june 26, 2016

posted in: photography | 5

“We were created with skin tones in a beautiful variety, but our souls are all the same color.”
~ Vicki Vest Caskey

 

reflections of the way life used to be
reflections of the way life used to be

 

Dad and I took an incredible adventure for Father’s Day, albeit delayed. We visited most of the coal camps and towns where he grew up. Most of them were in Perry County, Kentucky. Dad and his oldest brother, Randolph, were born in the coal camp of Hardburly. Their father was also born there. Then, they lived in four different houses in a town not far away called Dwarf. Dad’s most dangerous years, according to him, were spent in a huge Blue Diamond coal camp known as Leatherwood. His mother called it “the end of the world.” His grandfather Adam Terry, or just “Ad” as he was called, owned most of Ball Creek near Knott County. Hal Rogers Parkway (Highway 80) now cuts a swath through it, so that Ad and his second wife are buried just feet from the Westbound lane. His first wife, dad’s grandmother, Elizabeth Jones Terry, is buried in Holliday cemetery high up on a hill in Ary, Kentucky. She died five days after he was born in October 1938. I wouldn’t trade the time I spent with dad for anything. I learned so much about him, and in turn, about myself.

 

a long way from home
a long way from home

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5 Responses

  1. Lois Wilson

    Us three girls took this same trip Memorial week and visited the graves and country side. So glad you got to spend the day with your dad, I know he loved to see the old home places.

  2. Kopana

    Papaw Terry had taken me to Hardburly and Ary back in 1989, but I had never been to Leatherwood before. That trip, like this one, are events that will be with me forever.

  3. Normandi

    Beautiful photo. Fantastic trip. Looks to me there is a fox protector traveling with him, right behind in the back seat. Hardburly. I know that place well. I used to travel to Hardburly with me Dad.

  4. Shirley Terry

    OH MY GOODNESS…….I see the FOX protector now!!!! How in the world!!!! How incredible!

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