My Appalachia

by Sidney Saylor Farr

  I also did some songwriting. During both World War II and the Korean War mothers hung stars in their windows to denote how many sons were in service. I wrote a poem entitled “God Had a Son in Service” and sent it to a radio program called The Midday Merry- Go-Round, which was broadcast over station KNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee. One particular group, Carl Story and the Rambling Mountaineers, liked my poem and composed music for it. They made a recording of the song, and I heard it played on several local stations. I even received two royalty checks: together they amounted to $150. I was well pleased.

  Leon hated my reading books. Many times he jerked a book out of my hands, ripped the pages, and threw it into the fire. Because of this, I was afraid to tell him when I enrolled in the American School. I knew he would forbid me to do it. For a while I managed to keep my school-books hidden from him, but one day when I was away from the house he found where I had hidden them. It was wintertime, and our Warm Morning heater was keeping us warm. How easy it was for him to burn those books. I was desperate when I returned home and discovered what he had done, and I wondered how in the world I could ever replace them.

  Finally, in desperation, I wrote a carefully worded letter to the school. I never told a lie if there was any way around it. I wrote that my books had been destroyed “by fire.” A person from the school wrote back to express their condolences for my home’s having burned, and they replaced the three textbooks without charge.

  At this point I told Leon I was taking correspondence courses and why. I said if he ever touched another one of my books I would make him very sorry. I finally had mustered the fortitude and stood up to him about this. I was firm and quiet on the outside, but inside I was boiling mad, just daring him to ever destroy another book. After that, he left my books alone.

  Of course there were other things to keep me busy. Our little house on York Branch had no running water. I had to go down the road a quarter of a mile, where someone had put a pipe into the hillside where there was a natural spring. I would go down, fill two buckets with water, and carry them home. I asked Leon repeatedly to dig us a well close to the house so I wouldn’t have to carry water. He always promised that “one day soon” he would get started.

  Finally, after hearing “one day soon” once too often, I said, “If you’re not going to dig a well, I will.” Leon laughed. While he was away at work that day, I got a shovel, marked off the place in the yard where a well would be handy, and started digging a hole. Every morning, after break-fast and household chores were done, I would go out and dig before the sun got up high and hot. Day after day I dug, and day after day Leon would taunt me: “When are you going to reach China?”

  I was stubborn and would say to myself, “It doesn’t matter what he says, I will do this one way or the other.” Pretty soon, the hole was waist deep. Then, when it got still deeper, and I was still digging and shoveling, Leon got worried because I didn’t know anything about how to shore up the walls. He hired a man in the neighborhood to finish digging the well. Eventually two more men came to help. They took turns digging.

  When the hole got very deep, the men reached some clay-like rocks, which they would pitch up and out of the hole. Some of these rocks would have imprints of leaves and ferns on them. They were beautiful; I marveled at the thought of how many millions of years ago those plants had been alive. I kept some of the rocks for a long time. Eventually the workers struck water, and it came in strong and cold. I was so happy.

  They shored up the sides and built a wall about three feet high on top of the ground. They put a pump in and then cemented rocks into place so that the top was smooth all around the well. All I had to do was go prime the pump until water gushed out, and I had all the water that I needed.

  Up until this time we did not have electricity. It wasn’t until the early 1950s that our house was finally wired. On the day that Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England—I remember listening to the coronation ceremony on my battery-operated radio—men were stringing electric wires into the house. We finally had electricity! We had bought an electric wringer-type washing machine, and the first thing I did once we had electricity in the house was get water from the well, heat it, and do a load of laundry. It was wonderful to watch the machine run by itself and to feed the clothes into the wringer. And all of this on that famous day! I listened to the radio the whole time.

  Of course, we also quickly bought other electric appliances, such as a refrigerator and an electric radio. (Back then, in 1953, there was still no television.) Having electricity and water in and near my house turned out to be great, because I now had a baby.

  18

  Love for a Child and a Man

  They brought joy and sorrow, contentment and

  pain, growth and stillness. They illuminated my

  soul. One stayed, and one left without warning.

  In February 1950 Leon’s unmarried fourth cousin had a baby in the Red Bird Hospital. Reverend Wilson and Dr. Schaeffer, the mission doctor, said she couldn’t keep the baby, and they asked Leon and me if we would consider adopting him. We had been married three years, but had no children. After much discussion we decided we would, and I rode across the mountain to the hospital to get him. In hindsight the thought of riding a horse and carrying a baby sounds terrifying, but that day it just seemed the ordinary thing to do. I rode my father-in-law’s workhorse. It was a big horse but very gentle.

  I rode across Birch Lick Mountain and down Mud Lick to the mission hospital. When I got there a nurse met me at the door and said, “The baby’s not here. The mother came last night and took him home. She changed her mind.”

  I was so disappointed as I rode home. When I came across the mountain and down Birch Lick, I began to think about how shy and modest my mother-in-law and Leon’s sisters were, and here I was riding a-straddle this big old horse. When I dismounted, what if my skirt came up? To avoid any chance of embarrassment, I decided to get off the horse before I got to their front yard. In the process of getting off the horse, I slipped, and my foot caught in the stirrup before I got to the ground. The horse ran sideways, dragging me for a few steps before he stopped. Later I realized that I could have been killed had he not stopped.

  But he did stop, and I just sat there on the ground for a little while, trembling. Eventually I was able to work my foot loose, but it was hurt. I took hold of the bridle, then limped along, leading the horse on up to the house.

  For the life of me, I cannot remember how I got home. My house was a mile down the road from where Leon’s parents lived. Maybe somebody gave me a ride in a truck. People in the area had pickup trucks and jeeps, and there were log trucks active by that time, so somebody must have given me a ride to the house.

  My right ankle was sprained, and for two or three weeks I could hardly bear to put it on the floor. I remember thinking, “It’s a good thing I didn’t have the baby with me!”

  On March 23, a gray, cold day, I thought I heard a baby crying. “No, I’m just hearing things. That’s not...” Then there was a knock at the door.

  I went to the door, and there stood the preacher with a bassinet in his hands. It was an old bassinet that his children had used, he said. He told me that the baby’s mother had changed her mind yet again and had realized, after all, that she was unable to keep the baby because she did not have enough money even to buy formula.

  His mother had named the baby Dennis Wayne. He was exactly a month old the day he appeared at my door, having been born on February 23, 1950. (I turned eighteen years old that October.) He had lost weight since his mother took him home and didn’t weigh as much as he did at birth. I remember how tiny his hands and feet were.

  I could not wait for Leon to come home from work that afternoon. When he did, he was as pleased and surprised as I was, and immediately began talking to the baby. It seemed natural to me to take care of a baby because I’d had plenty of experience taking care of my younger brothers and sisters. Wayne seemed to thrive in our care. He immediately sta
rted putting on weight.

  We had to wait three months before we could have the adoption hearing, and every day of those three months, if I heard a vehicle in the road below the house, I would run and look because I was so afraid that Wayne’s birth mother had come to get him.

  The mother had already had one illegitimate boy, who was four years old when Wayne was born. I heard later that while she was going through the process of deciding whether to give Wayne up, the older child would wake up at night crying, having nightmares that his mother would give him away, too. The girl’s mother later told us that story, and I found it heartbreaking.

  Wayne’s mother decided to go back to Chicago, where she had been living when she had gotten pregnant. She left with her four-year-old, Dean. Her mother found out later that while on the train to Chicago, she got acquainted with an elderly gentleman who was on the train with her. She found out that he owned a railroad or two and seemed to love children. She gave Dean to this man and slipped off the train, leaving the sleeping little boy behind.

  I used to have nightmares about this little boy waking up with his mama gone. We heard that the man adopted him. He lived in Moose Lake, Minnesota. That’s all we ever heard about Dean. Wayne knew that he was adopted and he knew about his brother from the very first. I had always determined that I would tell him the truth about anything he asked. I did not want him to start school and then have the other kids surprise him with information like this. So Leon and I talked to Wayne about his adoption and tried to make him feel that he was ours because we wanted him.

  For a little while being a father seemed to make Leon more calm and gentle, but old habits are hard to overcome. Soon he went back to calling me “stupid” and saying I was a “worthless Saylor.” After hearing these things over a period of time I became brainwashed and began to think I really was stupid. Of course I realize now that this was Leon’s way of intimidating and controlling me.

  I went through these years being a wife and mother and feeling like nobody. I had little self-esteem. I remember one time when Wayne was five years old. Leon was raging at me about something and hit me. Wayne grabbed the broom, hit Leon across the head, and cried, “Don’t you hit my mama! Don’t you hit my mama!” This made Leon ashamed of himself. After that he tried to pacify Wayne and treated me better for a little while.

  Unfortunately, I was making mistakes with Wayne. When Leon was harsh and threatened to punish Wayne, I always showered him with love and shielded him from his father as much as I could to keep him from getting a spanking. When Wayne got a little older, whatever was the worst thing Leon could think to say to him he would say repeatedly. Over the years, anytime Wayne was being stubborn or not obeying, Leon would yell at him, “You will mind me! If you won’t mind me, I know where they will make you—I’ll send you to reform school.” That was the threat that he held over Wayne’s head all the time: “I’ll send you to reform school.”

  I turned more and more to the Red Bird Mission Church, which is now the United Methodist Church. (Back then it was called the Evangelical United Brethren Church.) The mission church was more liberal than the old-time Baptist and Holiness churches, the only ones with which I had had any experience. Eventually we got the church at Stoney Fork built, but we held services in the old school building for a number of years. Every year we had a revival, at first in the school and then, later, the church.

  Eventually, with the help of the lessons I took from the minister’s wife, I learned to play music well enough to accompany the singing of the old gospel church songs. I played the piano for the church services and the Sunday school.

  A man named Edd Taylor came to live in the community; he could play the piano. His mother, Rendy, was a widow who moved into the house Reverend Bauman’s family had first lived in, the Baumans having moved into the new parsonage. Rendy’s daughter, Molly, was Edd’s half-sister. She was married to John Lawson, Leon’s uncle, and lived across the road from Rendy.

  Edd had lived away from the area for years. He had gone away to college, served in the Marine Corps, and worked outside of Kentucky after he got out of service. A bachelor, he came home to spend some time with his mother. He started coming to church services while we were still in the schoolhouse. Edd had studied music for a number of years, so he was asked to play for church services quite often. I saw him every time I visited Molly that summer. What I did not realize at the time was how vulnerable and desperate I was for some real romance in my life.

  One day I was in the schoolhouse before the service started. I looked across the room and spotted Edd talking to somebody. Suddenly I felt a strong desire to just walk over and put my head on his shoulder while he put his arms around me. This shocked me; until that moment I had not realized my feelings for him.

  I started daydreaming about Edd. Although I was scared that Leon would find out about it, I visited Molly’s house almost every day, hoping I would see Edd. I was, after all, still a teenager at the time.

  Stoney Fork was a “gossipy” place. Just a look or a smile exchanged between a man and a woman was enough to make people talk. One day after Leon had been particularly hateful toward me, I wrote a letter to Edd. I told him that I loved him. I did not even think of what the consequences might be. I just wanted him to know.

  Several days after that Leon and I were in Pineville. We had finished our shopping and were waiting at the bus station for the Straight Creek bus. Edd walked in, evidently planning to catch the same bus. Just then, Leon took Wayne to get some bubblegum out of a machine next door. Edd came up to me and spoke to me quietly. “The other day I got a letter which I shall always treasure,” he said. I smiled at him but did not reply.

  Later Molly told me that Rendy got suspicious about the letter Edd carried around in his pocket and read time after time. When he was sleeping, Rendy got it out of his pocket and read it. She told Molly she was afraid I was going to get Edd in trouble; she was going to keep the letter just in case it was needed.

  Somehow word got out that I had sent a love letter to Edd. Some-body told Leon, and he became very upset. I remember he cried the first time we talked about it. It was nighttime and we were sitting on the front porch of the little house on York Branch. I remember him crying in the dark. I felt so terrible and wicked. Leon asked the Baumans to come talk with me. They asked me if it was true and I said, “I guess.”

  Leon wanted us to repeat our wedding vows; he thought we needed to do that. The preacher and his wife went along with it, thinking it would be a good idea. I felt such guilt that I did not dare refuse, but I also felt heartsick about it. The following Sunday in church, Reverend Bauman announced to the congregation that Leon and I were going to repeat our vows. He asked us to come up and stand before the altar.

  Edd was in the congregation that day. I wondered what he could possibly be thinking. Leon and I stood there and repeated our vows, and I just wanted to die.

  A few days after that Sunday, Edd left Stoney Fork. I was devastated. I felt so ashamed that I stopped visiting Molly. I repented and promised God I would be good. I was so involved in the church and prayer at that point that somewhere along the way I became convinced that if only I would be a good girl, doing everything according to rule, that God would someday let me be with Edd.

  19

  Endings and Beginnings

  People with histories like mine have experiences

  and memories that are rich and fertile. That

  richness can make amends for the disadvantages

  of poor educational opportunities, intellectual

  isolation, and other hardships.

  Time went by, and the gossips in the neighborhood told me that Leon was seeing a girl named Lizzie. I got to watching him. He would go to her house, and they would go for a walk together. This made me angry, because it was he who had insisted that we repeat our vows. I thought this meant that we were making a new commitment to try to make our marriage work. Yet now he was openly seeing Lizzie. Seven-year-old Wayne was with them on
ce and later told me that he had seen Dad and Lizzie kiss each other. At the time Wayne thought all this was funny and innocent.

  Then after Lizzie there was somebody else. It was almost as though Leon felt he had to get revenge against me for my having dared so much as to look at another man, let alone express myself to him. I wished fervently that I had had the foresight and impudence to have hatched some sort of plan and run away to be with Edd.

  I didn’t seem to get as much satisfaction from attending church services that I once did. I didn’t find myself praying as often as I had before. There was no joy, no spark of anything in me. I had been a good girl, but God seemed to have let me down, and my heart hardened.

  Two or three years went by; then I got a letter from Molly. She wanted me to come and see her. She said she had a pair of shoes she wanted me to try on. The next day I went to see her. As soon as I got into the house, she said, “I don’t have any shoes. Edd’s come back. He’s sick, and he wants to see you.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He has cancer of the liver and has come home to die. Ever since he got here he keeps saying, ‘Sidney will come to see me, I know she will.’ It breaks my heart.”

  We went across the road to his mother’s house and found Edd in bed. I walked into the room. I was not prepared to see him; he had lost so much weight. Edd told me how he’d gotten sick and what the doctors had told him. I asked if there was anything that I could do, and he said he had been craving macaroni and cheese. He said that Molly had made some, but that he “had never liked the way she fixed it.” He then described the way he liked macaroni and cheese prepared.

  “Well, that’s the way I fix it. I’ll bring you some,” I promised.