Growing up in Yadkin County, N.C and Other Family Stories

By Ernest Clarence Groce

This book is my attempt to compile as much as I can into a family history story for his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and anyone else who chances to read this. To describe Ernest in one word, it could only be earnest. He was a serious, determined, intense, committed, sincere, devout, sober, diligent, heartfelt manall synonyms to the word earnest. He was all of those and a little more. One time, Floyd said to me that he didnt know what happened to Ernest to make him like he was. So, Floyd, these many years later, I think the answer may be that Ernest just earnestly lived up to his name. He was a good man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524534844

Ernest Clarence Groce

Ernest Clarence Groce, my father-in-law, spent a lot of his retirement years gathering family history. He amassed a lot of genealogic information and family stories. This book is my attempt to compile as much as I can into a family history story for his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and anyone else who chances to read this. To describe Ernest in one word, it could only be “earnest.” He was a serious, determined, intense, committed, sincere, devout, sober, diligent, heartfelt man—all synonyms of the word “earnest.” He was all of those and a little more. One time, Floyd said to me that he didn’t know what happened to Ernest to make him like he was. So, Floyd, these many years later, I think the answer may be that Ernest just earnestly lived up to his name. He was a good man.

Book preview

Growing Up in Yadkin

County, N.C. and Other

Family Stories

image001.jpg

by

Ernest Clarence Groce and Barbara Nuzum Groce

Copyright © 2016 by Clarence R. Groce and Donald H. Groce.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/22/2016

Xlibris

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ERNEST CLARENCE GROCE

1909–1998

Written by Ernest C. Groce

Compiled and edited by his daughters-in-law

Reva Cook Groce and Barbara Nuzum Groce

Additional writing by Barbara Nuzum Groce

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For his sons

Clarence R. Groce and Donald H. Groce

For his grandchildren

Brian C. Groce and Michael R. Groce

Donald B. Groce and Robin Groce Steagall

Also for his great-grandchildren

Hannah, Natalie, Connor, Carson, Colby Groce

Gabriel and Raleigh Steagall

Ernest Clarence Groce, my father-in-law, spent a lot of his retirement years gathering family history. He amassed a lot of genealogic information and family stories. This book is my attempt to compile as much as I can into a family history for his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and anyone else who chances to read this. To describe Ernest in one word, it could only be earnest. He was a serious, determined, intense, committed, sincere, devout, sober, diligent, heartfelt man: all synonyms of the word earnest. He was all those and a little more. One time, Floyd said to me that he didn’t know what happened to Ernest to make him like he was. So, Floyd, these many years later, I think the answer may be that Ernest was just earnestly living up to his name. He was a good man.

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Ernest Groce, a local historian, in front of the new home of the Yadkin County Historical Society. While member of the Historical Society, he was assigned the task of directing the movement of the Squire Thomas Lewis Tulbert House, the oldest house, built in1853, still standing in Yadkin County, to its new location. For his work on this project he was nominated by Society President, Andrew Mackie for the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service which he received on November 12, 1996.

I will start with Ernest Groce’s father and mother:

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Floyd Thomas and Bessie Shore Groce

I married Donald H. Groce on December 28, 1968. I was very glad to get to know my husband’s grandfather, Floyd Thomas Groce. He quickly made me feel like I was his granddaughter. He lived a very interesting life, and he had many stories, which he enjoyed telling. Floyd was a charming, fun, delightful, playful man who liked to joke and tease. Life started out rough for Floyd.

FROM ERNEST GROCE’S MANUSCRIPT

When Thomas Abraham Groce, the youngest son of Abraham and Eliza Ann Groce, was a young man, churches were few and far apart. Some were not more than brush arbors. A log schoolhouse called the Shore School stood on a knoll across Old Stage Road from the present South Deep Creek Baptist Church with a brush arbor and a spring nearby. From the records, it appears that Tom took an interest in religion. It was in this school, which was built in 1883, that Tom and Annanias Leagans began a Sunday school. Tom was twenty-four years old at the time. Meetings would be held in the brush arbor in the summertime.

This is from Deep Creek Church history: It was on a Saturday, November 29, 1884, that a request was made to the Cross Roads (now Courtney) Baptist Church to assist in organizing what is today South Deep Creek Baptist Church. Tom was one of the fifty-three charter members of the church. The meeting to organize the new church was held in the brush arbor.

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Thomas Abraham Groce

During this time, Tom was courting a girl who lived near the Yadkin and Iredell County line. The girl was Nancy Matilda Foster, daughter of William Mason Foster, a Civil War veteran. Tom was twenty-four years old and Ms. Foster was nineteen years old at the time. Very little is known about Tom’s visits to the Foster home to see Matilda. During this time, she became pregnant (age twenty). The couple didn’t marry.

Floyd Foster was born on February 11, 1886, in Iredell County, North Carolina, to Nancy Matilda Foster. Word from some of the Foster family was that her father said because Tom didn’t marry his daughter before the baby was born, he (Mr. Foster) wouldn’t let her marry Tom after the baby was born. Because of this affair, Tom was excluded from the church.

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We believe this to be Nancy Matilda Foster.

Nancy Matilda was married August 30, 1888, to a widower, Obed C. Macy, eighteen years her senior. He had six children, ages one to sixteen years. They moved to Indiana where Obed’s mother and father were living. Six months after Matilda married Mr. Macy and before going to Indiana, she wrote Tom, asking him if he would come and get Floyd and adopt him. Floyd was three years old at the time, and the new family was being cruel to him and abusing him because he was a bastard. When Tom goes to pick up the little boy, he finds him standing barefoot in the frozen front yard; puddles around him had ice in them. Tom adopted Floyd on January 8, 1889, changing his name to Floyd Foster Groce, and brought him to his mother’s home to rear. They lived together with Tom’s mother, Eliza Ann, and his sister, Mary Jane. Floyd Groce always spoke of Eliza as grandmother.

The following is a copy of the adoption paper.

Date 8 Jan. 1889

Thomas Gross and Nancy M. Macy Agreement

State of N.C. Yadkin Co. I Nancy M. Macy do agree to let Thomas Gross have my little boy (named Floyd). The same being begotten, upon my body by the said Thomas Gross. The said Thomas Gross agreeing to keep, clothe, school support the same and adopted him as his heir, and to be equal with other heirs, should there ever be any. I the said Nancy M. Macy do hereby give to the said Gross all my right and claim upon said boy. Leaving the same to the entire full care and control of the said Thomas Gross, and promise that I will never take said child from said Gross, in witness where of I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal. Signed sealed and delivered This 8th day of January 1889

Nancy M. Macy seal

A. West

M.J. Vestal

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For judgment of court legitimizing Floyd Foster Gross, see judgment docket A p. 190 in clerk’s office, Yadkin County, North Carolina, Fall Term 1889. Floyd’s name was further changed to Floyd Thomas Groce.

Shortly after, Tom adopted Floyd. Nancy Matilda and her husband moved to Indiana. Nothing else is known of her life; she became sick and died on August 11, 1890, in Adams County, Indiana, at the age of twenty four, one year and eight months after giving Floyd up for adoption. Floyd never knew what happened to his mother. She just disappeared from his young life. She died of tuberculosis. Before getting married, Tildy, as she was called, had been caring for a woman, possibly her stepmother, Caroline Renegar, who had died of the disease.

Note: Some information taken from Decatur, Indiana death record, 1896. We learned that she was afflicted with T.B. from the Indiana Health Department records of that day. People died frequently from typhoid fever and Tuberculosis in those days. Matilda was buried in Indiana.

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Thomas Tom and Floyd Groce

Thomas Abraham Groce, called Tom, was twenty-nine years old, unmarried, when he adopted his three-year-old son, Floyd, and took him home to his mother, Eliza Ann Groce.

In the community, Tom was known as Tom the Peddler. Sometimes little Floyd would be with him as he would drive a one-horse wagon throughout the countryside, buying chickens, eggs, hams, and whatever he could buy from the farmer to resell in Winston. One of the farms he called on was Mr. David Francis Hobson’s. It is on one of these visits that Tom meets the twenty-eight year old daughter of Mr. Hobson.

Three months after adopting Floyd, on April 30, 1889, Tom marries Sarah Parmelia Hobson, called Meely. They lived in a log house just south of Shacktown, Yadkin County.

Tom and Meely’s first child, Delbert, was born here in 1892.

FROM ERNEST GROCE’S MANUSCRIPT

In the period after the Civil War, government whiskey distilleries began to be established throughout the county. Tom took a job as storekeeper for a government distillery for some three-dollar-a-day pay. He was responsible for gauging the amount of whiskey in the barrels, sealing the barrels and placing the government tax stamp across the bung. Strict records were kept, and the liquor was stored in a building under government lock and key. The storekeeper was under the supervision of revenue officers, who made undated inspections.

Tom got in a little trouble with his stock supply not keeping up with the inventory audits. There were suspicions of blockading and the government men came out to conduct an inspection around Tom’s place. While they were searching around and going through things looking for liquor, Tom tells Floyd to go over to the wood pile to stand and keep out of the way. The government men thoroughly searched everywhere and everything they could think of to search and left without finding any illegal liquor. All the time, Floyd had been standing on top of the secret supply hidden in the woodpile.

This may be when Tom loses his job or at least loses interest in his job and decides to move Indiana.

Soon after in 1895, Tom sold out.

FROM ERNEST GROCE’S MANUSCRIPT

There was 120 acres in the track of land where the log house stood. It went all the way to South Deep Creek, all on the west side of the branch in the bottom land. In 1895, Tom sold out to C. H. Neely Todd and Crawford K. Todd. They paid the balance that Tom owed to a Mr. Jones in Little Yadkin Township.

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Meely, Delbert, Tom, and Floyd Groce

Photo ca. 1893

In April 1895, when Floyd was nine years old, the little family of Tom and Meely and their first child, Delbert, aged two, moved to Elwood, Indiana. Tom found work as a well driller.

Tom had experience drilling water wells in North Carolina, where the soil was made of thick clay and hard granite rock layers, and could take several days to complete a well. He found drilling gas wells much easier work in Indiana because the layers he had to drill through were softer limestone.

In Indiana, gas was close to the surface so the wells could be completed in a day.

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Floyd remembered helping with the well drilling when he wasn’t in school.

Tom and Meely’s second child, Albert, was born here in 1896.

Why Indiana?

Tom’s elder brother, Franklin Washington Groce, known as Frank, had gone there.

FROM ERNEST GROCE’S MANUSCRIPT

Franklin Washington Groce, second son of Abraham and Eliza Ann Groce, married Mary Jane Phillips Flynn on March 1, 1873, in Kokomo, Indiana. She was twenty-five years old, the daughter of James and Martha Phillips, and the wife of William Flynn; they had married on February 9, 1870. Franklin and Mary Jane left North Carolina together, hitchhiking and walking west with no certain destination in mind. Mary Jane and Frank were running away together; she had left her husband. The report seems to indicate he was a heavy drinker and was not good to her. They made their way through Tennessee, where Frank took a job on a boat, possibly on the Ohio River, where he worked for some time. They later made their way to Summitville, Indiana.

Franklin bought a farm near Summitville, Indiana, and