George and Fannie Mae with their children when they were young. I don't have the identities in this photo except for Fannie Mae and George, at rear, and Pearl Grace, second from right, plus the two younger children in front, both still living (their photos were added later). In the photo at the end of the article below, the children are older and identified. This photo was made about 1925.
Some remarkable women
George
William Buttrum and Fannie Mae Carnes had nine children. Two of their
girls, Annie M. and Pearl Grace, married Hall brothers, Jim and Robert
Jasper. I knew Fannie Mae and some of their children, but I never met
George W. This information is taken from my mother’s records and the
census records. According to my mother, they were all born in
Adairsville, Bartow County, Georgia, except the two youngest, still
living, who were born in Floyd County.
1. Annie M. (Margaret?) Buttrum
was born 29 September 1912 but I do not know when she died. She was
married to James G. “Jim” Hall, who was born in 1902 in either Pickens
or Gordon County. I met Annie, who lived to be very old, but I don’t
remember ever meeting Jim. He is the older brother to Robert Jasper
Hall, my grandfather.
In
the 1930 census, Jim and Annie appear together for the first time in
the Lily Pond district. The household includes Jim (James) Hall and
Annie Buttrum, 17, plus John 7, a daughter 20 months, still living (the
script looks like 1-8/12), and a son who may still be living, 4
months(? The script is hard to read), Lee and Rachel Webb, and Robert
“H.” Hall, 25, my grandfather. Rachel is Bob Hall’s older sister.
Annie
and Jim had a son named Virgil, who was born in Plainville July 19,
1935. According to his obituary, he worked for the Bartow County
Sanitation Department and attended Towe’s Chapel Church of God. His
wife was Margaret Janell Roland Hall, who died 18 May 1988. They had
six children: Virgil, John J., Roy, Raymond, and Melvin, all deceased
as of the time of his death 1 November 2004, a son still living, and a
daughter still living, who married a Redd.
I knew a number of these Halls, including Virgil, Roy, and Melvin, and I met the living daughter who married a Redd.
As I remember it, Melvin and some of the others were “chicken catchers”
at one time, a tough and brutal job. They would go into chicken houses
at night and catch chickens, load them into the cages, and put them on
trucks for shipment to the processing plants. These were big, fat,
White Leghorn chickens, which meant they were heavy, although they were
relatively easy to catch because they were asleep. The catcher would
slide his hand under the chicken, get one leg between one of his or
fingers, and clamp on it, then turn the chicken upside down. The bad
part was that a good catcher caught eight chickens at a time, four in
each hand. The chickens, meanwhile, would sometimes peck and claw,
their claws could cut, and constantly grabbing the rough hide of a
chicken’s leg between their fingers gave the catchers these grotesque
callouses. Plus they worked from sundown to sunrise, in dusty, stinky
houses full of chickens and their droppings. Not something that looks
good on a resume.
I
remember Melvin being intense, but the one I remember most was Roy. His
wife was named Sadie, and they were quite a pair. As far as I know, Roy
never held a job because he was disabled in some way and as, a result
they were as poor as poor gets. They lived in a house on Mostellers
Mill Road just down from its intersection with Pleasant Valley Road, in
“Hallville.” The house was uninsulated; in fact, it had no interior
walls that I remember, except where cardboard had been nailed up to
cover the cracks. They heated the shack with a wood or coal stove, and
inside it was dim, smoky, and, in the winter, cold. Sadie was a
chain-smoker. They had several children whose names I don’t remember,
but what was most striking to me was Sadie. She looked like an old
woman, and was toothless by the time she was 30. She died just a few
years ago, according to my uncle Charles.
I
also remember selling one of the Halls, I think Roy’s son, a 1955 Ford
that I owned when I was a kid in the mid-60s. The next time I saw it,
which was in Roy and Sadie’s yard, the fenders, hood, and trunk lid had
been removed. They had made it into a jalopy. (By the way, I also
remember the remains of an old, old truck sitting in the pasture across
the road from their house in the 60s. It looked like it might have been
an A-Model Ford, but all that was left was the “bucket” shell around
where the seats go, some of the front end, and the rear frame. My uncle
said someone bought it).
I
also remember staying with Roy and Sadie one night when I was about
12-14-years-old. They were living in a house later occupied by Uncle
Joe Bunch, who married Mamie, below. The house sat on Mostellers Mill
Road north of Pleasant Valley. It was a cold night and I remember Roy
calling to me from the other room. He said I could come and sleep with
them if I was cold. I declined. I was too embarrassed to sleep in a bed
with other people.
There is a death certificate for a Roy Hall, 49, died 30 November 1983 in Bartow County.
Annie’s
oldest son was named John, born about 1923. Annie’s birthday was 29
September 1912, so if John is her son as the census says, she got
pregnant when she was 9! If he is not her child, who is he? Or is his
age simply listed wrong, which is not uncommon in the census records?
However, there are two death certificates in the records for John Halls
that suggest the age is correct:
•John
W. Hall, died 31 July 1981 at age 59 (born about 1922). He died in
Floyd County, but was a resident of Gordon. The death certificate no.
is 032333.
•John
J. Hall, died 26 Oct 1987 at age 65 (born about 1922). He died in
Bartow County, and was a resident of Bartow County. His death
certificate no. is 037948 .
2. Mamie F. Buttrum
was born 11 September 1913. She was known as “Aunt Mamie.” She married
Lewis Campbell, brother of Emozar Haywood Campbell. Emozar married Lula
Bell Hall, the sister of Bob Hall, my grandfather. Bob married Pearl
Grace Buttrum, Mamie's sister. Small world, huh? According to the 1930
census, Mamie and Lewis were married after 11 September 1913 because
Mamie’s age is listed as 16, and her age when she first married is also
16. Although family records do not give a hint, their two known
children, Lois L. Campbell, born 1922, and Robert J., born between 1923
and 1930 (the census is illegible, but may be 1924), must have been
from a previous marriage. Lewis was born in 1895, and his age at the
time of his first marriage is 24, which would have been 1920.
I
believe Robert J. is “Jack” Campbell, who died of a heatstroke from
water skiing on Lake Allatoona. I think it was in the 1970s. His wife
was named Mary. We visited them several times when I was a child. At
one point they lived south of Griffin, perhaps near Forsyth. Jack had a
collection of porno magazines which were pretty tame by today’s
standards, but very enlightening to me at the time.
I
wonder if Robert J. was Robert Jasper, and named for my grandfather?
Lewis and Mamie were living near him in 1830 on Trimble Hollow Road in
the Lily Pond District of Gordon County.
Mamie
took care of a grandchild, a girl who had a severe physical issues,
apparently genetic. I can remember her saying only one word, “papa-da”
(the da would trail off). She did not live to be very old I think.
I remember Aunt Mamie as a quiet sort. She was extremely patient with her grandchild. They lived near Calhoun for many years.
3. Pearl Grace Buttrum,
born 9 November 1914, and died 1 July 1947 at the age of 33. She is my
grandmother and wife of Robert Jasper Hall. For more on them, see "The Smith-Hall Nexus."
4. Rosa Lee Buttrum,
born 3 June 1916, and died about 2005. She married “Uncle” Joe Bunch 14
January 1930. They were married by Will Turner of Rome, in a double
wedding with Bob and Pearl, above, according to my aunt and they had at
least one child, a daughter, still living. Her name has been spelled
Rosalie and Rosa Lu in the census, but my aunt says it was Rosa Lee.
She
was one of the absolutely funniest people I have ever known, and a joy
to be around. At my mother’s funeral in 2003, when she was about 87
years old, there were these two incidents:
—My brother-in-law saw Rosa Lee sitting behind her walker in the Max
Brannon Funeral Home in Calhoun and said, “That’s a nice walker. I
think I’ll borrow it some time.”
She replied, with a twinkle in her eye, “If you do, you’ll need it.”
—In the Resaca Church of God, while waiting for the funeral service to
begin, I turned to Rosa Lee from the row in front of her because she
had on this cute white spring hat. “That’s a beautiful hat you’ve got
on Rosa Lee,” I said.
“Thank you,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll let you wear it some time.”
Then her daughter whispered in her ear, and she turned back to me.
“My daughter said I never let anyone wear my hats.”
“Well,” I said, “that’s probably not the first lie you’ve ever told.”
She broke up.
Her
husband, Uncle Joe, was, in his old age, a cute little man who always
wore overalls, and like his wife, had a great sense of humor. At one
point they lived in a little residential area behind the Calhoun Times
office, between the parkway that connects Sugar Valley Road to Red Bud
Road, and Highway 41. They lived in a little house across from where an
old friend of mine’s parents lived, on Gordon Street. I can still see
Uncle Joe standing on his little front porch in his blue overalls and
white, long-sleeve shirt, with a snow white beard nearly down to his
waist, and right down the middle of the beard, a yellow stain from
dipping snuff.
My uncle told me that one year Joe’s corn crop did not do well. Someone stopped by his house and commented on it.
“You’re corn is looking a little short and brown this year, ain’t it Joe?”
Joe replied, “That’s what I’m raising: short, brown corn.”
Of course, that’s an old vaudeville joke, but I have no doubt Joe might have used it.
For
many years, Joe and Rosa Lee lived in a house on Mosteller’s Mill Road
just a mile or two south of Dry Creek. The house sat in a small S-curve
on the left. My recollection is that other Halls lived in that house at
one time or another, also.
Once,
I helped my uncles Bud, Charles, and one still living load a cow into a
pickup truck. Bud had been keeping the cow in Joe’s pasture. Joe did
not have any cattle, so the pasture had grown up with weeds, especially
pokeberry plants near the barn. In order to get the truck backed up to
the barn stall, my still living uncle had to back up a small rise
filled with pokeberry bushes. Needless to say, the truck crushed them,
and they were so filled with juice the tires slid around. Joe watched
the truck for a while, then said:
“Don’t go messing up my poke salad patch.”
It was an expression of the same dry, subtle humor possessed by my grandfather.
5.
A living daughter, born 3 July 1918. She is still living as of 2007, in
Rome with her granddaughter and her husband, although she is in the
last stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.
6.
Elisha Wilson, born 20 July 1920. He was known as “Lissee [Lie-sea]”
and is listed as Lisee William in the 1930 census. I don’t know
anything else about him.
7. George Edward, born 8 May 1822. I don’t know anything else about him either.
8.
A living daughter, born 14 September 1924 in Rome. She is the source of much of my information on the Buttrums and Halls.
9. A son, still living, born 7 June 1926.
The Buttrums. This photo was made 1944-45. On the front row are George W. Buttrum and Fannie Mae Carnes. Second row: Pearl Grace, Annie, Rosa Lee, Mamie, and a child still living. Back row: a daughter and a son still living, and Lissee.
