By Lenelle Janis
Virginians have inspired many kinds of good music like the bluegrass group which will be the entertainment at our December banquet. Otto Shelor’s Bluegrass America is from Chesapeake and has a loyal following locally for this traditional folk based music. It is music for the present day, coming entirely from America’s heritage out of Virginia’s mountains. A popular style of country music, it remains closest to the traditions of the mountains that border Virginia and Kentucky, its roots with the intrepid Scots, English and Irish who settled there. They brought the Irish jig and the English ballads and from them created a distinctive and unique American sound.
Country music came to general notice in 1916 when Cecil Sharp published folk songs of the Appalachian Mountains and Texas fiddler Eck Robertson cut the first record of "old-time music" in 1922. Radio broadcasts soon followed, reaching the rural area with cowboy songs and barn dance programs. In 1925, the first radio station in Nashville broadcast the barn dances that soon took the name Grand Ole Opry. Country music steamed ahead and a recording industry was formed.
Different styles of country have developed still adhering to the essential characteristics; its content, instrumentation and singing style. The story comes first in importance, telling about practical things of home, real life experiences and work (Tennessee Ernie Ford’s "Fifteen Tons") and always deeply personal (Coal Miner’s Daughter). More rhythmic than melodic, the instrumentation always centered around the banjo, fiddle and guitar accompanying a solo or duet sung with a high tenor voice. The fiddle was the poor man’s violin, simplified and held differently so that they could also sing. The early stars of the hillbilly style were the members of the Virginia based Carter family, who were basically a vocal trio first recorded in 1926. The "down home" characteristic of dress and manner has stayed proudly cowboy/country to the present as country spread out from its rural beginning.
Bluegrass stayed at home in the mountains, fast virtuoso and sometimes instrumental-only "mountain music." The banjo, fiddle and mandolin led the melody, and backed by guitar and string bass, it made spirited music devoted to domestic themes, American values and a positive outlook. It had its documented beginning in the Kentucky/Virginia border area around Bristol and has now spread all the way to a bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
Bill Monroe is acknowledged as the in blue grass when his Blue Grass Boys first appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in 1939. The band was different from traditional county because of its hard-driving and powerful sound utilizing traditional acoustic instruments, highly distinctive vocal harmonies, and the innovation of the mandolin. Mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar and bass formed the format for the band. Songs and rhythms from string bands, gospel (black and white), work songs and country and blues were in solo, duet and quartet harmony. Monroe was noted for his "high lonesome" solo lead singing and for his spectacular mandolin style as in "Rawhide" and now is acknowledged the "Father of Bluegrass music."
Classic bluegrass sound jelled in 1945 when Earl Scruggs introduced his innovative three-finger picking style on the banjo now known as the Scruggs style. Another member of Monroe’s band was Lester Flatt on guitar and lead vocal against Monroe’s tenor.
The Dobro or resophonic Guitar was introduced when Scruggs and Flatt formed their own band. We owe artists like these for music like "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," "Dueling Guitars" and the triple platinum sound track for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" "Tennessee Waltz" is classic country that moved into the mainstream.
Pop music was adapted European music, but country was American and only American, its performers were American, its stories and sounds were American. The sound of country embodied the history of America and represented its basic heritage and character.
{This material can be found more fully on county and bluegrass websites. What I gathered here is notable for the excellent material I had to omit. I didn’t even mention "Your Cheatin Heart."}LJ
The above information on the history of Bluegrass was obtained by Mrs. Janis through www.Google.com sources, retrieved on 29 October, 2011.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Gilmerton Bridge
A page from Amerigo Vespucci's playbook
Matt Yeager
Wallace Room VolunteerWho was Henry G. Gilmerton and why was the Gilmerton Bridge named after him?
-- This question has come up twice in the last six months so it begs setting the record straight.–The correct name of the bridge that crosses the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River on South Military Hwy is the Gilmerton Bridge and not the Henry G. Gilmerton Bridge as it is currently listed on some maps. The Gilmerton Bridge, completed in 1938, was named after the area it is located near - what was then the town of Gilmerton, now a community in the City of Chesapeake.
History - The town of Gilmerton was named after Thomas Walker Gilmer, 22nd Governor of Virginia, who was born in 1802, near Charlottesville at the “Gilmerton” homestead - not to be confused with the village of Gilmerton in Norfolk County, Virginia. Governor Gilmer actually visited the area in 1840 while the Gilmerton Cut and Gilmerton locks were under construction.
The following is a quote from the February 1938 Virginia Highway Bulletin - "On Route 299 there is being constructed a bridge over the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, known locally as the Gilmerton Bridge." - Note - Route 299 is now that section of Route 13/South Military Hwy that runs from Route 58 to Bainbridge Blvd in Chesapeake, VA. –
(The Virginia Highway Bulletins were monthly news bulletins that exchanged information among the 8 highway construction districts in Virginia.)
So now you are probably looking in your ADC map book or at some other map and you see the name Henry G. Gilmerton Bridge where the Gilmerton Bridge is located. It is listed that way, too, in my ADC Hampton Roads map book (21st edition). If you go to earlier editions of the ADC map book (such as the 18th), the bridge is referred to correctly as simply the Gilmerton Bridge.
I can assure you that Henry G. Gilmerton is as real as the Easter Bunny. -- But, where did the name Henry G. Gilmerton come from? My conclusion is that someone merged the name of the Gilmerton Bridge with a real person by the name of Henry G. Gilmer and came up with the name Henry G. Gilmerton and the maps started listing the bridge with that name.
More History - Prior to the existing Campostella Bridge that currently crosses the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River there was an earlier Campostella Bridge, a draw bridge that was completed in 1935. Although that bridge was commonly known as the Campostella Bridge, its official name was the Henry G. Gilmer Bridge. Mr. Henry G. Gilmer in the early 1930's was a member of the State Highway Commission from the Bristol District, and was instrumental in getting $400,000 of Federal Highway funds toward the needed $535,000 to construct that bridge in 1935. For his efforts they named the Campostella Bridge The Henry G. Gilmer Bridge.
Friday, May 27, 2011
How I Got Into An "Oily" Business
The Wallace Memorial Room is located on the first floor of the Chesapeake Central Library. It houses a collection of materials for use in historical and genealogical research. It does not have a formal research service in place, but is staffed by volunteers from the Norfolk County Historical Society of Chesapeake.
HOURS OF OPERATION
Monday - Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday - Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday - 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Friday - Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday - 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
MAIL REFERENCE QUESTIONS TO:
Chesapeake Public Library
Wallace Memorial Room
298 Cedar Rd
Chesapeake, VA 23322
Wallace Memorial Room
298 Cedar Rd
Chesapeake, VA 23322
Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope with your request.
A personal story by one of our staff members regarding genealogy and her family’s search is shared below:
How I Got Into An “Oily” Business
By Alice Marie HUMPHREY Dyer
It all started when my Uncle Winston Humphrey in Utah called my father in New Mexico and screamed into the phone, “Earl, we’re rich, RICH, Rich!”
What follows, is my attempt to record for posterity the events that developed from that phone call. (Posterity = Future generations taken collectively; All of one’s descendants.)
For, you see, it is my family’s CONCERN with its descendants and with its progenitors which is the root of this story.
My Uncle Winston and my mother, Mary (his sister-in-law), and my Uncle Alvin Russell (my mother’s brother ---who, alas, does not come into THIS particular tale) have all, over the years, taken a keen interest in the subject of GENEALOGY.
Although some people become involved in this field because they want to prove (or improve) their pedigrees – my mother and uncles take DELIGHT in digging up information, that was better left buried, on the weird and unsavory peculiarities of our clan. Luckily for them, our ancestors have been pretty obliging in this respect.
It was while in the middle of shaking his family tree that my Uncle Winston came across a newspaper article that said, “MISSING LINK TO SPINDLETOP FORTUNE FOUND”, and the name of this “missing link”?---William Humphrey! Now, since my uncle’s father (also my father’s father – my paternal grandfather) was named William Humphrey, and since we were all born in a part of East Texas where “Spindletop” is well known, my uncle’s interest was immediately grabbed!
After reading this newspaper article several times, my uncle placed a long distance call to the “Humphrey Heirs Association” to see if he could find out any more information (chiefly, if we were related and how much money we were getting if we were). What they told him was that there were already 7,500 OTHER Humphrey’s asking the same questions ---but, no matter.
What the newspaper article stated was this: That in 1901, in southeast Texas, a man named Pelham Humphrey was killed in a bar room brawl. After Pelham died, his oil well hit a gusher, but, ALAS---he had never married and left no heirs.
So, the oil company invested the money, put it into an account, and there it has sat for over eighty years drawing interest. Meanwhile, the lawyers for the oil company have been diligently searching for a Humphrey heir to give Pelham’s fortune to.
Throwing this paper down, my Uncle Winston frantically ran his finger over his LDS approved genealogy chart and ----THERE IT WAS---- William Johnson Humphrey, Pelham’s long lost brother. Let’s see, William Johnson Humphrey begot George Hezekiah Humphrey, and George Hezekiah Humphrey begot William Jepthane Humphrey ---“THERE’S DADDY! cried my uncle! And William Jepthane Humphrey begot both Earl Wright Humphrey (my father) and Winston Bruin Humphrey (my uncle), not to mention Mary Ethel Humphrey (Hopkins) - my aunt and their sister!
EUREKA! “The whole family is rich and ---best of all---most of them are DEAD!”
It was, at this point, that my father received his phone call.
-----
I must mention that, heretofore, whenever my mother or uncles became engaged in a discussion of lineage, my father turned to them his deaf ear, and would mutter such things as “Genealogy %#$@!”
In fact, he had ridiculed my mother by bringing up the touchy point of how her Aunt Virgie was born with webbed feet --- thereby proving that the Russell’s (her relations) were not descended from apes like the rest of us humans, but from DUCKS ---which also explained why all the Russell’s were short, fat, and waddled when they walked.
However, when my father learned that in digging through his family’s past, he was apt to be digging for GOLD – he became a bonafide prospector.
---
Since my mother, THE LEVEL-HEAD, was away on a business trip at this time, my father seized the opportunity and drove to my uncle’s house with their mother (my Granny). Along the way [from New Mexico to Utah] figuring their luck had changed, they stopped in Wendover, Nevada for a little serious gambling at the slot machines.
When they got to my uncle’s house, the three of them, along with my cousin Bruin (who is not a Humphrey, but his mother – my Aunt Mary Ethel – is), sat down at the kitchen table and they figured furiously on the backs of old envelopes and on folded paper napkins. What they concluded was this:
That IF all the 7,500 Humphreys that were in the Humphrey Heirs Association, plus another 500 Humphreys that they “might not know about yet” (thereby rounding the figure off to 8,000 – easier to divide) were ENTITLED to the 200 Billion Dollar fortune; that their share, after taxes, would come to 2.5 million dollars apiece!
My father magnanimously declared then and there that of his 2-1/2 million, he was going to give one million to his oldest daughter, Marie (that’s me!) and one million to his baby girl, Susan (my sister) and would keep the half-million for himself. “Shoot”, he said, “I can live on half a million.”
The rest of the visit with my Uncle Winston was spent in discussing what each would buy with his portion of the family fortune.
Knowing that my mother was still unaware of what was taking place, my father and Granny then hot-footed it to my sister’s house (in nearby Montana) to spread the good news.
My sister has inherited several good Humphrey genes herself, and when she heard that some of the 7,500 Humphreys laying claim to the money spelled their name with an “I E S” on the end, she threw up her hands and declared, “Well, all those “I E S’s” can go to blazes, they’re not getting any!”
Shortly after my father and Granny got back home to New Mexico, my mother came in from her business trip. She heard this tale, and promptly poured the oil of logic upon the churning waters that they had stirred up.
Now, I live in Virginia – and THIS is where I came into the picture.
My mother called me on the phone to tell me about her business trip, and during the course of the conversation she casually asked, “Well, did you hear about the Humphrey Inheritance?” When I said, “No”, she proceeded to tell me about it in a calm, orderly fashion.
I knew that my father was nearby, because I could hear him in the background correcting my mother on the finer points of the story. He interrupted her about seven times, so finally in disgust, my mother did what she should have done in the first place – she handed the phone to my father.
He proceeded to re-tell the whole story, and there was a DIFFERENCE in the telling. While listening to my mother, this was just another amusing and interesting chapter in the family history. It was as though I was viewing this epic from some higher, loftier plane – some place where I could see the antics of my tribe, love them, and still laugh at their folly.
BUT, when my father got on the phone the story became a saga! I could SEE my father’s eyes mist, FEEL his heart pumping, and HEAR the intake of breath, as he told the tragic tale of poor Uncle Pelham – a lonely old bachelor who had worked hard all his life, “shot by mistake” in a bar room where he had gone to seek solace from his worries ---dying alone, never knowing that he had made his fortune.
By the time my father finished talking, something strange had happened to me. MY eyes were misty, MY heart was pumping, ---and I was sucking wind!
It had previously been assumed (by the members of my family, at least) that when my chromosomes were split, the LEVEL-HEADED Russell genes were dominant. I can only attribute my actions to a recessive “flighty” Humphrey gene that was lurking inside.
I was still in a trancelike state when I hung up the phone. I then calmly walked into the living room and turned to my husband and said, “John, we’re rich, RICH, RICH!”
---
It took John several minutes to get anything coherent out of me, but when I finally began to blurt out the story, he kept laughing and interrupting me saying such things as “Oh, come on!” and “Where did you hear that %$#!” and “That CAN’T be right!” All the while he was exchanging little “knowing” looks with our fourteen-year-old nephew, Jonathan McCracken, who was visiting. It was most annoying!
Yes, it was plain that John didn’t believe that he was living with an heiress, but I think that little Jonathan had doubts. I know this because when I got ready to take him home later, he got my coat for me, held the door, and flashed me a smile so big I could see his tonsils.
The next day I had a hard time at work. Several times I found my mind wandering.
Now, I don’t know for sure, but I think John’s mind was wandering a little too, because that night at home he made me go over the whole story again – several times – just so he could “get the facts all straight” in his mind. Not only was he NOT laughing anymore, he was also beginning to join me in little “discussions”. See example below:
ALICE MARIE – “What if it’s true and I get about $10,000? Wouldn’t that be nice?
JOHN – “Yes, it would.”
ALICE MARIE – “I’d give you half.”
JOHN – “Thank you.”
--------long pause------
JOHN – “Well, if it’s $10,000 or less you can have it all. You don’t have to give me any.”
ALICE MARIE – Why? Don’t you like money?”
JOHN – “Yes, but $10,000 is such a piddling amount, it’s not worth messing with.”
(This last statement comes from a man who does most of his shopping at Goodwill and who thinks “eating out” means a trip through the drive-up window of Taco Bell.)
More conversation:
ALICE MARIE – “Well, I dreamed last night that what I actually got was $16,000.”
I then proceed to list all the things I want to buy with that money.
JOHN – “That sounds good, but you won’t have enough money to do all that. You’ll only have $8,000 because you said you’d give me half.”
ALICE MARIE – “Wait a minute. You said that if it was less than $10,000 you didn’t want it. $8,000 is less than $10,000.”
JOHN – “Yes, BUT you said $16,000. Half of $16,000 is $8,000.”
---
John is normally a pretty nice guy anyway, but over the next couple of days, whenever he said or did anything nice, I would accuse him “You just want my money!” He would then say, “Alice, for gosh sakes, you don’t HAVE any money!” I would reply to that by calling him “Pauper!” – and he would call me “Queenie!” Things were going downhill fast.
So, later that night, we called my parents so that John could hear for himself exactly what my parents had told me. (I hoped he would THEN show me the proper respect!)
But, during the phone call it became apparent that my father was having trouble with insubordination at his house too! At one point, we could clearly hear my Granny saying in the background, “Well, when we get our money….” My father interrupted her with “Mama, where do you get this WE stuff? You’re not a Humphrey! You were only married to one!”
“Oh, no!”, said John, and then he and my mother got tickled and started laughing. John then sealed his fate by blabbing to my mother that I had been so busy counting my “money” that I had forgotten to make out checks for both the house payment and the truck payment until he reminded me. My mother cackled and then instructed John not to “let her buy anything on credit!” Ha! Ha! Ha! ---but I didn’t laugh.
The next several weeks at our house were kind of hectic! John spent his lunch hours at the downtown library in their genealogy department and he found out that we Humphreys named a large percentage of our sons William, thereby making it difficult to find out if OUR William was the right one. I spent most of my time on the telephone. I talked to relatives I hadn’t spoken with in years. The only thing I learned was that that ALL the Humphreys were doing the same thing!
When my Uncle Winston called my father, you see, he then called my Aunt Mary and – as he said to me – “Telling her about money is like throwing blood on ‘Jaws’!” My uncle called my aunt, she called my father, and he called Cousin Pauline. My uncle called London, England and my sister called everyone! When this mess is over, we will need a fortune just to pay the phone bills.
During all this hullabaloo, one night when our nephew Jonathan was over, he began to talk about “When I get my money…” I interrupted him with the question as to how exactly did he think HE was getting any money? His name wasn’t Humphrey and he wasn’t blood related. Well, it was simple. He was getting his half out of the half I was giving to his Uncle John (my husband).
When John heard this, he said, “Well for goodness sake Johnny, don’t you think I ought to give some of my money to [the matriarch] Great-Grandma?” Well, Jonathan conceded that it was only fair, because if Uncle John gave half of his half that Aunt Alice Marie gave him to Great-Grandma – she was sure to give him (Jonathan) some.
“Well, “said my John, “don’t you think she will give half of it to her daughter, your Grandma?” “Yes”, said Jonathan. “And”, my John continued “don’t you think that Grandma will want to give some of hers to her daughter, your mother?” “Yes, “said Jonathan, “and then my mother can give me half of hers!”
He thought a minute, and then grabbed a piece of paper and began to figure. In a little while he cried out, “Wait a minute! If Alice’s father gives her a million dollars and she gives half of that to Uncle John, then he only gets one-fourth!
And…..if Uncle John gives half of his one-fourth to Great-grandma, and she gives half to Grandma, and Grandma gives half to my Mother and my Mother gives me half of hers….Hey! I’ll only get one hundred and twenty-eight of a million!”
---
Probably not enough to buy a decent car! Life is just not fair.
Monday, May 9, 2011
He Wore the Uniform
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| World War I Uniform and Other Artifacts from the Wallace Room |
There were many other items in our timeline – a replica Revolutionary War musket we affectionately call “Big Bess,” a pair of binoculars used in the Civil War, maps, some old photographs and daguerreotypes, even a stovepipe hat -- but the uniform commanded the most attention.
Library patrons seemed to gravitate to it. Some patrons recognized it. Some patrons asked questions about it. Some just stood in front of it…staring at it…contemplating its significance. Who wore the uniform?
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| World War I Officer's Uniform Donated by the Estate of A. Otto Lynch |
Lieutenant Lynch was a 30-year-old school teacher in 1917 when he enlisted as a private in the Army. He was first stationed at Fort McPherson, Georgia, where the German crews of two captured surface raiders, the Kronprinz Wilhelm and the Prinz Eitel Friederich were held as prisoners of war.
He quickly rose through the ranks during his first years of service. By May 1918, he was promoted to second lieutenant and was ordered to Fort Lee in Virginia to help organize the 320th Service Battalion, Quartermaster Corps which would feed, clothe, and arm U.S. troops in Europe. His battalion left for Brest, France in July 1918 as part of the American Expeditionary Forces.
In Brest, he served as a quartermaster officer in the Service of Supply (SoS). By the fall of 1918, the SoS supplied food, clothing, arms, ammunition, as well as personal and housekeeping equipment. In addition, the SoS provided support services such as paying soldiers, doing laundry, performing salvage operations, supplying areas for bathing and disinfection (ridding troops of lice, or “cooties”), and even identifying and caring for the dead (carried out by the Graves Registration Service).
Members of the SoS in WWI were assigned to one of three duty areas: base operations (huge, central supply depots near major ports that distributed materiel forward), intermediate sections (where supplies were stored for distribution to combat zones), or advanced sections (located directly behind the combat zones). Lynch served in one of the advanced sections, which shipped daily supplies and rations directly to the front.
By August 1919, he was back on U.S. soil after an honorable discharge as a second lieutenant. He immediately passed the Virginia State Bar exam that month and began to practice law, spent 9 years as a title examiner, married Viola Lena Walter of Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1922, and was appointed commonwealth attorney in 1928. He remained in that position until 1954 when he became county treasurer for Norfolk County. He served as treasurer until he retired in 1963 when Norfolk County and the city of South Norfolk merged to become the city of Chesapeake, Virginia.
Faithful and skillful service to his fellow citizens reflects Mr. Lynch’s dedication to community and country, both in and out of uniform. The Norfolk County Historical Society wishes to thank the Lynch family for their donation of historical mementos and artifacts to the Wallace Room. Do you have items that may be of significance to your area's history? Have you done research on your family history or genealogy? Consider donating these items to your local historical or genealogical society.
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