Submitted by Jan
J. Barnes
Found among the papers of Marie Durrett Johnson
© 2004
STATEMENT BY Cora McMurtry Durrett June 1971
My name is Cora McMurtry Durrett. I am the widow of Leslie Davis Durrett, who was born on November 1, 1889. and died October 31, 1967. We were married on November 24, 1915.
I have been acquainted with the members of my husband's family. He had four brothers and a sister who grew up and married and had children, besides three brothers who died in infancy. His eldest brother was Ernest Lee Durrett, born May 9, 1871, died August 23, 1922, who was married on November 6, 1895, to Leila West, born June 17, 1877, died August 31, 1935. Four of their eight children lived to maturity: (1) John Francis Durrett, born August 29, 1901, died May 1, 1968, married twice and had five children: (2) Clara Durrett, born August 9, 1904, married twice, no children; (3) William Dawson Durrett, born May 24, 1906, married Mabel Benson and had five children; (4) Marguerite Durrett, born January 13, 1909, married October 22 1927, to Henry V. Aldrich, born May, 1896, died November 21, 1968* (see notation below), no children.
My husband's only sister, Annie Durrett, born March 1, 1879, died on July 10,1960, was married on April 19, 1903, to William K. Blackard. It was Annie Durrett Blackard who was most interested in the Durrett family history, and I am informed that an affidavit made by her in Tampa, Florida is on file with the DAR.
I knew my husband's father, Francis Edmun Durrett, born February 28, 1841, died January 25, 1917. His wife, the mother of all his children was his first cousin, Ann Elizabeth Madeline Ackerman, born February 15, 1848, died September 11, 1895. My husband was only five years old when he lost his mother, and I never knew her, but my husband remembered her. He also faintly remembered his paternal grandfather, William Dawson Moore Durrett. His maternal grandmother, Lucy Durrett Ackerman, lived in the home where my husband grew up, and he was aware that she was the sister of William Dawson Moore Durrett. He also recalled that the father of William Dawson Moore Durrett and Lucy Durrett Ackerman was named Francis Durrett, as it was known that Francis Edmun Durrett was named for his grandfather.
I am very familiar with the Durrett family cemetery, near Cross Plains, Tennessee. Ernest Lee Durrett was the last one to be buried there in 1922. His father and mother, Francis Edmun Durrett and Elizabeth Ackerman Durrett, are buried there. Three of his grandparents - William Dawson Moore Durrett, Nancy Turpin Durrett, and Lucy Durrett Ackerman - are buried there. His great-grandfather, Francis Durrett, who moved the family from Virginia to Tennessee, is also buried there on what was part of his home place, but the grave is marked only by a boulder; however, the grave was identified as that of Francis Durrett by his daughter Lucy Durrett Ackerman who pointed it out to her granddaughter Annie Durrett Blackard, who has often shown it to me. The cemetery is in a field, at the edge of a woods, with no road leading directly to it. A metal fence was placed around the cemetery in 1924, and members of the family have gone there together almost every year to clear off the cemetery and straighten up the fence. The inscriptions on the stones are still legible.
This statement was made at the request of my niece Marguarite Durrett Aldrich.
*Note from submitter: Marguarite Durrett Aldrich married Thomas McDaniel in 1973. The death date in this article refers to Henry V. Aldrich, who died in New Zealand in 1968. See the Ackerman Bible records for a summary of the life of Marguarite Durrett Aldrich McDaniel.
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