Guy Lovelace's Garden

I've been working a lot this weekend trying to get the Lovelace family finished and up so I would have two complete family lines live on the Web site. My kids were at my parent's house so it made me think about all the summers I would go to my own grandparent's houses in Haywood County, TN. Every single time I cut open a watermelon, and get a whiff of it, it takes me back to those days. Both sets of grandparents had big gardens and lots of fresh vegetables. Both also had back porches where tomatoes would be lined up on newspapers waiting to ripen. At my Lovelace grandparents house the tomatoes were watched over by rows of left over Aunt Jemima syrup bottles that were always cleaned out, saved and placed in the window sill that ran the length of the back porch.
Cantaloupe was another thing they grew. Then, they would eat slices of it for breakfast, lunch or dinner, sprinkled with pepper. One summer, probably around 1985, I took my video camera with me on a visit to Papaw and Grandmama's house (that's what we called Guy and Virginia Lovelace). When we arrived, Papaw was in the middle of watering some of the watermelon and cantaloupe so I took the opportunity to video him at work. It turned out to be one of my favorite videos ever. Some of his cows make an appearance and, if you look closely, you see the barn that was nearly 50 years old that would burn to the ground a few years later. So it's been an interesting weekend. Spending all this time with the Lovelace family and watching the video, I have topped it off by eating watermelon, cantaloupe and tomatoes this weekend. Although, I did have to buy them at the store.

Bertie County Moves Into the Modern World

Since I first began researching my ancestry a few months ago, I have wanted to visit Bertie County, North Carolina. From what I have been able to figure out so far, between 1834 and 1836 just about every one of my ancestors who ended up in Haywood County, TN left Bertie County, NC via wagon trains, landed someplace and then pretty much stayed in a 30 mile area.
According to John Cowand, who is a fellow member of the Bertie Newsgroup on RootsWeb:

"There were many Bertie families that made the trek to Tennessee in the early 1800's, mostly in the 1830's. Most of the families in Bertie lived between Ross Baptist Church and Capeharts Baptist Church and all were usually kin in one way or another. They mostly went either to Humphreys County, TN or to Haywood County, TN. John Dawson Castellaw was said to be the wagon master and he led numerous wagon trains to Tennessee in the 1830's. It is said that he would lead a group out there, then come back and lead another group. He finally just stayed in Tennessee. His kindred remained in Bertie County, and are there to this day..."

Had the ancestors of mine that made the journey been able to use Mapquest, they would know they were making a journey of 803 miles that, if they could drive 65 mile an hour, would take 12 hours and 15 minutes. Of course, their journey took months and, when they left, they knew they would likely never see their friends and families again. My ancestors who made that journey include; John Dawson Castellaw, John Hardy Cobb, John Bembery “Bem” and Penelope White, Bem’s brother Charlton White, William and Millie Thompson Watridge, Dempsey and Elizabeth Rawls Nowell, George Solomon Williams, Edward Brantley, Thomas “T.A” and Unity Shirley Lovelace, George Forrest, and William and Ann Capehart Steel.
Most of these groups included children, friends, extend family and servants. Most seem to have been plantation owners in the Bertie County area and many had slaves that made the journey with them to Haywood County.
This connection I feel with Bertie County, NC made an article posted in our Bertie newsgroup by Ms. Claudia Harrell Williams very fun to read.

Windsor launches website
By Thadd White | Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald
Published Friday, July 9, 2010
WINDSOR – Bertie County’s historic capital is moving into the modern world.
The town of Windsor has officially launched its own website, helping the historic county seat of Bertie County be accessible to people the world over. The new site is www.windsornc.com and features a variety of information about town government and travel destinations.
During Thursday morning’s regular meeting of the Windsor Board of Commissioners, that governing body had an opportunity to view the new site which was developed by the Windsor-Bertie County Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re really pleased and excited to have a website developed for the town,” Mayor Jimmy Hoggard said.
Commissioner Collins Cooper, who also serves in the role of Executive Director of the Chamber, gave Mayor Hoggard, Town Administrator Allen Castelloe and the board members the highlights of the new site.
“We want you to have the opportunity to see it and then make any suggestions for changes or additions,” Cooper said.
The new site provides visitors with information on the town’s elected officials as well as the staff members who assist the public on a daily basis. There is also a link to the town’s public safety officers, including the Windsor Police Department and Windsor Fire Department.
The site also provides a brief history of the town and a forms library which allows people to print off useful forms and have them filled out before arriving at town hall.
There is also a place to learn more about the town’s ordinances as well as a community calendar.
“We want to add more to the calendar,” Cooper said. “We hope people will pass on community events that we can put on the calendar for everyone to know about.”
Cooper said the Chamber would also be adding a Facebook page for the town of Windsor, which he believed would be useful as well.
“We’ll continually be adding to the website,” Cooper said. “Anything the board wants to see added, all they have to do is let us know.”
Commissioner Joe Alexander said the site “looks good” and complimented Cooper and his staff for their work.
Mayor Hoggard agreed.
“It looks great,” he said. “When people travel now, the first thing they do is Google their destination and check out the information on the town.
“Thank you, Collins, for your hard work on this,” he added. “It’s done really well."

OK, so when I read this article, I could actually see William Holden, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in a courtroom under a giant ceiling fan and everyone wearing seersucker suits and looking all wholesome and happy to be there. Remember the movie Pleasantville with Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. Like that.

Anyway, when they get their Facebook page, I am going to be first in line to be their friend.

Will Williams

Trying to get the research posted correctly while figuring out HTML at the same time is proving to be a challenge, to say the least. Anyway, tonight I have been working on the Will Williams part of my genealogy. He was my paternal grandfather's father. Will experienced a lot of death but I guess back then, most people did. His mother died before he was even one.

Her name was Martha Jane Watridge. Her obituary says, "Martha J. Williams died 22 Dec 1888. Wife of G.D. Williams and daughter of James Watridge and granddaughter of Bro. Deacon W. Watridge. Married George D. Williams 17 Dec 1868. She was born 27 Aug 1852. Leaves husband and 4 Children, one and infant babe."

Will Williams was the "infant babe." Looking at old census records, it appears Will's father, George, married quickly and then his second wife died when Will was around 11. Apparently, young Will went to live with the sister of his late mother for some reason.

Will would marry Janie Williamson who was the granddaughter of a fairly prosperous Methodist minister in Madison County, TN. My grandfather would be born 10 months after they got married but Janie would only live four more years and die shortly after giving birth to his second child, a daughter named Ruth, who also died. According to family history, Will didn't take the loss of his wife and daughter very well at first and, for a short time, ended up with a drinking problem. Janie's family is said to have gone to him and threatened to take Bo away.

Fortunately, he quickly married a woman, Eva, with whom he had another bunch of children and who raised his son, Bo, like he was her own. Will cleaned up his act and was respected by his family and community. At least in pictures, he looks like a jolly old man.

Thinking about them makes me remember a day my wife and I went to "Daddy Bo's" house to visit. Being in his nineties, he was in really bad shape by that time and could not see nor hear very well. His fake eye would often be in the wrong way creating the impression that he was looking at you and into the next room at the same time. My wife began asking him about his childhood which, for some reason, I had never really done. You could tell he was really going back and experiencing things in his mind as he shared them with us. He explained, in great detail, how he remembered his mother even though he was four when she died. After his father met someone else and married her. He told his them he would never call her "mother." And you could tell he was proud of the fact that he had kept that oath more than 80 years later. He added, "I called her Ms. Eva and she was very good to me."

According to Daddy Bo, Will saw Eva, a teacher, riding by in a carriage and told friends he was going to marry her.

Back to the photos, they do seem like a nice couple. In almost every photo they have big smiles on their faces. I particularly like this photo. The paneling, the carpet and the happy little girl make it look like a nice place to take a nap. I wonder whats in those cases?

My dad remembers Will as not being very plugged into what was going on with the grandchildren but my cousin Donna remembers him being funny and having a great sense of humor. Dad says Eva was jolly and always happy and very kind and Donna confirmed Eva also always had sweets for the kids. Although with all the children they had and then all the grandchildren, there was probably not a lot of time to spend with the individual grandchildren. The next time I am in Brownsville I am going to find where their house was and go check it out. I don't even know if it's still standing. I hope so.

Intoducing Haywood County Line

Starting a Web site on which to upload all the genealogy info I have been compiling about my family. I thought a while trying to come up with a name for it and Haywood County Line seemed to make sense. Almost all of my family line goes back for many generations to Haywood County, TN and counties have lines...so see, it's a play on words.
I am hoping this will be a way I can get more info and especially more photos. I really love getting lots of photos of these people. It makes them come to life more so than just their names. Or letters. I love reading their letters. I have the home page up. Next, I'll start uploading the content for each of the families. Hopefully, people will read it and then e-mail me with more info to add or change.