Elsie Ellis Rucker Klaiber 1912 – 1987 Autobiography

 

Transcribed and comments by Teresa Martin Klaiber 2020

During the Fall of 1985 I asked my mother-in-law to write her autobiography. She insisted, she was not a writer but would do her best.  I am thrilled to see her flowing handwriting, written on lined paper that is now aging.  As I sit to transcribe, I think of how many students lives and family that she touched.  It is November, as it was when she left us.  We were so upset we did not realize her funeral was scheduled for Thanksgiving Day.  But that day, as I stood on the hill and looked back down the road, I saw hundreds of cars coming to honor her.  Tears streamed down as I thought how each had given up their own Thanksgiving to give Thanks and praise to her.    

I miss her chatter as the pots and pans banged in her kitchen. She taught me to cook.  I never mastered biscuits or her cream candy. She gave so much of herself.  Newly married, for some reason I wanted a long velvet dress.  I never thought of the cost nor did she say a thing.  Instead I got both a blue and red velvet long dress hand made by her[i].  As each year dawned, she would open a Christmas Savings Account and never missed a payment always presenting it to us to fulfil the Christmas wishes of her three grandsons.  She was their secret Santa.  As students we were always assured a freezer full of beef while others ate romaine noodles. 

And while her autobiography does not express her personality, I am so honored to transcribe it.

Elsie Ellis Rucker Klaiber

I was born Jan. 7, 1912[ii] to David L.[iii] and Barbara E. McGlothlin[iv] Rucker. Our home was located on Jack’s Fork of Garner (Boyd Co.) mailing address R. 1, Rush, KY.  My brother Harold (9)[v] was disappointed when I was born. I was not a boy. My sister Elzema (6)[vi] and Mildred (3)[vii] were happy to have a little sister.

When I was 6 months old, my parents moved to Mavity (mouth of Bear Creek) R. 1, Catlettsburg. My father had a large store and grist mill there.  My youngest brother Kenneth[viii] was born three yrs. Later in 1915.

I attended a one room school (Grassland) for 2 years.

Since the school term was short and my older brother & sister were ready for high school, we moved to Ashland, KY. on Bath St. and Win. Ave[ix]. in 1921. I attended the Wylie Elementary School. Our next move was to Catlettsburg in 1924.  I graduated from T. R. Brown High School in 1929.

I attended Marshall College one semester and began my teaching career in 1930. My first position at 18 years old was a teacher at a one room school, Slick Rock (Boyd County).

 

I attended college in the summers and renewed my certificate to teach. During the spring of 1931 I met John H. Klaiber and married him 8 years later on August 4, 1939 at London, Kentucky. We lived on Laurel[x], R. 1, Catlettsburg for 3 ½ years moving to the farm in 1943.[xi] [xii]

John & Elsie 1940

Our daughter was born and died on April 17, 1945[xiii] in Huntington, W. VA. Hospital. She was buried in the family cemetery on our farm (Klaiber Cemetery).

Two years later March 15, 1947 my son James David Klaiber was born in St. Mary’s Hospital in Huntington, W. VA[xiv].

I taught until 1968 when I retired due to a heart condition[xv].

My hobbies are sewing, canning, reading, traveling and visiting my grandsons and their parents[xvi].

I was a leader of 4H groups for 30 years of my 35 years of teaching and was a member when I was in my school years. I was a member of the Garner Homemakers for two years[xvii].

 

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[i]

The red velvet dress taken on the farm 1968

[ii] KY Vital. B. Cert 985

[iii] Rucker, David Leander 27 Dec 1875 – 13 Dec 1955

[iv] McGlothlin, Barbara Elizabeth 2 Jan 1877 – 17 Sep 1946 m. DL Rucker 16 Sep 1902 Boyd Co. KY

[v] Rucker, Harold Delbert b 14 Oct 1903 Boyd Co., KY died 3 May 1971 Detroit, Michigan

[vi] Rucker, Emma Elzema b 2 Jan 1906 m. George Gallup. Died 6 Jan. 1994 Columbus, OH

[vii] Rucker , Mildred Beatrice b 18 Oct 1909 m Boone Hall. 2 Alton Crisp died 15 Jun 1990

[viii] Rucker, Kenneth Winfield 15 Jul 1915 – 13 Mar 2000 m. Willa Mae Allie

[ix] Ashland City Directory, 1922 1505 E. Winchester Ave.

[x] KY, Boyd Deed book 151 p 93. 5 acres left hand side of pike.

[xi] Long Branch Road, Boyd Co., KY

[xii] Taught Oakland 1933

[xiii] WV Cabell D Register Vol 6 p 7K

[xiv] She taught at one room Long Branch where son James David was in her class until she traded and went to Trace so he could have another teacher.  Later she taught at Garner Elementary.

[xv] Bachelor of Arts Morehead, August 1962

[xvi] The week before her death traveled to Central Ohio to visit. She said then it would be her last trip as it had been very hard.

[xvii] Student Ally United Scholarship Memorial 1995; presented to Boyd Co grad. In memory of SAU charter members including Elsie Klaiber.

Remembering Ruckers Of Alley Branch

 

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 19^th 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 2^nd 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 22^nd, 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 2^nd 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. 

 

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[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

Deliverance Farm Cabin Antiques

Log Cabin Heritage at  Deliverance Farm

 This article originally appeared on our webpage at deliverancefarm.com.  Because of illness and unstable posts this is duplicated from my web page.  I will continue to maintain this blog as long as my health allows.uue to maintain the Eastern Kentucky Genealogy Blog as long as my health will allow.      The  
Restoration on the old farm house at "Deliverance Farm" Boyd County, Kentucky began in 1998.  We utilized PermaChink - a grit based silicon mixture that adjusts to shifts in temperature and log expansion and shrinkage.    We have also treated all the logs for "critters," gone over the stain and sealed the logs.

The front room is traditional square log dating to about 1867.  Originally part of the old Howe farm, the Klaiber's purchased this portion of the farm from the Jordan's in 1944.  [See  annotated title search below]

The room is complete with fireplace and hardwood floors.  Memories of Christmas trees, parlor chats, and candy pulling fill the air.  While the front porch is not original it comes complete with two swings - and we invite our friends to visit and sit a spell.    Renovation discoveries have included an unknown window tucked beside the fireplace and initials H and H  W carved   on the left side of porch.  Additionally the name JEB is carved just to the left of the entrance door.  Chinking varied from the original mud and horse hair packed mixture to the 1930's popular "repair" chinking of  cement.

The house was heated with a coal stove, in the added middle section, from at least 1932 until 1971.  It was covered with redwood siding and trim which helped protect the home from varmits.  In 1971 the house was remodeled and aluminum sided. Typical of most early farm homes, the structure was added on as needed.  The 1932 newspapers used as a barrier between log and newer structure and as "padding" for wall paper give clues to the addition of the middle portion between log structure and kitchen and cellar.  This is a good indication that originally there was a dog trot to the cellar area.

                            A Little Bit of History

On the 3rd day of  September 1866 W. P. Hood  and Matilda   his wife sold, their son-in-law, James W. Howe and Sarah his wife,   in consideration of $1.00, a tract of  land described as laying on Salmons fork of Garner, being a part of the survey of Richard Graham, deceased [Boyd County dbk   3:274]. This is one of several tracts now a part of Deliverance Farm, owned by James and Teresa Martin Klaiber.  William P. Hood was the son of  Thomas and Sarah Hood, early settlers of what was then Greenup County, Kentucky.   He was born 2 March 1805 and died 14 August 1874.  He married 13 December 1831 Matilda Howe born 3 December 1805 died 20 March 1887, buried in Klaiber Cemetery. William P., according to historian Evelyn Jackson also had a son named   Price by one of his slaves.

As the Civil War  came to a close,  James W. Howe and Sarah E. Hood Howe [born about 1839]   sold Phillip H. Howe,  December 18, 1867 this portion of the property [Boyd County dbk 7:123] and  we surmise  it was Phillip and his family that first lived in this cabin.  The 1870 Federal Census shows Phillip age 24, Sarah 56 [his mother], Martha K. 32, Sarah 21, George W. 19, Matilda 17 and a Wesley  Bellding 18 being enumerated on East Fork.  His mother Sarah [nee Fannin married George W. Howe  20 Oct 1836 in Lawrence County] died in 1874 and is also in Klaiber Cemetery.

On  19 December 1879 Allen Prichard purchased the property  with the deed giving the description as between Long Branch and Sammons Fork [Boyd County dbk 9:54].   In 1893 he deeded the property to his daughter Hellen S. Finley.  The property stayed in the Prichard family until August 1909 when S. H. and S.D. Finley sold the land to Jasper Sexton [Boyd County debk 57 page 417].
Jasper Newton Sexton [born 15 January 1869 died 10 November 1967] was the son of Henry Powell Sexton and Julina McCormack Sexton.  He married Miriam Robert Lambert 20 January 1898 in Boyd County.  They with their tiny son Royal Norman born 30 November 1899 moved into the cabin.  Through the years the following children were also born while living there:  Willa B. 10 December 1902, Everet born 8 June 1904, Thomas Edgar born 28 June, Sophia Mae born 9 March 1910, Harold Lee born 18 December, Maymie Lynd born February 1917, Wirt Elam born 18 July 1918 and a stillborn infant in February of 1916.   On January 22, 1920 Jasper sold the property and home to J.A. Hazlett [Boyd County dbk 77:604].

John Allen Hazlett was born 24 April 1892 and died 9 December 1959.  He married Eula D. Bolt born 20 November 1895, the daughter of Kent and Bertha Mae Pope Bolt.   J.A. and Eula owned the property for 5 years selling to T.P. Jordan and wife Elizabeth on 29 August 1925.  At the time of the sale the description referred to the ridge between Long Branch and Solomon Fork.  Thus there is a question about the proper name of the fork - Salmon, Sammons, Solomon [Boyd County deed book 106:90].

Thomas P. Jordan born abt. 1870 was the son of Absolom Jordan [s/o Pleasant] who married Julia Ann Coburn .  Julia was the daughter of  Thomas Coburn and wife Julina nee. Brumfield  Julia's grandparents were Micajah Brumfield and Eleanor Clay Brumfield.  Elizabeth Jordan died 18 January 1940 and Thomas remarried.  On November 25, 1944  son E.W. Jordan sold the property to John Henry Powell Sexton Klaiber and wife Elsie Rucker Klaiber [Boyd County dbk 192 page 355], adding the tract to additional lands in the family.  John Henry was the great great grandson of Micajah and Eleanor Clay Brumfield and thus had "family ties" to the Jordan's.   John Henry was the son of  James Matthew Klaiber and wife Julina Sexton Klaiber.  Julina was the sister to Jasper Newton Sexton who previously resided in the cabin.    John and Elsie remained on the farm, having remodeled the home, until their deaths.  Elsie loved antiques and referred to the original cabin which was now the front room as her "parlor"  where she played hostess to guests.  Their only son James grew from infancy to adulthood on the farm and now [2015] retains the deed to the property.

In the Fall of 2013 the Klaiber's opened the cabin doors selling country antiques.  Renamed Deliverance Farm Cabin Antiques the "shop" is open each Saturday May - October from 9am til 4.  You are welcome to come browse, pet our donkeys and sit under the wonderful huge maple trees.

Saving Voices Part 3

 compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber 

May 31, 2011

Saving Voices Part 3 continues with a transcription of a cassette tape during a summer visit in 1978 with the Klaiber family and their memories of growing up in Boyd County.  This segment talks about food.  You never left the Klaiber home hungry nor without a jar of Elsie's wonderful sweet pickles.

John Henry Klaiber: You always had to have something to eat or drink every place you went…

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: There were these stoves …and there was these pumpkins over these drying places. You know they dried the pumpkin.  And Aunt Minervy [Minerva Patton wife of William Vincent Sexton]  did it that way at that old Sexton house and gave Martha [Martha Klaiber Cox]  that cupboard.

John Henry Klaiber:  Uh they would put a, they would make a frame and put fine wire over it and hang it up over the cook stove and they would dry their stuff that way.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Apples, beans…

John Henry Klaiber repeating over wife: Apples, beans…

Teresa Martin Klaiber: I thought they hung them in the dark…

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: No over the stove to dry them.

John Henry Klaiber: Now beans

Elsie Rucker Klaiber interjecting: I used to string them and hang them out here in the sun, you know

John Henry Klaiber: Beans you would take a needle and run a string through them and pull them up.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Them’s leather britches.

John Henry Klaiber: Hang them up and let dry.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: And let the flies speck em. [laughter]

Teresa Martin Klaiber: And what would you do with the dried beans then?

John Henry Klaiber: Well eat em!

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: They are called leather britches and buddy they are the gassiest things you ever eat. [laughter] Did you ever eat any Jim? Yeah I had some before Jimmy was born and the kids was up here, my nieces.

John Henry Klaiber: The bean was pretty good sized before you would string em and dry them.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber whispering so to not interrupt: You cook them all day long. … But Terri, everybody had leather britches, they called them.  That was just an old fashioned name for dried beans. And then they would put them in a bag and put them away for the winter. They may put some pepper or something in there to keep the bugs away.

But I had sauerkraut.  I used to make sauerkraut when we was first married. And one day, I think on Monday, the kids had been here, Harolds [Harold Rucker brother of Elsie] kids. Two or three of them. They would come stay while their mother [Virginia Wiley Rucker] went to college. Mom and I went down there and she said “Elsie you take two and I’ll take two. I can’t stand to see those five girls there locked up in that house all day long. Their so scared.” Up from Dog Fork they would throw rocks and everything you know at the house.  They lived in the school house. So I said well we will take two up there then. And on a Monday we had had hard bargains.  You know when you fried the chickens on Sunday we had the hard bargains. The necks and all the scrap parts instead of stewing them and make dumplings I just fried em. 

Teresa Martin Klaiber: What did you call them?

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Hard bargains.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: That’s the left overs?

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: No that’s the part that joins the back.

John Henry Klaiber: It’s the piece of the chicken that went over fence above the legs.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: It’s just nothing but the bones…that is just the way we cut them…that was just an old fashioned name for them. But anyway, Terri, we had these last nest of these dried beans. I had the Kraut and the kids had gone out here on the hill. It was two years before Jimmy was born [1945] and after my first baby was born [a little girl born and died 17 April 1945]. I got over there with them and got some good berries [if berries were in it had to be June/July 1945] and we made a cobbler. And the county agent – we had a screened in porch you know – before we remodeled our house. The county agent  came and John asked him to eat while I was in there.  And there were all those scrappy foods.

John Henry Klaiber: Why it was Henry Pope and it wouldn’t make no difference.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber:  And John said well we have some leather britches here and Lord we had leather britches forever.  And kraut and blackberry cobbler. Oh he enjoyed it but I was so embarrassed.

John Henry Klaiber: You see the way they used to make kraut. I don’t know if you know or not.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: She was never raised, her family wasn’t raised [meaning that the first 11 years of my life I grew up in town.]

John Henry Klaiber: You see you would take a cloth bag and put it in a stone jar and cut your kraut up like ya was cutting slaw

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: With a kraut cutter.

John Henry Klaiber: Put the kraut down in there and make yer brine, salt brine strong enough to hold up an egg.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: That is the old fashioned way.

John Henry Klaiber: Then you pulled your cloth bag together and tied it. Poured that up over it and put you a rock down over it.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: A clean rock. You always scrubbed it.

John Henry Klaiber: Well it wouldn’t always matter if it was clean or dirty [laughter].

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Terri, and you would cut the stalk. Do you know what the stalk is. That is the old fashioned name. You know the center, the part you throw away of the cabbage when you make slaw?

Teresa Martin Klaiber: The heart?

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: The heart.

John Henry Klaiber: Don’t you eat that? That’s the best part …

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: But pickle those and buddy they are real. And kraut juice, my mother [Barbara Elizabeth McGlothlin Rucker] couldn’t keep kraut juice cause we loved it so. We’d drink it and then she’d have to make new brine. Oh it’s a good laxative. … I can’t have kraut now …

John Henry Klaiber: It would be made a little different from what you buy I imagine.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: It tastes better. The women make it now and just put it in quart jars and beat it down and they take a teaspoon full of salt, teaspoon full of sugar and boil in water and seal it up… then they would pickle their beans –

John Henry Klaiber: They would cover their jar over so nothing would get in it. Pickles the same way, corn.  Sulphur apples –

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Oh yeah, sulphur apples are delicious. Elzema [Rucker Gallup] and Mildred [Rucker Hall] brought us some last year.  You have firm apples. You put them in a barrel and you put the sulphur down in there and leave them so many days.

John Henry Klaiber: You set it afire. Get a sulphur fire and put it in a barrel and put the apples over it and let them stay there til that sulphur burns up through em. It will keep I don’t know how long.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: And they are the prettiest white ones. They brought me a gallon…

Teresa Martin Klaiber: What do they taste like?

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: You just rinse that sulphur off. You just slice them and fry them or stew them and make pies. They are the most delicious things you ever saw.  But she did hers in glass jars. And people  pickled their corn the same way.

John Henry Klaiber: You see you killed your own meat. Salt it down. Then you’d take it up and hang it and let it drip, drain. Then you’d build a fire under it and smoke it. Then when you would get it smoked enough it got brown all over with smoke. Use Hickory or sassafras. You didn’t want a fire blazing. Lay there and smoke, see. Then they’d take their meat down and wash it in alum water. Then rub it with brown sugar and black pepper.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Honey, it’s delicious.

John Henry Klaiber: Then put it in a paper sack,  or put a cloth over it and put it down in a cloth bag and hang it up in the smoke house and let it hang there.  Then you’d have ham to eat all summer.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Then they quit using that and packed them in  Morton Salt.

Teresa Martin Klaiber:  I remember dad bringing some home when he would go on a country call [John Geer Martin DVM] and paying him with ham and soaking it. …

John Henry Klaiber: To take the salt out of it.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: They’d use Morton’s Salt. A lot of them it didn’t taste good like that.

John Henry Klaiber: Well then they didn’t have Morton’s Salt. I expect when your dad started he got a  lot of ham or chickens to help pay his bill.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: He said [John Geer Martin, veternarian] that is how he got started with these farmers. You were a baby and he said “I got to get back, I’m in the dog house. I haven’t been home for supper in so many nights…been workin”

John Henry Klaiber: Used to pay the work hands. You had a work hand with you, you go down to the smoke house and cut them off a big chunk of bacon. And that would pay them for a day’s work.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: …my mother would make ten gallon of pickled beans, ten gallon pickled corn, ten gallon of kraut. Then they would kill a hog. And they’d take that, well some people still …I was raised on pickled beans. My mother would get them out and fry them. We’d have a pot of corn bread, onions, tomatoes and everything.

John Henry Klaiber: Them pickled beans, let them be a little warm and sprinkle a little sugar over them. Not any better eatin.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber:  Well I will tell you. My mother, every night, there were seven of us in the family.  We had to string a whole quart, I mean a whole gallon crock full of beans. The next morning she would go out and dig some potatoes and we would scrape those potatoes. She took that big iron pot, three legged and put it on the fire and she would wash them beans and par boil them and get all the vitamins out. We didn’t know any different. She would get a little slab of meat. And sometimes she would put it down in the bottom  and she’d put those beans in  and they were all cooking early in the morning. Right before  dinner she would drop those potatoes in.  Then she would go out and get cucumbers and onions and slice them up and put them in vinegar. Then slice a big platter of tomatoes. And we knew she cooked up enough beans for our dinner and we left the other part for supper. And that’s what we ate and we loved it. Oh those green beans, potatoes, corn bread, cucumbers and onions.

John Henry Klaiber: You had corn bread and good ole bacon . Let the grease stay in it.  Pour it out on your plate and mix your corn bread in it.  Good eatin.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: I’ll tell you what I liked. I was like my daddy [David Leander Rucker]. I always liked pork. Back bones and ribs cooked down to thick broth. And then make hot biscuits.

John Henry Klaiber: Terri, they’d dig out a little hole and throw straw and leaves in it and put the potatoes in it. Pile the potatoes on up.  Then throw straw or leaves on over it, throw dirt all around and up over it that thick. … That would keep them all winter.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: And turnips the same way.

John Henry Klaiber: And cabbage. You turn a cabbage upside down and cover it over. Let the roots stick up out of the ground and it will keep all winter.

 Elsie Rucker Klaiber: You would go to town in the Fall in your wagons and bet a barrel of flour and a barrel of meal. And they always had a pantry.

John Henry Klaiber: No they usually ground their own corn for meal.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: But they put the meal in one barrel and they had a great big biscuit board … that covered two barrels and we had a little pantry. And you reached down in there and got  your, I seen my mother, get biscuit dough out. Get the flour and she would put it out and make a great big lot of biscuits leaving that other stuff in there. All that good buttermilk. She could pat them out and she would make pasteries. She never would make one pie. She would make half a dozen pies on the weekend. Cause you know there was company coming in car load and wagon load after wagon load.  We lived in the big house there at Mavity and everyone came for the weekend from town. They would drive their, you know, buggy and drive out for the weekend to Barb’s house. They made two gallon of ice cream and had a big chocolate cake. 

John Henry Klaiber: Now apples. They would either put a wooden barrel or make an A frame. You didn’t put them in like you did potatoes. You went into them oftener than you did potatoes. You’d always leave a door opening so you could get in there and get some apples out. … If you went in and got you some you’d get them out and then take your shovel and shovel your dirt back against the door to cover it all up.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: You had pork and chicken on Sunday and that was all you had unless somebody killed a beef. You know it would break a leg or something … and you would have the best steak you ever ate.  … But Terri you didn’t have to buy very much, you know, produce, from town, like we do now.

Stay tuned for a little bit about home made brew!

Henry Preston Scalf: Day Tripping in Eastern Kentuck

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

The sun was blazing on our day trip to Ivel, Floyd County, Kentucky. Our outing to Davidson Memorial Cemetery was two fold. We wanted to pay our respects to aunt Mildred Rucker Hall Crisp and Boone Hall. Both Mildred and Boone had taught for many years in the Floyd County school system. Secondly we wanted to see if there was a marker for Confederate Soldier Middleton Garrett.

The office 3x5 cards quickly verified that there was no marker for Middleton Garrett. We parked the car on the hillside and walked among the various sections taking the stairs up and down the hillside. Flowers overwhelmed the cemetery that is teetering, literally on the hill. As I turned to head back to the shade of the car I smiled as I recognized a very familiar name.

Henry Preston Scalf was one of the first people I corresponded with when I began genealogy in the 1970's. [Ok I admit I have been around awhile!] Sadly I was introduced to him near the end of his life. We became acquainted when I subscribed to The East Kentuckian. Scalf was editor and I looked forward to the quarterly bringing me a little flavor of Kentucky while living in New Jersey.

Looking back at the old newsletters that have traveled with me from New Jersey to Ohio and finally back to our beloved Eastern Kentucky, I see the love he put into everything he did. Each of my 1978 editions are hand addressed. By 1979 Scalf's friend and fellow writer, Clayton Cox had taken over as editor of the publication. The front of the March issue shows a wonderful picture of Henry P. Scalf standing beside a Kentucky highway marker commemorating Tandy R. Stratton on Mare's Creek, Floyd County. I had found my way to this wonderful publication because of connections between the McBrayer and Stratton families.

Cox began the issue with information on the founder of The East Kentuckian stating that he was a "distinguished historian and genealogist of Eastern Kentucky." Henry Scalf was also a distinguished teacher in the Floyd County School system but for most of us we will forever remember him for his many publications on history and genealogy and what he has taught us about our Eastern Kentucky ancestors. He was awarded a Kentucky Citation for Outstanding Journalism in 1954.

Among his many publications was Kentucky's Last Frontier with an honored forward by Thomas D. Clark who was named Historian Laureate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The book is still available and gets a five star rating on most sites handling the publication. Another favorite publication of Scalf's was Four Men of the Cumberlands which told of the story Devil John Wright and others and is now out of print.

Henry Preston Scalf married 21 October 1831 in Pike County to Norah James who also loved teaching. When her husband became ill Norah took the reins of the quarterly to keep it going until Clayton and wife Elizabeth Cox stepped in. At that time the publication shifted from Stanville, Kentucky to a Lexington address.

If it were not for teachers and genealogists like Henry Preston Scalf, I may not have taken up pen and paper to follow the path I have taken. It has been a good journey and because of Scalf and his creative publications I have been able to formulate a respect for the pioneers that proceeded me in these wonderful hills that I call home. His research was grass roots and in depth research without aide of the click of a computer. He knew the importance of sharing information with others so that our history would continue to be handed down from generation to generation.

Standing on the side of the hill just outside Allen at Ivel, Floyd County, Kentucky I paid my respects and knew the warm feeling was not just from the sun beating down but the warmth of good feelings for those that came before us so we could continue on the journey.

Henry Preston Scalf
20 February 1902-2 September 1979