In searching these records I found three of my ancestor’s homes in Lexington VA
http://lvaimage.lib.va.us/VHI/html/24/0554.html This is my Great Great Grandfathers home in Lexington ( William T Womeldorf.) he bought it in 1880 ( the sale was never recorded ) First part of the home was built around 1779. On a side note his great,grand daughter ( my cousin) is Katherine Womeldorf Paterson author of Bridge to Terabithia and many other wonderful children’s books.
http://lvaimage.lib.va.us/VHI/html/24/0552.html This was my great grandfathers home ( Daniel T Womeldorf)
http://lvaimage.lib.va.us/VHI/html/24/0553.html This was my great Uncles home in Lexington VA
In the 1930′s The Federal Government in an effort to put people back to work created the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, as it became more familiarly known. The WPA was intended to hire at a “security wage” as many of the unemployed as possible and put them to work on locally sponsored public-works construction and improvement programs. By the mid-1930s that was hardly unique. What was different, though, was that the WPA, unlike so many of the other government recovery programs, was authorized to assist the growing number of white-collar unemployed. Critics joked that WPA meant “we piddle around.”
http://image.lva.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/photo.cgi/Camp_Lee/images/Reel_203/0000638 Application for my great, great, great, great uncle John A Womeldorf to the Confederate Soldiers Home in Richmond VA
Service record of John A Womeldorf in the civil war http://image.lva.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/photo.cgi/Camp_Lee/images/Reel_203/0000647
Hers’ a bit more history of my family in the Shenandoah Valley of VA and Pennsylvania
http://www.ridersrestbandb.com/index.html My grandfather’s house in Lexington VA . Currently a bed a
nd breakfast. He built it in 1927. As a builder he was way ahead of his time. It was built with a first floor master bedroom. ( unheard of in those days.) Six bedrooms total. I spent many summers there…growing up.
This community is built around the old William T Womeldorf homestead in Lexington VA http://www.thepondsatlex.com/community.html The house is still standing
A passage from the book General Robert E. Lee after Appomattox:
General Lee’s ( President of Washington College in Lexington) wisdom was constantly displayed in the management of his personal and domestic affairs. His household was one of the best ordered I ever knew. He was what the Virginia farmers called “forehanded” both as to plans and expenditures. In a letter to me in 1868, after giving some directions about college work, he wrote: “Should you see Mr. Womeldorf, ask him if he can furnish me with thirty cords of hickory as he did last year.” He had a great fondness for seasoned hickory wood and would burn no other when he could get it. Subsequently he wrote me: ” I am sorry Mr. Womeldorf cannot supply me with wood. I prefer hickory to oak, and there was a gentleman whose name I cannot recall that supplied Mr. Campbell and myself with some year before last. If he or any one can furnish me with 30 cords of seasoned wood at a fair price, please engage it for me. If you cannot engage hickory engage some oak. I prefer red to white oak.”
In these and other ways he sought to provide for every emergency. In order to protect the students from excess charges for wood (it was before the days of railroads and coal in Lexington), he had a woodyard, protected by a high fence, set off and filled with wood bought at a moderate price in the summer or early fall when the county roads were in good order. This wood was sawed up and sold to the students at actual cost. Here I may mention his keen sense of the fit, the becoming, the beautiful. This sense was manifested in many ways: in his clothes, his personal neatness, his dealings with other men; in his ideas respecting buildings and grounds. Most of the trees which now adorn the front campus were planted under his direction. I once asked him about the arrangement of these trees. He said: “Not in rows: Nature never plants trees in rows. As far as possible imitate Nature.” He himself selected many of the spots where trees were planted. Similarly as to colors. We had to build a fence along the front campus on the south side. It was and is now one of the most conspicuous parts of the college grounds; but, because of the scarcity of money, it had to be a plain board fence. I consulted him about the color to be used in painting the fence. He said: “A fence is a blot on any lawn. We must have a fence; but select a color which will render the fence as inconspicuous as possible: one that will harmonize with the surrounding colors.”
From the biography of Conrad Weiser, Womelsdorf PA.
On the road to Philadelphia lies Womelsdorf, PA. founded in 1762. Capt. Daniel Womelsdorf, papermaker to Benjamin Franklin, revolutionary and childhood friend of Daniel Boone, married Conrad Weiser’s granddaughter Anna Eva Weiser and settled in Amity Township. Daniel’s son John laid out the town of Womelsdorf, PA.
Daniel was my 7th generation grandfather
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