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‘te NE RIPLEY ster Reporter “It’s the evil spirits in my leg.” This is the diagnosis Milburn M. Meador, a patient in the Beck ley Hospital, has made of an in jury or ailment of his left leg. THE 83-YEAR-OLD recluse, was admitted to the hospital Sat urday afternoon after he was found under a cliff on a creek bank near Raleigh. A 16-year-old squirrel hunterly found Meador about noon and notified by Raleigh County Sheriff's of ice. The officers found the man to be suffering from exposure and apparently in severe pain from an injury to his left leg and knee, which he was unable to explain except to say the evil spirits and poisons just wouldn’t leave him. Four deputies sheriff and two vol unteers laboriously carried the man from his almost inaccessible hovel to the railroad track and four miles further to the Raleigh Railroad Junction, where he was loaded into a waiting ambulance and taken to the hospital. He is being treated for an infection of the knee. MEADOR was born April 1, 1877, in Summers County. One of six children of the late Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Meador, he said he grew up in Raleigh County and Bath County, Ky. He was married to Annie Meador, and was the father of two children, all of whom are deceased. He recalled attending school at Glade Creek, and said Abraham Redden was his first teacher. Proudly he said, “I turned down the whole school in a spelling bee when I attended that school.” The octogenarian said he had traveled over 15 states besides West Virginia, but likes Georgia best of all. “I don’t like Tennes see at all,” he stated, and added “Raleigh County ain’t very satis factory with me. “I HAVE WORKED hard all my’ life, making an honest living,” ‘he declared, ‘mostly _in coal mines, railroad track maintenance and saw mills. I always paid my own way wherever I went, and have lived alone for many years because all of my friends are either dead or gone somewhere,” the lonely man noted, as tears streamed down his tired, weather beaten face. Meador said at one time “I was down in bed with tuberculosis when I lived at Laramie, Wyo., and the doctors said I wouldn’t live through the winter. “I have never bought, sold or used whiskey in any form,” he de clared, but that time “I decided to make some prune brandy to take as a medicine. It took me all night to run off three pints of brandy which I did by boiling it in a one-gallon oil can over a little stove, and a coil made from an automobile gasoline tube,”’ he explained. “I TOOK SEVERAL doses of the brandy but it didn’t stop my coughing,” he said, ‘then I de cided to drink the whole thing— when the dizziness left me after that dose, I had quit coughing and haven't had TK since,” he noted. Meador has a theory which he believes would cure the ills of the world if they could be enforced, “What we need is an honest progressive Republic World — one of justice and honesty for all,” but he admitted “I don’t know how we can have it. I'm not a politician but our government is a Republic, so what in the world do we want with a Democrat’? he asked. “I don’t believe in dic tators, Democrats or socialists,” he stated emphatically. He said he didn’t belong to any church, but had a religious faith which consisted of honest progress with the government and the church. “There is no change in the spirit —it has always been the same, and after the judgement and all work is done, there will be a just erg honest progress,” he assert. THE ONLY Democrat he ever voted for president was Woodrow Wilson, the elderly man noted. He explained I voted for him be cause he said he would keep us out of war — but look what he did,” he stated. “I made up my mind about politics when McKin ley and Bryant were running ‘against each other, and decided to be a Republican. I didn’t vote for Franklin Roosevelt ‘wary’ ‘time,” he declared. When he was admitted to the hospital, Meador possessed a beard approximately 30 years old. He said he believed he hadn’t shaved since 1932. Hospital attend ants clipped off the mass which was several inches in length, leav ing a pert little mustache on his upper lip. He said he likes to read news papers to keep up with the times, but had not seen one for ages. He wears glasses and has one remaining tooth, which he says he intends to keep as long as possible, Meador told of extract ing all of his own teeth as they became loose. The little man whose only in come is a $27-per-month State Old- Age Assistance check, would like to go back to Georgia where the weather is warm to live out the remainder of his life. MILBURN M. MEADOR
Newspaper Details
Raleigh Register
Beckley, West Virginia, US
Wed, Nov 02, 1960
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Gary J.
USA 24 Jun 2026
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