[Granville-Hough] 26 Apr 2009 - 8 Jul 2005 - Nannie K

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

Aunt Nannie (Keyes) Kennedy by Granville Hough.

One of the earliest influences on my life and thinking was my Aunt 
Nannie Kennedy. I can say that she got me interested in genealogy before 
I was ten years old. At the time I knew her, she had suffered a stroke 
which paralyzed her left side. She came to stay with us periodically, 
and she stayed until she got homesick for her children. This was between 
the years of 1929 and 1934. I do not remember her visiting before Uncle 
Elijah dying in 1929. She always stayed in “Uncle Ligie’s room.”
Aunt Nancy Susan Keyes was born 15 Jun 1862, presumably on either the 
Keyes or Miller farms on Cohay Creek below Mize, smack in the middle of 
what is generically Sullivan’s Hollow. She was named for her 
grandmothers, Nancy Keyes and Susannah (Cole) Miller. The best guess is 
the Benjamin Keyes farm, as her parents, Jeptha and Nora (Miller) Keyes 
were in that household in 1860 as newlyweds. Nancy Keyes, wife of 
Benjamin, had died. The first child for Jeptha and Nora was Benjamin H., 
who had been born 23 Mar 1861, but he had died when Aunt Nannie was just 
a few weeks old. Her own father had been killed at Port Gibson in the 
beginning of the Battle for Vicksburg on 21 May 1863, before she was a 
year old. So Aunt Nannie was an orphaned and only child until her 
half-sister, Lou Hough, was born six years later. Apparently she and her 
mother Nora stayed on in the Keyes household until Nora married Frank 
Hough, perhaps in 1867. They then settled on a part of the Miller farm, 
where they lived in 1870. A little later, Aunt Nannie’s uncle, Howard 
Keyes, married her first cousin, Nancy Walker. Several of Aunt Nannie’s 
Keyes cousins married Sullivans or Sullivan descendants.
Aunt Nannie lived in this community until Frank and Nora moved to some 
land near Raleigh. The earliest church she knew was the Zion Hill 
Baptist Church, which had been founded by Cole, Carter, Miller, Walker, 
Clark, and other relatives who had moved from Pike County when Smith 
County had been opened to settlement about 1836. The older people she 
knew were original settlers, but old Hog Tom Sullivan, who had come from 
the Tombigbee River area, was already dead. She did know his younger 
children, and perhaps some of his older ones, all her life. She was 
subjected to Baptist religious influences which stretched back to the 
first Protestant Church in Mississippi, called the Baptist Church of 
Cole’s Creek, northeast of Natchez. Mark Cole, her great grandfather, 
had moved south into Amite County, then into Pike County, then his Cole 
sons Mark and John and married daughters (Susannah Miller) and (Hannah 
Carter) and other relatives had moved into Smith County. They carried 
their Baptist faith wherever they settled and established churches. Her 
earliest life was in the area generally called Sullivan’s Hollow by the 
rest of the county. Frank Hough in 1870 was with his Miller 
brothers-in-law near where Sullivan’s Hollow Creek joined Cohay Creek. 
It is near the division between Beat 3, today centered on Mize, and Beat 
2, today centered on Taylorsville. At one time on Cohay, there was a 
Miller crossing or bridge, a Miller Cemetery, and the community center 
of Bunker Hill. In addition to its Baptist folks, there were those of no 
faith; and every sort of crime, mayhem, or misdeed took place. Frank 
Hough soon moved away to some higher, dry land towards Raleigh, along 
with his brother-in-law, Ivy Walker. This was probably in the Liberty 
Community, where Aunt Nannie was buried at the Liberty Church Baptist 
Cemetery after she died 30 March 1934. Aunt Nannie’s final years as a 
youth were on Little Cohay Creek, where the family had plenty of water. 
The Raleigh farm had been occupied before people had learned to tap the 
underground aquifer for well water. (In studying Smith County history, I 
learned that when the Hough family left the Miller farm, they were 
founding members of Fellowship Baptist Church, which is closer to 
Taylorsville. The Fellowship Cemetery is probably the best known in 
Smith County for its upkeep and appearance. Aunt Nannie undoubtedly went 
there when just a little girl. Among the founding members were Frank and 
Nora Hough, Charlotte Hough (mother of Frank), and others from Zion 
Hill. I had never heard of a connection to Fellowship Baptist Church, 
but there they were, among the charter members.)
When up in years in her sixties, Aunt Nannie had the stroke which left 
her paralyzed on the left side, but she could use her one arm and side 
with great dexterity and she was very helpful with household tasks. She 
took turns living with her children or with her brothers Rufus and 
Lisha. When Aunt Nannie visited us, she and I would take turns with the 
churning. We were all fond of buttermilk, and of buttermilk and 
cornbread, so we got to do this chore daily. (Some fifty years later, I 
learned I was allergic to sweet milk (or raw milk) and that is why I 
wanted buttermilk. It did not make my stomach hurt.) As we took turns 
churning, I would ask her about my long dead relatives. She could talk 
at length about the Walkers, Clarks, Owens, Sullivans, Boykins, Houghs, 
Johnsons, Littles, Kennedys, Bryants, all people she had known. She also 
remembered what she had been told about Mark and Hannah (Spell) Cole, 
parents of her grandmother Susannah (Cole) Miller. She probably told me 
other things while we churned but I had no way to remember them. I best 
remembered the families where I had school classmates at Mize Grammar 
School of that surname. Later, I could work out the kinship lines, much 
to the amusement of my classmates, who cared little about kinship to 
Granville Hough, and who did not always believe me. One story Aunt 
Nannie remained indignant about was the head of a Little family whom she 
was sure had stolen some of her chickens. I never told my Little 
classmate, his grandson, that story.
Aunt Nannie married Lemuel “Lem” Kennedy, a widower whose first wife had 
been John Currie’s daughter. Her step-children were Johnnie, Maud and 
Dora Kennedy. Dora married Shack Clark, Aunt Nannie’s first cousin. (My 
father and I once visited Shack Clark, who had stayed in Sullivan’s 
Hollow. It was an old-timey kind of place, and I met Shack and Dora. But 
we did not find a warm welcome; so we left and never went back.) It was 
either Johnnie or Maud Kennedy who inherited or bought the Lem Kennedy 
farm, and we had a good relationship with them. Aunt Nannie had seven 
children, of whom five survived. There were Pearl (Mrs W. R. Bryant), 
Bunyan, Nola B. (Mrs. John Herrin), Clarence, and Lamar. We got along 
best with Nola, as did Aunt Nannie. When I knew them in the hard times 
of the 1930 era, Clarence and Lamar were just barely hanging on, trying 
to feed their families. Bunyan I have noted in another story was a 
timberman who died in Florida prison at Raiford for refusing to testify 
(contempt of court). Pearl, I never met, and Aunt Nannie would not stay 
with her.
When Aunt Nannie died in Nola Herrin’s home in Cohay Camps, I went with 
my father to pay our last respects. My father cried and cried, the first 
time I had ever seen him do such a thing. As the oldest sister, Aunt 
Nannie had been his second mother. He was dearly attached to her, just 
as I was. I would never forget her interest in her relatives and 
willingness to share her experiences with them.