| Mom, me sitting on the steps of our home in Stretch Neck Holler, Dizney, Ky. You will see that there are no railings on these steps. Here is where I almost lost my life. I was about five or six years old in this picture. We had a dairy across the yard from our front porch. This building was built halfway into the mountain so that the inside would remain cool. We kept our canned goods, potatoes, onions, pears, apples, nuts, etc. in this building to give them a longer life and to keep animals from getting to them. This particular day mom and my older brother Roger were working at the dairy and mom had given roger a paper box of empty canning jars to bring into the house. Roger left the box sitting on the banister of the porch on the immediate right side of the steps. Roger must have gone to play. The box fell off the porch and landed next to the steps. No one noticed a little while later that the box had fallen over onto the ground near the steps and some jars broke. Mom was busy in the house and daddy was getting ready to go to work. I came out of the house to go play with my cousins and started down the steps. My left leg gave out and I fell over the right side of the steps onto the broken glass. A piece went into the side of my head and cut a major artery. I was screaming and crying but I couldn't get up. There were a lot of kids playing around our house and mom thought someone was just playing around. When it continued, she came out of the house and noticed the crying coming from the yard next to the stairs. The next thing I remember I was on the porch lying in moms arms and water was being poured over the side of my face into a bowl. The water in the bowl turned red. Guess they were trying to see the wound. Luckily daddy had not left for work in the mines. Before Daddy could get hired in the mines he had to pass a first aid course. It took him three times to pass the test. My dad applied pressure with his thumb into my temple until the bleeding began to slow down.. Daddy held my upper body and mom held my legs, and began walking out of the holler with me. My uncle Elmer was on the front porch and saw all three of us soaked in blood. I am sure he thought he would never see me again. Daddy's mom (Leona Cloud) who lived just a few yards up the holler from us came down to see what was going on. We were gone by that time. She walked into the yard to discover blood on the steps, porch and side of the steps. She fainted. By the time they got me out of the holler the bleeding had stopped. There was a car parked near the "big bridge". I remember mom holding my head, as I sat in the back seat of the car with my head out the open door, and I threw up on the ground. After that I don't remember anything else until we got to the Black Mountain Hospital. I was in a hall with mom waiting for the doctor. My hair and dress were stiff with dried blood. I guess the doctor sewed me up and gave me a bloodtranfusions. Mom made me a bed on the couch. Daddy sleep in the floor by the couch when he was not working. At that time mom had Roger who was about seven or eight, Tony was about three and Donnie was around a year old. She must have had some job watching all of them and taking care of me too. I don't remember coming home. Mom said I lay on the couch as white as a sheet for one week before I could get up. Daddy and Mom had lost their first daughter, Sandra. Sandra died two days after she was born. By the time I was able to run around and play the steps had been torn down and the opening was enclosed. Daddy opened up the end of the porch nearest to the hill and that was the entrance to the porch until the house was torn down when we moved to Louisville, Ky. |
 |
| Irene Cloud & Portia Cloud |