Day 337, Year 10: Tracing Our Past
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2015
Weather: Overcast and Rainy, Lots of Rain Turning to Drizzle
Location: Comfort Suites, Salem, VA
We are staying in Salem, Virginia which is right next door to Roanoke. The 100th birthday party for my aunt is less than a half mile from here, so my nephew Rex chose a great location. He made all the arrangements for the family to stay here. Thank you, Rex.
As we were driving south today, we made arrangements with some of my nieces and nephews that were already in Salem to meet them in a place called Laurel Branch. My father grew up in Laurel Branch and some had never seen the home where he lived. It was a bit out of our way, but the trip was well worth it. It was so much fun tracing our past together. Both my mother and my father were from Monroe County, West Virginia. This is in the southeastern corner of West Virginia bordering on Virginia. My dad was from the south side of the mountains and my mom from the north side. We know lots about her side of the family and how they came to the region from Europe when the Shenandoah Valley was still America’s frontier. We know less about my dad’s side of the family and today’s side trip shed a lot of information on that. We drove to the huge farm house where my dad grew up and luckily found the current owners at home. They are a retired couple from New Jersey but have been in my Grandpa Martin’s home since the early 1990’s. The woman was extremely knowledgeable about local lore and filled in lots of gaps in our information. I can’t wait to return at some point and talk with her at length. But we just had a short amount of time today, so we said our goodbyes and went in search of the cemetery where my grandmother was buried. She died in 1910 when my dad was only eight years old and we have really never known a lot about her side of the family. The stories passed down say that she was of Native American descent but none of us have really ever even known her actual first name. It seems she had more than a couple of English first names. So we thought finding the gravestone might solve the mystery. We found it but it didn’t help. Only her initials were on the stone—FECM. Her sister’s gravestone which is right next to hers had her name printed clearly. So we are still left wondering. One of these days when I have oodles of free time, I must return there and spend a few days delving further into the past.
We had a nice evening with my family and then Mark had to turn in early as he is still not feeling great. We are adjusting our plans for the return trip home. We were going to stop tomorrow night to visit with good friends Kevin and Claire in northern Virginia, but after the trip down, we realize that we need to get further north tomorrow night if we are going to make it home in time for Mark’s radiation therapy on Monday afternoon. So we’ll leave here at 4 pm and drive as far as I can make it before we stop for the night.
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| 150912 Day 337 Roanoke, VA–Laurel Branch Visit & Tribute to Diane Stout |
