We Called Her “Buddy”

Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.

William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3

Her face was round and soft and wrinkled, the way a grandmother’s face should be. She had a warm smile and a quiet laugh.

Her full name was Lorena Oretha Gill Skaggs, but we all called her “Buddy.” She was born in 1905 in Fayette County, West Virginia, and she died seventy-three years later in Fayette County, West Virginia. She was mother to four children but gave birth to only one. She was of small stature and somewhat shy, but she had an inner strength that allowed her to placidly take things as they came, responding with a quiet, “Well . . .”

She married my paternal grandfather, Weston Wills Skaggs, in 1936, and they remained married until her death. She was Weston’s second wife.

Eva Grace Holliday Skaggs

Weston’s first wife, my paternal grandmother, was Eva Grace Holliday, who was born on July 11, 1906. According to one of her cousins, “Eva was a perfect natural blonde, very fair-skinned and very blue-eyed.” Photos of her also show that she had an eye for style.

Sadly, because she died young, we really don’t know a lot about her. I suspect she was stubborn—uh, let’s say strong willed—but I know she had a temper.

I recall visiting Aunt Willie (Eva’s sister) with my dad when I was a boy, and he asked Willie to tell him about his mother. I don’t recall all she said—I am sure most of it was positive—but I do remember her saying, “She had a temper! Oh, you didn’t want to make her mad!”

Here’s another story, told by my brother Eric, who heard it directly from Uncle Leo (my dad’s older brother), regarding Eva’s temper.

Uncle Leo was eight when Eva died, so he had quite a few memories of her. One trait he remembered vividly was her temper. One day he had asked to go to Grandma’s house. She lived a short walk down the road. Eva said, “No, Grandma is busy enough. You stay home today.” Uncle Leo chuckled in his cute way and said, “Well, I decided Mom was wrong and that I’d just sneak off to Grandma’s.” Sometime later, Eva realized he was missing and knew where to look. Leo says she came busting in through the screen door, never looked or spoke to Grandma, grabbed Leo by the arm, and spanked him the whole way home. Even more than eighty years later, Uncle Leo said with a laugh, “Oh, yes, she had a temper!”

I feel bad for beautiful Grandma Eva that the one aspect of her personality that seems to be remembered most is her temper, but that’s the case.

Let’s back up a bit and get these events in order.

Weston and Eva married on June 25, 1924, and had four sons:

• Weston Wills Skaggs Jr., an infant who died the day he was born, May 16, 1925.

• Hylbert Leo, born June 23, 1927.

• Edwyn McClelland, born March 16, 1933.

• And my dad, Nyle Stanley, born January 15, 1936.

Immediately after my dad was born, Eva contracted what folks at that time referred to as “milk leg.” The actual name for it is iliofemoral thrombophlebitis, and it’s a result of the femoral vein in the thigh forming a clot that blocks the flow of blood. It’s a painful condition that can happen after a pregnancy, causing the leg to swell and turn white.

Of course, even today a blood clot is cause for much concern. But, according to family lore, Eva refused to see a doctor (hence my assumption she was strong willed), and she died on January 30, 1936, leaving behind an infant just over two weeks old and two boys ages eight and two. She was twenty-nine.

I wish I had known her. Her loss so young makes my heart sad. However, I see echoes of her beauty in the faces of my daughter, Kristie, and my cousin Sandi.

Lorena Oretha “Buddy” Gill Skaggs

Thus at the end of January 1936 Weston found himself a widower with three young boys. He knew he could not raise them alone. He was a coal miner and had to continue to work. So he began looking for a wife.

Rumor has it people thought he would choose Miss Willie (aka “Wid”) Holliday, Eva’s sister, but he surprised folks by asking Lorena Gill to be his wife. She said yes, and they were married on September 3, 1936, just a little over seven months after Eva’s death. Weston and Lorena had one child a year later, a daughter, Audris Karon Skaggs, born September 30, 1937.

Interestingly, Grandpa was the second person in his family to marry one of the Gill siblings. His sister, Marcelle, married Nick Gill. So a brother and sister—Weston and Marcelle—were married to a brother and sister—Nick and Buddy—making their children double-first cousins.

Some time after Weston and Lorena were married, Leo, who was nine by this time, talked to his daddy about his new mother.

“What should I call her, Daddy? I don’t want to call her ‘Mama,’ because that’s what I called my real mama.”

“Well,” his dad replied thoughtfully, “she’s not your mama, but she can be your buddy. How ’bout we call her ‘Buddy’?”

And Buddy she became.

As I write this, referring to her as Lorena is odd—too hifalutin. She was always just “Grandma Buddy.” I was in junior high when I first asked my dad what her real name was. I thought “Lorena Oretha” was a beautiful, musical name—but it didn’t fit her humble homespun personality.

It was around this time, too, that I learned Grandma Buddy’s exact height. I remember standing in her kitchen—I had probably hit a growth spurt and realized I was taller than she was—and asking, “Grandma, how tall are you?”

“Four-foot ’leven and three quarters,” was her immediate response.

Her precision amuses me to this day.

Staying Overnight

When we visited, we slept all over their small house. Grandpa and Grandma had their own room, of course, and off that room was the dining room, where I remember sleeping on a roll-away. Keith may have also slept there in another roll-away. Mom and Dad shared a second bedroom, and Eric slept on a roll-away in Mom and Dad’s room. There was an alcove off the kitchen that had a double bed in it as well, and sometimes Keith and I would share that, which I hated because once he fell asleep, Keith would never stay on his side of the bed!

Grandpa and Grandma were early risers. I recall waking in the dark dining room with electric light from the kitchen flowing through the open doorway. Grandpa would be banging away at the old coal stove they had in the kitchen, shaking down the ash from yesterday and getting the fire going again to heat the house. He and Grandma would be talking quietly, and I couldn’t make out the words, but I loved the sound of the back-and-forth of their conversation.

But the best part of that experience was the smells—bacon and coffee and eggs. Here I was, in a tiny house in the village of Edmond, West Virginia. We were on vacation, and I was surrounded by parents, siblings, and grandparents, and I was snuggled in my bed comfortably, and we would eat bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast pretty soon. . . . Those kinds of experiences, the ones that give a child an unquestionable sense of belonging and love and safety, are of immeasurable value in forming the future adult’s self-confidence and sense of place in the world.

Buddy loved hearing about and then describing gory events—especially car wrecks. I remember that my mom was irritated at her one time (I think Mom’s relationship with Buddy was strained at times) and saying to me, “Oh, I hate it when she tells those stories! They are always so gross! I don’t know why she finds that stuff so fascinating!” Buddy probably told those stories to the adults, not us children, because I remember only one of them—and here it is: “Some o’ them teenage boys was out on their motorcycles playin’ chicken with cars. One car didn’t turn away, and one o’ them boys hit it head-on. They said his blood just spurted up all over the windshield.”

Buddy wasn’t particularly “motherly.” I mean, my mom’s mom, Grandma Swartz, would say things like, “Come sit by me on the couch!” and then kiss you all over your face—“Smack! Smack! Smack!” I don’t think Buddy kissed me even once, and she never read books to us or anything like that. That never bothered me, it just wasn’t her way. I never doubted that she loved me.

Sense of Humor

Buddy had a sense of humor, especially when it came to her grandchildren. As a small child I could not understand why she always called Grandpa “Weston.” As far as I knew, “Weston” wasn’t even a name, it was just a weird word. So I asked her, “Grandma, why do you always call him ‘Weston’? Is he from Out West?”

She got quite a laugh out of that one—or perhaps I should say, quite a chuckle.

Another time one of my brothers slept on a new roll-away bed, so new that the adults hadn’t taken the plastic off the mattress. Well, sometime during the night, he wet the bed. The plastic kept the urine from soaking into the mattress, so all the bedding and his pajamas were a sopping mess by morning.

In the morning Mom, knowing what had happened, asked him how he had slept. “OK,” he said.

“Did you like that bed?”

“It was all right,” he said, “but it was really wet, even clear up to my neck!”

Grandma Buddy chuckled about that response all day long.

Buddy’s Secret

Buddy had one secret, though, that was never talked about. I know it wasn’t talked about because even my dad didn’t know about it till he was grown.

Dad and Grandpa both had an affinity for the Bible, and they enjoyed having theological discussions. One time Dad was waxing eloquent on divorce, espousing his view that remarriage after divorce constituted adultery.

There was a strange pause, and then Grandpa Skaggs said, “You do know I’m married to a divorced woman, don’t you?” Dad was flummoxed. No, he did not know that!

Here is the majority of Buddy’s divorce decree, which somehow has survived over the years and is now in my brother Eric’s possession.

On the 24^th day of April, 1934, again came the plaintiff [Grandma Buddy] in person and by Perry & Perry, her attorneys, the order of publication herein having been published and posted as provided by law for more than thirty (30) days prior to the first day of this term. . . . .

The Court after hearing all the evidence of the plaintiff and divers witnesses in her behalf, is of the opinion that the plaintiff is entitled to the relief prayed for.

It is therefore adjudged, ordered and decreed that the plaintiff, Lorena Evans, be and she is hereby absolutely divorced from the defendant, Burt Evans, on the grounds of more than three (3) years wilful [sic] desertion prior to the commencement of this suit.

I take from this that (1) they had advertised for Burt Evans to make himself known for thirty days before finalizing the process, but he had not responded; (2) Burt had left her “more than three . . . years” before, which would have been back in 1931 at least. Those must have been heartbreaking years for her, years when she probably thought her life and chances for love and happiness were over.

There may have been more to the story, though, because I thought my dad told me she was divorced because her husband was a bigamist. But there’s no hint of that in the final divorce decree, so I’m only speculating.

I wonder how long Burt and Grandma were married before the bum took off. I wonder who the “divers witnesses” were who spoke on her behalf. I wonder how much of a crushing blow this would have been to a young bride, who, I must assume, was like most young brides, excited about the future and proud of her husband. Or was it one of those situations where people had warned her that Burt was “no good,” but she wouldn’t listen? We have no way of knowing now.

Her second husband, Weston, however, was a good man—faithful, hardworking, principled.

Gone

So. Lorena Oretha Gill Skaggs was born on August 30, 1905, and she died at 73 years old. According to her death certificate, her death resulted from “acute circ[ulatory] failure due to, or as a consequence of: acute MI [myocardial infarction], due to, or as a consequence of: ASCVD [atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease].” That is, she had a heart attack in her sleep, and when Grandpa woke up on March 10, 1979, she was unexpectedly gone.

Shortly after she died, our family made the six-hour drive to be with Grandpa. It was very strange to enter the house without Grandma Buddy there. I remember Grandpa sitting in a chair in the kitchen shortly after our arrival. His tough, rangy body, battered by years of hard labor in the West Virginia coal mines, was unbowed. He was able to contain his emotions until Joel, my little brother who was just under three, piped up, “Grandpa, did your grandma die?”

“Yes, she did,” he replied as his eyes welled up and his voice quivered. “And Grandpa misses her so much.”

Copyright 2022, Steven Nyle Skaggs

Many, many thanks to my brother Eric for patiently answering my numerous questions and for providing all the wonderful photos shown here! I couldn’t have done this post without you, bro! Please check out Eric’s excellent Skaggs family history blog at http://skaggins.org/wp/ .

Eva as a girl, center, surrounded by her family . . . the Happy Hollidays. . . ?

L to R: My mom/their daughter-in-law, Janice Ethel Swartz Skaggs; Grandma Buddy and Grandpa Weston, Niagara Falls.