Down, maybe, but not out
People like Martha Thaxton are hard to beat

Dave Peyton <davepeyton@home.com>
Daily Mail columnist

I count it a privilege to call Martha Thaxton my friend. So does my wife.

Martha is what West Virginia is all about. She's the reason I know that in the face of a southern West Virginia disaster of near biblical proportions things will be fine.

While she was at church over Tams Mountain a week ago Sunday, Martha's house at Rhodell, near the Wyoming-Raleigh County line, was ravaged by a flash flood that sent more than four feet of water surging through it.

I first met Martha about five years ago in that house. Every March, a group of students from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., spend their spring break in Rhodell, where they do maintenance on homes and the Rhodell health clinic. And each year, Martha rewards them with one of her home-cooked meals.

Martha's daughter, Marina Matthews of Huntington, convinced me that the string band of which I'm a member -- The 1937 Flood -- should travel to Rhodell and provide traditional Appalachian dinner music for the Marquette kids. We all agreed that if the students were kind enough to spend their spring break helping West Virginia, the least we could do is play music for them at Martha's annual dinner party.

Our band has been at Martha's house nearly every March since. She always greets us with big hugs and bids us to partake of a fabulous country meal that almost always includes her special ribs, greens and sweet potato pie. And if we're lucky, she sings a few Hank Williams tunes while we accompany her.

She's lived in Rhodell for more than a quarter century. I called her at her ruined Rhodell home last Wednesday.

"I have to walk uphill in my own home," she quipped. By Wednesday, the floors of her house were buckling. Other young volunteers who had come to Rhodell for summer work were helping her as best they could, she said. She appreciated them, she said.

Martha has always been an activist. In 1971, she appeared in a documentary about ordinary citizens who marched on Charleston to protest the damage caused by strip mining. The title of the film is "Before The Mountain Was Moved." Martha was as eloquent and as intense then as she is today. She blames the big flood on strip mining and timbering near her home.

"They've just about got all the timber off the mountain behind my house," she said. "I told my neighbors about a month ago that the next big rain would bring a flood. You know, some folks call the flood an act of God. If that's true, then God must be on the side of the timber people and the strip miners."

For the time being, she said, she and her grandson, John, and an elderly lady she is taking care of were spending the night at a motel near Beckley. But every day she returns to her house at Rhodell to wait and hope.

But it doesn't mean she's depressed. You see Martha, like most other West Virginia folks, is as tough as nails with a heart as soft as a mountain breeze in summer. You'll not find Martha in deep depression over what's happened.

It's doubtful that much in her house can be saved, she said. And it's equally doubtful that the frame home with its buckling floors and walls can be salvaged.

But when I called, the first words out of Martha's mouth were "How's Susie?" Susie, my wife, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and Martha's concern was for her health.

But don't be fooled by Martha's gentle ways. When Gov. Bob Wise landed his helicopter at nearby Helen early last week, Martha was there to meet him and introduce herself as "your constituent." And I imagine she stared directly into Wise's eyes as she said it. That shows she means business.

We love you, Martha. No need to wish you good luck. You've got everything under control as always. God bless you, and thank you for reminding me just how good, decent and tenacious real West Virginians really are.