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b. December 26, 1892
bp. Hammond Farm, Malesus, Madison Co., Tenn.
d. August 22, 1986
pb. Lester's Chapel Cem., Madison Co., Tenn.
``Aunt Mai,'' younger sister to Jennie H. Watlington and Clara H. Harton, and a ``second Mother'' to Watlington children and grandchildren through her careful home-making ministry over a long lifetime, died peacefully in the early evening of August 22, 1986.
Aunt Mai gave up an opportunity for further studies and stayed with her parents on the family farm. She nursed her mother through her final illness and death in 1918 and then kept house and garden and cared for her father, O. W. Hammond, until his death on July 16, 1930.
At that time the Watlington and Hammond households were united at the ``big house'' and Aunt Mai shared duties of house, garden, dairy farm and family with Jennie and Ulrich's family, continuing on until breaking a hip in November 1980. From that time until her death she was in a nursing home, though alert and able to enjoy reading but increasingly handicapped by deafness and arthritis. She went to the dining room in her wheel chair to eat supper before expiring as she was put to bed.
Aunt Mai was laid to rest in the lovely little Lester's Chapel Cemetery beside her parents who had come from Illinois and Texas to that community in 1885, and had helped to start and build the Lester's Chapel Methodist Church nearby.
According to her own statements, her parents spelled her middle name as ``May'' until she changed it herself to ``Mai''.
Aunt Mai wrote, at our request, a resume of her life a few years ago, which follows, giving details of the home which our mother shared.
My nephew Elton has asked me to write the story of my life so I will attempt the job.
My father and mother were married at her home near Hanover, Ill. in 1883. That was a few months after her mother died. Her father died several years before. Mother and Father went back to Texas to live where he had been working for several years.
They lived there about three years, then moved to Madison Co., Tennessee to live on his brother Charley's farm for a while. That is where my sister Jennie was born Sept. 9, 1887. Papa didn't like it there so be bought a small farm on a road between the old Pinson Road and the old Mill Road [a water mill on Meridian Creek--it is now called Watlington Road.] Ulrich's nephew, Eugene Watlington, was working for the county, helping to name the different roads so he named this one Watlington Road.
There was a good two-room log house with a side room and good out-buildings that was on low ground. He wanted a new house up on the hill. This log house is where my sister Clara was born in 1889 and I was born in 1892. While my parents were living in the Lester Chapel Community he helped to build the church and made a lot of the furniture for it. He learned to be a good cabinet maker while living in Hanover before going to Texas.
Papa helped to organize a Sunday School and was Superintendent for a long while. That was where I first went to Sunday School.
My best girl friend at that time was Noi Young. Her family was living in the same house that Pearl Kirby is living in now in 1975 next to Walton Peter's home.
Mr. Young took his family to Lester Chapel Church. There were four children. Noi was the youngest. He sold out and moved to Jackson but Noi and I were good friends for a long time. We would visit each other for a few days at a time when school was out.
When Papa started the Lester Chapel Church he wanted to have Nazarene or Holiness preachers but most of the members wanted to join the Methodist Conference so he went in with them for a while but soon fell out with a lot of the ministers. Then his family and several others left. They built a tabernacle a little past where Samuel lives on the Old Pinson Road (near Azbill home). One of the men owned a lot of timber and gave the wood for the lumber and shingles for the roof and with all working at odd times they soon had a nice large shed and had Sunday School every Sunday with preaching once a month.
A lady preacher from Milan rode the train to Malesus and Mama or Papa would drive over for her on Saturday. She would spend the night here, preach the next morning and then go back home that afternoon. She would bring her autoharp to play and they had good singing. There was sixty members. They would have a week of revival services. The first year Mrs. Mitchum got a man by the name of George Hammond to hold the meeting. He was a good evangelist and drew large crowds at night. Some kinds of torches were hung down the center to light the building.
The next year she brought her family to help her. Her husband and four children--two teenage girls and two younger boys. They could all play some kind of instrument. Papa would take our organ there for the week. The oldest girl played that, the other played the violin, the boys some kind of a horn, Mr. Mitchum the guitar and she her harp. That drew a large crowd to hear the music. They pitched a tent there on the church ground to live in. There was a good spring near there so they had good cool water. Of course the members brought them vegetables.
Our house was built here by that time so we could live in it and had a room for a guest. Brother Hammond was here with us several times. He brought his wife and little girl.
Some of the members died and the main helper, Mr. Henry Wells, sold his farm and moved to Jackson. About that time the Adee School house was built and the people around there who had been coming to the Tabernacle had Sunday School and preaching there. They were Baptist. So the Tabernacle was sold for $10 which was sent to a missionary in Korea. Those were happy days for all.
We girls were in school and wanted to attend church at the Malesus Church. Papa bought a surrey and we all went to church there. Mama taught a class. Jennie was organist for a while, then Clara. A lot of the Harton boys and girls were in the choir.
My best girl friend at school was Lois Raines, a niece of Dr. Raines. Then her father soon moved to Bemis and Annie Pearson was my chum. She was a granddaughter of Bro. J. B. Pearson. We were friends for as long as she lived. She moved to different cities but would always come to see me.
I go back now to the farm -- Papa built a large one-room with a side-shed upon the hill where he wanted to build our new house. He had a family of negroes live in it. The man and boy helped with the farming. His wife helped Mama when we girls were babies.
Papa had cows and sold butter, milk and vegetables he could raise in the garden. He went to Jackson to sell the produce.
Papa started the new house whenever he had time to work and could get some help. When he got the roof on and enough flooring so he could move our furniture up there he had the negro move out and we moved in that one room. We lived there all one winter and spring with just the cook stove for heat. I was seven years old in Dec. that winter and didn't start to school until a few months in the spring (1899). Mama taught me to read. I had read thru the primer and one time thru the first reader and was ready for the second grade when school started that fall [1900].
Miss Mary Woodson was my teacher for four years. Then I went in the large room and my teachers there were Fred Temple (1 year), H. C. Neville (2 years). That is when Jennie and Clara graduated from the 8th grade [1905-06]. There wasn't a high school then no nearer than Jackson but they studied several books that was used in high school. Then came Ben Tyson one year and Mrs. Eula Taylor the rest of the years I was in school. She was the one that helped to get the high school in Malesus.
I never made good grades in school but did pass every year until [Fall 1909-Spring 1910] the third year in high school. I failed and didn't go back another year. I was so tired walking over there. There wasn't a levee down in the bottom then and if it rained that day we couldn't walk home. Papa would have to come over in his milk hack and get us home. There were several children from around here that would ride.
After Jennie and Clara finished school I would stay all night with some of the girls.
I had all those children's diseases before I started to school. I was a healthy girl but had the kneeache and toothache a lot. Later on I had the flu and pneumonia.
Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Wells were neighbors. We visited often. When she died he sold the farm and boarded with Mr. Wooten in Hicksville (Jackson) where his son Charlie was staying. He was a clerk in the Jackson postoffice. He rode the streetcar back and forth to work. He then bought a car and thought he had better get married and make a home for his father but his father married again before Charlie did.
Charlie took me out riding a few times but he soon found a girl more talkative and anxious to marry than I was. A neighbor Frank Witherspoon like to talk to me. He gave me one of the flower stands I have now, but I didn't care for him.
Mama encouraged me to try to be a nurse. I got in one of the hospitals in Nashville but when I saw the books I would have to study, not being any better student than I was in school, I knew I couldn't ever pass and was not willing to stay so was back home in one week [1916].
In about three weeks Mama hurt her foot and blood poison set in. She couldn't walk for two weeks so I had plenty of work and nursing at home. We had Dr. Obe Watlington and Dr. Raines with her but the poison was in her system and she died two years later [Dec. 1, 1918].
Papa was still running a dairy. I kept house and helped with that until he had to give it up. He lived twelve years after Mama's death [July 16, 1930].
When Papa was still able to plow he bought a blind horse but couldn't plow her without help. He would put the saddle on and have me ride her to guide her. That was a hot job for me but we plowed the corn. I hoed and picked cotton and picked strawberries for him to sell on his milk route. I milked cows from the time I learned how as long as there was a cow on the place [till about 1958-60].
I helped Jennie with the sewing, made the boys' school shirts until they got in high school. I made all of Clara Mai's dresses, even her banquet dress. It was pink and pretty. Then she made her own and sewed for Evelyn and Betty.
Long before this I became a Christian and joined the Malesus Methodist Church [in 1908].
With all this work I took time for several trips; two to visit the folks in Illinois, one to visit Mama's cousins in Nebraska and two visits to California and met she [sister Clara Harton] and Mabel for a three days' visit in Oklahoma at Clara's granddaugter Lyndal Williams Manuel.
Papa had family worship and taught us a lot in the Bible.
After Mama and Papa quit going to church I went every Sunday and helped to take Jennie and Ulrich's children. I taught a class of juniors several years and was Sunday School treasurer. Clara Mai was secretary. I taught the ladies class a short while. I was a member of the Missionary Society from the time it was organized until my hearing was so bad I had to stop going. Mr. Andrew Harton was Supt. of Sunday School and then Mr. John Mays.
I enjoyed being in the ladies class when Mrs. Kate Martin was teacher.
Our dear mother died in 1918 [on Dec. 1] and was buried in Lester Chapel Cemetery.
Back to the farm again--one year the man Papa had to help farm quit in the summer. Then Papa had to get someone to gather the crop. A widower wanted work. He had a little four year old girl and asked if we would take care of her. We did; that was June Clopton. She was a sweet child. We all loved her. She said ``Mama'' just like I did.
After the cotton was picked Mr. Clopton got work in the Bemis Cotton Mill and left here. We kept June. He paid Mama $5 a month and paid for her clothes. Clara and Mama would make her dresses. When she was eight years old her papa married and took her away.
About that time there was a boy who needed a home. That was Clifford Carlson. He was eight. We took him and he lived here, went to school, and helped with the work for ten years. He wasn't doing so well in high school. We talked to Mrs. A. V. [Florence] Patton about him so she took him, put him through high school and college at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.
Papa needed help about the farm, night and morning, so Ulrich let one
of his boys stay here, Mack first for one year, then Samuel one year
and Kenneth next who stayed until Papa's death in 1930. Then all the
family moved in to live with me.
Our ``Aunt Mai'' continued to live in the homeplace and was active and alert, helping to care for Ulrich A. Watlington, until Thanksgiving 1980, when she was in her 88th year. The day after Thanksgiving, she broke a hip and was hospitalized for about eight weeks, complicated by influenza. She had returned home for about ten days when the family determined that she and Papa Watlington both needed better nursing care.
They were admitted to a nursing home in East Jackson where Papa died the following March, 1981. Aunt Mai recovered her ability to walk and remained alert and active though increasingly deaf. She was later transferred to the Forest Cove Nursing Home where she remained until her death on August 22, 1986. She retained her ability to read until the last weeks of her life, though she ceased to write in the latter years because of arthritic pain. She never complained about the nursing home and was ever grateful for the care she received.
So far as we know she was never hospitalized until she broke her hip.
Until that time she had never had any other permanent home other than
the farm home in which she was born in 1892. She was a loving and
faithful witness ever.
