Susan, Rose and Lize
Dark, beautiful women. Years later as Lize sat in the rocking chair by the fire smoking a small pipe, you could imagine an Indian Princess in her youth. No princess's life for these women. Their lives were hard but they held on like many women of their time. They held their families together and they held them close. They stayed close even though they didn't see each other every day. When Susan died, Lize suffered terribly.
They were from a family of eight children. When their father died, their older brother, Ancil sold the farm and moved them all to Lee County.
Lize lost her husband and raise most of her family alone. Susan suffered under the hands of an abusive husband later in life. Rose had her jaw broken by a dentist in her youth and suffered with pain for the rest of her life.
A commentary on the times? Maybe. Where would these women go, what would they do. They had no choice but to live the lives they did. I am grateful that they did for it's the women like these that handed down the meaning of love of family.
Catharine Susan Cody Patrick; b. November 6, 1882
Eliza Cody Hale; b. March 12, 1885
Rosey B. Cody Quillen; b. February 25, 1875
Contributed by Norma S.

She had one blue eye and one brown eye. When she was young, people wouldn't look her in the face. They thought she had the "evil eye".
Born in Hancock County, Tennessee, she told the tale of coming to Lee County walking behind a wagon. She married John Smith and had 2 children but only one daughter lived to be an adult. John died in the coal mines and she met George Washington Patrick, good looking but with wandering feet. She had to pack up her small belongings and move everytime George decided to move on. There were four children by George, two daughters and two sons. The youngest daughter also had one blue eye and one brown eye. She died at 4 years old in her father's arms. Looking down at the child, he said "Lil Darling I'll be with you in a year." (He was.) Years later she married again to an abusive man who poisoned her young son with arsenic covered strawberries.
Her life was hard but typical of so many women in that time. I don't remember her but I do remember a warm and loving feeling everytime I think of her. She was my Granny.
Contributed by Norma S.

She had pretty white hands with dimples. Her father died when she was 8 years old in the "Great Flu Epidemic". Her mother gave birth to her baby brother 3 days later. Her mother did laundry to feed her children. The little girl washed a pail of dirty diapers a day. At fifteen she married. At sixteen she gave birth to her first child and lack of knowledge from the doctor in attendance took it's life. At seventeen, another child lost under a doctor's care. No more doctors. Six more children, a life of routine. Children to feed, clothes to scrub on the wash board, fires to build with coal, animals to take care of, an acre of garden to hoe.
When I look at her picture, I see dreams in those beautiful eyes. Did she have regrets? Some. Did she have worries? Many. Did she miss her pretty white hands? Every now and then, a comment about "my ole rough hands".
When young I thought she was the meanest mother around. Now I know, she was the best mother around who always did and gave her best. I still miss her but I know that she has those pretty white hands again.
Contributed by Norma S.

My Mother, Joan (Hobbs) Kirk, had thirteen children just in the span of seventeen years. While my father worked the coal mines, she worked the garden and the old rocky hillside, where ever a stalk of corn and field beans would grow. At harvest time beans, tomatoes, pickles, chow chow, etc. were canned to tide the family through the winter. We didn't have a lot of variety on the table, but we never went hungry.
I started at an early age, dragging fire wood out of the woods and trying to chop it with a very dull axe. I can remember her helping me when I was too young to get the job done. As I look back, as a child I can't ever remember her hugging me---Both my grandmothers did--But I am sure she must have when I was a baby, because she often told me, "You were the prettiest baby that I have ever seen." I am sure that the love and compassion was stored there in her heart, but with a house full of screaming, crying, rowdy children, plus all the work she had to do, the day slipped away before she could show it. In later years that changed somewhat and her life became a little easier.
But I believe she was like many other women that lived through the twenties and thirties with large families to feed, the hard work and stress to hold the family together, especially in the coal mining areas where the men worked hard, but sadly some of them drank hard and made it even harder for the mother to make ends meet.
To these mothers and all mothers of coal miners, I salute you, for because of the way of life that you had to endure I believe it left scars on your soul that only God can heal. And I pray that the ones that have left us are now resting in His care.
Contributed by K. Carson Kirk