Amazon.com: Kentucky Clay: Eleven Generations of a Southern Dynasty: Katherine R. Bateman: Books

Review

"With wit and candor, Bateman reveals her lifelong struggle to avoid the disturbing patterns of [her family's colorful] legacy, while mining the emotional gifts passed on to her." —Nancy Horan, author, Loving Frank

"With storytelling skill, historical research, and a questioning imagination, Katherine Bateman follows her family's odyssey in America since the seventeenth century." —Jean B. Lee, professor of history, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"This riveting book is at once a journey into centuries of the American past and a deeply personal family saga, coupling the author’s meticulous historical research with her passionate curiosity and vivid imagination." —Ronne Hartfield, author, Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family

"A most readable family history." —The Decatur Daily

"Beautifully printed and well-illustrated." —genealogymagazine.com

"A rich narrative." —Blue Ridge Country

"Sweeping…well-researched." —Southern Seasons

"Fascinating . . . deeply felt and deeply personal." —California Literary Review

Product Description

This sweeping history traces eleven generations of the Clays of Kentucky, a founding American family and Southern dynasty whose members include Henry Clay, who ran for president against James K. Polk; his cousin Cassius Marcellus Clay, a prominent abolitionist and Lincoln’s advisor against slavery; and matriarch Kizzie Clay, who buried the family silver and escaped by flatboat to avoid marauding Union soldiers. The history of the early colonial period comes to life, beginning with the arrival of the Clay family in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1613 and the Cecil family in St. Mary’s, Maryland, in 1634, continuing through their trek across Virginia to the Appalachian Mountains, leading to the families’ eventual intermarriage in 1800 and their move across the mountains to Kentucky and beyond.

Drawing from original sources such as Civil War records, land deeds, wills, and letters, and through her own dogged detective work and determination to separate reality from exaggeration to understand the complex legacy she has inherited, Katherine Bateman reveals the adventures, accomplishments, and shortcomings of the men in her family, alongside the deep-rooted stories and nontraditional roles of its strong, sometimes selfish, and proud women.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Chicago Review Press; illustrated edition edition (November 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1556527950
ISBN-13: 978-1556527951
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #345,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#31 in Books > History > United States > State & Local > Kentucky
#56 in Books > History > United States > State & Local > Maryland

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	91% buy the item featured on this page: Kentucky Clay: Eleven Generations of a Southern Dynasty 3.6 out of 5 stars (45) $16.47
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Customer Reviews

45 Reviews

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.6 out of 5 stars (45 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great stories; intriguing questions, October 26, 2008

By	I. Tysoe "Inna Tysoe" (Earth) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)

This is an intensely personal account of the Clay family because it is a family history built around the family folklore the author heard as a child. And so this book is filled with personal anecdotes that simply cannot be found in most history books. It makes this history feel like a collection of short stories; stories about the Clays and the Cecils, the Wittens, the Burns and the Batemans.

But this is more personal than a history. This book is also Katherine Bateman's attempt to reconcile herself to the history of the "Cecil mothers" (her term). A history of women who, generation after generation, bequeathed to their daughters a legacy of unlove, class, and belief that ordinary societal rules don't necessarily apply to a Cecil. It is a legacy Kate Bateman felt personally in the tug of war between her Mother and her Grandmother; a tug of war in which she was, often, the prize.

And (perhaps subconsciously) this family history is also a story of not-telling; a story of what the family chose to leave out. Because Katherine Bateman did not inherit only the blood of the Clays, the Cecils, the Wittens, the Burns, and the Batesmans; she inherited also the blood of the Native Americans. Katherine's Grandmother, Wynemah, was named for an "Indian princess". Katherine's Great Grandfather had Indian ancestry which (according to Katherine) showed clearly in his daughters' features. Yet the story of the people who gave the Frank Burns' daughters their beauty and Katherine's Grandmother her name is not told.

We are regales with accounts of the "normal" interactions between Katherine's White Family and the Native Americans. We are told how Henry Clay kidnapped three Native American children and made them slaves (and how their Grandchildren sued the Clay family for their freedom and won); how the Clay men fought and died in the wars with the Native Americans; how the Native Americans killed and scalped Phoebe Belcher Clay's children. But we are not told the other, more intimate, story of how Native American blood intermingled with that of the Burns and, thus, with the Clays.

And this omission makes the history of this one family seem more like a family saga; the sort of thing told to children so that they would know who and what they are. That doesn't make it worthless. In some sense, it adds to its value because it gave me a feel for the way the American South was settled and for what "family" means in the South. But it also left me wondering about the stories I did not hear.

So I recommend this book for its fine story-telling and for the feel it gives for the South but I also warn that this book (like most family stories) will leave you with as many questions as stories.

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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Why judging from 21st Century standards??????, October 26, 2008

By	William a Bourne (Fort Wayne, IN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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I am sure that Ms. Bateman was very pleased with her title, "Kentucky Clay," reflecting both one of her ancestral lines as well as the clay from which our heroes' feet are made. Unfortunately, that's the last bit of literary value in this overwrought diatribe on her families. Filled with excessive, and probably totally imaginative description of feeling the green grass under her feet, and attributing thought and feelings to various members of her family for which she seems to have no source, her volume is an adolescent rejection of the people of whom her material family is justifably proud. She uses the words "shame," "chagrined," and "embarrassed" as she discusses her forebears' accomplishments, judging 17th, 18th and 19th century people by 21st century standards. I have read many biographies and family histories that succeed in relating details without passing the judgments Ms. Bateman delivered. The only thing that kept me reading was curiosity as to who she'd trash next, and I wasn't disappointed. Her treatment of her ancestors was nothing to what she did to her more immediate family. I would assume that her vitriolic tale served as some sort of therapy for a childhood in which she felt ashamed by her ancestors' accomplishments, but it became nothing but a tell-all that was embarrassing to read. Her sources were not well cited, and it was impossible to tell what was researched fact, what was family legend, and what was her own vivid imagination.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The difference between heritage and history., November 9, 2008

By	Richard L. Pangburn (Bardstown, KY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This book gets five stars, because I think it does what it sets out to do. Don't look for any historical breakthroughs about Henry Clay or Cassius Clay. This is not a work of history but a work of heritage which seeks to find patterns in the dry family history, to flesh out the names on the ancestral chart, to find the discernable historical truth behind the family legends.

We are all of the same clay, more closely related than you might think. Katherine Bateman provides a handy genealogical chart at the front of her book which includes many of the intermarried families, but that chart could easily be extended to include many other famous families as well, white, black, and red. Any reader who would like to see how these families connect to Kentucky's other famous/notorious families should not fail to read Chapter 3 of Alvin F. Harlow's WEEP NO MORE MY LADY.

Again, this does not pretend to be a comprehensive history, but rather a work of family heritage. And as such, it is a splendid read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A BIT MISLEADING
This reader was a little disappointed by Kentucky Clay: Eleven Generations of a Southern Dynasty by Katherine Bateman. Read more

Published 1 month ago by C. Davis

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't you just love old family stories?
I've always loved old family stories-not just my family either but everyone's. I suppose considering my near lust for historical fiction it makes sense-all the old family legends... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Lilly Flora

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting story of a family legacy
As a fairly recent transplant of Kentucky, I find anything having to do with the history of this place quite interesting. Read more

Published 3 months ago by S.R.W. Phillips

4.0 out of 5 stars How Each Generation Constructs the Family History
Family histories have a reputation for being widely varying in quality. Some are ponderous dense genealogies or chronicles that are of little interest outside of genealogies or... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Todd B. Frary

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good History of Kentucky's Leading Family
This is a good family history which doesn't quite reach the top level of works on America's most prominent families. Read more

Published 4 months ago by J. Yingling

2.0 out of 5 stars Passing On The Family Stories
I found "Kentucky Clay", by Katherine Bateman, to be a difficult book to properly categorize. There are far too many passages and sections where the author imagines or visualizes... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Dave_42

3.0 out of 5 stars Kentucky Daydreams
I get the feeling while reading through this book that the author sees herself more as a novelist than an historian, especially when reciting the history of her own family. Read more

Published 6 months ago by S. Levi

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting though relatively light look at a great American family
Henry Clay is merely the most famous member of a historically important family. Given the significance of the Clay family, this history covering several centuries of their story... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Mike Birman

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine Read, Genealogy Fans will Appreciate
Anyone who's ever engaged in researching family genealogy will find much of this book very interesting - the author is quite meticulous. Read more

Published 7 months ago by David B. Eck

3.0 out of 5 stars More a memior than history
Kentucky Clay, Eleven Generations of a Southern Dynasty is as much a personal memoir as it is a history of the Clay family of Kentucky. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Mary G. Longorio

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