Had it not been for Prohibition, I would probably have grown up to be a barmaid in my Grandfather’s Preston Street Tavern. And I probably would have gained the title “Preston Street Annie Oakley”. With the closing of the Tavern, our family took up residence above their Grocery Store located next to the Tavern site. No booze. No bar. No gun.
We of the younger Kernen generation were unaware that we were becoming keepers of a legacy when we overheard stories of the farmers who stopped by the Tavern on their way to the downtown Louisville Market.
Or that the Nanny who helped rear the Tavern children after the loss of their mother said, “There’s a gun in every corner and anybody can shoot it!”
Or that Uncle Joe had to light his Aunt Mary’s bedroom still in the morning. My father and his friends drove out Preston Street and knew Joe Ulrich long before Aunt Mary Catherine met him because of that still.
Or that Uncle George had a still out in the woods during Prohibition and because he failed to inform “the Powers that be Downtown” where he had relocated the still, the revenuer was led right to the current location.
We Kernen children had never learned the aftermath of that story in any overheard conversation. That information came to me in a surprising manner when later in life, my friend Ravella talked me into joining with her sister in a visit to an Indiana psychic.
We sat around a table in the woman’s home for a general reading and then the psychic asked to speak to me in private.
“I did not want to speak of this in front of the others.” she confided after Ravella and her sister left the room.
“One of your relatives has been in prison.”
After I protested that none of my family had ever been placed in a jailed situation she continued. “Yes. Someone has. Ask about it.”
A few weeks later, sitting at the kitchen table in her Clarks Lane home, I finally had the courage to ask my Mother, “Has anyone in the family ever been in prison?”
I expected a firm negative reply and was shocked when my Mother stared into her coffee cup for a few calculated moments.
Then, looking up at the ceiling as if to ask forgiveness for revealing the horrific fact, she softly spoke, “Yes. Your Uncle George.”
She then recounted the familiar story that I knew by heart about Uncle George moving the still and neglecting to tell his downtown friends where he placed it.
I do not know how psychics perceive their knowledge, but I know one Indiana woman who knew about Uncle George and the trouble he encountered.