Pres Bragg's Retirement Party

From Bonnie (Brown) Neal

Presley (Pres) Bragg was for many years the mail carrier for one of the two Orlando RFD routes. My dad, Solomon Brown, was a substitute carrier for him.

Here is the picture taken at Pres Bragg's retirement dinner. Note the mailbox-shaped cake in front of him. These were the Orlando mail carriers and all of them are deceased except my Dad. I teased my Dad and told him that he was the only one without a suit and tie, that he was the only one living.

Back Row: Pete Henline, Pete Bennett, Jack Riffle, Solomon Brown, Claud Mick

Front Row: Charley Tully, Presley Bragg, Alva Barnett

See also an entry in Feb '07 Mail Delivery In The Early 1900s

See also an entry in Dec '06 Postmasters

The Blake & Riffle Reunion

The five little girls in the photo, Bonnie Brown, Pearl Fleming (back middle), Canna Fleming (front middle) Margaret Bragg (back daughter of Preston Bragg), Blenda Brown(front), are all dressed up and ready for whatever the 1949 Blake and Riffle Reunion might bring.

According to David L. Blake1, "The Blake and Riffle Reunion was started by Lee Washington Blake around 1933 or 1934. The reunion was held on the first Sunday of August. All the family members knew of this date and this was the day the family or clan came together.

"The largest Blake Riffle reunions were held in the 1950s and '60s with 250 to 300 people participating each year. It was not just a family affair. It was the event of the year and all people were invited. Because the reunion was held on the borders of Lewis, Braxton and Gilmer counties a lot of politicians came seeking votes from the people who attended. "At the reunion families would always gather with their fathers and they gathered at the same spot every year. This way you knew where to find your favorite cousins. They would bring food and have a picnic on the ground. People would begin arriving at nine and stay until dark."

In addition to starting the Blake and Riffle Reunion, Lee Washington Blake wrote The Blakes and Riffles Going Back Seven Generations, a "must read" document about Orlando.

1. David L. Blake, The Blake and Riffle Reunion, pg 60 in Lewis County, West Virginia: Her People and Places edited by Joy Gilchrest Stalnacker.

To Bed Without Supper!

The white clapboard church that stood on the high ground between Flesher Run and Clover Fork, the original St. Michael Roman Catholic church building, holds many memories. See John Carney's memories in the Dec '06 entry, The 13 Minute Mass. Bonnie (Brown) Neal's memory, which follows, is not one you'd expect.

Bonnie Brown lived on Flesher Run and her playmates, the McCauley girls, lived on Clover Fork1. On the high ground between them stood the clapboard-covered St. Michael Church. A road ran up from Flesher Run to the unused church and a footpath ran from Clover Fork to the church. The very old, unused church was a part of her childhood landscape.


"While my Mother was visiting a neighbor, my sister and I walked across the hill [up the road to the church and down the path from the church] to play with two of the McCauley girls, Rosalie and Peggy. Of course we didn't realize how late it was getting and it was getting dark when we were going home and my parents met us coming back across the hill.

"It is one of those things you remember, especially when you get sent to bed without any supper after all that playing and walking across the hill. My Mother still yet today denies putting us to bed without supper. That was the worst punishment for us. As well as I can remember I think I was about eight and my sister about five years old."

Above to the left is a photo of Bonnie and others on the steps of the old church, about 10 years after this story took place. To the right is a photo Bonnie found on the internet. It is the best picture we have of the log building when it was clapboard covered. This beloved building punctuated the landscape that is now part of the Burnsville Lake Recreation area. The church was moved. See its story at the Sep 21 '06 entry St. Michael's Several Buildings


1. Flesher Run drains into the Little Kanawha River and Clover Fork drains into Oil Creek. St Michael, the log church that was built on Griffins' farm, is on the high ground between the two watersheds. The easiest route over the high ground is always a place for coming together.

Hog Butchering

Bonnie (Brown) Neal sends these two 1961 photos of hog butchering on Flesher's Run, just over the hill from Clover Fork. These pictures, taken in 1961, show Frank Kidd, Jim Ratliff, Tommy Conrad, Solomon Brown and Ted Conrad hard at work.

David Hyre shared the following with us: "Mom told me about the family slaughtering hogs each year, hanging them from a teepee shaped tripod in the farmyard. They would skin and butcher them from that position. She spoke of large vats of boiling water as part of that and how there was a terrible stench to the process. The boiling water was used to soak skins to remove boar bristle by scraping with sharp knives. A peddler man with a wagon mounted grinding stone went farm to farm to sharpen scrapers and knives during the fall butchering time."

The photo below shows that process of soaking the skin.

Hogs were integral to farm life in this area from its very earliest settlement. The first settlers along Oil Creek and Clover Fork soon learned that sheep and cows were easy prey to the panthers and other predators that came with the land, and therefore needed to be closely watched. Hogs, on the other hand, with a tough old boar hog at the lead, fit right into the neighborhood, getting fat on the acorns and other nutritious fare that the woods provided.

As the farmers tamed the wilderness hogs became an even more intimate part of the economy and ecology of the household. The home-cured and
-canned pork was a staple all year long. Even more intimately tied to Orlando life was the bacon grease from the home cured bacon. As some cuisines use butter or olive oil, the standard fat used in Orlando was bacon drippings.

Another example of the family's intimate relationship with hogs was the slop bucket that sat next to the stove. Anything edible that we did not eat went into the bucket and every night it was a boy's chore to take it out to the hog pen and slop the hogs.

Double click on the photos to get a better look at them.