A
Conversation with Armena
(Cain) Miner Marshall
At Her Home in Washington, PA - Dec. 26,
1971
As Tape Recorded by Her Grandson, Odger 'Wayne' Miner
A
remarkable conversation took place the day after Christmas 1971, featuring the
reminiscences of 89-year-old Armena (Cain)
Miner-Marshall at her home in Washington, Washington County, PA. It was the last Christmas she
was alive. Also involved were Armena's daughter Jessie
(Miner) Schultz, grandson Odger "Wayne" Miner and his wife Connie, and the
Miners' three sons. Wayne had purchased a cassette tape recorder for
Christmas, brought it to his grandmother's home, quietly placed it beside her
rocking chair and began asking her questions. The dialogue planted the seeds for
what evolved into the development of this website. The following is a
transcript.
Jessie: How old are you?
Armena: I was 89 the sixth of September.
Jessie: What year were you born?
Armena: I can't remember. I had it wrote down someplace, but I don't know where it's at.
Connie: Where were you born?
Armena: Way down in the hills of West Virginia.
Jessie: What was your mother's name?
Armena: White.
Jessie: What was her first name?
Armena: Ellen.
Jessie: What was the one before Ellen -- "Margaret" Ellen?
Armena: I forgot that.
[Note -- Armena's parents, James C. and Margaret Ellen
(White) Cain, are seen here in a tintype image circa 1890.]
Wayne: Do you remember what your father did?
Armena: Yes. I'll never forget that. He had a big farm, and we had to work on it. We used to hoe corn and rake wheat and pitch hay and do everything like that.
Wayne: Dairy farming?
Armena: Yes. cows and chickens and horses and hogs.
Wayne: In West Virginia?
Armena: That's where we was born and raised, way down there in West Virginia.
Jessie: What county?
Armena: We was in Marshall County for most of the time and in Wetzel County for a little while. We was in both of them counties. We moved from one county to the other.
Jessie: She was born in Wetzel. That's on her birth certificate.
Connie: Any specific town?
Jessie: Hundred was their mailbox address.
Connie: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Armena: I had two half brothers and four or five sisters.
Jessie: You had two half sisters and two half brothers.
[Note -- Armena stands at far right with her
four sisters
in this old tintype. The others are, standing L-R: Susan J. and Osta
Arminta. Seated, L-R: Jessie 'Maud' and Eliza Ann.
Connie: You had quite a family then.
Wayne: You had to have a big family to keep the farm going.
Armena: Yes. We worked on a farm. We was just little boys and girls. We didn't have enough boys. We had to do it, as along as we stayed on the farm.
[Tape ends. A new tape is inserted.]
Armena: Yes, James Edward and John Edwin [were my brothers].
Jessie: What was the two half sisters' names?
Armena: Their name was Cain. Pap's name was Cain. their name was Josephine and Idy.
Jessie: What was your sisters' names?
Armena: We all growed up together. And we all separated and we've been separated, and we hardly see one another.
Wayne: Did your dad come from West Virginia?
Armena: Yes. He was from West Virginia. He was away back down ... toward ... do you know where Hundred and Bellton was?
Wayne: I think I do.
[Note - the town of Hundred, nestled in the Wetzel County
hills, is seen here in a postcard view.]
Armena: We lived on a hill above Bellton for a long time. I was practically raised there and I was married there, in the old farm house.
Wayne: Do you remember your grandparents? Did they come from West Virginia?
Armena: I think they did, but I don't remember very much, because we was in one part and they were in another part and we didn't get to see them very much. Pop had a big farm out there. We had a lot of hay, a big farm field, we had a little pond.
Wayne: Those were the good ole days.
Armena: Those were the good ole days.
[Note
-- seen here is the log house near Hundred where Armena's parents lived circa
1900.]
Wayne: Is that where you learned to sew?
Armena: We all could sew. As we grew up and got big enough to thread a needle, we had to learn to sew.
Wayne: Did your father ever own a car?
Armena: No, didn't have cars then.
Jessie: I think your dad had the first car I knew.
Wayne: My dad?
Armena: I think he did -- in the family.
Jessie: What was Grandma and Grandpa Miner's name?
Armena: It was Johnston before they was married.
Jessie: What was their first name?
Armena: Grandma Miner, to us, was Mary.
Jessie: Mary Louise. Mary Louise Johnston Miner. She told me these things years ago. I've got them written down.
[Note -- seen here are Armena's in-laws, Andrew J. and
Mary Louise (Johnston) Miner.]
Wayne: Must have memorized it, too. You must study it.
Armena: I'm awful glad somebody's taken it over and knows what they're doing. I straightened the papers all up once.
Jessie: The children was looking for some old family names, so I went through these papers I have. They was about to name Deanna's baby Louise, but Dick [Meloy] wanted Rebecca, so she got Dawn Rebecca instead of Dawn Louise. What was Grandpa Miner's name?
Armena: Andy.
Jessie: Andrew J. Miner. I never knew what the "J" stood for.
Armena: That was my husband's father. I don't have much relations with the Miners. I just married the Miner boy. Well they're nearly gone now.
Jessie: Mark, up there behind you is a picture of your great-great grandfather and mother.
[Note -- seen here is a portrait of Armena's
parents later in life,
James C. and Margaret Ellen (White) Cain.]
Armena: My mother and father.
Jessie: Did you get their names? That's James Cain and Margaret Ellen White Cain.
Armena: Sitting there looking at that picture so much, kind of reminds me of myself.
Connie: You look very much like your mother.
Armena: Think I do? I knew she had a little bit of hair.
[Tape ends. Another tape is inserted.]
Jessie: Her name was White. Outside that, I don't know any more.
Wayne: Her husband was killed in the Revolutionary War?
Jessie: His name was Alexander William White. I did get that out of her one day. Aunt Anna's been thinking of going and looking it up, but she never has.
[Note
-- Armena's grandmother, Eliza (Miller) White, is seen here in a photo of
mourning. Her husband, Alexander White, was killed in the Civil War, at the Second Battle of Winchester,
VA, as a member of the
12th WV Infantry .]
Wayne: That's what you call a tintype, Mark. That metal picture.
Jessie: That was my father, at the age of 12. I've coached my kids on those pictures.
Armena: I had an awful time getting them together. I think I'm the only one who has any of those pictures. The rest of them, some are older yet than I am, and they're gone. They worked on a farm. That's all they ever done. Raised corn, wheat, hay, raised cattle. We didn't have any boys. Papa married twice and he didn't have any boys to his last wife. It was just five girls. He had two boys and two girls with his first wife. I was afraid when they moved me in here that they'd lose some of those papers, but I guess Jessie has that down.
[Tape ends.]
Copyright © 1971, 2003 O. Wayne Miner and Mark A. Miner