Charles and Edie Tucker

My 3rd Great-grandparents, Charles Randolph Tucker, born 1848, Amherst Co. Va, and his young wife Edithea Cash, born 1852, around the time of their marriage in 1874. Together they had 9 children, 8 of which survived childhood and their youngest being my great-great grandmother Ruth. Both Charles and Edie came from very old, large and influential Virginia families, their ancestors having arrived in the colonies from England and Scotland as early as the 1640s.

Here Charles and Edie are pictured with their eldest surviving child Walter c. 1915. In the background, is Walter's wife Georgie Higginbotham Tucker with their daughter Louise and their eldest child Norman.

Lelah May Tucker Callahan

My great-great grandmother Ruth's oldest sister. Aunt Lelah, or Lelia, was born Aug. 7, 1879 in Amherst Co. Va. She married Edward Gillespie Callahan and had 3 children, Rosa, Charles Thomas and Mabel. She died Mar. 9, 1939 in Lynchburg, Va.

July 1955

My nanny in Washington or Lewisdale Md.

Bill Noel Family and Homeplace, Adams Co. Pa.

William Alexander Rudolph Noel and Ellen Francina Smith Noel with their eldest surviving children, c. 1895. Bill and Ellen are pictured with his mother, Joanna Margaret Adams Noel, in front of their home near New Oxford, Adams Co. Pa, with children Mary Alice, Charlie, James, Adelaide, Arthur, Leo and Edna. Their daughter Adelaide Cecilia (center in white dress,) was my great-grandmother.

Bill Noel was a prominent blacksmith in Adams Co. from the 1870s.

Bill and Ellen in front of the homeplace, with youngest son Leo in the early 1920s. Shutters and a front porch were added to the house in the early 20th Century. Leo, who appears as a child in the first photograph, was born in 1893.

Homer.

Gordon Homer Campbell, my great-great grandfather. Born 1888 near Lowesville or Little Piney River, Nelson Co. Va. The eldest son of Thomas Jefferson Lee Campbell and Lizzy J. North. Married Ruth Cash Tucker, 1909 and died 1950, Pittsylvania Co. Va.

I could go on for pages about his life so I will only include these 3 dates at the moment. As a genealogist it sometimes seems that a person's birth, marriage and death are all that remains of them generations later. Homer is quite different for me though. Over the past 10 years I have taken every opportunity I could to gain biographical and personal information about him while all the time dreaming of what it would have been like to talk to him, see him or just be in his presence. I remain very close with his two youngest sons who, along with my grandfather, his eldest grandchild, have provided me with invaluable information and stories about Homer's life.

Words can not describe how much this man, whom I have never met, means to me. He is almost, single-handedly, responsible for generating my interest in genealogy and family history. After finding the first image of him, pictured above, in about 2000, I was hooked not only on Homer, but on genealogy. He remains, my 'favorite' ancestor. My Homer.

HOMER.

my dearest dear. coming soon.

Great-nanny.

Myrtle "Hazel' Cyrus (1910-1992). My great-grandmother died when i was 6. I remember my mom getting the call that she had passed away early one Saturday morning. I also remember her wake. My father, her eldest grandchild, was the apple of her eye and they had a very close relationship until her death. My dad always said she loved me very much as well. There exists a home video from 1986 in which great-nanny is feeding me a bottle as an infant. I love it, ...and her. I remember going to visit her at the nursing home, in the last years of her life, with my nanny, her daughter-in-law, when i was little. I have a vivid memory of great-nanny placing her hand on my stomach and calling me Lorriane, my mother's name, on one of our visits. I cherish that memory and the fact that our life-spans intermingled. (mhc1910.)