Our Amicks in Modern Times



Irvin and Lelia Amick
about the time of their
marriage.

Irvin Starling Amick, the third child of Samuel and Martha Amick, was my grandfather.  Born on 6 December 1883, he earned his living by farming and by carpentry.  On 27 December 1905 he married Lelia Clingman Humphries, daughter of William and Lucinda Ott Humphries from Pool, West Virginia.   Their children were:

1) Leathel Delores Amick, born 6 July 1907
2) Teddy Carl Amick, born 30 April 1909
3) Carrie Mae Amick, born 2 May 1911
4) Irma Belle Amick, born 13 November 1915
5) Marylene Gathel Amick, born 10 October 1924.

They lived and farmed on the Amick homestead.  The children helped with the farm work including hoeing corn.  As my mother once told, they wanted the corn to be "knee high by the Fourth of July" because once the corn was of a certain size, they could go to Nallen to celebrate the Fourth of July.  My mother told that they played in the woods and along Anglin Creek, using rocks to make furniture for their pretend house and using moss for the carpets.  Ted caught some frogs, and they held the frogs up by their hind legs, pretending the frogs were chickens they were taking to market.  Lelia was afraid of the frogs, and she yelled at the children to put them down.  When Ted found out she was afraid, he boldly held onto his frogs.  I can imagine him laughing in a Puckish way, making his mom "holler" and "squall".  Lelia took the only course she could think of:  she threw rocks at the kids to make them put down the frogs.

Carrie Amick Tuck writes in Growing Up in West Virginia, My Memoirs, 

Irma Belle Amick,
about age 3.

      "Dad was a very good carpenter.  He built two nice homes in the area.  One cinderblock, two story, for Jake Amick, and another A-frame house for George McClung.  They are standing to this day.  He and my only brother, Teddy, went away to another town, Lookout was the name, and built a high school house.  His tools consisted of a hand saw, level, hammer and measure.  Dad was very smart with figures, down to one 1000th of an inch in his head.  No one ever knew how he could do that." 

Carrie continues by saying that Irvin began "public works" which took him away from home, and when Lelia's father died (1925), she and the children moved in with Lelia's mother, Lucinda Ott Humphries.  Irvin worked in Charleston for a while.  By this time Leathel had married Ray Hambrick and lived in Charleston.  Carrie writes that Ted was allowed to come and go as he pleased, unlike the girls, and that he and his friends met at "Drunkard's Roost", an old barn where Runa Road intersects Rt. 41, to play poker.

My mother (Irma) related in 1997 about how they celebrated Christmas:
"It began at school, a Christmas program centered around the birth of Jesus.  Everyone came.  The teacher gave us a gift.  Mostly a pencil, sometimes some candy, and always a program at church.  Everyone took part in it, and at last Christmas Eve, no tree but stockings were hung with the expectations of Santa filling them with a lot of candy, fruit, and nuts of which we only had once a year, if we were good.  If we were bad, Santa would only leave us a bunch of switches.  No turkey for Christmas dinner, mostly ham, sweet potatoes and the such because it was hog-killing time, and it sure was good." 

Irvin Amick, the carpenter.

The children attended school at Runa until around the mid 20s or so, but after they moved to Grandma Humphries', they attended school at Rocky Point, near Pool.  It was also about this time that Leathel's first child was born; John Bee Hambrick was born 8 February 1927.

Shortly after the family moved in with Lucinda Humphries, the house burned, leaving the family homeless.  When Irvin came home from his work trip, he needed to make arrangements for housing for the family, so he planned for them to move to Dwyer, West Virginia, a coal-mining town near Rainelle.  Ted, Irma, and Carrie walked on the railroad tracks to Rainelle to attend school.  Irvin was employed as a bridge carpenter for the C&O Railroad.  Grandma Humphries lived with them until her home in Nicholas County was rebuilt.  After the mine at Dwyer was re-opened by the Tuck family, a motor car ran between Rainelle and Dwyer which was used for transportation to take the children to school.  Irvin bought a Model A car, but he had to keep it in a garage in Rainelle because he couldn't drive it to Dwyer.

Teddy Carl Amick

The census in April 1930 finds Irvin Amick living in the Meadow Bluff district of Greenbrier County with his wife and four children, including their divorced daughter, Leathel (although Leathel's children are not listed).  Carrie and her husband, Vernon Tuck, live next door.  In the summer of 1930 Ted, who was also working as a carpenter at the railroad in Rainelle, was killed in an accident at work.  At Ted's funeral, one of the cousins, Irvin Champe, was broken out with a rash.  He came to stay for a while with Lelia and Irvin, only to find out that he had small pox.  Thankfully everyone survived the epidemic, but the family's grief over Ted's death was increased by the weeks-long illnesses that they endured.

In April 1931 Irma married Charlie Tuck, and they moved to Beard's Fork, Fayette Co., where Charlie worked in the mines.  More than 13 million Americans were unemployed by the end of 1932.  Banking problems caused customers to withdraw their money from the banks, and more than 9,000 banks had failed by early 1933.  By March of that year many of the banks were either closed or had been closed at some time.  Banks that had managed to stay open were operating under special rules meant to protect the banks from failure.

Irvin Amick, standing.
Seated on left, Cornelius Dorsey.
Seated on right, Walter Humphries.
(Dorsey and Humphries
not confirmed.)

After Irvin and Lelia moved to the Franzello Building in East Rainelle, Irvin was laid off from the railroad.  He had received a sum of money from the railroad because of Ted's death, and through his contact with a realtor in Rainelle, purchased a farm in Waverly (Sussex County), Virginia.  He felt that investing in property would protect their cash.  He and Lelia thought that if things got worse economically at least they could grow food on the farm, which also had a two-story house and a store on the property that sold goods to local farmers.  Irma and Charlie Tuck moved back to East Rainelle before Charles, Jr. was born in 1932; they stayed in West Virginia, but Marylene; Carrie and Vernon and their young daughter, Alice; and Leathel and her two young children made the move with Irvin and Lelia.

Shortly after the family moved, Irvin was miraculously called back to work on the railroad.   For a while, Irvin worked in Rainelle while the family lived on the farm in Waverly.  Lelia ran the farm and store mostly on her own, with family help and hired help.  In 1933 a whooping cough epidemic caused the death of Carrie's young baby, Roselyn.  Marylene and Alice, Carrie's other daughter, also suffered with the illness, but they survived it.

Leathel returned to Dwyer with her two children, and on 14 October 1935, she married Pat Tuck.  On 11 June 1936 Pat was killed by a slate fall while working in the mine in Dwyer.  The story is told that Leathel heard the whistle blow at the mine, meaning that there had been an accident.  She started out the back door, but the door stuck as if someone were holding it and sticking their foot in the door.  Leathel said, "Oh, Pat, quit!"  It wasn't long before someone came to the house to tell her of Pat's death.  After this, Leathel moved back to the farm in Waverly.

The farm and the store became too much for Lelia to handle on her own, so she moved back to East Rainelle, where she and Irvin had an apartment over Blair's Jewelry Store until they could sell the farm.  Marylene enrolled in school, and Irvin continued working for the railroad.  Carrie and Vernon stayed at Waverly, along with Leathel who enrolled in beauty school in Richmond, while her children stayed with Carrie and Vernon.

Mary Lelia and Leathel
Amick Fitzwater.

Somehow Leathel reconnected with an old school friend, John Fitzwater, who was in the Navy.  Carrie and Vernon took Leathel and her children back to Rainelle, where she and John were married on 26 June 1939 in Covington, Allegheny County, Virginia.  They settled in San Diego, California.

The 1940 census shows that the Amick family was spreading across the United States:
 1)  Carrie and Vernon lived in Waverly with Alice, their daughter.  Vernon was a truck driver.  He worked 40 hours a week and had made $500 in 1939.  They lived on Route 621.
 2)  Irma and Charlie Tuck lived in East Rainelle on 10th Street with their son, Charles, Jr.  Charlie was a miner, worked 35 hours a week, and had made $800 in 1939.
 3)  Irvin and Lelia also lived in East Rainelle, along with Marylene, who was 15 years old, on Main Street.  Irvin was a bridge carpenter on the railroad, worked 40 hours a week, and had made $1300 in 1939.
 4)  John E. and Leathel Fitzwater lived on 17th Street in San Diego, California, with their children, John B. Hambrick (age 13), Ladorma Lea Hambrick (age 10), and Mary L. Fitzwater, less than one year old.  John was a machinist in the U.S. Navy and earned $1032 in 1939.  Leathel had worked 44 weeks in 1939 to earn $528.

Carrie and Vernon Tuck

When Irvin sold the farm, Carrie and Vernon moved to Stony Creek, Virginia, where Marylene came to live with them.  She worked at Freeman's Feed and Hardware Store.  As World War II progressed, jobs became more plentiful, and Vernon went to work at Dupont in Richmond.  Marylene also found work at Dupont.

It was in Richmond that Marylene met William Coleman Rountree.  They married there, and their first child, Bill Rountree, was born there.  Later they moved to North Carolina.  Carrie and Vernon moved to Arizona.

Charlie Tuck also moved to Virginia to obtain work at the beginning of World War II.  He worked in the ship yards at Newport News.  He and Irma lived there with their three children:  Charles, Jr., Martha Jane, and Carol Ann. When their marriage ended on 10 October 1947 in Richmond, Irma and her children moved back to East Rainelle and lived with Irvin and Lelia.  The apartment over the jewelry store was crowded, and Irvin and Lelia bought a house on what is now Hughart Street to better accommodate the family.  Irma worked as a waitress and also as a clerk in the Men's Quality Store on Main Street.  A railroader named Austin "Red" Ballengee began coming in the store in the mornings to help her work the crossword puzzle in the newspaper.  They were married on 1 July 1949 at the Central Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia.  They also lived in an apartment in East Rainelle until Red built their home in the Osborne Addition about 1951, after the birth of their child, Janet, in 1950.

Irvin Amick working on the
addition to the house in East
Rainelle.

This left Irvin and Lelia living in their new home in East Rainelle after Irvin retired from the railroad.  They built additional rooms onto the back of the house about 1953.  The new section would become their home, and they rented the front part of the house.  Lelia walked to the A & P on Main Street to shop for groceries or to the G. C. Murphy Five and Dime for all those extra household needs.  Flint's Hardware and Alder's Hardware were close, as well as several clothing stores, small groceries, and drug stores.  A benefit of retiring from the railroad was that Irvin had lifetime passes for him and Lelia, and they took advantage of the passes to ride the train out West in the winter months.  They spent time with Carrie in Phoenix and Leathel in San Diego until the warm weather returned to West Virginia in the spring.

Lelia's sister, Sadie Humphries Dorsey, was widowed and lived with her daughter in Quinwood.  Sadie's husband, Cornelius (Neely) Dorsey, was killed in a timbering accident 14 December 1928, and she had raised her eight children alone.  Sadie and Lelia were very close, and Sadie stayed at the Amick home quite often.  Games of canasta, croquet, and Chinese checkers filled the hours.  I remember one croquet game at the home of Emerson and Elsie Amick in Oak Hill that required flood lights to be hooked up because the game went on until midnight.  No one was willing to give up even after the sun went down!  Sadie and Lelia often traveled together to visit family.


Irma Ballengee standing
by the roses at her
parents' house in
East Rainelle. 

Irvin (or Granddad, as we called him) liked to walk the grandchildren up the street to Vance's service stations for a "pop".  Although I don't remember this, my sister, Carol, recalled that when he asked you what kind of pop you wanted, no matter what you asked for, he always got you an orange pop.  I do remember sitting on the swing on the porch of their house with him.  He asked if I knew how to spell "gnat".  Then he pulled a small dictionary from his shirt pocket and showed me in the dictionary how "gnat" actually did start with the letter "g".  He loved reading western novels, sitting in his chair by the front window with his leg thrown over the chair arm; he loved going west where the cowboys roamed.  He was the first person I ever saw eat a peach with the fuzzy skin still on it.  I was amazed that you could eat the peel, and I still do, often reminded of him.  He chewed tobacco, and once on a car trip to North Carolina to see Marylene, when we passed a scraggly, pitiful-looking patch of tobacco, he said that that patch was Five Brothers chewing tobacco (a cheap brand).  Firmly believing in the Democratic platform that brought the country through the Depression, he had a framed picture of FDR hanging on his bedroom wall.  He kept a perpetual game of solitaire going on the dining table, and when the cards stuck together, he sprinkled talcum powder on them to keep them easier to deal. 

Left to right:  Sadie Dorsey, Lelia Amick, Irvin Amick. 
Sightseeing on a trip to the West.

In 1962 Irvin was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 78.  He died 30 September 1962 at the hospital in Ronceverte.  He is buried in the Dorsey Cemetery near Runa, where Teddy Carl Amick is also buried.  Lelia continued to live in East Rainelle.  Aunt Sadie stayed with her quite a bit.  Around 1968 failing health caused Lelia to sell her home, and she went to live with her daughter, Marylene, in North Carolina.  In 1969 Carrie took her to Phoenix to live with her.  Lelia died 4 October 1969 of cancer and is also buried in Dorsey Cemetery. 

The picture below is a rare image of many of the Amick family members together.  Although it was technically not a good picture, I've tried to "remedy" it to capture the faces that are floating there in time.  I'm not able to identify all the people, but some of them I recognize, and some of them I "think" I recognize.  And so I've finally come to the end of my summary of the history of our Amick family.  This is by no means a complete and detailed history; I have plenty more stories to tell, but this remembrance is meant to ensure that the loves, sacrifices, tears, and smiles of our Amicks are not forgotten.

Child on lap is Bill Rountree, born in December 1946, which helps to date the picture. 
He is sitting on Irvin Amick's lap.  Lelia is the woman standing to the
left in the flowered dress.  The girl beside her may be Martha Tuck, and the
younger girl beside her is Carol Ann Tuck.  Behind her I believe is Alice Tuck.
Carrie Amick Tuck is sitting beside Carol.  The man who is barely visible
behind Carrie, may be William C. Rountree.  The woman beside
him is my mother, Irma, and the woman beside her may be Marylene.
 I do not know the identity of the two children who are seated on the left.



 

Dear Grandma

Lelia Amick, wife and mother, on the
 farm in Nicholas County, West Virginia.

My grandmother, Lelia Clingman Humphries Amick, always said she had two birthdays.  The official birth record lists her date of birth as January 1, 1888, but she was really born on January 8, 1888.  Sunday will be the 124th anniversary of her birth in Pool, Nicholas County, West Virginia.  I asked her once what her middle name was, and she laughed when I thought "Clingman" sure was a funny name.  It turns out that her grandmother was Elizabeth Clingman Ott from Greenbrier County.

Irvin Amick and Lelia Clingman
Humphries around the time
of their marriage.

On December 27, 1905, Lelia, at the age of 17, married Irvin Amick.  They lived in Nicholas County, at first in the home of Lelia's parents, Will and Lucinda Humphries.  By 1920 they lived in their own home, next door to Irvin's parents, Samuel and Martha Amick.  My mother said that Grandma loved her cows, and that she had a favorite cow named Reddy. 

 In 1930 Irvin and Lelia lived in Greenbrier County where Irvin worked as a carpenter for the railroad in Rainelle.  At first they lived in Dwyer, but then moved to Rainelle, where they lived in an apartment in the old hospital building, then in the Scruggs house, and then in an apartment over Blair Jewelry Store.  Their son, Teddy Carl Amick, also worked as a carpenter for the railroad.  In July 1930, when Teddy was 21 years old, he was killed in a work accident.  Irvin and Lelia remained in Rainelle with their surviving children, Leathel Delores, Carrie May, Irma Belle, and Marylene Gathel.

After Teddy was killed, Irvin and Lelia bought a farm in 1932 in Waverly, Virginia, where they had a small store.   They were afraid that Irvin would lose his job with the railroad, but as it turned out, he continued to work there during the depression. 

Lelia (in flowered dress) sight-seeing
 in San Diego with her sister,
Sadie L. Humphries Dorsey.

Eventually the family returned to Rainelle where they bought a house.  Lelia worked as a cook at the King Coal Hotel and at the hospital.  From their home it was a short walk up town to the A & P grocery store, G. C. Murphy's Five & Ten, Flint's Hardware, and the Gulf service station where Granddad treated me to orange pop.  When Irvin retired from the railroad, they had lifetime passes to ride the train anywhere they wanted to go, so each year, my mom and dad drove them to Hinton. where they caught a train to Arizona.  There they spent time with Carrie before travelling on to San Diego, where Leathel lived.  Each spring they returned to their home in Rainelle. 

I remember Grandma's house.  Granddad had a perpetual game of solitaire going on the table, and Grandma had a perpetual dinner going in the kitchen:  pot roast, green beans, and fried apples, seasoned with her proverbs.  "It's a poor house that can't afford one lady."  "Might as well eat the devil as drink his broth."  I loved playing Chinese checkers and reading her Better Homes and Gardens magazines.  Grandma's house is where I learned to play Canasta. 

In 1968 I went to Berea, Kentucky, to go to college.  It was a different time, I can assure you.  As a terrified 18-year-old, living away from home for the very first time, I did something that most 18-year-olds today would never think of.  I wrote letters.  And I received letters.  Letters from my mom and dad, from friends at home, from friends who had joined the Navy, and from my grandmother, Lelia Clingman Humphries Amick. I saved her letters for some reason.  I didn't save letters from anyone

At a family reunion at Lizzie Bennett's house in
Nicholas County:  Lelia's nephew, Clyde
Arthur and his wife, Sadie Humphries Dorsey
(Lelia's sister), and Lelia Amick. 

else, but I've kept Grandma's letters in an old stationery box for 43 years.  The letters offer encouragement to me and ask dozens of questions about what it was like to be in college.  There was no generation gap. 

She wrote 11 letters to me from October 4, 1968, to April 22, 1969, from High Point, North Carolina, where she lived with her daughter and my aunt, Marylene Rountree.  Her health had deteriorated until she had to "give up housekeeping", which meant selling her home and disbursing all of her furniture and household items.  At that time my mother was in crisis herself dealing with the illness of my father, so Grandma went to live with her daughter in North Carolina. 

Oh, how she missed Rainelle.  Although she missed going to church, her first letter is full of news and questions.  It was also full of encouragement for me, telling me, "I know what it takes to get it.  You have got it."  Twelve days later she writes, "I was afraid you would forget you had a grandma.  I am so proud of you," and that they are changing East Rainelle so much, I wouldn't "know it" when I got back up there.  Her plans were to return to Rainelle, but on October 26 she wrote that she had asked her doctor about going to West Virginia, and he looked at her like "he thought I was crazy.  That is all he said.  That look was enough."  

She wrote to me on election day in November.  An intense democrat, she said that "this is the big day for one of the big men.  I hope it is the one who butters our bread."  She was "sorry that I can't help him out" at the ballot box.  That big man was Hubert Humphrey, who lost to Richard Nixon.  She didn't write about the election anymore. 

Later in November she told me the news she had heard from my mom.  "There is no place like home to me.  Wish I could go home."  She wrote about their Thanksgiving company, but that it "wasn't like being at home."  By February 4 her letters took a sad turn:  "Well, I have been here 1 year and it seems like it has been 2 years in a way, and again it don't seem so long.  Just to be isolated.  Just set here, nobody to see or call to talk to or anything to pass off time.  No friends to come in.  It is the worst place I was ever in not to have no neighbors.  Not like W. Va."  In her next letter she wrote, "I have been down here over a year, and it seems like a long time to be cooped up, but thank the Lord I am still here.  I would rather be back home.  There is still no place like home."  No, Grandma, there really isn't anyplace like home. 

In March she is making plans to go to West Virginia.  "I hope to go to W. Va. this summer some time if the good Lord be willing and just give me health & strength.  My head says feet stick with me and we will go places, but some times they say I can't go."  In April after I had apparently written about my trip home for Easter, she wrote, "Would love to been with you but seems like I won't get back up there any more, and I would love to go."  She continues that her daughter in California wanted her to come out there, and her daughter in Arizona would come to get her as soon as school was out on June 3.  She closes the letter by saying, "Well, I guess you are tired of this gab."  No, Grandma, I wasn't tired of it.  Her last letter closed with, "Love & may God bless and keep you."  He has, Grandma. 

She never made it home until she died October 4, 1969.  She lived with Carrie only a few months when she developed esophageal cancer. I love reading the old letters of encouragement and news and weather reports, the letters she pondered over and wrote with her mis-shapened hands.  Dear Grandma, I wish you a "Happy Birthday", love, Janet.