Childhood of Daniel E. Winters

Life began in Aracoma, which was located in Logan County, West Virginia on the 30th day of March 1933.  I am told that my parents were hopeful that I would be born a girl as they already had a four-year-old son named Charles Thomas and a twenty-two-month-old son named Donald Ray.  My father, Harold Edmond Winters was born Jan 17, 1909, and was 24 years of age when I was born. He was the third son of ten children born to John H. and Addie Robinson Winters.  My mother was 21 years of age when I was born, and she was the fourth of ten children born to Charles Lane and Ota Farley Hale. I was born at green colored home on the curve of Route 10 at the lower end of Aracoma near community of West Logan.

My earliest childhood remembrance began after the birth of my sister, Nancy, who was born 27 months after me.  At this time, our family was living three houses down the dirt alley from my grandparents on the riverbank in West Logan. I must have spent lots of time at Grandma Hales as I remember her house but do not remember our house.  My father was working as a railway clerk for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, at their Peach Creek office, which was about one mile further down the Guyandotte River.

I remember attending church and my mother crying while praying at the altar.

My brother, Donald always seemed to know how to have lots of fun and liked to include me some of the time.  One day my brother, Donald encouraged me to come and help him push my uncle John’s Ford car. We went out in front of the two-story wood frame home where the black Ford car was parked on the unpaved dirt street.  The street was lined with wood homes that were situated about 8 to 10 feet from the edge of the area where the cars parked.  A few of the small front yards were enclosed with a wood or wire fence, but most of the dirt yards flowed directly onto the dirt street.  The house next-door was only a few feet away, it seems as if you could have reached your hand out and touched the person next-door if they would have stretched their hand toward you.

Preschool days

Donald told me to get behind the car and push while he held the driver’s door open to steer the car and push at the same time.  The car began to move but his steering was not so good, so the electric pole was in the path of the car when it came to a sudden stop with a dent in the left front fender.  Mom was very upset over the situation and told Donald and me to go upstairs and go to bed and Dad would deal with us when he came home from work.  The next thing I recall was awaking from my sleep to find Donald taking a bath downstairs crying very loud with several women from the neighborhood looking on.  I was very embarrassed for him to be naked in the tub and no privacy, but I didn’t see that as a good reason to be crying.  I later understood that he had broken his arm and was getting cleaned up so he could go to the doctor or hospital.  Earlier, when we had gone upstairs, he chooses not to go to bed, but to go out on the upstairs front porch and lay on the banister.  There was a canvas awning that kept the rain from blowing in on the porch and as he fell from the banister, he pulled the canvas with him, which kept him from a more severe injury when he landed on the hard ground several feet below.  That is all I recall of that situation when I was about three years of age.

Another day I was pushing the hanging swing on the front porch.  My sister Nancy was about 3 years of age.  The swing hit her on the chin, and she had to go to the doctor for stitches.

Another day the son of Ed Smith, who lived next door and was a teenager, was eating Ritz cracker directly from the box, after I watched him for some period of time he gave me the box with the last couple of crackers in it.  Reflecting upon the situation I wonder if I annoyed him, being I was only three or so years old.

One day he and my uncles and older brothers were pumping up a car tire in front my grandparents’ home where we were living. I was 4 or 5 years old, and I thought I could manage the pump like they did.  It looked simple enough to me to push down on the handle of the pump.  Finally, they allowed me to try it.  Much to my disappointment, I was not strong enough to force the handle down.  I just never know what I can or cannot do until I try it.

A neighbor, Perk Christian, built a 4-wheel go-cart out of rough lumber and used wagon wheels.  One person could push it around the neighborhood with another person riding in it.  I was riding and he pushed it downhill very fast, and it turned over with me in it.  The wreck resulted with my collarbone being broken. To the doctor I did go to get my arm placed in a cloth sling, hung around my neck.

Bad Andy

My brother Donald was two years older than me.  It seems as if he was always getting into things.  He and I liked to follow our big brother Tom and my uncle Bobby Hale and the other larger boys in the neighborhood.  To scare us and cause us to depart from them and go home, they would tell us scary things.  One of the favorite tales was concerning an old man who would walk up the riverbank and down the dirt street most every day. The man looked like a tramp and was always dirty.  He carried a burlap potato sack over his shoulder.  Our older friends called him “Bad Andy”.  They would tell us that he picked up little boys and put them into his sack and carried them home with him.  Any time they were tired of Donald or me, they would say “here comes Bad Andy and I am going to tell him to get you and carry you away in that sack”.  That would always scare Donald and me and we would run home for safety, at once.

Our homes were directly on the edge of the Guyandotte River. Often after a heavy rain the river would rise as a result of the water draining quickly off the steep surrounding mountains. One day the river was approaching flood stage.  As the river would rise a few feet one of the grown men would go out and move the floating rowboat to higher ground. Donald loved to be near the water although mom would warn him “don’t go near the rising flood waters, because you could get drowned.”  Donald disobeyed and Mom threaten to report the event to Dad as soon as he came home from work. Later Mom called for Donald, but he had hidden under the living room couch; thus, could not be found. All the neighbors joined in an all-out search for the missing 5-year-old boy who may have drowned in the river. By the time someone discovered him Mom was too relieved to find him safe that she could not bring herself to whip him for disobeying.

Grandma Hale often kept a bushel of apples in the basement, to keep them cool.  She would allow us to eat only one apple per day.  I think the older boys would sneak some extras when they could.  From time to time, she would inquire as to how the apples were disappearing.  I did not understand then what was happening.

Dad builds home at Guyan Terrace

My grandfather John Winters, and my father Harold Winters purchased about 10 acres of hillside land six miles north of Logan in an area just south of Pecks Mill.  They began to build each family a house on parcels of the land.  Later Herbert Winters built his family a home on the parcel in between these two parcels.  One day my father allowed me to join them as they went to work on the construction of the houses. On the way back home, Dad stopped at the Outside Inn and purchased him a beer and he brought me and my sister Nancy a piece of bubble gum.  After we got home, I was chewing my gum and my mother inquired where I got it.  I told her of the purchase of the gum and the beer.  My dad got on to me for telling on him and the beer.  He said that was why he brought me the gum, so I wouldn’t tell.  It hurt my feeling, so I cried.

I recall starting to grade school at West Logan in September 1938 after I had turned five years old on March 30.  My uncle Bobby and my two older brothers walked to school with me.  I remember that one day a large boy, who was wearing glasses, challenged me in some kind of a fistfight.  Since my brothers were with me, I was very brave and said lots of things.  Such as, take off your glasses and let’s fight.  I will really beat you up. etc.  The boy did not do much fighting at that time.  Later he was always trying to find me without my brothers, so he could beat me up.  I was afraid and tried not to be caught out alone.

 

My dad injured his spine while working for the C&O Railroad.  (insert)

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a few months dad finished construction of the small four-room house on the hillside located about one mile south of the Pecks Mill Bridge.  The house was constructed out of very rough sawmill lumber.  The siding was 1″ x 8″ unfinished boards.  There were cracks between them, so he nailed 1″ x 3″ strips over the cracks on the outside.  On the inside of the house, the cracks were covered with cardboard from grocery store cartons.  Later newspapers were pasted over the cardboard.  When money would be available wallpaper would be purchased and pasted over the newspaper.  Plain white paper on the ceiling and designed paper on the wall.  A border paper would be pasted at the top of the wall where the ceiling and wall meet.

The house had one bedroom, a living room with a large potbelly coal stove, a dining room that contained a bed for the boys.  The kitchen had a coal stove with an oven and warming closets.  There was a back porch where we kept the washbowl to wash our hands.  A front porch was later partially closed in for a small bedroom for the boys.  The outdoor toilet was about 30 feet behind the house and up the hill. This was a two-hole outhouse as it had a seat for two persons.

There was room for a chicken house, a pig pin, and two large gardens to raise vegetables.  Dad and mom seemed to know all about farm life.  They would grow plants in a hot bed, which was made from enriched dirt under glass.  They would also grow lettuce in hot bed.

I was very proud of this home.  It is the first time I could remember not living with Grandma Hale.  My mother and dad were both very hard workers and wanted better things for their children.

We all worked at this new home.  There was dirt to dig off the hillside behind the house to make room to walk around the house.  The dirt would be loaded on a wheelbarrow and then dumped at the front edge of the leveled area.  Eventually we had a front yard that was for an area of about 10 feet by 15 feet.  Dad placed 55-gallon metal barrels at several places under the edge of the roof so the rainwater from the roof would run into the barrels.  This water was used for laundry, bathing, and watering the garden plants.

Drinking water was carried from a spring about 1000 feet north of the house.  The spring was inside Mr. Stevens’ cow pasture, so we had to watch for the cows and hope they did not mess up our drinking water.  At the age of 5 and 6, I carried many a pail of water from this spring. A family of seven used quite an amount of water for cooking and drinking.  Before long, Grandpa Winters had a 4″ deep well drilled next to his home.  We then began to carry water from there, which was only about 400 feet south of our home.  We would let the long metal cylinder down into the 4 ” well.  It was very deep, perhaps over 100 feet.  Then we would pull the rope thru the pulley until the cylinder was retrieved, full of the two gallons of water. It took two of us smaller children to be strong enough to pull the rope.

The house was located about 125 feet up the hillside from the road.  Dad dug flat spots into the hillside and placed large flat rocks into the flat spot for steps. In spots where it was really steep, he would nail a long slender board or pole to the trees for a handrail to assist you in climbing the long stairs to our house.

We had a large hillside front yard with many locust trees on it. We would help dad place a circle of rocks around each tree. Then we would apply whitewash to the rocks and the bottom 36 inches of the trunk of the trees.  The tree limbs had thorns on them so you could not climb them.

Cooking and heating were by coal fuel.  Dad would buy a truckload of coal and they would dump it at the edge of the highway.  This was route 10, and it had lots of traffic.  The coal was right out to the edge of the highway, so we needed to pick it up and carry it up to the house as soon as possible.

Tom age 10, Donald age 8 and I age 6 would each have a bucket.  Tom’s bucket was the largest and mine was the smallest.  Each would fill his bucket with coal and carry it up the steps to the house.  We would dump the coal onto the coal pile, underneath the front porch.

There was lots of work every day, raising vegetables in the two gardens.  Something always needed planted, hoed, dug, or watered.  Grass had to be cut with a hand cycle on the hilly front yard.  The many large rocks and the many locust trees needed to be whitewashed.  People would often comment about how pretty our yard looked with the whitewashed trees and rocks on the green grassy hillside.

Grandpa Winters also had a garden and a grape arbor behind his house next door. We would sometimes help ourselves to a pod of grapes when we were on our way to fetch a bucket of water.

 

About 20 feet from the Grandpa’s back door there was another building about 20 feet square. This building was referred to as the smoke house. Earlier generations had such a building where the men could go smoke, read and get away from the house awhile. No one smoked in my grandparents “smoke house”, however they filled it with all kinds of old clothing etc. that we referred to as rummage.  We sometimes referred to this as the rummage house.

 

Pecks Mill School

When we moved to this home near Pecks Mill, I began attending the Mill Creek grade school to continue my first-grade education.  Grades one thru six all met in one classroom.  Each row of seats was for students of a different grade.  The wooden seat was part of the desk of the student behind you.  Each desk had an ink well and a grooved place for a pencil.  Each student’s books were placed inside their desk directly above their knees.

One day I was writing on the chalkboard and my teacher came up behind me and slapped me on my backside with her hand.  I had not heard her when she evidently told me to take my chair.  This one lick spanking must have impressed me as I can still remember it 85 years later. That is the only time I can recall punishment in school.

When the older classmates disobeyed, the teacher would order another student to go into the nearby hillside and get a long limber tree branch about 4 feet long.  She would take the disobedient one outside behind the schoolhouse and apply the switch several times.  I never got one of these whippings.

The drinking water was carried in an open 2-gallon bucket and placed on a shelf in the back of the classroom.  Each student was responsible to bring a jar or glass from home, which was for their own use, unless they wanted to drink directly from the one common metal drinking dipper that was placed into the bucket of water.  I took a glass jar and placed on the shelf for my personal drinking.   At the end of the school year, I took the glass home.  The water was carried from a nearby mountain spring by one of the larger students. Later the school board sent our school a three-gallon water tank with a faucet on it.  Then we could run the water directly into our glass without dipping our glass into the open bucket.  We were proud of the new drinking tank.

Rest rooms were built of wood on the edge of the schoolyard next to the creek bank.  The girl’s toilet was constructed about 10 feet from the boy’s toilet.  Old newspapers or catalogs were used for toilet paper.

Recess was a very active time.  Games included batting some kind of a soft ball, throwing a ball over the top of the school and saying, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send __(name)__ over.”

During recess while sitting out on the playground the older boys would tease me and the other first graders.  One day they saw my underwear was the type little girls wore, so they really teased me that day.  They told me I could not use the boys’ toilet, that I would have to use the girl’s toilet.  I beat them with my little hard fist, but it didn’t hurt them. In those days, most of my clothing was handed down or previously owned.  Most of it had been thoroughly worn by my older brothers before I grew into it.

Guyandotte River Bridge at Pecks Mill

We would walk about one mile to school each day.  Tom my oldest brother was 10 and in the 5th grade.  My brother, Donald was 8 and in the 3rd grade.  We had to walk on the narrow bridge that crossed the Guyandotte River at Mill Creek.  When large trucks would meet another vehicle, we would have to climb on the curb and hold close and tight to the side of the bridge as the two vehicles passed.  It was always scary, as the cars would often miss you by only a few inches.  As I looked down, I could see the river flowing swiftly about fifty feet below.  I remember more than once Donald would climb and walk on top of the four feet high metal bridge guardrail.  I was too afraid to do so and would beg him to get down before he fell into the river below.  Needless to say, he never fell. Surely there was a guardian angel protecting us because of the prayers of our mother.

On a few occasions, we waded across the river on our way home from school.  Where the rocky shoals began, the water was rather shallow in the summertime.  The water was up to my waist and the rocks were slippery, so we had to be very careful where I placed my foot.  I never did like crossing the water this way.  The water was swift against my small body and it was hard to stand against the currents.  Usually, one of my older brothers would hold my hand in the more difficult spots.  In 2008 my cousin David Robinson reminded me that one summer he was visiting us, and we all waded the river, and he was scared for his life.

There was not much area on the shoulder of the highway No. 10 for walking, but somehow, we never got hit by any of the cars on the busily traveled roadway.

As I reminisce, I know my mother must have worried every day about the safety of her three sons walking to and from school, thru the rain and cold. I’m not sure she ever knew all the things we did.

On cold winter days, the water dripping from the rock cliffs would freeze into long icicles. On the way home from school, we would break the icicles and use them as swords to have friendly sword fights with one another. The icicles would freeze until they touched the ground. Some of the would become 8 or 10 feet long which made them too large and heavy for us small boys to handle.

My Uncle Herbert and Aunt Kathryn built a house and moved next door to us.  Now there were three Winters’ families in a row on the hillside.  The houses were about 150 feet apart.  Herbert and his family lived in the center house, with my grandparents living next door to them.  Dad and Uncle Herbert wanted a well, so they began digging by with a pick and shovel. When the hole was about 10 feet deep, they found a hard rock before they could find water.  The three families carried drinking water from Grandpa Winters’ well.

My cousin Dickey attended school with me at Mill Creek; he was also in the first grade.  He was three months older than me.  I recall us standing around the old potbelly coal stove eating lunch on a cold day.  Dickey had boiled eggs to eat this one-day. It seemed to me the other children liked his friendly attitude much more than me with my quiet attitude.  My lunch was usually wrapped in a piece of newspaper and tied with some thread or string.  Dickey somehow usually had his lunch in a brown paper bag.

 

My cousin Zetta did not attend Mill Creek School as she lived in the Justice Addition school district. However, she recalls attending our school for one Halloween event. My mother painted our little faces with black coal soot, so we looked like little Pygmies. Us cousins were very close and enjoyed being together.

 

My childhood memories of family were delightful. My mother showered her children with love and made each one of them feel special. The family was very involved in church and serving God. The children all joined their parents in working in the garden, maintaining the yard, and doing family chores. Work was a family activity.

 

First Job selling seeds

My first job away from the house was selling garden/flower seeds from door to door.  Of course, most of my sales were to my grandparents and other relatives otherwise where I lived most the houses were as much as ½ mile apart so it took some walking. The seeds were from Morris Seed Company or Ferry Seed Company, and they would send us a prize if we sold the required amount. One year we choose the football as our prize. I remember my parents were gone to town and my brother Donald told me he knew where there was a football. I assume my mother had hidden it for safe keeping until Christmas. Donald and I passed the ball back and forth only about three times when it hit into one of the thorny Locus trees and lost all its air. We placed the deflated football back into its hiding place inside a crock churn in mother’s closet and did not disclose the situation to our parents.