Memories ofSummer Fun!
Connie Cales and me (Ben) catchin' crawdads! Yep, we both had our chaw in!
Thanks to Cousin Sam for these beautiful pictures of downtown Hinton on Sunday,
December 20,2009!You can just about see horses and buggies making their way along!
Here's Mom's ( Arbanna's) hand written recipe for applebutter. Fall and apple butter time were always special at Stump Lick Hollow!
Julian and Mae made some of the very best applebutter around. Mae, Arbanna and Charlotte continued the tradition.
Those wonderful mothers of our family are gone now, but the memories of this time of year will live as long as any of us can continue to live and recall the smell of apples cooking down in the big copper kettle!
News! History Changes Before our Very eyes!
SLH NEWS- A 'sign of the times' you might say, Someone in Summers County Government has decided to install a sign at the foot of Mill House Hill designating 'something' as "Brier Ridge Road"! The sign is surely misplaced as I don't know anyone named 'Brier' living in the area. ('Briar could have been a better choice-but there's no 'Briar Ridge', either!) Stump Lick Hollow Road extends from Route 20 through Stump Lick Branch and around the mountain to meet up with Chestnut Mountain road.
"School House Ridge" is at the top of Mill House Hill - it has been "School House Ridge " for over 100 years, named for the school built on Phillip Cales' property. The school was approximately in front of the present day Wheeler home, just North of the Cales Family Cemetery.
"Mill House Hill" was a 'dog-leg' road that connected the North end of "Brooks Mountain Road" to the newly built Route 20 around 1931.
The Cales School - on School House Ridge
Family of Phillip and Mary Susan (Ward)Cales
Mary Susan (Ward)Cales
Phillip Marion Cales
Sandstone, WVa - From the Richmond Cemetery
Above is the 'shingle' dipper that was used at The Elbert and Julian Cales grist mill to dip cornmeal into sacks.
The crooked nail is the nail that held the 'button' lock on the outside of the outhouse door.
Silas and Axie Cales
Luther Cales
.Zeb Cales
Howard Lee Cales
4/4/1892 - 6/19/1970
Alice Cales-Bragg
.Julian Cales
A Special Note
Hello there!
Welcome to our family's history! Some of what you read here may be pure fiction but, then if it was all the truth you'd know it wasn't really 'bout the Cales family!
I am always looking for new and old family pictures to post on this site.
I like stories of births, weddings, celebrations, etc.
The site is free to anyone who wants to visit, no personal ID or password needed!
Leave a message in the guestbook, write me an e-mail. Let me know what's happening in your neck of the woods!
Sincerely,
The Ben
The Ben
Luther Cales and Milous Cales
The Doors at Home
The Stairs at Home
The Cales Family of Stump Lick Hollow
Descendants of Phillip Marion Cales
Brothers Roy Howard (Rip) and Robert Glen Cales
Sons of Howard Lee Cales, son of Phillip M Cales.
E-Mail me at: wkctheben@aol.com
"The Table"
Life! Family! Memories!
A family's table is a gathering place for every occasion that happens in the life of a household. Birthdays, holidays, events happy and sad. Our Grandma Cales' old wooden table was the most awesome place!
Our family table was just boards nailed together, but that table bore the weight of some of the most wonderful country food anyone could ever imagine!
Grandma's fresh cow butter and home-made applebutter! Fresh molasses from the Fall run. Grandma's cornbread - made with cornmeal ground at the Cales Grist Mill. ...and at breakfast...the biscuits, fat back bacon, eggs from the henhouse, fresh canteloupe & tomatos from the Lucy Garden!
Grandma and Papa raised twelve kids and many, many grandkids at that table!
The Table may have first belonged to Great Grandma Mary Susan Ward-Cales, but I have no way to find that out for sure.
Papa passed in November of '74, Mom went to stay with Grandma. In '79 Mom and Grandma moved from the farm to Aunt Maxines little house at Soak Creek, near Sophia, WV.
For this move, they left the table in the hollow and Grandma bought Mom the first, brand new, store bought table and chairs she ever had!
When they returned to the hollow in the Spring, the table was moved to the Kennedy Building, a little wooden shed built atop the cellar in the corner of the yard. Mom kept her crafts and flowers there.
Grandma passed in June of '87.
After Grandma passed Mom had it even harder, had to leave the hollow to stay at her old house where my baby brother now lived.
After some time, Mom was able to get a meager retirement and went home to the hollow.
Once again, biscuits and cornbread were baked in the old house, but not served on the old wooden table it sat alone in the little shed atop the cellar, in the corner of the yard.
Years passed. I bought my house in the Fall of 2000.
In the Spring of 2001, I visited Mom in the hollow, she pointed out that the roof on the Kennedy building was caving in. From lack of attention the roof was severely rotted, no chance for repair at this point.
I devised a rope and hook that I used to pull items to the door as it was not safe to walk inside. I took lots of garbage out - but there really was no place to take the old wooden table.
We talked about it and Mom said I should take it to my house. I loaded it onto my little green truck...
In Florida, the old wooden table hosted several more really nice occasions. My Aunt Pat and cousin Paul visited and got to see the old table again. More birthdays and Thanksgivings were celebrated around the old table.
In 2010, Sister Anita, hubby Roger, and Brother Larry visited and were able to have a few meals on the old table.
Nothing lasts forever, finally a leg broke and there was no way to repair it. These legs were old sawmill cuts, nothing fancy. The four legs did not even match - but they did their job for as long as they could.
I moved the old wooden table to my shed and covered it with a plastic cover and stacked other things on top, hoping one day to be able to return it to the hollow in WV from whence it came.
This Spring 2018, I cleaned the shed and discovered that the roof had leaked onto the old wooden table, a large area in the middle had rotted so bad, my heart was broken.
I hauled the old table out to the road for the garbage pickup. I had to take pictures, it was all I could do to make myself leave it there...
I never mentioned the old wooden bench...the bench always sat behind the old wooden table, when Mom went into the nursing home, I brought the old wooden bench to once again sit behind the old wooden table...
The old wooden bench still sits...it now sits behind a different
new table, a kind of sad table, a table without family, without joy, happiness, celebration or love.
"The Doors at Home" - doors in livingroom to front (upper) porch and upstairs. Hanging in corner is the cornmeal dipping shingle from the grist mill which fell in Dec 1965. Papa's .22 rifle and lantern.Cobbler stand and cast iron water kettle.Picture of Great Grandma Bragg, Papa's Big Ben jacket.
Hugh 'Elmwood' Caperton knew the area well and as a politician and sherif, it is very likely he was well acquainted with Mary 'Polly' Cales who raised horses, and possibly supplied horses to Caperton while he was sheriff.
It is thought that Caperton was the father of, at least a couple, of Mary's five children prior to her marriage to Riley Adkins.
It is believed that James Cales, father of the Cales Family of Stump Lick Hollow, was Caperton's offspring.
Birth: 17 Apr 1781, Hans Creek, Monroe County, Virginia
Death: 9 Feb 1847
Hugh of Elmwood was a delegate from Monroe County to the Virginia Legislature several times, and a Representative to the United States Congress from 1813 to 1815. he amassed a large fortune from land transactions and business interests in Monroe County, and he Merchantile Establishments in Richmond and other parts of Virginia . in his will he left to each of his children or his grandchildren an inheritance of about twenty thousand dollars each.
He built "Elmwood" near Union, Monroe County, West Virginia and bequeathed it to his son Allen T. it was here that he is said to have entertained Henry Clay about 1845.
Member of Virginia
state legislature, 1810-1818, 1826-1830; U.S. Representative from
Virginia 5th District, 1813-1815
a planter and also engaged in mercantile
pursuits; moved to Monroe County; sheriff of
Monroe County in 1805; member of the State house
of delegates 1810-1813 and 1826-1830; elected as a
Federalist to the Thirteenth Congress (March 4,
1813-March 3, 1815); resumed agricultural and
mercantile pursuits; died on his estate,
"Elmwood," in Monroe County, near Union, Va. (now
West Virginia), February 9, 1847; interment in
Green Hill Cemetery, Union, W.Va.
