John Elmer Caise Sr. was born May 30th,1896; he was the sixth child of Jacob and America Caise. Jacob and America had a total of 12 children in the following order: Mary, James, Lizzie, Bessie, Martha, Ora, John, Louis, Benjamin, Andrew, and William. Andrew had a twin sister that passed away at birth.
John Elmer attended Elm Bend School for colored children but had to quit in the fifth grade to help support their family. Not much is known about his childhood. It is a deep regret that our family didn’t get much oral history from him while he was alive.
“Daddy didn’t talk about his father. And he only said little about his mother, but he always told us he dropped out of fifth grade to help her,” said Katherine Bush, my grandmother.
Katherine is John Elmer’s first granddaughter. The second child of his oldest daughter Nannie Lucille Caise. Herbert, Katherine’s brother, herself, and their cousin LaVonne, would call him ‘Daddy’ because he helped their mothers raise them.
John Elmer married Katie Creth on April 7th, 1921. They gave birth to their first child, Nannie on March 8th, 1922. Later had 10 more children, John Jr., James Louis, Ruth, William, Anna Kathryn, Bobby, Virginia, Paul, Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha were twins and he would always call them both ‘MaryMarthee’.
In 1930, they lived about 12 miles from the town of Versailles. John Elmer was a tobacco farmer, working for two white women, the Ayers sisters, Annalee and Kate, who owned property near Pinckard. There was a farm, a big house, and a smaller house on the property. John Elmer was given a smaller house for himself and his family to live in. It was situated on the outside of a white fence.
Ms. Annalee Ayers married an average man and Ms. Kate Ayers married a rich man. When Ms. Kate would come home, she would have a chauffeur, his name was Norman John.
The property was a place where they felt comfortable enough to sleep with the doors to the outside unlocked, as Anna Kathryn describes it. The Ayers sisters were barely ever home, they would come back during the warm weather to visit. One had another residence in Montclair, New Jersey, the other in Chicago, Illinois.
John Elmer was responsible for caring for the property and crops in exchange for living expenses being covered. He would also receive payment for his labor. His wife Katie, was a housekeeper for the Ayers sisters, when they came in from out of town. There was working water, but his daughter Anna Kathryn has memories of a nasty old toilet they had to use. John Elmer was unable to drive so they didn’t have a car. The children attended the Pinckard School for colored children, their teacher would pick them up and take them to school.
To get to town they typically had to walk, growing up my great grandmother, Nannie Caise, would always tell me that she would have to walk 12 miles to go to church every Sunday. So there wasn’t any use of me complaining about something I didn’t want to do.
His wife, Katie Creth passed away on May 15th, 1942, not many years after the birth of Mary and Martha. She was buried on the family property in Elm Bend.
The death of Katie, was the first memory that their daughter Anna Kathryn recalls, seeing her father, John Elmer, cry. All the children were saddened by the tragedy, but the ones it affected most were the older ones. As time went on, none of them spoke much about her.
Their oldest daughter Nannie was 20 years old, she was living with her cousin Leola Creth Estill in Louisville, Kentucky while working in a factory. She moved back home because she felt the need to help her father. With all the women of the family trying to figure out how to split the children up, John Elmer stood firm when he made the decision that he wasn’t splitting up any of his children. He would take on the responsibility of raising them on his own.
Which he proved to be able to do by moving to Versailles. In 1945, three years after Katie passed away, he bought a house in town at 105 Simmons Street. John Elmer was a very self sufficient man, their community and our family would pitch in to help if needed. He admired all of his siblings but he was devoted to his older sisters, Bessie and Mary. Moving to town meant that they no longer had to walk 12 miles to go to school or church.
John Elmer became a custodian at a white school, Versailles Elementary School. The school building was less than half a mile from the house on Simmons Street. Katherine, Herbert, and LaVonne all attended Simmons Elementary School, the school for colored children. Katherine remembers getting off of the school bus, dropping their things, then going over to Versailles Elementary to help him finish cleaning the school. Schools in Versailles weren’t integrated fully until 1960.
He attended St. Paul A.M.E. Church every Sunday and every other Sunday he would take his grandchildren with him. He was well known by the black and white community. He made a lot of friends in the white community being a custodian at the school. They would often give him rides to and from work, or even to the store. Loved by most all residents of Woodford County. He was recently recognized for his contributions to Woodford County for their first Black History Month celebration, along with several others.
As he got older he retired from being a custodian. Old age never stopped Mr. Caise though, after retirement, he would mow yards, walking through town pulling his lawn mower from house to house. John Elmer Caise Sr. departed this life on June 30th, 1990.
