The History of the Daulton/Smith Family
—Joyce Daulton Wisner
THIS WE REMEMBER
“We celebrate the good days, and we’re together on the sadder days. And it’s nice to have support that you can count on.”
We
The History of the
This
emember Daulton/Smith Family
Howard’s Early Years
H
oward Breckinridge Daulton was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, on May 26, 1914, just two months before the first gunshots that would lead to World War I were fired in Europe. But the overseas conflict was a distant event in the minds of most folks who populated rural Kentucky. The residents of Fleming County in those days were mostly farmers who grew Burley tobacco, a light air-cured plant used in cigarette production, and raised dairy cows. Their main concerns centered on the weather, their crops, their health and the health of their children, and local and regional issues. Some farmers, of course, were required to leave their farms to serve their country during the war. In fact, military records show that Howard’s father, William Delmore (known as Willie) Daulton, registered for the draft in September 1918 at age 35, but apparently, he was never called up to serve. Howard’s mother and father—Willie and Anna Bell (née William (Willie) Delmore McDowell) Daulton—started out as sharecroppers and eventually Daulton and Anna Bell McDowell Daulton. saved up enough money to buy their own fertile farmland in Fleming County. A search of deeds archived at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives in Frankfort reveals that Willie and Anna
◀ Kentucky foothills.
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THIS WE REMEMBER: The History of the Daulton/Smith Family
Flemingsburg Kenton Boone Campbell
Plummers Landing
Gallatin Bracken Carroll Grant Pendleton Mason Trimble Lewis Robertson Greenup Owen Harrison Henry Oldham Boyd Fleming Nicholas Carter Scott Franklin Shelby Bourbon Jefferson Bath Rowan Elliott Fayette Montgomery Woodford Lawrence Bullitt SpencerAnderson Clark Meade Menifee Morgan Jessamine Hancock Nelson Johnson Powell Mercer Martin Henderson Wolfe Breckinridge Madison Washington Daviess Hardin Magoffin Estill Union Garrard Boyle Lee Floyd Marion Larue McLean Breathitt Webster Pike Grayson Ohio Lincoln Jackson Owsley Crittenden Rockcastle Taylor Casey Knott Perry Hart Green Hopkins Livingston Edmonson Muhlenberg Butler Clay Caldwell Laurel Letcher Leslie Adair Pulaski BallardMcCracken Lyon Metcalfe Russell Warren Barren Christian Knox Logan Carlisle Marshall Harlan Cumberland Todd Wayne McCreary Trigg Allen Monroe Graves Bell Simpson Whitley Clinton Hickman Calloway Fulton
A map of Kentucky counties.
acquired a total of 326 acres in Fleming County by purchasing a tract or two at a time over the course of 46 years. Their first acquisition, recorded in 1912, was a 25-acre parcel on the banks of Crain Creek, near the unincorporated community of Plummers Landing in eastern Fleming County. They purchased the parcel for $250 in cash from George and Emma Cooper and Millard and Jennie Cooper. A second acquisition, recorded on April 26, 1920, was a 35-acre parcel, also along Crain Creek, purchased for $1,000 from William and Lula Bumgardner. (Of the total, $500 was paid with a promissory note due in a year with six percent interest, and the remaining $500 plus interest was due in two years.) The deeds seem to indicate that these first two acquisitions were for contiguous properties. Only Willie’s name, and not Anna’s, is listed on these first two deeds. On the deeds, Willie’s address is listed as Nisi, Fleming County. (Nisi must have been an unincorporated community that no longer exists.) The 1920 U.S. Census listed Anna
Essie's Early Years
Rebecca Smith feeding her chickens. Date unknown.
nearby to take her for medical treatment, Patsy explained, “somebody stitched her up with a needle and thread, basically.” She was left with a visible scar on her neck, which her children all noticed and asked her about. At some point during Essie’s early years, her family moved to Ohio, near the town of Portsmouth, just across the Kentucky state border on the Ohio River. Essie attended her first three years of school in Ohio, according to Shirley. After a few years, however, the Smiths apparently moved back to Kentucky. The 1930 federal census shows that when Essie was 14, the family was living in the unincorporated community of Hillsboro, in Fleming County, Kentucky. By then, the two oldest siblings, Autie and Otie, were no longer living at home and the youngest, Woodrow, was seven years old. In the census ledger, Raney Smith’s profession is listed as “truck farmer” in business with two of his sons, Ocal and Ovie. Essie told her children that she attended school only up to 8th grade. According to the 1940 federal census, conducted seven years after Essie and Howard were married, Essie stated that she had continued on page 32
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Henry Roseberry, a Methodist circuit rider and Essie’s maternal grandfather, is seated, middle of the front row (#5), with colleagues from the Ministers of Enterprise Association, August 1911.
Henry Roseberry, standing in the middle of the group, with members of his congregation. Date unknown.
Essie's Early Years
Henry Roseberry and wife, Levisa Conley Roseberry (Essie’s maternal grandparents), seated, with Nancy Jane Day Conley (Essie’s maternal great-grandmother) standing, and an unidentified child, pre-1911.
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THIS WE REMEMBER: The History of the Daulton/Smith Family
ESSIE’S CHILDHOOD This material is adapted from the memories of Essie’s sister-in-law, Emma Cooper Smith (married to Ovie), in her book Yours and Mine: Growing Up in Rural Rustic Kentucky.
E
ssie’s family relied on oil lamps for lighting. Oil was brought to the little country stores on wagons, and sometimes in winter the roads were impassable. The family would run out of oil, so they would have to use pine torches and the fireplace for light. Many a time the children had to hold a pine torch for their mother to get breakfast by. There seemed to be no other shortage, as they were dependent on their own selves for much of their needs. They burned wood to cook with, but for heat they burned coal in their fireplace, on grates. They had their own coal mines and their own coal for winter use. They may not have lived entirely off the land but pretty near it. They had their own sheep for wool. Rebecca, Essie’s mother, carded the wool and had a spinning wheel. She made yarn and knitted the family’s socks and mittens. She would send the yarn off to have Lindsey blankets made as well as material to make little Lindsey shirts. Rebecca made the small children (even the boys) little dresses from this material. The family had chickens and geese, and they picked these geese in a certain time of the moon. The down would come off easy. From the
down, they made nice feather beds and pillows. Their mattresses were ticking filled with pieces of corn shuck and corn silk, which is very soft. The feather bed was laid on top of the shuck tick. You talk about a good warm soft bed, this was it. Every fall the tick shucks were emptied and filled with new shucks. The family had hogs to kill for meat and their own milk and butter. They had honey and sorghum molasses. They dried apples and beans. Beans were strung on strings and hung behind the stove to dry. Red peppers and pumpkins were cut in rounds and hung on a stick over the fireplace to dry. Many foods were canned, and beans were pickled. They had corn, cabbage, mustard, and cucumbers. Their gardens were “hill and truck patches” that grew vegetables. Also, they had watermelons and mush-melons, popcorn and broom corn. They made their own brooms. Their winter gardens were mounds of dirt where they buried potatoes, cabbage, and turnips. They put their sweet potatoes in big boxes of dry sand from the creek. Many things grew in the woods and were gathered: huckleberries, raspberries, and blackberries, rhubarb, apples, plums, and peaches. Everywhere there were grapes. There was much to be gathered from the woods to sell. For instance, there were American chestnuts, which used to grow in abundance. The family would gather them by the bushels for sale. They also
Essie's Early Years
A home in rural eastern Kentucky.
sold ginseng, yellow root, and mayapple root. They gathered moss to sell to nurseries. It was rolled up off rotten logs, put in sacks, and sold. Chestnut oak bark was gathered, but it was heavy and thick. They took it off trees, rolled it
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up, tied and corded it, and then hauled it out of the woods on a sled. Then the bark was put on a wagon and taken to Redwine and put on a train and sent to a tanning factory that made leather for harnesses, shoes, etc. Raney (Essie’s father) had to get up early before daylight and walk to the Lennox sawmill several miles away. He made homemade chairs, and the family used hickory bark to make chair bottoms, as well as baskets. Quilts were another thing they made. The whole family could quilt. They papered their rooms and spread sand rock on their floors every spring. The kitchen and pantry were papered with newspapers and Sears Roebuck catalogs. For the floors, they would go get sand rock from the banks of the river and beat this up fine and spread it on the floors. These were walked on several days, then swept off. They would be spotless. So white, pretty, and clean. This all seemed like work, but they played too. Fox and geese, foot races, checkers, baseball, horseshoes, mumble peg, fox and hounds, foot races, and other games. They rode horses and raced them with other kids. They had dogs to hunt with and sold furs they would catch.
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THIS WE REMEMBER: The History of the Daulton/Smith Family
Howard and Essie’s decision to marry apparently was not roundly met with joy, since it was no secret that Howard’s strong-willed mother, Anna, disapproved of the union. Anna had envisioned a highly educated woman as a good match for her son, and she did not look kindly on Essie’s limited schooling. “Grandma was disap‑ pointed, and she let Mother know it,” Shirley said. “There was friction right from the beginning.” Joyce said no one would have satisfied Anna because, at the root of it, “Grandma had a hard time sharing Dad. Mother took Grandmother’s baby from her.” Although there well may have been an initial physical attraction between Essie and Howard, the seeds of problems that would later surface in their marriage seemed to be there from the start. “Their relationship was unequal,” Buster points out. “She was from a big, rural family and had limited education. And he was a whippersnapper who had gone to college. It just intrigues me as to what would have drawn them together, except that my mother was really pretty.” Sheila noted that the well-educated, self-confident Howard would have seemed to Essie to be a good catch. “At the time my dad wasn’t a minister yet. But I think my mom kind of thought that she was going to have this very nice life,” Sheila said. “They were going to have a family, and she was going to be a housewife. She was young by our standards, but she was certainly at a marrying age in that time.” Howard and Essie’s wedding took place on Christmas Eve day of 1933 in the pastor’s home, which was one of the few houses in Flemingsburg that had electric lights, according to Shirley. To complicate matters, the newlyweds at first lived with Howard’s parents in the house on Cherry Grove Road on the farm east of Flemingsburg where Willie and Anna were sharecropping. There, morning, noon, and night Essie was under the eye of her highly critical mother-inlaw. It could not have been a comfortable situation for the young couple. A year after they were married, Howard and Essie had their first child: Clay Owens Daulton was born on January 3, 1935. At the time, Howard was 20 and Essie, 19. Clay Owens would have been born in the bedroom of the house on Cherry Grove Road since there were no maternity hospitals in rural Kentucky in those days.
Getting Married and Starting a Family
Essie in front of Howard and Essie’s first car, about 1933.
“It was difficult for my mother to be taking care of a child there in Grandma’s house with Grandma, who was so hung up with her son,” Joyce said. Tragically, when he was 10 months old, Clay Owens developed pneumonia and died. He was buried in the Daulton family plot in the Hurst Cemetery in Goddard where Howard’s infant sister Lorena and other family members were buried. The engraving on his gravestone reads simply: “Clay Owens. Son of Howard & Essie Daulton. Jan. 3–Oct. 18, 1935.” “It was very sad,” Joyce recalled.
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ESSIE’S RECIPES
Lemon Bars (via Joyce)
INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
· 3 T lemon juice · 1 cup sugar · 3 T flour · 1/2 t baking powder · grated lemon rind · l cup flour · 1/2 cup butter · 1/4 t salt · 1/4 cup powdered sugar · 2 eggs, well beaten
For crust: Work first 5 ingredients together until of mealy consistency. Press into a 9-inch-square pan. Bake 15 minutes at 350°. For lemon filling: Combine remaining ingredients and pour into hot crust. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. When cool, cut into bars and roll in powdered sugar. Store in refrigerator. Yields 15 bars. Note: if using 9" x 13" pan, increase ingredients to 1-1/2 times the amounts.
Parker House Dinner Rolls (via Sheila)
INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
· 1 cup milk · 1 T sugar · 2 T butter · 3/4 t salt · 2 T very, very warm water · 1 package active dry yeast · 1 egg · 2-2/3 cup all-purpose flour
In a heavy‑bottomed sauce pan, add milk and scald on medium-low heat. Add sugar, butter, and salt and stir until dissolved. In a large bowl, add water and sprinkle with yeast. To the yeast mixture, add the milk mixture when it has cooled to lukewarm. Then beat in the egg. Gradually stir flour into the milk mixture until it becomes too thick to stir, and then knead in remaining flour. Form the dough into a ball and place in greased bowl. Rub butter over the top of the dough. Cover with a clean dishcloth and place in a warm spot until dough doubles in size. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface (not too thin). Cut circles with floured glass, crease circles, and fold in half. Press slightly to hold shape. Place rolls on greased cookie sheet, cover, and let rise until they reach desired size. Once risen, you can brush with melted butter. Bake for 20-25 minutes in oven at 425°. Serve with homemade jam, honey, or molasses.
Potato Salad (via Patsy)
Buster asked if I would try to re‑create this recipe, and since there has never been anything written down as to how one ends up with potato salad that tastes like Mom’s, here is my “so‑called method.” INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
· 6 large russet potatoes · 1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced · 2 T sweet pickle relish, plus more as desired · 1 t dill pickle juice or bread & butter pickle juice (my preference) · 2 large eggs, hardboiled and finely shredded · 1 t mustard, regular or mildly flavored (no Dijon) · mayonnaise as needed · 1-1/2 t celery salt, plus more as desired · onion powder · garlic powder · salt and pepper
Boil potatoes until the skins start to break a little. Check with a thin fork to be sure they are cooked all the way through (fork will slide in and out easily). Cool and peel. (You don’t want them cold, just slightly still warm or room temperature. Then just peel them in thin short pieces across the potato, or make small cubes of potatoes.) While the potatoes are cooking, in a large mixing bowl combine green onions, sweet pickle relish, pickle juice, and eggs. When the potatoes are cooled and peeled, add them to the ingredients in bowl. Start stirring all of it together with the mustard and at least 2 big tablespoons of mayonnaise to wet the ingredients. Add more mayonnaise as needed to bring the salad to a creamy consistency. You should end up with small pieces of potato and almost some mashed potato in the bowl. (If you think the potato chunks are too big, take a potato masher and mash the salad a few times.) Then add celery salt, a dash each of onion powder and garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!