The Jack Miller Archive

Ed was not the world’s greatest provider; rather he fancied himself as a gambler. Lively, full of jokes and jolly Irish humor, he was a great social success without putting much food on the table for his growing family.

They sold their Oak Grove property and moved the mouth of Burnt Hill Creek where they rented a house.

But the money from the sale went, as it always did, until the wolf breathed at their door once more. Susie’s parents came to the rescue (again). Susie, Ed and their growing family could have the Forgey’s Grasshopper Hill Ranch under the shadow of Snow Camp Mountain.

Thankfully, but not too willingly, the young couple moved the 20 miles or more back into the hills.

Missing the small but necessary social life, Ed and Susie soon began to leave their children in the care of their eldest son, Elmer. By cooking a bog pot of stew and one of beans with cornbread, the parents felt the children were fairly safe at their remote mountain home.

Elmer later told of one time when the food ran out before his parents’ return. He shot a deer for food for the children; he was 8 years old.

Grandfather Forgey had left the family a well-developed farm. He had planted a big orchard that was bearing fruit and a grapevine.

Page 207, Pistol River Recollections, E.M. Sponaugle.