I am new in genelogy. This is a copy of my aunt note. How do I go about to find out that this letter is true or not. Can any body tell me about George Washington Lee? Who did he married? Alice cdschettler@terraworld.net MEMORIES OF MY GRANDMOTHER MRS. AMANDA P. DORSEY LEE -TURNER BY MARY LEE O’BRYAN Much of my early childhood was spent in the home of my grandmother, who at that time lived near Smith Mills, Henderson County, Kentucky. My grandmother, as I remember her best on Sunday when dressed for church, looked like a figure just stepped out of a Godey Magazine pictures. She was very dainty in appearance and when dressed for church, as I liked her best in her black satin skirt, gray satin-brocaded polenaise and a little dress-bonnet tied on with a big bow of ribbon under her chin, she looked the real lady that she was. Because I had no children playmates in the home I must have tagged around after my grandmother and plagued her with questions. I liked to listen to her tell about her own childhood and her childhood home, how her father and mother came overland from the north side of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to Kentucky, locating first at or near Louisville, KY and later coming to Henderson county. Later the town of Carydon, KY was built partly on this farm. Grandmother told me about her Grandmother Hall, her mother’s, Mother, who came to Kentucky with her mother from her home in Maryland and made her home with them. Her Grandmother Hall always used thee and thou in talking. (was probably of the Friend Society) and did not like to see her granddaughters wear ribbons in their hair, lace or ribbon-trim on their dress, or dress in anyway that expressed vanity. My grandmother, as a young girl, had her own maid, a young colored girl, a daughter of one of her father’s slaves and who was only a few years older than grandmother. Her name was Liza, and as long as Liza lived she was devoted to my grandmother, and faithful to her many years after the slaves were freed. Grandmother used to take me with her on her visits to Corydon, KY to visit her brother Dr. Nicholas Dorsey and her sister, my great-aunt Mary Ann Walton. We would drive old Henry, grandmother’s old bay horse to a light buggy and always before we left town we would drive around to see Liza, the colored slave maid who owned her own home in Corydon, KY a little cottage with a yard full of bright flowers. Liza would run out to meet us with her arms thrown up, saying "If it aint Miss Mandy" Grandmother said she knew nothing about cooking, washing or ironing as a girl as her parents had slaves who did all such work, but she and her sisters were not idle, they spun and wove linens and cloth and sewed. They not only make their own clothes the slaves wore. My grandmother sewed beautifully, I well remember the beautiful lace she would make, knitted lace of very fine thread and a lace worked on net, that she trimmed my little clothes with. After the slaves were freed she learned to be a good cook, but she never mastered the art of washing and ironing. My grandfather Lee, my father’s father, whose name was Washington Lee, died quite young leaving my grandmother a widow at the age of twenty-eight and with five little children. At the time I make my home with her she was living with her second husband, Squire Harvey Turner, who she married after all her children were grown and married. This grandfather Turner was very kind tome always but he did not live many years after he and grandmother were married. Grandmother must have been very devoted to my grandfather Lee, she liked to talk to me about him and often while talking of him she would wipe a few tears from her eyes. She told me his parents came to Kentucky from Virginia just south of the Chesapeake Bay about the time her parents left Maryland for Kentucky, and they also settled at or near Louisville, Kentucky. Grandmother did not talk much about grandfather Lee’s family, I don’t believe she knew them very well, they must have always lived some distance from her. She told me Grandfather Lee had a twin sister, named Mary, who had visited her coming down from Louisville, and was Married to a man by the name of Neal, or Neel, and that she had named her youngest daughter Mary, after this twin sister of Grandfather’s. (I was named Mary after my father’s sister Mary, the third Mary Lee.) It seems that this Aunt Mary Neal, the twin sister of Grandfather Washington Lee, kept in touch with grandmother and her children after grandfather Lee’s death for grandmother told me that at the beginning of the Civil War. Aunt Mary Neal wrote my father’s oldest brother, my Uncle Samuel Dorsey Lee, and told him of his relationship to General Robert E. Lee, but unfortunately, I do not remember her telling me just what the relationship was. (Since writing this I find my father and General Robert Edward Lee were third cousins). Grandmother’s description of grandfather Lee was that he was a very tall, straight man and she could stand under his arm when he extended it. He was a devout Methodist and taught a Sunday School Class, he always want with his family to Sunday School and church. He was a carpenter contractor and built homes. She told me of their home in Princeton, Indiana, where most of her memories of grandfather’s life seemed to be. Grandfather Lee died while they were living at Princeton, Ind. and was buried there. After his death grandmother brought her children back to Corydon, KY. And made her home with her mother, Grandmother Nancy Ann Dorsey. Grandmother’s oldest brother, Dr. Nicholas Dorsey, graduated in medicine with the first class from the Kentucky medical College, at Louisville, KY. And settled near his father’s home to practice medicine. He married a girl who lived in Corydon, Indiana. Grandmother died at the home of her youngest daughter, my Aunt Mary Lee Denton, and is buried in the Dorsey cemetery at Corydon, KY.