Alex Byrd: All right, we're on. Thank you, Mr. Eaves, for agreeing to let me interview you today, and thank you for taking me around over the past two weeks. If we can, I just want to start by, you saying your name and where you were born and your date of birth. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Okay. My name is Jim Eaves, E-A-V-E-S. I was born in White Plains, Kentucky, fourth month, fifth day, 20th year. 

Alex Byrd: All right, I'm just going to rewind it. Well, Ms. Eaves, can you describe for me the White Plains of your boyhood? Where'd you grow up, what it looked like around here? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, White Plains was a little farming community plus a little mining community. 

Alex Byrd: And did your people farm or mine or both? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: They did both. 

Alex Byrd: Was your father from here as well? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yes. 

Alex Byrd: He was from White Plains? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yes. 

Alex Byrd: What was his name? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Elmer Eaves. 

Alex Byrd: And what was your mother's name? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Mary Weir Eaves. 

Alex Byrd: Was your mother from Kentucky? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yes. 

Alex Byrd: And born in White Plains? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, she was born in this vicinity. 

Alex Byrd: Okay. Well, tell me what kind of work your folks did when you were coming up. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, when I was coming up, my dad worked in the mines, and he'd have little truck patches. We raised tobacco, sometime corn, and he always managed to have a very large garden. And we had one cow, we raised hogs. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Then he would work in mine maybe one day a week or two days a week. And some days he'd work in the mine, wouldn't even make anything. They had what they called "working by the tonnage", and you would go in there and wait until you get something to load coal in. If the man didn't come in there with a mule to pull your coal out, you wouldn't get paid. You wouldn't do nothing, just lay around in there all day, and then they'd probably call you back to work Sunday. So that's what he went through in those days. 

Alex Byrd: So sometimes, if the man didn't pull your coal out, you'd just go home, would you call it? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, you couldn't go home. 

Alex Byrd: Okay, you just waited? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. See in other words, you had what you call a mule driver, and he might be pulling off 10 or 15 people. When they load a car, he come in there and get it. Well, back in those days, there wasn't no big demand for coal, and they would had a whistle that they would blow. If the whistle blow three times, you'd work that day, but if it blow one time, you wouldn't work. 

Alex Byrd: So would miners usually go to work in the morning? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. 

Alex Byrd: So the whistle blew in the morning? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, the whistle blow the evening before. 

Alex Byrd: Okay, okay. So you get off work knowing whether you working tomorrow or not. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, that's right. Well see, if you working at the mines today, well you would find out at the mine whether they going to work the next day. But if you was at home, that's when they blow the whistle. Three times, you would work. One time, you wouldn't work. 

Alex Byrd: Was it possible back then for people your father's age to make their whole living in the mines? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, I guess you could because a lot of guys lived in what they call company houses, and they depend entirely on the mine. They didn't raise no garden, nothing. But my daddy inherited this land from his grandmother. 

Alex Byrd: You know about what mines your daddy worked around here? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: White City. 

Alex Byrd: White City? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Mm-hmm. 

Alex Byrd: Is that still close? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. 

Alex Byrd: Real close? But it's all tore down now? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. 

Alex Byrd: Well, how'd your grandparents come into White Plains and come into this land and be able to pass it down? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: My grandmother came in here out of slavery. She had two kids, I believe, a boy and a girl because I never did know her husband. But anyway, my daddy's daddy, let me see. My daddy's daddy was named Jim Eaves also, and he worked on the railroad. And his sister married a guy that worked at White City where my daddy worked, and she had about, oh, I guess, six or seven kids. And anyway, they settled here in White Plains, one big family known as the Dobbins. And my daddy's mother were the Dobbins, but she married the Eaves, you see? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But anyway, they was all hooked in together, and the family just spreaded out because my daddy's mother had about, I believe, six sisters and two brothers. So they just come as accumulating. Now I don't remember when this church over year was built, when I know them thing. 

Alex Byrd: Barnes Chapel? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Barnes Chapel, yeah. But they had a one-room school, little bit, old, small schoolhouse. And when we got out of grade school, we had to go to the county seat in Madisonville, and the superintendent of the school would give us examination to pass to the ninth grade. But we didn't have no bus back then. I had a sister and she wanted to go to high school, so she went and stayed with my grandmother on my mother's side, to Greenville. And she went up there and went to high school. 

Alex Byrd: Do you remember what your grandmother's name in Greenville? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, Neely Weir. 

Alex Byrd: Neely Weir? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Uh-huh. 

Alex Byrd: W-E-I-R? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: W-E-I-R. 

Alex Byrd: You know, I've seen a lot of them. I probably seen her. I've seen some Weirs out at the Reynolds Family graveyard out on Cave Springs Road. You know out in Rhodes Chapel, there's some Weirs out there? And I saw some Weirs today out at the West End Cemetery in Greenville. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: My grandmother, she was buried in White Plains. And her husband, he was also buried in White Plains, Tom Weir. As a matter of fact, I've been named after both my granddaddies. One was named Jim and one was named Tom, so they named me Jim Tom. And my grandmother, she had three sets of twin. 

Alex Byrd: We still talking about Neely Weir? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Neely Weir, three sets of twins, and I think she had 16 or 17 children. 

Alex Byrd: And this the one who come here out of slavery? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, that was on my daddy's side. 

Alex Byrd: Okay, so Neely's on— 

James T. "Red" Eaves: My mother's side, yeah. 

Alex Byrd: You know what your grandmother on your daddy's side name was? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Rebecca. 

Alex Byrd: Rebecca. You remember her family name? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, I don't. Only thing I can remember about my grandmother on my daddy's side, she lived in a log house next to us. 

Alex Byrd: Okay. Right over there? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Right. Well, our house was built on Turner log house. And she was an old woman then because she had a Barker stick about four foot long, I guess, where she'd walk with. And she would follow you upside the head with that stick. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: I had a little old wheel I rolled around the house. She was sitting out in the yard, had a pipe in her mouth, smoking. She told me, said, "Boy, you get on out there if you want to roll that wheel. Don't roll that around here near me." I got out there. A few minutes later, I got back close to her. Next thing I know, that stick went upside in my head. The wheel went one way and I went the other. But she didn't play now. When she told you something, she meant business. 

Alex Byrd: She meant business. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, and she died during the flood. 

Alex Byrd: '37? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Uh-huh, '37 flood. I was in CCCs, and I didn't know it until I come home because during that flood, everything stopped, you see? 

Alex Byrd: Okay. Did she take dinner with y'all? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, she stayed with herself in that house, and she cooked her own meals and everything. Of course, my dad would always check on her, and I don't ever known her to ever be sick. 

Alex Byrd: She lived a long time? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, she did. I don't know exactly how old she was, but she was up in years. 

Alex Byrd: Did you get to see your other grandmother much over in Greenville? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Oh yeah, yeah. No, the one in Greenville, I used to go to Greenville a whole lot, and I'd pick up odd jobs and I'd stay with her. And she would come down and visit us. She'd have to ride the bus. Bus come down in the morning from Louisville, then the bus from Paducah would go back to Louisville in the evening. But I was real fond of her, and I was around her a whole lot. She had a daughter, was a twin, and well, she was kind of a runt. And well, I know she had a hot temper. But anyway, my mother told me that they were sitting at the table eating, I don't know, dinner or whatever. And she got mad about something and grabbed a biscuit and throwed it and hit my granddad in the face with it. 

Alex Byrd: Your granddaddy Jimmy? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, Tom. Tom Weir, Neely's husband. 

Alex Byrd: Tom Weir? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. And say they just knowed he was going to kill him, but he just looked at it, didn't say a word. Yeah, she was kind of the runt in the family, but said she really had a temper. 

Alex Byrd: She must have had to be tough then because being so small. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, I guess. I guess they spoiled her too, you see, because— 

Alex Byrd: Well, what kind of work did your mother do when y'all was coming up? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, my mother did a little domestic work around these White people here in White Plains, but she didn't work too much. She had so many kids. Let's see. Well, we had one cousin stayed with us, and my mother had seven kids. 

Alex Byrd: Seven kids? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Seven kids. 

Alex Byrd: What were your brothers and sisters' names? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Oh, okay, yeah. Old Dale, he was the oldest. 

Alex Byrd: Okay. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Novella. 

Alex Byrd: She was next? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Right. Beatrice, A.W. Jim Eaves, that's me. Milbert Eaves and Allene. 

Alex Byrd: Erlene? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Allene. A-L-L-E-N-E. And we had a first cousin that lived with him. 

Alex Byrd: It was a boy? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: A boy. 

Alex Byrd: What's his name? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Charlie. 

Alex Byrd: What was his last name? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Anderson. 

Alex Byrd: Anderson. How'd he come to stay with y'all? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, my granddaddy, he— 

Alex Byrd: On your mama's side? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, my daddy's dad. He worked on a railroad and he go from one place to another, and that's how these other kids come into the picture. But now that's just what I hear, but he never did talk about it. I think he had some kids in Beaver Dam, Kentucky, and I think he had one or two around here. He must have got around quite a bit. Of course, I never did even know him, never did even see him. 

Alex Byrd: He was always moving around? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, moving around. And tell you the truth, I think he was dead before I born because I never did see him. But some of the old peoples, you know- 

Alex Byrd: They'd tell you about him? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, and he used to run around up in Crofton, some say. 

Alex Byrd: That's where your wife's from, right? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Right, yeah. 

Alex Byrd: So your mother, she did a little domestic work, mostly because there's so many of y'all. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, that's right, so many of us. But my sisters, they done very well because they would do most of the housework when she worked out. But she didn't work all that much. And then again, my mother, she stayed kind of poorly a whole lot. Of course, you take a woman that have that many kids, she had seven kids and wasn't none of them over two years apart because my brother, younger than I am, I think he ain't hardly two years different between our age. 

Alex Byrd: He was like born in '22 or something around there? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, he was born in, well, you might as well say '22 because I was born in 1920, but it wasn't hardly two years, because his birthday is in March and mine's in April, you see? 

Alex Byrd: So not quite two years. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, not quite two years. 

Alex Byrd: So you think having those children was kind of hard on her? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Oh yeah. 

Alex Byrd: Having them so close? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. And you know, you take back there, when women did domestic work, working with those White people, they had to wash once a week plus cook, clean up the house. They had kids, they had to take care of them. And so, it was pretty well a day's work. 

Alex Byrd: And then you got to come home. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: That's right. You got to come home and take care of your family. I know we had a fireplace, and my mother had a big kettle. Well, it wasn't no kettle, it was a big pot, I'd say. And she'd put those peas in that pot and she'd leave just a little fire on them. And sometimes she'd tell us to make sure it didn't go out, and a piece of fat meat or something like that in there. And that would be our supper. Of course, cornbread, she had a big skillet, she'd come out and make some cornbread, and that's what we'd eat. Of course, we had plenty of milk and butter. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: And there used to be a guy down there making molasses. And every evening, he would give us the skimmings. That's the foam on molasses when you cook them. See, when you first start cooking it, it would be green, and when your molasses gets just about done, they would turn red, brownish. And he would take that skimming off and get the molasses, and he'd give us the skimming. But see, after that skimming set overnight, they would be molasses too, you see? 

Alex Byrd: Okay. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: And they had a little old, it wasn't nothing but just a—It had a top on it and it had trays in there. Be about five or six trays where that molasses would go up and down, up and down, up and down. And when it got into the last one, it would be molasses. 

Alex Byrd: So it was like some kind of filters? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, no, uh-uh. It was just a flat piece of metal and just say this. You have it in here, move this over here, it would go over here. They had a little old plate, something about along there. They'd raise it up and let the molasses go from one area to the other. But it would go up and down, up and down. When it got to the last one, well, it's pretty well molasses. 

Alex Byrd: It's ready then. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. 

Alex Byrd: So did y'all made all y'all own butter and milk? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Oh yeah. See, we had a cow and we used to churn our own butter. We raised our own hogs, and we used to hunt rabbits. And in the winter months, we'd kill so many rabbits. We'd hang them up on the outside, on the smokehouse. My mother getting ready to cook one, she'd go out there and get one off on the side of the building. 

Alex Byrd: It'd already be smoked up? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, just leave them hanging on and do them up there. See, it was cold back in those days. 

Alex Byrd: Oh, okay. In the wintertime, you'd just keep out? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, just keep, yeah. And sometimes she'd have to cook two, there's so many of us. And man, that meat would just slip off on the bone. 

Alex Byrd: It'd be that tender? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Oh yeah, it'd be that tender. If it was old rabbit, she'd pump on it. But a half grown or grown rabbit first year, she could tell. And rabbits, mashed potatoes, biscuits, gravy. Man, that was awful good eating too. 

Alex Byrd: What did your mother cook best? What was some of the best things she made? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: My mother could cook anything, and my daddy was a good cook. He would make hominy. I don't know if you know what hominy is or not. 

Alex Byrd: Yeah, there's hominy grits and there's like— 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, but they made this out of corn. Yeah, okay. He put them in a kettle, and it would swell up. And then it would take the hull out of it, and I liked hominy too. But my daddy, on the end though, after my mother passed, my sister and him stayed up there in the house. And a lot of times he'd get up and cook his own breakfast because he liked to get out early. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But when my mother died, I just thought the world was supposed to come to an end, and he'd talking about what he was going to do or something around the house. And well, it just hurt me so bad. When you go through something like that, you never get over it. And I think about her now time because see, when she was sick, the last days, I wasn't at home and somebody else got her to the hospital. And I had a little wall back then too. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But anyway, she laid in that bed. We was all around her bed because a doctor told us she had a infected kidney, and he gave her some medicine. Said, if the medicine was effective, she'd be all right, and if it wasn't, you know. And she got to talking, we couldn't understand nothing she was saying. But anyway, while she was talking, looked like to me she was looking right at me, and she would always, "Son, y'all do this and do that." You know how mother is, I guess. But it worried me because I never could understand nothing she was saying. Then I guess maybe month and a half or two months later, I don't know, might have been three months, I had a dream about her and she was laying in that bed just like it was the day she died. And she just kept repeating it, "Son, go to church. Son, go to church." And I remember waking up, jumping up in bed. But long as I live, that stayed with me. Yeah, "Son, go to church." 

Alex Byrd: Did that slow you down some? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Oh yeah, it did. Yes, it did. Yes, it did. Yes, it did. 

Alex Byrd: So how old were you when she passed? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Let's see. My mother died in '50—I want to think it was in '56. 

Alex Byrd: About '56? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: '56. 

Alex Byrd: How did you change, or how did you try to change? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Well, I'll tell you what. See, during that time, me and my old lady's having problems and then kind of domestic problems. See, she was from Crofton, but I'm an outsider. And it was all her big family of them, of her people. It was a big family. But anyway, I was working at the mines and a lot of us at the mines, coming in from work, we'd stop at saloon up there in Mannington, drank a few beers. 

Alex Byrd: In Madisonville? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, in Mannington. 

Alex Byrd: Oh, Mannington. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: It's a Christian County, you see. And we drank a few beers. Sometimes it was a little late in the night when I got home. I don't know. We get out around about, I don't know, about 3:30 or something like that. And we'd go over there at this place and drank beer till around 5:30, 6:00, something like that. And I don't know, things just kind of are getting a little worse, and we stayed separated, let's see, I guess about three years. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: This house wasn't hardly—Well, the house here still needed some work on it. I wasn't finished with it. And she stayed in Texas. She had a cousin that lived in Texas, and she come in here for the 8th of August. And while she was here, she went back to Texas. We didn't have no kids then. Yeah, we did. We had the little girl. 

Alex Byrd: [indistinct 00:29:25]. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: We had the little girl. We adopted the little girl, and anyway, that was during the time, I believe, when Kennedy got killed. She was down there then. But anyway, let me see, I want to believe she was here when my mother died. I believe she was. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she was. She here when my mother died. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But anyway, now her mother, I would go by and talk to her mother, and her mother told me that she was sending her money down there. And when somebody else sending you money, things ain't going on too well. You know what I mean? And finally hearing the girl come back on a visit, and we got together. Me and my daddy carried her back to Texas and she had some furniture down there. But anyway, we rented a U-Haul and brought her back to Kentucky. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: And so, I give and she give. Then things begin to work out because, tell you what, I just quit fooling with the whiskey period. I'll drink a beer every once in a while. But see, I got sense enough to know if something is destroying me, I'm going to leave it alone. Only thing that I can't leave alone is cigarettes, and in a small community, if you stump your toe, everybody in community knows it. "Blah, blah, blah, this," and everybody in Crofton just about was kin to her. And I had a friend, his name of Joe Holmes, and we always have been pretty close. But he lived at Crofton. I think my wife's mother had about, I don't know, 10 or 12 sisters, and they all lived up here and all of them was kin folks, you see? 

Alex Byrd: There was plenty of them. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And man, if they see me, they'd watch me so they could tell her something. And then my old lady started working for the social service center. They brought a little kid up here, told her to keep the kid until they adopted out. Well, she kept his little old kid, its eyes wasn't even open. 

Alex Byrd: It's that small. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: It was that small. But anyway, when the kid got ready to leave, she done got attached to him. And then she said she was going to adopt a boy. That's when she adopted Mike, and I believe I was 52 or 54 when we adopted Mike. And kids will bring you closer together too. They will. They'll bring you closer together. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: We adopted Mike, and then all my attention went towards him, you see, you know. And all through school, whatever he did, I was right there. Any kind of sports or wherever he would go, I'd go. We played basketball, whatever game he'd played, I would be there, and most of the time when they go to schools out of town, I'd go. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: So then, let me see, I don't remember now who the pastor was. I don't know. But see, I didn't go to church like I should, but anything I could do for the church, I would do it because it had got so hot, we'd have homecoming at the church. And it was so hot, it's just like walking into a furnace, that hot. So the women got together and said we going to get air in here next year. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But now before that, we wanted to put a building onto the church. And a lot of the guys know me at the mines, and I would tell some of them, ask them for a donation. A lot of them would offer me cash, and I said, "No, if you want to help me, write a check made out to Barnes Chapel." And I got all kinds of carpenter tools, and Willie Lovins, he's a good carpenter. And we built this addition onto the church. 

Alex Byrd: That thing on the back of it? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Right. We built that, and then we didn't have no air in there and buddy, I mean, it was hot in there. So the women wrote several people who used to live here, and they sent them some money. But it wouldn't hardly buy one unit, and I was in pretty fresh shape. I bought a unit myself, hardly got to install them and then put them in, and Al said we didn't need them. 

Alex Byrd: Didn't need the air conditioner? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: You know what I told him? I said, "Al, me and you been friends a long time, but I don't want to knock your ass off." He said, "But you wouldn't hit an old man." I said, "Yeah, if you got out of your place, I would." I said, "We going to get those air conditioners." And we put them in the church, but see, Al can't stand there. He can't stand it. 

Alex Byrd: Because that's why he'd be over at your house. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: He can't stand it, see? Well I told him, I said, "If you can't stand that air, just get in the back and we'll turn it down low." But see, just because I can't do something, I'm not going to stop the majority. And one while, him and Willie wouldn't turn the air on. We'd go to church over there and turn the air on. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: So then I started going to church regularly and look forward and was going church every other Sunday. And I don't know, I just, when you get an interest in something, anything going on, you want to know about it. And I make it my business to find out, and whoever the pastor is, I try to work with him. Now this Negro, see, when you live in a small community, a lot of people think they can't be community and just rub you any way they want to. So this guy Wade, I don't know if you know him or not, live in Drakesboro. 

Alex Byrd: What's his name? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Wade. He's a preacher. 

Alex Byrd: Did he preach at St. Paul's first? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, he lives up there. I think he drived a white Cadillac. Great big dark-complected guy. 

Alex Byrd: And he still lives there? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, he's still there, yeah. 

Alex Byrd: I must have seen him when we went. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: I'm pretty sure. Wait a minute. No. Well anyway, they gave him this church, and he came down to visit me one day. And when he come in, said, "I'm going to write a book not related to Christianity." It puzzled me. "No, I'm going to write a book related to Christianity, but not to Jesus Christ," on that order, some kind, but I know Christianity and Christ is together. And I thought about it, thought about it, then it slipped my mind, and I thought about it some more later on. But if he wrote a book, I'd never hear no more about it. Why would a man come into a man's home and tell him something like that? That's what I couldn't publish about him. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: And then my wife was a trade secretary. And he got to the place, he just took over everything. Come out of the pulpit, write the names down. I mean, he just took over everything. Well, I told Doug Lamb, "Well, if we ain't going to take over everything, he don't need us." So when coffers come, I'd give a certain amount of money. But he didn't have enough money for coffers. 

Alex Byrd: Why he didn't? Okay. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: And when you faced that bishop, you better come up with that money. And I wasn't at the church that Sunday, but he told Al and Willie that they owed him some money. Right after that he resigned. At the next assignment, he resigned. Well now, here's the thing about it. I'll treat you right if you treat me right. But see, if you don't treat me right, I just get on away from you because I'll find out. If you don't care too much about a person's ways, just get away from him. It's your ways what affects you. Now you can like a person, but you just don't have to like his ways. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But anyway, he went on back direct where he'd been down a time or two since that our pastor been here. But see, he was a first sergeant, some of them said, during Army. Said he can't hardly help himself. He wants to take over everything. I done said, "My guns of war have been old 40 or 50 years ago." 

Alex Byrd: Was he different [indistinct 00:42:42] where these pastors—You came up in the church over there? Was there a difference in how the church was when you came up in the church as compared to when you were grown and in the church? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: My daddy was a preacher steward. 

Alex Byrd: A steward? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, preacher steward. 

Alex Byrd: What's that? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: He's the guy next to the preacher. And ever since I could remember, we lived next to the church. Preacher would always come to our house first, and my daddy would go up there and make a four in the church every Sunday morning or whenever we going to have church. And when that door opened, he would be right there. And Willie and I, of course they was young, but they would be there too. And we had some more people, they would all come to church. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: But anyway, my daddy was a will in that church, and he know where everybody lived, everybody was buried in that cemetery. And back then, people didn't have the money to give in church. I seen the time that my daddy didn't have him a nickel or a dime or nothing to give in church. But still he would be there every Sunday. Well, after the war, I mean, he began to make a little more money, and he would give in church. But always how contribute to that church because I always felt this way. That church is in my community and this is where I live. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: And I remember when they panel that church, they owed about $300. And I told Al Lovin one day, I said, "Let's pay this bill off." He said, "Okay." So we paid it off because I was concerned about putting a commode in that church. When you got a bill over you, you want to get rid of it. And so, we got rid of that. Then we set out the bill at distant part on the church, and we got it built. That stove in the den, I used to have it over here, and I carried it over to the church. 

Alex Byrd: This stove right here? 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, the ones in the church. 

Alex Byrd: Oh, the one, okay. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Yeah, yeah. And I thought something was wrong with it. When a guy come in the house with it, the line was bent flat. 

Alex Byrd: That's why it couldn't get no gas. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: Couldn't get no gas. And I bought this stove, and when the guy come up and hooked it up, he said, "No wonder you couldn't get no gas." Then I went back to the guy that sent the guy up here to do the stove, and I think he wanted to give me $50 on the stove. I had used it maybe one winter. But they sent that man up here, he'd been up here four or five times working on that stove. I don't know what he was doing. 

Alex Byrd: But he just wasn't getting it right. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No. 

Alex Byrd: Wasn't looking at the line. 

James T. "Red" Eaves: No, he wasn't looking at the line. So I told him, I said, "Well, you know what? You don't appreciate my trade." He said, "Yes, I do." I said, "No." See, I bought a furnace from him.