Sunday, January 4, 2015

Luther Johnson

My mother-in-law, Sue Moses, has had wonderful FF DNA matches at FTDNA.  The newest match is a grandson of Luther Johnson.  Luther was Sue's uncle.  He was a brother to Mattie Lee Johnson Harris, Sue's mother.  Here is what Sue remembered about her uncle's family when I asked her to relate all that she could think of tonight.

Luther was a conductor on the N&W railroad.  He lived in Williamson, WV.  I was not clear on whether he was always the conductor for both the #4 that ran early in the morning and also the #16 that ran about dinner time.  Sue said that Luther was her mother's favorite brother.

Sue said that sometimes she would ride down with him on one and come back on the other.  She would visit his family.  One summer when she was about 12, she remembered having spent much of the summer in Williamson with Luther's family.  Sue said that Aunt Bessie had a garden that was maybe a half mile up the hollow from the house.  She would go to the garden with Aunt Bessie and help her.  Then at night they would cook the vegetables and Sue remembered them as having been delicious.

Her memory was that as you go into Williamson, there is a yard where they park the N&W cars.  It was quite close to where Luther's family lived.  If you walked across the yard and over the bridge, you were in Kentucky in a town called Stone.  A Mr. Brown and his family lived there.  Mr. Brown had been her father's boss in Twin Branch, but had been transferred to Stone.  Sue said that she visited several of the families who lived in Stone.  I looked at maps and could not make this make sense with modern information.

She remembered Luther's wife to have been from Henry County and having had maiden name of Lacey.

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