Sweet Memories

Sitting in church this past Sunday morning, the organist played a bit of Just As I Am Without One Plea and, as usual, I was taken back 50+ years ago in a flash. My Grandpa Griffith loved to watch the Billy Graham Crusades on TV and I would sit on the big, wide arm of his easy chair to watch alongside him. Grandpa was a man of few words, but once in a while he would say, "that's right" or give an "Amen" during the broadcast.

Grandpa, Grandma, sister Nancy and me on the front porch
of their home outside Medaryville, Indiana, circa 1955.

Actually, seated that close I can also remember the sweet smell of the tobacco he was always chewing. I do come from a long line of tobacco users and those memories can come roaring back instantly with the aroma of tobacco or even with a special song or hymn from long ago.

King Coal

As I’ve mentioned before, the past three generations of my family lived and died in southeastern Kentucky, the area that is now known as Appalachia. It is an absolutely beautiful place with the Cumberland Mountains and plateau, part of the great Appalachian Mountain chain, its most striking feature.

Back in the early 1990s I began a genealogical search that took me to those mountains and the people that still inhabit that area. Coal was king in those hills for generations, until automation and regulation dried up the only type employment those folks had ever known. You can see a photo of my paternal Grandfather in an earlier post–http://paul-griffith.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-rootsmy-foundation.html–in his mining hat, complete with carbide lamp.

My genealogical search revealed my great-grandparents, on my grandmother’s side, also lived and worked those hills, eking out a living in one of the most difficult and dangerous occupations one could find. Here they are posing for a photo, circa 1920, sitting in the front yard of their Floyd County Kentucky home. They raised ten children in that home; no wonder they look a bit tired in this photo.

John and Rosa Campbell

I love this photo…from the wide-brimmed hat on Grandpa’s knee, to his bushy mustache, to her long white apron, and of course the stone pipe I’m told Grandma Rosa always had close at hand. Then, look at the lay of the land behind them; a house carved into the Kentucky hills to be sure. John (1849-1934) and Rosa (1855-1930) were the epitome of the hard-working and hard-living folks I call my own.