George William Walker 1881-1955 & Alice Susan EDENS Walker 1879-1966

This is my Great Uncle George William Walker and my Great Aunt Alice Susan EDENS Walker. The picture was taken around 1944. They lived in the last house up Silas Drive off Cooper Creek, Kanawha Co., WV and are now in Walker Cemetery about a mile away.

I remember them warmly. We used to take the '38 ford to visit them when I was small. Cooper Creek was a dirt road back then and most of the time you could not drive up Silas Drive - actually the creek ran down the middle of the road. I remember driving by Jordan Cemetery on the way to see them and being afraid - especially at night.

Aunt Alice was my Dad's Aunt being a sister to his Dad - Robert Stanton Edens. They had no modern conviences. The house was built on posts out of untreated or painted hardwood boards. There were three rooms - the front room when you entered the front door. To the immediate right was their bedroom. Straight back was the kitchen. You could go out of the kitchen onto the back porch.

Heat was from a single open face fireplace in the front room. Water came from a scooped out spring up in the field out back. The outhouse was over the creek to the right - very popular with the chickens. Before the outhouse was built, a most generous contribution of time and materials by a neighbor, you had to go up to the hen house when the need arose. Uhhhh, use your imagination.

I remember that they had some rubber cars and trucks that my brother and I would play with and want to take home with us. I wonder what happened to them. Uncle George and Aunt Alice would always give my brother and me some money - a couple of dollars and some change. That was something - I remember the cars and the money more than anything else. I guess that was special for us. We didn't know that those few dollars was a major sacrifice for them. I think they did without sometimes to see the joy in our faces.

I would love to sit with them just one more time - to learn of all that was in their memories - and to drive those rubber cars in front of the fireplace once more.....

From the photographer's viewpoint, the spring is to the right about 100 feet. The hen house is to the left. You can see the chimney for the fireplace in the front room and the back porch next to the kitchen. The house had a rusting metal roof, no paint, no foundation but was home sweet home for 51 years of marriage. Aunt Alice lived 11 more years after she lost Uncle George in 1955. The house and buildings are gone now. The property is now home to several mobile homes. Nothing stays the same.