The Red Flannel Rag

Dad had a nasty scar beside his nose. Uncle Shirley told me it was from the mule

kicking him in the face while he was buckling the harness. “The mule kicked him square

in the face. His nose was broke and cut real bad. He didn’t even go to a doctor.”

Dad had a seventh grade education because that was all that was available at the

one-room school in Hopkins Gap. He finished seventh grade and took it over one more

time because he loved learning so much.

He was a self-educated man. Throughout his life, he read every book or

newspaper he could get his hands on. He studied the history of the Jews and studied the

Bible especially the Book of Revelations. He predicted that Israel would someday defeat

the United States in a final world war. I always think about his predictions when I hear

the news about the crisis in the Middle East. He would have made a fine preacher or

professor.

He was the Hopkins Gap community historian. He could trace every member of

the community several generations back in their family tree. People came from miles

around to ask him about this or that person’s history. He borrowed a camera many

times and photographed the oldest people in Hopkins Gap. He took the only picture of

Mary Kirkpatrick, just before she died in 1961. She was standing in front of the building

that had been the Palos post office and general store in the Gap. That picture hung on

the dining room wall until the morning before Mom died.

At the end of his life, he was working with a woman from Austin, Texas. She had

traced her roots back to Banks Shifflett, my great grandfather. Dad took her to the

cemeteries in Greene County and the Gospel Hill Mennonite Church cemetery looking

for clues to connect her more directly to our family line. He had an incredible memory

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