EARLY AMERICAN DANCE IN EASTERN KENTUCKY
PETER ROGERS: An interview with Mr. Clifton Caudill and his wife, Ruby, at their home in Carcassonne, Kentucky on the 29th of June, 1975. The Caudills help sponsor the regular, monthly square dancing at Carcassonne Community Center and are also in charge of the dancing in the outdoor play, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. I’d like for you to talk about as far back as you remembered or if you’ve heard other people talking about dancing earlier than you remember it, just as far back and then bring it right on up.
CLIFTON CAUDILL: Well, I’ve heard my dad talk about going to them quite a bit. And when he was young, they had a little rougher times then, according to him. He wasn’t really in style. They probably didn’t drink any more or stuff like that than they do now. But to prove yourself you had to maybe have a pint and a pistol or something. I don’t know if that ought to be put in there.
C. CAUDILL: But that’s the way
ROGERS: That’s part of it.
C. CAUDILL: That would have been around 1900 or before, wouldn’t it?
R. CAUDILL: They had workings.
C. CAUDILL: Yeah, they’d have a log rolling or a house raising or a grubbing or a corn hoeing and then that night they would have a square dance. The only ones that were supposed to come to the square dance were the ones that had come and worked. Have you heard anything about those workings they called them? Like some fellow here got a field of corn need hoeing, he’d pass out the word the day before and all the neighbors would come in and the men folks would hoe the corn or roll the logs or put the house up. And the womenfolk would cook and quilt and talk, I expect. And they’d have dinner, everybody. Then everybody would have supper. Then they’d go home and do the feeding, I guess, and stuff and they’d come back about dark and they’d have a square dance. And the only people that were supposed to come was the ones that had been there and worked that day. And if some fellow came in that hadn’t been there, well then you could toss them back outside. A lot of times it would cause a little friction, but that was the rule in those days. That was back, that was along 1900, up to, it was that way up first when I can remember, which would have been about 1925. But gradually it got to be more of a social….And at that time…
R. CAUDILL: About 1933 they quit having workings.
C. CLIFTON: About the only people I can remember, I mean younger people that take part in the square dance, say I, I don’t know what they did. Anyway whole families came though. It would be the parents that did most of the dancing at that time. They’d dance with their wives or they would change partners. I don’t know when the younger people really started. I know when we was down over here, everybody gradually got involved.
R. CAUDILL: We had square dances at the schools. The teachers would have square dances with young people.
C. CLIFTON: Well, you talk a while now if you want to. Tell about ours, if you want to, over there at school.
ROGERS: You said they had workings. Did they ever have parties, just dance parties somewhere, at the same time they had the workings?
R. CAUDILL: We were married in ’33 and they had a band in Carcassonne. This guy that played for us last night, Amos Campbell and Clifford Stamper and his brother. The band was meeting to play and the young people would just gather in and we would end up having a square dance almost every Saturday night in that hall. There was a log cabin over there. Until the war came along and some went to the war and some went to CCC. We went to the factories. After we came back, everybody had scattered and we didn’t have any more square dancing in this community until about 1967, when they got the community center organized in 1966. We got interested in organizing the community and went ahead in ’66 and by ’67 we had it pretty well done. We had square dances and box suppers to raise money to repair it with. And we got a grant.
ROGERS: Was that Appalachian Volunteers?
C. CAUDILL: They were here how long? Two years? We could go along with part of their things and the part we didn’t….We didn’t see with them on some things, but overall I’d say…
R. CAUDILL: They were a real help to get things organized.
C. CAUDILL: Showed us the line, got people interested in working together that probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
R. CAUDILL: I’d say without them we would never have gotten together and started the building.
C. CAUDILL: The building would probably be gone by now, because all the windows were out except in the one room they taught school in and all the doors and the roof was gone, part of the floor and part of the ceiling. We organized, but we didn’t have any funds to buy anything. Then came a group of college students here and they was wanting to stay. They wanted to stay with people in the community for how long? A month?
R. CAUDILL: They came for two weeks and they had money to pay room and board, but rather than charge them room and board, we kept them free and we used that money to buy roofing to cover the building. And the last night they were here, we had a potluck supper for them. The way the square dancing really started, I don’t know what they called themselves, it was a bunch of entertainers that had a government grant that went and put on shows in communities free. There was David Stovall and Ann Romaine, Betsy Jones and three of her grand-daughters and one other boy. I don’t remember his name. And they put on a show and after it was over, someone asked him if he wouldn’t play the guitar some more for them. And so
my husband said, why don’t we do a square dance? And that was the first time that we had square danced since before the war. And we’ve been going ever since.
C. CAUDILL: We’ve been, let’s see, since ’67 we’ve not missed very many. We just set a time, the fourth Saturday of each month. We’ve missed a few through the hottest part of the summer. We’ve had people there from, I expect every state in the Union. We’ve had people, exchange students there from Japan, France and England. Only thing I was sorry about, that we didn’t have a book, a register when we started, people to sign it. That would be real good. We used to prepare a supper in connection with the square dance, until food got so high we had to quit, I guess. It got to be an awful lot of work. Public really liked that though and we liked it. It
got to be where it was so much work and everything, just took it off. We never had any trouble. Well, last night, I guess, that gas situation. We’ve always had a peaceful crowd. And we have tried to suspend having them some, got involved in other things. And people called and everywhere we go, everybody was saying, when are you going to have another square dance. So we figured if they enjoyed that much, you know, just let it go on. We like it, too. It is a certain amount of responsibility on a few of us, see, because anytime you get a crowd like that together, things could happen. You know. A lot of kids and everybody there. We’ve never had any bad
problems at all. A lot of people drive. In the winter time when the roads are bad they come over here with chains on and Jeeps and come….In the cool weather, in the winter time we actually have much better attendance because, you know, through the summer there’s so many other things you can do.
R. CAUDILL: And it’s too hot to square dance in the summer.
C. CAUDILL: As to why they like to come, you can see last night, from babies to real elderly people all mixed up.
R. CAUDILL: Well, it’s a place they can come and bring the whole family and they can all – it’s a thing the family can enjoy together as a family group.
C. CAUDILL: We don’t do any, all the advertising we do, it’s posted in The Eagle
and we put on the radio. This time I put it on the radio bulletin board at Whitesburg, on Thursday before Saturday, two days. Usually we announce it, like the musicians announce it one to the other. That’s all the advertising we’ve done. We’re not, it’s not, we’re not trying to realize any money from it. We pay for the lights we use and we give the musicians half of the door receipts. And the other is used, she’s the treasurer and we keep a bank account and the other money is used, Christmas we give everybody in the community a bag of candy, apples, treats, Christmas treat.
On Easter we have an egg hunt and usually on Thanksgiving…
R. CAUDILL: And an Easter dinner.
C. CAUDILL: An Easter dinner, and on Thanksgiving…
R. CAUDILL: With ham and all the trimmings.
C. CAUDILL: A Thanksgiving dinner. And all the money goes for the benefit of the
community.
R. CAUDILL: We also have Halloween.
ROGERS: How much of the school [INAUDIBLE].
R. CAUDILL: Well the high school, [INAUDIBLE] since ’48. I’m not sure of that though. This is the first year we had them in grade school, in the sixth grade. We couldn’t get a teacher.
ROGERS: So this has been used as a school even while you are dancing?
R. CAUDILL: Yes, in the one room.
ROGERS: The room where the refreshments are?
R. CAUDILL: No, the little room on the left of the door as you came in last
night. We have our sewing group there, our quilting frames.
ROGERS: Who owns the building?
R. CAUDILL: The Letcher County Board of Education.
ROGERS: Do you rent it?
R. CAUDILL: We have it leased.
ROGERS: Leased?
R. CAUDILL: We first just had a verbal agreement with them, you know, that if we would repair it than we could use it for dancing. We keep it up. But we have had to paint it and put in restrooms and that kind of thing. And the fellow from the government establishment had to have a written lease from the Board of Education. So we got that.
ROGERS: What was involved, who all was involved and what was involved in starting the square dancing again? You mentioned the shelling you had here and then you had a square dance after. What happened after the square dance that night to keep it going?
R. CAUDILL: Well, so many people showed interest in it and seemed to enjoy that the next community meeting we had, we brought up the idea of having a square dance each month. Everybody wanted to do that, so that’s what we’ve done. We have more people from the surrounding community come than we do in our community that comes to square dancing. I’d say we had a pretty good percent though, but not nothing like half of them. This is a small community, about a hundred and sixty-five, maybe around three hundred, if you count all the way down to Blackey.
ROGERS: When did you say the first time you danced was?
R. CAUDILL: You mean at Carcassonne or anywhere?
ROGERS: First time anywhere.
C. CAUDILL: I was trying to think of that this morning. Oh, maybe around 1928, somewhere along there, up in the head of Elk Creek, at W. R. Bates house is the first square dance I can really remember being to. You know Bill Bates? It was his father.
ROGERS: What was his name?
C. CAUDILL: W. R. Bates up at the head of Elk Creek, is the first one I can remember being to.
ROGERS: What places have you danced since?
C. CAUDILL: Well, mostly I don’t think I was ever to more than, at one….We started out over at our house here when….
R. CAUDILL: Well, we married in ’33 and we had a square dance, so you danced then. And we went to square dances on Elk Creek and around, neighbors kind of take turns, you know. Someone had one, on Saturday night….on Elk Creek.
ROGERS: Did you live on Elk Creek when you were first married?
R. CAUDILL: No, we’ve always lived here.
ROGERS: Are you originally from this…?
R. CAUDILL: Thirty-three miles below here. The first square dance I can remember, my mother and dad had one and I guess I was maybe fourteen years old. And then
one of my cousins, Kenny Brown had one and I went to that. And I can remember very well, my cousin didn’t have shoes to wear, and I had shoes, but she wouldn’t go barefooted, unless I would go barefooted, so I went barefooted also.
ROGERS: What did people wear to dances in those times, those days?
R. CAUDILL: Whatever they happened to have to wear, especially high school.
C. CAUDILL: The man would usually wear overalls and a white shirt. Some of them might have, they usually had a different pair of shoes, I guess, to wear to dance than what they worked in.
R. CAUDILL: A lot of children came barefoot, best I can remember.
C. CAUDILL: You went barefoot up to fifteen years old practically, all the summer. They weren’t so poor that they couldn’t buy shoes like some people made out, some of them. But that was just a way of life, going barefoot. Why wear out good shoes when you didn’t have to?
R. CAUDILL: Well we could hardly wait until the first day of May, because that’s when they let us take our shoes off and go barefooted.
C. CAUDILL: I don’t want to make it appear, you know, that people were extremely poor here, because that was during the Depression days and I expect that people here had much more food on the average than anywhere in the whole country because everybody raised their food. There was corn, hogs, chickens, cows, got ham and eggs and milk and butter and your own bread. Didn’t put too much emphasis on clothes, you know. Going barefoot was more comfortable.
R. CAUDILL: Well, we raised sheep and we sent the wool off and my mother got cloth. They called it serge, serge cloth made from the wool. Of course, we didn’t wear that in the summertime, but we were warm in the winter.
C. CAUDILL: There wasn’t any money much, but as far as we all having sufficient food and stuff.
R. CAUDILL: We were much better off than the people in cities during the Depression. Of course, we had land to raise food on and they didn’t.
C. CAUDILL: There wasn’t any soup lines in Carcassonne. I think, people have been made to think we were extremely poor. Well, anyone that wanted to work and put out a little effort had, they got what they needed.
ROGERS: Where did you say you really learned to dance? Or how did you, how you learned to dance?
C. CAUDILL: Well, like I told some fella, and I guess I kind of made him feel bad. He was asking me how to do it….I mean it was at a dance. And I said, well it’s a matter, it’s mostly like Dudley Halcomb says in that article, it’s a matter of being able to keep rhythm. And some people, most people can and some people just don’t care or can’t. I really didn’t learn. I’m not very good yet. Learn how to get along with it until we started getting regular over here and I just learned from other people that came in, older people. Same way with her, I guess. You have to be interested in it like anything else, you know. Some people don’t care for it. I’d like to be a better dancer
than I am, but I’ll never be any better. I manage to get by. We go to them anywhere we can when we hear where they are, because we do like to dance.
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