Childress continues family tradition of basket making
Vincent Childress, left, won Best of Show in the Split Oak Basket Competition at the 2024 Hart County Fair. He is pictured with Dr. James Middleton, right, who purchased the basket. It will be on display at the Family Medical Center in Munfordville. Photo submitted.
Mary Beth Sallee
Managing Editor
Hart County News-Herald
Earlier this summer, Vincent Childress took home top honors with Best of Show in the Split Oak Basket Competition at the 2024 Hart County Fair.
Childress is mostly self-taught, having sought guidance from a few local basket makers. Nevertheless, the old-time tradition of basket making is one that certainly runs deep in the roots of his family tree.
“I just got into basket making two and a half years ago because, you know, it runs in the Childress family for generations,” Childress said. “…It’s part of Hart County’s heritage, especially in the Cub Run area.”
According to Childress, Cub Run was the epicenter of basket making.
“There was close to 200 families in that area that made baskets,” Childress said. “Then, after the turn of the 20th century, they found out they could get a little bit of money, 10 to 20 cents apiece for them. They would take them to the local country store and swap them for clothes or for food and goods.”
Childress’ grandparents made baskets on a small scale. At one time, his grandfather traveled by wagon and peddled them throughout the area. However, his grandparents passed away before any of the next generation took an interest in the trade.
But then one day, the now 72-year-old Childress decided that he wanted to try making a basket and has since created a large collection of them in the past two and a half years. The baskets are still made the old-fashioned way by using a sledgehammer, wedges, a pocket knife, and a shaving horse. No electrical machinery is used during the process.
“I just wanted to learn how to make a white oak basket, and, you know, it’s probably the toughest thing that I’ve ever learned how to do,” Childress said. “You have to go out in the woods and cut your tree, a certain kind of tree. It can’t be but about six inches wide or eight inches wide. Then you have to bring it and you have to split it in half, and then you have to split it more and work it down, get the material out of it. You’ve got to go through all that process, which that will take close to a week in order to get the material to weave a basket – your handle, your hoop, your ribs, your splits.”
For Childress, basket making not only keeps the tradition itself alive, but also pays respect to the many talented and well-respected basket makers known throughout Hart County, including Leona Waddell and Clevie Childress
“Clevie Childress, I was told that he sold a basket I think to Martha Layne Collins when she was Governor (of Kentucky),” Childress shared. “And I think it was presented to the Queen of England.”
“Basket making in Hart County has been carried on for years and years,” Childress added. “…It’s a dying traditional skill…I’m going to try to carry on the tradition of white oak basket making as long as I possibly can.”
For more information about local basket makers, visit the Mammoth Cave Basket Makers website at www.mammothcavebasketmakers.com.
