Meet the Ancestors was one of my favorite British TV shows a few years back, although they were researching folks as old as Stonehenge! One of my favorite pictures is an old family photograph in my Mom’s cedar chest. It is three generations of my Stucker ancestors. My great grandfather is the tallest boy on the right (Charles McCollum), his mother, my great great grandmother (Clara Stucker McCollum Asa) and my great, great, great grandfather ( the older gentleman seated, Thomas Reuben Stucker). This photograph was taken circa 1899. My great great grandmother had been widowed the year before with three small sons. She remarried the fellow seated to the right of her father (R. J. Asa).
Times were very hard for these southeast Missouri pioneers. As you can see, they are standing in front of a cypress board shack in Canalou, Mo. Just about all of the children are barefoot. My mother remembers the house burning down one very hot, Fourth of July day. She said Ma was canning jelly and the house burned to the ground. They managed to save 2 trunks of family heirlooms. Can you imagine? Canning jelly on the hottest day of the year, WITH A WOOD STOVE in hot, humid southeast Missouri! They stood and watched their whole livelihood burn in a matter of minutes. My Mom remembers seeing old family photographs be licked up with flames while they hung on the wall. What heirlooms were lost? Probably my great, great, great grandfather’s civil war memorabilia. He joined at age 15 and went through the whole thing without a scratch. He was said to be “meaner than a dog”. I guess so, no telling the horrors he witnessed. Post traumatic Stress Disorder was not given a name until over 100 years later during Vietnam Nam.
Their legacy goes back even further. The Stucker family emigrated from Germany at the dawn of the French and Indian war (1750’s). They settled in Berks county Pennsylvania. Their next door neighbors happened to be the family of Daniel Boone. My 5 times great grandfather (George Stucker) and Boone were friends. Everywhere Boone went, my family followed. They followed him to Kentucky during the American Revolution. My 5 times great grandfather and his son (also named George) joined the militia as was pretty much required of all able bodied men. In 1781, a British General named Byrd had his Shawnee Indian allies attack Boone’s little forts all along the Kentucky frontier. Both my 5 times great grandfather and his son were killed. Everyone left alive fled to the next fort (or station as they were called) Bryant’s station, which was Boone’s in laws. The Indians followed and laid seige to the little fort. The settler’s only water source was a spring outside the stockade. The women and children volunteered to get water, knowing the enemy was just outside that gate. The Indians left the women and children alone, wanting to lure out the men. My 5 times great grandmother was one of those women. She volunteered even after just losing her husband and son to the enemy just outside that gate.
I can’t comprehend the bravery, stamina and just sheer guts it took to survive those hard times. We have it so easy today. Water and food at our fingertips. Our every want and desire within easy reach. I pray I can live up to the standard they set so long ago!
