[Granville-Hough] 17 Jun 2009 - Maxine Richardson Watts

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:40:54 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Maxine - 17 June 2009

Congratulations to first cousin Maxine (Richardson) Watts on this day, 
her ninetieth birthday. May she live to 100 as did her mother! Unless 
Uncle Sid's Richardson's daughter, Gladys (Richardson) Reed is still 
alive, Maxine is the oldest surviving grandchild of James and Mary 
(Arender) Richardson.

Maxine (Richardson) Watts. I have referred several times to co-author 
Maxine Watts of Poplarville, MS, life-long chronicler of the Thomas 
Sullivan family of SullivanÆs Hollow and Smith County, MS. She is my 
first cousin, and she grew up in the next community to the one where the 
Hough family lived. We were in Concord Baptist Church Community, and she 
in the New Sardis Baptist Church Community of Smith County. It was about 
three or four miles between our homes. She was slightly older and 
graduated from high school before I graduated from grade school. We knew 
many of the same people and heard versions of the same stories. As you 
may have noted, I corrected stories on Thomas Sullivan and Wild Bill 
Sullivan based on her information. The account of the WWII decoration of 
our cousin, Staff Sergeant Wiley J. Ingram, was from her files. With her 
permission, I will incorporate other of her stories. Here is her 
introduction:

ôMy parents were Luke and Joan (Sullivan) Richardson. My maternal 
grandparents were Joseph, Jr and Leah Margaret Sullivan. My 
great-grandparents were Joseph, Sr and Harriet (Wilson) Sullivan and 
Frederick and Joanah Louisa (Spell) Sullivan. Joseph Sullivan, Sr and 
Frederick Sullivan were half brothers and sons of Thomas Sullivan, Sr, 
the original Sullivan settler. This would make Joseph Sullivan, Jr, and 
Leah Margaret Sullivan half first cousins.
æI was born (17 June 1919) and reared on a farm about 150 yards from the 
home of my grandparents, Joseph, Jr and Leah Margaret Sullivan, about 
three miles from the original Thomas Sullivan home. As the term 
ôSullivanÆs Hollowö is customarily used, the site of my birthplace would 
be considered within the Sullivan Hollow area. One half mile down the 
road from where I lived is a house which was the original home of Joseph 
Sullivan, Sr, the 7th child of Thomas Sullivan, Sr. Joseph Sullivan, Sr 
and his wife Harriet (Wilson) built this house of logs, and later the 
logs were covered with boards. (GWH: The carpenter who specialized in 
doing this work in the SullivanÆs Hollow was Aaron Miller, brother of my 
grandmother, Nora (Miller) Hough. There is a special name for this 
covering the logs so you had a smooth wall, which I have forgotten. Aunt 
Joan could recall when he did the work.) After they (Joseph Sr and 
Harriet) died, their 10th child, Jefferson Davis, lived there and reared 
10 children. The house still stands and no one but Sullivans have 
occupied the building. Across the branch about a mile away, lived other 
relatives, the family of Thomas Sullivan, Sr, and across another branch 
about a mile away lived another branch lived Jack Sullivan, a son of 
Joseph Sullivan, Sr. Then up the road about ­ mile lived Joseph 
Frederick ôFredö Sullivan, son of Joseph Sullivan, Jr. I was surrounded 
by Sullivans from the time I was born until I was 18 years of age. Since 
that time I have returned to that area several times a year.Æ (GWH: 
Nathan C. West and wife Celia Ann (Sullivan), sister to Joseph, Jr, 
Jeff, and Jack, were about a mile away but within hearing distance 
before the timber was cut, according to Aunt Joan. She could hear the 
West family singing each evening after they stopped work and had home 
vesper service.)
æDuring my early years ôChildren were to be seen and not heard.ö That 
being the case, I sat around and listened to all the stories and 
conversations that took place, and there was quite a bit to hear.Æ
æIt is difficult to get official information regarding the many stories 
of SullivanÆs Hollow. Church records were destroyed or burned, and no 
vital statistics were recorded before 1912. The Courthouse at Raleigh, 
which was the county seat of Smith County, (should have) contained 
whatever meager information there might have been. However, it 
mysteriously burned (three times) the last time in 1907. Thus, one is 
dependent largely upon hearsay and the stories as handed from parent to 
child. I feel that my connections are as close and valid as one can get 
to the early days of SullivanÆs Hollow. It is from this background that 
I relate the stories.ö

(GWH: When Maxine speaks of someone living across the branch, she is 
speaking of living on the ridge dividing the drainage basins of Okatomy 
Creek and Ocahay Creek. Only small branches of water flowed from this 
ridge, either easterly or westerly. From some point south of where 
Maxine was born all the way over the railway Ware Cut through Grandpa 
RichardsonÆs farm then Henderson SullivanÆs farm up to Pine Grove 
Baptist Church in Simpson County is this continuous higher land. My 
brother Clifford Hough pointed out you could drive almost 15 miles and 
not cross running water. For people truly born closer to SullivanÆs 
Hollow, this was called Christian Ridge because of the three churches, 
New Sardis, Concord, and Pine Grove. They might speak down about the 
Sullivans of Christian Ridge.
One thing I noticed when Fred Sullivan, MaxineÆs uncle, visited our 
church or when we visited New Sardis. He and my mother always stopped 
and talked and addressed each other as Fred and Lizzie. I once asked her 
about it and she said: ôOh, Fred and I went together some before Lisha 
and I married, and he was a very nice young man. But he was never very 
bold.ö And I was not bold enough to ask just what that meant.)