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.

I will continue with my teaching work until I left Ritchie. The fall of 1910 there was an effort made, in an underhand way, to keep me from getting the school at Berea; but I got it and taught a fairly successful school in spite of all a few dirty meddlers could do. I decided when school was out that I would not try for it again, so I got the Sunny Point school on Turtle Run. Conza asked me before the Board met if I was asking for the Berea school, and I told her “No.” Then she said she would try for it. I told her to pitch in. Ell Douglas was on the Board, and he got them to delay hiring the Berea teachers until September in hopes the girls would get schools elsewhere or he could get someone else. Two of the Board members told Conza and Draxie, after the meeting was out, that they should have the school. The opposition made a great effort to get someone else to teach it, but failed.

One night John Meredith (one of my best friends) came up to see me. This was while Jennie was in Colorado, and I was alone. We talked for some time when all at once John said, “Pressie, can’t we get you to teach our school this winter?” My reply was, “No, John, you can’t.” We talked on a while, and again John spoke up, “Pressie, isn’t there some way we can coax you to teach our school?” My reply was “No, John, there isn’t.” After talking for some time longer, John spoke up for the third time, “Pressie, isn’t there some way we can force you to teach our school?” My reply again was “No, John, there isn’t.” He soon went home, and I was happy; I knew Douglas had sent him although he had gotten mad early in the spring when one of the patrons had asked him to give me the school. So it tickled me to say, “No.” Oh, it was fun!

An Incident at Berea: I will now tell a funny incident (some might not think it very funny) that happened the last winter I taught at Berea. Barnard Bee had been using bad talk at school, and Draxie had him wash his mouth with asafetida. This raised an awful fuss, and they had Zeke summoned before the Grand Jury. He came to the school house and told us about it. He said he didn’t want to go as he had no fuss to raise about what she did to the boy. We told him to go ahead; it was all right with us.

The next day we went out to town. We went into the clerk’s office, had ourselves summoned before the jury, sworn, and then waited to be called in. When they called me in, the foreman asked me if I knew what I was summoned for. My reply was, “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.” He then asked me what I knew. My reply was, “A little of nothing and not much of anything.” He then asked me about the trouble in school. He was smart and thought he was very smart. The first question he asked after that was, “What is your business?” My reply was, “I take the place of the parents.” I saw several old teachers on the jury, and I knew we were okay.

When he said, “Don’t you know that no one but a practicing physician has a right to give medicine?” I shot right back at him, “Yea, if you go home tonight and one of your children has the bellyache, you wouldn’t dare to give him a dose of castor oil?” “That’s different,” he said. A half dozen said, “No, that’s the same.” I knew we had won. The foreman came out a little later, and we told him we had another witness. He said they didn’t need it; for us to just go on home and teach our schools. This was all done by a bunch of trouble makers and ended as such things usually do.

Draxie and Mike Jett: Draxie also had trouble with Mike Jett. He got mad because she kept Witt in at recess. When recess came, they sent for Witt to come home and then sent him back on the playground to play. Draxie saw him out there playing, so she went and got him. I went up to the house to get a drink. While I was gone, Mike went to the school house, cursed Draxie and took Witt away. I stopped in the lower room when I came back and heard John Bee, John Waggoner and Draxie talking about it. When they said he cursed Draxie, I said I would have him arrested and proceeded to call the squire at Harrisville. He said he would be out as soon as the weather was fit and get him.

As soon as Mike heard about it, he wanted to settle it, so they agreed to meet at our house Sabbath evening. Mike and Ivy and Conza and Draxie came. I told them it was all right with me any way they settled it, if it was satisfactory with the squire; for it was in his hands. Draxie agreed if he would come to school Monday morning and apologize for what he had done, it would settle it with her. Mike thought it was all settled, so he never came about.

A few days later the squire called up and said it could not be settled out of court, but that he would try the case himself. Mike came to Draxie again, when he heard the squire was coming. He told her he couldn’t talk in public. She told him he seemed to be able to talk when he came after Witt. The weather stayed too bad for the squire to come, so Mike was indicted by the same jury we were before. He paid a fine of $25, which was more than I would like to pay for the privilege of cursing a school teacher.

Trouble for Brady and Clee Wagoner: I taught the Sunny Point school two years and had a very nice time. Conza had a hard time with her school; the children were mean and the people meddled. The next winter they got a big man by the name of Alender, who worked for Tom Jackson for a while before school, so they had a chance to tell him how mean Brady and Clee Wagoner were. The boys complained to me that they didn’t get a fair show. I knew this was so, but I told them to wait and he would find out how it was.

There got to be too much courting in school, and we told the boys some of the girls would got jealous and then there would be trouble. Some of the kids in the neighborhood would come in and say, “We are having a good school this winter,” in a hateful tone. Of course, this made us mad, but we didn’t say a word.

All at once word got around that Clee had used vile talk to John Prunty’s girl, and he had taken her out of school. Alender went to see about it, and John said it was not so. When Alender told the member of the board (Ell Douglas) that he found no basis for the charge, Douglas said it was so and he had to investigate it. The girl said it was so; Clee denied it; the girl’s seatmate said she did not hear it; and Brady, who was sitting right by, said Clee did not say it. Alender said she had not proved her case so she must apologize. She refused to do this, so he turned her out. This raised an awful stink and more charges against Clee. Alender failed to find any proof and told them so.

The next Friday noon the Board and 25 to 50 people came in. Alender took up school and went to hearing classes. Then one of the board got up and asked if he might say a word. Alender said, “Speak on.” He (the board member) said they had been sent for to come down there. Alender said he knew nothing about it, for he had received no notice. The member said he knew that was so, for they didn’t know what it was about.

After some talk it was found out that Alender was accused of being partial for not getting Clee for what they called immoral conduct. They said they intended to protect their girls (three of the accusers were the most immoral men in town) and get rid of the vipers like Clee. Alender offered if the crowd would leave that the board could inquire of the scholars and find out the truth. One of the crowd jumped up and said, “I am a taxpayer, and I came here to see that justice is done, and I am going to stay and see that it is.” The board said if that was the way they felt, there could be no trial till written charges were filed and Alender was notified of charges and date. So they fixed the date two weeks off and went home.

The crowd was mad, for they hoped to get Alender and Clee both put out of school. They were mad at Alender because he would not kick Clee and Brady out of school. If they had gotten Clee put out, they would have soon patched up some lie on Brady and kicked him out too. This crowd (not all of Berea by a good deal) was mad at Al Wagoner and me and wanted to ruin us. There was a lot of blowing done, and John Meredith told them there was nothing to it. They replied, “John, don’t you believe in protecting our girls?” John told them it was just a plot to ruin the boys and that there was nothing to it. This didn’t suit some of them very well, but John didn’t care a cent how they liked it.

When the board met, there was a big crowd there again anxious to get Clee and Alender. They had charged Alender with partiality on ten counts-nine for not investigating charges against Clee and one for expelling a girl. When the case came up, Alender proved that he had tried every case but one and had no proof and that they gave him no chance to try that one. The board ruled that the teacher was not guilty, but they reinstated the girl. If Clee was to be tried, they would have to bring charges against him and set another date. Clee told them he had to quit school and go to carrying the mail, so they dropped his case.

I may have cause to mention Clee again, but I will say right here that he graduated from Salem College with a fine name, took a course in agriculture, married a fine girl (her mother was a daughter of George Randolph). The last I knew, he was teaching in high school. In fact, he has done better than any of those that tried to ruin him back in Berea.

Some of the folks tried to get Minter Fox to whip Alender and went to see what Fred thought about their chance. Fred told them Alender would whip them both before any one could pull him off of them; so they didn’t try it. The Brakes, Jacksons, Collins and Douglases went to another school by consent of the board, which left the Berea school very small. Douglas kept his girl at home for a few days, which cost him about $12. This was the best lesson Berea ever had. Since then most anybody could teach the Berea school. So you see that good can still come out of evil.

The next spring Wagoners moved to Harrisville, which took away one of my best friends.

Experiences as Fire Insurance Agent

In the spring of 1911 I got a job of writing fire insurance for the Safe Insurance Company of Harrisville, which I followed for three summers. I was quite successful; I cleared an average of $2 a day, which at that time was good wages. I wrote in Gilmer, Tyler, Ritchie, Wood, Doddridge and Harrison counties. I enjoyed the work very much. But once in a while it looked as if some would get insurance and then cash in on it, if they got too much insurance. I tried to be careful and did not have many fires.

There was a man in Gilmer by the name of Wagoner who had a fine house. I tried hard to get him to write insurance, but he told me that he built the house himself and he knew there was no danger of its burning, so I gave him up. A few months later I passed through a village not far from his home. A friend came out and told me he had some insurance for me. He told me that Wagoner had had a fire, and he said he would write insurance with the first insurance agent who came along. I found it was in a room where ceiling paper had been used instead of lumber to seal overhead. A small boy found the fire. When the mother went up, she found the ceiling paper burned off and the paper burned about half way down all around the wall. The room was shut up tight, so there was no draft and it burned very slowly. They saved the house with very little damage. I wrote the insurance, which made me $2. No doubt a mouse or rat had carried a match to their nest, gnawed it and started the fire.

I saw a two-story house with matched oak ceiling with a hole made by fire which looked as if it had been made for a stove pipe. It was in the parlor, which had been shut up for a week. When a girl went in to sweep the room, she found ashes on the floor. She thought it had started upstairs, so she ran up there but found no way to get at the fire up there. So she came down and put the fire out down there. When they got the fire out, they found the burned remains of some stockings and old clothes which had been a nest. The house was shut up tight, so the fire had not blazed but kept live coals. These are just a few of my experiences while writing insurance.

Jennie Visited in Colorado, 1911

In the summer of 1911, Jennie went to Colorado with Watie [Sutton, her brother] to see Elzie [another brother], who could not come to West Virginia on account of his health. She had a very nice trip. She sure deserved it, for she had never been out of West Virginia except when we moved to New York. Watie and Arlie paid for her trip.

A boy got up one winter’s morn and came to breakfast rather late,
Yet raised a fuss because there was no nice, big pancake upon his plate.
His father took him o’er his knee and raised his hand up in the air,
And when that boy got loose again, he held his spanked ache in the chair.

This was all my experience as an actor until after I began teaching.

The summer after I went to Perie at Otter Slide, I went to school to Callie at Berea. Mr. Brake owned the land all around the school house. He came to the school one day and complained that the children were getting into his orchard and wasting his apples (which I expect was so). Callie told them that she would whip anyone that went into the orchard. A few days later one of the Brake boys and two of the Hise Davis boys got some apples, and she whipped all three. This stopped apple stealing.

Some Memories of a Teacher Named Hall: The winter I was 9 years old, a young man by the name of Hall was teacher. He could do nothing with the children. I will give you one incident that I saw myself. Four or five of the larger girls were in mischief, and he told them they would stay after school. When he dismissed school, they started to get their wraps. He said, “Girls, I told you to stay in.” Ocea Colgate said, in a voice that was plain for everyone to hear, “I don’t have to; I don’t intend to; and you can’t make me.” What do you suppose he said? “Well girls, you can stay in at recess tomorrow.”

When we got outside, John Meredith proposed, “Three cheers for Ocea,” which we all gave with all the power of our lungs. Then someone proposed, “Three groans for the teacher.” This we gave just as loudly as the other. We were up on the hill on the road to Auburn one half mile from Berea and could be heard there. We told about it at supper that evening; and Father said, “If one of my children was in such a thing, I would whip him.” We never mentioned that we yelled as loud as anyone.

Now this teacher had a rule that when he called the roll, if you came in late you were to answer, “Tardy.” Also, if you had whispered that day, you were to say, “Imperfect”; if you had not whispered, you were to say, “Perfect.” Ellsworth was 19 years old and was very careful to not whisper. But one day some of the big girls fooled him into whispering, so he had a time the rest of the day. The girls had lots of fun thinking he would have to answer, “Imperfect.” When the roll call came, he answered, “Tardy.”

The trustees planned to turn Mr. Hall out at the end of the second month (we only had four months then), but he promised Mr. Brake that he would quit his tarnal partiality and not whip his boys unless he whipped someone else. Father took us children out of school and sent Ellsworth and Alva to another school three miles away.

Another Teacher-Tom Brown: The next winter Tom Brown taught our school. He was entirely different from Fred Hall.

One day the trustees came in to visit the school. They were Father, Mr. Brake, and Mr. Colgate. They were seeing about getting some new seats. Of course, the children were watching. After Father left, Mr. Brake made a speech. He said, “There’s not enough studying, too much looking around. Give it to ‘em, whip ‘em. Give ‘em the rod; it’s good for ‘em. We had to take it.” Mr. Brake always said lick ‘em. But if he found the teacher whipping one of his boys, he would take them all out of school.

The teacher was mad. After Mr. Brake left, he told us if we didn’t study better he would get some hickories and whip anyone who looked off his book one minute. He soon got the hickories and told us not to look off our books one minute on penalty of a whipping. I was 10 years old and knew the difference between looking at a book and studying. I looked at the book, but I did not study. (There’s an old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.”)

(I have heard that there is a way to get many to think, but some will not for they have no thinker.) But during the evening while I was looking intently at my book, (with my eyes rolled up, looking at the front of the house), I saw the teacher looking at his clock on the wall, then jump and grab a whip from the wall. I suddenly glued my whole mind on my book. When I heard him pass my seat, I knew I was safe. A moment later I heard him say, “What are you doing?” The boy replied, “I was studying.” But the teacher said, “No you weren’t”; and he jerked him out of his seat and gave him a hard whipping. I didn’t look back to see.

Now, who do you suppose it was? You’re right; it was one of Mr. Brake’s boys. I am sure he had watched all day to catch one of them. Mr. Brake always said, “Whip ‘em!”; and just as he did this time, he always took them out of school if the teacher whipped one of his kin.

More School Memories: I will go ahead and finish the account of my school days, and then go back to give an account of other happenings in my boyhood days. The next year Mr. Luzader (the father of Everett Luzader) taught part of the term. The children were so bad that he quit and Tom Brown finished it. I remember nothing important happening except his giving Elmus Bee a very hard whipping for looking out of the window to see how much snow was on the ground.

Mr. Wade taught the winter I was 12 years old. It was reported that he was very strict, so everybody was good the first month. The first morning of the second month he told us he had heard it was a very bad school, but he had never taught a better one. Poor man! That was the worst mistake he ever made, for the Berea school would not be bragged on. In the next three months he whipped not less than 10 or 12 times. Of these were the four largest boys in school and two girls. One of these girls was 15 years old, would have weighed at least 175 pounds, and was married in six weeks. He whipped her very hard. Mr. Brake again took his boys out of school because they got whipped.

At 13 I went to school to George Hoff for my last term at Berea. This was a very quiet term of school-never but one little flaw. He told us one morning that there had been some kissing games played and that there must be no more. A lot of us boys went down into Mr. Colgate’s field to play ball. We heard the bell in just a little while and went to school. He told us, “I told you this morning you were to play kissing games no more, and at noon you went down behind the house and went to playing them again. There will be no more of it.” And there wasn’t. Mr. Hoff boarded at our house and was a very nice man about the house.

An Incident at Upper Bone Creek: Before school began when I was 14, they had made a new school district at Upper Bone Creek and put us in it. Mr. Hoff was the first teacher. Things went along very well until he got into trouble with Frank Prunty. The school house was built on the Prunty farm. At recess one day Frank saw their sheep in the meadow, so he went to put them out without asking the teacher. He didn’t get back until 15 minutes after school was taken up. When Mr. Hoff asked him how he came to be late, he wouldn’t say a word. So Mr. Hoff told him he could stay in five minutes at noon. But Frank ran out.

Mr. Hoff got a whip at noon. Then before recess he got the key from the janitor and locked the door. Frank told the janitor, who was a boy about his age, that he would kill him if he gave the teacher the key. Before recess he was told that he could stay in all recess, but he just laughed at him. His older brother said at noon that he hoped Hoff would skin him alive as he was so mean none of them could do anything with him. Mr. Hoff proceeded to do what the brother hoped. Frank fought, but he was surprised to find himself jerked out of his seat, thrown to the floor, his hands tied behind him, pulled to his feet, and the whip worn out on him. Frank fought and swore he would kill Hoff, but George just threw him down on the floor and held him there all recess.

It was equal to any revival you ever saw. There was weeping and wailing, but no shouting. The girls all cried; the little children howled; and Frank kept swearing he would kill Hoff and the janitor. After recess he turned Frank loose, and Frank went out and got a ball bat and dared Hoff back there. He then went home, swearing to kill the two.

The trustees met the next day and expelled Frank. Mr. Prunty was away and did not return until the next afternoon after the fight. On being told why Frank was not at school, he went to the woods, got some hickories, and whipped him until he gave out. The next morning he got some more whips and began again. Frank finally said, “Father, if you won’t kill me, I will go back to school.” The trustees took him back when he agreed to behave in school and not bother young McClain (the janitor) while they were at school. He did not keep his word, but picked on him every chance he got and still said he intended to kill him.

One day the next summer, the McClain boy went down to get some sheep that had strayed onto the Prunty farm. Frank saw him and ran down and started a fight. The boy proceeded to cut him up, but not seriously. He was indicted for unlawful cutting, but he was cleared when Frank swore that he had said he would kill McClain but he had decided just to give him a good beating. The District Attorney said Frank got what was coming to him, which proves that justice is pretty sure to come sooner or later.

Another Teacher-John Lowther: I will write of one more teacher so that you may get a fair picture of the schools of that day, both good and bad. The next winter after the events mentioned above had happened, we had John Lowther as our teacher. He was a big man about 25 or 30 years old, but a teacher that kept no order at all. He would yell out so you could hear him for a half mile, “Cut that out,” or “You’re getting fresh back there.”

One cold wintry day, when Frank was the only one of the Johnsons who was there (now Frank had to be careful when any of the other children were there, for they would tell on him and Mr. Johnson would whip the life out of him), Frank was having a big time at the stove and Lowther told him to go to his seat. But Frank did not go. After Lowther yelled at him two or three times, he started back and Frank ran. Just as he got out the door Lowther yelled, “If you go out that door you’ll never come in here again.” Frank had closed the door, but he opened it, came back in, went up to the stove and sat down. Then Lowther really spread himself. He said, “If you ever do such a thing again, I’ll cut every dud off you. I’ll skin you alive! Don’t you know you’ve got to mind me?” Frank replied very quietly, “No, I don’t.” Lowther finally ran out of steam. After telling Frank to go back to his seat and close his knife (which he had been whittling a seat with), he then went on with the school.

My Final Years of School: The next year Alva taught, and I had a very successful term of school. The next year Alva taught again, but I stayed at home and helped with a big saw set. The next winter I was 18 and went to Miss Miller, who was a good teacher for an ordinary school but could not handle some of the outlaws of “Bloody Bone” (as we called the school). They annoyed her until she became a nervous wreck. They would drop a book on the floor to see her jump and hear her scream. They would throw a ball on the roof at recess to hear her scream. She finally had to stay at home and rest a few weeks before she could finish the school.

I will now tell you of an incident that happened at my last winter’s school, to show you the kind of boy my youngest brother, Delvia, was. One evening after school was out a boy ran up behind him, knocked his hat off, and started to pick it up and throw it in the mud. Delvia just lifted his heavy boot up by one foot and placed it firmly in his face, which left a rather muddy spot. The boy just turned around and walked off.

The next morning, Delvia slipped around the garden to the barn with the new hat. When I overtook him, he pulled an old, slouch hat from under his arm and said, “I am going to knock hats today.” When anyone came around knocking hats off, he took his turn. His aim was poor; instead of hitting the hat he would take the side of the head just about the ear. They never bothered his hats any more.

This was my last year in public school, for the next year I got a second grade certificate and began teaching.

Before I could retire, I had to furnish proof that I was born and when and where. It was a difficult job to prove those things. I finally got statements from Salem College officials of their age records and Mother and Father’s Family Bible and other school records that allowed the Ritchie County Clerk to issue me a birth certificate as Ashby F. Randolph. Apparently, the death of my older brother, Harold, on the day I was born had caused Dr. Bee to forget to register my birth.

The getting of Social Security payments took a number of visits to their office in Clarksburg. It must have taken them six months to a year to get my payments straightened out. I got some extra checks but only had to give back one check. I do not remember the exact amount of the first check, but in January 1972 my Social Security check was $155.00 and my school retirement check was $306.34. Ruth got Social Security of $69.20 and no retirement for cooking. If she outlives me, as long as she lives she will get one-half of what my teacher’s retirement would be. Now, January 1982, my Social Security is $381.50, my school retirement is $416.06, and Ruth’s Social Security is $177.20.

Living on Retirement Income

You might wonder how we could live on our income. There are reasons and I will mention some. We own our home. We get 200,000 cubic feet of natural gas per year free because of a gas well on the original farm for this house site. We have only used more than the 200,000 cubic feet three times in our 53 years here. Two of the bills were under $3, and the other was over $11.

Another reason we can live on our income is because Ruth learned from her mother and my mother what they had learned from necessity about cooking and managing a household economically. Besides, she has learned a lot on her own.

You may have noticed earlier in this story that we kept pigs (one or two), two cows, and chickens. Before I was handicapped, we raised grain and meadow to feed our stock. It wouldn’t look it now, but we raised 2 1/2 acres of such things as corn, wheat, or soybeans; and I always either cradled or cut it with a scythe. Besides that 2 1/2 acres, we raised corn and Sudan grass on a 2-acre piece at the very head of our hollow. Then, of course, there was the 3 acre meadow in front of our house that I put up with horses or tractors.

After I was handicapped, Ruth tried to keep cows and take care of the hill meadow. She stacked one of the most beautiful haystacks on the hill that I ever saw. The cows were a pain in the neck (would be one way to say it). One of them (the beautiful Jersey that one of our very best neighbors, Bill Jarvis, gave us while I was sick) kicked so fiercely that Ruth had to tie her hind feet together before she could milk her; so we got rid of her. The other one got hurt. After much raising her up each day, she fell into the creek; so I shot her.

Ruth didn’t stop helping by a long shot. She has always raised two gardens of about one acre together. It is one of the best gardens in our region. She not only raises the garden, but she cans and freezes all that we can use and gives away the rest. We used to hire the gardens plowed and disked, but now she even does that with her Troy Built rototiller.

You might wonder what I do to keep out of mischief. I can’t stand to just watch Ruth work, so I try to help her all I can. I use my tractor to furrow the rows ready for planting; and I haul in her garden crops, water, fertilizer, lime, etc., with the tractor trailer. I also mow a good acre of yard, but Ruth does the real hard work–the trimming. I also do some leather craft such as handbags, billfolds, and belts. I have done some for pay (realizing about $2 per hour) but most for love for relatives and friends.

Visiting and Fishing in Rhode Island

This is enough about making a living during retirement. Now, maybe you would like to know of our pleasure–or you might call it recreation.

Our recreation mostly consists of visiting, fishing, playing cards and Aggravation, and watching television. The visiting and fishing usually go together.

We visited our daughter and son-in-law, Xenia Lee and Edgar Wheeler, in Ashaway, Rhode Island, for about a month in November 1966. Besides visiting their family, we visited and fished with our Salem College schoolmate, Everett Harris. We also visited and fished with Elsie and Kenneth Leyton. Kenneth and Elsie lived on the beach and had one of the best fishing boats we ever fished from. The four of us caught about 30 flatfish, and they gave us all they caught.

Each of the other days that the weather was the least bit fit, Ruth and I fished for flatfish at a salt pond of about 50 acres where Edgar kept his boat. We would go for about 3 or 4 hours and sometimes catch about 20 flatfish–sometimes 2 or 3.

November 21, 1966, Esther, our granddaughter (a really grand one), was born. We went back to their place when our grandson Ernie (and a really grand one he was) was born on February 1, 1968. Our fishing and visiting was about the same as when Esther was born.

Traveling through New York City.

Our trips through New York City were a real experience for us. On the first one we followed Route 1 from the Washington Bridge to Route 95 on the east side of the city. I remember going underground quite a way once. Another time I was blocked by heavy traffic from following our Route 1, and an obliging policeman helped us. We thought we could do anything after we survived that experience.

Before we went the next time, Joe Boyd, our son-in-law, told us how to go around New York City by the Saw Mill Road. We followed it a few years; then we started going by the Hudson River Parkway and the Merritt Parkway to I-95. That was beautiful scenery. On the far side of the Hudson were the steep Palisades, and on the river were boats and ships of all kinds. The Merritt Parkway was lined with forests, flowers, and rocks.

The last time we went that way, they played a trick on us. Beth was with Ruth and me, or we might not have made it. They had been directing us to the Hudson River Parkway until we got across the George Washington Bridge; then we could find no more signs saying we were on or how to get onto the Hudson River Parkway. Finally I stopped and tried to get Beth to get directions from people in another car that had stopped. But Beth noticed that the driver and probably his wife were having an argument about the same trouble. So we went on until we came to a pay station, where the collector told us that we weren’t lost; they had changed the name to Deegan Upstate Highway, and the Merritt was just a little way ahead.

Once after that we missed the way onto the Deegan Upstate and thought we would find it again, but we got lost at a dead-end road to a big estate. After wandering through all kinds of places (some of them scary-looking), we found a telephone crew working. The crew leader walked to show us how to get on a highway that led us onto the George Washington Bridge. After that, we always followed the Garden State to the Tappan Zee Bridge to the Merritt Parkway to I-95.

Fishing in Florida

The trip to Orson’s in 1970. In 1970 we decided to try our luck fishing and visiting in Florida. Ruth’s sister Susie Williams had been fishing with us often. She seemed to enjoy it so much that we asked her to go along. She was glad to go. A cousin, Lotta Bond, had retired; so we asked her to go along (which she was glad to do). The trip went fine until we got to Daytona Beach. We went by Cleveland, Tennessee, where ,my sister, Avis Swiger, lived. We stayed over night with Avis, Archie (her husband), and their family. What a visit we had before retiring. Archie and Susie especially kept us laughing so much that my sides were sore and I could hardly get to sleep.

About 9 p.m. we got into Daytona Beach and began hunting for 110 Azalia Drive, Holly Hill (which is a suburb of Daytona Beach). That was where Ruth’s brother Orson lived, and we were to stay at his place. We must have gone through Holly Hill three or four times, each time stopping at a different place near the corner of Mason and Ridgewood to get directions. Finally, after Ruth and Susie got hysteria, a man at a newsstand told us that Azalia Drive didn’t enter Mason Street but we would have to go back of the bowling alley, where we would find Gardenia Street, which would lead us to Azalia Drive. So, about 11 p.m., we found Gardenia; and Orson was there watching for us. All were happy at last.

Orson was living by himself, so we had a great time helping him celebrate his 80th birthday on March 7. We also fished off some of the bridges. Once we went on a large boat up the Halifax River; Orson and I both caught a few nice sea trout.

A trip to Ian’s in 1973.

In January of 1973, we went to Ruth’s brother Ian’s-who-had retired from being a medical doctor in Chicago and built a home in Ormond Beach, Florida. We were so glad that we easily located his home at 386 Military Boulevard. Orson and Ian were outside the house watching for us.

The house and the whole place were a dream retirement place. Pearl and Ian had planned the house the way they wanted it–spacious and handy kitchen with both a bar and a table for eating (so you could take your choice), a large sitting room with a cozy fireplace, and three bedrooms and two baths. Back of the house and yard was an orchard and garden (which Orson had helped plan) with a strawberry patch and different citrus fruits. We sampled them, and they were delicious.

We mostly went to a pier to fish. When Ian could, he went with us. I remember once he was with us when I was especially glad. I caught a blue, and the darned thing grabbed me between the thumb and the front finger with its sharp teeth. The more I tried to get it loose, the tighter it clamped down. Ian noticed my trouble and pried its jaws open with a doctor’s instrument that he carried.

Once Ian went with us on an ocean-fishing trip. Ruth caught about as many as we did, but she put in a lot of time on a couch in the cabin because of sea sickness.

After five weeks of fishing five days each week, going to the Daytona Seventh Day Baptist Church each Sabbath, and visiting on Sundays with such people as Mary and Kenneth Hulin and Kay and Lillian Bee or going sight-seeing with Ian, Pearl (Ian’s wife), and Orson, we packed our fish that were left and joyfully went home.

We kept up our trips to Florida each year until this year (1981-1982). We are staying home to write this life history. It is not easy.

Fish We Caught in Florida–and Where

I have been thinking that you might be interested in the kinds of fish and the amounts of them we caught in Florida. Maybe you would like to know where we caught them.

One of the most common kinds of fish caught off the piers of Florida is the whiting. We caught many of them. One day we caught 58–and most of them were between two and three pounds of extremely delicious meat. Many think they are the best-tasting salt-water fish. There were two older ladies from Ohio who caught two five-gallon buckets full–about twice as many as we did–that same day.

Another special day on this Ormond-By-The-Sea Pier, the blues were hitting on Sea Hawk plugs; Ruth and I caught 42 of them. They hit savagely about every cast. If one got off, another would strike–usually before you could get the bait in to the pier. One time Ruth thought she had a monster, but she landed two of them on one plug at one cast.

Fishing trip to Lake Okeechobee. Ian only fished with us two years in Florida because he died during an operation to repair a blood vessel that was in danger of bursting. The last year he fished with us, we had a special experience. Ian, Pearl, Ruth, and I went to Lake Okeechobee to try to catch bass over 20 inches long. (I had been trying for years to do that. I had caught some between 19 and 20 inches but none over 19 3/4 inches.)

We got adjoining rooms in a hotel at Clewston and arrived Sunday afternoon. We (Ian and I) hired for Monday a guide who we thought could get us the fish we wanted. Sunday afternoon we fished from the bank and caught a few bass. That night we played Rook until bedtime.

Monday morning finally came. Our guide outfitted us with three dozen six-inch shiners, and away we went in his power boat. At noon we had two channel cats about 20 inches that Ian caught, and I had one bass 21 inches. The girls had come back from sightseeing and shopping and had our dinners ready for us. We ate it in the park, and right back on the lake we went. I got two more 21-inchers, and Ian got one 18 inches. He had one on that jumped before it got under the boat and broke off (probably on the anchor rope). It seemed larger than any of mine. What a memorable trip!

Fish on the St. John’s River.

The first year Ian fished with us (the same year he saved my hand from that bluefish), we went crappie fishing on the St. John’s River. We paid $30 for that day and caught 14 crappies, each about 15 inches long. (The guide for the Okeechobee day cost us $50 besides the bait.)

Flagler Beach, Fall 1980.

The last year we went to Florida we stayed at a motel (Topaz Motel) at Flagler Beach instead of staying at Ormond Beach with Pearl. This Flagler Beach Pier was more economical. We paid $15 for fishing rights for the seven weeks (we had to pay $3 per day at Ormond Beach).

On the pier we filleted the fish and kept them on ice until we got them to the motel, where we put them in the deep freeze. Every other week we would take them to Pearl’s big freezer.

The number and kinds of fish we caught.

During the seven or eight weeks we usually-stayed in Florida, we would accumulate about 400 fish. The last year that we stayed with Pearl, we put 417 fish in her freezer. We didn’t bring them all back with us; we gave some to Pearl and other special friends (like Mary and Kenneth Hulin, Rev. Kenneth Van Horn, and Rev. Leon Maltby).

Some of the kinds of fish we caught besides blues and whiting were Spanish mackerel, jacks, drums, sheepheads, and sea trout. Others we caught and did not keep were hammerhead sharks, sand sharks, shovelnose sharks, occasionally a stingray, and many catfish.

Card Games and Other Recreation

For breaks, we play Aggravation and Rook. In playing Aggravation, we never aggravate each other unless there is no other possible move. When we play Rook, we use a dummy–we help each other keep Dummy from setting us. Also, we pass some time by watching television. There aren’t many programs we can stomach. The horror, supernatural, and crime stories are not for us. We do like news, Gun Smoke, Chips, and Little House on the Prarie, etc.

Sometimes we have mighty welcome company–all the company we get are extremely welcome!

I expect Rex, Phyllis, Bond and Ruby come most often. Others who come fairly often are Chris Boyd and her friend Laurel Sue Smith. Chris is a senior at Salem College this year (1982). Neighborhood children come to fish or sell something. All are very much appreciated.

I think these things will get us through this winter (1981-82) until we can catch trout–then go West to visit our in-laws and fish with as many as will go with us (especially our grandchildren and great grandchildren). Then back home to our garden, yard, and West Virginia turtle- and fish-catching.

{Note (inserted by Mae as this is typed in 1984.) Mom and Dad were not able to make the trip west in the spring of 1982 because Mom had hip-replacement surgery in April. She got along marvelously, and by July she was working in her garden again. The doctor said he had never had a patient improve faster than Mom did after this type of surgery.}

Bird Watching

I left out one of our most important winter entertainments. We feed the birds grain and suet in plain sight of our kitchen and TV room. Maybe you would like to know some of these entertaining friends that eat the food we put out in our grain feeder and the onion sacks with suet.

There are always downy woodpeckers, titmice, chickadees, and nuthatches at the suet. Sometimes hairy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, and a carolina wren will eat at the suet.

More different kinds of birds eat at our grain feeder. I expect cardinals and slate-colored juncos are the most common ones. Sometimes blue jays, morning doves, red-bellied woodpeckers, song sparrows, tree sparrows, white-throated sparrows, vesper sparrows, and (about once a year) evening grossbeaks and purple finches visit our feed box. Also occasionally a fox squirrel or a ruffled grouse will visit us.

This fall one ruffled grouse came in our TV room at a north window and left by a south one. We were eating when we heard the crash. When we looked, there was glass all over the TV room, and just outside lay a grouse (which was delicious as a grouse pie).

Ruth’s Memories — A Fishing Trip to New Jersey

We took sister Susie with us to New Jersey. Her son James lived in Bridgeton, and Edna Ruth’s lived some six miles away across the road from the Marlboro Church. James was a “craft” teacher. At that time one of his former students owned a small boat. He agreed to take us fishing on the bay. James said he had a toilet on the boat so we did not need to worry about that.

Going out, the waves were quite choppy, reminding me of a short-loping horse. I thoroughly enjoyed that, for short-loping a horse was a childhood game I loved. The wind did not let up. By the time we got out a mile or so, the waves were tossing the boat about enough to make Susie and me both sick. He anchored the boat, and we tried to fish. Part of the boat had a flat bottom. The front end (where the toilet was located) was a foot or so lower than the rest of the floor. Ashby sat on the floor near the middle to help keep it balanced. I would fish a little while, then have to lean over the side to “york.” I had to take my teeth out first, for I did not want to lose them. Ashby hung onto my coattail so I would not fall overboard. I finally caught a two-foot shark.

Susie was sick, but she did not “york.” She did need to go to the restroom. The door was so low one had to almost crawl to get in. There was not room enough to turn around, so she had to crawl out and then back in. After all that, we decided to go back to shore since we could not catch fish anyway. They were preparing to send a boat out to search for us. I was fine as soon as I got on land, but Susie was sick in bed the rest of the day.

Our Last Trip to Florida, October 1983

I must tell about our last trip to Florida in 1983. Right now we do not think we will go alone again.

It took 1 1/2 days to get to Flagler Beach. We had an efficiency apartment for six weeks. We got there about noon, got the key to the apartment, unloaded the car, ate a bite, then got our permits to fish from the pier for three months for $15, and went fishing. Fish were not plentiful, but we caught enough for supper. Then we had to go 17 miles to Aunt Pearl’s to pick up a cart and some ocean-fishing equipment we had left there. On the way back we stopped and bought a supply of groceries. It was getting dark when we got back to our apartment, tired but happy.

I took a load of groceries in, unlocked the door and put the things on the table (including the keys) and went back for another load. The window had been left open; and while I was gone, a big puff of wind blew the door shut and it locked. There we were–in a strange place, knowing no one, and tired as fox hounds–locked out of our house. We both wished we were back home.

We decided to go to the pier. A restaurant was connected to it; we thought maybe they would know where the lady lived who rented the apartment to us. They were busy waiting on customers, so I waited what seemed a long time before anyone came to help me.

I noticed three men sitting at a table visiting after a late sandwich. I told the lady the predicament we were in, but she had no idea how to help us. Just then two of the men got up and came over to us. one of them said, “Did I hear you say you were locked out of your car?” I said, “Mr, it is worse than that! We are locked out of our house.” He said, “I am a locksmith, and this fellow with me works for the city. His job is unlocking doors.” The Good Lord was in control!

Our apartment.

I must tell you about our apartment. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were one big room. The refrigerator had a big freezing compartment, so we had room to take care of our fish. There was a TV, a nice couch, two comfortable chairs, dining table, stove, and nice cabinets–real cozy. There was a narrow hallway with two closets. The bedroom had a bed and chest of drawers, with just room for me to go between the foot of the bed and the chest. Daddy had to sit on the bed and scoot to the foot and get up again to go to the bathroom.

The bathroom must have been about six by six feet. The shower took up about three square feet. It was impossible to get a shower without getting your head wet. When Dad took a shower, he had to sit on a chair, then onto the floor and scoot in. When he got in, there was not enough room to get his foot in since his knee could not bend that much. I had to wash his foot.

We really enjoyed our stay there. We made a lot of new friends on the pier. One little old lady watched for us. She would always come and push the wheelchair. She had a home there and also one in Jacksonville. We missed her when she left.

Caring for the fish.

When we had the freezer about full of fish, we lined a cooler with four thicknesses of newspaper dipped in water, then put the packages of fish in as close as possible, covered them with more wet newspaper, and put the lid on. We wrapped the cooler in more wet paper and put it all in a plastic bag. We took it to Aunt Pearl’s where we could put the whole thing in her freezer and have it ready to take home. By the way, when we got back home, the paper in the cooler still had ice in it.

Maybe I should tell you that we cleaned the fish on the pier. We filleted them to save space and put them in a plastic bag in the cooler. When we got home, we washed them, put them in a large flat pan with paper towels in the bottom and on top to get them as dry as possible. Then we wrapped six pieces in a plastic strip, then in aluminum foil, and put them in the freezer.

A Trip -to North Carolina with Rex and Phyllis

We had a wonderful trip with Rex and Phyllis to Holden’s Beach Pier in North Carolina in May 1984 for a week. Fish were not too plentiful. One day we did get 28 blues, but we had a bad storm that night. The ocean was too rough to do any good fishing the next day or two. We did have some fish to bring home with us.

Conclusion

Just before Christmas ’83 Dad’s knee gave away with him after walking from the kitchen to the TV and almost back to the couch. He managed to fall on the couch, but he must have gotten his fingers caught in his crutches. Besides cracking the bone between his little finger and wrist on his right hand, all his fingers were bruised and swollen. It was weeks before he could use his crutches at all. He could manage with a little help to get from the wheelchair to the bed or into the rocking chair.

It is now July, and he still cannot walk alone with his crutches, and he can only walk a short distance with help. I can manage to help him to his tractor or to the car, into the boat and out again, when I have to. Usually some kind soul is glad to give us help.

We have two good-size gardens and a lot of mowing to do. Dad does the mowing except the hillsides–so what do we have to complain about?

Right now (July 3, 1984) we have Ed, Xenia Lee, George, and Mae with us. We are expecting Walt and Ruth and family this evening, Verne and Betsy De and girls in the morning, Beth and Betsy Jo on Thursday, David and Chris Friday evening, Mark before morning, Joe Sabbath a.m., and all of Alois’ family by noon Sabbath. We love every minute. Ann, boys, and Gary will get in sometime Sabbath. We will enjoy it all and look forward to having other members of the family whenever they can come. WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

You can surely see that we have had an interesting life with our friends, work, and recreation.

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.

It was a memorable year for me, living in a ramshackle house and going to school with Dad as my teacher. We cut our wood with a two-man crosscut saw to heat our house. Dad was very patient ‘ teaching me not to “ride” the saw. Our furniture was basic: a kitchen stove, a table, two chairs and a bed. Dad was not a great cook but we survived nicely. He baked what he called drop biscuits that were good hot but soggy in a cold school lunch. Once he bought dried apricots and mistakenly put salt instead of sugar in them. A culinary disaster. Mama mailed us cookies, and sometimes bread, every week.

The one-room schools with each grade taking a turn being taught, was a big adjustment for me. Morris Cox was the only other student in the sixth grade with me and we became very competitive, though good friends. Staying at school all day gave us opportunity to play games together. When we played baseball Dad pitched for both sides. Hide and seek was fun with tall broom sage grass all around to hide in. On the hill above the school house there were hickory saplings that could be climbed up and swung out of. I introduced the game of jack stones to the school. Dad expected me to excel academically and I tried not to disappoint him. It was a good year of learning for me.

The older boys in the school had night hunting dogs and would take Dad and me with them to hunt ‘possums. It was exciting to walk in the hills with kerosene lanterns and listen for the dogs to bay on the trail of a ‘possum. There were times when the dogs came upon a skunk–much to our dismay. The boys knew when their dogs had treed the game and welde plunge madly to reach them. I remember seeing Dad knock a ‘possum out of a tree with a rock-a great ego builder for the teacher. The boys kept the ‘possum pelts to sell and gave us the carcasses to cook and eat. They were good meat.

We also hunted a few times at night with Dad’s friend, Jess Kelly. Jess had a fine dog, Shove, and we had good success hunting with him. Dad insisted that I be allowed to go with them and was proud of me when Jess found me worthy to join them. Hunting on the hills at night was quite strenuous.

Dad taught me to trap rabbits. After school in the afternoon I would track a rabbit in the snow to its den and set a steel trap in the opening. Soon after dark I would check the trap and take the rabbit if one was caught. If I took the dressed rabbit to the country store at Holbrook, I could exchange it for twenty-five cents or a steel trap. Sometimes we cooked the rabbits for ourselves.

The storekeeper at Holbrook bought a radio from a catalog–the first one in the area–but could not make it work. When he told Dad about it I took a quick look at the radio and realized that the ground wire was not hooked up. I had learned some things about radios in Paige Lockard’s shop. Of course, twelve year old boys of that day were expected to be seen, but not heard. But Dad had confidence in me, and when I said I could solve the problem he passed the word to the storekeeper who let me attach the ground wire. There is more to the radio episode to follow.

Every evening about dark Dad and I walked down the road to the Jack Hudkins home where we got milk. In their family were Mr. and Mrs. Hudkins, a grandmother, a grown daughter and a foster son, Norris Cox. In the early fall they had gathered sled loads of black walnuts on the hills and brought them down ready for husking, cracking and picking out the nuts. I believe they sold enough walnut meats to pay their winter grocery bills.

When we arrived to get the milk the family would be sitting around cracking walnuts, eating apples and taking turns talking on the party line telephone. When interest in the neighborhood telephone conversations was fading the Holbrook storekeeper would ask on the telephone if we wanted to hear the radio. With a “yes” from all the neighbors, he would put the radio speaker up to the mouthpiece of the telephone and we would take turns listening to radio station KDKA Pittsburgh.

Dad had two treasured tools essential to his teaching profession. One was his Bun Special Illinois pocket watch of which he was very proud. The other was a large fountain pen with a his ink reservoir. One Sabbath afternoon he and I hiked up on a hill to gather hickory nuts. The ground under the tree was thick with leaves and the hickory nuts were large and plentiful. When we had to leave in late afternoon Dad discovered he had lost his fountain pen under the tree. “Never Mind” he said. “We’ll came next Sabbath and find it.” Returning to the tree the next Sabbath, we each began circling from the base of the tree using forked sticks to carefully push the leaves toward the tree. I was surprised and amazed when Dad picked up his Fountain pen.

BOY’S LIFE magazine came to me as a Christmas gift, I believe, and Dad enjoyed reading stories to me from it. I got annoyed when he would come to an interesting part of a story, stop, and read ahead to himself–while keeping me in suspense. Dad was an excellent teacher, a stalwart Christian gentleman and a wonderful Father. He was a great storyteller and I still enjoy retelling the ones I remember.

These lines written by Ann and Jane Taylor (1782-1866) certainly speak for me. For, reviewing the trauma of my birthing, it is entirely credible to say, “but for the grace of God, I would not have survived.”

I was born August 31, 1913–on a Sunday afternoon at six o’clock. I was the sixth child of Alois Preston and Jenny Mae (Sutton) Fitz Randolph. (Two brothers had died in early childhood.) The Ritchie County, West Virginia hamlet of Berea was home to my family. Part of the house was built of logs, I have been told. Mamma was attended during ray premature birth by two doctors, Aunt Sarah Randolph and cousins Conza and Draxie Meathrell.

Interesting accounts from my nativity have come through the years, some of which I will record here but cannot verify. Cousin Conza asked the Doctor, “What shall we do with the baby?” and he replied, “Never mind the baby, just take care of the mother.” How thankful I am that Conza did care for me by putting me in the oven. (I’ve wondered if the stove burned wood or gas?) My birth statistics include weight of three pounds (in a shoe box with cotton batting). A tea cup would fit over my head and a ring could be placed over my wrist. Papa reports in his autobiography that I was not fed for a day, at which time I took a bottle of Eskey baby food and fell asleep. In the first week I gained five ounces.

I understand that Conza and Draxie were given the privilege of naming me. They had recently read the novel, Saint Elmo, and so passed the name to me, sans the “Saint”.

Mama has told me a neighbor friend came to visit and, seeing me, said, “Jenny, he has pretty eyes”. After the visitor left, Mama cried. It was several weeks before Mama recovered from giving me birth.

On April 1, 1914 our family moved from Berea to Salem, West Virginia. Brother Brady, seventeen years old, would attend Salem College Academy. Ashby, twelve, and Avis, ten, would attend the college teacher training elementary school. I was seven months old when we moved to Salem.

Our first home was high on the hill north and east of the college. My parents organized a group of neighbors who pooled orders for stable groceries from Sears, Roebuck Company. (Today it would be called a neighborhood coop.) The order from the catalog came by railroad freight so was slow in arriving. There was excitement when the orders were opened, sorted and delivered. I remember our family getting a keg of salt cod, along with other staples like flour, sugar, etc. Sometimes we got “store bought” cookies topped with pink marshmallow, when we could afford them.

I must have been four years old when we moved to the house next to Salem College. (The house stood on the exact present location of the Senator Jennings Randolph Library.)

How blessed my life has been through the years by the influences of Salem College to 1935 when I graduated from college. From 1917-18 on I idolized the college students. The coaches and athletes were my heroes. When the students tired of my visits to the campus they would say to me, “Go home an tell your mother she wants you.” I developed a romantic attachment to Byrl Coffindaffer, a popular girl on campus. When sister Avis played on the Academy girl’s basketball team, they chose me as their team mascot.

As a small child, I spent many hour leafing through the Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs fantasizing acquiring many items. I believed the teams of horses came with the harnesses shown in the harness section. A circus of cutouts pasted on cardboard, complete with tent, was fun to play with. And Mama’s spools from her sewing were as good as boughten toys.

Two happenings in Salem–one in fall, the other in summer–remain vivid in memory. The autumn cattle drive down the main street to the railroad shipping point was high excitement for a small boy. Picture the street in front of our house a sea of bawling cows with every now and then one escaping from the herd into the lawns and beyond. The drivers on horseback were the nearest to cowboys we ever saw.

There were years when summer brought a caravan of Gypsies to Salem. With them came a high level of community excitement and anxiety. They traveled by horse and buggy though I remember times when they had automobiles. They would set up a camp west of town and then return to the stores to shop. Their reputation for stealing caused local merchants to be suspicious and wary.

About the year I started to school my folks bought a house on the hill across Pennsylvania Avenue west of the college. There were forty-eight steps up to the house from the street and climbing those stairs, often two-at-a time, was great exercise through the years.

The house had four rooms of about equal size plus a sleeping porch and a very small toilet room. A porch extended along the east side of the house and there was a good cellar under the south east corner of the house. (We took baths in a wash tub in front of the kitchen stove.) The south side of the house was on concrete block pillars four or five feet above the ground, allowing cold air to circulate under the house. Because the house was not insulated and there were no storm windows, it was difficult to keep warm in winter. Frost was often caked around the door and intricate frost patterns covered the windows. My bed in the sleeping porch would be cold at night so Mama would heat an iron on the kitchen stove, wrap it in cloths or newspaper and put it in the bed for warmth. That made going to bed in winter bearable.

Once Ashby was in bed with flu and Mama put a hot iron at his feet. When the wrapping came off and his feet touched the hot iron, he exclaimed, “Hell’s fire” I was shocked but now realize his response was appropriate.

Our home was heated and lighted with natural gas. There was a stove in each room and the fragile gas mantle lights burned with a hissing sound. Furnishings in the house were basic and minimal. A piano was the exception. Avis played the piano and Mama a played a small accordion well.

I had a special tree-seat in the large oak tree at the head of the steps leading to our house. There I whiled away many hours and the swing in the same tree offered breath-taking sweeps out over the steep hillside.

Most of the sidewalks in Salem when I was a child were built of wood. It was common practice to walk carefully on them saying, “Step on a crack, you break your Mother’s back. Step on a nail, you put your Dad in jail.” I learned to walk a two inch steel rod used as the railing on the walk approaching our house. That is close to walking a tight rope.

When I was six years old I started to first grade in the college teacher training school in Huffman Hall. Miss Perine was an excellent teacher. (She later married attorney Oscar Andre, an outstanding Salem College alumnus.) Miss Childers was my second grade teacher and equally outstanding. Although I was left-handed, I was pressured to write with my right hand. Today’s teachers would not consider this a good thing to do.

The thrill of the first day at school is memorable. Meeting the teacher, being assigned a seat and reacting to the other children around me was both exhilarating and frightening. It is my impression that I was a sensitive, nervous child who was afflicted with a serious stammering speech impediment. Shopping for school supplies with tlalia was a big part of’ the excitement of starting school. We bought pencils, crayons, ruler, scissors, paste, paper et al. Do you remember the fresh smells of the room your first day at school?

An epidemic of diphtheria struck Salem while I was in first grade and I fell victim to that dangerous disease. Dr. Edward Davis was our family Doctor and injected a final shot of antitoxin when he had nearly given up hope of my survival. Wondering aloud where he might place the injection, the response he got from me was, “You can put it in the bed for all I care” My exclamation gave the Doctor new hope for my recovery.

Dr. Edward Davis was a good physician and a wonderful man. He never hesitated to minister to the poor and underprivileged in our community, often without pay. He was an officer in World War 1 and I remember seeing him riding a spirited horse in an Armistice Day parade.

Mama’s physician during my early years was Dr. Xenia Bond. She was a robust lady with a caring spirit and a hearty laugh. Her office was on the second floor of her home. As we sat in the waiting room on the first floor, she would come to the head of the stairs and call out, “Ready for the next.” Dr. Bond and Miss Elsie Bond, registrar for Salem College for many years, were maiden sisters who lived together. (They were Aunts of Ashby’s wife, Ruth.)

High top boots that came up almost to our knees were a status symbol among the boys in grade school. We tried to waterproof them so we could wade in deep water but inevitably our feet got wet and we hung our stockings on the radiator in our school room to dry. The odor of drying stockings lingers in my memory. With the coming of spring we looked forward to the day when we could go to school bare-footed. Walking with tender feet could be painful, especially on the railroad tracks. Springtime also brought a search for the first violets. Digging sassafras roots for tea was another spring rite.

I digress from my own story now to bring some light on Mama’s life and character. Her story, of course, is closely interwoven with my childhood. This may be the only written record of her life experiences shared with me through the years. (In his seventy-eighth year my Father wrote his autobiography documenting his and Mother’s lives together through more than fifty-five years.)

Papa began “going with Mama in June 1892 when she was twelve years old and he twenty. (A tin-type picture shows her attractive and mature for her age.) She was a scholar in Papa’s Berea school. (Papa always called his pupils, “scholars”.) They were married in March, 1895, when Mama was fifteen years old. So her formal education must have ended with eighth grade or before.

Mama has told me that she aspired to further her education by attending Salem College Academy rarner t[idll Lidrl’y.-LLie,. Olie ii%)p@ -Lo use aoiiey froj a calf she was raising to help finance her plan. To win her Mother’s approval for her plan, made a hat and took into her Mother’s sick room. (Grandma Sutton was terminally ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of thirty-eight.)

It is understandable that Grandma Sutton did not want to die leaving her daughter unmarried. The Asa Fitz Randolph family was the most educated, influential and affluent in the community. It must have been comforting to have Jenny Mae married to Alois Preston Fitz Randolph.

Writing of his Mother-in-law, Papa said, “She was one of the noblest women I ever knew. I could never have had a better or more loyal friend.”

i-lartin Sutton, Mama’s Father, was a talented craftsman. I remember a hickory splint clothes basket and kitchen chair designed and crafted by him. Brother Brady knew Grandpa Sutton well and had high praise for him.

“A good wife (and Mother) who can find? The writer of that question in the Book of Proverbs would have found his answer in Mama’s character and life. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

Mama was many-talented. She learned photography in Berea and continued taking and developing pictures after moving to Salem. An expert seamstress, she sewed for our family, community families and college students. Wedding gowns were not above her level of skills. During the depression years I wore underwear and pajamas she made for me from muslin flour sacks. Crocheting, knitting and tatting were in her repertoire of skills and she crafted beautiful paper flowers.

Cooking was her career specialty. For many years she ran a boarding house for Salem College athletes, charging twenty-five cents a meal. Her bread, pies and cakes were legendary with family and guests. What a treat it was to come home from school to eat a slice of bread (maybe the heel) fresh from the oven–with butter, of course.

Music was high on Mama’s agenda for pleasure. She sang with a fine alto voice and enjoyed entertaining us with her accordion music.

Children and young people were a major love for her–and they loved her. For our church, she was a leader of the Junior Christian Endeavor. Her Christian faith was real and deep. She did not wear it her sleeve.

Mama would certainly qualify as a “workaholic” though her health was poor throughout her adult life. “Sick headaches” sometimes felled her for a day or two. Today they would be diagnosed as migraine headaches. Brother Brady suffered with them as does our son, Daniel.

With all her talent and creative drive, Mama was almost painfully humble and self-conscious. To sum it up I must say, “What a wonderful Mother.”

The influence of my brothers and sister was a great blessing for me. Brother Brady married and left home when I was four or five years old but he continued to demonstrate an interest in me through the passing years.

Ashby and Avis often invited friends to our home for evenings playing Rook, singing around the piano and enjoying fudge and pop corn. They seemed not to mind having me around listening to them until my bedtime. (The friends who came oftenest were Russell and Mildred Jett. Avis’ best friend was Ruth Davis.)

It was frightening to me when their conversation turned to ghost stories–an exciting topic for them. Rumors of a ghost at an old house on Long Run was reason for college young people to visit the -site at night, hoping to witness an “appearance”.

Ashby was an outdoorsman and nature enthusiast. He was happy to share his knowledge and experiences with me. An aquarium he set up, with minnows, tadpoles and natural water plants, was of great interest for me. In hunting season he sometimes brought home squirrels that Mama cooked for us. When I constructed a model airplane, powered by rubber bands, Ashby carved the prop for me and then enjoyed flying the plane with me.

Having Mama or Avis read to me was a special thrill. Among the books that made a lasting impression on me were: HURLBURT’S STORIES OF THE BIBLE, BEAUTIFUL JOE, BLACK BEAUTY and JUST DAVID. (Mama and I would both cry in the sad parts of the books.)

Music was so important in our family that Mama started me taking piano lessons at six years of age, first with Mrs. Ogden and then with Mrs. Wardner Davis. Mrs. Davis inspired me with accounts of the great composers, helping me greatly in my musical education. Avis taught me sing the tenor part for the hymn, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds”. Unfortunately, boys my age in Salem thought playing the piano was for “sissies”– a problem difficult for me to overcome. Nonetheless, I am eternally grateful to Mama for insisting that I study piano through those childhood years.

Childhood playmates brought joy and excitement into my life early remembrances. Sandford Randolph, my cousin who lived at the Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue shared ray play experiences in my recollections and continues loyal to the present. I recall making and cakes that we actually offered for sale (one cent a piece) on a front of Sandford’s house. At one time we experimented with smoking–trying corn silk, bean and grape leaves. Sandford, a year older than I, was able to frighten me at times. Once, when we were playing quite a distance from home, he told me the world was expected to end that day. In such an event, I wanted to be with my Mother so I hurried home fearfully. I was playing tag football with Sandford in his yard when I broke my left arm below the elbow. Aunt Gertie took one look at my arm and said, “Run home to your Brother, Elmo.”

Sam Swiger was the third member of our friendship triumvirate. He, too, was older than I, but it made little difference. It was quite a regular happening for the three of us to stay overnight in one of our homes. Paige Lockard taught us how to set a rabbit snare on college hill and, to our surprise, we caught one. Then we paraded to each of our homes, displaying the catch. (Time has dulled my memory on what we finally did with the rabbit.)

Sam’s father, Otis Swiger, owned the grocery store where our family traded. There was a pipe from the floor to the ceiling in the middle of the store. The pipe was probably four or five inches in diameter. They kept the pipe greased with lard and offered an ice cream cone to any boy who could climb to the ceiling. I never made it to the top but I did try.

Another painful grocery store episode comes to mind. Kelly’s store was about a block east of Swiger’s and our family kept a charge account in both stores. One day, when I was very young, I checked out the candy counter and asked for a yellow marshmallow banana (or was it a peanut?). Mr. Kelly handed the candy to me and I said, “charge it”. Before I reached the door he caught me and took the candy from me. It was a humiliating lesson in “credit”.

I often played with the Oak Street boys, too. They were: Chester, (Check) Zinn, Faud Ilaught, Wilson Davis and Edgar (Huck) Finley. Chester had a dog that would pull him in his wagon. I played “crokenoll” at Edgar’s home and listened to piano numbers by Harry Snodgrass on the victrola.

When I was eight years old I had my first traumatic confrontation with a policeman. The policeman was Uncle Joel Randolph, Sandford’s grandfather, who for a number of years was Salem’s sole law officer. He really looked the part of a western lawman, as I remember him.

This is how it came about. On my way down town to the post office I joined another boy and ended up playing “train” by climbing up on tire empty box cars on the tracks by the depot.

***********f rom my corner of earliest mud pies stand in*******

Uncle Joel, the Policeman, caught me on the ladder of a boxcar and, with his firm hand on my shoulder, led me toward the town jail. At the doorway of the city hall, where the jail was located, he stopped to reprimand me severely and release me. At home, Mama knew there had been some dire happening and sat with me on the front porch swing until the whole story came out. That’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to being in jail.

Telling of my friends and playmates, I have neglected to include girls. Actually, during my first twelve years girls had little importance in my life. I was invited to birthday parties where they played “kissing games”-Post Office and Spin the Bottle. I was not popular at these parties. Carla and Lorraine Dennison lived on the hill above our house. They were close to my age and we played Hide and Seek, with other neighborhood children, on summer evenings.

Our family was always “temperance minded”, so it not surprising I would join the LTL (Loyal Temperance Legion, sponsored by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.) In the LTL program, we were encouraged to step on cigarettes on the ground and twist them with our shoe. Perhaps the WCTU was a century ahead of its time. (I still feel an urge to stomp out cigarettes.)

The coming of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference to Salem College in 1925 was a major event for young and old alike. I made my first appearance on a Conference program that year. The story I told was of a boy who drove a nail in side of the barn for his every misdeed. Later, he was permitted to pull out a nail for each good deed performed. Sadly, he discovered that the nail holes were still in the barn.

During those Conference meetings a kindly man sat with several children on the college front lawn and taught us The Twelve Tests of Memory. Let’s see if I still remember them: “Twelve Egyptian fiddlers that played at the marriage feast of the indomitable heliogabulous; Eleven sympathetic, synoreous, cutaneous gudgeons; Ten lopsided, clinkerbuilt, flat-bottomed flyer boats; Nine patent practent periwinkles; Eight pharmaceutical tubes; Seven quarts of lymeric oysters;; Six canal boats laden with sugar and tongs; Five imperial goblets; Four pair of corduroy trousers; Three squawking wild geese; two ducks and a good fat hen.” He also taught us another memory ditty.

The Rogers family from Florida came to Conference in 1925 in a big automobile. I was thrilled to meet Clarence and Crosby Rogers and take them home to eat grapes at our grape arbor. This was the beginning of a friendship that has been rich through the years.

Junior Christian Endeavor was an organization for the children of our church that met on Sabbath afternoons in the church. Mama helped with the memorization program when I was a member. Each of us was given a ribbon on which we attached cardboard symbols representing the portions of the Bible we were successful in memorizing: the Lord’s Prayer; the twenty-third Psalm; the First Psalm; 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 and others.

Pastor George B. Shaw was our greatly revered and loved minister of the Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church during my boyhood and until I graduated from Salem College in 1935. His wife, Nellie, was a dear and wonderful lady. Their daughter, Hannah, married Professor H. 0. Burdick. Miriam, their second daughter, had an outstanding career as a missionary nurse for Seventh Day Baptists in China. Pastor Shaw was a brilliant Bible scholar who regularly quoted the Sabbath morning scripture from memory. What a profound and lasting influence and inspiration Pastor Shaw was to the members of his congregation.

There was an open gas flame on a pole between the village store and post office. Since this was the only outside light in the community, it was the gathering place on summer evenings for the children. Fireflies, moths, and all other flying insects also considered this the proper place to spend, and I do mean spend, a worthwhile hour or two.

As the children played, the men discussed the events of importance. Politics always came in for its fair share of argument. Teddy Roosevelt and his exploits were either the greatest or the world’s worst, depending upon which “Party” you supported. News of the outside world would arrive by way of the mailman about twice a week, but in between times the “old news” would suffice for heated discussions.

The mothers of the community rarely entered into village play and deliberations. There were always stockings to be darned, trousers to patch, and a million-and-one other things to occupy their time. They baked their own bread for the family, washed their clothes on a scrub board and ironed them with a “flat iron.” They dried and sulphured their fruit and vegetables that would suffice for food during the winter months. (Not many things could be canned in the early twentieth century. Pork was preserved by salting and beef by drying.) Fodder beans (dried beans in the pods) was a staple food for winter meals, and I still like them. The women also made all the clothes for the family with the exception of a “Sunday suit” for Dad and the boys after they “grew up.”

There were a few days of the year when the women folk could really shine. Among these special occasions would be: First, there was the thirtieth day of May picnic when buggies and wagons would come to Pine Grove from as far as five miles away. (I must tell you a little later how ice cream was provided for this feast.)

Second, the community Christmas tree at the school house. There would be a program using all the local talent. The tree was lighted with candles that glowed with a far greater splendor than any of the modern day lights. The gifts had no fancy wrappings, but were just hung from every branch and piled on the floor under the tree if they would not hang. After the program in the school house, fireworks were put off from the hill overlooking the village. There might be a half-dozen “Roman candles,” dozens of “sparklers” and firecrackers without number.

Third, there were bean stringings, apple cuttings, and quiltings which were days for social gatherings in which the women would really show their skills. Perhaps five to ten bushels of beans would be picked and the neighbors would come in to help prepare them. There would be music and games for the young folks and work and talk for the others. The next day these beans would be washed and partially cooked and placed into a large barrel and left to sour. After about three weeks, they would turn into delicious “pickled beans,” and would be eaten every day during the long winter months. (If you don’t think they would be good, get a recipe and make a gallon of them. Your family will enjoy the change.)

Another big barrel was used to sulfur apples. If you have smelled sulfur, you will wonder how anything could be eaten that had been around that terrible odor. When the proper amount of sulfur was used, the apples remained white and had a fresh taste when cooked. Bushels of apples were dried. You can still buy dried fruit in stores, peaches, apricots, prunes, and even apples, but they turned very dark and had a different taste when cooked.

Nearly every home in the community would have a quilting day during the winter. The women folks would piece quilts all year and finally when four or five were ready to set in the frames, the neighbors would be invited in to help quilt them. It was important for the young ladies to learn to be good quilters if they wanted to be recommended to the most eligible young men. All day long the sewing and laughing and talking continued. When evening came, this family had new quilts to keep them warm.

I guess there may be one or more strange characters in your area–there was, and is, in ours. Poor Toody lived in anticipation of these special days and she never missed one. She wasn’t much good with the needle, but she was “S-1″ at the table. She would manage to get to the “first” table and remain through the second and third shifts. When everyone else had finished, Toody would finally leave the table weeping and when asked why she wept, she would say, “It is so sad that I can’t eat more when there are such good things left.”

The farmers assisted each other at wood cuttings, corn huskings, and hay harvesting. These were family gatherings because the women came with food and brought the children along. The boys and girls were responsible to draw water from the dug well and keep the men in the field supplied with fresh drinking water. The best food available was provided on these occasions, even pie and cake.

Let me tell you how a group of people who work together can provide special treats for themselves. In our locality there was an old one-room log house. This house was filled with sawdust. When the river froze over solidly, the men would go down and cut out chunks of ice and store them in the sawdust. Each participating family would be permitted to remove a certain number of blocks for his own use. On the 30th of May, ice cream would be made for all the picnickers. Sometimes there was enough ice left to have ice cream for the 4th of July also!

The three-room school house in the heart of the village served the countryside for miles around. The pupils varied in age from 5 to 20 years and the teachers were sometimes younger than some of their charges. I was lucky, though, for Dad was my first teacher. We lived in sight of the school and I was permitted to go in the fall before I became five. I recall asking to be “excused” and then running home to get a “piece.” One day I whispered and disturbed Dad and he punished me by placing me on the corner of his desk with a “fascinator” tied around my face so I couldn’t see. (A fascinator was a head scarf made of a long narrow piece of woolen cloth.) It was a serious punishment for me to have to sit quietly and have no one with whom I could whisper.

The village store was a treasure house to the youngsters. They always had candy: rock candy that looked and tasted about like a rock, except that if you sucked carefully on it, you got a faint taste of sugar; maple sugar candy that was molded into exciting shapes–hearts, stars and cubes–and it was really good, even though it had been left in the open to dry out by the month so that it became as hard as the rock candy; several varieties of stick candy were always awaiting the one who had the nerve to try to bite them; green pickle candy was the real treat. It looked like a small pickle and was as sour as a homemade pickle. These precious tid-bits came pretty high–one egg carried carefully in the hand and presented to Mr. Jackson could be exchanges for two “pickles” and they could last all day if you gave yourself a little rest before you started on the second one.

Even a community of thirty-nine people had its characters. There were Uncle Jake and Old Doc, Aunt Perdillie and Aunt Lovie, these were their real names, who were the “salt of the earth.”

Uncle Jake liked children, I guess, and he was always after them about something. He walked with a cane. This cane had an especially big crook in the handle, and any child seeking to slip by Uncle Jake for any reason at all would find himself brought face to face with the old man by the force of that crook around his neck. Every child feared him, but no one ever heard of any harm done by him to anyone.

Old Doc had delivered all the babies in a fifteen-mile radius and watched them grow into men and women. He always made each child feel he was someone special. To every girl he would say, as he patted her head, “Pretty as a peach with the fuzz rubbed off.” To the boys he would say, “Oh, that muscle is really developing.” Any time a child had to be taken to his office, which was in a little white-washed shack in his front yard, there were some candy pills doled out into his hand, as many sometimes as a half dozen, and they were sure to do the trick, even if you were still sick a week later.

Aunt Perdillie and her husband, Uncle John, lived in a two-room house in the heart of town. He was paralyzed and unable to walk, so he sat all. day long in his rocking chair while Aunt Perdillie went out to do a few chores for neighbors to earn their living. They received an old-folks pension of $5.00 a month, so with the things given to them by neighbors, they got along. She would give a penny once in a while to a child who would sit with him at times when he was feeling “poorly.” She was highly respected for her devotion to her crippled husband. Children would sit by the hour in the shade of the house on a long hot afternoon, soaking up “local color.” There was no better way to her the news, for she was the town “gossip.”

Poor Aunt Lovie was renowned for her stinginess! When she had guests for a meal, she could be expected to say, “Help yourself to the butter. There’s more in the cellar in a teacup.” She was the guardian of her precious loaf of bread, for she kept it in her lap and if someone asked for a slice, she would cut it and pass it over with the remark, “I don’t like to cut any ahead, for it dries out so bad.” Her idiosyncrasies were always good for a laugh when the men gathered for a session.

Religion played an important part in the lives of these country people. There were two established churches, and when a third one, -Seventh Day Adventists, sought to establish a congregation, the holy ire of the community was aroused. The new minister was forced into public debate and thoroughly humiliated by the men of the community who tricked him into “deep water” out of which he was unable to swim. Their objections to this new doctrine did not concern the keeping of the Sabbath, for the majority of the community were Sabbath-keepers, but they objected to the ban on the eating of pork and the doctrine of “soul sleep.” To this day, the Seventh Day Baptist group still have a church and the Adventists are only mentioned in connection with reminiscences.

The yearly “protracted meeting” was held in the late fall when all crops were gathered in and the work was slack. From every direction you could see the lights converging on the “church in the dell.” Each family brought a lantern to see to walk by and to use in lighting the church. Time had been spent in every household some time during the day in filling the lantern with coal oil and (:leaning and polishing the globe so as to get the best possible light from it. Sometimes mischievous boys would turn the wick up on some lanterns to make them smoke so no light could penetrate the globe. They were considered the Is roughnecks,” and prayers were said for their souls. The meetings frequently continued for six weeks with much rejoicing and an “experience meeting” each night when the grownups got to testify about their personal lives. (The truth about this was that everyone there already knew so much about each one as he knew about himself–sometimes it agreed with his testimony, and sometimes not.)

This meeting afforded the main social opportunity of the year. The young men lined up at the door to ask the young ladies of their choice if they might “see them home.” The two or three-mile walk through the mud or snow–whichever it chanced to be–gave ample time for exciting conversations and spills and pick-ups which provided a little harmless physical contact, always in the close proximity of the rest of her family (and probably his). The old folks and children were preferred as chaperones and permitted to carry the lanterns while the courters walked behind in order to make the most of the lantern light, so they declared.

The grist mills was always good for a few hours of interesting perusal if nothing else developed. The mill pond, formed by the dam, was too deep for a playground, but at times it was possible to walk across the top of the dam a few times without being caught. That was as exciting as the visit of a stranger in the village, and almost as rare. The great mill wheel was always turning, for there was never a shortage of water in the river. The splash, splash of the water as it came off the wheel could carry a contemplative child into the land of dreams where all sorts of exciting things took place.

When the mill was running, it was an exciting place to be. The farmers brought their grists of corn and wheat and stacked them inside the great dusty room. A bag at a time would be opened and poured into the hopper. Then the real entertainment began as one could run from place to place watching the progress of the grain as it was turned into meal or flour. Eventually it poured out of a chute into a bag and was ready to be used for baking bread, cakes, cookies or pies. The miller, in his flour-covered clothes, always divided the finished product, keeping one bag out of four for his share as payment for having ground the grain. The little country stores for miles around would stock their supply of flour and meal from his “share” that was always piled high in the storage room.

Winter was a wonderful time in this remote section. Ice skating and sleigh riding were the natural recreational outlets for about two months of every year. Even school days did not prevent the youngsters from skating and sleighing, since the river was near enough on the one hand, and the “hill” was in easy distance the other direction. So the noon hour afforded ample time to enjoy whatever sport was best at the time. I doubt that the lunch pail got much attention those days, only something that could be consumed “on the run” was appreciated. Practically every child owned a pair of ice skates, store-bought, and a sled, home-made, and learned to use them before he entered school.

The grownups were more likely to use the “river” and the “hill” at night. They would build bonfires and make a real social occasion of it. Some of the families had sleds drawn by one or two horses, in which they transported their families to church and other necessary places. A good layer of hay was placed in the bed of the sleigh and everyone crawled in and covered with quilts and blankets against the cold winds that were generated by the fast movement of that plow horse that was doubling as a racer for this occasion.

Many important subjects came in for their share of discussion around the stove in the store, mill, or blacksmith shop. The weather was always good for an opener, whether it was hot or cold, wet or dry. “Crops” would always strike fire if certain farmers were present, who invariably had the “most corn to the acre,” the biggest “punkins,” and so forth.

One subject that had top rating for several weeks was “Halley’s Comet.” The story was widespread that when this comet approached the earth, it would swing around and its tail would touch the earth and set it on fire. It would be the end of the world. This was discussed pro and con by the hour while the appointed time for its appearance drew near. The children were spellbound as they listened to the tale–afraid to hear it, but too curious to run away and hide. There were nights of troubled sleep for the young fry who talked in whispers about what it would be like if all the world was afire. Would the river be a safe place to hide? (It was as much as fifteen feet deep in spots.) Or would it be better to find a deep cave to hide in while the fire burned? The night the comet was to be visible passed without incident, and there was an unconscious sighing of great relief when the population awoke as usual and found themselves still alive and everything normal.

There was no such thing as a daily newspaper in that farming area, but there were a few families who took weekly and monthly farm and family magazines. GRIT was a great favorite as an all-around weekly news and specialty paper. YOUTH COMPANION carried a serial story and other features of interest to the whole family. The day the companion came was a special one, for everyone hurried a little faster with the chores order to gather in the “sitting room” for the reading of the continued story. One member read aloud, so all could get the exciting details at the same time. Today’s theaters would do well to secure some of the reading talent that was developed in those evening sessions! The best reader was urged to do the honors, since a great deal of their pleasure depended upon the romantic atmosphere provided by the voice, accents, and speed of the reader. There were some homes where even the best reader left much to be desired, but if it happened to be the story of an Indian raid, a slow monotonous voice reading, “As I stared toward the window, there appeared two feathers moving upward , and then the hideously painted face of a savage came into full view.” would help to ease the pain of suspenseful anxiety.

By the way, have you ever experienced the feeling of contentment that “all’s well with the world” sense of satisfaction that accompanies group reading? Get a few compatible companions and try reading poetry, a new novel, a book on present-day trends in race relations, a book on prison life in a Communist country, and see if life doesn’t put on new interest and emphasis.

Music had an important place in the lives of these contented people. There were few instruments in the community–most of them pump organs. Some churches had organs, and a few homes were so blessed, but few people learned to play them. Perhaps as many as two women would be able to play the church hymns. There was one accordion in the community, but it had little in common with the present day instrument. It had twelve (?) notes and two bass notes. (I still have one that my mother used.) Singing came natural with these people. Nobody had a trained voice, but nearly all could “carry a tune,” and they enjoyed doing so. Certain people were considered leaders because they owned a pitch-pipe, which would give them the proper pitch for starting a song. This was used when no instrument was to be played.

After the first frost fell in the fall of the year, a new and interesting chapter of life began. The gathering of nuts was the children’s contribution to the winter supply of interesting food. There were chestnut, hickory nut, walnut, butternut, and hazelnut trees in abundance. (Now all the chestnut trees are dead from a blight, and only a few of the others have survived the years.)

The most frequent and enjoyable excursions were made to get chestnuts. Those trees were large and grew outward more than upward. Longfellow described it when he said:
Under the spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stood

Chestnuts grew in round shells, or envelopes, that were completely covered with prickly burs. When they were ripe, these burs fell to the ground and frequently burst open on impact to reveal four sections which contained one nut in each. These burs were fully lined with a soft substance which felt like velvet. At times, the nuts seemed so content with their soft pleasant home that they were reluctant to leave it. In that case, you took a stick to force them out while you held on to the bur with your foot–if you had shoes on.

The pleasure of gathering these nuts was almost eclipsed by the pure delight of eating them. They were good in so many different ways. On long winter evenings, chestnuts Would be placed in the coals in the open fireplace and heated until they would burst open. It took careful watching to eat a hot one without getting burned on the shell. If there was no fire for roasting them, they Would be boiled and the taste was quite delightfully different. Then, of course, they were available for stuffing the Christmas turkey or, more completely, the rooster.

It was great fun to gather the hard-shelled nuts: hickory, walnut, butternut, and so on, but they were tiresome to crack and pick out.

Long hours of confining work were required to get a dish full of those nuts prepared for use in baking or candy making. They had very thick shells, and it took a hard lick with a hammer to crack one. (The shells are much like the shell of a Brazil nut, only thicker and tougher.) You had to hold the nut between your fingers on a piece of iron or stone and then whack it. Many fingers have been badly bruised in the effort, and thumbnails lost in the process. Then the tedious task of picking out the kernels began. You used a wire hairpin or a nut pick to dig the kernel out of its hiding place. The next time you go to the store and buy a little plastic package of black walnuts, remember what it cost someone to prepare them.

One of the joys of springtime was following after the plow. “Tasting” the feel of freshly-turned earth on bare feet! All winter you had worn high shoes that cramped your thoughts, if not your toes, but now for the first time since last fall, those toes could enjoy their freedom again.

The earthworms that were plowed up must not be wasted, either. The fishing holes were beckoning. Many frying pans in the community would be full of tobacco box and black sunfish the next few days. (People call these fish bass today.) What a glorious way to spend a lazy afternoon–sitting on the river bank with a home-grown fishing pole in your hands and a string of three or four five-inch fish flapping around in the water beside you! Then is when your dreams of the future really blossomed, the fruit might never mature, but you had the pleasure of the blooms, anyway.

The words “hay harvest” bring varying responses. Some of them are happy; some are filled with dread and fear; some recall hard work and sweat, and there are many memories of pleasurable experiences. Children had certain pre-arranged jobs connected with harvesting. There was always the continuing job of carrying water from the spring to the workers. If they were working as much as a mile away from the house, dinner Must be carried to them–otherwise, it Must be served on the table. Someone had to ride the horses to haul the hay shocks to the stack area, and of course the small fry were selected for the job so that everyone big enough to “pitch” hay would be available for that job.

Two things were dreadful to me about those haying days. The sweat bees stung my legs as I rode bareback on the horse. I was so afraid of them that if one was flying around me, I was likely to forget to guide the horse to the right place. A few tears were inevitable because, if I got stung, I cried, and if I failed to guide the horse properly, I got scolded and I cried. And then I was always afraid I would see a snake. My brothers were older than I, and they assured me they would protect me, but there was always the idea that they might be far away.

Nell was a fine horse. She could travel well in a buggy, and she was a five-gaited traveler. My Dad was very proud of her, but she had one big fault–she was afraid of cars. On the rare occasions that we would meet a car on the road, she had to be held by the bridle and talked to, patted, and reassured. We were always sent scampering up the bank above the road for protection as soon as we heard a car approaching. (You could hear them a mile away in those days.)

Old Nell and I had a mutual understanding with which Dad could never agree. As soon as Nell saw me approaching with a bridle, she would lay back her ears, bare her teeth and run at me. I never went far from the fence and always made it over safely before she got there. Dad insisted she would not hurt me and he would send me back again and again. If my memory serves me right, I never did prove that she wouldn’t eat me up. One of the boys always ended up catching her and then I could ride her or lead her anywhere.

Country children were taught to be afraid of certain things. My list included: mad dogs, gypsies, snakes, buck sheep and bulls. In our wandering around the country, we avoided fields where there were sheep or cattle, so that was usually taken care of. But we couldn’t tell when a band of wandering gypsies might come through. (I remember seeing one band off three wagons when I was very small.) Any time we were on the road and heard a wagon coming, we visualized gypsies until it came into view and we knew the people.

A boy in our county, we didn’t know the family, had been bitten by a mad dog and died a terrible death. So this idea of fear would fill my thoughts if I chanced to be alone for any distance away from the house. I suppose I have run many miles fleeing from an imaginary dog. I never saw a mad dog until many years later, and then it wasn’t a strange dog, but our own.

Dad had a sister, Aunt Callie, her name was really Calfernia, who lived in the nicest house in all the Countryside for miles about. It was built on the top of a steep hill about three miles down the river from Berea, our little village. When the weather was good, you could drive there by buggy or wagon, or ride horseback. Most people walked over the hills and avoided crossing the river, which was necessary if you went by road.

To my childish mind, this great two-story white house was a castle in the clouds. It had a wide stairway with railing that was perfect for sliding, providing you didn’t get caught! If you did get caught, once in a long while, you were likely to stand up for a few hours in order not to add to the pain that was present with you.

The rooms were large and filled with interesting things which had not been made for children’s play toys. Two of the most interesting rooms were forbidden territory except on very infrequent occasions. The parlor was reserved for very special guests, which I never was in those days. Recently we have gone back there twice for a few hours, and that was the room we were taken into. I had to ask to see the kitchen and dining room. Cousin Julia is now dead and only her sisters, Conza and Draxie, and Rupert, their brother, still live there.

In 1965 when we visited there, after a bumpy and dangerous trip up the hill, we parked the car in the yard. Conza came out to warn us to be sure all windows were closed; otherwise, we might not have any upholstery left, for one of the horses was in the habit of eating all such delicate repasts. We didn’t know how smart the horse was, so we locked the doors, too.

There were special chairs covered with velvet and lovely soft cushions in every one. A table held an “Aladdin lamp,” which was a special oil-burning lamp that was much better than the ordinary ones used in the rest of the house. On the walls of this room hung the prize pictures of the members of the family. They were “enlarged” and framed in wide gold-colored frames about two by three feet, and some of them were larger. Those pictures are still there, and on the table stand is the same velvet-covered album of pictures that was their pride and joy a half-century ago.

Aunt Callie and Uncle John have been gone many years, and their children who still live there are now older and more feeble than I remember- my uncle and aunt. No wonder, for they have worn their lives out in that beautiful but inconvenient setting. Even in this modern day they must still carry nearly all their drinking and cooking water from a spring at the foot of the hill.. They have a drilled well on the back porch, but it never would supply more than a few buckets of water a day during the must ideal circumstances. When I was a child, I carried many buckets of water up that winding path. The girls of the family, Julia, Conza, and Draxie, made a large wooden yoke which they placed across their shoulders to aid them in this difficult task. A rope hung from each end of the yoke, with a hook on it, which they placed in the handle of the bucket; thus, the weight of the load they carried was distributed across their backs. I could never try it, for it didn’t fit me. Even as a child, I thought this made them look like “beasts of burden,” for it was much like the yoke they placed on the oxen when they hitched them up to work.

Washday was an event. The dirty clothes were carried to a level spot by the spring; a fire was built under the huge copper kettle which was filled with water. The clothes were placed in a tub with cold water and left to soak while the water heated. The other tub was filled with hot water, just hot enough to make the hands turn red but not blister, and then the washing began. Home-made lye soap was used and the clothes were rubbed, piece by-piece, on a washboard. The white clothes were then boiled in soap suds for about a half hour and then put through two tubs of water to get all the soap out. The wringing was all. done by hand, and those baskets of clothes were heavy when they were carried up the hill to hang them up to dry! In the winter, rain water or melted snow was used and the kitchen became the wash house.

The early spring was a wonderful time to visit at Aunt Callie’s house, for they made maple syrup. I suppose the month varied some, for the sap must be gathered just as it began to move in the trunk of those sugar maple trees. The days would be warm and sunshiny and the nights quite cool. A dozen or so sugar maples would be “tapped” and buckets hung under the spout they placed there. The sap would continue to drip for a week or so, and the buckets would have to be emptied twice a day. It tasted like lightly sweetened water to me. Now, as I remember it, I think it must have been somewhat like coconut juice from a freshly picked nut. (I don’t care for it, either.)

It took long hours of boiling this sap to bring it to the stage of maple syrup. I think one gallon of sap would make about one-half pint of syrup. It was used in baking, on the table, and best of all, it was made into candy. I would be given a small dish of the hot syrup to beat and mold into candy for myself. They sold many pounds each year, molded in little heart shapes. When it had been boiled down and molded, it was the color of light brown sugar, but the taste was wonderful. Nothing that we have today tastes as good as I remember that did.

There was another juice that was boiled down for syrup in those days, also. Sugar cane was grown by many of the farmers and then in the fall, when :it was at the perfect stage of ripeness, it was cut, ground, and the juice boiled for molasses. They would make molasses for the whole community at one time and place. Someone had a large vat, which must have held a hundred or so gallons. A large hole was dug in the ground and fire was kept burning (wood was the fuel, by the way) under the vat for several hours until the molasses had the proper consistency. It took two to feed the fire and stir the syrup. Long-handled wooden paddles were used to stir the molasses constantly so it would not burn. We children would be permitted to use our own little paddles to stir the top, with the end in view of licking the paddle. I never liked molasses, but I did enjoy pretending to “lick” along with the other youngsters.

All of this has been written in an effort to recapture some of the charm and homespun pleasures of the common people of the non-urban population of the early twentieth century. You don’t need to long for those good-ol-days; just take time to visit some of these same areas today and you will find the essential atmosphere has changed but little. There will be some electric lights and appliances, some telephones, passable roads all year round, and a car in the barn, but the people who are still there have retained their same philosophy and simple way of life. You will find last year’s Sears Roebuck catalog in the outhouse, nailed to the side of the wall, for your convenience. The biggest change would be that you would find no young people. Many houses are empty and going to swift ruin that used to ring with the impetuous laughter and joy of family life. The old folks died and youth moved away; for urban life beckoned them!

I guess this retrospective view has turned to be like a session on the psychiatrist’s couch. The question is: Will these recollections do me or anyone else any good?