I am so sorry to hear about Aunt Norma Jean's passing.  She was always a sweet quiet person.  I always loved seeing her and Uncle Delbert at Grandpa and Grandma's house and at family reunions. I also can remember my Mom (Roberta) taking us to visit them at there house when I was little.  We will be praying for you Uncle Delbert. Heaven gets more sweeter everyday with our loved ones gone on. Love and prayers to all the family. 
Becky Coker & Family

I just wanted to say I am sorry to learn about Norma Jean’s passing. My thoughts and prayers are with you Uncle Delbert, and your family.  ( I always loved getting to see you all at family reunions or at my Grandpa Jesse’s.  I am Wayne’s daughter) Here is a picture of my family and I )

Norma Jean is my mom's brother Delbert's wife.   My Dad Ed Carter was the family photographer.   He also took movies of family events.  I was 3 or 4 when Delbert & Norma Jean married.  Dad took movies of their decorated car going down grandpa Barretts lane.  I was waving out the back window sitting by my Mom.  I remember when I got older I learned that I did not go on their honeymoon with them which I had thought for along time that I did.  I was so disappointed.   But what a wonderful memory that is for me!

Mom’s parents moved the family from West Virginia to Indiana in 1956, in the middle of Mom’s senior year of high school. For the next 15 years, she had a recurring dream of wandering the halls of Mullens High School, looking for and never finding her locker.  

Mom’s MHS classmates lost track of her until just prior to the Class of ‘56’s 15 year reunion. For our family vacation that summer, Mom and Dad decided to visit Wyco, West Virginia, where Mom lived for most of her childhood.  The house she had grown up in was long gone, and Mom had a difficult time identifying the site were it had been.  We drove up and down the road a couple of times before she thought she recognized the site. It was much smaller than I had imagined. Mom’s recurring dream ended after that day. 

Years later, my fiance and I chose Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, as the location for our honeymoon. On the way there, we we went out of our way so I could revisit Wyco.  I wanted to see if I could remember the site of Mom’s childhood home. Lord, was I in for a surprise.  Wyco had been a village of coal company-owned houses, a school house, a mine supervisor’s house, a company-owned store where miners made purchases with company “scrip”, and Black miners and their families had to make purchases at the back door, forbidden to shop inside. A segregated schoolhouse and church were on the outskirts of town. Mom’s family had lived a mile further up the hollow, past the village, without electric or running water. Grandpa had a battery radio, water was  a spring on the mountain behind the house, and perishables like milk and eggs were kept inside the entrance of an abandoned mine on the property to keep them cold.

On that December day in 1988, my wife and I drove through Wyco, then proceeded up the hollow to find the Carter homesite.  We didn't get far.  The hollow where Mom’s childhood home had stood had been obliterated by a strip mining operation. Not even the mountain itself had been spared.  

OBITUARY

Norma Barrett

October 13, 1938 – September 23, 2020

Anderson Funeral Home

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