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a.
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Note: I don't know that I remember this as vividly as I would if they hadn't talked about it so much for years but we were still living in the first house in Cheap Hill. I don't know how old I was but I started to school when we lived at that house. Daddy had a horse and Hester said "Let's go sheer old Dan." I remember being with Hester and I remember going with her. I guess Dan ran away from us so she sheered me instead. Anyway, we both got a spanking. Hester for doing it and me for letting her do it. They said I looked really bad.
I had a schoolteacher who was real sweet. She and her son would go to the school in the buggy. Our house was no more than 100 yards from the school and she would stop and pick me up in the morning. I guess I got out in the road and waited there for her. Our school was a country school, 1st to 8th grade. It had two rooms, I guess first to fourth grade in one and fifth to eighth grade in the other. Then we all went on to high school in Ashland City. Daddy let Hester drive and when I got a little older I drove too. We didn't have a driver's license. We gave a ride to a couple of girls whose folks lived in Chapmansboro. Daddy taught us how to change a tire. When it was cold it was sometimes hard to start so he taught us that we could pour hot water all over the motor and that is what we would do. The road was longer than it is now because it wound around down by the river to get to Chapmansboro. If the water got up out of it's banks then we couldn't go.
One time it got to snowing real bad and it was about two feet deep so Daddy hitched up the wagon and took Hester and me to Ashland City to stay with friends. They lived by the courthouse and there was a big hill in back of them. After school all the kids would climb up there and skate down that hill. Would you know this man, he was Daddy's good friend, so he told him about us being out there on that hillside.
We always had our chores around the farm but when school was open Hester and I had to make the beds before we went to school. Of course, that was the only thing we did then. I used to like to help in the kitchen and Hester did not like to do that at all. I do think she would help Granny milk the cows. Therefore, she didn't learn to cook. When she got married she didn't know how to cook.
I went to Andrew Jackson Business College after high school. I stayed with Aunt Dolly and Uncle Al. They lived in West Nashville. They had a funeral home, Burkett and Owen, on Charlotte and they lived on Park Avenue right behind it. After I finished school - I think it was a two-year program - my first job was with Luke Lee. I don't really remember the name of the company. They were a real prominent family in Nashville. His dad was in the penitentiary and I would take letters that he dictated to his dad and I would type them. They had a wholesale operation as I remember but finally they couldn't make a go of it.
I met Elton through the funeral home. Sometimes he would ride in the ambulance. We were married in Franklin but Elton and I lived in Nashville. His father was a legislator. Oh, sometimes he worked as a parking lot attendant but he really didn't do anything. That's the reason we didn't live together. He wouldn't work. Jack wasn't a year old when we left.
I then worked for a lawyer in Ashland City and I was going home in the afternoon. Daddy didn't want me to run back and forth so I stayed with these friends of theirs. Their house was either the first or second door from the law office. The ladies who ran it had other boarders and Charlie and another man came there. It was really cold weather and we all played canasta at night.
Charlie and this friend traveled. They sold these things to farmers
like a stamp for cattle. They were selling branding irons amongst other things. He had been in all kinds of things. He had worked in Longmont, Colorado with a brother and he had lived with another brother in Camdenton, Missouri, working in his commissary there. I also remember he had a restaurant one time because he once told me there was a woman working there and he threw a black iron skillet at her.
After Charlie and I got married we had this house where Doctor Pitt used to live. It wasn't long after we married that we went to Clarksville where I worked for the Land Acquisition Office at Fort Campbell. That winter Charlie worked in a service station there. One time his brother Leo came to visit us when we lived in Clarksville. He was in the Army and was on furlough. He stayed with us for three weeks or so. His first wife was killed in an auto accident.
Then we went to Clinton, Indiana. By then the war came along and he had a better offer to work. We never lived in Vincennes. Charles was born there but we lived out closer to what they were building. We lived on a farm that had a windmill and we lived in a trailer. Charlie had never pulled a trailer in his life. The morning we were all loaded up he didn't want Jack and me to open our mouths. We had to be quiet and finally Jack said, "what's wrong with dad?" "Oh, he just never pulled a wagon with a car before."
Then we moved from out there and Jack went to school. He was close enough that he could come home for lunch each day. They had the best cracked wheat bread you ever tasted. Every day we'd have peanut butter on cracked wheat bread with orange marmalade. That was all he wanted and we had it every day. We stayed there until after Charles was born.
Just before that Daddy got blood poisoning in one hand and he was just real sick. They called us and I said, "I want to go home." Charlie didn't say anything, he just got us ready to go home. Well, Daddy didn't want Charlie to take Jack and me back up there but we had to go. Later, when the job was finished and Charles was born, the doctor said, "you can travel with him but be careful. Always have the one window open part way." Charlie took us back home and later he and Daddy went back to get the trailer. He wouldn't drive it anymore.
That was when we stayed in Dr. Pitt's house, it was right near to the farm. Then we had a chance to buy this house in Pleasantview. The Mamie Biddle place - and Mamie Biddle lived in the house with us. Charles was more than a year old when we moved to Knoxville.
We got there in the fall. Charlie was working at Oak Ridge. The first thing they built was a little church. I don't know why he got this place in Knoxville. One night Charlie and his friend from Clarksville went out to look at a place. There was no light in the apartment and they looked at it with flashlights! So they had this truck loaded with our things and we drove to Knoxville. We got there at night and they set up the beds and furniture. We had to go out for supper and then came back and went to bed. The next morning we got up and got ready to take Jack to the school across the street. Well, I got back from the school and sat down in a platform rocker and just cried and cried and cried. It took all morning just to clean up the cabinets to try to get anything in them. There were bugs everywhere! Charlie went across the street to the drug store and talked the pharmacist into selling him strychnine. Every night he would put that on newspapers and in the morning he would fold up the papers full of bugs and throw them away. When we finally got the place cleaned up it was pretty comfortable. Sissy was born there.
One night I had to go over to the grocery store. I had Charles with me and when I stepped off the curb with my arms full of groceries I fell. I remember this old boy who sacked groceries ran out there and helped me gather it all up, except for the eggs that broke. I think it was Saturday and Charlie was working.
Anyway, when I started to feeling so bad that night Charlie had to go across the street to use the phone in the drug store because we didn't have one. He called the doctor and told him that I had fallen that morning. He said, "well, get her to the hospital." We went to St. Mary's Hospital and the doctor was waiting out front with a wheel chair. Sissy was early, about a month, she only weighed 5 lbs. 3 oz.
The sister who was my nurse was so neat. Charlie brought Charles up there the next day and she brought him in. Charles loved Sissy so much he would fill her bassinet with toy soldiers. She was pretty little and we fed her every three hours. Then at night at 9:00 o'clock we didn't feed her again until morning. She slept through the night. Jack and Charles got the measles and they just got over them when Margaret died.
That day A. J. [Shores] had taken Melinda to school and when he got back Margaret was dead. Daddy always thought there had been a real bad crack of thunder and it startled her. She had an ingrown goiter operated on and removed that summer. You know I had just had a letter from her that week saying she was doing all right. We went home for Margaret's funeral. When we got there Ruth took Charles because she had stayed with us when we lived in Pleasantview. She took care of him and Aunt Dolly took care of Sissy. They had this old stove in the dining room and they would put her bassinet behind the stove in the corner.
I made fried pies when I worked at the Cordell Hull Building. I made mostly peach and apricot. Once in a while I made apple but the other two sold best. I had a 5-gallon tin and I would fill it with pastry flour that I made. Then when I needed dough all I had to do was add ice water. I would make them and put them in the refrigerator on waxed paper. Then I would put them in the fryer and when they cooled I would sprinkle them with powdered sugar. I also made little tarts
chess and pecan. And meringues - lemon, chocolate and coconut. And German chocolate cakes too. I couldn't get into the building with them! People would be waiting for me to get there. They would be sold by the time it was necessary to go to work.
The year after I had my heart attack we started catering. We cooked 250 chicken dinners - on a small stove with one burner and a deep well cooker! It's a wonder the stove ever survived it. I had this big skillet which was like one Charlie had for the restaurant and I liked it so much I had him get one for home. I could put a lot of chicken in it.
Then I worked as a cashier at Cross-Keys so I could sit down. I still worked for them part time when I worked for the State. I worked at St. Clare's' restaurant - I think it was a Memphis chain - it closed and then they opened The silver Wings Restaurant at the airport. Jimmy worked as a busboy. That was where I met Dean.
I was a typist at the Cordell Hull Building. Later I became a junior accounting clerk. After a promotion I did bankruptcies and partial payments. That was the last thing I was doing when I retired from the State, but I was already working for Home Interiors for 4 or 5 years by then. I just received my 25-year pin for Home Interiors so I guess I didn't really retire. [Elizabeth Pinson Daugherty]
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b.
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Note: HI3
Note: (Research):
Notes withdrawn: See Master Record
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c.
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Note: MI3
Note: (Medical):
Cancer of the bladder spread to the lungs and health was complicated by congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy.
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d.
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Note: NF34
Note: Marriage Bonds, State of Tennessee, Williamson County
Know all men that we, Elton McElyea, of said County and State of Tennessee are held and firmly bound unto the State of Tennessee in the sum of Twelve Hundred and Fifty Dollars, to which payment, well and truly to be made, we bind our heirs, executors, and administrators, and each and every one of us and them, both jointly and severally wholly by these presents. The conditions of the above obligation is such that whereas Elton McElyea, Age ------- had prayed and obtained license to marry Miss Elizabeth Pinson, age -------. If there shall not hereafter appear any lawful cause by the said above named parties should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony as husband and wife, then the obligation to be void and of no effect; otherwise of full force and virtue.
Witness our hands and seals this 7th Day of August 1936. /s/ Elton McElyea
I solemnize the rites of Matrimony between the within named parties this 7th day of August 1936.
/s/ F. G. Richardson, J. P.
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State of Tennessee
Williamson County
Marriage License
To any Minister of the Gospel having the care of souls, Jewish Rabbi, Justice of the Peace of said County, Judge or Chancellor.
Greetings: You or either of you are hereby Authorized to Solemnize The Rite Of Matrimony Between ELTON McELYEA AND MISS ELIZABETH PINSON of your County agreeably to the direction of the Act of Assembly in such case made and provided. Provided always, that the Rite of Matrimony be solemnized in this County, otherwise these shall be null and void, and shall not be accounted any license or authority to you, or either of you, for the purpose aforesaid, more than though the same had never been prayed or granted, etc.
Given at the Clerks Office of said County this 7 Day of Aug 1936
L. E. Lausil, Clerk
/s/ Elizabeth Ragsdale, D. C.
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e.
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Note: NF1
Note:
Kenneth had Jack swim the river. Jack wasn't older than anything. Kenneth and some other boys had Jack swim across the Cumberland River. I think he was about 12 and I know I was just beside myself when Mother told me. Jack used to go out to the farm in the summers. When Jack got old enough to have a shotgun we got one for him. Charles thought that was the best thing he ever heard of. Well, we decided that was the wrong thing so we told Jack he would have to take the gun to his granddaddy. When he went out to the farm he could hunt. Jack and some of his friends from the Civil Air Patrol would hunt squirrel and that way Daddy could supervise them.
Sissy also loved to go to the farm in the summer and I guess Charles would have tried too but he just had Daddy's tools all the time. Then when Daddy got ready to use them he couldn't find them. He was always on to Charles about that so we just couldn't let him go to the farm.
We owned the Packer's Lunch, which was over in west Nashville by the Neuhoff Packing Company. It was only open for breakfast and for lunch. We served beef stew and chili and a plate lunch
I know when it burned he had gone off and left a ham or a roast in the oven. It was teeny place, maybe no more than 20 people could fit in. Neuhoff's was a big place and those workers would come in hungry. Charles and Sissy went to McNeely Day Home, it was a place for working mothers to leave their children. Long before you knew about Day Care for children.
After the Packer's Lunch we had the Log Cabin, it was in Centennial Park. We loved the place but the owner sold it to an insurance company and they tore it down to put up a new building. I wish I had a picture of old Harry building the fire
and Queen, she worked there. We lived there about three years. Right after we leased it Jack went to the Coast Guard Academy. We use to go to the B&W for dinner and they'd take Sissy and wander around. We used to go there Wednesday night when our restaurant was closed. We used to eat out that night.
Aunt Sarah Cooper was there sometimes. She took care of Jimmy. She would do things I didn't even have to tell her to do. She would get so mad at Sissy. Sissy had a way of putting her underwear in one of the dresser drawers and Sarah would have to look for it. When Lydia was three and Sissy lived in Nashville she would go pick Sarah up because she wouldn't let her ride the bus. There was no direct route for Sarah to take. Sissy would get her hair done that day and she would make her doctor's appointments for that day. And when she was taking classes at Watkins she would come home and make supper for Sarah because she didn't always eat right. Then she would make enough for Sarah to take some home with her. All Sissy needed her for was to have her baby-sit Lydia but she would be over there ironing your socks.
When we lost the lease on The Log Cabin restaurant we opened the Salad Bowl on Elliston Place. We didn't have that long. After that it was a disaster. Right after that I went to work doing a split shift at The Cross-Keys restaurant. Sarah would stay with Jimmy. People who have never had good help working for them don't know how much of help that is. I would pick her up every morning and then I would go to work. Charlie would go to work at a filling station on Harding Place. Then he let this guy who bought The Packer's Lunch from him talk him into going in with him but that didn't work out. [Elizabeth Pinson Daugherty]
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