Mr. Gene Callaway, great, great grandson of the Rev. James Callaway, generously donated to the Town Square Museum the organ that was used many years ago at Camp Ground Methodist Church. The stately 1907 Beckwith Commemorative Pump Organ, which was purchased by the church members of that day, was in use during worship services from the early 1900s until the late 1930s. 

After being replaced by a piano, the old organ was eventually abandoned and fell into a terrible state of disrepair. The pedals were broken, the bellows would not hold air, and mice had chewed on the keyboard. Mr. Robert Callaway, Jr. came into possession of the organ and began a labor of love—restoring the antique instrument to its previous beauty.  

Eventually Mr. Gene Callaway inherited the organ. He and his wife Sara continued the restoration process, with Sara even replacing the rotten fabric on the pedals and front panels with her own needlepoint.  

Mr. Callaway says fondly, "As a young boy at age six, I can remember going to church services at Camp Ground on Sunday. I marveled at the lady who sat at the organ, pumping it with her feet and playing such old memorable hymns as "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" and "Amazing Grace"."

He adds, "Now it gives me great pleasure to donate the organ to the Pontotoc Town Square Museum and to return it to its rightful place of honor, the historical town and county, Pontotoc, Mississippi."

John Douglas Callaway, a well known face and personality in Chicago television passed away on June 23, 2009. I believe his line of descent is as follows:
Peter Callaway
William Callaway
William Callaway, Jr.
Zachariah Callaway
Joshua Moses Callaway and 1st wife Rebecca Campbell
Garner Callaway
Charles M. Callaway
Kenzie R. Callaway
Charles E. Callaway
John Douglas Callaway

John Douglas Callaway

RACINE - John Douglas Callaway, 72, passed away on June 23, 2009. John was born in New Martinsville, W.Va. on August 22, 1936. He married Sandy Callaway in 1998 on Valentine's Day and has lived in the Racine area for the past 9 years. Among many other journalistic feats, John was the long-time host of 'Chicago Tonight' on WTTW Channel 11 in Chicago and most recently, host of 'Front and Center' for the Pritzker Military Library based in Chicago. In his spare time, John enjoyed golf and movies and was an avid reader. John loved working in his home office in Racine enjoying the view of the lake while he worked. John is survived by his wife, Sandy Callaway; daughters, Liz (Dan) Callaway Foster and Ann Hampton Callaway (partner Kari Strand); grandson, Nicholas Foster; and his sister, Hamp (Tom) Karras. John is also survived by Sandy's four children and grandchildren. A celebration of John's life will be held at Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago, 5850 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago, on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 3:00 p.m. PURATH-STRAND FUNERAL HOME AND CREMATORY.

~ Published in the Racine Journal Times, Racine, Wisconsin,  on 6/26/2009

CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARCHIVES: Maximum John -- Master interviewer Callaway takes the stage to sing a song of himself
By Charles Leroux, reporter
March 16, 2001

Can a country-boy-turned-big-city-journalist reinvent himself one more time?"

The question was posed in 1999 by - and about - John Callaway in his farewell broadcast after 15 years on "Chicago Tonight," a news discussion show he had made into acclaimed and - to a relatively small but devoted viewership - essential television. Callaway's answer to Callaway's question will appear on the stage of the Pegasus Players Theater Friday evening through April 15 in "John Callaway Tonight," a one-person, autobiographical love story in two acts.

The performances will represent just the latest level of self-reinvention for the ever morphing journalist. Not long after he bowed out of "Chicago Tonight," Callaway received a phone call from Carol Marin asking him to do commentary on her 10 p.m., break-from-the-traditional-news-format newscast on WBBM-Ch. 2. When, nine months later, the innovative broadcast was ended - he says, "aborted" - he was again left open to possibilities. (He actually left the show shortly before the bitter end, sensing the station was about to pull the plug because of low ratings.) But he is "not retired," he says emphatically, formidable trademark jowls aquiver. "Not!"

In his not retirement, the 65-year-old Callaway still is host and senior editor of "Chicago Stories," the local documentary series that WTTW debuted last year. He has also harbored thoughts of doing some writing and a little travel, but always lurking in the back of his mind has been the performing itch.

"I wanted to do a show," he says. "I would give speeches to various organizations and, in the question-and-answer sessions, they'd ask about how I got started and so forth, and I'd tell the stories about that. I soon figured out that the audiences were more interested in those stories than the political analysis I was doing. I got to thinking about a way I could bring that autobiographical stuff together in some sort of presentation, an evening of storytelling."

Right around that time, Arlene Crewdson, the producing director at Pegasus, called with a project idea, and Callaway countered with the idea he had been kicking around about the stories of his life. She asked if he wanted a director.

"Well," Callaway said, "probably, though nobody was directing when I would give a smasheroo speech at the Wards headquarters or wherever."

So, keeping the project all-Callaway-all-the-time, he enlisted New York director and son-in-law Dan Foster (Callaway daughters Liz Callaway -- Foster's wife -- and Ann Hampton Callaway have become noted cabaret singers and stars on Broadway). Foster listened to Callaway's saga of dropping out of Ohio Wesleyan University at 19 and hitchhiking to Chicago with just 71 cents in his pocket, "a story I had milked," Callaway says, "all over town."

Foster had him tell it again and again, getting him to add details and gestures ("a little acting here and there," Callaway allows, "not just breezily telling") and dredging up the stories behind the stories. The 71 cents story begot the Dorothy and Cab story about Callaway's parents, now a 14-minute narrative in the show.

The result of Foster's efforts was a compendium of deeper, darker, more touching and revealing stories than the set pieces Callaway had polished at many a party and bar room late in the evening.

The entire Callaway career spans 45 years. He has gone from print to broadcast, local to national and, recently, from impersonal moderating on "Chicago Tonight" to personal commentary on the Marin show. It's spiraling now to the inner Callaway of "John Callaway Tonight." This Callaway will go into things he never has publicly discussed before, including his father's alcoholism.

But he's not going to omit the 71 cents story.

Neither are we.

Callaway and his older sister, Hampton, grew up in New Martinsville, W. Va., 100 miles southwest of Pittsburgh on the Ohio River, population then about 4,000. It wasn't in the coal mining area most of us think of as West Virginia, but in the base of the state's panhandle, "more Ohio or Pennsylvania, really," Callaway says, "sissy West Virginia."

It was a nice place to grow up. There was a beautiful municipal pool that his father, editor of the Wetzel Republican, one of the local weekly newspapers, had campaigned for when he tired of reporting the deaths of children swimming in the river. Charles E. Callaway, his son recalls, "had the courage to be a right-wing Republican in a city and state that was heavily Democrat. You could walk into a coal miner's shack and see a picture of Jesus on one wall and FDR on another. My dad was to the right of Milton Friedman and Attila the Hun, and he and the Colonel (Col. Robert R. McCormick, who ran the Chicago Tribune from the early to middle 20th Century) would have loved each other. I saw his pay stub once, though, and determined that I would never go into journalism."

It was a place where young John could play football and basketball and discover he was good at sports (the second act of "John Callaway Tonight" opens with what he calls "a tutorial on the art of the no-step drop kick"). Thanks to his mother, Dorothy, the newspaper's society editor and a pianist, it was a place of music, of Gershwin and Porter enlivening frequent parties at the Callaway house.

"She's where my musical interest comes from," Callaway says. "My father, despite getting a nickname from singer Cab Calloway, looked more like Bing Crosby, with the big ears. Also, he didn't sing. I sing at the end of the show, `In the Wee Small Hours,' done as a tribute to my daughters and `Embraceable You' as a tribute to my parents, especially my mother. Singing works for me if I keep it to a couple of songs -- get on, get the hell off."

Callaway recalls his parents as "New Yorkers in New Martinsville. They read Fitzgerald and Hemingway; they listened to all the network radio shows out of New York, got the Sunday New York Times. My dad once bought a ticket to see the West Virginia team play basketball in midtown Manhattan. Mine was an idyllic childhood, although, because of alcoholism, it wasn't idyllic. At the same time it was a wonderful family. Any time you get into these kinds of things, you risk venturing into Oprah-land, though I don't think I do that."

Callaway's idyllic but not idyllic childhood would later make him comfortable dealing with something journalists often are not comfortable dealing with -- complexity, issues and people not easily seen as all wrong or all right. Also, alcoholism forced him into a position in his family that he later would master professionally, the position of impartial moderator, mediator, referee.

"The dodge has always been that I've been the question asker," Callaway says, "the guy with no opinions."

On with the 71 cents story.

The parties ended when Charles Callaway became seriously ill. Hospital bills forced the family to give up their rented house and move to "a dump that was too small for a piano. The music died. My mother lived until 1969, but she never had another piano."

The family's reduced circumstances meant that Callaway had to work to afford college. His dishwasher job, however, couldn't keep up with his bills, and he was $800 in debt at age 19, a year and a half into college. He went to the dean's office to say he needed to drop out for a while to make some money, a traditional ploy, he says, for West Virginians.

"I told the dean I was going to Chicago to work in the steel mills. I don't know where that came from. Maybe it was from reading Sandburg, or from having read the Studs Lonigan trilogy as a kid. I knew no one in Chicago -- not a soul. The dean came up with $50 from the Bertha Enright fund for students who neither smoke nor drank, and that was my stake."

Not really. His friends said that such a dramatic move, a move worthy of a novel or a movie or a stage play, would be something he would perhaps someday write about. Accordingly, the money he went on the road with should be a dramatic -- a literary -- amount. "A bunch of wise asses," Callaway says. "They debated: Was it $31.27? What was it? They finally talked me into 71 cents. I spent the $50 on bowling and pizza and dry cleaning and other things right down to a couple of Tootsie Rolls to end up with 71 cents. Then I went out to the highway to hitchhike to Chicago."

After hitching across Ohio and most of Indiana, then getting a train ticket for the South Shore line from a kindly minister who had given him a ride, Callaway arrived at the Randolph Street station. It was Feb. 6, 1956. He walked out to the street and fell deeply, forever, in love.

"I saw the theater marquees," he remembers, "the throbbing city, a real city. You have to understand that prior to that I had spent a few weekends in Columbus and one weekend going to a ballgame in Pittsburgh with my father. When I stepped out of the station, I suddenly sensed that this was my city, that I was in the right place at the right time."

He had checked his valise at the station for a nickel. It contained a few clothes, the New Testament and the book of the moment, sociologist David Riesman's "Individualism Reconsidered."

He straggled along Randolph to a nearby diner, Lucy's, and spent 35 cents for a slice of pecan pie, an outrageous price by New Martinsville standards. He had 31 cents left. Another nickel bought a copy of the Chicago Tribune (for the help wanted ads). His pocket now contained 26 cents. He sat on a bench in the Greyhound bus station and read the ads.

Wearing a light jacket, he walked north to Passavant Hospital to inquire about a dishwashing job, got there just after the employment office closed, trudged, shivering, back to the Loop, fell asleep in a deep leather chair in a hotel lobby, was rousted out at 11 p.m. He walked to the Lorraine Hotel (now a parking lot) on Wabash and told the desk clerk the following lie: "My name is John Callaway. My father is a newspaper man in Philadelphia, and he was late coming in, and he told me to go ahead and get a room."

And the clerk said, "Fine."

Callaway was pleased to find the town so easy, not realizing that the Lorraine then was run by a group of citizens who, during Prohibition, had given the city a widespread, rat-a-tat-tat reputation. He later caught on and sneaked away, leaving his hotel bill unpaid and harboring a longstanding concern that the mob might be on his trail.

"I went to an employment counselor who told me the steel mill idea was impossible, but all the while we were talking, he kept looking at me and then back to a picture on his desk. He turned the picture around, and there was a pretty reasonable facsimile of me. It was his son who had been killed in World War II. He ended up giving me 10 bucks, which was like $100 today, getting vouchers to use at the YMCA hotel where rooms were $9 a week. He found me a job as a clerk at R. Cooper Jr., the General Electric appliance distributor here. I put together pieces of paper that looked alike. I never had a clue what I was doing. At night I went to acting and playwrighting classes. The teacher told me, 'Callaway, you're the worst actor I've ever had the pleasure of working with. But you're always talking about your parents and the newspaper business, and there's a place here called the City News Bureau. I understand that reporters get to cover political dinners and get free food.'"

The conversation would change Callaway's life, giving him a career. (He never did return to college but, by voracious reading and consuming curiosity, still managed to educate himself.) It also gave him another passion that dovetailed with his love of Chicago: love for journalism. That passion would develop over time. When the City News Bureau idea was mentioned, the phrase that echoed in his brain wasn't "journalism," it was "free food."

That, somewhat truncated, is the 71 cents story, a story that is totally true though not the totality of Callaway's story. It is the story that gave rise to the other tales of "John Callaway Tonight" and made his wise-ass college buddies prophetic. It turns out it was a story he would someday write, a story worthy of a stage play.

Val R. Calaway descends from the James Callaway line of Greenville, South Carolina. His obituary was published in the Tri-City Herald, Mid-Columbia, Washington on 4/12/2009. This line is well documented in the Nov 2007 Newsletter and I believe it is likely that he descends from the Joseph Callaway line as follows:
Joseph Callaway
Thomas Callaway
William Callaway
James Callaway
Erastus Callaway
Thomas E. Callaway
Thomas A. Callaway
Clyde T. Callaway
Val R. Callaway
 

Mattawa, Washington
Steven's Funeral Chapel

Val R. Calaway, 75, of Mattawa, died Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at Kadlec Medical Center in Richland, WA.

Val was born on May 25, 1933, in Salem, ID, to Clyde T. and Vera Roylance Calaway. He attended High School in Sugar City, ID, and then attended Rick's College (now BYU Idaho) for 2 years. He left Rick's College to serve a two-year mission in the Northern California Mission Field. He was centered around Vallejo, CA, but since he was a mission leader he traveled from San Francisco to the Oregon Border. During his mission, he set a goal to learn a scripture a day. He was known as the scriptorian of the mission. When he returned from his mission, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve and then requested active duty. Val served on the destroyer USS Floyd D. Parks DD884, as a radioman. In July of 1956, Val's ship was in Long Beach, CA. for a refitting. Val joined his shipmates at a church beach party Huntington Beach, where he met Jane Courtney. They became friends and later on January 12, 1957, they were married and sealed at the Los Angeles Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After Val was discharged he and Jane returned to Salem, ID, for a year. Val had relatives farming in the Columbia Basin. He could see the potential of the farming area and decided to purchase a farm in the new undeveloped area around what is now Basin City. His brother and Father also purchased some land. They would level land and build ditches in the winter and farm during the summer. Eventually Val was farming four units with miles of irrigation ditch to walk. Various crops were raised in that new land. He always had a herd of cows. He liked to raise replacement heifers for the dairies. He loved to walk out through the calves and he always had his favorites that were the true Holstein type. He had the desire to sometime have a dairy, but instead new undeveloped land was calling, so in 1973, he purchased new land in Mattawa and began farm developing again. Sagebrush had to be cleared and irrigation systems installed. This time sprinkler systems were installed with many wheel lines to be moved every day. The family was still living in Basin City so Val commuted almost every day except at very busy times, then he and the boys would stay in a camper on the farm. It was difficult for the family being separated so all were very happy when the day came in 1976 when the family moved to Mattawa. The family lived in a single wide trailer and the shop until a home could be erected. Mattawa was a very dry area and the hay didn't get much dew so Val and his friends Duane and Ardean Bird decided to start a hay cubing mill. In 1976, they began building the mill and later purchased another in the Pasco area. In 1979 they began building their house. Val and the boys built the entire house with the exception of the fireplace and pouring the basement. The house was finished in 1980.

He tutored all of his sons in many areas, wiring, farming, fabrication, welding, life and just working things out until they got it right. Val retired from farming in 1998 but he continued with his orchard and the cubemill.

Val was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He took on many roles in the church; he was the Young Men's President and Stake Missionary in the 1950s. He enjoyed teaching Sunday school and was a natural missionary; the scriptures he had learned on his mission helped him teach the youth and all with whom he came in contact. He was called to be the Branch President of the Wahluke Branch in Mattawa in August of 1977. The first phase of the Wahluke Branch building was built during his time as Branch President. He served on the High Council for 10 years. During that time, he received the assignment to be the Stake Mission President. He enjoyed traveling to the wards in the Othello Stake and visiting with all the members and leaders. Val and Jane served in the Seattle Temple and in the Columbia River Temple until his health deteriorated. He was asked to serve as the procurer of equipment for the 'Family History Library.' Never being a man to do things half way he took on the task with gusto, he built the cabinets in the library, procured the computers and the software and built one of the finest Library's in Washington. Val was extremely proud of his family. All 7 of his boys served full time missions all over the world. All are successful businessmen and farmers.

Val was an avid fisherman, he would start his day as early as he could so that he could head down to the river to fish for a bit. He had a small fishing boat and would take his family out in the Columbia and on fishing trips every chance he could. He and his father bought a cabin cruiser that he left moored in Ilwaco. Every chance he got he would take his family over and fish the Pacific out of Ilwaco and Neah Bay. Later he settled for the Columbia and lakes on the east side. Val was a pilot. He used his GI bill to learn to fly. He would fly over the mountain to fish, get parts for equipment or just for fun. On one occasion Val flew into a storm in the mountains that had already crashed one plane. He was able to return to where he had taken off and never flew over the mountains again. Val was a fabricator, he would see something that could be done better and set out to build the machine to do it, one of those was a truck hoist that was eventually copied and patented by another company, another was a positive feed hay grinder that again was patented by another company.

Val enjoyed taking his children water skiing. He bought a ski boat and the family would ski Scootney and the Columbia. Val enjoyed traveling, he would often take his family to Yellowstone to fish staying at the cabins behind 'Fishing Bridge' in the park. The family made many trips to Disneyland. He traveled with his family and later with Jane throughout the U.S. and on cruises to the Caribbean for he and Jane's 50th Anniversary and the Inland Passage for his 75th birthday.

In Mexico, his health would not let him walk through the jungles he wanted to see, so the boys pushed him in a wheelchair while he complained about their driving. In the 1990s, Val's health deteriorated and he had to find a new outlet, he found wood working, the former bunkhouse in the shop was transformed into a wood shop and Val began producing furniture for his home, his children and friends. Above all else Val was a husband and a father. His devotion to Jane and his pride and love for his children, their spouses and his grandchildren drove him in everything he did.

He will be remembered as a man who got up as early as he could each day and strove to accomplish all he could that day.

Val was preceded in death by his parents, a brother Gar, and two sisters, Glena and Shirla. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Jane of Mattawa; his 7 sons and their wives, Jeff and Valerie of Ellensburg, Bret and Barbara of St. George, Utah, Courtney and Beverly of Pasco, Eric and Jalyn of Richland, Kerry and Bonnie of Pasco, and Kip and Gigi and Cameron and Megan of Mattawa; his brother, Blair Calaway of Salem, ID; a sister, Ellen Arnold of Rexburg, ID; and 36 Grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.

A time for final visitation will be held at Stevens Funeral Chapel on Sunday April 12, 2009, from 4:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. A celebration of his life will be held on Monday April 13, 2009, at 11:00 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mattawa, burial will follow at Bess Hampton Memorial Gardens. Services are under the direction of Stevens Funeral Chapel.

I would like to thank Joyce O'Boyle for sending us the following information which may be a clue to the identity of Peter Callaway, a "Mystery Callaway" from the July 2009 Newsletter.
 

He also referred to his beloved wife Mary (Morgan) and her children in his will.

 

Additionally, William willed about 30 acres of his land to be rented out, and the proceeds were be used for the schooling and raising of his youngest children.

 

In Feb 1836, this parcel was sold, and the proceeds were divided among his 10 living children.... all born to wife Mary Callaway. William's older children Peter and Mary were not mentioned as recipients of the proceeds from this tract of land sale. Son, William Jr. had died in 1813 and was not mentioned in the 1825 will.

 

After William Callaway's death in 1826, his widow remained on the farm, but after her death in 1867, the final 200 acres of William's, "Home Farm" was sold, per his will, at a public auction on Thursday, DEC. 24, 1868. (Probate records of William Callaway 1826-1869 Delaware State Archives, Dover, De.,)

 

The date of birth (1796) for the mystery Peter Callaway in Kent Co. could possibly the same Peter that was mentioned in William Callaway Sr's. will. William married Mary Morgan 9 June 1807... 

 

William left his oldest son Peter 65 acres.  This  might explain some of mystery Peter's wealth. 

 

At this time, I do not know who the mother of Peter and Mary was.  They were only mentioned as, "my older children"  in William Callaway, Sr. will. William Callaway Sr. married Mary Morgan, 9 June 1807, so, he could have had a prior wife in 1796 when Mystery Peter Callaway was born.

 

Hope this helps.

Joyce
joyceoboyle at @yahoo.com

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Who Am I? Can anyone identify this "Mystery Callaway"?

Virginia Marriages, 1740-1850
Groom Name: Henry Callaway
Bride Name: Paulina Duwitt
Marriage Date: 11 Jun 1813
County: Bedford
State: Virginia

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Who Am I? Can anyone identify this "Mystery Callaway"? See Sep 2009 Newsletter for information about the identity of Martha Callaway.

Virginia Marriages, 1740-1850
Groom Name: Abram Clements
Bride Name: Martha Callaway
Marriage Date: 21 Sep 1829
County: Pittsylvania
State: Virginia

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Who Am I? Can anyone identify this "Mystery Kellaway"?

His name is James F. Kellaway and he is the only Kellaway listed on the WWII Memorial Web Site. His page is found at this link:
http://www.wwiimemorial.com/registry/search/pframe.asp?HonoreeID=1922785&popcount=1&tcount=1

Descendants of John Kellaway

Generation No. 1

1. JOHN¹ KELLAWAY was born Abt. 1878 in England. He married SOPHIA "SOPHIE" UNKNOWN. She was born Abt. 1882 in Sweden.

Notes for JOHN KELLAWAY: He is single listed on the 1910 Manhattan, Manhattan Co., NY census. They are listed on the 1920 New Canaan, Fairfield Co., CT census. They are listed on the 1930 Oyster Bay, Nassau Co., NY census.

New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957
Name: John Kellaway
Arrival Date: 1 Dec 1902
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1877
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Port of Departure: Southampton, England
Ethnicity/Race/Nationality: English
Occupation: Footman
Ship Name: St Louis
Port of Arrival: New York, New York　

More About JOHN KELLAWAY:
Immigration: 1902, Southampton England to NY NY on ship St. Louis arriving Dec 1, 1902

Occupation: 1910 English butler for private family, 1920 Superintendent at Golf Club, 1930 Real Estate foreman

Children of JOHN KELLAWAY and SOPHIA UNKNOWN are:

i. JOHN² KELLAWAY, b. Abt. 1915, CT.
ii. WILLIAM KELLAWAY, b. Abt. 1917, CT.
2. iii. JAMES F. KELLAWAY, b. 11 Mar 1920, CT; d. 10 Nov 1992, Lewisville, Denton Co., TX.　

Generation No. 2

2. JAMES F.² KELLAWAY (JOHN¹) was born 11 Mar 1920 in CT, and died 10 Nov 1992 in Lewisville, Denton Co., TX. He married UNKNOWN.

Notes for JAMES F. KELLAWAY:
Social Security Death Index
Name: James F. Kellaway
Last Residence: 75056 Lewisville, Denton, Texas, United States of America
Born: 11 Mar 1920
Died: 10 Nov 1992
State (Year) SSN issued: New York (Before 1951)

Child of JAMES KELLAWAY and UNKNOWN is:

i. REV. JAMES L.³ KELLAWAY.