Interview with Linda, Charles & Savannah Rhodes

Lodge Compton is a long-standing figure in the world of journalism in Grundy, Virginia. He has been the editor and publisher of the Virginia Mountaineer, a weekly newspaper, for over twenty-five years. Compton was born and raised in Buchanan County, specifically in the headwaters of Dismal River, where his father, a writer, photographer, and occasional politician, also resided. Despite his father's brief stint as the editor of the Virginia Mountaineer, Compton insists there was no direct connection between his father's role and his own eventual position at the newspaper.

On July 20, 1989, Beverly McBride interviewed Mary Litman for the Tucker County, West Virginia Flood Audio Recordings project. Mary Litman is a former resident of Parsons, West Virginia. At the time of the flood, Mary was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Mary Ridgeway is a lifelong resident of Tompkinsville, a location situated between Newburg and Rock Point. She is the daughter of Emma M. Jackson and Sankston Walter Jackson, and she grew up in a family of six children, with three brothers and two sisters. Her father was a farmer and a skilled carpenter who also worked the river, while her mother was a homemaker. Ridgeway graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and soon after began working at an oyster house at Rock Point, which was established by Mr. Coulby.

Michael O’Brien was born on October 2, 1944, and currently resides in Doddridge County, West Virginia. Raised by a government meat inspector, O’Brien moved frequently between southern Florida and Virginia, finishing high school in the latter. After high school, he moved to Baltimore to live with his grandmother, hoping to find better opportunities. He spent ten years in Baltimore but ultimately sought a simpler life. O’Brien met his wife, Nancy, during his time in Baltimore.

On June 23, 2015, Joseph Campbell interviewed Mick Luber at his Blue Bird Organic Farm in Cadiz, Ohio, for the Gas Rush project. The interview explores Luber's upbringing in a coal mining community in Adena, Ohio, his diverse career path, and his eventual establishment of an organic farm. Luber discusses his early influences, including his father’s union activism and his mother’s community involvement, and how these shaped his environmental and agricultural advocacy.

Mike Ross was born on November 8, 1937. His father, originally from Italy, migrated to the United States with his brothers, recruited by a coal company to work in West Virginia. Settling in the Weaver/Colton area, his father met and married his mother, whose family also hailed from Italy. Ross grew up in a large family with 14 children, nine boys and five girls, learning the values of competition and hard work from an early age. His father worked as a coal miner, and the family lived in a company house, managing a garden to supplement their food supply.

On February 14, 1986, Michael Kline interviewed Michael D. Smith for the Tucker County, West Virginia Flood Audio Recordings project. Smith, originally from Newell in Hancock County, West Virginia, moved to Ravenswood in his early teens, where his family relocated due to job opportunities in the aluminum industry. He met his wife there, and the two have been together since high school. Smith attended college in Morgantown, West Virginia, served in Vietnam, and returned to the state to work in rehabilitation counseling after dealing with personal challenges, including alcoholism.

Ola Mae Carter was born in Waynesburg, Mississippi, on a small farm with a house that had no roof and hardly a bottom. She was one of six or seven children and started working at a young age, helping a local woman with her garden and cleaning up the yard. When she was still a young girl, she traveled with the woman's daughter who was on her way to California for business. They stopped in St. Inigoes, Maryland, where Ola Mae eventually settled. During their journey, they faced racial discrimination when they were denied accommodation at a hotel because Ola Mae was Black.

Michael Kline interviewed Ona Hovatter and Helen Dotson on December 3, 1985, for the Tucker County, West Virginia Flood Audio Recordings project. Ona Hovatter has lived in Parsons, West Virginia for over forty years, and Helen Dotson is a resident of Limestone. In the interview, Hovatter describes the night of the flood, recalling the unprecedented rise of water levels that reached five feet and three inches in her living room, surpassing even the marks left by the historical flood of 1888.