1. Birth Story -
Continued
My grandfather was William Lauther Chadwick.
He was the one who baptized me. I loved to hear him preach. He was a member of
the Missionary Baptist Church. He was a preacher by profession and a carpenter
by trade, a bi-vocational pastor who pastored four churches at a time. He would
preach one Sunday a month at each of the churches then when there was a fifth
Sunday they would have what they called “A Fifth Sunday Meeting” where all four
churches would come together for a big celebration. Fifth Sundays happen
quarterly.
My grandpa married Nora Crow and
they had four children. My father William Franklyn Chadwick was the oldest then
Lorenda Horton (Chadwick), James Chadwick and Alvie Chadwick. Alvie was a
Baptist preacher. Grandma Nora died a few days after my birth. She had suffered
much with rheumatoid arthritis. She had a skinny frame and her joints would
swell up to very large size. Since arthritis is a collagen vascular disease she
may have had lupus also. She came to see me right after I was born then
returned home and went to her death bed. My story is that I was so ugly that I
scared her to death.
My mother was very
sick at my birth and they were expecting her to die at any time so my father
did not attend his mother’s funeral because he was staying by mother’s bed. This
was in the mid 1930 so times were really bad. My mother being sick could not
nurse me and we had no cow that was giving milk at the time. They had to ask
for milk from other people as there were no stores that sold milk in the
mountains where we lived. We would not have had money to buy milk at any rate.
My grandma Taylor, mom’s mother, told me that when she arrived days after my
birth that I was sucking on a bottle with soured milk. She went over to a
cousin of hers, Verbie Crow, to ask for milk. Aunt Verbie told her that she did
not have enough milk for her own family so could not spare any. My grandma went
out to the well and drew the milk out of the well where it was kept to keep it
cool and poured out the milk that I needed. She told aunt Verbie that she would
be back tomorrow for her to have the milk ready. It was ready every day
thereafter.
I was related to
Verbie on my mother’s side of the family. Her husband uncle Virgin was the only
brother to my grandma Chadwick so I was related to them on my father’s side of
the family. My uncle Virgin (Yes that was his name) was a blacksmith and a
farmer. He could do amazing things with iron and steel. In his day if you need
a tool you made it. So Blacksmiths were engineer and inventors also.
