RECOLLECTIONS OF MY GG AUNT CASSIE FRALEY FORD TRACY
I remember my grandfather George Washington "Wash" Fraley was a Traveling Baptist Circuit Preacher.
"also a bottle Baptist Preacher". According to family tradition, he traveled on horse back from town to town, and from the sound of things he liked a little nip now and then. Sometimes his daughter, my Aunt Maggie "Maggie Adams" would ride behind him on the horse, when he did not have too far to go, so she could attend church.
My father James Monroe "Roe" Fraley and wife, Laura Belle Salyers Fraley, and family moved from Kentucky to Sioto Flats Ohio by train. My grandmother Louisa Barnett Salyers walked all the way from where she and my Grampa Thomas R Salyers lived to the train station to see us off. Sha was afraid she would never get to see any of us again. I don't know how far she walked, but was told it was quite a long ways. That was the last time I ever saw my gramma Salyers. Aunt Maggie Fraley Adams also came to the train station to see us off.
Dad went to work for a big muck farmer, raising onions and potatoes. Mom was a housewife, and worked hard raising their large family of children. Mom used to bake 5 to 6 pies a day, and would sit them in the window to cool. Well my younger brother, Warnie always to have a sweet tooth, and still has to this day. anyway one day when Mom and I baked the pies and had them cooling, Warnie took one of the pies and took off down the lane to eat it. I did not chase him. I waited until that night until he went to bed and spanked him. I had a lot of responsibility helping Mom. I did most of the washing, and making out the order for food from the store, helping Mom cook and clean, and tending the younger children, and sometimes having to disciplining them. The older boys helped Dad in the fields.
It was always a tradition on Mom's that everyone who was sitting down to her table to eat had to go to the wash basin and wash good, before they could eat. We kept a wash basin full of water, and with a towel near by. In the summer this was kept outside. Sometimes when we had company, usually on Sundays, there was some of them who did not like to clean up very often. Me and my brother Rollie's favorite thing was getting to show them where the wash basin was, so they would have to wash up before sitting to Mom's table to eat.
Dad was very strict on some of the older children. When my sister Alka was 16 or 17 years, Dad wanted her to marry with Brian Dotson. Alka told him she did not have that kind of feelings for Brian, to marry, and refused. Dad got very mad at her and whipped Alka. Alka did not back down, and married Walker Birchfield.
My next to oldest brother Den married Cassie Prater, whom I am named after. Den and Cassie had two children. Cassie liked to run around, so she would live close to Den's work, so Den would have to go stay where he worked all week, and only got to come home on his days off. When the children were still quite small Cassie left Den, while he was at work, leaving the children home alone with no food.
One day when Den came home from, he was very ill, and just laid down and went to sleep. The children got hungry and tried to wake him. When he would not wake up, they walked to their mother's sisters house, and told her they were very hungry, and would she please give them something to eat. Their aunt asked about their parents, and they told her that their mother had left them, and that they could not get their father awake. Their aunt went to check on Den, and found him unconscious, and got a doctor to see him. The doctor said Den had pneumonia, and there was nothing he could do for him, and Den died.
Mom did not like or approve of drinking, and Dad liked his wine, and sometimes got a little lit and acted up, but Dad worked, as Mom and us children did.
When Mom was 54 years old, she got in a bad auto accident, and was laid up in bed for a while, and died not long after that. My Neice Katie Birchfield came and stayed with us and helped take care of Mom. Dad had his hands really full after Mom died, with making a living and raising the rest of us children, that were still living at home. We all had to work with him to make it.
One day my Mom and Katie Birchfield Woods and I went to see my g Aunt Cassie Tracy, and she talked to me about her recollections.
Aunt Cassie was a daughter of James M and Laura Belle Salyer Fraley.

Cassie Tracy was born Nov. 23,1911 in Magoffin Co. KY to James and Laura Fraley. Died May 28,1997 in Fort Wayne, IN. Cassie married first Ford Burch, Second Milo Tracy. Services were held at Beams Funeral Home in Fremont, IN.