I Give Thanks Today

I give thanks today.  Thanks to all those who went before me.  Those who persevered through bad times and good; who survived, so that I am here today.

My folks were not important people.  They didn’t do great things.  They did ordinary things.  They were mostly farmers with a couple of store keepers, an inn keeper, and a few soldiers thrown in.  Some were prominent in their own localities, some weren’t.  But they always owned their own land and homes.

They were mostly British subjects when they arrived (the Germans having sworn their allegiance on the dock in Philadelphia,) but they were Americans when they died.  Their heritage was varied:  German, English, Scots, and Irish.

Most of them came in at Philadelphia, carted their belongings down The Great Wagon Road which ran from Lancaster Pennsylvania down through Virginia and North Carolina to arrive in the Salisbury/Charlotte area – all here before the American Revolution.  A few began in Maryland and Virginia, and drifted down into northern coastal North Carolina before turning west and crossing the state to Mecklenburg County.    My direct lines did not pick up and go to Tennessee, Indiana, Alabama, or "out west" like so many did.  They more or less stayed put once they got into this area, and these names are still here today.  Some of the Parkers did go to Georgia in the early 1890s, but that's a story for another time.  (Watch for my next three blogs which will tell this story in three parts – There was a Feud in the County.)

Amos Parker

My Dad Bill

We have our tales and legends – we can tell a good story.  There was Johann Andreas Wentz (1725-1827) who helped found MorningStar Lutheran Church in Mecklenburg Co. whose descendants are still evident to this day in local government in Union Co.  His son John Wentz (1751-1827) was a hero of the Revolution, and his name is on a plaque in front of the Union County Court House in Monroe, NC.  There was Peter Arndt/Arrant (1712-1780) who ran a public house in Salisbury where the court met, who was instrumental in arranging a meeting in 1756, between the local officials and Chief Hagler of the Catawba tribe, trying to settle the hostilities between the pioneers and the Indians.  There was Hugh McCain (1729-1821) who was hung by Cornwallis’s men, trying to make him divulge the site of his hidden gold, but who was rescued and cut down before he died by his faithful slave “Old Teener.”  There was Josiah Haywood (1825-1865) who went off to the Civil War and never returned.  His family never knew what happened to him until some of us eventually took up genealogy a hundred and thirty years later and found him more than likely in the mass grave at Bentonville Battleground.  There was the tragedy of Robert Parker (1856-1889) who killed Lee Stack in 1879, and ten years later was shot dead by Frank Stack who was then lynched by a mob in Morganton.  (If you are interested in reading about this story - There Was a Feud in the County – it will run in three parts in my next three blogs.)  This started a dangerous feud which eventually caused Amos Parker (1849-1925 - brother to Robert)  to pack up his whole clan and move to Claxton, Georgia, where a grandson Albert (1916-1995) developed the famous Claxton Fruitcake which, today, is sold all over the world.  There was my dad, Lawrence Grady “Bill” Haywood (1894-1972,) who managed to get himself arrested on the streets of Paris.  (See my blog of June14 – How My Dad Bill got arrested in Paris.

 Blanche Elizabeth 

And then, not to leave out the women, there was Blanche Elizabeth Arant (1873- 1966,) maker of the sauerkraut (see blog August 07 - The Kraut Barrel  )  one of my favorites.  And finally we have my mother Ruth Parker (1898-1980) who was Chief Telephone Operator at Southern Bell Telephone in Charlotte, NC in the 1920s and early 1930s.  She, by herself, was sent by Southern Bell to New Orleans to learn the “new” dial system and bring it back to Charlotte.  When you “dial” your own telephone number today without the help of an operator, think of my mother!

  

                

     

Ruth with flowers  c. 1925                            Ruth (center)  and her “girls” at Southern Bell   c 1930

 I had good parents, and I had a good husband  - I have had a good life.  My history was made smooth and enjoyable by all these people.  They enabled me to have this wonderful life, all made possible by hardy and interesting people.



                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      E.C. and Josephine Bryant,  Harvey and Shirley,

                                                                                                      Ruth and Bill Haywood

You can meet them if you wish on my tree: Haywood, House, Yandle, Wentz / Parker, Arant, Nelson, McCain on the Ancestry.com website at  http://www.ancestry.com  .

I said above that my people were not “important” in their day.  But they were important!  Important to those of us who came afterwards.  We should recognize this and honor them.  For this I am thankful.

Remember and be Thankful

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