A bit of family history?? ;-)

Pat Griffin, a friend of mine who lived in Montana at the time, was driving past an antique farm equipment display, saw this machine and called to ask me about it. It brought back to mind a sad but colorful story from my family’s past. I thought you all might be interested in this bit of my family history via this photo.

 

The machine was developed by my great grandfather, T. Cyrus Calkins. When it turned out to have no worthwhile purpose as a farm implement, it disappeared.  It eventually turned up in Tennessee where it was cleverly reconfigured (as seen in the picture) to disguise the still of Silas Walker who got wind of the Revenuers coming into the hills looking for bootleggers. The ruse was so successful that my Grandfather formed a partnership with Silas and built up a thriving manufacturing business. Unfortunately for us descendants, both men became so fond of the product coming from the stills that the business

floundered and eventually both men died penniless. 



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How I got my start~

I was born in Presho SD, I don't remember the event but I was told that the Dr. had a big house and used some of the bedrooms as hospital or birthing rooms and that's where I came into the world. My name is actually Theodore Paul but my dad's name was Theodore and I guess they didn't need two Teds in the family so I have always used my middle name. I probably should have legally reversed the name order because it would have reduced the confusion level for drivers license, social security, etc. The first recollection I have may be a real memory or a memory of what I was told but in either case it's very vivid. I was playing/crawling on the floor when suddenly my mother rushed past me and began to strike a snake that had slithered into the kitchen. (snakes were an everyday occurrence in SD) I don't know what she killed it with but as I got older I was aware of a noticeable chunk out of the wood floor. The kitchen in our farm home was important because that's w...
Read more

A Random Thought~

After watching the '24 Olympics in Paris I was curious about how many countries and people participated so I looked it up. There were 206 participating countries and approximately 10,500 individual athletes competing for team and individual medals. Watching all those athletes from so many countries, speaking so many languages, representing so many ethnicities and religions and seeing the joy they seemed to feel at just being there rubbing shoulders, competing and making friends across the globe made me wonder; why are there wars? In my lifetime it seems that most wars, big and small, were started by leaders motivated by greed for power, money or land; radical religious beliefs, racial or ethnic prejudice or deranged egos.
Read more