Life Lines: The Chronicle of a Marriage and Family

By Rose Ramsay and Bill Ramsay

This is the story of two lives and a marriage that span a period of great changes in the way we live. Roses family home on a small farm in East Tennessee didnt have electricity until she was in her teens. Bill was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where his father was a steelworker, when not unemployed, who became a labor leader. Indoor plumbing was introduced to their homes when they were youngsters. Telephones, radios, and cars were novelties. They experienced and participated in improvements in medicine, technology, and communications. They also experienced upheavals in civil rights and race relations, family life patterns, and even basic values. Their story, memories, and reflections represent happy, productive, and blessed lives, in contrast to the superficial, hollow, and broken lives featured on the news every day.

While this book is primarily a record of one family, it includes observations and insights about life, not particular limited to one familys experience. A life span of eighty-six years, including a marriage of sixty-five years, has seen many changes. Bill and Rose have reflected on the changes that have affected their lives and that they have seen. What changes have been for the better? Where have we gone wrong? Looking back from the distance of age gives a perspective to culture and values. Their reflections on the civil rights struggle and race relations, on the way women experience childbirth and view their roles, on changing family values, on faith, and on what is important in life are thoughtful commentaries. Reflections are recorded after each section of the book, placing the perspective of age in the context of life experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532043956

Rose Ramsay

Bill Ramsay and Rose Moore came to Berea College, Kentucky in 1948. They were seventeen years old. In four years they would marry and in eighteen more years, with a family of six children, move back to Berea. Born during the Great Depression, Rose came from a small farm family in East Tennessee and Bill grew up in a steel town in Pennsylvania and then on a small farm in Georgia. After military service and graduate school, they settled in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where Bill worked for the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. Rose helped establish a childbirth education program in Oak Ridge and became active in the national movement, serving on the board of the International Childbirth Education Association. Both were involved in the struggle for civil rights. Rose also taught literacy to children and adults. In 1965, Bill and colleagues started community development internship programs, and they coined the term service-learning which has been adopted by programs across the country. They moved to Atlanta to expand service-learning at the Southern Regional Education Board. Rose became a certified Laubach Teacher Trainer. Moving to Berea College in 1970, Bill served as Dean of Labor and as a Vice President. Rose organized a host family program for international students. Bill was involved in the formation of NSEA, the National Student Employment Association, and served as president in 1988-89, He served on the Berea school board and, later, as president of the board of Pine Mountain Settlement School. Throughout their years they were active in church. Primarily, they were a family. They enjoyed their children, watching them grow, marry, and have children of their own. With 22 grandchildren and 28 great grandchildren as of January 2018, they are assured that their legacy of family values and Christian service will continue beyond their time.

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Frontispiece

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Bill and Rose Ramsay

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LIFE LINES

THE CHRONICLE OF A MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

Copyright © 2018 Bill and Rose Ramsay .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4394-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4393-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4395-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902366

iUniverse rev. date: 04/06/2018

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PART I: Introduction

Chapter 1 Who Are You?

Chapter 2 Family Roots

Threads of Heritage: Rose

The Kildays

The Moores

The Riggs

The Fleenors

Threads of Heritage: Bill

The Ramsays

Flennikens and Thompsons

The Romigs

The Martins

Heritage Chart

Time Line: Parents

Picture Collages

Rose’s Ancestors

Bill’s Ancestors

Reflections 1 The Land of the Free

Reflections 2 The Hand of God

PART II: The Early Years

Chapter 3 Growing Up Rose

Life on a Small Farm

Memories

Daily Routines

More Memories

Daddy, Mama and Riggs Grandparents

Work and Play

Dealing with a Bully

The Outside World

School Days

Genealogy: Elva Rosalba Moore

Chapter 4 Growing Up Bill

Memories of Living in Town

God’s Good Man

Vacations and Trips

The Little Bit Club

Out of Town

The World Outside

Schools, Church and Moves

City Living

Skyland Farm

Chickens, Chicks and a Mule

Genealogy: William Romig Ramsay

Time Line: Childhood and Youth

Picture Collages

Rose Early Years

Billy Collage

Reflections 3 Real Riches and Self Esteem

Reflections 4 The Magic of Books and Reading

Reflections 5 Siren Songs

PART III: COLLEGE YEARS AND MARRIAGE

Chapter 5 Berea College, Berea, Kentucky

Bill Gets Started

Rose Struggles

Choices

The Sophomore Year

Junior Year: The First Kiss

Adventures

An Eventful Year

Facing the Future

Drama In Real Life

Chapter 6 Marriage

Long Distance Romance

Hedda Goes To A Wedding

Picture Collages

College Years

B & R Wedding

Reflections 6 Laws: Natural, Civil and Moral

Reflections 7 Critical Thinking

Reflections 8 Pacifism

PART IV: Moves, Moves and More Moves

Chapter 7 Army Medic

Separation, Travel and Training

Camp Follower

San Antonio

Home Base and a Baby

Chapter 8 The Southern Regional Training Program in Public Administration

Alabama

Tennessee

Kentucky

Time Line: College, Marriage, Army, Grad School

Picture Collage

Army & Graduate School

Reflections 9 There are Always a Few

Reflections 10 Just Made That Way

PART V: Oak Ridge Years: 1955 -1967

Chapter 9 Oak Ridge

Chapter 10 The Family Grows

Billy

Laura

Stephen

John

Jim

Three More Children

Chapter 11 Family Life And Fun

Celo

Chapter 12 Childbirth Education

Chapter 13 Civil Rights

Community Relations Council

The Barber Shop

Chapter 14 Hospitality

Chapter 15 Working Initially and Beyond

Moving Up

World’s Fair

New Horizons

The Internship Program

Time Line: Oak Ridge, 1956-1966

Picture Collages

Oak Ridge Years

Celo

Reflections 11 Pressed Down and Running Over

Reflections 12 Save the World

PART VI: Atlanta Intermission

Chapter 16 Service-Learnng

Chapter 17 A Home in Atlanta

Schools

Church and Community

Chapter 18 Service-Learning Expands

Chapter 19 Jennifer Rose

Time Line: Atlanta Years, 1967-1970

Picture Collages

Atlanta Years

Reflections 13 Work and Vocation

Reflections 14 Movements and Institutions

PART VII: Berea, 1970-1995

Chapter 20 Life In Berea

The Weatherford Family

The McLain Family

The Early Years

Dramas

Chapter 21 The Danish Connection

Chapter 22 Community and College

Traditions

Chapter 23 Changes and the Big House

Graduations, Marriages, Births and More

Professional Activities

Births and Death

Jennifer Goes to St Mark’s

Chapter 24 Years of Transition

Issues of Childbirth and Senior Care

Folk Circle

NASEA

Festival Dancers

Lord! Is It I?

Grandpa John Ramsay

Chapter 25 Work Colleges

Chapter 26 Back to Denmark in 1991

First to England

Rose’s Journal

Across the North Sea to Denmark

Chapter 27 Completing Berea Years

A Big Snow

Pine Mountain Settlement School

Work-Colleges Legislation

Jennifer’s First Recording

Berea College Years Come to a Close

Plans for Edisto

Time Line: Berea Years, 1971-1994

Berea Years

Reflections 15 It Isn’t Fair!

Reflections 16 Laughter

Reflections 17 Changing Political Positions

PART VIII: Edisto Beach 1995-2006

Chapter 28 Edisto Years I

Edisto Island

Edisto Island United Methodist Church

Cair Paravel and Hospitality

Family Events

Florida Tours With Jennifer Rose

They Grow Up

Chapter 29 Wider Travel

Denmark and Great Britain

Arriving In Copenhagen

To Fynn and Jutland

The Silkeborg Festival

Farewell Denmark – Hello England

Elizabeth and Amber Arrive

York and the Merrets

North to Scotland

Goodbyes and Back Towards Home

Chapter 30 More Travels

Colonial Williamsburg

Talking With Colonials

Visiting Friends

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico: 1997

The Flood

Kentucky Yee-Haw!

Chapter 31 Edisto Years II

Beach Fun

Island Waterways

Turtle Patrol

New Friendships

Chapter 32 Travels Continue

Denmark 1998

Good Friends and Good Times

The Coast of the North Sea

Landstaevne

More Visits and Heading Home

Up East and Lighthouses: 1998

Lighthouses

Casa del Sol in Vermont

Bahama Adventures

The First Trip

More Trips

More Grandchildren Travel With Us

Southwest USA, 1999

Further West

Headed Back East

Chapter 33 Edisto Years III

Revival

Special Edisto Times with Grandchildren

Events Away From Edisto

Anniversaries

Li’l Abner

Chapter 34 Traveling Again

Northwest Passage: Fall 2000

Corn Country and National Parks

On to Canada and the Rockies

Back to the USA

The Cauldron of Yellowstone

Road to the Sun

Uncle Clarence and Aunt Dora: Pioneers

Eastwards Towards Home

Golden Anniversary

The Emerald Isle, 2002

On Irish Soil

Celebrations

Through a Rainbow to The Ring of Kerry

Irish Hospitality

The Cliffs of Moher and The Burren

Irish Cousins

Heading Home

Ireland

Chapter 35 Edisto IV: Last Years

Paramount Chief

Celo Reunion

Church Struggles

Home to Berea

Time Line: Edisto Years, 1995-2005

Picture Collages

Cair Paravel

Family Reunion

Events

England and Denmark

Travels East

Travels West

Reflections 18 Sheep and Goats

Reflections 19 Separate But Equal?

PART IX: BACK HOME IN BEREA

Chapter 36 Fort Breezy

Tragedy Strikes

Chapter 37 Happiness Hills

Chapter 38 Church And Fellowship Bible Study

Chapter 39 More Travels, Weddings And The Next Generation

Chapter 40 Happiness Hills Farm And Retreat Center

The Garden and Rose’s Incident

Chapter 41 More Weddings, Deaths And Births

Changes and Aging

ScripturePicture Plays

The Drama of Our Lives

Time Line: Back Home to Berea, 2006-2017

Fort Breezy

Happiness Hills

Great Grandchildren

Reflections 20 Aging With Grace, Discomfort and Humor

Reflections 21 Kindred Spirits

Reflections 22 Words and Labels

Reflections 23 Marriage and Family

Reflections 24 Sex and Gender

PART X: THE LAST CHAPTER

Chapter 42 Another Journey

Reflections 25 Eternity

APPENDIX

Descendants of bill and rose ramsay as of january, 2018

DEDICATION

We dedicate this book to marriage and family as God has established them from the beginning. We wish to memorialize the marriages and families of our ancestors which gave us our lives and our heritage. We wish to honor the marriages and families of our generation and, in particular, our children and grandchildren. Finally, we wish to dedicate our Life Lines to the marriages and families of the future, praying that they will be rich in heritage, secure in faith and strong in commitment to live and serve as Christ has called us, and as our heavenly Father would have His children live and serve until His kingdom comes.

Bill and Rose Ramsay

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PREFACE

One of our art teachers used to draw a line on the blackboard and then pretend to go on past the board to the wall and indicate that the line went on and on forever. The image of not being confined by walls or space or time stuck with us. We see the lines of our lives having begun before we were born and going on beyond our earthly existence. During our years we have been given roles to play on the stage of our times. In this chronicle we have tried to provide a record of our two lines of life as they were twined together to become one and then woven with others to compose the fabric of family and community. Our lives have spanned a time of great changes. When we were born, many homes had no electricity or plumbing. Radios and telephones were novelties. Now, 86 years later, we are accustomed to surveillance cameras, and children carry the world in their pockets through devices half the size of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

In our attempt to write a narrative of our lives we are aware that our memories are selective, frequently confused and sometimes faulty. Nevertheless, we have been as faithful to facts and events as our minds allow. We have tried to provide a record as well as tell a story so many names are included, which may not be significant for the narrative, but are included for the record. And we know that names of others have been forgotten or passed over even though they may have played an important role in our lives. As we read old letters, names and events are brought back to mind which we had forgotten. A letter written to John and Winona who were at Celo, NC, in the 1950s, for example, mentions an enclosed check for $220 to buy a cow. We have no recollection of this matter. In another letter the name Hilda Brautegan is mentioned and we had forgotten this dear friend of our family who had been a member of Hitler’s Youth Brigade and after World War II became a Christian and American citizen, teaching German at a college. We have known so many wonderful people.

In writing this account we have chosen the form of a third person narrative providing a continuing account of our lives, alternating with first person recorded memories of specific events and times that fit the narrative and round it out. At the end of each part of the chronicle we have inserted time-lines of the events of our lives alongside events in the wider world to give a context to the times. We have added some pictures from the time period of the narrative. Finally, we have indulged in reflections that give our thoughts on issues that have arisen over our lifetime. All of this is done to give our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and future generations a sense of their heritage as they live their stories, which are really just a continuation of ours. The drama goes on.

Bill and Rose Ramsay

Berea, Kentucky

September, 2017

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We can’t begin to recognize all the people who have been important to the forming of our life lines. Letters from friends and family, as well as letters we wrote to each other, albums of pictures, journals, guest books, calendars, special books, phone calls and visits, and. more recently, e-mails, have all been channels of influence by others to the story of our lives. During the nitty-gritty of writing and remembering and checking and revising, some have been especially helpful. Our daughters, Laura Compton and Jennifer Escobar, have been of constant assistance and encouragement. Our son, Bill has helped untie knots in our relationship with our computer numerous times, for which we are grateful. Our granddaughters, Lydia and Isabel Escobar, with their keen eyes and quick hands, have been invaluable in going through albums and other material. Lydia Bauler, a graduating Berea College student, performed careful editing, finding typos and punctuation problems. We also depended on the rich lodes of Wikipedia and the omniscient Google for historical information and fact checking. For the book cover, our artistic granddaughter, Melissa Rinaldi created the sketches of us as we were in our younger years. All of our family and friends have given encouragement and support. We thank them all.

PART ONE

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

WHO ARE YOU?

… and they became one flesh. (Genesis 2: 24, NRSV)

It was September 7, 1952. They stood together in the chapel filled with family and friends with the minister before them and said their wedding vows. Do you take this woman…? Do you take this man…? Finally the minister said, I now pronounce you man and wife! So Bill Ramsay and Rose Moore were joined in holy matrimony. That was more than 65 years ago and they are still learning about this woman and this man. They didn’t know much at that time but they were in love and confident in a future that was meant to be spent together. They still have that love and that confidence but a much broader perspective on who they are.

What threads of history and lives went into bringing these two into life and brought them together? What patterns continue to be woven as their lives touch lives of others and the generations go on with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren? The lives of family and friends, a radically changing world, opportunities, difficulties, achievements, failures joys and sorrows, and faith, all intertwine in the ever changing fabric of life.

Where did it start? In the beginning was the Word…!

Where will it end? I am the alpha and omega!

Our short lives are but a breath. And yet we live and love and search for meaning. Who are we? Tom Bombadil in JRR Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, when asked who he is, replies, Tell me who you are, alone, yourself and nameless.

Who we are is often expressed in relationships like John and Gertrude’s son or Patty’s little brother or Rosalba’s man or Jennifer’s dad, all meaning the same Bill. The relationships change over time. Eddie and Lochiel’s daughter meant Rosalba seventy years ago in rural Greene County, Tennessee and Lydia’s and Isabel’s grandmother would be identifying of Rose in Berea, Kentucky in 2017. Yet it is the same person. Sometimes we are known by occupation – doctor, lawyer or preacher. Or by position: She is the reading teacher. He is the president of the board. Identity may be associated with some special talent or contribution: She’s the woman who teaches literacy or the one who makes that great cherry dump cake. He’s the one who taught me to waltz, or the guy who comes in for coffee every morning. But who we are in this place and in this time is the culmination of the choices and actions of countless ancestors. How did we happen to be born at a certain place and time into certain families? One needn’t go back in time very far to see the awesome complexity of the answer.

CHAPTER 2

FAMILY ROOTS

Threads of Heritage: Rose

The Kildays

Ephram Kilday was born in Ireland, of the Scotch-Irish people who had settled in Ulster decades earlier, and he died in Virginia in 1815. How he got to America isn’t known but the Kilday family eventually migrated to East Tennessee sometime before Tennessee became a state in 1796. Ephram’s great grandson Elijah married Amy Conkin in 1858. Amy’s mother Barbary, according to family lore, was of Cherokee Indian descent, which may account for her great granddaughter Rose’s beautiful high cheekbones which also show up in some of Rose’s own granddaughters. Amy and Elijah had 14 children, one of whom was Eliza who married James Moore in Greene County, Tennessee. The Moores had one son named Edward (Eddie) Syril Moore who, after serving in World War I, married Lochiel Riggs. Their first child was named Elva Rosalba, later to be known as Rose. It was she who was the bride at the wedding ceremony in the chapel 21 years later.

The Moores

The Moore family had been in East Tennessee at least since the 1830’s, probably having come from North Carolina or Virginia, perhaps to harvest the plentiful lumber in those parts. They purchased a small piece of land and settled in. James Moore, married Eliza Kilday in 1892. James and his father-in-law, Elijah Kilday, were founding members of the Oak Dale Missionary Baptist Church in 1895. Later, with his son Eddie, James built the small frame house in which Rose was born to Eddie and Lochiel in 1931 and from which she went to Berea College in 1948.

The Riggs

Willie Lochiel Riggs was born in 1906. She was named Lochiel (the name by which she was known) for a local woman whom her mother admired, but it is Scottish for White Lake (loch hiel). Little is known about the Riggs family ancestry. Gravestones in Rock Springs cemetery near Kingsport, Tennessee show Samuel Riggs, 1855 – 1914 was married to Matilda Ann Fitzgerald, 1855 – 1920, but don’t reveal the places of birth or place and date of marriage. Their son, William Garrett Riggs, lived on the family farm near Kingsport, married Laura Fleenor and died in 1948. Lochiel, their second daughter, married Eddie Moore in 1924 in Greene County and moved to the Moore farm where their daughter Rosalba was born.

The Fleenors

A century before Samuel Riggs birth, Laura Fleenor’s great, great grandfather Johannes Fliener and his wife Anna fled Germany seeking religious freedom in America. They sailed via Amsterdam, Netherlands and then Portsmouth, England on the John and Elizabeth arriving in Philadelphia on November 17, 1754. The Fleenors migrated from Pennsylvania to Maryland, then Virginia. John Quincy Fleenor in 1858-60, having five children from a previous marriage, married Sarah Adaline Gobble. They moved to Tennessee near Rock Springs in 1878 where the last of eight additional children, Laura, was born in 1879. Laura and William Riggs were married and had three daughters and a son. The second daughter, Willie Lochiel born on January 1, 1906, married Edward Syril Moore and had three children. Their first child, a daughter, born on July 5, 1931 was named Elva Rosalba. Lochiel died on March 29, 1952 so her daughter’s wedding on September 7 of that year had no mother of the bride. Grandma Laura Fleenor Riggs lived until 1959.

So the Kilday, Moore, Riggs and Fleenor lines converged with the marriage of Eddie and Lochiel followed by the births of Rose and her two brothers, Kenneth and Wayne. Back beyond these ancestors are countless other generations of mothers and fathers all of whom played a part in preparing for the birth of this new child in 1931 named Elva Rosalba Moore and weaving the threads that led to her being the bride in the chapel in 1952. While these families were unknowingly cooperating in the design that produced the bride, others were weaving threads in disparate places that would lead to the groom at the wedding, whose very name, William Romig Ramsay, reflects his history.

Threads of Heritage: Bill

The Ramsays

The Ramsays, of Lowland Scottish Presbyterian descent, are part of a clan with its own coat of arms and tartan. The scientist, William Ramsay, who discovered neon, and the theologian, William Ramsay, who became the world’s authority on the Gospel of Luke, were both part of that clan. In 1852 another William, a miner from a poor branch of the family and his wife Elizabeth Sharp and their four children came to America to escape the hard times in Scotland. But times in America were hard also and after several children, born in the new land, died they went back to Scotland in 1853 preferring to starve at home rather than in a strange new place. In 1863 they returned to America on the ship Tuscarawa landing in Philadelphia, now with three more children, a daughter-in-law and a couple infants. They found work in Pennsylvania. One of their older sons, Morris Ramsay, who had been born in 1848 in Fordell, Fife, Scotland, married Sadie Greer in 1870. Sadie had been adopted by the Greers when her mother Maria Long Helman died in childbirth. Maria’s birth mother, Catherine Ludwig Long, was from the same Ludwig family that a century earlier included Mary Ludwig Hayes, better known as the Revolutionary War’s Molly Pitcher. Morris and Sadie’s first of thirteen children, a son born in 1870, was named William. William became a mining engineer and married Jesse Thompson in 1891. His father, Morris Ramsay, died in Morewood, Pennsylvania in 1892. William and Jesse, after several infant deaths, had two sons and eight daughters who lived to adulthood. The first son was John Gates Ramsay, born in 1902 in Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma. The family moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. John worked in the steel mills and married Gertrude Eleanor Martin in 1926. They had four children. Child number three, born in 1931, was named William carrying on the long Ramsay tradition.

Flennikens and Thompsons

John A. Flenniken was born in Ireland in 1719 and came to America in 1738 settling in Pennsylvania. His son Elias Alexander Flenniken was a Revolutionary War soldier and was buried in the Glades Cemetery near Carmichael, Pennsylvania in 1834. Elias had a grandson with the same name who in turn had a daughter Sarah Jane (1849-1919) who married Joseph Byers Thompson in 1871. Their daughter Jesse married William Ramsay in 1891 and their eldest son was John Gates Ramsay who married Gertrude Eleanor Martin setting the stage for another William Ramsay, with the middle name Romig, who stood in the marriage chapel in Berea, Kentucky on September 7, 1952.

The Romigs

The Romigs settled in Pennsylvania during the same period as the Thompsons and Flennikens. Moving back in time and over to Germany and Poland, records show John Adams Romig being born in 1689 in Germany and dying in 1768 in Pennsylvania. The Romigs were Moravians who sprang from a church reform movement that began long before the protestant reformation and was called the Unitas Fratrum in the mid 1400’s. John Adam Romig was followed by a son and grandson both named John Frederick; then the next generation’s John Romig married Elizabeth Bickle and became an early settler in the Tuscarawas valley in Ohio, where there are still many Romigs. One of their six children, Samuel, married Elizabeth Minnich and became a noted innkeeper in the valley. One of their sons, Benjamin, was called to the Moravian ministry and missions. He married Cornelia Wolle and they went to the Caribbean. Cornelia died at age 24 leaving Benjamin with two sons and two daughters. Benjamin then married her older sister Maria Elizabeth who took her sister’s place in the mission field and raised six additional children. The Wolle sisters’ father was Frederick Wolle of a royal Polish family and their mother was Sabina Henry, daughter of William Henry, a noted figure in the early development of the United States. Benjamin was named a bishop and moved to Herrnhut, Saxony (Germany), the headquarters of the Moravian Church. Their daughter Elizabeth Beatrice married Johannes Theopholis (Theo) Martin and they served among the Miskito Indians on the coast of Nicaragua. Theo and Lizzie’s second daughter, Gertrude was born in Bluefields, Nicaragua in 1904 and, after the family had returned to the USA due to health problems experienced by Theo, they ended up on a farm they named Hidden Paradise near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Gertrude completed Moravian College and met John Ramsay, whom she married in 1926. They had four children during the difficult depression years, the third of whom was known as Billy.

The Martins

Johannes Theopholis (Theo) Martin’s family traces back to Auerbach/Vogtland (Germany) where in the late 1600s they were bakers. Theo’s father Christian August Martin (1837-1909) married Hanna Lydia Renkowitz (1838-1905) and, instead of following the family’s baking profession went to the Moravian mission field in Nicaragua. Christian and Hanna’s son, Theo, married Bishop Benjamin Romig’s daughter, Elizabeth, in 1898. They continued to serve in missions as their parents had. Theo translated scriptures and hymns into the Miskito language and Moravian churches are still found in the area more than a century later. Theo’s brother, Frederick, settled in the Moravian community of Christiansfeld, Denmark where he founded the Martin Printing Company. Life in the mission field was hard and the first babies died at birth but then nine children survived and grew to adulthood. Theo’s tuberculosis required a move first to Minnesota and then to a farm near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which originally had been established as a Moravian settlement. Martin descendants can be found in the Emmaus, Macungie and Old Zionsville area and the farm, Hidden Paradise, is still in Martin’s hands. Gertrude Eleanor was the first of the Martin children to be married. She and her husband John Ramsay had four children. Gertrude’s mother Lizzie died in 1930 so only lived to see the first grandchild, Patricia. Theo died in 1933, two years after grandson William Romig was born.

The names of the three Ramsay boys (Patricia, the only girl was the oldest child) were known as Johnny, Billy and Dicky, but their full names, John Martin, William Romig and Richard Morris, reflect the family history from Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Poland. Add these to the bride’s family heritage and what a genetic, cultural and religious conglomeration was represented at that marriage ceremony in Berea on September 7, 1952. Who in the world could have planned all these intricate designs?

"God gives to all men life and breath and everything else. And He made from one every nation to live in all the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of habitation…. (Acts 17:24-26, NRSV)

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…. (Jeremiah 1:5, NRSV)

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BILL AND ROSE RAMSAY TIME LINE

PARENTS: 1893 - 1931

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REFLECTIONS 1

THE LAND OF THE FREE

After recording our history and memories in chronological order, we wanted to reflect on our lives from the perspective of more than eighty years. What have we learned? What do we see as important? What thoughts might we want to pass on to the following generations? So we have indulged in interrupting the narrative and memories at the end of each section with the ramblings of the elderly. Maybe it will help answer the question of who we are. The pronoun we is used because, after more than 65 years together, we share each other’s thoughts, spoken or unspoken, and speak as one.

We have been blessed to have been born, raised and lived long years in America. Too often we take our blessings and our freedom for granted. Many before us risked much and sacrificed so we might be free. Fundamental to our freedom are the freedoms of religion and speech. We emphasize freedom of religion and freedom of speech not freedom from religion or freedom from speech.

Every person must choose what gods he will serve. There is no escape from that choice. Not choosing is a choice as well. Our Fleenor ancestors fled their homes in other lands because of religious persecution. The Ramsay’s were Scotch Presbyterian. The Romigs and Martins were Moravian missionaries. The Moores helped establish the Baptist church in east Tennessee where Rose’s parents and other ancestors are buried. Some ancestors were soldiers in the American Revolution. We have not had the struggles they experienced in their efforts to be true to their faith and find freedom. But much of the world is still having such struggles and people are being persecuted if they express their faith or don’t accept the faith prescribed by their rulers or their culture.

America is not immune to such problems and citizens must be wary of the encroachment of government or the pressures of a media culture or the attempts of an educated or propertied elite, to restrict their freedoms. America was founded on the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, written in the Judeo-Christian tradition, asserting that all are created equal in terms of their worth as human beings and derive their rights, not from government, but from their creator. Beware those who would try to tell you what you may say or what you must think, be they government officials, judges, advertisers, media stars, professors, the financially powerful, religious figures or protest leaders.

It is wrong when people are fined or threatened with other penalties when they decline to perform a service because of matters of their faith or conscience. Back in the early days of struggle for equal public services for black citizens, we worried that allowing the government to dictate to businesses who they must serve could lead to abuses. Removing laws that legalized or required racial discrimination was necessary and passing laws supporting the civil rights of all citizens was necessary, but allowing the government to intrude into the business of individual choices is dangerous and fraught with potential for misuse. A law shouldn’t tell us who we are not allowed to sit with on a bus, but neither should it tell us with whom we must sit.

REFLECTIONS 2

THE HAND OF GOD

We don’t know how anyone can ignore the evidence of creation all around them, the history of human beings in all parts of the earth, the revelations of the Bible, their own experiences of life and love, or the inner senses of their hearts, and come to the conclusion that there is no God. Without that fundamental truth, all is chaos and meaningless. Are our lives meaningless? Ask that question of your children and their children. Looking back on our lives we see the hand of God much more clearly than we saw it along the way. We did not follow a life of our own careful planning, nor were we tossed to and fro like flotsam and jetsam on a restless sea. No, a higher power guided us, whether or not we knew it at the time– and sometimes we did know. Our families, our marriage, our children, our work and our welfare were not simply our own doing, although we had a part to play.

Someone once asked us how to have good health and a good life. We answered, somewhat facetiously, that the first key was to choose the right parents. Our parents and our heritage were given to us through no choice or merit of our own. We were blessed with wonderful parents and ancestors and have reaped the benefits of a goodly heritage. It reminds us that we are not just our own, but part of generations before and after our short lives. The Bible often records that the Israelites were blessed because of God’s covenant with their ancestor Abraham or because of His love for His servant David many generations earlier, and not because the people had earned or deserved His blessing. Likewise scripture tells us that the sins of parents are visited upon their children as well as the blessings. What our ancestors did produced consequences for us and what we do has consequences for our children, grandchildren great grandchildren and on and on. In Deuteronomy 5:9-10 we are told that the Lord is a jealous God…. punishing children for the iniquities of their parents to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. This is a sobering fact. It may not seem fair, but we all know too many examples of friends and family who suffer or who are blessed because of what parents did or didn’t do, to deny the truth.

No Man Is an Island, That quotation from a poem by John Donne goes on to observe,

"Any man’s death diminishes me

Because I am involved in mankind

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls

It tolls for thee."

In more down to earth terms we recall Martha Washington’s words through an impersonator at Williamsburg, when asked about her dress. She said how you dress is important, After all you are part of someone else’s landscape. That sentiment seems far from the current emphasis on self. It’s my life! or It’s my body! is heard often to justify behavior that is detrimental to others and, ultimately, to one’s self. We do have free choice, but oh what consequences our choices have for ourselves and for others. We did not create ourselves and we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

We constantly thank God for our wonderful heritage and for our family and we pray for all the new lives that are just beginning their journeys in this alien world. For our part, we will try to remember that our choices have profound consequences for our family, our friends, and our world, now and in the future. We want to be part of our descendants’ goodly heritage.

PART TWO

THE EARLY YEARS

CHAPTER 3

GROWING UP ROSE

Surrounded by loving family and community Rose spent her early years living with her parents, grandparents, and then, younger brothers, in the little house built by her grandfather and father at Afton, Tennessee. She knew from the beginning that she belonged to an extended family that had a history. Even as a child she was interested in that history. In 1944, the year she turned 13, she wrote a handwritten autobiography, probably as a school assignment, drawing from family records and stories passed down. A printed copy is included here, although it repeats some information already recorded, because it adds detail and gives a perspective of family history seen through the young girl’s eyes.

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Rosalba Moore

(Handwritten copy dated 1944)

My great grandmother on Daddy’s side was Amy Conckin. She was born on June 27, 1838. She married Elijah Kilday on February 23, 1859. They had fourteen children – Amos, Thomas, Johnson, Hagan, William, Sarah, Eliza, David, Barbara, George and James, Nathan, Joseph and Cordie.

My great grandfather Kilday fought in the Civil War with the Union army. He came home for a few days and took typhoid fever. He was just taking it when the Confederates came, captured him and took him to a man named Barnes’ house. They intended to take him on next morning. My great grandmother went with them and that night, while the soldiers were asleep, she helped him through a window and followed him. He was too weak to walk so she carried him a long way to her mother’s house and took care of him until he recovered.

He went back to the army and a while before the war was over, he was wounded in the arm. It was stiff the rest of his life. He died in 1894 at the age of 56. My great grandmother died almost three years later with typhoid.

My great grandfather on Daddy’s side was Alexander Moore. He was born in 1836. He married Nancy Dobbins. They had six children – Jessie, Martha, Sarah, Charlotte, James and Drucilla.

My great grandfather got both legs broke during the Civil War and didn’t have to do any fighting. He died at the age of 65 and my great grandmother died at the age of 72.

My great grandfather Riggs on Mother’s side was Samuel Riggs. He married Matilda Fitzgerald. They had seven children – William, Thomas, Ade, Alfred, Adelaide, Coy and Lannie. My great grandfather was too young to fight in the Civil War. My great grandmother was just a little girl during the Civil War. She told Mother that she could remember when the Confederates came in their house and took their bed clothes. My great grandfather and great grandmother had a very good education. My great grandfather died in 1915 and great grandmother four years later.

My great grandmother Fleenor, on Mother’s side was Sarah Gobble. She married George Fleenor. They had seven children – William, Jennie, Abe, Ellen, Pauline, Bob and Laura. My great grandfather fought in the Civil War with the Union Army. He was not wounded in the army and returned home after the war was over.

I don’t have the exact date of my great grandfather’s death, but he died many years before my great grandmother did. She died March 10, 1912.

My grandfather on Daddy’s side is James Marion Moore. He was born on May 8, 1867. His mother made all his clothes and his father made his shoes. He had to help cut wood and work in field and garden. They tapped sugar trees and got sugar water to make sugar.

The schools in those days just lasted two or three months. He didn’t get to go very much and only completed fifth or sixth grade. When he was eighteen, he went to work at a saw mill for $15.00 a month.

April 17, 1892, he married Eliza Jane Kilday. She was the daughter of Elijah and Amy Kilday. They had one child, Edward Syril, who is my father. They are both still living and are living with us. Grandfather is 77 and Grandmother is 75.

My grandfather Riggs is William Garrett Riggs. He was born February 17, 1877. His father was a farmer and Grandfather Riggs had to help him on the farm. He didn’t get to go to school until the fall work was finished, and only completed the sixth grade.

When he was about 20 years old, he and his brother Ade went to the West. He visited Louisiana, Texas and a few other states. Almost two years later he returned and married Laura Fleenor. They are still living. They had four children, Lola, Lochiel, Lucille and Guy.

Lochiel, my mother, was born January 21, 1906. She started to school when she was six and completed the eighth grade when she was fourteen. About that time her family moved to Kingsport and she started to high school. She found it hard to learn what all the bells meant. One day when the fire alarm rang, she didn’t know what it was for so she asked another girl. The girl explained that it was the fire alarm. Thinking the school was really on fire, Mother took her books with her. After they were outside, the other students explained that it was just a drill and they weren’t supposed to take anything with them. She never made that mistake again. She quit school during the second year and started working at the Kingsport Press.

While visiting her uncle, she met Edward Moore. They went together for about one and a half years and were married November 12, 1924.

Edward, my father, had been in the army during the World War, before they were married. He was a Military Police. He was in the army eight months, but never had to go overseas. He was stationed in Alabama. He was fixing to go overseas when the Armistice was signed. While he was in camp an epidemic of flu swept the camp. Many of his company died. He was lucky and happened not to take it.

He returned home in January, 1919, and started working on the farm as he did before the war. When he and Mother married, six years later, they moved in with his parents.

They had been married almost seven years when I was born. I was born July 5, 1931. Three years later, my brother Kenneth Harold was born. He was a strong, healthy baby and was walking at the age of eleven months.

When he was small he was very mischievous. One day he threw a toy pistol at me. Barely missing my head, the pistol went through a window.

When I was ten years of age my brother, Wayne was born.

Life on a Small Farm

The Moores’ small farm was in the Oak Dale community in Greene County, Tennessee between Greeneville and Kingsport. Eddie, the only child of James and Eliza Moore, lived with his parents and helped with raising wheat, corn and tobacco and taking care of the horses, cows, pigs and chickens. He served in the army during World War I and had purchased an automobile, likely with discharge pay. Car ownership in the area at that time was not common and Eddie was often called upon by others for trips to the doctor or other services.

James, Eliza and Eddie belonged to Oak Dale Missionary Baptist Church, about a mile from their house and walking to the church on Sunday was a regular event. The Reverend Alfred Riggs was minister of the church and when his niece, Lochiel Riggs, came and spent a few weeks with him, the Moore family became acquainted with her. Her father, William Garrett Riggs, and mother Laura Fleenor Riggs, lived on the family farm near Kingsport. Lochiel, had completed two years of high school and gone to work for The Kingsport Press. Eddie was past 30 and when Lochiel went back home he drove his Model T Ford to Kingsport on weekends to call on her. In those days, on those roads, the trip could take several hours and involve tire patching. In November, 1924 they were married at Uncle Alfred’s home. Uncle Alfred officiated and two good friends stood with them. Lochiel was 18 and Eddie was 31 that year.

For a few months after the wedding, they had their own place, a small house on the farm next door. Then, they moved to the Moore farm with Eddie’s parents and all worked together to make a living. They had been married seven years when Elva Rosalba was born in 1931. Rosalba was named after the daughter of Dr. Hawkins, who attended her home delivery and it was not until college years that she became known as Rose by everyone except family and home folks. Three years later Kenneth Harold was born and then in 1942 another brother, Randolph Wayne, completed the family. Rose has recollections of living together with this family of four adults and three children in rural East Tennessee.

Memories

Our house was small, but to me it was a fine place. We had four rooms - kitchen, living room, bedroom and a screened back porch. There were two beds, a few chairs and the coal stove in the living room. My grandparents slept in the living room and that room was the central area where we gathered to talk, to read, to do hand work, to shell corn, to pick kernels out of walnuts and to have visitors. For a few years I slept in that room with my grandmother. My parents and my brother, Kenneth slept in the bedroom. The quilt Mama was currently working on usually hung in that room. Shortly after Wayne was born, Daddy, with some help from neighbors, built two small rooms on to the bedroom side of the house for Kenneth and me, now approaching our teen years.

Our day began early. Mama made light, fluffy, delicious biscuits in her wood stove. We cooked and ate in the kitchen, except in summer, when we ate on the back porch. After breakfast, she might have gardening to do, or help with hoeing in the fields, or take Kenneth and me and go pick blackberries. We had a garden and lots of fresh vegetables. Our orchard had apple trees, peach trees, cherry trees and a pear tree. We would can beans, corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables or fruit. We also made jams and jellies. We might gather walnuts or pick some cotton to be carded for use in a quilt. There were always delicious smells coming from the kitchen - chicken frying, vegetables cooking, bread dough rising atop the warm water reservoir on the wood cook stove, maybe a cake baking in the oven. My mother was a wonderful cook and we had plenty of food. We had a strawberry patch and sometimes we also picked wild strawberries. We made pies, cobblers and shortcake. Since we had our own cows and milk, we had real whipped cream.

No one in my community had a freezer because we had no electricity. Some people had ice boxes. Once each week, a man came by and sold big blocks of ice for the boxes. Eventually we got an ice box, but, before that, I remember keeping milk cold by setting the crocks in well water. We drew the water from a well in our yard. We put fresh cold water around the milk every hour or so. If the milk soured we used it for buttermilk or for the pigs. Pigs were a source of food. We always had two, and we fed them well. They grew large and fat by November every year. Usually in late November, they were killed and the meat was preserved in various ways. Hams and shoulders were preserved with salt and brown sugar and hung in the smoke house, in back of our house. We ground some of the meat and made sausage, which we canned. We also canned cubes of tenderloin, a very good cut of the hog. Mama made a head cheese, which she called sauce meat. It was made into loaves and left in a cold area to be sliced for sandwiches.

The Moore house was heated by a coal stove in the living room and the wood cooking stove in the kitchen, the rest of the house was cold in the winter. Of course the outhouse was always cold in the winter but it was an improvement on the days before the family had one and used a slop pot or the woods. The canning shelves were in the bedroom, which was cool. The back porch, screened and later closed in with windows, was very cold in the winter. It was good for storage. Unlike many homes the house had no cellar for storing potatoes, pumpkins, and apples for the winter. The men would dig a deep hole in the fall to store potatoes and a hole for dahlia bulbs. The potatoes were covered with straw and boards that could be removed as needed to get potatoes for cooking. Always some were saved as seed potatoes for spring planting. Dahlias were covered with boards and soil until spring, when they would be uncovered and planted long rows in the garden. Later everyone would enjoy the beautiful blooms.

Chickens provided eggs, and a few became fried chicken. In the winter, older chickens provided chicken and dumplin’s. Some eggs were left with a settin’ hen which hatched out ten or twelve chicks.

We had to watch for hawks that came to prey on the chickens. One time Mama shot a hole in the porch floor trying to shoot a hawk. Hot cereal or sausage and gravy, eggs, and biscuits for breakfast were wonderful and fortified us for the long bus ride to school. Sunday dinner usually featured fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and always beans—green beans and pintos. We had pinto beans every day. On weekdays, we had some kind of pork, vegetables, biscuits and cornbread for dinner. Supper would be soup and cornbread or the leftovers from lunch (dinner).

I realize now how hard my parents and grandparents worked to keep the farm going. We were expected to work and we did. There was very little money, but we didn’t need much. We bought sugar and coffee, which Mama often traded eggs for. We bought material or used material from feed sacks for shirts and dresses. Shoes and coats, and overalls for the men, had to be purchased. The women made quilts from old clothes and scraps. We seldom had a ready-made dress. Mama made dresses, shirts, curtains, bedspreads, tablecloths, sheets, pillowcases, and most any item of that sort that we used. She had a treadle sewing machine and was a very good seamstress.

One Christmas I found a doll under the tree, dressed in clothes Mama had made. She was baby size and I thought she was beautiful. I named her Elizabeth. That was the name of Lizzie McAmis, our neighbor who held me on her lap and told me stories. I thought she was beautiful too. I could hardly be parted from my baby Elizabeth, and still have her almost 80 years later. I know now that it must have taken a lot of egg money to give me this present. We always had a Christmas tree. It was a cedar because they are plentiful in east Tennessee. I could hardly sleep the night before Christmas for excitement of what would be under the tree. Elizabeth was the best present ever. We had no Christmas stockings. Most gifts were hand made.

Neighbors worked together and helped each other. They shared what they had. No one felt poor. They owned their land and could grow or make most of what they needed. Doing things together as a family was the norm and expected. They didn’t have to make family time in a busy schedule of separate activities. Families were always together, doing the same things, keeping the farm going.

When we made apple butter, we peeled the apples in the evening, quartered them, put them in tubs, and covered them with clean cloths made from feed sacks. The next day, Daddy would build a fire under our big copper kettle. Most of the apples, a little water, and sugar would be put in the kettle and a day of work began. My grandfather liked to stir the apples as they cooked. The stir was a flat paddle attached to a long pole. He sat in a chair and stirred steadily, back and forth. We thought that a great job and he would give us a turn. Our arms tired quickly, however, and we were glad to hand the pole to him. As the apples cooked down, more apples were added. Gradually, the light colored apple slices cooked into a dark brown-red, thick sauce. When it was the proper thickness, the kettle would be moved from the fire and the delicious apple butter put into jars. We always had fresh bread and biscuits for sampling the new, warm apple butter.

Daily Routines

Work on the farm was a daylight-to-dark effort for the Moore family as it was for other families on small farms. They were up by 5:30 AM to get a wood fire going in the cook stove and, in winter, to add coal to the living room pot bellied stove. While Mama got the kids dressed and started breakfast Dad would be off to the barn to care for the livestock. Then all would go to the barn and while the parents milked and took care of the larger animals the children fed the chickens and pigs and gathered eggs. Then the children went back to the house with Mama to strain the milk and put it in the proper containers - some in crocks for the family and the rest went into a large metal milk can which would be picked up by a milk truck and carried to a processing plant in Greeneville. Mammaw, the grandmother, then helped Mama finish breakfast. By 6:30, everyone was gathered around the table and enjoying a very good and very large breakfast. During the school year, children left for school by 7:00 AM. The bus ride was half an hour to the elementary school and an hour to the high school. After breakfast the men would go to the barn, harness the horses, and head to the fields to plow, cut hay or grain, or plant hay, tobacco, or wheat. Sometimes they would go to the woods and bring in logs to be cut, split and used for firewood. Water had to be drawn from the well out back or from the rain barrels at two corners of the house and placed in containers for washing hands, clothes, dishes, cooking and drinking. After the house chores were finished, Mama often helped in the fields or worked in the garden. Mammaw washed dishes, cleaned house, and often swept the porches and the path through the front yard.

I remember that Monday was wash day. Daddy would build a fire in the yard and put the wash kettle on. Mama would add lye soap she had made and then put the white clothes, sheets and towels in to boil for a few minutes. Then the fire would be put out, the clothes removed and put into a large tub, cool water added, and the clothes scrubbed on a wash board. Then they were rinsed and put on the line to dry. Dark clothes were washed in warm water and scrubbed on the wash board. In about 1945 an electric line was run to the house. A washing machine was added. There was nothing automatic about it. With no plumbing, water had to be brought in pails from the rain barrels and heated, but it was still a luxury with a big tub and an agitator and a wringer. Wash day became easier. Then a refrigerator was bought which kept the food cold and prevented spoilage. Ironing, before electricity, was difficult. The irons were heated on the stove. One had to grasp the handle, using a hot pad and press the clothes until the iron cooled. Then that iron was returned to the stove and another hot one was used. A careful check was needed to be sure the iron was not too hot or you might scorch the garment or burn your hands.

More Memories

Mama loved flowers and had lots of roses, peonies, gladiolas, dahlias, lilacs, sweet peas, bridal wreath, spirea, and petunias. I remember a large climbing rose bush she had in the back yard. Daddy said it was taking over the yard so she moved it to a gully which ran the length of a steep area of the farm. It grew and spread along the gully and was a mass of red roses in the spring. It probably helped prevent erosion as well!

I remember some special things about my grandparents. Mammaw Moore was small and dark. Her hair was long and she brushed it back and twisted it into a circle at the back of her head. She held it there with 4 long hairpins. She always wore ankle length dresses. She worked in the house but did very little of the cooking. She had strong opinions and didn’t mind expressing herself.

Grandpap Moore was tall and gentle with a kind smile. He loved the farm and the outdoors, and birds and animals. He took great pride in his work—hoeing a row of corn, plowing a straight furrow, splitting