My Grandmother, Lillie Lee Turner Edwards.

My mother, Gladys Mae Edwards Odum, was born October 14, 1927.  Her father, Lummie Edwards, died on December 11, 1928 of pneumonia at the age of 38.  She would have been 14 months old.  She remembered standing by the bed where he died.  I am sure she did stand by the bed wondering what was wrong with her Dada and why her Mama was so upset.  My grandma, Lillie Lee Turner Edwards, would have been 34 years old when her husband died.  She was a young woman with five children and no home.  Mama told me her father had been saving up to buy a house but never lived long enough.  Grandma never in her life owned a home.  She lived in someone else’s house for the rest of her life. 

Lillie and Gladys in Alabama

Lillie was born September 12, 1894 in Warren County, Tennessee to Alexander Turner (1868-1935) and Tabitha Hennessee Turner (1873-1899).  Sometime before 1892, the family moved from Tennessee to Alabama.  Lillie's older brother, James Arsey, was born in Alabama in 1892 and died in 1966.  Her baby sister, Farry, was born in 1899 and died in 1980.  Lillie's mother, Tabitha (called Tobithie) died at the age of 26 when Lillie was only 5 years old.  She probably died in childbirth when Farry was born although I don't know that for sure.  Given the gap between Lillie and Farry, one wonders if there were other pregnancies that did not end in a live birth.  There is no known grave for Tabitha.

Family lore, supported by census records, says that Alexe returned to Warren County, Tennessee and left Arsey, Lillie and baby, Farry, in the care of his parents, Bill and Susan Turner, while he grieved, worked and found a new mother for his children.  He is not found on the 1900 census.  This had to be an extremely difficult time for young Lillie.  She no longer had her mom or dad.

Alexe quickly remarried Martha Hobbs, who was 15 years younger than him, in October of 1900 in Giles County, Tennessee.  By 1910, he had collected Arsey, Lillie and Farry and returned to Alabama.  The 1910 census shows them living in Madison County, Alabama, along with Martha and his and Martha's five, young children.  The eldest is a girl named Tabitha after Lillie's mother.

Lillie, at the age of 20, married Lummie Edwards in December of 1914.  They have Jesse (1915-1985) within a year.  Their second son, Alex, named for her father died in infancy (1917-1918).  Lillie faced the grief of the loss of her own child perhaps as her mother had.  Vera comes next (1919-2011) and is followed by Louise (1922-2011).  Her next son is named James Walter (1924-1987) for her brother, James Arsey. Almost three years later, baby Gladys is born (1927-2012).  Life was good for Lummie and Lillie.  They had their young family and had worked hard to buy farm land.  Then Lummie died and Lillie's world changed drastically.

When Lummie died, Lillie's dad and brother as well as Lummie's sisters were also living in Gilbertsboro, Limestone County, Alabama.  They surely were able to help Lillie through this difficult transition.  In order to provide for her family, Lillie sold her farm land to her brother, Arsey.  She and her children became tenant cotton farmers living on someone else’s land.  They all had to work in the fields to provide a living especially with a depression going on.  Lillie never got the home that she and Lummie planned.

Jesse entered World War II in 1942.  Walter joined the next year.  Vera and Louise moved to Nashville, Tennessee in search of jobs.  Grandma Lillie and my mother, Gladys, moved from Alabama to Nashville in the early 1940s as well.   She and my mom lived in a duplex house at 1900 Patterson Street in Nashville when my dad came home from WWII in 1946.

In the 1950's, Grandma lived with Aunt Vera and Uncle Tommie Jackson at an orphanage where they worked.   Lillie needed to work there as well in order to be able to receive Social Security benefits.  We had many family gatherings at that large, two story house.

I remember her living with my Aunt Louise in Woodbine with my cousins, Gary and Danny, in the 1960's.  She had a small room in the back of the house.  I can remember playing with a little dancing woman figurine she had in her room.

When my Uncle Walter and Aunt Ruby moved to Hermitage, they set Grandma up in a small trailer in their backyard.  When they had to relocate due to Percy Priest Lake, she had her own apartment in the basement of their new house.   When Lillie's “hardening of the arteries” got to the point where she could no longer live without around the clock care she was moved to Trevecca Nursing Home where she lived until her death in 1981 at the age of 87. 

I remember my Grandma Edwards as a very quiet woman. Reading Aunt Ruby and Cousin Jami's book about Uncle Walter, confirmed that she indeed did not smile or laugh much.  I remember Grandma smiling but I don’t remember her ever playing with me like I play with my grandchildren.  My mother, Gladys, laughed easily and was a very social person as was Walter and the other siblings.  Did this quiet personality trait come from Grandm's Turner side of the family?  Was Lummie the outgoing, family cut-up?  Or did Grandma's hard life somehow steal her joy?

On Grandma’s tombstone, it says, “My trust is in God.”  For all the lost and tough times she endured, her trust had to be in God.  I regret now that I did not talk with her more about her life.  I guess I never realized how close you can be to a grandparent until I became one.  When my sister and I took a trip to Antioch Cemetery in Alabama and saw Lillie and Lummie's tombstones I was reminded that my grandmother and my grandfather were real people with loves and hurts living at a time not so very different from mine. 

New book "Walter J. Edwards: Wired for Life" published

A wonderful new book has been published about my double uncle, Walter Edwards.  The book is written by Walter's wife, Ruby Odum Edwards, and his daughter, Jami Edwards Hall.  Walter was my mother's brother.  Ruby was my father's sister.  Jami and I share all the same relatives.

Walter was a remarkable man.  I knew that but I had forgotten or never knew many of his more notable accomplishments.  I was only 19 when I married and moved away from home in 1971.  Unfortunately, Walter died in 1987 at the age of 62.  As an adult, I missed the opportunity of really getting to know Walter.  On my brief visits to Nashville, I was busy visiting my own parents.  This book filled in some of the years I missed due to the miles between us.

My 14 year old grandson is obsessed with sports heroes.  I explained Walter's personality to him as being part Bo Jackson and part Forrest Gump with a dose of Bill Gates thrown in for business acumen.  You just can't believe some of the things he did or attempted to do!  Maybe it was seeing his father die at such an early age leaving a young family behind to struggle that gave him that drive to succeed in everything he did.  Or maybe it was just the way he was wired.


The book has made to think about the Edwards family and how they were wired.  My mom, Walter's sister Gladys, could do anything.  No, really, she could.  One year for Mother's Day my church asked daughters to write something about their mothers to be published in a small pamphlet to be handed out to the congregation.  I wrote a piece entitled, "My Mother Can Do Anything."  I printed it out on fancy paper, framed it and gave it to my mother as a cheap Mother's Day gift that year.  I remember arriving at my parent's house one weekend to find my mother assembling a floor lamp from parts saved from other lamps.  She was in her early 70's and her hands trembled from Parkinson's Disease but that did not stop her from taking bits and pieces that did not work and making them into something that did work.  The silly, little framed gift is now a cherished memento.  My mother was also wired for life.

Gladys and Walter

I think I have inherited the Edward's curse.  I will attempt most anything and when crossed with the Odum's belief that you can do anything you set your mind to do, it produces a driven, type-A personality.  It was not until I had served on the board of directors for
the Donelson-Hermitage Chamber of Commerce for a number of years that I realized Uncle Walter had been one of the founding members of the Donelson Businessmen's Club.  I still serve on that board and feel proud that one of Walter's family is still committed to bettering our local community.

Walter had a great love of God, family and his fellow man.  That "soft" spot which I have as well tempers some of the hard-driving, sometimes overbearing personality traits.  So many times I have felt as though I was just on the cusp of some great success.  Some big sales deal or opportunity that will make me a "success."  I have to remind myself that true success is not in the amount of money in my checking account but how much I have deposited into the lives of others.  I think that was the way Uncle Walter was wired as well.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of "Wired for Life," send me a comment and I will pass your request along.

New association; new cousin

This year I decided I would expand my horizons and join a new club -- The Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society.  The January meeting was show and tell.  People showed items that had belonged to their ancestors and told the story of the item and its original owner.  I was new to the group and really didn't have any items from anyone beyond my parents to share so I waited until everyone had shared first.  One lady showed a very lovely, old teapot and a photography of her three times great grandmother who had owned it.  I was stunned when she said her great-grandmother's father was Sugars Turner from Madison County, Alabama.

Sugars Turner (1770-1836) is my four times great grandfather on my mother's side.  Sugars was a wealthy landowner in Alabama.  His son, William Henry Turner (1810-1867), was the much older brother to Harriett Turner who is my new cousin's relative.  William Henry Turner married into the well-to-do Webster family of Columbia, Tennessee.  His wife, Caroline (1813-1852), was the daughter of Jonathan Webster (1767-1845), a Revolutionary War veteran, who brought mules to Maury County.

My two times great-grandfather, William "Bill" Melton Turner (1844-1905), was William and Sarah's fifth child and his father's namesake.  His two older brothers had been named after their grandfathers.  Bill, who from his photograph appears to have a physical handicap, married Clarisa Campbell (1848-1927) and had my great-grandfather, Alexander Turner (1868-1935).

Bill Turner had moved the family from Madison County, Alabama to Warren County, Tennessee, where Alexander Turner married Tabitha Hennessee (1873-1899).  Tabitha makes me sad because she died when my grandmother, Lillie Turner (1894-1981), was only five and I can't find where she was buried.  The story goes that Alexander left Warren County after Tabitha's death leaving his three young children in the care of his father, Bill, while he sets out to find a new wife and mother for his children.  He marries Martha Hobbs in Giles County and brings her back to Warren County to reunites the family.  Their first child, a daughter, is named Tabitha.

By 1905, the family is living back in Madison County, Alabama.  At the age of 15, Lillie is living with her father, step-mother and siblings and is listed as a farm worker.  It seems like hard work for a young girl but there was only her father and older brother, Arsey, to help feed a large young family of mostly girls.  In 1914, at the age of 20, she marries the handsome Lummie Edwards (1891-1928).

Lillie and Lummie had five children to survive and one that only lived a year.  Their youngest, my mom, Gladys Edwards (1927-2012), was only 14 months old when Lummie died of pneumonia.  Lillie was no stranger to death and hard work.  She never got to live in a home she owned.  She never got to enjoy a life of luxury that her great-grandparents had known.

Lummie's parents

Lummie's father was George Allen Edwards.  He was called "Doc" although he was not a physician.  He was born in 1862 and died on September 6, 1952.  He is buried in Antioch cemetery in Limestone county, Alabama.

We would love additional information about Doc.

His wife was Fannie.  Her exact name is in question.  We are pretty sure her name was Sarah Frances Lillie Mae Fannie Radliff (Ratcliff) or Reed.  She was born on February 13, 1871 and died on June 13, 1939.  We know her father died and she had a step-father who we think was the Reed.

Any help with figuring out Fannie's real name would be greatly appreciated.

Mission to find out more about my grandfather, Lummie Lee Edwards (1891-1928)

Gladys Odum in 2008

My mother, Gladys Mae Edwards Odum (1927-2012), passed away over Thanksgiving.  At the funeral home, my Aunt Ruby grabbed me by the shoulders and said, "I have a project for you.  We are going to write a book about the Edwards."  OK, this may sound strange to most people but not to me and not to Aunt Ruby.

My Aunt Ruby is my double aunt.  She was my father's sister and her husband was my mother's brother.  Got that?  Most people look at me cross-eyed when I explain it but it was fairly common years ago.  Actually my parents' families were neighbors so when the sons came home from WWII they met and married each other's sister.  So, my mother was Gladys Edwards Odum and my aunt is Ruby Odum Edwards.

Gladys, Jim, Ruby, Walter

My Aunt Ruby has written two books about her life and her family, the Odums.  Since Aunt Ruby and I are in a writer's guild together, it just makes sense that we would team up to write about my mother's side of the family especially since Aunt Ruby is the only one left from that family.

The mission, if I choose to accept it (and I have), is to find out more about Lummie Lee Edwards, my mother's father.  He died when my mom was 15 months old so she never knew him.  She did grow up knowing his father, sisters and her cousins who lived in and around Elkmont, Limestone County, Alabama.

So, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to help me find information about my grandfather's life and family.  Here is what I know:

Lummie Edwards

Lummie was born 3/11/1891 in Elkmont, Alabama to George Allen (Doc) Edwards (1862-1952) and Sarah Frances Lillie Mae Fannie Ratlift (?) (1871-1939).  Lummie died 12/11/1928 of pneumonia at Lock Cross, Alabama and is buried in the Elkmont cemetary.

His sisters were:
Lizzie Belle Edwards Furline (1892-1959)
Susanna "Anner" Edwards Thomas (1898-)
Hattie L Edwards Swanner (1900-1984)
Gracie Mae Edwards Smith (1904-1975)
Mary Leona Edwards Groce (1907-2001)
Georgie Mae Edwards Andrews (1909-1973)
Lillian Edwards Jackson (1912-1989)

If your tree crosses with any of these dear people, leave a comment here.

We will tackle my mother's mother, Lillie Mae Turner Edwards (1894-1981), in a later blog.