My Old Confederate Home
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21. Interview by author with Virginia Herdt Chaudoin, July 11, 2007.
22. Messenger 1, no. 1 (October 1907).
23. Messenger 3, no. 10 (August 1910).
24. Messenger 4, no. 7 (May 1911).
25. Messenger 1, no. 8 (June 1908).
26. Letter from T. W. Duncan, used with permission of Rebecca C. Myers.
27. Messenger 4, no. 7 (May 1911), and 4, no. 8 (June 1911).
28. Messenger 2, no. 11 (September 1909).
29. Messenger 2, no. 1 (October 1908), and 3, no. 6 (April 1910).
30. Hazel Green Herald, April 4, 1908.
31. Interview with Virginia Herdt Chaudoin.
32. Messenger 3, no. 2 (December 1909).
33. Biographical information on the Tree Man from, and letters used with permission of, Rebecca C. Myers.
12. The Farmer and the Daughter
1. Minutes of the Twenty-third Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1919, KyHS.
2. Minutes, December 27, 1918, record approval of a “Women's Advisory Committee.” Minutes, February 19, 1919, incorrectly refers to the “Ladies Advisory Committee,” and the mistake occurs occasionally thereafter.
3. Report by Henry George to Board of Trustees, December 31, 1914, KyHS.
4. For a while, George enlisted able-bodied inmates to reroof and repaint the main building; but when inmate Elisha L. Herndon fell off a ladder and broke both legs, the commandant decided it wasn't such a good idea to send seventy-year-old men scuttling over the roof and scaffolding. Messenger 1, no. 8 (May 1908).
5. Minutes, January 5, 1916.
6. Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1916, KyHS.
7. Poppenheim, History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 202–213.
8. Minutes of the Twenty-first Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1917, KyHS. The national organization was urging chapters to turn their hands to war work. See Dallas News, January 27, 1918, and C-J, April 23, 1918.
9. Minutes of the Twenty-first Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1917, KyHS.
10. Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1918, KyHS.
11. C-J, September 26, 1917.
12. Minutes, August 29, 1917.
13. Louisville Herald, September 24, 1917.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. For Young's statement, complete with item-by-item price comparisons, see C-J, September 26, 1917.
18. The Herald was the first to pick up the two-meals-a-day story, and the paper rode it hard, staying ahead of the other Louisville papers. However, when Young gave his statement (and full access to the Home) exclusively to the Courier-Journal, the Herald found itself frozen out of its own story. Aside from a few brief follow-ups, the story died away. See also C-J, October 6-7, 1917, and November 8, 1917.
19. The book was History of the 3d, 7th, 8th and 12th Kentucky C.S.A., published by the Dearing Printing Co. in 1911. “The matter was prepared while the author was busy discharging the intricate duties as Commandant of the Kentucky Confederate Home,” George says in the preface.
20. Letter from Florent D. Jaudon to Mrs. George L. Danforth, September 26, 1916, Filson.
21. Ibid.
22. Minutes, December 4, 1917.
23. C-J, July 31 and August 1, 1923; and “Col. C. L. Daughtry,” ConVet 31, no. 9 (September 1923): 348. For some of Daughtry's war stories, see C. L. Daughtry, “Stealing a Yankee Captain,” ConVet 10, no. 7 (July 1902): 308; and Daughtry, “Three Comrades of the Sixties,” ConVet 21, no. 1 (January 1913): 18-19.
24. Lancaster (Ky.) Central Record, July 10, 1903.
25. Minutes, January 5, 1918.
26. C-J, April 27, 1918.
27. Minutes, March 5, 1918.
28. Rosenburg, in Living Monuments, writes about the changing role of women at other Confederate homes; see especially 139-141 .
29. Minutes, December 27, 1918.
30. C-J, May 23, 1922, and Johnson, History of Kentucky, 1016.
31. Billy Beasley and his family lived rent-free for a time in an apartment owned by Thomas D. Osborne. See chapter 1.
32. Seekamp and Burlingame, Who's Who in Louisville, 247; and Louisville Times, June 13, 1919.
33. Southard, Who's Who in Kentucky, 443.
34. Louisville Times, June 13, 1919.
35. Messenger 2, no. 2 (November 1908).
36. He was invited in 1909 to return to St. Albans, Vermont, scene of his wartime raid and bank robbery, as principal orator for a regional historical celebration. A group of diehard Union veterans spun up an angry protest, and Young graciously withdrew his acceptance. Bourbon (Ky.) News, May 7, 1909, and Messenger 2, no. 6 (April 1909).
37. “The Passing of the Gray,” ConVet 27, no. 3 (March 1919): 76.
38. Young's cross-country race with death is described in C-J, February 23-24, 1919.
39. Lengthy coverage of Young's life may be found in C-J, February 24, 1919, and “The Passing of the Gray.”
40. Minutes, May 7, 1919.
41. Minutes, January 2, 1920.
42. Letter from Commandant C. L. Daughtry to Executive Committee, Board of Trustees, March 31, 1919.
43. Daughtry's letters and reports to trustees are increasingly peppered with stories of “friction among the employees,” “bickering and recriminations,” and “tracing the blame” during 1919 and early 1920. See letters dated March 31, 1919; September 5, 1919; and circa Summer 1919.
44. Letter from Commandant C. L. Daughtry to Board of Trustees, undated (ca. Summer 1919).
13. The Trainer and the Undertaker
1. The chronology, description, and details of the fire on March 25, 1920, unless otherwise noted, are constructed from contemporary newspaper accounts and reports of those who were present. I particularly relied on coverage in the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Herald, March 26-28, 1920. Charlotte Woodbury's report of the fire, much of which quotes Commandant Daughtry, appears in Mrs. John L. Woodbury, “The Confederate Home of Kentucky,” ConVet 28, no. 5 (May 1920): 196. Inmates gave reporters different versions of George Wells's shouted warning; I've assembled a version that makes sense (and inserted “goddam” where the papers’ editors left only dashes).
2. Minutes, May 7, 1919.
3. For a more detailed description of the 1908 fire (including extant equipment and procedures), see Messenger 2, no. 1 (October 1908). See also Stanford (Ky.) Interior Journal, October 13, 1908, and Hartford (Ky.) Herald, October 14, 1908.
4. Minutes, August 29, 1917.
5. San Francisco: New York Times, September 5, 1915. Chicago: New York Times, December 28, 1923. Quebec: New York Times, October 27, 1916.
6. Ripley, Unthinkable, helped me make sense of the confusing (and dangerous) behavior of people in the Home that evening.
7. Interview by author with Bill Herdt Jr., July 11, 2006.
8. The story of Ida Ochsner is from Hartford (Ky.) Herald, July 10, 1912.
9. Biographical information on Jones is from Susan Reedy and Jones's application to the Home, KDLA.
10. Coincidentally, the Courier-Journal Sunday rotogravure section had already gone to press with a lengthy article about the history of the Louisville Fire Department, accompanied by a great photo of the department's massive new American LaFrance motor-driven, motor-pumping fire engine. See it at C-J, March 28, 1920.
11. Some Pewee Valley locals say that the American LaFrance pumper was mounted on a railcar for the trip to Pewee Valley. I find no evidence of that being the case. Instead, it's more likely that the disabled behemoth was returned to Louisville on a flatbed railcar for repairs.
12. C-J, March 27, 1920.
13. C-J, March 28, 1920.
14. Louisville Herald, March 29, 1920.
15. C-J, March 27, 1920.
16. C-J, April 8, 1920, and Minutes, April 9, 1920.
17. Letter from Commandant Daughtry to Executive Committee, Board of Trustee
s, July 31, 1920.
18. Plans described in C-J, June 22, 1920. See also Minutes, April 9, 1920, and Minutes of the Twenty-fourth Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1920, KyHS.
14. The Reverend and the Rector
1. Minutes, May 7, 1919.
2. The nurse story is in the letter from Commandant C. L. Daughtry to Board of Trustees, September 5, 1920. In the same letter he writes that inmates are conspiring with employees to disregard his orders. His letter to Board of Trustees, July 31, 1920, expresses annoyance at Woodbury's oversight. The letters are appended to Minutes.
3. Minutes, April 9, 1920.
4. C-J, March 28, 1920.
5. A direct transcript of Leathers's hearing is in Minutes, April 9, 1920.
6. Minutes of the Twenty-fourth Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1920, KyHS.
7. The Woodbury, Stone, and Crowe information (including direct quotes) are recorded in Minutes, April 9, 1920.
8. White had a habit of writing lengthy “apologies” when charged with some infraction at the Home. (Most other inmates offered a verbal apology to the commandant or board.) One of White's apologies is a ten-page justification, including a detailed autobiography, from which the quotes in this section are taken. The apology is undated, but it appears White had been charged with having spoken in a cross manner to a matron. Only on the final page does he apologize for having “had the temerity to ask a very simple question.” KyHS.
9. A. N. White, obituary for H. H. Hockersmith, ConVet 20, no. 7 (July 1912): 334.
10. Minutes, May 7, 1919.
11. Louisville Times, August 5, 1921.
12. Contents of the dossier are described in an article in the Louisville Herald, June 7, 1921.
13. Louisville Times, June 7, 1921.
14. Louisville Times, August 10, 1921. According to Federal Census records, Imogene Nall was born to William E. and Emma Nall of Meade County in 1898. She was still living with both parents in 1910. In 1920 her mother was unemployed and living as a boarder in a house off Frankfort Avenue in Louisville.
15. The inspector's means of gathering evidence, along with the text of the report, is described in Louisville Times, July 22, 1921.
16. Dow's response is printed as a letter to the editor in Louisville Times, August 5, 1921.
17. Louisville Times, August 10, 1921.
18. The story of this Memorial Day observance earned headlines across the country. I used accounts in C-J, the New York Times, and the Dallas News, all appearing on May 31, 1923.
19. Though the Louisville newspaper reporter says the veterans were carrying the “Stars and Bars,” a photo of their furled flag taken that day shows what very well could be the Confederate Battle Flag. I defer, however, to the reporter's description.
20. Louisville Times, February 13, 1922.
21. C-J, June 29, 1923.
22. Louisville Herald, July 31, 1923. After Daughtry died, Florence Barlow, who remained embittered by her treatment, and that of Home veterans, lived on in a rented carriage house in Pewee Valley, churning out letters to veterans and legislators. She died, alone, in 1925.
23. C-J, August 4, 1923.
24. C-J, March 18, 1917.
25. New York Times, January 25, 1920, and Atlanta Daily World (reprinting a story published by the Confederate Soldier's Home of Georgia), June 6, 1936.
26. Letter from Inez Caudel, Bourbon County Chapter, American Red Cross, to A. S. McFarlan, August 18, 1924.
27. William Pete (sometimes spelled “Peet” or “Peat”) didn't leave many paper footprints, and it's hard to determine the veracity of his claim. The Morgan's Men Association often listed his attendance at its reunions; see, for example, C-J, October 15, 1929.
28. Letter from L. D. Young to Commandant McFarlan, September 17, 1924.
29. Minutes, September 3, 1924.
30. Letter from Commandant McFarlan to L. D. Young, September 4, 1924.
31. Letter from L. D. Young to Commandant McFarlan, November 21, 1924.
32. Dow resettled in Maryland, where he continued to speak up for the underdog. In 1928 he called on President Calvin Coolidge to plead for clemency for a teenager involved in the murder of a D.C. policeman. See Washington Post, June 10, 1928.
15. The Engineer and the Little Girl
1. On July 11, 2007, I met siblings Virginia Herdt Chaudoin, Louise Herdt Marker, and Bill A. Herdt Jr. in Pewee Valley to discuss—and record—their memories of the Kentucky Confederate Home. We met at the Herdts’ place of business, an auto parts store located a few hundred yards from where the Home once stood. (Their father and grandfather operated wagon repair and blacksmithing businesses from the same location for most of a century, and I had noted the Herdt business name on the Home's chart of accounts payable.) During the four hours I spent there, a dozen of the Herdts’ friends and contemporaries dropped in to add their recollections of Pewee Valley and the Home. At different times, with different words, they described the inmates as ghostlike, evanescent, walking wisps of memory from a past time and a distant place. These childhood impressions come from the last generation to have walked the paths of the Home and met the men who lived there, and their memories inform this chapter.
2. Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Evie Temple, April 14, 1924, KyHS.
3. C-J, October 18, 1924.
4. Noble, New Age, 18. Jerri Conrad, a descendant of George Noble, shared a copy of his self-published book with me. During Noble's three years and eight months in the Home, he developed and put to paper a complicated theosophy. He asked for an honorable discharge from the Home in 1926, paid to have his New Age printed, then lived the rest of his life as an itinerant on the proceeds of his book sales.
5. Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Evie Temple, April 14, 1924, KyHS.
6. Louisville Post, June 20, 1925.
7. This Christmas celebration, including photographs of veterans admiring the tree, comes from the Louisville Times, December 31, 1925.
8. Noble, New Age, 18.
9. Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Board of Trustees, August 31, 1928, KyHS.
10. Louisville Herald-Post, December 1, 1929.
11. Louisville Herald-Post, February 11, 1929.
12. Noble, New Age, 18.
13. Information about Inmates Requests and Kinfolks, KyHS.
14. Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Alice Hall, August 18, 1925, KyHS.
15. From a loose typewritten sheet in the death book, lists of “What Home furnishes in case an inmate desires to be buried in the Home cemetery” and “What friends or relatives must furnish if they desire body to be buried away from Home.” The page includes itemized prices for each. KyHS.
16. “U.D.C. Notes,” ConVet 37, no. 7 (July 1929): 271.
17. Louisville Times, October 14, 1929, and Louisville Herald-Post, December 1, 1929.
18. Louisville Herald-Post, February 11, 1929.
19. See, for example, C-J, March 3, 1929, and May 18, 1930.
20. Lexington Leader, March 21, 1930.
21. Monthly Payroll of Officers and Employees, April 30, 1930, KyHS.
22. C-J, February 15, 1932.
23. Lexington Herald, October 21, 1931.
24. Letter from Board of Trustees to Commandant McFarlan, marked as received February 1, 1932, KyHS.
25. Louisville Times, October 21, 1931.
26. C-J, February 12, 1932.
27. C-J, February 15, 1932, and Louisville Times, November 17, 1933.
28. “Chapter Reports,” ConVet 40, no. 5 (May 1932): 192.
29. Louisville Herald-Post and Louisville Times, July 6, 1932.
30. Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Board of Trustees, September 6, 1933, KyHS.
31. C-J, July 17, 1932.
32. Monthly Payroll of Officers and Employees, April 30, 1933, KyHS.
33. C-J, December 27, 1933.
34. Minutes, April 4, 1934.
35. Pewee Valley's reaction to the possibility that the grounds might be used for
juvenile orthopedic patients is described in C-J, February 18, 1934.
36. C-J, April 18, 1934.
37. C-J, April 17-18, 1934.
38. C-J, April 18, 1934.
39. Minutes, May 2, 1934.
40. Letter from Attorney General Wooton to Board of Trustees, May 24, 1934, KyHS.
41. Final entry in payroll ledger book, signed by Commandant McFarlan.
Epilogue
1. Kentucky birth, marriage, and death records.
2. For letting bids, see C-J, August 21 and November 15, 1934. For disrepair, see Louisville Times, April 29, 1937.
3. Legislative Research Commission, “The Executive Branch of Kentucky State Government,” www.e-archives.ky.gov.
4. Louisville Herald-Post, August 29, 1936.
5. Louisville Times, April 28, 1937.
6. Oldham (County, Ky.) Era, October 7, 1938.
7. C-J, June 2, 1957.
8. Rosenburg, Living Monuments, and author's visits.
9. Dedication of Confederate Cemetery at Pewee Valley, June 3, 1957, KyHS.
10. Hay and Appleton, Roadside History, 14-15.
Bibliography
Manuscripts
Official Home Records
When the Kentucky Confederate Home closed in July 1934, Commandant Alexander McFarlan shipped more than fifty crates of library books, paintings, lithographs, flags, firearms, and furniture to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort. Many of the items remain there today (including Florence Barlow's framed military button collection). Browse through the open stacks of the Schmidt Research Library of the Kentucky Historical Society and you're likely to find a book with an inscription or stamp indicating that it came from the Home.
McFarlan and the board of trustees turned over most of the Home's operational documents to the Department of Public Property, but most made their way to the Kentucky Historical Society as well. Many of the operational documents—those not destroyed by the 1920 fire—were microfilmed in 1950, then destroyed. Various canceled checks, bills, and inventories were destroyed without microfilming. Several boxes of original materials have been cataloged (2007M07) and are available for study in Special Collections, Kentucky History Center, Kentucky Historical Society.