Vol. 1-Interview-Feisner

AV inter. GF & HF -21- 7/7/72 Tape 24

GF: crying and an awful rumpus and dishes were going out into the garden and pans and whatnots oh there was a terrible disturbance and Sweeney said, I believe I'll go in to see if I can settle that, that is terrible, he walked in on the boardwalk and just as he got to the steps of the back porch Joe said, you sonofabitch what do you want, and he made one race for him, Sweeney never stopped until he got in and locked his door, I met him later and he said to me, Oh my God, I was never so scared in my life, never again will I attempt to settle a family quarrel oh that was often [?] fights of that sort

HF: Well you know Cochick saved Joe's wife one Sunday afternoon, you know where the slate banks used to be on the Back Street and they were living in that house where Mrs. Urich was living on the Back Street and he would go to church on Sunday and then he would go drinkin' and he would come home pretty late in the afternoon and the first thing Mamie got a beatin' so she was runnin' down the alley and Cochick happened to be at the back gate and he protected her because otherwise Joe could have even killed her

GF: She's living yet, she was a mother of 12 or 13 children

HF: I was talkin' to her not too long ago

GF: In her early life she was a victim of tuberculosis, she spent some time in the White Haven Sanitarium right after their marriage, came home and bore was it 12 or 13 children and you know later in life he turned out to be an ideal, model husband he attended church with the regularity of an orthodox clergyman

HF: And he was very good to her then, when he stopped drinkin', my dad asked him once, he was working with my dad, and my dad asked him once, Joe how did you stop drinkin' you drank so heavily and raised so much fuss, how did you ever stop, he said, well I sat down and I thought it over one day and my children were growing up it's a shame to be carrying on like this, and I just decided I was going to stop and that was it, that was willpower but his son does a lot of drinking, John

AV inter. GF & HF -22- 7/7/72 Tape 24

GF: Yes I think he does, I think he has a liver condition.

HF: Oh he's been drinking very heavily and you know he wanted to punish him because they were living in that house right down below us on the Back Street and, when Mrs. Smith used to live one time and after Joe stopped drinking he wanted to put a stop to him drinkin' and Mamie use to protect the boy she used to lay awake and Joe used to have the door locked so he would know when the son comes in but Mamie sneaked down and opened the door so Joe wouldn't know when the boy would come in so Joe wouldn't punish him

AV: I guess it was a pasttime that they had, drinking

GF: Yes that's true, the accessibility of it, you see at one time we called them beer men, businessmen from Freeland used to drive thru here sometime in a 2 horse drawn vehicle, loaded with beer

AV: Was that an open wagon

GF: Yes it was an open wagon

HF: And jugs of whiskey under the front seat

GF: And big jugs of whiskey under the front seat well sometimes the men on their way home from work, now Mr. Mickel he was the liquor dealer in in Freeland and he would load his wagon with beer, all bottled beer and the jugs of whiskey under the seat where he sat as he drove his team and he'd come up town and sometimes the miners were going home from work and they would stop and they'd say hey John, how about a drink? They had this copper funnel and it had a little catch in it that would close it and he'd take the jug and he had a way of pouring it out and when they took a drink out of that funnel they took a drink, they were embalmed

HF: I saw that done

AV: How much was a funnel full

GF: Well you see, why did he have a funnel, people who bought liquor had a bottle for their husband, a quart bottle, and the liquor dealer would go into the house and say Mrs. Jones your husband want anything today yet? Well he wants his bottle

AV inter. GF & HF -23- 7/7/72 Tape 24

GF: and he'd take the bottle out and he'd put the funnel in and turn the jug and fill the bottle, sometimes if he had more liquor than would go into the bottle he didn't want to lose it he'd shut a little valve and keep it [?} and put the funnel back into the jug and open the little valve and it would run back into and then a box of beer, Christmas time, sometimes Helen they would have 2,3 loads as high as this house, oh yes indeed, at one time a bottle would be 50 cents and then it went up to 75 and then $1.00 and so on, not to go on to a different subject but did you tell this woman about the nurse that used to be in town and how the doctors leave cards on the windows and how Miss Whiteman used to come up the street

HF: Yes Miss Whiteman and then Miss Smith

GF: And the number of people that were taken down to Lehighton to have their eyes examined

HF: I forgot about that

GF: You see Mrs. Coxe was a philanthropist of Eckley, you heard a lot about her, oh I could entertain you for hours I believe talking about Mrs. Coxe

HF: I told her that store should never been named the Betty C. because Betty Carnahan didn't do anything for the town that store should have been the Sophia Coxe but the people in town were afraid to speak up they talked among themselves but I guess they were afraid to speak out and she said supposing they make a memorial to Mrs. Coxe how would you suggest the memorial to be done, well I said the only thing that I can say is put wings on it, because I said she was known as the angel of the anthracite, well she said she was thinking if there was a special room of exhibits that would sort of touch on her life what all she did and everything would she be able to get any information on that and I said I think you can get information from Mr. Kunkle because she is still running that fund that Mrs. Coxe had endowed and I said the one that was her last chauffer, Billie Gower, I said maybe he'd have some information I said the only thing I remember of her

AV inter. GF & HF -24- 7/7/72 Tape 24

HF: is when she would come up to school at Christmastime

GF: Oh I can tell you a lot about her, you know where she's buried, in Drifton, well see Mrs. Coxe was a philanthropist in the real sense of the work first all the colliery's in the communities are, where there was a colliery, the Coxe brothers owned she gave Christmas gifts not only to every youngster in school but every youngster that attended the Episcopal Church because she was Episcopalian now I lived in Buck Mountain and Buck Mountain was run by the Coxe Brother's Coal Co. and there was a one-room schoolhouse and each year Mrs. Coxe made a visit and she arranged to send us gifts, now let me tell you what went on, about, in the early part when school would start, school would start in October we'd begin to prepare for Mrs. Coxe's visit see our teachers were not college graduates but were high school graduates just one-room and one teacher and every individual in school, we had about 25 or 30 youngsters in school, had to take part in the program I remember my first poem, I recited a poem Lucy Locket lost a pocket and Santa Claus found it and tied a ribbon around it, when I was a little fellow, now let me say this, I wish I could describe this in detail, how we were dressed, well in those days, you know, hand-me-downs, hand-me-downs from my brother who was a little older, from my sister and from my father, as a matter of fact, my mother had a sewing maching but my mother had a cataract that was developing and she couldn't see very well and she fashioned a jacket, as a shirt or blouse and the tie was over here you see, now here's where it should have been but it was here because she put it in the wrong place so when I went to school my mother tied a big bow here, red or blue and I had little short pants up here buttons up along the side now I had long stockings but I always wore long underwear and you know you had to roll the underwear

HF: Don't I know it, I could never get it right

GF: You had to roll it and if you didn't get it right there was a lump here, a lump here and a lump there up here you had a garter on to hold the socks up now the

AV inter. GF & HF -25- 7/7/72 Tape 24

GF: shoes you could buy for 75 cents or 90 cents but as soon as you got them father had a last, shoe repair kit, he'd put another sole on there to last longer but when you went to school and you'ld look down, holy gee, you had big lumps on your legs and your hair my father didn't cut the hair but there was a fellow in the community that cut it with a pair of scissors [barber] and the clippers and what he didn't cut he pulled out

AV: Did you pay for it

GF: Oh no, steps all over the place you looked as tho you were shot at and missed, but anyhouw now listen we were talking about Mrs. Coxe we started in October to practice, everybody had to say their piece, and in the latter part of November the boys went way over in the swamp and cut a Christmas tree, got that done, now remember this was in November and Christmas didn't come until the 25th of December, then we had to get this trailing spruce and make wreaths cross the school this way and that way and one over the door and one over the blackboard and now Mrs. Coxe sent us cards printed cards with the Christmas Carols on it We Three Kings of Orient Are, Silent Night, and so on and then about 2 weeks before Christmas old Mr. McCaron from Lattimer, nothing but decayed teeth in front and when he opened his mouth all these decayed teeth, it was terrible, well he wanted to teach us how to sing to prepare for Mrs. Coxe's visit well honest to God when I reflect we sang loud, made a lot of noise, but when Mrs. Coxe came we knew the day she was coming and so did the teacher now the teacher's desk was up there and the road led down this way and you know the teacher was specially dressed that day, we were all clean

HF: I told Angela we use to shine going up the street

GF: Oh yes and the shoes polished for the first time ever, special shirt on and special tie and the teacher would look up there and then we would go on with our work and she'd look up again and then, she's coming, she's coming and she would go over to the mirror and fix her hair all fixed up and we sat there as tho we