The Quest

This post is a continuation of remembrances about Jennie Rachel Gay Robinson (see Part I ). Even as Jennie was gentle and genteel, one of the most prominent recollections of her living grandchildren can be summed up by the words of Robert George Robinson–my Uncle Bob: “She was a small grandmother who dipped snuff.” Without exception, all of the grandchildren I heard from mentioned the fact that Jennie dipped snuff, and my mother’s cousin Willis Knierim (son of Beulah) still has one of her snuff cans. “She was very subtle about it, using a very small Garrett’s Snuff tin and a small wooden stick which she called her ‘toothpick,’” he recalls. “She would always excuse herself briefly and return smacking her lips. When she passed, I asked for and was given the tin by Oran.” The second most vivid recollection among Jennie’s grandchildren was her relationship with her twin, Minnie. “The two of them were very close and when they were together they seemed like a matched set in appearance, manne...

My great grandmother Jennie was born in Vashti, Clay County, Texas on 17 Dec 1879, alongside her twin Minnie. Her parents were John Preston Gay, a farmer and preacher who was born in Tennessee and moved to Texas in 1873, and Dorothy “Dollie” Rachael Cappleman, who was born in South Carolina (the two were married 21 Oct 1874 in Texas).  When Jennie and Minnie were born, their older sister Louisa was almost two years old. Their parents gave birth to a brother John two years later, who didn’t survive infancy. Two years after that, their sister Martha “Mattie” was born, and another two years later their youngest sister Mary Elizabeth was born. The five Gay sisters grew up surrounded by the rich farm and ranchland of Clay County, with their father—who had been ordained to the ministry in 1890—serving as a Baptist minister.  Because of their fathers’ ministry in churches, the girls sang and accompanied themselves: Jennie played the accordion; Mattie (Martha Washington Gay) played th...