For 65 Years My Family Told Me Sunday Dinner Was At Two. It Was Always At Twelve Thirty.

⏳ Do not stop before 12:15 — that is where she finds out. Bernice Hinkle is seventy-two. Everybody calls her Berny. She lives in Welch, West Virginia, up a holler road in coal country. Her whole life, her family had Sunday dinner at her mother's house. It started the year her father died, in 1961, and it ran every single Sunday for sixty-five years. They always told Berny it was at two o'clock. It was always at half past twelve. So for sixty-five years she came up that road at five of two, and the plates were already cleared, and her mother took her plate off the back of the stove and lifted the dish towel off it. It was always a good plate. The best of the ham. Two pieces of cornbread. And she ate it alone at a table with nine people in the house. She never once asked why. Not in sixty-five years. There are seven chairs around that table. Six of them go around it. One has stood against the wall by the window since before Berny could read, with a doily on it and her mother's button jar on top. Twice in her life she asked about that chair, and twice she was told it had a bad leg. Her mother died in March. In April, Berny turned the chair over. The leg is fine. There is nothing wrong with that chair and there never was. But there is something written on the underside of the seat, in pencil, in her mother's hand. This story is told slowly and clearly for English learners at Level 1 (A1). Every sentence is short. The text appears on screen as you listen, so you can read and hear at the same time. #emotionalstory #truestory #family #appalachia #learnenglish #englishstory CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 0:31 Two O'Clock 2:24 The House On Elkhorn 3:16 Who We Are 4:50 What That Was Like 6:35 Three Thousand Sundays 8:12 March 9:10 What Orpha Said 9:59 The Leg 10:48 Okey Hinkle 11:33 I Drove To Orpha's 12:15 What Happened At That Table 14:26 The One Thing I Do Remember 15:49 Why Nobody Changed It Back 17:30 The Chair Against The Wall 18:16 One Word 19:27 Tammy 21:09 Three Things 22:22 Half Past Twelve HOW TO USE THIS VIDEO 1. First time: just listen. Do not stop the video. 2. Second time: read the text on screen as you listen. 3. Third time: say the sentences out loud with the narrator. American English. Level 1 (A1). No subtitles needed — the text is on screen. New story every day at 8:00 AM Eastern.