R561
Husband: Austin Creigh Tyree (Fig. R561a)
Father: Edward Burton Tyree [R580]
Mother: Mary Lewis (Handley) Tyree [R580]
Born: 8/19/1901, in Frankfort W.Va.
Died: 1/4/1972, buried at Windy Cove Presbyterian Church cemetery,
Bath County Va.
Wife: Elsie Marie (Wood) Tyree (Fig. R561a)
Father: Lewis E. Wood [R005]
Mother: Emma (Burger) Wood [R005]
Born: 1/10/1899, at “Wood home near Nimrod Hall”
Died: 11/24/1986, buried at Windy Cove Presbyterian Church cemetery
Married: 2/10/1930, in Clifton Forge Va. Wirt L. Davis, minister
Children:
Emma Lewis Tyree (Fig. R561b), b. 5/29/1934. M. 1st Robert Deeds,
1/7/1956, ch. Robert Creigh, b. 1/4/1958, m. 2/10/1981 to Pamela
Kay Miller (ch. Amanda Jane, b. 6/4/1985; Rebecca Lewis, b.
7/12/1987; Austin Creigh [Gus], b. 5/6/1989; Susannah Kemper, b.
7/26/1992); Gregory Lewis, b. 12/17/1959. M. 2nd Hugh Hicklin,
9/21/1967, s. Edward Tyree, b. 3/17/1969.
Patsy Ann Tyree, b. 7/12/1940. Dau. Stacy Lynn Tyree, b. 3/31/1962,
raised mostly by grandparents Elsie and Creigh and Aunt Emma,
resides in McGaheysville Va., m. 5/1/1993 to Van Schumacher (dau.
Laina Elisabeth, b. 9/9/1995); s. Kimberly Alan Wilson (Robinson by
adoption), b. 5/28/1968, resides in California. Pat m. John (Jack)
Robinson, resides in Fredericksburg Va.
Elsie was the youngest of the Nimrod daughters, and the last of them who was in a position to help her parents in the struggle of running a summer resort. She had the best sense of humor of the Wood children, always an asset. She graduated from Millboro High School in the class of 1920, and in 1921 went with her sister Ede [R558] to Hampton Va. to become trained and certified as teachers, possibly at the Hampton Normal Institute. She remained there until 1923, working much of the time as a substitute teacher. In that time Hampton/Newport News became, in a way, the sisters’ counterpart to the Nimrod outpost that their brothers had founded in Parkersburg W.Va. Their parents, brothers, and sisters visited them in Hampton. Their mother spent the winter of 1921 boarding with them there. (Emma enjoyed the shore and seafood. In a letter of 10/14/1921, she reports “We went to Old Point one afternoon it is beautiful there, the tide coming in & the waters rolling up. We also went to Langlie field it is full of air ships we saw one light this was a curiosity to me. We went in where they were building a large Derageable they call it it was 418 feet long caust 200,000, & will sail the first of Novem, a great sight. In the mornings we see & hear them fly all around, sometimes very low.” [S089])
In 1922 Else attended summer school at William & Mary, and in 1923 she began teaching in the Bath County school system, in Millboro. She and her high school classmate Creigh Tyree began keeping company about 1926, and were married in 1930. Creigh was a farmer at that time (and, to a greater or lesser extent, thereafter), residing near Millboro. Later he was the Postmaster in Millboro, and after that worked for the Forest Service. He was a Deacon of the Windy Cove Presbyterian Church from 1932, and was greatly interested in County history; he was one of the founders of the Bath County Historical Society. Creigh and Else lived, and their daughter Emma now lives, in a fine old house (circa 1804; Fig. R561c) on Rte 39, closer to Millboro than Goshen, that Creigh’s mother had bought. While her children were small Else quit teaching, but during WWII she was persuaded to resume her duties, in Rockbridge and Bath Counties. She taught a variety of things, even basketball, but mostly 6th and 7th grades. She retired from teaching about 1970.
Daughter Emma remembers a less than perfect relationship between her parents. One problem was the proximity of Nimrod Hall. All the Wood children felt a powerful bond to their childhood home, and so did many grandchildren, as this writer can testify. Else, who worked there every summer before her marriage and lived close by thereafter, never successfully disengaged from Nimrod and its responsibilities. Nimrod continued to be her true home. Emma recalls “For years, I don’t know why, I don’t keep a diary, but I had a calendar, and I scratched stuff on it. About a year ago Stacy was in the attic, and she found one of those old calendars that I had when I was in high school, and in one month I think we went to Nimrod every day except for one.”
Else survived Creigh by 14 years. In 1980 she moved to the Westminster-Canterbury retirement community in Richmond, where she and her sister Ede lived their last years.
Emma’s son R. Creigh Deeds earned a law degree from Wake Forest University in 1984, and practices law in Warm Springs Va. He served as Commonwealth Attorney from 1988 to 1992, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates (Democrat; District 18) in 1991, and reelected in 1995.
