farming roots run deep

Family

the Yockey's  

     You can pick your nose but you can’t pick your family, unless you are Michael Jackson then you can do anything with enough money. In fact you can pick your nose out of a book, and at the same time,  also pick your own make believe family. So I guess I am fortunate to have been blessed with some really good relatives from down under the other part of Ohio, or from Monroe County Ohio. The Yockey’s and the Vess’ have always been a very large part of Monroe county’s history and these 2 families had a lot to do with why that was.

     Both sides of my Grandma and Grandpa’s family are both from the same area around Graysville Ohio. The family was intertwined as brother would marry girlfriend’s sister and sister would marry girlfriend’s brother. Perfectly legal and not related, but still hard to explain, this happened directly in my family tree, with my Grandpa’s sister, Myrle marrying my Uncle Orpha (orph-ee) on my Grandma’s side , who was my Grandma Ines’s brother, who were both Vess’s , and my Grandpa was a Yockey.  My Grandpa, Cecil, used to pal around with my uncle Orpha and at one time early in their years , took off for Oklahoma to work in the booming oil fields at the time which was around the late 1930’s or after  the time of the depression, leaving the women at home.

     My great Grandpa Yockey was a businessman and was the first to own a steam engine in Monroe county, and began the practice of running from farm to farm during threshing times providing the labor and power necessary to thresh wheat and other grains available at neighbors farms. When threshing wasn’t needed they would use the steam engine to power a sawmill, and cut lumber and sell it to neighbors to build with. A lot of the work they had to do in those times on the farms and the roads involved teams of horses and my grandpa would tell stories of  this work and of moving the steam tractor  to me when I was a kid. My great grandpa was also one of the first road maintenance men and would help improve the back roads of gravel and dirt that would eventually be turned into the state routes we now enjoy today. Part of my Grandpa’s inheritance from his dad was old state publications of how to maintain roads with horses and be paid for your work, and is now part of my collection.

      My great Grandpa Vess was a farmer and their family who was my Grandma’s family were farmers and neighbors to the Yockeys ,  although not next door neighbors but from the same Sycamore Valley that my Grandpa was from. Most socialization of young adults back then was done by foot and it as evidenced by the intertwining of families of both the Vess’ and the Yockey’s , neither family ventured far to find a mate, and it was neighbors that married as they did in those times. Back then you got to know your neighbors real well as that was the extent of your world with radio being new and television not having been invented yet and automobiles were still a luxury even here in Ohio. Visiting neighbors was your only entertainment at times excepting the weekly visit to the home seat of Woodsfield, the county seat to pick up supplies one couldn’t produce at home on the farm.  Illness took its toll on my Grandma’s family and they didn’t fare as well as the Yockey’s but still managed to eke out an existence on the hills of Monroe County, but not without having an effect on my grandma as the depression years were particularly hard on their family.  Grandma became a saver of most everything and this carried with her most of her life, leaving our family with quite a lot to deal with when disposing of her estate.

 the Vess'( Oathee, and Matilda Mc Jilton)

     This is but a small literary snapshot of my family history. I will also include a couple of pics of both respective families’ matriarchal leaders as they were in those days. Farming was an important part of the direction I was going to be born into. It has always been an important part of my ancestor’s histories on both sides of my family and I was destined in some ways to be where I am today, on a farm that was once owned by my Grandpa. I guess in some ways still living his and my Grandma’s dream of having a farm, and being able to take of your own, if nothing else. To be blessed with the ability of raising enough to keep you from ever having to depend on others to eat.

     This just has to deal with my mom ‘s side of the family and the Davis’s were also farmers but I have little information on them as my real Dad left when I was young, and we were never really close to that side of the family. My real Dad having passed when he was 56 years old , choosing to not be a part of my life , so remains somewhat of sore spot , by his own choosing. This is how life goes sometimes.