Harrison County | Lewis at Home

Tag Archives: Harrison County

Samuel Fitz Randolph

April 20, 2009

Samuel Fitz Randolph was born October 1738 in Piscataway, NJ and died February 25, 1825 in New Salem, Virginia (now West Virginia) On March 25, 1761 the Reverend Jonathan Dunham, pastor of the Seventh Day Baptist Church in Piscataway, NJ, married Samuel and his cousin Margaret Fitz Randolph.

We know these facts about Samuel:

He was an officer in the War of the Revolution, mustering in on May 16, 1777 as an Ensign in the Company of Militia, Second Regiment, Sussex County, New Jersey. His descendents are entitled to membership in DAR/SAR.
He purchased 300 acres of land in Yellow Creek, Armstrong Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania April 16, 1785
He moved to Fayette County, PA between Nov 21, 1785 and Nov 26, 1790
He purchased over 800 acres of land Nov 21, 1795 from Robert Martin
He purchased 256 acres of land in Harrison County, WV (where the present town of Salem was laid out) on Nov 26, 1790 from Catherine Swearingen for the sum of 132 pounds, 10 shillings, 5 pence Virginia money
He moved to Salem after May 10, 1792

Children of Samuel and Margaret, all born in Piscataway, NJ:

1. Mary Fitz Randolph, born October 16, 1761, married James Hill in 1795

2. Sarah Fitz Randolph, born November 8, 1763, married 1) Daniel Sharpneck, 2)John Rice, 3) George Murdock

3. Elizabeth Fitz Randolph, born May 13, 1766, married William Brand

4. Jesse Fitz Randolph, born May 21, 1768, married 1) Delilah LaForge, 2) Elizabeth Gillis

5. David Fitz Randolph, born June 23, 1770, married 1) Mary Richardson

6. Rhulanah Fitz Randolph, born March 13, 1773, married John Bonnell

7. Jonathan Fitz Randolph, born May 20, 1775, married Mary Davis in 1798

8. Margaret Fitz Randolph, born February 4, 1777, married William Clayton in 1798

9. Nancy Fitz Randolph, born February 19, 1781, married Stephen C. Davis

Their fourth child, Jesse, is my ancestor.

Also tagged baptist, Baptist Church, David Fitz Randolph, fitz randolph, Jesse Fitz Randolph, Jonathan Fitz Randolph, Piscataway New Jersey, randolph, Revolutionary War, salem, salem college, Samuel Fitz Randolph, virginia, west virginia – No Comments

Chapter 19 – Synopsis of My Teaching Career

April 19, 2009

So ended 51 terms of school teaching-27 in Ritchie County, 3 in Harrison County, 4 in Doddridge County, 1 in Taylor County, and 16 in Braxton County. I have taught about 1500 children. Very few teachers have had a chance to do more good to the rising generation. This was a long time to teach. During this time I have seen many changes.

When I began teaching, almost anyone who could answer the questions asked by the Board of Examination could get to teach-in fact, if they could answer three out of four. Often there was much cheating so that many teachers could not work fairly simple problems in arithmetic and knew nothing about history. I remember well in my first exam that one question was, “How many teeth has an adult?” A young fellow asked the examiner, “What is an adult?” The reply was, “What do you think it is?” The boy replied, “I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe it was a sick person.” I am glad to say he did not get a grade.

At the time I began teaching, there were no teachers in Ritchie County with a degree except the principal of a large high school. I doubt if there were any, or very few, teaching in the rural schools who were high school graduates. The rural schools were all one-room schools. In fact, they didn’t begin to consolidate schools and haul the children in buses for 30 years. How many of the teachers now are not only high school and normal graduates, but have a degree!

The salary for a First Grade was seldom over $30 per month for a term of four months. When in 1903 they increased the school term to five months, they cut the salary to $23 per month. After paying your board, you had less than $100 for five months’ teaching. You ask why any one would teach for that? The answer is easy-there was no work you could get during the bad winter months, and it was an honor to be a teacher. When school was out, you could raise a crop or get a job on a farm (farming was about the only work to be had in the rural sections). Your school gave you a little cash, for money was scarce.

After World War I teachers’ wages were raised to $108 per month, which seemed like a princely wage. But this did not equal the wages paid in factories. Many teachers went to the cities, and there was trouble to get teachers in many sections. They had to take boys and girls without any preparation who did not intend to make it a life work but merely wanted to make some easy money, not caring whether the children learned anything or not.

I will tell a story one teacher told me. She passed a school house early in the fall, about 1:30 p.m. The teacher had on a man’s white shirt and a pair of slacks, with her feet on the desk, leaning back against the wall sound asleep. Probably she was happy!

The wages in Union District, Ritchie County, were always low until the county was made a school unit and a minimum wage was set in 1919. The towns had paid much higher wages, but this law did away with independent districts, which pleased me for I hated for them to feel that they could laud it over us rural teachers.

Stories Told by County Superintendents: I will tell a few stories told by county superintendents. There was a time when there was a blank space after each name on the register for the teacher to make remarks about the pupil. One teacher wrote, “Kissed the teacher three times.” After another name was written, “The prettiest girl in school.” The same superintendent read us a report from one teacher of an attendance of 200% (this was better than I ever could do). All of this shows that many teachers were lacking in education, judgment, and good common sense,

Another superintendent told me of visiting a school which showed lack of order and any sign of teaching ability. All at once a big boy in the back of the house yelled out, “Gobbler,” (the teacher’s name was Garber) “what time is it?” After school was out, the teacher said he was going into something that would pay him better than teaching. The superintendent told him that was the thing to do.

Also tagged Braxton County, Doddridge County, ritchie county, school house, west virginia – No Comments

Chapter 4: Our Wedding and Early Married Years

April 6, 2009

Ashby’s Memories

It must have been at the Christmas vacation when I went to see Ruth at her home near Roanoke. We had been engaged since September and were expecting to marry in June after graduation. All of a sudden one evening we decided it would be better to marry December 23 so we would have the Christmas vacation together.

The 23rd came–a snow-covered, icy, cold day. I had just recovered from a short sick spell. I don’t remember how I got to Clarksburg, but I know I went to Weston on the trolley. Ruth met me at the station. We hurried to the courthouse, where we got our license and got back to the trolley station in less than one-half hour so we could catch the next trolley to Lost Creek. At Lost Creek we went to Pastor H. C. Van Horn’s, where he married us in the parsonage.

We caught the next streetcar to Clarksburg. Everett Williams and Ruth’s sister Susie met us in their big Oldsmobile and took us to my home in Salem. Before we met Everett, we hunted a restaurant and ate ice cream on raisin pie. For many years raisin pie with ice cream on it, if possible, was a special anniversary treat.

It was a very short two-week vacation, mostly spent at Ruth’s home playing Rook with my new in-laws and Ruth’s neighbors and relatives. We had the luck of the Irish–never losing a match.

Ruth’s Memories

That summer of 1925, 1 completed my Standard Normal. One of my good friends from West Milford and I were hired to teach the two room school at Kennedy Station near Jackson’s Mill. We were real excited about it.

Ashby and I had been corresponding since I had sent him a Christmas card. I saw him a time or two while I was in school at Salem College that summer. He was kept quite busy all that summer trying to save up enough money to go to school and get his Standard Normal the next summer.

Ada was teaching at Mt. Clare that year, and Lydia was teaching in Clarksburg. They were both staying with Susie and Everett (also his father and sister were staying there). Their schools started one week earlier than my school was to start in Lewis County. They had just started their school when llama fell and hurt her hip so badly she could not do her work. Someone had to stay at home and help out. Ada and Lydia were both willing to come back,, but I was already there and had time to notify my Board of Education so they could hire someone to take my place. Papa favored that plan, too. (Perhaps he was thinking he, too, might have some help.)

I really enjoyed being home. After Ashby enrolled in college, he came up home for the weekend once a month. We were engaged that fall but did not plan to be married until he finished school in June.

Main was teaching near home that year. We had a lot of pleasant evenings playing Rook with Harvey and Vesta Heavener. Most of the time they came down home.

Ada and Lydia gave me $25 a month for spending money, so I got along real well.

Our Wedding, December 23, 1925.

Christmas vacation started December 18 that year,-and Ashby came up home for the weekend. Sunday afternoon we decided it would be much more fun to spend most of the vacation together. He had to go home Monday, and we planned to meet in Weston on Wednesday at the streetcar terminal.

Tuesday Lydia and I took the train to Weston. We shopped around for a new dress, then went to our cousin Aura Tillman’s to stay overnight. (It was good winter weather–about a foot of snow was on the ground, but the streets were well cleared.)

We met Ashby at ten o’clock as planned and went to the court house to get our license (quite simple in our day!). We got back to the streetcar terminal in time to get on the same car he had come on.

We stopped over at Lost Creek and went to the Seventh Day Baptist parsonage. Ashby had stopped there on his way home on Monday and made arrangements, but he had not told the pastor who the bride would be. H. C. Van Horn was one surprised man when he met us at the door! He had marriage certificates, but he said had he known it was for me he would have had a much nicer one. His wife and daughter were the only witnesses. Orville was living about three miles away. He got to Lost Creek in time to wish us well before we left on the next streetcar to Clarksburg.

It was about noon when we got to Clarksburg, but we were not very hungry. We decided to just get raisin pie with ice cream.

We went to Everett and Susie’s home on Broadus Avenue. He had said he would take us to Salem to Ashby’s home. He had the car all decorated and a “Just Married” sign on the back. He drove slowly through Salem, but there was scarcely anyone on the street. Ashby’s family made me feel much a part of the family–and that feeling remains.

Elmo and some of his friends on the hill serenaded us that night.

The next morning we took the nine o’clock train to Clarksburg, then on to Roanoke, arriving about 2 p.m. Main met us at the train. We were busy the rest of the day making popcorn balls and candy to have ready for the serenaders that night.

We played Rook a lot that vacation, and “Luck” was with us most of the time. All too soon, vacation was over; and Ashby was back in school.

Our First Year of Marriage

Ashby’s Memories — Completing My Standard Normal Degree.

Soon I was back in school, leaving my queen at her home because she had to take care of her mother (who had hurt her hip). I did go back some weekends, and Ruth came to my home for a week after her mother got well enough to get around to do the housework. She also came to my graduation. In this third graduation on the Salem College stage, I played a doctor in our play.

Our first home.

When school was out, we moved into an old two story house with Aunt Jane Bond, where we lived in the lower story. It was a nice piece of ground with about an acre of garden and two acres for corn. Besides this farming, I had two jobs. I pitched about fifteen stacks of hay for Henry Watson. Then I got a job with a construction company,making the culverts for Route 19 from Weston to Roanoke.

This company also had a factory that made round culverts. One extremely hot day they took us away from making forms for a culvert to unload a steel gondola railroad car. The sun was so hot we could not put a hand on the car. We shoveled the gravel with a scoop shovel. Mr. Peters, one of the owners, told us he wanted it unloaded that day to save a holdover charge. He also came from the factory every little bit and shoveled like a house afire. I tried to shovel as fast as he did, even while he got his breaks. We had it unloaded by four o’clock; then we went with Mr. Rhodes, the other owner, to the culvert job. Mr. Rhodes told me to sit in the shade under a maple tree; I guess he could see I had a severe sick headache.

Teaching at Shady Grove School.

School time came again. I had to leave Ruth at her home at Roanoke while I stayed at my home in Salem and taught the Shady Grove School. This school was five miles from home by walking paths across the hills that cut miles from the way by roads.

Our first new car.

When I went to see Ruth over the first weekend, she suggested we buy a Ford Roadster, and I quickly agreed. I had to borrow the money to pay for the car, and I charged the gas to fill the tank.

The eight miles to school was mud all but two miles, and the trip to Roanoke each weekend had either eight or twelve miles of dirt–mostly mud–roads. On one trip to Roanoke, I took Elmo with me, and we had to detour the twelve-mile way. After we were thinking maybe we were lost or we would have found Route 19 (the main road), we came to a country store. A man was sitting on the porch, and Elmo asked, “What is the best way to Roanoke?” He answered, “You walk.” That didn’t stop Lizzy! She made it!

Lizzy only cost us $490 brand new–a 1927 Roadster. We paid for her in 11 months instead of the 12 months they gave us at the bank. Lizzy worked faithfully until our family outgrew her in 1933. The only repairs were once a year, when I would clean the cylinder head and occasionally repair a spark plug.

Our first son is born.

The third week after school started, I was going to bring Ruth to Salem, where Aunt Doc was to take care of her and the baby. It was not to be that way. Uncle Main (Ruth’s youngest brother) and I went for Dr. Obrien about 2 a.m. on September 19. He took his time, but he came. Aunt Doc found a nurse, Miss Young; and she stayed with Ruth at Roanoke, caring for her and Bond for ten days. The doctor charged $10, and the nurse charged $75. Ashby Bond has been worth every bit of it.

More about Shady Grove School.

Near the end of school, we practiced or a field day at West Milford for our district. We had a field day with our neighbor, Morris School, before the district meet. We won enough at Morris to get our pupils and parents interested. So I paid $10 to one of my patrons to take as many as we could on a wagon to the West Milford meet. We won quite a few first-, second-, and third-place ribbons, which made everyone proud and happy.

Another thing I was proud of was that my eighth grade girl, Edna Day, took and passed the state examination. She was my first eighth grader to take the exam. She also won the District Girls’ Softball Throw. (We named one of our girls, Edna Ruth, for Edna Day.)

Ruth’s Memories

In late January I went to take care of Lee and Charles while Susie was in the hospital with a third son, Roxie Dane. I started having morning sickness while I was there. After I went home, it did not improve; in fact I got to the place where I could not sit up. Ashby came home that weekend. I was doing a little better by Monday, so he went back to school. I got better so I was up and around, but food and drink never stayed down very long. I got used to that. Later I went to Salem and stayed a week at Ashby’s home. I went to see Aunt Doc while I was there. She said, “Some get sick, and some don’t. You just have to take what comes.”

At long last graduation time came. I went to Salem for that. Ashby went home with me that time for keeps–we thought.

Our first home (rented apartment). Uncle Sammie was gone by that time, and Aunt Jane had fixed an apartment upstairs where she stayed; she rented the downstairs so she could have a little money coming in. I learned her renter was leaving in May, so I rented the apartment. We had enough donations so we furnished the place very comfortably. We bought the kitchen stove from the previous renter. We soon were living in our first home.

By the time our folks had gathered up things they could do without and some friends and neighbors came up with a few things, we were quite comfortable with little expense.

My sisters bought us a hand-operated washing machine. We had to carry our water from a cold spring some distance from the house. Water was handy at home, so they kept the washer there that summer and did our washing and ironing.

We lived about one-half mile from home. We raised a good garden and corn patch. Ashby worked for farmers anytime he could. I went down home every day that I did not have work to do at home. I was not too ambitious that summer, for I still could not keep food down any length of time. (I felt all right between times.)

Ashby tried to get a school near home that summer, but none were available. Orville came up home. (He was supervisor of Union District in Harrison County.) He had not been able to find a teacher for the one-room school at Shady Grove near the Doddridge County line. Ashby readily agreed to take the job. School was to start the following Monday. We decided I should stay at home and get things in shape there for three weeks; then I would go to Salem where we would both stay so Aunt Doc could take care of me when the baby came.

Our first baby arrives.

Ashby came home after school on Friday to take me back with him on Sunday. (I weighed less at that time than I did when we were married.) Plans changed fast. We had to call a local doctor on Sunday morning; and our first child, Bond, arrived. He only weighed 5 1/2 pounds, but otherwise he was a healthy baby. I put my thumb down beside his wrist and ankle, and my thumb was decidedly larger.

Mama asked the doctor what I should eat. He said, “Give her anythingshe wants and all she wants. She is starved.” That was music to my ears. Food never tasted better!

Mama was nervous about taking care of a baby so small, so Aunt Doc sent a nurse to take care of us for ten days.

We were so glad Ashby was there, but he had to go back to his school. I think that was the only time I was ever “homesick” at home. Nevertheless, I had to stay there three more weeks before I got to go to Salem with Bond.

Moving to Salem–and then to Shady Grove.

We stayed with Mother Randolph until November 11 when Ashby took us to Shady Grove. He had found a little cottage (furnished enough to make out) within a half mile of his school. By that time the road was getting so bad we had a hard time getting there. We never had the car out again until the next spring.

We made a lot of lasting friends that winter. When the weather permitted, we walked about one mile to the Meadow Valley Evangelical United Brethren Church. We were made to feel very welcome.

I had never been away from my old home before on Christmas Day. I missed being there; but Ashby and Bond were with me, and we were healthy and happy. What more could one ask!

A Summer at Lost Creek–1927

Ashby’s Memories

We moved to Lost Creek, where I put in two gardens and took care of Uncle Tom Bond’s farm during his vacation. It seemed everything went wrong the two weeks I was responsible for Uncle Tom’s farm. Ruth got sick (very sick) with the pregnancy of Xenia Lee. Two heifers came fresh (with very small, tedious teets to milk); this made twelve cows to milk, when I hadn’t milked more than one in five years. Then after all that, his hogs took cholera, and I had them to doctor and everything to sterilize. When Uncle Tom’s returned, everything was fine; and they seemed to appreciate the job.

Ruth’s Memories

The next spring, we rented a house on Lost Creek, not far from where Orville and Lucille lived. We moved our things in on Friday, but the gas was not yet connected. So we went up to Orville’s for the weekend. Susie, Everett, and their children also came out there for the weekend. We had the beds set up at our house; so Ashby, Orville, and his boys went there to sleep. I slept with Lucille. Orville got up early the next morning and came home. When he came in, Lucille said, “Oh, Orville, rub my legs. They have almost had cramps all night, but you were not here to rub them out.”

In the next year or so, Susie and Everett bought about fifty acres of Orville’s farm and built a summer home. Everett was teaching in Clarksburg, so they needed their home on Broadus Avenue.

We had a good garden that summer and had a cow; so we had our own milk and butter.

Uncle Tom had a dairy farm joining Orville. He also had hogs and chickens. They wanted to take a two-week vacation that summer and wanted Ashby to take care of everything while they were gone. We looked forward to that with great anticipation, for we both loved that kind of work. When the time came, poor Ashby had it all to do alone–I was sick again.

Living and Teaching at Jarvisville

Ashby’s Memories

The fall of 1927 I started teaching as principal of the two room school at Jarvisville. Mostly, I had a great time at Jarvisville. The pupils were bright and had been well taught–and besides, they were very athletic. The parents were mostly cooperative. Even the ministers were extremely helpful. They took week about (there were two of them) conducting an opening exercise.

When it came hiring time for the 1928-29 year, a member of one of the churches wanted my job. A number of the church members and the minister, Rev. Vanscoy, went to the meeting. Each member got up and said he had nothing against me but he wanted the other man to teach the school. Then Rev. Vanscoy got up and said, “I like Mr. Randolph and want him to have the school.” I kept teaching there until the fall of 1932.

The following are some of the successes I enjoyed at the Jarvisville School: All my eighth-grade pupils passed the state exam; our fifth-, sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade pupils won many ribbons–both in scholastics and athletics–at the District Field Meet.

Ruth’s Memories

Ashby was principal at Jarvisville the next school year. We found a cottage we could rent near the schoolhouse. Ada helped me clean the windows and the whole house before we moved, so all we had to do was to put things where they belonged as they were unloaded. What fun!!

We made a lot more friends there. A good neighbor (Walter and Esta Cozad) lived just across the road from us. They had one girl. (By the way, she went through grade school and high school without missing one day of school.)

At that time a hard surface road connected Jarvisville with Route 50, so we could get out any time we needed to. We rented a garage from the storekeeper.

Our second babv arrives. Near the end of February, we went to Salem to Ashby’s home so Aunt Doc could take care of our new baby. On February 28, Xenia Lee arrived about 11 a.m. She was a plump little baby–6 3/4 pounds. Elmo had to bring in all his friends to see her, and most of the relatives in Salem were in. By evening, she had had 27 visitors. Papa was plenty proud of her; she was the second girl in eight grandchildren. We went back to Jarvisville when Xenia Lee was three weeks old.

Owning Our Home

Ruth’s Memories

That spring Ashby found a little place for sale 2 1/2 miles west of Jarvisville. We were tired of moving twice a year. Ashby went to look at the place. The roads were still bad, so he had to walk. He liked the place with 18 acres, so we bought it. When a friend heard we had bought it, she said, “Did you let him buy that without your seeing it? What if you don’t like it?” I said, “He likes it, and I don’t have any doubt that I will like it too.” We are still here almost 53 years later and still loving it!

Maybe one of the biggest attractions of this place is 200,000 cubic feet of free gas each year. We have only paid three gas bills since we have lived here. The biggest one was about $11. Our meter is back on the hill. A boy from the other side of the hill was riding his motorcycle up and down the gas line right-of-way. Some way he ran into the meter house, upset it, and almost broke the gas line in two. Ashby was fishing at the pond and heard the crash but did not know what was wrong until we found we had no gas. That year we paid a $12 gas bill.

We had a good garden here, a hill meadow, and pasture for cows. We also kept chickens and pigs.

That first summer I wanted to help Ashby cut the filth on the hill, so we put a comfort in a wash tub and put Xenia Lee in it in the shade. She was quite happy, and Bond played close by her. I did not get to do that many times, for it seemed there were things at the house to be done, too.

There were lots of wild strawberries around over the place. I remember one summer Ada was staying with us while Ashby was in 4-H camp. She watched the children while I went on the hill and picked a 2 1/2-gallon bucket full of wild strawberries. We took them over to Aunt Elsie and Aunt Doc’s and had a big strawberry shortcake for dinner. It makes my mouth water to even write about it!

We had a hand-drilled well with a pitcher pump on our back porch. It was only about twelve feet deep. One could pump a two gallon bucket of water every hour or so. The water was nice and cold. A stream of water ran between the house and garden. It was clear except when it rained, and then it cleared quickly. There was enough drop to place a three-inch pipe and put a wash tub under it at the lower end. That made a good water supply for washing. We had to build a fire outside and heat the water in a twelve-gallon kettle, then carry it to the wash tub. We finally got our first gasoline motor Maytag. That was really something! We still had to carry all of the water to it–and also away.

Mr. and Mrs. Stull lived for a while in the house just west of us. They were a dear old couple, and we enjoyed their company. At that time a continued story was in the daily paper. Every day Mrs. Stull would come down to hear me read that story. Sometimes she would get so provoked at some of the characters in the story she wanted to shake them.

About this time we saw our first deer in this part of the county. At first, we saw it in the hill meadow. Then it came down to a pen where we had a Jersey calf. The deer nosed the calf quite a while before taking off up over the hill.

Ashby’s Memories

Maybe you would be interested in the getting and developing of the home of our family. The first summer Ruth and I were married, we lived in the downstairs of an old house near Ruth’s home. After I started teaching at Shady Grove, at the very head of Turtle Tree Fork of Tenmile, Ruth stayed at her home and I lived with my mother and my brother Elmo at Salem until three weeks after Bond was born. Ruth and Bond came to live in my Salem home until November 11, 1926, when we moved to within 1/2 mile of my Shady Grove School. We rented it from Fred Day, a wonderful friend (as was his wife and three daughters). Arvilla, the youngest, brought fresh milk to us each morning after they milked and usually asked Ruth if she had any cake because she loved it. Edna, her older sister, was the girl I mentioned as my first pupil to pass the state 8th grade exam.

When school was out the next spring, 1927, we moved to Lost Creek near Orville, which Ruth has told you about. After I started teaching at Jarvisville and driving about 7 miles each way, I rented a small house from Walter Cozad, which Ruth has mentioned in her stories. We enjoyed our life there until the spring of 1928 after Xenia Lee arrived, when we bought the home where we raised you children and still live.

The place had a four-room house with each room leaking when it rained, and in winter snow would blow through some of the cracks in the siding. There were 18 acres of hill land in the farm. We soon traded a good milk cow for 3 acres of bottom land between our farm and the road. That let us have a good way to the road instead of the right of way 200 yards up the creek and then through another farmer’s swampy meadow. An important part of the original buy was 200,000 cu. ft. of free natural gas each year. In the 57 years we have lived here so far, we have only paid a gas bill three different years.

Making improvements.

Gradually our house changed. We had Uncle Tom Randolph and Uncle Oris Stutler put in masonite wallboard on every room. Tommy Thomas, Glen Matthey, and Raymond Post built us a stone cellar 12 by 14 feet from rock cut from our own farm. In 1945 Edgar and his brother Bob built us a cellar house 12 by 18 feet, where Xenia Lee and Edgar lived for a while and where Annita was born. Somewhere in the early 1930′s we got imitation brick siding to cover the whole house. That, with the masonite inside, helped a lot. Still later we had aluminum siding and storm windows put on the four rooms. The combination brick cost about $300, and the aluminum siding cost $700 put on.

While I taught at West Milford, about 1965, we got a big room across the whole front of the house where the front porch had been, a good bathroom, and a garage, besides a new roof built over the original one for $3,000. Still later, about 1969, Neil Matheny and his two sons built our TV room and half bath for $2,500.

Water problems.

Water was a big problem for many years. We started with a hand-drilled well on our back porch that gave us two gallons of drinking water about every two or three hours and creek or spring water to boil outside over a wood fire in a 12-gallon kettle for washing. Some years later a company drilled a 2 1/2-inch test core about 400 feet deep in our yard west of the house. As pay for the damage, they left us a pump that gave us plenty of water until the sides began caving in, which made the water muddy.

Then we got a Mr. Mitchell with his peach limb to hunt us a good water supply. We didn’t have much faith in the method, but he only charged $5 and he located the spots for the Hope Gas to drill their water wells. When he found the place, he let Ruth and me try holding the limb; it pointed to the ground no difference how hard we tried to hold it up. This was about 60 feet east of the house. When they drilled it, they found the water 35 feet down after going through 15 feet of solid limestone. They tried bailing it down and couldn’t lower the water any. For a while we used a pitcher pump in a sink; then finally we had running water in the kitchen and bathrooms. What a happy day!

Work-saving appliances.

There were two things I got for Ruth quite soon after we were married. In 1927 I got her a Singer sewing machine for $100. Then in 1936 I got her a Maytag washing machine with a gas motor. They were work- and money-savers.

Paying for our home.

With all these expenses, it was mighty hard to pay the- $1,500 for our home. I gave notes for the payment due each six months. We made small payments each time when they were due. Finally, James Coffindaffer, from whom we bought, needed all the money and sold the notes to Truman Howell. He soon called for the notes to be paid, and we got a lawyer in Clarksburg to free our deed of all claims for 50 years back so we could borrow the money to pay Mr. Howell. They gave us 13 years to pay it off at 4 1/2 percent interest. This was the Land Bank of Baltimore. What a relief when the last payment was made in 1948.

Ruth’s Memories of a Growing Family — Our Second Son Arrives

On July 21, 1929, Alois joined our family. Papa and Mama came down to see him and took Bond back home with them for a week. He got along real well; but when they started to bring him home, he said, “Grandma, I don’t want dark to ever catch me here again.”

Bond was so thrilled to see Xenia Lee again. She could not have cared less. He would follow her around until she stopped; then he would squat down in front of her and laugh and laugh.

The children both loved their baby brother. Each one had to hold him a little bit when I would take him out of his crib. One day I was in the kitchen and heard Bond and Xenia Lee singing as hard as they could and Alois crying. I went to investigate and found Bond in the rocking chair with Xenia Lee sitting on the arm and Alois in Bond’s arms, rocking and singing. I guess I spoiled their fun, for they never tried that again.

One day Bond and Xenia Lee were playing that they were eating candy. Suddenly Bond said, “There, I got the last piece.” Xenia Lee just “boohooed.” She called, “Mama, Bond ate the last piece of candy.”

Two More Daughters Arrive

Mae arrived December 25, 1930. It had been a mild winter, so the dirt road could be traveled with a car most of the time. Mama’s youngest brother (Uncle Otto) was visiting in Salem with his wife and 16-year-old son. Clyde had never seen a tiny baby, and he desperately wanted to see Mae. Ada happened to be in Salem at the time (also Greta and Mary Randolph). Ada agreed to come over here with them if Clyde could get the car. He got the car but did not tell his father where he was going. They got over here all right, and we had a nice visit. But when they started back, they got in a ditch and had a terrible time getting out. The car was muddy all over. When they got back to Salem and the folks found out where they had been, they were really upset. Poor Ada was really in the “Dog House.” They thought she should have known better, even if the others did not. Anyway, all survived.

The hard surface road was one-half mile from us at that time. Uncle Erlo and Aunt Antha (also Velma) wanted to see Mae so much that they walked the half mile. Mae was so loose-jointed that I used to say I could almost tie her feet together behind her head.

October 12, 1932, Edna Ruth joined our family.

Another Son Arrives

Rex Main arrived the 19th of December, 1934. Grandma Sutton was staying with us. When we needed him, my doctor was sick. We called Grandma Randolph at Salem; she got Dr. Pearcy to come, but Elmo had to come with him to show him the way. Ashby had taken Alois to school with him and left Mae and Edna Ruth with neighbors. Before noon, we called a family by the schoolhouse to tell Ashby that Rex had arrived and all were well. The children could hardly wait to get home so they could see their little brother.

Ashby’s Memories of Extra Jobs–Fun and Work

During the summers I took summer classes at Salem College and organized and transported softball and volleyball community teams. The last two years I was president of the Tenmile Softball League, which I had organized to solve the problem of scheduling games. I also was on a district school maintenance crew that did painting, etc., to get the schools ready for the next term. During the winter and until planting time, I would grub the roots of brush out in preparation for the field of corn of one-half to one acre. This corn we fed to our cow, chickens, and hogs.

Teaching at Morris School, 1931-37

In the spring of 1931, the board decided to cut the Jarvisville School to one room, so I got moved to the Morris School. This was only one mile for me to walk instead of the 2 1/2 miles I had been walking to Jarvisville. I taught seven mighty pleasant years at Morris.

I persuaded the District Superintendent to include the first, second, third, and fourth grades in the scholastic competition for the Field Day. We won many ribbons each year. Five of the pupils went on to be valedictorians at Bristol High School.

Another thing that made me very proud happened when I had two boys move to a Clarksburg school. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who taught in Clarksburg, had told me they always moved the pupils from country schools back one grade to start them. One of my boys was put in the A section for his grade, and the other one was put in a small especially gifted group for his grade.

We had Parent Teacher Associations and Country Life Programs. Sometimes, we took part in the Jackson’s Mill Roundups. I remember our playing checkers and taking a one-act play and a musical reading. We put on programs for Christmas and other special times. My brother, Elmo, always played Santa Claus. The Santas the children had seen had tried to scare them. Elmo was careful and kind to everyone, so they called him the real Santa and kept asking for him.

Making a living for my family was difficult on $110 per month. I also went to school at night during the school term and twelve weeks most summers until I got my Bachelors degree in Education the spring on 1936. After that, I checked farms to find out how much lime and fertilizer the government would give them. I had to draw a map of each field. Some of them I could estimate by stepping off, and some I had to measure with a chain. In either case, I had to find the size in acres. Another summer I cut pulp wood; and others I got jobs for farmers, cutting filth, hacking brush, and harvesting hay, oats, and wheat.

The fall of 1936 I did not know whether I would have a school or not until the day before it was to start. Many schools were being discontinued. The school at Shady Grove had been discontinued, and the Board of Education was trying to stop mine. Dean Van Horn, the county grade superintendent came the day before school was to start and told me I had the Morris School another year.

I didn’t take a chance on the Morris School again the next year. Instead, I got the principalship at Jarvisville, which had become a two-room school again.

School Discipline Methods

The discipline of the school is one of its biggest problems. There must be an attitude of learning and respect and obedience. From my first school, I have used the theory that if I was with the pupils at all play periods and got them to have fun (fair, clean, tiring fun), they would appreciate me enough to obey me and learn during study time. I am sure playing with the children helped, but it didn’t solve all the problems.

At my first school an eighth grade boy enticed a first grade boy to blow a French harp during school. I asked him to come to the front of the room. He refused. When I took hold of him, he grabbed his seat. I took him to the back of the room, took off my belt, and used it. When I got back to my class at the front, I asked him to come up to me. He came, and I explained that we couldn’t learn with disturbances. I had no more trouble at the Hannah School, and we enjoyed learning and playing.

I remember no discipline troubles at the Astor School, but I remember a play accident. Alfred Reppart was accidentally hit with a bat. I had to carry him a half mile to his home. He was back to school the next day.

At the Shady Grove School, my third one, I paddled three sixth grade pupils’ palms because they refused to use the rule which I taught for finding the area of a circle. For a while I thought I might have trouble. The year before, one of their parents had made the teacher, Melvin McClain (a close friend of mine), pay $10 judgment in a Justice of the Peace trial for paddling his child.

Once I had a big husky boy sit on nothing (back up to the wall with his hands loose at his sides and squat into a sitting position). He looked as though he would rebel at any second, but he didn’t. Not long after that, I took him and two other boys with me walking to a Salem College basketball game. (By giving some honor or privilege, I always tried to prove to everyone I punished that I held no hard feelings against him or her.) I also tried to stay extra calm during the punishment by pausing between times (if the punishment was physical) to explain why the student had to be punished. It never took more than three licks for any kind of paddling.

4-H, Life Saving, and Teaching at Camps

When I was at Jarvisville in 1927-1928, I organized a 4-H Club. The members did wonderfully. I went to State 4-H Leaders’ Camp, where I learned crafts and got my Senior Life Saving Certificate. My Life Saving instructors were Brownie Wheeler and Commadore Longfellow. (Commadore Longfellow started life-saving courses for the Red Cross and Boy Scouts.) If they hadn’t been extra good teachers, I wouldn’t have been able to have completed the course in that twelve days.

For ten years, I kept my certificate renewed each three years and taught swimming and life saving at our church camps, as well beginning swimming at Jackson’s Mill one year. I also taught “Recognition of Trees” and “Leather Craft” for our county camp at Jackson’s Mill. Also I went to Clarksburg and took a First Aid Course to Dewey Rosell. I received my instructor’s certificate. In one of my classes at Morris, I was instructing on the control of severe bleeding when one of my big husky men fainted. I had a practical demonstration of recovery from fainting.

My getting to teach beginning swimming at Jackson’s Mill was unique. The head swimming instructor was Jack Ickenberry, whom I had taught to swim in our church camp at Middle Island. He was one of those sinkers but was almost too brave and determined to do whatever I asked. He kept me so worried watching to see if he would come up. I think I never saw anyone so proud as he was when he learned to stay on top–unless it was Lenore and Leonard Williams at Berea, who had the same problem.

Ruth’s Memories of Neighbors and Ashby’s Graduation

The summer Edna Ruth was two years old, we had a family living next to us with four children. The mother was not very healthy. Since we had a Maytag gasoline washer and water handy from a stream close by, she did her washing down here. The oldest girl was about Bond’s age, and they just could not live peaceably. A boy was Edna Ruth’s age. He always went home with a sore head from pulled hair, but he left teeth prints all over her arms.

Wallace and Hazel Burnside

That was so different from the next family who moved in there-Wallace and Hazel Burnside. They had previously lived about a mile up the next hollow. They had two children (Guy and Bernice) the ages of Bond and Xenia Lee; and they loved to play together (along with the younger children). They played together a lot.

When Wallace and Ashby had time, they liked to pitch horseshoes and to target shoot with a 22 rifle. Sometimes one won, and then the other. They loved to hunt, too. As for Hazel and me, we were like sisters. She had no sister, and mine were miles away. We did our canning together (and everything we could). She was not very well, so I would gather things in while she watched the children and got jars ready. Then we worked together. What good times we had!

Musgraves

A family of Musgraves moved into the hollow a mile and one-half from us. He was out of work, so they thought they would get out where they could grow gardens and have a place to keep pigs and chickens. Also, there were good fruit trees and lots of berries on that farm. They lived at the end of the hollow. One other family lived on the way there.

They had always lived in town. She knew very little about country life, but he had been reared on a farm. She did not like it there away from close neighbors (besides, she was pregnant for the seventh time). She was a lot of fun to be with. Their 14-year-old son loved to come down here. He would sweep, mop, or do anything he could. He was really a big help.

I went up there after supper one evening. As I was starting to leave, she had a faint warning. She said, “You are not going now!” In a little while she said, “Children, get to Randolphs”; and she sent Mr. Musgrave to call the doctor. The doctor got there, and we waited. It seemed to me that Mr. Musgrave was doing everything he could to “upset” her. She wanted him to stay with her, but he went to the kitchen to bake some pies.

In due time, a baby girl arrived–the pride and joy of the whole family. Mr. Musgrave said later that he always had to do something to make her mad or she would never have enough spunk to have the baby.

Their son Carroll was a “life saver” for Bond when he started to junior high. Some of Ashby’s school boys who had to do things they did not want to do tried to take it out on Bond. Carroll kept a watchful eye out for him, and they soon learned not to tangle with Carroll.

They later moved near Akron, where Mr. Musgrave ran a restaurant. Whenever any of the family came back to Clarksburg on a visit, they would stop in to see us for a little while. Two of the boys were here a little while just last fall. It is so good to have old friends drop in!

Ashby Graduates

By the summer of 1936, Ashby’s night classes and a summer term or two had paid off. He received his degree in elementary education. We were all there to see him get his diploma.

Also tagged 4-H Club, Astor School, baptist, berea, bond, Clarksburg West Virginia, Doddridge County, fish, fishing, Hannah School, Jarvisville School, Jarvisville West Virginia, Kennedy Station School, lewis, Lost Creek, Morris School, motorcycle, neighbors, randolph, Roanoke, salem, salem college, Seventh Day Baptist, Shady Grove School, sutton – No Comments

Chapter 3: Young Adults–Education, Work, and Early Teaching

April 6, 2009

Ashby’s Memories

A Year in New York — Work at the garage and taxi company in Olean.

The following fall of 1917 I went to Olean, New York, to work in a combination garage and taxi company. It belonged to my Uncle Gene Jordon, the same one who had Romulus and the gobbler. (I never went to school two consecutive years after I finished the eighth grade.)

At this garage I learned to vulcanize tires and tubes, repair carburetors, and disassemble cars for Uncle Gene to work on. I worked at night, all night, taking calls for the taxis when they came in and working between calls.

One night a driver brought his taxi to the door and got another. I was trying to start it and get it into the garage. It would start and then stop. I would crank it again (all cars had to be cranked then). I kept that up until it must have gotten mad–for it kicked me, breaking my arm. This was about 2 a.m. I went to the trolley office less than a block away and tried to get the phone lady to call a doctor for me, but she couldn’t. A conductor who was standing near enough to hear took me on his freight car to within a block of the home of a doctor. The house had a long porch. I paced back and forth on it, knocking on each door as I passed. Finally the doctor asked me into his office. We sat down, facing each other. We put our knees together, and both pulled. My fist was doubled back toward my elbow, so we had to pull a lot to get it set. He bandaged a plaster cast to my arm. This worked wonderfully so I could take calls and get half pay from Uncle Gene and half from Workmen’s Compensation.

The only trouble was that it was difficult at first to write with my left hand. I had never done that, but I had thrown lots of rocks with my left hand when my arm was in a sling after falling off Tony. I soon had lots of practice. Besides taking taxi calls, I wrote letters each week to Mom and a lady friend at Oneal, West Virginia.

This was an unusually cold winter. I liked the snow and ice; I skated to and from my rooming place right on the street. There was one place I would stop and feed the gray squirrels. Often they would climb up my overcoat and down into my pocket to get nuts. Sometimes I would skate on the Little Genesee River or the city reservoir.

You might be interested to hear about the first time I drove a car outside of the garage and parking lot. It was after midnight on a bitter cold night. They said it was 45 degrees below zero. A driver came in with his taxi stuck on a side road. I went back with him in one of our other cars. We got his car out, and I drove it back. I had to start it out down grade. When I let it into high gear, it started sliding; but I got it straightened out like I had heard the drivers explain. I came to a railroad crossing and had to get out to see whether a train was coming. My windshield was practically all frosted over. I made it to the garage, but both my feet were frozen.

Work on a farm near Friendship.

About the first of March Uncle Gene sold his garage and went back to his farm near Friendship, New York. That was the same farm where Romulus saved me from the gobbler. Here I found dairy cows to milk and a lovable pair of black horses to use. The horses reminded me of Tony (my colt that I had to leave at Berea). One special thing I remember besides how well they worked was that one of them would quiver her lips and act like she was laughing when I would harness or unharness her and rub her neck and shoulders.

I was so busy at Uncle Gene and Aunt Cleo’s that I didn’t have time for girls except to find out that my childhood sweetheart, Agnes Childs, was away in college. While there, I helped put in oats and potatoes, built fence, cut firewood for boiling maple sap into syrup, hauled the wood, then hauled the sap (after cleaning 1,500 spiles and buckets, as well as tapping the trees). Besides all that, after we milked each day, I hauled the milk to the cheese factory and brought whey back for the hogs.

It wasn’t all work. Often as Uncle Gene finished the last batch of syrup, he would boil some so hard that it would make taffy when we poured it on snow. Other times Aunt Cleo boiled it down so that when we beat it in a saucer with a spoon it would turn white as it cooled and make the smoothest, best candy you ever tasted. Another pleasure there was Aunt Cleo’s wonderful meals. She even fixed us a big mess of leeks.

Perhaps my maple syrup making at Uncle Gene’s might interest you. The winter of 1917 and 1918 had been the worst the old folks had ever seen, so they said. When I hauled the wood to the sugar house, my horses and sled rode right over fences and stumps just as though they were not there because the snow had not melted from October on. It would start to melt, then crust over.

Uncle Gene’s method of boiling the sap was different. He used a drilling boiler with a coil of pipe in an 18-inch-deep pan about 2 feet wide by 12 feet long. I drove my wonderful young black team hitched to a sled with a 75-gallon tank out through the woods, which they called a sugar bush. As I drove from tree to tree gathering the sap, I would get a cold drink from the especially good trees. When I came to the little creek with a bed of leeks beside it, I would pull a few, swish them in the water to wash off the dirt, and then chomp the best bite out of each. I located a bee tree but never got back to cut it.

Uncle Alvie’s in Alfred, New York.

When the sugar bush was finished I decided to go home. But first, I wanted to see Uncle Alvie, Aunt Mary, and especially my cousin Vida (I had written to her some, before leaving New York). I put my suitcase on my bike and rode on a hot tarry road to their farm near Alfred, which was about 35 miles.

They all seemed very glad to see me. Even Elizabeth and Lowell were there. In some queer way, Lowell was glad to see me; and Elizabeth took a genuine interest in me, as she did during my entire stay.

The next morning, as I was washing for breakfast, I saw excitement in the road. A cow was running toward Alfred. When I spied a big bull following her, I jumped out the kitchen door. Cutting across the field, I got ahead of the bull. I picked up a good rock. When he got where I couldn’t miss him, I threatened him; so he turned and went back to his stall in the barn.

When I started getting ready to go home to West Virginia, Uncle Alvie asked me to stay with him through the summer. I had supposed Lowell would help him–but not so; he was going off to school. Aunt Mary and Elizabeth also begged me to stay, so I stayed.

It was a pleasant, busy, and educational summer. Uncle Alvie was one of the best farmers in New York and was the head of their Farm Bureau. He had a registered herd of Holsteins that he had built. He also developed his own strain of potatoes and sold seed potatoes.

During the summer I plowed (with three horses and a sulky plow) about twenty acres of buckwheat and planted it. I took care of seven acres of potatoes, beginning with planting, them with three horses pulling a planter. We also put about eighty-five tons of hay in the barn. Uncle Alvie taught me to load the wagon so that practically every straw went up to the hay mow with a horse-drawn two-pronged fork that I set in the hay.

Besides all that, which I enjoyed most of the time, I drove their two-seated 1917 Ford practically everywhere it went because Aunt Mary liked my driving. Each Sabbath we went to church at Alfred. Once I went to a box supper at the Grange. Later I took the lady whose box I bought to a party about three miles back at Five Corners in a livery-rented buggy pulled by a spirited horse.

Back To Salem, West Virginia

The middle of August came. School would start soon, so back home to Salem I went. I went back to Salem College Academy for my sophomore year. It was a pretty busy year, with milking 10 to 12 cows and caring for the milk and cows. I also had some school work, besides playing basketball.

Getting Acquainted with Ruth

The commencement of 1919 was a very special one because that was when I first really got to know the queen I mentioned seeing when I was 12 years old. I remember two things quite well about our meetings. Two other couples with Ruth and me went on the hill opposite the college, where we ate a lunch. After the lunch, Ruth got up on the stump and recited a reading called, “Woodticks.” (This poem is included in the appendix of this book.) We attended many of the commencement entertainments together.

The other thing I especially remember was bringing the cows down the hill on Evander Randolph’s farm and seeing Ruth at her place on the opposite hill. We waved at each other quite a few times. Ruth was graduating from Short Normal. When the graduation was over and she was leaving on the train, she agreed to write. That made me very happy.

These letters made my life as I helped Brady run Evander Randolph’s farm for him on the halves. The summer and until late November was full of cows, hogs, fruit, corn, etc.–a very interesting year of farming. Along in the last of August, Ruth decided I was getting too serious, so she called off our writing but said we could be friends. For a long time, that seemed like the world had come to an end.

Farm and Other Work During 1919-1920

The farm, with silos to fill for us and other farmers, 85 hogs to butcher and peddle the meat, and the cows to take care of kept me so busy I did not go to school the winter of 1919-1920.

After our farming year was over in November, I got a job building railroad out of Sutton, West Virginia. We built a road up Wolf Creek to a big coal mine. When that was over, Brady and I took contracts of timber-cutting, for a chemical company. We cut out the logs, then all the hardwood. We made the limbs into chemical wood, which took a lot of splitting. Brady and I worked together until Dad finished his school term. Then Brady got a job in a store in Sutton, and Dad came to live with me in our tent (where Brady and I had lived).

While Brady and I cut timber, I lived by myself each weekend. Our tent was more than a mile back in the woods up Slide Hollow from the railroad. The first weekend I got a scare. I had barely gotten to sleep when a screaming sound awakened me. I arose hurriedly and started reviving my fire. Another scream seemed closer; I hurried the fire-making. I expected to hear or see it close any time. After getting a big fire going, I cut a nice club and laid it by the side of my cot, just where my hand would grab it. I was soon asleep. Sometime later I woke with a start. Hot breath was in my face; a rough tongue, also. When I moved, I heard a patter of feet. I threw the club at the sound; the yelp that followed made me know it was a dog. The dog didn’t make the scream. I soon learned that it was a barred owl. She would scream in the big trees near our tent. Other owls would gather and give us a concert of screaming, hooting, coarse-voiced laughing, and cracking their bills.

Another scary time was the Easter Sunday weekend. Some drunk guys from the little railroad station tried scaring me by scratching the bark of trees and making animal sounds. I kept very quiet with my shotgun handy. They went away.

During the spring while Dad was with me, we often heard wild gobblers in the mornings. I found a bee tree, and Dad helped me take two buckets of honey–that helped our eating, even if the most of it was old and black.

When I got sick during the hot summer (probably July), Dad went back home to Mom and Elmo at Salem. When I recovered, I got a job with a surveying crew setting grade stakes, etc., for the new road between Bulltown and Sutton.

Back to School in Salem

I went home in early September when I got a job delivering lumber with a Ford truck for Evander Randolph’s Lumber Supply Company. I kept that job until October, when I started my junior year at the Academy. It was a rather dull year of school. I did my school work and was on the school basketball team.

The spring of 1921, after school was out, Russell Jett and I sold books around New Castle, Pennsylvania. When the books were delivered, I got a truck-driving job hauling for the Ross and Jennings Company. We graded and built the road from Salem to the Dodridge County line on Route 50. We also built Route 23 from Salem to the county line.

This fall I went to football camp at Jackson’s trill for two weeks before school started. This was the first such camp at Jackson’s Mill. The next year West Virginia University took it over for their football camp and began building the State 4-H Camp that has become nationally and internationally known. (I guess Ruth had a 4-H club camp there the summer before our football camp.)

My senior school year was quite eventful. Our football season was very successful, especially since we beat our arch rival Wesleyan. I had the job of janitoring the whole college (which was only two buildings). Besides the football, janitoring, and regular school subjects, four couples of us had a Rook Club that met each week. The graduation of our 1922 Academy class was a special time. It was my second graduation on that stage. I missed my queen at this commencement. She had been at commencement my junior year, and she and my sister, Avis, went on a picnic with me in my 1911 Ford roadster.

My First School

After a summer of truck driving for Ross and Jennie Construction, I got a temporary certificate and taught my first school at a rural one-room school. It was the Hannah School, four miles from Wallace. My pay was $75 per month for seven months. I had 27 pupils in the first through ninth grades. One 16-year-old girl had passed the eighth grade exam three times, so I put her in freshmen high school subjects. She already knew more than I did about the eighth grade.

Because of this wonderful year of teaching, I decided to prepare to be a teacher. I went back to Salem College the fall of 1923. Because I realized the need of a good education, I made school my whole job.

More About Sports

Because of the jobs, I had very little time for some sports I loved–tennis, football, and ice skating, especially. I must tell you about one gratifying tennis match.

Tennis with Jennings Randolph.

I had played some tennis while in the Scouts when I was 12 and 13 years old. We had a court near the mouth of Pennsylvania Avenue. When I could borrow a racket, I played with Russell Jett, Squinty Bumgardner, and Jennings Randolph, among others. When I returned to Salem College Academy, I borrowed a racket and played Jennings a set of tennis.

It was a mighty hot match. We had opposite styles. I used power; and Jennings used careful, patient finesse. It was queer how my strokes came back to me, even though I had not played for over two years and Jennings had the best racket money could buy. I got the momentum with my powerful serve and kept it with my power in every stroke. As the years passed, I enjoyed that win more and more because Jennings became the junior tennis champion of West Virginia and was on the college team that was champion of West Virginia.

My First Year at Salem College

The summer of 1923 I drove truck for a cement block factory. In those days Salem College didn’t get the schedules straightened out and books ordered and received until about the middle of October, so I worked until then. My school year was the best I had ever had. My grades were practically all A’s. (Before this, my grades were mostly C’s with an occasional B on math or science.) There were not many elective courses in an education major, but I took all I could of science and math.

During my first year of college, I had two courses that were special: one was Agricultural Geology, and the other was Caesar.

A distant cousin, Miss Mildred Randolph, taught my geology class (in which I got A’s all the time). About the end of the year, she had to return home because of her father’s health. President Bond asked me to teach the class as well as make out and grade the tests. (This was especially gratifying to me because I had flunked a six-week period in geology to Ernest Sutton and had quit it after telling him he would never see me in his classroom again.)

As I said, I took Caesar to Miss Elsie Bond. I had been interested in Roman stories from the fourth grade on, but I realized that this course would be difficult since I didn’t finish my Latin course the year I left school to work on a farm. (I made mostly A’s in this course, too.)

Teaching For Avis

Avis was teaching her first school at Sycamore between Wallace and Center Point. During my vacation I gave Avis a week’s vacation by teaching for her. It was a wonderfully pleasant experience with extremely nice pupils, and the people I boarded with were so nice.

Two incidents might interest you. One evening after school two Swiger boys, Archie and his cousin, wanted to wrestle with me. It was a crazy thing for me to do, but as usual I couldn’t take a dare. Although they gave me all the competition I wanted, we came through as very good friends. Archie later married my sister, Avis. We have been special friends and still are.

The other incident involved getting Avis back to her rooming place. I walked to Wallace, about four miles, and hired two riding horses at the livery stable. I met Avis at the train, and we had an uneventful and pleasant ride to her room. They gave us a great feed for supper. Then I started back to Wallace, riding one horse and leading the other.

Everything went fine until I crossed the hill at the head of Sycamore on the Wallace side. There I found the road partly frozen and the mud deep. The horses began breaking the frozen top of the mud. I found it better for them to walk along the edge of the road. I was making it fairly nicely, even though it was pitch black dark and I had no light. All of a sudden the lead horse broke away from me; she had broken over the batik into a ravine. The horse I was riding was excited and began nickering. I went down to the other horse and found it caught under a pipeline. I couldn’t get it out, so I rode to the livery stable (about one-half mile). The owner and I came back in a buggy with tools. We got her out, and she was all right except a little stiff. It was gratifying after the scare and hard work to see the two horses enjoy being together again!

Teaching in Taylor County

In the summer of 1924, I got a job teaching the Astor two-room elementary school in Taylor County on an emergency certificate. I was the principal and taught grades 4-8.

That year was a special one for me for many reasons. I had a most wonderful place to board, although it cost me $45 a month of my $95 salary. I had a lot of great pupils. In fact, they were all great! (One is the president of the Clarksburg bank where I deal.) Besides the subjects (I helped them all I could on them), I trained them for a field meet at Flemington. They made me very proud by taking lots of ribbons.

A card from Ruth.

About Christmas time 1924 1 got a card from my Queen Ruth. I was so happy I jumped up and down a while. Mrs. Bailey, my landlady, always called Ruth my “jumping girl.” Soon we were writing every day.

Mining Jobs

When school was out, I got a job at the Blocky Pittsburgh No. 2 Mine. My first job was catching coal cars when they came down the hill to the tipple. The very first day I unloaded a railroad car of baled hay between times when I was catching the mine coal cars. At quitting time I would have been happy to quit, but the superintendent asked me to help pile the bales as high as my head and higher in the barn–so I did. The second day I thought I would do well to get through the day, but I unloaded steel rails in my spare moments.

Later I got the job of weighing the coal and dumping it into the shaker to grade it. While I was doing that job, one day I went under the tipple to start a railroad car for the loader down there. The car behind it started and caught me between it and the tipple. I yelled! My buddy, Charles Bailey, was tearing parts of the tipple off to get me out before the loader got the cars stopped.

After I recuperated a little (a day or two), my super loaned me his Ford Roadster to get Ruth at Clarksburg and take her to some of her folks at Salem (her Aunt Doc)–and I went to my home. The next day we took a trip to Elkins with another couple. My ribs healed rapidly.

Before I went back to school (late as usual), I got a job guarding the mine. (our Super had gone scab with a much bigger union mine not two miles away.) The guard job paid more money; besides I gave out the workers’ supplies as they came to the mine each morning.

This work was at night. I slept daytime (that is, some of the daytime). One day I went to Pittsburgh to get my Super. Another time I took his wife to Frostburg, Maryland, to visit. Still other times, I drove the cars for four other families who couldn’t drive their own because they were too old.

My home with Mrs. Bailey.

I must not quit the story of my life at Astor without telling of my wonderful home with Mrs. Bailey and my great mine Super, Ed Reppert. Mrs. Bailey’s home was a large two-story house. I had a room upstairs; and her other boarder, Alfred Reppert (my Super’s father), had another room up there. Mr. Reppert was a wonderful old gentleman. He had fatherly advice and played beautiful violin music much of the time. Mrs. Bailey had a son Charles and a daughter we all called Seester. Charles had a car and often took me places like Grafton with him. he treated me like a brother and was the mine clerk who got me out of my tipple accident. Seester was only there weekends, but she was extra nice.

Mrs. Bailey was such a good cook and raised such sparkly, dry, richly flavored tomatoes that she put in my lunch pail. I learned to enjoy stewed tomatoes and parsnips while I was there. These were two vegetables I had never really enjoyed before; they are both my special treats now.

Ed. Reppert, mine superintendent. My mine superintendent was losing his job. He had me take him to Pittsburgh to get money backing to buy an old mostly-worked-out mine. As I went, I saw a queer light, which I found out years later (when Clarksburg got them) was a traffic light. Ed got the money. He finally owned four big mines around Flemington and Rosemont. Mrs. Reppert was his mine clerk and business manager. Ed donated the first carillon bells that were in Clarksburg. He died fairly young, but his wife went right on with the mines. Ed had me to teach his wife to drive because he said he couldn’t.

My Second Year of College

My second year of college was a great learning year, but the main importance was that it was my marriage year. I had classes in science, math, methods, and even practice teaching. My special subject was Tests and Measurements, taught by the teacher whose classroom I had said I would never enter again. I had to have Tests and Measurements to get my Standard Normal degree and later my Bachelor of Arts degree. I entered this course determined to do my very best–and that I did. A Miss Katherine Morrison and I were at the head of the class of over 40 teachers. Neither Prof. Sutton nor I ever mentioned our former difficulty. I considered Prof. Ernest Sutton one of my very best teachers–along with Dicksen, H. O. Burdick, and Bill Price.

Ruth’s Memories

School at Salem College — I first met Ashby Randolph

The spring of 1915 was my first trip to a Salem. Orville was in school, and Lydia was teaching there. Susie must have finished her Short Normal that spring, for she taught in junior high at Salem the first year I was in school at Salem Academy. I was walking down the street in Salem and met a boy scout dressed in his uniform. He tipped his hat with a big smile. I later learned he was Ashby Randolph.

A student at Salem Academy. I enrolled at Salem College Academy in t e a 1 of 5. Orville was finishing his Bachelor of Arts degree that year. We lived in a four-room white cottage on the hill west of Pennsylvania Avenue. A long flight of steps took us safely up and down the hill.

We registered and got our class schedules. The next day we all met in the Auditorium to try to make out a class schedule that suited everyone. Sometimes that went on for two or three days before all the conflicts were ironed out. Aunt Elsie was registrar and Latin teacher (also botany). Uncle Sam was science professor. I loved his General Science class. I shall never forget one experiment. He blew up a balloon. He just kept on blowing until it was inflated. I got so excited about his not breathing I could not stand it. It amused him. He said, “You have to learn to breathe just a little as you blow.”

I took the Short Normal course so I could teach after four years. I loved to study, so schoolwork went nicely. Sometimes Lydia and Susie would have liked it better if I had done less study and more housework.

It was nice to have two of Mama’s brothers and two sisters living in Salem. Uncle Aus was city tax collector. Aunt Doc lived with Aunt Elsie. Often she had medicine to be taken to patients around town, so I had some spending money from that. Both she and Aunt Elsie found lots of ways to help out all the nieces and nephews attending school there.

Each school day at 10 a.m. was “Chapel Time.” Each student was required to attend. The faculty members took turns conducting the service, On Thursday evenings the college bell rang out announcing the “Quiet Hour” from seven to eight. This took place in a convenient classroom. Sometimes a “Thought for the Day” was written on the blackboard. Sometimes soft music was played. A few times Pastor Shaw quoted Scripture the whole hour. Students could go at any time and stay as long as they chose. It was not required.

I guess school days must have been quite normal–lots of friends and activities. I especially remember the Field Day when I was a senior. Each class was represented in each event. Our class had only eight members (two were boys), so some competed in more than one event. I was in the relay race, and I also threw the “discus.” By that time Paul had forgiven me for getting him up off the floor, so he coached me (he was the star discus thrower in college). It paid off; I threw twice as far as any other. When the scores were added up, our little class was far ahead of any other class.

It was great to finally be graduating. Best of all, that was the day we got word that Orson was back in the States after serving in World War 1.

Dating Ashby Randolph

That spring was also the first time Ashby and I dated. We joined with others taking walks on Sabbath afternoons, having wiener roasts, and attending college activities. We wrote some that summer, and he and Avis came up home for the weekend of my birthday. We decided to go our separate ways. I wanted to try my luck teaching school.

Teaching School

When I started to school, three trustees hired the teacher and looked after the needs of the school. At the time I was looking for a job, each district had a board of education. Ours was located at Walkersville.

Teaching at Roanoke

At the time the Board met, I drove a horse and buggy to the meeting and applied for a job at Roanoke. I stayed around. After their meeting, I was told I had a job as principal of the two-room school at Roanoke. That was only 1 1/2 miles from home, so I walked. My co-teacher was Mabel Teter. We worked well together and had a good year.

I had a 4-H club. That next summer, the first 4-H camp in West Virginia was opened at Jackson’s Mill in Lewis County. I went with my club. As we were in Lewis County, we had the first camp held there. Any county in the state could use it for a week for 4-H camp. The buildings were ample. However, we had a hard rain one night; and we had a terrible time finding places to put the cots where they would not be leaked on. All in all, it was a real fun week!

The second year I taught at Roanoke, Ada taught the primary room. We were the only children at home that winter until Ian came home to recuperate. He had been playing football for Salem College and got a leg broken.

A fire at home.

That spring one Sunday I was cleaning upstairs while Ada was doing the washing. Some way I discovered the attic roof was on fire. We had a coal stove in the living room with a pipe running up through the roof. I ran downstairs, yelling, “The house is on fire!” I grabbed a bucket of water and ran back upstairs. In the hallway was a scuttle hole into the attic. I had to climb through the hole from a chair. I got the fire out in the attic, but it was still burning on the roof. I had a hard time getting back through the hole to the chair, but I finally managed. Then I ran back downstairs. Ian said, “Someone bring me my crutches so I can get out of here.” I obliged and ran outside.

There stood Ada at the foot of a ladder leading to the roof, holding a bucket of water and crying. She said, “Papa told me to bring a bucket of water up to him, and he knows I can’t get up this ladder.” So I took the bucket of water up the ladder and on up to Papa. He soon had the fire out. By then, some of the neighbors were there. They helped repair the roof temporarily.

A car wreck.

One fall, after we owned a Ford five-passenger car, I went to Roanoke to get Nora Helmick, who planned to spend the night with me. Harry Bee went with me. It was a dirt road, dry and dusty. I was making too much time for the conditions; and as I topped a bank on a curve, the back wheels skidded. One wheel’s wooden spokes broke and flipped the car over on its top, which had a wood frame, not even bending a fender. I crawled out first, then Nora. That let the car down on Harry. We had to lift the side of the car so Harry could crawl out. The acid from the battery had eaten some holes in his shirt, but otherwise he was not hurt. Nora had a sprained ankle, and I had a scratch or two. My, how I hated to go home and tell them I had wrecked the car. Fortunately, I had just received my school check so I could have the car repaired–a new wheel and new wood frame for the top, a little over $50. When Papa heard about it, he said, “If the road had not been so dusty, it would not have happened.” Main always thought that would not have been his reaction had he wrecked the car.

Teaching, at West Milford.

The next summer Orville persuaded me to take a job teaching seventh and eighth grades in the West Milford School, Harrison County, where he was principal of the high school and supervisor of the grade school. They were living in West Milford at the time, and I lived with them the first year I taught there.

One night after Orville and Lucille had gone to bed I was grading papers in the kitchen when a big rat came up through a hole in the floor where a gas line had been at one time. When it saw me, it ran behind the cupboard. I put an iron over the hole and called Orville to help me. He was standing in front of the cupboard with a stick, watching while I took a broom handle to scare the rat out fro-,m behind the cupboard. It ran out and tried to go back down the hole it came from, but the iron was over it. Before Orville realized what was going on, it ran up his leg under his pajamas. You never saw such jumping, and the rat could not stay there long! I about went into hysterics–eventually we did get the rat.

I enjoyed my pupils, and we got along well. If they were on the playground during school, I was there with them. One time one of the older boys had a tiny snake (not more than six inches long) on the playground and was having a big time making the girls think he was going to put it on them. I said, “Don’t do that.” He said, “Maybe you want it on you.” I said, “Just give it to me,” and held out my hand; “I will put it right down your neck.” He did not want that. I said, “All right, get rid of that snake right now and don’t ever bring another one.” He obliged.

The second year I taught at West Milford, I boarded at Charlie Holmes’. My roommate, Lillian Brandon, was from Tennessee. She taught home economics. The music teacher, Louise Myers, and English teacher, Margaret Sharer, also roomed there. We had lots of pleasant times together. Mrs. Holmes was always kidding me about being a Seventh Day Baptist (she was a Methodist). One morning I started to school and went back to get my umbrella. She said, “I would not think a Baptist would be afraid of a little water.” I said, “That is just the trouble; I am afraid of being sprinkled.” (She was a good friend as long as she lived.)

The third year I taught at West Milford, Mrs. Holmes was not able to cook for us; we had a room with Mrs. Fox. The Board of Education permitted three of us to use the Home Ec Room to do our own cooking. Lillian fixed lunch, as she was always there. Lavada and I took turns fixing supper. Each one fixed what she wanted for breakfast. We really enjoyed that. (I guess the Board of Education would not go along with that plan now.)

That spring Orville left West Milford. Lillian and Lavada were going elsewhere the next year, so I decided I would leave, too.

Teaching at Brier Point. I had been going to summer school and only had two summer terms left to get my Standard Normal. I applied for and got my home school at Brier Point.

That was a new experience. The last half of the previous year, I had taught only the eighth grade and had trouble to find enough time to teach all that I would have liked to teach. Now, I had all eight grades but not nearly as many pupils. I only had two boys in the first grade; they were easy to teach. I shall never forget them. One was small, cross-eyed, freckled, little flat nose, and the sweetest smile anyone ever had. Everyone loved him.

I had gone to school with older brothers and sisters of some of the children and knew all of the families well. One of the fathers taught me in the eighth grade. One husky boy in the sixth grade would have liked to start some trouble. He called me “Ruth” once soon after school started. I said, “You may call me Ruth anytime you wish when you are not at school; but here you call me Miss Ruth or Miss Bond, whichever you like.” I had no more trouble that way.

Another time that same boy was creating a disturbance pretending to be scared of a wasp that was running around over the window beside him. I just walked over to the window, picked up the wasp by the wings, and put it outside. He was one surprised boy.

Another time when we were eating lunch, he asked me if I could break a hard-boiled egg by placing it in my palms, locking my fingers, and squeezing it. I told him I had never tried, so I did not know. He had a hard-boiled egg in his lunch and wanted me to try. Much to his surprise, I smashed the egg. (He had been told it could not be done.) He was one of my best helpers after that. All in all, I enjoyed that school year more than any other.

I might mention that in the six years I taught school, I never missed one day due to illness.

Also tagged 4-H Club, Alfred New York, Astor School, baptist, berea, birth, bond, Brier Point School, Clarksburg West Virginia, Hannah School, harry, Jennings Randolph, lewis, maple syrup, neighbors, new york, olean New York, randolph, Roanoke, Roanoke School, sabbath, salem, salem college, Seventh Day Baptist, sutton, Sycamore School, virginia, West Milford School, west virginia – No Comments

Chapter 14 – The Salem Years — 1914-1925

April 6, 2009

I bought a house and lot of Leonard Jett and borrowed the money to make a down payment. We moved on the first day of April, 1914. This changed our place of residence from Ritchie County, where we had spent nearly all our lives, to our new home in Salem. We never moved back to Ritchie as our home. We had a small house, but large enough for us. This saved us paying room and board for Brady. There were four children—Brady, 17; Ashby, 12; Avis, 10; and Elmo, 6 months. Brady was in the Academy, and Ashby and Avis were in the grades in the college.

Flinderation School: I was to write insurance, but it did not work out as the insurance men fought us both fair and foul. So I got the school at Flinderation that winter. When the district superintendent proposed my name as the teacher, one of the board turned around and asked if I thought I could hold Flinderation down. I told him I did. The fact is I thought I could hold anything down, but I have had some doubts since. When virtually all of the patrons, as well as the children, do everything they can to be mean, it is hard to make a success in any school, as I found in Taylor County a few years later. Flinderation proved to be a very nice school. Every one seemed to be entirely satisfied and wanted me to teach it again. I thought they would ask the board for me, and they thought I would ask; so I did not get it.

I got a job of Uncle Preston the next summer. He was building a house, and I had all kinds of work to do. I can tell you he was hard to please. I then worked at other places after I quit him.

Black Lick School, A Bout with Rheumatism: I taught at Black Lick in Doddridge County this winter. I felt miserable most of the late fall, and by Thanksgiving I felt so bad that I let Brady teach a day or more as it was vacation for him. By the first of the next week, I was down with rheumatism. For two weeks I lay on my back and could move but one foot a little bit and neither hand. They fed me for five weeks because I could not get either hand to my mouth. The pain, at times, was terrible—but not all the time, for we found a remedy that would stop it in an hour. (Ring a woolen cloth out of very hot water with a tablespoon of Epsom salts for every quart of water, changing it as soon as it begins to cool. This may be of use to someone.) I did not get to go back to school till late in January; even then I felt miserable. This was not a very interesting school, for the most of them were not very bright students .

I did not get steady work the next summer for two reasons: I was not very able to work, and work was very scarce. I got some work about town and went out in the country and did some harvesting.

This winter of 1916-17 I taught at Buckeye, three miles out of Salem. This was a fairly good school, and enjoyed it fine.

Working for Virgil in New York, 1917

When school was out, I went up to New York to work for Virgil as I feared work would be scarce in Salem. I started about March 20. I had a cold when I left; by the time I got there, it had developed into grippe. I was not able to do anything for two weeks. We put out a crop of oats, about ten acres of potatoes, and an acre of corn for ears. Virgil had a bottom that would mature corn; but oh, it was so hard and flinty. Virgil told me later that the acre produced 125 bushels of corn.

Soon after I got there, World War I started. Potatoes were over $2 a bushel; flour went out of sight, but it soon went down some. They asked everyone to plant all the potatoes they could as they would be needed. Virgil feared there would be so many raised that they would not be worth raising. He need not have been scared; they started off in the fall at $1 a bushel and soon went up to $2. In the spring they went still higher. The farmers, both grain and stock, made big money during the war. The next year the price went way down and did not go back up on farm products until about 1940—twenty years later. I’ll tell you, it was hard times for the farmers. No wonder the farmers rose up in their might and crushed the party, in 1932, that had ruined them and that it has not returned to power in twenty years—but I am getting in ahead of my story, so I had best go back.

I worked fairly hard that summer but did not hurt myself. I did not get wages like others were getting because I began work before the war started. Elizabeth was at Virgil’s that summer. We had a great time together. She was a fine friend and did everything she could to cheer me up when I’d get home sick and lonesome. Vida came out a while that summer and was very nice to me, which I will never forget.

We had a near neighbor who had bad spells with his heart, which scared the family very much. They would come after Virgil in haste, and he would go over and stay for hours sometimes. He was a very good neighbor. One day they came after Virgil at noon, and he wasn’t at home. So I went and stayed till he got better. They told Virgil I was very helpful, which made me feel good. It is really very good to feel you are useful.

Mary was a fine motherly woman who was as good as any could be. Winston did nothing of any amount for he was not strong and did not dare do much.

Back to Salem, Fall 1917

I came back to Salem the last of August so I could go to Teachers’ Institute and got steady work at three times the pay I was getting. I was very glad, for we needed the money very much. I got a lot of work at the lumber yard.

I taught at Dewey Town that winter. It was one of the coldest, iciest winters one need ever want to see. It was a very rainy fall; in fact, once or twice it would rain till I would be wet from my waist down. My rubbers and shoes would be full, and I would wring out my stockings and put them back on. By 4 p.m. my clothes would be about dry; by the time I got home, I would be wet as ever. Between Christmas and New Years it got very cold. For six weeks it was seldom above zero and as low as 17 below. Most of the time the snow was covered with ice, so you were constantly in danger of falling and crippling yourself. I boarded over there the last week of the severe cold weather. All my eighth grade got promoted, which was very good.

When school was out, I got a job on a farm at Glovers and Kings for the summer. They were very good to me except Mrs. King, who hated me, and there was no love lost. She had two girls whom she was trying to bring up to be as big snobs as she was.

I taught at Flinderation again this year. The flu broke out after I had taught a short time, and all schools were closed for about six weeks.

Railroad Work at Grafton I got a job working on the railroad at Grafton. A train came to Salem at 6:45 a.m. and was supposed to come back at 6:45 p.m. We got pay from the time we were supposed to leave Salem until we did get back. We got time and a half after 10 hours, and we always got 11 hours. Once we got 13 besides the extra time. This wasn’t the worst of it; they wouldn’t let us do half work. You wonder why? The railroad companies were running the railroad for the government, and they wanted to make it cost the government so much the government would have to give it back to the railroad companies.

I will give one example of the way they worked. One morning when we got into Grafton, we found that McAdo (the big boss) was there, and he was mad. He told them there were men enough on the job to have done three times the work they had done. That was really an understatement, but I suppose he didn’t want to be too hard on them. The super came out and told us to get tie hooks and go to carrying ties. He said, “Any one found loafing while the government men are here will be fired.” Of course, that meant when they left we could loaf all we pleased.

The men began to carry ties, three hooks, six men to a tie. I was left without any hook or buddy. There was one hook and two men extra, so I told them to catch back a little from the end and I would carry the back end. I could carry my end, but it was heavy. The second tie we carried a boy ran up and grabbed a hold. On the third tie a man came, too. This made me so mad that I let loose, and my end of the tie dropped to the ground. They were pulling down instead of helping. Just then the super came back and told us to carry some old ties. I started for them, and three more came after me. When I got there, I tipped a tie on end, put it on my shoulder, and walked off with it. Several began to curse and rave. I stopped and told them that I didn’t object to help in carrying ties but I’d be hanged if I’d carry the ties and drag two or three with it. Some of them talked saucy, but no one laid hands on me, so it soon died down.

Sometimes they would go over into town and stay for hours. One boy from Salem slipped out at noon and didn’t come back till 3 p.m. They fired him, but he came back the next day and worked right ahead. I’ll bet he got full pay for the day they fired him. It was the greatest swindle I ever saw. I got over $4 a day for six to eight hours play; the rest of the time we put in on the train, part of the time going and part of the time on switches waiting for a train to pass us.

A few weeks after I got my pay, a man came to me and asked if I had got all my pay. I told him I got what they gave me. He said there was more at the depot. I went down and got enough to make me about $5 a day. This was the best job I had ever had.

Teaching Again

About the first of November I began teaching again. This was the great flu year of 1918. I had a very nice school, but it got quite small and they sent the scholars to Bristol the next year. I never taught in Harrison County again. The chief reason for this was that the board of Ten Mile decided about this time to hire no one unless he had as good as a Normal certificate.

The summer of 1919 I worked on Evander’s farm for Brady and Ashby and for Wardner Davis on some city jobs. This was a fairly good summer, but not as good as I had a couple years later.

Teaching in Ritchie Again: I had no school until late in the fall, when they sent for me from Ritchie to teach the Upper Otter Slide School. This was a new school; the district was formed and the house built late that fall. The Moonrise School house had burned down the fall before, and the school had been taught in an empty farm house. This fall they got the board to cut off part of Upper Otter Slide and a part of this district, build a house, and form a new district on the head of Otter Slide with me as teacher. I found it one of the best schools I had ever taught, although they said it had been no good at all the winter before. In fact, the large girls told me they had acted so badly that they were ashamed of themselves every time they saw their teacher that summer.

There were 26 scholars, made up of the following families: 7 from Lee Campbells, 6 from Port Campbells, 2 from Jack Hudkins, 6 from Elva Maxsons, 3 from Dow Maxsons, 1 from Art Brisseys, and 1 I can’t remember. One of the Campbells and two or three of Elva’s girls went through high school, and Maynard went one year.

I stayed at Uncle E. J,’s and worked nights and mornings and Sundays to pay for my board. It was a very good winter except Jennie had a very severe sick spell. I went to see her and found her getting better. A few weeks later Conza said a friend from Salem told them that Dr. Bond said she was going with T. B., so I went home to see about it. I went to see Dr. Bond, and she said there was no sign of T. B., which made me feel very good.

The first trip I made in a pouring rain. I was wet from head to toe. I waded several creeks to my knees. I did not know when the train ran, so I walked very fast and was tired when I got to Tollgate. I had to wait an hour. The station master said I was the wettest, worst bedraggled man he ever saw. He built up a good fire, which dried me out a little. I got quite cold on the train, but it had no bad effects.

Before school was out, the scholars got up a petition to the trustees asking them to hire me next year. I told them before I left that I would try to come back. Some of them were in Salem to a church meeting and came to see me about teaching, and I told them I would. But before time for me to go, Jennie got quite sick and had to go to the hospital for an operation. The surgeon said she would be no better until she had another operation in about a year, so I couldn’t go. I went three years later and taught two terms, but I will write of it later.

Selling Books in Pennsylvania: That summer I sold books in Pennsylvania. I went up there with three other Salem boys. I did quite well in the small towns but could do nothing in the country. You couldn’t sell a $5.00 gold piece to a Pennsylvania farmer for $4.50. They were the sorest, worst disgruntled, sourest people I ever saw. They said the young people had all gone to the factories; they had to pay two prices for anything they bought and could not get half price for what they raised. They were just mad. This was in 1920.

Before the season was nearly over I had to come home, for Jennie was quite sick. She got some better so I could go out for a few days. She soon got worse and had to go to the hospital for an operation. The surgeon performed only part of this then, and she had to go back for a second operation a year later.

Buckeye School and Picking Apples: I taught at Buckeye that winter and had a very nice school. Before the school began, I worked in the lumber yard for Evander a while. Then he sent me to pick apples. He had a man picking peaches that he thought was the fastest picker in the country. He got the peaches picked by noon and came to pick apples that afternoon. I was then 48 years old, but I still thought I could pick as many apples as the next one. So I went to work.

Now the trees were medium sized young ones, loaded down with fine, large, smooth Ben Davis apples. The Ben Davis is not the best eating apple; but when it comes to picking and filling a bushel measure, they are hard to beat. I had plenty of bushel boxes handy to fill, so I went to work. I would stand on the ground and fill the picking bag I had over my shoulder. Once I wanted to see how soon I could fill a bushel box; so I got under a limb that I thought had at least a bushel of apples that I could reach easily, looked at my watch, and went to work. In just two minutes I had a bushel box of apples picked (pretty fair, wasn’t it?). When we quit, I found I had picked three to his two bushels all afternoon. Pretty good, wasn’t it?

This was on Friday before my school began. Alexander asked me to pick apples for him Sunday, so I went out and worked for him all day but did not get done. He asked me if I could find some way to finish them, so I started to school early and picked a while and then picked after school was out. That way I finished picking them.

I saw Elmus Bee one evening as I came from school. He told me he had picked all the apples that were easy to get at and that I could have the rest if I would gather them. So I did and got several bushels of fine apples which lasted till way in the winter, for which we were very thankful.

Cutting Filth and Blackberry Picking: It was in the spring of 1922 that I began to do a lot of work for Lee Davis. I hoed some corn and did some other work for him. Then he wanted me to cut a big field of filth for him where there were lots of blackberries. I was to have all the blackberries on the patch I took to cut. We agreed on what I was to have for cutting a part of the field, and I picked the first day of July. I found I could pick six gallons of berries a day, which was about all I could carry into town, four miles away, and I could get 65 cents a gallon. I soon asked for more filth to cut so I could have more berries to pick. We agreed on a price (a little too cheap), but I was to have all the berries on the entire field. I picked every day and carried into town until my arms ached all the time. I would carry a three-gallon pail in my right hand, a two-gallon pail in my left hand, and a one-gallon pail fastened to the suspenders of my overalls. My arms would ache that winter from carrying my dinner pail, but it paid. I cut the filth on the whole field, which with the berries I picked made me about $100, which isn’t hay!

I taught the Long Run school that winter, and they all wanted me back. But a girl slipped to the board and got it away from me.

The next summer I cut the same field of filth of Lee, built a lot of woven wire fence for him, and worked for some others. So I had another busy summer and a fairly prosperous one,

Trouble in a Taylor County School: I had more trouble getting a school than I had ever had, but I got one in Taylor County and never taught near Salem again. In fact, I never spent a winter there again. This was the hardest school to teach I had ever struck. The children were taught, the most of them, that they had a right to do as they pleased. I only saw two of the trustees when I went to contract for the school. They told me they had been having no school for several years and that they wanted me to teach it and see that they behaved. When I saw the other trustee, I found that he was a ruffian and didn’t want the children controlled.

I got along fairly well until the first of December, when I found the children in the house and the door locked. They refused to open the door, so I went to the trustees (I boarded with one of them). They said that they thought the children should have a little fun. I told them they said they wanted me to teach the school and let no one else run it. They said that they forgot to tell me that the children were to have some fun before Christmas and lock me out. (If they had told me about that, I would have told them to keep their school.) The next morning they did not try to keep me out, so I went on with the school.

The week before Christmas, I found the door fastened again. That evening the trustee where I boarded and I went to see the other trustee, a very nice old man by the name of Taylor. He said that he thought it was all right for the children to have some fun and that they had been locking the teachers out for fifty years. My reply was, “Mr. Taylor, when you were first married, you would get on a horse and Mrs. Taylor would get on behind you when you went anywhere. But now you have an auto.” Mrs. Taylor was in the kitchen listening, and she spoke up, “That’s so, and you men had better go over there and stop those children acting the fool.” They came over the next morning and found the door with one end of a rail against the stove and the other against the door. They opened the door and told the children not to lock the door anymore.

I gave them a treat at the end of that week (they knew I was going to treat them when they locked the door the second time). I hoped that would stop it, but it didn’t. The other trustee put the children up to being mean and came to the school house after school was out and told me I didn’t have sense enough to teach school and that I must never punish any of his children in any way.

Shortly after this the spelling class his girl was in missed every word in their lesson. They didn’t try to spell but would look at each other and grin when they missed. So I told them they would try it again in the morning. It was the same in the morning, so I told them to stay in at recess. The girl said her father told her not to stay in. I told her she could stay in or take her books and go home and stay till she would mind. Just then her father came roaring in. He dared me outside (he was about 35 and I was 50) and said he would be there and get me that night and that he would follow me till he did get me.

I called the two trustees in, and they told me to have him arrested. I dismissed school and went to Grafton and took out two warrants for him, one for assault and one for breach of peace. The squire told me if I could prove what I told him, he would step on him. When I left he told me to go back to my school and take care of myself. I asked if he meant any way, and he said, “Any way.”

I had known I was going to have trouble, so I told the trustees the week before that I was going to quit, for the children would tell any lie. They said they wouldn’t believe anything the children told, but I told them someone else would try the case so I thought I would quit. When I got home, I told them I had quit. Ashby was teaching out in the country, and I told him when he came in that I had quit. He told me, “Dad, you’re not quitting. You have taught the worst schools in the country, and you managed them. You are not quitting this one.” I said, “All right, kid, if you say so, I’ll go ahead. But there will be trouble.” And there was. Just the same I have always been very glad that he told me to go back and that I did.

McDonald was the man’s name (this was the second McDonald I had had trouble with in school, and I could not trust one of that name as far as I could throw a bull by its tail). He did not come back to the school house, but he went over to Mr. Taylor’s and bragged about what he had done. He said I had started the ball rolling and he intended to keep it rolling and that he was going to follow me till he did get me. In fact, he told everything he did, so Mr. Taylor was the only witness I needed. But I took the other trustee and his boy, 12 years old. McDonald took his mother to go his bond, if necessary, his children as three witnesses, and the best lawyer in Grafton. We also got a good lawyer.

I told what happened, and Mr., Taylor told what he knew. When they cross-questioned me, they asked if McDonald whispered. When they questioned the boy, he got along well till they asked if the defendant was mad. This stumped him for a minute. Then he said. “He did not whisper.” When we rested, the lawyer moved to quash the warrant. The squire said, “No.” The lawyer said we had not proved what they expected, so they would have no witnesses. The squire said he would render his verdict. He turned to McDonald and said, “You have done entirely wrong, and I won’t stand for it. I will fine you $25 and bind you over to keep the peace for a year and a day under a $200 bond.” So you see, it didn’t pay him to get extra smart. I finished the school without any more trouble, but I feel it was one of my poorest terms.

Why This School was Called Robinson: I think it might be well to tell the story of how this school came to be called Robinson School. A man by the name of Robinson and his wife lived in a house near the school. They got in debt and borrowed some money of McDonald, the father of the man I had trouble with. Robinson gave him a deed for his farm with the agreement if they could pay the money back within a year that they could redeem it. They scraped and saved and got the money. When they went to redeem the farm, he said, “No, I have the deed for the farm, and I am keeping it.”

McDonald lost a dog and accused Robinson of killing it. Every time they met, he would throw it up to Robinson about killing his dog. One day Robinson said to him, “The next time you say dog to me, I’ll kill you.”

Sometime before the year was up, McDonald came down and ordered Robinson to move out. Robinson told him he would move out the day the year was up and not a day sooner. McDonald came down the morning he was to move and found him loading up to move. “Well,” McDonald said, “I reckon I can keep a dog now.” Robinson got his gun and shot him dead.

They sent to Grafton for the officers. When they came, Robinson was in the house and refused to let them in. He told one of his friends who was with the officers that when he was ready they could have him, but not till he was ready. He also said he had a rifle, a shot gun, and a revolver in the house; and if they thought he couldn’t shoot, to put a penny on top of a post 25 yards away. In a half minute the penny was shot off. They waited around till evening. Soon after the lights went on, they heard a shot. They went in and found he had shot himself. A man may be so annoyed that he will do awful things.

Two Pupils in Robinson School: I believe I will write a little about two of my pupils in the Robinson School before I forget it. The family where I boarded moved away about two months before school was out, so I boarded with her brother’s family the rest of the term. The name was Stark. There were two little girls—Ruth was 8, and Jinnie was 6 about the middle of the winter. Jinnie did not come to school until the last two months. She may have known her letters; if she did, that was all. Neither of the girls came in bad weather, for it was a long trip and Ruth was not strong.

One rainy day when I came from school, Mrs. Stark told me Ruth had tested Jinnie to see how many words she knew at sight anywhere. I told her about 100. She said Jinnie knew 125. Pretty good for a six-year-old girl in less than two months! I think she was a little above average in ability, and she really tried. Ruth was a very sweet little girl. She wrote for two or three years but finally quit. I think I just forgot to answer one of her letters.

Summer Work in Salem: I came home Monday evening, finished my school reports, and went to work for Guy Davis on the school house at noon Tuesday. I leveled off the dirt floor in the basement, cut two holes for sewer pipes through the 18-inch wall (Guy said it was the hardest concrete he ever saw), and laid a concrete floor. I had worked on this school the year before when they were building it.

After finishing the school house for Lee and Guy Davis, I went to work on farms and did not lose any time for rain for six weeks. One rainy morning at about 8 a.m. Lee raised the window of the school (it was right below our house) and wanted to know if I wanted to work. I went down and cleaned up and carried lumber for them. Then for some time, whenever it rained, they would call me down. Then for a while I got no work., Then one Sabbath evening Guy came to me and asked if I could work the next day. He said a man had promised to come Friday but didn’t, so he was through with him. After that I did all the common labor for them. Besides the other work I did, I got a job teaching some children at night who had not passed their grade. I made over $1200 that year, which was a little the best I had ever done up to that time.

Besides the Central School building, I had also worked on the East School building. In 1920 I had worked for several weeks on a glass plant at Bristol. I am telling this to show I had worked on a number of big buildings in Salem. I am sorry to say I was not the contractor or head man on any of these jobs, but I did a lot of common labor on each of them.

My Last Teaching in Ritchie County—1923-1925

The summer of 1923 went by rapidly. In the late summer I was offered the Upper Otter Slide School, so I was fixed for the winter. I boarded with Guy and Mamie that winter. I had plenty to eat and was treated very nicely. In fact, I had a very nice winter. Harold Brissey, Jesse Kelley and some of the other boys would go out hunting at night. We caught several possums and a few skunks. When I left in the spring, the patrons petitioned the board to hire me again. All but one of them signed the petition, and he went to the board and told them he wanted me. They hired me, so I was all set for the term of 1924-25.

This year I did not find as much work about Salem as I had been doing.

As there was a big gas line being laid in Ritchie, I went out there the 4th of July and worked for Elva till they got the line near enough to walk back and forth. I got $4.08 a day, and my board cost $l.35 a day. This saved me some, as I worked for Elva on Sundays. Digging ditches is hard work, but I liked it fine except for a few days when it was so terribly hot. One day I had to go to the shade for over an hour, but they did not dock me any.

I dug in the ditch till we got to the center, where the Italians were supposed to meet us but didn’t. Then I went back and filled in till a mile beyond the center. Our super said he could take 100 Americans and lay more line than 175 Tallies. I finished the job just before time for school to begin.

Jack offered to let me live in a vacant house he had. This was a real good four-room house with a bed and bedding which he said I could use. He didn’t charge me anything for it. He also gave me some beans and apples, which he said he would not pick. Of course, they were not high quality, but they were good enough for me. I surely enjoyed them very much. I helped Willie Jett fill his silo, and he let me have a lot of corn beans. So I had beans for a long time.

I will mention right here that Jack, May, and Ova were very nice to me, and I won’t forget them.

Elmo Stayed With Me and Attended School: I stayed by myself and did my own cooking until I went home to vote. When I returned, Elmo came with me. We had a grand time. Jesse Kelley and I had been hunting some, so we went out in a short time after Elmo came. I could see that Jesse did not like very well for Elmo to go, but I would not go without Elmo. About 11 p.m. the dogs treed something, and we had no ax. Elmo said to give him the lantern and he would go to Jesse’s (which was about one-half mile away) and get an ax. He was back in a little while. After that Jesse was glad for Elmo to go every time. We had lots of fun and got lots of possums. We had a few to eat. Elmo enjoyed them very much.

The girls liked Elmo and got along with him just fine, but the boys were inclined to be jealous of him because he could beat them at almost any of their games. When they played “hide and seek,” he would lie down and be still. They would pass by him, and he could come right in. When they played “keep away” with the volley ball, he could beat them, which made some of the Campbell boys mad. They tried to do Elmo the same, but they didn’t have any success.

When we went home for Christmas, Elmo wasn’t sure if he would come back. When the time came, he was anxious to go back. We bought a quarter of beef of John Meathrell and had beef about all winter. We bought potatoes of someone there and plenty of groceries from the store. We lived fine, and it didn’t cost nearly as much as they (Jennie and Dow) asked for board for me only. They wanted $20 per month, which at that time seemed rather high.

I did not have quite so good a school this winter, as several of the boys decided they were too big to study or behave. The most of them did well, and several got diplomas from the eighth grade.

This finished my teaching in Ritchie (24 winter terms). In fact, I have been in Ritchie but little since the spring of 1925.

Summer Work at Salem—1925

This summer I took a job of filth cutting of Lee Davis. Before I finished it, Leonard Jett came over and wanted to help. He had been working for the city and got his hand badly mashed. He wanted to work some to get able to do a day’s work, and then go in with me and be able to make something. I took him in. After finishing that job, we helped Alexander in his hay. We took a job of cutting four acres of hay with scythes and also helped him put up all his hay.

Work was getting scarce, and we had heard that they were going to build a concrete basement for the Ritchie Church. We found what the sand and stone would cost and what the lumber and labor would cost. When we got there, we found Amos Brissey thought it could be built for less than we could build it. I made a bid, but I have always been so glad we did not get it. There was a big racket over it, and there would have been a much worse one if we had got it. And I hate a racket.

Also tagged apples, Black Lick School, bond, Buckeye School, Dewey Town School, Doddridge County, Flinderation School, Long Run school, Meathrell, new york, otter slide, ritchie county, Robinson School, sabbath, salem, salem college, school house, Ten Mile School, Upper Otter Slide school, west virginia – No Comments

Chapter 2 – Memories

April 6, 2009

Perhaps my greatest unfulfilled desire as a child was to have a sister. The same had been true in my mother’s childhood-and it was also true in the life of my daughter. I had a baby brother when I was three, but he choked to death when he was about two years old. So I remained the youngest until I was ten years old. I thought I would surely have a sister at last! But when he was born, he was a four pound, skinny, pitiful-looking little old man. A new book was circulating in our community at that time, St. Elmo, so the little bundle became Elmo Fitz Randolph.

The neighbor women put him in a shoe box and put a wedding ring on his arm as a bracelet. They have said that they put Grandma’s thimble on his head, but I don’t remember this part and it seems far-fetched to me.

Ugly as he was, we loved him and cared for him until in a few months he was healthy and fat. His once bald head had changed into a beautiful head of blond curls. By this time, I wouldn’t have traded him for anybody’s girl. But I still wanted a sister! His hair grew in curls; down to his shoulders, and we could not bring ourselves to cut it until he was past three, then we all cried when we took him to the barber.

Brady was my oldest brother and when he finished eighth grade, he was sent to Salem to enter the academy which was connected with Salem College. There were no high schools in our county, and only a few young people even had the opportunity of going on to school. After Brady had been away one year, it was decided to move the family to Salem. Dad could get a school to teach in Harrison County and we would all have better school opportunities.

The place that had always been home was sold and a home bought in Salem. This move changed our lives in many ways, new friend were made and there were new hills to climb and new fields to roam. The home life was much the same, however. We ate oats or salt fish for breakfast as we had done for years.

Perhaps I should explain about salt fish. Each fall the folks would make out a grocery order to Sears, Roebuck and Co. It would be shipped by freight and would contain enough staple foods to last for the winter. There would be: 100 lbs. of rolled oats; 100 lbs. of rice, one or two kegs of salt fish; a ten-pound box of prunes, perhaps a few “specials” such as hard candy for Christmas, and ALWAYS one five-pound box of mixed cookies. This was the most important item in the order, as far as the children were concerned.

Now back to salt fish again. I don’t think they sell such a product on the market today, for which I am glad; and yet I would like to taste it once more and see if it is really as good as I remember it.

To prepare the fish for eating took at least twelve hours. My mother would take the fish from the brine in the afternoon if she was going to have them for breakfast the next morning. They were placed in a large pan of water in order to soak the salt out. The water would be changed two or three times to assist in the process of reducing the salt content. The next morning the fish were rolled in flour and fried. This was always a welcome change from the normal breakfast of oats or rice.

Our food was always good because my mother was an excellent cook. She made light bread, salt rising bread, and of course corn bread and biscuits. For many years, she sold warm bread to the grocery stores. She had quite a sale for loaves of salt rising bread three times a week. This sale of bread kept us in sugar, salt, vinegar, soda and baking powder and other staples.

My Dad bought a hog, and when finances permitted, a quarter of a beef front quarter, usually each fall. This meat was carefully preserved to last for the year. You were a poor housekeeper, indeed, if you didn’t have enough lard and meat to last until butchering time again.

Every family had a cellar where fruit and vegetables were kept for winter use. In the summer time milk and eggs were kept there also. Unless you had a thunderstorm, the morning milk would still be good at supper time if you set it in a pan of cold water just drawn from the well. If it was an especially hot day, you changed the water in the pan a couple of times. Supper usually consisted of mush and milk or corn bread and so it was too bad if the milk soured.

I remember two kinds of cellars, both very dark and damp and none would have won a medal for sweet odors. Some cellars were dug into the side of a hill and rocks were used to form the walls. It might be that flat stones were laid for the floor, and sometimes the ground was .just packed hard. Then dirt was filled in around it so that there was only one end left open where a big double door was hung. Potatoes and apples would not freeze in the winter, and it was reasonably cool in the summer.

Another kind of cellar was the one under the kitchen. A hole was dug out, shelves and bins were built in and a stairway fixed from the kitchen down into it. It had a “trap door” which was part of the kitchen floor. When you needed to go to the cellar, you lifted the door and used the stairs. This was quite a task, and the women made sure they got what they would need from the cellar so as not to have to make extra trips. Just to see this hole opened up in the floor was always good for a bit of excitement to the “smallfry.”

When I was twelve years old, I had a wonderful birthday! I can never remember a birthday cake before that time, although there might have been some. This cake had a white icing and “chocolate drops” in lieu of candles. My second special friend, Gladys Clark, came for supper that night and brought me a gift. She also furnished the candy for the top of the cake.

Gladys was the daughter of the president of Salem College. They lived in a big two-story house, and I was permitted a few times to spend the night there and to eat with the family in their very spacious dining room. In this house I saw my first indoor bathroom and learned to flush the commode.

The Clarks had some real treasures in their cellar! They kept a keg of sweet pickles, and many times there would be a bunch of bananas hanging from the rafters, and perhaps a large round yellow cheese. We never touched any of these “goodies” without special permission. We remained friends until Dr. Clark was sent to another school, I believe it was in Michigan, and I never saw Gladys again. It is sad that friendships were broken because of distance. It would not be so in this day, for we can go to the ends of the earth with less time and effort than we could travel a few hundred miles in 1916.

During these years there was a growing realization among us children that we were individuals. Brady was the oldest, and in Salem College, and we all had a special pride in him and in his debating ability. Everyone at home listened to his opinions and generally accepted them. I can remember how he pressed his “blue serge suits” until they shined as much as these fancy suits I see an television today; and they were not supposed to shine! A shine revealed their age. Once in a while he would have a date and take her to the “nickelodeon” to see a movie. That was a great experience for the whole family, for he would spend hours telling us the stories he saw. Mama would bake an extra loaf of bread for him to sell so he could have the dime for their tickets.

Ashby was two years older than I was, and we were naturally much more together. Because he was a boy and older, he felt that he should always be the boss. It was all right on occasions for him to give orders, but I felt compelled to take up for myself. He was stout and there was no way I could out-fight him, so I had to try to out-smart him. Once in a while that would be successful. I would promise to do some of his reading or writing if he would do something for me that I didn’t like to do, arithmetic, for instance. There were times he bent me to his will by saying he wouldn’t keep the snakes off me if I didn’t.

I was stubborn and once I told him I wouldn’t do something, I never changed my mind. If he hit me, I went crying to Mama. He used to flip a towel at me. If just a corner would hit my arm, it would burn and hurt. One time I picked up a salt shaker, it was loaded so it wouldn’t tip over, and threw it at him. He ducked and it hit the door facing and bent it badly. He would have had a sore head for sure if he hadn’t seen that coming.

Mama had a brother, Waitman Sutton, who lived out in the country several miles below Salem. When we went to visit him, we went by train for about twenty miles and then we walked across the hills to his house. One spring weekend Ashby and I had been out to Uncle Watie’s and they had given us a bucket of strawberries to take home. When I thought I had carried them “my share” of the way, I insisted that he take them. He was busy throwing at birds and squirrels, or just throwing, and he couldn’t be bothered. I set the bucket down and told him he would have to carry them or they would be left there. He gave no heed to my words and we walked on, sans the berries! We had gone perhaps a half mile when he became aware that I really had left the berries, and he retraced his steps to pick them up.

You see, I had something on him that made it very difficult for him not to “knuckle under” to me in an instance like this. He was older and would be held responsible for this fruit when we arrived home. I had something else going for me too. I was the only girl in the family, and there were times when that fact weighed heavily in my favor. In fact, I guess it over-balanced his greater fighting ability.

There was an interesting ending to this strawberry story, however. We came to a little creek beside the railroad track and there was a blacksnake curled up. I was instructed to guard the berries at a safe distance while Ashby killed the snake. When that heroic deed was finished, I just picked up the bucket and we walked on. Now I am not sure that he didn’t win the battle of wills after all! That snake might have been left to sun itself in peace if it hadn’t been needed to bring me into line.

There are two vivid memories of my visits to Uncle Watie’s home. He had not married a West Virginia girl, I can’t remember where her home had been, and her cooking was different.

Aunt Maggie drank coffee all day long, and there was always a large open kettle boiling on the old-fashioned iron stove which was built to burn coal. However, since they had free gas, it was converted to burn gas, which was allowed to burn constantly. Every morning she put some fresh coffee into the kettle but did not remove the grounds that were already there. As I recall it, there must have been four- pounds of coffee grounds and a dozen egg shells boiling there at any given time. That coffee was as black as tar and strong enough to set your “inwards” burning. Plain coffee was never quite strong enough, so she added “essence” which gave it color and bitterness. When I got the chance to take a few sips of this “brew,” I felt like a heroine, for I didn’t let on how nasty it really tasted to me.

The other memorable thing about Aunt Maggie was the decorations in her home. She attended all the county fairs in the area, and she must have been lucky in winning things, for her walls and tables were crowded with the rare works of art which can be won for a dime on the midway. Never before or since have I seen such a treasure house of useless, but impressive looking, things!

My mother was an amateur photographer, so we had pictures to show of all the memorable events of our lives. She not only took the pictures, she developed the films and made the prints. We always had a “Dark room” for this work, and it never lost its air of mystery for me. Mama would shut herself in and place a film and paper into a frame. Then she would step outside and hold this frame up to the window for a count of three or four and step back and place this blank-looking paper in a pan of developer and count again as she came to the light. When she could see the picture clearly, she moved it quickly to another pan of solution. This “set” the picture and then she washed it under- running water to take all the acid off. It was hung up on a curtain to dry then it was placed between two books to press and it was ready to keep forever. (I have many of these homemade pictures and they have not faded away in these sixty years.)

There were times when I was permitted to stand in the corner of this dark room and sense the excitement and expectancy of each step of the process. She had a small lamp with a red shade which she burned in this dark room in order to be able to see how to “feel her way” to do this work. She used to earn a few extra pennies by making pictures for other people.

We lived on College Hill in one of the last houses on the last street, near the top. There were no paved streets up there and not even a sidewalk the last block of the way. I have heard about a famous “board-walk” at Atlantic City. I haven’t seen it; but I suspicion that it is quite different from our walks of those olden days. They were not as wide as our cement walks of today and were always built well off the ground with wide cracks between the boards to let the water run off. Steps, steps, and more steps to climb! Unless it was very muddy or the dust was too thick, we usually preferred the climb on the street rather than by the steps. I recall where we lived later, when I was in college. There were forty-eight steps straight up the side of the hill.

O, the West Virginia hills,
How majestic and how grand!
With their summits pointing skyward
To the Great Almighty’s land;
If o’er land or sea I roam,
Still I think of happy home
And my friends among those
West Virginia hills!

Also tagged apples, birth, elmo fitz randolph, fish, fitz randolph, randolph, salem, salem college, sutton, virginia, west virginia – No Comments

Tag Archives: Harrison County

Samuel Fitz Randolph

Chapter 19 – Synopsis of My Teaching Career

Chapter 4: Our Wedding and Early Married Years

Ashby’s Memories

Ruth’s Memories

Our Wedding, December 23, 1925.

Our First Year of Marriage

Ashby’s Memories — Completing My Standard Normal Degree.

Our first home.

Teaching at Shady Grove School.

Our first new car.

Our first son is born.

More about Shady Grove School.

Ruth’s Memories

Our first baby arrives.

Moving to Salem–and then to Shady Grove.

A Summer at Lost Creek–1927

Ashby’s Memories

Ruth’s Memories

Living and Teaching at Jarvisville

Ashby’s Memories

Ruth’s Memories

Owning Our Home

Ruth’s Memories

Ashby’s Memories

Making improvements.

Water problems.

Work-saving appliances.

Paying for our home.

Ruth’s Memories of a Growing Family — Our Second Son Arrives

Two More Daughters Arrive

Another Son Arrives

Ashby’s Memories of Extra Jobs–Fun and Work

Teaching at Morris School, 1931-37

School Discipline Methods

4-H, Life Saving, and Teaching at Camps

Ruth’s Memories of Neighbors and Ashby’s Graduation

Wallace and Hazel Burnside

Musgraves

Ashby Graduates

Chapter 3: Young Adults–Education, Work, and Early Teaching

Ashby’s Memories

A Year in New York — Work at the garage and taxi company in Olean.

Work on a farm near Friendship.

Uncle Alvie’s in Alfred, New York.

Back To Salem, West Virginia

Getting Acquainted with Ruth

Farm and Other Work During 1919-1920

Back to School in Salem

My First School

More About Sports

Tennis with Jennings Randolph.

My First Year at Salem College

Teaching For Avis

Teaching in Taylor County

A card from Ruth.

Mining Jobs

My home with Mrs. Bailey.

My Second Year of College

Ruth’s Memories

School at Salem College — I first met Ashby Randolph

Dating Ashby Randolph

Teaching School

Teaching at Roanoke

A fire at home.

A car wreck.

Teaching, at West Milford.

Chapter 14 – The Salem Years — 1914-1925

Chapter 2 – Memories

Recent Posts

Archives

Commercial Family History Books

Friends & Family

Mark's Tips and Tricks

Partners

Meta