Early years

I was born in September 1942 and our family lived in the house that President Zachary Taylor’s father built in Louisville. In those years it was a little decrepit but since, it has been beautifully restored. The property was a working farm on 35 acres, and we had every animal you can think of. I was feeding chickens when I was two! We had pigs, horses, chickens, cows and hounds. The Zachary Taylor National Cemetery on Brownsboro Road was my backyard playground. I have two brothers — Dinwiddie who lives in Crestwood and Mason who lives in Georgia.

Dinwiddie Lampton, Jr. was my father and my mother was Nancy Houghland Lampton. My parents met at a field trial hunt in Alabama. Mother was from Franklin, Tenn. Her parents were John Mason and Sarah Houghland. During WWI my grandfather became a solo wildcatter while training for WWI but was never sent overseas. He was captain of the cavalry and then artillery at Fort Riley. Their family moved 50 times as he wildcatted. He built a gas and oil distribution company called Spur Oil Company and they finally settled in Franklin. My grandparents entertained a lot at Franklin and became friends with poets and writers from Sewanee and Vanderbilt. My grandfather read me poetry when I was an adolescent and gave me my first book of poetry, “Collected Poems of the Early Twentieth Century.” He died when I was 16.

The Lamptons were from Springfield. Dinwiddie’s father, Dinwiddie Lampton, Sr., was a Prudential agent. He decided to form his own life insurance company in 1906, even though he was poor. By 1924 the company incorporated as American Life and began in the building on Main Street where we are still located. My father took over the company in the 1930s when my grandfather was in poor health.

My mother was 21 when she had me. She was always gentle, laughing and beautiful in spirit. She was an artist and probably miscast in life. She and I would take care of the animals on the farm and manage the house. We used to milk the cows together and pasteurize the milk. She would say “Pasteurize, what a terrible thing to do to milk!” We did the laundry in the old dark basement, cranking laundry through those rollers. My mother had 300 chickens during WWII. She would sell the eggs while father would drive to and from Ft. Knox where he worked at the Adjunct General’s office.

Some of my first memories was carrying a bucket of feed to chickens and standing on top of a little ladder washing dishes. I remember my parents would strap me to my saddle on Jerry, my Shetland pony, and we would ride down Brownsboro Road to Bauer’s Restaurant where they would bring us hamburgers to eat outside, which is now MESH Restaurant.

We all had chores to do as a family. I took care of horses and exercised them a lot. We all rode horses. My grandfather Houghland in Nashville started the very fine fox hunt called Iroquois and started the Iroquois Steeplechase; both are still vibrant.

One of the first farms we had in Oldham County was on Shrader Lane, Cedar Point, in Oldham County. It was wild, wild, country. We went out there in the summer as a retreat from the city. This was before our farm on Sligo Road.

Oldham County was very rural and wild at that time. The farm was rough with limestone rock and gravel above Harrods Creek. One time we went out on 4th of July to celebrate and up came a terrible, terrible storm. We were going to sleep outside in a pavilion on a concrete pad with cots, roof overhead, but it was pouring rain. Father went to get our bedding and as he swept his hand on my pillow a timber rattler bit him. He took a knife and cut the bite and took the only car we had to find help. Of course, there were no cell phones then or ways to communicate. I was eight, Bub was five and Mason was three. Mother had to go the neighbors and try to find a car for us so we could look for father at a hospital. First, he went to the Anchorage Hospital for anti-venom, then he went to General Hospital, and then he got a taxi to St. Anthony and there were a couple of orderlies, young doctors in training. They were from the Philippines who knew how to treat it snakebite with ice and anti-venom. It wasn’t until the next morning that Mother knew where he was. It was a year before he recovered from gangrene because of the bite.

I had no idea what I was going to do in life. I don’t believe in goals and think you need to let life unfold. I lived on imagination. I never was allowed to play sports because I took care of the horses. We had the hounds to take care of as well and we cooked the hound’s food because there was no dog food to buy. We cooked the hound food using five different meals like oats and bone meal. The dogs would gobble it up! I did that well through my late 30s. Everything was truly hand to mouth, and we really didn’t have much help.

I wasn’t a member of anything except the Bluegrass Pony Club. My mother and father filled out the paperwork to start the club in Oldham County. That is when I met a lot of the local children who joined the club. The club was like a school. We learned about grooming, how to change signals, veterinary care and general horsemanship to our horses. These clubs were originally organized in England and spread to the United States. We even had a big competition at Keeneland with clubs participating from all over.

At this time father wanted to buy more shares in the company so he sold our Taylor home off Brownsboro Road and we moved to Alta Vista. At the same time, he bought the farm next to Billy Reynolds of Reynolds Aluminum off Sligo Road in Oldham County. That area is part of L’Espirit today.

That was the first time I went fox hunting around Sligo Road, Bohannon Lane and Reynolds Lake. I was eight or nine. We kept our fox hounds at the Sligo farm. Father did not register his hunt because he didn’t want that type of oversight. It was an unregulated hunt. I remember sitting out late waiting for the hounds to come back. Grandfather Houghland began his hunt into a very formal registered hunt. Today my brother Mason has one of the biggest hunts in the nation. People come from Europe to participate because they don’t have hunts there anymore. My brother Dinwiddie just started a hunt around Oldham County. They are hunting coyote because there are very few foxes left.

Young adult years

I went to collegiate from kindergarten through graduation from high school. There were 12 in my class and we grew up there, very close to our teachers. They “knew” us and we “knew” them. It was wonderful. I had no idea where I would go to college, but my grandmother Lampton helped me get into Wellesley College in Boston. It is considered one of the sister schools for women. My grandmother arranged an interview with the Poynter sisters at Science Hill in Shelbyville who interviewed me and recommended me for Wellesley College located outside of Boston. I didn’t deserve it. And yet it shaped my life. Every time a company looked at me for a board of directors’ position, they saw Wellesley College.

At first, I cried every day because it was so far away. I majored in English literature. I always felt I was behind there. I could not excel there, because there were too many more talented students than I, but it was a great place. After graduation, I had no idea what I was going to do so I went to the University of Virginia graduate school and majored in English literature. I learned a lot, but I wasn’t focused. I was so frustrated because I didn’t know what I was going to do.

In 1966 after graduating from UVA, my grandfather Lampton offered me a job at the company and I was excited. I learned everything there was to learn about the company. One thing at a time. [Transcript note: Nana later assumed the roles of Chairman and CEO. She now is Chairman of the holding company, Hardscuffle, Inc.]

Immediately I was put on Liberty National Bank’s board of directors and was the only woman on the board except for Josephine in Appalachia because Josephine owned the bank. Thruston Morton, who served on the board with me said, “Ms. Lampton has something to say, you listen!” It was a big group around that table and that was my business education for 30 years. It was wonderful to work with men of moral conviction.

Corporate life and the women becoming world leaders

Other women began to become part of the corporate world at that time. There was an organization formed, the Committee 200 which became an organization to support women as they were beginning to come into their own in the business world. It was started by women such as Cissy Musselman, Catherine Graham, Phyllis George and others who put up $1,000 to help women in business. These were entrepreneurial women from all over the world at that time and the organization is still going strong. It was exciting to be a part of this very energetic group. Our focus was to share experiences and support, mentor and educate women for leadership in the entrepreneurial and corporate world.

I had the first meeting of the Committee 200 in our new building in Louisville because we had an empty floor. It was through the Committee 200 that I was asked to serve on various boards such as Constellation Energy, one of the biggest utilities with five nuclear plants and supplied a lot of the East Coast power. We visited other nuclear plants in other countries. I had to learn a lot, and we went to England and France to visit their nuclear plants. Later the company was sold to Exelon. As I met more people I was asked to serve on the Board of DNP for 20 years. Other opportunities arose for me to serve, which included several local state and national conservation organizations.

Personal life

Millard Cox was my first husband. We married in 1970. After serving in Vietnam as a marine captain, he went to UVA Law School, and we were married for 10 years. My second husband was Ronald Ray who had two silver stars from Marine Corps. I was Ron’s second wife, and he had two girls from a previous marriage. Both men served in Vietnam, and both had PTSD from Vietnam. Ron had PTSD and had to quit his job. He died. I am good friends with his daughters.

I have always believed “artist in the workplace,” so, my poetry, painting, writing and journaling are a part of my life. My mother was an artist, so I started drawing with her as a child. Mother, Susan Davenport and Betty Christy gathered at my mother’s to paint together and I learned a lot about painting from them. Painting, writing, poetry, belong together. The idea of observation, imagination and understanding are an important part of art and the business corporate world.

I started making illustrated journals as a way to record my trips and adventures. Every trip is eye opening. The last two years I have visited Mongolia and traveled on ponies and lived with families who still follow a nomadic way of life.

I always loved poetry and wanted to publish but it wasn’t sharp or good enough, so I decided to get a Master’s in Fine Arts degree from Spalding in 2002. It was a good thing. It gave me four nice books of poems.

The Hardscuffle Steeplechase in Oldham County

My family has always been involved in steeplechasing. The Hardscuffle Steeplechase in Oldham County was created as a way to raise money for the Kentucky Opera. My brother, Mason started it the first year and then I took over managing it for the next 22 years. We had the steeplechase on our property at the end of Rose Island Road. It raised nearly $2 million over its two-decade event. I remember Sissy Nash and Jane Welch putting on a lunch for 3000 people! People dressed up in silks and fancy hats and paid to sit in the grass and watch. Music was everywhere. We had big pavilions. It was a team effort. It was incredible. The horse race was recognized nationally but it got expensive; the volunteer base diminished and the sponsors did too.

Barry Bingham Jr. said he would rather go to the Hardscuffle than the Kentucky Derby. I started a magazine so the ads would help pay for an international race that I had inadvertently put on without support. Father said he wasn’t going to pay for it and I couldn’t find any other sponsors so I started a magazine and went to New York looking for advertisers. The Hardscuffle Steeplechase was popular.

One of the funny things that happened was in 1986 when the Oldham County Police raided the Hardscuffle and seized $5,000 worth of liquor. Oldham County was dry at that time. I never did find out what they did with all that wine and whiskey!

Father was well-known for collecting and driving his horse drawn carriages that he drove at the Hardscuffle. He made a commercial for American Life and Accident Insurance Company using his slogan “Be Wise, Be Insured.” He delivered the line seated on one of his horse-drawn carriages wearing a top hat and greatcoat. He had collected over 300 carriages at the time of his death.

Conserving the land

In the past year our company, American Life and Accident Insurance Company put 2,300 acres of Oldham County land into a conservation trust with the Bluegrass Land Conservancy (BLC).

[Transcript note: This includes Cardinal Ridge (275 acres), Fern Lea (272 acres) that includes two miles of Ohio tributaries at Westport and Tirbracken farm (744 acres) with 5,000 feet of river frontage and 3,000 feet of scenic byway along Highway 42. In addition, 750 acres of the iconic Elmendorf Farm in Fayette County, owned by Hardscuffle, Inc. was put into a conservation easement under the BLC. This land is some of the most scenic land and valuable for wildlife and conservation.]

I believe in conservation as a farmer and my involvement on several conservation organizations. Leaving these properties as permanent undeveloped land is an important part of what I leave behind. Oldham County has been an integral part of my life as a farmer and as part of my family’s history. I don’t think most people understand the interconnections of nature and I wanted these conservation easements to be done before I croak! The interconnectedness of living things, from migratory animals to the soil and grasses that feed living things is profound. Bob Griffith was completely devoted to bringing the easements together — he was the mastermind behind it. This is where imagination comes in. Oldham County’s beauty cannot be replaced! It is a way of keeping the land safe, so I am thrilled to see it happen.

I don’t think you can go wide enough in life. Just keep opening up the fences. Keep widening. It is the artist in us that influences us. I will never be good enough to be first rate, but the exploration is the thing. Imagination is what drives our exploration of what is there. Art is the expression of our experiences. I am so grateful for what I had and have. It was a rocky start for me, finding my way through life, but luck followed. I think I worked my way through it.