Every once in a while, a voice comes along that makes you yearn for a childhood you never lived. Author Drema Hall Berkheimer invites you to skip along with her, big sis Vonnie, and best friend Sissy into the coal mining hills and hollers of West Virginia, at a time when gypsies and hobos were as common as doctors who made house calls.
KATHLEEN M. RODGERS, award-winning
author of Johnnie Come Lately
Running on Red Dog Road took me away to a time and a family that I will never forget. Drema Hall Berkheimer is a masterful, joyful, humorous storyteller who is just getting started. What a great book.
FAWN GERMER, International Speaker and
Oprah-featured bestselling author
Time and again I have been carried away by these stories, by the observations of a very shrewd little girl of her elders, both wise and the foolish. But don’t let the sly humor fool you. Like the West Virginia coal country Drema Berkheimer writes about so affectionately and beautifully, there is always something going on here just beneath the surface, something grave, firmly rooted, even eternal.
BILL MARVEL, author of The Rock Island Line and
(with R. V. Burgin) Islands of the Damned
Drema Hall Berkheimer is a pure storyteller, one of the most wonderfully gifted I’ve ever read. As they make their way through Running on Red Dog Road, readers will smile continually, laugh out loud occasionally, and turn misty-eyed at times of joy or sadness as this child of Appalachia shares so lovingly her growing-up experiences with her cherished family and friends. Her phrasing is so exquisite and her words so perfectly chosen that her writing is a mixture of prose and poetry. It’s best read in private, so there will be no distractions as the reader travels hand in hand with the author from beginning to end.
DR. GEORGE T. ARNOLD, Professor Emeritus,
W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass
Communications, Marshall University
Running on Red Dog Road is an American treasure. Echoes of Mark Twain resonate in Ms. Berkheimer’s tales of life in West Virginia in the care of loving and wise grandparents while her widowed mother helps save the world as a Rosie the Riveter. This family is an icon of what we should wish to be. Truly a needed voice in our world.
JULIANNE MCCULLAGH, author of The Narrow Gate
I love this memoir. The voice is masterful. Berkheimer layers into a perceptive child narrator an understated love of her family, a sassy streak that dodges consequences, and a precocious questioning of the society that surrounds her.
ROBIN UNDERDAHL, coauthor with Anshel Brusilow of Shoot
the Conductor: Too Close to Monteux, Szell, and Ormandy
A competent historian could get the details right about mid-century Pentecostal Appalachian culture, but only Drema Hall Berkheimer could set us right in the middle of it. Through the eyes of a little girl who doesn’t miss a thing, we experience spicy stew in the gypsy camp, and creative avenues to intoxication, and river baptisms. If the child Drema’s observations could not always be shared with her grandparents, they are now shared with us. That will be to the delight of every reader.
DR. DOUGLAS M. GROPP, member, International
Team of Editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Academic Dean,
Redeemer Seminary
A sweet, whimsical, and often touching account of the author’s childhood during a kinder, gentler era. It triggered great nostalgia during my reading.
DR. WILLIAM L. GROSE, retired NASA scientist
and Assistant Director of Atmospheric Sciences,
NASA Langley Research Center
In this gem of a book, Drema digs deep into her memory pool to bring forth images of well-developed places, characters, and things. In this highly technological age, we need this story to understand how ordinary people survived, thrived, and endured.
NJOKI MCELROY, PhD, storyteller, performance artist, and
author of 1012 Natchez: A Memoir of Grace, Hardship and Love
ZONDERVAN
Running on Red Dog Road
Copyright © 2016 by Drema Hall Berkheimer
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
ePub Edition April 2016: ISBN 9780310344988
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Berkheimer, Drema Hall.
Title: Running on Red Dog Road : and other perils of an Appalachian childhood / Drema Hall Berkheimer.
Description: Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015036829| ISBN 9780310344964 (softcover) | ISBN 9780310344988 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Berkheimer, Drema Hall — Childhood and youth. | Christian biography — West Virginia — Beckley.
Classification: LCC BR1725.B438 A3 2016 | DDC 975.4/73042092 — dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015036829
All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: King James Version. Public domain.
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published in association with the Loiacono Literary Agency, LLC, 448 Lacebark Drive, Irving, TX 75063
Cover design: Faceout Studio, Charles Brock
Interior design: Denise Froehlich
Author photograph: Bill Hall
First printing February 2016
In Loving Memory
of
Grandpa, Reverend Luther Clevland Cales
Grandma, Clerrinda Adkins Cales
Father, Hursey Lee Hall
Mother, Iva Kathleen Cales Hall
Aunt, Lila Lora Cales Landwehr
Brother, Hursey Clev Hall
Sister, Yvonne Elaine Hall
and
of the little girl I once was
Drema Arlene Hall
Contents
A Note from the Author
Prologue: In the Beginning . . .
1. I Come from Coal
2. Washed in the Blood
3. The Color of India Ink
4. Strung on Fine Wire
5. Forcing the Forsythia
6. A Hobo’s Prayer
7. The Spirit is Willing
8. Only the Essence Remained
9. Mistook for a Haint
10. Most Call Me Tolly
11. Survivors Will Be
