My Appalachia 1924-1942: A Story of Courage and Victory

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

The Days of Innocence

Chapter 2

The Great Depression

Chapter 3

The Shadow of the Mountains

Chapter 4

The Farm

Chapter 5

Coal Miners Move to Town

Chapter 6

Back to the Mining Camps

Chapter 7

Entering High School

Chapter 8

Two Steps Forward One Back

Chapter 9

My First Year Alone

Chapter 10

My High School Diploma

Epilogue

CHAPTER 1

The Days of Innocence

There was the sound of children’s laughter. Dada, were did I come fom? asked young Susan.

Her daddy smiled and said, Oh, one morning just about sun-up I was walking down along the pond, and heard a little noise. I looked around, and lo and behold, there you were, lying beside a log. I picked you up and brought you to your mama. There were sounds of tittering and giggling among the children. Mama Hetty just smiled.

Little Bella could not talk plain either, but she stammered, Dada, were did ou fin me? A smile of anticipation adorned her baby face.

Oh, I found you in the cabbage patch. You were the prettiest little cabbage head I ever saw! Again childish laughter filled the room. Her mama said it was bedtime and Bella ran and hugged her Dada.

That little story etched its way into my memory, telling me that I was a welcomed addition into our large family. I, Bella Lorraine, held onto that memory.

That was the way I remember my early childhood—a fun-loving Dada that welcomed his many children and wrapped his love around all of them. But life has its obstacles, such as the lack of a good education, the Great Depression and children who do not have the same goals as those of their parents.

Coal miners had few advantages in the early Twentieth Century, but there was always electricity. And as far as I ever knew, the rent and the use of the surrounding land were free. A family could stay with the company and plant roots to stabilize themselves, or they could migrate from one brown-green pasture to another like migrant farmers. My family was like migrant farmers. We moved every two years or less. I learned the reason for that as a teenager.

As a small child my world was the family unit and it did not matter which county or house we were in. My earliest memory of an unusual event was quite scary and I must have been no more than three years old. We moved to somewhere in Harlan County, Kentucky, to a place I remember as Black Joe, and arrived after dark on a stormy night. The main bridge was out so the family had to cross on a one lane swinging bridge over a roaring stream. In the dark we could tell that some planks were missing, and I remember holding onto someone’s hand desperately, lest I be swept off the bridge and into the rushing water.

We stayed there only a short while but even at that early age I noticed something that made a lasting impression on me. Just a few houses away lived an Indian wife and small girl, just about my age, and we children were not allowed to play with her. As we watched each other from a distance I wondered about how lonely that little girl must be with no playmates, and why it was so bad to be an Indian.

The next incident I remember was in another place called Polly. I was skipping home from Sunday school, holding onto my big sister Ellen’s hand.

I said, Hurry, Sissy. I want to get home and name our baby after King David, the giant killer. That had been our Sunday school lesson.

Ellen said, They already named him. His name is Leon. I was disappointed. Leon was not a pretty name.

We did not know about vitamins and minerals. In the winter people ate mostly what they had canned or preserved. A few fresh fruits and vegetables were sold at the company commissary, but not everyone had enough money to purchase them.

Our neighbor, who was the mother of several small children, developed Pellagra. Today we know that is caused by insufficient niacin and protein. My mother and other women took food, and tried to help with the children. Before long the woman started wailing loudly both day and night, and eventually lost her mind and died. I remember the day she died, and was alarmed, wondering how it would feel to have my mother die.

There were happier times, too. In the 1920’s it was standard behavior for the whole family to get up in the morning and have breakfast with the daddy before he left for work. That was always before daylight but I looked forward to it. My daddy loved babies. At daybreak he would tickle me and toss me up in the air. The sound of laughter rang throughout our home, starting my day with joy and anticipation. I would bid him goodbye with laughter on my lips, but sadly, because it would be so long before he came back from work.

Mother was a wonderful mother to those children who made a lot of noise. With five children (and sometimes, a boarder or two) she had little time to play. Noise was a sign to her that her children needed her, but since I was a quiet child I got my attention from my Daddy. When he left for work I would often stand at the window and try to wait for his return, but that would be nightfall.

I decided early on that I wanted to grow up and be a Supatennens wife. When I heard Mother tell Daddy about my plans, and they were so delighted, I thought they had misunderstood me. I did not want to be like my mother—I wanted to marry a man like my daddy. At that young age I did not want to hurt my mama’s feelings.

By the time I was five years old, we moved again, to a place called both Duane and Bulan, near Hazard, Kentucky. We lived there five or more years because we were destined to be caught up in the web of the Great Depression.

The first radio in our camp belonged to my aunt and uncle. Radios were as much a mystery then as men walking on the moon was fifty years later. At night we would gather there with half the community to listen to Amos ‘n Andy, and other great entertainers of that new and creative time in history. I was awed by that magical little box.

I said, Mother how do those voices get into that little box.

She thought for just a minute and said, Those are little people who live in the radio. At my young age I knew there was something wrong with that statement, but I pretended to believe her. Privately, I imagined tiny wagons and horses finding a way into the little box, and delivering food to the wee community that lived in it, with voices as big as mine. I discarded the thought.

My two older brothers, Jason and Bud, ages eight and ten, had great fun teasing me. One day while we were idling and the grown-ups were not around, they whispered to me, Can you say, real loud, ‘polish it behind the door’? I repeated after them, one word at a time—polish - it - behind - the - door.

I yelled, really loud, Polish it behind the door! proud of myself. They laughed hysterically, and told me to say it again, and louder. I thought they were so thrilled because I did such a good job, and yelled it again, and again–

I was soon rescued by Mother. It was then I learned why it was so funny - or not.

My parents had lived elegantly, with fine furniture, piano, horsehair sofas, wool rugs, and good china, when there were only two or three children. But with the constant moving, and the addition of more children, Daddy was afraid to spend money on anything except good food. He loved good food and had married just the woman who could make the most of it. That took precedence over the cost of everything else.

Once he bought five bushels of apples. Mother canned apples, made apple butter, dried apples, made pies, fried apples, and we still had Dad’s tool box (the size of a foot locker) full of apples, sitting on our side porch. Soon our yard was littered with half-eaten apples. Our dog wouldn’t eat them.

We celebrated the holidays festively. There were no refrigerators in the homes, so when July 4th, Independence Day, came around, Daddy ordered ice cream to be sent from Hazard to the camp, packed in dry ice. One year, after there were six children and when we expected cousins, he ordered three gallons. We ate as much as we could and two hours later we ate as much as we could. Then Dad invited the neighbors and some passers-by