Saturday, 15 December 1985 -- Went to the library [Western Reserve Historical Society] today with Abbie -- looking for George W. Davis and James W. Davis's parents back to 1850. The only way to make connection is to record all Davises in 1850 from Harrison County Index for 1850, and match names and ages to enumeration in 1850 census film -- requires using Virginia index to person on film, as named in county index. A very tedious but necessary step.

Went through list for Davis for 1850, and chose to review 1860 and 1870 films for confirmation of family living relationships; proximity and child-naming of family to family. Intended to tie this information to family of John J. Davis and father Caleb (who this author at one time thought might be progenitors of George W. and son James W.) for "process of elimination."

In looking through 1860 film, found listed with family of Turner Shaw, James L. Grooms, age 7. Had been looking through Augusta, Albemarle and Norfolk Counties of Virginia in 1860 census for this person as the only known listings in 1850 for Grooms families -- no luck in previous search.

This finding [of Grooms] with Turner Shaw was a real nice piece of luck bordering on the fantastic, as there are potentially hundreds of possibilities [of places to look] in Virginia for James Grooms' origin. Upon searching further, I found a few homes (enumeration family numbers) away a Henry H. Groome[sic] living with Martin Cunningham family (Cunningham turns out to be H. Grooms' step-father); these are probably the only two Grooms in the State of West Virginia until our great grandmother Delphia was born. And neither was listed in any way to found easily.

Checking the 1850 book for Harrison County, I found the Shaw family had a daughter Eleanor who was not listed in 1860 family -- suspect she was the mother of James L. Grooms, was married off to a James Long of Pennsylvania, and gave birth to a son [named] Benjamin F., same name as Martin Cunningham's blind son, with whom Henry H. Grooms was living. Some coincidence. Now must tie in Lodema. [Author's note:

As it turned out, Eleanor was James Grooms' maternal aunt.]

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Friday, 21 October 1988 (author's notes) -- Today is Donna's 74th birthday -- had she lived beyond her 32nd birthday. We were on the road heading for Route 90 in Euclid by 6:00 A.M. Abbie, Vickie, and myself [the author]. This was one of Abbie's planned Friday vacation trips that she and I had decided would make up the second week of her two week's vacation; she was taking off each Friday so we could drive out of town to visit county courthouses in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia. This trip was planned for Fairmont in Marion County and Clarksburg in Harrison County, West Virginia -- a 613-mile round trip, as it turned out. We had been planning it since last Sunday when we decided it was viable. Two and a half hours to Cambridge in Guernsey County, Ohio, then due east through Wheeling to Washington, Pennsylvania; then due south to Fairmont. The plan was two hours at the courthouse in Fairmont, then south for 30 miles, and two hours in Clarksburg. Maybe a short side trip to Mannington in Marion, where Dallie Davis had been brought up.

It was still dark when we passed through Canton going south on Route 77. Our route took us east on I-90 to I-271; then south to Route 8 (which runs through Akron, cutting off several miles). Route 8 joins up with I-77 just south of Akron. Canton is a bad traffic corridor, with just two lanes for this part of the trip, and some drivers who alternately hog both lanes, race with you when you try to pass. It is my least-enjoyed part of the trip south, and I had decided to leave early enough to try to miss any heavy traffic in that area.

The drive south past Dover and Cambridge was pleasant and uneventful, and watching the day break was, as always, a pleasurable experience, even though it rained a steady drizzle for our whole trip south. This part of the trip usually treats us with fog-shrouded hilltops and misty valleys. The rolling hills are like a magnet drawing me to them.

We were right on schedule when we arrived at the I-70 East turn-off taking us to Wheeling. In my various travels, I had been through Wheeling only once in my lifetime, many years earlier when I was a teen. I anticipated an enjoyable trip; or at least as enjoyable as I have ever been able to manage, since I always expect a car to break down. This is a worry I have always had in the back of my mind whenever I've traveled to some out-of-town place.

Abbie had told me to expect to see evidence of strip mining along this route, since I had taken an interest in my father's people's history as miners. There was an inordinate amount of over-the-road truck traffic on this part of our trip and I gathered it was the southern Ohio truck route east. But the drive was again uneventful as we came into the Wheeling region. The roadway became a lot hillier, and we started getting into the "ups-and-downs" of the roadway grades. It was about 9:30 A.M., right on time, but the driving was getting noticeably more tiring. On east past Wheeling by the Route 450 cut-off, and we were in and out of the northern panhandle of West Virginia on Route 70 within about 15 miles or so. We traversed three states in a matter of an hour and some 45 minutes. At Washington, PA, we picked up I-79, which runs from the panhandle at Pennsylvania in the north off I-90, past Pittsburgh south to the West Virginia state line just north of Morgantown; on south through the hilly countryside of West Virginia. Our final run south from Washington to Fairmont took us just a little over an hour, so our trip's total duration thus far was 4-1/2 hours. The mileage counter on the car showed 261 miles.

We took the turn-off from I-79 into Fairmont and headed for the county courthouse. It took me about ten minutes to find the familiar dome, found on most county seats. The streets were somewhat congested with the early morning traffic, and to say that I was eager to get to the records at the courthouse is an understatement. After parking in the only available spot behind the courthouse, I fairly ran to the front door and on inside, leaving Abbie and Vickie behind to fend for themselves. Abbie would know where to find me, and I had been waiting for this opportunity to go through the records in West Virginia ever since I started working on this part of my family research, at least six years before. I had just never found the right opportunity to get there on a weekday when the courthouse would be open. I had planned this part of the trip with complete thoroughness also -- what point in coming all the way down if I didn't know what I would be looking for? It was essentially Dallie Davis's stomping grounds and, so far, I didn't know what had happened to him, only that Gay's 1935 Akron City Directory listing indicated that she was his widow. I had no idea where he had died, but suspected either Marion, Harrison, or Randolph Counties. And now I was finally able to search through the Marion and Harrison County records for some clue. I also hoped to gather some data on his parents, James W. Davis and Delphia M. Grooms, Grandfather Lewis J. Grooms, and others. And I only had two and a half hours to search the records before I planned to move on to the Harrison County courthouse at Clarksburg.

When they caught up with me, I gave Abbie and Vickie the data sheet of the names of the people they could expect to find information on. Abbie would know what to do with the list, but it was Vickie's first research trip with me, and I would have to give her some guidance. To her credit, once she got onto the idea of how to read the records, she dove into the task like a bloodhound.

I took charge of the death records in order to try to find some idea of when and where Dallie Davis might have found his final resting-place. My first find was Caroline Grooms. Caroline Robinson Grooms. At first, I thought I had found Delphia's brother Daniel Grooms's wife. But I realized Caroline was Lewis's second wife, after the death of Lodema. I copied this data, pleased that I now knew whom Lewis's new in-laws were. Caroline had died in 1936. My next find was even better -- Lewis J. Grooms himself. I also learned that his father, Henry Harrison Grooms had an additional name -- William Henry Harrison, after the president. His father, Zachariah, or his mother, Elizabeth Rogers was very patriotic. Lewis was buried at Hawker's Cemetery. I now needed to find out where Hawker's Cemetery was located.

My next find was Daniel, whose middle initial E., I learned, was for Elsworth. He too was buried in Hawker's Cemetery. I was very pleased that the data included birth dates as well as death dates and names of parents. Daniel's "informant', the person who gave the information to the physician, was Nellie Talkington. I was to learn later, through Abbie's searching, that Nellie was apparently Daniel's daughter, one of two children I hadn't known about up until now.

Abbie also learned that Nellie had married a 'Lydia' Talkington, an unusual name for a man; possibly a mistake in the recording of the data. Vickie also turned up the birth of a son for Daniel named Bellrey (as it turned out, it was a daughter named Belvy, and a true case of incorrect information recorded). My search in the Marion County Courthouse had borne fruit, but no Delphia and no Dallie. Also, no mention of Lodema, Lewis's first wife.

We finished up this much work by noon, and found ourselves slightly ahead of schedule. Rather than taking time to search through the estates and deeds, I decided that we should head south to Clarksburg and use our extra time there.

We took I-79 south for a pleasant trip through the beautiful countryside, enjoying the fall foliage and the hilly landscape as we drove toward James W. Davis's home county.

I dropped Abbie and Vickie off in front of the courthouse and went looking for a parking spot. I later earned myself a parking ticket for a poorly chosen spot. Fortunately, West Virginia, as with the general cost of the legal documentation, charged a nominal fine -- $2.00. I hate to waste money on stupidity that I could be spending on someone's birth or death certificates.

We had taken a half-hour after arriving at Clarksburg to eat a lunch of sandwiches, potato chips, and soda pop in the car. We found the records office and set about going through the books for data. As in Marion County, I took the death records, Abbie took marriage applications, and Vickie had birth records. Vickie was really getting into the search. I found several entries for a George, George W., and other assorted George's with various middle initials. Also, some James's as well. I also found a Delphia entry. Going on the theory that since I had found no mention of Delphia in Marion County, she might have moved south to Harrison County after the death of her father in 1942, to live with some of her late husband's relatives; or she might have re-married someone in Harrison County. Speculation is the grist for this kind of research.

I started looking up the entries I had found in the indexes. First George's, then James's, then on to Delphia. I was very disappointed. All the entries were for other people. The entry for Delphia, which was made in 1916, was for a 16-year-old Delphia, with an entry for a six-month-old infant of this Delphia's who had died of pneumonia, along with its mother. Clearly not my Delphia.

None of us had any luck in our search of Harrison County records. I now understand why Harrison County offered no record of Dallie Davis's father or grandfather's deaths when I had inquired earlier on. There was no record, as the entries showed little firm identification of the person being recorded. It looked like all of the recorded entries for the mothers were listed by their married names, giving no clues to their personal identities. Another good example of our national attitude at the time, of the relevance of motherhood and womanhood.

Abbie had run through all she had to research for the Davises so I asked her to look through the records for Dallie's paternal grandmother, Sarah Shaw-Grooms-McDaniels. Sarah had remarried after her marriage to William Henry Harrison Grooms. I am still uncertain whether she divorced Henry, or whether he had died.

Abbie's search turned up Sarah's death over in Shinnston, a small community in Harrison County near the Marion County border. This information was a bonus. Abbie also found some marriage data on some Vernons who were related, and recorded it for me. All in all, the trip so far had brought forth useful data which, God willing, I will follow up on.

It was around 2:00 P.M., and I decided we could run out to Mannington if we scooted. No time right now for a search of deeds and estates. That would keep for a later date. We left the Interstate at the South Fairmont exit, thinking we would probably find a route to Mannington that way. We did -- after a traffic-filled trip through the heart of Fairmont. We would have fared better had we gone the same route as we had earlier -- hindsight.

We found ourselves on Route 250 up into the Marion County hinterland, a route we had contemplated in the planning of our trip. We had concluded that it would have been a bad route to follow from Wheeling to Fairmont, and we were right. The two-lane paved road was fine for short trips, or for natives who knew the road. Not for strangers. But it was a beautiful drive, and it was going "home." Our drive into the hills took us about 15 miles and 20 to 30 minutes, but the experience of driving into Mannington, the boyhood home of my grandfather and namesake, was like coming home. It was, or is, a neat little town nestled in the elbow of the surrounding hills -- mountains?? -- and as I would later learn, at the fork of two creeks, Little Fork and Buffalo. The buildings were period and close-built. For an industrial town, it sure put Cleveland to shame for cleanliness.

Mannington says everything there is to say about Dallie Arnold Davis, if you're not prejudiced against him. The town is handsome and rugged, but proper rugged. It is chauvinistic, but politely so. It may expect womenfolk to not assert themselves, but it would uphold their honor to the death. Mannington is a West Virginia town. I wouldn't mind living there myself -- someday. This was Abbie's attitude also. Vickie had already picked out her house.

We stopped at a cemetery monument sales office. Abbie's idea. She's always thinking. The secretary/salesperson was more than helpful, giving directions to the local funeral home, library, and city hall. We headed for the funeral home.

Although there was a 'viewing' in progress, the son of the owner was most gracious and had his secretary draw up a map showing the way to Hawker's Cemetery. His father, who had been attending his visitors, came in to greet us and offer his knowledge of the area. Vickie was with me, and taking all this in. She was quickly learning some of the techniques and routines of family research.

With the hand-drawn map in hand, we headed for the library, having decided it wouldn't be prudent to be driving around the hills at dusk. The folks at the funeral home had kindly advised us it would be dark when we found the cemetery. At the library, we found a copy of cemetery interments, which had a listing for Lodema. It had her birth date, as well as date of death, and showed her husband Lewis to have seen her laid to rest. So, it seems that most, if not all, of Lewis's family were buried at Hawker's. And I had a map to find it. Next year will be a long time coming.

We left the library at 4:30 P.M. I had one or two other minor errands I wanted to do, but we decided we weren't going to have time if we wanted to get home by around 10:00 P.M. So, after a very few photos of Mannington (I never seem to take enough photos), we headed back toward Fairmont and the drive to Cleveland. We got home at just about 10:00 P.M.

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NEARLY FOUR YEARS LATER

Wednesday, 9 August 1989 (author's notes) -- Abbie and I drove to Mannington, West Virginia this Saturday past. We were looking for a cemetery called Hawker's -- beyond a hilly crossroads, deep in the wooded mountainside, near a town called Joetown. Joetown was on the other side of a West Virginia mountain from Mannington.

We were on the road at 6:15 A.M. It took us 15 minutes of town driving to reach Interstate 271. We picked up Route 480 East to Interstate 80, the Ohio Turnpike, east. This carried us in turn to the Pennsylvania Turnpike at the Ohio-PA border, to just north of Pittsburgh, where we joined Interstate 79, taking it due south into West Virginia, and on to Fairmont.

You reach Mannington by leaving I-79 at Route 310 west through Fairmont and picking up Route 250 west toward Mannington. Route 250 is a blacktopped two-lane road wide enough to negotiate the multiples of twists and curves along Buffalo Creek. The road sails through hilly overgrowth on either side until, in the misty low mountains, you enter the elbow cradle that is Mannington.

Route 250 comes to Market Street, where you turn left for a short block to two forks of bridges which cross over Buffalo Creek in the middle of town. Buffalo Road is the street on the right. After about two blocks it curves to the right going out of town and through a maze of turns and curves until suddenly you are confronted by a sharp, dipping turn-off on the left, known as Whetstone Road. A short drop to the left, and more curves -- and after many rollercoaster-like ups and downs, left and right twists, you come upon the Joetown General Store.

You follow the road along, past a right turn that crosses a cement bridge, to a second right turn over a somewhat longer cement bridge. This one has a sign -- Wallace 7 mi -- Margaret 3 mi. You turn right and follow it for at least a mile. One, two, three, four houses on the right. Then, one house on the left. A white house set off the road just a bit. A barking dog may come out to greet you. Across the road from the house with the barking dog, is a rustic slatted wooden barn. A gated fence abuts it on the left, and then the fence stretches off on the right of the barn for about 30 feet, where it ends in the underbrush. There is just enough room in the underbrush to slide your body around the fence for a walk up the steep slag hill behind the barn to the cemetery just visible at the top. That's Hawker's Cemetery.

That's where most of the Groomses are buried. Uncle Daniel and Aunt Cora Grooms have a stone located in the left rear of the cemetery. A few feet, maybe 10 or 15 yards along the left toward the front from Daniel and Cora's stone, is the stone of Grandma Lodema Harvey Grooms. As you stand facing her stone, Grandma Delphia, Lodema's daughter, is to Lodema's right. Lodema's husband, Lewis James is to her left, closest to the cemetery gate. I expect Daniel and Cora's youngest daughter, Belvy and her husband, Herman, and others are buried somewhere up by Daniel and Cora.

We drove back along Wallace Road until we came to the first house on the road, on your left as you are leaving. This I had learned from chatting with a local, was where Clarence Shaw lived. Clarence is about 92, and I believe him to be a distant cousin, related to my Grandma Sarah Ann Shaw, mother of Lewis James Grooms.

Clarence was sitting on his veranda, taking the afternoon sun, and we chatted about Dallie Davis, with whom he had attended school. I took Clarence's photograph. I will probably never see him again.

We drove back through Joetown to Mannington, picked up Route 250 east along the eastern outskirts of Mannington to a road called Flaggy Meadow, located across from the West Augusta Historical Society. Actually, it was Meadow Lane Road, which took us to Flaggy Meadow. About three or maybe five streets down was Fifth. We turned right and drove a ways, past a large white round barn, called the Round Barn Museum. On up past that just to a right curve in the road going leftward up the mountain, on the right, sitting back a little off the road was a brown asphalt-shingled house with a large pine tree in the front yard, and an ivy-covered trellis arching over the front walk. The house sits across the road from two dilapidated outbuildings with a side road running between them.

This is the home of Cousin Nellie and Lydia Talkington, Dallie Davis's first cousin (which makes her my first cousin twice removed). Nellie was Uncle Daniel and Aunt Cora's second and last child.

We visited with her for a surprisingly short hour and a half. I did, however, manage to get from her (she's in her eighties) the loan of the only remaining photograph of her and her family: Lydia, Belvy, Grandpa Lewis James, and others, including Dallie Davis's second wife, 'Peg'. Cousin Nellie loaned me the picture so that I could get it reproduced, and have a negative made of it. That took a great deal of faith in me on Nellie's part. I'd really rather have died than break her faith in me, so much did that loan mean to me. It is the only picture of Dallie Davis's family of the Groomses that I have been blessed to see.

We got back to Euclid by about 8:00 P.M. Did I mention? Along the way, I almost drove our car off the road over a mountainside, into a several-hundred-foot deep ravine!

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[Author's note: About January of 1991 Nellie and Lydia were placed in a nursing home -- Wishing Well Manor of Fairmont. Nellie had been ill with heart disease and arthritis. A neighbor, Charlotte Bock, reported that Nellie's doctors thought her to have Alzheimer's Disease. To me Nellie's only afflicted with old age, and that family pariah, bullheadedness.

Some time in the fall of 1991 to spring of 1992, Nellie and Lydia were transferred to the Monpointe Continuing Care Center in Morgantown.

Nellie had written to me once in January of 1991. I had asked her to so that I would have a sample of her writing for posterity. She sent along her blessings.]

* * *

M#13 Delphia's parents were M#26 James Lewis Grooms and M#27 Lodema Harvey.

I first came across Lewis James, or James Lewis (I don't know which Christian name comes first, it's been recorded both ways) Grooms' name, while looking through the census records' "Soundex" indexing system on film for Dallie Davis. The reel was for Marion County, West Virginia, the county in which Mannington is located. My clue to Mannington had been from the six-page family history my older brother Ron had put together and sent along to the family at large. Except that in his history, he recorded Dallie Davis as being from "Warrington." There is no Warrington in West Virginia. But Mannington seemed a good bet.

There, under Soundex Code D-120 for Davis, alphabetically for Dallie, in the 1900 census index V 17, E.D. 59 [54?], page 65, line 50, it was:

1900 Mannington District, Marion County V17 [etc.]

Davis Dallie A. w 9 (March 1891) WVA WVA

enumerated with Lewis J. Grooms

Under G-652 for Grooms, alphabetically for Lewis J., was:

1900 Mannington District, Marion County Vol 17 [etc.]

Lewis J. Grooms w 49 (Feb 1851) Frm Lab Mar 28 yrs own home WVA WVA Lodema w 44 (Oct 1855) WVA Delphia M. D 28 (Dec 1871) widowed-1 child WVA

Daniel E. S 25 (Apr 1875) Sing Day Labor WVA

Dallie A. Davis G-son 09 (Mar 1891) WVA

* * *

Prior to this research, the Grooms family was an unknown quantity in Donna Lenora's family because no one after her death had any interest in the fortune of Dallie Davis. Not after his presumptuous estrangement from Grandmother Gay. Most if not all the Ramsey ex's met with castigation.

* * *

As noted, James Lewis Grooms was born in February of 1851 to M#52 William Henry Harrison Grooms and M#53 Sarah Ann Shaw, somewhere in Harrison County.

Since in 1860 James Lewis, then given as seven years old [though actually nine] was recorded in the census as living with his mother Sarah in the household of his grandfather Turner M. Shaw; and Henry H. Grooms is recorded as living with his mother Elizabeth and step-father Martin Cunningham, it would be this author's judgment that James Lewis's parents were having either marital, parent or money problems. This is, of course, all speculation. One could also speculate that Henry H. Grooms may have fallen in the Civil War since his name is conspicuously missing in his widowed mother's 1870 household.

On 4 May 1871, 19-year old James Lewis Grooms married 16-year old Lodema Harvey. After the death of his children's mother, James Lewis married again on 24 May 1913 to Caroline Robinson Crim. She died in 1936. Cause of death was given as epilepsy.

James Lewis managed to outlive both his wives. He died 26 May, 1942, having lived to see his homeland engaged in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and II. He was survived by his two children.

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