PJH

Tell us more about your wifes Grandpa. Just curious. Bill

X2 RB

There's not really much to tell about him. He was born in 1896 and died in 1965. He never owned a car, truck or tractor. He married and had one daughter who was my mother-in-law. He farmed with a team and never worked an outside job, except for during the prohibition era when he was involved with bootleg whiskey. I have an old newspaper clipping about him being arrested for violating the Volstead Act. I didn't know him well when I was a kid, and to be honest, I was kinda scared of him - he was a big guy with a no-nonsense attitude and there were many stories about him being a rough character when he was young. I gave him a wide berth. The old timers said that he always had a fancy black high stepping team. The family did not live a privileged life, but they had a comfortable home and plenty to eat. On rainy days he would straighten bent nails and pitch them in a bucket. He made his own tool handles, gambrel sticks and single/double trees. He set homemade hoop nets and turtle traps in the creek, trapped in the winter and hunted with hounds. He knew how to stretch a dollar. He was just a pretty ordinary guy in this community, except for never owning an internal combustion engine. He's the man on the right in this picture.