Minter Jackson Prickett Jr. (1895 - 1975)

Ancestors

Biography

Minter Jackson Prickett, Sr., age 21

Laura Bell McConnell

Minter was born on Wednesday, 8 May 1895 in Rural Retreat, Wythe County, Virginia, the tenth or eleventh of eleven children and the fourth or fifth of five sons of Minter Jackson (Sr.) and Laura Bell McConnell Prickett.

Minter and his twin brother, Abram McConnell Prickett, were born about three o'clock in the afternoon in what was later the downstairs parlor of the Prickett house on the north side of Railroad Avenue, about a block west of the Rural Retreat train station in

Minter was born in the right-hand room on the first floor.

Wythe County, Virginia. Minter was probably the younger of the twin boys, judging from the stories my father told about his birth.

They were not especially welcome. After my father died, my mother told me that his mother told her she was dismayed when she discovered she was once again pregnant. (She had already had nine children in fifteen years of marriage.) In despair, she had climbed a haystack and jumped off, hoping to miscarry. As matters turned out, I think Daddy was her favorite child.

My father liked to tell humorous stories that involved dying, perhaps because of an unconscious anxiety about death as the result of losing his twin at birth and his father when he was just eight months old. He told this one about his and Abram's birth:

His mother was in the downstairs bedroom and his father was there with her. The two oldest children, Gladese (almost 15) and Pauline "Polly" (not yet 14), were sitting in the swing on the front porch. As the two oldest, they had to help look after all the younger children as they came along, a chore they did not much relish. After the first baby was born, his father went out to the front porch to tell them they had a new baby brother to take care of. A few minutes later, he again went out to the front porch to tell them they had another new baby brother, "one for each of them to look after." A short time later, he went out again to tell them that one of the baby brothers had died. Polly is reported to have jumped up and down, clapped her hands, and exclaimed, "Goody, goody! the dead one's mine!"

I loved that story myself and I remember Daddy telling it one time when Aunt Polly was visiting, and she didn't deny it; she just looked down and smiled.

Daddy also said that Abram, who was born first, was born dead and that he himself was not breathing and that the doctor gave him "one last whack" and he began to cry. If this version is true than the previous one is probably not. (PPH 12 October 2016.

At any rate, Abram died at birth and Minter’s father died of pneumonia just eight months later. Soon afterward, Lollie's parents moved in to live with the family. Thomas Guilford McConnell had suffered financial reverses in the Panic of 1893, and by 1896 was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. For the next five years, the two families lived on his Civil War pension of $11 a month.

Minter at age one

Minter remembered that as a small boy he often cried, probably because of the losses he had experienced in infancy, although he himself did not know why. He would climb onto his grandmother’s ample lap for comfort. She could sympathize only too well as she had lost seven of her eleven children in infancy and an eighth, her first son, Robert Abram a few years earlier, of an accident in 1893, at age 31.

Minter at age five

In the 1900 census, Minter Is shown as living at home with his

mother, grandparents and all his siblings except Pauline, his second oldest sister, who had married and left home at age 16 and was already the mother of two children ( Ralph, born in November 1899, and Bessie, born in July 1900). At age five, he is not shown as having attended school, but as able to read and write. (Whether that's a fact or the census-taker’s error, I don't know. (Prickett-120, 25 December 2017.)

A photograph was made of him about that time, wearing a Buster

Brown-type collar and bow tie.

Thomas Guilford McConnell, 1824-1900

His grandfather McConnell died in 1900. Minter remembered him as a tall man who had “softening of the brain.” Sometimes he would fancy that he was going on a business trip and would sit on a trunk beside an upstairs parlor window thinking he was on a train. The children would all go out to the front yard and wave him “good-by.”

Rural Retreat was a major cabbage-growing area.

As Minter grew older, he worked in summers loading cabbage -- the major farm product in the Rural Retreat area -- on boxcars. As a result he never liked to eat cabbage – he remembered too well catching a cabbage head the size of a bushel basket only to find he had squished a big fat juicy cabbage worm in the palm of his hand. In those years he enjoyed going to the "old swimming hole" at Scott's Mill, which I believe is south of Rural Retreat.

He attended elementary school at a private Presbyterian academy in Rural Retreat, where he had many run-ins with the headmaster, Professor Snavely (I think was his name), who would paddle him for his misbehavior. One warm spring day, he went home for lunch, fully expecting a paddling when he returned. To protect himself, he stuffed newspapers into the seat of his pants. But the afternoon wore on with no paddling, though the newspapers meant that he was uncomfortably warm.

After he finished eigh t h grade he dropped out of school to go to work. His mother

Minter as a teenager

needed the money and in later years he said that by that time he had read all the books his teachers had read. In the 1910 census he is shown as living with his mother, maternal grandmother, and sisters Nancy B[elle] (18) and Lulu (16). (His two brothers, Jamie and Robbie, were no longer at home and the two oldest girls Gladese and Pauline were married and living elsewhere.)

He loved to read and he soon discovered ___ _____, a popular writer of historical novels for boys. He would order one of his books from Sears Roebuck for a nickel and begin looking for it in the mail the next day. He especially developed a love and admiration for the Indians of South and Central America which continued throughout his life. He had a nice collection for a boy, but when he was about 12 years old he fell in love with a schoolmate, Bess Earhart, and sold them all to buy her a box of candy for Christmas or Valentine’s Day.

As soon as he was old enough to read, his

His grandmother McConnell had him read aloud to her.

grandmother, whose “eyesight was growing dim,” and who loved to read the great Victorian novelists, would have him read aloud to her for hours on end. As a result, he developed a fondness for really good Victorian literature that also remained with him for life.

As a teenager, he went to work for his Uncle Jim (James Tennyson Prickett, who had once been his father’s partner) in a general store in Rural Retreat. Uncle Jim (who had a lisp and was said to be the most popular man in Rural Retreat) was always a favorite of his and throughout his life, Minter loved to tell stories about his many eccentricities. Minter said that intellectually, he was the best-read man he ever knew, but that physically he was the laziest. It was Minter's job to sweep the floor at closing time. Uncle Jim would be sitting in front of the pot-bellied stove. Minter would sweep the entire floor, he would sweep around the stove, he would sweep around Uncle Jim and the chair he sat on, he would sweep between Uncle Jim's feet. Then in the morning when he came in, he would sweep where Uncle Jim's feet had been.

James Tennyson Prickett's store.

As he got older, he took a number of correspondence courses including stenography and in his late teens he especially studied architecture and planned to become an architect. By this time he was was very much in love with one Charlotte Kelly of Lynchburg, who often visited relatives in Rural Retreat (the Hanklas, I believe. pph20150219). He was also good friends with Mary Elizabeth Gammon, daughter of a Presbyterian missionary to Brazil. She attended Agnes Scott Academy and then Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and they wrote long letters to each other, which Minter kept. From her responses, we know he told her of the details of his relationship with Charlotte.

Minter around the time he moved to Washington

Minter and Charlotte had some sort of misunderstanding and broke up. Charlotte married a William Morris and continued to live in Lynchburg. Among her children was a Richard Morris, who became a pediatrician and established a practice in Lynchburg.

Minter's brother Jamie, who was a traveling salesman for Shapleigh Hardware in St. Louis, Missouri, had his headquarters in Washington , D.C., and in 1914 he got a job for Minter in the hardware store of a Lloyd Cauliflower on 14th Street in Washington. So about the time he broke up with Charlotte, Minter moved to D.C. to go to work for him.

Jamie Prickett and women friends in early auto

He liked Washington a great deal and especially enjoyed going to the Library of Congress and riding around town on the trolley on Sunday afternoons. He next moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to work at Shapleigh Hardware in downtown St Louis. There he worked in a tall brick building near the Mississippi River, and in May-July 1917 he watched the race riots in East St. Louis from the windows of an upper floor of the building.

World War 1

When war broke out between the United States and Germany in 1917, he described his appearance on the draft registration card as of medium height and slender build, with brown eyes, dark brown hair, not bald. Apparently he was living at home because he gave his occupation as that of a "Traveling man" for Shapleigh Hardware.

Minter's draft registration card

Despite his having a hernia, Minter was inducted on 26 May 1918 and trained at Fort Dodge, in Webster County, Iowa. He was pleased with himself because, notwithstanding his hernia and his small size, he could march all day carrying a 75-pound back pack whereas big strong Iowa farm boys were falling out to the right and left. Although he was nearsighted, he was a good shot and was pleased to be one of a hundred men chosen to receive a machine gun. Shortly before embarking for France, he wrote home proudly that the machine gunners would be the first in in any military engagement and the last to retreat. His mother gamely responded that the army would "make a man" of him.

While he was at Fort Dodge, he received a letter from Charlotte:

Dear Minter:

I am sending the Bible today. Perhaps I should have sent it sooner. But I remembered what you said when you gave it to me. I have kept it carefully. I hope you meant that you were glad it had been in good hands but I feel that you did not.

Sorrow has come to me again. It was even harder to bear this time than before.

I am glad that you are well. I heard your health was bad and thought you would not go. I am glad you are better and tho/ I'm sorry to think of you going I feel that you want to go. I'm not very patriotic when it comes to giving up our men.

I must go now. I can't say a thing. Now is hardly the time for explanations and anyhow you would hardly want any now.

I have some other things I am keeping. If anything ever happens to me they will be all right and go to the ones you would want them to go to and who ought to have them.

Your letter made me wish I had some Red Cross work to do. I'm not helping at all. First our trouble and then I got a right stubborn cold and had to hold up from serving for a while.

Take good care of yourself and go straight on up with your promotions. Not that I'd like to see Mr. Pershing out of a job but they're always needing young blood and I'm expecting to hear wonderful things of the 352nd and no matter how good the news is, I'll know that it was entirely through you it happened.

Good luck & God Bless you.

Charlotte^[1]

He liked France and despite living in pup tents in the mud he gained weight until he weighed 175 pounds -- more than he had ever weighed in his life. But he came down with the mumps and soon after recovering from that ailment, his hernia acted up. The army sent him to a French army hospital at Lyons for surgery. He always felt the French surgeon had done an excellent job and he thoroughly enjoyed his stay in the hospital.

After recovering from surgery, Minter went sight-seeing In Lyons and remarked on the chimney pots.

He was there when the armistice ending WW1 was signed and wrote home a long and entertaining letter about his experiences in the hospital. He had grown a handlebar mustache, a popular style among Frenchmen at the time. Apparently he was popular with the nurses, had told them "My Country 'Tis of Thee" was a national anthem and had sung it for them. When "the major" came for a visit they asked him to sing it for him, and he had to go off in a corner and turn his back to stop laughing so that he could offer his rendition.

Return home

Minter sailed from Bordeaux on the USS Orizaba'

Two months after the Armistice, he sailed for home from Bordeaux on the USS Orizabu and was honorably discharged from the "US Army , Co. G, 352nd Inf, 3rd Battalion 155 Depot Brigade" on 3 or 6 March 1919 at Camp Lee, near Petersburg, Virginia. He had had no mail from home since leaving the country and after wiring home of his safe return, he did not receive a response. Fearing they had all died in the vicious influenza epidemic, he finally suggested to the telegraph attendant that the response might be found under his middle name -- and there it was!

Minter J Prickett  in the U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939

For a larger view of the military record below, click here.

Minter returned to the USA on the Orizaba

Name: Minter J Prickett; Departure Date: 12 Feb 1919; Departure Place: Bordeaux, France.

Arrival Date: 22 Feb 1918; Arrival Place: Hoboken, New Jersey.

Residence Place: Rural Retreat VA; Next of Kin: Mrs. M J Prickett; Relationship: Mother.

Ship: Orizaba; Military Unit: 352ND INF; Rank: F[irst]C[lass]P[rivate]; Service Number: 3223381.

Notes: SAINT AIGNAN CASUAL CO. #498 VIRGINIA.^[2]

He and Lulu took a trip to Mississippi to see his brother Robbie and his mother's sister, "Paulina," and her family and then he returned to St. Louis and Shapleigh Hardware for a time.

The 1920s

But by 1920 he was again on the road as a commercial salesman for Shapleigh Hardware, this time working out of Big Stone Gap, Virginia.

Minter in Southwest Virginia in a company car, c1921

At Christmas in 1922, he heard from Charlotte again:

Lynchburg, Va

Dec 20, 1922

My dear Minter:

Now that Christmas has rolled around again, I have thought so much of other years, a long time ago when, perhaps, we shared part of the enjoyments of the season, and then another Christmas when you were "Somewhere in France" and wrote me that little note telling me that "for the sake of old times, you wished me a very happy Christmas & New Year. So I've been feeling for quite a while that I couldn't let this Christmas go by without telling you that I am wishing happiness and success for you both "For the sake of old times" and for the sake of the memories locked in my heart that will never die----

Of a necessity they are locked there behind a little door, but there has been nothing in my life that has made me forget. And so I am telling you Laddie that I want the best for you that life can bestow----Happiness, Success, and Friends. And I know that God will give you all three.

Charlotte Morris

Pauline Layman, c1922

In 1922 he moved to Kimball, in McDowell County, in the southern West Virginia coal country to manage a retail hardware store. There he soon met and began dating Pauline Layman, a Domestic Science teacher who had just arrived from Virginia.

After a few months in Kimball, he moved to Anawalt, about 10 miles southeast of Kimball, to clerk in a hardware store. From there he somehow got into the insurance business, where he remained for the rest of his working life.

He continued to see Pauline, or "Polly" as he called her. (He often gave nicknames to people he liked. Thus my Aunt Dot, Dorothy to her family, was "Don-not," his neighbor Ethel Reid was "Cistern Reid," her husband, Will, was "Willie" or "Brother Willie," and I became "Teepers" -- for the French "petit peu.") He was, in fact, head over heels in love, and in the summer of 1923 he wrote her a letter of proposal. She was surprised and at first was non-committal, but she soon decided she loved him.

In the fall of 1923, both moved to Bluefield, West Virginia, Polly to teach at Ramsey High School, and Minter to sell insurance. Polly roomed with Myrtle Chappell, a teacher friend she had made in Kimball. Minter and Polly were married the following September at the Troutville Church of the Brethren.

Dorothy was her maid of honor; her niece Dorothy was the flower girl (she turned the basket of rose petals over her head as soon as she walked in the door). There were four bridesmaids, a matron of honor, a maid of honor, and four groomsmen. Polly, a skilled seamstress, designed and made her wedding dress, a creamy crepe-backed satin sheath, trimmed with seed pearls and tiny white ostrich feathers. Minter and Polly went to Washington, D.C., for their honeymoon, after an obligatory first night at Hotel Roanoke.

Minter, Robbie, and Jamie in the front yard of the Prickett house in Rural Retreat, probably in mid-November 1928, just after their mother's death

Minter sold insurance and prospered for a time. The couple found an apartment in a two-story house on Frederick Street, decided to begin a family, made a down payment on a lot to build a house, and purchased furniture and a radio. Their first child, a girl whom they named Patricia Elizabeth and called Patty , arrived on Easter Saturday, 1929, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bluefield.

Minter, especially, was extremely proud of the new addition to the family. And to make

Minter with Patty

matters even better, she resembled him. Their baby-sitter said, when Patty was three months old, "Why, if she wore specs, she'd look just like her Pa!"

The Great Depression

But seven months after she was born came the Big Crash, and Minter's finances took a nose-dive. After months when matters only got worse, Minter and Polly decided that they would give up the apartment, that Polly would take Patty and move home to Troutville, while Minter would live in a rented room until the economy improved. In the meantime, they could save some money and get on their feet.

And so, a week before Patty’s second birthday Polly and Patty took the train for Roanoke. It was a sad day for Minter especially. But Polly was badly needed at home, as her father’s health was failing and there were a tourist home and a small retail coal business to look after.

The couple corresponded, each writing the other several times a week, and both keeping all the letters they received. And every other weekend, Minter drove to

Dot's Chevrolet coupe had a rumble seat

Troutville – or took the train – to see his family. Sometimes my mother and I would ride with him on his way back to Bluefield as far as Christiansburg, and my aunt Dot would drive her car along, then pick us up and take Mother and me back to Troutville.

As the months went by, the economy only worsened. Finally after a year and a half, Minter gave up and decided to move to Troutville. Roanoke had not been hit so badly by the depression and Minter soon found a job selling industrial (I think) insurance. I can remember his saying at the dinner table that he would be making $15.00 a week (that was probably a draw against his commission).

Not long after his return, when I was three and a-half, I was across the street playing with my friends Harriet and Louise Reid. My Uncle Jamie had taken me to the circus the night before, and I had loved the trapeze artists. We were climbing our favorite apple tree beside their front porch, when I decided to show how I could walk on a bottom branch without holding on to anything. Of course, I immediately fell out of the tree – and hurt my arm. I can still remember them walking me home, while I cried bloody murder, Mother running down the front walk, picking me up and carrying me inside to the telephone, phoning the doctor to see if he was home (he was), picking me up and carrying me across the street (he lived next door to the Reids) to his office.

Afterward, Mother put me to bed, where I was when Daddy got home from work. I informed him, “I felled out of a tree and felled on my arm, and it cert’n’y was a funny way to fell.” That was considered very amusing.

One of the WW1 songs Daddy loved to sing

Daddy began reading to me when I was about six months old and in a crib. I loved the stories he selected. As I grew a bit older, he would read to me after I had gone to bed for the night. And he loved to sing songs from his World War 1 days, which I found especially entertaining. Among my favorites were "The Monkey he got drunk," “K-K-K-Katy” and “The Big Baboon.” My father was also quite a good whistler – he said that as a boy he could be heard all over Rural Retreat.

For some years, Minter worked as an insurance agent with the industrial branch of The Home Insurance Company. He walked the streets collecting nickel premiums, many of them from colored people. It was a job but it was not much money and the family continued to live with the Laymans. About a year after he moved to Troutville, Polly’s father died. He had suffered for some time from nephritis and died in the summer of 1933.

Not long after Minter moved to Troutville, his car, a Chevrolet with a rumble seat, died at the bottom of the driveway, and for several months/years Minter commuted to work in Roanoke with Aunt Dot. Finally he bought a second-hand grey 1929 Dodge sedan.

Not long after Patty started to school, Polly began having problems with her right hand. Although sewing was one of her favorite pastimes, she now found that it made her nervous. As the months went by, the problem got worse, until finally her brother-in-law, Samuel Hill Yokeley, a physician in Meadow View, sent her to John Hopkins for examination. The doctors there found she had extra vertebrae near her collarbone and thought that was the problem. They recommended massages to help her relax. She loved the massages, but her condition continued to worsen. This time Uncle Hill sent her to the University of Virginia hospital in Charlottesville. The neurologists, Drs. Coleman and Meredith, determined she had a (benign) brain tumor, and operated successfully in May 1939. For a time she had no use of her right hand but eventually she regained partial use and could even sew on a sewing machine.

Minter bought a 1938 diary to save a few pennies

During 1939, the year of her surgery, Minter kept a small diary. With one exception he did not mention her illness, but instead made comments about everyday but interesting things. When I first moved to Westminster-Canterbury, I belonged to a small book group in which we read aloud excerpts from books we were reading. I read the entire little diary aloud – it made a big hit.

An entry about me:

“Eva Morrison was singing “Sweet and Low” on the radio. Patty was in my lap, her head on my shoulder.

“ ‘ I love ‘Sweet & Low,’ she said and proceeded to sing it too, very softly.

“But she couldn’t hold the long notes.

“ ‘Sl-e-e-p,’ sang Eva Morrison.

“ ‘Sl-e-e-p—eep-eep,’ sang Patty.”

Lewis Peters went hiking with us

When I was 9 or 10 years old, we began going on Sunday afternoon hikes in the woods behind our house, and later on to McAfee’s Knob or Tinker Mountain. Sometimes the teachers who lived next door at the Duffys’ would go with us. I particularly remember Violet Ramsey and Goldie Cohen. Once we took Lewis Peters, who was about six years old and lived across the street. We usually took something to eat with us. Sometimes we would pretend to make Indian trails. At the end of the hike, we asked Lewis which part he liked best. Unhesitatingly he replied, “The part where we ate the candy.”

World War 2

Daddy always gave me books for Christmas and my birthday – he always chose them himself. But when I was about twelve years old he took me to the book store (the Book Nook) in Roanoke and let me choose a book for myself. I found Frances Burdett’s The Secret Garden. I was enchanted with anything having to do with secret places, and I liked that book a lot.

When I was in high school I liked to read the Literary Guild books that my aunt got every month and other popular novels. My father regarded them as so much trash and wanted me to read Charles Dickens and Shakespearean plays. He offered me $2.00 for each volume of David Copperfield that I read and 25 cents for each Shakespearean play. I didn't read David Copperfield until my retirement years after I moved to Westminster-Canterbury, but I sometimes read Shakespearean plays to earn the money. I never understood what was going on so I'd read Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare to find out the plot. The upshot of it was that I got out of the reading habit and was no longer the book worm that I had been in elementary school. That was a mistake on his part, I think. I never have gotten into Dickens or Shakespeare though I eventually read and liked Anthony Trollope, who was his favorite author.

In the late 1930s Minter got into the automobile insurance business, which he enjoyed more than any other work he had done. With the commission on renewals as well as on new sales, his finances began to improve, and in the 1940s he began to prosper. But I remember that

Minter began selling automobile insurance

the whole time I was in college he did not buy a new suit. He gained weight in those years and took to wearing slacks and a blazer rather than suits. But once when he was pallbearer in a funeral he had to wear a suit. Since all his suit pants were too tight for him to get into, Mother solved the problem by inserting a gusset (about 4-5 inches wide) into a pair of pants of a pin-striped grey suit.

Post-war years

I had decided I wanted to major in Interior Decoration and I chose the University of Cincinnati. I was barely sixteen when I graduated from high school and Daddy was undoubtedly reluctant to see me go so far off and to such a large city. One day he asked me if I wouldn’t like to go to Roanoke College for a year before going to U.C. Vehemently I responded, “Nothing doing! If I go to a liberal arts college, I’ll end up teaching school, and if there is one thing I am not going to do it is teach school!” No more was said.

When the time came for me to go off to U.C., the war was barely ended and gasoline was still in short supply. So I went out on the train. A week or two ahead of time, Daddy took me to the train station in Roanoke to show me how to take a taxicab. First we both took a taxi together, then he took me back to the train station, where I took a taxi by myself and met him downtown.

Minter bought a light green used 1937 Plymouth sedan in the 1940s

By that time I had learned to drive. Daddy began teaching me when I was in 7th grade. We went over to Fincastle to the county fair grounds and drove around the race track. I remember his saying, “Now this time, try to get up to 20 miles an hour.” But when the war and gas rationing came along, the lessons were discontinued.

Finally in about my junior year of high school, he would let me drive once a month when we took Helen, the colored live-in maid who worked for us, home for the weekend and when we picked her up the next day. He would drive on Route 11 and when we got to the winding county road that took us to her house, he would turn the car over to me, warning me to be sure to blow the horn when we went around curves. “Anyone can drive on a four-lane highway,” he would say, “but it takes skill to drive these country roads.” I took my driver’s license test the summer after I turned sixteen and passed with no problems. He was a good teacher.

About the time I graduated from high school, Daddy got false teeth. I could only remember him with front teeth (all his molars had been pulled many years before), which receded somewhat and were darkened by tobacco stains. The day he got his new teeth I remember feeling a little afraid of him somehow!

Farm Bureau Automobile Insurance Company logo

Probably it was while I was still in high school that he was offered a job with the Farm Bureau Automobile Insurance Companyn as district sales manager for the Roanoke area.

For an entry in the city directory, click here.

listing in Roanoke City Directory

Although it meant a drop in income, he was pleased with the offer. He enjoyed hiring and training salesmen and was particularly pleased

with the Stamus brothers, of Greek extraction, who had been in the restaurant business in Roanoke. He said that Roanoke Greeks liked him because he had helped to get them out of the restaurant business. Both brothers did quite well and moved up the ranks of Nationwide, as the Farm Bureau had become.

The Farm Bureau became Nationwide Insurance

Mother and Daddy both scorned television, but when Daddy retired in 1960, his employees gave them a nice console television set, which they thoroughly enjoyed. In those days before public broadcasting, they particularly liked the Andy Williams Show and VPI basketball games.

By this time they had sold my grandmother’s house and built a small brick ranch-style house for their retirement years. Daddy drew on his knowledge of architecture and drafting and designed the house himself, with lots of input from Mother. They did a good job and when Mother put it on the market in 1988 to move to Richmond with me, it sold readily.

Minter used his architectural and drafting skills to design their new house

Less than a year after he retired Minter had a major heart attack. He had to quit smoking while he was in hospital of course, and he never resumed the habit. He said he had no trouble quitting, but he did begin to eat a lot of M&Ms!

Otherwise, their retirement years were uneventful. They enjoyed their new house. They came to see me once in Ithaca and enjoyed going to the Cornell bird-watching facilities. After I moved to Richmond in 1971 to become head of the Virginia State Library's Historical Publication Branch. they made periodic trips to see me, riding with friends or coming on the train or bus. And of course I went home for the weekend about once a month. Daddy was glad to have me living closer home, but he missed the long holiday and summer vacations I had had when I was teaching.

Minter on his 50th wedding anniversary, several months before his death

As the years went by Minter's health deteriorated. He had fractured his hip while I was teaching in New York state and used a cane or walker thereafter. He never got senile, but his bridge-playing deteriorated. His letters to me became less interesting. Just before Thanksgiving 1974, he was hospitalized with a prostate problem. I remember that I was amazed at how witty he was in the hospital.

Minter Jackson Prickett, Jr., gravestone

He was in the Lewis_Gale Hospital two more times before he died of intestinal bleeding at three in the morning of February 8, three months before his 80th birthday.

Chronology and miscellaneous information

• Fall 1922, in Kimball, McDowell County, WV
• 1924 to 1933, in Bluefield, Mercer County, WV, insurance salesman
• c1925 Photograph: MJP Jr, Robbie, Jamie, Rural Retreat, Wythe County, VA.
• 1930 Lived with wife and daughter in apartment, 1930, Bluefield, WV.
• 1933 -- 1938, insurance agent with Industrial Branch, The Home insurance Company, Organized, 1853. Roanoke, VA.
• Ca Jul 1933 moved from Tazewell, Virginia, and Bluefield, WV, to Troutville, VA.
• 1 Jan 1939 ff, kept a little diary the year Mother was sick and had surgery.
• May 1939, stayed in rooming house while Mother was evaluated and operated on for benign brain tumor Charlottesville, VA.
• 1942 registered for the draft, 1942, , , VA.
• 1943-1960, district sales manager for Farm Bureau, later Nationwide Insurance.
• Jan 1944 Attended Jack Miller's funeral, Rural Retreat, Wythe County, VA.
• Summer 1947 Took me to see Aunt Lizzie, Bristol, VA.
• 16 Dec 1957, Purchased 0.42acres from the Cronks, Troutville, for retirement house.
• 1969, in , Roanoke, among Nationwide agents Daddy was especially impressed with Ben Cooper, whom he considered a natural salesman and, I gather, a good man.
• Sept 1974 For their 50th wedding anniversary I took Mother and Daddy on an auto trip to Winchester, VA, and points north.
• Miscellaneous: 6 Dec 1974, Letter from MJP, 10 pages notebook paper to PPH -- MJP's last?? Troutville, VA.

A poem, possibly by Minter

HOME-LAND

I think this is a poem by MJP, Jr., but it doesn't say so anywhere. (PPH 20060116) But it very much reads like something he would have written, and it certainly expresses his sentiments. (PPH 20080615-0702)

I shall not leave you, Hills of the Blue Ridge;

My heart is thy heart. Here let it stay.

Fish of thy streams live not in Tidewater,

Men of thy cabins thrive not away.

I shall not leave you, Red Bud of the Mountains;

My blood is tinged like unto thine,

Thy fragrance has entered into my being,

Hill land is thy land; it also is mine.

I shall not leave you, Winds of the Hill Tops,

Thy voice is like a mother's to me.

Winds of the low-lands stifle my being---

My breath is thy breath; I breathed it from thee.

I could not leave you, Oh, Mountainous Blue Ridge,

You are my mother, I nursed at thy breast;

I am thy man-child, bred in thy shadows,

Thy land is my land. Here let me rest.^[3]

For a biography plus an amended version of Minter Jackson Prickett, click here.

Minter Jackson Prickett gravestone

Birth: 8 May 1895 Rural Retreat, Wythe County, Virginia, USA; Death: 8 Feb 1975 (aged 79) Virginia, USA; Burial: Daleville Cemetery, Daleville, Botetourt County, Virginia, USA. Memorial #: 61742532.

Bio: Rader Funeral Home records: Minter Jackson Prickett, Jr., born 5-8-1895 Rural Retreat, VA, died 2-8-1975 Lewis Gale Hospital, 79y, married; father: Minter Jackson Prickett mother: Laura McConnell; wife: Pauline Layman; children: Mrs Albert (Patricia) Throssell [Hickin]; sisters: Miss Nancy Belle Prickett, Miss Lula Guilford Prickett. cemetery: Daleville. sister Pauline 95711276 and brother Robert William Prickett: b 30 Jul 1887, Rural Retreat, Wythe County, Virginia, USA; d 5 Aug 1959; Columbia, Marion County, MS, USA. Roanoke Times and World News, Feb 1975. Troutville--Minter Jackson Prickett, age 79, of Rt 2, passed away early Saturday morning in a local hospital. Surviving are his wife, Pauline Layman Prickett; one daughter, Mrs Albert Throssell (Patricia) Hickin, Jr of Richmond; two sisters; Miss Nancy Belle Prickett and Miss Lulu Guilford Prickett, both of Rural Retreat. Interment in the Daleville Cemetery. Rader Funeral Home records: Minter Jackson Prickett, Jr. Born 5-8-1895. Rural Retreat, VA; died 2-8-1975, Lewis Gale Hospital, 79y, married. Father: Minter Jackson Prickett, Mother: Laura McConnell. Wife: Pauline Layman. Children: Mrs Albert (Patricia) Hickin. Sisters: Miss Nancy Belle Prickett, Miss Lulu Guilford Prickett, Mrs. Pauline Prickett Miller. Brothers: James McChesney Prickett and Robert William Prickett: b 30 Jul 1887, Rural Retreat, Wythe County, Virginia, USA; d 5 Aug 1959; Columbia, Marion County, MS, USA. Roanoke Times and World News, Feb 1975: Troutville--Minter Jackson Prickett, age 79, of Rt 2, Troutville, VA, passed away early Saturday morning in a local hospital. Surviving are his wife, Pauline Layman Prickett; one daughter, Mrs Albert Throssell (Patricia) Hickin, Jr of Richmond; two sisters; Miss Nancy Belle Prickett and Miss Lulu Guilford Prickett, both of Rural Retreat. Funeral service in the Troutville Church of the Brethren. Interment in the Daleville Cemetery. Inscription: PFC US Army World War I. Family Members: Parents: Minter Jackson Prickett (1857-1896), Laura Belle McConnell Prickett (1858-1928); Spouse: Pauline Elizabeth Layman Prickett (1899-1996); Siblings: Gladese Laura Elizabeth Prickett Atkins (1880-1968), Pauline Prickett Miller (1881-1963), James McChesney Prickett (1882-1968), Thomas Nello Prickett (1884-1885), Nancy Belle Prickett (1890-1980), Lulu G. Prickett (1892-1977). Contributor: path1209.

Inscription: PFC US Army World War I

Family Members: Parents: Minter Jackson Prickett (1857-1896), Laura Belle McConnell Prickett 1858-1928); Spouse: Pauline Elizabeth Layman Prickett (1899-1996); Siblings: Gladese Laura Elizabeth Prickett Atkins (1880-1968), Pauline Prickett Miller (1881-1963), James McChesney Prickett (1882-1968), Thomas Nello Prickett (1884-1885), Nancy Belle Prickett (1890-1980), Lulu G. Prickett (1892-1977).^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ Charlotte Kelly Morrs to MJP Jr., mailed 2 Aug 1918, to Mr. Minter J. Prickett, Company G. 352nd Infantry, Camp Dodge, Iowa. Prickett Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA. Mailed from Lynchburg, Aug 2, 1918.
2. ↑ “Minter J Prickett,” U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939 The National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland; Lists of Incoming Passengers, compiled 1917-1938; NAI Number: 6234465; Record Group Title: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985; Record Group Number: 92; Roll or Box Number: 234. Ancestry.com. U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939 [database on-line]. URL: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=DTn1297&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&gss=angs-c&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=Minter%20Jackson&gsln=Prickett&msbdy=1895&msbpn__ftp=Rural%20Retreat,%20WYTHE,%20VA,%20USA&msbpn=24242&msbpn_PInfo=8-%7C0%7C1652393%7C0%7C2%7C0%7C49%7C0%7C3213%7C24242%7C0%7C0%7C&msddy=1975&msdpn__ftp=Salem,%20ROANOKE%20,%20VA,%20USA&_83004003-n_xcl=f&ssrc=pt_t69518667_p44199330801&pcat=WAR_WWI&h=8824406&dbid=61174&indiv=1&ml_rpos=2. Accessed 21 Sept 2017 by Patricia Prickett Hickin.
3. ↑ Copied into Legacy on Father's Day, 15 June 2008 pph.
4. ↑ Karen (47341243), “Minter Jackson Prickett, Jr,” Find A Grave: Memorial #61742532 Record added 16 Nov 2010. Accessed 11 March 2018.

See also:

• Patricia Prickett Hickin, Personal knowledge, 21 Aug 2012-21 Sept 2017.

• Prickett Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA.

• “Minter J Prickett," Virginia; Registration County: Wythe; Roll: 1991381, United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm. URL: https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/wwi

• “Minter J Prickett,” U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939. The National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland; Lists of Incoming Passengers, compiled 1917-1938; NAI Number: 6234465; Record Group Title: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985; Record Group Number: 92; Roll or Box Number: 234. Ancestry.com. U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939 [database on-line]. URL: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=DTn1297&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&gss=angs-c&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=Minter%20Jackson&gsln=Prickett&msbdy=1895&msbpn__ftp=Rural%20Retreat,%20WYTHE,%20VA,%20USA&msbpn=24242&msbpn_PInfo=8-%7C0%7C1652393%7C0%7C2%7C0%7C49%7C0%7C3213%7C24242%7C0%7C0%7C&msddy=1975&msdpn__ftp=Salem,%20ROANOKE%20,%20VA,%20USA&_83004003-n_xcl=f&ssrc=pt_t69518667_p44199330801&pcat=WAR_WWI&h=8824406&dbid=61174&indiv=1&ml_rpos=2. Accessed 21 Sept 2017 by Patricia Prickett Hickin.

• 1930 Census --WV -- Mercer Co. Bluefield --Beaver Pond-HerQu U.S. Bureau of the Census Publication: 1930 Census --WV -- Mercer Co. Bluefield --Beaver Pond-HerQu 1930 Series T626 Roll 2456 Heritage Quest Online 10 Aug 2008 Call Number: Broken heritagequestonline link: "persi.heritagequestonline <dot> com/hqoweb/library/do/census/results/image?hitcount=118&urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3Bcensus%3B12015557%3B-1%3B15%3B29&searchtype=3&offset=47&locthreadid=8165361&threadtype=p&threadtype=p"

• Broken ancestryheritagequest link: "ancestryheritagequest <dot> com/interactive/6224/4547868_00626?pid=60101799&backurl=search.ancestryheritagequest <dot> com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DWwz1105%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26indiv%3D1%26qh%3D5hYgU2%252B%252BMxUEpdPrxEW4mQ%253D%253D%26db%3D1930usfedcen%26gss%3Dangs-d%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26msT%3D1%26gsfn%3Dnorman%26gsfn_x%3D0%26gsln%3Drisjord%26gsln_x%3D0%26msrpn__ftp%3DManitowoc,%2520Manitowoc,%2520Wisconsin,%2520USA%26msrpn%3D53885%26MSAV%3D1%26uidh%3Dmpf%26pcat%3D35%26fh%3D0%26h%3D60101799%26recoff%3D%26ml_rpos%3D1&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrFrc=Wwz1105&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true"

Acknowledgments

• 21 Aug 2012 Patricia Prickett Hickin created Minter Prickett, Jr., on 21 Aug 2012.

Memories: 1