Victor Cornett b 1 Aug 1898 Linefork, Letcher Co KY d 5 May 1985 Linefork, Letcher Co KY; s/o Dock Cornett and Rachel Frazier. Victor Cornett m. 1928 Letcher Co KY to Mary L Campbell b 20 Feb 1901 KY d 29 Jan 1976 Harlan Co KY; d/o George Campbell and Juda Cornett. Children of Victor Cornett and Mary L Campbell;

1. Bonnie M Cornett b 23 Oct 1929 Harlan Co KY; m. Claude Ingram b 17 Nov 1928 Letcher Co KY d 17 Jan 2013; age 84; of brain tumor; buried Ingram Cemetery, Linefork, Letcher Co KY; s/o Charlie Ingram and Josephine Josie Cornett. Children of Claude Ingram and Bonnie M Cornett; i. Daniel Claude Ingram ii. Roger D Ingram iii. Randy Darrin Ingram iv. David Emory Ingram v. Donald Carl Ingram

2. Jack Dempsey Cornett b 18 May 1931 Harlan Co KY d 4 Jul 1959 Portland, Marion Co IN; in a motorcycle accident; age 28 years; buried Cornett Branch Cemetery, Linefork, Letcher Co KY; military service, m. Mary B Cornett b 25 Aug 1928 Linefork, Letcher Co KY d 1 Sept 1967 Grant Co IN; d/o Benton Cornett and Louisa J Cornett.

3. Arlie Elmon Cornett b 1936

4. Georgia Cornett b abt 1938

Great times at Ingram's Creek Elementary
by Bonnie Cornett Ingram 1 July, 2015

Center of Photo on the Left is Edith Cornett and on the Right is Bonnie Cornett Ingram With Her Arm Around Her Good Friend, Edith

(Bonnie Ingram's description of a photo included in the article. The photo was of students gathered together at the front door of Ingram's Creek Elementary School This photo taken in the 1940s shows some of the children who attended Ingram’s Creek Elementary School. Memories of my years at school at Ingram’s Creek Elementary and my best friends.

I was in second grade in 1937 when we moved to Linefork from Blair. I turned eight years old that October. (Bonnie Ingram b Oct 1929) My brother Jack (Jack Ingram b abt 1928) was in the first grade. We had to walk every day approximately a mile and a half on an old, dirty road. It was bad when it was raining or snowing. We had company of other children though, and we enjoyed being together.

Our teacher was Ruby Morgan. She was a good teacher and we all loved her. Then she quit, and the next year we had Hiram Mitchell. He was also a good teacher until I got mad at him. I had a crush on one of the boys in the third grade (1938). I wrote him a little note and got one of the schoolboys to hand it to him. Then I got so embarrassed I hid my face on the desk where we sat. It was a bench-like seat and we sat together on it.

My friend Edith Cornett sat beside me and we got tickled and started laughing with our faces down on the desk. Mr. Mitchell knew we were laughing about something, and he took his big, long switch and hit me on the back. I had never been hit or whipped at school before, so it made me mad at him for a while. I raised up and told him I was not doing anything to get a whipping for, that I was feeling bad (I lied), and he said, “Yeah! I know what you were doing.” I told him I would bring my mom’s stove ketch and hit him over the head with it the next day. But, I didn’t do that. I was just so embarrassed and getting caught at what I had really done.

The note was “I love you better than a cat loves cream.” I didn’t know what love really meant at that age, and it was funny to all who knew what I had written.

I got over my mad spell and learned to like my teacher really well. He was good to me all the time after that. I was real good in my classes and he liked that very much. He would let me be a teacher to the first graders, and I could sing good so he let me get up on the stage and lead the songs we sang every morning before we started classes. We would say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, also. It was very special to me.

Mr. Mitchell was my teacher for three years and we got along well. He was a little lazy and would take a nap or two every day and let us out for recess and lunch while he napped. Edith slipped in and put a spring type clothespin on his ear and he didn’t catch her.

My best friend was Edith. She and I were both born in 1929, and she was six months older than me. We did everything together. Her family lived just down the road from us. Her dad was John A. Cornett and her mother was Bertha (Ison) Cornett. She had four brothers and one sister, Earl, Ellis, Raydean, Martha and Harold. We were all good friends. When we were in the seventh grade, we were still best friends. She was very pretty with big, blue eyes and blond hair, and we were about the same in size and height and could wear each other’s clothes.

One winter in 1942, her mother and dad got divorced, and it broke all our hearts. Her dad left them and married another woman. Then their mother left them and moved to Michigan, and never came back. Earl tried to take care of them the best he could. He was 18.

Ellis left and Edith had to cook and try to keep things going as best as a 14-year old can do. Her brother Raydean was younger than Edith, and Martha and Harold were real young. They would take real bad spells of crying for their mother. I stayed one night, and Martha was really sad and crying for her mother to come home.

Earl was trying to talk to them all, and told them not to worry; he thought it would be better soon. But they couldn’t be comforted. I tried to tell them that their mom would soon come back, and they still couldn’t believe us. Earl started pacing he was so upset and sad, and he would go out on the porch and then back inside through the other door and round and round. Then he got in his bed and started moaning and wouldn’t talk to any of us, and he went into a state of some kind like a seizure. He was slinging his arms and moving and groaning. It almost scared us to death. I told Edith to go get cold water and we put it on his face thinking he would get better, but he didn’t.

I sent her to her Aunt Louise and Uncle Benton Cornett’s who lived a little ways from them to get their son Jason to come help us with Earl. He came and stayed the rest of the night with him. He finally woke up, out of his situation but was so sad not knowing what to do or what to tell the others.

I went home and told Mom what had happened, and it was sad for her to know what a shape this family was in. They didn’t have money to buy food to cook, and would go to Louise’s and eat and sometimes to Cassie Cornett’s and then to our house and to Matt and Susanna’s. Wherever they could get food. It was the very saddest time in my young life to see them struggle. We all were poor people, anyway. I guess we were better off because Dad worked at Lynch in that time of our life, and we raised gardens and had corn and beans and potatoes and tomatoes, and cabbage, and Dad always fattened hogs to slaughter for meat. We had a cow and chickens, also. Those children didn’t at that time. We tried to do all we could to help them.

It was in the early spring, and cold most of the time. School was out for the summer. It went out in April. One night it came a bad storm and the creek was flooded really bad, and Mom worried about those children. She was looking down that way that morning and saw the children wading the creek in the flood. Edith was carrying Harold across and holding to the others as they crossed. Later on they came up to the house for a while and Mom told her not to wade the cold water, that it would make them sick. But she just laughed and looked at me and said, “Oh! Nothing can kill me and Bonnie, can it?” I told her no. We were good, and straight and healthy.

The WPA Co. was working close to their home, making a road down toward Defeated Creek Way, and we found out that Edith was very sick and running a high fever and had a bad headache. I didn’t know about it at the time. They said that when the workers on the road shot dynamite on the rocks off of the hill and the dozers would make big noises, she would scream out to make them stop. But they didn’t. They got someone to take her to Benham Hospital and we never did find out what it was, but later they thought she had hepatitis or meningitis. We never did know.

They had been talking about moving away and I was sad about losing my best friend. We saw a big pickup truck down by the house, and I told Mom I wanted to go see Edith before they moved. I started walking down the road and heard a horse come up behind me. I looked, and it was Nora Long, who lived up on Ingram’s Creek. She spoke and said, “It’s so bad about little Edith.” I asked what, and she said, “Honey, she died yesterday.” I almost fainted when she said that. I ran back to the house and told Mom. It was so hard for me. The truck I saw down there was bringing her box for the casket, and I thought they were moving away.

Well, she moved away all right, forever. It broke my young heart to have to go see her. I still go to her grave every Memorial Day and I put flowers on her grave. No one else ever does, as they are all dead except Earl and Howard. They live in Michigan as far as I know.

Earl came to see me about six years ago and stayed in our camper for a few days with Dover Cornett and Troy. Now Dover is gone, also, and Troy told me that Earl went back to Michigan, that he couldn’t watch Dover die. At one time we thought we were in love with each other. He told me he remembered walking me home and that he kissed me, and it almost scared him to death. He was afraid of my dad. Dad, Victor, was very strict on me as I grew up, but when you’re young you fall in love a lot of times I think. It was just puppy love.

Well! I have to tell this story of my granddaughter, Rachel Lea Ingram. She came home during Christmas and told us she will be getting married in May. She and her mom and aunt and her sister, Lauren, went to Johnson City and bought her beautiful gown and veil. They will marry at the gazebo on Kingdom Come Trail overlooking the big Black Mountain. I cried when she tried her gown on for me. I love her so much.

We had a good Christmas and all got together for Christmas supper at my house. I was the one they wanted to make chicken and dumplings for them, so I did. They turned out good, and they made all the other stuff. It was a good evening.

We still miss my sweetheart Claude and Daniel’s dad, Clyde Disney. It’s hard for anyone who loses a family member. Claude’s younger sister, Jewell Ann Morgan, is battling cancer right now. She is getting treatment at Pikeville Cancer Center every day. I’m praying for her to be better and to be able to say, “I am well.” Only God knows the answer. Pray a prayer for her today, and each time you pray. She is an angel and is so good. We love her so dearly.

Remember that God loves you all, and He answers our prayers. I pray for those missing in the terrible airplane wreck, and all our soldiers, our president and our country. I love all.

Thanks to all who sent me beautiful Christmas cards. I love to get them. I keep them all. I have so many, and they are so special to look at some times.