Orlando, WV
How It Was In Orlando in the Mid-1900s
Five Remembrances From Orlando
Click on the photos to go to the remembrances.
1. William & Vada
Riffle's Family
by Adrian Riffle
from Braxton County
2. The Straders
on Road Run
by Tricia Lynn Strader
First published as "You Can go Home Again" in the Newark Post, Newark, DE.
This is my mother, Mary (Stutler) Witzgall with her future brother-in-law, Lambert Beckner
My mother was born on Oil Creek in 1922. Through her eyes I saw the Orlando of the '30s and '40s, through my own eyes, I saw the Orlando of the '50s and '60s.

There was something rarified about that time and place, far into the West Virginia hills. It has to do with an isolation that made the community slow to leave the old ways  It has to do with a closeknit community that lives on the land our own forebears wrested from the forest. It also has to do with the nature of a people who chose to live in this improbable location.

I don't mean to say it was idylic. For all I know, most of Orlando's kids wanted nothing more than to get away, although from what I have seen most of them either came back or tried to recreate some of Orlando in their new homes.

Still, Orlando is the real thing: a far-from-mainstream, but utterly authentic face of an American community.  It was, and to some extent still is, the product of the American dream interpreted by a hardy, self-sufficient few.

As we cherish our roots and grow in our understanding of the important of cultural diversity, we will realize more and more the importance of the stories of communities like Orlando.   
3. Growing Up
On Riffle Run
at the website of
the Rev. Homer Heater
about life in a  commuity.close to Orlando.
4. Oras & Edith Stutler
on Oil Creek
By Caroline Ramsay & Donna Gloff
5. The Donaldsons
of Gilmer County
The photo essay titled Walter Donaldson, Orlando, WV.is in the New Deal Network Photo Gallery.
Edith and Oras Stutler raised their five kids, including my mom, in a house on Oil Creek that I never saw. I've found two sources regarding the old place. Fellow HCPD member Caroline Ramsay visited the place as a young child, and remembers bits and pieces for me. Also, there are three entries in my mother's autograph book that were made on Christmas, 1938 To read Carolyn's remembrances and the autograph book entries, click on this photo of some of the Stutler

Homer Heater grew up on Riffle Run. To go to his website click on the picture of three Riffle Run Elementary School students at the right.
records a 1930s WPA program located at Sand Fork, or more precisely, Rocky Fork of Indian Fork of Sand Fork of the Little Kanawha River, in Gilmer County. This area has an Orlando address and is maybe 8 miles from downtown Orlando. Folks who grew up in Orlando agree agree that, although they can't identify individuals or places, the photos are dead on for life along Oil Creek and Clover Fork, well into the 1950s. Click on the photo to the right, of the Donaldsons at home for more photos from the fascinating collection
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