The Good and the Sad

46°f and mostly clear at 7am, warming to 81. Breezy.

Got this done today:

In this county and state, there were many races where there were no Democrats on the ticket.  When I moved here, this was a strong union, Democratic state, but Ronald Reagan changed that, and now there are only a few pockets of blue in the entire state. So sad that we have little choice in the elections now. Much of my ballot was blank. Still, a vote is a vote, and we did what we could.

At least PT was good. I worked hard on the exercises yesterday, and it paid off in noticeable progress today. I didn't get to walk with the dogs today as after PT we went to Shari's for lunch, then went to vote.  We walked a couple blocks to the courthouse, and I was so pleased that I could walk the distance with no pain. After voting we stopped at the antique mall and straightened things up because we had sold a table. Then home, where I talked on the phone with a dear old friend for over an hour. She called to let me know that another friend from our storytelling days had passed away. I was so sad to hear that. Bizzie Vunderdink (her real name) was a sweet, funny, kind lady.  I searched my blog to find a photo of her, but found only this very blurred image.  I will always remember her joy in life, her humor, and her generosity.

Life is so fickle, isn't it. One leaves, and the rest of us muddle along somehow without them. But the memories remain, and for that I am truly thankful. Rest well, dear Bizzie. You earned it. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Walking the Dog(s)

43°f at 7am, some red in the sunrise but a breezy, pretty day.

Since Saturday I have been going for short --very short--walks, testing out this new knee. So far, so good, even on our gravel driveway. I use my cane of course, as I am not that brave yet! Today I managed 7/10ths of a mile, all the way to the top of our driveway.  Of course, walking might not be the right word, saunter is probably more accurate. But it is lovely to stroll along without pain. While the knee still needs much work re straightening and bending, pain now is mostly limited to exercise and nights. Sleep is better, but still not great.

Of course, I get canine companionship each time I venture out. Not Buddy, poor fellow, because once he gets past the electronic fence, he might not stop running for miles, literally. But Daisy enjoys a nice wander, even at her advanced age (15), 

and Little Boy is up for anything.

The weather has been perfect for walking, and the fall colors continue to make me stop often to try to capture the beauty in photos. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

A Wartime Murder

Another story from my blog archive, this one posted in 2018. It has been fun to go back and re-visit these tales. I hope you enjoy this one.

While working on research for the first ghost walk, I came upon a two-line mention of a young soldier who was killed by the Home Guard in our town and buried in a shallow grave on the banks of Mill Creek.

Mill Creek, near the site of this story

The first year, I worked with that small amount of information to create a very short story that was mostly conjecture. Since then I have researched enough to finally have the whole story, or at least as much of it as has survived in written records or oral transmission. This is the story, as best as I can put it together.

The year was 1862. War between the States was just beginning to move into more remote areas, and western Virginia was no exception. Here the scant population was divided in their loyalties, half being of Northern persuasion and the rest Southern. Some, partlcularly the well-to-do and those who owned larger tracts of arable land, favored the Confederacy. There were others less affluent who still saw the war as an act of aggression on independent people and joined the cause of the South. And then there were those pressed into service in the Confederate army unwillingly; this happened more than we might think on both sides because many men saw the war as no business of theirs and wanted to remain at home and care for their farms and families.

And then there were the renegades. These were roving bands of men who saw the war as an opportunity to plunder and take what they wanted. They claimed a loose affiliation to one side or the other and gave themselves any military rank that suited them. Such a group was the Mocassin Rangers, who operated in central and western counties of what is now West Virginia.

The Mocassin Rangers were led by a man from Calhoun county named Daniel Duskey. His sons Andrew and George were members of Duskey's band and so was Josiah Parsons. Josiah (called Joe) hailed from the West Fork River region of the county; his father was one of the first, if not the first, settlers in what is now the town of Spencer. "Devil Bill" was one wild man, and perhaps the fruit didn't fall far from the tree.

After a notorious raid on Ripley in December 1861 Joe, Daniel and George Duskey and other Mocassin Rangers were taken prisoner by Union soldiers in a surprise attack a few months later. The Rangers were taken to Wheeling and put in jail, but George Duskey and Joe Parsons  managed to escape by claiming to be sick. They were taken to a hospital but made their escape en route. Joe made his way back home to the West Fork.

For some reason I have not been able to discover,  Joe Parsons took a trip to Ripley. He was followed by some of his West Fork neighbors who apparently didn't like his politics or his sctivities with the Rangers. Perhaps he was making his way to Ohio with a view to heading west to wilder lands; perhaps he was going to visit family still in the area. Whatever his reason for the trip, it was a fatal choice.

As he was traveling along the old Ripley-Ravenswood Pike in the area around what is now 7th Street, he was accosted by the Ripley Home Guard. The Home Guards were usually composed of local men who were too young or to old to join the military, so they became defenders of their local communities. Some were as renegade in their actions as the guerilla groups. I am pretty sure that none of the Guard was too happy to see one of the men that had raided and embarrassed their town only months earlier.

There is no record of what transpired when Parsons, the Home Guard, and the people from the West Fork met. But the result was violent. A gun was put into Parsons' mouth, and in the words of some local historians, "they blew his head off." The Home Guard were thrown into confusion as to what to do next, so they carried the body of Parsons to the home of Enoch Staats, the leader of the Guard, and asked what they should do. Staats advised them to bury the dead soldier by the creek behind his home, and that is what they did.

So somewhere along the banks of Mill Creek, behind the Sheriff's office built on the site of the Staats' home, there lies the remains of Josiah Parsons. He was only 23 years old.

Perhaps, though, young Joe is no longer in that shallow grave. Mill Creek frequently comes out of its banks and there have been many floods over the years that might have carried his remains all the way to the Ohio River. There are those who claim that while the location of his body might be in question, his spirit still roams the banks of Mill Creek.

(As an unrelated aside to this story, 2 large beams and a wooden over-the-window drying rack from the Staats home are part of my home. We acquired them when the house was torn down, over 40 years before I researched and wrote this account.)

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Un-Newsy Weekend

34°f, about 1.5°C. Chilly and mostly clear. High of 63f today.

Knee work continues, a little easier every day. I can see progress, not as fast as I would like, but getting there. The PT tech manipulated my kneecap the other day which helped with the nerve pain ("zingers" as I call them). Did you know your kneecap just kinda floats around in there? News to me. By doing a very gentle adjustment, he was able to nearly eradicate one of the pains that was keeping me up at night. The therapist repeated the massage on Friday, so one area is feeling a lot better.  Another nighttime irritant is that my whole knee is so sensitive that any cloth touching it is painful. I learned through a little research and YouTube that I can desensitize the area by lightly tapping or slapping it--not on the scar as that has not completely healed, but all around it. I started doing that last evening and can already tell a difference.

The biggest news is that I can finally sleep in the bed! Well, I guess you could call it sleep. I am still waking every hour or so,  trying to find a comfortable position. Fortunately Larry sleeps so soundly that he says I do not disturb him. At least this is now mainly discomfort and not actual pain. Giant step! 

The bad news is that I apparently caught a fragment of Larry's virus from last week. Mine has been a slight fever, queasy stomach, and just generally feeling lousy. It has pretty much finished its course, thank goodness. I am thankful it was not worse.

I have been getting out and walking a bit (with my cane) and did 3/10ths of a mile today. I will continue to increase the distance slightly each day. It feels good.

All right, enough of all that! What else has been going on here? Not much for me honestly. My pt exercises, feeling bad and being tired pretty much sums up my weekend. Larry on the other hand is busy as can be. He has been getting the fall brushhogging done now that the yellow jackets have left (where do they go, I wonder?), and doing some outside cleanup. Which leaves me alone and bored, but it is what must be right now. 

I finished another Maisie Dobbs book (book 5, I think, and it was not a favorite), and also Elizabeth Strout 's latest, Tell Me Everything.  This one was fairly short, and featured once again her character Olive Kittinger and several others from her past novels. A fine read. 

I have been re-watching the series The Duchess of Duke Street.  Do you remember this old BBC series? Larry goes to bed very early these days, but I try to stay up until at least 10 just tobshorten the nightly battle with sleep, so I watch a few episodes of Mrs. Trotter and company every night. The series revolves around a young woman who is determined to be a cook in Victorian England when female chefs were unheard of. Her success leads to the purchase of a hotel and the story weaves in and out among the staff, the times, a bit of royalty here and there, and dilemmas of all kinds. Quality BBC, in my opinion, even if it was made in the 70's.  No subtitles, which can make some of the thick accents a challenge. 

Meanwhile,  Fall keeps falling.

Til next time!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Then and Now

I turned up this old photo the other day, of our house in 1976 or 1977, not long after we moved in (August '76 was when we moved in; nowhere near finished).

Certainly looks different today. This was taken from close to the same spot. I am not surebenough on my feet yet to actually climb the hill to the exact place.

The oak siding, which was cut from timber from our land, was milled by a neighbor and has darkened over the years.

I still need to paint that window frame red! Every year for the past 3 years I have vowed to get it done, and, well, there it still is, white.

The trees in the foreground of the first photo were pines, and aome fell in the 2003 ice storm, the others in the 2011 derecho.

So much has changed. Trees have grown huge, porch, deck, rooms added, the cellar house and patio built...and me, a whole lot older. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Amazing Trestle and a Ghost Story

43°f, cloudy and damp after rain overnight. The leaves are coming down quickly.

Sharing another ghost story from this blog, written on the same date in 2009.

I have seen and photographed this trestle before. It is located between Grafton and Philippi, West Virginia, and is on a rail line that is still in use. It soars many feet above the marshy valley below, curving as it makes its way from one hill to the next. I do not know any history of this stretch of rail or why it was decided to build the long trestle instead of descending to the valley floor, unless the marsh just made that an impractical option.

The early morning fog provided ethereal light for photos of the marching, massive pylons on which the trestle depends.

Before we left, I stopped to listen and soak in the morning. Birdsong I did not recognize filled the air, perhaps from water birds hidden in the marsh. This area is the Pleasants Creek Wildlife Management Area and I wondered if birdwatchers often came here to listen and to spot the shy inhabitants.

This last photo is so ghostly that it calls out for a "haint" tale. A railroad story seems especially fitting, don't you think? This story is based on a small suggestion of a story in the Weirton, WV newspaper last week. Sometimes when the story is so sketchy, a storyteller has to imagine what might have happened, which is what I have done in the following tale.

In a small coal town in West Virginia, a young man walked along the tracks at night, on his way home from a late night of overtime at the mines. Jim could have walked by road, but the railroad tracks were a direct path to his house, which was located only a few hundred feet from the passing tracks. Often the rumble of the trains would rattle the windows of his home, and sometimes a dish would fall and shatter in the kitchen.

Jim didn't mind the noise and shaking too much, because the trains meant coal was being shipped out and that was a good thing. It meant job security and a secure home for his family. As long as he didn't get hurt, that is. He carried the danger of working in the mine in the back of his mind always and was diligent about following any safety procedures he could to help prevent any accident that might leave him injured or, worse, dead.

This night, he was bone tired. His shoulders slumped as if carrying the weight of tons of black coal on them. His clothes were black with coal dust, and so was his face and his hands. He trudged homeward, mulling over the shift he had just worked and wondering who had called off sick so he'd had to work over. Not that he minded. Overtime was good money, and Jim was always glad to get it.

He never heard the train approach. Perhaps his mind was so busy with its own thoughts, or maybe he was so tired he walked in his sleep. By the time the engineer saw the young man, it was too late. Pulling the brake with all his might, the engineer shouted, "Get off the tracks! get off the tracks!" as if the young man would hear him over the screaming of metal of metal.

There was no thud, no sound at all when the train struck Jim, flinging his body far out into the darkness beyond the tracks. The train's crew jumped off as soon as the train stopped, and soon found the young man's lifeless body. Two little children and a young mother were left alone that night.

Years later, another man walking home along the tracks saw someone moving ahead of him. The walker looked tired and his clothing was filthy with coal dust. The rumble of an approaching train warned Henry to get off the tracks, but the walker ahead of him continued to walk on, oblivious of the train. In horror, Henry saw the train strike the walker and saw the man's body fly off into the darkness. The train never slowed.

Henry ran into the station to report what he had seen, but the clerk saw his face and said, "Don't worry. he's not really there. That's just young Jim, walking home to his family again. He's been doing that every year on this day--same time when he was hit and killed by a train. You're not the first to see him and you won't be the last."

Henry thought about Jim every day after that night. He could not get the sight of the train hitting the young man out of his mind. The following year, he returned to the tracks on the anniversary of Jim's death. He waited by the tracks and watched the trains rush by. Around midnight he saw once again the tired, slumped shoulders of Jim in his coal-stained clothing walking ahead of him along the tracks.

This time Henry rushed ahead, screaming, "Get off the tracks! Get off the tracks! The train is coming!" The walker turned and the man saw a skeletal, haggard face. He fell back in fright, but continued to yell, "The train is coming! The train is coming!"

The walker seemed to shake himself, as if waking, and jumped from the tracks just as the train rushed past. As Henry watched, the walker faded from sight. Young Jim had been saved at last, and he was never seen again.

Want more?

The story of Screaming Jenny comes from the Harper's Ferry region of West Virginia, where many ghosts reportedly are still in residence.

From Marion County, WV comes the story of a young man traveled to Texas to discover a ghost train instead of the relative he expected to meet.

Probably the most widely known railroad ghost in West Virginia, The Silver Run Tunnel ghost is one that trainmen still talk about.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Just Another Day

56°f this morning, crisp fall air. 

Leaves are really falling now. It is so beautiful outside. I am mostly enjoying it from the porch or the log room, and on trips to PT to let strangers play with my leg. I wish it were just play! But progress is slowly happening, so the pain is worth it. I guess.

Yesterday was another rough day, mostly due to no sleep, but last night I did much better and was up doing laundry and cooking today. Squash casserole and banana bread, yum. This wasn't one of Angie's fabulous banana bread recipes, but I did use our black walnuts in it.

At PT as I write this, waiting my turn. Hoping for more progress!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Rowlesburg Ghost Story

I originally posted this story here in 2008, but since it's the haunting season, I thought I would dig into my archives and share a few ghost stories again.

The Tray Run Viaduct near Rowlesburg. The viaduct is part of the image on the reverse side of the WV State Seal, according to Jim Comstock's West Virginia Encyclopedia.


I found this story in three sources, but I think Ruth Ann Musick's version, with a citation for the teller of the tale, is most credible. She called it The Misty Ghosts in her book Coffin Hollow (University of Kentucky Press, 1977. pp 41-42). Dr. Musick heard the story from Theresa Britton of Rowlesburg, who had heard it from her grandfather. Other sources are Ghost Train! by Tony Reevy and Haunted West Virginia by Patty A. Wilson. Ghost Train! cites Dr. Musick's book, but I don't have a copy of Haunted West Virginia to see its citations (I viewed the book online).


A young woman went to Pittsburgh to seek employment. (This was probably around the turn of the century when travel by rail was in its heyday). She found a position as household help and settled in to her job. But she grew lonely and she was homesick for the people and the place she left behind.


As it happened, she met a young man (one version claims she met him while visiting Rowlesburg, but Dr. Musick's story says that she met him in Pittsburgh). He was from a community called Manheim, which at that time was close to Rowlesburg, and now is incorporated within that town's city limits. With so much in common, they began to see each other a great deal.


Being far from home and lonely, the girl fell in love with the young man. Did he love her in return? That is hard to know this many years later. Whatever the case, he did not ask her to marry him. (Two versions of the story claim she was carrying his child, but the Musick story does not state that.) Perhaps he felt unable to support a wife financially, or thought they were too young to marry. It could be that he simply enjoyed her company but didn't care enough for her to marry her.


The girl grew despondent. She lost her position in Pittsburgh and had no choice but to return to Rowlesburg. As the train traveled through the night on the Cheat River line, she stepped out onto the platform. Perhaps she only meant to get some fresh air, or perhaps she was so upset over the turn of events in her life that she saw no other solution to her problems. As the train passed over the Cheat River caverns, she either fell, or she jumped to her death.


Bad news travels fast. The young man heard of her death and immediately returned home. He was overwhelmed with grief and felt he was to blame for her actions. On the anniversary of her death, the young man went to the scene of her death. He never returned.


When searchers found his body, it was a the bottom of the river near the caverns, opposite from where the girl had jumped.


The teller of this story said that old-timers say that on full-moon nights they would see mist rising from the place where the girl died; it would be joined by another mist rising from the Cheat River where the young man drowned, and then the joined mists would float away and out of sight.

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It's difficult to verify stories like this since no names were attached to it by the time Dr. Musick heard it. Folklore often happens that way--while facts and dates may have been part of the story in the beginning, in time those seemingly unimportant bits were dropped and the main points preserved.

There are apparently several places that might have been the "Cheat River Caverns" or "Caves of Cheat" referred to in the story, all undeveloped sites. Online information suggests that a) the caverns are now called something else and are gated and inaccessible; or b) that they are actually located on the Dry Fork of Cheat. I wondered as I read the story if she had perhaps jumped at the Tray Run Viaduct, which looks like a good place to do such a thing.

So pinpointing the place from which the mists rise might not be easy. But it might be worth spending a night on the river to try to find out--if you dare.

For more information about Rowlesburg's railroad history, visit WV Rail Fan's website. And for more about the town of Rowlesburg and it's role in the Civil War, visit the Rowlesburg Visitor's Guide.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Better

46°f, clear. No rain in sight for the foreseeable future.

Larry's "poutin' house", at the edge of the woods. He sometimes uses it as a deer stand, but that's about it. Who has time to pout these days?

I am happy to report that Larry is much better, and is up and busy. He is still drinking the Pedialyte and has little appetite, but definitely over the bug. Which, we learned, is going around. I am still hoping to avoid it. There is no way I can rush to the toilet right now!

Yesterday was a bad day for me with my knee. Perhaps it was lack of sleep,  or maybe all that nighttime busyness, mopping, etc. Whatever it was, my knee was miserably painful all day. I have heard that there will be good days and bad days, so I guess it's to be expected. Last night, I took a couple OTC sleeping pills that my son uses, and slept 4 hours straight.  Pain brought me awake, and finally in desperation I took a pain pill and slept another 3 hours. What a blessing! Today I was able to do my PT and I feel like a human again.

In reading your blogs, I know there are some of you dealing with hurts too--Granny Marigold's foot, Quinn's shoulder-- and those are in some ways more difficult to manage than my knee. 

And then I think about Barb and Lisa, both affected by the terrible floods in North Carolina. That disaster has left me stunned and horrified. I cannot imagine how people are coping after losing loved ones, homes, livelihoods,  even their whole communities. I read where rescuers hiked in to get a man whose back was broken in a landslide. It took them 3 hours to get him out. Can you imagine his pain? And the weariness of the rescue crew? 

In my own neighborhood,  a younger neighbor had a stroke on Friday, and is in very serious condition. Another is worried about her 10 year old son, who has cysts in his lungs that must be removed. And even my own Larry has 2 blocked arteries; he has yet to learn what the VA will do about that.

So yes, I should not complain about my pain. I chose to do this. I have a comfortable, warm home,  good food, and a husband who is now trying to do the right thing. I have family I can call on if needed. I am surrounded by good neighbors. I am fortunate, and need to remind myself of that every day. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

What a Night

42°f at 7 am, clear. 

I may have been bored yesterday, but that sure changed around 11pm last night.

I took my melatonin at 10, and had just fallen asleep when I heard Larry get up and run for the bathroom. He was so sick! This continued until about 5am. Every half hour or so he was up and sick. Poor guy.

And of course I was up too. I could not help him, which was hard. But I put on a mask and cleaned and disinfected each time, opened doors and turned on fans, trying my best to drive out any scattered germs. Because right now the last thing I need is to sick like that. It feels odd to be so self- centered about it, but I must be. Will I avoid this awful bug? I don't know, but I did the best I could. Today Larry slept and drowsed until 2pm, waking only for some water and dry toast. Son Derek just dropped off Pedialyte, Gatorade, orange juice, and bless his heart,  some Lindor chocolate for me. What a sweetheart! 

I did manage to feed the dogs and the cat, and Larry is taking care of the rabbits and chickens now. Odds are he will go right back to bed when he's done. I hope so anyway. And right now I am going to try to take a nap.  I sure can use it. But first, a few pics I took from the porch and deck on this beautiful autumn day.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Bored

It is strange to admit, but I'm bored! After 2 weeks or so of pain and foggy brain, it seems like I am coming back to the surface.  There is still pain,  especially at night, but nothing like the last 17 days.  So, progress! Today I focused on in-home physical therapy,  and used a comfrey salve I bought from a local lady to relieve pain. The salve does seem to help.

I asked Larry pick me a couple roses,  since I could not get to the garden. Where in the world did the purple one come from??? I swear I do not recall planting it, and this is surely the first time it has bloomed. Such a heavenly scent! The orange one also has a lovely scent.

So I cleaned house a little, sat on the porch, read a little, tried to nap and failed. I hope I sleep well tonight---still in my old recliner, but I don't want to disturb Larry all night with my getting up every couple hours. The melatonin seems to work pretty well, thank the heavens, and I can get some deep sleep in between perambulations around the house to ease my leg, which tends to get still if I stay in one position too long. I am not using the cane in the house, but still using the walker at night for safety.

What else has happened? Well, granddaughter Kate, her husband and baby came to visit yesterday, 

and brought a delicious lunch with them. Kate picked up the ingredients and made big Italian subs, with a side of Amish potato salad which tasted very like my potato salad, only sweeter. Baby J was a darling, loving on the dogs and our cat and exploring the chicken house. He is 18 months and is a sturdy little guy.

Today I have waited all day for a neighbor who was supposed to pick up a few bushels of apples we got for her, but she never showed up. Larry grabbed the opportunity of this sunny, warm day to put Thompson's water seal on the front porch steps and handrail, a tedious task that really needed to be done.

I played around taking a few photos of my fall display of (mostly) Early American Pattern Glass on the buffet. I do love the colors and patterns of this old glass.

And that is all the excitement for this Saturday. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.