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. We would talk about the latest episode while sitting on the curb eating newly-ripened apples.
And then, the craze hit. In our neighborhood at least. Every boy in our age group wanted to mimic the heroes and “ride” after dark through the area, sneaking up on imaginary bad people. We had our own hero names. Actually, I got into it a couple of weeks late, and good names like The Target, accompanied by a homemade cape and mask, had already been taken. But undeterred, I told Mom that I had a name, and I wanted a mask that covered my head and a matching cape. She asked what my name was and I told her: The Blue Panthom. Of course, it was “Phantom,” but what did I know. She smiled and said OK.
My outfit was the greatest. All blue, including dark overalls (in those days, all overalls and jeans were of very dark blue; what we called overalls were actually jeans), blue shirt, blue cape, and blue head-covering mask. So immediately after dark, the Blue Panthom rode! Around the back alley, through the Bowyers’ yard, down the side street — you get it; I was RIDING.
Just as it was getting good, it was decided that Alice and I would go to Alderson and spend some time with our grandparents. I was a little disheartened about that — I had just established the Blue Panthom as a bona fide neighborhood night rider, bumping into The Target, The Dart (The Target’s brother), The White Mask, as we roamed the streets. But we were going to Alderson. I asked Mom if I could take my mask and cape with me, and she relented. I stuffed them into my bag and off we went.
We’re in Alderson. Quiet country town with sidewalks, a short walk from the Farley house to downtown — John Alderson’s furniture store, Mick or Mack grocery, the drug store and so on. Sitting on the front porch all day. Boring doesn’t come close. So without any mention to anyone, even Alice, I went to work on a great idea: I would RIDE!! I would be a complete unknown in Alderson, fighting bad guys and being a hero with people wondering “who is that guy?”
The next afternoon all was quiet at the house. Alice was in the kitchen with Nanny, Granddad was out of town, and my moment had arrived. I sneaked upstairs, put on the jeans and shirt, went out the front door, hid behind a tree and donned my cape and mask. The Blue Panthom was riding. (I need to say this: I actually remember vividly my excitement and my feeling of invincibility as I went chest-first through yards and behind hedges, crossing sidewalks and arriving downtown. I was in a world of my own; a state of absolute fantasy.) The Blue Panthom entered Mick or Mack Grocery, crept through couple of aisles, left with a couple of people staring behind me.
Bursting with pride, I rounded the corner and was just getting ready to go into the hardware store when I heard a voice: “ALAN KEITH FARLEY!! Come here this minute!” I died. The Blue Panthom had been unmasked, in public. My embarrassment was unbearable. Nanny. Not Granddad, who would have protected my identity and played along until he got me home, who would have understood the horror of my feelings. No, it had to be Nanny — tall, severe, unsmiling, unknowing as to the value of fantasy, unable to relate to a kid’s world, jerking off my mask, whipping off my cape, grinding her fingers into my shoulder and marching me home. She had discovered that I wasn’t at the house, and both angry and worried, had set out to find me.
I guess Nanny had the mistaken notion that a superhero in her home was an affront to her southern gentility; that the masked kid in a downtown store had destroyed the family reputation. And maybe prepared to say to the church ladies, “Child in a mask? Certainly no grandson of mine!”
Not a word was spoken at supper or after. Granddad knew that it was too late to console me, and I knew that he understood — had probably been a hero himself way back in the 1890s. Needless to say, the remainder of our visit was strained, and Alice and I were more than happy to get back to Sycamore Street.
Following my adventure, I really wondered whether I’d ever wear the cape and mask again. Somehow, there was doubt about that. I had been outed. So after being back home for a day or so, pondering, the matter was settled. Late that evening, around dark, a shadowy figure crept outside and down the sidewalk, eyes shifting, dodging behind parked cars, creeping past doorways. The Blue Panthom had returned, and it was a night for riding! He Rides Again!
Note: Several years later, Mom told me Nanny had talked with her about the incident, and that Mom, my own superhero, had told Nanny what was what.
Additional Note: For many years, I remembered being the Blue Panthom, but I remembered it properly as the Blue Phantom. I guess I was forty or so when Mom recounted the story, telling me I had invented a new word (panthom). Funny thing, not one person ever laughed at me or teased me about my mispronunciation. I never went through the embarrassment of being corrected. Goes to show you that good families take care of their own. Finally: I must say here that Nanny Farley, following the death of her husband Fred, came to share her time among her children: Paul (and Rook), Ruth (and Dick), and Dad (and Mom), all of whom lived in the South Charleston/St. Albans area. She was a lonely widow with no home; only the homes of her children who accepted her gladly. She would rotate every few weeks from one home to the next for about eight years, and when she stayed at our house all was well. Her treatment of the Blue Panthom was long forgotten, and she and I were great friends during her final years. The event itself, happily, never came up. If it had we would both had laughed and laughed.
Audrey Farley 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.
She (some of this can be found elsewhere in these pieces; I know I repeat myself, but this family stuff runs together at certain points) learned very early to work alongside her mother and sister Edith (Frances — “Rook” — was much younger) in the business of cooking, sewing, cleaning, working in the garden, and all the other tasks that befell the females of those times. At age eight, she was an able cook, helping with meals cooked on a wood stove, with no running water inside the house. Her mother was a task mistress who was too busy for nonsense among her children when it came to chores.
Christy, Audrey, and Joe Hale – 1920, Princewick, WV
She was a fine student, and evidently had a couple of outstanding teachers in high school. At that small country high school Latin was required, along with great emphasis on literature and grammar. To the end of her life she could quote Shakespeare, poets and others whose works she was admonished to memorize. Her memory was prodigious. In her final years she could still quote poetry and prose without pause, and sing long, very old songs without missing a word or phrase. Her penchant for formal language belied her humble upbringing, and gave her an aura of unpretentious sophistication.
Truly, she had the heart of a scholar, although her life was anything but scholarly. Behind all that, she had a deep respect and admiration for the lifestyle of her parents, and never spoke ill of being a “coal miner’s daughter.”
Audrey in her basketball uniform, Winding Gulf High School, 1923
But don’t be fooled by this talk of scholarly talent. She was also known for her fiery disposition, competitive spirit and mischievous sense of humor. She knew how to have a good time, and among her school activities she played on the girls’ basketball team. Imagine: girls basketball in the 1920s! In a tiny high school in rural West Virginia.
And while she loved her poetry and literature, she never advertised it; rather, she presented herself for what she was: a person who understood basic values and a lifestyle that was unpretentious.
I cannot say enough about her innate ability as a mother. She was firm, kind, friendly, understanding, and most of all, trusting and encouraging. She had an amazing knack for knowing when and what to say or do to help a child be — a good child. Never heavy-handed or loud-spoken, she laid her intelligent, knowing, smiling qualities upon us all. Her three children were all different — nothing new there, but she never showed any favoritism; no one of us could complain or find fault with the way she handled the job of being a parent. I never heard her raise her voice or complain — I imagine she did, privately, but not in front of her children.
Times were not easy during the 1930s; the Great Depression had gripped us all, and many households were bogged down from the struggles of not enough money, too much debt, lack of optimism, and a dim view of the future. Mother wouldn’t have any of it. She kept the family going on that score, and Dad’s job at semi-skilled labor wages was nevertheless a huge positive factor in our family life.
Like Dad and his and Mom’s parents, Mom was a diehard New Deal Democrat who was actually so biased politically — probably a result of the FDR years which saw an emergence from the Great Depression, and the unionization of the coal industry — that she had no use for any Republican politician, regardless of that person’s moderation or personal demeanor. In her later life, while watching a Republican on television, she would talk back at the TV with pointed remarks, all irreverent and many caustic, for the action on the screen. While one could criticize her single-mindedness in this regard, those moments were usually kind of amusing.
Mother and I had good times together. When I was in high school, we would wait for Wednesday’s delivery of the Saturday Evening Post, which included Western novels in serial form which we both liked to read. Often when I would get home from school she had cooked pinto beans, and we would test them together. When I was a pre-adolescent, we sang together — she taught me many songs (most of which I have long forgotten), usually while cleaning up the kitchen after supper.
It was mother who allowed me to go to the woods alone when I was very young. She needed only to know where I was going and when I planned to return. She never berated me for my missteps — I’m sure there were many — rather, she emphasized her quiet expectations of good behavior. Some summer mornings when I was eight or so I would arise at dawn, pull on my shorts and wander into the neighborhood, looking for anything of interest: birds, objects on our gravel street and sidewalk, you name it. When I’d go back to the house the world had awoken, and mother would simply say good morning, chat for a minute, and that was it. Can’t imagine that kind of freedom in today’s world; too many hazards for young kids. Looking back, those times were akin to the days of Huckleberry Finn, although my life was lacking that kind of adventure.
I note here that Dad’s working hours, which shifted from day to evening to night on a weekly rotation, placed limits on the amount of time he was at home during “regular” parenting time, so it fell to Mom to look after us kids, laying out the rules — such as they were — and by default acting as Parent In Chief.
Alan, Audrey, Alice – about 1936, 21 Franklin Terrace, South Charleston, WV
It’s important to say that mother’s parenting style was even-handed with all three of us kids. Dave and Alice were as encouraged and trusted as I. Mother was careful about that, but more importantly, she genuinely and effortlessly treated us all with the same expectations and affection; that’s just who she was.
Mom — that’s what I always called her; Alice was somehow more formal and never called her anything but Mother — was the model parent. I’ve had friends whose mothers were much like mine, and Carol’s mother was truly wonderful, so I don’t mean to paint her as the parent that no one else ever had. But she had a natural wisdom about how to deal with her children, and it worked. While Dad sometimes seemed a little hesitant about how to deal with us, as though he weren’t very self-assured about parenthood, Mom was never ill at ease with us — I think in large part due to her quiet self-confidence, as well as having grown up in a very large family where all the dynamics come into play sooner or later.
After we kids were grown and gone, she and Dad pursued their individual talents and interests; Dad with his politics and woodworking; mother with her love of nature and wonderful needlework. Her quilts were regionally known and shown at various events; several have been preserved by family members. (She made a quilt for Dave, Alice and me to celebrate our marriages, and individual quilts for her grandchildren. I hope you get to see them.)
“The Eagle” Quilt – 1st prize in 1974 Appalachian Arts & Crafts Festival, Beckley, WV
Having grown up in “the country,” that is, in very rural surroundings, Mom learned from her parents a great deal about plants, wild flowers, birds, and nature itself. Not just her father; Nanny Hale was pure pioneer, and had learned the way of the mountains herself as a young child. Note in the family history her background and you’ll understand just how resourceful she had learned to be, using plants for seasonings, and so forth. So Mom had that 19th century background and simply carried it forward in her readings, her explorations of wooded areas close to home, and her conversations with others of similar background.
In 1961, she and Dad moved into their new home — the only home they ever owned — on the banks of Coal River, just outside St. Albans, WV. She immediately set out to create a wildflower area along the back of their lot, overlooking the river. The rich river soil, along with the shade provided by huge poplar trees along the bank, was a perfect setting for her project. It became a place of beauty which she showed to one and all with pleasure, walking along with a long stick with which she would point to the various flowers, naming them and adding a short note about their habitat, etc.
From her mom, (all the Hale girls called Effie “Mom”), Mother became an excellent cook; in later years she became an experimentalist, trying new recipes and seasonings, presenting visitors with exceptional dishes, learning all the while about how the kitchen could be a place of wondrous creativity. Her dishes were better than excellent — they were the talk of the neighborhood and church.
Dad died in 1983 at age 77, leaving Mom to fend for herself. She had never learned to drive, so neighborhood ladies from the church organized a group called “Audie’s Go-Go Girls,” who on a rotating basis took her to her medical appointments, the grocery store, and any other outings she required. That continued for 18 years, until her death in 2001.
Following Dad’s death, Mom became supremely independent, taking care of the house, handling the finances, and so forth. She was alone, and though she missed Dad terribly, she probably felt somehow liberated to follow her own path. She told me she really enjoyed living alone, with her books, her birds outside the kitchen window, and her tall poplars on the back lot. Her own path: those final 18 years were indeed lived as she wished — within the restrictions of her personal health, which was challenged by pulmonary limitations.
So Mom had reached her time of pleasure, after all those years of raising children, supporting dad, living frugally, directing all her energy and mental activity to the needs of the household — after all that she was able, at age 75, to unleash her creative notions into continued work with the needle, and in addition to learn how to paint, never forsaking her poetry and prose. Her quilts and wall hangings were just one facet of her artistic abilities: when she was in her eighties she began painting with water colors following a few lessons from a neighbor. Although she produced just a few paintings, they show true talent. Almost all of them portrayed flowers — quite natural when you think about it. Most of her paintings have been placed in the family “archives,” put together by Leslie as part of her tireless work with “ancestry.”
Watercolor painting by Audrey, about 1995
I cannot let pass mention of her love of reading. She had many favorite topics, and spent countless hours reading of current events and other timely topics. And for as far back as I can remember she loved western novels by the writers of the day: Ernest Haycox, Max Brand, Owen Wister and the rest. But her all-time favorite author was Louis L’Amour. In her final years she had a collection of about fifty of his books, and would read them over and over, more for the flavor of his writing than the content of the story. She often talked of him, and was taken by his descriptions of the west. One of her favorite comments was that no one could describe a campfire like Louis. We would take a dozen paperbacks to her at Christmas; she was always delighted. Her contacts with others were limited; she had little use for the telephone, and had few daytime visitors — probably her choice. Living alone in the evenings could have been tiring, but Mom was never quite alone…she had her Louis L’Amour books to keep her company.
Her light shone until her death in 2001 at age 93. Until her final day, she maintained her taste for pinto beans, good homemade bread, flavorful dishes, and yes, for her “turkey feathers,” a mere taste of Wild Turkey bourbon with a splash of water, taken on occasion before supper.
Audrey maintaining a straight face while showing off her turkey feathers
About everything in life, whether hardships, happy times, daily life: she had a prevailing sense of humor that parted the curtains time after time. That humor, characterized by her finding a source of smiles in almost any circumstance, was one of her trademark qualities: she could find a way to cast almost any condition in a positive light, and in my experience that quality is a rare human ability. And it explains in part her great parenting skill — bringing a child to feel okay about something when feeling bad was in the works. Positive reinforcement at its best. I know this sounds like an aggrandizement — even an exaggeration — of the life of one’s mother, coming from the pride of a child. But I am sure that others who knew her, family members or not, would agree with the memories expressed here. This was an exceptional woman.
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.
He was a willful young boy, and had friends who were likewise apt to go against the grain. They were boisterous youths, and had great fun in the Tom Sawyer tradition, pulling Halloween pranks and the like. During their early teens they spent their summers on an island above town, carrying their bare necessities up the railroad to the island and camping out. They would come and go from home, with parental permission (one must wonder if the parents didn’t applaud the arrangement). They would walk the tracks back home if needed, and walk back to the island, swiping chickens and corn on the way (Dad’s account). It was idyllic. They would bask in the sun, catch catfish, explore the nearby shores, play, fight, swim and the rest. What a life.
There’s an element of early twentieth century racism in this. Alderson was a really small town, decidedly white, and probably — no, surely, racist. I tell this because it’s part of the deal, like it or not. When Dad and his cronies went to “summer camp,” they convinced a black kid — their age — to go with them. He was to take care of camp, clean fish, help with cooking, etc. In return he could be a regular camper, eat with everyone else, enjoy the river, and the rest. Ingrained in the culture of the day, Dad and his buddies saw nothing wrong with this: a black kid would do chores and be rewarded with food and shelter, along with companionship in camp. While by today’s standards that would be unheard of, and truly in Dad’s later life is was so, it was just a reflection of life in those days for black and white alike in places like Alderson. Dad was careful to assure that their “colored” buddy was a true buddy, but that doesn’t clean the slate.
It’s instructive to state that by the 1960s Dad was the staunchest of civil rights advocates, and I’m sure he looked back on what were not innocent but unknowing days of the early Century with certain regret. Actually, he came by it as a matter of upbringing: his grandmother and mother were both of the racist mold of the day. I am heartened to say that Dad was an early proponent of equal rights; his basic human values prevailed, and he got it right — later on.
Willis, back row, first from left – Alderson, WV, Allegheny Collegiate Institute – 1923
Dad had a hard time with and in school. After attending three different high schools — asked to leave the first two — he finally graduated. Upon leaving school he took a temporary job as an assistant to his uncle Seth Farley, who was a surveyor for coal companies in Greenbrier and Raleigh Counties. He was enthralled with the experience, and never got over what he called “the romance of the mines.”
A little later, he met a young girl with a zest for living and an adventurous spirit. She was Audrey Hale, who became his wife and my mother. They were young and improbably optimistic. They moved to a small mountainside coal camp called Quinwood, in Greenbrier County. The company houses were literally built on stilts on their fronts, with the backs anchored to the steep mountainside.
Dad didn’t even work in the mines — at that time. He worked in the company-operated pool hall, racking balls and serving food. But he reveled in being a part of the coal mining way of life, a dream that later became a reality, and finally a lifelong fixation.
It’s hard to imagine a person being that taken by a life underground, with pick and shovel as it was in those days, with the carbide lamps and the canaries and the rest. But I have known miners from those times who were just like dad. As the great song “Dark As A Dungeon” says: “It will form as a habit, and seep in your soul, ‘Till the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal.”
A little later Dad and Mom moved to Raleigh County, where Dad took a mining job at Winding Gulf, which at the time was one of the largest mining operations in the area. There, they became the parents of my older brother David in 1927. Life in coal camps was tough then — work with little else to do; near-squalid home conditions, no access to the outside world, just work, coal dust, and worry. The company owned the homes, and paid their employees in “scrip,” which was in the form of tokens to be redeemable at the company store. To exchange one’s scrip for cash meant selling it at discount, so employees were stuck with buying everything — food, clothes — everything, at the company store. As the great song goes, “You load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don’t call me ‘cause I can’t go — I owe my soul to the Company Store.”
Alice Karen Farley and Alan Keith Farley, about 1932
Then came the twins — Alice and me, in 1931. We were a surprise. They expected one newborn and got two. I’ll not repeat here what I’ve written in “Earliest Memories,” which speaks to my early memories of life in Winding Gulf. Instead, I’ll pick up with Dad as life progressed in South Charleston, when I was a youngster.
Dad loved to talk politics, even in those days. A fervent Democrat, he spent dinnertime adulating President Roosevelt. No wonder — life in the Great Depression years was a time of hope for the working class, and Dad was a union man through and through, having cut his labor teeth on John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers. We would come to the supper table, eat and sigh as Dad preached the union gospel. Not that it was bad. It was just not what young kids were about.
Among the tales of Dad’s political “events,” including a failed candidacy for the state legislature, this one took the cake: Harry Truman was President, and had scheduled a vacation in Georgia. This was during the time of the southern rebellion against the Democratic party, spearheaded by the infamous Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who broke away from the party and ran for president as an independent in 1948, sparking Truman’s famous characterization of “Dixiecrats.”
Knowing of the planned getaway, Dad’s imagination took off. He got Mom to make a short-sleeved sport shirt of fabric with a Confederate — a la “Dixiecrat” — design. In fact, he had her make two of them. He sent a shirt, along with a tongue-in-cheek letter, to President Truman at the Georgia retreat.
Behold! Dad received a personal letter from the President, also tongue- in-cheek, thanking him for his thoughtfulness. I was living at home at the time, and the whole event was hilarious — and Dad was ecstatic. He harrumphed around the house for days — hard to tell what he said to the guys at the plant.
And as to talking, Dad would take the opposite view of any topic or position just to stir a debate. Mother told me that when they were first married he would say, name a topic and take either position; I’ll argue the other side. And that quirk in his nature was deeply embedded; it remained part of him throughout his life. Many times I would state my support for what I knew to be his bias, just to get him to fend for the opposite view. Great entertainment. He just loved verbal battle.
Willis Farley believed in strict organization. I won’t give it any big psychological slant; I’ll just say what he was. He was OCD about his tool cabinet. Mislay his hammer and you were in serious trouble. He was also a minimalist about a lot of things. If you could use something twice before discarding it, that was the thing. And so on. Of course, a lot of that was due to being without for so long, and a fear — nay, a terror, that being without was just around the corner again. Rather than being upset about it, we kids took it all in stride, and had no issue with Dad’s way of doing things. We just weren’t ecstatic about his manner, his basic pessimism.
He was a loyal Freemason. Almost to the point of obsession. He eventually became a thirty-third degree Mason (whatever that is), and an avid Scottish Righter. His spare time was spent reading Lodge magazines and coaching young aspirants in the early degree regimen of the Lodge. I never paid much attention to it, nor did I ever have an interest in joining. But Dad — now Dad was another story. He gained a reputation locally for being the best coach in the Lodge, and I’m sure he was.
He was a fine wood worker — although he never built a piece of furniture, he became highly skilled at restoring old pieces, and was a true craftsman. After the kids were grown and gone, he and Mom would go to farm auctions and buy old pieces for a song, with Dad scraping the undersides and discovering the kind of wood, the condition of it, and whether it was really valuable. He and mother had a great time going to those auctions, picking up old but valuable antique furniture and working together to bring it back to its original beauty.
He was a caring parent. While there wasn’t a lot of communication, he was interested in our futures, and was willing to talk with us about most anything. He wanted us to succeed where he hadn’t, and was proud of our achievements. That he had a limited sense of humor was no problem for us — we learned early to expect that.
That he sometimes had a temper was just who he was, and we knew it would pass.
He was always concerned about providing for his family, and as a “working man,” sometimes felt that what he brought home in his weekly paycheck wasn’t enough. But it was. There was little to spare, but enough to get along.
He loved to camp and fish. That from his boyhood on the Greenbrier River. I camped with him many times, and he loved to tinker with his gear, fuss with the tent, fix a special place to put the wash pan, and so on. He couldn’t cook worth a damn. His only dish was “shantyboat stew,” an overcooked mix of soup, cut up meat and potatoes.
But he was a meticulous camper, taking care of gear and keeping a neat tent, cot and kitchen. And eat fish! Man, he loved fish. He would eat every morsel on the platter and look for more. Especially catfish — channel cat. He showed me how to nail the fish to tree and skin it with pliers — a time-honored practice in the southern mountains.
He was an avid environmentalist. Early in the national awakening of environmental consciousness, he became very active in the “movement.” His interest dated back to the 1950s, when he noticed that Union Carbide was dumping chemicals into the Kanawha River late at night, when no one would be aware of their actions. He went to plant management and called their hand on it, threatening to ‘blow the whistle’ if they continued. For a while, at least, they stopped the practice. From there it was continued activism regarding clean water and air. On one occasion he provided testimony for a congressional committee. He was one of a small group who successfully stopped the construction of a dam on New River in Virginia/North Carolina which would have devastated thousands of acres of farmland and disrupted one of America’s natural treasures.
In retirement he would stalk the halls of the state capitol, lurking around corners to buttonhole legislators to lobby for environmental issues. His dedication to the environment was not lost on the people of West Virginia.
In recognition of his advocacy for clean government and a clean environment, he was named President of the first Silver Haired Legislature in West Virginia — an honorary title well deserved. So even today, hats off to Willis Farley — a man ahead of his time when it came to environmental activism.
Above all, he was a great grandparent. When his grandchildren started coming along he was a changed man. Rather than the stiff, silent, argumentative Dad I had known, he became the guy who rolled on the floor with an infant, talking baby talk, the whole deal.
And as the grandchildren grew, so he grew in his affection for them. He was always gentle and giving, and went to great lengths to make their lives happy.
Not quite the Dad I knew, but certainly the Dad I admired for being so good to my kids. It came to me that that was the Dad he had always been, he just didn’t know how to pull it off with us because of the burdens of parenthood: debt, family obligations, worries about family, uncertainty about the future, and the rest. I can’t possibly say enough about how good he was to my kids — he genuinely loved being a granddad, and he genuinely loved his grandchildren. Whatever his other shortcomings, they were overshadowed by his being “Big Bear,” the great grandparent. He was a really good man, a good father, and a good husband. His faults were neither greater nor less than those of other good men. And his contributions to making life better — and safer — for others, while mostly unsung, were indeed remarkable.
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.
I don’t know much about her young life, except that she lived at Kanawha Falls — a town on the Kanawha River upstream from Charleston, West Virginia. I have a photograph of her before she and Fred Farley were married in which she is playing tennis! Imagine!
I think she always saw herself as a Southern Belle who was denied her rightful place in gentle society. Oh yeah, that may be a little harsh, but it’s not far from who she was. You can see from her photos that like her mother, she was tall, slender, and straight-backed.
Lelia Farley gave birth to four children. Sons Willis — my father — Paul, and Tom, along with daughter Ruth. She was evidently very tough on her children, raising them in the way she was raised: quick punishment for her children’s missteps. Dressing her infant sons in dresses for their misbehaviors. Other punishments akin to a severe version of “time out,” paddling on occasions, and the rest. Of course those punishments came to be unacceptable in later years, but remember, these were the early 1900s. I know from certain knowledge that the dressing of young boys in girls’ clothing was a concept used by Nanny. However, her sons got past those events.
She was very kind to her grandchildren, in spite of her standoffishness. And perhaps this will help describe her: one summer Alice and I spent several weeks at the home of Fred and Lelia. I must say we were lonely kids — and we found ways to amuse ourselves, such as sneaking into the adjoining cornfield and smoking corn silk cigarettes, wrapped in the daily newspaper. But here is the descriptor of Nanny Farley: when she laundered my clothes — simple cotton pants and shorts — she starched them! Heavy starch! I still remember how they scratched my legs. And I remember her as exactly the kind of person who believed in starched pants. Somehow, that was the essence of Nanny. Stiff, unrelenting, and with a streak of warmth she was probably afraid to show.
When Granddad died in 1945, Nanny came to live with, on a rotating basis, her three children, all of whom lived in the South Charleston / St. Albans area. She would stay with us for about two months — sometimes more — then go to her son Paul’s house, and from there to her daughter Ruth’s and back to us again. (The other son, Tom, had died as a young man of pneumonia.) During those years, from about 1946 until her death in 1955, she was a regular member of our household much of the time. She helped in the kitchen, and she and my mother came to learn each other’s ways and got along very well. My father, who worked a rotating shift at the Union Carbide plant (then known as Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation), saw little of her except when he worked “day shift,” from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. one week of each three. She stayed to herself, and never acted as parent to us — that is, correcting our behavior or praising our successes. During her time alone, I know not whether she read, or stitched, or what. (Remember, these were the days before television. Although there were radio shows in the afternoons, they were mostly soap operas, running episodes regarding love, lost love, romance, life in the home, etc. etc. (Note: the term “soap opera” came from the sponsors of those radio romances, who were by and large soap/cleanser companies whose targets were the women homemakers of the day, who bought the soap for the daily wash, and so on.) Anyway, Nanny probably listened to those shows in the privacy of her bedroom. She never ventured out, either walking in the neighborhood or on the local bus system, which could take a rider downtown, uptown or elsewhere. In retrospect, her life was a lonely one, even though she had the connection to her children’s families. I liked Nanny. In spite of her stiffness — much of which I attribute to her own childhood under the stern hand of her mother — Mammaw — she loved her children and other family members, and she worked hard at being a likeable person. That her persona was dry, and she didn’t particularly enjoy amusements, she was nonetheless a good person.
I should say that these pages, in total, comprise a series of sketches, not a highly detailed family history. I’ve been intentionally brief on several topics; my real purpose is to give you a profile, not an in-depth report. So as you read, do so with the knowledge that these are the “high spots” in my memories — hopefully just enough for you to get a fair understanding of who we were.
This entry is about just what the title says: my earliest personal memories. 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. I have no specific memory of the layout of that house, but I do remember, of all things, a door knob. It was white, ceramic. And I remember a small refrigerator with a round motor on top. I also remember my father at that time. He worked at night — the “hoot owl” shift, and he would light his carbide lamp (which was mounted on his cap) before he left the house for work. I remember his showing me how he struck the flint that lighted the lamp, and the live flame that resulted. As best I can tell, I was two.
I know that “carbide lamp” is foreign to you, so look it up. These lamps were the state of the art in the early twentieth century; before that miners had very small oil lamps with wicks, that looked like very small pitchers and hooked onto their hats. Carbide lamps were fueled by calcium carbide, which formed acetylene gas when mixed with water. The lamp fed water into the carbide ‘rocks,’ pushing gas into an orifice and then lighted by a spark created by a metal wheel scraped against flint. Got that? No? Look it up.
Another two-three-year-old memory: Alice, my twin sister and I were trained to use a small toilet “potty” which was white and had a red handle, and a red rim around the edge. Mother had her hands full: Dave, who was seven, along with the two of us, were full-time. She taught Alice and me to take care of each other in small ways; in this instance, we would take turns on the potty. While she sat, I would turn around and she would undo the buttons that kept my shirt and pants together.
Then it was my turn to sit. And I remember that.
Bet you’re thinking “I don’t think I’d’ve told that.” Well, I just did.
When my mother (as I learned later) told Dad that she was NOT going to raise her family in a forlorn coal camp, and for him to get another job, mother and we kids moved in with Dad’s parents in Alderson while Dad went to the Kanawha Valley to find work. This was in the middle of the depression and jobs were virtually nonexistent. I remember very vaguely that year in Alderson; Alice and I were three. In addition to my grandparents, great-grandmother Mammaw was there, as was my aunt Ruth, who was a teenager. I remember Ruth in her high school band uniform — maroon and white. She played clarinet. Ruth is about 90 now, and I’ve seen her at her Florida home a couple of times in recent years. She was and is a beautiful, good-natured, funny, good-hearted person.
Alice “Mammaw” Jameson Hite with Farley grandchildren – about 1935
Back to Alderson. I remember a dark closet beneath the staircase, with a door. I think it was used for kitchen storage — food, or pots and pans. Once as I started to open the closet door, Mammaw barked at me, “Don’t you dare! There are goblins in there!” I had no idea what goblins were, but no matter — Mammaw knew how to frighten a little kid.
Sometime during that year, Dad was lucky enough to get a job with Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation — CCCC, in South Charleston, WV. He told me later that the line to the personnel office stretched down the highway for more than a mile — that got my attention; with unemployment at that level, it was miraculous that he was hired. (CCCC later became Union Carbide, an internationally famous chemical company.) On my and Alice’s fourth birthday we moved to South Charleston, into a tiny house on Franklin Terrace, which was part of the old Kanawha Turnpike, and was on a hillside overlooking the Carbide plant, which was on the riverbank. The exterior of the house was brown; there were two bedrooms. During our time there Dad’s brother Paul and Mom’s brother Christy both came to stay with us and get jobs at Carbide. Counting Paul and Christy, there were seven of us in that tiny house. I have no idea where we slept. But I do remember a green daybed in the living room, and I remember playing with Alice in the side yard, rubbing pieces of soft sandstone against a piece of screen wire, making what we called “brown sugar.”
We were about four. By today’s standards we were living in poverty. By Great Depression standards we were among the fortunate: Dad had a job. But we barely made it — nothing to spare.
I’m sure you’re getting it: these memories are for the most part absolutely unimportant and unremarkable. But they’re mine, so I suppose they are part of who I am. And except for the Mammaw episode, all my memories of those early years are very happy. I think that’s so because mother was a comforting, encouraging person, who didn’t show the troubled face that comes with poverty, hard times, and hopelessness. Dad was a worrier, taciturn, and stern. But caring, too. He worked shift work at the plant for thirty-six years, being rarely at home during “regular” hours, so our main parental contact was with our mother.
Alan and Alice at the Franklin Terrace house, about 1935
Franklin Terrace was a grimy place. Across the road and down at the bottom of the hill was the railroad, with coal-fired steam engines spewing black smoke and cinders as they worked in the freight yard. On the other side of the railroad was the highway, and then, across the highway was the Carbide plant, which belched fumes beyond description from its stacks. I can remember the pervasive, nose-burning odors: oil, coal, gas, chemicals, traffic: all in combination to produce a lingering heaviness and a stench which can be neither described nor replicated.
We lived at Franklin Terrace until September 1937, when my parents rented a larger home nearby, but away from the plant and railroad. The house was at 123 Sycamore Street, and Alice and I were so proud that our address was 123 — one, two, three. We moved in on the first day of school for the two of us. So that day in 1937 was a really big deal — we walked — with Mom — to Zogg O’Dell Elementary School from one house, and walked home from school to another house. You guessed it: Alice and I thought we were the most unique kids in South Charleston: who else had possibly had that experience? That rented house was home to Mom and Dad until they finally built a home on Coal River in St. Albans in 1961. I recall that the rent at some point was twenty-five dollars a month. The Sycamore Street house was a frame two story house with two original bedrooms upstairs and a downstairs bedroom which was actually a converted kitchen, about 8‘X10’.
Alice and Alan at the Sycamore Street house, about 1940
My childhood there was full of joy, and no one ever gave our crowded quarters a second thought. Over time, we had as part of the extended family uncles Paul and Christy, aunts Rook and Edith, Uncle and Aunt Dick Zopp and Ruth (Farley), along with infant Carolyn; a family friend named “Cotton” White, a cousin Ed Hale, and, of course, Nanny Farley (Lelia Hite), who stayed with us after granddad Farley died in 1945. Somehow, my mother saw to it that everyone was comfortable — and fed. So it seemed there was a steady stream of “room and boarders,” they would stay for two-three years until they got established with work, and enough ahead to find another place to live. I don’t remember any friction within the household; it was just accepted as our normal lifestyle. I liked all those people, they were friendly, and they were family. We got along just fine. Looking back, I’m without words to say how Mom did it: washing and drying clothes for that gang. Cooking, packing lunches for three, four or more workers, taking care of three kids, cleaning house (no vacuums, dishwashers, etc. in those days), and the rest. I don’t remember any of the men pitching in — I guess back then that the division of labor was based on a different standard.
First grade was exciting — just being in school, getting to know other kids, going to the playground for recess, eating lunch from home at our desks, and the rest. Our teacher was “Missis” Shaffer, as we all called her, who was kind. I don’t know if we learned anything at all — curriculum-wise, that is; maybe how to read a little. But we had already memorized the alphabet and numerals 1 through 10 from the red and blue letters and numbers on the edges of our cereal bowls. The principal was Miss Pearl Wheeler, a cranelike, stern, bony lady of about 40, so we thought she was probably about 80. I never heard her say one word. Never saw her smile. And being the principal, she was uniformly disliked and feared by all. Who knows? She could have been — probably was — an okay person. But even today, I secretly doubt it.
In the second grade I fell in love with Maggie Triplett; she lived close by, had golden hair and a big smile with a gap between her front teeth, and we were in the same classroom. I think it was the smile that got me. But she never showed any interest in me at all; her dreamy eyes were always somewhere else. So that was that; I think my love life with her lasted a week or so. After that I didn’t think much about girls until much later, maybe when I was about thirteen, when I fell in love with my history teacher — I don’t remember her name, but she sure was nice to me. And pretty. Every day I left her class with my mind unable to see or comprehend anything other than my romantic fantasies of the two of us, looking at each other, never kissing.
Zogg O’Dell Elementary School
Going back a little: when we entered the third grade, the school was so crowded they decided to “double promote” some of us to make more room the coming year. Alice and I, along with about fifteen other kids in our class, completed the third grade in one semester, thus becoming “double promoted.” That meant we started the fourth grade in January, and it stayed that way until we graduated — one semester early — from high school. There’s no doubt this caused scheduling problems at our schools, and besides, we in all likelihood didn’t actually complete that third grade stuff. Anyway, it worked out OK; Alice and I stayed an extra semester in high school as “post graduates” and finished with our original class. In the end, it didn’t matter. Just caused scheduling problems for the administrators. I could pass along a few more lines about all this, but somewhere “early memories” become not so early, so I’ll let it go at that. The memory gap between this and other entries is between the ages 8 and 11 — so you’ll see me beginning at age 11 in other writings.
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. Much of his working life was spent in West Virginia’s quarries and mines, and for several years he was a mine inspector for the State of West Virginia.
His final job was as superintendent of a limestone quarry in Daily, West Virginia, which was a town supported by the Homestead Act and promoted by Eleanor Roosevelt. Fred was — no surprise here — a hot Democrat who had an Irish temperament about all things politic. I remember him as he sat by his radio during the 1940 Presidential campaign, hooting at the Republicans and applauding Franklin Roosevelt.
Granddad was also a prize fight fan. Again, I sat with him beside his tabletop radio when Billy Conn, whose Irish name endeared him to Granddad, challenged the heavyweight champ, Joe Louis — the “Brown Bomber.” When Louis won that famous bout, Granddad was beside himself. He had hoped for a victory for a tough a Irish kid from Pittsburg who had been the middle weight champ and decided to take on the unbeatable Louis.
Fred with a group of surveyors. Fred is first from the left, with equipment bag over his shoulder. Brother Seth is third from left, with moustache and bag over shoulder. Photo dated to roughly around 1900.
Granddad Farley was generous, outgoing, and optimistic in spite of his family life, which was under the heavy influence of his mother-in-law Alice Hite, and wife Lelia, who in many ways tread in her mother’s footsteps. Despite the cloudiness of his home life, Fred was always cheerful and giving. He loved a good joke, smoked one cigarette off the end of another, went into brief tantrums when the card game didn’t go his way. As young kids Alice and I were always delighted by his presence. We always thought of him as the rather short, rotund Irish-looking man who would have loved being Santa Claus.
By all accounts — both from his children and especially as told to me by my mother, he was a really good father. His youngest child, my aunt Ruth, told me this tale:
Ruth was about 14. She had a girlfriend who lived behind her, and they would sneak behind the friend’s barn and smoke cigarettes swiped from their fathers. (Remember, this was in the 1930s!) One day, she and her friend decided to skip school and hitchhike to White Sulphur Springs, a nearby town. (It’s hard even for me to imagine two young girls hitchhiking on rural roads in that time.) They had a fine day of it, and as they hitchhiked home a car pulled up and to Ruth’s horror, it was her father! He simply opened the door, the girls got in and he pulled away. The girls were terrified all the way home — about ten miles.
Ruth told me that her father never said a word. When they got home, they simply went into the house as though nothing was out of place. To this day — Ruth is about 90 now — she has never forgotten the lesson of that day. By saying nothing, her father couldn’t have given her a more telling message: that he disapproved of her actions, that it wouldn’t happen again, and that his love for her was not damaged. When Ruth told me that tale a few years ago, I thought to myself that that was true, vintage Fred Farley: don’t overreact, and give your kids a chance to think through their own behaviors.
Fred Farley with grandchildren Alan, David, and Alice at the rock quarry that he ran, Daily, WV, about 1940
Granddad Farley was in many ways our favorite relative. We were always delighted to see him — in those days of the Great Depression we would see our grandparents no more than twice a year — and he was likewise the favorite of his adult kinfolk. When Alice and I spent summers with the Farley grandparents, it was Granddad who made our young lives happy. He took us to the drug store for ice cream, bought us scooters, played kids’ card games with us. I think he gave extra effort to us to make up for the coolness of Nanny and Mammaw. Young people always love to be recognized, listened to, treated as equals. Granddad Farley intuitively knew that, and lived it. Much later, I came to admire my Grandfather Hale equally, and for a lot of the same reasons. More later about that.
Alice and William P. Hite (1837-1926), married January 4, 1875
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.
Her husband, several years older than she, was William Hite, a veteran of the Civil War. When Mammaw died — I was at her funeral along with other family, including my sister Alice — we were at the cemetery and I recall her casket, before it was lowered, was draped with a Confederate flag, for she had been the last Civil War widow in West Virginia. You’ll note that she married young, and as noted in the photograph, her husband was considerably older.
Mammaw was more than a matriarch. She ruled the household — that household being the homeplace of my father Willis Farley and his siblings and parents. She was tall, straight-backed, and stern, with piercing eyes and little humor. I don’t remember her voice at all — in her final years she suffered from a stroke and was for the most part without speech.
When Alice and I were quite young we spent summers at that homeplace — in Alderson, West Virginia, a small town on the beautiful Greenbrier River whose chief employers were the Federal Women’s Prison and the State Prison for Women. That’s how I came to know Mammaw. I don’t remember her as having much affection for young children — our interactions were mostly at the dinner table. But I’ll say this: she was someone you wouldn’t forget. At the risk of being too aggressive in my assessment, she was, simply, overbearing, unforgiving, and probably unhappy with the way her life turned out: alone, and although respected, not loved by many.
Alice with great-grandchildren Alan, Alice, and David Farley, about 1935
With that, I note that I’ll be very candid in these pages. Mammaw was, to Alice and me, an unforgiving, stiff old woman who had little happiness in her life.
Lest I judge her too harshly, it occurs to me that she was a woman of the nineteenth century; a time when many women were considered “property,” without rights, and expected to serve the man of the house. Remember, she married a much older man; a Civil War veteran hardened by that experience, and probably harsh and demanding in his own way of his young wife.
Reflecting that, it is no wonder that she was less than cheerful, less than outgoing. Perhaps that’s why she became the ruler of the roost in ways that she could achieve without “breaking the rules” of what was expected of women of that time. I can’t imagine what it was like for most women of that day, and there is a lot to excuse them for — Mammaw included.
