Connections: My First Post

Connections: My New Passion for Genealogy

The Myers, Line, Bass, Walker, Kernodle, & Graham lineage

Granddaddy & Grandmother Walker's grave at Union Ridge Church Cemetery, Burlington, NC

Introduction

Brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, family: I want to share with you what I’m learning about our family history. This could be the only time I send such a letter, and I don’t have plans to do this regularly, only periodically. For some of you these things will already be known, and I hope you won’t find my writing presumptuous. I just want to share with you the joy I am experiencing learning about our ancestry. As Dr. Felix Line (Great Mama’s nephew) would say, “it is important to know where you came from.”

I have had a love for history since I studied it in college, but I had no idea how I would respond to studying my own family’s history. This is history at a deeper, more personal level, and I have found that I have a voracious appetite for what I am learning. I hope you will too. I will try to make my reflections brief so that they will be digestible and worthwhile.

Myers/Walker/Kernodle/Line/Bass/Graham 

Myers. Bass. Line. The lineage of these names travel through Pa Pa (Albert Leroy Myers), Pa Ma (Katherine Myers), and Great Mama (Gertrude Line Myers) respectively. Myers and Line I know the most about at this point.

Walker. Kernodle. Graham. The lineage of these names pass through Granddaddy Walker (Thomas Graham Walker), Ida Kernodle Walker (Our Great Grandmother), and Graham is an unknown for me as yet, but that will emerge thanks to new sources that emerged this week.

So: Myers, Line, Walker, and Kernodle are the most illuminated portions of our family tree (for this fledgling genealogist) at this point. I can tell you that Myers and Kernodle are German in origin, Line is English, and Walker is Irish. Although that statement was declarative, I reserve the right to correct myself in the future regarding the Line family. I believe that I can definitively say that Myers and Kernodle are German and I now know that Walker is Irish. Of note, Uncle Tommy Walker told me today that “Daddy (our grandfather) always told me that we were Scottish, Irish, and German.”

As far as the scope of my knowledge extends, Myers and Line are more robust at this time than Bass. I hope to amend this as time goes on.

Myers/Line/Bass 

Let us start with the family for which I had the most documentation first. The Tennessee branches of our roots flow with mirth, laughter, and a deep appreciation for life itself. The Myers get their sense of humor and their affection for others honestly! With these updates, I will try to share with you what I have most recently learned, and/or the most notable things that I have read, what has struck me etc…

Line:

A couple weeks ago pop let me borrow a copy of Dr. Felix Line’s genealogy of the Line family. I have since had my own copy made. Then, daddy recommended earlier this week that I read an interview conducted by Dr. Line in Pa Pa’s home with Great Mama. At this point Great Mama was about 97 years old, and it was 3 years before her death in 1990 at 100 years. What struck me most about the interview was her clarity! Great Mama had humor, wit, and instant recall of memory at 97 years old! I think it is best to simply share one of the best portions of that interview – many of you will have already seen what I shared on facebook, so I will share something else that reflects what I described above:

MLL = Mary Lee Line 

AG = "Aunt Gertie" (Great Mama)

And I hope that like me you got a chuckle from Pa Pa’s interjection in the interview (which I posted on FB) “This was potassium carbonate.” I could hear him saying it. And I loved how often Dr. Line recorded Great Mama starting a sentence with “Hee Hee!” I found that the text that he recorded helped me to remember her cadence and manner of speech, which I thought I had forgotten.

Myers:

The other treasure that dad shared with me this week was the first volume of “The Myers Gazette.” The Myers Gazette was a letter that our Great Grandfather (LeRoy Myers, Great Mama’s husband) wrote ONCE A WEEK from 1947 to 1969. I’m not kidding, every week from 1947 to 1969 this dude wrote a letter to the greater Myers family recording whatever doings were occurring for the Myers in Jefferson City and other regions of Tennessee. This guy had a sense of humor. I’ve laughed out loud more than once reading his musings, and I’m only about 3 letters into the first volume. The volume I have is more than an inch thick, printed front and back, and each volume is that thick or thicker. There are at least 4 volumes. Even more wonderful, Uncle Bill put in the time to compile and type up these letters into volumes for all the grandchildren to be able to enjoy for years to come. This was quite a labor of love on Bill’s part, and I am so grateful. I will include Bill’s dedication at the beginning of the first volume, which had me in tears:

Great Grandfather Myers shared some very humorous musings in the first two letters I read, but I will share the following recollection of an event from our Great Uncle Sam’s wedding that all should enjoy:

Every page is like this!

Bass:

As I shared above, the Bass line has yet to be pursued in detail, and I have been able to get names only going back 3 generations after Pa Ma. This notwithstanding, the two most moving finds that I have uncovered on ancestry.com I have found while researching our immediate Bass lineage. As you know, the Bass line goes through our Pa Ma and our Great Uncle Wid (William Wilson Bass). What you might not know, and I certainly did not know, was that Wid and Pa Ma had an older sister, Margery. Margery, like her sister after her, attended the Tennessee Women’s College. I found Margery through an early 1900s census under her father’s name, Magnus T Bass. What moved me to tears was finding Margery’s death certificate. Margery died when Pa Ma was a toddler, shortly after her time at Tennessee Women’s College. I was able to find photos of her, as I had of Pa Ma, from “the Dryad,” the school’s yearbook. (I have noticed that it is easier on the whole to find photos of female ancestors, especially when they attended an all-girl institution – its my belief that they simply hang on to things better than us boys) Margery, like her little sister, was very active. She was on the school basketball team and was apparently a writer judging by a poem another student wrote, referencing Margery as the “author of the class.” However, shortly after the time these photos were taken (1917), Margery died in 1919 due to Pleural Pneumonia. This was at the same time that Spanish Flu was sweeping the country. I have not been able to determine if Spanish Flu is the same as pleural pneumonia yet. However, the heart wrenching aspect to me was the fact that Margery’s death certificate indicated her father as witness, and it appears that he had to fill out much of the certificate himself. Daddy tells me that Wid kept a photo of Margery in his house in a prominent place. I wonder if Uncle Wid would pause in front of the photo to remember his sister from time to time, and perhaps to talk to her. It must have been especially terrible for him, being then able to understand what was happening. Wid was also a very affectionate man, not unlike Pa Ma, so I can only imagine how that death affected him.

You all have of course by now seen the images I found of Pa Ma in “The Dryad” 20 years later in 1937 from Tennessee Women’s College. I won’t rehash it all here, only to say that it seems to me that all of the promise of Margery perhaps was bestowed in double portion on her little sister. I found myself wondering “what if Pa Ma had grown up today, when women have so many opportunities?” She was a dynamo. I was overjoyed when I considered her accomplishments, even if I was unsurprised by them. Still, I found myself thinking “she would’ve been a CEO today!” And yet, what a grand, grand lady she was, JUST AS SHE WAS. What would each of us have lost if she’d been in some high-powered job, and not been registrar for Carson Newman all those years in Jefferson City, Tennessee? What a lady!

Walker/Kernodle/Graham 

The Walkers and Kernodles have been readily accessible to me, and studying them has been an absolutely historic adventure. They are right here, in the soil under our feet. Immigrants, farmers, lawmen, soldiers, distillers, doctors… hard workers all! The Kernodles are very intriguing to me, and I am looking to establish a connection between the Kernodles in our lineage and the Kernodle physicians who founded the “Kernodle Clinic,” because Duke has recently acquired those practices, which are really so large as to be a small health system. I would love to go into a training with their staff in a few months, and be able to tell them that I am directly related to the providers who founded their practice when it got started!

The first Kernodle I got to know was Robert Thomas Kernodle, our Great, Great Grandfather, whom I’ve lovingly dubbed “The Lawman.” Robert was Sheriff of all of Alamance County in 3 separate terms, two of which were separated by 10 years! The people of Alamance wanted him back, even after so long an absence. He appears to have been well liked, and there are some great photographs of him. I will attach a photo of him along with an article I was able to get from mom.

The other notable reveal in the Kernodle line was Joseph Kernodle, who married Jane Cummings. Joseph was our great, great, great grandfather and he fought in the 47^th Regiment of North Carolina in the Civil War. I was able to visit his grave at Bethlehem Christian Church in Burlington, as well as that of his father, John Kernodle, who MAY have fought in the War of 1812. There are certainly others who think so.

Joseph Kernodle, PVT. 47th Regiment of North Carolina, C.S.A.

I am VERY excited to have new documents to read from our cousin once removed, Jimmy Walker. I have been able to confirm certain things about the Walker line, and have also felt free to draw my own conclusions where others might have been hesitant or vague. Today I visited the graves of John and Nancy Walker, here in Mebane at Cross Roads Presbyterian Church Cemetery, and John and Nancy are our 5^th Great Grandparents, and they were married in Ireland and traveled to this country as the first Walkers to come to America from Ireland. Once here, John became a distiller and eventually went on to fight in the American Revolutionary War. He may have gone on to receive high rank, as high as a Major, but I am currently in doubt regarding whether or not our John Walker was an aide of George Washington. I think there are too many conflicting facts for this to be true. However, I do want it to be true. Still, I was more excited about having a connection to Ireland!!!

Marker placed between the graves of John and Nancy Walker at Cross Roads Church in Mebane, NC

Connections with the living: 

This new pursuit has also been deeply rewarding on the level of human connection: connection unlooked for, unexpected. I have been increasingly “surprised by joy.” In beginning this quest, I’ve connected with friends and family new and old to my acquaintance. I’ve connected with co-workers, neighbors, and first cousins once removed, living right under my nose. Genealogists, be they amateurs like myself, or old pros like Momma’s cousin Jimmy, are a passionate bunch of zealots. No, “zealots” is the wrong word. Say rather that those that I have met in this pursuit revel with me in what I can only describe as a hurricane of joy. With every hunt, with every new reveal, there is a childish giddiness full of meaning and “a-ha!” moments that inject meaning into life, memory, and identity. I will be going tomorrow to retrieve sourdough bread (home made like Aunt Nancy used to make!) from a first cousin once removed who lives right there in Durham! Harriet reached out when she saw me post a photo of her mother, Sally Myers Green, Pa Pa’s little sister. I have a co-worker Margaret who truly “gets it” and is a great sounding board, always ready to absorb and resonate my enthusiasm and to help me process facts and possibilities. Margaret is very Irish and English, so she was just as gleeful as I was when I discovered John and Nancy Walker! Jay’s mother, Barbara Gibson, has selflessly done tremendous research on Jay and Rohan and Max’s behalf on the Myers side of the family. I owe so much to her guidance and her previous research. I stand on her shoulders, and she, like Margaret, has been happy to reverberate my joy. Aunt Marilyn has also been very informative. I owe so much (and will owe so much more) to Bill for the work he did on the “Myers Gazette.” I have also been able to connect on a deeper level to mom, dad, Tommy, and others. The connections multiply and expand exponentially.

Reflections fueled by connection 

Then there are the philosophical and spiritual reflections that arise as I think on the lives of our forbears.  Although I hint at many of them above, I ‘m a little wiped out, so I will share only a little this time – I believe that we can see reflected in the lives of our ancestors our own lives and our own pursuits, passions, and preferences are in no small way informed by their legacy. For example, I have always felt in my bones that we were largely German. I just felt it. And I love the Irish. I love all things Irish. So I was like a little kid when I learned of that connection. I don’t doubt that all of the Walkers who were farmers benefited in some way from the Irish genes they had inherited. I will also conclude by reminding myself, and you, how very good it is to REMEMBER. To remember who we are and where we come from – all that makes us who we are. As I walk among the gravestones, I cannot help but consider the providence that had to preside over so many connections between a multitude of people. These connections have cascaded down through the ages to result in me and you. Coincidence? What nonsense. A divine plan. I am so grateful for our heritage, and hope that you will be too. Thank you for all who have read this. I love you all!