My father’s birthplace

As October 24 grows closer each Fall, I remember my father. When the day of his birth arrives, I awake and recall the youngest of nine surviving children born to Alonzo and Laura Beasley O’Brien in 1922.

My paternal grandmother delivered her babies in the second story of a coal-camp house built near the mouth of Thacker Hollow (holler), West Virginia.

Sadly, Grandpa Alonzo and Granny Laura died before I was born in 1949. Nonetheless, my mind’s eye still passes by the road to Thacker Hollow as a passenger in Dad’s Chrysler. For every summer he drove our family nonstop from Michigan “back home” to Peter Creek, Kentucky.

There, we enjoyed the most blissful vacation a child could ever know.

Summer after summer, passing Thacker Hollow meant we would soon cross the Tug River into Kentucky, and arrive at Granny’s house in Phelps before daybreak.

Yet, I never heard Dad claim Thacker Hollow as his birthplace.

That revelation came about a decade ago during a conversation with my Uncle Herm, my favorite uncle of Mom’s four younger brothers.

“Ars,” Uncle Herm said in a tone to connote something significant. “Your daddy was borned in Thacker Holler. And so was Gearl.”

Now, Gearl (Gearldine) was a daughter of my Aunt Hazel, one of Dad’s older sisters, and Uncle Herm’s wife. That meant he, a McCoy, married my O’Brien cousin. Therefore, that double portion of genetics and affection endeared us to one another all the more.

As Appalachian roads improved throughout the years, signs indicating forthcoming towns and points of interest appeared along the roadside. By the time Uncle Herm drove us to Thacker Hollow, a large, green sign stood by the entrance.

He turned onto the narrow road where Thacker Creek flows along the mountainside opposite the abandon house where my father once lived. Trees grew through the collapsed roof, and vines wrapped around vacant window panes.

“Is this where Dad’s family lived when he enlisted in the Marine Corps?” I asked Uncle Herm.

“No, honey. Your daddy and Golda Mae were the only children left in the house, so they moved from Thacker up the road to the holler from where his brother Ed and his family lived on Peter Creek. Ever’body gathered up at the O’Brien’s when Warren came home on furlough.”

Including Sadie McCoy who stood beside Granny O’Brien at the train station in Williamson, West Virginia, when my father returned from service in Guam. Grandpa Alonzo had passed.

Mom and Dad soon married. Within several years, they moved their young family to Detroit where Warren O’Brien began and sustained his business as a barber until retirement.

Dear Reader, the longer my years, the stronger Thacker Hollow stands in memory-connects me to my father, who, like the house of his birth, no longer stands.

In this season of leaf-fall, I stand while I may in the home my husband provided for me, thank God for my father, and all he provided for me, my mother, and sisters.

Contact Iris at irisfarmletters@gmail.com