Hearted Youtube comments on DONNIE LAWS (@donnielaws7020) channel.

  1. I remember it very well. We used an outhouse, Momma Cooked on a wood stove, Dad heated the old houses with coal. I used to tell my friends that in the winter there was a six foot ring around the coal stove that was 95 degrees but when you stepped out of that ring it was the same temperature that it was outside. We were poor but we knew we were safe there with Mom and Dad and we were so at peace and happy. Mom and Dad are gone now and those days are just a memory but I often think of them and miss those days very much. God bless you Mom and and Dad and thank you for all the sacrifices you made for me.
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  2. I live in the Appalachia mountains and I've been told a few stories about our witches. This man's voice literally sounds like home to me. A lot of people make fun of us for our deep southern accent but, I find it quite warm, welcoming and charmin.
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  3. I'm a 35 year old black dude and I could listen to him tell these stories all day.....praying good health for anybody reading this..... God bless
    2800
  4. Thank you for mentioning that the Natives/Indigenous people had healing medicine. Much of our ancestors plant healing was taught BY the native people. The Cherokee were and still are MASTERS of plant medicine. Not all of this knowledge came from the "old country" because there's different plants between North America and Europe. My granny learned from her mother and granny and so on, and THEY learned from the Cherokee medicine women way back when!!!
    2100
  5. My daddy could somehow always find the spot in our or someone's yard where the pipes froze and he would take coals from the wood stove and put them on that spot and sure enough the pipes would thaw and not bust. Our community on the reservation thought he was crazy when they saw him do it in his yard one winter but soon as their pipes froze, they called my daddy❤️ I sure miss him and his magic. Lol when he did something awesome, he told us it was an ' ol Indian trick'😍
    1400
  6. My mawmaw was from Floyd County, Kentucky. She cured me when I was little. I was covered in warts on my arms and legs. She just did the "laying of the hands " on my warts and praying to the Lord. It worked. I've been wart free almost 50 years.
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  7. My great grandfather was a miner in Jenkins KY and when his wife left him with 9 kids they were living in a company house. It burnt down and they were forced to live in a tent in the winter. The heavy snow made the tent cave in and someone took pity on them and let them live in their chicken coop. My grandfather lived in Wise Va and had to quit school at age 9 and go to work in the coal mines to support his grandmother who was raising him. Kids know nothing about hardship today. They think a low battery on their cellphone is tragic.
    1100
  8. I liked the way that he kept saying “ that they would do this or that “like anybody else”. That’s the story of all of us, if we would only respect each other because we’re just like anybody else.
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  9. The legends come from the “grannies” many of Cherokee heritage. They healed with natural cures, delivered babies, taught young wives how to plant gardens make simple medicine and care for children, even cook. Elder women passing their knowledge and being valuable members of the community.
    995
  10. I grew up in the country in East TN, hunting, fishing, trapping, and exploring. My Great Uncle was disabled and I spent almost all my early life with him, in the woods, on the creek banks, on the farm fields, learning the old ways. The kind of education you can't get in school. Our old farm had a Indian Mound on it. He would never let me dig it. I could walk the creek banks and the plowed fields and pick up artifacts, but never dig the mound. He pointed out two of these trees to me on our place. He knew they were markers but never knew the meaning. I used to sit on one of these trees, a hickory, and could always kill a few squirrels from there. I am 70 yrs old, my Great Uncle long gone, the old home place is a subdivision now, and I cry as I relate this to you. My Wife says I was born 100 years too late..... Picked up a road kill copperhead early this morning, and it will soon be a hatband. Apologies for the long post.
    895
  11. I'm in my 60s, and I had never heard of the Melungeon people until I stumbled across this video. Thank you so very much for sharing, and for enlightening me (and others, I am sure!) Great video!
    751
  12. Morning sir my granddad told me when the depression hit he never realized it was going on except more hobos came by looking for work of course he was as poor as they were but he raised a big garden and shared it with them he always said if you can eat what I eat you're welcome to share with me have a blessed day young man
    707
  13. When I was little I referred to my maternal grandmother as Black Gramma and I am as white as they come. My grandmother, though, was dark skinned with dark, curly hair and broad facial features that looked Native American to me. She was from that area of Eastern KY and told a story about her father being a Cherokee man who wasn't allowed to marry her mother so he left. I sensed there was a lot of shame in their poverty and lack of family bonds and the stories don't all add up to paint a clear picture of what happened all of those years ago. i am proud to be from such hard working people. I know they struggled on so many levels.
    707
  14. Like a lot of poor kids in Appalachia, I grew up in the woods. I remember when I was very small, there was an old old woman who lived farther up into the woods. I remember her name was Lizzie. She wore ragged dresses down to her feet, and had grey frizzy hair and a permanent scowl. We kids were told to stay away from her because she was a witch. Looking back, I think she was just a poor old woman, living alone, trying to survive. It sure made for a colorful childhood!
    706
  15. A lot of those old weather sayings are pretty accurate. And, the "Old Farmer's Almanac" is much more accurate than today's weather experts (I call them "weather guessers"). I drive a truck all over the U.S. and Canada, and I carry a copy of the almanac in the truck with me. It's proven itself to be right far more often than the high-tech predictions, time and again.
    685
  16. My great grandfather was an ex-slave and a famous water witch in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. People would come from all around to ask for his help as well as test him. He was never wrong once. I love this information you provide. Thank you much!
    636
  17. I think that the spirits of these folk that died long ago were happy to see someone visit them again. They were just peeking out to see who you were. Thank you for helping to keep their stories alive.
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  18. My Nenaw’s people were from this area of Tennessee and fit’s this description. Her DNA is exactly what is listed. She was very dark completed, Smokey grey eyes and black, curly hair. When they moved to Louisiana, they were labeled “Mulato” and then when she married and moved to SE Texas, everyone thought she was Mexican. My entire life people asked what I was and I had no answer’s. Depending on the region of the U.S…I was a military wife, people assumed I was one ethnicity or another. IE…creole if Louisiana, Hispanic if in Texas, Native American in Arkansas, African American when in North Carolina, etc… I’m going to contact this organization and send them our Ancestry DNA result’s. Thank you so much for this information!!!!
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  19. My stepfather (now 94) was plowing all day behind a 2-mule hitch when he was 8 years old. He was raised on an Arkansas share-crop, one of 16 children, in a drafty old house. Most evenings through the summer they had cornbread and milk for supper, followed by melons they grew of berries they'd picked. His mother passed when I was 13, and I miss her dearly. Even at 84, she could fry-up a huge skillet of chicken, make mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, green beans she had grown herself, sliced tomatoes, and cookies for dessert. Sometimes I sit and wish I could have known her when she was younger. She had a hard life, but her faith in Jesus sustained her til the end.
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  20. Who says you talk poorly ? I can understand every word you’re saying and find your accent warm and calming .
    583
  21. I grew up , and still live 75 years later, in Southern Kentucky. There was a woman in our community that could " draw" out fire . She really could. A neighbor child burned the whole palm of his hand on an iron stove . She just blew on his hand. He immediately stopped crying and it was never sore . I think that she was a healer , not a witch .
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  22. My mammaw and pappaw met on the railroad tracks while picking up coal back in the early 1930s. She said that her and her sister went one day, and she was squatting down, picking up coal, and a shadow came over her. She stood up to see who it was and saw the bluest eyes she ever saw ❤. They were married for 63 years and had 9 kids. Even when they were in their 80s, she sat on his lap to give up a chair for someone to sit. They were truly in love ❤️
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  23. Hello, I am a 56 year old black woman. I grew up in northwest Mississippi. My father and brothers built our house on 10 acres of land. I am the last child of 9. I remember us having chickens, cows and hogs. I remember hog-killngs in the fall. All our family would come and it would take all weekend long. So much hard work and yes it was tough for my daddy as a black man but I wouldn't take no amount of money for those memories. Adversity makes us stronger. Thanks for taking me back, sir.
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  24. I’m 73 years old, my wife and I built or house here in Florida with our own hands, I’m sitting by the stone fireplace listening to your story and enjoying it a lot. This is great for old men and dogs.
    554
  25. Whoever tried to tell you that your voice was fake has never known anyone from Appalachia. You are the real deal. Thanks, Donnie! 😊
    540
  26. I grew up in French Canada (Quebec), I thought that this may add to your quest for knowledge. The French verb Melanger, in the fourth tense (nous) is conjugated as follows: Nous Melangeons, which translates into English as We Mix… or a mixture. As the Louisiana Territory was sold to America, this info may not be too far fetched. I hope this puts a smile to your face!
    530
  27. I had a witch-doctor took a some sort of tree limb, cut it to my exact height and chanted a saying or chant like. Said when I out grew it, my asthma would end. They placed it above my mamaws door frame. My mother and mamaw both witnessed it, and as I outgrew it all my asthma left. As a baby I was in and out of hospital for not be able to breathe and ever since I grew taller than that stick I’ve never had issues with it. I’m 53 now and my stick is still above my door frame to date. It would worry me if it wasn’t!!!
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  28. This video used to be on yt and now isn't but, they found some Cherokee burial mounds in one of the valleys the TVA was gonna flood. They clled in the archaeologists and dug it up. They found copper smelting operation with X shaped copper cast plates and ceramics and took them to the McClung Museum, about 1930. In 1900, off the coast of Turkey, a Cretan shipwreck was discovered and it contained copper X shaped cast plates and ceramics identical to the ones in Tennessee. Somebody noticed the similarities and asked the McClung for some samples of the clay and the copper and then went to Turkey and asked them for the same. They were an exact match. The copper was from Michigan, the clay was Tennessee. Cretan miners had been smelting Michigan copper in Tennessee clay. They went looking for Cretan DNA among the Cherokee and found fourteen markers, whatever that means. They found 100 Cretan words in the Cherokee language that sound and mean the same as Cretan. Yeah, that video's GONE. The truth is, that the ancient world had regular contact with the Americas. Right along. Columbus wasn't the first or even the hundredth European to come here.
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  29. I wish we had a way to convince people to stay away. The visitors from big cities treat the mountain like an amusement park like Coney Island or Disney World. It is dissrespectful. Keep it natural like it should be. Keep your trash contained in your vehicles and take it home with you.
    482
  30. Mr. Donnie, you made me cry. I lived in the mountains for 65 years and then moved to California. I am the only one left in my family and when you talked about "our language" it really touched me. So many people out here do not understand me when I talk and I have to explain myself many times. Yes we say taters, maters, holla, worsh and tars. My momma would use the phrase "con nipshon fit" and hiba foeby. I was scared of them both. I think I saw my daddy have a con nipshon fit once but that was because he was so mad he could just spit. Our language was understood by everyone in the mountain. I really miss the life I had even if it was hard. The young generation has no idea nor could survive if they were made to live like we did. But, we were happy and had lots of love. May God bless you Mr. Donnie for sharing your stories with us.
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  31. I’m a “Triracial” Mexican American guy who has Spanish, native indigenous, and African ancestry all of them being in the 20% and above. Watching this video really fascinated me as we have similar admixtures and can often times look the same, or similar to the Melungeon people. Many people who are Afro-Latino share similar genetic makeups, stemming from Euro, Indigenous, and African DNAs. It’s all so fascinating to me. All in all we’re all human and that’s what really matters at the end of the day.
    463
  32. As a former high school teacher I tried to point this topic out to my students. But sadly they really never grasped the meaning how the loss of this key tree species. Changed the entire process of life in the Appalachian mountains not only that depended on the chestnuts for food and lumber. It's loss changed the way many animals would feed it also changed the forests grew and produced many staples used by the people and animals depended on them . The point is we have truly changed the landscape of the Appalachian mountains. As this is considered to be one of the first environmental disaster of the 20th century among many others besides the strip cutting of the mountains. Love the video and thank you for sharing this calamity of our mountains. From south west Virginia near Wytheville grew up hearing the same stories you shared.
    461
  33. Hi Donnie, I too was a coal miner here in England from the late 60s to 1987. I have seen mysterious lights coming from some of our old workings. They were far off in the distance and looked like oil lamp light but they went out after a few seconds. Another strange occurence was when i worked on the coal face, 47 inches high so we worked on our knees following the coal cutting machine and pulling in hydraulic roof supports behind it. Sometime the rock strata failed above the coal seam and we would have to climb above the roof supports into the void to timber up. One day i was about to climb up into the void and someone tugged hard on my arm and said don`t go yet. I looked around thinking it was a workmate but they were 20 yards away from me. Nobody was there, and then an almighty crash and the rock strata failed big time as we all scurried away for safety. All true i can assure you.
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  34. I’ve seen this in a few states that I’ve lived in. The government spends so much on frivolous things, why can’t the government pay for once a year for a group to go out to all these cemeteries and clean them up? These people matter and I find this so sad. Thank you Donnie for all you do.
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  35. I’m 73 years in my journey and this is the first I’ve heard of the Melungeon people. Thanks so much for sharing.
    447
  36. The diversity of America is amazing. It has been forgotten in today's polarization.
    435
  37. I've studied and thought a lot about the Melungeons through the years. As an eastern Kentucky teacher, I saw students who I thought looked "Melungone," a mixture of dark skin, often blue-eyed, always dark haired kids. Often their last names were right in line with some of the names I've run across in my readings. It's a fascinating mystery. Your theory makes sense.
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  38. I’m a native of West Virginia and it does my heart good to know that people like you still exist. You’re down to earth and genuine. Your stories take me back to when I was a boy listening to my mom tell stories on our front porch on the swing. That was the good old days of a simple life.
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  39. We need more channels like this I believe. Just laid back story telling. Nothing too fancy or trying too hard. Just sharing knowledge and experience. Very refreshing.
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  40. I've lived in the Appalachian Mountains my entire 48 years and yes, these mountains are mysterious. I've heard so many stories from my grandparents and great-parents and i will treasure them till the day I die. He is right, we are a superstitious bunch, but we also love and fear the Lord. I have used dowsing rods looking for things myself. I've also used willow branches (best when looking for water) when hunting. I don't know how it works but it does. I'm very proud to be from the mountains and feel very fortunate that God placed me here and gave me the wonderful mountain parents that have. To me the mountains of Kentucky are heaven on earth and I'm one lucky girl to have grown up here.
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  41. Hats off to the veterans who were buried in those cemeteries and have been sadly forgotten by their future generations. 😔They deserve our respect & to be remembered 🇺🇸🦅🙏
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  42. I saw a documentary many years ago, saying that Melungeons were descended from Turkish, and Portuguese sailors that came over on ships with the first Spanish explorers. They didn't know if the sailors chose to stay, or were abandoned; but they have established dna connections to those people in Europe. They intermarried with native Americans, Africans, and Europeans. In Turkey, the have a day of celebration every year in honor of those cousins who are still in the US. My best friend, from high school's Mother was from that region. If you saw her picture as a young woman, you would swear she was Portuguese! It's amazing to me how strong those genealogical traits carry on!
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  43. My wife and I fell on hard times about 15 years ago - really hard times! We bought a home in the Detroit, Michigan auction for $1,200. Our entire block did the same or squatted, except for one great neighbor. #1: We knew to create a warm environment and did so before fall. Everyone helped everyone, and it didn't matter what color you were. We took an old barrel and started a fire in the backyard, burning the paint from it. We used black wall pipes and plugged the highest point into the fireplaces chimney. It didn't create enough heat by itself, and we didn't have enough money to get it cleaned that first winter, so we left it alone. I had three buckets of water on hand if the barrel became too hot; we didn't want it becoming red hot and beginning to smoke! It was frustrating making a fire, then having to put it out! After that first winter, we were able to buy an old wood burning stove with a tempered glass window - it was a much better situation! I split wood constantly and my wife did her best, trying to keep up with me. She was better, however, at helping me carry it in, finding starter and tinder as well. Our primary wood came from a storm removal company, which was more than happy to dump literally tons of wood in our backyard - including some of the other neighbors, too. That tempered window was designed to push heat about seven feet outward, radiating it significantly better. We paid $400 for it, after saving for quite some time. Weighing 400 pounds, we'd always say it was well worth a dollar for every pound! We spent a total of five years there. Once I was able to keep a job long enough, we were finally able to move. I had to rely on public transportation, which wasn't always on time, so that caused me to lose two jobs, despite explaining to my bosses what was going on. Once we had dependable transportation, everything began to change for us! We had a dog and a single-shot 12 gauge shotgun for the home. Our neighbor had puppies, and I'd purchased the gun for $80 at a pawn shop - after a couple thugs made attempts at robbing us. We let our dog sleep with us, creating more heat for us all. My wife and I are still together, both of us with good jobs and living in a suburban area now. We'll NEVER FORGET what those cuddly nights were like, sometimes making love a second or third time just to stay warm. (Yes, we had Blitz leave the bed, lol.) We didn't have running water, either. We made an outhouse in the backyard, and our one neighbor who did, let us each take showers and retrieve water. We used empty two liter bottles, etc. My wife would help watch their kids in return, and I did what I could as well. Being able to identify with the people you talked about, made us far more grateful for one another and everything else in life! Thank you for sharing this!
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  44. My son married into an old NC Appalachia family and I had a dear friend from TN who when he knocked a few back he spoke to his dog in another language. I live in the PNW so I love visiting them. Thanks for posting these, I do believe there's things we cannot understand on the planet but I've found if you're respectful and compassionate for our wild creatures and places you'll be just fine.
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  45. I live in Ohio & I've never heard a lot of these. Way Back in the late 70's when I was moving apartments & my dad was helpin I was about to load the broom after cleaning. My dad said "Stop! What r u doin? U can't take that old broom & old troubles to a new place! Sweep the room & then leave it in the corner. I'll buy a new one. A New Broom Sweeps Clean." First time I'd ever heard that... 💝 I Miss Him!
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  46. Sad to realize the amount of personal property the government has stolen from the people over the years. My great grandfather had to leave his mountain homestead when the Shenandoah Park was created. He was born in 1886, and couldn't show proof of ownership.
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  47. A bird flying into the house means someone will die happened to me three times. The first time was when I was in high school, and a bird flew inside. After we got it back outside, I noticed my mother was visibly shaken. I asked her what was wrong and she told me about the old wives' tale, and that now she was worried. Within a few days my dad's best pal died. The second time it happened, I was on a vacation in Alaska. At the time, we had rented a huge Ford SUV and were using it to "live" in, so we could spend more time in the wilderness and less time running back and forth to hotels or what-have-you. A bird suddenly flew in the one window we'd left open a few inches. We got it out quickly but now it was my turn to wonder if it was an omen of something to come. My beloved mother passed three days later, on my last day of vacation. The third time was when I was living alone in my apartment. I had left the door open because it was so nice out. (I lived in the corner upstairs apartment of a massive complex in L A.) In flew a birdy and I thought, "Oh, no.." My sister passed that night. These could all be coincidences but to my memory, I've never had a bird fly inside other than these three times, and all three times resulted in a death. Makes ya wonder..
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  48. If Only There Was More People Like You In This World, It'd Be A Lot Better Place🌻
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  49. Thank you. Everyone should have a garden these days. This world needs God and nature. 🙏🏻
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  50. I didn't grow up during the depression but my parents did. We were very poor during the sixties when I was a boy. Jobs were very rare here in Southern WV and even when you were lucky enough to find one the pay was very small. My Dad and his two brothers cut pulp wood through most of the sixties. I remember that they got approx.$30.00 a load back then. Their equipment amounted to a flat bed truck, a chain saw, and muscle. Dad and Mom compensated for the lack of money but planting a very large garden. Through the summer months we lived on fresh vegetables and in the fall and winter we ate caned vegetables that Mom had canned the previous summer. Meat was a rare delicacy we usually only got on weekends.When I got old enough to own a gun I would go out and bring Mom some squirrels or some fat rabbits for dinner. We also ate many a plate of brown beans with hot homemade biscuits over the years. Thanks to the hard work of Dad and Mom my sisters and I never went hungry.
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