Edna Luverna Stone King Woodruff

.....The girls learned to cook early and, since Edna was the youngest girl, she was sent in from the fields in time to fix dinner for the rest if the family. At the early age of eight, Edna could make hot rolls with the best of them. Hot rolls would always be her speciality. During harvest season when extra hands had to be fed, many of the men marveled that such a little girl could be such a good cook.

.....When she was just a little girl, Edna had a favorite sister. Virgie was about three years older, but they shared the same bed as well as all of the other things little girls share. But, in 1917 when Virgie was ten and Mom was seven, Virgie contracted spinal mengitus. This was the age before miracle drugs and Virgie was ravaged by the illness. Then, Virgie rallied and little Edna thought she was going to be ok. But the disease came back with a vengence and the neighbors gathered in the house and in the yard as Virginia died. Earl Haught who lived in Dunbar and was there as young man, described the scene for me. He said that, "It was an awfully sad time." Virgie was laid to rest in the Stone Cemetery Cemetery, but my mother never recieved rest from her broken heart. Even though she was a grown woman, I would hear my mother crying at night for her Virgie. I look at the cemeteries and the lists of family names and see the scores of children who were taken at early ages and wonder just how many times these scenes of grief were carried out. I wonder at the empty holes left in the hearts of the surviving children.

Edna Stone King

.....Edna attended the Rockcastle United Brethern Church and went to school at the Rockcastle School which stood across the Thirteenmile Creek from the Church. Later, she attended the Morning Star School which stood on the ridge across the creek from the Stone Farm. Reuben built a makeshift bridge over the creek so his children could get to school. This school was in existence until the 1950s. When it was closed, my cousins Carol and Wayne Stone had to ride the bus into Point Pleasant to go to school. Mom attended school for eight years, but, when it came time for her to go into the eighth grade, my grandmotehr refused to buy my mother's eighth grade books. Iantha said that it was a waste of money to educate girls. Edna had to go through her seventh grade books twice, and she had a hard time forgiving her mother for that.

.....On the "Okey L. King Sr. Page," I have talked about Edna Stone and Okey King's courtship and the problems that they encountered when they attempted to get married. I also told of the days on Fletcher Avenue in Dunbar and I told a little of the years on the Hill at Dunbar. To read about this you can click on the title below.

The Okey L. King Sr. King Page

.....When Edna and Okey moved on the hill above Dunbar, the house was no more than a two-roomed shack. There were cracks in the walls and nothing on them to keep out the cold. That first winter, mom pasted newspapers on the walls. On the outside, large trees grew up right close to the house. While Okey was at work, Mom cut down these trees with an ax. When my mother married, she weighed less than a hundred pounds, but she was a tough and determined customer. She would take little Betty out on the hill in the morning with her when she went to milk the cow. It was depression times, and it took a lot of effort to get by. Having learned to cook at an early age, she could make a meal out of very few ingredents.

.....In those early years on the hill above Dunbar, there wasn't any electricty or natural gas. Mom had to cook with wood or coal, and food had to be kept in an old icebox. Even after electricity came to the hill, we always refered to the refrigerator as the "ice box." I still have the little water bottle that came with Mom and Dad's first "Electric Ice Box."

This is Betty Joy King (1928-), Edna Luverna Stone King, Okey Lester King jr (1940- ), and Imelda June King (1934- )

.....My sister Imelda June was born on October 3, 1934. She was a little quiet red-headed girl. I don't know why for sure, but Dad started calling her Midge. I think that even her teachers called her "Little Midgie." She was born right in the middle of the Depression, and I was born September 30, 1940 right at the end of that hard time. Altough F.D.R. might have tried to end the Depression, the end didn't come until war erupted in Europe creating a demand for American products and therefore creating jobs almost overnight.

.....The year that I was born, two things happened on the hill: Electricity and natural gas arrived. So, that was the end to the old icebox and the coal stove. We now had electric lights, a gas cookstove, and a gas floor furnace. By this time, the two-roomed house had become a comnfortable warm four-roomed house. That is, it was warm during the day. Dad always cut off the furnace at night, but we had mom's home-made quilts to curl up under.

..... I remember my early years as a time that, when I came home from school, my mother was always home. The only times that she wasn't were times that she was in the hospital. I could always count on her being there. We always had supper at 3:30 and it was ready by the time my dad got home from work. Modern people try to call supper dinner, but I'm not buying that. Dinner for us is the mid-day meal.

.....Although mom was a more than efficient housekeeper, I believe that she was happiest when she was out-of-doors. Mom and Dad both had "green thumbs" and could grow most anything. In the Spring, with mom's flowers of all kinds and Dads fruit trees, our property was a immense flower garden. Folks said that it was the prettiest place on the hill. We may not have had the most modern house, but the grounds were beautiful.

.....Late summer and early fall was a time of canning blackberries, apples, tomatoes, or for pickling things. Mom would make pickles and pickle corn and greenbeans. Our celler shelves were always laden with the products of her labor. Of course Dad helped with the picking of the berries, apples, plums, or with what else that had to be picked.

.....For many years we kept hogs, so, the first cold days of November were hog butchering days. Mom wasn't afraid of too many things, but she had a deathly fear of hogs. If a hog got loose, she always made her children go into the house. We always had help with butchering, and, once when we had several in the house helping to cut up the meat, I pulled a dirty trick on my mother which I remember vividly. At this butchering time, Mom was ill. But, when she smelled the fresh pork frying, she got hungry and asked me to make her a sandwich of fresh meat. I wasn't very old, but I was old enough to be "full of myself." I went in the kitchen to get her the sandwich and I spied the long curly hog's tail. I coiled the tail between two pieces of bread and gave it to my mother. Let me say this, Mom had a lot of good attributes, but a good sense of humor wasn't one of them. Needless to say, I ended her appitite for fresh hog meat that night. There has never been anything like the night that the meat was "cut up." Contrary to what most people would think today, the first and best part of the hog to be cooked was the liver. That was put into the skillet when it was almost "still quivering." Frying with a bunch of onions, that liver produced a smell that still makes my jaws ache when I remember it. I never could understand some people's reactions to liver.

(Edna Stone King at home in her kitchen at Dunbar. Edna learned to cook by the age of eight and could cook a meal for the whole family and the hired help. Edna was famous for her cooking and baking expertise. She was also a stickler for a "spick-and-span" house.)

In July of 1959, after Okey had lost his job at the Fletcher Enamel Company, Edna moved with her husband and her son to Caldwell in Greenbrier County to work as cartakers at the Girl Scout Council's Camp Ann Bailey. She would remain at Caldwell until December of 1963 when she would return to Dunbar following Okey's death.

.....The job at the camp was hard. During the season that camp was open, there was a constant behive of activity. During the Spring, prepreations had to be made for camp. Winter debries had to be cleaned from the campsites, Mattresses and bunks had to be carried to the tent-sites from storage, the pool had to be drained, cleaned and refilled (The pool was the favorite mating ground of thousands of toads.), plus a host of other chores had to be accomplished. During the late summer and fall following camp, all of the things that were carried from storage had to be carried back. Before real cold weather, logs had to be put in the pool to take the pressure from the ice. If there was painting to be done. that work was done. That first fall, Okey, Edna, and Okey Jr. creosoted many a building. That was nasty work. In the winter, the weather was harsh and Edna and Okey were often isolated on the hill above Caldwell just like My wife and I are sometimes marooned today. One had to be sure that there was pleny of food to last in case there was too much snow to get off of the hill. I know that Edna must have been very lonely at times.

.....In December, after attempting to find work, her son decided to join the Army and left for bootcamp in January. That have must have been a blow to see her son leave. It was even worse when he left for thirty-one long months in Germany. It was about this time that Edna and Okey began to attend the Caldwell Pentecostal Holiness Church. Okey had never been the one to attend church, but he went with Edna and enjoyed Sunday School where he made new friends. Edna and Okey's special friends were Ottie and Lorene Masters with whom they shared their beloved irises. Edna began to work with the Church's Woman's Auxillary when they would serve the Rotary Club dinner at White Sulphur Springs. She made lasting friends there including her son's future wife.

.....Following the ordeal of the discovery of okey's terrible illness and his death, Edna returned to Dunbar with Okey Jr. She found a job baby-sitting and began to clean up the Dunbar house in the aftermath of several years of renters. In the meantime, things were happening elsewhere. At Vinton, Ohio, her sisters Myrtle and Lucretia were casting an eye about for Edna another husband. There eyes fell upon Willard Woodruff, and he never stood a chance. In July they were were married, and there began ten years of happieness for both of them. Willard had never been wed because, for years, he had taken care of an invalided mother. He was and is a fine man.

.....Willard owned a neat little farm two miles out side of the town of Vinto, Ohio. He was a hard working small man with a quiet voice. He is also a dedicated Christian. He and Edna attended faithfully the Vinton Methodist Church. They were also active in the Grange. Like Edna, Williard was a dilligent housekeeper even matching her in zeal. He is a kind-hearted man from whom I never heard a cross word.

.....One summer day, while Edna was helping Willard put-up hay, she suffered her first heart attack. Over the period of two years or so, she would suffer four more. From each, she would bounce back. When folks would stop by the house to cheer her up, she would end up cheering them up. On Thanksgiving Day in 1973, our fmily gathered at our house on Sixteenmile Creek in Mason County. She was happy and cheerful that day and we all had a wonderful time. In just a few weeks,whe was gone. Having gotten up one morning with a terrible head-ache, she suffered a stroke and lived but a week. On a cold blustery December day outside of Vinton, she was laid to rest.

.....I have never tried to understand why such a good woman such as Edna Luverna Stone should be taken out of this world so soon. She seemed to have so much to offer others, and she so loved to live and enjoy life. Fifty-six years after Virgie left her, Edna joined her beloved sister. I grieve for her and will always grieve for her. Writing this has been one of the most difficult things that I have done, but it was something that I had to do.