A Case for a Stubborn Heart

It all began on a balmy Saturday evening on May 14, 1921, a sunny spring day in the beautiful hills of North Central West Virginia.  World War I was a recent memory and the decade of the Roaring Twenties was just in its infancy.  The thirty-eight year old raw-boned wife of a poor coal miner lay on her birthing bed in the living room of their three-room board and batten house.  She was a rugged individual of Irish and German stock and was used to the conditions into which fate had placed her.  The process of giving birth to a baby was not a new thing to her.  She had gone through the procedure seven times before, all having taken place in the home  So with Dr. Strother and my Aunt Rhoda Shockey in command of the situation, I was born at seven o’clock that evening.  Dr. Strother smacked me a couple of times on my behind, put some silver nitrate in my eyes and left the scene in charge of Aunt Rhoda.

Thus begins an almost life-long struggle of a poor country boy to get an education and keep from doing what his friends were doing, going to work at an early age in the coal mines.  Along the way there were many hard times and at times, it seemed that the battle was lost.  With a stubborn heart the country boy always pulled himself up by the bootstraps and doggedly marched on toward his goal.  It took him many years of hardship, but there were good times along the way, also.  His lovely wife, Betty, stood by him in struggles, and even went to work to support him while he was in college.  She willingly shared all the hard times and encouraged the author to press on toward the goal.  The author owes her a tremendous debt of gratitude for what she had to put up with through the years.