wvpics: What was your Grandparents name?

Don: Henderson Carpenter and Cora (Satterfield).

wvpics: What did people do for entertainment in your time?

Don: Well, Dawson (Pride) was the first guy on Bunner Ridge to have a radio. One of them battery radios. We'd go up there a Saturday night to hear the Grand Old Opree. Prize fights, we'd go up and listen to the prize fight, you know. That was kinda the gathering place, at Dawson Pride's.

wvpics: Who would come out?

Don: Oh, Dad and Mom, Orthy and Jake Carpenter. Willis & Wayman Carpenter. Maybe Earl & Burl, Burse's boys. You know about them?

wvpics: I've heard tell of 'em...

Don: Yea, they was brothers, they was Uncle Burse's kid's. There was 19 of 'em. Did you ever heard that didn't ya?

wvpics: Where did they live?

Don: Way on down the holler there. Pete Johnson run. Below where Grandpaps house was.

wvpics: You remember old Hannah Pride?

Don: Hanner, ohhh yeaa, I remember her well. She stayed there at Dawson's a lot. Got real hard of hearing but she died up at Sherden's.

wvpics: Do you remember Denzil Robe?

Don: Yea, he farmed mostly. He got so in his later years he done a lot of carpenter work. Layed up foundations and stuff. Denzil was a pretty good carpenter.

wvpics: Who lived out past Denzil Robe?

Don: A guy by the name of Sammy Phillips and Fessie Phillips (Brothers). Fessie got killed in the coal mines down there. Jeff Musgrove (Brooners father) lived out at where Tom Moran's place is. That's Tom's Grandfather place. Thelma was Jeff's daughter. Brooner's wife was a Moran, from down on Whiteday.

wvpics: So everyone on this end of the Ridge, farmed?

Don: Yea, they never worked at public works as far as I can remember. (Laughs) there wasn't no public works then.

wvpics: Sounds like you did a lot of the hauling around here?

Don: Oh yea, I was drivin' horses when I was eight years old. We'd be a haulin' in corn or sumpin', Dad would stop at home, me and Grandpap would take it on over to his house, unload it and and I'd take the horses back home, My lan, when I was five year old. See a horse kicked and killed my brother when he was four. A year younger 'n me.

wvpics: You remember it?

Don: Yea, I remember it as well as it were yesterday. Dad and Grandpap were over in the feed room measurin' up some feed. Sackin' up some feed to take over to Vic Neel's to get ground. Well, they had this one old grey mare there that was real gentle and they had this other horse kinda mean and they had just fed 'em. Well, I stopped in at the old grey mare a got the brush an brushin' her legs and tail and my brother went in behind the other horse and he kicked him. We had on little bibbed overhauls and he came walking out behind me, a cryin'. The print of that horse's foot was on his stomach . It burst his intestines. Took him to the hospital. Back then, they didn't know what to do, you know. Gangrene set in and he died. Two or three days he lived. That was one of the biggest tragedies on the Ridge at that time.

wvpics: Your parents farmed as well?

Don: Well, Dad drove tractor for the state road back when I was 6 years old or sumpin' like that. But that was the first job I ever knowed of him a havin'. He used to haul props out there to where Watson is now, used to be called New England. Took 14 hours to make a trip. That's where Clyde Carpenter was born, New England.

wvpics: What roads did you take traveling to the Ridge?

Don: If they were going to the far end of the Ridge (Near Taylor County), they go up Bucklew Hollow. When I went to work at Alcan (1943) the first winter, we had to park cars at the top of Piney Run hill. Road was mud, you couldn't get any farther. They didn't any electric on the Ridge until '46. Yea, shoot boy, gee whiz that old Bunner Ridge was a tough road. In the truck, in the wintertime you always stopped at Baker's sawmill and put chains on, for that was the end of the hard road.

wvpics: Was there baseball field on Bunner Ridge?

Don: Yea, we skinned the sod off and made a pretty nice diamond. Only Bert's line (property line) came down there and kind of affected right field a little bit. When you knocked a ball over that fence, it was a two base hit.

wvpics: How many guys played?

Don: They had a sand lot team, there'd be Kingmont, Watson, Grantown, Club Delight down here, they has a team, their ball diamond was right below the aluminum plant.

wvpics: What year was that?

Don: 1930s. '35, 36,'37 through there ya know. Now, Dad hauled the ball team. He had a '33 Chevrolet truck. Dad was a pretty good ball player. Dawson (Pride) was the catcher. (Laughs) Dawson would catch baseball without a mask on. Oh, he was a tough little bogger. There were 3 Pheasant brothers played, Pete, Delbert (Pitcher) & Jim (outfield). Two Kings played, Earl Carpenter played short stop. Bernard McVicker you know. Grandpa appointed him (McVicker) manager when he moved to the Ridge. (Laughs) Yea, Manager of the Bunner Ridge ball club.

wvpics: They went into town & played?

Don: Yea, Dad Hauled 'em. He was the only feller on Bunner Ridge ' have a truck, the next guy I ever knowed of to get a truck was Brooner Musgrove. Boy, that was a good 'ole feller. Big stout man. Brooner Musgrove, you didn't wanna shove him to fer, he'd crack ye. He'd hit ya and look over where you was a layin'. (Laughs) Boy they was good people. I was telling someone the other day, when I was a kid you coulda put your pocketbook under a rock an let everybody know about it and nobody would a bothered it.

wvpics: Where did you go to school?

Don: Nebo. Earl Hinesman was my first teacher, still living down at Meadowdale. He'd be about 94. He'd stay at our house when the weather was bad. He had a brother that was a school teacher too. I didn't start school until the Fall after I was 7 years old. Oh my, I didn't want to go. I druther stay at home and work. (Laughs) Deed that's the truth. I was out with Dad and Gradpap everyday, haulin' rock, haulin' rails. You know whenever I was a kid, that whole country was fenced with rails.

wvpics: You remember Pete Nuzum?

Don: He worked for Dad for years, He worked for him from 1947 up till he died. Pete'd go over home, get the horses of the morning, I was woking 11-7, Pete'd walk over and get the horses and walk clear out the Ridge where Cam Bunner lives and we'd log and work there all day until 2 or 3 o'clock of the evening. I'd bring a load of logs back in with me and he'd walk those horses clear back home. He never rode them. He walked.

Don's wife: Tell him the story.

Don: 1960 the road was blocked. You couldn't get any farther than Piney Run hill. I had a 3 year old saddle horse and lived up in homewood. I rode it up and put it in Lee Snyders barn, you know that old barn that's got the slate roof on it (Rundle's). I walked back & forth from the foot of Piney, out to that barn where I could ride the horse on out to our farm & when I finshed feeding, I'd leave the horse in the barn and walk on down Piney to my car. I rode out that one morning, instead of cutting across the holler home, thought, well I better go out and check on Pete (Nuzum). I looked at the thermometer and it was eight below zero. I opened up the door and looked in and said "Heeey Pete". I said "How cold was it this morning?" Pete said "It was colder than H-E-double L, my pee pot froze up setting right here on the hearth!"(Laughs) And it was froze up too! The next morning, I think, well, I'll go around and check on him. I'd saw where he'd been outside to check the temperature on the porch banister. I looked and it was two above. I opened the door and said "How cold was it this morning, Pete?" He said "It's two above outside and an even zero in here". (Laughs)

wvpics: What store did you go to?

Don: F.M. Vincent grocery store. Pretty near everyone on the Ridge went there. Grandpap would take in a bushel of apples or bushel of tomatoes, he'd get a due bill, ya know. 25 cents due, 50 cents due. Then he'd have enough of them that he could buy his groceries all winter. Course the only things they bought were salt, sugar, flour, coffee and baking powders.

wvpics: Did you go to Grafton stores?

Don: We always went up there in the fall, to Musgrove's feedmill to trade our buckwheat and stuff in for flour. Dad would always get 12 sacks of flour for wintertime and a 100 lbs. of soupbeans. Get a 100 lbs of soupbeans there for $2.90. We'd butcher 3 hogs and a beef. Had the celler full of blackberries 'n crabapples 'n beets 'n tomato's. Didn't need nothing from the store. A little sodie, salt, sugar and baking powders.

Don: We used to have some big times at thrashing time and hog butchering time.

wvpics: What's "Thrashing"?

Don: Well, where you're thrashing the grain, you know raising oat 'n wheat 'n buckwheat 'n stuff, then the thrashing machine would come around. You'd run it through there and get the grain out, straw would go out the other way. They always put us boys on the straw rake. Me and Wayman & Leslie Carpenter. Used the straw to feed sheep. Plowed the straw under the potato patch in the spring. That wasn't a very nice job. But you had to do it anyway. In 1936 we thrashed over at Hen (Henderson) Pride's. We set 3 stack poles. (Laughs) I was 12 years old. We started thrashing at noon one day. Thrashed all day and finished thrashing the next day. Then Enoch Huffman brought a brand new wagon over there that Hen had got. Road Wagon. We all got to ride it over with a load of grain on it. There was a girl there, helping to measure the grain, you know. She worked like a man. We came over to where Hen's old house was and he had a big shed there. He had his grain bins upstairs. You had to carry that grain upstairs!

Don: Dawson (Pride) worked a lot of days for Grandpap for a dollar a day. Then they got to givin' him a dollar and a quarter. Just think of that. Cutting props, cutting corn, stacking hay and cuttin' filth. Dawson cut a lot of filth, boy. Him and Hayward Carpenter would get together and cut filth for Hen Pride. They'd cut the Robinson Place and the Moran Place, Neel Place. So much for cutting each one. $35 or $40. Might take 'em 2 weeks. By garsh, wasn't no big money then.

wvpics: Do you remember Hayward Carpenter?

Don: Yea, He and his brother Wayne bought that place off El Pride, 12 or 14 acres and (laughs) they built a little shanty there. Didn't have no floor in it. Lived right on the dirt. (Laughs!) Had one of those little 4 lited torch lit stoves in it (Laughs again). They was a workin' (Hayward & Wayne) and Dawson (Pride) and Burl Carpenter (Hayward's Brother) took a feed sack and stuffed it down the stove pipe. (Laughs!) They had this little black coal powder that they used in down in the coal bank, down over the hill. They'd drill a hole and stuff that coal powder in there, put fuse in it and put off a little shot 'n loosen up the coal. Well, they put a little of this coal powder, down in that stove, where they was gonna build a fire. (Laughs) Wayne, he lit the fire. (Laughing hard) Blowed the lid off the stove! Oh my, that was a freakus. Wayne, he came right straight to Dawson's and told what somebody had done. He said "I know who done it, it was bound to be Clyde Carpenter's boys". Here was Dawson and Burl setting on the porch and they was the ones that done it! Dawson and them could do some funny tricks.

wvpics: Did the depression affect your family?

Don: No, didn't hurt Dad and them too much. They didn't have no money, well, nobody had any money. I remember one time there, that winter was coming 'n Dad had $4 and a little bit of change in his pocket. I heard him say, "That'll have to do 'till spring". (Laughs) Well, we had oil lamps, ya know, kerosene. Grandpap used to get kerosene in a drum. 50 gallon. People would come in there and get it, I think he sold it for 10 cents a gallon.

wvpics: Your Grandpap was sort of a business man?

Don: Well, I don't know. He was a pretty shrewd old feller. Grandma died in '34. I had to go stay with him over there of the night. Boy, he'd get get up 5:30 of the mornin'. Boy, he was a good cook. Fry eggs, make gravey. He told me, I was grumbling there one morning a little bit, he said "Hey, the first thing you do of a morning is you get up. Then you gonna do something after you get up." He told me, "I don't never want to catch you going down the road if you ain't gonna make a nickle or help somebody do something". I've pretty well lived by that.

wvpics: Did you know Sherden Pride?

Don: Yea, lan yea. I use to haul their coal. Hen, Sherden & El (Elza). Man I use to haul lots of coal on that ridge. Practically hauled it all. A boy by the name of Shriver lived down here and he go with me some. Sherden was a little short feller. He had a big bulls back pocketbook. He had his money in it to pay me 'n he got it out and he had it all just doubled up. Gerald (Shriver) would devil Dawson, He said "Boy, if you ever need any money, better go out and see your Uncle Sherd" (laughs). But he fumbled around there and got the money out to pay for that coal. We got in the truck and started, Gerald said "Man, that old feller had a lot of money on him, didn't he?" I said "Probably all he had." Sherd and them lost some money when the banks went under in '29.

wvpics: Where did you get the coal?

Don: Boothsville and Kingmont, then I hauled Coleman's too. Way back where he used to live. Had to lay down four bars (fences) going in there. That was the old James Linn Place. He (James Linn) preached the old lady Pride's funeral.

wvpics: (no questions asked, Don was just thinking out loud)

Don: You liable to be down there on mudlick at the saw mill or working down at Grandpap's place in the fall of the year and you hear Ol' Hen Pride a coming up the road. He had an old Roan horse, called him Tom. He'd go over on Goose Creek or so and so. People had a lot of bucket fed calves back then ya know, Hen liable to be leadin' two or three of them. Riding that horse and have 'em tied to that saddle. (laughs) A taggin' along. Ole Hen, He was an operator! Seems like he had anywhere from 28 - 30 head of 3 year-old steers that run on the Turner Ridge down to Mudlick, where it turns up to Finches. We'd down there a puttin up hay 'n and they came up to the crick and they'd get in and drink water, then when he loaded them out in the fall he took 'em back up to Russell Finch's scales. He usually sold them to Jim Shoemaker, he had a meat market here in town.

Don: Russell Fiches place. We used to walk out there on Saturaday night and go fox hunting. Had the fox hounds running foxes. Russell would be up there, Dawson would go, Dad, Earl and Burl, Vic Neel. - yea, I been on that hill all night, a many a night when I was a kid. You didn't kill them or anything, you just had a fox race, that old hound runnin' the fox. Everyone knew their own dog a barkin'.