[Granville-Hough] 30 Dec 2009 - Exchange with Harold Hopkins

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:14:55 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Exchange with Harold Hopkins, 30 Dec 2009.

Harold Hopkins wrote:

>
> Granville,
>
> I'll now answer your letter.
>
>
> On May 18, 2005, at 8:59 PM, Granville Hough wrote:
>
>>    My son recommends I never send or open an attachment.  To send, 
>> what I do is prepare a Microsoft Word article, then go to Edit and 
>> Select All, then (still in Edit) Copy, then Minimize (with the square 
>> with the minus sign). This puts the article in the corner of the 
>> display with only the title.  Then I get on the internet and prepare 
>> the heading, title, etc and put the cursor in the message space and 
>> hit Control plus V.  This puts the article I wrote into the message 
>> space as part of the message, with no attachments.
>>    This apparently avoids the possibility that an attachment I send 
>> has a virus which I know nothing about and certainly cannot see.    
>> This is a long way to say I do not know how to open attachments, and 
>> cannot open the one you sent on your cousin.  If you put it into the 
>> message itself, as noted above, I could certainly read it. But, as it 
>> is an item of only general interest, you may not want to go to the 
>> trouble.  With my regards, Granville.
>>
>>  PS  I got to thinking about teacher's pets and remembered one from 
>> the second grade named Billy Blough (to rhyme with plow).  I never 
>> saw him later and I wondered if that name meant anything to you.
>>>
> Billy Blough may have been one of the family of an auto mechanic named 
> Blough. I remember only the older Blough, no children.
>>
>>    Still another buxom little lass I was attracted to was named 
>> Juanita Hurst. That was about the sixth grade.  I was told her family 
>> moved to North MS.
>>
> S'funny, I was attracted to the same girl for a time.  Cyril Hurst and 
> his wife, with about six daughters,  lived three houses west  of us -- 
> the old Dr. Neville Tullos house. These Hurst daughters and my sisters 
> were thick -- particularly the second daughter, named Betty.  With my 
> present knowledge I'd venture to say that Mrs.Hurst had  bipolar 
> disorder, which fits in with the children being all girls.   I think 
> the Cyril Hurst family (originally from Illinois) left Mize and went 
> to Madison, MS, just north of Jackson, now a place where whites have 
> fled and where a great many of the shopping centers also have fled.  
> Some of my sisters communicated with the Hursts  for several years. I 
> don't know what ever happened to them -- whether they left Madison and 
> went back to Illinois, or remained and married off, et.
>
>
>> I knew all the Lawrence and Keturah (Ware) McAlpin family, Ehrman, 
>> Clifton, Newell, Zollie, Newman, Gabriel, Farrell, Veatrice, and 
>> Etha.  Newell  was County Superintendent of Education.  They were 
>> our nearest neighbors, and lived between us and my Richardson 
>> grandparents. Ehrman married my mother's sister and his family 
>> established the McAlpin Department store in Magee.  Their oldest son, 
>> Tom, was my age and playmate and college roommate at Miss. State.  
>> Tom died last fall.  After he retired from his store business, Tom 
>> became a land developer and developed the lake district of Magee, a 
>> most beautiful sub-division.  The developments of Magee along the 
>> highway are mostly on Tom's land..
>>
> I thought you probably lived close to some of them.
>
> Hazel D. and  Etha McAlpin (both f.)  were in my class through high 
> school.
>
>>    I worked with Uncle Ehrman on the McAlpin family back in the 
>> 1950's before microfilm was available and before the 1880 census was 
>> released.  We found the mother of all Beat Three McAlpins and Uncle 
>> Ehrman recognized the name of an old, old great grandmother he had 
>> met as a child.  She lived alone with her children in the pre-Civil 
>> War era,, but we later found her husband as an overseer for a 
>> plantation a few miles away.  As I recall, Lawrence was first cousin 
>> to the older McAlpins scattered about in Beat Three of Smith County
>>
>> The Lacks were close kin (to the McAlpins) as the mother Lack had been one of the 
>> McAlpin girls.....
>> 
> If you were close kin to the Lacks, then you should know that my great 
> aunt, Martha Ann Hopkins, sister of my  GGF Cicero L. Hopkins, married 
> Lafayette Lack in Scott County MS c. 1845 while my GGGF  Samuel 
> Hopkins lived there one or two years after arriving from Georgia.  
> When Samuel then moved to Smith  County, near  Fairmount c  3 miles N 
> of the present Mize, Lafayette and Martha also came to  Smith County, 
> same area.  They were the ancestors of ALL the Lacks in Smith County, 
> but not those in Scott  County.  Lafayette and Martha moved to Texas 
> after the Civil War and two of their children died there and later, 
> Lafayette himself. Martha then returned with three of her four 
> children to Smith County and lived there till she died in 1881. Of the 
> three children who returned with her,  the daughter, Cynthia Ellen,  
> married one of the  Glissons, Welborn.   Will and Joshua Lack are 
> buried at  Fairmount but they had moved to a point between MIze and 
> Magee and both raised families there.  There, no doubt, they married 
> into the McAlpin and other families  in that area. Wendell once gave 
> me a list of  descendants. I must have it somewhere.
>
>>  Hesters were also related to them, and a homeless "Uncle Lum Hester" 
>> sometimes stayed with Lawrence. (Farrell claimed his "Uncle Lum" had been 
castrated by the black Leaf River Gang.)
>>
> Some of the Hesters are related to my Butler family.
>
>>    I found another man who confused Uncle Ehrman.  This was Capt W. 
>> A. McAlpine or MacAlpine.  He was prominent in Smith County in the 
>> early part of the Civil War and may have been killed or died.  We 
>> never identified any family for him nor any trace of him after the 
>> war.  But all the Beat Three McAlpins are related, and of course they 
>> now live all over.    The last time I talked to cousin Tom in Magee 
>> in Dec 2003, I asked him about a McAlpin name I had seen at Sharon 
>> Cemetery.  Tom said yes, he had seen that stone and had been told it 
>> was one of his distant cousins, but he had no idea how.  Then Tom 
>> added that there were two or three McAlpins in Magee that claimed to 
>> be Farrell's sons and hence his first cousins; however, Tom added he 
>> knew all the children of Farrell and Ethel (Burris) McAlpin and was 
>> sure they were his first cousins.  These others had some other mother 
>> or mothers he did not know.  It would take DNA testing to tell if 
>> they belonged to Farrell.    So in your McAlpin reaearch, if Farrell 
>> had these absences from customary morality, then there might be 
>> others farther afield.  With my regards, Granville.
>
>> I'm blacksheeting Art McAlpin with  this letter. I think  both of you 
> should consult  with each other about the McAlpins.  Both of you 
> already  know much more than I do about that family.  Art is going to 
> be very  interesting in your finding that John McAlpin lived in a 
> different location from his wife.  I sent Art a copy  of a Civil War 
> CSA Army unit  listing some McAlpins, but he never acknowleged  
> receipt.  Looked  like to  me that the elder McAlpin that Art was  
> referring to was too old to be serving in the military in the Civil 
> War.  I wonder if John McAlpin was a son of Elizabeth McAlpin instead 
> of a husband  -- that perhaps he never reached Mississippi.
>
> Harold
>>

I was not close kin to the Lacks, but the McAlpins were.  Lawrence
McAlpin was our land neighbor to the West, and Will Lack to the east,
Jim Meadows to the South, and Rufus Yelverton to the North.  We had a
quarter section, one mile east to west, and 1/4 milie north to south,
less two acres in the Northwest corner where Drummond McAlpin lived (I
forgot Drummond in the McAlpin listing.)
    Today, on the two acres where Drummond lived, the McAlpin Family
Association has developed a permanent picnic site, with running water
and cooking (barbeque) facilities where they barbeque whole goats for
the annual family reunion.  I saw nothing else like it in MS, but   it
may be something other families have.  A modern home sits on the old
Lawrence McAlpin site, and I assume a McAlpin descendant lives there
.The next family almost a half mile to  the south of this site is
Prentice Roberts, brother to Earle.
    I will now tell you a story I once heard some old folks discussing
(when I was not supposed to be listening.)  I was so young that I did
not dare ask questions about it, and it remains a mystery to me as to
whom the individuals were.  The names of the principals were McAlpin,
Lack, and Ainsworth, though technically, they might all be Ainsworth.
    It seems that about 18 years or so after the Civil War, two young
people fell in love, one a McAlpin and one a Lack.  They were almost the
same age, had grown up in the same community, and everyone wished them
well and helped plan their wedding.  Then, an old neighbor Ainsworth
invited them to meet with him because he wanted to discuss their
marriage.  Both had always known Mr. Ainsworth and wondered what he
wanted to tell them.
     When they met with Mr. Ainsworth, he was adamantly opposed to their
marriage.  They insisted they were old enough to get married and had
made their plans and were not going to change them.  With great
reluctance, Mr. Ainsworth then explained that it had to do with the
Civil War when all the men were away fighting.  Most of the men were
married but he was not.
    After he was wounded, he was sent home to recuperate, and while home
he talked to all the women about their husbands and how the husbands
were getting along in their unit.  Of course, the women were very lonely
and some were willing to be consoled.  He did his best to console them,
and two got pregnant.  They, the two young people about to be married,
were the children.  So, he said, you cannot get married, you are half
brother and sister, both my children.  The two young people looked at
each other with wonder.  What shall they do?
    Who knows about this?  Mr. Ainsworth said he and they were the only
ones.  Each mother knew about her child but not about the other neighbor
women's child.
Was there any possibility there were other fathers?  Of course, there
were old men and boys, but the young men husbands were all away.  The
young people considered their options and finally decided they would
marry anyway.  After all, they had never known each other as brother and
sister, and possibly Mr. Ainsworth overrated his capabilities and that
there were other fathers.
    So the young people married, had a normal healthy family, and
assumed Mr. Ainsworth was wrong.  Mr. Ainsworth was said to be the
culprit who in his old age had to tell the story.
    Well, in this day of DNA testing, it would be so simple to resolve
this problem.  But what would you have done as one of the young people?
And who was the couple?
I just do not know.  Granville.