After having my first child in 1986 and as many new mother’s do, I became curious about my own identity and the culture in which I grew up. I began to ask questions of my mother, Nannie Lucille Davis Buckland, who was sharp as a tack. Mother remembered a good bit of information and knew others who could add to the recollections. Dad (the Railroader) knew plenty of cousins and had visited most of them at one point of another. Mom reached out to her sister Jo Ella inquiring about their grandparents. Aunt Jo’s hesitancy came with a stern warning that I ‘better not dig too deep because I might uncover a horse thief’. That comment sparked an even greater curiosity and indeed, I dug deeper and deeper into my maternal ancestry, tracing and chasing generations of Virginia pioneers and patriots that would later qualify me for DAR membership. What I did discover — that she did not want me to uncover, was that my great grandmother, Nancy Catherine Jessee Davis (her grandmother) had her first child out of wedlock and was subsequently married five (5) times after that. Each husband passed away and left her a widow dependent on finding the next man to support her. And so it goes in many families as they sift through the memories of the elderly or examine countless Bible entries, pictures with nothing on the back or pictures with the mother load written on the back. Obituaries, census records and cemeteries became my closest friends. Today’s entry shares the rich vein of precious keepsakes that became mine after the death of the Railroader in 1993.

(1) His mother, Mary Jane Davidson Buckland, kept a burgandy scrap book (circa 1930) with an embossed windmill on the cover. She filled it with calling cards, poems, Norfolk & Western trip passes and newspaper engagement announcements. Each of Grandmother Buckland’s yellowed pages were windows into the treasured details and valuable records of her own story – my story too! On the inside cover is a business card with L. W. Buckland, 619 Bluefield Ave., Bluefield WV. Delegate Bluestone Lodge No. 446 B. of L.F. and E. (the local unions representing N & W Locomotive Fireman and Engineers). The card indicated that Grandaddy Buckland had represented his union as a delegate in St. Paul, Minnesota at the 1910 Twelfth Biennial Convention.

My grandparents own marriage announcement had been trimmed from the local newspaper and was glued in the top left corner of the first page of her scrap book. It read, ” Marriage” “Miss Mary J. Davidson, daughter of Granger Davidson and Mr. Larkin W. Buckland, of Falls Mills, were married at the home of the bride on last Wednesday at noon. Rev. S.O. Hall, pastor of the Presbyterian church, performed the ceremony. Geo. Buckland, a brother, and two sisters — Mrs. Wimmer, (bride’s sister Sally Elizabeth Davidson who married LW’s cousin Robert Bob Johnson Wimmer) and Mrs. Fields, (groom’s sister Cora Belgium Buckland) accompanied the groom to Tazewell. After a delightful dinner at the Davidson home, the bride and groom left for their home in Bluefield, where Mr. Buckland is located as a brakeman of the N. and W.” Grandmother penciled in the date down the side of the entry, March 3, 1909.

The tattered and faded clippings opened up a world of information for me to trace the lineage of so many in her family and in the community of Falls Mills. The obituary of her uncle Rev. D. A. Daugherty led me to discover his and his wife’s final resting place in Marrs Cemetery on a hillside, behind a barn where horses were allowed to roam freely. As of this date, I’d be surprised if the headstone markers are anything more than small broken pieces of granite.

A tiny one column inch press clipping confirmed the death of her younger sister Nannie Crockett Davidson McHaffa who was buried with their parents in Mays Chapel Cemetery at Whitten’s Mill.

Obits for my great grandparents are securely adhered to the pages, along with ‘Shocking Tragedies’, ‘Death of a Colored Man’, ‘Rail Man Dies in Tug River Wreck’, ‘Full Details of Tragedy May Never Be Known’, ‘Mrs. Keister is Taken by Death’. Other, more uplifting saves were the Bible Quiz and answers that ran regularly in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Silver Wedding Anniversaries, School Plays and Dr. O.K. Phlegm who recently made his two-thousandth trip with the stork!

(2) The antique photo album music box filled with vintage pictures of her family members and most with the names written in pencil on the back in Grandmother’s own hand writing led to more discovery. The Victorian leather book has a wonderful stag and doe on the front and an ornate clasp to keep closed. The rotating cylinder still turns flat metal springs that pluck to produce the music. The label indicates it plays ” Creoles Bells and Starts Spangled Banner”. I’m not sure of the latter but it does still play Creoles Bells.

The wonderful pictures inside lead to Clearfolk, just out the road from Tazewell. There the Gregory’s lived, and I have visited cemeteries there and walked on land where my great grandmother Eliza Greever Gregory Davidson lived growing up. I have a beautiful blue and white Chrtwright Brothers tea pot of hers which I love. To walk where she had grown up near Shawver’s Mill was surreal. Her father, Daniel Parham Gregory donated land there for the Christian Church that still stands. (2025) Daniel married Mary Jane Daugherty. Her younger brother was David Daugherty. This is the same (DD) uncle that Grandmother Buckland had posted his obituary in her scrapbook, and that Dad and I visited at Marrs Cemetery in a Falls Mills barnyard. When I turned one of the thick pages of the album to discover a picture of her Uncle David Daugherty and his wife, Nancy Lain Moore, I was thrilled.