Whether you are an experienced genealogist, or just beginning your family history search, sharing your family stories is an important part of documenting the past. Hearing what our ancestors experienced gives us a glimpse of what life was really like for them.
I was blessed to have lived next door to my grandmother as an adult. She loved the old family stories her grandparents told her and she shared them with me. We spent hours documenting the stories so they could be passed down. I can still hear her saying, “others in the family don’t remember some of these stories, but I remember my grandmother telling them. I would listen, and ask her over and over again to tell them. I guess you got that from me!”
Yes ma’am Grandma Coot, I guess I did.
I’ll begin sharing one of the first stories I remember hearing. The story took place in late 1854 on my ggg-grandparent’s farm in Amite County, MS. The characters include my infant gg-grandmother Lydia Brabham, and her parents Zachariah and Levinia Brabham.
Baby Lydia Was Kidnapped
My ggg-grandmother Lavinia Brabham had just finished getting dinner ready and had gone out to call the others in to eat. Grandpa Zachariah and the older boys were in the field and would be coming in soon.
A Dog-trot Style House
Grandma Brabham’s house was a dog-trot style house, with bedrooms and living area on one side and the kitchen and washroom on the other, with a wide-open hall between. The hall was a great breezeway and the younger children played there on the porch in the shade. Baby Lydia was just a few months old, and Grandma Brabham had laid her on a quilt she had spread on the porch.
Sweeping the Yard
Grandma could watch the children while she swept the yard. They used to sweep the yards, clearing them of leaves and grass. Lawnmowers were not invented yet so they would sweep the yards clear down to the hard dirt. The brooms were handmade from dogwoods that grew on the land behind the house. Brush brooms we called them.
Baby Lydia had fallen asleep on the quilt and Grandma Brabham rolled up another quilt to block her in so she would not roll off the porch. When she finished the yard she sat on the porch swing to rest while she waited for the others to come in from the field.
Lydia Was Gone!
Soon, Grandpa Zach and the boys came in from the field. Grandma Brabham took the other children inside the house to get washed up, while Grandpa put away the field tools in the barn. Just as Grandma was getting the other children to the table to eat, they heard a noise on the porch and baby Lydia started to cry. Grandma jumped up to check on her baby, but when she stepped on the porch, Lydia was gone!
A Stranger Took Her
Grandma screamed as she saw a man running across the field with baby Lydia in his arms. It was an Indian that had taken her off the porch. The Indians were still living in the community at the time. Grandpa was finishing at the barn and heard Grandma scream. He came running out of the barn and saw the man running across the field with baby Lydia. He yelled at the man and told him to put her down. But the stranger kept running as hard as he could.
Grandpa was tall, and long-legged, and he was catching up to the man quickly. When the man got to a sand bed, (you know what that is, where the hills come together the sand piles up), the man laid her down in the sand, and ran off. Grandpa got to Lydia and picked her up. He hugged his baby girl and hurried back to the house so they could make certain she was not hurt. The stranger disappeared over the hill.
They never really knew why the man took Lydia, but they thought they knew who he was. He lived at the settlement nearby, but they were never sure. One thing IS for sure, Grandma Brabham never left another baby on the porch unattended!
I love these old family stories. How about you? Do you have family stories that you want to leave your grandkids?
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