To: the Sasser list From: Glenn E. Perry There are a few traditions concerning Nancy Gilbert Sasser, wife of Jesse Sasser that have been kept alive in my immediate family. One pertains to the money from the pension she received because of the death of her husband, Jesse, in the Civil War. I don't know the date of the event I am referring to, but I suspect that we could figure it out if we knew the date the pension started and the amount she receivied each month, for I imagine that she saved every cent. She had saved nine hundred dollars. She kept it in a bureau drawer. And it got stolen. I wish we had some stories about her that were not so sad. The aspect of this that is a bit amusing concerns her daughter Susan (my great grandmother). During the past half century I have repeatedly heard my grandmother and mother tell how Susan--apparently with everybody gathered around to try to figure out how somebody had been able to get the money--so innocently blurted out: "Why, I think I've got a key that would open that drawer." Her husband, Isaac Taylor (my great grandfather), seems to have been irritated with her for so unnecessarily making herself a potential suspect, but he quickly turned the implications of her candid remark around with the comment that, "Suz snows how to clear herself!" I don't think anybody ever suspected my great grandmother of anything wrong. The story ends with a little gossip. Since it is unclear who it pertains to (and since so much time has passed now), I suppose it won't be improper to repeat it. And in any case I am only reporting it as gossip. The story is that one of Nancy's sisters, the one who had lived with her, moved to Lexington and bought "a fine house." I suppose that nine hundred dollars would have been enough for that. I have heard that Grandmother Nancy was a midwife. As I have mentioned to one or two members of the list, I have a quilt that--as I understand--was quilted by Grandmother Nancy. Her daughter Susan took it to Nebraska when she and her husband moved there in 1911. Their youngest daughter, Rebecca Taylor Deming, brought it back in the mid-1960s and gave it to my mother, whom I convinced in 1968 that I could take better care of it. I stored it at my wife's aunt's house in Radford, VA for the next two years, while I was in Egypt. I am glad I did this, for while I was gone a fire destroyed my parents' house. There is a tiny stain in one corner of the quilt, showing that the person who made it apparently pricked her finger with the needle. When I showed the quilt to my mother's brother, Raymond Taylor, in 1978, he related something else that he had heard about Grandmother Nancy but which none of the older generation ever mentioned to me. Uncle Raymond's response to seeing the quilt was to ask, "Did you know that she died in an insane asylum?" He continued by telling me how some of our people had blamed one of her children (whose name I won't repeat here, partly because I am not willing to accept the accusation as valid) for sending her there "just to get rid of her." I would like to believe that my uncle was confused about the whole story, for being left in 1863 as a widow at about 44 years of age with five children, to have all her savings stolen, and now, it seems, to have been disturhed in her grave would seem to be enough misfortune for anyone. There are other traditions about Grandmother Nancy's parents (Wallace and Susan Jones Gilbert) which I am saving for another message. I am told that she and her children were often at her parents' house on Big Richland Creek on the other side of the hill from Blackwater--"especially on Sundays." This would account for the extent to which a few vivid memories about them have been preserved. I am only guessing, but I suspect that Jesse's widow and her children typically rode the wagon over to the Mt. Ararat Church and then went on down the creek to eat Sunday dinner at the Gilbert place. ***************************************** Glenn E. Perry Department of Political Science Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN 47809 USA E-Mail: psperrg@scifac.indstate.edu (812)237-2505 (office) (812)234-5661 (home) **************************************** ==== SASSER Mailing List ==== post a query to the list:� SASSER-l@rootsweb.com Questions or comments about the list: dlsasser@email.msn.com Sasser Family National Association may be seen at http://www.swiftsite.com/SouthernFamilyHistory/sasser.htm