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Janaury 2025
12 Months of Photos - Appalachia Style
"Grandparents"
Ina May Bonner King and Ward Montgomery King, my maternal grandparents.
I have no idea how they met.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I know they met in Webster County, West Virginia, and that a coal mine was involved. My Granddad was working at a nearby coal mine, not far from where my grandmother—“Nanny”—lived on top of Point Mountain, West Virginia.
The courting and dating details left this earth when they did.
I do know that my mom was already born in April 1938. Ina and Ward married on Christmas Eve that same year. Ward was not my mother’s biological father, but that didn’t matter to him.
This picture was likely taken around their 10th or 15th wedding anniversary.
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They lived a modest life on Point Mountain but decided to move to Walkersville, West Virginia, around 1950. Ward was done with the coal mines and wanted something different, so he bought a farm down a dirt road in Walkersville. It was a struggle. They would eventually lose the family farm and move to a small home nearby. Without steady work, my dad—now married and living in Maryland with their daughter and two sons—went back to get them and three of their children.
They traveled the Hillbilly Highway from West Virginia to Baltimore to Prince George's County, Maryland.
They traveled the Hillbilly Highway from West Virginia to Baltimore to Prince George's County, Maryland.
This photo was taken around 1974 in nearby Riverdale, Maryland. It was before their divorce in 1977. This image is what I see when I think of my grandparents.
There’s no other way to say it: I was spoiled rotten by these two. I could do no wrong, and they could do no wrong in my eyes.
❂ I learned to cook from my grandmother.
❂ I learned basic carpentry skills—patching up a playhouse—from my grandfather.
❂ I learned to dream and to believe that anything was possible because these two people were in my life.
❂ I learned basic carpentry skills—patching up a playhouse—from my grandfather.
❂ I learned to dream and to believe that anything was possible because these two people were in my life.
We traveled the back roads of Appalachia in a big old turquoise Cadillac, letting the day take us wherever it wanted. This was long before seatbelts, and I always had the prime spot—perched between them on the lowered armrest.
My Grandfather moved back to West Virginia. My Grandmother stayed in Maryland.
My Grandfather never remarried. My Grandmother did.
There isn’t a single happy memory from my childhood that doesn’t have one or both of them in it.
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