By Beverly Belcher Woody
For the past three weeks, we have been looking at Jacob and Sarah Marshall Puckett and some of their nineteen children, which has turned into quite a monumental task. In the first story about Jacob and Sarah, I mentioned fifteen children. I later discovered they had nineteen! We have already looked at their eldest daughter, Sarah Jane Puckett Gunnell, and their sixth child, Robert Lee Puckett, Sr.
Jacob and Sarah Puckett’s thirteenth child, John Puckett, married Orleana Hawks Puckett, who many people know as the “Mountain Midwife.” John and Orleana were married in 1859 in Surry County, North Carolina, and first lived below the crest of Groundhog Mountain in the Doe Run section of Ararat, Virginia.
According to Orleana’s Confederate pension application, John Puckett enlisted in the 50th Virginia Company K on June 22, 1861, at Reverend William Madison Lawson’s house in Meadows of Dan. Rev. Lawson’s son, Jefferson Thompson Lawson, was captain of the newly formed company.
Although birth and death records are available for only two of John and Orleana’s children—Julia Ann (1861–1862) and John (1885–1885)—we know from the many stories and fieldstones marking their tiny graves that John and Orleana, in fact, had twenty-four children, none of whom lived beyond infancy. Their first child passed away during the diphtheria epidemic that ravaged Patrick County in 1862; her grave lies, along with those of nineteen siblings, in one long row at the Reed Puckett Cemetery in Patrick County.
John and Orleana moved above the mountain in 1875 to a hand-hewn, two-story log cabin in the Renfro Spur community of Carroll County. The remaining four children of John and Orleana were buried nearby at the Jake Puckett Cemetery, near Puckett Memorial Church. John passed away from tuberculosis in 1913. Orleana’s headstone reads 1839–1939, making her 100 years old at her death. However, the application for her husband’s pension, dated June 13, 1913, states in the notary public’s handwriting that she was sixty-seven years old at the time, which would place her birth year around 1846. This would also mean she was fourteen at the time of her marriage.
It is more likely that she was born in 1844 because, in the 1850 United States Census, Orleana was listed as the six-year-old middle child and only daughter of Harden and Matilda Sarah “Matildy” Puckett Hawks of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Orleana’s older siblings were Dickerson, born in 1839, and William, born in 1842; her younger brothers were Zachary Taylor, born in 1846, and Andrew Jackson Hawks, born in 1850. I am intrigued by Orleana’s mother, Matilda Sarah “Matildy” Puckett, but I have been unable to confirm who her Puckett father was.
Orleana lived alone from John’s death in 1913 until 1939, when she was forced to leave her cabin through eminent domain to make way for the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway. She died three weeks later. Just as the National Park Service placed a rugged cabin in place of Ed and Lizzie Mabry’s actual modern clapboard home at Mabry Mill, the rough cabin that represents Orleana and John Puckett’s home at the Puckett Cabin Wayside on the Blue Ridge Parkway is believed to have belonged to John Puckett’s sister, Betty. Orleana and John’s much larger cabin was razed during parkway construction and was located in the present garden plot.
During her remarkable life, Orleana successfully delivered over 1,000 babies from 1889 until shortly before her passing — a period of fifty years. I must wonder what Orleana might think of being named a 2012 Virginia Women in History Changemaker Honoree, nominated by the schoolchildren of Blue Ridge Elementary School in Ararat, Virginia. Her name lives through the foundation that bears her name, based in Asheville and Morganton, North Carolina, which is dedicated to research-to-practice activities that emphasize positive aspects of behavior supporting and strengthening child, parent, and family development.
Next week, we will conclude this very incomplete history with a look at Hosea Puckett, another son of the enormous family of Jacob and Sarah Marshall Puckett. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for stories, you may contact Woody at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or 276-692-9626.
