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george_rhoda-lineberryIn May 1998 my husband, kids, mother and grandmother loaded up in our van and drove from Oklahoma to Virginia to visit some of my Lineberry relatives and do some genealogy research.  After Grammy’s  mother died she lived with her aunt and uncle in Virginia, which was from the time she was almost 8 until she was 15.

I had been to Galax several times before but never to do genealogy research.  On this particular trip I acquired some great family history.  One of the days that we were there I decided that I wanted to go to the Harmon Museum since my great, great grandmother was a Harmon.  This museum was in the back of a sundry type store and was just one small room.   As a strolled around the room looking at the items in the glass cases and the items on the walls I read the caption of one of the drawings “George and Rhoda Harmon Lineberry”.  Mom was there and I was so excited I could barely get the words out to tell her that these were  her great grandparents!  I asked the owner if I could take a photograph of the drawing and he helped me by taking it off the wall and we took some photos, which is the one you see here.

Also on this trip near our last day there, I was visiting with cousin Billy and he casually mentioned Jacob’s letters as though we knew what he was talking about.  When I asked more about them I learned that Uncle Leonard (who got me interested in genealogy) had acquired from his Uncle Leander letters that  Jacob (Leonard’s father) had written to his Leander.   I was astounded to learn this and Billy got the letters out for us.  Mom and I read them and shared them with Grammy.

These letters date from 1894 to 1914 and give us a glimpse into who Jacob Lineberry was and why he left Virginia.  Jacob died when Grammy was only an infant and it was so moving and awesome for her to finally hear her father’s words.  She had to wait until she was 84 years old to hear them and it made her very happy.  Billy graciously had these letters photocopied and mailed a set of them to me.  My mother and I transcribed them and they are available on My Tree House.

On that same trip Billy showed me Uncle George Lineberry’s purple heart and I took photos of it as well.  (Be sure and read more about George on my post about him)