Above is a picture of the old W. R. Watson home in the Hooker's Bend Community.  Pictured in front of the home is Jo Bain of Savannah, TN, the daughter of J. P. & Mary Bain.

Article from The Courier, Savannah, TN   No date given.

….home saw births, deaths of the family 

     Josephine Bain and her parents moved out of their old home place in Hooker’s Bend community 16 years ago.  “We had to move into Savannah for convenience-sake,”  she said.  “I was teaching school, and my parents were getting older, and so was my invalid sister.  It hurt me to leave it, and it still touches me when I see how I’ve let it go down.  It could have been kept up if I’d had the money and the time.” 

     Miss Bain said that in the fall of the year they moved to Savannah, her mother and father went back to the old home place for a picnic.  “They meant and wanted to go back more, but we just couldn’t.  Mother passed away the next year, and Daddy died in 1980.” 

     The Bain home place was actually her grandmother and grandfather’s home.  William Russell Watson and Josephine Ellen Kyle moved into the house in 1877.  Their daughter (Mary) was born in the house, and two decades later, when their daughter married Jim Bain in a buggy between Hooker’s Bend and Saltillo, they went home to the old home place to live.  Their daughters, Josephine and Blanche were born there, too. 

     Blanche’s twin sister died at birth in the east room.  Four of the children of (William) Russell and Josephine Watson died in the house, Grandpa and Grandma Watson died there, and Miss Bain’s Uncle Marvin died there also. 

     There are many things which make the house special to Miss Bain.  As she pointed to the back porch, she said, “One of the local doctors thought my sister Blanche might have tuberculosis when she was young, so they told my parents to build a sleeping porch, so she could get plenty of sun and fresh air, which they did.  This is where she slept.” 

     “When the house was first built, the kitchen was a separate building, outside,” said Miss Bain.  “Later an addition was built, and an inside kitchen was part of the extension.” 

     Again becoming nostalgic, Miss Bain said, “Even the flowers and trees around the home place bring back so many memories.  Mother had a green thumb, and always pinched off  cuttings from friends’ and neighbors’ flowers, to bring back home and set out.  See that big yucca tree, “ she pointed.  “It came from the Tennessee School for the Blind.  When Blanche graduated from the school, mother was admiring it on the campus, and the school director dug it up and gave it to her.” 

     “Mother and Daddy always raised a big vegetable garden, and daddy raised broom corn.  They were able to pay for my college room and board with the vegetables, both canned and fresh, and Daddy paid part of my college cost at Lambuth by selling brooms, made from the broom corn he raised, to the college.” 

     “You can see why it still touches me to come back home,” she said, with a trace of a smile.