The song that says, "Take me back to the hills of West Virginia" does not do justice to the beauty of this land. The lush green hills are vibrant and alive. We were on a mission, to find the childhood home of Sharon's late husband, James "Buddy" Gill who lived from 1938 to 1989. Sharon had always wanted to visit the early childhood places that her late husband had spoken about in the hills of West Virginia. 

We found the birthplace located along the now non-existent Laurel Creek area which was about six miles from the campground where we were staying. Some of those hills were so steep that if I stopped the car, I swear the car would start sliding back down the hill. We visited an old cemetery and found the names of his kinfolks. At another old and abandoned cemetery that was located in a cow pasture, our little BooBoo found a fresh cow pie to roll in and was absolutely delighted, much to our dismay.

Later Sharon remembered the name of a town that her husband spoke about. We found Thayer listed not far from where we were staying in Shady Springs. We headed over to Thayer. When we arrived at Mt. Hope, the road to Glen Jean, Harvey and the Stonecliff National River Park was a one lane paved road. We crossed many one car bridges and finally reached the bridge over New River and after crossing over discovered that we were no longer on a paved road. The dusty dirt road seem to meander along the river and railroad tracks for many miles. We started to climb and soon the New River was far below us as we traveled a narrow dirt road winding around the mountain side.

Thayer was at the dead end of the road so we knew we would not miss it. Slowly we starting seeing old foundations and a few lone chimneys covered with vines. The town of Thayer had become a ghost town. A few local people still remained in Thayer, but the town was mostly abandoned homes, an abandoned church and an overgrown cemetery that was buried in vines and forest.

As we drove along the dusty road, we saw a man limping along using a cane. We pulled up to him and I said, "Howdy" and asked about directions to Thayer. He looked at us strangely and replied, "You're in Thayer!"  Sharon told him about her quest and about her late husband, "Buddy" Gill. The man smiled and said his brothers knew "Buddy" and his grandmother, "Blanche." Well, you can imagine the surprise to find a person who knew Sharon's husband. He pointed out the road that would take us down the hill to the bottom land where "Buddy" and his family lived along the tracks. As a boy, "Buddy" would sell moonshine to the railroad folks to earn money for the family. They also would steal coal from the railroad coal cars to heat their homes. The man on the road said that one time he stole some coal and had it in a gunny sack. Well, the next morning someone had stolen his coal right off of his front porch.  He grinned and said, "We were not bad, it was just a way of survival for us." 

We did not realize that as we began our journey in Oregon that we would one day meet a man who knew Sharon's husband as a boy in the back hills of West Virginia. The photos were taken along the road to Thayer to show the beauty of this area. Sharon's dream of visiting the childhood home of her late husband was fulfilled. While it is said that we can never go back to an earlier time, we can look into the past and experience the lifestyle of a former time. We found a place that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would feel right at home. A place that has changed little in the last sixty years. The limping man with the cane, was he real or a fragment from another time era that came to give us information and vanish just as suddenly as he appeared. We will never now because we never saw him again. I do remember his final words to us. He had a tear in his eye as he said that it was nice to know that someone would come back to Thayer to find out more about it. It was as if this man felt a sense of pride flow through him because "Buddy"  had come home again. 

 

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