Hi, do come on in for a visit. I'm so glad you have dropped by.  This is something really, really new to me,  you see, but we are three sisters and two brothers that have a tale to tell for sure.

I remember living in a place near Lafayette, Tennessee called Cook Hollow. It was just a name given to a plot of ground owned by the Cook family.  I was born there, along with my two sisters, Lorene and Lamon.  We lived there several years seemingly. There was Grandfather Bill Coley, his twin brother, Uncle Jim Coley, my brother Willard, my two sisters and of course, Beadie, our mother.

Uncle Jim never married and lived with his brother, my grandfather, most of his life, I have been told.  I remember I used to just love him and follow him around everywhere like a small puppy dog.  At different times, it would make him so mad he would call mother and say, "Come get this youngin'". Mother would come get me and tell me to play with something else and leave Uncle Jim alone. Course, he didn't mind at other times. 

This was during very hard times, just after the depression, the weather was very cold and food was hard to come by and my Uncle Jim would go out and catch rabbits, squirrels and any other animals he coud get so he would have something for my mother  to cook for him.  She would cook whatever he had brought in and it would smell terrific, especially to a child like me and I would be following him around again begging him for a bite of it and he would get mad again and scream for mother again. Course he always wound up giving me a small piece of whatever he was eating before he would holler for mother. I was too young to have cared what it was except that it was food.

Then my Uncle Jim got sick.  The doctor came

to see him several times.  I do not recall what

he died of, but I do remember that one night after he was real low in his sickness and it was getting dark outside, I was sitting in the 

entrance to his room (because I was never very far away from him when he was at home) and looking at his bed and I saw a large white something rise up from his bed and ascend toward the ceiling.  I cried for mother and she calmed me down, telling me that it had been Uncle Jim's spirit ascending to heaven. Now, whether this happens ever again in these days and times or not, I don't know, but I did see this happen and it nearly scared me to death.  I thought something or someone was doing something to my Uncle Jim. Mother said no, that death had come and he would be going to a better place and that God had sent for his spirit.  So I calmed down after she explained what death was to me and I did not worry about Uncle Jim anymore.

I was really happy here in Cook Hollow, playing 

with my brother and my sisters.  I remember we 

had a large apple and pear trees that we climbed 

and gathered the fruit from.  We played in the 

corn crib setting it on fire one time.  burning it 

to the ground. 

William E. Cook was talking to my mother and 

Willard and I slipped upstairs and while we 

were up there, we discovered that was where 

he stored his sweet potatoes during the season 

that they used for the year, and we dropped them down on his head.  Of course, he was furious.  Mother came looking for us when he left and my she just about skinned us alive, but she was so kind, afterwards, she took us both in her arms and loved us and cried with us, for I am sure the whipping hurt her as much as it did us.

In 1939 mother got this notice that she had 

inherited some land in and around Lafayette, 

Tennessee known as Newtown.  This was inherited from Henry Crook, her former husband.  When he died, his will left this place to her and her heirs.  So that is how we cam to Newtown and left our "paradise" of Cook Hollow.  At Cook Hollow there were hills that seemed to reach to the sky and we were at the foot of the hills in a two story old house.  The upstairs was used for storage.  We loved to play on the stairs and even hide in the second story when we were playing

When we  moved to the house in Newtown in 

Lafayette, it was never the same again.  Uncle Jim had died and we had a beautiful cat we had tried to move with us but it always went back to the hollow.  We finally quit trying to move it. This place  was close to our Uncle Wiseman and Aunt Minnie Coley and the George Bergdoff's who were our cousins.  It was also near the Jim Haddock's.  We played with the Bergdoff girls, Lillie Mae and Inez and visited with her married daughter, Lillian.We also played with the Haddock children, Lewis and Hollis.

We had a well at this house, but unfortunately a 

cat had drowned in it and we had to carry water 

from the Bradley Springs area and from a place 

called Friedman's Spring.  We also would help 

mother and grandfather carry wood for winter 

heating.

Brice Botts, a cousin to mother, who lived on the 

street that the jail was on in Lafayette, Tennessee 

helped us fix up the old house that mother had 

inherited.  He brought building material out and 

fixed the windows and doors.  I was out there one 

time bothering him and he accidentally dropped 

the hammer on my head.  It didn't hurt me real 

bad, because his hand had almost stopped it and 

I knew he did not mean to do it.

It was at this place in Newtown that I remember 

so much as I was getting older.  I remember that 

it was hard times and not very much food, but 

even if we had not had a morsel of food, I 

remember mother's love for us as she would 

gather all of us around her and hug us all and 

tell us stories and sing to us.  Each one was loved 

the same by her.  She has spanked us for being 

bad and in the next instant grab us up and hug us.

Mother tried her best to send us to school, but 

we wouldn't stay. There were some children up 

there that would grab hold of me and pull my 

hair and tug at my dress and make fun of me 

and I would begin crying, and before I knew 

what was happening, there would be Willard, 

my brother, who would take me by the hand 

and we would start for home.  Mother sent us 

often but every day we would start back home. 

Willard would say if mother makes us go 

anymore we will just leave home.  So I never 

remember going anymore to that school.  That 

must have been in 1939 or 1940.

I also remember Willard, Lorene and myself 

going over and working at the Bob Price place.  

There was Bob Price, Susie, Joe, Lassie and 

Helen Price and Marie Price.  Mother would 

help in the house and I would sometime wash 

jars for them out in the yard when it was 

canning time.  I really had a good time at 

this house.  They would show me the different 

animals, chickens, cows, ponies, mules, etc.  I 

had small chores to do when I went over there, 

but after that I got to play and did I have fun.

But all my happiness of getting to go to work 

with my mother did not get to last for we did 

not know what was in the air.  Our mother had 

not been previously notified of anything going 

to happen, but you see, our loving family was 

just torn apart.   On May 13, 1941 at 5:00 a m 

I was awakened by a loud knock on the door. The 

Sheriff of Macon County and two of his deputies 

burst into our home, knocked my grandfather 

down, and took off with three of the youngest 

children that were asleep.  They came back to 

get me and I just started screaming and 

screaming and woke my mom up and I will 

never forget as long as I live seeing her 

weeping and crying with arms outstretched 

toward the Sheriff begging him not to take 

her babies from her, but he paid her no mind.

Some of you that are old enough to remember 

those days, know that Tennessee was plagued by 

having a Black Market of Babies that were sold 

to people that would pay good prices to adopt 

babies.  We had a new baby in the family, Edward, 

that was only 13 days old at the time. It was said 

in the report book that came out years later, that 

they would take two or three children out of a 

family so it would not look like they were after 

the baby.

My mom was a young widow, having, with the 

birth of baby Edward, five small children to feed.  

She was living with my granddad, her father, both 

of them being hard workers they say, but those 

were poor times, just after the depression, so 

needless to say she had it very hard, and fell a 

likely victim to this hated crime against humanity.

They put my younger sisters and baby brother in 

the Nashville Childrens Home in Tennessee and I 

was placed in the home of Mrs. Mary D. Snead of 

McKenzie, Tennessee as a foster child.