Lest We Forget

This is a link to last year's post on Veterans Day:  Veterans Day Remembrances 

May we never forget.

I ran across this interesting page today about the places in South Carolina where our troops trained for World War I. 

In honor of Veterans Day, Ancestry.com is granting free access to all of its U. S. military records today through Sunday (November 11-14).  If you are not a member of Ancestry, you will need to register (also free).  Click here to get started.

Ellen Reed Fuseler (1952-2010) and John Osborne Reed III (1947-2004)

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Mixing It Up at Salem Baptist Church in North, SC

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Salem Baptist Church; 11434 North Rd.; North, SC; GPS: 33.65103, -81.14929

On Friday, October 7, my son Ian and I traveled to Lexington, Orangeburg, and Calhoun counties on our first graveyarding trip in a great while.  We covered about 150 miles, visited 10 cemeteries, took 204 pictures, and encountered hundreds of sand spurs.  Despite the sand spurs, it was one of our most successful trips to date.  We found many relations on both sides of my grandparents Osborne and Carrie Reed's families, but I want to share with you what I consider to be the “find” of the day. 

At Salem Baptist Church in North, SC, I was delighted to find the grave of Louvisa Clementine “Clemmie” Hair Reed! 

Before this, I had no firm dates for her and had no idea where she might be buried.  Thanks to our cousin Sharon Crowley, we know that her husband John Wiley Reed is buried in a Reed plot on Gardenia Road near Blackville, SC, along with his mother Julia, brother James Henry (my 2g-grandfather), and five other family members.  Finding Clemmie’s grave gives me hope for my chances of finding my 2g-grandmother Mary Cook Reed’s grave. 

Six of Wiley and Clemmie Reed’s nine recorded children and some of their families are buried at Salem: 

Ann Ophelia (1853-1931) and her husband Joseph Middleton Harley (1856-1925)

Charity Eva (1863-1929) and her husband John Flake (1854-1927)

Benjamin W. (1867-1906) and his first wife Arlina C. Harley (1872-1896)

James Wiley (1870-1956) and his wife Donie E. Porter (1876-1956)

Emma Corean Reed Livingston (1872-1953)

Americus (1874-1932) and his wife Margaret Isabelle “Maggie” Livingston (1875-1958)

The three children not at Salem are: 

John Daniel Reed (October 15, 1855 – October 19, 1855) – unknown at this time.

George Byron (1857-1929) and his wife Rowella Hydrick (1860-1937) buried at Bull Swamp Baptist near North, SC

Charles Pickens (1860-1935) buried at Jeremiah Jones Family Cemetery near Sawyerdale, SC.

Click here for a link to my entry for Clemmie on Find-a-Grave.  From there you can navigate to entries for Wiley and all of their children.  Click here to see all the interments recorded at Salem so far.  We weren't home long before Ian and I realized we need to go back (for the third time) to photo some we missed.  No problem!  It's a lovely drive of only 37 miles from home with lots of family history along the way.

Mixing It Up

Lately I’ve been finding quite a few cases where our allied families are all intertwined, and this family is no exception.  Clemmie was the daughter of Daniel and Charity Hair. Her father was a brother to David Hair who married Lavisa Reed, daughter of Samuel and Mary Clark Reed.  Clemmie and her brother Isaiah married siblings, John Wiley and Julia F. Reed, children of John and Julia Odom Reed. 

The Livingstons mix in here, too.  Emma C. Reed was married to Austin Livingston.  Her brother Americus married Austin’s niece Maggie, daughter of Austin’s twin brother Paul.  Maggie’s mother was Rachel Hydrick, sister to Rowella Hydrick, wife of George Byron Reed.  Top that all off with the fact that Austin and Paul are related to me on my grandmother Carrie Strickland Reed’s side of the family!  Grandmama’s maternal grandmother was Jane Livingston Cupstid who shares the same 2gGF with Austin & Paul, making them third cousins. 

In addition to all these Reed relations at Salem, one of the first tombstones you see when you enter the gate is that of Samuel L. and Leila Strickland Boles.  Aunt Leila was my grandmother Carrie Strickland Reed's sister. 

But wait, here’s another:  Clemmie and Wiley’s son Charles “Charlie” Pickens Reed’s first wife was Deborah Knotts (1862-1914).  Her grandfather Thomas Jones was my 5g-grandfather on my mother’s side of the family.  Jeremiah Jones, in whose family cemetery Charlie is buried, was my 4-great grandfather and Deborah Knotts Reed’s uncle. 

And that’s not all … Rowella Hydrick Reed figures into so many of our family members, and I’ve gone to her Ancestry profile so many times in the last month that I probably should have put the link on my taskbar.  I’ve come to “know” her as an amazing, brave woman, so I will save the Rowella connection for its own post.  It will involve Reed, Hydrick, Friday, O'Brien, Boles, Livingston, Robinson ... and more. You'll find out why Ian says he's not going to marry any girl from South Carolina for fear of being kin to her!

My Sister Ellen

Mary Ellen Reed Fuseler

My beautiful, brave sister Ellen died yesterday morning.  She valiantly fought health problems for the last five years and most recently a 15 month struggle with cancer. I will tell you more about her as soon as I can.  For now, I just want you all to know.  This is extremely hard.  I miss her more than I ever imagined.  Please keep us in your prayers, especially her husband Henry, her sons Hank and Joey, and my parents, Joe & Mary Duke Reed.

Visitation will be Tuesday, August 11, 6-8pm at Dunbar Funeral Home on Devine St. here in Columbia.  Memorial Service will be Wednesday, August 12, 3pm at St. Joseph Catholic Church also on Devine St. here in Columbia.

Eulogy for William D. "Bill" Reed

Eulogy for William David Reed
Lexington Baptist Church
May 3, 2010
By J. O. Reed, Jr.


Lamentations 3:7
“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning.  Great is Your faithfulness, The Lord is my portion, says my soul, Therefore I hope in Him!”

The saga of William David Reed begins in the mercies of God.  The story commences when a red headed Irish young man met a raven haired young woman on the University of South Carolina campus.  His name: John Osborne Reed.  Hers: Carrie Belle Strickland, a nurse student in the infirmary.  Of this union came six children:  Myself, J. O. Junior; another little lad who didn’t survive and went to Heaven as a babe; then Carolyn, Bob, Florrie, and Bill.

William David … Mama had a way of honoring the attending doctor; hence the David from Dr. David Brocker in Swansea.  A giant of a baby and a giant of a man.  One of his long legs was broken at birth.  Can you imagine an infant in a splint? Those legs and arms and stature grew tall and strong. 

I can’t believe I was trusted to hold him while Mama shopped at Belk for all of us.  Later, I had the chore of helping him with his turn in the Saturday night washtub family bath and earned the rebuke of my Uncle Kense Strickland when I impatiently popped Bill on his naked leg. 

But one vignette I’ll share:  Bill, a youngster then, along with a friend and I accompanied Dad all the way to Lancaster one day on Highway business.  The day was long, hot, and tiresome.  In our fun making, we older boys invited Bill to “shake on it.”  Tired as he was, he offered his right hand palm side up and gave us his look which said, “You rascals!”  So, he’s had to be patient with me a lot of times down life’s path. 

But let me share a sweet note that triggers the parable of his life.  Of all the things I’ve heard his girls say is this:  “Dad found a way to get things done.”  This roots well into a great scripture about the Lord, Isaiah 40:3:  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth.”  Add to this the poet’s word:  “To every man there openeth A way, and ways, and a way. And the high soul climbs the high way, And the low soul gropes the low: And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A high way and a low, And every man decideth. The way his soul shall go.” [John Oxenham]

Bill was the only one of us who caught the vision of our Dad to be an engineer of highways – the Highway Department.  This noble task:  “The Highway Department” now the “Department of Transportation.” 

The other word of scripture for you:  Jesus in John 14:7 said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me.”  Bill saw in his Lord the way to go, the truth to know, the life to live.  Not just to work for the South Carolina Highway.  He shared God’s work as a Gideon in hotels, motels, classrooms, nurses’ stations, detention centers, and around the world.  He introduced people behind bars to the giver of true freedom and life.  His neat affirmation when he heard truth was, “Oh yes!” 

So, I choose to celebrate the noble Bill, father of four, devoted husband, and my big baby brother.  And for all the people who get home safely today riding on roads and bridges he helped to build and maintain, I would say to Bill and family:  Thank you.  And from all of his family, I say to him:  Thank you for loving us, even if you have to leave us for a while. 

Now just this word:  as Paul Harvey said, “The Rest of the Story.”  You see it today in the bright eyes, happy smiles, and determined dedication of his family here present and in the eternal ripple effect of every jail visit, Bible shared, Sunday school lesson taught.  YOU are the rest of the story.  Your legacy is to choose the high way of life who is the Lord Jesus Christ, to take seriously the claim of love that Jesus has on your life, to join Bill in hearing Jesus say:  “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter the joys of your Lord.”

[This eulogy was given at Bill's funeral by my father, Joe Reed.]

William D. Reed, 1931-2010

William David “Bill” Reed died on Saturday, May 1, 2010. He was born in Swansea, South Carolina, on April 10, 1931, the youngest child of John Osborne Reed and Carrie Belle Strickland Reed.  He was a great-great-great grandson of Samuel and Mary Clark Reed and my dear uncle.

The Reeds moved from Swansea to Lexington in 1933.  Bill graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1959 with a degree in civil engineering. He followed his dad into a lifelong career at the South Carolina Department of Transportation, retiring in 1994. A member of Lexington Baptist Church, he was a Sunday school teacher for over 25 years, a longtime Gideon, chaplain at Lexington County Jail, and Boy Scout leader. 

He is survived by his wife Mary Ella Jordan Reed of Lexington; his daughters, Cynthia Nowak (Jonathan), Margaret Williams (Ron), Mary Allen (Chuck) and Rebekah "Becky" Beck, all of Lexington; his brothers and sisters, Rev. J.O. Reed, Jr. (my father) of West Columbia, Carolyn Grobe of Columbia, Florrie Brown of Lexington and Robert E. Reed, Sr., of Lexington; 10 grandchildren (Heather, James, Adrienne, Caitlin, Ethan, Will, Meghan, Carter, Jordan and Joleen) and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at 2pm on Tuesday, May 4 at Lexington Baptist Church with interment in Lexington Memorial Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 6pm until 8pm on Monday, May 3 at Caughman-Harman Funeral Home in Lexington. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Gideon's International, 5106-B Two Notch Road, Columbia, SC 29204 or Prison Ministries.

The Family of John Osborne Reed Sr. and Carrie Belle Strickland Reed

Back, L to R: Bob, Florrie, Carolyn, Bill

Front, L to R:  Joe, Osborne, Carrie

(Portrait taken about 1945)

 Obituary from The State at Legacy.com.