ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130002
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: KRISTEN KAMMERER STAFF WRITER
If you had walked up Roanoke Street some 40 years ago, you surely would have bumped into one of the Price children.
There were nine of them and they were forever out and about, playing horseshoes, helping in the gardens or running to school. Today, all of the children have become successful and active members of their communities. Among their ranks they boast a doctor, a computer programmer, a minister, a nurse and a middle-school teacher. Six of them still call Blacksburg home.
Tonight, several of the Price children and their families will gather to honor their mother who, they say, taught them to work hard, respect others and "shoot for the stars."
Christine Page Price, 80, lives in the house where she and her late husband, Leonard, raised their family. Though her children left home long ago, their presence still fills her home.
Photographs of Price's children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren decorate every available inch of the walls and tabletops. Young men and women winning basketball tournaments, earning military honors, walking down the wedding aisle and baptizing children of their own look out from the picture frames. When Price tries to count her grandchildren, she loses track somewhere in the second dozen. "And that isn't even half of them!" she says.
Only a few dashes of gray salt Price's black hair. She rarely stays seated and is always ready to get busy. Though she has a cane to help her walk, she rarely needs it. Her laugh is deep and warm and she is as quick to use it as she is to point out the "foolishness" in others. Only an occasional bout of the asthma she's suffered since childhood holds her back.
Price has lived in Blacksburg nearly all her life. When she was 6, her father, a quarryman, moved his family from Giles County so his children wouldn't have to walk so far to school. His emphasis on education was a value that Christine Price would later instill in her own family.
As a young girl, she dreamed of becoming a nurse. But by the time she was ready to pursue formal training, many of her older brothers and sisters were already in college and there wasn't much money to go around. Knowing that her parents needed more income, she stopped going to school after completing the 10th grade and went to work cleaning houses. Of her dreams deferred, Price says, "Sometimes I look back and wish I'd been able to go to college. But our opportunities were more limited then. Our family was so big that we all had to work. We had to."
A few years later, she met the boy who lived "up the hill." His name was Leonard Price and he drove a cab. Christine Price says she doesn't remember much about their first meeting, but recalls riding in Leonard's taxi a few times. "I guess we just liked each other," she muses, and says she knew he would ask her to marry him.
Nine healthy children followed. First to arrive was James Henry, born in 1938. Then came Allan McKinley, Clarence Leonard, Randolph Page, Phillip Harmon, Kaywood, Anna Christine, Vanessa and the last, Thomas Louis, born in 1956.
With an average of 15 months between each child, Price says she never had two wearing diapers at the same time.
Both of the Price parents worked hard to support their children. Christine Price was, and still is, a housekeeper in several Blacksburg homes. Peggy Skelton, a retired Virginia Tech administrator, has been one of Price's employers for 36 years. "Everyone in town knew Christine and had a high respect for her, and Leonard as well," Skelton recalls.
"What I most appreciate about Christine is her dependability and loyalty. She is a very devout Christian and a caring person who made a lot of sacrifices for her children. I am especially grateful for the way she took care of my elderly mother. ... It's not always easy to find someone in the community like Christine," Skelton said.
Leonard Price held several jobs at Virginia Tech, working in the university's dining hall, the girls dormitory and the electric plant. In the evenings, he tended vegetable gardens "all over town" and then came home to care for his own.
The Prices' strong work ethic enabled them to buy their own home, provide for their children and help put seven of them through college. "Despite our number, we had everything we needed and most of what we wanted," says Anna Christine Price, the Prices' first daughter.
"We even got a television when I was in the fifth grade," recalls Anna's older brother, Randolph Price. "That was really something because very few people had TV back then."
To keep grocery bills to a minimum, the Prices grew most of their own food. "Aside from keeping up a huge vegetable garden, we also raised chickens, turkeys and rabbits," Phillip Price, the fifth child, recalls. "There was always plenty of good food to eat."
As it turns out, Leonard Price did the cooking. "He'd go down to the basement and cook the meats and vegetables on a big coal stove," Christine Price recalls. "He was naturally a good cook."
Upstairs in the kitchen, Christine Price would whip up batches of melt-in-your-mouth rolls, breads and biscuits and then call the children in for supper. Besides their own family, the Prices hosted small gangs of neighborhood kids at mealtime. To accommodate everyone, they lined the kitchen table with picnic benches. "I liked to have my kids come here with their friends," Price recalls. "That way I'd always know what they were up to!"
As the children grew, they began to help baby-sit the younger ones and do household chores. "Everyone had jobs to do," Randolph, recalls. "First you might do the dishes, then when you got older, you'd mop the floors. Then you'd work in the garden or do the laundry or the cooking. The breakfast dishes weren't always cleaned by lunchtime, but they'd get done eventually."
When it came time for the children to go to school, they walked to a small, all-black elementary school on Clay Street. Segregation of the local schools was still in effect when the older Price children were ready for high school. Instead of attending Blacksburg High School, they were taken by bus to an all-black school in Vicker. Then, in 1961, local schools were integrated. Two years later, Phillip Price became the first black student to graduate from Blacksburg High School.
Randolph says the segregation didn't affect his family much, because, "Our mother always taught us that the Lord loved each and every one of us no matter what our strengths or weaknesses, or color. She made each of us believe that there was nothing we couldn't achieve."
While going to school, most of the children also held part-time jobs. One had a paper route, another was an orderly at Christiansburg Hospital, others worked in businesses downtown such as the Lyric Theater. "Our mother and father taught us the value of working hard to earn the things you need," Randolph recalls.
In addition to teaching her children the value of education and hard work, Price also encouraged her children to "lead good, Christian lives." Among other things, she taught them to respect their siblings and the people of the community. ``We always were saying `yes, ma'am' and `yes, sir''' Phillip recalls. "Our mother led the same life she was trying to teach us, so she was a great role model."
But Price knew her children weren't perfect and she kept a watchful eye on them.
"I remember when we'd come in late at night," Phillip says. "Mom's door would be open a crack and there'd be a light shining through it. I'd look in and she'd be reading her Bible, waiting for us to come home."
"It was very seldom that I'd go to sleep before everybody came in," Price admits.
Sometimes a Price child would find himself in trouble for "a foolish prank." Because Leonard Price worked much of the time, the role of disciplinarian often fell to Christine Price.
"I remember that mom would sometimes make us go down to the hedges and pick our own switches!" Phillip says, laughing. "But she wasn't real hard on us."
"Sometimes my children strayed," Price says, smiling. "But they always came back."
And if keeping nine children in line wasn't difficult enough, Price suddenly found herself doing it alone. In 1969, when the youngest child, Thomas, was 12, Leonard Price died suddenly of a stroke.
"It was very hard on Mom," Randolph recalls. "But she took it like she always took difficult things. She was strong and trusted in the Lord and accepted it. She was there for us, and she understood that."
Price had to see her family through another tragedy three years ago when her second-oldest son, Allan, a minister living in Blacksburg, died.
When asked where her mother's strength comes from, Anna says, "Mom works mostly on faith. For her, praying is just like breathing. It comes naturally, and it makes her strong."
Price loves to tell the story about the day her sister, who does not have children, asked her, "Christine, how on earth did you do it? How did you raise nine children and never seem to worry?"
Price laughs when she recalls her answer. "I told her that whenever things got bad, I just turned it over to the Lord."
LENGTH: Long : 158 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. Christine Page Price, 80, lives inby CNBthe house where she and her late husband, Leonard, raised their
family (ran on NRV-1). 2. Christine Price shows off a small portion
of the family photos she keeps in her Blacksburg home. color.