But don’t we have reasons to believe that mankind has been writing stories before Moses? Oh yes! But their language was crudely carved figures of animals and objects on walls of caves. But they had stories to tell and told them as best as they could. Mark Twain’s book about Tom Sawyer begins with the sentence, “Once upon a bye, there was a mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer, who was always getting into trouble, getting off on danger”. This first sentence grabs your attention, and you want to know more about this boy.

Or, what about Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind’s first sentence. “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” Doubtful that your website to reach the acclaim of these two, but you want the readers of your creation to keep reading. Don’t you? I do. I want you to completely get lost in The Ladies of The Lake.

Most of life’s successes, are all about making the right decision, at the right time. But decisions must be made because life does not stand still. Then, Leander and Louisa Setters’ decision to leave the little town of Olive Hill and move to Boone County, Kentucky, just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. Or, what about Leander Setters deciding to move to near Nashville, Tennessee to go into the business of making railroad crossties. Those were serious decisions. Leander’s sons following their father to Nashville, and a grandson, after going to war in what was then thought to be the war to end all wars; but didn’t, deciding to move to Florida. The young woman he met there consenting to move with him back to Nashville. Then, fifty years later, Leander’s great-grandson wanting to move five hundred miles back to the Lake, and give up a successful broadcasting career, and the willingness of his wife to accompany him. These were but the beginnings of many decisions that were made resulting in how the members of the Setters family met the challenges of their culture.

The author inserted the moon that he and his wife so often enjoyed as it rose over the eastern end of their lake. The night would have settled in and the night sounds of little tree frogs, bull frogs, crickets, and other assorted critters would add to the beauty of it all.

You are beginning the web site, and it’s a true story, of a small body of water, about two acres in size, built and still located in what we country people call a Hollow, nestled between two tall hills about twelve miles northwest of the county courthouse in Nashville, Tennessee.

Twelve miles, at the time the little lake was formed, as early as 1871, was a noticeable distance. Roads were no good. Many were just creek beds, and the horse and mule were the energy used for personal transportation.

Much of our story concerns its restoration in 1908 and the people who were involved while the automobile was new and fragile; just an open little two-person cart with a motor that was very likely to leave you stranded on the side of the road. The very reasons people would pass by and yell, “Better get a horse.” Few people, at first, bothered to buy one of these little machines. Ford’s Model-T was just two years old when the small pond, or lake, was and still is, kept alive by the cool, clear water from Little Marrowbone Creek. The road that meanders down and alongside the creek is named, The Little Marrowbone Creek Road before 1900, often times the creek and the road were the same. One historian writer, John P. Graves, said they crossed over one another twenty-three times in a distance of only a few miles about one hundred years ago. This is not just about the small lake, but also about the man who first restored it and those who played a role in his life and his lake. Most of those about whom you will read actually knew nothing, or would ever know anything, about him. Yet in strange ways, he played a role in their lives. And all of them in some way played roles in the lives of each other, usually totally unaware of what was happening. This story covers events that occurred over a period of two hundred years, and in, reality, well into eternity. There are people in this story that Leander never knew or even heard of, but their stories and accomplishments provide the social and geographical incubator out of which Leander emerged. Although the story’s title includes the word Ladies, you will be flying high in the skies over Europe in bombers, and, be part of the great invasion of Europe that we still call D-day. You will crouch in desperation with a young Marine in China, fly in the skies over Korea in the “Forgotten War”. There are incidents in the War to End All Wars, World War I; and then you will live with the frustration and nightmares of that war, many times over. Even the United States Civil War will be visited and suffered through by some of the participants of our story.

There are passions, problems, and unforgetables as you move through this story. You will learn a lot that is important and a lot that you will soon forget. But “The Lake” will be with you, in your mind, forever. Most of the people about whom you will read in this story took their last breath hundreds and even thousands of miles from where they took their first. Some were first generations from Croatia, Italy, Germany, Wales, Ireland and Canada.

Some were second generation folks from the same countries and even the granddaughter of a princess from the south pacific island of Samoa.

If you were expecting to see a group of ladies such as you see in the picture below, we are sorry to dissappoint you. There are just five of these ladies below who played an actual role in our story. They have stars over their heads. Just three of them to any extent, and most of the ladies in our story wouldn’t have the slightest idea who these ladies are.

These ladies pictured here were at the lake in the 1980’s for a south sea island type party. Unfortunately, when most of us try to pursue our family’s history, or in fact the history of those who played a role in our lives, or some event of interest, we discover that the vast majority of information to be nothing more than just dates or perhaps real estate records. If we are lucky, we will have the names of those who preceded us and, in a few cases, where they were born and subsequently lived. We may even find some information about them, such as what they did for a living, and the size of their family. But more than likely we are denied the most dramatic summary. And there are other ladies who qualify, later, in my opinion, and we will tell you who they are.

We may know what they did, but almost never be able to find out why they did it. In basic journalism, and all writings are a form of journalism; telling readers something of which they are not already aware, there are five vital steps: Who? What? Where? When? and why? The Why is always the most difficult to come by. And, up until the advent of the movie camera and the vast array of social media technology, we know little or nothing about how they sounded when they spoke. We certainly, if we are delving back two generations or more, will never know their emotions, their fears anxieties, or feelings of disappointment, and why they attempted to change things. Some of us still have our mother or father.

We can touch them, talk to them, ask them questions and, depending on the era in which we grew up, see pictures and movies of ourselves as babies.

Unfortunately, though, by the time we are mature enough to wonder about what went on generations before us, our grandparents are dead. For many of us so are our parents. Our sources of information, thus gone. Often times, forever. Some of us seek the flimsy search of badly qualified DNA companies as our sources of from whence we came. And that is a shame.

In order to have an appreciation of those who came before us in our lineage we must, when possible, be aware of the hardships of their times and of their sacrifices. Being aware of these will elevate our knowledge above just names and dates. We owe our forefathers and mothers a debt which we can never repay. But at least we can honor them by remembering how they responded to their life challenges. At times though, we must also reflect on those who failed to carry the burdens given them, usually responsibilities they voluntarily chose.

You may, as you meander through the lives of those involved in this story, reach conclusions as to why some of them behaved as they did. Some of your conclusions may be accurate. But please allow your mind to second guess them, to look for their reasons. Some did the best they could. Some did not. But, in spite of what they did, the Lake is still there.

As you read this story, it will occur to you that some people and events are repeated.

And rightfully so because names and events do reappear. Why?

Well, the author wants you to follow each person not just how he or she is involved,

but how others fit into their lives. This means you will travel three paths.

1. The person who is featured

2. Those with whom they come in contact, and,

3. How they both reflect the culture and conditions of the time.

These interludes will seek your attention for a while, then, you will be returned to the original character. Also, as you read about the ladies and those with whom they become involved or to whom they give birth, we hope you find yourself sometimes. Or perhaps someone you personally or even intimately know. We hope you do; for without your compassion for these folks and your being able to walk in their shoes, this story risks being just another someone else’s problems.

During this excursion into the past, we will occasionally take note of peculiarities of geography, cultural traditions and sometimes humorous events and behavior of people who had absolutely nothing to do with that little body of water. A couple of our ventures will find folks over seven thousand miles from the lake whose behavior and decisions concerned that little body of water and those who drank from it, swam in it and yes, died in it. The man, and we may never know who he was, who created this lake, with the help of a few hill country laborers and a couple of mules is dead now, as are many of those who shared his…well, his adventure. There are some still with us who, actually heard the voice of the man who first restored it, touched him, admired him. When in his presence they were very, young. And now, they are very, old and, very few. Let us put it like this; you can count them on the fingers of your right hand, not including your thumb.

In the early morning, when all was quiet and peaceful in and outside of his house,

and his fingers rested lightly on the keyboard of his computer, the great-grandson of Leander Setters. He, now a great-grandfather himself, read the printing on the faded newspaper clipping of his great-grandfather’s obituary. It was only a few years ago, that Jim had any desire to do this. The names he found there, the pallbearers and honorary pallbearers, for too many years were just faint memories. Just names, he remembered on mailboxes, or in conversations or the places where plums or strawberries could be taken.

Call it what it was; stolen. The observations of this forward, about doing too little too late, concerning the pursuit of information about those who came before him, now became a reality. He hoped that the information he was placing into the memory of the computer would not only inform those who are following him but encourage them to do likewise.

In our quest to dig up olden things we will travel back only a couple of hundred years and avoid events such as Scientists excavating a cave in Kentucky being stunned to find the fossilized head of a huge shark — one thought to be up to 340 million years old. The shark’s head was found in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, 92 years after the birth of Leander’s grandson, Jim, and in today’s culture, just a three and a half-hour drive from where Leander was born, and an hour and a half from where Jim was born.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had access to written or orally recorded thoughts and reasons why your ancestors did certain things? Perhaps in them you could find yourself, your reasons for what you do and think. It just might be that you are duplicating their fears and hopes. It just might be. But the author unfortunately realizes that the ones yet to come will remain aloof until the sources of information are ashes in urns or bones deep in the ground. Several years will be spent in writing this story and yes, there will be some repetition because the author had to place the same scenarios into the lives of different people.

In the 2014 Movie, ‘Equalizer’, starring Denzel Washington, one of the opening words on the screen are Mark Twain’s, “There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.” There it is again, the Why. The movie was made two hundred years after Leander’s grandfather, Uriah, was released from the Army after serving in the War of 1812. Denzel was born one hundred and fourteen years after Leander Setters’ birth. Did Denzel, Leander, Uriah, or have you, made that discovery?

Jim’s great-great-great-grandfather, Uriah Setters, was a soldier in the war of Eighteen Twelve. On his mother’s side of the family, as well as Dana’s, there were men in the Civil War. Jim’s mother’s father, Lawrence Roberts, was in the Spanish-American War. Jim’s Dad was in World War One and Jim and his two brothers were in World War Two, and Jim’s son was in a nuclear fast attack submarine during the Cold War with Russia.

So, how could any of these wars affect that little lake? The wars may have more to do with how than why. Many of those whose lives were drawn to that little body of water, or whose lives indirectly involved it, were not just Setters. Their names were Black, Rhodes, Conchin, Roberts, Smiley, Strother, Chenoweth, Riddell, Wharton, Allison, Ponter, Essen, Wyrick,

As to the details one must read the story. But the entanglement of lives of several families brought about by the repercussions in cultural changes by wars played important roles. In many instances the primary reason, or the “WHY.”

Many times, in this website you will read about the accomplishments of babies that grew to adulthood from simple beginnings; passion between two adults,

“THE LADIES OF THE LAKE”,

also known as

“A pat on the fanny, The Corsairs will come, a penny postcard, five ponies, and the wiggle of a toe.”

Authors notes: Vickey Setters is the widow of John Raymond Setters, brother of the author. Carol Setters guided her father with computer problems. And they were legion.