Word: prenter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Ludtke grasped the magnitude of her commitment one winter morning in Prenter, W. Va. "There I was, sleeping in a room with the three Nelson children, sharing a bed with one of them, Nancy. At 5:30 Nancy got up and our day began. At the time, their father was a miner and their mother a homemaker. By my next visit, three months later, Mr. Nelson had been laid off from his job and was taking care of the kids, while Mrs. Nelson had entered the job force for the first time in her life...
...Prenter, W. Va., where David lives, is a tiny coal camp of a town some 40 miles and a mountain pass south of Charleston. A single paved street runs through the town. One-story look-alike houses with green shutters, rickety porches and peeling paint are squeezed between the road and the steep hills. No traffic light. No police station. No firehouse. No school. That is ten miles down the road, where Prenter Creek empties into Big Coal River...
When he is working, David's father drives a buggy in the mines and carries a shovel, which he derisively calls "an ignorant stick." To work in mining, David's generation will need to operate computers. In Prenter only four out of ten children graduate from high school. "I will either get a house here or build one on a big piece of land up there on the mountain," says David, imagining his future. Then the vista darkens: "But if there is no work here, I would have to move away, find a new job or somethin...
...Larry did, or even walk or ride their bikes too far from home alone. "There was a lot more they was allowed to do back then, like go out in the woods and not be afraid of bein' kidnaped or gettin' shot at or somethin'," says Nancy. "Here in Prenter, this old man he pulled up and tried to pick up this girl. He grabbed her leg and tried to pull her in his car. Her dog bit him, and she got away. She hit him with a rock...