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Interview with Harvey Welch

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Interview with Harvey Welch

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Interview with Harvey Welch

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  • Harvey Welch talks about moving to Fontana Village while he was a junior in high school so his father could work on the Fontana Dam project, hiking and camping with other Dam Kids, working on the project himself while still in school and joining the Navy Air Corps in 1944. Welch goes on to further talk about coming back to Fontana after his Navy service, going to school in Cullowhee briefly before moving to complete his education at the the University of Missouri, changes in Fontana Village since the time he left, and attending the Dam Kids reunions since 1965.
  • TRANSCRIPT: HARVEY D. WELCH Interviewee: HW HARVEY D. WELCH Interviewer: DN Dustin Norris Interview Date: October 17, 2014 Location: Fontana Dam, NC Length: 25:02 START OF INTERVIEW Dustin Norris: Alright, I guess we'll start off. If you would just state your name and say, you know, I give permission to use the interview and stufflike that. Harvey D. Welch: Ok. My name is Harvey D. Welch. I'm one of the Dam Kids, and I'm perfectly willing for you to use this however you see fit. DN: I appreciate that. So, when or what era did you live here in the village? HW: We came here in 1942, I think it was sometime in October. Came from Knoxville, we'd been working with TVA up until that time out of Knoxville, with Jefferson City, Tennessee at the dam over there. We moved over here then, when they were just beginning to build the place. DN: So you were helping to build it? HW: Oh yeah. My senior year, I came in here as a junior, but in senior year I worked on the dam half a day and went to school half a day. Got a half a year's credit for it. DN: Wow. That's the way to do it ain't it? So, how long did you live here? HW: Oh I lived here until I graduated in 1944 and then I left immediately for the service. I was in the Navy Air Corps. Harvey D. Welch DN: Okay, I guess to get started off, what are some your fondest memories of growing up here in Fontana? 2 HW: Well, probably my fondest memory is hiking to Shuckstack. I was the first one that I know of that went to Shuckstack and I went by myself. We were down in the ball field, a bunch of us. I was trying to get them to go with me and no one would go. They said there's no way to get up there. And I said there's gotta be a way to get up there. [laughter] And they insisted that we go, I insisted we go, and so I said to heck with it I'm going anyway. So I went on and I got down as far as that bridge, and I saw the quany and that mountain in front of me. Maybe those guys were right. [laughter] How am I going to get across that thing? And then I thought about it more, and I thought, hey wait a minute, quarter mile or a half a mile there's a creek that crosses through there that's gotta come from the other side. So I went up there and went through that, and it came out on old 288 and there was a farm road that followed that creek right on up to the base of Shuckstack. Easy hike. And I went on and got up there. The ranger had been watching me all the time, there was rangers that stayed at that place at that time. And he said 'What are you doing out here son?' I told him what I was doing and he said 'Do you realize you just came through the worst rattlesnake area in the whole Smoky Mountains?' That whole peak up there was just covered with rattlesnakes. I have no idea how many times I've been up there and never ever seen one. Never seen or heard one. DN: I can't deal with that. HW: Yeah. But he was real good to me. He says 'Why don't you come back up here and bring some guys with you?' He says 'Don't bring any food, don't bring any water, just come up and you can stay.' He had a cabin up there at that time, and we could Harvey D. Welch 3 stay in the cabin or we could stay in the tower or we could camp outside, whatever we wanted to do. So I was up there all the time from then on. And he said 'The only thing I ask of you to bring up is some magazines or newspapers for me to read.' He'd get lonesome up there by himself. But that was one of my favorite memories. And I came back down to the ball field here, I just went up there, saw him, and turned around and came back. I wasn't gone hardly any time at all. And they swore up and down that I didn't go till I took them back up there and proved to them that I did. But the way they go up and come down now is the hard way. We had a much easier way, the way I used to go up. DN: Well I'm going to have to check it out some time. HW: Well see I've hiked from Clingman's Dome over to here. It's 30 miles, takes three days to come through there. And coming off the way they do now, and all the switch backs and everything else, that's a rough hike going up there now. DN: Man. Well did you ever-how much contact, while you were living here, did you have with, like, businesses and communities outside the village? HW: Not much. Newspapers was all. I delivered newspapers for a long time, from the school of the village-! don't know if you've seen a picture ofthe village down there or not. At the camp where the workers were they had dormitories all over that area over there. And I delivered papers to all those dormitories. But that was the only commercial, uh, I had contact with. DN: Okay. You said you worked for the TV A though, right? HW: Oh yeah I worked for TVA half a day. And when I came back from the service, being that that was the last job I had in high school, I went right to work for TVA Harvey D. Welch again till I went to school over in Cullowhee and eventually went the University of Missouri. DN: Okay, yeah. So did your parents come here with you? HW: Ohyeah. DN: And did they work for-- HW: See I was in high school when we came here. But he was a carpenter on the job here. DN: Okay, so he worked for the TVA too then. HW: My stepdad, it was my stepdad. (Interruption) DN: So, you said you left the village in '44 to go the war? 4 HW: Right. Yeah I left in '44 and went-Well what story is connected with that is, it was my idea to be a Marine. I was a high school senior and that's all we ever read about in the paper, so I was going to be a big tough Marine. And this friend of mine came in, I was playing ball down there on the ball field, and he was going in to join the Navy. He was trying to talk me in to coming in with him. I kept saying no, if I was going in I was going to join the Marines. And to do that I had to get my mother's permission. I was only seventeen years old. Anyway, we'd gone up and talked to mother and it was alright with her for me to go in and join, but I was still going to join the Marines. I got in there and the lady Marine was sitting there at the desk with two big Marines sitting back there in the back. And the first question she said to me, she wanted to know what I was doing. I told her that I knew I had to get mother's permission and all. And she says, why don't you tum around and go back to high school. High school made sense because I was real Harvey D. Welch young looking, but I argued with her and argued with her and they were getting bigger and kicked-you can imagine those two big old Marines. Finally I got angry and I said I have graduated from high school, I'm in here to get some papers for my mother to sign, but I wouldn't join the Marines now if you put a gun in my face. And I went right down the hall and joined the Navy Air Corps. [laughter] DN: [laughing] Just joined the Navy then? HW: If I had that gal here I'd give her the biggest hug she ever had because she probably saved my life. Because as a Marine in that very time, they gave you about six weeks' training and you were hitting the beaches over there. Whereas they sent me to flight school and there was a year of training before I ever did anything. So I'm very happy I went in the Navy instead of the Marines. 5 DN: Mmm, I bet so. So after the war did you come back to Fontana and live for a while? HW: Yes I came back and lived for a while. In the meantime my family had finished the dam here, my family moved back to St. Louis. They kept hollering for me to come back to St. Louis, and I said, well I can't come now I've got to go to Cullowhee. I was already signed up over at Cullowhee. They kept on all along, all along, and so by the end of the year, I said, well I'll come back and go to work in St. Louis some place. I went to work at Sears & Roebuck and met a gal in the candy department, as I say, we thought we were in love before the summer was over with. I said, I've got to go back to North Carolina and we missed one another terribly. So at the end ofthe first quarter, first quarter now, I went back to St. Louis and they had me going to the University of Missouri. After I got back to St. Louis we didn't last two months. [laughter] We weren't Harvey D. Welch near as ... [coughs]. So I stayed on at Mizzou, finished up and got a degree at Mizzou. In the meantime I had changed from engineering, I had got as far as junior year in engineering and I said, this is not what I want to do all the rest of my life. I had all the math and all the science, so I went into education. It was one of the best moves I ever made. DN: Really? 6 HW: I really enjoyed it. I taught at Washington University for about thirty years and taught at the high school for thirty years; set up Calculus programs and all. So I really can't complain. DN: That's good, yeah. If you were to say how the village has changed since you left, what would be some of the biggest ways? HW: Well, they moved all the houses out for one thing. That's one of the biggest changes that's taken place. And, of course, the people are all different. If the outfit didn't take it over like they did, there wouldn't be any place like this. It was sort of going downhill rapidly until the outfit came and took over-Phillips-Jordan took over. They've got some things they need to work on here but ... DN: I guess that'll probably never change, huh? HW: Yeah that'll never change that much. But it's still home. Still home, nice to come back to all these people. I mean where have you--of course you haven't lived that long-but where have you been or who do you have that are friends that you've had since childhood? And you're still real close to them? DN: Yeah every time I go home I see the same group of people. Harvey D. Welch HW: Yeah. There's people here that I've known and had contact with for over eighty years. So ... DN: Wow. How old are you if you don't mind me asking? HW:88. DN: 88? HW:Mmhmm. DN: Okay. In that same vein, I'm sure there are ways that the village has stayed pretty much the same, in different ways. 7 HW: In many different ways. There used to be a cafeteria down below that we'd go down there and eat whenever we, basically wanted to. There used to be a drug store down there. You don't have all those different kind of things now. And really, there isn't a whole lot for us to do other than visit now, but it's still Fontana. And the people are so good, the people are so much the same. You just can't imagine living here together during the war, there's a lot of closeness. We get to meet these people shortly afterwards, or for a while afterwards. It's been a great experience. Great experience. DN: Do you think people have changed their views on the TV A in the area, since you lived here? HW: Well I know about TVA as much they have ... Southern Floridians and others who have moved in here from different places. I talked to a farmer over here in Yellow Creek, which is right across the mountain. He found that I had been living here during the war at the time the dam was built, and he said, why don't you come back down here to live and get rid of some ofthese Floridians that we've had. [laughter] Get some good people in here. I said, well there's some fine people over there but they've got that Harvey D. Welch 8 valley and all looking a lot different over there now than it used to be in those days. There used to be some guys that lived over there that would come across those mountains every day, work all day, go back at night, and come back the next morning. Walking across those mountains. DN: That's an early day ain't it? HW: Yeah that's an early, long day. After we came back and stayed for a while we tried to find that old trail we used, and they used. We looked and looked, looked. We used to go up there all the time: You could find the rock quarry but that trail on down the other side, it just grew up over the years. There was this one fellow in particular, and I, we looked that area over. And so I finally went over there to try and see some of the­find some of the guys that used to try. One, he said, yeah you're right there is a trail there, but he couldn't [laughter] remember where it was. He said I just remember us going back over. [laughter] [pause] DN: How long have the reunions been going on? HW: Since 1965. DN: '65? And you've been to the majority of them? HW: I've been to every one except last spring. I didn't get to, I had a stroke. You can probably tell by my voice, I sound funny. It affected my right side and that sort of thing. But I'd say ... [swats at bug] That bug ... DN: You going to get one? [laughter] I'll be looking out for you. What kind of things do y'all talk about, like in the lobby or when you're eating meals or whatever? What kind of things do y'all reminisce about? Harvey D. Welch 9 HW: Things that we used to do and places we used to go. We used to, and don't ask me how we got over there, but we used to spend a lot of time over in Santeela in that area over there, camping. Somebody would take us over there, drop us off, and then we'd stay over there a day, two days, three days. DN: Where at? HW: Over in Santeela, the lake over here pretty near Robbinsville. We used to go over there-well its past Robbinsville, you know where it is. I've made that trip so many times from Fontana on over to Sylva. DN: I'm sure you did do a lot of that. Especially going to school over there. HW: Yeah but now we just talk about the way things used to be and the way we used to do it and the silly things we used to do as kids and all that sort of thing. This and, of course we've all got kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and all now. DN: Do they come with you sometimes? HW: Sometimes. My wife used to come with me, she's been dead now for ten years. She used to come with me all the time and she made great friends with a lot of these people here. We miss each other and that's the way it is. Just like coming home, just like coming home though. I've got more friends down in this region, Alabama and Georgia and northern Florida, than I have back home. [laughter] DN: Wow. So what do your kids and grandkids think of the village up here? HW: I've got one grandchild that really, really likes it that wants to come. The rest of them haven't spent enough time down here to really care. But that one that really does like it, that one's a veterinarian. Harvey D. Welch 10 DN: Okay. Do you think that coming to the reunions has somehow influenced the way that you remember the place? HW: Oh the whole experience of being here changed my attitude. Changed my attitude on the outdoors, hikes, I've just loved it ever since I've been big enough to know what to do I have really, really loved these mountains and all. And see, I used to coach baseball at the high school. I played a lot of ball here and coached baseball up at the high school in Missouri. I hurt my knee showing them how to do something one time, so I showed them how not to do it. And the doctor told me at the time I was going to be crippled when I was an old man. I said, oh how do you know that. And he said, just take my word for it, it'll get better and you'll be able to get around. But he said, it'll go out on you one of these days, when it does you'll know it, you're going to be crippled when you're an old man, count on it. I didn't know whether to believe him or not, and I came down here and the first thing they started asking me to do-because, same way as when I was a kid down here, was I knew all these hikes and trails and everything around here­go and take us on such and such a hike. So I would do that, and the knee held up. For thirty years I came down here twice a year, took these kids all over these mountains, I mean everywhere. We hiked from Clingman's Dome to Fontana Dam over here and everything else. Went back up home here about three years ago and it went out on me on a trail up there. Liked to have never got back to the car. I went to a doctor up there that I'd never been to before, he wiggles around and x-rayed. Guy looked up at me and said, did you ever hurt that when you were a young man? Oh don't tell me! [laughter] I told him the story and he said, yeah you really tore that thing up good. He said, it healed up on you but now it's showing up on you. It's progressed from there to this, I started to walk Harvey D. Welch 11 along, now I got rheumatoid arthritis in my hip. They won't do anything with me because of my heart. I'm just here, that's about all you can say. DN: But there's benefits to- HW: Ohman, but I've had so many good years I can't complain a bit. For thirty years I led this group twice a year on hikes all over these mountains. I also did a lot of that up in my country too. But I can't do those things anymore. [laughter] DN: If you were to say-state a legacy of the village you grew up in, what would that be? HW: Well they will remember me, I don't know if that's what you're getting at or not, but they will remember me as leader of the hikes, leader of taking pictures, this sort of thing up here, I imagine. You can ask them but that's probably what they'd say. DN: How do you think maybe your kids or grandkids will remember the village? HW: About like any other kids, they just don't know a whole lot about it. They've heard me, they know that I love to come down here, that I love the people. They've met a number of the people and, as I say they've been down here in the midst of it. It's just hard to say if it'd be the same. They've got their own interests and they're used to that area up there. Had one that I said loves to be down here and come down here and all, but he's another one that takes more after that country up there. DN: Right, right. Well there's been a kind of explosion of tourism around the area since-! mean it's been decades growing. Do you feel like that's a good thing for the area? HW: Well, I'd like for it to be the way it used to be, ifl had it m- and I'm thankful that they haven't opened that up all the way to Bryson City like their plans were, Harvey D. Welch 12 and that sort of thing. Otherwise, that would be commercialized over there just like it is over here. But no I'm happy enough. I just hope they don't ruin Sharahalah* and that area over there, now. DN: Yeah there's a lot of fishing back in there, people still go do. HW: Yeah, a little bit of that won't hurt anything but as long as they keep building big places like this and so forth, they're going to ruin it. I mean we've got Branson in Missouri, which that used to be a beautiful, beautiful place. And it's still a beautiful place, but it's totally different now than it used to be. DN: It's commercial? HW: Commercialized, you know. But this place so far is not too bad. DN: What do you think the future holds up here? HW: Unless they get this place really going, it's going to die. There's a lot of things that's wrong and needs to be taken care of here. A lot of people I've heard say they won't-that people don't belong out here, they won't come back more. Met one in here yesterday, getting in here was bad enough, and then they got in here and there was no telephone service. Then one guy came up and said, how do you get out of here? I said, there's only one way to get out ofhere. [laughter] Couldn't wait to get going. So, I don't know. DN: You don't think it's going to bode well then? HW: Well, I don't know. My own personal feeling is that what they've got to do and what they do do, are two different things. To be successful they're going to have to have another place with something for people to do, things for people to do. You start thinking about it, a whole lot of people sightsee up here, that's about it. Sightsee and sit Harvey D. Welch 13 in the room. A lot people, a lot of the Dam Kids come in up here just to see the people and turn around and go home. They spend all their time sitting right here in the hotel. I'm not that way. [laughter] I have to be out doing something. But they're going to have to do something to get more people in here, and have more things to do. They were talking about building a big hall over here that would bring groups of people in here. I don't know if it died or what's happened to it, but I haven't heard much about it lately. But that's the sort of thing that they need to do. I hate to see it happen. [laughter] But it's uh ... DN: It's what they need? HW: Yeah to make this thing really be successful. This is not a first class place like they claim that it is. [laughter] it? that ... DN: The lobby in here is real nice. HW: Stay here a while. [laughter] DN: Ohman. Well is there anything else you would like to add to that? To any of HW: Well, no. If you've got any questions I'll try to answer them but other than DN: I'm just about out- HW: I'll give you some cd's you can take a look at, and you'll probably get some answers a lot better. Or this book right here, but I want that back in a little while. DN: Oh yeah, definitely. Well, I guess I'm about out of questions here. I appreciate you doing this, I'll call you back out ifl figure something- HW: [laughing] Okay. Well I'll be here till Sunday. Harvey D. Welch DN: Alright. HW: I may take off after while and go over to-this group always wants to go over to Sharahala * and all the things we see over here. DN: To Cherokee? 14 HW: They're not too interested in that. But we like to go over there between Robbinsville and ... over that way. So we'll probably go over there and see what's going on. DN: Maybe that fog's let up by now. HW: [laughter] Maybe. END OF INTERVIEW *"Sharahala" may possibly refer to the Nantahala river/area. Transcribed by Dustin Norris, October 19, 2014.
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  • Harvey Welch talks about moving to Fontana Village while he was a junior in high school so his father could work on the Fontana Dam project, hiking and camping with other Dam Kids, working on the project himself while still in school and joining the Navy Air Corps in 1944. Welch goes on to further talk about coming back to Fontana after his Navy service, going to school in Cullowhee briefly before moving to complete his education at the the University of Missouri, changes in Fontana Village since the time he left, and attending the Dam Kids reunions since 1965.
  • TRANSCRIPT: HARVEY D. WELCH Interviewee: HW HARVEY D. WELCH Interviewer: DN Dustin Norris Interview Date: October 17, 2014 Location: Fontana Dam, NC Length: 25:02 START OF INTERVIEW Dustin Norris: Alright, I guess we'll start off. If you would just state your name and say, you know, I give permission to use the interview and stufflike that. Harvey D. Welch: Ok. My name is Harvey D. Welch. I'm one of the Dam Kids, and I'm perfectly willing for you to use this however you see fit. DN: I appreciate that. So, when or what era did you live here in the village? HW: We came here in 1942, I think it was sometime in October. Came from Knoxville, we'd been working with TVA up until that time out of Knoxville, with Jefferson City, Tennessee at the dam over there. We moved over here then, when they were just beginning to build the place. DN: So you were helping to build it? HW: Oh yeah. My senior year, I came in here as a junior, but in senior year I worked on the dam half a day and went to school half a day. Got a half a year's credit for it. DN: Wow. That's the way to do it ain't it? So, how long did you live here? HW: Oh I lived here until I graduated in 1944 and then I left immediately for the service. I was in the Navy Air Corps. Harvey D. Welch DN: Okay, I guess to get started off, what are some your fondest memories of growing up here in Fontana? 2 HW: Well, probably my fondest memory is hiking to Shuckstack. I was the first one that I know of that went to Shuckstack and I went by myself. We were down in the ball field, a bunch of us. I was trying to get them to go with me and no one would go. They said there's no way to get up there. And I said there's gotta be a way to get up there. [laughter] And they insisted that we go, I insisted we go, and so I said to heck with it I'm going anyway. So I went on and I got down as far as that bridge, and I saw the quany and that mountain in front of me. Maybe those guys were right. [laughter] How am I going to get across that thing? And then I thought about it more, and I thought, hey wait a minute, quarter mile or a half a mile there's a creek that crosses through there that's gotta come from the other side. So I went up there and went through that, and it came out on old 288 and there was a farm road that followed that creek right on up to the base of Shuckstack. Easy hike. And I went on and got up there. The ranger had been watching me all the time, there was rangers that stayed at that place at that time. And he said 'What are you doing out here son?' I told him what I was doing and he said 'Do you realize you just came through the worst rattlesnake area in the whole Smoky Mountains?' That whole peak up there was just covered with rattlesnakes. I have no idea how many times I've been up there and never ever seen one. Never seen or heard one. DN: I can't deal with that. HW: Yeah. But he was real good to me. He says 'Why don't you come back up here and bring some guys with you?' He says 'Don't bring any food, don't bring any water, just come up and you can stay.' He had a cabin up there at that time, and we could Harvey D. Welch 3 stay in the cabin or we could stay in the tower or we could camp outside, whatever we wanted to do. So I was up there all the time from then on. And he said 'The only thing I ask of you to bring up is some magazines or newspapers for me to read.' He'd get lonesome up there by himself. But that was one of my favorite memories. And I came back down to the ball field here, I just went up there, saw him, and turned around and came back. I wasn't gone hardly any time at all. And they swore up and down that I didn't go till I took them back up there and proved to them that I did. But the way they go up and come down now is the hard way. We had a much easier way, the way I used to go up. DN: Well I'm going to have to check it out some time. HW: Well see I've hiked from Clingman's Dome over to here. It's 30 miles, takes three days to come through there. And coming off the way they do now, and all the switch backs and everything else, that's a rough hike going up there now. DN: Man. Well did you ever-how much contact, while you were living here, did you have with, like, businesses and communities outside the village? HW: Not much. Newspapers was all. I delivered newspapers for a long time, from the school of the village-! don't know if you've seen a picture ofthe village down there or not. At the camp where the workers were they had dormitories all over that area over there. And I delivered papers to all those dormitories. But that was the only commercial, uh, I had contact with. DN: Okay. You said you worked for the TV A though, right? HW: Oh yeah I worked for TVA half a day. And when I came back from the service, being that that was the last job I had in high school, I went right to work for TVA Harvey D. Welch again till I went to school over in Cullowhee and eventually went the University of Missouri. DN: Okay, yeah. So did your parents come here with you? HW: Ohyeah. DN: And did they work for-- HW: See I was in high school when we came here. But he was a carpenter on the job here. DN: Okay, so he worked for the TVA too then. HW: My stepdad, it was my stepdad. (Interruption) DN: So, you said you left the village in '44 to go the war? 4 HW: Right. Yeah I left in '44 and went-Well what story is connected with that is, it was my idea to be a Marine. I was a high school senior and that's all we ever read about in the paper, so I was going to be a big tough Marine. And this friend of mine came in, I was playing ball down there on the ball field, and he was going in to join the Navy. He was trying to talk me in to coming in with him. I kept saying no, if I was going in I was going to join the Marines. And to do that I had to get my mother's permission. I was only seventeen years old. Anyway, we'd gone up and talked to mother and it was alright with her for me to go in and join, but I was still going to join the Marines. I got in there and the lady Marine was sitting there at the desk with two big Marines sitting back there in the back. And the first question she said to me, she wanted to know what I was doing. I told her that I knew I had to get mother's permission and all. And she says, why don't you tum around and go back to high school. High school made sense because I was real Harvey D. Welch young looking, but I argued with her and argued with her and they were getting bigger and kicked-you can imagine those two big old Marines. Finally I got angry and I said I have graduated from high school, I'm in here to get some papers for my mother to sign, but I wouldn't join the Marines now if you put a gun in my face. And I went right down the hall and joined the Navy Air Corps. [laughter] DN: [laughing] Just joined the Navy then? HW: If I had that gal here I'd give her the biggest hug she ever had because she probably saved my life. Because as a Marine in that very time, they gave you about six weeks' training and you were hitting the beaches over there. Whereas they sent me to flight school and there was a year of training before I ever did anything. So I'm very happy I went in the Navy instead of the Marines. 5 DN: Mmm, I bet so. So after the war did you come back to Fontana and live for a while? HW: Yes I came back and lived for a while. In the meantime my family had finished the dam here, my family moved back to St. Louis. They kept hollering for me to come back to St. Louis, and I said, well I can't come now I've got to go to Cullowhee. I was already signed up over at Cullowhee. They kept on all along, all along, and so by the end of the year, I said, well I'll come back and go to work in St. Louis some place. I went to work at Sears & Roebuck and met a gal in the candy department, as I say, we thought we were in love before the summer was over with. I said, I've got to go back to North Carolina and we missed one another terribly. So at the end ofthe first quarter, first quarter now, I went back to St. Louis and they had me going to the University of Missouri. After I got back to St. Louis we didn't last two months. [laughter] We weren't Harvey D. Welch near as ... [coughs]. So I stayed on at Mizzou, finished up and got a degree at Mizzou. In the meantime I had changed from engineering, I had got as far as junior year in engineering and I said, this is not what I want to do all the rest of my life. I had all the math and all the science, so I went into education. It was one of the best moves I ever made. DN: Really? 6 HW: I really enjoyed it. I taught at Washington University for about thirty years and taught at the high school for thirty years; set up Calculus programs and all. So I really can't complain. DN: That's good, yeah. If you were to say how the village has changed since you left, what would be some of the biggest ways? HW: Well, they moved all the houses out for one thing. That's one of the biggest changes that's taken place. And, of course, the people are all different. If the outfit didn't take it over like they did, there wouldn't be any place like this. It was sort of going downhill rapidly until the outfit came and took over-Phillips-Jordan took over. They've got some things they need to work on here but ... DN: I guess that'll probably never change, huh? HW: Yeah that'll never change that much. But it's still home. Still home, nice to come back to all these people. I mean where have you--of course you haven't lived that long-but where have you been or who do you have that are friends that you've had since childhood? And you're still real close to them? DN: Yeah every time I go home I see the same group of people. Harvey D. Welch HW: Yeah. There's people here that I've known and had contact with for over eighty years. So ... DN: Wow. How old are you if you don't mind me asking? HW:88. DN: 88? HW:Mmhmm. DN: Okay. In that same vein, I'm sure there are ways that the village has stayed pretty much the same, in different ways. 7 HW: In many different ways. There used to be a cafeteria down below that we'd go down there and eat whenever we, basically wanted to. There used to be a drug store down there. You don't have all those different kind of things now. And really, there isn't a whole lot for us to do other than visit now, but it's still Fontana. And the people are so good, the people are so much the same. You just can't imagine living here together during the war, there's a lot of closeness. We get to meet these people shortly afterwards, or for a while afterwards. It's been a great experience. Great experience. DN: Do you think people have changed their views on the TV A in the area, since you lived here? HW: Well I know about TVA as much they have ... Southern Floridians and others who have moved in here from different places. I talked to a farmer over here in Yellow Creek, which is right across the mountain. He found that I had been living here during the war at the time the dam was built, and he said, why don't you come back down here to live and get rid of some ofthese Floridians that we've had. [laughter] Get some good people in here. I said, well there's some fine people over there but they've got that Harvey D. Welch 8 valley and all looking a lot different over there now than it used to be in those days. There used to be some guys that lived over there that would come across those mountains every day, work all day, go back at night, and come back the next morning. Walking across those mountains. DN: That's an early day ain't it? HW: Yeah that's an early, long day. After we came back and stayed for a while we tried to find that old trail we used, and they used. We looked and looked, looked. We used to go up there all the time: You could find the rock quarry but that trail on down the other side, it just grew up over the years. There was this one fellow in particular, and I, we looked that area over. And so I finally went over there to try and see some of the­find some of the guys that used to try. One, he said, yeah you're right there is a trail there, but he couldn't [laughter] remember where it was. He said I just remember us going back over. [laughter] [pause] DN: How long have the reunions been going on? HW: Since 1965. DN: '65? And you've been to the majority of them? HW: I've been to every one except last spring. I didn't get to, I had a stroke. You can probably tell by my voice, I sound funny. It affected my right side and that sort of thing. But I'd say ... [swats at bug] That bug ... DN: You going to get one? [laughter] I'll be looking out for you. What kind of things do y'all talk about, like in the lobby or when you're eating meals or whatever? What kind of things do y'all reminisce about? Harvey D. Welch 9 HW: Things that we used to do and places we used to go. We used to, and don't ask me how we got over there, but we used to spend a lot of time over in Santeela in that area over there, camping. Somebody would take us over there, drop us off, and then we'd stay over there a day, two days, three days. DN: Where at? HW: Over in Santeela, the lake over here pretty near Robbinsville. We used to go over there-well its past Robbinsville, you know where it is. I've made that trip so many times from Fontana on over to Sylva. DN: I'm sure you did do a lot of that. Especially going to school over there. HW: Yeah but now we just talk about the way things used to be and the way we used to do it and the silly things we used to do as kids and all that sort of thing. This and, of course we've all got kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and all now. DN: Do they come with you sometimes? HW: Sometimes. My wife used to come with me, she's been dead now for ten years. She used to come with me all the time and she made great friends with a lot of these people here. We miss each other and that's the way it is. Just like coming home, just like coming home though. I've got more friends down in this region, Alabama and Georgia and northern Florida, than I have back home. [laughter] DN: Wow. So what do your kids and grandkids think of the village up here? HW: I've got one grandchild that really, really likes it that wants to come. The rest of them haven't spent enough time down here to really care. But that one that really does like it, that one's a veterinarian. Harvey D. Welch 10 DN: Okay. Do you think that coming to the reunions has somehow influenced the way that you remember the place? HW: Oh the whole experience of being here changed my attitude. Changed my attitude on the outdoors, hikes, I've just loved it ever since I've been big enough to know what to do I have really, really loved these mountains and all. And see, I used to coach baseball at the high school. I played a lot of ball here and coached baseball up at the high school in Missouri. I hurt my knee showing them how to do something one time, so I showed them how not to do it. And the doctor told me at the time I was going to be crippled when I was an old man. I said, oh how do you know that. And he said, just take my word for it, it'll get better and you'll be able to get around. But he said, it'll go out on you one of these days, when it does you'll know it, you're going to be crippled when you're an old man, count on it. I didn't know whether to believe him or not, and I came down here and the first thing they started asking me to do-because, same way as when I was a kid down here, was I knew all these hikes and trails and everything around here­go and take us on such and such a hike. So I would do that, and the knee held up. For thirty years I came down here twice a year, took these kids all over these mountains, I mean everywhere. We hiked from Clingman's Dome to Fontana Dam over here and everything else. Went back up home here about three years ago and it went out on me on a trail up there. Liked to have never got back to the car. I went to a doctor up there that I'd never been to before, he wiggles around and x-rayed. Guy looked up at me and said, did you ever hurt that when you were a young man? Oh don't tell me! [laughter] I told him the story and he said, yeah you really tore that thing up good. He said, it healed up on you but now it's showing up on you. It's progressed from there to this, I started to walk Harvey D. Welch 11 along, now I got rheumatoid arthritis in my hip. They won't do anything with me because of my heart. I'm just here, that's about all you can say. DN: But there's benefits to- HW: Ohman, but I've had so many good years I can't complain a bit. For thirty years I led this group twice a year on hikes all over these mountains. I also did a lot of that up in my country too. But I can't do those things anymore. [laughter] DN: If you were to say-state a legacy of the village you grew up in, what would that be? HW: Well they will remember me, I don't know if that's what you're getting at or not, but they will remember me as leader of the hikes, leader of taking pictures, this sort of thing up here, I imagine. You can ask them but that's probably what they'd say. DN: How do you think maybe your kids or grandkids will remember the village? HW: About like any other kids, they just don't know a whole lot about it. They've heard me, they know that I love to come down here, that I love the people. They've met a number of the people and, as I say they've been down here in the midst of it. It's just hard to say if it'd be the same. They've got their own interests and they're used to that area up there. Had one that I said loves to be down here and come down here and all, but he's another one that takes more after that country up there. DN: Right, right. Well there's been a kind of explosion of tourism around the area since-! mean it's been decades growing. Do you feel like that's a good thing for the area? HW: Well, I'd like for it to be the way it used to be, ifl had it m- and I'm thankful that they haven't opened that up all the way to Bryson City like their plans were, Harvey D. Welch 12 and that sort of thing. Otherwise, that would be commercialized over there just like it is over here. But no I'm happy enough. I just hope they don't ruin Sharahalah* and that area over there, now. DN: Yeah there's a lot of fishing back in there, people still go do. HW: Yeah, a little bit of that won't hurt anything but as long as they keep building big places like this and so forth, they're going to ruin it. I mean we've got Branson in Missouri, which that used to be a beautiful, beautiful place. And it's still a beautiful place, but it's totally different now than it used to be. DN: It's commercial? HW: Commercialized, you know. But this place so far is not too bad. DN: What do you think the future holds up here? HW: Unless they get this place really going, it's going to die. There's a lot of things that's wrong and needs to be taken care of here. A lot of people I've heard say they won't-that people don't belong out here, they won't come back more. Met one in here yesterday, getting in here was bad enough, and then they got in here and there was no telephone service. Then one guy came up and said, how do you get out of here? I said, there's only one way to get out ofhere. [laughter] Couldn't wait to get going. So, I don't know. DN: You don't think it's going to bode well then? HW: Well, I don't know. My own personal feeling is that what they've got to do and what they do do, are two different things. To be successful they're going to have to have another place with something for people to do, things for people to do. You start thinking about it, a whole lot of people sightsee up here, that's about it. Sightsee and sit Harvey D. Welch 13 in the room. A lot people, a lot of the Dam Kids come in up here just to see the people and turn around and go home. They spend all their time sitting right here in the hotel. I'm not that way. [laughter] I have to be out doing something. But they're going to have to do something to get more people in here, and have more things to do. They were talking about building a big hall over here that would bring groups of people in here. I don't know if it died or what's happened to it, but I haven't heard much about it lately. But that's the sort of thing that they need to do. I hate to see it happen. [laughter] But it's uh ... DN: It's what they need? HW: Yeah to make this thing really be successful. This is not a first class place like they claim that it is. [laughter] it? that ... DN: The lobby in here is real nice. HW: Stay here a while. [laughter] DN: Ohman. Well is there anything else you would like to add to that? To any of HW: Well, no. If you've got any questions I'll try to answer them but other than DN: I'm just about out- HW: I'll give you some cd's you can take a look at, and you'll probably get some answers a lot better. Or this book right here, but I want that back in a little while. DN: Oh yeah, definitely. Well, I guess I'm about out of questions here. I appreciate you doing this, I'll call you back out ifl figure something- HW: [laughing] Okay. Well I'll be here till Sunday. Harvey D. Welch DN: Alright. HW: I may take off after while and go over to-this group always wants to go over to Sharahala * and all the things we see over here. DN: To Cherokee? 14 HW: They're not too interested in that. But we like to go over there between Robbinsville and ... over that way. So we'll probably go over there and see what's going on. DN: Maybe that fog's let up by now. HW: [laughter] Maybe. END OF INTERVIEW *"Sharahala" may possibly refer to the Nantahala river/area. Transcribed by Dustin Norris, October 19, 2014.

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Oral Histories of Western North Carolina

These interviews document the communities and culture of Western North Carolina. Topics include the building of the Fontana Dam, the history of WCU, stories from local veterans, integration of the...

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