Nathaniel Lindsey Picklesimer

Nathaniel Lindsey Picklesimer is Grandpa's paternal grandfather. The image above is his original death certificate from September 7th, 1912.

The store goes a little something like this.. (I'll have to go through court documents to confirm or deny!)

Grandpa's father Oakley had 8 siblings. One of his older siblings was Osric (Ossie) Picklesimer. At the age of 27, Osric shot their father with a shot gun in the face and neck when his father was 47 years old. Now here is where the here-say comes into play. Supposedly, Nathaniel was cheating on their mother, Leva Ann LeMaster-Picklesimer and was no longer in love with her. He wanted a divorce and she did not.

So, one evening as Nathaniel is coming over the hill, Osric grabs a shot gun and shoots him. In the face and kills him. Osric was jailed, put on trial in Johnson county circuit court and then the grand jury anf finally released as not guilty due to self defense (if that even makes sense...).

After this event, not sure how long later, but Osric leaves Paintsville, Kentucky and moves over seas to the Phillipines to be a 'teacher'. I haven't been able to verify that he was a teacher but a census record from 1918 confirms that Osric Picklesimer lived in the 5th district in the Phillipines as a 'special agent'. Osric, according to record and word of mouth, never married and died in 1921 at the young age of 36.

Here are the scanned pages from the Phillipine census:

As a side note, Grandpa's older brother Kermit served in the Phillipines and would write back to their mother, Mallie Hitchcock-Picklesimer. At the time, Kermit could not tell his mother where he was serving for security purposes. However, in the letters that Mamaw would keep in her apron, Kermit wrote 'I hope to visit uncle Ossie's grave' as a clue to let her know where he was.

What great stories!