Tribute To The Coal Miners in My Appalachian Family

Well....I have one post about Coal and said that's all I'd ever do. But with the Don Blankenship indictment and trial on the news it's brought back some memories, stories and issues that we just deal with everyday. It's as if we are going backward.

Massey has already produced a video on You Tube about the Upper Big Branch mining disaster saying everything from it was a natural gas explosion, (which if it was, their equipment was screwed up there too) to MSHA is incompetent to oversee mining regulations in operations, to attacking the personal lives of people involved in the indictments. You can go find it. I'm not even giving space for what my union family members would call, "company sucks".  Instead read this Don Blankenship Indictment then go find the video and form your own opinion.

I say prayers every day for those of my family and friends that still work in the coal mining industry. I'm telling you....the mining industry today reminds me SO MUCH of some of the stories of struggle of the past. Thought we fought that war but then so many are non-union. Got so mad at the propaganda video some elderly feller saying miners won't work in unsafe conditions...they just demand and walk out. He's so out of date. He's remembering a time when there was a union to back them. Today....that just gets you pink slip.

With so few mining jobs, (read my other post on Coal here. It's not the EPA that did it), competition is so fierce for those few jobs left it's like the union fights never existed. Just ask anyone even just driving a coal truck. The wages have dropped down so bad, especially for a job that is as dangerous as a cocked pistol being put in a clothes dryer. It's a shame.

That's not to say all mine operations are bad. We KNOW how to mine coal and do it safely for miners. The push for profits over miners safety has always been a problem though. Those companies that cut corners make it hard for companies that play by the rules to compete.

Anyway, I thought it would be amiss if I didn't do at least one post to honor some of my kinfolk.

Now mind you....most of my kinfolk and my feller Ed's kinfolk were mountain people. If you ever saw the movie Matewan and the hill folk come out to stop the Baldwin-Felts detectives from causing trouble in a miner's camp with Civil War era guns? That's mostly what our kin people were. They had lived in these mountains for generations without coal mining. Many didn't find it necessary to go down in a dark hole to make a living.

But Uncle Sid and Uncle Otis Perdue represent two that were in the mining industry and like so many of my family that were...died young.

Uncle Sid and Otis Perdue were brothers. Two of the 13 children of Felix and Araminta "Minnie" Kitts Perdue. Sid and Otis Perdue's grandparents, John Perdue and Fannie Van Wooten Perdue, hailed from Wilkes County, North Carolina. John changed his name from Pardue to Perdue when he moved north after the Civil War. We are not exactly sure why. He served in the Confederacy with the 2nd North Carolina infantry and his brother Phillip died at Gettysburg.

Fannie Van Wooten Perdue would be living down the road with her son William in McDowell County, WV when she died in 1923. Felix Perdue, their father was a farm laborer. Sid and Otis mother, Minnie Kitts Perdue, was from Burkes Garden, Virginia.  I wrote about her father John David Kitts on another post.

Uncle Sid who was born December 25th 1900, moved to McDowell County at a young age and started mining in his teens. My mother said she thought he was 13 or 14 and that he told stories of being in the miner's fight at Blair Mountain in 1921. For those of you that don't know what the Battle of Blair Mountain is here is a You tube video with a bit of background. Both Uncle Sid and Uncle Otis were what my mother called, "staunch Union men".



I always think of Uncle Sid when I hear this song by Hazel Dickens.


Uncle Sidney died in 1944 at the age of 44 of a heart attack. Momma said that was one way of looking at it, but he had "miner's pneumonia" or Black Lung also. My mother said she remembered visiting their family in McDowell County and him coming home from work, getting into a coughing fit and not being able to breath just before he died.

Uncle Otis was much younger. He died in 1936 at the age of 23. He also started out in the mines at a young age but had got out of the mines underground to drive a coal truck. But not before he was struck with Black Lung. My mother was present when he died at my Great Grandparents, Stewart and Flora Mae Perdue Burress's house in Bluefield and gave an account of his death on some recordings I have of her telling the story. I will try to isolate it and make a video later to post here.

His death certificate called it "Labor pneumonia".

Black Lung is still a problem for anyone who mines or hauls coal today. Sad stories of men who have suffered with it. That stuff in your lungs will kill you and it will definitely mess up a washing machine when you clean their clothes.
Here is Hazel Dickens singing a song as a tribute to her brother who suffered and died with black lung disease.

Coal in Appalachia - The Devil's Blood

Someone asked me if I was going to write a post about Coal. Can't have a blog about Appalachia and not have something about coal they said. Well.....I have some graves of some kinfolk who died in the mines. A post with their death certificate and grave? Others who lived but suffered from black lung. Pictures of their bodies wrecked with coal dust? That's not much to write about...too sad to write about.

I'm not too big a fan of coal even though I like electricity and family members had a job because of it. I am a fan of coal miners. I honor the men and women who went into the dark, deep ground to mine it. I honor the railroad workers that handled huge machinery on steep mountain tracks to haul it.  I even honor those today who have to work on removal sites slicker than whale blubber smeared a foot deep in steep mountain passes......but to me, it is the Devil's blood.

In the early 1900s it is said there were half a million miners in this country with most of them in Appalachia. Today, they say it's about 90,000 nationwide. Because of technology, those 90,000 can mine more today than they did 100 years ago. The decline in employment in the industry has more to do with how we mine it than EPA. Same with the railroad industry. They found a way to run a train without a caboose. Overnight half the railroad jobs were wiped out.

But our memories of a lot of people employed in the industry seem to be holding us back from development of new economic industries. It really is an industry that is dying. More coal mines are still concentrated here,  so they say the decline in the industry is because it's a "War on Coal" which is really not so true. It's just times are changing and it's really a matter of whether we have the courage in Appalachia to change with it sooner rather than later. Stop putting all our eggs in a coal bucket.

So instead of writing much, I went to You Tube and found a few songs about coal that represent what I think about it. It's all I will ever write about coal. If ever there was a time we need to focus on diversity in our economy in Appalachia...that time is NOW!

Kathy Mattea video says it best.


Another by Patty Loveless
 


Long brutal history we have with coal.

Appalachia is changing...AGAIN! From the days we were the breadbasket of the lowland south before the Civil War, to the logging of our trees, to the coal boom. We have to find other ways to develop our economy once again.

Here is the new way to mine coal today......


Here is a coal mining song with some pretty good photos. Why I'm a fan of coal miners ....not so much coal!

That's my post for coal. End of story.

Appalachia: Living in MY World

 Well...it's always a challenge to know what to write about, how much, and what to reveal about family on a blog. Folks put some crazy stuff out there and I've been hesitant believe me. I could write volumes on politics and don't. We are divided enough. Write about current family but only with their permission, and things that are GOOD to write about. Writing about ancestors, already passed, is easy enough to share about. Even then, you want to tell the truth and make them look good in the process, but in reality...they are dead to this world and probably don't care.

But sharing what's really going on in my part of Appalachia and my little part of the world...it's been a struggle. While my internet is up and paid for, better share this quick because I don't know the future. I have faith I can keep what we have and things will get better.  The blackberries are in!

Last fall, my son cleared the blackberry patch. Last thing he did
really physical but he didn't get them trained. I've been collecting
 in the challenging tangle and freezing for when I have energy to
process. Freezer don't fail me now!

My son has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of some kind of crazy inflammatory arthritis. Tests for Rheumatoid Arthritis show up negative, but he has all the symptoms, plus a few more. Just hit him out of the blue last summer. He just started losing weight and complaining about his knees swelling with pain.

Most of us would love to be able to eat as much as we want and lose weight, but there comes a time when you want that to stop. He was very anemic and eating like a horse. A couple of months ago he looked like an Auschwitz survivor with knees the size of large grapefruits.

Well you guessed it...no insurance...no regular job, especially since he spent his time taking care of me. They didn't expand Medicaid in Virginia, so that does not cover him. He was eligible for it, but unfortunately they sent him a card that only covers pregnancy! I told him, if you get pregnant, I think there is an award out there for the first man that does, and you won't need Medicaid.

He's been so ill, it's a bit scary and he is not that old. We found a charity care program (thank GOD!) but most of the care is 150 mile drive from us...one way. We had the challenges of costs to get him there. I wasn't driving, he can't bend his knees to drive, so it's been fun!  We have found partial programs but most don't cover some of his needed medications. So much has been cut even in the private charity world...we just hit a bad time to be sick and down on the old luck in Virginia.

We have had friends and family that have stepped up help cover his trips to the doctor and his medications, some of the bills. But the old credit card looks like the national debt, to cover the rest.

He had been taking care of me, working odd jobs and covering the bills I could not, doing the jobs needed around the house. Now it's been reversed and I'm a lousy caretaker!! Bless his heart!! He can't bend from the knees and I can't stand too long. We still manage. You should have seen us fixing the stairs last December! Could have been a cartoon!

Got a tiny garden planted this year. So proud of
myself.Got some BEANS!

But it got me thinking about disabilities and working with them. I've always worked with a disability of some type. Been ill most of my life with something. My dad called me the "strontium 90 baby".  We lived in an area while he was in the military, that they were doing nuclear testing. The fallout of strontium 90 was showing up in the cow's milk I was drinking. I've thought about that with each illness I've had and I've had some pretty weird illnesses over the years.  But I didn't let these illnesses stop me. I just learned to live with them.

Three years ago the illnesses kept multiplying, on top of what I was living with.  I couldn't function like normal people anymore. I became not reliable to do my job, not really functioning on any productive level. Never been so sick in my life and I still am. I could have been on disability 15 years ago and chose not to until there was just no other recourse. I applied and was awarded disability in a month! Yep...I worked with a lot of illness going on in the old bod for years.

 I was fortunate enough to be in a place to have medical care to help me get to working again. Help me gain strength to heal to a place I could keep going and working and producing and paying taxes. Have access to programs and medications that helped.  I'm glad I didn't have cancer or a lousy insurance company policy that didn't cover at least some of it. Though last go round I still had to refinance my house to cover what wasn't covered by "good" insurance. It was before the ACA act kicked in...so don't go there.  It did not used to be that way!!

Today in America...we've hit a mean season. For myself and seeing my son go through this, never before have I known such cold disregard for people getting ill especially on the domestic spending legislative level.

There are a great many people in the community who understand and try to help, but the need is so great and we just came through a great recession/depression. Regular people are not back on their own feet and so resources are limited at best in the private charity care world. At the same time Congress and legislatures are cutting domestic spending at record levels.

And I have no idea what the heck is wrong with our state and federal government and the insurance companies! I don't care which side you are on...letting real Americans, (my son is not a new immigrant!) do without needed health care, or bleeding people dry when the need is so great because of a political pissing match and pure greed is just STUPID!  We are killing our own people faster and quicker than any terrorist or take over of this country ever could.  JUST FIX IT!  Create a system where those that are ill have access to health care and don't go bankrupt in the process.

Anyway, end of rant. I went to Virginia Aging and Rehabilitative Services this week, to sign up again for services because my blog work has me believing I might still be a contributing member of society and can make some funding to supplement the disability I get. Believe me, I'm grateful but it's pitiful!!  I MISS MY JOB AND MY JOB MONEY!!!

I need to try to take care of my son until something breaks lose for him, the medicine gets him better or something. He's applied for disability but because of his age, I bet they deny it. Just do anything I can to help take care of his medical needs, keep us in our house, the bills paid, and my link to the outside world...the internet. I signed up with my old case worker....see they helped me before. It's how I kept going and kept being a useful member of society.  Problem is, I can't work a regular job anymore, not even part-time. I would NOT hire me!

Just ask my family. I wear out quick. Plan a Sunday dinner, get it cooked and fall asleep and miss the whole darn thing. The kitchen is usually cleaned up and a plate waiting for me in the microwave. But that WASN'T my plan!

The old heart goes to beating funky and that's it...I'm done for the day. Or when I can't even move because of pain. Yeah...those symptoms sort of hard to put on a schedule for regular work. I don't function on a regular schedule anymore. Used to be my medications kept me going...that doesn't happen anymore.  There are no pills curing this.

Believe me, the body and symptoms, just won't listen or cooperate with me at all. I say, "I'm going to do this today," my body says, "You wish!"  Sometimes I can fight it, and do what I wish, but I really PAY for it...for DAYS.

So I have to be careful. I'm learning to juggle doing whatever I can on low symptom days. Rest up for big events. Do what I can, when I can. It's not unusual for me to be folding clothes out of a dryer at 3 am because it just so happens to be the time I am up and FUNCTIONING.  It bothers me to no end to let the rest of what I want to do GO!  But I try not to let it get me down. I'm alive...I woke up today, and beat out everyone else that died last night...it's a good day!

So I have been talking to friends about what I CAN do. Driving is not an activity I do well these days. After I came back from VA rehab, I set down in a chair and fell asleep for several hours. Wears me out!!

The blog is monetized with ads but I hate those that have so many. I might add one or two more. It doesn't produce much, but every little bit helps.  It was suggested I take the best stories of Appalachian Heartwood blog and put it in book and Kindle form on Amazon's Create a Space, ask for a donation.

I actually have part of a novel I was working on years ago. Maybe I can finish it and can get it out there too.

I can also try to put together some how-to videos. That came up when I volunteered at the Ceres Day celebrations in May. I didn't last long demonstrating corn husk dolls, as my illness showed up and cut it short. I've been demonstrating crafts and showing thousands of folks how to do these crafts for years, especially primitive stuff. Using video..I can rest and continue..have to show it only once and there you have it. Immortalized forever!!

Which I would be really happy to have certain crafts I do shared that way. I feel like when I'm gone, some of what was shared with me by my elders, goes with me and should be shared before that happens.

My son had an eBay store, he's been so sick, he hasn't had the strength to do anything.  I'm going to try to take it and work on it with him. He's going to have to walk me through most of it. It's changed so much since my day of fooling with it. Whatever crafts I make in the video's sell them on eBay or etsy.

Of course all these plans rely on whether we can function or not!! He's fighting not only symptoms of the disease but of the medications. The medication they have him on is an old cancer drug and it treats your body just as BAD!!  He has started to gain weight back which is good. But he is still in such bad shape.

But these are plans and we are going to continue on. We come from good stock I know it. We will survive this as our blood and kin have survived everything in this old world.

 Just a side note: our water is pumped from WV...sometimes it has a smell and sometimes it foams when you boil it. With all the stuff in the news about water, you can't help but just wonder if what is attacking us is part of what we are exposed to in the environment, genetics or past medical histories.

Genetics...especially for my son. He's always had some health issues too, since he was born. I was a strontium 90 baby but his father was a Vietnam Veteran in the Air Force. His father was considered non-combat personnel. He was on the big C-130s.  Flew supplies over and bodies back. Hit him kind of funny to hear he was non-combat, since he remembered the tarmac being shelled, bullets wiz by, his non combat personnel butt firing back and once a bullet embedded in his flack jacket.

Some of the supplies included Agent Orange and Blue and various colors of the rainbow in barrels. Sometimes the barrels leaked and his father's boots would get wet with these chemicals. His feet and lower legs would break out in later years and look like raw hamburger. But since he was non-combat personnel he couldn't get treatment at the VA for it. Civilian doctors had no idea what to do for him. I remember one doctor saying he could not get anything out of the VA for any ideas either. Lot's of steroid treatments.

You search for answers, because these are weird diseases, that the doctors are scratching their heads. Treatments to continue living are today expensive but solutions can be found.  But such is life and we go on. We are not defeated nor dead YET!! When I get some of this work accomplished, I will post on my blog and I will appreciate a share or two. Plus any ideas out there...let me know!!

Hand Sculpted Stone Garden Bird Baths

Our family has always had our hands on craftsmen. Our Great Grandfather worked with the WPA building stone walls in Bluefield, WV.  Various members of our family have created art and works that still exist. My nephew Justin Jerome is the newest generation to carry on tradition and show wonderful talent. I wanted to write about his newest works and get the word out he is making these for sale.

At first he was hesitant to become a subject of my blog...he is a modest fellow. I hope I don't embarrass him too much but we are very proud of him and he needs to get the word out about his latest endeavor.  So I talked him into letting me write about him, his new studio and his bird bath stone sculptures.

His work career has been quite unusual and extensive.  He has had unusual jobs such as worked helping with wolves rehabilitating them for the wild. Helped with studies working with eagles, and birds and worked in iron work.

But his greatest pursuit is stone work. He is a journeyman stone mason. He has helped build and refurbish stone walls on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

He recently last year worked on buildings at Virginia Tech creating the corner stones for a new building. Tech has their own stone quarry and their buildings are of a style all their own. Over the years he has worked on several projects at Tech as a stone mason.

Recently he moved to Ashville, North Carolina to assist family members and has opened a small studio part-time in West Ashville creating these beautiful garden bird bath stone sculptures.

These are one of a kind works of art. Not mass produced. Elegant and simple, using natural stone and making them stand out of the ordinary. I'm sure the pictures do not do them justice.

I hear they are frog approved! Justin says he has a couple of frogs that show up at his studio every evening to test them out.  He's suppose to get me a picture of that. But then Justin has always worked with his hands and is so talented.

Here is head of my walking stick he carved for me.

 Here is a natural stone trivet he created for my kitchen. Best trivet in the house!

 If folks appreciate his work, he would love to work at this full time.

Several of his pieces can be seen at various other venues. One at Hipps Stone in Ashville, NC Click HERE for the website and address. He sent a couple of pieces north to Blacksburg to his friend who is at Eucalyptus Massage on Main Street in Blacksburg, VA. The Steppin Out festival is coming up August 1 and 2nd in which the whole town of Blacksburg turns into a festival. Pieces should be able to be seen then if they are not sold by that time.

So pass the word. And if you have questions or would like to contact him, contact me and I will pass the word.

In Honor of Veterans Day

Old Warriors Never Die and neither do our memories of them. It's Veteran's Day 2013 and I would be remiss if I did not write something about my favorite veteran...my dad.

My dad, Don Bowling, was a warrior, and a soldier all his life. When he was a young man living in Appalachia, he worked on a farm, as a logger and as a lookout for a moonshiner. He joined the Army in Bluefield, WV in 1939.

The choice to him was simple. He didn't want to go under ground in the mines of the coalfields. He didn't want to work on the railroad like his father. He didn't want to continue farming like his grandfather and he certainly didn't want to end up in a Georgia Prison for making illegal liquor.  He wanted to see the world and in the military, see the world he did.

During WWII, for the duration of the war, he served with Patton's Third Army, the 5th Division, the 50th Field artillery unit.  He traveled from Iceland to the Russian front. After WWII he was discharged for a month or so and joined the Navy and served until 1970 making him a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. I asked him why he joined the Navy and not rejoin the Army. He said, "I lived in fox holes for 6 years. I wanted to ride in the rear with the beer for awhile."

He told us stories upon stories. Some not so good (and those he had to be pretty drunk to even talk about). Many stories of courageous acts that were amazing of things he did and things he witnessed. So many events he was very proud of and he always loved the military. He was very proud of his service to our country. On the day he died he would have returned to military service in a heart beat if he was ever asked.

I was thinking of him this Veterans Day. I remember the problems he had when he retired out of the service. He had problems getting medical care at the VA. He had problems to just getting his G.I. Loan papers processed. Then as now, it seems that politicians like to use the Veterans and military service people as a back drop for an election, but sort of forget the men and women who serve when they are in need.

So on this Veterans Day, let us not only thank our Veterans, Military personnel or our service responders for their service and wave a flag. Let us go beyond that by advocating for their needs to be taken care of.

If you hear of a bill in Congress that would benefit our Veterans and Military that you think is a good idea, such as a jobs, housing or training bill, write your Congress People and let them know that these men and women deserve our support.

If you know of an organization that is helping Veterans and military personnel or providing a service, pull out your wallet and send them a donation. 

One that I just learned about recently that is quite inspiring, is a foundation began by the actor +Gary Sinise called the  Gary Sinise Foundation.  He and the Lt. Dan Band are traveling in and out of the country performing shows and making a difference by raising funds and awareness for programs for our military personnel and veterans.  Whatever we do, let's do more to make sure that those who have served us really are not forgotten.

Later on I will do a few blog posts using a box of memorabilia of pictures and mementos of my dad's and relate some of the stories he told me about his military service. He participated in the Battle of the Bulge, (marching 125 miles in 3 days in sub zero weather to get to those guys) and his adventures as one of the oldest flight mechanics in the Navy when he retired. This blog could go on for a few years!!

Update: I will be posting his World War II stories and possibly photos on another blog World War II Daughters. His other stories and photos of his Navy service I will post from time to time here. I'm thinking Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Flag day etc. posts.

I welcome any comments or suggestions. Thanks for reading.

The Broken Wheel - Appalachian Railroad Tale

My family, like many in this area, we have those who worked in various, notorious, (legal) occupations Appalachia is known for. "You had really only 4 choices in Appalachia as a laborer," my dad would say, "You could farm, you could timber, you could be a coal miner, or you could work on the railroad."  He didn't like neither of them so he had a 30 year, 3 war career, in the military.  This blog post is about our family who worked for an Appalachian railroad. 

Train in the Bluefield WV Yard

Railroad workers are a special breed. It was a challenging and rewarding job but it was never an easy job, and always the potential to be a dangerous job. It created men who were tough and harden because the job required it. These workers worked to control massive, huge, machinery, hauling freight and coal cars on steep mountain tracks. Working in all kinds of weather, daylight and pitch black of night.  Hot sun that warped the rails, heavy rains that caused flooded tracks and landslides, deep snow and ice covering everything freezing switches, it required grit to get the job done. Imagine climbing a coal car on tracks situated on the side of a steep mountain, sheathed in ice, in pitch black darkness, with only a small lantern and hopefully a radio that works. When they didn't have radios, it was much worse!

Minnie Belle Stevenson Bowling

It was a good paying job but always a dangerous job. I can tell you from once being married to a railroad brakeman, you sent them out the door with a kiss and prayer and hope they would come home safe with all their limbs or life, every time. Because you never knew.

I attended a few "broken wheel" funerals. Some of the railroad workers who left way before their time, and it was always a wake up call to how dangerous the occupation could be. The "Broken Wheel" came from where the union would always buy a flower arrangement in the shape of a broken train wheel for the funeral of a fallen fellow railroad worker.

I have many a railroad tale and the railroad affected our family deeply. All our Appalachian family members worked for Norfolk and Western Railway, mostly out of Bluefield, WV.

Charles W. Bowling second from right

My grandfather, Charles Washington Bowling worked for Norfolk and Western for 50 years, with the Maintenance of Way folks. He built bridges and tracks and retired. He had scars but had all his fingernails, limbs, etc. when he died, which was an accomplishment.

My Uncle Howard Davis was an engineer first with the Virginian Railroad and then with Norfolk and Western, when they merged. A kind man that also lived to retire that I just loved to hear him tell tales about the railroad. One of the best tales I remember him telling was on his self. Sometimes railroad crews would sit in a siding waiting for hours for a special train to pass or other reasons.

Uncle Howard Davis

During that time you were not to sleep, or even close your eyes. You could get written up and fired for that negligence. Sometimes the bosses would sneak around and try to catch the men taking a nap in the sidings. Uncle Howard said he'd been sitting in the siding for 2 hours and been out there over 12 on the shift. He had his hands folded and just closed his eyes and bowed his head for a minute sitting in his engineers chair. He heard someone step on the platform of the engine and open the door.  It was the boss.  As the door opened, he just looked up and said, "Amen", and grabbed his lunch pail like he had been praying instead of napping.

My son's father, grandfather and 2 great grandfathers all worked for Norfolk and Western.  Beginning with John Imhoff who was born in Gretna, VA outside of Lynchburg. His birth certificate is written in French which is an odd story.  He began working on the railroad in 1905 and retired as an engineer off the old steam trains in the 1950s.

His regular run by the time he retired was on the steam train the Powhatan Arrow which ran from Norfolk, Virginia to Portsmouth, Ohio. His part of that run was between Bluefield and Williamson WV. A tall man whose ears were scalded and scarred by cinders and the steam from the old steam trains. We had his jacket that his wife Maggie had starched so much it stood up by itself 30 years after he died. The starch prevented the cinders from burning through the material too quickly. We still have his tin coffee pot that would hang next to the tank and cook on the train engine.

Then Carl J. Smith. He was born in Williamson, WV and was the son of Samuel J. Smith (who also worked for the railroad and lost his leg in a railroad accident) and Lula Belle Gibson Smith.  Carl married John and Maggie Stinson Imhoff's daughter, Margaret.  In World War II he served in the Marines in the Pacific. He began as a brakeman with Norfolk and Western after WWII and was promoted to an engineer. Yet he did not retire. 43 years ago this year Carl J. Smith actually lost his life on the railroad.

Carl J. Smith

It was late summer, August 26, 1970.  He was the engineer of an east bound freight train with 116 cars. At about 1:45 in the morning near Finney, VA in Russell County, something went terribly wrong. The freight train was traveling east at 10 mph and hit 3 single diesel engine units head on, on the same track, traveling west at 20 mph. The long east bound freight train had four diesels units pushing from behind, so that even at that slow a speed the massive power behind that crash was immense.

What was left of the locomotive Carl was on.

The force of the crash sheared off the top of the lead diesel of the east bound freight and killed Carl Smith and his brakeman Joe Popp. There had been a switch failure earlier that summer that killed 2 other railroaders, but the railroad being the railroad, never admitted there was something wrong with the switch system that put two trains, twice that summer, on the same track. And the railroad being the railroad, had a claim agent at the door of the family before the body was even cold.

Such is the life of railroad people. The rewards were to see country most people never see and to ride on some of the most powerful machinery man has ever invented on the planet.

I never met the man that would have been a father-in-law and my son never met his grandfather. The tradition today has been broken for this family to be working on the railroad. My son, whose father was injured and disabled on the railroad, his grandfather who was killed, his great grandfather who lost his leg on the railroad....my son decided this family, especially with the Smith name, has not much luck working for the railroad and he wasn't pushing his. I certainly don't blame him. But I still love trains!

Life is Like A Mountain Railway one of my favorites.




Copyright 2007-2016 Denise A. Smith

Appalachian Moonshine - In the Pale Moonlight

Appalachian Moonshine – In the Pale Moonlight

"you'll just lay beneath the junipers, as the moonshine's bright....watchin' those jugs a fillin'...'neath the pale moonlight."  refrain from the song Copper Kettle.

I'm a big fan of the TV show “24” with +kiefer Sutherland . The reason I like that show (other than Kiefer Sutherland always out of breath, getting into and out of trouble saving the country) is because I use the concept of the show and apply it to history.  The show is created to reflect what is called, “real time”. Meaning at the same time there are different scenarios of occurrences happening with different people. Events occurring parallel, happening all at once, that make up the history of our lives that effect society as a whole. That is the way I look at history. There are individual people and parts that make up a whole story.

Johnny Witt and my father, Donald Bowling.
Dad gives his version of working for
moon shiners in the audio video on this blog.
Later these two would join the Army together.
My dad would make a long career out of the military.

I only speak about my own family history for the most part on this blog. We are only one very small, tiny part, of a very large story. Getting as many of those tiny parts put together as possible, gives us a better view of the Appalachia we know and love.

The current trend is to reinvent our history by being so ashamed of certain stereotypes to want to leave certain stories or different parts out. To avoid time periods or events in history that can be or have been stereotyped, instead of confronting that history with the truth, has the effect to leave gaps in our history. We have allowed the creation of a skewed misunderstood version in the story of the Appalachian people. As a historian, I just can't abide by that, nor take a shine to it.

The worst for me is stereotypes of the moonshiner, who is portrayed as a back woods, hooligan of Hollywood that inhabited Appalachia. Some would have fit the stereotype. Most though in my family held other jobs. It was not every one's story to be a part of the illegal whiskey making tradition in Appalachia though alcohol manufacturing, legal and illegal was a part of a long history in our mountains.

I have found to get anyone to speak about the moonshiners in their families comes with a great deal of “anxiety and “shame”. Is that shame left over from the days of local preacher's condemnations, like our area's famous Robert Sheffey laying down his black sheepskin prayer rug in the road when he came across a moonshine still and praying for the moonshiner's destruction (which I'm told he did to a relative or two), or is it the broad stereotype of moonshine ruination with the run down shack, overgrown fields, dirty kids, all because daddy's drunk making moonshine?  The profession today is met with disdain and many mountain folk are cautious about even telling the moonshiner tales. But moonshine was a business occupation and the stereotype of total lawless disregard doesn't fit my family though the occupation was one very entrenched in our family history.

I don't understand why a family history of moonshiners causes so much concern. Why it is with even some of our tourism initiatives there is a conscious effort in many circles to try to evade the alcohol story at all that is a part of our history?

As an example, recently they moved my cousin's beer joint building to Crab Orchard museum to use as a display and meeting place. It was a pretty famous place in our area just for the politicians that would show up. I will have to write that story later. I was unaware of the building being moved until I visited the museum and I asked the director, "Why did they moved Cousin Jr.'s beer joint?" She went, “Sshhh! We don't call it a beer joint!”

Yes, it had the nickname of the Frog Level Yacht club, and it was sort of a "store" that 30 years ago was a gas station (which is what they prefer to call it). It boasted the oldest tavern license in Virginia, handed down through the family for over 150 years until June died, but being corrected not to call it a beer joint or tavern which is really what we knew it as? You just have to shake your head and say, "OK, if you say so."

Junior did not sell many groceries but sold nabs, soda pop and beer...tons of BEER!. When it was a gas station there just was not enough parking and a patron would have to come in to ask someone to move away from the pumps so he could get gas.  In all the times I visited Junior we never bought gas. It was always too hard to get to the pumps.

But June Bowling had the best conversations of the day and could easily relate history and issues of the past with the present. There was hardly any local historical subject, whether it be politics, events, people or places, he didn't know something about. Add the best cooler's in the county to keep that brew icy and that is what made this place special.

It's the attitude of getting away from the alcohol part, which other than June, is what made Junior's place what it was, I'm having trouble with. Call it a store/service station, but we who were patrons of the place did not think of it in those terms. If it cleans it up for "their" perceptions from a beer joint/tavern to sell it and preserves the building...go for it. But something is getting lost in the translation.

I have all my life heard so many stories of our family and their participation in the moonshine and alcohol business. As you can see, I have a hard time in general dealing with the animosity towards those stories by other family members as well as now members in our community actually wanting to suppress or change the view of actual events or original perceptions of places. I write this post because I believe to get the whole picture, those stories need to be told. With that in mind, let's talk about Moonshine.

My first encounter with moonshine was in the mid 60's. I was at an aunt's house playing with some cousins. I remember you could get shrimp cocktail in these individual small glass containers and my family would save those as glasses for us kids. Kind of the pre sippy cup. You asked for a drink of water and they would give you one of these hour glass small glasses. If it was broken it was just a junk jar not one of the good matching glasses.

My cousins and I had been chasing each other playing whatever games kids played. I had been given a glass of water during this and I left it on the table and ran back outside. In the meantime, I had not realized that my father and my uncle had pulled two of these glasses to raise a drink of shine to each other. When I ran back in and grabbed what I thought was my glass off the table, before my father could stop me, I took a large gulp! I was probably 6 years of age. It burnt all the way down and all the way back up!! I couldn't breath, my eyes teared up, I was throwing up, it was awful. Needless to say I never did ever like moonshine. That one encounter broke me of ever having the habit.

Through the years the tales of moonshiner exploits of the family would leak out. Usually in hushed tones. No one actually came out or discussed often that there were moonshiners among us. It came out in rifts and stories. I became aware of a big rift between my grand mother's Hazel Burress's family and my grand father's Wesley Bane Boyle's family. I wrote about my grandfather and his participation at the Bristol Sessions with the West Virginia Coon Hunters in an earlier article.

Bane's side of the family said he would have made the big time had he not ran across my other grandfather Stewart Burress. Stewart Burress was a kind, good, hardworking and honest man. I remember him as a soft spoken storyteller and have written of him in other stories in this blog. Even when he was mad he never sounded loud at all. His official trade was as a black smith making hand forged tools. But he like others in the mountains had another profession. As a matter of fact, his daughter Callie said her pappy had told her he could not remember a time his side of the family did not make corn whiskey. Stewart Burress was known as a moonshiner of quality liquor in the hills of Bland, Tazewell and Mercer Counties.

Now this is where the story gets hard to tell, because it WAS A BUSINESS. Grand Daddy Burress worked for and distributed his liquor through mainly one man, the Sheriff of a local county. I believe this is one reason why there is silence in the telling of the moonshiner tales. There were many business men and elected officials also in the trade network. And many of their descendants are still elected officials and businessmen.

It's not something you want known that your upstanding family ancestor might have walked a little on the wrong side of the laws. But with hundreds if not thousands of gallons of liquor being produced on a weekly basis you know it had to have a distribution network for that much shine. It happened and is as much a part of the mountain history as anything else. Dave Tabler displayed this in his story of Congressmen John Wesley Langley and his wife Katherine Langley. John's wife Katherine was elected to his seat while he was in prison serving a sentence for violating the Volstad Act.

In an interview in 1992 with Stewart Burress's daughter, Callie Burress Boyles, (Callie married Bane's brother, David Brown Boyles), her greatest hate and worst memories growing up were worrying about a barking dog. Where she lived as a girl it meant sometimes customers who knew her daddy but more often the dreaded revenuers. She remembered that when customers came they were kept in the house until someone would fetch a jug from the hiding place usually hidden in the creek or the spring in mason jars.

Callie and her sister Hazel, my grandmother, met Bane and Brown Boyles because their father, Granddaddy Stewart, hired them to run the liquor to the distribution points for the sheriff. The liquor was usually hid in a wagon hauling coal or a truck hauling other goods.


Late in 1927, Stewart Burress told Bane he was getting out of the liquor business. Federal revenuers were descending upon the mountains. He had been warned by the sheriff that even the High local sheriff could not protect them against the federal government. He warned Granddaddy Bane not to run or deliver any more. He was right. While searching through newspapers of 1927 between January and August, 136 moonshine stills had been busted up in the areas around Mercer County.

In those records, I learned how much of an extended family business it was. There in news accounts were Uncle Sid, Uncle Hiram, Uncle Fred, Cousin Farley, (who was preacher on Sunday). All those news notices of arrested men relatives. (I was going to share excerpts of those actual articles but I've misplaced my file. Means maybe another article in the future when I find it.)  Makes the song, "Copper Kettle", a family anthem!

Granddaddy Bane didn't listen as most of the young men did not listen. Shortly after recording at the Bristol Sessions he too was caught transporting illegal liquor and sent to prison. It did end any chances he had of a recording career.

Thus the rift in the family. My Aunt Mable, Granddaddy Bane's sister, more than once told me, "that if Bane had not met that Stewart Burress and got caught with that illegal shine, he would have made it."

I don't believe that was true as he took his own chances. Everyone knew someone in the business or participated somehow for it to go on as long as it did. My father in the video above relates the campaigning that was done at the polls with moonshine and related a time that when he was 17, he was hired as a lookout. He was always real happy when the run was through because if they would have caught him it would have been the same 3 years in a Georgia prison just for being a lookout. First guard duty he ever had he said and it prepared him well for guard duty in World War II.

Now were some family members still in it after the 20's and 30's? I don't really know. But there was this 1950's Ford in the family. I remember it well because my mother absolutely LOVED that car. We came, “Up home” for one of our usual visits when my dad was in the military in Texas and my Granddaddy Bane told my mother someone had a great deal on a car. We had an old blue station wagon we had traveled in but I remember she bought this Ford very cheap.

I also remember riding in it following the station wagon back to Texas thinking how big inside it was. In later years, my mother talked about that car. It was her favorite she said of all the cars we had owned. I was a grown adult before she told me what was so special about that car.

It was a moonshiners car. She told me it had a clear title, she even stayed an extra day to make sure of that by putting it in her name before she left. She thinks it was just being, "looked for". When she bought it in the early 60s, they would have had to, "look for it", in Texas.

It was a special car. First, the sound of the motor wasn't like any other motor I have ever heard in a car since. A low rumble that sounded like it was saying in a bass voice, blub, blub, blub. The back seats were so odd because they had hinges on both sides that flipped up on the top and the bottom creating hidden compartments.

Though I can't remember how, she said the springs under it were reinforced to haul heavy loads but didn't have an over amount of extra springs under it. My mother told me extra springs on a car were the first thing law enforcement looked for during that time. Instead the front fender's and bumper of this car were weighted with lead molded into them. When I asked her who did the modification on the car she matter of fact said,  "this was courtesy of some kith who worked in the railroad machine shops." An old moonshiner's trick so that when there was a load in the back, the motor end didn't rise up.

My mother's favorite car had a lot of power to fly down the road and in the same way it was made for hauling a heavy load of moonshine, also worked well for hauling 5 children around. I was amazed she knew so much about this subject. When I asked whose car it was and whether it was family. She cut her eyes at me in a way that said, I wasn't to ask, she wasn't telling and she never did. I don't know of any family members today that carry on or even talk about the tradition. Somehow it just died out like so many of our older traditions. I think about it though when I make Dandelion wine.

In the history of my family and extended family, there were people of all types of occupations, miners, railroaders, teachers, laborers etc. In that group were also saloon keepers, owners of beer joints and moonshiners. Alcohol is a staple throughout our American history and though it has had it's bad historic reputation of being the cause of ruination, it was also a builder of personal fortunes and empires, whether legal or not. That's part of the American story and in my opinion we should not hide it in our Appalachian story either.

Copyright 2007-2016 Denise A. Smith

West Virginia Coon Hunters String Band - Grand Daddy at The Bristol Sessions

In Search of Grand Dad's Music

View from the North Side of Big Walker Mountain

My grandfather, Wesley "Bane" Boyles was born August 5th, 1905 in a house on the north side of Walker's Mountain in Bland County, Virginia, just over the Smyth County line. Being one of seven children, he was the son of Geneva "Alice" Waddell Boyles and Alfred "Doc" Boyles. The family roots ran deep in the Appalachian Mountains since the late 1700's. His ancestors hailed from Western North Carolina to Southern West Virginia.

According to oral tradition, his father "Doc" Boyles played the fiddle and Bane at the age of three or four begged to be taught to play. His father thought him too young but his mother relented and allowed him to play his father's fiddle while his father was at work. His oldest sister said he was sawing out tunes by the age of six.

His mother related the story to his daughter Lena and said, "he always played the songs so fast in those days." One day she asked him why he was playing so fast and Bane told her he had to learn to play as many tunes as he could before his father got home.

Bane's father, Doc Boyles, in those days, worked for the Groseclose family (the very ones who began the Future Farmers of America Organization) at their store and on the Groseclose farm just outside of Ceres in Bland County, Virginia.

Bane, his brothers and sisters helped the family eke out a subsistence living on the small farm they were living way up on Walker's mountain. Bane Boyles always joked where he lived as a boy the mountains were so steep, his brothers and sisters were born with one leg shorter than the other, the cows had two legs shorter and when you planted potatoes, when it was time to harvest, you just had to dig a hole at the bottom of the hill and they would roll out.

The whole family was musical. According to his sister, my great Aunt Mable, the children all attended a church at Nebo called Zion Methodist Church just across the Smyth Co. line with their mother and her family.(There are five generations of family buried in that church cemetery including Grand daddy Bane.) All sang in the choir.

But Bane Boyles was a little different from the rest of the family. Music was his passion. By the time Bane Boyles was a teenager he had learned how to play all the old mountain reels and how to call a square dance. He was called on to play many a barn dance, or family get togethers in the area.

In the 1920s the family moved to Bluefield, West Virginia. Bane worked odd jobs and continued to play music at barn dances, bars anywhere he could but in a larger area around Bluefield. In August of 1927, he was playing with a band that called themselves the "West Virginia Coon Hunters'.  They all seem to live around the Rogers Street area of Bluefield at that time.


West Virginia Coon Hunters 1927, Standing Left to Right Fred Belcher, Clyde Meadows, Jim Brown, Vernal Vest Seated Left to Right: Dutch Stewart, Wesley "Bane" Boyles, Regal Mooney, Fred Pendleton, Joe Stephens. Image Courtesy of  Birthplace of Country Music: Gift of Denise Smith

Front row L to R Bane's sisters Marie, Mable and Annie
Back row his brother Tom and Bane. Not pictured is brother Brown.

I never really knew about his history with the West Virginia Coon Hunters. He never talked about it. We had always heard that Grand Daddy Bane had recorded a record but none of the family realized it was at the now infamous Bristol Sessions, in Bristol Tennessee. In 2002, my Great Aunt Marie, Bane's baby sister, came by the house for a visit. She was leaving her husband and moving to Las Vegas. A bit odd especially since she was pushing 80 years old but Aunt Marie and all the women in our family always were of a very independent mind.

On her way she wanted to drop off a large box of family photos for me. In the box was the picture of the West Virginia Coon Hunters. She just said it was a band that my grandfather had played in. It was a neat photo but I was more interested in the pictures of my great, great, great grandparents just after the Civil War. Talk about a boon to the family history project!

About a year later I was in the doctors office at the clinic and picked up a magazine called Golden Seal about West Virginia history. In it was an article entitled, "On the Trail of a Lost String Band: The West Virginia Coon Hunters" by John Lilly.

I opened the pages and lo and behold was a copy of the picture I had with even more pictures of my grand father with the band and the story of the West Virginia Coon Hunters.

They were looking for information on this band that played at the Bristol Sessions. They had his name as "Bone" Broyles because they could not make out the hand writing on the back of their copy of the photos. The actual record misspelled his name as W.B. Bayles.

I was at the clinic because I had chronic back problems from an old injury, but I was so excited that the Doctor was having a hard time getting out of me what was wrong. I was more interested in knowing if I could have this copy of this magazine!! They let me have it for my health's sake!

I knew absolutely nothing of the Bristol sessions but soon a little research found they are called the sessions that gave birth to country music. Grand dad and the West Virginia Coon Hunters recorded the same day as Jimmy Rodgers. They recorded two songs, Your Blue Eyes Make Me Crazy, and Greasy String. I was amazed I had never heard of grand dad at the Bristol Sessions nor how it was the beginning of the Carter Family and others. Being in tourism I had known about the Virginia Tourism The Crooked Road initiative honoring the music of our area but they took the route south through Galax and missed our neck of the woods. They recently added Big Walker Lookout to the trail....at least grand pap was born on that mountain.

String Band music had become popular in the 1920's. It was different from traditional music in that guitar was added, maybe a mandolin and it had a sort of bluesy quality to it.

Ralph Peer of Victor Records placed an ad in local papers stating they were looking for new talent. He was amazed at the response of the mountain folks coming out of the mountains down to Bristol, Tennessee to record. The Bristol Sessions it is said changed country music history.

Wesley Bane Boyles and Band Norfolk Naval Air Station
Officers Club Image Courtesy of Birthplace of Country
Music: Gift of Denise Smith

West Virginia Coon Hunter's playing of "Your Blue Eyes make me Crazy" is said to be the forerunner of artists such as Bill Monroe and others. Later for a brief time, Grand Daddy even played with Bill Monroe. So my grandfather and the West Virginia Coon Hunter's were there at the very beginning!

Made me wish I could have gone back in time and learned to play the mandolin he tried so hard to teach me. He did teach me a song or two and I am now working on trying to get his versions of a couple of songs recorded because they are not like other versions I've heard. His version of Copper Kettle does not sound like Joan Baez nor Bob Dylan's. Mainly they changed the dialect from the mountain version.

Shortly after recording at the Bristol Sessions Bane was caught transporting and manufacturing illegal liquor and sent to prison thus ending any chances he had of a recording career. The band West Virginia Coon Hunters went on to record several albums and existed for many more years. In those days you had to be pretty clean cut to be in the record business or at least it had to be hidden well. For the family moonshine tales click here.

Before he was arrested, Bane Boyles had fell in love with Stewart Burress daughter, my grandmother Hazel. He left her pregnant and not married when he went to prison. My mother Lena was born in 1929. Hazel, Bane and baby Lena were living with Stewart and grandma Mae in the 1930 Census and all three going by the name Boyles. But Bane Boyles did not marry my grandmother Hazel until 1931.

My mother was in her 40's when she learned the truth when she had to have a copy of her birth certificate. She was so upset she actually rounded her parents up and marched them both before a notary to get the name corrected on her birth certificate.

After prison Bane Boyles did his best to settle down in Bluefield. He learned several trades; he was a barber for a time, an electrical worker and a car mechanic. He just couldn't give up being a rambler playing music and it caused a lot of friction in his marriage with Hazel.

It was said he would work a job long enough to get enough money to hit the road to play music in another town. The marriage suffered between Hazel and Bane because he would travel to every opportunity to play his music, dropping everything, often leaving Hazel with six kids, little money, bill collectors and no word of where he'd left to. As my mother Lena said, "My daddy was a scoundrel, but he could play a damn good fiddle."

Lena Boyles, Wesley Bane Boyles, Jimmy Boyles (banjo) Bill Boyles
Image Courtesy of Birthplace of Country Music :Gift of Denise Smith

Lena was taught to play a guitar and her brother Bill to play the banjo and guitar and her little brother Jimmy was added. It was a time when it was the most settled she said she had ever seen her dad. He taught his children to play so he could take them with him at the area barn dances to help to support the family with his music. It didn't work out very well. The children revolted because of the late nights and not a lot of money really coming to them or the family.

Hazel and Bane separated in the 1960s. They never divorced. Bane continued to play music where ever he could. He was invited many times to play at the local radio stations in and around Bluefield WV with various local acts.

My favorite memory of my grandfather Bane was when my dad was in the military and every vacation we would head "Up Home" from where ever we were stationed to visit with mountain relatives. It is one of my first memories of my grandfather. I was 5 or 6 years old. Grand Daddy Bane was living in Ada, WV. My mother and father took me with them to visit.

The house was just a two-room shack with a porch up on a steep bank. Dad parked the car at the bottom of the hill because it had rained and you could hardly walk to the house much less drive to it. We slipped and slid walking up the hill as I heard the sweetest fiddle music I'd ever heard in my life accompanied by a guitar and a mandolin. When we got to the house I could see my grandfather through the screen door standing playing his fiddle. He always dressed very neatly and he was in a pair of dress pants with a white shirt and shoes so clean and shiny they sparkled.

I just thought he looked so out of place in this mountain shack on a muddy hillside. We stayed most of the night into the wee hours of the morning. Momma picked up the guitar and my daddy even joined in with his harmonica. Everyone picked and played all night, saying things like "Do you remember this one?" or "Have you heard this one?" and someone would begin the tune and the others just joined in.

I still remember jars of moonshine sitting on the kitchen table too. They passed round and round just like the music. I fell asleep on his bed on top of everyone's coats listening to that sweet mountain music as a lullaby.

Grand daddy Bane continued to play his music to his dying day. I remember all us relatives in his later years, taking turns to drive him to every fiddler's convention in the area and just dropping him off. Galax, Roncevert, Lebanon, he'd hit them all if we would drive him. He tell us not to worry he'd find a way home and he always did. Might be a week or three later but he would show back up.

I am still looking for some cassette tapes he told me he was making before I married and moved away. His goal was to record every song he knew on this little cassette player he'd bought at a pawnshop. The last time I visited him in a one-room apartment in Bluefield WV he had boxes of these tapes. No one in the family seems to know what happened to them. I pray they are still out there somewhere.

Bane Boyles died in the Spring of 1975. Grand Daddy Bane told my mother he was so afraid he would be found dead alone in his apartment. I remember she said she prayed with him that the good Lord not allow that to happen. He didn't. Instead Granddaddy Bane died on a creek bank, on a beautiful April day, sitting in a lawn chair fishing with one of his best, long time friends at Grose's Bottom in Bland county.

It was one of his favorite spots to fish. He sat in his chair and his friend thought he was asleep when his line went to bobbing. His friend called out to him but he didn't respond. His friend reeled the fish in and said he caught the biggest fish he'd ever seen come out of Wolf Creek. But Wesley Bane Boyles was dead and didn't get to see it.

Now his fiddle playing is being heard the world over on the Bristol Session series along with such greats as Jimmy Rodgers and Mother Maybelle Carter. He didn't get to see that either but at least I can set the record straight that he with others, were a part of something so big and in his part helped to influence so many and give birth to country music.West Virginia Coon Hunters Greasy String  And Blue Eyes Make Me Crazy

I would love to hear from the other members families and their stories. Also any comments are welcomed.