Bio added by SღPeckღMillay (husbands Great Grandfather)
John was 5ft. 4in. tall with Brown hair and Blue eyes. He was lame from childhood and walked with a limp.

This story came from a book of Genealogy called "Over Hills and Seas To Our Grandfather's Homes -- As We Remember" written b Anna L. Crawford-Dougherty (finished 1981)

John Adams' Medical Degree had been earned at Louisville, Kentucky School of Medicine about 1863 - 1865. While deciding where to settle for his practice, he taught Latin in the Corydon High School for a year. An interesting sideline here is that Kentucky's Governor Powell was a student in that Latin class. We know that Governor Lazareth Powell was born in 1812 and died in July 1867, at the age of 55, therefore he either took the class while he was the Governor of Kentucky or in his later years, 2 years prior to his death. Interesting!

John Adams actually started his medical practice with an uncle (likely a Hiatt family uncle), in Rockcastle County during the time he was casting about for a place to put down roots for keeps. On May 17, 1866, his father John Andrew Adams died. This may have been the deciding factor in settling John down in Union County, where he had met and married Mahalla Virginia "Jenny" Willett. Jenny's father Ned Willett, owned a large acreage in that vicinity and followed the custom of that day of bestowing a homestead to his children at the time of their marriage. After only a few years of the practice of medicine, John was persuaded to move to the Willett land and accept Jenny's homestead gift from her father. And, so he added the work of farming to his medical practice. This was not unusual in those days. All doctors gave much of their service for trade or free, and usually had to have some additional means of financing their family life. John also joined with his brother Governier (Guv) in much Lay-Preaching during those years. Guv was leaning towards a profession in the Ministry of the Christian Church, and this was a trial run, no doubt. Perhaps John was also considering such a possibility for himself, eventually.

John and Jenny had six children. The first two died very young. Death claimed Jenny on December 15, 1877, a month after the birth of their sixth child Gordon on November 8, 1877. Ten months later Gordon died. After the early death of his first two children, the death of his beloved wife Jenny and infant son Gordon must have been an unbearable blow. Great waves of emotion engulfed John Adams. Perhaps he was sustained by the faith which had become his own as he had witnessed in his lay-preaching. By it he was able to hold steady and to look into the future.

Then in 1879, on March 20, John was remarried. This time he chose a young girl of 16, Susan Valinda Millay of the "Hill Family", the strong Catholic family who lived near Waverly, Union County, Kentucky, just across the Union County line from St. Vincent's Catholic Academy. Though we do not have a copy of the religious ceremony, which obviously followed two days after the posting of the Marriage Bond (which we have a copy of). we also have a record in the Family Bible and family memory that the marriage was witnessed before God, in the Catholic tradition, at the Sacred Heart Church on March 20, 1879.

When John married the beloved Susie Valinda Millay, she was an idealistic girl of sixteen years. John was a thirty-five year old widower with three children. Deep in sorrow from the death of first wife Jenny, plus three children of that marriage, he knew what he wanted in a wife. the Lord must have been on his side for in Susie he found all that he wanted and needed...and more. He found a devoted, sincere girl who accepted the challenge of three step-children, plus the ten she would bear him. She assumed the responsibilities of her new home with great courage. Her three step-children, as well as her own ten who were born within twenty-four years, called her "Blessed", and they adored her for her loving kindness and unselfishness. Children in the home never realized they were half-brothers and sisters as she showed no partiality in rearing her large family.

John and Susie stayed on the farm on the Willett homestead through the birth of their sixth child Earl, in 1891. Then something caused a split between John and his former father-in-law, Nes Willett, and John refused to pay the taxes on his land and took his family and moved back to Henderson County in Corydon near his old Crawford Family homestead. While there another son John Dee was born in 1894. During the residence in Corydon, an interesting brush with fame came into their lives. They lived in the house of the parents of the future movie star Dick Powell, and where he was born and raised.

John was not happy there either, unfortunately, and after a few years he took his family and moved back to Union County and joined in farming with a neighbor of the Willett's, named John Crow. During the residence there, Bryan and Goebel were born.

In all this time John had carried on an informal medical practice, to which he had added Dentistry, though without medical sanction because he had declined to renew his medical license. The story is told of a big Negro man coming to John for a tooth extraction. He sat in a chair holding his head instead of the arms of the chair, the usual procedure. When the job was done, the man asked, "How did such a little man pull such a big tooth?". To which John answered, "I just guided the forceps, you pulled the tooth".

John remained unsettled and all the time he kept looking for a farm in Henderson County where he wanted to live permanently. His oldest son, Lucian, was now a young man and together they began to search around Geneva where John's oldest daughter Sally (with his first wife lived). They found a farm owned by a widow, Mrs. Ben J. Sandefur. Her portion of the T.C. Sandefur farm near Geneva. John was very impressed with this land and Lucian was extremely impressed with Mrs. Sandefur's daughter, Mattie about sixteen years of age. In fact it was recorded to be a case of "love at first sight". A contract was signed which moved John, Susie and the family to the Sandefur farm in December of 1899, following the death of John's mother, Lucy Hiatt-Crawford, early that same year.

With these new plans John gave up, permanently, any connection with the medical profession. In March, Mattie Sndefur had her 17th birthday, and though the farm proved satisfactory in every way, the family only stayed there two years, for on July 8, 1901, Lucian and Mattie eloped to Posey County, Indiana with another couple and after a double ring ceremony returned home as Mr. and Mrs. L. J. Crawford. So the year 1901 began to make much change in John and Susie's family. Their oldest daughter, Virginia "Jenny" had married Lee Clements in February, Lucian and Mattie were now married, and Elva married Jack Farmer in September, all that same year. The three older children John had with Jenny Willett, Sally, Eula and Claud were already married.

John and Susie's family, now minus three, moved onto a farm on the Geneva-Smithmills Road, called the Eakins Olace, and Lucian and Mattie took over the Sandefur home and farm. Lucian and John Adams, however continued to farm together on both farms. Here, on Susie's 40th birthday, she gave birth to her last child, the tenth and named her Bernice Loretta: five boys and five girls in all.

John Adam's was happy on the Eakins Place, but Lucian's trial efforts on the Sandefur farm didn't turn out well. So a year later, he moved to a second house on the Eakins Place and with his father John, they worked together for the next three years. They also added another farm a short distance away on Geneva-Corydon Road, which was called the Pierce Place (which had been the Lynn Randolph home). January 1905, John and Susie were ready to move to the Pierce Place. After taking over this farm they had been detained from moving into the house until the former occupants could vacate it. Here, John Adams and Lucian continued farming together. and 1905 passed very quickly with Susie and John's fourth child, Mattie Veronica, leaving the nest for a home of her own.

January 1906 found both John and Lucian again moving into new homes and farms. John moved to the Hancock Estate, up the lane where Lila Abbotts parents had lived when she and older son Claud, had been married. Lucian moved back to the Sandefur homestead for an extended and successful arrangement of five years with Mattie's mother, Mrs. Sandefur. Lucian added other farms and acreage, but John Adams was now in his sixties and facing his declining years with difficulty. He moved each year to a new and smaller acreage....from the Harrington Place to the Hancock Place up the lane towards Grimmel's, then to the Cummings Place near Corydon, and later to the Wilson farm near Dixie, in 1909. The Wilson farm is the place where Earl came home shot all to pieces (pooped out). Well one night Earl drove his buggy up close under his Pa's window in what might have been called the middle of the night, and following a prank idea, he called out, "Coming home Pa, shot all to pieces". Well poor Pa took it seriously and thought something very terrible had happened to Earl. What a rude awakening for poor old Pa who was to find it all a joke. It's understandable that he responded with a "STORM".

At the Wilson Place something took place that wasn't in the manner of Earl's joke. It was beautiful! Here another daughter, Pattye went to the marriage alter in September. I remember Aunt Pattye's wedding as the first experience of seeing the street lights of a city, and riding in a surrey with the fringe on top.

It was about this time that Lucian made a prospecting tour to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Montana, though nothing seemed quite right anywhere. He located instead, a beautiful spot near the crossroads village of Dixie, a few miles from John and Susie, on the Wilson Place, and only about ten miles from Corydon. Here Lucian bought his first home, and immediately bought, with his brother-in-law, Preston Hubbard, a house and lot for John and Susie's family, only two doors away. And here father and son farming together again. Remember, the Crawford's were a Scottish Clan!

When our two families (Father John Adams and son Lucian) moved to Dixie in January of 1910, it might be described as a time when a strong line was drawn through their previously familiar and predictable years, dividing them from of upheaval and growth. At this point, John Adams and Susie's children were at a half-way mark; the first five were in homes of their own and the last five stood on the verge of adventure. To quote Aunt Pattye, again, "Earl had started his roaming and he was ready to try his wings." Of course, he didn't want to leave a new place before he tried some pranks to remember it by.

With many other happenings, the year 1910 passed all too quickly and for reasons not known to me at present, January 1911, found everyone moving again. Lucian's family went back to the Sandefur Place in Geneva, John and Susie moved into Lucian's vacant house, and Pattye and Roy moved into John and Susie's little house, two doors away, and they all continued to farm the land in Dixie another year. Lucians place was sold by the beginning of 1912, but the little house remained in the family, though empty for many years. When Lucian's property there was sold, John and Susie moved onto the Royster farm in Cairo between Dixie and Henderson, and Pattye and Roy moved midway between Corydon and Smithmills. John carried on there with only the help of Johnnie, Bryan, and Goebel, then 17, 15, and 12 respectively. The farm was not so large but the house was very large and this was enjoyed by all who came and went, to help and fellowship.

The outstanding memory I have of Cairo is what happened in November on I believe was Susie's 50th. birthday. A glorious party surprise, not only for Susie, but for all the clan took place. Without any of our families knowing the others were thinking of the event, four of the married children, with their children, descended in time for an unplanned supper. Lucian and Mattie with Alvin, Susye Bess and Anna Lloyd, Jenny and Lee with Rena and Lillian Lee, Sally and Hubbard with Johnnie, Ranson, Robert and Virginia, and Pattye and Roy, and Robert and Eula Whitledge with Robert Lee and Lillian, came in expecting to have a quiet supper with Susie, John, Johnnie, Bryan, Goebel and Bernice. The absent children were living too far away to be there.

From Cairo, John and Susie moved into a little house on the River Road from Geneva to the Dam on the Ohio River. From Cairo, also son Johnnie left home to go to Mississippi with Elva, to be taught telegraphy, bookkeeping, and typing. It was his first time to be away from home and the family remembers how he knelt by the side of his bed and prayed the night before he left. Johnnie was sentimental about everything, and he was aware of the help needed to face the big world outside of the love of home. He was just 18 years old in 1912. He went into the Military Service first in the skirmish with Mexico, and then into World War I.

When John and Susie moved from Cairo back to Geneva, Pattye and Roy left Midway and came home to be closer to the Clan, which was now being threatened by the demands of World War I. Young Johnny was already in the Service of his country, and Earl and Bryan were in line for that eventuality. Lucian was definitely settled on the Sandefur place and so the others now clustered around him as the center of stability and strength. John and Roy together, rented the farm on the "Bluff" (banks of the Ohio River), and John moved his family into the house there; Pattye and Roy moved into a little house on the lane. Earl came home from Mississippi in late 1914, and with Bryan and Goebel, helped with the farming wherever needed, part-time with John and Roy, and part-time with Lucian. Generally and gradually, Earl centered his work with Lucian, and of course, Bryan and Goebel were regular farming partners now with Roy and their father John Adams.