Another window, another world.
This is my father’s family, in a photograph taken near Jennings Creek in Boutetourt County, Virginia. Near as I can figure, it must have been taken around 1917. My father, the little boy right between the mother and father, was born in 1907, and I’m guessing he’s about 10 years old in this photograph. If that’s right, then my grandfather, born in 1867, would have been about 50. He doesn’t look that old, but sometimes those Scots will fool you.
My father was 50 when I was born. All my aunts and uncles on his side were older than he, some of them considerably older. (My aunt Bertha was already married or nearly so by the time of the picture: the tall gentleman in the left rear is her husband Roy Mays.) When I was growing up in the 60’s, all but one of them were already retired. Many of them had worked at the American Viscose plant in Roanoke before and during WWII, making rayon (“artificial silk”) and pretty good money, too, for a set of hardscrabble farmers.
In some ways, I grew up in the 1960’s and the 1930’s simultaneously. When our families gathered and folks started talking, most of the stories were several decades old. All the playfulness–and for Scots, they could be pretty playful at times–was from an era that had vanished from most social currency and was being erased from the very architecture as Roanoke continued its development. For my dad’s people, a childhood without electricity or running water came vividly and easily to mind, and was the source of much hilarity.
The adventurous ones in the family moved to Roanoke to find work in the big city. My father stayed on the farm to help his father and mother. He eventually came to Roanoke, too, in the early 1950’s, several years after his father died of a stroke, but he never really made his peace with the city. We took several trips to his old homeplace when I was a child. The house where he was born and raised was not much more than a shack, planted athwart a hill a few hundred feet from a riverbank. The house where his mother made her home after his father died was a real frame house, but it too was not much more than four rooms and a roof. Out back and up a gentle slope, however, was a spring, the first I ever drank from. The mountain water I drank from that hollowed-out gourd was the most delicious I have ever tasted.
Dad use to say that he never wanted any of his children to go to bed hungry. I wonder now if he said that because he went to bed hungry sometimes.
I’m sure that’s true. Remember his stories of Easter morning, when they could have all the eggs they wanted? And remember how he would always ask us if we were staying warm? I’d guess both of those came from strong memories of hunger and cold.
My father’s family is from the same area–Covington, VA. My grandparents each grew up on farms. They had some really interesting stories. It was my grandmother’s responsibility to keep the fire going in the house and to tend the goats.
Covington: that’s paper mill country, if I remember correctly. I believe route 220 took us there. Have you been back lately? I’d heard the paper mill shut down.
Interesting stories about your grandparents. My dad was nearly old enough to be my grandfather, which is why in some respects I felt I was raised in two generations. An interesting split existence.
I grew up in the Jennings Creek area and was just curious who your ancestors were. I knew of some Campbells and heard several recollections from my parents and others. I have always been interested in the history of the area, especially where folks lived, and the many small cemeteries that dot the area.
Steve Moseley
@Steve Fascinating! I wish I knew more specifics and could give you a fuller answer, but maybe this will be a start:
My father is Walter Campbell
He had four siblings: Bertha, Floyd, Bernice Alonzo (B.A.), and Guy (Robert Guy).
His mother’s name was Willie Sales Markham Campbell
His father’s name was Benjamin Alonza and he went by Lon. He grew a mustache because he was sensitive about the shape of his upper lip.
(I hope my brother will chime in here if I get this wrong.)
I’m not sure what part of Jennings Creek my dad grew up in, but I know he shopped in Buchanan and got his mail in Arcadia.
Thier homeplace was where Carla Anderson lives now. Willie Campbell sold it to Roy Andrew & Bertha C Mays in 1957. They sold it to Elbert & Carla Anderson in 1965.