Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [19]
One day I saw my Uncle Lee coming down off the hill. It was my thirteenth birthday—that’s how I remember it. He pointed to a rocky ledge where he had his still hidden, and he said, “Loretta, you’ve got a real nice voice. I listen to you while I’m working up on the hill. You’re gonna be a beautiful girl when you grow up.” That made me so proud.
Lee was kind of strange. He was full-grown but he was like an eight-year-old, always nervous and drumming his fingers and tapping his feet. Sometimes he got into trouble just for meanness. Like one time, he heard about a store that couldn’t be robbed because of a real vicious watchdog. Lee said, “That dog will be eating pork chops before this night is out.” And that night he robbed the store while the dog was eating the pork-chop supper my uncle gave him.
Lee wasn’t what you’d call a good robber. One time he robbed a clothing store to get himself new clothes, but he made one mistake. He changed clothes inside the store and left his old clothes behind. He even left his old hat—with his name inside of it. The sheriff was waiting for him the next morning.
Another time Lee stole a chicken and made tracks around the mines, to throw the police off his trail. But then he spilled chicken feed all the way to his own house. That’s how they caught him. I think Lee was in jail eight or nine times.
He was a great guy at heart, like a Jesse James. He’d come in with some candy at Christmastime, and we’d just know he took it from somewhere. Then he’d come in at night with a fresh chicken, and Mommy wouldn’t ask any questions—just fry her up, right away.
The law didn’t like to mess with Lee too often because he had a bad temper. He hid stolen goods in caves and stuff all over our holler, but the law didn’t come searching too often. When he met his end, it wasn’t from the law. It happened on a Fourth of July, after I turned thirteen in April. Lee must have sold all his moonshine down in the coal camp, and was going crazy knowing the miners wanted more. So Lee crossed the ridge behind us and went into the next holler, which was Greasy Creek.
I’m not too clear what happened next. Either Lee held a gun and robbed their moonshine, or else he just took it when they wasn’t looking. Either way, he sold that batch to the miners. Then he went back for more. That was one time too many.
Nobody knows how he got shot, because whoever shot him carried his body on horseback up on the ridge and just left him there, with one jug still full of stolen moonshine alongside the body. The police never made much of a fuss about it. I guess they were glad he wouldn’t be troubling them no more. My family never talked about getting revenge. This wasn’t one of those feuds like the Hatfields and McCoys. Years later, somebody said one of Lee’s kin fixed the man who killed Lee—but you never know what to believe.
All I can remember is Lee’s mother, my grandmother, walking a path between her house and ours, just wailing at the top of her lungs. My parents didn’t have a penny, but somehow they fixed up a coffin and a service for him. They sat up three nights with the body, praying and crying, like we do in the mountains. Lee had this old yellow dog named Charlie that used to sit with him while he was making the moonshine. Old Charlie sat outside for those three days, right under my window, howling and crying. It was pitiful.
After that, when I was minding the babies, I would still pretend my Uncle Lee was up on the ridge. And I would sing a little louder, just for him.
5
School Days
Our clothes were clean but faded, sometimes our feet were bare
But no one noticed anything except the Lord was there.
We’d come from all directions searchin’ for the way,
On my knees at school on Sunday, that’s where I learned to pray.…
—“That’s Where I Learned to Pray,” by Loretta Lynn
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