Rocking Chair
Name/Title
Rocking ChairEntry/Object ID
2024.4.1Description
"When I was little, my parents and two sisters would drive to Virginia to visit my paternal grandparents. We would always look for the sign on Interstate 81 South that announced Rockingham County. After a full day’s drive it was a welcome indication that that the end of a draining car trip was near. We children would always jest about a 'pig sitting in a rocking chair' as a goofy image depicting 'Rocking-ham'. Now the Wampler Rocking Chair, empty of pigs but full of memories, is completing its return trip to its home county." Stanley S. Wampler, July 2024Context
According to family history, the Wampler Rocking Chair first belonged to Frederick J. Wampler (1838-c1897). The youngest of is eleven children, Rev. Ernest M. Wampler (1885-1978), inherited the chair. He in turn passed it down to his younger son (of three children), Dr. D. Eugene Wampler (1935-2019). On his passing, his son, Stanley S. Wampler, inherited the family heirloom. Stanley had no children. There is a cavity in one arm of the chair. Ernest remembers sitting in his grandfather’s lap and picking at the filler in the arm of the chair, creating the hole. It is possible that the relative Ernest was sitting with was his father, not his grandfather, as a brief genealogy search shows that both grandfathers died prior to Ernest’s birth in 1885. This Wampler family is from Rockingham County Virginia. Ernest grew up on his father’s farm and attended Greenmount Church of the Brethren. After many years of service as a Brethren missionary to China, he retired to Bridgewater, VA and was one of the men who broke ground for the Bridgewater Retirement Community. Frederick and Ernest are buried at Greenmount Church cemetery. Ernest and Eugene are both graduates of Bridgewater College.Cataloged By
Sam FunkhouserCategory
Household