Lewis' 8 year old son, Ep (whose birth name was James) earned most of the money to support the family working on a farm as a laborer *all of this information found in National Archives records under James E. Perkins.* Ep died on November 11, 1863 during the Civil War in Brashear City, Louisana. He was in the Union Army, Company 22, Reg's Ky. Inf. mustered in at Grayson, Ky. on Oct. 25, 1861 as a Private. He was 18 years old, 5'6" high, dark complexion, blue eyes, dark hair and was a farmer by occupation.
"Ep was missing in action on December 29, 1862 at Chickasaw Bluffs, near Vicksburg, Mississippi and listed as a deserter. He was on the muster list for August 1863. So he was missing for 7 months. Ep died from a kick in the abdomen by a Negro after Ep instigated fight. six days later Ep died of acute peritonitis. When he died he had as possessions, 1 pair trousers, 1 flannel shirt, 1 pair of boots, 1 knapsack, and one silk pocket handkerchief [ old]," per National Archives records on the Civil War. His father then applied for a pension as a dependent of James Epson Perkins.
Grandpa and Grandma Dillo met and got married on January 13, 1901 in Grayson, Carter, Co. Kentucky when Abe was 21 years old and Hester was just 16 years old. In the year 1919, my grandparents moved from Greenup, Kentucky to Lorado, West Virginia on Buffalo Creek. My grandparent’s moved a lot for people who had to pack up everything they owned and move it by horse and wagon. While still in Kentucky, five of Hester's nine children died and she didn’t want to lose any more of her children so she said to my Grandfather that if she stayed in Kentucky she wouldn’t have any children left. They moved to Lorado, West Virginia with the four surviving children: Oma, Steve, Lewis (named after my great-great-grandfather) and Woodrow. My father, Wilbur, was born after they moved to Lorado. When he was six months old, in 1920, my grandparents moved to Chapmanville, WV. Oma was married and also lived in Chapmanville - a couple of houses away from them - with her husband, L J. Oma was 16 yrs old when she married L.J. and she had her first child when she 17 years old.
Rumor has it that while they lived in Chapmanville, Grandpa Dillow got into a fight with another man and kill him. My Aunt Hannah said Grandpa had to leave home, walking across the mountain to Tennessee where he stayed for almost a year before he came back home. Back then when you killed someone all you had to do was leave the state and stay away for awhile, then when you got home just change your way of living and the deed was forgotten.
By the time my dad was two years old, my grandparents moved back to Lorado, WV, where they had two more daughters; Hannah, and Eloise. Then in 1925, they moved to Omar, WV and gave birth to their daughter, Wanda. Lastly, they moved again in 1927 to Landville, WV where their son, Richard, was born.
My grandparents had total fifteen children with ten living to become adults. Their first child, Burdick, was believed to have died due to an overdose of "worm" medicine. He was between one or two years of age. The fifth child, a boy, was stillborn and the sixth child, Retta, was believed to have died by an accident. A story is passed down that when Oma was making popcorn for Retta, age 4, she apparently climbed up on a chair and fell into the fireplace catching her dress on fire. Lucy and Dixie, the seventh and eighth children respectively, died due to high fevers and sickness.
Grandma Dillow named her fifth daughter after her mother-in-law, Hannah Dillow. My aunt Hannah said that her mother always thought her mother-in-law was a witch and that she put a spell on Dixie, the last child to die, when she touched her. My aunt goes on to say, that Dixie wasn’t sick until her Grandma came over to her house and ask to see the baby. She walked over to the crib, put her hand on the baby, and after she left Dixie took sick and died.
We thought the reason why my Grandma Dillo believed that her mother-in-law didn't want her son to marry was because grandma was Indian, but Grandpa Dillow clear that up when he said her being Indian had nothing to do with it as his mother was Indian herself. Grandpa Dillow told us it was because my great-grandma thought, at sixteen years old, grandma was too young for marriage. On December 16, 1911 my great-grandfather, Stephen, was struck by a C&O passenger train and killed instantly. Great-grandma lived another six years after his death.
Somewhere between 1927 and 1930, Grandpa and Grandma Dillo moved to Dehue, West Virginia to Rum Creek Junction which everyone just called Rum Creek hollow. They had one more child while living at Dehue, a daughter they named Hope.
Grandma Dillo changed the spelling of their last name by dropping the "w" off of Dillow because she kept getting Dillon mail. Their children didn’t put the "w" on the grand-children's last names, except for Steve - who we called Uncle Bud - he kept the correct spelling for his children. The rest of the grand-children's last names are spelled Dillo. Aunt Hannah took me over to see Uncle Bud (Steve) before he died. He told me how glad he was to see me, said that he didn’t expect to see any of his brother's, Wilbur, girls before he died. He was on an oxygen machine and could only stay off long enough to say hello.
My father, Wilbur, started to work for the coal mine in 1932 when he was thirteen years old with his father and three older brothers to help bring some money into the house and feed the family. Aunt Hannah said that they only worked one or two days a week during the Depression. After the Depression was over, my Grandpa Dillow went back to farming for other farmers but his four sons stayed to work in the coal mine. Their youngest son, Richard, never became a coal miner. He went to school and became an electrician.
When Uncle Richard and his wife, Lilly, had been married for awhile they found out that they could not have children. By then, my Aunt Eloise was having a hard time feeding her six children, and she had a few siblings that didn’t have any children - or as in my father’s case didn’t have a son - so Aunt Eloise gave Uncle Richard a daughter, who they named Glenna Lou, when she was born. Five years later, my Aunt Wanda let them have her son, Alex, when he was about two months old. Uncle Richard and Aunt Lilly took their family and moved to Charleston, West Virginia where Uncle Richard fell from a telephone pole. After he got out of the hospital, they moved back to Logan but he was in so much pain that he never worked again. Uncle Richard started to drink and became an alcoholic so his wife divorced him. They gave Glenna Lou back to Aunt Eloise when she was about 9 years old but kept Alex for a while longer but then gave him back to Aunt Wanda when he was about six years old. Alex always held it against my Aunt Wanda that she gave him away in the first place but his siblings told him that it was the best thing that could have happen to him; what did he want to do: stay and go hungry like the rest of them? My Uncle Richard lived with my Aunt Hannah for a while but she threw him out because of his drinking. Uncle Richard died at the age of thirty-nine from alcohol abuse and at the time he was living with Aunt Wanda.
We went to see my Uncle Lewis before he died because I had to ask him a question about a story I heard when I was a young girl about him and his first wife, Maude. It had been a rumor in the family that he divorced his wife shortly after they got married because she chewed tobacco. I wanted to know if this was the truth (because I didn’t think this was a good enough reason). He laughed and said there were other things involved besides her chewing tobacco. He told me a story about his and Maude’s daughter, Ellen. It seems Ellen and a girlfriend were walking up Rum Creek Road when Uncle Lewis and a friend drove by in a car and had seen these two nice looking girls, they stopped and ask them if they wanted a ride. Ellen said yes and they got in - Ellen was about thirteen - Uncle Lewis said he asked them their names and Ellen replied that her name was Ellen Dillo. That, of course, got his attention and he asked her who her parents were? And when she said that Maude was her mother, he knew that he had a daughter for the first time. Previous to this he had no contact with Maude so he no idea he had any children. He then went on to tell me how Ellen was visiting him and taking good care of him since his second wife, Missouri, died. His first wife, Maude, never got remarried and she lived up Rum Creek all her life. She's related to the Lowe's so she buried in Lowe's cemetery on Kelly Mountain.
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