AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF EDGAR
LEE VEST
Originally submitted
to the Floyd Co., VA New List Web Page maintained by Barbara Stanley.
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PART 1 OF 3 ANCESTORS and DESCENDANTS
Of Born on March 29, 1927 on Mattocks Mountain in
The Locust Grove District of Floyd County. Using “Mattocks” for the proper way of
spelling is taken from one Survey for James and Wm. McNeil 494 acres, 26th
August 1851. This survey make statement that this surveyed land connects with
my Ancestor “Littleberry Vest”. I was the tenth and last child born to James
Noah Vest and Lottie Ellen Light who were married February 22, 1899 in Floyd
County VA. There are a few things that happened in 1930
that I can remember a few details pertaining to such events. One was being in
Town of Floyd with my parents, when a motorcycle came by our 1929 Chevrolet
2dr car and the motorcycle noise scared me very
much. Another was when we visited my brother-in-law Ollie Hall and sister Calma living in Glenvar, Roanoke
County VA. (Have a copy of the family group made that day). We lived about a half mile from the nearest neighbor,
Jesse Jones, his wife Doris Collins and three sons. Most all the mountain and
small “hollows” valleys were used to raise food for the people, their
domestic animals and fowls. Some owned horses, while others owned
oxen. There were mules in Floyd County, but to my knowledge, not on Mattocks
Mountain. Life was quite simple the way we lived. Not always
ample food supplies, but very good spring water. As my dad said, our spring
was freestone water and that was the best kind. The house we lived in was a
weatherboard siding (unpainted), but inside the walls were tongue Everyone had chores to do. Sometimes being ill
with a stomachache, bad cold and etc. made someone else take your jobs. In
return it usually got the sick person a good dose of castor oil, mustered
plaster or some available remedy. The treatment could be as bad as the
illness. We had apple trees, Ben Davis, Early June, Yankee
Sweet, Smokehouse, Stark and etc. Cherry trees, red sweet and sour, plus
black heart and a few neighbors had other types that we didn’t have. Also,
wild strawberries, plums, peaches, huckleberries, teaberries, black-berries, raspberries,
dewberries and the like. There were black walnuts, white walnuts, hickory nuts
and etc. The sassafras tree bark and roots for tea, wild cherry bark, spice
wood and other bark and roots from various plants were used as
medicine tonic or for flavoring. My mother has a small spinning wheel and did some
spinning of yarn as we did have a few sheep in my very young years. She sewed
or darned socks, made some of our clothing on a treadle sewing machine, if it
was working and by hand using a needle. Also rag knitted rugs was very useful
and about the only way to get rugs for the house. We used wood for cookstove and heating. Cut trees
and used our horse named Mollie to drag the logs to the woodpile. A two-man
crosscut saw and the ax was used to cut and split firewood. There were no mattresses, only straw tic or feather
tic and homemade quilts, sheets, pillows and etc. were found. It was quite a chore
to fill the tic with new straw each year. Wheat was preferred over, oats,
buckwheat or rye straw. After the threshing was done, most There are so many things that seems worthy to write
and yet it would be about impossible to put it all in writing. The chestnut
trees had been killed by a blight and the huge dead trees made rails for
fencing, lumber and firewood. Oh the rich pine used
for kindling was stumps from the original yellow pine trees in this area. An
ax or hatchet was used to chop pieces from the stump and just strike a match
to it and it burned as if it was oil. Fat from cattle and sheep was used to
make candles and as a lubricant to use on leather shoes, harness and etc. When about seven years old I became ill with spinal
meningitis and was so ill I could not be turned by being touched by anyone.
Was turned by them pulling my sheet. The doctor said if there was no change,
he was going to have taken to a hospital. This was about impossible as the
rough ride would have killed me. So I was looking
out the front of the room sometime later and saw an angel in white, standing
next to the corncrib. Later as I started to improve it made me realize that
being in the balance and the Lord chose for me to live my allotted time. Will
follow-up more on what this has done in my lifetime. Life in the mountain was a way of
understanding the simple or more natural than being in more populated places
where others lived. Some will say that’s not correct! But this is still the
way I believe it was. On the mountain there was the closeness of the sounds
of There was a financial world depression in the
last 1920’s and early 1930’s. My dad was not like many head of households. He
didn’t run to the welfare people for assistance. He was of the belief that
there were good times and there were lean times. He had maybe $300 in the
Bank of Check and of course the bank failed and he
lost all the money. The election of FDR and VP Garner was the beginning of a
very sad part of history from 1933 to the present. The dollar was
devalued and a so called Federal Reserve System took the place of gold
and silver. The tax and spend of a political party in control for almost
seventy years has a debt of trillions of dollars with no end in sight. But
they disillusioned the people and was in power at the same level as any
dictator government for several years and the depression was still on. Then
to copy other dictators in other parts of the world, they launched a large military
build-up. A project called the CCC or three C’s was
put together in the pretense of doing conservation type work. In reality it
was a military program. Sure, they built some roads and bridges. But this
training was needed for military training for the upcoming conflicts of war. I
can remember my mother cried and said both of her boys would be in the war.
Well, she never lived to see this happen, but my brother was drafted in the army and I enlisted at my coming to age seventeen. My
brother was in the CCC’s when she died and was buried on my thirteenth
birthday. The Lord took care of both of us and we
were overseas and made it back home from WWII. I was given the opportunity to contact some
people to get involved and interested in the true plan of salvation from the
only true God. Now I knew a little about religions. My parents went on a few
occasions each year to the Primitive Baptist gatherings
and I also went to a few Sunday Schools meetings at Methodist churches. One
of my sisters was a member of a Holiness Church group at Piedmont, in
Montgomery County VA. This was a group that had bush arbor and a saw dust
camp meeting place. They were a very noisy happy singing, shouting and loud preaching
group. While the Baptist and Methodist seemed to be a quieter and more
routine in their singing and preaching. We are compelled to worship in Spirit
and Truth: See John 4:23-24, 14:17, 15:26, 16:13, Ephesians 5:9, 2
Thessalonians. 2:13, 1John 4:6 But in later years as I found how most every
church group that contact was made with, just went back to the belief of a
form of baptism that was made the official Roman Catholic church religion in
about AD 325. The most of them call themselves as being Now to consider the research of my Ancestors
and Descendants. The reason I feel some comfort in the time spent on this
project is because the Holy Bible gives us the Generations of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the first chapter of the book of Matthew. So
the gathering of my family line of information might help to enlighten some
of where we came from and help them set their sights on where they are going. One of the first books I got concerning my
family tree came from a cousin Saunders Vest. He was a son of Uncle Lem Vest and published in 1968 and titled Floyd VEST
Family. Saunders is buried at Iddings Cemetery FCVA. Information he recorded not
only was our Grandfather Floyd Vest, but went back into history to about
900’s AD. Some information covered where Ancestors were located as Surnames
began to be used and also a copy of Coat of Arms was listed for our Vest
family tree. According to the provided information, they “Ancestors” were Descendants
of the Burgundians, a former Teutonic tribe and in later years were settled
in Basel Switzerland and were considered German Descendants. After noting my accumulated history of the
“VEST’S”, it is apparent that we became aligned with the Romans in early years
and to the present day the effects are still obvious. Most of the Vest
generations in the United States of America are of the so called Protestant
faith or some are still members of the Roman Catholic church. This is a sad undesirable choice compared to
my belief in the right or true religion for salvation of our souls. The KJV
“King James Version of the WORD of GOD or Bible is what I consider the
scriptures to be infallible to study and live by. While the Protestant and
Catholic teach there are three persons that make up GOD, I only find “ONE”
and many manifestations in appearing at different times and places. Many are
confused about the verse of Matthew 28:19. This verse is speaking about titles
compared to the real name of GOD that Peter spoke about in verse Acts 2:38.
There is nothing hid except to the lost. This is what Paul is saying in
2Corithians 4:3. I dare not boast, but give praise
and thanks to Jesus Christ and by his name only, that there was an opening of
understanding to the TRUTH. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye
shall be free indeed, John 8:36 states this. So, others that seek
another to set them free are not able to be saved. The title Son has to be
Jesus Christ and if we then go and trace the title Father it leads us to
Jesus Christ as does the Holy Ghost. I can only wonder what people think the
Messiah, Saviour, Redeemer, and other Titles used
to describe who and how the final plan to save the human race would be.
Certainly, it would not be by a compromise with Satan or the Devil to be able
to continue sinning and live the detested life lost in Eden by Eve and Adam
that caused them to be driven out of Paradise. No any
common sense helps us to realize that GOD manifested in the flesh and lived
here about thirty-three years in perfection was distinct proof for us. People
just can’t ignore the fact that this was an example to Christian living and
is a must for assurance of soul saving. There is also a simple fact that
unbelief will cut you off from GOD as well as believing in his commandants
will save your soul. As James 1:23 says we must be a doer and not only a
hearer. Signed: Edgar Lee Vest PART 2 OF 3 ANCESTORS and DESCANDANTS Of
Edgar Lee Vest - Of Floyd County VA
Part - 2 The first part was about my surname Vest and
will continue with the paternal side going back to my grandmother Mary Jane
Angle. Since no children was listed, there is another
record showing they were married December 21, 1847 in FCVA. Maybe more details will help clarify parts of
the 1850, 1860, 1870, 1890 and 1900 Census Reports. Mary Jane Angle married Floyd Vest b.
April 14, 1853, d. October 28, 1937. To return to the time period of 1860 and 1870
where we find Samuel Angle in the 1860 Census and not listed in the 1870
Census. Now this Samuel Angle was one of my parental paternal
great-grandfathers, being my paternal grandmother’s parent. So, in searching
records it seemed that Samuel Angle was the ending as a search for his
parents produced no Angle connection. Why? There had to be a reason for this
abrupt ending to our ancestry of the Angle Family Tree! So
the answer was found by another researcher that I found had done the task of
placing together the missing links that seemed to stop at Samuel Angle. I was
like so many relatives, friends and acquaintances in our family thought we
were from the same Angles of Franklin County VA and/or other counties that so
many Angle families were found. Since this research was made by someone else I
will try to be as brief as possible to let them have the credit of all this
information. Certainly they, not I deserve this. Well, we see in the 1870 Census that Samuel
Angle’s wife Elizabeth had assumed the head-of-household status. So, in
history we know the Civil War had taken place and many men had been involved
by taking part. Some FCVA men were fighting with the South and some were with
the North. As it turns out my great-grandfather Samuel Angle was in “I”
Company of 54th Virginia Regiment Infantry as he enlisted in Lynchburg
VA. Seems he was 41 years old, five feet and six inches tall, light
complexion, blue eyes, light hair unruly and listed his occupation as farmer
and stated he was born in Pittsylvania county VA. Enlisted as a private on
March 14th 1862 to serve 3 years. Was issued a discharge February 11th 1862
at Dalton GA because of death. He died at Gilmore Hospital Marietta GA of
disease November 4th 1863. He is buried in Confederate Cemetery in Cobb
County GA in plot ID 16685 under name ANGLE, Sam. This seems to account where Samuel Angle lived
his last months and where he died and is buried. However, I have read in
another book where Samuel and Elizabeth Walters Angle are buried in a cemetery
on their old home place that was owned by Herman Walters in 1994. Since the
book states there are no stone markers it allows the doubt that Samuel is
buried there. But this is speculation only by me. For there may be many
family and other people also buried on this location. To set the links from my side of the Vest and
Angle back into history take us to Pittsylvania Court Records, Court Order
Book 33 Page 186 19 Sept 1836. PART 3 OF 3
ANCESTORS and DESCANDANTS Of
Edgar Lee Vest - Of Floyd County VA
Part - 2 - 2 The second part was about my paternal
grandmother |