Country Connections By James and Ellen Perry
Zola Hurst
After my father returned from Europe at the end of World War II, he along with my mother and me moved to his home county that was Union County, Tennessee.
For two-and-a-half years they rented a home in the Central Peninsula that is now called the Chuck Swan Management Area. Then they moved to the Hacker place between Hickory Valley and Kettle Hollow.
In 1948 my father bought 140 acres which went down to the 1040 line on Norris Lake from the TVA. He then rented a house from Lamar and Josie Koontz next to the land he had bought. Every year for the next three years a new baby boy arrived.
Zola Hurst lived next to the Koontz place and my mother became good friends with Zola. Zola was older than my mother and she took her under her wing, so to speak. My mother grew up to the age of 17 in Southeast Alabama near the town of Columbia. The customs and living standards were entirely different from Union County, Tennessee.
Zola explained the Union County customs to my mother who was only 18 years old at the time. My father was 10 years older than my mother. When they had the time, my mother and Zola would meet at the fence corner and talk for hours.
Remember, there was no electricity, phones or televisions at this time. Most people had a battery-operated radio used for news, weather and the Grand Ole Opry and the Mid-Day Merry-Go Round. Zola was a good friend and mentor to my mother.
Walker and Lottie Edmondson
Walker and Lottie Edmondson were much older than my parents. I never knew them to own a car. During the 1940s and 1950s there were very few cars in Union County. Some farmers had pickup trucks or flatbed trucks.
East Tennessee’s economy was agricultural-based with burley tobacco being the most important local crop. Walker had a nice farm in the valley and when electricity came through, he gave my father a free right of way for a road into our property and for the KUB to run electric lines to our house.
My father built our house from trees he felled and had hauled to Wash Russell’s sawmill to be milled into lumber. It took my father three years, from 1948-1951, to build our home.
In 1957 my father went back to the VA hospital at Johnson City, Tennessee, in November and was a patient there until March of 1958. During the winter my mother caught the flu. She got very weak, went to bed and wouldn’t wake up.
I knew I didn’t have the experience to look after her. I worried she would die and finally walked down to Walker and Lottie’s for help.
Walker listened to me, then told Lottie she should go home with me and look after Johnnie until she got better. After seeing my mother, Lottie said, “Jimmy, do you have potatoes and onions?” We had plenty in the barn. Lottie made potato soup. I helped raise my mother off the pillow and Lottie fed her little spoonfuls of soup.
My mother slowly started getting better. Lottie stayed for over a week ’til my mother fully recovered. I would take food to Walker daily. Walker and Lottie were good neighbors.
We called her Aunt Lottie even though she was no kin to us. Aunt Lottie would pay me and my brothers five cents to gather a pillowcase full of ripe rabbit tobacco. She had asthma and swore sleeping on a pillow of rabbit tobacco helped her asthma spells. Could be.
Walker had an old Kentucky rifle with which he could win a lot of turkey shoots. He was proud of that muzzleloader and would let me hold it when I would visit. Walker and Lottie were fine people.
Lamar and Josie Koontz
Lamar and Josie Koontz had 16 acres of land with two old houses and one barn. Their place joined the land my father bought from the TVA. Lamar died a few years after we moved into our new home. He told Josie if she wanted to move after his death to sell their place to my father.
Josie followed Lamar’s wishes and sold it to my father. This gave us more pastureland plus three buildings. My father converted the old house into barns and animal stalls, hay storage, a tool room and for tobacco grading. Although Lamar died shortly after we moved into our new home, he helped my father a lot.
Will Russell
At Will Russell’s funeral the preacher said, “I can’t say a good word about this man, nor can I say anything bad. He is in the Lord’s Hands.” Well, preacher, I can say some good words about Will Russell as he taught me at the age of eight how to live off the land. He taught me how to use a trotline to catch fish. He taught me how to hunt for food although he did not recognize hunting seasons. Will was a mountain man, made and sold moonshine, lived a single simple life and always wore overalls, denim coats and brogans. He smoked his own rolled velvet cigarettes, mostly rolled from pokes. Will let me use his old Model 97 Winchester pump shotgun to hunt with if I gave him half the squirrels I took. Will always treated me with respect and tried to teach me his ways.
Sam and Nora Cook
Sam and Nora Cook’s farm joined my father’s farm on the northeast side and followed it to the top of the mountain. Sam rented some of his land to my father for tomato and watermelon production. We could take the tomatoes and watermelons to the farmer’s market in Knoxville to sell. Sam had lots of apple trees and a large black cherry tree near his home. He would let us pick apples and cherries after he and Nora put up what they needed. Sam let my mother park her old Ford car at his house. She would ride to work with Walt and Aileen Cook at the Porcelain Plant in Knoxville. Sam and Nora were good neighbors.
Walt and Aileen Cook
Walt Cook was married to my father’s sister Aileen. They had six children: Rose, Barbara June, David, Dan, Dianne and Angela. They were our cousins and the younger girls were like sisters to us.
Walt and my father would buy Walt’s 1946 Ford full of peaches and sell them to our neighbors during peach season. They would usually make enough to cover the gas and pay for their families peaches to preserve and put in the freezer. In early May when the carp fish were “shoaling” we would go to the backside of our farm on Walt’s Ford pick-up and fill the bed with carp. We would divide the carp. Daddy would skin the fish. My brother Larry and I would cut up the fish and carry all the heads, skin and entrails for the foxes to eat. Our mothers would can the chunks of carp with bones in ½ gallon mason jars to be used in the upcoming winter. Mother would make fish patties with the carp bones and meat ground up in a sausage mill. The fish patties tasted pretty good for a cold snowy December supper.
The two families worked well together. Daddy would borrow their mule or horse to team with ours to cut hay, rake hay or snake logs before daddy bought a crawler John Deere tractor.
Walt was enterprising — he bought the local school bus from Glen Hurst in about 1952 and operated the route for many years. My father drove the bus at different times. About 1955, Walt went to work at Knox Porcelain in Knoxville. A lot of local Union County residents went to work there.
Walt bought a new 1955 Ford Station Wagon and let neighbors ride to Knox Porcelain with him for $1.00 per day. It saved them money and paid for his new Ford.
I always found Walt to be considerate of others and always talked to me as an adult. Walt and my father also had another business enterprise I will not go into but to say that it caused his mule to become an alcoholic. More to come about the alcoholic mule in future issues.
Bessie Keller and Kennard
Bessie was Walt Cook’s sister and lived next to door to Walt and Aileen on Ridge Road. Bessie had two children, Francis and Jerry. Kennard died in the 1950s when Jerry was about eleven years old. Bessie was the cook at Rose Hill Elementary School. Rose Hill was a three-room building with two school rooms at ground level and a large basement under the east side. Someone, probably Cecil Butcher, came up with the idea to convert the basement into a lunchroom with a kitchen.
Bessie took the job as cook and made great meals for us kids. The meals sure beat egg or squirrel sandwiches. Bessie and the other ladies on Ridge Road traded hairdos. That’s where they would catch up on gossip. Bessie had a lot to put up with in her life but always was pleasant.
Jesse and Trula Hobock
Jesse Hobock was a man who did well by his family. Jesse came from West Tennessee and married Trula McBee and they had four children, J.L., Carolyn, Jerald and Marilyn. Jesse was a welder and worked for Dempster in Knoxville. Jesse also farmed.
He had the best farm in the area, kept it clean, raised cattle, tobacco and gardens. He provided for his family and had one of the best names around. Jesse always had a bull that the neighbors could take their cows to when they were “bulling.” Times have changed and there’s only Jerald and Marilyn left. The farm has been allowed to deteriorate.
Kyle and Helen Whited
Kyle and Helen Whited’s home was in Hickory Valley next to Jesse Hobock’s farm. Kyle worked in town and Helen was a schoolteacher. No not just a schoolteacher, but a very good special teacher. Helen taught at Rose Hill School while I attended there. Kyle kept a new car for Helen at all times. The only Henry J I ever saw she drove for her first year. The second year they bought a new German car called a Volkswagen. Their next car was a very nice 1953 Chevy Bel-Air 4-door sedan.
Like I said, Helen was a special teacher. She took sick kids home in her car many times while teaching at Rose Hill Elementary School. Her son Auble was younger than me, a good kid who didn’t cause any trouble. Auble was a “loner” at Rose Hill School.
Jerald Hobock and I decided to keep an eye on Auble as three older boys liked to pick on and aggravate him. Jerald and I didn’t tolerate that. They are all gone today but I’ll always remember them.
I am now sitting on my front porch on a nice day for January thinking back to my youth. I remember seeing old men sitting alone and starting to get that long ago look in their eyes, beginning to smile, then laughing as he remembers things from his youth or maybe later in his life.
Hank Williams wrote in one of his songs that memories are one thing man cannot destroy. I would often wonder what that old man was reliving in his memory. Today I am doing the same as that old man, remembering neighbors long gone, but still alive in my memories. Thank all you good neighbors of long ago.