Picture taken in 1953 left to right Roberta Smith, Grandpa Walter Smith Sr. and Granny Mattie Smith nee Cox
By Judie Gudger and Walter Smith, Jr.
From Judie Gudger
In 1952, King George died and the young princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II. President Harry Truman retired and a retired army general, Ike Eisenhower a "people's man" became a Republican and U.S. president in rapid order. He was loved and elected by all the people.
Near the Appalachian Mountains, Daniel Boone's natural passage, in South Eastern Kentucky, an area around Cumberland Gap, between Pineville and Middlesboro is Calmer, Kentucky, my Grandpa "Walter Smith Sr." and Grandma "Mattie Cox Smith" (Granny) raised ten children of their own and myself "Judie Gudger." My sister, "Nila Gudger" spent a great deal of time at their house also.
In 1952 my grandparents wanted to build their own log home. Every day they walked four miles and with one old horse, they cut and cleared trees, they cut, split and stripped every log by hand, the chinking (material that is used between the logs) was mud. The house they built is a 24x24 ft. four room log house, a kitchen, living room, two bed rooms, an outside toilet on one side of the house and a spring up the hill on the other side. We had no running water and no electricity but with ten people living in the house, we always had three good meals each day. Us six girls, Sonja, Roberta, Flo, Pat, Nila and I shared one bedroom. Grandpa, Granny, the baby Gerrie and Jr. shared the other bedroom. We all got along fine.
The land the house was built on, is the same land that Granny's grandfather lived on. He was a full blooded Cherokee Indian Chief. There was even an Indian burial ground on the premises, but Granny always told us to never play on the burial mounds.
We moved to French Lick, Indiana from the log house in 1958 but that old log house is still standing today.
From Walter Smith Jr.
Sometimes, in the wintertime, we'd move to mining camps and the summertime is mostly when we'd live down at the log house and I'd played marbles. I was a marble player and I'd won a bunch of marbles and dad stuck them in the chinking.
I looked at those initials that were on one of the logs in this photo and I got a feeling that if they were a G and a P and must be GP for grandpa. And I bet that they were made with a carbide light.
Dad always had carbide lights when we lived down there cause in a lot of the mining, they still used carbide. And there was a little coal mine just up from the log house that him and a cousin of his was trying to mine just a little bit and they used carbide lights.
A carbide light has a reservoir on the bottom that you put water in. When the carbide and water combine, it creates a gas that is flammable.
The light also had a built in lighter or striker that would ignite the gas. The lights have a little chrome reflector in the center of them and in the center of the reflector there is a little hole that the gas comes out of and when you ignite the gas, the reflector reflects the light from the flame. And you could take that little carbide light and just write with it because it burns black smoke and leaves soot when you get it close to wood.
Our Old Kentucky Home
By Judie Gudger and Walter Smith, Jr.
U.S. Legacies January 2004
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