THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 31, 1994 TAG: 9407300097
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 188 lines
Horseshoes hurtle through the air and then land, clanging against a metal spike, as uncles and grandfathers compete in their annual horseshoe tournament.
Children with ice cream-smeared faces romp with cousins they have not seen for a year.
The older folks visit over tall glasses of ice tea and spin family stories polished with years of telling.
Summertime is family reunion time, and similar scenes are being played out all over Western Tidewater.
It is a time for families to re-connect and reaffirm the heritage that helps define not only where they are from, but who they are now.
Beyond the platters of fried chicken and mountains of potato salad that reunions all seem to have in common, the gatherings are often as different as the families they bring together.
SOME REUNIONS are longstanding annual events like that of the descendants of Elisha Everette Whitley, who have been meeting on July 4 every year since Whitley, a Confederate infantryman, walked home from a Civil War battlefield in 1865.
Although Whitley returned in May of that year, his sisters waited until his birthday, July 4, to give him an official welcome home.
Food was still scarce, so the refreshments were simple - cake and lemonade.
But Whitley thought so much of the reunion that he asked to have one every year. And they have.
For more than a century, the family met at Winbourn's Mill outside Franklin, because Whitley had been a farmer and miller there.
``Some years we drew as many as 300 people from all over the south,'' said Rowland Whitley, Elisha Whitley's grandson.
For the last ten years, the family has been meeting at the American Legion Hall in Franklin, where they can get re-acquainted in air-conditioned comfort.
SOME FAMILIES, like the descendants of Madison and Jane Lowe, have just started a reunion tradition.
Elgin Madison Lowe, 80, is a Suffolk resident who began tracing his family roots three years ago.
His grandparents - Madison Lowe, an Irish farmer in Western Tidewater, and Jane Lowe, whom Elgin Lowe believes was a Nansemond Indian and perhaps part-African American - raised 11 children in the mid-1800's.
Elgin Lowe has traced most of the descendants of those ll children.
``I stopped counting at 350,'' Lowe said.
He was surprised at the number of relatives he found, including some he had known before but never realized were related to him.
When Lowe and his children planned the first family reunion for July 9, word of mouth soon brought inquiries from 175 Lowe relatives.
The first reunion, held at the Airfield 4-H Center in Wakefield, was such a success that the family wanted more.
``We had originally thought of having a reunion every five years,'' Lowe said. ``But everyone wanted one next year so we can get to know each other sooner.''
THE VICK FAMILY, descendants of Joseph Vick of Southampton County, place a heavy emphasis on their genealogy.
They meet annually to socialize, but primarily to share genealogical data.
The Joseph Vick Family of America, Inc., incorporated in 1990, has had a national reunion for 20 years and began meeting locally in the Franklin area 10 years earlier.
Joseph Vick came to the United States as an indentured servant sometime between 1645 and 1670.
After earning his freedom, Vick became a plantation owner and tobacco grower on land near the junction of the Blackwater and Nottoway Rivers. He had one daughter and five sons.
Vick family members have spread out across the country.
Of this year's 70 reunion guests, a dozen came from Portsmouth, wearing Vick family T-shirts and sweat shirts.
A large contingent came from the Franklin and Southampton area.
A larger number, however, came from out of state - as far as California, Texas and British Columbia - for the weekend event.
``We believe that there are about 7,000 Vicks in the United States who are descended from Joseph Vick's five sons,'' said Gailen Vick, 45, a reunion organizer.
He traveled from California to attend the annual reunion, held earlier this month in Franklin at E.J.'s Landing.
Jack Wesley Vick, the 1994 reunion host, still grows tobacco in Courtland.
The first national reunion was held in Vicksburg, Miss., a city founded by one of Joseph Vick's descendants and home to one of the largest concentrations of Vicks in the country, he said.
``Next year we are going to Paducah, Ky.,'' Jack Vick said. ``But we try to keep coming back to Franklin or Vicksburg every few years.''
John Beatty, a Vick descendant and a professional genealogist in Ft. Wayne, Ind., has just completed a 350-page book, ``Joseph Vick of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia and His Descendants,'' which will be published this fall.
The book details six generations.
Beatty's talk after a Friday night dinner and an information-swapping session Saturday morning were the highlights of the reunion.
``That is the flavor of our reunions,'' Gailen Vick said. ``We try to keep them very simple.''
TREATING THEIR lineage less formally, but just as knowledgably, are the families who have gathered every year for more than 50 years at the WWD (Woolford, Withers, Darden) reunion in Suffolk.
Several of the reunion guests, all descendants of Missouri Riddick Withers, fondly remember growing up in the house on Main Street known as Riddick's Folly.
Family members from California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey and throughout Virginia can swap stories about their ancestors as easily as they can talk about their own child's latest antic.
But make no mistake - the purpose of this reunion is social: the food is good, the conversation lively, and the teasing all good-natured.
It all starts with a golf tournament at Suffolk Golf Course on a Friday, followed by a dinner and a party.
The next day, there's a big picnic, complete with horseshoe tournaments and volleyball matches.
Nancy Poke Woolford, 62, grew up in Suffolk and travels from her home in Jacksonville, Fla., each year to be part of the reunion.
``The best thing about the reunions is watching the children learn about the family and feeling connected to something much bigger than themselves,'' Woolford said.
There are 80 families on the WWD mailing list, and well over 100 people have attended some years. But the usual crowd numbers about 70 relatives.
``When someone does not come, it is noted,'' Mary Hart Darden said. ``Not that anyone is going to fuss at you. It is just that a little piece of the puzzle is not there.''
Darden, 52, has only missed two reunions in the past 34 years and swore with a laugh that both absences were for valid reasons.
ONE OF THE LARGEST reunions of Western Tidewater families will take place next month, when the Brown family of Surry County takes over the Coliseum Holiday Inn in Hampton.
Close to 1,000 relatives are expected at the family's eleventh biannual reunion.
Scipio Brown, a former slave who was freed in 1804, and his wife, Amy, were among the earliest members of a family which has grown to include military officers, doctors, educators, lawyers, Hollywood stars, professional athletes and legislators.
One family member, Goodman Brown, was the first black man to serve in the Virginia General Assembly in 1887 and was a founder of Virginia State University.
He is buried in the Brown family cemetery in Surry. The upkeep and improvement of the cemetery is a family project.
James B. Brown, Jr., vice-chairman of the Isle of Wight County school board and treasurer of the Brown Family, Inc., said the reunion is so large and unique that it has drawn attention from national magazines.
One of the family treasures on display at the reunion will be Scipio Brown's emancipation papers.
And family members will visit the old homestead in Surry County and the Hickory Grove Memorial Cemetery, the Brown family burial ground.
Roger L. Brown, 57, is a native of Surry who was raised in Nyack, N.Y., and now lives in Portsmouth.
His career as a defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams led him all over the country. But for a few weeks every summer he returned home.
``It is a feeling almost out of the movie `Gone with the Wind,' '' Brown said. ``I just have to put my feet on that ground, and then I feel okay.''
Raised on a tradition of smaller family reunions, Roger Brown has attended each of the larger family gatherings and has watched them grow.
``The first reunion was about 300 people at Chippokes, and it was the best fun, just outstanding,'' he said. ``The gathering has gotten so big that it has lost a little bit of intimacy, but you do have fun. It has become almost a mini-convention.
``If families today had the values and love for one another that the Brown family has, we would have a better world,'' he added. ``You get strength from your family.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MICHAEL KESTNER
Color on the Cover: Fran Darden Carden holds Anne Austin Carden
during a recent family reunion.
Gailen Vick, left to right, Kathryn Howell and Catherine Vick look
ovver family photos during the annual Vick family reunion in
Franklin.
One tangible sign of a family heritage - a land charter handed down
through generations of the Vick family.
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
James B. Brown Sr., left and his son, James Jr., visit the family
grave site. The Brown reunion is in Hampton next month.
by CNB