[Granville-Hough] 25 Apr 2009 - Elijah Richardson Reunion

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 07:13:02 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Elijah Richardson Reunion (25 April 2004) -25 April 2009

A few years ago this date was a Sunday, set aside for an annual reunion
of descendants of my mother's ancestor, Elijah Richardson, the first of
our Richardsons to come to the new state of Mississippi.

Mississippi Relatives

Today was the day for the Annual Reunion of Elijah Richardson
descendants, held at Piney Grove in Smith County, dinner on the ground
in traditional fashion (though now it comes out as: bring a covered dish
to share).
     I hope all went well and that it was dry.  A few years ago, it was
rained out and no one could ford the creek.  (The road is really
abandoned and there is no bridge.  I believe the old church is in part
of the Bienville National Forest, and the old road is used as a fire
road. About 1850, it was a thriving community.)
     The last I knew, the congregation is long gone, and the church
building is used only by the Richardson and Traxler families for their
annual reunions.  The Traxlers were a local family who married Arenders,
Richardsons, and other kin, so we have many Traxler cousins.
     The local cemetery is where the Richardsons were buried as far back
as the 1850 decade.  Someone told me that the cemetery is the site of an
ancient Indian mound, built up, I suppose, to offset the high water of
the local creek.  I was once told that when ancestor Elijah Richardson
or his son, James W., died and was buried there about 1852 a cedar tree
was set out at the head of his grave to mark it.  The cedar tree lived
about 100 years, and its stump marked the place that a modern gravestone
was placed commemorating all the Richardsons buried in Piney Grove.
     At any rate, I have never been there, and it is likely more
attractive by word description than actual physical appearance. A
picture shows it was never painted, being made or heart longleaf pine,
which oozed turpentine in the summer to such an extent it would not hold
paint.
     I join all Richardson descendants in hoping the reunion was a
success.

        P. S. Either Cousin Jim or Coley Richardson (sons of Coley and Mattie
Mae) related their experience at one of the reunions they attended at
Piney Grove.  They were just young teen-agers with great
curiosity.  One of our cousins, a beautiful and buxom young mother who
did not want to miss a thing at the reunion, had a crying, hungry young
baby.  She took out her ample breasts and let the baby glug away until
he had all he wanted. Then the baby got a burp and went soundly to
sleep.  The mother had by then calmly put her breasts away and buttoned
up her blouse.  So that is how the babies were fed in the back country
at Piney Grove, in church, out of church, or wherever they got hungry.