Billy B. Burke: Man of Many Hats

By Billy B. Burke

In this book, I have covered a wonderful, challenging, exciting life in these few chapters. God has blessed me and saved my life time and again as only He can do. So many exciting and satisfactory accomplishments still come to my mind that I have not recorded. The sincere effort to help people in need as I traveled through a most interesting life, studded with excitement, challenge and the satisfaction of helping others who were not able to accomplish things they needed done has been rewarding.
One thing for sure God has given me is a wonderful wife and family. He has guided me down lifes treacherous paths through the briers and brambles, across treacherous streams to a wonderful ending and He has given me the satisfaction of helping others that were in need along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468532319

Billy B. Burke

In this book, I have covered a wonderful, challenging, exciting life in these few chapters. God has blessed me and saved my life time and again as only He can do. So many exciting and satisfactory accomplishments still come to my mind that I have not recorded. The sincere effort to help people in need as I traveled through a most interesting life, studded with excitement, challenge and the satisfaction of helping others who were not able to accomplish things they needed done has been rewarding. One thing for sure God has given me is a wonderful wife and family. He has guided me down life’s treacherous paths through the briers and brambles, across treacherous streams to a wonderful ending and He has given me the satisfaction of helping others that were in need along the way.

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© 2012 by Billy B. Burke. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 01/10/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-3233-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-3232-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-3231-9 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900325

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

FOREWARD

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

FOREWARD

My Dad and Mom were great parents, who encouraged me and provided opportunities for me to learn to be frugal, have a good work ethic and meet tasks head on. Dad taught us how to swim, hunt, fish, camp, and most of all work and respect him. He taught us how to do many things most grown men could not do along with working on the farm. They were both well educated and encouraged me to complete my education which benefited others.

My Grandma Brown had a great influence on me when I worked on the farm for her after Grandpa died. It was a great learning experience for me and made a man out of me at the early age of fifteen. It taught me to be frugal, work hard, how to handle animals and to perfect my hunting and trapping skills. The skills I learned enabled me to earn money later in life for my college education and there was no better training to prepare me for the challenges in life. It taught me how to live without modern conveniences since there were no modern utilities—electric, gas, television, radio, running water—or modern vehicles/equipment—automobiles, tractors—available to me.

She was Scotch Irish, could make money and save it more than most as the old saying goes she could squeeze a nickel until the buffalo crapped. I guess I inherited a lot from Grandma and mom when it came to being a good manager of money and being able to see a good investment and make it produce.

My parents had instilled the importance of getting a college education and that took money. Going to college was my goal but earning the money to pay for it was very interesting and diverse. I worked in a defense factory, the coal mines, trucking, a shipyard, sawmill, glass factory and on the pipeline to do it. I always had a little money in the bank and when it got low I found a way to earn more to complete my education. Most importantly, it was always my desire to spend my hard earned money properly.

I have applied the teachings of my Grandma Brown in my lifetime. When I was making big money, working hard and running with some rough necks that really were hard and fast livers never deterred me from her guidance. I never was sick enough to miss a day’s work, was always available for overtime and never turned down an hour’s work while pipelining. I used my income wisely with the purchase of farms, starting up businesses and providing for my family.

Marge and I were frugal since we had been the children of parents who had suffered through the Great Depression. After we were married we worked hard, made good judgments, never missed a payment on a debt and invested our money wisely. Marge and I owned and operated a hardware store, motel, apartment complex, trucking company, coal mine, real estate business, and farm all successfully.

My extended family taught me several life skills which enabled me in my efforts to succeed. Aunt Stella was a very experienced person in communicating with individuals who were deaf and/or mute using the one hand sign language. This helped me to make many great friends in my life. Uncle French was very experienced in timbering, blacksmithing, mining and farming which taught skills in these areas for the work I did in my adult life. Aunt Ethel gave me a home when I worked in Ohio and was very considerate of the cost of my room and board while there.

Williams Brothers was the largest pipeline contractor in the world and I had done very well for all of the main superintendents. I worked with Lee Jarrett on my first pipeline job. He gave me my first opportunity to learn to operate heavy equipment. I liked to work most of the time with Whitey Martin, a salty old pipeliner from Shreveport, Louisiana. We hit it off very well. He only had an eighth grade education but was an outstanding mechanic, understood how to motivate people and was a very good manager. Many times he ran a spread with five hundred men in it as smooth as silk. He was a lot like my dad if he had a weeks worth of work to do he expected it to be done in three days. I really grew to admire and respect him and I am sure the feeling was mutual. He became like a second father to me and we became life long friends

Whitey had married a girl in Johnstown, Pennsylvania who had two small boys. She stayed at home with the boys and he spent time with them between jobs or when they were shut down. As a young man he had joined all the clubs in Johnstown, the Elks, Moose, and any others that you could buy a drink in. As you read my pipeline stories you will see that he gave me the opportunity to increase my experience operating many pieces of equipment and move into supervision positions.

About every time Whitey got in a bind for help he would pull me off the tractor and make me a boss. He had been so good to me for years I could never turn him down. One incidence was getting the tunnel under railroad tracks at Ashland, Kentucky using my skills I had learned working in the coalmines as a young man. Whitey never was much to brag on the accomplishments of a man but he said after we finished the tunnel, William I knew damn well an old coal miner could get that job done.

While working outside of Tuscaloosa we had to recover a D-6 caterpillar out of the Black Warrior River. Whitey was a landlubber who put his faith in me to help plan and carry out the operation. The same was true after the drowning in Washington, D. C. It was the boating and swimming skills my father had taught me that contributed to my success in these accidents. These episodes and many others gave Whitey more confidence in my ability to help resolve major problems and accomplish some unbelievable things, which made me very proud.

I also worked with Vick Moore on some Williams Brothers jobs and with another company in Pennsylvania. We became close friends and he was able to get me steady employment with lots of over time making good money. On a later job he quit and I was made boss and my experience working with him helped me in that position.

By this time I was a salty hand experienced and capable pipe liner. For many years after that I was sent to the most dangerous jobs because I was from the hills of West Virginia and had established a name for my ability to tackle the most difficult terrain, whether operating tractors or running a job as an administrator. I had established a reputation that was flawless and doing jobs that others refused to do such as operating machines on steep and dangerous mountains. As time had passed each job added to my experience. This made it possible for me to keep working when many others were not able to get a job.

Some said at times I was a little crazy. I found during my life that if you were able to use intelligence, experience, trust in God and make a great effort to accomplish feats that were difficult it was a great boost to one’s integrity and reputation. This reputation followed me throughout the pipeline industry and the rest of my life.

I spent some time detailing the fifteen years of my life building pipelines all over the country. I have recorded most of the important things that happened during that time. As I look back over my records I had moved one hundred fifty times. I had many interesting events and some very harrowing experiences. I loved every day of those fifteen years.

Since 1966 I have been in public service and served in both state and federal appointments. After settling down from our very transient pipeline living Marge and I became involved in every community activity there was and organized more. We have been active in our community and a leader for the growth and betterment of our rural area. She and I have always lived by this motto:

Service is the rent we have paid for our room in the world.

We both love farming and continue to raise our own beef and vegetables. I still raise a big garden and we have our own fruit and nut trees. I with some help, plant, cultivate, and pick while Marge freezes and cans the food.

We furnished United States Senator Byrd all of the home canned half runner beans he and his family ate for thirty-two years. He always brought the jars back washed, wrapped in newspaper and boxed. He always ate a meal with us and many times sat on our front porch and watched the cattle, horses, dogs, and cats. We were great friends and he usually called from his home about once a month to reminisce with me about years past and discussed the future.

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This is my story of how God, these family members, mentors, friends and my life experiences influenced my life story. Let us begin at the beginning in a little frame house in a small village nestled in the hills of West Virginia. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1

Birth, childhood and youth

My Birth and Parents

On March 14, 1928 a baby boy was born in small two-room house in Stouts Mill, Gilmer County, West Virginia to the proud parents, Roy H. and Freda Brown Burke. The doctor was unable to make it to the delivery due to twenty inches of snow. Grandma Brown mounted her horse, Old Pet, rode to the house, delivered her grandson and attended to Freda and baby Billy.

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When I was born Roy Hammond Burke, my father, was a student at Glenville State College and a star athlete in basketball and baseball. While a student, he started teaching with a standard normal certificate at the Sliding Run School. He also taught one year at Lynch Run School a one-room school, which required him to walk over the hill up Kenison Run each day.

As his teaching career continued he was named the principal of both the white and black schools at Gilmer Station. In addition, he taught the seventh and eighth grades in the white school. At the age of four I would go with my dad to work on occasions walking five miles to the school and five miles back home to Sand Fork each school day.

Dad became the principal at Sand Fork Elementary School in 1935. As principal of the elementary school dad made about a hundred dollars per month. When I began my pipelining adventure in 1950 he was earning five hundred dollars per month. On the pipeline a heavy equipment operator was making eight hundred dollars per month. I quickly set my goal to become a heavy equipment operator!

He told us that if we ever got paddled in school he would give us one when we got home to make sure we got a good one. One of the most feared directives my dad gave was, Go to the basement! We knew we were in trouble because that was where dad disciplined us with a paddle, belt, or whip.

One day in the third grade we were sleighing at recess. The rule was no double head, which meant not to ride one on the back of another. I was at the top of the hill when the bell rang to signal the end of recess. I got on my friend’s back and rode down the hill to the school building. The teacher, probably directed by dad, paddled me and true to his word when I got home he gave me a good one.

One day in the sixth grade dad was my teacher and out of the room, probably attending to a principal’s duties. I was showing off a little, working my arithmetic out loud and did not see dad return to the room. I heard him say in his stern voice, Come up here young man! That was one of the hardest paddling I ever got.

That night my little butt was black, blue and puffed up. Mom took my side and pulled my pants down in front of dad. She said, Roy aren’t you ashamed? I am sure he was because he was a loving father but a strong disciplined man; he had spent a little time in the Navy. I have always thought he was making an example of me because I was his son and he did not want anyone to think I was getting preferential treatment.

Freda Bell Brown Burke, my mother was also a student at Glenville State College and earned her teaching certificate. She taught one year at a one-room school on Duck Run. She was unable to continue teaching school due to the lack of money, keeping house, and being a mother. After Grandma Brown’s estate was settled, mom took her inheritance and went back to college. She received her B. A. degree from Glenville State College

Mom left her teaching career in 1947 and became employed by the WVU Extension Service as the Gilmer County 4-H Agent. During this employment she decided her salary would be increased enough to justify the effort of getting a Master’s degree. Dad and she went to Morgantown, got an apartment and carried out those intentions. Since she was a state employee West Virginia University paid for most of it.

When mom, Bob and I were attending college at the same time we did not have a car or a telephone. In the morning we rode the school bus to college. Most of the time our classes were out in the afternoon and since we did not have transportation that meant Bob and I would start hitchhiking home. We did not realize it was degrading for mom and she would not think of it.

We usually hitchhiked at the junction of Route 5 and 33 since people had to slow down to make the turn onto Route 5. Most often someone would offer us a ride. Someone would pick Bob and I up and take us to Sand Fork but mother continued to walk. We would tell the driver that was our mother walking and they would stop and pick up.

One day we decided to have some fun out of the situation so Bob and I decided to disown mom. A driver picked us up and mom was walking about a mile up the road. The driver asked us who the lady was and we politely said we did not know. It was a practical joke but bad to pull on our loving mother.

Well, Mom saw us in the car that passed her and that evening at supper she knew what had happened. She said the driver came back, got her and told her what had happened, what a dirty trick! Mom appears to have inherited this trait from Grandma Brown. Anytime you got ahead of them on an issue they had a comeback.

Mom and Dad were both members of the Sand Fork Baptist Church and very active. They were Sunday school teachers and my father was on the building committee, which included the care of the general maintenance of the building and grounds, for example, shoveled the snow, cut the grass, cleaned the floors, built the fires, and lit the lights. The latter became my job as janitor at the age of eleven. I resumed it on my return home from pipelining.

When we moved to Titan Farm in Sand Fork I built a snow plow that fit on the bucket of my hi-lift and a blade on the back of my four wheel drive tractor. On March 14th in 1998 we had fifteen inches of snow and I plowed all the way from our farm to Sand Fork, dad’s road, the church parking lot and everyone’s driveway on my way back home, which took most of that day—my seventieth birthday. One example of a big snow is pictured below.

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Dad’s house

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Our Titan Farm home

My Siblings

Our family grew larger with the birth of Robert Hammond Burke on February 1,1931 at Sand Fork. We were very close and did everything-work and play-together. We were great buddies and shared a bed together most of our lives, hunted, fished, courted, and all the rest from childhood to adulthood.

Bob and I were pretty good baseball players and played every Sunday in the season. We played with three Hamrick boys; Herman, one of them went on to the big leagues. I still have the southpaw glove I bought at Harry Bennett’s Sport Store in Glenville for twelve dollars.

During the Korean War Bob had a great desire to be a paratrooper. While we were in Alabama pipelining, the war was getting worse. Bob chose to go home and enlist in the service. I hated to see him go. It was a sad day when he left. He became a Green Beret paratrooper and was sent to Korea to fight for his country.

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One afternoon on August 3,1953 I received a call that Bob had been killed on July 26th, the last night of the fighting in Korea. The war had been over more than a week and we took it for granted he had made it. It was devastating for all of us and I immediately went to the apartment where Marge and I loaded up and left for home. It was a very difficult time for us all. I spent most of my time trying to help mom and dad. We stayed there for a couple of weeks then went back to work.

When his body was shipped back in October we went home to prepare for his funeral. I took the responsibility of identifying the body since neither Mom nor Dad thought they could. Virginia Dickerson, Bob’s old girlfriend, came from Alabama to attend the funeral. She stayed with us and later returned home on a Greyhound bus. Marge and I went back to New York to finish up the job we were on and came home for winter.

In the winter following Bob’s death and funeral our parents were in bad psychological shape. Marge and I planned a trip to Florida to help them get it off of their minds. Since it was winter, it was a great time to go to Florida, however, there was a fly in the ointment. They wanted to go by Alabama and see Virginia Dickerson, Bob’s old girlfriend. It was a little difficult for me because Estelle, Virginia’s sister had been my girlfriend when we pipelined in Alabama. Thankfully, I had made a true confession to Marge about every escapade before we were married. It was a wonder she still wanted me!

We drove to the Dickersons and had a nice two-hour visit with them. Estelle was there and as I expected it was uncomfortable for us. We drove on to Florida, stayed a week and then returned home. It was a very worthwhile trip for my parents and we all had a wonderful time.

Another addition to our family came in 1940, with the birth of Richard Dean, a third son. Rich went a semester at Glenville State College and one semester at West Virginia University. He worked for Dowell servicing newly drilled wells and for the 4-D plastic plant where he learned the business. He bought an excruder and started his own plastic pipe factory, a ready mix plant, and lumber/hardware business. He developed a camp on the outskirts of Sand Fork where he coordinated most of his business. When our father passed away at ninety-six and a half he purchased the home Dad and Mom had built later in their life.

The last addition to our family came in 1942 when Ronald Lewis, the fourth son, was born. Ron went to Glenville State College for two years, transferred to West Virginia University and was graduated with a B. A. degree in Agriculture and a M. A. degree in Agriculture Economics. He worked for a short while for the USDA in Washington as an intern. He moved to St. Paul, Minnesota and earned a doctorate at the University of Minnesota in Agriculture Economics.

While in St. Paul he met Mary who later became his wife and the mother of his two children and an adopted son. He came back to Glenville State College where he served as Director of the Economic Development Office for seventeen years. During that time he helped me coordinate a medical center and a shoe factory. He moved to Chadron, Nebraska and was employed by Chadron College from which he retired. He continues to live in Chadron.

Both Rich and Ron worked on the pipeline with me during the summers and were as close as Bob and I had been. Bob and I had the added responsibilities of helping with their care after they were born. We washed diapers and took them to the bathroom at night when they were babies. Bob and I were able to buy the boys some things our parents had not been able to afford when we were young. Two such items were their first electric train and bicycle. We were expected to provide guidance and help them as they grew up. Our experience in work, playing ball, hunting, fishing, and all the rest was passed on to them.

When I first started working in the mines, water was scarce at our house in the summer. I would go to the river to a place we called the "round hole,’ it was over the hill probably three hundred yards from our house and was a good place to swim and fish. Richard and Ronnie were small and I always took them with me and was teaching them to swim.

One evening, Rich seemed to be making good progress. I let him go on his own in water that was a little over his head and he got strangled. Of course, he got a little upset at me for letting him go under. I continued to bathe and they got out of the water, dressed and went up the hill to the house. When I got out of the water to dry off and get dressed both my dirty and clean clothes as well as my towel was gone. My loving little brothers had taken them all to the house with them. Well, to say the least, I was in a predicament because it was in a secluded section and bathing suits were never worn!

All that distance from the house and I was stark naked. I had no alternative but make the trip up the hill through a wide-open pasture field to the house without clothing. I hurriedly climbed the hill and squeezed through the back barn door that was close to the house, found an empty feed sack, wrapped it around my lower extremities and went to the house. My mother got a big laugh out of my ordeal. Since Rich and Ron had already eaten, Mom said she had let them go to a neighbor’s house to play. I continued to teach them to swim, set trotlines, traps, fish and hunt.

As I look back over the years and evaluate our family it was great. Parents who would not let us use the word ‘can’t’ disciplined us all. All of us went to college at Glenville State. Rich, Bob and I chose to make a living in vocations that did not necessitate a college degree while Ron earned his doctorate and contributed to the education of others in the field of agriculture and economics.

Our Homes

Throughout my childhood and youth my parents and I lived in three homes with Bob, my brother joining us in the second; Ron and Rich joined us in the third. My parents and I moved from the home of my birth in Stouts Mill to Sand Fork when I was one year old. My parents rented it from my Aunt Stella McConkey, my mother’s sister until 1936. It was beside the Harmony Baptist Church, which is now the Sand Fork Baptist Church. My parents took me to this church, which was just two hundred feet from our house from the time I was a baby.

In 1936 they purchased a Home Package from the Sears Roebuck catalog. All the lumber, hardware, nails, roofing, and other such materials were shipped by railroad boxcar to Gilmer Station. Dad and Mr. Milliard Wiant hauled the material to Sand Fork on a one and half-ton flat bed truck forging the river since the bridge at Gilmer Station was too weak to carry large loads.

Mr. Ira Coberly, dad, Bob, and I spent that summer building the house. We dug the basement by hand and wheelbarrow with some slip scraper work done by Uncle Frank Brown with a horse. Late that summer the furniture was all carried to the new wonderful home just three hundred feet from where we lived with indoors plumbing and basement. Shortly after Dad died our two thousand dollar Sears Roebuck home burned. A lot of memories went up in flames along with a lot of family possessions, which were still stored there.

Gardens, Pigs, Beef and Wild Game

My memories of yesteryear below are shared so that many people living today can understand how it was ‘back then.’ It was important for families to be self-sufficient because times were pretty hard in ‘that day.’

We raised most of our food-vegetable garden, hogs, beef, and chickens, which included providing food for our animals. Corn was a source of food for our hogs and one memory is the cold, snowy winter day my father told me I had to cut corn stubs. This upset me greatly because it was my eighth birthday!

We always had young frying chickens in the summer. We saved our eggs and set our hens, which would hatch out baby chicks. Some springs we would have fifty to seventy-five chicks.

We always butchered two