Christmas On Beaver When Times Were Hard!

 On Beaver Creek, the times were hard.

We had no taters, had no lard.

All the way from Allen to Kite,

Times were tough, money was tight.

It wasn't any better from Martin to Wheelright.

Both forks were suffering, it felt like a blight.

The mines were down, people were leaving.

Old grandmas sat crying and grieving.

Miners were headed to places off yonder

While mothers of children would sit and ponder

How to feed four, or five or six

Hungry mouths with nothing to fix.

Christmas was just about a week away

And children had learned not to say

Old Santa's name by night or day. 

This had become a mighty hard life

For hardworking husbands and every young wife.

There would be no toys under green trees.

Adults were praying on bony knees.

Smoke houses were empty of the last meat.

The canning was gone, nothing to eat.

Squirrels were in hiding in the highest trees 

Too far to shoot the ones you did see.  

Rabbits had been killed till few were around

And  they all hid warm underground.

Old men were selling their best coon hound

Nothing to feed them, nothing to go around. 

A lot of dry cows were already beef

And acorns were sought under every dry leaf.

Real old men and their real old wives

Said this was the worst time in their lives.

Christmas was less than a week off

And lots of people had started to cough.

Hungry people get sick a whole lot quicker

With nothing to eat and no pot licker.

But somewhere off in them big cities

The ones who had left bought a few play pretties,

Loaded them up with flour, lard, beans, and rice,

They were bringing it home and didn't think twice.

On Beaver they knew they had poor kin

And letting them starve would be a great sin.

In Kendallville, Cincy, Chicago, and Dayton

That Friday afternoon they all were waiting

For quit time to come and time off to start

So they could come home and touch grandma's heart.

They loaded all the good stuff they all could afford

Filled up their tanks and thanked the Lord

They still had good jobs near Christmas day

So they come home and proudly say

We didn't know what you need but thought we should

Bring a few things and maybe we could

Help out some in these hard times,

Sing a few carols, recite a few rhymes,

Cook a few dishes on Christmas day

And thank the Lord while we all pray

That times get better and the mines start up

And grandpa can buy another bluetick pup.

Granny can see her way till spring

And hoe in the garden and softly sing

Those Old Regular songs she likes so much

That she sings with her own special touch.

Maybe the children can get new clothes

And  John L. Lewis will speak out for those

Who need to work now right here on Beaver

So nobody else will have to leave her

To go up north to some strange town

Where family and friends are never found.

We'll all come back to Beaver some day

Settle right in and always stay

On the old home place with the little old house

Where we can be as warm as a mouse,

Right here on Beaver, the creek we love

Which was a gift from above.

Right here where home is in our souls

Where we want to stay until we grow old

Right here on Beaver, both left and right,

Where we can sleep warm every night,

With the peace of Christmas in our lives

With husbands, sons, daughters, and wives.    

Roger D. Hicks, December 24, 2022

"Exploring The Abandoned Coal Towns of West Virginia The Southeastern Region" by Christina Paster--Book Review

This is a little book published by an entity called "America Through Time" which is an imprint of Arcadia Publishing. On their website, they described "America Through Time" as "a local and regional interest series that showcases the history and heritage of communities around the country. Using modern color photographs juxtaposed with old images, these titles capture a strong sense of the past while demonstrating the force of change through the passage of years". 

Arcadia Publishing is a company which publishes books primarily about communities across the country which are primarily collections of photographs assembled by individuals or groups in those communities who feel the need to preserve some of their local history.  I have read and written about one other book on this blog which that company published, "Images of America Floyd County" by Lisa Perry and the Wheelwright Historical Society.  It is a much better book than this one by Christina Paster.  It is my impression that Arcadia Publishing is essentially a vanity press which specializes in books about specific geographical settings, does little or no editorial work with the individuals and groups producing the books, and is simply in the business of making money from individuals and groups who are incapable of producing high quality work.  But let us get back to the book in question about the abandoned coal towns of West Virginia.  

 

The photographs compose probably 75% to 90% of the content of this book.  The book is broken into brief chapters about each of the eleven towns the author visited and photographed for the book.  There is a generally brief introduction to each chapter which is usually less than a full page with two exceptions, the discussion of Wheeling and Moundsville which I suspect are either the towns closest to the author's home or the towns she knows best.  The text is of very poor quality and shows absolutely no editorial supervision.  It is rife with grammatical errors of every type: incomplete sentences; sentence fragments; run on sentences; misspellings; errors in grammar, syntax, and tense.  It is very poor quality writing.  The photographs are marginally well done, bordering on the low end of professional level.  None of the photographs are particularly striking and a reasonably talented photographer could duplicate or better them with a low cost, hand held digital camera.  There are less than a half dozen mildly historical photographs included in the book with appropriate source crediting.  The author has also appended a brief section of end notes to support the few statements she has used from the work of others.  For those of you who have ties to or interest in one or more of the abandoned coal towns of West Virginia, I am adding a list of the eleven towns portrayed in the book so you can decide if you are interested enough to seek a copy for your inspection and, hopefully, your pleasure.  The town are Pocahontas, Whitesville, Itmann, Thurman, McDowell, Mullens, Alderson, Wheeling, Moundsville, Matoaka, and Nuttallburg.  If you have an interest, I would suggest that you attempt to locate a copy of the book in a library near you, inspect it, and then decide if you want to spend the money to buy a personal copy.  I do not want to induce you to feel you wasted your money on this particular book.  For my own personal and academic interests, the best book I have found about abandoned coal towns in general is "A Guide To Historic Coal Towns of the Big Sandy River Valley" by George D. Torok, which also covers a few of the coal towns of West Virginia despite its primary Eastern Kentucky focus.  It is well worth the money.  I can also recommend "Coal Camp Kids Coming Up Hard And Making It" by Barbara Ford Ritchie and published by Father and Son Publishing which has since been bought up by a larger company which continues to sell some of their titles.  But that book can be difficult to locate except a rare copy on used book websites.  On the Father and Son website it is listed at $75.00 which is a bit much for most people.