Ernest Ridenhour

Ernest and Florence worked in the family store, which was lost in a flood.

Ernest shot one of his brothers-in-law in self-defence when that brother-in-law came into the store drunk with a gun to kill Ernest. There was a little boy in the store who was so frightened by witnessing the killing, that he ran into the mountains and a search party had to be sent to find him.

He did not like to talk very much about his family, and he hated the Harrises with a purple passion.

He was a sick man from the time he was in his forties. He had asthma. He worked in the mines and Basil, his son, worked with him as a boy (at maybe 15), since they were paid based on the amount of coal they removed and, by that point, Ernest worked slowly on accoutnt of his poor health.

Ernest probably had black lung disease; they didn't have moving air back then or masks. Miners would come out of there and you couldn't tell who was black or white. He died at a fairly early age.

Ernest ran a boarding house with his wife up in Powellton for coal miners when Ernest could no longer work; Aunt Lizzie owned the property. They moved from Powellton to Kimbery; the Ridenour kids built them a house; Ernest's grandparents had a lot of land there. Aunt Lizzie, Aunt May's husband, Aunt Corey's husband and Ernest and Florence had houses up on that property. It was there that Donna Vaughn (grandaughter), her immediate family, and the extended family went every Sunday for lunch.

Whenever Donna saw him she says that he was lying or sitting down.