I never knew my paternal grandfather Charles Clinton Reynolds. Born in Cavetown, Maryland in 1869, he died in 1940, eleven years before I was born. He is an enigma to me because descriptions of him and his behaviors portray an individual of polar opposites that could change drastically to a Jekyll & Hyde personality of whom his adult children remembered fearing; and even after whose death, talked about their relationship with him with some degree of caution, while allowing him the benefit of the doubt.
Born and raised in a 19th century Maryland Scots-Irish family whose grandfather Henry E. Reynolds and his four brothers drove heavy horsedrawn freightwagons through the Appalachians Mountains from Baltimore to Cumberland; and who Henry had claimed “. . . had the reputation of being the five strongest and best fighters in Maryland,” CC would instill these same distinctions in his seven sons.
This generational portrayal of machismo: physical strength, courage, and fighting ability, bore out somewhat in my father Guy Reynold’s mindset as well, although, (thankfully) exhibited in a far less degree by the time I was born. Fueled ominously by alcohol, CC’s life before and after he was married, recreated an all too familiar scenario for families the world over.
As described by his adult children for the family’s genealogy book, one child said: “Pops was a big good-looking man. Six foot tall, one time up to 255 pounds. He was pretty much all man, physically. Always wore a necktie, and a mustache. He kept himself clean-shaven. He chewed a lot of tobacco. Didn’t do much swearing. but he could get mad awful easily. When he got mad, you better give him room, ‘cause he was all man.”
CC was a man who always had a job, but didn’t like to take orders, a lifelong characteristic of his that lead to his involuntary participation in a horrendous head-on train wreck along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, as well as a few other problems. (Introduction / Part One).
But neither was CC one to take his given responsibilities lightly. If he gave you his word, he kept it. If you were right and he was wrong, he’d admit it no matter who you were.
In 1892, when CC was twenty-three, he married twenty-year old Sarah (Anna/Annie) Louise Barnhart of Leitersburg, Maryland, in Hagerstown. They moved to eastern Illinois, where CC was hired as a farmhand for two years to a wealthy cantankerous farmer whose local reputation preceded him.
People said, “You can’t work for that farmer, he’s too mean.”
CC stated, “I agreed to work for him, so I’ll work for him.”
Later the old man came out and jumped all over CC and cussed him -- and CC decked him.
The old man said, “I don’t want you to quit!”
CC said, “I’m not going to quit. I hired out to you for two years and I’m staying if I have to kick your ass off the farm three times a week.” When the time was up, the old man cried. CC said he never worked for a finer man.
My uncle Diebert told the story of his Pops (CC) visiting him in the hospital in Baltimore, when a Black man walking past Diebert’s room, recognized CC.
Pausing in the doorway, the man said, “Hello, mistuh Charlie.”
Pops said, “I don’t know you.”
”Yes, you do, mistuh. Charlie,” said the man.
“Don’t you remember when you fired me for not sighting that rail?”
CC thought a long moment then said, “Yes, I remember now.”
Turning to the man, he went on to explain to Diebert. “We were putting in a new electric trolley line from Hagerstown to Williamsport, and I told him, “'Get down and sight that rail.”‘
"He jumped down in the trench, then jumped right back out, sayin’, “That rail’s hot!”‘
I said, “You’re crazy! Now get back down there and sight that rail!'”
And he said, “No suh! That line is hot!” I told him, “Go give your time!”
Then I decided to do it myself.
I got down to sight the rail, and it bit me hard.
Scrambling out of the trench, I hollered at him,
“Hey! Come back here! You was right! ”
The man had never forgot CC’s admission that he had been wrong. A weaker man in his position may have never admitted it; so ‘courage’ in CC’s eyes, was not always that of holding power.
CC and Anna returned to Hagerstown where their sons, Charles (Little Charlie) D. was born in 1893, and David Henry was born in 1895. Returning to Ogle County, Illinois in 1897, as sharecroppers, two more sons were born; George Fred in Oregon, Illinois in 1899, and Max Barnhart in Polo, Illinois in 1901. Moving to Oelwein, Iowa, in the fall of 1901, CC started working for the Great Western Railroad.
A common thread about CC during this time, according to my resource, is that some people said that there was no finer man than CC, when he was sober, but no meaner man when he was drunk or drinking.
“He drank and didn’t care who knew it. He'd rather fight than eat.”
In August of 1902, ‘Little Charlie’ died at the age of nine years, seven months, and three days with what was described to the family as a childhood illness. In 1997, I learned from an older Reynolds cousin, that in fact, Little Charlie was struck by his father after the child had tripped over his father’s outstretched legs.
In 1903, their fifth son Joseph Paul, was born in Oelwein. CC was transferred by the Great Western Railroad to Des Moines. He didn’t work there very long before he moved to Nevada, Iowa, and started farming again. In 1905, they moved fourteen miles down to Cambridge, Iowa, where the sixth and seventh sons, Guy (my father) and Deibert (Dab), the twins, were born. Their first sister, Nellie Elizabeth, was born there too, in 1907. Long about 1909, they moved another five miles south to what they called White Oak, IA, where Ethel ‘Iowa’ was born. That’s where Grandma Anna (Annie) got sick with heart trouble and dropsy.
Diagnosis was that she wouldn’t get well, so in 1910, CC sold out once again and took the family all back to Hagerstown where Anna said she wanted to die. CC went back to work for Western Maryland Railroad.
“... they went back to Hagerstown because they expected Mother to die and they were taking us back to give out to the family for them to take care of us. That’s what they were doing it for. They said she wouldn’t live. But she did. She raised us all.”
Did they give her any medicine when she got there if they expected her to die? What changed?
“Iowa doctors said she couldn’t make the trip, but we started out on the train. Pops talked to an old Faith Healer, on the train there, who said, after learning of Mother’s condition, said “After you cross the Mississippi River, you will get to feeling better; the swelling in your legs will come down. You'll be walking on your own by Saturday. That was a Thursday and she was in a wheelchair. Saturday noon in Hagerstown, Mom walked out in the yard at Aunt Maggie’s house and she lived until 1938. So much for that.”
When we got to Hagerstown, most all of us boys got jobs right away with paper routes, etc. We did not get a chance to go to school. The twins, Guy and Dab got their first jobs working for Iva Meyers who took in washing. Once a week she would give Dab and ‘Suse’ (Guy’s nickname) fifteen cents, to deliver the clothes to the right people.
Also during that time, five of us kids, got typhoid fever and really had a tough time of it. Our mother took care of all five of us. To show you what kind of mother we had, there was Nellie, Fred, Max, Guy, and myself (Joe). With help from, Nellie Casey, the Washington County Public Health nurse who came every day, our mother would take care of us. She done the washing and all that, by hand. I (Joe) was sicker than all the rest of them. Joe was out of his head for sixteen weeks, [something that is mentioned frequently within this text because of its incredulousness.]
About 1915, or so, CC became a policemen for the Hagerstown Police Department. His brother William Henry was a policemen too. CC worked there two years; Will, worked several more. They lived in Hagerstown about nine years; where, despite Anna’s illness, their third and fourth daughters were born; Mildred Lucille in 1912, and Barbara Ellen, in 1917, who died in infancy. They moved back to Iowa in 1918.
My dad said, “You wouldn’t say he was a drunkard. Very few times I’d say he was drunk. He quit for three years when we were in Iowa. We were farming over 600 acres and driving three or four schoolbuses for the Ankeny schools. He used a double (two horses) team and wagon; two teams during bad weather.
“Pops wasn’t a fellow who could stand prosperity. He’d start drinking again, and in two or three weeks we’d have a Sheriff’s Sale ...” Grandpa Reynolds was okay when he wasn’t drunk.
One time a neighbor’s wife was taken to the hospital [in an emergency]. The neighbor had cut his oats with a binder, but hadn’t gotten them shocked (stood up and leaning together to shed rain). So CC told his boys they’d go to the man’s farm and do it. The next morning the neighbor saw that and thought the angels had come.
CC embodied both demon and angel, not that it fooled those who knew him intimately.
During the interviews for this genealogy, when his family were asked how they saw the relationship between their Pops and their mother, their comment was that although CC had his behaviors, that while irksome, weren’t considered abusive toward their mother, at least in their description. They never described events in which CC struck or physically abused her, although they argued on occasion; and it is surmised he often did just as he wanted anyway.
“I never heard them have too many cross words with each other either way. I never heard them do much fussing or quarreling. Maybe just a little bit, once in a great while.” Not so with the kids.
Wherever CC got his tenet of disciplining children, CC’s behavior would be seen as child abuse today, although some in society would see our societal problems as stemming from lack of the same.
According to the internet, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” isn’t in the Bible, but the two following Bible verses do follow similar themes:
Proverbs 13:24 - “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.”
Proverbs 22:15 - “Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.”
The ‘kids’ described it this way:
“Well, he was the boss! And he didn’t usually tell you more than once to do something. Of course, he was good to us kids. We didn’t get anything we didn’t deserve, but we (us kids and Pops) was never, you might say, too close. Pops didn’t show a lot of affection. Which I think was about right for those times.
“Did your mother show affection? ”
“Mom more than Pop. Of course, I say, Pop was the boss. He run the thing.”
When you say he was the boss, can you think of any ways that showed he was?
“Yes, because we done what he said! ”
What would’ve happened if you hadn’t? Or didn’t you want to find out?
“We found out and then some after that ...”
What would he do?
“Use the razor strap on us, a buggy whip or -- even a pair of his suspenders one time ...”
Born and raised in a 19th century Maryland Scots-Irish family whose grandfather Henry E. Reynolds and his four brothers drove heavy horsedrawn freightwagons through the Appalachians Mountains from Baltimore to Cumberland; and who Henry had claimed “. . . had the reputation of being the five strongest and best fighters in Maryland,” CC would instill these same distinctions in his seven sons.
This generational portrayal of machismo: physical strength, courage, and fighting ability, bore out somewhat in my father Guy Reynold’s mindset as well, although, (thankfully) exhibited in a far less degree by the time I was born. Fueled ominously by alcohol, CC’s life before and after he was married, recreated an all too familiar scenario for families the world over.
As described by his adult children for the family’s genealogy book, one child said: “Pops was a big good-looking man. Six foot tall, one time up to 255 pounds. He was pretty much all man, physically. Always wore a necktie, and a mustache. He kept himself clean-shaven. He chewed a lot of tobacco. Didn’t do much swearing. but he could get mad awful easily. When he got mad, you better give him room, ‘cause he was all man.”
CC was a man who always had a job, but didn’t like to take orders, a lifelong characteristic of his that lead to his involuntary participation in a horrendous head-on train wreck along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, as well as a few other problems. (Introduction / Part One).
But neither was CC one to take his given responsibilities lightly. If he gave you his word, he kept it. If you were right and he was wrong, he’d admit it no matter who you were.
In 1892, when CC was twenty-three, he married twenty-year old Sarah (Anna/Annie) Louise Barnhart of Leitersburg, Maryland, in Hagerstown. They moved to eastern Illinois, where CC was hired as a farmhand for two years to a wealthy cantankerous farmer whose local reputation preceded him.
CC stated, “I agreed to work for him, so I’ll work for him.”
Later the old man came out and jumped all over CC and cussed him -- and CC decked him.
The old man said, “I don’t want you to quit!”
CC said, “I’m not going to quit. I hired out to you for two years and I’m staying if I have to kick your ass off the farm three times a week.” When the time was up, the old man cried. CC said he never worked for a finer man.
My uncle Diebert told the story of his Pops (CC) visiting him in the hospital in Baltimore, when a Black man walking past Diebert’s room, recognized CC.
Pausing in the doorway, the man said, “Hello, mistuh Charlie.”
Pops said, “I don’t know you.”
”Yes, you do, mistuh. Charlie,” said the man.
“Don’t you remember when you fired me for not sighting that rail?”
CC thought a long moment then said, “Yes, I remember now.”
Turning to the man, he went on to explain to Diebert. “We were putting in a new electric trolley line from Hagerstown to Williamsport, and I told him, “'Get down and sight that rail.”‘
"He jumped down in the trench, then jumped right back out, sayin’, “That rail’s hot!”‘
I said, “You’re crazy! Now get back down there and sight that rail!'”
And he said, “No suh! That line is hot!” I told him, “Go give your time!”
Then I decided to do it myself.
I got down to sight the rail, and it bit me hard.
Scrambling out of the trench, I hollered at him,
“Hey! Come back here! You was right! ”
The man had never forgot CC’s admission that he had been wrong. A weaker man in his position may have never admitted it; so ‘courage’ in CC’s eyes, was not always that of holding power.
CC and Anna returned to Hagerstown where their sons, Charles (Little Charlie) D. was born in 1893, and David Henry was born in 1895. Returning to Ogle County, Illinois in 1897, as sharecroppers, two more sons were born; George Fred in Oregon, Illinois in 1899, and Max Barnhart in Polo, Illinois in 1901. Moving to Oelwein, Iowa, in the fall of 1901, CC started working for the Great Western Railroad.
A common thread about CC during this time, according to my resource, is that some people said that there was no finer man than CC, when he was sober, but no meaner man when he was drunk or drinking.
“He drank and didn’t care who knew it. He'd rather fight than eat.”
In August of 1902, ‘Little Charlie’ died at the age of nine years, seven months, and three days with what was described to the family as a childhood illness. In 1997, I learned from an older Reynolds cousin, that in fact, Little Charlie was struck by his father after the child had tripped over his father’s outstretched legs.
In 1903, their fifth son Joseph Paul, was born in Oelwein. CC was transferred by the Great Western Railroad to Des Moines. He didn’t work there very long before he moved to Nevada, Iowa, and started farming again. In 1905, they moved fourteen miles down to Cambridge, Iowa, where the sixth and seventh sons, Guy (my father) and Deibert (Dab), the twins, were born. Their first sister, Nellie Elizabeth, was born there too, in 1907. Long about 1909, they moved another five miles south to what they called White Oak, IA, where Ethel ‘Iowa’ was born. That’s where Grandma Anna (Annie) got sick with heart trouble and dropsy.
Diagnosis was that she wouldn’t get well, so in 1910, CC sold out once again and took the family all back to Hagerstown where Anna said she wanted to die. CC went back to work for Western Maryland Railroad.
“... they went back to Hagerstown because they expected Mother to die and they were taking us back to give out to the family for them to take care of us. That’s what they were doing it for. They said she wouldn’t live. But she did. She raised us all.”
Did they give her any medicine when she got there if they expected her to die? What changed?
“Iowa doctors said she couldn’t make the trip, but we started out on the train. Pops talked to an old Faith Healer, on the train there, who said, after learning of Mother’s condition, said “After you cross the Mississippi River, you will get to feeling better; the swelling in your legs will come down. You'll be walking on your own by Saturday. That was a Thursday and she was in a wheelchair. Saturday noon in Hagerstown, Mom walked out in the yard at Aunt Maggie’s house and she lived until 1938. So much for that.”
When we got to Hagerstown, most all of us boys got jobs right away with paper routes, etc. We did not get a chance to go to school. The twins, Guy and Dab got their first jobs working for Iva Meyers who took in washing. Once a week she would give Dab and ‘Suse’ (Guy’s nickname) fifteen cents, to deliver the clothes to the right people.
Also during that time, five of us kids, got typhoid fever and really had a tough time of it. Our mother took care of all five of us. To show you what kind of mother we had, there was Nellie, Fred, Max, Guy, and myself (Joe). With help from, Nellie Casey, the Washington County Public Health nurse who came every day, our mother would take care of us. She done the washing and all that, by hand. I (Joe) was sicker than all the rest of them. Joe was out of his head for sixteen weeks, [something that is mentioned frequently within this text because of its incredulousness.]
About 1915, or so, CC became a policemen for the Hagerstown Police Department. His brother William Henry was a policemen too. CC worked there two years; Will, worked several more. They lived in Hagerstown about nine years; where, despite Anna’s illness, their third and fourth daughters were born; Mildred Lucille in 1912, and Barbara Ellen, in 1917, who died in infancy. They moved back to Iowa in 1918.
 |
| White Oak, Iowa. Left to right: David Henry, Joseph Paul, Charles Clinton, Max Barnhart, George Fred, Guy, Mildred Lucille (infant), Annie, Diebert, unknown woman, Ethel Iowa, unknown man, Nellie Elizabeth. |
“Pops wasn’t a fellow who could stand prosperity. He’d start drinking again, and in two or three weeks we’d have a Sheriff’s Sale ...” Grandpa Reynolds was okay when he wasn’t drunk.
One time a neighbor’s wife was taken to the hospital [in an emergency]. The neighbor had cut his oats with a binder, but hadn’t gotten them shocked (stood up and leaning together to shed rain). So CC told his boys they’d go to the man’s farm and do it. The next morning the neighbor saw that and thought the angels had come.
CC embodied both demon and angel, not that it fooled those who knew him intimately.
During the interviews for this genealogy, when his family were asked how they saw the relationship between their Pops and their mother, their comment was that although CC had his behaviors, that while irksome, weren’t considered abusive toward their mother, at least in their description. They never described events in which CC struck or physically abused her, although they argued on occasion; and it is surmised he often did just as he wanted anyway.
“I never heard them have too many cross words with each other either way. I never heard them do much fussing or quarreling. Maybe just a little bit, once in a great while.” Not so with the kids.
Wherever CC got his tenet of disciplining children, CC’s behavior would be seen as child abuse today, although some in society would see our societal problems as stemming from lack of the same.
According to the internet, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” isn’t in the Bible, but the two following Bible verses do follow similar themes:
Proverbs 13:24 - “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.”
Proverbs 22:15 - “Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.”
The ‘kids’ described it this way:
“Well, he was the boss! And he didn’t usually tell you more than once to do something. Of course, he was good to us kids. We didn’t get anything we didn’t deserve, but we (us kids and Pops) was never, you might say, too close. Pops didn’t show a lot of affection. Which I think was about right for those times.
“Did your mother show affection? ”
“Mom more than Pop. Of course, I say, Pop was the boss. He run the thing.”
When you say he was the boss, can you think of any ways that showed he was?
“Yes, because we done what he said! ”
What would’ve happened if you hadn’t? Or didn’t you want to find out?
“We found out and then some after that ...”
What would he do?
“Use the razor strap on us, a buggy whip or -- even a pair of his suspenders one time ...”
CC and his seven sons remind me of one of my father's sisters who also had seven sons. She and her husband were both Arab (Syrian) as was my father. My aunt and uncle felt strongly about not losing the values of the "old world," and instilled them deeoly in their seven sons. I am still in touch with a few of them, and the values persist - what a legacy.
ReplyDeleteAnother bit that resonated with me was this description: " . . . no finer man than CC, when he was sober, but no meaner man when he was drunk or drinking." I had another aunt (Irish American) that matched that description, except she drank so much to excess that she went right past "drunk" to some advanced state of alcoholism wherein she was the most entertaining person around. She made us all laugh over and over. Everyone was so busy enjoying her humor that nobody noticed when she slipped into the longtime stupor and died at age 46 of malnutrition; she had stopped eating and got all her calories from booze. Your stories have an uncanny way of surfacing memories like these that I haven't thought of in decades .
Really admire how you bring out a variety of parenting principles through telling us these stories. I am curious though, what got you going down this track. Will we see more? You are giving Kim H a run for her "family" money with these stories.