THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Lewis B.
Turner lived a long life in
In fact, it was his recollections of
the hard times during that conflict that one of his favorite stories
was
based. He liked to tell how he was
hanged twice in the same day and survived.
A Home Guard group went to the Turner
home in the Dooly District demanding shirts and pants.
Lewis’s father stood up to the Home Guard and
said to them, “If there’s a gentleman in this group, you will return
the clothes.” Their captain, not wanting
to be mislabled
“dishonest,” commanded his men to return the clothes.
Mr. Turner took them and after the
Home Guard left, he hid the clothes in a safe place.
Later some of the men came back and demanded
of young Lewis Turner that he show then where the clothes were hidden. The lad refused to reveal the hiding place.
For his non-cooperation, they placed a
rope about the 10-year old lad’s neck, threw it over a ceiling joist
and began
to tighten the rope. When he was almost
choked to death, the ruffians let the boy down to his feet. Again they questioned him and demanded that
he get the pants and shirts for them. He
refused and they made a second attempt to hang him.
They lowered him again after his adamant
response that he would die before he told the secret hiding place of
the men’s
clothes. Finally the Home Guard went
away and let the tough little fellow alone.
The Home Guard was hard on the Turner
family because Lewis’s older brother had joined the Union Army. The whole family held Union loyalties. When his brother was attempting to come home
on furlough, the Home Guard killed him.
In 1908 when Buddy Turner was 56 years
of age, he founded the Lewner post office in the Dooly District. Needing a name for the new post office, he
decided to name it for himself by taking the first syllable of his
given name
and the last syllable of his last name.
The new post office was thus named Lewner. It
was located about a mile from the
Buddy Turner was not one to travel far
from his home. He was content to farm
his acres and exchange the time of day and talk politics with his post
office
clientele. But the time came when Uncle
Buddy had to go to the big city of
Buddy Turner was a witness to a case
brought to trial for a man accused of producing moonshine liquor. The trial was held in Federal Court in
Lewis C. “Buddy” Turner lived a life
close to the soil. He delighted in
seeing his gardens and crops produce well.
He knew how to trap and snare animals.
He hunted for deer, rabbits, squirrels and wild turkeys to help
supplement his family’s farm-grown produce.
[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.]
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