Lute, I Am Your Father

Luther John "Lute" Hurst and his wife, Syntha

My great great grandparents

      Forgive me for the title but sometimes these things just write themselves.  Luther John Hurst, known as Lute, was born in 1843 in a part of Claiborne County that would soon be incorporated into Union County in East Tennessee. He was seventeen years old when Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861.  Like many of his fellow East Tennesseans, Lute was conflicted about which side to join during the war.  His father, Squire Caldwell Hurst, was a Union sympathizer and his uncle, Allen Hurst, became a Major in the Confederacy and he had cousins who fought on either side.  According to family lore, rather than choose a side to fight for or against he hid out for the duration of the war, something that probably wasn't all that easy to do in a region overrun with both Union and Confederate troops.

     In 1870 he married Syntha Ann Lay and they had two children, Harietta Tennessee (b. 1873) and Attie Hugh (b. 1875).  Attie Hugh is my great-grandfather.  Lute and Syntha's daughter, who apparently went by the name Tennessee, married Brown Troxler.  I can remember hearing my mother talk about her when I was little and thinking that "Tennessee Troxler" was just the most wonderful name - like a storybook character.  Even now I love the name because there is such a lyrical rhythm to it - Tennessee Troxler. I wonder if her father's conflicted feelings about his Union or Confederate loyalties had anything to do with choosing her name?  Tennessee Troxler died in 1975 at the ripe old age of 102.  I'll bet she had some interesting stories to tell.