(4/6/1894-8/1/1986)
from 4 Years to 24 Years
(Account given in 1984, age 90 years)
Courtesy of Alysia R. (Ayers) Gobert-Smith
(e-mail: gobert-smith.1@osu.edu) Great-Granddaughter of Anna Melvin AyersI was born April 6, 1894, in Ritchie County, West Virginia, one of eight children. Our Home was close to the hill, the country road was in front of our house and Goose Creek below it. My memories are mostly about this creek. The Baptist Church was the only church in this community. It was 2 ? miles up the creek form us. It was in a valley and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran along the hill above it. We could see the train from the school windows. George Hartleven was a railroader, he rode in the caboose. He painted a red heart and an eleven which stood for his name Hartleven. There was a crossing just below the school, when he blew the whistle it sounded like whipper will.
One day, he blew the whistle longer and louder and someone saw him throw a package of newspapers down in the school yard. George had went to this school. The papers told us of the assassination of President Wm. McKinley. We had no way to get news as there were no radios, televisions, and few telephones. We got our mail once a week when we went to Petroleum. Our school house was on the other side of the creek, we had a foot log to cross. It was about 30 feet long, 18 or 20 inches wide. When the creek was raising, it was to the bottom of the log. My father was helping us across as we came from school. I was 5 or 6 years old, was walking in front of him and I stepped off. I got wet but he hung on to me, it was quite a thrill! Father had a post and the foot log was fastened to it by a chain. When the creek raised, it would float to the side of the creek by the road. When it went down, they would hitch horses to the log and pull it up the creek, then turn them back until the log went to the other side and rested against the rocks. There were no wagon bridges until about 1915. They just crossed the creek at the ford, that’s where the creek was shallow on a sandbar. We had just 6 months of school, October to April. We had some pretty bad weather.
sons pictured from right to left are: Aunt Cara/Cora(?) Ayers on horse, Uncle
John (Ayers?) (standing), Uncle Roller (on horse), Aunt Gay, Charity Anna
(maiden name illegible) Ayers (grandmother of Anna or Martin), grand-
daughter Alda (on porch).Two of our neighbors had ice houses. They were built of rough lumber with sawdust between 2x4’s and between each layer of ice. It kept all summer. When the creek froze over, they would cut the ice in blocks and sold them $.10 a block. We had no refrigerators as we had no electric or gas. Burnt coal oil lights, and wood for heat and to cook with. In the fall the farmers would haul in a lot of wood. Each neighbor would have a wood chopping, then they would be served a big chicken dinner. They did the same when the thrashers came to thrash the wheat. Then the ladies had apple peelings when it was apple butter time. They put wood ashes in a sugar barrel, bored 2 or 3 holes down near the bottom, tipped it forward and had it high enough to put a vessel under it. Each day I put a bucket of water on the ashes when it ran through it was yellow lye with grease and meat scraps. Mother would make soap and also put on corn for hominy. The hulls would come off and leave white kernels, ready to wash and cook.
Lewis Lemasters left his bicycle in our hall, was helping my father and brother in hayfield. My sister and I was learning to ride it. I was going toward front door and out I went, down 4 steps, across the front yard, down a little bank, crossed the road, and bounced over 3 foot creek bank on a sand bar. Skinned my forehead and face and arm and twisted my foot, but no broken bones, but was really shook up. I said to Lewis I was sorry. He laughed and said you should be glad you are alive, the bicycle can be fixed. It had a bent wheel and spokes out. My brother helped him fix it. I just missed a big tree.
My uncle had a country store up above us, I was going up to the store for Mother. A horse and wagon was coming. I got to the side of the road when it passed. I put my sister on the cupling pole and was walking along holding her, I didn’t know the young man and he looked back and said “Get that bug off my wagon.” I was about 10 years old. As I grew older we went to the same church and 9 years afterwards I married that man. He was Martin Ayers.
One day when we were eating dinner a big hail storm come up, they were big as baseballs. We had a young calf in lot close to the house and the hail balls killed it. It didn’t last long but done a lot of damage. We were 5 miles from the grist mill. Father would gather corn before it got hard and cut a gallon bucket open, put nail holes in it and nail it on a board rough side out. Mother would put a cloth on a table in yard and as she grated it it was spread out to dry.
My parents bought my uncle’s home and store. We moved up there when I was 11. The goods for the store was shipped form Parkersburg, West Virginia to Petroleum. My father hauled it the other 2 ? miles to store with horse and wagon. In summer I would hitch the horse to the buggy and take produce to Cairo, it was eggs and butter that Mother took in store from farmers who dealt there and traded for flour and lard for the store. I was about 12 years old, there was a pump station close to Cairo, it made a low noise then a real loud boom. The horse stopped right now, I had to get hold of the bridle and walk between her and the station; same thing coming back. It was 5 miles and it took all day. There were no cars and one was safe, not like it is today. I went out in yard one night about 8 o’clock to get a bucket of water and the sky was all lit up, it was Hallies Comet. Our house was close to the hill, it was traveling fast and soon it was out of sight, it was Big, funnel shape, big part ahead and sparks following it.
general store they owned and ran. Persons pictured are Addie (sister of Anna)
and family friends.In 1912 a mail route was started, pretty post cards was a big fad, cost $.01 to mail.
We walked 2 and 3 miles to night meetings sometimes, it was in a school house, also go miles to ice cream or box suppers. The boxes were all covered real pretty with crepe paper, they would have cake, pie, chicken. They would tell whose box it was and they would auction them off. Sometimes, they went for 3 or 4 dollars. That was big money them days.
First car I seen was Dr. Beas, it looked like a buggy and had lard oil lights. We just had 6 months of school and we wore shoes and apron all starched pretty like the girls I the Little House on the Prairie on TV.
My father died 27th of March during the 1913 flood. Couldn’t get to Parkersburg so my brother-in-law went to Cairo. The Undertaker brought the casket to the Baptist Church and neighbors carried my father on a cot around the hill crossed the swinging bridge to the church. No corpse was left alone, they were called wakes, our good friends brought food and blankets to church and we had plenty of company.
Martin and I was married that fall. We had ate dinner with Mother and was going to Martin’s home 4 miles up the creek. The creek had been up but we thought it was safe to cross. We had a big sorrel horse and box buggy with a top, the road was bias ways across the first wasn’t so bad but when we got to the other side it has washed out deep. The horse had to swim, the buggy floated, Martin held the lines and me and let the horse go as it wished. It brought us out 10 or 12 feet below the road and we never upset, it was a terrible experience; one I will never forget. It was our first Christmas and nearly our last.
The law came in that women could vote at 21. Woodrow Wilson was running for President, he said if we voted for him he would keep us out of war. He was in in January and we was in war in April.
Thanks to my 84 year old school mate, our Goose Creek Baptist Church is kept in good shape.
On the West Virginia hills how majestic and how grand, Oh those hills how I love those West Virginia hills. If on sand or sea I roam still think of happy home and the friends among the West Virginia hills.
