This post was inspired by a Post from Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, on 23 March 2019 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2019/03/23/the-one-i-wish-id-known/)
My grandfather, Joseph Baxter Lovelace, was a subsistence farmer in rural Rutherford County, North Carolina. He died 27 June 1949, about 10 months before I was born. My dad Walter and my aunt Inez have told me so much about him, including his prowess as a horse trader and his love for his mules. I have many photos of him with his family and with his mules. Inez has always told me he would be so proud of me. I have his miniature grandfather clock in my home office. But I was never able to meet him, and I would dearly love to sit with him over a cup of coffee and talk with him about his early life; his marriages less than a year apart to two sisters, one of whom was my grandmother Arrie; Arrie’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage at the dinner table; and any number of other topics. Grampa Joe was out plowing his fields behind his beloved mule one afternoon and decided to take a break to sit under a tree and have a glass of cold water. He asked my aunt Georgie to get him a glass from the well, and when she returned, he had succumbed to what his death certificate called “heat stroke.” I would love to see him, to tell him of my life, to fill him in on what I have found about his ancestry, and to listen to him tell stories of his life. Rest in peace, Grampa. Even though we never met, I miss you.
Below: Joseph Baxter and Arrie Wright Lovelace and family. My dad Walter sits in his mother’s lap.
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