My Family: Chapter 2

Orville, West Virginia

My younger sister, Lucille, was born in Orville when I was two years and six month old. Where we lived, there was two rows of homes and in between the homes was a dirt road which was called an alley. The back of our house set up against this alley, it was used for delivery trucks. At the front of our house was a hill, at top was the main road which we call a hard road because it was paved with blacktop. This one time a salesman stopped at the house and was trying to sale a tricycle to Mom, I was ridding the tricycle while he was trying to talk Mom into buying it. She didn’t because cost too much. The tricycle was three dollars.

After Lucille was born, we moved next to the railroad tracks in a four-room house. Mom named Lucille after the lady who lived next door to us who were drinking buddies of my parents on the weekends. Mom and Dad would start to drink on a Friday evening and not stop until Sunday night. My parents would fight and drink most of the time on the weekends only.

Mom and Lucille

I remember this one night, when I was four years old, that we sat on the back porch and screamed for hours because we were alone in the house. Someone did come and hush us up; putting us to bed. Our bed was pushed up against the window of our bedroom. If we did go to bed early on Saturday night, some times I would get woken up by Mom or Dad stepping on me trying to climb threw the window. One night, Dad woke me up as he tried to get out the window, Mom was behind him in the doorway with an cast-iron clothes iron. One was always trying to get away from the other but mostly Mom getting away from Dad.

You didn't mess with my Mom, she would whop you in a heartbeat.  Once Mom got into an argument with our neighbor on the other side. The neighbor's husband was a drinker also so it probable had something to do with her husband drinking at our house. Everyone had a slop jar to use at night instead of going out to the outhouse after dark for fear of snakes or other animals. As the woman came around the corner of our house, Mom was standing on the porch waiting for her - it was late at night. I was in the doorway watching. Mom threw the contents of the slop jar in her face, as it went all over her there was a lot of screaming between the two but the woman didn't come any farther than the corner of the house.

end of homes in Orville

The neighbors couldn’t call the police and get them to come out and settle a disturbance since there was no law up any of the hollows. The nearest police was in Logan and that was twenty miles away. No one had a phone (phones at that time were not affordable) and Logan only had a sheriff. If there was a Constable that lived close by, they did not interfere for fear of my dad. 
Dad didn’t drink during the week and never miss a day’s work. I don’t remember my father ever taking a day off from work unless he got hurt in the mines. The miners risked their lives every time they go down in a cave. You never hear about the small cave-ins where only one or two would get hurt, because it was expected with the job. My father was forevermore having his bones broken. He had his neck, back, legs, and arms broken at different times. Someone was always throwing his miners clothes on the front porch; telling Mom he was in the hospital in Logan. His job was to put the timber to hold the cave up and sometimes accidents do happen. My fondest memory is when Dad was in bed with a broken leg and Shirley had carried home the measles. She gave them to Lucille and myself, so we all were sick (except for my mom) and laying in bed with my dad. Mom carried us scrambled egg with bologna sandwiches to eat. These were cheap sandwiches since the eggs came from our chickens and dad had the bologna for his lunches. Food wasn't a peculiar of ours.

We never had much food to eat. In my part of the south don't count on getting an offer of  food or drink when you visit someone. It's just not happening unless it's dinner time, then you will get invited to set down and eat but you are expected to have the manners to say 'no thank you, I was just leaving.'

My sister, Shirley, was the baby for three years before I was born. She didn't like me at all and she was spoiled. When my Mom gave us toys, she expected us to share but Shirley would claim everything as hers, so that's why I didn't have any toys to call my own. And if I did get toys, I don’t remember they lasted long. I was tough on everything according to Shirley which is why she didn’t let me touch anything that belonged to her. At six years old, Shirley went to school at Cham about a mile up the hollow from Orville in a two room school house that went to the fourth grade. I wanted to go to school real bad, so I decided to follow Shirley. She would walk along the roadway and I walked along the railroad tracks. She was dressed for school but I only had on underwear. The underwear at that time was a t-shirt and panties connected with buttons down the front and a split in the back at waist high (just like the one on the left).

We got to school about the same time. I don't know how the teacher let Mom know that I was there, because we had no telephone or a car. But I got to stay at school until Mom picked me up and after a spanking, I got the idea that I wasn't allowed to go to school. I stayed at home and played with Shirley's toys and when she came home from school she would beat me up if  I was still playing with her things. She had everything a little girl would want; doll, table, chairs, and dishes. I always tried to have everything put away by the time she would get home but sometimes she would catch me. Mom would always holler at her and tell her she had to share. My big toe nail is still cracked down the middle where she hit me with a hammer for touching her toys when she was playing with them.

Me and Shirley Ann

The only reason that I know how my toenail got cracked is she told me this is what happened after we got older in our teens. She once tried to get me to eat lye while Mom was washing clothes. Mom washed clothes in two big tubs with a scrub broad, she had to build two fires out in the yard and put a tub on each fire. One was for wash and the other one was to rinse the clothes in, she used homemade soap that she made with lye. It had cross-bones on the can, and Mom had set the can down on the porch with a spoon in it and Shirley tried to get me to take a taste. But I wouldn't, and I don't know who's idea it was, but we tried to get Lucille to taste it. We wasn’t trying to hurt her but we knew it was something that we shouldn’t be eating. At first, Lucille wouldn't take a taste but then I pretended to take a bite and then put the spoon to her mouth. She must have got one grain in her mouth because she started to scream. Mom came running, grabbed Lucille and asked us what was wrong. We told her that Lucille ate lye. She made Lucille throw up. Mom started to cry and scream while somebody went and got the Company doctor. When he got there, he gave Mom some medicine saying Lucille was a lucky girl that she didn’t swallow any of the poison. Her mouth was full of blisters. I don't remember getting a spanking for what we did. So I guess Mom thought that Lucille got into the lye on her own. Lucille was one and half years old, I was four, and Shirley was seven. And I will admit that I was jealous of both sisters.

                                                  

left to right: Shirley, Willa Jean, Patsy, Jimmy, me.
Mom standing in doorway of our two room house which had a bedroom and
kitchen with a wash room in Orville, WV.