I never knew I had an Uncle Amos until I was eight years old.
Amos Mincey lived in what is now known as Black Fox Hollow (formerly known as the Thomas Holler). He was my father’s half-brother, one of six children born to my grandfather James Lafayette (“Pa”) Mincey and his first wife (I believe her name was Bessie Thomas).
Sadly, I don’t know a lot about Amos. I know he was a veteran of World War I. It seems he never married. The family stories I’ve heard indicate that he was a very private man. After his family moved or passed away, he continued to live alone on his father’s land.
A neighbor, Mary Terry, cooked meals for Amos. Amos was, as were a lot of his male relatives, an alcoholic, but my impression is that he drank at home, alone, never getting into trouble, minding his own business. It seems that Amos rarely left his house.
In 1973 Amos became so ill that he could no longer stay alone. For a time, he wound up at my Aunt Fleetie’s house on Hoitt Avenue in Knoxville. That is where I met him for the first and only time I remember. To me he was a severe-looking, frightening fellow. He barked out at me, “What grade you in, boy?” I was so terrified that I could barely stammer out, “T-t-third.”
Uncle Amos died in September 1973. His was the second family death of which I was aware, the first having been Amos’ sister-in-law Roberta who was married to his brother Rob. Though I had only seen Amos the one time, his death affected me. I realized a family member who was a veteran had passed away. I remember drawing a picture of an American flag in Florence Chesney’s class and writing under it in big block capital letters AMOS MINCEY IS DEAD.
Though he was physically dead, Amos lived on in family lore.
After Amos’ mother died, Pa Mincey married Mary Katherine Nicely (aka “Mother Mincey”). She had a sister named Lidia (pronounced “Liddy”). Lidia married Elbert “Eb” Mincey, Pa Mincey’s son, who was Mother Mincey’s stepson. Full sisters married father/son! (It seems our family tree has a few knots in the forks! Aunt Lidia and Uncle Eb did not have children, or the tree might have been even more twisted.)
Aunt Lidia was, and remains almost four decades after her death, one of my absolute favorite human beings I’ve known in six decades of life. Aunt Lidia used to tell many wonderful stories, and from some of those stories I determined that while Aunt Lidia dearly loved her husband Eb, she despised his brother Amos.
According to my Aunt Vallie Mincey Lay (Amos’ half-sister), Aunt Lidia was a very clean woman when she was young. Vallie said Aunt Lidia’s sheets would be so white when she hung them on the clothesline that the sun would blind you when you looked at them.
Aunt Lidia once told about a day she had swept out her whole house, the yard, and the road in front of the house. (Yards in those days often did not have much grass, and the roads were dust and gravel.) Aunt Lidia said that she was standing in the road with her broom, getting ready to go back into the house, when she looked down the road and saw Amos coming.
“Lord, he was so filthy I knowed I’d have to warsh the door latches off where he handled ‘em when he left.” Aunt Lidia said that when Eb got home, she told him, “Either Amos is goin’ quit comin’ here or I’m leavin’.” I asked Aunt Lidia what happened. She said, “He quit comin’.”
Oddly enough, years later I came to know R. C. Ingle, a gentleman who lived in the Warwicks Chapel area of Union County. Once R. C. told me that he and his father Archie were walking down Thomas Holler Road on a cold day when there was a snow on the ground. He said they saw Amos Mincey sitting in the middle of the creek in a straight-backed chair, washing his feet in the ice-cold water.
I dearly loved Aunt Lidia, but even as a child listening to her relate her stories I wondered if she might be given to exaggeration. After all, exaggeration is a license given to good storytellers. (I might have been guilty of using it myself!) I’ve been told that exaggeration is not a lie when it comes to storytelling. R. C. Ingle was undoubtedly also given to exaggeration, so which tale about Amos was true—one, both or neither?
As is said on the old commercial about the Tootsie Roll pop, “The world may never know.”
My three sisters who are still living occasionally share remembrances and pictures of Amos. When all who remember Amos Mincey are deceased, only his tombstone, pictures and what has been written about him will remain.
And so is true of us all. Our lives are themselves our stories. How little I know about Uncle Amos Mincey and my other deceased ancestors make me wish I had been more interested as a youth to learn all I could about the family. As this interest often develops late in life, when those who could have best told the stories are no longer alive, perhaps one of the greatest legacies we can leave future generations is to put our life stories in writing so our descendants will continue to have a link to their family’s past.
Live life, love life.

ANSWER TO QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 75
What are two small words that will open most the doors for you? (ANSWER: Push and Pull)

QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 76
What do you call a nose with no body? (See next week’s article in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.)

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