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.
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SUMMER IN BEREA
In the summer of 1921 Mama had a second serious operation in the Clarksburg hospital. I was approaching my eighth birthday. Aunt Sarah and her son, Blondie, took me to their farm near Berea for several weeks during Mama's recovery. It was a valuable and memorable experience for me.
Aunt Sarah was the widow of Ellsworth Fitz Randolph, Papa's much loved brother. Uncle Ellsworth was killed in a logging accident in the woods when their only son, Blondie, was very young. Aunt Sarah was a very courageous and enterprising woman who made a good life for herself and her son until he left home for college. Blondie had a successful career as a teacher and administrator in West Virginia's secondary schools. Aunt Sarah moved to a home near us in Salem for the last years of her life.
The farm was across the Hughes River from the Asa Fitz Randolph farm where Papa grew up. A swinging bridge for walking crossed the river but fording the river was the only way to reach the farm on horseback or by buggy. The road from the river to the farm was rocky and rough.
Uncle John and Aunt Callie Meathrell's farm bordered on Aunt Sarah's. They communicated by shouting across the hollow between them.
Looking back over the years, I feel very privileged to have lived on a West Virginia hill farm without telephone, running water or electricity. Water came from a dug well reached with a bucket on a windlass. Kerosene lamps provided light at night and heating and cooking was done with wood burning stoves. Two horses were the mode of transportation and power to work the land. Roxie was Aunt Sarah's horse--dependable and slow. Blondie prided himself on his horsemanship and rode a spirited horse, Rowdy. I enjoyed many happy rides around the farm on Roxie.
Aunt Sarah "mothered" me perfectly. Being a "Mama's boy", I'm sure I was homesick some of the time. She was a happy person who often sang as she worked. One song she sang is still fresh in my memory:
Will you always love me, darling, as you did once long ago,
As we sat beneath the maple on the hill.
The words of another song she taught me, "Sleep on, Lazy John" escape me now.
The food Aunt Sarah cooked from a variety of farm produce was delicious. I do remember not caring for a dish she prepared called "thickened milk".
Going to church on Sabbath by horse and buggy was a unique experience. The church was on Otterslide, probably a three or four mile trip. I was interested in the stomping and whinneying of the horses tied up outside during the worship service. Going to church was the social event of every week.
Aunt Sarah took me to the funeral for Mrs. Kildow. I had never attended a funeral or seen a corpse. The grief expressed in the funeral was troubling to me. They sang the hymn, Nearer My God, to Thee" and it has never been on my list of favorite hymns since.
In Salem during my childhood it was the custom when there was a death in a family, to have the body in the home until the funeral--and often the funeral was in the home. A large black crepe bow on the door of the home signified that a death had occurred. I felt awed and mystified seeing the crepe on a door.
Back to the summer with Aunt Sarah, it was fun to visit Uncle John and Aunt Callie's home and play with Carl and Lowell Meathrell. They were second cousins (Rupert Meathrell's sons) about my age. Their home was in Clarksburg where I sometimes visited them. (My first bath in a bathtub was in their home.) Some years ago I met Lowell by accident at a small airport in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has had a career in aviation.
Once Uncle John sent me to get water from the spring at the bottom of the hill below their house. When I was delayed, watching frogs in the spring, Uncle John called, "Elmo" I answered, 'I'm coming" and he replied, "Yes, so is Christmas but it's a long way off!"
Judd was Aunt Sarah's big, shepherd-like dog. He became my constant companion. While hunting with Judd by the brook below the barn, he chased a chipmunk into rocks where I was able to pull it out by the tail. Fortunately for me, he grabbed the chipmunk quickly, doubtless saving me from being bitten. My excitement knew no bounds when I rushed to the house to tell the story and show the dead chipmunk. Afflicted as I was by stammering, my telling of the adventure bogged down uncontrollably with a series of "tail-tail-tail-tail". From that time on when I would stammer Aunt Sarah and Blondie would stop me by repeating, "tail-tail-tail-tail". It was painful speech therapy for me, but it worked. One can say that was a "water-shed" experience in my life and I am most grateful for the help they gave me.
An exciting experience with Blondie cones to mind. He and I were crossing the river at the ford in a buggy when the horse reared up in the buggy shafts. Blondie pulled back sharply on the reins and the horse fell on his back in the water. I was very frightened but no serious harm was done. (Blondie had taken the Barry course in training horses and was something of an expert.)
You can imagine the stories and experiences I shared with family and friends on my return to Salem from Aunt Sarah's farm. I cherish those memories and want to share them with my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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BROTHER BRADY
Brother Brady was the Scoutmaster of a Boy Scout Troop in Sutton, West Virginia. When I was eight or nine years old he took me camping on Elk river with his Troop. The Scouts nick-named me "Dodo" because I sang a lot. The camping trip nearly ended in tragedy.
Our camp was on the opposite side of the river, across the railroad bridge from the depot where we would board the train for Sutton. Loaded with all the camping equipment and gear, we all started across the bridge to wait for the train. I was in the middle of the bridge when the train whistled and I looked around to see it bearing down on me. The Scouts who were still on the bridge either hurried off or scrambled up into the supporting girders. In my fright I was transfixed in the middle of the track. Brady, seeing my peril, rushed to me and swung me down onto a concrete abutment of the bridge-probably five or six feet. He jumped down with me before the train passed over our precarious perch. This was probably the nearest to a fatal accident I have experienced. Brady saved my life.
Brady's first child, Brady Junior, born when I was eight, I believe, made me an "Uncle". I spent many happy summer days in Sutton with Brady and teary. There were neighborhood children to play with and a big woods near the house for adventuring. Imagine the excitement of ambushing a poker game being played in the woods by Sutton men. Leaving, their game in a hurry, they left several dimes that we picked up.
I started sixth grade in the Van Horn school, just below our house, when I was twelve years old. Miss Zeppa Lynch was the attractive, vivacious teacher who captivated me completely.
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SCHOOLING IN BEREA
My Father was teaching the Upper Otterslide school near Berea, in Ritchie County that year--1925. When he came home to vote in early November he and Mama decided I would go back with him and finish the school year under his teaching. I believe I began calling Papa, Dad, about this time--more in keeping with my age and the times. Mama was always "Mama" for me through her years.
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.
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CHRISTMAS
I looked forward to being at home in Salem for Christmas and our trip the day before was a heart warming, if tiring, experience. I will share it with other childhood Christmas remembrances.
The most difficult leg of the journey was walking twelve miles across hills and on red clay mud roads to the railroad at Greenwood. Dad knew the route well, having covered it a number of times. No matter how tiring it was, every step took us closer home and our excitement mounted with passing miles.
It was late afternoon, Christmas Eve, when we boarded the train for the ride to Salem up the Long Run grade. It was good to rest after the long walk but patience grew thin as the train stopped several times along the route. Dad would look at his big pocket watch during the stops and say, we'll give them two minutes to get started again."
Greeting Mama at home on Christmas Eve after six weeks absence was pure joy. The aroma of sugar cookies fresh from the oven made me know I WAS HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.
Christmases were the happiest and most exciting celebrations in our family year. When Avis was at home she engineered the planning and preparations for our Yuletide. It must be remembered we couldn't spend much money decorating or buying presents. Dad's teaching salary was minimal so it was always a struggle to make ends meet. However, we would never have thought of our family as poor. But Christmases were always observed on limited budgets.
While Brady was still at home--when I was three or four years old--he played Santa Claus for me. Some days later I came upon the Santa Claus suit he wore and was deeply concerned to think Santa had lost his clothes.
Our Christmas trees were usually brought in from the hills and weren't thick or tall. We decorated them with strings of pop corn and cranberries, chains made with colored paper and perhaps a few boughten decorations. Small candles were set on the tree in holders. Because of the fire hazard, we lighted the candles carefully, stood back and watched them for a while and then extinguished them. The candle light was beautiful while it lasted.
On Christmas morning excitement reigned. The DAY we had anticipated for weeks had arrived. The music and talk of Christmas in school, in church and at home now reached a climax. One year my main gift was a single roller skate designed something like a modern skateboard. Another year Avis gave me a bow and arrow set that started a life-long interest in archery for me. I always looked forward to Brady's gift to me. One year it was a Boy Scout axe with which I was genuinely pleased. Another year the package was small and thin. I opened it to find a handkerchief and when I flipped it in disappointment two one dollar bills fell out. Two dollars was a lot of money for a boy then.
With the gifts unwrapped and examined, the next act was to hurry to Sandford's home, and then to Sam's to share the excitement in their gifts. One year Sam was surprised to receive an electric train from Mr. Ives, a family friend living in flew York City.
Mama and Avis were busy with Christmas preparations many days in advance. They made chocolate and peanut butter fudge and a candy they called divinity--all with chopped hickory nuts or walnuts. There were several kinds of cookies, too--and cakes and pies.
Christmas dinners were delicious and bountiful. Turkey or goose was too expensive so chicken, beef or pork was the entree. Dessert was pumpkin, apple or mince pie and perhaps Mama's special angelfood cake, too. The mincemeat in the pie was of Mama's own making. Dad always said grace for special meals but I could never understand the words he used. That bothered me.
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BOY SCOUTING
Joining the Boy Scouts was a big benefit of becoming twelve years of age. It was a thrill to wear a Boy Scout uniform as a Tenderfoot Scout, together with Sandford and Sam, and to be a member of a Patrol and a Troop. Having a subscription to BOY'S LIFE magazine whetted my appetite for reading and stimulated my mind in positive thinking. Mr. Duer was our Scoutmaster and Otho (Tubby) Randolph was Assistant Scoutmaster. They were excellent leaders and made Scouting an adventure for all of us.
As an engineer for the Cabot Gas Company, Mr. Duer gave the Scouts in our Troop and opportunity to earn some money. A furnace at the gas plant had been torn down and we could earn two cents a brick by cleaning and stacking them. A hand axe was the best tool for knocking off the mortar. I worked with enthusiasm the first day of the project but, alas, woke up the next morning with the mumps. My check from the Cabot Gas Company for more than two dollars was a thrill to receive.
Once, inspired as scouts, Sam Swiger and I hiked to a hillside at the head of Buckeye. Carrying our bedrolls and a box of ginger cookies from Swiger's store, we planned to sleep overnight under an overhanging rock. The adventure was ill fated. Sleep was impossible on the rough ground and when it began to rain we dragged our bedrolls with us to the foot of the hill and across the road to Sam's grandparents home. When Grandma Swiger came to the door in her night gown and saw us she exclaimed, "What are you boys doing? Running away from home?"
A short camping trip our Troop took to the swimming hole at the east end of Four Mile tunnel is memorable. To reach the campsite we walked through the dark tunnel carrying our equipment and gear. I panicked in the tunnel and stumbled and ran to the end in great fear. When we set up the camp one bedroll was missing--the one I had started through the tunnel with. The bedroll was retrieved from the ditch in the tunnel causing me deep embarrassment. The bedroll was a mess, as you would suspect. From that camp I remember that a Scout named Langfitt brought some limburger cheese. The smell was horrendous so another Scout snatched the cheese and threw it away. Skinny dipping in the tiny swimming hole was the highlight of that camp.
I joined several members of our Troop for a week at the Boy Scout Council camp on the Monongahela River near Clarksburg. The camp director was Chief Heymeyer, Council Executive. I still see the Chief in my mind's eye, floating high in the water of the river with his hands crossed over his stomach during our swim period. Military drilling was part of the camp program. One or more Scouts fainted in the hot sun during the drills. Each Scout brought his own food for the week. The standard diet was canned beans and salmon. Today's Scouting officials would call that camp a disaster.
Though I only achieved the second class rank during my early Scouting experience, memories of those days are happy and rewarding. In my mature years, Scouting has been a major avenue of service for me. I am especially proud to have received Scouting's Silver Beaver award.
Pastor George B. Shaw instructed and baptized Sandford, Sam and me in the Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church. Sandford and I took a wonderful hike up Patterson Fork with Pastor Shaw. As we sat quietly in a wood he alerted us to the singing of a Wood Thrush. We were blessed with so great a spiritual leader.
College professor H. 0. Burdick taught us a lasting lesson in discipline and self control as our Sabbath School teacher. Our class met in the furnace room of the church with a window to the outside that was often open. One Sabbath the window dropped on H. O's hand. Obviously in pain, he grasped his hand and slowly counted to ten. The impression this left on that Sabbath School class of boys was probably as important as the formal material he gave US.
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GAMES
Let me share some of the activities, and the games we played in the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Riding stick horses was a popular small boy activity. I chose a broom as my horse, thinking of the broom as the head of' the horse. My peers were riding plain sticks and nick-named me "Broom Stick" or "Broom-O" for my eccentricity.
Rolling hoops, walking on stilts, flying kites, spinning tops and roller skating took up endless hours of playtime during my boyhood years. The hoops we rolled were metal bands froli wheels twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. The hoop was rolled by pushing it with a stick having a six or eight inch cross bar at the bottom. As our skill increased we could roll the Hoop up or down hills and over rough terrain. We often accompanied the rolling of the hoop with vocal sounds simulating a motorcycle or car.
We made the stilts we walked on. They might lift us one to three feet above the ground, depending on our courage and the material we had to work with. Stilt-walking often involved challenging a playmate to follow your lead. I succeeded in climbing the forty-eight steps from Pennsylvania Avenue
up to our house on stilts. That was considered a major achievement.
March was kite-flying month. We made our kites, whittling the sticks so they would balance and mixing flour and water for paste to glue on the paper. The simplest kites had rag tails but we graduated to riakin, tailless kites and even box kites. When the Search wind was right there would often be several kites flying at the same time on a hilltop.
I haven't seen boys spinning tops in many years. Our tops were three or four inches high of solid wood with a metal point on which they spun. To spin them we wound a sturdy string tightly around the top from the point upwards. Now you either threw the top out from you underhanded, holding on to the string in the same hand, or you threw the top overhand--the more expert method of spinning. To make a game of top-spinning, one boy would spin his top and his competitor would try to hit that 'Llop with his. It was possible to split a top in two if it was hit squarely.
Roller Skating was very popular for boys and perhaps girls, too. Most Salem sidewalks were too rough for good skating but the walks on the Salem College campus were excellent. College officials were not always happy with our skating and no doubt we were an annoyance at times. I don't believe we had bicycles in our first twelve years.
We celebrated July Fourth with fireworks we could afford to buy-firecrackers, sky rockets, Roman candles and sparklers. It was fun making explosions by putting a few grains of carbide in a tin can with a little water. We closed the can with a removable top and waited briefly for the gas to build up in the can. Then we touched a match to the nail hole punched in the can top and the result was a BANG! Intensity of the explosion depended on the amount of carbide used and the timing before touching it off.
The game of marbles was a perennial favorite with boys in the elementary grades at school. It was played before school, at recess, and after school. A six to eight foot circle was drawn on bares level ground with a stick and players took turns shooting their marble from the outside edge of the circle at the marbles dropped in the center of the ring by one or more contestants. When a marble was knocked out of the ring it became the property of the boy who hit it. This was called playing for "keeps". My family thought this was a form of gambling so I did not play marbles for "keeps". The expert marble players achieved a high degree of skill and carried a bag full of marbles of many types and colors.
Few people remember playing a game called "caddy" (or perhaps "katty"). It was played with a six or seven inch round stick sharpened at both ends like a pencil. Laid on the ground, the "katty" was struck on the front end with a round stick perhaps thirty inches long. As the Katty bounced up in front of the player he tried to strike it with the stick, sending it as far as possible beyond him. Scoring was done by measuring the number of stick-lengths to where the katty landed. It was possible for the opponent in the game to catch the katty in flight (a dangerous maneuver) thus putting the striker "out". There were interesting side maneuvers in the game like tipping the katty one or more times in the air before hitting it out--multiplying the score.
A questionable activity we engaged in was playing around the oil well derricks on the hills near Salem. I believe the derricks were eighty feet tall with a ladder up one side to the top. It was a challenge to see who dared to climb the nearest to the top. The first time I made it to the top of a derrick and looked down at the around I "froze" to the ladder in fear. It was a while before I stopped shaking and found the courage to come down. There were wooden water tanks probably ten to fifteen feet in diameter beside each well. It was daring to strip to the buff, climb into the tank and push or swim from one side of the tank to the other over and over. It was a dangerous way to learn to swim. Our Brothers didn't know what we were doing.
Winter sometimes brought enough snow in Salem for sledding on the steep roads and hillsides. Areas of water for ice skating were limited and there was seldom enough ice. I never learned to ice skate. We did make primitive skis out of barrel stays and had fun skiing on them.
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MORE SALEM REMEMBRANCES
From my earliest memories our family lived near Salem College. Doctor Clark was the college president when we moved to Salem in 1914. He and his family became good friends of our family. Doctor S. Orestes Bond succeeded Doctor Clark and served a long and successful tenure in the college presidency. My associations with President Bond were rewarding, especially in my college years.
Salem children who lived near the college were richly advantaged. The opportunity to follow the cultural and athletic programs of the institution was of immeasurable value. What a thrill it was to witness almost all of the football, basketball and baseball home games and to know the Salem athletes by name. I have bright memories of coach Casey, Bud Tesch, Earl Culp, Jennings Randolph and many more. They are Salem's athletic heroes of yesteryear.
Jennings Randolph was a superb athlete, performing brilliantly in basketball and tennis. I chased tennis balls for him on the college courts. He also excelled in the academic, social and political activities at Salem College. He had the lead roll in their senior class presentation of Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. The stage crew brought two lambs from a farm on Buckeye to enhance the setting for the play and they recruited me to take care of the lambs, giving me a free ticket to the performance, of course. I was nine or ten years old at the time. Jennings and his fellow actors had me come back stage after the play and asked for my help in finding a place to keep the lambs overnight. I was to go first to President Bond's home and ask it he had a place for the lambs overnight. Failing there, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Trainer was to be my next stop and inquiry.
I was honored to be given such an important assignment by my college heroes. But the response was negative at both homes and I was crestfallen as I reported back to Jennings and his cohorts. Everyone involved in that episode, including President Bond and Trainers, must have had hearty laughs, I believe they took the lambs back to the farm that night.
Salem College sponsored a series of six or so cultural programs called LYCEUM during the school year. Visiting guest entertainers brought programs of music, lectures, and varied performances appealing to the whole Salem community. I was given the job of advertising the LYCEUM on the day of the event by walking from one end of Salem to the other carrying a sandwich board on my back announcing LYCEUM and ringing a hand bell as I walked. For this effort I receive free tickets for Mama and me. I was probably eleven years old then. LYCEUM contributed greatly to my cultural education.
I trust it is evident to you that my childhood, through year twelve, was happy and filled with the excitement of growing. I was blessed innumerable ways and at very many points in childhood through the interest and love shown me by many wonderful people.
Let we say with the ancient poet who wrote Psalm sixteen, verse 6: "The lines fall for me in pleasant places, Indeed I am well content with my inheritance."
-The New English Bible
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MEMORIES OF CHESTNUTING IN WEST VIRGINIA
NOTE: This article was published in GOOD OLD DAYS magazine in October 1973. Since then it has appeared in THE SALEM HERALD and in ECHOES FROM FORT NEW SALEM.
What changes had come in our ways of living since my boyhood years of the twenties in West Virginia. The generations of our children born since 1930 have missed experiences and modes of living that we, in our day, shared and enjoyed. Perhaps you will be interested in reminiscences from boyhood in Salem, West Virginia from the era historians have labeled "the Roaring Twenties".
With the coming of October's crisp, autumn days I'm reminded again of the fun boys had gathering chestnuts. It's doubtful if there was a boy in Salem, in my time, who didn't have a favorite grove of chestnut trees where he could harvest a bountiful supply of the delicious nuts.
As a tree, the American chestnut was sturdy and beautiful. Growing to a size comparable to the oaks, its crown was symmetrically rounded with branches carrying a thick foliage of glossy green leaves that turned a lovely yellow after heavy frosts.
Chestnut wood made excellent lumber. It was semi-hard with a wide, flowing grain alternating light and dark. Builders used chestnut wood in houses for interior trim. My wife's Father built her a beautiful hope chest entirely of chestnut wood. One of the characteristics of chestnut was that it split cleanly and easily. This quality, with its resistance to decay when kept off the ground, made it a favorite material for the rail fences still in use on West Virginia farms past the first quarter of this century. And what farm boy of that period does not remember cutting, splitting and piling well-seasoned chestnut firewood for his Mother's kitchen range? The axe-strike into chestnut wood on the chopping block made rhythmic percussion music and a well-stacked woodshed of chestnut firewood offered an aesthetic effect most pleasing to the eye. In a wood burning kitchen range chestnut wood burned with a quick, even heat a careful cook could depend on. My Mother knew just how many sticks she needed in the stove to bake an angel food cake to fluffy perfection.
Gathering chestnuts during the fall days was an annual ritual of hill country lads. As they grew on the tree, the coveted nuts were tightly encased--three or four together--in a round, green burr the size of a small apple and covered with needle-sharp spines painful to touch or step on. A riddle describing a chestnut burr went like this:
"Round as an apple; sharp as an awl--
Pick it up and you'll let it fall."
After frosts the burrs, still clinging to the branches, burst open like inverted tulip flowers and let the smooth, silky dark brown nuts drop into hiding among the fallen leaves on the ground. It was a challenge to move under a chestnut tree with patient concentration--brushing the leaves back as you looked--intent on picking up enough chestnuts to make one's pockets bulge.
In actual practice, however, we never waited for the chestnut burrs to open and drop the nuts. Soon after school began in September we would begin harvesting the chestnuts by knocking the formidable burrs off of the tree with thrown stones and sticks and gingerly opening them until they released the nuts.
A pocket full of green chestnuts to eat or share in school during early Autumn was a genuine status symbol though to eat many of them was to invite a sore mouth and dire gastric results. Teachers often emptied our pockets of their hoarded store when the sound of cracking the outer shell of the chestnut between our teeth gave us away.
Knowing the location of chestnut trees that bore a good crop of quality nuts was important. Like hickory nut trees, individual chestnut trees produced nuts of a certain size, from small to as big as a buckeye or horse chestnut. Larger chestnuts were much sought after though perhaps the flavor of the smaller ones was sweeter.
I remember there were a number of productive chestnut trees near the stone quarry on the Ehret farm at the head of Pennsylvania Avenue. The nearness of these tree to town made it a race to get any nuts. There were excellent trees that bore large chestnuts on the Alexander Randolph farm west of Salem. I would not have divulged this secret seventy years ago.
Having a Good supply of sound chestnuts stored for the winter gave one a e sense of well-being. In a good year there might be a bushel or more to eat as special treats when company came or the family was gathered around the fire on winter evenings. Keeping the chestnuts was no problem except that, like apples, they sometimes got wormy. Sprinkling the nuts with salt may have helped.
Most of the time we ate the chestnuts raw. After a few weeks in storage the nuts got softer and the flavor improved. We boiled or roasted the nuts on occasion, too. Imaginative cooks discovered delicious uses for chestnuts in dressings, salads and sundry dishes.
Now the majestic American chestnut tree is all but extinct. A fungus disease has taken it toll until only a few specimens of the once plentiful tree remain in the United States. People of my generation are grateful for our memories of "chestnuting in the West Virginia hills. We continue hopeful the struggle of the scientists to save the species may yet succeed.
NOTE: I saw a healthy, growing chestnut tree at Camp Joy near Berea, West Virginia, in a recent year. In July of 1992 Milton Van Horn showed me a healthy chestnut tree in his woodlot in Milton, Wisconsin.