This is my Minnick page (continued from the Hartley Page).  Here you will find the continuing story as told by my grandmother before she passed away.  The story of the Ellifritz family, the Umstot family, the Flicks, the Haws family (although not much was shared about Oscar Haws), her life as a teenager living with her mother (my g-grandmother) who had second married Claude Hartley, and finally her life as she met Frank Minnick, the grandfather I never met.  (At the bottom of the page are some links to some pictures.)

Leoda's story continues

My mother had always threatened me that if I didn't obey her, she'd send me to reform school.  She kept at me and kept at me, and I know Claude was a lot to blame.  I vowed and declared I was going to get away from there.  But I was afraid.  Because of the reform school thing.  I knew she'd do it.  So then I got to figuring that if I got married, well, then she wouldn't have any jurisdiction over me.

I'd been proposed to before.  I was pretty back then.  Course, you wouldn't know it now.  (Laugh)  But I wasn't half bad, and I was talented.  Like you.  Musically talented.  I could sing up a storm and play the banjo and the guitar and the mandolin.  Harmonica too.  One lady begged my mother to let her send me to Peabody School because she thought I should get musical training.  But Mom wouldn't let me.

So anyhow, back to what I was sayin'.  I'd been proposed to before.  I think Bill Twig asked me to marry him once.  But of course Mom put a stop to all that.  Well, I made up my mind she wasn't going to put a stop to me getting married this time, cuz it was the only way I knew to get away from her and Claude.  Mostly Claude.  I vowed and declared that if Frank asked me to, I would marry him.  And that's exactly what I did.

Now you have to understand.  See, before I started sneaking around because Mom was so hard on me, I brought Frank to the house and introduced him to Mom and Claude.  Frank didn't cuss or drink, but he did smoke.  His people were real good people.  The Minnicks were good people, so I thought Mom would be pleased.  But she wasn't.  Of course, now I know that Mom saw through Frank, saw him for the bad apple he was.  He was the black sheep of the family, but I didn't know it at the time.

So anyhow, Frank sort of proposed to me.  And meanwhile something else happened at home that made me very unhappy and I couldn't wait to get away.  (I asked her what happened, but she wouldn't talk about it.)  So me and Frank and Desta and Kenny all decided we were gonna run off.  Now Frank and Desta and Kenny, they were all 18, but I was only 16.  Frank made the plans.

Frank's folks lived in Bayard, West Virginia.  I don't know why he was in Cumberland...but that's where I met him.  Anyhow, we all pooled our money together.  Then we waited till the wee hours of the morning for everyone to leave their houses.  I wanted to take my little Victrola.  I didn't care as much about my banjo, but I wanted my Victrola.  So I put it on a rope and let it down the window.  We lived on Frederick Street right next door to the morgue.  So I let down my Victrola, then my suitcase.   The other three were waiting for me.  It was probably 4:00 am.

In those days, we were knickers.  They have a band around the bottom.  Anyhow, we were all dressed up in our knickers, and we hid out until we could catch the train to Bayard.  We caught the train and went to Frank's house.  It was pretty much evening by the time we got there.  Frank had caught a real bad cold, had a bad cough.  Anyhow, he introduced me to his folks.  His mother was real scared when she found out I was only 16.  Frank told her we were gonna get married, and his mom told him he couldn't run off to marry me, that we'd all get in trouble.  Then a bit later his mom said she had to run over to May's house.  May was her sister.  So while she was gone, we all got scared, we thought maybe she was goin' for the law.  So we grabbed up our suitcases and sneaked out.  [When telling the story, Leoda said something about them using Kenny's car, but later she said they walked and walked.  This discrepancy occurred between changes of tapes, so I'm not sure what happened to the car.  Below is a link to a picture of Leoda in front of a car with a couple in it, and I wondered if that could be Kenny and Desta.]

We took off and started walking along the railroad track. We walked almost all night.  After awhile it started to get daylight, and we were all tired.  Course we had a solution for being tired.  Whenever one of us would start getting cranky or upset, we'd all stop and set down the Victrola and put on a record a dance.  Sometimes a fox trot and sometimes a Charleston.  I know it sounds funny, but it cheered us up and gave us energy to keep going.  Frank and Ken didn't have no suitcases, but me and Desta both had one, so we had to take turns carrying them and the Victrola too.

Well, it was getting daylight and we didn't want no one to see us walking along the tracks.  Frank knew the area pretty good, so he led us into the berry woods.  We ate berries and May apples.  We pretty much stayed in the woods in the daylight and walked at night.  When we slept, me and Desta would lay close together and Kenny and Frank would sleep on either side of us, so we all helped keep each other warm.  No one had brought a quilt or anything.  There was nothing bad went on, no vulgarity.  I know in this day and age that would be hard to believe, but that's how it happened.  Well, we were all tired, and we were hungry, and we were afraid to go back, and I said I wasn't about to go home to Mom because she'd beat me to death.

So then we come to this big ol' farmhouse.  Me and Desta went into the barn while the boys hid the suitcases and the Victrola.  Then the boys climbed up into the hayloft and dug a big hole for me and Desta to sleep in the hay.  They covered us up with hay.  Then they were goin' the house to investigate.  The farmer had dogs, and boy they were barking up a storm.  The boys were gonna ask for work so they could get food, then they would sneak some food to us.  That was their plan anyhow.  But the farmer got real mad at them for trespassing on his property, and he was going to call the law.  And he didn't even know about me and Desta.  So the boys snuck back around and got us girls out of there real fast.  Now we were doubly afraid, afraid cuz Mom had probably called the law and afraid cuz the farmer probably had the law on us.  At least that's how we was thinking, so we were running scared and knew we had to come up with a plan pretty soon.

So we finally decided to catch a train on to Parsons.  When we got to Parsons, we hunted up a boardinghouse.  Desta and Kenny pretended to be brother and sister, and me and Frank did the same thing.  I don't think we used our real last names, but we used our real first names so we wouldn't get mixed up.  So me and Desta worked at the boardinghouse to earn our room and board.  Frank and Kenny roomed together and me and Desta roomed together.  The guys went out to look for work somewhere else.  And they got some odd jobs.  We probably stayed at this boardinghouse two weeks.  We will hadn't heard anything and didn't know what was happening, but we knew we had to do something because we couldn't keep going on this way.  So we figured the best thing we could do was to go ahead and get married.  We figured that if we got married and lived together for 3 days, no one could do anything about it.  As least that's how we was thinking.

So the four of us went over to the courthouse to get marriage licenses.  Now we were in West Virginia, and it turned out that in West Virginia you had to be 21 to get married unless your folks signed for you.  Well, we had already told them we were all 18.  So they gave us parental consent forms.  Well, we knew that wouldn't work, so now we were at the end of our rope.  We didn't know what to do.

So I said the only thing I knew to do was to go to my Grandma Fleek's house.  I knew Grandma would help us figure it out.  We'd been gone nigh on 3 weeks now and felt like we were in a trap.  There wasn't enough work in Parsons, and the people at the boardinghouse had only let us work there a little while just to help us out, so we couldn't stay there.  So we had to move.  We went back to Keyser. Desta and Kenny didn't want to go to my grandma's house, so we went straight to the Keyser courthouse.  All of us said we was 21.  I don't remember if I gave my mother's right name or if I gave them my grandma's name.  But anyhow, we all got married.  Then Kenneth and Desta went back to Cumberland.  Me and Frank went out to Grandma Fleek's house.  It was only 14 miles from Keyser to Grandma Fleek's.

So we came straight to Grandma Susan's house and I told her everything that had happened.  I always was able to talk to Grandma.  She was somebody who understood everything.  I told her, "Mom's gonna kill me.  She's gonna beat me to death."  I hadn't forgot the beating I took under the Blue Bridge.  I told Grandma, "She'll even send me away," and I was crying.  Grandma told me, "Oh no, she won't.  You're OK.  You're legally married now.  And I'll protect you."  She said, "You're gonna stay right here and Frank can go to town and get a job and get an apartment.  You won't need to go back home."  And so Grandma Susan laid the plans for us.

We stayed with Grandma a couple days.  Grandma didn't have all the beds upstairs anymore.  So she made a pallet for me and Frank to sleep on.  That was the first night I actually slept with Frank.  He tried to touch me and I said, "No, you ain't gonna touch me.  No way."  For two nights that went on.  I didn't want no part of that.  Huh-uh, that wasn't for me.  I told him, I said, "You don't touch me.  You can kiss me up here.  You can kiss me and hug me and you can put your arms around me, but that's it."  Poor Frank.  The first two nights, that's what he had to put up with.  I told my Grandma what had happened and she said, "That's something you have to do, Leoda.  You're married now and that goes with marriage."  I cried, "But I didn't bargain for that, Grandma.  I don't want to."  But Grandma Susan finally talked me into it.  She said it might hurt the first time, and it did.  It hurt bad.

Well, by now it was nearing the weekend, and I started getting scared.  Cuz Mom used to come to visit her mom on the weekend sometimes.  I was so scared.  I told Grandma, "What if she comes, Grandma.  She's gonna beat me to death for doing this.  She beat me with her fist before, now she's gonna beat me to death."  Grandma told me, "Oh no she won't.  This is my home."

So my mom finally arrived, and Grandma went out into the yard to meet her.  Grandma stood between Mom and the doorway so's Mom couldn't get to me.  Grandma told her, "Now, Bessie, they're married.  They've lived together at my place for 3 nights.  You can't touch them, and you're not going to do anything at all.  They're legally married."  Grandma showed Mom the marriage certificate.  I was sitting in the house all curled up in Frank's lap like a scared little kid.  I think Frank was kinda scared too.

Well, Mom broke down and cried.  She wouldn't come in, and Claude didn't want her to stay.  So they went on back to Cumberland.  Mom did go to the law to see if there was anything could be done about it.  But the law told her if we'd been sleeping together for 3 nights, it'd probably be best to let us stay married.

So Frank went on to town to try to get a job, and I stayed with my Grandma.  I felt just like I was at home, cuz I'd always been more at home at Grandma's house than Mom's.  Grandma had always been more of a real mother to me than Mom was.  I liked Grandma a lot more than I liked my Mom.  So anyhow, Frank came back out to the house after a bit.  He had borrowed a car from someone.  He told me he had us a two room apartment in Ridgeley and he had dealing at the store in Ridgeley until he could get his first paycheck.  And he told me he had a job at the B&O shops.  My Grandma hugged him and kissed him and congratulated both of us and wished us both the best.  Grandma hugged me and said, "Well, my little girl, I hate to see you go, but I want you to go.  I want you to be happy and start your own life."  The problem is, Grandma didn't know how miserable I really was.  By then I was so sorry I'd got married, but it was too late.  I liked Frank, but I didn't really love him, not really, not like I had loved the Twig boy.

Anyhow, me and Frank got to town.  Sure enough, Frank had an apartment and he had dealing at the store.  But he had lied about the job.  In order to get the apartment and the dealing, he told the people he had a job, but it wasn't true.  That was just the first of many lies he told.  So anyhow, it's coming near to two weeks we'd been in the apartment, and the rent lady came up and jumped all over my case because the rent hadn't been paid.  The landlady called me dishonest, and that made me mad.  I thought she was the meanest ol' lady I'd ever met in my life.  I got real mad at her and yelled, "I know my husband is working now.  Every evening when he comes home from work, he's greasy and dirty from the shop he works at.  I know he's working."  And she yelled back at me, "Well, I know he's not working.  I called the B&O shops and he's not working there."  I argued anyway, "Well I know he is."  I would have nice hot meals waiting when Frank got home from what I thought was work, and I'd have his bath ready.  I'd wash his clothes every day so he'd have nice clean ones to change into.  So I just knew he was working.

Well, that night about 8 or 9 o'clock, the constable came and served notice on us.  Frank denied it and said the landlady was lying.  But the constable took all our clothes, 'cept what we were wearing, and even the Victrola, to pay on the rent.  Boy, I was worrier than ever that I'd gotten married.

I don't remember where Frank went after that, but he ended up going back to Cumberland and stayed with some friends or something.  And I had to go back to Mom's.  I finally got a job.  As soon as I had the job, I got a one-room apartment on Mechanics Street.  There was a hot plate in the room.  Frank was looking for work and picked up some odds and ends.  Frank would never stick to any one job for very long.  So it went on like that a couple years.  Then I got pregnant.

I didn't know nothing about pregnancy.  Back then you didn't talk about stuff like that.  I was heartsick that I'd got married.  I was getting so big.  Later, Paul would say to me that he was never wanted, and it used to hurt to hear him say that because, God help me, I knew it was the truth, even though I never told him that.  I didn't want to have a baby.  Mom gave me some medicine to help abort the baby but it didn't work. So there was nothing else to be done about it, so I worked as long as I could.  I was ashamed to go out in public, so I gave up the apartment and stayed with Mom and Claude again.

I wasn't in no shape to work anymore.  And Mom still had it in for me, even though she let me live with them.  Frank wasn't working, and we weren't hardly seeing each other at all by now.  He wasn't making any effort to get clothes for the baby or to help in any way.  Mom wouldn't tolerate having Frank around much neither.  He'd burnt up the coffeepot, and he wet the bed once.  He always had bad kidneys.  I sure wished I would have listened to my Mom when she first tried to poison me against Frank.  By then I knew that Mom had seen a side of Frank I hadn't seen.

Mom watched me closely. She did midwifery.  But I didn't want the baby.  I was so miserable.  I'd go back and forth between Mom and visiting Grandma until I just couldn't travel no more.  But my time was drawing near at hand, and we still didn't have no baby clothes.

I made one more trip to see Grandma Susan.  Me and Grandma went to Yost's Holler to pick a bunch of blackberries and can them.  We'd saved the last two days worth of berries for me to take to town and sell to get baby things I needed.  I'd sold some berries on Friday, and sold some more on Saturday morning.  Mom and Claude came to the house Saturday and we all went to town.  Mom bought white outing cloth with the money we got from the berries and made four bands and four little shirts for the baby.  The rest the material she made up into diapers.

Saturday afternoon Claude and Mom and me went groundhog hunting, and I dropped.  Course at that time I didn't know what that meant.  Mom told Claude we better get back to town.  She didn't think it would be too long until I'd have the baby.  Well, that night they were having a big revival at Crystal Park, about 5 miles from Grandma Susan's house.  We went to church and got home about 10:00 o'clock and we ate a snack.  We always had a snack before we went to bed.  Anyhow, about 2:00 in the morning, I started getting terrible cramps and I thought I had indigestion from the snack.  I went downstairs and took some baking soda but couldn't get rid of the cramps.  Finally about 4:00 a.m., I told Mom about the awful indigestion I was having.  By then I was crying.  Mom told me it wasn't indigestion, it was the baby that was gonna be born.  I had no idea it was gonna hurt that bad.

So Claude took off and went to look for Frank.  Mom called the Western Maryland Hospital to see if I could be entered in the hospital.  Claude said he didn't want to be obligated for the expense, and that's why he went to find Frank.  Clause found him at a hotel on 3rd Street, and told him to get to the house as quick as he could.  By the time Frank got there, Dr. Owens was already there.  Dr. Owens told Mom to get me to the hospital immediately.

So about 10:55 a.m. Sunday morning, Paul was born.  I was pretty small back then, and the birth hurt an awful lot.  Paul weighed six and a half pounds.  After that awful birth, I said no man was ever gonna touch me again.  That turned me against men.  I'm 72 now and I'm still against men.

But back to the story.  So Claude ended up getting Frank a job at Swift & Co.  I think Frank worked there about two months.  He got a little one room apartment.  I stayed with Mom and Claude awhile and Mom taught me how to bathe the baby and take care of him.  Two months was about the longest Frank had ever worked at one place, so Mom thought maybe having the baby would get rid of Frank's laziness and his being unconcerned.

Well, things went on and on and on, and it didn't get no better between me and Frank.  I think Paul was about 3 years old when me and Frank finally got a divorce.  Frank was gone most the time anyway, and by now Grandma Susan was staying with us a lot of the time, helping take care of Paul.

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[NOTE:  There was a break of a day before Leoda continued her story on tape, so consequently the story moves forward a little in time.  She did tell about one thing that happened to her that I do not feel comfortable posting here.  Without going into details, I will state that Leoda and Frank were divorced, and Leoda continued raising Paul by herself.

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There are links to photos below.  Leoda's story will be continued on the Bingaman Page.

 

NOTE:  You may either go to the JMINNICK PHOTO PAGE, which will have most of the following pictures on it, or you can click on the individual links below if you are interested in only one or two particular pictures.

	Click here for picture of Frank Minnick with his father, Jake Minnick
	Click here for picture of Frank and Leoda before they were married.
	Click here for picture of Frank with his son, Paul
	Click here for picture of James Franklin Minnick holding his son, Paul, somewhere near the railroad where he worked for a period of time.
	Click here for picture of Frank, Leoda and their son, Paul, before their divorce.  On this same page are other photos of Frank, Leoda and Paul in 1927, 1928, and possibly 1930-1933.
	Click here for picture of Grandma Susan UMSTOT Flick with Leoda and g-grandson Paul.  (This pic is on the leoda photo page, not the jminnick photo page)
	Pictures of Leoda Alameda HAWS Minnick Bingaman with her first car, and of Leoda standing in front of a car with some friends.  Maybe Kenny and Desta???
	[more to be scanned and added]

 

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