James King
Interview with James W. King
With comments by Carolin Smalley
Interviewed by Meghan Leonard
Interviewed on May 5, 2003
At the Waterford Place Health Campus
Kokomo, Indiana
Carolin Smalley – CS
James W. King – JK
Meghan Leonard – ML
ML: It’s May 10, 2003, and we’re at Waterford place health campus. I’m interviewing James King and He was born on November 1, 1909. He is currently living at Waterford Place Health Campus. The people Attending the interview are Carolin Smalley, James King, and Meghan Leonard. What’s your name?
JK: James King.
ML: How old are you?
JK: Ninety-three
ML: Where were you born and raised?
JK: Grant county, just north of Van Buren
ML: Okay, What’s your family background?
JK: Well they were just plain people.
ML: Who were your mother and father?
JK: My mother was Maddie Broviance, and my father of course was Watt King. I had one sister, died when she was four years old of infantile paralysis. I had three brothers; their names were Basil, Vernon, and Keith.
ML: What was your educational background?
JK: My education? Well of course I started school in a one-room schoolhouse until the 8th grade and in the 8th grade I transferred to the high school.
CS: Tell them where you graduated from in 12th grade.
ML: Tell me where you went to high school, what was the name of your school?
JK: My high school was in a little town, Banquo. That’s where we graduated from five years later.
ML: Do you remember what year you graduated?
JK: I graduated in 1928.
ML: What was your family doing during World War I?
JK: well we were still farming with horses of course during that time. We never had a tractor, my father wasn’t very enthused about implements that couldn’t be used with horses, he loved horses. That’s what we farmed with and everything was just built around that. Mother’s life was pretty hard. I remember her chopping her own wood, us boys would even be there and could have helped her a lot more than we did and that’s always been the sad part of growing up. We had a good life and we always had enough to eat.
ML: Did farming provide you with enough food or did you have to have an outside source?
JK: Well, yes we had enough food, we always had our three meals a day and it was good cooking. Mother was a good cook she really loved pies.
ML: Did you have to go buy meat from town or anything or did you raise animals on the farm?
JK: I can remember we used to buy some meat, but very little when we went to town, and I can remember bringing home meat bones. We usually raised about two litters of pigs a year at least.
ML: What do you remember about life during World War II?
JK: During World War II I worked at Delco Radio. I started there in 1929, at Delco I was in the material control department. I told men in marketing what to buy; the radios that were produced were used during the war. I was not drafted due to age.
I rode a bicycle to save on gas stamps so I could use the gas to go see my parents. I have a movie film of a parade in the town of Kokomo taken of V-J Day. I was married and had three children, we would have practice air raids and we had to close the blinds and turn out the lights until they gave the all clear.
After WWII I started my own heating and appliance store. At first it was hard to find products to sell, we sold washers, ranges, refrigerators and later TVs also we installed furnaces. Our first truck cost $700. It took a while to get the truck as production was slow. We delivered at first with a trailer behind our car until the truck came. Our business grew and it is now Kings Heating and Plumbing. The business is in Kokomo 57 years of service to the community. During the Second World War my wife did sewing for people and put buttons holes in clothing people made. I repaired ladies sewing machines. Sewing machines were an important item for ladies at that time
