| On holidays his children usually would come to visit and bring their children. Those were happy times. On Easter he would gather all his grandchildren that were old enough to go with him to church and bring them along. After church services there would be an Easter egg hunt at the playground just down the railroad tracks. After the Easter egg hunt, everyone would go back to the house for a very large meal. I would think that the older married children gave money to cover buying the food for the Sunday meal. Mamaw and Papaw surely could not afford to feed everyone.
Most of the older men and Papaw Hale took a siesta. They found spots on the beds or slept on a lounge chair in the yard if the weather was warm enough. I can only remember one fight that I witnessed in Mamaw and Papaw Hale�s house. Chick was drinking and got into an argument with Papaw Hale. Hale got really upset and was crying. Chick walked out the door and angrily slammed the front door. I looked out the living room window to see where he was going. I saw him walking down the railroad toward Black Mountain. Into my view came Bug (Chick�s younger brother). He stopped in front of the window and raised a pistol pointed at Chick�s back. Luckily someone followed Bug outside and grabbed the pistol before he could fire it. Mom told me stories of what Papaw Hale would do if any of his children got into a fight. You had to either hug and make up or get a spanking from Papaw. He never wanted his children fighting. Maybe he had experiences with siblings being split up because of some argument or disagreement that could never be forgiven. Now Mamaw Hale was another story. If you did something requiring punishment she grabbed a stick of wood used to build a fire and hit you wherever she could hit you. Chick bought the house that Papaw and Mamaw Hale lived in and gave them the deed in the mid to late 50's. James Hale got his black lung settlement in the late 1950s. That monthly black lung check and social security check help with their income in their senior years. The coal mines went out of business in 1956. A lot of the people who relied on the coal company for their jobs, moved out of the county and/or the state to find work to support their families. |