The More We Learn, the Less We Know

May 10, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy

Here are highlights from day 3 of my genealogy vacation.

1. US 41 N from Chattanooga to Murfreesboro

This road travels northwesterly across the state of Tennessee beginning near Chattanooga. Especially beautiful was the portion that ran beside the Tennessee River. The river is impounded in places and widens into reservoirs. There are mountains all around, snd the road is canopied in trees in many places.

US 41 is hard to follow, so you’ll need a good road map. We tried to do it with GPS and electronic maps but found it very difficult. All in all, though, it was a beautiful drive. It crossed over the river and closely followed north of I-24.

We spent way too much time dallying on this road, but it was worth it. I also believe that parts of this was the Nashville Pike. I’ll research this later, because if it was then the armies of both sides used this road.

2. The Stones River Battlefield
This battle is more widely known in the South as the Battle of Murfreesboro. We are here because this is where my book’s main character’s husband William H. Andrews was wounded and captured. He fought for the Fourth Florida. They lost their battle flag here.

Especially wonderful at both Stones River and Chickamagua are the national parks’ new system for giving you information at each important stop within the parks. These were large battles and subsequently these parks cover several square miles. There were 81,000 total soldiers who fought at the Battle of Stones River.

To use the new system requires a cell phone. You call a number and touch the number of the stop. A voice then tells you what happened there.

My phone was hooked up to the Bluetooth in our car, and we could listen to it through our speakers. We were the only ones at each stop so we opened the car doors and walked around while the voice explained the occurrences.

There seems to be no map that shows where the combined First, Third and Fourth Florida were located on this battlefield, so Chuck and I took the general tour using the stops to look for hints as to where the Florida units may have fought. William was in the Fourth Florida.

We learned how strategic this fight was to both sides. The two armies fought for two strategic transportation routes, the Nashville Pike, a road from Nashville to Chattanooga, and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, both of which crossed in this area.

We never did figure out exactly where the Florida units fought, but following the battle was so interesting, and we have a better understanding of why both sides needed this win.

Ever hear the saying “hell’s half acre”? Well, this is it below. The men who fought here called this ground hell’s half acre because so many men died trying to cross it .

3. Historic downtown Murfreesboro

We know that William and the Fourth Florida camped near here for almost a month before the battle. Florida’s first, third and fourth arrived here on December 3, 1862. They came here early because this was the bread basket of the area, and they needed provisions. We came here because we wanted to learn more about what happened to William while he was here.

It is written that Confederate Murfreesboro had parties and balls for their guests. By the time the battle began there were over 35,000 Rebels camping around the town of approximately 9,000 citizens.

We drove downtown to the courthouse, which was built in 1859 before the war. It is a beautiful building in the center of town with the traffic driving around it in a square pattern, but the traffic flows the square in the same way it flows in my hometown of Monticello, FL. Theirs is a square within a square, while ours is a circle within a square.

William who lived in Monticello just before the war had walked these very same streets looking at this very same courthouse, only then this courthouse was less than ten years old. Now she is more than 150 years old.

Chuck and I stopped on the square and had cocktails at a little restaurant/bar. Then we took a stroll around the courthouse in the early evening. It was a very nice stroll. The weather this week could not be better.

As we walked we noticed kiosks which explained the occupation of the town by the Union forces after the Battle. One of the kiosks explained how all the churches, schools and even some homes became hospitals for the more than 23,000 casualties from the battle.

OccupiedMurfreesboro

We know that William was one of those casualties,and the signs confirmed what we had already found in records about his ordeal.
My big question is where did they take him after he was wounded. One sign said that they first took the wounded to the Bradley Academy at the edge of town. After it was filled then they took the men to the churches. After all the churches were filled, they were taken into private homes. I was quickly realizing that I’ll never have any idea where they took him.

Another sign, though, gave us another clue. It said that after the Confederates retreated that the Union forces quickly entered the town and took over. Confederate wounded which could be moved were automatically sent to Nashville. Only the very critical remained and they were moved into buildings easier to guard.

The truly critical were kept there for an extended time, and eventually kept at the easiest place to guard and that was the Bradley Academy. The signs said that enforcement was easiest there because union soldiers camped all around it.

We know William was left behind because of his critical injury. We also know that the injury/injuries must have been bad because he spent time in three more hospitals, remaining in them for the rest of the war. There is a very good possibility that he spent time in the Bradley Academy, if not at first then probably later.

It was a successful day, but there are many more questions now. Where did the Florida units fight at Stones River, where did they take William after he was wounded, how was he wounded, and where on the battlefield was he wounded? The answers will help us fill in more pieces to the puzzle that is William’s life.

We plan to discuss these questions with a Park Ranger tomorrow.

To Follow Where Duty Leads the Way

May 8, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy

Yesterday, we started out at our daughter’s house north of Atlanta and ended the day in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Here are the highlights.

1. Finding the place where the First and Third Florida units fought in the Battle of Chickamagua.

As many of you know, I am currently writing a book about my great great great grandmother from North Florida who lived from 1822 until about 1870. During the Civil War she had several relatives who served on the side of the Confederacy. There were several dozen in all.

These relatives included her husband, several sons, several brothers, and many in-laws cousins and uncles. Two of them, who were very close to her, did not come back. This is the battlefield where they fell. I’m here today to gather more research.

One boy was in the First Florida and the other was in the Third Florida, and the two units had been combined under Col. William Denham, a Monticello resident. Both of the boys were from Jefferson County. One was 29 and the other 27. Both of them died on September 20.

2. Chicken fried steak with white gravy, sliced tomatoes, braised cabbage, pole beans, and cornbread done right.

In Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia just north of the Chickamauga Battlefield is a restaurant called Old South. We stopped and had dinner this evening. What a meal! It was truly old south cooking.

But best of all was the “not sweet” cornbread! Good old southern cornbread has a pinch of sugar at the most,

2. Visiting Fort Oglethorpe.

In 1917 a young 24-year-old named Tom Roe arrived at Fort Oglethorpe for induction and training for World War I. He is my grandfather. He and his brother-in-law went there together.

Fort Oglethorpe today is a city of about 9500 people but Fort Oglethorpe in 1917 was a military fort. It is only a few miles south of Chattanooga but just inside the state of Georgia. In 1905 it was built to house the 6th Calvary, and during World War I it was used as an induction center and training facility.

Before World War I the Calvary was especially important in battle for shock tactics such as the mounted charge, but that was changing. Horses were used less for battle and were instead used to pull ambulances, carry supplies and ordinance, and act as cavalry mounts.

At the beginning of the war, they pulled field kitchens, as well as ammunition wagons. They were used by messengers and dispatch riders and often drew artillery. The deep mud common in some parts of the front made horses and mules vital, as they were the only means of getting supplies to the front and guns moved from place to place. Someone had to know how to manage this livestock, too; and in the past it was the Calvary who did it all.

Before the war, Uncle Duff was a timber rider and spent every day of his working life on horse back grading and appraising timber stands, He and my grandfather grew up working with mules and horses in the timber operations in the north Georgia mountains. I believe this is how my uncle and my grandfather ended up in Fort Oglethorpe. They already knew how to work with these animals.

So after the country fried steak dinner, Chuck and I decided that we needed a long walk. We drove into Fort Oglethorpe and found the perfect place. The military fort was decommissioned in 1947, and its buildings and grounds were sold to civilians, Today, the parade grounds remain, though some of the grounds are now recreational ball fields.

Also, the officers housing remains around the perimeter of the grounds. These are old stately early 20th century homes. In front of several of the lots with newer buildings are plaques telling where the old barracks used to be. Chuck and I took a long perimeter walk in the early evening. It was good to walk where my grandfather had surely walked before.

3. Finding the post hospital where my grandfather convalesced and where he later worked.

When my grandfather and Uncle Duff got to Fort Oglethorpe, I imagine they spent the first weeks in basic training. However my grandpa was unable to finish the training because he developed mastoid disease in one ear within a very short length of time.

While he was in the service they performed a mastoidectomy, where they removed a piece of the bone so the infection could be treated. Antibiotics were not an option then, as they hadn’t been developed yet. The surgery was done on the base.

About the time he was able to return to duty he developed the same disease on the other side and had to have more surgery. It was done in this hospital, which was built in 1905 when Fort Oglethorpe was built.

Granddaddy spent most of the war in this hospital and later served in an ambulance corp. He never went overseas. Uncle Duff, though, did and thankfully was able to come home.

My Uncle James, my grandfather’s only surviving son, and I have discussed on occasion what might have happened if Tom Roe hadn’t been fortunate enough to be drafted and operated on by Uncle Sam free of charge.

Now days they operate and put tubes in our ears or they prescribe an antibiotic, but back then usually the patient went deaf and other even more threatening things happened such as meningitis when the infection moved into the brain, Even death was a possibility. The older ones in our family said that what was done to Granddaddy was a very new procedure.

Well, that is all for tonight. Tomorrow, we move on to Murphreesboro, TN.

A Visit to Fort Benning

May 8, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy

About once a year I make a trip which I call a genealogy vacation. I spend weeks chasing after my dead relatives.

For example, two years ago I made a two-week trip up the eastern coast to places around Savannah and then on up to South Carolina and North Carolina to look up ancestors who had settled in those areas. That was a trip of libraries.

Then last year while we were out west we spent about a week tracing a Roe ancestor who was part of the Pikes Peak gold rush. The highlight of that trip was finding the place where they first found gold and then finding the place where they worked a claim in the 1850s.

Yesterday I started this year’s trip. I’ll be on the road for 15 days. I’ll post most days with the highlights.

Our first stop yesterday was Fort Benning, the military base in west Georgia; and we finished the day in Atlanta with my daughter Tracy and her family. Chuck is with me for this part of the vacation and will be flying back to Tallahassee later on. Here are five highlights of yesterday.

1. Finding my great great great grandfather’s grave on Fort Benning.

We had GPS coordinates to the little cemetery where he was buried, but the military will not let you just come on the reservation without an escort. So we arranged for an escort and was taken to Midway Methodist Church cemetery.

Chuck and I walked all over that little cemetery because I was looking for a larger grave. I had a picture but it was deceiving. I was looking for a grave about 3 to 4 feet tall, and this is what it turned out to be.

It reads Rev. J. W. Boland. He was born in 1824 and died in 1907. He was my grandmother Annis Wilkerson Hamrick’s great grandpa. Next to the graveyard were the foundations of an old church where the Midway Methodist Church once stood.

2. Finding the escort for our trip on the military reservation.

It is not an easy thing to go on a military reservation to visit dead ancestors. Online someone gave me a telephone number to call, and this number was for the Range Control at Fort Benning. I called this number over two weeks ago.

Here is my advice on how to do this. You must be persistent. I had to keep calling back until I finally succeeded.

When you finally finish your preparations, ask for it in an email. I asked for have an email from them with all the information needed as to who to meet and where to meet. Then don’t do like I did and simply take you electronic device with only an e-copy. Make a copy of the emal. All I had when I got to the base was an e-copy, but when I got there all the emails in that stream disappeared. Of course, I’m thinking does the military have that capability?

From then on it was hell figuring out where to go and who to see. When we finally got to the Range Control building, we had already talked and worked with a half a dozen people. It took us an hour and a half just to get to the person that we needed to go with us to the cemetery.

3. Meeting a Parker on Fort Benning.

Toward the end of the hour and a half that it took to find the range control building, we met a gentleman by the name of Parker. He worked in the building where hunters go to get permits to hunt on the reservation. It turns out that his Parker’s are from the local area near the base, and I am almost positive that these are Parkers that migrated from the Savannah area where my Parker’s are from.

This was the young man with the nice rural Georgia accent that was kind enough to escort us all the way to the range control building. I think the gentleman in the range control was surprised when we walked in the front door. He may still be wondering how we got on the base to begin with.

4. Just getting to see Fort Benning.

This was special for me because this is where my dad did his basic training before he went into the Korean War. There were companies running in full pack, drill sergeants moving them along; and every once in a while we could hear the tap, tap, tap of guns firing and an occasional boom in the distance. These are America’s finest preparing to protect our freedom

4. A drive into underground Atlanta.

When we got to Atlanta we were asked to stop and pick up Eric our son-in-law at the Georgia Dome. Eric works for the Atlanta Falcons, and he recently sold his Jeep so he needed a ride. Currently the Atlanta Falcons are building a new stadium right next to the Georgia Dome.

Our GPS which was trying to find One Georgia Dome, brought us to the side opposite of Northside and opposite of where we needed to meet him. This wrong road took us down into the bowels of an area called the red deck. We quickly realized that we were driving in underground Atlanta, and at one point there was even a train traveling under ground beside us. We finally came above ground and popped out near the Atlanta aquarium. What a journey! Of course by then we were hopelessly lost.

5. Visiting with Tracy and Eric and the boys! We ate supper with them, and after the boys were in bed, we set up and talked. I can remember visiting family in North Georgia when I was a kid. I can remember the adults sitting up late at night talking, and laying in bed listening to them. I wonder if Tracy’s boys did the same.

We spent the night with them, and today we are on our way to Chickamaugua.

An Update on the Book: Mary Hobnobs with Some Washington Elite

April 7, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Books, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

About the book I’m writing, I apologize that you haven’t heard from me since late January. Problem was, though, I got myself involved in the Family History Writing Challenge, which asked me to pledge how much I would write daily. Since I’m a fast writer, I signed up for 500 words a day. No problem writing that many words a day, but I did struggle with acquiring the needed research for the exercise.

By the end of February, I compiled 28 different scenes for the book. However, the research still isn’t complete; and I’m sure I’ll have to rewrite every one of those scenes.

Also, each morning I received an email with suggestions on how to proceed. These emails were entitled, for example, “How to Find Your Focus”, “Creating Your Authentic Ancestor”, and “How to Begin Your Story: A Checklist”. These emails were like workbook pages, and I was unable to go through the exercises that quickly. So this past month I’ve been going back to each of these emails and filling out the information. This exercise has been so helpful.

One of the exercises required some thought into the process of naming the book. It strongly encouraged picking out a name, even if I plan to change it in the future. So I picked out a temporary name. I chose this name because Mary came to Florida from the South Carolina low country southwest of Charleston near the Little Salkhatchee River. South Carolina is also known as the palmetto state. The family moved to Jefferson County in Florida and settled west of the Aucilla River, an area where palmettos grow thick, especially on the river’s flood plain. They arrived there around 1828, so they were Florida pioneers. From here on I will refer to the book as the “Palmetto Pioneers”.

Oak Hammock with a Palmetto Floor

Hopefully, I will do better at keeping everyone posted more often.

Below is another scene from the book–a first draft. First, though, here is a little information to give a little setting.

One reason I chose Mary for my main character was because of her station in life, which changed dramatically when she married. As mentioned earlier, she was raised the daughter of a South Carolina/Florida planter/cattleman. Her family settled in the wilderness in eastern Jefferson County. She had lived in Florida since she was six years old.

Mary married, though, the son of a Washington, DC merchant. William Andrews had joined the army with his friend Robert Gamble when they were both in their earlier 20s. Robert Gamble and William first came to Florida to fight Indians in the 1820s, but they went back to Washington, DC/Baltimore, married and later returned to Florida with their families to settle.

William’s spouse died and left him with four children. That is when he married Mary, whose family lived nearby. Mary and William’s first years were spent living near her father, but by the mid 1850s they had moved into Monticello where William became a sheriff of Jefferson County.

Below is a scene from when they lived in Monticello. We know that they lived near the Cuthbert’s house which was next door to the Episcopal church. Today, the Cuthbert’s house is the house where the attorney Mike Reichman used to practice law. It is still standing.

The scene is a first draft, and it is meant to reflect the differences in the ladies, including Mary and her guests. Robert Gamble’s wife Letitia and her niece Laura come to visit Mary. Laura’s complaints are authentically hers. In real life she kept a diary, and this is what she thought of the area. Here is how it goes.

Mary listened to Laura Randall complain and kept silent. She couldn’t quite understand why the woman was so unhappy. “Mary, I don’t know how you and your family stood it all those years. The mosquitoes scarcely retire in the morning before the yellow flies begin. This is certainly the country for studying entomology. There is an infinite variety of insects.”

Laura Randall was wearing a gown of lilac cotton trimmed in burgandy. It was beautiful, and Mary had never seen one so beautiful up so close. No one from where she lived out in the country dressed like this. She knew that Laura’s father was federal Attorney General William Wirt and that Laura’s family was from Baltimore.

All of this was so new and so very interesting. All the talk from William about these big cities and their beautiful buildings. The information spun around in her head like the setting of a fairy tale, and yet here was one of the fairy tale princesses sitting right here in her living room.

Mary looked around her and was immediately embarrassed. Her living room was sparsely appointed with four wooden chairs, a fireplace, a desk where William worked at home and a small table where she kept her sewing. In one corner was a weave, and on the floor was a new woven rug that she had made herself. Laura was obviously used to much better than this, and yet this was so much roomier and better than what Mary was used to having.

Laura continued “and there is not a piece of rope to be had in this place, but what we really need is a tavern. Just yesterday five men rode up to our door and gave their horses to the servant as if he were an hostler of an Inn. Then they walked right in to breakfast, which was just ready; and we had to make room at the table.”

She shook her head and added, “They had all stayed the night before at Colonel Gadsden’s, riding up at nine o’clock just when the family was going to bed. I really think our neighborhood would do well to support a tavern for these intruders.”

Letitia Gamble added, “I thought a lot of that had stopped. I guess we are too far off the main road now.” Letitia, as if she knew what was on Mary’s mind said, “I do remember though how hard it was in those early days after we first arrived. The house at Welaunee was a double log cabin, daubed with mud and surrounded by dead trees. We finally replaced it moving farther away from the road, and though this land was difficult at first, we finally learned to adapt. Robert was certainly never disappointed. He loved it from the first time he laid eyes on it.”

Then Laura said, “Well, I have to admit that it finally grew on me, too. I do love my garden, and thank goodness we started butchering cattle and hogs and learned to share with others so the meat never spoils. This seems to always put good meat on the table.”

Mary remembered what William had told her about these families, that they were all raised high on the hog, and they didn’t seem to know what to do or how to live in such difficult surroundings. Laura added, “I even learned how to make beer, thanks to you Aunt Letitia.”

Letitia said, “I guess if there is one good thing about this country, it is that it made us all realize the importance of sharing and taking care of each another. One can afford to be an individualist when one is wealthy and live near the finer things of life, but out here with only ourselves and nature, it is an entirely different situation. One must learn to share and to rely on others.”

Laura was looking off in the distance. “Laura, a penney for your thoughts?” said Mary.

Laura looked back at her Aunt Letitia. “Do you remember when I had to nurse your Cecily.” Letitia smiled at her neice, “I sure do.”

She turned to Mary, “That was something unheard of where we’re from, but now we know that it is a commonplace thing down here.” I was depending on a milch cow to feed Cicily, and Laura was visiting. Well, anyway, that afternoon we discovered that the milk supply had spoiled, and Cicily was screaming and wouldn’t stop. Laura, here, just said, ‘Give me Cicily’, and she disappeared. The crying stopped. I knew right then that this country was going to be totally different from anything we had ever witnessed.”

Laura added, “The last time I went to visit mama in Baltimore, we had to take along two milk goats to help me nurse Jonathan. Those goats sure didn’t like that ship and the bleating was horrible.”

So there you have a brief scene from the book. It will change a lot over the next few weeks. The transitions from one person to the other need a lot of rewriting, which will help the reader follow who is talking. Each of these characters will be fleshed out so one gets a better picture of what they look like and how they are expected to act.

There’s Something About Mary

February 3, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

My main character’s name for the book I’m writing is Mary. As you may remember, she is Mary Adeline Walker; and she is also my great-great-great grandmother. Using what I learned from the workbook, “Authentic Ancestors” by Lynn Palermo, “The Armchair Genealogist”, it was time to develop my protagonist, my central character.

Since Mary is the one individual who ties all my family’s lineages together, she is central to my story. Here’s the rub, though. How do I describe her physical characteristics? I have no pictures of her, and there are no written descriptions, either. What’s a girl to do?

Turns out my mentor had a good suggestion. She suggested an “Authentic Ancestor Collage” board, a tool to bring all the physical details together to create a visual for further reference while writing. I have done storyboards before, so that is what I quickly thought of, until she suggested that Pinterest might be a good place to pin any evidence found. So I placed what evidence I had in a new public Pinterest board entitled, “Something About Mary”. You can find it here.

It turns out that I do have pictures of others in Mary’s family. For example, I have a picture of one of her brothers, three of her children including a daughter, a granddaughter, a great-granddaughter and a great-great-great granddaughter. I pinned all of them on the board. Then I also pinned a picture of a flowering bush that I will use in my first story about her.

I wrote the story using some of the facts that I do know, such as the birth dates of her children. Like most women in her time, she was pregnant a lot. Also, I know that she lived in Monticello; and that at the time of this child, her parents lived out in the country north of where Elizabeth Church sits today near the Old Salt Road. I believe the Yauns own that property now.

Another fact is that her husband was constable during this time and that the first Governor of Florida was from Jefferson County. I wove them into the story as well.

I also used a story about a black snake that actually happened to me personally. I was trying portray her as a strong woman, but also a loving mother.

Last, please don’t hesitate to let me know if you find something that you believe is inaccurate. The point here is to be as factual as possible, and for that I certainly could use your help.

Enjoy! The story is below.

Mary knew what this feeling meant. She had had it four times before, but this time it was too soon. She looked down at the baby suckling at her breast and their eyes locked. She always loved this time, when the little feller could stare and grin. He smiled his toothless grin and drooled milk out the corner of his mouth. She smiled at him, but thought that it was too soon for another to come.

Until now every baby except James had come an easy two years apart. Even little Jesse here came an easy two years after his brother Zach, and Zach came two years after Val, and Val after James. Six year old Sarah wanted to help, and she was already doing what she could. The real help, though, came from Mary’s step-daughters Ellen and Florry, who were twelve and eleven respectively.

Mary found it hard to believe that she was only one year older than Sarah when her family came to Monticello. Much had changed in those two decades since. Just in the last seven years she met William, married, became a mother to three motherless children and had five more babies . She looked back down at Jesse. Poor thing. He would be booted out of the cradle long before the others had.

It was a warm day. Winter had lingered too long, but outside her window a wild azalea was already blooming. The delicate pinkish blossoms stuck up like someone had picked a little bouquet of flowers and attached it to one single long stem sticking up from a bush of green. Each little star shaped flower looked as if it were poking out its delicate whiskered tongue.

What a blessing to have this here. Where she grew up out in the woods, these azaleas were everywhere, especially in the areas near the swamps. She missed living there with her parents, so two winters ago her dad dug one up and transplanted it by her back window. Every spring she waited for its blooms and subsequently missed home all the more when they quickly faded.

Her parents didn’t live far away, and she saw them and her brothers and sisters anytime they came to town. The home place was only a little more than a half days ride to the east by wagon or carriage and even less by horseback. Between town and her parents’ home was a wilderness of cypress swamps, towering pine forests, palmettos so thick that it was almost impassable and always the moss floating down from the massive oak limbs. In the pines she knew there would be wild dogwoods blooming, and she wished she could make the trip this warm day to see their blossoms peeking around the trunks like white lace. The silence was what she missed most. It would be deeply silent except for an occasional wind whispering through the pine boughs.

The road there was barely more than two ruts, and traveling by horseback was easier. Wagon wheels either bogged down into the shifting sand when dry or slid off the slick red clay when not. The rains here came suddenly and frequently often with little warning. Horses and mules were the transportation of choice, but women were seldom seen straddling either.

Outside her window here, though, there was always chattering and yelling, constant clanging of metal harnesses, and the dull thud of horse hooves on dirt. Monticello’s streets were dusty when it was dry and muddy when it wasn’t. Her house was an easy distance from the center of town, and nothing much happened that she didn’t see.

Jesse was much more interested in the noises outside, and she realized that he was done so she pulled down the soft fabrics of her chemise and bodice and handed him to Florry who had just walked into the room. Mary noticed that Florry always seemed to know when she was done.

Florry was born Florida Mae, though she didn’t much like the name. Mary didn’t think it was a bad name. Florida seemed pretty, enough. After all, it was Spanish for flowers; but Florry knew that she was named after the Territory, not flowers. Born in 1840, Florry’s father along with some of the other men in town, worked hard to achieve statehood, which finally happened five years later when Florry was only five.

Mary stepped out into the warm sunshine on the front porch just as Governor Moseley and another man walked by leading their horses and wearing buckskin leggings and homespun blouses. Moseley tipped his hat and continued talking to the stranger as they made their way toward the center of town. Mary arched her back with her hands at the small of her backside and stretched her shoulders as she wondered when William would be home for dinner or if his business would keep him away again tonight. There were no set hours for a Constable, so she never knew.

She stepped back inside just as Ellen started screaming from the kitchen. Running into the room, Mary saw a black snake halfway up the back steps with his head held up about a half foot off the floor just inside the door. He was a nice one, all black and shiny, almost blue. He quickly turned his head from Ellen to Mary with his half-lided gaze.

She knew he wasn’t poisonous, but she also knew that a bite from him would hurt bad. Ellen slowly began backing up, never taking her eyes off the snake, while Mary picked up the broom which was sitting by the door she had just entered. She slowly moved toward the snake stomping her feet, but it didn’t back down. Mary said, “Oh, you’re a fearless one. You just need to go back where you came from.” She began to push the broom toward him , but he lunged at the broom. That’s when she gave a big shove, and his body tumbled down between the steps.

When Mary looked back over her shoulder, she saw all the kids standing in the door and hall. John, who was twelve, said, “I’ll go kill ‘em.”, but Mary said, “no, he’s a good ‘un. Let him be.” She knew that the black snake would protect their door from other less desirables. He was territorial and wouldn’t let another snake take residence. Like most of everything else in the Territory of Florida, she knew you often had to take the lesser of two evils.

Mary’s daughter Laura, who was born seven years after Jesse in 1857.

I’m Writing a Book!

February 1, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

For most of January I have been getting ready to start writing a book. I have to admit that it has been on my mind for years, but who had any time for such. I was embroiled in a full-time career, raising children, keeping house, traveling and trying to spend time with my husband. There was no time for such extra-curricular activities. Somehow, though, I did find time to research my family. This was my hobby.

This hobby started when I was in my mid twenties, and I’m still doing it today. Problem is, I’m getting old; and now I worry that I may never write any of this down in a way that will interest the rest of the family. My fear is that I’ll die, and the kids will find all these boxes of research. It could happen while they are raising their children, keeping house, working and trying to spend time with their families. They won’t have time, either.

So here I am. Chuck and I retired last May, and I’m finally ready to write. I started before Christmas by joining a group called the Family History Writing Challenge, which is a 28-day commitment to writing about my family history. It runs February 1st to February 28th. I was having a little trouble getting started, so I signed up.

The challenge is designed to help me develop good writing habits, to provide inspiration and to offer pointers to help me write. It helped me organize my thoughts by asking me questions that led me to develop answers, such as whether I wanted to write about a single ancestor, a surname, or an entire branch of my tree.

I began to think about the timeframe or the setting, about any added research needed, and about narrative fiction or nonfiction. I decided to write the book as narrative non-fiction.

It suggested I set a goal, so I decided to write at least 500 words a day.

I started writing this morning. I have a set time on my calendar, and an alarm that sounds like Big Ben in London went off at 1 p.m. to clue me in that I should be sitting at my desk and beginning to write. It worked, because that is just what I did. When the hour was up, I had written 910 words.

I decided that I would begin with Mary Adeline Walker, my third great grandmother. I know that she came with her family to Florida about 1827 at the age of seven. I had planned to begin my story from her point of view, and the setting would be the trail that the family had most likely used as they made their way down from South Carolina. That is when I ran into my first problem. I discovered that I needed more research about this trail–a lot more research about this trail.

So I switched gears, so as not to be thrown off the course so early in the process; and I started writing from a different angle. I simply started writing about something that I knew about–how I arrived at and placed Mary Adeline Walker as my main character. After writing several paragraphs, I realized that I wasn’t writing an intro but instead I was writing a forward.

So below are a few paragraphs of my incomplete intro and almost all of my forward.

What if it’s not good enough? Well, that is for all of you to decide. I try not to play those head games with myself. My pea brain doesn’t fare too well under my own criticism.

Outside criticism works better for me, and so I invite your comments!

Introduction

There was an old Indian Trail that once led from…. It wound through the hickories and oaks of the Piedmont plains of North Carolina down into the hills of South Carolina and on down into the central plains of Georgia. DeSoto took it up for a ways, because there were the whispers of gold up there somewhere and later the white man took it for his own and widened it for his wagons and sleds. To a seven year old girl named Mary Adeline Walker, though, it was the adventure of her lifetime.

(Need to do more research on this trail. What was it really like. What modern roads does it most closely follow today)

She was the first born of Jesse and Elizabeth Wilson Walker, born in 1821 on the Little Saltketchy (sp) River in Colleton District, SC.

(Find out what this area is like today. Who did they leave behind. How many people traveled with them.)

Along with her Grandparents Joel and Elizabeth Carter Walker and several of her uncles James, Joel,Jr; LIttleberry and David and their families, they traveled this trail in 1827 arriving at the newly formed Jefferson County in Florida. The new county seat, though, had been here a while. Built next to a little Indian village, the village leaders claimed the high ground for the center of the town.

(Need to do more research on the village in 1827. What did she see when they arrived.)

Foreward

My Grandmother Hamrick was a talker so much so that my dad said that we didn’t need to take the “Monticello News”, because Annis was enough. That is where all of this took place, in Monticello, Florida, a little town in North Florida, almost now a bedroom community of Tallahassee, but in mental miles much more than thirty miles away to the east.

It was Grandma Hamrick who told the family stories, along with my Granddaddy Hamrick, for it was his family that reached back more than four generations in this county, or at least we thought so at the time. By the time I was fourteen, Granddaddy died of a cerebral hemorrhage one Sunday morning in March while the two of them sat watching the First Baptist Church of Tallahassee on their television. He got up that morning and said, “Shug, can we miss church. I don’t feel so good.” Shug was short for Sugar, and it was his pet name for her. From then on, I got all my local family stories from Grandma; and those are the ones I seem to remember the most.

There was never any mention of anyone before Granddaddy’s Grandfather William Aseph Hamrick, except for one story about William’s mother who daringly loaded all her children in a wagon and came to Florida from York, South Carolina, shortly after her husband was killed in an accident. They said that she was mad at her in-laws and that it was before the “War”, which for those of you not from the southern part of America, this means the American Civil War. Stories often went that way. They would say, “before the War…” or “just after the War…”. Needless to say, it was a very important event to folks down here, even those who were born many years after the War.

What we found years later, though, were several more generations; but they materialized through the women of our family, our maternal lines. This led us to Mary Adeline Walker. She is the common denominator, and I had never heard about her until one day when I became a temporary secretary to County Judge Charlie Anderson in Monticello.

I was 25 and married. I had a one year old baby. It was 1978. My friend Pam Cooksey was pregnant, and she was looking for someone to work in her office for about four weeks, until she could return to her job. I was already beginning to go a little stir crazy, so I agreed. What I did on the job is insignificant to this, but the office where I worked became very significant. In a vault next to Judge Anderson’s offices were many of the territorial Florida records for Jefferson County dating before 1845. I began to wonder if there were secrets there about my family.

I started with William Aseph and quickly found him and his family in the years after the War in census records. I had gone to Tallahassee to the Florida State Archives to search through their books. The Hamrick trail ran out before 1850. They were not in the 1840 books, and this fit the story that they had come sometime just before the War.

Well, what about Granddaddy Hamrick’s mother? Her name was Hattie Augusta Lightsey Hamrick. I found that her lineage traced all the way back to George Lightsey, her great-grandfather. I found him in Florida’s 1830 census. Her parents were George Henry and Laura R. Lightsey.

Back at the Judge’s vault, I began looking for anything that had to do with the Hamricks and the Lightseys, until one day I found George and Laura’s marriage certificate. Her name was Laura R. Andrews, and just like that I had another new surname to search. Andrews was a surname I had never heard them talk about, though I knew a lot of Andrews in the area.

Laura R. Andrews in 1850 was still living with her parents’ William H. and Mary A. Andrews in Monticello. With this information I went back to the vault and found a marriage certificate for them dated 1843. Mary’s maiden name was Mary Adeline Walker, and finally I had a surname that fit into some more of Grandma Annis’s early stories.

There are lots of Walkers in Jefferson County, and I noticed that almost any who lived in the northern part of the county were always described to me as “kin”. The exact way I was kin was never explained, but the conversation always went a little like this. Grandma would say, “Oh, you’re kin to him,” which really meant “Honey, you probably shouldn’t date him.” So I thought I took care of that problem and married into the family of Walkers from the southern part of the county.

The northern Walkers weren’t the only ones to whom I were “kin”. It was also the Bishops, Hartsfields, Kinseys, Scruggs, Sledges and too many families to name right here and now.

What I stumbled upon while working for the Judge was that all my family’s roots led back to or through this Mary Adeline Walker. She is the keystone for my family’s lineage in Jefferson County; however, she was not our first Walker to come here. She made the trip down with her father and grandfather. Counting them, I discovered that I was the eighth generation to live in Jefferson County; and my newborn daughter was the ninth.

What I also stumbled upon was a life-long hobby called genealogy. I am now over 60 years old, and it is finally time to write some of this stuff down.

Who Do You Think You Are?

June 6, 2014 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy

One of my favorite genealogy bloggers recently announced on her blog that a new season of “Who Do You Think You Are?” is returning. I cannot wait.

I loved this show. One of my favorite past episodes was about Tim McGraw, the country singer. It seems that he descends from some hardy pioneer stock, including an ancestor who was written about in a journal by a sixteen-year old surveyor named George Washington. McGraw’s ancestor also came to America in the early 1700s on the same ship as another famous singer’s ancestor. Elvis Presley’s ancestor was on the same voyage.

This is why I love to read about people’s lineages. It makes for wonderful story telling.

Below is a link to learn more about the new episodes. It can be found at Lisa Louise Cooke’s website.

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