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- Memories of Lucile Byars Hennessee (1918-2008);
"Mama & Pop married January 4, 1915
Pete born June 4, 1916 at house on Uncle Claybourne Parrish's place
Lucile born December 6, 1918 - Pa's house Keltonburg
Fred born December 7, 1920 - Moores College
Bessie born February 8, 1925 - Green Hill - Dibrell
Pearl born February 8, 1928 - Dibrell
Margie born March 21, 1930 - Green Hill
Six children in 14 years. Pete was born at the rental house where Mama & Pop first lived, Pop worked for Uncle Claybourne. Moved back to Pa's before I was born, don't know if it was in this period but I remember Mama making us a playhouse in the woods with a stove made from rocks and cooking something on it...
They moved to Bildad in a house on Cousin Elmas Potter's place, remember having the ear-ache and Mama covering me up on the foot of the bed, we were never allowed to sit on the bed in daytime. Then they moved to Moores College, Fred born there and Mama had a hard time and had to have a doctor, all the rest were born with a midwife. During that time Pop decided to get rich and took a load of whiskey to Nashville and was picked-up - took all they could scrape together to keep him out of jail - never again.
Moved from there to an old house on Uncle Harrell's place called the "Alkhorn Place". Remember taking Fred to the cotton patch with Mama and while she picked cotton I was supposed to watch Fred, but ended up trying to help Mama. The field belonged to neighbors called, "Roller". They were friends to Pop and Mama and took them in the wagon to Keltonburg to a revival meeting at the Methodist Church. Mama and Pop were both baptised, although Pop's background was Primitive Baptist. I can't remember him ever going to any church but to Bildad and one time to Lebanon to an associational meeting. I remember Mama worrying about clothes for Pete, Fred and me and we lived at Pa's at this time.
While living at the Alchorn House , Aunt Sarah made me a rag doll. I thought it was the most beautiful thing. She sent word by Pete to come. I went across the field by myself and she said go in and look on the organ and see what you find. Pete told her Mama was going to poison a (her) pig that stayed around the back door (and ate her garden) and Aunt Sarah believed him and I expect that is why they moved back to Pa's. Ten years later when we lived at Dibrell and one eve we were eating supper and Fred came running in the kitchen scared to death, (he) said there was a woman sitting in the living room in a rocking chair! It was Aunt Sarah - she never apologized. Just started coming to see us.
Moved from the Alkhorn House to a house close to Mr. Floyd Harris. Pop worked at a sawmill. Pete was 6 and he walked to school at Moores College. Once he found a dollar. He went to the store close to the school and treated (himself) with a watermelon and bought me a box of crayons and told me not (to tell anyone). I don't know why he did not want Ma & Pop to know...for a dollar was a lot of money at that time.
Pop was out of job so we moved back to Pa's. I started to school from there to Bluff Springs, walked two miles. The branch that ran by the roadside was frozen so we would skate on it. Next year I walked to Moores College, four miles...walk by Fred Titsworth's, cut through by Uncle Harrell...long walk.
When we lived this time at Pa's, Mama walked three miles to Seven Springs, a summer resort, Aunt Harriet lived there with Mrs. White who ran the hotel. When I was 13, the house burned down and Aunt Harriet in it with a little boy. Mama ironed all day there (Ma told me she earned 10-cents an hour...DAH). She would bring home food from the kitchen. A negress cook make the best biscuits. Mama also cut apples. Pa had an apple orchard. She would dry them and sell them. I remember her saying Pa wanted part of the money and here she was cooking and keeping house and using the money to clothe the family...
Moved from Pa's to little two-room house (the "Homeplace") on a branch between Green Hill and Dibrell. Bessie was born there. Pete and I went to Green Hill and stayed all night with the Davis', "Mon" and his wife, and helped Granny with the delivery. Mrs. Davis came and sent us home and said your mother has a surprise for you. I said to Pete as we walked home, "I bet it's a little old baby and let's don't look at it". He said, "O.K." but when we got home he went around by the bed. I would not look at her for four days. Granny said she never saw such a stubborn child. Women then stayed in bed 6 to 9 days. When they moved into that house, bedbugs were crawling out of the walls. Mama bought three boxes of "BeeBee Powder". Put it everywhere, closed up the house and left for the day. Came back in the evening, washed all the bed-clothes and set the bed legs in kerosene. Mama said she got rid of them...she was such a hard-worker.
I went to school at Dibrell, also Pete. My first teacher was Pauline Gribble. We moved from there to Dibrell, to a house up the road for the school and across the road from Cousin Elmas Potter. Cold old house. Pop was fixing cars, "A-Models". Mama took in washing. Pearl was born here. While we lived here, Aunt Senia came to visit us. She had been living in Cincinnatti but had moved back to Nashville. She brought a victrola and taught me to "Charleston"...nearly drove Mama crazy.
We moved from there to the switchboard across from the school, I think for two years. They got free rent and I don't know how much money. Mama was really tied down. I had to watch the kids.
One day we climbed up in the loft of an old barn in the back of the house which was open in the front to put hay in and Pearl was just walking and she fell out of the door. We ran to pick her up. She was blue. We took her in to Mama and said she fell backwards off a log. It was a long time before we told her the truth. This is probably why Pearl has back trouble.
Bessie started to school. I think she was only four and they let her come as we just lived across the road. I broke my right arm swinging from a tree. It had to be put in a cast. It was summer and I can still feel it itching now.
We moved from there to Green Hill. Mr. Davis' store was by crossroads and we lived on the opposite side, up the road a little way, four rooms. Margie was born here. Mama took her to the store to weigh her and with the pillow she weighed 3-1/2 pounds. I had found the baby clothes in a suit box under the bed and was mad about it but she was the prettiest baby. Perry Green had to walk from near Pa's to school at Dibrell and he would stop and sometimes eat with us. He wanted to name her after his girl friend, Margie Griffith, and Iola Davis was about 16 and she added the "Sue".
Granny Swindell died when Margie was six weeks old. Mama did not have decent clothes to wear and instead of going to town to buy a dress she went down to Mr. Davis and bought a house dress. I was 12 and was ashamed of the way she looked, but did not bother her. She was the least proud person I ever knew.
Mama got a dresser and a "Jennie Lind" bed that belonged to Granny. I remember her using lye to strip the bed, we had never had any decent furniture, just beds and chairs.
Mama was always begging Pop to take her to White County to visit her brothers, Uncle Will and Uncle Hatton. I don't think they liked Pop and in turn (he) didn't like them. I think it was in the Fall of that year Pop came in and said if you want to White County you had better get ready and she with 6 kids, for some reason Pete and I stayed home. A revival was going on at Dibrell Church of Christ and Bob Puss Cantrell lived just down below us and he got us a ride to go and before the sermon was over some said there is a house burning and we all rushed out and to see the smoke and flames, it was about two miles away. It was our house. The canning was all done for the winter and potatoes dug. What a bad thing to come back to. Mr. Payton Griffith took his wagon all around the community and took up whatever they would give, for everybody knew them. Mama got 24 new quilts, enough to start back housekeeping and enough money to buy a sewing machine. We moved back to Dibrell to same house where Pearl was born. It was in better shape as some work had been done on it.
I think this was when Pop went to work for Mr. Sullivan at the monument company and later to sell farm machinery for not long after this we moved across the creek to his farm to plant on the shares, Pop layed out what was to be done on Sunday and left it to Mama to get it done, Pete and Fred could plow and I chopped out, he would go around on Sunday and survey and never once did he brag on anything that was done but he did not know how.
I graduated from the eighth-grade there, Aunt Senia sent material for me a dress. Pete was always in trouble which was an embarrassment to me. I always loved to read and Mrs. Eula Fisher (West) lived with her in-laws Dr. Fisher near the school and thay had a bookcase full of books, I read all of them at least three times, one especially I remember was "Cudjoe's Cave", about colored and the civil war. When I got to go to McMinnville I would go to the office at Sullivan's and they always had the "Geographical Magazine", so exciting to read about Richard Halliburton and his travels.
Pop would never give you money to buy anything. The last year I was in school he told Mrs. Sullivan to buy me a coat in Nashville and she bought a "Swagger Suit" skirt with a coat that did not go all the way to the bottom, well I threw a fit, Mrs. Sullivan did not know anything about poor people and he could not take it back & say I did't want it, poor Pop, he said I will never buy you anything else, it was the only thing I ever remember him buying, he wanted Mama to buy black stockings for me (ha-ha). I would pick blackberries in July for 10 cents a gallon and buy my school clothes.
Pete had quit school and left home, road the rails to Detroit, Mama was so worried. I don't know how long he was gone but one evening late we looked across the field and saw someone coming. It was Pete and looked like a tramp. (He) could not find any work, this was in the 30's and times were hard, you did not dare leave any clothes out on the the lines at nite they would be stolen.
I went to the Church of Christ at Dibrell as the only other was a Cumberland Presbyterian and it was closed so a group of people got together and got a preacher to come once a month so I started there, Fred was saved there and baptised in the creek across from the Pitt Place.
I graduated in 1936,I played basketball, if you didn't there was nothing else so I was on the the team, not very good (guard) but had to slip to play as Pop didn't go for the suits and I was forbidden to wear them so when we had a game I would stay all nite with Miss Sheby West, my friend for years, an old maid music teacher that lived on one side of a house next to the school. Mama did her washing so I could take lessons and another good thing Pop did he traded a pig for big upright and Mama fussed everytime I practiced.
Pop always had some kind of a car, he bought a victrola, one night he came home with a record by Uncle Dave Macon, everyone in bed and he had to play it, he was drinking. Miss Margie Womack was my Home Ec. Teacher and a relative and she bought material for my graduation dress and made it. When I started to take Home Ec. we were supposed to make a coverall to cook in, our first project and Mama cut up a sheet to a make me one. I was 17 in December and graduated in April of 1936."
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- Memories as a girl in Dibrell;
"This is Dibrell as I remember it in the early 30's. The high school was a large rambling, frame building built around the gymnasium and the home economics room was built outside to the right of the main building...when you got in the 9th grade the girls took Home Mak' so it was fun to get out the big building. I remember the first thing we learned to make was mayonnaise and Francis Griffith said she could eat it like ice cream.
Across the school was the telephone building, a family would take it for 2 years, interchange between Dibrell and McMinnville, our family had it in '28 and '29, Bessie was 4 years old and started to school. Other families that lived in Dibrell were; Dr. Fisher, Kelly Reeder, who owned the grocery store across from the school, the Braggs, Christians, Gutheries, Robinsons, Potters, Clarks, Dewey Slatton, a car mechanic, G.W.Hinkley, principal of the school (all the students were afraid of him), two churches: Church of Christ and Cumberland Presbyterian Church, some of these people were in the nursery business as this was becoming a great thing in Warren county in the 30's..."
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- Lucile Byars Hennessee
Lucile Byars Hennessee has gone to join her Lord and Savior on Easter Sunday. Born in 1918, Keltonburg, Tenn., she was the oldest daughter of six children to Perry Green Byars and Vernia Swindell. In 1939, she married Bert Hennessee and mothered two sons, David and Fred.
Lucile loved God and His Word. She began her discipleship when she was saved and joined Magness Memorial Baptist Church, McMinnville, Tenn., in 1936. In 1939, she and Bert moved to Detroit where they were active in the Grosse Pointe Baptist Church. In 1957, they moved to Lake Park, Fla., and became charter members of the First Baptist Church where she taught Sunday School for 46 years.
She leaves in mourning, her loving son, David and daughter-in-law, Sheila, two devoted sisters, Pearl Bess Fultz, Bessie Wright and many nephews, nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces.
Funeral services were held Tuesday at Love-Cantrell & Cope Funeral Home in McMinnville and was officiating by Pastor Jerry Hennessee. She was laid to rest beside her beloved husband and son at Mt. View Cemetery on March 24.
Southern Standard (McMinnville, Tenn.) March 26, 2008
Mother took her last breath at 7:12 pm, Easter Sunday, surrounded by 10 members of her family. Her burial was on the following Tuesday which broke sunny and cold...DAH
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1918 - 2008 (89 years)
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