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?

Dinnertime!

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I'm 16 in this picture and am half cut off over to the left. I notice I'm pretending to drink coffee - the mark of an adult as far as I was concerned. My grandpa had passed on at this point and my grandma is old and crippled by arthritis. That's her there in the front with her walker. I notice, though, that she still has a cheery smile on her face. I think she's amused by my bratty little sister goofing around across the table. Also in attendance (clockwise from left) my cousin  Janet Jo and sister Shirley, my Uncle John Roy, Uncle Charles and Rhoda (an older woman hired to care for my grandma). I think Aunt Lorena is taking the picture. Where are my mom and dad?

So what are we having to eat? Yum. I see fried chicken and mashed potatoes, bread and green onions. I can't quite identify anything else but am especially curious about the dark stuff in small bowls by eveyone's place. I notice there's ketchup and cow's milk, as we used to call it. 

This is a sad picture of my Uncle Roy for me. He's older now and his face is closed off, his eyes sort of vacant and staring. So different from some of his younger pictures when there was still hope for him to have a normal life. I want to speak to him across the table and the years. What would I say?

The New Mexico Years: Missing West Virginia

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When I was almost six, my father decided we needed some adventure, so he accepted a job teaching a college biology class in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Top photo is of me and my mom and sister taking a break from driving out there. It was a huge trip then (1950) with no interstates and took us three or four days. The school picture is of me in first grade in the same shirt. Let's hope I had another shirt.

The move was a big shock for me because I had grown up with the green of West Virginia and where we lived was flat desert - dry cracked earth, spikey plants like yukka and cactus, scorpions and rattlesnakes. There were mountains but they weren't the rolling and tree-covered rain forests of WV. I missed the green lushness. I missed my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. I missed the farm in Nicholas County with its farm animals. 

But there were bright spots because I was a kid and kids are always ready to have a good time. Some of my classmates were American Indians and Mexicans and that was a revelation. My dad took me to White Sands and we collected various rare rocks, minerals and gems just lying around in the sand. We camped in the Rockies and had a horse that roamed the desert but came to our door each night during dinner to beg for handouts. We took a family trip to Indian pueblos and saw a woman baking bread in a large, outdoor adobe oven. I had horned toads for pets and ate chili for the first time. We bought Indian rugs by the side of the road, two of which I still have.

But at the end of two years, my dad had had enough and we began the long trek home. And he never left again.

The Creasy family from Nicholas County

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This picture, taken in 1927, shows John "Bunny" William Creasy and his wife Rose Zanna Brown Creasy at the far left. All of the rest are their 10 children - six boys and four girls - except for the little girl being held in the middle who is their first grandchild. Imagine raising 10 children!

Some of these Creasys figured prominently in my first book Mountain Girl: Grandma and Grandpa, of course, but also the little girl standing in the front who is my Aunt Lorena. Also important in the book is my dad William at the far right and last but not least, my uncle John Roy hunkered down in the front.

A grand group. Dear to my heart.

Aunt Lorena

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Happy Birthday to my lovely Aunt Lorena. Here she is as a young girl but she just turned 91 at the end of February (hope she doesn't mind my telling). She was a character in my novel Mountain Girl and has always been a favorite person in my life. One of her best qualities is her sense of humor - no matter what was going on when I was a girl on my grandparents' farm, she got a laugh out of it.

She was born on the last day of February in a leap year and so only has a birthday every four years. (How sad...I used to think when I was young.) She really looks like an Irish lass in this picture. The Creasys were Irish descendants and my grandpa "Bunny" Creasy had black curly hair and light eyes, which was called "black Irish" as opposed to those who had red in their hair. A grand lady!

Grandma's Grave

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My grandma, Rose Zanna Brown Creasy, is buried in her beloved mountains in the cemetery at Alderson Church in Nicholas County, West Virginia, not far from where she raised her 10 children. This is me a few years back visiting during a family reunion. (Also see the 11/03/10 post.)

Graveyards were more important in the past. They were a place to visit the memory of family members that have crossed over, to reflect on the circle of life, to rest and meditate and pray, to mourn, to tell family stories, to recharge. And they were right there - not set apart, but outside the church window as you worshipped each Sunday. Just part of life...

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.