Notes From Ollie Martin
January 9, 1983


I was born at Pine Grove, West Virginia, in 1908. The house I was born in no longer stands, but it was in a field across from the Pine Grove Church (just up from Joyce Crawford's). I think all my brothers were born there except Waitman and Guy. Guy was born in Uncle Dick's house. My parents married when my mother was about 22 years old and her first child, Guy, was born in 1901. I assume she was about 30 years old when I was born. When my mother was 45, my youngest brother, Waitman, was just a young child.

When I was about seven years old we moved to Wikel to Uncle Dick's house and lived with Uncle Dick (house that now belongs to Ms. Hicks). When we lived in Wikel my daddy usually hauled groceries from Rich Creek to stores in Lindside and around by horse. He had horses and wagons that he used to do this. From Wikel we moved to the valley above Lindside above the old Dunkard Church, and then down to Lindside when I was about 10 years old. We lived behind the Paxton Mann place across from Curtis Ballard's present day home. I think that Paxton Mann had horses that my daddy used in addition to his own team.

We then moved to Laurel Branch, Virginia, when I was about nine. Now that I think about it I believe we moved to Laurel Branch before we went to Lindside. Anyway, this Laurel Branch is over near Pembroke (Mountain Lake and Interior, Virginia, area). My daddy was getting out tannin' bark and working in the woods. There was all kinds of snakes over there. I remembered one time when Guy picked up a bunch of bark that had a big copperhead in it. I think I would have fainted. Tannin' bark was when you p eeled the tree bark and stacked it for getting it out of the woods.

Now I was about 10 years old and I was going to school in Lindside. I was "courtin" Edgar Dixon, or at least I thought I was. Then we moved back to Wikel. We lived in the Stearn House this time across from Uncle Dick's house. The school I went to was in the field above the road across from Tom Hughes' house today. Bennie Comer owns that field now. When I was about 11 I'll never forget when Nellie Lane misspelled a word and never would never come back again. George Shanklin (the teacher) gave out th e word compass and Nellie said "compi-double s" and everybody laughed so hard that she never came back. She was trying to court George.

We then moved to Lowell, West Virginia, over near Pence Springs. From Wikel you go over to Wayside, on over to Creamery and then to Lowell. My daddy was carrying the mail in a "hack" when we lived there. A hack is like a surrey but sturdier built, mor e an everyday affair. We moved back to Wikel to Uncle Dick's and then when I was 13 we moved to Laurel Branch, West Virginia (where Hayes was from). We lived at the Arnold Place (we had a reunion there when this writer (Judy) was about 11). We moved ov er there in December and I went to school in the school building close to Mr. Martin's. The school was on the upper side of the railroad. They took the railroad out after I got married and put the main road in. My daddy was working for Mr. Zetty from E ast Virginia in the timber business. Must have been... let's see we lived in the Arnold Place all the first summer we were there... so it must have been the second summer when I met your daddy (Hayes). He was making apple butter in the shed beside the h ouse. It is the shed to the left of the house as you look at it from the main road--was used as a wood and coal shed normally. Nellie Lane was over visiting and we went over to the store at Mr. Martin's to bum around. The store was run by the Martin bo ys from Ripplemeade (their daddy owned a store there). I was going to the store to see my boyfriend (one of the boys running the store, Tom Martin), and Nellie wanted to see Tom's older brother Junior. Hayes tried to get me and Nellie to come help him s tir apple butter, but we wouldn't. Later he got someone to stir for him and he came up to the store. We just played around and had the best time making them give us stuff to eat from the store. The next thing on the agenda was Mr. Echols who put on a m ovie over at the barn. It was silent movies. I don't know where he was from, but he went all over. Guy was home and he went with me and Nellie and Lee and all of us. The movie was at night and when it was over Hayes wanted to walk me home, but Guy sai d no that he was walking me home. During the movie Hayes got up on a bale of hay and picked at us--teased us. I dated Tom off and on til he went back to Ripplemeade, but by that time I was dating Hayes pretty steady. Next we had a party up at our house . Hayes came up and from that time on we actually started dating. He went back to the coal fields in September and we wrote. Then he got hurt. A piece of slate fell on him I think, and after he was better he came home to work for his daddy. That was sometime after--in the winter--along about Christmas time, I believe. We got married in April and lived in one of Mr. Martin's camps all summer.

The night after we got married, Hayes and me and Lee and Gladys stayed at the "haunted" house together--slept in the same bed--down near Paint Bank. We only had one bed. I'll never forget Hayes and Lee carrying that big tick filled with straw through th e field. It cost 25 cents to get Monsell's daddy to give them the straw to fill the tick. They got their monies worth. I fell off, they put so much in it. Oh mercy!

That fall we moved to Covington. Emmet wanted us to come down to help Selena. She had to have an operation. We stayed with Emmet and I cooked til Selena got better. Our first baby was born in January and then we boarded for a while and then rented a house while Hayes was working at the Paper Mill. Then we went to Oak Hill and stayed with Uncle Lundy's all summer, then we went to house keeping. Billy was born the next spring in Oak Hill in a house down below Oak Hill. We lived with another couple, Hazel and Garnett Arthur. Garnett was the laziest man that ever lived, I guess. He was too lazy to carry the slop jar out and would throw it out the back window every morning. Everyone would hear it go "slop." We lived there until Billy was a pretty g ood sized fellow and then we moved down below there to another house that Lee and Gladys took part of. It was the Hoseapple House and Margie was born there. Hayes was working in the mines all the time we lived in Oak Hill. He worked in Minden. He ran a motor in the mines, I think, but I don't know what kind. I thing the motor hauled people in and out. We lived in Oak Hill about four years, and when Margie was about 7 months old we went back to Wikel to visit. Gladys took typhoid fever while we was up there and Billy got the whooping cough and died while we were at Wikel. I think Billy got the whooping cough from Kathryn Wickline (Bowers, Richard's mother). She came over to visit Gladys and picked Billy up. She was coughing her head off. I don't know why she picked him up. We stayed a good while waiting for Gladys to get over the typhoid fever. Then we went back to Laurel Branch to take Billy to be buried over there and we just stayed. We moved into one of the camps and your daddy went to wor k for Mr. Martin. We stayed there until--we moved up to the Dunbar place about the time I got pregnant with Bennie and then we moved to Wikel to have him. The doctor could reach Wikel better in the winter. We came to Wikel in the fall and stayed until January. Lee and Gladys took a notion to go back to Laurel Branch with us. They didn't have anything to eat and we did have plenty of canned fruit and we had a cow for milk and butter. We managed to get dome dried beans and potatoes. That was the wint er of the depression and it was the only time your daddy didn't have a job. There was nothing to do. We came back to the Dunbar place. Lee and Gladys had Ginny, Toots, and Junior, and I had Benny and Margie.

When the gas line came through Covington in the late winter, we moved to the Bird Farm new Mallow. Lee and Gladys moved with us. We moved to another place in Covington, got a bigger house, and we lived there until Benny was a pretty good sized baby. Th en we moved to Rivermont where Patsy was born. Lee got a house on the same street as us. We lived there til Patsy was about three months old, then we all moved up to the Clark place out of Covington a piece (All meaning Lee and Gladys and family). Whi le we lived at the Clark place Dickie was born in 1937 or 38. We stayed there until Margie was going to school, I know, and then Mr. Wickline built some new houses and wanted us to move over in them. It was in Boys Home up on this side of Covington. Le e and Gladys went back to Wikel, and Monsell and Hamp moved to Boys Home to one of the new houses. We lived there until my bronchial trouble bothered me so much and then we move to Paint Bank in the fall and stayed there all winter. I began to get bette r and then Guy wanted us to come to Wikel to live with my mother in the new house he had built (now Aunt Jeanette's). We lived there until we moved to Kanawha Valley. We stayed in Wikel six years while Hayes worked at the Paper Mill. He stayed in Covin gton during the week and came home on the weekends. He boarded at Mr. Wickline's in Covington.

Hayes come up here (meaning Wikel) and put his application in at the Celanese and then he heard about the job at the new Rubber Plant in Institute. He went to work at the Rubber Plant in 1942, and then he got an offer at the Celanese, but he stayed in Ka nawha Valley. I think he left Wikel in the spring and then we went to be with him in the fall. I stayed in Wikel that summer and canned food--had two big hogs--had plenty of food to eat then. He worked at the Rubber Plant until it closed down and the a cid plant in Nitro started up, and he got a job there. He could have had a job at Carbide, but it was a job that he was afraid of and he didn't take it. When we all moved to Kanawha Valley we moved in up on the hill and stayed there until December 1968 when we moved back to Wikel. Settled at last.

Oh, I forget. You (Judy) were born while we lived in Nitro.

An interview with Olle Lillian (Biggs) Martin
Written down by her daughter, Judith Martin Handley
Wikel, West Virginia