Table of Contents

I write this for those who are interested in ancestry . . . as I have become in recent times. When I was much younger I didn’t give it much thought, and that’s probably the way most people are. There were times, though, that I wondered about my ancestors.

Alice Hite was my great-grandmother, my father’s maternal grandmother, born in 1856. I knew her. To me — a young child — she was the literal definition of ancient. She died in April 1941, when I was 9 years old.

Born in 1852, Catherine Elam Hale was my great-grandmother, my mother’s paternal grandmother. In her later years she lived with my Hale grandparents near Princewick, near Beckley in Raleigh County, West Virginia.

Fred Farley (my paternal grandfather) born in 1879 and died in 1945, was a well-spoken man who grew up around Kanawha Falls, West Virginia. He was a friendly, outgoing man who loved a good laugh, loved to play a card game called Setback, and loved to tease his young grandchildren. Everyone loved Fred Farley.

Lelia Farley (my paternal grandmother) was born in 1884 and died in 1945. Although I spent a lot of days and years with her close by, we were never close — that is, we never shared ideas or personal thoughts. While she was always a little aloof, and had a limited sense of humor, underneath there was a spark of kindness that made our relationship a friendly one.

Effie Allen Rice Hale, my mother’s mother, was born in Eastern Kentucky in 1887. She married quite young and moved to West Virginia with her young husband, Henry Hale. By the time I knew her, she was in my eyes “old.” I remember her very well — knew her for a long time, since I was 47 years old when she died in 1978.

Henry Hale, my mother's father, was born in Greenup County, KY in 1883, and died in 1966. Like Nanny Hale, he was a product of the Appalachian mountain culture: a tough person for tough times. He was a coal miner and farmer who, until his late sixties, never knew anything other than hard work.

Willis was born at Kanawha Falls, West Virginia, a small town on the Kanawha River about 50 miles east of Charleston. He grew up in Alderson, West Virginia, another small town — with an estimated population of about 1,500 at that time — in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, on the banks of the Greenbrier River.

Audrey Farley (my mother) was born in Cannel City, Kentucky on June 6, 1908, the daughter of Henry Orville Hale and Effie Rice Hale. She was the third of ten children. I don’t know much about her early life, except that she grew up in the coal mine communities of southern West Virginia, with a house full of brothers and sisters.

My brother David was born in 1927, his parents, Willis and Audrey, up against it in the oncoming Great Depression. I don’t know much about David’s early years except his brief recounts to me of those times. His earliest years were neither happy nor otherwise; he was a child of the down times., My brother David was born in 1927, his parents, Willis and Audrey, up against it in the oncoming Great Depression. I don’t know much about David’s early years except his brief recounts to me of those times. His earliest years were neither happy nor otherwise; he was a child of the down times.

Alice and I, twins of course, were born in Winding Gulf, West Virginia on September 1, 1931. I’ve written about Alice in other pieces, and will take this space to tell you a little about her adult years.

I have just a few memories of my very early years: When I was two-three, we lived in a “company house,” as did most coal mine families in those days. The company provided the homes (I think they charged rent, in the form of scrip), they were all built on the same plan, they all looked just alike. Tiny, frame structures.

“The Farm” was in Raleigh County, near a small mining town called Princewick. My Hale grandparents lived there and raised most of their children in the rather large house with white siding and a large screened front porch. From my earliest memories, the Farm was a magic place.

In the summer of 1939, when I was approaching my eighth birthday, kids across the country were taken up with a string of superheroes — known now as Action Heroes. The comic books and afternoon radio were alive with such names as The Green Lantern, The Shadow, The Human Torch, The Blue Beetle, and many more.

As a kid growing up in a valley full of chemical plants and related industries, one would think that my young life would be centered on neighborhood, factory-town stuff. Not so, at least not very much. In spite of all those factories, our neighborhood was about a mile away from real woods.

During my early teen years, the summers were a time of laziness (except for the jobs, which took only part of the day) and being useless. I’d help around the house, which wasn’t a big deal, but for the most part I just engaged in a number of activities, none of which got in the way of doing just nothing. Beginning at about 12, I started to read in earnest.

The Coles. The Coles were a large family who lived close to Sycamore Street. The senior Mr. Cole, whose first name I never knew, had come — from Canada, I think — to work at the “Carbide” chemical plant. He was half-Canadian Indian, half Caucasian, perhaps French.

I was twelve, I think. I had, during the previous several months, become addicted to hillbilly music, as it was called then. I had been kept home from school with a sore throat that wouldn’t go away, so during the long afternoons I would listen to local radio.

I was a lucky young kid. I guess I just fell into it; never gave it much thought. I learned how to work for money. There were several jobs that came available in my early life, and they were all great experiences.

Music permeated my life. At about eight, I started to memorize, without thinking about it. “A Tisket, A Tasket,” sung by Ella Fitzgerald: I remember where I was when it first came to mind — I was walking on a dirt path close to the house in, I think, 1939.

This happened in the spring of 1948. Alice and I were juniors in high school, totally wrapped up in the band. Alice, by that time, had become a really fine flutist, and played with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.

When I was in high school most kids my age didn’t think too much about going to college. I read somewhere that the national statistics showed that 1953 was the first year that the dropout rate was less than fifty per cent.

When I was a kid we never had a car at home. I figured my Dad could drive, but we just didn’t have one, and I never asked him or myself why. When I finished high school and enrolled at Morris Harvey College, I rode the local transit company’s buses for four years.

My first musical instrument was the flute. The flute had been bought for David, who four years earlier found more interesting things to do than blow across that mouthpiece. So when I reached fourth grade, it was determined that it was my turn with the flute — band lessons at school.

One of my best lifetime pals, albeit inanimate, is my Martin guitar. Purchased in 1951, just after I finished my second year at Morris Harvey College, I saw the Martin in the Galperin Music Store in downtown Charleston.

Having been introduced to the woods as a young boy, I was ecstatic when my Dad took me on my first camping-fishing trip. I was about eleven. He and a friend took me for two nights to shallow cave on a steep hill above Elk River.

It was the early Spring of ’56, and Don (my uncle Don Hale, three years my senior) and I talked about going fishing sometime. He lived in Pittsburgh, where he worked for U.S. Steel. Back then it was one phone call and one short letter to set it up. I told him New River was my choice; he agreed.

C&O designates the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, one of America’s great railways which originally ran from Cincinnati to Norfolk. And West Virginia was squarely in its pathway — the C&O entered the state (from Ohio) close to Huntington, then through the Kanawha Valley — Charleston, etc., and eastward up the Kanawha and New Rivers, then following the Greenbrier and tunneling through a mountain eastward into Virginia.

When it comes to a companion, I’d rather have a guitar than a dog. Now I’ve had dogs, and I love them. And my kids have had dogs, and their kids.

William Hite was my Dad's maternal grandfather. He was born near Staunton, Virginia, and was a Civil War veteran — on the confederate side. He married a much younger Alice Jameson in 1875, and in his adult life was a cabinet maker.

,

This is a short piece which reflects on my favorite “stuff.” It would probably change if I did it again, so don’t attach a lot of finality to my thoughts. It’s meant to give grandchildren and their children a window into the family’s past. I’m sure my own kids have already heard me talk about all this stuff.

It’s fair to say I’m a lifelong Democrat. But I don’t know anyone who is 100% either Dem or Repub. But I’m surely about 90% Dem. Some scientists suggest that we may be hard-wired to be either left or right-leaning. I suspect that’s true.

I don’t know much about computers. Compared to today’s 12-year-old, I’m an ignoramus. I come from a prehistoric generation, when phones were connected by wire, when electric ovens were new, when there were no cell phones, no smart phones, no email, no texting, no caller ID, no call waiting, no message phones, no answering machines, no internet — you got it: none of that stuff.

While I’m sure you have observed the continual escalation of prices for goods and services, it only takes on important meaning after you’ve been around long enough to see just how much the purchasing power of the dollar changes over time.

If you’re reading this say, forty years from now, like in 2054, you probably believe that age 82 isn’t very old. By then “old” may start at about 100. Until you stop and think about “the way things were,” as life-span thoughts get you caught up in the now and the then. S

I think I was 15. Wintertime. Saturday morning. Snow about six inches deep everywhere. Nothing going on at home, so I decided to go out. I walked through the snow down to the railroad tracks, then stepping on every cross tie to the South Charleston C&O Railway station.

My great-grandfather Hite was a cabinet maker. He was truly masterful in his ability to work with wood. While I as a young child had heard of his skills, the only remaining piece of his making is a small lift top desk, which was in our home for many years.

With a couple of exceptions, the songs included here are all about the woods and waters. Mostly about camping and fishing on New River and Indian Creek with the “gang,” Hanry Hale (called Big Henry in one song), his sons and grandsons, along with a few close buddies., With a couple of exceptions, the songs included here are all about the woods and waters. Mostly about camping and fishing on New River and Indian Creek with the “gang,” Hanry Hale (called Big Henry in one song), his sons and grandsons, along with a few close buddies.

This arrangement of The Lord’s Prayer was composed in 1954 for performance as part of the Orthodox Liturgy/Service at St. George Orthodox Church in Charleston, WV. The regular Sunday service, which was performed by the priest and cantors, was interspersed with musical responses and liturgy by the choir., This arrangement of The Lord’s Prayer was composed in 1954 for performance as part of the Orthodox Liturgy/Service at St. George Orthodox Church in Charleston, WV. The regular Sunday service, which was performed by the priest and cantors, was interspersed with musical responses and liturgy by the choir., This arrangement of The Lord’s Prayer was composed in 1954 for performance as part of the Orthodox Liturgy/Service at St. George Orthodox Church in Charleston, WV. The regular Sunday service, which was performed by the priest and cantors, was interspersed with musical responses and liturgy by the choir.

I arrived at St. Albans High School in 1955 to teach music, and discovered they had no alma mater, and had never had one. I wrote this in late 1955 (after football season), in one afternoon.

I spent a lot of time camping at Indian Creek, and wrote this in 1958. It took 2-3 evenings to write it, and I sang it as a lullaby to Patrick as a baby.

This is a standard blues song. The coal business in WV had gone south. It’s based on my uncle Pat Hale, who had lost his job and gone to Ohio with other coal miners looking for work.

I wrote this little romance song for Carol, and used the piano in the music department, since we didn’t have one at home

This song just kind of wrote itself in 1961, originally as just a guitar piece called “Lonely Tune”. I then put wrote some lyrics in 2019 and renamed it “Morning Star.”

This is one of a group of songs I wrote in the late ‘50s and early 60s. My uncle Pat Hale had a fishing partner whose name was Haxsaw; they worked in the mines together, and went fishing together on New River.

The “hobo” character in the song is just a guy who never got his life together in a way he was satisfied with. That was Pat Hale. Although I didn’t consciously make the connection when I wrote it — it was happenstance — that’s how it turned out.

This is a short piece that I wrote to play at the riverbank on camping trips.

This song is one of my favorites, and reflects a memory of having been there in that situation.

I’ve already written a good bit about my camping trips with my uncle Don Hale, his dad Henry (my grandfather) and my brother David and other members of the Hale gang. This song is my personal favorite about those times at Sandstone Falls on the New River.

This guitar piece, which has a bit of a Spanish feel, was written in 1964 and composed on the Martin guitar that accompanied me on so many camping trips, hence the title.

This is a song about a guy having diffiuclty in his domestic life, and he would (sadly, to him) leave home on weekends and go to New River.

This song is about a guy who lives in a coal mine community in WV, and decides he’s hanging it up. His wife has been unfaithful and he decides — that’s it, I’m out of here. I picture him as living in Beckley.

I wrote this cello piece for my granddaughter Hannah Dare Bryan in 2016.

Alan made a recording in 1965 of himself singing and playing guitar, and it included not only his own compositions but these other songs written by others.