- [Mark] All right. Geraldine. - Yes - [Mark] Geraldine. Where'd you grow up? Where are you from originally? - Here in the mountains. Leslie County. - [Mark] And tell me about your childhood. You had both your parents growing up? - Yes. - [Mark] How would you
describe your childhood? - Well, when I was about five-year old, I started goin' out to the mountains pullin' wood out. Break it up. My mom cooked on the wood stove, you know? My job was to help get
wood out and help cook and clean house. - [Mark] What year was this? You were born in what year? - '49. I was about six, seven
year old when I started in. - [Mark] You had electricity and running water back then? - Oh no. We had to fetch
our water. No juice. We'd take our clothes to
the river and wash out on the rubbing board. - [Mark] Really? - Yes. - [Mark] How'd you get around you? You guys had cars back then? - We had a horse. We had a horse and sled. I travel through the
mountains from Bowen's Creek into Middle Fork through the mountain, and buy groceries and go
back home into Lower Fork. - [Mark] On horseback? - On horseback. Yes. - [Mark] What did your
father do for a living? - He worked in the
sawmill. A dollar a day. When I was little. - [Mark] Your father made a dollar a day? Working in the sawmill. - Yes. - [Mark] Wow. - I had two brothers older than I was. We had worked in the
fields, planting the garden, plowing the horse. And raising the garden
and canning and putting it away till the summer. And then winter time we
had to pull all the wood in for the winter months. - [Mark] And how would you
stay warm in the winter? You burned? - We burned wood and a little bit of coal when we dug that out of the mountains. There weren't no coal mining back then. - [Mark] Is that right? So the coal mining started when? - Well, it started it later on and all ... It started pretty well in 1960. - [Mark] Is that right? How far did you go in school? I went to eighth grade. - [Mark] Eighth grade. And you have children of your own? - Yes. - [Mark] You got married? - I got married and got a divorce. Raised five boys on my own. No help. - [Mark] What year did
you start having kids or get married? How old were you? - I was I almost 17 when I got married. - [Mark] 17. - Back when I was young, we all lived in a two room shack. You know, a shack house
had two rooms in it. Didn't have no insulation or
nothing like that, you know? And then came that big
flood in 1957 through here. It got way up in the house and we all had to leave home and go on down the road. Yeah, it come through the
house, but we had to leave. - [Mark] Right. We had hit the mountains. - [Mark] Is that right? - Yeah. - [Mark] Did it destroy your house? - Well, yeah, the water was up knee deep. - [Mark] Wow. - Washed a lot of our
chickens away, our hogs and cows. We had milk cows we
had to go out and milk. And chickens. - [Mark] And that's what you did for food? You grew your own food mostly? - Yeah. - [Mark] And how many kids do you have? - I have five. One got killed in a car wreck in 2003. - [Mark] I'm sorry. What was the best part of your life? - Well, I raised my boys up on my own, and the last 20 years it's been fine. Well living. - [Mark] Your life has been good? - Yeah. Pretty well. - [Mark] You're happy? - Yeah. - [Mark] Did you ever
consider leaving Appalachia? - No. - [Mark] Never? - No. - [Mark] What do you love most about it? - I love most about it, I
told you, the mountains. I love to coon hunt and squirrel hunt. I ain't into no turkey hunting or deers. I love coon hunt and squirrel hunt. - [Mark] And what do you do with raccoon and squirrel? - You eat it. - [Mark] You eat them? - Yeah. - [Mark] Still to this day? - Yup. - [Mark] What does raccoon taste like? - I didn't like them,
but I love squirrels. So I coon hunted, squirrel hunted. Ginseng root to eat, and yard sale a lot. Ya know? - [Mark] And your sons have stayed here in Appalachia? - Yes. - [Mark] And what do they do for work? - Well, they work in the coal
mine a little bit, Randy. Michael, he never did have no public job, but he had little odd
jobs, he draw a check. And my oldest son, he's
on check now. He disabled. He worked building houses. - [Mark] None of your
family considered leaving? One. My older boy, Terry. He lives in Richmond. He been down there. He's got his own place down there. - [Mark] So he got out? - Garage and stuff like
that. He's doing well. - [Mark] What's the roughest
thing about living here? - The roughest thing about living here? Probably in the winter time. - [Mark] It's hard to get around? - Yep. But now the last three or
four years it's been okay. - [Mark] But the winters,
you got a heater. How do you heat your house? - I got a heater and I got a coal wood. - [Mark] So you burn coal to keep it warm? - Yep. - [Mark] Have you ever traveled? You been to other states? - Yeah. I've been to other states. I've been to Illinois and Indiana. Georgia one time and ... Tennessee. That's all. I don't know. - [Mark] But you choose to stay here? - Yeah. - [Mark] What makes Appalachians different than people you see in
other parts of the country? - Well to me, everybody's about life. They're all real friendly.
They will help you if you need help. - [Mark] They really will. And they watch over you. You know, your neighborhood,
they're real nice. And everybody is. They help one another. Everybody's the same life. It's the same. Every day doin'. - [Mark] It's just a shame
that there's no work here. - Yeah. We never did have
no work in Leslie County. Never did. - [Mark] You had coal mines, no? - Yeah. But they were further out. - [Mark] Further out? - Yeah. That was towards
Virginia, Harlan and Hazard. Places like that. - [Mark] Right. - And some people, they
log in the mountains, cuts logs down, you know, around here. - [Mark] Now this lifestyle,
almost seems to be left behind. Technology has
taken over most of the world. But here in Appalachia, it's still very simple. - Yeah. - [Mark] A lot of people live without electricity,
without running water. And they don't choose to
leave. They love it here. - Yeah. - [Mark] Do you think that'll continue? - Yeah. I sure do. Yeah. You know we live in a ... If you look at them other big cities, they got a lot of problems. There fighting going on,
tearing the city apart. All those things goin' on right now. California's burning down the people. One good thing about it. A
lot of people like to live back here in them mountains. Get away from all that. - [Mark] Yeah. You can live a very isolated
life here if you want to. - Yeah. Uh-huh And most people that come
from Appalachia really like this place too. - [Mark] It's Beautiful. It's one of the most
beautiful places I've seen. - Yeah. That's what everybody says. - [Mark] Are you a religious woman? - I'm a holiness. Yeah. - [Mark] Do you go to church? - Yeah, when I get to I do. - [Mark] What's been the hardest thing you've had to go through in your life? - The hardest thing I went
through was giving my son up. When he got killed in that car wreck. That's about the hardest
thing I've faced so far. - [Mark] How old are you? - Me? - I got a birthday coming up in October. I'm gonna be 71. - [Mark] You're 71? - Yeah, I'll be 71 in October. - [Mark] Wow. Do think all the adversity
you have to endure here and get through ... It's just a struggle to
survive between making money and getting around. And you know, every
house is a struggle just to get through the driveway almost. Do you think that's what
makes Appellations so helpful and so kind? - Yeah. Everybody lives
about the same way. - [Mark] Everybody has a struggle. - Yep. Everybody up in
here they draw a check, and on food stamps. There ain't no work. If they do work, they're probably teachers or something like that, you know? A mail truck. There ain't much work going on here in this County for people. - [Mark] Yeah. And drugs
is kind of taken over too? - Oh, Yeah. - [Mark] Drugs have
been out of control here for like a couple of decades, right? - Oh. When they bought that crank in here that what done it. In this region anyway. They let that all come in here. And the people was raising
a little bit of pot out here in the mountains. They raised the pot to
support their family, and to buy their clothes
and shoes and stuff. They use it in the right way.
You know what I'm saying? Okay, they come in here and rat on people. And they would take you to
jail for it if they catch it. And also, how come there
not arrests for cocaine, heroine, and that meth and all that. And they don't do nothin' about that. And people are dying in piles
on that, but they still don't do nothin' about it. And I don't know why. They all know where it comes through. Deal with it. I don't know why. - [Mark] Why do you think so many people have drug abuse problems here? - Cause there probably ain't no work. Nothin' for them to do. - [Mark] Nothing to do. - That's what I believe. When I was married to my
husband, he'd make moonshine. I helped him a little
bit there off and on. And he made the moonshine, but the worst problem about it is when he made it he never was sober no more. He'd hit that bottle and kept getting wild, wild, wild, wild, wild. He drunk it all up. That made him fight like
a horse and cat. (laughs) Then it end up in a divorce. - [Mark] Do you feel like
life has gotten better or worse in the last 20, 30 years? - Oh it got better. - [Mark] it's gotten easier? - Yeah, easier. - [Mark] What were the biggest changes? Cause you grew up in a time
when there were no cars. There was no electricity, no water. And things have gotten easier now, right? Right? What was the biggest change? - Yeah, I got a car. I own a car about the last 20 years. I ran on most different vehicles. And I'll go places. Visit my sisters down in
the country and go places. I like to yard sale a lot. Love the yard sales. - [Mark] What kind of stuff do you grow? Do you have a garden? - Yeah, we grow a big garden every year. That's the way we live. - [Mark] What do you grow? - I can corn, beans and raise taters, and sweet taters, and pepper, and watermelon, mush melons. You name it and I had it. Cabbage. I can away four or five
hundred jars of food a year. - [Mark] Really? - Yeah. If it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't make it. Well, with my boys, honestly,
we got food stamps too. And I draw a check. I got my disability and social
security outta my husband. - [Mark] Do you have any
regrets in your life? - No. Not that I know of. I don't right now. Yeah, I do. One. - [Mark] What's that. - Smoking them. - [Mark] Yeah. Those
will shorten your life. - Yeah. - Wish I had never seen one of them. - [Mark] All right, Geraldine. Well thank you so much
for talking with me. - [Geraldine] You're welcome. - [Mark] You're very interesting. Thank you.
