If you leave Bradshaw West Virginia,and cross the mountain into virginia by way of "Three Forks," you find yourself going down a hollow called Lynn Camp. about a mile down from the top of the Mountain, you see a deep hollow on the right of the road. Nowdays there is a dirt road going up the hollow, and theres a gate across it, because there is coal minning going on in the hollow, or has been recently. This hollow is named Marg Hollow after my Grandmother who lived there in the late eighteen hundreds, and early nineteen hundreds.--- Her name was Margaret Mullins Church, wife of Wilson Church.<<<>>>The way that I figure it,,, this is where my father "Miles Church was born***-<<<<->>>>-*** Around 1925 a man named Alfred Payne who was a Policeman in the Bradshaw Wva, area, had my dad under arrest---(pretend I think)---for carring a pistol.-- Alfred was courting a woman named Alafare Coleman---(she later became my grandmother)--- who was widowed. Her husband---(My Grandad, Floyd Coleman)--- had died and the family was not doing so well.<<->> Alfred Payne brought daddy with him when he came courting Alafare, and that is when Dad,met Mom.*-<<<<->>>>-*Dad called Wilson "Pap",but didn't seem to be much like his Pap, he seemed to be more like Joel, and George.<<<->>> Wilson was a preacher, and dad never tried anything like that.<<->>Dad liked the mountains, and like Joel Sr, he went up into the mountains and built a cabin on land he never owned---(but later bought).--This happened around 1938.--I was born in that cabin in 1940-<<<<->>>>-Dad was a coal miner when they did it the hard way.--- He worked on a Program called The W.P.A. for a while---He called it Public Works. It was for people who could not find jobs. They worked repairing Roads, Schools,etc, we grew most of what we ate in our garden.<<<<->>>> Dad taught me to hunt Bees.<<>> I believe that dad would have been as good at bee hunting as Joel,or George if he would have realy wanted to.---- We bee hunted while we hunted gensang,<<>>We got good money for the gensang, and sometimes we would find a Bee Tree, and if it didn't have an "x" carved in its bark (meaning that someone else had found it first) we would go back later and cut it.<<<->>> The Chinese claims that gensang gets them ready for love.--- It never did anything for me in that manner.(maybe I wasn't using it right. ha,ha,)<<<->>>Cutting Bee Trees is sort of a hit, or miss kind of thing. Sometimes you get a lot of honey, and sometimes you don't. Sometimes the honey is so full of baby Bees that you have to strain it out, and you loose a lot that way. If we could capture the Queen, we could keep the Bees. Bees will not stay, (can not live) without their Queen.-<<<->>>- Dad worked when he could , and we farmed.--- Mom canned a lot of food.. Vegitables, Fruit, Berries, and whatever was eatable.<<>> We never had electricity on that farm.---I lived there eighten years.---Was pretty dagone happy there.--- The place has gone back to the wild's now, you can't tell there was ever people living there.---eleven of us kids grew up there, and there was never a dull moment.<<>> We had a three room shack, but we only ate, and slept there, we lived all over that holler. It was our holler, we owned it, and we were the only ones living there.<<>> I guess it amounted to fifty,or sixty acres.<<>> The hollow where our farm was located lay off to the right as you go North on route 52, from Iaeger W,Va, before you get to Johnny Cake Mountain.<<<>>> Dad and I spent a lot of time together when I was a teen ager. --- The older kids had married and moved out ,and the younger ones was to young to do much garden work. --- The younger one next to me was a girl,and not a farmer,<>she was good for dish washing, and stuff like that, ha, ha, she will kill me for this.--- So me and Dad worked the fields, and during the summer when we got caught up with the garden work, we hunted gensang.--- In the fall we squirrel hunted.<<<>>> Dad tried to keep a cow for milking, we had one most of the time when us kids was growing up. We had a horse most of the time also<>Even if we didn't have a cow.<<>> -Dad was a horse person. --- He thought he had to have a horse to plow the fields.--- There were some pretty big fields, but ninety nine percent of the fields were planted in corn, which we used to feed the horse. --- It appeared to me like there was something wrong with that picture.---- Dad loved Jocky Grounds.--- That is a name for a carnival like affair for horse traders,---where they show off their horses, make deals, drink a little liquor, and maybe gamble a little. Dad knew horses as good as the next man, perhaps better. but after a few drinks , he didn't know them quiet as well, and he could get cheated.--- once he came home riding a gray, and singing, The Old Gray Mare Ain't What She Used To Be. He tied her up to the porch rail, and she tried to hold up three feet at the same time, almost fell. (When a horse holds up a foot it usually means theres something wrong with it.)---- Mom did a very mean thing, she demanded that he take that horse back and get the one that he had traded for it.--- "And he did."<<<>>>I was too young to go with him in his Jocky Ground Days, but I heard a lot of stories about it.---All in all, I think Dad enjoyed his life pretty well.<<<>>>---<<<>>> I had my siblings listed here, but on second thought I removed them, I really don't know how they would feel about being listed on the internet.<<<>>> Counting stillbirths Mom had sixteen children, eleven made it to adulthood, and there is still ten living, as of Nov.1999.<<>> Mom, and Dad are both gone, but still live in the hearts of all of us whom they loved,and sacfificed for.
MY SIBLINGS AND ME
MY PARENTS- MILES, AND ARETTIE CHURCH
PICTURE OF MOM, AND DAD
SOME THINGS ABOUT ME
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