Most descendants of East Tennessee’s original settler population are also descendants of Union Veterans of the American Civil War. Closer to home, many of us are descendants of original members of Company B of the First Tennessee Infantry, the first federal unit that was formed in Tennessee for service in the American Civil War.

Never to be forgotten, on the first day of August 1861, in open defiance of the occupying Confederate Army, Company B was formed at Jacksboro, forever securing the small county seat, scarcely a village in 1861, as a site of national historical significance. The uncommon courage of conviction displayed that day was of both symbolic and strategic importance to the Union cause.

The second unit formed in Tennessee, for service in the American Civil War, Company A of the First Tennessee Infantry, was formed at Jacksboro the following day. The reversal of alphabetical order between Company A and Company B can be explained by muster-in dates. Upon leaving Jacksboro, Company B traveled to Camp Dick Robinson near Danville, Kentucky, for training. Company A stopped at Williamsburg for training.

Living grandchildren of Civil War veterans are not as unusual as might be commonly assumed. Living grandchildren of John Hicks, an original member of Company B, include James A. “Jim” Hicks, Helen Hicks Brown, and Kyle Kenton “Kenny” Hicks, and Carl Thomas Hicks.

Elsa Willoughby Aiken is unusual in that she is a living granddaughter of two Civil War veterans. Elsa’s paternal grandfather, John Willoughby and his brother Preston Willoughby, like the Hicks brothers, were original members of Company B of the First Tennessee Infantry. Their brother James Willoughby joined the same unit on July 1, 1863 at Lancaster, Kentucky.

Elsa’s maternal grandfather George Heatherly and his slightly older nephew John Heatherly joined Company C of the First Tennessee Infantry at Cumberland Ford, Kentucky, on February 2, 1862, a little more than two weeks after the first major Union Victory of the war at the Battle of Mills Springs, Kentucky.

Most likely, neither John Willoughby nor George Heatherly would have never imagined that a granddaughter of theirs would be involved in the production of the most annihilative bomb detonated in human history.

Elsa first saw the light of day in a cottage, on the old Willoughby place, not far from the banks of Cedar Creek. The attending physician, her uncle Dr. James Willoughby, also delivered both of my parents.

For years, the steps to the old Upper Cedar Creek School, where Elsa started first grade, were visible from the old bridge over the Cedar Creek channel of Norris Reservoir, after pool levels began to drop in late summer or early autumn.

Although her childhood church, Cedar Creek Baptist, relocated to higher ground, the neighborhood school closed permanently in advance of the rising waters to be impounded beneath the convergence of the Clinch and Powell rivers. Elsa completed the elementary grades at Alder Springs and graduated from LaFollette High School in 1943. A classmate of my father, they both participated in school plays.

Due to the teacher shortage brought about by the Second World War, Elsa began teaching at Demory the school year after she completed high school. She also taught at Whitman and Alder Springs but worked as a calutron girl at Y-12, during the summers of 1943 and 1944, where uranium was processed for the Atomic Bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

A bus that picked up passengers who walked to Hugh McNeely’s store from Victory and Alder Springs would stop along Cedar Creek Road and pick up Elsa near her home on its way to the wartime Clinton Engineering Works (CEW) at Oak Ridge.

Elsa married World War II Veteran Charles W. “Chic” Aiken on September 29, 1945. Chic had been an army medic who served in the South Pacific, the jungles of New Guinea and the Australian desert.

The Aiken’s only child, Mike, was born at LaFollette. He started school at College Hill, but the family moved around several times as Chic followed employment opportunities before settling at Gallatin, in Sumner County, when Mike was nine-years old.

While living at Gallatin, Elsa wrote several songs published by The Gospel Song Publishers Association of America including “I Know When Jesus Came”, “I’m Happy Today”, “Somewhere Beyond the Sunset”, “Springtime in Heaven”, and “God’s Love Will Guide Me”.

After Chic died in 1997, Elsa returned to Campbell County. Honored last year as the oldest living family member at her annual Heatherly Family Reunion, these days Elsa is enjoying her golden years as a resident at LaFollette Court visiting with family, friends, and staff.