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Youngblood Family
(Dot Little in 1969 - Click for a larger photo)
Youngblood Family
(Dot Little in 1969 - Click for a larger photo)
Susie's mother is Dorothy Gwendolyn "Dot" Youngblood. Her father was Sprat Youngblood. He and his children and grandchildren are discussed more below. I have met with Susie's 1st cousins on her mother's side and corresponded with them from time to time.
(Sprat Youngblood - Click for a larger photo)
Dot's parents were Gaston Rawls "Sprat" Youngblood (1904-1983) and Gertude Iver Kelly (1908-1986). Dot had no sisters and only one younger brother, Gaston Rawls "Tony" Youngblood, Jr. (1931-1976). Tony was killed in a mining accident just 6 years after we came home when I got out of the U.S. Air Force.
Tony and his wife, Barbara Joyce Helms, have 2 children: Doborah ("Debby") and Randal ("Randy"). The last time I spoke with Randy he was still Chief of Police for Birmingham Southern College, however, the college website says he retired this year after 37 years as a police officer. CLICK HERE to read about Randy's career.
These are the names of Susie's only 1st cousins on her mother's side. I hope my children get to know Randy, Debby, and their descendants. Randy loved his grandfather, Sprat Youngblood, and enjoys family research. He can probably tell you some stories about Sprat that no one else knows.
As my children and grandchildren learn more about the Youngblood Family, they also need to talk to their Aunt Sandy Little Hocutt who has researched the Youngblood Family. Another amazing Youngblood researcher is Larry Youngblood who has done extensive Youngblood Family research for many years. For the past several years he's been the administrator of the Youngblood DNA Project and can tell you which of his Youngblood Ancestors belong to which yDNA lines. CLICK HERE for the Youngblood DNA Project (yDNA research) which gives Larry's email address.
One thing that always confused my children were the nicknames their mother, aunts, and uncle called Sprat and Gertrude Youngblood. Susie, Sandy, Jody, and Mike always called their father's parents "Mama and Daddy Little."
It's the "Mama Little" nickname they gave Midred Prince (Coot's mom) that was confusing because Susie always called Gertrude Kelly "Little Mama."
My children could never get it straight!
Sprat Youngblood was easier. They always called him "Papa" and they called Audie Little "Daddy Little." In the main menu at the top of this page there's a link "Photos & Documents." That takes you to my folder for Youngblood Photos. Some of those photos are labeled "Mama and Papa", etc. referring to Gertrude Kelly and Gaston R. "Sprat" Youngblood.
You should visit the Photos & Documents page where all the current Youngblood photos are kept. You may also wish to visit the Youngbloods page I created in 2014 to share the Youngblood photos with Randy. CLICK HERE to go to the Youngbloods photos page I created for Randy Youngblood.
Just be aware that, although the pictures in "Photos & Documents" (above link in Main Menu) are the same pictures, it has the most photos.
Before I close, I need to share a couple things I knew about Sprat. One is he worked as an electrician for the mines. That's why there's a photo of him hanging from a pole. The other thing is Sprat was a dedicated member of the Masons (F.A.M.) as well as a leader in the United Mine Workers union. He was president of a union local office and, as such, attended national UMW conventions.
I used to enjoy talking to him about union activities back in the union's early years when they were still struggling to gain national recognition. I was a member of two unions myself (Teamsters and Communications Workers). I was a leader in one of them.
The sacrifices Sprat made as a union leader in his younger days paved the way a generation later for guys like his son, Tony, his son-in-law, Coot. It paved the way for guys like me two generations later. I'm grateful for his sacrifices. They endured a lot in those early days. Movies like "Matewan" tell that story.
My mother's kin were all miners including her father who probably died from black lung. My own daughter-in-law's father was killed in a mining accident so she understands the dangers and the loss the same way Randy Youngblood does. These are stories that do not need to be forgotten and I hope my children, grandchildren, and future descendants remember them.
For someone whose mother would beat him with a stick of stove wood, Sprat Youngblood was exceptionally good natured and one of the nicest and most generous men I've ever met. When I needed a truck, he persuaded a friend of his to sell me his truck at a rediculously low price so I could afford it. It was a classic 1950 Chevy which I wish I still had.
Sprat raised a precious daughter, Dot Youngblood, who is just as an exceptional person. All 16 of Dot's grandchildren would agree there could be no sweeter grandmother in existance. I used to love to watch Dot sit my children in a high chair, give them some food like English Peas, and laugh out loud as they made an awful mess and scattered them all over her kitchen!
She didn't seem to mind cleaning up after them. It was her greatest joy watching them learn to handle a spoon. Many of the songs Susie sang to my children when they were babies were songs she had learned from Dot. Dot loved children and wanted her family over every holiday even though it grew more and more difficult to feed them as her family grew.
Known to her grandchildren simply as "grandmother", she will be loved forever by them. I suppose Susie established the name of "grandmother" because the names she had been taught for her own grandparents was so confusing. She wanted to avoid such confusion in her own children. Since she was the oldest of 4, Susie persuaded her mother to establish the pattern for the rest of Dot's descendants to refer to her as "grandmother."
I hope my children will teach each of their children and grandchildren what a legacy Dot and her parents left them. I hope they learn as much as they can from Dot before she passes on. I hope they learn as much as they can also from Aunt Sandy, her cousin Randy, and others before age begins to steal precious memories forever.
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