Father Scott (C. L. Scott)

Grandpa Scott was always called Father Scott, at least if any of the family was talking to me. However he was known as Charlie Scott by those who knew him. I don't remember his name being mentioned more than a dozen times in my lifetime.

Mom said he courted Aunt Sally Williams before Uncle Jake got her. He married Adlissa Hardaway (Laddie) whose parents owned where we know as the Scott farm. Grandpa bought the farm we know as the Dooley place and built the house that stands there today. Before Dad was grown, he bought the Hardaway farm at the foot of the hill and built the house that stands there today. He built an extra bedroom on the side toward the spring for Grandma Hardaway to spend her remaining years. Grandpa Hardaway was buried on top of our hill on his brother-in-law's farm. (Grandma Margaret Hardaway and Aunt Lucinda Stith were sisters -- Canes from Guston. Grandma Scott's sister, Aunt Mag married Uncle Charlie Hardaway and they lived where we know as the Hardaway farm. I think it had been in their family awhile. The two Hardaway families were not closely related.) Grandpa Scott must have been a hustler because I have been told that he bought and sold timber and owned two yokes of oxen at one time. I am the proud possessor of his Log Stamp. I heard that he taught school but never tried to verify that. I was told that he sold Starks fruit trees at one time. Ma said that when Grandpa was living there was always a barrel of flour and a barrel of sugar and everything else needed in the Kitchen Pantry.

Father Scott died following an operation for colon cancer at a hospital in Kansas City, Mo. in February or March 1914. He knew he had trouble and went to see a specialist: Thornton & Minor Sanitarium, established 1877, their practice limited to rectal and pelvic diseases, also diseases of women. He was diagnosed as having rectal cancer - still in a curable stage but fairly well advanced. He lived a while after the operation but never left the hospital. Grandma Scott was there with him. I was told as a child that he was operated on for appendicitis and the nurses did not watch him close enough and he bled to death. I know I did not dream it! My sister Jessie reminded me that uncle Jess was the carpenter who rebuilt the frame backrooms on our old log house. She remembered him because he would not let her play in the spring branch. All I remember about that job was Dad planing all the weatherboarding with a long and a short hand plane. He had boards on sawhorses out back of the house and worked for days. I still have the small plane that Dad used.

I remember Uncle Will Scott and from seeing pictures of Grandpa Scott and others of the family they were big men like Uncle Harold. You noticed their bushy eyebrows and their quite impressive size. The Hardaways were rather short but heavy muscled. I remember seeing Grannie's brother Jess one time. I asked him if he could still walk on his hands and he answered, "I guess so." He proceeded to turn over on his hands from a sitting position, turned his legs up over his back with his toes almost touching his head and walked off like that was his regular way of getting around. He lived his time out as a carpenter in Louisville as far as I know.