BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
(An introduction to Estie Stith Crabbe by Harriet Fast Scott, 1991)
"Any people who are indifferent to the noble achievements of remote ancestors are not
likely to achieve anything worthy to be remembered by their descendants." T.B.
Macaulay, as quoted by Estie Stith Crabbe in her "Letters to Cousin William"
All my life, it seems, people have talked about writing the family history of the Stiths.
Cousin Allen Stith (1.) of Stith Valley was one of the great promoters of ramify lore. He
collected data near and far, treasuring each relationship. He and my mother, Frances
Shacklett Fast (2.), and my husband's mother, Ruth Fontaine Scott (3.), always shared
their tales and strove to sort out complicated family relationships. All of them
contributed to Estie Stith Crabbe who was to write the definitive history of the Stith
clan and she equally shared her findings with them.
As Cousin Estie put it in a letter to "My dear Cousin William:"
"Your noble efforts in my behalf - helping me at every turn, are something yes
SOMETHING! It is fitting at this time to inform you that your name will be in the list. in
my Roll of Honor in the Hayne's history, aside from occupying an important position in the
Stith history...."
I first met Estie Stith Crabbe about 1960 through a box of letters that my mother and
Cousin Estie had exchanged over the years. Reading these letters, I learned a great deal,
not only about the family, but also about a great lady whose letters overflow with
graciousness, modesty and generosity. She was accurate and meticulous and never malicious.
She never failed to identify people in fur'. No "Cousin Betsey" or "Uncle
Jim'., leaving you floundering to figure out who they were. A doubtful date sent her back.
to the many libraries she visited to do further research. And before Cousin Allen died, he
came to Brandenburg and gave my mother the letters Cousin Estie had sent him over the
years.
In more than thirty years of research, Cousin Estie had already solved many of the
stickier family problems. But as far as I know, the promised Stith family history never
appeared. My last letter from her came after my mother died on March 15, 1968. I was busy
doing other things and tracing the family line had receded into the background. When I
"retired", I told myself, I would dig up the family tree again.
After Mother died, I hesitated to take the "Cousin Estie" letters with me
because we moved so often. They were safer in Brandenburg, I thought. When I visited I
made sure these letters were in a "safe place."
April 3, 1974, a tornado hit Brandenburg, Kentucky. The house where my father still lived
was flattened. The "safe place" completely disappeared and so did all the
letters containing Cousin Estie's hard work. I was lucky that my mother's files on Meade
County families were stored in a metal filing cabinet which survived the wind's fury.
This summer, as my mother's hundredth birthday (September 9, 1991) was approaching, I got
to thinking what I could do in remembrance. Half-heartedly, I looked through her files,
thinking for the thousandth time, if only Cousin Estie's letters to '"Cousin
William" (as she called Allen Stith) and Cousin Frances hadn't 'gone with the wind.'
Suddenly, I spied a familiar signature - Estie S. Crabbe. Could it be that some letters
survived in the folders that were in the file cabinet? I started looking in each folder.
Then it happened. I took out a folder and there were ALL her letters to "Cousin
William"! They dated from 1943 to 1956. How could I have missed them? How did they
get in the file cabinet?
Having thus been promoted to "Keeper of the Flame" quite by accident, I felt I
just had to collect as many letters as I could and index them for a book. You have in your
hands the result. I hope you become a "Keeper of the Flame" for your family,
adding to your book for posterity.
These letters plus several others to other people, including myself, are a gold mine of
information not only for the STITHS but also for the BOARD, HARDAWAY, HAYNES, JONES, LONG,
MOORMAN and WOOLFOLK families. Although not in final form, they represent meticulous
research to that time.
Still missing were the "Cousin Estie" -- "Cousin Frances" letters.
While searching for pictures in the attic on a rainy weekend not long after finishing the
"Dear Cousin William'' letters, I decided to go through and "weed out" the
jumbled boxes of belongings rescued by my husband, William Fontaine Scott and his sister;
Jessie Scott Williams, from the house after the tornado. I had looked at everything in the
ten or twelve cartons many times before. Pieces of wood and plaster fell off of everything
I picked up.
A gray rain-stained box attracted my attention. Letters to some woman for whom my mother
had done family research in the 1950s. Out of curiosity, I lifted out the sheaf of
letters, noting how clean they were compared to other papers. Under the top twenty pages
or so were a hundred pages of letters, in the now familiar style, beginning "Dear
Cousin Frances." These were all the letters from Estie Stith Crabbe that I had read
thirty years ago! How had they been overlooked? They were not even in the same box I had
seen them in so many times. Now there will be a second book. of Letters as soon as I can
index them.
Cousin Estie had no children, so she adopted all of us. Estie Melinda Stith was the
daughter of James Richard Stith and Ophelia Haynes, known as "Missie". The
parents were married in Carthage, Missouri, in 1881. Estie, the third of four children,
lost her father in 1892. Estie married B.F. Crabbe and lived most of her life in
California.
As Preface to the "Dear Cousin William" Letters is a 1943 letter from Mary
Peyton Dent to "Cousin Allen". She introduces Estie Stith Crabbe to William
Allen Stith in her own inimitable fashion. Mary Peyton Dent is mentioned dozens of times
in the letters. She was clearly a great source of information and inspiration to Cousin
Estie. Her letters are full of non-stop family stories which add red-blooded flesh to the
bare bones of the usual family chart. So far I have unearthed a dozen or so hand-written
masterpieces which will be included in a future volume when typed.
You may ask why publish letters, why not just use them to produce a Stith family history
that will be more accurate and easier to follow. Cousin Estie, God Bless her, may have
never completed her work. Beverly Cain, another who apparently had a world of information,
died without completing her- history. I have never heard whether Laurence B. Gardiner of
Memphis, Tennessee, ever finished his book on the Hardaways.
We owe it to Estie, Allen, Frances, Ruth, and all the others who have gone before us to
put as much family history in the hands of as many as we can as soon as we can. Technology
has given us the Xerox machine and the word processor. It is now possible to produce a
useable book at a very low price without the long, painful process of getting it printed.
Let's not wait until it is again too late.
This is for our ancestors Major John Stith and his wife Jane, for James Hardaway and
Robert Bolling, John Hall and Lancelot Bathurst, Peter Jones and all the rest who came to
Virginia in the early 1600s to found a nation. We salute you.
Harriet Fast Scott
918 MACKALL AVENUE McLEAN, VA 22101
1. William Allen Stith was the second son, third child of Thomas Jefferson Stith and Hannah Chase Williams. He was born August 2, 1871 and died on November 25, 1960. He married Lena Marion Drury and they raised six children.
2. Frances Cleveland Shacklett was the third child and third daughter of Richard Peter
Shacklett and Viola Boone Williams. She was born September 9, 1891 and died March
15,'1968. She married Byron Macaulay Fast August 29, 1911 and raised three children.
3. Ruth Fontaine was the oldest child of Charles Beauregard Fontaine and Irene Buckner
Stith, William Allen Stith's oldest sister. She was born December 12, 1887 and died March
14, 1978. She married Walter Lee Scott and raised seven children.