Sunday, October 19, 2008

Ballard Smith and Annie Brown


Ballard Smith and Annie Brown were Ellice Smith Morgan's parents. Ballard and Annie ran a boarding house for miners in the coal fields of Kentucky (Jenkins?). He hired miners and they stayed in the boarding house. One miner asked,"What's the pay?" Ballard replied, "$2.40 and room and board." The miner replied,"Let's just make it $2.00, it is easier counted."

MEMORIES FROM GROVER D. MORGAN AND MASON MORGAN 1985 AFTER ELOISE MORGAN'S MEMORIAL SERVICE
They talked of their grandparents Annie and Ballard Smith whose sketches are above. They lived with the Morgans for a time---they were "hill people". He would apparently go on "binges'---take a horse to town, trade it on an underfed bag of bones and money for moonshine. Then he would come home reeling with a "quilting frame" as his daughter would call the horse---to be fattened up (at his son-in-law's expense) until it was time to trade again.

At 80 years old, Annie would lift her foot to the sink to wash it off although the only one's to see her barefoot were Ballard and the undertaker---she wore high top shoes. In addition to "spargrass" for asparagus, she called Kentucky "Kaintuck." Some of the Browns moved to Arkansas or Missouri for a time but moved back to "Kaintuck"

My husband's father was Grover Morgan, son of Ellice Smith Morgan, daughter of Ballard Smith and Annie Brown.

2 comments:

hear.t. and hue said...

so those are sketches & not photographs?

funny story about the horses! :)

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