My Family Heros

With honor; on this Memorial Day, I present
family members whom have served this country. Each
one of these brave men put their lives at risk for the
country that they loved. Some returned home to their
families after the war, and some never did. Let’s
not forget the brave American men who gave
everything, so that we would remain free. Bless my
grandmothers and aunts who’s husbands or sons
never came home. I say that they to are true heroes!

Revolutionary War

Philip McConnell
Samuel Townsend
Andrew Townsend
Taylor Townsend
John Townsend
Henry Townsend
William Dunaway

War of 1812

William Sills
Accius Etheridge
James Stalls

Mexican War

Eli Townsend

War Between the States

Benjamine Batey
Elisha Townsend
James M Hicks
David A. McConnell
Alfred J. Byrd
Elisha Townsend
John T Dunford
Charles B. McConnell
William G. Elms
John C. Griffin
Thomas Black
James McGaha
Uriah Dowdy
James Dunford
Philip Dunford

WW I

Thomas S. Hicks
Mathew Manning
Adam Dowdy
Theodore Dowdy
Dewey Sills
Marion Sills
Michel Sills
Tony Sills

WW II

Walter H. Hicks
Basil Hicks
John P. Dunford
Edgar A. McConnell
Eugene McConnell
Leonard T. Dunford

Korean War

Marvin R. Turner
Donald J. Dunford
John Russell

Vietnam

Alvie McConnell

I'm sorry, but I'm sure that there are some family members that I have missed here. To all, I say thank you! You are my family, you are my heroes!

Grandma Onie's Sayings

I guess you could say Grandma Onie had a way with words. Mom and Aunt Jerelene said that Grandma Onie had a lot of funny sayings. She also like to make rhymes out of people's names ect... I had put a list of her sayings here that are quite interesting. I catch myself saying these too, because my mother used them. It's funny how that works. Enjoy......

¨ If it thunders before 7 o’clock it will rain before 11 o’clock.
¨ When the leaves on the trees turn their backs up facing the sky, it was coming a storm
¨ When it is storming and it gets real still she called it the calm before the storm.
¨ If you got a sty on your eye, go to a crossroad and say “sty, sty come off my eye, get on the next one that passes by.”
¨ She believed animals could sense danger, and she told of a time when her dog Spot would try to push her away from something that she couldn’t see.
¨ When you moved from one house to another you should never take your old broom.
¨ Don’t let a cat around a small baby because it will suck its breath away.
¨ Red skies at night sailor’s delight, red skies in morning sailors take warning.
¨ Spread flour on a surface and place a snail on it and it will spell out the initials of the person you will marry.
¨ In the summer time when she heard a crow call, she said it was calling for rain.
¨ If your left hand itches, you were going to shake hands with a stranger. If your right hand itched you were going to get some money. If the bottom of your feet itched you were going to walk on strange land. If your ears rang someone talking about you.
¨ The south shall rise again and the Indians too, and I’m gonna be in on both of them.
¨ Save your Confederate money and Wampams.
Contributed by Jerlene and Lillian Smith

Why the Willow Tree

My Grandparents Willow Tree, ca 1950's

Why do you weep dear willow

Why do your branches hang low

Could it be you know a secret

That other trees don’t know

It seems that the willow tree has always held some sort of symbolism in my family. It has represented love and strength, loss and sorrow. I don't know exactly were its origins began, but I believe that it started with my grandparents, Eugene and Leona Smith.

A couple of years after my grandparents were married; sometime around 1939 or 40, they moved from her parents home to their own home just down the street from them in Dover. This little house sat down by the Cumberland river. Together with love, they planted a switch from a willow tree in their new yard. This little switch that they planted some sixty nine years ago is still there today. It has grown to become quite some tree. I can only imagine all the things this tree may have witnessed these many decades and all the secrets it must hold amongst it's branches.

When the TVA came in and my grandmother had to move, she moved to Clarksville. From the TVA's effort at flood control, the river became wider and what was once my grandparents yard has now become part of the banks of the Cumberland river. The house was torn down and the land was cleared of trees, and many years later, a park was put in their place. The city built a boat launching pad and dock and just to the east of that pad, there still stands the tree that was planted so long ago. A treasure left by a family so tied to the land of Stewart County.

When my mother died three years ago, my aunt Jerelene planted a willow tree in her back yard in Cordell, Oklahoma in her memory. What an family honor that symbol bares and as the ancient words of the song goes, one my mother has sung thousands of times..........

Why do you weep dear willow

Why do your branches hang low

Could it be you know a secret

That other trees don’t know

My Mom and aunt Jerelene with the tree in 1997

Although the streets had no names when my grandparents lived there, the tree can be found there in Dover. You go south on what is now Spring street and then east on Water street to the little park there. If you walk down to the dock and look on the bank to the east, you will see it there with its roots planted deep in the Cumberland mud.