Q: OK, the first thing I want to do, just for the benefit of the tape also, is to- -to say that with these four families we are going to approach them one at a time just to make sure that we don't get too confused when we are talking about them. Now you have four families: the Armisteads, the Ainsworths, the Lindsays and the Hodges.

A: Right.

Q: And … and you're connected with all them one way or another.

A: Two are interconnected.

Q: Now as you grew up, first thing that hit me, I didn't grow up in that kind of a family that had all this history. And I just wonder if you can give me some kind of an idea what it's like growing up knowing all this, what kind of atmosphere does that provide and how does that affect, you know, the way you- -you looked at things?

A: It's a very secure feeling. My father's mother lived with me from the time I was born until after I was married, and in fact my children were born. Rather I should say, that we lived with her because she had a very large three-story house and when my mother and father were married she turned over one entire floor to them. And my grandfather died in 1925 and I was born in 1926 and we were still with her, so I never remember not having a grandparent in the house. And it was a very large family, particularly on her side, the Lindsays and for many, many years I was the youngest cousin. I guess you might say, spoiled, pampered, what have you, but it was a very secure warm feeling.

Q: This, this is Andrew Ainsworth, right.

A: Mmm-hmm, and he married Mary Griswold Armistead.

Q: What kind of a relationship did you have with Mary Louise Hodges, your other grandmother?

A: She died when I was just 6 months old, 5 months old, so I don't remember her at all, except for what my Mother said about her.

Q: Does history mean a lot to you in this area?

A: Yes, a great deal.

Q: Why's that?

A: Well, I think Virginians are very historical-minded. I think we are very proud of our state and the part that it's played in the history of the country and I had a father who was very interested in history and he gave me a great sense of it so that when I went to college I was a history major. I was a history major at Randolph Macon Woman's College and then my daughter in turn was a history major at William and Mary.

Q: Did you ever pursue anything with that?

A: Only teaching. Teaching and a great interest in history, I still am very interested in it and read a great deal of it.

Q: It's good to have _____.

A: Yes.

Q: Well let's start talking about the Hodges. You've already told me that you can't go back, way in the back, but do you know precisely, or approximately when they arrived here and … and where they lived?

A: Evidently they arrived in the 1700's and settled in what is now the city of Suffolk or rather I guess it would be the city of Chesapeake if they are on the Western Branch. I only know that my son says that he has seen deeds and so on in the city of Suffolk relating to the Hodges. They acquired land out there and General John Hodges acquired land and he had his plantation there known as Wildwood Plantation on the banks of the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River. And it came to be known as Hodges' Ferry because he ran a ferry from the far bank over to the Portsmouth side of it. And according to my mother, in his day and time, it was run by a slave. And I assume it was the kind of ferry that was either poled over or they had the lines running across the top which they could pull.

Q: This was John Hodges.

A: This was General John Hodges, mm-m. And he was a General in the War of 1812.

Q: Do you have much information about him from that period of time? What he did?

A: Yes, all the records of what he served with the Virginian Militia and that he participated in the Battle of Craney Island in the War of 1812. And then he went on to be involved to a certain extent in politics after the War of 1812.

Q: And I noticed he was a member of the Virginia Legislature.

A: Yes. He participated in the Presidential election, I think in 1832. Not really sure of that date, but you have a copy of it.

Q: What kind of influence did he have in this area, what, you know, was he ---

A: Evidently he was a very well-respected, well-thought-of gentleman as his obituary indicates. He lived on his plantation, was married three times, which was not uncommon at that age.

Q: Because his wifes died, right?

A: Yes, his wifes died, his wives died on him. He built a townhouse in Portsmouth at 300 North Street, it was the custom in those days if you lived out in the country to have a townhouse where you could come and spend the winter. He built his home there, and then later, his son, William Henry Harrison Hodges, who was my great-grandfather, built a home, town home for his wife, directly behind him.

Q: Now the area we are talking about, this Wildwood area, where they had their land, that's what is known as Stonebridge Landing. Now was the plantation right there on that spot?

A: The house was up close to the river, according to Mother, and the family burial plot was on it, and then it stretched back from the river bank, 'course everything in the early days was situated on a river because that was their main mode of transportation. Boats could come up and load and unload and people could also travel up and down the river so the houses generally faced right on the river.

Q: Is there any indication of what size this plantation was, how many slaves he had working there?

A: I would gather from the records that he had upwards of a hundred.

Q: I noticed looking through some of the things, at their wills, they say I give this slave and this slave to this person, this one and that one to somebody else. And you know, they were looked upon as property but in a sense in some ways, they were considered as real people too ___.

A: Well, even in my generation when I came along as a child, domestic servants in the house were--they were considered members of the family, cared for, treated, my grandmother even buried one. Because when the time came for the servant to be buried, the minister didn't show up, he hadn't been paid, and my grandmother had taken her Book of Common Prayer with her, and so she proceeded to whip it out and conduct the Episcopal committal service.

Q: Which grandmother was this?

A: My grandmother Ainsworth, Addie Charles Lindsay Ainsworth. And she conducted the burial service. But I was brought up that they were members of the family.

Q: So it was just like one big family. Instead of having 5 or 6, you had 106.

A: Right, and they felt very responsible for them. I'm not saying that they weren't bought, with the system, I couldn't be honest if I didn't say that. But I do know within the confines of my own family, that they were well-treated and well-thought-of.

Q: ________

A: No, no ______ sorry.

Q: Do you know anything else that ________, since he's kind of like almost the main person on how this all started with the papers that we received, is there any other information you can give us on the, that might be of general interest to us.

A: No, not really. I really should have asked my mother a great many more questions about him than I did. And I just neglected it but she always said that he was an extremely well-thought-of man. And evidently participated fully in the life of the community.

Q: You know a little more about his sons, though.

A: Yes. His son, William Henry Harrison Hodges was my great grandfather and then he had another son who was James Gregory Hodges.

Q: And there was a third son, I've seen John H. Hodges.

A: John H. Hodges, but I really don't know anything about him.

Q: And you don't really have papers for him, ______.

A: No, he may have died young. When the business about the cemetery being uprooted came about, they found a number of tombstones out there that they cannot identify and they think they possibly were younger children who were buried and say buried just under one name.

Q: Who do these, he had 3 wives, John Hodges, and the sons were not from all the same wife?

A: No, James Gregory and William Henry Harrison were actually half brothers.

Q: Let's aim in on those two brothers, OK? James Gregory Hodges he has a history, it's kind of a short history, ______ little boy.

A: Yes.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about him? His character from what you've read, and just the main things that he did.

A: He was evidently a very sweet, kind individual from the way that his letters read and everything that is said about him. He evidently was a very smart, and a very educated person. He was a graduate of the University of Virginia Medical School, he was a medical doctor, and in addition to that he served as Mayor of the City of Portsmouth. When the war broke out, as with so many other young men at the time, he joined the Confederate forces and he fought--he went in with--he was a Colonel of the Third Regiment of Virginia Volunteers. And he entered the services of the state on the 20th of April 1861. He was made a Colonel of the Fourteenth Virginia Regiment and he was assigned to the Brigade of General Louis A. Armistead which incidentally we're kin to also. He was with his regiment in every battle in which it was engaged until he died. He took part in the Battles of Southern (Seven?) Pines, Malbin Hill, Fredericksburg, and Suffolk and in the charge of Pickett's Division which Armistead's Brigade was a part of at Gettysburg, he was leading his regiment and at the Battle of the Bloody Angle he was standing, from what I have been told, with his hand on one of the cannons which overheated and blew up. That was not uncommon as they're not very well-constructed. And evidently there was not enough left of him to be buried. But his sword was picked up by a Union officer subsequent to the battle, and he took it back to the Midwest with him and many years later managed to trace it because his name and evidently his regiment's name was on it and he returned his sword to Miss Sally who was Uncle Jimmy's wife. And so his sword came back even if nothing else did. He was a devoted son from his letters. One of the letters in the collection is a very sweet one, in which he tells his father that he's never done anything of any importance without asking his permission and seeking his advice and he writes to his father to tell him he wants to ask for the hand of Miss Sally Wilson. It's a very charming letter.

Q: In regard to the way that, what is your source for this? You say you were told ---

A: My mother, who thought a great deal of Uncle Jimmy although of course she never knew him. She grew up with stories about him and she thought a great deal of him. And she talked about him ______.

Q: Of course we have a picture of him.

A: Yes, at a much younger age than when he was killed.

Q: And he married ---

A: Miss Sally Wilson. And Miss Sally's parents were also local residents, there are many references to the Wilsons in the letters, and she evidently was a very lovely, young lady. Very sweet. And her father was a part owner of the Macon House, you got one of the little cards there of it. And my mother said she was a very sweet lovely person. After he died she was left with two young sons, one of whom died before he ever married, the other died before he had any children. So that line of the family died out. But she said Miss Sally was such a sweet person.

Q: She lived into the 20th century.

A: Yes she did. And her portrait is with her side of the family. I believe it matches that one in size.

Q: One person who also has set _____ versus the other side.

A: William Henry Harrison Hodges, yes.

Q: Before this time, before the Civil War, his profession was, exactly?

A: He was a banker. He also had continued farming the land out at Wildwood Plantation, but he also was associated with a bank within the city and he had built a townhouse so that he spent, I think prior to the War Between the States, he was spending more and more time in the city while actually maintain--trying to maintain the land out there--after the war was over and there were no longer slaves with which to run the plantation he remained entirely within the city. But he was a Cashier of the Bank of the--he was Cashier of the Merchant and Mechanics Savings Bank in Portsmouth. And incidentally due to a childhood injury he was partially lame. And I think that is probably the main reason why he did not join the Army with his half brother.

Q: Tell everyone about that.

A: Yes, Mother said that according to the family he limped very badly and I think probably that's the reason he wasn't in the Army.

Q: What were his war experiences? Even though he wasn't in the Army, he had some experiences anyway.

A: Well, Portsmouth was captured by the Union forces fairly early in the war. And General Butler, Beast Butler, also known as Silver Spoons Butler, was in charge.

Q: Why was that?

A: Well, he was called Silver Spoons Butler because he had the charming reputation of stealing the family silver from homes in which he happened to be or he knew of, he looted quite a few and so the ladies in the South referred to him many times as Silver Spoons Butler. He was also known as Beast Butler, because he wasn't a very nice person. And at one time he was in New Orleans after it had been captured, and the ladies refused to bow or to speak to the Union officers on the street, so he issued a proclamation that any lady who didn't bow or speak to a Union officer would be considered a lady of the streets. Which of course in that time, was ---

Q: So they _____ out?

A: Knowing Southern ladies I doubt that they did, they knew what their own reputation was and I doubt sincerely that that would have caused them to bow. But when he came, he demanded that all the money in the banks in the city be turned over to him and to the Union forces. And my great grandfather refused to do so because he said that he felt he was custodian of the people's money and that he had no right to turn it over so Mother said that he refused to do so, even though they threatened to imprison him if wouldn't do it. He had brought some of the funds home, according again to my mother, and his wife had tied some of them in the hoopskirts of her skirt. She was, of course the skirts were very wide and with these big wide frames that they had underneath them you could tie things to them and no one would ever know the difference. And some of them she had, but the rest he refused to turn over so they threatened to imprison him if he didn't do it and he said no, he would not. So he was imprisoned, General Butler did arrest him, you have testimony with the papers, he was sent to Cape Hatteras and forced to work at hard labor. Although he was then over 60 years old and had a bad leg and then he was imprisoned over on the peninsula at Camp Hamilton. Also I understand in Fortress Monroe. And when he was first taken over there, a leg iron was placed on his bad leg and any number of prominent citizens wrote and asked for his release and eventually, I think within about several months they did take the leg irons off of him, but he was imprisoned for some time before he did come back to the city.

Q: As one of his descendents, how do you feel about his stand?

A: Very proud of him, I think he was a man of very high principals after all the money did belong to the citizens of Portsmouth, and I don't feel that the federal government had any right to confiscate it, and I think he was entirely within his rights.

Q: I read in one of the letters, where some of the citizens and ____ were told some money was supposed to go to the poor or something, --- what was that all about?

A: Yes, some of the money I think had been put in the bank for the benefit of the poor citizens, of course in those days you know, all charity was taken care of by individual people and by churches, there was no such thing as welfare system. And he felt very kind of obligated to see that money went where it was supposed to go.

Q: So he was one of the people in charge.

A: Yes.

Q: Is there any indication of how, other than this particular incident, where he refused to turn over the money, of how he got along with the forces here. How he, you know the occupation I guess you call it, his response to that.

A: I think that he felt that he was making the honorable response to them. And felt that he should deal as one gentleman to another and I don't think General Butler was much of a gentleman.

Q: OK. Of course that is a very unbiased opinion.

A: Very unbiased. But, I doubt that he did. I do know of some silver spoons that he stole right here in Portsmouth when he was headquartered in one of the homes that is still standing here also. And the owner of it at that time was a very elderly, the time that I know of, was a very elderly lady and she told me that silver spoons had been stolen from the home by Beast Butler, also the piano. So I have to feel that my ancestor was much more of a gentleman than he was.

Q: Ok, we'll let that go at that. About his wife, you called her Sally Wilson, officially I think it's Sarah.

A: Well, now she's the wife of Colonel Hodges.

Q: Oh, I'm sorry got ___, I'm sorry. For William Henry Harrison, it's Mary --

A: Mary Abigail Griswold.

Q: Now I wanted to ask you about the Griswolds. Now is there any connection, that's usually North Carolina right ---

A: The Griswolds, yes, they were married in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The Griswolds had come from Connecticut after they had come over from England. And they moved from Connecticut south to North Carolina and were very prominent members of North Carolina history.

Q: The reason I asked you is because in Connecticut there was a Congressman Griswold back in the 1700's ---

A: Well they are all inter-related.

Q: So, that family?

A: Yes.

Q: So we have another family, right.

A: Right. She was the daughter of Judge Griswold. And her mother's name was Green. Her mother's, excuse me, Judge Griswold's wife's maiden name was Green.

Q: How did she handle this imprisonment? Do you have any idea?

A: My mother said she was a very redoubtable lady. She lived to quite an old age, died I believe in 1916 and in her latter years she went to live with my Grandmother Armistead, so my mother grew up with her, so many of the stories that I know, she had obtained from her grandmother. She was a very small person, Mother said, quite small in stature, very lovely, very sweet, always kind and gentle. And after she married William Henry Harrison Hodges and came here from North Carolina and they lived for awhile at Wildwood Plantation and then he decided to build this home on Middle Street for her and they came in and lived in what was then known as the Macon House while the house was being constructed directly behind his father General John Hodges' home and when they moved into the house, Mother said that he brought a very small slave from the Plantation just to be a companion to her, to carry her sewing from room to room, carry the keys and so on for 'er, but Mother said she was unfailingly sweet and unfailingly kind to everyone. She lived to be quite elderly.

Q: And in your family ______ practice____the older ones ________________?

A: Yes, she went to live with her daughter.

Q: Did that affect you in some way? What does that mean to you, that your family is like that? ____

A: I think it's a very loving relationship; it bothers me to have to see elderly people have to go into nursing homes and so on. I learned so much from my Grandmother, I would not have missed the opportunity of having someone of her age and generation to grow up with. And I think that grandparents have a great deal to give to young children.

Q: There was a number of the older ____ that you didn't.

A: Yes. Right.

Q: Let's move on to their daughter, William Henry Harrison and Mary Abigail, their daughter Mary Louisa. She's your grandmother ---

A: Mary Louisa Hodges and she married Robert Jefferson Armistead.

Q: ___ for them.

A: Yes, that was their daughter and my Grandfather Armistead died at a very young age, he died in 1911 and my great-grandmother had already come to live with them.

Q: What do you know about her as far as -- she said you were 6 months old when she died, so of course you didn't know her?

A: Yeah. I really don't know her, except from what my mother said. She evidently was a very loving, very strong person too, she was widowed at a very early age, in 1911 and at the same time the city of Portsmouth wanted the property that the Armisteads had lived in for several generations which was on Port Street, just a half a block from Trinity Church. And the city condemned it to build a municipal building on and my grandmother who was then a fairly young widow was forced to move with her children and she moved on North street, just about a half a block from where her mother's home had been on Middle Street. And where General Hodges' home was, just a half a block away. And she evidently was a very kind, loving mother, but also on the strict side.

Q: Well, let's move on to another family then. OK.

A: She incidentally had quite a number of children, besides my mother.

Q: Unfortunately it's going to be impossible to hit all of them. We'll try to restrict ourselves more to the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century. Now, of course, _____ there is other important things to mention about any of these people, I don't mean to cut it off at this point, if you think any ---

A: Well, I would like to go back to William Henry Harrison for a moment, because while he was imprisoned he did make the lovely ring which you have a picture of that he made from his coat button and from his ivory shirt studs, which he sent to his wife. It was evidently a real love match and they were quite devoted to each other and when he did come back from the war and was restored to his position in the bank, he was also quite a leader in the church. He was a member of the Vestry and for his stand for the money of the people of the community he evidently was held in very high esteem. And James Gregory Hodges, his half brother evidently was very well-beloved and very highly thought of, too. What he had done, here in the city during the outbreak of yellow fever, when he was one of the few doctors in the city in 1855.

Q: And then after that he ______ . James Gregory.

A: That was James Gregory. They were evidently two very well-loved brothers.

Q: Is there anything else you want to say about the Hodges son?

A: Nothing I can think of at the moment.

Q: Anything comes back to you, that's fine.

A: I'll remember.

Q: Now there is another family that enters into the picture at this point, and that's the Ainsworths. A whole different background for the Ainsworths, right?

A: Right.

Q: Now as I look through this, I found out why I got confused, because everybody is named Andrew.

A: Right.

Q: OK, first one we are talking about is Andrew Ainsworth, his son is Andrew, and his son is Andrew, who is your father, right?

A: Yes, my father was the 3rd Andrew. My son is the 4th Andrew.

Q: OK. So that did help me to get straightened out. So let's start with the first Andrew and his wife and their background.

A: Andrew Ainsworth was married to Miss Margaret Wall and they were both from England and came to this country subsequent to their marriage and settled in the city of Boston. They had--their sons were Andrew and Daniel and Richard and then they had two daughters, Margaret and Clara. Captain Ainsworth joined the Union Navy at the outbreak of the War Between the States, and he was sent down here to Hampton Roads where he was made Captain of the Port and Master of Transportation. I assume Captain of the Port means pretty much what it does now, with the Coast Guard that he was in charge of all the shipping in and out of the harbor and Master of Transportation, I assume would be like the Transportation Corps now, he maybe supervised the railroads and so on. He liked the area so much that when the war was over, he brought his wife and children down here and they bought a home on Port Street. And he settled here, just what he did after that I'm really not sure, except I think he was involved with maritime interests.

Q: OK, you'd think someone like that from England, lived in Boston, came down here during the war and it's kind of like part of the occupation army how was someone like that received (chuckle) after the--after the war was over?

A: Very little was ever said in my family about that Union connection. We prefer to try to forget it. I really don't know.

Q: Was there any incidence of any problems with him _____ ---.

A: I doubt it. I never heard of any, never. Never heard of any.

Q: Do you know if he was particularly well-received ____ ?

A: I think he was, I think he was very well-respected. He probably integrated himself into the community and made himself a respected member of it.

Q: Maybe ____, he was English from the start.

A: He was English and that may have had something to do with it.

Q: Maybe it exonerated him a little.

A: Yes, he was evidently held in very high esteem by the men who served under him and he was very well thought of.

Q: What, ___ tell me exactly what he did.

A: He was associated with the maritime interests afterwards, I presume with a shipping company.

Q: As far as his influence in the area, there is not really a whole lot more _____.

A: No, not to my knowledge.

Q: He did get a letter from the White House though.

A: Yes. He evidently was a gentleman of some stature within his profession and when he resigned or retired as the Captain of the Port the people who had served under him presented him with a very handsome silver tray and ewer and the two silver goblets that went along with it. And he received, I have heard my father say, many letters, years afterwards from men who had served under him saying how kind he had been in trying to help out with their careers.

Q: And through him and actually through his son Andrew, this is where another part of the family comes in and that would be the Lindsay branch.

A: Yes. Right. He had a son Andrew William Jr., whom I know as Senior, and --- (side ended)

Q: The Lindsay line, and we're talking about the Ambrose Harvey Lindsay and his wife, and how their daughter Addie Charles Lindsay married Andrew Ainsworth, Jr. OK, so give us a little background on the Lindsay family.

A: Originally Scotch. And they came to North Carolina. According to a history of the Lindsay family, there may have been a Lindsay with the very earliest expeditions to North Carolina down around Roanoke Island. That is not definitely proved, but that is what they seem to feel.

Q: Would that be one of the Lost Colony ---

A: The expedition preceding the Lost Colony, the one--the very first one. Yes. They seem to feel that there was a Lindsay with that and that he went back. That was the one that did sail back, the one before the Ge--Governor White's people on Roanoke Island, and evidently he may have told his children and so on about North Carolina because in the early 1700's they did come back to North Carolina and settled in Currituck County. And that is where Ambrose Harvey Lindsay grew up, in Currituck County, North Carolina. And he subsequently bought a great deal of land in what we now call Deep Creek. And he met and married Miss Addie Charles of Elizabeth City. Her father was a doctor. She was quite a lovely woman, again, it seems to be in my family, she was very small. Very small in stature, and he was quite a large robust man. They lived out in the Deep Creek area and he, too, built a townhouse in the city of Portsmouth, on Crawford Street on the site of what is now Dominion National Bank.

Q: It seems like every branch of the family so far is pretty well-off financially.

A: Yes.

Q: They are very successful.

A: Yes, he was quite successful as a farmer there, my grandmother said that he grew great quantities of potatoes which were shipped North to Baltimore, New York and so on. He had a very large family, when the war came along he too joined the Confederate forces and, to the best of my knowledge, had no really outstanding experiences in it. But when the war was over, and he came back, he settled back into farming and he also decided that he wanted something in the city of Portsmouth to do, so he wanted to be appointed Postmaster. Of course that was in the days of the Reconstruction, and the only way he could have gotten to be Postmaster was to have joined the Republican Party. Which he proceeded to do and was subsequently cut dead by a great many people because being a Republican in that day and time was an anathema, but he evidently overcame that because he later became quite a prominent citizen, not only of the county, but of the city.

Q: ____family, right?

A: I think Grandmother said they were not too happy.

Q: How about his descendants? Is there any- -any ill- -anything ill about his name because of _____?

A: No. I admit to voting Republican at various times. No, he evidently overcame that and he had a very large family. And when he died was very highly thought of, as you see again by his obituaries in the paper. He was a man with a great interest in the sporting life, he loved horses, and Grandmother said he used to go to Saratoga Springs, New York every spring or summer to attend the races.

Q: You mention some differences between he and his wife, religiously --- ______

A: She was a very lovely lady and he loved for her to dress in beautiful clothes, he had taken her to Paris where both of their portraits were painted. And one of their sons, William, when he was still fairly young, developed typhoid fever and in those days they didn't really know how to treat it and as a result of the very high fevers, he developed brain damage. And he, I guess you would say, he became feeble-minded. I think that's generally the way they expressed it in those days, and after his parents died he came to live with my grandmother - I als--not only grew up with my grandmother in the house, I grew up with my Uncle William who was really a very sweet, kind old gentleman, I remember, with white hair and beautiful blue eyes, carried a gold watch case around that had no works in it and I tormented him, I freely admit, by stealing his watch. I also proceeded to give him whooping cough because I knew I was coughing and I didn't want the family to hear it, so I'd go in Uncle Willie's room when his man-servant wasn't there and I coughed and gave him whooping cough. But after he suffered so from typhoid fever she felt, his mother, my great-grandmother, felt that possibly it was something that she had done, maybe by loving bright clothes and loving to go and be the belle of the ball so to speak, so she gave up all of her beautiful things and dressed in grays and blacks and very soft colors and stopped going to the Episcopal Church and went to Quaker meetings and spent a great deal of her time in philanthropy.

Q: You mention the Episcopal Church, this has been the Trinity Church in downtown Portsmouth. It's been part of your family for, ever since then?

A: Seven generations, my grandson is seventh generation Trinitarian.

Q: What kind of an influence do you- -in other words, when you look back on your- -your family … overall what is your impression of what they were like as far as a religious force?

A: Very devout Christians. Not--not people to make big examples of it and so on, but people of great and abiding faith.

Q: You mention the difference _____ Quaker meetings ________.

A: Very different and I gather that it upset my great-grandfather tremendously. But he respected her for it and he gave her the money. If she wanted to donate food and money and so on to the poorer citizens, well he provided her with it. She was known for many, many years for all the good works that she had done. My grandmother used to have people come up on the street and thank her for what her mother had done. And she vividly remembered her gra--her mother getting in the trap, as she expressed it, with baskets of food and having the servant drive her to different homes to leave things and provide clothes for the children and so on. I guess you would say she was a very devout Christian woman. And she felt that that was what she must do to atone for anything she might have done. Don't think she needed to but...

Q: She felt it.

A: She felt it, yes. And my grandmother was a great one for family and the church, in fact, I don't ever remember seeing my grandmother in anything but black, gray or white or lavender clothes because every time she'd get out of mourning for one member of the family, somebody else would die and she'd go right back into it again. And my father finally told her one day, he said, "Mama, please go out and buy something that isn't black or white." And she said, "Well, Andrew, just for you I will." And she proceeded to go downtown and when she came home she said, "I want you to know that I bought a dress just to suit you." And when she came out in it, it was lavender. He said he would have given anything to have seen her in a red dress. But she was like the Queen of England, she was almost always in mourning for someone.

Q: And this was Addie ---

A: Addie Charles Lindsay Ainsworth.

Q: The daughter of the ---

A: The daughter of Ambrose Harvey and Addie Charles.

Q: All these names, they are so much alike.

A: Right.

Q: It's hard to keep 'em all straight.

A: She ... her sister, her only sister, Jane McDowell Lindsay, who married Samuel Wilson Armistead, and that's where the two come in. Her--Aunt Janie's husband died at a very young age, he was with the Navy. And in those days, of course, they used these tremendous hawsers, he was a Naval architect, and he was standing on the pier and one of those hawsers parted, and of course when it did the big pieces of manila hemp just flew everywhere and one struck him in the head and killed him. So Aunt Janie was left at a very young age as a widow with three sons. And when she died, at a fairly early age too, my grandmother took her three boys and raised them with my father.

Q: Sounds like you have a close-knit family.

A: Not as close-knit as it used to be, I'm sorry to say. With the generations, it's pulled further apart. But, at that time it was extremely close-knit and she did raise the three boys to manhood.

Q: You mentioned the Armisteads, so let's talk about them.

A: Come back to them.

Q: This is the family, isn't it, that has you connected with, you said, the Colonial Dames--

A: Yes.

Q: Can you explain that _____.

A: The first Armistead came to Virginia in 1630. And he was from Kirkdeaton, England, he's known as William the Immigrant. And they settled, I guess in what we now call the Northern Neck. And they built a plantation there, it was known as "Hesse". Originally Armisteads were from Darmstadt in England, in Germany, in Hesse. And from there they had gone to England and the Darmstadt was changed to Armistead. And then the Armisteads came to Virginia in 1630.

Q: Now. What is the connection as far as Colonial Dames?

A: Well, they, let me see, William the Immigrant had a son, Anthony. And then Anthony and his son William were colonial officials. Served in the House of Burgesses, Master of the Horse, and that is their colonial service.

Q: And because of that, then there is this connection now where, what- -what is the Colonial Dames?

A: Well the Colonial Dames are made up of colonial citize--you know, ancestors who had service in the government.

Q: During the ---

A: During the colonial period. No, the end of the colonial period comes just prior to the Revolution. So they would had to have served in, they have to have been in service of their country, yes, between the time the family settled which would have been 1607 up till the time of the Revolution.

Q: OK, one of the Armisteads then was also in North Carolina connected with the Revolution. Revolutionary ____ ?

A: They may have been, the ones that I have dealt with though have been in Virginia.

Q: I thought that that was the connection.

A: No, no the connection is, well, as I said the Armisteads and the Lindsays intermarried.

Q: OK.

A: Twice.

Q: I was going to say, your mother and father ---

A: My mother and father, my father being a Lindsay on his mother's side, and he married an Armistead. But prior to that there was another one, Samuel Wilson Armistead married Jane McDowell Lindsay.

Q: What about during the same period of time we're talking about Hodgeses in the middle 1800's and you've got the Lindsays and the Ainsworths, were the Armisteads right here then too?

A: Yes, yes, they were right here in Portsmouth.

Q: ______, what their contribution was anyway?

A: The Armisteads, as I've said, lived on Port Street right close to Trinity Church. That would have been Moss William Armistead, who was my mother's grandfather. And yes, they were associated with the city going way back into the early 1800's.

Q: Any service _________?

A: No, my grandfather, of course, would have been too young. And I don't believe that Moss William served during the War Between the States. Except Louis Armistead, now Louis Armistead is a cousin, and he was--Armistead's Brigade was part of Pickett's Charge and that is who James Gregory Hodges was with.

Q: There's the connection.

A: There's the connection.

Q: Why do you want to preserve all this?

A: Oh, I think all children should have a sense of their family's history because I think it makes them feel a part of it. I think you should know who you are, where you've been, after all you can't go forward till you know where you've been. And I think that if they know that their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have participated in the service of their country and in the life of their country that that will help them to do their own things, so to speak. To know that they should carry on the tradition.

Q: So, you- -are you looking for this mainly then as something for later generations?

A: Yes. Mm-m. And I don't think that children ask all the questions of their parents that they ought to and in time things are forgotten, little anecdotes that took place that are of interest. History can be mighty dry if all you do is read about the dates, and when a battle took place … that's fine, but I think you have to know what the people themselves were like, just like William Henry Harrison Hodges refusing to give up the money. I'm sure James Gregory Hodges didn't want to go off and leave his young wife and subsequently to die in the War, but he was a firm believer in States' Rights. I think a lot that he fought for and died for are just as important today. I think in my own time we have seen states' rights trampled on by the Federal Government, and I would like to think that over 100 years ago he was standing up for things that I think are equally important today.

Q: Now you grew up with this knowledge and it affected you the way that you are interested in history. Do you see the same thing now and in the next generation or two?

A: I see my own children now that they are over 30 becoming more interested in who they are and where their families have been and that they want to know more about it. I don't think you were really interested until you were about 30 years old or older. But I like to think that they are, yes. I think it's a wonderful thing to know where your family has been all these years and what they have done.

Q: What is your contribution to the family, if you had to put it into words. You know, say, 100 years from now, people look at your papers, and they're going to say, "where does she fit into all of this, what is her importance," what would you like to hear?

A: Well, I think I'd like to be remembered first and foremost as a wife and a mother. And maybe what I have been able to do for my husband and my children. My mother once made the remark she said, "you know for years I was known as the wife of Andrew Ainsworth," and she said," now I find that I am spoken of as the mother of Mary Hook. I don't think I've gotten very far!" But I think that I would like to be remembered first and foremost as a wife and mother. I guess after that if you go through my belongings and collections I tried to do my best within the city to work for the betterment of others and I guess I've been very largely connected with the planning council arm of the United Fund trying to plan and help agencies within the city. I've given about twenty years to it ________________-

Q: Do you see yourself as continuing a tradition?

A: I think in my own way I am. I don't see myself as leading the attack always but, yes I think so, I think that my ancestors would think, well yes, in her own way she's carried it on. I hope my children will.

Q: Do you have any thing that you think you might have left out ________________?

A: They were a very interesting collection of people. With minds of their own, very independent people. I think that shows too in their- -their ancestors because, of course my grandmother Addy Charles was just one of seven children and if you go and look at my cousins that have come down through her brothers and sisters, you will find that a great many of them are leaders in religious works or government, participating in the cities in which they live, and I think they are carrying that on, yes.

Q: Why do you think that is, why are they continuing that. Does the history have anything to do with it or is _____________________?

A: Yes, yes I do think that it helps ____, mm-m, and whenever all of the cousins get together, which is not too frequently, but they are a very interesting group of people, they really and truly are and I think all of them, as I said, in their own way have tried to contribute to the places in which they live. I think that Ambrose Harvey Lindsay and Addy Charles if they could come back would be exceedingly proud. I likewise think William Henry Harrison and James Gregory, even though James Gregory left no direct descendents; I think they too would be very proud. Andrew Ainsworth the Captain left a son who was a very fine man. His son, my father, didn't choose to be particularly active in the community but he was a very well-read, very historically interested person, he left me with his great interest in history and reading. He was … an outstanding person. I feel very much indebted to the ways that he tried to lead me on, so I think the Ainsworths would be very proud. The Armisteads .... yes, I think that if you want to go all the way back to William the Immigrant, I think he would say, yes, all of his descendents have contributed to the history of the country, too. And I think he would be glad that he'd come.

Q: Local history vs. national history.

A: I think local history is very overlooked. After all, it's the localities that make up the whole, and the United States couldn't be as great as what it is if it wasn't made up of the fifty states and the cities within them and the people in the cities. The country as a whole is only as great as its individual people and if we don't contribute, and if we don't speak and stand up for what we believe in then we're really not going to get very far. And you can say all you want to about the Southern people breaking off and trying to found their own nation - they were standing up for what they believed in that we as individual citizens and we as individual states are the ones that founded this country, and "Hey, you've got to stop and listen to us" and isn't that what we're doing right now, and isn't that what we said in the last election? We said, "Whoa, stop, the country's got to turn around and head in another direction." That comes from the grass roots. I think local history is vastly overlooked, I wish that we would get back to studying more about the people. I feel very strongly about that, because I think that we--as individuals we are a great people.

Q: By making your donation to ___________ you've added to that.

A: I hope so.

Q: Thank you for coming.

A: You are very welcome.

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