Paula McCathren

Paula McCathren

Age: 56

Occupation: Homemaker

Hometown: Union Ridge

Interviewer: Paula McCathren

I’m Paula McCathren. I’m married to Charles McCathren, and we have four children. All adults, and we have five grandchildren now

I was born in Williamson, West Virginia 1942, and um. I lived in West Virginia until I was about five years old and we moved to Vinton County, Ohio

My mother was a homemaker. My dad had several jobs, but mainly he, uh, had a sawmill and he cut timber. Later on in life he was a construction worker, but like my mother - being a homemaker - that also meant the gardening. We had, we lived on a farm. We grew all of our vegetables. We had our own meat supply. We had our eggs and everything, so the whole family had to pitch in, and do daily chores. We didn’t excuse me, we didn’t have like the time to be bored or anything. When we got home from school we had certain chores that we had to jump right into, for instance, having supper on the table when my dad got home from work. We had, well my job was going and feeding the chickens, the pigs, milking the cows, that kind of thing. We butchered our own meat for the winter, we canned our own vegetables, we were just really self-supportive.

Well being born in 1942. I guess I was too young to remember the hard times that people had. You know, where they everything was so hard to get money, supplies, people really had to depend on the land. They had to depend on their belief in God. A lot of people tell me how they prayed for food, and I really believe that it was a horrible time. But I know I was here through the Korean War, Vietnam War, and all the conflicts that have gone on since.

Yes, especially the Vietnam because at one time my husband had three brothers over there at one time. Naturally we were all extremely worried about their safety. If they would return and finally realizing that there was three brothers there. They allowed two of them to be transferred back to Germany and France - different countries - but one volunteered twice for two stints in Vietnam so the brothers would be able to come home.

Oh yes, I mean there’s been so many, hurricanes, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, everything you know just right here in our country alone that have taken thousands of lives.

Here, I would say flooding is one of the worst and some of the blizzards that we’ve had. I know back in the '70s we had a horrible blizzard and I didn’t realize to what extent it was. I thought that living on a hill here that it was just the wind blowing until I got down lower and then I couldn’t see anything anywhere. I was trying to go to work, so the next half hour was busy trying to find my way back home and get home safe.

Well it started during the night and I was a nurse at the Athens Mental Health Center. And I had to be at work at six-thirty in the morning. I knew then that it was horrible because I was always at work at least half an hour before work time.

Oh definitely uh, for instance we had fireplaces. We had wood and coal burning heat sources. I would come home and help my mother prepare supper. I would then do the dishes and then, like I said, I would go down and take care of all the animals, do the milking, come home strain the milk and wash-up all the utensils and everything. And at that time we did all our own churning. But to have buttermilk and fresh butter - and after the milk had clabbered, as they called it - set for a couple of days, and when it got to a certain consistency, then you would churn the milk and you would have your butter. And I would carry in the wood and coal for my mother for the next day. Before I went to school in the mornings as well as evenings. I mean there was never the time to be bored as children are today, because we had too much to fill our time with work and chores to be bored. We were really glad to hit the bed and might I add that in those days in summer times we didn’t have air conditioner. We were very lucky to have an electric fan. We lift our windows and doors open. All that was there was the screens. They were not locked, I mean we just knew everybody around. We helped each other, it was just a non-heard of thing to lock the doors.

Well I know television had been around for years before we ever had one. But I was always a lover of music especially gospel music. I can remember when I was three or four years old. I would listen to a radio. I would bribe my mother into letting me listen to gospel music in the afternoon from 1: 00 to 1: 30 and I would do chores all through the day to have that one privilege. That was my time.

Yeah and I still have it. It was Elvis Presley’s Christmas music. And it was one of the big 78s I guess. I’m not sure but anyway that was my favorite of all times.

Well, my hobbies at home. I did a lot of horseback riding if I was able to. I like to work with my hands. I would you know. I was like sewing. I would help my mother sew our clothes for school. Back then, you know, we didn’t really go school shopping or whatever. There was four of us girls, and my mother made our dresses. You know even our little pretty coats underneath. A new baby came along - all those clothes were handmade.

Well I, until I was disabled my hobbies were gardening, working in the yard, flowers and so forth. And in 1993, after I was injured at my job and no longer able to work, I picked up a hobby of walking through farmer’s plowed fields with their permission looking for Indian artifacts. And I was very, very surprised that you could actually walk just through a field and find a perfect point or tool. You know there's multi - purposed tool all kinds of artifacts.

Well, I really wouldn’t know where to start because there’s so much information you know of the area in which we live. The cultures, they have been handed down. For instance, the church that my grandfather's great grandparents belonged to is a branch of what I call hard - shell Baptist. And it’s very different than you know most beliefs we see around today. And to me that is a fantastic culture. I see that all my children and grandchildren should go too.