A Really True Story

The Really True Story of The Beauty Hill Cat Fiasco by Joe Holland, re-posted from the McNairy County History & Genealogysite group on Facebook.


It was in the mid-1940s, the summer that I turned eight years old and we were living in Southwest Tennessee. Dad had been in the Detroit, Michigan area for about a month when we found out that he was going to be there a few weeks longer.

While Dad was away on his preaching trips, Mother watched over us kids and ran our home like a German prisoner of war camp. Betty Ruth {my sister} and I were delegated specific chores that we were responsible for while Dad was away.

Betty had to wash the dishes, make the beds, gather eggs and help Mother churn the milk when we needed butter.Some of my chores was to feed and milk ‘Ole Bossy’ twice a day, chop stove wood and do what ever else Mother could come up with and she sure could come up with some doozeys. Some days Mother would send me to Mr. Deaton’s store at Bethel Springs with fresh butter and eggs to trade for coffee, sugar, etc. Mother could really barter. Oh well, let me get to “The Beauty Hill Cat Fiasco.”

The sunny day started out just great for me, except for a few of the following unexpected events.
Ole’ Bossy kept switching her tail across my face while I was milking. When I punched her side, she kicked the milk bucket. I caught the bucket, set it down and continued with the milking. I figured out that Ol’ Bossy needed an attitude adjustment so as I was delivering a couple of extra good side punches with my fists, Ol’ Bossy placed her right hoof firmly in the full milk bucket. When her hoof finally came out of that milking bucket, I strained the milk and took it into the house. Some things you should never tell your Mother

That morning Betty Ruth was gathering the eggs as usual, BUT she suddenly started screaming. Mother sent me to the chicken house to check out what the commotion was all about.
A snake had got into one of the hen nests and swallowed an egg, then the snake went thru the wire to the next nest and swallowed another egg.The snake had started thru the wire to another nest but the egg from the first nest and the egg in the second nest kept the snake from going forward or backward.

Betty Ruth had stuck her hand up into the nest to get the first egg but the egg that she was clutching was inside that snake. She was still screaming and holding on to that egg that was still in the snake when I got there. I could not control my laughter. Finally, after getting her to turn loose, I killed the snake and we took the eggs to the house.When we both got back inside the house, Betty Ruth checked and cleaned up the eggs while I filled up both churns with cream.

Mother sent me back outside to chop stove wood and, while Betty Ruth was churning the cream, Mother got out the two butter press molds to form and shape the butter.I had just come inside the kitchen with my arms full of stove wood when IT HAPPENED. A Day Burned Into My Memory Forever

Mother was laying out waxed paper and the press molds for the butter on the kitchen table. Betty Ruth had just finished churning and was standing by the stove. “Sleepy,” the calico cat, was asleep on the inside windowsill when I stepped inside the kitchen with my arms around the stove wood.I honestly did not know that “Moreover,” my dog, had followed me into the kitchen on that fateful day.Sleepy, the cat, hissed, bowed up ad started running. Betty Ruth, my sister, screamed and screamed.

Sista Freida, my mother, yelled “Git that dawg outta this here kitchen rite now!”

Moreover, my dog, barked and took off after the cat. AND I threw the stove wood all over that floor while chasing the dog all thru the kitchen. During that chase, the cat jumped up on the churn, the lid flipped over and the cat fell into the buttermilk.

Mother reached down into the buttermilk, grabbed that cat, and threw the cat out thru the kitchen window with the dog following right behind it.

Betty Ruth said, “Oh no, we’ve just lost all of the buttermilk and that butte.”

Mother said, “Maybe not.”

Mother then skimmed up the clumps of the butter and while carefully picking out all of the cat hairs, she placed the fresh clumps of butter into the butter press molds. Mother managed to salvage and mold two pounds of butter. She carefully wrapped the two beautifully molded pounds of butter with wax paper and then with newspaper.She then placed the two pounds of butter and one dozen eggs in my li’l red wagon. And I was sent to Mr. Deaton’s Store At Bethel Springs.

As I entered the store on that day, Mr. Deaton asked me just what did I have in my lil red wagon.

I said, "Mr. Deaton, Mother sent me here with two pounds of butter that she made this morning and Betty Ruth just gathered one dozen fresh eggs for you to sell. Mother said for me to try to get a dollar for the butter, but don’t take less than 50 cents.

Mr. Deaton took 50 cents out of his pocket and gave it to me. He patted me on the head and said: “Joe, you’ll get a whole lot further in this world if you learn not to tell everything that you know.”

I looked down at that 50 cents and quickly put it into my pocket. As I thought about Betty Ruth, the snake and the eggs, the cow stepping into the milk bucket, and the cat falling into the buttermilk churn, looking up at Mr. Deaton as he patted me on my head, I smiled and said, “I didn’t."

The Plunk-Pusser Connection

Yesterday was the annual Plunk family reunion, which assures each guest of three things: an abundance of good food, music from the talented Plunk clan, and good ol’ stories. I got to hear a re-play of one of my favorites.

The Plunk presence in Tennessee began in 1824 when Jacob Plunk, his wife, seven sons and one daughter traveled from North Carolina to McNairy County, TN. Also in the pilgrimage was Jacob’s brother, John, his wife, five sons and several daughters. Those Plunk sons each had large families and . . . well, you get the picture. That's a lot of Plunks, and that’s why Mike says that all Plunks are related. They can all be traced back to Jacob or John. The reunion Saturday was just for Plunks descended from Mike’s grandfather, David Simpson Plunk, who was the grandson of Jacob’s son, David.

McNairy County is most famous, however, for producing Walking Tall, club-totin’ Sheriff Buford Pusser. The Plunks are twice related to the former sheriff through his mother, Helen Harris Pusser.

The younger Pusser was first police chief of Adamsville, McNairy County, and then elected McNairy County sheriff. The six and a half foot tall Pusser immediately declared a one-man war on the area’s organized crime that ranged from bootlegging and gambling to prostitution. He was relentless and was making a dent in the illegal activities as well as the skulls of some bad guys.

During his campaign against corruption, Pusser survived a bombing of his home and several assassination attempts including an ambush that killed his wife and shot off part of his jaw. In 1974 he died in a mysterious, one-car auto accident. His family and many others believe that his car had been tampered with.

Sheriff Pusser’s story, and fictionalized versions of it, has prompted several books, movies and a brief television series.

Buford was not the first lawman in his family. His father, Carl, had also been the Adamsville police chief.

Roll back to 1937. Newlyweds Hercial (pictured above) and Eloyce Plunk, Mike’s parents, attended a dance in McNairy County, which was Hercial’s home turf although the couple lived in Memphis. During the festivities, Hercial noticed that Carl Pusser was dancing with pretty, young Eloyce, and, in Hercial’s opinion, Carl was holding her a bit too close. Hercial was certainly not a troublemaker, but did strongly hold his opinions. Hercial marched onto the dance floor, separated Carl from Eloyce, and took a swing at Carl that landed solidly. Mike didn’t know until after his father’s death that the crooked pinky finger on his dad’s right hand had been broken on Pusser’s jaw.

The Russians Are Coming

I love being descended from immigrants. Their lives were so interesting, their struggles so poignant. It places human faces and stories on history. I’ve written before (under the label “family”) about my father’s side, the Irish immigrants. Today, I want to share about the Bulgarian/Russians.

My mother’s father, Ernest Alexander Petroff Sr., was born in Sliven, Bulgaria. His parents had both been born in Russia, and some documents indicate that Russian was the first language of the home.

My grandfather arrived in this country at age 16. Stories surrounding that immigration are sketchy. We’ll go into that at another time. What we believe is that he managed to get to England where we’re told he was swindled out of his money, luggage and possibly his ticket of passage to the U.S. On the ship docks, however, he was told that he could work his way to America on board another ship. That was only partially true. He signed on, but the ship’s officers wouldn’t let any of the young men off. They’d been shanghaied. I don’t know the details, but at some point he jumped ship and made a rather casual entry into this country.

He worked many jobs, but just five years later he had become a Baptist minister.

Flash forward to 1914. My grandfather was 27. His younger brother, Boris (pronounced Bo-REES), was 23. Boris had already served two years in the Bulgarian infantry, was married to Elenco (Americanized to Helen) and was the father of their three-year-old daughter, Seika. Traveling with them was Helen’s 14-year-old brother, George Dimitroff. Their entry into this country was much more traditional.

The little family sailed from a port city in Greece on the Carpathia, which you may recall was the only ship to respond to distress calls from the Titanic just two years prior. The young Petroffs and George traveled in third class, or steerage, accommodations that likely provided them with a small, multi-berth room. They left Greece on Oct. 5 and docked at New York on Oct. 28.

Immigration records show that Boris and Helen could read and write and listed George’s occupation as “scholar,” which we presume meant student. Boris had $50 in his pocket and a job waiting for him.

This is the piece that just fell into place today. Hubby Mike and I had wondered what kind of communication there had been between the brothers – both before and after Boris and his family arrived. Today, it became clear that my grandfather helped pave the way for Boris to come here.

After the Petroffs and George were cleared by immigration, they boarded a train and headed to Granite City, Ill. That’s where my grandfather was a minister and his wife, Lola, was heavy with their first child, my Aunt Mary, who was born just three weeks after the young Petroffs landed. Since Boris listed on immigration papers the name of the Granite City company he planned to work for, we presume that grandfather had arranged the position for his brother.

Granite City, in the St. Louis, MO metro area, was developed as the company town for the St. Louis Stamping & Ironworks Company. Boris went to work as a mill worker, and they most likely put George in school.

Although grandfather, Lola and Aunt Mary moved three years later to Galveston, TX, the younger Petroffs lived in the St. Louis area for many years. Some time during my mother’s elementary school years, she was sent to spend the summer with her Uncle Boris’ family. She was most surprised to find that only the men who went out to work every day could speak English.

Boris and Helen’s next three children were born in and around that area: Mary – 1916; Olga Virginia – 1917; and Peter – 1919. Mike thinks he might have located a daughter of Olga and a grandson of Peter. Hopefully, they will respond to Mike’s emails and we’ll learn more about our family.

We lose track of Boris’ family, but know that Olga and Seika lived for some period of time in California and their father must have joined them. Great-uncle Boris died April 18, 1971 in Riverside County, CA. Olga also died in Riverside County on March 8, 2002.

Mike is an amazing genealogy detective. We hope to find some more Petroff cousins.

(The first photo above is of my grandfather. The group photo is of Uncle Boris and his family. I’ve also given you close-ups of his family – a very good-looking group.)

Civil War Psy Ops

One of my favorite Civil War stories comes from Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s raid on Union-held Memphis at 4 a.m., August 21, 1864. It might have included one of the early uses of psychological warfare.

Forrest, with no formal military training, quickly became one of the leading cavalry figures of the tragic war. His goal in the Memphis raid was threefold: to kidnap the three Union generals who were posted there; to free Confederate prisoners jailed there; and to force the recall of Federal troops from North Mississippi.

On the night before the raid, the clever Forrest sent a telegram to the Oxford, MS telegraph office stating that “Forrest Had Captured Memphis in Surprise Raid.” Union forces began scrambling north and away from what would have been the destruction of Oxford.

Then, under cover of early morning fog, Forrest led about 2,000 cavalrymen galloping into Memphis which was occupied by 6,000 Yanks. In their quest to capture the generals, Forrest’s younger brother, Col. Jessee Forrest, rode his horse directly into the posh Gayoso Hotel. Unfortunately, their targets weren’t there.

Gen. Cadwallader C. Washburn, quartered elsewhere, fled in his nightshirt to escape capture – and was later ridiculed by his fellow Federal officers for his perceived cowardice. To commemorate the incident, there is an alley in downtown Memphis bearing the street sign “Gen. Washburn’s Escape Alley.”

Although the general eluded kidnap, Forrest did capture Washburn’s uniform. Perhaps adding insult to injury, Forrest had the uniform cleaned and pressed and returned it to Washburn under a flag of truce. Washburn returned the chivalrous (?) gesture. Since Memphis was the center of contraband for the western war, Washburn was able to find Forrest’s tailor and have a Confederate gray uniform sent back to Forrest.

Union General Hurlbut was quoted afterward as saying, "There it goes again! They superseded me with Washburn because I could not keep Forrest out of West Tennessee, and Washburn cannot keep him out of his own bedroom!"

After a two-hour enounter in Memphis, Forrest withdrew, cutting telegraph lines and taking with his troops 500 prisoners and large quantities of supplies, including 600 horses.

The Big Memphis Flood - 2011

Mike and I went downtown to the river yesterday to see the swollen Mississippi. As kids we sometimes saw the river creep across the low spot on Riverside Drive, but never anything like this. The river crested just about a foot short of the crest in the big 1937 flood.Most of the city is fine, but the river has encroached on many neighborhoods causing evacuations and loss of property. The river, usually a half mile wide, is now three miles wide.

Photos below were taken at and around Jefferson Davis Park on Riverside Drive near Jefferson St. -- just below Confederate Park further up the bluff. Below you'll see nearly submerged park benches, sidewalks and driveways covered by river water and debris, and a river boat's gangway that only river catfish can access. There's also a photo of what's left to see of Mud Island with its flags waving above the water. The one above is a beautiful photo of the sun going down over the Arkansas side of the river and forming a spotlight on the statue of Jefferson Davis, former pesident of the Confederacy.

A Visit To Shelby Foote's Home

Mike and I took a rare, tax-season day off Sunday to visit the estate sale of the late author and Civil War historian Shelby Foote.

Born in 1916 in Greenville, MS, Foote was first a novelist, but later achieved acclaim for his three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative. Popularity among the general public, however, did not come his way until documentarian Ken Burns invited Foote to take part in his 1990 PBS mini-series, The Civil War. When the program aired, Foote appeared in almost 90 segments -- about one hour of the 11-hour series. Foote's extensive knowledge, charm and Southern gentleman drawl made him a celebrity. Foote’s quirk of speaking of the Civil War as if it were currently taking place reinforced his historic authority and made the viewer feel that Foote had actually lived through the experiences he described. His descriptions and narrations in the documentary are conversational rather than pedantic. The overall effect is that here’s a man you’d like to sit and talk with over a couple of pots of coffee.

No matter what region of the U.S. you're from, you should rent or buy the dvd set of the Ken Burns’ documentary. It humanizes the period through personal letters written in that era and glimpses of soldiers’ and civilians’ lives. It’s informative and heart-wrenching. I guarantee that you will learn facts about the Civil War that you’ve never heard before.

Being big fans, we were anxious to walk through Foote’s home and hoped that we’d find a reasonably priced memento from his possessions.

Foote moved to Memphis in 1952 and bought the English cottage-style home with his wife in 1966. The 11-room home was built in 1927 and covers 3,900 square feet including a secret room – the location of which was not disclosed to estate sale visitors.

The house sits in a lovely mid-town Memphis area of large, old homes and can barely be seen from the street because of the huge, old Magnolia trees in the front yard. The 28x15 living room was impressive. From the entry hall, you turn left, step down three stairs and enter the room facing a large fireplace at the opposite wall. Because the living room stretches to the left of the main part of the home, there are windows down both sides of the room. Although windows of this style are not large, there was an abundance of them throughout the house so that it would be sunny and cheerful during the day.

I refer to my favorite upstairs room as “the tower room.” That’s just how it affected me. After climbing the stairs from the entry hall, you would turn right and immediately take a step up. Somehow, because of its positioning, there is at least one window on all four walls of this room. Love it. But here’s the most interesting part. There is a door in the room that leads to a small balcony --- overlooking the living room. I could just imagine having a party downstairs and stepping out onto the balcony to make announcements. Fascinating. The door itself was constructed much like a dutch door. The top half opened from the middle – like French doors – and, I presume, could be left open for ventillation, eavesdropping or whatever. When closed, however, the door was solid and gave no hint of what lay on the other side.

Downstairs, at the very back of the house was Shelby Foote’s study with rows of book shelves and his built-in desk. Mike noted worn-down places at the desk's edge – perhaps where he rested his arms when working. Much of his narrative for the Ken Burns’ documentary was filmed in that room at that desk. I was surprised to learn that Foote composed by hand -- pen and paper. No typewriter. No computer. It was exciting to stand there, touch his desk and know that much of his important work had taken place there.

Before leaving, we purchased two, small, matching, white porcelain cups that were part of his household possessions. His cups now reside on our living room mantle adding another little piece of history to our home.

Shelby Foote died in June 2005.

Here’s a link to today’s Commercial Appeal wrap-up story on the sale.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/mar/08/foote-estate-sale-attracts-5000-but-no-bids-on/

Crazy Presidential Trivia

Tax season is pretty stressful for us, so Mike and I look for a little entertainment while we eat lunch in his office. Here is some Presidential trivia that we found recently. All that’s left to say about some of these is – these were leaders of the free world?!

Starting with my favorite:

Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while having breakfast in bed.
Known as “Silent Cal,” the President was renowned for his reticence. He was once challenged by a reporter who bet “I can get you to say more than two words to me.” The President replied, “You lose.”
But here’s my favorite part. Who would ever suspect that Coolidge was a White House prankster? It is said that he enjoyed playing "ding-dong ditch'em." He would ring the White House doorbell and then run and hide, no doubt laughing all the way.

Herbert Hoover and his wife spoke Chinese to each other when they didn’t want to be overheard by guests or staff. The Hoovers went to extremes to avoid contact with White House staff – including not wanting to see them. Lou Hoover developed a sign language to convey her wishes to staff without having to speak with them. The former President required staff to remove themselves from sight as he walked through the mansion. House staff found themselves jumping into the nearest closet. Groundskeepers dove behind shrubbery if the President might be nearby. Staff who failed to cloak themselves sufficiently might face dismissal.

William Howard Taft, the 27th president, was the heaviest U.S. President and once found himself stuck in the White House bathtub.

William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural address in history. It was an hour and a half long – outside, of course -- and there was snow. He died on the 32nd day of his term from complications of pneumonia.

U.S. Grant while President was issued a speeding ticket for $20 for riding his horse too fast down a Washington street. The officer who stopped him did not want to issue the fine when he realized who he’d stopped, but the President insisted on receiving the penalty.

James Garfield could perform an unusual parlor feat that entertained many. He could write in Latin with one hand while simultaneously writing in Greek with the other hand.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, enjoyed a daily nude swimming ritual at 5 a.m. in the Potomac River. Learning about this and recalling Adams' repeated refusal to be interviewed by the first American professional journalist, Anne Royall is reported to have gone to the river, gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her interview. No female is thought ever before to have interviewed a President.

Grover Cleveland was accused by his opposition for the Presidency of paying a man $150 to take his place in military service. The act was allowed under the Conscription Act of 1863, but still made for campaign mud-slinging. He was raked over the coals for the act by his political opponent until it was discovered that the opponent had done the same thing

Thomas Jefferson was an avid inventor who is credited with inventing the coat hanger, hideaway bed and dumbwaiter. (He’s one of my Presidential heroes.)

Jimmy Carter was the first President born in a hospital.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President, is said to be related to 11 other Presidents.

James Madison barely weighed 100 pounds.

Warren Harding played poker at least twice a week and once put an entire set of White House china up to stake his hand. He lost the hand and the china.

Auction at Airliewood

On Sunday, Mike and I went to an open house at one of Holly Springs’ historic mansions which will be sold at auction this weekend. It was amazing.

The house is Airliewood, the Gothic Revival estate home on 12 acres built in 1858.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant used the home as his residence and headquarters during the federal troops’ occupation of north Mississippi. It was in this mansion that Grant, his wife, son and slave celebrated Christmas dinner with the general’s officers in 1862.
(See previous post on subject - http://plunkchronicles.blogspot.com/2010/08/beautiful-historic-holly-springs.html)

The current owners bought the 4,000-sq. foot historic mansion in 2002 when the home had fallen into disrepair. They carefully restored it to is original beauty and built a 5,000-sq. foot, modern addition. The new section blends with the old and in no way detracts from the historic feel.

The mansion now contains six bedrooms, four baths, two half-baths, parlors, music room, dining room, delightful sun room, expansive downstairs and upstairs foyers, three porches, 10 fireplaces, thoroughly modern kitchen, butler’s pantry (caterer’s kitchen) adjacent to dining room complete with commercial dishwasher, refrigerator and warming drawers, four-car attached garage, seven security cameras, and fencing around the entire property.

The master bedroom suite in the addition was spectacular. The best feature of the bedroom itself was French doors to a private porch leading to an iron-fenced garden and large fountain. Two doors from the bedroom led to his and hers bathrooms, his done in dark marble; hers in a lighter, more feminine marble. Her side included a jacuzzi tub. His side offered a small room surrounded with windows that could be an exercise room or small office. Each side included a private toilet area. Each side also extended to a dressing room with areas for hanging clothes, shelves and drawers as well as a padded bench. I'm sure that the larger dressing room is a "hers." The two sides are joined by an enormous, walk-in, doorless shower constructed with glass blocks. It can be doorless because it's so huge that water can not splatter outside on the heated bathroom floors. If you’ve ever seen an extremely large shower, you still can’t imagine this one.

As spectacular as is the addition, the historic portion is even more breath-taking. Walking through the rooms and imagining all that had taken place within those walls was awe-inspiring.

Current owners spent $5 million on the home’s restoration and addition. They are setting a starting bid of $750,000 for the auction. That’s the price they paid in ’02.

And, no, we won't be putting in a bid. Photos below (from the top):

Dining room

Original bricks and wooden beams in the full attic

Painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee above a fireplace in one of the parlors.

View of the downstairs foyer taken from the front door. We were surprised at how narrow the staircase was.

Foyer view of the front door. Note the height of the door compared to my height of 5' 6 1/2".

Read more about the mansion’s restoration at http://www.civilwarnews.com/archive/articles/2010/oct/airliewood-101002.htmlairliewood-101002.html

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Lost Colony of the Confederacy

The Civil War-garbed dancers in this photo are not on a movie set. They only rarely speak English, but, when they do, it’s with a Southern accent. They are descendants of a group of Confederates who left this country at the end of the Civil War and relocated to southern Brazil.

Between 1866-1867, thousands of Confederates, who believed their country had been invaded and their property confiscated, gave up on the United States and sought a way to continue their lifestyle in a more tolerant foreign country. Estimates range from 3,500 – 20,000. Some historians claim that the numbers would have been even larger had not the revered Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee publicly urged Southerners to remain in the U.S. It was the only recorded political exodus in U.S. history. It is sometimes called the Lost Colony of the Confederacy.

The disenchanted Southerners were drawn by the promise of cheap land, a booming cotton industry and the existence of slavery, which was tolerated in Brazil until 1888.

Research tells us that the cost of passage to Brazil was $20-$30, and the voyage lasted several weeks. Each family was encouraged to bring a tent, light-weight furniture, farming supplies and seeds, and provisions to last six months.

Life as start-up farmers was quite difficult and far different from their previous lives. Many became discouraged. Drought, tropical disease and the inability to support their former lifestyle drove 80 percent of the refugees back to the U.S.

Records state that only the 94 families who settled in the Sao Paulo state near what is now called Americana became successful, despite humbling hard work. Eventually, the farmers turned to sugar cane rather than cotton.

They were called Confederales, Confederados or Confederates by their Brazillian neighbors who appreciated the input of the refugees which included kerosene lamps and more modern plows. Confederates also introduced baseball, peaches,pecans and various strains of rice.

Southern missionaries were hired as teachers by the Confederates and had a lasting impact. The educational tradition they initiated is credited as one reason that Americana has only a 14 percent illiteracy rate in a country where 25 percent of the population can not read or write.

For the first 80 years of settlement, the immigrants declined to learn Portuguese and kept their colonies largely separate from Brazillian culture.Today, however, generations of intermarriage have transformed the modern descendants into darker-skinned Brazillians who are proud of both their Brazillian and Confederate lineage. Many still learn English as their first language and speak English in their homes -- complete with Southern drawls.

In 1972, then-Governor of Georgia and future President Jimmy Carter traveled to the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and visited the grave of his wife Rosalyn's great-uncle who was one of the original Confederados.

Today the descendants still celebrate their Southern history with an annual festival and quarterly memorial services. The annual festival is dedicated to funding the Campo Cemetery. Confederate flags abound at these events and attendees don traditional antebellum costumes of Confederate uniforms and hoop-skirted dresses. Refreshment tables feature corn bread, fried chicken and other Southern staples. Songs, music and dances also reflect the pre-Civil War culture.

Four times a year, more than 200 members of the Fraternidade Descendencia Americana, the Fraternity of American Descendants, gather to honor their ancestors and maintain community ties despite now being scattered throughout the area.

They sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic in Portuguese, say a Protestant prayer, then have a Southern-style picnic mixed with family gossip and stories of their ancestors, most of whom are buried in the nearby cemetery. Also in the vicinity is the Museum of Immigration at Santa Bárbara d'Oeste created to preserve the history of the Confederate immigration to Brazil.

Keeping the faith through these celebrations is one way descendants, particularly the older ones, nurture ancestral memories. "Preserving our heritage helps us hold on to cherished values and pass them on to future generations," said one of the community’s historians.

Beautiful, Historic Holly Springs

As Mike and I travel to and from the lake, we drive through the charming town of Holly Springs, MS. Each time, we admire the abundance of antebellum structures – homes, churches, and commercial buildings as well. Exiting the city limits, we are always grateful that so much history survived. And we always wonder why -- when the Federal army practiced such a slash and burn approach to its occupation of the South.

Naturally, I did a bit of research and found that Mike’s assumption was true. Here’s how it went.

Before the Civil War, Holly Springs was a flourishing community and a leader in agriculture and commerce. Plantations in the area led the state in cotton production. Schools, businesses and churches abounded.

Then came the war. Because Holly Springs was located at the intersection of two railroads, it was highly desired by both the Yanks and Rebs. They fought over the prize, and the bluecoats won.

When Union General U.S. Grant captured the little town, his army camped on the lawns of the grand mansions while he moved his wife, son and slave into the Walter Place estate (pictured above). The General made headquarters at Airliewood estate.

Yes, according to several sources, Grant owned slaves. His wife was the daughter of a slave owner and most likely brought them into her marriage with the General and future president. I was surprised to learn that 12 U.S. presidents had owned slaves and eight had owned slaves during their presidency.

Because the Union army headquartered in Holly Springs, it survived the war. What the bluecoats didn’t do, a mosquito did, however. The town was devastated in 1878 by the yellow fever epidemic that claimed the lives of most town residents.

Over time, Holly Springs came back to life and evolved into the lovely town it is today with good places to eat, live and do business.

Restoration of many graceful mansions and buildings preserve the glory of pre-Civil War Holly Springs. Tours are available daily at some structures, and the pilgrimage occurs in April with more than 64 houses, churches and other buildings open for viewing.

Other Holly Springs facts - http://www.visithollysprings.org/quickfacts.html

Discovery and Resolution

Yesterday Mike and I made a discovery and closed a loop in my family history. Last year, through his genealogy pursuits, we found the grave of my great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Galvin (orig. Gallivan) Manley. She’s buried in the old section of Memphis’ Calvary Cemetery, not far from her youngest daughter, my grandmother Mary Michael Manley Thomas. Mary Michael lies alongside her husband and next to her only son, my father, and her older sister.

We were unable last year to locate Mary Elizabeth’s husband, Michael James, or any of their children who we knew died young. But, with Mike’s additional research and confirmations from Calvary’s old records, we were able yesterday to prove that the whole family is buried there.

Mary Elizabeth and Michael James were both Irish immigrants who lived in the Pinch District, an area near North Main Street which was primarily occupied by working class Irish, Italian and German immigrants. (See more about Irish immigrants in Memphis at - http://plunkchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/09/irish-branch-of-tree.html.)

Before marriage, Mary Elizabeth had been a domestic servant for one of the city’s wealthy families. Michael James was employed as a tinsmith. Mike’s research showed that, as the young couple started their family, it seemed that every time they had a baby, an older child died. They lived in the Pinch during the great yellow fever epidemic and lost a little girl to that disease.

The recitation of family deaths paints a tragic picture.
1878 – Margaret, age 5, died of yellow fever.
1880 – Ella, 2, died of pneumonia.
1883 – John James died two weeks before his third birthday.
1886 – Michael James died of liver disease at the age of 39. Mary Elizabeth was eight months pregnant with my grandmother and now was a widow.
1895 – Kate, 13, died on Christmas Day from consumption.

Of the children, only my grandmother and her sister Edna, who never married, lived into adulthood and their golden years.

Mary Elizabeth, who never remarried, died in 1925 at the age of 70. Hers was the only grave that had been marked. The little Manley family could probably barely afford the burials and certainly not headstones. We recently learned that the family plot had been a gift from an uncle of Michael James.

Lost, Now Found

As the administrator at Calvary Cemetery explained, little Margaret would be the only family member not in the plot. During the yellow fever epidemic, there were large numbers of deaths every day, and the victims needed to be buried quickly for sanitation reasons. He also explained that what appears to be two open fields near the cemetery’s old section are actually sites of yellow fever victims’ graves. Five-year-old Margaret would lie there.

Mike and I left the cemetery office and went to Mary Elizabeth’s crumbling gravestone. We stood there in the open area which we now knew was the family plot. Touching the grass, knowing that it covered Mary Elizabeth, Michael James and their little ones, I just stood there and cried.

Mike and I made arrangements to place a monument in the center of the plot that would bear the names and dates of birth and death for the six Manleys. No longer lost and forgotten, they will receive the honor and respect they deserve.

Driving away from Calvary, I wiped my eyes again and announced to Mike that I thought I was finally through crying. He responded with “It’s been a long time since anyone has cried for them.” And, of course, I started crying again – as I am doing as I write this.

Mary Elizabeth

With the many tragedies of the Manley family, it would be easy to picture an angry embittered Mary Elizabeth who had seen most of her children die and who became a young widow with daughters to raise alone. My grandmother, however, described her mother as a saint.

Despite the family’s meager financial status and the loss of children and husband, Mary Elizabeth was a woman of compasion and great faith. My grandmother Mary Michael told me that her mother consistently tended to the needs of her friends and neighbors in the Pinch.

In my favorite story, Mary Elizabeth was doing regular visitation with a family whose young son had been badly burned. The boy’s condition worsened, and the family was devastated at the child's impending death. Mary Elizabeth did her best to comfort them, but she had another concern. Because the family was Jewish, Mary Elizabeth knew that the child had not been baptized. A devout Catholic, my great-grandmother was distressed over the plight of the youngster’s soul.

She would not interfere with another’s religion, so she chose a secret course of action. Before her next visit, Mary Elizabeth slipped a vial of holy water into her apron pocket. As soon as she was alone with the boy, she performed her own baptism ritual and left that day confident that the child’s soul would rest with her Heavenly Father. That strength of faith is surely what carried her through the deaths of her own little ones.

Trolley Tour Night on South Main

Memphis’ South Main historic district is the place to be on the last Friday of each month. That’s the trolley tour night when the trolley is free and the fun is everywhere.

You can visit shops for clothing and jewelry, check out the galleries (including that of our artist friend John Robinette) and, of course, the restaurants. We enjoyed a great meal at Pearl’s Oyster House and noticed a couple of Robinette’s paintings on the walls. In chatting with John that night, we learned that actor Samuel L. Jackson also owns some of John’s work.

Although we liked Pearl’s a lot, if you’re new to downtown we also recommend the Arcade which is the oldest restaurant in Memphis and once was one of Elvis’ favorites. Besides the historic interest, the Arcade has an interesting Southern menu selection and an ample supply of yummy food. More about the Arcade is in this previous post – http://plunkchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/07/moroccans-tour-memphis.html

Ernestine & Hazel’s is another stop on South Main to check out. It is a popular spot for burgers and brew and has a salty history. Many, many years ago, the site was a bordello, and the word around town is that the building is haunted. We don’t know if the ghosts are those of working girls, their clients or both, but it’s certainly interesting.

On our evening downtown, the street was bustling with people, and bands were playing on the street and inside some restaurants. Mike and I enjoyed our trolley tour evening and will definitely return. Mark your calendars now for the last Friday of July, 6-9 p.m.

Read more about trolley tours at this site.
http://southmainmemphis.net/trolley-nights/

Notorious Memphis Native

Of all the famous Memphians we’ve written about on The Chronicles, we only recently discovered that the infamous Machine Gun Kelly was born and raised here.

George Kelly Barnes, who became one of the most well known gangsters of the prohibition era, was born in Memphis in 1895 to wealthy parents who raised him in a traditional home environment. Kelly went off to Mississippi State University to study agriculture, but proved to be a poor student. His highest grade, a C­+, was in physical hygiene. At least he was clean.

Apparently, he was in trouble more than he was out of it during college so when he fell in love with Geneva Ramsey, he was happy to drop out of school and go to work. The couple had two children, and Kelly was driving a cab in Memphis to support the family. But they struggled financially and soon separated. That’s about when Kelly learned that bootlegging provided a much better income and a touch of criminal chic.

After a few arrests, Kelly left Memphis, continued his criminal career and gradually built his gangster reputation. His wanderings led him to Oklahoma City and then to Minneapolis where he married Kathryn Thorne, the mistress of one of Kelly’s associates and a seasoned criminal in her own right. It is suspected that it was she who crafted the Machine Gun Kelly reputation. Historians say that Kathryn was the mastermind of Kelly’s bank robbery spree through Texas and Mississippi which created a public frenzy that earned his place in history books and catapulted him to Public Enemy Number One.

In 1933, the couple returned to Memphis to hide out and visit their friend John Tichenor. On a September morning, Memphis police burst into the Tichenor house to find Kathryn asleep and a hung-over Kelly still in his pajamas. It was on that morning that Kelly is said to have coined the phrase, ”G-Men, please don’t shoot.”

They were arrested, quickly flown to Oklahoma City, tried and convicted. Machine Gun Kelly died of a heart attack in Leavenworth Penitentiary in 1954 on his 59th birthday.

afterthought -- After Mike read this post, he looked back through some census data. It could be that George Kelly Barnes, aka Machine Gun Kelly, was not born in Memphis, but rather came here at an early age and was raised here. Mike also believes that Kelly probably went to Central High School. Guess that photo won't go on the Wall of Fame.

Pigeon Roost Rd. With No Pigeons

Before we got crazy into tax season, Mike and I were driving south to the lake when he commented that we were in the vicinity of Pigeon Roost Road. He related the history to me again.

The road is the modern version of what is likely an 8,000-year-old path from the heart of the Chickasaw Nation at Pon te tok (Pontotoc, MS) to Memphis in the north. Over the hundreds of years, the path was worn into permanence by Native Americans, Spanish conquistadors, white pioneers, and armies.

Until the late 19th century, the area was on the migration route of the abundant passenger pigeons. Written accounts tell of the sky being darkened from morning until night as the gigantic flock passed.

Sometimes the silence of early morning was broken by a rushing sound as a great column of wild pigeons came flying swiftly down the valley. These columns were so wide that they reached almost from hill to hill, and so dense as to darken the sun, so that candles had to be lighted in the houses. As the birds passed directly overhead, the swishing of their wings could be distinctly heard amid the roar of their flight, which was like that of a rushing wind. Hour after hour they would pass. When the sky was cleared away, it was found that they had established themselves in a general camp at "Pigeon Roost.”

Other reports described the birds settling onto tree limbs to the extent that they covered trees and broke off limbs. When limbs were full, birds came to rest on top of other pigeons, stacking themselves, scrambling for roosting spots and ultimately smothering the birds underneath.

Native Americans collected the birds as they fell dead from the trees and, later, settlers came in wagons to fill them with the food supply that was more like pheasant than our modern pigeons.

Because the overabundance caused casual disregard, sporting men from throughout the South arrived in the area with their rifles and felled far more pigeons than any dinner table could accommodate. It has been called a tragic chapter in the natural history of America. Once thought to be the most abundant bird species in the world, the ongoing slaughter continued to diminish the population. It is believed that the last of the species died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

But nowhere did I read about the gunk that must have been left on the ground underneath those millions of birds.

Momma Was a Moonshiner

Mike and I watched an interesting tv special last night about the history of the Appalachian mountain people. A tidbit that intrigued us was that NASCAR was born from the fast-driving moonshine runners coming down from those Southern hills.

Obviously, the men who ran the stills had to get their product to their customers. The delivery system for the white lightnin’ was souped-up cars and fearless drivers who thrived on outrunning the law. Generally, they had installed heavy shocks and truck tires on the cars to bear the whiskey’s weight – and to compensate for the car’s sag which would be a fatal clue to the car’s true purpose.

Eventually, these competitive young bucks started meeting on Sunday afternoons for impromptu races to prove who had the fastest, most arrest-proof car. One thing led to another, and there you have NASCAR. Honest.

All of which leads to my mother. When I was in about the fifth grade, my Mother bought her first car. It was an old Kingsway Custom made in Canada with a Plymouth exterior and Dodge interior – or maybe the other way around. Mother had only learned to drive the year before. I know friends who have turned gray teaching their teenagers to drive. With the positions reversed, I tended to stress out in Mother’s early days behind the wheel. Sometimes she made me sit in the back seat so she couldn’t see me jump in fear and cover my eyes.

Mother was still driving that older, more pitiful car when I was a sophomore in high school. One weekend she took off by herself to drive down to mid-Mississippi to visit her sister. It was late Sunday night when she was driving north to Memphis on a dark, two-lane road. Surprised to see the flashing lights of a police car in her rearview mirror, Mother slowed and pulled over, knowing that the old car couldn’t possibly have been speeding.

Her gracious “How are you tonight, officer” was met with a cold “Out awfully late aren’t you, ma’am” and a request for her license and registration. Mother handed over the documents and thought it odd that the officer shined his flashlight into the back seat and carefully studied the interior.

He asked her to get out of the car and step to the side while he circled the vehicle observing it quietly. When he asked her to open the trunk, Mother was perplexed and getting nervous. What the heck was this all about?!

As the lid popped open, the officer could see that the trunk was nearly overflowing with newspapers. He poked through them a bit and asked why all the papers were there. He listened soberly while Mother explained that her daughter’s school was conducting a newspaper drive to raise money so she’d been collecting papers from friends.

The officer considered the explanation, asked Mother where she was headed, and then dismissed her. Mother climbed back into the slightly sagging car and continued toward home noting that the police car followed her for several miles. It took about that long for the truth to hit her. The cop thought she was hauling ‘shine!

What a great story to tell at work the next day.

Beale Street's Daisy Theater

When the Moroccans (Charming Niece Shannon & hubby Hassan) visited this summer, we didn’t do much socializing due to Mother’s hospitalization, but we did some of the good Memphis things during their previous trip.

Of the many interesting stops downtown and on Beale Street, the Old Daisy Theater is always a must. Thank goodness for the preservation of historic buildings.

The Mississippi Delta, which is said to begin in the lobby of Memphis’ great Hotel Peabody, gave birth to the blues and a trail of bluesmen who eventually made their way to the waiting venues on Beale Street. Appreciative crowds welcomed such blues icons as the legendary Robert Johnson from Hazlehurst (http://plunkchronicles.blogspot.com/2007/08/ive-been-to-crossroads.html), Son House (Riverton), John Lee Hooker and Ike Turner (Clarksdale), Mississippi John Hurt (Teoc), Muddy Waters (Rolling Fork), Willie Dixon (Vicksburg) , Elmore James (Richland) and B.B. King (Indianola). These musicians not only defined blues in their day, but they also influenced the inception and development of rock and roll.

It’s been written that B.B. King once said, "I didn't think of Memphis as Memphis. I thought of Beale Street as Memphis.” There are stories of a young Elvis Presley sneaking into the mostly black Beale Street clubs for an impressive taste of the blues in the fifties.

A 17-year-old Mike and a buddy were allowed in the back door of a near-Beale black club a couple of times and were even permitted to sit in. In later years he had the privilege of playing at both the Old Daisy and New Daisy which are across the street from each other.

At least once at the New Daisy he was playing with Jerry Lee Lewis. He was with the house band at the Old Daisy for a while and met an older, black jazz piano player who sat in with them a few times. Mike later learned that the man was Phineas Newborn, an “underappreciated” jazz musician who had previously worked with the likes of Lionel Hampton and Charlie Mingus. When Mike met him, Newborn was reduced to sitting in for drinks anywhere he could. When he died in the 1980s, Newborn was laid to rest in a Memphis pauper’s grave.

The beautiful Old Daisy, pictured above with Shannon, Hassan and me, was built in 1902 in the nickelodeon style of architecture.

If those walls could only tell the tales of the music and musicians who have walked that stage! Hmmm I’d be writing a book instead of a blog.

The Ultimate Getaway

Some people go to the lake. Some to the beach. Others to the mountains or desert. But Mike recently read about an island that just might be paradise. You can visit, but don’t plan on falling in love with it and moving there. It’s against the law.

Tristan de Cunha is hailed as the most remote inhabited island in the world. It is a volcanic outcropping in the south Atlantic, 1,750 miles from the nearest land –South Africa. In the other direction, South America lies 2,090 miles away.

Tristan is one of four islands in the archipelago, and it’s the sole inhabited speck, crowned with a mountain peak capped in snow nearly year-round. It consists of 38 square miles – mostly volcanic rock. Only a sliver of land along the coast is inhabitable and another slice of land is available for farming and grazing livestock. Tristan is part of the British overseas territories.

Discovered in 1811, the Scotsman hailed as its founder is
Corporal William Glass, who returned to the island in 1816 with his wife and two children following his tour of duty there with the British garrison, Two white companions and a black woman made the trip with the Glass family.

As time went by, Glass was joined by sailors from passing ships and shipwrecks and “imported” women. They and their descendants compose the island’s seven founding families who have lived there ever since. Because of its remoteness and controlled immigration, most Tristanians bear one of seven surnames of the founders. And, because of intermarriage, many look strikingly similar -- tall with pale brown skin.

The population remains stable, varying between 270 and 300.

The primary sources of income are crawfish fishing and exporting, along with the sale of postage stamps and coins from the most remote settlement on the seas. Only an approximate 40 men qualify as fishermen and they can only take to the rough Atlantic waters on the 65-70 days each year when the weather calms the seas sufficiently for their boats to safely enter.

In addition to the quaint cottages we’d find on an island tour, we’d also see the British administrator’s office, two churches, an Internet café, a pub, a shop, a supermarket, golf course, swimming pool, and post office. In the missing column would be a movie theater, restaurant and traffic lights.

There is one police officer and three special constables. In my reading, there was no mention of a jail. Just imagine the peace and tranquility!

Tristan has one school, St. Mary’s, which minimally educates the island’s children from age three to 15. As a concession to the 21st century, the school contains a computer room.

Health care is free, but, with just one resident doctor from South Africa and five nurses, the care is limited and serious cases require signaling passing fishing vessels to transport the patient and family to Cape Town for more extensive treatment.

Television did not arrive until 2001, and only one British channel broadcast from the Falklands in available.

It’s difficult to imagine the old-fashioned simplicity of this tiny land where the elders still speak in thee’s and thou’s. Women fill the clerical and shopkeeing jobs. The men are tradesmen who double as farmers, and some of whom double again as fishermen. Oh yes, and of course there are some government employees. Women also knit sweaters and socks from the abundant wool. Each family does its own butchering and baking.

All Tristan families are farmers and own their livestock. All land, however, is communally owned. Livestock numbers are strictly controlled to conserve pasture and to prevent better-off families from accumulating wealth. No outsiders are allowed to buy land or settle on Tristan.

If it looks like a commune and walks like a commune . . .

The charm and olde ways of Tristan present a mixed bag of positives and negatives, but the inhabitants are clearly devoted to their homeland.

The test came in 1961 when the volcano they call home suddenly exploded, assaulting the settlement with rocks, lava and fire until the entire population could be evacuated and moved to England where they were resettled at an unused army base. After two years of exposure to – or perhaps a different kind of assault from -- all the elements of modern life that they’d never experienced, the group was homesick and voted almost unanimously to return to Tristan.

And there they remain.

Our Moroccans At The Old Daisy

When the Moroccans (Charming Niece Shannon & hubby Hassan) visited this summer, we didn’t do much socializing due to Mother’s hospitalization, but we did some of the good Memphis things during their ’08 trip.

Of the many interesting stops downtown and on Beale Street, the Old Daisy Theater is always a must. Thank goodness for the preservation of historic buildings.

The Mississippi Delta, which is said to begin in the lobby of Memphis’ great Hotel Peabody, gave birth to the blues and a trail of bluesmen who eventually made their way to the waiting venues on Beale Street. Appreciative crowds welcomed such blues icons as the legendary Robert Johnson from Hazlehurst (http://plunkchronicles.blogspot.com/2007/08/ive-been-to-crossroads.html), Son House (Riverton), John Lee Hooker and Ike Turner (Clarksdale), Mississippi John Hurt (Teoc), Muddy Waters (Rolling Fork), Willie Dixon (Vicksburg) , Elmore James (Richland) and B.B. King (Indianola). These musicians not only defined blues in their day, but they also influenced the inception and development of rock and roll.

It’s written that B.B. King once said, "I didn't think of Memphis as Memphis. I thought of Beale Street as Memphis.” There are stories of a young Elvis Presley sneaking into the mostly black Beale Street clubs for an influential taste of the blues in the fifties.

A 17-year-old Mike and a buddy were allowed in the back door of a near-Beale black club a couple of times and even permitted to sit in. In later years he had the privilege of playing at both the Old Daisy and New Daisy which are across the street from each other.

At least once at the New Daisy he was playing with Jerry Lee Lewis. He was with the house band at the Old Daisy for a while and met an older, black jazz piano player who sat in with them a few times. Mike later learned that the man was Phineas Newborn, an “underappreciated” jazz musician who had previously worked with the likes of Lionel Hampton and Charlie Mingus. When Mike met him, Newborn was reduced to sitting in for drinks anywhere he could. When he died in the 1980s, Newborn was laid to rest in a Memphis pauper’s grave.

The beautiful Old Daisy, pictured above with Shannon, Hassan and me) was built in 1902 in the nickelodeon style of architecture.

If those walls could only tell the tales of the music and musicians who have walked that stage!

The Irish Branch of the Tree

When a youngster asks, “Where did I come from?”, parents usually provide one of those birds & bees pamphlets to explain the sensitive process. What young people might mean and should ask is, “Grammy, where did our family come from?”

Most of us never had those conversations with our grandparents and, therefore, have lost connections to family history that made us who we are. Fortunately, I’m married to a part-time genealogist who has introduced me to my past which, it turns out, is a microcosm of the immigrant experience in this country.

Let me take you on the first couple of steps back. My handsome, red-headed father, William Palmer Thomas, was the only child of his red-haired parentsWilliam Edwynn Thomas and the petite Mary Michael Manley Thomas. As a child, I dubbed her Mikie. This might be a good place to remind faithful readers that my first name is Mary, and I’m married to a Michael. Fate?

Mikie was in her family’s first generation born in this country. Her parents, Michael James Manley and Mary Elizabeth Galvin Manley, entered this country during a wave of Irish Catholic immigration. He was born in 1846. She was born in 1853.

Potato Famine

The1845 Potato Famine in Ireland is often credited with launching the second wave of Irish immigration to America. The overwhelming failure of the potato crop brought poverty and famine. Starvation plagued Ireland and, within five years, a million Irish were dead while half a million had fled to America.

One way that landlords rid themselves of poor farmers who could no longer pay their rent was to make extravagant promises of funds that would be given to them upon arrival in America – and then dump the starving and sometimes sick Irish on British ships bound for this country.

Coffin Ships

The crafts that brought the immigrants to America were overcrowded British sailing vessels, poorly built, often unseaworthy, and soon nicknamed “coffin ships.” They were crammed full of people – sometimes up to double each ship's capacity. I read that in one case, an unseaworthy ship full of Irish sailed out of port, then sank within sight of those on land who had just waved good-bye to family and friends.

In the overcrowded, lice-infested holds of the ships, typhus and dysentery flourished. The food provided was at starvation quantities, and there was no ship doctor. Belowdecks, hundreds of men, women and children huddled together in the dark on bare wooden floors with no ventilation, breathing a stench of vomit and human waste.

Of the 100,000 Irish who journeyed to America in 1847, an estimated one out of five died from disease and malnutrition. Their bodies were unceremoniously dumped overboard.

This is the way my great-grandparents traveled to America with their families. Mary Elizabeth was only a year old. It might be a small miracle that she survived the trip.

Life in Memphis

Mike has learned that Michael James was a tinsmith. He also found Mary Elizabeth and Bridget (who we think was her sister) working as maids in the big houses belonging to wealthy Memphians. It makes me think of every old movie I’ve seen with the stereotypical Irish maid in a long, black dress and white apron. That would have been my great-grandmother.

Mike estimates that Mary Elizabeth and Michael James married in 1872 whereupon she stopped working and started keeping house and having babies. We know they had six children. There’s a seventh child who shows up in records as a childhood death who may also have been theirs. An eighth Manley offspring may have been Theresa who died at age three in 1878 in the yellow fever epidemic. Because of the number of years between the births of the first two known children, we think there may have been other births, young deaths and miscarriages. Only two children – my grandmother Mary Michael and great-aunt Edna – survived and lived long lives.

Margaret was born in 1873, the year after her parents’ marriage. She died at five years old in 1878, perhaps their second child to die in the devastating Memphis yellow fever epidemic.
(see http://plunkchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/03/yellow-fever-in-memphis.html)

Ella was born in 1878, the year her older sister died. She died two years later of pneumonia when her younger brother was only three months old.

John James was born in 1880 and died just before his third birthday.

Kate was next, born in 1882, a year before her older brother died. Kate lived to be 13 and died of TB on Christmas Day 1895.

A baby named Mary appears in records and may be another Manley child, but little has been proved on her so far except that she died young.

Great-Aunt Edna was born in 1884, and Mikie became the youngest and last in1886.

Mary Elizabeth was pregnant with my grandmother when her husband Michael James passed away. What a strong, tragic figure she was. She survived the horrific journey to America, worked hard, married, saw at least four children die, and then she lost her husband while she had two toddlers and another baby on the way. Mike has looked at the Probate Court records following Michael James’ death and learned that all she had inherited was a few pieces of furniture. She never remarried. She was only 33.

The Pinch District

The Manley family lived in Memphis’ Pinch District, an area in the north Main St. part of downtown. It was a large neighborhood of immigrants, mostly Irish, but which also contained German, Italian and Russian immigrants. The area was originally known as Pinch-Gut, an unflattering term that referred to the community’s starving Irish immigrants who were so thin that their stomachs were pinched by their belts.

Memphis was not unlike most major cities that had their "Irish Town" or "Shanty Town" where the Irish clung together. These immigrant ancestors were not welcome in America. Ads for employment often were followed by "NO IRISH NEED APPLY." They were forced to live in cellars and shanties. Plumbing and running water were not always available.These living conditions bred sickness and early death. In that era it was estimated that 80 percent of all infants born to Irish immigrants in New York City died.

In my research, I found a letter from an Irish immigrant who wrote to his family in Ireland: "Our position in America is one of shame and poverty." It is said that no group was considered lower than an Irishman in America during the 1850s.

Yet in those immigrant neighborhoods there was love and a strong sense of community. Mikie, my grandmother, frequently referred to her mother as a saint, a woman strongly devoted to her Catholic faith and someone who tended to the needs of her neighbors.

In my favorite story, there was a neighbor child who had been badly burned. Mary Elizabeth visited the family daily, but they soon realized that the little boy was dying. The family was Jewish, and Mary Elizabeth was greatly troubled about the immortal soul of this boy she loved. Naturally he had not been baptized and, according to her faith, he was doomed. She would not interfere with another family’s religion, but one day she went to visit with a bottle of holy water tucked into her apron pocket. As soon as she was alone with the dying boy, she performed her own baptism of the child and left believing that she had ensured his entry into heaven.

The New Century

In 1903, at 17, Mikie went to work as a telephone operator. That was in the infancy of the telephone, so it might have been a risky venture. Great-Aunt Edna had gone to work as a stenographer. Finally both girls were bringing income into the house. We don’t know how Mary Elizabeth survived raising two girls by herself. Our guess is that she might have taken in laundry, ironing and sewing to keep their heads above water.

In 1906, Mikie married William Edwynn, and the next year my father was born.

The family had come a long way from near-starvation in Ireland and the treacherous voyage to America. The crumbling headstone pictured above belongs to Mary Elizabeth who died in 1925. We managed to find it in the old, unmapped section of Calvary Cemetery. I wish I had known Mary Elizabeth.