If you're searching for any of the names included in this conversation, I hope you appreciate some of the details in the memories written by Paul Shepherd and Terry Lea Webb Buchanan. The conversation was sparked by Paul's photo of the hills surrounding the Princess Elkhorn Coal Camp of David, Kentucky. How beautiful to all who lived and played in these magical woods, streams, and hollows. The picture was taken near the Ashland and Elizabeth Shepherd homeplace on Rt 850. We used to ride bikes up this way, when we fortunate enough to have access to a bike! Photo courtesy of Paul shepherd
Paul Shepherd
Home sweet home. Don't get back much anymore. My mom won't be standing at the garden gate, my dad won't be standing by the door. No vacations to take anymore, Yes the home place is still standing but it's just not the same.There will be no ...dog running down the drive way to greet me, no ring of the cow bell as they graze on the hill side. My horse won't be there for me to ride anymore not even sure his bridle will be hanging outside his stall. I'm sure his rigging won't be there. I doubt if even an old plow will be sitting by the shed.The only thing I'm sure of is his saddle, it's now in my hands where I know it is safe.
Should I wonder back I'm sure the old black crows would call to me as they fly over the garden and then rest high atop that old big beech tree that has been standing there nigh on 200 years. Still loaded with those nuts it has produced all these years, as they are calling out to the others a stranger has arrived. All over the woods you can hear the jar fly calling, high back on the mountain top comes the call of the rain crow letting you know rain could be coming soon.
You get out of your car look around and ask yourself is this the place I remember? Some things look the same but I don't remember that sound coming from the coal house as a stiff breeze goes by, sounds like the flapping of a tin roof. There used to be a fence around the garden, nice and silver looking, but it ain't there anymore. Over there I remember there were big redbuds and dogwood standing by the hollar--even they are not there anymore. The old barn is still standing but I think the seasons have taken something from it. Has it gotten smaller? As a kid it seemed so large. Yes, it was so large we would play basketball in the hay loft.
As I move closer I can still hear the cooing and flapping of the wings I remember so well as blue/grey/white/rust color pigeons come flying out the loft. I open the large double doors walk in the hall way with stalls on each side my mind rushes back I just know there has to be a newborn calf in each one. I open the door to each one and this sad feeling comes over me. It seems as it was only yesterday each one was filled. Now all I can see is spider webs and dust hanging from the ceilings. I go out the other double doors expecting to see green short grass on the pasture hillside, but all I see is weeds and small shrubs that have taken the place of the grass.
I turn to leave and my heart is filled with sadness as I hear the voices of dad calling out, "did you feed the one on the upper right side son?" "Yes, dad I think we have them all fed and given fresh water. All the babies have been fed so now we can let the mommas back out in the pasture for the night. Chicken and ducks have been fed and that old gander goose don't have to worry about him, he always gets his share. Mom should have the pig slop ready when we get back and I will bring it up and mix in some middlin's to give to them. By that time it will be getting late in the even and we can set out in the yard a while before it's time for bed".
As I walk outside and turn to close the doors those sounds seem to drift away. The sun has gone behind that high mountain top as dark shadows start to move across the land. Then from the mountain top comes this sound I remember so well. I know if I stop and wait far away on the other mountain top across the valley the same sound will return. As I stand there waiting, chills and goose bumps start to move over me. Sure enough here it comes back, who-who-go-there. This is repeated for some time.
Then high up it a tree i see this shadow take to the sky as if flies high up above me and lands on the mountain top. Then all the chattering starts.All the night sounds are have started now, the crickets, kaddie-di. Down by the stream or creek comes another sound I remember so well. As it flies along the water it is calling out whip-o-will and again goose bumps cover my body and memories of when I was a child at night as I lay there in bed the sound would come through the open window and soon I would be sound asleep lost out there somewhere. Time means nothing until I awake to that call of mom. "It's time to get up son, a new day is here lots of things to get done" My where did the night go. 8 hours so fast just like seconds.
I now collect my thoughts as I approach my car to leave the home place to return to my room at the motel. I'm thinking where did the time go? Have I been so busy in life it got away from me and now the things I wanted most are no more and even though many thing and sounds have not changed? There is no one to welcome me home.
Judy Bussey
I hope Melissa and Paul are saving your words. I still have my Mothers and Pap's writings and they are precious to read. You write history from the heart and it is rich with truth♥
Paul Shepherd
Sad to say it Judy but we are entering a new age. Memories will always be stored but in a much different fashion. Our society has gone to a fast forward mode, No time to stop and remember the good things of life. Someday after all is said and done, will we look back searching and all we find, everything running together with no stop signs along the way in our life?
Buchanan Terry
Paul, anyone that has stood outside a loved place or home of their childhood, will not be able to read your words without a trembling voice & tears in their eyes. Paul you truly have a gift with the written word. You painted such a vivid wo...rd picture, as I read them, my minds eye saw everything so clear & sharp, the colors so crisp & bright the colors actually hurt me to look at them. By the last word I had slipped back in my mind to the 10 yr. old me, as I ran the last part of the way to the gate in the fence around the front yard of the Webb/Auxier homeplace. As I work the mechanics of the old latch that always sticks, my great aunt Marth comes out on the porch. She is wiping her hands on her ever present tea towel that is stucked into the top of her apron. It is there to protect her good apron & keep it crisp & white against her flower printed dress. One of her Sunday dresses. She must have known or gotten word someway we were coming. I finally get the old gate open, just as My Dad & Uncle Wilbur arrive with my brother Stephen & our cousins Judy & Mary Jane Webb, Our uncles youngest daughters. They had arrived early that morning from their dairy farm in West Va. My Mother & Aunt Opal were bringing up the rear, each carrying a picnic basket. The baskets were stuffed full with good homemade picnic food. No short cut food would be found anywhere near those baskets. Both my Dad & his brother had their arms filled with items that would not fit into those extra full baskets. A feast we would have after the work was done.
DAD & Uncle Wilbur had come prepared to fix anything that needed repairing. The rest of us would be weeding, trimming, cutting & in general cleaning up the yard, front & back. We did this twice a year for Aunt Marth. Then Dad & His brother would hitch up the old mule to the plow and get the kitchen garden ready for Aunt Marth's spring planting. Little did we know this would be the last spring clean up we would do at the old farm place. By spring 1954, both Aunt Marth & the old farm house, that had stood on the knoll over looking the Big Sandy River across the river from the East Point General store & Post Office since the early 1800's would be gone. Aunt Martha Webb from a stroke followed by a heart attack while still in the hospital recovering from the stroke. The evening after Aunt Marth died, someone pulled a wagon drawn by two gray mules, up to the front porch & carryied out every piece of antique furniture in the house, including three round top trunks that had always been stored in the attic. Unknown to those emptying the old farm house, they were being watched by an observer from across the river. He had sent his son to the nearest telephone to try & reach Dad. Unfortunately, in those days cell phones were unheard of & answering machines, if any were around, too expensive for our family to have one installed.
So, the unseen observer continue to watch as the thieves continued working. They made two trips before midnight that evening, taking what they wanted from the old home place. Then as they closed the front door for the last time that evening, smoke could be seen curling from the side windows of the house that had been home to Enoch & Mary Van Hoose Auxier, their 6 children, one Nancy Ann B. Auxier Webb had been Aunt Marth''s & Dr. Tobe T. Webb's (my grandfather) parents. She & Jacob "River Jake" Webb had raised their 4 children their also. Only two of their children had married & reared a family, Tobe & his sister Maggie. She married a Thomas Howell of Johnson County. Dad had been close with his Howell cousins. But either one or both sons died during WWW II. When Dad returned to Eastern Ky. after the war ended, their families had moved, or did not return after the war, he was never sure. But from that point on there was no contact with those members of the family. Sad but true. It happened to many during this time in history. But, by the time word reach My father & Uncle Wilbur it was too.late to catch the thieves or to save that beautiful old farm house. I use to call the house my 'old grey lady'. To a child with a vivid imagination, ( which I was) the old, wooden, 2 story, unpainted house was a home filled with wonderous adventures, stories, of real people. They had each left apart of themselves under that old tin roof. Apart to share with the family members that would follow them. Now, all of those family mementos were either stolen or going up in smoke. But Aunt Marth had place some items my 10 yr.old self adored hearing about in a shoe box, tied it all up in the blue satin ribbon & wrote this message on the box. " give this to Terry Lea ( Virgil's girl) when she has grown up enough to care for it. My Aunt Dora gave me the shoe box in 1983. I guess I had finally grown up enough. At the time we were living in a two story log house on the hill behind where the old farm house had been. We had bought back five acres Dad had sold to pay for our college. Our home consisted of four pre-civil war log cabins combined to make a 4000 square ft. log house. The kitchen & dining room originally had been my great great aunt Lizzie Auxier Walker's cabin. Aunt Lizzie was one of the first women who served as circuit riding preachers for the Methodist church.
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