Eleanor White

Squire's Legacy: the Life and Struggles of Clifford Earl White, the Justice of the Peace, Clear Fork District, Raleigh County, Wv. 1948-1966 Eleanor White

Squire's Legacy is a lovely story of a family that did not know the meaning of "defeat" and the still larger story of southern West Virginia communities that have been described often but rarely understood. Missionaries, such as the late Jack Weller, have called them "yesterday's people," fundraisers seeking charity from outside the region have demeaned them as "our contemporary ancestors;" and, sociologists have called their folkways an "analgesic subculture" wedded to fatalistic ways. Refreshingly, "Appalachia," code for we're-poor-help-us, never appears on these pages. In this shining tapestry of remembrances, facile generalization so common to much of the writing about the region gives way to a finely woven and warm description of living, loving, and toiling in the coal fields at the very nadir of the Depression. A son and daughter-in-law tell the story of "Squire," a coal miner paralyzed by a slate fall, and his family as they scratched a living from an environment that sapped the souls of all but the hardiest. Tempered by tough times, character emerges from these pages as rock-hard and lustrous as the coal they mined. The White's accomplish in 300 pages what William Bennett has not yet done in two tomes on the subject.