My first memory of growing up, I was on a train with Mom (Rebecca Hale), my older sister Polly (Pauline) and my older brother (James Howard).  I was between my brother and sister.  Daddy (James Hale) left St. Charles Virginia and came to Draper to work in the coal mines.  We came later when he had a place for us to live.  We came by train to Evarts, Ky.  I remember when we got to the depot Daddy was there to meet us.  When the train stopped I saw Daddy waiting for us.  I was so pleased to see him.  I must have been about four years old.     Draper was a large coal mining camp.  There was a big store where all the people bought food.  It had a post office.  Mom had a friend named Willow Goins.  She married Willie Kirkland and I went to stay with them when I was six years old.  I would do her chores for her.  I would take her husband's lunch up a big hill to the mines and give it to a man who gave it to him.  I would go from the mines to catch the bus for school.  It was March and I was barefoot.     This would have been around 1932 because the depression    had already started.   Me and Polly didn't have clothes to go to school.  Three teachers bought cloth and made us two dresses  with bloomers to match and we were able to go to school.       There were lots of coal mines.  The one next to Draper was called Kildav.  This mine worked when Draper was on strike.      We would go to the trash dumps all along the river.  This was where people threw their garbage and things they did not want anymore.  I found this pair of patent leather shoes.  The strings were missing.  Mom had red ribbon and she put the ribbon in the shoes.  I wore them to church and sunday school.      Mom always dipped snuff.  Our neighbor also dipped snuff and Polly would go borrow snuff from her for mom.  Polly would sneak some for herself and talked me into trying it. I I  tried it and then went to play on a tire swing and got terribly sick.  Mom laid a quilt on the front porch for me to lay on and begged me to tell her what had made me so sick.  I never did tell on polly. I never did try any more snuff either.  Polly dipped snuff for the rest of her life.     We never had any toys to play with.  We would take old rusty cans and flat rocks and build what we called a play house.       Things got so bad that Daddy took us to Tennessee to Mom's dad (Billy Woods) house.  Grandpa wouldn't let us stay with him so we went to Aunt Maudies (Mom sister).  Aunt Maudie and uncle Herman lived not far from Grandpa.  They didn't have any children.  We gathered leaves and corn shucks and put them in sacks to sleep on.  Things finally got better and Daddy took us back to Draper.    Pollie, me and James Howard got the Measles.  Polly had a real bad nose bleed and I remember we slept on straw ticks on the floor.  The doctor came and put gause up her nose and the bleeding finally stopped.  Then mom had another baby.  Willie was next and then  Earnest Lee (Chick) we called him.      When I was in the second grade our teacher's name was Byrd Sargent.  On the last day of school he had someting to say about each one of us in his class.  He said if he ever married and had a little girl he hoped she would be just like me.  During school me and Pollie got head lice, mom shaved our heads and we wore tam's on our heads.  The boys would grab our tams and run off with them.  We would be so mad.      There was a store at Draper and two sisters worked in the store.  One of the sisters liked me.  She said I had just like her niece.  When Christmas came one year she gave me a small doll.  I didn't want to take it because no body else had anything for Christmas.

IRENE CLOUD'S MEMORIES OF GROWING UP VERY POOR.

Polly Hale, Rebecca Woods Hale & Edith Irene Hale

In the winter I can remember going to the slate dump and getting coal and carrying it home in a lard bucket.  Our house was so cold you could see the curtains blow.  We would fold paper and put it around the window frames.      One time daddy got what they called bank poison.  They got that in the mines.  The nurses at the hospital called him Lazarus because he had sores all over his body.  He couldn't work and we didn't have very much food.  One day a truck pulled up to our front door and a Holliness Preacher began unloading jars of canned vegetables and different kinds of food.  We were so happy to get the food.       We went hungry many times.  When I was 9 years old I was sent to live with a family name Hale, but not a relative.  I did not go home to live until I was 15 years old.  I did visit my family because they lived close to the family I was living with.  I was an indentured servant to the family.  I had to work very hard for my food and board.  The good side to this situation was I never went hungry, I had clothes and shoes to wear.  When I visited my family it was because I wanted to see my daddy and siblings.  Mom never treated me with any love or affection.  I went to visit once and she was ordering clothes for my brothers and sisters from a mail order catalog.  I asked if she was ordering me any clothes,  mom said she was.  But when the mail order was delivered there wasn't any clothes for me.  When I started crying and asking where my clothes were, she gave me a whipping for carrying on so.