Gleaveland

Ezra, Robin and Peter on Gleaves Road

While in Virginia with the Nelsons, I checked the map and found that it would only take us 40 minutes longer to get home if we made a stop in Cripple Creek, Virginia on the way home. What is in Cripple Creek? The land of my people. 

My 6th great grandfather, William Benjamin Gleaves, settled in Cripple Creek with his wife, Elizabeth Turk. They had eleven children, all born in Cripple Creek. I am a descendant of his first son, Thomas Harvey Gleaves, who moved to Tennessee and lived there for the rest of his life. We had a Gleaves Family Reunion back in 2003 and in 2009 here, and I wish that I had a love for family history then. I only remember it being hot and humid and there were lots of old people I didn't know. 

I haven't been back to that area since the reunions and since we were so close I knew we had to make a trip. I passed the idea by Jonathan. "Hey, so it turns out, we can go see the Gleaves land if we add only 40 minutes on to our trip home. What do you think?" I was ready with arguments on why we needed to stop by, but I didn't need to use them. Jonathan just said, "Yeah, sure. Let's go!" So, it was planned. We left the Nelson reunion and headed over to Cripple Creek. We found Gleaves Road and drove along looking for the Gleaves house and Gleaves Knob- yeah, we have a hill...pretty cool. 

I had gotten the address for the house before I lost signal with my mom, so we drove down Gleaves Road, looking for the right number. We found the house, but there was a gate across the driveway. We decided to drive down the road a bit and see if there was a place we could get a good picture of the house from the road (there wasn't). We ended up turning around and going back past the house only to find the gate was now open! So, we drove down the driveway. The house is set a ways back from the road. We came to a bridge that looked partly safe. We started driving across and it was loud driving across the boards, but we made it. Only to come to another bridge that looked even less safe. I made Jonathan get out and inspect it to see if he thought it was meant for vehicles. A bunch of dogs ran out, so I told Jonathan to go to the house and see if anyone was there. No one answered, and Jonathan returned to the car. We drove across the second bridge while holding my breath, and it held! We all got out and took a picture in front of the house. Peter tried to hug and pet all the dogs.

Ezra, Robin and Peter with the house

Peter, Jonathan, Ezra and Robin in front of Gleaves Knob. 

 After we got our house picture, a truck turned off the road to come down the driveway! We went out to the driveway to meet the truck. It was Jimmy Dunkley, the man who lived there. I remembered a bit about him from previous meetings. He got out of his truck and I went to introduce myself only to find he knew exactly who I was. He exclaimed, "You're Bobby's daughter. I remember you!" I was surprised he remembered since it had been so many years. Then he said, "Your mom. She sends cards for Christmas." Nice job mama. We talked with him for a few minutes. He told us a bit about the land, and gave us the phone numbers of his sons so we could contact them. We didn't have enough time to go see them since we needed to get the boys home and we still had about three hours to drive home. It was a fun visit and nice to see some Gleaves ground before heading home.

Ezra, Robin and Jimmy Dunkley in front of Gleaves Knob.

The bridge that held...and beautiful property

Weekend with the Nelson's

The first weekend of August, we took a drive up to Virginia to spend the weekend with Jonathan's siblings. We all chipped in and rented a big house for the weekend, so we could all fit and hang out together. The house we stayed in was in the middle of nowhere in a teeny town called Pilot, but it was a good mid-way point for us, and I loved being up in the mountains for a weekend. The last bit of the drive was on narrow, winding, gravel roads. It was a little exciting, especially the couple of times that there was another car on the road going the other way. The boys slept for the first half of the drive, and Ezra got fussy only for about the last 40 minutes. So, it wasn't too bad. It was a really pretty drive through the mountains to get there and the place we stayed was lovely.

Rebeccah, Ezra, Robin, Jonathan, Little Peter, Big Peter, Christina, Charles, Erica, Josh, George

Jonathan, Rebeccah, Christina, Erica (and Charles face hiding)

 The house we stayed in belonged to a couple with two small children who lived in a house just next door. They have two cows, a bunch of chickens and a huge garden. They were a really fun family. I enjoyed talking with them and learning a bit about how they got here. The wife said that she loves it, but would really like to do something like what they are doing but with another couple of families. She said it gets isolating up there sometimes, which I totally believe. It is a beautiful area, but it could get lonely really fast.

Christina with Ezra (who is watching the cows)

 We took it really easy that weekend. We all brought food and Christina and Peter brought a couple of games. We ate good food, visited, watched Olympics and just hung out on the property. On Saturday, we went on a short walk along the property and their neighbor's land. Their neighbor mows a path along his property so it was an easy walk and a nice little way to follow.

Charles and Peter, closing the gate.

Taking a snack break under the big tree
Christina, Peter, Charles, Josh with George on his back

Peter and Charles

 The cousins played great on the trip. The older two (Charles and Peter) have reached ages where they can play well and communicate better with each other. They ran around a ton, but aren't old enough to really get into trouble, which is great. The younger two (George and Ezra) either followed the older boys around or got passed around their aunts and uncles. They played a bit with the kids who live there as well, which was fun.

Beautiful place to play

Jonathan started taking selfies... 

Robin and Ezra with his fox

Peter with his "peanuts" and water on the hike
Not really peanuts, just seed pods (I think)

Everyone going up the hill. We stayed in the house that is closer up in the photo, and the family who owns this lives in the further away house. The garden is just to the right of their house.

Robin, Ezra and Peter

Ezra is getting big!

 The house had some Lincoln Logs that the boys played with/fought over. They really did pretty good with them. Small squabbles, but nothing bad.

Christina, Ezra, Peter and Charles

Building a village

Peter's house 

Tragically, both little boys came down with a cold on Friday night. Ezra slept horribly the first night. He woke up every 30 minutes- an hour. He would just cry and cry and nothing seemed to settle him down. Finally around 4am I pulled him into our bed. He still didn't sleep great, but he was screaming less, so hopefully at least other people in the house could sleep. Saturday morning he woke up with a fever and super stuffed up. That explained his terrible sleeping. Luckily Jonathan had grabbed the baby medicine before we left the house, so we got his fever down and then he was in a pretty good mood. He slept pretty terribly Saturday night also. He was happy during the day, just not sleeping at night. I took a warm shower with Ezra to try to get him breathing better. Then after I was done, we left the water running hot to steam up the bathroom and Erica and I hung out in there with the little boys to try to clear them out. 

Hanging out in the bathroom/steam room, with the sickies.
Erica with George, Robin with Ezra

 While I tried to nap with Ezra on Saturday, the other boys went out with various family members to do farm chores with the other family. They fed the chickens and took care of the cows. I don't actually know what happened since I wasn't there, but Peter loves animals so I'm sure he had a blast.

Erica, George and Peter with the chickens

 Aside from a sick and terribly sleeping Ezra, it was a fun trip. On Sunday we went to church in Floyd, Virginia. They are just a small branch (small congregation), but all of the people there are great. They were very welcoming and kind. I would love to go back and visit the area again sometime. After church, we went back to the house, packed up and ate lunch. Some of the group went to go hear a music group perform, but the boys were done, so we opted to go back to the house. Peter slept in the car and stayed asleep while we packed up, which made packing up a breeze. After everyone came back, we ate, cleaned up and then we headed out. This was a fun trip.