Owl in the Chimney? Who You Gonna Call?

Darin Handy and his new friend.

This was a once in a lifetime experience, or at least I hope so.

Yesterday evening after about a day of hearing scratching noises in the fireplace, I convinced Larry that we should explore the source of the noise.  If a mouse dies in the chimney, I explained, we would have to move out until the smell dissipated.  I was concerned.  The cat was concerned.  She kept staring up into the chimney, knowing that a heartbeat was trapped up there.

So how do you get a live animal out of your chimney?  We opened the damper, placed a large storage tub underneath, and kept an old sheet close by to throw over the tub after the animal fell into the tub.  That was a good plan, but the animal in the chimney was not cooperative.  After a while, we gave up, closed the damper and went to bed.

This morning I gave it a new start with the open damper and a tub underneath.  Waiting, waiting, waiting, didn't work.  I heard some scratching around, so I got down on my knees and looked up the chimney.  A white face stared back.  Oh, shoot!  A possum!  So I freaked out a little and got a flashlight that revealed a heart-shaped white face of an owl.  Now how the heck did that happen.

Larry and I looked at each other, what else to do?  While we waited for the owl to drop down into the tub, I called everyone in Smyth County who might be able to get an owl out of a chimney.  I first called a chimney sweep.  Removing trapped owls was not in his job description, he claimed.  He suggested animal control.  I had to leave a message with the sheriff's office (whose dispatcher, when I explained what had happened, said, "Awwwwww!") for animal control to call me back.  Then I called the vet's office who referred me to either the fire department or the Department of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries.

The Department of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries was extremely interested and asked many detailed questions about the appearance of the bird.  What you have here, little lady, he said, is a barn owl.  Which, as it turns out, is not so common to see around here.  He needed to talk to the biologists and would call me back.  Then animal control called me back.

It sounded as though animal control was laughing a little, when he told me that this was not his usual call.  You need to call a guy, he said, named Darin Handy.  Darin is a certified wildlife rehabilitation specialist.  So I called Darin, who was really excited about the whole deal.  He came by this afternoon and proceeded to think through how to pull a barn owl out of our chimney.

It turns out that the way to do it is to have some heavy duty gloves and wear long sleeves.  Then you put an umbrella up the chimney and open it up to keep the owl from trying to fly up the chimney.  Then you reach in with your gloved hand and ever-so-gently pull the bird down by holding its talons because the claws are the business end of an owl.

The owl looks a lot bigger OUTSIDE the chimney!

It was much more complicated than I ever dreamed.  Darin put a towel over the owl's head while he examined the bird and determined that he was not injured or dehydrated.  He then began to reason through what to do with the owl.  He called other rehab specialists.  We all thought the owl came from the old apple barn down by Chestnut Ridge Road, so Darin's first stop would be to see if there was a nest close by where the owl's parents would be, for the owl was not quite an adult.  If Darin couldn't locate the nest, he would take the owl back to his shelter until he felt it was ready to be released, maybe this evening as it begins to get dark.

Darin told us that barn owls do not drop down on their prey as screech owls do, but they fly low to the ground as though searching a grid.  They can also see animal urine on the ground as a fluorescent so they know where prey is located.  They are the only owls that can do this.  Barn owls also have a piercing screech (which was demonstrated in our family room).  Darin explained that this flushes out prey when the owl is on the hunt.

The owl gets an exam before Darin gets him ready to be released.

Darin operates All Are God's Creatures Sanctuary in Marion, Virginia, for exotic animal rescue and wildlife rescue.  He knows more about barn owls than anyone else I've ever met, I think.  He does secular programs about animals as well as having a Biblical creation ministry, and his website is www.allareGodscreatures.com.

I am glad that this is a once in a lifetime experience.  I just hate when company "drops in" on you. 

The Case of the Disappearing Jigsaw Puzzle

In the post-Christmas lull with snow and temperatures below zero, I've looked for activities to fill in the space between our doctor appointments.  It's great being retired, right?

I finished the book that Katie gave me on my Kindle for Christmas.  I finished the antique book about a French Huguenot in Virginia in 1686 that Larry got me for Christmas.  I piddled from day to day on the jigsaw puzzle that Santa brought me for Christmas.  Actually, Larry bought it for me at the Amish store in Wytheville.

Puzzle-solving is a disappearing art today.  It takes some time to put the pieces together, and there is nothing electronic about it.  Just your problem-solving mind, patience, nimble fingers, and a lot of time.

Jigsaw puzzles are a lot like life. The first thing you must do in puzzle-solving is to find the edge pieces and set the boundary for the picture.  So it is in life also.  God has helped us by setting boundaries that will not only bring us closer to Him but enhance the abundance of our lives.  Each piece of the puzzle must be inspected, sometimes turning the piece around to see if it fits in a way we had not anticipated.  Many references to the picture on the front of the box will help you  look for specific colors and patterns.  The picture on the box is the guide that helps you find patterns in the 1,000 pieces and fit it all together, just as the Bible is the guide that adds structure and guidance to our lives.  As the pieces fall into place, things begin to go more quickly.  It's easier to place 25 pieces of the picture than 1,000 pieces.  As we grow older, some things become clearer as we look back and see how the pieces maybe should have fit together instead of the way we forced parts of the picture together.

And as happens sometimes in life, pieces go missing.  Some questions seem unanswerable no matter how long you ponder them.  As you can see in the photos of the puzzle, one piece right in the middle of the picture is missing.  Throughout the working of the puzzle, I occasionally searched the entire dining room for a piece.  I found one piece still inside the box.  Many pieces were found on the floor under the table.  I picked one piece out of the vacuum cleaner.  It was not unusual to find either me or Larry on our hands and knees crawling around the dining room looking for a piece of the picture.  When I was about to admit that the piece was just not there, I found it somewhere, either on the floor or sitting right in front of me, just turned the opposite way of which it should go.

I gave up on that piece in the middle.  I admitted that it had been eaten by the dog or thrown out in the trash.  It just was not there.  The evening that I finished the puzzle and told Larry that a piece was missing, he came downstairs and thoroughly searched the floor, the chairs, the candy bowl on the table, under the china cabinet, everywhere.  I just couldn't give up, though.  Every once in a while, I went in the dining room and looked up, down, over, and under, looking for that missing piece.  No luck.

This morning I considered that the morning light reflected off the snow cast a brighter light in the dining room, and I did a quick look around the table.  No puzzle piece.  So after I vacuumed the family room, I took the vacuum-cleaner back to its cubby hole in the dining room.  As I turned to leave, I looked down by the table leg next to the window.  And you know what happened.  I yelled to Larry, who came immediately and knew instantly why I was so excited.  Yes, there was the missing piece to the puzzle. 

The completed puzzle with ALL of the pieces.

Now, Larry has thought for some time that we have a ghost in our house.  (I'll not go into the reasons right now; that's a much longer story.)  I do not believe this.  But he thinks that this ghost was having a little fun with us by hiding the puzzle piece.  He says there is no way that we could have missed seeing that puzzle piece because it was so obvious lying there beside the table leg.  I say that it was stuck under the chair leg, stuck in the cushion of the chair, or hidden under some of the mess on our dining table, stuck to the wheel of the vacuum cleaner and picked this morning to fall out on the floor.  I could tell by the look in his eyes that he will never believe my more reasonable explanation of how the piece got down there on the floor by the table leg.

So ends the tale of the struggle of the puzzle with so many missing pieces.  Just when you think all is hopeless, that there is no way to put it all together, pieces are dropped right in your lap by some means that you are at odds to explain.  There's a lot of winter left for us to ponder where all those pieces have been.

Milestones

Today marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death.  Like many people, the most remarkable thing about his life was his death. 

If only I had a nickel for each time someone is compelled to share where they were when they heard he had died.  They were in school, at work, walking to the student union, cleaning the house, driving in the car.  The point is that we were everywhere carrying on our lives when it happened.  There is no new story here.  Where you were at the time is no more sacred or memorable than where I was at the time.  Since a great portion of the American population is younger than 50 years, most of Americans have absolutely no memory of where they were when it happened because they were not alive at the time. 

Someone wrote, "Rest in peace, John Kennedy."  It's been 50 years.  If he is not in peace by now, he is relegated for eternity to chaos and pain.  His story is written; he cannot undo anything in his life or his death.  It is final.

As for me, I can barely remember when this happened.  My long-term memory has never been good.  My mother chastised me when she insisted that I should remember certain things from 30 years ago.  But I didn't.  I know I was in an 8th grade math class when the announcement came over the loud speaker.  I know that my teacher in that class was Mrs. Morton.  I don't remember how she reacted.  We were out of school until after the funeral, and I watched the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and the funeral procession for Kennedy on our small black and white television. I remember that the country stopped everything.  That's about it.

 It was 50 years ago.  In the case of any other people who have been dead for 50 years, we somehow find the will to move on, to carry on our lives, to give up the grieving.  We lay them to rest and then go home to have a bite of something to eat. 

It's perfectly acceptable to move on from this thing.  Perhaps it's our own national psyche that needs to rest in peace. 

A Testimony about . . .a Ham?

Some think it's silly to expect God to intervene in the minutiae of everyday life.  It's ridiculous, they explain, to pray for a parking spot in a crowded garage.  Why would God care whether the rain holds off so we can finish mowing the back yard?  And yet, God cares for us infinitely.

Let me tell you what happened this week.  This weekend my daughter and son-in-law are coming home and bringing our precious one-month-old grandson.  I have prepared all week for this event, compiling and re-compiling the menu for our Sunday dinner when other family will also be at our home.  The center piece of this menu will be a great ham, roasted and juicy straight from the oven for Sunday lunch.

Early in the week during a visit to Food City, our local grocery store, I shopped for that ham.  Looking over the few hams in the meat department, I experienced severe sticker shock.  Forty dollars for a ham? I thought  there had to be a cheaper ham somewhere in Smyth County.  So I loaded up on Tuesday and went to Marion, which is home to several grocery stores.  But I found the situation to be much the same at the Ingle's Grocery in Marion.  Never one to give up easily, I stopped in at the Food Lion, a store in which I never shop.

I believe Food Lion had even fewer hams than the other stores, and their hams were just as expensive, if not more so.  At this point I began to feel a little less optimistic.  What about Kielbasa for lunch?  Everybody likes Kielbasa, right?

There was one more store in Marion:  Food City.  But I'd already been to Food City in Chilhowie.  Would this one be any different; they have mostly the same items at both stores.

I reluctantly pulled into the Food City parking lot.  Sitting in the car, I prayed a short prayer:  "God, help me find a ham.  If I can't find a ham in this store, show me what I should fix for lunch on Sunday."  Nothing fancy, no thee's or thou's, nothing holy.  Just, "God, help me."

I walked directly to the ham section.  All Food City stores are mostly the same, so I knew exactly where the hams would be.  They had several.  The prices did not take my breath away, so I rolled the lumpy chunks around to see what I could find.  The biggest cheap ham was a little over $23.  Not horrible.  Not $40.  Oh, but the freshness date was May 15.  Tomorrow.  But it was vacuum-wrapped.  Surely it would still be good by Sunday.  A store employee stood nearby, so I boldly pointed out to him that the ham's freshness was slowly expiring.  Could he offer me a discount on the ham?

He hesitated as he mentally processed my question.  "Yeah," he said.  "I can discount it for you.  Sure, it will still be good for this weekend."  He took the ham back into the meat department and returned quickly.  The price of the ham was now 99 cents per pound; the total cost was a little over $11!  I was so excited about the answer to my prayer that I hugged the man.  He laughed as I thanked him!

I do not believe in coincidences.  I do believe in reaching out to a loving God and trusting in his care.  God used the man in the grocery store to bless me and to teach me about how much God loves me.  I'm quite sure that if there had not been a ham for me in Food City, God would have shown me another way to prepare Sunday's meal, even if it turned out to be Kielbasa and kraut.  God is good, all the time.

And. . .It's Spring

It's been a gray week here in Lake Go-Be-One.  The sky was gray, the trees were gray, the grass was gray, the mud was gray.  The temperature held at a steady 42 degrees.  This has been the most dreary winter, and now spring, that I can remember, with precious few buds of anything.  The weather hasn't been exceptionally cold or hot; it has been one, long  slog of low-hanging clouds and endless mud.

Paul Farris has not tilled his garden, although he says he has the tomato seedlings started.  In a moment of ridiculous hope, I spaded the tomato patch beside the fence.  Yesterday snow fell on it, making the mud even yet stickier.  Typically the earliest leaves appear on the weeping willows, but this week their drooping, breezy branches hang in a sort of brown and gray desperate failure.

What spring should look like, but not this year.

The farmer down on Cherokee Lane was out spreading something on the winter grass this week; I hope it was fertilizer.  But the only tractors out and about have been the ones carrying hay to feed cattle mucking along in sludgy fields. Daffodil blossoms lie defeated in soggy grass, unable to  hold up their yellow heads.  Yes, they're blooming, but only in the strictly legal interpretation.

There is an old hymn, No. 227 in Heavenly Highway Hymns, a Choice Collection of Gospel Songs, both Old and New, Suitable for Religious Work and Worship, Shape Notes Only.  "Beautiful Isle" begins, "Somewhere the sun is shining, Somewhere the song birds dwell. . ."  Somewhere else, but not here.  Not at this time.

Too cold to work in the yard; too wet to plant lettuce, regardless of what the planting sign is; too cloudy to set pansies out in the pots.  Cows struggle in the mire left by daily rain and/or snow, unable to graze on the dun-colored grass.  This third week of spring continues absurdly gray and wet. 

Wait. What?  Never mind. The sun is out!

Missing Irma

She was the one who stayed home.  She went away, but she came back.  Her sisters moved far away from Rainelle, West Virginia, and stayed there.

Irma Belle Amick, about age three.

Except for some unhappy years spent in Richmond, Virginia, she lived in West Virginia.  It didn't matter to her that she didn't have much money; West Virginia was her home.  She was the queen of "make do with what you have."

My mother, Irma Belle Amick Tuck Ballengee, died 13 years ago on March 30, 2000.  I've thought of her a thousand times this week.  As my daughter nears the delivery date for her first child, I remember how my mom came to stay with me when Katie was born.  I don't remember her being as anxious as I have been.  To me, she was calm, cool and collected.  "Sometimes if you set them up and rub their back, it helps," she told me when Katie's crying would not be comforted.  It worked.  When I was a child, she was not always so calm, if the truth be told.

Irma Belle was born 13 November 1915 in Runa, Nicholas County, West Virginia.  Her parents were Irvin Starling Amick and Lelia Clingman Humphries Amick.  In August 2012 I wrote a blog about the family of Irvin and Lelia that has more details about their history, "Our Amicks in Modern Times".  http://secondchances-jbestep.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=Ke_5sz0BAAA.DZvkKGyVZC6s-l4lv93XQA.FBNZI1AIimrY63wGDddX5w&postId=767519147010026813&type=POST

Irma was the fourth of five children who grew up in the rolling farmland of Nicholas County.  On 25 April 1931 she married Charles George Tuck with whom she had three children:  Charles, Martha Jane, and Carol Ann.  Charlie Tuck worked in the mines in southern West Virginia, and the family lived in Beards Fork, East Rainelle, and other mining towns.  When work was scarce, they moved to the Newport News area where Charlie worked in the ship yard.

But things were not peaceful in the Tuck household, and it came to a point where Irma filed for divorce, which was finalized 10 October 1947 in Richmond, Virginia.  Irma and her children returned to Rainelle and lived with her parents.

Irma Amick Tuck and Red Ballengee.

She worked to support her family as a waitress and also as a clerk in the Men's Quality Store on Main Street.  A certain railroader began coming by the store every morning to help Irma work the crossword puzzle in the newspaper.  On 1 July 1949, Irma and Austin David (Red) Ballengee were married in Richmond, Virginia.

We lived a rather contented life in the Osborne Addition outside East Rainelle, my dad working on the railroad, my mom dragging the box springs outside to clean them every spring and cooking dinner after church every Sunday.  In those days women always wore dresses, even when cleaning house, and all meals were cooked at home.  It was exciting when we were driving home from church, and my dad just drove right on past the street to our house.  "What are you doing?" Mom would ask.  "Let's just go down to Thelma's and eat," Daddy would say.

One spring day Mom had all the windows open and was cleaning away in her bedroom at the front of the house.  A salesman saw the windows open and walked right up and called out to her.  It scared my mom so badly that she couldn't speak.  When the salesman made his pitch, she said, "Oh, no.  We couldn't buy anything.  He (my father) hasn't worked since the fiddle of Mebruary."  That story was told for years at our house.

Her sisters and their families came to visit from California, Arizona, Ohio, Texas,and North Carolina.  Cousins, nieces, and nephews came to visit.  Once Aunt Carrie brought the fixings for tacos in her suitcase from Phoenix, strange food indeed to eat in East Rainelle.  All our visitors seemed so successful, but they were really no more successful than we were, wearing our home-sewn dresses and eating our home-canned vegetables. Irma much preferred the comfort of making-do-with-what-you-have in the mountains of West Virginia.

My mother and me at Anthony's
Creek in Greenbrier Co., 1951.

My parents were married for only 21 years; my dad died 3 July 1970.  Then began the most difficult years that I can ever remember, for both my mother and me.

Before my dad's funeral, Mom went to the beauty salon to have her hair done.  The stylist pinned up Mom's dark hair in beautiful small curls at the back of her head.  For the rest of the summer, until I returned to college, once a week she sat in front of the dresser with the big round mirror while I pinned her hair up into those curls.  I never saw her wear her hair like that again.

I debated whether to return to college after my dad's death, but I did.  My mother's two friends, Merlene McClung and Zora Smith, drove us to Berea.  After depositing my things at the dorm, we ate lunch at a restaurant in the town.  As I stood on the street watching them drive away, my mom turned around in the back seat to take a last look at me.  She was facing a long, cold, lonely winter at home.

Irma resting after cooking Sunday dinner.

Somehow we made it through.  She was absolutely  joyous to find that Larry and I were going to have a baby.  When she came to help me after the birth, she plugged along like a trooper.  She took loads of wet wash up the stairs from the basement to hang the laundry on the clothes line.  Did I mention that she was 70 years old?  When I wanted to do things on my own, like giving Katie her first bath, she stood by to advise and support.  She never complained.  But she was always available anytime to come and sit with Katie while Larry and I worked.  They watched Batman on the little TV in Katie's room; she waited for the preschool bus from Westminster Presbyterian; she read the same books over and over; she made a doll who wore a dress that matched the one she made for Katie.

Irma Belle was devoted to Christ.  She did her best to instruct me in Christian ways, and now I can see that I should have heeded more of her instruction.  During the time that my dad worked at Charleston and was gone for a week at a time, she and I read the Bible and prayed every night before going to bed.  It was a little awkward for me at the time (I was a teenager, after all), but it makes a tender memory for me as I recall her devotion.

As we prepare for another new life in our family, I am sure that she (and my dad, too) would be elated to welcome little Lucas James.  I think of my mom and dad even more often now, thinking how nice it would be to have her here so that I could fix us lunch, maybe we would crochet baby blankets together.  But this was not to be.  She has been gone from us for 13 years; it hardly seems that long.

Irma Belle Ballengee, we miss you still.

Irma Ballengee in front of her
parents' house in East Rainelle.

A Tribute to James Estep

James Franklin Estep
in 1952

He was a man of a thousand stories.  When we visited him, the real business started after lunch was done and the dishes washed.  Situated in the family room in his recliner, James Franklin Estep carried forth with stories.  Boyhood stories, stories from his days as a police officer, coal mining stories.  There just seemed to be a never-ending fountain of stories. James Estep passed from us on February 19 at the age of 92.

There was a question about his age.  Records say that he was born 4 August 1920, which would make him 92.  But his real date of birth was 1921.  He said that he had a hard time getting a copy of his birth certificate because the house in Cannellton, WV, where he was born, sat directly on the county line.  Part of the house was in Fayette County and part was in Kanawha County.

Bill and James Estep (with hat).

James' parents were George Virgil Estep, a World War I veteran who was born in Eagle, Fayette County, on 17 August 1892, and Bessie Boyd Estep, born 28 March 1905, in Vanceburg, Kentucky.  He was their first child, born 10 months after their marriage which was on 2 October 1920.  Virgil was a red-headed coal miner who played short stop on a coal camp baseball team.  Reports are that he was quite good at baseball.  He loved the Cincinnati Reds and often took the express train from Charleston to Cincinnati on Friday to watch the Reds play all weekend.  He'd come home on Sunday night to go to work in the mines on Monday.  After he retired, Virgil was intense about the Reds games on television.  Bessie came in during a game once to tell him that she thought she was having a heart attack, and she needed to go the doctor.  Virgil said, "Wait until this inning is over."

James’ grandmother, Sarah Sally Cook Boyd, lived on a hill side in Cannelton.  She fixed “salt fish” for James when he was a child.  The fish came in 5 and 10 pound wooden tubs.  She bought the 5 pound tubs because she couldn't afford the 10 pound ones.  There was a spring up behind her house, and she would take the lid off the tub and set the salt fish in the spring for a few days which rinsed all the salt off the fish.  She fried the fish in lard, and the fish came out really crispy.  Virgil told James' mom, “Bessie, Sally is going to kill that boy if she keeps feeding him that fish.”  

James Franklin Estep

Bessie and Virgil lived in various coal camps around southern West Virginia.  They had three more sons:  William Edward, born 9 March 1924 in Cannellton; Thomas Vernon, born 31 December 1927 in Dankwood; and Robert Quintin, born in 1933 in Elkridge.  Bessie became a mid-wife and traveled with Dr. Davis around Elkridge and Powellton when he was called to deliver a baby.  She could be called away at any time, day or night, so she taught James how to cook.  He became the care giver for the younger boys.

James Estep and Mr. Carl Armstrong,
taken behind the company store at
Elkridge, which was earlier known as
Armstrong Creek.

It wasn't long before James was working in the mines beside his dad.  When he was 16 years old, he sold powder at the company store for Koppers Coal Company in Elkridge.  He started hand-loading coal in 1937 for 30 cents a ton in six-ton cars.  "I was on one side, and Dad (Virgil) was on the other," he once said.  He was never without a job after that.  He said, "They used to say we had three meals a day:  corn meal, oatmeal, and miss a meal."

In May 1940 the census reported that James worked as a "salesman" at a pool room.  During the week of March 24-30, 1940, he worked 75 hours.  His dad, up to March 30, 1940, had been unemployed for 12 weeks.  In 1939, James had worked 44 weeks for which he was paid $386; his dad had worked 28 weeks and earned $800.  The family rented a house in Smithers for $15 per month; in 1935 they had lived in Fayette County.  James was listed as 18 years old (making his birth year 1921) and had completed the eighth grade in school.

Helen and James Estep

Around this time James went to work in the mines near Rossmore in Logan County.  He happened to notice a young, dark-haired woman walking by his boarding house on her way home from church.  I imagine it didn't take him long to strike up a conversation with Helen Nagy, the daughter of Bill and Mary Kvitka Nemeth Nagy.  I don't know where you could go in Rossmore on a date, but James said he would buy a bunch of hot dogs and take them over to the Nagys' house for all of them to eat.  Word is that James and Helen were quite good dancers, so maybe they passed their time dancing to swing music.

James and Helen Nagy were married in Logan County 21 November 1941 which was the day before Thanksgiving.  They went to the court house to get a marriage license on November 19 http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=10222718&Type=Marriage, and Bill Nagy, Helen’s dad, went with them because she was only 17 years old.  James borrowed a car, and they went to the preacher’s house (J. G. McNeely, who was also the county clerk) where they were married.  James asked the preacher how much he owed, and the preacher said most people gave him $2, so James gave him $5.  They spent their first married days with Virgil and Bessie Estep.  

James in his work clothes in the back yard at Crichton.

In 1942 James and Helen moved to Quinwood where James worked for the Imperial Smokeless Coal Company as a day laborer underground.  He was the leader of the local union which led to some disagreements with the mine superintendent at the time, so James left there and went to Logan to work. He was charged $84 to move. When the Imperial Smokeless mine superintendent left Quinwood, James came back to Quinwood to work. He went to the same man who moved him to Logan to see how much it would cost to move back. He said, “Nothing. That first price was for round-trip, because I knew you’d be back.”

When James called Quinwood to see about coming back to work, they told him he could start on Monday, so until the family could move back to Quinwood, he stayed at the Club House in Quinwood and paid for room and board.  The price of room & board included a packed lunch every day, which usually consisted of a peanut butter sandwich with lettuce on it.  No coffee or anything else.  Each man picked up his bag lunch as he went out the door.  One man threw his lunch away after he got out the door and went up to Zerze’s and bought two hot dogs to take for his lunch.

James Estep in his role as police officer of
Quinwood with unidentified men.

For dinner the men sat six to a table, and they were given one piece of meat each, so at each table there would be six pork chops or steaks or whatever they were having served.  At the time a tunnel was being built near there, and there were “sand hogs” (men who worked digging the tunnel) staying at the club house.  James said that one of the men was huge, “six inches between his eyes”.

A club house resident, Dick Fain, was sitting at this sand hog’s table one evening when the pork chops were brought out.  The sand hog reached over and took all six pork chops.  Dick Fain said, “You son of a bitch.  We each get a pork chop.  Those are for all of us,” and the sand hog stood up, showing his full size.  He said, “What did you say?” 

“Nothing,” said Fain, “I don’t even like pork chops.”

James and Helen at Christmas with Gale Kerns, their
son-in-law who was a POW in Vietnam.

James continued working in Quinwood, becoming a section boss in 1949 and receiving his mine foreman's certificate in 1953.  At first the family lived in an apartment over the company store but moved to a house in Marfrance with their growing family:  Patricia Ann, born 1942; Rebecca Lou, born 1945; James Larry, born 1948, and Gary Franklin, born 1951. After the family bought a house in Crichton, the family was completed with Thomas Vernon, born in 1956, and Christine Elizabeth, born in 1966.  

James was a member of the original Imperial Smokeless Mine Safety Team.  On 28 October 1958 he participated with the team during the recovery operation after the explosion at the Richwood Sewell Burton Mine near Craigsville.  The Spring 2010 Goldenseal magazine published an account of the safety team http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/Spring10/Mine.html .  

Still cooking!

James worked a second part-time job as police officer for the town of Quinwood.  Route 20 from Charmco to Quinwood used to be a one-lane road that followed the creek from Quinwood down through Leslie and Bellburn.  In winter when the snow was deep, it might be impossible to get to Rainelle for several days because there was no modern equipment to remove the snow.  The current two-lane asphalt road was built about 1956.  When James was working part-time as the town police officer, a man committed suicide.  James said the man’s body lay in bed covered up with a blanket for two days because the ambulance couldn't get up the hill from Charmco because of the snow.  He said that public drunkenness was a major problem in Quinwood which was home to around 3,000 coal miners.  The town had seven beer joints, a movie theater, two barbershops, and many other stores. 

A cousin, Jean Plassard, who lives in Ohio, remembered that when they came to visit, James killed a chicken for Helen to fix for supper.  My husband, Larry, said he remembered that when Jean and her family came to visit, they called saying they were lost.  Larry rode his bicycle from Crichton to Leslie and waited for them.  Riding his bicycle, he led the car to the house in Crichton. After James died, Jean's son showed her a $2 bill in his wallet that James had given him when they visited.   

James and Helen at their 50th Wedding Anniversary
dinner.

James and his grandson,
Carson.

Years passed.  Children graduated and married.  Grandchildren were born.  James stayed involved with the Masons and Shrine organization and continued working in the mine.  Christmases were celebrated, and flowers were taken to cemeteries for those who passed from the family.  There was a son-in-law who was a POW in Vietnam.  Eleven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren were born.  A grandson was killed in a plane crash.  Thousands of biscuits were baked, and gallons of gravy cooked.  James retired in 1982, and he and Helen spent the remainder of their lives at the house in the coal camp of Crichton.  He occupied his time by serving with the Quinwood Volunteer Fire Department Board and on the Public Service District Board for water and sewer services.  But Helen became ill and required constant care.  James took care of her at home, managing home health care visits, medicine, and personal care.  He cooked chicken and dumplings. On 21 November 2011, they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.  He stayed by her side until she died 8 February 2012.  Last week his broken heart could take no more. 

Sometimes people we love leave little surprises after they're gone.  When my husband, Larry, got in James' car to drive it, he turned on the CD player.  The last song to which James was listening?  Dolly Parton singing Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.  Amen.