The Early Years

This is a picture of (left to right): Nettie, Frank and Christine. I must have been about six, Nettie about four and Frank about two.

Growing up in a coal mining town was all we knew. We didn't know just how poor we were until we grew up. Daddy always made sure there was plenty to eat. He grew a big garden. We had beans, potatoes, hanovers, turnips, onions,cabbages, corn, buckwheat and other vegetables in the summer months. He always buried the vegetable in the winter and, everytime it would come a thaw, he would dig some more for us to eat. We always run out of potatoes before the next thaw because we ate a lot of them. Then we just had a pot of beans and maybe some cornbread; but we mostly had buckwheat cakes with our beans. I grew to hate buckwheat, but I still love cornbread and I still love a good pot of beans. Daddy always killed three (3) hogs and bought a quarter of beef every fall.

After Mom died, Water and James did most of the cooking. After they left, I did most of the cooking. I was only seven (7) when Mommy died, but I was all there was. I would come home from school and start a pot of beans cooking on the coal stove. Sometimes it was as late as 10:00p.m. before we could eat dinner. If one of us stayed home from school, we just prayed they would cook a pot of beans. Sometimes I would cook a pot of beef and put onions and potatoes in it. I used to think that was a really good dinner. If dinner wasn't on the table when Daddy walked in the door...I was punished. I remember once I was just setting the table when he walked in. He hit me so hard I hit the wall. He was a very hard man. He figured he worked hard all day, the least us kids could do was to have his meal ready when he came in. I was the cook. The boys worked in the field and he took Nettie with them.

Our house was just a coal mining house. There were cracks in the walls and no curtains at the windows. Daddy didn't believe in keeping a nice house. It was functional only. In the kitchen we had a table and chairs and a cupboard for dishes. Even the dishes were functional. Just enough to eat off of. We had plates but we didn't have bowls or cups. We drank out of pint canning jars left over from when Mommy was alive. There were forks, knives, and spoons. We had two rooms used for bedrooms when we lived in Marfrance and three bedrooms when we lived in Blue Sulpher. Nettie and I slept in one room and the boys in the other and Frank slept with Daddy. Daddy bought me and Nettie trunks for our clothes. He was always talking about buying us a bureau (He pronounced it "bewrow"), but he never did. The beds were also functional, metal springs with a little thin mattress on top. If we wanted to sit and visit, we sat on the chairs pulled into a circle. I remember when I got married Zell (my husband) asked Daddy if he should buy a bedroom set for us. Of course Daddy said it was a waste of money and he didn't see why we needed one, so Zell didn't buy it until we had been married three (3) years.

James used to tell his kids that we didn't have combs and we used forks to comb our hair. He was right. We did have a comb but Watler said he was sure Daddy hid it from us. Maybe he thought we didn't deserve it because we might have left it laying around. I'll never be sure. But one thing is for sure, we used forks to comb our hair, washed them, and ate with them later on.

After I married and left home, Daddy was sorry he let me get married. There was no one to take care of Nettie and Frank and cook for him. Aunt Bessie moved and Daddy sent Nettie to live with her. When she turned fourteen she came to live with me. Frank went to live with Dewey and ended up living with me too.