Family Stories
My goal in setting up this section on the site is to have a place to post those special memories. Happy or sad, long or short it really doesn't matter. Just those little memories that seem to mysteriously pop into our minds. Usually, when we least expect them. A simple smell, a certain place or color and suddenly it's there; a memory of a certain person or event in our lives. Please think about sharing them with our extended family.
Gramma and the Revenuers
The following story is about my maternal grandmother, Hally Evelyn Butrick (Cecil-1) Inman-2. This story was told by Gramma Inman directly...
At some point during the depression, Grampa Cecil left Gramma & the five children.
As a single parent with five children to support, Gramma had to find a way to bring money into the household. At that time, women couldn't work the mines, so she put her creative mind to work and saw that there was a need for good hot food that the miners could enjoy during their breaks. So she gathered up her supplies, erected a tent, and started selling hot meals to the miners as they surfaced. As time went on (and her success grew), her customers explained that the only way she could improve on the service would be to add a good 'stiff' drink before they had to go back into the mines.
Given this new opportunity to bring in more money, Gramma set to work building a still behind her property in the "back woods". Shortly there after she was providing not only a hot home cooked meal to the miners but a libation (or two) to compliment the menu.
As her fame grew and luck would have it, the Revenuers came a knocking at her door and searched her meager home. Sure enough, they found and destroyed her supply that she normally kept hidden under her bed. As the story goes, they took pity on this poor woman with five children and gave her a stern lecture. Since they probably thought she was transporting/supplying 'moonshine' and not manufacturing, they never searched the back woods to find her still.
There is no proof that her 'entrepreneurial spirits' found their way back into the community, or that her still was ever discovered. But knowing Gramma, the probability is HIGH that her excellent service continued...
(Above story as told to Lawrence Cecil by Gramma Inman and Elmer Cecil, her son)
Links to additional family stories...