Six-gun side arm

Added: Feb 02, 2017
Taken from an interview with Hattie's grandson, Howard Lee Ball, Jr in 2008:
They went down to Missouri, where Grandma packed a six-gun on her side. ... She was a wonderful person, like she was out of "central casting," really. I want to tell you, ... she had all of these zany little things that she had done. When they had a strike down there, there was a great strike and they burned railroad cars and they did everything, but they also left all the mules down in the mine and they weren't being fed. ... So, she went down to the mine, with a gun, with her gun, and took the strikers and put the gun on them and said, "Go down there and get them mules out here right now," and I guess they believed she would shoot them, and they went down and got them out. ... The mules were blind from being down there all the time, and they fed them and took care of them. So, that was another person who was a great influence on me when I was growing up. She came and lived with us, and Grandpa Stephens died in 1923 or '24. He was injured several times in the mine and he just didn't have it, you know, and he passed away.