Grace Lavenia Campbell was born on 18 July 1883 in Winefrede, a small coal mining and railroad community not far from Chesapeake and Chelyan in Kanawha County, West Virginia. She was my maternal great-grandmother.
Grace’s granddaughter Carol Lavenia Hopkins is my mother, and recalls this small rocking chair in Grace and Henry’s home in St. Albans, and being told by Grace that she (Grace) was rocked as a baby in that chair. The chair passed to my mother, and then on to me some years ago.
It is a fairly small rocker, with a very nice detailed upper rail. The Campbell family lived in a fairly rural community in that time period, so my guess would be that it was hand carved. Not sure what wood it is made form. The upholstery has been changed several times; there’s a layer underneath the current that predates anything I recall, and may be fairly old. I remember this rocker well from my childhood and am glad it’s among the family treasures I’ve been entrusted to care for.
