TAKE ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINNY
By
Scarlett Stahl
California is my home but I admit that I wish I could spend part of the year in Virginia. I really am a small town girl and I love the Southern food, the rich history, the beautiful rivers and countryside, as well as the gracious hospitality. So recently I took another trip back to Richmond to see more that remains on my list of things to see and do. Virginia is where both sides of my family come from. One of my friends had questioned how I could be related to so many famous people and the curator at the Virginia Historical Society explained that in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, there weren’t that many people so there was a lot of intermarriage between cousins and additionally no one married a stranger. They had to know the family before allowing a marriage. For example, another of my friends, knowing that one of my family names is Randolph, challenged my statement that Thomas Jefferson is a blood cousin. They said he was only a cousin thru marriage as his daughter, Martha, married a Randolph. Being used to this, I explained that Thomas Jefferson’s mother was a Randolph (Jane Randolph) and that his daughter, Martha, had married her own Randolph cousin.
Changing the subject to lodgings, I normally stay at a Hampton Inn as I like the cozy homey atmosphere and prefer suburbs, but this time I was with friends who were staying at the Omni Hotel in downtown Richmond. It is an attractive hotel, with a Starbucks and Pecan Jacks, a unique candy store…the Southern pecan pralines are to die for. But it is a big hotel within a small mall in busy downtown.
The hotel provides free shuttle service to anywhere in a five mile radius, except on the weekends. So I took advantage of this and went to see the grand old Jefferson Hotel. Outside the hotel, to my surprise, I found a replica of the last alligator, Old Pompey, who had died in 1948. Inside was old world elegance with a statue of Thomas Jefferson and stained glass ceilings. As he is my cousin and my daughter claims that he and I have the same nose, I tried to take a photo of his nose for her. There were a couple of lovely gift shops and it is on my list to come back again for the high tea, which they are famous for and which I particularly enjoy.
Another day my cousin, Barry Holloway, took me to the Pamunkey Indian Reservation, which is about an hour south east of Richmond. We enjoyed the ride thru the beautiful countryside with the fall leaves turning to orange. The Reservation has 200 tribal members on 1,200 acres. It appears fairly small and the museum is just one room with a second room for a gift shop. It is lies on the Pamunkey River, where the clay is used to hand make beautiful pottery with old techniques. Some of the items were elsewhere on exhibition but I did get a small magnet and Jamestowne Bell Tower, which were made from commercial pottery and so are less valuable. Also I brought home a hand beaded picture, which was done by Layne Cook, sister of the lady at the Museum, Kim Cook Taylor. While I was there, a customer phoned asking for some of the hand made pottery with the clay from the river. Kim offered to take the information and email photos when there were some available, which I decided to do as well.
Both sisters are descendants of Pamunkey chiefs. Kim even posed for me with a picture of her ancestors. Kim’s daughter, Wendy Cook Taylor, portrayed Pocahontas in the 400th wedding reenactment of Pocahontas to John Rolfe on April 5, 2014 at Jamestowne, which I attended. I wish I had asked Kim if she were descended from Powhatan, who was Pocahontas father. As I am a direct descendant of Pocahontas, then that would have made us distant cousins. Kim shared that people have inquired about becoming tribal members but the rules are if anyone has not been active in the tribe for twenty years, then they no longer belong to the tribe.
There was a phone call from someone wanting to purchase a handmade Pamunkey black clay pot. Kim took the information from the caller and promised that she would email pictures, when there were more available. Apparently these take time and skill to make. I also asked her to let me know as I would like a small affordable one myself. Kim was a wealth of information and even directed us to the site where Powhatan is buried, which made my day!!! Maybe I am silly but it means a lot to me to find my roots and to honor my ancestors, whether they are recent generations or way far back. Barry enjoyed the view of the river and mentioned that he planned to kayak down to the reservation another time with his friends.
Yet another day my friends and I visited Hollywood Cemetery. I managed to find the gravesites of two of my cousins, John Randolph of Roanoke and Fitzhugh Lee. I am sure there are others there but those were the names I recognized on the map. Most of my family are buried either at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg or on private land, which isn’t unusual in Virginia. Other ladies also found gravesites of relatives, which moved some to tears.
There was one grave of a little girl, which had a statue of a dog next to it. I was told that before she died, she always would pat a dog whenever she passed him at a store and so her family wanted a statue of the dog next to her grave. In fact while we were there some of the ladies spoke to a woman at a gravesite, whose 22 year old daughter had just died and was found with her cat by her side. The woman was having an exact replica statue of her daughter’s cat made to go at the girl’s gravesite. It was a lovely small cemetery. The largest cemetery in Virginia is Arlington, the land that belonged to Martha Washington’s great granddaughter, Mary Custis Lee, who was married to Robert E. Lee. And the second largest cemetery in Virginia is Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg.
We’ll have more of Scarlett’s epic trip to Virginia next week!
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