Fishing With Lou

A whole bunch of Hurst Boys

That's my grandfather, LJ Hurst, on the left.

September 1941

     In their younger years, my grandfather and his brothers were a pretty tightknit group and took lots of fishing trips together.  Here they are posing for the camera and showing off their day's catch. What makes this photo even better though is the one of my Great-Aunt Lou that was taken the same afternoon.  Maybe she was tired of hearing all of her brothers' fish tales or maybe she just wanted to offer her own unique tips on the best way to catch some fish.  Whatever the case, she clearly outdid all of her brothers.  Way to go Aunt Lou. 

Lou Hurst

Fish Whisperer

Letters from Home: January 30, 1945

Snowbunny

Norma Jean Hurst

January 1956

Moments before her mother chased her with a broom.

     Do you remember being fifteen and hearing one of your friends say something like "Hey guys, I've got the BEST idea!" I can almost guarantee that a conversation like that took place shortly before my mom and her friends took to the snow in their swimsuits and started taking pictures.  I adore this picture of my mother.   Of course the picture I would love to have is the one of my grandmother chasing them with a broom because they were outside IN THE SNOW in their swimsuits. 

     As an aside but somewhat related to this photo - my mother always complained (in the way that oldest daughters do) that my grandparents never let her get away with anything when she was a teenager while her youngest sister, Brenda, was allowed to do whatever she wanted.  But I'm looking at a picture of my mother in a swimsuit in the snow and it has me thinking . . . maybe my grandparents were more strict with her for a reason. 

Vengeance: A Dish Best Served Cold

Dicie and Richard Ross Malone, 1951

     Sometimes it's the things that are omitted from your family stories that are the most entertaining. In doing some family research on Ancestry.com, I found the marriage license for my great-grandfather,Richard Ross Malone and his second wife, Dicie Osborne.  They were married on May 27th, 1950. I know very little about his second wife.  My grandmother, Cleo, and her sister, Marie, rarely talked about her and when they did it was only to say things like "well, you know she burned Dad's house down." * It was almost like she didn't exist . . . which is why I think this photo is so funny. It belonged to Marie (I know this because her name is written on the back) and rather than just destroy the picture or scratch out Dicie's face or even cut her out with scissors, Marie very meticulously tore Dicie's image out of the photograph. This gives a lot of insight into who my Aunt Marie was as a person.  I loved her but she was . . . interesting.

The back of the photo has a note that reads "John Bowman home after some additions." I can only assume that the additions Marie referred to were on the house because that second wife, she was most definitely subtracted.

     The photo on the left was taken the same day. The note on the back  reads "Dad (Richard R Malone) & his horse, Mollie"  She writes down the name of the horse. She tears out the second wife. Very telling.

*That's a story for another day.

Dog People

Mary Williams Hurst & Brownie, about 1940

(January 12, 1887 -  February 1981)

     My great-grandmother, Mary Hurst, was definately a dog person.  I have several letters that she wrote to my grandfather while he was in the service and she never fails to mention her dog, Brownie.  I found this photo in a box of things that belonged to my great-uncle, H.C. Hurst.  It appears that I hail from a long line of dog people.  Woof.

Letters from Home: January 21st, 1945

L.J. Hurst was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium on January 1st, 1945.  His family didn't receive the telegram until January 20th, 1945 and even then it was delivered to Knoxville.  My grandmother was staying with her dad in Hickory Valley and didn't get the news until Sunday, January 21st.  It's hard to imagine a time when news took that long to travel - especially bad news.

What's in a Name?

Mary Brenda Gail & Cleo Hurst

The youngest of three daughters, my Aunt Brenda was born on January 18th. She arrived after WWII (making her a Baby Boomer) and was the only child my grandmother had in a hospital. The story about her name as I remember it is that my grandparents couldn't agree on a name for her. My grandmother wanted to name her Brenda Gail but my grandfather wanted to include the name Mary (because his mother's name was Mary). Not known for their ability to compromise, my grandparents agreed to disagree and named her (unofficially anyway)* both Mary Brenda and Brenda Gail or just Mary Brenda Gail, depending on who was telling the story.

*"Unofficially" because Gail isn't listed on her birth certificate. Wonder who filed that?  My grandfather, perhaps? 

June 20th, 1962

I have a slip of paper torn from a 1962 Farmer's Almanac calendar. The date June 20th is circled and the word "BURNED" is written . It's my grandmother's handwriting. I came across it when we were cleaning out her house and I put it in my keep pile. "BURNED" - I understood the significance. "Now you remember . . . " she would say, "you remember that my old homeplace in Hickory Valley burned." I've heard her voice so clearly in my head this week - telling me how she mourned the loss of that house and how losing it was like losing her mother all over again.

The week after Christmas was frigidly cold here in Tennessee. The temperatures hovered in the teens and twenties. More than once I thought of my grandmother's house and wondered about the water pipes - they have a tendency to freeze unless the water in the sinks is left dripping. I thought about the house standing empty and cold and I worried about the pipes. Silly really, considering the fact that the house had been sold and was going to be demolished to make way for a new elementary school. Sold and demolished . . . what did it matter about the pipes? Still, I worried. And so it was that I Googled "Hurst House Paulette Elementary" to see what progress, if any, had been made on the new school. What I found was devastating. Photo after photo of the house burning. Photos dated January 2nd, 2010 and posted on Facebook by the local volunteer fire department. The caption read "Controlled Burn at the old Hurst place." Controlled burn - words I can't make fit together, especially after seeing the photographs. This beautiful house that stood for over 120 years and provided a home and gathering place for my family for over 60 years was burned. My homeplace is gone and my grandparents are gone and I can't call my mother to help make it better. I am heartbroken.

Burned - January 2nd, 2010

January 1940

My grandfather, LJ Hurst.

That's Gran sledding on the shovel.

His youngest brother, HC Hurst, is wearing some interesting goggles.

Most of the older photographs I inherited from my grandmother show staged moments - family photos and group shots where everyone knew their picture was being made and behaved accordingly. But this photo, taken in January 1940, shows my grandfather laughing and having a great time playing in the snow with his brother. He was nineteen when this picture was made - nineteen.

Seining in Crooked Creek

My grandmother had a basket on her dining table where she kept her checkbook and bills and pictures of the great-grandchildren and lists of important numbers.  After she died this photo was found in the basket with a note attached that read:

"Take care of this picture.  It is the only one I have.  Take this beautiful picture and have 4 or 5 more taken from it.  Brother - Lawrence. Cousin - Elery. Sister - Marie on right of picture. Agnes Cleo - left of picture.  I guess I was about 3 1/2 years old.  This picture is important to me.  The only one I have when we were cute little girls. - Cleo"

The Substance of Remembering

Norma & Catherine Hurst

January 1945

My mother was our family historian. If you wanted to know if the person at the family gathering was your 2nd cousin or your first cousin once removed she was the one who could tell you. Long before the internet made it easy to research your family tree she was bitten by the geneology bug. Going through stacks of records in county courthouses, streaming through rolls of micrifiche at the library, traveling to cemeteries to photograph headstones and interviewing elderly relatives to obtain first hand accounts of what they remembered - it was hands on research that took years to compile. I was fortunate enough to spend many summer days tagging along with her. I want to continue what she began.