James Washington Wells’ father was Isaac Wells. His father was Joseph Wells and his father was John Wells, who supposedly came to the area with a land grant from the war of 1812. John Wells was, as best we can tell, the son of Elizabeth and Joseph E. Wells. From whence they came no one knows, but somehow, all of these Wells tie in to Henry Wells of Bucks County Pennsylvania who was born around or came to America from England around 1661. We know this because my DNA ties directly in to Henry’s DNA. (I might be related more to his father and/or his father’s sons who all migrated over at about the same time.) As this becomes more refined we hope we will be able to tie these lines together and go back further with good old’ Henry.

Dad would work for pennies a day literally which even back then was not a lot of money. At times he would show up at the Mammoth Cave visitor’s center and dance on picnic tables for tips. I can just see him as a little urchin and people feeling sorry for him. He might have enjoyed entertaining though.

Dad’s dad just did not seem much involved with him. When I saw him in his later years, grandpa Jim Wells was always sitting on a wooden porch with his brother’s Uncle Linc and Lon, perhaps whittling something and just talking and not moving much because of the heat. Someone said my grandfather was so poor he used to coast downhill on every hill all the way to Louisville Kentucky to save money. My dad says this isn’t true because he never went to Louisville and never had a car.

I don’t believe it was abusive or neglectful that my grandfather was not overly involved in raising my dad. I can clearly see in my genealogy that for hundreds of years my ancestors had many, many children. I am sure this was to help work the land and to provide for the older parents in their later years. That would make sense as a form of survival. With my grandmother dying relatively young, I think the widower would not traditionally know or have much to do with the children. My grandfather did seek companionship for one reason or another even after Mary Alice’s death and I am sure part of it was to help him with the littler kids that were still around the house.

My grandfather seemed to mellow out in his older years and even become religious in a certain sense. I know that my dad meant something to him as my dad has some touching stories about little interchanges of conversations, pranks and situations which he recounts with tenderness.

Through the years as we would visit people in the “country” where my dad grew up we would run in to people he would work for. It seems like he did every kind of a job a young person could do. He gardened, picked and hung tobacco and mowed lawns. He would do anything to make money. At times they said they had no work or that they could not pay him. He would work anyway and most often they would find the money to pay him.

I can see now why my dad likes to learn new things. He must have, as a young child, had to observe people and how they did things to help him know or to pretend he could do the work. He had to act confident while doing it and, bit by bit, he became a jack of all trades, but, as he put it often when I was a kid, “a master of none”.

I have found that to be the case. He does know a little bit about everything. If he doesn’t, even now, he will take the time to look it up on the internet, or listen carefully to the History, National Geographic, Discovery or Travel Channels. My dad likes to learn, experiment with new things and try and figure things out. I believe it keeps him young and enthused about life. In the last few years he has taken up painting and is quite good. He knows more about the computer and internet than most people. He likes to buy the newest capabilities of the computer and will click away at software programs until he figures them out.

We have always had some animal around. We raised rabbits, pigeons, quail, dogs (never a cat), horses, fish, turtles, wild chipmunks and I probably had a snake or two as well. I think dad enjoyed building the cages for them more than the animals themselves. I only saw him ride our horse, Mr. Ed, only once. He said that he rode too much when he was a kid and it wasn’t fun for him to ride horses. Back then riding a horse is just what you did to get from place to place.

My dad has a right to be a bit bitter about his difficult life but you would not see it in his character or disposition. He has a naturally happy disposition and is one of the kindest people I know. He has always been respectful of other people and I find myself calling almost anyone “sir” that is older than me because I have heard my dad do it to everyone my entire life.

Many people develop addictions and never seem to break them. Or, if they do, you see them struggle with the addiction for long periods. My dad seems to have incredible control or commitment. When he wanted to stop smoking cigarettes he just quits. When he said he did not want to drink anymore he just quit. I have found this to be utterly amazing. I believe this inner strength came from a childhood where he just simply had to do hard things.

After going to Louisville, Kentucky around twelve years of age and working odd jobs, my dad saw some soldiers and told himself he would enlist. He waited until he was sixteen and enlisted in the Army. He lied about his age. He was ok for about a four months until they found out, kicked him out with an honorable discharge and then he waited until he was seventeen and with his dad’s permission he joined the Air Force. Seventeen years later he switched back to the Army with a commission as a chief warrant officer and retired twenty-five years later in 1976 as a CWO2.

I wrote the above history as a father’s day present for my dad. I wanted him to know how much I appreciated his history and what he had done to set up such a good life for me and my family. After he read it I think it inspired him to contribute more to the history. Those contributions sent to me bit by bit over a few months follow.