Although we’re officially a week shy of “springdom,” today was a mid-60s, spring-like day. To add to the splendor of it, I not only had the day off of work, but I got to visit the stomping grounds of some of my ancestors – specifically Martin country in the beautiful and pastoral Green Valley and Brushy Fork section of Ashe County, North Carolina, bordering Tennessee.
I was a teenager the first time I ventured into that territory and, suffice it to say, that’s been quite a few moons ago. It was my interest in family history that drew me there, and, as far as I can recall, it was the first time I met any of my Great-grandmother Erma Martin Wallace’s siblings. I was not quite nine when I attended her funeral, and while I’m sure some of her brothers and sisters were there too, at that age I was oblivious to my extended kinfolk. With the passage of a few more years, though, I became extremely interested in them and the knowledge they had of our ancestors.
On Brushy Fork Road, as you travel from the North Carolina side toward Tennessee, were the successive homes of my Aunt Callie Martin Knight, Uncle Earl Martin, Uncle Everett Martin, and Uncle Walter Martin. I met more of my great-grandmother’s siblings on other occasions and in other places, but these four – although some of them took brief sojourns out west – were the ones who remained on their forefathers’ land as farmers, stock raisers, and horsemen.
By the time I got to know Aunt Callie, she was stone deaf, but I could communicate with her by writing my comments and questions, and she would respond. I recall her being a very kind and warm lady and sharp as a tack. She was the oldest of the siblings, born in 1884 – an entire decade before my great-grandmother, and when she died in 1990, she was five months shy of her 106th birthday.
Uncle Earl and his wife, Aunt Pauline (a distant niece of Daniel Boone), lived next up the road. It was there I first saw a portrait of my great, great, great-grandmother, Elizabeth Stewart Martin, and I have a copy of it hanging in my home. Aunt Pauline seemed a bit more talkative and outgoing than Uncle Earl, and oddly, my most vivid memory of her is when she said, “Earl killed a hog today.” It wasn’t the statement itself that struck me; rather, it was the way she said “hog.” Not “hawg” like most of Appalachia says it, but “hahg,” in an almost citified way. But Aunt Pauline had been a schoolteacher, and perhaps this was a result of her education. My last interaction with Uncle Earl was at a nursing home in Mountain City, Tennessee, where I visited him shortly before his death in 2006 at the age of 103.
The next house up the road belonged to Uncle Everett and his wife, Aunt Venie, who was a homemaker, a cheese maker, an artist, and a poet. They lived in the ancestral home that began as a log house and sheltered five successive generations of Martins. It was the birthplace of my great-grandmother and all her twelve siblings, with the exclusion of Aunt Callie, the firstborn. Thanks to the current owner, I was able to fully tour the house today and stand in the room where my great, great, great-grandfather, Alexander Martin, breathed his last in 1885 and where the original floor planks, held together by square-head nails, bore witness to the event and remain to this day. We discussed how Alexander hid in a hollowed out log beneath the house to evade the Confederate Home Guard during the Civil War, and I got to admire his original discharge certificate from the Union Army.
Of all the Martin siblings, Uncle Everett was my favorite. He had a good sense of humor and was always very hospitable, friendly, and outgoing. He was an interesting man – lively and engaged, and he seemed to have a spark in his eye and an enthusiasm for life. He was particularly well versed in both our family's and country's histories. I remember on one occasion he recited a quote, which he attributed to George Washington regarding America's positional safety: "We are well forty-fied! – [Uncle Everett’s way of pronouncing “fortified”] – with Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, the Atlantic to the east, and the Pacific to the west." Uncle Everett died in 1991, two months before his 90th birthday.
The last Martin house in order of succession on Brushy Fork Road was the home of Uncle Walter. Aside from seeing him at a few family reunions, my only real encounter with him was a conversation from my rolled down car window as he stood in front of his house. I recall him as a man of few words. Then again, even though we were kin, I was practically a stranger to him, and perhaps due to his frugality, mistrust of banks, and making moonshine for half a century (a family tradition that had been passed down for generations), he was cautious around those he knew little about. Although I explained who I was, deep down he may have wondered if I was a revenuer incognito. In 1981, while in his 80s, he was arrested for bootlegging, but due to his age, he was only fined and released. The funniest thing I remember about Uncle Walter was when some jail inmates escaped, and the manhunt for them spilled over into the Brushy Fork community. Uncle Walter was not particularly troubled by the escapees but was rather incensed that none of the people in the search party took the time to help him pick beans! Uncle Walter died in 1983 at the age of 84, and in keeping with him being a man who seemed to march to the beat of his own drum, he was buried on a knoll behind his house, thus starting his own family cemetery.
Speaking of cemeteries, with the glorious wind and sun on my face this afternoon, I visited the old Martin family cemetery, where, among other kin, are buried my great, great-grandparents, Jordan “Jerd” and Polly Wallace Martin – the parents of the Martin siblings I have been recalling. Amazingly, Jerd and Polly were married for 78 years, she dying at the age of 95, and he at 101. To put it in a bit of perspective, Jerd was born when the U. S. President was James Buchanan (the one before Lincoln), and he died when John F. Kennedy was in office. There must be something in the waters of Brushy Fork!
I’m thankful that, at a young age (and even still), I enjoyed being around older people and hearing their stories. I’m thankful I took the time to meet these aunts and uncles and had the opportunity to know them. I’m thankful they helped me understand more about who and where I come from. I’m thankful they are a part of me. And I’m thankful I got to revisit my fond memories of them on a beautiful spring-like day.