The first house I remember living in was near the Ohio River, in Ceredo, West Virginia. My father had a trout line in the river which he caught a fish as long as he was tall. The kitchen was large with a two story kitchen cabinet. The door fronts were made of tin with a pattern of holes punched into the tin. There was a flour bin with a sifter above the center top. High up were the shelves, one for medicine - a pint of Duffy Malt, paregoric, Sloan’s Liniment and a bottle of pain killer. When my mother was feeling tuckered out, she took two tablespoons of Duffy Malt and mixed it with sugar in a half glass of water. She sat down at the table in the center of the room and very slowly stir the mixture with a spoon left handed. She sipped it from the spoon, giving me a tiny sip now and then. After several sips, she appeared to feel much better and would smile a bit. The yard must been bare of grass my daddy showed wads of chewed-up coffee beans which he said my mother had spit out. This said had made her sick but perhaps not since before long there was another baby brother. The coffee beans were bought raw and roasted in the oven of the cooking stove. This was ground as needed in a small coffee mill. The out house was close to the kitchen which was on the back of the house. One day a neighbor boy and myself went into it and in a few minutes, my mother was calling for me; threatening dire things if I didn’t come out immediately. This was my first experience of her looking over my shoulder. She was highly skilled in this art and use it to embarrass and intimidate. One of my brothers became adept as she in this art and for this reason, despite other admirable qualities, is a very objective person. My daddy was working hard and long hours as hostler for the N&W RR. Because he could not read orders, he could only handle the engines in the round house, readying them for their next run. Not only were his wages low, but despite his intelligence and skill, he was relegated to the lowest social status of the railroad people. This hurt his pride, so at one night, he spread his monthly earnings of some $50, all in silver coins on the kitchen table. He remarked that he would save all of it so his boys could get an education and not have it hard as he did; at the same time, spreading his hands. palms upward, on the table so that the corns or callouses were visible. One of my aunts come to stay with us until the new baby came. She and my mother did a lot of baking. There would be several pies and cakes on the kitchen table at one time. We got to sop the batter from the bowl; first using a spoon and later our front fore finger. It was good licking. We moved to the other side of the tracks and life became more sophisticated although our house on one side by the tracks. Our yard was covered with grass and white clover. The bees like the white clover blossoms and I didn’t believe they could sting you when dead. One touch convinced me. We were always getting dressed up, going walking or having a picture taken. The stiff collars, scrubbed ears, and combed hair was very irksome. This was my mother’s way of showing up the white trash who was trying to high hat her and her family. She was a Virginia Sinclair and Landsdown and no West Virginia or Kentucky hillbilly was giving her any of their sass and getting by with it, even though her husband was only a hostler. There were some very strong worded fusses over the backyard fence and across the street. There came a time for me to go to school and I refused. My daddy used some moral persuasion and took me the first day saying that I would not make the mistake he did. It seemed his father had inquired the teacher how he was doing and was told that he (my father) had not been attending. He had been hiding out in the pine thicket all day. My grandfather put him to work and forgot his schooling. The truant officers would check the absentee students posted in the hall and investigate any and all absentees. This discourage me from playing hooky. The teacher sat on the stage on a stage some 2 feet higher than the rest of the school room. She had a good view of the pupils and had pupils recite their lessons on the stage. She also lined pupils up for punishment on the stage. It appears that the girls suffered little from the switching she gave since their dresses absorbed most of the force of the licks. Their dresses almost covered the switches. My new baby brother almost died. Neighbors sat up all night with him and rubbed with him with whiskey. He moved a finger during the night but next morning the family sat in the back yard sadly preparing for the funeral. The messaging continued and he lived. A small, lazy stream ran from near our house, under the railroad and into the Ohio River. Mel and I with bent pins for fish hooks, walked along its banks fishing one day when suddenly both feet slipped out from under me and down I went into the water. My eyes remained open and I grabbed for a rock in the bank and missed. On the second trip up, I got a hold of a black pole in the bank and pulled myself out. Mel was upstream, running toward home for help. I was surprised that I could see under water. This enable me to get a hold of something to pull myself out. Once coming home from school, Mel and myself, had just crossed a bridge when some boys jumped us and one got Mel down. Perhaps of fear of physical combat, I did not go in fighting, but grabbed the hat of the boy who had Mel down and threw it over the bank. A boy got a thrashing if he lost or got his hat soiled. While the boy went to get his hat, we ran home. Already I was afraid of people, even boys of my own size. We traded at one local stores nearby, running an account like everybody else. Pay day evening, the whole family would go to the store and after the account was paid, the merchant would give the children a penny piece of candy and the mother enough gingham for a dress. The men wouldn’t mind of being passed up because they usually had stopped on the way home for a beer and were in good spirits. They gathered in a circle, talking and chewing tobacco juice, very often through their front teeth. A good spitter, by using the two fingers to compress his upper lip, would hit a target 6 to 8 feet away. One day, my mother, brothers and myself were walking down the street where the stores and other places of business were lined up. We were all dressed up, miserable with stiff collars and stiff sailors hats. Parading, walking slowly, cleaned and scrubbed, when we wanted to be out playing. A grocery store had a large stalk of bananas hanging out in the front. I reached up and pulled one off. We hadn’t gone far when my mother saw it. Then began one of my embarrassing moments. I was forced to go in and tell the merchant what I had done and give him back his banana. My mother made no offer to pay for it. She may not have any money. There was no compassion on the part of the grocer and no thanks for returning the banana. This grocer and my mother in handling this little affair as they did, perhaps gave me a lifetime respect for the property of others. There are very short flashes of memory of things that happened early in my life. As a small child, I awoke on a piled up bed, in a strange, darkened room. I could see the lightened doorway and hear coming through it the sounds of music and dancing. Later learned that my mother and her friends had dances in their homes at Goodes, Virginia and that the young children would be put to bed and expected to sleep through it. There’s a memory of riding on a train and of a small wooden table being fastened to the seat arms for food and coffee to be served on and the paper cups sliding from side to side as the train went around the curves; of hot cider in my eyes and the news butch walking through the train with wide variety of fruit and candy. This living in a busy railroad town, with its crowded streets, stores and schools, was a far cry from the first 4 or 5 years of my life which I do not remember, but which I have learned some things. My parents never mentioned the happenings of these years excepts in fits or anger and frustrations. My grandfather, George Danner, the youngest of four sons return home at 16 from the civil war to find the two large gate post at the garden, the only things left standing from the home, barn and mill. This was near Stanton, Virginia and he started drifting westward, winding up on a large plantation near Goodes, Virginia, taking care of the horses. He later married Molly Freeman, daughter of Edwin H. Freeman, millwright and Elizabeth Sturdivant who was a daughter of Mathew P. Sturdivant, founder of Methodism in the Tombigbee area of Alabama, and Agnes Kent of Halifax Co., Virginia who were married Nov. 24, 1813. My grandfather after 10 years of labor, expecting to buy a small farm of his own, asked for a settlement. The landowner always kept the books and even such at a later date, was very adroit in postponing a settlement. His records, although as dishonest as he dared make them, were the only proof acceptable to the court which he partly controlled through kinship and prestige. My grandfather not only lost 10 years of labor but suffered a serious blow to his pride, becoming a tenant farmer which in many ways worse than pre-war slavery, place at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. He was thoroughly whipped as I remember him, blind or partly so and being supported by his youngest daughters. He managed somehow for a while to keep and drive a horse name Kittydid. Later he walked long distances using a cane to feel his way about. He and his family lived as tenants on William A. Landsdown’s farm on Little Otter Creek, east of Bedford City (formerly Liberty). My father, married the oldest daughter, Mary Ophelia, and farmed. They lived in the old farmhouse and kept the old folks until they died. The other heirs forced a sale of the property and my father and mother were without a home and furniture and also stock and tools to continue farming. My father got a job with C.C. Waugh, contractor, building the Virginia Railroad near Moneta, Virginia. His right arm was nearly torn off in an accident on a steam shovel. There were no compensation laws then, so when he could go back to work, the family was in debt for hospital care and other expenses. We lived in a tarpaper shack near a big cut. When they blasted, we crawled under the bed for safety. Most of the laborers were Italians, gotten by transportation from Italy through New York. The contractor will pay the New York agent an agreed upon price per man and would deduct this from man’s earnings except when the man escaped or was enticed away by another contractor. They spoke no English at first, but jabbered, using their hands, eyes and body in expressing themselves. Whole groups would sometimes eat from a large pot, walking around and talking as they did so. Some once killed a buzzard and cooked it for one of these gobfests. It made many sick. Heard it described pointing upward and circling hand, "Big black bird. Fly high. No good." Then bending over and holding stomach with both hands, "Maka you sick at the bell, sicka like hell." We moved out of the tarpaper shack and rented a cabin on the Reese place. When the job was over, my father homesick for a farm, rented the Reese place and it was home for me from about 7 to 15 years of age. Learned to do a farm boy had to do, feed the stock, milk cows, cut wood, plow, hoe, sucker and worm (?) tobacco and walk in frozen shoes to and from school, trap rabbits, pick wild berries to can and make preserves, peel apples for applebutter, suck corn, churn, always getting a bucket of water; there was a telegraph at the Reese place where you let the weighted empty bucket, rolled down a wire to the spring and then wound it back up with a wheel; hunting the cows, scrubbing the floors, washing the dishes using home made lye soap, killing hogs, going to the mill with a sack of corn or wheat; always trying to slide off, either one way or the other and the mule helping it to do so, heating water and scrubbing in tub on Saturday night, dressing upon Sunday school and church, going to men’s side and eyeing the girls on the other side, waiting, starved for Sunday dinner while the older folks and guest ate and gabbed at the first table, playing ante over, tag and ball on Sunday afternoons, studying at night in my fathers and mother room where there was a fire, my father working out arithmetic problems in his head for me if awake, gathering eggs, trying to find all the hens nests before the eggs spoiled, putting out the cats, filling the kerosene lamps and lantern, taking eggs and butter to the store to trade for coffee, sugar and salt, wheat threshing, following the thresher through the community, changing the straw in the straw ticks, stuffing them with new straw and many other little tasks. They were all necessary, some tiresome and many interesting. This suddenly end for me at 17 to become a store clerk at $50 per month, with $22.50 going for meals. 48 years later, with no desire to do so, would have no fear and perhaps would find challenging, forcing up to that kind of living with the great opportunities it presented of improvement in comfort and ease of living. It was hard but people had the time to enjoy things, a good meal, helping a neighbor behind in his work, a trip to the store or just visiting. There was lots of time for everything except sleeping. Four o’clock was consider the healthy and correct time to woke up. Only the sick or very elderly people sometimes sleep late and had to hate breakfast. Breakfast began with meat and always with gravy, either brown or white flour and milk gravy, eggs usually fried, biscuits which you covered with gravy and finally biscuits, butter and preserves or molasses. Seconds helpings were always expected and insisted upon. A third helping could mark you being very fond of something, as being piggish, or very hungry and was generally frown upon. Dinner at noon had 2, 3 or 4 different kinds of everything available, usually boiled 2 or 3 hours until dry almost. Bread was usually hoe cake or corn bread baked in large pan. The preserve dishes were never removed from the table except to be washed or refilled. Supper, after work was done, was usually more of dinner. There was always a choice of butter or sweet or some of both. Some people never had good buttermilk. We did the scalding and s____ (?) the milk vessels. You only stopped at some homes to get a good meal, at others you just ate. Our was the former because my mother was known as a good cook and took pride in her cooking and keeping clean house, until she began to get old and lost interest in it. My father had no concern for cleanliness and to the end stubbornly resisted all efforts on my mother part to clean up (shave and take bath) and quit feeding the dogs and cats at the table. He never changed. Perhaps no Danner ever has in his early habits and inclinations. For a number of years I have been gathering and checking information about some of our forebears. Had hoped to get it more complete but cannot be fully so. It is difficult to ascertain correctly what happened even 20 or 40 years ago. Everybody’s recollections are faulty and confused to a greater or lesser extent so it is necessary to check and compare information. Where the information is dubious or hearsay it is indicated. Remember with mixed emotions of the experiences of walking to school (most everybody did, a few rode horseback and would put the saddle in hallow tree to keep it dry). After a year at Ceredo, started going to school in an old log cabin standing where the Methodist church now stands at Moneta, as did the other country boys, wore frozen shoes, which were very stiff and awkward to me. Would stumble and fall head long throwing the syrup bucket in which my lunch was packed out ahead and if the lid came off, spilling my lunch of biscuits, meat and perhaps a fried apple pie. Everybody recited out aloud so that I learned the multiplication table before getting to it. Spelling came first in the morning with the class lined up. You moved up in the line if you spelt a word that someone ahead of you had missed. You could stay at the head of the class or line as long as you didn’t miss. The largest boys and there would be one or more grown up got to cut the wood for the fire. The larger girls or boys would go to the spring to bring water in a bucket which set on a shelf at the back of the room. You could raise your hand and get the teacher’s permission to get a drink out of a dipper or go outside for nature’s call, that is provided that the teacher did not think you were overdoing it. You would wiped your slate clean with the bottom of the hand or sometimes the elbow, using a little spit at times. A really clean slate was new or had been wash with a rag and water. The upper part of the wrist or forearm was used for wiping the nose. You kept a cold most of the winter because shoes, socks and feet were often wet although greasing the shoes with mutton tallow or lard was ritual. The roads were too muddy most of the winter to walk on so there were paths alongside of them through the fields and woods. You didn’t hurry to school and didn’t hurry home, because either place there was work to do. You ate your lunch hurriedly to join in playing ante over with a home made ball, base or fox and the hounds. Every teacher had a small bell to ring when school took up and recess was over. She also kept a ruler to slap the palm of the hands or knuckles for minor infractions or dumbness. Sometimes this would be followed by having to stand in the corner of the room with your back to the class. For more serious offenses the cheeks would be sharply and rapidly smacked. This pain was keen but short of duration but very, very embarrassing. A thrashing was something else and designed to impress anyone else tempted to be unruly or disrespectful of the teacher. The switch, if not on the teacher’s desk, was gotten by the teacher’s pet from the outside. The thrashing or larrupping took place in full view of all the pupils with the licks being applied where the clothing was thinnest, usually the backs or legs. It was not often either a still or silent spectacle. The pupil twisting and moving and the teacher following each move. If one stood still and made no outcry, this was taken as a sign not of fortitude but of stubbornness and caused the punishment to be continued until the teacher was exhausted. The news of the thrashing would be carried on a few days to every family in the community and would be a topic of conversation everywhere, most everyone siding with the teacher, fortunately perhaps stating that he (usually) had it coming. Often the culprit to avoid further embarrassment would quit school and work on the farm. There was plenty work to do and no education was needed to do it. About 1911, we got a big, new school replacing the little one room schools and it was called Moneta High School. You still walked or rode horseback to get there but we began to have Literary Society and use pencil and paper. No more reciting out loud. We trapped rabbits to buy our school supplies. Everyone come to the Friday Literary Society meeting. If you were on the program, days were spent preparing and when you got up, all of it had left you empty headed, mouth dry, tongue paralyzed and shaking like a withered leaf. After ages, you got to sit down and hide, thinking - "no, no, never again". Sometimes we had a play or box supper or a pie supper. Woe betide the young man who did not have the money to outbid others for his girl’s box, cake or pie and had to eat with the girl whose was not so much desired. It was embarrassing to both and was somewhat of an ordeal. About 1915, I went to Roanoke, representing Moneta High School in a oratorical contest. No luggage or change of clothes to take along, nothing but a country boy’s embarrassment. Stayed overnight in a nice home with friendly people. For breakfast, they served corn flakes, the first cereal I had ever seen. When they passed the milk, to pour over it, I did not use any. The mother kindly insisted but perhaps wishing to cover for my ignorance, insisted eating it dry. Because of this experience, perhaps, have never learned to enjoy such cereals. Another food experience happened a little later with similar affects, Had never eaten grapefruit or seen them until working in the store at Gary. Decided to cut one and eat it when stocking up one morning. It was bitter and not fit for the hogs. In 1916, having finish high school with top honors rode into Bedford and took the teacher’s examination. Rode a mule, which traveled well but stumble a lot, one time falling in a mud hole and ruining my stiff straw hat. Met a Model T which the mule wouldn’t pass. It finally go by with the mule running sideways back towards home. Riding a mule into town was embarrassing since practically everyone rode a horse and use mules only for farm work. Never head from the examination. Teaching jobs were just for certain families.