Catherine Elam

Catherine Elam – “Grandma Hale” – 1852-1945

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. My memories of her are quite faint — she died in 1945, when I was only 13 years old, and I had seen her no more than a dozen times. I remember two things about her: as she sat by the kitchen window, looking out across the farm property, she often smoked a corn cob pipe. And she played a harmonica. My mother told me that she wore an apron with a pocket, where she kept her loose tobacco. She would simply hold her empty pipe down in that pocket and fill it with her thumb.

From everything I can remember, along with what I was told by my mother, Grandma Hale was a true mountain woman who lived a hard life in the coal fields of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. I wish I could have known her better. The people of that place and time were truly unique, and through my grandfather I came to admire their tenacity and capacity for hard work. I wish I could have heard her sing the old mountain songs. These great-grandmothers were the eldest of all the people I have known. Although I was very young when they died, the memories I do have of them are have never gone away.

Four Generations of Family

Four Generations – Introduction

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 Jane Jameson

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.

Catherine Elam

Frederick Lee Farley

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 Mabel Hite

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

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 Orville Hale

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 Hite Farley

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 Vellence Hale

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.

David Hale Farley

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 Karen Farley

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.

Catherine Elam – “Grandma Hale” – 1852-1945

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