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Discovering the branches of the family tree: John L. Kilgore, Sr., right, and his wife, Mary Jane Kilgore, discovered that they are related to country music pioneers after John dove into the family's genealogy. Joseph C. Garza
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Famous family ties lead to book for Valley man
TERRE HAUTE — One man’s interest in his family genealogy has turned up star-studded connections that prompted him to write a book about his experiences.
John Kilgore’s “Echoes of the Past: A Memoir of Family Heritage” chronicles his journeys and the interesting people he and wife Mary Jane met as he undertook the genealogical adventure.
The Cayuga couple are listed as co-authors on the book, which took about five years to bring together. Their son Shaun published the book through a newly established business, Founders House Publishing, which Shaun created as a limited liability company to do on-demand printing for authors. His parents’ book is his first product.
The cover of “Echoes of the Past” features an 1800s-era photo of John’s grandfather, who would be age 145 today. It was while trying to track down his Kilgore heritage that John began what he calls a “journey of luck” as one new family connection led to another around the country.
On a trip to Terre Haute several years ago, John visited his mother’s half-sister, who was in her 80s at the time, to talk about family history. While his aunt didn’t have much information to share at the time, she did forward him a genealogy request about the Kilgore family that appeared in the Tribune-Star just a few weeks later.
John contacted the Florida woman who submitted the genealogy query, and she invited him to a family reunion in Virginia where he met about 200 cousins he never knew he had. While there, Kilgore found out that he was a cousin to country singer June Carter, whose relationship with musician Johnny Cash was chronicled in the 2005 hit movie “Walk the Line.” In fact, June’s grandmother was a Kilgore on her mother’s side.
John met June Carter during one of those reunions, and he visited the historic home of Maybelle Carter, mother of June and the matriarch of the country music group Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters.
Over the years, John followed the career of his singing cousin and her husband, and made contact with them several times. At a concert in Indianapolis, June Carter dedicated the song “May the Circle Be Unbroken” to her cousin, who she knew was in the audience that night.
While Kilgore is not a common name in west-central Indiana, it is a well-known name in Virginia, John said. He was given a book written in 1935 about the history of the Kilgore family, and that helped him a lot in his genealogy work.
While looking at a record album, John said he noticed the name of Merle Kilgore. As it turned out, Merle was a cousin as well, and he had grown up around the music industry, working for Hank Williams Sr., and later managing the career of Hank Williams Jr.
On one trip to Tennessee to visit with Merle, John’s family met Hank Jr. and had photos taken with him. John also worked a couple of years tracking down Merle’s family genealogy, and the two became good friends. John still has the laminated “pass” he used to gain admittance to Merle’s funeral, which was a well-attended event in the country music world.
“I had no idea we’d end up meeting the kind of folks we did,” John said.
His research also took him to Missouri and to Wyoming, where he met a chiropractor cousin who solved John’s chronic back problems with just one treatment.
John’s journey through his family’s past and present is well-chronicled in the paperback book “Echoes from the Past.”
The book may be ordered online at www.founders-
house.com, or by e-mailing him at johnkilgore@hot
mail.com. The book is also available online at www.ama
zon.com, and is priced at $14.95.
Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.
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