KYJacksonPurchase-L Archives

From: "Stuart Armstrong" <>
Subject: [KYJP] Richard Edwards
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 17:12:13 -0600
References: <88.52bf025.280c745a@aol.com>
In-Reply-To: <88.52bf025.280c745a@aol.com>

On 4/16/01 Dick Puz wrote:

>Can you please tell me more about Richard Edwards who you quote so
>extensively. Was he a biographer? What was his background? I assume he is
>in the family tree somewhere?

Richard EDWARDS graduated from the University of Kentucky with the A.B. degree in 1910, and did graduate work in 1924-1925 at Columbia University on a General Education Board scholarship. For four years he was principal of Trimble County High School, four years superintendent of Morganfield City Schools, and Director of the Training School and Professor of Education at Eastern Kentucky State College 1918-1954. He was appointed by Governor Fields to the State Textbook Commission 1924 to 1928; appointed by Governor Clements to the Personnel Council from 1948 to 1951.
Richard Edwards circulated the results of his research on several families in several manuscripts which are combined in the manuscript I refer to as the Smith and Edwards manuscript. His own family research includes the Edwards and BEAN Family lines. He collaborated with Dr. Bert Raldon Smith on the SMITH Family of Backusburg Kentucky and with Shirley Hoffman on the GALLEMOREs of Rowan County North Carolina. All of these families are closely related.
So as you can see, Richard Edwards was an educator. Quite a few of his writings are floating around in the hands of various family members, often in different versions or revisions of the same discussion. As far as I know none of them has ever been published. I have collected all that I can find, and they are inserted in my database notes in appropriate places, usually edited or abridged. If you've browsed my website, you have probably read most of them.
Richard Edwards was the grandson of Alexander Gallemore and Elvira Bean, which makes him my first cousin two generations removed. His other grandmother was a COLLINS. His genealogical research was as far as I can discern only a sideline for him, which he did to satisfy the curiosity of other family members. I don't think he took it as seriously as I might have wished. Curiously lacking is any concentrated research on his own Edwards line or that of his wife (Cook). Maybe I should subscribe to an Edwards list and find out if anyone else has heard of him. His father was from Clarksville Tennessee, son of a tobacco farmer. His mother was a Gallemore/Bean. I think that the Smith Family portion of his research was largely the work of Dr. Bert Raldon Smith of Bowling Green, also an educator, 32 years Professor of School Administration and Supervision at Western Kentucky State College. He attended Peabody College at Nashville, from which he earned the degrees of B.S., A.M., an!
d Ph.D. He was a fifty-year Mason, member of the Phi Delta Kappa and the Kappa Delta Pi honorary fraternities, a lecturer, and author of numerous magazine articles, so I am told. Yet despite these credentials, documentation of the sources of his work is practically nonexistant. Either he didn't record it, didn't share it, or it was omitted as extraneous by Richard Edwards and subsequent editors of the family history. I've verified much of the research, and found a few errors, but generally it seems to be fairly reliable. Supposedly, Mrs Bert Smith (Beulah Ethel Morgan) kept some of her husband's papers but I don't know what has become of them by now. She was also well known for her social and civic work, was a member of the DAR and of the American Colonists Society. She was a native of Graves County, and taught school in Cuba Kentucky. In 1963 Mrs. Smith was chosen Kentucky Mother of the Year. The Courier Journal gave her a three page illustrated spread in the Sunday Mag!
azine of April 28, 1963. I haven't yet located or copied this article
she was perhaps the real genealogist. What a treasure trove it would be if her memos could be found! but I doubt they still exist.

I've copied this to the JPKY list because I think it might be of general interest, and, who knows, maybe someone will have something to add.

Stuart Armstrong
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web page: http://cgi.aros.net/~stuarta

This thread:

• [KYJP] Richard Edwards by "Stuart Armstrong" <>