I do not know much about John Coatland Webb.  This is somewhat surprising, given that there are numerous people alive today who remember him.  Hopefully, I will soon find the right person to talk to and I will wind up with some better material on him.

John Coatland was born on June 7, 1857 in Marion County, Alabama, somewhere around Pikeville.  He was the sixth child in a family with twelve children.  Billy and Nettie decided to name him after Nettie's brother, John Coatland Reich, who would have been about 17 at that time.  Nettie's brother John was better known as "Colt," but someone decided to call the newborn Webb "Joch," a nickname he kept for his entire life.  He spent his childhood around Pikeville, though the family had relatives spread out in Itawamba County, Mississippi, too (just across the state line).  Some of his brothers did not live past their fifth year, and two of them died before John reached his fifth birthday.

Some of his most formative years were spent during the Civil War.  He was four when the war broke out, and nine when it ended.  His father had not fought, it seems few of the Webbs did, but it surely affected the family.  Though two of his brothers had died young during the war, times weren't all bad.  Joch had twin sisters born to his parents in the spring of 1863.

Joch never knew his paternal grandfather, but he grew up next door to his father's mother, who had remarried a decade before he was born.  Mary Rebecca Paschall did not pass away until Joch was a teenager.  His mother's father, Benjamin Reich, lived to see Joch reach the age of six.  And Rebecca Reich lived to see her grandson reach the age of twenty.  The Reichs had continued to live in the Gum Community of Itawamba County, Mississippi, so we can imagine that there were numerous visits back to see Nettie's family across the state line.  The family seems to have remained close, though they were in different states.

At about the time Joch was born, Alexander Williams, Jr. and his family were moving from central Alabama over into Itawamba County.  In 1867, Alexander and his wife, Alley Chamblee Williams, had a baby girl, their last child, which they named (possibly after Alley, whose real name may have been Alice) Mary Alice Williams.  She grew up in the Gum Community near the Reich family.  It could have been during a trip back to see his grandparents that Joch and Alice first met, though he was a good ten years older than Alice.

In 1870, Joch's parents had moved back into Itawamba County.  The move may have occurred sometime after Mary Rebecca Paschall passed away, and Billy felt the need to move back closer to Nettie's family.  Billy and Nettie, in 1870, were living right next door to Alexander Williams.  By this time, Joch was 13 and Alice was 3.  At some point after 1870, something happened to Alice's parents.  They either died or left, but the younger children were taken care of by Alice's oldest sister, Minerva, who married Bill Roberts in 1874.

More than a decade later, on February 28, 1886, when Alice had reached the age of 19, the two were married.  The age difference was not nearly as noticeable by that time, though today a gap that large might still raise a few eyebrows!  I have always heard that Alice "was a tall old girl," so maybe that made it seem like she was a bit older ;-)

Billy and Nettie continued to live in Itawamba County with a number of their children, but shortly after their marriage, Joch and Alice moved west to Lee County.  Joch was a farmer by trade, but supposedly (according to grandson Elmer Webb) he had something to do with either the planning of the consolidation of the city of Tupelo or served in some public capacity.  One year to the day after their marriage, Alice gave birth to their first child, Wylie David Webb, better known as "Dee."  Dee was surely named for one of Joch's brothers, David Dee Webb.  In June of 1889, she gave birth again, this time to a girl whom they named Avie Irene Webb.  The name does not seem to have run in the family.  On March 25, 1891, Arch R. Webb was born.

It wasn't long before their next child was born.  On October 22, 1893, the couple had John Lowry Webb.  Then on September 30, 1898, they had Jesker Mae Webb.  Jesker Mae was better known to all her relatives as "Aunt Jett."  She outlived all other known grandchildren of Billy and Nettie, passing away at the age of 100 in 1999.  The last child of Joch and Alice was a girl born on October 17, 1902.  They named her Nettie Beatrice Webb, after her grandmother, who had passed away just over three years earlier.

Billy moved in with his youngest son, Moman, and stayed in Itawamba County till his death in 1907, just after Moman's.  In 1909, Joch's oldest daughter, Avie, was married to Lenzie Lee Garrett, and in 1911, Joch and Alice became grandparents.  He was 53 and she was 43.  They lived the rest of their lives in the Auburn community of Lee County, just one ridge over to the east from Tupelo, which was quickly becoming the largest town in the county.  The house they lived in near the end of their lives sits just off the side of the new highway 78 at its intersection with Auburn Road.  The house is a small brick building, with a porch and white trim, that sits on the southwestern side of the intersection, closest to the highway.  Their son John Lowry married Nevada Lyle in January of 1912 and Arch married Lenzie Garrett's sister, Francis, in December of that same year.

Their oldest son, Dee, married in October of 1913, though the family did not approve of his new bride, Delia Belle Parham.  Joch and Alice were devout Church of Christ members.  They were very opposed to Dee marrying Delia, whose family was seen by Joch and Alice as less than proper.  Sadly two parts of the family seems to have never been very close after this.  All of the boys, and all the girls' husbands, registered for the draft for World War I, but I have not found any service records for the sons, though they would have been the right age to serve.

Around 1919, Jesker Mae was married to Sid Gentry and the next year, Nettie was married to James Harrison Kingsley.  Nettie and James named one of their sons, John Copeland Kingsley after Joch.

The family had much bad luck in next decade.  In the mid 1920's, Joch's oldest son's general store, which sat just about two miles from Joch's house, on the old 78 highway, burned down.  Dee lost almost everything he and Delia had and the family suffered greatly.  Also, Avie's husband left and was never seen again.  In Joch and Alice's last years, they may have lived with their son Arch and his wife Frances.

On June 7, 1933, Joch was behind the house, at the clothesline when he suddenly collapsed.  He suffered a heart attack.  He was buried at the nearby Priceville Cemetery.  His marker says "J.C. Webb".

In early April, 1936, even more tragedy struck the family.  One of the worst tornadoes to ever hit medium sized town plowed through Tupelo and then straight into the Auburn community in the early morning hours.  Alice and the children all survived.  But Dee's mother-in-law was killed as well as many of their friends and relatives.  Dee went to 17 funerals in one day.  The tornado must have passed right beside Alice's house, but we do not know if it suffered any damage.

In 1938, at the age of 45, John Lowry Webb passed away.  Alice did not live much longer.  On March 29, 1940, Alice was also out behind the house when she suffered a heart attack.  She was 72 years old according to her death certificate.  The doctor had been visiting her and knew she was having problems, but had not expected such a quick attack.  She was buried beside Joch at Priceville a few days later.  Within a year, Arch died, and Dee didn't live much longer, passing away in 1946.

Joch and Alice's personalities remain a mystery to me.  They were both said to be very serious and dour people.  Alice was tall and very thin throughout her life.  The picture on this page seems to verify that.  It may have been that the tallness ran in her side of the family.  Avie was fairly tall and Dee was extremely so.  Joch was not that tall, but instead fairly short and stocky.  Arch took after him.  Alice supposedly dipped snuff (she never smoked though) and continually wore an apron.  Her Williams family was not that close since some of her sisters had moved away to Texas and her parents' disappearance was not talked about much.  Alice's own children never knew the names of her parents.  Aunt Jett tried to find them, but never had much luck.  I only happened upon them by accident in the census one day.  Jesker said that she had never met her maternal grandfather and had never even heard her mother mention his name.

Joch and Alice were very religious and remained so until their deaths.  They did not play or listen to music and only sang accapello.  But they remained close to their Webb relatives, who mostly stayed in Itawamba County.  And they were not without their moments of levity.  Elmer Webb remembers that his dad, Dee, used to put mice in Alice's apron when he was young in order to scare her.

I hope that I can find more information on Joch and Alice in the near future and can expand on this page.  If you know anything about them that you would be willing to share, please contact me!!

Wylie David "Dee" Webb (md. Delia Belle Parham)
     Dee lived in Lee County for most of his life.  He and Delia ran a store on Highway 78 until it burned.  He also farmed and hauled wood.  He had five children.

Avie Irene Webb (md. Lenzie Lee Garrett)
     Avie lived in and around Tupelo most of her life.  She married Lenzie Lee Garrett in 1909 and they had three children together.  She lived to be 71 years old, passing away in 1961.

Arch R. Webb (md. Frances Garrett)
     Arch was a farmer and later in his life a Bailiff.  He and Mary Frances married in 1912 and lived in the Auburn community their whole lives.  He died young from complications of diabetes in 1941 at the age of 49, but he and Mary Frances had two children.

John Lowry Webb (md. Nevada Lyle)
     John Lowry and Annie Nevada married in 1912.  They had six children together.  He died of kidney disease in 1938 at the age of 44.

Jesker Mae "Jett"Webb (md. Sid Gentry & William H. Dell)
     "Aunt Jett" was born in 1898 and had a long life.  She did not have any children, but lived to the age of 100, passing away in 1999.  

Nettie BeatriceWebb (md. James Harrison Kingsley)
     Nettie and James were married in 1920 and had eight children together.  He died in 1940 at age 41.  She raised the kids and then later remarried briefly.  She passed away in 1960.