Tazewell County, Virginia, Biographies: George Franklin Stanley Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Hayes ==================================================================== Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ==================================================================== To Pay Honour To George Franklin Stanley The Recorded and Oral Path of His Life Uncle Frank, you were a very good man. and In Memory of Baby Ernest To Establish Your Place in the Family and My Heart The transcribed records below are for my father’s brother Frank Stanley and his wife, Eva Lee Turner. He was born in McDowell Co, his first marriage was in McDowell Co, his baby son, Ernest died in McDowell Co before I was born, his second marriage was in Tazewell Co, he died in Wyoming Co, and returned home for burial in the ancestral family home of Big Creek. If anyone wants a copy of these records, and his picture with each of his wives, please let me know at gabby362@juno.com. My Uncle Frank was born 7 Dec 1909 to Bart and Mary Stanley at the head of Coalwood Hollow, on top of the mountain. He is listed as George, age one, in the household of his father Bart, age 31, on the 1910 Coalwood, Precinct M 1, Big Creek, McDowell Co census, along with mother Mary, age 32 and older brothers James, age five and Robert, age three. He is listed as Frank, age 12 on the 1920 Coalwood, Precinct 1, Big Creek, McDowell Co census in the household of Mary Stanley, widow, and siblings James 16, Robert 14, Rhoda 7, and George E (Ellis) 3 & 7/12. I have a draft registration card for Bart dated 12 Sep, 1918, therefore we know Bart died sometime between that date and 20 Jan, 1920 when the census was taken. He was shot to death by his first wife Julia Coleman, but that’s a whole 'nother Bart tale. Living next door to Widow Mary Stanley in 1920 was Bart’s brother Henry and his family, and on the other side lived Bart’s sister Maudie Stanley Marshall and her family. Frank is age 22 listed on the 1930 Northfork, McDowell Co census in the household of his brother in law Thomas (Ray) Jackson along with his sister Goldie (Rhoda), brother Ellis 13, and Mary 52. His soon to be first wife Pearl Goins lives nearby. Uncle Frank called my Daddy “Gummy” because he had no teeth from early adulthood, and he called my Mama “Sug”. He once found a little red glass elephant about the size of a pinky nail while working as a lineman, and when he felt in his pocket for it to give to my mother, it was gone. My Mama collected little toys that came in Cracker Jacks; also little trinkets that people had given to her for her collection, and she kept them in a Mason jar. Uncle Frank retraced where he had worked that day and found the little glass elephant at the base of one of the poles he had climbed earlier. Our Navy daughter has it now. Once when Uncle Frank and Aunt Eva were visiting my parents after my sister was born in 1938, my mother was going to nurse her, and her breast was so swollen with milk it shot out in an arching stream that Uncle Frank caught in his cup of coffee to cream it. My Mama believed in “signs” and one afternoon she was in the kitchen with the door open when she noticed two spiders, one big and one small, crawling across the threshold. The big one would limp across like it was crippled and then they would both run back out and come in again, the big one limping. They did this many times and when my father came in from the mines, she told him, “See those spiders? Someone’s comin’ and the big one will be limping.” Sure enough, in time for supper, in walks Uncle Frank with a broken foot, and Aunt Eva, who was a very tiny little woman. Aunt Eva said she was a Blackfoot Indian and showed me the roof of her mouth once to prove it. She said the Blackfoot tribe has a black roof of the mouth. I don't know if this belief held by her was a valid one. Aunt Eva had the prettiest little 22 rifle; it was half the size of a regular gun. I can remember when a river would flood, regardless of where we lived, people would stand on the bank with their rifles waiting for a bottle to go by and have a shooting contest. I remember my Mama and Aunt Eva doing this too. I remember when Uncle Frank died. There was a huge storm, ferocious in its sight and sound. They lived miles up the right hand fork of a mining road above Covel in Wyoming Co. He died a painful death during the night from an aneurysm bursting on his brain. Aunt Eva fired her rifle all through the night but nobody heard it because of the storm. They carried him down off the mountain the next morning when she was able to get some help. Uncle Frank may have been pronounced dead in Mullins like the death record says, but he really died right there on that mountain and she had to sit there alone through the night waiting for daybreak and the storm to end. The picture I have of him and her together was taken on the porch of that little shack they lived in. It was very quaint and cute; not how one envisions a mountain shack would look, and it had a wonderful view. At one juncture on the way to Uncle Frank's little house, if one followed a walking trail to the left, it would end at the Shrewsbury farm where my sister's boyfriend lived. I went there once with my sister Tiny and the two sisters of her boyfriend. It was a beautiful place. All of us then walked further up to the very top of the mountain where the pioneer Shrewsburies lived in a tiny hovel that was the original hut they had built when they first came there. I, as a young child maybe seven years old, almost touched the ceiling, it was that low. There were no windows and it was dim, even with the oil lamp lit. Out at the end of the clearing to the front of their house was a hole of black water. My sister's boyfriend said he had tied a rock to a string and lowered it in that black hole of water as far as it would go and then continued to tie on more string over and over again, but he had never gotten to the bottom. The water was a frigid, painful cold, beyond icy cold. Possibly a meteor created it? That might explain the huge mushrooms that grew along the path leading up to the mountain top dwelling; they were shades of orange and yellow and red and big enough to sit on, but my sister wouldn't let me touch them because she was sure they were poisonous. Aunt Eva loved children but she was unable to have them. They had a big Sheppard dog named Grumpy who was like a baby to them. William Bartley "Bart" Stanley's parents were James B and Amanda M Harman Stanley. James' parents were George B and Lucinda Unknown Stanley, and Amanda's parents were Henry A and Christina Harman Harman, cousins. George's parents were William F and Mourning Doss Stanley. Henry A Harman's parents were Henry Mitchell Harman and PROBABLY Polly Clarke, and Christina's parents were Mathias and Polly Barnett Harman of War, WV. William's LIKELY parents were Robert Hanna Stanley and Unknown. "Hannar's" parents were William Stanley and Judith Hanna, and Judith's father was John Hanna.