b. September 9, 1887bp. Lester's Grove, Madison Co., Tenn.
m. August 28, 1907, Ulrich Armstrong Watlington
d. August 13, 1941
pd. Webb Williamson Hospital, Jackson, Tenn.
Mama died when I was hardly sixteen years of age, in the late summer when hot days and nights put pressure on parents and frayed nerves. My memory of her, and events of her illness and death is not clear after thirty years. But lest they be less clear in later years I am resolved to write down some memories and impressions, with the hope of checking them against recorded facts and memories of others.
Grandpa Hammond, (Orson Ward Hammond) and Grandma Hammond (Mary Eliza[beth] Jameson) were born and reared in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, near Hanover. Grandpa was too young to go south with his brother Charles N. in the War between the States, but his brother who fought at Chattanooga brought back glowing tales of the south that caused his younger brother to eventually settle in Madison County, Tennessee. Before settling there, he spent a time in Texas, working as a carpenter, and it was while there that he wrote his friend and sweetheart to ask her, ``Will you be my wife?'' The answer was yes. The letter was saved through the years, and as a boy I remember reading it and admiring the fine handwriting and the fine quality paper with the ribbon around it that made it seem like a legal document.
After some years in Texas, Grandpa returned to Illinois, and was married on September 20, 1883. After a few more years in Texas, the couple migrated to Madison County, where Grandpa's brother Charles had already settled. Working as both carpenter and farmer he made his home and began his family. Mama was born on Harts Bridge Road, near Lester's Grove, where they then lived, but soon afterward they purchased a farm--or rather sixty acres of undesirable land bordering on the east of Meridian Creek and stretching back into the sand hills. A little two-room log house stood in the meadow that was cleared for plantings and the two other children, Clara M. (b. Jan. 7, 1890) and Emma Mai (b. Dec. 26, 1892), were born there. The homeplace is now a cultivated field, but the home built in later years by Grandpa's hands is still standing beside Watlington Road, just off U.S. Highway 45, south of Jackson. Being a master carpenter, Grandpa never lacked for something to do, and he tried a bit of everything--vegetable gardening, dairying and fruit growing. The Hammonds and Jamesons were of Methodist background, and Grandpa and Grandma helped establish Lester's Chapel on the Harts Bridge Road. Their graves are found near the gate of the little graveyard nearby. Grandpa Hammond served as carpenter in building the chapel and for some years as Sunday School Superintendent.
In this environment Jennie Sophronia grew to young womanhood. She attended the Malesus Grammar School for about nine years, and had one year of studies in the forerunner of the West Tennessee Business College in Jackson. She also learned to play the organ which was the pride of her parents' home. While still a young girl she found her future husband in a young man from Pinson, Tennessee, Ulrich Armstrong Watlington, who had been hired to help with the farm and dairy chores. This was not exactly to the liking of her parents, but love had its way. According to Papa's description, the ceremony took place in their buggy. As they were on their way to see the Methodist preacher in Malesus, Brother J. B. Pearson, he met them in the road at the foot of the hill of what is now Watlington Road, a quarter-mile from the Meridian Creek. ``Just about right along here,'' Papa would say as we rode the wagon along that way in later years.
Papa wasn't fooled; he knew a good woman when he saw one. He took his new bride to Dyersburg, Tennessee, where there was work for cotton farmers, which was Papa's experience. While there Mama gave birth to twin girls, which they named Mary and Mable. Papa says the birth was normal, and the girls also, but for lack of adequate medical care they died a few weeks later, and were buried there. Later they moved to the Sam Cross plantation at Covington, Missouri where Mama gave birth to Clara Mai in May 1909, and successively brought ten other squalling little Watlingtons into Tennessee on the odd years until 1929. The first son, Ulrich Mack, was born at Friendship, Crockett County, and then Grandma Hammond insisted that the family move back to the farm where she could be a grandmother to the little ones.
Logs were cut off the farm and hauled to the mill near Lester's Grove. The rough sawed lumber was hauled back to the farm, and on a little rise of land across the spring branch, a small box house was built, and this rough, framed building with a tin roof served as shelter, home and maternity ward for the rest of the family.
Papa worked at everything to earn bread for the family. He cleared and cultivated land that had never been plowed before. He worked out as teamster, plowhand, and blacksmith. He learned some carpentry, but never the fine cabinet making that Grandpa Hammond knew so well. He helped with the dairy and delivered milk in a horse-drawn hack to Jackson, five miles away. Everyone worked. Mama was an excellent gardener. She loved the plants and trees, and knew how to can and cure the fruits and vegetables, wasting nothing. She saw that the hogs were cared for and petted the chickens and ducks as treasures for the table when company came.
And when company did come, she could sacrifice a couple of fryers the fastest of anyone. They were already in the skillet before the flesh got cold--and biscuits, ``light bread,'' with ``thickening gravy'' were made. Aunt Clara (Harton) brought back from Oklahoma some special yeast for loaf bread, which would keep for a week in the winter between bakings, but in summer new bread must be made twice a week to preserve the yeast. Between Mama, Aunt Clara and Aunt Mai the yeast was ``kept alive'' and delicious for forty years. The only reason for letting it go was that the family was smaller, and fresh yeast was being sold in the city of equivalent quality, but no better.
Mama sewed. She made shirts and pants and mended. There weren't any of our school mates who had neater patches on their pants than the Watlington boys. She mended at odd times of the day and night when she was resting. It was a relaxation for her to get to sit and sew.
For her time Mama was an educated person. She had studied home medical books, and she read widely. In spite of the relative poverty of our home, we had a small library, and received some farm and home magazines. I remember a time in the depression when she paid for the Progressive Farmer magazine with chickens caught right out of the yard and hauled away in the crate of the salesman which he had especially for that purpose. She enjoyed conversing with those who visited in the home and could keep the conversation flowing. As the children studied she could help them and encourage them in their tasks.
Mama saw that we had grace before meals and taught the children to be reverent and respectful. Though she could not often go to church she saw that the others had clean clothes for Sunday school and church. Those that begged off were put to work in the kitchen to help prepare the special Sunday dinner that awaited us on our return from services. And we always felt free to bring home one or more guests, because when you are cooking for twelve or more, one more doesn't make much difference--you just ``divide.'' In later years, on Sunday afternoon or evening, we found time to gather with Mama for some hymn singing around the organ.
A woman who valued greatly her time, Mama taught the children to be occupied also. From early to late she was about her tasks. Never hurried or nervously, but with a great sense of the value of time and the need to work, she kept things moving. She was seldom sick, and never one to complain but she would vary her tasks to rest her feet. She was overweight and suffered from being on duty so many hours a day, attending children and housework. We seldom had any hired help with the washing or housecleaning, but after a few years the children helped, boys as well as girls. When the time approached for childbirth there was some help around, usually a Negro woman by the name of Nelly Jones. Nelly was always available when ``Miss Jennie'' needed help. Help usually came in also at hog-killing time in the fall or early winter. Nelly or others would come to help clean and cut meat and make sausages and lard. Usually their work was paid for by part of the meat and lard.
About 1929 the big cow barn burned to the ground, with loss of some cows and lots of feed. Shortly afterward Grandpa Hammond died, leaving only Aunt Mai in the large house he had built. In 1930 a new horse barn was built, but not for the dairy herd which was dwindling. The family moved into the ``white house'' with Aunt Mai who from that time has been very much a part of our life and family. She and Mama shared the household duties, gardening, and canning. It was difficult to convince the teachers at school, but we children told them quite convincingly that we had ``two mothers'' at home.
Life in the thirties was difficult, but we made out. The older children worked and shared their earnings with the family, and the farm produced most of what we ate. As recently as 1947 we were still refusing to buy corn meal--we hauled corn to the mill to have them grind it for us, taking their pay in corn. We chased rabbits in the fall, and picked plums and wild blackberries in the Summer to have food on the table. Clothing got thin, and sometimes we ate more than our share of sweet potatoes and cow peas, but we didn't go to bed hungry. Mama kept us going, and kept us in school. We helped with the farming after school, on Saturdays and during vacations. If we didn't like school we could work at home so the others could study. She and Papa helped us to know it was a privilege to go to school. Of the eleven children only the oldest boy, Mack, was kept out of school to help the family and thus lacked two years finishing high school. The others were all helped through public high school, and some through college.
In the fall of 1940, John and Herman went with the Tennessee National Guard 117th Inf. Regt. into full-time training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Herman had only enlisted for a year so he returned in 1941, while John served throughout the war with the 117th Inf. Regt., 30th Inf. Div. Later all eight sons and one son-in-law, C. Lloyd King, would be in service. As Papa said often during the war years, it was good that Mama was spared by her early death the worry of having her boys scattered about the world in the War zones.
Mama became sick with a high fever in midsummer 1941. She didn't know what ailed her and tried resting it out. When we called on a young doctor to attend her, he missed the diagnosis and gave little relief. Old Doctor Jack Smythe came out after Mama had been sick nearly three weeks and immediately ordered her to be taken to the Clinic. She was suffering from advanced meningitis, and even then it was too far along to control. She died a few days later, August 13, 1941, at the Webb-Williamson Hospital in Jackson.
The funeral was held from the Methodist Church in Malesus, with burial in the Ebenezer Cemetery there. The youngest child, Betty, was only twelve years of age at that time. Brother Robert F. Wiley was our pastor and a real comfort to the family. We have all felt sorry that one who worked so hard to rear eleven children should not have lived to enjoy them in more relaxed years. We are grateful for a loving and devoted mother, but regret her sudden illness and death in the fullness of a busy life.
Today is my Mother's birthday. She died fifty years ago this past August 13th... She was a strong formative influence on eleven of her own children and on many others who sat at her table and shared her hospitality, whether relative, friend or stranger be-friended.
Mama was a gracious, kindly spirit until riled up, but she knew when to set her foot down and set things right. She was a mild woman but a strong one. I saw her even after her death in her sister Clara Matilda who married Lev Harton. Like her sister, Aunt Clara was a charming hostess. I visited her in Los Angeles in September 1945, and she carried on an extensive correspondence with me while I was in service, college, seminary (in Wisconsin) and on the mission field.
Mama and Aunt Clara's minds roamed the universe. I can still remember Mama sitting with her sewing close enough to hear the men's conversation, and interrupting with pertinent questions concerning a wide field of interest. She was alert to what was going on in the world and wanted to get more details. It was she and Aunt Mai who encouraged me to read magazines and not just the funny papers and ``Big Little Funnybooks'' that were available.
Mama was nearly fifty-four years of age when she died. She had seen her first born children, twins, die in her early years. In 1918 her mother died; in 1930 her father. In 1937 she had helped care for Mack Rob Watlington, her father-in-law, who died in October of that year. She was no stranger to life or death but was so busy caring for others that it seemed an anomaly that she should be sick at all. The only other time I remember her being bedridden was at the birth of my sister Betty Juanita, in 1929. Gone but not forgotten.