Barry's Genealogy Diary

This online genealogical diary is hosted by Barry T. Self. It is primarily for information pertaining to the SELF surname, more particularly for descendants of John J. and Lydia Avaline Waters Self, who were married in Union County, GA in 1851. Barry Self is the SELF proclaimed family genealogist and historian, having spent over 20 years researching this Self line. This diary is dedicated to preserving and sharing the findings of his research.

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Location: Madisonville, Tennessee, United States

I am married to a wonderful and sweet wife, Svitlana, who is from Ukraine and we have a beautiful daughter, Lydia Elizabeth. I have worked in the funeral business since 1988 and thoroughly enjoy researching my family roots.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

"Mountain Memories" Page 8

heard that he liked the way "moonshine" made him feel but didn't like the taste. So before he took his dram of "moonshine" he would send one of the kids to get him a chaser (buttermilk or something like it). Nancy and Tom had a little son (I don't know his name), but they supposed he drank some of the moonshine and was poisoned by it and died. Nancy grieved for him for years and told of how he always brought in her kindling wood. Many years after he died, she would cry when she talked about him. Could you wonder why these people sing such melancholy songs that sound almost like a wail. . . "Was I just born to die". . . "and wipe my weeping eyes, and wipe my weeping eyes."

Dove Self had her share of bad luck with husbands. She first married Joe Miller's cousin Sam. He didn't like work but he loved money, so somehow or other he managed to work just enough to get money to sew up in his clothes so nobody could get it without his knowing it. Outside of that, he was a kindhearted man, but his wife and little son Ernie got hungry. Dove said when she got hungry she got to thinking of Louisa's table. She would gather up Ernie and go visit her sister and go into the kitchen where Louisa kept her leftover food on the table with a tablecloth over it. When she turned back the cloth, "There it was!" Sam Miller died at an early age. I don't know the cause of his death.

Dove was still young. She married again, this time to a good­ looking man named Alan Butler. He was good to her at first and she had no way of knowing he was a man with a split personality. The marriage turned into a nightmare for Dove. Alan was abusive to her and the children. She had four children before she left and one time he almost smothered one of them to death before he was stopped by Dove's brother Sherman.

Dove and Alan lived in a remote section of the forest and there was no way to escape, but Dove said she would fight as long as she could move her little finger. When Alan began to contemplate ways that her son Ernie might be "accidentally" killed, Dove became frightened and started praying for God to make a way for her to escape. And He did. There was a forest fire. This wasn't unusual in these mountains, but people were having to leave their homes and men were fighting the fire. Dove saw the chance to take the children and run. She carried the baby Alvin and told Ernie, Obie, and Howard to follow. They got out of the fire to freedom, leaving everything behind.

Dove tried marriage one more time, to John Ellis. It turned out no better than the other two so she never tried it again. She had a daughter from this marriage, though, her first daughter. She named her Mayme.

Louisa Self met her husband-to-be at a quilting bee. I don't know what he was doing at a ladies' quilting bee, but I know

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