Eli Woodie Dykes
After we started this study of the family we wished a thousand times we had ask "Bubs", as we called Eli Woodie, about his life and most certainly about his father. Not only did we not ask him, but now all his family have died and they were never ask. We have, however, learned many things about him. He never talked much about his early years but one can guess it was not easy. He had grown up in Somerset with his mother, sister Mattie (Matty), and his grandfather Elijah.. No one remembers, why, but he was only called Bubs by the children of his son, Johnnie Luther. The general public and the rest of his family called him Woodie or Grandpa Dykes. We will refer to him from this point forward as Woodie or Bubs.
We do not know the year Woodie left Pulaski County, Kentucky and went to Russell County but it was some time after eighteen ninety. He was listed on the 1890 Pulaski County tax roll. He most likely went to work on a freight barge on the Cumberland River. His grandsons, Coba Dykes and Arlis Dykes, remembered Woodie talking about working for a person named Hamm. A Mr. B. L. Hamm was a part owner of the Cumberland Transportation Company. This was a river barge company that transported freight goods up and down the Cumberland River in Kentucky and Tennessee. Mr. Hamm also owned farm land in Burnside, Kentucky. Somerset is only a few miles from Burnside in Pulaski County. Some people have speculated that Woodie worked for Mr. Hamm on his farm before he worked on the river.
It is almost certain that Bubs had difficulty getting any work other than hard labor. He could not read and this surely made it difficult for him to know what to load or unload off the boats. He could write his name. His signature is found on a bond for his son Oscar when he was arrested for making moonshine whiskey.
Bubs was not lazy. As a young man he not only worked on the river boats he also farmed and made and repaired shoes. He is remembered as one who always wanted to be doing something. In his later years, when he stayed with his son Johnnie Luther, he would go to the crib and shell corn by hand for the pigs and chickens just so he would have something to do. As he did this his grandchildren would sometimes tease him by throwing cobs and corn kernels down on him from the hay loft.
As we said he liked to work and never turned down a job. It could be, therefore, that he did, in fact, work for Mr. Hamm on his farm and he was so impressed with his work ethic that he offered him a job on the river. In any case, it is unlikely that Woodie just left home and went all the way to Crealsboro in Russell County, some forty miles away, to a strange place, to find a job. Crealsboro was a bustling town in the late eighteen hundreds but Somerset was larger and one would think have more opportunity for someone who was looking for their first job.
Another theory on how he got his job on the river is that many of the steamboat Captains and First Mates were named Harman. This was the maiden name of his grandmother, Mariah Harman. We did not, however, find any direct connection to the various Harmans and Woodie's grandmother, but there is a good chance one did exist. It is also well documented that Harman was a prominent name in Nashville and other ports along the river. In any case, and for whatever the reason, Woodie did go to Crealsboro, Kentucky in Russell County. For the next fifty plus years, he would live, work, marry, and raise a family in this county.
We do not know where Woodie lived when he first came to Crealsboro, but it was a busy center of commerce. It was not only a major crossroads for steamboat traffic on the Cumberland River but it had two general stores; five doctors, a dentist, a post office, a bank, a blacksmith, a farm implement store, a drug store, a saddle shop and a church. With all this, there must have been boarding houses for laborers to live.
A major ferry was also located at Crealsboro to provide one of the few places to cross the Cumberland River. This would create more traffic for the town. It was not unusual for people from Wayne, Cumberland, Clinton and Russell Counties to meet in the streets of Crealsboro. At this point in time, Crealsboro was at the southern end of a major road that was traveled from Columbia, Kentucky and points north and east. It was little more than a dirt trail, but it was used for all of the eighteen hundreds. The route was so popular that when the Adair County Kentucky Court, in the early eighteen hundreds, was looking to alter the route, one hundred eighteen persons signed a petition against it. It did not seem to bother any one that many of the people signing did not live on the road. The ones that did were willing to do anything to keep the road where it was.
The road was, in fact, first an Indian trail and Crealsboro was where two trails met. One trail ran south from the lower Cumberland Path to Logan's Station to Nashville. The other left the main trail at Goose Creek and followed the general route of US 127 to Russell Springs, through French Valley and down Ramsey's Creek where it crossed and went up Salt Lick Creek, over Poplar Mountain and through Stockton Valley into Cherokee territory near the mouth of Pitman Creek in Green County. It crossed the Green River at Sartins Ford near Greensburg, through Adair County to about Zion Church where it forked. One trail led to the mouth of Greasy Creek and the other ran through Glensfork on Simpson Ridge to Brace Fork of Crocus Creek, over Melson Ridge and down Millers Creek to Crealsboro where it joined the Goose Creek and the Stockton Valley trail.
During the time Woodie worked at Crealsboro he married Julie Elmore. They married on April 10, 1892, in Russell County, Kentucky. It would be interesting to know just how they met and decided to marry. Julie was the youngest daughter of Joseph Elmore and Mary Ann Appleby. The Elmore family was not a wealthy family, but they were not poor either. Joseph had bought the Elmore heirs' interest in the farm owned by his parents James and Jane (Mann) Elmore. The most interesting thing about the entire matter is the Mann connection. Some of Woodie's grandchildren remember him talking about a Mr. Mann and it is thought Woodie may have worked for a Mr. Mann that lived near Manntown, Kentucky in Russell County.
If Woodie did know or work for the Mann family, this may be the way he met Julie. Not only was Julie Elmore's grandmother's maiden name Mann, but two of Julie's sisters, Mary Elizabeth and Artemissa, married a person named Mann. It is not known if all the Manns were related. We have not studied the Mann family in any detail to document the correct relationship.
Woodie and Julie started house keeping some where in Russell County. We know they bought the farm on July 10, 1912. This was twenty years after they married and all their children were born. They kept the farm until 1944. They bought the farm from George W. and Bettie Brockman for $100.00. They paid Mr. Brockman $80.00 in cash and gave him a $20.00 note. A lien was retained in the deed to secure the $20.00 debt. It was to be paid in one year from the date of the deed.
The farm was located in Sand Lick Hollow (pronounced Holler) near Bryan in Russell County. Sand Lick is a true Kentucky holler in every respect. Someone once described their home as being "up hill in every direction." After a visit, one is awe struck as to how a family of seven could survive. There is very little land, no more than ten acres, that could produce any crop. They somehow managed to keep things going with food and the absolute necessities for their life during sickness, fires and the nineteen thirties Great Depression. They stayed in Sand Lick Hollow and never went anywhere except to Bryan, Crealsboro, Jamestown or Russell Springs.
The orginial home on the farm, built by Bubs and his sons, burned in the late 1930's. All homes in that area were heated with wood. One night the wood fell out of the stove when the door was opened and caught the house on fire. Bubs and Julie moved in the home of their son Joe Frank and his wife Lula. The story is that a new house was built in record time because Julie and Lula did not get along and to keep peace in the family, things moved quickly.
Ernest Shearer is a ninety year friend of Oscar Dykes, son of Woodie and Julie, that grew up with the Dykes children. When interviewed in his home in Russell County in 1993, he said he always enjoyed going to the home of Woodie and Julie. He said, "the house was always clean and they had plenty of good stuff to eat." He went on to say that he had spent several nights there with his friend, Oscar.
Woodie and Julie always had a garden and they would preserve what they could from it to use in the winter. They sometimes had a hog to kill and they would cure the meat with salt for later use. Hunting and trapping for fur and food was an activity most men did in that part of Kentucky. We suspect Woodie did his share of hunting opossum, coon, and skunk and selling the hide for fur. He also hunted rabbit and squirrel for meat. They always had a few chickens to provide meat and eggs. Woodie's grandchildren remember going with him to the store and post office at Bryan. Woodie would have a few eggs, sometimes as little as a half dozen, to sell. Most of the time, before he left the store, he would buy his grandchild a piece of candy for a penny.
It is not clear why Bubs left Somerset or what year he left. We know from court records that Elijah Dykes, his grandfather, was old and was exempt from paying tax in the mid 1880's. He could have died at the time Bubs left. He was at least in his late teens and it was time for him to get a job. His mother was not married and had given birth to Mattie, his sister, when he was 13 years old. This may have made his life in Somerset more difficult. At thirteen, he was old enough to know about life and to know his friends knew his mother was not married.
It is not known what happened to his mother, Sarah. There is no public record of her death, marriage, or leaving the area. She may have died and left Bubs and Mattie alone. Mattie would have been a ward of the court and placed in a foster home. Bubs was older and he would have been expected to go to work.
It is clear that Bubs did not go back to Somerset for many years. His grandson Coba Dykes remembered taking him and one of his sons (most likely Johnnie Luther) to Somerset to see Mattie in Janruary 1940. The sad thing was when they arrived at the home of a Mr. Tomlinson they were told that Mattie had died on the day after Christmas about two weeks before. Coba believed this was the first and the only time Bubs went back to Somerset. His relatives remember him talking about having a sister Mattie. In fact he and Julie named their only daughter Mattie. It seems likely therefore, that Bubs cared for his sister. On the other hand no one remembers him talking about his mother, Sarah.
After Bubs married Julie Elmore he worked for a few years longer on the river and then bought the farm in Russell County in Sand Lick Holler from a Mr Brockman who was in the timber business. Brockman had bought the farm at the courthouse door when it sold for taxes. It had been owned by Thomas T. Sullivan and wife, L.C. and J.D. Irwin and his wife Alice. Mr Brockman retained the timber on the place for 20 years and cut it all out in the next few years.
Bubs and Julie lived in Sand Lick Holler until they got old and could not take care of their needs. Julie then went to live with their son Joe Frank until her death and Bubs did the same with their son Johnnie Luther. At the time they died they had no estate. They had sold the farm to Joe Frank and used the money. In fact according to Luther Dykes , son of Joe Frank, Johnnie Luther paid the last bill they owed which was for $5.00. It is not known to whom they owed the money.
They did have an income in their last years from a new program started by President Rossevelt, known by most as the Old Age Pension. It was the forerunner of our Social Security System and was for persons with no means of support. The requirements were you must have a home and be over 65 years of age. Coba Dykes, a son of Dewey Oscar, was living with them at the time and he drew a map of the farm to show to the social wokers when they came to sign them to the program. They told him he did a good job and helped prove they had a home. Woodie was able to get $7.00 each month and Julie got $6.00.
Bubs and Julie are buried on the hill at Bryan a short distance from were they spent most of their married life.