The upstairs in grandmother’s house was two bedrooms separated by a hallway, the bedroom over the living room was where Lucy and Bertha slept, it had two double beds two dressers and two chest of drawers and a trunk, the house didn’t have a chimney, a stove pipe came up through the bedroom floor and up through the ceiling and out the roof, as the stove pipe came through [the] floor of the upstairs bedroom, there was a square piece of tin with a hole in the middle which the stove pipe went through, this tin was nailed to the floor and held the stove pipe in place and away from any danger of fire. The hole in this tin wasn’t exactly round and was bigger than the stove pipe, and anyone laying on the floor could look through the crooked hole and see what was going on below. I remember one time my sister and I were laying on the floor listening to a conversation between grandfather and a neighbor, this neighbor was a bachelor of about forty years old. Aunt Lucy liked this bachelor, when she found us listening, she wanted to listen also, she leaned over so she could hear what was said below but aunt Lucy started laughing, well grandmother had, had beans for supper, and apparently aunt Lucy hadn’t chewed her food very well because suddenly she started to throw up the beans. They bounced around and went down the hole beside the stove pipe, the stove had a rim around the top that resembled the rim of a hat, well the beans hit that rim and bounced off onto the neighbor that sat near the stove, Well he got so mad he swore and ran from the room, in his haste to get away, he jerked the kitchen door open, and fell head first over old Shep that was laying on a rug in front of the door. Well this neighbor ran off into the night, and I never saw him at grandmothers again.
Uncle Sammy never said very much. (he was crippled also) I guess it was because it embarrassed him that people couldn’t understand him. Grandfather got Uncle Sammy some white rabbits and he played with them all day long, the rabbits ran free so everywhere Uncle Sammy went the rabbits followed. Grandfather never built any fences on his farm so the cows had to be watched constantly , this was Uncle Sammy’s job watching the cows, and when they went to far Old Shep would bring them back. I’ll never forget Uncle Sammy. Old Shep and the rabbits up in the pasture field, from sunup to sundown; when it rained he sat under a big umbrella.
Grandmother Maust, took care of them until she died. Nobody ever knew why these four children were crippled, they weren’t born that way. One winter when they were little, they got sick. The doctor gave them some medicine, when they got over the illness they were crippled. Grandmother had spilled some medicine on the floor, it eat a hole in the rug, we don’t know if it was the medicine or what, that was in the late 18th century, so nobody knew much about medicine or sickness then. Uncle Harvey was younger than the crippled ones, he was alright he worked hard farming. After grandfather died, Uncle Harvey just seemed to give up trying to support grandmother, Uncle Sammy and Aunt Lucy and Bertha, he knew he would be supporting them for the rest of his life, so one day he just up and left. Uncle Harvey came back one year later, with a pregnant wife, she was Edith Cupp, we all knew her, as she lived close by. Edith came from a very poor family and she didn’t have all her marbles, she talked simple, but Uncle Harvey loved her and they ended up having twelve kids.
The state of West Virginia finally took the farm from Grandmother, and moved her into a log house that was on the farm next door. The state supported Grandmother, Uncle Sammy, Aunts Lucy and Bertha, when Grandmother died the state came and got Uncle Sammy, Aunt Lucy and Bertha, and put them in a home, where they lived to an age of seventy, seventy three, and sixty eight. I am thankful the state never separated them, they were together and happy, (always.)
Then there was Aunt Millie Maust Hoover, she was the youngest of my Grandmothers children. Aunt Millie was a little like Grandmother, , when she finished grade school she went to live with aunt Ada, where she got a job as telephone operator, she married Arthur Hoover a big man, six feet four inches tall and weighed over 200 pounds, and he never worked a day in his life, after aunt Millie and Art got married they got on welfare and stayed on it till the day he died. Aunt Millie had ten kids, one; Mildred was killed by a car when she got off a school bus.
Well that was my Mother’s family.
Arthur Sulvanius Hoover 1905-1965, Mildred Hoover 1937-1941, Edith Cupp 1909-2000, William Freeman Maust 1864-1929, Effie Amanda Ditmore 1868-1946, Ada Mae Maust Kingan 1893-1967, Harvey Earl Maust 1899-1988, Lucy Maust 1898-1972, Millie Maust 1908-1992, Samuel Maust 1905-1954,Bertha Marie Maust 1904-1973 [ALL BOLD ITALIC MENTIONED IN A PRIOR MEMOIR AS WELL]