Uncle Buster Facilitates our Move to West Virginia

We had been liv­ing on the moun­tain for about four years when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The Nation was at war. The coal indus­try was booming.

Dad and his broth­er Buster decid­ed to go to West Virginia and seek work in a big cor­po­rate mine. They were tired of work­ing in local push and grunt oper­a­tions for pover­ty wages.

They found jobs with a big U. S. Steel mine in Gary, West Virginia. They also found room and board.  Buster owned a car, so they came home about once a month.

Mommy and the eight kids stayed home on the hill­side farm and held things togeth­er as best we could. Our moth­er was mar­ried at age four­teen. She had nine chil­dren before she was thir­ty-five. We called her mommy.

Dad wasn’t much of a com­mu­ni­ca­tor. He sent mon­ey reg­u­lar­ly — he would put bills in a plain enve­lope and mail it. He nev­er includ­ed a let­ter with the mon­ey. We didn’t know when he would send mon­ey or how much to expect. I don’t know how much he sent, but I imag­ine we got all of it.

One day we got a note stuffed in with the mon­ey. The note said, “When I find a house, we will move.” There was no men­tion of when or how we would move.

It was ear­ly evening in late March. School was fin­ished for the year. (School was only sev­en months in our area, as the kids were need­ed in spring and fall for farm labor.)

All of us kids except the six-month-old baby were recov­er­ing from the mumps; we still showed swelling in our jaws and throats.

We were sit­ting around the fire in the grate in the living/bedroom, get­ting ready for bed. Mommy was study­ing the Sears cat­a­log by the kerosene lamp. She got all of our clothes from Sears except the ones she made. 

We heard a loud noise over at the gap that sound­ed like a large machine. The gap was about a mile around the side of the moun­tain from our house but was easy to hear and see the gap across the hollow.

We could see from the back porch that it was a large vehi­cle with lots of lights attempt­ing to turn in the nar­row gap. The WPA (Works Progress Administration) had built the dirt road to the top of the moun­tain dur­ing the depres­sion. All WPA work was stopped abrupt­ly when the war start­ed. They hadn’t had a chance to build a turn­ing place or build the road down the oth­er side of the moun­tain. My dad and the neigh­bors had built a small turn­ing place for cars. To turn a big truck there was quite a task, but they final­ly got it turned.

In a lit­tle while, we heard a knock at the door.

I was the only one with shoes on so mom­my told me to answer the door.

I opened the door, and there was a big man stand­ing on the porch. I slammed the door and ran to mommy.

 “They’s a big strange man at the door,” I said.

“They ain’t no strangers goin to be com­min’ here at night,” she said.

“Well, they’s one at the door,” I said.

Mommy got up and went to the door.

By this time, Uncle Buster had arrived. He was stand­ing on the porch behind the man.

Buster said, “Are you ready to move?”

Mommy said, “Buster, how could we be ready to move when we ain’t heard noth­in’ about it? We didn’t know you wuz comin’.” We ain’t got noth­in’ packed up, and all the young’uns except the baby are all swole up with the mumps. They won’t let them ride on a bus or train.”

Buster said, “Walker sent me to move you. He’s got a fine house rent­ed with run­nin’ water and a bath­room. With elec­tric and ever thang. We’ll fig­ure out what to do about the mumps lat­er. Buster and the mov­ing man went down to the foot of the moun­tain to grandpa’s and spent the remain­der of the night there.

Having no idea what to do or how to do it, we went to bed.

I was nine years old at the time. I don’t remem­ber much about the logis­tics of wrap­ping things up. I am sure Buster made arrange­ments to have the live­stock tak­en care of.

At day­break the next morn­ing, Buster and the dri­ver showed up with grand­pa and my uncles, Bill and Noah. They brought mules and sleds to move our belong­ings out to the gap. I don’t know how dad talked Buster into tak­ing the mov­ing job.

Buster was illit­er­ate, so he was a poor can­di­date to take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of mov­ing our moth­er and sev­en kids.

They loaded our old beat-up fur­ni­ture on sleds and hauled it on the mud­dy sled road around the moun­tain to the gap and loaded it on the struck. We didn’t have much of val­ue, so they couldn’t make it any worse than it was.

Buster said, “we’ve got to do some­thing to hide the mumps.”

The boys had waist-length jack­ets and those lit­tle avi­a­tor caps with gog­gles and straps that buck­led under the chin.

The girls had long coats with pom-poms that tied under the chin.

Buster had us put our coats on and but­ton them to our chins and buck­le our caps under our chins.

He had the girls do the same with their coats and caps.

He admon­ished us, “Don’t unbut­ton your coats or caps at any time. If they see you’re all swole up with mumps, they won’t let you on the bus or train.”

It was decid­ed that Mommy and the baby would ride in the mov­ing van with the dri­ver, and Buster would take the young’uns on pub­lic transportation.

Buster and sev­en sib­lings set out on our jour­ney to West Virginia. Buster being total­ly illit­er­ate. None of us ever hav­ing been more than five miles from home. We were dressed as if we were going to Aspen on a ski outing.

There was light frost when we began the five-mile walk to the mouth of the creek. We would catch the Greyhound bus to Pikeville at U.S. 23.

We wait­ed for the bus in front of the Standard Oil sta­tion by the high­way. As the sun peeked over the ridge, the bus came, and Buster flagged it down. We board­ed, and Buster paid the fare to the driver.

We arrived in Pikeville, and Buster took us to break­fast at a lit­tle hole-in-the-wall restau­rant. Eating in a restau­rant was a new and strange expe­ri­ence for us. Buster ordered for us, and we qui­et­ly ate what the wait­ress brought.

We went to the Greyhound sta­tion and board­ed a bus for Williamson, West Virginia. We would catch a train from Williamson to Welch, where dad was to meet us.

When we arrived in Williamson, it was near noon, and the sun was bright. The day was get­ting pret­ty warm. We were sweat­ing in our cos­tumes but afraid to unbut­ton them. We were prob­a­bly begin­ning to smell pret­ty ripe, too.

Buster herd­ed us three blocks from the bus sta­tion to the train sta­tion. We went into the sta­tion and found seats togeth­er on a long bench.

After we set­tled in, Buster said, “Edna, watch these kids a while; I’m as dry as a pop­corn fart. I am going around the cor­ner to that lit­tle bar we passed and get a beer.”

Buster was illit­er­ate, but he could deci­pher a beer sign.

We were sit­ting in the train sta­tion, hot and sweat­ing, when Ed start­ed to cry.

Edna said, “what’s the mat­ter with you, Ed”?

“I have to go to the toi­let,” he cried.

Edna looked at me and said, “take him back to the toilet.”

The only toi­let I was famil­iar with was a two-holer out­house with a burlap sack for a door and a Sears cat­a­log. I had seen the toi­let in the Pikeville bus sta­tion, so I knew what to look for. I took Ed back to where the restrooms were and found the toilet.

Not being famil­iar with mod­ern plumb­ing, I didn’t real­ize that the seat was up. I saw the porce­lain toi­let and knew he couldn’t sit on it with­out falling in. Ed was wear­ing a pair of worn-out ten­nis shoes with soles as slick as ice.

I told him to get up on the toi­let like a chick­en on the roost. He dropped his pants and got on the porce­lain with his slick shoes. As soon as he start­ed to let it go, his feet slipped off of the slick bowl, and he fell in his own offal.

Ed was cry­ing as loud as he could when I pulled him out of the toilet.

There were two ladies loi­ter­ing out­side the ladies’ toi­let. They brought all of the toi­let paper they could find. I took all there was in the men’s toi­let, and between the three of us, we cleaned him up as good as we could. He was far from san­i­tary, but he had stopped crying.

But he smelled strong.

I took Ed back into the sta­tion to our seats. The peo­ple who were sit­ting near us sud­den­ly had urgent busi­ness else­where in the sta­tion. We sud­den­ly had most of the sta­tion to ourselves.

We heard the train whis­tle as it approached the sta­tion. Buster came run­ning in and said, “Is that the train for Welch?” The sta­tion mas­ter said it was, so we boarded.

We found seats near the front of the car. In addi­tion to Ed’s aro­ma, we were all sweat­ing and stink­ing, and Buster smelled like a beer gar­den. The peo­ple near us decid­ed that had impor­tant busi­ness some­where else on the train.

The train got under­way, and the con­duc­tor came to col­lect tick­ets. He wrin­kled his nose and pulled his ban­dana, and wiped his brow. “Tickets, please,” he said.

Buster hadn’t real­ized that we were sup­posed to buy tick­ets at the sta­tion. Buster said, “I thought we would just pay you.”

Fortunately, it was allowed to pay the con­duc­tor since the train stopped at places with no tick­et agent. The con­duc­tor asked, “How many of you are there?”

Buster said, “There they are … count ‘em.”

The con­duc­tor count­ed us and said, “Those under six are free, those between six and twelve are half price, and those over twelve are full price.”

Buster looked at sev­en­teen-year-old Edna and said, “Me and her is over twelve. The oth­ers is under six.”

The con­duc­tor raised his eye­brows and shook his head. Buster got the mes­sage and declared a cou­ple more of us to be over six. The con­duc­tor was anx­ious to get away, so he accept­ed the count, col­lect­ed the mon­ey, and hur­ried away — shak­ing his head.

The remain­der of the train ride was uneventful.

More about our adven­tures in West Virginia later.