Meeting My Husbands Family

Petersburg, West Viriginia
After a week of visiting in Silver City we set out to travel across most of the United States in as straight a line as possible to where Lee had grown up. It was not my first time to travel this far by car but it was a new experience for Lee. But it was the first time I had done it in a long time; I

guess I would have been about 15 the last time I had taken a really long car trip and now I was 20.
From Silver City we went north to Albuquerque and visited for a few hours with Uncle Rex and then went on east to Amarillo, TX and on to St. Louis, MO where we got lost in their mess of a freeway system. We both loved the country across Illinois, Indian, and Ohio. Finally we made it into West Virginia. It was late at night and I was not prepared for the long, winding, twisting, narrow, two-lane roads through the northern part of this mountainous state, with the sight of little homes sitting on the sides of the mountains looking like they were going to fall down into the road. I was getting very tired as was Lee who was wanting to get home to where he had lived all this life except for the past few years in San Diego. The two cats that were riding in the back of the car on top of all of our belonging

were tired of trip and were doing a lot of fussing at the twists in the road. On top of the long ride we had been having some mechanical problems with the car; our green Mercury Cyclone. It had a tendency to get hot and every few hours we would have to pull over for about an hour and let it cool off, make sure there was enough water in the radiator and then continue on.
Finally we reached the small farming community of Petersburg and made our way to a tiny car dealership. Lee’s mom, Goldie, sister, Linda, and brother, Don lived in an apartment over the dealership offices. It was a tiny two-bedroom apartment where they had been living for the four years since Lee’s parents had been divorced and the farm they had lived on had been sold.
I was as terrified to be meeting Lee’s family as I am sure he had been to meet my family and then to visit them in Silver City. Some how I had the idea that they thought that I was a horrible woman from another country that had stolen their boy from them. I’m not sure how true this might have been but I do think there was some truth to it. I do think that they thought that I was a Mexican because I was from New Mexico. Just listening to Lee talk to them on the phone I think they thought everyone

from New Mexico was a Mexican like from Mexico. They don’t now but I still hear of some many people from New Mexico having to convince someone from another state that we are part of the 50 states and not a foreign country.
I did meet my mother-in-law and she wasn’t the ogre I had thought she might me. I also met Lee’s dad, who was living near Staunton, VA near his dad, and brothers whom I met as well. All were nice to me. But meeting all those West Virginia hillbillies was almost like going to another country for me even though I had lived in so many different states. It was a bit of culture shock.
I remember that the talk of the town in Petersburg was about a shoot out a few weeks before between a couple of cops and a couple of

moonshine runners that were operating moonshine still in the area.
Petersburg is in the northern part of the state on the Potomac River and has a population of less than 3,000. It is mostly a farming area but there is getting to be more tourism all the time.
http://www.gowv.com/
http://www.discoverourtown.com/WV/Petersburg/Organizations-3972.html#

Lee took me to see the farm where his folks had lived when he was born and where he had lived until he was about 18. No one was living in it at the time so we were able to go in and see the little house. It was a log cabin with one room that was a livingroom and a dog run between that room and the room; the kitchen. There was an upstairs bedroom that he and his brother and sister had shared. There was what was left of a barn, smoke house and a well house. There had been no running water in the house and it was heated by a woodstove and the kitchen had a wood cookstove. He had grown up as you would think that people did fifty years before not just twenty years.


While there we met his mothers parents, and several brothers and sisters. Goldie was the oldest and a couple of her younger brothers were only a few years older than Lee.
Mostly I remember her brother Harlan and his wife Kathleen. They had a small farm where they mostly raised chickens. They got in the tiny chicks and raised them in huge heated chicken house until they were old enough to go to the butcher. They also had several hay fields, a few cows and a few sheep. They had a nice little farm house but it didn’t have any running water. But it was very pure water. One of the few times I had water without the addition of chlorine and all the junk that is added to a city water system. There is a heck of a difference in the taste.
Where we are now we have a well that we share with two other houses. The water isn’t as good as that at Harlan’s farm but so much better than Rio Rancho or Albuquerque city water.


I think that Harlan and Kathleen accepted me as Lee’s wife better than any of the rest of Goldie’s family did. Harlan didn’t say much just showed us around the farm and allowed us to explore on his place by ourselves as much as we wanted. Lee had actually spent a lot of time at their place when he was growing up. They never had any children and took there two nephews in as kind of like sons when Lee’s dad was off trying to find work and away from home.
Kathleen was very friendly to me showing me her home, and showing me some of the traditional ways of cooking in their country way. Everyone there always set a big table of lots of hot food at every meal and expected everyone to eat a huge amount. I wish I had been able to know her a lot better than the few trips we took to see them allowed. Kathleen died of breast cancer in her mid forties in about 1995 I think it was or close to then. She was one of those wonderful people who never lives in the city but always on a farm with clean air, home raised and cooked food. She probably lived as close to what the experts and doctors say a person should to avoid cancer and still she died from it.
We visited with another of Goldie’s brothers Dwight and his wife Mammy Bell and their son Bill. Dwight and Harlan were the relatives that


we knew the best of all of the Ratcliff side of Lee’s family.
During the time that we were in Petersburg Lee showed me some of the scenic spots near there. Places like Black Water Falls State Park. A big beautiful waterfall full of tannic acid that makes the water dark. It’s on the Blackwater River and after the falls the water goes through a rough, twisted eight mile gorge.
http://www.blackwaterfalls.com/
We also went to see Seneca Rocks in the Monongahela National Forest that is know for being a great rocking climbing experience that I will not experience as I don’t do rock climbing but it is a beautiful rock cliff about 900 feet tall. While going there we went to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia at about 4,500 feet.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/mnf/sp/senrcks_txt.html


http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/mnf/sp/spruce_knob.html
Near Spruce Knob and Seneca Rocks is Smokehole Caverns. We just drove by it this time but about 12 years later when we went to West Virginia with our then 15 month old son, Dustin we stopped and went through the Caverns. We were lucky as there were only about six people taking the tour that day. Especially as Dustin was fussy. I don’t think he liked being underground in a cave. Can’t say I really did either but it was a nice tour. There are great photos at this site.
http://www.smokehole.com/
http://www.usresident.com/travel_usa/west_virginia/smoke_hole_caverns_travel_review.php

Petersburg is known as the ‘Home of the Golden Trout’. A golden trout is a hybrid color variation of the rainbow trout. Spring Run Trout Hatchery is near Petersburg and raises brown, rainbow and golden trout. Lee worked at the hatchery some while in high school. It was interesting to see all those tiny little new hatched trout and then the super big, monster trout that were used in the breeding program.


http://www.grantcountywva.com/attractions/outdoors.html

Of course all of this going to state and national parks only increased our love of the outdoors and our country as going to all of them in Silver City did.
An oddly interesting fact to me and to Lee is the fact that Silver City and Petersburg are both in Grant County in their respective states.



After another week of visiting Lee’s family and home town we left to go on to spend a few days with friends south of Chicago, IL and then on to Waukegan, IL where Lee would spend the next several months at a Great Lakes Navel School.