Snakehandlers

Lana at a ballgame leaning against her Dad and her favorite pillow.

My granddaughter, Lana, loves our family. When my son, Jason, was little and I was traveling all around copying pictures, talking with folks and tramping through cemeteries, he would go, When he was older and could do other things, he chose them. Lana loves looking at the pictures and hearing stories. When she was three she started calling family "her people" and saying she "needed" to see all "her people". She thinks everyone loves her and loves everyone unconditionally. In January, at age 4, she went with me to Cleveland. We stayed at Uncle John Vent's with Nancy Ellen and Lisa. Lisa made a big hit with her when she put up a small tent in the house. I thought Nancy Ellen was out-of-luck for making friends after that, but when we woke up the next morning in an upstairs bedroom she pointed to Nancy's door and said "I love Nancy so much!" then she pointed to Lisa's room and did the same. Last, she pointed downstairs and said "and I love that little old boy downstairs, too. This house feels like home."



As we visited with Robin she fell in love with Robin's husband, Steve, and their dog, Haley, and their cat. I can't remember the cat's name, but I am sure if I asked Lana she could tell me. Next we picked up Aunt Ernestene and Candy on our way to visit with Aunt Hazel. Lana just chatted away with them. We cautioned her that Hazel was very old and she must be very quiet there. I took crayons and coloring books for her to amuse herself.



Hazel's home was anything but quiet. She lives with her son, Arnold and his wife, and at the time a son or two, their wives and several grandchildren, one of whom was four were in the household. It was so loud. Lana was in heaven. Last, we visited with Otho & Pat Holcomb. She fell in love with them, too, but I think their little dog helped that one along. On the way home from that trip she said she wanted to move in with me and just travel with me to meet "her people".



Lana often stays with me on Friday nights. On Saturday mornings we listen to Bobby Joe Pass on bounce radio doing his gospel show and then his jukebox show. I had to take her over to meet Bobby and his wife, Madonna because she "had" to meet them. My sister, Donna, is one of Lana's favorites. She calls Bobby's wife, "My donna" to differentiate from her Aunt Donna. She loves their dog, Rusty, also.



Bobby Joe gave me some CD's when we visited. I played one once while Lana was in the car. Now it's her favorite CD replacing the Wiggles and the Village People's YMCA album. She thinks that it is Madonna who is singing her new favorite song, "Tan Shoes and Pink Shoe Laces". She pretty much knows the words to "Going to the Chapel", "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and "Charlie Brown", practically the whole CD.



Lana has been begging to go back and see Bobby Joe and Madonna. Last week I was too tired to think about driving over and promised her I would try to take her this week. Tuesday night I called to see if we could visit yesterday. Madonna said that they were going to see Aunt Lake so we have to find another time to go over. Lana wanted to know about Aunt Lake.



I got to thinking about Aunt Lake. I remember sitting on Poppy and Granny's front porch when a bunch of family were talking about family names. Aunt Lake said no one knew the name on her birth certificate. Mom said she did. Aunt Lake said, well, tell if you know. Mom said, I do know it, but I will keep it a secret if you don't want it known. Go ahead, Lake said. Mom said Baby, and Aunt Lake was suprised, but said that was right.



Well I can do one better than that. In the 1920 Census Otho and Nancy Bentley are living next to Elbert & Sabrina Craft Bentley, AC & Pricy Craft, Ben & Sarah Craft Franklin and Chunk and Polly Craft. Their children are listed like this:

Stella 14
Willie 12
Nettie 10
Atha 8
Laura 6
Lettie 3
Sabrina 1
Georgia 0/12

The census was taken on January 2, 3 & 5th of 1920. That means that the child, Georgia was born less than one month from those dates. Aunt Lake was born December 21 of 1919 (according to Kentucky Vital Statistics 1911-1999), so she was identified as Georgia in this census.

I always heard it said that she was named Lake Erie because when she was a baby she was always wet and they were always changing her diapers. Most of this came from the boys who would NOT even have been around when she was a baby, so I still don't know why the name was chosen. I have seen several Lakes in the Wise County, Virginia and Kentucky census records so it was not an uncommon name.

In 1960 (or at least that is when they developed the pictures) Aunt Lake, Uncle Berry, Uncle DV and Aunt Mary Evelyn took a trip down to Cherokee, North Carolina. These pictures were taken on that trip. There is a fourth one of Uncle DV sitting on a bull, but I don't think I have digitalized it yet.

Aunt Lake, the Chief and Aunt Mary Evelyn.

Uncle Berry & Aunt Lake holding rattlesnakes.

Lana was especially thrilled with this picture of Aunt Lake because when we visited the Columbus Zoo last summer she petted a snake that they had in the reptile house for anyone who wanted to see what a snake felt like. I passed on that opportunity.

Aunt Lake is in a nursing home now. We should all try to visit her.

So who was born after Tax Day?

I wondered who would come up an April 16th birthdate. I am sure we have relatives born on each day of the year, but I figure we may not always have a direct one. A direct is our blood relative, your father & mother, their parents, their grandparents, and so on. When you branch out like I do, you include the siblings of all of these and their descendants.

Today we do have another direct relative. His name is Thomas Hampton. He was born April 16th, 1623 in Kecoughtan, York County, Virginia and died after October 12, 1690 in James City, Virginia. Having a death date like that means that someone has found a record, like a tax record or maybe where he filed a will and they knew he was alive to pay the taxes or file the will, but then they can't find him again, so they put his death as "after October 12, 1690". This man was an Episcopal minister who oversaw two parishes near James City, Virginia.

His line went like this

• Thomas de Hampton b 1491 d abt 1591




• John Hampton b 1517 d 1558 m Catherine of Middlesex was a clerk to Edward the VI of England. He leased Twickenham Manor in 1569, and this was the Hampton family home for many centuries. John and Catherine had six children, Alice, John, William, Lucy, Ralph and Laurence.




• Laurence was born at Twickenham in 1558 and died there in 1627. He married a Sarah. She died and his second wife's name was Sarah, too. They had six children William, Richard, Ann, Elizabeth, Laurence Junior and Philadelphia.

William Hampton was born before his baptismal date of May 27, 1592. He and his brother, Laurence who was a merchant tailor went into business. Laurence was a member of The London Company. You can google it to get the Wikipedia information, but basically it was chartered to colonize America. Their first permanent settlement was Jamestown. Did you know that they accidentally colonized Bermuda when they sent supplies meant for Jamestown to the Somers Isles (present day Bermuda). The Virginia Charter and the Plymouth charters were the same. They could establish settlements not closer than 100 miles of each other. When the Plymouth Charter was lost the boundaries were adjusted for the Virginia charter. When the Virginia Charter was lost, Virginia became a royal colony of England. But while the Virginia charter was in full swing, William immigrated to America arriving on the ship Bona Nova to Jamestown. His wife, Joan Hotten followed the same year on the ship Abigail with their three children.

William was a planter, but he became a wool merchant and bought wool from other Virginians. He then shipped it to his brother Laurence in England who used it in his merchant tailoring business. He did well and acquired a lot of land, eventually building a 700 acre plantation in Mockjay Bay, Gloucester County, Virginia. He named the plantation "Hampfield".

The three children born in England of William and Joan were William, Elizabeth and Grace Hampton. Their fourth child born April 16, 1623 was our Thomas Hampton.

Thomas and Mary Wade had three children: John, Mary and Thomas. John became a sea captain. When John Hampton married Mary Ann Mann, his father gave them the deed to the plantation Hampfield as a wedding present.

We descend from Thomas and Mary Wade as follows:

• Thomas Hampton 1679-1740 m Mary Buckner b 1681




• John Hampton 1701-1778 m Mary Turner b 1693




• Jacob Hampton 1724-1790 m Judah/Judith Johnson




• Thomas Hampton 1750-1817 (he died in North Carolina, all the rest of the family before him) m Abigail Laws 1756-1828 (birth and death in North Carolina)




• William Turner Hampton b 1790 moved to Letcher County KY died 1852 married Mary Profitt b 1789 in NC and died at Camp Branch, Letcher County KY after 1870.




• Joseph Hampton m Susannah Caudill




• Nancy Hampton m Enoch Mahlon Hall

Mahlon and Nancy Hampton Hall's son was Joseph Leonard Hall, the father of my grandmother, Nancy Alice Hall.

And that's our Hampton lineage in a nutshell. I have no pictures of any of our Hampton relatives. Nancy Hampton was buried in an unmarked grave in the Frank Tackett Cemetery in Pike County. I was even told that her grave was thought to be in the creek bed. The cemetery is an old, well maintained one, but I took a picture looking down toward where I could see the creek and away from the main graves where Nancy might have been.

Born on Tax Day

Guess who has a birthday on tax day? I thought I would just pick someone who had the birthday of April 15th to write about and there she was.

Polly Ann Caudill was born on April 15, 1847. She was the daughter of John Adams Caudill and Rachel Cornett. She was 13th of 14 children. In the 1850 census she was listed as 4 years old. In 1860 she is listed as 12 and this time shows as Mary. Polly was a nickname for Mary in those times. I don't know if that was her given name and she always went by Polly of if the census taker assumed that she was a Mary when they said Polly. Regardless, she is known to us as Polly Ann. In 1867 she married Enoch A. "Uncle Chunk" Craft.

In the 1870 Census Enoch is 25 and Polly is 23. They have two children: Rachel Virginia, age 2, named for Polly's mother and Archelous, 9 months, named for Chunk's father.



In the 1880 census their family has grown. Polly has had six more children but only four of them live. Nancy born in 1872 died of diptheria when she was 3. John D. was born in July of 1876 and died of unknown causes in January 1878. So the family is listed as:

• Enoch A. Craft, 38, farmer


• Polly Ann, 33, keeping house


• Rachel, 12


• Arch, 10


• Lettie J., 9


• Drusilla, 5


• Watson G., 3


• Benjamin, 7 months, born in September

In the 1900 Census we find

• Enoch 58


• Polly A 53


• Matty 18


• Ibby V 15


• Sarah J 11

The 1890 Census was destroyed by a fire in Washington, so a lot of things have happened to Polly. Her father died in 1873. Her mother in 1887. Her oldest daughter, Rachel, has married Isarel Jesse Adams, son of Jesse B. Adams and Margaret "Peggy" Jenkins. (For the Mullins relatives, these are the parents of Grandma Rosie Adams that Joshua Mullins married and Joshua's mother, Rebecca Hays married Jesse after Peggy Jenkins died.) Archelous has married Pricy Adkins and presented Polly with the first of many grandchildren. Lettie has married Joe Hall, and our grandmother, Nancy Alice Hall is 1 year old. Drusilla "Siller" Craft has married Isom Sergent. Little Watson who was just a baby in the 1880 census died in 1881. Benjamin has just married within the year and is living next door to them. Sabrina who was born in 1883 has married Elbert Bentley and is living on the other side of Polly.

In 1910 Enoch is 68. Polly is 63. They have been married 42 years and Polly reports that she has had 12 children and only seven are alive. Our grandmother, Lettie, died in 1905 and Ibby died in 1907. Both hung themselves so it was a terrible thing for Polly to live through. Daughter Mattie married Maryland Bates. Ibby had been married to John Holbrook. and baby daughther, Sarah Jane, married Benjamin Franklin. Sarah and Ben agree to live with her mother and father and take care of them for the rest of their lives. At this point Sarah's son, Enoch is in the household.



In 1920 Enoch is 77 and Polly is 72. In 1930 Enoch is 88 and Polly 83.









Take a close look at this picture of Polly and Chunk. I got it from Aunt Wilma. Candy says that there is a ghost on the right side. She sees the whole outline and face of a child. I see shadows of leaves, but you look at it and see what you think.

I have a great story about Polly from Watson Craft, her great-grandson, but I will save it for another day.

As an another aside. I am looking for Alexander Venters in the 1900 census. He has been very difficult to find and a lot of luck has gone into finding him on other census years. One year he was Attender Venters, another Ellender, Eleck etc. I got real excited as I looked at the records again for Polly and Chunk when on the same page I saw an Alexander Venters as a farm hand for one of their neighbors in the 1900 census. I quickly went back to Alexander and it was not the right one, but get this. Guess how the transcriber put the name? Oldert Venton. No wonder this is so hard to do.

Visiting Granny's

See that family? That's me in the front row on the left. Every family vacation that we spent at my grandmother's ended with the obligatory family picture in the yard in front of her house. The old house is gone now, but not the memories.

Row 1: Karen, Jim, Dave, Donna

Row 2: Margaret, Cora, JD, Kay

It wasn't always an easy drive down 75 and the Mountain Parkway to get to southeast Kentucky. I remember weekends when mom would have us all packed and as soon as Dad got home from work we would load into the car and head "home" via old 25 and Route 7. We had a Chrysler station wagon. The boys and the luggage went into the back. We usually slept part of the way. I got the floor behind Dad's seat. I think Donna was on the other side. Kay and Margaret got the back seat. Those trips were so long. It was twisty, car sickening ride. When we got to Grannny's it would be in the night.

At first their house was heated by a single fireplace in the center room which served as Granny and Poppy's bedroom. After greetings and hugs, the youngest would be put to bed and everyone settled around the fireplace to talk. In winter you roasted facing the fire and froze at your back. Around that fireplace is where I first heard my family history. I liked hearing them talk, and many times it would lull me to sleep, but sometimes I would hear something pretty interesting. If I asked a question, I would be put to bed under a mound of quilts. I soon learned not to ask, but just to listen and ask my questions later of my mother.

Usually, I slept in the purple room (which was really more lavender) by the picture window which looked out to the barn. I would be under those covers thinking I would never go to sleep. I could still hear them talking, but it was at a distance and I couldn't quite make out what they were saying. And then it would be morning. I would hear talking again and smell breakfast. The women in the family would be cooking and still talking. I often wondered if they had just talked all night because they never seemed to be tired and the talk still seemed to be the same.

We had the best meals there. There was an apple tree by the front porch. We had fried apples at breakfast. And fried chicken. It was the only time in my life that I ever had fried chicken for breakfast. I can remember Granny killing the chickens out back and how sometimes she hung them from the clothes line and other times she cut their heads off and they would run around for a bit. I stayed away from that mostly, but I remember them being plucked and singed.

I can't say I drank a lot, but I know I at least tasted the cow's milk, but I loved the butter. I still remember the churning. You could look out at the garden from the kitchen window. It was between the house and the barn. Oh those white half runners. That says Kentucky to me. Give me half runners and corn bread.

We didn't have running water at first, so, yes, there was the outhouse. But in the kitchen on a white enamel table top edged in black sat a tub with water which came from the mountain across the street from the house. When it was time to get new water they would carry the tub over and empty the water from another tub kept to catch water and bring it back to the house. There was always a dipper kept by the tub so you could get a drink. The water was cold when it came from the mountain. I always thought it tasted good.

Off the dining room there was a porch where the freezer and wringer washer were kept.

In the dining room was a china cabinet where Granny kept her salt and pepper shakers. She had them from everywhere. We used to stand in front of the glass door and look to see what new ones she might have acquired since our last visit. Remember those Currier and Ives dishes? I loved them. I went to flea markets and did a lot of buying on ebay to get myself those dishes. Kris gave me his mother's collection. I treasure them, but I use them everyday.

There were so many good meals in that home. I remember after church on Sundays it seemed like the whole congregation came in to eat. They ate in waves like the old times, men first, then children and the women last. I remember thinking how old my aunts and great aunts were and know that now I am at least twenty years older than they were then. We kids would fill up a plate and sit out on the porch. We would sit in the swings and sing and chatter. Poppy would sit in his rocker. There were straight backed chairs which many times got leaned back on two legs.

The porch was a gathering place. In summer it was usually cooler than the house. On one end in the wooden swing and in chairs my mother and aunts and Granny would be stringing beans or doing some kind of work as they talked among themselves. Poppy would be sitting in his rocker usually smoking and talking to other men in the chairs around him. We kids would be in the metal swing talking and singing and laughing about something. We waved at people walking by and at the occasional car that passed.

In the front yard we would play tag, red light and down below the bank there were horseshoes. We used old canning lids to play house under Granny's rose bush. We tied June bugs on a string. At night we played hide-n-go seek.

Granny had a standing joke. When it happened that there were a number of us visiting at the same time, the grownups got the beds and we kids slept on the floor. We would be worried that there wouldn't be enough room for everyone and Granny would laugh and say not to worry, when she ran out of floor space she would just hang us from a nail on the wall.

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Sometimes the boys would leave the house and go sleep in the barn loft. Once when some family from Greenup visited they had a big time staying all night there. Bobby Joe was doing his radio show -- rock-n-roll tunes. He stayed with the group and the next morning they drove into Neon and had breakfast at the restaurant there. Then the boys went with him while he did his show. They were all so happy to be together.

The barn was a fun place. We went up into the loft and swung down from a rope attached to the ceiling. We had corn cob flights. We played hide and seek.

Across from the barn was a small chicken house. It hadn't had any chickens in it for years. One summer Aunt Lake gave Margaret a projecter and one little film. We begged to use the chicken house as our movie house since it had a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and what else did we need besides electricity?

We washed and scrubbed and painted that old chickenhouse. When it was all done we had popcorn and koolaid and watched Hop Along Cassidy over and over and over. And we were thrilled! Tom Sawyer didn't have anything over on Granny.

Looking from the barn back toward the house there was the clothesline where the wash was hung.

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Who says real men don't do diapers? That's Can hanging diapers when Candy was a baby. Ernestene is supervising.

This gives you a view from the barn toward the house.

I remember the old garage, but I never really remember it being used for anything but storage.

Of course, you had to cross a bridge over the creek to get to the house. Not he concrete one that exists today, but an old wooden bridge. It was a favorite place for playing. I remember a lot of times siting with our legs dangling off the bridge and talking about the future.

It was also a good spot for more pictures.