The great depression was just ending and World War II begining. Dad hadn’t had any steady work for a long time, due to the depression and the family moved often. Whenever he could find work, which was always temporary, he had to live in whatever place he could find that was close enough for him to walk.

At the time I was born he had been working at a small sawmill on Burdette’s Creek in Western Greenbrier county about three or four miles from where they were living.

As the winter came on and with no market for lumber the mill closed down  and he was out of work.

The next move, which was my first, was to an old, overgrown farm in Fayette County, near a little village called Lawn, where my grandparents were living. The farm owner had decided to make some improvements and hired Dad. He worked there for the next year, clearing out old fence rows and grubbing out small trees, briers and wild shurbery, that had about taken over the land. This he did by hand, for a dollar a day.

My first memories are from this place before I was a year old. I remember seeing big birds flying down from the mountain and landing in a tree. Asking mom about this in later years she said they were Guineas fowl, which walked up the mountainside everyday feeding and at dusk would fly down to roost in a big white oak tree by the barn.

She also told me another interesting story about the place. She said that we lived on one side of a creek and my grandparents lived on the other side. She said there was a board about twelve inches wide across it that they used for a walkway over the creek. She said that her brothers would come to their side of the creek with a cup of coffee and entice me to crawl across the board for a sip of their coffee. She said she looked out one day after a big rain and I was about halfway across the creek crawling on the board which was completely covered by water.