there was chesapeake and i learned to spell the name on the yellow paper and i put my name and chesapeake and west virginia and i wrote them down and that was the name and i was there and living in it and being in it before i knew what it was called by people who were not in it and the noise and i lived above levin’s discount in three rooms with my brother and my mother and my father and he was the one and there was yelling all the…

            I am a West Virginian.  My father’s people came from France by way of Scotland to the area around Pinch up the Elk River to settle on a 900 acre tract of land bequeathed to them by the King of England in 1625.  My mother’s grandmother was from the Barker and Lewis families with links to the Melungeon clan who claim to be descendants of the Portuguese who chose to stayed behind when the others left to go home.  …