Just a brief about the wonderful people that lived on planet earth, served their mission and left it all for us in following their footstep!
Elias Honaker & Catherine: I never knew either one of them, but from what I have read and heard, they were hard workers, building many cabins for themselves as well as the children. Elias passed away before I was born and Catherine passed away the year I was born, in 1945. I have heard our great grandfather was a very good man. My dad informed me about his great-father in law. He had said he was very strict but very kind. (Obviously a stubborn man too, he was against his son marrying a woman he didn't approve of so grandpa Morgan married Ruby Boyd anyway, with his dad Elias holding it against him, all but nearly blotted him out of his life!(LOL) Elias had property also in Russell County, next door to our grandfather John Gillespie. John also was a stubborn man, set firmly in his ways, so it was little surprise that the two men would fight over the fence that bordered! (ha) The fence was often moved, cut, and the two men blamed each other of attempting to steal land. Then there was Grandpa Morgan teasing Grandpa John about his religion, (Mormon), keeping conditions forever tense. Eventually Elias & family sold out and moved back to Honaker, VA, but Grandpa John never got over the event and literally ran off Morgan's children, chasing from his home if he caught one there. (My aunt Mildred told me one time he says as usual, pointing his finger, “hit the door and get!” Mildred says feeling mischievous, she says, “Ok,” walking over to the door hitting it! (ha) She says this little cute antic really set him
on fire! (ha) The old timers were very grouchy because I think they were actually raised by grouchy parents, an inheritance, obvious! (ha) I will bet Grandpa John was terribly upset when his son Clarence married Grandpa Morgan’s daughter! (ha)The old timers were very straight faced people, living the old time religion, the hell fire theroy. However we were the happiest clan in the mountain. hahaGrandma Ruby Boyd Honaker: She was a very sweet complex woman. Most of us were very close to her. Except for us, the other grandchildren called her Momma. When I was little, I called her “Mom“, because my mother did. Since I called my mother “Mommy”, it worked out. (ha) As I turned around nine years old, I began calling her grandma, this seemed to fit her well, upon asking her, she says it did not matter what she was called as long as it was decent! (ha) She told me often times about the cruelty that her dad bestowed upon she and her mother. Grandma Ruby’s family had a huge acreage plantation; slaves worked the land, cared for her as well. Her mother Eva married into the Boyd family having the son mistreat her along with her daughter Ruby dreadfully. Her dad sold the land leaving her and her mother with nothing! They moved to Ohio and took a job leaving her nine-year-old daughter to keep house. They eventually returned after grandma, Ruby was a teenager, that (she married Grandpa Morgan at age 17, swearing her grandmother forced her to, just to have her married off). Oh my lands, dominance appear to be another inheritance! LOL Nevertheless, the whole experience left the little spoiled only child a better person I am sure! (In addition, from what I have heard over the years, she was spoiled). Grandma Ruby had a huge generous heart but she could be cruel at times to others in her spurts of anger. (I guess we can safely say, she was Granny Keene’s granddaughter! (ha). I never knew Granny Keene, or Octavia Hunt Boyd, but the gossip is throughout the family she was a mean woman. (Her first husband Elijah Boyd was killed by a mob of drunks, the reason is unclear, and our great grandfather Elijah Boyd was the sheriff in Swords Creek, VA when the horrible event took place. Grandmother Octavia Hunt Boyd eventually married again becoming a Keene. She had one son, C.W. Boyd, which loved her dearly; the story is there about him. Bless his heart! PS. . . Grandma was told around two years or so before she passed away by someone that contacted her unexpected, that there was reason to believe her dad's name was not his signature on the deed of sale. This piece of information really surprised Grandma Ruby, but she decided not to pursue the case.
Grandfather Morgan: He was a coalminer, also gifted with his hands making the best brooms around I am told, and I can vividly see him now on the porch whittling out the toys he made for us as gifts. Whistles and all sorts of stuff. Grandpa Morgan was a very intelligent man, he just had his dad’s strictness creating the image he was mean. (ha). He loved to tell me stories as I became older about his life, going back into the past. He would relive many laughing tears. (ha). He teased his kids by saying, “I wanted many of you to support me when I’m old and gray!” LOL The coalmining did eventually get to him, he suffered gravely with the black lung. Grandpa Morgan was a hell riser as a young man, I have been told. Grandma Ruby tolerated and would always forgive. In her case, with the children, she had little wiggle room. (ha). She leaned on Grandpa Morgan. They had become a team over the years. They were together until death do we part. A loving couple as they grew old. Time heals of course! -