Christmas in Appalachia: Whitesburg, Letcher County, Kentucky - 1965

[Music] this is the road if you can call it that that leads to the PERT Creek school in Letcher County Kentucky there are tens of thousands of roads like this winding back along the creeks and hollows of 11 states and beside these roads the shacks of tarpaper and pine which are the homes of a million permanently poor that cabin down there belongs to Letcher West Gorge and Janie and Maggie West used this road to get to school at this time of year they never get there with dry feet down there is where Johnny Sandlin and his wife and 11 children try to stay warm all winter he digs coal out of a little mind and they burn up most of the coal he deeds let's call parrots place he too is a hard-working man he has to be but there's the bakers they've been divorced for eight years but he's too poor to leave and she's too kind to make him so he lives in that little house in the back and she cooks him his meals three times a day and beyond the bakers up on the hill is the pert Creek School and up there on this one day is the only sign anywhere in this hollow that it is Christmas in Appalachia this is in Appalachia CBS News special report with the Charles Kuralt [Music] everything [Music] this is the only Christmas Carol many of Virgie Sumpter's pupils will hear this year the one they sing themselves in their one-room schoolhouse on the day of the Christmas program it falls the job of one of the older boys to keep coal on the stove at the perk Creek school just as it is the older girls who fetch the drinking water from the spring mrs. Sumpter is busy enough teaching seven grades in this one room and trying to keep the schoolhouse clean she also cooks the hot lunch at noontime the food comes from the government some of the children can afford the 20 cents a day they're supposed to pay for lunch and charities in the region pay for the others but the charities themselves are so poor that they often raise money for the hot lunches by selling bootleg liquor and so by one means for another Janet Baker who lives in that cabin just below the school and the others in the room get this one hot meal a day even if food is short at home the miracle is that Christmas reaches pert Creek at all without songs and without Christmas trees and without gifts tied by ribbons Janet Baker's mother still preserves from habit or from memory a part of what Christmas used to be that is Janet's good fortune and that is a measure of the strength of Olli Baker we have our family home together and we all we have been a close family and we miss each other for there away and we look forward to incoming show me the Bible pictures what what are they [Music] mommy no asteroid belt Mary and Joseph right on there the height basket each atlandis you know she hated a part day for the baby Jesus lay on here well it's in my book moroni enormous Aristotle in cake will all that you put your books in there theme on them take me there lay him on the base I suppose Janet's looking forward to Christmases is she serious well when you were a young girl and living on this Creek mrs. Baker what was Christmas like back then well my father Ray hogs and chickens too on the arm and he had his cows so he would take a big ham they cook it and have it Dorothy through Christmas we'd have accompany her the children would come in sometimes our anything uncle to come take Christmas with so he would have this ham meat and in baked cakes sometimes a lot of gingerbread for the children be coming in to eat two of em to eat own they would be underfoot they can always get dinner on the time that's where you another family I always read the story to the children you know a baby Jesus born in the manger and the best part I think it means to me if I'm thankful if my children are all well and can be in good health and Christmas and then I'm thankful to the Lord for what we have even if we don't have some motion thankful what we do have what the Baker's have is a son Freddie who is 20 and who must take daily injections of insulin in order to stay alive but the Baker's have is a mule a small one bread two whole coal cars out of mines there are now far more mules in this hollow than there are mines to work in so Freddie uses the mule to drag timber off the hillsides what the Baker's have is their sad way of living divorced separated by law and held together by necessity Bob Baker couldn't eat if Ally Baker didn't feed him and so she does and what they eat what Janet and Freddie eat and what the mule eats the scraps of comes from a government warehouse there's nothing unusual about that not here in Eastern Kentucky where nearly half a million people this month heard the ingredients of their Christmas dinner called out to them on the surplus food line one buck apiece to pound the butter to pandiraj of stein full pound of beans to bag meal and one bag of flour 2 pound of lard 2 cans eggs 2 cans of beef and one roll we plan after this food comes from the United States of America which has too much of it it goes in old feed bags back into the hollows of the Cumberlands where there is never enough it keeps people alive that is all you can't make Christmas cookies out of government commodities next month you can make biscuits to grow cold and hard on the stove ask Elsie Hall what he liked best about going to school last year and he will answer you lunch this year he doesn't have enough clothes to go to school LZ is one of six children their mother says she has enough to think about today without thinking about Christmas Norman who is nine does think about Christmas but living here with his grandmother in a house he did only by the generosity of a neighbor Norman knows not to speak of Christmas an older boy was killed one night by a shotgun blast his grave is just behind the house with that of an infant sister and just across the road is the place where Lewis Hall the father worked now between the graveyard and the dead mine in the one room of his Shack Lewis hall waits out the winter you said here mr. Hall and see your children all that one of them unable to go to school what kind of feelings do you have about that house your life they all were to be a school but I feel sorry for the kids that did not alert a Sangha to learn at no education but they definitely like to do about it over just move as a kid that's smoke I think it's better to be at school that would be just down the road here would they like to go to school yeah I think lucky is likes to go to school is this the so the gate is you know arrested basket of to go in the condition that there is I think they had clothes it had the way like the other kids that they would learn good but they still had bars to go in front of other kids in the conditions are in so then we learned it just be no costs it'll the way I'd see it Lewis halls house is a dark and silent place it is commonly said in these mountains that when hard times come love goes out the window and the Christmas spirit of course cannot change those it does not reach that is not to say that the spirit of Christmas reaches nobody in Eastern Kentucky Hyrum Mitchell does love his neighbors and it seems to him that some months he gives them more than he sells them what you need in lady coop Nathan our little then what night when I we thank you I'm a complete I don't think I've seen you sell anything that's worth more than a dime or 23 any paradigm are never getting a quarter bracket secret a once in a while things you'll be able to stir business well I don't have stay and like get out or a man that should got a any kind of a hard him at all he can't sell something to eat and people are starving and then we're coming in back new bird every day and don't have enough to eat that's the mouth um another he's going and when they can look paint pee why that hurt Rafael like me within their little family to come back entry I ain't had by four to three days capture them how from me I didn't I can't do like something big marking you say no we don't be no credit here well what about your own family uh mr. Mitchell where where of your children scattered me well my toons scattered around and got six bills up and you they go Indianapolis yes and what else is how the radish goes wound how many kill now I'm injured shoot how many you miss them Mercy's none now we thinking come back tears I have six lives up in the Porte Indiana now one wheels in Detroit Michigan one wheels in your Illinois one lives in Middletown Ohio all that you leave here don't work mr. Mitchel hollow if you run the store when I open this to about 52 all this business land well business is pretty fair what's made the difference automation may be different at that time I we had a lot of little coal mines on here holding down all them down these hollers with little coal mine these all operated by hands and the machine the biggest machine had enemas a pony to hold out you know my nickel and haul it out you don't dump it over then me and they took a breast over you know they got in their name drilled out this cold you don't shot it tamp it by hand and everything so now that's all gone the opponents all gone modern machineries went in took out from these little mines out and they no more they can work no more these handy and they think the price of caused us to roll that taking - school for what these machine people can do so all mine that's running now they have George they have loading machines and they have electric drills they have it's all automated imagine kneeling or lying down in 3 or 4 inches of water in a black hole in a mountain and swinging a pic 10 hours a day to mind 2 tons of coal and then shoveling it into a wheelbarrow and wheeling it all out and collecting $6 for your work and you will know what it is like to be a truck miner but I be Johnson has not been able to find even that kind of steady job for 11 months dismissed by his employer deserted by his Union unneeded by his community ignored by his country except for $56 a month in food stamps IV Johnson mines only enough coal now to keep his own family warm and nobody pays him for that when he was 21 eight years ago he tried to get out of these hills he went to Florida he went to Georgia and in the end he came back to the hollow where he was born penniless and jobless and married Lucille thinking things might be better that way he's glad he did but things are no better now like so many I be Johnson is waiting for an opening in one of the scattered Job Corps camps or vocational schools the government is talking so much about he applied last June and he's growing desperate because there is Rita who Lucille named for Rita Hayworth and Mickey who might be named for Mickey Mantle and Norman and jemmye and by New Year's Day there will be another baby in the hospital bills to pay and Ivy Johnson's abiding fear is that his children's lives will turn out like his how many children were there in your family it was 15 his 10 boys and five girls now there's 10 living out all and how much education did your brothers and sisters get well I went through the fourth grade and I think that's the high season one and with the rest I'm stopped long a speck of the third do you hope for more for your children I certainly do that's the reason I'm trying I know for go on day but they just working down the enemy struck nine well they gonna grow up not get education that's one reason I'm so interested in this vocational thing playing at night and get a skill and get on the get a good job well then I'll know they going to get a good education and if they get a good education I better they do a lot better than we did because they would be able to get a child what would you do on Christmas Day well I probably just sit around the house with the kids make them as happy as possible but that might not be too happy for a Christmas thing they have problem well I don't want to swat to e but it mostly be hard food because on 56 dollars worth of food stamps you got to each no after Christmas same as before got always remember will read I have a Christmas at school now she was telling me yesterday that they would was gone to draw names but when they come to find out about ten of the kids in her classroom which is about thirty wouldn't even have money to buy prayer so they're not even don't draw my not gonna exchange no presents Mickey's old enough to be expecting at Christmas I guess isn't well he keeps asking me asleep am I going to get a wagon also yes if that he gets to work your getaway he began to understand now the time runs out I'm gonna get to work and I'm getting more I be Johnson and his brothers growing up on the Beaver Creek remember the good times which came before the bed once the mining camp they live in was the trading center for this whole valley now the business section of weeks Perry Kentucky is abandoned Ivy's brother Calvin Johnson calls it a ghost town with only the people still in it what was this old building here mr. Johnson well it was a theater we take around Christmas times why people would confirm Europe we'd have dainties boxing music all kinds of big times in it really was nice and it would really be full and we had somewhere to go and people had someone come to you see at them times we had plenty here and what about this building up here what was that well after that her soda fountain we had went in there we had all kinds soft drinks stayed full at all time stayed open sometimes 12 o'clock the night they in life just about service and its really beautiful around Christmas it would be decorated up when was all deck raised up Chris tree and lights and really beautiful and I guess this was the store here yeah this was store up here they had plenty in here and people really toned backwards and forward shopping and presents and so forth he'd get about anything wanted dirt think about anything you want and now there's not anything Calvin Johnson lives on the Kaleb Fork of Beaver Creek just down the hill from his brother he is nearly blind from his 14 years in the mines and lucky to be in a way for it increases his Social Security benefits and puts food on his table Goldie Johnson cooks for seven her three children her daughter's husband and her granddaughter of two and a half besides herself and Calvin Johnson in the yard there are the dead outlines of a flower garden Goldie Johnson tried to keep one forgotten spring and then gave up on she has worked hard every day of her marriage and there is nothing conceivable that can stop her work as long as she lives and she knows now it will have to be a life without flowers she is a strong woman surrounded by exhausted men and living in an exhausted land when Goldie Johnson speaks of Christmas it is as if she lived in a country far removed from ours of course she does well open till 60 or 53 Christmas was the day that children look forward to and today Christmas this will be just like today for this Christmas many of the meanest hollering that other partner and your number one and where Christmas won't be in warms de casa there they've got nothing to look for they've got no way getting it their daddies another Scott no way getting it and since then they have been teach that they can have these things they been disappointed so many times it just be a dark night until nice night for and won't be much fun to look forward to but yes to they had more to look to for they had joy and they felt peace at Christmastime everybody you met was in the Christmas spirit so if I know if I was going on till 9 course - groan I have friend daughter now if I was play out hit you something cost $10 Christmas I couldn't use it I couldn't promise me for that reason us mothers and fathers we just got put problem that's our children possibly know what you need this Christmas still have any religious meaning to people well I don't know they this live from day to day and hopes but Christmas some homes will have a a dinner and the table will be blessed in someone but they go to church and they pray it's already pay every day if it not be knocking they hardly ever not that you can't go to church someplace rather here it's going to have to get better because it can't get no worse if it don't get get better they just tangled a mess in here for Noah and it's not only this place there plenty more lock and children I hope and wish that children could have what they used to have and if not all they stay apart English hope little children when it comes to children I'd always be Fanta doughnut disappointment and sound falls but children I don't think they should suffer the way that they do in the world of Plenty and ethnic goldie Johnson's granddaughter Paula two-and-a-half-hour fall back looking through a Christmas catalogue the coal cars roll on through Christmas week carrying the wealth of Appalachia away the trains carry coal never people [Applause] the people wait most of them just off the right-of-way back off the road and farther back in Mahalo a million people wait [Music] [Music] newest Falls family weights and norman whole does not dare ask which day is Christmas IRA Mitchell waits he's decided not to bother with decoration for the store this year I be Johnson waits hoping to make the children as happy as he can but that as he says might not be too happy for a Christmas Day and up on the hill at the head of perk Creek Allie Baker leads to her daughter from a book of ancient stories little Bethlehem is full of people there were no room for Mary and Joseph in the end so they slept that night any stable and they're in the quite dark while the friendly animals were sleeping and the golden stars shone in the sky God sent his son to be Marie's baby Zoe Marie wrapped him in soft clothes then she made a bed of straw and laid her baby in it was very quiet being a shepherd spoke let us go to little Bethlehem he said let us find the child for the Lord has sent a good news of him the other Shepherds naughty step step there they started down the road then faster and faster they won't until they came at last to a little bit man and there they found Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus lying in a manger bed and the Shepherd's knelt down and worshiped him the news how the baby Jesus was too wonderful to keep the Shepherd's told everyone they made about the savior of the world we have seen the baby Jesus the Shepherd said he is lying in a manger bed in the little town of Bethlehem just as the angel of the Lord said the people wondered if this story of the angel and the shining light and his message to them Marie thought about what the Shepherd's told and remembered every word these Shepherds went back to their fields and as they went they praised God for all the things they had heard and seen Marie and Joseph loved the little baby God had seen they named him Jesus just as the Angels had told him to do and that was the first Christmas that one [Applause] from the baby who was born that night grew up to be a man he went into the mountains and the first words he said to his disciples there were blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven it is a promise that will be cherished on the anniversary of his birth in these mountains by these poor it is all they have good night this has been a CBS News special report Christmas in Appalachia where the Charles Kuralt [Applause]