The little box house built of unplaned lumber on the Hammond farm in the Spring of 1913 served as a home for the Ulrich Watlington-Jennie Hammond family and Mack Rob Watlington until the winter of 1930. After that time it served a variety of purposes and several families found shelter under its galvanized roof in the turbulent thirties. At times it was used to warehouse cotton, lumber or furniture between occupants, but as a rule the little tenant house served as home for workers and their families at a minimum cost for rent, and without utilities.
Located by 1931 on a paved U.S. Highway at the juncture with Watlington Road, it was within three miles of the cotton mill town of Bemis, and five miles of Jackson, but without any local bus service. It had a shallow curbed well, a garden plot, a cellar to conserve food and the protection of large trees from sun and strong winds. It had served the Watlington family well for eighteen years and was still a viable shelter.
Although without records of rent or tenants across twenty-five years, the home not only served the families living there but also provided another family of near neighbors for the Watlington family and a source of farm help at times of need. A side benefit was neighboring children for the younger members of the family. Without pretending to speak of the order of occupancy, we have many memories of the neighbors who lived there.
Mr. Rod Hamilton lived with his family in the Frank Robley tenant house on top of the hill to the west of Hwy. 45 on Watlington Road. Mr. Hamilton had a job at Bemis Cotton Mill but preferred to live in the country where the family had a chance to raise a garden, chickens and pick and chop cotton in season. His son, Bill Hamilton, also had work at the cotton mill and he and his wife, Myrtle, and wife's sister Lizzie Haynes rented the little house some years and purchased one of the corners of land separated from the farm by the new highway on which to build a small two room house of their own. Bill and Myrtle Hamilton had two children, Margaret and Grady. Margaret was an older child but Grady was born while living neighbor to us. We thought it a little strange that Bill's youngest brother J. B. (Jabbo) was only three or four years older than Grady but was his Uncle!
When the Hamiltons were able to move to their own modest home, Lizzie and Aubrey Haynes continued to rent the home for some time. Aubrey and Lizzie had three children who shared the house and grew up with the Watlingtons, Hamiltons and McGills. They were a son Jesse, and daughters Clara and Audrey. But Lizzie and Aubrey had an off and on marriage. By their own estimate they ``had been married and divorced eighteen times'' and life wasn't over with yet. In later years we learned that Lizzie underwent some treatment at the Western State Mental Hospital at Bolivar, Tennessee.
But the times were hard and the Hamiltons and Haynes leaned on one another and ``Mr. Ulrich'' for support. The rent was only five dollars a month during the worst of times, but that was still five days work or more for someone. And then the rent didn't always get paid unless it was time to chop or pick cotton.
Mr. C. D. Rivers had a brother living in southern Illinois who died, and his widow became sick, so he brought the family to West Tenn. to be near him. One grown son, Frank, was in the Army, and Harold (Red) and W. B. were grown sons still at home with their mother but without steady employment. They found shelter for some months in the little house and we enjoyed their company. We thought the boys had Yankee accents. They were a fine family but sickness and a death in the family put them in dire straits.
Another family which lived neighbor to us in the little house was the Teuton family. It was many years later that I realized that this name comes from the ancient ``Teutonic peoples of Northern Germany.'' They were a fair skinned blue-eyed family with three older girls, Hettie, Jettie and Lettie, and three younger boys, Clint, Clarence and Clyde. They had run into hard times though because Mr. Teuton was serving some time in the ``Pen.'' When one of the daughters came out of the house dressed in her father's overalls, another said, ``You've got Pap's overalls on.'' The reply was, ``No, 'tain't. Pap's overalls got stripes.''
Fortunately, that too passed and the family found better times in the nearby mill town. But one of the daughters found a husband in the nearby Murchison family and has continued to be a neighbor for sixty years.
After Magnus Napoleon (Poley) Murchison and Hettie Teuton married they, too, rented the little house to start their family and two of their children were born there, Richard and Grady. ``Poley'' improved his reading and writing with his wife's help and Ulrich Watlington taught him how to read a carpenter's framing square, as he struggled to learn the carpenters trade. Poley had some good ``opossum hunting dogs'' and we enjoyed some good hunts together. His son Richard came along at a time when all the children were teenagers at the Watlington home so he became a ``grandson figure'' around Ulrich and Emma Mai Hammond. Since there were still some cows to milk on the farm, Poley and Hettie came regularly to buy some milk, butter and eggs.
Another family who lived as neighbor there was the Hopper family who had two daughters, one named Bonnie, who was still in school. After them the Jim Elec (J. E.) Collins family moved in and became permanent settlers in the neighborhood. Among the children were Alvin, Kenneth (Kay), Frank, and Parnell. Alvin was married and lived elsewhere; Kay had a crippled back yet still was able to hold a good job in the Cotton Mill. Both Kay and Frank married while they lived as neighbors. Kay bought land from Sam and Mary on Watlington Road and eventually built a simple home for himself and another for his parents on it. Frank married a neighbor girl, Jean Hamilton, and they both lived with his parents at times while starting their family. At least one of their children was born in ``the little house.''
Jim Elec Collins was at retirement age when he moved here. The place was a country place near the mill town where one son worked. Frank worked at odd jobs related to the lumbering industry and later work at the Bemis Mill. Parnell got his driver's license while living there and his first car, a Model ``A'' Ford, which he adored. He became a pretty good practical auto mechanic and later lived near Bemis. Kay and Mr. and Mrs. Collins settled into their retirement in their new home nearby.
Jim Elec worked in the cotton field at times despite his age. When asked one time about his experience growing cotton he replied, ``Man, I am a cotton farmer. Why, I wore out three farms growing cotton.'' Having had some 4-H Club lessons in the values of rotating crops and balancing cotton growing with cattle, corn and hay I could imagine what a cotton farmer he had been! Seriously speaking, he probably was right about wearing out three farms as a tenant cotton farmer. I had seen others do it in our community. It is a part of the history of farming in West Tennessee.
Concerning the fine strong wife that his son Kay found to marry, his father, Jim Elec Collins once commented, ``Kay had been looking for a good wife for some time, but I'm afraid he got more than he ordered.''
Mr. Billie (J. W.) Hamlett was a long time neighbor to the East of our farm. We had cultivated many cotton crops and some hay, corn and watermelons on his land and cleared well his ditch banks along the branch stream. The time came when Mr. Hamlett had sold most of his land and his money got low and he had to cultivate his own land, with the help of his son, Robert Earl. He was over sixty years old and was pleased at being healthy enough to do plowing and planting at that age. Ulrich Watlington, when he heard it mentioned said, ``It shouldn't surprise anyone. A man who hasn't hit a lick of work until he is sixty should be in good health to work some.''