The same year that I started as band director at SAHS and wrote the alma mater — 1955-56 — I was on a roll, and began writing lyrics to fight songs. I wrote the words “Go Red Dragons, go all the way” which I understand is still being sung at SAHS athletic events.
In January 1956, the school principal (Basil Liggett (an excellent school leader whom I admired greatly), advised me that the band had bene invited to attend the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in April in Washington, D.C.
I was flabbergasted. The band was barely scraping by, virtually without funds. Such an event would be costly, and it was left to me to find a way to pay for the trip.
Along with a few donations and fund raiser, I decided we would produce a music show with Proceeds targeted for the costs of the Washington trip. And we did. And we named the show “OPUS 56”. That was the first Opus, and the trip to Washington became a reality.
It only followed that the success of OPUS 56 would lead to “OPUS 57” and so on until I left St. Albans for a teaching position in Virginia in 1963. I’ll not soon forget the richly rewarding years I taught music at SAHS; it remains a treat to meet socially with former students and friends from those times.
The rest of the story
Alan brought OPUS to Andrew Lewis High School in Salem, VA in 1964, where he taught until 1968. OPUS continued under Dennis Reaser, a St. Albans HS student, and later friend and colleague, who followed in Alan’s footsteps at Andrew Lewis HS.
Andrew Lewis HS was merged with Glenvar HS in 1977 to form Salem High School, where OPUS continued under Dennis’s direction for many years. The 1977 Opus was dedicated to Alan. It was alive and well through about 2013-2014.
As of this writing, we are trying to determine just how long OPUS continued at St. Albans High School.
I had just arrived as band director at SAHS in august 1955. I was full of energy, anxious to lead a band that would play fine music. At the time, I was living at home (age 24, in South Charleston). After a few weeks of working in my new job, it occurred to me that a school with as rich a history as St. Albans should have a “school song”. I became highly motivated to make that happen, wrote this in one afternoon, after football season). It’s still the official alma mater all these years later.
Having finished the melody and lyrics, the next job was to write choral parts, which I did.
I introduced the “new” Alma Mater late that fall, but it didn’t get performed until the following year, when I assumed the director ship of the choral music program.
I taught at St. Albans from 1955 until 1963, a time I will never forget.
That same year — 1955-56 — I was on a roll, and began writing lyrics to fight songs. I wrote the words “Go Red Dragons, go all the way” which I understand is still being sung at SAHS athletic events.
In January 1956, the school principal (Basil Liggett (an excellent school leader whom I admired greatly), advised me that the band had bene invited to attend the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in April in Washington, D.C.
I was flabbergasted. The band was barely scraping by, virtually without funds. Such an event would be costly, and it was left to me to find a way to pay for the trip.
along with a few donations and fudn raiser, I decided we would produc a music show with Proceeds targeted for the costs of the Washington trip. And we did. And we named the show “OPUS 56”. That was the first Opus, and the trip to Washington became a reality.
It only followed that the success of Opus 56 would lead to “OPUS 57” and so on until I left St. Ablans for a teaching position in Virginia in 1963. I’ll not soon forget the richly rewarding years I taught music at SAHS; it remains a treat to meet socially with former students and friends from those times.
If anyone knows of an online recording of the Alma Mater (the more official the better), please send us the link via our Contact form. Thank you!
I’ll be brief here. Only to say that music permeated my life. It rang in my head at all hours from a very early age. And 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.
And so on. The rest of this is just a sketch of my time with music. I could make this a “chapter,” but that would go beyond the intended purpose of these writings. This has to be either too brief or too long; for your sake, I have chosen brief. You will find other references to my ‘music days’ elsewhere in these pages.
It goes like this:
First instrument: In fifth grade, we all had Tonettes, a plastic whistle-like instrument with finger holes to change notes. Alice and I excelled at Tonette, playing lots of duets — just by basic aptitude. (See a later piece called “my musical instruments”, which tells the stories of all my instruments.)
High school band: baritone sax, cymbals, bass drum, and, finally, oboe.
College: started as “business major,” but took freshman band, choir, theory. From there on I was a music major, just didn’t know it until the end of my sophomore year. I took virtually every music course offered. During that time I was saturated with music: dance bands, U.S. Army Reserve Band, college band, college choir, church choir, and college courses. Took a Bachelor of Music degree in 1953.
While most of my music activity was at the “serious,” or “classical” level, I had from an early age learned to love country music — I suppose it was somehow tied to the “country” side of my family: the Hales were true country folk, and Granddad Hale played banjo, clawhammer style. I found “The Grand Ole Opry” on Saturday night radio, and learned many country songs by listening to early bluegrass music. And I had a guitar, which is still with me today — a Martin, purchased in 1951.
After two initial years of local band directing, I became music director at St. Albans High School, teaching band, choir, stage band, general music, and theory. The music program grew to about 350 students. All this time I was playing in a large dance band, had a church choir, played in the Army Reserve Band, and became music director for the Charleston Light Opera Guild, directing the music for several Broadway musicals such as Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, and so on.
In 1957 I began a master’s degree program at Teachers College, Columbia, where I chose conducting as my performing medium. (I went during summers only; kept my job at St. Albans.) I was a winner of conducting competition twice while there, and took a Master’s in Music and Music Education in 1959. It was there that I learned how to memorize a musical score — in the conducting competition we had to conduct from memory. From that time forward I never directed a public performance otherwise, except for the Broadway shows, which of course were so involved with staging, cues to singers, watching the crowd and watching for the unexpected that working from memory was not possible — for me, at least.
In 1963, we moved to Salem, Virginia, where I became band director at Andrew Lewis High School. Then in 1968 I left the classroom for work in research and development of innovative programs, with the hope of helping make school a better place for students beyond my classroom.
During my teaching career, I received high compliments for the performances of my students, for which I was grateful. I experienced moments of pure joy when my performers — my students — played and sang beyond their notions of their individual abilities. As with most musicians, I can cite specific times and places when that kind of magic occurred. When it does occur, everyone is aware of it; that is, all those involved in the performance. Not just the performers — the conductor as well. You’re all part of it, equal in all respects, having the same “out of body” experience. You just know. Both in performing and attending performances by others, I have been brought to moments of true joy countless times by the sheer beauty of great music well presented. A lot of people never have the chance to experience that, and for those who do — well, it’s what you live for. It can happen any time — in rehearsal, in a public performance — anywhere.
So it was with a sense of uneasiness, in 1968, that I went on to other pursuits. Leaving the classroom was one of the toughest decisions I ever made, but looking back, I have no regrets, for my ‘second’ career, in curriculum development, research and other administrative areas, was challenging, enriching and enjoyable. While I missed the daily pleasure of being with my students as we engaged music, I believe that in taking on a “new” career I did, in at least a small way, help make school a better place for students. But leaving the classroom was not just leaving music, and there remained a part of me that wanted to be with my “kids,” my fellow musicians, for all the remaining days of my career. But music has never left me, nor have I left it. There is nothing more enjoyable, nothing more agreeable, refreshing, moving, inspiring, fun, entertaining, powerful — than music. It still rings in my head constantly. My career in music was satisfying beyond description. While I went on to other things, both academic and personal, music has been the one constant in my life, and so it will surely remain. I still bang on the keyboard, pick the guitar, and sing when it pleases. And I hear, though not often enough, the music of Mozart, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Mahler, Ravel, Bach, Chopin, Palestrina, Verdi and the rest, and it is always as if I’ve never heard it before.
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.
