Hawley Warrens, Old Regular Baptist Minister, 1889--1977

 

Hawley Warrens was a long term minister of the Old Regular Baptist Church, New Salem Association, and served as the long term moderator of the Steele's Creek Old Regular Baptist Church.  He was born in Floyd County Kentucky at Minnie in 1889 and died at Hi Hat in 1977.  But he had lived the majority of his life on a farm at Dema in Knott County about a mile and a half south of the Floyd/Knott County line on Right Beaver Creek.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photo which I have located in the obituary in the Floyd County Times.  He was the son of Whitt Warrens and Nance Moore Warrens.  His first wife was Caroline Moore Warrens and they had eight children, five boys and three girls.  Caroline died very young in her middle forties and Hawley then married Mandy Layne who also died before Hawley. He was also married later in life to Dorothy Little Warrens. He joined the Old Regular Baptist Church in 1914 when he was about 25.  He had been a member of the church for about 63 years at the time of his death.  About 5 years after he joined the church, he was ordained as a minister in 1919 and continued to preach and work as an officer of the church for most of the remainder of his life.  His funeral was conducted at the Old Beaver New Salem Association Building on Left Beaver Creek in Floyd County near Minnie.  Due to his long service to the church and association, his funeral was attended by large numbers of people from the entire area served by the New Salem Association.  He had been one of the best loved and most respected members and ministers of the New Salem Association.  He was buried in the Turner Cemetery at Dema near the farm where he had lived most of his life. 

Elder Raymond Howard, Old Regular Baptist Preacher, 1911-1963

 

I have written in several other blog posts about a few Old Regular Baptist preachers, mostly from the New Salem Association which is centered in Knott, Floyd, Perry, and Letcher counties in Kentucky.  Previous posts have been about Clabe Mosley, perhaps the most well known preacher in the history of the New Salem Association, and E. Hawk Moore who was a close friend of my father Ballard Hicks in the Wayland area of Floyd County and was also a lifelong member of the UMWA and worked regularly as the Burial Committeeman in UMWA Local 5895 in Wayland.  This post will be about Elder Raymond Howard whose name I have known all my life but whom I did not know as well in my childhood as I did some other preachers within the New Salem Association.  This blog post will be based largely on the obituary of Raymond Howard from the 1963 edition of "The Minutes of The New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists" which I have been fortunate enough to borrow a copy  from someone I know.  

 

Raymond Howard was born October 14, 1911, and died July 20, 1963.  His obituary was written by Elder Burton Howard and Brother Dillard Howard.  They list his children as Angus Neal Howard and Reva Howard Francis.  His wife's name was Mattie Slone Howard.  They state in the obituary that "Brother Raymond was loved by practically all men who knew him" and, as I recall, that is factual.  I do remember that he was well respected among the Old Regular Baptists in Eastern Kentucky and in the greater community as well.  They also state that he served as the Assistant Moderator of the Ball Branch Church at Mousie, Kentucky.  He apparently lived in the Mousie area and is buried there in the Howard Cemetery along with his wife Mattie.  Presumably, the James Dillard Howard who is buried in the same cemetery is the person who co-authored the obituary.  It also appears likely that Dillard Howard was his brother due to a sentence in the obituary which states "but I feel that Mother will have someone now to sleep with her in the old cemetery."  The obituary further describes him as "a wonderful singer, preacher, and he wonderful in prayer."  His memorial on Find A Grave also lists the inscription on his tombstone as being "A minister of the Regular Baptist Church."  The obituary does not state the number of years he was a member or minister of the church as those obituaries frequently do. 

Funeral Home Fans And Funeral Memorial Cards--Two Appalachian Traditions

 I recently posted a small post in Facebook about funeral home memorial cards which was my rapid response to a clue on "Jeopardy" the day before about the poem "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson which has been used on the back of funeral home memorial cards in Appalachia for many years.  That post was very actively and positively received by numerous people in Facebook groups devoted to Appalachia.  It had never occurred to me to write a post about these two topics despite the fact that I have been saving/collecting both items for quite a few years.  I have probably a couple hundred funeral memorial cards, all from funerals or visitations I have attended over the years.  I have also recently acquired a small collection of funeral home fans both from funeral homes where I have attended services and from a few small yard sales I have attended.  Both these items, especially the fans, are less often seen than in the past.  Funeral memorial cards were present at nearly every funeral I ever attended until about ten or twenty years ago.  Funeral home fans became less common when the small rural churches across Appalachia nearly all acquired air conditioning.  Nearly all Appalachian funeral homes for many years used the fans as advertising and always left a stack in every church where they held a funeral.  Many of the older Old Regular Baptist, United Baptist, Freewill Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal churches across the region still have some number of the fans which are frequently still used even if electricity and air conditioning are present.  But most funeral homes have stopped using them as a form of advertising.  Historically, the fans nearly always had a front side which was some generic religious themed reprodution of a religious painting or photograph in color, sometimes a photo of the funeral home building, but more often a painting of one of the more popular depictions of  Jesus Christ, either on the cross, the Last Supper, as the Good Shepherd, or arising from the tomb.  The reverse side was almost always plain white with the name, address, and telephone number of the funeral home involved.  The fans were usually a thin piece of somewhat stiff paper about 8" x 8" with a flat wooden handle stapled to the fan which was about 1" x 8".  It was also possible to see the same fans from the same printers being used by both local businesses and political candidates but they are less common.  I do have a few political fans in my collection.  

This first fan is from the funeral home with which I grew up as a child, The Hall Funeral Home of Martin, Kentucky, and shows Jesus Christ as The Good Shepherd on the front which is one of the most common scenes to be shown on funeral home fans.  

This next fan is from a funeral home, the Thornburg Funeral Home, and a community, Farmland, Indiana, in which I have never been.  I located the fan at a small yard sale in Stanton, Kentucky, where I also bought several other funeral home fans and a couple of antique books and a corn sheller.  It shows a typical Last Supper scene with a typical advertisement for the funeral home on the back. 

 

The funeral memorial card below is from the funeral of a neighbor, Flora Cook Isaac, and has a photo of the deceased on the front which is a common choice for funeral memorial cards.  

The interior of Flora Cook Isaac's memorial card is a typical two-sided print statement of birth and death dates, survivors, clergy, burial site, etc. and the left side of the print is the 23rd Psalm which is also a very common inclusion either on the inside left of the rear of these memorial cards. 

This next memorial card is from the funeral of my good friend and former auction ring man, Dewey Rogers.  The front is a depiction of the pick and shovel of a coal miner, which he had been in his younger days.

 

 

 

I will be adding several more photos to this blog post over the next few days due to a current problem with converting scans and photographs on the equipment I am using.  If you like what you have seen so far, please return in a couple of days and I will added to the contents of the photograph section. 

The Indian Bottom Association of Old Regular Baptists--Trends In Membership Over The Last 80 Years

This blog post has been prompted by what I have observed over the last thirty or so years to be a steady, but slight, decrease in the numbers of both members and member churches of the various associations of churches which refer to themselves as "Old Regular Baptist".  My mother was a member of the Steele's Creek Church of the Old Regular Baptists from some time about 1950 until her death in 1970.  Since her death and the death of the long term moderator of that church, E. Hawk Moore, along with other members and regular attendees at that church, there was a steady decrease in members until finally the church was dissolved by the New Salem Association of which it was a member church and the church property was sold to a private owner who now leases the building to a private corporation which uses it as a day treatment center for the mentally ill or mentally disabled.  Quite fortuitously, I was able to meet that owner and he graciously gave me the sign from the front of the church which had never been removed at the time the church was dissolved.  Let me state for the record that the Steele's Creek Church was not a member of the Indian Bottom Association and I know of no connection between that church and the Indian Bottom Association other than the possibility that some minister who might have been connected to the Steele's Creek Church could have been a delegate to the Indian Bottom Association meeting at some time since several associations which refer to themselves as Old Regular Baptist do have some form of limited fellowship between associations and often send delegates to the association meetings of corresponding associations.  I should also note for the record that I am not and have never been a member of any Old Regular Baptist Church and I should never be confused with the Old Regular Baptist preacher Roger Hicks.  I am simply interested in their history, as I am in nearly every other aspect of the history of Central and Southern Appalachia, since they were a part of my family's life and I have known of them all my life.  

Among the many associations in Central and Southern Appalachia which refer to themselves as Old Regular Baptists are The New Salem Association, The Northern New Salem Association, The Burning Springs Association (1813), Red Bird Association (1823), Mountain Association (1856), Red River Association (1876) The Mud River Association (1888), Twin Creek Association, Spencer Association (1898), Sandy Creek Association, Washington Association, Three Forks of Powell Valley Association, The Philadelphia Association, Ketocton Association, Yadkin, Holston, Kehukee and Roaring River. Associations. This list is likely to be somewhat incomplete and I would recommend anyone who is interested in learning more about the Old Regular Baptist churches and their numerous independent associations to read Howard Dorgan's excellent, but somewhat aged, book "The Old Regular Baptists of Central Appalachia: Brothers and Sisters in Hope".  Any attempt to study all of the various associations is a complex and time consuming effort and I suspect that is a major factor in the fact that so few academic books have been published about any of these associations.  Thankfully, the Old Regular Baptists have historically produced an annual report of vital statistics, obituaries, and circular letters which is the best source of information about any particular association. These annual reports are referred to as the "Minutes" of each particular association and have always been a rarity among the majority of small Appalachian churches most of which maintain very few written records.  But the major drawback to that route of research is that no central depository exists for the Minutes of all the associations.  The University of Pikeville has the best collection I know of but even that one is markedly incomplete.  Thankfully, the Indian Bottom Association made a decision with the advent of the internet to place all their "Minutes" online.  I would have loved this writing to have been able to compare membership and total church numbers for at least two or three associations over the same time period but I do not have adequate access to a sufficient number of Minutes over such an extended period of time.  For that reason, this blog post can only effectively examine the membership trends in the Indian Bottom Association.  But it is likely that the other associations will have had similar trends in membership and church numbers to the Indian Bottom Association. 

I will be comparing total membership numbers and total church numbers in the Indian Bottom Association from 1939 to 2019 in ten year increments since it would be a task of book length to compare those numbers year by  year for even fifty years.  I want to begin in a year prior to World War II for two reasons, firstly, because that war changed the face of much of rural America since it sent hundreds of thousands of rural men, and quite a few women in supportive services, to Europe and Asia and exposed them to a vastly different world than the one in which they grew up.  Secondly, I would like to be able to make an educated conclusion as to whether or not a sizeable number of those young Appalachian men and women who returned alive from World War II had been affected by the war in a manner which would have caused them to have what are commonly called "salvation experiences" and to join the churches of their parents after their return.  

In 1939, there were 27 documented churches in the Indian Bottom Association which had recorded a total of 1328 members.   Three churches had more than 100 members with two more having membership in the high 90's.  The largest church was the Big Cowan Church with 138 members.  Big Cowan Church was located in Whitesburg in Letcher County Kentucky.  Carr's Fork and Poor Fork were the other two churches with 100 or more member at that time.  Carr's Fork was located on Carr Creek in Knott County Kentucky and Poor Fork was located near Cumberland, Kentucky, in Harlan County. 

When we go to the 1949 "Minutes", we see that there were then 30 churches in the Indian Bottom Association which represents an increase of 3 member churches over the ten year period which is an 11% increase over the 1939 statistics.  The total membership in those 30 churches was 1634 which represents a sizeable increase of 306 members which is an increase of slightly more than 23% in total membership in the association over the ten year period following World War II.  There is no available way to determine how many of those 306 new members might have been returning veterans but it is likely that a significant number of them were such men and perhaps a few women who were also veterans of some war related service such as nursing, hospital work, or office work at established military bases.  There were then, in 1949, five churches in the association which had more than 100 members each with the Big Cowan Church remaining the largest with 167 members.  That reflects an increase of 29 members in the Big Cowan Church which is slightly more than a 21% increase in membership over the ten year period.  Poor Fork, Oven Fork, Big Cowan, Doty Creek, and Little Home were the five churches with at least 100 members.  Carr's Fork had dropped out of the list of churches with at least 100 members and was down to 95.  Big Cowan still led the numbers with the aforestated 167 members, an increase of 29 members over the ten year period which represented an increase of 21% in membership. 

In the 1959 "Minutes", we find that total membership in the association had dropped to 1377 members which is a significant decrease over the ten year period and is very close to the numbers at the beginning of this research in 1939.  The total loss in membership is 257 members for a percentage of 15.7% over that  ten year period from 1949 to 1959.  The total number of churches in 1959 remained stable at 30.  

The 1969 "Minutes" showed a total membership of 785 members which is very significant drop in membership from 1959 when the total was 1377 members.  The total membership loss was 592 members for a 42.9% drop in membership which would be shocking in any respected institution in a stable community.  The Statistical Table only shows a total of 21 churches in the association which seems to indicate that 9 of the member churches had chosen to leave the association over the preceding ten years.  The most logical reason for such a departure in members and member churches would be that there had been some major dispute of doctrine which led the 9 churches and most of their members to leave the association.  It is also significant that no church in the association reported having a hundred members.  The largest was now New Home Church with 82 members.  A handful of the churches were now reporting less than 20 members.  

The 1979 "Minutes", as entered into the internet website does not contain a Statistical Table page which appears to be an error of some sort since no association of which I have ever known failed to include the Statistical Table in their annual "Minutes".  Because of that error, I have chosen to revert for this time period to the 1978 "Minutes" which will make this period of examination 9 years instead of 10.  For the next reporting period, I will revert back to what would have been the normal year to examine, 1989,which will make that period of examination 11 years.  The 1978 "Minutes" shows 916 total members which is a significant increase over the 785 members reported 9 years before in 1969. That represents a 16.6% increase in total membership over the 9 year period.  But the 1979 "Minutes" shows only 20 member churches which represents a loss of 1 member church during that 9 year period.  The usual reasons still hold true for the loss of a member church and would usually be due to either a loss of membership which caused a church to be dissolved or that the missing church left the association to either become an independent church or to join another Old Regular Baptist Association.  It is most likely that a church's departure with active members would have been due to doctrinal disputes.  It should also be noted that the church structure in Old Regular Baptist churches does not utilize a system of pastors or paid ministers of any kind.  Each church has a Moderator, Assistant  Moderator, and Church Clerk.  The Moderator is not a complete example of a "pastor" and that word would never be used in an ORB church.  The Moderator is responsible for running the monthly weekend of meetings, supervising care of the building, preaching or at least "opening" the services but does not function in a truly "pastoral" capacity. 

The 1989 "Minutes" shows a total of 1323 members and a total of 26 churches which is a significant increase in both membership and member churches.   That is a total of 407 new members over the 11 year period and an increase of 6 member churches.  The percentage of increase in membership is 44.4%.  The 5 new churches represents an increase in member churches of 25 percent.  I suspect that some of those member churches arose out of the Great Migration of Appalachian mountain people who moved to the industrial north to work and took their particular form of religion with them.  The church clerks list shows one in Ohio and one in Indiana which has been a common theme with the New Salem Association also and actually brought about the creation of the Northern New Salem Association in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and one or two other industrial Midwestern states.  But  I also suspect there could be other sociological reasons for such an increase in both the church members and the member churches.  Once again, I have arrived at a question which cannot be completely answered in the time I have to devote to this research and it is exacerbated by the lack of comparative data from the other associations.  

The 1999 "Minutes" reports a total membership of 1893 total members and a total of 42 member churches.  Both these increases over the 10 year period are remarkable.  They could be due to further movement of members and their families to the industrial north but that is unlikely.  It seems to me that the more likely answer would be that another small association may have disbanded and those churches decided to join the Indian Bottom.  An increase of 16 new churches in such a small association over that time period is unlikely.  The 16 churches represent a 61% increase in member churches.  The total increase in members is 570 members which represents a 43% increase in total membership and the total membership in the association had doubled over the previous 20 years.  That is truly astounding and it shatters my original supposition that the association would have had significant losses in membership over the time period.  

The 2009 "Minutes" reported 1876 total members is virtually identical to the 1893 members 10 years before.  The drop in membership of only 17 members in a total population of nearly 2,000 is statistically insignificant at .00898%.  A total of 47 member churches were reported in 2009 which indicates that average membership per individual church is dropping.  The new churches, 5 in total, represent an increase of 11.9% in total churches.  Although I had not been computing average membership in the churches over the entire examination, let's look at that for this two reports.  In 1999, the average membership per single church was slightly more than 45 members.  In 2009, the average membership per single church was down to 39 average members a drop of 6 members per congregation which represents a drop of 13.3% per individual congregation.  

The 2019 "Minutes" only two  years ago reported total membership in the association of 1595 members for a drop in membership of 281 members which represents a drop in membership of 14,9% and is also significantly less than it was 20 years before.  There are only 43 total member churches reported in 2019 for a drop of 4 member churches which is a drop of 8.5%.  The total average membership per local congregation has also dropped to 37members which is another drop of 2 members per congregation.  While everything I suspected to learn by examining these membership data in the Indian Bottom Association did not hold true, I did learn the total membership in the congregation had a significant increase in membership following World War II which was followed by a slow decline in membership which was temporarily reversed in the ten years between 1989 and 1999.  I still suspect that sizeable increase was probably due to other churches and their entire congregations deciding to join the association.  But after that increase, the next 20 years shows a reversion to the slow, steady decrease in membership while at the same time showing an increase in member churches which is offset by a drop in total average membership per congregation.  I am too overloaded with other projects to attempt a full year by year analysis of the numbers.  But it would be very educational to see some good statistician and researcher do that very project with a book in mind about that and other aspects of the various associations of Old Regular Baptist churches.  Howard Dorgan's excellent book was published 20 years ago and a follow up is long overdue. 

Cemetery Traipsin' With Alexander Allen--September 5, 2019

Roger D. Hicks At Collins Cemetery--Photo by Alexander Allen

Yesterday, September 5, 2019, I spent a large part of the day doing what I like to call cemetery traipsin' with Alexander Allen in Floyd and Knott Counties in Eastern Kentucky.  Alex is a distant cousin on the Allen side of my family, only in his early twenties, and actually very interested in and actively involved in local history, family history, and genealogy.  It is highly encouraging and positive to see anyone Alex's age who is this interested in these issues of genealogy and historic preservation.  I think I know a lot about the cemeteries of Eastern Kentucky, some in Southern West Virginia, and a few others scattered over a few other states.  I have personally added more than 3,000 memorials to Find A Grave and photographed more than 650 graves for the website.  As my Find A Grave profile states, I have wandered through cemeteries in a great deal of the country and grew up within sight of three in Knott County. But I have to admit that Alex, especially for his age, has a large store of knowledge about cemeteries in Eastern Kentucky. Alex and I were going to some cemeteries each of us know well but neither of us knew all of them or all of the necessary information about them. We intended to take each other to a few which were important to both of us and share some information about them and the people buried there.  We started at the Manns-Allen Cemetery on Steele's Creek near Wayland in Floyd County.  This cemetery is located on a fairy high point on the left side of Steele's Creek about a mile and a half up the creek from Wayland and less than a half mile from the place where my parents operated a country store from 1945 to 1957 before moving to a new store at Dema on Beaver Creek in Knott County. It is at the mouth of a little hollow, which so far as I know has no name, and is the location where a couple named Bill and Goldie Stegall lived for many years.  I lived the first six years of my life on Steele's Creek and I had never been on that cemetery.  I do not remember ever being told that several members of our extended family were buried there.  What is a real shame about it is the fact that my maternal great-grandmother Hester Allen is buried there.  For the first time in my life, I visited the grave of my great-grandmother.  That cemetery is becoming badly overgrown and one section of it does not appear to have been mowed or cleaned up in many years.  At least one tree has fallen over a couple of graves. Another grave has a grape vine growing out of it and the base of the vine is nearly as big as my wrist.  Alex says he has dealt with the Floyd County Judge Executive recently about another cemetery and that official will sometimes send county inmates to clean up cemeteries.  Alex also states that each cemetery has to be placed on a list and they are done on a first come, first served basis which is the appropriate policy for such work.  Another friend has also told me recently that Floyd County inmates are also used sometimes to dig graves for families which cannot afford to pay for graves to be dug and I witnessed that practice not long ago when the nephew of some friends died whose parents were quite poor.  That issue of paying to dig graves irks me and always will.  I was an adult before I ever saw anybody paid to dig a grave in Eastern Kentucky.  When I was growing up, the family, friends, and neighbors always dug graves and nearly everyone would have considered it to be a travesty for anyone to accept money for such work. I would go so far as to say that most of the adults I knew in my childhood would have assisted in digging a grave for their avowed enemies if the need arose.  In that time and place, they would have done the work and never uttered one negative word about the person with whom they had disagreed in life.  

Ella Hicks Tombstone, Collins Cemetery--Photo by Alexander Allen

We traveled further up Beaver Creek beyond Wayland to the Collins Cemetery #1 which is located on the west side of Beaver Creek about a mile below the Knott County line.  I have known about this cemetery all my life and can remember a time when it was clearly visible from the highway nearly an eighth of a mile away on the other side of the creek.  But neither Alex or I had ever been on this cemetery despite the fact that both of us have family members and others we have known about buried in this spot.  It is a large cemetery with more than a hundred graves on it.  One hundred and thirty six graves on this cemetery have actually been documented on Find A Grave but I suspect that there are probably several more which were missed by the person who did most of those memorials.  This cemetery sits well up on the hillside and, if it were in good shape, commands an incredible view of a sizeable section of Right Beaver Creek with large mountains in every direction, no visible strip mine damage, obvious evidence of elk in the area which also means there has to be other wild game population, and the scene is generally quiet and peaceful without a great deal of noise from the visible highway.  When I say that the Manns-Allen Cemetery is "badly overgrown", that statement does not hold a light to the deplorable condition of the Collins Cemetery.  At one time, it was considered a major non-commercial public cemetery along the Beaver Creek, Floyd and Knott county border area and many outstanding members of the community have been buried there over the last one hundred years or more.  But today the cemetery is at best a briar patch with trees growing randomly all over the area and jungle might be a more apt descriptor.  The cemetery has a still functional chain link fence around it which is in good condition.  But elk are bedding down in the brush all over the cemetery. There are several monuments which have been turned over and one or two are broken.  I suspect that elk may have caused most of this damage since all livestock and wild animals will sometimes need to scratch themselves on the first available solid object.  A tall grave marker is no fitting scratching post for an elk weighing more than 500 pounds. It also appears that at one time someone had installed an electric fence charger in the vain hope that it would deter the elk from entering the cemetery.  But even if the electric was functional, the elk would simply raise their front ends and launch themselves over the fence. I actually stepped into a grave that was sunken to about knee depth because I was working my way around the cemetery and wending my way through briars, weeds, grapevines, and other brush which was over my head in many places.  I was pushing and weaving my way through a large mat of vegetation and literally pushed through and before I could see where I was I had stepped into the sunken grave up to my knees.  That one grave was the only one we found which was noticeably sunken although more could be hidden in the brush patches into which we never waded. 

Edgar Hicks Tombstone--Photo by Alexander Allen

Alex and I slowly worked our way through the majority of the cemetery and found probably most of the graves which are marked with formal granite or marble markers.  But we also frequently stumbled over semi-sunken sandstone markers for graves which might or might not be susceptible to rubbing in order to learn who is buried in them. Most of these sandstone markers have slowly sunk into the earth and little is visible of many of them. I have never done rubbing on grave markers and I realize that I should attempt to learn.  But, in spite of all these problems with brush, briars, and trees, both Alex and I were able to find some graves which were important to us.  I was able to locate the graves of my maternal aunt and uncle, Ella and Edgar Hicks, who had died tragically as children.  Just a few days before she would have turned three, my aunt Ella woke up one frosty October morning in 1922, just 11 days before what would have been her third birthday, and backed up against the hearth catching her nightgown on fire.  She died as a result of severe burns.  I had heard the story dozens of times as a child but I do not remember ever being told where she and my uncle Edgar were buried.   My uncle Edgar died at the age of ten in 1936 of what I always heard described as "a fever".  He had apparently been perfectly healthy until just a few days before his death.  My mother, the firstborn of my grandparents' children, was 22 years old when her brother Edgar died. She had been 8 when her little sister Ella died.  I am glad to say that I have finally been able to visit their graves.

Roger D. Hicks at the graves of Ella and Edgar Hicks--Photo by Alexander Allen

After we left the Collins Cemetery, Alex and I traveled further up Beaver Creek to Dema to visit the Turner Cemetery where both of us have several members of our extended family buried.  I grew up within sight of this cemetery, played on it with my friends as a child, attended traditional Old Regular Baptist Memorial Meetings there, and was first exposed there to the fine old Appalachian tradition of digging graves without pay for family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers.  I often refer to one old man, Alonzo "Lonzo" Bradley, I knew who lived his entire life on a hillside farm between the Turner Cemetery, the Pigman and Slone Cemetery, and the Collins Cemetery and always appeared in front of a deceased person's house the morning after they died with his tools in his hands ready to help dig the grave.  I often say that I have seen that old man insist that a grave be perfect, absolutely vertical and rectangular, without odd projections or holes in its walls, and dug with respect for the dead.  He firmly believed that the last decent and respectful thing we the living can do for the dead is to provide them with a perfectly dug grave which has been rendered with love and respect. I have seen that old man use his drinking water and dirt from the grave to make mud balls to fill holes in the sides of a grave where a rock had fallen out or been removed.  I will always remember him in his bib overalls with an old crumpled hat on his head climbing in and out of a grave until it perfectly suited his expectations. If good works and charity can get anyone into Heaven, you can rest assured that Lonzo Bradley is there resting from digging hundreds of graves for his neighbors and friends over his 76 years.

Alex had visited the Turner Cemetery but did not have much of the personal information I have about the individuals who are buried there.  I had personally known the majority of people who have been buried there over the last sixty years.  Alex and I started at the gate and walked the entire cemetery and I told him the stories I know about the people buried there.  The cemetery contains the graves of three very significant preachers in the Old Regular Baptist Church: E. Hawk Moore whom I have written about on this blog; Clabe Mosley, who lived to be 102 whom I have also written about, and who is perhaps the most famous Old Regular Baptist preacher in the history of the denomination; and, Hawley Warrens who lived within sight of the cemetery and was also a significant preacher in the denomination.  I suspect I will also eventually write a blog post about what I remember of Hawley Warrens. 

Turner Cemetery Sign--Photo by kestryll on Find A Grave 

As we were leaving the cemetery, we encountered Roy Huff and his wife, Priscilla Gail "Dockey" Huff, who do the lawn mowing and care of the cemetery and have done so for about twenty years.  Let me state for the record that this cemetery is always in excellent condition compared to most non-commercial cemeteries in Appalachia.  Roy does an excellent job despite the fact that he is nearly 80 and has had coronary bypass surgery.  Roy and Dockie do this work year in and year out, receiving only donations, and completing the work regardless of the income they may or may not receive for it. In many ways, Roy Huff has stepped into the empty shoes of Lonzo Bradley.  They say they mow the cemetery roughly a half dozen times a year.  And if you have read about the previous two cemeteries we visited on this day, you know that this is an exception.  If you know this cemetery, have loved ones buried there, or simply want to do a good deed, send them a check at the address on the sign in the photo below.  I can assure you the money will be used for the good of the cemetery and Roy and Dockie are completely honest.  I have known them since 1957.  We talked outside the cemetery near my truck for probably fifteen minutes before we left them to do their work.

One interesting portion of the talk which Alex and I had with Roy and Dockie was an almost verbatim repeat of a conversation which I had with Alex only minutes before.  I had been telling Alex about an incredible, perhaps two hundred year old oak tree which used to grow in the center of the cemetery and eventually died and was cut down.  It grew near four graves at the highest point of the cemetery which are only marked with rocks.  One of those graves is outlined with cut stones which are very similar in size, shape, and cut to the classic hand cut stone steps we often see at old mountain homes.  The other three have only large sandstone rocks on them.   When I was growing up, the prevalent tale in the area was that this grave with the cut rocks was "the grave of an old Indian".  Today I know better.  Native Americans did not bury their dead in that fashion.  What I had been telling Alex was that no one in my lifetime had ever been able to make a statement about who the four people buried in those graves might have been.  During our discussion with Roy and Dockie, Roy suddenly and spontaneously brought up that magnificent old oak tree and the four graves near it.  He went on to tell Alex virtually the same story I had only minutes earlier.  He also holds a view similar to mine that those people must actually be some of the first white settlers in the area of Dema and were probably the first people ever buried in the Turner Cemetery.

After we left the cemetery, we traveled to Garrett, Kentucky, and had lunch at the Garrett Fountain which serves mostly sandwiches, fries, and onion rings. The food is acceptable but not outstanding.  Then we went back to Glo and I visited with Alex's maternal grandfather Sam Bradley for awhile before heading back home.   

E. Hawk Moore, Old Regular Baptist Preacher & UMWA Activist

Hawk Moore--Photo by UMWA Local 5895

E. Hawk Moore was an Old Regular Baptist preacher, coal miner, and UMWA member and official in UMWA Local 5895 in Wayland Kentucky where he worked for Elkhorn Coal Company for many years and also served as the local's Burial Committeeman for many years.  He was also a close friend of my father, Ballard Hicks, who was also employed by Elkhorn Coal Company for a few years before leaving the mine to buy a country store and care for his terminally ill first wife.  Hawk, as he was always known, lived about a mile up Steele's Creek from my father's store near the head of the hollow and just above the Steele's Creek Church which he served for years as moderator.  Sadly, that church is no longer in existence other than as a rental house.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photo above but it was the only one I could find of Hawk.  It is a detail of a group photo of the Local 5895 officials which is included in the book "Twentieth Anniversary...of Local Union 5895 United Mine Workers Of America 1933-1953" about which I have also written in this blog.  I am also still searching for further biographical information about Hawk above and beyond what is in that book and what I know personally.  Hawk's name also appears regularly in the Minutes of several other Associations of Old Regular Baptists as a delegate as does the name of Clabe Mosley whom I wrote about earlier.  

 

 

I have often seen Hawk's name mentioned in obituaries in the Floyd County Times and I know that the paper's online morgue will contain his obituary which I will quote extensively in a future edit of this blog post.  I believe I will also be able to locate another version of that obituary in the Minutes of The New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists in the near future.  Although, my father never joined any church, he often attended Old Regular Baptist services with my mother, Mellie Hicks, and knew most of the Old Regular Baptists in the Floyd and Knott County area.  He often traveled to Quicksand Creek in Breathitt County Kentucky to squirrel hunt with Hawk Moore and his son George Moore and a few other men.  They always hunted on the same farm on Quicksand which belonged to some man whose name I do not remember who also was known to make moonshine.  They would travel to Breathitt County to the farm where they were allowed to camp and hunt for as much as a week at a time.  According to my father, part of the deal was that he would always check in with the landowner at his home and inquire as to "where his cow was being pastured".  This was a code phrase which they used so the man would tell them which area of his farm was off limits since that was where his moonshine still was located.  Apparently, the farm was rather large and even with being limited from hunting in one small fork of the hollow or another, they could all still cover plenty ground, kill their limit of squirrels, and avoid interfering with or leaving a trail to the owner's still.  The other part of the deal was that they also bought at least one gallon of moonshine among the lot of them.  I suspect that at times they might have bought several gallons.  For many years until shortly after I was born my father kept a gallon of moonshine in the house for "medicine" but was never a heavy drinker.  

Hawk Moore never drank at all because of his religion but since the other members of the hunting party were able to do so without causing problems he still hunted with them under that setup.  One of my father's favorite stories about hunting with Hawk Moore took place on that farm on Quicksand Creek.  Daddy said he and Hawk were hunting up the same rather narrow, steep, and rocky little hollow one day and Daddy happened to spook a large whitetail buck which was unusual in that time period in Eastern Kentucky.  Hawk was apparently further up the hollow than my father and the deer ran his way.  Both men were hunting with the standard 12 gauge shotguns of the day and probably would not have attempted to kill the deer illegally even if they had been properly equipped.  Daddy said a few seconds after the deer bolted up the narrow, high sided drainage of the hollow he heard Hawk scream something or other like "Whooee!".  Later, he said Hawk said he had been coming down a particularly narrow area of the drainage and the buck nearly ran over him almost literally touching him as the sizeable rack slid past his body.  Hawk was known to make the somewhat humorous claim later that he always believed that my father had been trying to get him killed by driving the deer over him.  They remained friends for life and, as I recall, Daddy made a trip from our new home on Right Beaver Creek to attend Hawk's funeral when he died.  There were also numerous trips through the years between the time we moved from Steele's Creek to Beaver Creek that my parents would hire a driver, since neither of them drove, and travel to Steele's Creek on Sunday to attend the church which was also the church my mother joined.  

I will keep searching for further information about Hawk and edit this post as soon and as extensively as I can. 

Clabe Mosley, Old Regular Baptist Preacher, Feb 1857-- May 1959

Clabe Mosley's Homemade Tombstone--Photo by Jim Spencer on Find A Grave

Although I was only eight years old when Clabe Mosley died in Knott County Kentucky, I will always remember the hundreds of stories I heard about him and his life as an Old Regular Baptist Preacher in the New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists.  For most of the last years of his life, he lived in a small house behind the home of one of his relatives at Topmost on Right Beaver Creek.  But for many years before he died his handmade wooden keyhole casket and the cotton batting with which it was to be lined hung from the joists in the attic of my maternal grandfather, Woots Hicks, at Dema just below the Turner Cemetery where Clabe was eventually buried.  As I remember the story, at some point after he was past seventy or so, Clabe decided to prepare for his imminent death although he would live roughly thirty years longer.  But based on common life spans of the time, he decided it was time for him to put his affairs in order.  He was either friends with or related to the people who owned the house which my grandfather would later buy and live in until his own death. It is possible that those owners were Preston and Rachel Terry, who coincidentally were the paternal grandparents of five of my cousins which means that at different times all four of their grandparents lived in and owned the same house. So Clabe went to the best known local coffin maker and requested to have his coffin made in the older keyhole fashion.  By keyhole, we mean that the widest point of the coffin was roughly where the shoulders of the deceased would be located.  From that point, the sides of the coffin tapered in both directions toward the head and feet. These are a common type of coffin you still see sometimes in old western movies.  They were going out of favor by the time Clabe died but they were still in limited use at the time he chose to have his made.  So the story goes, when the coffin maker finished the job and sent word to Clabe that the coffin was complete, Clabe got someone to take him, since he never drove, and went to pay for and pick up the coffin.  I was always told that Clabe inspected the coffin in whatever building the maker had used as his wood working shop and said, "Well, it looks pretty good to me.  But I reckon I better check it out."  So he took off his shoes, climbed into the coffin, crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and after a short while said, "Yep, I reckon that's about right."  and payed the maker and had the coffin hauled to the house which my grandfather would eventually own where it was hung in the attic along with some cotton batting with which to line it.

Sometime after the coffin was placed there, the first owner of the house either died or decided to sell it and my grandfather bought it.  Since he also attended the Old Regular Baptist Church and knew Clabe well, my grandfather never asked Clabe to take the coffin elsewhere.   Eventually, Clabe did decide to move the coffin to the home of a family member but it hung in my grandfather's house quite a few years after he bought the home.  Fourteen of us first cousins grew up on Right Beaver Creek within five miles of our grandparents home and I grew up literally next door. Five more of those cousins lived within sight of our grandparents.  All of us grandchildren would frequently spend time at the house for family events or simple visits.  During all that time, I do not remember that any of our female cousins would ever go upstairs since the attic was entered via a small crawl door from the single finished room of the attic.  Most of the six male cousins, in a show of bravado, would still go upstairs despite whatever fears we were trying to hide.  

When Clabe died at the age of 102, he was buried in the Turner Cemetery which is located on the ridge right above the location of the no longer extant house in which the coffin hung.  He had also left explicit instructions about his tombstone which is pictured above.  As I recall, he told one of his sons, Crawford Mosley, to build it by constructing a wooden form in the shape seen above and to carve the elaborate epitaph into the rapidly drying concrete.  The rectangular depression seen in the tombstone above originally held a photo of Clabe Mosley which was covered with a piece of cut glass.  But, because it was not properly sealed, the photo did not last long and the glass was eventually broken by vandals and lost.  But the entire inscription reads: "B. Feb. 3 1857  D. May 1, 1959  Joined Caney F. C. (Caney Fork Church) 1884 of Reg. Baptist Was Ordained To Preach70 Year Ago And Have Preached Or Tried To Preach The Gospel".  I have known many people who have literally marveled at that inscription, the homemade tombstone, and the entire story of Clabe Mosley.  When he had Crawford Mosley inscribe the words "preached or have tried to preach the gospel", Clabe was taking what was a common position during his lifetime in the Old Regular Baptist Church that all men are imperfect and anyone can make a mistake.  I doubt that this position is quite that common today.  Clabe was also well known for being rather long winded at times in his sermons and is said to have preached for two or three hours on his last birthday.  The Old Regular Baptists frequently engaged in the practice of "singing down" a long winded preacher but I do not recall ever hearing that Clabe was "sung down".  For those of you who do not know that expression it means that when a preacher was considered to be preaching too long other preachers, deacons, or church members would begin a song in their typical lined out hymnody and sing until the preacher in question got the point and quit preaching.

In a rapid Internet search of the name "Clabe Mosley", I was able to find two significant pieces online about him.  One is an article in the Louisville Courier Journal of May 8, 1955, almost exactly 4 years prior to his death.  The article is entitled "70 Years In The Pulpit".  But since I am too stingy to pay for articles from newspaper morgues, I have to admit that I have not read it.  The other article is from the Kentucky Explorer website and can be found in its entirety at this link.  It is written by James G. Hall and contains several interesting anecdotes as well.  James G. Hall states that Clabe served for a lengthy period as moderator of the Caney Fork Church.  I have also seen his name in several of the annual Minutes which each Old Regular Baptist Association publishes once a year.  He is usually listed as having been a delegate to the Association meeting which published that particular edition of the Minutes.  Hall also states that he was amazed at the physical condition that Clabe maintained until much later than most people did in the early twentieth century. He also mentions that Clabe was well known for refusing to eat meat which had been bought at a store since it might have come from animals which were dead before they were butchered or otherwise unclean or unhealthy.  It is possible that such unique eating habits might have contributed to his long life at a time when almost no one refrained from eating anything which was available. Due to copy right restrictions, I will refrain from printing any long selections from the Kentucky Explorer website story.  But you can rest assured that it is well worth reading also.  Go to the link and scroll down until you find the title "Uncle Clabe".  I will also attempt to add some information in the near future from the Courier Journal story.  Clabe Mosley was one of the most interesting humans I can remember hearing about and remotely knowing in my childhood.  He is literally a legend among the Old Regular Baptist Church and all the residents of Beaver Creek and Knott County Kentucky. 

Appalachia--What's In A Name

Appalachia, More Than Just A Word

The general rule of thumb in pronouncing proper names is that the owner of the name sets the rule.  In the case of place names, the rule is to pronounce the place name as the majority of residents of a place pronounce it.  We Appalachians generally pronounce the word Ap Uh Latch Uh.  Appalachian writer and song writer Billy Ed Wheeler said that his mother always said, "Billy, if you don't quit, I'm going to throw this Apple AT Cha."  Those two ways are correct.  All The Others are Wrong.  Several non-Appalachian place names provide illustrations of names which are pronounced somewhat differently than they are spelled and would include Mackinac, Michigan, which is pronounced Mack-uh-naw, and Poughkeepsie, NY, which is pronounced Puh-kip-see. The area of New York state which includes Poughkeepsie has several local place names which are Native American in origin and not pronounced anywhere near how they appear based on spelling.  There is also Apalachicola, Florida, which is pronounced Ap Uh Latch Uh Co Luh which is an amazing coincidence. Or is it? It is also interesting that the very same people who mispronounce Appalachia generally do not mispronounce Apalachicola.

Map of the Allegheny and Cumberland Plateau--Central Appalachia

Living my life in Appalachia, I have seen hundreds of outsiders, including my own Wisconsin born wife, come to the region with the best of intentions.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But, let me state for the record that my wife has adapted well to the area and learned a great deal culturally.  She has, to a degree, been assimilated into the Appalachian culture. In my post on visiting the urban Appalachians, I also quoted from an obituary by an unknown author writing in the Minutes of The Northern New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists who had assimilated into the Appalachian culture in a very similar way.  However, this type of adaptation is rare.  Many, if not most, non-Appalachians make an ill founded attempt to change us. 

Appalachian Mountain Cabin

But back to the name Appalachia,  most times native Appalachians may not directly or immediately correct the mispronunciation of visitors or missionaries other than by pronouncing it correctly every time in the person's presence.  But they will place some degree of negative importance on a mispronunciation.  The point is that if the visitor or missionary does not care enough to learn how to pronounce the name of the region where we live correctly they generally do not care enough to matter much to us.  Visitors and missionaries will almost always put the Ap ah lay cha pronunciation on the word with a few adding an extra syllable to make it Ap ah lay che ah.  Both pronunciations are wrong, have always been wrong, and always will be wrong. The reasoning which goes into their persistent mispronunciation is identical to that espoused by the Europeans who settled America and believed they had a divine right to take the land which had been owned and occupied for thousands of years by Native Americans.  This concept is known as "manifest destiny" and is defined as:

"Manifest Destiny was a phrase which invoked the idea of divine sanction for the territorial expansion of the United States. It first appeared in print in 1845, in the July-August issue of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. The anonymous author, thought to be its editor John L. O'Sullivan, proclaimed "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions."  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h337.html

Manifest destiny has also been practiced in Appalachia by groups as diverse as the VISTA Program, church groups from the northeast and midwest, and outside land owners and/or mineral holding companies.  This total disregard for the free will of citizens is rarely seen elsewhere in the USA.  But it is common in Appalachia for a group of outsiders to show up driving either a U-Haul full of second hand clothes or piece of equipment for mineral extraction and to tell the locals that their actions are in our best interests.  They come mispronouncing the name of our homeland, misunderstanding or denying the authenticity of our culture, and simultaneously expecting us to believe every word they say and adapt our ways and beliefs to their expectations.  Is it any wonder that we take offense at strip mining, clear cut logging, and the way they mispronounce the name of our homeland?  Manifest destiny is also a topic I will approach in a complete blog posting at some time in the future. It has contributed greatly to the overall general negative attitude toward Appalachians and the justified anger of Appalachians toward strip mining, mineral extraction in general, clear cut logging, VISTA, and most other missionarys and missionary organizations.

It is interesting to note that when Alice Geddes Lloyd came to Knott County Kentucky shortly after the turn of the 20th century she made a  public commitment to never meddle in three issues: religion, politics, and moonshining.  Oh, how much better off Appalachia would be if all the others who followed Ms. Lloyd to the mountains had taken similar positions..

The name Appalachia is an old Native American word and has been pronounced in the region for hundreds of years in the way it was originally pronounced when the first Europeans stepped off the boat in the tidewater region.  It comes from the name of the Apalachicola tribe and actually has been translated to mean "the land of the ruling people."  My, how that interpretation has been changed over the history of Appalachia.  The mispronunciation began about the time the first missionary came to Appalachia to save us from ourselves.  It has persisted since that time.  Native Appalachians have tried to educate these people about their mistake for hundreds of years.  But it is nearly impossible to educate and correct anyone when they live under the mistaken belief that they are superior and are working to alter your life in a way to make it meet their expectations of normal.  This is what forced cultural assimilation is all about. I will, in the future, write at least one complete blog posting on the subject of cultural assimilation and ways to resist it.

Having grown up in Knott County, Kentucky, I honestly do not remember the first time I realized I was an Appalachian.  I do not recall having heard about it from my grade school teachers and I am doubtful if any of my high school teachers mentioned it either.  But I was in the first group of Upward Bound students during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.  I also clearly remember the famous visit by LBJ to Martin County Kentucky to kick off the War On Poverty.  But when I entered the Upward Bound Program, I was exposed to several people who made lasting impressions on me and who had varying degrees of knowledge about and commitment to Appalachia.  I met Albert Stewart who founded "Appalachian Heritage" magazine and was one of the greatest poets the region has ever produced.  He was arguably one of the best writers of the modified sonnet in this country.  He also made a lasting positive impression on hundreds of native Appalachians and students of Appalachian Literature.  His commitment to Appalachia was total and lifelong. I was lucky enough to know Al and stay in touch with him until his death.  Watch for a complete posting about Albert Stewart in the Appalachian Heroes section of this blog. 

Photo of Albert Stewart, Appalachian Hero

I also met William Howard Cohen who was not Appalachian but spent much of his life in Appalachia teaching and writing at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes in Knott County.  Bill Cohen was, to say the least, unique.  He was totally committed to abolishing strip mining in America and literally put his life, his job, and his reputation on the line dozens of times by opposing strip mining.  He was devoted to Appalachia and its preservation.  He was also generally misunderstood at best and not at all understood at worst.  He was brilliant, eccentric, and one of the finest humans I have ever known.  Watch for a complete posting about William Howard Cohen in the future.  Since he was not Appalachian, it will not be in the Appalachian Heroes section.  Bill Cohen was a non-native hero who lived and worked in Appalachia.  At this point, let me state for the record that spending some significant number of years in Appalachia does not make a non-Appalachian an Appalachian any more than my spending an equal number of years in Harlem or Los Angeles would make me African American or Hispanic.  Bill Cohen was many things.  But most of all, he knew he was not Appalachian and never tried to be.  Thereby, he avoided the most classic and egregious mistake made by the missionaries who still keep flooding our borders. Bill Cohen used that key piece of self awareness as the foundation of a long career working in Appalachia and actually being a positive influence while he was here.

During my Upward Bound days, in my first year on the Stuart Robinson Campus at Blackey, Kentucky, in Letcher County, I had the educational experience of meeting Harry M. Caudill.  I do not use the term educational in the same sense that many others refer to Harry M. Caudill.  He spoke to the Upward Bound group that summer and his best seller "Night Comes To The Cumberlands" had just come out not long before.  Each student in the program had been provided a copy of the book and it was the basic text in our summer history course that year.  Many of the students in that group, who were among the brightest in the area, showed up for Caudill's speech carrying their book and many well grounded criticisms of his low regard for his fellow Appalachians.  While he was a pretty good historian and writer, Harry M. Caudill did more to help perpetuate negative stereotypes of Appalachians than nearly any other native of the region.  His interpretation of historical and sociological data, when it referred to Appalachia and Appalachians, was nearly always wrong.  His conclusions were derogatory, defamatory, and debilitating. He was guilty of believing, expressing, and spreading most of the prejudices which continue to damage Appalachian people to this very day.   "Night Comes To The Cumberlands" is the last book anyone should ever read about Appalachia.  It should only be read after the student of Appalachia and Appalachian culture has read and learned enough to be able to see through the cultural fallacies in Caudill's work. 

Another work which is often well spoken of but has served as a millstone around the necks of Appalachians is "Deliverance" by James Dickey.  Far more people have seen the movie than have read the book.  Based on reviews by my friends in the Appalachian movement at the time, I have chosen to never bother to read the novel.  I have seen key scenes from the movie and based on their devastating portrayals of mountain people have chosen to never watch the entire film.  I am considering reversing myself and reading the book in the near future in order to write a blog posting about the damage Dickey did to the Appalachian image. 

But, to return to the stated subject of this posting, the name Appalachia is pronounced "Ap uh latch uh".  Any other pronounciation is a dead give away to natives that the speaker knows little or nothing about the  region and its people.  It is also a pretty good indicator they probably care less. If you are among the thousands of people who mispronounce the name, learn the difference and change.  Whether you are a native Appalachian or a non-native, show enough respect for the land, culture, and people of the region to learn about it, help educate others about it, and protect and defend the land, its culture, and its people.