[Granville-Hough] 26 Apr 2009 - Nannie Kennedy
Trustees for Granville W. Hough
gwhough-trust at oakapple.net
Wed Apr 26 06:03:06 PDT 2017
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:43:37 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: NannieK - 26 Apr 2009
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 ôUncle LigieÆs room.ö
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 SullivanÆs 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 NannieÆs uncle, Howard
Keyes, married her first cousin, Nancy Walker. Several of Aunt NannieÆs
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
ColeÆs 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 SullivanÆs Hollow by the
rest of the county. Frank Hough in 1870 was with his Miller
brothers-in-law near where SullivanÆs 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 NannieÆs 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 ôLemö Kennedy, a widower whose first wife had
been John CurrieÆs daughter. Her step-children were Johnnie, Maud and
Dora Kennedy. Dora married Shack Clark, Aunt NannieÆs first cousin. (My
father and I once visited Shack Clark, who had stayed in SullivanÆs
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 HerrinÆs 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.
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