WOODLEAF — Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1960s, Ronald Francis always enjoyed visiting his grandmother’s home in this rural community.

Della Rebecca Lazenbury would bake chicken pies and cakes and cook vegetables from her garden in an old wood stove.

Francis loved the cooking. He didn’t mind using the outhouse and drawing water from a well with a bucket, either.

It was a far cry from the bustle of his hometown up north.

Family ties were what drew Francis, 44, and his family back to Woodleaf for good. He and wife Sandra and their three children moved here from Goldsboro only a year ago. They had lived as far away as California and Louisiana as Francis pursued his career in the Navy.

Francis retired in 1997 after 22 years of service. He came here with his family to be an electronics engineer for the N.C. Highway Patrol.

“This land will always remain in our family, hopefully, because that’s what my mother always wanted,” Francis said. “ ... They always worked hard to maintain their wealth, and that’s all I’m trying to do.”

The Francis family found peace in Woodleaf, but that peace has been broken. The family has been thrust onto the nation’s stage.

Francis’ 19-year-old daughter, Lakeina, died when terrorists bombed the USS Cole in the Middle East two weeks ago.

Like Lakeina, many of her relatives served in the armed forces. Her late grandfather left college to become a corporal in the Army during World War II. A great uncle was a sergeant major in the Army.

“We have a rich family tradition of serving in the military,” Francis said.

The family traces its history in Woodleaf back more than a century, when Francis’ great-grandfather, Albert Lucky, a farmer, was freed from slavery at age 12 after the Civil War. Lucky passed property to each of his seven children and is buried about 3 miles from the Francis home.

A daughter, Della Rebecca Lazenbury, was born in 1886. She lived on the land until her death in 1975.

Francis waved his hand around him to indicate other relatives who still live on the hilly pastures around his home.

“Some of them left,” Francis said. “Some of them are homebodies and some of them are explorers.”

Today Francis keeps a small bean pot on a table in the living room and a flower-adorned pitcher over the kitchen cabinet. Both were used by his slave ancestors, he said. The family has filled scrapbooks with snapshots. Many faces in the photographs are now unidentified, one they fondly refer to as “Uncle Jack.”

“I’m still researching all the time,” Francis said. “It’s hard.”