Contributed
by:
Daniel
Gregory
©2003
Additions added 2007
"Here is a story my grandmother, Mamie Ruth (Summers) Gregory remembers as a child hearing from her grandfather, John Andrew Jackson Summers."
"Grandpa said he was born during the Civil War. His mother (Kizah Ann) had severe arthritis and was confined to a bed. When she gave birth to John she had been in the bed already for a period of eight years. Once during the Civil War, federal troops occupied their home. They didn't bother grandpa's mother, since she was ill and confined to her bed. Ann died when Grandpa was 12 years old. She was confined to her bed for 20 years.
Another fact is my grandmother told me that her grandpa had once had a very serious illness and was given opium for the pain. Opium was sold over the counter as aspirin at that time. He became addicted, with no one thinking it was drug abuse or any such notions, he quit in 1916. He and his wife had been Church of Christ members but in his old age John was converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses. It hurt his family deeply, still he truly believed and anxiously awaited his "Watchtower" magazine that the group periodically sent to its members. John died on March 27, 1944."
After the death of John, Laura married Tom Goodman whom she outlived. Laura lived two weeks after my marriage to my second husband Flavil Odell Gregory (my first husband Horace Covington had died from illness). Around that time I asked my grandmother, "Who will be your husband after the resurrection, Pap or Tom?" She immediately replied, "Who will be yours Horace or Flavil?" Whereupon I dropped the conversation!
A couple of stories about Mamie Ruth as a kid:
When she was little she and her siblings hung up thier stockings for Christmas. She recieved goodies so she hung it up again the night after Christmas - again she woke up to goodies. This continued for several days until her older brother, Mitchell, decided enough was enough and he filled the entire stocking with coal. She got up that morning and patiently removed each and every coal and when she removed the last one and saw that was it - she screamed to the very top of her lungs. She said she must have been around 3 years old as she didn't remember that but her family liked to recall that story.
On another occasion as a small child she was playing with her mother and they were pretending that her mom, Maybelle, was a baby and they were laying in bed. The ice cream truck come by and Mamie was given money to run out and buy a popsicle. When she got back her mom, Maybelle, said "baby would like a bite of popsickle, to which Mamie replied, "no popsickle will make baby sick!"
Mamie also recalled how hard times were in the Depression. Once her aunt gave her eggs so she could go to the store and get money for candy. She was excited and ran and stepped in a hole and fell which broke the eggs. She sat there and cried as that meant no candy - money was so hard to come by. Another time she had milk in a cracked pitcher which she accidentally dropped and broke losing the precious milk. She recalled her mom didn't whip her but she hated it so bad nonetheless. She also recalled how whenever her younger brother Eddy was whipped she would hide but he would always find her and just stand there wanting her to see the teardrops falling from his face.
Lastly, she recalled to me her going to her first funeral and burial. Wesley Rogers (1895-1934) was buried at Jake Link Cemetery. The people sang, "I am bound for the promised land". The body laid in it's coffin in a grove of cedar trees. People sang and viewed the body. She was six years old.
John Andrew Jackson Summers
My line of Summers' were poor. However, Pap was well educated for his time
and area and he could both read and write. People in the community would
often come to his house at night to hear him read to them. The old folks
say his house would be cram packed at such occasions. His wife Laura could
read in a way but certainly not fluent like Pap. She would read this way
' c-a-t/ cat'. I can well remember her reading her Bible in this manner.
Pap farmed a little but this was never his main line of making a living.
The job he did the longest was dig wells. He had a well machine and he would
hire out the well machine and operate it personally. I've heard all my life
that he and his machine dug the first well at the Fountain Head Sanitarium
around 1912. Story told by Mamie Ruth Summers Gregory.
Commodore SUMMERS (son of Isaiah Josiah SUMMERS and Catherine) b. 1823/1825 NC. Married 1st on 27 July 1842 in Sumner Co. TN to Keziah "Ann" BRILEY b. 1823. Married 2nd on 26 Feb 1880 in Sumner Co. TN to Susan HONEYCUTT b. 1848. Commodore is listed with his wife and children in the 1860 Sumner Co. TN Census records. In 1899 Commodore is listed on the pauper apporpiations (page 513, district 15).
Children of John Andrew Jackson SUMMERS (son of Commodore SUMMERS and Keziah Ann BRILEY) and Laura Florence BRILEY are:
1. Eldon Summers born in 1886 and died in 1957. He married Lee Mooneyham. He is buried in the Jake Link Cemetery in Sumner County, Tn.
2. Alice Summers born August 14, 1889. She died on November 20, 1967. She is buried in the Old Halltown Cemetery in Sumner County, Tn. Her first husband was Sam Arthur Biggs who was born on Oct. 24, 1876 and died on April 8, 1943. Her second husband was Sam Poole.
3. Johnny Abner Summers was born on April 2, 1891 and died on December 4, 1955. He married Rosie Lee Mooneyham who was born on April 19, 1901 and died ?.
4. Lucy Summers married Frank Osteen on 18 April 1915. They had their first child on Feb. 18, 1916 and a second one in June 1917. Lucy died on December 4, 1918.
5. Oscar Summers born 1892 and died in 1930. He never married. He is buried in an unmarked grave beside the marked grave of his brother, Jaby D. Summers, in the Jake Link Cemetery in Sumner County, Tn.
6. Jaby Denning Summers born August 10, 1898 and died on April 28, 1998. He married 1st to Maybelle Roberts on April 28, 1917 and second to Betty Draper.
7. Dewey Summers was born in 1902 and died in 1927. He lies in an unmarked grave in the Jake Link Cemetery in Sumner County, Tn.
Jaby Denning Summers (son of John Andrew Jackson SUMMERS and Laura Florence BRILEY) born August 10, 1898 and died on February 19, 1972. He married Maybelle Roberts (daughter of John Walter Roberts and Minnie Mae Hester) on April 28, 1917 in Sumner County, Tn. Maybelle was born on March 10, 1905 and died on November 10, 1987. Jaby and Maybelle divorced later in life. He went on to marry Betty Draper and she went on to marry Tom Street. Later Jaby and Maybelle both divorced their second spouses. The two remarried one another on May 6, 1967 and they were married until they died. Jaby and Maybelle are buried beside each other at the Jake Link Cemetery in Sumner County, Tn.
Children of Jaby Summers and Maybelle are:
1. Jaby Mitchell b. 12 Jan 1919, d. 19 Feb 1972. Buried at the Old Brush Cem in Sumner Co. TN.
2. Lena Belle b. 14 Feb 1921, d. 6 Feb. 1981. She had three husbands in her life time: Harris Lee Short (a native of Sumner Co. who died in WWII), Bill Shoop, and Rusty Land. Lena and her 3rd husband, Rusty Land, perished in a fire in Reno, Nevada.
3. Mamie Ruth b. 25 July 1928 in Sumner Co. TN. On May 4, 1946 she married Horace Wayne Covington. They had one son. Horace died of illness on Nov. 5, 1950. On June 2, 1951 Mamie married Flavil Odell Gregory who was born Nov. 28, 1919 and was the son of Wesley Odell Gregory and Maggie Harriett Dudney. Mamie and Flavil had two children.
4. Edward Joseph b. 7 Sept 1936. He moved to Phoneix, Arizona as an adult and he ran a fruit stand. He married Joyce Freeman. He died on Feb. 28, 1998.
John Logan SUMMERS [son of Jessie SUMMERS (son of Noah SUMMERS) and Elizabeth Betsy SUMMERS (daughter of Isaiah Josiah SUMMERS)] was born on 6 Feb 1863. He died 9 Nov 1943 in Sumner Co. TN. John married on 22 June 1884 in Sumner Co. TN to Louella BRILEY d. 23 June 1910 Sumner Co. TN. John Logan is buried at Briley Cemetery on the Leon Durrett farm in the Clearview Community, with his wife and parents.
John and Louella had four children:
1. Rob Summers
2. Gilbert Summers (died in his twenties).
3. Jessee Summers who married on 14 Dec 1919 to Lena Link (daughter of John Henry Link and Alice Jackson).
4. Earnest Summers born 1890, died 1960. He married 1st on 26 Apr 1915 to Cora Link (daughter of John Henry Link and Alice Jackson). Cora was born 26 May 1891. He married 2nd to Ona Walker. Earnest and Cora had two children: 1. Alice E. Summers b. 1817 who married 1st to Earl Gregory and 2nd to Jack Jacobs (one child Dean Jacobs). 2. Ruby Lucille Summers b. 1914, d. 1987, she married Onie E. Poole.
*(See photo
of John Andrew Jackson and Laura Briley
Summers.)
*(See photo of Mamie Ruth Summers
Gregory)
*(See photo of Clearview Class,
1944 - Mamie Ruth Summers Gregory.)
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