Abraham Dillow Family part II

My Grandpa and Grandma Dillow moved to a farm in Gallipolis, Ohio when they left Dehue. My grandpa work for other farmers, where the farmer would live in another house close by and my grandparents would live in the farmhouse and work the farm for them.

In summer of July 4th 1947 when I was 6 yrs old, Mom and Dad took us on a vacation to visit our grandparents in Ohio. We went then because that's when the miners got their vacation - the first two weeks in July. Also at their house those weeks was my Uncle Woodrow and Aunt Gladys with their three sons and a daughter; my Aunt Wanda with her husband, Woodrow, and their two sons. Living at home still were Uncle Richard and Aunt Hope. So with my parents and my two sisters and myself, we had a full house.

All of us grandchildren were close in age. We would run and chase each other, and roll down the hills, and get ticks on us.

My Grandpa Abe was in the barn one morning, milking the cow while all of us children were running around upsetting the cow. Grandpa hollered at us and told us to stop. My Aunt Wanda's oldest boy, Jimmy, was showing off by pulling the cow's tail. My grandpa Abe told him to stop before the cow kicked him but he didn't listen. I can still see that cow kicking him, hearing him scream and watching him going up in the air to the first floor ceiling, it was a two story barn. I don’t remember how bad he was hurt, it couldn't have been too bad because later he still tried to drown me in the creek which was close to the house where our parents let us play. The other kids ran up to the house and told my Dad, he came down and pulled Jimmy off of me giving him a spanking. When we got older, Jimmy and I loved one another like brother and sister. I went to stay with his mom, my aunt Wanda, in the summers off and on from ages fourteen to seventeen - so we grew up together.

Another time, my sister, Shirley, and I found Aunt Hope's Shirley Temple doll that one of her brothers had sold chances to get for her. The chance was a push-out card and each number someone bought was a different price from five cent to ninety-nine cent. It was a lot of money for someone to be spending on a chance card but if you were lucky you got the prize. But this time it was for a Shirley Temple doll. It took her brother a long time to get that doll. The doll was thirty-two inches high so it was a big doll and my Aunt Hope had hid it while all the grandchildren were there. But my sister and I found it in a closet and started to fight over it, Shirley was pulling it one way and I was pulling it another and we pulled it apart that's when Aunt Hope found us. She screamed at us and our parents came to see what was going on. Aunt Hope was crying and Grandma told her that we were just babies and she was too old to be carrying on so over a doll, she was sixteen at the time. Now that I‘m older, wiser, and been married for all these years, I know what happen to that doll - it could have been fixed. All we did was break the rubber band that held its arms together, but at the time the doll was destroyed and had to be thrown away.

That was the best summer vacation, I remember my Grandfather put us all in the hay wagon to give us a ride out of the hollow to the bus stop so we could go home. The wheel broke off of the wagon and Shirley and my Dad spilled out - no one was hurt. We came away with pictures of the best time in our life. The next time that we went and visit my grandparents, they lived in Kermit, West Virginia across the river from Kentucky. By that time Hope had gotten married. I don’t remember how long that we stayed I only remember the house and yard.

Aunt Hope married Uncle Ray, a Minster in the Church of God. She would come to visit other relatives and I think she visited us only because we lived a couple of houses away. Dad would have not let her forget it if she should come up the hollow and not stop in. She only came to our house once that I can remember. She wouldn’t let us feed her three children, they weren’t allowed to have anything to eat or drink. We thought she was very strict. They made no fuss when she said that they couldn’t have the pop that we were offering them, most children would make a fuss especially them being so young. Later her daughter, Ruth, said something I think went for when they came to our house, too. She said that Aunt Hope didn't like the way Aunt Wanda kept the house. She didn't think it was clean enough.

Once when I was staying with Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hope asked me if I would come and watch her children, she had five children by then. Her and her husband wanted to go away on a retreat for the Church. I had no trouble with the children. Aunt Hope and Uncle Ray came home the last day and took us all back to the Church for the day. I stayed with them for an extra couple of days after we got back to their house and got to see my first couple to get married. The couple knocked on the door and asked Uncle Ray if he would marry them. He married them in his living room.

My grandparent moved away from Ohio to Kermit, West Virginia. I think it was because my Grandma Hester could no longer keep up with canning and take care of the farm. After living in Kermit they moved to Black Bottom in Logan, West Virginia. This one time, I remember Dad had taken us all for a visit. Grandpa Abe always would like to wrestle with us girls. Sometimes he would play with us all together and other times only one of us. If he got hurt, he would get mad and want to whip you. Grandpa and I were sitting on the front porch which had no banister and our feet were hanging off when he reach over and knock me backwards. I got up and pushed him backwards. Dad happened to come out of the house and this is what he said to his father. "You can play with her but if she hurts you, old man, and you get mad and want to hurt her back. I will hurt you."

Dad taught us girls how to wrestle and be tough, that is how he himself played with us. Sometimes as we walked by him, he would try to trip us or push us in our backs with his thumb which always started a wrestling match. I always enjoyed going to visit my Grandma Hester's, I remembered what a good breakfast she would cook for us when we stayed overnight with the house was always full. My grandparents lived in a three room house with a front porch. I fondly remember how she would show us that she could drop her front teeth. We didn't know it at the time what false teeth were. That's where they lived when my Grandma Hester passed away - I was ten years old.

Hannah Dillow

Hester and Abe Dillow

Stephen and Hannah Dillow

Uncle Richard and Aunt Lilly

Jimmy

Uncle Lewis

Aunt Oma and Great-Grandma, Mary Jane Perkins

Aunt Hope

Aunt Wanda

Uncle Woodrow

from left to right: Uncle Woodrow, his wife Gladys, Uncle Lewis, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hope, Aunt Wanda