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...