A is for Abernathy, Lee Roy

Lee Roy Abernathy

13 August 1913 - 25 May 1993

Mr. Abernathy was born to sharecroppers in Cartersville, Georgia. Neither his parents' economic situation nor the Great Depression stopped him from pursuing his musical goals throughout his life. He was a singer and a piano player, as well as a song writer among many other things.

Some of the songs that he is wrote are: Listen to the Bells, The Master Locksmith, and Everybody's Gonna Have A Wonderful Time Up There.

He performed with various quartets over the years. Some of these groups were the Homeland Harmony Quartet, The Rangers Quartet, and The Jubilee Quartet. Here is a video with Mr. Abernathy playing the piano with the Singing Time in Dixie Band.


In 1973, he was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame.

In 1997, he was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame as one of its initial inductees. He was joined that year by other inductees that were some of my favorite singers, members of the quartet known as The Statesmen. The inductees from The Statesmen Quartet that year were: Denver Crumpler, Jake Hess, Hovie Lister, and last…but certainly not least, James "Big Chief" Wetherington. One more was in the perfect grouping, Doy Ott, but he wasn't inducted until 2000. You'll learn more about these guys in other posts this month.

Mr. Lee Roy Abernathy died in Canton, Georgia.

Sources
http://sghistory.com/index.php?n=L.Lee_Roy_Abernathy
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/a/b/e/abernathy_lr.htm
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/lee-roy-abernathy-1913-1993
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eImHoB0paM

Blogging from A to Z April 2016 Challenge

Tomorrow it starts, the Blogging from A to Z April 2016 Challenge! I am both excited and nervous. David helped me to come up with a theme and we've mapped it out. Now, I just hope that I'll be able to keep up with it! Spring allergies are upon us and I'm doing good to keep my eyes open!

In this challenge, we post every day except Sundays during the month of April. Our posts can be on a single theme throughout the month or no theme at all. Then, we visit five other bloggers that are joining in the fun and comment on their blogs.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

The theme that we have chosen is Southern Gospel Music, mostly focusing on that great quartet known as The Statesmen. There may be a few posts that are not on this theme along the way. Some letters are just hard to work with, like Q and Z, but we'll get through this.

Prepare for lots of videos along the way! We can't exactly talk about music without sharing it, now can we?

Let the fun begin!

Are you joining the challenge? If so, please let us know down in the comments. Please leave a link to your blog. Thanks!

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: S is for William James Spence

William James Spence was my paternal grandpa’s paternal grandpa. In other words, he was my second great-grandfather. He was called Jim.

Grandpa Jim was born on 31 October 1847 to Robert Spence, Jr. and his wife, the former Miss Matilda J. Moore. According to my records, he was the second oldest of what appears to be about fifteen children. Wow!

On his death certificate, which would be considered a secondary document for his birth information, it was stated that he was born in Anderson County, South Carolina. However, other records have indicated that he was born in Laurens County, South Carolina, and some say somewhere in Georgia. The death certificate also says that his birth date was 30 October 1846. It seems that I have some sorting out to do! (Georgia Bureau of Vital Statistics)

He was a soldier for the Confederacy serving in the Twenty-sixth Cavalry and Thirty-second Battalion, Cavalry. He was sixteen years old when he enlisted in 1863. (NARA) It was indicated in other records that he was in the SC Co. C, Palmetto Sharpshooters and that he enlisted at age 15 in August 1863. Either way, that was a mighty young age to be going off to war. You do what you have to do.

He and his wife Mary A. Fleming Spence were the parents of at least ten children, one of which was my great-grandpa Carl Candler Spence, the father of my grandpa, William Howard Taft Spence.

Grandpa Jim died on 28 October 1923. The primary cause of death was chronic endocarditis and the secondary problem was chronic nephritis. He is buried at Oak Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Comer, Madison County, Georgia.

Some of the discrepancies make me wonder if I have found records on two different men named William James Spence that just happened to end up in the same area. Further research will be necessary to prove or disprove information found up to this point.

References 

Georgia Bureau of Vital Statistics. Death Certificate. 28 October 1923. 

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). "Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers." Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Confederate Organizations, compiled 1903-1927, documenting the period 1861-1865. Vol. Catalog ID: 586957. Roll: #186.

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: R is for Reaching Back

If you're working on your family history, how far back have you been able to trace?

I have gone back as far as the 1200s on some of my lines. I have found artisans, statesmen, military leaders, and even some unsavory folks that could have stayed hidden. :)  However, these are not verified relationships. It is my intention to verify relationships as far back as I can. These lists of possible relatives and their vital dates gives me a good starting place for the verification process. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org have been a big help in my research.

If you aren't into genealogy, who is the oldest relative that you have known? What was the oldest generation alive in your family when you were born? Were there great-grandparents still alive or further back still? 

When I was born, all of my grandparents and two great-grandmothers were living. They were my mama's grandmas, Carrie Williams Pressley and Lula Carter Spence. I missed meeting Big Mama - Annie Black Gunter, the one this blog is named for - by about five years. I wish that I could have met her and Callie James Fowler, too.

Please put your answers down in the comment section or leave a link to your blog so that we can read about your families, too!

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: I is for Iva, South Carolina

Iva, South Carolina is a little town in Anderson County, South Carolina and was the last place that I wanted to live when David and I got married. He was offered a job for a company in Australia and I was all excited about koala bears and kangaroos for neighbors. What I got was something that my late father-in-law referred to like this: "If God were going to give the world an enema, he'd stick it in Iva."

But, that is where we wound up. The job fell through and we went to work at McClendon's Western Auto, the store that Bruce McClendon, David's daddy, opened in the fall of 1974. Here we were, ten years later, happy to be together and looking forward to our new lives...in the same old place.

In the map below "A" marks where David's family home was located and "B" marks where our first home as man and wife was located. It is also where our "two" became "three" and the first McClendon grandson was on the way.

I have a lot of family history there. My Granny Gunter was living there at this time and had been for eons. My Pressley great-grandparents had lived there for a time as had my great-great-grandmother Maggie Williams. The history was there, but what I wanted at the time was OUT. I didn't want to stay in a small town out in the boonies.

Love makes you do things that you wouldn't ordinarily do and that was the case here. I would have followed David to the ends of the earth back then, and even now after all of these years together. Looking back, Iva wasn't as bad as it seemed when we first realized that it was going to be our first home together. I'd give just about anything to be able to go back there now, to be able to go to Granny's house and have her greet me at her front door, to hear her "y'all come back and see me sometimes" as I get into my car to leave. Or, to hear my late father-in-law call me "Sue-d-lou" and laugh that laugh he had and to hear Grandma McClendon tell stories about how naughty Papa and Uncle Carl were as little boys.

Nah, it wasn't so bad. It actually fit quite well.

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: H is for Hollingsworth

Over the last few weeks, I have been able to add several surnames to my list of names to research for our family. One of them is Hollingsworth. My great-great-great-grandmother Carolina was born to Alexander Abner Walker and Eliza Ann Hollingsworth.

Eliza was born 3 September 1813 in South Carolina. I do not have the exact place pinned down yet. She died 19 September 1903 in Edgefield County, South Carolina and is buried at the Hollingsworth-Walker Cemetery, which is located on Shields Road, apparently wayyyyyyyy out in the boonies down a dirt road. I've never been to the cemetery. I didn't even know it existed until recently.

Here are two photos of the cemetery, one of the road into the cemetery, and a photo of Eliza's tombstone.

Source: These photos were taken by Find-a-Grave volunteer Toby Tovar. I have his permission to use them here.

There is still quite a bit for me to learn about this part of my family. It will be a fun adventure!

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: E is for Edgefield, South Carolina

Edgefield County, South Carolina was the stomping grounds of several branches of both my family and David's family. My family lines: Gunter, Hollingsworth, Walker, and Williams were from the area as were David's lines: McClendon, McDaniel, and Thomas.

David's family lived in the Red Hill community of the area. I don't know exactly which community my family lived in, but there is a cemetery named Hollingsworth-Walker on Shield Road, so I am assuming for the moment that one or the other of those families owned the property there. My bets are on the Walker family as the intersecting road is Walker Road, as shown in the map below.You might have to move the map around a bit to see the roads.
This is an area that warrants more in-depth exploration as I continue the journey to our roots.

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: D is for Death Certificates

One of the documents of use to a family historian is a death certificate. It is a primary document for the death itself and burial location, but is also a secondary document for other events such as the decedent's birth, names of decedent's parents, and locations of these births. If we're lucky, it also lists an actual cause of death, which can be a history lesson in itself. Some of the causes of death are now obsolete terms and, in most cases, nowadays the cause is more detailed than "old age".

The cause of death can also perhaps answer questions about the lifestyle of the decedent. Some health issues are caused by not only a lack of a nutrient, but in some cases by an overabundance of a nutrient. In my ancestry, one of the great-grandfathers died of pellagra. I had never heard of this "disease" before I saw it on his death certificate, so I did a search. What I found is that pellagra is a niacin deficiency common in corn-based diets that can be fought with adequate fruit and vegetable intake. The native Americans used lime which made the niacin more accessible to the body therefore reducing the likelihood of developing pellagra.



I also know that alcoholism is a common occurrence in my Gunter ancestry and alcohol is generally corn-based. Knowing our family history and the cause of death being pellagra, it leads me to wonder a couple of things. Did Big Papa basically die of alcoholism or could it have been the other common trait in my ancestry, which was poverty? Lack of access to healthy foods obviously leads to vitamin deficiencies. He was a textile worker and they generally earn next to nothing. Another grandpa who was a mill worker during this time frame made less than $600 a year. Big Papa had a wife and six children to feed, so I can't imagine that $600 went very far at all.

Often, answers to questions bring even more questions. Be sure to closely investigate all of the possible sources of information during your genealogy adventure. Sometimes what appears as one thing may really be telling you something entirely different from what it appears.  

Reference:

Wikipedia contributors, "Pellagra," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pellagra&oldid=543694616 (accessed April 4, 2013).

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: C is for Cemeteries

Cemeteries. Some folks think they are creepy. I think they are fun. I saw this image on Pinterest not too long ago and it really fits for me.

Source: facebook.com via Teena on Pinterest

When my children were really young, they spent a great deal of time with me in cemeteries as I looked to find this grave or that one. Some cemeteries were calm and peaceful, but others were downright creepy with their collapsed above-ground crypts and ground cracked wide open due to extreme drought conditions. There were a few at which I couldn't even coax one or two of the children out of the car. Our research trips always involved adventure, either dodging sunken graves or consoling a screaming toddler and ending the trip early.

The stones marking the graves often have interesting stories to tell. They tell of military service, young widowhood, and multiple losses that no family should have to endure, but did, and went on to try for more babies, just to lose them, too. One of the saddest cemeteries that I have been in is the old Silverbrook Cemetery in Anderson, South Carolina. Siblings, parents, and grandparents of my paternal grandmother are buried there. There is a section of this cemetery called Baby Hill. Hundreds of little graves line up down the hill, all over that section. Many of these babies were sent back to Heaven during the flu pandemic in the early 20th century around 1918 or so.

The old Silverbrook is also the cemetery where my cousin Michael Anthony Moore is buried. He was born a few months after I was and only lived to be about three weeks old. Our mothers were out walking one day and my mother fell into a hole. My aunt, pregnant as she was, had to try to help my pregnant mama out. I have always felt that somehow my aunt blamed me and my mama for Michael's death. In my adult-head, I know that it wasn't my fault, but in my little girl-heart, I have always felt so guilty because I lived and he didn't. In reality, his death had nothing to do with his mama helping mine back out of that hole. He had a defect in his stomach. Reality and feelings don't always see things the same way.

Another sad thing about graveyards is knowing there are many people there that are not so apparent; they have nothing to mark their graves. If I had the means to do so, I would make sure a marker of some sort was at every grave. I know there are many reasons for a grave to be markerless: finances, time and vandals destroying the markers, etc. In some cases, maybe it is that no one ever cared to put a marker there for the person, though they had the means to do so.

There is a volunteer project called Find-a-Grave that allows contributors to create memorials to their loved ones and others buried in cemeteries across the US (and maybe other countries, too...not sure about that!). Volunteers go around to the different cemeteries and photograph the markers or the plots for those that have requested the pictures. I have been able to acquire images of various relative graves through Find-a-Grave. It is a worthwhile project!

This was found on a headstone in an Irish cemetery:

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal." (World of Quotes)

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: B is for Books

I love books and I love genealogy. Here are a few of the books that I have in my collection because they also involve genealogy research to one degree or another.  

Edgefield [South Carolina] Marriage Records From the late 18th Century up through 1870. This book was written by Carlee T. McClendon, a first-cousin of my late father-in-law, Robert Bruce McClendon, Jr. It has been very helpful to my research and ultimately led me to the names of one set of my fourth great-grandparents.  


 


The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis. My love of history goes hand-in-hand with my love of genealogy. To help learn more about the lives of our ancestors, it helps to know more about the times in which they lived. What better way to learn about the Confederacy than by reading the words of the people who were there?  







Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery by John A. Burrison. This book is in my collection because I saw a reference to it while researching the Gunter Family (my daddy's family). There is a reference to Allen Gunter, my fourth great-grandfather, who was a potter known for the alkaline glazing technique. He was apparently a pioneer of this type of glazing in Edgefield County, South Carolina and took this trade with him when he moved to Georgia, where he trained others to use this method.






Disclosure: The links to both Brothers in Clay and The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government are affiliate links. Your purchase of these books helps to support my genealogy research. Thank you for your support!

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: A is for Alexander Abner Walker

I am working on my family tree, as most of you already know. Over the last few weeks, I have been able to reach farther both backwards and outwards. One of the discoveries over the last week or so has been the name of the grandfather of my great-great-grandfather.

Alexander Abner Walker was married to Eliza Ann Hollingsworth. Grandpa Walker was born 21 September 1803 in Virginia. He died 3 January 1862 in Edgefield County, South Carolina. My great-great-great-grandmother Carolina was his second oldest daughter.

Things to find out about Grandpa Walker:

---Where in Virginia he was born
---When and where he and Eliza were married
---Was he a soldier in the War Between the States
---What was his cause of death

Here is the path from me way on back to Alexander Abner Walker:

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Z is for Zoo

We love to visit the zoo. When David and I were in college at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, we visited the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden very often. The Houston Zoo is huge, as I understand it, but we've never been because I do not like driving in that city. The Texas Zoo down in Victoria, Texas was really nice. It wasn't a big zoo, but it had very pretty landscaping and a cool reptile house.

The butterfly gardens and the monkeys are my favorites, no matter which zoo we're visiting.

This video is of the monkeys at The Riverbanks Zoo.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: Y is for Yesterday

Our family business involves merchandising and retail consulting. Sometimes we take on jobs that really kick us in the tail. We did one of those jobs Friday night. We went into the store at 9 PM Friday and didn't leave that store until 10:05 AM Saturday.

When we first took on the job, we were told that it could take as long as twelve hours to do it. We knew it would take awhile, but we figured between the two of us that we could knock it out in half that time and still have done a better job than is usually done in this particular store. As it turns out, that was wishful thinking.

The wall that we were merchandising was sixteen feet long and seven feet high. Shelf after shelf of nail care products (pretty colors and effects!) and about two hundred hooks for hanging items had to be completely reset. Hooks broke, shelves wouldn't reattach to their backers, and pretty much anything that could go wrong did go wrong. In one instance, a worker was going to help us locate the needed hooks to replace the broken ones, but his manager got onto him for doing so. She told him "We have a business to run; they can take care of themselves." OY!

Often, it seems as though the stores do not want help getting things done correctly. This particular business is bad about just throwing things wherever they will fit (and sometimes even if they don't fit!) and not worrying about things being in their correct location according to the shelf tags. In the instance of the shelf that wouldn't reattach, a worker went to get us a new one and never returned so the products that should have been on that shelf could not be put on display. We had to leave them in a buggy for a worker to set later. Very frustrating!

But, I think that we did a fine job. At least Siren Red is now is the Siren Red slot rather than hiding in the Pastel Pink slot.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: X is for XXX Rated

My first memory of going to a drive-in movie was when I was a little bitty girl. I don't know how old I was, just that I was really young, probably preschool age. My parents decided to go to the drive-in. There was one in our hometown called The Viking.


I don't know what my parents knew going into this adventure, but let's just say it wasn't a movie for little eyes to be seeing. I remember peeking from the backseat over their seat and looking at the huge screen in front of our car. I remember seeing a woman in a red sweater, but she wasn't in it for very long. The next thing I remember is somebody reaching back and pushing my head down (not hard) so that I wouldn't see what was going on.

That's the last thing that I remember. Whether my parents stayed to see the rest or not, I don't know. Either the sleepy bug caught me or I passed out from a toddler heart attack or shock. That red sweater, however, is locked in my head forever.

It was much later that I learned the type of movie that The Viking specialized in and it makes me wonder if my parents truly were as shocked as I was.

Photo Credit: (c) Can Stock Photo

A to Z Blogging Challenge: W is for Wedding

Pictures speak louder than words, so here are a few from our wedding so very many years ago!

A to Z Blogging Challenge: V is for Vegan

David and I are working on a healthier lifestyle. Our ultimate goal is to be as close to 100% vegetarian as possible. I would have ordinarily used the term "vegan" instead of vegetarian because we want to stop consuming any animal products. However, we found out a few days ago that "vegan" refers not only to not eating animal products, but not using animal products either. For example, having a leather sofa or wool yarn would rule us out of being categorized as vegans. Also, I learned that animal products sneak into many, many things because of how the remains left after slaughter are used.


But, I did find out something very cool, however fattening. Oreos are considered vegan. Who knew?

A to Z Blogging Challenge: U is for the University of South Carolina

In the early to mid-1980s, David and I were students at the University of South Carolina- Columbia. It was an exciting time in my life. I was young and in love and not only living away from home, but living about one hundred and twenty miles away from home. I had already moved out of my parents house, but this was the first time that I was so far away for an extended period of time.

David was the second of his daddy's children to be a student at USC. His daddy used to joke that he had bought a parking garage on the corner of Blossom Street (and another street that I can't remember the name of). He said that they didn't call it that, and they hadn't given him the title, but that he had paid for it.

There were several good places to eat while we attended Carolina. The Russell House and the Gamecock Grill were two places on campus that we frequented. Off-campus, we had Sandy's Hotdogs and Granby's. Granby's was an ice cream lover's paradise. They had huge banana splits called Banana Binge. That was one binge that I would not have hurled!

It was at USC that I had my first experience with the "magic paper" in the dark room. I also had my first experience with a class containing over three hundred other students. I definitely sat at the back of the class for that one. No way was I going to get called to go down to the board!

I didn't get my degree back then because, after a semester and two summer sessions, I got married and moved back to the county in which I was born. I traded a degree for a wedding dress and starting my life and family. I don't regret it for a moment.

USC was part of a very special time in my life, a time of hope and excitement and love...and magic paper. :)

A to Z Blogging Challenge: T is for Timeline

A big part of genealogical research involves studying history as it relates to our ancestors. It can be fun to see where they fit into world history. A good way to be able to visualize our ancestors in history is with a timeline. You can create an interactive timeline by linking dates to historic events with the aid of sites like History.com's This Day in History. You can click "View Calendar" on that site and choose the date that you want to learn more about and get a listing of things that happened on that date over many years. You can create a link in your timeline to those events as well as links to any pictures or personal documents that you have for the ancestor that you're researching.

For example, I was interested in events in the life of my great-grandmother Carrie Williams Pressley when women were granted the right to vote. Grandma Pressley was born in June 1889. The 19th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States granted women the right to vote on 18 August 1920. Grandma Pressley was thirty-one years old at the time. I do not know if she ever exercised her right to vote.

Many important things happened over the course of her life. The Spanish-American War, her marriage, the births of her children, World Wars 1 and II, the right to vote for women, and many other things. All of these things can be viewed together in an interactive timeline.

Have you ever created a timeline for your family history, integrating it into world history?

A to Z Blogging Challenge: S is for Sweetest Thing

  

I love this video! It is by U2. Bono apparently forgot his wife's birthday and this was the result of that forgetfulness.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: R is for Roses

I love roses. They are one of my favorite flower types. I especially love pink ones, but love many of the other colors, too. Some of my favorites are the antique roses.

Before the drought got really bad here, I had several antique roses. I had Belinda's Dream, Archduke Charles, Graham Thomas. Belinda's Dream is a beautiful pink rose with big blooms. Archduke Charles goes through several shades from a light pink to a dark pink as it goes through its life cycle. Graham Thomas has a huge, yellow bloom. I also had a small yellow rose that was supposed to be The Republic of Texas, but I believe that it was actually the Stephen F. Austin rose. The blooms were a softer yellow than those of The Republic of Texas. Whatever it really was, it was beautiful and a little green lynx spider lived on it for a short while.

The links will take you to the Antique Rose Emporium website, which is the company that supplied the local nursery where I bought my roses.