Aunt Lorena Again

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I'm thinking about my Aunt Lorena lately because I'm going to the Creasy family reunion in West Virginia at the end of this month and she'll be there along with my cousins. She's in her nineties now and the last of my dad's 10 brothers and sisters. This is a great picture of her looking out over the hills of WV. What was she thinking about?

Childhood in the Mountains

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That's me in the center at eight years old with my hand on Snowball's bridle and my arm around my sister. And those are the neighborhood kids, Becky and John Miller. This is what we did for fun on my grandparents' Nicholas County WV farm - hung out and messed around. No TV, no phone, no handheld games, no computers. Just us and 50 acres of rolling hills and farm animals. It was a ball!

Looks like today it's pony time and John gets the first ride. I'm guessing this was after church and we begged my mom and their mom to let them stop and play. My sister and I changed clothes but Becky's still in a dress and her good coat and it looks like it might be late fall but a sunny day. In the background, you can see the little house I wrote about last time.

This is childhood at its best. I'd love to jump into the picture for one more lovely day.

Little House in Nicholas County

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Look at this cute little house. One year when I was a girl, my dad built a house down in the low meadow on my grandparents' property. It was maybe half a block from their farm house. I say "half a block" because I live in Chicago but no one said that back then. Maybe they said it was "down aways" from the big house. Because I was a girl, I thought it was farther than it actually was, so I might have said it was a "fur piece" from one house to the other.

But imagine this, that my dad built this house on his own - wired it, put in the plumbing. Amazing! Just whipped it up. I remember it had a "breezeway," an open area between the main house and the garage where we had a swing and where breezes would actually waft through. And we seemed to always have kittens frolicking there too. Not to mention that I could go out the back, climb the fence, jump the little creek and go up the hill to visit grandma.

It's still there today.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Visiting the Cousins

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I loved visiting my Uncle Dan's house near Craigsville, WV. It's funny how visits were back then. There wasn't a phone at grandma's house so we just got cleaned up and drove the few miles to their house. And they were always home. My Uncle Dan in this picture looks like all the Creasy boys did - handsome, tall, lean. He worked in the mines but at home did a lot of woodworking and at one point made gun stocks from scratch. That's Aunt Lena beside him.

Those are my cousins on the right. Ruth was know as The Marilyn Monroe of Richwood High when she was in high school because she looked so much like her. Sue (second from the right) was closer to my age so we hung out more. She taught me to Jitterbug in their living room and I always went home with one of her hand-me-down dresses. I loved putting up hay with her at grandma's and she was the model for "Cousin Patsy" in my book Mountain Girl.

The living room here is near and dear to my heart. The flowered wallpaper was just like that in my grandma's house. The blankets, pillows, curtains and heavy, dark furniture are so familiar from that time. I recognize the picture on the wall as one by that famous cowboy artist. (Do you know his name?) I'd like to step into the photo and hang out for a while.

Dashing Uncle Joe

Here's my Uncle Joe Creasy during WWII. I love the airplane with its ferocious painted teeth. A lot of the men in my family fought in wars.

A couple of my Creasy ancestors were in the Civil War and one was wounded, one killed. That's when West Virginia got its name, by the way: it seceded from Virginia, which fought for the South, and went with the North.

My dad was a naval officer during WWII, which is why I was born in Miami Beach, where he was stationed. Since the Navy was moving him around to various bases, my mom returned to WV and stayed on my grandparents farm in Nicholas County until the war was over and he came home. I was two when I saw him again. I think that was the experience of many children during that time.

Uncle Roy

Wow, ancient photo. This is my grandpa John Creasy and my grandma Rose dressed to the hilt for the picture. I notice that I have my grandma's deepset eyes but look at her clothes! Did everyone dress like this in WV for formal occasions at that time?

My Uncle Roy is the little boy in the shot and the little girl my Aunt Sarah. I'm especially draw to this because it shows my Uncle Roy as a young carefree boy, when later he had a lot of problems. (He was the model for Uncle John in my book Mountain Girl.) I only knew him as a withdrawn adult.

I always think that if he had lived today with all we know and do for problem children he could have lived a normal and happy life.

Family Gathering

Hey, this is such a great picture shot about 1950 at my aunt and uncle's farm near Calvin, West Virginia. That's me in the middle of the front row leaning against my Grandma Rose's knee. On either side of me is my sister Shirley and my cousin Clark. In the back row is my mom Katie, my Grandpa John, Aunt Luella and Uncle Silmon. My dad was taking the picture.

I used to love to go to their house...just getting there was an adventure. You turned off onto this little windy  dirt road that hugged the mountains and hoped you didn't meet anyone going the other way. I was prone to car sickness so it seemed a long way to their farm but probably was only a couple of miles.

Once we got there, it was a kid's paradise, though. There were my five boy cousins and all they were into (they had a box of comic books under the bed!). I especially remember my aunt's homemade mincemeat pie with whipped cream straight from the cows. There were animals and always kittens, it seemed. And there were the mountains (need I say more?).

Look how happy we all are! I'd like to step into the picture and relive it for a couple of hours.

The Porch Swing

I just love this picture of my Grandpa on the porch swing. It is very typical of him and shows his strong, proud independence. I seldom remember him sitting down, though; he was a busy man with a 50-acre farm and 10 children and 25 grandchildren. Every time I saw him he was harvesting the garden, putting up hay, feeding livestock, shoeing horses and the like.

I also love the background of the photo: the simple, traditional use of wood in the house; the old screen door, no doubt with a hook latch; the WV vegetation crowding onto the porch from the right; the peg on the wall where Grandpa has hung his coat. The sunshine and the shadow of the photographer (who took it?). A classic.

Cemetery Visit

This is my grandma Rose and me (10 years old) in our church cemetery visiting my grandpa's grave. She has some tissue in her hand because she had been crying. She really loved my grandpa and still cried over his grave many years after he was gone. That kind of long-term marriage is almost unheard-of today and I think we've lost something.

It was always a comfort to walk in the cemetery by Alderson Church and see the headstones of my family (both Creasys and Browns). It made me feel near to relatives that were dead and gone. And often a stroll out  to the family graves after church engendered family stories, which I loved. I've always loved a story.