From long ago now and far away, there are memories that are cherished. Home. Family. Gran. Aunts and uncles and first cousins. Family like my children have never gotten to be a part of, extended family. It made you feel safe, secure, loved. You learned what was important even when you did not know that you were being instilled with values and wit and humor. My ancestors James Richardson Isbell and Elizabeth Birdwell Isbell lived in that little community of Paint Rock while other kin lived in Larkinsville and other surrounding towns and communities. In Jackson County during those days Isbell was a fairy common name. There was John Isbell, James Isbell, Allen Isbell, Levi Isbell. There were Birdwells, too. John Birdwell, Elizabeth Birdwell Isbell’s father, with all his family were in Jackson County before statehood as well. There were the Houk and the Peters families, and the
Susan Anna Isbell Murray
Murray lines. Rev Simeon Houk whose wife was Tobitha Murray Houk married William Deaton Jackson Murray and Susan Anna Isbell Murray in the year 1848 in Jackson County.
My Birdwell/Isbell line settled in Jackson County, Alabama after they had brought their family into the Mississippi Territory a good fourteen years before statehood. And then moved to Franklin, now Colbert County, Alabama. But first were the towns of Paint Rock and Woodville, Trenton, Pleasant Grove, and the communities of Aspel and LimRock and all the surrounding little towns and communities.
When I read the account of one man named Hodges recount in a speech in 1993 his experience and delight in being born and raised in the little community of LimRock and Aspel. His title is Judge Bob Hodges and his story sounds so much like one that my Gran may have told. It made me feel at home, safe, and longing for the good old days, the simple days, the days of extended family. The content of his speech follows:
AN ADDRESS AT LIM ROCK ‐ ASPEL HERITAGE DAY on October 9 , 1993 by Jackson County Circuit Judge Bob Hodges
Before you take anything else I say seriously, I want to read to you my father’s business card he used at Hodges Drug Store for over 30 years: “Robert Leslie Levi Buchannon Fairbanks Hodges, Jr……. Born on land lying N W One-fourth o f S E One ‐ fourth of Sec 10, Township 4 , Range 7E, Berry’s Cove, North Lim Rock, Alabama…… Now located in trading business about, 1 2 miles N E born site…….Come’n see me…. T
elelphone: Day: 2 longs and 1 short Nite: 2 longs and a half….” As you can see, he never forgot where he came from, and he was one of the best representatives o f the Lim Rock Chamber of Commerce who ever served. My roots go back here a t least three generations before me, and my memories of this community go back to the years of my childhood just before World War II. I want to share some of them with you today, because the heritage of a place, to me, means what culture that place has left us ‐ that unique and special quality a community has that is measured not just by its physical boundaries and its geographical features, but by its people: Who they were, what they believed in, and what they raised their children to be. And so, as I began thinking about what to say today, I considered In any memories of this community and its people, and ‘the special place it has occupied in my heart and in my family.
It began, for me, over 60 years ago, when three brothers left the cotton fields here on a sharecropper farm and moved ten miles up the road to the big city of Scottsboro. Each of them, my Dad, my Uncle Mess, and my Uncle Charles, never missed a chance t o remind travelers who stopped at Hodges Drug Store ‘that Lim Rock and Aspel were not just places you passed by on your way from Woodville to Scottsboro ‐ Lim Rock and Aspel, to them, was an oasis where you could come from Huntsville or Scottsboro or wherever else and quench your thirst for plain and simple beauty and good solid. working people who loved a good laugh and a rocker on the porch in the evening after a plate of pinto beans and corn bread and turnip greens, and the sound of the animals in the barn at night. The stuff a farm boy never finds, no matter how long he has been gone from the farm and no matter how far removed he has become in his dress and his income, from that simple beginning. The stuff he always longs to return to, and he can only find in a place he called home.
From my great ‐ grandfather George Johnson Hodges, known to the folks in this community only as Crockett, or my Grandfather Bob, for whom I was named, to my father, I learned legends of the people who lived here. They were told over and over to me and to others in my hearing so many times that they have become the stuff of this community. Whether they ever really happened or not is now not important to me when I think of them and of this community ‐ What i s important is the humor and the dignity of those who were portrayed in the stories I heard and the respect of the storytellers for them and for this community.
M y memories begin with evenings spent with. my grandfather here as a very small child on the porch of a two ‐ story log house which sat just over yonder around the curve from the Methodist Church. And I remember the smell in the springtime in those evenings of freshly turned earth, and of his eagerness over the crop he thought he could coax out of it, and of our watching and waiting for the sound of the Joe Wheeler to come churning through the night, its whistle blowing for the people of Lim Rock.
I remember Clyde Gentle’s store, where my father had his first job as a boy clerking and keeping up with the eggs and chickens on the rolling store, and the smell of pine wood floors and kerosene, and the sight of mule harnesses hanging from pegs, and glass jars of candy, while we waited for the Joe Wheeler to return me to Scottsboro after a weekend. Even as a child, there was a sadness on leaving, a sense that the old man in the overalls who was waving bye to me as the train pulled out from Clyde Gentles’ store, and so many others like him in this community were somehow special parts of my beginning that I wanted to come back to and hold on to until I understood the peace and the simple virtues of this place.
I remember cotton fields and hoes and long pick sacks and the hot day in the field when my grandfather and Charlie Stewart watched me drink in gulps from a cool thermos jug and then cackled and told me it was a chamber pot they kept under the wagon for themselves.
Some of the past citizens of this community, many of them now dead and gone, have become legends in my mind, because of the stories I was told about them. The athletes in Lim Rock took on superhuman proportions for me. Dr. Rayford Hodges swore to me in the drug store as he was sipping his coffee, time and again, that Rabbit Gray, the catcher for Lim Rock’s baseball team, played barefooted and once caught a foul ball that traveled 200 feet and never got higher than his head. M y father swore to me that Shine Lusk kicked a 50 yard field goal barefooted for Lim Rock’s football team, against the wind, in the closing seconds of a big game against Aspel.
The people of this community were always church ‐ going people on Sundays. My father’s earliest memories were of being carried in a wagon by my Grandmother to the Primitive Baptist Church. He remembered it well, because when they got to my Grandfather with the footwashing, he always let out a cackle when they got to the foot with the stub of a little toe he had cut off when cutting railroad ties.
The people of this community“ have always stood out for me as being folks with a never ‐ give ‐ u p attitude. Through the droughts, the flooding rains, the bitter winters, the poverty of the depression, the great tornado that swept through Paint Rock and here, the infant flu deaths that struck family after family ‐ through all those times when it seemed that a mother and father and children could not possibly hold up for another day ‐ your ancestors and mine ‐ and some of you who are older and here today ‐ squared up your shoulders and spit on your hands and went back to work and endured. I think that never ‑ give ‐ u p attitude is best remembered by me in a little story by Bob Hodges my grandfather told me that happened back in the late twenties.
My Uncle Mess, an older and larger boy than my father by far, had my father down, pinned flat to the ground, pummeling him at will, when my grandfather discovered them on his way back from milking. “What’s going on here?”, he asked. Immediately, my father, who was flat on his back and taking a mighty whipping, said: “Papa, you better get him off of me or I’m gonna kill him.”
The generations of the people of Lim Rock and Aspel before us were hard ‐ working, church ‐ going, mostly quiet ‐ spoken people, it seems from my memory and from stories I heard. But in all that toil and adversity they faced as farmers and farmers’ children, there beat within many of them the pulse of a sense of humor that no other community surpassed.
My father never got past the little nine ‐ grade school house that used to sit down the road over yonder, and he always envied his older brother, Charles, for being so bright and for getting a college education. There came a day when my father’s old school teacher came in the drug store to get a prescription filled and my father” waited on her. He was working there as a teenager then, and he had some conversation with the lady, and then called all of us employees over t meet her.
We gathered around, and he said, “Now, Miss Birdie, tell all these people what you just told me.” She looked at u s and said: “He was the brightest student I ever had. He made all A’s and h e could work any problem I ever gave him. He was a brilliant student.” My father swelled up and beamed at all of us, and the little old lady made her way to the store going out, and she turned, looked back at my father, and said: “CHARLES (not R.L.), it sure was nice to see you again.”
My grandfather and my father had the same name, except for the junior and senior that separated them. One day a juror summons came to the drug store delivered by the sheriff and made out to just R . L . Hodges. My father made a call to the courthouse and discovered that, by the birthdate, it was intended for my father. He called my grandfather to the store and told him he had a jury summons delivered there for him.
M y grandfather took the subpoena, never said a word, went to the courthouse the next week, and served on the jury. Many months went by, with never another word being said. Then, just before Christmas, Mr. Brad Stewart, a long ‐ time friend and customer of m y father’s, delivered a nice big country ham to m y father as a gift, wrapped in brown paper and labeled “R.L.Hodges.” My father put it on a table at the back of the store until he could take it home at quitting time. In comes my grandfather, walks straight to the back room, picks up the ham, and starts out the drug store. “Papa” screamed my father. “Papa ‐ that’s m ham!” “Son,” my grandfather said, “If that was my name on that jury summons, that is my name on this ham.” And off he went.
Lim Rock and Aspel people have always been known as good neighbors. My grandfather Bob Hodges’ neighbor was Charlie Stewart, who lived on the next farm down the road toward the school house. One cold January day, when the snow was on the ground and more predicted, a Saturday, my grandfather told Charlie that h e was taking his wife and children down to Paint Rock Valley to sit with a sick relative for the night, would be gone the whole weekend, and would Charlie milk the cow and feed the mule the next day. Charlie readily agreed to help out.
The next morning, more snow having fallen during the night, and bitter cold, Charlie came trudging up in the darkness, milked the cow, set the pail on the back porch, fed the mule, and on his way out through the snow, just as he passed my grandfather’s bedroom window, my grandfather threw up the shade and the window, and said, “Much obliged, Charlie.” You don’t find good neighbors like that any more.
There are many, many other stories I could tell which reflect the solid kind of people who founded this community and those who came after them. It says something about what we revere in this community and its people that those of us who have ties here come back and back again and are here today to celebrate it.
Someone once wrote that you can never really go home again, but I think we can, time and again, in our memories. Less than thirty days before my father died, just before Christmas of 1983, we took our last ride together. He was s o frail I had to help him in the car, and he was so weak he could hardly talk above a whisper. “We’ll o anywhere you want,” I said as I backed the car out of his driveway. “I’ll show you,” he said, and he just from then on, pointed his finger where he wanted me to turn.
W e came here, and w e rode through Aspel and by Jenny’s Chapel and past Gentry Hastings’ house and down to Pinky’s Store to say hello and then by the old Clyde Gentle store where he first worked as a boy. And then on we went, by the fields where there used to be cotton and by the piece of ground where the barn and log house once stood, and around the curve where the old schoolhouse once stood, and then out into Berrys Cove where he was born, until. he became too tired to continue. He wasn’t talking during the ride, but both of us were thinking of these communities and his childhood and all the years that had brought him full circle back to here. You see, he never ever forgot that this was home. And you never ever forgot to take him in. That is why I am here today, and that is why I thank you for letting me be a part of it.
The phone number has changed for us – It’s no longer ” 2 longs and 1 short”, but our “trading business“, as he said on his card, is still about 1 2 miles northeast of Berrys Cove, and, for our family, this is still home.
THE END
Robert L . (Bob) Hodges practiced law before being elected Circuit Judge of Jackson County, Alabama. He is a highly esteemed judiciary by profession, much sought after as a speaker, and without equal as a storyteller and writer. Bob is the son of the late R . L and Zelma (Nichols) Hodges, Jr. who set an impeccable example before him.
after the ordeals encountered on April sixth and seventh 1862. Least of all for those who survive. Maybe that was the point, they had survived; and that was a big point for so many of them did not survive. The place was known as Pittsburg Landing. The location in Hardin County, Tennessee was just above the state line above Corinth, Mississippi. Another name for the place and event was Shiloh. The 16th Regiment of Alabama Infantry fought there alongside a host of other Alabama regiments. The 16th is especially pertinent to Shoals area folks. So many of us are descended from that ragged and war-torn group.
The campaign was for Federal Penetration up the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. Key Individuals Involved in the Battle of Shiloh: Union had Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Major General Don Carlos Buell; Confederate had General Albert Sidney Johnston and General P.G.T. Beauregard; Alabama had the likes of Hester, Bowen, Lucas, Terry, Peebles, Abernathy, Elkins, Sparks and the list goes on and on.
Confederate forces led by General Johnston attacked Union General Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing. The Union forces were not prepared but they still managed to hold their own until the arrival of General Buell’s army and other reinforcements at Pittsburg Landing. Further, the Confederates lost their leader when General Johnston was killed by a stray bullet. On the second day, April 7th, Grant launched a counterattack and the Confederates retreated to Corinth.
It was a victory for the union forces. By best account 23,746 men died. Of those, 13,047 were Union soldiers. Despite a tactical victory, the union forces experienced greater losses. It was at this battle that one of my maternal great-great-grandfathers had his intestines blown out of his body. That man was George Washington Terry. Another great-great-grandfather saw him wounded lying on the ground. Before retreating with his regiment he leaned G W up against a tree and tried to pick the leaves out of the human parts before placing them back inside. He left G W Terry there for the medics. That man was George Henry Peebles. Other great-great-grandfathers also were there: Daniel M Lucas and William Elkins come to mind.
The significance of the Battle of Shiloh was that leaders began to realize that the Civil War would not quickly end. That is an understatement for there was much warfare, wounds, amputation, starvation, and many lives yet to be lost. And these men would meet again on a number of battlefields to include Franklin, Chickamauga, Ringgold and others.
63rd Reunion of the Survivors of the Battle of Shiloh 1925
I look at this picture and I study it; are some of my great-great-grandfathers onboard? I know that Thomas Jasper Terry would be if he could walk there. He was a Terry relative from Moulton in Lawrence County,or more accurately from Terry Town. He had become severely wounded in battles and could only stand and ambulate with the help of a cane. But that did not stop him from walking all the way to McGavock House outside of Franklin Tennessee when he was an older man just to see it one more time and visit his fallen comrades.
The photo is of a pleasure steamer from Cincinnati. It is docked at what was then called Muscle Shoals Dock in Lauderdale County, Alabama. The Tennessee Belle has a sign that reads “63rd Anniversary Reunion of the Battle of Shiloh Survivors.” The photo was taken 1925. I would have been so grateful for a listing of those onboard.
those Peebles’ hands. I like to think that I carry a little bit of Gran around with me as I too have those hands. I have often wondered who gave those hands to Gran (Robert Duncan Peebles) and how many generations they go back. There are many of us who have those hands. I could name a few: mother,
Free: Transportation to Allah
Ellen,me, Gran, Rayburn, Sandra, and Chad. I never notice them on anyone else, but with age I have learned that they are a symbol of strength and so
what if jewelry and nail polish could never make them look more ladylike – every time I look at my hands I remember. I remember Gran. Gran as stated before was one who when he died left each and every grandchild believing that he/she was his favorite. And I consider that a great accomplishment.
Chad Peebles has those hands, as does his Dad. Chad is right now using those hands to grasp those big bullets (I guess they are actually grenades) and load them into those pop guns that could cause someone to meet Allah sooner than they may wish to ordinarily. He is a Marine, our favorite Marine, currently serving this country that we so love. His father, Anthony Peebles, served in the military and was one of those who went to Grenada; he is another of my heroes. And sure as God made little green apples, he would druther, if he had his druthers, be home holding those he loves in those Peebles hands attached to those Peebles arms.
One of Chad’s sisters, Beth, cross-stitched the following poem about her Daddy’s hands many years ago. It describes those Peebles’ hands pretty well, I think.
Rayburn Peebles hugs his Marine, Chad Peebles
Daddy’s Hands
I remember Daddy’s hands folded silently in prayer,
And reaching out to hold me when I had a nightmare.
You could read quite a story in the calluses and lines.
Years of work and worry had left their mark behind.I remember Daddy’s hands, How they held my Mama tight,
And patted my back for something I’d done right.
There are things I’ve forgotten that I loved about that man,
But I’ll always remember the love in Daddy’s hands.Daddy’s hands, were soft and kind when I was crying.
Daddy’s hands, were hard as steel when I’d done wrong.
Daddy’s hands weren’t always gentle,
But I’ve come to understand,
There was always love in Daddy’s hands.I remember Daddy’s hands working till they bled,
Sacrificed unselfishly just to keep us all fed.
If I could do things over, I’d live my life again,
And never take for granted the love in Daddy’s hands
~ Unknown author
Godspeed Chad Peebles. Thank you for your service to our country. Your family anxiously awaits your return and the return of all those brave boys and girls who are serving in the military. I would wager to say that there will be a lot of those Peebles’ hands waiting to shake your Peebles’ hands when you get home.
with the event he and Ian Sanford are putting together for downtown Sheffield. The event is called Back to the Sixties on Saturday Night. It will be held Saturday, May 28, 2011 on Montgomery Avenue 6:00pm – 10:00pm. Included in the performer lineup for the event are the Weejuns. Weejuns I asked? What are weejuns? Perhaps they are ‘Long Tall Texans’ with a penny in their shoe.
Girls, did you wear a penny or a dime in your Weejuns?
Photos of Norwegian farmers wearing loafers to perform work inspired the re-introduction of them here in the United States. That was back in the 1930s. In the 1950s they were again popular, very popular.
The shoes featured no buttons or shoestrings, had a low heel, and fit below the ankle. Loafers suddenly became quite popular, and were manufactured by both Spaulding and the Bass Company. Bass retained the Norwegian name for loafers, calling them Weejuns. One can still purchase Bass Weejuns today, though technically they only differ from other loafers in name.
The shoe had a mouth opening which soon was used to hold an ornamentation – perhaps a penny and thus penny loafers became a style. Penny loafers often held a dime instead of a penny. If a girl’s date got out of line she could call home on a pay phone. We called the dime or dollar mad money.
Never having been a material girl, it is just now that I realize that you were not cool unless your penny loafers were Weejuns. By that statement I’m not confessing that anyone was or was not cool in high school, I just did not care if the brand name of my penny loafers was Weejuns.
or is it funny? It is truly the life in your years that is important. This graphic came in an email from a friend, so I adapted it from the MILKslogan to the MOMS slogan. The MOMS slogan must be very meaningful and purposeful. It must resonant with the kids. Now, what will it be? Post your suggestions.
Just know that Mother is the first one they cry for at birth and the one they scream for when hurt on the battlefield. Never let anyone make you think you are not important or a piece of property or a piece of anything else; or omg* and wtf**…hazardous material!!!!!!
As a widow with a young daughter and young son a fellow teacher found herself in a dilemma. She was a wonderful lady I taught with many years ago who said this about mothers when her son was taunting her authority as Mother, “There is one thing for **** sure, you know who your Mother is; and all you know about your Father is what I told you.” I have never forgotten that phrase or that teacher. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world – no more, no less.
The life in your years...
Let the Fun BEGIN!!!! The new lexicon for Mothers of all ages:
MOMS= [to be determined]
omg*= One Mother Gone fill in the next word as appropriate
you know, the inside scoop, the real tidbits that make her human, and all about her talent for we know that there are many still around here that knew and worked with her. First hand accounts of any story or person are always the best.
Ava Aldridge was born 21 Feb 1946 and died 12 August 2003 of cancer. She was a Sheffield girl; a river rat. And a very talented one at that.
She is probably best known as a songwriter, however, whose compositions include “Sharing The Night Together” for Dr. Hook and “Treat Her Right” for Sawyer Brown. Ava was also renowned in the Muscle Shoals music industry for being one of the area’s finest songwriting mentors, always eager to assist young talent as they navigated their careers and burgeoning talent. Sadly, Ava died August 12, 2003 of cancer in Sheffield, AL at age 57. Her impressive legacy of music continues to inspire countless Muscle Shoals musicians.
Singer, Songwriter. Her songwriting crossed several genres, and she wrote songs for country, rhythm and blues, gospel, and pop music, with two of her songs reaching high chart status twenty years apart. In 1976 she co-wrote the song “Sharing the Night Together” with fellow songwriter Eddie Struzick. After being recorded by several artists, the 1979 recording of the song by the group “Dr. Hook” reached Number 6 on the Popular Music charts. In the 1990s she co-wrote “Treat her Right” with singer-songwriter Lenny LeBlanc. It was recorded by the country music group “Sawyer Brown” and his rose to Number 3 in the Country Music charts in 1996. More than 150 of her songs have been recorded. (bio by: Chuck Kearns)
by Sandra Pullen on Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 6:28am
To savor means to enjoy something with unhurried appreciation. My diagnosis came at the age of 46. I know, not so young but I was still reveling in the joy of being a Nana. My grand daughter Ryleigh had just turned two and my grandson, Trey was only 9 months old. His giggle echos to this day in my head as I remember how he loved to jump in my lap as I sang “Five Little Monkeys” Such a happy time.
The night before my mastectomy, I sat in the floor and played with them, crying and “savoring” them. I knew it would be a while before I could hold them so I “savored” them in my arms. They were so unaware. The blessed innocence of
The Circle of Life
childhood. The un-knowing-ness (If that’s not a word, it should be) of their play was so sweet.
Not one of us knew with certainty what the outcome of the next day would be. Had the cancer spread? Were the lymph nodes involved? Was there other cancer? Would these two precious little wonders remember me if I should die? Who would tell them how very much they were loved by their Nana? Would they really ever know how much I loved them? I was afraid, not of dying, that is the one certainty in life, but of being forgotten. To just be one of the faces that disappeared and was no more. I could not bear the thought of being forgotten. I knew how special a grandmother was, I had mine until I was 55 years old, and , oh how I loved her! I so wanted to be here for them.
The grand babies were going to be fine, but what of my children? My daughter and two sons were scared. It showed on their faces, but they were young. My Mother and my little Daddy were another story. I was supposed to be around to help take care of them. What if I wasn’t able to do that? My daddy cried every time I looked at him. My precious mother had a shell shocked expression. She doesn’t handle fear well at all. I just wanted to take care of them all, and I was terrified that I was not going to be around to do it. My husband, my sweet Doug, never missed a treatment. Would go and bring back burgers for anybody who needed one. In sickness and in health and he proved himself to be faithful. He is truly my better half. But what if???? What would he do without me? Who would tell him to pick up his dirty clothes? Who would remind him to cap the toothpaste, or remind him to take his medicine? The little things became so much more important and the big things that we used to worry about faded away.
What were we going to do about cancer? So many thoughts, emotions, fears to face. Talk about emotional overload, I was eat up with it!!
So surgery the next morning. I don’t remember much about that time, this is the part that gets a little fuzzy, thank heaven for good drugs. I had an incision from the center of my chest ,across and under my left arm. And drain tubes, oh my goodness, THE DRAIN TUBES!!!
People let me tell you………..drain tubes are created by Satan, straight from the bowels of Hell!!!
For those of you blissfully unaware of what those evil things are, allow me to enlighten you……..picture this….two small plastic bottles with caps, from which a tube extends. Now this tube travels into my body, up my chest and into the front part of my arm, a good foot and a half of tubing. The way this works is like this.. The bottle is compressed and capped while collapsed, so as it expands the suction pulls fluid from the chest which allows the muscle to reattach itself to the chest wall. I know sounds gross, but you should of been there! So the fluid drains. Now you get to keep these nifty little gadgets until no fluid is collected. For me that was about 8 weeks for one tube and 10 weeks for the other. After that amount of time, the incision that holds the tubing in has healed. So has everything else, which means the tubing is stuck in my chest wall and guess how the Dr. takes it out???????????? Oh yeah, he says “take a deep breathe” and proceeds to PULL it out. Oh yes!! with a mighty yank, out it comes. I could have sworn it was wrapped around a wisdom tooth, it hurt so bad!!
I have never had to have another person tell me to breathe, but on that day, Doug had to shake me and yell breathe!!! Not fun, and not something I ever want to do again.
So, the healing began. Long days of ignoring the left side of my chest. Just pretending that if I didn’t look at it, it was OK. The longer I ignored it, I could delay the inevitable. I knew I had to face the fact that my body was different, but I was not ready. When the time came, after drain tubes were out, the bandages came off. Reality would not be ignored any longer. I had decided to take a bath. So with the tub filled with a wonderful scented bubble powder and refusing to look in the mirror, I stepped in. I took a deep breathe…….and looked down. I remember putting the wash cloth over my mouth so Doug would not hear me cry….but he did. This giant man knelt down beside the tub and said ” Mama, it’s not so bad, really it’s not. It’s OK! I knew, I finally knew, I could do this. The first step in reconciling my heart and my head to deal with cancer had been taken. I can do this. I CAN DO THIS! And I have. Cancer may win in the end, but I’ll die trying to kick it’s butt!
The days of waiting for results was agonizing. The tests to see if I had lymph node involvement was agonizing. Patience, hurry up and wait. Not my strongest attribute. I hate waiting. The news was good. Thank you GOD! Finally, something was going in my favor!! No involvement. Now onward to chemo!! I figured, the sooner I got started, the sooner I would be finished. I learned this about myself……….I am a fighter! Now let’s get this show on the road!
The next thing cancer taught me was……I am strong! I am a much stronger person than I ever believed it possible to be. I know where I get it, it comes from my Father. Without his strength, I have no power. I am woman, hear me roar. Patience, strength and courage, that became my prayer. When I knew something was going to be particularly painful, I said my mantra over and over in my head. Never once did HE fail me. Not one time when I asked did HE say no. I am such a lucky child that my Father loves me so much. This I know!! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
The next lesson cancer taught me was I AM STRONG IN HIM! Fear, to Savor each day, and where my strength is found, just the beginning of lessons learned.
by Sandra Pullen on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 7:05am
The first lesson I learned from cancer was FEAR. To learn to cope and keep the monster at bay. Took a while to master the art of hiding…fear…but after the first couple of chemo treatments, I could do it. I put on the brave face. No one knew how often I threw up or how really bad I felt until THE DAY!
The day my hair started to fall out. Those of you who have known me a while, will remember that I have not always been the spiky haired wonder that I am today ; ) I kept my hair short, just because it suited me, and let it be its natural color which is gray. It just got to be too much to fight cancer and mother nature at the same time. It was the first of the new year 2002. I had showered and put on a cute new sweat suit, navy of all colors! Blow dried my hair and went into the den to sit in my chair. I still had external drain tubes at this time, still healing. Got in the chair, got all
Sandra Peebles Pullen
comfy and looked in my lap. There it came again…….FEAR. I saw strands or clumps or whatever you use to describe them, it was my hair!! Clumps and clumps all over the navy lap. I was processing this when the phone rang. To my utter horror, it was my little Daddy, just calling to see how I was feeling. Fear had closed my throat, for the life of me I could not even say hello. I mumbled something about calling him back. Then came the sobs, no sobs is not a big enough word for what I did. I grieved! The Doctors had told me I would not lose all of my hair, but I was so not prepared to lose so much!
Oh well, it was only hair after all. I didn’t have to shave my legs for about 9 months while on chemo, and that, my friends is the only positive thing I can say about chemo! But enough about hair……
What is normal? Normal is subjective. For some it is routines that remain constant, 24-7. Others have to re-define….normal. Normal for me is getting up every morning and putting on a prosthesis, not unlike those who have to wear an artificial limb. Nothing special, it’s just my new normal. Really sucks when you forget where you put said prosthesis or heaven forbid, you lose it. I have done that by the way, found it hiding under the bed. In case you are wondering a prosthesis is a rather pricey little attachment that fits inside a special bra that makes me look “normal”. They can be had for the every day price of three to four hundred dollars. I know! Almost four hundred dollars for a hunk of rubber molded to look like a breast. Oh well, I don’t make the rules. How can a hunk of rubber look like a breast you ask, well let me tell you …. It is flesh-colored and it has a small concavity that shapes it to your chest. All in all, a rather neat invention. I have no idea why they cost so much, thank goodness for insurance! It is a cute little pink thing. I suppose the little bump in the center is the manufacturers idea of what a fake nipple looks like. As fake nipples go, it will do. I laugh now remembering when I got my pathology report and it said “nipple unremarkable” Pissed me off to no end!! I told my oncologist that it most certainly was remarkable, it nourished and sustained 3 babies!! I call that pretty dog gone remarkable, don’t you?
While taking chemo at the Northwest Alabama Cancer Center, I made lots of friends. Most of them are gone now. Weekly treatments were taken in a huge room, much like a living room. There were recliners, big comfy chairs to make the IV infusions more “comfortable” Oh yeah, they helped, trust me. You lay back and let the toxic chemical do it’s job. It made for a very long day. Infusions usually took 4 to 6 hours. There was tv but nobody could agree on what to watch. Eventually we got to know each others names, until I realized after a few weeks, some of the faces changed while others just disappeared. How sad to think, laughing and talking one day and the next, no more. A happy lady sat next to me for a while, and used her time to put on her makeup. She wore really red lipstick and turned to me to ask “Do you think this is too red?” “Oh no! Dear, there is no such thing as lipstick being too red!” I remember the smile she gave me. I think it pleased her that I “got” it. She had no idea she was talking to the purse, shoe and lipstick queen who never allows her naked ears or lips to be seen in public! Those are the moments to savor! And that my friends is the second thing I learned from cancer……………TO SAVOR THE MOMENTS!! And oh what moments I have had to savor!!!!
by Sandra Pullen on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 7:05am
External (gross) appearance of a mastectomy
Fear is a killer. When you first hear the words that give voice to your diagnosis, fear is the first emotion to hit you in the gut. It is a paralyzing fear that grabs your throat and squeezes…..tight…….until you feel like you’re going to pass out. For me, when Dr. Copeland entered the room, I knew. I held up my hand and said “if you have any good news, I want it first” He threw my chart down on the table and looked at me, square in the eye, ” We caught this as early as it is possible”
Then, I could breath again. One deep breath, “now tell me the bad news.” Both tumors are malignant. OK, now what?
I had enough medical knowledge to know what a mastectomy was, so that in itself did not frighten me, but some how, the word “chemo” did. Go figure, surgery not so scary, losing a body part, not so scary but chemo made me FEAR.
I had known people who had done chemotherapy. They always looked so “sick” No hair, pale and weak, so opposite of me.
I have always battled a weight problem. Food is my drug of choice. It makes me feel good. Never once did I look , pale or sick. I was the picture of health. Robust health. The word cancer was foreign to me.
Oh, I knew what it was, but that is something that happened to other people. Other people got sick and died. Not my family, and certainly not ME!
So with that ,November 28, 2001 became a date that is forever engraved in my mind. Not likely to forget that one, nor the December day that started my journey to recovery.
CHEMO
What a strange word, chemotherapy. Why is it called therapy? That sounds cathartic, almost cleansing. SOOOOOOOOOO not what chemo is, at all!!
So, for six months I did the “therapy” where they gave me toxic chemicals twice a week. I took a cocktail mix of three cancer drugs……Cytoxin, Methotrexate, and my favorite of all cancer fighting drugs………..ta da……5-FU!! No seriously, that is what it was called. I loved my 5-FU. The coolest of all cancer drugs. I could just see those 5-FU toxins entering my blood stream, searching for cancer cells all bad ass and mean! I always wanted my 5-FU first!
All of this was after a bag of Zofran for nausea, and Decadron (steroid) so you felt like sitting up and taking your toxic medicine.
After all this time you would think that the memory of that time would fade slightly. Nope! I remember it like it was yesterday. All I know is the FEAR is always near. Some days I can feel it breathing down my neck. It hovers around me like a ghost, whose presence is seldom seen and only occasionally felt. That is when I tell myself……..cancer is only a word. It has no power. I have made a decision not to give it power over my life. Cancer only has the power to take your life. It can not steal my joy, my happiness, and it certainly has no power to steal my salvation, my gift from a loving father who knew me before I was born, who wondrously and beautifully formed me!! Take that cancer!!! My DAD can whoop your dad!
Cancer has taught me that life is indeed, fragile. There are no guarantees given. We are not promised tomorrow. Not one minute is a given.
I have learned that life is a school. What we learn here is preparing us to be what HE wants us to be. No, I do not believe that God gave me cancer. I do believe that there are things here on earth that are under Satan‘s influence. Cancer is simply a product of this environment, not like air or water, I mean the environment we inhabit. Our earthly environment. I wish I had the answer to all the questions, but of course, I don’t. But by the time we get the answers to the questions………………….I don’t think the questions will matter so much.
Now 9 years later, I still remember the fear. Funny, but I can’t recall the pain, just the throat clenching fear. Little did I know that there was something coming that was so much worse than my cancer. Only three years after my diagnosis came the worst day of my life. The day that my 2 year old grandson Austin was diagnosed with…………………………..you guessed it cancer. Man, how I hate that disease!! To steal a quote………..cancer sucks!!!
they would call each other in the olden days. In my family lines, often someone would have four, maybe even five or six, given names and not be called by any of them. Gran would call you what he thought you looked like to him.
The photo below is of Vinnie C Carpenter, his wife Flora Vandiver Carpenter, and their first-born, Tecumseh Carpenter. Vinnie was called Carp for obvious reasons. And Tecumseh was called “Cump.” This date of this photo is ca 1920. Cump Carpenter was born 1918.
in our poll for your favorite version of the song “Loving You Could Never Be Better.” This little jewel was written by the Shoals’ own Peanut and Charlene Montgomery. One version was recorded by the little hairdresser from Red
Loving You Could Never Be Better Than It Is Right Now
Bay. Another version was recorded by someone who lived at one time in the Shoals. I would be surprised if they were not all recorded in the Shoals. The youtube videos of the performances will follow the poll.
So vote, get your children to vote, get your parents to vote, get your relatives to vote – dead or alive – just like in the real electoral process. Vote early and often. The singers are in this order: Tammy Wynette, George the Jones, Tanya Tucker, and Mel Street.
NOTE: For the Tammy Wynette version and the George Jones version you will need to click on the ‘watch on youtube’ hyperlink to view the video. Bummer.
If you are a friend of Remembering Sheffield, would you consider being a ‘friend’ of Remembering the Shoals also?
Since there was already a Sheffield Facebook page (I love Sheffield) we gave some consideration to making ours anew. We are now Remembering the Shoals. This is much more comprehensive of the area and it includes a lot of people with memories, stories and photos to share.
Jean McGee, we think you will like our first post, it is about your father. Please add to it. And if you are pleased please let us know. The info for the blog and Facebook page follow:
is Chad Peebles. Chad is the son of Anthony and Nikki Peebles and is currently serving in the military as a Marine. Pam Doyle arranged for his flight home for Christmas, which was a surprise to some of Chad’s family. Thank you, Pam Doyle. Chad is one of the brave and patriotic young people serving in the defense of freedom overseas. Chad’s Dad,
Chad Peebles, My Hero!
Anthony Peebles served in the military and was sent to Grenada. Whenever we pass a soldier, sailor, marine, airman, or Coast Guard, let’s thank them for their service. For years now, whenever I encounter someone in uniform I say to them, “You are my hero.” It always brings a smile and that brightens my day.
The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. –Douglas MacArthur
How many ‘heroes’ are associated with Sheffield, Alabama? Honor them with a comment letting others have the chance to honor their service.
Scroll to below the video for links that may be of interest.
1934 Slena Mae Peebles, R D Peebles, Preston Peebles, Ellen Peebles
now, that was a very hard time for everybody. The Peebles family was no exception. They knew hard times. All too well they knew all about hard times. During the depression era they were sharecroppers in Lawrence County in the Courtland and Hillsboro area. Betty Drue Jane Tolbert was born at Mountain Home in November of 1902. Mountain Home was also the summer home for the General Joseph Wheeler family. I always thought that was a little on the silly side to have a summer home within a short buggy drive distance from your winter home. But Mountain Home was situated on a little foothill. There it was cooler and the insects were less numerous. For the Tolbert family Mountain Home was their summer home. It was their winter home, spring time home, and fall home. I gather it wasn’t all that much of a ‘home’ to begin with. Betty Drue Jane Tolbert married Robert Duncan Peebles, who was born in Lauderdale County in Center Star. He was born in 1898 and they married in 1917.
Before they were married they would walk around in Courtland. Once while they were walking a bear was there, right there in a yard of a home that still exists today. It must have scared Drue because she recalled it decades later.
Living a sharecropper life is hard on the whole family. The second eldest daughter, Slena Mae Peebles, told of some of the sharecropping homes where the family lived. For most of them, they would put newspaper on the walls for what little protection against the elements it would provide. One place they lived she said the front porch was high and she and the other children would play under there. The cracks in the walls would let the cold wind right through. And the cracks in the floor would give a view of the chickens pecking under the house. She recalled they did not have toys or dolls to play with; but, rather, would break off twigs at the forks of a branch. The fork would make the legs for their headless, armless, faceless dolls. I might add that she played the game of Jacks with me when I was little, and I would venture to say that she was the Jacks champeen of the world, so she must have had lots of practice with Preston and Ellen growing up. Sometimes in the spring the girls would pick passion flowers, pick off just the right number of pistils or stamen. Presto, they would have a ballerina doll. Although, I doubt they ever saw a ballerina at that point anyway.
One son, R.D. Peebles, imagined himself a preacher. That is him in his little overalls. He would get up on that stump and place those little hands on his gallouses and preach. He would preach hell fire and damnation. At least as best a little guy was able. On that stump, he held very long sermons, it would seem. His sermons often consisted of the all important biblical admonitions of ‘dog’ and ‘hairpin.’ Now don’t laugh those were pretty impressive words for a little preacher. R.D.’s oldest daughter, Mary Jane Cochran, asked did I know that her Daddy had filled in as preacher at their church. I had not known that.
At Christmas they were truly excited to get an apple or an orange and maybe sometimes a piece of candy. They didn’t have much, but neither did others they knew, except for the Wheelers. Miss Annie Wheeler had a real porcelain doll. Drue had evidently seen or heard of it. Drue would show the girls a Sears and Roebuck catalog and ask them which dress did they like best. Preston, Slena Mae, and Ellen would pick out one they liked and Drue would hand sew them one like it. They would later put the pages to that Sears & Roebuck catalog to good use with a little crumpling. The girls’ dresses were made of flour sacks, as was their underwear. One day, Drue informed Slena Mae that she didn’t have any more flour sacks to make her any drawers and Slena Mae cried at that thought.
Drue’s first school was the Wheeler Basin Church building situated across the highway from the Joe Wheeler home. Slena Mae talked of going to school at Midway. Her teacher was Mrs Glenice _____ . She also taught me when I went to Colbert County High School. Children were often put to work in the fields of necessity. This limited the schooling that the children received. Preston could pick 300 pounds of cotton a day. Slena Mae and Ellen were not far behind. They also hoed cotton for pennies a day. The cotton picking would yield a whole 75 cents…or was the cotton the whole family picked that amounted to 75 cents per day?
Volumes could be written about the memories of their stories and their life. The photo accompanying this posting was made about 1934. The family had just lost a child of about eighteen months in age, J. W., to whooping-cough, iirc. Slena Mae told of the little one’s teeth marks that were still in the wooden eating table after he died. He made the teeth marks during teething as they would sit at the table.
In 1940 Reynolds Metals Aluminum Company opened at Listerhill, Alabama. They hired and trained a lot of local men. Robert Duncan Peebles was one of those men. They had moved to Sheffield. They lived in Sheffield the rest of their lives. After a train crushed into the car as Robert and co-workers headed to Reynolds to work and a long hospital stay, Robert D. Peebles retired from Reynolds Metals Company. He received a gold watch for his years of service. He was a mason, a bass fiddle and fiddle player, and he was talented in making things with his hands. Robert Peebles is the one that even when he died, all his grandchildren seemed to think they were his favorite.
A high school student interviewed Drue Peebles in the 1980’s for a school project that required an oral history of someone who lived during the Great Depression. When asked what did she remember most about the Great Depression, Drue replied simply. She said, “Being hungry.”
says Terry Pace a friend of Remembering Sheffield. Terry posted the following:
Today marks the 88th anniversary of the birth of one of the best friends I ever had — the late, great Sam Phillips (1923-2003), native of the Muscle Shoals area, founder of Sun Records, “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and the musical visionary who discovered everyone from Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Little Milton, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Ike Turner to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis (shown here with Sam in 1958), Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Charlie Rich. We miss you, Sam — and we need you more than ever!
Pictured is Marion Matthias Calvin Reed who was a grandson of my Matthias Yocum by Matthias Yocum’s daughter Susan E Yocum. Marion M C Reed married Mary Lee Jackson. The photo captures their children, their children’s spouses and their grandchildren. These all look like fine people to me.
Matthias was born in Kentucky in 1780 and died in Franklin County, Alabama in 1870. It is not known where he is buried. Another of Matthias Yocum’s daughters, Mary Ann Yocum, who married John Wesley Allen, was my great-great-great-grandmother on my paternal side. So, if your name connects with Murray, Allen, Isbell, Peebles, Tolbert, Terry, Gregory, Vandiver, Sparks, Yocum, Bryant, Linam, Lucas, Smith, Elkins, Goins, Norwood, Brown, Birdwell, Hollingsworth, McBride, Box, or Harbin, then we are likely related in several directions. Further, the name is also spelled Yoakum, Jochem, and Yokem.
NASHVILLE DAILY AMERICAN, 1876, A GENEALOGICAL SCRAPBOOK
Researched and Compiled by Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith
January 12, 1876
Page 3:
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT JOHN A. MURRELLSparta Index
On our first page will be found an olddocument concerning John A. Murrell, who figured some years ago in this mountain country as a highwayman and horse thief. It is a fact not generally known, that Murrell reformed before his death, and lived for several years a member of the Methodist Church in good standing. He was a carpenter by trade and worked mostly in Bledsoe county, boarding usually at the house of John M. Billingsly, Esq., five miles above Pikeville, who now resides on Cane Creek, in Van Buren county. Murrell was a man of uncommonly good education and intelligence, and had one of the best libraries in the neighborhood. Several of his books are now in the library of President Carnes, of Barritt College. Murrell acknowledged his former crimes and with his intimates he talked freely but regretfully of them, but he denied to the last that he had ever committed murder. This declaration was repeated on his deathbed. Those who knew him best believed he was sincere. He died at Squire Billingsley’s and was buried in the graveyard near old Smyrna Church. A few nights after, the grave was violated and the head taken away, by whom was never known. The body was re-interred and has since remained undisturbed. To distinguish it, the grave was dug at an angle of forty-five degrees to the usual east and west line. It is still pointed out to curious strangers who visit the spot.
[For persons interested in the life of the notorious outlaw, John A. Murrell, they may read the biographical sketch about him in GENEALOGICAL ASIDES FROM SEVERAL WEST TENNESSEE SUPREME COURT CASES: 1830s, by Jonathan K. T. Smith, Jackson, 1997, pages 60-79.]
Albert S. Williams, newly-elected mayor Edgefield, Tenn., gave his “inaugural’ state of the city address before the Board
From the Florence Times, Saturday, February 28, 1895, p. 1.
OUTLAW MURREL
An account of His Capture Near Florence.
His Imprisonment, Death and Mutilation.
Mr. T. F. Simpson of Tuscumbia gives the following interesting account of the noted outlaw John A. Murrell in the Memphis Commercial Appeal of Sunday last:
I take the liberty of correcting an inaccuracy which appeared in The Commercial Appeal of Monday last, in reference to that of an interesting review of the incidents in the life of the famous bandit and outlaw, John A. Murrell, furnished by John P. Clay, which says the outlaw was never once captured in the whole course of his career. Mr. Clay is evidently not well posted, in view of the above statement. Many of the citizens of this section have heard from their parents’ knees numerous thrilling incidents in the career of Murrell, as he was often through this section away back fifty years or more, and of his capture and service in the Nashville (Tenn,) penitentiary, where he remained an inmate until he was declared to be dying of consumption and was pardoned by the governor. Soon after he was given his liberty he died at Pikeville, Tenn. Several years ago a citizen of Tuscumbia, Col. A. H. Kellar [sic], while visiting at Pikeville, met Mrs. S. C. Norwood, whose father gave Murrell employment as a blacksmith on his farm where he worked as long as his health would permit. Murrell had learned the trade in the penitentiary. Mrs. Norwood also informed Col. Kellar [sic] that Murrell was a constant Bible reader before his death, but always maintained that he had never killed a human being.
The arrest and capture of the notorious outlaw was made on the outskirts of Florence through a negro named Tom Brandon [sic],1 a bricklayer, who died in Tuscumbia a few years ago, having reached a ripe old age. Tom’s master was a contractor and assisted in building many business houses in Florence. Colored brick masons were worth several thousand dollars, and Murrell planned a scheme by which he hoped to secure Tom and sell him for what he would bring. He made known his plans to Tom, with whom he proposed to share the proceeds of the sale. Tom heard his plans but would give him no definite answer until a second interview was had with the bandit. In the meantime he notified his master of Murrell’s proposition, and the time and place of the interview. Tom’s master enlisted the services of an officer and when Murrell went to fulfill his engagement with Tom he was captured and tried and sent to the penitentiary. These are facts which can be substantially corroborated by numerous citizens of Tuscumbia.
Murrell was buried at Pikev[i]lle, and a short time after the internment his headless body was found near the grave, partially devoured by hogs. It was never known by whom this terrible deed was committed. It was rumored that his sku[ll] was sold to a Philadelphia museum.
Thus it will be seen that John A. Murrell, whose name will live through centuries as one of the most noted criminals of ante-bellum days, was arrested, tried and convicted and served in the Tennessee penitentiary until the governor pardoned him on account of ill health.
Remembering the Shoals 