How Grandma Got Her Name

Grandma Ernestine and Great Grandma Ossie

My grandma and I share something in common - we both have unusual names. People don't know what to do with unusual names. They don't roll off the tongue and so people shy away from them. And in my case, my name is also hard for people to spell. But we each were also blessed to have surnames (Smith and Archibald) that are easy to pronounce and easy to spell.

The origins of my grandmother's name date back to the days in Virginia, where her mother Ossie Pearl Tuck was born and raised. Ossie was a Virginia girl through and through. The Tuck family roots run deep in Virginia. By the time Ossie came upon this earthly scene, the Tucks had been living in Virginia for at least 6 generations. That is until ... the Mormon missionaries came to Leesville and happened upon the door of the John William Tuck family.

In describing the scene when the missionaries first arrived at the Tuck home, Rosa Tuck, Ossie's sister, said, "My father never turned a stranger away from his door, so the first time the Elders came, they were taken in with open arms. From the beginning they began to investigate the gospel and felt like it was just what they had been looking for."

So, it was not too long before the Tuck family decided to leave Virginia, the place that they and their ancestors had called home so many years and come west to join with the Mormons. Just before they left Virginia, they moved a 111 miles south to Lynchburg, Virginia.

While in Lynchburg, Ossie and her older sister Rosa took a job working in a bookstore named Brown & Morrison. There they became fast friends with Ernestine Blackburn. They all enjoyed each other's company so well. Rosa and Ossie began teaching Ernestine about the LDS faith. She was very interested and asked many questions. This lead to an even closer friendship between the three, so that upon Rosa and Ossie going west, they announced that whoever had a baby girl first would name their child after Ernestine, their dear friend.

Ossie was the lucky one and her first born was a baby girl. She was a woman of her word and named her daughter Ernestine, a remembrance of her home - Virginia.