Ledford Side

Robinsons

      To start with the Ledford side of my family you would probably have to go back to the late 1880's.  Now I don't exactly know the exact date:

      My great-great grandfather Robinson  was a landowner in Yancey County North Carolina.  His daughter was Mary.  She was my great grandmother, and was known to me as Granny Mary.  When Granny Mary was a little girl the KKK came and hung my great- great grandfather.  Granny Mary hid around the barn and watched as they hung her father.  When they left she cut him down.  Fortunately, this did not kill him.  It did however leave him in a mentally retarded state.  The reason for the KKK hanging great-great grandfather was because he helped a slave escape.  They decided his punishment should be death.  This is an important note in my mother's family history. 

Angels

      After these happenings Granny Mary being the oldest girl in was left to tend the farm.  She later married Sam Angel.  They worked and bought 100-acre farm on Elk Shoal.  They had three girls, Sylvia Geniva, Choe, May, Lucille, and baby Mary.  Great Grandpaw  Angel was a hard worker.  Not only was he a tobacco farmer he was also an entrepreneur.  He was a type of traveling merchant in the rural community.  He sold farm equipment and supplies from door to door.  He was on his way to being a wealthy man.  At one time him and Granny Mary had over $12,000.00 in the bank.  At this time this was a great deal of money.  

      Some of the neighbors began to be jealous of Grandpaw Angel- even his own family.  They wanted him to fail and began to plot against him.  They were  A man in the neighborhood (which I forgot his name) planted some of his turkeys on the Angel farm and reported to the authorities that Grandpaw Angel stole them from him. 

      Two days later Sam Angel was placed in the Yancey County Jail.  He wrote diligently to Granny Mary.  He instructed her to withdraw $12,000.00 from the bank and contact his attorney in Raleigh.  In prison he was treated very badly.  The guards abused and mistreated him.  All the while he proclaimed his innocence, declaring in letters that he, "was as innocent as a newborn babe."  Grandpaw's attorney was making head way in his case.  The neighbors who plotted against Grandpaw Angel caught wind of this through a corrupt prison guard.  They paid the guard to kill Grandpaw Angel and he was beaten to death.   

      Granny Mary and the girls were left to take care of the 100-acre farm.  To make matters worse the Great Depression hit the country.  Food and clothing prices soared sky high.  With no sons to take care of the farm, this left Sylvia the oldest daughter to take care of the farm.  Sylvia was my grandmother.  She had to split wood, milk the cows, and plow the fields.  Slowly this began to take a toll on the family.  100 acres began to be sold plot by plot until the Angels were left with a mere 20 acres-- nearly 1/5 of what they started with. 

     

      The winter after Grandpaw Angel died the entire family came down with Scarlet Fever.  No one in the community would help Granny Mary and girls for the fear of the catching the fever themselves.  They had no money for the doctor either.  It seemed as all hope was gone.  But there was one family that came to the rescue.  The black family of the slave that Great-Great Grandfather Robinson helped escape came and nursed them.  Granny Sylvia always referred  to the black man that helped them as “ Joe."  She did not mean this in a disrespectful way.  If it had not been for this family and their kindness the whole family would have died.  Baby Mary was the only one who did not survive the fever.