I
was born in 1951 to Charlene Wesley Jones and Lawrence John Hornung
in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. My parents were divorced
when I was 2 1/2 and my father immediately remarried and moved to
Florida with his new wife to raise a new family. My brother was
born 2 1/2 years before me, and we remained with our mother. I lived
in Louisville all my life. My Mamaw, Nellie Vaughn was working at
the powder plant in Charlestown, Indiana. My mother was working there
also. My brother and I were boarded out to the James Arnett family
during the week and only got to come home on the weekends. Right
after I started the first grade in Charlestown, Indiana, my Mamaw
retired from the powder plant and my brother and I went to live with
her permanently. My mother soon quit there and started working for
the Clairol company and traveled extensively. She came home often
but it was my Mamaw who raised us. Mamaw was married for the third
time to Charles Ballard who worked at the L & N railroad. He was
an avid Horse racing fan and was at Churchill downs everyday. In
1959 he took pneumonia and died. My Mamaw’s brother Charles
Vaughn, who we lovingly called Uncle Bud also lived with us. He was
a mechanic by trade and kept Mamaw’s car in tip top shape. I
spent hours with him out in the garage. He died of a heart attack in
1963 and I miss him sorely still. He and Mamaw would take summer
trips with my brother and I in tow all over Harlan, Laurel, Knox and
Cumberland Counties in Kentucky and Lee County in Virginia and I
imagine other places I can’t even remember, visiting cousins.
We seemed to do this all summer, especially when it was time to clean
the graves and decorate them for memorial day. Turner Hill Cemetery,
in Harlan County, Kentucky, was not accessible from a car and you
had to walk up the hill to get there. I remember being so afraid of
the snakes when I was there. But we went anyway to always pay our
respects to my great grandmother and others buried there. I remember
most my Great Grandma Serrie Jones and how sad I was when she died.
After we were finished trapsing around Kentucky and Virginia we came
home for a couple of weeks, then headed to Ohio, to visit my Mamaw’s
sister Mattie and her family. We stayed in Ohio for about two weeks
then came home and finished out the summer there. My mother
remarried when I was 10 and my brother was 12. We were taken away
from Mamaw’s house to a new house, in a place called the
suburbs. I hated it and went back to Mamaw’s every weekend
that I was allowed. I and my brother both were sent to parochial
schools and then catholic high schools. Our new step father was
catholic and we were converted. I ran away and got married two days
before my 16th birthday and had my first baby, a daughter, in January
of 1969. Then my first son in January of 1970. Then fifteen months
later my second daughter in April of 1971 and my last child a son in
March 1975. I was nineteen years old with a newborn, a one year and a two year old child. But I loved every minute of being a mother. In 1973 I had the flu and it lasted for a month. I was
almost bedridden and very bored so I started thinking about my
heritage and the fact that I knew nothing about it. I asked Mamaw
what her mothers name was. And she said “Little Mammy”.
I said Mamaw, don’t you know her name and she said it was
Mintie Thomas. That’s all she knew. I asked about her
grandmother and she said they called her “Big Mammy” and
she knew her as Jane Brock. Mamaw couldn’t remember any of the
men’s names at all. She asked why I wanted to know and I told
her I was interested in my roots. She got very upset with me and
said I shouldn’t go digging up skeletons and didn’t need
to know any of that. Well, that got my interest. I went to the
local library in LaGrange, Oldham County, Kentucky and found out you
could order microfilm from the State but it took about a month to get
them in. You could only order two at time. So I ordered them and
waited. In the meantime, I took a trip with Mamaw in the summer of 1973 to Harlan. The entire time I was there I spent at the library and the court house. I obtained so much
information and found out about a little Harlan County Newsletter
that was sent out monthly to subscribers. I subscribed and got
answers back from folks I didn’t even know. We wrote each
other long hand with pen and paper as I didn’t have a
typewriter and there were no computers then. You had to wait weeks
for an answer and it was very difficult to keep it all straight. The last time we visited Harlan County, Kentucky or Pennington Gap, Virginia was in 1978. In
1986 I divorced my husband and my mother and grandmother and I bought
a house together. It was a duplex and they lived downstairs and I
lived upstairs. I met Jim in 1991 and in 1994 we married. We moved
about a mile away but in February of 1995 my mother died suddenly of
an aneurysm and my grandmother had fallen and was in a nursing home
at the time. We didn’t tell her of Mother’s death, and
three weeks later my grandmother died of old age. I was devastated
to lose them both so close together. My ex-husband and my four
children all lived in Florida and I wanted to get out of Kentucky
because the memories were too hurtful to stay there. I wanted to be
closer to my children. We moved to St Petersburg in October of 1995.
I had obtained a computer while in Kentucky but really didn’t
do much with it. I had also put up my genealogy to raise my family
and take care of them. After our move to Florida I got interested
again. I started going online and looking around for any
information that could be available to me concerning my family. I
saw all the beautiful websites and wanted to make one but didn’t
know how. I took a free online course to learn how to do HTML and
the rest as they say is history. Suddenly so many cousins I’d
never heard of were writing me and wanting me to include their part
of the family in with mine. I just couldn’t say no, and now I
have a huge database. I didn’t realize the importance of
keeping my sources when I started and only until I got online did I
really understand. I have tried to include my sources but the first
twenty years of my research is with out any. I have not nor would I
be able to verify all the information that has been given to me and I
so state this in my websites. I only want to help others by giving
them a place to start. I am a grandmother of 9 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter and enjoy
genealogy to this day. I have met so many wonderful cousins and it
has been a blessing. I wish maybe one day to be able to return to
Harlan again where my fondest childhood memories are. My grandmother
would be proud if she knew how far back I have gotten on our family
tree and how I try to help others as so many have helped me.
Update: In February 2016 I divorced my second husband Jim of 25 years and met the most loving man in the entire world and we were married in March 2016. We live in Hudson Florida. I am trying to update my emails on this website but since there are over 7000 pages it is going to be difficult to do this. My sueannmorrow51 email is still active but my new email is sueanndavis51. Either one will reach me.
|
|