The birth of John Roberts Watlington on Feb. 7, 1830 in Henderson Co., Tenn. fixed the presence of the George and Catherine Tabler Watlington in West Tennessee earlier than the census taker of the same year. They were registered in the U.S. Census as George Waddleton, being an early farm family, and holding one male slave under 10 years of age (Henderson Co., 1830, Census, p. 73). John R. is listed by name in the Madison Co. 1850 Census, where the family is believed to have moved before another son, Sterling Malachi, was born Dec. 25, 1832.
John R. grew up in a favorable settled environment with three older sisters, two older brothers, and two younger brothers. There was a public school nearby soon after he was old enough to attend. He had an uncle, Alfred N. Tabler, (brother to his mother) a medical doctor who came to live about ten miles away before he was ten years of age. This was not a highly literate community on the frontier of Tennessee but there were relatives with education and skills. Evidently the German-American Tablers were a literate family and promoted education. We also know that his father George was able to read and write.
His Uncle Alfred Tabler lived until 1859 and reared his family at Jack's Creek, a prominent settlement in southwestern Henderson Co. Undoubtedly, it was with the encouragement of Dr. Tabler that John R. was prepared and encouraged to study medicine. He is listed as having studied allopathic medicine at Memphis Hospital Medical College, Memphis, Tenn., graduating in 1855 at twenty-five years of age. He was licensed by the State of Tennessee to practice medicine in 1889, when licensing was first required in Tennessee. He and his son Obediah F. Watlington were both licensed at that time.
John R. Watlington did not marry until Aug. 16, 1859, when he took Miss Sarah Jane Gravitt of Hardeman Co. as his wife. The daughter of John D. Gravitt and his wife Elizabeth, they had lived nearby in Madison Co. but the widowed Elizabeth had moved to be near other Gravitt families after the death of her husband. Sarah Jane had one brother Obediah (b. 1834) who may have settled in Madison Co., as he voted in District 17, Madison Co., in 1859 alongside John R. Watlington. When children were born to the young doctor and Sarah Jane, they named one child Obediah F.
There is some confusion about the number and order of birth of their children, but one child, Kiley, believed to be a twin brother of Obediah F., died young and was buried in the old Pioneer Cemetery at Mason Wells. Another child, thought to be a girl, died and was buried there also. Then John's wife, Sarah Jane, died and was buried there before 1880 (date not known.) This left Obediah F. Watlington as the only surviving descendent of Dr. John R. Watlington.
Dr. John R. Watlington tried marriage again in the 1890's when he married a widow, Emily L. Parrish, who was operating a small hotel in the new county seat of Henderson, Chester Co. She had her work, and older children also, and this marriage just never worked out well. There are some legal documents verifying this in the years 1897-1905, Chester Co. Courthouse.
``Obe'' grew up among many Watlington and Sauls cousins and was a close friend and playmate to Michael Roberts Watlington, a son of Michael C., older brother to John Roberts. The John R. Watlington farm home was on the road toward Henderson from Five Points, just inside Madison County after Chester Co. was established in 1882. The 1877 DeBeers map of the county [10] shows the home as a neighbor to the Ralph W. Daniel farm home where Mack Rob Watlington found his bride, Eula Avenant Daniel, about 1878.
Dr. John R. Watlington continued to practice medicine in and around his home for many years after the death of his wife. He kept an office in Pinson, Tenn., until 1910 and had some relatives and friends in Jackson who preferred him as their doctor.
Obediah Watlington was born in 1861 to John and Sara Jane Gravitt Watlington in Madison Co., Tenn. He grew up in the Big Springs, Pinson area, Old Civil Dist. 17 of Madison Co., preparing with his father for a career in medicine. He also had a first cousin, Susie F. Watlington, who married a medical doctor, Andrew J. Alexander, in June 1878. There was also a relative on the Tabler side of the family, Dr. Thomas H. McGee, who worked in nearby Henderson, Tenn. So Obe was possibly influenced by any or all of these medical connections. Dr. Alexander (b. 1857, d. 1928) had studied at Memphis Hospital Medical College, graduating in 1892. Most of his practice had been in Mayfield and Fulton, Ky. though. There was also a young man by the name of Ambrose McCoy, son of Dr. N. A. McCoy (1832-1918) of Pinson and Jackson, Tenn., who was studying medicine at Louisville, Ky. (1880 graduate) who may have influenced Obediah to go there for his studies in the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky, and Hospital Medical College of Louisville, where he graduated in 1882 at 21 years of age.
Dr. Obe supplemented the practice of his father at Pinson and Five Points and also had patients toward Jackson and Bemis in his later years. For many years he lived at his father's homeplace south of Five Points and reared his two daughters there. He married Laura V. Steadman March 3, 1883, when newly out of Medical School, and his mother had died by that time. Laura had a younger brother Charles B. Steadman (1870-1948) who lived in Jackson, Tenn., and offered a base for attending some patients there. Obe and Laura had only two daughters, Zula who died young (d. 1905), and Ollie (1884-1946), who in later years lived in Jackson and in Arkansas.
Dr. Obe's years of active practice extended from 1883 through 1920 although in later years his practice declined greatly because he became addicted to morphine. After 1915, he lived in Jackson, Tenn., where he died Nov. 19, 1921 and was buried at Big Springs Cemetery at Five Points where his two daughters and his wife were buried also in later years. Neither of their daughters left children although both are believed to have been married, but both were buried under their maiden names. Mrs. Laura Steadman Watlington was the last to die, living with ``Cousin Ulrich'' Watlington during her last years. Her brother and Steadman nephews supplied her needs during these last years. She died after World War II, ca. 1946-50.