A Journey to West Virginia’s Mountains and Hills

On a cloudy morning with a light drizzle, we turned on hwy. 77 on our way to Medina, Ripley, Weirton, and Spencer, West Virginia, three hours away, first on a smooth Ohio road with light traffic, then turning into a paved ribbon road designed so twisted that a slalom competitor would have had difficulty making the sharp curves winding up and down the densely forested mountains in West Virginia. People had not started to travel to their destinations yet to celebrate Independence Day and the roads were relatively clear.

The six senior passengers took their time to load and unload from the Highlander SUV with each stop the driver made. They were all slightly uncomfortable with their knees touching the front seat or the dashboard, but everyone was happy to embark on this adventure to visit Ray’s childhood home and the farm where he lived and worked as a boy.

Graveled side roads disappeared up and down the mountains and hills in the thick canopy of deciduous forests, so dense that it reminded me of a rain forest without the rain. Now and then I could see a small cemetery buried deep in the dim and lush green woods, with no apparent way to reach it from the highway.

The main road was either flanked by big boulders jutting out of the ground or by intensely green flat meadows with deer and fawns grazing calmly and unafraid. We had never seen so many animals either crossing the road in a hurry, grazing peacefully in the meadows, or lying dead in the middle of the road, victims of local traffic and the animals’ lack of fear of human presence – deer, racoons, red foxes, wild turkeys, black squirrels, and other creatures.

Before we crossed the Ohio River into West Virginia we passed by rolling hills, heavily wooded, the historic Zoar Village, a car racetrack, historic Blue Gray Hwy., and Ravens Glenn Winery.

Zoar Village, a historical gem, is in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. It was founded in 1817 by Pietists as a utopian Christian community and survived until 1898. The 2010 census counted the population to be 169.

A few miles across the Ohio River, a local resident in West Virginia had dug up a small and muddy pond, big enough for a couple to have a good time, but not big enough to row a boat on. He had placed a wooden platform with two chairs by this impromptu miniature lake, just slightly bigger than a deep rain puddle.

The “hillbillies” of West Virginia, very proud and private in their daily lives, built their homes in the most concealed spots, with access on gravel roads barely wide enough for a car. I wondered what happens when two cars meet, going in opposite directions. The West Virginians call this living a “holler.”

In the lusciously green land that time forgot, there were lots of mobile homes and huge trucks, elevated off the ground, with plenty of traction should it be necessary in wintertime. Some people are even buried in strange places, close to their beloved hunting grounds.

The two most important stops for this trip were Mt. Zion Community Church and Cemetery and Spencer Cemetery. Several generations of Ray’s relatives were buried there, i.e., grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, their spouses, and some of their children.

Mt. Zion Community Church and Cemetery were located across from each other on top of a mountain, in a sunny opening of the forest canopy, accessible through a one-lane gravel road, snaking through the wooded countryside. Next to the church was a functional wooden outhouse. I was told the church has a bathroom inside, but they kept the weathered outhouse as remembrance of the old days.

The Mt. Zion cemetery had upright headstones with many Irish and Scottish names, and a few German ones here and there. Entire generations of one family were resting in their final place side by side. The graves looked well-tended, the grass mowed, and artificial flowers on most of them. The dead were certainly not forgotten in these parts.

To the left of the outhouse was a deep ravine, a “holler,” as the locals call it. I spotted a house among the dense foliage, down about 300 feet. It was bathed in the sunlight, like an island in the middle of a vast sea of green foliage. The trees, the incline, and the compact underbrush would have made it impossible for anyone to access this house by walking. The gravel road was snaking down towards it, I was certain.

According to West Virginians, a “holler” is a remote road or area along a narrow valley between the hills or mountains. The narrow valleys are also called “hollows.” As travel brochures describe it, “The Mountain State’s combination of mountains and streams make for quite a few remote areas and lots of hollers.”

When Ray was a boy, eighty years ago, people living on the farms went to town on Sunday and that town was Ripley. Many of the hamlets do not even have a stop light, you blink, and you miss them, but Ripley today has a grocery store, a pharmacy, and three fast food places. We drove for endless miles on serpentine roads without seeing a grocery store, a clinic, or a pharmacy of any kind. We wondered where the people got their groceries, their meds, and their medical care. On a stretch of sixty miles or so, we came across a small Piggly Wiggly.

Going back to Hwy. 77 on a different route, down the mountain, we leaned back and forth, moving in tandem with the winding road, wondering if it will ever be straight again. It never stopped curving until we reached hwy. 77 and everyone took a collective sigh of relief. We were not sure how much longer we could have withstood the nauseating feeling of sideways motion sickness.