From ’20 to ’20–Part 2

chapter 2

While Ed and E.H. messed around like teenagers of their era did, Ed’s little sister was beginning to catch E.H.’s eye. But she was so young and he was…, well, patient. In the Fall of,1923, E.H. was 22 and Lenora was 14. E.H. would come over to the Earps residence and sit on the porch with the family: William, her dad, would smoke his pipe, watch the youngest two, Lenora and Corrine, play and gab and squabble like kids do. E.H. and Ed would sit with William and talk, the way men do. 

It became obvious to William that E.H. had his eye on Lenora. The boy had become a man and had fixed his gaze upon the fair maiden of Will and Lizzy Earps. Just a note about the Earps: Will was, so the story goes, adopted by a Kentucky family from somewhere in Kansas. His name was Earp. But they say Will didn’t like the association of that name so he added an s to it, making it Earps. So the story goes. I wouldn’t know how to prove it wrong or right, so it goes.

Lizzy was a Draper, of the lately come from Wales, Drapers. She was a tough mama and no bigger than a minute, but she had a heart of gold. She also could see what was unfolding on the front porch. Somewhere about the middle of November that year, Will says to E.H., “Son, it’s gettin mighty cold sittin’ out here on the porch every evenin’, if you want that girl, why don’t you just marry her?” 

A rather startled E.H., looked at Lenora and said, “If she’ll have me,” to which Lenora replied, “Of course, I will.” They were married a month later. 

Of course, in today’s world all four of them would have been standing in front of a judge trying to explain this horrible situation, but in the early part of the 20th century in Kentucky, this wasn’t terribly uncommon. They would begin their marriage in a small cabin near the little ‘berg the Earps lived in—BonAir, KY (not the suburb of Louisville.) It was too small for much, but they were in love and she was learning how to run a household, he trying to make a living.

Incidentally to the whole situation, but important as they moved around, was their education. E.H. had a 3rd grade level education. He used to tell us the story of how they had to “burn down the school house to get me out of the 3rd grade!” Truth was, he went to a one room school for 3 years (I never heard how old he was when he started) and shortly into the Summer break, lightning struck the school building and it burned to the ground. The community never had the money to rebuild it for several years and by then, E.H. and his age group had either gone somewhere else for schooling or gone to work somewhere—E.H. was in the latter. Lenora had gone to school through 6th grade, which was thought of as enough for a girl who was just going to marry and have babies.

E. H. picked up a nickname in school and it stuck with him amongst his closest friends almost all his life: they called him Lockie. Lenora never called him that. She had a special way of saying his name, Elvin. but she didn’t say “Elvin.” If I spell it the way she said it, you have to say it out loud fast, ok? —she said, “E-yelvin.” I never knew why she didn’t just say “Elvin” and they never spoke of it, just an oddity in her speech, perhaps?

Oh, one more thing about his schooling. He said to me once, “you know, when you’re in school, there’s a lot more to learn than what’s in the books.” (Boy, was that ever the truth!) He said, when he was in his first grade, Spring came and the teacher, a man about 50 years old, took the boys from 1st grade on up, out to the school yard and showed them a brand new Barlow “mumblee-peg” pocket knife, (old English word is spelled mumblety peg, but in KY it was as I spelled it) this was a sought out possession that every boy would have loved to have. It was a 3-bladed small pocket knife that a boy could master the toss necessary to win at mumbled-peg. 

The teacher held his arm out parallel to his shoulder with the knife lying in his open hand, palm up. He said, “the boy that can hold this knife like this the longest wins it!” Oh! Boy! What a prize! Eagerness caused every boy to line up, biggest and oldest first. The first was a big, brute of a boy who laughed and said to the rest, “Y’all don’t have a chance!” He didn’t last a minute. One by one they all did their best and many beat the big boy, but when it came down to a first grader who was little and the boy most picked on by the bigger boys, he held that knife with his little skinny arm much longer than the others could even imagine! The Barlow was this little guy’s to keep! My Dad always was a champion of the “little guy” and loved telling that story. The object was the biggest and strongest might not always win.

Lenora never said much about her schooling, but they both knew two very important things: they knew how to read, and they knew how to do arithmetic. These made them learn the truth and how to always no what was fair and right. And, they made it just fine throughout their long lives.

Thanks for reading, the Elder

To be continued

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