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Note: She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Cedartown, Georgia. She liked to read the Bible, preferably aloud. She stole a horse from the Yankees, plowed with oxen, quilted, liked to travel even when she was elderly. She was known as "Becky" until she became a grandmother, then was known affectionately as "Mammy". She was born November 2, 1849 in Jackson Gap, Alabama. She was married to William Ruffin Surls and lived with him in Jackson Gap for many years. They separated and he left and was killed in a head-on train collision. She was not notified of this but Uncle L.B. talked to the man who was the fireman on the train and he told her it was true. She had 2 brothers, William Benjamin Roberts, and George Menoey Roberts, and 1 sister, Celia H Roberts Freeman. She died July 12, 1932 in Cedartown, Ga. She was a nurse trained by Dr. John Britt. She was a whiskey taster fro the government. She split rails. She had a gold pendant with gold on one side and orange colored stone on the other side, given to Becky Surls by Mildred Surls Barnett. She had a bone crochet hook which was handed down to Linda Surls Stell. When she was about 13 years old, during the war, her mother always cooked enough food so that she could send some over to Cecelia Freeman, Mammy's sister. Mammy had to walk across the pastures to take it to her, and there were army deserters from both sides that hid in the woods. They would throw rocks at her and try to get her to leave the food behind. When asked what she did, she replied, " I just stuck out my tongue and kept right on walking!" The Surls home was located off the dirt road that leads out of Rock Springs Baptist Church in Jackson Gap. The road is off to left right before you get to the Britt family cemetery which is in the woods on the left. The Surls/Roberts farm was covered by Lake Martin but the cemetery is reportedly still above water. She had a velvet evening bag with a tassel on it. She kept her money in it in a chest and had a change purse that she kept under her pillow that she kept her house money in.
MAMMY SURLS' RECIPE FOR POUND CAKE; 6 medium eggs 2 sticks butter 1 1/4 cups sugar 2 cups plain flour 1 tsp vanilla pinch salt pinch baking powder Cream butter and sugar together. Alternate eggs and flour, beating as you add, add pinches of salt and baking powder. Add flour, bake at 350 for about 1 hour. Grease and flour pan.
MAMMY SURLS' TEA CAKE 1 cup sugar 1 egg in self-rising flour little milk buttermilk 1/2 cup crisco Work up, with nutmeg or vanilla, roll out like biscuits and cut. bake.
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