Tennessee

June 25, 2010

We took a day trip from Pigeon Forge northwest along the Davy Crockett/Cumberland Gap Highway. This is beautiful country, to be sure, but not the purpose of our trip. Russell's maternal grandfather grew up in this region. Our biggest question: Why did he ever leave?

But he left along with his family in the early part of 1910's. Russell remembers him talking about being tired of the coal mines. Very understandable, but Crosbyton, TX? The 2 areas could not be more different. For those who don't automatically get a mental image of Crosbyton, think "Lubbock." We know that this is where he met the future Mrs. Ellison. We have discovered that he arrived prior to WWI, in which he served. But he took trips back to visit Tennessee, Betty, Russell's mom, remembers one trip with her and her brothers, I'm guessing in the 30's. He also talked about Speedwell, TN with his grandkids.

Anyway, we started exploring at the library of the county seat of Tazewell and then the courthouse. Russell found a registration for his great-granddad's purchase of land in 1899. We had the legal description of the property, metes and bounds, and the luck of being there at the same time as a local lawyer who knew where we could find the place. He also gave us the name of a current Speedwell Ellison, Billy Mack.

Off we went with lunch from the Frostee Freeze and a map. We tromped through a number of cemeteries and definitely located the property in question. We found a number of buried Ellison's, and one who was driving a tractor, Billy Mack! He directed us to another cemetery and the house of Franklin Russell.

Mr. Russell, a 77 year old widower, was most happy to visit with us and detected a strong family resemblance between himself and Russell. It seems that the Ausmus's intermarried with Russell's and Ellison's, creating the link. We had a wonderful visit and got a lot of information to boot. We talked about how very many Tennesseeans settled Texas to make it full of such good people. But Mr. Franklin had been in Texas enough to know that he doesn't ever want to live there, too hot!

We completely enjoyed our day in the back-country of NE Tennessee. You are looking at the Cumberland Plateau in the distance and winding through foothills that are green with trees and crops. We answered the original question, however. Only economic factors could have driven folks to leave all of this beauty.