Grace Hensler

Grace Hensler

Age: 94

Occupation: Homemaker

Hometown: Wilkesville

Interviewer: Holly Pridemore

Grace: My dad was a minister and my mother was a homemaker. My dad also farmed. They also had coal mines and saw mills.

Grace: I was born in a log house just about where this house is setting know. I lived here till I was about four and a half, maybe five, then my dad built this house and I’ve lived here ever since.

Grace: I went to Mound Hill School. The name was taken because there was an Indian Mound that set right across from the school. I walked to school every day it was about a mile and a half. There were other kids that I walked to school with - I didn’t walk by myself. There were close neighbors and we just walked together. We walked over the ridge and through the woods to school. We didn’t go over the road; we went through the woods cause it was closer.

Grace: It was a one-room school with a heated pot belly stove. The teacher and the children had to keep it going through the day and at night. We had a lady janitor who cleaned the school house. There were two rows of seats on each side of the pot belly stove. The seats were double because there wasn’t enough room for each student to have their own seats - so they had to set together in the same seat. The teacher’s desk was up front and there was a blackboard behind the teacher’s desk. We had to take our lunches. There were not hot lunches and there were no buses. We played games and all our other activities were outside. We played baseball, and sleigh rode in the winter time on the top of the hill.

Grace: I can remember when we got radio it was a battery powered because there was no electric.

Grace: Yes, not all families had people in the Army but a lot of boys were taken out of the home and were killed. That was a very bad time in other ways cause wages had always been low. When war came the wages went up and anybody could get a job and could work. There was scarcity being there were people in the service. It was hard to get people to help with farming or anything.

Grace: Yes, we got the flu - most everybody did. It was different from the flu in now. How I got it, I remember my dad, mother, and I went to visit my sister and her husband. We went over the weekend and while we were there they took the flu and my dad and I came home and my mother stayed there and took care of them. And I got sick real sick and you couldn’t get a doctor because there were so many people sick. The doctor just couldn’t handle it. We tried to get doctors from Athens and everywhere and they just wouldn’t come. Then finally the state sent in doctors - some to Wilkesville, some to McArthur, and lots of places. They had extra doctors come, but this flu wasn’t just in a small territory. It wasn’t just in a county or state. It was all over the world. I think it started in Spain or overseas. When it first started to spread, I don’t believe the doctors came. We had to furnish our own bottle to get medicine in and they took care of us. They wouldn’t allow us anything to eat. The doctor came after so long of a time he told my dad to get the windows up and open the doors. It was in November and after he left - why it was a raining and the wind was blowing - and the bedroom I was in, my dad said, "I don’t think this is any way to take care of sick people," and he let the windows down. I got better. We didn’t have deaths in our immediate family but there wasn’t many families that did. My dad was a minister and he was called to a few words but he didn’t go because we were sick.

Interviewer: Do you remember any natural disasters or anything that happened in Vinton County or Wilkesville?

Grace: Yes. They had some. There was a mine. The cave-ins killed more than anything else. They didn’t do it like they do now with the long wall and all this. There was a fire in Wilkesville. Millie and my son - one of my sons - was out there to a football or basketball game. There was two stores that burnt down and a filling station. That’s not been too many awful many years ago.

Interviewer: Is there anything else that you want to tell us that we haven’t talked about?

Grace: I could tell you about the church. We didn’t have to walk to church but we did most of the time. We thought it was less trouble to walk to church than to get the horses and hitch up the team and then take care of them after we came back. So we just walked to church. We went up to the same church that we go to now. It was quite different than it is now. It had two rows of seats on each side and was heated by a pot bellied stove too. The women sat on one side of the aisle and the men on the other side, unless they were engaged to be married - the boy could set with the girl. We done a lot of remodeling since then: new windows, new siding, new carpet, and new seats. Quite a lot of things. It’s nice now. We had a board floor and my dad - when there was a floor in the church. Our church started out with a log church. And then they built this other church. And they started out, they needed lumber for flooring. And my dad walked to Dyesville, about 8 miles. I expect close to it - seven or eight ,and the train was late. He was going to ride the train to Athens to buy the lumber. He walked to Dyesville and to Athens and when he got there, he got the lumber. Then he rode the train back to Dyesville and walked home. There was no car to take you all them places.

Grace When we - there was a school. We had games. When we grew up, we had play parties, square dances. I never went to square dances. We went to play parties. One of our entertainments was at school we had box parties, box dinners, and a pie supper. The girls would all take pies or a box supper. They had a girl or boyfriend bid. That’s how we got the money. There would be a lunch or a pie in the box. That was fun times. We went on hikes and picnics and all that kind of stuff. We made a lot of entertainment. We played ball. We came home from church and a lot of kids came home with us and we had games in the afternoon. Baseball was one that we played together.

Grace: Oh, yes my, let me see, I had a nephew killed and a lot of neighbor boys and kids. Went to school with a few of them was killed in WWI. My nephew was killed in WWI.

Grace: Oh yes, quite a bit. In ways affected a lot of people cause at that time my husband had work. We had our own garden, and truck patches. We had meat and milk and butter. We didn’t like things like that. The things were more rationed in the war than in the depression. It was hard for people, so many people, to get work. If you didn’t have work.

Grace: Oh my, it was a busy time. I liked it. I liked being a mom. That was my choice to be a mom, then after I got grandchildren it was exciting. More so all the time. More activities for them come up. They had more interests and I got interested. I’ve got 10 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren. There is a bunch.

Grace: I just don’t know what you’re interested in. We had orchards. We had 5 acres in orchards. My husband died when he was 55 years old with a heart attack. I’ve lived here. This is my home place, but I’ve never lived here alone. I’ve had Millie, Edward here with me. My children live pretty close. My grandchildren and great grandchildren, have an awful lot of company. I appreciate it. I’ve always been interested in birds. My hobbies were birds, flowers, rocks. I collected rocks. I’ve got lots of rocks from different countries. I’ve got rocks from all the states. Some of them I picked up were just rocks.

Grace: He mined when we were married. Then when the mine wasn't working so good, he farmed. We had a sawmill. He worked for the state for eight years, just done things like that, common laborer.

Grace: I can’t think of anything right now. Oh, we fished. We lived close to Raccoon Creek. It used to have a lot of fish in it. It was a real stream and we didn’t have any refrigeration. We couldn’t keep the fish very long so we had to eat them. We went fishing an awful lot. My dad told my mom to get supper early then we’d go fishing. We wouldn’t be there long 'til we had a whole mess of them. That’s how we got our fish. Then we raised our own meat, chickens, cattle and hogs. We mostly depended on pork the most.

Grace: We canned a lot. We canned lots of things from the garden: fruit, apples and all kinds of things. We had a cellar full of things. We didn’t have a freezer now, but we had all kinds of canned goodies.

Grace: Well now I never got in trouble at home or anyplace. I didn’t get into any more trouble than anybody else. I did get a whippin' one time when me and my mom and my sister went for a walk. I had a little dog I thought a lot of him. We was going down the road and my mom told him to go back, and he kept coming and my mom picked up a stick and tapped him a few times. He started to go back and I picked up a rock and threw it at my mom. I got the rest of the stick, but not too much. We wasn’t a family that beat each other. We could argue. We could have arguments. We didn’t get in too deep of trouble. We wasn’t allowed to do that. I don’t remember my dad whipping any of the children. I don’t think she ever did. My mom didn’t but she had a way of disciplining us that we just didn’t hardly realize what was going on. One thing about my parents, they didn’t according to now. My dad, he was a very smart man. He never quit trying to learn. He was 93 years old when he died. We always had books - lot and lots of books. When we would go out to work, I’d hoe corn and he always had something to talk about. We would find a pretty rock, a snail shell, or an interesting tree. He would tell me all about what it was and what it was used for. My mom done all those things. We’d pick wild greens that’s how I learned about plants. I can identify lots of plants. My girlfriend and I used to pick flowers before and after school. Then, when we were done, we’d come home. We had play houses. We just did things that kids today don’t do because they have too much entertainment. They like to watch t.v. and all that good stuff.

Grace : I Can’t think of anything in particular . . . Politics went on like they do now. It wasn’t as bad. My dad was on the school board for 21 years. Millie taught school and my grandfather was a school teacher. We never had any calamities or anything like that. We always was a close family. I’m the only one of my immediate family living.

Grace: I can’t hardly think of anything else. When you are gone, I’ll probably be able to think of lots of things.

Interviewer: We thank you for letting us interview you we had a wonderful time. We learned a lot