FATHER: James Adams
MOTHER: Laura Greene
MARRIED: Cora Walters (1891-1971)
March 12, 1913 (Roanoke, VA)
CHILDREN:
WILLIE DOUGLAS ADAMS (1914-1974)
Charlie Allen Adams (1915-1918)
Rosa Lillian Adams (Smith) (b.1919)
James Monroe ("Dickie") Adams (1931-1986)
John Robert ("Bobby") Adams (1931-1987)
OCCUPATION: Machinist at Virginia Bridge and Iron Works, Roanoke, VA
Hardy Adams' father was a railroad man, and killed in a train wreck two months before Hardy was born. While Hardy and his brother Bill were still children, their mother married a man named Mr. Huntley, who mistreated the boys so badly they eventually ran away. Hardy would find himself in Roanoke, Virginia, while Bill ended up in Newport News, Virginia. Hardy became the operator of a large machine that cut metal into shape for use in bridges and other works. (Bill worked in the shipyards.)
Nobody has been able to find out anything about the family in decades of trying. Apparently the original records burned long ago--Hardy and Bill went hunting for them with my grandfather Doug (then still a child), only to find a story of a burning where the records might have been. When Mr. Huntley was suffering his final illness, he asked Hardy to come to his bedside, because he had something to tell him. Hardy refused because he was still so angry at him, but after some time my great-grandmother finally persuaded him to go. When he did, though, Huntley had died two weeks before--so no one knows what he had wanted to say.
Hardy Adams passed away during an operation for a peptic ulcer. He suffered uremic poisoning after the procedure and died in the hospital.
(Historical note: The old Virginia Bridge & Iron Works building was demolished in 2002.)
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