Her mother, my grandmother, Alice Dorris Williams Popplestone, was a widow in my earliest recollections, and kept house for Uncle Tom. Her father, Eleazer Dorris, was a “hard shell” Baptist minister, whom I remember very well. He used to accept invitations to Sunday dinner, or just show up. He played with the kids, let them listen to his watch , and tolerated their pulling his full beard. As quite a young teenager, I was complimented when the local livery stable handed me the reins and told me to drive a team and surry to his funeral.

My grandmother had three brothers - Carlton, Edward, and Henry Dorris. In many visits with her, and during the course of living with her and uncle Tom for about three years, among the things that she told me was that the first husband died at around age 30, and was the father of her four children, he her first and true love, and her second marriage was one of convenience. Her second husband was a Civil War veteran, and she received a pension based on his service. As you may or may not know, our family was in two stages. George, I, Mary,and Margaret were born in a modest home on Locust Street in Providence. As I recall, there were four rooms, and only one bedroom, furnished with a double and trundle beds, and a fireplace the only available heat. In the winter time, standing in front of the fireplace getting dressed, was frequently a painful experience, slate in the coal fire would pop out and burn, particularly when it came in contact with bare skin. In the case of all four births, my grandmother would spend considerable time with us. With four youngsters, rather close together, we had the services of a Negro mammy - Aunt Margaret. We were always taught to show respect for mature-to elderly Negroes by calling them “Aunt” or “Uncle”.

The livery stable had a horse-drawn vehicle that met the trains and transported “drummers” and others to the hotel. There was a benchlike seat on either side, with an aisle in the center. While at the Locust Street location, I have a hazy recollection of that same vehicle being used to bring Dad home after a serious mining accident. He was stretched out on one of those bench affairs. He had advanced to the point of becoming mine foreman at the Providence coal company’s # 3 mine, and it was his practice to fill in for anyone who did not show for work. He told me that he was oiling the shaker mechanism and screens that took the coal from the top of the trippe to a railroad car below. There would be up to three railroad cars that received three different grades of coal as produced by the shaker-screening mechanism. In the process of performing the oiling, his left sleeve was picked up by a set-screw which continued to draw him toward the shaker, the material in the jacket being strong enough that it would not let go. When it finally did, his left arm was thoroughly mangled, and he fell something like 30 feet, to the ground or coal pile below.

He spent considerable time in a Catholic Hospital in Evansville, Ind., of which he was always most appreciative and complimentary. He had a collection of metals that he acquired during this association. His left arm was amputated at the elbow, after which the stub was swabbed with iodine. I am not sure, but I think this contributed to his rather early gray hair. He was released from the hospital briefly and spent Christmas with his family, but the stub of his left arm stuck straight out from his shoulder. He returned to the hosptial, and the second round of surgey removed his left shoulder blade so that the stub would return to his side. All that was left in the stub was flesh and muscle, with which he did some amazing things, like shooting a gun by holding the stub out and resting the gun barrel on it.

Dad was a self-made man, and interested in many things, not the least of which was politics. With an associate of the Providence coal company, Percy D. Berry, he opened two or more old mines during World War I when coal was in such short supply. One I remember very well - they utilized the services of Uncle Henry Dorris, who re- opened the old opening with a pick, shovel and a wheel barrel. He was a Police Judge in Providence, and a tough one. He also served as mamager of Municipal Light and Water works, and as a councilman. He was a board member of the United Mine Workers of America when things were pretty tough. He came home from the United Mine Workers convention in Indianapolis with a beautiful nickel-plated, pearl-handled .38 caliber revolver. I heard him tell an associate that threats had been made against John L. Lewis. He later organized an independent miner’s union which came about as a result of a freight differential to the Chicago coal market. Southern Illinois coal fields had a more favorable rate than did Western Kentucky coal fields, and the United Mine Workers refused to recognize or make allowances for it.

One of the political big-wigs in Kentucky was a large man by the name of Robert L. Hunter. He lived in a suite of rooms in the Vendome Hotel in Evansville, Ind., and had an automobile agency in Evansville. In trying to incur his favor and support, my Dad loaned him $1000.00. Getting it back was something else, and he eventually took a large 1918 model Buick roadster for $250.00. The only patronage that he got out of his political activities was an appointment as a State Fire Marshall. He held this job simultaneously with the district Board Membership with the United Mine Workers of America. He also was Past Grand Patriarch of IOOF.

Incidentally, I don’t think anyone will dispute my teaching both Elliott and Rowland to drive with that old 1918 Buick. At first they would sit on my lap, and steer while I handled the shifting. And in a short time, both would drive.

My dad liked farms and he had three of them, one which he sold on a land contract, with the purchasers giving it back either two or three times. In his late years in Providence , he owned an Oldsmobile agency in Henderson, an apartment building in Evansville, Ind., and later acreage in the Evansville area.

There were times when he was inactive because of no particular action in union, farming, business or politics and he would take me for a walk to one of his farms. To get there we would take a short cut through the bottoms and he would take his shot gun along, which I was permitted to carry until we got into the woods . We would usually pick up three or more squirrels on one of those trips, by shooting into their beds or nests, and having them jump out. My responsibility would be to go around the other side of the tree and shake a bush, frightening the squirrel, and it would jump out on his side of the tree where he would shoot it.

From Locust Street my dad built the first of two new homes on Barber Street. Here, as I recall, the second half of the family was born - Elliott and Rowland.

I knew of Night riders and Klu Klux Klan activity as a result of hearing about the Night Riders destroying tobacco plant beds, beating people, and burning tobacco barns. In the case of the KKK I have been in church when they made a call in their robes during some service, and made a contribution.

There was no refrigeration to speak of during these times, and the Company store opened for an hour or so early on Sunday morning. One of us boys would go to the Company store then and get a chunk of round steak for breakfast. Sunday routine when the four of us were young, was Sunday School and church - and I soon learned that volunteering to go home to work on Sunday dinner, or lunch, I would call it now, I could escape church services. After dinner on those occasions when my great-grandfather Dorris ate with us, he and my Dad would get into religious discussions, resulting in a constant reference to the Bible, and I dare say that neither one of them ever changed the other’s interpretations or Church beliefs.

As a teen-ager, brother George and I during summer school vacations would spend the day with Jewel ”Sleepy” Nash. His father was a police judge, and they would hitch up the horse and buggy, and Sleepy would drive his Dad to his office, after which he had the horse and buggy for the day. In those times, groups of people got together and went to the Tradewater River for a fish fry. The women provided all sorts of food - potato salad, hard boiled eggs, baked beans and cold slaw. The men would stretch a seine around a likely spot in the river, and where a log was encountered the boys would stand astride of the log, securing the net on either side with their feet; the fish then were caught by hand to circumvent the “seines-ing” law , and consisted of buffalo (carp), and a catfish. On occasion a catfish would reach forty pounds, and when one of the men made contact with such a fish he required help in getting it out of the water. Occasionally snakes were encountered. When one of these affairs were in progress, anyone who happened upon it was welcome. So Sleepy, George and I would go out with the horse and buggy and stop whenever we ran across one. The fish were cleaned, cooked over an open fire in fat, and along with all the other goodies it was a gastronomical treat. We would assist by holding the net around logs.

I attended Providence High School, finishing in 1925 and played one or more years varsity football as right end. My brother, George Maynard Nance, also went out for football and track. He was quite a student , and was a frequently consulted by classmates on school work. By the time he was a high school sophomore, he was assistant manager of the Consumer’s store in Providence. Between his junior and senior years in high school he attended Lockyears Business College in Evansville, Ind. He came home from there seriously ill, before completing his studies. He had excessive hemorrhaging through the nose, and died within a short time. In fact, it was within a week of President Harding’s death.

In Providence, there was a barber shop near D.L. Ford’s Grocery store. It was owned and operated by Odie Anderson. Sometimes he would have another barber, and most of the time a porter and shoe shine boy. Very few homes had baths, so it was quite common for miners to get their hair cut and shave on Saturday and a bath in the barbershop’s bathtub. The porter would handle everything. The barbershop being a center of social activity and amusement, it was always crowded. The porter and shoeshine boy, as a part of the amusement and entertainment, preached. He would never stand out in the barbershop proper, and face his audience, but performed in the bathroom, which had an open top, short of the ceiling.

Just across the hump in Providence there was a Negro church. The congregation participated in extremely emotional services. In the summer-time the windows would always be open and so one of our favorite activities would be to stand outside the church and watch and listen. Their services were such that they could be identified as Holy Rollers and the like. We lost interest when they started passing the collection plate amongst us.

My dad was free during 1925 and owned a 40 acre farm on the Dixie Bee highway, the original US 41. It had not been cultivated for some 25 years, and was grown up in all sorts of weeds, shrubbery and bushes. In spite of his physical handicap, he did a lot of clearing with an axe and grubbing hoe, and burned the resulting debris. He wore a watch in his watch-pocket, with a fob, which he proceeded to burn in one of his brush consuming fires. He hired a neighbor to plow the place with a team. This proved to be impossible, and so a fellow came along with a Fordson tractor and wanted to demonstrate what it could do. While he was skeptical my dad agreed, and the fellow delivered a tractor with a 19-inch single plow. It would do the job although it hung up on stumps and roots; but it was a simple matter to reverse it back off a bit and take a run at it . The fellow only made three or four passes with the tractor and plow and turned it over to me. We plowed the 40 acres but when we got through the beam on the 19-inch plow was pretty well straightened out due to the many snags. Frequently I would get it stuck in erosion washes sometimes so deep that one would have to shovel out around the exhaust pipe so the engine could run. My dad thought I was too rough with the tractor and insisted on me handling it more gently, with the result that it would just dig deeper. On one or more occasions he would give up and start for the house to call the wrecker to get it out. Before he would reach the house, by rocking the tractor and using full power, I’d have it out and start plowing again.

Until I left time I left home at age 19, when I worked in the coal mines; my dad drew my pay and punished me if I charged anything at the company store, and insisted that if not otherwise employed that I work on his farm. I never realized until he took me to the railroad station in Madisonville to catch a train for Akron, Ohio what his philosophy was. He told me that I was leaving home with his blessing and he wished me well, but that he was being short-changed because he worked for his father until he was 21, and felt that all sons should do the same.

My grandmother, Alice Dorris Williams Popplestone, singled me out for her special affection and attention. She had gotten uncle Tom out of the coal mines; they had migrated to Akron, Ohio, where he had obtained employment at the Good Year Tire and Rubber Company. The rubber shops were a source of employment for a lot of people from many states, and countries in Europe.

When she learned that I was working in the coal mines, she prevailed upon a neighbor to use his influence and efforts to get me into Good Year. And so he did. I started my employment with Good Year on February 26, 1926 as an apprentice machinist, finished in October, 1928. In the meantime I lived with Grandmother and uncle Tom from the time I arrived in 1926 until February 1928. They owned a home in Kenmore, now a part of Akron and when I arrived she told me I could come and go as I chose, but there were two things that I would not be permitted to do- one - bring in a deck of gambling cards, and two - come home drunk. She was as good as her word.

On December 5, 1928 Margery Ellen Van Hyning and I were married. She worked the first twelve years of our marriage. After finishing the apprenticeship, I was in the efficiency department for a short time, then went into a training program. Things were getting pretty tough, particularly in 1932, and seniority was the criteria of weather one was employed, and if so, what shift he worked. People in the training programs were exempted, and so my interest in training programs was to accumulate enough seniority so that I could retain employment when there were no more training programs.

I worked in maintenance until 1940, when I was sent to St. Marys, Ohio. After six months there Margery quit her job, putting our home up for sale, sold it, and joined me there. I immediately was returned to Akron, and worked in maintenance in a supervisory capacity with some pretty attention-getting breaks. These accomplishments attracted enough attention that I was drafted into Good Year Air Craft in late 1942, where I became a division manager by today’s standards. In late 1944 we moved to Litchfield Park, Arizona, where I was Production Supertaindent of a pre-fabricated housing operation. By 1947 the pre-fabricated housing activity, not only at Good Year but else where, was meeting a lot of resistance. We negotiated for and secured a return to Akron in late 1947. Immediately we were dispatched to New Bedford, Mass. where I served until early 1948 as Manager of plant Engineering and Maintenance. In April 1948 we went to Bogor Java, Indonesia, where I served as Manager of Plant Engineering and Maintinenance in Good Year’s tire factory. In 1951 we returned to Akron, and I was associated with Good Year Aircraft again as manager of Tool Engineering Staff. In the fall of 1952 I was one of twenty-eight people selected to train and develop an organization to operate a gaseous diffusion plant just getting under construction in Southern Ohio. My official capacity there was Superintendent of Maintenance shops. We lived in Chillicothe, Ohio then until our retirement, leaving Chillicothe December 22, 1969 and locating in Sun City, Arizona.

A brief summary of my activity is - rubber, aircraft, pre-fabricated housing and Atomic Energy.

See photo of Ralph Jackson Nance and his wife Margery
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