Oman J Casto Jr. (Jack)

My name is Oman Casto Jr. but I was nicknamed Jack. I am the eldest of the 22 children born to Oman and Mildred Casto. I was born on August 18, 1931 in Ripley West Virginia on Route 21 about ½ mile off the main road at my grandpa and grandma, John and Virginia Casto. I weighed 3 pounds at birth, grandpa said that he could hold me in the palm of his hands. My grandpa weighed about 310 pound and stood 6 ft. 3 inches tall, so he was a big man. I was asked of my sister to share some of my past growing years. As of 2003 I am 72 years old and its kind of hard to remember so far and long ago, but I'll do the best I can.

The first thing that comes to mind is when I was about 4 years old and we were going over, what most people call nigger hill, so when we got on the other side I thought we were in New York City. My aunt did move there later on. I remember moving a lot, we never stayed in one place long enough. I know we lived over on Flatwood Road, also Leona Marie who was born on April 27 1943, she was just a baby when we lived there. I also remember that it was there that I fell off a horse and hit my head on a rock, till this day I still have that scar.

We lived at New Town as it was called back then, it was across the creek behind the old Landfried store that's where Dotty was born. I think from there we lived down on the Flavy Litton farm on Parchment Valley Road. I remember one night us kids were making so much noise Dad hollered up at us and said, "If you kids are going to make all kinds of noise then go on outside." So we all got up and went outside, the moon was so bright and there was a big flat above the house and I thought I saw a real pretty cat going up the hill. Well, I started chansing it and as I got closer to it, it sure wasn't no cat, it was a skunk (Pe-Ue) boy, I had to go down to the creek and wash myself and my clothes. My brother Dean was born while we lived on the Flavy Litton farm.

Then we moved down on Route 33 where the County Farm is today in Cottageville. When we lived there, one day Dad and Mom had gone to town and left me to watch the kids so I had noticed Dotty wasn't around and I looked up and down the creek and around the house, but I couldn't find her. So I started worrying, I thought she had drowned in the creek, well, Mom and Dad's bedroom window was so close to the ground, that Dotty had opened the window and climbed through, got into the clothes basket and covered up and gone to sleep. Someone had gone in there looking for her and I guess they made enough noise to wake her up. I heard a voice saying "we found her, we found her, she's okay." Oh boy, was I tickled to see her and at that same time I could've beat her for scaring me so bad.

Then we moved over on the Tribbet place off the main road. I remember one night we heard this terrible noise in the chicken house, so we went to see what was the matter and there was 2 foxes fighting, also this is where I started working for Louis Pullins. We lived there a few years and then an opportunity came up for Mom and Dad where they could own their own home over on the hill. Perry Haggart had some land that he let Dad and Granddad Benson build a house on, so when they got the house built, we moved into it and Louis Pullins moved into our the house we moved out of. I helped Louis put up hay and did other chores for him. At that time I was 12 or 13 years old. I remember we had to walk to the grocery store way out a flat and over the hill to the Crow Summit store. Going over wasn't so bad, but coming back we had to climb some pretty big hills.

I used to take the kids down to the creek and go swimming. One time I was on the innertube up the creek and brother John was down on the sandbar playing, suddenly he got up and ran into the water and I couldn't get him so I hollered and said, "get him" and they did, he was alright. We spent that long hot summer there. Then one day we had this old car that the top was cut off and we made a homemade tractor out of it, so one day I loaded up all the kids and we went all the way to the main road and the brake wasn't working, so I just geared it down so we got back home only to find out some old lady had called the police and said "there's a bunch of kids down there hollering and carrying on, so the police was after me, but when we got home here cam Bud Anderson in a model A he had no license or drivers license. The police got him instead of me, boy was I glad, that taught me a good lesson. I started to work for Emmit Pullings, he owned a farm on the other side of the hill. Emmit and his wife was good people and good to me. The Pullins had a large dairy farm where I milked cows every morning. I put up hay, plowed the fields and sowed them. Whatever needed to be done on the farm, I did it. One day Dad bought this old blind horse, I found out later that Bill Conely had owned it. I thought Dad bought the horse off of Ballard Miller who lived on Nigger Ridge, but he was just keeping it for Bill. Anyway, Dad took me up to Ballard's. I had been to Hemlock but not the way I was suppose to go down the creek and back around. Dad went on ahead home and I was riding the old horse around Nigger Ridge and I got down to Hemlock and there was a bridge and that old blind horse wouldn't go across the bridge. One of the Burgess boys, I think it was Nate, I'm not sure but anyways he got a hold of the bridle and led the horse across. So I went on a head and he said "stay to your left", well it was getting dark by the time I got down there. I didn't know the road should I turn this way or the other way, so I went up to Emmit Pullins, he lived in this big 2 story house just downt he road from us on the creek. Dad had come down on the point above Emmit's house and hollered at me, when he did that I knew I was ok. Later on Emmit moved to the big dairy farm on Hemlock Road, so one day Emmit and I went over to put up hay on Louis Farm and there was this man who took care of Emmit's house. He kept the grass mowed and whatever else needed to be done. So this one day the man went out and hooked up the horse's to the sled and this one old horse, you had to watch him for he would start to back up and wouldn't stop. Well that is what happened. Then he backed the sled over the hollow and it picked both horse's up at one time and took them up in the air, one horse landed in the middle of the sled and broke all the runs in the middle of the sled and the other horse landed on the other side. The man knew we were on top of the hill so he came running up there he was shaking so bad he couldn't talk. We couldn't understand what he was trying to say for awhile, finally we understood him and Emmit said "you stay here and I'll go cut the straps off the horse's to get them loose." Emmit said it brok every run in the sled, I guess the horse's were ok though. From there we moved to Washington bottom in Parkersburg, WV, there I worked on the Parsons farm for awhile.

In 1952 I went to work in Massolin Ohio at the Steel Mill. I got layed off a couple of times but I went back after my discharge from the service, I had joined the airborne division. The first time I went to Fort Bragg N.C. where I took my airborne training. I had to jump a couple of times from the tower but they said once you're qualified and you go up in the plane, you either jump or they push you out. I decided that wasn't for me, so I quit and went to the regular army at Fort Jackson S.C. From there I went to Louisiana, if I had stayed with the airborne unit I would have gone to Germany. From Louisiana I went to Iceland, I was there one year, I went there on my birthday. When we was going over to Iceland, I was walking up the hall in this building that looked like apartments. I saw this young man, he looked familiar but I couldn't think of his name. The boy was a fine young Christian boy and a long way from home and didn't know anyone, so when he saw me, he was tickled. He was glad to see me and I was glad to see him too. After I was discharged from the service, I went back to work at Massolin Steel in 1957. I worked there for 42.5 years. In 1961, I married my sweetheart Geraldine Woodfield. As of June 2003 we will be married 42 years. We lived in Navarre Ohio, but we have a little homestead place in West Virginia, we visit there often.

I'll tell this one and then I'll quit. My uncle Johnny had taken this job of cutting this hill off, well they were all drinking, both my uncle Johnny and Bob, also Bill Conely. Johnny had went to town and come back with a bottle of green stuff, and all I know is that they were sampling the stuff. Uncle Johnny got lit up pretty good, he didn't want to cut that hill off anyway. He said, "I'm going up there and tell that old man Casto I ain't going to cut that hill off." Well, I had to talk him out of it. Bob and Bill got so drunk that they went home, left me and Johnny to clean the hill off. Boy! That has been a long time ago, seems like a lifetime to me.