your grandparents alive when you were growing up? HANKLA: What? FRICKER: Your grandparents, were they alive when you were growing up? Your grandfather and grandmother, were--were they alive when you were growing up? HANKLA: Yes. Umhmm. FRICKER: Did you visit with them much? HANKLA: Yes. My grandmother, I didn't--let's see, I didn't know my--I didn't know my grandfathers, either one of them. My grandmother, my mother's mother, lived near us. I spent a lot of time with her. FRICKER: Umhmm. What was her name? HANKLA: Langford. She was Nancy Langford. She was a Lester and married a Langford. FRICKER: So she married--her--her maiden name was Lester. She married a Langford? HANKLA: Yes. FRICKER: What--what was her husband's name? HANKLA: John, I believe. FRICKER: And he--did--did he die before you were--you were born or-- HANKLA: Not before I was born, but he didn't live here at the--I didn't know him very well. My other grandfather died a long time ago. And my--my father's mother died about a month after I was born. FRICKER: Umhmm. How often would you visit with your grandmother? HANKLA: Well, quite often. She lived alone and some of her children were there nearly all the time, so-- FRICKER: Did your--your mother have many brothers and sisters? HANKLA: Yes. She had five, I believe. Five brothers and sisters. One sister. They were all tall. That was a Lester characteristic, I guess. They were all tall people. All of her boys were tall; all of them six feet at least. Tall and skinny. (laughs) FRICKER: Did you visit with them much? HANKLA: Yes. They--most of them left here early. At that time, boys were going to Indiana and Illinois to work in wheat and hay and so forth. Didn't have much to do here. And--let's see. There's--three of her brothers stayed up there, I believe. No, two of them. One--one lived in Paris, and the other one lived in Indiana, Fort Wayne. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: He bought a farm up there. And the first thing you know, the town was right over the fence in his place; country club. Right over, going through--I haven't heard from any of them. They had two kids--he had two daughters. And I don't know, I think both of them are dead now. I haven't heard from them for quite awhile. And the one that lived in Illinois had five--I believe it was five boys. And I--all-- they're all dead; been dead some time. The youngest boy, Lawrence, was down here during World War I. I think he was a photographer. I believe that's what he did. I know he came down to our place. We lived at the farm then. And there's a cave on the back of our place, and he went back there and went down in that cave till he got to some water, and of course, he couldn't see much about it. Couldn't tell anything about it. And when we came from school, well, he--he got a flashlight and went back out there and he went down in there again. He was pretty curious, wanted to see what it was like. But he didn't go far. But my grandson that's down here now from Pittsburgh, went down there and he went--oh, I don't know how far he did go in that. Went as far as you could, the long way. And when he got to the back of it, back as far as he could go, he, I think, he wrote his name on something and I don't know what-- --------(??). (laughs) I wouldn't have gone in there for a nickel. FRICKER: What--which grandson was that? HANKLA: Hmm? FRICKER: Which grandson was that, that went back there? HANKLA: That's my daughter's son. FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: Johnny. FRICKER: Johnny? HANKLA: He works for the IRS now in Cincinnati. He came down here after he graduated from high school, came down to the farm. When the kids were small, she came down here and I was baling hay. And she and those kids and I baled that hay. It was the funniest thing you've ever seen. I--and two of them were so small, they couldn't pick a bale of hay up. One would get on each end of it and put it up on a little wagon. (laughs) I was driving--I was loading the hay, I mean, on the wagon, and those kids were picking it up. And my daughter's driving the tractor. And we put all that hay in with those kids. They talk about that. They had more fun. She had four of them, and they--they were small kids and she came down here. But we had a lot of fun. They did. FRICKER: How about your father? Did he have any brothers and sisters? HANKLA: He had one brother and one sister that I remember. The others died before I can remember them. One--one sister married a--a Hatchett, Willis Hatchett. And he went down--he--he was in the lumber business. He went down to Stearns, and he owned a lot of land around the falls, Cumberland Falls. And I don't know whether they sold that or not. They had three girls. Yeah, three girls. No boys in that family. And this fella's name was Spangler. S-p-a-n-g-l-e-r. Got married to one of those girls. And he had been in the lumber business, and he--he bought all that land down around Cumberland Falls. FRICKER: Umhmm. HANKLA: And I remember that was my first train ride. We went down there on a visit. And I remember going through the tunnel at, I guess, Burnside. Is that where it crosses the river? FRICKER: I'm not sure. HANKLA: Anyway, we went through a tunnel. And--and our car that we were in was just through the tunnel and we looked out, looked out the window, and right straight down looked like a mile (laughs) to me at that time. And I thought, golly. That was like to scared me to death. Suppose we fall off of this? But I remember--I remember coming to Danville. My uncle, my mother's brother, came with us. We had to come in two buggies. And he came with us and took the buggies back. And then he met us when we came back on the train. I'll never forget that train ride. But I don't remember anything about the visit down there, only the--the house. It seemed to be pretty close to the road; and something about the front porch. That's all I remember. FRICKER: About--about how old were you? HANKLA: Golly, I wasn't really more than three or four. FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: That was some trip, that train ride. And going through that tunnel and stopping. Just after we got out of the tunnel, a man would come through with some light, you know. And then just after we went through the tunnel and out on this bridge, and looking down at that river, that scared me. (laughs) FRICKER: Did you-all use the trains much in this area? HANKLA: Trains? FRICKER: The trains? HANKLA: No. FRICKER: Railroad trains? HANKLA: It was my first ride and I don't remember after that. But that's the only way we had to go anywhere then. You couldn't go anywhere with a horse and buggy, so you had to go by train and that's all there was to it. FRICKER: Was the - (coughs) excuse me - the 1937 flood. Was that a problem with the river in this area? HANKLA: Thirty-seven? Yes. Yes, it was. Umhmm. FRICKER: Tell me about it. What was it like here? HANKLA: That was the other big flood that we had, wasn't it? I don't remember anything particularly that it did. We didn't have our--yeah, that might be when the bridge washed out first, took the floor off, bent some of the beams. No, that wasn't `37. I don't know. I've forgotten. FRICKER: Well, has--we talked about flooding where it's--it's washed the--the bridge out a couple times. Has flooding been a big problem? HANKLA: No. We didn't pay much attention to it. Until after I put the bridge up. FRICKER: Uh-huh. The various fields that you had around the farm, both the farms, did you have any names for the fields? Did you call the fields by anything? HANKLA: No special. Uh-uh. FRICKER: Did folks around here grow hemp? HANKLA: Hemp? FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: Yeah. Hemp grew around our place. We had a--what was one time used,--it was built for a log cabin. And it had sheds built all the way around it. And we called that the cow house. That's where we headed our cows to milk them and so forth, and hemp grew there, around the barn, just wild; and, oh, all along fence rows and places like that. Around the house. But we didn't know anything about the marijuana or drugs or anything. It was just hemp. FRICKER: Did you-all ever grow it for production, or like during the war or anything? HANKLA: I tried--yes, I had a seed crop one year. Didn't amount to much. I didn't get much seed out of it. But that was grown under government supervision. Mr. Armstrong, Norris Armstrong was in charge of it here. I didn't have much luck with it. FRICKER: Umhmm. Earlier when we were talking, you mentioned that you-- you bought an interest into the Farmer's Supply Company. HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: How did you get involved with--with the Supply Company? HANKLA: Well, I--I--it was owned then by two people; Jeptha Jett and Jeptha Jett, Sr., and Bert Coleman. And they wanted to expand and pick up the business. And they had a boy that was originally from Perryville, Jimmy Sanders. Had been working there a year. And he-- when he went there to work, why, he said he'd work for a year with the-- with the prospect of buying an interest if he liked it. And they agreed to that. They decided to have somebody else in there, too, when they said something to me about it, would I like to buy an interest in it. And I thought I wasn't making much at the bank. Banks at that time didn't pay anything. I don't know whether they do now or not. But I told them I would be interested. And I--I borrowed some money and bought an interest in it. FRICKER: Umhmm. Couple times we talked, you mentioned borrowing money for like--you borrowed money for buying an interest in the Farm Supply Company. And then also, I believe you told me you borrowed some money to purchase the other farm. HANKLA: Yeah. FRICKER: Did--did you use the banks much other than that in your farming--your farming operation? HANKLA: Yes, I had to borrow quite a bit of money for different things. Umhmm. FRICKER: How about your father? Was that something that he did as well? HANKLA: No. He didn't. He died in 1920. But he didn't borrow money. He always managed to have enough to pay what he needed to pay. And he--he--we bought an automobile, I think, in 19---about 1920, somewhere. Nineteen and twenty, bought a used car. FRICKER: And that was something that--that you bought or your parents? HANKLA: Yeah, it was--parents bought the car. FRICKER: Uh-huh. So was that the first car that came to the farm? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: We were talking earlier about tractors. I'm trying to remember. Was that--the tractor that first that--that you bought--was that--that was the first tractor that came to the farm? [Doorbell rings -- interruption in taping] We were talking about--we were talking about the--the tractor, and that was the first tractor that--that came to the farm. One of the other things we were talking about was the--the sheep. What about shearing of the sheep? Who would--who would do that? HANKLA: Well, there was some people that do that, that we'd get to come shear them. FRICKER: Umhmm. Where--where would you--where would you sell the wool? HANKLA: Where what? FRICKER: Where would you sell the wool? HANKLA: Let's see. There was somebody that bought that, too. You'd sell it here. They'd pick it up. FRICKER: So you would sell it locally. HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: It--did you participate in any of the government farm programs when you were farming? HANKLA: No. The government--I don't cost the government a thing. I don't give--(laughs) they don't--I don't participate in any of those things. They--I just have about five or six acres of corn base. The only thing is the tobacco program. I have an allotment for that, and I stay in that range, eight thousand pounds. Eight thousand, little bit over. Maybe eight thousand twenty pounds. And that's all. FRICKER: What about the county extension agent? Did you use--did you use the county extension agent? HANKLA: Not much. FRICKER: Umhmm. What sort of things would you call on him when you did use him? HANKLA: Well, about spraying for weeds or something. I don't think I've used him forever. I don't know of anything. I--I just really don't participate in that government business. I don't--they don't give me a check for anything. FRICKER: Umhmm. Are you just not interested in--in participating in those or-- HANKLA: No. When you just have a corn base of five or six acres, that don't amount to anything. I raise--this year I got about twenty, twenty-four acres, or five of corn. FRICKER: When you were growing up, tell me about health care. What-- what did you-all do for health care? HANKLA: Health? FRICKER: Health care? Like-- HANKLA: Didn't do anything. FRICKER: Umhmm. Did you have a family doctor? HANKLA: Yes. The doctor who--we used to have a family doctor in Perryville. Umhmm. FRICKER: How often would you see him? HANKLA: Oh, I don't know. We were--seldom had to see him. I don't remember my father being sick but once. And my mother was never sick; never had to have the doctor. So all of us kids had good health. Nothing the matter with us. FRICKER: Where were you born? Were you born-- HANKLA: On the farm. FRICKER: On the farm? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: Did the doctor come out or were-- HANKLA: I guess. Yeah. Yeah. FRICKER: Did folks around here tend to use doctors for--when children were born, or did they use midwives? HANKLA: Doctors. FRICKER: Doctors? HANKLA: As far as I know. FRICKER: Umhmm. What about injuries on the farm? HANKLA: What? FRICKER: Injuries? Getting hurt? HANKLA: No. I fell out of the barn, but I guess that's one time any of us ever got hurt. (laughs) FRICKER: That was the time the doctor was going to sew your head up? HANKLA: Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) I don't think any of us ever had any dangers. We're lucky. I remember a mule, one of the team mules I had. One of them kicked my younger brother and--well he--he was so close to him he shoved him and--didn't hurt him. Got up. But he really gave him a shove. I was leadin'--he was leading one and I the other. I was in front of him, and his mule wanted to pass him, you know, and he kind of jerked him back a little bit and that mule just leaned forward and managed to get his foot and hit him right in the chest here. Just shoved him like that. FRICKER: Uh-huh. When did--when did telephones come out to the farm? HANKLA: I don't remember the year, but it was a long time ago. Three people had the first telephone in that part of the country. We just had one wire. And the other side of the line was grounded, when they put the first telephones in. A man had a little country store up the creek from us. And--and one of the fellas that bought and sold chickens and eggs, and he had a wagon he drove around to gather them up. The three of us had the telephone. We was all on the same line. I think our--our number--our ring was two. When it rang two, it'd be for us. [Telephone rings]. FRICKER: About how old were you when--when they put the phones in? HANKLA: Oh, I must have been six or seven. FRICKER: Six or seven? HANKLA: Something like that. FRICKER: How about things like fire protection? HANKLA: We didn't have any; just had to be careful about fire. FRICKER: Did you ever lose any outbuildings to fire? HANKLA: No. No. FRICKER: When did they finally get fire protection out that way? HANKLA: Fire protection? FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: Well, I guess that's a recent thing, after they got the water line in. But we don't have fire protection at the farm. This pipeline that I have there wouldn't give you a whole lot of fire protection. Just have a hydrant to hitch on to. FRICKER: Yeah. Did--did you-all have--use farm insurance or anything like that? HANKLA: Insurance? FRICKER: Uh-huh. HANKLA: Yeah. FRICKER: When you were growing up? HANKLA: We had insurance on the buildings. FRICKER: Was that something that you did, or did your father do that? HANKLA: Father did. FRICKER: Father did that? HANKLA: Umhmm. FRICKER: How about organizations like farm co-ops and things like that? Did you participate in any of those? HANKLA: No. I belonged to the Farm Bureau. I mean I'm a member of it. FRICKER: Uh-huh. What about other things, like the--the Masons or, you know, lodges like--anything like that? HANKLA: Yeah, my father was a member of the Masonic Lodge, and I am, too. FRICKER: You are too? HANKLA: Umhmm. How long have you been a member of the Masonic Lodge? HANKLA: Since I was twenty-one. I got a thing there--I don't know whether that says fifty or sixty. FRICKER: Oh, good. Sixty years, Kentucky Masons. Sixty years. HANKLA: Should be sixty-five. FRICKER: Yeah. HANKLA: I'm eighty-eight. Be eighty-nine next month. That's getting along. FRICKER: So you've been a Mason for at least sixty years and-- HANKLA: Hmm? Sixty-five. FRICKER: Sixty-five. (long pause) The--the yard around the house, it's--that around the house where you-all lived. How--how was that determined, where the yard was? Was there a fence around the yard or-- HANKLA: This yard? FRICKER: No, the yard at the house? HANKLA: Oh, yeah, yeah. FRICKER: There was a fence? HANKLA: Fence around it. FRICKER: How large was the yard? HANKLA: Let's see. The backyard, it's about seventy-five yards one way, and about--about forty the other. FRICKER: About to run out of tape here. [End of interview.] In this interview, Henry Hankla begins by discussing his family genealogy as it relates to his farm. The farm was acquired by a member of the family in 1883 and is located near Perryville. He discusses his work history including that he initially worked in electronics for a mining technology company in Hazard. Hankla talks about moving back to Boyle County after taking a job at a Danville bank where he subsequently bought an interest in a Danville farm supply (Farmer’s Supply). After working there for ten years, he returned to farming in 1954. Hankla reflects on the impact of electric power. His first testimony focuses on life before electricity on the farm and he describes that at one point they installed a generator and battery set which provided electricity primarily for lighting. In due course this was replaced with power from the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Hankla's discussion focuses on the big impact that electrification had on dairy production and the quality of life in general. He discusses water supply to the farm and how this has changed through the years. Hankla reports how they would drive animals to market involving crossing bridges and fording streams. This involved working with droves of sheep, hogs or turkeys. Mr. Hankla speaks of the process of hog killing and the related meat processing including curing ham and making sausage. Because the farm’s boundary involved a river, there was a swinging bridge involved in getting access to some area of the farm. There is discussion of the construction of the bridge, it being washed out during a flood and the risks associated with driving an automobile across the river when the bridge is out. Early farm equipment is also discussed including a brief discussion of early tractors and early hay balers. At various places the use of horses and mules for traction is considered . Also included is a discussion of early corn planting practices, gardening, ice and iceboxes, doing household laundry, sport fishing, peddlers, guinea fowl, egg production , use of mail order catalogs, heating the house with wood and coal, wood lot management, hemp production and telephone service. insert here

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