Saturday, 17 May 2008

Latest update: Saturday, 17 May 2008 02:28 PM
J. R. SAYS ~ EXPANDED COMMENTS: (continued)


I want to take a moment here to try to lay out the area of Calhoun County where we and our relatives lived when I was growing up, which was mostly on the Southeast side of Edison.

There is a road leading through Edison that is Ga. Hwy. 37. From Edison there is a road, called the Rabbit, Georgia road, branching off going Southeast about 7 or 8 miles and dead ending at the Morgan/Arlington road. On this road at the edge of Edison city limits, we come to the home of Sam Massey who married one of our relatives from the Holloway family, Aunt Roxie, our Great Aunt.

Then as we go on pass his house, we pass Bay Branch. On the left side of the road 1/4 mile pass Bay Branch, joining Sam Massey, we come to a large farm owned by Gene Lewis. Uncle Gene married Aunt Belle (Holloway), Grandpa Marion's sister. Uncle Gene was Grandmother Alice' brother.

Three Holloway children married three Lewis children:
Marion Holloway married Sarah Alice Lewis
Arabelle (Belle) Holloway married Gene Lewis
Lulu Holloway married Sam Lewis
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Their farm was on the Rabbit, Georgia road. Straight across the road from the Gene Lewis home was a small road or farm lane that branch off going South. This was a short road, only about one mile long.

The first house on the left on this road, lived Arthur Holloway. Uncle Arthur was Grandpa Marion and Aunt Belle's brother and our great uncle, He lived there with his wife, Mattie, and their son, Leon, who was grown but wasn't married at that time.

Oliver Lewis (Gene and Belle's son) and wife, Juanita with son, Marvette later lived here. Juanita, at age 93 still lives there (2005).
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About three hundred yards on down that road was the house that Ed Lewis lived in with his wife Lena Lewis. Here the lane takes a sharp turn to the right. A few hundred yards on lived the Dyer family.

I'm sure you remember a saying back then,
 

"LEWIS TOWN AND HOLLOWAY STREET,
DYER HOTEL AND NOTHING TO EAT".


That was a saying about the community out there at that time. Pass the Dyer house, the road went on and ended at the road that lead from Edison to Arlington and on out of our territory.

Now coming back and going on down the Rabbit , Georgia road from where Gene Lewis lived, on about 1/2 mile, was a larger road that turned South.


According to CL, at this corner was a tenant farm house. Behind this house was a wagon barn. In the loft of this barn was kept the "coffin boards". These were used to build the coffins for the neighbors who passed away. When a person died, as the women in the neighborhood would wash and dress the body, the men would fetch the wood from the loft and build the coffin. This oak wood coffin was sized to fit the deceased. Since the dead were not embalmed at that time, all funerals were held the next day, if not the same day, the person died.
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The first house on the left on this road was where Grandpa Marion lived for many years and he raised Mama (Lonie) and all of his children, except the youngest, Hanzel, there.

Grandpa Marion's wife, Alice, died in 1918 after a bout with pneumonia. The 1920 federal census indicates that Grandpa had already remarried and had a daughter, Virginia (b. 21 Feb. 1920). He married Eula Pounds from Adapulgus, Georgia. (I wonder how they got together.) Later they had a second child, a son, Hanzel, (b. 20 June 1932), when Grandpa was 62 years old [way to go, Grandpa].
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But you know that in about the 1926 or 1927, his son, Aubray, filed suit against Grandpa Marion for Aubrey's 1/6 interest (about $750.00) in the estate left by his mother, Alice (Lewis) Holloway when she died in 1918. Aubrey won the suit and Grandpa had to sell his farm to pay off. Grandpa then moved to Arlington

Grandpa's daughter, Irene, and her husband, Roy Fellows, moved into the house and took over the farm.

One hundred yards on down the road was the house where Mama and Daddy lived when Albert, Alice (died at age 8 months), Eugenia and I were born. That road continues on down and angled into the Edison/ Arlington road.
 
Now lets go back to the Rabbit, Georgia road. On down about a mile past Uncle Gene Lewis' place, Uncle Judd (Jeremiah) Strickland and his wife, Aunt Lizzie, (Grandma Alice's sister) lived and owned a big farm. On pass the Strickland's place was the Culbreth farm.
 


PG 2