[Granville-Hough] 18 Feb 2010 - Membership Directory

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

The directory mentioned is here:

http://granville-hough.oakapple.net/2010-smith-county-genealogy-directory.pdf



Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:12:23 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: [Fwd: Re: Membership Directory] 18 Feb 2010

When I do not have an immediate story, something comes into my recall.  
Yesterday I received a cover for the Smith County Genealogical Society.  
It brings forth many memories for I have visited the place several 
times.  It is a picture of an old piney woods home on upper Cohay 
Creek.  It is typical of the old homes built about 1865-75.  The picture 
was taken in the 1930 decade  when the old house was falling apart.  But 
here a few thoughts about it.
    In the 1900 era, this was the home of Sampson and Nancy (Bowen) 
Arender, my maternal great grand-parents.  My grandmother, Mary Alouthea 
(Arender) Richardson, was the oldest daughter of 14 children.  I have 
been told there was no doctor at any birth.  GGrandma Arender was a 
formidable woman, weighing about 250 pounds most of her adult life.  She 
had a sharp mind and learned to read and write.  Grandpa Arender was a 
scrawney but scrappy Civil War veteran who depended on Nancy to read the 
Smith County Reformer and keep him up to date.
    About 1890-1900, the old house was a center of activity because it 
was the Smith County Pauper's home.  GGrandma Arender got the contract 
for supported those unfortunate people who became destitute
with no family. There were black ex-slaves and piney woods workers, and 
any others who simply reached their terminal days in Smith County.  
GGrandma Arender had a rows of small log cabins built for one or two 
persons each, and she and they all had well-water and a rough diet of 
whatever they could grow in gardens and fields.   Sanitation, I never 
heard mentioned.  When the paupers died, they were buried somewhere, I 
suspect nearby, in unmarked graves.  So, the old house on the cover has 
a history. GGrandpa Arender died there, and GGrandma Arender moved to 
live with her children..  The cabins were moved away to other places to 
become cotton houses or storage sheds, or were burned for firewood. 
    By the time I was old enough to visit, my great grand-parents had 
long since died, and various relatives lived in the old home.  In the 
picture on the cover, there was actually a person standing in the 
doorway, Cousin Lydda Baldwin.  I may have the wrong home, but I think 
it was this house where I last saw my cousin Spurgeon Baldwin driving 
around on his sled with his trusted mule doing his farm work.  He was a 
lifelong cripple whose life was itself as unusual as the old house.  
Happy memories to all, Grampa Hough.