Old Letters From Davis Kin Give Insights to Life in Early Union County

Communication now is so much more advanced from the days of dated letters from 1861 and 1871.

Here is the background of this story. David Davis of Vale, North Carolina read some of my articles in “Through Mountain Mists” and noted especially those about England, Souther, Davis and other names with which he was familiar in his genealogical lineage. He got in touch with me both through e-mail and by telephone. He gave me a delightful account of how he had come into possession of some old documents held by a Mr. Wilburn Davis in McDowell County. The elderly Mr. Wilburn Davis had an old wooden box containing family papers, copies of deeds, tax receipts, some church records and the like. David Davis said of the box and its contents: “It was a treasure trove.” He made copies, and in a package from David, I received copies of two letters from Union County Davis kin addressed to relatives back in McDowell County.

David Davis of Vale, North Carolina, would like to correspond with anyone who is a descendant of the Davis brothers and sisters who settled in Union County as early as 1846 or before. He thinks they just might possibly have stored somewhere in a trunk or box, as the elderly Mr. Wilburn Davis of McDowell County did, letters received from the relatives back home in North Carolina, as these to the family members there were kept for all those years and passed down in a dove-tailed wooden box. He would like to hear from you if you can help him in his search. His address is David Davis, 6401 Bill Ledford Road, Vale, NC 28168, telephone 704-276-1302, e-mail: ddavis3176@att.net.

Now to get on to the connections, and to some of the news in the preserved letters from the nineteenth century.

In the 1850 census of Union County were these settlers who came from Old Burke (Now McDowell) County, NC to settle in Union. Thanks to David Davis of Vale, NC for making me aware of their names. These were listed in the 1850 Union County Census: I list them by household number (the number given by census taker J. J. Logan as he recorded between September 2 and November 16, 1850):

(718) Davis, Meredith age 43, born in North Carolina; (no wife listed; evidently she had died prior to the 1850 census); Children: Anderson, 18; Logan, 16; John, 14; Caroline, 12; Mary, 10; Sarah, 8 (all six of these were born in North Carolina prior to the move to Union County); James, 6; and Thomas, 4, both born in Georgia. A Mary Davis, age 60, born in North Carolina, was listed in Meredith’s household. She, no doubt, was the sister who came with her brothers (and her sister, Sarah Davis Souther who probably was already settled in Union) when they moved from North Carolina to Union County, Georgia.

(714) Davis, Jehial (census-taker’s spelling; it probably should have been Johile—and I have found it in another genealogy listing as John Hoyle, shortened to Johile, born November 1, 1852 in McDowell County, NC, died September 10, 1926). “Jehial” was listed as age 48 by the census-taker, born in North Carolina. In his household were wife Abigail, 34, born in NC, and children Jesse, 15; Sophia, 13: Nancy 11; and Martha, 6, all born in North Carolina; and born in Georgia, Mary, 4; and Hester, 2.

(806) Davis, Salathial, 52, born in North Carolina; his wife, Elizabeth, 45, also born in North Carolina; and children still at home, Reuben, 18, and Martha, 7, both born in North Carolina.

And a sister to Meredith, Mary, Johile and Salathial Davis was Sarah Davis Souther, who, with her family was listed in the 1850 Union County census:

(681) Souther, Joseph, age 48, born in North Carolina; his wife, Sarah, age 50, born in North Carolina; their children, still at home in 1850, were listed as Stephen, 21; Mary, 17; Jesse, 15—all born in North Carolina. And, born in Georgia, were these children: Elizabeth, age 11, Josiah, age 8. And living in the household of Joseph and Sarah Souther in 1850 was Joseph Frady, age 15, whose relationship to the family is not given.

In other genealogical records we find that a daughter of Joseph and Sarah, Lydia Louise Souther, married Richard H. Wimpy on February 14, 1850 in Union County, Georgia, with William Prewitt, minister of the gospel, performing the ceremony.

And now to the letters David Davis found from members of these Davis families in Union County to their relatives back in McDowell County, North Carolina:

One from Marida Davis in Union County, Georgia to her sister Jane England in McDowell County, NC dated November 10, 1871: After the general opening of being in “common good health” and the usual wishes about the recipient’s health, Marida writes this interesting news: “I have not much general news to write, only there is a great prospect of a rail road a-coming to Blairsville and I think that the road will come. The name of the road is North Georgia and North Carolina rail road. Hit (sic) will intersect with the Suite railroad at Calhoun, GA and Walhallie, South Carolina. The people of this community is a subscribing to the road a great deal and I think we will have the road in about two years.” The Marida Davis who wrote the letter, I think, was the Mary Davis listed in the household of Meredith Davis in the 1850 census.

Unfortunately, the railroad Merida Davis wrote so enthusiastically about did not ever come to Blairsville, but instead was routed to Blue Ridge, Culberson, NC and Murphy, NC., probably due to lack of funds to build it over more mountainous terrain to Blairsville. The railroad reached Blue Ridge in 1886.

A letter in which Mary Davis signs her name as Mary (not Merida) Davis to her brother David Davis and family back in North Carolina was dated October 18, 1861 (?, year date a bit obscured). It reflects hard times coming on because of the Civil War. Health was “common” except for “the Rumatis” that plagued the writer. She wrote, “Johiel left this country and moved down in (illegible) County about 100 miles. I ain’t seen him since he left here.” In both these letters is a message of homesickness to see others of the family and to hear from them. Family ties were not severed by distance.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published August 19, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Sixty Fifth Anniversary of Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki

August 6 and August 9, 2010, marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, respectively, earth-shaking events that led to Japan’s surrender and cessation of World War II. These are facts of history, regardless of our perspectives since then on the decisions to drop the bombs. At least to the present, those two nuclear weapons were the only ones, before or since, that have been detonated for war purposes.

Previous to the decision to drop the bombs, President Harry S. Truman of the United States and other allied leaders had met at Potsdam and presented on July 26, 1945 what has been called the Potsdam Ultimatum. Delivered to Japan, it asked for surrender or the allies would attack Japan. Within the document was this warning: “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” No mention was made of atomic bombings. The Japanese government, with Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki as spokesman for Emperor Hirohito announced that the Potsdam Ultimatum was no more binding than the earlier Cairo Declaration. Japanese newspapers on July 28 stated that the declaration had been rejected by Japan.

President Truman, in his position as President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the nation’s military, had seriously considered the situation on his way to the Potsdam Conference. In the end, it was he who made the final decision to use bombs from the atomic arsenal to bring Japan to surrender. His reasoning was that to do so would induce a quick end to the war by such devastation and fear of further destruction as would cause Japan to surrender.

On August 6, 1945 the B-29 plane, named “Enola Gay” piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, left North Field airbase on Tinian in the West Pacific. It took about six hours for the “Enola Gay” and two other B-29 planes in the formation, “The Great Artiste” and “Necessary Evil” to make the flight to Hiroshima. At 8:15 a. m. (Hiroshima time) the “Enola Gay” released the bomb known as “Little Boy.” Captain William S. Parsons released the bomb. Although with an innocent-sounding name, the weapon carried 60 kilograms (130 pounds) of uranium-235, with a blast equal to 13 kilotons of TNT. The “Enola Gay” was 11.5 miles away from the bomb site when shock waves were felt. The bomb had detonated about 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima, directly over the Shima Surgical Clinic, missing the Aioi Bridge target by 800 feet. The devastation was over a 4.7 square-mile area. About 30% of the population of the city met death immediately (estimated at 80,000) and another 70,000 were injured, many dying later.

With such devastation upon Hiroshima, a surrender was expected, but it did not occur, and a second bomb was released, this one on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. It was one of the largest seaports in southern Japan, a city of great importance to the Japanese military. Actually, Kokura was intended as the target, but due to a cloud cover and poor visibility, Major Charles W. Sweeney flew the B-29 Superfortress named “Bockscar” on to Nagasaki, the alternate target. At 11:01 a. m. on August 9, 1945, bombardier Captain Kermit Beahan released the “Fat Man” atomic weapon carrying 6.4 kilograms (14.1 pounds) of plutonium-239. equal to 21 kilotons of TNT.

The Urakami Valley containing the Japanese torpedo works was within the targeted area. Mountains on either side of the valley formed a shield that gave some protection to surrounding areas. Casualties immediately were estimated between 40,000 and 75,000, with wounded who died later bringing the total to 80,000. Survivors of the blasts at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were called “hibakusha,” meaning “explosion-affected people.” It is said many walked around, unattended, “looking like ghosts,” with their skin sagging from searing and atomic burns. Many of the “hibakusha” suffered extensive burns, for the bombs generated temperatures up to 3,900 degrees Celsius or 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Later, many survivors died of complications from cancer and leukemia.

On August 14, 1945 the Japanese Emperor announced to his people that he was surrendering, and officially on August 15, 1945 the declaration was made to the world. Thus ended the long and devastating World War II. Then came the period of military occupation forces in lands that had been the enemy and efforts to bring a World Peace Agreement.

After the surrender, the US Navy ship on which Grover Duffie Jones was a radioman, was ordered to dock in Nagasaki Harbor. The command the crew had was to restore communications to Nagasaki, that devastated spot that had been hit by the second atomic bomb. In recalling that assignment, Jones (who later became my husband) described the land “as though a mighty hand had smashed everything for miles.” That Navy crew was able to fulfill their assignment. But evidently little thought had been given as to the later effects on the health of that crew from atomic radiation and fallout.

Anniversaries like August 6 and August 9, the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are dark parts of history. Sixty-five years later, we are still seriously debating the pros and cons of the action, and always is the dread of some nation breaking atomic bans causing devastation in this and future eras.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published August 12, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Militia Districts in Union County

The state of Georgia is divided into 159 counties. Within each county are further subdivisions called Militia Districts. Union County is divided into fourteen districts, but only five voting districts. Beginning along the northern border at the North Carolina line and proceeding southward, these militia districts are Dooly, Ivy Log, Gum Log, Lower Young Cane, Blairsville, Upper Young Cane, Coosa, Arkaquah, Owltown, Choestoe, Coopers Creek, Canada and Gaddistown. These names are more for location than for political divisions, as changes have occurred over time to warrant a look at how present election districts have evolved.

Even though there were fourteen districts in 1849 listed for the then seventeen-year old county of Union, those districts were changed through the years due to part of Union being taken into Fannin (formed in 1854) and Towns (formed in 1856). The tax lists of 1849 had the fourteen districts in Union named thus: Hiawassee, Choestoe, Ivy Log, Noontootla, Blairsville, Hemptown, Brasstown, Stevenson, Gaddistown, Arkaquah, Young Cane, Gum Log, Cut Cane and Skinah (Skeenah). You can easily recognize from this listing that only eight of these fourteen remain in Union today, with names the same. As changes in geographical divisions occurred through the county’s history, the districts were realigned accordingly.

Historical records show that a fifteenth district was added in 1851, before the counties of Fannin and Towns were measured off from portions of Union. That new district did not receive a name until 1855, when it was named Young’s District. Later, the Young’s District was split into two and received the names Lower Young Cane and Upper Young Cane. An interesting sideline about districts not only in Union but throughout Georgia is that they were sometimes named for a person prominent in the area, or for families who settled there, especially when several by the same name resided within a given geographical area. Examples of this naming in Union are Young Cane (upper and lower), Coopers Creek and Gaddistown, and although I do not find any named Dooly in the county until the 1850 census, this district name, too, might have been from a family or a remembered family name from a previous place residents lived. The Dooly District was officially added to the tax lists of Union in 1857. Other names were adopted from names the Cherokee had given the place before their exodus on the Trail of Tears. Some of these names are Arkaquah, Choestoe and Coosa.

By 1870, Coosa and Coopers Creek had been added to the tax list districts. And then in 1887 Owltown was formed, taking portions of Choestoe, Arkaquah and Coosa to form the legal entity numbered 1409. In order to get the Owltown District, a petition was presented, with some of the leaders being citizens Thomas Fields, Daniel Mathis and others. The parameters of Owltown were surveyed and recommended by a court-appointed team made up of Quiller F. Reece, John M. Rich, and Milford G. Hamby. The act to form Owltown District took effect on April 4, 1887 when Ordinary William Colwell signed the official document.

Stability remained in the district names for about a hundred years. But even during that time, district lines changed somewhat due to petitions of citizens and surveys that led to resetting some of the district lines by small margins. In 1981, Georgia Code, Chapter 34-7 and 34-701, amended, gave impetus to resetting “election districts” to cut costs in holding elections (not one for each of the fourteen districts), but according to locations, with some of the districts realigned and combined for precincts. Brasstown and Blairsville were combined into Election District 1. Others were combined as follows for precincts: District 2 covered Upper and Lower Young Cane and Coosa. District 3 encompassed Choestoe, Arkaquah and Owltown. District 4 contained Dooly, Ivy Log and Gum Log. And “across the mountain” District 5 combined Coopers Creek, Gaddistown and Canada.

Then in 1983, Representative Carlton Colwell introduced a bill in the state legislature to make the Union County School Districts correspond to the voting districts. Members of the Union County School Board—instead of being from the fourteen districts—would be elected from within the five voting districts. And it was so ordered.

Nowadays, the 14 Militia Districts of the County are remembered from past history and for sentimental reasons. However, we still like to hail from whatever district we or our parents might have claimed. Simplification in government alignment sometimes leads to loss of pride in place. But we still look at the old district lines on a map of Union County and remember “how it used to be.” I look at old marriage records of the county and see names of those important district officers, Justice of the Peace (JP) and Notary Public (NP). They served notably in the capacity they had as legal representatives in their districts. These names appeared frequently on legal documents in the first decades of our county’s history: Jesse Reid, JP; Thompson Collins, JP; Hampton Jones, JP; J Duckworth, JIC (Justice of the Inferior Court); T. M. Hughes, JP; James Bird, JP; M. M. Roberts, JP; John B. Chastian, JP; Enes M. Henry, JP; Posey D. Guthrie, JP; and Bennet Smith, NP, to name a few.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 5, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Office of Justice of the Peace and Notary Public Focusing on Robert Lee Nelson, JP

The offices of justice of the peace and notary public were perhaps more important in the earlier days of our county that today. Before convenience in travel made it possible to get into the county seat town and seek legal advice, to have legal transaction done or to have a legal paper documented, these public servants played an important role in the life of a community. One has only to examine recorded marriage lists or other legal records to see how frequently these men (and in the olden days it was nearly always men) performed legal services.

It was interesting to note the duties assigned to a justice of the peace. The officer could perform marriage ceremonies. Sometimes, depending on the jurisdiction, a price for the ceremony beyond which the justice was not to go was suggested, but most of the time the one with justice-of-the peace rights would set his own price. He would require a marriage license, and would then have to turn a signed document into the county jurisdiction so the marriage could be entered in public records.

Other duties of a justice of the peace included the right to witness oaths and signatures. He could also issue subpoenas and warrants to those who had infringed upon the law and needed to appear either in a local justice court or a higher court. The justice of the peace could also make arrests when anyone within his jurisdiction infringed upon the law, caused a fight, or otherwise had conduct that was a danger to public safety or the peace of the community. Arrests for misdemeanors also fell under his power. Local land-line disputes and timber rights settlements were sometimes within the justice’s parameters of practice.

The justice of the peace could sit as judge in small claims court. He could hear evidence from both sides, and if necessary call for witnesses to seek to learn more of the claims presented. He could provide mediation services in disagreements and arguments. Furthermore, he had the right to conduct inquests.

In Georgia, a justice of the peace could also serve as a notary public according to the Constitution of 1868. These officers, in addition to the above-listed duties, were also sometimes assigned to superintend the conditions of public roads in their jurisdiction and report to the county authorities in charge of roads any damages to roadways that would pose a danger to safety in travel, any repairs needed on bridges, or if a ferry operated in his jurisdiction to report on its condition. Other duties included reporting “lunatics” who might be a danger to the public or not watched properly. School conditions also sometimes fell under the inspection of justices of the peace until more stable county school officers were appointed to look after this aspect of the public good.

An interesting article was written by student James Reece for Sketches of Union County History III compiled by Teddy Oliver and published in 1987. In it, some facts were given about a Justice of the Peace named Robert Lee Nelson, who served for over forty years in the Brasstown Militia District.

Robert Lee Nelson married Alice Bridges in 1920. They made their home at Track Rock Gap. There he had a farm and operated a country store. He was first elected a justice of the peace the first year he was married. He was then thirty-eight years of age. He must have had a reputation for good character in that district.

James Reece, in writing about Mr. Nelson, stated: “He presided over his court with the dignity of a mountain jurist.” He was called the “Judge Bean” of Union County, who definitely thought the law was his to enforce.

In fact, Justice Robert Lee Nelson was so conscientious about the cases he tried, probably using his grocery store as the courtroom, that it is said the governors of the state of Georgia during Mr. Nelson’s long term of judging locally sometimes had to intervene and remind Mr. Nelson that he was over-stepping his bounds as a local justice of the peace.

With characteristic mountain out-spokenness, Mr. Nelson sent word back to the governor: “You look out for your side of the mountain, and I’ll look after mine.”

And “look after his side of the mountain” Mr. Robert Lee Nelson did, indeed. That he was serious about “holding court” at Track Rock is evidenced by some of Union County’s famous lawyers appearing in his court to represent the accused who had been brought before this “Judge Bean” of Track Rock. Among the lawyers were the honorable Pat Haralson, Thomas Slaughter Candler, and William E. Candler. Maybe they were getting early law practice in the little court at Track Rock held by the inimitable Justice of the Peace Robert Lee Nelson.

Mr. Robert Lee Nelson (April 15, 1882 – March 29, 1973) and his wife, Alice Bridges Nelson (February 1, 1891-April 22, 1970) were both interred in the Track Rock Baptist Church Cemetery not too far from where he operated his country store and held his justice-of-the-peace court.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 29, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

No article on July 22, 2010

Honoring an Ancestor--Bluford Elisha Dyer, Jr.

The designation “Jr.” was not attached to Bluford Elisha Dyer’s name when he came into Union County, Georgia to settle in the early 1830’s. We who are descendants of his added the “Jr.” to show that his father before him had the same name. To our knowledge, Bluford Elisha Dyer and his wife, together with the children still living at home at the time, were the first Dyer settlers along Cane Creek, Choestoe, in Union County. In the especially-ordered 1834 census, the first of the county, his household was made up of five males and four females. Those, in 1834, to the best knowledge we have, would have been Elisha, Jr. and Elizabeth and sons Elisha, James Marion, Bluford Lumpkin, and grandson Micajah Clark and daughters Lucinda, Malinda and Matilda.

We’ve finally located a place we are fairly certain Bluford Elisha Dyer, Jr. was buried. Thanks to Harold Dyer who explored the land and remembered what his father and grandfather told him, the knoll on which we firmly believe Bluford Elisha Dyer, Jr. was buried has been identified. The land has a long record of being “passed down” through the generations. Harold received it from his father, William Edward. Before him James C. Dyer, Harold’s grandfather, owned it. It came to him from James Marion Dyer, who was one of the sons living at home away back in 1834, when the household of Elisha (Jr.) was listed in Union County.

We’re erecting a monument to mark the “spot near where” the burial took place. We will remember this ancestor and his beginnings in Union County in our annual Dyer-Souther Heritage Association Reunion on July 17, 2010.

The lineage of Choestoe Dyers is a bit hard to trace. But some facts are rather well established. John Dyer (Sr. ca. 1710 – 1773) was first in Virginia, having come from the Somersetshire vicinity of England. There is evidence that he was married twice, first to Elizabeth Bluford (or Bleufort) [ca. 1712-ca. 1750] and second to a Dinah, last name unknown. It is important to note the last name of John Dyer’s first wife, anglicized to Bluford, for this name was passed down in the family through many generations.

John Dyer moved from Caroline County, Virginia to Halifax County Virginia where he died in 1773. His known children were James Dyer, John Dyer, Jr., Joshua Dyer, Nancy Dyer and Elisha Dyer, Sr. (ca. 1745-1816) who married Amey (or Amy) Laws (ca 1748-1812).

Elisha, Sr. was our ancestor. He migrated from Caroline County, Virginia to Wilkes County, North Carolina, next moving to Pendleton District, SC, and then finally to Warren County, Kentucky, where he died in 1816.

We wonder why Elisha Dyer, Sr. moved so much. He and his wife, Amey Laws Dyer, were patriots in the American Revolution. We do not have a record of his serving as a soldier, but this couple is recognized as rendering “material aid” during the war. This may mean that they provided horses or mules for soldiers, provisions of food, clothing and “provender” for animals, or other significant aid to further the effort to win America’s independence. At any rate, they were not Tories (faithful to the British), and they probably were strongly involved in the Over Mountain Men movement that helped to win the battle at King’s Mountain and other significant victories that saw the eventual defeat of British General Cornwallis. Elisha, Sr. and Amey’s moves may have been due to his being rewarded with grants of land for his Revolutionary War service. A more thorough examination of land deeds is needed for authentication of this theory. Or maybe a new location and the spirit of adventure called the Dyers to locate in new and untrammeled areas.

Elisha Dyer, Sr. and Amey Laws Dyer had ten known children, a daughter (name unknown who married a Barber), Josiah who married Sarah Whittingdon, Rosannah who married Benjamin Hubbard, Anna who married William Johnson, Abner who married Nancy Jane Moore, Manoah who married Rebecca Tremble, Caleb who married Rebecca Howard, Elizabeth who married Bollin Clark, Bluford Elisha, Jr. who married Elizabeth Clark and John who married Sophia Young. We will concentrate on Bluford Elisha, Jr., our ancestor, who moved with his father from Wilkes County, NC to Pendleton District, SC. Elisha, Jr.’s next move was to Habersham County, Georgia and on into what became Union County, GA in 1832.

Bluford Elisha Dyer, Jr. was born about 1785 in Wilkes County, NC. After he had moved to Pendleton District, SC with his mother and father and siblings, he met a young lady there whom he married in 1802. Her name was Elizabeth Clark (ca. 1787 - June 1861). She was a daughter of Micajah Clark and wife, Lurinna Johnson Clark. The Micajah Clark name was passed down to generations of Dyer descendants.

To Elisha and Elizabeth were born these children: Mary Elizabeth (called Sallie) Dyer (1803 – ca. 1860) who married Eli Townsend; two or three girls, first names unknown; Lucinda Dyer (1811-1870) [note this name may have been Lurrina, not Lucinda, as Watson B. Dyer listed it in his Dyer Family history book] married William Crow; Joseph Dyer (1814-1874) married Narcissa Crow; Elisha Dyer (1816-1870) married Mary Jane Younce; Micajah Clark Dyer (1817-1889) married Harriet Logan Hall; Elijah Dyer (1819-1870) married Mary “Polly” Kettle; James Marion Dyer (12 Oct. 1823-27 Apr. 1904) married Eliza Ingraham (5 Mar. 1827 – 7 Mar. 1907); Lucinda Dyer (1826-1902) [note possible error—it is not likely they named two daughters Lucinda] married James Monroe Crow; Malinda Dyer (ca. 1827-?) married William B. Harkins; Matilda Dyer (ca. 1830 - ?) married Francis M. Swain; and Bluford Lumpkin Dyer (1832-1907) married Ruthie Turner.

Note that eldest daughter Sallie had a son, also named Micajah Clark Dyer (13 July, 1822 – 26 Jan. 1891) who married Morena Elizabeth Owenby (24 Dec. 1819-25 Sept. 1892). Elisha, Jr. and Elizabeth reared Sallie’s son, their grandson, as their own. He grew up in the household with his uncle, five years younger than he, having the same name. We believe the son was called Micajah (or Cajer) and the grandson Clark. The grandson became the inventor of “The Apparatus for Navigating the Air.”

After living in Habersham County for awhile, Bluford Elisha, Jr. and his family moved across the mountain and took up residence at a homestead along Cane Creek in the Choestoe District of Union County and carved out a good life there, entering into the development of the community. Since they were in Union before the major exodus of Cherokee in 1838, they probably still had Cherokee Indian neighbors and perhaps traded with them and learned secrets of growing maize and other crops along the cleared bottom lands. The first of Elisha, Jr. and Elizabeth’s children to marry in Union County was son Micajah Clark whose wedding to Harriet Logan Hall took place on June 25, 1832. Daughter Lucinda (or Lurinna?) married James Crow when the family still lived in Habersham County.

It is good, finally, to identify a spot where Bluford Elisha Dyer, Jr. was buried. It is believed his wife, Elizabeth, was interred in the Old Choestoe Cemetery, but that gravesite, too, has been lost to the ravages of time, even though it may once have been marked by a field stone. A brief tribute program and dedication of the new stones followed by a tour of the gravesite will occur at the reunion on July 17, 2010.

c2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 15, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Naduhli in the Cherokee Language--Nottely or Notla in English

Naduhli is a Cherokee Indian word meaning “daring horseman.” This name, given to the major river in Union County, Georgia and to the lake formed by damming up the waters of the river, is now called Nottely, also sometimes spelled Notla.

The Nottely River’s headwaters rise high in the mountains of southeastern Union County near the Union-Lumpkin County line. This largest river in Union County begins in the secluded regions of the mountains and makes its way northwestward over falling terrain to form rapids and eddies. It is not a large river at any point on its journey northwestward. It picks up beauty as it flows on its northerly course through the county. Nottely Falls are on the stream near Vogel State Park. At times some of the water gathers in placid pools. More regularly its course has small rapids rather than the type tourists seek for their whitewater rafting. The river’s waters were dammed up in 1941-1942 to form Nottely Lake.

As the overspill flows out from the Nottely Dam, the waters of the river flow some twenty more miles through north Georgia and into North Carolina to become a tributary of the Hiawassee River. Again, the river into which the Nottely flows, and the Tennessee Valley Authority dam and lake called Hiawassee, is a Cherokee derivative from the Cherokee word ayuhwasi meaning savannah or meadow. The Hiawassee River Dam was completed six years before the Nottely Dam. Begun in 1935, the Hiawassee Dam boasts the tallest overspill dam in the world at 307 feet tall and 1,376 feet wide.

Both the Nottley and Hiwassee Dams are part of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s hydroelectric generating power system. They also have as aims floodwater control and recreation. Add to this system Lake Chatuge in Towns County and extending into North Carolina, with 128 miles of shoreline. These lakes make our section of the mountains a much-sought out area for boating, water skiing and other water recreation sports.

Returning to Union County’s Nottely River and Nottely Dam, we note that prior to the project’s launch in 1941, a total of 7,984 acres of land were purchased. Already two private companies, Southern States Power and Union Power owned land but had not developed it into an area for the lake or power production. Tennessee Valley Authority bought those holdings as well as private lands. A total of 91 families had to be relocated from their property, houses moved, or, in some cases, demolished. Roads had to be relocated to go by the properties on which the houses were moved. It was a topsy-turvy time when all the changes occurred.

Construction began on July 17, 1941, with engineering already done to determine the best location for the 184-feet high dam that runs for about 2,300 feet across the Nottely River. In a little over six months, an unprecedented time for such a massive construction project, the opening date for the dam was January 24, 1942, with fanfare, speeches and a celebration. The rush to complete the dam was so that the giant reservoir covering some 4,180 acres could fill during the rainy season of that winter.

World War II brought added demands for hydroelectric power to operate aluminum and other manufacturing sites for the war effort. It was fortunate that the series of dams were available, not only for flood control but for generating electricity. A plethora of jobs were also created by the origination of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933, helping to bring the area out of the Great Depression.

Now as we sit beside the banks of the Nottely River or go north of Blairsville to find the shores of Lake Nottely, we think back to the time when the Cherokee Indian Village of Nadhuli thrived prior to 1838 along the river near what became the Georgia/North Carolina border. White men had been settling on Indian lands prior to 1832 when Union County was formed.

One of my favorite poems of Union poet Byron Herbert Reece is entitled “I Know a Valley Green with Corn” (in A Song of Joy, 1952). In that poem he writes longingly of his being away and wishing to be back in Choestoe where corn grows green along the Nottely River. He could just as well have been writing of the dislocated Cherokee who grew maize in cleared patches alongside the Nadhuli. The first two stanzas read:

I know a valley green with corn
Where Nottely’s waters roil and run
From the deep hills where first at morn
It takes the color of the sun

And bears it burning through the shade
Of birch and willow till its tide
Pours like a pulse, and never stayed,
Dark where the Gulf’s edge reaches wide.

Beloved Nottely in the hills of home. Flow on, sparkling mountain waters!

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 8, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Heritage of Patriotism

Our nation’s birthday is July 4. This year, 2010, marks the 234th year since our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence and continued the struggle to gain freedom from England. Since that time more than two centuries ago, our nation has seen multiple threats to the freedoms we hold dear. We have a heritage of patriotism. We are wrapped in colors of red, white and blue, but the symbolism and the price of these colors is almost beyond imagination. We hear it over and over: “Freedom is never free.”

As we see “Old Glory” wave on the 4th of July and raise our voices in strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” may the colors of red, white and blue bring to remembrance the sacrifices of many for the cost of freedom. Long ago a wise man named Thomas Campbell wrote: “The Patriots’ blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree.”

Several of those who had relatives that later came to Union County to settle engaged the enemy at the Battle of King’s Mountain during the Revolutionary War. This decisive fray occurred on October 7, 1780. The battle was a definite turning point for the American Continental Army. After defeats to the British and Tories (Americans loyal to the British Crown) at the fall of Charleston, the Battle of Waxhaws, and Camden, all occurring in South Carolina in the summer of 1780, the Overmountain Men entered the picture. Mountain militia men made up of settlers west of the mountains in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina rallied a group that marched “over the mountains” (hence the name “Overmountain Men”) to Major Patrick Ferguson’s stronghold at King’s Mountain. Ferguson, a Tory leader, directed by British General Charles, Earl of Cornwallis, had made the threat that they would “lay waste the countryside (of the frontier settlers) with fire and sword.”

The Overmountain Men would not give in to such a threat from Ferguson and Cornwallis. Instead of that prediction coming true, the wiry mountain men made plans to thwart the enemy. The patriots made a U-shaped entrenchment around the mountain where the Tory and British forces were ensconced. About 3 p. m. on October 7, 1780, William Campbell told his mountain men to attack. Other flanks were led by John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, Benjamin Cleveland and other notable patriots under whom our ancestors served nobly.

At the end of the Battle of King’s Mountain, 28 of the Patriots had been killed and 62 wounded. The battle’s toll on the Tory and British side numbered 157 killed, 163 severely wounded and left on the field to die, and 698 captured. The King’s Mountain Battle was a prelude to the final victory at Yorktown a year later on October 17, 1781.

Revolutionary War soldier, John Nicholson, whose grave is in the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Union County, fought at one of the battles before King’s Mountain. He was at the Battle of Camden where General Gates of the British Army was defeated. His second major battle was at Guilford Court House. Later he was with Colonel Sevier, and may have been at King’s Mountain, although his record does not so indicate.

Revolutionary War soldier Michael Tanner, whose grave is in the Old Choestoe Cemetery, Union County, had the signal honor of being at Yorktown when General George Washington engineered the surrender of British General Cornwallis. To have stood among the American allied forces there, composed of 8,000 Continental Army troops, 3,000 militiamen (of which Michael Tanner was one) and augmented by the 15,000 French sailors who blocked Cornwallis’s escape in the harbor, victory after long years of struggle became a reality.

Another ancestor to many of us, John Henry Stonecypher, Jr., whose grave is at the Stonecypher Family Cemetery, Eastanollee, Georgia, was a soldier at the famous battle of King’s Mountain. He also fought at the Battle of Okimish at Beattie’s Ford on the Catawba River, at the Battle of Camden under General Gates, and at Guilford Court House. His three years of Revolutionary War service were fraught with dangers, near-death, and bravery that we can hardly imagine.

We could multiply stories such as these for any war for freedom in which America has engaged since that day of declaring America’s independence in 1776. Today our battles are more subtle and insidious. Just yesterday I read a speech of a Dutch patriot who warned present-day Americans and Europeans of the creeping “take-over” by powerful forces that work in underhanded ways to malign freedom. Edward R. Murrow, that famed American newscaster of the twentieth century stated, “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

The adage often attributed to George Washington, but stated also, in slightly different words by Thomas Paine, John Philpot Curran, Plato and others holds very true: “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”

In this season of our nation’s birthday, I plan to think deeply and gratefully about the freedoms I enjoy as an American. I will not take freedom for granted. My brother, Eugene Dyer, did not take it for granted when he served as a gunner over Europe during World War II and earned the purple heart and other distinguished service awards.

We are often more prone to criticize America than to stand firm for its principles of freedom and harmony. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche made a notable observation when he stated “Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.”

When we salute our flag may we know that the red represents the blood, war, love, power, intensity, energy, passion and strength it has taken to make and keep America free. The blue represents peace, stability, harmony, unity, trust, truth, order, loyalty and security of a strong nation. The white stands for reverence, purity, humility and innocence America had at the birth of our nation 234 years ago. May we recognize, too, that it will take far more than the idea to keep winning and maintaining freedom. Freedom must become a way of life for all of us, responsible, wise and in-depth freedom not couched in selfishness but in harmony and giving, in vigilance and gratitude.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 1, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Profile of Union County in 1850

A profile of Union County’s population and work can be gained from the 1850 census of the county. Total population registered at that time was 6,958, with 1,141 families (or households) enumerated.

This does not account for some of the “hidden” residences that may not have been visited and enumerated by census taker J. J. Logan as he made his trek from house to house from September 2 through November 16, 1850. The fact that it took him a little more than six weeks to make his home visits speaks for the expanse of the county which then consisted of lands taken into Fannin County in 1854 and into Towns County in 1856 when portions of Union were incorporated into the then newly-formed counties.

The total value of properties owned by citizens in 1850 was said to be $485,688. Think of the broad acreage within the county and its stated value then compared to what it is in 2010, a mere 160 years later. It is almost unbelievable how much land has increased in value since those early years of settlement. Recall that Union County was formed from a portion of the expansive Cherokee Lands (or Cherokee County) in 1832.

Slave owners were enumerated by a simple notation in the census of “owns ____ (number) slave(s)”. Slave owners had in their possession numbers of slaves from 1 to the highest, 27. A total of 259 slaves were enumerated for 1850. I will list here the owners of double-digit numbers of slaves: Henry Alston, 27; J. E. Purkins, 18; J. H. Morris, 17; J. R. Wyly, 16; Sidney Harshaw, 13; R. C. Loiter, 12: John Stevenson, 12; T. M. Alston, 11; and E. G. Barclay, (an attorney), 11.

Most who owned slaves had only one, with the single-digit owners ranging from 1 to 8. My great, great grandfather, Thompson Collins, owned 5 to assist him and his sons on the acreage he owned. Already in process in 1850 were measures which would lead to the Emancipation Proclamation declared by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Most of Union County’s citizens, as the census shows, did not own slaves. Through other records we learn that the county was about half pro-Union and half pro-South in political leanings.

The chief occupation of people in Union in 1850 was farming. Other occupations listed were attorney, physician/surgeon, merchant, lawyer, teacher, clerk, waggoner, tailor, grocer, preacher or clergyman (usually with designation Baptist or Methodist following the occupational title), tanner, saddler, brick mason, cooper (barrel maker), carpenter, blacksmith, wagon wright, stone mason, mechanic, shoemaker or cobbler, hatter, cabinet maker, wheel wright, and miller. In examining the various occupations listed, I was surprised to find only one miller listed: George W. Crawford. Knowing that an ancestor of mine established one of the first mills in Choestoe and seeing that he was not listed as “miller” by trade means that he made his living mainly by farming. This was probably true of others throughout the county who ground corn and wheat for the public. Another occupation not listed was miner. Those who discovered gold, mica and other minerals on their property prior to 1850 did not at that time make their living by mining as their chief occupation.

The 1850 U. S. census was the first that listed names for all in the household. Prior to that time, enumeration had given only heads-of-household and the number in the household, with the 1840 census listing number of males and females within given age brackets. Thankfully, with the 1850 census, those who consult listings for genealogical purposes can begin to link children with parents, and follow them in subsequent census records. The 1850 census also gave the state of birth of those listed so that searchers can return to other state records to find origins of their ancestors.

Education was not a priority in Union County in 1850. Ten persons listed their main occupation as teaching—quite a small number for a population of 6,958 with most of the 1,141 families having several children to educate. The number of people over 20 who could not read nor write was numbered at 1,215, which was about 1/6 of adults. Schools were few and far between, with either “house” schools or short-term sessions of school held in a combination one-room building where both school and church met. Those listed as attending school within the year numbered 1,103. If all ten teachers in 1850 were engaged in teaching, their average classroom size could have been 110. This is not likely, for those in a community having school privileges would have had a sort of “rotating” student body, with those pupils not needed in the most ardent months of farming attending school. It is also possible that those with “farming” as their main occupation could also have been short-term teachers. I know this was true with one of my ancestors, John Souther, who could “read and write and cipher,” and who taught others near him, including his own family, the basic rudiments of learning.

Another item of interest learned from the 1850 census is the number of surnames still present within families in the county 160 years later. Many, many current residents can trace their ancestry back to early settlers. This continuation of families within the same geographic area declares a love for the land and satisfaction with the way of life—even with all of its subsequent changes—within the parameters of the “mountains of home.”

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 24, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Through Hardship Came Courage: The Harrison and Nina Mays Collins Family

How our ancestors coped with hard situations they faced in life was told by Vera Lorraine Collins Goodwin in her family story submitted for The Heritage of Union County, 1832-1994. After reading what Vera wrote, I thought how facing hardships really bore out the truth of how courageous our ancestors were as they “made do” with what they had and still lived a victorious life amidst difficult times.

Vera Lorraine Collins was born July 15, 1917. Her parents were James Harrison Collins (4/30/1889 – 12/17/1928) and Nina Mays Collins (2/26/1899 – 3/10/1990). Her parents were married November 30, 1914. Vera had one sibling, an older brother George Blaine Collins (10/28/1915 – 12/28/1975).

Like many of us whose ancestors were early settlers in Union County, Vera traced her lineage back to Thompson Collins (ca. 1785 – ca. 1858) and Celia Self Collins (ca. 1787 – 09/03/1880). These were her 4th great grandparents. Firstborn of Thompson and Celia, Archibald Collins (ca.1811- ?) who married Mary “Polly” Nix (ca. 1818 - ?) were her great, great, great grandparents. Their son, James N., called “Jim Jesse” Collins (1842 - ?) who married Mary Ann Duckworth, were her great, great grandparents. Next in her lineage came their son, William “Bill Posey” Collins who married Margaret Dyer on September 12, 1886 in Union County, her grandparents, parents of her father, James Harrison Collins. Tracing all these roots and their branches can take volumes, and that is not the purpose of this article. We want to look at how the Harrison and Nina Mays Collins family lived courageously through some hard times, typical of many who lived and worked on the small farms of Union County in the early years of the twentieth century before modern conveniences were known and utilized.

In 1923 when Vera Lorraine was six years old, her parents moved to what she called the “Vess Collins Place” at Track Rock (a farm that had belonged to Vester Eugene Collins, who may have “gone west” prior to the Harrison Collins family moving to that farm). Vera recalls that she went to Track Rock School (probably held in the Track Rock Baptist Church building). Her teacher was John Turner. Not too long after the family moved to Track Rock, Vera received a bad cat scratch on her hand. The hand became severely infected and was swollen and very painful. Her parents had no means of transportation to get to the nearest doctor, so a neighbor, Mr. Coker, took Vera and her mother to Young Harris for treatment. Vera remembers that the doctor met them on the steps of his office on the campus of Young Harris College. He took a look at the infected hand, and without benefit of any sort of anesthesia, he lanced the young girl’s hand right there on the steps of his office. We can almost wince at the thought of the pain to this young child. But having the infection released must have eased the pain, for she remembers sleeping all the way back to Track Rock as the mule-drawn wagon rocked along the dirt road toward her home. The hand miraculously healed and she was left with no permanent impairment to it.

Syrup-making was one of the fall activities at Track Rock, and in much of Union County. It was also one of the money crops of mountain farmers. Vera remembers her Uncle Thomas Mays driving a Kissel automobile up from Atlanta to bring her Grandmother Mays to visit them while they lived at Track Rock. He purchased several gallon pails of sorghum syrup to take back to Atlanta with him. Once they were stopped by authorities on the way back across the mountain to Atlanta. The federals were probably searching for contraband moonshine, and seeing that the Kissel was somewhat overloaded in the trunk area, they stopped it. Thomas Mays, however, would not allow “the law” to open his buckets of sorghum until they first got a search warrant to do so. Imagine their disappointment when they found, not moonshine whiskey, but sweet sorghum syrup in the aluminum pails.

From their Track Rock home, the Harrison Collins family next moved to what had been the home of Vera’s great uncle, brother to her grandmother Margaret Dyer Collins. This was the farm home of Narve Dyer who had temporarily gone to Dalton to work at the carpet mills during the Great Depression. At this Choestoe home, Vera Lorraine Collins remembers happily that she attended New Liberty School when Miss Goldie Collins was the teacher, and then Choestoe School where Mrs. Helen Cordelia Collins Twiggs was her teacher.

Vera’s father, Harrison Collins, loved music and was a music teacher by the “shaped note” method. He often used his talent to teach singing schools in some of the churches throughout the area. Then her father became ill. They moved first to Suit, NC to be near Harrison’s brother, Ervin Collins. There her father farmed as long as he was able, but his cancer and Bright’s disease became worse. Neighbors and relatives made up enough money to send Harrison and Nina Mays Collins by train from Ranger, NC to Atlanta for medical treatment. Nina got work at Martel Mills there to help earn a living, for Harrison was no longer able to work. Vera’s Uncle Ervin Collins moved the Harrison Collins’s household goods, and his nephew and niece, Blaine and Vera, by wagon all the way from Ranger to Atlanta, a trip that took several long days. Vera remembers stopping at Choestoe to spend the night with her great aunt Mintie Dyer Souther (and Uncle Jeptha). As they went on, they camped out along the way, and sometimes spent the nights with kind relatives or friendly people in route. The mules pulled the wagon, amidst downtown traffic—much less then, of course—through Five Points in Atlanta to her Grandmother Mays’ boarding house on Bradley Avenue. Then they went on to the mill village house where her parents lived at Hapeville. Her father was so sick, that, while her mother worked, she and Blaine took turns staying with him during the daytime, one going to school one day and the other the next. Her father died there just eight days before Christmas (12/17/1928).

Vera Lorraine Collins married Rev. James Goodwin and they had three children: James Thomas Goodwin, Billy Ray Goodwin, and Nina Lorraine Goodwin. Rev. Goodwin died March 8, 1985 after over fifty years of marriage to Vera Lorraine.

Through the hardships Vera’s parents, Harrison and Nina Mays Collins faced, Vera herself learned much about courage and fortitude and taking the bad with the good in life. “We shall overcome,” was more than a motto; it was a way of life.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 17, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On Cemeteries and Burial Customs: Remembering Uncle Dallas Collins’s Death, 1938

New Liberty Baptist Church sits in the 16th District and is located where land lots 161, 162, 149 and 150 converge. From the will of John Souther (1803-1889) signed and declared January 24, 1889 and recorded in County Ordinary E. W. Butt’s records on May 6, 1889, is this notation: “It is my will that this be deeded to the Church, of No. 161 (land lot), one acre of land where the Church House now sits—with privilege of wood to lands belonging to the estate to have and to hold the same to her own benefit and behoof.” And so from great, great grandfather John Souther, the property for the church and cemetery began in that long ago time. At our Dyer-Souther Reunion on July 17, 2010, we will have a service of commemoration for this donated property and the monument placed by a descendant of his, Georgia Souther Citrin, which indicates that the gift was made by him in 1889.

Going back to records of the Choestoe Baptist Church of February 18, 1843 and April 15, 1843, in minutes of church conference hand-written by John Souther, church clerk, we discover that Choestoe was instrumental in helping “the church at Brass Town” (which we believe to be the church later called New Liberty) in the process of organizing, and receiving three members. Whether these transferred from Choestoe Church was not made clear in the minutes. But from its beginning the New Liberty Church was supported, both by gift of land and membership from John Souther and members of his family. As several of them who remained in Choestoe died, their resting places were in the cemetery at New Liberty. John was buried there following his death on February 2, 1889 and his wife, Mary Polly Combs Souther following her death on May 1, 1894, as well as several of their children, and members of subsequent generations.

As I view graves in the old section of New Liberty Cemetery, containing the remains of my ancestors, I began to think about burial customs that were common to our people in this mountain region long before professional funeral homes, crematories and the rites and ceremonies currently associated with death and dying were practiced

Because embalming had not been introduced here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the body of the deceased had to be quickly readied for burial and the funeral was usually the next day (or sometimes the same day) after death occurred.

My first recollection of participation in community burial rites was at the death of my great Uncle William Dallas Collins (03/05/1846-07/18/1938) who married a daughter of John and Mary Souther, Sarah Rosannah Souther (06/13/1846-02/01/1929). My father, J. Marion Dyer, was very handy with tools. He often led in designing and making the casket for deceased persons in our community. With help from neighbors, my father soon had a presentable coffin made to receive the body of Great Uncle Dallas who had been a solid citizen, beloved farmer, church leader and justice of the peace in his community. Uncle Dallas had lived right in the shadow of New Liberty Baptist Church, in which cemetery his body would be laid.

Tolling the death on the church steeple bell was also a practice when a death occurred. It was customary to toll the bell the number of years the deceased had lived. The announcement via the bell went throughout the valley, and whether people counted the 92 tolls or not before losing count, at least they would know that “Uncle Dallas” (as he was respectfully called by many) had died because they knew of his serious illness. The bell message was a sign to stop work in the fields and prepare a grave for the burial and make other funeral arrangements.

While the men worked to fashion the casket, line it with cotton, and place over the padding a brocaded white cloth which had been purchased in advance and saved for the purpose, the body was being readied for the wake. First came the bathing and dressing in the very best clothes the deceased had available. For Uncle Dallas, it was his Sunday suit, made of homemade woven wool cloth from his own sheep, and a white shirt, also homemade.

To dress a woman for wake, the process might have been a bit more complicated. Some of the women, anticipating death, would have made in advance a “burying dress,” and saved it ready for the occasion. But for others, the neighbor women would bring together appropriate cloth they might have and make a shroud for dressing the deceased’s body. Haste always seemed to be necessary in preparing the body before rigor mortis set in. Coins were placed temporarily over the deceased’s eyes to insure their closing.

When the casket was finished, the body, which had been laid out on boards across the bed frame, was transferred to the casket and placed in state. The all-night wake began. Women prepared (or brought from their own homes) food for the occasion. In these all-night vigils, people talked of the life and work of the dearly departed. It was all a closely-knit process of dealing with grief and loss.

Then came the funeral service itself. I remember Uncle Dallas’s was held in his home. Sometimes the body was taken to the church for the funeral. Men in the community had already dug the grave. In case a pastor was not available, for very few of them in those days lived in the community but were itinerant, then someone with the ability to read and speak well would give the Scripture and eulogy and offer the prayer. If singing were in order, gospel songs that told of resurrection, hope and heaven were sung by those whose voices could harmonize. One of the favorite hymns in my community was “O Come, Angel Band.”

The short trip from Uncle Dallas’s house to New Liberty Cemetery was made with his casket loaded on the farm wagon drawn by his two faithful mules. We marched in procession behind his casket and, upon arriving at the cemetery, saw the lowering into the grave by means of ropes the men had stretched across the open grave on a sort of scaffold. Homemade bouquets of flowers or those made from crepe paper were placed on the closed grave. Death, the great leveler, had come into yet another household in our Choestoe Community. How many times would I see this repeated before I would move on to other places, and see more modern means of care for the dead and burial.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her “On Death and Dying” wrote: “Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.” But somehow, Great Uncle Dallas, and others who passed like a falling star, did not move on into endless night. We remember, even until now, their lives and example, their values and principles, their faith and hope. He and they loved us and gave us an anchor, sure and steadfast. And that has made all the difference in who we are.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 10, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Tribute to Elizabeth Reed Berry, Teacher and Friend

Delightful task! To rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.”
-James Thomson (1700-1748 – from “The Seasons—Spring”

The Union County High School Class of 1947
Senior Trip to Washington, DC, May 25-30, 1947
Seated: L. to R.: Mr. J. H. Cooley, Principal; Just graduated seniors: Max Rogers, Glenn Franklin, Max Stephens, Bill Abernathy, Price Turner, Charles Souther, Charles Jenkins, Jewel Payne, Robert Dyer, Dennis Wilson, and Mr. N. V. Camp, Science Teacher.

Standing, L. to R.: Just graduated seniors Mary Lou Hunter, Lois Melton, Joyce Crump, Loujine Young, Helen Brooks, Ethelene Dyer; Homeroom and English Teacher Mrs. Elizabeth Berry; County School Worker Mrs. Doris Caldwell, Visiting Teacher (Truant Officer), and Mrs. Star Bedenbaugh, Home Economics Teacher; and Just Graduated Seniors Madge Nicholson, Maggie Lee Sullivan, Charlene Wimpey and Verna Ree Cook.

It was the fall of 1946 when Mrs. Elizabeth Reed Berry came as a new teacher to Union County High School. I was a senior and she was assigned to be homeroom advisor for my Class of 1947. She had graduated three years before from Bessie Tift College at Forsyth, Georgia and had been born and reared in far-away (to us) Augusta, Georgia, the daughter of Robert Henry Reed and Mary Chambers Reed.

She had been employed her first two years of teaching in Murphy, North Carolina at a school there. When she married Union County native John Berry in 1946, she looked for a job in our county and was employed straight away by the Board of Education and our Principal, Mr. James H. Cooley. Maybe she volunteered to be senior class sponsor, or perhaps she was assigned that task. Whichever, we were soon in contact with a vivacious, pleasant, happy young teacher who was just enough older than her students to let us know she meant business in classroom discipline. But her kind ways and aptness to teach soon endeared us to her. Soon students and teacher had struck up a rapport that would last years beyond our graduation time of May 1947.

In this tribute I will pay respect to Mrs. Berry as teacher, first and foremost, and as a dear friend of lifetime proportions. I shall never forget her influence upon my life. My heart was saddened as I heard of her death on Sunday, May 30, 2010 at age 87. Her last years, beset with illness, were filled with much tender loving care from her son W. R. Berry and her daughter Annette Berry Crawford. But until her illness of long duration, she was exemplary in keeping in touch with “her students” of the Class of 1947, inquiring how we were faring in our own work and living out our lives. She was still our teacher, as James Thomson so aptly stated, “rearing our thoughts and encouraging our ideas to shoot” (albeit by our own advancing years these thoughts could no longer be called young and tender).

When Elizabeth Berry married my long-time neighbor on the edge of Choestoe and Owltown, John Berry, I was a bereft young girl who had lost my mother one year prior to her coming to our community to live. We attended the same church, Choestoe Baptist, and even before she became my senior year teacher, we had become Christian friends. She encouraged me greatly, and we started a little “Sunday evening dinner celebration.” This involved coming to my house one Sunday for a meal (which I had to cook, even at the young tender age I was, because I became the chef and housekeeper at our farm home following Mother’s death). The other two in the three-some Sunday evening meal-sharings were Mrs. Berry, as she and John hosted us, and my double-first-cousin Marie Collins whose mother (my aunt) Northa Dyer Collins, would prepare a wonderful meal with Marie’s help. How I had the courage to lay a table and cook for this group and our friends prior to Sunday Night “Training Union” (as it was called then), I’ll never know. But Mrs. Berry would always compliment me on my meals, my clean house, and my willingness to participate in the fellowship meal. From that experience I learned much about how to entertain guests and gain confidence in opening my home to visitors.

At school I remember much that Mrs. Berry led us to do. She sponsored our “senior play,” the drama we rehearsed to perform and for which we sold tickets to raise money. We had a junior-senior prom, and Mrs. Berry was instrumental in planning and implementing a wonderful event. We had a banquet to which we invited our poet, Byron Herbert Reece. It was my duty to introduce him. Mrs. Berry aptly helped me with the introductory speech. And then when graduation came, I was thrilled to be named valedictorian of my class. Mrs. Berry, desiring that I should give a good speech on graduation night, was my main constructive critic and coach in preparing the address.

We had the rare privilege of taking an educational trip to our nation’s capitol following graduation. About half of my classmates, twenty of us, went on the trip. It seems antiquated now, but instead of a comfortable rented coach, we rode the whole trip from Blairsville to Washington D. C. on a school bus. Accompanying us were Mr. J. H. Cooley, our principal; Mr. N. V. Camp, our science teacher; and lady teachers Mrs. Elizabeth Berry and Miss Star Bedenbaugh, and county visiting teacher Mrs. Doris Collins Caldwell. It was a trip of a lifetime, and we country students who had hardly been any farther afield than Blairsville, Murphy, N. C. or Gainesville, at the most, were led by our teachers on that trip to learn how to meet our legislators and senators and how to get the most from our tours of the Capitol, the White House, the Smithsonian, Arlington Cemetery, the Treasury Department, the Library of Congress and the stately monuments of our nation’s capitol, as well as George Washington’s home at Mt. Vernon. Up to that point in my life, it was the trip of my life. I have been forever grateful for Mrs. Berry and the others who went the extra mile to “rear our tender thoughts and teach our young ideas how to shoot.”

Mrs. Berry had a great influence upon my choosing teaching as my own career. Several years after she left Union County High School, she got certification in school library media services, and she and I attended many professional meetings and enjoyed again the fellowship of being together with mutual interests. When my Class of 1947 began having Class Reunions in 1984 and rejuvenated our love for each other and our teachers, Mrs. Berry was a regular and welcome attendee.

As when we were her students in 1946-1947, she was always interested in what we were doing to make a difference in life. She encouraged us as we made an historical quilt of the history of education in Union County, as we erected a message board at the entrance to the school grounds, and especially as we set up and financed the Class of 1947 Scholarship Fund that assists a graduating senior from Union County High with college costs each year.

To the family of our teacher and friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Berry, our deepest condolences. Know that she had a powerful impact and a lasting influence upon our lives.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 3, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.