From Welch to gossip queen--Jenannette Walls grew up in WV

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2005031029

Phillis Osborne remembers Jeannette Walls as the poised, polite and brainy girl who grew up three houses down Little Hobart Street in Welch in the 1970s, in a home with little furniture and no appliances or utilities.

“Jeannette’s house was disconnected from water and power, and I remember at night, you could see candlelight coming through their windows,” said Osborne. “I always wondered how she kept so clean, and she told me she would melt snow to get the water to wash her clothes and keep herself clean.”

The Walls’ three-room house “had no washer, oven or refrigerator,” Osborne recalled, “and for furniture they used boards and boxes. For a heating system, they had a little stove with the pipe stuck sideways out of a wall.”

There's an article about her in the current EW. I read it with interest because of your post. What a story. You should check it out.