In 1903 my grandfather, Joseph Hampton Gregory, was age 42, and after years of toil he finally achieved enough success to purchase a bit of land. He bought a 165 acre Kentucky rock farm and he and his wife, Lina Summers Hamm, together built a beautiful, classic country home for his family. He named the farm Sunnyview. My father was six months old when the family moved to that farm, with his two older sisters, Irene, age 11, and Eva Lee, age 8. My father and his sisters grew up there. Their parents gave each of the girls a nearby farm of their own when they married, and my father inherited the original farm after their parents' deaths. Joseph died in 1924, and Lina in 1926.

     In 1926, my father, now age 23, built a small country general store at Sunnyview, from which he sold packaged goods, soft drinks, prepared soups, and gasoline. The farm and the general store remained in the family for another forty years, and numerous family tales and legends grew up around it.