Violet Marie Hendrix

Violet Marie Hendrix, 88, of Fraziers Bottom left this world bodily Friday morning surrounded by family. In her passing we lost a library of local history, genealogy, and knowledge. Preceding her in passing were her parents Carl Glenn and Macel Craze, her first husband Laddie Siders, son Lancer Siders, second husband Norman Hendrix, and a whole world from her youth of rural life, people, and places she seemed to be able to recall every detail of in her astonishing memory. Up until the very end she could tell you stories of people living on flat bottomed boats tied up to the riverbank, people hauling coal in a donkey cart from a punch mines to sell to the steamboats plying the river; following her father on the first gas powered tractor in Fraziers Bottom and only picking up arrowheads if they were absolutely flawless. Although times were lean she reminisced fondly of her youth running the woods near the mouth of Hurricane Creek with her sister Charlotte, skipping the early version of the school bus that always got stuck in the mud on what was then Route 17 and beating it to school in Winfield on foot; her father installing a window on a house in town that was leaning and not knowing whether to put it in level or with the slant of the house. She could name every dairy on the way to Point Pleasant probably from her days as a type setter for the local newspaper there, and then tell you what year they went out of business mostly in the 30 years she spent traveling that way on what was then Route 35 side by side with her loving husband Norman in his blue Chevy going to do laundry, get groceries, or visit his family around Pomeroy, Ohio. Her favorite thing to do was tell you who married who and who was who’s kin and how they were related, an encyclopedia of knowledge she had increasingly few people to share with as the road moved around the town and more and more people moved on, moved away, or just had increasingly less time to visit. First with Laddie then with Norm, and at times with her daughter Suzie she always ran the store, first a grocery and later in her “retirement” antiques, it was her life’s work, the hub of the community, a cast of characters rotating through, sitting around the fireplace, telling her the stories that she loved so much, and the community appreciated her back. So much so that when the original store burned down in 1968 and Laddie suffered a heart attack in the aftermath the community came together under the leadership of John Crist and had a new store rebuilt in its place before they even got home from the hospital. Her gratitude never waned and she cried every time she told the story even half a century later. She loved the people, the history and the place where she spent her whole life. She loved to tell stories, laugh, and work hard, all traits that kept her sharp and relatively healthy to the end. She never stopped and fought the darkness until she couldn’t anymore. Her stories and her spirit live on in her daughter Suzie and son Butch; grandchildren Kaylyn, Alex, Emma, Stacy, and Hilary; great-grandchildren Remi, Riah, Lancer, Thomas, Jonathan, Claire, and Mary. She will be greatly missed, will always be part of Fraziers Bottom, and remembered for years to come. Funeral Service for Violet will be 11:00am Wednesday July 12, 2023 at Chapman Funeral Home Winfield, WV with Chaplain Anna Stewart officiating. Burial will follow in Siders Family Cemetery, Fraziers Bottom WV. Friends may visit the family an hour prior to the service at the funeral home. Anyone wishing to leave an online memory may do so by visiting Violet‘s tribute page at: www.chapmanfuneralhomes.com. Chapman Funeral Home 12848 Winfield Road Winfield, WV 25213 is honored to assist the Hendrix family.

Violet Marie Hendrix

July 24, 1934 - July 7, 2023