Hugh, Bob & Gary Thompson

Gary: What school was that? Was that over at Point Pleasant?

Hugh: Point Pleasant. I never forget the time Shorty Stalnaker, remember old Shorty? Big, tall, ya know, and I was sittin', this was in the small room, I was sittin' in about the fourth seat, and old Shorty Stalnaker, you know him, we used to play ball?

Gary: Little League?

Hugh: He was your coach. He had the job of janitor, taking care of the stove, keeping the place heated, he'd sweep it out and dust off. He came in there and said, "Hugh, come here." I said, "No, I can't". "No, come on!" And I jumped out of my seat and started back there to see what he was going to say and it didn't go too good!......You know my first teacher? At Mt. Liberty? Can you remember us when we lived at Jake Wilmoth's place. We'd walk across that hill.....Well, maybe you didn't, Bob, but I did. Gertrude Griffith and me and William. I don't think he was old enough yet. Anyway, Gertrude Griffith give me my first whippin'. Fax Murphy gave me one at Union.

Gary: Sounds like you got a lot of 'em! I mean, your first whippin', you said that was your first teacher, so that was your first year in school, right?

Hugh: Yeah, I was in first grade....and Hobart Shaffer, now he was sittin here, and he was pretty good back in those days, by heck, he was about 15 or 16 years old and still in grade school.....I don't now how old he was, anyway, Gertrude.... someone knocked on the door, the school house door, and she went to the door, opened up, and she was talkin' to this person. I don't remember who it was, but she come back, and Hobart had us all a'laughin'. And I'm tellin' you the truth, I felt sorry for Hobart. Gertrude went up there and got some switches and started beatin' him over the back. He only had a little old shirt on, and he wouldn't cry. Gertrude Griffith said, "I'll whip you till you do cry". By heck, Hobart never did cry. I bet you she whipped him five or six times. I always felt sorry for him for that.....old Gertrude Griffith. I guess she was my first school teacher at Mt. Liberty. I remember I was in the first grade, is that what you call the primer? Anyway, I done something wrong and she said, "Now everyone's going on a picnic, and a hike, a walk, everyone but Hugh." She made me sit there in that little seat by myself! I forget what I did, but evidently she didn't like it!

Gary: That was Mt. Liberty? You first went to school in Mt. Liberty?

Hugh: Mt. Liberty, then I went to Valley Dell two or three times, no two times, Point Pleasant once, I guess. But when I went to Valley Dell down there, I was just a little fellow. We'd walk over the hill here, and Madge Fisher, June's wife, and Zeffie Poling down there. Well anyway, Onie Phillips was teaching school and he was at the blackboard and I was doing something like that, and I was settin' right behind Madge and Zeffie Poling and I was punching 'em or something. He turned around and seen me, "Hey!" At that time some of the seats were about that wide. " You like them girls?" I said, "Why not?" He said, "How would you like to sit with 'em?" I said, "Ah, I don't like that." He said, "You get up there!" He made me sit between my sister-in-law, (wasn't my sister-in-law then) and Zeffie Poling! Ah, man! Hey, it's his turn!

Gary: Bob, what do you remember about all these rotten things the old man did?

Bob: (laughing) I remember a little bit about it. Of course, Hugh was talking about Jakey Wilmoth's place, that was the place over where Winemiller used to live. The old house that burned.

Gary: Yeah.

Bob: Dad built that house there. Dad owned all that in there.

Gary: I can just barely remember that. Wasn't there a fence around that? Out by the barn? We built the pond, and then there was a barn, it was kinda over in here.

Bob: But the house was burned Down. Francis Winemiller came up there and built another house. But the old house had burned down. Dad built it and dug that big well out there in the front, too. I just remember living there, I was only about four years old. We moved up there to where we live now, to where the old place is now. I think I was four years old when we moved from over here to where Dad built the other house. I just barely remember, I think it was 1932, or 1930. 1931 or '32 Dad built that house up there, didn't he? If it was '32 I must have been six years old.

Hugh: I wasn't very big, I helped Dad build that. I remember.

Bob: I remember living over there, just barely remember.

Hugh: Do you remember when we dug that well? We got across the hollow, there was a wet weather spring over there, we'd get water over there till Dad started digging that well. It's still over there! Locked up.

Bob: Yeah, I know that well's still there, but I don't remember when we dug it.

Hugh: I remember when we were living there and the place burned down.

I remember when we dug the well at the last home place. I was just ten years old. Dad and I down and we drilled a hole. I got out and Dad set the charge. He started up the ladder.... there was a fuse about that long, black powder is what it was. He lit the fuse and he started up the ladder and he fell back down, and oh my gosh, when he got to the top that thing went off and I'm telling you, there were stones that big around. Rocks flew out and hit the roof. We had to patch the roof. It's a wonder he hadn't got killed.

Bob: That's the house we lived in up there, the other place.

Gary: Up at Mt. Liberty?

Bob: Yeah.

Hugh: Dad was good at that. He helped wall that well up over there where Pete Collier lives now. It's only about that big around. Pop and Dad, they'd go down there and they would be down there 10-15 minutes and then they would have to come back out to get air, there was "black damp" (methane gas) there. They'd take turns. They were only allowed in there so long cause there was no air.

Gary: Where did you go to school first, Bob?

Bob: Point Pleasant was my first school.

Gary: Now did they just not build one at Mt. Liberty and Valley Dell?

Bob: They were there, but the reason I guess, I always heard that the reason we had to go to Point Pleasant when we lived at the old home place is because that is in Barker District. Mt. Liberty and Valley Dell are located in Philippi District. That was the reason, cause the last year that I went to Point Pleasant, the school bus was going by my house and I could have rode to Mt. Liberty or Valley Dell either one, but I wasn't allowed to because it was in the Philippi District and I had to walk to Point Pleasant. Of course, I was glad of that because I didn't want to change schools any how. I would rather have walked to Point Pleasant than I would have changed schools. When it comes to changing schools it's a little hesitant in getting acquainted, you know, and you feel inferior to other people, and I mean I've known families even in my teaching, families that were moving from house to house, maybe three or four times a year. This is not good for the children that are attending school because one school isn't carried on in the same individual way as the other school. But we had to move a couple of times, because we had to move down to Grandma Daugherty's a couple of times to take care of her, and then that put us in the Union school. I always wished I was back to Point Pleasant, you see, my old home school. It does make a difference to kids that's growing up, in changing schools so often, because it's hard for them to get adjusted. Well, how would you like to change jobs every six weeks? You see what I mean. Going on a new job is hard for you to get on to. It's just hard to get adjusted.

Now, I was born down at Ethel Andrick's in the Union area, in an old store building there on Ethel Andrick's side of the road, right across from where Ronnie Ketchum lives, in the old Roy Phillips place.

Gary: Is that right in a turn down there?

Bob: Right at the foot of the hill below Russell Jones. It was on one of the sides there, and I think we must have lived there a couple of times. William was born there, also. There's where we were born, and then, I guess we moved up to where Dad built the house over here.......yeah, we were down there in 1935.

Hugh: I think I went to school at Union when we lived at Joshua Bartlett's place.

Bob: Well you did. Joshua Bartlett moved to Brownton one year. They rented their house to Dad and Mom. You and Gearl and June went to Union that time.

Hugh: We walked clear down there?

Gary: Bob, do you remember Pop?

Bob: Oh yeah, I remember Pop real well. Pop was just 60 years old when I was born. I remember he would get out there and help us hoe corn. I remember one time when we working hoeing corn, we were hoeing corn for Ray Register, on the farm there. We were way back around the hill, there, next to the Mouse Run Road, hoeing corn. Oh, it was hot! And that evening when we came in for supper we ate at Ray's, and my Grandpa Thompson was so tired and crampy, he was just too tired to eat. So at that time, I must have been about ten years old, he would have been 70 years old, see, out there hoeing corn in that hot sun all day at 70 years old. I'll never forget that. Another time, I remember, we had that big field over there where it is growing up now, in wheat, and Ray and Lona Regester had moved up here on the hill from over on the Middle Fork River. So, we all decided, Ray and Lona wanted everybody to go over there on the 4th of July. So, we had no way to go other than they hired Fred Simpson, Gilbert's boy, to take them over there on the truck. Well, Gilbert said that each man that went, or each boy that was big enough to work, old enough to work, either had to give him a dollar or cut crops one day, the whole day. So I remember that Dad said, "Well, we'll go if the wheat is cut." As well as I remember Brance Thompson was cradling, John Jones, and Ray. And, I knew that we were going to go swimming in the river over there and I didn't have a bathing suit. So I took an old sweater and made me a bathing suit. I was afraid that somebody else would get a hold of that bathing suit when we went over there the next day on the 4th of July, and take it, and I wouldn't get to use it! And I wore that thing all day in that wheat field, as hot as it was, with my clothes over top of it!

Hugh: We were binding wheat.

Bob: I was afraid somebody would get that bathing suit, and when I came in that evening, started to pull that off where that old fuzz and stuff was on that sweater, it stuck to me! But we did get to go to the Middle Fork River because we got the wheat cut. So the next day Fred came along with his truck, and Ray and Lona went, Grandma and Grandpa Thompson went, Edmund and Winnie, and Dale and Roma, Hubert Tolbert and Myrtle Tolbert, Dad and Mom and all of us boys, five of us. So that was a pretty good load! It was raining, and we rode the back of that truck, big ton truck, all the way to Middle Fork. Then we had a flat tire! And they had to stop and change that tire. That must have took an hour to change the truck tire. I think it was on the back. Maybe, on the inside, too. It had the duel wheels. Had to stop and change that tire. By the time we got over there, I don't know what time it was, but they spread their lunch out there on the ground someplace and we all ate. Then we went to the river. Me and my little bathing suit! I remember Denzel, though, he was about my size. He didn't have a bathing suit, they made him go naked, and then they pulled him up out of the water. Didn't make Denzel mad, after he was swimming a while!

Gary: Denzel was Edmund's son?

Bob: Yeah. It was quite a time.......Hugh's speaking of cutting brush and filth back there with the scythes. We had the whole farm cleaned up with scythes. There wasn't any brush on it what so ever, only maybe just a few trees around where there might have been a little woodland. Now it's hard to even get a jack rabbit to get through. But, we used to raise wheat and corn and everything in there every year.............yes, Fisher's had the mill down there. Herman Fisher ground the wheat and corn, and Herman wouldn't even shut down for lunch. He ate breakfast and supper when he was grinding at the mill. He skipped lunch, he'd grind all day. I have seen wagons and horses lined up almost half way up to Merle Golden's waiting to get their wheat ground. He never charged any money for doing this. What he did was if you took in a bushel of wheat to have ground into flour, he'd take a couple of gallons out of it for his toll. Then when the day would come when he was up with his custom grinding, he would grind this for himself, and then he would sell the flour and corn mill to people that didn't have it, didn't raise wheat. And if you would go there, Gary, and didn't have the money to buy a sack of flour, you couldn't buy it from him, he wouldn't charge it to you. No way! Flour was about 65 cents a bag from what I can remember. But what he would do, he would say, "You go over to the house and Dora will give you 65 cents, and come back over here and give it to me, and then you can have the flour." But you see what he was doing, he didn't want to fool with those books. Now that was Herman's idea of not fooling with books and records. And when you paid back, you had to take the money back over to the house and give Dora the 65 cents. You see, he was finished with it, he was clear of it. So if any losers came along, why he was still in the clear, but Dora would be the loser! But I don't think very many people ever took advantage of them. I remember, I heard Mom say one time that we were out of wheat. Didn't have any flour, and probably didn't have any money. And she said Bruz Lantz had been at the mill and had some wheat ground and he found out something about this, and Bruz Lantz, when he took his flour he left a bag of flour for the Thompson family. Now things were rough then. If you had a dime in your pocket or a quarter, or a fifty cent piece, that looked as big around as a wagon wheel........things were cheap, you could buy soup beans for $4.00 a hundred pounds, but getting the $4.00! Dad worked on WPA, what they called the Worker's Progress Administration during the Depression, it was under Roosevelt, for $17.60 every two weeks. $35.20 a month. He worked three days a week, and then there was another group came in and worked three days a week. Every two weeks you got a check for $17.60 and that came by mail. The foreman didn't pay you on pay day at the job site, it came by mail. And here we would sit waiting on that check, and if the check didn't come, so we could go get some groceries. I remember we had to make a trip to Belington one time. The check didn't come and we went to the Belington Post Office, we were on the Belington route at that time, and asked if the check was in. And the clerk at the Post Office wouldn't hand that check out to us! It was there, and he says "You'll have to go up and get the mail carrier, Mr. Bartlett, to come down here to this Post Office, and he'll issue the check." We had to make a trip to Laurel Mountain Road to get him to come down to give us that check. The Postmaster would not hand us that check. For what reason I don't know, maybe he already had his mail put up in a certain area for the next day's run, and he didn't want to mess with it. But the Postmaster can do anything, he's in charge. He should have gone back there and given us that check. We shouldn't have had to run to Laurel Mountain Road to get the mail carrier to come down there to give us that check!

Gary: How did you get up there? Did you have a car?

Bob: Well, we had an old car, a '30 Chevrolet, and we were lucky enough that we had the money to put two gallons of gasoline in it to go. Course, gasoline was cheap at that time, you could buy 5 gallons for a dollar. Oil was 10 or 15 cents a quart. Tires were $8 or $9 a piece. But still, that came hard.

Hugh: Do you remember when Charlie Bartlett used to deliver mail on a horse? He'd ride a horse clear from Wade Everson's at Point Pleasant to Mount Liberty. He'd carry a big box from Aunt Gladys, toys and clothes and shoes.

Bob: I think I have that in what I sent Gary about Christmas in 1935, about the stage coach going. You already have that, don't you?

Hugh: He'd go down through and come up by Virgil Wagner's place, and through Mount Liberty, and back by our place.

Bob: Yeah, he'd come down across, through East Bend, and down the old road and come out down at Mt. Liberty. Then he'd come out by our house and over to Griffith's. Then he'd come down the Mouse Run Road, and come out over at Gordon Knapp's garage. But, I as say, times were rough. I remember one time when I started to high school. I needed a pair of gym shoes, they were for a gym course, and I didn't have any money. The shoes were 65 cents and that's all they cost. But I didn't have the 65 cents....Dad didn't have 65 cents. So Emerson Poling (the old Trimble place) down here was thrashing, and he hired me to help thrash and just exactly when he paid me that evening, just a coincidence that I had earned 65 cents for helping him thrash, and that's exactly what my gym shoes cost. So see, I couldn't take my money out here and spend it for pop and candy. It had to go right back in to buy myself something. A lot of kids, if they worked out here for a farmer, they'd take their money and they'd go spend it on candy and pop. I wasn't allowed to do that. If I made a quarter some place, I probably, when I got home would have to go to the store and buy a couple pounds of sugar.

Hugh: You would work on the railroad.

Bob: And kept Dad and Mom.

Hugh: You were a junior...didn't you quit school once?

Bob: No, I didn't quit. One year when I was a junior in high school I got a job on the railroad. I was seventeen years old, and I worked all summer. When school time come, September, I said I'm not going back to school, I've got a good job. I'm making $5.28 a day. So I worked and worked up till November. I decided to myself, "Well, Mom and Dad didn't give me much encouragement about going back to school." Because if you got a high school education back in those days, you were lucky.

Hugh: We weren't expecting that.

Bob: You weren't expecting it. You expected to go to the eighth grade and maybe drop out and that was it. Well, I decided I better go back to school. I sat down and wrote the principal, Mr. Carpenter, a letter to see what I could do. This was in November, right after Armistice Day. He wrote a letter back and he said that if I would come back to school and take two subjects the rest of that first semester, and make my back work up in those, and then in the second semester I would take six solid subjects with no study halls, then I could graduate with the class. And that's exactly what I did. Then, after high school was over, I went back and got a job on the railroad again. And then I knew that if I got my diploma, I could go to college anytime I wanted to if I could ever afford to do so. So, I worked on the railroad awhile, then went to the old Chevrolet garage in Philippi, worked there a while. Then, I went to Akron and worked a while. I started to Broadus in 1947 but didn't have the money to continue. I only went a week or so, and had to drop out because of finances. Then I ended up, I worked with the maintenance crew at the school building and I decided when I was working on these buildings (at one time there were 72 school buildings in Barbour County), I decided when I was working for the school board that if I can work on these buildings, I can work in them. If ever I get a chance to go to college I want to teach. And then after I left the maintenance crew with the school board I went to Southern States. I was assistant manager at Southern States for a couple of years. I left there and got a job driving a school bus, in order to go to school. Drove a school bus two weeks and one evening the transportation supervisor stopped me and he said, "Bob, this is your last run this evening." I said, "Why?" He said, "They turned you down in Charleston on your physical examination." There I was without a job at the school board or the Southern States. Delma was pregnant with Debbie. So I went to Ohio, and worked out there. I worked at Goodyear Aircraft. I had an interest in this old store up here at Mt. Liberty with Russell. Russell got sick, he wrote me a letter and told me I'd have to do something with the store. So, I worked out a notice and come home and bought Russell's share of the store. I ran it a while. I bought Russell out, I ran the store a while, and then I sold the store. One evening, Brooks Griffith was driving the bus also, now this was in February, which I had left the school board in October, I believe, driving the bus. So, Brooks Griffith stopped out at Mt. Liberty there and told me, he said, "The transportation supervisor said there was a bus driver that quit, and that you'd been off long enough, and you were eligible if you wanted to take another physical, and if you pass it, and pass your driver's test, the job is yours." So, I went down. The school board hired me, I took the physical, I took the driver's test and passed. Then I started to college. I'd go to college, Alderson-Broadus in Philippi, between bus runs, and drive to Fairmont on Wednesday nights through the summer. Finally, I got enough hours to teach in one room schools, which was 64 hours, that was two years of college. I went out and taught three years, and I got a leave of absence from teaching, got a job driving the bus again, and I went back to finish school. In the meantime I also worked at Philippi Hardware, too. I worked at Philippi Hardware part-time, drove the school bus, going to school and tried to run the farm. And Mr. Snyder didn't want me to go teach when I was ready to teach. He wanted me to stay at the Hardware. He says, "I'll pay you as much as you are making teaching." I said, "Well, it was a hard time and a long time getting this certificate. I think I better try it." He says, "That will be fine, but any time you get discouraged with teaching, you've got a job here." So I still continued to work for him on Saturday and through the summer, Christmas vacations. One time during Christmas vacation Mr. Snyder said, "Bob, how much do you make teaching?" Now this was about 10-12 years after I began teaching. He said, "How much are you making?" I told him. He said, "I can match that if you want to quit." And the day he found out I retired, about a week, I got a call from him to come in and work.

Gary: Never gave up, did he?

Bob: He never gave up! I went down and talked to him and I said I can't work full time. He said, "How about three days a week?" "Well, that will be fine." Then I decided, "Nah, I'm getting old." So I called him and I said, "Do I have to stick to that?" He said, "No, Bob. You don't have to make that commitment if you don't want to. Maybe I shouldn't have even called you." I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. If you let me off under that commitment, anytime ever you need any extra help, you let me know." He said, "That's good enough for me." Then, I went back to work for him part-time, even after that! But I never did go back full time. It was a long hard struggle.

Gary: Doesn't sound quite the way it is today, that the parents pay the kids all the way through school and then sometimes we still have a hard time.

Bob: That's right. I know I've experienced this, being in school and baking and paying your own way and seeing kids in there that have all kinds of money, and money sent to them, see, and there's a difference. Quite a difference. I remember one time when I was principal at the Belington Junior High. I had a little trouble with a boy, he wasn't attending school very well. This is more less a joke. I called him in the office and was talking with him. Well, he said, "Mr. Thompson, I really don't mind school too bad. It's just the principle of the thing." The "principal" and he were laughing together ---"it's just the principle of the thing." "Oh, I didn't mean it that way!"

Hugh: Bob, do you remember how bowlegged William was? William was just about this high, and Evelyn Daugherty stayed with Mom when he was born, you see. What do you call them? Well, anyway, she stayed with Mom and helped out when he was born. And Evelyn used to laugh, and we had a little dog, her name was "Queen". She was about this high, but she was about that big around, and William would be walking across the floor to talk to Bob. We had a little wagon, Bob was in this wagon. And she said, "Absolutely now, I saw that dog run right between William's legs and he didn't know nothing about it!" They said William was the most bowlegged kid that ever lived. Maybe he was a little heavy, you know, when he started walkin', and his legs bowed out.

Gary: Bob, who had the biggest influence on you? I know a lot of our relatives, I think, were teachers. Going through the family tree, are several of them teachers?

Bob: Well, its a little hard to make a decision, but there were several teachers that had an influence on me and I....actually when I was in about second or third grade I thought I would like to be a teacher because, I'll tell you the reason why, because teachers were making good money at that time, whereas Dad was working on WPA for $35.00 a month, and teachers, some of them were getting, now this was back in the '30's, some of them were getting $125.00 a month, you see. And that sort of influenced me. Teachers not always got paid good, because I have an old book back in 1800's that there were about five different teaching certificates that you could receive and they had different categories. I think the highest one was only $35.00 a month, which that was real good money back in the late 1800's and early 1900's. But I guess I'm not wanting to put out any particular teacher that had the most influence on me. But, there was a lot of them that had an influence on me, and I know that I had some good teachers. Especially in my elementary schools. They were very concerned. I remember my teacher gave us an award when we learned to count to 100. She would give us a pencil. Boy, I worked and worked hard. Finally I made it! I'll never forget that pencil. Great big eraser on top of it. I'd see those pencils on her desk every day and if another student got one I thought, "I'll get mine tomorrow!"

I remember once when it was a very bad day - snowing and blowing. It was Valentine's Day. They weren't going to let me go to school it was so bad. I had not missed a day all year, and I kept on and kept on, and Dad and Mom said I could go if William would go with me. So William decided, he didn't have school that day, that he'd go with me. So we beat it out, and we walked to Point Pleasant. William was the postmaster, we had the valentines in a big box, and he passed the valentines out. That evening when we left the school, Pearl Moore, Pearl Everson at that time, was the teacher, and George and Jess Everson, and William and I walked in front of Pearl to break the road so she could follow us. In time the snow had that pass blown back over. When we got down as far as Uncle Wade's Pearl said, "You boys are going over to the house, and you are going to warm before you start on home, and I'm going to open up something, some green beans." Pearl opened up some green beans, and Pearl said, "You boys are going to get something warm in your bodies before you leave here." So she opened up some green beans and cooked them and we ate some warm food. Then we started, and we got to the top of the hill there above where Pete Collier lives now, and we were three times, at the top of the hill the wind was blowing so bad it would take our breath, and we would have to run back down in, duck behind the bank again. The third time we said, "We're going over this time!" and we did! And then that same evening, where June and Hugh had spent the same day with Roma Thompson, they had taken Roma to the doctor. They couldn't get in. They had to leave the car set in there some place, and they were afraid the battery would freeze up on it so Hugh put the battery in an old feed sack and carried it home! But, Pearl Moore had a lot of influence on me when it came to teaching.....and Delma had a lot of influence on me, because she was a teacher, too, see, and she influenced me a lot of times.

Gary: Have any students that you considered kind of high points, that you felt like you influenced? I know you influenced a lot of them.

Bob: Oh yes! I do!

Gary: You influenced me, you taught me how to hit a ball. I got educated, too, but I remember that especially!

Bob: I've had some that's failed and I've had some that gone on to places.....the thing of it is......some have been convicts, of course, I guess that's society.........I was very strict, but I was fair. I was firm and I've had kids that I've put the paddle on, meet them up there on the street and they'll come up and shake hands with me and say "Boy, I'm kinda glad you did that to me! You did me some good!" I didn't do it for mistreatment, I did to try to correct them instead of trying to be an old meanie...............I've had several of them that now I'm going to for advice! Jim Fridley, remember him? He was at Valley Dell. Well, now he's principal at Kasson. And when he was teaching, he taught under me when I was principal at Belington, there was something I was working on concerning Math and I went to Jim because Jim was a Mathematician. He studied Math, and I went to Jim on advice on how to work the problem, after I had taught him down there at Valley Dell how to multiply and subtract! But later I had to go back to him on advice on working out a problem which was more complicated, things of this nature. And as I say, I went to school under Miss Pearl Everson, Mrs. Pearl Moore now, as a 7th and 8th grade student. Later I became her principal, she taught under me at the Belington Junior High. So this is how things worked out. But, it was a hard row. If I had it to do over, I guess I would do it again.

Hugh: I remember when you lived in Ohio and taught school out there.

Bob: Kenneth McDaniel, John Michael, Carolyn Michael, and Delma.... they were at the same school I was in Randolph, Ohio, fifteen miles East of Akron, Ohio.

Hugh: I don't think you would remember when we were in school at Union and I got in trouble with Eddie Daugherty. Now, the 4th grade, they were still in the little room? Well, anyway, Fax Murphy, I'll never forget him, he was up at the blackboard doing something and I was setting about four seats behind Eddie Daugherty. Eddie Daugherty didn't have no books. He said, "Hugh, how 'bout giving me your 4th grade geography." Remember 4th grade geography, Bob? I said, "Okay, here it is," and I slid it up the aisle to him. He grabbed it. Fax Murphy turned around and he seen it. He said, "Come here!" I got a whippin' every time I went to school! He went in the cloak room and he brought out a switch about like that, and he give me one, I mean tell you! I didn't cry, and I think that's what made him mad because I didn't cry. He said, "Just wait a minute." He wore that switch out, and he went in the cloak room and got another one, brought it out, and he really gave me one that time. I didn't cry, though!

Bob: I remember at Point Pleasant school, Gertrude, Griffith at that time, Findley now. She was my teacher, I was in 4th grade. Carl Gainer was the principal, he taught the big room. And he like to play softball. He would go to Shockey and Junior and all these places to play softball. When he would do that, he'd send the students he had left over in to Gertrude's room. He'd send some 5th and 6th grade boys to stay with Gertrude, but he chose me out of the 4th grade, took me with him on the ball team. Now, buddy, if you think there weren't hard feelings there, between the boys in his room, when he'd select me, the only one, only one out of the little room that he would come over there and get, and that was me. Mr. Gainer ordered all of us ball caps. The only time we used those ball caps was when we were on a game. So we went to Shockey one day to play a ball game, we had those little caps on. He measured our heads, and you had your own individual caps, but he took care of it. So, we went to Shockey to play a ball game down there and it started raining and those ball caps faded!.........all those different colors!......boy, I'll never forget that! I remember another thing about that year, too. Carl only taught up there one year, but I remember how many ball games we played and how many we lost. We played 11 games and we only lost two!

Gary: Now, what year was that?

Bob: 1936.

Gary: And that year you were still at Point Pleasant.

Bob: And we played Shockey, down on 92. We played Junior. We played Corley. We went to Belington to their graded school, and they had all kinds of kids to select from. See, they would have a whole room full of 8th graders, you know what I mean? And we would beat them! We went across the hill, over to what is Industrial Park now. There was a ball diamond up in there.......there was a big board fence all around that diamond. The high school played their football games over there, too. Hugh, surely you remember that. I know how you remember it, too,.....Philippi was playing Belington a football game one time and you were working at the woolen mill, and Bud Cox was with us, and Connie...Gene Holbert's wife.....Connie Poling, Ruth White, and Bud Cox, and myself and Harold Daugherty.

Hugh: Harold Daugherty, yeah,.....he's dead now.

Bob: And you didn't go to work that night, you had Harold check you in! I remember that very well, Harold said, "You don't want to go to work tonight? Hugh, you don't have to, I'll check you in!"

Hugh: Did I have that '35 Ford?

Bob: You had that '37 Ford, I believe.

Hugh: Oh, okay.

Bob: I believe that's the one you had. I remember going over to that football game.

Hugh: William was going to come up. I loaned him the 1937 Ford and he wrecked it! He flipped it on its top. Milford Holbert was with him. Also, they had just picked up Bussie Lantz. He was hitch-hiking. William came in and said, "I wrecked your car." I said, "Is it hurt?" He said, "Oh, not too much." I went up there and I couldn't get it out! I had to take a bumper jack and jack the top up so I could get in it and start it up. It turned right over on it's top. I turned it over. Ray Register was the one who helped me turn it over, and he said, "Hugh, you better check the oil". It had been laying on its top for what, a couple hours? I put a couple quarts of oil in it and drove it home.

Bob: You may have gone to work later that night, I don't remember. Harold was still in high school, he was working after school hours, Harold Daugherty was, at the woolen mill.

Hugh: Were you working there?

Bob: I didn't work there. William did.

Hugh: Oh, William did.

Gary: I guess all you Thompson's were pretty famous for ball playing. What do you remember playing ball? I know me and Tommy and Chucky......I got a letter from Tommy not too long ago, and he was telling me some of the things he really remembered was when they'd come in, Grandma would make us a ball out of sock, she'd sew it with thread. We'd bat that thing around out there in that little yard with a broom stick. Now, did you guys start the same way?

Bob: Yes, in deed! That's exactly the way we started.

Hugh: We had to make our own ball.

Bob: I played ball, I expect it was 1st or 2nd grade.

Gary: Now, you played in, basically, almost in what would be the minor leagues around here? Or what kind of leagues did they have?

Bob: The Mountain State League was the last team I played with. Belington, with the Mountain State League. It was classified as semi-pro ball.........the reason I know that is because that year there was a book that came out. It was put out by the National Baseball of Congress, and it had Belington's name in there.......and I'd love to get a hold of that book. I don't know where to see about it. I've asked Whitey Heatherly if he knew anything about Clarence's belonging because Clarence Heatherly, Whitey's dad, was our manager there one year and I'm pretty sure he had one of them. And Roy......Roy Hammon had one.....he was one of the commissioners, and I just wish I knew. Whitey Heatherly said he didn't know anything about any of Clarence's belongings. But, I thought maybe if I might look in the library up in Elkins, or someplace.....oh, there's a way of finding out, but I'm pretty sure it would recognize the league. The National Baseball of Congress classified us as semi, probably class "D" or something like that. It wouldn't have been a Triple A or anything of that nature. When you go into Triple A you go in the big league, don't you?

Gary: Yeah.

Hugh: I remember one time we had a ball game. I didn't practice or nothing. Delbert Wagner bawled me out one night, he said, "You little son of gun, you don't come practice ball, you ain't gonna play!" So I said, "Okay." So, I went down there, I was going with that June Evans, way down there, she lived near the Corley school house. One day, about 1 o'clock on a Sunday I said, "June, how about walking up to Mt. Liberty with us. We're going have a ball game up there." "Well, okay." We went up there, and I was standing behind the backstop, see, and Brooks Griffith came up to bat, and there was three guys on base. You remember that? And Dorsey Bennett over there was pitching. So, Delbert said, "Hold it up, hold it up, I'm going to put a pinch hitter in." He put me in there and the second ball that came over was high, and I loved them high balls! And I hit a home run and won the ball game! You remember that, Bob?

Bob: I don't know whether I was there or not.

Hugh: I knocked it clear over that fence out there.

Bob: When I played with the Mountain State League, one Sunday I pitched Elkins out 11 to nothing. We went to the prison farm up at Huttonsville the next Sunday and played the prisoners. They had a runner on first base, he was a colored fella, they had a colored coach. Just as I was getting ready to make my delivery I heard that coach tell that runner, he says, "Now when that pitcher throws that ball, you steal second." That runner looked around and said, "Man, what do you think I'm in here for!" Come to find out he was in there for stealing!

Gary: He wasn't going to do it again, huh?

Bob: He'd never do it again! I was laughing so hard I had to come to a stop. It's a wonder the umpire hadn't called "ball" on me but he didn't.

Hugh: Oh, boy, those were the good old days, weren't they?......I went up there to Huttonsville one time. I was in a farm training program. That was the first time we had ever seen a potato digger. They'd go along and the potatoes would come up, they had different size holes and the little ones would drop in and the big ones would come up top.

July 9, 1994 - Hugh and Gary Thompson

Gary: I wanted to find out where you were in the Army. You got drafted, or volunteered? I can't remember.

Hugh: I got drafted.

Gary: So where did they send you first?

Hugh: They sent me to Fort Hayes, Ohio. I went from Fort Hayes, Ohio to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma.

Gary: Okay, and from Camp Gruber......... well, which one was basic training?

Hugh: Basic training was in Camp Gruber, Oklahoma. There's where I had to learn to march. Then, we went from there. I was there about....I only had about six months training. We went from there to Camp Polk, Louisiana. We went through.....underneath machine gun fire and all like that. This one guy said, "Hey, I don't think them are real bullets." So, he stuck his steel helmet up. He took his steel helmet off, they called him "Alligator". You crawled under that, didn't you?

Gary: Yep.

Hugh: So, binnnnnnng....he said, "That's live ammo!" So then, they told us, our Colonel, Colonel Hawkins, "Now save all your money. You might see the bright lights." Well, he knew for a fact that we were going to New York to get on a boat. We didn't know it for sure. We went up pretty close to New York. He said, "Don't pitch no puppy tents, because we're headed overseas. I promised you to see the bright lights. Can you see them?" Yeah, we could see them from a long distance. But, we thought we were going to get to go to New York and see the bright lights before we would get on the boat. So, he said, "No use to pitch the puppy tents, sit on your barracks bags". Well, I had a barracks bag and a sea bag packed, and we went from there over to New York, went up the gangplank to get on a boat. They said, "Don't give your first name or anything. If they call your first name, just say Thompson. If they say Harold, say Thompson." "Okay." We sat on our barracks bag all night that night before we moved out on that ship. Then we needed a canteen of water. You couldn't go from here to that tractor. That boat, the MONTEREY....by the way, that guy that was over there yesterday, he was on the MONTEREY once. So we got on there and we would line up to go get a canteen full of water. Then we'd line up and we would get up on the top deck. I was on the bottom deck to start with. It took three days to get up on top. And we had it, when we pulled out of New York harbor, it took us 45 minutes, pretty close to an hour, for everyone to get on the top deck to jump overboard in case we had to. Do you know how much we done that? We trained on the way out of the New York harbor. In about three days, we could do it all. We could take everyone off that ship in 15 minutes. First we started lining up in columns of two, going up the steps, then we done it with three, then with four, and everyone knew just exactly what to do and at what time. You heard a little whistle. We got that down so pat everyone could have got off that boat in 15 minutes. Seven thousand people. It was built for 600. There was 7,000 soldiers on it, mind you, not even counting the crew. The boat crew, the guys that fed us and cooked, and the guys that run it.

Gary: What was the name of the boat?

Hugh: The MONTEREY.

Gary: The MONTEREY. And that went from New York to where?

Hugh: We went to Oran, Africa. And we stopped there for about two weeks. I'll never forget this. I was a Corporal, and Sergeant Jones, he was a 1st Sergeant. Well, we got liberty to go Casablanca. And the 1st Sergeant took a truck, and took us all down there. He got drunk and wrecked the truck. Well, they fired him...

Gary: Broke him?

Hugh: Broke him. Then Mike Sasseski, or something like that, he was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he took over. He was a great big guy. He used to be a wrestler. He said, "Now, let me tell you something. This wrestling is not real. One time I was supposed to win, and in the next town I was supposed to lose. I forgot and I won, and that messed the whole thing up!" Boy, he weighed about 250, all muscle. I'll never forget that guy. And he took over as our 1st Sergeant. And Sergeant Jones, he's the one that got busted, he was the 1st Sergeant to start with, he got busted on account of wreckin' that truck going into Casablanca. So one day we were out there and here comes the shells in, and the bombs. Old Sergeant Jones, the last thing I seen of him, he dived under this haystack. Well, a big piece of shrapnel about that big around hit him right in the rear. "Oh, my god! I'm dead! I'm dead!" Well, I jumped right in behind him, and I said, "Hey, take it easy, take it easy." I said, "You know, when you used to be 1st Sergeant, you used to give me a hard time." He said, "Yeah, I did, didn't I?" I said, "Now, I'm a Corporal and you're a Private. Now I'm going to give you a hard time!" "No, don't do it!" I said, "Oh, okay!" We had a little fun.................Sometimes I think about it, and sometimes I'd like to forget it. But we had fun along the way.

Gary: So you stopped in Oran, Africa for two weeks, then where did you go from there?

Hugh: We went from Oran to Naples harbor. Algiers, is it in Naples? No, we went to Algiers first.

Gary: You went to Algiers first, is that still in Africa?

Hugh: Now, I forget! Anyway, I think we went from Casablanca, or North Africa, Oran. You know what, we I got off the boat in Oran, we would throw cigarettes over to all these kids waiting for them. And that was the dirtiest harbor that you ever seen in your life. You could see rass-a-foo floating around on the water. Those kids would dive in there, and we'd light a cigarette and throw it over in the water and they'd get it, and buddy, they'd smoke it. So, old Jones, he'd say, "Let's take a little of this powder." We had powder. We'd take the cigarette and dob two or three little pieces of grains of powder back in there, lit it and threw it over. A guy would pick it up, "Oh, boy!" He started smoking and that son of bitch blew up! Oh man, it scared the heck out him! You can imagine. We left there and we went to, by heck, I don't know, Algiers? No, I believe we went to Naples harbor. Anyway, they had just took Naples, United States did. 88th Infantry and 34th Infantry..... and they bombed when we were there. Well, we had just got off the boat and was walking around what you call the college place. Big college. Well, we slept on the ground, and we seen these all these lights and stuff, flares and bombs. And they just bombed that.....well anyway, we started running and our Colonel said, "Hit the ground! Hit the ground!" Well, if you lay down, and something comes in, it explodes and goes up like that, 250 yards. So we hit the ground and I told Jones, "Hey, just like the 4th of July!" Bout that time one came in pretty close to us! "No, this ain't the 4th of July!" Boy, I hugged the ground that night. But, we had activity all night.

Gary: That was in Naples?

Hugh: Uh-huh, Naples. So we looked around and we seen these bombers coming. The Germans were bombing Naples and they bombed that......what's that big ....Pompeii, you know where Pompeii was, and all that? Mt. Vesuvius had lava coming down. They were trying to hit that. They figured lava would flow down on us and that would put us out of commission, but they missed us. We looked around and here's a couple of bombs hit the back of our ship, the one we just got off of. It just took the whole back end off. Now that was a big one. We went from New York to Africa on the MONTEREY, but then we got on another boat someway or another. It was a little old boat. But they hit it, right after we got off of it.

Gary: What company were you in? Were you in the same company or same division the whole time? The same one you went through basic training and all that with? What was the company?

Hugh: 985th Artillery. And Taylor Carter down here, he was in 173rd, and there was a Croston down here, and we were always kind of pretty close together. I'd see them.

Gary: That was the division? How many men is in a division?

Hugh: About 8,000.

Gary: So were you in a certain company then, too?

Hugh: Yeah, I was in 985th Field Artillery.

Gary: 985th Field Artillery. How many men were in that, the 985th.

Hugh: Well, let's see. We had A Battery, B Battery, C Battery, F Battery .........I don't know, we had about five Batteries.

Gary: Which Battery were you in?

Hugh: Service Battery.

Gary: You were in the Service Battery?

Hugh: I had to fix the guns when they would quit firing, and this and that. But I was on the road all the time. Them Germans had me zeroed in. They could tell when I left, those zero men. I had shrapnel go through my gas tank on the GMC truck. You had five gallons of gas on this side, and 128 holes in my truck one time.

Gary: What kind of truck did you drive?

Hugh: GMC. Six by six.

Gary: So, now you fixed the guns......you kept the guns firing. When the guns would break you would....

Hugh: I'd have to fix 'em.

Gary: But then you drove truck when you were moving?

Hugh: Well, when I'd go from one Battery to the other, to fix this gun here, and then maybe have to go up here and fix one. So, I was up at B Battery one time fixing one, and I was laying under this truck and a big 210 came in.....is that right? A German shell. It lit within 30 feet of me. I'll telling you, that thing picked me up off the ground. It was a good thing I was under this truck. It picked me up off the ground and struck me two or three times up against the frame.......and I looked over here, and I'll never forget his name, Captain Long. He said, "Tommy, are you hurt?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, I am." I looked around and he had his left arm blew off.............................................There was another time when it was the American planes shooting at us.

Gary: They were bombing their own guys and didn't know it?

Hugh: They shot holes all over my truck. The machine gun I had, you know on the truck, the machine gun goes round and round, it was on the turret of my truck. The machine gunner, his name was Kelly...... we had a hell of time finding him. He jumped off there and I said, "What good is that machine gun doing?" He was down underneath the truck! Old Colonel Hawkins, he'd went ahead. "Tommy, what happened?" I said, "I don't know." My windshield was shot out and everything. Th