Walter Edward Workman & Bertha Etta Mullins, 1937-1952 (The Bentree School Years)
A Note About This Folder:
It was during this 15-year period that all seven kids were in school, albeit in many different grades. Denvil and Phyllis graduated from Clay County High School in 1940, while Darrel (the youngest) graduated in 1952. Included herein are a host of photos, records, and stories that create an entertaining and informative narrative. One note about the photos: the quantity is great, but the details (such as dates and names) are often sketchy.
This time period was significant for the family. Denvil, Phyllis, Freda, and Damon graduated from high school, were married and started their own households. Many world events directly impacted the family, including The Great Depression and WW II. Also of local significance was the fact that electricity and paved roads came to Bentree around 1940.
Group of photos (collage) that summarize this era
or W&B with car
Comments about the Family
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family group photo?
Animated portraits of everyone
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Moving from Buffalo Creek Farm to Bentree, April 1, 1937
The move from Buffalo Creek to Bentree was, in some respects, an ordinary event for Walter and Bertha. Grandpa had moved many times while growing up in Nathan & Juditha’s household [in the Enoch area]. It is approximately 25 miles between the Buffalo Creek farm and Bentree—so this was probably the greatest distance either of them had ever moved.
They left all large items (such as the wood-burning stove and livestock) behind and transported their meager belongings on a pickup truck.
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Brief Comments About Bentree
While the move was perhaps routine for Walter and Bertha, it was most certainly momentous for their children. Their world opened up when they moved to Bentree.
Growing up in Bentree, I (Mike) always considered the community to be a little less than a town, just a wide place between two mountains. There was a post office (at that time), and it showed up on the West Virginia state map. But compared to the Buffalo Creek farm, Bentree was downright urban. My guess is that the population of Bentree at that time was at most 200-300 people. For more information about Bentree, see Bentree & Beyond in the menu bar.
Why they moved: Albert’s General Store and Sawmills
Bertha’s father, Albert Mullins, was involved in the lumber business for many years. By 1937, he had sawmills operating in Leatherwood and two in Bentree. The Great Depression was winding down, so economic conditions were improving.
Damon summarizes the reasons for their move to Bentree:
Damon: Daddy, he made coffins or whatever he could do. And once in a great while, Grandpa would get a little job and he would go and work for him a while, see. So, as the depression (as we know it) moved on and got up into the later '30's, Grandpa had moved to Bentree and put in a sawmill. Daddy went over there and looked like they was going to have pretty good work, see. So, they had old company houses and an old sawmill. Mom went to work for Grandpa in the store. And the family moved to Bentree.
Mike: Was the store right in front of the house?
Damon: No, the store was across the road where the gas station was.
Mike: Okay, but was there a store in front of the house
Damon: There was, but it was closed. It was Odell's. See, we lived up the hollow there to start with.
22:10 [DEWv1: Events leading to move from Buffalo Creek to Bentree (19:31-22:10)]
The following is Uncle Doyle’s account of Albert’s sawmill:
Doyle: …Grandpa Mullins, you see, he had been over there, and he had a sawmill over in Sangamore. Had it at three or four places. Back in them days, they take a sawmill out there and just set it up and sawed out a bunch of timber. Then they moved it on down the hollow because they did not have trucks and stuff. Most of the time they pulled the logs in by horses instead of trucking. So, they had already had the mill set up down there two or three times down that creek. They had it on down there, down you know where Pat had that mill at.
Mike: I remember that.
Doyle: Now, I believe that is where the mill was at when Daddy moved over there.
Barbara: I can remember when you [Mike] were little calling it the mill saw. I can remember you saying that.
Doyle: Daddy did the sawing for them. And along about that time before Daddy went to Alloy, Gordon had a sawmill over in Leatherwood, and he sawed over there for him. And then he got a job at Alloy. And it was about the time that Denvil went in the service.
07:34 [DCWv2: Bentree recollections; store; sawmills (07:34-19:04)]
Uncle Doyle provides additional information about the Mullins General Store: Albert had a small general store in Bentree…his brother (Gordon and wife Lenna) had been running it for him. Albert wanted to get out of the store business, so he asked Granny to come over and run the store and keep his books. According to Doyle, she was paid $50 a month (which, at that time, was a pretty good wage). Grandpa worked on the sawmill as a sawyer until 1942, at which time he started working for Union Carbide in Alloy (he started there a year after Denvil).
[The Mullins family continues the tradition of general stores, as there are Feed & Hardware and Grocery stores in nearby Dixie today. Reportedly owned by Jack Mullins.]
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Additional information about Albert’s sawmills can be found here:
Walter & Bertha’s First House in Bentree
This is Damon’s account of their first house in Bentree:
Damon: We moved in a little house up the holler [Sangamore]. It was just an old sawmill house that they [Albert] built for sawmill employees...and you know what they look like. Cats...you'd shut the doors and cats come in and out with the door shut! They would, really to goodness, the cats coming in and out with the door shut. Course, the one we lived in up on Buffalo wasn't any better. If you went in and out in it, the cats and dogs could go in.
Damon: We moved from up there in the hollow down to the place where you know'd, just about the time that Denvil went into the army [1943]. We worked on that ole house and if I'm not badly mistaken, we had a project remodeling, building a room on it, when Denvil left to go in the service. And then they bought that from the O'Dell's. Of course, they lived there the rest of their life. I don't know if that old house is still standing up there in Sangamore, that we lived in up there. It was just one of them ole houses they built you know. ??? and nailed a window or two in it. It was a horrible place to move into. Wasn't any worse than what we moved from.
Doyle’s account:
Dianne: Did you live in the store when you moved to Bentree?
Doyle: No. We showed a picture of that shanty a four room house up the hollow, just a little ways from the store.
Mike: I remember those houses. They must have been rental property a while later.
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Walter & Bertha’s Second House in Bentree
Comments about house; memories; earliest photos
USGS map showing houses
Doyle’s account:
Doyle: Daddy might have been working at Alloy when they bought that place there at the mouth of the hollow. 12:16
There was an old lady named Ella(?) O’Dell and her husband was Clem. He had been in WW I, and I think he had died. His tombstone is up there on the hill, I believe he died in the ‘30’s. He was buried in a little cemetery up behind that house up there. And he had one son. I guess it was all the children he had, the son wasn’t by his last wife. Wasn’t by Ella.
His son lived in Louisiana; I think. Well, she did not want to stay there anymore. She wanted to go--she was already an old woman. She was going to move in with her daughter up here to Tioga, I guess it was. And she wanted to sell it, and Daddy and them bought it...a big price for what they got. They give them $1,500 for it. It was 7 acres and the house. And that old store building, you remember, it was there.
Mike: Now that old building, at one time was the store. Right?
Doyle: It was a store there. Old man Clem O’Dell had a store there. Then there wasn’t nothing in it until Daddy and them come down there. They made two houses out of it or two dwellings at each end of it.
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Images of cancelled checks
Property survey
Other Houses in Bentree
As Doyle continues his narrative, he tells about other houses nearby, including the one where Denvil and Kate lived after their marriage (and where I, Mike, first lived).
Mike: Now didn’t Mom and Dad live in…
Doyle: They lived in one of them. They lived in one of them, and I believe Sam Moore lived in the other side of them. And then Leck O’Dell lived in it for a while, and I can remember four or five people living there.
Mike: Well, I must have been born about that time.
Doyle: No...
Barbara: Well, Grandpa and Grandma Mullins was living in it the time we got married, the second Grandma [Arie] Mullins.
Doyle: The little white house straight across the creek from Mom and Daddy’s belonged to Bus McGraw. Now Denvil and them lived in that and I don’t know if they lived in that before they moved in the old store building. I believe they did. Then they moved over in that old store building and lived there until they built that house down there. But Daddy and them, I know when they was talking about it that …you see Mrs. O’Dell had a deal with the son that was still living. Anyway, she had asked him about it. He said, well, he wanted a $1,000 of it--for his part of it. And she thought he was a little bit high, or something, and she said she would just take $500 for her part. That made $1,500. I have the checks up there, where they wrote the checks. I believe they wrote two different checks. It is in an album here, the checks that they wrote. I still have them up there. They wrote one for $1, 000 to the son. I think he lived in…
[I remember that my mother (Catherine) would often mention living in the store building shortly after I was born.]
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Granny’s General Store in Bentree
Recollections of the store and other comments
Mike: How did she [Bertha] get that store started?
Damon: When we moved out of Buffalo and come here, she came to work for Grandpa [Mullins]. It was called Mullins and Mullins. She went to work in the store and did the bookkeeping and the store work for him for $50 a month. After so long of a time, they [Grandpa] wanted out of the store. They were going to move one [sawmill] job to Lyons Creek and one to Leatherwood. They were getting out of the store, so she bought it.
Mike: Same building?
Damon: Well, she just bought the business. Lenna wouldn’t sell her the building. Lenna made more money than she did. But that was the way…
Mike: Well, it used to be there was a little building right there in front of their house?
Damon: Oh, yeah, after they agreed and disagreed on rent and so forth, Mom gave up and went over there and went into the store business for herself. In her own building, and she run the store there a long time. But then they came back, and she went back over there and opened that store back up. In fact, I think, maybe Lenna and her sister was, maybe trying to run it. And mom went back and bought it out and retired then after so long. I don’t remember who got it after that.
Mike: Well, I remember she had gasoline, kerosene, hay…
Damon: Motor oil, nails.
Mike: Just a little bit of everything, wasn’t it?
00:00 [DEWv16: Bertha and the general store in Bentree (00:00-01:54)]
Mike: So, when did the other store building across the road come into existence?
Doyle: Well, now over where the filling station was? That was built before Grandpa and them went over there. It used to be a little beer joint at first, and I really don’t know too much about it. That piece of land in there--they put a store in it or added some on the back of it and put a store in there. That was when mom went over there to work. They added a warehouse on the side of it down there. I think Gordon built that house; you know where he lived at. Where Gordon’s house was. And they had four or five little one room houses that set over next to the creek, just a one room bedroom or something. They would rent them to people, I guess, who was traveling. I can remember, I know at least four of them, and there was still two of them there for a long time. And they apparently rented them. He had a Delco system, a generator that generated DC power. And he had a refrigerator that ran on DC power, and then they had lights. That was something to see with electric lights--because electric didn’t come up there you see—oh. it was, I believe it was during or after WW II. During World War II or something they started putting… Roosevelt was one that got it started. I don’t know it…I think we still lived up to Sagamore before Daddy and them bought that house down there from Mrs. O’Dell. I can remember they came up there and put the stakes down for the power poles, and the guidelines and stuff. I can remember the people come along, before long, and put the power poles in and then they put power in them houses. They had wiring down under the ceiling, you know, and you just had a light in each room. And one thing and another. It was really bright lights when you turned them on. But that was way back in the early 40’s…but I was thinking it was after World War II, but it must have been a little while before. I guess it was along, you see Roosevelt did a lot of stuff. He had that CCC and stuff that people was in. They must have put money out or something for the power companies to run power into the rural areas. It must have been in the late 30’s or 40’s that they put power up there.
00:00 00 [DEWv15: The dime and nickel story; boys going to see movie in Gauley Bridge (00:00-01:25)]
Damon: You know where Mom’s store was up there in Bentree? A fella came up there with a pickup truck on a beautiful Friday evening. Everybody was barefoot, of course, a bunch of the kids were. He said load up in the truck, we are going to the movies. Anybody that wants to go, it is 15 cents. A dime to get in the movie, and you had to give that fella a nickel to ride to Gauley and back. And we were going to make enough that he could go to the movies. We are talking pretty good money back in those days, see. So, they were all loading in that truck, but I don’t have no dime or a nickel, either. So, I asked Mom and Daddy, but it didn’t do no good. And they didn’t have anything, and nobody had…and buddy, I really...I hurt so bad. I cried because I did not have a dime and a nickel to go the movie. And I thought I’d make a little change because of that. I don’t remember what year it was, but from that year and day to this year and day I always carried a dime and a nickel. I was never ever caught without enough to go to the movies. But, of course, it took a lot of effort.
Mike: You couldn’t get much for a dime and a nickel these days, could you?
Damon: No, but a dime and a nickel back then was worth a whole a lot to you.
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School Years at Independence Elementary School and Clay County High School
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Maps
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Denvil School Years
Denvil was a sophomore at Clay County High School when the family moved to Bentree. He (and Phyllis) rode the school bus in his final years…he graduated from CCHS in 1940. Between 1940 and 1942, Denvil studied at New River State Teacher’s College (later to become West Virginia Institute of Technology) in Montgomery. He went to work at Alloy in 1941. Denvil enlisted in the service 5/15/1943. Additional information can be found in the tab labeled, Denvil Workman & Catherine Kiser, 1945-1974 (The Bentree Years).
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Phyllis School Years
As mentioned previously, Phyllis advanced a grade early in life; consequently, she and Denvil attended high school together and graduated in the same class.
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Freda School Years
Freda attended Independence School for
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Damon School Years
12:00 [DEWv2: Damon went to school at Independence—then Clay County High School—when they moved to Bentree; riding the school bus (12:00-15:04)]
Mike: Now, you were fairly young? [When they moved to Bentree.]
Damon: Yeah, I was nine. So that'd been 1937. I was born in 1928.
Mike: Where did you go to school?
Damon: Up at Independence. Right at the top of Independence Mountain...had an old two-room school up there: Independence. And it stayed open till after I started high school.
Mike: How did you get over there? Did they have school buses?
Damon: They had a school bus.
Mike: Then you went to Clay High School?
Damon: Um. Spent a big part of my life on a school bus between Bentree and Clay and back. Gosh, I think we left every morning around seven. Ole school bus—and he'd never get the thing out of first gear...I mean it was just slow. And then every house you stopped at, you waited for the kids to come and get on the bus, you know. It wadn't nothing for kids that lived along...they'd stay right in the house until the school bus pulled up and stopped. They knew they'd come on out the house with their dinner buckets, and their coats half on, and the bus driver couldn't leave ‘til they all got on. You know, they'd go on to the next house, the same thing again. Man, it was a long trip from Bentree to Clay.
Mike: Yeah, it's a big trip even today.
Damon: Now, them school buses…you'd meet them runnin' 55-60 miles an hour. He had an old big '35 International. I guess it had a fourth gear on it--I don't know whether he ever got in it. SLOW. Boy, just creep, creep up them mountains, you know, and down the other side. Had to run it down the other side in low gear, because the braking system and all that wasn't good on them.
Mike: Probably take at least an hour to get over there?
Damon: Oh, gosh, yeah more than that. School took up, I believe, at nine. And you know we'd usually have a few minutes after getting there. I think we left from Bentree at seven o'clock. See, it's a pretty good little jump to Clay. If I remember right, when we got to Bickmore, then there's another bus come out of there. So, when we got to Bickmore, then we had clear sailin' on to Clay. 15:04
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Dale School Years
Dale attended Independence School for
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Doyle School Years
19:04 [DCWv2: Doyle attending school at Independence and Clay (19:04-21:44)]
Mike: You must have gone to school at Independence and then Clay for high school?
Doyle: I went to Independence and then Clay for high school. Barbara went to Clay. Barbara lived over there at Glen. She rode what was 32 miles to Clay, one way. Glen is actually, if you go up there to Independence, and go across that Coon Ridge--then about six or seven miles, you come down over there to what they call, well it is called Spruce Fork. Then you go there, you have to go all the way to Queens Shoals and back to Clay. So, it wasn’t actually too far from our house to Barbara’s house after they built a road through there. But before it was built, the road was almost impassable--the Bentree side to over there, you know. But they built a pretty good road through there in the late ‘40’s or something. But she went to Clay. I guess she was plumb on the end of that bus run from over there, and I was on the end of it from this way. It was quite a little distance away going that a way.
Dianne: Did you go to school with Janet’s parents, the Wilsons?
Barbara: I think they are a bit older than we were.
Doyle: Now, Carl Wilson isn’t a whole lot older than I am; he is a little bit older.
Barbara: I believe that Carl Wilson was an undertaker before you and I ever got out of school. So, he was at Clay Funeral Home.
Doyle: Yes, but the other fellow, Jack Waters--his wife was the secretary up at the high school when we was there.
Barbara: You will remember Carl Wilson got into it with Murray over the Clay Funeral Home, and then he established his own then. Daddy knew Carl.
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School Stories
00:00 [DEWv18: Damon taking Albert to school board meeting (00:00-02:53)]
Mae: Grandpa belonged to the Clay County School Board, and he had to go once or twice a month to Clay to the meetings…right up there the end of the old high school.
Damon: Mae you are going to get to a point where you are going to be telling something you shouldn’t be telling, ain’t you?
Mae: Well, that’s not anything!!
Damon: Well, it is when you lock your grandfather out of the truck and leave and go home…leave him up there.
Mae: Well, you know what Grandpa would do?
Damon: He locked the truck.
Mae: He was off the truck, he couldn’t drive. Grandpa couldn’t drive. He would take the keys from the Damon when they got up there, winter and summer. Take them and put them in Grandpa’s pocket. Damon had to stay outside the truck—he had nowhere to go get warm. And he just finally just said to himself, “I have been treated wrong too many times, I am going to pay back my grandpa.”
Damon: Now see you are getting into the wrong story.
Mae: Damon got him a ride home and went upstairs and went to bed, over in Bentree. Grandpa couldn’t get nobody to bring him home. He went up to the funeral home, that was up there in a white building in Clay at that time, Clay Funeral Home. And he had a little bit of stock in it, and they brought him home in an ambulance.
Damon: Well, he was about dead!
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Walter and Bertha Family Life, Early Bentree Years
Walter and Bertha Were Frugal
… Of course, it is hard to understand, unless you have been through something like that. He was the kind of fella…Daddy did not spend much money. You know that. But I think going through what he went through, he did not want to go through it again. So, he didn’t waste no money. He would save what he got [from Union Carbide], and they would live out of what the store made. But during the time he worked at the plant, he saved quite a bit of money. He had quite a bit of money saved. A lot of people would say, why don’t you do this or that. But no! When you had seven kids, and you did not know where they was going to get breakfast at. And then you did get a job, you tried and laid something up for the next time. I reckon that is where a lot of it was at. And you just don’t, some people just don’t get out and throw their money away. Now some people now can get a credit card, they think we will live today and not worry about tomorrow, you know.
07:34 [DCWv2: Bentree recollections; store; sawmills (07:34-19:04)]
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• Family photos
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• House was added to several times; Walter’s carpentry skills
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• Family tree showing relationship to families in photos (e.g. cousins, etc. of kids)
Bentree Families
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Transitions
• Mention next sections
• Is this the place to integrate some Bentree slides that I took over the years?
• Make reference to Resources/Bentree Information
Union Carbide at Alloy, WV
Info about the plant, its history; include Hawks Nest hydro and Glen Ferris
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Family Group Photos, 1937-1952
Walter & Bertha Photos, 1937-1952
Denvil, 1937-1943, Bentree Years
Phyllis, 1937-1950, Bentree Years
Freda, 1937-1943, Bentree Years
Damon, 1937-1950, Bentree Years
Dale, 1937-1952, Bentree Years
Doyle, 1937-1952, Bentree Years
Darrel, 1937-1952, Bentree Years
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