Life on Rum Creek Hollow: Perry Francis and Hattie Sluss part 2

Remember my mom's parents, Perry and Hattie?    Perry Francis died on April 05, 1941, two weeks before I was born; he dislocated his shoulder from shoveling sand and died from blood poisoning. The Company doctor didn’t treat him for a dislocated shoulder but just gave him a pill that was a cure all. His whole arm swelled up to twice the normal size, but by the time he went to the hospital, it was too late. He was sixty-five years old. The cemetery where my Grandpa Francis is buried are still in Chambers. The family Chambers owns the land and takes care of the cemetery. My cousin, Thurman, married a Chamber’s girl. Harris Funeral Home made a mistake on their files, they had the location of Grandpa Francis' burial at Macbeth, but Grandma Francis and their children said that he was buried at Cham graveyard. Maybe they made the mistake because my mother lived at Macbeth and he was laid out at home - not in the funeral parlor. In those days the funeral home would bring the casket home, and set it up in a room for the family to sit up and view him all night. However, Grandpa Francis was laid out at his friend’s home. My Aunt Hannah and my Grandma Francis told me, at different times, that something strange happened after Grandpa Francis' funeral. Grandma had put Grandpa’s clothes in a box which was placed in a corner of the viewing room. While everyone was sitting around talking after the funeral, the box raised up off the floor. My Aunt Hannah said she never did understand how that happens.

My sisters and I went in search of Grandpa Francis' grave, but since the grave had no marker it is lost to us. However, if we go by where Aunt Belvia said that he was buried in the Chamber's cemetery then we think that we found the grave but since it's unmarked, we have no proof. Especially since the Chamber's called the funeral home and they said that he was buried at Macbeth cemetery which is no longer there. Grandma Francis once told me she thought Mom was going to miss her father’s funeral because I was going to be born. Grandma said that Mom was washing clothes when she went into labor with me - Mom always did the wash on Monday. So I was born eleven days after my Grandpa Francis' burial.

Grandma Francis died on Dec. 26, 1964 at the age of sixty-six, she died from leukemia and a heart attack. Grandparents had five children while living in Rum Creek hollow.   These are some stories about them:

Their oldest daughter, Alice, got to close too the fire place when she was about four years old and caught her dress on fire. She had some ugly looking scars on one side of her body for the rest of her life. She was lucky to be alive maybe that's why Grandma babied and favor her. Aunt Alice had a stroke and died in a nursing home in Logan, West Virginia. She was eighty-seven. Two of her three children died from heart attacks in their forties.

My grandparent's oldest boy, Vondon, never had any children that he claimed. Once, when he left our house in Orville and went to Ashland, Kentucky, which is across the river from Huntington, West Virginia, to work. He met a girl from Huntington who later said that she had given birth to his son. But Uncle Vondon said that the baby didn’t belong to him and that was the end of that until the boy grew up. After his son grew up he went looking for his father, and found aunt Belva living in Logan and explain who he was and gave her a picture of himself to send to Uncle Vondon who was living in North Carolina at the time. When Vondon got the picture, he showed it to all his friends and asked them who they thought it was? The son looked so much like the father. Vondon had made arrangements with his son, through my Aunt Belvia, to meet in Logan at aunt Belva's but before they could Uncle Vondon died of a sudden heart attack. Aunt Belva went to uncle Vondon's funeral while there she ask his wife if she had something of uncle Vondons that she could give to the son , she gave her Uncle Vondon’s Air Force service ring. When the son show up for the meeting aunt Belva gave him the ring. Uncle Vondon never came home to visit his mother - he didn’t go to his mother’s funeral either. However, he did come home to visit my mom. Aunt Belvia said one time she didn’t know that he was home until she saw him on the streets in Logan. He died from a heart attack at the age of forty-eight.

Aunt Tince was married twice and is still living. She had five children. She lost her youngest son, Ronny, to a heart attack just before his fifty-fifth birthday.

My mom died at the age of forty-eight also from a heart attack.
Aunt Belvia married but never had any children. She died at the age of seventy-eight of cancer.