Camp Panther Creek Written by Mary Kessler Gawthrop Lying here on the couch thinking of yesteryear, I decided I must get some of it on paper while it’s still in my mind, although certainly not fresh after thirty years. Why I’d catch a glimpse of my years in the lumber camp at Panther Creek, I don’t k now, but here it is. Frank came in one afternoon from camp for some tools he needed and insisted I drop everything to go back to camp with him, for he was coming back to the farm that evening. While I dressed, he drove up to the school to get John to go with us. While Frank did some work at the mill, I visited with Mrs. Burrough, who was running the boarding house. She had two girls to help with the work, and still hired the washing and ironing done-Frank paying for it all. This was during World War II when both men and food were hard to come by. In that two hour visit, I saw more waste of food than I’d ever seen in my life. Each man paid ninety cents a day for food and lodging. She had two kinds of meat on the table (fresh pork and canned corned beef sliced), dried beans, potatoes, a canned corn, and she opened two gallon cans of peaches for dessert—much more food than the men ate. When the table was cleared, all the surplus food was tossed out the back window to a pile of food which was already piling up to quite a mound. On the way home, I told Frank what I’d seen and he decided there would have to be a change made. Well, before the weekend had vanished, I made up my mind to go to the camp and take over ‘till he could replace me. I went in on Sunday night, the following week. Frank had explained to Mrs. Burrough that he couldn’t afford her any longer. She insisted on staying to help since her husband was working in the woods, cutting timber for Mr. Odell, the contractor. Frank had told the men that anyone who brought liquor into camp was automatically fired. That very night I went in, Harley (Mrs. Burrough’s husband) took liquor in and was passing it around to some of the men. Frank learned about it that night and told Burroughs he couldn’t board at the camp any longer. So Mrs. Burroughs, knowing they wouldn’t be living there, refused to help with the breakfast. There was a huge wood stove to cook on—really a hotel size—and the best stove I’ve ever cooked on. Frank got up early, built the fire, and helped me fix breakfast for twelve men. Breakfast was bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, oatmeal, biscuits, butter and jelly. Well, we got along fine without her and I was left to get the dinner alone, as Mrs. Burroughs packed her things and left for Odells around nine o’clock. The stove was large enough to accommodate a big tub on the back lids, so I filled not only the big water tank that was part of the stove, but also a tub full of water to work with. There were long built-in tables to work on, with lots of shelf room above each, and a built-in shelf under each table top to store the cookers and large iron skillets. I spent the early morning hours getting a big pot of dried beans on to cook, washing the breakfast dishes and baking four large pies. By noon whistle I’d made up all the beds in the men’s lobby, cleaned the lamp chimneys, scrubbed the filthy tin wash pans, hung up clean towels for the men. Dinner was pork ribs and back bone, potatoes, beans, spinach and raisin pie. I worked hard all afternoon fighting bed bugs in the men’s beds. Frank had been so sure that there would be one lumber camp that bed bugs would not inhabit. He had brought all the double decker bunks to the farm before he set up camp, and we had soaked each one in gasoline and I had enameled them (springs and frames) with black enamel. Frank went to Charleston and bought new mattresses, blankets and sheets for all beds—and I had made comforters. The men slept with bed bugs at home and they soon carried them into the camp beds. It was a constant fight to keep the bugs out of the beds. One old man’s coat collar was full of bugs, but fortunately he didn’t work in that coat so each Monday I’d brush a lot of gasoline in the folds of his coat and hang it back where he kept it. However, fighting bugs was a constant chore. The men were very complimentary of the way I kept up t heir sleeping quarters and praise lightens any job, no matter how distasteful. I did that boarding house work alone and didn’t miss a day baking ies for the noonday meal and a cake for supper. We had the best spring at the camp I’ve ever seen. I did all the washing for the camp and the farm on a wash board. Actually the camp wash was only sheets, towels and pillow cases, but the pillow cases were always starched and ironed nicely and the men’s towels were ironed. I soon had the work so well organized that I had time to go to the mill in the afternoon and watch the lumber being sawed. Once, I went to the woods and saw the men skid the logs over the mountain. Lots of evenings I would go with Frank into the woods on the motor car to get loads of logs. Before we went to bed at night, I’d pare a big prepare a big lot of potatoes and put them in cold water to fix for breakfast, then, in the morning, while the stove heated, I’d dry and slice them. Potatoes were a must for breakfast, for woods and mill men have to eat a good meal in the morning. Twice a week I’d make a big batch of light bread—and how those men enjoyed that. Biscuits and cornbread were on the table at least twice a day. I saved everything left in the vegetable dishes to add to soup and I soon learned how much to cook so as to have no waste. We bought dried beans by the hundred lbs. and usually had pintos and navy in those large bags and we would get limas and cranberry beans in 25 lb. bags. Corn, peas, spinach, hominy, tomatoes, and other canned foods were bought by the case, macaroni and spaghetti in big lots only once a month. I would take canned green beans, chicken liver, butter and buttermilk from the farm. Our bacon was bought in huge slabs at the wholesale house, also canned salmon, corned beef. Jellies were very expensive and we had one boy would eat a 25 cent jar of jelly at one meal—besides all his other food. Remember, each man was only paying 90 cents a day! Well, we turned from store jelly to apple butter. Sugar and lard were both hard to get until the baker at Richwood heard Frank complaining about the shortage. He whispered to Frank that he could furnish us with all we needed. What a beautiful sight his big 25 lb. cans of shortening was, as white as any Crisco—and it just may have been Crisco. Usually, once a week, big lumber trucks would come in late in the evenings and we would have the truckers over night. Sometimes there would be sixteen and eighteen at the table but our average was twelve to fourteen men. Just outside the kitchen door was a huge wood pile. Frank usually spent a little time each evening cutting those big log ends into stove size. I learned so much about wood there. Light woods like poplar and pine were only good to kindle a fire with. For heat, green oak, hickory and hard woods were the best. The camp men were so nice to me. One week Frank had to go to Cleveland and I was left alone with a house full of men. Of course, they were all upstairs and I could fasten the doors downstairs, but the last thing to cross my mind was to be afraid of any of them. Yet, one of the worst frights of my life was at the camp. It was toward the end of the job. Frank had taken all the mill crew far up the hollow to pull the railroad steel and bring it in on log cars with motors. No one was in miles of the camp but the old night watchman (Frank’s uncle by marriage—and he was out at the mill). I was at the boarding house. He came in and asked if I would do him a favor, and at once I said, “Of course.” He set a can of talcum powder on the dining room table and started unzipping his trousers. I stepped back by the stove and laid my hand on the big iron poker. He walked over to the long bench by the dining room table and laid face down on the bench and asked me to powder his back. I was so frightened to get that close to him, yet, I said I would do the favor. Well, I took the can of powder and stood back as I could and shook it hard on his exposed back and his back was exposed. When I set the can down the powder came out in a big puff, he asked me to rub the powder in but I told him in cross tones that he could rub it in himself, and then I hurried back to the stove and poker. I’m just as sure that old devil was trying me out for I’d heard he was no saint and I’m also sure had he come close to me, I would have used that poker. All morning I was a wreck, and I never really got over keeping an eye on him. Our greatest joy was coming home for weekends. We always came Friday evenings and Mary Louise usually came with us. She was teaching in Richwood. Joanne and John would have the house so clean and we’d all jump into getting supper. We all had so much to talk about we’d be hoarse talking so much. Joanne was so young to have so much responsibility when I first went over. We had a man and his wife and their son here but their boy had ruptured appendicitis. They were with him at the hospital several weeks. When there was a lot of snow, we didn’t go to the camp sometimes for several weeks but while we were away the children milked the cows and fed the chickens like grownups. Jr. was in the army, now as I look back on it, I think. I wouldn’t leave them for anything—yet there wasn’t anything else I could do at the time. Now as I remember it, Mary Louise taught up at this school the first time I went with Frank and that was in the winter. I remember there was such a big snow the children tried to go to school and Mary Louise tried to break a road but they only got as far as our foot log and had to turn back. Frank and three of the men waded out. Frank was uneasy about the family and he came home by walking from Camp to Fenwick through huge drifts two days later. Dick Erwin and I walked out and I hitch hiked home from Fenwick. Frank was at Baker’s Store waiting for a bus to go back and I’d gotten as far as Craigsville and called Milam’s. Martha Jean and Gilbert came to Craigsville and brought me home. We had stopped at Baker’s Store at the junction to get some bread and at Barkers was Frank waiting for the bus. My, how happy he was that we could come back home. Gilbert brought us as far as Young’s. The road was clear that far, and we walked on home and MJ and Gilbert went back when we got home. Mary Louise and Joanne were up stairs dressed up in evening dresses and passing away the time dressing up. I remember M.L and J both cried we were so glad to be home and the girls so glad to see us. That’s one of the times we could be here several weeks. When we would leave camp in winter, I’d put several bogs of flour in the big oven so the mice couldn’t get to it and I’d fill big lard cans with other things mice could eat before I’d leave camp.