Reaching Back

On October 8, 1865, the 27-year-old wife of a recently discharged Confederate Army captain, sitting in her home in southwest Virginia, perhaps looking out at vistas of the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, put her hand into this basket to take out some socks that needed darning.

Instead of the expected socks, her hand touched a snake - and that shock caused her to go into labor two months early. She gave birth to a daughter, who survived her premature arrival and thrived.

That would-be darner of socks -- the woman in the framed picture next to the basket -- was my great-great-grandmother, Rosalie Virginia Johnson (1838-1911). In 1856, she married Andrew Jackson Grayson (1831-1910), who served in the Confederate Army as captain of the Company F "Sharpshooters" of the 45th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Their daughter, Cynthia Mary Grayson (1865-1935), was that October surprise. She married my great-grandfather, William Harrison Werth, Jr. (1862-1942), in 1890, and had two sons.

I don't know if Rosalie and Andrew had other children before or after Cynthia Mary, but that's one of the countless things I want to research about my maternal ancestors, particularly as my mother named me for this Cynthia - her paternal grandmother.

Nearly 150 years later, the basket sits on the high counter that separates our kitchen from the dining and living areas you saw yesterday. There are no socks in it, as I don't know how to darn, but the basket still has a useful role - it holds the cloth napkins we use for most meals, some of which I bought on our trips to the Languedoc region of France. (Wouldn't my great-great-grandmother love to know that!)

This basket is one of my most cherished possessions.

[Addendum: Many thanks to [url=http://www.blipfoto.com/musings]musings[/url], who made a very helpful comment below and has generously offered to share her knowledge of genealogy resources with me. The information above will no doubt need amendment and expansion at a later date.)