Kenneth Aaron Drummond

The family will be receiving friends on Saturday, May 10, 2025, from 12:30 until 2 p.m., at Kilgore-Green Funeral Home. Service will follow at 2 p.m., in the Kilgore-Green Chapel. The burial will be on Monday, May 12, 2025. Bro. David Miller will officiate.

He was born in a company mining town near Sipsey on July 15th, 1937, to Albert L. and Ida Mae (Aaron) Drummond.

While still a young boy his father was injured in a rock fall in the mines, and he took the disability payment from the company and bought 40 acres in Boldo where the family lived and farmed. His father recuperated and returned to the mines and his mother worked the “Graveyard” shift at the Indian Head textile Mill in Cordova.

All the family worked on the farm and in the garden, but Ken loved it particularly in raising 4H Show Calves. As he grew, he took on more of the daily responsibilities handling the row crops of cotton and corn spending many hours “walking behind a mule”. His father let him call a portion of the land his own and Ken used proceeds from these crops for spending money and to purchase his school clothes.

Ken loved sports and played baseball and basketball at Boldo and football at Walker High. He had a talent for recitation and in later years proudly entertained his grandchildren by reciting Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Raven”, and happily telling how surprised his teacher was with his abilities.

Upon graduation from Walker High in 1956 Ken joined the navy and spent the next 4 years, as he would say “on my rich Uncle’s Yacht” as a “Jet aircraft mechanic” on tours all over the Pacific on the USS Shangri-la and the USS Yorktown.

After his “hitch” Ken returned to Alabama. He visited the Saragossa Missionary Baptist Church where is brother JW was the minister. JW’s wife, Mildred introduced Ken to Wanda Bennett, and it was love at first sight. 6 months later, on Christmas Day they were married.

Ken began his 38-year career as a coal miner and they welcomed their first child, Kenda one year and one day after the wedding. Ken and his father-in-law Blanton Bennett were great friends and shared a love for raising beef cattle, starting the first Registered Brangus herd in Alabama, Dry Creek Farm. The young family soon built a new home in Saragossa and added Cindy and Jess to the family. He happily immersed himself in his new home, family and church in Saragossa.

Ken worked on the farm in the mornings and then headed out to work “the Evening Shift” at the mines.

He Served in many capacities at the Saragossa Missionary Baptist Church, including as a deacon for over 50 years, teaching Sunday School, and often leading the singing before worship. He is remembered fondly for driving his tractor and wagon to carry the youth on hayrides. He was a devoted Christian, studied the scriptures and lived their truths. He was a great example of Christian discipleship for his family and all that knew him

.

Ken was a kind man, always more likely to laugh and smile than scold or frown and loved to tell stories. Stories about growing up in Boldo with his brothers and sisters, numerous cousins, and neighbors. It was a simple life where faith and love were abundant. He enjoyed talking about his time in the Navy, “down in the mines,” and his hopes for the prospects of the coming calf crop where he knew the name and bloodlines for all his cattle

He was quick with a lighthearted joke: “you are looking melancholy. You have a head like a melon and a face of a collie” and did a masterful job of imitating a mule’s bray, a train whistle, and the sound a of well-worn car tire spinning in the mud. Those never got old.

He loved his family and as it grew with grandchildren and great grandchildren that brought him immense joy.

Ken was preceded in death by his parents, 5 brothers AJ, JW, Billy Ray, Jerry, and Jerome and three sisters Chlothiel, Genell and Wanda and his daughter Cindy.

He is survived by his wife of 64 Years, Wanda, daughter Kenda Nicholson (Warren), son, Jess and grandchildren Aaron Nicholson (Holly),Mary Parker Frank (Harris), Nathan Nicholson (Rachel) Dr. Bradford Lepik (Amelia), Ethan Nicholson (Katie), Anna Claire Fuell (Michael), Macy Nobles, Maggie Nobles, Elizabeth Leary Drummond and Meriwether Bennett Drummond and 9 great grandchildren Reese, Rhodes, Reagan, Ellis, Sandson, Rush, Gracelyn, Lowery and Callie.