<center>Once Upon A Lifetime lifevol 5 </center>
Once Upon A Lifetime Vol No. 5
In Baker County, Florida By La Viece Moore-Fraser Smallwood
Copyright 1995
Copies available from the author complete with photos:
Rt 2 Box 543 Macclenny, Florida 32063
Permission has been granted by the author for posting to this page.
DR. EDWARD WRAY CROCKETT, SR.
His story as told by his son, Edward Wray, Jr., October 1994.
They say legends never die, that they are just passed down from generation to generation until the myth finally becomes intertwined with enough fact and fiction that it is shrouded in an intriguing mystery. That is the case of Dr. Edward Wray Crockett, Sr. whose untimely death in 1938 is still talked about and passed down from generation to generation with great reverence. This is his story as remembered by his son, Edward Wray "Junior" Crockett, Jr., and friends and acquaintances who knew him best and loved him most.
He was the son of a distinguished physician, Dr. M.J. Crockett, who arrived in Worth County, Georgia, about the time it was formed from Dooley County. He was not a southern native, but born near Logansport, Indiana, on April 24, 1843 to David and Lovisa Crockett, who came from Ohio. Dr. M.J. Crockett was the fourth of their five children and received his early education in the county schools of his native state, completing his medical education at Miami Medical College in Cincinnati in 1870. He located first in Oregon, but later came south to Worth County and in 1875 married the daughter of J.R. Hills, an old and honored family of the area. He and Sarah Hill were the parents of six children, one of which was Edward Wray Crockett.
Dr. M.J. Crockett held the distinction of being the first physician in Sylvester, Georgia, and for more than 40 years served the county in civic endeavors, as well. He was a county councilman, maintained a position on the Board of Trustees for the Board of Public Education, was a Royal Arch mason, and, with his family, a member of the Methodist Church.
In spite of his celebrated status, Dr. Crockett became estranged from his son, Edward Wray, who later gained his own rightfully-earned recognition in Baker County as an humanitarian of the people. And though the entire story may never be known, the son of Edward Wray, known as "Junior," says the conflict occurred when his grandfather refused to provide financial assistance to his son for a career in medicine. Instead he financed a medical career for his son-in-law, I.C. Deariso. Strong-willed and determined, Edward Wray found his own way independently of his father, putting himself through pharmacy school, then on to the Atlanta School of Medicine, now Emory University. In the interim, he worked as an assistant for a Dr. Brown in Lake City, and someone in Macon as he slowly but surely worked his way through college. When he graduated he received a $500 check from his father in Sylvester congratulating him and expressing the pride he felt for his son's feat. Edward Wray tore the check in half and returned it promptly with a note that said he had made it thus far without his help and he didn't need or want it now.
"When his parents died he didn't even attend their funeral," said Junior. "I guess he was so hurt that he never went back. He had a sister, Katie, who lived in Miami. She and her husband, W.A. Moore, had a large family and daddy helped them financially a lot. And he sometimes mentioned his other sister Claude, but other than that, the subject of his family was closed."
Dr. Edward Wray Crockett hung his shingle out in Glen St. Mary in a small frame house embellished with a front porch; it was just north of the railroad tracks. It's not sure when he arrived, but he served as the physician who examined recruits during World War I.
"Daddy was married to Ollie Mae Culpepper when he came to Baker County, but this marriage failed. One day he was in the Franklin Store and Post Office when he saw my mother, Veatrice Granger, whose family came from up around Olustee and over in Union County." The couple cultivated a romance and were married in 1918.
Edward Wray Crockett, Jr. was born to the couple on April 27, 1920. He proudly bears his father's distinguished name, but has been known all of his life simply as Junior. He freely discusses his famed father and wishes he knew more about the man who was so revered in Baker County.
"My first memory of my father is of him rocking me on the front porch of our home. He had the ever-present cigar in his mouth," he said. "We lived in the rear of daddy's office. I remember that shelves lined the walls and daddy dispensed his medicine from big brown jars. I recall he would compound a little of this and a little of that. He charged $10 for an office or house call and that included the medicine if a patient needed it. Of course he didn't always get paid in money; many times he was given stock, chickens, vegetables, beans or potatoes. It was during the Depression and people were poor. Daddy understood."
Junior Crockett remembers going on house calls with his father, far out into the woods of the rural homes of poor tenant farmers. "Daddy and I had a game. I knew when he was leaving to make a house call and I'd go hide in the rear seat of his Model-T Ford touring car. I'd go 'way down in the back seat, hiding, and he'd make out like he didn't see me, and when he did he'd make out like he was mad, but it would tickle him. My favorite place to go was out where Roxie Prevatt Burnett's family lived. There were lots of children around. It's near Hamp Register's place but it was sorta Prevatt territory and I enjoyed playing with all the children. The roads were almost always bad. It seemed everytime we'd go out that way we'd have to go cut a tree down and get the old car out from being stuck.
"Daddy used to take care of people as far up as Baxter, and it would take him almost all day to get up there if he went in the morning, and sometimes it was in the night before he'd come back. I've never heard of anyone my daddy turned down that needed him and I never heard of him doing anything out of line. If he was drinking, which he occasionally did, he wouldn't treat you.
"He had saved $300 in silver dollars for my education; I wanted to be a doctor, too, and I remember he had to use them to buy more medicine because the people didn't have money to pay him and he didn't have money to buy medicine to treat them. I remember that later on there was a Mr. Armstrong that ran a store. Some of the people would bring five gallons of moonshine into his store, and he'd sell it for them to pay my daddy for medical services he had given the family."
In 1927 Dr. Crockett moved his practice and family from Glen to Macclenny. At the time, Highway 90 was in the process of being the first road paved in the county. The family moved into a home on north 121, and Dr. Crockett began his practice in an office building on the southwest corner of Macclenny Avenue and Fifth Street. He later moved across the street and opened his office in the Power's Building just down from Power's Sundry and the Hotel Annie.
Even though there were marital problems in the Crockett home by 1929, the couple had another child, William, born March 22, 1932. Both of their sons were delivered in Jacksonville by Dr. Crockett's colleague, a prominent Jacksonville physician, Dr. R.Y.H. Thomas.
"Daddy never treated his own family. He wouldn't even give us an aspirin," said Junior.
"Daddy started getting away from us," said Junior. "We really only saw him when he'd come in to sleep or be there to eat. I remember he was a very neat man in appearance, changing his detachable collar twice a day. My mama nagged him a lot. She always suspected he was seeing someone else and she was very jealous. It made an unpleasant home for us with all the accusations. If she had not kept on about it, I don't think daddy would have ever left, but mama kept on until they divorced."
Crockett married Ella Dykes soon after. His sons remained with their mother Veatrice in their home in North Macclenny.
"It wasn't much of a family life after that," said his son. "Ella broke up our family."
Meanwhile Dr. Crockett bought some property on Main Street adjoining the Citizen's Bank. He opened a Sundry Store and moved his office to the rear of the store.
In time, marital problems cropped up with his wife Ella. "They separated in early 1938 and I moved in with daddy," said Junior. "We lived in the Morris House together, and I worked in the Sundry Store."
Junior and his friend, Horace Rhoden, had been to Jacksonville on the night of February 24, 1938. He remembers driving through town on his way to drop Horace off at his home, which was located near the old Walter's sawmill, east of the Glen St. Mary River bridge. As he passed by Ella's home on West Main Street he noticed his father standing on the front porch talking with her. It took 10 minutes to take Horace home, and when Junior drove back by, on his way to the Morris House, the couple was still standing there talking. Fifteen minutes later, as Junior lay in bed waiting on his father to come in, someone else arrived instead. It was Ella's brother-in-law, Joe Phillips, the town's Chief of Police.
"Came to tell you your daddy's been shot and killed," he said.
Stunned and in shock, Junior quickly dressed and accompanied Joe Phillips back to Ella's house where his father lay mortally wounded. He had been shot in the head. Ella claimed self-defense.
The following day's headline and story in the Florida Times Union reported:
Dr. Edward W. Crockett, 43, prominent Macclenny physician, was shot and instantly killed shortly after 1 a.m. today at the Crockett residence, and his widow was placed in Duval county jail here several hours later to await outcome of an inquest at Macclenny tomorrow. She claimed self-defense. The couple had been estranged since about Jan. 1. Dr. Crockett was living at a Macclenny hotel. Mrs. Crockett, with Dr. Crockett's two sons by a former marriage, Edward W. Crockett, Jr. and William J. Crockett, lived at the Crockett residence. Dr. Crockett was shot through the head. The bullet entered his left ear. Mrs. Crockett told officers the doctor forced his way into the house, struck her with a flashlight, and that in self-defense, she fired. Officers found glass had been knocked out of the front door.
"I'm sorry I had to do it," Mrs. Crockett said.
An acquaintance said the doctor had delivered a baby just before he was killed.
An inquest will be conducted tomorrow afternoon before Frank Dowling, county judge and coroner at Macclennny.
Dr. Crockett was a native of Sylvester, Ga. and was a graduate of Emory University at Atlanta. He had lived in Macclenny for 21 years. A World war veteran, he was a member of the American Legion and of Dawkins lodge, Free and Accepted Masons. He owned the Crockett drug store at Macclenny. In addition to his widow and two sons, he is survived by three sisters, Mrs. W.D. Nobles of Pensacola, Mrs. Kathryn Moore of Meridian, Miss, and Mrs. Mattie Deriso of Atlanta, and a brother, Frank Crockett. Here's Mrs. Crockett's story of 'the killing'. "Dr. Crockett came to my house about 1 a.m. today and knocked. I opened the door, saw who it was and shoved it shut. He knocked the glass out of the door, reached through and unlocked the lock, and came on in. He had a flashlight and he hit me over the head with it. He went on back to my bedroom.....(remainder of article missing).
Commenting on the events reported in the article, Junior Crockett says the facts are not presented.
"I saw the glass on the front porch myself. It was knocked out from the inside. Testimony from the local telephone operator in Macclenny -- which at the time had to put your call through personally -- said that Ella had called daddy to her house on the pretense that she was ill. Ella had seen a light on at the Sundry Store because daddy was treating a man who had been cut in an accident. That is when she called the operator and told her to ring daddy because she was ill, and when daddy finished treating his patient, he went to treat Ella."
Ella Crockett was indicted for first-degree murder and convicted by a Circuit Court jury in Macclenny on a charge of manslaughter. She appealed her case to the Supreme Court and was free on bond pending the decision. On April 7th the Supreme Court upheld her five-year prison sentence. "It's a sad case," observed the court. "There is much in the evidence to appeal to the sympathies of the court and the jury, as well as to members of this court, but the jury settled the disputed questions of fact and this court would not be authorized to disturb their finding, which was approved by the trial court when it denied motion for new trial." The Supreme Court said records showed each had threatened to kill the other. Junior Crockett denied this was true.
"If that had been the truth I would have known. Daddy was not the kind of person to make threats and everyone who knew him, knew that."
Dr. E.W. Crockett's funeral service, held in the First Baptist Church in Macclenny was the largest ever held in the county.
"The church couldn't hold them all," remembered Junior. "Blacks attended as well as whites. He had patients all over the county and he was well loved and respected," he said.
Junior Crockett was 17 years old when his father was killed. He moved back to the home of his mother. Three years later she died, tragically.
"She had gall stones, but I remember my daddy telling her how dangerous an operation would be as stout as she was and she needed to lose some weight. She should have listened to his advice because he was one of the best physicians in the country at the time, sought after for articles and advice in distinguished medical journals. I didn't want her to go and didn't support it because of what daddy had said and she needed to lose weight first, but she insisted. I got Auzie Dugger to drive her in to Jacksonville to the hospital. At first she seemed to get through the operation well, but a few days later she developed a blood clot and died.
"In a way, I was close to my mother, but I have always felt like if she hadn't talked so much to daddy about other women that things would have been different. Maybe the things were true, but now it doesn't make any difference, they divorced."
The same year his father died, Junior married pretty and petite Doris Keen, a native of Taylor. She remembers his mother well.
"Veatrice was a warm, caring mother, a smothering mother. It may have been the difference in education that she was narrow minded and very jealous," she said, "but Dr. Crockett was a very brilliant man, and besides his formal education he was an outgoing person. She probably had no reason to be so jealous of him; he could not have served the community like he did and womanized as much as he was accused of doing. When you are a small child and hear this said about a person you love, it disrupts a home; it should have been said privately or just not at all," she said.
Junior felt if his mother had suffered in silence the two would have stayed together.
"I knew, even at my age, it couldn't be all true. Lots of times he'd be out there in those woods with sick people, or delivering babies. When my mother died, I think she died with a broken heart."
Veatrice Crockett died January 21, 1941. She was 40 years old.
Junior turned 18 years old on April 27 in 1938. He married Doris on August 21, of the same year. The two had known each other since they were born.
"Dr. Crockett delivered me on July 30, 1920," she said smiling. "Veatrice told me later that when he came home he remarked that he had just delivered the prettiest little girl baby that was just perfect for their son. Junior was three months and three days old at the time," she noted.
But it was years later before the couple would meet formally. Her parents, Lessie and Altie Keen, had moved away, first to Bryceville, then to White House. She often visited relatives and while home on one of the visits she and Junior met at the Community Center. They dated about a year before marrying.
"I went to the Sundry Store to get $20 one evening so we could drive over to Folkston and marry," said Junior. "When I asked the Justice that married us how much we owed him, he said, 'How much do you think she is worth?' and I said, 'Well, I got $20, just take you something out of that' and he said, 'Thank you' and put the $20 in his pocket. I had to come back to Macclenny and get some more money before we could even go after a hamburger, and that's the truth!" he said. The couple settled down in a small apartment in the rear of the Sundry store.
Struggling to pay mounting bills and hold onto his father's buildings, he had to settle the loan made by Ella. The Citizens Bank had promised him that if he met the interest payment each month they would work with him to keep the property.
"I didn't inherit any money when my daddy died like a lot of people have the impression. I had to borrow the money from the bank to keep the buildings. The bank had loaned Ella money on the buildings even though her name was not on the deeds, and the loan had to be paid off. Her name was only on the deed to the house where she had lived with daddy. Daddy had called Hollis Knight, a lawyer in Starke, the day before he died and asked him to come over the next day because he wanted to get his affairs settled," said Junior.
"After daddy died I called Hollis and he helped me. Ella was wanting to get out of prison bad, so I appeared before her first parole hearing and explained the way things were. I offered to pay off the mortgage on the two buildings and her house, and give her the house free and clear if she would settle that way. I had to borrow the money to do it and that's how I got to keep the buildings," he said. "The bank had assured me I didn't have to worry about it as long as I paid the interest."
When World War II started, Junior received a notice from the bank. They needed their money. He had no way to get it. "I went in to pay the interest one day and they told me they couldn't accept that and said, 'You could be drafted into the war at anytime and things have changed around here'. I told them I would be glad to continue paying on the interest and a little on the principal, but they said they just couldn't do it.
Soon after, Doris was surprised to see two bank officials come into the Sundry store. "They looked around and from what I could gather from the conversation they were talking about how they were going to remodel the store to accommodate their plans," she said.
"I had a friend in Thomasville, Georgia, who was involved in whiskey," said Junior. "He had come down here and my daddy had treated him well when he came into the sundry store, so one day I told him about my situation and he told me not to worry about it, that he'd loan me the money that very week to pay off the loans."
Junior made a trip to the bank and asked the bank official who had visited his Sundry to give him the balance of his account.
"He grinned and said, 'Well, it's no use going into it any further, we've got to have it all,' and I said, 'I think I got it all, just figure up how much I owe you, and he did, and I counted out the money and gave it to him. You can't believe how sick that guy looked. I was very fortunate," he said.
"That's really the way I got started in the moonshine business," he said. "I got started because of necessity in a way, because I still had to make some money to pay back the loan I had made with the man in Thomasville to salvage what daddy had. I found out that the poor farmers in Georgia were selling their syrup to the Rodenberry family for 50 cents a gallon, so I paid them 65 cents, sold it locally for $1 and soon had my loan paid off." (Editor's note: The story of Junior Crockett's involvement with the moonshine industry can be read in Volume VI).
Junior and Doris's first child was born nine months and three days after their marriage. They named their son Edward Wray Crockett, III when he arrived May 23, 1939.
"He learned to crawl and walk in the Sundry store," she smiled.
Another son, David, arrived October 24, 1951.
Junior Crockett is a man of strong feelings and convictions. He likes to recall stories of his father and relishes sitting and talking with people who personally knew him.
"He was truly a 'see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil' kind of man," said Junior proudly.
"I remember an incident when daddy was returning home late at night from making a house call. He had a friend, Ealie Johnson, with him. They were driving daddy's old Model-T Ford. They came to Chalker Branch, south of Sanderson, and found that a cross tie had been placed across the road. Daddy stopped his car and someone yelled, from out of the darkness, 'Get out of the car with your hands up and turn your car lights off.' Back then, the old Model-Ts had coils down on the bottom of the dashboard and daddy said he kicked his lights off with his foot and got out with his hands on his head. He heard someone yell, 'Why, that's Dr. Crockett! Go on Dr. Crockett, get the hell out of here,' or something like that. Anyway, daddy got out of there and they got all the way down to Dinkins church, travelling through the pine trees from the branch where they were stopped, and Ealie reminded daddy he had never turned his lights back on. It was pitch black and he had not even thought to turn on the lights, he was so scared. The next day they heard who had been killed there that night -- two men named John Conner and Frank Dolly. They were driving the same kind of car as daddy and he was almost mistaken for them."
"I had always wanted to be a physician like daddy," he said, "and one day he let me watch an autopsy performed on a little girl that had been electrocuted over at the Chessman Theatre. Mr. Chessman had installed chicken wire over his posters advertising the movies because the kids would otherwise tear them off. He ran an electric wire just to shock them. Well, this little black girl came by when it had been raining and was electrocuted. During the autopsy, Daddy just said her heart was already bad, and she could have died even if a car horn had blown loudly and scared her."
Now that he is much older and with more time to reflect, Junior Crockett expresses strong and concentrated feelings about his father and his tragic and untimely death.
"I don't believe Ella killed my father," he says with conviction. "There's too much evidence against it, and now that I look back on it, I feel I know how it happened and who did it. At the time, I was so young, and even though I was called as a witness, they just didn't have qualified investigative law enforcement people like we have today. Had it happened today, I believe the outcome would have been much different."
He vividly recalls the night when he saw his father talking to Ella through her door on the front porch of their home. He looked at his watch as he came back by on his way to the Morris House. "Fifteen minutes after I lay down, Joe Phillips came and told me daddy had been shot. That's 15 minutes after I passed by there. The story goes that daddy went up there and tried to break in, yet I saw him when I took Horace home, talking to her through the door, and 10 minutes later, when I came back by, they were still talking. Fifteen minutes after that he was dead. If you think about it, it would have been impossible for Joe Phillips to have been notified, gotten up out of bed and dressed, then drove over to Ella's house, and find that a murder had taken place. He wouldn't be thinking, 'I got to run get Junior Crockett,' would he? But he came himself to get me. I didn't put all of that together at the time, but as I've thought about it, and dreamed about it, I think someone else did it, and she took the blame."
Joe Phillips was Ella's brother-in-law, and his wife was spending the night with Ella the night the tragedy happened. Speculation at that time, old timers say, was that he shot Dr. Crockett so he could share the property with Ella.
Junior has other reasons for suspecting Joe Phillips, he says. "Not long after daddy was murdered, I was leaving the Sundry store out the back way. I was in a hurry, and had left my car door open while I ran in. There was a big construction trailer parked there, too, and as I came running back out, something came at me like a baseball bat, or black-jack. I was so startled I hit the starter and backed up my car so that the lights shined up underneath that trailer. I could see a man's feet and I yelled at him, calling him Joe Phillips. I told him I knew it was him and asked him to come out, but he stayed down behind the trailer. I knew he had a gun, so I didn't get out. Ella and daddy had a heated thing going because of the divorce, and although daddy didn't have a lot by today's standards, it was a lot back in those days. I think they wanted me out of the way. If I had been walking that night instead of being in a hurry and running like I was, whatever it was he tried to hit me with would have probably killed me.
"Another time I saw Joe's car parked in the dark down from my house. After I pulled in the drive, I backed up and caught him running to his car. Now, what business did he have hanging around my house, especially at night?" he asked.
Townspeople who remember the tragedy say most of the populace discounted that Ella Crockett killed her husband. They think she took the blame for someone else. Was it Joe Phillips, her brother-in-law? The mystery remains, shrouded by memories.
Dr. Crockett delivered many of Baker Countian citizens when they were born, often sitting up for days and nights until the time for delivery arrived. He is remembered by many, but perhaps one of the persons who knew him best and missed him most was Paul Rhoden, who was employed by Dr. Crockett as the first soda jerk in Crockett's Sundry. After a stint in the Air Force, he returned to Baker County, purchased Crockett's Sundry from Junior and changed the name to Paul's Rexal. He became Baker County's first pharmacist. Commenting on his relationship and memories, he said:
"I got to know Dr. E.W. Crockett very well while I was still in high school and worked as a soda jerk at the Powers Sundry store and when Dr. Crockett had offices in the Hotel Annie. He was one of the best-known and best-liked men in Baker County. He was the perfect example of the country doctor. He would go anywhere, anytime, in any kind of weather. He went whenever he was called. In those days, the roads were unpaved and would become almost impossible to travel on in wet weather. Occasionally, he would ask me if I wanted to ride with him on house calls to remote areas all over the county when he delivered babies and visited the sick. Many times those trips would end up in a muddy bog and he would have to get a nearby farmer to pull him out with a tractor or a pair of mules. I never knew of him refusing to help a patient because they didn't have money to pay or because they already owed him and hadn't paid. To the best of my knowledge, during the years I was associated with Dr. Crockett, I don't believe he kept a record of who owed him or how much they owed, other than in his head. I lost a great boss, and all of Baker County lost a great friend," said Paul.
Today, Junior and Doris Crockett make their home in Valdosta where business ventures took them many years ago. They are a legend to old timers, and even to new people moving into town who eventually ask who built the elegant, picturesque home that sits on the hill bordering the little St. Mary's River between Macclenny and Glen. It's known as the Crockett home, and if the walls could speak it would not be unspeakable things. Junior and Doris Crockett live their lives openly in spite of the many speculations surrounding Junior's involvement with questionable organizations and associates that embellished the couple's lifestyle of splendor and affluence. They talk about it candidly and straightforwardly in Volume VI of Once Upon A Lifetime, where an account of the moonshine industry in the county is explored with anecdotes from the people who lived through it and worked in it.
The Crocketts are fine people who have added a celebrated aura to Baker County that is unexcelled. When asked about a 1953 newspaper headline that blared, 'SHINE KING SUSPECT NABBED,' Junior likes to gaze out beyond all the speculation and say with intensity, "I never made a drop of whiskey, or had any made. I never hired anyone that wasn't already in the business to work for me and I never influenced anyone to participate; in fact, I discouraged it."
From rags to riches he has rubbed shoulders with the elite, and with the poor. His description of Baker Countians: "They are the finest people I've ever been around in my life. I can't compare them with the elite I've known and associated with in businesses and country clubs, because they don't compare. I've only known true and honest people in Baker County, the very best. I love them and I'm proud to still call Baker County home."
And what do Baker Countians think of Junior Crockett?
-- "He's a Robin Hood," said one.
-- "There has never been anyone else like him, and it's not likely there ever will be." said another.
-- "A true friend to people, especially the poor and needy," said someone else.
-- " Honest in his dealings," said still another.
-- " A man of his word," said yet another.
A legend agree all, just like his father!
CROCKETT GENEALOGY
Kay C Stone, a Crockett genealogist who lives in Lakeland, Florida, has generously contributed the following Crockett genealogy.
The earliest proven ancestor, William Crockett, born about 1782 in that part of North Carolina that is now Tennessee. He is thought to be the brother of Davie, born 1786 also in North Carolina as the son of John Crockett and Rebecca Hawkins.
William left for Ohio and was in Butler County before 1812. His son, David, was born Jan 19th. He married widow Nancy McNary Moss. They arrived in Indiana after 1822 when daughter Matilda was born and before 1836 when David married Louisa (Lovisa) Smith on July 21 in Carrol County. Louisa (Lovisa) was the daughter of George Smith and Catherine Martin. Louisa was born Dec 4, 1819 in Kanawha Salt Springs, Va. William left a will in Cass County, Indiana, dated June 10, 1856. The will was proved on March 16, 1858. His son David had predeceased him, but he listed grandchildren -- sons of David Crockett -- Franklin, Martin, and James, $50 each.
David was listed in the 1850 census as age 37, farmer, born in Ohio. Wife Louisa, age 30, was born Va. Catharine A, age 13, born Indiana; Nancy J., age 11, born Indiana; Franklin, age 8, born Indiana; Martin, age 6, born Indiana, and James, age 2, born Indiana. David died Apr 25, 1853 in Carroll County. Martin John Crockett, born Apr 24, 1845 in Logansport, Indiana, received his medical education at the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati. He completed his education in 1870 and first went to the far west. He eventually arrived at Albany, Oregon. Either the opportunities or the climate were not to his liking and he headed back east and finally to the south where he arrived in what was then Dooley County (now Worth County). Martin John Crockett married in November 1875 Miss Sarah (Sallie) Jane Hill, born July 1857 in Oakfield, Worth County, Ga. Sarah was the daughter of Jessup R. Hill and Martha Stanley. Sarah's ancestry traces back to Edward Doty, Mayflower ancestor, and to Revolutionary War Capt. Josiah Warren.
Dr. Crockett and Sallie had the following children:
-- Martha Martin Crockett, born Dec 20, 1876, wife of Idus Carl Deariso, resident of Atlanta, and mother of three daughters;
-- Benjamin Franklin Crockett, born Sept 5, 1877 in Concord, Fl, resident of Memphis, Tn., married, 1st, Mittie Davenport Jernigan and father of three sons. Married 2nd Edna Hendley;
-- Clara Lovisa, born Dec 1884 in Suth Carolina, wife of Richard F. Lockhart of Nashville, Tn., and has one son and one daughter;
-- Katherine Warren Crockett, born July 24, 1886, Columbia, S.C. wife of William Arthur Moore, employee of Western Union, residence Miami, mother of six children;
-- Willie H Crockett, born 1888 in Isabella, Worth Co., and died Sept 17, 1891 aged 2 yrs. 10 mos;
-- Claudia Colee Crockett, twin to Flora C. Crockett, born Oct 8, 1894 in Isabella, Worth Co., (Flora was stillborn). Claudia married Dr. William Daniel Nobles, resident Pensacola, Fl., one son, one daughter; and Edward Wray Crockett, born May 27, 1892 in Sylvester, who received his medical degree from Atlanta School of Medicine (now Emory Univ) and practiced medicine in Macclenny, Florida. He was a 32nd degree Mason, a charter member of the Macclenny Lions Club, and a veteran of WW I in the Army Medical corps.
Edward Wray Crockett married, 1st, Ollie Mae Culpepper on July 17, 1910 in Worth County, divorced; married, 2nd, Veatrice Granger, by whom he had two sons, Edward Wray Jr. and William John Crockett; married, 3rd, Ella Dykes.
The immigrant Crocketts were of Scotch-Irish descent. The surname, Crockatt or Crockett, has been documented in Scotland as early as 1296 when Huwe Croket of Kameslank and Wm Croketa of Kylbride rendered homage (from The Surnames of Scotland, Their Origins, Meaning and History by George F. Black, PhD, 1946). This seems to disprove the French origin of DeCrocketagne theory, which states that Antoine Desausure Perronette de Crocketagne, born 1643, son of Gabriel Gustave de Crocketagne, was the direct ancestor of John. f/o Wm. f/o David. f/o Martin John.
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LEON SWEAT,
Sanderson, Florida Interview, 1993
Many tranquil memories surround the rural Sanderson home of Leon and Neva Davis Sweat. Inside their cozy home, they are reminded of memories collected over the many years they have shared together. Many are centered around the fond recollections they have of Sanderson's former two-story stucco schoolhouse where Leon attended school and where the educational careers of his parents and siblings took place.
For Leon Sweat, it all began in the small settlement of Beachville in Suwannee County on November 26, 1921, as the last child born to pioneer educators Thomas W. and Virginia Rykard Sweat. Leon's father, qualifying with a teaching certificate from normal school, had once taken room and board with the Rykard family while teaching in a one-room school house in Madison County. Virginia Rykard was his student, four years younger, and upon her graduation, the two married on Dec. 10, 1909. Thomas ran for school superintendent in Suwannee and served in that position until 1929 when he sought higher education at the University of Florida to complete his master's degree. After serving as principal of Hawthorne High School, where his wife also taught on her teaching certificate, the couple moved to Sanderson, where Virginia eventually obtained her degree at the University of Florida. Thomas W. Sweat, fondly called Thos, served as Sanderson School principal, and Virginia, as teacher, for 17 years each before retirement in 1951. Four of their five children -- Carrol, LaVada, Thomas, and Geraldine -- followed in their educational footsteps and some even chose educators as spouses. The latter three children taught school in Sanderson.
In 1993, the Sweats and many of their long-time friends and family members converged on the memorable spot to rekindle old friendships and memories. It was the first such reunion in Sanderson but the sixth for the Sweat cousins who are adamant about keeping their family legacy alive in the hearts and minds of their progeny. For the special gathering, Leon spent countless hours mounting dozens of Sanderson school photos and class group pictures to display. The collection once belonged to his parents. He purchased 50 "Sweat Cousin's Reunion 1993" T-shirts. There was music and dancing to go along with the 20-pound turkey, ham, barbecued pork and ribs and accompanying other good food, but mostly there was reminiscing about life in Sanderson during the 1930's when the grip of the depression was firm, jobs were few and money scarce.
"The first thing I remember about Sanderson when we moved here in 1934 was that we didn't have electricity, like we had in Hawthorne," said Leon. "Mama cooked on a kerosene stove there, too, because, only what we called the 'rich' had electric. My parents first rented a house (the present day Bevis home on Main Street), until it went up for sale. Daddy couldn't afford to buy it, so they rented another house that they were to live in the rest of their lives.
"When that house went up for sale, my daddy didn't have the $600 to buy it, but the owner offered to apply the rent daddy had paid and let him pay the balance off over time, I imagine without any interest.
"I studied by the light of an Aladdin lamp, until my brother Carrol and I wired the house for electricity when it became available in Sanderson."
Leon said his father's school salary was around $100 a month, and his mother's about $60.
"I never remember when my parents were not extending their educations. One summer they even took a small apartment in Gainesville and my sister, Geraldine, and I went with them.
"They got paid for eight months of the teaching year, so my parents divided their business with two local grocers, Arthur Raulerson and Mamie Rodgers. They allowed credit during the three summer months they were without salary. When school started and my parents were once again working, the grocers' would divide the summer bill into eight parts and add it to their monthly bill for groceries until daddy got it paid off and then he'd start over again.
"I never got into trouble at school for I knew I'd get my tail whipped," he said. "Most of the time, the teacher just sent you to the principal's office and he did the spanking."
"School was the social hub of the community," said his wife, Neva, who taught at Sanderson. "We had plays and people walked from all around to attend. Even the school bus would go into the rural areas to bring people in. We had box suppers, and covered dish affairs at P.T.A. meetings or other special events like plays. Back then everyone came to P.T.A. meetings because it was a social event," she said.
"I had a dog named Runt that went to school with me," said Leon. " Everybody knew him. The school didn't have any screens on the doors, so Runt would just walk right on in and lay down at my feet. When the bell would ring Runt would be the first one out of the room, and he knew exactly where the next class was and he'd go there and wait for me," he said. "I guess the only reason he got to do that is because my daddy was principal. I didn't bring him, he followed me. Some of the kids even fixed him up a report card once."
Leon said there was no school cafeteria when he arrived in 1934. "Someone put in a soup kitchen and later the government subsidized a cafeteria where we were served a lot of lima beans and cornbread and split pea soup, but I still like it to this day. We paid a nickel for our lunch and when kids couldn't afford it they could make arrangements to eat anyway. We had little meat in those days.
"Quite often we'd go home for lunch and mama would open up a can of sardines, or salmon, and pork and beans. We'd eat them with saltine crackers right from the can," he said.
"My parents were the only ones who had a radio in Sanderson for years and sometimes, when a big prize fight was going on, there would be up to 50 people in our house, or on the porch, standing outside the windows and all out in the yard.
"And we had lots of parties in those days, like peanut boilings and dances. My mama would let us push the furniture, what little we had, up against the wall to dance. My older sisters, LaVada and Geraldine, taught us how to dance, I can't even remember when I didn't know how to dance," he said. "Some of the young people would bring mama chickens from their farms and she'd kill them and cook them for us."
Leon said Saturday was a big day in Sanderson that all citizens looked forward to but him. "During that time cows roamed all over Sanderson and on Saturdays, daddy had me out with a hoe and bucket picking up their chips to use as fertilizer in our garden," he said. "We usually worked in the garden on that day and that meant watering. It was my job to carry water from our 'pitcher' pump to fill big tubs daddy placed in the garden. I finally figured out how to syphon the water out of a tub I placed on the roof of our pump house through the water hose we'd brought from Hawthorne. As long as I would climb up there on a ladder and tote buckets of water to keep that tub filled with water daddy could water the plants with the hose. To me that was a lot easier than carrying it to the garden."
Leon also had a few jobs he got paid for. "Well, after all my chores were done daddy would let me sell some of the vegetables from our garden. That wasn't always easy because most everyone had their own garden out of necessity, but sometimes I'd sell a few tomatoes for a penny each. Five cents went a long way back then. I could buy two of those big ole-timey cookies and a slice of baloney and cheese to go with it for a nickel. I'd make me a sandwich and, Oheee, that was good eating!
"I shined shoes and delivered the Times Union when I was a boy," he said. "Ice cream was delivered in Sanderson every Saturday by the Greyhound bus and it was a nickel a cup. I didn't always get any because I knew better than to ask daddy for a nickel because I knew he didn't have it. That's why I'd get out and work to make one, that is if anyone had any money to spend.
" If I spent a nickel I'd earned to buy a soft drink I would punch a hole in the cap with an ice pick to make it last longer because it was such a treat to get one. It sure isn't like today when kids take two or three swallows and leave it."
Leon remembers that there were four canned staples his mother faithfully used at least once a week because there was no refrigeration for fresh foods. "Mama would fix salmon balls from canned salmon, corn beef, canned fish roe and tripe. Sometimes daddy would go fishing and we'd have fish. Mama usually had pork and beans, cornbread and biscuits and lots of grits and gravy. One day a week, the Hagan Peters Grocery Company truck would come into Sanderson, bringing fresh meat, and mama always had her order placed for round steak. We'd have to go right down and get it and cook it that night because there was no refrigeration. We couldn't even afford the ice for our icebox. On the week-ends, mama would buy a live hen or fryer from the Raulerson store. Back then a lot of people traded the grocers' chickens or eggs for their groceries. Mama would come home, ring the chicken's neck, pluck it and either we'd have fried chicken or chicken and dumplings, usually on Sundays.
"Daddy rented a milk cow from Mrs. Emma Fraser Burnsed. He kept the calf penned up while he turned the cow loose every morning to graze. We'd let her in when she'd come back in the afternoon where her calf was and milk her. We always had plenty of buttermilk and clabber. When the calf started grazing, daddy would take the cow back to Mrs Burnsed and get another for us."
Leon's best friends were James Dobson, Millage Townsend and W.C. Sweat (no relation), and they often hunted rabbits in the woods together. On Sundays they would sometimes ride their bicycles the 12 miles to Olustee just to ride the girls around on their handle bars awhile before riding back to Sanderson. Leon remembers riding his bicycle the 12 miles to Macclenny once when the city fathers asked for volunteers to help pave Macclenny's first streets.
"They had a machine that dug up the dirt and mixed it with some type of oil and spread it out and rolled it. They wanted all the sticks and stones out of the way so that's what I helped do," he said.
There were only four graduates besides Leon in his class of 1939 -- Clara Jones, Jacqueline McClenny, Annie Mae Green, and Cicero Wood.
Because the school was small the students were all close-knit. Many of them were unable to graduate because they had to quit school to work on the family farm. "Today, they'd put a man in jail for keeping his child out of school," he said.
When Leon and Neva displayed their photos on that special weekend, some old timers they remembered were Mack Harvey, Elliott Alford, Willie Stafford, D.C. Cobb, Virgil Burnett, Johnny Bethea, Carl and Willie Stafford, Emory West, Gracie Jones, Warren and I.D. Stone, and Fletcher, Dennis, Wilford and Cora Lee Finley. Most of them are now gone and only the memory exists.
After graduation, Leon commuted to Jacksonville for awhile to work for Federal Mogul Service, the manufacturers of engine bearings for gasoline and diesel motors. A Sanderson resident, Mrs. Sally Stone, had moved to Jacksonville and was operating a boarding house. Leon lived there for a time, paying only $5. a week for three meals a day and a room. Other than a four-year Army stint, at which time he served as a warrant officer and demolition officer at Camp Blanding, he was with the company for 26 years. He met his wife, the former Neva Davis, from West Florida, in Sanderson after she was hired as a teacher by his father in 1941. The couple moved to Jacksonville for nine years during which time their only child, Skeets, was born in 1943. Leon's company transferred him to Montgomery, Alabama, for another nine years.
In 1961 the couple returned to Sanderson to be near his family and bought the Louise Burnsed general store. Neva went back to teaching. They employed someone to run the business they called the Sanderson Mercantile store. It was also a car garage, gas station, and parts store where Leon worked. They closed down in the early '70's and converted a nearby service station into a convenience store. They have since sold that and retired. Today, they enjoy their summer home in Cherokee, N.C., and the beach house they've had for three decades on Anna Maria Island.
This young-at-heart couple still enjoy dancing the night away in their own personal style when attending Blue Grass Festivals. Life for them has a rosy glow and they enjoy sharing it with their many family and friends.
At the first Sweat family reunion (most of whom were educators by profession) held in Sanderson, were: Buford and Ovida Sweat from Live Oak, W.E. (Billy) and Grace Earle Sweat from Bainbridge, Mary and Jim Cooper from Tallahassee, Tom and Hope Sweat, Jacksonville, Geraldine and E.R. McCarter and LaVada Hurst, Mulberry, Martin and Barbara Mills, Lakeland, Hazel and Clifford Weary, Tampa, M.H. and Doris Fouts, Orlando, Evelyn and L.H. Terry, Jr. Plant City, Nelda Sweat, Lithia and George and Gloria Fouts, Lakeland. And Leon and Neva's daughter, Skeets, a teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Most of the families stayed in local Macclenny motels while visiting, and the following day returned to have their last goodbyes before departing for home. And the best part of all was that they found that their last glance of Sanderson wasn't much different than when most of them roamed around the unchanging town more than a half century ago. And they liked it that way.
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Sammy Walker of Macclenny
September 1993
Six days a week, twelve hours a day, Sammy Walker is on the job at the corner of Main and College streets in Macclenny. Customers at Mixon Chevron find him friendly and cordial, eager to please, and always smiling. He has been there 28 years. Beneath the surface, customers and Sammy's friends aren't aware of the internal wounds that scar his heart. And Sammy likes it that way because those scars have made him a better person, and appreciative for all he has.
He is a survivor!
Born in Clinch county, in the small community of Council, Georgia, in 1946, he was one of 11 children born to 31-year-old Jannie Austin and 60-year-old Allen Walker. The fact that times were hard and his family poor has never bothered Sammy. That's nothing to be ashamed of, he says. But knowing thathis mother was abused mentally and physically by his alcoholic father is one of the darts that pierces his heart.
The fact he is alive is a miracle. Three months after his birth,his mother cradled him in her arms, along with a 14-month-old brother, gathered some of her other children and headed down to the railroad tracks where she waited at the trestle for the first passing train. Desperate to escape the cruelty of her abusive husband, she made an attempt to board the moving train with both babies and the older children. Sammy slipped from her arms and lay on the gravel by the railroad tracks while the train carrying his mother and siblings roared away. He was found safe much later by a train engineer who had been alerted by train officials when the mother asked for their help in finding him.
He isn't sure what condition he was found in, nor can he imagine how he lived through that ordeal, but he was eventually reunited with his mother in Sopchoppy, Fl. As long as he can remember, he was moving from one location to another, his mother always living in dread that she would be found by his father.
"She was always on the run," he said.
He was kept in the first grade for six years. At one time, when he was in the fourth grade, he remembers living on a dairy farm "'way back in the woods" and having to walk about 12 miles to school.
"There were not that many black schools," he said, " and we had to walk a long way to get to one. I had to pass by a ravine that was filled with water and I'd get so wet that when I would get to school I'd be so embarrassed." Sammy's mother married five times; his father, seven that he's sure of, but he knows there were at least 22 children fathered by his father. Sammy was the only one of his known 33 brothers and sisters who graduated from school. He was the only one who never smoked or drank. He's not sure where they all are now.
"I was up in Georgia visiting my brother one time, and we saw this man sitting out front of a store with some other men, drinking beer. My brother said, 'See that man over there?, and I said, 'Yes', and he said, 'Well, that's one of your brothers.' I was amazed. No telling where they all are or what they're doing."
"The ones I grew up with had to look around for food sometimes, and I can recall how happy we were when the ditches would fill with water and we could go catch the crawfish. We made our own traps out of styrofoam cups. We'd boil us up a pot full, pull their tails off to eat 'em. Oooeee, that was some kind of good eating!" he said.
"As I was growing up, I knew I wanted an education. I never had any desire to steal, rob, drink, or smoke, or just do the things some of the others did. I just never wanted to. I really wanted to make something of my life."
And Sammy said it was the people in Baker County who gave him the opportunity and restored his faith in mankind.
"People like Mr. Doc Finley, Red Mixon, Mr. L.V. Hiers, Billy Rowe, and Willamina and Charles Lauramore," he said, shaking his head as if in disbelief. "And I'll never forget all those sandwiches Mr. Marvin Lauramore bought me when I was hungry. All of them are some mighty fine people. They gave me food to eat for physical comfort and friendship for my happiness. And I could never forget that as long as I live."
"Mr. Claudell Walker says I'm his stepson that got lett out on the beach to tan," he remarked with a huge grin.
sammv came to Macclenny with his mother when he was in the seventh grade to be near his stepgrand mother, Viola Austin, of Marietta. When he enrolled in Keller School, they skipped him a grade or two before he had to return to Jacksonville to finish his last three grades.
During this time, his mother became ill and was hospitalized for three months. He would either walk or hitchhike a ride the 12 miles to University Hospital at least four days a week to visit her. He was the only one of his brothers and sisters who did so.
When she died in 1965, he returned to Macclenny to live with his brother. He needed work and often picked up bottles to sell for some crackers and a drink. Then one day, Mr. Doc Finley asked him to work part-time at the Chevron Station sweeping up and doing other odd jobs. That very day, Billy Rowe asked him to work for him as a dishwasher at NEFSH. He did both.
"I had to be at the hospital at 6 a.m., so I'd walk, even if it rainded, and it often did," he said. "When I'd get off there, I'd head in to Mr. Doc's station. Mr. Doc had been so good to me I just had to stay on and I'm so glad I did."
I even worked for Mr. Paul Knabb in turpentine on my off-hours and Saturday," he said. "I only had one outfit of clothes for a while, and I'd get so dirty out in the woods. Every night, I'd wash my clothes out, then dry them, put them back on for the next day. I got paid $4 for filling a vat and sometimes it would take me three days work to do it.
"This was a time when integration caused some problems for the black people," said Sammy, "but you know, they never bothered me. I could even be out after dark, and they'd be harassing other blacks along the way, but they'd say to me, 'Hey, Sammy, how you doing?"
He is proud of that.
"The people in Baker County have never mistreated me. They've never called me 'nigger' or any other bad remarks. They've fed me when I have been hungry. I've eaten at their tables; they never made me feel any different because of my color."
In 1968, Sammy had saved enough money to buy a $500 car. He loaned it to a friend and "it blew up." It was back to walking until his good friend, Billy Rowe, sold him a truck. And that wasn't all Billy did. He promoted Sammy from dishwasher to cook at NEFSH.
"I did such a good job for Mr. Billy that he made me supervisor of the kitchen, and I stayed at NEFSH for 26 years, until I retired," he said.
"And I finally got able to buy myself a brand new car " he said proudly. "I applied for credit down at Sands Chevrolet and gave Mr. Doc and Mr. Billy as references. I'll never forget that happy day when the salesman, Tommy Johns, called me and said my credit was okay and I could come down and get the car."
Things looked up for Sammy. He married, reluctantly, in 1969 and it turned out to be a bad decision.
"She was a husband-abuser," he noted sadly. "I didn't know when I came in from work whether or not she had a gun or knife to point at me." The couple divorced in 1980.
in 1982 he re-married. Luvisa Cummittee was a fellow employee at NEFSH. Sammy started going to the Church of God in Christ with her in Lake City where she lived. Their only child is Devan, age eight.
"She's wonderful," he says with a big grin. "She's like a missionary, she gives talks and all. She's great!" Luvisa retired from NEFSH after 18 years of service.
The couple lived in Macclenny, but the neighborhood became filled with crime.
"We were robbed of our possessions five times," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "We moved to Lake City, and now we live near the college. On one side of me is a state trooper, and on the other a funeral director."
But Sammy feels Baker County is his real home. "I only live in Lake City at nights and on Sunday," he smiled. "The rest of the time I live in Baker County."
"The day Mr. Doc died on February 7, 1989, I was made manager of Mixon's Chevron. I've always given out bubble gum to the children of my customers and now I'm giving bubble gum to their children."
Sammy's father died at the age of 102. "I only saw my father twice. My brother took me to see him when I was 25. He just said 'Hello'. I went again to see him two years before he died, but there just wasn't any emotion shown.
"I don't look back on my life with bitterness. A lot of people went through the things I did. So many of them made the wrong choices in their life, drinking and doing drugs, stealing and robbing. I turned someone in for stealing not long ago. I don't believe in it. People work hard for what they have and it is wrong to take it from them.
. I owe a lot to the people of Baker County. They supported me and gave me a chance in life. I believe if you do good to others, others will do good to you. You've just got to try and want it yourself, and you can have it all if you work for it."
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ODIS MARION YARBOROUGH
June 1994
Odis Yarborough stands tall in the eyes of his descendants, although this remarkable 93-year-old giant carries a 5-foot 8-inch frame. He is the revered patriarch of a large Baker County posterity, having inherited a distinguished family lineage that is faithfully remembered by the Yarborough offspring when they gather annually to recount the electrifying yarns spun by past patriarchs of long ago.
Although the massive Yarborough kin descends from European royalty, the Baker County Yarboroughs like to begin with Benjamin Franklin Yarborough (1824-1917) who was a member of the Georgia Cavalry during the Civil War. The family devotedly recalls the exciting and noble account of their great, great ancestor borrowing his neighbor Riley Johns' horse, and galloping away from his farm and family to serve his country's cause. Wide-eyed children sit enchanted as they hear how Great Grandpa Benjamin returned home after the war on the same horse, riding it from Tennessee and over the great Smokey Mountains.
Benjamin's father, William Yarborough, Jr. (1802-1845), and his wife, Elizabeth Maranda Handley of Montgomery and Appling Counties, Georgia, were the parents of eight known children. Their great Grandpa, William Yarborough Sr., served in the Revolutionary War and later became a Justice of the Peace during the wild frontier days of our young country. Eventually the Odis Yarborough clan drifted into the Georgia Bend, around Moniac, and on into Baker County with Benjamin's son, David Jesse.
Tightly woven into the Yarborough family tree tapestry is the story of their American Indian ancestry. Their great grandmother, Missouri Powell Canaday, was the sister of the famous Chief Osceola. Missouri's granddaughter, Arabelle, married the son of Benjamin, David Jesse, who was Odis Yarborough's father.
So it is understandable that Baker County's remarkable Odis Yarborough clan values their family heritage and faithfully keep the Yarborough stories fresh in the minds of present-day, living Yarboroughs.
Odis was born March 22, 1901, in Moniac, Georgia. His parents, David Jesse and Arabelle Canaday Yarborough were hard-working, God-fearing citizens who were the parents of 11 children, eight of whom lived to adulthood.
"We had a good life," begins Odis, as he sits comfortably in the Macclenny home of his daughter, June Walker. "Daddy was patient and kind and I never saw him mad but a very few times in my life. He gave me the best whipping I ever had, that's for sure. One time, when I thought I was grown, I stayed out all night across the river at my aunt's house. The sun was way up there when I got home the next morning and daddy was already in the field a-plowing. When he seen me coming, he came right to the house. He grabbed me by the collar with one hand and a 14-foot cow whip with the other, and he wrapped that thing around me about seven times before he told me to see how quick I could get my clothes changed and get in the field a-plowing. I mean to tell you that I never left home anymore without telling someone where I was going and when I'd be back, even after I was married," he said. "Yes sir, that was a fine whipping."
"This nation's done gone tee-totaling crazy 'cause the government's done taken the discipline away from the parents no matter what they do, but the Bible plainly tells you to spare not the rod and spoil the child. They've done tried to change the meaning of that and it's God's own word," he lamented.
Despite the fact he is a serious, long-time Primitive Baptist Minister, he laughs heartily as he tells his own stories, ofttimes combined with a hint of mischievousness. There is positively no question that he is a man of integrity. His explicit accounts of his experiences, and life in general, are straightforward and totally honest, as he views the circumstances. His children agree that he maintained a happy and secure home for them, although as stern as the one his father and mother provided for him.
David Jesse and Arabelle moved their brood from Moniac to the Macedonia section, north of Macclenny, in 1903 when Ode, as he is fondly called, was two years old. He paid $250 for 80 acres of prime farm and timber land that included a large sturdy log house. In 1903, a new house was constructed, crafted from heart pine lumber purchased for $12 per thousand from the Watertown mill at Lake City.
"About the first thing I recall about my life was coming to Macclenny with my daddy in a horse drawn wagon to attend big court, and he and a feller swapped horses. Ours was a big black one we named 'ole Deck' and we kept him for years," he said. " Later, me and daddy was in the field with ole Deck and one of daddy's friends, a Mr. Chancey, the ugliest man I ever did see. Ole Deck got spooked and I said, 'He must have seen Mr. Chancey's face', and I got slapped in the back of the head for saying it," he said, roaring with laughter.
"My daddy was a fine-looking man that lacked a little bit of being six feet tall. He had brown eyes and black hair and a mustache that curled out on the sides. He shaved it off a couple of times and I said, 'Daddy, let that hair grow back' cause I liked it better that way.
"My mama wasn't very tall. She was very dark complected and you could see a lot of Indian in her. She had black hair and wore her long hair balled up on her head, reckon 'cause she had a bunch of younguns. She wore long dresses to the ground and daddy usually wore hip britches with suspenders.
"Mama made all our clothes on a Singer pedal machine. She could make a pair of overalls in 15 minutes. She bought material, but she also sewed clothes for us using the feed and sugar sacks.
"Not long after we moved to Macedonia, our neighbor, Son Rhoden, lost one of his grown sons to typhoid fever. You get that from drinking bad water," he explained. "It was a real wet season and daddy had built the house somewhat on the lowland and so much water stood on the ground that our family was afraid to drink from the shallow well because of diseases, so my daddy got about 35 men together and had a log rolling to move our house to higher ground so we could have purer water.
"The men started working at daylight, slipping the house along the length of pine logs from which the bark had been removed on the top side. They wet the logs down with water to make them slippery and the men were working right along, until they began dragging along, drained of the energy they needed to push it up the slope to its new location on the east side of the 40. Finally, daddy sent my oldest brother to the house for a gallon of corn whiskey. He gave everybody a good stiff drink and then passed it around a couple of more times and it weren't no time before they got that house on the top of the hill and leveled it off like greased lightning. That was in 1906 and that house is still standing today," he said proudly.
Ode said he was about five years old when the Lord spoke to him personally for the first time in his life.
"I was out in the field eating raw peanuts the hogs had rooted up," he said. "There weren't a soul out there in that field but me when something said, 'Odis'. I got up and looked around and I didn't see a thing in the world so I went back to eating peanuts. Then, direckly it said, 'Odis', and I got up and looked again and I still couldn't see a soul. At the time I didn't know to say, 'Yes, Lord, here am I' or I don't know what He would have told me, but I wasn't big enough to read the Bible back then. The third time He said, 'Odis' I ran to the house. I knowed it was the Lord because He is invisible."
Odis said the Lord would continue to speak to him throughout his life.
"I just wish I had of had enough sense the first time He called me like that boy Samuel did, to say 'Yes, Lord, here am I', but it was years later before I learned to obey the Lord when He called."
Ode grew up with his brothers and sisters, Jasper Lee, Dossie, Laura, Floyd, Gladys and Jesse Ray. Children who died in infancy were Easter Ann, George and an unnamed infant brother and sister.
"Mama cooked on a Home Comfort wood-burning cook stove. Daddy bought a barrel of flour once a year and we had biscuits and syrup on Sunday, unless we had company. We had lots of cows and hogs that roamed the woods and we butchered them every year for our meat and mostly we just ate what we raised on the farm. I loved to hunt and fish and roam the woods. I didn't even wear shoes until daddy made me. I must have been about 18 years old."
Ode said he quit school in the fourth grade when he was about nine years old and never returned.
"They moved the school and I never went to another," he said. Earl Franklin of Glen St. Mary was his teacher and taught him from the acclaimed old Blue Back Speller.
"I helped daddy on the farm and he'd send me into the woods to find the cows. I'd take off barefooted looking for them. I made friends with our big old red bull. We were buddies; I'd keep his horns sharpened, so he could fight better. Why, I'd run a thousand miles to watch a bull-fight. When I couldn't find them cows, I'd turn that old red bull out and follow him right to the cows.
"About my favorite thing to do was watch rooster fights," he laughed heartily.
"We had lots of fun on the farm. We didn't know it if we were poor. We were born before television, telephones, electricity, and indoor plumbing was available to our family. But mama kept us plenty of warm quilts on the bed, and daddy plenty of wood for a fire in the fireplace. We had all we needed, what with the farm and God providing us the woods and streams. Oh, it was hard work when you think about it. Washing clothes took all day. We had to beat the dirt out of the clothes on a beating block until daddy got someone to cut notches in it so we could rub the clothes on the edge of the block. Then we hauled water from the well for the rinsing trough. And ironing was done by heating the irons on the wood-burning stove or fireplace. We didn't throw anything away; everything was used. It never wore out too bad to make a rag.
"We always had fun thinking up things to do. One day, my brother was in the outhouse sitting on one of those holes you cut out of the wood to sit on. Well, I remember I got me a cotton stalk and reached up under that outhouse and poked him with it and he thought a rattlesnake had struck him. He chased me through the fields and into the woods, but I out-run him. He never got me back because I didn't use the outhouse, my place was back of the corn crib." He roared with laughter. "We went swimming, but the girls didn't go to the wash hole with the boys 'cause we swam naked. Weren't no bathing suits available in those days. And we had frolics. My daddy and mama's house had many a frolic all night with banjo and fiddle playing. We had lots of fun and good memories," he said.
"Me and daddy used to leave before dawn and travel all day by mule and wagon to Jacksonville, arriving at dark. We'd sleep in the freight yard and early the next morning we'd be out peddling our sweet 'taters, chickens and eggs all over the town," he recalls.
"I stayed on the farm with daddy until one day I decided to catch the train with Josie Canady to Old Town, where a cousin lived. We went there to look for work, but everyone over there was sick with typhoid fever. I caught that train back the next day, but I still came down with it and was sick for six months," he said.
Ode had his eye on a pretty young girl he had watched grow up. She lived across the river, and he often saw her walking by his daddy's farm with her Grandpa.
"I knew we were made for each other because I saw her in the looking glass. I'd heard people say you could see your sweetheart in there, your future wife. Well, I took my mother's old looking glass and went up to Mr. Rhoden's old well and I placed that looking glass so the sun was shining right through it. I stood there a little while and she came through there so plain, I could even see the freckles on her face. At first, I thought it was another girl, but it wasn't, it was Lula. Did you know you could do that?" he asked. "Well, my mama told me about a feller who went down there to see his wife come through the looking glass and they had planned to get married a certain day, but while he was looking a coffin came through and she died before they married. I heard about lots of people seeing their wives. You could only do this on a certain day of the year, June 22, and it has to be a lake or still water, can't be running water," he said.
A year had passed since Ode had seen Lula's face in the looking glass while holding it over the water in the well. So, while he was recovering from the fever, he paid her a visit one day. She was living in the home of her grandparents, Josh and Rose Hogan, about a mile and a half from his home. The two began courting.
"I can still remember the first time she ever kissed me," he said laughing.
"We were on the back porch and I was laying on a bench with my head in her lap and I told her, 'If you don't kiss me I'm never coming back,' and she bent down and kissed me and said, 'Are you satisfied?' and I said, 'No, I want more'! That's when I asked her to marry me, but I don't think she said yes that day. That's what you call sparking, you heard of sparking with a girl, haven't you?" he asked. "Well, after you spark, then direckly you get married."
She was 14 and he was 20 when they got Willie Rhoden to drive them in his Model T Ford to Lucious Knabb's commissary in Moniac, where they were married by a Justice of the Peace named Staten Hodge on August 10, 192l.
"She had a little ring she gave me and I lost it riding a bucking mule," he said. "I never bought her one."
The couple returned to Ode's parent's home where they lived for the next few years.
"My mama fell in love with her," he said.
Their first child, Juanita, arrived in 1922. "I helped deliver her," he said. "Me and old Doc Mackee. I saw her little head and we just pulled it out."
Son Josh was born in a place they called the Frank Burnsed home, delivered by Dr. E.W. Crockett and Susan Thrift, his daddy's sister.
"The day Joshie was born I drank a full quart of moonshine whiskey. I made it myself," he said. "It was 100 proof. I made it and sold it because I was working for the Gotha Lumber Company for $2. a day, and I could get $10. for a gallon of moonshine."
The couple's next child, David, arrived while they lived in the Paul Hogan house, delivered by 'a darkie midwife,' he said. Then came a daughter, Ruth.
Ode followed in his father and grandfather's footsteps, hunting the wilds of the Okefenokee Swamp. He hunted for 'coons so he could sell the hides.
"One brought me $10. I remember buying me the prettiest suit for $15," he said. "Why, it'd cost you every bit of $150 today."
"I was a good shot. I could shoot a quail's head off with him flying."
Yarborough Lake and Yarborough Island, deep in the treacherous Okefenokee Swamp, were discovered by Benjamin Yarborough, who died at 96, and his son Riley, who were both avid hunters and explorers of the treacherous outdoor arena.
"I loved to shoot fish and that was the second time I knew God was dealing with me. Lula kept telling me I was going to get caught. It's against the law to shoot fish," he said. "But I went to Macclenny one morning and bought some bullets and borrowed me a 32 rifle. I hit the woods and headed to the river. It was a full moon in March, pretty cool, and I stopped by some friends to eat and to get me a half pint of whiskey. When I got to the river, I found a big one; it was a bed-minder that weighed about six pounds. I seen one that must of weighed 25 pounds but he'd never get where I could get him with the rifle, so I got up in the tree to shoot down and I got me another one. He weighed about nine pounds.
"I kept shooting fish until the Lord stopped me. One day I was down by the river and I saw two trout come along and I said, 'you know, them trout fish need eatin'. I had my gig with me and everything was so quiet. Here he come and I shot him and jumped in to get him with my gig and the water was so deep I couldn't find the bottom, not even with my gig, and I'll tell you something you won't believe. I sat on that water just like a cork, I was light as a feather, and something pulled me up and my feet hit the ground. Then that fish just swam up there and laid it's head on the bank. I knowed what it was, the Lord was showing me I was doing something wrong so I said, 'that's the end of it, and I quit shootin' fish for ever more. I took the fish home to eat him, but I knew the Lord knew I was breaking the law and he did that so I'd quit."
Ode remembers that the county could be a rough place to live, especially the Saturday night shoot-outs and frequent murders and other crimes.
"Why, even the passenger trains pulled down their shades and ran full speed ahead with the whistle wide open while passing through town," he said.
In 1925 Ode packed up his family and with the help of a friend, John Burnsed, moved all he owned to Jacksonville in John's truck. For the next 22 years he would work for the City of Jacksonville. He started out at $18. a week.
The family first lived on Edison Avenue. After they moved to Forest street, a son, Billy, and daughter, June, arrived, followed by a daughter, Gloria, a son, Rufus, and a daughter, Faye, all delivered by Dr. Thomas. Their last move was on Roselle Street where they enjoyed their first electricity. Their last child, Bobby, arrived there.
Odis united with Zion's Rest Primitive Baptist Church in Jacksonville on August 10, 1940.
In 1946 the family returned to Baker County and bought a farm near his parents' old homestead. Ode farmed and worked, chipping timber for turpentine.
"I was way up there in life when I became a Christian," he said. " One day I was chipping turpentine boxes when that preaching hit me and I threw that hatchet down and ran from the woodpile to the woods. I was preaching just as hard as I could and when I got through I had to go find where I'd throwed my hat. Boy, when the Lord gets a hold of you He can scare you half to death. From that time on, I'd preach to my mule, every cornstalk in the field and every tree in the woods. I even preached in my sleep, but Lula soon got tired of that and told me my preaching needed to be done in the church and to quit disturbing her sleep.
"I knew the Lord was trying to deal with me, but I kept putting it off," he said. "Then my youngest child, Bobby, got sick. I fell on my knees and promised my Lord that if He'd heal my son, I'd stand on the walls of Zion and cry aloud His holy name.
"Well, the Lord healed my son, but it was two years later and I still hadn't kept my promise. One day I was walking through the field and the Lord spoke to me right over my head. He said, 'Did you not make me a vow you'd stand on the walls of Zion and cry in my name?'
"Well that scared me to death and about all I could get out of my mouth was, 'Oh Lord, you knowed I was a liar when I said it.' That's all I could say; then I cried.
"That was a Thursday and on Friday, me and Lula went to Jacksonville and stayed with our daughter, Juanita. Our membership was still in Zion's Rest, so we were going to a meeting there on Saturday. I didn't set on the back seat, but the next one to it and I was the most miserable person in the world. They were singing and having the biggest time that day you've ever seen. Nobody in the world was more miserable than me, but when it come time for the preaching, the minister come right to me and got me by the arm and said, 'Brother Yarborough, the voice of this church is that you come to the stand.' I didn't want to go, but everyone was saying 'Go on up, Brother Yarborough, go on up,' so I went up there and they said I preached about 30 minutes without stopping and I been at it ever since. I bet I've preached about 300 funerals."
After Lula had a dream, she told Ode she felt it was time to move their membership from Zion's Rest to Oak Grove Primitive Baptist Church, near their home. This was a significant move because Lula had always told him she had seen her funeral preached many times from Zion's Rest.
Ode and Lula Mae eventually moved their membership to Oak Grove Primitive Baptist, the church Ode attended with his family as a child. He was ordained to the ministry on November 3, 1956, at Oak Grove and then called to serve the church as pastor on May 4, 1957. He has faithfully served there, as well as pastor of Union, Mount Zion, Salem and Wayfair churches (all in North Florida) for many years.
"When they first called me to Oak Grove, we had about 15 members and after I was called we had about 72, but lots of them are dead now. My daughter, Faye, and son, Billy, are members," he said, proudly
"I don't preach to my children, but I tell them what's right or wrong. When you raise your child right and they get grown, they are either a child of God or they are not. If they are a child of God, He'll deal with 'em and I know He's dealt with some of my children and I think He's whipped all of 'em a little bit. I'm pleased with all my children. You take Rufus, he knows that Bible by heart."
Ode roamed the fields, hunted and explored the swamps just as his father and grandfathers before him. And as far as it is known, he conquered the biggest quest of all. It happened in 1952 when he and seven-year-old Bobby were hunting with a pack of hunting dogs, scouting for the legendary Old Stag in Columbia County's Bear Island in Pinhook Swamp.
Old Stag was a legend in the area, having been caught when just a little speckled fawn. The young buck was castrated and marked with a crop-gilt and underbit before being released in 1930. He'd been sighted over the years but shrewdly eluded seasonal hunters, including Ode, who sought to capture the trophy. Unlike the famous illusory Bambi, Stag was a factual, real-life monarch of the woods.
"It was the day after Christmas," Ode said, leaning forward in his chair and looking me square in the eye as he began his celebrated story. "There he was, big as a mountain when he stepped from behind some saplings. I thought at first Santa Claus had lost one of his reindeer. He was enormous and had the biggest set of antlers I'd ever seen. I raised up my shotgun and with a single load of buckshot, at 70 paces, I got him in the rear end. Then he turned and ran back in the swamp. I took off after him with Old Bruce, the only dog I had that wouldn't run doe or yearling, nothing but a buck. All my other dogs had done dropped out of the hunt that had started at daybreak."
With his heart pounding at a fast rate of speed, Ode found his 90-point, 250-pound trophy lying in the murky, turbid water deep in the swamp with one colossal horn sticking out. Ode quickly tied the dog's leash to an aged antler and his renowned prize was floated out to dry land.
It took four men from one o'clock until sundown to tote Old Stag a distance of two miles to Ode's truck. When the ancient buck was stretched out in the back of the pick-up, his head hung over to the bumper. After 22 years, the mark on Old Stag, put there in 1930, was still in perfect condition.
Ode had the sovereign of the forest's head, with its 90 celebrated points mounted and he proudly displays its picture in his home. It has been the subject of many news articles and recounted as the truest story told among the endless deer hunting yarns.
When Ode's beloved companion, Lula, died of cancer on August 28, 1965, he was devastated.
"I was lost as I could be," he said. "Then the Lord talked to me again.
"I had known Donnie Mae Laine of Starke for years. I'd see her at church meetings and mentioned to her once about marriage and she said, 'Brother Yarborough, I can't marry you.'
"She'd been a widow about ten years and had two children she was still raising," he said. "I don't think she intended to get married again.
"Then one day I had gone deer hunting and about four in the morning the Lord appeared to me, and this is what He said. He said, that is between you and Sister Laine and He said you and her can live in peace the rest of your lives, and that just lifted me up to the top. I even saw a halo over her head."
Meanwhile, the Lord spoke to Donnie Mae and the next time they met Ode told her about his experience. Donnie Mae told him she had been touched too, and that she would marry him. The couple married, with their children's blessings, on March 12, 1968. Since all of Ode's children were out on their own, he moved to Starke and helped Donnie Mae rear her two children, Barbara McLeod and Joy Tetstone.
"I love them like they are my very own," he said with a big smile.
Ode's children say they thank God for Donnie Mae everyday.
"We credit her with keeping our father in his excellent condition. She has been a wonderful wife," said his daughter June.
Ode visits Baker County often and still pastors Oak Grove Primitive Church. He describes himself as a 'foot-washing, hardshell, Primitive Baptist Preacher' -- one of a breed of religious fundamentalists who are not too numerous today, but are still strong in their traditional customs.
The Oak Grove congregation meets on the first and third Saturdays and Sundays in each month, and the annual meeting, where the traditional foot-washing is held, is a three-day gathering in April of each year. Foot-washing is a solemn ceremony in which the members take turns washing each other's feet as a symbol of humility, as depicted in the Bible, he says.
He often thinks of his goodly parents.
"I was there when my daddy died. I was holding his arm when an angel came and took him beyond and showed him there was life beyond this veil of tears. I didn't see the angel but I knew something was happening. Then daddy said, 'Their robes are so beautiful that your natural eyes can't even look at them'. My natural eyes couldn't see that perfect angel, but I know he was there."
Ode hopes his posterity will continue to have the annual reunions and keep the family ties bound.
"I want them to love one another and stay together. I've seen children grow up to hate one another and that is a bad thing to do. They got the same blood and when Gabriel blows that trumpet I want them to be ready. People are scattered today and don't know who they are. They may have folks, but they don't know it.
"I pray to God for every child of every nation, kindred and tongue before I go to sleep at night because He paid for 'em and they'll be there in heaven; every child of the living God will be there because Jesus Christ died for 'em. His blood washed every child as white as snow."