Uncle John Keech married Annie Mae Wilkinson who was sweet and pretty. He died while washing his car of a heart attack. She died – wasted away – after colon cancer and surgeries. He farmed, was a carpenter, and worked during the war in the shipyard (boarded with Rose). (This refers to my mother and the house we lived in on Harrison Street in Portsmouth, VA. My father also worked at the shipyard and rode a bicycle to work.) Theirs was a pleasant house – I enjoyed going and playing there. Their children were; Melbourne, Russell, a daughter Elva Rae died as a toddler, Elva Mae, and Glenn. Glenn married a third cousin, “Tootsie” Keech and after they retired from working and living in Virginia, have restored Uncle John’s house and barn into a showplace. Uncle John had remodeled it several times. Uncle John was loving – would carry Mama homemade grape wine for the Xmas holidays. He had a huge white grape orchard and always made a keg or two of wine in his barn. He called me “Root”.
Uncle Cecil Atwood Keech married Addie Davenport and also lived on 264, at the foot of Free Union Rd. He seemed a little distant. He farmed and logged some. He was a diabetic, obese – and died of a heart attack. Their children were Cecil Jr., Grace, Jack, and Dorothy. They’re buried in back of their old house (it’s occupied by family members).
Uncle Jesse Miller Keech was my favorite and greatly loved by most all. He married Annie Woolard and lived in with Grandma Keech and still occupied the house till their death. He was a very good mechanic and a practical joker but didn’t like to have one played on him! He and Aunt Anne had a set of stillborn twin boys; Ruby Lee; and Louis Chapman “LC”. I grew up playing at Grandma’s with all these Keech cousins. Ruby and I were like twins except she was much smaller and three weeks older than me. All of us kids built “houses” out of scraps of wood, tin, etc., played “cowboys and injuns”, etc. But we really enjoyed sitting on the floor beside Grandma Alex’s rocking chair. She was one great old Irish “storyteller” and could scare the wits out of us with her ghost stories. (Grandma Alex died when I was 12 but I too remember these stories). It was poor times, but there was always a pot of collards or beans Aunt Anne and Grandma cooked to fed all us hungry cousins. Papa would have to walk down with a switch to run Ernest and me home!
Eva Mae Keech, daughter of Jesse Franklin Keech and Alexania Stillman Keech of Free Union, was born July 5, 1888 – died Jan 25, 1961. Married Aug 21, 1905 to William Taylor Waters, son of William Franklin Waters and Mary Eliza Radcliffe Waters – born March 18, 1878 – died Aug 20, 1952.
Grandma Alexania Stillman Keech was born 1860 in Plymouth, NC, to John and Margaret Ann King Stillman. I remember Grandma Keech telling of her remembering being carried on the shoulders of a Yankee soldier when they invaded Plymouth.
Mama’s father’s parents were Elias Hilton Keech and Margaret Robbins Keech, born in Yeatsville to Sam Robbins and Carolyn Windley Robbins. Mama said she was at Grandma Margaret’s who was sitting in a rocker knitting, when suddenly, she dropped her head and said “Lord have mercy on me” and died. Mama ran home to get help (she was a little girl). (The picture is of Margaret with granddaughter Eva). Great Grandpa Elias had facial cancer bad they said. Cancer and heart attacks killed many Keech people. The old Elias Hilton home was directly behind Uncle Sam’s (his son) house on Free Union Road – just down from Mama’s home birthplace. We kids played in the old house. Uncle Sam’s two story house was and is a nice house. People used to love to visit them. It was occupied by Uncle Sam’s son - Raymond and his wife till his death. Cousin David Brinn’s grandson, Tony Brinn, bought it. It’s been remodeled and landscaped and is beautiful.
I, Ruth, was a tom-boy growing up in a house of boys. My older sisters married before my birth. (I remember stories of my mother, Rose, having to drive those boys to do their work around the farm. Rose was the 2nd child after Mary. Mary was favored and was dressed up and stayed in the house with her mother while the hard work fell on Rose, the second born. This training persisted through life as my Aunt Mary always seemed laid back while my mother was always working hard.) Thomas and Taylor (my brother Thomas and cousin Taylor Sawyer) are two years older than me. I was about 4 when Lucy married at age 14 ½. Needless to say, I felt like I was an ugly duckling. I was born when Mama was 44 and, poor dear, she was worn out from childbirth and hard work. She always seemed tired. She didn’t have time to care for me – teach me, etc. I knew she loved me – but I don’t remember her actually say “I love you” to any of us. I remember her working the garden, her beautiful flowers, washing from sun-up till sun-down on a wash-board, ironing all day with a cast-iron heated on a hot wood burning stove, staying up late quilting, sewing or canning. (My recollections of Grandma are similar to Ruth’s. Hard working and industrious but not close and loving. She didn’t visit Virginia often and when she did, she stayed with Mary who lived a few blocks from our house. I believe my mother was hurt by this although she would not say anything. She always knew that Mary was her mother’s favorite.) I tried to follow behind my brothers and nephews and I am sure they hated it. I roamed the ditch banks, graveyards and woods, loved to find old bits, pottery and stuff. I’ll never get over losing “Bud Will” (Billy) and Alton. We were so close – grew up singing together – they played guitar, mandolin, fiddle. Alton wrote to me once or twice a week while in the Navy during the war. (I remember my mother receiving letters from her brother, Alton, and crying over the impending battles that he would have to face.) I worked in Billy’s store during high school.
Mama was a pretty young woman. My daughter, Barbara, and Lucy’s daughter, Sue, most resemble her. Grandpa Frank was a stern (sometimes downright mean) person and some people were afraid of him. Mama soon let him know, after marrying Papa, that she was not scared of him. She carried food to him, even when he was on his death bed. He really got upset, they said, once when somebody used some of his valuable boards. Mama said, after he died, she was doing something across the road at “the old place” and she distinctly heard something like a board slamming and Grandpa’s voice calling “Plum? Plum?” (his youngest daughter, Aunt Pat). Both she and Tommy (I heard many times) telling about the time (after his death) they were in the lean-to of the old barn, cutting potato eyes to plant. All of a sudden, they heard the old clock (in the barn I suppose) “donging”. It had not worked for years! Mama said Tommy (he was a young boy) looked at her, eyes wide and said “Ma – you hear that?” It scared him. (I remember hearing lots of spooky stories as a young boy visiting Grandma’s house. They were a superstitious people who seemed to believe in ghosts.)
Those were the good ole days! The depression days were poor, nobody had much, but people had time to stop and chat when going by on the dirt road. There were only one or two cars in the community. People walked and rode mule carts everywhere – even to church. Yards had beautiful flowers – no grass. Yards were swept once a week with reed brooms. All cemeteries were kept cleared and clean. People would work them out with hoes. I remember Aunt Ruth, Uncle Henry and Uncle Milton Radcliffe, came about twice a month to do Grandpa’s graveyard. She’d planted a beautiful red blaze rose bush at the head of their stones.
We hired out to chop corn, top and sucker tobacco, plant tobacco, work or “take-in” tobacco.Three or four dollars a day seemed like a lot of money but cokes weren’t but 5 cents, or nuts or a candy bar. People gave their crews ice-cream parties at the end of the season.
The “ice-man” came once a week and Mama bought 50 or 100 pound block and put it in the middle of the smokehouse floor and covered it with burlap and a washtub. This was chipped with an ice-pick for our tea. The “fish man” also came once a week. Mama usually bought butterfish. She fried cornbread patties and fried or stewed potatoes with the fish supper. Any left over was warmed over for breakfast.
Mama was her daddy’s “eyeball” but I often heard the older brothers speak of how badly her brothers treated her about their inheritance. She got nothing. They got it all – even the money from logging. They were greedy.
Another saying was about Great Grandpa – Charles Henry Radcliffe. They said that during the Civil War, to escape having to serve, he had hid out at his place. They took his food to him. He did his chores and plowing at night by lantern light. (Remember it was dark! No electricity in Free Union till 1946).
William Franklin Waters was born on or near “Walla-Walla Rd. by Pinetown on 4 Jan 1844 – died and buried at his homeplace in Free Union 14 March 1924. He married Mary Eliza Radcliffe, of Free Union 1 Jan 1871 and they farmed a small place next to her parents, Charles Henry Radcliffe and Evaline Linton Radcliffe. They were blessed with 12 daughters and two sons. She was born 22 April 1853 and died 6 May 1906 at age 53 of gangrene of the leg, which eventually caused septicemia. William Frank’s parents were Isaac Jackson Waters and Sally Wallace Waters.
Another thing said of Grandpa Frank Waters. Uncle Henry Hardison said that when he and other suitors came to call on Aunt Ruth and sisters, “When Mr. Frank started winding that clock up, we knew it was time for us to go.” Grandpa died the year Alton was born. They (Mary and Rose) said that he was proud that five of his daughters had joined the Primitive Baptist Church. And when Aunt Pat (she was Mary and Rose’s age) joined Free Union Free Will Baptist Church, he beat her bloody! Aunt Pat later became a member of the Christian Church.
We loved to see Mary and Rose’s kids come to stay with us during the summer months. (I remember these times fondly. It was adventurous for a city boy to make discoveries around the farm. Uncle Jesse tried to teach me how to milk a cow. And we would work in tobacco. When the tobacco was “in the barn”, someone tended the fire to cure the tobacco 24 hours a day and the evenings were usually songfests and story telling time down at the barn.) But lo and behold, when Edward Taylor Sawyer plugged most of Mama’s watermelons in her patch one year, she went bananas! She looked for him with a switch, which was rare for Mama. I believe I’ve never seen her so angry! (He ran off somewhere and hid all day.)
Many memories Bobby! Many happy ones - some sad. I’ve often wished I could have taped the older folks telling things.
Ruth Elizabeth Waters Hewitt (b. 21 Dec 1929)
16 July 1998, in a letter to Robert Franklin Boyd
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