This picture was my grandmother Maude
Griffin's favorite and as best as I can remember, the only framed "art"
picture that she had. When she and my grandfather Lindsey lived
at Mole Hill (later re-named Mountain) WV, it hung in their
bedroom. Then when they moved to Vienna, WV, a suburb of
Parkersburg, to the little house that dad and his brothers bought for
them, it again was placed in their bedroom. After Lindsey died,
the house was sold and Grandma Maude moved in with Uncle Floyd Griffin
in Parkersburg. I remember in 1951 when I was 12, driving to
Vienna in Dad's new '51 Chevy Sedan Delivery. All the remaining
belongings were to be divided up amongst the four brothers, Floyd,
Eddie, Carl and Dad. As I remember there was relatively little
bickering over items, with each brother getting pretty much the things
that were dearest to him. This picture was among the first things
that Dad chose so I have to think that it was in their home when he was
little, probably even before he was born in 1916. After Dad died,
Barbara and I brought the picture home to Illinois, so it's now come
from Mole Hill, WV, Newell, WV, Clearwater, FL and now Park Forest,
IL.
But the memories this picture brings to me are those from Mole Hill and
that West Virginia hill farm where Grandpa Lindsey raised sheep, a milk
cow or two, chickens for eggs and eating and gardens to supply the root
cellar. There was a water well just a few feet out the kitchen
door with a "picture book" roof over it and a crank to lower the
galvanized bucket down on a rope which yielded the sweet cold water
that I still remember to this day. Grandma Maude did all her
cooking over a wood cookstove. She had a "pie safe" in the
kitchen, a wooden cabinet with tin door panels that were nail-punched
with holes in a decorative pattern. This kept the flies out but
still gave circulation of air. My cousin Jeannine and her husband
Bud retrieved that and restored it years ago just before the house fell
down.