Hi, Found a letter to the editor regarding the E.B.L. articles, and it gives a few more details and follwup about those mentioned previously. The surnames are fewer this time: CUMMINS, WHIATKER, & SMITH. Does anybody have any ideas who E.B.L. might be? The Cynthiana Democrat, Thursday, Aug. 7, 1919, Page 1, Cols. 4-6: ENJOYS ---------- Reading The Democrat and Espe- cially E.B.L.’s Fine Contributions. ---------- Tuolumne, Cal., July 31, 1919. Editor Democrat, As per notice received find enclosed the necessary lucre to pay for The Democrat another year. Can not get along without it. Intended to renew before this but the paper kept coming and I “done fergot all about it.” I certainly enjoy every number of The Democrat, but especially do I enjoy the reminiscences of E.B.L. Many, many years ago, when so many youngsters all over the county were struck with an itch for writing and were proud when our stuff appeared in the columns of The Democrat, the News or the Berryville Free Press, E.B.L., or Eddie, as he was lovingly termed by all, easily stood in a class by himself, so superior was his work to our clumsy efforts. The keen wit, geniality and pleasant humor which pervaded his articles pleased all. Had he not been so unfortunate in early life as to completely lose the sense of hearing he could have gone high and advanced in journalism. Many of those E.B.L. mentions I knew; some were friends and others I knew by reputation. John Cummins, the Lieutenant he speaks of in the Southern military company, was our near neighbor. He enlisted with the South and a week later was captured and take to Camp Chase, a military prison in Ohio, where a few months later he died. The body was brought home and buried while the whole country-side mourned his loss, for everyone loved that boy of twenty. J.J. Whitaker (Jake), I knew well. At that time he was far above average height, slender and straight as a Florida pine, and, with his yellow hair and long fiery red whiskers and keen blue eyes, required but little exercise of imagination by the beholder to believe that he was looking upon a sixth century Viking suddenly restored to life. The Whitaker family was an extensive one. Besides Josiah, the circuit rider, were Peter, a local preacher; John Wesley, Simeon and Isaac. The latter three I remember well. I think the readers of The Democrat would be pleased if E.B.L. would reminiscence on the Whitaker family for one hundred years of more back. The family history would be largely the history of the county from Oddville to the Pendleton line and I know of no one who could handle the subject better than E.B.L. J.W. SMITH