Welcome to my Bingaman page, where I continue the story told to me by my grandmother, Leoda HAWS Minnick Bingaman before she passed away.  Continued from the Minnick Page.   The first part of the story is what happened to her between her divorce from Frank Minnick and her marriage to Cloyd Bingaman, then she goes on to talk about her marriage to Cloyd Bingaman.  She also talks about places in West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Ohio.  Places I've never seen, but hope to someday.  In addition, she does mention a few names, and I have put those names in bold so readers looking for other names can find them more easily.

I have put photo links in two places.  In the story itself, I've added links for those people that like to see what they're reading about.  And at the bottom of the page, I added links for those people who prefer to finish reading through a story before they look at pictures. Hopefully, that will please everyone except for those people that prefer not to see links to photos at all.  Grin.

Remember that Leoda's story is in italics.  Any notes, comments or inserts will be in plain type or bold type and will be enclosed in brackets.  I would also like to add that Leoda became very involved in Pentecostal churches.  I do not mean to offend anyone either way (whether you are familiar with Pentecostal churches and like them, or you're familiar with them and you don't like them at all).  I'm am only repeating the story told by Leoda, and it is her history as told by her.  There are a number of portions of the story, however, that do not match facts as supported by things others have told me or by documents I have found.  Some of the story, however, does match up perfectly with documentation.  For example, paperwork I found showed that Leoda divorced Frank Minnick in 1937, which would have been considerably longer after the time she told me.  Hmmm....  But here's the rest of her story.

Well, you see I'd got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost in July '27, just before Paul was born.  And I was working in the church and ended up staying with the pastor and his wife.  I worked hard in Flora's church.  I prayed and I preached and help clean and do things that needed doing.  I was a real firebrand back then.  I got a real reputation for being a powerhouse for the Lord, and people knew I'd done evangelistic work.  Sometimes I'd help others out and stay with different people.  Sometimes they'd let me bring Paul and sometimes they wouldn't.

So me and Paul stayed with Mom and Claude sometimes.  Mom and Claude tried to talk me into letting them adopt Paul, but I wouldn't hear of it.  No way they were gonna take my baby.  I told them, "No.  He's mine.  He's not for sale, and you can't have him."  I told Claude he just wanted somebody else to domineer and boss around.  So anyways, when Paul was about a year old, and Claude and Mom finally gave up trying to get me to give up Paul.  So they went to the Salvation Army and found themselves a little boy about a year younger than Paul.  David.  And so they adopted him.  [According to records I found, David's birth name may have been Stottlemeyer.  How I wish I could locate him, because I bet he could provide answers to a lot of unanswered questions.  By now, of course, I realize he may be deceased.  But on with Leoda's story...]

But back to me and Paul traveling and working for the Lord.  Well, like I said, I had a reputation for being a powerhouse for God.  Well, a lady by the name of Emma Hire was going to CresapTown to hold a revival, and so she took me and Paul with her.  Usually someone would hold Paul while I led the song service.  Remember I had a nice voice back then.  And then after the sermon, I'd work the altars.  Up to this point, I hadn't preached.  But before the end of this revival, I'd met Darry Dolly [spelled phonetically].  She told me she wanted me to come with her and her husband up in the hills of West Virginia where she was gonna hold revivals, and she wanted someone like me along.  Yep.  She took me away from Mrs. Hire before that revival was even done.

So anyhow, me and Paul went with Mrs. Dolly up in the hills to a place called Cavens, West Virginia.  They didn't have no church up there, so we had the revival in the schoolhouse.  And the schoolhouse was peppered with buckshot cuz it was in a bootleggin area.  Mrs. Dolly and her husband lived at Old Time and they wanted to take the gospel to their people.  We held revival for about six weeks, and that was the first time I ever tried my hand at preaching.

After that, I went back to Flora's.  [Flora was apparently the last name of the pastors of the church.]   Flora was Church of God.  I never missed church.  I was either in a church meeting or a prayer meeting every night.  I made a little bed for Paul and he'd go to sleep on the church benches.    We have brush arbor meetings all around, at Smoke Holes, Cabin Run.  We'd build a platform under the brush arbor, and I'd make a bed for Paul.  If we didn't have a platform, then I'd make a bed on chairs for him.

After a while, people started telling me maybe I should find a place for Paul to stay when I was doing evangelistic work so he wouldn't have to travel around so much and sleep on benches and stuff.  And besides he was almost old enough by now to go to school.  Mrs. Dolly told me Rev. S___ up in Loney/Coney?? Maryland had a place specially for kids of preachers who had to travel around, and so the preachers kids could go to school.  And I knew Bro. S___ well.  I'd led songs for him, and led testimony services.  He was a real fine man.  So I went to go see him and the place he built and all and find out about maybe putting Paul in the school there.  Bro. S___ had hired a couple to run the place for him, and they seemed like good Christian folk.

So I left Paul there, and of course he didn't want me to leave.  But I figured it would be best for him.   I think they had a phone there, but I didn't call.  You trusted folk in those days.  But between meetings, I'd go and see Paul.  The Dollys would drop me off, and I'd visit with Paul, then I'd go to Mom's.  And I told everyone how wonderful the school was.  And I even made appeals for the school and helped raise funds for it.

So Paul was at the school all winter.  And by now it's springtime.  Now I'd always made Paul's clothes for him, his little short pants and his shirt that would button.  People would give me suits, sometimes nice linen suits, when we were evangelizing.  And I'd keep two for me, then cut up the rest to make outfits for Paul.  Usually people couldn't give much money cuz they didn't have it.  But they'd give us clothes or chickens or pigs.

So anyhow, it's spring and I'd sent them some of the little outfits I'd made for Paul.  I went to see him, and he was wearing one of the little short sets, and I noticed a bruise on his leg.  I asked him what it was and he jerked away from me and said, "No, Momie.  I'm all right."  I grabbed him to pull him closer so I could look, and he cried out.  So then I lifted up his shirt and there was welts all over his little back.  I told him it was okay, that he was coming home with me and he wouldn't have to stay here another minute.  But first I went and told them off good.  They told me some kind of story, I don't remember what it was.  But I knew what they done was wrong.  I know it wasn't Bro. S___'s fault cause he didn't know what kind of people they were, but at the same time I knew something had to be done.  And you know me, God's battle ax.  I took Paul the next day to a states attorney and showed him the welts and said, that place needs to be shut down.  And in two weeks it was.

But that's when I started being real protective with Paul.  I kept him with me every minute.  I wouldn't let him out of my sight.  I didn't want no one else hurting him.  I even made him go shopping with me and he hated that.   Well, since Paul needed to go to school and I wasn't about to leave him somewhere anymore, I had to stop doing evangelistic work.  So I worked at different churches around.  There was one on Valley Road.  Ft. Ashby was another.  They had Sunday meeting every Sunday afternoon from 1:00 to about 5:00.

I kept trying to get different jobs, but it was hard cause most said they knew I was a hard worker, but they just couldn't take the little boy.  And I wasn't about to leave Paul behind.  So I kept going back and forth, living with Mom, then trying to make a place for me and Paul, but having to go back to Mom.  It was real hard but I knew my baby boy had to come first.

Anyways, it was about this time I met Cloyd Bingaman.  Actually, I had worked for Cloyd two years before I ever married him.  He owned a barber shop.  He put an ad in the paper that said man with family looking for housekeeper, and didn't mind a child.  So it sounded like the answer to my prayers.  I got real excited about it.  Me and Mom prayed together about it.  And Mom answered Cloyd's ad but told him he'd have to come here to see me.  So he did.  He made the trip to meet me.  He lived in Frostburg.  He had grown children and grandchildren.  He was a lot older than me.  He wanted someone who would cook and clean the house and help take care of his granddaughter, little Delores.

Well, it turned out that Cloyd was a backslidden Pentecostal man who used to be a powerhouse himself.  I don't remember everything that was said in the interview, cause Mom asked most the questions.  But at one point, I knew I had to make something abundantly clear.  I looked him in the eye and said, 'Mr. Bingaman, there's something you need to know before we talk about hiring or anything.  I'm a decent, respectable Christian woman with my child.  And I'm an evangelist, and I'm out and out for God.  I'm not looking for a man.  I want you to understand that.  I'm not looking for a man or a husband.'

I was real careful to explain that because once before I'd answered an ad for a housekeeper and the man had a one room apartment.  I wanted to make sure he understood.  But Cloyd told me that was fine, that he was glad to find someone like me.  And then I told him, 'And I can only work for you in winter when school's going on, cause in the summer I'm going to evangelize."  He didn't seem to have a problem with none of that, so we decided I'd do it.

So I packed up Paul's clothes and my clothes, and we got on the bus and went to Frostburg.  And he had a real nice place.  I cooked dinner and told him, 'I pray before all my meals, and I read the Bible each night to Paul.'  He said he thought that was nice, and maybe I should get Delores in on that too.

Well, I worked a couple months for Cloyd and that I told him, 'I don't have no way to get to church.'  I didn't feel right about walking by myself at night just me and Paul.  And so he says, 'That's ok.  I'll walk you to church.'  So after that, me and Cloyd would take Paul by the hand, and Gertrude would come along with Delores, and we'd all walk over to the Middleothean [spelling?] church together.  [I think Gertrude may have been one of Cloyd's children, and the mother of Delores, but I'm not sure.]

Me and Paul had the front bedroom upstairs.  We only had heat in our room until we went to bed.  Boy, during the night it got down to 15 below zero and we nearly froze.    On Sundays, I'd put meat in the big pots and they'd cook for 4 hours while we were at church.  Then when we'd get home, I'd finish up dinner.  Cloyd went to church with me and Paul for a couple years, and got back on fire for the Lord.  I'd heard what a firebrand he used to be.  After he got back with the Lord, we'd have prayer and Bible study in the livingroom.  I'd teach the kids how to pray, and real Bible stories.  By then, I'd worked for Cloyd a couple winters.  By the time the third winter rolled around, Cloyd had begun to grow on me.  He was a good Christian man, good to his family, and I saw he was real.  And several of my Christian friends kept telling me that me and Cloyd should get married.  They were pressing us to get married.

I told them I was a divorcee and why I divorced.  And they said it was okay to get married again if your husband commited fornication.  So I kept thinking about it, and thought it would be good for Paul to have a good man for a daddy.  Paul would have a permanent home, and maybe he could learn to be a barber like Cloyd.  And I already knew Cloyd would let me leave in the summer to go do evangelistic work.  But Cloyd was 17 years older than me, so I wasn't sure.  But I guess some of Cloyd's friends were talking to him just like my friends were talking to me.  So he finally asked me to marry him, and I said yes.  We went to Salsbury, Maryland and got married.

Of course, after we came back from getting married, we had to switch the rooms around.  So Cloyd moved into the front bedroom with me, and Paul got moved to the middle room.  I didn't like that, but I had to do it.  It was my duty.

Well, we lived there a long time.  Paul went to high school there.  But when he was in 11th grade he got in trouble.  He and a couple other boys got in trouble with the law.  The other two boys set it up, but Paul took the wrap when they got caught cause the other boys had lots of money and they paid their way out of trouble, but Paul couldn't.   And Paul wouldn't talk to no one, not even me.  He wouldn't give no one the names of the other two boys.  I found out years later who they were, but back then Paul wouldn't say nothing.  And there was no use in getting an attorney because Paul already said he wouldn't say a word to any attorney or no one else.

Paul ended up being sentenced to the Maryland Training School.  They treated Paul terrible there.  For punishments sometimes, they'd put his head in a wooden block, bent over, kinda like a guillotine.  It was horrible.  And meanwhile, the freezing cold winters were hurting my health.  The doctor told me if I didn't get away from the cold weather, I wouldn't last.  So I asked Cloyd to move with me somewhere warmer.  But he said he couldn't do that, cause the shop was where he made our living.  He said he'd pay to send Bessie with me though.  Well, we got into a big fight then.  I told him, 'It was okay we spent a month with your folks in Pennsylvania a year ago, but you can't spend a month with me in Florida to see if I do better where it's warm.  Well, if you don't care for me enough to do this for me, then when I go, I won't be back.'

The more I thought about it, the madder I got.  And I kept thinking about poor Paul and all that he was going through at that terrible place.  So I figured I would go to the training school and see if they would release Paul to my custody if we would promise to move to another state.  Then I could take him someplace warmer and away from the bad influences.

I saw an ad in the paper about a job at a chicken ranch in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware.  I answered the ad, and the man said he'd give me a job and a 3-room apartment over the chicken house.  And if my mom wanted a job too, he could use the help.  The ranch was right on the ocean, and they had a boat.  I could have a garden and a nice place for Paul.  We could have all the eggs we wanted, and even raise a couple chickens for ourselves.  The job looked like a jewel.  So I left and went and got Mom and we moved to Rehobeth Beach.  They had six or seven chicken houses with apartments over them.  There were 1500 or so little biddies from 3 days old up until they were 16 weeks or so.

I wrote the Maryland Training School and told them I was working on a chicken ranch in Delaware and that it would be a wonderful place to finish raising Paul, and that she wanted him released to her custody. I told them I wanted an answer right away.  Well, they wrote back and said Paul had run away and they didn't know where he was.  Well, right away I figured he'd probably run to his Grandma Minnick's house in Martinsburg.  I told Mom she'd have to take care of my chicken house and I caught a bus to Martinsburg.  Sure enough, there was Paul.  So I brought him back to the chicken ranch with me.  But then it dawned on me that now they knew where I was, and that was probably where they'd come to look for Paul.

So I sold all my things and drew my pay, then me and Mom and Paul and Dave went to Wilmington.  I got a job at the Olivera Hotel as a room clerk and PBX operator.  And I'd pay bills, write checks.  I worked 8 to 4 doing the office work, then at night I worked in the dining room as a cashier and a hostess.  I got Paul a job there too, as a bellhop.  And Mom got a job in one of the other hotels, and Dave got work too.  We were doing our best to save up as much money as we could, cause we knew we couldn't stay there too long.  After a bit, it seemed like some suspicious things were going on, and we figured it was time to go, so we moved to Ohio.  By now it was summer, but I knew we couldn't stay in Ohio when winter came cause it would be too cold again.  I decided to make a trip back to Wilmington and see if I could learn anything.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dave got jobs in a dime store.  Then Mom got a job working for the railroad and she liked that.  So Mom and Dave stayed in Ohio for awhile.  I got Paul and we moved to Charleston where it would be warmer and further away from Maryland.  Mom and Dave ended up moving there too.  But me and Paul ended up moving again, this time to Florida.  We went to Miami, because I'd heard they had better paying jobs down there.  And it was even further away from Maryland.

But then Mom got a telegram saying that Kramer had died at Weston Hospital.  I left Miami to go help Mom take care of arrangements for Kramer.  Mom nearly lost her mind when my brother died.  I had to take care of everything.  Paul was supposed to stay in Miami and work.  But while I was gone, he took off to New Orleans.  Course I didn't know about that till later.

Anyhow, after Kramer was taken care of, and I helped Mom as much as I could, I figured I'd better get back.  I decided to stop by and see Cloyd and get my Regal guitary I'd left there.  So I took the bus to Cloyd's and knocked on the door.  He was surprised to see me.  He said, 'Why Lottie," --he used to call me Lottie-- 'are you back to say?'  I told him no, I just came to get my guitar.   He walked me back to the bus and tried to talk me into staying, but I told him my mind was made up.

I took the bus to Charleston, so I could work enough to get money to pay back Bill for the money he'd loaned to help us out.  I sent for Paul, and he got a job in a club.  They liked Paul a lot, and taught him how to mix drinks.  He got so good at it that they promoted him to the club room where they made the fancy drinks.

I wasn't happy with the money I was getting paid, and there was a Philippino cook that knew I wasn't too happy.  Well, the cook talked to a Mr. Budrow and told him all about me.  He told Mr. Budrow I'd be a real good person to get to run his place.  So Mr. Budrow said he'd like to talk to me.  So the Philippino cook came to where I was working and said there was a nice man and his sister that owned a place, and they might want me to come and run it for them.  He said it was about 14 miles away.  Well, I was a little leery, but told Paul about it when he got off work.  So we decided we would go and see Mr. Budrow.

Mr. Budrow and his sister owned this real nice restaurant.  It had one huge dining room, then it had a smaller dining room.  After we talked, Mr. Budrow said he wanted to watch me work for a week or so.  So for a week I did whatever needed to be done.  He saw I was a good worker.  If a dishwasher was off, I washed dishes.  If a cook was off, I cooked.  Whatever needed to be done.  So I started working for Mr. Budrow and his sister.  They were awfully good to me.  Mr. Budrow pretty much turned everything over to me to take care of.  He gave me the keys to his Cadillac and had me go do the ordering.  I didn't like having to order the whiskey at the brewery, but I did what I had to do.  Mr. Budrow told me I could do whatever I wanted with the menus.  So I made up new dishes and was always coming up with something new.  More and more people started coming, and the business got built up real good.

There was a Navy shipyard nearby, and when the boys got off the ship they would stop by.  I had three waitresses and a barmaid working for me.  We could only sell whiskey, no beer or wine.  I never did understand that.  Anyhow, we had a big juke box in the dining room.  And so one day I told Mr. Budrow I had an idea that I thought would build up the business even more.  I told him, 'You know we don't need two kitchens.'  And a lot of families won't come here to eat because the bar is in here, and the sailors are here.  But if we made that smaller kitchen a bar area and turn that other room into a dance hall, we could move the juke box there, I think we'd get a lot more business in the bar, plus more families in here to eat because they'd be away from the bar.   By then, as you can tell, I was really starting to backslide.

So we did it.  We made all those changes.  And we sat armchairs around in the dance hall area.  And business was booming.  And Mr. Budrow and his sister were both so happy with me.  I was making lots of money for them.

Meanwhile, Paul was working for Bubba Raven.  Bubba had a pool hall, and he'd hire Paul to play pool with the people that came in.  Paul had become a pool shark, no one could beat him.

Everything was working out so good.  Business was doing great, and I kept coming up with new ideas.  And more sailors were coming and brining their girlfriends with them.  And more families were coming to eat in the family dining room.  I had pretty white tablecloths put on all the tables in the family dining room, plus flowers on the tables.  And the menus were good, and the prices were fair.

Well, the Budrows also had rooms they rented.  They had ten rooms upstairs that they rented to boarders, but they had real strict rules.  I did such a good job for them with the restaurant and bar that they asked me if I wanted to take over the boardinghouse too.  Mr. Budrow said he would give me a raise.  So I said yes.  And I began to change lots of things there, too.  The maid had told me she had problems sometimes with the men boarders trying to get, well you know.  And sometimes they'd drink too much and vomit and then she'd have to clean it up.  Well, I told her that was going to change.  I said, 'If they want to puke, it's gonna cost them $5.  And if anyone makes any comments to you or tries to molest you in any way, we'll kick them out immediately.'  And so I posted signs telling them the new rules.

Well, one day the maid comes to me and says, 'There's puke on the floor in one of the rooms.  You said not to clean it if I found it, but to come tell you.'  Well, I went to see the boarder and told him he owed $5 for puking on the floor.  He refused to pay it.  I told him, 'OK, but until you pay it, your room don't get cleaned.'  I was tough, still am.  So for 2 days he held out, then finally he couldn't stand it no more and he paid the $5.  When he handed me the $5 he said, 'You're hard, aren't you?'  I said, 'No, I just don't like pigs.'

So anyhow, we started fixing up the rooms, and the boarders started taking better care of stuff, and Mr. Budrow was real pleased.  Things seemed to be going real good.  But then I decided I wanted to move to California. . . .

Story to be Continued on the Westward Ho Page

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See photo links below
 

	Photo of chicken ranch in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware (not sure of spelling).
	Photos of Cloyd Bingaman family
	Photo of Cloyd and Leoda with banjo and guitar on Cloyd Bingaman Family photo page (which is on same page as above llink)
	[Plan to eventually scan more pictures.]

 

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