Raymond Woolard looks on as his wife Elva and her mother Ardie Lilly stirs the applebutter. The "feller" with the puppy is Roy "Little John" Spinks now of Muddy Creek Mountain and the owner of the photo.

Somewhere, I have a picture of my mother and her neighbors making applebutter in our backyard in the fifties. Late August and September at home was a time when there were heaping baskets of apples to be peeled, cut up, and put in waiting jars. The jars went into a galvinized washtub that was over a fire on a hot plate on the back porch. We used that same washtub to heat our bathwater before we got "running water." One thing about it, we never went hungry at home and we ate "high on the hog."

I have found that picture and here it tiz.

My mother is on the right and Virgie Wolfe is on the left. Helen Morrison is in the background. Virgie assisted with my birth on September 30, 1940
The following story is about late summer and fall at the King home.

Late Summer and early Fall at the King Home

The Old Time Neighborhood Halloween

Let's Have Us a Big Ol Play Party!!!!!

A Young Boy on the Pullins Farm in the 1940s

Branchland: Fifty Years Ago

A Tribute To Lizzie Cox: a lady of the West Virginia Mountains

The following story won honorable mention and was published by the Beckley Newspapers in their "Golden Pen Contest."

THE BELLING

Essays

photo by Okey L. King

This old steam tractor is parked at a private exhibit on Route 50 at the Eastern Base of Laurel Ridge.

There was a time when steam powered equipment served the West Virginia farmer. My mother would talk about the steam thrashing machine that her uncle owned. He would go from farm to farm in harvest season. My mother said that. "When the whistle on Uncle Bird Stone's thrashing machine blew, it like to have scared me to death."

When the thrashing machine came, it was and exciting and busy time on the farm. Neighbor pitched in and helped their neighbors. This meant that the women had a lot of extra hands to cook for. Mounds of food would fill the long tables. Steam would rise from the hot homemade bread. There would be pitchers of fresh milk and bowls of freshly churned butter. Laughter would fill the room and the porch where the men and boys "washed up."

Even though I would have had to work hard, I believe that I would have like to experienced this time. I do remember what it was like to "wash up" on the back porch. I can smell and taste that food now without evening having to close my eyes.

By the age of eight, my mother, Edna Stone, could cook with the rest of the women and could even make "hot rolls." I was blessed with a mother who was second to none as a cook and baker, but, she had good training.