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blind, Childers & Childers, culture, Ella Haley, history, Kentucky, life, photos
Childers & Childers: The Blind Man’s Store
Childers & Childers
31 Monday Mar 2014
Posted in Ed Haley
Tag Archives: Ella Haley
In Search of Ed Haley 276
29 Saturday Mar 2014
Tags
Ab Moss, Alabama, Calhoun County, Calhoun County Blues, Carey Smith, Catlettsburg, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Euler, fiddlers, fiddling, guitar, Harold Postalwait, Hell Among the Yearlings, history, Homer Moss, John Hartford, Laury Hicks, music, Rogersville, Ugee Postalwait, West Virginia, writing
I took my fiddle out of the case and played for Ugee. A few tunes later, she said she liked my bow hold.
“Him and Dad both held the bow down there on the end,” she said. “Dad and Ed neither one never had no use for anyone that took hold of the bow way up toward the middle. They didn’t like that at all. And Ed and Dad neither one didn’t like for someone to put their fiddle down against their chest.”
Ugee paused, then said, “You’re with the fiddle like I was with the guitar after I got it. I set and fooled with it all the time — any time I had time away from dishes or anything, I’d set on the porch and play that guitar. I wanted to learn it and nobody to learn me and I learned it myself. I done the same thing with the banjo. Of course, Dad could thump the banjo some and play it a little bit. But when I got that guitar and changed over to it, then I wanted to learn that guitar.”
When I played “Yellow Barber” for Ugee she got choked up and said, “That sounds so good, John. You don’t know how good that sounds. I’ve been thinking about my dad and them all morning. I’d just have given anything if we’d had tapes of Dad.”
I told her that I’d been researching some tunes I suspected of being in Ed’s repertoire (many from the Lambert Collection) and she said, “Ed knew a lot of them. I’ve heard so many of his pieces, now I’m getting to where I’m forgetting a lot of pieces.”
When I played “Girl With the Blue Dress On”, she said, “I can’t get that one in my head. Some part of it sounds natural. Yeah, I’ve heard that song. There’s words to that: ‘She come down from Arkansas with a blue dress on. Prettiest girl I ever saw, she came down from Arkansas.’ Who was that old man that used to come and play that on the banjo? I believe it was Carey Smith from around Euler.”
I next played “Flying Cloud” for Ugee, who said, “Ed didn’t call it that. I can’t remember what he called it but he never called it ‘Flying Cloud’. Course Ed was pretty good to change names on you, too.”
I told her that Lawrence and I had always figured Ed’s “Catlettsburg” had another name, and she agreed.
“Well in fact he almost said he put the name on that piece ’cause they lived down there, you know,” Ugee said. “You see, most of them old fellas, if they’d hear a tune and they learnt to play it, then they’d change the name. Just like ‘Carroll County Blues’, we called it ‘Calhoun County’. Just whatever county you was a living in.”
I started playing “Calhoun County Blues”, fully aware that it was one of Ugee’s favorite tunes. She watched me quietly with an excited expression on her face.
“That’s my piece,” she said to Harold. “I could crack my heels to that.”
The next thing I knew, she rose out of her chair and started dancing.
I stopped and said, “Now, wait a minute. Don’t hurt yourself.”
She told me to go on, though.
“I didn’t think you could get your feet up that high,” Harold joked her.
Ugee said, “I was a dancer at one time. Never got tired.”
I continued playing the tune for a few minutes, then asked if Ed ever danced.
“I never seen Ed dance, but I’ll tell you what,” she said. “He could keep time with his feet. I can remember so well that foot coming down and then when he got older he’d pat his feet. He’d keep both of them going. He didn’t make a big noise with them or anything. Just give him a drink of whiskey or two and then he’d come down on that there fiddle and you ought to hear Ella then.”
I asked Ugee if Ed was pretty good at making up parts to tunes.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, not quite understanding my question. “He made up a lot of his tunes and then give them a name. And Dad would do the same. They was sitting around and they’d try different things. ‘Listen to this’ and ‘Put that note in there.’ I always did think they made up that ‘Hell Among the Yearlings’. Ab Moss lived down below us — very religious man — and he was there with his wife and Homer, the oldest boy, and Abner looked over to Ed and said, ‘That’s a pretty piece. What do you call that?’ and they said ‘Hell Among the Yearlings’. I always did think they made that up to aggravate him. Then they just cackled and laughed after they left. ‘Hell Among the Yearlings’, said, ‘That’s a pretty good name for it.’ I can see them yet a sitting on the porch laughing about it.”
In Search of Ed Haley 265
13 Thursday Mar 2014
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Music
Tags
Clabe Tomblin, Dood Dalton, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ezra Jake Dalton, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Mullins, Lincoln County, Liza Mullins, Logan, music, Nary Dalton, Tootsie Tomblin, West Virginia, writing
We later drove to see Tootsie Tomblin, a younger sister to Jake and a neighbor on Big Branch. Tootsie greeted us at the door, flanked by her tall husband Clabe, and a small nut-cracking housedog that barked at our every movement — even after we’d sat down at a large eating table in the dining room.
Tootsie referred to Ed Haley as “Uncle Ed” and said her whole family loved him. She said he was “a great person…so understanding.” Ed was particularly close to her mother, Nary Dalton.
“Ed thought the world of my mother. He thought my mother was the finest woman he had ever laid his eyes on. And he’d tell her, he’d say, ‘Come over here Nary and set down beside me. I want to talk to you a little bit.’ And he’d tell her everything about hisself, and about his wife, his children and everything. He loved her cooking.”
Tootsie laughed.
“Daddy had a whole litter of kids and we all had nicknames but Mommy insisted on calling us by our real names. And Ed, being blind, couldn’t figure out why there were so many kids in the home. He called for Mom. ‘Hey Nary, come in here and set down beside of me.’ Mom went to him and said, ‘What are you a wanting, Ed?’ He said, ‘I’ve listened for three or four days and I’m kind of buffaloed.’ She said, ‘What are you buffaloed on?’ Ed said, ‘You got too many kids. All of these names don’t add up. What are we a doing with all these names?’ Mom laughed and then explained it to him.”
Before we could ask Tootsie any more questions, she showed us several small boxes of old family photographs while feeding us donuts, pie and milk. I asked her if she remembered much about Ed coming to her father’s house.
“They was a funny family of people,” she said. “I mean, they had peculiar ways. They was different. Them people went clean as pins. You never seen them dirty. Ed could take care of them good as I could mine and me with eyes. When Ed spoke, he spoke with authority. They knew he meant what he was saying. He’d say, ‘Now, that’s enough,’ and that was it. He never had to whip his kids.”
Tootsie said Ed mostly visited Dood at his first home (“Jake’s place”) and never brought his wife with him. Later, after her father built his new house in 1951 (her current home), Ed only came a time or two. On his last trip, he had a Jacob Stainer or a Stradivarius violin with him.
“He was here in the fall and died the next summer or maybe that winter,” she said. “One of his boys brought him here.”
When Ed was in Harts, he traveled a lot with Jeff Mullins, a simple-minded man and brother to Aunt Liza who stayed with the Adams family. In Logan, he played with his wife or a colored man.
I asked Tootsie if she remembered a lot about how her father played the fiddle. She said she was sure that he played with the fiddle under his chin. Some of his tunes were “Cacklin’ Hen”, “Wednesday Night Waltz”, and “Bear Dog” — basically what Ed played. He could also play a little on the guitar and sing. Tootsie really bragged on Ed’s singing — like his “Coming Around the Mountain” — and kind of caught us off guard when she said, “Buddy, Ed Haley could dance. He was a chubby fellow but he could move. That old man could move.”
In Search of Ed Haley 263
11 Tuesday Mar 2014
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Music
Tags
Bernie Adams, Billy Adkins, Dood Dalton, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ezra Jake Dalton, fiddlers, fiddling, Harts Creek, history, Lincoln County, Logan, Mona Haley, moonshine, Nary Dalton, West Virginia, World War II, writing
Along the way, we stopped and picked up Billy Adkins, who guided us to Jake’s home on Big Branch. Jake, we found, was a little skinny fellow, somewhat quiet, and — I was told — a decorated World War II veteran.
I asked Jake if he remembered the first time he ever saw Ed.
“I don’t remember that,” he said right away. “I was born in 1916 but I didn’t stay at home like the rest of my family. I’d slip off from home here when I was a little bitty fella and maybe stay a week or two before I come back or they’d come get me or something another. Then after I got up in years, I joined the Army and I stayed over four years in the Army. I was in there nineteen months before they bombed Pearl Harbor. So I didn’t stay home like the rest of the kids.”
A little later in the conversation, Jake made it clear that he remembered more about Ed and his family than he realized.
“He stayed with Mother and Dad a lot, Ed did, and them young’ns,” he said. “She was a music teacher, the old woman was. She was from out of Kentucky and he was off’n Harts Creek. They had about five, six children.”
I asked Jake how long Ed usually stayed with his father and he said, “Aw, he might stay a week. They’d go up there at the courthouse at Logan and play music, him and her, and she had this little boy tied to the rope so she could draw him in you know out on the sidewalk. And somebody give him some pennies and he had them pennies you know and he dropped them and she started drawing them in. He ripped out a big oath, ‘Wait till I get my money!’ You know, they couldn’t see what they done or nothing.”
Sometimes, Ed left his kids with Dood when he was playing in Logan.
“Now them kids, they was pretty mean, but people most of the time helped him correct them,” Jake said. “They raised one girl, Mona. That girl, she was a bad one. She’d run up and down the road with them boys if Dad didn’t get after her. She was just a young gal, you know. Ed, he didn’t care if you corrected them kids. If you busted the hide on one that was all right.”
Jake didn’t remember much about Ed’s appearance other than that his eyes were “milky-looking.”
When Brandon asked him what it was like to hang around with Ed, Jake said, “He talked to Dad a whole lot. He said to my dad one time, ‘Dood, where do you think hell’s gonna be at?’ Dad said, ‘I never thought about where it’s gonna be, Ed.’ He said, ‘I have an idea where it’s gonna be. I believe it’ll be on the outside of this world.’ He was a good ole man in a way, but he was bad to drink in a way.”
Oh…so Jake remembered Ed drinking.
I asked him if Ed drank a lot and he said, “No, I never did see him come to Dad’s drunk. Dad didn’t allow no bad stuff around his house, even when he wasn’t a Christian.”
Jake thought for a second, then said, “Ed was a healthy eater. He’d come in there — get up for breakfast — he’d say to my mother, ‘Nary, have you got ary onion?’ And she’d get him an onion. He’d eat an onion head for breakfast. My mother was a person that would feed anybody that came along. It didn’t make no difference whether he was a drunk, a hobo, or what he mighta been, Mom would feed him. We had a big long table with a bench on one side and about ten people to eat off of it besides who come in. We kept Bernie Adams half the time. He was the puniest feller that ever you saw — a plumb weakling he was — and he’d stay with Dad for maybe two or three weeks.”
Jake tried to describe his memories of Ed and Dood playing around the house.
“We just had an old log house,” he said. “A door over there and one here and one room and Dad had a lot of trees around here. They’d sit out there in the yard. They’d start in on Saturday evening and they’d be a sitting right there when Monday morning come with a half a gallon of moonshine playing music. They’d fiddle that long.”
In Search of Ed Haley 260
08 Saturday Mar 2014
Tags
Bernie Adams, Brandon Kirk, Dood Dalton, Earl Tomblin, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Harts Creek, history, John Hartford, Lincoln County, music, Stump Dalton, Uncle Harmon and his Fiddlin Fools, West Virginia, writing
Brandon asked if Ella ever played with Ed at Dood’s and Stump said, “The only time I ever seen her play was when Ed asked her. I’ve seen her come there and not play. Now, she didn’t play a mandolin like I played or say like Bill Monroe or somebody like that. All she done was just chord the thing. Play the second on the guitar you know and strummed it. She was a quiet person and she was a heavy-built woman. She never had much to say to nobody. She sorta give you the impression that she ‘would rather be somewhere else than where I am now,’ you know.”
Thinking of Ed’s accompaniment, Stump said to me, “You ever hear the name Bernie Adams?”
I had, but didn’t know much about him.
“Bernie Adams was a cousin of mine,” Stump said. “Bernie was born and raised up on Hoover and he was one of the best second guitar players I ever heard pick up a guitar. And all he did was drink. He’d been to Nashville maybe twice, I think. Now when Ed Haley come to our house, the first thing he’d ask Dad, he’d say, ‘Dood, where’s Bernie Adams at?’ Back then, you didn’t have no telephone. Big Hart Road was dirt. We’d take a timber truck and hunt Bernie Adams up and bring him down there. If we found him drunk, we’d bring him down there and he’d sober up. Ed told me, he said, ‘I never played with a man that had the timing that Bernie Adams had with that guitar.’ He was one of the best.”
I asked Stump if Bernie played runs and he said, “He could, but he played a follow-up for their music. And you talk about time.”
Stump didn’t know that Bernie ever played over the radio, but we later heard that he played on Logan radio in the mid-40s with a group called Uncle Harmon and his Fiddlin’ Fools.
Bernie died in 1962.
“They found him dead right at the mouth of Hoover when they went down over that little hill next to the creek,” Stump said. “He’d sat down next to a log and they found him laying beside that log. He drank himself to death. He’d left Earl Tomblin’s beer garden up on Big Hart. Somebody probably picked him up and drove him down there and they found him dead the next morning.”
I asked Stump to describe Ed and he said, “Ed was a pretty big man. I’d say Ed Haley woulda weighed 180-185 pounds and I’d say Ed Haley was 5’11” or 6′, too. I particularly noticed his hands. He had long fingers. And he was a fast walker. Ed Haley was the type of feller that would eat anything you put on the table. He liked to cut his onions up in his beans, buttermilk, cornbread, then rub some bacon in it.”
Did Ed do any kind of chores to help out around the house when he was there?
“No, he was just a guest and that was it. We never asked him to do anything, he never done anything. When he come to our house, other than sleep, 75-percent of our time was playing music.”
I asked Stump if Ed ever came around his father’s home drunk and he said no — Ed was always “very mannerly” at the Dalton home.
“Ed Haley was a fine man, buddy,” he said. “He was my idol. Ed Haley was a pretty smart man. He was good when it come to the Bible — he knowed what to do, you know, and they’d sit there and discuss the Bible, but Ed never would accept the Lord as far as being saved. If anybody could’ve ever got Ed to quit drinking, it woulda been Dad.”
Dood Dalton was a moonshiner in his younger days but gave it up just after Stump’s birth.
“Dad was one of the most well thought of men in this country really, if you want to know the truth about it. Dad made a study of the Bible for 62-and-a-half years.”
In Search of Ed Haley 257
05 Wednesday Mar 2014
Tags
Appalachia, Bill Adkins, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, culture, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Harts, history, Lincoln County, music, Noble Boatsman, Watson Adkins, West Virginia, writing
Thinking it might interest me, Brandon sent some cassette interviews Billy Adkins had conducted with his father Bill years earlier. The first one was dated circa 1982 and mostly featured Bill singing “What Shall I Do With the Baby-O”, “The Preacher and the Bear”, “Wild Hog”, “The Arkansas Song”, “Roman Crocodile”, and “The Old Miller”. The last song on the tape was “Noble Boatsman”, a tune that Lawrence Haley had partially remembered his mother singing. Bill learned it from his uncle Samp Davis.
There was a noble boatsman and noble he did well.
He had a loving wife and she loved the tailor well.
The boatsman went away on a board ship cruise.
Away she went for to let the tailor know.
Said, “My husband’s gone on a board ship crew
And this very night I’ll frolic with you.”
So the boatsman returned about three hours in the night,
Knocked at the door and said, “Strike me up a light.”
She began to slip and slide seeking out a place for the tailor to hide.
She put him in the chest and bid him lay still.
Told him he’s as safe as a mousey in the mill.
Then she jumped up and wide open the door
In stepped the boatsman with three or four.
Said, “I never come to rob you or disturb you of your rest.
I’ve come to bid you farewell and take away my chest.”
The boatsman being very stout and strong
Picked up his chest and went a marching along.
He hadn’t got more than half through the town
Till the weight of the tailor caused his steps to slow down.
He said, “My load’s a gettin’ heavy and I’ll put you down to rest
I believe to my soul they’s a devil in my chest.”
Then he set his chest down and throwed open the door
And there laid the tailor like a piggy in the floor.
Said, “I’ll throw you overboard and I’ll serve the Lord our king
And I’ll put an end to your night’s frolicking.”
Toward the end of the interview, Billy asked his father about general life around Harts Creek in the early part of the century. He said he first saw a car when he was eight or nine years old “right down there in a ferryboat. The river was kind of up a little bit then. The road went along the edge of the river. Somebody put it in the ferryboat, brought it out here and landed it. It climbed the bank over there. Seen them start it up. It was a T-Model Ford.”
What about the first radio?
“Watson had one up here operated by battery. Didn’t have no electric then.”
When did electricity come through here?
“1938, I believe.”
In Search of Ed Haley 254
02 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in Big Sandy Valley, Ed Haley, Music
Tags
blind, Charleston, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddlers, history, John Spaulding, Josie Cline, Kentucky, Kermit, Martin County, Mont Spaulding, music, Norton, Virginia, Warfield, Wayne County, West Virginia, writing
John and Mary A. Spaulding were the parents of Josie Cline and Mont Spaulding, two fiddlers in Kermit, West Virginia, somehow affiliated with Ed Haley. In all, John and Mary had six children: Mont Spaulding (1860), Josephine Spaulding (c.1864), Virginia Spaulding (c.1867), Linsy Spaulding (1870), Nickiti Spaulding (c.1873) and Lizzie Spaulding (1878). In 1870, the Spauldings lived in the Lincoln District of Wayne County, West Virginia. In the late 1870s, they moved over to the Warfield area of Martin County, Kentucky. John died around 1878. In 1880, Mont was listed in census records as a blind person. In 1900, he and his mother Mary lived with his sister Lizzie Fitzpatrick in Martin County.
In 1910, according to census records, “Monterville Spaulding” lived in the Big Elk Precinct of Martin County where he was listed as a 48-year-old widowed traveling musician. Listed with him in that census were five children, including 20-year-old Dora Spaulding and 11-year-old James Spaulding. Based on this census, there was a solid (although not genealogical) connection between Ella Haley and the Spauldings. Between 1911-12, Ella received several postcards from a “Mont, Dora, and Jim Spaulding” from various places — Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; and Norton, Virginia. In light of the 1910 census, which gave Mont’s occupation as that of a traveling musician while listing him with two children named Dora and James, it seemed obvious that Ella knew Mont from her early years. Mont was gone from Martin County in 1920.
In Search of Ed Haley 253
01 Saturday Mar 2014
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Ed Haley, Music
Tags
Ben Adams, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Cas Baisden, Clyde Haley, crime, Dingess, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ewell Mullins, genealogy, Greasy George Adams, Harriet Baisden, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Baisden, John Frock Adams, Johnny Hager, Maggie Mullins, murder, music, Peter Mullins, Ticky George Adams, Weddie Mullins, West Virginia, writing
One fall day, Brandon and Billy drove to see 80-something-year-old Cas Baisden, a son of Jeff and Harriet (Jonas) Baisden. Cas lived on a farm near the mouth of Smoke House with a relative of Uncle Peter Mullins. He had been mostly raised by Uncle Peter and had vivid memories of watching Ed Haley play in his yard, as well as in the house. He said Ed didn’t usually have a very big crowd around him. “People didn’t care a bit, even though he was about as good as they was,” Cas said. He said Ed and his wife could play anything. “He was real skinny and would drink anything he could get his hands on.” He added that Ed knew all the roads and trails up around the creek and could walk them as well as a sighted person.
Ed’s uncle Weddie Mullins married Cas’ aunt, Maggie Jonas. Cas said Weddie went to Dingess to get some booze one time and was killed in a shooting scrape. The man who shot him was laid up in bed when Weddie’s half-brother John Adams came in and asked, “Do you think he’ll make it?” Someone said he might live so Adams pulled out his gun and said, “I know he won’t,” and opened fire on him. Later, in unrelated events, Adams “blew his wife’s head off.”
Cas said Ed’s uncle Ticky George Adams was harmless. He was a small man, short and chubby, who dug ginseng a lot on Big Creek. George was a brother-in-law to Ed’s friend Johnny Hager, who came from the North Fork of Big Creek and stayed a lot with Ewell Mullins and others around Harts. Johnny was a good fellow, a musician and a non-drinker.
Cas knew that Ed sold his homeplace on Trace to Uncle Peter’s son, Ewell Mullins. It was a plank building with two long rooms. In the rear of the eating room there was a flat-rock chimney with a long fireplace. The other room was used for sleeping. Later, an old store building was pushed up against the sleeping room to make a kitchen. The house had no porch.
Cas said Ed’s son Clyde Haley was “like a monkey” when it came to climbing trees; one time, he climbed 40 feet up into a tree and all the other kids ran away because they didn’t want to see him fall.
Cas remembered sketches about Ben Adams but didn’t know if he had been involved in the 1889 feud. At one time, he operated a store on main Harts Creek below the mouth of Smoke House. Across the creek, he had a saloon made entirely of rock. Later, he lived on Trace. Cas said part of his old mill-dam could be seen in the creek at the Greasy George Adams place.
In Search of Ed Haley 252
28 Friday Feb 2014
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Chapmanville, Ed Haley, Music
Tags
Anna Adams, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Chapmanville, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddling, Gaynelle Thompson, history, Imogene Haley, John Adams, Kiahs Creek, Little Harts Creek, Logan County, Milt Haley, Mona Haley, music, Roxie Mullins, Ticky George Adams, Wayne County, West Virginia, writing
In Chapmanville, Brandon and Billy dropped in on Gaynelle (Adams) Thompson, a granddaughter of Ticky George Adams who spent a lot of time with Aunt Roxie Mullins during her “last days.” Gaynelle said Ed Haley’s mother never remarried after Milt’s death and died prematurely when Ed was eight to ten years old. She said Ed used to visit her parents, John and Anna Adams, on Trace Fork during the summers in the ’30s and ’40s. “Everybody in the country thought they was nothing like him,” she said. Gaynelle heard that Ed was a drinker and could get rough but said he was well mannered at the Adams home. He never cursed or drank and talked mostly to Gaynelle’s mother. He came with his daughter and wife and stopped visiting when he became too sick to travel just a few years before his death. In earlier years, he played on Kiah’s Creek and Little Harts Creek near the Wayne County line.
In Search of Ed Haley 246
20 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud
Tags
Alvie Thompson, Ben Adams, Brady Thompson, Brandon Kirk, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ewell Mullins, George Baisden, Gladys Williamson, Greasy George Adams, Guyandotte Voice, Harve Adams, Herbert Thompson, history, Horsepen Mountain, John Hartford, Susan Adams, writing
Meanwhile, Brandon was in contact with Brady Thompson of Stafford, Virginia. Brady, a grandson of Ben Adams, had also seen the Guyandotte Voice newspaper article. He was sure that his grandpa Ben hired Milt and Green to ambush Al Brumfield because his grandmother — Ben’s last wife — had told him so. They shot at Brumfield but accidentally shot his wife, who rode behind him on a mule. They were eventually captured and chopped to death with axes near the mouth of Harts Creek.
It was in the years after the feud that Ben married Brady’s grandmother.
“My grandmother was an Indian,” Brady said. “Some way she said he took them away from some Indians on Horsepen Mountain and brought them over there when she was about fifteen and when she got about eighteen or nineteen year old he married her. His wife had died. He musta been married three or four times ’cause he musta had 25 or 30 kids.”
Brady didn’t seem to think much of his Grandpa Ben, who taught his sons to be “no good.”
“All they ever done is set around and figure out how to get a big war started between the families,” he said. “They’d kill one another.”
Brady said his Grandpa Ben died at his home on main Harts Creek in 1910 and “was buried up there on Trace.”
Brandon asked if there were any pictures of Adams and he said, “I believe old Harve Adams up on Trace before he died, he had Ben’s picture.”
I gave Brady a call to ask him about Ed and he said, “I was about six or eight years old when I seen Ed Haley. They come to my father’s place, my Uncle George’s place. The kids had brought Ed and his wife in that evening on two mules. A bunch of us kids all slept on the floor and they all drunk and played music all night long. I waked up early that morning — a big frost on — and they was still playing music. I thought that was the best music though I ever heard.”
Ed played a lot with Brady’s banjo-picking uncle George Baisden and occasionally at Ewell Mullins’ store on Trace.
Back in Harts, Brandon and Billy drove up Hoover Fork to see Brady’s younger brother, Alvie Thompson. Alvie was a very dedicated Mormon who’d just moved back to Harts Creek from out West.
“Grandpa Ben Adams was a big, tall ruffian — a rough villain,” Alvie said. “He’d beat his wife with a switch when she’d run off.” Ben lived in the head of Trace and operated a dam on Harts Creek.
Alvie remembered Ed Haley as a short, heavy-set man who visited his Uncle George Baisden as late as 1949-50. Gladys Williamson, Alvie’s 78-year-old sister, said Ed brought two of his sons there and he and Uncle George played music out on the porch or under walnut trees near the barn. Alvie’s father Herbert Thompson sometimes joined in with his banjo as did Ella, who played the guitar and banjo. Alvie recalled Ed playing standard tunes like “Arkansas Traveler”, “Sourwood Mountain” and “Sally Goodin”.
In Search of Ed Haley 240
12 Wednesday Feb 2014
Tags
Cincinnati, Doc White, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Duty, Laury Hicks, music, Ugee Postalwait, West Virginia, writing
A few days later, I called Ugee Postalwait with a whole bunch of questions, mostly related to my recent trip to Harts. I asked her if Laury Hicks ever went to Harts Creek with Ed.
“Oh, yeah,” she said immediately. “All through them places. Dad had a car and he had a driver, and they’d go a lot of places. Anybody was willing to take Dad any place.”
“Did Doc White ever take them anywhere?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Ugee said. “They’ve all run around together. He was a photographer, he could make teeth, he was a doctor, he was everything — and he learned it all in the penitentiary. He was a mid-wife. He could do anything. Played the fiddle. He was crazy about the railroad. He had a railroad steam engine and all that stuff back of his house. He was a smart man. Even my dad doctored with him.”
Ugee remembered Ed playing a tune called “Getting off the Raft” and figured her father also played it.
“I don’t remember Dad ever playing it but if Ed played it he played it, too,” she said. “Whatever one played, the other’n played. They was just that close together, John. They was just that way.”
I asked if Laury ever talked about a fiddler named Jeff Duty and she said, “Yeah, he talked about a fiddler by that name.”
What about Cain Adkins?
“Adkins. That sounds right.”
“Ought to be some people in Cincinnati to know Ed Haley real well,” Ugee said, kind of changing the direction of our conversation. “Him and Ella went down there and played music a lot. They made some money there. Whenever they’d get close and need some money they would go to Cincinnati and stay maybe for three or four days.”
In Search of Ed Haley 226
16 Thursday Jan 2014
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley
Tags
Alice Dingess, Andy Thompson, Bill Brumfield, Billy Adkins, blind, Bob Dingess, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ferrellsburg, fiddling, Harts, Harts Creek, history, John Hartford, Wash Farley, writing
Billy recommended that we visit Bob Dingess, a man of advanced age who was related to and personally remembered almost everyone in Ed’s story. His father was Dave Dingess, a younger brother to Hollena Brumfield, while his mother was a daughter to Anthony Adams. His first wife was a daughter to Charley Brumfield, while his current wife was Robert Martin’s niece. Bob was a close cousin to Bob Adkins and Joe Adams, as well as many of the Brumfields. He was a fine old man — a retired schoolteacher and elementary principal — who could probably tell us more about Harts Creek history than any one alive.
We drove to Bob’s small white house, which sat just below the mouth of Smoke House on Big Harts Creek, and knocked at his back door, where a nurse met us. She knew Billy and invited us inside, through the kitchen and into a dark stuffy living room. There, we met Bob and his wife. Bob was bundled up in a light black jacket, oblivious to the enormous August heat. A somewhat tall man, he had an alertness to his movements that was surprising and enviable. He was very friendly. We all sat down on couches to talk about Ed Haley. I was sure that Bob’s heater was running; in no time at all, my sinuses were ready to explode.
When Billy told him that we were interested in finding out about Ed Haley, he said, “You have to give me a little time on this. My memory jumps on me. I’m no spring chicken and I have to think.”
But it was obvious that his mind was sharp as a tack when he started telling about his memories of Ed.
“Now Ed Haley, he left here after so long,” Bob said. “He went to Kentucky and he married there. He had a blind woman and she played the mandolin and he played the violin and they had a lot of the meanest boys you ever saw. I first saw him in 1918, during the First World War. Well on Saturday I’d go to Ferrellsburg to haul groceries. That’s the only way to get them. No bridge at Hart. And bless your heart, here that man and them four children come off’n that train, and that old woman, and I got a wagon load of groceries and set them on it and them boys fought and that old man he just slapped and knocked and kicked among them. And the old man, he wouldn’t tell them nothing — he was blind — and she couldn’t tell them nothing, either. And I finally got them up here at the house, and when I got them there Mom made me unload the wagon and says, ‘Get ’em away from here.’ And we took them up yonder to old man John Adams’ then, and let them go. They stayed a month up there.”
I asked how Ed dressed.
“Well, he was all right now, boys,” Bob said. “Don’t worry about him. He took care of everything. He’d laugh and talk, too. You’d think he could see. After you’d get him located and get him in the house, you know, he could get up and walk about through the house.”
Bob didn’t think Ed was the best fiddler he ever heard.
“Nah,” he said. “He couldn’t play this fancy music like Bill Monroe and them played. The old-time fiddle, he was good…old-time music. ‘Comin’ Around the Mountain’. He had a dozen songs.”
Bob said Ed used to play at the old pie suppers on Harts Creek.
“See, I was born in ’04, and I went to these frolics where they had pie suppers and socials and all these gals gathered and these men,” he said. “About every weekend the girls’d go to one home and they’d kill chickens and bake cakes and bake pies and everything and they’d auctioneer them off. If you had a pretty girl, buddy you’d better have a little pocketbook because somebody’s gonna eat with her and knock you out. Mother always give me a little money and I’d just pick me out one and get her. Yeah, planned all week, the girls would. We did that once a week unless they was some special occasion. We’d start at Bill Brumfield’s down yonder. From Bill’s, we’d come to Andy Thompson’s, come from Andy Thompson we went to Rockhouse to Uncle Wash Farley’s. Uncle Sol over here, he wouldn’t let them have it but just once in a while. Mom would let them have it about every three or four months up here. But on up the hollow up yonder it was a regular thing. Them days is gone, though. You couldn’t have that now. No fighting, no quarreling, everybody got along happy.”
I wanted to know more about Ed.
“Ed Haley, here’s what they’d do,” Bob said. “They’d put him and her on a mule and he’d be in front and she’d ride astraddle behind and hold him. And somebody else’d have to carry their musical instruments, see? And when they got them up there then they had to lead them and get them in the house and get them located. And somebody’d slip around and give him a big shot of liquor and her and they’d say, ‘All right, old-man, let ‘er go.’ ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’, boy here she’d go. He’d sing it. He was a good singer. And his old woman, she didn’t look like she was very much, but she was a singer. She was a little woman, blind. But she’d sing right with him. Yeah, ‘Turkey in the Straw’. Ah, that ‘Grapevine twist,’ man, ‘circle eight and all get straight.’ Ah man, them girls had them old rubber-heeled shoes and they’d pop that floor. It was an all-night affair. He’d play a while, then he’d rest a while, then he’d start again. Along about midnight, they’d drink that liquor in them half a gallon jugs. You know, I was a boy and I wasn’t allowed to drink too much but now them old-timers they would drink that liquor. ‘Bout one o’clock, she’d start again, and when the chickens was a crowing and daylight was coming still they were on the floor. They would lay all day and sleep.”
In Search of Ed Haley
20 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Ed Haley, Ella Haley, genealogy, history, Ironton, Kentucky, life, Mona Haley, Ohio, photos
Mona Haley Mullins-Hager, daughter of Ed Haley.
In Search of Ed Haley 202
20 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Ashland, blind, Catlettsburg, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddling, Green McCoy, history, Mona Haley, music, Pat Haley, Ralph Haley, Wicks Music Store
A few days later, Pat Haley called me from Ashland with news that Mona was visiting. This was a new development: Pat and Mona were apparently patching up some of their differences. Pat knew I would want to speak with Mona and, in spite of whatever hard feelings existed between them, she was willing to give me access to her.
When Mona took the telephone, I told her about getting the new copies of Ed’s recordings. She immediately began to talk about her father making them.
“I was only about fourteen, fifteen,” she said. “I didn’t pay much attention. My oldest brother made the records, him and his wife.”
The whole thing took place around the dining room table.
“You know, they were made on plastic,” Mona said. “And they would brush the plastic strips away as the thing would cut the records. It was kinda tedious, I do remember that.”
Mona said Ed sat about three feet across the table from the recording machine, while Ella was a little closer.
“It shows in the records, don’t it?” she said. I didn’t want to say anything but I totally agreed.
She remembered that Ed listened to each record after it was made and liked what he heard.
“He was talking mostly to my oldest brother,” she said.
I had other questions for Mona, mostly dealing with her general childhood memories. I asked, “Do you remember the house being dark when you were growing up, because obviously they didn’t have any need for light.”
“We had gas lights at home, and after that we had electric,” she said. “Not overly dark, no. We had plenty of light. Always except bedtime, and then my mother would get her big New York Point books out and read to us in the dark.”
“Could your dad see any light at all?” I asked.
“No,” Mona said. “They were both completely blind. My mother said the only thing she remembered was daylight. And I don’t know how old she was when she went blind, but it was infancy, toddler, something like that.”
Mona seemed to be in a particularly talkative mood, so I pressed her for clues about Ed’s music. I asked her how her father’s eyes appeared when he played and she said, “He looked straight out. He never slouched unless he was drinking and then he put one leg behind him and one in front of him.”
Mona said Ed was not a short bow fiddler.
“Long bow, except where it was needed. But he always played that bow to the end,” she insisted.
She didn’t remember her father “rotating” the fiddle at all, although Lawrence Haley (and others) had sure made a big deal out of it. She said Pop always rosined his bow up “real good” before playing but never had any caked on the fiddle. She thought he used Diamond steel strings, which he bought in a local music store named Wicks. He patted his foot in what I call two-four-time when fiddling but “it didn’t override the music.”
I asked Mona if Ed was a loud fiddler and she said, “Oh, yes. You know his voice was strong, too. I’ve been around places with Pop and Mom and people would hear him from far off and come to him. You know, like in the workplace. He always had a crowd around him — always. Always when he played on the street or at the court house square or when he played at the Catlettsburg Stock Market.”
I asked if she remembered Ed playing on trains and she said, “Yes, we’d get in the backseat longways the width of the train and he’d play.” People sometimes gave him money but he mainly played for himself. “Just to pass time,” Mona said.
I was very curious about Ed’s mode of travel, especially considering his blindness and the great distance of ground he covered in his lifetime. I asked Mona if her father hitchhiked a lot and she said, “I don’t think he did. I think he walked more than he hitchhiked.”
Did he sing or whistle while he walked?
“No,” she said. “My mother did that for our benefit, you know. To pacify us, I guess.”
Mona said Ed loved playing for dances because he “enjoyed hearing people dance” and preferred it to the street “a hundred percent.”
I told her that someone said Ella didn’t care a whole lot for playing on the street and she said, “I never heard Mom complain about nothing except Pop drinking.”
I wondered if Ed drank on general principles.
“Whenever he felt like it,” she said. “Whenever somebody brought him something and asked him to take a drink, he would. And there’s times he has gone out and got it, too. Aw he’d cuss real bad. He’d say, ‘god almighty goddamn,’ like he was disgusted with the whole world. We lived down on Greenup Avenue between Greenup and Front and trains went by. His bedroom was in the front, and he cussed one time. I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘Them god almighty goddamn trains just act like they put their damn whistles in the window and blow.'”
I said, “Let me ask you this. In their relationship, was your mother or your father the dominant one, would you say?”
Mona surprised me a little bit when she said, “I’d say my mother was the dominant one until Pop was drinking.”
Ella was also the disciplinarian.
“Mom, she’d pinch a piece out of you, buddy,” Mona said. “She wouldn’t make a scene in a store or anything but she’d just grab you and pinch you and say, ‘Quieten down.’ She did it to me.”
Just before I hung up with Mona, I told her some of the things I’d found out about Ed’s genealogy on my recent trip to Harts. She listened quietly, then said, “Well see, the story I got was that Green McCoy shot this lady. And that’s the story that Pop told me, that I understood. Now, it may be wrong. My memory might be wrong or maybe I didn’t want to believe it the other way.”
In Search of Ed Haley 171
18 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Appalachia, Ashland, blind, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, genealogy, history, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, life, Mona Haley, Pat Haley, writing
“So when Larry and I got there, my mother-in-law, she was the one opened the door. I fell in love with her right away. And I didn’t see Ed until the next day. He was in bed and he was also hard-of-hearing and he didn’t hear us come in. Mom led us inside and, of course, Jack’s wife Patsy had the house very clean.”
One of the first things they did after arriving was eat a meal.
“Mom asked Lawrence, she said, ‘’awrencey boy, are you hungry?’ He said, ‘We’re starving, Mom.’ Well, Mom called upstairs and told Pat and Jack that we was here and they came down and Mom told Patsy we were hungry and Pat said, ‘Well, we don’t have much ready to eat. Would you like sausage and eggs?’ Well, I thought that was fine. But when these little patties came up… There was an oilcloth on the table — everything was clean and nice but the silverware was in a Mason jar in the middle of the table. I was just amazed that nobody set the table like I had been used to. I’d never seen sausage fried black. After dinner, they told us they had the bedroom upstairs fixed up for us. My mother-in-law had bought a new bedspread and new doilies for the dresser and Patsy had bought a lamp and some doilies and a picture for the wall. She’d really tried to fix up the room and make it nice for us. Mom had bought a very nice wardrobe and a dresser. The bed was Mom’s. The other furniture had belonged to Patsy and Jack.”
The next morning, Pat first met Ed.
“He came into the dining room and I was in the dining room, me and Larry. Larry just said, ‘Pop, this is Patricia.’ He just, you know, said, ‘Howdy do.’ And I went up to him to shake his hand. Larry had told me that I would have to go to him. If you looked at Ed Haley, it looked as though he was looking right at you. When I got up to him, Larry put his hand on my head and told him I was as short as Mom. Larry had told me that Pop would put his hands on me and check my head and face and my arms to see what kind of woman I was. He took his fingers — that’s the way he checked your features. And he could tell how you was built. Then he patted me on the shoulder to see what sort of made woman I was. But he had the smoothest hands. They were not a bit rough. Larry took Pop’s hand and put it on my belly and said, ‘See here, Pop.'”
Pat said she met Mona later that day.
“Mona came over the next day after I got here — her and her husband and her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law. Sometime after that, Mona came over and was playing a mandolin and her and Mom was playing. Mom played me some English tunes. And I don’t know how come they played but they got Pop to play a tune or two and he wouldn’t play much because he had whittled on his fingers and made them raw. He always loved my salmon. Course he called them salmon cakes. I call them croquettes.”
In Search of Ed Haley 170
16 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Ashland, blind, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Farmers, immigration, Jim Brown, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, Morehead, Pat Haley, writing
Early in March 1995, I fired up the Cadillac and drove the familiar road toward Ashland, Kentucky. After several hours of travel, I entered Rowan County — the place of Ella’s birth — and took the Farmers exit off of I-64. I wanted to get a closer look at Farmers, it being a place where Ella had lived, where Ralph was supposedly conceived, and where Lawrence remembered Ed playing for a dance. At one time, Farmers was the county’s largest town with 1,000 people. At the time of my visit, it was a small settlement, easily eclipsed by nearby Morehead.
A little later, I made my way into Morehead, a small college town with a curvy downtown business district and with most of its historical buildings torn down. It was somewhat disappointing. Triplett Creek, the Trumbo section of town, was dull and uninspiring. Small modern apartments replaced Ella’s old home place. Scenes of the Martin-Tolliver feud were long gone, removed to make way for a new road. At the college library, I found some interesting local history but nothing really pertaining to Ed and Ella’s story.
That evening, I arrived at Pat Haley’s home in Ashland. Pat was really down about Lawrence’s death and the progression of her daughter’s cancer. It was sad to be there – especially in the kitchen where Lawrence and I had spent so much time hashing out Ed’s music. Pat’s grandchildren were around frequently – especially David’s three daughters – but there was a great void in the house. I imagine it was a hundred-fold for Pat.
“We met August 14th, 1948, and he came back to America on November 5th,” she said of Lawrence. “We wrote to each other and I never saw him again until he came back to England and we met on Valentine’s Day, 1949. We married ten days later. I was almost eighteen. He was 21. I was staying with my sister in Hertfordshire, which is just on the outskirts of London. Larry came back to America in May, when he got out of the service. That’s when he told his mother he was married. Although she was writing to me, she didn’t know we were married. And she told him, ‘I suppose there’s a baby on the way.’ And he told her yes.
“I left England September 28th, 1949 on a Danish ship with a Polish crew. I was seven and a half months pregnant. It was a terrible experience. I went into false labor on the way over. The doctor was Polish and I never did understand a word the man said except ‘Haley.’ Had Beverly been born on that ship she could have claimed nationality to any country because we were in international waters. I got in this country on October 6th after eight days of choppy water. Larry met me in New York. We come past Staten Island and Ellis Island. I couldn’t see Larry on the dock but bless his heart he didn’t know he had to get a docking pass. He was stuck up at the barrier and here were all these people getting off the ship. And there was Larry in civilian clothes. It was the first time I’d seen Larry in civilian clothes. And one of the immigration officers said, ‘Why, he’s just a little boy.’
“We spent ten days in New York. Part of my luggage was lost and we were having some problem with some papers Larry should have gotten done. I didn’t know his parents were blind until we were in New York. I asked Larry what his mother thought of the pictures that he had given her of him and I, and he said, ‘She hasn’t seen them.’ And I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘She can’t see them. She’s blind.’ And I said, ‘Well, what did your dad think of them?’ And he said, ‘He’s blind, too.’
“We stayed in New York till October 16th. Just before we left, we had enough to buy a Spam sandwich and two apples in the bus station. He gave me the sandwich. It took us 24 hours to get from New York to Ashland. I got deathly sick on that bus ride. It was twist and turn over those mountains. It was about midnight when we got into Ashland and we had three cents in our pocket. Jack thought we would be there in the afternoon so he and Jim Brown had gone to the bus station and looked for us. They were drinking. Well, when we didn’t show up — I think it was between six and eight o’clock — they went back to the house. The bus station was located at 13th Street between Winchester and Carter Avenue. His parents lived at 1040 Greenup Avenue. So we walked and carried our suitcases and I had high heels on. We walked about six blocks — three down and three across.”
In Search of Ed Haley 168
08 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Allie Trumbo, Cincinnati, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Harts Creek, history, Imogene Haley, Liza Mullins, Mona Haley, Patsy Haley, Ralph Haley, West Virginia, writing
After getting familiar with the postcards, I called Patsy Haley to see if she could tell me any more about Ella’s young life with Ralph.
“Ralph was about five years old when Mom married Ed Haley,” Patsy said. “Ralph is not by Ed Haley. I figure that Mom and Pop must’ve got married about the end of the teens.”
I asked Patsy if Ed was very close to Allie Trumbo, who often wrote to Ella in her younger days.
“They weren’t really close or anything like that,” she said. “My husband and I moved to Cincinnati and that’s when I got acquainted with Allie and his wife. In fact, we lived right across the street from them. They really didn’t talk too much. Allie used to tell me about their father Mr. Trumbo auctioning off land and selling it for a dollar ’cause he owned quite a bit of land by that college. I think Mom had a falling out with him. Mom used to go and stay with them, like on weekends, when she’d go to Cincinnati to work. Allie had called her ‘Penny Ella’ ’cause when she paid them for staying with them she always paid them with change ’cause that’s what Mom got from selling her newspapers.”
Was Allie a musician?
“No, not that I know of,” Patsy said. “He was a fine pool player.”
Patsy didn’t remember Ralph making the records.
“No, that was just before I come in the family,” she said. “I don’t think he did any more recordings after I came into the family. You know, Mom had divorced when I come in the family and they never got remarried. But he lived in the house because the kids wanted him there. Now I can remember when I first came in the family and Mona and I talked, she was quite afraid of her father when she was a little girl because I guess he must’ve been mean. And he musta been abusive and mean to Mom or she wouldn’t a divorced him. But he was a sweet old guy when I knew him. I never ever saw Pop drunk or drinking. But I do remember one time — it was at the holidays — and Noah took his father and went up to Ferguson’s I believe for Pop to play music for them. Well, he kept them out all night ’cause I guess he got pretty loaded. But I never ever saw Pop drink. Now Pat said she had, but I never had.”
I updated Patsy on some of the things I’d found out about Ed’s past on Harts Creek and asked if she knew anything about his mother.
“He really didn’t talk about her too much,” she said. “Only thing that I understood — and he didn’t tell me this — Mom told me — that she was killed when the father was killed. There was never no bad feelings about his parents, either one.”
Patsy said she learned more about Ed’s parents on a trip to Harts in 1947.
“We went up to Harts Creek because Pop had gone up there and we went to get him back,” she said. “That was the first time I met Aunt Liza.”
Aunt Liza said Milt came from “the other side of the mountain,” and that he and his wife were buried up behind their old log cabin on Trace Fork.
“I can remember Aunt Liza pointing to where they were buried,” she said. “When she pointed up, she pointed over towards where the log cabin was.”
In Search of Ed Haley 167
07 Saturday Sep 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Allie Trumbo, Ashland, Cincinnati, Clyde Haley, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Jack Haley, James Brown, Kentucky, Margaret Arms, Ohio, Ralph Haley, Texas Anna Trumbo
On April 10, 1916, a postcard referenced Ralph for the first time. “Florence,” of Portsmouth, wrote to Ella, who had settled at 630 Curtis Avenue in Middletown, Ohio.
“Dear Friend,” she wrote. “I got your card. Was glad to hear from you. Kiss Ralph a dozen kisses for me. Ruth gave me Ralph’s picture and is awful sweet. Tell Mrs. Trumbo I said Hello. How do you like Middletown? Let me know how you and Ralph are.”
Ella was still in Middletown in December of 1916.
By November of 1917, Ella had settled at 913 10th Street in Portsmouth, Ohio. Today, this address (just around the corner from her former Portsmouth location) is an empty lot situated in a bad section of town. Ella’s brother Luther lived nearby on Gay Street, while brother Allie was away in the Army.
“Hello Sister,” Allie wrote. “I am now on my way to the training camp. Will arrive there Some time tomorrow. It is at San Antonio Texas Camp Travis.”
On January 10, 1918, “Miss Ella Trumbo” was living in Ashland, Kentucky. She remained unmarried, based on the usage of her maiden name in the postcard.
The next postcard is dated in the early 1930s. By this time, she had married Ed Haley.
On April 17, 1934, Ralph sent Ella a postcard from Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was addressed to “Mrs. J.E. Haley” at 1030 45th Street in Ashland.
“Having a fine time, leaving for Cal. Thursday,” Ralph wrote. “Wish you could go. Tell Allie, Jane, and the children hello.”
In another card from Ralph and postmarked from Fort Knox (April 19, 1934), he wrote: “Dear Mother. Rec. your letter yesterday. Glad to hear from U. I am leaving today for San Diego Cal. down on the mexican border. Am saving stamped envelope to write to U while on the train. do not try to answer till I send address. Your affecionate Son, Ralph.”
In May of 1934, there was a card from a sister in Cincinnati, Ohio (probably Sissy), which read, “Will be at your house a Bout noon Saturday. Will stay all night at Margaret’s. we will Leve circa in the morning.”
In April 1941, Clyde sent several postcards to the family at 337 37th Street from Washington, D.C. His message for “Monnie & Lawrence Haley” was: “Hello Kids! How is school now-a-days? Fine, I hope. Wish I could see you. I’ll be seeing you. Write soon.” To Jack: “How are you? Fine, I hope. I know I am. Wish you were here. It’s a great place.” To “Mrs. J.E. Haley”: “Am getting along Fine. Hope you’re O.K. Am Sight seeing in the mountains along Skyline Drive. Your affectionate Son.”
In May, Jack received this odd note from Louisville, Kentucky: “I thought may be I would write you a few lines to let you know I got in Louisville okay. Well Jack how are you getting along. Fine I hope. Jack how is the girls out in South Ashland getting along? Well you be a good boy honey and daddy will bring you a candy sucker. Well Jack I will have to close for now. It’s getting late. Jack it is Tuesday night. I am in Bed writing this card. Love James Brown.”
Clyde sent another card home from Cincinnati, Ohio, postmarked February 16, 1943: “Dear Mom: We are all well and hope you are the same. As soon as you send me my Birth Certificate I go to work. Get it tomorrow and send it. SALARY $33.50 a week. Go down town and get it and send it soon as possible.”
There was one final card dated April of 1943 from “Pvt. Ralph A. Payne” at Camp Crowder, Missouri. The Haley family was still at 337 37th Street.
In Search of Ed Haley 166
06 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Allie Trumbo, Ella Haley, Florida, history, Kentucky, life, Luther Trumbo, Mont Spaulding, Morehead, Ohio, Plant City, Portsmouth, writing
Ella was in Morehead as late as June 1911, where she received a card from “C.E.G.” reading, “I am living high. I go riding every day with my friend, Mrs. Mell Washington.”
Later in the fall of 1911, Ella was once again at 115 Woodland Avenue in Lexington, Kentucky. While there, one card was sent to her reading, “Well Ella, I got your card. Was glad to hear you Was all Well. Luther is Still here. Will Stay till you come home.”
Ella was back in Morehead by July 1912, where she received a card from Mont and Jim Spaulding postmarked in Richmond, Virginia. I wondered, was this the Mont Spaulding who was blind and played the fiddle around Kermit, West Virginia? In September, Mont and Dora Spaulding wrote her from Charleston, West Virginia: “hello Ella. Did you get the card I send you from Va?”
“M. Spaulding” wrote to her again in November (although in a totally different handwriting), this time from Norton, Virginia. “It might be possible that my Daughter and I will see you about the last of this month.” The Spauldings apparently made the trip because Dora wrote Ella early in December, again from Charleston: “certainly did enjoy my short stay in your town.”
Ella’s postcards for the first part of 1913 were primarily from her brother Luther and were postmarked from Asheville, Knoxville, and Indianapolis.
In May, some friends sent her a postcard that read: “We would like very much for you to come up Sat. night and play for us. Come to stay all night if you can. Let us know if you will come.” At that time, Ella’s address was Clearfield, Kentucky, but she was in Morehead briefly the next month.
In September, she was in Farmers, Kentucky — her location when she became pregnant with Ralph. While in Farmers, she received a card from “Sissie” postmarked in Hitchins, Kentucky, reading “I am so Lonesome.”
In May of 1914, Allie and Texana wrote her in care of C.D. Davis.
“We are keeping house here in West Morehead and want you to come up and See us at once So Bring your Harp and harp rack with you So we can have some music So let us know When you are coming and we will meet you.”
In August 1914 Allie wrote to her in care of R.A. Thomas from Loveland, Kentucky.
“Well, Ella, I am thinking about getting married Sometime. I think I will and then I change my mind.”
In the next several months, Ella moved from Farmers to 1124 Gay Street in Portsmouth, Ohio. At that location, which is now a DMV parking lot, she received frequent postcards from a mysterious “R.B.” in Plant City, Florida. Only two of the cards were postmarked. In June of 1915, R.B. wrote: “Well, the Sun is Getting hot as H. Down hear.” In August: “I am at Cincinnati to Night But Don’t know whear I will Be to morrow.”
None of the remaining cards from R.B. are postmarked, making it impossible to arrange them chronologically. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
“My Dear friend. You Do Eny Thing with The money you want to. I will Try and Send you Some more wedensday if nothing happens. Don’t forget your Florida friend.”
“This is Tuesday Eve, and no Letter yet. Don’t no what to think if you are mad Rite and tell me what you got mad about. I am going to Kentucky next week.”
“Dear friend, I am Disipointed this Evening By Not getting a Letter. Hoping you haven’t Forgotten me.”
“I will Rite you a few Lines as I promest you. I guess you wish I wood quit Riting So much. Yes, Ella I wood Bee more Then Pleased to get That Picture we was talking about. I am Sorrow you are not well. Say Ella if you can Rite to me three times a week as I am So Lonesom hear. you have no Idea what I have to put up with.”
“I am going to do the Best I can till I can get away But what Ever you Do Don’t change Bording houses. Now you may think I am crazy But I no what I am talking about. I will Rite a Point Letter the first chance I have hoping to hear from you again Soon.”
“Yes Ella I guess you are tard of hearing that word Some Day But Don’t get worried I am going to Do the Best I can.”
“I am so Proud you think of me as often as you Do for I am so Lonesom hear.”
“I think you ort to Rite oftener Then you Do. Please tell me why you Don’t. I am worrying my Life away Faster Then Eny one on Earth. So Rite and cheer me up all you can.”
“This Leaves me feeling Bad This Evening. I was Expectin a Letter But got Disipointed. I will Start you That money Saturday if Nothing happens.”
“Why Don’t you Rite oftener. this is Tuesday Evening and I haven’t had a Letter since Saturday. I guess you are about to Forget me.”
“Some one Swears Thay are going Back to Ky. and I wood Be glad to get Rid of Them So keep quite.”
“Yes, Ella I am going to come Back Soon. I want to get a way From hear By the 20th of July if I can. Ella I can’t tell you wheather or not Maudie and Vada Noes eny thing about what. Guess at the Rest.”
“Say Ella the theater is Right By the Post office hear and the Piano is Playing Silver threads among the Gold. you can guess how I feal. I get so nervous Some times I can’t hardly Liv.”
In Search of Ed Haley 165
05 Thursday Sep 2013
Posted in Ed Haley
Tags
Allie Trumbo, Ella Haley, genealogy, history, Kentucky, Kentucky School for the Blind, life, Lula Lee, Luther Trumbo, Morehead, S.H. Childers, U.S. South, writing
When I got back in Nashville, I arranged all of Ella’s postcards into chronological order in the hopes of discovering some new revelation. Most of the cards were dated between 1908-1918, the years immediately prior to her marriage to Ed. Individually they carried only short messages from family and friends, but together they formed an interesting story line detailing events from Ella’s “single years.”
Ella was at the Kentucky School for the Blind in Louisville throughout the first part of 1908. She returned home to Morehead during her summer break, where friends wrote her fondly from Louisville, Nashville, Richmond, and Paducah. There was one card from “Bridget” – probably the same one that Lawrence remembered his mother visiting in Mt. Healthy, Ohio.
“Suppose you think I have forgotten you but think of you every day,” the card read. “Company season has started in and we are having plenty of visitors. Wish you were one. Your cousin Lula is expecting to go West for her health. She was much grieved to hear of the death of Aunt Henrette. Answer soon with love.”
In June of 1909, Ella received a card from “Loula Lee” in Denison, Texas. This was no doubt the same Lula Lee who Lawrence Haley had remembered playing music on the streets of Ashland at the same time as his parents, likely the same person as “cousin Lula” referenced in other cards.
“Hello Ella how are you,” Loula wrote. “all wright I hope. Got out here all right and I like Very Well. It is hot as Summer out here.”
There was also a card from Nellie Motts in South Portsmouth, Ohio.
“I rec’d your card a few days ago and was very glad to hear from you. I am having a delightful vacation. How did you enjoy the Fourth?”
Then this from “Mabel” in Mississippi: “I am away down in the Sunny South. Awful warm weather. I will be glad to get back to Kentucky.”
Ella was back in Louisville that fall where her brother Allie Trumbo sent several cards to her.
“Luther is at home now,” one read. “Please write within 23 hours this time.”
Luther was Ella’s other brother and a future soldier in World War I.
“Hello Allie,” she responded. “It seems as though you keep the road hot sending cards. Now I have written within 23 hours. What more do you bid me to do? The girls are waiting on you.”
Allie wrote back: “how is everything. We had a little rain last week. Please write within 22 hrs. I just got your letter out of the office and will write to you soon.”
“Thank you for the pretty card,” someone wrote from Providence, Rhode Island. “Am glad you are having a pleasant year. Be sure and do good work.”
More from Allie: “I couldn’t make out all of your card but I enjoy it very much. I will send you some cards of our town which will show the bridge and george’s house and part of grandmaw’s.”
“how are you?” one from someone named Cora in Morehead read. “We have biscuits this morning for breakfast and I am going to have fried potatoes for dinner and when I got your card last night we had beef steak.”
“You have been sending me the ugliest cards you can find,” Allie writes. “Try and do better. The creek was Higher than it ever was before Tuesday night.”
In November 1909, there was a “Forget-Me-Not” card from S.H. Childers postmarked in Hellier, Kentucky.
“I do insist on you sending me one of those pictures,” Childers wrote. “Never mind what it looks like.”
There were more from Childers, often signed, “Your lonely friend,” with passages reading, “I am not quite well now. Haven’t don any thing for two weeks. They tell me I am love sick but I don’t think that’s it.”
Bridget sent a Christmas card, signing her last name as Welsh, while another friend, “Flossie,” wrote a few months later.
“You may think I have forgotten you but indeed I have not,” she wrote. “Hope you are having a good time playing in the snow.”
In May 1910, Allie wrote from Portsmouth, Ohio.
“I came from Ashland on this Boat. We got here all O.K. and have got a job. Go to work Tuesday. I like to stay here.”
For the next several weeks, Ella received mail at 115 Woodland Avenue in Lexington, Kentucky. By June of 1910, she was back in Morehead. A card was sent there to “Miss Bridget Welsh & Miss Ella Trumbo” from Miss Henderson in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In July, there was another card reading, “Know you and Bridget are enjoying each others company.”
Late in August 1910 there was a card from “Aunt Anna” to Ella and Bridget: “arrived here all right. Am well and having a fine time. hope you are both enjoying good health.”
On September 7, “Oma” wrote: “Received your pretty card. I guess you will sure hate to see Bridget leave.”
Later in September was a card sent “With Fond Love” and stamped with a fanciful signature from S.H. Childress at the Sunset Ranch in Rhine, Washington.
“I have at last made up my mind to vacate Ky. and have done so. Will write you all a bout my future home when I get my slate.”
It seemed clear that this “S.H. Childress” was the same “S.H. Childers” who’d written Ella the previous fall. He wrote again in December.
“I believe is your first Xmas at home and I trust it will be the happiest you have ever spent.”
Brandon Ray Kirk 