William A. Stephen's family had a farm a few miles north of Pinson on the Old Pinson-Jackson Road. He stayed on the family farm through his early marriage to a Miss Mary S. Hamlett, whose family connections were at Lester's Chapel Methodist Church, in the Hart's Bridge/Liberty Grove Community. Mary and two or more of their children are buried at the Lester's Chapel Cemetery near other Hamlett graves and graves of Will's parents, William R. and Annie B. Stephens.
Continuing as a farmer, W. A. Stephens established an early store in nearby Pinson, Tenn., about 1900. On May 10, 1903 he married Mable Lee Watlington, the oldest child of Mack Rob and Eula Daniel Watlington. The Watlingtons had lived north of Pinson for several years in the 1890's and in 1903 were living about two miles west of Pinson at Bear Creek Community. The families would have known one another for some years. Mable knew him as ``Mr. Stephens''--a land owner, store keeper, and old friend of the family. In all her years of marriage she usually spoke of him, and to him as ``Mr. Stephens.''
Eula Daniel Watlington, Mable's mother, had typhoid fever in the 1890's and lost two young children to typhoid fever in July, 1897. She was so weakened by illness, childbearing, and the work of a farmer's wife that she never fully recovered and died during the Summer of 1903. During those years Mable Lee bore a lot of the burden of caring for her younger siblings, and her oldest brother, Ulrich A., had to take on more farming duties at an early age. Albert was the youngest child and in a very real sense, Mable was a ``second mother'' to Albert even while his mother lived.
When Mable married Mr. Stephens, she went to live in the nice two story house on his farm north of Pinson. The house was on the Old Pinson Road, but close to the new Highway 45, which in 1930 cut across the old Stephens farm. Mr. Stephens was operating the store in Pinson and all seemed to be going well until the house burned. About the time this happened ca. 1906, Stephens decided to sell his store and farm land and seek his fortune in the county seat town of Jackson. In the 1910 Jackson City Directory he is listed as a clerk at the Post Office. They located on South Royal Street where they later operated a grocery store and/or a restaurant with Albert and Annette Watlington near the N.C. & St.L. railway station. About 1907, at the age of ten years, Albert went to live with them.
Uncle Will and Aunt Mable never avoided long hours of work and he seemed able to make money in business. He was a good gardener and enjoyed caring for his roses and growing vegetables to eat and sell. Uncle Will could not stand prosperity though, so every time he accumulated some extra funds he would sell out, live off his earnings and travel. They ``set a good table'' and always welcomed family and friends. He loved to play the fiddle and could find a few friends to join with him for weekly musical sessions at store or home. He had a camera, an early ``Victrola'' to play 78 RPM records, one of the early ``double image'' stereoscope viewers, and a piano in the house. Living in the city of Jackson he could have gas to cook with, electric lights, a radio and indoor plumbing when such things were still luxuries to country folk.
For the Ulrich Watlington family, ``Uncle Will'' was our ``rich uncle'' and going to Jackson meant going by his house or store. As a youngster it was one of the few places we could go for a few days ``summer visit,'' and learn a bit about city life. My basis for knowing that Uncle Will was rich was that he had three kinds of jelly or preserves on his breakfast table at the same time. You could choose which kind to eat, and it wasn't all eaten up the same day. With from ten to fifteen people eating at our table each meal, preserves didn't last more than one day--or one meal.
However, Uncle Will miscalculated on how much savings he needed to take him through his later years. It could be that the New Deal concept that two to three percent annual inflation could help stimulate the economy wasn't considered. Or that he and Aunt Mable just lived longer than he calculated. By the time World War II had come and gone his savings had also gone and so his latter years were simpler and more economical. Albert and Annette's family stood by them in their last years, which they spent in a small house at 522 East Deaderick St.
Uncle Will suffered from asthma and felt sure an attack would kill him at anytime. Aunt Mable, calmly caring for him in an attack would hear him coughing and calling, ``Mable, help me, I'm going to die; I can't get my breath.'' After hearing this many, many times, she was able to say, ``Then Mr. Stephens, you'll just have to die, for I can't do anything else for you.'' The first time I heard her say that I thought it was cruel. But I have come to realize that as we face up to life and death, she was way ahead of the game. She knew that he was going to die, and she also. But there wasn't a lot of reason to be frightened by it.
On October 28, 1953, Uncle Will Stephens started to write an article about his wife's family, the Watlingtons. Mable Watlington Stephens had the Mack Rob Watlington family bible with dates of births, marriages and deaths. She also had a good mind, and they prepared an early effort at recording the descendents of Mack Rob and Eula Daniel Watlington. Uncle Will's document was intended to be a testimonial of appreciation of his wife and of her family, who had been close to him across the years. Uncle Will and Mable had celebrated fifty years of marriage on May 3, 1953.
His opening statement concerning the origin of the Watlingtons in West Tennessee revealed how little was known of the early history of the Watlington family. For this reason, it is entered here, as he remembered it:
Our story begins back in the early part of the 18th Century, when two brothers, one not yet of age, at different times left the town of Watlington, England, or near the town of Watlington, and came to America. One George Watlington settled in Texas. Was married there, and there is a lot of Watlingtons in Texas. The other brother, Robert, settled in the Carolinas for a while. Was married in the Carolinas. Moved to Tennessee. Settled at or near Mason Wells, Madison Co., to this union several children were born. And down to this time the Watlingtons have multiplied until there are a lot of Watlingtons in this state and county and all the Watlingtons in this country are kinfolks.
By this time (1953) Clara Mai Watlington King had dug out the notes from Mack Rob Watlington which she had made ca. 1930 and shared them with Elton Watlington concerning the Watlington origins. Few details were available but Mack Rob Watlington had remembered George and Catherine Tabler Watlington as being the first ones in Madison Co., Tenn., and had lived in the house with them and the William T. Watlington-Elizabeth Ozier family. The record written down by Clara Mai Watlington King from Michael Roberts Watlington thus gave us the base for later contacts in Knox Co., Tenn., and Dinwiddie Co., Va. These were established in the late 1950's and 1960's by James L. Watlington, Sr., Mary Watlington Wolford, and Polly Phillips. Will Stephens' desire to record and give witness to his wife's family served to add details to the fourth and fifth generation of Watlington's in West Tennessee, using the Watlington-Daniel family bible.
W. A. Stephens is listed in a Tenn. State Business Directory as having a grocery store in Pinson in 1906-1907. At about this time they seem to have moved to Jackson where he and Aunt Mable operated a restaurant on South Royal for a time and later a grocery store on South Royal. Albert helped with this restaurant. One City Directory (1910) lists W. A. Stephens as a clerk at the Post Office in Jackson.
Later he operated a store at the opposite end of Royal Avenue, where the Royal St. electric car made its last stop on North Royal. Then in the late thirties he moved out to Christmasville Road where he built a house and store at what he called ``Royal Heights.'' He operated this store until his health forced him to retire. He sold the store and purchased a house across town at Westover on the lower Brownsville Road.
From Westover they moved to 522 E. Deaderick St., closer to Uncle Albert's family, near Whitehall and Lexington. They lived here until Uncle Will died.