The fourth of seven blogs

                             HERE COMES RALEIGH   

          Charley, my grandfather, was known to do a little drifting.  His first wife, Annie May (Angie) Daniel Pounds died when my father was around five years old.  He then married widowed Janie Herron Allen.  They had one son, Gaby.  This was a rocky marriage.  One day grandpa hoboed a train and ended up in Texas.  For a period of time he drifted around living the life of a hobo.  His travels would occasionally bring him back to Alabama but it was not until later in life that he would settle down.  He, like Raleigh, did not like strings attached.

          When Gaby was in Europe serving in World War 2 he was able to contact his dad with a request that he check on his mother to insure that she was cared for.  This led to their being reunited and grandpa settled down in Cordova-well, sort of.  He never lost his desire for adventure and it was only sporadic that I saw him as I was growing up.  On March 14, 1961 he died in Cordova and is buried there beside Janie.  A few yards away, across a gravel road that runs through Mt. Carmel cemetery, Angie, my grandmother is buried with her relatives, the Daniels. 

          Charley and his nephew, Raleigh Ryan, had a kindred spirit which could be described as “footloose and fancy free”.  As Raleigh would arrive unannounced at our house, so would Charley, although not at the same time.  When Raleigh’s travels brought him to Walker County he would search out his uncle Charley-sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  When they made the connection they would share tales of great adventures.

          It is worth the climb to go up a little further on Raleigh’s family tree.  His grandfather, Raleigh Pounds, Sr. (born July 30, 1818) was first married to Martha Mitilta (Scales) Otey, a widow.  They had five children before her death.  He had accumulated 160 acres of land, some wealth, and he was not ready to admit that he was beginning to age.  When he was 65 years old he married 25 year old Elizebeth Riley (March 13, 1883).   This was the beginning of his second family.  At age 66 their oldest, my grandfather, Charley, was born exactly nine months after their marriage.  At age 68 Raleigh, Jr. was born.  A third son, Richard, was born a year later.

          Raleigh Pounds, Sr. married Elizebeth Riley when he was sixty- five years old and before he turned seventy they had three boys; Charley (my grandfather), Raleigh Jr. and Richard.       Their first daughter, Gertrude, was born when Raleigh, Sr. was 73 years old (Aug. 8, 1891).  She would later become a significant person connected with the early history of Pickensville.  Mary, their fifth child and second daughter was born just over 11 months later (July 12, 1892). She would later become the mother of Raleigh Ryan.   

Dewey, the sixth child of Raleigh Pounds and Elizebeth was born when Raleigh was about three months  past his 80^th birthday (Sept. 5, 1898).  He died in 1911 at age 93, living long enough to reach the year that Dewey would become a teenager.