Through a happy coincidence, my last blog article on the Conway-Kennedy murder has brought me into contact with descendants of Forrest T. Kennedy (s/o John & Mary Horne Kennedy), who have long been involved with researching our extended Kennedy family.
My own connection to the family is at once distant and immediate. As a child, my grandmother would tell me endless stories of her childhood visits with "Grandma Brooks," a character who still looms large in Brooks family lore. Grandma Brooks was Ibbie Kennedy, daughter of Wiley F. Kennedy and Mary Elizabeth Talbert Kennedy of Russell and Wise Counties in southwest Virginia. Ibbie married my great-great-grandfather, Warren D. Brooks Jr. of Del Rio, TN, when he came to Wise County working on the railroads in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Sadly, Grandma Ibbie's father, Wiley F. Kennedy, died of epilepsy seven months before Grandma was born, and Mary Elizabeth Talbert Kennedy took Wiley's three small daughters to live with her parents, Thomas and Rebecca Gobble Talbert.
Mary Elizabeth later remarried to Squire Osborn, the girls' hated step-father (who Grandma referred to contemptuously as "Ol' Sqwar Ozburn"). I cannot tell how much contact the children had with their Kennedy relatives, but they must have had some. Grandma Brooks talked about her Kennedy cousins and I can remember my own grandmother speaking of an "Ackey Bud" (Ichabod) Kennedy, so there must have been some contact with her father's family, but no particular stories specific to the Kennedy family were among those passed down to my own grandmother. With one exception. And was it ever a doozie.
For a reason I could never quite understand, Grandma Brooks was under the impression that one of her cousins had traveled to Ireland and "swindled her out of her inheritance." (She didn't hesitate to name the cousin, but I do, as her accusations seem to be completely without foundation.) As a child, I accepted this story without question, obligingly imagining pots of gold covertly stashed, and castles sold away from the family by a scheming (and very distant) relation. In my teens when I started researching the Kennedy family, I quickly realized that while our ancestors of that name were not precisely poor, they were unlikely to have come from a family in Ireland of any particular prestige or wealth. I pressed my grandmother for more details, but she knew no more than she'd been told.
Years would pass, and life would happen, and I would lay my work aside. In the mean time, the internet went from a novel concept to the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind. So here we all are, able to view thousands of obscure records and writings at the stroke of a few keys, which is how I happened across Wade Powers Kennedy's 1941 book, The Name and Family of Kennedy and Powers, which is viewable online and downloadable as a PDF.
The book is "Dedicated to Future Generations who, it is hoped, will expand and extend this record and beautify it by good deeds that shine like diamond dewdrops in a meadow of the finest kind of living."
I could tell right away that our author was an optimist. He did nothing to disabuse me of this impression as he launched immediately into a florid passage about the "worthy deeds of the marching generations giving [the surname] dignity and splendor." (Oh dear, such high expectations of us all.) After a short discussion of the history of surnames, Mr. Kennedy (my 1st cousin 4x removed) gets right to the point, asserting that Kennedy "is one of the very ancient names," possibly meaning "head or chief of the clan." Perhaps so, but our line? Optimist, optimist, optimist.
After a brief mention of a "Kenneth" associated with King Duncan of Scotland, he states that "It is probable however that the greater part of the family traces its descent from the EARLS of CARRICK" (his emphasis), a southern district of Ayrshire, Scotland, which lies south of the river, Deen. He goes on to mention Sir James Kennedy who married Mary Stewart, daughter of King Robert III of Scotland. Ohhhh, boy. Now I'm beginning to understand. Did someone show Grandma Brooks a copy of this book?
Mr. Kennedy is on a roll now. He posits a connection between this noble line of Kennedys and the ancestor of what I call the "adore" Kennedys: Theodore, Elmadore, Macadore, Shenadore, etc. In Section III (pg. 13) he moves to our own ancestor's line, David Kennedy "father of the Kennedy family scattered throughout the western part of Virginia and into other states."
He states that there are substantial reasons for believing that our ancestor, the David Kennedy who settled in Russell County, VA in the 1790's, "belonged to the Scotch line" of Kennedys coming down from Sir David Kennedy, the first Earl of Cassilis. In support of this he gives evidence such as "family resemblance, personal characteristics, accent in speech" (although how he became familiar enough to compare our family's qualities of speech with those of the long-dead Sir David, he does not explain).
Now, I'm not going to sport with your intelligence by entertaining a connection between the Kennedys of Russell County, VA and the purported ancient nobles of southwest of Scotland. I believe W.P. Kennedy did indeed have reason to believe there was a connection between our ancestor and a Scottish Kennedy line, and I will examine that later on in another blog entry. I do not believe he intentionally misled us about the origins of our family, but ever the optimist, he may have seen what he wanted to see, and made the connections that seemed most agreeable to someone of his obviously idealistic disposition. Time will tell, as research progresses. The old fellow might surprise me and turn out to be right. But don't hold your breath. If he is, I will write a blog entry titled "An Ode to Optimism," in which I give him his full due for very lucky guesses.
However, back to Grandma Ibbie's puzzling accusations. As of 1941, the story of the Kennedy family's glorious origins had just gone to print. I'm not sure how long prior to this, W.P. Kennedy's research into the family origins and resultant theories had been in circulation amongst the relatives. His family appeared prosperous by comparison to that of my Grandma Brooks (whose husband died when they were in early middle age, leaving my young great-grandfather to support her and his younger siblings). Wade P. Kennedy was obviously a scholarly author. His brother was a self-taught and successful local lawyer. Another brother started a franchise of Piggly-Wiggly stores in Wise County. I can just imagine Grandma's speculation about the source of their means and success. (Surely it could not simply have been the result of hard work? Much easier to believe it was the result of a stolen pot of gold...)
I cannot be sure -- truly I cannot -- but I believe that Grandma Brooks made some sort of connection in her own mind between the grandiose origin tales and the success of her Kennedy relatives and posited a covert trip to Ireland on the part of one of them, wherein the cousin in question had somehow located the exact origin of wealthy Kennedy relatives in the old country and had managed to secure and dispose of family property without the knowledge of a multitude of other state-side cousins. What alternative explanation could there be for her own circumstances to be so reduced when her ancestors had been Kings and landed gentry, and her own cousins so comparatively wealthy?
Not being one to stand on ceremony, I instantly questioned my new Kennedy relatives about whether or not any Kennedys had been to Ireland or had located our family's origins there. They were utterly bewildered to hear of such a trip and replied that as far as they knew, no one ever had.
My feeling is that had that trip actually been undertaken (probably in the early 20th century), it would have been much discussed within the family, especially within the line of the family that went to great pains to collect the family's history, and such a trip would have been nearly impossible to hide from the other cousins and their descendants. I can think of no other plausible explanation for Grandma's tale, other than she having leaped to conclusions based on Wade P. Kennedy's (very likely incorrect) assertions of connections to Irish and/or Scottish nobility. But what a bizarre conclusion to leap to!
If you are a descendant of John & Mary Horne Kennedy of Russell County VA and you can shed any light on my great-great-grandmother's fanciful tales of "swindled" (her word) Irish inheritances, or what might have given her such an idea, I hope you will add your comments below. I'm open to anything, but at the moment, this seems like the most plausible explanation I can contrive. I have long wondered what caused her to "tell such a tale" (to use the words of Prissy in Gone With the Wind), so any enlightenment would be welcome.
In the coming months I am going to examine other family stories from the W.P. Kennedy book and see how they hold up against new information that becomes available online and through the wonderful magic of DNA testing) The purpose of these examinations is not to detract from Wade Kennedy's priceless, wonderful preservation of our family's history, but to clarify and --to use his own words-- "to expand and extend [his] record" -- and if need be, to correct it based on new information that comes to light.
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