Violet Susan Roberts....My 2nd Great Grandmother

John Price Gaddy and Violet Susan Roberts


My 2nd Great Grandmother was Violet Susan Roberts who married John Price Gaddy. Their daughter was Nancy Caroline Gaddy who married Albert Pike Word. Violet Susan Roberts was my Grandmother's (Mamaw's), Grandmother. The following is a letter that has been transcribed written by Florence Myrtle Gaddy, who descends from John Henry Gaddy. This letter is a very visual insight on Violet Susan Roberts in her later years, written by her Grandaughter Florence.


I, Florence Myrtle Cook Wilson, born September 2, 1897, am the last living one of the family of John Henry Gaddy and Susan Alice Cook. I shall try to relate a few things that happened while I was growing up on our 40 acre Farm which was 3/4 of a mile north of Newport, Barton County, Missouri.

My maternal grandmother, Susan Violet Roberts Gaddy, lived with us all the time I can remember while growing up. She was very stern about discipline. I remember one time my mother was gone mid-wifering and my grandma was left in charge. At noon time I mixed too much cornbread and molasses on my plate and could not eat it. Grandma put it up on the cupboard and said I had to eat every bit of it before I could have anything else to eat. I wasn't stubborn, I just couldn't eat it. So I got nothing to eat for my supper. The next morning Mama was home and she said I didn't have to eat it. To this day I can't eat anything sweet on cornbread.

Her husband, my grandfather, John Price Gaddy, who was born in Lexington, Kentucky on August 24, 1827, died at an early age from cancer long before I was born. He is buried in Round Prarie Cemetery but has no marker so we can't find the grave.

Grandma told us a little about her growing up. Her family lived on a cotton farm in North Carolina and had two black slaves, a man and woman who were married to each other. They were called Aunt and uncle. They ate at the table with the family and shared in the profits of the farm.

My grandmother was 24 when she married and had a big hope chest filled with handmade linens and hand-pieced quilts. Marrying so late she had time to make so much. Girls were considered old maids at that age.

My grandma was a Christian and embarrassed my mother in church by shouting when she felt the spirit. A Shouting Methodist. After she got too old to go to church she would have her own service every Sunday afternoon. She would set her chair in the middle of the living room with her Bible and hymn book, then read some scriptures and sing some hymns in her old cracked voice. Mother would not let us kids bother her at all. If we had company, we had to keep them quiet too.

She raised sweet potato plants in what she called a hot-bed and every year she sold them to the neighbors in early spring. She covered them every night with old quilts and sacks, then in the morning she would take them off so the sun could get to them. One morning she went to lift the covers off and underneath was a copperhead snake all curled up ready to strike. She jumped back and it missed her but how she yelled. By the time my dad got there the snake had gotten away, never to be seen again.

With the money she got from selling the sweet potato plants she bought a pair of black laced old lady's shoes and calico for two dresses which she sewed by hand. We had a Singer sewing machine but she would not use it. She made the dresses the same, without a pattern, a tight fitting bodice with long sleeves and a gathered shirt which fell to her shoetops. For years she had ready her clothes to be buried in. They were made of black taffeta in the same style as her calico dresses. She made a bonnet of the same black material. Several times a year she would take them out to air them. It would give us kids the shivers.

Every time she had a sick spell she would say that it was her last and that she was dying. She would take on and groan and carry on. She slept in the same room with us kids and it would scare us, but when she did get her last sickness she was very quiet. They brought her bed down to the living room so Mama wouldn't have to climb the stairs. We all watched her die. She had been in a coma for a while. I was standing at the foot of her bed, my sister, Mary, and her husband, at one side. Grandma suddenly opened her eyes and said, "I want you to join the church." We all three did that after she passed away. She went back into the coma and never spoke again.

The neighbor-men hitched up their wagon and went to Lamar to get the coffin while the women came and bathed her and dresses her in the black taffeta dress and bonnet. Other neighbors dug the grave and the burial service was held that afternoon as it was very hot weather. No one in those days thought of embalming. Years later another grandson and I got together and had a stone put on her grave. It is still there in the Newport, Mo. cemetery which is next to the Baptist Church.


Thinking back now!
Does anybody remember climbing the firetower up on Hwy 64 over in Dallas County, MO. This area was also called Jack Rabbit pass. Anyway, you could see for miles from the top of that tower. There were no towns within 20 miles. When I was younger we would climb the tower and drink beer, and other dispicable things......! We would spit off the top of the tower, and count how many seconds it took to hit the ground.

Song of the Week
My brother and my sisters were raised around the rivers of Missouri. My dad had this obsession with rivers and fishing, of which we all joined in. We had a canoe, I believe to be 18 foot , and aluminum. We would float, on some days 5 to 10 miles, we would fish, and swim. I remember one float we just picked up trash, to clean the river up. My Dad was an environmentalist long before there was such a thing!!
Natalie Merchant must have been raised not far from the River. On her Tigerlily album, she has two songs that are wonderful songs of words and music. "The River" is a classic song, but the one I like most is, "Where I Go"......................... Enjoy!