Karen Bussey O'Rourke is my little sister and I have no memory of a time without her. Karen has led a full rich life as wife, mother, and grandmother--not to mention earning a Teacher of the Year Award in Georgia. Her Special Ed students loved her so much, some of them got in trouble just to be sent to the compassionate Mrs. O'Rourke, whom they trusted to help them understand and cope with their situations.
The following essay is made of my memories from long ago and far away, when we were growing up in the coal camp of David, Kentucky, our childhood home. I have so many memories, but none that can capture her sincere essence, so I’ll just begin.
Once upon a time, or “oncie poncie” as Karen would say, she and I captured time in a bottle. We still try to do that in our treasured moments with children who still allow us to play. Back then, and far away, for a while in the lives of my little sister Karen and I, and our brothers and sisters—Peggy, Toby, Rodney, and Johnny—time stood still. Today, my memories all seem to be situated in or nearby our little coal camp house in David, Kentucky, where we played and grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Our mother cared for six children and later 2 grandchildren and kept house in extremely difficult conditions, while our father worked his life away in an underground coal mine.
Our house sat on a hillside with the yards sloping up on both sides. It was a great yard for rolling down hill. The front steps led down close to the sidewalk and to a narrow paved road that ran all the way to the end of "Fisher Hollow. We didn't know until we were grown that the correct name was "Official Hollow", and since Daddy was a section foreman, we were allowed to live among the Company Officials. I don't think we ever felt like "company" kids, though.
We were proud to have concrete sidewalks and a paved road unlike many of the rougher hollows cut out in the mountains by the coal companies. Our road ended a few houses up the street at the Hagers’ house. I guess they ended the road there so they wouldn’t have to cut down the tree where the Hager men always hung, skinned, butchered, feathered, or otherwise treated their deer, hog, and turkey carcasses. (Or maybe they ended it there to avoid some struggle with the mountaineers who once owned the land) We were astonished at these annual “hangings”, though. We bought all our meat at the company store, which was a real luxury for our mother, but expensive so we didn't have meat on a regular basis. Mother was the child of East Kentucky pioneers who had made their living in those hills, too. We had no idea that we were witnessing a way of life that few people have had the privilege of experiencing.
Of course, we stayed as far away from that tree as possible until the snow was a few feet deep and the boys made big runs of packed ice for the sleds to jump as they sped off the hillside, past the deer tree and onto the paved road for the long joyride out of the hollow. Most of the big sled rides originated at the top of the Boy Scout cabin road, where there were always truck tires burning after a big snow. I think Karen and I observed this fun a little more than we participated because it was pretty rough and we only wanted to ride with the boys who promised not to be reckless and scare us.
Sometimes the pilot of the sled would lie on the sled face down, with one or two other kids lying flat on top of him. Sometimes, the boys on several sleds would “gravy train” by hooking their feet into the handles of the sled behind. We took pride in being allowed to gravy train. Only the best of the boys could navigate without hurtling everyone into the willow trees that lined the creek on the sharp right turn at the company store. Once Toby laughed so much she peed right through Pee Wee Capelli’s clothes while she lay on his back for the speedy trip down. I think Pee Wee laughed too.
We wore socks on our hands and kept warm the best way we knew how. Then we itched for hours when we tried to warm up too fast by the coal stove in the living room. What fun! What cold and wet fun!
Karen and I watched Peggy and Toby start to date and longed for the day when we could wear lipstick and maybe steal a kiss from a special boy. For now, the occasional game of post office would have to do. Mother was beautiful and full of beauty tips for us. Karen and I were blondes and mother loved when the sun beached our hair even whiter in the summer. Our hair would also show streaks of green from the chlorine in the coal company swimming pool.
Our brother Rod helped build that pool, known in that day as the only good public pool in the East Kentucky region. He worked with volunteer coal miners and earned free season tickets for the whole family. Little did he know his efforts would result in years of fun and a family of expert swimmers. Well, Toby wasn’t exactly expert, but did work a few summers as a very well tanned, pretty life guard. Karen and I played in our fantasy world at the pool and became mermaids with rich, tantalizing lives under the water. We would play for hours and hours. Then we knew it was time to go home for supper. We always ate as soon as Daddy got home from work. Then we’d wash dishes, sweep the dining room and kitchen and go back out to play. We’d play “hide and go seek”, “ go sheepy go”, “tin can alley”, “banner”, or “hop-scotch” until dark then come home and fall asleep in our bathing suits. No need to bathe, we’d be swimming again tomorrow, wouldn’t we?
We loved when the tar on the road melted and we could write on the sidewalks by dipping popsicle sticks or hedge twigs into the hot sticky stuff. Butter removes Tar.
Anther thing we loved to do was jump rope. Hot, Cold, double Dutch, all made better if we had one of those pliable whippersnapper black cables that served the pulleys on the conveyor belts in the mines. They were the best jump ropes, but stung fiercely if you “missed”. The mines supplied other toys, like big gobs of mercury that came from the ball bearings on the railroad cars. Sometimes the boys would find it and give us some. It would coagulate and roll around in the palms of our hands. What fun! We used to coat pennies to look like dimes. I guess we absorbed enough to kill us. Of course, today it’s illegal and considered poisonous. What did we know? In those days most things were harmless.
The yard of our little house in David ran uphill and seemed so big. We learned to turn cartwheels down hill, do back-bends uphill, which made them easier and to “skin the cat” while dangling from tree limbs just beyond Mother’s clothesline. The clothesline and row of dragon lilies edged the forest where all the Indians lived and came out at night with their hatchets. Karen and I would never walk too close to the hills after dark. We’d walk in the middle of the road then race up our front steps where danger lurked beneath I was never grabbed by the ankles by any of the monsters under there, but Karen swore one almost got her a few times. I guess the monsters and wild Indians still live in David, up official hollow.
We loved that yard and the beautiful hedges that surrounded it. In the spring we’d tie string on a June bug and thrill at its circular flight. I won’t tell you how we made diamond rings from lightening bugs. We broke sturdy limbs from the hedges, wrapped their ends in black tape from the mines and used them as homemade batons. The little willowy switches were great for mother’s whippings and the middle size were just right to sharpen and use for weenie roast sticks. We could chew the leaves for a burst of chlorophyll, before we ever knew about mouthwash. There was an opening worn through the hedges from years of taking a short cut to the neighbor’s house to trade funny books or borrow some sugar.
Karen and I would lie on our backs in the yard and looked up at the clouds. The dog my little sister saw looked like a tree to me until she made me look more closely at its eyes peeping out of a head full of shaggy fur. Clouds are what we think they are. We believed we could sit on the clouds like the angels do, and not fall through. We wondered if the air planes got too close to heaven, which was situated just above the clouds we were looking at. It was bad enough to worry about the communists, much less about heaven and all those planes that started flying over David. Again Rod reassured us he was an air ranger for the Boy Scouts and would keep us informed.
In the early 50s we learned that USA scientists and engineers had figured out how to break the sound barrier! It was amazing to lie on the hilly yard looking towards the patch of sky between the hills in front and back of our house, to see the thick white smoke trails made by the jets after they started breaking the sound barrier. It seems we would see the plane, then a trail of jet smoke, then—after a few excited moments of waiting—the sound of the jet engine followed, never again to catch up with the plane. The wonder of it all…
We watched out for crawdad holes, of course. We loved to see walking sticks and granddaddy long-legs. Pretty red snake flowers in the spring told us there was surely a snake lurking somewhere. Grapevines hanging down gave us the perfect setup for playing Nyoka and Judy the Jungle girl. The big flat rock back behind the Boy Scout cabin made a perfect table for playing house. Ever make paper bows? We made bunches and bunches then attached them to our hair—and our panties—with bobby pins. Times were innocent then and we could prance topless in the rain like little angels. We drank water from the spring across the road. Life was good.
We loved to play in the rain. Do children still do that? Did Mother warn us about getting struck by lightning? Probably not, she was terrified of lightning and probably hid until the storm was over. There was pleasant rain pretty often in those days. Rain that just pitter-pattered down, just like the story books said and it was so fun to get wet, build damns, and wash our hair in the clean water dripping off the roof of the front porch.
Karen and I believed in fairies. But of course, we had really seen them when several of our brothers and sisters hadn’t. What did they know? We first became acquainted with fairies at the home of a Dutch family, the Van Gelders, where we went to drink pearl tea and play in the raucous toy room with the 5 Van Gelder children. Our entire house was a raucous playroom, but we didn’t realize that at the time. The Van Gelder’s room had a special feel, though. Toys, cots, and kids all over the back room. Just like in some English novel. Looking back, I bet the Van Gelders envied our being able to skate all over our house and cut pictures out of encyclopedias. We could even cook fudge anytime we wanted to—that is, if we had some milk; and, if we had some cocoa or peanut butter. We did just what we wanted in some ways. Mother said when you have six children; you let them do what they want to do. She said that’s why we were so smart.
Back to the fairies. Is there is a difference in a fairy and a brownie? Karen did we believe in Brownies too? I remember leaving acorn halves filled with mashed peaches in Mama Bussey’s sewing machine drawer. The brownies didn’t find them though, and there were bugs everywhere inside the sewing machine. To this day, I can’t bear the thought of what I saw in those drawers. Fortunately, Mother couldn’t sew, so the machine was never used and we didn’t get caught. We were more worried about Toby finding out, though. She liked things clean. When we started hiding the Brownie food outside, we discovered they ate every bite—so they really did exist!
Karen and I raced to see what Daddy brought home in his sooty lunch box. There was always a little something. Usually a bite of his lunch cake—that’s what we called those little store-bought cakes back then. I know he must have wanted to eat it, back there under the mountain where he worked all day in the coal mines, but he saved it so some lucky kid would find it when he came home. Sometimes we’d unlace his work boots. Sometimes we’d just leave him alone to unburden the stress of another day without air and light. Sometimes he just couldn’t take it.
Imagine a family of 8—sometimes 10, counting the two beloved grandchildren—that sits down at the same table for supper each day. We actually did that—give or take a person or two during football practice, going off to college, or some other event that altered the Bussey family dynamic. There was no fast food. Just ten pound bags of potatoes to peel, beans to look, corn to shuck, tomatoes to slice, lard to melt, tea to brew, cabbage to grate, cornbread to mix, and salt bacon to fry—every day! Some version of this menu was prepared from scratch each day of my childhood by my mother. She also got up at 4 am to build a fire and spend some precious time alone with her poetry or art. She made coffee for Daddy and herself in the old Dripolator, packed his lunch, and saw him off every weekday and every other Saturday at 5:30 in the morning. She taught us to never watch him leave since this was believed to bring bad luck to the mines.
Mother sang songs that made us cry. One song was “Oh, Daddy don’t go to the mines today….for I couldn’t live without you”. I think this may have been traumatic for us, but mother didn’t mean it to be. That’s just how people sang back then. And, “Put my little shoes away”. Karen loved mother’s stories and was the sweetest of all the girls. Mother told me that so I know it’s true. She never made Mother feel bad about the state of our house, our clothes, and all the stuff we never had nor could find even if we did have it. She just smiled at mother in a very special way and glanced up at her with those big brown eyes that I adore and Mother was happy again. Mother once said Rod had never hurt her feelings, I have a feeling that Karen never did, either. Mother needed attention and Karen gave it to her. She loved watching mother dress up and learned to use lipstick and jewelry very young. Once when Doc John came to our house in an emergency to see the very pale and feverish Karen, he lifted the cover to do his exam and a very sickly, but pretty, Karen displayed one of Mother’s flashy rhinestone bracelets proudly fastened around her ankle. You’d have to have been there to understand.
This story has to end, but you see, there is no ending. Karen is fixed in my mind as the most beautiful little blonde girl with big brown eyes and a smile that melts the heart. Just as our childhoods were filled with eternal lessons that continue to this day, Karen is filling the lives of yet another generation with hope and joy. We need more of that, don’t’ we! She will always be my little sister, and my role model. I just hope I have given her one-tenth of the wonderful memories she has given me. Happy Birthday dear Karen….I love you, and "I’m not dead"--somewhere along the way, we started saying this crazy quote.
Memories not includes in this essay, but which deserve mentioning
Saving warm spots for each other in bed
Fighting over warm spots in bed
Learning to pin-curl our hair
Hiding fearfully under the cover, sweating, but afraid to peep out--those wild Indians or Monsters
Skating down the sidewalk in our new polka dot pajamas
Playing with dolls—did we get one? Or two?
Making doll clothes out of old socks and scraps of material
Swinging on grapevines
Making mud pies
Getting carsick on the long dusty journey over creeks and hills to see Granny and Pap
Adoring baby brother John
Idolizing Big brother Rod
Helping carry buckets of coal
Getting homemade haircuts in our horribly straight hair
Sharing a hi-fi with the others
Being together the first time Dan Goble drove up to the coal camp with his big speaker on the top of his car to announce music, rock and roll, by newcomer, Elvis Presley
Dancing in the dining room and memorizing lots of steps
Sharing clothes, beds, and friends
Lining up when the school bell rang, saying the pledge to a flag with 48 stars
Adding “under God” to the pledge
Chewing gum at school was a daring thing to do
Waling across the hot company store parking lot in the hot summer without shoes
Walking the hot railroad tracks up Granny’s without shoes
The Easter Parade and Smack the Baby
Jacks, dolls, paper dolls (we never had enough but loved everything we had!)
Riding Rod’s bike, not knowing it was his
Rod riding our bike, not knowing it was ours
Soup bean sandwiches
Scooters, skates, dolls, and jacks
Being nice to John L. Capelli
Taking care of our mother and our father
Leaning on each other and our siblings, all our lives
Learning to love, to be honest, to have character, to respect others……
This is only the beginning of a beautiful story of my life with my little sister Karen, the most thoughtful sister any girl could ever have!
I love you Karen,
Judy
Wonderful! Your sister is lucky to have such an appreciative post done about her.
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