My Dad-John Lackey

Daddy was born March 25, 1869, in Franklin County, Virginia (as close as we can come). His parents are: John Lackey and Sarah Life. This we took out of his family Bible. Some of the older kids say Daddy had the middle name of "Dewey". I could never prove that. He died on April 29, 1954; just three weeks before my second living daughter was born. He is burried in Clintonville, Greenbrier County, West Virginia.

He never talked much about his family. Hated them all. He used to tell us, "See this hand? My mother's was twice as big." He had a sister named Ruth or Ruthie as he would call her. She used to do things and blame it on him. His mother would spank him for it (or so he told us).

We were in Daddy's second family. He had older children than us. Our mom was his second wife. His first wife was Oateller Elizabeth Gillispie. They had six children: Charles Edward Lackey, born: April 29, 1894; Anna Lee Lackey, born: May 6, 1896; John Dewey Lackey, born: November 24, 1899; Bessie E. Lackey, born June 21 (I don't know the year, I think it is 1901); Thomas Harry Lackey, born: May 21 (again, I don't know the year but think it is 1903); and General R. Lackey, born March 1, 1905. General died in 1921 at the age of 16.

I grew up knowing the other kids, though they were all gone from home when I was born. Annie, Dewey, Bessie, and Harry were all a part of our lives. Edward left home and I never saw him again. Harry never married and never had children. When I was pregnant with my last child he begged me to name it Harry if it was a boy. I hated that name, but my only living son ended up with the name of Gregory Harry Williams. Harry often came to our house and ate Sunday dinner with us. Annie died when I was twenty-two years old. She was a real sweetheart and I loved to visit her. I was able to visit with Bessie and her family and learned a lot about cooking from her.

Daddy raised his first family in Virginia in their early years. Daddy worked in a coal mine there. When he moved to West Virginia he continued to work in the coal mines until he turned seventy (70) years old. The mine owners made him retire because they were afraid he would get hurt. He always said he knew more about setting posts than any of the young men working there. General was killed in the mine in an accident. He wasn't even working there. He came to the coal mines with Daddy and Dewey to help carry out tools. Daddy said that General told them the slate above them was cracking. They looked up and couldn't seen where and told him so. General was standing between them and the large piece of slate fell on him missing them. Daddy said that if he hadn't been so scared he could never have lifted the slate off of General, it was that big. Daddy always blamed himself for General's death.

It was really hard to find any trace of the family in Virginia. One day my daughter was looking through the geneology archives and found them in Virginia. Daddy had changed all their names when he moved to West Virginia.

With Cora Mae, Daddy had eight children: Nellie Gray Lackey, born: August 8, 1921; Mollie Frances Lackey, born: August 14, 1923; Walter Lackey, born: January 5, 1925; James Marshal Lackey, born June 6, 1927; Elizabeth Christine Lackey, born: April 1, 1930; Nettie Mae Lackey, born: November 5, 1932; Franklin Deleano Lackey, born: May 13, 1934; and Isaac Green Lackey, born: December 22, 1935. Issac died in July of 1936. Daddy lost both of his youngest sons.

I do have good memories of my dad. He loved to sing and play the fiddle and the banjo. When President Wilson was running for the Presidency I can remember him singing:

Mary went up the Maple swamp
Wilkie went up the ditches
Mary pulled up her petticoat
Wilkie pulled down his britches

Another song he made up about a man he didn't like that lived in the coal camp was:

Old Joe Clark is dead!
Last words he said is,
"Give me some homebrew and cornbread".

Ok, there is just no other way to say this. Daddy had two children by my mother's sister, Aunt Liddie. Her name is Liddia Ford. Grandma used to have her come visit and Daddy had his way with her. What the circumstances were, I do not know. I just know it resulted in two innocent children being born and they have paid the price for his sins. Margaret Agusta Ford born, March 2, 1926, and Bonnie Fae, born July 1930; I am three months older than Bonnie. Daddy always knew the girls were his, he just didn't take responsibility for them. When Margaret was little she stayed with us a lot. When she got older, Daddy would not let her come to the house. I remember when she was about 13 she came to visit and Daddy told her to leave. He told her, "You come one step closer across that creek and I will stomp the Hell out of you."

Daddy was good to us when we were little, but wanted nothing to do with us when we got to be teenagers. He expected us to marry and leave home so he wouldn't have to feel responsible for us.

My Mom-Cora Mae Ford

I was only seven when Mom died. I don't have a lot of memories of her. I do remember her being sick. She asked me to go get her a lump of coal for the stove and told me she would give me a piece of candy. I was just little and I really wanted that candy. I went outside and brough the coal in for her. She put it in the stove and didn't give me the candy. I said, "Can I have my candy now, Mommy?" She gave me the candy. Then she turned to me and said, "I bet the little boy down the street does things for his mommy without taking her candy away from her."

I have a picture of my mom sitting in a chair on the front porch holding a baby. For years I thought it was one of my older brothers. One day I was sitting looking at that picture and my mom's voice came back to me. I could hear her saying, "Christine, that's you in this picture." I'm sure it is. Daddy was in prison when I was born and I think she had the picture made to send to him so he could see me. I love looking at that picture and thinking of her.

Mom was born May 25, 1900, in Damascus, Virginia, right on the Tennessee boarder. She was the daughter of William Franklin Ford and Molly or Mary Sells. The story is told that Molly was a young Indian girl given to a white family to raise during the Trail of Tears. So many women and children were killed during that time. We've never been able to prove that. Her hair was so long she could sit on it. I remember her sitting on a chair and letting me brush it. I loved to brush her hair. Mom always braided her hair and twisted it into a bun in the back of her head. She said that is the way women in her Native American family wore their hair. Mom was a beautiful woman. I'll never understand why she married Daddy. He was 31 years older than her. Her family hated him with a passion. I never knew why.

I remember Mommy stirring a cake up and me standing on a chair beside her. After she dumped it into the pan, she let me take my finger and clean the rest of the cake batter out of the bowl. One Sunday at dinner time, a friend of the boys, Lee Powers, was eating with us. He told Mommy, "Ms. Lackey, these are awful good green beans." Mommy was a good cook.

Mom died in 1937, in January or February. She was thirty-seven (37) years old. She died of pneumonia. Looking back I'm sure she had heart problems. Maybe congestive heart failure. The doctors thought she had tuberculosis and made all of us get shots for it. They did the shot on the bottom of our arm and we had to get tested for it. None of us had it. Molley says that is why she doesn't think Mommy had it.

The day she died, Water and James didn't want to go to school because she was worse. Nettie and Frank were to little to go to school. The lady, Myrtle, staying with us taking care of Mommy gave me a milk bottle to take to school to buy my lunch with. You got a dime for a bottle back then. I bought a cake and a pop for my lunch. James and Walter came to school later in the day. Myrtle was a black woman and and we really loved her. She stayed with us for awhile after Mommy died. I have often wondered what happened to her. Old Dad Shannon (Myrtle's boyfriend) came to school and told the principal to send us home. We knew it was him because we saw him ahead of us walking down the railroad track ahead of us.

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.

The Beginning

Elizabeth Christine Lackey: Born April 1, 1930, in the hills of West Virginia in the city of Marfrance, Greenbrier County. Born to Cora Mae Ford and John Lackey. My daddy was in prison when I was born (not jail, prison). He was put away for running moonshine and served time in the Alanta, Georgia prison. When he came home, I was two. It will always be stamped into my memory. I didn't know him, he was a stranger. I was maybe three when he took me on his lap and asked me if I was his girl. He asked this over and over. I just smiled up at him. Mommy had told me that this big stranger was daddy. I knew what that word was...daddy...someone who would love me and take care of me...someone for me to love. Yet, I just smiled up at him. I was to shy to talk to him, yet. He hadn't been around very long. That wasn't enough for him, no way. When I didn't say yes, that I was his girl, he spanked me hard. I remember this spanking because I didn't have on any panties. There was a black girl (Her last name was Wells. I don't remember her first name.) standing in the doorway and she saw my naked bottom. She had been visiting with Molly since they were good friends This was my introduction to men. If you don't do what they ask, just the way they want it done, you get hurt!

Introduction

This year it is my goal to write about my mom's life. She has had a very hard life in her 80 years of living. Maybe not so much as you see it on the surface and compared to others living during the times and area of her life. There is much that can be learned from her. I would really like to tell the "real" story, but somehow know that she would never allow that to happen while she is alive. I find her life to be full of interest and survival. Yes, survival! I don't know that I would still be a sane person if I'd had to endure all that she and her siblings had to endure. Although I know that others have endured worse, this is my mom we're talking about. The lose of a mother at a very young age, seven; An abusive father; A husband that didn't know how to be a husband; The lose of many of her children, six to be exact; and the underlying story that goes with each event. I would love to really tell the stories that go with each segment of her life, but I know she would never allow that. So, it is my hope to let the readers tell the story in their own lives. You fill in the blanks. Let your minds wonder down the road of life starting 80 years ago in the Hills of West Virginia. Many became lost in those hills. That is why they moved there in the first place. To become lost amongst the thickness of the trees. If you've ever driven down the back roads of West Virginia you know just what I mean. You aren't really sure there are houses there amongst them trees. You just have to have the sense that something exists out there. If you don't believe me, just ask my children.