Submitted by
Betty Harmon-Meister

“When we came here in 1929, she was a middle-age widow whose husband had died that year.   She came to the
store, cheerful, uncomplaining: she worked and sewed for people.   She was so unselfish.   Anything good
that came her way, she always wanted to share it with Della or Everett or Mary Alice or somebody.”   Mrs.
A.B. Shearer of Hidalgo speaks in these glowing terms of Aunt Lou Dishman.   Because so many people know her
as Aunt Lou, Aunt Lou she shall be from here on.

She will not appear in any monumental history; but Aunt Lou fits neatly into our Bicentennial Year.   She
was born at Taylor’s Grove, Dec. 25, 1876.   Except for the first six years of her life and the last three
years spent in the Dishman Nursing Home, Aunt Lou Dishman has lived all the second hundred years of our
country’s history in Harmon Hollow in southwestern Wayne County. A narrow life? Limited? Perhaps.   Most
of us lead rather narrow lives; but the width or limits of life are not the most important factors in
living.   The important thing is what we do with the life we have.   Aunt Lou overcame a physical handicap
and quietly, firmly, gently, exerted considerable influence for good in her community.
Early in life, Aunt Lou learned about pain and eventually she suffered what would have been to many
people a severe physical handicap.   She worked around her handicap. Death and Time have taken her closest
relatives. She bears her tribulations with dignity; what cannot be helped, she accepts.   Her home, her
family, her neighbors, her church were Aunt Lou’s life.
Aunt Lou’s parents were James Harmon (Feb. 18, 1841- April 30, 1901) and Martha (Coyle) Harmon (June 29,
1849-Mar. 4, 1919) The Harmons had thirteen children of whom Aunt Lou was the oldest.   Mrs. James A.
Catron (Nora Harmon), 90, still living in Harmon Hollow and Aunt Lou are the surviving members of this
family.
Thomas J. Taylor (Dec. 23, 1839- June 1, 1930) married Esther Coyle (May 6, 1847-Feb. 18, 1908).   Martin
Coyle, (Oct. 15, 1825-June 1, 1930), father of Mrs. Harmon and Mrs. Taylor, gave Harmon Hollow to Mrs.
Harmon and the area called Taylor’s Grove he gave to Mrs. Taylor.
I first heard about Aunt Lou Dishman from her nephew, Melvin Catron.   Mr. Catron and I were on that
long-lasting petit jury back in March and April of this year. One day when nothing was happening but
jurors must sit, Mr. Catron asked me if I knew his aunt Lou Dishman.   At that time I did not know Aunt
Lou and Mr. Catron gave what I call a short character sketch, I thought he did a good job and I decided her
courage, her concern for others, and her age would make a good Bicentennial story.   I am especially
grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Catron for taking me to Taylor’s Grove Cemetery.   Aunt Lou told me the little
story that follows but I had never been to Taylor’s Grove Cemetery and I could not seem to visualize the
story or the place.   The location of Taylor’s Grove Church and Cemetery is so right, so beautiful. The
driveway leads up to the plain white church set in a grove of forest trees. To the left as one approaches
the church is the cemetery, well kept and large for a county cemetery.
As we grow older, we talk more about those who have died because we know more people who die.   Aunt Lou
is no exception.   She mentioned her brother, Joe, who died in Oklahoma and another brother, Charley, who
died in Decatur, Illinois.   Back in those days many little children died and the Harmon family lost ifs
share of little ones.   There were the twins then, Willie, five years old and Martin died the next fall
of croup.
At the time of the story there was no cemetery at Taylor’s Grove. One day Mr. Martin Coyle and his
little grandson, Willie Harmon, were walking around after the manner of grandfathers and grandsons.
What   they had been talking about is not known but Willie asked his grandfather, “Grandpa, when you die,
where do you want to be buried?” Grandpa Coyle answered, “Honey, I don’t know.”
But little Willie had already made   a decision, “Grandpa, when I die I want to be buried under that
little bush right over there.”
And so the story goes, in less than a week, little Willie went to his last home in what was to become
Taylor’s Grove Cemetery, the first person to be buried there. Today a gnarled old holly marks the spot where
Willie is buried.
The oldest of a big family, Aunt Lou was active and busy at an early age, helping her mother keep house,
tending the babies. She learned to weave; she pieced and quilted how many quilts, she has no idea. As she
grew older she was considered an excellent seamstress. She must have been a capable gardener because she is
pleased to say she made a garden when she was 93. Aunt Lou attended country school for the usual short
term of three or four months. This school was probably Coyle School because Hildago came much later.   She
remembers two teachers, Frank Shearer and Uncle Billie Simpson. When she was ten years old, playing at school
after dinner recess, Aunt Lou fell on a rock. She suffered a hip injury; to this day she remembers the
pain and how her father carried her for days and days.
Finally the hip was lanced and in Aunt Lou’s words, “The doctor let the joint water out.” Ever after one
leg was stiff and shorter than the other.
When Aunt Lou was six years old, her parents moved from Taylor’s Grove to Harmon Hollow. They lived in a
big log house with and enormous stone chimney and a yard full of old-fashioned roses. Although they did
not have any money, they had an abundance of food.
Sometimes Aunt Lou and her mother would spend most of the morning getting food collected for dinner, their
mid-day meal. They had plenty of milk as well as sassafras tea. However, sassafras tea came under a ban
when her father heard that drinking sassafras tea would dry up the blood.
Had they had anything to sell there was no market. Had there been a market, there would have been no road, no
way to get to it. Dried apples sold for a penny a pound; blackberries five cents a gallon. If one had
courage and nerve, the cliffs were the place to go where rattlesnakes and huckleberries grew.
Huckleberries sold for twenty-five cents a gallon.
One summer day a girl friend of Aunt Lou’s brother, Joe went with the Harmons to pick huckleberries on the
cliffs. The poor girl almost stepped on a big rattlesnake. If Joe had not grabbed her and held her
tightly, she would have jumped off of the cliff. She was that scared. The boys killed the snake which had
thirteen rattles.
Perhaps one trait that had enabled Aunt Lou to survive suffering, sorrow and the loss of her immediate family
is her ability to face squarely the business of living which is very difficult at times. Aunt Lou did not get
married until she was 29 and explains that she did not particularly care about getting married. She did not
want to leave her home or her mother. But Miss Harm on realized that due to her mother’s heart condition,
there would come a day when her mother would be gone and she would be alone. So sensible Miss Lou Harmon
became Mrs. Cassius (J.C.) Dishman (April 4, 1865-Jan. 10, 1929) was a kind man, superintendent of the Sunday
School at Keen’s Chapel and in Aunt Lou’s   opinion, “He could sing so pretty.” The hymns that Aunt Lou
remembers best are “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” “The Old Rugged Cross” “The Old Account Was Settled
Long Ago” The Dishmans’ had one daughter, Della, who went to high school in Albany and in time became a teacher.
Della taught 13 schools and then she was stricken with diabetes. She married Everett Asbury and to them was
born one daughter, Mary Alice (Asbury) Vaughn.   Today  Della and Everett lie side by side in Taylor’s Grove
Cemetery. The dates on their tomb-rocks mute testimony to Aunt Lou’s great loss, a daughter and a son-in-law
in less than two years.   Everett Asbury (May 4, 1906-Sept. 6, 1972) Della D. Asbury (May 28, 1908-Jan.
3, 1974).
Mrs. James Earl Barnes (Ella Bertram) went to school in Miss Della who she admired greatly. Miss Della was
sweet and pretty with winning ways and the children adored her. She gave Ella a china doll which Ella
cherished for a long time.
Aunt Lou is a member of the Taylor’s Grove Baptist Church but she and the members of her family have a
record of unstinted effort on behalf of both Taylor’s Grove Baptist and Keen’s Chapel.   Aunt Lou laughs
right merrily and explains, “I was generous; I went to both churches.” Her nephew Oren Catron, is Sunday
School Superintendent at Keen’s Chapel. With a moments hesitation, Aunt Lou can name the preachers she heard
in her home churches.   Harlan Perdue, Uncle Billy Cooper, Blind Dick Bertram, Nick Albertson, Wes
Denney. Thirty or forty years ago churches in the Harmon Hollow- Taylor’s Grove area helped each other
with revivals.   There were two baptismal holes in Otter Creek and it is said there would be two
preachers, a Baptist and a Methodist conducting baptismal at the same time.
Mrs. Kenneth Morgan (Lizzie Piercy) daughter of Mrs. Ethel Piercy and the late Cube Piercy, said, when I
asked if she knew of Aunt Lou, “Yes, I knew her, she helped us grow up in the very best way.”   Could a
greater compliment be paid to anyone?
The Piercy family was large as Aunt Lou’s family had been so Aunt Lou and her husband lent a helping hand
with the older children. They took Lizzie, Maud and Otto Piercy to Sunday School and church at Keen’s
Chapel.   Under Aunt Lou’s   guidance, Lizzie and Maud learned to sew. On school days, there were little,
after school treats, like apples or baked sweet potatoes and sometimes a gentle little talk about
manners or some childish problem.
Mrs. Morgan is a little embarrassed even today when she admits running away from her sister and brother
one day after school.   She ran to the Dishman House and asked Aunt Lou for an apple, because she (Lizzie)
was starving to death. Aunt Lou said to her, “If you are starving, you get yourself an apple right quick.”
Much has not been told. Aunt Lou felt there would be material sufficient for a book. Perhaps so. But it is
doubtful if we could fit it into a book, the host of nieces and nephews adored by Aunt Lou. My humble hope
is that Aunt Lou’s courageous spirit will be remembered by readers; that her industry and thrift
inspite of a physical handicap will stir others to get to work. Tiny and fragile, Aunt Lou is a shining link
between our country’s first hundred years and the third century which begins in six months right after
Aunt Lou’s hundredth birthday.