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Next: Jennie Sophronia Hammond Watlington
b. June 18, 1885
bp. near Pinson, Tenn.
m. August 28, 1907, Jennie Sophronia Hammond,
(b. September 9, 1887, d. August 13, 1941)
d. March, 1981
pb.Ebenezer Cem., Malesus, Tenn.
After their marriage, Mack Rob and Eula Watlington
evidently farmed near relatives of Pinson. Eula's father, Ralph
(Rafe) Daniel, had a farm there adjoining the larger holdings of
Paulin Anderson and his children. Mack Rob had many relatives on that
side of Pinson, extending to near Jack's Creek, but he probably began
his farming on his cousin Billy Houston's place in District 1, west of
Pinson, known as the McHaney Place, where he was at the time of the
1880 U.S. Census. The census taker found the young couple with a nine
month old baby girl, Mable Lee. Papa--Ulrich Armstrong
Watlington--was born five years later, on June 18, 1885.
Papa's earliest memories are that as they traveled from their farm
home, they ``traveled the road by cousin Obe's house,'' south of Five
Points. The Rafe Daniel Place adjoined cousin Obe's Place. Papa does
not remember seeing his grandfather M. C. Watlington (d. 1887),
or his grandmother America Daniel (d. 1888). His memory of his
grandfather ``Rafe'' Daniel was of a rheumatic old man sitting in his
rocking chair. He believes that they visited ``Rafe'' Daniel at his
home before they went to Texas in 1889 or 1890. Some dates in the
following are tentative, but the order is believed to be correct. In
most cases it is from memory with little documentation.
Mack Rob and Eula lived for some months on the
Murphy Place, near Murphy's Mound, behind the Saul home where Johnny
Sauls now lives, while preparing to go to Texas. Sterling Sauls was a
double cousin of Mack Rob. John L. was born here Jan. 5, 1889.
Ulrich accompanied his family to Red River County
in Texas and continued his farming experience when they returned to
Tennessee and farmed near Pinson. Some of his early experiences at
school were in the Bear Creek Community west of Pinson during the
1890's. By the time he was eleven years of age he was expected to do
plowing in the farming operation as he was the oldest son of the
family.
Special events mark this year on the Frank Davis
Place. Frank, a son of Richard (Dick) Davis, had gone to Texas so
Mack Rob moved to his place for a crop. Mable, the oldest girl
married William A. Stephens, a farmer and merchant of Pinson.
On July 23, 1903, Eula Daniel died and was buried at Big Springs Cemetery.
Ulrich A. Watlington left for Red River Co., Texas in the Autumn of 1903
to visit Aunt Wynona Daniel Rodgers, because of trouble with a neighbor.
He went by train, and stayed through the Fall of 1904, working as a farm
laborer.
Serena Avenant Watlington was married to B. Sanders Davis on
August 8, 1903 and at the end of the year went to Red River
County, Texas, where they made a crop in 1904. In the Fall of 1904,
they returned to Tennessee where they lived and farmed on the
McHaney Place where Mack Rob was until Serena died July 1905.
A girl, Willie Lee Davis, was born to them in Texas, July 1, 1904.
From Bear Creek, M. R. Watlington moved to the
Hubert Mays Place for one crop, then to the McHaney Place for a year.
Hubert Mays' wife was Sallie Swink, a sister of Ella Swink Pacaud.
Grandmother Fredonia Watlington came to live with them some
months at the McHaney Place.
After the McHaney Place the family moved to the
Pacaud Place, adjoining the Orson Ward Hammond Place, about eight
miles north of Pinson and five miles south of Jackson. Mrs. James W.
Pacaud was the former Ella (Ellen) Britton Swink from south of Pinson
(Mt. Pisgah), and a sister of Mrs. Hubert Mays. Papa thinks that Mack
Rob and Mrs. Pacaud came to know one another while they worked the
Mays farm. They made one crop here, and Mack Rob married the Widow
Pacaud at the end of 1906 or early 1907.
This move to the Pacaud place made them neighbors to O. W. Hammond,
good friends of the Pacauds, and Ulrich came to know the three Hammond
daughters, the eldest of whom was Jennie Sophronia. Ulrich hired out
at times to help Mr. Hammond on the farm. After Mack Rob married the
Widow Pacaud and moved in with her, Ulrich moved to the Hammond farm
and boarded and worked there.
On August 28, before the crops were harvested, Ulrich
Armstrong and Jennie Sophronia were united in marriage by the Rev.
J. B. Pearson, and left for Crockett and Dyer County where the Daniel
kinfolk helped them get acquainted with the country and neighbors.
Uncle Charlie Daniel came in a wagon to move them to their new
home in Dyer County. Papa went to work in the harvest season with
Mr. Seth Sorrell, who had land on both sides of the Forked Deer
River, making it in both Dyer and Crockett counties. Papa worked that
fall in Dyer County and lived in the outskirts of Dyersburg. In the
winter months they moved into Dyersburg and made plans to farm the
next year with a Mr. Hilliard on Mr. Lauderdale's farm. Money was
very scarce that winter and Papa remembers that the Dyersburg
merchants were using ``script'' for exchange purposes.
During the winter months Papa and Jennie lived about
three hundred yards
from the Lauderdales, and Papa milked his cow for them, and did other
chores, taking milk as a part of his pay. While still living in the
town, Jennie gave birth to twin girls whom they named
Mary Frances and Mable Lee. Though apparently healthy, they survived only a
few weeks and were buried in a church cemetery to the north of
Dyersburg, where the Lauderdales attended. This may have been the old
Neely's Chapel Methodist Cemetery, which is still in use, but the
church building burned and was never replaced. During the crop year
they moved to the farm which was adjoining the city limits on the
north side, and made a share crop with Mr. Hilliard. Papa also worked
sometimes for a Mr. Chandler inside the city limits.
Ulrich moved in the Fall of 1908 to Covington,
Pemiscot County, Missouri. There he worked a crop year with Sam Cross,
who ran the post office, store and gin, and had many families working
for him. Clara Mai was born there on May 30, 1909. Mrs. Cross had
relatives in Dyersburg and while visiting there invited Papa to go see
the farm and work for them. He drove the Cross family horse and buggy
to Covington to see the place, crossing the Mississippi River by ferry
at Cottonwood Point. Howard Pacaud was visiting in Dyersburg and
accompanied him.
Papa has always considered this year with Sam Cross as a time of great
opportunity for him. Mr. Cross needed cotton farmers capable of
leadership--and wanted Papa to continue with him
to help run the plantation. But living conditions in the low-lands of
the Mississippi River were tedious and even dangerous in 1909, and
Mrs. Hammond wanted her daughter back closer to her. Though less than
a hundred miles from the Hammond farm, Covington, Missouri was a long
way off psychologically and there was no ready, fast, transportation
between the two.
The young family turned again home, traveling by train to
Memphis, then by another railway to Jackson.
The next year Papa worked with the West Tennessee
Experimental Station at Jackson, Tennessee. This was as a hired hand,
not share-cropping this time. Without much formal education, Papa
learned much in such a practical situation, and the experience opened
him up to changing concepts of farming.
Papa returned to Crockett County, where Charlie Lee
Daniel and Luther Williams, who had married Ludie Emma Daniel, lived.
These were his mother's people, brother and sister to Aunt Wynona
Daniel Rodgers with whom he had lived in Texas. He
worked a crop near Uncle Luther Williams near Friendship,
Tennessee. He just raised one crop there, but it was a good one.
Mack was born here December 24, 1911, in their house very near the
Friendship School of that time.
He moved to nearby Sorrell's Chapel in Dyer Co., to
work again for Mr. Seth Sorrell. This time the work was on the south
side of the Forked Deer River. He recalls that the farm north of the
river was just three miles from the Railroad Depot in Dyersburg; so
the south end of it would have been closer to Dyersburg also. During
the spring flood season they rafted some corn across the river from
one end of the farm to the other to avoid the long haul around the
roads. Grandpa Watlington helped him harvest his crop on the Sorrell
place this year, and then helped him move by wagon back to the Hammond
farm near Malesus. They moved in cold winter weather in two wagons,
one of them loaded with corn. It took them more than a day, stopping
overnight at one place. In the winter of 1912-13 they cut logs and
hauled them to the saw mill, where they were prepared for building. By
spring there was enough lumber to build the first two rooms of their
new home on the Hammond place and by fall they moved into the new
house and Grandpa Watlington came to live with them.
Mrs. Mary E. Hammond was declining in health. Mr.
Hammond, who had married late in life, was now sixty-six years of age, and
the farm needed to be worked. Papa said that so little of it was
cleared and drained that in those first years ``you couldn't grow a
flat grain of corn on it.'' Papa was willing to return to the farm
provided they could live in separate housing, therefore the rush to
build the little house across the creek from the Hammond home. Though
the farming was done cooperatively, Papa and his growing family never
moved in with Mr. Hammond. They continued working the farm and
dairying on a small scale until after the death of Mr. O. W. Hammond,
July 16, 1930, at eighty-four years of age. Kenneth was the first child born
to them in the new house, December 27, 1913, and before moving to the
``big house'' in the fall of 1930, Betty Juanita, the last of thirteen
children was born.
Eleven of the thirteen lived to adulthood, and eight were
still alive in 1989. Papa continued to live and farm on the Hammond
Place until ill health forced his retirement in the 1960's. After
Jennie died in 1941, her sister, Emma Mai Hammond, continued to keep
the family and home together as housekeeper and foster mother to the
younger children.
Ulrich A. Watlington of Pinson, ``civic leader and devoted father
of an outstanding family,'' was presented a certificate of recognition
by the Jackson Rotary Club during the group's regular noon meeting
today.
The award came as a complete surprise to Watlington and his
nine children, who were attending the meeting as guests of the club
during a program entitled ``What makes America Great.''
The program began with a brief talk by George Foster, 4-H Club
leader from Knoxville, on the American home. He explained that the
home is the foundation stone on which America's greatness has been
built.
At the conclusion of his talk, Madison County Agent Tom Hillsman,
a member of the Rotary, presented Watlington and his family as an
outstanding example of the typical American home.
At that point the surprise ``Certificate of Recognition'' was
presented to him by William Nixon, club president. The certificate
reads as follows:
This is to certify that Ulrich A. Watlington, civic leader and
devoted father of an outstanding family...all leaders in their
communities and in their walks of life--is hereby honored by the
Jackson Rotary Club.
His contributions as a father, a civic worker in his community,
and his faith in God and the American way of life merit this
recognition.
The certificate is signed by William Nixon, club president,
and Hugh Harvey, club secretary. U. A. Watlington was recommended for
the honor by Hillsman and Shelby Roberts, both long term
acquaintances. Roberts had charge of the program, which was sponsored
by the International Service Committee of the Rotary Club. George
Axelrad is chairman of the committee.
U. A. Watlington and the late Mrs. Jennie Sophronia Hammond
Watlington were the parents of eight sons and three daughters. Ten
of the children are still living. They are:
- Mrs. Clarence Loyd (Clara Mai) King, teacher in the fifth grade of
the Bemis Elementary School.
- Mack Watlington, a member of the Watlington Brothers
Construction Co.
- Kenneth Watlington, principal of the Alexander Elementary
School in Jackson.
- Samuel (Sam) Watlington, another member of the Watlington
Brothers Construction Company.
- Mrs. Lon (Evelyn) Black, telegraph operator for Western Union.
- Herman Watlington, television repairman.
- John Watlington, killed in action Nov. 1950, in the Chosin Reservation
area of North Korea while serving with the U. S. Army.
- Paul Watlington, an employee at Piggly Wiggly factory in
Jackson.
- Elton Watlington, a Methodist missionary in Lima, Perú.
- Joe Watlington, a science teacher and coach at Ripley High
School.
- Mrs. Hubert (Betty) Williams, former teacher and now a
homemaker in Brownsville.
-- Copied from ``The Jackson Sun,'' Feb. 27, 1958
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Copyright © 1997, Elton A. Watlington (Note)
watlington@wnm.net