Pa Flagg

My great-grandfather, John Fletcher Flagg, known to his children and grandchildren as Pa. I have to say I think this is one of the most amazing photographs I have ever seen. The fact that it is my ancestor is just a bonus. His expression and posture reveal so much about himself and his life. From his disconnected gaze we can see the toll life had paid upon him by this point. It is almost as if you can see straight into his soul.

Pa was a heavy drinker and what my granddaddy, his son-in-law, called a "real rounder". This apparently meant, in not so many words, that Pa liked to have a good time. In fact when I showed this picture to him a few years ago he commented that Pa was "probably drunk" in it. Still he was adored by his wife, children and grandchildren. I remember my nanny telling me stories about him when I was young, especially the story about the day he died in 1960. She had a hallway in her house lined with 3 framed pictures of her father at varying stages of his life which I loved to look at as a kid. I could tell even as a young girl that he had been a great hero to her and her siblings, who I was very close with.

Pa was born in 1899 on an old plantation farm called Montpelier in Caroline County Virginia. He had an identical twin brother, Roderick, whose life would be cut short in 1936 when he accidentally drowned in the Mattaponi River. In 1916, Pa went to Michigan to enlist in the Army and served as a Cavalryman in the Great War. After returning home he married Ethel Wright Stevens, known in the family as Bum. Between 1924 and 1937, they had 5 daughters and one son. Like many Virginians, Pa worked as a farmer and merchant all of his life. On Jan. 3, 1960, he died suddenly of a heart attack. Gone but never forgotten.