Samuel Gann of Winchester Va Family

The following by Christine Stidham Echels, Beaumont, Texas. Nathan Gann Whisler, born 8 Sept 1841 was my great-grandfather. He was the son of Anna Jane Gann and Elias Whisler. Nathan Gann Whisler and Lucinda Frances Holt had eight children. The second oldest child was Lucinda Josephine who was my grandmother, and she married Joe Mantooth. Their second oldest child was Allie Mae Mantooth, who was my mother. The third oldest child was William Harvey, father of William Mantooth, treasurer of GFHS. My mother married James Alexander Stidham. They had three children: Christine, Odessa and Betty. I am the oldest. Nathan Whisler and his family lived in Delta County, about three miles east of Commerce, Texas, which is in Hunt County. Grandpa Whisler and his family raised cotton and feed for the farm animals. He was the only person I ever knew in texas who raised tobacco. He had only a few plants for his own use in his corn-cob pipe. The Whisler farm was only about a mile from the Mantooth farm, and the families visited back and forth often and assisted each other in crop gathering, hog killing and syrup making. The ladies had quilting bees, and they all did beautiful needlework..knitting, crochet and embroidery. Grandma Whisler had a spinning wheel and carded her own cotton, spun thread and used it for knitting and crocheting. The Whisler home and Mantooth home were modest farm houses with large rooms and fireplaces. The houses were similar, but the Whisler home was a bit more elegant. They had a parlor with a carpet, overstuffed furniture and an organ. They had a prettier yard, too. I remember the lilac bushes and a large rose bush by the front gate. there was a wagon wheel in the backyard planted with Portulaca, and Grandma called it "moss." I spent summers with them and Grandma would let me take an envelope and shake the tiny seeds into it so she could save them. I think this plant seeds itself, so now I wonder if she really wanted the seeds or was just giving me "busy work"to do. At the Mantooth home near the back steps, there was a well for drinking water. It was over 100 feet deep andit took a lot of "drawing" to get the bucket up. I found out the hard way that letting it down too rapidly would cause rope burns in the palms of my hands. The bucket was a slender one, about three feet long and not more than six or eight inches in diameter to fit the small casing of the well. The water had a strong mineral taste and no one seemed to like it until they got usedto it. I "got used to it" the summer I spent with my grandparents when I was 11 years old, and I always liked it after that. The Whislers had a shallower well and used a cedar bucket and a gourd dipper which was used by every member of the family..and all the visitors, too. There was a cistern at the back porch of the Mantooth place. The cistern was boarded up but had a wooden ledge all around the top. There were several holes drilled in the ledge, each with a rope hanging down with a pan or a bucket on it. The containers just reached the water and they were forerunners of their refrigeration. Grandma put milk, butter, fruit, anything she wanted to keep cook in these containers and dropped them down into the well until they just reached the water. I remember good watermelons, cantaloupes, and peaches being kept there in the summer. There were smokehouses with ham, bacon and sausage, enough to last the year round. Occasionally, they killed a calf for beef. they had their own chickens, eggs, cows for milk, and they grew vegetables, berries, fruits and peanuts. There were apples, pears and peaches galore. They dried some for winter use and Grandma canned lots of fruits in glass jars which she stored in the cellar. The cellar was a dug-out with mounded dirt on topand was an important structure in country homes. They usually had a bed, quilts, and benches around the walls where the family could take refuge from the cyclones, twisters, and storms. Shelves built around the upper walls kept the fruit dry and cooler than in the house in summer. Cellars always had a sort of musty smell and my recollection ofthe cellar included the odor..just like I remember the salty, smoky smell of the smokehouse. There were pecans and walnut trees on both the Whisler and Mantooth places. They enjoyed the nuts and used the beautiful wood to make their furniture. There were always extra people at the Whisler home. Besides Grandpa and Grandma Whisler, there was Aunt Ida who was widowed and brought her two daughters back home to live and Aunt Martha who was a spinster. Also, Aunt Bessie who had an unhappy marriage and brought three daughters back to live with her parents. Their home and their hearts always seemed large enough to hold them all, and they all shared in the work. Most country people in those days were morally upright, honorable and honest, and a man's word was as good as his bond. Before the turn of the century, and even until the day of the automobile, religion was more a way of life than a ritualistic practice. Church services were held late in the summer when the crops were laid by. There were singing schools where music was taught bY "shaped notes" in the hymn books. All of the members of the family participated in these services, and this strong tradition is evidenced still in the lives of Whisler, Mantooth and Stidham descendants who are active in various demoninations today. Nathan Gann Whisler was a young man of only 20 years when the Civil War came. He served in Company B, 19 Texas Infantry, Confederate States of America as is noted on his tombstone. We do not remember that he ever talked much about the war. Grandpa Whisler died at the family residence in Delta County, Texas, on 20 February 1926, and he is buried in Lebanon Cemetery about two miles east of Commerce, Texas.