A Few Childhood Memories

By Blanche R. Dudley

I don’t have any personal memories of my paternal grandmother, Lilly Jenkins White. She passed away just before I turned three years old.  I do know that she grew the most beautiful pink roses which survived for many years after she passed.  I remember how the roses climbed up and around the front porch of the old family home in Raleigh, WV, which was set back about ten or twelve feet from the railroad track that ran through the town.  I liked sitting on the porch and admiring the roses and thinking of the lady who had planted them.  I must have inherited my love of flowers and gardening partly from her.

I recall hearing that she was very kind and generous.  Some folks remarked that she was known for having five handsome sons and one pretty, vivacious daughter. Her third son, Kid, was my dad. People said she died of a broken heart after her first-born son, Charles White, died suddenly of a heart attack in February 1954. (He was reportedly found deceased in bed with his baby son, Charles, Jr., asleep on his chest.) It was said that Lilly, in her shock, was unable to cry for her son and died of grief three days later.

I can just barely remember summer vacations (I can’t remember how many) when my daddy, Philip (Kid) White would have two weeks of vacation off from work in the Stotesbury, WV coal mines. We would drive down to Max Meadows, VA (“down home,” as Daddy called it). I believe there were seven of us in the car – Mama, Daddy, and five kids—I don’t think my youngest brother, Andre, had been born yet. We stayed a couple of nights at the homes of various relatives.  I remember the excitement of the car trip down with a big packed lunch box of fried chicken; ham sandwiches deliciously soggy with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise; boiled eggs, apples, and cake. In Max Meadows, I remember that the cold, sweet watermelon was a treat, and I remember walking up the dirt roads or alleys between houses. As young as I was, I also remember laughter and good feeling of affection among the kinfolk.

One great- aunt that I remember pretty well is Aunt May. I recall that she had a distinctive, high-pitched voice, sort of like a young girl’s voice, and that she had very poor eyesight. I think I later recall cataracts being mentioned as the cause.

I can remember one time that Aunt May and my Great-Grandma Jenkins, her mother, came to visit us in Stotesbury. It seems that Grandma Jenkins owned a car of which she was very fond. I heard that she always rode in the back seat, never in the front. I don’t know why. I have a vivid memory of talking to her through the back window of that car. I can still remember her face in the car window as she sat there and talked to us. I must have been about five or six—maybe four years old. I can also remember liking her a lot. She seemed so dignified.

Once Aunt May was babysitting us while my mother went up the road to a little store that we called “Mr. Alex’s Stand.”  Aunt May split her time between our house and the home of Aunt Mozelle, Lilly’s only daughter, who lived up the road and across the creek from us.  Well, this time Mama had just scrubbed the kitchen floor and told us not to walk on the floor while it dried. We kids thought Aunt May was blind, so as soon as Mama was out of sight, we left Aunt May sitting in the living room and tiptoed across the kitchen floor without making a single sound. I can’t remember why we went in there. I just know we were shocked and ran for our lives when Aunt May’s voice rang out, “Yall know your mama told yall not to walk on that floor.” It turns out May was not totally blind.

Grandma Jenkins’s youngest brother was Mr. John Lewis. I was surprised when I learned he was my Grandma Lilly White’s uncle—because, born in 1897, he was five years younger than she was.  My immediate family has always had a close relationship with Mr. John’s offspring, who lived for a long time in McAlpin, a coal town about two or three miles from where we lived in Stotesbury.  I never knew back then just how closely related we were by blood. I just knew the Lewis’s were our cousins—and the brothers (Mr. John’s sons)—Buddy, Billy, and Ralph–were really close with my day, Kid White.

The Lewis grandchildren called Mr. John “Daddy John.” I remember many, many days of walking up the railroad track to visit Mr. John and his wife, “Dick.” Dick’s real name was Louise Waddy.  She was a very petite little woman, with a perpetual smile. (I think most of the Lewis’s to this day, are known for their beautiful and frequent smiles.)  I remember Mr. John as a tall, dark, handsome man with very nice black hair— “good hair” as we called it back then because it was not kinky. Mr. John usually had a wad of chewing tobacco in his jaw. He was always nice to us kids.  I’ve pasted below a couple of paragraphs that one of his grandchildren—Carol, Buddy’s daughter—sent me for your use. Another tidbit is from Billy’s daughter Tee Tee (Sarah, who inherited her mom Susie singing voice—I always thought they reminded me of Aretha Franklin or Mahalia Jackson—in a different time and place, they could have been just as famous. Tee Tee still sings in church.)