How I knew Irene / The Hurt Family connection

Irene and I grew up together until her dad Forrest followed my mother’s brother, Harvey Hinkle, and moved his family to California when we were in elementary school. We remained friends through the years until Irene passed in Nov 2020. But more than friends, we considered ourselves family. Though we were not directly related, our families were connected twice through marriage. My mother’s family and Irene’s father’s family lived in coal mining communities in SW West Virginia. They were close, so close that my Aunt Mandy (my mother’s sister) married Irene’s Uncle Dillard (her dad Forrest’s brother). And her Aunt Edith (her dad’s sister) married my Uncle Francis (my mom’s brother).

Irene’s father and his family were best friends with my mom’s family until Mom’s dad moved her away from the coal mines to the Richlands, WV farming area. There, just west of Lewisburg, my mother met Irene’s mother Grace Burgess and they became best friends, graduating HS together. Forrest came to visit my mother’s family and my mother introduced him to her friend, Grace, and the rest is history, as they say. Forrest and Grace were soon married. Their first child, a son, Eddie, was born, followed by Irene, then another son, Danny and another daughter, Susie. Like our mothers before us, Irene and I became fast friends until they moved, and we remained so, despite the fact that they were on the West Coast and we still on the East Coast. Irene met and married Boyd Smith and I went off to college. We communicated through letters and pictures.

I graduated college in 1964 and in 1966 went to Hawaii to study at the U of Hawaii, Hilo. On the way back, I stopped to see California family and friends and met Irene’s husband Boyd for the first time. They had a swimming pool at their home and on the day I was to fly home to WV, my cousin Bert Hinkle, his wife Virginia, Irene, Boyd and I were all in the pool sharing stories and having lots of fun, laughing and shouting and not at all aware of the hour. As usual I had to make a trip to the bathroom. As I walked into the house, I glanced at the clock and discovered in horror what the time was. In a panic, forget the bathroom, I ran back to the pool screaming that we had about 45 minutes until my flight left LAX. There was some fast scrambling to get out of the pool, dressed and into the two cars. Then we were screaming past cars, weaving in and out of traffic down the freeway on the way to the airport. We jumped out and saying goodbye to one person in each car to go park, the rest of us went running through the airport one behind the other, each with one of my suitcases. I ran up, showed my ticket, got onto the plane and they closed the door behind me as I found my seat and the plane taxied out.

The thing that made a bigger problem than usual was that the airlines were in the midst of the biggest strike before or since that summer of 1966 and I had been one of the lucky ones that had booked my return trip from Hawaii on one of the only airlines still operating, and if you didn’t make your flight, with virtually EVERYONE from the 5 airlines on strike trying to get flights, you were unlikely to get out anywhere for a while. I was due back to Florida by mid-August to fulfill my teaching contract and had I not made it back on time I would likely have lost my job.

“On July 8, 1966, the International Assn. of Machinists (IMA) union went on strike against five airlines. Sixty percent of U.S. commercial air traffic was grounded. About 35,000 workers from various unions stayed off the job. An estimated 150,000 daily passengers scrambled for alternative transportation.”

If you want to learn more about the strike click here