The following history was written by my Great Aunt Nellie Lieb Haines, who was the sister of my paternal grandfather Troy Lieb. Now deceased, she was the last of her generation in the Lieb family and I am grateful to her for providing this part of the family history some years ago. I am happy to be able to share it with a wider audiance now via the World Wide Web.

Nellie, Siblings, and School Mates

Frederick Jacob Lieb - Pappy

Charles Henry Haines - Husband

Charles Rubin Haines - Son

The three very special and wonderful men in my life. Charles Ruben was named for his father, and grandfather, Silas Ruben Haines. Charles' mother and father were super in-laws. On August 19, 1961, Charles Ruben married Nancy Walters, a very welcome addition to our family. They have one daughter, Jennifer Anne Haines.

Pappy was born in Germany in 1850. He came to the United States as a boy. He learned to be a harness maker. He married Martha C. Barclay on October 12, 1877, in West Virginia. He was twenty-seven years old and Martha was fifteen. He built a house and harness shop in the small country town of Clifton Mills, W. Va. They had one son, Charles Franklin Lieb, born July 21, 1879. Frank's mother died when he was very young.

On September 16, 1882, Pappy married my mother, Martha Raymond, in West Virginia. He was thirty years old and she was eighteen. Shortly after they were married, they moved to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where Pappy practiced his trade. They were the parents of the following children:

NAME	NICKNAME	DATE OF BIRTH	MATES
Charles Franklin	Frank	July 21, 1879	Cora & Alma
Walter Clyde	None	June 25, 1883	Loula
Robert Norman	Bub	September 14, 1884	Died young
Ira Gilbert	Tim	May 26, 1886	Blanche & Helen
Cora Alice	Bets	May 15, 1888	Charles Marker
William Chester	Bill	July 30, 1889	Nell & Beryl
Violet	Bad	September 30, 1891	John Williams
Mary Elizabeth	Babe	March 13, 1893	Albert Matheny
Troy Philip	Bud	August 31, 1896	Myrtle & Frances
Bertha Marie	Bert	May 7, 1898	Harvey Jefferis
Nellie Grace	Hun	August 24, 1902	Charles Haines

When I was born on August 24, 1902, my mother died at the age of thirty-nine.

At the time I was born, we lived on Collins Avenue in Uniontown, Pa. On the next lot, Pappy built a large harness shop. Pappy said that he couldn't raise a large family in town, so he sold our house but kept the shop and we moved to Clifton Mills, W. Va. My brother Tim got married and made the shop into a four room house where he lived until Pappy died. My mother, my brother Robert, and my grandfather Philip Lieb, all three died the year I was born. At the time of his death, my grandfather lived at Elliottsville, Pa. He lived at the top of a big hill that is still known as "The Lieb Hill." We still own a right-of-way, written in the deed, to our family cemetery on the farm. I can remember going back to the cemetery each thirtieth of May to clean the graves and plant flowers on them. We would take picnic baskets full of goodies and have a family reunion.

Our house in Clifton Mills was located on a very large plot of ground. Across the front of the house was a big sign with raised wooden letters. The sign read, "F. J. Lieb Saddle and Harness Maker." Our house had a kitchen, dining room, living room that was kept closed unless we had company, and two bedrooms. I remember a picture at the top of the stairs of a very ferocious lion. I was always afraid of him but never told any of my family. Now, I'm wondering why I didn't.

Pappy's harness shop was very large. Between the shop and the house he laid large flagstones for a walk. Pappy bought leather in large rolls and cut his harness, saddles, sidesaddles, and many other things from it. At night when we went to bed, he would put new soles and heels on the shoes and have them ready for us to wear the next morning.

The only family I can remember at home was Pappy, Troy, Bertha, myself, and Alice's daughter, Merle. Alice told me that when Violet was still at home she would curl my hair around her finger and then every day send me over to the shop to ask Pappy if I was pretty. My sister, Alice, worked as cashier and head milliner at the Fair Store in Uniontown, Pa. She was also a very good seamstress. Merle and I always had nice dresses and beautiful leghorn hats decorated with cherries and red streamers. She would send us many other items too.

We had two farms, one on Big Sandy Creek about a mile from Clifton Mills and the other one about a quarter of a mile from our home. On the road to the farm on Big Sandy Creek there was a big hollow tree and Pappy always told us that was where we all came from. We drove the cows to one of the pasture fields each morning after they were milked. In the evening we had to bring them home to be milked again. When I had to go for the cows alone, I would go quietly through the woods so the buggers couldn't hear me. Another time I would make a lot of noise to scare them away. We had a gentle old cow called Bell and a young frisky one called Jers. One evening when Bert and I went for the cows, Bert said she was tired and was going to ride old Bell home. Bell leaned over to get a bite of grass and Bert went over Bell's head and landed on her own head, hitting a rock. For a few minutes she didn't know where she was or what had happened. Needless to say, she never rode old Bell again.

We had an old horse called Maud and a young one called Nell. We also had a shepherd dog but no cats.

We raised several hogs. Bud took care of them. He usually had one runt in each litter and when he hit the big hogs with a club to keep them away from the trough until the runt had some "slop," the squeals could be heard for quite some distance. Butchering was a very exciting day. Bud always had to pin a pig's tail on one of us and it was usually me. We had a large smoke house where we kept our meat. Pappy usually would choose hickory wood to smoke our meat.

We raised chickens too. Some of the hens would go under the house and shop to lay their eggs. To gather the eggs from under the house wasn't too bad but from under the shop was very bad. I was small so I had to crawl under the shop and gather the eggs. I still remember being afraid I would get stuck under there.

We had fifteen families living in Clifton Mills. We had a postoffice, a church, a blacksmith shop, a grist mill, a cider mill, a saw mill, and two general stores. The stores sold sugar, coffee, dried beans, tobacco, hardware, dry goods, farm machinery, and most everything we needed. A few things that the general store didn't have we could order from a wholesale house in Baltimore through their catalog.

"I wish sometimes when life is so sweet

 That I could go back and once again meet

 With all the friends who passed through the door

 Of the wonderful magic country store."

Spiker's store was directly across the road from our house. His store housed the postoffice too. One mailman we had drove a buggy with two horses. Many times he was so drunk that he was asleep across the buggy seat when he pulled up to the postoffice in Clifton Mills. His team would pull up in front of the postoffice and stop. The postmaster would come out and get a large canvas bag of mail and take out what belonged to Clifton Mills. He would put the remainder of the mail back in the buggy and start the horses on their way to the next postoffice which was about two miles away.

When we were growing up, most all of the buildings were new and it was a beautiful and busy little town. The farmers and the people who lived in Clifton Mills were largely free of debt, subject to no taxes except a very modest property tax; they felt secure and free from harm.

The church in Clifton Mills was built in 1879 and was called, "The Clifton Mills Center Church." The church was lit by oil lamps and heated by two Burnside stoves. Ministers of different faiths took turns preaching on Sundays. Sunday School was held every Sunday and was attended by most everyone living in the area. Each summer the Sunday School picnic was held beside the church. During the winter a "Church Revival" or protracted meeting was conducted every night for a week. Bert, Troy, and I joined the Methodist church when I was twelve years old. Alice, Violet, and Mary joined the Baptist church and were baptized in Big Sandy Creek.

At the far end of our lot we had a barn, a large garden, and an ice house. I always had one small corner of the garden for my very own.

Every winter Pappy and Bud would cut blocks of ice from Big Sandy Creek and pack it in sawdust in our ice house. The ice would be from ten to twelve inches thick and they would cut it into cakes about two feet square. We had ice all summer long for ourselves and our neighbors.

Pappy grafted different kinds of fruit. Grafting is inserting a small shoot of one tree into another tree.

Pappy burned his own lime kilns every few years.

John Evans, who owned the grist mill, raised sugar cane for his own use. He raised broom corn and made his own brooms.

Our nearest doctor lived in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, a town about three miles away. He made house calls day or night in summer or winter.

There was a traveling dentist who came to Clifton Mills once each year carrying his equipment in his buggy. Haraders, our next door neighbors, rented him a room to work from.

Occasionally, a peddler with a light delivery wagon and one horse would drive through the country selling silk, velvet, cotton, lace, ribbon, kitchen utensils, and many other items.

Once a wagon of Gypsies stopped at our shop. Pappy was up fixing the shop roof and I was with him. Pappy got down from the roof to wait on them and told me I was not to get off the roof for any reason while he was gone.

There was little thieving in our area. Houses and barns were not locked and a year's supply of meat hung in our smokehouses with no locks on the doors. The stores and postoffice had locks on them.

Pappy raised me. He had a bed for me in his harness shop where I could rest or sleep. When we walked, he held out his index finger to lead me and when bedtime came, which was always nine o'clock, I slept with him. I remember that Pappy wore his underwear and a clean blue work shirt to bed. I always held to the back of his shirt so the lion at the top of the stairs couldn't get me.

Each spring our ticks were washed and filled with fresh straw. The first night or two we had a problem with falling out of bed. Those first nights I must surely have held tight to Pappy's shirt.

Pappy never allowed me to play with anyone but Edith and Ralph Barnes, our very fine next door neighbors. Edith was my age and Ralph was two years older. Ralph later became a UCLA professor and when he retired wrote a book, "Early Days in Clifton Mills." Ralph had a horse called Fan. He built a sled-like thing to hitch Fan up to. I wasn't allowed to cross the bridge over Big Sandy Creek so Ralph and Edith would put me on the sled and cover me up and we would go across the bridge. The shop had a large window in front that we had to pass and after I got older I felt sure Pappy was well aware of what we were doing.

Ralph had a little store in a new coal house built on one corner of their yard but never had been used. Edith and I had to cut money from a shoe box. The dollars, quarters, and all denominations had to be perfectly round or Ralph wouldn't accept them. He had penny candy that sold for a dollar. He had many items on his shelves. When he got a lot of money he would take it out and bury it in a secret place.

When we were growing up the only game I remember was called "Birds." The old and the young people would all sit around our dining room table and play in the evenings. We took shoe boxes and cut them into two inch squares. Four of these made a book. Each player received six cards. The remaining cards were placed in the center of the table and called the "bone pile." We had blue bird numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. We had red birds 1, 2, 3, and 4. We used all the different birds we could think of. The one who started the game had to have in their possession at least one of the birds they were going to ask for. They could ask any person in the game for the card they wanted. If they asked for and got the correct bird and number, they could ask again. If not, they could draw from the "bone pile" and the next person would ask for the bird and number they wanted. The person with the most books won the game.

We had a bird cemetery in the field back of the Barnes' home. We would bury all the dead birds we could find. We had a stone for a monu-ment for each grave and we put flowers on each grave too.

Edith, Ralph, and I had great times picking wild berries for jelly and pies. If we couldn't find many berries we would put grass and pebbles under them to make it seem like a lot of berries in our buckets. When we felt very naughty we would call out, "Do you have your bottom covered?"

When Saturday afternoon rolled around, the washtub was brought out and Bert gave me a bath. One day when I was playing with Edith and Ralph, Bert called me home to get a bath and clean clothes. It was a very short walk but when I went back to play I took a short cut through Harader's field. I forgot about their mean old goat and the first think I knew he had butted me into a mud puddle, clean clothes and all. I'm sure I got another bath and, hopefully, clean clothes too.

We had a one-room schoolhouse about a quarter of a mile from Clifton Mills. The room was heated by a potbellied stove. We had to carry our drinking water about a quarter of a mile from the schoolhouse. The students who were old enough took turns getting it. We all drank from the same dipper kept in the water bucket.

Pappy had a rowboat that we tied up at the dam just above Clifton Mills. We could go to our fields on Big Sandy Creek in the boat. If we had corn to plane, fertilizer, or tools, we had to use the wagon. Pappy would tell us that when our buckets of corn were all planted, we would go home. I have no idea who thought of digging a hole to bury the corn so we could go home but that is exactly what we did. I can remember Pappy looking at the patch of corn when it came up and saying that he wondered how that happened. Many years later when I thought about it, I was sure Pappy knew exactly what had happened.

Kamp Mosser bought the first talking machine we had ever seen. He would bring it to the Barnes's store some evenings and play records for us. Many farmers from miles around would come to Clifton Mills on Saturday evenings bringing eggs, butter, chickens, and many other things to trade for items from the stores.

I can remember going to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, three times. One time we went during the winter and the Elliottsville road just before we got to the Pike had such huge snowdrifts that we had to leave the road and drive through a field in order to reach the Pike. The snow on the Pike helped the horses have a better footing and more pulling power. The roads from Clifton Mills to the Pike were dirt with many brakers on them. Another time we went during the summer. Three of us went on this trip but I can't remember if it was Bert or Bud who went with Pappy and me. When we left the Elliottsville Road and got to the Pike, the horses' shoes wouldn't hold so we all had to get out and push. Yet another trip, just Pappy and I went. At the five corners in the east end of town, Pappy pulled the wagon to one side of the road and stopped. He told me to sit in the wagon while he walked down the road and not to get out for any reason. When Pappy came back he had bought me a bracelet.

A few days before Christmas, Pappy would go to Uniontown alone. He would come back with a bunch of bananas that he would hang in the shop and sell some of them. He had many other purchases too.

On Christmas evening after the rest of the family had gone to bed, Bert would set the dining room table and on Christmas morning when we got up we would have a plate of hard candy, an orange, and a box of peanuts with a prize in it. Pappy would keep our candy in the shop and give us a few pieces at a time. We didn't get toys at Christmas time but one Christmas Pappy surprised me with a black dog about a foot high on a board with four little wheels. I called my dog "Nig." The only other toy I remember was a yellow wooly chicken about four inches high and four baby chicks that a neighbor lady bought me.

When I was nine years old we were studying about Indians in school--how, along with many other things, they would hide behind logs. I went to our pasture field after school to drive the cows home. Bud didn't know I was getting them so he came to get them too. On either side of the gate where we drove the cows out Pappy had put some logs. Bud saw me driving the cows so he hid behind a log at the gate and waited for me to drive the cows up. I looked up and saw this head peeping around the log and thought for sure the Indians had come to get me so I started to scream and cry. It didn't take Bud long to reach me and find out what had frightened me so badly. I think he was more scared than I.

Edith's grandfather, Dan Mosser who lived in Clifton Mills, had a large farm. Each fall a thresher drawn by a steam-powered traction engine pulled up and that was a big day. The evening meal for the threshers was a mutton supper. Edith and I were always invited to eat with them.

Pappy planted several fields of buckwheat. When it was ready to harvest, Pappy would cut it with a scythe. We had a very large barn floor and Pappy would thoroughly sweep it and that is where he would thresh the buckwheat. He made a flail from a stick about as long as a broom handle but much heavier. He put a piece of leather about two feet long on the stick and on the other end of the leather he put another piece of wood about two feet long. When he beat the buckwheat out he would play a tune with the flail. Pappy took the buckwheat to the mill and had it ground. We would always have buckwheat cakes, rolled oats, fried potatoes, eggs or sausage, and coffee for breakfast.

Dan Mosser raised sheep and sheep shearing was another exciting time.

The Barnes' store sold firecrackers of all sizes in July. With the profits they would have a rather large display on the fourth. First, several large balloons made of red, white, and blue tissue paper were filled with hot air and floated up into the air. A compressed pad of excelsior and paraffin was fastened to the metal hoop at the bottom of the balloon to provide the heat and also illuminate the balloon. Then we would have pinwheels, mines, skyrockets, Roman candles, aerial rockets, bombs, and big firecrackers. Pappy died from a burst appendix on July 4, 1916, at the age of 66. Even though everything was ready for the fireworks display, the celebration was cancelled when Pappy died.

I was fourteen years old when Pappy died and small for my age. After the funeral my family never took me back in our house. I went to Uniontown where I lived with my brother Walter and my sister Violet until the estate was settled. Bert, Merle, and Bud didn't come to town until everything was settled. Then Tim, who was divorced, Alice, Troy, Bertha, Merle, and I moved into the "shop house" at 67 Collins Avenue where Tim had lived. Later, Tim and Bud were married and Bert went to live with Violet and John. Alice, Merle, and I lived at 67 Collins Avenue until Alice married Charles Marker and he moved in with us.

While living at 67 Collins Avenue I went across the street to borrow a book. Our neighbor was a contractor. Charles and his brother Clarence Haines had come that day from their home in Greensburg, Pennsylvania to work for him. They were staying with family until a place to room and board could be found. Charles and Clarence both asked to take me home which was just across the street. Charles had a Ford car so we all three got into it to drive me home. We went around the block and ran out of gas. When I got out of the car Charles asked if he could see me the next evening. We started dating and he later became my husband.

Charles and Alice Marker bought a new five room house on Beeson Street and we moved in. I was working in Metzler's office at the time. In front of the office window there were four chairs where our older customers would sit and rest before or after paying their monthly bills. Junior Marker would come down town and sit on one of the chairs and wait for me to look up and see him. He was waiting for money for a movie and a snack. Later, I had another boy sitting in a chair waiting--Junior's younger brother, Billy Marker.

One day the Morning Herald newspaper came out and along with other items in Metzler's advertisement was a "Flexible Flyer" for $8.00. I looked up and in one of the chairs in front of the office sat Billy with a dollar bill his mother had given him to buy the sled. Billy got his sled but it cost me $7.00.

Billy was always being hit with a car or in some kind of an accident. His mother would call me at Metzler's office and our delivery boy would have me at the hospital before the ambulance would arrive.

Dewey Varndell and Charles Marker, Jr. were great pals. Junior had joined the marines before Dewey went into the service. Junior wasn't in the service long before he asked me to write him more often. I knew he was homesick so I typed him a letter every day from my office at work. In one of Junior's letters he sent me $10.00 to buy a camera from Dewey. He said that if Dewey charged me too much he would beat him up when they got home. Dewey sold me the camera but it cost an extra $10.00. Beeson Street was later changed to Varndell Street for Dewey Varndell whose plane went down during the war and was never found.

My brother and brother-in-law build a clubhouse for our entire family on a plot of ground about a mile from Clifton Mills. The land belonged to my brother Frank but was originally owned by Pappy. I always enjoyed taking Edwin and Arthur Williams, Violet's boys, with me when I went to camp for a week or more. John Williams, their brother, would take us in his truck or we would go with the mailman. Edwin and Arthur were young teenagers but very good company. If the camp was occupied, I would rent, for a very small fee, a vacant house a short distance from the camp. We had a big time getting the cobwebs out and cleaning the place. One evening we decided to make candy. Each person had two plates of candy. We took it to the spring house to cool. The next morning when we went to get it the rats had eaten every bit of it.

The Old Home Place at Clifton Mills, WV

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