The Fayette Tribune, Oak Hill, W.Va.

Local News

September 5, 2012

Home to the Hills

Pure-of-heart grandmother made impact on world

By Ricky Pack

Grandma was from Edmond, West Va., a pretty young lady whose good looks and country charm turned plenty of young men’s heads. Being proper, she always kept the want-to-be suitors at a safe distance.

Born around 1913, she watched as history passed. Her mother died when she was 7 years old, the family broke apart. It seems that the circle can be broken, at least here on earth. Her father was a mean old cuss and a moonshine drinker. The farm, broken into sections, was worked by other family members.

When she was 19 years old, she took up her role in the work force. Determined, without a car or public transportation, she would walk 20 miles or more to Prince. She would spend a week at work then walk back home to spend a day or two with her family.

She worked in the Prince Hotel as a cook. Her meals went into the lunch boxes of railway men. Even when they started out their days on the wrong side of the bed, her incredible smile, country girl looks, and her cooking, made the meanest man mellow.

Grandma made miles and miles of bread dough. The smell of baking bread intermingled with the blue mist of the surrounding mountains. Women became jealous of her skills, men wanted just a warm chunk and children craved the melted butter on each slice of bread.

More of her skills included making jellies, jams, and apple butter. She churned butter, being petite, which was quite the chore. She would pour milk into her churn and set it behind the wood stove to sour. You had to let the milk sour to be able to get good buttermilk. I still don’t know or understand why anyone in this world would want to drink nasty old buttermilk. Can you still even buy buttermilk today?

Later she moved to Streeter, to move in with her Aunt Missouri, pronounced “Misura.” Aunt Missouri was getting up in years and needed someone there to help take care of her. Alma Jenkins was happy to help. Her Uncle Loma Gwinn worked as a lumberjack and was away from home for long durations.

Smith Lumber Company, where her uncle worked, went under and many families were without an income. Still today there are remnants of the old lumber company. There is an old steam engine sitting on my great uncle’s property. All aboard!

There was a flash flood in 1933, shortly after the company shut down, that washed away everything: rails, mill and buildings. With all of the hurdles she faced there were big blessings looming on her horizon. Soon after the company closed, Grandma, Uncle Loma, and her aunt moved to Meadow Bridge.

One sunny day a brown-haired, blue-eyed, muscular, handsome man happened to walk by her house. Easy now readers, that is a love story you will have to read about in my next article.

In later years she worked in a hotel in Thurmond as a housekeeper. The boom town was grown out of the coal fields. Gambling, wild women and drinking hard liquor gave many rough and tough hardheaded men pleasure. It has been said that on any night, particularly Friday and Saturday nights, you could see a body or two floating up the river. Thurmond was a tough coal mining town.

How tough was it for a young woman back then? How lonely were her days and nights after the mother she cherished so much passed away? How much fear did she have to endure walking alone for 20 miles, staying by herself or in the company of strangers? How many times did she have to deal with one of the drunks who brought prostitutes to the hotel? What kind of life did she have being raised by a drunk and angry man?

After the Navy I took a job with Wildwater Expeditions, a rafting company; you guessed it, in Thurmond. I was hired as the gift shop store manager. The part I worked in was nothing more than a square concrete room.

One day Grandma and Pop came down to set a spell with me. We shared a bottle of pop, and the time went by too fast. As Grandma was leaving she said, “Ricky, 54 years ago this was where the hotel stood where I worked as a housekeeper. The store where you are working was the basement.”

Alma Jenkins made an impact in this world because she was “pure of heart.”

(Pack may be contacted at rickypack@peoplepc.com. Letters to the editor regarding his column may be e-mailed to ckeenan@register-herald.com.)

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