Q: What is your name?

A: My name is Velma Rue

Q: Who were your parents?

A: Halberd and Fern Dylan

Q: Your Grandparents?

A: W.A. Lanier and T.G. Dylan

Q: Were they from this area?

A: Gallia County

Q: What did your parents do for a living?

A: Well, my father had a restaurant and a gas station down where they built the Eureka Dam, then in later years he was in the real estate business here in Meigs County and in Gallia County.

Q: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

A: One sister, who lives in Florida.

Q: So what was it like growing up in Pomeroy, Ohio?

A: I didn’t grow up in Pomeroy, but it was very much like I grew up down in Crown City, the country, and life was very good and very happy. I remember being a very happy child.

Q: Did you live on a farm or in a coal company type of town?

A: No, there was a lot farms around us, but my father wasn’t a farmer.

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: In Crown City in grade school, then finished high school in Gallipolis.

Q: What was it like?

A: I had a wonderful time.

Q: What do you remember most about your school days?

A: Well, I remember high school being a happy time. I was an average student and studied business. I was a cheerleader. I just enjoyed it and I think studies were more difficult than I think they are today.

Q: As a child or a teenager, what did you do for fun?

A: Well, we would go to movies, we would spend time up in the hills looking for nuts and looking at, we had an Indian bridge and an Indian chair. And that’s what a lot of kids would do on Sunday afternoon, they would go up to just piddle around in the country and hills.

Q: Did you have chores that you had to?

A: Yes, some, I to help some around the house. My sister and I had to clean a little bit.

Q: What did you do after high school?

A: I went to business school in Columbus and worked for John Dalbert, who is in the real estate business. I worked in Columbus until I got married.

Q: How was life different then from how it is now?

A: I don’t think we had the crimes, the drugs. And I don’t think young people, well they just lived happily, they weren’t afraid of someone mugging them or taking their money or something bad happening to them. I don’t remember that.

Q: Were people’s values different?

A: I think families were more valuable to people, more time was spent with families. We didn’t have TV and all that stuff, so we had to get along with each other.

Q: What was life like during the Prohibition?

A: Well, I was rather young at that time, I don’t know remember much about Prohibition, I remember when beer came to Ohio, as matter of fact my father sold beer in his restaurant. And he got the first truckload of beer that came to Gallia County.

Q: Do you know anyone who produced their own alcohol?

A: No.

Q: How were the bars in the county affected by the Prohibition?

A: Well, there were more that tended to it from the people that had moon shine and would get illegal alcohol?

Q: How did the Great Depression effect your life?

A: Like I said my father had a restaurant and a grocery store, and I don’t remember that we did without food, but I do remember he had to close the restaurant because so many people would come wanting food and they had no money. So you can’t run a business without any money coming in. So we had to close the restaurant for awhile.

Q: So what kinds of shortages of food were there in your family?

A: No, my family never had much struggle with that. Crown City is a small town and every body helped everybody else. You didn’t know, and I was very young at that time.

Q: What was life like during WWII?

A: Well, that could be very happy and very sad. My husband was drafted, and in about three months he got commissioned as the second lieutenant and about that time we were married and he went overseas on D-Day, June the 6. He was injured in December, and that was very terrifying, wondering how bad he was hit in the head. He lost the sight of his eye, but he kept his eye. So he had a million dollar wound because he got to come right back to the states with an eye injury.

Q: Were there any items rationed for the war?

A: Yes, I remember coffee, gas, hose, sugar, yeah there was a lot of stuff rationed.

Q: What was the woman’s role during the war in the County?

A: Well, women had to take on men’s jobs, and I don’t think some of them ever gave them up. They kept them. I think that mostly women were busy doing everything, taking care of their family without their husband there. I think they were very busy.

Q: What was dating like?

A: I think we had more fun. We’d go to movies and we loved music. That was a big band era. We danced well, and that was the big deal, spending all your time dancing. You were too tired to get into trouble.

Q: Who was your first date?

A: It was some fella that was on the basketball team at Mercerville High School. He took me to a movie. Then I think I was around 14 years old. But my sister dated before, so it was real easy for me to date.

Q: How much did it cost?

A: To go to a movie? Well, at that time, I don’t imagine it cost much over a quarter. In fact I think a boy could probably take you to a movie and out for a sandwich or a soda for about a dollar. Then if you’re lucky, maybe if they lived close to you, they wouldn’t have to spend much on gas, of course I lived ten miles out of town, so it took them a little longer to get me.

Q: What role did education play in your life?

A: I always from the beginning wanted to work in an office. I felt that would be wonderful. So I spent most of my education wanting to learn business courses to type, shorthand, and book keeping, and all that.

Q: Were there a lot of classes that helped you?

A: Yes, the teachers were very good to help, and our classes weren’t large, so you could get specialized attention.

Q: So how was education valued back then?

A: It was very important and teachers were valued. Teachers were almost next to preachers. What they said went. We paid attention to them.

Q: What did you do for entertainment?

A: Well there were love stories. They had a moral to them. It was not violence, murder, bad things happen to people, rape, and all that kind of stuff.

Q: Who was your favorite movie star?

A: Lana Turner was for a woman, and for a man, Humphrey Bogart.

Q : What made those characters appealing to you?

A: Lana Turner was very beautiful, and I loved to watch her actions, like putting on lipstick and I guess Humprey Bogart was a little on the rough side, pretty good looking.

Q: Do you remember the movie "Gone With the Wind"?

A: Oh yeah, I saw that about three times. It was about three hours long. It has played on TV recently.

Q: Do you remember when it first came out?

A: Oh yeah, I remember I was not feeling well, but I got up out of bed to go see the movie again.

Q: Was it a big type of event around here?

A: I don’t think so. It came out around the time my husband was in the service, about seven years and I stayed with him most of the time, we didn’t have children so we traveled and it came out when I was in Kentucky, so I don’t remember any big to do about it. But of course it was publicized on the radio.

Q: Do you remember when the automobile first came out.

A: No, automobiles were pretty prominent when I was growing up. But I did pass my driver’s test when I was about 14. Back then if you could drive and pass the test, you didn’t have to be 16.

Q: Who is the youngest person you saw drive?

A: Not on the highway. I heard a lot of fellows talk about how they would drive in the farm to get equipment. You know things that were manly.

Q: What was the first car you owned?

A: I owned? It was some sort of a Chevrolet. It was after I was married, but my husband was a car dealer. So we always had the cars. They weren’t necessarily ours, but we had excess to them. I think we bought a Chevrolet when he was in the service. And a Chrysler convertible, and a Buick convertible, and then when he came out of the service and into the car business, of course, we had excess to them all.

Q: Were there any taxis in Meigs County?

A: Yes, there was a couple. One in particular, up on the corner of Pomeroy where the green light is and there was a little building there where the taxi office was. And there probably was another taxi or two here.

Q: How did television change your life?

A: Well, just about everyone now spends their time watching television instead of looking at each other and talking. I think we have it on all the time whether we’re listening or not. I think people spend too much time watching TV. Children particularly, of course, mine was as guilty as anybody’s.

Q: How old were you when you first saw a TV.

A: I probably was about 26, it was after I was married and had a child.

Q: What type of programs did you watch?

A: Well, mostly comedies. I remember kids always watching "Howdy Doody". And I don’t think there was as much violence in things then. Probably more news reports and things. I can’t just think of some of the most popular ones I watched.

Q: What about "I Love Lucy"? Were they popular?

A: I think they came a little later than when I first saw TV I can’t think of one right now.

Q: Who were some of your favorite TV stars?

A: I liked Lawrence Welk and I can see Sid Caesar and Emogene Coca and Art Linkletter, it’s a little while back to remember.

Q: What was the biggest transition years? From the 50s, 60s. What do you feel was the biggest transition years from one decade to another that you remember?

A: I don’t know exactly what you mean? Do you mean when cars and airplanes and space ships all that, is that what you mean? I also think my father lived through the greatest era. My father was born in 1899 and he died in 1980. He was 81, he would’ve been 82. I think in his lifetime cars, electric, telephones, and so many things came into being in his lifetime. I think that must have been one of the eras when the most changes came to us. Of course, space ships and all that he saw.

Q: Do you remember in the 50s, who Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, how they effected music?

A: I remember Elvis Presley was just about as a real weirdo the way he danced which is nothing to want to be today. I have a friend who has Elvis Presley’s autogragh and she thought that who would want that weird guy’s autograph? So she just threw it away.

Q: Why do you think he was so weird? The way he moved?

A: Well. Yes. When I was a kid, and we jitterbugged, our parents thought that that was real terrible. And I think that Elvis was just a little ahead of his time with all those movements.

Q: How was coal mining a big part of the economy?

A: Well in this area, it was really between that and the railroads. That was what everybody worked for. I think when the coal mines closed down, this area went down economically. Coal was the biggest thing, I think. I don’t think we’ve been a very prosperous area since then.

Q: When did the coal mines shut down?

A: Well when I moved to Meigs County in about 1948, I believe most of them had shut down then. Of course, when they put the Gavin plant in and the coal mines out in the country, coming into those plants, it all came booming up again. I think they had three mines open, but I believe now there is just one.

Q: Where were the three mines located?

A: Out around Salem Center, if you take 124 into Jackson I think you go by, you can see them. The biggest one still operating is out Salem Center.

Q: How was coal mining the most prominent job in this area?

A: It employed more people than anything here. And there was a lot of coal that made it accessible and the river to transport it made it profitable.

Q: How dangerous were the mines?

A: Oh, they were real dangerous. In the early years, because they didn’t really have much control over like the Unions make the better working environment. Now the environment, EPA, they make sure everything goes well. Structurally. I had family that who have been in the coal business in Jackson for years. I know how things have changed that they have to have better working conditions and better under ground mining and strip mining and to reclaim the land. All that has to be done properly. Now before, they would just mine and that would be it.

Q: Do you know anybody who died in the mines?

A: No. I don’t believe I do.

Q: How about unions?

A: I think they’re good and I think they’re bad. They were good, I think in the beginning. But, sometimes when they make it impossible for the employers to make money with all the demands. Sometimes it can be a little unreasonable. I’ve never had anyone who belongs to the union. So, I don’t really don’t know the other side too well.

Q: Well, is there anything else you would like to add. That I forgot to ask you?

A: No. I don’t think so. Seems like I’m a little pessimistic about many things. Well, I just lived such a happy childhood I feel sorry for children who have so many pressures on them now. And are exposed to so many things. It was better, I think when life was a little simpler.

"Thank you."