Good morning!

Let me begin by saying that I am honored to be here in Allais for such a historical gathering as this where wonderful plans have been made to bring new life to a place with such a rich history. Hazard and Perry County people have always been a forward-thinking community with great civic pride. I have lived in many places in America in my lifetime and in introducing myself to new people I always cite with great pride that I am from Hazard, eastern Kentucky, and then go on to describe the coal mining camp a couple of miles from town called Allais, where I lived as a little boy. 

Allais was one of the scores of coal company towns that operated in Kentucky’s mountain counties in the first half of the twentieth century. Columbus Mining Company alone had a dozen mines in Perry County. Starting in the early 1920s, the Allais mine produced coal into the 1950s. It employed many people including my paternal grandfather, Gurney W. Norman. We called him Uncle G. because he was like an uncle to everyone. My grandfather moved to Allais in 1918 when at age 38 he was hired by Columbus Mining Company to manage the Company’s commissary. His oldest son, Howard, born in 1910, grew up in Allais, married Thelma Musick, a teacher, in 1934 and by 1939 they were parents of three children. I was the middle child. My younger sister, Gwynne, is here today with her husband Ken Griffith. They live in Berea. My wife, Nyoka Hawkins, is also here with me today.

As young children in the 1930s and early 1940s, Gwynne and I and our older brother, Jerry, lived in Walkertown with our parents. In 1941 when World War II started, I was sent to live with my grandparents in their company house in Allais, for reasons that were never explained to me. Grownups don’t always explain things to children very clearly. Because of the War, it was boom times in the coalfields. All the big mines worked two shifts a day. The Allais mine employed probably 30 underground miners. One of those miners was my father Howard Norman, who had grown up in Allais and had the experience of coming back to work there as an underground miner.

As a four and five-year-old, I thought my grandfather owned the commissary, and therefore I thought I owned the commissary. I thought it was mine. I was probably a nuisance to my grandparents. I was allowed to spend many hours each day at the commissary where I was indulged with too much attention and certainly too much candy.

Coal camps were like company owned villages, some with 30 or more small houses for the families of the miners. The managers lived in bigger frame houses nearby, but none of them were mansions. They were mostly two-story frame houses. Allais was considered among the best coal camps in the area. I had a special place in Allais coal camp because I was Uncle G’s grandson. The commissary sold most of the things the miners and their families needed. It was sort of like a smaller version of a Walmart. In addition to groceries, they sold shoes, clothes, and tools for the working men.

I was born in 1937 at the height of the Depression when times were hard and a job was a very precious thing. When the United States was drawn into World War II, the whole nation was mobilized and coal, along with oil, represented power and energy. Columbus Mining Company operated several deep mines in Perry and other counties. Allais was the site of one of the largest operations in the mountain region. The center of the community was the company commissary.

To support the war effort, we children were encouraged to maintain piles of scrap iron, anything metal would go in your scrap iron pile, so I was very alert to any tin can or anything metal even including coat hangers that I could add to my pile. So my memories of living in Allais are also memories of World War II.  Needless to say, we children were ardent patriots and took our duty to collect scrap iron very seriously. We were made to feel that we were important to our nation’s war effort. Children were organized to look for German bombers flying over Allais. We knew we would be a target. Allais was alive with activity.

My best memories of Allais are from 1941-1946 as everyone did their part for the war effort. These are memories that have been vivid in my mind all my life. I still have dreams about Allais in those war years. There was no more dynamic patriotic center of activity in the country than among the eastern Kentucky working people until the War was finally over. The end of the War was also the time of the coal industry’s slow decline and by the early 1950s, the end of coal production in Allais. Working men and their families began to move to the northern cities to find work.

It is very moving to me to see new life return to Allais. Allais is being born again, literally, and it will be a very different place. The thought that this field will before long have 15 modern homes built around it is poetic to me as modern families will live in modern homes around this field. It has felt strange to me that this place would have the name Gurney’s Bend. Of course, it’s an honor to me but also to my grandfather, Gurney Wesley Norman. Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to make this happen. I look forward to returning to Gurney’s Bend many times over the years. Maybe I can come here and get straightened out.