The next spring, just before World War I began, was a hard time financially for us. I clearly recall the morning in May when Dad took a screwdriver to our piggy bank and removed the last 35 pennies we had in the world. He was going to walk the five miles to town and buy a small sack of corn meal. When that would be gone, he had no other plans. After Dad left, a very tearful mother took her Bible from the stand and went to her room, closing the door after her. We children instinctively kept very quiet.

In a little while, Mommy came out of her room, tears gone, and a light which could only have been from Heaven shining on her face! In that moment, a yearning began in my heart to find that kind of radiance for myself.

When Dad came home, we not only had the corn meal, but also two letters. One was from Great Uncle 'Lock' Brady. He was ill, and wanted to come and spend the summer with us, and take treatments from my dad, who was a chiropractor. (Outlawed in 1912, through a M. D.-sponsored bill.) The other letter was from a Mr. Zigafoose, county road supervisor, asking my Dad to contract repairing the dirt road for a total of four miles from the Cassity Road to the top of Rich Mountain. Mommy prayed through to a victorious answer! Uncle Lock came, and brought his son Dale, who was my age. Dale's mother had died the previous January, and the task of raising Dale was left to Uncle.

Every Sunday during that summer, we gathered in the living room to sing hymns from two dog-eared old hymnals. In spite of the extra work, my mother seemed especially happy. I'm sure it was because she had a spiritual ally in the kind old uncle. Uncle soon recovered from his illness, and was able to help repair the road. Dale and I helped all we could for seven-year olds.

Another memory of that 1914 summer was the arrival of the Wheeling Intelligencer, a daily newspaper Uncle had sent to him. It brought us the news of the beginnings of World War I. In that summer also, I saw my first aeroplane. It was a small biplane, which passed over our house. We children ran into the house and crawled under the bed. We were sure the plane would drop a bomb on us.

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The "Wheeling Intelligencer" is still in business today!

Picking berries seemed almost a daily task that summer. First was strawberries--tiny ones about the size of the end of a finger. Our backs were tired long before we had enough for a delicious shortcake. In July, it was blackberries, of which we picked and canned over 60 half-gallon green glass Mason jars. (Dad said they would taste better than snowballs in the winter time! Our faithful dog always explored the patch before we went in, and on two occasions, his excited bark revealed large rattle-snakes, which Dad promptly killed.

We had a very large garden, with a row of currants and gooseberries down the middle. All kinds of vegetables and fruits were canned 365 half-gallons in all. Beans and apple 'snitz' were dried over the kitchen stove (Indianola No. 8 wood range) after being strung on lengths of twine string. Our apple trees bore profusely that year. Frost killed all of the fruit in the valleys, but our 2900 foot elevation meant warm nights in the still air. Our apples were in high demand, and at a good price. Since work was scarce, Dad traded apples for groceries, and we ate well that winter.

On Christmas eve, Dad came back from town with a troubled look on his face. The house at the Green Farm was occupied that year by a ne’er-do-well family of white people named Amos. Dad had stopped there on his way home, and they were their evening meal. It consisted of corn bread made of only meal, salt and water. A dish of hot water was in the center of the table. The father would break the hard corn pone over the edge of the table, and the children, seven girls, would dip the bread in the water to make it soft enough to eat. I remember well the tears in Dad's eyes as he told us about it.

Christmas morning dawned clear and bitterly Dad harnessed the horse to the sled, lined the box body with gunny sacks, then loaded two bushels of potatoes, two of apples, and about 20 jars of canned foods, then wrapped everything in blankets against the below zero cold and delivered it to the hungry family. When he came back his happiness was contagious as he told how the children jumped with joy at the sight of the wonderful provisions.

1915 was an especially memorable year. Dad was determined to make the old farm provide for his family, so plowed all of the orchard with his `hillside plow and planted it in corn, and part of the meadow in front of the house in potatoes. (On a trip to the site of the old cabin with my brother in 1950, I found the point of the plow in the leaves of the forest now grown over the old farm. I have that point hung in my shop.) Sister Zylpha and I would take a row to hoe, and Dad would hoe his row and help my four-year-old brother Bland keep up with his. In July, the third and last hoeing came, and I will never forget mom blowing the old conch shell for dinner (12 o'clock) and the feast before us; new green beans, cooked with the bone a large ham, sliced tomatoes, early apple sauce, and home made bread.

An accident with our home-made coasting sled bruised my right ankle and shin bone, and in late November, I developed a bone abscess (osteomyelitis). For two weeks I was delirious with a high fever, and neighbors advised amputating my limb. Mother decided against it, saying she would pray, and Dad could treat the leg with poultices and hot baths. Just before Christmas, the skin broke open, and over a quart of fluid was drained. The fever broke immediately and seven pieces of the shin bone worked their way through the flesh. It was over a year before I could walk.

On January 21st, 1916, my sister Rosalyn was born. (She died Dec. 19, 1951.) Grandma Brady came to help with the work, then took me home with her for one month. I attended my very first school session then. My cousin, Carl Brady lived with Grandma, and he would take me to school on his sled, and carry me into the schoolroom. My mother always had regular school sessions for us children at home during the winter, so I advanced rapidly. I spent only one day in the first grade (my Aunt Lulu Brady, was the teacher.) One week was spent in the second grade, where Miss Belva Poling (later to became my Uncle Dayton's wife) was the teacher. The third grade was taught by Dessie Gall, who later married my Dad's first cousin, Stacy Row. Tests rated me 4th grade in most subjects, 5th in geography (my favorite) but only 3rd grade in arithmetic. It was always my most difficult subject.

Dad came for me in late March with the horse and buggy. By this time I was very homesick. We drove home through snow hawing in a bright sun, arriving home after dark. What a time of joy for me! Uncle Lock's girl, Lelah, was there when I arrived. Her daughter, Gwendolyn, was born at our house.

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