Elizabeth (?) Waller

Well, now that I am back into digging around my family tree, I discovered that a family photo may not be who we always thought it was.  There used to be two portraits hanging in the living room of my Grandpa & Grandma Vaughn's house.

Elizabeth Waller

Lindsey Gray

I was always fascinated by these two old tintypes even though they were 

dark and faded and the people looked a tad scary to me as a child.

The gentlemen's name was Lindsey J. Gray and the lady was his wife, Elizabeth Waller Gray. My grandmother noticed my fascination with those two portraits, and she knew how much I loved family history, so she told me that when I grew up, she would let me have them. Unfortunately, as things often happen when statements like that are made and deaths occur, things are given or taken by others that didn't know about the original promises.  It is all good though, because I was finally able to get copies of those two portraits, which is the reason that I can post them above. As long as the originals are cherished, protected, and do not end up in an antique store somewhere, I am happy.

Facts about Lindsey & Elizabeth:

Lindsey J. Gray was born about 1835 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

He was the son of Jeremiah & Elizabeth Gray. 

He was listed as a farmer in census records.

He married Elizabeth Waller on November 16, 1868.

Elizabeth was born about 1845 in Patrick County, Virginia.  

She was the daughter of Edmund Waller & Mary Ann McKinney. 

She is buried in the Dobyns Church Cemetery in Patrick County.

Lindsey and Elizabeth had seven children: 

John W., Edmond, Jeremiah, Mary Elizabeth, George, Casey, and Alexander.

Their daughter, Mary Elizabeth (b. October 24, 1874), was my great grandmother.  She died when I was four years old. I can remember her being at my grandparent's house, but I cannot remember too much about her, except that she was very nice to me. Mary Elizabeth was married to William Hardin Dollarhite on July 11, 1894.

Back to the mystery that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.  The whole family has always referred to her as Elizabeth Waller. This past week, I really started digging through census records, birth, marriage, and death records.  I CANNOT find an Elizabeth Waller. However, I CAN find Sallie Ann Waller. Sallie Ann is the same age as Elizabeth. She was married to Lindsey J. Gray. She died in the same year that Elizabeth supposedly did. She even had children by the same names!  Because of all of that, I have to think that the lady in the above portrait is actually Sallie. (Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, its probably a duck!)  Oh, and I also found reference to a Sarah Ann married to Lindsay J. Gray that fits just like Sallie Ann does.  Sallie is a common nickname for Sarah, so that is not really surprising.

So, did we just have the name completely wrong since an Elizabeth does not appear anywhere? Was her real name Sarah?  Sallie?  Elizabeth? Sarah Elizabeth? Elizabeth Sarah? Why did my grandparents say that her name was Elizabeth?  There is some indication that this lady's MOTHER'S name was Elizabeth.  Is that where the confusion comes in?  This is still a mystery that I am working on.  My cousin, Jeff is checking with some other relatives to see what they know.

To be continued . . .

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean.

Family History

Hardin Columbus Vaughn, Cecilia Belcher Vaughn and family. 

Back in 1977 when I was in the seventh grade at Meadows of Dan Elementary School, our teacher, Phillip Barry, gave us an assignment to investigate our family tree.  I was very lucky because my Grandpa & Grandma Burnette had always told me many stories about my ancestors and they both could remember SO much and SO far back that it was a piece of cake!  I also talked to my Grandpa & Grandma Vaughn and they told me quite a bit about that side of the family. Both sets of grandparents took me to see all of the family graveyards and they pulled out bunches of old family photos.  Without hardly any trouble at all, I got my family tree back to all 16 of my great, great grandparents. 

That school assignment fired me up to try to find out more and more about my family tree.  I remember my mom taking me to Stuart to the old library that was in a two story house just west of Moody's Funeral Home.  I remember pouring through records there and making some copies of documents that they had available.  On the Burnette side of the family, I could NOT get past my Great, Great Grandpa Burnette.  All that I knew was that he was called "Bill".  Yeah.  That narrowed it right down to about a dozen possibilities! I gave up on family research for a while after that.  

In college, I was talking every Appalachian Studies class that I possibly could and those classes stoked up the fires of my genealogy research again. This time, I made copies of lots of old family photos and made some progress on several different branches of my family tree.  Slowly, the fire died back down as I became involved with all of my college classes.

In the mid 1990s, I found a wonderful software program called "Family Tree Maker" where I could start plugging in all of my family tree information.  What a fabulous program!  I could add photos, stories, and documentation.  Plus, I could create booklets and charts.  I was in heaven!  I also started digging even harder to get more information to add to my family tree.  I visited graveyards, courthouses, relatives, special library collections and looked up things online since more and more people were starting to preserve their family histories online.  Of course, one has to be very careful when getting information from things posted on the Internet, but it can always give you ideas where to look and how to verify information also. 

A couple of weeks ago, I started getting the genealogy itch again.  I ordered some books through inter- library loan to start digging again.  Then, strangely enough, just this week someone started a group on facebook called "Mountain Top Families" for families in Floyd, Carroll, & Patrick Counties, Virginia.  I think that it is meant for me to start digging again!

Genealogy is looking mighty good after I spent all afternoon knitting only to realize that I made a HORRIBLE mistake 500 stitches back. I am totally disgusted. Perhaps I will take a break from knitting and work on my family genealogy once again.  

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean.

I won!

Last month, I participated in the Tour de Fleece 2012 on Ravelry.  

I spun so many yards of yarn, that my left hand is just now starting to recover!

I was a team member on the following teams:

Team Kromski, Stashbusters, Climbers, Rookie, and Peloton.

Each team had goals to meet in order to be eligible for the prize drawing.

I won the following items from Team Kromski in a random drawing.

Upper left:  Beautiful Merino fiber "Swamp Thing" from  Bon Fiber
Upper right: Magnetic Chart Markers from Mommabear's Creations
Lower left: Another bobbin for my Kromski spinning wheel from Ragnarok Farms
Lower right: Scrumptious Merino/Silk blend top from Ragnarok Farm

Please visit these folks at their websites by following the above links to purchase wonderful fibery things!

Another view of the wonderful prizes!

Rain Signs

When I woke up this morning and glanced out the window, there was a glorious sunrise. Grandpa always told me that if there was a red sky in the morning that there would be rain later in the day, (Red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning.  Red sky at night, sailor's delight.)

Then, when I stepped outside to get a better look at the sky, I heard a rain crow just singing its heart out. Grandpa always said that it was sure to rain when you hear the song of the rain crow. For years, I had no idea what a rain crow's true name was. One day I heard one and commented on it to a co-worker.  He looked at me a bit strangely and asked me if I was referring to the yellow-billed cuckoo! I told him about the lore surrounding the rain crow and then it became a game each time that we heard one to see if the bird's predictions came true. It usually did rain!

I never do see a red sunrise or hear a rain crow without having an immediate flashback to my childhood and all of the wonderful lore that Grandpa passed on to me.

Two rain signs this morning.  Let's see if it does rain later today!

UPDATE:  By noon today, the trees were starting to turn up their leaves, which is another sign of coming rain.  By 2 pm, the skies were dark and it started POURING around 2:10 pm.  Of course, then the sun came out and the humidity was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500%!  Now, at 4:05 pm, it is getting dark again and I can hear thunder rumblin' in the distance.

Maybe the local television stations need to hire that rain crow . . .

(Here is a Linkto  a good audio of the cuckoo's song.)

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean.

Grandpa Burnette

John Edward Burnett
Photo taken at
The Burnett/e Family Reunion @1979
The Rocky Knob Picnic Area
 Blue Ridge Parkway

I have been writing this blog for a little over a year now and I have always wanted to write something about my Grandpa Burnett, but I have never been able to do so.  I was very close to him and have so many wonderful memories. I know that I will get very melancholy and miss him terribly when I start writing.  I could easily fill a book with stories about Grandpa, but I think that I will just introduce you to him today.

John Edward Burnett was born on August 16, 1900.  He was born into the family of Marion Columbus Burnett and Martha Jane Cock (Cox).  When he came along, there were already six children in the family.  He would end up having eleven brothers and sisters.** They lived on a farm in the Burks Fork area of Floyd County, Virginia. Now that I am thinking about it, I don't ever remember Grandpa telling me too many details of his childhood. He typically just spoke in general terms about what life was like back then. However, I do remember him telling me that he loved horses.

Grandpa held many jobs through his life time, but his primary loves were always farming and carpentry. Even when he moved to West Virginia to work in the coal mines, he still kept several acres of wheat at his father's farm. The various jobs that he held is a blog post in itself!

Grandpa was always telling tales. I could never figure out whether to believe them or not because they would have just enough in them to make you think that they could be true.  But, boy, were some of them outlandish! I hope to share some of them with you at a future time.

Several years ago when I was getting ready to sell Grandpa & Grandma's house, I found bunches of love letters which were sent between him and Grandma while they were courting. I also found letters to Grandpa from another girl!  Some of them make for great reading because Grandpa & Grandma had a very interesting courtship due to his wanting to get married right away and she kept putting him off.

As a child, I was my Grandpa's little "tag-a-long" (Grandpa's name for me!) and I had to do everything and go everywhere that he did. I hope to share more stories about Grandpa with you in the near future.

Grandpa passed away on July 31, 1981.



**Grandpa's brothers & sisters
Jefferson Lafayette Burnett "Fate" (1886-1924)
Charles Thomas Burnett "Tommy" (1887-1958)
Washington Irva Burnette "Irvy" (1890-1967
Annie Darthuyl Burnett "Annie" (1893-1934)
Sarah Ellen Burnett "Ellen" (1894-1969)
Samuel McKinley Burnett "Kinley" (1895-1960)
John Edward Burnett "John Etterd or Dettered" (1900-1981)
George Dewey Burnett "Dewey" (1903-1979)
Ewell Roosevelt Burnett "Ewell" (1905-1969)
Early Lee Burnett "Early" (1908-1958)
Valirea Cordelia Burnett "Cordilla" (1910-1975)
Nancy Jane Burnett "Nancy" (1913-1988)

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean.