"1.  Margaret Ella McLester Leland, my great grandmother. (3/13/1850-11/21/1912)  Her father, Richard C. McLester (1815-1881) founded the McLester Hotel which stood on Greesboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa.  He also operated a farm in Northport.  Her brothers were M.D.'s and operated a clinic in Birmingham. Her mother, Mary Simonton McLester, gave a house to each of her three daughters.  Margaret Ella got a handsome two-story brick on Greensboro Avenue.  Daughter Joanna ("Jodie") received a white clapboard also on Greensboro.  She married John Robie Kennedy, a Civil War vetern and first cousin of my great grandfather on my mother's (Mabel Cornelia Kennedy) side, Hiram Kennedy.
The third daughter, Carrie Theresa, got the antebellum house

where all the children were born, including my grandfather.  It has since been torn down and the courthouse erected on the site.  Carrie married Edward Nicolas Cobb Snow. When my father was three his mother died of yellow fever, (1902) and he went to live with his grandmother, Margaret E.( Ella).  It's not known why he did not live with his maternal grandmother.  Dad described the house as having a complete stuffed deer in the front hall.  Later the deer was put in the front yard of Aunt Ella's (Ella Faulk?) home where it disintergrated rapidly!  The house had Dutch tiles around the opening and on the hearth of the fireplace. When Margaret Ella's husband died, at age 50, (7/17/1890) she was left with 19 year old Joseph and 11 year old Hume still at home.  Ella and Carrie were probably still at home; Aunt Ella married in 1905.  Margaret Ella ran the 1,000 acre farm; she sent Joseph to Tulane Medical School from which he received a degree in 1908.  My father was 12 when she died.

2.  Henry Hume Leland, my great uncle, (8/30/1877-9/15/1948) married Julia DuBois, (1880-1941) and they had four children: Henry, Jutes, Rebecca and John. My dad took me to see him at his office above the hardware store and he was very sweet to me.  When I was at the University of Alabama (1942-1946) he would bring a horse into town for me to ride and would give me $10 when I went to see him. His son Henry and Henry's wife, Catherine, nursed him after he had a stroke.  My Great Aunt Ella (No. 6 in the picture) insisted that the funeral home do his funeral for the $300 insurance policy he had. He left all his money to his son Henry.  To avoid hard feelings, Henry and Catherine gave $5,000 each to Jutes' son Bill Little, Rebecca's son Leland, and to Virginia, Henry's (Jr.) daughter by his first wife. My daddy lived with his Uncle Henry and Aunt Julia in Orlando after his grandmother died.   He was very close to this family; we visited them often.  He liked Henry and Rebecca best.  Dad went to Rollins College and dated the mayor's daughter. My grandfather (No. 3 in picture) lost his house in a poker game and Uncle Henry bought it from the winner.  This was the house the children grew up in.  Later, Aunt Julia turned it into apartments for income.  There was a three-room playhouse, with a front porch and French doors, in the side yard that I played in with Bill Little.  Next door was a four-plex that Henry and Catherine lived in while I was going to the University of Alabama.  Henry was in the "CB's" (Construction Batallion of the Navy.) and was gone part of the time.

3.  Richard McLester Leland, my grandfather, (1871-1954) was the oldest child.  He graduated from the U. of Ala., as did all the men.  My grandmother was sixteen when they married; she died at 21.  (Margaret Walters L.)  She attended Alabama Central Female College, Tuscaloosa.  Their second child, Henry Walters Leland, (Pete) died of yellow fever at 5 1/2 in 1906. Dad Leland, as I called my grandfather, married Lucy Martin soon after 1903.  They had sons Frank and Charles.  Frank went to New York City during the depression and lived with us.  He stayed and worked for the American Express Company, married Sylvia and had a son Frank Richard.  Uncle Frank was a favorite with dad and me.  His son lives in Indiana with seven sons.  Charles and his wife "Boots" lived in Birmingham and had Lucy and Charles.  We didn't see much of them.  As a young man  Dad Leland went to Nashville to live with his aunt, Mary Leland Hume, and her husband William Hume.  He earned $50 a month; paid $25 a month for a horse and buggy and $25 for two seats at the opera house!

4.  Great Uncle William Archibald Leland III, (1873-1933)  Uncle Archie, the second son, married Aunt Myrtle Griffin.  Their son, W.A.L.IV (1897-1937) was killed in an automobile accident.  My dad was close to Uncle & Cousin Archie.

 

5.  Great Aunt Carrie  (1879-1932) went to New York as a career woman.  Married Martin W. Jones around 1915.  They were very helpful and generous to us.  He sold insurance for Metropolitan Life and belonged to the Union League Club, a very important men's social club.  His brother in law was a doctor in Glen Ridge, N.J.  His friend operated on my mother for arthritis of the hip.  They gave me a doll house; kept clothes for me at their apartment for me to wear when we went out to dinner with them.  Also a doll and a trunk of clothes for it.  ( I still have the doll house and the trunk. )  We had Christmas Eve with them from 1929 until at least 1935.  I always got everything on my "list."

6.  Great Aunt Ella Margaret, (1875-1962) was closest relative on my dad's side.  She married Dr. William Mark Faulk, and had Wm. M. Jr. (1905-1907) Margaret Ella, (1907-1940) and Carrie (1908-1915).  Margaret was dad's favorite cousin.  She had cancer.  She was a librarian at the University of Alabama and went to Columbia for an advanced degree.  Vic and I saw the stone that had been placed at the base of a dogwood tree planted in her honor by the university library.  Aunt Ella and Margaret visited us in New York, and we visited her at Johns-Hopkins in Baltimore when she had her breast removed.  Aunt Ella was the only one in the family that everyone loved.  She never criticized anyone, got along with all the in-laws and had loads of friends from college age up.  She was a fabulous cook.  We stayed at her house when we visited from New York.  During my years in college I spent part of every Sunday with her and Dr. Faulk. She had a beautiful house and a yard full of flowers.  Aunt Ella and my Grandmother Kennedy were my role models of what a women should be.  She was a great listener.
 
 

7.  Great Uncle Joseph, (1881-1948)  after graduating from Tulane Medical School, married Margaret Patton and went to graduate school in surgery at University of Breslau, Breslau, Germany, until the start of WW I.  (This is now part of Poland.)  His daughter Margaret was born there in 1914.  He delivered me and got quite upset with my mother because she took me to a pediatrician, and because my parents named me Margaret!  I was in high school in Birmingham with his sons, Joseph and Robert.  I knew who they were because Joe was president of the senior class, but they didn't know me; apparently our parents didn't want us to visit.  I got to know Joe in college when he came back to U. of Ala. after WW II.  I introduced myself at the Episcopal church one Sunday.  I fixed him up with an A D Pi; he fell for her but she not for him.  He enjoyed our friendship.  Margaret made her debut in Birmingham in the 1930's and married James L. Pugh, son of my mother's first cousin.  Uncle Joe lived on Red Mountain, Birmingham.  When he went bankrupt the Highland Methodist church at Five Points bought his house for their parsonage.  The father of my friend Louise Franklin, was the first pastor to live there.

Great Uncle Hume,  (1889-1929)  is not in this picture.  He married Ruth Little in New York City.  He killed himself because of the 1929 stock market crash.  It was right before we moved to New York.  He had no children.

8.  William Archibald Leland, Jr., my great grandfather, (1846-1900) was the second son of Wm. A. Leland.  The older brother, Capt. John D. Leland went to Jefferson, Texas, after the Civil War and left the family plantation with William Archibald.  The plantation was off of Foster's Ferry Road, west of Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior River.  ( My husband Vic, my brother Rick and I were taken to the site of the farm by cousin Hank.)  He married Margaret Ella McLester in 1870 and they had eight children, the youngest of which died at 18 months.  Wm. A. Jr.'s father (1811-1878) was born in Northumberland County, Virginia.  He got his M.D. degree in 1843 from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa.  (Now Thomas Jefferson University.)  He moved to Tuscaloosa in 1833 and was married to Margaret Warren Ish of Loudon County, Va., in 1837, by a Baptist minister.  Margaret had come to Tuscaloosa to visit her relative, Dr. John Drish.  Dr. Drish had moved to Tuscaloosa from Virginia and built his house in 1830.(see legends)  The house is now the Southside Baptist Church, near the train station on 17th Street between Greensboro and Queen City Avenues.  The house was supposed to have a tunnel to the railroad track to help slaves run away.  Dr. Wm A. and Margaret had eleven children; four died in infancy.  They joined the Roman Catholic Church around 1853.  Dr. Wm A. died an Episcopalian and Margaret a Presbyterian.  She went to live with her daughter Mary L. Hume and her husband William, who was a Presbyterian."