Lessons in Dignity: Remembering Bean and Earnest

 Lessons in Dignity

       On Saturday afternoons, our dad, Kid White, would sometimes gather us kids and say, “Come on! We’re going to see Bean and Earnest.”

       Bean was short for “Beanhead,” but his real name was Floyd. Earnest answered to both his real name and “Ab.” I’m not sure why he was called “Ab” — I don’t believe he had a middle name, and I never asked how Beanhead got his nickname.  To my siblings and me, these two handsome, wheelchair-bound men were simply Uncle Beanhead and Uncle Earnest.

       The car ride from our house in Stotesbury, WV to their home in Raleigh, WV took about 45 minutes.  When we got there, Daddy would pull up and park our old green 1948 Dodge (also known as the “tea kettle” because it was always boiling over) in the front yard.

       We kids would jump out and run up the sagging steps to cross the narrow wooden porch to greet and kiss each uncle in turn – first to Uncle Bean, who sat in his wheelchair filling the kitchen door that opened onto the front porch; then we’d pivot to Uncle Earnest, who sat five feet away in the parallel doorway that opened into the sparsely furnished living room. Sometimes my three sisters, two brothers, and I didn’t wait to take orderly turns with hugs and kisses.  We just swooped in with the sheer delight of seeing them again. In later years, great-nieces and nephews continued the ritual.

     For the next few hours, we’d sit and talk to our jovial uncles, play baseball on the hard-packed black dirt in front of the house, watch television, or rock back and forth in the swing on the back porch that was still bordered by masses of pink roses planted almost forty years ago by my grandmother (Lilly), who passed away in 1954. Her death was followed by my grandfather’s (Philip) passing in 1957, leaving Bean and Earnest to take over the household.  My dad and neighbors would pitch in to help with errands that required travel outside the house, like going to the store for groceries, going uptown to pay utility bills, or chopping firewood and hauling buckets of coal from the yard for the stoves and fireplaces that heated the six-room clapboard house.  But mostly, “the boys” as they were called by the older generations of the family even though they were in their forties (Bean) and thirties (Earnest) during this time, handled their household smoothly and independently.

       For a young child like me, this just seemed the natural order of things. My uncles exuded such warmth, confidence, and dignity and handled every situation so matter-of-factly and with such grace that it never occurred to me that their being wheelchair-bound was abnormal.  That was just the way it was. Of course, as I grew older, I wanted to know why they couldn’t walk. I think I was maybe thirteen or so when I asked my mother.  She said Bean had been injured in a coal mining accident in his early twenties, and Earnest had developed arthritis really bad in his back and legs when he was in his early teens. Both young men got about on crutches for some years, but eventually severe and constant pain led them to opt for spinal surgery that numbed the pain, but ended any hopes of being able to walk again.  However, Uncle Bean, with his tremendously strong upper body, was still able to raise himself to a standing position.

      As I grew older, I marveled at the way my uncles conducted themselves and their household, all the while serving as a hub for part of the small community surrounding them.  On a typical day, Bean would rise early, draw water from a pump on the front porch, wash, shave, and get dressed.  Then he’d start a fire in the kitchen stove that was used for both heat and cooking. Next, he’d move to the living room and make a fire in the big coal stove there. During the winter, he also lit fires in the fireplaces in the two downstairs bedrooms.  Of course, he never went upstairs where there were two more bedrooms, which were sometimes, but very rarely, used by family visitors. These bedrooms were heated by a square hole cut into the floor to allow heat from downstairs to rise and circulate upstairs. It worked pretty well.

     After the kitchen stove was hot, Uncle Earnest would cook breakfast. He was a good cook. I believe I heard that he had studied cooking, along with leather crafts, at a rehabilitation center in California where Granddaddy White sent him and Uncle Bean for treatment and occupational therapy in the early days of their condition.  Now and then, Earnest would treat us to a special banana pudding — best I ever tasted. But usually if we ate there, we’d have sandwiches, probably to save money, which was scarce for everybody during that time.

     The rest of an average day for my uncles was filled with housekeeping, watching television, reading dime store novels, sitting in the doorways to observe the comings and goings in the neighborhood, or socializing with some of the men in the neighborhood –especially the youngbloods who liked to play cards and gamble. Another favorite activity was listening to twice-weekly radio broadcasts of my brother’s basketball games — my brother was a basketball legend at the local high school, and Bean and Earnest were proud of him.  In the late 1960’s, they welcomed visits from their first great-nephew, who at age three rumbled into their front yard steering his Mattel Big Wheel, a Christmas gift from his Great Uncle Earnest.  This little great-nephew lived only a few hundred yards away during that time and, even at such a young age, took a sharp interest in the unusual sights and activities at Bean and Earnest’s house.

     Sometimes, Uncle Earnest and a couple of his male friends (they had lady friends, too) might enjoy a bit — or more than a bit — of the moonshine and home brew that “the boys” made from scratch in a large crock in the kitchen. Uncle Bean didn’t drink with them. He just looked on in his calm, dignified way. I guess it’s good he skipped the libations because at least once that I know of, he had to break up a fist fight with the baseball bat he kept by his bed.  The youngster with the Big Wheel later, as an adult, recounted how at age five or so, he watched a fight in the living room that ended with one combatant knocked unconscious and lying across the doorway, forcing the child and his chaperone to step gingerly over the motionless body as they left the scene. They didn’t know whether the person was dead or alive.

       As unnerving as this might have been, these brouhahas didn’t happen often, mainly because of the respect and loyalty my two uncles had earned with their generosity and warm friendliness. If friends were down on their luck and needed a loan or a place to stay for a few nights or a hot meal, they knew Bean and Ernest would open their doors and pantry. If someone was in trouble and needed to talk, the brothers would listen.

     These gentlemen displayed a strength of character, resourcefulness, humanity, and dignity throughout really harsh circumstances that we kids only came to fully appreciate as adults. We still marvel at all they accomplished on a daily basis with a “How did they do that?!” And how did they do it with such calm grace?!

     There was joy and wonder and lessons learned back then. Today, with our beloved uncles gone but never forgotten, we express our admiration and remembrance with a visit to southern West Virginia each Memorial Day to lay wreaths at their final resting place.   

(Written by Dr. Blanche R. Dudley, 2022)