| Summary: | (7:51) Mr. Gibbs discusses his ancestors and family history. This interview is part of an oral history project funded by a grant from the Alabama Historical Records Board, managed by the Alabama Department of Archives and History staff, using funds provided by the National Historical Preservation and Records Commission.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Lewis Gibbs
July 29, 2009
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 1 of 5
Clint Alley: It’s July 29, 2009. I’m Clint Alley with Mrs. Rhonda Haygood. We’re at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library with Mr. Lewis Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs, we’re gonna ask you just a few questions about your life. We’ll start off by when and where were you born?
Lewis Gibbs: I was born in Colbert County, in the Barton community, one mile south of Barton on the J. E. Gibbs farm, in one of the tenant houses. My father was the son of J. E. Gibbs. And this was on Tanyard Branch.
CA: Tanyard Branch.
LG: In the days past, there had been a tanyard on this little creek, it’s the reason you call it Tanyard Branch.
CA: So you grew up on a farm, then?
LG: Yes, sir.
CA: Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters?
LG: Had one brother and two sisters.
CA: And you were telling us something about your middle name?
LG: My name, middle name is ‘Chisholm,’ which is an old, established, Scotch-Irish name. And, in 1986—’96—I was the president of the Chisholm Foundation, and I had their annual, semi-annual gathering here in Florence, Alabama. So I’m proud of my Chisholm heritage.
CA: That’s good, and you say that was your, ah, that was your dad’s name also, you’re a junior?
LG: Yes, sir, yes, sir.
CA: And you’re related to all of the Chisholms around here?
LG: Yeah. I’ll tell how it, the name came about if you’d like me to.
CA: Well, sure.
LG: My grandmother had twins, a boy and a girl. And she named the boy Lewis Chisholm, and the girl, Lucille Mason. And that was for the parental and the, and the male group—what am I trying to—?
CA: Paternal and maternal?
LG: That’s right, that’s what I’m trying to think of, yeah. And that’s how come that came about. And they were, they were nieces and nephews of these Chisholms. There was three, there’s been three dentists in Tuscumbia with that name. Dr. Lewis Chisholm, Dr. Edmund Chisholm, and Obadiah Chisholm was the son of Lewis Chisholm.
CA: Um hm.
LG: And Edmund used to own Locust Hill, which is very familiar in Tuscumbia. Very old mansion, he owned it during the Civil War.
CA: Is there any connection with Chisholm Road with that name?
LG: Yeah, the group, I don’t really know the connection, but there’s a connection. And we know there is, but we can’t prove it. Can’t document it.
CA: But you know it’s there, though?
LG: Yeah.
CA: And you say your, your parents were from this area? They were from over there in Barton?
LG: Yeah, yeah. Both parents. My mother was an Inman, I-N-M-A-N. In the early days of Franklin County, there was a Samuel Inman that had five boys. And all the Inmans in Colbert County and I guess Lauderdale County, too, were connected to those five boys. I’ll name them if you want me to.
CA: Well, sure!
LG: There was Samuel, there was William, there was John, and there was Leander. How many’s that?
CA: That’s four.
LG: Well, there’s, there’s another one somewhere. But, but I forget his name. But, anyhow, that’s the biggest part of them.
CA: Okay. So your family goes back with the Shoals pretty far back, then?
LG: Yes, sir, just about as far as anybody. This Inman’s wife was a Thompson. And the Thompsons go back about as far as anybody does.
CA: I’m gonna ask you a little bit about growing up on a farm. Did you have a lot of chores growing up out there?
LG: My father was a disabled World War I veteran. And he was not able to do a manual day’s work, but he managed a farm and he, until we got large enough, we—me and my brother—, he hired a hand. Well after we got big enough to do the chores and the work, well we assumed that responsibility. We had a, we’d make a crop and we’d take care of the stock and we’d take care of the pigs. We also had a blacksmith’s shop. And in the spring of the year, when it was too wet to farm, we’d work in the blacksmith’s shop building plows and sharpening plows, and I learned that trade and I’ve loved it ever since.
CA: Do you still do any blacksmithing?
LG: I’ve got a blacksmith shop of my own, in my, at my house.
CA: And you started doing that when you were a teenager, you say?
LG: Oh, before I was a teenager. Yeah, early teenager. Watching it, and it, it actually grows on you as you grow up.
CA: Well you say your father was a disabled World War I veteran, do you know what happened to him in World War I?
LG: He was connected with a base hospital. And he obtained a disease, and they don’t know whether it was connected with the hospital or any of the veterans, and it was syringomyelia. And it’s a disease that your nerves gradually die. And it affected him; he didn’t have feeling in his hands, and he would sweat all the time on, on his face, and it just partially paralyzed him. But still he was mentally alert, and he could manage a farm and managed us two boys.
[laughter]
LG: And we consider that we’ve both been fairly successful in life, we’ve both raised a family, and been successful with them, and we consider, consider that training the root of our success.
CA: Now what was your brother’s name?
LG: His name is John Edmund Gibbs IV. And he acquired the nickname of Jack, and he liked the ‘Jack’ better than he did the ‘John Edmund,’ so he legally had it changed to Jack. So he’s Jack Gibbs now, but that was, that was his, John Edmund IV was his original name. That was my grandfather that owned the farm’s name.
CA: Um hm.
LG: And some have called that farm a plantation, but it wasn’t, ah, it, there was a big house, but there weren’t enough land for it to be a plantation. It was three-hundred acres is what it was.
CA: Well did you know your grandfather growing up?
LG: No, he died before I was born. And, he died in 1903. He was a aggressive person. He acquired a lot of property during the Civil War. He didn’t have to go to the Civil War; there was five girls and two boys in the family, and I assume that he, it was a hardship problem, that he didn’t have to go on account of that, but anyhow, he acquired a lot of property during the Civil War. And, in the, in the end he wound up buying out his mother’s farm or plantation, and built a plantation home on it.
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