Emma: In Her Own Words

The Background Emma Ewers Taylor Hopkins was my maternal grandmother. If you’ve read my About page, you know that she was responsible for my interest in genealogy, even though that didn’t happen until more than 20 years after she died. Sometime in the 1970s, my mother bought a fill-in-the-blanks family history books for my youngest […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Growing Up in Rockcastle County “When my brother started to school, I led him by the hand and stayed with him at recess afraid he would get hurt. When I was 10 yrs old we moved back up near where […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Three Jobs and a Few Notes on the Family “When I graduated at 16, I was too young to teach. No one around there went to college. A few went to Normal school to try to pass teachers examination but […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Some text is omitted to protect the privacy of living family members. Eloping to Jellico on the Train “On Oct 11, 1920 I married Elmer Dennis Hopkins.  When I was 11, at my sisters wedding, I decided to elope. This […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Several pages following the last post deal with her daughters’ lives, including their weddings. That information has been omitted for privacy reasons.  Postmaster and Other Jobs Elmer was sick 1 1/2 yrs in 1935 & 36 and I took examination […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Some text is omitted to protect the privacy of living family members. Organizations & Religion “I started in P. T. A. when Edna started to school and am still a member. I served 2 yrs as pres of the Loyall […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Some text is omitted to protect the privacy of living family members. Papa “Papa didn’t want any of us to have boyfriends. We did not get to go to parties and have friends in like some children. But we loved […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Some text is omitted to protect the privacy of living family members. Cooking and Sewing “I couldn’t boil water when I married. I took a cookbook with me to Jellico. The first biscuits I made were hard as rocks but […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Some text is omitted to protect the privacy of living family members. Rocking Babies “My greatest delight was in rocking and singing to my babies. This is a pleasure many mothers deny themselves but it is the greatest tranquilizer that […]

Transcription of my grandmother’s notebook. See Part 1 in the series for a full explanation. Some text is omitted to protect the privacy of living family members. The Flood “I had lived in my house 52 years and the water had never been in my house. But in Apr. 1977 6 ins. rain fell very […]