By Beverly Belcher Woody
Last week, we continued the Puckett saga with the eldest daughter of Jacob and Sarah Marshall Puckett. This week, we turn to their sixth son, Robert Lee Puckett, Sr., and his wife, Louisa Bowman Puckett—a couple whose story speaks to the endurance and quiet courage that defined so many mountain families.
Louisa Bowman was born in Carroll County, Virginia, the daughter of George Bowman and Elizabeth Lewis of the Laurel Fork community. She grew up among the ridges and streams that feed the Dan River, where neighbors were kin and every hand was turned to work. On May 5, 1859, seventeen-year-old Louisa married twenty-eight-year-old Robert in Patrick County. The young couple set up housekeeping on land that would later become known as Bent School Road, a stretch of ground cleared by hand, worked by mule, and blessed by seasons of honest labor.
Their first child, James Ballard Puckett, was born on May 16, 1860. Just a year later, as war broke across the South, Robert laid aside his tools and enlisted as a private in Company K of the 50th Virginia Infantry, out of Wythe County. He was described as tall and broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and red hair — a mountain farmer answering the call of duty. The hardships of camp life and battle took their toll, and after a year of service he was discharged for disability. Like so many men of that era, he came home changed, but thankful to see the ridges of home again.
Back on the mountain, Robert and Louisa began rebuilding the life the war had interrupted. Their second child, Sarah Elizabeth, arrived in 1863; Julina followed in 1866; George Washington was born in 1869; Robert Lee Jr. came along in 1871; William in 1873; Jacob in the late 1870s; and finally, Princess Luella, born on March 15, 1881, completed their family. Their days were filled with work from dawn to dark—planting corn, spinning wool, tending babies, and making do with what the mountain provided.
As the children grew, they carried their parents’ strength and faith into families of their own. James Ballard Puckett married Sarah Ruth Hylton in March 1882, Sarah was the daughter of Isaac Hylton and Lucinda Boyd of Meadows of Dan. James was twenty-one, Sarah only fourteen, and together they raised at least nine children — from their eldest, Elizabeth, to their youngest, James David—building a legacy that spread across the ridges.
Robert and Louisa’s daughter Sarah Elizabeth Puckett married Levi Frances Vipperman in March 1885. Levi was the son of Daniel Vipperman and Martha Hall of Floyd County. Sarah and Levi raised a large family whose children married into the Hensley, Handy, Bowman, and Pack lines, all well-known Patrick County names.
Julina Puckett married Andrew Lawson at age fifteen; he was twenty-nine and already a widower, his first wife, Mary Jane Fain, having died in 1880. Julina and Andrew raised three children before his passing in 1927, and Julina later married widower William Green Rorrer, finding companionship again in her later years.
George Washington Puckett married Martha Hensley in August 1892, daughter of John Hensley and Matilda Norman of the Pinnacles area. They raised four children whose marriages tied the Pucketts to the Cox, Knowles, and Midkiff families, strengthening old community ties.
Robert Lee Puckett, Jr. married Martha Jane Cockram on Christmas Eve 1897, daughter of William Spencer Cockram and Elizabeth Cockram. The young couple had one daughter before Robert’s early death in 1906 at just thirty-four—a grief that left a quiet mark on the family.
William Puckett, born in 1873, married sixteen-year-old Malinda Jane “Lindy” Bowman on October 16, 1898. Lindy was the daughter of Richard Bowman and Nancy Ellen Cockram, sister to Martha Jane Cockram. Their union was brief, and by 1905 Lindy had remarried to Elam Owen Reynolds, while William lived on until 1940.
Jacob Puckett married Lillie Mae Handy, daughter of John Riley Handy and Mary Jane Rakes, on April 8, 1900. Their journey carried them away from the Blue Ridge to the coal fields of McDowell County, West Virginia, where census records list them as Prescotts at the Flat Top Mining Camp. Life there was hard and uncertain, and Lillie died young, leaving behind a husband and children far from their Patrick County kin.
The youngest, Princess Luella Puckett, born in 1881, married Isaac Midkiff of the Round Meadow area on March 20, 1897, when she was only sixteen. Isaac was the son of Joseph Midkiff and Lavinia Boyd, and together they continued the Puckett line in the high meadows of Meadows of Dan.
Looking back across the generations, the family of Robert and Louisa Bowman Puckett reads like a living map of Patrick County’s past—woven into nearly every hollow and hillside. They were men and women who believed in work, family, and faith; who faced war, hardship, and loss yet kept their hands steady and their hearts kind. Their descendants’ number many, but their legacy is one: the steadfast spirit of the mountain pioneer.
For questions, comments, or ideas for stories, please contact Woody at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or 276-692-9626.
