Bill & Josie Beckner

Bill Beckner shares information & a couple photos of his grandparents.

William Earl and Josephine (Riffle) Beckner set up housekeeping on Posey Run in the 1920s. The raised two sons, Marvin and Lambert, three daughters, Ruby, Rosemary and Louiemae and one of Lambert's two boys, Bill.

With his red hair and ruddy complexion it isn't surprising that William was nicknamed "Red."
The b&w photo of William Beckner at the left doesn't give us a clue to his nickname.

Red worked for the B&O Railroad, keeping the tracks from Burnsville to the tunnel in working order. He and others in his crew worked out of a way station near the middle of that stretch of track. They ran those little repair cars up and down the track.

By the 1930s the Beckners had moved to a two story white house on the bluff overlooking downtown Orlando. In the photo to the left their house is at the far right side of the photo.

The Beckners were active in their community.
Josie is in the center of the ca. 1953 photo to the left, taken at a recognition for a special group of 4-H-ers at Orlando Elementary School . from the left: Jessie Bragg, Virgie Henline, Josie Beckner, Irene England and Opal McCrobie

To the right two of the Beckner kids, Ruby and Lambert, are nearly hidden in the back row of this photo of a Sunday School class at Orlando's United Brethern Church.







The ca. 1954 Tip Topper photo is from David Parmer
The late 1930s Sunday School photo at the front door of the church is from Lewis County West Virginia by Joy Stalnacker

See also
July 07, '06 Coal Trains
July 12, '06 A Tribute To The Tip Toppers 4-H Club

Squirrel for Dinner

Hunting game is a part of our heritage that remains strong1. Deer and squirrel are two popular prey. I'd think wild turkey would be, too, but I haven't heard that it is.

Bill Beckner likes that squirrel hunting comes before deer hunting in the fall. In addition to the chance to be out in the wild and the good food squirrel hunting provides, it's good target practice for deer hunting.

This photo from the internet illustrates how the squirrel is fried.

Here is Bill Beckner's recipe for squirrel. Bill cuts the critter into chicken-like pieces and par-boils it to make it tender. Then he goes ahead just like fried chicken. He coats it with four and browns it in a medium high skillet and seasons it with salt and pepper. When it's all crispy brown, he puts a lid on, turns down the heat and lets it cook till it's almost falling off the bone.
Bill makes gravy by thickening the liquid the squirrel was parboiled in.

Just a quick word about "the best part:" a great delicacy for Bill's grandma, Josie Beckner, were the brains. She loved breaded, sauted squirrel brains. This put an extra but welcomed burden on grandson Bill. The standard way to kill a squirrel was to blow its brains out: quick and painless a death as can be. But if he was going to bring home brains for his grandma, Bill had to shoot the squirrels in their body, squarely enough so they didn't suffer. Fortunately, Bill is a very good shot.

Now here is a quite different approach to squirrel, which shows just how versatile squirrel can be. This is not from and Orlando hunter but a hunter from the Hacker's Creek Pioneer Descendants (Don't have his name, but his e-mail "handle" is "Steel78") He offered the following recipe: "The only way we fixed rabbit and squirrel was to drop them off to a neighbor lady, and the next day or so, she sent a cherry pie over. I recommend it."

The Last Midwife

Adapted from an article by Paul P. Bennett of Jane Lew, published in Lewis County West Virginia, Her People and Places, edited by Joy Gilchrist-Stalnacker, pgs 58-59, available at the HCPD, Horner, WV

"Maysell (Parmer) Bennett (1898-1982) at one time had delivered about every baby in the Orlando area." Paul Bennett goes on to tell us that transportation was mostly by horses and was difficult at times. We know she worked in concert with Dr. Peck, who would come out to the new mother’s home as soon as possible, but from Burnsville to Orlando, and even up Clover Fork could take quite a while, especially in the mud road and paths of winter and the floods of spring.

"Maysell did not charge anything for her services but sometimes some of her patients would give her $5.00. The expecting mothers would contact her before the due date and ask her to come to their home when the mother would go into labor. (This was called engaging.)" Bonnie Brown, on the right in this 1960s photo was one of the babies Maysell delivered. We don't know who delivered her cousin Betty Brown.


Maysell Parmer married David Bennett, also from Orlando. Like many of his generation, David worked for the Hope Gas Company. They had six kids together. To the right is a photo of the two. The house they lived in, white with green trim, still stands on a small hill just past the road that goes up the hill to the Orlando graveyard.




This photo of northern Lewis County midwife Catherine (Queen) White would have been taken roughly about the time young Maysell began assisting with births in the Orlando area. Tis photo was contributed by Christine White to Joy Gilchrist's Lewis County West Virginia on pg 200

Joe's Song

"Joe Quinton Burgett, 58, of 75 Clover Fork Road, Orlando, died Tuesday, September 5, 2006, at his residence."

Joe had been so ill that most of us hadn't expected him to still be with us when met this past Labor Day weekend on the hill overlooking Orlando, but he was there! He was pretty sick, but he'd just bought a dobro and had set about exploring and learning to play the old songs with Marilyn (Cole) Posey and her cousin, Charley Cole.

Joe was born and grew up in the Detroit area. He was in the Lamphere High School Band and studied landscape design in college. He was bright, creative and had an independent streak that could drive you nuts.

Joe served in special services in Viet Nam. He didn't talk much about his time there, and he carefully edited what he did say. Like so many other young men, when Joe came back he was never the same. He was still bright, caring, independent and sometimes ornery, though. Joe was a truck driver, big rigs, after he came back.

Joe's mom was one of the many Orlando folks that leave the hills to get work and move back as soon as possible. His mom, Juanita (Stutler) Burgett, bought Charley Knight's old store from W.D. Brown, just down from the former Dolan Hotel where her parents Edith (Skinner) & Oras Stutler had been living since the early 1950s. Joe's brother John and sister Sandy settled in the hills, too. Sandy married Roger Conrad and they raised their 3 kids on Three Lick. John, also in the service (Desert Storm & Iraq), and his wife Tammy and 5 kids live near Weston. Joe's 3 kids, Scott Redden, Jonell Barr and Connie Osentoski, all live in southeast Michigan.


Top left is a photo of Joe with his K-9 partner in 'Nam. To the right is Joe and me in our grandparents' parlor on Christmas Eve with the world's scariest Santa. Lower left is Joe's folks, Juanita (Stutler) and Lee Burgett, both of whom served in WWII. To the right is Joe's home, formerly Charley Knight's, then W.D. Brown's, then Juanita & Lee Burgett's general store. Bottom is an assortment of cousins on Labor Day weekend, 2005. Joe is standing, far right , with the white beard. His brother John is standing beside him in a green shirt and his sister Sandy is sitting, on the right, with light colored hair.
The Coles, Marilyn and Charley, sang at Joe's funeral. Marilyn said, "At the funeral, I explained to everyone that the last song Joe sang with us was Will The Circle Be Unbroken... 1 And it was the only gospel song he knew all the words to. So he loved that song very much. So, I told everyone that from now on when we sing for occasions etc. I will tell the story of Joe and let them know that to them the familiar name is Circle Be Unbroken, but it is " Joe's Song" to us."

In memory of a soldier, a father, a thinker & dreamer, a son of Orlando,

. . . . Will the circle be unbroken . . . .

. . . . By and by, by and by . . . .

. . . . There's a better home awaitin' . . . .

. . . . In the sky Lord, in the sky . . . .

1. Will the Circle... is a traditional folksong that the Carter family brought with them out of the Virginia hills in the 1930s.

Beham Henline's Business Records

Beham Henline's folks had settled in the Hackers Creek area in the early 1800s and he was born there in 1850. That would make him 10 years old when the Civil War broke out.1

Beham married a young widow, Samantha Elizabeth Skinner, daughter of Alexander and Phoebe (Conrad) Skinner, original settlers of what would become Orlando. They set to housekeping and farming near her family on the south side of Oil Creek, across from where the brick church now stands. In the course of 36 years together (Beham died in 1912 at the age of 62) they raised a healthy family of eight children and, as best we can tell, built a successful farming business.

An indication of his success is an account book dated 1891-1892 in which Beham Henline kept a record of transactions in a store or agency he kept in Orlando. David Parmer copied as much of the info in the old, frail book as he could make out, and shares it with us: "As you may know the B&O Railroad was completed through Orlando around the time Beham operated his store and, judging from the entries in the book, it appears that the railroad was the means of shipping out the domestic produce mentioned in the account book, such as lumber, green hides, sheep pelts, chickens, beef, and the like. There were items sold to local customers which probably came in by railroad, such as flour, tobacco, nails, cooking utensils, and many other things which were unlikely to have been produced locally."

The names in the old records include familiar names from old Orlando and near-by communities as well as some we don't know. Maybe you can tell us about some of them: C. S. Clauston, Bill Hernon, Nuten Blake, David Bragg, Clover Fork Church, Asa Clark, J. H. Cosner, S. Blake, D. J. Denard, John Baldwin, J. A. Blake, John Conrad, F. A. Caynor, Nuten Caynor, James Donelson, Joseph Riffle, J. W. Groff, Victor Groff, Mary Fox, Victoria Groff, N. M. Foster, W. A. Fox, B. F. Fleming, ___ Fox, Hanson Heater, J. W. Hollen, Mrs. Huggins, Jamima (?) Heater, Emily Grarees, Mollie Hollen, Thomas Heater, Press Jackson, A. Johnson, ___ James, Samuel Heater, Marrion Heater, Elias Heater, John Henline, Godf__(?) Melehin (?), John Blake, Joseph Keith, Ben Fleming, Herman Johnson, J. P. Kenedy, H. H. Posey, David Law, Perry Luzader, J. P. McCarty, J. P. McCally, Mike Rush, Allen More, Salamine Mick, J. W. Muvey, C. E. Mitchell, Martin Mulvey, Lee Morrison, thoams McCally, W. T. Moody, Willmon McCally, H. Mick, M. V. McCarty, N. Ann Skinner, C. L. Bennett, John Posey, Perry Posey, Arch Pennyton, Dick Posey, Sully Posey, A. L Persinger, E. J. Posey, L. H. Casey, Pllmer Posey Ruddle Posey, ___Cllaahers, Olive Church, C. L. Gainer, A. G. Griffin, D. N. Godfrey, Morrison Riffle, John Riffle, J. Riffle, Aa Riffle, Russ Riffle, Z. Townsend, Robert Skinner, Ann Skinner, James Skinner, Jack Reaser, Frank Ratcliffe, M. A. Rush, C. D. Stout, Joe Skinner, Joe Sandy, M. E. Shoulders, T. P. Townsend, Jackson Thompson, July Bue, D. C. Wellen, Daisy Heath, T. A. Cayner, Mrs. Dolan, Joseph Keath, M. V. Carney, T. A. Clark, Joe Scarf, T. S. Riffle, Draper Riffle, Sally Posey, Mrs. Heater, Joe Groves, Jno. Baldwin, Ruth Blake, Oat Fox, Marry C. Heater, Owen More, Frank Radcliffe, W. S. Moody, J. W. Groff, Morrison Heater, P. S. Skinner, W. L Posey, Jacob I. Riffle, James B. Blake, H. D. Johnson, Peter Farrell, Buck Fox, Sarah Posey, T. L Williams, Mike Tully, Thomas Godfrey, William Bee, A. D. Burrell, J. H. Cosner, Sterman Johnson, Harry Bee, John Baldwin, L. P. Fox, Mollie Hollen, Steward Blake, Jacob Bush, Ila Fox

Photo, ca. 1900, is of Beham Henline (bearded, 2nd from left) and his brothers Lloyd, John and McClellen (Mack).
The picture of raw wool is simply to suggest some of the domestic produce Orlando folks were selling in the 1890s.

See also
Oct 03, '06 Samantha (Skinner) Henline's Family
Oct 10, '06 Beham Henline's Funeral

1. We know his father lived in the Jane Lew area and two of his sisters settled in Gilmer County, also in the Collins Settlement area. For more info on Collins Settlement see History of West Virginia, Old and New - Chapter IX

Outbuildings

Our grandparents' place in Orlando in the mid-20th century had the following outbuildings. (Cousins, if I've missed any, or missnamed them, please let me know.)
Barn,
Chicken Coop,
Hog Shed,
Smoke House,
Tool Shed,
Corn Bin, . . . and yes, a
Two-Seater Outhouse that was well used.
The Fruit Cellar was built into the hill behind the house, but it wasn't really an out building because a long porch connected it to the house.

I'd noticed that there were a lot of little outbuildings, each with a single function, but I hadn't noticed that none of the outbuildings were painted, until I visited the new Bulltown Interpretive Park (where the Army Corps of Engineers moved several historical homes, the original St. Michael Church and numerous out buildings.) The Bulltown Interpretive Park brochure mentioned that in West Virginian culture, the outbuildings were left unpainted.

Above to the right is a photo of a few of the outbuildings on Oras & Edith (Skinner) Stutler's land (the former Dolan Hotel in downtown Orlando). To the left is a photo of the front porch of their home to show the care with which it was maintained. Below is the Cunningham House, nicely painted, and the corn crib that sits near it, one of several single purpose, unpainted structures at the Bulltown Interpretive Park.

It Was The Eggs That Killed Uncle Dick

George Delbert Skinner was my grandmother's Uncle Dick. He owned the Wagon Restaurant in Orlando where my grandmother worked when she was a teenager in the 1910s.

Usually when I ask about Uncle Dick someone says, "Ah yes, Uncle Dick was a ladies' man." Seems to me like an odd thing to be remembered for. I recently visited with my third cousin, once removed, Earl Skinner (Lawrence, Marcellus (Pappy), Jackson McWorter, Alexander) at the Skinner Cafe in Weston. Earl knew Uncle Dick, so I asked about him. He said, "Ah, yes. Uncle Dick was a ladies' man." He went on to tell me what he could remember of Uncle Dick.

Earl says Uncle Dick lived in downtown Orlando with his mother, Patience (DuVall) Skinner, and cared for her until her death. He never married.

Don't know when Uncle Dick quit working at the restaurant, but Earl says in his later years Uncle Dick lived alone and ate eggs for every meal; breakfast, lunch or dinner, Uncle Dick would break the eggs at the kitchen counter and toss the egg shells out the window. Earl tried to recreate the sceene he faced when he went to clean up Uncle Dick's place after his death: the condition of the shack, the extraordinary pile of eggshells outside the window over the sink, but words failed him, which is something that doesn't often happen to Earl. At any rate, Earl, busy flipping burgers at the Skinner Cafe Grill, went on to point out that Uncle Dick was proof that eggs will kill you. It took 90-some years to do in Uncle Dick, but they finally did.

Top right: Uncle Dick's restaurant ca. 1915.
Lower left: the Weston eatery that Lawrence's sons run, where Earl Skinner comands the grill during lunch hour.

See also
2/15/06 Dick Skinner's Restaurant -A Family Affair
2/24/06 Orlando Businesses Over the Years
10/06 The Bear Trainer

How To Find A Lost Graveyard

John Burgett (swinging from a grapevine in the DuVall Cemetery at the right side of the photo) volunteers on Memorial Day to honor our veterans by putting flags on their graves. This year, in addition to our family cemetery in Orlando, he was asked to honor vets in a couple cemeteries that no one looks after.

The DuVall Cemetery, off Oil Creek Road, is "on the road side of the hill." He looked down the side of the hill at acres of fully forested land: no clearing, no gravestones in sight.

Then he noticed a line of trees larger than the rest, maybe old growth, certainly older growth, trees. Now, why had no one harvested those trees when they harvested the rest of this hill? A cemetery!

Once he was down with the large trees, he found a few standing, and many, many broken & buried gravestones. Polly (Godfrey) DuVall, mother of Patience (Duvall) Skinner, was one. Later we found her husband, G.T. DuVall. There were also sundry Waldos and a Simms, who had married one of Patience's sisters. We could only find a very few of the gravestones and they were hard to read.

Virginia McCoy Was a School Teacher at Clover Fork

Peggy Morris, daughter of Glenn and Virginia (McCoy) Skinner, tells how her mom came to Orlando where she met & married a grandson of Jackson McWhorter and Patience (DuVall) Skinner

Virginia McCoy was born in Gem, a small town on the way to Sutton. Her dad, Nolan McCoy, was killed in a train track accident when she was three. Her mother, Audrey McAvoy, died in the great flu epidemic in 1918.

Virginia was raised by her stepfather who sent her to college. At the age of 15 she graduated from Normal School (the equivalent of a two year college today) and started teaching. Virginia first went to Richwood where she lived with her older sister and brother-in-law who were also teachers.

"I don't know why or how she got to Clover Fork to teach, but that is how she met Dad." Clover Fork was a one room school house.

Glenn Skinner was probably working in his barber shop near his Uncle Dick's restaurant in downtown Orlando at that time. The shop was long gone by the 1950s and we kids played in the then decrepit wood building that had housed it.

Glenn and Virginia had one of the loveliest farms in the area, about a mile up Grass Run, off Three Lick, where raised a family of seven kids: Jean was the oldest, followed by Marjorie, Peggy, Eleanor (Bump), Nolan (Dick), Linda (Spark) and Robert Glenn, (Bob). When the youngest was maybe ten, they moved to Fort Pierce, Florida where Aunt Virginia taught for another 20+ years, now at the school where her oldest boy was the principal.

Many thanks to Peggy (Skinner) Morris for the information on her remarkable mother.

Photo above is of Glenn & Virginia (McCoy) Skinner, taken by their nephew Bill Stutler in the 1960s.
Photo of Gid & Sarah(Bennett) Skinner shows baby Edmund Glenn as an infant on his mother's lap, wearing- a christening gown?

Funeral Pie

When there was a funeral my sister Jackie had to deliver grandma's raisin pies to the family's home. Jackie would be on foot, of course, or maybe her bike. The home, where the wake would take place after the burial, could easily be several miles away. It wasn't one of her faviorite things to do.

It was a surprise to discover, recently, the pie's relationship to the German in our culture1. The following info comes from Googling "Funeral Pie."
"Also called Raisin Pie and Rosina Pie (German for raisin). For many years raisin pie was served with the meal prepared for family and friends at the wake following a funeral. The probable reason was that this pie could be made at any season and kept well when prepared a day or two before the funeral. It does not need refrigeration. This pie traditionally is served at funerals of Old Order Mennonites and Amish."

We're searching for grandma's receipe, but in the meantime, here's a typical one.
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups raisins
2 cups water
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 pinch salt
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

My mother's piecrust receipe for a double nine inch piecrust was
2 & 1/4C Flour
3/4 C lard (or Crisco)
4 T cold water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a pan with half the pastry and chill. Place the raisins and 2/3 cup of the water in a saucepan and heat over medium heat for 5 minutes. Combine the sugars, cornstarch, spices, and salt in a bowl and , mixing all the time, slowly add the remaining water. Add this mixture to the heating raisins. Cook and stir this until the mixture starts to bubble. Add the vinegar and butter and heat until the butter is melted. Cool until just warm. Pour into the prepared shell and top with the second crust. Bake 25 minutes or until golden. Cool.

The school photo is 13 year old Jackie, the reluctant funeral pie carrier.

1. See entry from July17, '06: Orlando's Ancestors From The Palatine