Janet Matthews at H&R Block, a job that she's held for 28 years in addition to many more. Her father W.A. Billingsley built the building that houses the business and the house that she still lives in today.
Born the seventh child of William Arthur, and Lennie Paradine Billingsley, Janet grew up in a town that was largely built by her father. W.A., as he was known, was a contractor that built several homes and commercial buildings in Middlesboro. Among his constructions are the structures that currently house businesses like H&R Block and Skate World.
Located only a couple of blocks from Cumberland Avenue on 22nd street, the home in which Janet and her siblings were raised was constructed by and completely renovated by William. Its close proximity to the heart of the town, Cumberland Avenue, inspired some of her favorite childhood memories.
“The best memory I have was as a child walking up and down these streets in Middlesboro at Christmastime, with all the store fronts lit up and window shopping all day,” she remembers. “Every place down here was occupied, everybody had their windows and their doors fixed up and even had hot chocolate and cookies that they passed out. It was an old-fashioned thing that we did every year.”
Janet was educated in the Middlesboro school system when Central School was still located in the city parking lot. Never one to sit idle, she never missed a full day of school or failed to keep busy when class let out. At the age of 8, she took her first after-school job.
“I used to baby-sit for (Paul) Connor and Nancy Cawood. I was only eight-you wouldn’t think of doing that now, leaving an eight-year-old to baby-sit. But, we just lived across the street and his mother trusted me,” she explains.
At 14, she began working at Woolworth’s, a five and ten cent store, once located on Cumberland Avenue. In addition, she took music lessons. She sang and played both the piano and the organ.
“Music was my life then,” she recalls.
In high school, she played a lead role in the first Middlesboro Theatre Group play, a romantic musical called “Old Smokey.”
“I played the lead girl and Duncan MacKenzie — I can still remember him- he was my boyfriend in the play,” she recalled. “We had a really good time doing it. I’m glad they have continued that theatre group through the years, glad that it has lasted.”
During her senior year of High School, a transfer student caught her eye. Herman Matthews had moved from Texas and was staying with his aunt and uncle Bell and Rosco Lankford who ran the American Association. He had previously lived in Fonde as well and remained close with many friends and family members there throughout his life.
“We just got to know each other in high school and then he joined the church,” she explains.
After high school, Janet went to Georgetown College and Herman went into the Air Corps. She made her first payment for tuition with a $50 bond that she had won at the age of five. She was awarded the bond and the title “Prettiest Smile” when her picture was entered in a contest in Knoxville.
In 1953, Janet graduated with Bachelor’s Degrees in Arts and Music Education. When she returned home, she taught piano and organ privately, spent a year as organist for Trinity Methodist Church, and awaited an employment opening in the city school system.
“I did get an offer from Maysville, KY, where Rosemary Clooney grew up. That excited me and I wanted to go there really badly, but my mother was not well, so I didn’t want to go that far away. I had some really good students,” she continues. “In fact, they are still playing for their churches or entertaining their kids or whatever they’re doing now. Some of them took it seriously.”
After completing his military service, Herman Matthews also returned home and earned a degree at LMU. In 1955, the couple married and soon after moved to Nashville where Herman worked to earn his Master’s degree in Mathematics at Vanderbilt. Janet was hired as the secretary of the music department at Peabody college.
The couple returned to Middlesboro a year later, taking an apartment owned by her parents and located behind their house. The two planned to buy or build a house of their own soon, but when her mother passed away, she and Herman moved into the house in with her father.
That same year, 1956, the couple welcomed their first child, a son named Timothy. Herman took a job as a math professor at LMU and Janet became the music director for Middlesboro schools.
“I enjoyed that job. The only problem I had with it, was that there was more traveling in it than there was teaching,” she says.
In the days before the schools were consolidated, the music director had to travel to several different schools, leaving only about 15 minutes to teach at each one. As music director, she also conducted a choir at Middlesboro High School that made it to the state competition.
At the same time, she became music director and a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church, where she had been a member since childhood. She led five different choirs during her tenure before stepping down to become the organist in 1975.
“So I became the church organist, which is what I’m doing today. My husband was church pianist-we sort of made beautiful music together,” she laughs.
She and Harry Hoe partnered to teach Sunday school, and both enjoyed working with the teenagers that made up their class.
“We would take turns,” she recalls. “We would both go every Sunday and he’d teach it one Sunday and I’d teach it the next and so forth. We really had a good time in that class.”
When she learned that she was expecting a second child, she stopped working full time. Still, her plate remained full. In addition to raising seven children and tending to her roles in the church, she continued to substitute in the Middlesboro schools to fulfill her love of teaching. In the mean time, she also ran two businesses and began working as a tax preparer at H&R Block.
The “Gift Corral” was opened in the 1970s and was located in the Skate World building, which her brother Howard owned. A joint venture between her and a friend, the store sold jewelry and western-themed clothing and the two women spent several happy years operating it.
During this time she also gave skating lessons on Saturdays.
“I loved it!” she reminisced. “We had little programs and pageants and things like that for the little kids that were just learning how to skate.”
In the 1980s, she opened “Mom’s Deli” in the building that currently contains H&R Block. During the tornado of 1989, the roof was lifted from the building and all appliances and equipment were destroyed.
After the disaster, the building was remodeled and H&R Block moved in. In 1991, Janet became the manager. She has now been there for 28 years.
Her first professional love, though, was teaching, and when an opportunity to return to it full time came along, she jumped on it. She had been filling in for the third grade special education class after the resignation of the full time teacher and was offered the job.
“I missed my school, I missed going back to school and doing things with the children,” she says, “because that’s kind of what I wanted to be when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a school teacher.”
The position came with one caveat-she needed an additional degree. So in 2003, fifty years after earning her Bachelor’s degrees, she again became a student.
“I went back to school and got a special education degree and got my Master’s so that I could be full time for special-ed. So that ‘s where I am today. I still work for Block and I still work for the schools,” she states.
Janet also spends a good amount of time keeping up with her ever-expanding family. Herman passed away in 2008, but the family he and Janet created remains strong.
Just like Janet‘s parents, the couple raised five daughters and two sons in the house on 22nd street: Timothy, an attorney who works for Jewelry Television in Knoxville, Lydia, a physical therapist who lives in St. Louis, MO, Jennifer, a computer specialist, Jane Ann, a nurse practitioner at the University of Kentucky, William, a business man in Edgewood, KY, Cherrie Jean a former home economics teacher and stay-at-home-mom, and Emily, a veterinarian technician that operates a pet-grooming business in Middlesboro. Altogether, they have produced 31 grandchildren and one great grandchild-with two more on the way.
“I think we’re in the people business,” she jokes. “I don’t know what it is exactly. That’s my biggest disappointment that I don’t live closer to all of them.”
Although she’s loves to travel, particularly to Colorado, she isn’t likely to move from the home that her father built before the onset of the Great Depression.
“That’s where all of my children grew up and its where I grew up,” she says. “I don’t think I would ever move out of it, permanently anyway, because I just like being around things he’s done.”
She isn’t likely to retire from anything soon, either.
“I think if I had to stay home all by myself, I’d get really bored,” she says. “Most of all I enjoy being with people. The kids at school are great. I enjoy the church, I enjoy playing the organ. It seems to me like there’s not enough time to do things you really enjoy doing.”
Janet Matthew’s life in Middlesboro has been a pleasant and, certainly, a productive one. The impact she continues to make on the lives of generations of students, clients, friends, and family has become part of a lasting legacy.
“I’m just deep in history here,” she explains. “I feel like I’m a part of this place.”
Lorie Settles is a correspondent for the Middlesboro Daily News. Contact her via e-mail at correspondent@middlesborodailynews.com.
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