"I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father and his father and all our fathers, and in front to see my son and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes. As I felt so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning and no end. And the hand of his father grasped my father's hand and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand and all, up and down the line that stretched from Time That Was to Time That Is and Is Not Yet, raised their hands to show the link. And we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, made in the Image, fashioned in the womb by the Will of God, the Eternal Father."

- Richard Llewellyn, 
How Green Was My Valley

Related | Kentucky | Appalachia | Genealogy

In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep,
to know our heritage -
to know who we are and where we came from.
Without this enriching knowledge,
there is a hollow yearning.
No matter what our attainments in life,
there is still a vacuum, an emptiness,
and the most disquieting loneliness.
~ Alex Haley

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AL Daddy

Uncle Floyd Freeman     Uncle Vergil Haddix

Grandmother Laura (Back) Landrum

Grandfather Arthur Haddix

G-Grandfather Reuben Samuel Landrum

G-G-Grandfather Reuben W. Landrum

Cousin Amanda & Obed Wilson

A Back Family History:
The Story of a Major Branch of the Back/Bach Family 
by Custer Back, Kenneth Back, Troy Back, and Dexter Dixon

Dr. Reedus Back (former Academic Dean at Morehead State University in Morehead, Ky.), Coordinator and Director of Publication.  Published by The Back-Bach Genealogical Society, printed by BookCrafters, Chelsea, Mi., 1994. This extensive book, a hefty 2-volume set, represents the lifetime projects of many family members combined into a single invaluable resource, with direct-line ancestry documented into the 1500's and including over 20,000 names of Back/Bach descendants. 

The front matter and first chapter are available online for free at www.back-bach.com, including the harrowing tale of Hermann Bach's immigration in 1738/9 on the ship Oliver, bound from Rotterdam to Virginia. "For stark, sheer tragedy, no recorded Virginia shipwreck can approach that which occurred more than two centuries ago... Here was tragedy at its worst, for the stranding followed a wretched voyage of five months..."

The Back-Bach Genealogical Society grew out of this project and continues to flourish to the present day. The book is out of print but is now available on CD-ROM, in searchable .PDF format, from the Society's web site (click title above). I was involved with this project for several years and performed camera-ready typesetting for the book in 1993-94. (My father's mother was Laura Back, daughter of Solomon Back of Quicksand, Ky.)

• Breathitt County War Memorial

• Captain Bill Strong 
  A controversial relative who fought for the Union in the Civil War. At home after the war, he led the "Red Strings" against local Klansmen. He was deeply involved in the "Bloody Breathitt" feuds, and was murdered by ambush in 1897. Includes an interview from the Louisville Courier-Journal published in 1879.

• Granville Pearl Noble Talks  
  A relative; interviewed at age 92 in 1939 as part of the WPA Writer's Program. Great-grandson of another of the original settlers of Breathitt County. His grandmother lived to the age of 113!

• Mattie L. Landrum: 1950 Funeral Notice  
  My father's aunt; I have been told that I look like her. Mattie was a career woman at a time when that was unusual: she worked as a court stenographer for Judge Grannis Back for many years, and she served as Secretary to Ky. Governor Simeon Willis during World War II. She died from complications of phlebitis after turning her ankle in a pothole while leaving a movie theatre in Louisville. She never married.

• Notable Breathitt Countians of 1947

• The Pan Handle Purchase, by Blanche Haddix Landrum

• Recollections of Breathitt
  J. Green Trimble's book, online in its entirety!

• Sheriff Carl Back Names Deputies 
  (mentions my grandfather, Arthur Haddix)

• Tom Haddix Recalls  
  A relative, b. 1861; interviewed circa 1938 as part of the WPA Writer's Program. Grandson of one of the original settlers of Breathitt County.

• Dozens of Cousins, by William O'Connor 
  The book is out of print but is available on CD.

• Life and Travels of William B. Landrum
  by the Reverend William Bibb Landrum
  Originally published by the Southern Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, in 1878. The entire text is available online - electronically reproduced in 2002 in the Kentucky Virtual Library's "Kentuckiana Digital Library."  The author was the brother of  the Reverend Reuben Washington Landrum, my great-great grandfather, whose parents lived at Fort Boonesborough; he became a Methodist circuit-rider in eastern Kentucky. 

Amanda

• Amanda and Her Cousins: A Genealogy of the Landrum Family in Kentucky as collected by James A. Landrum
  (see above)

• Queen City Lady: The 1861 Journal of Amanda Wilson, 
  by William T. Venner
  Amanda Landrum Wilson (1832-1926), a relative, was the daughter of a Methodist minister from Augusta, Ky. She married a wealthy publisher from Cincinnati, Obed Wilson; together, they left an important legacy. This book contains the transcript of her touching personal diary, with  the  story of her brother, a Union lieutenant killed in the Civil War, and many footnotes about local Cincinnati landmarks. She was a world traveler and a noted philanthropist. A more personal account of her story (also with her diary) is available in my brother's book, above. 

• A Daughter of the Samurai, by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto
  Originally published in 1926, this is a fascinating autobiographical account of the life of a Japanese samurai family at the end of the feudal era. The book tells the story of "how a daughter of feudal Japan, living hundreds of years in one generation, became a modern American." Amanda Landrum Wilson befriended the author when, as young woman, she moved to America for an arranged marriage. A very good read; highly recommended! It may be hard to find... check with your local library.
  
  I recently had the luck to run across a 1936 edition of this book (published by Doubleday) in a library book sale. It has an illustration not included in the 1973 reprint (published by Charles E. Tuttle Company) I bought a couple of years ago... this drawing of the author, Etsu, meeting Amanda (Landrum) and Obed Wilson (click on the picture to see a larger image):



 

• Twin Towers: Methodist Home for the Aged, Cincinnati OH
  "[In 1903] Mr. and Mrs. Obed Wilson generously offered to donate 20 acres of land on the brow of College Hill, Cincinnati, for the building of the Home. The gift was accepted, and a fireproof building was designed that would serve 300 people. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson further donated funds for the erection of a Chapel and North Wing, and later gave an organ for the Chapel, built an Art Gallery, and donated their own private collection of art which graces the home today." Amanda also erected a flagpole with a marker dedicated to her brother, a Civil War soldier. I have toured the Chapel and Art Gallery... stunning. 

  • Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum
    Amanda and her family are buried here. Thanks to my brother
    James for "finding" their graves and getting the cemetery to
    maintain this old family section. 

    • Amanda's Interment Certificate

    • Obed's Interment Certificate

  • University of Cincinnati - Wilson Auditorium
    Amanda's bequest to the University of Cincinnati in memory of her husband. She also endowed a Chair for Ethics at this university, and donated precious art pieces to the University. 

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