Leila Editha Aulick
Now a history of a lady who lived to the greatest age of anyone in the Grants Lick precinct and who was typical of most wives and mothers in the pioneer days. Mrs. Leila Editha Aulick, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Foster Byrd, born November 13, 1846. She was united in marriage to Henry M Aulick at her home by Brother J M Barbee, of Falmouth. She had baked seven loaves of salt rising bread the day before her marriage and hung it in the cellar with a meal sack. Seventy five guests ate wedding dinner with them. Her father paid five dollars for the wedding cake. She kept the box in which it came and when she celebrated her 90th birthday, the box was decorated with crepe paper and was quite attractive on the table holding the cake with ninety candles. Forty two relatives and friends ate dinner with her. They were thrilled to hear her reminisce her marriage and later life.
After the wedding dinner was served the bride and groom rode horseback to Kenton Station where they took the train for Falmouth on their way to the home of the groom's parents where his sister was married that evening. All others who went from Campbell County via horseback arrived in time for the marriage which was performed by Brother Barbee.
The Aulicks lived with his parents for a time, then bought a farm in the Grants Lick precinct where they raised a family of twelve children, and also reared four of their orphaned grandchildren. On her birthday in 1926, Leila related many interesting incidents of the Civil War and exhibited many relics she had saved. She told of her grandparents coming from Virginia to Kentucky. Her grandfather told his wife if she would ride the stallion which they owned to Kentucky, they would give the animal his freedom which they did upon arriving here. They turned him loose and never heard of him again.
Mrs. Aulick's grandmother was then only nine
years old and she also made
the trip on horseback. The following week two hundred more started to
Kentucky from Virginia and on the way all were slain by Indians except one
woman who escaped injury and fled to the woods to meet her doom. The
following day she noticed a bird flit from tree to tree then back to her and
she decided if she followed the bird it may lead her to something and
in a few hours she arrived at a settlement and her life was saved.
Mrs. Aulick was a fine Christian woman and had read her Bible through
many times. She died at the age of 92.