Patchwork, Prayers and Corn Pudding

By Phyllis A. Williamson

When we understand what our fathers and forefathers were attempting to achieve, we come closer to understanding ourselves. Through them, we begin our identity, values, and beliefs. We further enhance the knowledge of ourselves as well as our connection with one another through the research of our relationship with God.
I hope this book will help narrow the gap between far-flung relatives and inspire reflections upon where we have come from. May these pages preserve some of the stories and yarns of our elders and continue to give their memories life

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 12, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465326591

Book preview

Copyright © 2009 by Phyllis A. Williamson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

65582

Contents

Preface

Foreword

Acknowledgments

ILLUSTRATIONS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Afterword

Dedication

To my grandchildren, Rio, Ariel, and David.

It’s my hope that you’ll cherish and nurture your heritage so that it survives the ravages of time.

Love,

Meme

Preface

When we understand what our fathers and forefathers were attempting to achieve, we come closer to understanding ourselves. Through them, we begin our identity, values, and beliefs. We further enhance the knowledge of ourselves as well as our connection with one another through the research of our relationship with God.

I hope this book will help narrow the gap between far-flung relatives and inspire reflections upon where we have come from. May these pages preserve some of the stories and yarns of our elders and continue to give their memories life.

It is my belief that God created man to live the simple life in harmony with and giving respect to our earth and bountiful totality. We can do that by learning from the past and recording it for future generations. Just as it is important for our lessons to be passed, it is also necessary to teach our young to be individual thinkers who are capable of moving into a richer evolution of spirit.

It isn’t difficult to see our grandparents and other relatives in ourselves, and with a little more realization, we can see each other in every individual because the entire human race is what we are. If you step back for a broader view, you will see the tapestry of a golden web of souls. Setting oneself apart is necessary for the identification of a physical existence, but seeing ourselves as a whole human family opens our eyes into the limitless zone of spiritual connection with all of creation. That connection takes us to a truer beginning that led this simple group of Gurkins along the path of the Long Ridge Road. Realizing the role of family is the beginning of awareness to our connection with the brotherhood of man. In understanding this collectively, we are one step closer to a better world. This book is for all those who know the importance of family and especially for those who don’t.

Foreword

Life as a North American Southerner has much to do with family and history. History is more distinct through events that can help us have better lives by showing us how to have a wiser future. Patchwork, Prayers, and Corn Pudding begins with such an event, the Civil War. It tells of the part my great-grandfather played and some of the effects it had on people of the surrounding area where he lived.

Most every Southerner has a story to tell and a bit of advice to offer. This book is a collection of stories, pictures, and memories from various members of the Gurkin family. It is about days gone by in Pinetown, North Carolina, the ole home place, life in the growing up years of my grandparent’s children, and comparing it to the present era. It covers a few world historical events and some of the effects that those events had on several characters in the book. Some photographs have been included to help establish the realness of the people and times.

When you tell of experiences in your life to share what you have learned, they become valuable. If a reader sticks with those experiences because of what you have learned, it becomes their story as well.

Woven throughout are some of my personal philosophies gained largely by my association with many of the book’s characters. Some of today’s strong issues such as sexuality, abortion, and murder are dealt with, comparing an old-time viewpoint to my own evolvement of ideas.

The ole home place is mentioned several times in settings to help build or bring back memories because home is where we return for wholeness, rituals, and fulfillment.

If quilting is uniquely an American expression of folk art, then the book cover is a print of an original work by Grandma. I have used Grandma’s quilt work to represent the many facets that bring together the patchwork of our lives. Also, I have attempted to show how the characters, circumstances, and events of the book are the fabric of life and how they helped make me who I am.

There are some good old ways that we have left behind in order to reach into man’s definition of progress. These ways have filled my heart with a passion to preserve the memory of a lost style of living. I have tried to paint a picture that will draw the reader into the scene of yesteryear, a scene that was not always good or charming.

Welcome to your passport into the past.

Acknowledgments

Some of the characters comprising this book and their immediate family members contributed greatly to the collection of pictures, stories, and information used throughout, especially my mother, Mary E. (Gurkin) Smallwood. I wish to thank all of you who put up with my seemingly never-ending questions and digging for materials. For those of you who even provided me with meals and a brief place to stay, I thank you. This book is in honor of you, and I hope you’re pleased.

Wilhelm M. Gaber, you were the one who inspired this project, provided me with the know-how, and helped me with editing. I do so appreciate your involvement.

Ester Blair Radcliffe (distant relative)

[e-mail]

James Jim Lewis Gurkin (distant relative)

3187 Wilsons Mills Road

Smithfield, NC 27577

1-919-934-7620

[e-mail]

David S. Jones, III (friend and Civil War buff)

[e-mail]

John B. McGowan (Civil War researcher)

[e-mail]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Martha Louise Cutler (Grandma)

James Henry Daniel Gurkin (Papa)

The Gurkin Brothers:

Harlie, Willie, and Archie (front row)

Jessie and Plum (Oliver), (back row)

Living With Creatures:

Grandma, Papa, and Ruby

with calf and mule

Papa, Mary (back row) with mule

Pauline and Edna (front row)

Phyllis (author) with

Surry Parker/Pinetown Discovery

Mary Gurkin in her graduation dress

with dog, Sam

Ruby Gurkin

Wesley A. Smith, Sr. and Edna R. Gurkin

Mary Gurkin and Pauline Lewis

V-Mail

Little Soldiers in Training

Osborne and Clyde Lewis

Little Soldiers in Training

Clyde Lewis, Archie Gurkin,

Osborne Lewis and their dogs

Archie Gurkin in Hawaii

Chapter 1

The Civil War

The opening chapter is a violent, but brave beginning of accounts for the Gurkin family history. My great-grandfather, William Wiley Gurkin, known as Wiley, was a soldier who served in the Civil War.

Wiley joined the army as a private in Company A, First Regiment of North Carolina Union Volunteers Infantry of the United States on May 7, 1862. His company was part of the Hyde County Union Soldiers made up of the First and Second Regiments.

Some of his records from the National Archives show his name as Wylie William instead of William Wylie or Wiley. He signed his documents with an X (as many did) and might have been unaware that his name was written incorrectly. Names as well as other words were often spelled differently during this stage of history many times due to poor formal education. For instance, Pinetown was then written as Pine Town by some. Also, the surname of Gurkin was spelled Gurkins or perhaps Jerkins. Wylie’s military gravestone is engraved as Gurkins.

Great-grandfather Wiley was a resident of Acresville in Beaufort County near Washington, North Carolina. This town is about fifteen miles from Pinetown where much of the rest of this book takes place.

Wiley married Harriet Melinda Daniels. They had four children whom they raised on their small farm. Their names were James Henry Daniel, Polly Ann, Ida Augusta, and Luther Jarvis.

It wasn’t uncommon for men of that area to serve with the Northern army as there were many Southerners opposed to tearing down and dishonoring the government their great-grandfathers had, not long before, fought so hard to build. Many of the early recruits were farmers who detested the ill effects of slavery on the poor white working man. They wanted it abolished because they felt it was causing hardships by eliminating the jobs they once had. They thought if they joined up with the Union, they’d be given the right to shoot and kill on sight rich slave owners and then set their slaves free to leave the area. That did not turn out to be the case.

Company A First Regiment was organized on June 27, 1862, in New Bern, North Carolina, from small groups of Unionist men along the East Coast from the Virginia line to Beaufort. They approached the federal army and navy, requesting protection and were willing to serve with the Union, but most of the time, they were not treated like real soldiers and were assigned close to their homes as guards, pickets, scouts, and gun crews. They generally became a group that needed protection by northern soldiers from the Confederates who viewed them as turncoats and hunted them down to be captured and punished as traitors. They were to fight only in circumstances of an emergency. All together, there were eight regiments made up of men from North Carolina who represented the Union cause. Four were white and four were black.

In March of 1862, two companies of Northern troops marched into Washington, NC while the Picket, a Union gunboat, was docked in the wharf.

Early one morning in the middle of March 1862, the Confederate army came into town and took over Union artillery. Gunfire caught the attention of Union Cavalry passing close by, which were headed for Plymouth. The cavalry charged in and a serious battle took place. The ship was blown up. What’s left of the Picket could still be seen just offshore in the river there.

By spring of the following year, the Confederates were back in Washington to besiege whatever Union food and supplies they could to carry to General Robert E. Lee’s army in Virginia. Their mission was accomplished, but the Confederates were unable to handle the northern reinforcements arriving by ship and eventually withdrew.

To prevent any further sieges on Washington, the Union army set fire to the town and burned it all the way to the last street, leaving only chimneys standing and only two houses on Water Street. These houses still stand today with cannonballs wedged firmly in their walls where the rebels shelled the town. Many women and children were left homeless.

Toward the end of 1863, the Second North Carolina Regiment was formed. It was quite different from the First. Unlike the First Regiment that joined as Unionists with a cause, the Second Regiment consisted mostly of Confederate deserters and poor, illiterate men who enlisted to get the $300 offered by the Union and a promise of care for their families while they were serving. It took only eight weeks for their three companies to be captured, imprisoned, or hanged for desertion. The few men left became part of the First Regiment. The Second Regiment ruined the reputation of the Hyde County Union Volunteers such that they were ordered to spend the rest of the war serving only local guard duty and then were mustered out.

Records from the National Archives indicated that Wiley had deserted between September 17, 1862, and January 6, 1864. His records also showed he received medical treatment between September 21, 1862, and October 4, 1862, for remittent fever. That fever could very well have been a result of a wound incurred during the first attack on Washington that happened on September 6, 1862. Wiley’s company participated in the battle with hand-to-hand combat that was unavoidable. There were some casualties reported from his company. As to why his records showed desertion, one can only guess. Apparently, the leaving of his post was decided acceptable after a trial on January 11, 1864, where a transition of court records showed "upon conditions which appeared to have been complied with (so far as not waived by the government) the charge of desertion no longer stands against him" and he was restored to duty. He was eventually honorably discharged on June 27, 1865.

Discovering that my Southern great-grandfather served the northern cause was interesting to me. Not that it matters one way or another, but my assumption had previously been of the opposite. This assumption was taken due to remarks collectively gathered throughout my life from relatives, especially the older males, who seemed to have negative attitudes toward Northerners and their ways.

Since my discovery, I have also learned that my grandfather (James Gurkin) was noncommittal on north and south issues, according to his grandson, Osborne, who knew him. This could be easily understood that James was noncommittal, considering what his father must have experienced.

The Civil War was also referred to as The War of the Rebellion. This seemed a more fitting name as there certainly was not anything civilized about it. Approximately 600,000 lives were lost in that war where, in some cases, neighbor fought against neighbor and even more unthinkable, brother against brother.

History revealed the north as the winner of this war even though they had two soldiers die for every one Southern soldier. As for myself, I failed to see a winner. Collectively, our national family suffered an immeasurable amount from its internal strife that has reverberated through the decades with a nagging distant ring.

Natural tendency would be to romanticize the participation of a relative in a war that changed the history of this country. On the other hand, how can a war inspire such feelings when we realize that the reason for the Civil War was explained by some as an attempt to annihilate slavery of the black man in this country while others say it was for industrial issues? President Lincoln, at the time, made it clear to everyone that abolishing slavery was an issue that he cared not to deal with. His main concern was to find a way to preserve the Union. It was a most puzzling thing that unclear reasons for a war could personify negativity among the people of this country such that even more than a century later, history leaves a haunting stench among its brotherhood. However, it was clear that this national family feud was consumed with fear, greed, hatred, and manipulation. It must have been like a cancer out of control lacking understanding for our very existence.

Until the human race sees the mistake in such acts, it will be doomed to repeating the same behavior as is continually witnessed about our globe. The cause of all wars is a collection of human negativity ruled by a drive for power over one another.

No doubt it took a good deal of bravery on the part of Wiley Gurkin to volunteer in an army of the North, opposing the Southern army of his homeland. Nevertheless, one could only imagine the turn of events had people chosen to band together as peaceful problem solvers instead of participating in the turning of this land into a mass-murdering field. Certainly, no greater loss of lives would have occurred. Since human history, bravery of that magnitude has been demonstrated by a scarce few. Hope would have it that one day, our family of brotherhood will realize that killing our kindred is regressive behavior in the evolving of our species. The art of problem solving begins at our own doorsteps where teaching by example is the greatest tool. Our strongest messages to our children are often negative ones when we choose to be uninvolved, stay in the background, or just go along with the crowd.

Chapter 2

Down on the Farm

My grandfather, James Henry Daniel Gurkin, better known as Jim or Papa, was the firstborn son of Harriet Melinda Daniels and William Wiley Gurkin in 1868.

The Daniels inheritance had a lasting effect on the Gurkin family. After all, this was where the land came from that will be hereafter referred to as the ole home place.

Harriet Melinda was raised by the Daniels who were somehow related to her. They had no children of their own. My mother, Mary, recalls hearing Papa speak of an uncle Tim Daniels. There were Daniels cousins who lived in the nearby Bunyan neighborhood between Douglas Crossroads and Washington.

Here is evidence of the small world we live in. Pastor Danny Paul, at my mother’s church in Chesapeake, Virginia, is my mother’s fourth cousin through the Daniels family. And as it turned out, her next-door neighbors (for a few years) were related through