madamekelly

My family is split between the honorable, and dishonorable. One great, great great grandfather came here as an indentured servant, worked his seven years, and went on to settle in Texas, and was the head of a well to do dynasty. My uncle on the same side was notorious in California in the fifties as " the airplane bandit". He would charter a plane, fly into small airports, rob the local bank and fly back out. None of the pilots knew what he was doing. He told them he was looking for investment property.
The other side, same generation as th first one, also came here as an indentured servant, but ended up with a cruel master who liked to speak to him with his bullwhip. (My sister has an old tintype photo showing the whip scars on his back). Eventually he killed the master and just walked away. He settled in Kentucky and started the hillbilly side of my family. His decendents were moonshine runners and early NASCAR inventors and drivers.
My great grandfather on the same side, also as someone else mentioned, had his boots taken from him so he couldn't go up in the hills to build another still. This was after prohibition, but the first one he built in Vancouver, Washington (he and his brother moved out west) blew up, and the family was afraid it would happen again.
My step grandmother found herself with four kids to raise alone at the age of thirty five, so the first job she could find was in a sawmill, "pulling green chain". She was only five foot tall, so this was an amazing feat for her to do. Her boss did not want to hire "no damned woman", so he gave her the hardest job so she would get discouraged and go away. He was so impressed that she could do it, he gave her the job. We lost her recently at 89, and she was still working because she felt the Social Security was "taking charity". Lord how I miss her, she taught me to love sewing and quilting. When she was teaching me, I fell in love with her pretty little "bird scissors", and she left them to me! Happy feet dance!