The Mysterious Seb’n (2)

 

How did my people get to Nelson County? While I’d love to know more of the story, what I do know leads me to believe that my great-grandfather Walter Lemmon Withers fell in love with Elizabeth (Betty) Hamilton and that Walter moved from Gladys in Campbell County, VA to Nelson County to marry and practice medicine.

 

Google Maps tells me that it’s 48 miles from Gladys to Roseland, 52 minutes by car, 6 hours by bike (I assume that’s if you don’t stop for rest), and 20 hours if you walk (and don’t stop?). What it is by horse or horse and buggy I don’t know.

 

After the Civil War, Walter graduated with a medical degree from the University of Virginia (as had his older brother Robert Enoch Withers) and began his medical practice. Their father, Robert Walter Withers, was a physician in Gladys. During the war Walter was what was known as a “medical steward,” what we would call a “medic.” Walter was captured and made prisoner of war during Pickett’s Charge on July 3,1863. Considering the casualty rate at Gettysburg, and the conditions in Civil War POW camps, I guess you could say that I just made here.

 

How did Walter meet Betty? My guess is that he met her through a sister who was married and living in Nelson County. She had married a Massie and was living in Massie’s Mill, VA, not far from Roseland and about 50 miles from Charlottesville and UVA. Maybe Walter stopped at the sister’s home when traveling between Charlottesville and Gladys? Maybe he spent holidays with his sister and her family?

The Library of Virginia has two letters that Robert Walter Withers and his wife, Susan, wrote to the daughter while Gettysburg was raging. They had no idea the battle was happening, and no idea that the life of at least one of their sons was in danger. Holding those letters, with gloves, was a special experience for me a few years ago.

 

As I ponder Walter Lemmon moving to Nelson County to marry Betty, I recall that Robert Walter (my great-great-grandfather) likely moved from Fauquier County to Gladys in Campbell County to marry Susan. Since it is 152 miles from Warrenton in Fauquier County to Gladys in Campbell County, I have no idea how Susan and Robert met. As I mentioned above, Robert was a doctor and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

 

If you’ve ever been through Gladys (people seldom go to Gladys, they drive through it), you may wonder how someone living 152 miles away, 200 years ago, would find his way to such a place…I have no idea – it was before, I am assured, social media.

To be continued...

 

 

 

Reading the Bible, Knowing Jesus (2)

 

 

As I ponder the three conversations concerning the Bible that have challenged and shocked me, let me ask; How do you read the Bible? How do you experience the Bible?

 

As you look back over your life, do you read the Bible the same way today as you always have? Has your experience with the Bible changed over the years?

 

Do you read articles, letters, books, cards, and documents the same way? Do you read marketing material the same way you read an email from a friend? Do you deal with spam email the same way you deal with email from a family member or a coworker?

 

If you are in a romantic relationship, do you write and “sound” differently to that special person than you do if you are sending a business email? Is your writing “voice” different when you write to a high school friend of many years than when you email an appliance repair company asking it why it has once again failed to show up for an appointment?

 

In my business career I wrote in many genres. I wrote technical instructions for using software. I wrote advertising copy. I wrote personnel reviews. I wrote contracts. I wrote letters putting parties on notice for contract violations. I wrote letters to government officials. I wrote letters to clients. I wrote thank you notes and letters to vendors and team members. I wrote strategic plans.

 

Each letter or email or contract or procedure I wrote required that I think about who I was writing to, who else might read what I was writing, the purpose of my writing, what I wanted to communicate, how best to communicate…and so many other things.

 

If I was writing a personnel review for someone who had a well – developed vocabulary, I would write one way; if English was a second language I would write another way. If the person needed to receive a strong message that immediate job improvement was critical, I’d write in one voice (at least in part of the review), if the review was more along the lines of continued successful development and coaching, I’d write in another voice.

 

If I am opening mail at home and have five pieces from companies that want to sell me the newest computerized mousetrap, I am going to handle those pieces differently than I will the card from our friends in Munich, Germany. My expectations will be different, my critical thinking will be different, my heart will be different, my defenses are up with mousetrap marketing, they are down with the card from our friends.

 

The way we approach the Bible matters, the way we listen to the Bible matters, the way we communicate the Bible matters, the way we respond to the Bible matters.

 

How do you read and experience the Bible?

 

How would you like to read and experience the Bible?

 

 

 

 

The Mysterious Seb’n

 

 

Is it spelled “sebm” or “seb’n”? Either way is fine. If you’ve never heard it pronounced, you are forgiven for scratching your head. This pronunciation was a mystery to me for 75 years. I used to wonder why my Dad pronounced the number seven as “seb’n”. It was never “seven.”

 

One was one, three was three, nine was nine; but seven was seb’n and twenty-seven was twenty-seb’n. As a young child I wondered about this, and finally at 75 years old I found the answer.

 

I have always been fascinated with language, pronunciation, accents, and alphabets. I recall listening to the speech of my aunts and uncles, my Dad’s brothers and sisters – they did not all speak the same. Those who had formal education and who were doing well professionally spoke one way, those who had little formal education and tilled the soil or turned a wrench or worked retail had another pattern of speech. They all had Virginia accents, but Virginia has many accents – though I suppose as with other parts of the country, they are dying out…a pity.

 

When Vickie and I first moved from Baltimore, MD to Richmond, VA she worked for a state trade association. There were times, when speaking on the phone with someone from “Southside” Virginia, or from the deep southwestern part of the Commonwealth, that she had to ask them to please spell a word – her Iowa ear simply could not understand what the other person was saying.

 

My Daddy had four sisters and three brothers who lived to adulthood, there were two brothers who died in childhood. When my grandmother Rosa was pregnant with her last child, a daughter (Christine), her husband Caskie died at 41 years old (1988 – 1929). A sad irony is that Caskie Withers, Jr., my uncle, died when only 48 (1918 – 1966). I have often wondered about Rosa, pregnant with so many children at home and losing her husband – what must that have been like? What fear? What heartbreak?

 

If you’ve ever watched The Waltons, then you have a pretty fair idea of where my people lived, for Earl Hamner Jr. grew up in Nelson County, VA, just as Grandpa Caskie. Mr. Hamner lived in Schuyler and Grandpa lived close to Roseland. Google Maps tells me it is 32 minutes and 27 miles between the two by car, 2 hours and 24 minutes by bicycle, and 8 hours if you walk. What it is by horse, or horse and buddy, or a Ford Model T I don’t know, but it surely took some time in the early 20^th century to get from “here to there” in Nelson County – a place with hollows and creeks and mountains and twists and turns.

 

Did you know that hell came to Nelson County on August 19, 1969? Those quaint rivers and creeks and mountain sides turned into hell when 25 – 31 includes of rain fell in 5 hours from Hurricane Camille. Over 100 bridges were swept away, 900 buildings along with orchards, livestock, and worst of all, 124 people died. Camille’s devastation in Virginia led to the creation of FEMA.

To be continued...