Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 30, 1994 TAG: 9405300042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
died July 19, 1983
James Oscar Carper, known to his friends as Os, was born 85 years ago in March on Big Mountain in Craig County. He farmed all his life and was one of a vanishing breed of mountain men. He was respected and admired as a younger man for his ability and skill with the scythe cradle and double-bitted axe. His outstanding attributes was that he was content with who he was, what he was, and where he was. This speaks well of a man.
AMANDA E. CARPER
died August 18, 1983
High up Craig County's Tumbling Gap Mountain overlooking Meadow Creek Valley and the Cumberland Road in a mountain home on May 30, 1904, a baby girl was delivered to Virginia C. and James P. Carper. They named her Amanda Ellen. She was to be the baby in a family of five children, having 2 brothers and 2 sisters . . . . Amanda never left home except for short visits with her married brother or sister and never had a serious beau. She worked hard and long and time just sorta slipped away.
Amanda was quiet and shy and loved to be alone with her work. She crocheted, canned, cooked and called her brother, Os, to supper until he died last July. She lit the lantern and left it sitting on the porch many a night for her father and brother to use unhitching and feeding the horses. They're gone now and Mandy's gone too but somewhere there is a lighted lantern shining brightly showing Mandy the way home.
KELLER UMBERGER SPRAKER
died June 19, 1993
"Daddy's Gone." Since we can remember, there's always been Daddy. He was born in the community of Cripple Creek, on August 29, 1903, to Sally I. and Clarence E. Spraker. He grew up poor and proud, and married Lorena Kincer of Greasy Creek on January 3, 1923.
They were blessed with twelve children, and he would name them like this, Lucile and Laverne, Rhudolph and Charles, Mary, Toney and Joe, Harold and Ralph, Athlyn, Larry and Nancy. They made their home, for the most part, around the community of Crockett, until moving to Roanoke in February of 1945, causing some wag writing in the Norfolk & Western magazine to suggest that the City of Roanoke re-count their population because Keller Spraker, a carpenter on the Roanoke Terminal, had moved to town with his litter of twelve. We moved to Salem's Kessler Mill Rd. in the spring of 1946, and that's been home ever since.
Daddy and Mamma celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on January 3, 1973. Mamma died July 2, 1983, so we were a circle unbroken for 60 years. Daddy was a Norfolk & Western Railroad man like his Poppy before him and awfully proud of it. He raised all his children Lutherans, clean and stubbornly proud. He had a work ethic and thought girls needed an education and boys needed to get out and go to work. He butchered hogs in cold weather for years and made sausage, scrapple and liver pudding second to none. He traded in cattle and milk cows and was never too busy to help a friend in need. His memory of details was phenomenal and he could run family lines back for generations.
Our world will never be the same again, but Daddy was ready to go and was not afraid. Daddy's mamma, Grandma Spraker had a saying - "Now there goes somebody." Well I just heard an angel lean over and whisper to Mamma, look Lorena, here comes somebody. Goodbye Daddy. We twelve children, 31 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren, five great-great-grandchildren, sister Elizabeth (Betz), brother Walter, sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law will miss you. We loved you Daddy.
JAMES H. MANN
died May 14, 1994
James H. Mann, the last Mann on Meadow Creek, is gone. James Hersey Mann, 87, of Rt. 1, New Castle, Virginia, crossed the Alleghenies late Saturday afternoon, May 14, 1994.
Jim Mann was born in Craig County and has been a fixture here for his lifetime. For many years, he was a telephone man for Tulley Reynolds Phone Co. The old black '39 Chevrolet truck with the spotlight poking through the roof and the little man with the big cackle, hat and pipe, rattled over every road and pig path in the county. Later, as a troubleshooter for Appalachian Power, many a home in Craig County was visited by the little man with the big cackle, hat and pipe, in a blue Chevrolet truck with the spotlight poking out on top.
Os Carper used to tease Jim, telling him he put more miles on his old black Chevy truck courting Mary Jones down Thorny Hollow and then over in The Gap, than he did working, but it must have worked, 'cause he married Mary Jones Mann and she survives him and was faithful and loving for 54 years.
Two things Jim Mann was, a Methodist and a Democrat, serving on the Electoral Board for 35 years. He loved taters, baseball and roaming the mountains, coon hunting, trapping or digging "sang," with his dog and his buddies.
He farmed in the Meadow Creek Valley and always considered himself blessed by God for giving him a faithful and loving wife, a long peaceful life and a beautiful place to live it. Goodbye Jim Mann, we love you and will join you some day just over the Alleghenies.
Keywords:
OBIT
by CNB