Tribute to My Grandmother

                                              by  Andrea Hurst Wright

 I am writing this to give tribute to a wonderful 

woman. Her name was Beadie Coley Crook. She 

was my grandmother.  In May of 1941, my grand-

mother was a young widow, living with her father 

and five small children, when she experienced the 

greatest pain a mother could ever have. She had 

four of her five children taken from her by the 

Sheriff and two deputies of Lafayette, TN. at 5:00 

A.M. in the morning. 

    This was during the time of the "Black Market" 

sales of babies in Tennessee. According to the 

report on this published in 1952 they would take 

two or three children out of the family so it would 

not look like they were after the baby. They left 

Willard, age 12. They took Gladys, age 8, Lorene, 

age 6, Lamon, age 4, and Edward, 13 days old. This 

was at the end of the Great Depression. They 

were very poor and at that time only one check 

from the government could be issued per house-

hold and my grandmother’s father was receiving 

a $13.00 government check. (of which a Mr. 

Wooten was taking charge of it, so “Beadie” 

would not get it for those children.)

      My mom’s sister Gladys says she will always remember hearing their mother begging and 

pleading for them not to take her babies from 

her. The oldest child, Willard, stayed with their 

mother and was not taken. The oldest girl, Gladys,

was placed in a foster home. Lorene, Lamon and 

Edward Crook were placed in the Nashville Chil-

drens Home in Nashville, Tennessee and Lamon 

was adopted by Sidney and Mary Wilson of Signal 

Mountain, TN. Her name was changed to Judy 

Wilson. A year later, the orphanage called the 

Wilsons to see if they would take Judy’s sister, 

Lorene, because my mother kept running away 

from the orphanage trying to find her birth 

mother. They agreed that they would adopt 

Lorene Crook, whose name was changed to Peggy

Wilson. Edward was adopted by a School Teacher 

and his wife in New Mexico and his name was 

changed to Jerry Lee Martin. 

     When Gladys was 19, she married and her 

husband drove her to where she remembered her 

mother lived. She was reunited with her mother 

and brother Willard. Together they searched for 

years and years to no avail. My grandmother never

got to see her three youngest children, (Lorene, 

Lamon, and Edward) again in her lifetime. She 

died in 1968. Gladys House kept right on searching 

for her youngest siblings. After 42 years of sepa-

ration, they were all finally reunited in 1983.

     Willard lives in KY. He is widowed and has 3 

children. Gladys married (1) James Long and they 

had one child. They divorced and she married Dencil House, they have no children and live in Memphis, 

TN. My mother, Peggy, married a minister, Rev. 

Arville Hurst, and they now Pastor in Georgia. They 

have 3 children, Rev. Jack Hurst, Marcia Harbaugh, 

and me, Andrea Wright. Judy, married a Army 

soldier, Earl Cleckler. She was widowed at 23, 

They had no children. She now lives in North 

Georgia. Edward is divorced and has two daughters. 

He still lives in New Mexico.

As a child of my mother, I am so grateful for 

what Sidney and Mary Wilson did for my mother 

and Aunt Judy. They gave them a home and 

a good education.  Because they changed the life 

of my mother, they also changed my life. I do not 

know where I would be today, if they had not 

taken such good care of my mom when she needed someone so.

    My mother remembers her real mom. She remem-

bers her singing songs and telling them bedtime 

stories at night before they went to bed. She 

dearly loved her family of five small children. As 

a mother, I can only picture the nightmare of an 

ordeal that my Grandmother faced. The empty 

arms, the ache that would not go away. The not 

knowing if her children were alright or if they 

were hungry and crying for her. My heart breaks 

for the pain that my grandmother endured. 

    Yet I find strength and such character in her. 

Though she was dealt such heart wrenching blows, 

her strength remained. She kept going. Although 

I never received the honor of meeting her here, 

one day I will. I told my mother, that I believed 

when Grandmother got to heaven, that God showed 

her exactly where her three babies were. And that 

He had taken very good care of them. 

Memorial Pages

 My Mom's Testimony