Marguerite Leach Bohl

Telephone interview with Marguerite Leach Bohl conducted November 24, 2001.  Marguerite was born 23 Oct 1908 in Ohio County and died 1 April 2007 in Lubbock, Texas.

“My father was Clyde Leach and my mother was Sylvia May McCoy.  Father was born 29 Sep 1879 and died 9 Aug 1962.  Mother was born 1 May 1887 and died 2 Oct 1980.  My grandfather was Samuel William Leach and my grandmother was Finis Swain.  Grandfather and grandmother had 4 sons and no daughters: Oscar, Harney Leslie, Clyde and Chester.

Grandmother Leach (Finis) had a brother we called Uncle Sip who raised trotting horses.  I remember watching them race at the Ohio County Fair.  The horses pulled a sulky while racing.

When I was a child we lived near the Swain farm (Note: I am told the Swain Farm was in the Prentiss area; southeast of Shultztown; and is on the north bank of the Green River near Hudnall’s Landing).  My mother called Uncle Sip's wife "Aunt Willie," and I remember mother telling me to run over to Aunt Willie's home and borrow a cup of flour.  To get there I had to go through the field where Uncle Sip had his horses and they were very big and I was afraid of them.  My father, Clyde Leach, would keep the (racing) time for Uncle Sip with Uncle Sip's stopwatch.  After Uncle Sip died my father ended up with the stopwatch, possibly by inheritance, and I got it when father died.  I gave it to Otis Leach, who lived in Owensboro, and his son, Billy Leach, has it now.

I remember that Uncle Sip and Grandmother Leach (Finis) had a sister that we called Aunt Lydia, and that she married a Cooper and had two children, Juanita and Corbit.  Corbit was a Mason and was very good to Uncle Leslie Leach's (Harney Leslie Leach) widow, Ella, after Uncle Leslie died (Uncle Leslie was also a Mason).  I remember that Aunt Lydia lived west of Beaver Dam, near Centertown.

Uncle Sip had a daughter named Effie T. Swain that married Richard (Dick) Taylor.  They had two children, Ruby and Wilma, who were friends of mine.  I remember that Effie had a family Bible that had all of the Swain family information. (Note:  I see that Elida Quantrilla Swain married a Cooper, and this is probably the person they called Aunt Lydia, so I assume Marguerite is correct about Uncle Sip having a daughter named Effie that married a Cooper.  From another source I have an Effie T. Swain b. 3 Feb 1876 in Ohio County d. 5 Aug 1975 Ohio County, so Uncle Sip would have been 23 yrs old when Effie was born.)

I remember spending the night with Grandmother Leach (Finis) when I was quite young.  She cooked in the fireplace.  I slept upstairs in a little room.  She had a shawl that hung on a nail that she called a facinator. When Uncle Oscar Leach's wife died I was small and they held the wake at Grandmother Leach's house.”  (Note: There is a Leach family cemetery at the old Samuel William Leach farm, which is east of Beaver Dam about 5 miles, just north of the Green River Parkway on Bald Knob Road. I have visited that cemetery and I know that  Samuel William Leach is buried there, as well as several other members of that family.  Marguerite told me she had been to the cemetery many times.  She said it was near where Samuel and Finis lived.)