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| Birth: | 07 May 1767 in Lunenburg, Virginia 1 |
| Death: | 27 Feb 1816 in Sumner, Tennessee 1 |
| Sex: | M |
| Father: | John Winn b. Bet 1718 and 1720 in Prince George, Virginia |
| Mother: | Ann Stone b. About 1728 in Lunenburg, Virginia |
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| Reference: 3259 |
| Changed: 17 Sep 2003 |
| Burial: 28 Feb 1816 Sumner, Tennessee 1 |
| Land: 165 acres along Buffalow Creek, Mecklinburg, Virgina 1 |
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| Sarah Jones (Wife) b. 21 Jan 1767 in Virginia
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| Marriage: | 10 JAN 1786 in Lunenburg, Virginia |
| Children: | |
 Martha "Pasty" Winn b. 30 Sep 1789 in Lunenburg, Virginia
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Individual:
SOURCE: Bobbie Wright, 2750 Branch Rd., Loudon, TN 37774, and from Mourni
ng Winn Family Bible. A copy of the Births, Marriages and Death pages in possession of James D. Wilks, Jr.
SOURCE: Rachel Campbell's book "Climbing The Family Tree", page 19.
Mourning bought 165 acres along Buffalow Creek, Deed Book 8, page 4460 , Mecklinburg Co., VA.Mourning bought 165 acres along Buffalow Creek, Deed Book 8, page 4460, M
ecklinburg Co., VA.
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- Title: Jim Wilks Web Page, Url: http://www.my-ged.com/jimwilks/
Author: Jim Wilks
When yours truly, opened his eyes on the 9th of October in the year of o
ur Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty, little did I realize what this life'sjourney would bring. This blessed event took place in Paducah, McCracke
n County, Kentucky. My parents deemed it necessary to name me after my father,James Dick Wilks. Dad really didn't know what his name was. In the Wil
ks family Bible he was listed as "T. P. Wilks ,said son of Larkin Almon Wilks."The T. stood for Thomas and the P. for Pierce.In the 1900 McCracken Cou
nty, Kentucky census he is listed asThomas Pierce Wilks, age 8. Then in the 1910Jackson County, Missouri census he is listed as James Dick Wilks, age 18
, dad was living with his brother-in-law, Francis Fairfax Craig and his sister Estelle Wilks.During his lifetime I can remember dad saying, "I really don'tknow when my name was changed.So call me T.P. or J.D. I answer to both.
"
Mother came from a rather large family. Her father, David Lindsay Crai
g and mother, Cora Della Kelley had ten children with six living and one born three days after grandpa passed away at the age of forty. It had to be heart breaking for grandma Cora as in the family Bible where his deathis recorded is written "When will morning ever come"? Three years later she married John T.Gills.
I can remember story's mom told about the family after grandpa's death
. Robert, being the oldest boy, loved to play jokes on the younger children. One night grandma had all the little ones kneeling around the fireplace for family prayer before bedtime.While they were on their knees praying, Robert climbed up on the roof and dropped a package of fire crackers down the chimney. Mom said, "They thought the world had come to an end." You never saw such scrambling, with hot embers all over the front of the fireplace. Then again he appeared at the window in the evening with dough spread over his face with just his eyes showing, scared the daylights out of the kids.
Grandma had two pets that she was very fond of, one a cat and the othe
r a coon. Mom said the coon used to get in bed with grandma in the morning and would scratch around in her hair and pull out one by one the large hair-pins the women wore in those days. Grandma just loved to have the coon scratch her head and pull out the hair-pins. One day grandma and Mr. Gills (that's the way the youngsters used to call the men in those days, by Mr.), were going to town to do some shopping. Robert was not the only one who played practical jokes.Uncle Jim and uncle Faxie got the cat and the coon and tied their tail
s together and threw them over the clothes line.Mom said you never saw such clawing and scratching and fighting, the animals trying to get loose. The boys finally had to get a butcher knife, and took a whack, and cut off the cat's tail. Grandma had a bob tailed cat when she got home.
Mom must have been a beauty for my dad to marry her, as she was ten year
s older than him, and the mother of four from a previous marriage. She had married atthe age of nineteen to Arthur Edward Johnson, who was one of the more el
igible bachelors around Paducah. Mom, an adult, used to watch Dad, who was ten, playmarbles through her kitchen window. After her divorce from Arthur, da
d and mom were married in Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri on 28 June 1919.
My great grandmother was Elizabeth Ann Lindsay who married Francis Mario
n Craig. Francis died in 1849 at the age of thirty-three and left Elizabeth a widow with two small boys. As a young widow of twenty-nine she met and married a wealthy merchant from the city of Paducah by the name of Robert Enders. Elizabeth had two children by Robert and died in child birth at the age of thirty-two. Mr. Enders was left with my grandfather and two small girls. Enders must have been a wonderful man as my grandfather named his first born after him, Robert Enders Craig.
The names and ages of my older brothers and sister at my birth were, War
ren Edward Johnson, age 18, Gordon David Johnson, age 17, Milton Fairfax Johnson, age 15 and a sister who was the youngest, Olive Elizabeth Johnson, age 12. My teen age brothers were fun loving and enjoyed playing jokes. They would howl with glee when someone asked me my name for they had taught me as a child of three that my name was"June-bug, jackass, snot-grass, piss-ant Wilks."
Our family used to visit uncle Robert Craig who lived out in the countr
y on a farm. I loved to go out to the strawberry patch and pick strawberries. Sometimes the men would dig two small round holes in the ground. These holes were the size of a silver dollar and about twenty feet apart. They would pitch silver dollars to see who could get them in the hole, or get the closest. Doyou suppose they were gambling?
My favorite pastime on the farm was to be with uncle Robert's wife, my a
unt Nannie. She dipped snuff and could sit in her rocker and spit across the roomand seldom missed ringing the bell of the old spittoon. She made the be
st baked sweet potatoes in an old wood stove oven. I would sit there in anticipation waiting for the potato to get done and then she would take andsplit it down the middle and put some of that good churned home made but
ter on it and it would almost make you swallow your tongue.
There was no electricity on the farm, only the coal oil lamps.At bedtim
e, there being so many, a pallet on the wooden floor was made for the children and for even some of the adults. I can remember sleeping many times with older cousins who were in their late teens.
Breakfast at uncle Robert and aunt Nannies's was something else. Aunt N
annie was a good cook on the old wood stove and she could make the best biscuits. Ofcourse grace had to be said and uncle Robert would say grace, but befor
e he said "amen", he had a fork stuck in one of the biscuits. Beware if your hand was in the way, no one beat uncle Robert to the biscuits.
We lived on Trimble street in Paducah right across from the main graveya
rd in town. Trimble street (Now called Park Ave.) at that time was a gravel road and I used to stand on the side of the road with a hose in my hand and water the cars as they passed by. Of course my older brothers put me up to that. I can remember the time when a car was parked out in front of our house, and on the floor in the rear seat section they used to have a foot rest which lifted up and down. Not knowing any better I got a little kitten and put the poor thingunder the foot rest and jumped up and down on it until I broke its bac
k and of course it was dead. I picked up the cat and took it in the house to my brother Gordon and told him "the Poor cat was broke". Gordon had a pretty weak stomach, but took the cat and threw it in the graveyard across the street.
My brother Gordon was the adventurer in the family. He put himself thro
ugh a private school in Paducah and graduated with honors. As a youngster he joinedthe Boy Scouts and became an eagle scout. The adventure in him finall
y took hold and he left Paducah and went to California in about 1926.He wrote backglowing reports of California and the bug got hold of our family. My ol
dest brother Warren was married by now to Alice Belle Wilkins and they were the next to go to California.
Dad had a good job at the hosiery mill in Paducah, but the California bu
g had struck. We started out for California sometime in June or July of 1927 shortlyafter the funeral of my aunt Estelle (Wilks) Craig who died the 24 Apri
l 1927. There were six of us in an old 1917 Studebaker touring sedan. My dad was thedriver, I was six years old and sat in the middle and mom was on the pas
senger side. In the rear seat was my sister, Olive, age 19, my brother, Milton, age22 and a cousin Roy Gillum, age 19. This car was open on both sides an
d when it rained one had to put up side panels to keep the rain out. We had on bothrunning boards, accordion type braces to pile our suitcases in and we al
so had some kind of a rack on the rear of the car to pile on more gear. We must havelooked like the TV Show "Beverly Hill Billies".
Tires on that old car, which was ten years old then, were rather thin.M
om kept a running count of our tire trouble and when she reached forty-nine punctures and blow-outs she stopped counting. Poor dad would be fixing a puncture on one tire and would hear a slow leak in another tire. Were the boys helping him fix the tires? No, they were out exploring new territory.
We were traveling old route 66 and one night in Oklahoma we pulled int
o a school yard to spend the night. A short distance away there were Indiansdancing around a fire.Here was a 6 year old boy, who had been playing c
owboys and Indians, seeing these Indians dancing around a fire. His hands were up tohis face peeking through his fingers, because he knew if they saw him th
ey were going to scalp him.
With all the tire trouble we had to buy another set of tires. We had t
o wire home for more money to continue our trip for we had run out. Arriving in Needles, California the weather was extremely hot and the six year old became very ill. After a day we continued our trip and soon came across a beautiful orange grove. Back home everyone shared, so dad thought he would pick a few oranges for us. He had his old hat just about full when he looked up and there stood a man with a shot gun. Dad when he would get excited could stutter with the best of them. Finally the man seeing we were from out of state and really meant no harm let us have the oranges.
We were approaching San Jose and dad stopped the car so mother could as
k a policeman how far we were from our destination. Mother in her high pitched southern drawl said "sir, could you tell us how far we are from San Joe see"? The policeman laughed and said "Mam, you are about 25 miles from San Joe see". Trying to pronounce the Spanish names was quite a chore for dear old mom and dad.
Oakland, California was our real destination and my brother Warren ha
d a house on Filbert street in West Oakland. My brother Gordon originally had the house,but when Warren and his wife Alice came, he soon packed and went on dow
n south to Los Angeles. We arrived sometime in July 1927, Warren and Alice were glad to see all of us. To this day I don't know where we all slept, but we survived.
Dad soon went to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. I wa
s to start school in September and being from just below the Mason Dixon line mom was a little bit prejudice and would not let me go to a public school.She enrolled me into the Zion Lutheran School. I believe it was located at 12th and Myrtle. This church school had two rooms, one for grades 1 through 4, and the other for grades 5 through 8. Our teacher was the rector and he carried a long wooden pointer. Discipline and order was no problem, not with that pointer coming down across your back. The rector also had a real thick ruler which he used by having you hold out your hand and he would give several swats on your hand. I will never forget big John, a good natured kid, but he would get introuble and have to go to the head of the room and have a couple of swat
s on his hand. He would always pull his hand back and make the rector miss. Thiswould keep the class in stitches, laughing. Poor John would have the re
ctor hold his hand to give him those hard swats.
I must have been in the first grade, when I learned my times table. Th
e rector would be teaching the upper grade the times table and I listened and never hadany trouble with math after that. I probably went to the private schoo
l three years, as mom finally enrolled me in public school when I was in the fourth grade.We had double desks and always had a partner sitting next to you. We had one little black kid named Benjaminin the class. I finally had Benjamin as my partner. I went home and told mom who I was sitting next to and she had atizzy. The next day she was at school and gave the teacher a piece of he
r mind. Benjamin and I became real good friends. Mom (bless her heart) soon got overher being so prejudice.
We had moved from Filbert St. one block back to Linden St. and then anot
her block back to Chestnut. I was nine years old and there were a lot of youngster my age living in the neighborhood. We had what mom called "Coxes Army". Every race and nationality imaginable. Our gang, used to find cigarette butts and take the tobacco out and roll our own.The smoking would take place in our back yard between the garage and the fence.There was a space of about two feet between the garage and fence. We stood on scrap pieces of wood and would throw the lighted matches down after lighting up. One day the wood caught fire and everybody ran.I nonchalantly walked in the house and looked out the kitchen window and said "THE GARAGE IS ON FIRE". It just so happened that we were only renting the house and the people we were renting from had "home brew" stored in the garage, as this was during prohibition. As the fire got the garage warmer and warmer the home brew began to pop.It sounded like the fourth of July. Of course I denied having anything to do with the fire. Dad had never laid a hand on me, mom always did the whipping with switches. Mom seeing how mad dad wasstood between me and dad and talked him out of whipping, me. The next d
ay mom eventually got me to own up to being in back of the garage and smoking. Sheurged me when dad came home to go put my arms around him and confess, wh
ich I did. After a twenty-four hour cooling off period dad accepted my apology.
In 1929 dad and mom got religion. The way it came about was quite uniqu
e. We were living in a two story apartment building, one upstairs and one downstairs.We lived in the one upstairs and good friends of the family, the Rogers
, lived downstairs. Dad and Mr. Rogers loved to play poker.
One Sunday morning mom and I were going to go to the Zion Lutheran Churc
h where I went to school. Dad had been up all night playing poker when mother and Istarted to walk to church. Mom looked back and here came dear old dad s
taggering along to join us in church.Mom was so mad that he could get up from a poker table and go to church, that she wouldn't walk with him. Coming home from church our landlady, who lived next door, was just getting out of her car, mother still boiling mad, asked her "Mrs. Bolen where do you go tochurch"? She said "honey, our church is in a building above a furnitur
e store at 11th and Clay and we are having a revival why don't you come tonight"?
Everywhere mom and I went it had to be within walking distance as she di
dn't drive.We walked and when we got to 11th and Clay we heard singing coming fromover the furniture store. We found the entrance and walked up the step
s and through the swinging doors we found ourselves in front of the congregation. Wemade our way to a seat and mom listened intently. The next night dad we
nt. This was a Four Square Gospel Church under the auspices of Amy Simple McPherson. Shortly thereafter dad was converted and started his Christian walk. Dad never went into anything half way, he always went gung ho.This started yours truly living understrict rules, no smoking, no cursing, no drinking, no dancing, no picture shows, no card playing, etc., etc..
We went to church twice on Sundays and every night in the week when revi
vals were in progress. We never missed a church service. Well, it kept me out oftrouble, but living a very austere life. There was no dating in high sc
hool, but still we had many friends.My friends used to get a kick out of me, because I never cursed. I would say "dog gone it",and they would laugh and say why don't you just say "god damn it".
My time in high school was taken up with glee club, football or any spor
t. Thank the Lord they didn't ban sports.We finished high school and enrolled inMerritt Business School. We took an accounting course which came in han
dy later in life.
At an early age I made up my mind not to get married until I was thirt
y years old. I thought I would be well established then and have something to offer agirl. However fate doesn't always work that way. We had become acquaint
ed with the Hollerson family, George and Winifred. They were good singers and hadthree children, Pauline, George Jr., and Kay. I had known Pauline sinc
e she was a gangly ten year old and hadn't paid much attention to her. However timehad gone by and nature took it's course. The gangly ten year old was no
w a beautiful sixteen and had never been kissed. Still thirty was in my mind for marriage.
There was another boy that I grew up with in church by the name of Willi
am Wallander. He was going with a girl in the church by the name of Viva Campbell. Bill and Viva were serious about getting married and the subject ofmarriage came up one night after church. Bill said, "Why don't we all g
o to Reno and get married"?Pauline agreed, that was like a bomb shell to me because I didn't even have to propose.The "love bug" had bitten, how could I let such a beauty as Pauline get away? I was only twenty and a "bell hop" at the Lakehurst Hotel. Pauline was only seventeen and just out of high school.Being only twenty I had to have consent of my parents.Dad tried to reas
on with me, but being young and knowing everything, I wouldn't listen. Consentwas given and away on the train the four of us headed for Reno, Nevada.
We were married on January 18, 1941. From this union two beautiful chil
dren were born. David Richard Wilks, born March 19, 1942 and Dixie Rae Wilks, born November 1, 1943. Things were going smoothly until one day as I was turning off our radio, the message came that Pearl Harbor was being bombed by theJapanese. I was ready to go down and join the Navy, but knowing that m
y wife was pregnant held me back at that particular time.
I started working in the shipyard and finally was called up to take my p
hysical and found out because of a curvature of the spine they wouldn't take me. I wasdevastated, but survived working twelve hours a day and seven days a wee
k in the shipyard. By this time we had left the church.
Pauline was a good mother to her children, but life had to be pretty dul
l having all this time on her hand. The war ended in '45 and the bridal path had become a little rocky and soon we came to a fork in the road. Pauline and Isat down and talked and parted friends as she wanted one road and I want
ed the other.
I left and went to Los Angeles to live. While working for a grocery cha
in my ex mother-in-law Winifred Hollerson wrote me and said I should come back to Oakland as my children were living with my mother and dad and they needed help.
I moved back to Dad and mom's, found work and dad and mom persuaded m
e to go back to the church. As I walked through the swinging doors in the back of thechurch my eyes fell on a person I had never seen before. She had a trom
bone in her hands and was tuning up to play in the band. Wow: A sight for sore eyes. My ex in-laws were always my friends and they told me I should get acquainted with Lillian Marguerite (McKee) Ramberg who had come to the church while I had been away. I had an eye for beauty and told them I was way ahead of them and had already met her. I found out she was a divorcee and had two little girls,Karen Ramberg, age 4 and Sonja Ramberg age 2.
After a few months we were married on May 26, 1951 in Reno, Nevada. Sin
ce that time we have had two daughters, Cecilia Anne Wilks, born January 18, 1953 and Teresa Charlotte Wilks born January 27, 1954. We always say, "she has four, I have four and four and four make six".
Lillian taught in the Garden Grove School District for twenty-five year
s and retired in 1982. I worked for the Sully Miller Contracting Co., and retired in 1983. Since our retirement, genealogy has been our cup of tea. We have crossed the country five times, going to court houses, graveyards, libraries, talking to relatives, everything a genealogist does. What a good life. Stillgoing strong. We have had many experiences that are uncanny.
My mother's maiden name was Craig. We found out that Lewis Craig the mi
nister of the "traveling church" was her ancestor. Lewis is written about in various history books.He was not only a minister, but a good stone mason. He built his church in Minerva, Kentucky which is stil lstanding (1983) and also the first courthouse in Washington, Mason Co., Kentucky. Knowing that his brother Elijah Craig had started a school in Georgetown, Kentucky and because the architecture of the buildings of Georgetown University were similar to Lewis'schurch, we thought maybe Elijah was the founder of Georgetown University
. We had to check it out.
We arrived on a Sunday around noon and went into the library which was e
mpty except for the librarian and one student studying in the rear.I spoke to the librarian and told her I was from California and researching my ancestors and thought maybe my gr gr gr uncle had a hand in starting this school. We inquired if there was an archive close by housing the early books of theuniversity. She opened a drawer and got a key and took us to the rear o
f the room and opened the door and I almost fainted.Books on all sides of the room and lying on a table in the center of the room was my complete genealogy of the Craig's from Toliver (the father of Lewis and Elijah) and down several generations. It looked like someone knew we were coming and laid it out therefor us.
As a little child I remembered mother talking about her first husband, A
rthur Johnson, who was a metal smith. It seemed they did a lot of traveling, following jobs around the south. I had tried to find mother in the 1910 census and could not locate her. We found all of her brothers and sisters, but mother could not be found. I must have spent some two years trying to find her. Ifyou are a genealogist you know before the "soundex system", it took almo
st two hours to go through just one county on microfilm. I had searched Kentucky,Tennessee, North Carolina and had just about given up when I went to th
e National Archives in Laguna Niguel, California. I had just gone through one two-hour film and sat back in my chair exasperated and said, "mother where in the world are you"? I heard her voice just as loud and clear and she said "Little Rock, Arkansas". I went and got the film and sure enough there she andArthur and the four children were. My poor wife has tried the same tact
ics but her ancestors don't answer.
We are in the twi-light of life and having more fun with our research an
d do hope that what we have discovered about our families will help some other way-faring genealogist.
****************************************************
Since writing the above my dear wife of 48 years crossed over Jordan o
n April 21, 1999. She is keeping the Harbor Lights burning fo rme.
James D. Wilks, Jr.
Page: Page 26
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