Monday, June 25, 2012

Grandmother's Old Smith Home at Select, Ohio County


History and Description of My Grandmother’s
Old Smith Home Place at Select, Ohio County, Kentucky


Over a 17-year period, I interviewed my grandmother, Eva Caroline (Smith) Cox for her memories as a girl when she was growing up, and in fact, for her entire life history. She lived to be 99.9 years old and I was still interviewing her and capturing her stories on audio tape six months before her death on December 4, 1988.

One day I decided to pick out all the references and stories she told about what their house and home place looked like. And I also chose some excerpts from the taped transcriptions of interviews with my dad, Gilbert O. Cox, Sr., who was a retired rail road engineer at the time in the 1970s.  On Saturday or Sunday afternoons, we sometimes gathered around my grandmother’s dining table, and sat and visited with each other, usually telling what had been going on in our lives during the week.  I always tried to steer at least some of the conversation to the “olden days in Kentucky.”

These pages are just in rough draft which I will be adding to as I find appropriate mentions and more stories that my grandmother described about their home and farm place.  My daughter is now taking my type-written pages and retyping them into a computer, which will enable me to move paragraphs around as I write my book on my grandmother’s life and that of her parents and grandparents – the James Thomas Smith and Charles Sanders families of Select, Ohio County, Kentucky.

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On one visit when I interviewed my grandmother, I asked her to pretend we were sitting out on her screened-in back porch on her family’s old home place where she grew up.  I asked her to tell me what she could see in her mind’s eye in the back yard, looking out back from left to right. 

She told me about the garden walk that stair-stepped down to the grape arbor and the privy, and then the smokehouse, the well with the old dinner bell beside it, (which I now have beside my front door) and the new two-story barn that her daddy built of logs, and the wood shed and other outbuildings farther back out from the house. The sheds and barns were a good place for the children to play, or hide in the hay loft.  The lower part had storage space for feed, saddles, bridles, and farm plows and equipment. The buggy was also parked under a shed near the barn.   

My grandmother also told this story about their dinner bell, which was pretty large, made in Ohio in the 1880’s (according to my research).  (I have had it mounted on a wrought iron stand).  She said they rang the dinner bell when they wanted to signal to the men and boys plowing in the fields that dinner was ready.  She said that when the horses and mules heard it ring, they stopped in their tracks because they knew they were going to get to come to the house, get a drink of water, get their harnesses off, and rest awhile, while the men ate their dinner.  Then the men filled up their burlap-covered jugs with cool well water, went back to plowing, and wouldn't be returning to the house till the sun started going down.

~.~

She said they had a screened-in back porch, with a long table and benches on both sides out on the porch.  Their large family often ate out there, where there was a summer breeze most of the time and it was much cooler than eating inside.  I think she said the porch had wood half way up the walls.  It had the prettiest blue morning glories planted that ran up wires beside the back door…that grew on both sides.   Sometimes she said they would sit out there with bowls or pans in their laps and shell peas and butter beans and talk.  Sometimes they shucked corn for canning.  The porch and its table and benches were well used almost all year long.

In the winter though, they moved their dining table and the long benches inside and set it in front of the fire-place.

In one corner of the kitchen near the black iron cook stove, they had a hand-cranked coffee grinder that was mounted on the wall to grind the coffee beans, and that made grinding easier.  It was the only way they had to grind the coffee beans and produced good and flavorful cups of coffee for breakfast every morning.  The beans were ground slowly with a manual burr grinder, and was somewhat time-consuming.  Grinding coffee beans also took some energy if you were grinding coffee for more than a couple of cups. The children were enlisted to do this work and took turns…an early morning ritual.

She said those were good times, a simple way of life even though they worked hard.  Eight children grew up in their new house, and as they married, they brought their children to visit their grandparents in that old fashioned log house.  It was their home place where later, all the family gathered together when they could, for special occasions, holidays, and birthdays.

When I asked my grandmother what was the earliest thing she could recall in her childhood, my aunt Eula Mae, quickly asked before grandmother could answer:  “When you built this new home.  Did you say you remember that?” 

GRANDMOTHER:  Yes, uh-hum, I don’t think I was over three years old.  Mother told me I wasn’t over four, if I remember.  But I remember carrying things up the hill from the old house to the new house.  Little things, you know.  Everybody had to help.  It was about as far as from here to Gilbert’s, not very much further.   (My parents lived across the highway from my grandparents which would be about a block from one door to the other, maybe a little bit further, JB).    Grandmother said she was four years old when the new house was built on the hill, about a block from where their old house was – in 1892.

GRANDMOTHER:  The old house had logs in it, and our new house did too.  Oh, yes.  It was built out of logs, but the logs were wide, and you would think they was round, wouldn’t you?  On each side, they was shaved down and they fit them logs.  Square.  You just can’t imagine.  They planed them.  They had the lumber off our place.  And then they weather-boarded it.  They sealed it.  It was weather-boarded on the outside.  And they sealed it inside and papered it.  Yes, it was a log house, there was no cracks.  And then it was weather-boarded and painted.  And ceiled inside and papered.  And you couldn’t hear anything or see anything through cracks.

And the chimney was right in the center between these two rooms.  It wasn’t at the end of the house.  And it heated both rooms.  And you couldn’t hear people talk too much when you were in the other part of the house.  Because the logs were so thick, you see.  And my daddy painted the house every year. 

Well, the stairs come down in the room where we mostly stayed.  But I can remember having to come downstairs, when I was cutting up and making a lot of noise, and they would tell me to come down.  They never did get after us, except at night, you know, if we were scuffling.  They would make us take our seat right down on those steps, and Mother would say, “Now stay there until I tell you to go to bed.”  And that was the end of it.  And sometimes they went off to sleep and left us sitting.  And I would hear that old clock strike, but I wouldn’t get up and slip back in there to sleep.  And I would sit there a little longer.  (Chuckling.)  It was me and Ella or one of the boys.  Ella and me, mostly.  I think when they woke up…I know they went to sleep.  They would call you and say, “Now you can go back to bed if you think you can behave.”  And I was ready to behave.  I can remember that. 

We didn’t have a grandfather’s clock, but we had one just as good.   And it chimed.  Sat on the mantle.  It was really good.  And that clock…from the time I can remember until I was married, they never had no trouble with it.  It was a clock that chimed, with weights.  Yes.  Had a heavy weight on each side.  They called it an 8-day clock.  They had to wind it every eight days.  But the chimes were loud, and you could hear it all over the house.

No, it didn’t get cold.  It was always warm in there.  There was always a big log burning in the fireplace.  I think there was a closet under the stairway where they put wood in.  Oh, it’s been so many years ago, I have almost forgot.   We always had lots of wood stacked up for wintertime.  The boys cut the wood, but the girls brought it in, the same as the boys.”

(Describing the Upstairs).  “The girl’s bedroom had a pole or rod, and our clothes were hung.  And we could just walk down through there and there’s where Ma put all of our clothes.  Dresses and slips and everything.”

The new home was originally constructed as a two-story structure, as shown in a picture of the old house that Auntie gave me once, which shows my daddy squatting down holding a little rabbit which he had trapped that day.

GRANDMOTHER:  Oh those maple trees, there at home?  We went and dug them up in the woods and brought them to the house and set them out across the front of the yard.  Four I believe it was…or five.  Each one of us claimed these trees.  And oh, they growed and was so pretty.  And each one took care of their own tree, watering it, and then they grew to be big trees.  I think they are all gone now…the house and everything is gone.  (Nov 1976 tape).  Mother did all the sewing.  On a sewing machine.  She loved to sew.  She bought the material.  She had a spinning wheel too.  And she would weave, and card.  But she made our gloves and caps to wear…she knitted those.  That was the only way you had.  You had to be self-sufficient in those days.

On our farm, we had most everything.  Cattle, horses, sheep, hogs.  Geese. We always had to help pick them.  We had to hold them when they picked them…laughing…I can remember that!  And we made feather pillows and feather beds out of them.  They were white geese, if I am not mistaken.  Maybe blue geese.  But I never did have to help.
Mother canned everything in jars.   Dried apples and peaches, and everything.  She put the apples and peaches upon the house…on the smokehouse, so nothing could get to them while they were drying.

It had a very pretty old-fashioned garden walk that led down to large grape arbor at the end of the garden walk (that I thought must have added a lot of charm to the back yard when the young people had their friends over.  I could just see it as she described it.  The blossoming grape arbor must have been a delightful place with benches along the inside where the children used to play and elders could sit in the shadow of the grape leaves on hot afternoons, listen to the birds singing, watch the butterflies in residence, and visit a while).

GRANDMOTHER…telling about gardening:  All of us worked in the garden.  I’ve worked a many…I worked anywhere and everywhere.  Us girls knew how to work.  We could hitch up a team to the wagon or to the buggy.  Yes, we could do anything we wanted to do.  And worked in the garden too.

A cherry tree grew by the back door.  And my mother, Sarah (Sanders) Smith, made delicious cherry cobblers.

My Dad told about the cherry tree:  They had a big cherry tree. “Had black cherries on it, growing right by the kitchen door.  And my grandmother made her own soap and it was lye soap, and she would throw that dishwater out on that old cherry tree.  Every time she finished washing the dishes, she would throw the dish water up on the body of that tree, and it would run down to the bottom of it.  And that was the biggest, healthiest cherry tree I have ever seen in my life.  It got up so high, that the limbs would grow out over the roof of the house, and the shingles.  And boy, those were the best cherries you have ever eat.  She would make those cherry cobblers out of them.  And I would get up there and fill my stomach up with ripe cherries right off that tree and then pick enough cherries to make a cobbler, and fight the jay birds.  Because they were all in there after them.”

My grandmother described how there was a long dirt walk, rock hard from so many people using it every day.  It was swept clean daily by one of the children, using a broom made of twigs.  The landscaped walk, with red and white peonies planted on both sides, stair-stepped down with one path leading to the fragrant grape arbor, and another path that forked off to the privy, hidden from the house by the limbertwig tree, grandmother said.  Her daddy kept the grape vines pruned and trained to grow up wire trellises to avoid a tangled mass of twining vines.

A quiet lane about a block or so long ran from the main road up to the house, and her dad always had a tobacco field off to one side of the house. And they worked in it until harvest time.  It was their cash crop, and her daddy took it to Owensboro to sell.

GRANDMOTHER:  We had a happy home when we were kids…at home.  I don’t know…it was just a happy home.  In that time, we sat around the fireplace and popped corn, and made candy, and eat apples.  Just had a good time.  Yes, and we were all close too.   Because we stayed at home, and all the family was together.”

~.~

“Auntie,” (Mary Elizabeth (Smith) Sandefur) told me a number of stories about growing up that I wish I had recorded but did not.  However I did make notes later about some of the things she told me:

Auntie said their house was a big two-story house, painted white, with pretty wall paper.  The bedrooms were all upstairs and they had one bedroom downstairs.  They had a lot of flowers and the prettiest garden walk with peonies that looked like wax - red and white.  At the end of the garden walk, the landscape stair-stepped, and they had a grape arbor with a slatted roof-top.

Auntie said that Grandma Sanders' house had a summer kitchen where they cooked and canned.

She also said they had a dog, named Old Sport that slept by the chimney and he bit Grandmother once.  He was a good guard dog.

They had a smoke house out behind the house.  She could remember that her father killed 16 hogs one cold winter day, and there were lots of people there.  They let her walk to Grandma Sanders' house to get a knife to use in the hog-killing.

Lilacs arrived in the early spring and those hardy shrubs filled spring with its delicate scent and profusion of blooms - white and purple.”

~.~

More than two decades have passed since my grandmother’s health began to fail, and eventually her death at the age of 99 years and 9 months.  I will always have wonderful memories of sitting around her mahogany dining room table where everyone gathered and enjoyed afternoon refreshments – usually coffee and cake – and conversation that I tried to steer around to my grandmother’s home life and growing up at Select.  I always took my tape recorder when I visited her. 
I have carried those memories around with me ever since and transcribed them from tape to type, and now it’s time to write my book about her life so that future generations will appreciate seeing a very special ancestor and the way times were when she was growing up.

I think of her often – sometimes she and granddaddy sat in the swing on the front porch that faced the west, but most of the time they sat out on her screened-in back porch built back off the kitchen and dining room, where there were several chairs and rockers. It faced the east and there always seemed to be a breeze blowing through it.  Both the front and back porch could accommodate a number of visitors, mostly family members.  Often on Sunday – sometimes Saturday – Joye and Frank and Auntie would drive over from Palestine to spend the day and visit.  Auntie was my grandmother’s older sister – Mary Elizabeth, called “Betty” by her family, but called “Auntie” by all of us (because she was the aunt of my dad, Retha, and Darrell – and my great-aunt).  Auntie’s husband, Everett Sanderfur, whom we called “Uncle” died in June 1954; Auntie died in July 1975. 

I forgot to mention that Grandmother usually had a hanging basket or two on both the front and back porches of her home, and a bed of old fashioned petunias that didn’t require too much fuss planted in front of both porches.  They always remember how pretty they were and how good they smelled.

~.~

G.O. (My dad was called G.O. by his grandchildren because my children had all of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers living when they were born – six all together). 

G. O.: - telling about Grandpa Smith and then about his barn:

“When we were back in Kentucky, we always went to my grandfather Smith’s house.  Jim Smith.  His name was James, but everybody called him Jim.

And he kept everything up.  If it was raining, he still kept you busy.  You would go to the barn and shell corn, or you would work on the harness or you would clean the stalls.  There was something to do all the time.  If nothing else, they had a big old keg of rusty nails.  I never have forgot, a lot of them were square nails.  And you would take a hammer and straighten them out.  There was never a minute that you was there that you didn’t have to get up of a morning and…except Sunday, that was a day of rest…you were going to work all day.  By the time you got through with one thing, he would have something else figured out.  He had that going all the time.  And there wasn’t much you could do about it…because he kept his eye on you and you didn’t hide out on him.  If you did, he would soon find you.  He would know right where you was.  He knew!

Oh yes, I will tell you something else we had to do.  Those horses had to be curried and brushed, and their collars cleaned off…because the sweat would build up on the leather collars, and when you brought a horse in of a night, and put him up and feed him, when you got through, you brushed his shoulders and curried him, and rubbed him down with a big old stiff brush.  And fed him, and then you went and got that collar and cleaned all that caked dirt and sweat off of it.  And he had a collar pad that went on the horse, and you had to clean that too.

My Grandfather Smith…like I told Conrad (my husband)…there was something to do from the time you got up in the morning until the time you went to bed at night.  And when night come, you was ready to go to bed.  You were give out because you had done worked.  You can’t believe how primitive they lived, compared to the way we live now.  If we want some beans, we run to the store and buy a little sack of beans.  But you raised your own beans then.  Planted them in the corn when you were planting the corn rows.  And then you had to take meal sacks, and flour sacks, and go down there and pick them beans off of those corn stalks when they got dry.  And you took a stick and beat that sack and knocked all the beans out of the hulls.  And then you held them up and let the wind blow the trash out of them, and let the beans fall on a sheet.  Sometimes I stood on the barn roof, and the wind blew the trash away.  And they had something to put in them to keep the weevils from getting in them, but I forget what it was. 

But there was something to do all the time.  Just like when the peaches and apples was getting ripe.  You were either canning them or you was cutting them up to dry.  And Grandma had a lot of oil cloth, and you would get up on that smokehouse, and that was my job because I was a little boy and could get up there real easy, spread that oil cloth out, and they would hand me up those peaches and apples and I would spread them out on top of that oil cloth and have the whole top of that smokehouse covered with apples and peaches, drying.  Drying in the sun for food that winter.”

And I said: “ I guess all the girls kept busy the same way.  What did grandmother do when you were there visiting?”

G.O.:  “Cooking, sewing, washing dishes.  Washing clothes by hand.  Yes.  You had better believe it.  Hanging them on bushes to dry…there would be so many clothes washed and didn’t have enough lines and fences to hang them on.   Feed the chickens, gather up the eggs.  Build hen nests.  I could just sit here and tell you…there was something all the time.  For everybody. 

Or work in the garden.  Hoeing weeds.  Everybody had a hoe.  Suckering tobacco…that was the money crop.  Boy, you really worked in that tobacco.  When he sold that tobacco in the fall, he carried it down to Cromwell, and put it on the boat and carried it to Owensboro and sold it, and when he come back, we met the boat that he come back on, and he brought everything with him that he was going to use the next year…two barrels of brown sugar.  I never will forget that.  The stuff we were going to have for Christmas.  Coffee, pepper, salt, stuff like that.  Flour.  Bought flour by the barrel, because they didn’t grow much wheat there.  Bought it by the barrel.  Knocked the lid out of it, and it set over in the corner of the kitchen.   Had a cloth over the top of it, and a sifter in it, and you went over there and got what flour you wanted, and sifted it right there on the side of that…and about that much of the flour would still be left in there.

Had a coffee mill mounted on the wall, and you roasted the coffee beans in the oven on the stove.  Then take it out and grind it.  And you roasted the coffee beans, and stirred them all the time they were roasting.  And a wood stove to do it on.  And you can imagine how hot it got.  And the stove had a warmer on top that went up, and you kept that full of food up there.  Stuff that was left from dinner, and you warmed it for supper.  You couldn’t believe what it was like.  You had to live it to really know.

But we had good times too.  Sometimes we would go squirrel hunting and sometimes we would go rabbit hunting.  And I did love to squirrel hunt.  And we would get on a horse and ride down through the woods and there were so many squirrels that you could hunt off your horse.  Grandpa even had one horse that he could shoot a squirrel off of…and the horse wouldn’t jump.

But that tobacco was something.  You had to worm it.  Pick the worms off.  With your hands.  Little old speckled worms, and you stepped on them.  And they had a big old horn.  When I was a little bitty baby, my mother gimme a tobacco worm to play with…put it in a pasteboard box and I would sit and look at it in that box, crawling around, and the box would keep it from getting away, too.

And you had to go pick them peaches.  And boy, I ate enough of them.  They had one tree that I just loved.  It was a little bitty one, and when they were ripe, you could just break them open with one hand and eat a half would just make a good bite.  It was an Indian Cling peach and it didn’t get very ripe until way up in the fall.  And they had pear trees.

All the hay had to be put up in the loft of the barn.  It was a two-story barn.  And it had a hole cut at each manger in the stalls where you put the hay down through that hole into the hayrack down in the stall.  And it was my job to go up there every night and feed them horses hay.  I had to fill up that manger down through that hole.   The ladder went up beside the runways that went through the barn, with stables on both sides.  It had two big doors that stayed open nearly all the time…swinging doors that you could throw back and put the hay up there, and then in the wintertime, you closed it up…to keep the rain out.”

G.O.:   “And then that smokehouse I’m telling you about.  He had great big 5 and 10 gallon crocks filled with kraut, with big old wooden lids.  And it would be foaming and you could smell it when you went down in that smoke house.  But there would be 6 or 8 or 10 of them big old crocks all across the backside of it there…setting on boards, filled with kraut.”

G.O.:   “We ground the corn into meal.  I rode Old Barney, an old horse that was gentle, and my grandfather would pick me up and put a sack in front of me and one behind me, and I rode it about six miles down to my Uncle Letcher’s grist mill and saw mill, and he ground it up into meal and I brought it back.”

GRANDMOTHER: (telling about cutting the boy’s hair):  The neighbors cut each other’s hair most of the time.  But I don’t know…I don’t think they had any barber shop close.  Course they did at Cromwell and Beaver Dam.  Daddy cut a lot of their hair.  They would come to the house and go out in the yard under a shade tree.

G. O.:  And Grandpa Smith was a fox hunter.  My grandmother would make a great big pan of bread…that big a square (measuring) for them dogs.  Every evening.  And if he told her not to feed the dogs, I knew we were going to go hunting that night.  So they would run real good.  And he would put me up in front of him in the saddle and away we would go.  And we would meet four or five other fellows and they would all have their dogs, and boy, I’m telling you, the fox chase took place.  And we would stop and listen to them dogs, and they could tell which dog was in the lead…and where the fox was going to cross.  And we would get on those horses, and race to get there in the moonlight and watch the dogs cross with that fox.  It was thrilling…to a little boy!

Yes, it was a pastime to them.  He had the best dog there was in that country…my grandfather.  His name was Pullman.  I don’t know where he got that name for him, but I never will forget it.  Pullman…like the Pullman car on the back of a passenger train. And he had the best nose, and one of the fastest dogs.  I know one night, we had started across a bridge over there at the Chancellor Creek over a foot log when he was just a puppy, when my grandfather was training him, and it was a coon he was after instead of a fox, and when we got up there, that coon had a hold of that puppy on that log and pulled him off in that water.  And it was icy, mind you.  And Grandpa went right in that icy water and grabbed that pup by the leg and that coon was still holding on to him, setting right on top of his head.  And he would have drowned him, too, if Grandpa hadn’t of got him out.  They will do that, a coon will.

GRANDMOTHER - telling about her dad, the fox hunter:    “My daddy was a great fox hunter.  He had fox dogs, and he went with all of them.  All of them hunted.  But daddy liked to go with Roy Stewart’s daddy.  John Henry Stewart.  Those two really loved to hunt together.  Yes…they went fox hunting all the time!  And then got up early of a morning and go to the field and work hard all day, and then his health give away.  And Roy Stewart would come by to go fox hunting, and he would help him finish his work so he could go fox hunting with them.  Roy Stewart’s daddy was a farmer too.  And him and my daddy was as close as brothers.  They sure was.  (laughing)…he was a fine man.” (Roy Thompson Stewart married Aunt Ella Smith, grandmother’s younger sister next to her in age.  Roy Stewart’s father was John Henry Stewart who married Susannah Miranda Cox (daughter of James William Cox and Mary Elizabeth Mitchell – Granddaddy’s parents).    Grandmother also told this“Some of the fox hunter’s families would come and spend the night and they rode in the wagon, and they would spend the night because it was too far to go back home at night.  I don’t know...(she was trying to remember…) -- some of them that fox-hunted and the family would come and spend the night.”

GRANDMOTHER:  No, we never did give any parties at home hardly.  But we went to parties.  No dancing.  Just played games and made candy, and that was about all you had to do.  Go to church, go to Sunday school.  And school.  (and she told about going to the county fair with her father).  (Nov 7, 1976 tape)

GRANDMOTHER:  Mother had a big old trunk and she always kept a little bottle of whiskey in there in case of sickness, and locked it.  Cause if it was needed, doctors weren’t close by and it taken a while for someone to get there.  And Mother would make a little toddy and give it until the doctor could get there,

(GRANDMOTHER -- describing her mother):  My mother had light brown hair and blue eyes.  And I guess Grandma Sanders did too.

“Charlie always had a fast horse.  It was a traveling horse.  We always liked to get on that old horse and go to Select and get the mail.  And get the paper.  About two miles. (Charlie was my grandmother’s oldest brother).

I saved these pictures Lynne Miller sent me because I heard my grandmother mention her church and the family cemetery where all the Smiths and Sanders are buried (her parents and grandparents – and some of her brothers and sisters. I visited it back in 1973.
  


Bald Knob Church is where Grandmother went to church.  Next to it is the Brick House Burying Grounds, where Smith and Sanders families are buried.  It is about four miles east of Beaver Dam, according to an obituary.

~.~

My grandmother mentioned their limbertwig tree with branches that drooped down, willow-like” that hid their privy, located out a ways from their grape arbor and garden. It produced medium to large apples, greenish or light yellow with light red stripes, and was usually harvested in late fall. It was an excellent keeper.  Her mother made delicious cider from those apples, as well as apple butter, jelly, and wonderful apple cobblers and fried pies.   It was also good for just eating out of hand.  Grandmother described how they buried their apples in a bed of straw under a cone-shaped mound of dirt, for eating in the wintertime. To keep them from freezing.  They could just open up a hole, reach their hand in there, and pull out an apple to eat – or to take a bucketful to the house for cooking something.

In Kentucky the limbertwig tree is noted for its “weeping growth” due to its thick and “limber” twigs, but are probably most prized for their distinct and unique flavor.  Some old varieties came from the Cumberland mountains.   It is a very special apple.

~.~

Tape recording dated March 7, 1977:

GRANDMOTHER - describing their smoke house:

“It was pretty wide, you know, that you could walk around; that’s where my daddy smoked the meat, dig a hole right down in that dirt, and smoke the hams and shoulders and meat.  Then we had syrup, molasses, they called it – it was ribbon cane syrup, and then we would put that molasses, I’ll say, some called it syrup, in barrels.  And Charlie went out there…it was so cold…he went out there to get some in a bucket, and it was so cold, it wouldn’t run…you know was just running slow into the bucket, and he forgot about it, and when he thought of it, the ground was just covered.  He opened the spigot and forgot all about it, and boy, he had molasses everywhere.  Well, I think they carried dirt and covered it up, and cleaned it up.  I don’t remember exactly.”

“We had about a one acre orchard.  The first barn was great big, and was pretty old.  When it fell in, they built a new barn with a driveway through it for the wagons, and it had stalls on both sides and troughs fixed for each stall, and a gate to go in and out and around the barn, and you open it and throw in the corn in and it was fixed that way so the horses couldn’t kick you with their heels when you went around to feed them.

The barn had a loft without a banister, and Ellis walked off it one time.  He and our cousin, George Taylor, had gone to church and had come back by the barn.  The loft just had a ladder, and Ellis thought he was stepping down where the ladder was, but in place of that, he just stepped off the loft into air.

It knocked him unconscious, but George didn’t bring him to the house until he revived.  And it left a gray spot on his head where his hair just turned grey.  They were young men at the time, old enough to be going with the girls.”

~.~

Ohio County Fair Time

I read about the Ohio County fairs in the Ohio County News, which reminded me of another story, and will mention it here because my grandmother told a story about going to the fair with her daddy. 

Fairs bring out the best in everybody.  The annual county fair was a respite from hard, hot work of summer, when everyone gathered for a few days of fun and to show their prized projects and animals...even coon dogs.  Those who took part in the friendly competitions proudly brought handpicked, polished produce…their tastiest jams and jellies…their creative crafts…and well-groomed animals.

I wish I had asked my grandmother whether or not they ever entered animals or food in the fair competitions, but I didn’t.  Those folks who came just to look around at the local fair were rewarded with sights, sounds and scents that couldn’t be found anywhere else…while enjoying some great outdoor eating, and meeting and seeing relatives and friends from all over.   Everyone loved the horse races there.  Men had fox hounds and all kinds of homemade inventions for sale.

Rural folks gathered from all nearby counties to celebrate the end of summer at the Ohio County fair.  Grandmother told me a neat story which I have on tape about riding to the county fair with her father in the buggy.  She really wanted to go with her boyfriend, but she said her daddy begged her to go with him, and she just hated to turn him down.  She thought they would be eating his dust on the way to the fair.  As it turned out, her daddy got ahead and her boyfriend rode his horse behind them.  He had to eat all the dust their buggy stirred up behind them.

~.~


                                          Class in front of Bunker Hill School in Ohio County, November 5, 1909. Photo by Schroeter, 
                                             contributed to An Ohio River Portrait Collection by Carmen Kittinger. KHS Collections.

Bunker Hill School where I think my grandmother said the Smith children went to school.  One of my Grandmother’s teachers was Birch Shields, who later married my granddaddy Cox’s sister, Martha Evelyn Cox.  She told several stories about attending school and walking home from it with all their friends until they came to a fork in the road and it was there they had “the battle of Bunker Hill” as they called it, with all the boys trying to get the girl’s bonnets or fascinators and throwing them up in the trees.

~.~

Tape Recording: Oct 10 1977 – Grandmother:  “I remember my grandmother’s good cooking better than anything.    One time I spent the night.  I stayed…and then I got to crying and I wanted to go home.  And I could hear them all hollering over there at home and having a good time, and it was dark.  I stayed one night and all day, and I was so lonesome…and homesick.  And there was a big snow that night…up to your knees.  And I said I wanted to go home, and grandma said, “No, you can’t go tonight…cause we have no phone, and you might fall.”  Well, I just set into squalling.  (Laughs.) And it was after night, and she couldn’t do nothing with me.  But I remember enough that she got a pair of grandpa’s wool socks and pulled up over my shoes and fixed them where they wouldn’t fall down, and she let me go. 

And I come in, and Mother was so surprised.  All of them.  They had the lights on… lamps… and they hadn’t eaten their supper…they always ate late.  And grandpa eat early…about 4:30 in the wintertime.  So I had already had my supper.  And I really wanted to go home, and I was so happy when I got there.  There wasn’t any wind blowing.”
~.~

GRANDMOTHER:  “I was just saying how close we were when we’s children, you know…at home.  When the day’s work was done and supper was over, they had a table and it usually, sat, you know, right in front of the fireplace.  And one sat on one side and one sat on the other.  And us children all around in chairs.  And we would pop corn and we’d make candy, and tell stories, and eat apples and have a good time.

We didn’t do too much reading, I guess, because we were always talking.  And if we were making candy and all…  Of course, we talked.” 

GRANDMOTHER:   “And each one knew where their plate was.  My daddy and mother always sat at the ends, like me and Retha are sitting now.  And Charlie would sit down at that end, I’ll say.  And then Ellis sat down next to Ma.  The boys sat on one side and the girls on the other.  I always got in there, right close to Mother.  I don’t care if they had company, and I was little, they say I would always scrooch in there somehow.  Right by my mother.  I’d always do that.  I wanted to eat and I always got my plate and got right by her.”
~.~

My grandmother, born in March 1889, was still telling her life stories to me, even six months before her death.  She had a wonderful recall and memory, and a dry wit, coupled with a soft-spoken voice that had just a hint of a Kentucky brogue.  She almost made it to her 100th birthday; she was ill for about four months and died at the age of 99 years, eight months and six days.  She is buried in the family plot of the Rose Hill Cemetery at Tyler, Smith County, Texas, only a few blocks from my home. 

~.~
                                                                                ~ Janice Cox Brown, Tyler, Texas  

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Schroader Family

Note: This article was amended by me 10 March 2019 to add information about Mary Jane Schroader; see end of article. Charles Leach


Schroader Family
By: Dr. Fitchett
1850-1870
At the time of the 1850 census, Alexander Schroder (listed as Shrader), was a 37 year old farmer married to a 36 year old Sarah.  Their six children, Adam, age 15, Frederick, age 13,  Mary, age 10, George, age 5, Alexander, age 3, and 2 month old Martha lived with them. All four of their listed neighbors were farming, just as they were.   Alexander owned no real estate and had no worth in his personal estate.  Their neighbors, the Dulles, owned quite a bit of real estate.
On July 27th, 1860, in the Caney District of Ohio County, Kentucky, Alexander Schroader was a 48 year old married farmer with $300 in real estate.  He owned another $168 in his personal estate.  He nor his wife nor any of his adult children living with him were able to read or write.  His wife Sarah was also 48 and she worked on the farm for her husband. They lived on their farm with their seven children, Adam, age 25, Frederic, age 24, George, age 14, Alexander, age 12, Martha E, age 10, Edmund, age 8, and Thomas, age 4.  Adam, Frederic, and George were all attending a nearby school.  On the census sheet the name was spelled Shroder. Of the six families living in the area, all were white farmers, except one who was a shoemaker by the name of Mr. York.  Among their neighbors were the Thomas’s and the Mallocks.  They all came from places such as Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama.
At the time of the 1870 census, Alexander Schroader was a 55 year old farmer living with his wife, Sally, age 57.  There were two farmhands living at their home, Fredrick, age 28 and Bud, age 21. Edmund, their son, was 17 at the time.  A child name Caroline was also living there and she was age 14.  Both Edmund and Caroline were attending school.  Next door, Adam Schroader, Jr. was living with his wife Sarah and their two children.  Adam was 30, Sarah was 30, and their children, John and Sarah, were ages 2 and 1 respectively. Next to Adam, lived George. He was a 24 year old farmer living with his 22 year old wife Menea.  They had a 1 year old baby named Marthea.  Henry Schroader lived a couple of housed down from George.  He was a 44 year old farmer with a $500 real estate and $300 worth of personal estate.  His wife, Elizabeth was 42 years old and kept the house.  There were nine families living in the area, all white farmers.  Only three owned real estate. 
Note the discrepancies in ages.  I have been unable to find the answer as to why this is.
1880
On June 12th of 1880, there were 5 Schroader families residing in one area of the Rosine District of Ohio County Kentucky. Each head of each household was a farmer and he named his wife as a house keeper. George Schroader was one of the heads of household and at the time he was a 35 farmer who was unable to read or write.  His wife, Wilhelmia, was 28 years old and could not read or write either.  Her father was born in Ireland and her mother in England.  They had three children, Martha, Sarah, and Norvel.  Both Martha and Sarah attended a nearby school.  Norvel was too young.
Living next door was Thomas Schroader, a 23 year old farmer who also could not read or write. He was married to Sarah who kept house for him.  They had just had a son one year before and they named him Ira.
On the other side of George Schroader lived Frederick Schroader, a 45 year old farmer who could not read or write and was considered disabled.  His wife Mahala was 31 years old and kept house.  She bore two daughters and one son to Frederick, whose names were, Oma, age 6, Eva, age 2, and Elijah, age 1.  Mahala was unable to read or write, but she was sending Oma to a nearby school.
Adam Schroader lived in the area, as well, and was a 46 year old farmer who could neither read nor write.  His wife was 33 and kept house for her husband just like all the other wives did.  Their six children and Adam’s brother, Alex, all lived in the home.  The children’s names were John, Edward, Cinthia, Rosa, Sarah, and another unknown child. 
Edmund Schroader and his wife Mary were a young couple living in the area as well.  He was a farmer and she kept house. She was able to read but not write.  Edmund could do neither.
All the family’s names were misspelled as Shroader.
1900  (added 14 Mar 2020)

At the turn of the 20th century. In the Rosine District of Ohio county Kentucky, the Schroader family owned and ran their own farm free of mortgage.  George Schroader was the head of household and was listed on his U.S. census sheet as Shrowder.  He was born in June of 1844 and was 55 years old.  He had been married to his wife Willhemina, age 48, for 31 years.  She was born in August of 1852.  They had five children living in their home.  Their names, ages, and birthdates are as follows:
Noah A                 Apr 1877              22 yrs old
Joseph                  Jun 1880               19 yrs old
Thomas                 Jul 1884                15 yrs old
Dora L                   Mar 1887             13 yrs old
Anda                     Feb 1890              10 yrs old
Both Dora and Anda had been attending a nearby school that year.  The rest of the children were farm laborers. 


Another Schroader family, which I suspect was misspelled Shrowder, lived down the road.  The head of the household was a John Gray, but he had five step children, Dillard, age 14,  Minnie, age 12, Clem B, age 9, Ettie V, age 7, and Grace (or Trace), age 5).  Mr. Grays wife was named Mary Lou, born Jan 1866 and she had only been remarried for three months. Some research shows that Mary was the widow of Hiram D. Schroader who passed away in 1899 (sheldapayne at www.ancestry.com). The five Schroader children being raised my Mr. Gray have been untraceable in my research efforts as far as connecting them to Martha and her father George. I imagine their deceased father, Hiram, was a cousin of George’s.

1910
On May 4th, 1910, the Schroader Family was living in Magisterial District #1, in Ohio county, Kentucky.  Noah Schroader was about 32 years old and had a mortgage on the ownership of the farm he and his family lived on.  He also farmed his land.  His sons were too young to farm at the time, but he had family living in three different homes in the area that were full of his family, other Schroaders and his wife’s family, the Ziglars.  This means he most likely had plenty of help.  Jannie, Noah’s wife, was 25 at the time, and had been married to Noah for 10 years.  At this time of her life, three of her four children were living.  She undoubtedly kept the home and helped with whatever farm labor she could. Vernie, age 7, and Claude, age 5, were attending a nearby school.  Delbert, being only 3 years old, did not attend school yet and most likely stuck by his mother’s apron strings. The Schroader family lived next to Joseph Schroader and also next door to Jannie’s parents, Mr.  and Mrs. Ziglar.  Another Schroader family, headed by a man named George, lived only four homes away.  The entire area in which the Schroader family lived was resided by white farmers and farm laborers, mostly which had been born and raised there in Kentucky.  A few were Irish immigrants and couple from states like Tennessee and Indiana.  Among the Schroader’s neighbors were the Smiths, the Rices, the Waddles and Hagermans.
WWI
On September 12th 1918, Noah A Schroader was drafted to go to World War 1 when he was 41 years old.  At the time of his draft, he lived at Hartford, Kentucky and was self employed as a farmer.  He was described as having a medium build, being of medium height, and as having brown eyes and hair.  Many Schroader’s from Ohio County were called to war that year and the year prior.  On the day Noah was drafted, he stood alongside George Anderson Schroader,  Jesse Schroader, Mode Schroader,  and Thomas Schroader.  The others had been drafted 15 months prior on June 5th Those drafted at that time were Robert B., Robert J., Linken, Harrison, Hiram, Gross, Clem and Alonzo L.  A few of the men claimed an exemption from service due to the fact that they had to support women and children at home.  Nonetheless, most of them went off to war.
Vernon Lee Schroader was born on the third day of September, in the year 1902 to Noah and Janie Schroader1. When he was seven he lived in magisterial district #1 of Hartford in Ohio County, Kentucky where his father farmed a piece of mortgaged land under the Schroader name. He had his two younger brothers, Claude, age 5, and Delbert age 3 to play with. No doubt, he helped his father and mother with small duties around the property. Two farms over, Delbert may have had a friend named Flora Smith, who was also 7. Vernie also had the enjoyment of living next door to his grandma and grandpa Cynthia and Ben Ziglar. They were Janie’s Mom and Dad.  On the other side of where Vernon lived, resided his aunt and uncle, Joseph and Cloie Schroader. Vernon’s cousins, Oscar and Oliver, lived there too, but were probably a bit too young for Vernie to play with.  They were 3 and 1 year old at the time2
                By the time Vernon was seventeen years old, he had moved with his parents and was living on Sullinger’s Mill Road in a small area north of Hartford called Beda. His father no longer owned his owned property and was renting a home where he farmed. Vernon spent most of his time working on the farm on which they lived. He still took time to attend school and was able to read and write. Besides sharing the home with Claude and Delbert, Vernon also lived with his sister, Gracie, who was nine years old. Four farms over Vernon may have had a friend in Gorman Kaysinger who was 15. Violet Allen lived two farms in the other direction and was 17. Other than these two teenagers, there weren’t any kids Vernon’s age.  At this residence Vernon did not have any extended family living nearby3.
                Vernon continued to live on Sullinger’s Mill Road and by the age of twenty seven he was renting his own residence with his wife, Lillie, and their one year old son Lynn. His parents lived right next door and were caring for Vernon’s ailing grandmother, Cynthia. Vernon’s brother Claude lived in the house on the other side with his wife Mamie and their three children Winnifred, Wendell, and Wilma. Vernon was still farming4.
                Vernon L Schroader passed away at the age of 96. He died on September 14th, 1998 while living in a small town south of Hartford, Beaver Dam5.       
1 Social Security Death Index2 1910 United States Federal Census
3 1920 United States Federal Census
4 1930 United States Federal Census
5 Kentucky Death Index, 1911-2000

Claude A Schroader was born on the eighteenth day of January, in the year 1904 to Noah and Janie Schroader1.  During this year Teddy Roosevelt was president and up for re-election. The Governor of Kentucky was paid $5000 for his services and the army and state militia were active at West Point, KY.  The World Fair was happening in St. Louis and was a weekly topic in the Hartford Herald.  The Chicago Theater Fire costs were being tallied and families of the victims were suing. Temperatures in NY were 41 below zero.  It was also a leap year and women were encouraged to propose marriage. The state reported that more men and women were divorcing and getting an education and also that Kentucky’s population was growing and illiteracy was decreasing2.
             
            The week that Claude was born, the city of Hartford had just declared it illegal to sell liquor on Sunday and the town was asking for street lights, street crossings, and pavement. The city was also greatly wishing for a railroad to come through town.  Cities throughout Kentucky were also given the power to set their own taxes per an amendment to the constitution which would probably impact the prices of necessities that the Schroader family would need to purchase2.
                 
            Crime was alive and well during the week the Claude was born. The Klu Klux Klan had recently whipped a woman and sprinkled her with salt and the Lakeland Asylum was wanting more space to house drunkards. The Kentucky Children’s Home Society was in town gathering indigent children. In fact, a family had been living in abandoned homes and caves and were arrested. Their children were taken into custody and given to another family2.
                
            No doubt, Janie, Claude’s mother worried about the Claude’s wellbeing because the week he was born was marked by illness in surrounding areas of town. Consumption had killed some and others were ill with it.  Typhoid Fever, measles, whooping cough, and small pox was also going around.
                
            Farming was a hot topic as well. Cotton crops were down significantly as were tobacco crops as well. It was Tobacco season and farmers were busy. It had been a cold, dry, and harsh season and farmers were considering not continuing Tobacco for the next season.  Farmers were encouraged to take up Live Stock, Fruit, Poultry, Mule, and Hog Farming2.
               
            At the time Claude was born, some popular businesses included City Restaurant, Carson & Co., the Economy Store, The Floating Studio, and First National Bank. Hartford had a local phone company called Rough River Telephone. Cumberland Telephone offered long distance phone as well.
                
            Claude would find that when he started school he would only attend for five months a year, because that was how long it was in session2.

When he was five he lived in magisterial district #1 of Hartford in Ohio County, Kentucky where his father farmed a piece of mortgaged land under the Schroader name. He was their second-born child.  He lived there with his older brother Vernon, age seven and his younger brother, Delbert, age 3. Four farms over, Claude may have had a friend named, Charlie Hagarman, who was 6. Claude also had the enjoyment of living next door to his grandma and grandpa Cynthia and Ben Ziglar. They were Janie’s Mom and Dad.  On the other side of where Vernon lived, resided his aunt and uncle, Joseph and Cloie Schroader. Vernon’s cousins, Oscar and Oliver, lived there too. Perhaps Claude wasn’t too old to play with Oscar, who was three at the time. Oliver was just a baby and was 1 year old3
               
             By the time Claude was sixteen years old, he had moved with his parents and was living on Sullinger’s Mill Road in a small area north of Hartford called Beda. His father no longer owned his own property and was renting a home where he farmed. Claude spent most of his time working on the farm on which they lived. He still took time to attend school and was able to read and write. Besides sharing the home with Vernon and Delbert, Vernon also lived with his sister, Gracie, who was nine years old. Four farms over Claude may have had a friend in Gorman Kaysinger who was 15. Violet Allen lived two farms in the other direction and was 17. Other than these two teenagers, there weren’t any kids Claude’s age.  At this time, Claude did not have any extended family living nearby4.
                Claude continued to live on Sullinger’s Road and by the age of twenty six he was renting his own residence with his wife, Mayme, and his three children, Winnifred, age 5, Wendell, age 4, and Wilma, age 1. He had a boarder living at the house as well.  His name was Joe Allinder and was an Italian immigrant who was now farming for Claude in exchange for a place to stay. His parents lived right next door and were caring for Claude’s ailing grandmother, Cynthia5.
                Six years later, on Christmas Eve of 1923, Claude bound himself with his dad, Noah Schroader, to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The bond indicated that Claude was going to marry Mayme Jewell Bailey. He was 19 and Mayme was 15. One year later, Claude made good on his bond by marrying Mayme at the General Baptist Church under the officiating presence of Minister Beasley. Pat and Albert Bailey, Claude’s soon-to-be brothers-in-law were also present as witnesses.
                Claude passed away at the age of 100. He died on April 15th, 2004 while living in Yakima, WA.               
1 Social Security Death Index2 The Hartford Herald 19043 1910 United States Federal Census
4 1920 United States Federal Census
5 1930 United States Federal Census

Obituary: Sunday, April 18, 2004 Claude A. Schroader - Valley Hills Funeral Home, Yakima. Claude A. Schroeder, 100, of Yakima, passed away Thursday April 15, 2004 at Good Samaritan Health Care Center. Claude was born January 18, 1904 in Hartford, KY to Noah and Arminda (Zigler) Schroader. He worked as a broom maker in the family business in Kentucky and Illinois before moving to Yakima in 1943. He worked as a cook, and retired from the Chinook Tower Restaurant. Prior to that he worked as a cook at the old Chocolate Shoppe that was located on E. Yakima Ave. Claude recently celebrated his 100th birthday surrounded by his family and friends. His hobbies were rock hunting, drives and picnics in the mountains and studying his Bible. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends. He is survived by his wife, Zenita; four sons, Glen Schroader of Pt. Ludlow, WA, Wendell Schroader of Yakima, Russell Schroader of Tacoma, WA and Byron Schroader of Yakima; two daughters, Wilma Ragen-Halstead and Cynthia Ann Roady, both of Yakima; 22 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and 24 great-great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, three wives, five siblings, one grandson, one great-grandson, one great-great-granddaughter, and a son-in-law, Lynn Roady. Memorial Services will be held Saturday, April 24, 2004 at 3:00 p.m. at the Seventh-day Adventist Church, located at 507 N. 35th Ave., Yakima. In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorials be made to Worthy Students, Yakima Adventist Christian School, 1200 City Reservoir Rd., Yakima, WA 98908. Valley Hills Funeral Home, Yakima, has been entrusted with arrangements.

Delbert Schroader  was born on the first day of January, in the year 1907 to Noah and Janie Schroader1. When he was 3 he lived in magisterial district #1 of Hartford in Ohio County, Kentucky where his father farmed a piece of mortgaged land under the Schroader name. He had his two brothers, Vernon, age 7, and Claude, age 5, to play with. Delbert also had the enjoyment of living next door to his grandma and grandpa Cynthia and Ben Ziglar. They were Janie’s Mom and Dad.  On the other side of where Delbert  lived, resided his aunt and uncle, Joseph and Cloie Schroader. Vernon’s cousins, Oscar and Oliver, lived there too, and were probably playmates of Delbert’s.  They were 3 and 1 years old at the time2
                By the time Delbert was thirteen years old, he had moved with his parents and was living on Sullinger’s Mill Road in a small area north of Hartford called Beda. His father no longer owned his owned property and was renting a home where he farmed. Delbert spent most of his time working on the farm on which they lived. He still took time to attend school and was able to read and write. Besides sharing the home with Vernon and Claude, Delbert also lived with his sister, Gracie, who was nine years old. Next door Delbert may have had a friend, Guthrie Coyle who was fourteen years old. Girdie Kaysinger also lived nearby and may have spend some time playing with Delbert. She was 12.  At this residence Delbert did not have any extended family living nearby3.
                By the age of twenty three, Delbert continued to live on Sullinger’s Road and was still living with his sister, Gracie, and their parents. At this time, Noah and Janie were caring for Delbert’s ailing grandmother, Cynthia. Directly next to their home, Vernon was living with his new wife, Lillie and their baby Lynn.  Delbert’s  other brother Claude lived in the house on the other side with his wife Mamie and their three children Winnifred, Wendell, and Wilma. Delbert continued to help on his family farm4.
                Delbert passed away at the age of ninety-two. He died on September 20th, 1999 while living in Portland, Tennessee.  His wife Grace, had just passed four months earlier5.               
1 Social Security Death Index2 1910 United States Federal Census
3 1920 United States Federal Census
4 1930 United States Federal Census
5 Kentucky Death Index, 1911-2000

Obituary of Wendell Schroader in the Yakima Valley Herald Republic
BATTLE GROUND - Wendell Schroader, born Nov. 1, 1926 in Hartford, KY, died Feb. 21, 2007. He came to Washington when he was 16 and worked picking fruit in Yakima, WA. He entered the Navy at 18. He graduated from Perry Tech as an Auto Body repairman. He lived most of his adult life back and forth between Alaska and WA. He was a lifelong member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. He married Bonnie Jean Cleary in 1952, they were married 54 years. He was preceded in death by his oldest daughter, Shirley Terry. He is survived by Bonnie Jean of Battle Ground; son, Timothy of Fairbanks, AK; daughters, Kathy and Pam of Battle Ground; seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren; brothers, Glenn, Russel, and Byron; sisters Wilma and Cindy, all of WA; many nieces and nephews. 

Memorial service will be on Sat., March 17, 2007, 3 p.m. at Whipple Creek Seventh Day Adventist Church, 302 NW 179th St., Ridgefield, WA.

Living with Grandma Bailey

As told by Wilma Schroader
1934
Subjects: Wilma (speaker), Iva Ellen Smith, Pat Bailey, Dorothy Bailey, Pearl Bailey, Ruth Bailey, Cecil Bailey, Ernest Bailey, Albert Bailey,
I used to live in Mines Kentucky with Grandma Bailey (Iva).  I lived there when I was about five years old.  I was supposed to go to school there.  I must have been five.  Maybe six. But I was to start the first grade.  Back then we didn’t have kindergarten.  Uncle Pat lived up the road and he was better off you know. He had what I would call a nice home.  You could walk to it.  Grandma told me to go with Dorothy, Uncle Pat’s daughter and walk to school.  I went just a few times.  I remember that I was so shy, when the teachers would talk to me I wouldn’t say nothin’.  Times were hard with the Depression and all.  One day they came and had a box and was asking what kind of sandwiches we wanted.  I think it was a government thing to feed the kid who didn’t have nothin’.  Well, I had never had a sandwich before.  I didn’t know what it was.  They asked me what kind I wanted and I wouldn’t say a thing.  Well, they eventually just gave me one.  It was a half a sandwich.  It had lettuce and mayonnaise on it.  Oh, it was so good.  I loved it.  I’d never had white bread before…just biscuits and cornbread.  Times were different.   Anyway, Aunt Pearlly lived near and I used to walk the railroad a lot.  Then Uncle Pat moved to Michigan I think. I may be wrong.  It was somewhere’s up there.  Uncle Albert had a whole mess of kids. Ruthy was the baby.  The ninth and final child died during childbirth.  I came out deformed and they buried it with the placenta.  Albert’s wife died then too.  All the others were boys.  They had one child, Cecil, who, I can’t quite remember, but it seems to me he got accidently hit by a door or something.  I could be wrong, but it was something like that, and his neck was twisted up something awful.  He walked and talked though.  He stayed disabled.  I saw him in 1971 when I took a trip there and I think he was living with Uncle Ernest in Owensboro

Meeting Uncle Alonzo Bailey

Told in first person by Wilma Rae Schroader when questioned about her knowledge of Alonzo Bailey. 
1940-1950
Subjects mentioned: Alonzo Bailey, Mayme Bailey, Pearl Bailey, Annabelle, Claude Schroader, Irene Bailey, Floyd Bailey, Lilly Bailey, Thomas Ragan, May Bailey
"I met Uncle Alonzo before his death in Mines, KY.  I’m not sure if that’s even the name of the place, but there were a lot of mines out there in those days, and that’s just what you called it.  I remember he was short and had a dark complexion kind of like Mom (Mayme).  Aunt Pearl had black hair and maybe black eyes and she had a dark complexion, too.  I remember he was married to Annabelle first and then they divorced and he remarried, But Mom remembers the Alonzo was quite a bit older than her and remembers a time when Annabelle put her on her lap and put curls in her hair like Shirley Temple. Mom told me that after him and Annabelle split up, he stopped coming around.  I think he joined the army, or maybe he was already in the army, but regardless, he went away. Mom didn’t keep in touch with her siblings.  I don’t understand that.  Maybe it was because of Dad (Claude).  She did hear from her mom occasionally (Iva).  I guess after Alonzo remarried, I think her name was May, he didn’t see his kids for many year.  I don’t think he knew where they were.  There were two of them: Irene & Floyd.  He may not have even seen them until right before he died.  On that trip I took back to Kentucky with Mom, I met Irene and we went out to Floyd’s house.  I found it odd that we had children with the same name of Wendle.  And Irene and I had children named Ted.   I also visited Aunt Lily and she’s the one who told me that Alonzo had moved back to the Mines.  I met him then. I think it was 1949 or 1950 and it was strange.  I made your grandpa (Thomas Ragan) stop the car at the general store, because back then the men would gather there and talk.  So, everybody knew everybody.  Inside the store there was the manager and a couple farmers.  I asked the manager if he knew Alonzo and he didn’t seem to know.  So I went next door to one of those apartment-like places and went up the stairs.  That’s when I saw Aunt May was there and she was glad to see me.  Then, Alonzo came home and he had been one of the farmers at the general store and he didn’t even speak up to say he was Alonzo.  It was the strangest thing.  Maybe he didn’t want to be found."
Alonzo Bailey 77, Dies in Veterans Hospital
 Alonzo Bailey, of Beaver Dam, died at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, December 12, at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Louisville, following a brief illness.  He was 77.  Mr. Bailey was born April 17, 1886, at Charleston, and was a son of the late Granville and Iva Smith Bailey.  He was a member of the McHenry Baptist Church.  Surviving are three sisters, Mrs. Lula Renfrow, of McHenry, Mrs. Pearl Maddox, of Ohio, and Mrs. Mamie Schroader, of Canada, three brothers, Robert Bailey, of McHenry, and Theodore and Ernest Bailey, both of Moseleyville.  Funeral services were held at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 14 at the Cecil Chinn Funeral Home chapel, with the Rev. James Hall, pastor of the McHenry Church of God, officiating.  Burial was at Render Cemetery.  Pallbearers included Hobart Autry, Ronnie Blanchard, Orville Bratcher, Charles Wortham, Weston Everly, and Ted Bailey.  Source: The Ohio County News, Hartford, Kentucky 12-20-1963

Addendum added 10 March 2019:  Mary Jane Shroader was born August 30, 1846, twin daughter of Adam Schroader (Shrader) and Cinderilla York Shroader in Warren County, Kentucky; she married John Wesley Davis in Ohio County, KY and they made their home in Ohio County.  Mary Jane died October 1, 1918.  She is buried in the Leach Cemetery, Cromwell, Kentucky, along with her husband, John Wesley Davis.  Eleven children were born to this marriage.