Summersville: My Family’S Life of Privilege, Politics, and Passion in Small-Town West Virginia

By Alice Bryant Byrd

Alice Bryant Byrds father returned from World War II a Navy hero; his ambitions included a career in West Virginias hottest industrycoal mining. After joining a promising new coal operation, he moved his young wife to Summersville where they would start a family and he would soon be recruited to run for public office.

Thus began a fifteen-year stint as mayor, where his blazing progress garnered him attention from the likes of Senator Robert Byrd and even a visit from President Lyndon Johnson. It looked as if nothing could hold him back, until some dark and foreboding forces combined to bring down not only his political career but his family and financial well-being.

In Summersville, Byrd shares her familys story in this small town in West Virginia from the 1940s to the 1970s, that culture-rich era known widely for its large-scale wars and social upheaval. She narrates how, despite the umbrella of ordinariness, her family lived through some extraordinary eventsa twisting, turning, and engaging tale ushering her family through the first sixteen years of her life.

Through narrative and excerpts from news articles, this memoir tells the story of the fabulous life of the Bryants, their contribution to Summersvilles development, the price the family paid for political and social ambition, and their relentless pluck and desire to recover and move on in the wake of ongoing challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jan 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781489703859

Alice Bryant Byrd

Alice Bryant Byrd is a native West Virginian now living in North Carolina with her husband, three dogs, and a cat. She enjoys writing memoirs and other narrative nonfiction stories. [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2015 Alice Bryant Byrd .

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-0386-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0384-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0385-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900188

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 01/07/2015

CONTENTS

1 Starting at the Endpoint

2 Humble West Virginia Beginnings in the 1920s

3 Dad Hears the Call to Arms

4 War Hero Returns to West Virginia, Meets His Bride

5 Dad’s Career Blossoms, and Summersville Is Their New Home

6 Short History of Nicholas County and Summersville

7 Coal is King—West Virginians Are Loyal Subjects

8 Bryant Family Expands by One, With Hopes for More

9 The Big House—Catch You on the Flip Side

10 Please Don’t Throw Me in That Briar Patch

11 The Waiting Game Begins

12 Back to the Briar Patch

13 A Beautiful Gift in a Small Pink Package

14 Rumor Has It …

15 The Great Liquor Store Battle of 1959

16 The Miscarriage That Lived

17 Family Life in the ‘60s

18 The Mayor Feels His Oats

19 Heartache on the Horizon

20 The Birthday Party of a Lifetime

21 Summersville Lake and Dam

22 Winging It

23 Can You Pull a Hospital Out of That Hat?

24 Fitting For a WWII Navy Hero

25 No More Room in the Garage

26 1968 Democratic National Convention

27 Outside Interests

28 Sibling Revelry

29 A Wound That Time Refused to Heal

30 What Goes Up …?

31 Eighth Time Is a Charm … Or an Omen

32 A World Turned Upside Down

33 Hope You Enjoyed That Vacation

34 Um, Watch Out For That Dagger

35 Lean on Me

36 It May Be Apropos, but That Don’t Make It Easy

37 Hell Hath No Fury …

38 A Hole in Our Hearts—That’s All That Was Left

39 Family Splintered

40 Beware Late Night Rendezvous with Strangers

41 When Plausible Deniability Expires

42 At Your Dispersal

43 So What Really Happened?

44 Summersville—After the Family Exodus

45 Caroline’s Story

46 Goodbyes and Celebrations

PREFACE

At the root of my determination to write this book is my love of stories and storytelling. I read and enjoy both fiction and nonfiction immensely, but when I write, I’m strongly drawn to writing true stories. I believe that when you distill a person’s life down to the essence of the things that shaped him or her, there is a story there—on the surface, it may appear to be mundane, but if you dig deep enough and talk to enough people, you can usually ferret out some sort of odds that person had to overcome. The challenge might be recovering from lost love or lost innocence, financial or career failure, a long-held dark secret or a fear of the dark, a physically abusive history, or abuse of drugs or alcohol. The vagaries of life befall us unequally, but we never fully escape them. We all must deal with not only the consequences of our own actions, but the fallout from the actions of others.

I have long thought that my family life was very ordinary, at least by comparison to people who have gained great fame or notoriety, whether a celebrity, a heinous criminal, or a deeply sage soul with throngs of devoted followers. Despite the umbrella of ordinariness, however, my family lived through some extraordinary events, and once these events are woven together into the story of how my parents came to live in Summersville, West Virginia, and how they ushered our family through the first sixteen years of my life there, it’s a turning, twisting, and engaging tale: a tale worth spinning into a book, as many friends and acquaintances through the years have urged me to do.

I was fifty-two when I began writing this memoir in May 2013. The interesting factor has been jacked up by about ten times because my dad is still kicking (he turned ninety-three in February 2014), and I therefore have been able to benefit from his commentary on past events. His early life and my mom’s are the starting point; they are the stars of much of the show, and his verbal and written accounts of many events help make this story blossom and shine. The end product is based in part on Dad’s memories, and I can assure you he is still very sharp mentally, but it also includes my memories and those of my sister and a couple of close family members and friends. Because our lives were very public in Summersville, I have also been able to supplement a good bit of this recollection with news stories, primarily from the Nicholas Chronicle (Summersville is the county seat of Nicholas County), published since 1880, but also from a few other West Virginia newspapers and periodicals.

This is as good a place as any to emphasize that many of the events relayed in this book are based solely on the recollections of our family, and as such they may not line up nice and tight with the recollections of others. Two people witnessing the very same event can end up with completely different memories, in large part because each person’s perspective is colored by his or her own experience and the unique way in which they interpret it. As with life itself, this story includes some unpleasant moments that punctuated my family’s otherwise enjoyable time in Summersville. The intent of this book is not to dig up hurtful memories but simply to pass on my family’s account of a very important time in our lives as well as in the history of Summersville.

It’s important to me to tell this story because it helps preserve a time, a place, a family, and an experience, which is at various times hilarious, tragic, astonishing, and deeply illustrative of the human condition. It covers mostly the 1940s to the 1970s, that culture-rich era known widely for its large-scale wars and social upheaval. The place is a small town in central West Virginia, a place that in both geographical and sociological terms is in the heart of Appalachia. The experience was that of my family, who became deeply involved in small-town politics, and how that choice infused our lives, influenced our decisions, and made our successes and foibles much more visible to our fellow townspeople. Our family, the Bryants, became so intertwined with the town of Summersville during this period, it would be difficult if not impossible to contemplate one without the other.

Indented italic passages in Dad’s voice are from a series of interviews I conducted with him, mostly in 2013. I have not footnoted them since the source and time period are limited as noted. Other passages in his voice are from an unpublished journal that he wrote post-2000 and provided copies to a very limited group of family members and friends.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My undying gratitude goes out to:

Judy Acree, for always being there. In many ways, Judy stepped into the shoes of the patron saint watching over our family. She was best friends with my sister Caroline when they were both in high school, and in her adult life, she has been by our side through every high and low. She shepherded us through funerals and weddings, celebrations, and family vigils of all types for about four decades. We would have been even more lost and wandering in times of challenge and sorrow without her. She and Sarah Hamilton, who carried that mantle before her, are like part of our family.

The Nicholas Chronicle, for continuously reporting the news of Summersville and Nicholas County since 1880. I grew up reading this weekly newspaper, and it proved to be an invaluable resource for me.

The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, for having on microfilm virtually every issue of the Nicholas Chronicle since its beginning in 1880. The Chronicle’s office in Summersville had only bound books of paper Chronicles since about the 1960s. That’s where I started my research and quickly realized it was a monumental pain to try to copy a story out of a two-foot-tall bound volume that weighs about ten pounds or more. The staff directed me to the Archives and History Library at the Division of Culture and History, which is on the grounds of the Capitol in Charleston. The librarians and other workers in the Archives were very knowledgeable, polite, and helpful, and I can’t thank them enough for their assistance.

Neva Corbin, for her outstanding initial edit that was so instrumental in preparing the manuscript for submission to the publisher.

Dad and Caroline, for putting up with my endless questioning and probing of our family history, and for helping with some of my research.

Last but not least, my husband Emmett, who gave me the push to start writing a book and the encouragement and support to keep after it. I’m sure he would hark back to his famous comment about our twenty-plus years of marriage, noting with a smirk, They’ve been seven of the best years of my life. Honey, I hope to achieve eight or better in the next twenty.

1

Starting at the Endpoint

As my sister-in-law Linda wheeled us down Interstate 77, I marveled at the turn of events that had churned up the decision to send me packing to finish my sophomore year in high school in East Tennessee. I remember being strangely euphoric, which was odd, given that I was leaving the only hometown I’d known for sixteen years. Now, I would chalk that up to the intoxicating mix of fear and excitement that was pumping through my veins—fear because I was leaving the old, familiar people and places, and excitement pretty much for the same reason.

Some teenagers are prone to latching on to any circumstances, even less-than-happy ones, that would make them stick out as more special, more mysterious than the average pimple face and therefore more worthy of inspection by cool people. I was a member of that club. Here I was, not only moving away from my forever childhood home because my family was splintering like an old log, but also moving in with my sophisticated and adventurous twenty-something brother and his wife, who were just newlyweds themselves. Despite feeling bad for my family, I felt special, and I can promise that my excitement was beating my fear by more than a nose.

I don’t mean to imply that my early life had been boring. In fact, it was anything but. During most of my sixteen years in Summersville, West Virginia, my parents were deeply involved in the local government of that small town. Dad returned a hero from his World War II service as a navy pilot and then became a brash, young businessman who catapulted to local and regional political fame. Mom was beautiful, graceful, and smart, yet still so humble that to this day, few if any disliked her or would say a bad word about her. In their own way and with the help of many dedicated friends and supporters, my parents reversed the dormancy of local political action and pushed Summersville to hyper levels of progress and growth from the late 1950s to the 1970s. The journey took its toll on them, as will become apparent, but the people of Summersville and the region have ultimately benefited from the pluck and drive of my parents. I sincerely believe that neither would change a thing that happened—each of them answered a public cry for progress and help. I like to think that after helping the people of Summersville and then moving on with their separate lives, they were able to respond to their own internal cries for transformation as well.

On the surface, Summersville treated our family very well, not just for my sixteen years but for the nearly thirty-plus years that Dad was working in the coal business, politicking, and trying to help Mom keep three kids straight. But when the dam that held the Bryant clan together finally started to weaken and crumble in the 1970s, the tide was like a New River rapid, washing us almost completely off the Summersville landscape by the time I graduated high school in 1979. What was it that so irretrievably broke that I, at the awkward age of sixteen, had to be uprooted and moved away from the town where the Bryants had been first family for practically my entire life?

I was far from comprehending the full picture that sunny day in 1977 when I was headed to East Tennessee, and I’m sure I still do not grasp all the nuances today, but I’m hoping the whole saga will be easier to untangle and piece together if I start from the beginning and just tell the tale.

2

Humble West Virginia Beginnings in the 1920s

Dad, who at this writing is still living independently at age ninety-three, was born William Sebert Bryant in tiny Fireco, West Virginia, in February 1921. He was the third of six children born to William Henry Bryant and the former Florence Lucille Pat Burgess. Pop Bryant was chief electrician for Lillybrook Coal Company for many

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William Henry Bryant, Dad’s father, enjoying his pipe

years, and they lived in coal towns and mining camps near Beckley. The best and last home for the family was one of the six houses on Managers Row, which had both plumbing and power. Lillybrook was once a large mining community but is now defunct, similar to many others like it. The last time I saw it, the only vestiges were crumbling whitewashed homes, a collapsing church, and the abandoned brick shell of Stoco High School, from which Dad graduated in 1939.

I did not really socialize or become close with all of Dad’s family, in some cases because it was impossible. His mother and his youngest brother, Charles, died before I was born, and while we visited with his dad, I did not develop a close relationship with him. The two I knew the best were his younger brother Doug, who was an undertaker and had the first crematorium in West Virginia (and also had the distinction of having been married five times), and older brother Traphes, who became the resident electrician in the White House in 1951 during the Truman years. Traphes also ascended to a job that not many people can say they have ever had: he became official keeper of the White House dogs, and as such, he was the one to escort Charlie and Pushinka, Him and Her, Timahoe, and others to Air Force One to greet the presidents from Kennedy to Nixon as they departed on or returned from official trips. (Traphes wrote a book in 1975 called Dog Days at the White House, based on journals he kept about this uniquely presidential and canine period of his life.)

Dad’s mom, who I will call Grandmother Pat (based on his description of her, I’m pretty sure she would never have been on board with Grandma), insisted that all the children learn something related to music. My aunt Zelda demonstrated often that she could play piano by ear and was very accomplished. I’m not sure what the other siblings did, but Dad took voice lessons and could croon until everyone swooned and swayed to his smooth tenor. His singing became legendary locally, starting with a barbershop quartet in his early Summersville years. Later on, in the mid-1960s, he and some other local musicians formed a band called The Weekenders and got a thirteen-week contract for a TV show on the Oak Hill station. Around that same time, Dad cut a couple of 45s, and he was dubbed The Singing Mayor. The records, at a dollar each, actually sold pretty well at the Summersville Drug Store, or they could be bought by mail. One single had the hymns How Great Thou Art (we always teased Dad that that was autobiographical for him—he is notoriously the opposite of humble) and Just a Closer Walk with Thee. Some of his non-hymn favorites were Oh, Danny Boy and the Sinatra classic My Way. He really did have a beautiful voice, so his mother’s encouragement paid off.

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Record jacket for The Singing Mayor’s 45

In many other ways too, Grandmother Pat was a tireless force in the family’s life in Lillybrook. She and Pop took in boarders to supplement my grandfather’s pay. Pat prepared meals not only for her family but also for the boarders and for any neighboring men whose wives were ill or unable to care for their families. With that many to feed and a dining table for only eight, she usually served two shifts at most meals. She had help from an outstanding butcher, too—the future esteemed Senator Robert C. Byrd, who later held the distinction of being the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress. He was Pat’s favorite butcher in the mid-1930s at the Carolina Super Market in Crab Orchard, West Virginia. This was before Senator Byrd had started his political career or even married. Dad did not know him well at the time, but they became much closer after both were elected to office.

After a lot of questions from me about various aspects of Lillybrook, Dad finally decided to just tell me the whole story. I’m including it here, because I think it’s important to preserve this kind of thing, given that most mining camps of Lillybrook’s ilk have died off and we have far fewer people who are still around and able to describe what life was like in such detail:

Lillybrook was a coal-mining town located in a narrow valley in the hills of West Virginia. Width was a maximum of five hundred feet narrowing to about two hundred, not leaving much room for development.

It did provide space for the community building, which housed the store, offices, post office, warehouse for mine supplies, barber shop, and doctor’s office, with the entire second floor used as a movie theater, as well as the only church in town. There was enough space for the self-producing power plant, a tennis court, and room for about ten houses for management and professionals such as doctors, engineers, etc.

These houses actually had bathrooms in them and were very nice in comparison with the miners’ houses, which were perched on the hillside above on both mountains. They did not have bathrooms, and most did not have running water. There was enough space left for the opening to the underground mine, the coal-washing plant,