Tennessee

Rover

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / , , /

Only chow/collie picture I could find

Some of the best stories my dad told were about his beloved dog Rover. These were stories that would still make dad laugh when he told them many years later.  Some of the Rover stories made him laugh, just not the last one.

It sounded like Rover had been dad’s only true friend in childhood. The half chow/half collie was his constant companion and guardian. Rover was so protective that when my dad wanted to get in a fight he had to order Rover into a sit/stay position or the dog would intervene on dad’s behalf. Dad always warned me to not get a chow for Josh. He believed it’s their nature to be “one person” dogs and feared it would attack the out-of-favor person during an argument.

Whenever dad went hunting Rover went along so when dad shot a squirrel, Rover could run out to retrieve for him.

The relationship wasn’t without it’s bumps along the way. Dad told me one time Rover brought back a squirrel that hadn’t actually expired so when dad reached to take it from Rover’s mouth the squirrel sank its teeth into my dad’s finger. Little boy dad was hopping mad so Rover took the sensible approach and ran home to hide under the porch for a couple days until his master calmed down.

It was known that dogs couldn’t win a fight with a raccoon in water (the raccoon would always take the dog underwater and drown it) so when Rover jumped into a deep creek after a raccoon and went underwater with it, my dad sank down on the bank and alternated between crying his heart out because his much loved dog was dead and cursing the stupidity of the dog. When Rover broke the surface with the dead raccoon hanging limply in his mouth he probably expected praise for his accomplishment, but instead found one very angry boy for him having risked his life. It was another occasion Rover decided discretion was the better part of valor and he once again ran off and hid under the porch until dad forgave him. I got the feeling Rover waiting out dad’s temper was a fairly regular occurence.

There was a man who had an incredibly large cat and was always taunting dad that his cat could kill dad’s dog. Dad went for a long time ignoring the man and finally tired of the baiting and said okay to a fight between the two. Rover promptly broke the cat’s neck and dad had to run home, with Rover in hot pursuit, to avoid the man killing both of them. The man was really angry about his dead cat.

Now the part that always made me cry and did not make dad laugh. I don’t know how long dad and Rover had been together when a canine disease they called “black tongue” started making the rounds in the area. Dogs would have swollen tongues that turned black and death was inevitable from suffocation so when Rover contracted the disease my dad went from adult to adult begging someone to take his dog out and put him down so Rover wouldn’t suffer.

No one would do it. Dad himself had to take Rover up into the hills, shoot him, and bury him all alone. Dad was around ten years old at the time. This was another story that as a little girl caused me to feel huge dislike those adults and how they treated my dad as a child.

1930 Census – Dad living in Bonny Blue, Virginia

1930 Census – Dad living in Bonny Blue, Virginia

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / , /

At first I was upset when I saw that dad had been in Bonny Blue (Rocky Station District), Virginia for the 1930 Census. If his half brothers were both born in Virginia and were 5 1/2 and 3 on that census, that meant dad’s formative years of ages 4 – 10 were probably in Virginia and not Tennessee. The family had moved all the way to Virginia and dad never mentioned it?

Trulene, the genealogy expert at Campbell County Historical Society, had told me the miners back then would have to move to follow where there was work. Mines would be shut down for periods of time and the workers had no choice. The mines pretty much owned the miners’ entire existence. Often the miners lived in mine housing and were paid in mine company tokens that could only be spent on the mine company store.

So I looked at a map to find Bonny Blue, VA. The tiny town is in the far western part of Virginia that wedges between Tennessee and Kentucky right up on the Virginia/Kentucky border. Bonny Blue is 110 miles from Elk Valley via La Follette. Now it made sense.

 

Map of Bonny Blue, VA.

Map showing route from Elk Valley, TN to Bonny Blue, VA

Bonny Blue, for those of us not from that part of the country, refers to the bonny blue Confederate flag.

 

Information learned in Tennessee Part 4

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / , /

Because of the story mom had shared with me I knew dad had been married and divorced before WWII so I looked for that while I was in Tennessee.

According to mom the sequence was marriage, repeated infidelities by his wife, divorce, enlistment in Army, birth of child long after dad had disappeared from the scene.

I found the marriage record from February 1, 1942 and noticed she was older than dad. I also recognized daddy’s hand-writing:

It was a little creepy for me, but I found a family tree on ancestry.com posted by CharlotteMcGuire62 that listed dad as the father to Stephen Hugh Smith. Dad was the first of Jeanette’s 3 husbands (Charles McGuire had been her second husband). It listed dad’s birth November 23, 1906 and his death as February 1980. Not correct but close enough that someone had knowledge about him. But then mom had said a man had contacted her after dad’s death saying he was dad’s son and wanting part of dad’s estate.

Stephen Hugh Smith was born on December 20, 1942.

I couldn’t find the divorce, but dad’s induction date into the army as October 9, 1943.

So the actual sequence of events was marriage, maybe repeated infidelities by his wife, birth of child, divorce, enlistment in Army.

I was momentarily rattled when I ran across this, but in a minute I decided I didn’t care.

My dad was such an incredibly honorable man and good father that I believe he did the right thing back then just as he did all the time with us. I will never know what contributed to him leaving Tennessee for good and not having contact with anyone from there again. In my heart I believe he would never leave a child that was his.

Mom had said he never told us because he was afraid we would start to fear that he would abandon us too. When she told me I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard because dad was the most steadfastly loyal person I’d ever known and he would never have left us. After finding out the child was born before he divorced and enlisted I can really understand his desire to keep it secret.

The only question I have is who twisted the story? Did dad tell mom the straight story and she sugar-coated it for me or did he alter the sequence of events for her. My dad was almost painfully honest, so I suspect he laid it on the line for her. And I understand the sugar-coating. It was a bit of shock, but when all is said and done I trust my dad.

I did research and Stephen Hugh Smith served in Vietnam and died at the age of 55 in 1998 so I will never know what happened.

 

Information learned in Tennessee Part 3 – the Honeycutts

Information learned in Tennessee Part 3 – the Honeycutts

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / , , /

The Honeycutts

Trulene and I started to search for Janie Honeycutt in 1920. Once again, I had no success because of being too literal. Trulene found her family on the 1920 census and discovered Janie was actually Eliza Jane.

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Some things I noticed — Ida Belle was probably 15 when they married because she was 16 when the first child was born. The Honeycutts lived on Capuchin Creek Rd. and Trulene told me it’s so remote that even today no one hardly ever goes out that far.

1910 Census

Trulene found the 1910 census next, even with a change in names. This census was taken on May 2nd where the 1920 census had been taken on January 19th so there was a slight shift in ages. If you look at the census page image note the 11 and 13 year old boys are farm laborers now but listed as still attending school. Eliza Jane could read but not write at 8 years old.

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 1900 Census

Some observations — Ida Belle was 17 years old with a 3 and 2 year old on June 14, 1900. The census said both James and Ida Belle could read but not write.

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1895 Marriage of James Honeycutt and Ida Bell Roysden

There’s several things about this document that annoy me. Ida Belle’s name isn’t even spelled correctly, no signature was required by the bride-to-be, and it’s almost like she was sold to him. What can I say? It was 1895 in rural Tennessee.  Ida Belle was born on 7/13/1880 and James on 4/26/1875 so Ida Belle was 4 months short of her 15th birthday when she married. The entire entry is in the same handwriting so this would back up that neither James nor Ida Belle could write.

 

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1930 Census

Trulene, being a thorough researcher, wanted to find the 1930 census to verify that Eliza Jane was no longer listed there. Despite the census taker entering the name as James Heneycutt Trulene was able to find the record.

One the 1930 census they asked the age at marriage and the put 18 and 14. That is incredibly young. Apparently the son John who was 1 year old on the previous census did not survive. Daisy, the youngest child, must have been on the next page of the census and wasn’t listed. She was born in 1922.

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One last document I found from the Honeycutts — the WWI draft card for James Honeycutt. Look at the eye and hair color. Yellow eyes and black hair. Yellow eyes? That’s a new one and I wonder if it was true.

 

Question remains

This was all interesting genealogy of my dad’s maternal side, but it didn’t get me any closer to finding out who the father may have been to Eliza Jane’s child.

Trulene and other ladies at the historical society told me it was common practice back then that when a daughter got pregnant out of wedlock the child would be raised as the parent’s child, not the daughter’s. This was viewed as more socially acceptable.

They also told me it was common place for the girls to never tell anyone who the father was. I couldn’t understand why a case of teenage hormones had to be kept in such secrecy until they explained that more often than not the father was a married man. So the girls protected the cheating, predatory male with their secrets.

But what little dad said about his early childhood sounded like it was he and his mother and no mention of anyone else around so I wondered if she had left home after the birth of the child. Trulene said there was a chance there might be a court record if she had to apply for welfare for herself and the baby so I decided make a trip to Scott county.

 

My tour of dad’s childhood area Part 2

My tour of dad’s childhood area Part 2

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / , , /

 

Link to slide show of photos and maps of the tour

Lick Fork at dad’s address in 1940

Dad’s address in 1940

There is a mine located across the street from319 Lick Fork Rd.and nothing on the 319 side of the road. I found out the mine is no longer in operation. I suspect the mine had housing across the street for the miners who worked for them and that’s why my dad’s family had lived there.

I had read an article at the historical society that mining companies would pay the miners with tokens that could only be spent at their company store. They provided housing that the miners had to pay them to rent. It was a closed economy with the mine in complete control of almost every aspect of the workers lives. I suspected the housing was not very nice.

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If you follow Lick Fork Rd.out a bit further than I went it turns into Capuchin Creek Rd.which where the Honeycutt farm was. That explains how John Smith and Eliza Jane Honeycutt may have met.

After pictures I drove out to where Lick Fork, Elk Fork and 297 intersected to followed Elk Fork to the correct church and cemetery.

Valley View Cemetery

Valley View Cemetery is just that – a cemetery nestled in a narrow valley. It was a much larger cemetery – large enough I was worried about finding the grave makers I was looking for. After getting yelled at when taking pictures at the previous cemetery I immediately walked to the back where I heard men working and asked if it was okay for me to walk around and take pictures. I could tell they thought it was weird I even asked. Go figure.

I started at one side walking the full length of the cemetery row by row. I finally found Clay Smith on the next to last row. Next to him was his father John F. Smith. I have nothing against Clay Smith but when I looked at the marker for John Smith I thought this is the man who must have been so awful to my father that he would grow up and never utter a word about his step-father to his own children. I resisted the impulse to spit on his grave and took pictures instead.

Elk Valley

I left the cemetery and took 297 north toward Jellico. I passed through Elk Valley shortly after getting back on 297. The population is supposed to be 4000 but it was barely a wide spot in the road, so I don’t know if they include a large part of the rural area.

Jellico is the town I remember my dad talking about, telling people it was where he was from. I got Oneida from the ship passenger list when dad returned from Germany since he stated that as his birth place and the funeral book when dad died also said he was born in Oneida. Elk Valley is what dad listed as his home town when he enlisted in the army. I have no recollection of him mentioning either one.

Rector Cemetery

I still hadn’t found the cemetery where the Honeycutts were buried so I went back to the motel to see if I could get a better idea of where it was located and went back toward Huntsville that evening to find it. I had no idea who these people were or what, if any, part they had played in my dad’s life, but I wanted to get pictures for the sake of genealogy.

I had to take Norma Road south from Norma on Rt 63 and find Straight Fork Rd. Whoever named Straight Fork had a sense of humor since it twisted and turned all over the place.

I found Cemetery Rd and Rector Cemetery with the help of the GPS. It was such a little road I would not have realized I’d missed it without seeing it go by on the GPS.

This cemetery was a little scary to me since I was alone way out in a rural area where the houses reflected abject poverty. I quickly found the graves, took pictures, and got back in the car to head back to civilization. It surprised me how nervous it made me. I have traveled extremely remote areas alone and not been spooked, but this place did. Maybe it was some of the scruffy men I had seen outside of houses on the way there. Maybe it was the stories my dad had told me and the impression I had of the area. Who knows, but I was so glad when I was back on 63 and headed toward I-75.

I would go back to the historical society the next day to see what more I could find out before heading home.

 

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