Our Family Album and Stories

RIDING THE BLIND The Great Depression still gripped the nation on November ninth, 1936 when I was born in the mining town of Dehue, seven miles from the city of Logan, West Virginia. I slipped into the world silently, and my mother thought something was wrong with me. Dr. Fred Brammer, the company doctor who […]

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The Reverends and the Revenuers

LOGAN COUNTY REVENUERS – STILL DESTRUCTION The man on the left is wearing “snake boots.” The high-top boots were protection from poisonous bites of rattle snakes and copperheads as they beat the brush down on their way up the mountainside Dogs came in handy when searching for the moonshiners and their stills. Lock . .

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Number Please?

The word telephone is derived from the Greek words “tele” meaning “far off” and “phonos” meaning “sound.” Alexander Graham Bell lacked the funds to develop his invention of the telephone. So, he tried to sell all rights to his telephone patent to the Western Union Telegraph Company for $100,000 in 1876. They turned him down

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Final Thoughts

Dying under those grim circumstances, some have written tender, assuring words to their mothers, vowing to see them again in Heaven. Some have scribbled terse notes declaring how and where they should be buried. Others have penned short but intense love letters to their wives.

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Snow Birds

For ten years starting in 1994, we spent our winters in Panama City Beach, Florida. Most of those years were spent at Island Breeze Hotel. In March 2004 on our way home to Ohio, we drove to Titusville on the east coast to visit our dear friends, Bob and Shirley Tomblin. We loved Pelican Point

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My Logan County Roots

“We CAN go home again, in heart, body, and mind” Beth Mende Conny My name is Joanna Newman. I was born is Ashland, Kentucky, in 1944, to a Dad who was from Berkeley County, South Carolina, who was serving in WWII, and a mother who was from the mountains of Logan County, West Virgina. It

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Hinchman Cemetery

Route 10 McConnell, West Virginia Not for commercial use. From Logan Courthouse, take Route 10 south, several miles to McConnell. Across from the old former post office [ask someone if you can’t find this] on the east side of RT 10, there is a road that goes up the mountain. This is a steep hill.

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Lorenzo Dow Thompson

© Copyrighted Lorenzo Dow Thompson was born September 10, 1885, in Logan County, West Virginia. He was the second of ten children of James “Jimmy” Thompson & Mary Elizabeth Allen. Dow, as he was known, was a serious minded, and responsible young man. This was demonstrated when his father Jimmy Thompson was killed when Dow

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Wavolene’s Letter

© Copyrighted The letter below was from Wavolene Blass, written approximately 1981-3, to her cousin, Lillian “Judy” Thompson Hall, describing her mother, Nettie Thompson Curtis’, memories of her childhood. NOTE: The house that burned in this story was on or near the area where McConnell, West Virginia, now stands.   My comments are in brackets [

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