Half of my family was less gentry, too.
I love reading your family history. On my last trip home, we went by the family cemetery. My great grandmother was one of the last to be buried there. It’s very close to the original church my family attended, which was restored due the kindness of the first female black doctor in the area (way before my time and long dead), and is listed in the National Historical Registry. Her family went to church there, too. It’s still out in the country, but now it’s on a paved road. Lots of CSA vets there.
BTW, not only are we paving our roads, but we are learning to wear shoes. ;o)
it’s funny isn’t it but remember how out in the country used to be all the old roads were gravel or red clay...when I was a boy even the old county and some rural state highways were
like 486 between Morton and Raleigh which runs through my ancestors old digs
my uncle in east Texas whom we saw last on the way back from the epic journey..(wifey’s trip into the twilight zone as she calls it....17 days in a car with 3 boys 11 and under...I loved it...she was ambivalent..at best)
anyhow my uncle had a cornerstone log from the old cabin at the homeplace dated from 1820 with Choctaw land deal where my great X2 grandpa had built...my mom and uncle were born there...still standing in 1980 but tornado got it...you go into an old cemetary in Mississippi and there are always loads of CSA vets...some still well kept up...some not so much