Compiled by Teresa
Martin Klaiber 2020
A
recent request on The Boyd County genealogy Face Book wall, I manage, gave me
the perfect opportunity to get out with hubby and visit a cemetery. What a perfect way to social distance during
a pandemic. We would be driving lovely
Fall country roads and the people in the cemetery would be at least 10 feet
away. You may have to think about that
sentence for a minute to understand it.
Several
years ago I had handed over my beloved CSI[i]
kit to a Rucker researcher, due to health issues. I loved researching in cemeteries. I have
missed the adventures, which could be another potential article. Physically I could
not reach this cemetery but hubby managed to get some super digital photographs
of Brown Cemetery on Indian Trail Road.
It was a dual project. There were several needing pictures and we knew
that Mary Elizabeth Alley, wife of Isham Brown was a niece to Bazel Rucker,
hubby’s second great grandfather.
As
I waited for his return walk down the hillside to our vehicle, my mind flooded
back to another visit to the Chadwick Creek area, forty-two years ago. We were back in Kentucky to visit family in
July 1978. We had driven from New Jersey
with 3, 5, and 7-year-old boys who were delighted to be on the farm. After
several wonderful days my mother-in-law suggested that we slip away to visit
where she had grown up. A girl’s
afternoon outing.
Elsie
Ellis Rucker Klaiber packed her famous bread & butter pickles, some home canned
veggies and we were off to visit Chadwick Creek, Alley Branch and Katie Wilcox. No one ever left the Klaiber house without a
jar of love. Elsie was not about to visit without giving some more.
Katie
B. Wilcox was 81 years old that July 19th day, spry and lively as
ever. My father often talked about
Katie. She was well-known and well-loved in Boyd County, often walking the 4.2
miles to Catlettsburg and back home, refusing many offered rides throughout her
life.
Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 31 October 2020), memorial page for Katherine "Katie" B
Wilcox (7 Apr 1897–25 Jul 1979), Find a Grave Memorial no. 76272021, citing Ashland Cemetery, Ashland, Boyd County, Kentucky,
USA ; Maintained by LeDee (contributor 47128407) .
I
was ill prepared for a formal interview.
Elsie and she were about to give me a day to remember. Katie hopped in
the car and directed me up the left side of Alley Branch. Katie chattered that the Wilcox farm
adjoined the old Rucker property. Katie
was the daughter of Gavit Wilcox and granddaughter of John and Levica Brown
Wilcox. She was also the great granddaughter of Isham Brown, Sr. Born in 1897, Katie lived her entire life on
the farm on Alley Branch.
She
took us where in her words “Bazil and old Mrs. Rucker lived in a log
cabin.” I estimated we had driven about
a mile or so up the road from the Wilcox property. There we stopped along the side of the road while
Katie asked a tenant farmer for a drink from the old well which was still in
use. There is nothing, in my estimation,
better than fresh cold well water.
According to Katie, Bazil Rucker dug the well next to their house. She turned to Elsie Rucker Klaiber and said
“Your drinkin’ from the well your great grandfather dug.”
As
a side note, while Katie was alert, I would like to tell my audience that Katie
was born in 1897 while Bazil Rucker had died in 1881.[ii] His wife, America McGuire Rucker had also
died in June 1893. Both deaths were prior to Katie’s birth. When I asked, she
said she “knew of” her (America’s) funeral.
Katie said America died having a tiny trunk full of family papers that
she put under the stairwell. When the
place was later renovated (during Katie’s life) the trunk was found. Sadly, Miss Wilcox could not recall by
whom. According to Katie Wilcox, it
contained Confederate money as well as family papers. Elsie Rucker Klaiber joined in agreeing she
had heard that same story told by her family.
As
records unfolded in my own research, I was able to confirm that Bazil and
America’s eldest son, John H. Rucker, served the Confederacy in Company D of
the 2nd Kentucky Mounted Riflemen.
John, as many others, took the Oath of Allegiance by the US government
after surrender compelled them.[iii]
Katie
said the log house later burned. She
introduced me to the owners of the property by the name of Ferguson.[iv]
We sat on the porch while the Ferguson’s stated that deeper in the hollow was a
foundation of another house. Katie was
adamant that that house was not the Rucker home.
According
to Katie Wilcox, Bazil and his wife were buried above what is now the Ferguson
home, marked only by stones and two trees. Mrs. Ferguson walked to the graves
with me showing where they were marked by of the two trees and two field stones. According to neighborhood tradition they both
lay between the shade of the trees. My
polaroid caught the sun between the trees, and yes there were two small field
stones at the trees.
We
said good-bye to Ferguson’s, leaving the old Bazil Rucker homesite proceeding
up Alley Branch to the house site of James Leander Rucker and his wife Emma
Garrett Rucker, grandparents of Elsie.
This property stands on the left-hand side of Alley Branch Road. The house site was then owned (1978) by the
J. Wright family. Mrs. Wright invited us to stay, while Katie Wilcox continued
her narration, describing the Rucker’s two-story home. Because Elsie knew her grandparent’s home
place, with her own experiences, she confirmed that Katie had not missed a
beat. The old stone cellar was still
standing (1978) though renovated and used by the Wrights in the form of a
garage.
Elsie
also reminisced saying that she walked to her grandparents in the 1930’s.[v]
That the house was “old” then. She
recalled an outside stair leading to a ‘bedroom’ where all the children slept;
they being separated by curtains of a sort.
What was left of the place later burned according to Mrs. Wright. Katie added that she remembered lovely
flowers being grown around the house and the table “was always full.”
Certainly, a Rucker tradition from my own experience.
“James
Rucker inherited the left side of the farm and later sold to some Griffith’s.
His sister Mandy inherited the right and sold to the Allie’s. Mandy married
John Brown, my uncle” said Katie.
I
will again pause the narrative. There was a total of ten children in the Bazil
Rucker family. Bazil’s will, after
giving America all personal property, did indeed give James L. Rucker the farm
on the left-hand fork of Chadwick Creek “…which I purchased from John Alley,
which lies on the left hand or south side of the present site of the county
road[vi]
coming up the creek. Except about two acres now planted as an orchard. This boundary given to said James L. Rucker,
includes a forty-acre tract to which I have heretofore made a deed to Emma his
wife…” Daughter Amanda received the “home farm” along with stock. None of the other children were cited in his
will but were established in their own homes.
James L. and Emma lived next to his parents, at the time, and Amanda
“Mandy” did not marry John Brown until after the death of her mother, America, in
1893.[vii]
But
Katie had said that James Rucker later sold some to a family named
Griffith. As a genealogist I have now
completed a title search of the properties.
I found no deed transaction with Griffith’s. I did not locate Griffith’s
close to Wilcox property until 1930 and then the family was marked as renters. The Griffith’s were probably renting from the
Ike Hicks family who bought property from James L. in May 1918.[viii] [ix]
One deed does deserve merit in this story.
James L. received a tract on the left-hand fork of Chadwick’s Creek from
John and Amanda Brown for $650.00 with $100.00 to be kept back for maintenance
of the Widow Rucker during her natural life, she being the mother of Amanda and
James L. Rucker…[x]”
Returning
to the remarkable day in 1978 on Alley Branch, Katie began to tell about James
and Emma (Garrett) Rucker’s daughter, America Mae. She was nicknamed “Make”.[xi] Katie
said she had lovely blonde hair and blue eyes, very fair and thin. She dated a John Hensley by horse and
buggy. When she was in her teens she
died from “stomach trouble and was buried on top of the hill (Alley Branch Road
Hill) which is called Light House Point but no Light House”.
Elsie,
who by the way, was also, as a young girl, blonde, blue eyed, with very fair
skin, remembers an old rail fence and walking a path looking down on the grave
around the 1930’s when she would go for visits to her grandparent’s place
(James and Emma Rucker’s). Elsie later
made notes stating “Make” died in 1905. Elsie
said America’s grave is unmarked and slightly sunk in the backyard of a home at
that location. Katie Wilcox pointed out
the original dirt road that wound down Alley Branch. While “Make was a little older than described,
I located lose Boyd County 1905 deaths, in the attic of the Courthouse. “Make”
Rucker, age 22, single, dress maker June 22nd, cause, consumption of
bowels. The death occurred on Chadwick
Creek with parents J.L. and Emma Rucker cited.
By retracing that day 42 years ago, before writing this article, I
believe that Light House Point is, just before the intersection of Alley Branch
with Silver Run. Today, 2020 there are
large satellite towers located on the point.
Katie
Wilcox had one more story to share with Elsie and I. She told how James Rucker’s two eldest children,
David Leander (Elsie’s father) and Margaret, would help work and clean. But on another day, sister “Middie” (Amanda)
was helping to clear brush. After
stacking only a few sticks she climbed on the brush pile to nap. Margaret and David set fire to the pile
waking “Middie” “in short order.”
The
spirit of family stories and memories should be kept alive for future
generations. One year later, Katherine
B. “Katie” Wilcox died, 25 July 1979.
She was laid to rest in Ashland Cemetery.
Many
years later, my husband and I returned to our beloved Boyd County and we found
ourselves once again at the Wilcox Farm, then owned by the Gute family. We purchased a mother goat and her kid. As we headed to my fathers to get them
checked, he a veterinarian, I turned to hubby and asked “Do you suppose Katie
would be upset if we named the mamma goat for her.” I also asked my father who had
mentioned her in one of his books[xii]. He laughed and said he felt she would have
loved the idea. The 2nd Katie
brought us great joy during her years with us.
I
have returned to Alley Branch with other Rucker cousins to visit Alley
Cemetery. Hubby and I drive through Laurel Gap just to honor the Rucker family
and my mother-in-law. Elsie Ellis Rucker
Klaiber died 24 November 1987. She
touched many county children as a teacher in Boyd County. She fed me well not only at the dinner table
with her wonderful bread & butter pickles, but with love of family. She kept note pads by her chair and scribbled
every shred of information she could glean from family members to help me build
a wonderful genealogy for her grandchildren and now great grandchildren.
One
simple outing, so memorable that I felt the need to write it down for future
generations. Heed this dear reader. Take
up your pencil, pen, or keyboard and write.
Fear not those critics of misplaced punctuation. Write to preserve our
history for genealogists and story tellers alike.
[i]
CSI = Cemetery Sleuthing Investigation kit – included gloves, trowel, corn
cobs, etc needed to read tombstones and rod for probing for sunken stones
[ii]
KY, Boyd, WBK 1. [age 216
[iii]
KY Confederate Pension Records, #980
[iv]
Of Mormon faith
[v]
Elsie Rucker would have walked from her father’s home, David Leander Rucker, on
Laurel in the 1930’s.
[vi]
The left side appears to be the where the 1978 Wright’s property would be.
[vii]
Amanda and John Brown’s property, depending on acreage may have extended toward
the Isham Brown holdings.
[viii]
KY, Boyd Dbk 78 p 312
[ix] Ike
Hiks aka Isaac Hicks married Nancy Jane Fuller.
The census for this time frame list her as Jane.
[x]
KY, Boyd Dbk 19 p 218
[xi]
In her death record her occupation is recorded as dress maker. Possibly where
she got her nickname?
[xii]
Martin, John G. Never a Ho Hum Day
