Correspondence: G.E. Valley, Jr. -> Harold Hancock, 30 May 1985
History · 30 May 1985
Linked to John Ringgold Cummins, Eudora Cummins, Martha Rebecca Cummins, Mary Jane Cummins, Thomas Henry Cummins, Martha Elizabeth Ringgold, Edward Ringgold, John Holliday Cummins, Frances Wingate Davis and George Edward Valley Jr
Dear Professor Hancock,
Your suggestion that you inquire about the possibility of my having copies of Mrs. Cummins’ pages relative to John Holliday Cummins, and relative to the Ringgolds, is a welcome one.
If they copying can be arrange in Dover, I shall be glad to pay for it as well as the time of whomever oversees the task. Mrs. Cummins did seem hesitant in lending some of her pages to my brother, and it would be understandable if she also hesitated to lend them to me. However, I have access to a small machine, and I can get the job done quickly, if that seems the better way. Certainly it seems neither useful nor appropriate for me to approach Mrs. Cummins directly, unless she desires it.
It would be a shame for all her work to be lost; do you have any estimate of the price for privately printing a few hundre copies? To how many people could they be given away if they were to be printed?
According to a Bible (pub. Jasper Harding, Phila, 1854) which was started in a man’s handwriting, presumably that of John Holliday Cummins, he had three children: Eudora C (b 20 Jan 1846, d 31 Jan 1847), John Ringgold C. (b 19 Nov 1847) and Thomas Henry C (b 29 Aug 1850, interred 2 Jul 1923).
According to a second document, which divides the estate of a descendant of Susan Holliday Cummins (John Holliday C’s elder sister), John Holliday Cummins also left two other children, Mary and Rebecca. The fact that these two are not entered in the Bible is not easily explained. The possibility that the Bible was really started by one of John Holliday Cummins’ children seems untenable because the Bible records his first marriage to Martha E Ringgold, daughter of Edward R. This is a fact that one would not expect the children to know, or to memorialize if they did.
Thomas Henry C. was my grandfather, and since we have what appears to be the family Bible, I assume that the elder brother, John Ringgold Cummins, died without issue. This would agree with the second document mentioned above.
My grandfather was a wretchedly poor man all his life. Perhaps he was poor because of his rigidity of character: He taught, “Never ask for anything, and starve before you take charity”; he smoked precisely one cigarette a day, at the conclusion of the evening meal while the family watched him in silence. Not withstanding the apparent wealth of the Cummins’ grandfather himself seems to have inherited nothing at all but the Bible. It is hard to imagine the causes of my grandfather’s poverty.
That is the reason for my interest in John Holliday Cummins, and for my interest in the social and economic effects of the Civil War on his family.
My interest in the Ringgolds arises from my complete ignorance about them, except that they were planters.
Thank you for your interest in the Cummins family.
Sincerely,