| Notes |
- Personal Testimony of Vernie Elvira Swindell Byars:
" I was born on a farm in White County, Tenn. about a mile from the Caney Fork River in the Green Brier Bend on June 1, 1894. My father was Monroe Swindell, a miller and my mother was Rebecca Goodson, known in that section as "Aunt Becky", she was the local midwife and everyone wanted Aunt Becky when they had their babies. I had 8 sisters and 3 brothers, I was a change of life baby and some my family thought it was awful for their mother to have a baby at 50.
My father died at the age of 56, I was 10 years old, he possibly had cancer of the stomach, there were 5 children at home at this time. My brothers were bad to tease me. Example:Upstairs we had a lot of clothing that belonged to people that died and they told me there were ghosts up there so I was afraid of everything.
I walked 4 miles to school and went as far as the 4th grade. In the fall I would pick peas to buy my winter clothes. Our entertainments was church socials, square dances. Being the youngest child I had nieces as old as I was and it was through one of my nieces that I met my husband, she had brought him to church with her and I thought he was the handsomest man I had ever seen and never dreamed he would look at me but after that he never went with anyone else.
He was from across the river in DeKalb County, drove a hired buggy and dressed to kill. We were married Jan. 4, 1915. We took a boat across the river and was married by a Justice of the Peace. We stayed the first night with an uncle of my husband, Uncle Harrell (Byars) and Aunt Sarah.
They had several children and the oldest liked to play jokes, we slept on a couch that let down from the front to make a bed and they did something with the legs in front so the couch slanted and I slept behind and spent the nite hanging on the the back of the bed to keep from rolling onto Green.
He was working for a Great Uncle at that time, Claybourne Parrish so we moved into a one room cabin to start our married life.
My mother gave me $5.00 and some bedding. I went to the field everyday with Green. Our first child (John Claybourne) was born June 4, 1916, my mother was with me ever time a child came and I only had the Doctor one time as I had difficulty delivering Fred.
Green made $.35 a day and after working all day he would haul logs from Smithville to McMinnville (10 miles) and walked most of the way to keep from freezing.
We had 5 more children, Robert Lucile, Fred Swindell, Bessie Lee, Eva Pearl and Margie Sue.
Green learned to work on cars, T models and A model along with farming. We moved from one place to another farming on the shares.
My mother died in April 1930 at the age of 82, fell and broke her leg. August 1931 our house burned, we lived at Green Hill and gone to White County to see my family, when we returned all was gone, food for the winter and during hard times. Our friends and neighbors gave us enough to start back housekeeping, Mr. Payton Griffith sent a wagon around the county. We moved to Dibrell then Green started working for Ralston Sullivan selling gas refrigerators and radio's, later farm machinery and tombstones. He worked off and on for him for 30 years.
In 1938 we sold all our farming stuff and moved to McMinnville, on Spring St. In 1941 we were at war with Germany and our oldest daughter lived in Detroit so Green went up there and got a job at Budd Wheels as a riveter with only a 4th grade education, he worked 1942 & 43 then came back and drove a taxi for the duration of the war. We had always rented but he saved enough to buy our house 112 N. Warren St.
I was always raised to go to church and Sunday School and was saved August 1923 at a Methodist revival meeting at Keltonberg. If it had not been for the Lord's help during the depression we would not have made it, Green had ulcers and could not work part of the time, but the Lord always provided when I did not see how I was going to get by. He blessed us in allowing us to raise 6 children, none bad sick but we lost Fred at the age of 29 in a freak accident after going thru the war he came home and got killed at sawmill when a can of gasoline exploded.
Green had a lung removed because of cancer in the spring of 1968, he died Dec. 13, 1968 and the age of 74."
"Ma Byars" died April 1, 1985.
end
- http://www.tngenweb.org/white/district5/10-TN-05.htm#Dwelling%20112%20Family%20115
1910 Census - White County, Tennessee - 5th Civil District
April 23, 1910
Supervisor's District 3
Enumeration District 192
Sheet 6B
Dwelling 112 Family 115
Marital Children Birthplace
Name Relat. Sex Race Age Status Yrs B. Alive Person Father Mother Occupation
Swindell, Rebecca Head F W 61 Wd 13 11 TN TN TN Own Income
Swindell, Tabitha Dau F W 30 S TN TN TN None
Swindell, Andy Son M W 18 S TN TN TN Farmer
Swindell, Vernie Dau F W 16 S TN TN TN None
end [13]
- Aunt Pearl tells us that Ma was scared by everything as a girl and he brothers took advantage of that fact.
Ma picked peas at Green Bend to buy clothes for her children
Pop, Uncle Pete & I always called her "Bill"...DAH. [14, 15]
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1894 - 1985 (90 years)
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