THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union
County, Georgia
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Some
Descendants of Leason Spiva
When the Union
County Census of 1834 was taken, the first after the county was formed
in 1832, one of the families listed was
that of Leason Spiva.
His name was spelled by the census taker, Lecen
Spivey. He had come into Union County from
Habersham, and to Habersham from Rutherford
County, NC where he had married Jane Jackson. Leason
Spiva became clerk of the first inferior
court of Union County. It seems that Leason
liked to live in new counties, for by 1860 he and his family were
residing in Towns County
which had been formed in 1856 from a portion of Union. His
property near the Hiawassee River on
Mill Creek in Towns County was
distributed to heirs. He died sometime
before April
1, 1889.
Leason and
Jane Jackson Spiva had at least eight
children. I will focus on Adnirum, born in
1828 in Habersham County, who
married Eveline Souther, daughter of John
and Mary Combs Souther. They made their home on a farm near her
father's home in Choestoe. Their children were John (1851-1933), Jesse
(1852-1918), Joseph L. (1855-1940), William Washington (1857-1931),
Rhoda Caroline (1859-1930), Thomas Newton (1862-1918), James Alfred
(1864-1950), Nancy Jane (?), and Stephen Adrian (1865- 1960). Eveline Souther Spiva
died December
4, 1865 when her baby Stephen was less
than a month old. She was buried on her father's farm and her grave has
been lost to the ravages of time. Her parents, John and Mary Souther,
took her small child Stephen and reared him. In his will, John Souther
bequeathed to Eveline's heirs $300 to be
divided between them, except for "Stephen whom I raised." To him he
gave $100.
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Claude Spivey, age 92,
stands before some of his model trains that he makes in his woodworking
shop.
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Adniram Spiva married, second, Sarah Haseltine Corn of Towns County and
they had five children, bringing the total born to Adniram
to fourteen. Adniram and Sarah's children
were Evaline (1875), Sarah Rose
(1876-1943), Louis J. (1880-1954), Luther F (1883-1955) and Benjamin H.
(1885-1925).
James Alfred,
seventh child of Adniram and Eveline, chose to use the spelling Spivey for
his last name. He was the only one of the children by Eveline who ventured out of Union County and
went first to Tellico
Plains, Tennessee and
eventually to Baker
City, Oregon. He
married Mary Elizabeth Rhea at Tellico Plans. They had eight children:
William Finley, George Thurston, Luther Adniram,
Maggie Beatrice, James Wiley, John Henry, Harvey Ethridge,
and Charles. All the children were born in Monroe
County, TN at
Tellico Plains, so it was perhaps after their third child, Luther Adniram, left Tellico Plains in 1931 to go to Baker
City, Oregon to
make a living that the other family members followed him. All of James
Alfred and Sarah's children lived in Oregon
until their deaths.
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Luther Spivey
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Luther Adniram Spivey was the third child of James
Alfred and Mary Elizabeth Rhea Spivey. He and his wife Ora Lee Ellis Spivey had a large family of ten
children. The eldest of these was Claude Raymond Spivey, born December 2, 1915 in Tellico
Plains, Tennessee. He
is now 92 years old, in good health, and is eagerly awaiting
spring in Baker City, Oregon, so
that it will be warm enough for him to go into his shop and resume his
hobby of woodworking. A feature article in the "Living Well" section of
the "Baker City Herald" told of this zestful senior citizen who looks
forward to each day.
He tells of his
family's trip to Baker City in a
1928 Buick. He remembers it as in 1929. However, noting the birth dates
of his siblings, it must have been 1931, for his sister, Della LaVelle, was the last born in Tellico Plains on June 14, 1931.
With seven children and two grownups in the car, they learned to pull
some subterfuge at toll gates to avoid paying twenty-five cents per
head for every child. They "hid" the younger ones to save some payment
in tolls.
Claude Spivey
served as a cook in the US Army from 1941 to 1945. His tour of duty
took him to Trinidad, Curacao, Puerto
Rico and other places. After the
war, he returned to Baker
City, Oregon, but
went to Brooklyn, New
York to marry the girl whom he had
met in service in Puerto Rico. He
married Ernestina Gomez Quinones on July 5, 1947.
Known as "Tina" because of her petite 4' 11" stature, she and Claude
had four children, all born in Baker
City, Oregon:
Diana Lynn, Linda May, Evelyn Sue, and Ronald Steven. Tina passed away
in 2005 and Claude now lives with his daughter Linda May Bjorklund.
Among his
prizes in his woodworking collection are six trains which he has
fashioned simply by "thinking about them," from his years of work on
the railroad. He began woodworking in 1977, a year after his retirement
from Union Pacific. One of his favorites is the steam locomotive made
after #4449 "American Freedom Train." When the weather warms up in Oregon, he
will put the finishing touches on this seven-foot replica.
Trains are not
his only forte. In their home are gun cabinets, a secretary desk, a
table, creative picture frames, stools, a stock for an old .22 caliber
rifle, and knife handles. Linda says lovingly of her father: "If I
don't have something and need it, Dad makes it."
It's a long
distance to Choestoe in Union County
where his great, great grandfather Adniram
Spiva lived. And it's been a long time
since that ancestor passed away. But some of the genes for a solid work
ethic and a zest for life still remain with this 92-year old
descendant, Claude Raymond Spivey, in Oregon.
[Thanks to
Linda Spivey Bjorklund of Baker, OR for
sending me the newspaper article about her father; to Geraldine Spiva Elmore of Tuscaloosa, AL for
her book, "Descendants of Adaniram Spiva (1827-1898) and Evaline
Souther Spiva (1826-1865)"; and for Watson
B. Dyer's "Souther Family History" 1988, all of which I used as
resources for this article.-EDJ]
c2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 21, 2008 in
The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by
permission. All rights reserved.
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.
She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708
Cedarwood Road,
Milledgeville,
GA
31061-2411.]