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A. Varesano interviewing Anne Timko -9- 7/19/72
Tape 22-2

AV: He would smack the girls as much as the boys, too?
AT: If they deserved it, yes.
AV: Did your father believe in educating both the firls and the boys?
AT: Well, none of them got much of an education in them days. But my brother wanted to go to work, he was I guess about twelve, thirteen years old, I don't know exactly what it was. And my father didn't want him to go to work. And see, in them days they had to be fourteen years to go to work. But they could go to a justice of peace, or whatever he was, and tell him they're fourteen. And he'd give him a release and put on there that that's their age. Which it wasn't. They told a lie. They weren't that old. They just would say they are that old. But they could get away with it, you know. So my father says to my brother, he says, Mike, I'm getting blue from work. He says, You will, too. So he says, Don't try to go to work, you've enough time. He says, you'll get black and blue on teh face from work. But he wanted to go and he went anyway, to work. Was he twelve or was he thirteen? He must have been, I guess, about twelve, when he went to work. On a breaker. And I believe at thirteen, or was he fourteen, he went in the mines. I think it was '59 when he left the mines, and he had to, because he couldn't work no more. He had that asthma bad, you know, and he'd get weal spells, and he couldn't work already, and had to leave the mines.
AV: Did your parents believe in giving to kids some kind of education or not?
AT: They couldn't afford it. They didn't even get high school educations. Not even high school. As far as I can remember, at my age, already, that I can remember, maybe there was more, but just that I can recall, it was only one lady that was going to high school. And Mrs. Coxe was helping them, because her mother was a widow. She had six girls. And she was the second of the family, and after she got through school here, and Miss Whiteman, the nurse here, well then insisted on her goin' to school. She lives in Freeland now, or Kistland. Her husband died, Kellys, they used to call him. Kistland is down with his mother. Well, she went to school, to Freeland, to high school that was in Freeland. She she went to school. But she was the only on goin' from town, and she had to walk back and forth, regardless of weather. So I don't know, was it one or two years, two terms, she put into school, and then she left it, because, you know, you're afraid to be walking in the wintertime, regardless of what kind of weather or anything else, and go all by yourself. And I don't remember anybody else goin' to school.
AV: Well, how much education did your family, were allowed to get?
AT: Oh, as much as they wanted to. I mean, like you used to finish the eighth grade. But some of them didn't, because the kids didn't even want to go to school. You know, some of them didn't want to go to school. Especially boys. They could get work. Well, they didn't want to go to school. And even girls, a lot of girls, they'd leave school early, or they didn't want to finish. They found some kind of excuse, and they'd get away with it.
AV: But what else did the girls have to look forward to, but lots of work and marriage?
AT: That's right. That's all that was left. Just work and marriage. From one problem into the next. Even a worse one!
AV: And they were willing to give up some of their education, just to go right...
AT: Well, they couldn't get the education!
AV: I mean, even stop school before eighth grade.
AT: Well, I don't know, some of them just felt that way. I guess they were poor students, and they didn't like school. So they'd quit anytime. Some of them say that they quit at third grade. And they are my age. I can't understand that. It was forced to go to fourteen when I was in school You had to go

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