Recollections of
Ann Martin Cunningham
(1915-2002)
As told to James W. Cunningham (1947-)
Mack Denny
Mack’s
parents had moved into the head of the Gizzard and where the big
spring …. Now to the left, if you went on up the Gizzard to Tracy City,
the way
I understood it, and the cemetery is up on top of the spring or back
there
somewhere but on the right there was a cove and I don’t know how big it
is and Mack’s
mother and daddy moved in there and, I assume, bought the land. I don’t
know
whether they were the only people living in there or not.Because George
Thompson’s
parents had lived up there somewhere.And I don’t know whether the
Dennys and the
Thompsons lived in the same cove, but the Dennys must have been in
there first
because they used to call it and still do the “Denny Cove.
They
had several children. Mack had a sister, I think, and I don’t know
whether he had a brother or not. We just called him “Mack”—I don’t know
what
his full name was. He was a young man and no one had ever seenMack in
anything
but bib overalls.I don’t know what age, but I guess around 20 or 21 or
something.
Dave
Harris married Margaret Box and they had several children and they
lived over across the creek, up on the edge, side of the mountain.Uncle
Spencer
and Aunt Margaret’s[1]
side.And they had Ginny, and Ten, and _____and another boy, I can’t
think of
his name, and Mahaley.That’s five children and I can’t think of
anymore. Lee
was the oldest daughter.
Mack
had been courtingTennie and Tennie, I think, was named for my
mother[2].She
was either named for
Papa’s mother[3]
or my mother and I’m not sure which one, more likely to have been named
for
Papa’s mother.But anyhow, they called her “Ten.”
So Papa[4]
went to take the milk down to what we called the “milkhouse.” A lot of
people
called it the “storeroom.” That’s about all you kept in it was milk and
butter.And he came back up the lane[5]
and the lane was straight
up ’til it got to a certain place and then it turned the other way, and
when
Papa came back up, he was getting ready to come in the back door
through the
kitchen and he saw a man coming down the road, just dressed up fit to
kill. He
could tell he had on a suit of clothes, and so he just stood there and
waited
to see who it was.And when he got a little closer, he saw it was Mack.
And he
said—and the old country saying was when you saw someone dressed up
like
that,that
you didn’t often see them dressed up, was—“Where are you going to
preach
today?”
[Mack
replied,] “Well, hoo pusses, I’m going to get me a dough roller.”
(Laughter)
He looked just like Festus[6],
especially when he was in
his everyday garb and after he got older.But he had on a new mail order
suit, a
white shirt, a tie, a new pair of shoes. He perhaps had a hat, but I
don’t
remember what Papa said about it.But I imagine he had a new hat.
And you
see, if he walked down on the road, he’d be out in the open sun
and he’d have gotten real hot, but he walked down and he was pretty
well
shaded, from the Denny Cove down to our lane and then it was shady
mostly, down
our lane. And if he’d crossed the branch and walked in that path, he
was shaded
all the way and Cedar Ridge, too.
And you
walked around there and the first house was Uncle Ike Henley’s.And
the next house was the Adams’ and the next house was the Normans’,
where Lenabel
was born. There was a road around there and you came to Hey Tom’s
House, or Hey
Jack, they called him.Tom Anderson was his name and he married Abigail,
Daisy
Abigail Roberts. You’ve heard us speak of Osira[?]. And I believe they
were
Amos Roberts’daughters.
AndMack
had his license already and he was going to get married.Well,
that was the first time my daddy had ever heard a wife called a “dough
roller.”
[1]Spencer & Margaret
(Tate) Anderson
[2]Tennessee Jane Raulston
[3]Mary Tennessee Tate
[4]William Herbert Martin
[5]They lived at the Speegle place in
the Gizzard which Comfort Matilda
Tate,
Tennessee Jane Raulston’s mother, had
received as a wedding present
from her
father, John Knox Tate.
[6]A character in the television
show,Gunsmoke.
MyrtleSmith
She was born and raised there in the house that Granny and Grandpa[1]
later … that was their farm, you know … my family.Well, she was John
Smith’s daughter and I think it means John Adams ….And so they had
several children. There was Mary Smith that married a Smith and lived
at Sewanee. And then there was … Ed Smith and Henry Smith were the
boys.And I don’t know whether they just had 4 children or not. Myrtle
was the baby and they called her “Myrt.”
Alva Suggs—A-l-v-a was the way he spelled his name—had come from
Pikeville. He was a young man and he worked in the McConnells’ sawmill.
When the McConnells came into Battle Creek, they put their sawmill up
in the head of the Kelly Cove and lived up there, you know.
Alva Suggs had come to work at the sawmill in the Kelly Cove and, of
course, Myrtle lived right there where Bill and Dot[2]
lived behind
where
our home was[3] . Alva was courting her and so they
decided they were
going to get married.Myrt said, “I got married right in front of that
fireplace” and said,“Alva had bought a new pair of overalls to get
married in” and I guess he had a white shirt and a tie, but he got
married in bib overalls.And you’re supposed to wash them before you
wear
them, because that blue will fade on you and it must have been hot
weather.It had to be because they didn’t have a fire, if they got
married in front of the fireplace. And she said the overalls faded all
over where they touched the skin.And she said on her wedding night, she
slept with Alva for the first time and he was blue all over.And she
just died laughing. (Laughter) He enjoyed her and he was a nice person,
too.And he did real well; they had a good living.But she kept up a
hoorah wherever she was.I never have seen anything like that Myrt. Oh,
she was a cracker jack.
[1]Ann’s parents, William Herbert & Tennessee Jane (Raulston)
Martin
[2]Ann’s brother and sister-in-law, William David &Dortha Virginia
(Jones)
Martin
[3]in Smithtown
Submitted
by James Cunningham
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October 8, 2011