By Violet Rexrode Eye
It would take many pages to wrote about all that has happened in my 85 years of living. I will strive to share a few memories.
On Jan. 26, 1941, 85 years ago—I don’t remember that day but my mom told me what it was like. There was a lot of snow on the ground and it was bitter cold. It wasn’t the kind of day I would choose to bring my first child into this world.
It was a Sunday and I was born just before 11:00 p.m. Dr. J. F. Stover was there to help bring me into this world.
Babies seem to have their way of arriving when the time is right! Although my daughter was born just two weeks before the March snows of 1962.
He was, you might say, the family doctor and the only one I would see until a teenager. I was a typical child, and experienced whooping cough, the croup, and many cuts and bruises.
Mom would do her best to get me through whatever it was, but when Vick’s salve, Musterole ointment, and that stuff would burn, or fried onion wraps didn’t do the job, daddy would go to Dr. Stover who would send what he determined was necessary.
Dr. Stover gave me the first shot I ever got and pulled the only tooth of my second set of teeth that I have lost. There is still an empty space in my lower right jaw.
There was no electricity, no running water or bathroom in the house during the first six years of my life. There was a telephone that worked about a fourth of the time, a radio that worked until the battery died, and a car that ran about half of the time.
The two things that I could count on were daddy and mom. Those were hard times but the two of them always took on the chores of the new day and would start other projects to be completed later.
We always sat down together to share our meals, and this continued every day until I left home. Family was an important part of my early years—ours at home and extended family as well.
I was born during World War II, and I remember that a lot of items were rationed or you couldn’t get at them at all. There wasn’t a lot of shopping for food as most of what we needed was raised on the farm.
The wheat was taken to Homan’s Mill in Sugar Grove and ground into flour and put into 50-or 100-pound bags. The buckwheat was taken to the mill where it was ground into flour as well. Buckwheat cakes were eaten daily at breakfast during the winter months. I didn’t like buckwheat cakes.
My parents would buy a keg of salt fish that would last through the winter. I didn’t like salt fish, mainly because of the small bones in the meat. I have learned to like salt fish.
We didn’t know there was any cereal other than oatmeal and I did not eat oatmeal.
Daddy liked “egg bread” which is now called French toast. Not any of us kids would eat “egg bread.”
One might ask what would I eat? Mom always had gravy bread, meat and eggs. I liked my eggs fried hard as a rock, as my late husband would say—none of that messy yolk running around on my plate. I easily qualified as a picky eater.
I remember the winters bringing a lot of snow. We lived off the Thorn Road, probably a mile and a half. Daddy would sometimes ride the horse to Wheelers Store in Doe Hill, Virginia, if we needed coffee or sugar. One time the horses were used to pull the sled when we went to check on grandpap and mom’s younger siblings.
The only way to open the road was to use a drag that was pulled by the horses. I remember numerous times the car would hang up on the Scales Hill and daddy would need to put the chains on.
We also hung up from time to time on Hoover Mountain. One time we hung up on the Scales Hill and had to walk the rest of the way to the house. The moon was bright and there was an owl hooting. My sister started crying that the n’wls—she couldn’t say owls—were going to get her.
Although daddy had a car, we did a lot of walking. We would walk to visit family and friends who lived close. We would walk to church. We would walk to the store at Doe Hill, Virginia, and I walked 6/10 of a mile to catch the school bus.
Girls weren’t allowed to wear jeans to school. We could wear pants under our dress but were required to take them off once at school. We would leave our boots in the bus shanty until evening and hope the wind hadn’t blown them full of snow.
Many times, we arrived at school with wet socks, cold feet, and even mud on our clothes from falling in a snow drift or ditch. I can tell you there wasn’t a lot of heat in those school rooms either.
I did not get free textbooks or other school supplies. If hot lunch was provided, I paid for it or brought lunch from home. The school bus didn’t come to the door to pick me up. I walked to it!
I learned right from wrong and how to work at a young age, and that I was expected to work and do my part to help daddy and mom. I was never asked to do anything that my body wasn’t strong enough to do.
The one thing that I learned to do that my siblings did not was to milk a cow. There were no milk cows at the Siple Place, so they would milk a couple of the stock cows. Daddy was milking one of these cows and of course, I wanted to help—a mistake! That cow kicked me in the stomach and knocked me down through the milk lot. Daddy gave that cow a good whipping. One would have thought that would end my milking job, but I continued to help milk.
Mom and daddy started selling milk, until I married and left home. Milking is hard on the hands, especially the knuckles. Over time these joints become large and stiff, making using of the hands difficult. This form of arthritis does not make for pretty hands in later life.
When my children were young, the winter months saw limited income. My husband would work as long as the weather allowed, and then be laid off for the winter months. Unemployment checks were the only income until I started working in 1972 for the Pendleton County Board of Education.
Bid, my husband, would often help his uncle Jim to finish concrete on some of the jobs he was working on, and also helped him cut and process meat in his butchering shop.
I guess you would say the older of my two sisters and I had a normal childhood. We would play in the fields and the hills. We were in and out of the streams that ran through the farms catching tadpoles and minnows. We would take a few to the house but would return them to their home. We would walk for miles looking for morels, picking hickory nuts, and picking huckleberries to sell so we could buy school clothes. I have such fond memories of the wild strawberries we picked. I can’t remember the last time I saw or picked a wild strawberry. I haven’t forgotten about the many walnuts I helped to pick through the years.
I tried to give my own children some of the early learning experiences I had. Many things had changed by the time they started school and helped with daily chores. They did have a stream that they played in often and would bring a crab to the house from time to time.
My first grandchild was a boy. We had been told it was a girl. He weighed less than five pounds. He had respiratory problems, and thyroid problems from birth. He liked Pokemon cards and would spend hours with his collection. He graduated from high school but was never well enough to have public work. Hardly a day went by that he didn’t call to ask what I was doing. I still miss those calls.
My granddaughter came to us when she was two and a half years old. Looking back, I can see a lot of me in the way she was. Other than horses there wasn’t a lot I was afraid of at that age. I can’t think of a thing that scared her. I would look out and there she was in the lot playing with the horses and a lot of times riding bareback. I even saw her reach out her hand to touch the bull on one occasion. I thought oh, no!
Bethany would come almost daily with Cheerios, ice cream and to watch Sponge Bob. She would wade the creek and be wet from head to toe, with wet muddy socks and shoes. Bethany would never open the gates but crawled over them. I believe she still does today. What a bundle of energy and no fear. I think about my mom and what she went through when she had two bundles of energy at that age. I am amazed that we all survived.
The past 85 years have been blessed with mostly good things. I can’t think of anything that I really needed I didn’t get. We were taught to be satisfied with what we had or what we might receive. There were some hard times.
One of the worst periods of my life, if not the worst, was from January 2015 through February 2016. Three of mom’s sisters passed away, my grandson passed away, my husband passed away, and my mom passed away. This was such a hard thing to go through, but God is good!
I am so glad I was raised in a time when right from wrong was taught. You learned to be responsible and were willing to help when you could. There was respect for other people and you were told to always use good common sense. These same attributes should be taught to our young people today. So many of the values our great country was founded on all those years ago are gone forever.
Meager beginnings and simple living weren’t easy to live through but those fortunate enough to survive both, passed on their knowledge and know how.
What are we passing on today? What will be said about those who might be living 50 years from now?
I give thanks for my 85 years and can say without hesitation that I won’t have to answer that question in 50 years.
As I started this article, Jan. 25, 2026, we have around six inches of new snow on the ground and sleet that started before dawn and continued throughout the day. January 25, my 85th birthday brings a layer of ice over the snow the likes we have never experienced. My aunt who will be 102 years old in April said she has never seen anything like this! This is a February weather event for the record books.
