Notes made from recorded conversation with my Dad,
Harry A. Fruit, Jr.
June, 2001



	We began by talking about Virginia Cunningham, his grandmother and one of my great grandmothers.  She died long before I was born.  Dad talked about her and her brother, whom he called Uncle Jim. I assume this as his great uncle, James Marion Cunningham.
	He said that Uncle Jim Cunningham married (he could not recall her name, but Pat has sent me information that it was Susie Scott), and according to his recollection, they had two children, Annie V. Cunningham and Susie Cunningham.  He told me that Annie V. married a banker named Nelson Groome and they had two children, Nelson, Jr. and Henry Smeltz Groome.
	He spoke quite a bit about Annie V. Cunningham and Susie Cunningham.  He talked about Annie V. smoking cigarettes, which was apparently very avant garde for the day and time.  Dad spoke about Annie V. having some kind of store down on the ferry docks in Hampton.  He recalls having visited there. He said that she was very suave and fluent in her speech.  Her daddy was also quite well spoken.
		On the other hand, according to Dad, Susie was often sloppy in the way she dressed, and not as polished.  It was hard for him to imagine that they were sisters.  They were quite different.  Susie, he thought, had married a commercial fisherman, and Dad thinks he remembers that the man's nickname was Tip.  They had no children.  And Dad thought that was a shame because he said that Susie really seemed to know how to relate with children.
	Susie often smoked a pipe.   He recalls that she came to visit, after he was grown.  He smoked pipes.  She asked if she could borrow one as well as some tobacco.  He allowed her to do so, but then, he said, after she left, he threw the pipe away.  I can recall, as a youngster, going with Dad and Mom over to her house, in Buckroe Beach I think. Dad would leave us in the car and he would go and sit on the porch with her and they would have a rather long conversation.  By that time, it is my recollection that she had gone blind, and was living there alone.  I think this would have been in the very late 40's or early 50's.
	He then began to talk about his Aunt Anna, as he called her. Again, I think she was really a great aunt. Her name was Anna Cunningham Cole. Dad said he could not remember ever meeting or knowing Mr. Cole.  He seemed unsure about the exact family connection.  He said that she looked enough like Virginia Cunningham Graves to be her sister, and that he seemed to remember someone talking about double first cousins marrying double first cousins.
	He also said that Anna C. Cole and his grandmother, Virginia Cunningham Graves were always very close.  In fact, for some while they both lived in Campostella, in Norfolk, and only abut two blocks apart.
	Dad said that Aunt Anna had two children that he could recall.  One, Journeay Cole, a son, (Dad has a picture of him), worked on a pilot boat and was lost at sea, he thinks during WWI.
Dad remembers Journeay, though he was still quite young when Journeay died.  He seems to recall that he lived down on Bermuda Street in downtown Norfolk.  When Journeay died, Aunt Anna gave Dad a model of a sailing ship that had belonged to Journeay.
	Aunt Anna's other child was Mabel Louise Cole.  Mabel married Leroy Davis.  Mr. Davis had been married before and had 2 or 3 children by is first wife.  Dad thinks that his children by that first marriage might have been girls.  Leroy Davis and Mabel, and their children lived in the same house as Aunt Anna, in Campostella for some time.  They then moved to Oaklette, in what was Norfolk County, and then finally to the Ghent area of Norfolk.
	Aunt Anna also took two young girls to raise.  They were not her children, and Dad was not too sure were they came from.  For a long time, as a child, he assumed they were Mabel's sisters.
Their names were different, however, Nettie and Lulie Jones. Dad also has pictures of Aunt Anna, Mabel, her daughters, Frances and Sarah Davis, and Lulie Jones.  Dad seems to recall that he was about the same age as Sarah Davis.
	Dad also made mention of Aunt Anna having a personal maid, named Emma McCann.
	Mabel's husband, Leroy Davis was the owner of Old Dominion Tobacco Company.  We have a picture of him taken at a hunting lodge in North Carolina.




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