By Lonnie Wilkey
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
As December wound to a close, I received word that my great uncle, Blake Wilkey, had died at the age of 98. He was my grandfather’s (Pop) last remaining brother. I remembered “Uncle Blake,” having visited him many times as a child, but I had not really kept in touch with him other than updates from my Uncle Bill (Pop’s son) and Aunt Lynn, who maintained a close relationship over the years.
Still, I felt like I should attend his funeral, so on New Year’s Day, my wife Joyce and I made the approximately four-hour trip to Robbinsville, N.C., located in Graham County, which borders Monroe County in southeast Tennessee near Tellico Plains.
Upon arriving to the funeral home, I visited with his wife and two children but didn’t really know very many others who were in attendance. The standing joke with the Wilkey family is that you can tell a Wilkey man “by his ears” so I saw several folks whom I assumed were distant cousins. In fact, I later discovered that the two pastors who conducted the funeral were relatives. [Read more…]
