Waiting on Dandelions

I remember when I was a kid that one of the biggest events of late winter was searching for the first dandelion.  Granny always told us that they were a promise of spring and once one was found, it wouldn’t be too much longer before warm weather would return to the mountain. 

I’m sure the search was originally initiated to get the kids from underfoot during the dead of winter, and to give us a purpose.  After the anticipation of Christmastime had worn off, but before the egg hiding of Eastertime, there is a long stretch of cold, hum-drum, and did I mention cold weather.  Nothing to do but chores and hunkering down and waiting for better.  For us kids, that meant go to school, come home and carry in the night’s wood, feed the stock, have supper, do homework, and get ready for bed.  Day after day.  After day. 

The Mouth of Burns Holler.  This is where the first dandelions would always appear.  Granny's old house is visit on the right, the old stone cow barn, long since lost in a flood, stood on the left side of the road.

Then sometime in late February, Granny would holler at us kids as we were walking up the holler road from school and tell us it was getting to be about time for the dandelions to come up.  She always picked an unseasonably warm day to tell us this (which I might add were uncommon in those days).  Now she knew it was still too early for dandelions on the mountain, but she also knew it would give us a sense of purpose just when we needed it most.  Once the word was given, the hunt was on.  We would run to the house and throw down our books and bags, and head out the door.  The chores would have to wait.  In hindsight, granddad and Uncle Wood usually did the chores on the first day of the search.  It was almost as if there was a vast conspiracy to get us kids out of the house.  We knew the first blooms would appear on the hillside between Granny’s house and the old stone cow barn, and she would watch us search in vain for the first bloom.  She’d come out on the porch and talk to us as we searched, “now when you all find a good mess of the greens, I’ll cook us all up a good meal.  Good for the blood, they are.”

Day after day, after school, we would look for it.  On Saturday mornings we would look for it. On Sunday afternoons we would look for it.  We paid attention to the other signs of spring that would give us a clue as to when and where it might be.  I devised a method that when the hog pen started smelling pretty ripe,  it was a sign that dandelions were up.  Somewhere, anyway.   My methodology never really panned out but I swore that it would someday. 

Springtime on the Mountain.  Clothesline, dogwoods, lilacs and a chickenhouse.  We all think of different things when we think of springtime.  This says it to me.

Then one day when we least expected it, there it would be.  The first bloom.  It would be small, gnarled, half-frozen and unopened, but it was the first.  Whoever found it would let out a whoop and everyone would come running.  Sure enough, there it was.  The finder would pick it and we’d all take off for Granny’s house.  Of course, she’d hear us coming long before she could see us, and she would have us some treat made up.  Like molasses candy, or tater candy or something of the like.  It was almost as if Granny knew what day we’d find the first dandelion.  Looking back, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Granny used to look for the first bloom while all of us kids were away at school.  Granny always did love her dandelions.

A good place to find dandelions.  At the right time of year, you can pick a mess in just a few minutes.

Grandmaw's Dandelion Gravy recipe. You put it over dandelion greens. Put about 1 1/2 cups milk in skillet with 1 tsp butter or bacon grease (bacon grease preferred). Then make thickening in another bowl by combining: 2 Tbsp. flour, 1 egg, about 1/4-1/2 cup milk, stir until smooth. Add about 1 Tbsp. vinegar. Add to the milk in skillet. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook until it thickens. If not sour enough add little more vinegar to your taste.

A Handful of Pinto Beans

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve always wanted to be a farmer. I can’t ever remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to the soil as if by some unseen power. At an early age, I was told that I had a green thumb and many's the time that people would ask me to plant their gardens, bushes, etc. because they said, “If anybody can get them to grow, Matthew can.”

Milkweed Ladies on the Mallow Farm.

The very first thing that I ever remember planting was a handful of pinto beans. I remember Mom was looking over a bag of store-boughten pinto beans that she was getting ready to cook (looking over them I’m sure you know, means that she was sorting through them and picking out cracked beans and the occasional pebble.) Well, she had a few beans picked out that were unsuitable to be cooked and I asked her if I could have them. She said that I could, but not to eat them because raw beans will give you a stomachache. I said that I wouldn’t eat them, but that I was going to plant them. It was early spring then, way too early to be planting anything on the mountain, but Mom told me to go ahead and plant them but to plant them in the corner of the garden (she told me to put them in the corner because she knew I wouldn’t let them plow it up after I planted the beans, even though they had little to no chance of growing). Well, I remember I went out and poked a hole in the ground with my pointer finger, and dropped a bean into the cold soil. I covered them up the some dirt and I repeated this until I had all of the broken and misshapen pinto beans planted. I checked on them several times that first day, and occasionally over the next few days, but I soon lost interest in waiting to see the first sprouts of the beans that I was just sure would soon pop through the soil. A few weeks later when the garden was plowed up in preparation for the spring planting, Mom noticed that there were five little bean plants growing in the corner of the garden. She called me over and showed them to me, and of course there never was a bean plant that ever looked so good as the ones that I had grown. Everyone was shocked that the plants had grown from the cracked pintos that had been sorted out of a store-boughten bag of pinto beans!

We tended to the beans that spring and they were getting up pretty good in size when my family decided to move out of Johnson Holler to over across the mountain to the Mallow Farm. The main reason was because my brother Jason had started to school the year before and Dad would drive him over North Fork Mountain every day to catch the school bus in Monkeytown, and this fall I would be starting to Kindergarten, so Mom and Dad figured it’d be better if we lived on the same side of the mountain as where we’d be attending school rather than risking the trip across the mountain every day all winter. The Mallow Farm was also closer to Dad’s work, it was only about a mile from the gate of the farm whereas Johnson Holler was about 15 miles. The third, but not the least important reason for moving out of Johnson Holler was because we wouldn’t have to pay rent. I remember rent at the old house in Johnson Holler was $50 a month, plus you had to supply your own buckets to catch the water that leaked through the roof when it rained. This was so the water wouldn’t rot out the floors (yes, the house was that good!). But on the Mallow Farm, there was no rent but we did have to tend to the farm. It seemed like a good deal to all of us, we got the run of a 585-acre farm just for taking care of it. I suppose another reason why we moved to the farm was that my Grandmaw Henry had just passed away and Mom and Dad were taking care of five of Dad’s siblings, of which the youngest was just 3 years older than my brother Jason and the Mallow Farm was more conducive to raising a passel of “heatherns” as we were frequently called, than most anywhere else they could think of.

So that was the long way around of telling you that I never got to harvest those first beans that I ever planted. We moved out of Johnson Holler early that summer, and had to leave the old garden behind. I’m sure the deer and groundhogs had a field day with it. Over the years I have often wondered if those pinto beans ever amounted to anything.

Germany Valley...my home.

After moving to the farm, we have plenty of ground to tend to. Since Mom and Dad were raising all of us kids then, our family garden was easily 2 acres in size, one acres of which was planted in potatoes. I remember there were plenty of “garden suppers” as we called them, suppers where everything we had came out of the garden. I don’t ever remember going hungry though. We also raised hogs, chickens, sheep, ducks, guineas, cows and a horse. The sheep, cows and the one old horse were owned by the man who owned the farm but we tended to them the same as we did our own.

We only saw the owner about once a month, if that, except during haying season, during which time he would be over every day cutting this or that hayfield. I remember that he had two teenage sons who were smitten with my Aunts who lived with us then. They were all about the same age, and every day for lunch they’d come over to the house to visit. They said they came for some cool spring water, but they wasn’t fooling anybody, they was a-tryin’ to court my aunts. Nothing ever amounted to their advances, Mom said that the girls were too young to be interested in boys, even though the girls were the same age as the boys. Mom always told the girls not to be a farmer’s wife, because they would work you to death and they’d find themselves broke down with a passel of kids before they was 40. I find it ironic now just how picky Mom was for us all, we really didn’t have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, but she always expected us to do better for ourselves. From where I’m sitting now, I’d have thought she’d have welcomed one of my aunts marrying up with the farmer’s sons, but she never did. But I reckon it goes back to the days when our family had money, and although the “uppity” customs that went along with the old ways got passed on down to us, the money didn’t. My granny always said we was “poor genteel”.

Late Autumn on the Mallow Farm

We might have been poor as church mice but there were things we done that were atypical of our neighbors in a similar financial predicament, for example, we always had to eat everything with a fork, finger foods were just unacceptable and were considered beneath us…my mother still won’t eat a sandwich! All these years later, I’m still guilty of eating everything with a fork, or at least I have to have a fork in my hand while I’m eating, even if I don’t use it. Another thing was we always had to have clean sheets and pillowcases on our beds. We knew a lot of people who were as poor as we were who didn’t have sheets or pillowcases, and we just thought that was awful. The ones we had might have been worn out, but by crackies we had them and used them! Another thing was our shoes had to be clean. It didn’t matter what we had been doing, we weren’t allowed to go anywhere in dirty shoes…not even scuffed up shoes…for that was a sure sign of “trashiness”. I still find myself now, whenever I meet someone, the first thing I look at is their shoes. I’ve found over the years that this is a pretty good method of sizing people up, although there are some exceptions to this rule.

The farmhouse on the Mallow Farm.

We lived on the farm for several years, and today I consider myself having grown up on a farm even though we moved from it while I was still in elementary school. We moved from the farm because Mom and Dad had bought a house up on the mountain where Dad's family was from. It was originally part of the old Burns property but had been sold off back in the Depression to pay for a store bill. In those days, my Granddaddy didn’t have much but land, so much so that it is told that he sold the back side of the mountain for a horse and buggy, and he sold the land that borders the current Burns property for a bottle of whiskey! I ain’t never for the life of me figured out why he would have sold all the good land on the mountain and the valley below and kept the rockiest part of it. It could be because he couldn’t give away that part of the land, let alone sell it, but at least he kept enough land to give future generations of his family a sense of place and of their heritage. God knows, thats about all we have left! That and a bunch of cousins and relatives who will fight and quarrel over nothing more than a rock, its sad to see that the family has crumbled the way that it has over the past generation or so, it just seems that people don’t want the land but they don’t want anyone else to have it either. I suppose it all happened because Grandmaw and Granddaddy broke the old custom of leaving everything they had to the oldest boy and everyone else just had their lifetime rights to the property, instead of following that custom which had worked for the past 200 or so years, they left their estate to all of their children to be shared equally. The old custom might have been unfair, but the equal sharing way has done nothing but tear the family apart. All I know is that Grandmaw and Granddaddy done what they thought was best.

Remnants of the original Burns homeplace.

So there’s a little dirty family laundry for y’all out there reading this rambling post. Now to continue what I consider the main thread of this story, after we moved up on the mountain, on land that was now ours and ours alone, we found out just how much we missed the farm. While we did still raise hogs and chickens, we didn’t have near the land to grow our garden, raise our stock or just to get out and enjoy. We also didn’t have a big house like we did on the farm and we really had to pare down. We gave truckloads of stuff to my one Aunt who sold a lot of it in a big yard sale. We also gave away stuff to just about anyone who needed something. Probably the two things that most affected me was having to give away a lot of my toys (it took seven pick-up loads to carry all of our toys from the farmhouse, but the new house could only hold around one pick-up load). The other thing was losing our beloved dog, Pete. Pete was a farm dog, and after we moved off of the farm, he pined away for it. One day we noticed Pete was no longer with us, and the next day, the man who owned the farm brought Pete back to us and said that Pete had found his way back to the farm (about 5 miles away). Dad figured it would happen again and told the man if Pete wandered back down to the farm again, to just go ahead and keep him. A few days later, Pete went back to the farm and the man kept him. It was hard letting go of Pete but we knew that is what made Pete happy.

Aside from that, I liked living in our new home, we were located right beside of my Grandmaw Mary, whom I dearly loved, and just under the hill from my Granddaddy’s house. We also didn’t have to walk a half-mile to catch the school bus either. So while I did miss the farm in many ways, I suppose it was for the best. My family had returned home to the mountain that had borne our blood since 1699, and I suspect like the many generations of ancestors who came before, they will remain there for the duration. In the meantime, I am a farmer without a farm but the memories I have continue to sustain me even though in the back of my head I can hear Gerald O’Hara from “Gone With The Wind” repeating “Land, Katie Scarlett, Land. ‘Tis the only thing worth living for, worth fighting for, worth dying for. Land, Katie Scarlett, Land, Why it’s the only thing that matters, it’s the only thing that lasts…”

And to think this all started one early spring day all those years ago with a few old cracked-up pinto beans that weren’t fit to eat.

Snakes and more Snakes.

Today I thought I’d write another post about snakes. I wrote a blog post about snakes a few months ago, click here to read it.

I remember when we lived up Johnson Holler we had to watch whenever we went outside, it was a real snakey place. And they weren’t just any snakes that seemed to be all over the place, they were timber rattlesnakes. Many times, we’d kill some rattlers whenever we’d go out to feed the dog. It is no wonder that place was overrun with snakes, it was right at the foot of North Mountain and it was a very rocky and rough place.

I remember one evening when we were coming home, Dad got a good surprise. You see, right before you entered our place, you had to get out and open a gate that blocked the road. There was an old spring box located near the gate, and since Dad had opened this gate hundreds of times before, he didn’t think anything of it nor was he overly careful in looking around. He just got out of the truck, walked over, grabbed the gate latch, and started to pull open the gate.

About that time, he was startled by the unmistakable singing of a rattlesnake. He instinctively jumped back, and it is a good thing because as he was jumping back, the rattler struck at him. Dad was just far enough away to where it missed him. The rattler then slithered out into the road. All of us kids were screaming, just sure that the giant serpent was gonna eat us all. Dad, a little more calm than the rest of us, ran back to the truck and grabbed out a shovel that he always carried with him. Dad meant to kill the rattler with the shovel, and since he was now armed, he was a little more confident when he went after the big snake. About the time Dad got to the rattler, the rattler rared up to where it was nearly staring Dad right in the eye, and Mom hollered out the truck window, “He’s trying to charm you!” We all knew how a snake will try to charm its quarry by doing a little mesmerizing dance…it will lull someone or some thing into a false sense of security, which will end with a fatal bite.

Well, Dad wasn’t having none of that, so he whomped down on the big rattler with the shovel. As soon as the shovel connected with the snake, there was a loud crack and Dad stood there holding a broken handle of a shovel! The big rattler wasn’t even phased, and it look pissed off! Dad then ran back to the truck and looked around for something else to kill the rattler with, but could find nothing so he ran up on the road bank and grabbed a big tree limb and a few rocks. First, Dad threw the rather large rocks at the rattler, and connected with it with a few of them. The last one hit the snake in the head and knocked it down into the road. Dad then ran up with the tree limb and beat the snake repeatedly in the head until it was dead. It was quite an ordeal. It was such a large snake, we measured it, it was 9 feet long and was 8 inches around. It also had 12 rattlers and a button! It was a monster.

I remember Dad saying it was the granddaddy of them all, and he figured it was the snake that came over on “Noey’s Ark”! Dad said he’d never seen anything like it. It was in late summer and it was quite dry that year, so Dad took the dead snake and laid it over the garden fence. We all knew that if you hung a snake over a garden fence it would rain until you took it off. Sure enough, that night it just poured the rain and continued to do so for the next week or so. Finally, my Grandmaw Mary told my Dad to take that snake off the garden fence because if he didn’t she feared it was going to flood.

People might laugh, but there has to be something to those old tales.

Another story I’ll share is about how one time Grandmaw Mary’s milk cow stopped giving milk. Grandmaw couldn’t figure it out, all of a sudden the cow seemed to dry up. Grandmaw puzzled on it, and come to the conclusion that something had to be milking the cow out, so she started keeping a close eye on the cow. Granny suspected a milk thief. Sure enough, on one of her frequent checks on the cow, she caught the culprit…a big blacksnake sucking on the cow. Now I know a snake ain’t supposed to be able to suck, but my Granny seen it with her own eyes. Granny picked up a hoe handle that was there in the stone cow barn and cracked the blacksnake with it. She had to be real careful so it wouldn’t bite the teats of the cow. Well, the blacksnake coiled up and Granny proceeded to kill it with the hoe handle, and she dragged it outside of the cow barn. She said it was unreal the amount of milk that poured out of that snake when she stretched it out.

North Mountain rocks.

I also remember a story that my Grandmaw Mary used to tell about a girl named Hallie who lived further up on the mountain. Granny grew up near there. She said that up on the mountain, right near the frost line, there used to be a house that was owned by a man and a woman by the last name of Wildfang. Granny said they were real good people, always willing to give a helping hand to anyone who needed it. She said that the man’s name was Hanse and the woman’s name was Mag, and they had tried for years to have a child but it seemed that Mag would always miscarry late in the pregnancy.

Eventually, Mag was able to carry a child to term and gave birth to Hallie. She said that old man and woman Wildfang doted on Hallie something fierce. They gave her anything that she wanted and never made her do any kind of chores or anything. Granny would tell how every morning after breakfast, Mag would give Hallie a cup of buttermilk and a piece of bread and Hallie would carry the treat around with her as she walked around the yard and poked around the barn. Mag and Hanse were very happy and proud of their little girl, and talked about how smart she was, and how fast she learned just by watching things around her. Grandmaw said that one morning, Hallie got her usual snack and walked outside, and seemingly made a beeline for the corncrib. Mag said this wasn’t typical because usually Hallie would walk around the house and look at the flowers and go out to the barn and look at the baby animals and such, but really she didn’t think too much on it. But Hallie was so intent on her walk toward the corncrib that something just struck Mag to follow her that morning, and she did.

My granny told that when Mag opened the door to the corncrib, she saw Hallie sitting on the floor among the cobs, and a snake was drinking the buttermilk out of the cup, and Hallie was telling it, ‘You be sure and eat your bread, too.” Mag, of course, was quite startled and said to Hallie, “Girl, what in the world do you think you are doing feeding that snake,” but Hallie didn’t answer her. She then hurried to Hallie and noticed that she had a real blank stare in her eyes, and Mag knew at once that Hallie had been charmed by the snake. Mag got up and killed the snake, who had kept drinking the buttermilk this whole time, and as soon as she dealt the fatal blow to the snake, Hallie took to screaming at her mother, “Stop killing him, please stop it, you’re killing him.”

Grandmaw Mary, at this point in the story, would say that most people thought that the girl had been witched but nobody could ever figure out who done it. Granny would then continue the story by telling of how after the snake was dead, Hallie became listless, she had no energy, she had no appetite, and Hanse and Mag got really concerned about her. They consulted the doctor down in Riverton, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with her. He just told them to give her Cod Liver Oil. And they did, but it didn’t help. Well, this went on for a couple of weeks, and Hanse and Mag went to a woman in the area who was known as a good witch. She told them that there was only one thing that could be done, the snake had charmed little Hallie and unless they could somehow break the charm spell that the snake put on her, that Hallie would die. The old witch woman then said a few words over her, and all of a sudden the old woman got sick and took to throwing up a vile green fluid. She raced outside and took to pulling up grass out of the yard and eating it, but she kept throwing up over and over. She managed to tell Hanse and Mag that the snake had a powerful hold over Hallie, and that it had charmed her like nothing she had ever seen, and it was too powerful for her. Well, Hanse helped the old woman back into the house and put her into bed, and he thanked her for trying, and he and Mag took Hallie and returned home.

The next morning, word came to them that the old witch woman had died the night before, and it looked like her whole face and neck was covered with snakebites. Hanse and Mag were doubly concerned over Hallie now, and they relayed everything that the old witch woman had told them during their visit with her the day before. After that everyone believed that evil was afoot, and word spread about Hallie’s condition and the old woman’s death. Granny said that soon after that, there were all kinds of preachers that went to the Wildfangs and prayed over Hallie, and one had even come from all the way over at Harrisonburg, VA, to pray over her, but nothing helped. A few days later, Hallie died right after Hanse and Mag had breakfast. Granny said that Hanse and Mag went out of their heads with grief and that they couldn’t even prepare little Hallie to be buried. My Granny’s grandmother, MaryAnna, went and cleaned the body and laid it out for them. Granny said that she’d always been told that while laying out little Hallie, her granny noticed that there was a mark on her that looked like a snakebite, and it was located right over her heart!

Soon after Hallie was laid to rest, Hanse and Mag moved away, Granny said she always heard they moved off to “Ohio somewheres”, but that their old house stood for many years after they moved away. Nobody would ever live in the house after that, and eventually it fell down. Grandmaw Mary would then conclude with telling exactly where the house was located and she would tell that you could still see the foundation of it if you looked real close.

So, do any of you all out there have any snake stories to share? I’d love to hear them.

Mercian Tittery Ay

Today I thought I'd post an old folk song that I know called, "Mercian Tittery Ay". However, it seems that most people know this song as "Eggs & Marrowbones". I remember my Grandmaw Mary used to sing this in her kitchen while she cooked. She would hum and sing, and I was expected to join in on the chorus. I always thought this song was so funny.


Grandmaw Mary in the kitchen. I can still hear her singing, "Mercian Tittery Ay"

I never did know what the words "Mercian Tittery Ay" meant, but I've heard a similar version of this song (but not exactly the same) by Maggie Hammons. Hers is the only recorded version that I know of that uses the "Mercian Tittery Ay" in it. All of the other versions uses a different chorus line. Webster County, where Maggie Hammons was from, and Pendleton County, where my Granny was from, are fairly close to each other, and pretty much only a mountain separates the two locations. I wonder if they knew the same people, or if their ancestors came from the same place in Ireland. If the latter is the case, that would put this ballad in Pendleton County by the 1820's.

From what I can find, this folk song is Irish in origin and is classified as a Broadside Ballad. It is also known as "The Old Woman from Wexford".
=======================
Mercian Tittery Ay (Eggs and Marrowbones)

There was a woman up on the hill,
In a big house she did dwell,
She loved her husband dearly,
But another man twice as well.

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

One day she went to the doctor,
Some medicine for to find,
She said, "Doctor give me something,
For to make the old man blind."

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

"Feed him eggs and marrowbone,
And make him suck them all;
It won't be very long until
Your man won't see at all."

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

She fed him eggs and marrowbone,
And made him suck them all,
It wasn't very long until,
He couldn't see the wall.

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

The old man said, "I'd drown myself,
But that would be a sin."
The woman said, "I'll go with you,
To see you don't fall in."

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

They walked along together,
'Til they came to the river's brim,
But he said, "I'll not drown myself,
You'll have to push me in.

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

The woman made the offer,
And had a run and go;
But the old man quickly stepped aside,
And she fell in the river below.

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

She screamed and she hollered
Just as loud as she could bawl,
He said, "My dear beloved wife,
I still can't see at all."

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

She swam and swam and swam until,
She could no further swim;
When he grabbed up a cedar pole
And pushed her deeper in.

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.

Now eatin' eggs and marrowbones,
Won't make your old man blind;
So if you want to be shed of him,
You must sneak up from behind.

Mercian Tittery Tittery Tittery
Mercian Tittery Tittery-Ay.
========

So have any of you out there ever heard this song? Do any of you know the origins of the words "Mercian Tittery Ay"?

Guardian Angels

Today I'd thought I'd post the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, "Guardian Angels", and include some of my old family photo's to go along with the lyrics.

Guardian Angels
Written by Naomi Judd, John Jarvis & Donald Schlitz Jr.

A hundred year old photograph
Stares out from a frame
And if you look real close you'll see
Our eyes are just the same,

My great-great grandparents Charley & Jennie (Cunningham) Burns & their son, my gr-granddaddy Don.

I never met them face to face
But I still know them well,
From the stories my dear grandma tells.


My great-grandparents, Don & Mary (Kile) Burns.

Elijah was a farmer.
He knew how to make things grow.
And Fannie vowed she'd follow him
Wherever he would go.


My gr-gr-gr-grandparents, George & Phoebe Jane (Bennett) Cunningham

As things turned out they never left
Their small Kentucky farm.
But he kept her fed,
And she kept him warm.


My gr-gr-grandparents, Fon & Rosie (Nelson) Lawrence.

They're my guardian angels,
And I know they can see
Every step I take
They are watching over me
I might not know where I'm goin'
But I'm sure where I come from.
They're my guardian angels
And I'm their special one.


My grandparents, Richard H. & Virginia (Thompson) Burns.

Sometimes when I'm tired
I feel Elijah take my arm
He says, "keep a-goin, hard work
never did a body harm."
And when I'm really troubled
And I dont know what to do
Fannie whispers, "Just do your best,
were awful proud of you".


My gr-gr-gr-grandparents, Anderson & Dianna (Lantz) Lawrence.

They're my guardian angels
And I know they can see
Every step I take
They are watching over me
I might not know where I'm goin'
But I'm sure of where I come from
They're my guardian angels
And I'm their special one.


My gr-gr-gr-grandmother, Phoebe Jane Cunningham.

A hundred year old photograph
Stares out from a frame
And if you look real close you'll see
Our eyes are just the same.


My gr-gr-gr-gr-grandparents, Joseph & Catherine (Andrews) Lantz.

Springtime with Grandmaw

Twenty years have passed since my Grandmaw Mary walked these hills. It is hard for me to believe it has been that long. It seems to me that I was always at Grandmaw’s side, walking our land and learning her ways. I remember about those days about this time every year. We’d walk across the holler and up the adjacent hill to her garden. She’d scoop down and grab a handful of dark earth, and she squeeze it. If it formed a ball, she’d tell me “Nope, still too wet to plant.” She’d explain that the soil should crumble in her hand it if was ready. Grandmaw would tell me, “If you plant when the ground is wet, your dirt will be as hard as the hubs of Hell.” All of these years later, I still haven’t been able to figure out where that saying came from. Does Hell have hubs? They must be hard if it does.

After checking out the garden, I remember we’d always proceed to stroll through her plum orchard. She loved her Green Gage Plums. I don’t know why but one year I noticed that there was something on the tree bark, and to me in my world, it looked exactly like chickenshit. I asked Grandmaw Mary why her plum trees had chickenshit all over them, and she laughed at me and looked at bark and told me it was black knot. She said to remind her to get some lime sulfur to put on them, she said that is the only thing that can get rid of black knot. Shortly after this time, Grandmaw started getting sick and nobody thought to apply the lime sulfur, so the trees languished a few more years but eventually died. I have wished many times over the years that I had put the lime sulfur on her Green Gage plum trees, but I was just a kid at the time.

Grandmaw Mary was a firm believer in planting by the signs. She always said to plant corn in the sign of the Crab. And you had to plant potatoes in either the sign of the Thighs or the sign of the Feet, but always in the dark of the moon. In addition, Grandmaw always liked to plant potatoes on Good Friday. I remember some of the old signs and what to plant in them, but not as many as I would like to have remembered. Grandmaw always had a good garden.



Maw & Big Six at Maw's garden.

I also remember every year at school we’d buy Grandmaw flowers. She loved purple petunia’s. At school, the high school vo-ag ran a greenhouse. All of the elementary students would get the opportunity to go every day and buy single flowers for 25 cents each or $2.00 a dozen (our school was kindergarten through 12th grade). It was always a big deal for us to save our snack money and go buy Grandmaw Mary some petunia’s. She’s keep them on her back porch and they’d get really big. Everytime you’d visit Grandmaw Mary, she’d take you out and show you the flowers that you bought her. She had several grandkids but she always remembered which kid had bought which flowers.

And of course, Grandmaw Mary loved her lilacs. I wrote an entire story about Grandmaw’s love for lilacs. Read it by clicking here.



Grandmaw Mary's Lilac Bush.


Grandmaw knew what plants or home remedies to use for common ailments. She taught me that milkweed would heal most skin conditions, including warts. She taught me that chewing a willow twig would cure a headache. She taught me that chewing birch cured an upset stomach. She taught me that tobacco spit would take the pain out of a bee sting. She taught me how to remove the heat from a burn, or to stop bleeding just by saying a certain Bible verse over it. She called it “takin’ the far out” or “stoppin’ up blood”. Nowadays people would call that faith healing. I don’t know if you all believe in that, but I sure do. I have complete faith in anything that Grandmaw Mary taught me.

Grandmaw Mary in her kitchen.

So you can see why this time of year reminds me of Grandmaw, planting the soil and all that she has taught me. I’ve always found it humorous that even though Grandmaw Mary taught me all of these things, that one time she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Well, without even having to think about it, I told her “I want to be a farmer.” Grandmaw Mary just looked at me and shook her head, and said, “Honey, you might as well find something else that you want to be. Only a rich man can be a farmer these days. My daddy was a farmer and he was a poor man all of his life. A poor boy like you ain’t got a chance at farming these days.” (read about Grandmaw’s Mary’s parents by clicking here). All of these years later, I see the wisdom in Grandmaw’s advice even though I’ve always wanted to be, and continue to want to be, a farmer when I grow up!!

Obligatory scenery shot. Pendleton County barn in Spring.


But for now, I get by on getting’ by, living on just the “concept” of being a farmer. I suppose you could say I am a farmer without a farm. But there is one thing that I have come to realize, though Grandmaw Mary has been gone for the past twenty years, she continues to walk this land with me everytime I step outside.

Granddaddy's Strongbox

One of my most precious possessions is an old antique strongbox passed down to me from my great-granddaddy Don. The box came to me by way of my brother, who got it from our granddad Rich, who got it from his daddy, Don.



The strong box is worn with age, and rather beaten up in appearance, but I don’t have the desire to paint it or refinish it. I want it to remain just as Granddaddy Don knew it. How it came to me is a story in and of itself. I told you that before me, the strongbox belonged to my brother. Well, he wanted rid of it because he claims it is haunted. He said for as long as he had it, the box would be visited by Granddaddy Don who would rifle through it on occasion. He won’t tell me the whole story, and I really don’t care to know it, but Granddaddy Don is welcome to look through his strongbox whenever he wants to. I figure the most he will do is holler out, “Hell bohunk, where’s my…?” or tell me as he once did when I was a little boy, “Just for that little boy, you’ll get nothing more.”. In any case, I am only the temporary owner of the strongbox, and the treasures it contains. Come with me and I’ll show you some of them.



As I open the strongbox, the musty smell of old papers floods the room. Everything seems to be coated with a film of some sort. I can’t describe it but you can feel it coating everything. The contents are strewn about in the box, I’m sure it is the result of many searching relatives looking for money. While I never got money from Granddaddy Don, I got stories and the strongbox, and to me, these are worth more than all the money in the world.

The first thing that I see in the strongbox is an old White Owl Cigar box. Inside there is Granddad’s old corncob pipe. It looks store-bought, which is odd considering what a skin-flint he was. I’d have figured he’d make his own. Also, I see a little case, inside are two medals that Granddaddy got in the War. He was in World War 1 so perhaps these are from that bloody war. Also, there is an old pocketwatch, I don’t know where it came from, but I know Granddaddy must have treasured it for it to end up in his strongbox.

There are also a few old ratty books, worn thin and covers missing from frequent use. By the time I knew him, Granddaddy had poor eyesight and no longer read very much, so these books are evidence that he must have liked to read in his younger days. Since I mentioned Granddaddy’s bad eyesight, I remember one time he was sitting in his favorite chair beside of the living room window. He would sit for hours just watching the world go by. I remember one day he hollered for Grandmaw to come in and look at something. She did, and he said, “Hell Mary, there’s a fox out there in that bush”, pointing to her lilac bush. Grandmaw looked and told him, “I believe you’d better look a little closer, that’s not a fox, it’s a fox squirrel.” Granddaddy, trying to save face retorted, “Hell Mary, you must have scared him away when you came to the window.”



Among my favorite items in the strongbox is Granddaddy’s old calendar. I remember he used to religiously write down the high and low temperatures for every day of the month. Only when he was sick and in the hospital did he miss a day. I like to look over the temperature for the days of every month, scribbled in his shaky handwriting, and wonder what Granddaddy was planning to do by preserving this information. Was he keeping a log for some reason, or was it just a hobby to pass the time.



Also in the strongbox were a few pictures of my Dad when he lived with Grandmaw and Granddaddy, and some ledgers where Granddaddy kept track of his finances. If Granddaddy owed you a penny, he made sure it was paid to you, and if you owed him a penny, he wanted it paid with interest! He lived through the depression, worked the timber camps, later owning his own timber business that operated on the land that is now the Fredericksburg Battlefield outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Still later, after the timber industry collapsed, Granddaddy made his way to Baltimore where he worked for Glenn L. Martin airplane factory where he was a supervisor during World War 2. He stayed with the Martin company and retired from there, at which time, he backtracked on the hillbilly highway and returned home on the mountain.

There are many memories buried in this strongbox, and many fascinating stories, perhaps sometime I will share some of them with you.

Do any of you all out there have similar items that are priceless to you, based solely on their sentimental value?

Grandmaw's Water Bucket

The below poem triggers memories of my Grandmaw Mary. It conjures up visions of the old spring that rested upon the hillside above her house. It was always a great honor to be asked my Grandmaw to fetch her a bucket of water. I know I always took great care to dip the bucket way down into the cool, clear spring to get the freshest and coolest water. I remember there'd always be a chance that you'd pick up a salamander in the spring so you'd have take special care to avoid that. With the greatest of care, I'd heft the full water bucket to my side and inch my way down the hill on the old footpath, worn smooth by the generations of feet who made this very same trek. In the springtime, I'd usually stop and smell the apple blossoms on the Yellow Delicious apple tree that grew by the footpath.

Grandmaw would always meet me at the back porch and take the water bucket from me. I know now that she most likely done this to keep me from slopping water on her kitchen floor, after all, how steady could I have been, I was only a little boy carrying a 2-gallon bucket full of water. After taking the bucket from me, she would heap praise upon me and give me a cookie or a piece of pie that she always managed to make appear as if out of thin air. She'd then sit the water bucket up on the water stand beneath her cabinet near the back door.

Grandmaw Mary in her kitchen.

She usually had two buckets and kept one full of fresh water, and used the other bucket of "dead" water to heat for washing dishes. Grandmaw said that once water set overnight, it became dead and people shouldn't drink it. I do know that fresh water tasted better. Grandmaw always kept cheesecloth over her water buckets to keep flying insects out of it, and she had a little metal dipper that you could dip down into the bucket and get out a drink. Nobody ever thought anything of it then, but nowadays people would think this unsanitary. You'd drink right out of the dipper, and toss the rest out the back door. You were never allowed to put the water you didn't drink back in the bucket, but you could dip a second dipper if you were still thirsty.

I remember a little shelf behind the water buckets. Grandmaw had two little teacups there, no doubt gifts from some of her children on one of their travels. Grandmaw typically didn't go anywhere, her extent of travel was limited to Franklin and the Bartow Flea Market. I was always fascinated by those teacups, one said "Paw, Come git yer coffee" and the other said "Maw, Come git yer coffee". On the Paw cup, it showed a hillbilly man sleeping outside on the door stoop, and on the Maw cup there was a mountain woman plowing a field and the man was standing in the door way hollering out at her in the field. I found a "Maw" cup in an antique shop right before Christmas and bought one for my mother. I need to get her a Paw cup now. They have them on Ebay, where I found the below picture.

It's amazing how a poem can trigger all of these precious memories of Grandmaw Mary, one memory triggers another, and so on. I could sit and talk about my Grandmaw Mary all day long.
===========================
The Old Oaken Bucket

by Samuel Wordsworth

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollections present them to view !
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-cover'd bucket, which hung in the well.

That moss-cover'd vessel I hail as a treasure;
For often, at noon, when return'd from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that Nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing !
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-cover'd bucket arose from the well.

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips !
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
Though fill'd with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
And now, far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-cover'd bucket, which hangs in the well.

Cold Weather Stories

It’s Cold. Since all the talk seems to be of the weather, I thought I’d tell a few stories about the chilly times on the mountain.



Old steamshovel wreck on North Mountain. Granddaddy Don is in the back row, 3rd from the right (wearing a toboggan).

I remember my granddaddy Don used to tell of how cold it got out on the mountain when he worked in the timber camps back in the early 1900’s. He said that it was a real danger for the timber men when it got down real cold. Frostbite and hypothermia were regular occurrences in the camps. He even told of it being so cold one time that a tree exploded when they started chopping it down. He said the tree split apart into several pieces and piece shot in every direction for several yards around and that the base log cracked up the tree about 15 feet. Granddaddy Don also told of how deep the snow would get in the mountains around lumber camps. He said many’s the time they’d cut timber in the winter while standing on the packed snow, and come spring when the snow would melt, they’d go back over the same area and get another 8 to 10 foot log off the stumps which were previously buried under the snow.



Granddaddy Don & Grandmaw Mary

This reminds me of another story that occurred about the same time as when Granddaddy Don was working in the timber camps. This one involves Grandmaw Mary and the kids who were left at home while Granddaddy Don was off at work, sometimes for months at a time. He’d send money to them in the mail, but not on a regular basis. Grandmaw always fended for herself, so she canned and put up food all summer long so they usually had enough food, but they’d sometimes run short on firewood, especially when Granddaddy was gone for long periods of time. One time, it got down real cold and Grandmaw Mary saw they were running out of wood. She told the older children that they would have to go cut down the old Chestnut tree near the fence line in order for them to have enough wood to get through the cold spell. The oldest of the boys was only about 12 at the time, so it was a major undertaking. Well, the kids took to chopping at the huge chestnut tree with axes, and since the tree was dead (courtesy of the chestnut blight), it made a great racket as they hammered away at its base. Well this noise alerted the cantankerous neighbor man who lived up the holler from Grandmaw. Well, the man came down to where they were chopping down the tree and cut a fit on them. He said that the tree belonged to him, and that it was on his property, when it was clearly on the Burns side of the fence. The boys went and got Grandmaw Mary and told her about what the man was saying, and she went out to talk some sense into her neighbor. She told him that the tree was on Burns property, but the man argued that the fence line was in the wrong place. Grandmaw then saw that it was futile to argue about whose tree it was, so she tried a different tact with him. She explained to him that since Don had been gone for the past few months, that they were running low on firewood and were in great need of it. She said that the tree was dead and needed to be cut down anyway, lest it fall over on his fence. Besides she added, Chestnut wood wasn’t the best for burning, it cracked and popped a lot and created a lot of sparks, so really it wasn’t her first choice either, but when you need wood, you get what is readily available. The man seemed to understand that Grandmaw meant to have that tree, and he appeared to acquiesce but just as the boys finally felled the giant Chestnut, the man took to cussing and carrying on and saying how he was going to have them all arrested for stealing his tree and damaging his property. Grandmaw once again told him that the tree was on Burns property and that it belonged to her, and she instructed to boys to keep cutting. The man then started cussing the boys and threatening them with his gun which he said he was going to go get and he’d show them whose tree it was. Well, Grandmaw, fed up with the cantankerous old man, said to the boys, “Come on boys and let’s go back in the house, and let the old bastard have the tree. Maybe he can use the lumber to make himself a coffin so he can go through Hell a-cracking”.



Grandmaw Mary

Well that old man was so stunned by Grandmaw’s words, that he immediately took to apologizing to her and the boys, and he said, “Now Mary, if you need that wood, why you just go ahead and take it.” Grandmaw, now with her dander up responded, “I aim to.” The old man then told her, “I’ll go get my boys to come and help you all split that wood up, and get it stacked in the woodshed. Now Mary, are you all okay with food? We have some hams in our smokehouse that we’d gladly share with you all.” Grandmaw told him they had plenty of food, they were just out of firewood. She always got amused at how fast the threat of a crackin’ coffin in Hell will turn people around!



Mom & Dad, Summer 2005

Another story about the cold weather was when my Dad was a young man. After Granddad Thompson died when Dad was 10 years old, Dad moved up to Monkeytown to live with his parents. You see, in my family, it was custom that the oldest grandson live with his grandparents. Well, once Dad moved in with his parents, it became abundantly clear that there wasn’t enough room. My granddad worked in Baltimore at the time and came home just long enough to get Grandmaw pregnant, and then he’d leave again. He’d sometimes send money, but often he did not. So the next summer, when Dad was 11 years old, he went to work in the hayfields in order to get money to help out with the family expenses and in order to build himself a room onto the house. Dad was big for his age so the farmers all thought he was about 15 so they hired him on for a dollar a day. Dad worked all summer and come the fall, he had saved enough money to buy the lumber to build him on a room. With the help of a few people, they built a very crude room onto the front of the house. There were cracks in the walls that you could through a cat through, and it had one little window that resembled the one in the storybook of Noah’s Ark. But it didn’t matter to Dad, he finally had a bedroom all his own. Well, for a few days anyway. His little brother Tom decided that he would sleep there too, so Dad soon had a roommate. Since Tom was still little, he often wetted the bed, and Dad would have to get up and change the covers out, and give them to Grandmaw to wash the next day. Well, winter soon set in, and Dad said that many mornings he’d wake up with a dusting of snow on the bed covers. He said they left the door open which was next to the kitchen where the wood stove was, and that on the side facing the door, you’d be real warm, and on the side facing the window, you’d freeze. He said you learned to turn a lot throughout the course of the night. As the weather got colder, someone gave Dad and Tom a big old feather tick to sleep under. Well, one night when the weather was down around zero, Tom pee’d the bed and Dad didn’t realize it, and when they woke up the next morning, the feather tick was frozen to Dad’s bed clothes! Dad then told Tom that he couldn’t sleep with him any more until the spring! Dad’s room is still on the house, only now it has been remodeled, and is now the kitchen area. It doesn’t, however, resemble the rough little room of necessity that Dad built so many years ago.



Me & Shirley, Fall 2007


My final story about cold weather concerns one of the first times that I took Shirley home to the mountain to meet my family. Shirley, although a child of the coalfields, always led a pretty pampered life. She grew up with all the amenities, including central heating. Well, Mom and Dad still have a wood stove so the heat comes from only one area of the house. Shirley insisted on closing the bedroom door that one night, which I advised her was a bad idea. I told her to sleep in my bed…a heated waterbed…but her modesty and upbringing wouldn’t allow her to sleep in the same bed with someone she wasn’t married to, so Mom set her up the old cast iron bed to sleep in. Well, it was down around zero that night, with the wind whistling around the corner of the house. Shirley kept waking me up with her question, “What is that? It sounds like a banshee.” I’d always reply, “It’s the wind. Haven’t you ever heard the wind before?” She’d say, “Not like that!” and would soon go back to sleep. Well this went on nearly every hour, until finally about daylight, I was awakened by a nudging on my shoulder. It was Shirley. I asked her what was wrong and I turned on the lamp by my bed. There stood Shirley, pitifully asking, “I’m s-s-s-s-oooo c-c-c-c-old. C-c-can I g-get in b-e-e-e-e-ed with you?” I swear to you that her lips were blue! I reminded her that I told her it would get cold if she shut the bedroom door, and that of course she could get in my nice, warm, heated waterbed. She then decided that she needed a drink of water and walked over to get her glass of water on her nightstand. She gasped and I asked her what was the matter now. She said, “my water is frozen!” I told her to open the bedroom door and to get in bed with me. As soon as she opened the bedroom door, the warm air flooded into the room and she soon warmed up. She slept like a baby the rest of the night. Shirley still claims that is the coldest that she has ever been in her life. Poor girl, she sure has led a sheltered life!

So just keep in mind over the duration of this current cold spell, that it won’t be long before we see the first green sprouts of spring, and soon thereafter, the warm breezes of summer will return to these hills. The nightbirds will once again croon their songs of passion, and nature will once again caress us into slumber with the softness of the season.

Cows

I’ve always liked cattle. Throughout my childhood, cattle were an integral part of my life. My earliest memory is of eating the heavy cream that settled on top of the milk that mom got from our milk cow, Babe. Babe was a Jersey cow and she produced 2 gallons of rich milk every day, which was more than enough for our family. Mom would regularly treat me and my brother, Jason, to homemade gingerbread with real whipped cream on top. It is no wonder we were fatter than little pigs. Mom said when we’d spit-up, it’d be little globs of butter. We were raised in a culture that believed that a fat baby was a healthy baby. My Grandmaw Mary said she just loved little fat babies, and she petted on us something fierce.


Then there were the fun times we had in the old cow barn that sat halfway down Burns Holler. It was the cow barn for my Grandmaw Mary, who in her later years, sold her milk cow so the old stone barn became a favorite play spot for the young kids. We had chairs in there, and even an old television that didn’t have a face in it. Some of the braver kids would get behind the faceless TV set and give us the news. They thought they were a regular Dan Rather, but whenever they’d say something we didn’t like, we’d throw empty pop bottles at them (and in those days, bottles were made of glass). I don’t know how old the cow barn was, but it was so neat, it just exuded a sense of permanency, the rocks were laid neaty, and some were cut to fit. Moss grew on the insides of the damp cow barn and the roof was made of thatch. It looked like it’d be a snaky place, but I don’t ever remember seeing any snakes in there. It was great loss to the family when the cow barn was destroyed in the Great Flood of 1985 that completely washed away Burns Holler.


Later when we moved on the farm, we had cows everywhere. As many of you will recall from a previous post, one of my favorite childhood memories involved a big, red bull named Ole Doan.


In my later childhood, I remember one time we bought an old cow at the Stock Sale in Moorefield for $1. The cow appeared sick and nobody wanted to buy it. Well, figuring it was only $1, we bought it. When we got it home, Grandmaw Mary said to give it a cow tonic. She told us to get a gallon bucket and mix together 2 cups of molasses, a quart of oats, a quart of applesauce, a couple of handfuls of torn up milkweed leaves, and top it off with spring water to where it made a thin soup. Then force the cow to eat it. Well, that was an ordeal, if you’ve ever tried to make a cow eat something it didn’t want to eat, then you can sympathize. I remember it took quite a while but eventually got the tonic into the cow…one cup at a time. Well, we didn’t know what to expect the next morning when we went to check on “Ole Dollar” as we nicknamed her, but we were completely surprised to see her up eating and wanting out of the stall. As we got closer, we found that the tonic had really cleaned her out, there was runny cowshit all over her and the stall, and there were massive amounts of green cow vomit. I never knew a cow to vomit but that’s what we took it to be. After that, Ole Dollar was just fine. Grandmaw Mary said she was probably locked up, meaning that “Ole Dollar” couldn’t poop. She said that tonic loosened her up. Granny said that will happen to cows if they aren’t given any greens or grain. She said probably whoever had her probably only fed her very poor quality hay, and probably that was molded. Granny said that it was poisoning her system. Anyway, the tonic worked and “Ole Dollar” made a 100% recovery. About a month later, we turned around and sold “Ole Dollar” at the same stock sale for $500! Not a bad return for a $1 investment.


So these days, I can’t help but think of these memories whenever I see cows. There’s just something about a cow that just breeds a longing for the rural life.

Do any of you all out there have any cow stories to tell?

The Ballad of Alfred & Attie

Today I am reminded of my great-great grandparents, Alfred and Attie Kile. They were the parents of my sainted and oft-mentioned Grandmaw Mary. I have no picture of Alfred or Attie but I know that at least two photos exist of them; I just have never been able to track them down. Several of my family have seen them, though.

Theirs truly was a story of love and loss, and I rank them at the top of people whom I wish I could meet.

Grandpaw Alfred was a poor man all his life. His father, Thomas Kile, had been hurt in a farming accident when Alfred was just a child, so Alfred and his siblings were “farmed out” to neighboring families. Basically, this was just a way for the children to be fed and the neighboring families to have free labor. Alfred grew up working, and working hard, too. He soon grew into a very large man. My Grandmaw Mary says her father was at least 6 and a half feet tall, wore a size 15 EEE shoe and used a mule shoe as a heel tap. Grandpaw Alfred also was a large man, and is widely contributed for giving all of us our size. He had raging red hair and a full beard.

Grandmaw Attie was, by all accounts, one of the most beautiful women in Germany Valley. She was courted by men of the most prominent families, and she came from a respected family as well. As the story goes, one summer afternoon, Attie went visiting some neighbors with her step-mother and on the way there the wheel on the wagon she was riding in somehow messed up. It just so happened that about that same time, my Grandpaw Alfred came along on the same road, returning from Riverton with a load of feed for the farmer he was working for at the time. Of course, seeing two ladies in distress, Grandpaw Alfred stopped to see if he could help. Soon, Alfred had repaired the wheel well enough to get Attie and her step-mother to the farm, where it could be further repaired. My grandmaw Mary said that Attie fell in love with Alfred right there along that road and thought there was no other man that could even compare with him.


Remnants of Fiddler's Green, home of Alfred & Attie.

In the weeks following the wagon wheel incident, Grandmaw Attie refused to see any of the suitors who came to court her; and when asked why, she told her father that she was in love with Alfred Kile. Well, Grandpaw Cullom just about had a fit. Alfred was a hired man, for God’s sake, and didn’t have two nickels to rub against each other, let alone have any land. Attie remained adamant in this, and after some time had passed, Grandpaw Cullom allowed Alfred to court Attie.

The two fell deeply in love. Attie thought she had the most wonderful man that ever drew a breath, and Alfred was still in shock that such a beautiful and well-bred girl would even look his way. They were soon married, but all was not well. You see, the jealous, rejected suitors got together and devised a plan to put Alfred in his place. On their wedding night, just as Grandpaw Alfred and Grandmaw Attie were going to their marital bed, the raucous sounds of a Shivaree were heard. Knowing this to be the custom, Alfred and Attie were not alarmed; however, instead of just pulling Alfred out of bed and tying him to a greased rail as was typical, these men forcibly tied Alfred’s hands behind his back and talked amongst themselves about hanging him. They did too. They took Grandpaw Alfred to the old oak tree out from the house and tried to hang him. However, Grandpaw Alfred was such a large man that the rope stretched although Alfred was scarred by the rope burns around his neck for the rest of his life. Somehow, Alfred got his hands freed and fought off the men. After warning those men that they’d better never bother him or his wife ever again, Alfred returned to the house and his bride, whom had been bolted inside during the melee.

The men didn’t physically attack Alfred again, but they did put the word out to all the neighboring farms that they were not to hire Alfred to work for them. So, the newlyweds were faced with the dilemma of not having money, work or a place to live, so they decided all they could do was leave Germany Valley. They moved to Rockingham County, Virginia, for a few years and Alfred sharecropped some land over there, but it soon became obvious that they couldn’t make a living doing that, and Attie was so far from her family, so they moved back to Pendleton County, only this time on the Smith Creek section of the county.

Uncle Vern Kile, son of Alfred & Attie.

By this time, Alfred and Attie were blessed with my Grandmaw Mary and my Uncle Okey. They lived and worked on Smith Creek for several years, and several more children were born, but they were never able to afford a place of their own. Word came from across the mountain that Grandpaw Cullom had died and had left Attie a small cabin locally known as “Fiddler’s Green”. Well, they knew well the trouble that faced them back in Germany Valley but not being able to pass up a home of their own, Alfred and Attie moved back to Germany Valley.


They found that times had changed, and there were even a few families now that would hire Grandpaw Alfred to work for them because he was known all over the county as a very hard worker and an extremely strong man. In fact, Grandpaw Alfred had become somewhat of a local legend for his strength after he saw a mean bull charging a woman and her three kids. Alfred knew he had to do something of else the woman and/or the kids would likely be killed, so he picked up a slab of wood and chased alongside of the bull, and hit the bull across the neck and killed the charging bull just as it was almost on the woman and kids. The woman’s husband was so grateful, that he paid the farmer for the bull and spread the tale of Alfred’s great strength countywide. Then a few months later, Grandpaw Alfred was working in the stock pen and another mean bull had pinned a man against the fence and was killing him, the man was screaming for help and several men had ropes around the bull and was trying to pull the bull away. Grandpaw Alfred again came to the rescue by walking up and hitting the mad bull with his fist and knocking it unconscious, and the man was saved! Nobody had ever heard of that happening before.


Fiddler's Green

So now, Grandpaw Alfred and Grandmaw Attie were back home in Germany Valley and all seemed to be going good for them. Even some of the old, jealous suitors had let go of some of the animosity towards Alfred and even hired him for some odd jobs. Then, one bad winter, Grandpaw Alfred came down with pneumonia. Then it was even more dangerous than now, but somehow Grandpaw Alfred beat it, and was able to go back to work. But, the thing about pneumonia is that once you’ve had it, you can catch it again really easy. It seemed that every winter after that, Grandpaw Alfred caught pneumonia. There were many outbreaks of flu after the Great Flu of 1918. One of these bouts occurred in 1922. Alfred and Attie’s son Okey died that year. He was only 19 years old. He was Alfred’s pride and joy and they say that Alfred lost a little piece of himself when Okey succumbed to the pneumonia that set in after a bout of the flu. By this time, there were several other children who depended on Alfred, so he carried his grief around with him and went back to work, they say he worked twice as hard and was known to be able to cut a field of corn by hand in just one afternoon. This was supposed to be work for several men but Alfred done it alone.


My grandmaw Mary, daughter of Alfred & Attie.

A few years later, Grandpaw Alfred seemed to be returning to his old self, and my Grandmaw Mary (Alfred’s daughter) got married to Don Burns and had children of her own. At this time, my Granddaddy Don was a timberman and he worked out in Cass at Pocahontas County. He would send Grandmaw Mary money every now and then, but certainly not on a regular basis. During this time, my Grandmaw Mary moved in with her parents, Alfred and Attie. The arrangement worked well, Grandmaw Mary was the oldest child and some said she was Alfred’s favorite after Okey died. This worked a couple of years until 1931 when Grandpaw Alfred caught pneumonia again. This time, he forced himself to work in inclement weather knowing it would be bad on him but also knowing that his grandchildren relied on him to provide for them. This went on a few weeks until Grandpaw Alfred was too weak to work and then he was forced to stay at home. With no work, there was no money coming in so the family was running out of food, and Grandpaw Alfred went so far as to refuse his helpings and insisted that the grandchildren eat before he did to make sure they had enough. After a week or so, Alfred was so weak he couldn’t even get out of bed, and by this time, he was unable to eat much of anything. He died on February 13, 1931 at the age of 54 years. The community news in the local newspaper read:

“Alfred Kile was buried Saturday. He died of pneumonia. Not being able to get any work, he and his family suffered for lack of food. He was a strong man. On account of not getting enough nourishment his body was weakened and he wasn’t able to stand an attack of pneumonia.”

After Grandpaw Alfred’s death, my Granddaddy Don felt so guilty over his part in this that he returned home and built a house for Grandmaw Mary and his children. Grandmaw Attie did what she had to do to provide for her family, she was too proud to move in with her daughter, so she sold “Fiddler’s Green” and moved to Circleville and got a job at the new switchboard for the telephone company. She worked there for a couple of years, until she got an infection of some sort and the local doctor told her she should consult the new hospital that had been built down in Petersburg. She did and they gave her a shot of penicillin. Grandmaw Attie had never before been to a hospital or even knew what penicillin was, all she knew was the doctor said it would clear up the infection. Sadly, she died from an allergic reaction to the penicillin shot that night after returning home. Grandmaw Attie was buried beside of Grandpaw Alfred in the old family cemetery near where their honeymoon cabin was located.


Little cemetery where Alfred & Attie are buried.

A few years later, Alfred & Attie's daughter Eva planted a snowball bush at the heads of their graves, but it has long since been removed, and there were no tombstones. Those who knew of the locations of their graves have all passed, so in death as in life, it appears that Alfred and Attie are being slighted. I firmly believe this is not the case, I can just see Alfred and Attie looking over their own prosperous farm with all of their family around them. As the scriptures say, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions….” I feel certain that Grandpaw Alfred and Grandmaw Attie are now living in one of them.

My wife Shirley, upon hearing the story of Alfred and Attie, wrote a song about their lives titled, "The Ballad of Alfred & Attie". You can find it on her upcoming release, "Been to the Mountaintop". I will post more about the CD once it is released.