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Note: I was born Lucy Lenore King in Griffin, Georgia, on Poplar Street, April First 1875 (so I am told). My parents were John Charles King and Sarah Elizabeth (Jones) King and Sarah Elizabeth (Jones) King. They were married Dec 18th, 1862 in Milledgeville, GA. It was not exactly a run away match but they went with Mother's uncle, Aquilla Mathews and his bride on their wedding trip.
From this union were born eleven children, as follows: Jennie Estelle, Emmett Carlton, John Clayton, Howard Drake, Mary Loraine, Lucy Lenore, Nathaniel Gordon Lillian Kate Camp?, JC (now John C) Florence Augusta, and a boy who lived 5 months and was never named. Father and Mother and the four boys who died in infancy are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Griffin, GA. My grandparents, Nathaniel King and Lucy Clayton King are also buried in this family lot.
I spent my childhood in Griffin, As there were no Public Schools, I attended "Miss Porter's High School" so named taught by Miss Mollie Porter, a maiden lady whose school, embraced classes from Primary to High School.
We used slates, studied Blue Book Speller and McGuffey's Readers. Miss Porter married and the school was disbanded. We then went to what was called Griffin Female College taught by some Northern women. The school, proper, was in an old Southern home, with a small house in the yard, which was the home of the younger children.
Finally Public Schools came to Griffin and we attended them. I finished fifth and sixth graders.
Then Father decided to move to Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Several Griffin families had moved there and induced him to move there. I was thirteen the day we arrived in Ft. Smith 1888. It was almost a caravan. Father had preceded us so Mother, Brother, a young man John Childs, Lorraine, Lenore, Lillian, J.C. and Florence and a jar of goldfish and lunch sufficient for the trip accompanied us. As the train stopped at Ft. Smith, someone dropped the goldfish bowl and that was the end of them. We only lived in Ft. Smith two years. While there I attended Bell pointe and Belle Grove Schools which were good. I finished the 7th and 8th grades there.
In 1890 Father decided to move to Joplin, MO, why I never knew. Having been told the schools were not good, I took a course in shorthand and typewriting.
After finishing this and a Baptist College having been started in Webb City, six miles from Joplin, I was offtered tuitiion to help in a primary dept and teach shorthand and studied also. Part of the time, I went back and forth on the streetcar and the latter part I lived at the college. The school had a splended faculty and I studied the usual college subjects--science, Algebra, Latin, etc. I graduated in 1899 and returned to Joplin and soon thereafter began work with O.D. Royal who had a title and abstract business. I was secretary and learned the title business and made abstracts of titles. My salary finally reached $75 a month which was the highest salary paid any woman in Joplin. I worked from 8 to 6 with an hour at noon. I worked in this position for 7 years until my marriage in 1906.
During these years I was active in BYPU and Sunday School teaching boys for a time, and then young men.
Mother died in Joplin April 21st 1906 and I brought her body back to Griffin which was a long, tiresome trip and I missed several connections. Mother's funeral was held in Grandmother's home and she was buried in Griffin. After a few days I started my trip home.
Prior to Mother's death, Father had come to Joplin as assoc. pastor to J.J. Porter at the First Bapt. Church. Dr. Porter spent most of his time in evangelic work so your father was really pastor. After some months, a romance developed but we kept our relationship secret as I never went to church with him and I went home with Mother and he came afterwards, so our marriage announcement was quite a surprise.
We were married in the First Bapt Church at 3 o'clock in the afternoon (Oct 17, 1906). I wore an embroidered dress (white) which Lillian gave me. Florence and Clemett Steele were the attendants. Sister (Estelle) came and prepared dinner for us. After dinner, we left for Pittsburg, KS where we spent the night, in order to catch a through train to Texas, our first home. We ate breakfast in KS, dinner in OK, and supper in TX.
Van Alstyne, TX, a small town 50 miles from Dallas was our first pastorate. We had a pastorium and I forget salary, possibly $1200. It was in a farming community and things were cheap, jersey butter, 25 cent a lb, and eggs, 10 cent a dozen the year around and much food was given, like most small towns and there were no street lights so people brought lanterns which was source of amusement to me. We remained there only two years and your father was called to Greenville, Miss, nice little city in the Delta on the Mississippi River. While in Van Alstyne, my father died, Nov. 7, 1906--just six months after Mother's death. He died at Baptist Hospital in St. Louis and his body was brought to Griffin and buried beside her whom he loved so dearly.
We went to Greenville in 1908. It was an aristocratic town located on the banks of the Mississippi. We had an old, but comfortable pastorium just a few blocks from the river. We often went down to the river to watch men bolster? the levies. Before we went, the river would rise and people were taken out of second story windows. The church was a comparitively new, splendid brick structure. I think of nothing of importance that happened while we were there. Of course I taught in Sunday School, first boys and then young men. Your father held a number of meetings in various places and I always went with him. We made some good friends, but have had no contact with them for years.
While there your father was asked by home mission to go to canal zone to assist the man in charge whom we found needed no help and was lazy. After two years your father decided to accept the request of the home board and go to Canal Zone. So in 1912 we severed our connection with Greenville Church and went to Canal Zone. We went by train to New Orleans and took a United Fruit Company boat, the Turualba?. There were many soldiers on board. All were required to be vaccinated and soldiers told us we could use a piece of linen and take the vaccine off if we didn't want it to take. I don't remember how many days it took us--five I think. It was a nice trip as we were not seasick. We landed in Colin and were met by Mr. J.L. Mise, superintendent and were taken to his home at Gatun where we stayed for a few days and then went to Empire where the board had built a home for us. It was a nice 5/6 room house on quite an elevation.
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