The Move from Castlewood, Russell County, Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland ------ as told by Scott E. Lark written by Jennifer Hartman

In 1929, my grandfather’s family moved from Castlewood,
Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland. Before leaving Russell County,thinking he was done with school forever, my grandfather tossed aside his Kindergarden primer book along the walk home down Gravel Lick Road. Back on the farm, his mother was furious: books and paper were expensive.

My grandfather has told me many stories about his life and, because he was born in 1923 and has lived through the Great Depression and, as he describes it with his ever-present good humor, “three wars and I don’t know how many county fairs,” many of his tales feature poverty, hard labor, instability and uncertainty. But rather than complaint or lament, most of my grandfather’s stories are about how happy he was or what fond memories he has, even if they feature hardship and uncertainty. The family was poor, he tells me, but everyone was poor, so it didn’t matter. He remembers his childhood as some of the happiest times in his life.

Dad It’s not hard to understand a six-year-old boy’s loving life in a poor farm family because much of it was one adventure after another.

Without work in Russell County, his father and older brother Leonard had left Castlewood months earlier looking for jobs and a place for the family to live. They found a house to rent in Parkton, Maryland and interim employment until they could move to another farm.
Of my grandfather’s eleven siblings, Lucille had married and settled in West Virginia, but the others came to Maryland. When it was time for the rest of the family to leave Castlewood, his mother arranged a ride with a man who had a 1929 Chevrolet 1.5 ton flat-bed stake truck with four-foot-high side boards. His mother and youngest sister, four-year-old Virginia, rode in the cab with the driver. My grandfather rode in the back with Lacey, Irene, Mary, Vivian, Georgia, John, Troy, and Toy. The nine in the open-air truck were jammed into any spaces they could find among the straw-filled mattresses and furniture: part of the 350-mile trip he spent tucked into a dresser drawer and says he was “in hog heaven.”

The family never sold the Virginia house, so it was essentially abandoned for the move to Maryland, where my grandfather discovered that he still had to go to school. With the excitement of a new life and new friends, though, he wasn’t too bothered by having to complete his work in a new primer book.

DadEarlVirginia

Scott E. Lark, Earl Clark & Virginia Lark

Our Family

To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook
without a source, a tree without a root.
- An old Chinese Proverb

What's in this site?

- What's New? (Additions to the website)

- Blog
- Census Info (Where were they?)
- Cousins (The 34 children of the 12 children of George LARK & Virginia Catherine THOMPSON).
- Deed & Homesteads (Homes of George Washington LARK and Virginia Catherine THOMPSON).
- Do You Know These Ancestors? (Family photos that need identification)
- DNA
- Elusive Ancestor (Eva Lark)
- Final Resting Place for some of our our family with cemetery addresses and associated obituries.
- Gallery (Pictures) Gallery1, Gallery2, Gallery3, Gallery4, Gallery5, Gallery6, Gallery7, Gallery8, Gallery9
- George Washington LARK & Virginia Catherine THOMPSON's Family Pictures of G.W. LARK and V.C THOMPSON with their 12 children.
- Lark Cousins Across The Pond (Story of Tracey Newton, a Lark born & raised in the UK).
- Martin's Hundred (The 17th Centruy Plantation in Southeast Virginia on the James River).
- Memorabilia
- Military Service (Family members who serviced our Country). John Amburgey's Revolutionary War Record.
- The Mystery surrounding James M. Lark (my great great grandfather)
- Tidbits
- Toy Lark's Story (as a Silver Star recipient in Gen George S. Patton's 3rd Army).
- Vital Records and Certificates

Surname List

Surname list includes: birth/death dates; father/mother surname & given name.

Charts

- Scott Lark b1923 (HTML)
- Lark Pedigree Chart (PDF)
- Compressed Lark Pedigree Chart (PDF)
- Elizabeth Amburgey b1821 (HTML)
- Descendant Chart John Amburgey Jr b1758 (PDF)
- Descendant Chart Edward Thruston
b 1637/38 (PDF)

DAR Member

Member of the DAR. Entered the DAR through the Amburgery family for additional information, please contact me.