The Edmond Jones Family
On the northeast edge of Haynes Cemetery resides a rock-bordered family plot. Contained within are the headstones of Edmond Jones, his wife Louisa Durinda Flanagan, their son John T., his wife Martha, and their children Ludie, Wallace, and Sam. Also, there is the grave of Edmond’s brother Allen. The Jones family came to Maury County in 1828 and settled on 445 acres just around the corner from Haynes on what is now the Smyrna Church...
The Boy Who Loved School
Up on Silver Creek, the blackberry bushes grew taller on the east side of the hill. The dew came off them sooner and the berries enjoyed the sunlight for a longer time. The remains of an old orchard, planted by the first white settlers, shielded the fruit from the bluebirds. “My mother would help my sister Kathryn and I pick a vessel full of berries, then she would start home to start a batch of jelly on the wood stove.”...
Quick Remembrances from Fountain Creek
Yesterday I was driving my 95 year-old daddy Brother Jack White to Sonny Willis’s kennel in Lewisburg. Sonny has a training ground on his place and I was taking my dad for the sole purpose of showing off my German Shorthaired Pointer, Zula the Dog. It was an hour round trip so I had plenty of opportunity to hear my dad’s old stories about Maury County in the 20s and 30s. Most all of them I’d heard before about 127...
Miss Hattie
In 1958, when my grandmother Hattie Mitchell White became a widow, she “broke up housekeeping” and moved to Lewisburg to live with her daughter Kathryn and son-in-law Edwin Scott. In fact, Edwin built accommodations, a bedroom and bathroom, on the back of his house for her. “Granny” cooked all the meals and did all the laundry for the household. She paid her way and was proud of it. She read the Bible every day and worked on crochet,...
Decoration Day
Decoration Day at my family cemetery, Haynes, has taken place on Mother’s Day weekend for as long as anyone can remember – which includes the recollection of my 94 year-old dad. As a boy, he chopped brush and pushed a reel mower to prepare the grounds. Haynes is located in the Scribner Mill community of Maury County, Tennessee. My dad grew up on a farm across from Haynes which, by the 1930s, was a resting place for several of his kin...
Neighbors and Kin
Lauriston “Laurice” Mayberry was an old man who lived on Silver Creek and rode a little black Walking Horse to Galbreath’s Store. He was the grandson of Revolutionary War soldier Henry Mayberry who came to Tennessee from Virginia in the late 1790s. Both Laurice and his son Hardin took a great liking to my dad’s cousin and best friend Douglas White. In 1934, Doug was a goodlooking cotton-headed boy of 11, with a...