Okay, the recording just started. Will you tell me your name and your age just so it's on the transcript? 

Yes, I am Phyllis Fenwick, Grammy. I'll be 85 next month.

Alrighty. Yeah. Okay, so I've told you a little bit about my project already, but I guess just a quick overview is that I'm studying petrochemicals in West Virginia, which is they are manufactured by places like Union Carbide and a lot of those plants in Nitro and stuff off the interstate is a big hub for the chemical plants. And so I've been doing some sort of mapping and stuff and then also collecting like newspaper archives and like social media references of incidents around the state and some stuff like that just trying to get like a better understanding of how chemicals have impacted West Virginia.

So, can you tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up in South Charleston? Just generally. 

With reference to the chemicals? 

Or just your experience, like anything about South Charleston that you remember or something that sticks out to you when you think about it?

Well, it was a good experience. Yeah. With reference to the chemicals, what I was going to tell you is I can remember when you used to come into South Charleston on the west end and the east end, there was the big signs that said "chemical city of the world." Yeah. Back during World War II. Also, we were, of course, I was, I guess I would have been in grade school, yeah. Or even younger. But I do remember, it must have been after World War II because of the chemical situations. And maybe it was during one of the conflicts that we were in, I don't know.

We would have drills in school where we would get under the desk whenever a siren went off. Because at that time, we were told that we were either the third or the fifth city in the United States that would be bombed if the bombers could get into the United States because of our chemical influence with all the influence of all the chemical plants and stuff we had that we would be bombed. And I do remember with that going on, then like I said, we'd have the drills where we would get under the desk and put our hands on our head and that kind of stuff.

But I do remember my own personal feeling about that. I guess I've always been a little on the paranoid side. Because when I was, I would get in bed at night and if I'd hear an airplane, I would start thinking, do I get under the bed or do I, thinking it possibly could be a bomber. Now I know that it was pretty remote. I was kind of young to be thinking like that, but I did. And as you said, I'd hear an airplane at night, I'd get kind of paranoid and think, oh gosh, maybe I need to get under the bed or something. I do remember that.

And my dad, of course, went to World War II. But now when he went away, I was four years old when he went away and I was six when he came back. So I was thinking it was World War II when we had this bomb. But it must have been some other conflict after that. I don't know what it was. But anyway, I know we used to have these drills. I used to have a fear when they'd hear an airplane at night.

And of course, my dad worked all these working days at DuPont, which was in Bell. He was an operator, worked in the powerhouse. And so I had a lot of, you know, I had connections with the chemical industry that way by my dad being employed there and a lot of things revolving around that. My grandfather on my mother's side was a founder of the very small Carbide plant in Clendenin, West Virginia, back when it was founded. I don't know what year. But back when my mother was still an actually young child at home, they lived in Clendenin. And he was one of the founders of the first Carbide plant in the area, maybe all over. I don't know. Anyway, it was back in Clendenin.

 I didn't know that. They were a founder. That's really cool.

 Well, I'll try to send you. 

Yeah, if you find anything about it, send it to me because Carbide is actually the first place to ever develop petrochemicals in the United States. They were like the founder of petrochemicals. So that's really interesting.

Yeah, Carbide, I mean, South Charleston was Carbide at one time. I mean, I can remember also as a young kid in grade school and stuff, and even in junior high and high school, all my friends' fathers worked at Carbide. And they had a camp, and I never got to go. There was Carbide Christmas parties, and I never got to go. But Dupont did have a Christmas party, but we didn't have any camp.

But later, because Uncle Jack, who raised Johnny, worked at Carbide, along with two of my uncles, our kids got to go to Carbide camp. The grandchildren at that point in time, I guess a lot of the kids had grown up and they didn't have a whole lot of the kids going. So grandchildren could go to Carbide camp. And Debbie actually went several years and was a counselor. She got a little older. David went a couple years. I thought your mom, I think, only got to go one year, maybe two, and then they closed Carbide camp.

So anyway, Carbide was starting to kind of dwindle down a little bit and lose some of its visibility in South Charleston, in Kanawha County. There were kids from all over, but Carbide was a very big influence at one time.

Well, this is a little bit redundant from what you just said, but I was just going to ask you about your kids attending Carbide camp, and what was a day at camp like, or what kind of environment was it? Stuff like that.

Well, my kids, I don't know. 

Yeah, so it was pretty removed. It was like sleepaway camp, right? 

Yeah, they would go and stay. Sometimes they stayed for two weeks at a time. Your Uncle David, I do remember his situation. He had been, and I forget what age he was, but he and his friends all the plans were going to go. So I packed his trunk for a week, thinking, I might have to go get him before the week was up. At the end of the week, he called and wanted to stay another week. So he had a second week, and then he brought his trunk home, which is funny, and he hadn't washed his clothes for one week. He still had a whole kind of clean clothes of about one or two outfits that were filthy dirty on top.

And like I say, your mother might tell you a little bit about it, but she wasn't quite as much into it. Anyway, that's kind of mainly what I remember about Carbide camp being a privilege for the Carbide kids.

Yeah. I talked to Mom about it a little bit. … That's cool that they got to go because of Uncle Jack. They wouldn't have been able to otherwise, right? 

No, no. But when they got old enough to go, at that time I didn't know for sure. And I think I actually wrote a letter and asked them would they be eligible to go because of their uncle that actually raised their father with a Carbide employee. And they wrote me back, I think, and told me, yeah, they could go.

And now I'll tell you, your Paw (her husband), he was big in the Carbide camp. I think he was a counselor for a couple years. So he remembers the old Carbide camps. He's on here right now. But he knows about the older Carbide camps.

Do you have any other questions?

Do you remember in 2014 the chemical spill that contaminated Kanawha County's water, the drinking water?

 Yes, I do. Yeah. What do you remember about it and how the city reacted and how you felt? I mean, I don't remember too much about it. I remember that it did happen, but I really had not remembered it happened until you brought it up. But I do remember that it happened. And I remember there was a little bit of animosity towards Carbide, but Carbide wasn't quite the centerpiece that it was at one time, by 2014. But it was still like it's kind of revered ground. You didn't badmouth Carbide too much because there had so many people working and stuff. And, of course, like I tell you, at that time, I guess Carbide was still, I know they weren't as big as they were at one time, but 2014.

Yeah, the spill in 2014 was actually a different company, Freedom Industries. But I don't think that it was very well publicized at the time of who was actually responsible. 

Yeah. And I knew DuPont had two or three of those spills. And I just kind of remembered and kind of remembered there was a problem with the water supply and stuff.

Oh, I'll tell you what I remember about that. Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what I remember about that. Our water supply, the water company, our water supply that we got where I lived at that time came out of Elk River. And the Kanawha River, you know, was downstream from Elk River. So actually, I don't think our water was affected by it. I think it was, you know, I think as a matter of fact, I think at that time, I swear, I believe the water company kind of went in and tapped into the Elk River trying to give, you know, water supply to the people that was affected by the spill. I think that's right. I don't remember a lot of stuff really straight, but anyway.

Yeah. I just wanted to know if you, like, remember there being any sort of, like, misinformation or confusion about if it was safe to drink the water or anything like that.

 I don't remember too much about it. I just kind of remember Elk River was involved because, I mean, it was not involved in the spill. So it was kind of everybody's savior, I think, with Elk River at the time. I think that's right.

So my last kind of official question is what changes you would like to see in the area or how you feel about chemicals still being so prevalent in South Charleston and the southern part of West Virginia? 

Well, I guess I don't think too much about it. I don't feel like the chemicals near, there's not nearly as much chemical influence in South Charleston now as there was, you know, several years back. And I still have chemical plants here. I can't remember the names of some. I met FMC and then somebody took over FMC and somebody took over Carbide. Well, DuPont, II think they lost part of their name to another company. But I guess I don't think too much about it. I mean, I guess, I guess I would rather have, you know, nice, friendly plants out there making flower seed. or something. But I really don't think too much about it because I guess it's always just as long as I can remember, it's just always been a part of South Charleston. And we do have the sign for the chemical city is gone and now says someplace nice, South Charleston. But I don't have really a strong feeling about that at all. I just, because of the fact that it's always been there.

I will, I just happened to think of something. The Carbide plant at Institute. Okay, my Uncle Bud, who's married to Aunt Marie, they live right straight across the river from the Institute plant. And they had an explosion down there one year. And the house, which is across the river, it blew the wall. It first sucked the walls in and blew them out. And it broke up a lot of furniture and stuff. I mean, it did a lot of damage. I mean, the house was in the walls were torn apart. I think they went back and repaired it and still lived there after the explosion. But it caused a lot of damage. And I think there were two or three people killed, I think. But that was back probably when I was about 12, 13, 14 years old, I think. Probably about 12 or 13.

And of course, back then, I mean, it seemed like Institute, I don't know what they were doing down there. But they had explosions every now and then. They weren't maybe noteworthy, but by my Uncle Bud working there, he would talk about some unit was shut down because something was either ready to blow or had blown or whatever. But I do remember the one pretty bad one where it tore their house apart across the river. And I'm pretty sure two or three people were killed in that one. But those are, you know, I guess back then, of course, we had the big Carbide up here in South Charleston. And every now and then they had a leak or something. And we had sirens back, I guess before they had sirens for tornadoes. We had sirens for chemical leaks. And every now and then one would go off because it had a chemical leak. And you were supposed to, you know, go in your house and shut your windows and doors and stay inside for a while. And then they had one that would go off and it was okay. But we had those for years. I don't think they still do.

Well, now once a month, once a month they have a test. And they do, maybe they still have it because once a month, the last, I think it's the last Wednesday of every month, they test the sirens. I guess it closed four, but I guess we haven't had any leaks for a long time because I haven't heard any sirens except on the Wednesdays for the tests. So we still have that. So I guess, you know, I guess I'm just kind of living in a chill here and not thinking too much. But I guess there's still a little danger here.

You know, my big fear was back wherever that war period was when I was afraid of the planes at night. I think that more than I do anything today. But I guess, you know, it's just kind of, I've lived here so long and I've had it all my life, I don't pay that much attention to it. But I do think we still have the siren system, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you, they've been there your whole life, you kind of just go like blind to it almost. Yeah, yeah, you know, I guess every now and then you think, you know, what if, what if?

Well, I thought of something else. I had one of my best friends growing up, a girl I graduated from high school with that lived right up the street from where we live now. Connie was her name. And her dad worked at Carbide. And when Connie was probably a year old, no more than a year old, I don't think, there was five of them in the family and she was the youngest. Her dad was down inside of a tank at Carbide cleaning it some way and it blew up and killed him. And so her mom raised them all by herself, all five of them. And Connie was the youngest and she was one of my best friends. Of course, she got to do all the Carbide camping and everything by her dad, even more so being killed at Carbide. But there were incidents like that, you know, like I said, that one was kind of close to home because Connie was a good friend of mine. There were incidents. Incidents would happen where people would get killed and stuff, and they were just kind of like, okay, I guess. Kind of like the mines, you know. People got killed after a while and just kind of got, oh, well, there's another one. I'm not sure what didn't feel that way to the family, but with the general public, it kind of got to be not accepted or overlooked or something, but it just kind of got to be, it's going to happen. And it did happen, I guess, from time to time, as evidence from my friend's father.

Yeah, that's crazy. All in all, I mean, you compare living in South Charleston compared to living in Canaan Valley. It's a very dangerous situation. I hadn't thought about it too much compared to other places where they don't have the chemical centers like we do. Of course, like you said, Nitro had some real big ones. I haven't heard too much about them. I'm sure there's been some incidents down there, but not too much. Carbide and DuPont's been my two main interests, really.

…

Well, I was just going to tell you they were like subsidized by the government to make chemicals and stuff like that.

Yeah. Well, the little Carbide that dad Gandee, I guess, they were actually doing probably stuff like weed killer and stuff. I don't know what they were doing, but they were definitely doing chemicals, not warfare type chemicals, I guess. Right. Because I know it was established before the South Charleston plant for a good little bit. And then I think that, I guess maybe they were operating up there and then when they come along and did the big one for the chemicals and stuff for the war, maybe that's when they built the big one in South Charleston. God, no wonder we were getting big.

Yeah. Anyhow, yeah. The thing of it is I lived there.

Yeah. You sure did.

Okay. Well, I don't have any more questions unless you have something else you want to add on.

I just thought there might have been a flash or something, but right now I can't think of anything else that's coming up. So that should be it. But I'll try to send you that. There's an article somewhere about dad Gandy's. And I think it actually fits where he was one of the founders of the company. I'll send that to you just for your information.

Okay. That'd be awesome.

All righty.

Okay. Thank you so much.