James Eddie Allen

James Eddie Allen

I used to enjoy spending several weeks, every summer, with family Kentucky.  While there, every day seemed an adventure.  From age ten, I used to spend hours roaming the woods around the Choate and Miller farms, there were a lot of kids near my age to play with.  Not only was there plenty to do, but some of the people I got to know will stay with me my whole life.  One such individual was my Grandma Choate's older brother, James Edward Allen, but everyone called him James Eddie. 

He lived on the far side of my grandparent’s property.  When I was young he and his wife, Mary Jane, lived in a little one room building.  Later he moved into an old pick-up truck camper.  When he saw a strange car parked at my grandparents he would walk down to see who was there.  That old man was still walking miles, every day, when he was ninety!

James Eddie had either a photographic memory, or very close to it.  He had the Bible memorized, he could quote any passage you wanted.  He could also tell you what happened on almost any day of his life.  His memory was unbelievable, but he had little formal education.

In 1923, at the age of 12, after one too many beatings, James Eddie ran away from home.  Believe it or not, he live for a year in a hollow tree, before family convinced him to come back home.  Home life was not easy for James, he was the oldest child of a deceased mother, and his father had remarried.  Unfortunately there was little love lost between the new wife and the existing children, and since James Eddie was the oldest, he received the most beatings.  He left home for good a couple of years after his return.

He always regretted not going to war in WWII.  He believed he had a vision where a hand led him to a grave.  In that grave was supposedly someone who died because he did not serve.  He was always kind to us kids, and could tell some good stories.  His speech was always very old fashioned, like you would expect from the 1800s.

He and his wife Mary Jane had a child that died as a baby.  I believe she went a little crazy after that.  She loved kids and would always come down and want to play with the visiting children at Grandma and Grandpa Choate’s house.  She was like a child herself.  She died in 1978, at the age of 49.  It seems an odd pairing; even though James Eddie was strange, his IQ had to be off the charts, and she was a very simple person.  They seemed happy together, though.

As I said James Eddie was always nice to kids, but he was someone you didn’t want to antagonize.  When he was about sixty, some young men decided it would be fun to put a scare into the old man.

At about three in the morning those young men went sneaking out to his home.  They surrounded the shack and lit firecrackers, while throwing rocks at the shack, all in an attempt to convince him he was under attack.

Two things they forgot to consider were, he did not scare easily and he was heavily armed.  He threw open the windows on the sides of the building, and opened fire on the flashes in the dark.  He had several guns and a lot of ammunition.  The boys hit the ground and ducked behind trees.  When he stopped to reload, they took off. 

They ran through the woods, screaming, falling, and running into briars and trees.  James Eddie calmly reloaded and went back to bed.

James Eddie’s favorite pastime was just walking up and down the ridge, every day.  I’ll bet he knew more of what went on in the area than anyone ever knew.  If someone wanted to talk, he was happy to oblige.  If they didn’t, he would just keep on walking.  James Eddie was born Mar. 20, 1911, and died Dec. 13, 2003.  He was 92.