second chances

The Adventures of Larry and Janet

2014-12-20T09:56:00.001-08:00

Today, Saturday, December 20, 2014, Larry and I have been married for 42 years. Whew! I'm tired. I think I'll sit down for a while.

The actual time of our marriage was at 5:30 p.m. on that rainy day. Well, we were actually

already married by 5:30 p.m. We started early since everybody was already at the church. Gary and Ann Estep were our witnesses, and Rev. Pearly Orndorff was the minister. He spoke with us at the entrance to the church just before the ceremony and asked if we were both Christians and told us how important that was in a marriage. He said he didn't tie many slip knots.

When I see how extravagant weddings are today, I'm just amazed. I had a dress that I had made from white velvet (my mother's idea). There were corsages for both of our mothers and a bouquet for me. Larry's sister, Becky, took some Polaroid photos which were the only wedding photos we have. In the photos everyone looked so somber you would have thought it was a wake and not a wedding.

We first met in June of 1972 when Larry was fresh out of the Marine Corps and still in college. I had graduated from college in May, and when I went back to Rainelle after graduation, there was Larry all tan and trim.

Early in our marriage we went EVERYWHERE together, except when we went to work, and even then we commuted together because we only had one car. Larry took me to work and came to pick me up. We shopped for groceries on Wednesday evening after clipping coupons from the newspaper. From Acme Market to Deskins Grocery Store to Kroger's, we could tell you the price of any given item on any given day.

I won't even attempt to write of all the things that have happened in the last 42 years. We're not extensive travelers, but we've been from Tijuana to Berlin and spent time in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Clearwater, Florida. We survived ice storms and high school reunions. We've been through a lot: having a baby, not having a baby, cancer, the loss of our parents, more cars and trucks and stray dogs and cats than I can even remember, all the major and minor successes that come from hard work, a good many laughs and our fair share of failures.

When Katie was a little girl and we talked about Gary and Ann Estep, she thought "Gary and Ann" was one person. It's been like that with us. Like salt and pepper or ham and eggs, the two things are one entity. We're like knitting needles. You really can't knit with only one needle. We're a cord of three: God, Larry, Janet.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Estep Stories from the Civil War and into the Twentieth Century

2014-12-05T16:38:00.000-08:00

The Story of Wesley Estep, 1825-1900

Wesley Estep (also known as John W. Estep), son of Joel Estep, Sr., is the point at which we begin the more recent story of the Estep family. Wesley also had an “Uncle Wesley” Estep, who was the son of Shadrach and Sarah Newsom Estep, but this Wesley died in 1854. By Wesley’s statement on the 1870, 1880, and 1900 censuses, he was born in Kentucky, but on other censuses where this information is recorded, he lists his birthplace as Virginia. On the 1900 census he gave his birth date as July 1825 and said he was married for 53 years.

Kentucky is most likely where Wesley was born because Joel is found on the 1830 census in Floyd County, Kentucky, with one male child under age 5 and another age 5-10. One of these boys is probably Wesley. In 1840 Joel is in Kanawha County, and among his children are two boys, one aged 10-15 and one aged 15-20. So Wesley spent a large portion of his childhood in Kentucky and then moved to Virginia while he was still living with his parents, Joel and Rebecca.

In Kanawha County on 13 February 1847, when he was about age 22, Wesley married Mary (Polly) Pritt, daughter of Edward Pritt. The marriage was performed by Henry David Ward of St. John’s Church and St. Luke’s Church, Protestant Episcopal Churches.[1] St. John’s, the oldest Episcopal church in the Kanawha Valley, was established in 1822. Wesley is described in his military pension application as being 5 feet 7 inches tall, having a light complexion, sandy hair, and blue eyes.

Wesley and Mary lived in Kanawha County where they were listed on the 1850 census in District No. 29.[2] Wesley reports his age as 21 (which would make his birth date 1829, but census records are often inaccurate). If this birth year is accurate, then Wesley was 18 years old when he married Mary. By 1850 Wesley and Mary have two children, Betsy (Elizabeth), age 2 (born about 1848), and Lewis, age 1 month (born August 1850). Another son, John W. Estep, was born about 1853, according to the 1860 census.

Marriage records from Floyd County, Kentucky, show that Wesley and Mary traveled there in 1855 to witness the marriage of a cousin of his, Martin VB Estep, and Sarah Ann Lowe on 5 August. About this time their son, Rufus F. Estep, was born, either in 1855 or 1856 (according to the 1860 census) on 15 August. Since Wesley and Mary attended a wedding in Kentucky on 5 August in 1855, it is doubtful that Mary would have traveled to the wedding only two weeks before giving birth, so the 1856 birth date for Rufus seems more likely.

The next few years were filled with turmoil. John Brown led a rebellion in 1859 in Harper's Ferry, VA (WV) and was hanged in the fall of that year. Richmond was the capitol of Virginia, and Charleston was a provincial river town, with a population of 1,520 in the 1860 census. The fifth child of Mary and Wesley, James Edward Estep, born 14 March 1858, died 16 August 1859 at the age of 17 months.[3]

In 1860 Wesley and Mary lived in the Kanawha Salines of Kanawha County. Wesley, age 29, was a farmer, and the value of his real estate was $600. He had personal property valued at $100.[4]

From 1806 to 1808, where Malden is now located, David and Joseph Ruffner developed the world's first deep well drilling process to recover the precious commodity of salt, and the area known as the "Kanawha Salines” became a very wealthy industrial region on the frontier.[5] Early Malden was a small New England style subdivision first called "Saltborough.” “Kanawha Salines” was the postmark for the Malden area until after the Civil War; the area was first called Terra Sallas as early as 1817, but the town of Malden was not incorporated until 1883.[6] By 1850 the salt industry employed 3,000 people, and the Kanawha Salines produced millions of bushels of salt each year. Malden had 3 hotels and a bank.

As many as 42 salt furnaces operated near Malden at one time, with capacities of 150 barrels of salt daily. The brines from the Kanawha Valley were purer than those found in other areas of the country.[7]

As America’s transportation systems improved through the mid-nineteenth century, Malden’s monopoly on the salt industry disappeared. A flood in 1861 destroyed most of the salt works, and the industry declined.[8] Growing access to rail transportation diverted business to other salt-producing areas.

In 1860 as the United States approached the beginning of the Civil War, Wesley and Mary (Polly) now had four children: Elizabeth, age 11; Lewis, age 9; John W., age 7, and Rufus F., age 4. A laborer, John Honeyman, age 58, also lived with them.[9] Also living in Kanawha County was Marion Burke, who had married Mary Estep, a daughter of Wesley’s first cousin.[10] Marion and Mary lived at Jarrett’s Ford, which is now Elkview, with their three children as well as Martha Estep, age 16, a sister of Mary. Mary and Martha were the children of Turner Estep and great-grandchildren of Shadrach Estep.

Political changes brewed throughout the Kanawha Valley as the country descended into the Civil War. After the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on 12 April 1861, the Civil War exploded. In June 1861 the Western counties of Virginia refused to secede with the eastern portion of the state and formed the Restored Government of Virginia in Wheeling. In August 1861 the government determined that the new state would be named Kanawha. In a referendum on 24 October 1861 voters supported the creation of the state of Kanawha, but in November the name was changed to West Virginia.

A baby girl, Mary Ellen Estep, was born to Wesley and Mary on 2 July 1861. On 15 October 1861 Wesley enlisted in the United States Army in the Eighth Regiment of the Virginia Infantry, Company E. This regiment was organized by Major John H. Oley at Buffalo, West Virginia, in November 1861 and was headquartered in Charleston. The unit was unassigned until April 1862, conducting post duty at Buffalo until it was ordered to New Creek, Virginia.[11] Major General John Pope was appointed on 26 June 1862 to command the newly created Army of Virginia, of which the 8^th Regiment was a part.[12]

Since Wesley enlisted in October 1861, he would have been part of the regiment’s advance up the Shenandoah Valley in pursuit of Stonewall Jackson. His pension application states that on 28 May 1862 he was left at Petersburg, Virginia, as a deserter. He was “taken up” and sent to Wheeling and counted as AWOL from 28 May to 25 July 1862. During the time he was AWOL, his regiment fought in the Battle of Cross Keys (June 8) and served in various locations around eastern Virginia. From 7 July until 2 August the regiment was located at Middletown, Virginia, where Wesley would have been returned to his unit. He was present on the rolls until 31 December 1863.

Federal battery fording a tributary of the

Rappahannock on the day of battle, 2nd Bull Run, August 1862.

The 8^th Regiment fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run, also called the Second Battle of Manassas, which was waged between August 28 and August 30, 1862. The battle was the culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Lee against Pope’s Army of Virginia. It involved a much greater number of soldiers than the First Battle of Bull Run and was an overwhelming Confederate victory.[13] The 8^th Regiment was part of the 1^st Brigade which was commanded by a German, Colonel Alexander Schimmelfennig, and was part of the 3^rd Division, also commanded by a German, Brigadier General Carl Schurz.

After the loss to the Confederates, Pope withdrew to Washington, D.C. where the 8^th Regiment stayed until September 29. By October 9 the unit was back in West Virginia and performed outpost duty at various places in West Virginia until June 1863. Wesley re-enlisted as a Veteran Volunteer and moved with the regiment throughout Virginia and West Virginia as it conducted raids, such as one through the Greenbrier Valley 5-31 August 1863 and a raid against Lewisburg and the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad 1-17 November of the same year. We have no information about how Mary and the family, including the young baby, Mary Ellen, fared during this time.

On 26 January 1864 the regiment was assigned to the Fourth Separate Brigade and became mounted. The name was changed to the 7^th West Virginia Cavalry. Wesley’s records indicate that on 1 February 1864 he was “absent without remark as to cause of absence.” His pension application states that he returned to duty in March 1864 and was present for duty until 30 June 1865, although the 1890 Census of Veterans says that his service ended 31 January 1864. Wesley was in the hospital at Guyandotte, West Virginia, in the fall of 1864 because he had lost his hearing, and according to Marion Burke, who served in the same regiment, Wesley remained in the hospital until they were discharged.[14]

The regiment was eventually ordered to the Kanawha Valley in late 1864 with duty at Charleston, Coalsmouth, Winfield, Point Pleasant, and Guyandotte until August 1865 when it was mustered out. After the war Wesley returned to Malden where he and Mary lived for many years. He is listed in remaining censuses as either a farmer or a farm laborer. Not until after the war was their next and last child, Abraham Lincoln Estep, born.

Children of Mary and Wesley Estep are as follows:

Name	Birth Date
Elizabeth A. (Betsy) Estep	About 1848
Lewis Estep	August 1850
John Wesley Estep	1 January 1853
Rufus F. Estep	15 August 1856
James Edward Estep	14 March 1858
Mary Ellen Estep	3 June 1861
Abraham Lincoln Estep	2 July 1867 (or 1865 in some sources)

The list of children provided by Wesley on his pension application in 1885 does not include Lewis, James Edward, or Rufus. James Edward died when he was 17 months old in 1859. Since the other children not listed on the application are deceased, it could be surmised that Lewis had also died by this time. No death date has been found at this point for Lewis. Rufus died as a young man.

A man named Thomas Lee was murdered on the night of 24 December 1875 on the Campbell’s Creek Bridge at Malden.[15] On Christmas Day 1875 John Dawson and Rufus Estep, son of Wesley and Mary Estep, were arrested and placed in the Charleston jail to await trial for Lee’s murder. A mob formed, supposedly because of the unprovoked nature of Lee’s murder, to lynch Dawson and Estep. The tragic story of the lynching of John Dawson and Rufus Estep is told in my blog, "When Lynch Mobs Ruled" http://secondchances-jbestep.blogspot.com/2011/09/when-lynch-mobs-ruled.html.

In 1880 Wesley and Mary still lived in Malden with their youngest son, Abraham Lincoln Estep, age 12.[19] Wesley applied for a military pension on 30 July 1885 giving his address as Boyd’s Post office in Fayette County, so they had moved sometime between 1880-1885. He received $6 per month from his pension for bronchitis, but it was increased to $12 a month in 1894 because of additional disabilities of respiratory organs and slight deafness in both ears. On 21 April 1888 Wesley’s son-in-law, Charles Blount (who married Mary Ellen Estep) died.

In 1889 Abraham Lincoln Estep married, probably leaving Wesley and Mary living alone. Wesley is found on the 1890 Veteran’s Census, living in Malden, Kanawha County, listed as J. W. Estep. Beginning in 1900 his name was spelled as either John W. Estep or J. W. Estep. The 1890 U. S. Census was mostly destroyed by a fire, but the existing schedule of “surviving soldiers, sailors, and marines, and widows, etc” gives documentation of the Estep family in 1890. Wesley states that he served as a private in Company E of the 7^th West Virginia Cavalry from 15 October 1861 to 31 January 1864, a total of 3 years service. This is in contradiction to the dates on his pension application of 1885. His disability listed on the 1890 census was “lung fever”.

By 1900 Mary and Wesley lived in the home of their widowed daughter, Mary Ellen Blount, in the Danaville Precinct of Malden. They may have moved there after Mary Ellen’s husband died in 1888 and Abraham married in 1889. Abraham also lived at Danaville in 1900. Mary Ellen’s three oldest sons, ages 13, 16, and 19 are listed as day laborers in the 1900 census, meaning that, other than Wesley’s $12 a month pension, they were the only support of the family.

The 1900 census was enumerated 5 June 1900, and Wesley died 5 July 1900, according to information on Mary’s application for a widow’s pension dated 30 July 1900.[20] The date of Mary Estep’s death has not yet been determined, but in 1910 she is no longer present on the census, so it is likely that she died between 1900-1910.

Mary Ellen remarried about 1902 to Wyatt H. Blackburn.[21] He was nearly 20 years older than she. Mary Ellen died 4 January 1944 of pneumonia in Spring Fork, Malden District, of Kanawha County. She is buried at the Blount Cemetery in Spring Fork. The burial places of Wesley and Mary Estep are not known at this time.

The Story of Abraham Lincoln Estep, 1867-1955

Many children born around the time of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination were his namesakes. With Wesley’s service in the Union Army and the name selection for his youngest child, it is clear that he admired the 16^th president of the United States. “Link”, as he came to be called, grew up in the new state of West Virginia and spent his childhood in Malden.

After the war, Malden became home to one of its most famous citizens. In 1865 the family of Booker T. Washington, who was then nine years old, walked about 225 miles to Malden from around Roanoke, Virginia. It was at Malden that Booker T. Washington grew up, but it is doubtful that the Estep family had any interaction with the Washington family. Perhaps Link may have seen the older Booker on the streets of Malden, but they would most likely not have had any dealings with each other.

One of the major events of Link’s early life had to be the lynching of his brother, Rufus Estep, in 1876. Link would have been 9-11 years old when this occurred. The oldest Estep child, Elizabeth, had married in 1863; John Wesley married in 1870; and Mary Ellen married in March 1876, after Rufus was killed in January 1876. This left the young boy, Link, at home with his parents who were both about 50 years old. In the 1880 census, Wesley’s occupation is listed as farmer, so Link probably helped Wesley with farm work until he left home.

On Wesley’s pension application he listed his residence in 1885 as Boyd’s Post Office,

Fayette County in 1895.

which was located in Fayette County. Link was 18-20 years old at the time of Wesley’s pension application. On 18 June 1889 Link married Martha Florence Lewis, daughter of Charles M. and Sarah J. Spencer Lewis. They were married in Fayette County. Florence was about 15 years old when she married. The couple had a daughter, Annie Mae, in May 1891, and George Virgil, the couple’s first son, was born in Eagle, Fayette County, 17 August 1892.

Since there is no 1890 census available, the next record to include Link and Florence is the 1900 Federal Census. Abraham and his wife, Florence, still lived in the Malden District in the Danaville Precinct. Abraham was a coal miner, so he may have worked at Campbell’s Creek Coal Company, located at Dana. Link and Florence state on the census that they had been married eight years (actually 11 years, according to Fayette County records), and had four children: Annie M., b. May 1891; George V., b. June 1892; Rosella (Dimple), b. June 1896; and Robert C., b. July 1899. Also living in Danaville (Malden) in the 1900 census were Link’s parents, Wesley and Mary Estep. Link lived in dwelling number 91 (this is the numbering of the house for census purposes, not a street address), and his parents lived with Link’s sister, Mary Ellen Blount, in dwelling number 81. Wesley and Mary lived in Fayette County with Link at the time of Link’s marriage; perhaps when Mary Ellen’s husband, Charley Blount, died in 1888, they moved back to Malden. Exactly one month after the census was taken on 5 June 1900, Wesley died.

"Link" was heavily involved in efforts to unionize the coal mines in southern West Virginia. The Charleston Gazette wrote on Sunday, 2 December 1934:

"Do you remember--When seven strike leaders were jailed 32 years ago. United States deputy Marshals Cunningham and Summers arrived from the New River coal fields having in their custody seven striking miners who were charged with violating the injunction order of the United States court requiring them to refrain from interfering with men who desired to work in the mines and from trespassing upon the property of the operators. The men arrested were Frank Lewis, William Counts, W. C. Daniels, J. M. Chandler, J. C. Whitman, W. J. Shorter and A. L. Estep. They belonged to the crowd which had surrounded the Rend mines on Loup creek for over a week and had sought to prevent the operation of the mines. They were charged with having violated the terms of the injunction. The men declined to make any effort to secure bond and were placed in the custody of the Kanawha county jailer. In their own behalf the men declared they did not violate the injunction, but that they sought by peaceable means to persuade men from going into the mines while the contest was going on between the operators and miners."

In 1910 Link and Florence were back in the Falls Magisterial District, precinct of Harewood, Fayette County. Link continued to work as a coal miner, and they had six children living at home. Florence stated that she had given birth to eight children and had seven children living. Annie is not listed on the 1910 census; she is probably married by that time. Virgil’s occupation on the 1910 census when he was 17 years old was "coal miner".

Children of Link and Florence Estep. Left to right ROBERT ESTEP, son of Victor,

VIRGIL ESTEP, VICTOR ESTEP, EARL ESTEP, JAMES KEARSEY ESTEP,

FRANK ESTEP. Women's names unknown. (As reported by Robert Estep, son of Virgil)

Link and Florence Estep have 11 known children: Annie Mae, b. May 1891; George Virgil, b. 17 August 1892; Mary, b. about 1894; Rosella (Dimple), b. June 1896; Robert Kersey, b. 4 July 1899; John Frank, b. 1902; Thomas Victor, b. 23 August 1907; Earl Sidney, b. 14 February 1909; Margaret, b. 26 June 1911; Edith, b. 1914; James Mack, b. 6 July 1918.

Harewood was a small community located near Smithers. The sons of Devil Anse Hatfield, Troy and Elias, had opened a saloon in Harewood, and in the cut-throat business of selling liquor in the Fayette County coalfields, had arranged an agreement with Carl Hanson, who operated a saloon in Cannelton. An Italian immigrant, Octavo Gerome, an employee of Hanson’s, violated this agreement, and a shootout in Harewood resulted in the deaths of both of the Hatfields and Gerome on 17 October 1911[22]. In 1912 West Virginia enacted prohibition, which would not be repealed until 1934. Paint Creek-Cabin Creek miners struck to gain recognition of the United Mine Workers of America. Three times, the Governor declared martial law and sent in troops.[23]

The southern West Virginia coal fields.

In the coal fields of southern West Virginia from 1912-21 unionization activities were dominated all other issues. Mary Harris “Mother” Jones had been organizing miners since 1897. On 7 February 1913 an incident near Cabin Creek resulted in the death of Cesco Estep, who was the son of Link Estep’s first cousin, Reuben Estep.[24] A train called the "Bull Moose Special," led by coal operator Quin Morton and Kanawha County Sheriff Bonner Hill, passed through a miners' tent colony at Holly Grove on Paint Creek. Mine guards opened fire from the train, killing a miner, Francis F. “Cesco” Estep. Morton is supposed to have said to "go back and give them another round," but Hill and others talked him out of it. Miners then attacked a mine guard encampment at Mucklow, now called Gallagher. In the ensuing battle at least sixteen people died, mostly mine guards.[25]

In testimony presented to the U.S. Senate, Cesco’s wife, Maud, stated that her husband was shot while at home, not at a “tent colony” and that there was no warning of the danger, just shots ringing out from the train.[26] Working ten hours a day, six days a week, Cesco could barely make a living, so while working at Acme on Cabin Creek, he joined the union. Once he did that, he had to move from the company house. He moved his family to a house in Holly Grove.[27]

The Estep version of the story is described by Gerald Lively:

“In Cesco Estep’s house (next to the tent colony) his brother Jim, family and friends were talking about rumors and such, when some of them decided it was getting late. It was time to get some sleep. Maud Estep heard the sound of the train, then guns firing. The sounds grew louder and the men in the house ran outside through the front door. Cesco Estep called back for his wife and baby to get into the cellar. Cesco began running around the house to the back. Just as he turned the corner of the building, a hail of bullets from the darkened train rained into the house. By count, over a hundred bullet holes had punctured the sides of the house. Cesco Estep was hit in the face and died immediately.”[28]

In this climate of violence where “thugs” from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency enforced company law, Link and Florence Estep lived in several coal towns located within a few miles of each other, although in different counties. When the United States prepared to enter World War I, Virgil registered for the draft on 5 June 1917; at that time he worked as a miner at Anchor Coal Co., in High Coal, near Whitesville in Boone County. The Bible of Bessie Boyd Estep tells us that Virgil served in the U. S. Army 20 September 1917 through 21 July 1919, Camp Lee, Virginia. He served in combat in the AEF 20 March 1918 through 13 July 1919. He received Victory medals.

The 1920 Kanawha County census lists A. L. and Florence Estep as living in Eskdale in the Cabin Creek magisterial district of Kanawha County. Link worked as a coal loader in a coal mine. According to the contract dictated to the union and the coal companies by Gov. Henry Hatfield in 1913, miners now worked a nine-hour day, could trade in independent stores, and were paid bi-monthly.[29] Link and Florence had five children at home with them: Victor, age 13; Margaret, age 12; Earl, age 10; Edith, age 5; and James, age 2.

Link was still listed as a miner in the 1930 census. He and Florence lived at Eskdale, and

On back of photo: Mr. & Mrs. A. L. Estep, Eskdale, 1936.

he owned his own home, which was valued at $700. Only two children were still at home, Margaret, age 19, and James, age 12. On the census Florence said that she was married at the age of 14, and Link says he was 21 when they married. Link and Florence ran a store in Eskdale for many years.

Abraham Lincoln "Link" Estep,

age 90 years, taken in 1955.

Florence died 17 August 1939, although no documentation has been found for that date. In the 1940 census Link, age 72, is living with his daughter, Edith McKinney, age 25, in Eskdale, and his occupation is listed as "grocer". Also in Edith's home are her brother, Robert, age 40, who lived in San Antonio, Texas, in 1935, and a nephew (who may be her son), Glenn McKinney, age 3. Abraham Lincoln Estep died 11 December 1955 at Elkview, Kanawha County, of a cerebral hemorrhage.[30] He had lived in Elkview for the past seven months and had been ill for three weeks before his death. His occupation was listed as miner, and his age as 90 years 5 months and 5 days. The person who reported the information about Link was Victor Estep, his son. Link was buried at Montgomery Memorial Park on 13 December 1955.

So here we are in modern times, having come through wars and deprivation, mining coal and raising children. The Esteps came through it all, leaving us some wonderful stories.

[1] Kanawha County marriages, 1816-1843, p. 132.

[2] Federal Census, 1850, Kanawha County, Virginia.

[3] Thomas Estep, p. 234, and Kanawha County Death Records, www.usgenweb.com.

[4] Federal Census, 1860, Kanawha County, Virginia.

[5] 19^th Century Malden: King Salt in the Kanawha Salines, Larry Rowe, Oct. 10, 2001, http://www.larrylrowe.com/malden/kingsalt.html.

[6] History of Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens, W. S. Laidley, Richmond Arnold Publishing, Chicago, 1911.

[7] Ibid.

[8] 19^th Century Malden: King Salt in the Kanawha Salines, Larry Rowe, Oct. 10, 2001, http://www.larrylrowe.com/malden/kingsalt.html.

[9] Federal Census, 1860, Kanawha County, Virginia.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Loyal West Virginia 1861-1865, Theodore Lang, cited in http://www.wvcivilwar.com/wv7thcav/history.shtm.

[12] http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Staff-Rides/2Manassas/2mns-ov.htm, Joseph Whitehorne, 1989.

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Bull_Run.

[14] Application for military pension, 1894.

[15] History of Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens, W. S. Laidley, Richmond Arnold Publishing, Chicago, 1911.

[16] The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3, p 588-589.

[17] History of Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens, W. S. Laidley, Richmond Arnold Publishing, Chicago, 1911.

[18] http://www.shgresources.com/wv/timeline/.

[19] Federal Census, 1880, Kanawha County, West Virginia.

[20] Application for military pension, 1894

[21] Federal census, 1910, Kanawha County.

[22] http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/timetrl/ttoct.html#1017.

[23] http://www.shgresources.com/wv/timeline/.

[24] Thomas Estep, p. 235.

[25] http://www.wvculture.org/history/minewars.html.

[26] http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/labor/paintcreekestep.html.

[27] http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvcoal/war2.html.

[28] http://www.livelyroots.com/things/celively.htm, 2003.

[29] http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvcoal/essays/med4.htm, Gracie Golden.

[30] WV State Certificate of Death, No. 15545.

Estep Stories from the Frontier

2014-12-01T16:22:00.001-08:00

Esteps in the United States

The Esteps from Maryland lived in the Colonies, but now the family, no matter which state they move to, belong to a new nation called the United States of America. After the colonial period the Thomas Estep families branched into Virginia and points west, establishing farms in North Carolina, Virginia, what is now West Virginia, and Kentucky. In the Thomas Estep book, John (the son of Thomas Estep, Sr.) is listed as the “probable” father of Shadrach Estep, who was born about 1760-65 in Frederick County, Maryland.[1] Shadrach is thought to be the father of Joel Estep, Sr. who was the father of our Wesley Estep, born in Floyd County, Kentucky, and died in West Virginia.

Continuing in the vein of blending what we know with what seems probable, John Estep was born to Thomas and Mary Estep, Sr. in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, 4 March 1738, but it is not known when he died or where he is buried.[2] Neither is there any record of whom he married. After his birth, John Estep is absent from records in Maryland which lends credence to the theory that he did not own land in Maryland (no taxes, no deeds, etc.).

Families usually lived near each other or with each other on farms, and when a move was planned, it was customary for one of the sons to go ahead to the new territory to locate available land and clear it, then to build cabins and mills in preparation for the other family members to move. If John Estep did not own land in Maryland but lived on his father’s land, he may not have left any records until he moved to Rowan County. John, along with his brothers, Samuel and Shadrach, may have been the Esteps who first went to North Carolina in preparation for the move of Thomas, Sr. and Jr. in 1772.

In the 1771 tax list for Surry County, North Carolina, a John Step is listed. John Estep is found on the tax list of Rowan County in 1778, along with Samuel and Shadrach Eastep. During the build-up to the Revolutionary War, men in North Carolina were required to sign an oath of allegiance to the state. John Easteb took this oath on 5 August 1778. For 21 years there are no records for John until he appears on the 1800 Russell County, Virginia, tax list with his sons Samuel and Shadrach.

Writers of the Thomas Estep book think that there was ill feeling between Thomas Estep, Jr. and his brothers. Thomas, Jr. lived in Rowan County, and the other Esteps lived in what eventually became southern Davie County, so there was something of a geographical separation. Of the Esteps from Maryland, William’s and Robert’s families seem to settle close to each other, Thomas, Jr.’s sons migrated to Indiana with William’s sons, and the sons of John and Shadrach inhabited Virginia, southeast Kentucky and West Virginia.

Thomas Estep, Jr., is listed as a patriot with the Daughters of the American Revolution. Thomas "rendered material aid" which means he assisted by providing food, horses, equipment, services, etc. to the American forces. The DAR lists his residence as Rowan County, North Carolina and shows his death as before 2 November 1807. Generally speaking, men who were considered too old to serve as a soldier contributed by "rendering material aid". Born 3 November 1730, Thomas, Jr. would have been about 46 years old in 1776. The DAR names three wives of Thomas: Delilah, Susannah, and Hannah M. Cannon.

There are no land records to show when John left North Carolina and went to Russell County, Virginia, but he appears on Russell County tax lists from 1800 through 1810, around the time that Thomas, Jr. died. . By 1810 his sons Samuel and Shadrach have moved to Kentucky, and John is 72 years old. He died sometime between 1810 and 1820. Samuel left Adair County, Kentucky, in 1816 to return to Russell County, possibly because of the illness, advanced age, or death of his father.

Of John’s two known sons, Shadrach, the younger, was the first to marry. He was born 1760-1765, probably in Frederick County, Maryland. He married a woman named Elizabeth around 1780-1784, and their first child, Cornelius, was born around 1785 in North Carolina. Samuel married Mary Lane in Green County, Tennessee in 1788.

Shadrach’s first three children said they were born in North Carolina, and his next two claimed Virginia as their birth place. Based on this it is assumed that Shadrach moved to Russell County, Virginia, around 1792. Shadrach appears on the 1798 Russell County (now Scott County) tax list. In 1799 Samuel, Shad's brother, appears also on the list with Shadrach.

The brothers and their wives were members of the Stoney Creek Church in Blackmore, Virginia, (which is in present-day Scott County) pointing to the close relationship between them and contributing to the assumption that they are brothers.[3] In the minute books of the church, Shad Estep, Samuel Estep, and Mary Estep are listed as members before 1819.

In the minute books of Stoney Creek Baptist Church “Shadrick” and Elizabeth Estep are received into the church by letter on 26 January 1805.[4] Shadrick is also mentioned on 28 December 1805 when the church agrees to send him a letter asking him to make satisfaction to the church concerning a transgression.

In 1805 Shadrach sold his land on Copper Creek in Russell County and moved to Floyd County, Kentucky. In 1807 Samuel moved to Adair Co., Kentucky, and the brothers lived near each other until Samuel returned to Scott County, Virginia, in 1816.

Shadrach left Elizabeth in Floyd County when he moved to Adair County. Around 1813 he met a woman in Adair County named Sarah Newsom. From this point on, Shadrach’s life was, to say the least, unsettled. He moved so often that information of his whereabouts is presented in a chart.

5 Occurrence of Shadrach Estep in Official Records

Date	Location
1810	Floyd Co., KY, on the census
1813	Adair Co., KY where he witnessed a deed, on the tax lists
1814/1815	Clay Co., KY on the tax lists
1820	Harlan Co., KY on the census
1821	Harlan Co., KY on the tax lists
1820	Floyd Co., KY Elizabeth Estep (his wife) on the census
1823	Clay Co., KY received a land grant for 50 acres on Laurel Fork
1824/1825	Clay Co., KY on the tax lists
1826/1827	Perry Co., KY on the tax lists
1828	Harlan Co., KY on the tax lists
1828	Sold his land in Clay Co., gave his address as Perry Co., KY
1830	Clay Co., KY on the tax lists and the census
1839	Kanawha Co., VA, married Sarah Newsom (Elizabeth had died.)
1840	Kanawha Co., VA, census (may have died shortly before the census)

Shadrach’s son, Joel, appeared in the Kanawha County records in 1835, and Shadrach probably followed him there because Shadrach’s sons, William and Andrew, both said they were born in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1828 and 1832 respectively. After his wife, Elizabeth, died around 1839, Shadrach was able to marry Sarah Newsom, which he did on 18 April 1839 in Kanawha County. All of the known children of Shadrach and Sarah Newsom were born between 1821 and 1832.

Although Shadrach is listed as the head of household in the Kanawha County census in 1840, no listing is included for a male age 75-80 years old, so he probably either died right before the census or the census taker made an error (which is not uncommon). At any rate, Shadrach died around this time; his second wife, Sarah, appears on following censuses as a widow.

Joel Estep, Sr. (born about 1788, probably in Rowan Co., NC) is listed as the son of Shadrach Estep by the writers of the Thomas Estep book. It’s noted that it is possible that he could also be the youngest son of John Estep (born 1738) of Russell County because John and Shadrach appear there on the 1810 tax list. John Estep is listed as being excused from paying taxes because of his age. There is no proof of the parentage of Joel, but he seems to follow Shadrach in his various travels; this connection contributes to the conclusion by the writers of the Thomas Estep book that he is the son of Shadrach.

Joel was born around 1788 in North Carolina, probably Rowan County, and died around 1866 on the Estep Fork of Laurel Creek in Boone County, West Virginia. Joel’s first wife was Nancy (Nelson?); they probably were married in Russell County, Virginia. Nancy died around 1830-1831; Joel then married Rebecca Hall on 18 June 1831 in Pike County, Kentucky.

Around 1816-1817 Joel moved from Russell County, Virginia, to Floyd County, Kentucky, and lived there until he moved to Kanawha County, Virginia. Boone County was formed from Kanawha County in 1847, so Joel may not have actually moved to Boone County, but lived in the part of Kanawha that eventually became Boone County.

One amazing fact of Joel Estep’s life is that he is thought to have had 24 children, 12 by each wife.[5] Only three of the children have not been identified by name. They may have died in infancy.

Joel obtained 90 acres in 1839 on a branch of Laurel Creek of Big Coal River. The Big

A section of the Coal River in West Virginia.

Coal River rises in Raleigh County as two streams, the Clear Fork and the Marsh Fork, which join near Whitesville. The river then flows generally northwest through Boone County. David Turner in the Thomas Estep book writes that current residents near the head of the creek still refer to the branch as “Estep Fork”.[6] Turner reports that as late as the 1960s evidence of the old Estep house could still be found, such as the rocks that formed the foundation, some square-cut nails, and broken pottery. A cliff overhang gave evidence of “white man” occupation, and Turner surmises that Joel and Rebecca Estep may have lived under the cliff until the more permanent home was built. When Joel died after the Civil War, his son, Enoch, lived in the old Estep house.

The Esteps pushed westward as the new nation developed. At this time of their history, the family connections are not clearly defined, leaving much information and documentation to be found. One of Joel Estep's sons, John Wesley Estep, was born Floyd County, Kentucky, in July 1825. Wesley was part of the great American Civil War, and his descendents are easily documented.

[1] Thomas Estep, p. 202.

[2] Thomas Estep, p. 171.

[3] Thomas Estep, p. 176.

[4] Stony Creek Baptist Church Minute Books, 1801-1811, Jenny Stillwell, http://www.rootsweb.com/~vascott/church/church.html.

[5] Thomas Estep, p. 216.

[6] Thomas Estep, p. 216.

Estep Stories

2014-11-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

The Beginning

Two major theories exist about the origin of the name Estep. One states that the Castillo brothers, whose ancestral home is believed to be in Estepona in the Andalusian area of Spain, were brought to England by William the Conqueror in the late 11^th century as a reward for honorable service during the Crusades. This theory is supported by the fact that there doesn’t seem to be an English derivative for Estep. The Estep Family Journal cites Russel A. Estep in Estep Genealogy & Family History as describing an ancient Roman family using the name Este. In 218 B.C. the “p” was added to the name after the Romans conquered Astepa, a Moorish town near Gibraltar, and changed the town’s name to Estepona in honor of the Este family. The name was found throughout Europe during the Middle Ages with various spellings and pronunciations.

This makes a good story; however, the facts don’t seem to support this theory. The history of Estepona says that the town’s modern name came from the Moorish, Astabbuna.[1] Agatha, a daughter of William I, was betrothed to Alphonso VI (1030-1109) of Castile, but Castile did not include the area of Estepona (which was controlled by the Moors), so it is unlikely that this was the ancestral home of Alphonso. One source claims that Agatha died on her way to Spain to marry Alphonso[2]; another source says that a daughter of William I (supposedly Agatha) was sought in marriage by two rival kings of Spain who were brothers, one probably Alphonso VI, but she protested going to Spain, died a virgin, and is buried at Bayeux.[3] In either case, the Spanish “brothers”, even if one had married William’s daughter, would not have migrated to England. The wife would have lived in Spain, so it is doubtful that some form of the name “Estep” was brought to England by Spanish crusaders.

The second theory is that the Estep name originated near the Welsh town of East Hope in

Caergwrle Castle, also known as Hope Castle.

the medieval province of Powys. When spoken in Welsh dialect, the name East Hope sounds like E-stup. The parish of Hope is located in the present-day county Wrexham which lies on the Welsh-English border. This area was settled as early as the Romans, and after their withdrawal from Britain, this post was occupied by native defenders. The Hope castle was first known as Caergwrle castle (derived from the ancient British “Caer gawr lleng” or “fortress of the gigantic legion”), and the first mention of the area using the name “Hope” was in the Norman survey (The Domesday Book, 1085). The castle was bestowed upon Davydd, brother of the Prince of Wales, about 1280, and has also been known as East Hope to distinguish it from North Hope or Northop. The name Hope may have come from the Welsh “hob”, meaning a swelling, derived from the rolling hills around the castle.

There is also a village called Easthope in the county of Shropshire, near the Welsh border, which lies a little over 50 miles southeast of Hope Parish in Wales. A search of internet sites containing modern vital records from England revealed numerous occurrences of the names Estep,

Church in Easthope, Shropshire County.

Easthope, and Eastop.

It is possible that the name Estep was imported after 1066 A.D. when William the Conqueror invaded England, and William’s associates moved to Cornwall and eventually to Wales.[5] It's also possible that the distinction between the Estep and Easthope surnames may be related to whether the surname originated from the location Easthope or the importation of the Spanish derivation.

However, it seems unlikely that the name was imported from Spain, and more likely that it is derived from a place near the Welsh border. None of these theories are proven. Possibly all could be true, or none could be true, but they make good stories that prickle our imaginations.

To the New World

The stories of the Esteps are much easier to document after the American Civil War. Prior to that the stories are mostly educated opinion based on the few facts that are available.

In the book Thomas Estep, Sr., (c. 1709-c.1772) of Frederick County, Maryland and His Descendants, the writers listed many early references to the name Estep. In Britain, inquisitions were conducted from 1235-1644 after a death to determine what property a man owned and to determine the man’s heir. These inquisition reports were filed in the Chancery. In these inquisitions is found John De Esthope in the County Salop (Shropshire County). His inquisition was to be returned to the exchequer at York on St. Martin (Nov. 12). This was witnessed on 20 October 1303. In the same county on Ash Wednesday (between 4 February and 10 March) 1306 there is an inquisition of John De Esthope that states that John de Esthope had no heir, but “Thomas, son of Thomas de Esthope, aged 12 at the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist last (24 June), is brother and next heir of the said John son of Thomas de Esthope.” It says that John, the son of Thomas, died before the said John de Esthope without heir.

According to the Thomas Estep book, many Esteps were found in the British Isles living along the Welsh border in the counties of Shropshire (Salop), Gloucester, and Hereford.

Two Esteps, one of whom is likely the ancestor of the American branch, are Richard Eaststopp and Joseph Eastop. Thomas Estep states that it is commonly accepted that these two men were brothers, but no record has been found to prove this as a fact or to prove the facts of their births. Our knowledge of them comes mainly from immigration records.

At age 16 Richard, of Petticoate Lane in Stepney Parish in County Middlesex, son of John Eastopp, deceased, was bound to Thomas Rogers, a merchant in London. Richard sailed to Maryland on the ship Loyall Subject and was bound for 5 years to Thomas Rogers, who was also captain of the ship. The indenture was signed on 6 August 1684 and was witnessed by Richard’s grandmother, Precilla Eaton, and his uncle, Richard Eaton.

Joseph Eastop, son of John Eastop, a deceased glover from London, was indentured to Mathew Daveson for five years in Maryland. This document was dated 26 August 1685 and was also witnessed by Richard Eaton. The fact that the witness for both documents was Richard Eaton, who was named as an uncle to Richard, indicates at the least that Richard Eastopp and Joseph Eastop were related. It is probable that after John Eastopp died and left his sons without any means of support, each boy was bound out as soon as they reached the age of 16, one in 1684 and the other a year later.

Stepney Parish, near the main port of London and the location of St. Dunstan’s Church, was home to many of the people who worked on the ships and docks. There was a tradition that any child baptized at sea in a British ship could claim to be a native of Stepney, and the children were often entered into the baptismal register of St Dunstan’s. The official guide to Stepney says, “He who sails on the wide sea is a parishioner of Stepney.” It may be that Mr. Daveson, the merchant and sea captain to whom the boys were indentured, was a familiar face to them. This is not documented, but only a conclusion from the information known about the area.

A record in the marriage registers of St. Dunstan’s, Stepney, in the County of Middlesex, documents the marriage of John Eastop, of Pettycoat Lane, and Elizabeth Eaton on 2 October 1677. Middlesex County no longer exists as an administrative unit, having been mostly incorporated into the city of London. St. Dunstan’s dates from the 1400s, although the chancel is older, and was the medieval parish church of Stepney. Initially it served the whole of Middlesex east of London, but from the 1300s the parishes were separated.

If John is the father of Richard and Joseph, he probably died shortly before the two boys were bound out which would have been about 1683-84. Some researchers list John Estep’s birth date as 1644-1648, probably based on the assumption that he would have been about 20 years old at the birth of Richard in 1668. No documentation is given for the birth date of 1644.

Because Richard (the 16-year old emigrant) and John (the deceased husband/father) have the same address and John's in-laws have the same surname (Eaton), the immigration records and the marriage record seem to be for the same family. The marriage occurred AFTER the births of Richard and Joseph, which probably indicates that the marriage of John Eastop and Elizabeth Eaton was the second marriage for John, and that Richard Eaton, uncle; Precilla Eaton, grandmother, and Elizabeth Eaton Eastop, step-mother, were not biological relatives of Richard and Joseph Eastop, emigrants. So perhaps this is a “Cinderella” story in which the step-family disposed of the biological sons of John Eastop by sending them to America to seek their fortunes and to relieve the Eatons from having to support them.

The researchers in Thomas Estep conclude that Joseph, the emigrant, is the probable father of Thomas Estep, Sr., but they also indicate that no proof of this has been found, nor is it likely to be found in the future. Other researchers list Richard as the father of Thomas Estep.

According to the research of Veronica Estep, Richard Estep and his wife, Rebecca Ramsey married about 1689 in England and were the parents of Richard, born about 1694 in Stepney Parish, Middlesex County, England; Alexandria Estep, born about 1698, also in Stepney Parish: and Thomas Estep, born about 1709 in Charles County, Maryland. This Thomas Estep was the ancestor of the Virginia/West Virginia branch of Esteps.

No documentation is presented with this research, but if it is accurate, Richard was bound out in 1684 for five years, went to America, returned to England at least by 1689, and lived there at least until 1698 when his second child was born. Then he and his wife returned to America where Thomas Estep, Sr., was born. This is not impossible to have happened, but whether or not it actually happened is unproven. No documentation is presented in Veronica Estep’s research as to the birth dates, etc.

The Thomas Estep book states that no records have been found on Joseph Eastop in Maryland, so many assume that Richard Eastopp is the ancestor of all Esteps in and from Maryland. Dr. Martin Hanson addresses this by writing of the differences in the two branches of the family.

Members of families tended to follow each other from place to place, with names recurring

Map of Maryland, 1680.

among family members, such as John, Shadrach, and Thomas. Dr. Hanson contrasts the differences in the Richard-Thomas lines: 1) the families of Richard’s line seem to have one to four children, and this occurs in the Thomas line only if the wife dies; 2) the naming of the children follows different patterns; 3) men in the Richard line were wealthy land and slave owners by the mid-18^th century, and Thomas and his sons are “dirt farmers”; 4) it is possible that Joseph died and therefore no other records occurred for him, but if he didn’t own land, neither would there have been records in that situation; 5) just because Richard and Joseph were related, doesn’t mean they got along with each other.

Because the Richard Estep families and the Virginia/West Virginia branches seem to be very different from each other, Thomas Estep lists Joseph as the father of Thomas Estep, Sr., rather than Richard Estep. Since the book about Thomas Estep is so thoroughly researched and documented, Joseph will be listed as the father of Thomas Estep on charts included in this work with the understanding that this is not proven.

Thomas Estep, Sr. left few written records before the birth of his son Thomas Estep, Jr. 3 November 1730 in St. Margaret’s Parish, Anne Arundel Co., Maryland. With no oral tradition passed down, speculation is “based upon what we know blended with what seems probable.” From birth records of his children and a court record in which he was called as a witness in a court case, the arbitrary date of Thomas, Sr.'s birth is set at around 1709. The first land transaction for Thomas Estep, Sr. was the purchase of “Chinkapin Forrest” in Anne Arundel County for 3600 pounds of tobacco on 9 March 1746. Other transactions track him through Frederick County and Baltimore County, but it appears he lived in Anne Arundel County for over 20 years.

After selling property in Frederick County, Thomas, Sr. and his wife, Mary, probably moved to Rowan County, North Carolina about 1772. Thomas, Sr. may have died in Maryland shortly before Thomas, Jr. moved to North Carolina, or Thomas, Sr. may have lived for a short time in Rowan County. Records from the Dutchman’s Creek Meeting House in North Carolina, 5 October 1772, list Thomas, Jr., his wife, Susanna, and Mary Estep (spelled Easteb) as original members of the church. Thomas, Sr. is absent from the list, either having died in Maryland or shortly after the move to North Carolina.
The next set of stories begins as America becomes a nation, and the Esteps settle in North Carolina.

[1] http://www.andalucia.com/estepona/history.htm.

[2] William I and the Norman Conquest, Frank Barlow, 1965, p. 180.

[3] William the Conqueror, the Norman Impact upon England, David Douglas, 1966, p. 393-394.

[4] http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/normans.htm.

[5] The Estep Family Journal. “The Origin of Our Surname, Estep”, Vol. 1, pages 25-26.

Election Hash

2014-11-12T11:51:00.000-08:00

Last week we feasted on the main course. Reporters, commentators, and Facebook fiends flew at the election with forks and knives, not only stuck in the election, but often stuck in each other. Reminded me of family dinners where if you left the table for just a second, your plate was removed and someone else took your place, loud, furious affairs that left scraps of this and that on the table.

Those pot roasts on Sunday left some mighty good hunks of beef, roasted potatoes, and carrots. Monday suppers used those scraps to create hash, something similar to what the English call "bubble and squeak", such as the dish featured in this recipe. Some recipes get pretty fancy with this poor man's supper, with hippie seasonings or New York styling. Heck, even our dear friend Martha Stewart has a version of hash.

So here is my version of election hash, a week after the main course, with only a bit of this and that, the nibblings that no one else could use.

I'm both happy and sad: happy that the Republicans did so well, but sad that, once yet again, the Republican candidate in Virginia pulled up short, less than one percentage point away from winning. And Ed Griffith was a good candidate, better than many other Republican candidates we've had recently. It's tiresome having the large population centers in northern and Tidewater Virginia outvote the rest of the state. Stop it, already.

Everyone was looking for an explanation of why the election turned out the way it did. Here's mine: more people did NOT like the way Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Valerie Jarrett were handling things than did like the way things were going. That's a difficult thing for Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Valerie Jarrett to accept. We don't like you. Although Obama's popularity rating is about one percent higher than George W. Bush's was in 2006 when the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives.

Much was made about the fact that the voter turnout was low. Statisticians are still counting up how many people actually voted, but it's going to be close to 36.6%, which is where it now stands. In discussing the turnout, the New York Times came up with this little derogatory statement: ". . .northern states generally have higher turnout than southern states, as they did this year, because voting tends to correlate with education and income levels." Well. Really. I guess I'm too stupid to vote because of where I live. This election left the Times wondering why all those uneducated, poor people in the South went to vote. They're angry and aggravated. That's why.

Mid-term elections, though, generally have lower voter turn out. This election did see much lower turnout, but when the President says that the Democrats lost because two-thirds of the people didn't vote, he should also note that in mid-term elections in 2002, 2006, and 2010, nearly 60% of the people didn't vote. Not that much difference.

Another notation: in Maine where the percentage of voters participating was a whopping 59.3%, the Republican won, and in Virginia where the turn out was 36.7%, a lower rate than in 2010, the Democrat won. There goes Obama's theory.

So for now, we can resume our normal lives, whatever they may be. For a short time though, my normal routine will be interrupted by a knowing slip of a smile. We won this one.

A Place Called Home

2014-10-08T18:08:00.001-07:00

The view from our back deck.

A little while ago. . .no, wait. . .on October 10 it will be 23 years ago that we moved to our current home in Chilhowie, Virginia. It hardly seems possible that it was that long ago that we left West Virginia. We knew only a handful of people in Chilhowie and were crazy with finding places for all our things in our new house on that chaotic day when Geneva Hostetter kindly brought pizzas to our new house for lunch.

In one way the move was easier because Smyth County is not that different from Bluefield, West Virginia. The people in both places hold many of the same values, and most have gardens in their back yards. Both are surrounded by a scenic backdrop of mountains. And yet, many of the people here have some funny ideas about West Virginia. It always makes me wonder if they've even been to West Virginia.

As a matter of fact I've often wondered why the southern counties in West Virginia seceded from the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1863, and our cousins in this land between Tennessee and Kentucky remained in the Commonwealth. Are we not all cut from the same cloth? It seems that way to me.

The fissure between the west and the east in Virginia began long before 1863. To begin with, the settlers who drifted westward were a different kind of people than those in Tidewater. The western settlers were mostly Protestant (German Lutherans and Quakers from Pennsylvania and the Scots-Irish Presbyterians); Tidewater Protestants were mainly Anglicans. It has been said that the people who settled in what is now West Virginia mainly just wanted to be left alone. I believe that.

Issues of unfair tax liabilities and unequal representation in the legislature cropped up over and over for decades. Slaves were taxed at a lower rate than land was taxed, and there were few slaves in the western counties. Murmurs of secession from Virginia floated around in western Virginia long before 1863. The people were unhappy for a long time.

The surveying of the Mason-Dixon Line between 1763 and 1767 by Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason was a major event in the development of West Virginia. Dixon and Mason were asked to survey a border between the states of Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania in an effort to diminish the disagreements among those states concerning their borders. The line ran straight across the south of Pennsylvania, but about 36 miles from the end of the line at the Ohio River, Mason and Dixon were unable to continue the survey because of hostile Indians. This left the northern panhandle, where Wheeling is located, jutting up into the western edge of Pennsylvania. If Mason and Dixon had continued on with their surveying, the line would have extended to the Ohio River, and Wheeling would have been located in Pennsylvania. If not for those hostile Indians, there probably would not have been a state of West Virginia.

Contrary to what I learned in the eighth grade, the formation of West Virginia was not by popular consensus. The idea of a new state was actually most popular in the northwestern counties, and the people who initiated the scheme to form West Virginia were from. . .you guessed it. . .Wheeling. The idea was much less popular in the southeastern counties where most young men enlisted in the Confederate Army rather than the Union Army. After a series of political maneuvers and questionable elections, West Virginia was formed. The southeastern counties, such as Greenbrier, Monroe, and Mercer, were much more similar to the counties remaining with Virginia than to those counties along the Ohio River. In my humble opinion there still remains a cultural divide between the northern part of West Virginia and the southern half.

The southern counties were more or less hijacked into the new state. There was a pretense of having elections on whether to be in the new state or not, but most of the counties in the southeast never had an election. After the war, Virginia sued West Virginia to get some of the counties back because the elections were not credible. Virginia lost. The story of how counties were selected (military advantage, transportation infrastructure) is not a pretty one.

In the late 1850s a railroad was constructed from Lynchburg to Bristol in an effort to mollify the agitated folks of the southwest counties. This not only increased communication and cultural transfer between Richmond and Bristol, it also opened up markets. Southwestern farmers began growing cash crops (tobacco) which could be shipped to markets and ports in eastern Virginia. These connections with Richmond were never realized in the counties included in West Virginia.

So much alike, and yet so different. After 23 years, we are considering leaving once again and moving to a place that really has no connection to home. We would still be in the mountains, but in a place that has no history or traditions connected with either of the Virginias. Do we stay or do we go? I don't know the answer to that question yet.

The mountains of Smyth County, Virginia.

How I Spent the Summer with Tom Selleck

2014-07-20T18:01:00.002-07:00

Well, not the whole summer. At least not yet, anyway.

When I first retired, one of my principles of good living was that I would not watch television unless a program was on that I really wanted to see so that I didn't spend endless hours staring at the big light in the family room just because I had nothing better to do. It's come to my attention that many hours of programming involving Tom Selleck are broadcast every week, and I really want to see all of them.

This began early in the summer when COZI TV started a special on Thursday nights for a month that involved four straight hours of Magnum, P.I. Hawaii is beautiful at that time of the year. I definitely wanted to watch it. After the special showing of Magnum, P.I. was finished, it continued every Thursday evening, and I also found that every evening at 8:00 p.m., the show was also aired on Encore television. That made nine hours of Thomas Magnum available every week.

I take a (mostly) daily walk after lunch, and one day I looked for something to watch on television after my walk. If I couldn't find something to watch, I was going to be forced to take a nap. A scan through the channels at 2:00 p.m. found Thomas Magnum was indeed additionally available on COZI TV at that time. Each day. Add five more hours of Tom Selleck to my week.

Although we've always been faithful viewers of Magnum, I've found several episodes that I don't remember ever seeing. They were from 1985, and I realized that these were the episodes that aired when my daughter was born. We only had one television at the time, and it was downstairs in the family room where I did not go for several weeks until I recovered from the C-section. Not to mention that I had the distraction of a newborn that severely interfered with any personal interests during those weeks.

While I had occasionally watched Blue Bloods on CBS on Friday nights, it wasn't a regular in my schedule. Why not, I thought, catch a glimpse of Tom Selleck as a mature man? So I started watching Blue Bloods on Friday nights. It's a pretty good show. Quite dramatic and intense, but it's good for that type of show. "Please don't kill my family" sent a message for the police officer's children who were in trouble at the hands of bad people.

Early in the summer I ran across a Sunday afternoon of the Jesse Stone movies on the Hallmark Movie Channel. They gave a glimpse into the dark side of Tom Selleck: conflicted, brooding, drunken, yet somehow morally upright, Jesse Stone.

Now, as if this wasn't enough, my husband started watching a movie on Saturday afternoon and proceeded to complete watching it with the rest of the family later that evening. It was one of those movies, he said, that he always watches whenever he finds it on TV. Quigley, Quigley, Quigley. He couldn't stop talking about it, and he showed me how to find it on XFinity On Demand. The movie? Quigley Down Under. So this afternoon when there was absolutely nothing else to do, I flipped over to On Demand and watched Mr. Quigley, played by Tom Selleck. Yes. It was a great movie.

I've become knowledgeable about everything Tom Selleck. I can pick out the two Magnum episodes that feature his real-life wife. I now know that Magnum's birthday is August 8 and his favorite cowboy is Roy Rogers. I see in his work the recurring theme of "cowboy", even in Hawaii, and the attention paid to the Vietnam veteran and the problems they experienced after the war. I can almost date the show based on his hair cut.

I realize that my fascination with Tom Selleck can't go on forever. It doesn't need to. The summer is about half over and will soon fade to its end. It certainly has been full of Tom Selleck, probably more because of the large body of work he's produced rather than my inability to pass up any movie or television show that features him. Here's to good times, here's to summer, laissez les bons temps rouler!

Mercy There Is Great

2014-04-13T17:59:00.001-07:00

Jesus releasing souls from Hell.

The first Christians knew nothing about Easter and would not have recognized the word we associate with the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. The use of the word "Easter" did not become commonplace until the mid-second century, and is found in scripture once. In the King James Version translation in Acts 12:4, Dr. Luke writes that Herod planned to put Peter on trial after "Easter". In Luke's Greek version of this scripture, though, he says the trial would be after Passover, actually, "pascha" in the Greek, derived from the Hebrew "pesach". It makes sense to me that the Elizabethan translation would use the Anglicized "Easter" which most Christians of that time would understand and accept.

Biblical scholars vary in their theories about the origins of the word Easter. The Venerable Bede writes in De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre. She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Also named as a suspect is the Teutonic goddess of dawn (Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, derived from the word for spring), as well as the Chaldean goddess, Ishtar. Since I'm not a Bible scholar and have no way of knowing which of these is correct, I'm going to move on.

I've often thought of what it was like for those closest to Jesus to see him brutalized and then crucified. From the time he was arrested, fear and panic reigned among his disciples and family. Some disciples ran, hid from the authorities, some denied they even knew Jesus. Some followed him all the way to the cross, where he was killed by the Romans as an example to any who dared to think of crossing them.

When Mel Gibson produced the film , The Passion of the Christ, in 2004, I didn't go to see the film. I did try to watch it when it was shown on television, but it was so graphic that I just couldn't watch the entire movie. If I couldn't watch an actor portray the death of Christ, what must it have been like for Jesus' mother to watch this unfold before her eyes? What was it like for John to watch Jesus drip blood from the thorns on his head, the whip marks on his back, and the nails that held him to the cross? It was horror. It was grief. It was shock.

After Jesus was taken from the cross and placed in a tomb, I feel quite certain that no one slept that night, the beginning of the Sabbath. It's a rare person who has not experienced a death in his family. The first few days pass in what most hope to be only an illusion, but as time passes, it is clear that the loss is reality. Mary, Jesus' mother, must have felt that something so grisly and hideous as a crucifixion must have been a horrible nightmare. But it was real. It was as real as the plopping sound the blood of her son made as it fell in the dry dirt beneath the cross.

The Saturday after the crucifixion was spent with swollen, painful eyes. No sleep after witnessing the monstrosity of a crucifixion, knowing that the mutilated body of your son, friend, teacher, brother lay in a stone tomb. There was no hope on that Saturday, only weeping. No one was able to eat in that hopeless grief. The women made it through the day by gathering the items they would take to the tomb on Sunday morning to cleanse the body of Jesus.

Fear and terror obliterated the words that Jesus had spoken to his disciples; they did not remember his telling them about raising the temple up in three days. All was lost. Their only thoughts were about escaping the ghastly death Jesus had suffered the day before, so they hid in locked rooms with the windows shut even in the daytime heat, not daring to step outside the door. Sobbing broke through the dark, stuffy silence.

We've all been there after the wake, that time when the reality hits that your loved one is not coming back. He didn't come laughing through the door, saying it was only a joke, looking for someone to make him a sandwich. He didn't miss those lost shoes that you found behind the chair. He didn't ask for his favorite dessert. It didn't make any difference. Your crying calms enough so that you begin to think about practical things, things like going to the tomb to clean the body and apply fragrant oils. Since you haven't slept for three days, it's easy to be ready before sunrise to begin the walk out to the tomb.

And then the unbelievable happened. Mary saw Jesus standing in the garden. The tomb had been opened. There was an angel standing where the body should have been. Some of the women started to cry again; they were speechless, but some were already on their way back to the room to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard. Women were the first to preach the resurrection.

That weekend stretched the emotional cords of those who witnessed both the crucifixion and the resurrection. And the reason for all of this? Because God could not give any of us away to death and destruction. He redeemed us with the blood that fell from the cross. It doesn't matter what your sin is, "mercy there is great" because the blood of Jesus redeems every sin.

Mercy there was great
And grace was free,
Pardon there was multiplied to me,
There my burdened soul
Found liberty,
At Calvary.

The Burdette Family in Summers County

2014-03-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

Genealogy can be an aggravation. Sure, there are those outstanding moments when you find the name of an ancestor on a document in the court house, but most of the time is spent in searching dozens of sources to find nothing. Zip. Nada. This can go on for years, as in the case of the Burdette family, which seems not to have bothered recording births and deaths as they occurred.

In recognition of the fact that I may never identify with confidence the father of Joseph Burdette, I'm going to write about what I have found in the last 15 years.

Some sources say that the surname "Burdette" is of Old French origins and entered Great Britain when the Normans conquered England in 1066. The name is found in the Domesday Book of 1086 when Robert Burdet was recorded in Leicestershire. There are so many interpretations of the meaning of the name that it's counterproductive to list all of them. A coat of arms was granted to a Burdett family in Surrey. (http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Burdett) As a later note, two men, Peter and John Bourdet, are found on a list of French Protestants who immigrated to England in 1687.

Another theory is that the name arose in Wales. In ancient Gaelic the rounded hill that served as a defensive structure in a village was called a "bur", roughly translated as "bastion". The war-chief in pre-Christian times utilized a special guard to insure his safety, and that guard was called a "dett". See where this is going? As occupations came to transfer from generation to generation, and surnames were required, this special guard became "Burdett". (The Burdette Family of Virginia and West Virginia, Howard W. Burdett, 2001)

Howard Burdett cites Paul Burdett, Jr., who reasons that King Arthur was an actual person, whose father, Uther Pendragon, was the first Christian chief of the Welsh. Uther chose his brother, Ambrose, as his first bur-dett, and from then on, the Christian bur-detts were all of the Pendragon family. Paul Burdett bases his conclusions on translations of ancient Celtic sources plus the Chronicles of Nennius and Wace. Since about 480 A.D Burdett has been a clan name in the ancient Welsh language.

The only way to determine which of these theories explains our family's origin is to begin here in America and trace the family back through the generations until we connect with either the Welsh or the French (Normans). I have not been able to do this but hope that if my searches continue to hit dead ends, someone else's will be productive.

Mary Catherine Burdette sits in the center in a dark dress.

My father, Austin David Ballengee, was born to Lonnie D. Ballengee and Mary Catherine Burdette Ballengee near Hix, WV, in Summers County on 25 June 1911. My father knew little of his mother because she died of dropsy (accumulation of fluid, either from congestive heart failure or kidney failure) at the age of 32 on 9 March 1912. She is reportedly buried at the Alderson Family Cemetery beside the Lively School on Keeney Mountain. I suspect that her grave is not marked; she's listed in the Summers County Cemetery Book as Kate Ballengee.

My father was the only child born to Lonnie and Catherine. Apparently his name was constructed of the middle name of his father and Catharine's father's middle name (Austin David). He had no memories of his mother. He once had a card on which her name was stitched with a lock of her hair, but the card was destroyed in a house fire. After Catherine's death, he lived with the Cales family, where his half-sister, Grace Ballengee, also lived.


Frank & Gladys Burdette, front center; Austin Ballengee, back row in plaid shirt

Before she married Lonnie Ballengee, Catherine had three children, and the identity of the father remains a mystery. A cousin of mine once said that she was told the father was a Kincaid, but that could be nothing more than genealogical gossip.The oldest of Catherine's children was Benjamin Frank Burdette, born 22 February 1901. Nona Burdette was born in 1903, and Donna Burdette was born in 1906. In the 1910 census of Summers County Catherine lives with her brother, Benjamin O. Burdette; her father, Lewis A. Burdette; and her three children, Benjamin Frank, Nona, and Donna. They live in house number 123 on the census, and Lonnie Ballengee, widower, lived with his daughter in house number 118, the home of David Cales.

While little information has been found for Nona and Donna Burdette, Frank Burdette married Gladys Spade (b. 22 May 1905 to L. E. and Verna Spade) on 24 October 1922 in Fayetteville, Fayette Co., WV. Frank listed his parents as "Lon and Kate" on his marriage license. Census information states that over the years Frank worked in a lumber yard, was an engineer on a steam railroad, and as a tipple man in a coal mine. Frank and Gladys had 13 children:
1. Clifford Palmer Burdette, b. 3 August 1923, d. 7 October 1948
2. Alma Burdette, b. 1925
3. Lucille H. Burdette, b. January 1928
4. Katheryn Burdette, b. May 1929
5. Ruby Lehues Burdette, b. 1934
6. Jack Leo "Ross" Burdette, b. 9 December 1935, d. 3 April 1986
7. Major L. Burdette, b. 30 July 1937, d. 17 October 1996
8. Mona Gladys Burdette, b. 15 June 1939, d. 29 March 1987
9. Robert L. Burdette, b. 16 April 1940, d. 14 April 1988
10. Lucretia Burdette
11. Linda S. Burdette
12. Merril Burdette
13. Maxine Burdette.
Frank and Gladys, along with four of their children (Ross, Major, Mona, and Robert) are buried in Patton Cemetery at Meadow Bridge, WV.

Mary Catherine was born to Lewis Austin Burdette and Christiana Fink Burdette on 17 January 1880 at Ramp, WV, the 10th of 11 children. Christiana, who died probably about January 1902, was born in January 1841 and was the daughter of Joseph Fink and Jane Miller Fink. The children of Lewis and Christiana are listed in the table below.

Name	Birth	Death	Spouse
Unnamed child
Elizabeth J. Burdette	30 May 1864	15 January 1919	Henry N. Kincaid
Dicy Lluwellyn Burdette	About 1867		William H. Dequasie
William Newton Burdette	1 March 1867	29 July 1939	Martha F. Allen Emma Susan Grimmett
Malinda N. Burdette	1871
Lewis L. Burdette	About 1873	9 October 1892
Josephine Burdette (Josie)	6 July 1873	25 July 1925	Rufus C. Grimmett
Silvester Adran Burdette	24 September 1875	1908	Emma Susan Grimmett
Mary Catharine Burdette	17 January 1880	9 March 1912	Lonnie D. Ballengee
Benjamin O. Burdette	7 July 1882	26 July 1935

Lewis Austin Burdette was born in April 1834, according to the 1900 Summers County census. His parents were Joseph Burdette and Dica (Dicy) Burns Burdette, who had 11 children. At the age of 22 years, Lewis married his first wife, Mary Jane Withrow, the daughter of Samuel Harrison Withrow and Sarah Kincaid Withrow, on 25 January 1856 in Greenbrier County. Lewis and Mary Jane had five children, of whom two died as children. A son, unnamed, died at about 1 month of age on 1 August 1856. Two daughters, Margaret M. (b. 10 April 1857) and Sarah F. (b. 23 March 1858) are assumed to have survived to adulthood, but no other information has been found for them. Another son, Samuel B., was born 1 February 1860 and died August 1861. They had another son, unnamed, in August 1861, but no other information has been found for him. None of the children of Lewis and Mary Jane appear on any subsequent censuses with him. Mary Jane died sometime before or around 1863, because Lewis married Christiana Fink on 26 March 1863. Christiana was born in January 1841 to Joseph Fink and Jane Miller Fink in Monroe County.

In 1870 Lewis and Christiana lived in Blue Sulphur in Greenbrier County, but their first son, William Newton, was born in 1867 in Mason County, WV, according to his birth record which states that the family was living along the Kanawha River. In previous records Lewis listed his occupation as mechanic, so it may be that toward the end of the Civil War, he moved to Mason County where he could find work. No doubt the Civil War affected the move of the newly-married couple, no matter what the specific circumstances were. By 1870 they had returned to Greenbrier/Summers Co.

In the memoir of Adena Kincaid Fleshman Lusher (http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/j/a/c/Becky-A-Jackson/FILE/0001page.html, 1984), she gives insight into the character of Lewis Burdette. Adena was the daughter of Elizabeth Burdette and Henry Noel Kincaid. Elizabeth died 15 January 1919 of tuberculosis, and in the 1920 Summers Co. census, Lewis was living with his daughter, Josie, and her husband Rufus Grimmett in the Upland District of Summers Co. Adena writes,

Our Grandpa, his name was Lewis Burdette, came to spend Christmas with us and brought a bag of candy hearts for up kids. They were about half the size of my hand. When they were divided we all had one apiece. The rest of the kids ate theirs but mine was so pretty, I kept it to look at. One day I wanted to be extra good to Flossie, so we were playing with our dolls and mine was a rag doll Mom made for me but Flossie's dish doll had a wee mouth, so I told Flossie I would give her half my candy heart and we could eat it. But when she tasted it she didn't want it as her throat was still sore. So we poked it into her doll's mouth, tiny wee bits at a time until it was all gone. Then we both cried because we had no more candy heart.

Our Grandpa Burdette stayed with us a lot. He had two other children living, Uncle Ben Burdette and Aunt Josie Grimmett. So he just visited around between the three children and had no real home of his own. He stayed mostly with us. He was with us when Mom passed away and stayed with us for several months after Mom passed away. I can't forget the day he left. He went to Aunt Josie Grimmetts and I can see him now as he started out walking with his cane. He was real old and soon after that, he died. I never saw him after he left me that day.

As the years passed, Adena's father found that some of his children wouldn't let him stay with them. She compared what happened to him with how her father had treated her grandfather, Lewis Burdette:

To explain what my dad did in 1919, then reaped in 1934 is; He asked my dear old grandfather Burdette, (after mom passed away) if he didn’t think Uncle Ben Burdette or Aunt Josie one had a better right to look after him (Grandpa) than my dad did, and I did not know at the time, but learned later that he had said this to Grandpa. I know now that was why Grandpa left so suddenly that day long ago with tears in his eyes. It still hurts me to this day when I think about it.

The exact date of Lewis' death is not known, but it is estimated to be about 1922. Neither is his burial place known, but it's probably near Keeney Mountain.

Joseph Burdette, the father of Lewis, was born in 1789 in Virginia, this date being calculated from census information. He married Dicy Burns, the daughter of Thomas Burns (said by Oren Morton to have had a brewery in Union), on 7 October 1811 in Monroe County, VA/WV. Dicy was born around 1788 in Virginia. Neither death nor burial information has been found for either Joseph or Dicy.

Ten children have been documented for Joseph and Dicy:

The marriage bond of Joseph Burdette and Dicy Burns.

Christopher, b. 6 April 1812
George St. Clair, b. 1813
Isham, b. about 1817
Elizabeth, b. about 1819
Robert Burdette, b. about 1821
John, b. about 1823
Joseph, b. about 1824
Mary, b. about 1825
Sylvester, b. about 1829
Lewis Austin, b. about 1834.
Research by David Fridley says that Sylvester went to Kanawha County, and Christopher migrated to Indiana, along with perhaps others of the Burdettes.

Monroe County school records for 1831-1842 found on Monroe County genweb list two of Joseph's children in 1836 and 1838: Joseph Burdette at age 13 and 14, and Mary at age 11 and age 15. Their teacher was Samuel Wiseman.

At this point the trail goes very cold. Some researchers, in the absence of documented proof, say the most probable parents of Joseph Burdette are Giles Burdette, b. 1749 and Sarah Dunbar Burdette, b. 1753. Giles died in 1829 in Monroe County, VA/WV.

In A History of Monroe County, West Virginia by Oren F. Morton (1916), the early Burdettes in Monroe County are outlined. William Burdette, who died in 1836, came to Monroe County from Culpeper County and was a son of James Burdette. Morton also mentions Giles Burdette who died before 1829 and married Sarah Dunbar. He lists only one child, John (1794-1882), for Giles, but this history is not meant to be a genealogical study, and most assuredly Giles and Sarah had other children. On the website www.hackerscreek.com, Don Norman says that Giles was the son of James Burdette and was born ca 1775. If this is the case, it's doubtful that Giles is the father of Joseph who was born around 1789. The more logical conclusion would be that Joseph and Giles were brothers, both the son of James.

In West Virginia and Its People, Vol. 3, Thomas Miller (1913), Miller says the James Burdette from Culpeper County died in Harrison County, WV, and had the following children: Dorothy, married Alexander Davidson; Frederick; Stephen; James; and Joshua.

A problem arises in reconciling the differing birth dates of Giles Burdette: if he were born in 1775 (Don Norman's records), he would not be the father of Joseph; if he were born in 1749, as reported in other research, he certainly could be the father of Joseph. There may also be a Giles, Sr., and Giles, Jr. It's possible that James, b. 1729, who had a son also named James, and James, Jr. was the father of Giles Burdette, who could then be the father of Joseph.

In Early Virginia Immigrants, 1623-1666, George C. Greer (1912), we find William Burdette arriving in Accomack County in 1639, and Chris Burdette arriving at the York River in 1649, which is around 100 years before James Burdette appears in the Culpeper records.

This is a skein of yarn that appears to have no ends at all. It's certainly a puzzle, but it would also appear quite certain that Joseph Burdette was related in some way to these early Burdettes. The tricky part will be to prove exactly how he's related to them.

Owl in the Chimney? Who You Gonna Call?

2014-02-25T14:55:00.002-08:00

Darin Handy and his new friend.

This was a once in a lifetime experience, or at least I hope so.

Yesterday evening after about a day of hearing scratching noises in the fireplace, I convinced Larry that we should explore the source of the noise. If a mouse dies in the chimney, I explained, we would have to move out until the smell dissipated. I was concerned. The cat was concerned. She kept staring up into the chimney, knowing that a heartbeat was trapped up there.

So how do you get a live animal out of your chimney? We opened the damper, placed a large storage tub underneath, and kept an old sheet close by to throw over the tub after the animal fell into the tub. That was a good plan, but the animal in the chimney was not cooperative. After a while, we gave up, closed the damper and went to bed.

This morning I gave it a new start with the open damper and a tub underneath. Waiting, waiting, waiting, didn't work. I heard some scratching around, so I got down on my knees and looked up the chimney. A white face stared back. Oh, shoot! A possum! So I freaked out a little and got a flashlight that revealed a heart-shaped white face of an owl. Now how the heck did that happen.

Larry and I looked at each other, what else to do? While we waited for the owl to drop down into the tub, I called everyone in Smyth County who might be able to get an owl out of a chimney. I first called a chimney sweep. Removing trapped owls was not in his job description, he claimed. He suggested animal control. I had to leave a message with the sheriff's office (whose dispatcher, when I explained what had happened, said, "Awwwwww!") for animal control to call me back. Then I called the vet's office who referred me to either the fire department or the Department of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries.

The Department of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries was extremely interested and asked many detailed questions about the appearance of the bird. What you have here, little lady, he said, is a barn owl. Which, as it turns out, is not so common to see around here. He needed to talk to the biologists and would call me back. Then animal control called me back.

It sounded as though animal control was laughing a little, when he told me that this was not his usual call. You need to call a guy, he said, named Darin Handy. Darin is a certified wildlife rehabilitation specialist. So I called Darin, who was really excited about the whole deal. He came by this afternoon and proceeded to think through how to pull a barn owl out of our chimney.

It turns out that the way to do it is to have some heavy duty gloves and wear long sleeves. Then you put an umbrella up the chimney and open it up to keep the owl from trying to fly up the chimney. Then you reach in with your gloved hand and ever-so-gently pull the bird down by holding its talons because the claws are the business end of an owl.

The owl looks a lot bigger OUTSIDE the chimney!

It was much more complicated than I ever dreamed. Darin put a towel over the owl's head while he examined the bird and determined that he was not injured or dehydrated. He then began to reason through what to do with the owl. He called other rehab specialists. We all thought the owl came from the old apple barn down by Chestnut Ridge Road, so Darin's first stop would be to see if there was a nest close by where the owl's parents would be, for the owl was not quite an adult. If Darin couldn't locate the nest, he would take the owl back to his shelter until he felt it was ready to be released, maybe this evening as it begins to get dark.

Darin told us that barn owls do not drop down on their prey as screech owls do, but they fly low to the ground as though searching a grid. They can also see animal urine on the ground as a fluorescent so they know where prey is located. They are the only owls that can do this. Barn owls also have a piercing screech (which was demonstrated in our family room). Darin explained that this flushes out prey when the owl is on the hunt.

The owl gets an exam before Darin gets him ready to be released.

Darin operates All Are God's Creatures Sanctuary in Marion, Virginia, for exotic animal rescue and wildlife rescue. He knows more about barn owls than anyone else I've ever met, I think. He does secular programs about animals as well as having a Biblical creation ministry, and his website is www.allareGodscreatures.com.

I am glad that this is a once in a lifetime experience. I just hate when company "drops in" on you.

The Case of the Disappearing Jigsaw Puzzle

2014-01-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

In the post-Christmas lull with snow and temperatures below zero, I've looked for activities to fill in the space between our doctor appointments. It's great being retired, right?

I finished the book that Katie gave me on my Kindle for Christmas. I finished the antique book about a French Huguenot in Virginia in 1686 that Larry got me for Christmas. I piddled from day to day on the jigsaw puzzle that Santa brought me for Christmas. Actually, Larry bought it for me at the Amish store in Wytheville.

Puzzle-solving is a disappearing art today. It takes some time to put the pieces together, and there is nothing electronic about it. Just your problem-solving mind, patience, nimble fingers, and a lot of time.

Jigsaw puzzles are a lot like life. The first thing you must do in puzzle-solving is to find the edge pieces and set the boundary for the picture. So it is in life also. God has helped us by setting boundaries that will not only bring us closer to Him but enhance the abundance of our lives. Each piece of the puzzle must be inspected, sometimes turning the piece around to see if it fits in a way we had not anticipated. Many references to the picture on the front of the box will help you look for specific colors and patterns. The picture on the box is the guide that helps you find patterns in the 1,000 pieces and fit it all together, just as the Bible is the guide that adds structure and guidance to our lives. As the pieces fall into place, things begin to go more quickly. It's easier to place 25 pieces of the picture than 1,000 pieces. As we grow older, some things become clearer as we look back and see how the pieces maybe should have fit together instead of the way we forced parts of the picture together.

And as happens sometimes in life, pieces go missing. Some questions seem unanswerable no matter how long you ponder them. As you can see in the photos of the puzzle, one piece right in the middle of the picture is missing. Throughout the working of the puzzle, I occasionally searched the entire dining room for a piece. I found one piece still inside the box. Many pieces were found on the floor under the table. I picked one piece out of the vacuum cleaner. It was not unusual to find either me or Larry on our hands and knees crawling around the dining room looking for a piece of the picture. When I was about to admit that the piece was just not there, I found it somewhere, either on the floor or sitting right in front of me, just turned the opposite way of which it should go.

I gave up on that piece in the middle. I admitted that it had been eaten by the dog or thrown out in the trash. It just was not there. The evening that I finished the puzzle and told Larry that a piece was missing, he came downstairs and thoroughly searched the floor, the chairs, the candy bowl on the table, under the china cabinet, everywhere. I just couldn't give up, though. Every once in a while, I went in the dining room and looked up, down, over, and under, looking for that missing piece. No luck.

This morning I considered that the morning light reflected off the snow cast a brighter light in the dining room, and I did a quick look around the table. No puzzle piece. So after I vacuumed the family room, I took the vacuum-cleaner back to its cubby hole in the dining room. As I turned to leave, I looked down by the table leg next to the window. And you know what happened. I yelled to Larry, who came immediately and knew instantly why I was so excited. Yes, there was the missing piece to the puzzle.


The completed puzzle with ALL of the pieces.

Now, Larry has thought for some time that we have a ghost in our house. (I'll not go into the reasons right now; that's a much longer story.) I do not believe this. But he thinks that this ghost was having a little fun with us by hiding the puzzle piece. He says there is no way that we could have missed seeing that puzzle piece because it was so obvious lying there beside the table leg. I say that it was stuck under the chair leg, stuck in the cushion of the chair, or hidden under some of the mess on our dining table, stuck to the wheel of the vacuum cleaner and picked this morning to fall out on the floor. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he will never believe my more reasonable explanation of how the piece got down there on the floor by the table leg.

So ends the tale of the struggle of the puzzle with so many missing pieces. Just when you think all is hopeless, that there is no way to put it all together, pieces are dropped right in your lap by some means that you are at odds to explain. There's a lot of winter left for us to ponder where all those pieces have been.

Milestones

2013-11-22T07:28:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death. Like many people, the most remarkable thing about his life was his death.

If only I had a nickel for each time someone is compelled to share where they were when they heard he had died. They were in school, at work, walking to the student union, cleaning the house, driving in the car. The point is that we were everywhere carrying on our lives when it happened. There is no new story here. Where you were at the time is no more sacred or memorable than where I was at the time. Since a great portion of the American population is younger than 50 years, most of Americans have absolutely no memory of where they were when it happened because they were not alive at the time.

Someone wrote, "Rest in peace, John Kennedy." It's been 50 years. If he is not in peace by now, he is relegated for eternity to chaos and pain. His story is written; he cannot undo anything in his life or his death. It is final.

As for me, I can barely remember when this happened. My long-term memory has never been good. My mother chastised me when she insisted that I should remember certain things from 30 years ago. But I didn't. I know I was in an 8th grade math class when the announcement came over the loud speaker. I know that my teacher in that class was Mrs. Morton. I don't remember how she reacted. We were out of school until after the funeral, and I watched the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and the funeral procession for Kennedy on our small black and white television. I remember that the country stopped everything. That's about it.

It was 50 years ago. In the case of any other people who have been dead for 50 years, we somehow find the will to move on, to carry on our lives, to give up the grieving. We lay them to rest and then go home to have a bite of something to eat.

It's perfectly acceptable to move on from this thing. Perhaps it's our own national psyche that needs to rest in peace.

A Testimony about . . .a Ham?

2013-05-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

Some think it's silly to expect God to intervene in the minutiae of everyday life. It's ridiculous, they explain, to pray for a parking spot in a crowded garage. Why would God care whether the rain holds off so we can finish mowing the back yard? And yet, God cares for us infinitely.

Let me tell you what happened this week. This weekend my daughter and son-in-law are coming home and bringing our precious one-month-old grandson. I have prepared all week for this event, compiling and re-compiling the menu for our Sunday dinner when other family will also be at our home. The center piece of this menu will be a great ham, roasted and juicy straight from the oven for Sunday lunch.

Early in the week during a visit to Food City, our local grocery store, I shopped for that ham. Looking over the few hams in the meat department, I experienced severe sticker shock. Forty dollars for a ham? I thought there had to be a cheaper ham somewhere in Smyth County. So I loaded up on Tuesday and went to Marion, which is home to several grocery stores. But I found the situation to be much the same at the Ingle's Grocery in Marion. Never one to give up easily, I stopped in at the Food Lion, a store in which I never shop.

I believe Food Lion had even fewer hams than the other stores, and their hams were just as expensive, if not more so. At this point I began to feel a little less optimistic. What about Kielbasa for lunch? Everybody likes Kielbasa, right?

There was one more store in Marion: Food City. But I'd already been to Food City in Chilhowie. Would this one be any different; they have mostly the same items at both stores.

I reluctantly pulled into the Food City parking lot. Sitting in the car, I prayed a short prayer: "God, help me find a ham. If I can't find a ham in this store, show me what I should fix for lunch on Sunday." Nothing fancy, no thee's or thou's, nothing holy. Just, "God, help me."

I walked directly to the ham section. All Food City stores are mostly the same, so I knew exactly where the hams would be. They had several. The prices did not take my breath away, so I rolled the lumpy chunks around to see what I could find. The biggest cheap ham was a little over $23. Not horrible. Not $40. Oh, but the freshness date was May 15. Tomorrow. But it was vacuum-wrapped. Surely it would still be good by Sunday. A store employee stood nearby, so I boldly pointed out to him that the ham's freshness was slowly expiring. Could he offer me a discount on the ham?

He hesitated as he mentally processed my question. "Yeah," he said. "I can discount it for you. Sure, it will still be good for this weekend." He took the ham back into the meat department and returned quickly. The price of the ham was now 99 cents per pound; the total cost was a little over $11! I was so excited about the answer to my prayer that I hugged the man. He laughed as I thanked him!

I do not believe in coincidences. I do believe in reaching out to a loving God and trusting in his care. God used the man in the grocery store to bless me and to teach me about how much God loves me. I'm quite sure that if there had not been a ham for me in Food City, God would have shown me another way to prepare Sunday's meal, even if it turned out to be Kielbasa and kraut. God is good, all the time.

And. . .It's Spring

2013-04-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a gray week here in Lake Go-Be-One. The sky was gray, the trees were gray, the grass was gray, the mud was gray. The temperature held at a steady 42 degrees. This has been the most dreary winter, and now spring, that I can remember, with precious few buds of anything. The weather hasn't been exceptionally cold or hot; it has been one, long slog of low-hanging clouds and endless mud.

Paul Farris has not tilled his garden, although he says he has the tomato seedlings started. In a moment of ridiculous hope, I spaded the tomato patch beside the fence. Yesterday snow fell on it, making the mud even yet stickier. Typically the earliest leaves appear on the weeping willows, but this week their drooping, breezy branches hang in a sort of brown and gray desperate failure.

What spring should look like, but not this year.

The farmer down on Cherokee Lane was out spreading something on the winter grass this week; I hope it was fertilizer. But the only tractors out and about have been the ones carrying hay to feed cattle mucking along in sludgy fields. Daffodil blossoms lie defeated in soggy grass, unable to hold up their yellow heads. Yes, they're blooming, but only in the strictly legal interpretation.

There is an old hymn, No. 227 in Heavenly Highway Hymns, a Choice Collection of Gospel Songs, both Old and New, Suitable for Religious Work and Worship, Shape Notes Only. "Beautiful Isle" begins, "Somewhere the sun is shining, Somewhere the song birds dwell. . ." Somewhere else, but not here. Not at this time.

Too cold to work in the yard; too wet to plant lettuce, regardless of what the planting sign is; too cloudy to set pansies out in the pots. Cows struggle in the mire left by daily rain and/or snow, unable to graze on the dun-colored grass. This third week of spring continues absurdly gray and wet.

Wait. What? Never mind. The sun is out!

Missing Irma

2013-03-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

She was the one who stayed home. She went away, but she came back. Her sisters moved far away from Rainelle, West Virginia, and stayed there.

Irma Belle Amick, about age three.

Except for some unhappy years spent in Richmond, Virginia, she lived in West Virginia. It didn't matter to her that she didn't have much money; West Virginia was her home. She was the queen of "make do with what you have."

My mother, Irma Belle Amick Tuck Ballengee, died 13 years ago on March 30, 2000. I've thought of her a thousand times this week. As my daughter nears the delivery date for her first child, I remember how my mom came to stay with me when Katie was born. I don't remember her being as anxious as I have been. To me, she was calm, cool and collected. "Sometimes if you set them up and rub their back, it helps," she told me when Katie's crying would not be comforted. It worked. When I was a child, she was not always so calm, if the truth be told.

Irma Belle was born 13 November 1915 in Runa, Nicholas County, West Virginia. Her parents were Irvin Starling Amick and Lelia Clingman Humphries Amick. In August 2012 I wrote a blog about the family of Irvin and Lelia that has more details about their history, "Our Amicks in Modern Times". http://secondchances-jbestep.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=Ke_5sz0BAAA.DZvkKGyVZC6s-l4lv93XQA.FBNZI1AIimrY63wGDddX5w&postId=767519147010026813&type=POST

Irma was the fourth of five children who grew up in the rolling farmland of Nicholas County. On 25 April 1931 she married Charles George Tuck with whom she had three children: Charles, Martha Jane, and Carol Ann. Charlie Tuck worked in the mines in southern West Virginia, and the family lived in Beards Fork, East Rainelle, and other mining towns. When work was scarce, they moved to the Newport News area where Charlie worked in the ship yard.

But things were not peaceful in the Tuck household, and it came to a point where Irma filed for divorce, which was finalized 10 October 1947 in Richmond, Virginia. Irma and her children returned to Rainelle and lived with her parents.

Irma Amick Tuck and Red Ballengee.

She worked to support her family as a waitress and also as a clerk in the Men's Quality Store on Main Street. A certain railroader began coming by the store every morning to help Irma work the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. On 1 July 1949, Irma and Austin David (Red) Ballengee were married in Richmond, Virginia.

We lived a rather contented life in the Osborne Addition outside East Rainelle, my dad working on the railroad, my mom dragging the box springs outside to clean them every spring and cooking dinner after church every Sunday. In those days women always wore dresses, even when cleaning house, and all meals were cooked at home. It was exciting when we were driving home from church, and my dad just drove right on past the street to our house. "What are you doing?" Mom would ask. "Let's just go down to Thelma's and eat," Daddy would say.

One spring day Mom had all the windows open and was cleaning away in her bedroom at the front of the house. A salesman saw the windows open and walked right up and called out to her. It scared my mom so badly that she couldn't speak. When the salesman made his pitch, she said, "Oh, no. We couldn't buy anything. He (my father) hasn't worked since the fiddle of Mebruary." That story was told for years at our house.

Her sisters and their families came to visit from California, Arizona, Ohio, Texas,and North Carolina. Cousins, nieces, and nephews came to visit. Once Aunt Carrie brought the fixings for tacos in her suitcase from Phoenix, strange food indeed to eat in East Rainelle. All our visitors seemed so successful, but they were really no more successful than we were, wearing our home-sewn dresses and eating our home-canned vegetables. Irma much preferred the comfort of making-do-with-what-you-have in the mountains of West Virginia.

My mother and me at Anthony's
Creek in Greenbrier Co., 1951.

My parents were married for only 21 years; my dad died 3 July 1970. Then began the most difficult years that I can ever remember, for both my mother and me.

Before my dad's funeral, Mom went to the beauty salon to have her hair done. The stylist pinned up Mom's dark hair in beautiful small curls at the back of her head. For the rest of the summer, until I returned to college, once a week she sat in front of the dresser with the big round mirror while I pinned her hair up into those curls. I never saw her wear her hair like that again.

I debated whether to return to college after my dad's death, but I did. My mother's two friends, Merlene McClung and Zora Smith, drove us to Berea. After depositing my things at the dorm, we ate lunch at a restaurant in the town. As I stood on the street watching them drive away, my mom turned around in the back seat to take a last look at me. She was facing a long, cold, lonely winter at home.

Irma resting after cooking Sunday dinner.

Somehow we made it through. She was absolutely joyous to find that Larry and I were going to have a baby. When she came to help me after the birth, she plugged along like a trooper. She took loads of wet wash up the stairs from the basement to hang the laundry on the clothes line. Did I mention that she was 70 years old? When I wanted to do things on my own, like giving Katie her first bath, she stood by to advise and support. She never complained. But she was always available anytime to come and sit with Katie while Larry and I worked. They watched Batman on the little TV in Katie's room; she waited for the preschool bus from Westminster Presbyterian; she read the same books over and over; she made a doll who wore a dress that matched the one she made for Katie.

Irma Belle was devoted to Christ. She did her best to instruct me in Christian ways, and now I can see that I should have heeded more of her instruction. During the time that my dad worked at Charleston and was gone for a week at a time, she and I read the Bible and prayed every night before going to bed. It was a little awkward for me at the time (I was a teenager, after all), but it makes a tender memory for me as I recall her devotion.

As we prepare for another new life in our family, I am sure that she (and my dad, too) would be elated to welcome little Lucas James. I think of my mom and dad even more often now, thinking how nice it would be to have her here so that I could fix us lunch, maybe we would crochet baby blankets together. But this was not to be. She has been gone from us for 13 years; it hardly seems that long.

Irma Belle Ballengee, we miss you still.

Irma Ballengee in front of her
parents' house in East Rainelle.

A Tribute to James Estep

2013-03-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

James Franklin Estep
in 1952

He was a man of a thousand stories. When we visited him, the real business started after lunch was done and the dishes washed. Situated in the family room in his recliner, James Franklin Estep carried forth with stories. Boyhood stories, stories from his days as a police officer, coal mining stories. There just seemed to be a never-ending fountain of stories. James Estep passed from us on February 19 at the age of 92.

There was a question about his age. Records say that he was born 4 August 1920, which would make him 92. But his real date of birth was 1921. He said that he had a hard time getting a copy of his birth certificate because the house in Cannellton, WV, where he was born, sat directly on the county line. Part of the house was in Fayette County and part was in Kanawha County.

Bill and James Estep (with hat).

James' parents were George Virgil Estep, a World War I veteran who was born in Eagle, Fayette County, on 17 August 1892, and Bessie Boyd Estep, born 28 March 1905, in Vanceburg, Kentucky. He was their first child, born 10 months after their marriage which was on 2 October 1920. Virgil was a red-headed coal miner who played short stop on a coal camp baseball team. Reports are that he was quite good at baseball. He loved the Cincinnati Reds and often took the express train from Charleston to Cincinnati on Friday to watch the Reds play all weekend. He'd come home on Sunday night to go to work in the mines on Monday. After he retired, Virgil was intense about the Reds games on television. Bessie came in during a game once to tell him that she thought she was having a heart attack, and she needed to go the doctor. Virgil said, "Wait until this inning is over."

James’ grandmother, Sarah Sally Cook Boyd, lived on a hill side in Cannelton. She fixed “salt fish” for James when he was a child. The fish came in 5 and 10 pound wooden tubs. She bought the 5 pound tubs because she couldn't afford the 10 pound ones. There was a spring up behind her house, and she would take the lid off the tub and set the salt fish in the spring for a few days which rinsed all the salt off the fish. She fried the fish in lard, and the fish came out really crispy. Virgil told James' mom, “Bessie, Sally is going to kill that boy if she keeps feeding him that fish.”

James Franklin Estep

Bessie and Virgil lived in various coal camps around southern West Virginia. They had three more sons: William Edward, born 9 March 1924 in Cannellton; Thomas Vernon, born 31 December 1927 in Dankwood; and Robert Quintin, born in 1933 in Elkridge. Bessie became a mid-wife and traveled with Dr. Davis around Elkridge and Powellton when he was called to deliver a baby. She could be called away at any time, day or night, so she taught James how to cook. He became the care giver for the younger boys.

James Estep and Mr. Carl Armstrong,
taken behind the company store at
Elkridge, which was earlier known as
Armstrong Creek.

It wasn't long before James was working in the mines beside his dad. When he was 16 years old, he sold powder at the company store for Koppers Coal Company in Elkridge. He started hand-loading coal in 1937 for 30 cents a ton in six-ton cars. "I was on one side, and Dad (Virgil) was on the other," he once said. He was never without a job after that. He said, "They used to say we had three meals a day: corn meal, oatmeal, and miss a meal."

In May 1940 the census reported that James worked as a "salesman" at a pool room. During the week of March 24-30, 1940, he worked 75 hours. His dad, up to March 30, 1940, had been unemployed for 12 weeks. In 1939, James had worked 44 weeks for which he was paid $386; his dad had worked 28 weeks and earned $800. The family rented a house in Smithers for $15 per month; in 1935 they had lived in Fayette County. James was listed as 18 years old (making his birth year 1921) and had completed the eighth grade in school.

Helen and James Estep

Around this time James went to work in the mines near Rossmore in Logan County. He happened to notice a young, dark-haired woman walking by his boarding house on her way home from church. I imagine it didn't take him long to strike up a conversation with Helen Nagy, the daughter of Bill and Mary Kvitka Nemeth Nagy. I don't know where you could go in Rossmore on a date, but James said he would buy a bunch of hot dogs and take them over to the Nagys' house for all of them to eat. Word is that James and Helen were quite good dancers, so maybe they passed their time dancing to swing music.

James and Helen Nagy were married in Logan County 21 November 1941 which was the day before Thanksgiving. They went to the court house to get a marriage license on November 19 http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=10222718&Type=Marriage, and Bill Nagy, Helen’s dad, went with them because she was only 17 years old. James borrowed a car, and they went to the preacher’s house (J. G. McNeely, who was also the county clerk) where they were married. James asked the preacher how much he owed, and the preacher said most people gave him $2, so James gave him $5. They spent their first married days with Virgil and Bessie Estep.

James in his work clothes in the back yard at Crichton.

In 1942 James and Helen moved to Quinwood where James worked for the Imperial Smokeless Coal Company as a day laborer underground. He was the leader of the local union which led to some disagreements with the mine superintendent at the time, so James left there and went to Logan to work. He was charged $84 to move. When the Imperial Smokeless mine superintendent left Quinwood, James came back to Quinwood to work. He went to the same man who moved him to Logan to see how much it would cost to move back. He said, “Nothing. That first price was for round-trip, because I knew you’d be back.”

When James called Quinwood to see about coming back to work, they told him he could start on Monday, so until the family could move back to Quinwood, he stayed at the Club House in Quinwood and paid for room and board. The price of room & board included a packed lunch every day, which usually consisted of a peanut butter sandwich with lettuce on it. No coffee or anything else. Each man picked up his bag lunch as he went out the door. One man threw his lunch away after he got out the door and went up to Zerze’s and bought two hot dogs to take for his lunch.

James Estep in his role as police officer of
Quinwood with unidentified men.

For dinner the men sat six to a table, and they were given one piece of meat each, so at each table there would be six pork chops or steaks or whatever they were having served. At the time a tunnel was being built near there, and there were “sand hogs” (men who worked digging the tunnel) staying at the club house. James said that one of the men was huge, “six inches between his eyes”.

A club house resident, Dick Fain, was sitting at this sand hog’s table one evening when the pork chops were brought out. The sand hog reached over and took all six pork chops. Dick Fain said, “You son of a bitch. We each get a pork chop. Those are for all of us,” and the sand hog stood up, showing his full size. He said, “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” said Fain, “I don’t even like pork chops.”

James and Helen at Christmas with Gale Kerns, their
son-in-law who was a POW in Vietnam.

James continued working in Quinwood, becoming a section boss in 1949 and receiving his mine foreman's certificate in 1953. At first the family lived in an apartment over the company store but moved to a house in Marfrance with their growing family: Patricia Ann, born 1942; Rebecca Lou, born 1945; James Larry, born 1948, and Gary Franklin, born 1951. After the family bought a house in Crichton, the family was completed with Thomas Vernon, born in 1956, and Christine Elizabeth, born in 1966.

James was a member of the original Imperial Smokeless Mine Safety Team. On 28 October 1958 he participated with the team during the recovery operation after the explosion at the Richwood Sewell Burton Mine near Craigsville. The Spring 2010 Goldenseal magazine published an account of the safety team http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/Spring10/Mine.html .

Still cooking!

James worked a second part-time job as police officer for the town of Quinwood. Route 20 from Charmco to Quinwood used to be a one-lane road that followed the creek from Quinwood down through Leslie and Bellburn. In winter when the snow was deep, it might be impossible to get to Rainelle for several days because there was no modern equipment to remove the snow. The current two-lane asphalt road was built about 1956. When James was working part-time as the town police officer, a man committed suicide. James said the man’s body lay in bed covered up with a blanket for two days because the ambulance couldn't get up the hill from Charmco because of the snow. He said that public drunkenness was a major problem in Quinwood which was home to around 3,000 coal miners. The town had seven beer joints, a movie theater, two barbershops, and many other stores.

A cousin, Jean Plassard, who lives in Ohio, remembered that when they came to visit, James killed a chicken for Helen to fix for supper. My husband, Larry, said he remembered that when Jean and her family came to visit, they called saying they were lost. Larry rode his bicycle from Crichton to Leslie and waited for them. Riding his bicycle, he led the car to the house in Crichton. After James died, Jean's son showed her a $2 bill in his wallet that James had given him when they visited.

James and Helen at their 50th Wedding Anniversary
dinner.

James and his grandson,
Carson.

Years passed. Children graduated and married. Grandchildren were born. James stayed involved with the Masons and Shrine organization and continued working in the mine. Christmases were celebrated, and flowers were taken to cemeteries for those who passed from the family. There was a son-in-law who was a POW in Vietnam. Eleven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren were born. A grandson was killed in a plane crash. Thousands of biscuits were baked, and gallons of gravy cooked. James retired in 1982, and he and Helen spent the remainder of their lives at the house in the coal camp of Crichton. He occupied his time by serving with the Quinwood Volunteer Fire Department Board and on the Public Service District Board for water and sewer services. But Helen became ill and required constant care. James took care of her at home, managing home health care visits, medicine, and personal care. He cooked chicken and dumplings. On 21 November 2011, they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. He stayed by her side until she died 8 February 2012. Last week his broken heart could take no more.

Sometimes people we love leave little surprises after they're gone. When my husband, Larry, got in James' car to drive it, he turned on the CD player. The last song to which James was listening? Dolly Parton singing Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us. Amen.

Lessons from Genesis

2013-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

In January I had the good fortune to read daily from the book of Genesis. Scripture Union (http://www.scriptureunion.org/) produces a daily devotional, Encounter with God, that I have used for years. The readings began 2013, well, in the beginning, and continued for 31 days up to the death of Sarah, Abraham's wife, at the age of 127 years in Hebron.

The stories were familiar: the creation of the earth, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the tower of Babel, but there was a freshness in them. This happens often while reading the Bible; the old, old stories open up in a new way to teach the very lesson that the reader needs to hear.

It happened this way again as I read about the "fall of man". Moses, the presumed author of Genesis, tells us that Adam and Eve were pleasantly strolling in the Garden of Eden when they encountered Satan disguised as a serpent. Yes, in chapter 3, verse 6, we find that Adam was with Eve when this all went down. Things so far had been pretty good, but Satan could not stand that God's creation was functioning well.

Before Satan could really begin to work on Adam and Eve, he had to soften up their hearts and make them fertile ground for the temptations he had in mind. He introduced the most subtle of doubt into Eve's mind. "Now, did God really tell you not to eat from any tree in the Garden?"

Eve then had to clarify exactly what God had said. Eve could eat fruit from any tree in the Garden, just not from the tree in the middle of the Garden. If she touched that tree, she would surely die. "Oh, fiddle faddle," said Satan. "You will not die. God just doesn't want to share the knowledge of good and evil with you."

Does this sound familiar? The Bible is a myth. The existence of God can't be proven through science. There is no life after death. If God loves us, he won't send us to Hell. Jesus wasn't really dead after he was crucified and that is how he was seen alive afterwards. An embryo is not a person. I can go on and on, because Satan is very good at getting that little doubt into the mind, just enough to mix up the thinking process. Then he laughs.

Once Satan had Eve defending her beliefs and wondering if her memory was actually correct about what God had told her and Adam, he went in for the kill. "That fruit on the tree you think God told you not to touch? Take a good look at it," he said. "It's good to eat, nourishing and tasty. It makes a beautiful presentation on the plate--pleasing to the eye. It will give you wisdom; who doesn't want to be wise? It's a good thing!" First the doubt, then the convincing argument that sin is good.

And the thing is, everything that Satan said about the fruit was true. It was nourishing, beautiful, and instilled wisdom. But to eat the fruit was against the will of God. And therein lies the problem. Life is full of wonderful gifts from God. Daily messages fly around us about all the good things we can have in our modern lives that were prohibited in less enlightened times. They're good things: pretty, attractive, fulfilling, fair. But they are against the will of God. Satan lies.

Time passes in Genesis. We find Abraham with the apple of his eye, his son, Isaac. Young, naive, innocent Isaac. Abraham follows God's command to travel to Moriah to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but he doesn't tell Isaac or his two servants what the sacrifice will be. Although Abraham's heart must have been as heavy as a steamer trunk full of bricks, he followed God's instructions and tied up his precious son and lay him on a pile of wood, ready to kill him with a knife. God intervened at the last moment to provide a substitute offering, a ram that would be offered in place of Isaac to atone for sin.

And so it is with us. In fairness, we should pay the price of our sins; we should be the offering on the pile of wood. But God provided a substitute offering in our place: Jesus. I imagine that Isaac worshiped that day with a renewed sense of awe, love, and appreciation for the sacrifice of the ram that God sent.

These are lessons I learned in Genesis. Satan lies and will make us doubt the love of God. Anything that is outside the will of God, no matter how good it seems, is sin. God substituted Jesus as the sacrifice that we should have paid, but couldn't.

"This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Romans 3:22-24

It's Hard to be Humble on Facebook

2013-01-19T16:28:00.001-08:00

Recently I gave up Facebook. I say that in the same way I would admit to giving up cocaine, beer, or betting on the horses. I loved Facebook in the same way an alcoholic loves a drink of Drambuie. But you get the picture.

When I worked as a counselor, I often communicated with students through Facebook. We posted pictures from our school trips, and quite honestly, sometimes I discovered problems our students were having by their quite honest posts. I found long-lost family members, old friends from high school, and cousins from internet family trees. I had hundreds of "friends". It. Was. Awesome.

There was at times, though, an undercurrent of discomfort. How much information was too much information? Had my account just been hacked? Was that new "friend" really the FBI tracking my political statements? I became increasingly disturbed by posts that other people made, and often found myself wishing that someone would just hold back a little. On some deep, basic, intuitive level I knew that I needed to make some changes.

So I deactivated my account. Facebook said I could come back; they sent me an email wanting to know why I'd left. Holy status update, Facebook, leave me alone.

Eventually they did. Leave me alone, I mean. So I want to share with others, who may be facing the question of how you can be "friends" with, in some cases, thousands of people, five signs that you, too, may need to face life without social networking.

1. Your right thumb is numb.

2. As soon as you wake in the morning, your first thought is to wonder how many people have "liked" that photo you posted right before you went to bed. You know, the photo of you looking extremely good at that party last night. It is extremely difficult to be humble in the egocentric flare of "likes" and "shares" on a Facebook post. If you have a meltdown, your friends respond with concern and advice. Others tag you in photos. It is all about you.

3. You remember things you used to do when you had more time. Things like cooking a complete meal, hitting fly balls in the backyard, knitting a sweater, sorting your stamp collection, or reading a book are remote memories. It gets increasingly difficult to get all your work completed on time because you check for status updates or new photos every few minutes, and Facebook is the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night. Your self-esteem is minimal because you find it increasingly difficult to finish a task; your self-worth is determined, not by accomplishments, but by how many "likes" and "shares" you can get from your friends, many of whom you've not actually met and wouldn't recognize if you saw them in Food City.

4. You've run out of people to stalk. You know you do this. You check the profile of any people you've ever known, from the curmudgeon down the street to your prom date in 1965, but this becomes increasingly boring as you find their lives are just as drab and dreary as everyone else's.

5. You were not alarmed to find that Facebook is running a trial program of charging $100 to receive services that have previously been free. If the trial is successful, it doesn't take much imagination to foresee that the fees will be extended to everyone. You think that Facebook is crucial to your business and/or personal life, and you will pay whatever fees they charge. You have too much money.

I deactivated my Facebook account for several reasons, some of which are not listed here. At first I really, really wanted to get back on Facebook to see what people were doing and saying, but I resisted. I kept busy. I read more books--a lot more books. I took long walks. Time passed, and everything was ok.

If you feel the need to make changes, turn off the computer, stand up, and go outside. The air is fresh, and life is full of things to do where you can meet real people.

The Day of the Pickled Bean

2012-10-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today was the day. It was marked on the calendar on my kitchen wall simply as "Beans". Six weeks ago today I entered upon an experiment to determine a method of pickling beans just as my husband's grandmother, Bessie Boyd Estep, did years ago. I held in my hand a copy of her recipe gleaned from an old copy of the Charleston Gazette. As is the case in most old recipes, some of which use ingredients like lard and fat back, the instructions were not crystal clear, so I did the best I could and ended up with four jars of pickled green beans, two which sealed when the hot lids were put on them and two which were sealed by boiling them for five minutes. All four jars were duly installed in the closet in our basement which is appropriately cool and dark.

After the first week I had a little clue that the two sets of jars were not going to cure identically. I came in from the garage one morning and smelled something "funny". I couldn't quite figure it out, but after a few moments of investigation I deduced that the smell was similar to sauerkraut. Oh, no.

The seal had broken on the two jars which had sealed simply by heating the lids. The smell came from the liquid which had spilled out. Everything was nice and tight on the two cooked jars. I wiped them off and put newspapers under all the jars to absorb spills in case my worst fear was realized: the jars would explode from the pressure of the fermentation taking place.

I checked the jars every once in a while. In four weeks I noticed that there were bubbles rising from the bottom of the two jars with the broken seals. This is not ever good in canned vegetables.

The jars survived without exploding. The day arrived that we had eagerly anticipated. When Larry saw the jars sitting on the kitchen table, he, of course, reached for one of the jars whose seals had broken. He removed the lid and foamy pickled bean juice spewed everywhere. Again, not good. Anytime I cook a meal that doesn't require a trip to the emergency room, I consider that meal a success, and I didn't want to ruin my record with a jar of pickled beans. As Larry held the jar over the sink, he tentatively picked one of the beans out and held it to his lips. Now I did not scream "NO" and leap over the table to slam the jar from his hands and slap the bean from his lips. But I thought about it.

"Don't eat that!" I said, rather forcefully. "Look at how foamy that is! You can't eat that!" So he put that jar down and opened one of the jars with an intact seal. No foaming. He smelled the beans; he tasted the beans. He said to me, "Try one!"

"What do they taste like?" I asked. He replied, "Salty beans." Well, great. All of this to have a jar of very salty beans. Having never eaten pickled beans before, I had to rely on Larry to tell me that, yes, this is the way pickled beans are supposed to taste.

This evening I have two quarts of pickled beans in the garbage can downstairs and two quarts of pickled beans in the kitchen, the result of the great pickled bean experiment of 2012. Bessie Boyd Estep, if you'd been more specific I could have had four quarts of beans in the kitchen. But now I know what she meant by "seal the jars tightly".

Keep Your Hands Off My Birth Control

2012-09-24T18:17:00.003-07:00

The last few weeks before a national election truly leads some people to leap off that deep end. Watching television is like listening to three wigged-out crack addicts discussing the best method of making chicken pot pie. Each of them has an opinion about it, each has repeated their version of the recipe until only key words are spit out (BROTH, PEAS, CELERY SEED), and none of them will deviate one whit from his or her postulates on chicken pot pie.

Phrases are repeated so often (intentionally so) that explanation is not needed: 47%, re-distribution, Bain, fair share, empty chair, words repeated until they push those emotional buttons. One of those buttons that is pushed as often as is humanly possible is the phrase "reproductive rights".

In the Facebook world, I have many friends, a pleasant mixture of young people and retirees, old high school friends and college students that I knew when I worked at Virginia Highlands. I find it interesting in a droll sort of way that the people on Facebook who are the most twisted up about reproductive rights are the white-haired women who haven't worried about reproduction in years. Not just on Facebook, but everywhere that women are given a voice, the white-hairs are the ones who keep re-focusing the topic back to reproductive rights, long after they should have set other priorities in their lives.

Sandra Fluke testifies to Congress
about her hardship in obtaining
birth control.

These thoughts were brought to a head this morning when I received a political advertisement in the mail. Beside a picture of a young woman is the statement: "It's my decision. Politicians and my employer should keep their hands off my birth control." The statement is attributed to Sonya Breehey of Falls Church, Virginia. And you know what? I agree with Ms. Breehey. I absolutely, flat-out believe that the government should stay out of the bedroom. Ms. Breehey should make decisions about birth control, make arrangements to get it, and then pay for it herself. Leave me and the government out of it.

I'm flabbergasted that women of any age would welcome the government subsidization of their sexual lives. As of this very second, I've not read or seen any reports of women who have been denied birth control or even an abortion. All of these services are legal in this country. No one will tell you to go to the rear of the building so that they can slip a pack of contraband birth control pills to you out of the sight of government agents. Access to birth control and abortions is provided to all women without regard to race or socio-economic status. Women can stop screaming that their reproductive rights are endangered.

Not to say that I have never worried about these things. When Larry and I were first married, our income was extremely limited. One of the ways that we managed our money was to write down in a notebook every last cent that we spent. On February 4, 1973, we paid $3 for 9 1/2 gallons of gas. Really. I'm not kidding. And $1.35 for cat food. On March 5 I spent 82 cents on barrettes. June 3 was a big day: $2.50 for Colonel Sanders, train ride for $1.00, and a watermelon for $1.80. I have no idea where we were, but it sounds like we had a good time.

Our resources at that time were so restricted, and yet, once a month there was a payment to Super-X Drug Store for our birth control. You see, we paid for our own even though we didn't have much money. It never occurred to me that the expense should be paid by someone else, whether it was the government or anyone else.

Nancy Pelosi, proponent of
government intervention in
reproductive rights.

How ironic that any woman would insist that the government stay out of her birth control, while asking the same government to pay for it. I learned a long time ago that I'd rather have less that I earned myself than have someone provide for me. There is always a price to pay; if you take the money, you submit to the strings that are attached, and before you know it, you have no choice but to be tied up in the strings because you can't survive without the money.

The Great Pickled Bean Experiment

2012-08-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

First. Let me be, well, just crystal clear about something. I do not like pickled beans. I don't like pickled corn or pickled peppers, either. However, my husband's family likes all that stuff. My father-in-law has consistently "set a churn" of Hungarian wax peppers every fall for at least the last 39 years, because that's how long Larry and I have been married. One of my first memories of being at the Estep house is of Larry offering me a carrot from a crock of hot peppers. When I resisted, he said, "Go on. Taste it. It's not that hot." It was that hot. Cracking hot as I remember and very, very salty. I can't remember a time when I saw Larry's uncle from California that he didn't ask me if I knew how to make pickled beans. No, no, I do not know how to make pickled beans, but Larry has talked for 39 years about how his grandmother made salt brine pickled beans in jars, not a crock, and how good they were.

Oddly enough my neighbor, just this week, asked me if I knew how to make pickled beans. We had a long discussion about it. He recounted memories of eating beans straight from the crock; I told him about Larry's grandma. But I wasn't able to help him with making pickled beans.

I relate to a story I read on the internet in which a woman said the first time she had pickled beans, she quietly scraped them off her plate into the garbage after the meal because she thought they were spoiled, and she was embarrassed to bring it up in front of her hosts. That's the way I feel about pickled corn, which I have made. It really, really stinks.

Recently I signed up for a service on the internet that allows the user to search and view copies of old newspapers, some dating back to the 1600s. I've been scouring over those pages, looking mostly for obituaries but eager to read any stories that relate to family members. As I searched, I found many "hits" for Bessie Estep in the Charleston Gazette. It seems that she liked to read a column called, "Tell Dottie", in which readers could ask questions about housekeeping and cooking, and other readers responded with answers. Bessie liked this column a lot.

I found recipes she sent in for pea salad, milkshake pie, and stuffed pork chops. Then, as if a light shone from heaven, the flickering screen of the computer revealed Bessie Estep's recipe for pickled beans.

"There are two primary ways for pickling beans, and we want to thank Mrs. Ruth McCray of Corley, Mrs. Pearl Wills of Madison, Mrs. Gypsie Vance of Spencer, Mrs. Bessie Estep of Powellton, Mrs. Owen D. Fields of Gandeeville, Mrs. Martha E. Miller of Danville, Mrs. Mack Green of Chesapeake and Mrs. Sarah Hatcher of Charleston for sharing their recipes with our readers.

The first method requires only one step and is quite simple. The beans should be strung, cleaned, broken and washed as for table use. Cover with water; bring to a boil and cook for 30 minutes. Drain thoroughly; wash several times in cold water and let stand until completely cold. Pack in sterile quart jars; put one tablespoon coarse salt on top and fill with cold water. Seal tightly; let stand six weeks in cool place. The beans will be ready to eat at that time." The Charleston Gazette, p. 29, July 1, 1971. The article goes on to describe another method using vinegar and salt in jars and yet another method using salt brine in a stone jar.

Larry confirmed that his grandma didn't use vinegar, and she didn't use a crock, so this has to be how she made her pickled beans. "Are you going to make some of these," he asked. "I don't like pickled beans," I responded. "But I do!!," he said.

So this morning I was cooking beans at 7:30 a.m. so they would cool enough to put in the jars by 9:00 a.m. or so. Things went as well as can be expected. Other than accidentally sticking three of my fingers in scalding water, there were no major incidents to report. It didn't take me long to get my fingers out of the boiling water. Then came the big question. The "recipe" doesn't say whether the jars should be sealed in a boiling water bath.

Cooked or not cooked? Can you tell the difference?

You see, people have not always been so careful about canning procedures. As my neighbor related this week, the canning was done in open tubs out in the yard over a wood fire. And I'm familiar with canning food by heating the lids or other double-secret canning processes that are not exactly legit anymore.

I ended up with four quarts of pickled beans. As I was "fooling" with one of the jars, it made that lovely pinging sound and sealed. Did that mean that all of the jars should seal? I discussed this with Larry, and he said yes, he thought the jars should seal before we set them away in that cool place for six weeks. I said that each jar was like a little stone crock. Corn and peppers set to pickle in a crock aren't sealed, and they last for a long, long time once they've properly fermented. Does "seal tightly" in the recipe mean the jars should seal? Should I cook them in a boiling water bath to seal? It seems to me, I said, that the heat from the cooking might destroy the natural pickling process that would take place.

As things ended up, two of the jars sealed on their own, uncooked. I turned on the stove and cooked the other two jars in a boiling water bath. They sealed. I labeled those two jars "Cooked". Being of a scientific bent, I will now observe the four jars and note the difference in the product of each of the two types of processing. I looked on the calendar, and six weeks from today is October 4. I simply wrote "beans" on that date in pencil.

On October 4 the results of the experiment will be finalized. A major problem will be that I can't tell the difference in spoiled beans and pickled beans.

Our Amicks in Modern Times

2012-08-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

Irvin and Lelia Amick
about the time of their
marriage.

Irvin Starling Amick, the third child of Samuel and Martha Amick, was my grandfather. Born on 6 December 1883, he earned his living by farming and by carpentry. On 27 December 1905 he married Lelia Clingman Humphries, daughter of William and Lucinda Ott Humphries from Pool, West Virginia. Their children were:

1) Leathel Delores Amick, born 6 July 1907
2) Teddy Carl Amick, born 30 April 1909
3) Carrie Mae Amick, born 2 May 1911
4) Irma Belle Amick, born 13 November 1915
5) Marylene Gathel Amick, born 10 October 1924.

They lived and farmed on the Amick homestead. The children helped with the farm work including hoeing corn. As my mother once told, they wanted the corn to be "knee high by the Fourth of July" because once the corn was of a certain size, they could go to Nallen to celebrate the Fourth of July. My mother told that they played in the woods and along Anglin Creek, using rocks to make furniture for their pretend house and using moss for the carpets. Ted caught some frogs, and they held the frogs up by their hind legs, pretending the frogs were chickens they were taking to market. Lelia was afraid of the frogs, and she yelled at the children to put them down. When Ted found out she was afraid, he boldly held onto his frogs. I can imagine him laughing in a Puckish way, making his mom "holler" and "squall". Lelia took the only course she could think of: she threw rocks at the kids to make them put down the frogs.

Carrie Amick Tuck writes in Growing Up in West Virginia, My Memoirs,

Irma Belle Amick,
about age 3.

"Dad was a very good carpenter. He built two nice homes in the area. One cinderblock, two story, for Jake Amick, and another A-frame house for George McClung. They are standing to this day. He and my only brother, Teddy, went away to another town, Lookout was the name, and built a high school house. His tools consisted of a hand saw, level, hammer and measure. Dad was very smart with figures, down to one 1000th of an inch in his head. No one ever knew how he could do that."

Carrie continues by saying that Irvin began "public works" which took him away from home, and when Lelia's father died (1925), she and the children moved in with Lelia's mother, Lucinda Ott Humphries. Irvin worked in Charleston for a while. By this time Leathel had married Ray Hambrick and lived in Charleston. Carrie writes that Ted was allowed to come and go as he pleased, unlike the girls, and that he and his friends met at "Drunkard's Roost", an old barn where Runa Road intersects Rt. 41, to play poker.

My mother (Irma) related in 1997 about how they celebrated Christmas:
"It began at school, a Christmas program centered around the birth of Jesus. Everyone came. The teacher gave us a gift. Mostly a pencil, sometimes some candy, and always a program at church. Everyone took part in it, and at last Christmas Eve, no tree but stockings were hung with the expectations of Santa filling them with a lot of candy, fruit, and nuts of which we only had once a year, if we were good. If we were bad, Santa would only leave us a bunch of switches. No turkey for Christmas dinner, mostly ham, sweet potatoes and the such because it was hog-killing time, and it sure was good."

Irvin Amick, the carpenter.

The children attended school at Runa until around the mid 20s or so, but after they moved to Grandma Humphries', they attended school at Rocky Point, near Pool. It was also about this time that Leathel's first child was born; John Bee Hambrick was born 8 February 1927.

Shortly after the family moved in with Lucinda Humphries, the house burned, leaving the family homeless. When Irvin came home from his work trip, he needed to make arrangements for housing for the family, so he planned for them to move to Dwyer, West Virginia, a coal-mining town near Rainelle. Ted, Irma, and Carrie walked on the railroad tracks to Rainelle to attend school. Irvin was employed as a bridge carpenter for the C&O Railroad. Grandma Humphries lived with them until her home in Nicholas County was rebuilt. After the mine at Dwyer was re-opened by the Tuck family, a motor car ran between Rainelle and Dwyer which was used for transportation to take the children to school. Irvin bought a Model A car, but he had to keep it in a garage in Rainelle because he couldn't drive it to Dwyer.

Teddy Carl Amick

The census in April 1930 finds Irvin Amick living in the Meadow Bluff district of Greenbrier County with his wife and four children, including their divorced daughter, Leathel (although Leathel's children are not listed). Carrie and her husband, Vernon Tuck, live next door. In the summer of 1930 Ted, who was also working as a carpenter at the railroad in Rainelle, was killed in an accident at work. At Ted's funeral, one of the cousins, Irvin Champe, was broken out with a rash. He came to stay for a while with Lelia and Irvin, only to find out that he had small pox. Thankfully everyone survived the epidemic, but the family's grief over Ted's death was increased by the weeks-long illnesses that they endured.

In April 1931 Irma married Charlie Tuck, and they moved to Beard's Fork, Fayette Co., where Charlie worked in the mines. More than 13 million Americans were unemployed by the end of 1932. Banking problems caused customers to withdraw their money from the banks, and more than 9,000 banks had failed by early 1933. By March of that year many of the banks were either closed or had been closed at some time. Banks that had managed to stay open were operating under special rules meant to protect the banks from failure.

Irvin Amick, standing.
Seated on left, Cornelius Dorsey.
Seated on right, Walter Humphries.
(Dorsey and Humphries
not confirmed.)

After Irvin and Lelia moved to the Franzello Building in East Rainelle, Irvin was laid off from the railroad. He had received a sum of money from the railroad because of Ted's death, and through his contact with a realtor in Rainelle, purchased a farm in Waverly (Sussex County), Virginia. He felt that investing in property would protect their cash. He and Lelia thought that if things got worse economically at least they could grow food on the farm, which also had a two-story house and a store on the property that sold goods to local farmers. Irma and Charlie Tuck moved back to East Rainelle before Charles, Jr. was born in 1932; they stayed in West Virginia, but Marylene; Carrie and Vernon and their young daughter, Alice; and Leathel and her two young children made the move with Irvin and Lelia.

Shortly after the family moved, Irvin was miraculously called back to work on the railroad. For a while, Irvin worked in Rainelle while the family lived on the farm in Waverly. Lelia ran the farm and store mostly on her own, with family help and hired help. In 1933 a whooping cough epidemic caused the death of Carrie's young baby, Roselyn. Marylene and Alice, Carrie's other daughter, also suffered with the illness, but they survived it.

Leathel returned to Dwyer with her two children, and on 14 October 1935, she married Pat Tuck. On 11 June 1936 Pat was killed by a slate fall while working in the mine in Dwyer. The story is told that Leathel heard the whistle blow at the mine, meaning that there had been an accident. She started out the back door, but the door stuck as if someone were holding it and sticking their foot in the door. Leathel said, "Oh, Pat, quit!" It wasn't long before someone came to the house to tell her of Pat's death. After this, Leathel moved back to the farm in Waverly.

The farm and the store became too much for Lelia to handle on her own, so she moved back to East Rainelle, where she and Irvin had an apartment over Blair's Jewelry Store until they could sell the farm. Marylene enrolled in school, and Irvin continued working for the railroad. Carrie and Vernon stayed at Waverly, along with Leathel who enrolled in beauty school in Richmond, while her children stayed with Carrie and Vernon.

Mary Lelia and Leathel
Amick Fitzwater.

Somehow Leathel reconnected with an old school friend, John Fitzwater, who was in the Navy. Carrie and Vernon took Leathel and her children back to Rainelle, where she and John were married on 26 June 1939 in Covington, Allegheny County, Virginia. They settled in San Diego, California.

The 1940 census shows that the Amick family was spreading across the United States:
1) Carrie and Vernon lived in Waverly with Alice, their daughter. Vernon was a truck driver. He worked 40 hours a week and had made $500 in 1939. They lived on Route 621.
2) Irma and Charlie Tuck lived in East Rainelle on 10th Street with their son, Charles, Jr. Charlie was a miner, worked 35 hours a week, and had made $800 in 1939.
3) Irvin and Lelia also lived in East Rainelle, along with Marylene, who was 15 years old, on Main Street. Irvin was a bridge carpenter on the railroad, worked 40 hours a week, and had made $1300 in 1939.
4) John E. and Leathel Fitzwater lived on 17th Street in San Diego, California, with their children, John B. Hambrick (age 13), Ladorma Lea Hambrick (age 10), and Mary L. Fitzwater, less than one year old. John was a machinist in the U.S. Navy and earned $1032 in 1939. Leathel had worked 44 weeks in 1939 to earn $528.

Carrie and Vernon Tuck

When Irvin sold the farm, Carrie and Vernon moved to Stony Creek, Virginia, where Marylene came to live with them. She worked at Freeman's Feed and Hardware Store. As World War II progressed, jobs became more plentiful, and Vernon went to work at Dupont in Richmond. Marylene also found work at Dupont.

It was in Richmond that Marylene met William Coleman Rountree. They married there, and their first child, Bill Rountree, was born there. Later they moved to North Carolina. Carrie and Vernon moved to Arizona.

Charlie Tuck also moved to Virginia to obtain work at the beginning of World War II. He worked in the ship yards at Newport News. He and Irma lived there with their three children: Charles, Jr., Martha Jane, and Carol Ann. When their marriage ended on 10 October 1947 in Richmond, Irma and her children moved back to East Rainelle and lived with Irvin and Lelia. The apartment over the jewelry store was crowded, and Irvin and Lelia bought a house on what is now Hughart Street to better accommodate the family. Irma worked as a waitress and also as a clerk in the Men's Quality Store on Main Street. A railroader named Austin "Red" Ballengee began coming in the store in the mornings to help her work the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. They were married on 1 July 1949 at the Central Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. They also lived in an apartment in East Rainelle until Red built their home in the Osborne Addition about 1951, after the birth of their child, Janet, in 1950.

Irvin Amick working on the
addition to the house in East
Rainelle.

This left Irvin and Lelia living in their new home in East Rainelle after Irvin retired from the railroad. They built additional rooms onto the back of the house about 1953. The new section would become their home, and they rented the front part of the house. Lelia walked to the A & P on Main Street to shop for groceries or to the G. C. Murphy Five and Dime for all those extra household needs. Flint's Hardware and Alder's Hardware were close, as well as several clothing stores, small groceries, and drug stores. A benefit of retiring from the railroad was that Irvin had lifetime passes for him and Lelia, and they took advantage of the passes to ride the train out West in the winter months. They spent time with Carrie in Phoenix and Leathel in San Diego until the warm weather returned to West Virginia in the spring.

Lelia's sister, Sadie Humphries Dorsey, was widowed and lived with her daughter in Quinwood. Sadie's husband, Cornelius (Neely) Dorsey, was killed in a timbering accident 14 December 1928, and she had raised her eight children alone. Sadie and Lelia were very close, and Sadie stayed at the Amick home quite often. Games of canasta, croquet, and Chinese checkers filled the hours. I remember one croquet game at the home of Emerson and Elsie Amick in Oak Hill that required flood lights to be hooked up because the game went on until midnight. No one was willing to give up even after the sun went down! Sadie and Lelia often traveled together to visit family.

Irma Ballengee standing
by the roses at her
parents' house in
East Rainelle.

Irvin (or Granddad, as we called him) liked to walk the grandchildren up the street to Vance's service stations for a "pop". Although I don't remember this, my sister, Carol, recalled that when he asked you what kind of pop you wanted, no matter what you asked for, he always got you an orange pop. I do remember sitting on the swing on the porch of their house with him. He asked if I knew how to spell "gnat". Then he pulled a small dictionary from his shirt pocket and showed me in the dictionary how "gnat" actually did start with the letter "g". He loved reading western novels, sitting in his chair by the front window with his leg thrown over the chair arm; he loved going west where the cowboys roamed. He was the first person I ever saw eat a peach with the fuzzy skin still on it. I was amazed that you could eat the peel, and I still do, often reminded of him. He chewed tobacco, and once on a car trip to North Carolina to see Marylene, when we passed a scraggly, pitiful-looking patch of tobacco, he said that that patch was Five Brothers chewing tobacco (a cheap brand). Firmly believing in the Democratic platform that brought the country through the Depression, he had a framed picture of FDR hanging on his bedroom wall. He kept a perpetual game of solitaire going on the dining table, and when the cards stuck together, he sprinkled talcum powder on them to keep them easier to deal.

Left to right: Sadie Dorsey, Lelia Amick, Irvin Amick.
Sightseeing on a trip to the West.

In 1962 Irvin was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 78. He died 30 September 1962 at the hospital in Ronceverte. He is buried in the Dorsey Cemetery near Runa, where Teddy Carl Amick is also buried. Lelia continued to live in East Rainelle. Aunt Sadie stayed with her quite a bit. Around 1968 failing health caused Lelia to sell her home, and she went to live with her daughter, Marylene, in North Carolina. In 1969 Carrie took her to Phoenix to live with her. Lelia died 4 October 1969 of cancer and is also buried in Dorsey Cemetery.

The picture below is a rare image of many of the Amick family members together. Although it was technically not a good picture, I've tried to "remedy" it to capture the faces that are floating there in time. I'm not able to identify all the people, but some of them I recognize, and some of them I "think" I recognize. And so I've finally come to the end of my summary of the history of our Amick family. This is by no means a complete and detailed history; I have plenty more stories to tell, but this remembrance is meant to ensure that the loves, sacrifices, tears, and smiles of our Amicks are not forgotten.

Child on lap is Bill Rountree, born in December 1946, which helps to date the picture.
He is sitting on Irvin Amick's lap. Lelia is the woman standing to the
left in the flowered dress. The girl beside her may be Martha Tuck, and the
younger girl beside her is Carol Ann Tuck. Behind her I believe is Alice Tuck.
Carrie Amick Tuck is sitting beside Carol. The man who is barely visible
behind Carrie, may be William C. Rountree. The woman beside
him is my mother, Irma, and the woman beside her may be Marylene.
I do not know the identity of the two children who are seated on the left.

Our Amick Family on Anglin's Creek

2012-08-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

In this last part of "The Amick Trilogy" the family will spend more than 100 years along Anglin's Creek before spreading out across the nation. The Amicks from Pennsylvania and South Carolina had already pioneered across Kentucky, Missouri, and Illinois, but somehow our branch was planted firmly in Nicholas County, Virginia, soon to become West Virginia.

Jacob Amick, Sr., and his brother, John Amick, left Pendleton County to amass hundreds of acres of land in Nicholas County. By the time Jacob arrived in Nicholas County he had obtained land in Pendleton County, married Rachel Shroyer, and served in the War of 1812. In the extensive pension application that Rachel Amick submitted after Jacob died, there was confusion as to where Jacob served. By looking for further pension applications, I determined that another Jacob Amick living in Frederick County had served in Captain Mastin's company, and that the Nicholas County Jacob Amick, living in Pendleton County at the time, had served from February 1815 to April 1815 in Lt. John Bowers' company, as Rachel had stated on her application.

In A Guide to Virginia Militia Units in the War of 1812 (2011), Stuart Butler tells us that all able-bodied white males between the ages of 18 and 45 were required to enroll in militia districts. Usually twice a year the units mustered at a courthouse, tavern, or church where they trained for about two hours. If called to active service, a lottery system determined which soldiers were called up. This is the probable explanation for Jacob's late entry into the war: his number did not come up until 1815.

The War of 1812 was ended by the Treaty of Ghent on 24 December 1814. News of this treaty didn't reach the United States until January 1815; the treaty was signed by President James Madison and approved by the U. S. Senate on 17 February 1815. The Governor of Virginia, who controlled the militia units, ordered the units marching to Norfolk at that time to immediately muster out and return home. Considering the dates of Jacob's enlistment, he may have been among those troops at the end of the war.

Henrietta Boley Amick,
ca. 1924.

By 1850 Jacob and Rachel are settled in Nicholas County where we find them on the census with three of their children still living with them: Jacob, Jr., age 23 (who was a farmer and had real estate valued at $200), Rachael, age 20, and Polly, age 17 (a twin with Arthur). In 1854, Jacob, Jr.'s first cousin (son of John Amick) married Mildred Boley of Monroe County. Two years later Jacob, Jr. married Mildred's sister, Henrietta Boley, in Allegheny County, which neighbors Monroe County. Henrietta, born in April 1838, was the daughter of Blueford Boley and Martha Howard Boley of Monroe County.

Jacob and Henrietta were married 12 September 1856, and just before the Civil War, they are found in Nicholas County in the Wilderness District with their two oldest sons, Samuel and Floyd, two other children, Sylus Herell and Enoch Herell, and Jacob's sister, Rachael, who is listed as a domestic. Jacob has real estate worth $3000 and personal property worth $1000. Next door neighbors included Asa and Mildred Amick and Jacob and Rachael Amick. Another son, Aaron, was born in 1861.

When war broke out Jacob answered the call of the Confederate states by enlisting in Company K of the 14th Cavalry Regiment at Lewisburg. This unit was also known as the "Greenbrier Swifts" or Greenbrier Cavalry #2 under the command of Captain Benjamin F. Eakle from Greenbrier County. Although there are more than one Jacob Amick in Virginia at the time, Jacob, Jr. is the only one of military age in 1862. Muster records show that Jacob enlisted on 22 January 1862 and was discharged 16 July under the Conscription Act. The 14th Cavalry fought in western Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley before it was disbanded in 1865. The field officers were Colonels James Cochran and Charles E. Thorburn, Lt. Colonels Robert A. Bailey and John A. Gibson, and Majors B. Frank Eakle and George Jackson.

One of the muster rolls
showing Jacob Amick
to be paid for service
in 1862.

The children of Jacob and Henrietta Amick were:
1) Samuel Amick, born 5 June 1857
2) Floyd Amick, born 12 October 1859
3) Aaron Amick, born 1861
4) Dennis Amick, born 1863
5) Henry Amick, born 7 September 1865
6) Mary Amick, born 3 February 1868
7) Sarah Amick, born 1870
8) Eliza Jane Amick, born 8 October 1872
9) Stewart B. Amick, born 25 February 1875
10) Elizabeth Ann Amick, 30 July 1877
11) Rosa Boley Amick, born 4 November 1880.

My mother, Irma Amick Ballengee, was old enough to remember Henrietta Amick. She said that Henrietta was called "Little Grandma" and that up into her old age (she was nearly 91 years old when died) she could out walk most of the family over the hills of Nicholas County.

Pleasant Hill United Methodist
Church, 2007.

Among the many land transactions for all the Amicks in Nicholas County is a deed dated 22 January 1894 from Jacob and Henrietta Amick to Silas Boley, William Pitsenbarger, Floyd Amick, John Richardson, and William O'Dell, who were trustees for the Methodist Episcopal Church South. This tract of land in Runa was "for and in consideration of the love they have for said church" and "with covenants of special warranties". The land consisted of one acre where Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church now stands. My mother said that the first church sat closer to the road on the side opposite the cemetery, and that Jacob Amick sold a team of horses to get money to build the church. Pleasant Hill was often referred to as "the Amick church".

Photo taken at Pleasant Hill Methodist Church ca. 1924. This photo includes my mother, my grandparents,
my great-grandparents, and my great-great grandmother.

The last child of Jacob and Henrietta was Rosa Boley Amick, born 4 November 1880 when Henrietta was 42 years old. She also had a five-year-old and a three-year-old at the time (Stewart and Elizabeth Ann). Jacob and Henrietta are found on the 1900 Nicholas County census; he is 73 years old, and she is 62. In 1909 Jacob died on August 11 of "old age".

Henrietta lived with her son, Samuel, and his wife, Martha, in the 1920 census. She died 6 February 1929 of "old age" at 97 years old at Nallen in Fayette County. Jacob and Henrietta are both buried in the cemetery at Pleasant Hill Methodist Church.

Their oldest child, Samuel Amick, was born before the Civil War began, and lived his entire life on Anglin's Creek. He married Martha Jane Dorsey, daughter of Alex and Adeline Ewing Amick, on 14 February 1879.

Children of Samuel and Martha Amick
Name	Date Born	Spouse	Date Died
Newman A. Amick	December 1879	None	20 February 1887
Jacob Frank Amick	8 October 1881	Stella Massie	7 July 1949
Irvin Starling Amick	6 December 1883	Lelia Clingman Humphries	30 September 1962
Luverna Amick	27 November 1884	James Nathan Deitz	7 June 1968
Lovie Amick	6 December 1885	Unknown	Unknown
Elizabeth Ethel Amick	7 October 1887	Burpee Jackson Champe	11 April 1970
Emerson Walker Amick	22 July 1892	Elsie M. Humphries	23 June 1966
Arthur Henry Amick	October 1893	First. Lola Moore Second. Julia Neff	28 October 1972
Albert Luther Amick	1 March 1898	Freda Virginia Tomlin	13 December 1961
Lila Emma Amick	1 June 1901	First. George Lewis Pitsenbarger Second. Burton Clifton Richmond	20 October 1959
Mary Amick	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown

Martha Jane Dorsey Amick,
daughter of Alex and Adeline
Dorsey.

In 1880 the census shows Samuel and Martha living next to her parents, Alex and Adeline Dorsey. In 1887, when their oldest son, Newman, was seven years old, he died of diphtheria. By 1900 their family had grown to six children living at home, with Irvin, the oldest one at home. Frank apparently had moved away from home, and in December of that year he married Stella Massie. In 1910 Frank is shown in the Wilderness District operating a store. Amicks populate the entire neighborhood, and Samuel and Martha are there, also, with three children remaining at home, Arthur, Albert, and Delila. They remain in the same home in 1920. All the children are gone, and Henrietta Amick lives with them. Next door is their son, Irvin, and his wife, Lelia, with four children. Samuel is the head of the household in the 1930 census; his son, Arthur, and his family are also living in the home along with Martha's 89-year-old father, Alex Dorsey. In 1940 Arthur is listed as the head of the household with his family and the 83-year-old Samuel and Martha in the home. I believe that Arthur lived in the Amick home place until his death in 1972.

Samuel died 6 December 1942 in Greenwood in Fayette County. Martha died 11 February 1946 in Minden, Fayette County. Both are buried in the cemetery at Pleasant Hill.

Anglin's Creek and Beyond, Part 2

2012-08-06T16:27:00.001-07:00

In my most recent blog, I described Jacob Amick, Sr's, participation in the War of 1812, including a review of the 100 page application made by his widow for a pension based on his service in the military. There were several discrepancies in the 100 pages of the application, and one of the discrepancies was the date of his service and the name of the commander of his company.

Further review of the application revealed that not only I, but also the Federal Government was quite confused. In his application in 1854 for the 40 acres of land due to him as a land bounty, Jacob wrote that he served in John Bower's company from February 1815 to April 1815 and was discharged at Moorefield. A bureaucrat responded that there was no listing for John Bower, but Jacob Amick is found on the muster roll of Capt. Francis Mastin's company from September 1814 to November 1814.

The answer to this question is that the Jacob Amick in Capt. Mastin's company lived in Frederick County, Virginia, and mustered into service in Winchester, Virginia. There were two Jacob Amicks.

A search for the company of John Bower has not revealed any muster lists or history of the service of the company, but be it resolved that the Jacob Amick, Sr., who lived in Pendleton County and later moved to Nicholas County served only once in the War of 1812. His term of service was actually after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed; he served in 1815, even after the Battle of New Orleans. Leave it to the Bureau of Pensions to be eternally confused by the existence of two soldiers with the same name.

Anglin's Creek and Beyond

2012-08-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Johan Georg Amick in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was only one among several immigrants to America named Amick (Emig, Emich, Ihmig, etc.) In York County, Pennsylvania, there lived another Amick family who immigrated to America: Johannes Emig and his wife, Dorothea Rotter. Johannes was born in 1722 in Alsace-Lorraine, and his relationship to Johan Georg is unknown. If I were to research the European roots of Johan Georg of Bucks County, I would begin in Unterhoffen, the ancestral home of Johannes of York County. A southern branch of Amicks descends from Johan Conradt Emig, who is said to be the son of Johann Georg Emig. Conrad Amick immigrated to South Carolina, and I've wondered if all three of the Emig immigrants mentioned might not be related and possibly all be children of Johann Georg Emig. The dates of marriages and births certainly indicate that all of the immigrants could be of the same generation.

I don't have the time or the energy to write about the global Amick family, so I will follow Johan Georg's children from Pennsylvania down to Pendleton County, Virginia, and then on to Anglin's Creek in Nicholas County. Henry Amick, grandson of Johan Georg, left Bucks County around 1790 to move his family to Pendleton County. He had served in the militia in the Revolutionary War, operated his father's mill when he inherited it, and had at least three children by the time of his move. His son, Jacob Amick, Sr., was born in Pennsylvania in 1789; another son, John, was born 6 September 1790 in Pendleton County.

Certificate awarding 40 acres to Jacob Amick
for service in the War of 1812. From www.fold3.com.

From military pension records, we know that Jacob Amick was drafted into the Virginia Militia in Pendleton County during the War of 1812. His pension file is a mammoth 100 pages long, and despite the numerous affidavits, testimonies, and written accounts, the dates do not always agree. One record states that Jacob served from Sept. 1814 to Nov. 24 1814; the British burned Washington, D. C. on 24 August 1814, and that may have influenced his enlistment (either he was motivated to defend his country, or the country was motivated to draft more soldiers). The Treaty of Ghent was signed on 24 December 1814, but the war continued (Battle of New Orleans) until January 1815. Another record says Jacob was drafted 13 February 1815 at Franklin and continued in service for 14 days before being discharged at Moorefield in Hardy County in April 1815. It's possible that he served two enlistments, and he was discharged in 1815 after the Americans beat the British at New Orleans. In support of this theory, the land bounty certificate above states that he served in two different companies.

On 5 June 1814, three months before he enlisted in the militia, Jacob married Rachel Shroyer in Pendleton County. Rachel is reported to have been born in 1797 near Dahmer in Pendleton County. Things may have been a little crowded on the Amick homeplace. After Jacob's mother died about 1809, his father married a woman, supposedly much younger than he was, about 1810. They had a daughter shortly after. The 1810 census in Pendleton County shows Henry "Eamick" with five children younger than five years, one daughter age 10-15, three sons ages 16-25, and both a man and a woman older than 45 years (Henry and his new wife, Catharine).

Jacob's brother, Nicholas, had left about 1797 for Kentucky, and in the years after their mother's death, several of the other Amick children began moving on. Children of Henry and Barbara Amick relocated to Nicholas County, WV, Fayette County, WV, Atchison Co., Kansas, and Spencer County, Indiana. Henry Amick, Jr.(on the 1820 Pendleton County census) followed his brothers to Nicholas County, but he was not found in county records in later years.

Nicholas County was formed in 1818 from parts of Greenbrier, Kanawha, and Randolph Counties. Both John and Jacob Amick are listed on the Nicholas County census in 1820. Jacob Amick is found on the 1830 census, which was enumerated on June 1 of that year, in BOTH Pendleton and Nicholas County (his father, Henry, is also listed in the 1830 Pendleton census). The 1830 Nicholas County census lists John Amick and John Amick, Sr.

Jacob received a land grant of 80 acres there on 20 June 1823. Other land grants were awarded on 7 June 1824 (325 acres, including improvements where Jacob Amick lived and adjacent to land of John Amick), 8 September 1824 (100 acres) and 11 April 1825 (73 acres). Jacob also purchased land from Henry Eye (100 acres) on 1 March 1829. As late as 31 August 1846, Jacob received a land grant of 200 acres in Fayette and Greenbrier Counties (recorded in Nicholas County) on both sides of Meadow River which included a small improvement and a mill above the mouth of Anglin's Creek.

Jacob and Rachel had nine children, five of whom were born in Pendleton County:
1) John Amick, born 1815
2) Samuel Amick, born 1816
3) Henry Amick, born 1 November 1817
4) Rachel Amick, born 1824
5) Jacob Amick, Jr., born 1826
6) Arthur Amick, born 3 March 1833 (twin)
7) Mary Amick, born 3 March 1833 (twin)
8) Elizabeth Amick, birth date unknown
9) Catherine Amick, birth date unknown.

The Jacob Amick family is found on the 1840 census in Nicholas County, with Jacob listed as being between 50 and 60 years old. He has a total of seven children. On the same page of the census is found John Amick, Sr. and John M. Amick. By 1850 the Nicholas County census reports that Jacob Amick, 62 years old, lives with his wife, Rachael, and their children, Jacob, Rachael, and Polly (Mary). His son, Henry, lives next to them with his wife, Jane, and son, Jacob, who is one year old.

Numerous affidavits on the pension application of Rachael Amick in 1876 and again in 1887, when she lost her pension certificate and had to reapply, state that Jacob Amick, Sr. died 6 September 1859. They swore to it! But on the 1860 census we find Jacob and Rachael Amick; he is age 65, and she is age 60. No children live with them, but all of their neighbors are Amicks, including their son, Jacob Amick, Jr. The census is to include those people living in the home as of June 1, 1860; even if the count includes someone who had died in the last 30 days, Jacob would not have been included if he had died 6 September 1859. I'm not sure how the witnesses in Rachael's pension application could not have remembered whether Jacob had died before or after the Civil War, but his death is listed in the Nicholas County records as having died in September 1868, as reported by his son, Jacob Amick, Jr. Jacob's burial place has not ever been found, but it's believed that he was buried near the mill on Anglin's Creek. W. D. Amick, who lives at Runa, says that he has looked extensively on that side of Anglin's Creek, and he has not been able to find any evidence of a grave in the dense woods.

As evidenced in her pension application, Rachael lived in the homes of her children and moved from one house to another. That's how she lost her pension certificate in 1887. In the 1870 and 1880 censuses she is found living beside her son, Jacob, with her unmarried daughter, Rachael. When she lost her pension certificate, her address was listed as Big Clear Creek in Greenbrier County, and Dr. McClung of Rupert wrote of his examination of her. Her first pension was $8 per month and was later increased to $12 per month. According to the pension collection, Rachael was last paid her pension on 4 June 1894 and was dropped from the rolls due to her death, so her death occurred sometime around that time, certainly in 1894. Her grave is also unknown, but it seems reasonable that she would be buried beside Jacob on the property along Anglin's Creek. If her birth date of 1797 is accurate, she died at the age of 97 years old.