From Left to Right. Catherine Jones, Emma Jean Hopkins, Charlene Jones, Frankie Taylor.
Frankie Taylor Jones
1982-2016
"I remember well the trips our family took to Kodak, Kentucky when I was a little girl to visit my Daddy’s brother who was a coal miner living in that community. It was always a day filled with adventure for my siblings and me. We looked forward to sailing paper-made boats down the creek, swinging across the creek on an old tire suspended from a rope tied to a branch far up in a tree, playing on the coal train cars, even when we knew better! It was always a treat to visit Uncle Ralph, Aunt Frankie and our cousins there in the coal camp.
Kodak, located near Vicco, Kentucky, was often referred to as Meem-Haskins when I was growing up. It is believed that Meem-Haskins was the last name of the owner of the coal company and was from Dayton, Ohio. According to my research, the Meem-Haskins Coal Company operated in Kodak from 1930 to 1955 and employed 150 workers.
I lived in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 80’s. For at least two summers I drove back home to Hazard and conducted oral history interviews from some of our elder members in the Black community, including Frankie Taylor Jones, Aunt Frankie. I sat down with her in 1983 to collect her story of growing up in Kodak, married life, and life as a coal-mining family." (Her interview is part of my larger article published in “Reshaping the Image of Appalachia”, edited by Loyal Jones, 1986, entitled “The Black American Family in Southeastern Kentucky: Red Fox, Kodak and Town Mountain”.)