Ursula married William Maldree Atkinson on 3 Aug 1853 in Greensboro, Green County, Georgia. William (son of James Atkinson and Reecca Hart) was born on 3 Feb 1817 in Green County, Georgia; died on 5 Oct 1863 in Newton, Dale County, Alabama. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Alexander Clayton Fields. Alexander (son of Alexander Bartholomew Fields and Sinai Matthews) was born on 9 Feb 1851 in Ozark, Dale County, Alabama; died on 1 Oct 1937 in Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

SSN 424-24-2258

THE LAMMON TREE.

B&D-Hartford Cemetery inscriptions by correspondence from
Jane Linton, P.O. Box 218, Gordon, Alabama, 36343. (1995).

Among pictures and other clippings lent to me by Alyce and Sara Marlow was the following poem, typewritten
-- Elmer Burns Lammon:

Uncle Joe's gone now
And the South Forty ain't kept.
There's a bunch of pine straw on the roof,
And the yards ain't swept.
There's some bent nails need fixin',
And that old swing kinda needs him too.
Some straw to burn in the sewer,
And his walking stick that's anything but new.
We never went to his house
That he didn't say, "Y'all just consider this home."
We'd sit and talk about the "Cubians",
Then he'd be up and gone;
I guess checking on the south Forty,
Or the new road they built near the house.
Then he'd come back in real easy.
He could be quiet as any mouse.
He had some funny eating habits,
And Mama would get mighty mad
To uncover the leftovers on the table
And see a spoon of pie he'd had.
"My Eyes", he'd say, "ain't what they usta be,
I can hardly see from one line to the other,"
Then held take up the Montgomery Advertiser
And read it from cover to cover.
There's some pecans out there on the ground
That wouldn't be there if he were here, no doubt.
He loved his pecans and their trees.
And too-he loved his oak trees dear.
We were on the front porch talking,
And he pointed out a large oak across the way
He told me how and when he'd planted it
The month- the year -the day.
Uncle Joe stayed on for a long time,
And he seemed always easy-never with force.
Then that day came, like it will,
And he had to go ride his "Old Black Horse".
And that was just about the way Uncle Joe was
And he wouldn't have changed for anything,
He just had his ways-and in that way, no doubt,
He was as happy as any king.
I could go on and on with this
And tons of words could never say,
All there is to tell about Uncle Joe.
So in closing, if you will, let us pray:
Dear God, please take Uncle Joe
And his ways some people don't understand.
Lead him easy, and he'll go with you,
By your gentle, mighty hand.
He'll work as hard as anyone,
No matter what there is to do.
He always seemed to like to work
And we're sure he'll work for you.
He'll be real glad to see his Carol and Beatrice,
And others there that we don't know.
Please take good care of him, dear God
He was our only Uncle Joe.

-- Edward L. Atkinson

Joseph married Carol Anne Lammon on 16 Nov 1902 in Geneva County, Alabama. Carol (daughter of James Daniel Lammon and Mary Jane Barnes) was born on 13 Aug 1880 in Alabama; died on 23 Feb 1957 in Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama; was buried in Hartford City Cemetery, Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

THE LAMMON TREE by Avis Lammon Atkinson

B-1900 Alabama Soundex.

Alice married Edward Barnes Lammon in 1895 in Fields Home, Alabama. Edward (son of James Daniel Lammon and Mary Jane Barnes) was born on 2 Feb 1872 in Barnes Cross Roads, Dale County, Alabama; died on 3 Nov 1925 in Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama; was buried in Hartford City Cemetery, Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Sinai married Jacob Omar Barnes on 5 Jun 1918. Jacob (son of Jacob Barnes and Caledonia D Ard) was born on 17 Jul 1891 in Ozark, Dale County, Alabama; died on 20 Oct 1964 in Ozark, Dale County, Alabama; was buried in Westville Cemetery, Ozark, Dale . [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Cornelius married Cynthia Eulena Childs in 1909. Cynthia was born on 16 Mar 1883 in Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

General Notes: B-1900 Alabama Soundex Info from Jane Atkinson Linton, 10 Jowers Rd., Gordon, Alabama 36343.

The following is an excerpt from "Some of My Memories", Clyde Johnson, 1996.
"In 1915, while attending a camp meeting in Dothan, Alabama (a town approximately 100 miles southeast of Evergreen) Dad met Sadie Lammon. After a courtship (the details of which I know little) of about one year they were married March 14, 1916. Rev. O. B. Justice performed the ceremony. After a brief honeymoon, they visited my maternal grandmother and me. Until that visit, my stepmother had never seen me and I can remember, vaguely, going to her and into her arms. I remember crying when they made ready to leave. It was not their intention to take me from my grandmother at that time, but Sadie, for whatever reason, decided she would take me immediately. What a responsibility for my stepmother. What a change in the life of my grandmother who had cared for me for three years plus What a change for my father. I can't know the change in my life. But surely the four of us carried the effects of that day all of our lives.?

Daughter Rachel Johnson Rigby provided the following note. It was a handwritten note of unknown date by her mother, Sadie. __(Elmer Burns Lammon)
"My Grandy L [Grandfather James Lammon] owned lot of land in Hartford - given - Grist mill and variety shop - and his children lived around him. He had large 2-story house across the street from where we lived. Where Avis lives now [700 W. Main St. - EBL. per Jane Atkinson] with porch all around house and decorative banister at top of porch and also at floor - made in their variety shop - " Sadie Lammon Johnson

The following note contributed by granddaughter Rebekah Rigby:
Herbert & Sadie
My "Pa Johnson" (Charles Herbert Johnson) and "Ma Johnson" (Sadie Lammon Johnson) were wonderful grandparents. How could a kid ever ask for any better? Whenever we went to Andalusia to visit we usually left after school and would make it there before Pa Johnson would close his shoe shop. The moment we drove up, we became the most important "customer" that there was. Pa Johnson would come out to the car, if he beat us, because we were usually scrambling to get out and get in that wonderful world of shoe repair. To this day when I go into a shoe shop the smell brings back so many great memories and I can close my eyes and see my Pa Johnson.

He would save his wooden thread spools and make us little wagons that would be pulled by a clothes-hanger and consisted of 4 wooden spools for wheels. We were on cloud nine and knew that we were so special and so important. Pa Johnson would always come home at noon for a big meal and then take an hour-long nap and
then go back to work.

When he came home for the evening, we would all sit in the living room and play games. We would play Chinese checkers mostly because that was his favorite game. He would sit in his chair and read until it was time to go to bed and then Ma Johnson would bring out the Bible and read and then we would pray, not just "now I lay me down to sleep," but we prayed and God heard and answered our prayers.

Ma Johnson would be just as happy to see us. She would always have something extra special for us. When we got there in the evenings we would have cereal at night or sandwiches and a glass of milk. Ma Johnson was never old to me. She was always full of life and always tried to plan a great time for us. At noon she would have cooked a great big meal and we would all sit down to eat when Pa Johnson came home.

We would start the prayer and sometimes during the prayer or right after we would hear the train whistle and Ma Johnson would grab the youngest and the rest of us grandkids would scurry off behind her going to wave to the train. She would just stop at the porch but we would run all the way to the track and wave the whole time the train passed by, until the caboose came by. Then we would all turn and go back to our meal that was waiting for us. Every time I hear a train whistle I think of her. After our huge meal at noon we all laid down for a nap.

Ma Johnson would come lay down with us at times, she loved birds and she had a birdbath and feeder outside our window and we would look for all the new birds and see how many different ones we could see. She usually took her shower then and would relax many times on her own bed. (Now that I think of it she was getting rest from the night before or storing up for that night).

When bedtime came at night, all the grandkids would pile up on two twin beds that were pushed together and Ma Johnson would be in the middle and we would all fuss to get next to her. She would read to us and tell us all kinds of stories and tell us stories of her childhood and she would tell us how much she loved us and how much God loved us.

I remember that she would gather everyone's glass at the end of our noon meal and rinse off the ice and load it all in one cup, add a little water and put it in the refrigerator. She would drink from it periodically for the rest of the evening. I would sneak in the kitchen and drink some of her water sometimes - it was just better than getting my own cup for some reason - it was the best ever.

Ma Johnson didn't just help us wave to trains. She would come out and play hopscotch, make mud pies and help us cook them on an old wood stove in the yard, she would make string houses for us with lots of different rooms, she even introduced us to "painted deserts". She would go with us to the clay cliffs (They were only small hills but to us they were cliffs) and break off chunks of different colored clay. We would take our treasures back to the house and scrape off colors and add them to jars in different proportions. I wonder what happened to all the ones we made and gave to her - she saved them - I saw them.

My grandparents were the greatest. They pastored a church in Opine, Alabama. Ma Johnson would always take a water jar with her that had ice in it, because us grandchildren would get thirsty sometime during that day. Great memories, no bad memories. We were the richest kids that ever were. We were always happy and had great times.

When it was time to leave none of us were ever ready. Ma Johnson would stand in the driveway and wave with both hands till we were out of sight, and we would go by Pa Johnson's Shoe Shop and he would give us candy or something and wave good-by and we would leave.

When my Uncle Billy died, his daughters, Mary Ann and Sharon, my sister, Rosemary and I (Rebekah) went to Pa Johnson's Old Shoe Shop (which is now a beauty shop) we all talked about the smell and the great memories that we had. The new owner's liked our stories. The old homestead is still there also. I went back
after Ma Johnson died and the new owners let us take a tour, you could hear all the sounds of our childhood rush back in.....-Rebekah Rigby

Note from Rosemary Rigby:
Ma Johnson
Without hesitation, I can say Ma Johnson was the greatest influence in my life. Here I am 20 years after her death and I still long to tell her every little thing about my day. I share many of the memories at her house that my sister has made reference to - identifying the many birds that visited her bird bath, playing on the railroad tracks, sculpting with the clay, sitting on the porch swing after dinner, all of us wanting to sleep in the same room with her, and our nightly devotions and seeking the Lord for His direction and His will in our lives.

She was my best friend and the closest thing to Christ on earth. She was humble, had a servant's heart, never had anything bad to say about anyone, never complained and was full of compassion. After Pa Johnson passed away and she came to live with us, I had the pleasure of sharing my room with her until her room was added on. This was a lot more fun than just the occasional visit. I would play hairdresser, she would scratch my back, we would read, play games, look at her many pins (other than her wedding band, this was the only jewelry she owned or wore) and talk late into the night. She smelled of Noxema, Ben Gay, and Jergen's - the most heavenly aroma to me!

Her spiritual guidance is what I treasure most. I have no doubt the devil would tremble when she would begin to pray. She prayed like a mighty warrior - for her family and children and their children, for our country and its leaders, for our neighbors and communities, for our pastors and churches. She loved the Lord with all her heart and lived to serve Him until the day she died.

Sadie married Charles Herbert Johnson on 16 Mar 1916 in Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama. Charles was born on 30 Jun 1886 in Conecuh County, Alabama, US; died on 16 Feb 1971 in Andalusia, Covington County, Alabama, US; was buried on 18 Feb 1971 in Andalusia Memorial Cemetery, Andalusia, Covington County, AL, US. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

General Notes: The Lammon Tree & Jane Linton. 1900 Alabama Soundex B&DSocial Security Death Index.

Irene graduated from Geneva County High School in 1916 and was valedictorian of her class.

(The following is a transcription of handwritten notes to your editor by his Aunt Irene.)

Edward Louis Lamont of Lamont Argylshire, Scotland, the 22nd Chieftain of the Clan Lamont-which we belong to. The Treasurer of the Clan wrote me from Scotland that Lammon is one of the original clan names--and he thinks goes back further than the actual name Lamont. The clan history goes back to about the year 1230 AD. I haven't been able to get all I want yet and don't know if I ever can.

Duncan Lammon was Grandpa Lammon's father. Their father (Duncan's & Daniel's) came from Scotland, settled in N.C. He (Duncan) married Ann McColsky. They came to Alabama (the) year stars fell 1833--settled awhile in N. Alabama--then South to Dale County -- often saw Indians and many bones bleaching (horses and men.) Children (were) horrified (Grandpa Lammon cites). Aunt Annie (Omar Barnes grandmother -- only 6 at that time -- she pointed out a road to go that landed them at Barnes X-roads. Once spent a night in Cherokee country near Indian camp -- Indians fixed large pot of hominy and began to pass to them in a large spoon. They were frightened to death but afraid not to eat.

Mama's Side
Grandma Griffith was a Washington -- moved to U.S. from Wales -- settled in N.C. Don't know date of her birth but Grandpa's -- Aug 7, 1784 (on chart) -- came to US about 1800. Grandpa O.H. Griffith was an Irishman whose parents had come to States, also. After they were married they settled in Cuthbert, Ga. -- had 6 children. Grandma Atkinson was the oldest. Her mother dying when she was 15 and all responsibility of family fell on her. She married William Maldre Atkinson of Greensboro, Georgia. His parent(s) came to U.S. from Ireland when he was very young. They were married about 1847. There were 7 children. (They) lived in Cuthbert several years. Grandma Fields was oldest -- born March 4, 1848. At age 23 she married Alexander Clayton Fields. His parents were from Darlington District, S.C. His family came and settled about 3 miles SW of Ozark in 1825 (Matthews-Mother's side). There were 8 children. (Grandpa Fields was an only child). His father died when he was just walking and is buried in old family plot in an unmarked grave -- in what is now a Negro cemetery. In those days slaves were buried in one part of the cemetery and whites in other. Grandsir Moses was a large slave owner and when grandma Sinia married he gave her 2 slaves, Mary and her daughter Piety. When grandma was dying - in 1888 - they sent for Old Mary, who sat beside her & fanned her till she died. She is buried in Ozark. Grandma Sinia had a section of land - but her brothers got most of it, as she had to sell bit by bit to live. Old Claybank Church and grounds were given by her brother Elisha Matthews.

The following is a transcription of a videotaped interview. Son Harold is interviewing Irene:
INTERVIEW OF IRENE HARDWICK BY HER SON, HAROLD
DATE: about 1985 or 1986 PLACE: Dothan, Alabama ______________________________
Transcribed by: SHARON M. STILL (McALLISTER) Court Reporter
INTERVIEW

HAROLD: Just start way back. Where did you meet Dad and where was it and what happened? When is the first time you saw him?
AUNT IRENE: The first time I remember seeing Dad was when we were holding our... it was before we held a meeting at Barnes' Crossroads there in Hartford, he was there and my brother Jessup was there and they had what they call kind of a study course, you know.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: About studying the Bible, and Dad was there along with two... well, the Holloway boy and three or four others, younger people our age.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, so it was there that we first saw him. And, we had an ex-Missionary named brother Massey from India and he was going to hold a revival meeting under a brush arbor at Barnes' Crossroads. And, that was our Uncle's house, Uncle Jake Barnes.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, he wanted... they wanted Sister and me to come up there and help with the music and sing, and so that... Bill was there to help with that meeting and that's when I first really got acquainted with him.
HAROLD: Right.
AUNT IRENE: I met him before then.
HAROLD: How did y'all get together?
AUNT IRENE: Well, we... first time I ever walked home with him we were all staying at Uncle Jake Barnes, he had a big old house and Sister and me were staying there and so was Brother Massey and Bill.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, they... we were walking home from the church and he walked with me and Clarence Barnes, one of the boys, walked up and... in front of us, we were walking towards him and he made a picture of us walking along together.
HAROLD: All right, you still got it?
AUNT IRENE: Yes, I got that picture.
HAROLD: I'd like to see that.
AUNT IRENE: And, that was the... we were just walking along and he made the picture and he developed them, Mr. Barnes did that work himself, he just had trained himself. Anyhow, he gave me one of the snaps, because after that meeting was over I didn't see Bill again for along time. In fact, we didn't get... well, we was just together that... and so, Clarence gave me the picture and said, "Do you know how to contact that man, do you know his address? Bill's address?" And, I said, "Yes, he lives at Erika." And, he said, "Well, you send him this picture." And, so I wrote him a note and told him that Clarence said for me to send him that picture." Years after that, after we were married Bill said that he knew as soon as he got that picture, said I was going to be his wife, because he had prayed that the Lord would let the one that he chose for him to write to him first.
HAROLD: Hum.
AUNT IRENE: And, I had written first. Of course, I didn't know it until after we were married.
HAROLD: When did he get around to asking you?
AUNT IRENE: Well, that was in 1915 and he didn't ask me until about 19? well, it must have been the last part of 1917. I still got the letter that said "Will you marry me?" We got married, you know, in 1918.
HAROLD: What did your Daddy say?
AUNT IRENE: He asked for my hand and Pappa said, "No", said, "You're a Preacher and I want my--- you're a Holiness Preacher and I want my daughter to have a home." And said, "A Preacher never has one."
HAROLD: Well, after y'all... after you got married, what did you do then?
AUNT IRENE: He was happy, because when Pappa died, which was in 1925 he called all of us in to tell us that he wanted us to meet him in heaven, that he was ready to go and Bill was there too, and he said, "Bill, you've been a real son to me and I'm proud of you." So, he was well pleased after it all went past.
HAROLD: Where did y'all Pastor then, or how did you... what did you do then?
AUNT IRENE: Well---
HAROLD: Did y'all Preach or---?
AUNT IRENE: To begin with we just held camp meetings everywhere. We just... the first meeting we held was in New Brockton. You know, he lived out... they lived out in the country.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: But, we... the first meeting we held was one week after we were married. We went there and stayed in the home of Mr. Sawyer, Toliver Sawyer, and put up camp. Bill had a camp and held a camp meeting there, and that was the first meeting we held right there in New Brockton.
HAROLD: Didn't y'all do a lot of walking?
AUNT IRENE: We walked all the time.
HAROLD: I mean you'd go to meetings and walk several miles to get there?
AUNT IRENE: Yes, that's the truth. Well, from there we went to another place, it was a chapel and held one. And, then went to Enterprise and put up the tent and a storm came, blew the tent down and tore it and we had to go back and stay at ______________(Berna Hardwick's) and patch the tent before we held another meeting.
HAROLD: Well, just go on with it. I'd like to hear the whole... where did you go next and what did you do?
AUNT IRENE: Well, from Enterprise we went down in Florida and we held meetings at Holt, Holt, Florida. And, then all around through Alabama, wherever we could go. We went to -- Campbelton at one time and held a meeting and had the tent right close to the jail, and Bill was preaching and his... I don't even know what he was preaching about, but anyhow, there was somebody at the jail that was listening and hollered out and said "Amen". And, Dad said, "Now, you see, somebody knows what the truth is, although they may not have lived it." And, then from there we went to another place, I wish I could think of the name of it. They've never had a meeting there before and now they have... we held a tent meeting there. It was at the same... at the home of a Preacher who was Brother Lee and we went and stayed at his father-in-law's... and with his father-in- law's family.
HAROLD: Now, what---?
AUNT IRENE: We had other meetings there.
HAROLD: Now, when was James born in this go 'round?
AUNT IRENE: In this... let me think.
HAROLD: You wound up in Hartford somehow.
AUNT IRENE: After we were expecting James we went to Hartford. Someone got... I forgot now who carried us. Sister... Sister Herbert went up to the Hartman's place in Albethem and brought us down there, but... so James could be born in Hartford. And, he... Brother Dan Dubois and she, his wife was Bill's sister, and we then
stayed at their house and James was born there on January the 9th, 1919.
HAROLD: January?
AUNT IRENE: February.
HAROLD: February? No.
AUNT IRENE: April. Why didn't you let me make notes? That's awful, because that's when the first one was born. And, Brother Dan's wife, we called her "Sis", and James was born April the 9th, and that little girl, Meriam, was born April the 11th in the same house there in the parsonage at Hartford.
HAROLD: Hartford. And, then what did you do? Where did y'all go then?
AUNT IRENE: Well, after we went back and stayed with his parents for a while, and then started back in the revival work then. In 1922 they... no, in 1920 we went to Hartford and Pastored the church and in 1922 the District Council was held in Slocomb, Alabama and Bill was elected Superintendent of the District, which then included Alabama, Georgia and Florida. And, then after that... he was elected there, he resigned the church in Hartford, and then visited churches all over the State, all over the District except churches down in Florida. Anyway, they had not been set in order, although they were together, they had not been organized as the Assemblies of God. They were just, you know, free and so it was after that that we visited all of the churches in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. And, I can't tell how many were organized at that time, but yes, we kept busy doing that. But, in 1927 he went to---
HAROLD: You skipped the year of ____________________. (PAUSE) What happened in 1926 that kind of shook the whole world?
AUNT IRENE: Well, now, I was going to get to that. And, that's when... I'm still not sure---
HAROLD: You left me slam out.
AUNT IRENE: In 1925... I told you that was the year that Papa died. In 1926---
HAROLD: February, okay. 18th.
AUNT IRENE: We was living in Dothan at that time. We had a room of two apartments in the town and Alto and Bradley Cains lived on one side and we lived on the other. It was there that Harold came.
HAROLD: Yes, now, you got through.
AUNT IRENE: That's the truth, and that was... that was on the 18th, 1926, and James was praying here for Harold to be born and for James to go to start his school, and he set the church in order here in Dothan at that time. I believe it was in December 1926 the church was set in order, 1925. And, then in February Harold was born, and James came in from school that afternoon and Dad was showing him the baby on the bed and he propped his fingers up and looked at him and he would look at Dad and he'd look at me, and finally he looked at Dad and said, "Is he ours?" and he said, "Yes, he's ours." And, he'd look at the baby again and then he said, "Is he really ours?" And, I thought he was---
HAROLD: Get in awe of me?
AUNT IRENE: I didn't really, but both times, but he seemed to--- (inaudible) and make it come true and real that we were going to have a little boy, another little boy.
HAROLD: Where did y'all move after you left Dothan?
AUNT IRENE: After we went from there from Dothan we went to Pensacola.
HAROLD: That was when you and I were in a storm and Dad was gone?
AUNT IRENE: Yes, that was in 1927, the storm... I've forgotten the name of it. Do you remember the name of it?
HAROLD: No, I don't.
AUNT IRENE: They call them, you know, by names. But, anyhow, it was after that storm and everybody was... couldn't get out and walk for it blowing--- for a safe place to stay, but we... you and James was there with me and Dad was across the river at a place... I can't say the name of that. This side of Pensacola though. He had gone over there to organize a church and we weren't with him and the storm came while he was gone. And, he was trying to get home and he got to the river and he couldn't get across because the storm had blown the bridge down, and they... the people that were walking along there with him trying to get out, you know, in a safer area found out he was trying to get on to his side and they said, "Well, Pensacola is already lost, said it's swept. Things have just gone out." Well, the people in Pensacola were disturbed so until they would get out and went to town to try to find a safe place as much as they could, and we could watch them as they passed us. We stayed home, because I had the two little boys and Avis was there helping me take care of them, but no damage was done to our place when he came in.
HAROLD: And, he walked on across that bridge?
AUNT IRENE: He walked across that bridge that had swept down, and then hitched a ride as far as he could along... wasn't much riding done, but he came all the way home and found us safe. So, that was 1927.
HAROLD: And, then where did you go to?
AUNT IRENE: From there we moved to Laurel, Mississippi. And, the Knowles, Brother and Sister Knowles were Pastoring in Mississippi and they got us to come there, in fact, they presented Dad's name and they called him at Laurel and we moved there in 1927. Well, then from there we moved to Hattesburg in 1929. Then, in 1934, I believe it was, we moved to---
HAROLD: Siloam Springs?
AUNT IRENE: Siloam Springs, Arkansas where we Pastored two years. I don't remember just how long. And, then we went from Siloam to when he went back to Savannah.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: We were in Savannah two or three years. I can't remember exactly the dates, and then back to Arkansas.
HAROLD: Paris.
AUNT IRENE: Paris. And, then Paris, there was... we stayed there four or five years. And, from Paris we went to, was it Omaha?
HAROLD: No, you moved to Franklin.
AUNT IRENE: We moved to Franklin. I got my years mixed up. Then we moved to Franklin, which was up in the Ozark Mountains and a wonderful place to live.
HAROLD: Time out.
AUNT IRENE: Go on. We went---
HAROLD: Now, James... James got married---
AUNT IRENE: In 1943.
HAROLD: In Paris.
AUNT IRENE: We lived in Paris, and he married gospel... __________Palmer.
HAROLD: Yes. And, then you left Franklin?
AUNT IRENE: Yes.
HAROLD: And, then you went to Monticello?
AUNT IRENE: Monticello.
HAROLD: And, then from Monticello where did you go?
AUNT IRENE: Let me see...
HAROLD: Did you retire?
AUNT IRENE: Huh?
HAROLD: Did you just quit and retire?
AUNT IRENE: No, you know we came down and... I know, we moved---
HAROLD: New Brockton?
AUNT IRENE: From Monticello we came down and lived at the Barnes Crossroads.
HAROLD: Yes, retired.
AUNT IRENE: And, you came and brought Eva one---
HAROLD: No, James came down with Marice and brought Eva.
AUNT IRENE: Yes. Came down and visited and then we accepted... he accepted the church in New Brockton.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, we moved to New Brockton, they had a parsonage and we lived there in it. And, from there---
HAROLD: Up to Huntsville.
AUNT IRENE: We moved to Huntsville, Alabama. And, you and Eva got married while we were living in New Brockton here.
HAROLD: No, I think it was Barnes Crossroads, because y'all came up---
AUNT IRENE: Yes, we went up there.
HAROLD: Might have been.
AUNT IRENE: We were still pastoring New Brockton.
HAROLD: And, then from Huntsville you went to... back to New Brockton, didn't you?
AUNT IRENE: Back to New Brockton.
HAROLD: And, then to Andalusia.
AUNT IRENE: And, from Huntsville we went to Andalusia---
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And stayed with Avis two years and helped her with that... her business there for a while.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, then moved back to Dothan and pastored at New Brockton.
HAROLD: How in the world did you manage to get back to Dothan?
AUNT IRENE: Let me think. Well, after we left... where did we go then?
HAROLD: You couldn't find a house so we couldn't stay with you a lot.
AUNT IRENE: We did too... when you were in that two-story building---
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: ---up there. I tried my best to figure out how that was. That was back in Huntsville.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: That's the truth. And, then we found this house over here.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, Dad traded for it, and then when that one became empty, 1,500.00, he traded for it in swaps. Left you out of this one when we moved over there. Oh, Lord, that was back in 196---
HAROLD: '61.
AUNT IRENE: 1960 we moved over there.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: In 1958 we come over here to your place.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, then lived here in your... where this house is.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: Two years and then moved over there in 1960. And, that has been twenty-two years ago.
HAROLD: Yes.
AUNT IRENE: And, I'm so proud of my family that's all here today. Isn't that wonderful, all these children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. And, I'm still here.
HAROLD: And, if you want to tell your great grandchildren something, one thing, what would it be, knowing you and Dad?
AUNT IRENE: Well, tell them listen to your Dad and Mother and obey them and follow the Lord all the way to the end of the road so we'll all be in heaven together some day.
HAROLD: Right, Amen. All right.
AUNT IRENE: Not only the great grandchildren, the children and grandchildren. Everyone. We must be an unbreakable family, wouldn't that be glorious?
HAROLD: Uh huh (yes).
AUNT IRENE: Yes, it's possible. My mother used to say that she had asked the Lord for each one of her children, the Lord had promised her---
HAROLD: I appreciate you.
AUNT IRENE: I'm sorry I didn't do better.
HAROLD: Shoot. I think you did great.


Note from Rosemary Rigby:
Great Aunt Irene
I remember Aunt Irene as always being happy. One of my favorite things to do was tickle her. She would begin giggling and squirming around before you ever touched her! She loved to have fun. I remember going to her house for reunions and how welcome I always felt. She made the most delicious 7-layer chocolate cake you ever put in your mouth!

Irene married William Files Hardwick on 14 Mar 1918 in Hartford, Geneva County, Alabama. William was born on 1 Mar 1887; died on 27 Nov 1966. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

General Notes: The Lammon Tree b-1900 Alabama Soundex. B&D-Social Security Index.
The following is an excerpt from a taped interview with Otis's sister, Avis:
AVIS: ... I got to tell how -- I told Edward the other day -- how he (Otis) got married.
NANCY: About how you found out? That's cute.
AVIS: Irene came to spend Christmas with us in Hartford, and Bill (Hardwick) went to his mother's above Ozark. So, Otis was going to take Irene to Barnes Crossroads above Ozark to meet Bill. Bill was at his mother's, which was out from there. And Otis said me and Mama could go with him, but he wanted to take his new girlfriend, and that was Laura Bell Dooling. So, when we went, it was the 5th of January in (19)18. And when we came back, then, Otis went on to take Laura Bell home. And as I was starting to school the next morning, well, Brian Howell, who was a block above us toward the schoolhouse, said, "Avis, how you like your new sister-in-law?" I said, "I don't have a sister-in-law." He said, "Oh, yes, you do; you may not know it, but Otis got married last night." So I turned around and went home -- I guess I was late to school -- to tell Mama that Otis was married. And sure enough, he was.

Otis married Laura Bell Dooling on 5 Jan 1919 in Esto, Holmes County, Florida, US. Laura was born on 17 Aug 1900; died on 18 Oct 1992. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The following are edited notes of an interview with Avis Annette Lammon Atkinson, July 17th, 1984. Present were her son Edward Atkinson, sister-in-law Donnie Beagles Lammon, Donnie's son Joseph Edward Lammon, and his son Timothy Edward Lammon. The interview was videotaped. The editor, Elmer B. Lammon, had the tape transcribed by a court reporter into text that could be manipulated by a word processor. He then edited the result to eliminate a lot of irrelevant chat. [As an example of the editing, the following statements at the beginning of the tape were reduced to the first edited line. - EBL
EDDIE: This is July 17th, 1984.
EDWARD: Absolutely.
EDDIE: Who's going to be the moderator?
EDWARD: I will, gladly - let me start.
EDDIE: Let Edward start now.
EDWARD: The only reason I want to start is -
ED'RD: Dad, it's not in focus good.
EDDIE: We don't need any help from the cameraman. You just-come here, cameraman. I want you to just come here a minute. Come here! I want the people fifteen years - come here - right here. I want people fifteen years from now to look at this and realize that this is the guy that's giving us all the advice about why this is not done right. Now, you go back over there, and after the show, you can sit down and tell me everything that's wrong.
ED'RD: It's out of focus.
EDDIE: You just sit over there and look through the little window and be quiet.
DONNIE: Don't put your hands on that.
EDDIE: Anyway, why don't you start this thing off? This is Edward Atkinson.
EDWARD: Yeah, Edward Lammon, actually.
EDDIE: Right.
EDWARD: I just thought the best way to start would be Mama to do the old sore finger Lammon trick and show everybody her sore finger.
EDDIE: I'll do that.
EDWARD: I mean, he does.
DONNIE: I better not do that.
EDWARD: That's all I got then.
EDDIE: I always wondered what that was.
EDWARD: A lot of people know.
EDDIE: I don't know what it is. What does that mean?
AVIS: Ask him, he knows. I don't.
EDWARD: Christmas day she was over at her house. She was walking out, and said, look at my sore finger; y'all look at my sore finger.
EDDIE: I guess the logical place for you to start telling-I don't know. I guess just we want to know the history of the Lammon family, as far as you know it. ]
*********************************************************************
Edited version begins:
EDDIE: I guess the logical place for you to start ? I guess ? we want to know the history of the Lammon family, as far as you know it.
AVIS: Scotland. Well, that's as far back as I know it would be. Grandpa and Grandma Lammon, and I don't know anything about their lives except when they were old people and had the whole family, and they were all grown and married when I knew them. There were six boys and two girls in the family. My father, who is your grandfather, was the oldest of the family. He was the oldest child and his name was Edward Barnes. Grandma Lammon was a Barnes, and his name was Edward Barnes Lammon. Then, the next one was Uncle Duncan. I don't remember how they all came out, but Uncle Lee and Uncle Marvin and Uncle Archie. Edward, Duncan, Archie, Marvin, Lee, Freddie. Freddie was a boy and Flaudie [and] Aunt Carl were the girls. That's the Lammon family. And all of them had big families and children. And all of them lived at Hartford for many, many, many years, every family did. And when it would storm, they would all come to our house. I don't know why.
EDDIE: Is that where you are living now?
AVIS: Yeah, well, it's not the same house, but the same location.
EDDIE: Same property, though, isn't it?
AVIS: And we had a porch that went out across the front, and they would all come out there-a lot of times. The boys used to say, you know, that they would be cold. And in the wintertime, the only way we had of heating the place was a wood fire. And the men would all stand up in front of the fire, you know, back up to the fire. And Otis used to scoot in between two of them, and then it was too hot up there, and he'd scoot out. He was a little boy, you know. I can remember that. We just had the one fireplace in our house.
EDWARD: Well, when you're talking about-"now", when Uncle Otis was doing that, how old was Uncle Ed?
AVIS: Uncle Ed wasn't even born then. I was born in February, and it was in February, I was nine. Ed was born the next July. Sadie, Irene, Otis, and Avis, Elmer, and Edward. Edward was the baby of the family, and we all spoiled him because he was real, real sweet.
EDDIE: Do you know anything about how my Grandpa Lammon got to be married to my Grandma Lammon? What was the story with that?
AVIS: When we were girls -- I don't know anything about their courtship and why they married each other -- Grandma was a Barnes, and they lived right at Barnes Crossroads. That's above Ozark. That's about eight miles above Ozark -- six or eight miles. We would go back through a pasture place - I've been with the Barnes people. There was an old place there that was torn down. Irene did have some brick that came out of the old chimney where Grandpa Lammon's people came and settled, and his mother and father are buried up there.
[They are buried at Post Oak Methodist Cemetery -EBL]
EDDIE: Were Mama and Daddy originally from around Ozark, around Barnes Crossroads?
AVIS: They moved to Barnes Crossroads, but I don't even know where they came from. I guess they came from, North Carolina somewhere.
EDDIE: How did they get to Hartford?
AVIS: After they got to Ozark, they settled on down to Hartford. And I don't know-I don't know any details of that either, and I don't know how they met. Then, Mama lived in Newton. And my father lived at Barnes Crossroads. So, my father had pneumonia, and his cousin - turned out to be married to Mama's brother, but at that time she was - she was Lizzie Smith. She was Aunt Cally Smith's daughter, and Aunt Cally Smith and Grandpa Lammon were brothers and sisters. So Aunt Lizzie and Mama were real good friends, and she said, "Well, Lizzie, I'm going to see one of my cousins, who is sick with pneumonia." I want you to go with me. I don't know how they went, -but I heard Mama tell it before, - went up to Barnes Crossroads to see Papa. And, when he saw Mama, he said, that's the woman I'm going to marry. He never had seen her before. There's a letter in the back of that Lammon book, you know, that Papa wrote to Mama.
EDDIE: And eventually they got married, and moved to Hartford?
AVIS: They moved to Hartford before they married. Grandpa Lammon moved down to Hartford with his big family of boys and two girls. And then, Bill [William F. Hardwick] moved to Hartford.
AVIS: The Barnes were at Barnes Crossroads. Grandma Lammon was a Barnes, and her people, the Barnes, still lived up there. She had - I was fortunate enough to know her brother, Uncle Jake Barnes. And then, she had another brother, Joe Barnes. I knew him. And there is another one of those boys that I knew. I can't say his name right now.
EDDIE: And then, your mama and daddy kept courting?
AVIS: Uh-huh. And a year after they moved down there, well, got married, and in another year, they had Sadie.
EDDIE: What kind of work did - your daddy's do - Grandma and Grandpa do?
AVIS: Well, he was always mechanical, all the Lammons had mechanical [ability] and cotton gins and variety shops, and Papa was a changeable sort of a thing.
EDDIE: He's like my daddy [James Edward Lammon] now.
AVIS: Yeah. His son took after him. They were alike. They had good things in their hands like the Ford business for the whole county - Geneva County. Every car that was sold in Geneva County, he would have commission on it. He gave that to Lee while he believed he'd do something else.
EDDIE: In other words, if he had stayed in that, we'd probably all be millionaires now?
AVIS: We would all have two dollars instead of one. Oh, then, let's see. Then, one time he had the gasoline ?- what gasoline?
DONNIE: Standard Oil Company.
AVIS: Standard Oil.
EDDIE: He had Standard Oil?
AVIS: Yeah.
EDDIE: Did he give that up?
AVIS: And so, they wanted him to. Mr. Nance wanted him to go to Samson and put in an ice plant. So he said he'd go help Mr. Nance.
EDDIE: So he gave up the Standard Oil business?
AVIS: And we put our furniture on a train and moved over to Samson and lived over there three years. And that was the time I was in the fifth grade that I remember. And Sadie and Irene finished high school over there. "Finished" [meant that] they just went through the tenth grade. Then, we moved back to Hartford, and Irene went back to high school, finished the eleventh grade.
EDWARD: Listen, that ice plant at Samson - don't I remember when I was really even smaller than Ed'rd, maybe a little bit? - We used to go by there and smoke rings blew out. You told me where -
AVIS: Papa used to work-
EDWARD: That thing would blow smoke rings.
EDDIE: I think I remember that.
AVIS: I'm sure you do. It made smoke rings.
EDWARD: That plant ran for a long time.
EDDIE: Yeah, I remember that because-
EDWARD: And he's ?
AVIS: I think the old building is still there.
EDDIE: He's probably the one that put the ring blower in there, wasn't he?
EDWARD: Granddaddy [Edward Barnes Lammon] started that plant up.
AVIS: Yeah. He built the plant. He put it in.
EDDIE: He was a millwright. Daddy told us that. He ran sawmills and everything else.
AVIS: Then, we went-back to Hartford after we lived away that way. Then, he wanted him to put in a gin at Bellwood, so we moved over to Bellwood. He put in a cotton gin over there. A boy from Hartford came over to Bellwood and had something wrong with his automobile, and that was the first automobile I ever saw. And Mama sent me and Elmer to tell Papa to bring something ?Anyway; we went to the cotton gin to tell him ?. And we got up there, and he was working on the boy's car. So, he said, y'all get in the car and you can ride home. So it was just an old-fashioned car, you know. We were sitting way up high on this little backseat.
EDWARD: What year? What year was that?
AVIS: Two [1902]. Let's see. Now, I started to school in Bellwood - lived in Bellwood before we did Samson. I got the story right before, because I started to school in Bellwood. I was five when we moved there. So I must have been six or seven when I rode on the car.
EDDIE: 1910 or 1909. That would be about the year before Daddy was born, then?
AVIS: Yeah. We moved back to Hartford. Mama lost a baby in Bellwood. It was born while we lived in Bellwood and drank poison and died while we lived in Bellwood. She died when she was a year and a half old. Her name was Mary Lou. She was buried over there with Mama and Papa. Then, after we went - soon we moved back to Hartford again.
EDDIE: Y'all all must have got Irene out of school. Did Aunt Irene graduate from high school?
AVIS: Aunt Irene finished in Samson the tenth grade. She and Sadie were in the same class. Then, we went back to Hartford and Sadie married Herbert. This was in 1916. And Irene then went back to school another year. And then she taught school two or three years. And she
married Bill [Hardwick] in 1918. And -
EDWARD: It's worth you saying now - Eddie might not know this - but you taught school some, too, you and Aunt Irene, both, didn't you?
AVIS: Uh-huh.
EDWARD: Back then ? you didn't have to have college degrees, or a certificate, or whatever it was, to qualify to teach.
AVIS: No. We just had high school educations. And we took a teachers county course, taped examinations. And I had a second grade license and Irene did too, and we taught together one year. We taught at High Falls. There was a schoolhouse out in front of the Assembly Church, down on that road. And while we were there, it burned. We punished some great big boys one Friday evening, and that night the schoolhouse burned. Of course, we don't know who did it or why, you know. But we punished the boys, and the schoolhouse burned.
EDDIE: Were you married before?
AVIS: No. When we moved to Enterprise then, I was teaching at Slocomb and -
EDDIE: Who was teaching at Slocomb?
AVIS: I was teaching in Slocomb that year.
EDDIE: Was you married?
AVIS: No, no, I didn't marry until 1929, and that was in 1921.
EDDIE: All right.
AVIS: And Papa came over here to run a gin for - I don't know who. Somebody up here [in Enterprise]. So, then, ?when school was out, I came over here, and he didn't want me to go back and teach because, in the meantime, he wasn't well, and I got a job at old Mr. Edwards, - Simpsy Edwards, that worked in the store there with him. It was general merchandise. In Enterprise. He had a store right next to Clark's [Clark Edwards'] daddy, and Simpsy was the nephew of the other man. Then, from that, I went on up to -
EDWARD: Where would the store have been, Mother, with respect to the monument?
DONNIE: About where the Citizen's Bank was when it first come here, wasn't it?
AVIS: If you go up the street from the post office, you would run right into Simpsy Edward's store. You know, it was just the first two stores. One was one Edwards and the next was the other Edwards. And then, I went from there to the Clemmons store?Clemmons was right there. It was the first two stores the other side of the monument.
EDDIE: Vaughn Clemmons was the guy who made the proposal that we make a monument [to the] Boll Weevil, wasn't he?
AVIS: He did that while I was working for him. He just had good ideas about things like that.
EDWARD: That was in 1922 or '3?
AVIS: '2 or '3 or '4, somewhere in the first part of the year.
AVIS: And in the meantime, then, Sadie was living in Evergreen. And from there, she moved to Enterprise. She and Herbert came down here [to Enterprise]. Herbert had a shoe shop. They lived here six or eight or ten years. : They went to Dothan and stayed a year, and then went to Andalusia. And Irene and Bill - he preached - they married and went to? well, they settled out there [Arkansas] and lived there most of the their lives in Arkansas and Oklahoma. : [James] was born in Hartford. But when he was a little boy, they moved out there, and they lived out there. They went to school and business and all out there.
EDWARD: I'll tell you something about [Bill] that you don't know probably, but there's - I've got a copy of it - but there's a picture. One of the people in Arkansas got together and formed the Assembly Church, and Uncle Bill is in that picture.
EDDIE: He was in the founding bunch of it?
EDWARD: That's right, he sure was.
AVIS: Well, that was the home state.
EDWARD: I know that, but I say he was in the -I think Aunt Irene said he was twenty-something years old.
EDDIE: He was one of the founding fathers of that church when he was in Oklahoma or Arkansas?
EDWARD: Arkansas.
EDDIE: Arkansas.
AVIS: But he was - he was from Alabama originally, but he -
EDWARD: I know. But he was out there when he did that, is what I'm saying. He was in on - whatever they did that -
AVIS: Missouri, I think, is where it was, wasn't it, when it happened, in Springfield, you know?
EDWARD: It says under the picture that it was in Arkansas?
AVIS: Arkansas.
EDWARD: But it may have been Missouri, I don't know.
AVIS: I don't know.
EDDIE: Well, now, how old were you - I mean, were you married when your daddy died?
AVIS: No. My Daddy died in 1925
EDDIE: That's about the time you were working with Vaughn Clemmons, then. He was in Enterprise when he died, wasn't it?
AVIS: He died at Enterprise. And I was twenty-three at that time.
EDDIE: Well, can you kind of describe the ? whatever, about the time he died? Did he die over a long period of time, and did you just come home one day and -
AVIS: No. He was sick for quite a while - months, not years - weeks to months. And he went to some springs down in Florida, White Springs. He took mineral baths.
EDDIE: Did he go to the doctor with his problems?
AVIS: Yeah. He went to a doctor and the doctor thought this bath would help him. I really think he had some kind of cancer. Then, they didn't know how to treat cancers, you know.
EDDIE: Kind of describe the events surrounding his death. I mean, did y'all know for a while before he died that he was going to die?
AVIS: Yeah, we knew for a while. We did.
EDDIE: And he did, too, didn't he?
AVIS: Yes, he did, too. And, as he was sick up to death - well, after he took his deathbed, he-Elmer was in the Navy at that time and Mama tried every way to get in touch with him to tell him, and he had been over on the - on the Pacific coast, and she couldn't get in touch with him. So Elmer called - and we always said it was in an answer to prayer. He called from Jacksonville, Florida, and was on a boat that had come in to port there. So, when he called, she ? got in touch with his commanding officers. And he came right on home and got here before Papa died. And Papa called in each child he had, one-by-one, and talked to each one of us and told us that he had accepted Christ as his savior and for us to be good to Mama, and he'd - he'd meet us later. And he talked to every one of us separately.
AVIS: And then, Grandma Lammon was there, and he talked to her, too - his mother. He was the first of his family to pass away. Well, his father was dead, but other than that, he was the first child.
EDDIE: How old was he, Avis, when he died?
AVIS: He wasn't but fifty-three. But all of them lived longer than he did, the whole family. And he was - he didn't last too many days after he talked to all of us. He soon passed away, and we took him back to Hartford.
EDDIE: Well, now, I remember somebody telling me about the funeral they had for him. Something about - I want to hear it, though. I want to hear it. I don't think the Klan was anything to be ashamed of in that day and time. I think in this day and time, it is.
AVIS: I don't think so.
EDDIE: Well, don't tell that part, then. If you want to leave something out, leave that part out.
AVIS: Well, he did run with the Klu Klux Klan. He liked it - the Klu Klux Klan or whatever you call it. And when he came through town, the klansmen marched on either side of the hearse through the village, through Enterprise. Then, they didn't go onto the church. They didn't play any part after that. They just came on either side of the hearse coming. They went to Hartford to have his funeral, but they didn't go except just through the main part of Enterprise, you know. And he went on - he was in the church at Hartford. I don't even remember who preached his funeral. I don't remember.
EDDIE: This isn't very important, but when somebody died back then, I think they embalmed them in hardware stores more or less. Is that right?
AVIS: Yeah, yeah.
EDDIE: And I think maybe he was embalmed up at J. C. Jones hardware?
AVIS: At Lasseter's.
EDDIE: Where was that at?
AVIS: That was where - what's your men's store now?
EDDIE: Parker?
AVIS: That was at that building.
EDDIE: Right there close to where the cafe was.
AVIS: One of the little places right there. It was upstairs there. That's where they embalmed him. And I was telling Donnie today, after Mama - Mama sewed, and she'd keep paying Mr. Lasseter a little bit along.
EDDIE: I saw the receipts on that somewhere. I don't know where it was. She was paying for his funeral for years and years.
AVIS: Uh-huh. So, then the place that they lived at, down in that little alley, you know, sold. Well, I wrote Mr. Lasseter and told him to let me know how much the difference was, and I'd pay it. And in the meantime, Sadie did the same thing. So he - I've got the letter in a scrapbook at home that Sadie wrote to him, and he wrote back to Sadie and told her that he had had the letter from me, too. So Sadie and I divided that sum, and we paid it off, so Mama wouldn't have to.
EDDIE: Uh-huh. That's after y'all got on out of the house, sort of.
AVIS: Well, ? we got the money, you know, for this place.
EDDIE: Yeah. After he died, did your mama move in with Sadie?
AVIS: Mama stayed by herself a little bit. And me and Edward, your daddy, both stayed in with her. So one day I came in from work. I was working at Blevins, or Edwards, one. So I came in one day, and Mama was taking in coal to make fires. I said, Mama, where is Edward? He was in high school. She said, I don't know; he hasn't come home this evening. So I was so mad with him, you know, and about that time he came in. And I was balling him out. I said, there you lay out playing, and Mama is having to get this coal in, and she's had to sew all day. And while I was balling him out, he didn't say a word. So while I was balling him out, well, Mr. Heath came
and gave me ?(unintelligible).
EDDIE: That's about the time he finished his high school career, then, wasn't it?
AVIS: Yeah, he was-
EDDIE: What were the circumstances surrounding his finishing school?
AVIS: He just wanted to do something else rather than go to school. He wanted to bum around, I reckon. I don't know.
EDDIE: Well, that was about the time the depression was coming along?
AVIS: Yeah.
EDDIE: Didn't he kind of feel like he was a burden on you and his mama, or primarily his mama and Aunt Sadie?
AVIS: He might have. I don't know.
DONNIE: He said he did.
AVIS: He just was young enough he couldn't quite get established. So Edward - and then, I married in '29.
EDDIE: All this time Uncle Elmer's still in the Navy, right?
AVIS: No. Uncle Elmer got out as Papa died. When he came to the funeral, he got out. They dismissed Elmer. He only lacked a few weeks having his time out, so they let him go.
EDDIE: What did he start doing, once he got out of the military?
AVIS: He went to Montgomery and started working. First, drove a streetcar, and then he came back home.
EDDIE: Was Uncle Otis already in Montgomery?
AVIS: Otis had gone to Montgomery. They lived there a long time, back of the capital - he rented there. Then, they bought this little place there where he lives now.
EDDIE: He was doing what, mechanic work?
AVIS: Uh-huh.
EDDIE: Uncle Elmer moved there and worked a while, and then came back down here.
AVIS: Before he went up there, I think, he and Una married secretly. I don't know how long they were married before they announced it and started living together. In the meantime, he came back to Enterprise and started working here and they took up their abode together. They lived in an apartment down on the corner from us, when we lived in that little red house.
EDDIE: Where was my daddy while all this was going on? Out bumming around?
AVIS: No, he was still at home, I think, still going to school and helping out in evening with -- he helped Vester Heath a lot.
EDWARD: About what time - what year was it that Uncle Ed took - I know he told me about riding the rails and all that. About what time did he leave?
AVIS: I don't think he left home until after I married. In 1927, Mary Stone came through here, and she was selling World Books. And I talked with her about could I do that. She said, yes. She was a little old maid, a real good lady and a good salesperson. So I went with her and trained and tried to sell World Book encyclopedias. You know, the Childcraft is the part I tried to sell. But I never did make a success, but I tried it.
EDDIE: Was that when you took up to getting married? -- About the time you were selling encyclopedias?
AVIS: I worked all the way through Texas and Oklahoma, and I came back home.
EDWARD: Tell Eddie about meeting Daddy.
AVIS: So, then, I went back to work for Clemmons after I came home. And this, another, lady came from Childcraft. She ? said there is money in it for you. And she was going to Atlanta, so me and Sue Edison both went with her, and we went to Atlanta to some kind of meeting. And from there, Sue and I went together and we went to Charleston. We went to Savannah and then Charleston, then up to Florence. That's when I met John. He was a widower. And the place I boarded, he ate there. He had come to eat at the table at about the same time we did. He was sitting at the table with us, and there were flowers in the middle of the table. And I was over here, and he was over there. He moved the flowers. He said, "These flowers are in my way" and everybody at the table laughed, you know, and they begun teasing me about him then. And sure enough, well, he asked me to go out with him, and I did. And from there, it worked into matrimony.
EDWARD: The reason I asked you about when Uncle Ed went onto riding the rails and stuff during the depression is because he told me about that when he and I used to play golf and work in the shop together.
AVIS: Well, that was 1929. I married. In 1929 and '30, he came by my house.
EDWARD: While you were living in North Carolina?
AVIS: South Carolina.
AVIS: Florence. He came there. And he came when my first child was a baby, and he was born in 1930, John Keith. And so your dad came by, and we were going to Charleston that weekend to see Mary and Ned -- John's daughter and her husband. And Ed says, Avis, I'll be gone when you get back. I said, no, wait, and stay next
week and maybe you can get a job. The depression was really on then. And John worked at - went to work in -
EDWARD: The reason Uncle Ed left was because - he told me a story that related to when I was in California. That was a long time apart, and it doesn't mean anything to anybody really, but since Eddie's getting what he's getting at that - do you remember him saying or when I went to work for the Chinaman there that I had to go to
the grocery store ?Dunn - Frank Dunn. Well, right across the highway, from where I was, was a railroad track, and there was a-they called it a river, but it was a gully. It was dry. And the hoboes used to - then -- this was in '52 or '53. But they would come over to the store in the back, and they would get the old potatoes that were rotten and cut them in two. Well, there was Mr. Mike Morehouse and myself that worked there. We got to where we would put stuff out there for them. And I was telling your dad about this, you know. He had said ? he had worked in the valley picking fruit and all that. And I told him about doing it, and I never -- didn't suspect it at all. And he said, he told me, he said, you'll never know the number of nights that he spent on that trestle. He said, I know exactly where you're talking about. He said there was just nothing was out there-where I'm talking about. That was kind of like from here then. That was country, you know. But I said, well, that's all city now. He said, I'm sure it is, but back then, he said, that was probably a mile out of town, you know. That's where the hoboes stayed.
EDDIE: Where was that in California?
EDWARD: Merced, California.
EDDIE: That was in what valley?
EDWARD: San Joaquin Valley. He went up and down the valley picking. A lot of people did.
EDDIE: Picking sugar beets and looking for any kind of work.
EDWARD: Anything, whatever they had - vegetables and - it didn't make any difference.
AVIS: Oranges.
EDWARD: Yeah, oranges, cabbage, lettuce - whatever was-
AVIS: Available.
EDWARD: Whatever you could get.
AVIS: Yeah, those were hard years. And my husband was well established with the railroad, and life was kind of easy for us.
EDDIE: Well, anyway, you said that you were in South Carolina and Daddy said he would be gone when you got back, and you said, don't go.
AVIS: Uh-huh. But when I came back, he had gone.
EDDIE: Where did he go to?
AVIS: He went to California.
EDDIE: He was hobo-ing then.
AVIS: That's where he had started.
DONNIE: Was that the morning you went to church or something, and when you came back he was gone?
AVIS: No, I had gone to Charleston in the morning, came back that afternoon, and he was gone when we got home. He wouldn't go with us to Charleston. Because, I said, well, stay here, ? But he was gone that night when we came back.
EDDIE: He was very predictable. You knew he was going to be gone?
AVIS: Yeah. I wasn't surprised at all. It always makes you sad when you know somebody is out like that with no destination, you know.
EDWARD: Well, I thought the same thing. In fact, I told your dad when we were talking about that, I said, "Boy, it must have been rough." He said, "I enjoyed it."
EDDIE: He would have.
AVIS: He didn't, though.
EDWARD: Well, I'm sure he didn't. There's no way you could. Nobody had a place to stay or ?
EDDIE: Sleep or anything.
EDWARD: Yeah. I heard him talk about how many -- I can't remember the place he said they would be. But said there was - every train yard would have a policeman, you know, a passenger. He said that when they got to a place, the policeman would come tell you, you know, now, this car, don't get on that car, they got something on there. But the next - he could tell him the number maybe.
EDDIE. You can get on this?
EDWARD: Right. They were helping them. They had to do something, you know, because there was so many people doing it. It was very interesting, and I know it was rough on him and rough on a lot of people.
EDDIE: He told me he was prize fighting out there somewhere.
EDWARD: I wouldn't doubt it. I never heard him say that, but I sure wouldn't doubt it.
EDDIE: I don't think he made a career out of it or anything, but he got in on a couple of prizefights while he was out there.
EDWARD: The thing that he told me about -- the incident I told you about there -- where I worked in California, which was thirty or forty-forty years ago, wouldn't it be? But I don't think -- if I had not ever mentioned that -- that he'd ever said anything about it -- told me his end of it.
EDDIE: Well, I remember that time we drove out to California or one time we went out to Carlsbad Caverns, we went to a place or by a place or two in Texas or New Mexico, somewhere along that route. He just wanted to go out a way and see this old place he used to work at.
EDWARD: Was that the time you guys went to San Francisco?
EDDIE: I'm not for sure. I don't think so. I think it's that time we, in 1957; we just got in the car and as far as we went was probably Carlsbad, New Mexico.
EDWARD: Well, didn't you go to San Francisco?
EDDIE: I did one time, yeah.
EDWARD: I'll bet you that he went by that place I'm telling you about in Merced.
DONNIE: He went by to see this man he used the work with.
EDWARD: Somewhere in that area?
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDDIE: In Merced, in the San Joaquin?
DONNIE: He didn't find him, though.
EDDIE: He didn't say anything.
EDWARD: I mean, he might just have ? went back for his own benefit to look. He never said that, but I bet you he did.
EDDIE: I wouldn't be surprised at all. Anyway, when he got through with his hobo-ing, where did he come back? Did he come back to Enterprise?
AVIS: He came back to Enterprise. He worked with Herbert, too, didn't he? Herbert Johnson ran a shoe shop. He was good. Herbert Johnson said your dad could fix shoes better than anybody that had every worked for him, if he wanted to. Said if he wanted to, he could take a shoe and make it look like it was as good as when it
left the factory. Herbert said if he didn't want to, it wouldn't look that good.
EDWARD: He could do anything he wanted to, period, that he wanted to.
AVIS: Yeah, if he wanted to. You know, later in life, he learned to be such a good golfer and golfed in-things. He golfed.
EDDIE: He was a good mechanic.
AVIS: Yeah, he was good.
EDDIE: Who was he working with when you married, Mama?
DONNIE: He was working over there at the Ford place where -
EDDIE: How did you meet him, in Enterprise, then?
DONNIE: I was working over there with Danny Carmichael. And - they liked him, and he was a good customer. He worked at the Ford place here, when we were married -- no, he didn't. He worked for the funeral home.
EDDIE: You would just see him on weekends or something?
DONNIE: Yeah. And he would come in there and eat. And Dan Carmichael wanted me to - he liked Ed. He said, now, Miss Donnie, you just fix your plate and when he comes in, you sit down with him and eat.
EDDIE: That was Alex's daddy, right?
DONNIE: Right. Well, I wouldn't do that because I was on-the-job.
AVIS: You didn't want to push yourself either with Ed.
DONNIE: No. And then, when we married, it just made Dan Carmichael just fuming mad.
EDDIE: Because you left?
DONNIE: Yeah, yeah.
EDWARD: Was he the one that got y'all together?
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDWARD: Then, he was mad because you left?
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDWARD: Well, he ought not ever have got y'all together then.
DONNIE: That's right.
EDDIE: And when y'all got married, you went on to DeFuniak then?
DONNIE: Yeah, about that same night.
EDDIE: On the night you got married, y'all moved to -
DONNIE: We married about twelve o'clock.
EDWARD: He told me, if I'm not mistaken, he said that a lot of people on Friday night would work till midnight or something, and then the justice of the peace would start marrying people; is that right? Am I right?
DONNIE: I don't know about that, but I had to work till -
EDWARD: I'm telling you what - it was about something y'all got married - something similar. I don't remember exactly what it was.
DONNIE: No, I don't know about that.
EDDIE: You mean to tell me -
EDWARD: Well, what time was it when y'all got married?
DONNIE: About twelve o'clock.
EDWARD: That's what I said.
AVIS: Because of work.
EDDIE: What time that day did you decide to get married? The day before, or that day?
DONNIE: It was on Friday, and we married Saturday night.
EDDIE: Y'all really put a lot of thought into that, didn't you?
DONNIE: Yes, sir. I don't see how we ever stayed together.
EDWARD: Oh, my goodness.
DONNIE: That was such a long courtship. That's the reason I don't say too much about it, it takes too long to tell it.
EDDIE: Don't ever get tied down here for a long conversation getting into that.
DONNIE: No.
EDDIE: Well, he always said that's the best thing that ever happened -- one of the two best things that ever happened to him -- getting married to you.
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDWARD: What was the other one?
EDDIE: Getting to know the Lord.
AVIS: Well, I'll tell you right now, if he hadn't married your mother, he would have been just like my father was. He would have died and left us - left all of y'all with not a penny a head, because your mother is the one that saved it. I mean, she knew how to -
EDDIE: Well, I think they worked well together.
AVIS: After he found her saving, they did.
EDDIE: Well, it wasn't the matter of that.
AVIS: It was too.
EDDIE: Let me say my little piece about that. If it had been just daddy, he couldn't have got anybody to work for him. Nobody would have worked for him. He was moody, and he would run them off if they did something wrong.
EDWARD: Be careful with that.
EDDIE: And also, he was like your daddy was. He liked a little bit of this and he'd liked to get him a little chocolate candy, and tomorrow, he'd be wanting ice cream. And the next day, he'd say either. You know, he was hop-scotching around. But then, again, if it'd just been Mama, if she had to run the show and hadn't had Daddy, then they'd still been in that old restaurant down on the side of the road. The counter - there wouldn't have ? changed from the day that she walked in there.
DONNIE: That's right.
EDDIE: And Daddy was wanting some change, you know, which was good. But then, again, Mama could work with the people. See, she could work with the help.
AVIS: And, too, your mother knew how to keep what she got a-hold of. She knew how to turn it into something that would save it, and your daddy didn't. He thought, well -
EDWARD: I think what Eddie is saying - and I agree with him - that Uncle Ed had some real good ideas.
AVIS: He did have beautiful ideas.
DONNIE: He did; he did.
EDDIE: They worked good as a team together.
EDWARD: That's what I'm talking about.
EDDIE: Mama and Daddy worked good as a team together.
AVIS: Yeah, I think so, too. She knew one side of the story, and he knew another side.
DONNIE: And I let him do anything he wanted to do. ?
EDDIE: Well, there's something you ain't told me about here - the Fields side of the family.
AVIS: Okay. Now, the Fields-
EDDIE: We took the Lammon side and come pretty far with it. But, now, I want to know something about Grandma - my Grandma's side of it. Tell me a little bit about it, her side of it.
AVIS: The Fields moved to Hartford. They moved four miles out from Hartford, out in the country.
EDWARD: That was after they crossed the Savannah River?
AVIS: Yeah. Edward wants me to tell about one time Uncle Joe went with me to take Jane and her children home, and I wanted him to go over in South Carolina because he always loved children and his people kept in South Carolina.
EDWARD: That was to Augusta, Georgia, you're talking about now?
AVIS: Yeah. They lived in Augusta, Georgia, at that time. So I said, "Uncle Joe" - when Hinton came from the Army that night, he worked at Fort Gordon. He was in the Army at Fort Gordon. I said, "Hinton, I want you to take us ? across the river, so Uncle Joe can tell people he'd been to South Carolina. We are going home tomorrow." So when we crossed the river, Uncle Joe says, now, is this the Save Anna River? We said this is it. Well, just to think my Grandma crossed this river when she was a little girl, right at this same place. And this is her place. I said, how do you know this is the place? Because they said she did. Of course, you don't know how many miles it was of the Savannah River. He told us one time why they named the river Savannah River. He said there was a woman had a little girl named Anna, and she fell off a boat and said she was hollering for all of them to Save Anna, Save Anna, so they named the river Savannah. We had lot of fun that night. Well, on -
EDDIE: Anyway, the first you knew of them, where did they - they were at the Barnes Crossroads?
AVIS: No. They came down to - they lived in Newton, somewhere near Newton, Alabama. So they moved on down there.
EDDIE: You don't know nothing about her mama and daddy much?
AVIS: Yeah. Her mama - her mother was an Atkinson, just like we spell our name ? Ursula Atkinson. And before she married, she was a Griffith. And Ed has a chest that Uncle Elmer Griffith, sister of Grandma Atkinson, my great grandmother, made. Mama said they called it a chest, I reckon is what she said. And said she always knew [when] her mama was expecting - Mama was the oldest girl in that family. Uncle Buddy was the oldest boy. He was older than Mama. And she said she always knew [when] her mama was expecting another baby because she'd find little dresses made and stuck in this chest that Uncle Elmer made for his niece ? [which] was Grandma Fields' chest. And then, when they came down to Hartford, Grandpa Fields-I don't know how he and Grandma met - Grandma Fields. And when he came down there to live - I thought it was real interesting, though, the way his mother and father met. His mother was one of the Matthews girls. And ? Moses Matthews ? had all them. Well, he was one of the forefathers of Dale County, Moses Matthews. And his - his father, was Mister ? -well, I can't say his first name {it was Alexander Bartholomew Fields__EBL} [Alexander Bartholomew Fields was a soldier in the Revolutionary War__ per Jane Atkinson.] But he was a Fields, and he came riding up as a Union soldier, and they fell in love. And it wasn't long till they married.
EDDIE: You don't know where he's from, then, do you?
AVIS: No.
EDWARD: You mean he was a damn Yankee?
AVIS: I don't know.
EDWARD: Well, if he was a Union soldier, he was.
AVIS: May be he wasn't. Maybe he was. I don't know. I'll look that up.
EDDIE: He was a soldier anyway.
AVIS: He was a soldier. Because [???]'s got that good history. She's got a good history of the Fields. We'll have to get it done.
EDDIE: Where has she got a history of the Fields?
AVIS: Well, she was a Fields, you know. I mean, she married a Myers. And Ms. Myers was a Fields, too.
DONNIE: But she's been everywhere to get-
AVIS: Yeah. She's worked hard. She's got a good history.
EDDIE: Maybe we can get some of that from her.
AVIS: She's really good. But, anyway, this - Grandpa Fields moved down to Hartford and bought this land, and he couldn't pay for it. And he bought it from a Mr. Daughtery there at Hartford. So, Mr. Daughtery said, well, I'll tell you, Mr. Fields, I'm not going to take this land from you. And next year, if you'll make - I think I've got this written down somewhere at home - I think it's five bales of cotton, I'll let that pay for the land. So Grandpa made enough cotton to pay for the land, and so he raised his family out there. And after they - let's see, now - what do you want to know about the Fields?
EDDIE: How many of them are there? How many brothers?
AVIS: Eight Fields. There's -
EDDIE: That's your mama's brothers and sisters?
AVIS: Yeah. There's three of the sisters there and seven boys - eight maybe - maybe ten. There's five boys - six, seven, eight, and three girls. And the girls are ten years apart. When mama was ten, Aunt Beatrice's born. And when Aunt Beatrice was ten, Aunt Ethel was born. And Ethel was the baby one, you know, but the boys, then, are-
EDDIE: Who were some of the boys? Uncle Joe?
AVIS: Uncle Joe and Uncle Buddy, who was a carpenter. He was the oldest. And then, there is Carlton and Mama, who is O'Keith, and Cornelius, Clamon, and Joe and Ellie - he was real close to the top. I forgot him - and Ethel - and Beatrice and Ethel. But they raised their family out there on the farm.
EDDIE: What little old community did they used to live in?
AVIS: No, it's toward - Tabernacle is the church they attended. Grandpa had always gone to a Baptist church, but his wife and the children all belonged to a Methodist church - Tabernacle. And Grandpa belonged to Hill Baptist Church. I don't know what they did with all those -
EDDIE: I don't know if you want to add to that, but I recall Daddy talking about how badly mismatched his mama and his daddy were. He said just that [they were] two distinctive people.
AVIS: Well, they weren't as much so, I didn't ever think, as Grandpa and Grandma Fields. I never heard - I don't know what he called her. She called him Mr. Fields. I don't know what he called her. I never heard him call her anything. And he went blind when he was an elderly man - went blind when he was out in back of the house picking some corn ? But he called Grandma to come lead him to the house. And he had a - some kind of eye trouble. He never did see any more. That was about seven or eight years before he died, and after I was married. I expect longer than that because, before I married, he used to come -- he and Grandma used to come to Enterprise to visit us. I thought they was so pitiful. She would -- Mama would say, "Ma, bring Pa to the table, and let's eat dinner." And Grandma was a little old squabbly woman, you know, and she would get up and take Grandpa's hand, and they would walk, you know, through this little old bedroom into the dining room. She would show him where to sit, you know. Well, then, after Keith was a little boy, nine months old, Mama went to stay with Grandma and Grandpa, because Grandpa was blind, and Grandma had just about lost her mind. So Mama went back out there. Papa had died and Mama was by herself, so she went to stay with them. And I went out there -- I come to visit them and -- they lived out there in the country in Hartford -- so after I got there and Grandma heard the baby, it got on her mind that she had a baby. And she'd say, your baby is crying, and I hear mine too. Where is my baby? That was my Grandma Fields. And Mama didn't have much patience with her, but I thought it was funny. I'd laugh at her. I'd say, Grandma, your baby is -- Aunt Ethel had died. Aunt Ethel married in 1919, I think, Aunt Ethel - Homer Barnes, and she died. She was pregnant and died when all the women that had that Asian flu - all the pregnant women - so many pregnant women died that year, and she died. It was 1919, I believe '18 or '19. -- And, I said, "Grandma, your baby is out there cutting air." And she said, "Aw, he's no such a thing." Mama said, "Ma, don't say that anymore," said, "you know good and well you ain't got a baby," says, "you know you're too old to have a baby."
Grandma said, "if you don't believe I've got a baby, you ask Dr. Riley for me, he bore them."
EDWARD: How old was Great Grandma, then, when you are talking about?
AVIS: Well, she was - she was hitting eighty in years.
EDWARD: Looking for her baby?
AVIS: Yeah, she had heard my baby crying, and she thought it was her baby. It just got on her mind. Her mind was weak. The Fields and Lammons had a marriage now. Papa married a Fields. Uncle Joe married a Lammon, Aunt Carl and Papa were brothers and sisters. My mama's brother married my daddy's sister. Papa's first cousin married Aunt Ethel Fields, Mama's sister. Uncle-Uncle Carlton, who is Jim and Eddie's daddy, married Lizzie Smith, who is Papa's first cousin.
EDDIE: You said somebody was Jimmy and Eddie's daddy.
AVIS: Jimmy and Eddie Fields. They married -- that was four -- two first cousins and two brothers and sisters that married each other.
EDWARD: If Uncle Joe and Aunt Carl had had any kids, then you and those kids would have been double first cousins?
AVIS: And that's one reason I went back to Uncle Joe was because I didn't -- when I had retired from the motel. My children married and had gotten off or gotten jobs. I went on down to Florida, and I was carrying a newspaper. I made good money. And Uncle ???? kept calling me, said Uncle Joe was in the hospital, said would I come stay with him? I said, "No, I won't come stay with him." And so he called me and said, Avis, somebody has got to help us with Joe. He's just got to have help, and there's just nobody else to do it but you. So I went back to stay with him. And me and him just got along real good. I said, "I'm not going to stay but just long enough for you to get strong again." He had been in the hospital. He was still in the hospital when I got there. But he-after I stayed there a while, we just kind of learned to like each other, and I kept on staying. And I'm still there.
EDDIE: What year was that?
AVIS: That was '59. Aunt Carl died in '57.

Note from Rosemary Rigby:
Great Aunt Avis:
I had great respect and love for Aunt Avis. She was also happy and fun loving and a bit of a character. She could be direct and say just what she was thinking, but in a way that you weren't offended, but knew you better straighten up. I would go with my mother and Ma Johnson every summer to visit Aunt Avis and sometimes Aunt Irene would come over to meet us. I would watch as they would cook and put up preserves, tell stories, and act silly like a bunch of pre-teen girls. She was a strong woman and I didn't know the extent of her strength until I was older and had children of my own. She was widowed early in her marriage and it was no easy task raising children alone. Being with her and her sisters on those calm summer days are some of my fondest memories.

Avis married John William Atkinson on 16 Sep 1929 in Florence, Florence County, South Carolina, United States. John was born on 20 Jul 1880 in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States; died on 20 Jun 1939 in Florence, Florence County, South Carolina, United States. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

General Notes: The Lammon Tree
The following note from daughter Nancy:
When Elmer Lammon left Hartford, Alabama in 1924 to seek his fame and fortune in the Navy, he had little idea of all of the changes that awaited him in the few years that would follow. The scrapbook that he kept through the two years that he spent traveling the world is something to treasure. When he returned at the death of his father, his sister Avis introduced him to her good friend, Una Yelverton. They were married in 1927 and lived in Enterprise, Alabama, most of their lives. Elmer, who could fix all kinds of machinery, owned and operated automobile garages for his life's work.
****************************************************************************
The following note is from a videotape interview with sister, Avis, in the 1980's:
AUNT AVIS: I was twenty-seven when I married. Then, I was twenty-eight, and I had - I married John Atkinson. He was a lot older than I was, had a grown family. We had three babies. And he was - when the oldest one was nine, he died. That was - John Keith was nine. Edward Lammon was four, and Jane was two.
NANCY: Who was next?
AUNT AVIS: Your father, Elmer, was next in age. And he married Una Yelverton. In what year?
NANCY: In '27, I believe, wasn't it, or '24?
AUNT AVIS: I don't know. We can look it up.
NANCY: I think she graduated from high school in '24, and they married soon after that. Did they meet - now, you and Mother were friends?
AUNT AVIS: Yeah. When he came home from the Navy - he was in the Navy when we moved here. And I never did tell her anything about Elmer - him anything about Una, nor Una anything about Elmer. But after he came home, he said, why didn't you tell me about this gal? And she said the same thing. I mean, they fell for each other, and I can't remember how soon they married, but they married secretly. ...
NANCY: How long were Mother and Daddy secretly married? Why did they do it that way?
AUNT AVIS: I don't know why they did it that way. If I ever did know, I don't remember. I don't remember why. I don't know how long they were secretly married. Elmer had gone to Montgomery to [work]- and was working and staying with Uncle Archie - the reason we were there at his house seeing him. And then, it wasn't long after that, till they came - he came home and he got a job here, and they rented an apartment right there on the corner of - do you remember?
NANCY: I don't remember the name. I know they had that little service station.
AUNT AVIS: I don't remember how long they were married before they - she came and they - she kept working, and he did too.
...
AUNT AVIS: Elmer came home. Elmer came home from the Navy - I think this is right interesting too. Elmer was in the Navy when Papa was real ill, fixing to die. And we knew that he was going to die. So Mama tried every way she knew - all of us did - to get in touch with Elmer's commanding officer or whatever he was. And the last letter we had from Elmer he had come from the - brought from the Pacific side of the United States over to the Atlantic side. And we couldn't seem to get in touch with him. So Elmer called one day on the telephone, and he was in Jacksonville, Florida, when he called, and said, I haven't heard - he said, well, I haven't written y'all in a long time. He said, since I'm this near home, I wanted to let you know I was here. And so Mama told him about Papa being so ill. And he - they let him out of the Navy, and he didn't have to go back. His time was so near out, they just dismissed him then. So he came on home, and Papa died just a few days after Elmer got home. That was in - I declare. Let's see. I need that book, don't I?
NANCY: I believe it was '24.
ANN: About '24 because Daddy was about fourteen.
NANCY: I think it was '24 or '25.
...
AVIS ...and Mama had one baby that died while we lived there in Bellwood. Her name was Mary Lou. We called her Baby Lou.
EDDIE: Is she buried in Bellwood or Hartford?
AUNT AVIS: She's buried in Hartford. But she drank poison by mistake, thought it was milk, and it was potash. It had rained in a potash can, and she poured it in a little old glass and drank it, and it ate her stomach up.
NANCY: Now, how old was she?
AUNT AVIS: She was a year and a half - two and a half. No, I believe she was just a year and a half.
ANN: That was sad.
AUNT AVIS: That was - the only thing I can remember about that baby she was crying so, and I reckon they didn't know how to treat things then. They put her in a sheet and two people on each side and they would pour water on the sheet and let it run under her to cool her. She was just burning up, you know. I remember that. And I remember Mama walking the floor and patting her, as she'd walk around the corner of the porch. And I remember following her and looking at the baby.
NANCY: Did she know that she had drunk this?
AUNT AVIS: Yeah, yeah.
ANN: As a matter of fact, I think your daddy always thought that he let her drink it and never did get over that, did he?
AUNT AVIS: Yeah, but I didn't want to tell that.
NANCY: Yeah, I remember him talking -
AUNT AVIS: Yeah, he - the lime was in a can. Mama washed just outside the window, and somebody had broken the window out. So Elmer reached around there and got the can. And he saw that milk in it and poured it in a glass, and then, the baby took the milk and drank it. And Elmer never did get over that. ?
NANCY: How old would was he? Just -
AUNT AVIS: Well, let's see. I had started to school there, and he was two and a half years younger than me. So he wasn't any older than three.
ANN: Yeah, He was just three or four years old.
AUNT AVIS: He wasn't more than three 'cause I started school when I was five.
...
NANCY: I think one - of course, it's not funny - I guess maybe it could be a little funny now - was the time that Daddy and Uncle Ed took off to California.
ANN: California. Mother, you tell about that.
NANCY: You need to tell that, because Mama never got over that, now, I'm telling you.
ANN: And tell how y'all felt about it.
DONNIE: It didn't bother me, as long as it didn't him.
NANCY: Well, it bothered her.
DONNIE: I didn't care for them going, myself.
NANCY: Did y'all know they were going, though, before they just packed up the car and left?
DONNIE: Yeah, I did.
ANN: But, I mean, weren't you a little bit upset that you were working hard for a living, and Daddy was taking a month's vacation in California with Uncle Elmer?
DONNIE: It didn't bother me too bad.
NANCY: Well, I remember Mother made me go get in the car and lay down in the backseat so - as a stowaway - so they'd get way down the road and have to come back - discover me in the car. Well, they discovered me before they left actually.
AUNT AVIS: I bet they did.
NANCY: No, but she was upset about that.
EDDIE: Well, whose idea was it for them to go? You don't know?
NANCY: I don't know. Do you know?
DONNIE: I think it was Daddy's. He wanted to go back over some of the places he had hoboed.
AUNT AVIS: And Elmer, you know, was in the Navy out there, and Elmer went to that Knott's Berry Farm. And - seems like that's what they were going out to see about.
DONNIE: Knott's Berry Farm?
AUNT AVIS: Something about - Elmer was in the Navy with one of the sons of that Knotts or the Berrys, whichever the name is. And Elmer kept talking about it. And it seemed like that's where it was - was the beginning of that trip. Anyway, I know they went out there and hunted that boy.
NANCY: They were gone for like three weeks and went to the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert.
ANN: Had pictures of -
NANCY: Ed standing up in that barn.
ANN: Where is that picture with Uncle Elmer standing up in that -
NANCY: Oh, I've got them. They were in San Diego or somewhere like that.
ANN: Brought Mama a jacket back that had Mexico written on the back and fringe all over it.
EDDIE: I remember that.
ANN: Yeah.
NANCY: Mother never got over that, because she always wanted to go to California. And the one time they could have gone, they get in the car and just take off and go.
ANN: Mama wore that jacket.
DONNIE: Your mama, I believe, was jealous of Ed and your daddy.
NANCY: Well, she - bless her heart. She was jealous, period, of anybody. I mean, she really was.
AUNT AVIS: She didn't like anybody coming between her and what -
NANCY: Whatever was important at the time.
AUNT AVIS: - was hers.
NANCY: Right. She was jealous. But that's always just been a funny story to me, how they'd just get in the car and just -
EDDIE: Take off?
NANCY: - take off to go three thousand miles.
ANN: On vacation -
NANCY: And leaving their wives and family.
ANN: And didn't have a bit of money. I mean, it's not like we had a surplus of money to spend.
NANCY: It would be interesting to know how much money they took.
AUNT AVIS: How much they spent?
NANCY: Exactly.
DONNIE: Ed didn't take very much because he didn't have any.
NANCY: Well, it probably wouldn't have taken, in that day and time, much, I wouldn't think.

Elmer married Una Lorene Yelverton on 1 May 1926. Una was born on 8 Dec 1907 in Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, United States; died on 30 Oct 1975 in Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, United States; was buried in Enterprise City Cemetery, Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, United States. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From "The Lammon Tree"
Mary Louise Lammon was Mama's baby sister. Mama said that Mary Lou got a jar of potash (her mother used it to wash clothes with) that was sitting the window and thought that it was milk (it is white like milk). Mary Lou drank the liquid not knowing that it was, indeed, poison. She died a few days later. She is buried in the family plot in Hartford and on her little grave is written: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. " --Jane Linton

The following is a tribute that Sadie Anne Lammon Johnson wrote at age 12 about her little sister Mary
Lou:
"Again the death angel has visited our community. Mary Lou the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. B. Lammon passed from this old sinful world into that brighter and better world where all is peace and love. Little Mary Lou was born on the 10th day of March 1906 and died on the 26th day of August 1908 She leaves father, mother, 4 sisters and 2 brothers with hosts of friends and relatives to mourn her loss. Her little life was indeed very short but it was a beautiful ray of sunshine and gladness to her loved ones. Dear little Mary Lou, we miss your sweet smiling face, no soft hands to caress us when we are tired; no little blue eyes peeping from your silken locks; no, not in your cradle nor your little chair. Oh, it is so hard to give you up but the one that ruleth over all things saw it fit to take this tender bird, though it is indeed clear and we must submit to our blessed masters will, though it sometimes seems greater than we can bear. Little Marylou bore her suffering with all patience and perfectly calm unto the last. Papa and Mama's prayers were not answered as we would have had them; their arms were too weak to save her from crossing over the river that we must all cross sooner or later. Dry your tears for your darling is in heaven and we would not call her back to be tempted by Satan's many wicked ways, but continue your prayers that on that bright and cloudless morning you will meet her in that city of gold. Let us console ourselves with the knowledge that whomsoever believeth on him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life. We cannot understand why our precious little ones are taken from us, but we must remember that thy will "Oh Lord" be done and not ours and that he doeth all things well; Little Mary Lou was Laid to rest at Hartford Cemetery on the morning of Aug 27, 1908."

Peaceful be thy silent slumber,
Peaceful in thy grave so low,
Thou no more will join our number,
Thou no more our song shall know,
Yet we hope again to meet thee.
When the day of life is fled
And in heaven with joys to greet thee;
Where no farewell tears are shed.
--Written by her dear sister Sadie"
[Aunt Sadie's dates are not correct. --Jane Atkinson Linton]
*******************************************************************
The following note is from a taped interview with Avis Lammon Atkinson. - EBL.
And Mama had one baby that died while we lived there in Bellwood. Her name was Mary Lou. We called her Baby Lou.
EDDIE: Is she buried in Bellwood or Hartford?
AUNT AVIS: She's buried in Hartford. But she drank poison by mistake, thought it was milk, and it was potash. It had rained in a potash can, and she poured it in a little old glass and drank it, and it ate her stomach up.
NANCY: Now, how old was she?
AUNT AVIS: She was a year and a half -- two and a half. No, I believe she was just a year and a half.
ANN: That was sad.
AUNT AVIS: That was -- the only thing I can remember about that baby she was crying so, and I reckon they didn't know how to treat things then. They put her in a sheet, and two people on each side and they would pour water on the sheet and let it run under her to cool her. She was just burning up, you know. I remember that. And I remember Mama walking the floor and patting her, as she'd walk around the corner of the porch. And I remember following her and looking at the baby.
NANCY: Did she know that she had drunk this?
AUNT AVIS: Yeah, yeah.
ANN: As a matter of fact, I think your daddy always thought that he let her drink it and never did get over that, did he?
AUNT AVIS: Yeah, but I didn't want to tell that.
NANCY: Yeah, I remember him talking --
AUNT AVIS: Yeah, he -- the lime was in a can. Mama washed just outside the window, and somebody had broken the window out. So Elmer reached around there and got the can. And he saw that milk in it and poured it in a glass, and then, the baby took the milk and drank it. And Elmer never did get over that.
?
NANCY: How old would was he? Just --
AUNT AVIS: Well, let's see. I had started to school there, and he was two and a half years younger
than me. So he wasn't any older than three.
ANN: Yeah, He was just three or four years old.

Notes:

General Notes: The Lammon Tree. Additional Info from Jane Atkinson Linton and Elmer Burns Lammon.
Ed was the youngest of seven children.
*********************************************
The following is part of a taped interview with James Edward's sister, Avis, in 1988.
Avis had an excellent memory and other family members wanted to capture some of it for posterity. Present were Nancy Lammon, daughter of Elmer Fields Lammon; Donnie B Beagles, Ed's wife; Ann Lammon, his daughter; and Joseph Edward, his son. - EBL:
NANCY: The little stories that Daddy used to always tell, the little funny stories - and Uncle Ed. Where did they get that? Was your daddy that way?
AVIS: Yeah.
NANCY: Or was your mother that way?
AVIS: Mama was.
NANCY: Just always telling little -
AVIS: Lammons were all witty. The Fields were always kind of strict, straight-faced, straight-laced.
DONNIE: Like Aunt Irene.
AVIS: Yeah, Aunt Irene got hers.
ANN: She's a Fields, isn't she?
AVIS: She's a Fields.
DONNIE: Irene never has crossed her legs.
AVIS: She said Papa told her that the ladies didn't do that.
NANCY: Oh, really? Ann, uncross those legs.
ANN: Well, I remember Daddy saying that Papa said that women - he said a whistling woman and a cackling hen -
AVIS: And a crowing hen.
NANCY: What now?
AVIS: Yeah, because a whistling woman and a crowing hen never comes to a good ending.
ANN: That's right. And Daddy said that a crowing hen - you know, sometimes a hen will try to act like a rooster and cackle. And they said Granddaddy would go out and kill it if it did it - right then - and I don't know if that's -
EDDIE: We never did whistle in our house either.
NANCY: Oh, really?
EDDIE: Huh-uh. Ed Lammon wouldn't permit whistling in the house.
DONNIE: You didn't cut up at the table either.
NANCY: Listen, Aunt Donnie, have I not ever told you that my mama and daddy used to threaten us when we were little, if we misbehaved, they would send us over to live with Uncle Ed? I'm serious. They did. And you talking - it's the truth - and you talk about straightening up. We wouldn't open our mouth for days. I'm serious. That's true. That was the truth. And we'd come over to spend the night - I'd come over to spend the night with Ann. And we'd get tickled at the table, and he'd get so mad. Or we'd go to bed in there and get to laughing, and you couldn't stop. And, I mean, he wouldn't put up with that. And Daddy, he didn't have any problem with that. He never made us behave or what -
ANN: Honey, Daddy wouldn't put up with anything like that. All of our friends were afraid of Daddy.
NANCY: Tell me about it.
AVIS: I remember something about when y'all were little, and other folks trying to -
NANCY: Yeah. I'm telling you, it's part -
EDDIE: It's a matter of record here.
NANCY: That's exactly right. That's part of the real record.
******************************************************************
James Edward Lammon, known to everyone as Ed, came into the world in 1911. He was the youngest of the children of Edward Barnes Lammon and Alice O'Keith Fields, and, according Avis, Irene, and Sadie, they spoiled him. In an interview, Avis said, "Edward was the baby of the family, and we all spoiled him because he was real, real sweet." The Lammon boys - and this included lots of Ed's cousins, too - were well known in Hartford for their pranks and practical jokes.
The following story was told to your editor by James Hardwick. [But, a little background first: James Hardwick, in a telephone conversation, after I had received this story from him, asked me if I knew anything about the Assembly of God Church. Answering that I was aware of it but had never attended a service, James explained that they believe that the end of the world - the Second Coming of Christ - will be soon. In other words, we are living in the last days, according to prophecies that have been fulfilled, and the world could end any time now! - EBL]
One breezy, dark, Sunday night, during church service, James Edward Lammon and one of his buddies were flying their kites, but not in the usual way. Usually, people fly kites during the day. Up to their usual pranks, however, they had tied cattails to their kites, cattails that had been dipped the in kerosene and set afire! The kites, invisible at night, were aloft with those cattails attached, now lighted, blazing! Someone sitting close to a window, looked out and saw that the sky was on fire! Others saw the fire. They must have thought that judgement day had come, since all they could see was the fire floating about in the sky. The meeting broke up, as James recalled. Another incident, this one related to the editor by Rachel Lammon, daughter of Lee, and Ed's first cousin: A fully assembled carriage was found atop the roof of the Alabama Hotel in Hartford one morning. The culprits were never found, but Lammon family insiders knew who did it.
According to James Hardwick, Ed played the drums in the Coffee County High School Band. All of the Lammon boys seemed to have an aptitude for mechanical things, and Ed was particularly talented.
*******************************************************************
The following is compiled from stories told by Avis Lammon Atkinson and Donnie Beagles Lammon and is contributed by Joseph Edward Lammon:
In 1924, I believe, Edward Barnes Lammon, being the eldest of his brothers and sisters, moved to Enterprise with his wife O'Keith to work as a millwright. Of his seven children, two were still young enough at this time to live in his household, Avis and James Edward. Another son, Elmer, was in the US Navy at the time and later moved to Enterprise. Ed's father, Edward Barnes Lammon, died of Bright's disease in 1925 at the age of 53. O'Keith and the two youngest children later moved from Enterprise to Dothan to live with her eldest child, Sadie and her husband, Charles Herbert Johnson. Ed worked for Herbert in his shoe repair shop in Enterprise. Herbert's son, Clyde, was only a year younger than Ed was and they became good friends. About the time of the depression, 1930 or 1931, James Edward left home to avoid being another mouth to feed and became a hobo for about 3 years, traveling first to Florence, South Carolina, in 1930 to visit sister Avis. Avis was married and already had her first baby, John Keith. James Edward visited only briefly and, declining Avis' invitation to stay longer and perhaps get a job there, left for California. There he worked as a farm laborer in the San Joaquin Valley, near Merced, picking oranges, cabbages, lettuce, fruit, and whatever was in season. James Edward, being a fairly muscular and tough physical specimen, also spent some time there as a prize fighter, probably the bare-knuckle variety. He returned to Enterprise in about 1934 or 1935, where he took a job with Herbert, sister Sadie's husband, who owned a shoe repair shop. "Herbert said that Ed could repair shoes better than anyone who had ever worked
for him, if he wanted to," Avis recounted many years later. Later, he worked at the funeral home, and the Ford place, and often ate at Carmichael's Café. Ed was a good customer there and Mr. Dan Carmichael liked him. Working for Dan Carmichael was a young lady named Donnie B Beagles, who worked there as a waitress. Mr. Carmichael said to Donnie, "?now, Miss Donnie, you just fix your plate and when he comes in, you sit down with him and eat." Because she was too modest, she wouldn't do it, but they did meet later and, after a whirlwind courtship, married one night at midnight in 1936. Colley Pittman, probate judge, did the marrying. They moved to DeFuniak Springs, Florida. This made Dan Carmichael "fuming mad", Donnie said later, having encouraged the couple to meet, and afterwards losing a good waitress because of it.
Following are Ed's Obituary and a proclamation honoring him:
ED LAMMON
Funeral for Ed Lammon, 70, will be held Friday at 2 PM. from the First Baptist Church of Enterprise with Dr. Bill Montgomery and the Rev. Burney Reese officiating. Burial will follow in Meadowlawn Cemetery with Searcy Funeral Home directing. The body will lie in state at Searcy Funeral Home until one hour prior to funeral time. Mr. Lammon died Wednesday in his home. He was a longtime resident of Enterprise and operated Ed's Restaurant until his retirement in 1973. He was a member and deacon of the First Baptist Church where he taught a Sunday school class for many years. He was also a member of Gideons International. Survivors include: his wife, Mrs. Donnie Lammon, Enterprise; one daughter, Ann Day, Enterprise; two sons, Elmer Lammon, Tampa, Fla., Dr. Eddie Lammon, Enterprise; two sisters, Irene Hardwick, Dothan, Avis Atkinson, Hartford; one brother, Otis Lammon, Montgomery, and six grandchildren.
PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS J.E. Lammon has given precious evidence of his walk with the Lord Jesus, and
WHEREAS Ed Lammon has faithfully served his Lord as Sunday School teacher and deacon in the First Baptist Church of Enterprise, Alabama, and
WHEREAS Ed Lammon has shown his concern for spreading the gospel by personal soul winning and Christian counsel, and
WHEREAS Ed Lammon believed in the authority of the Scripture and promoted its distribution through Gideons, International, and
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the deacon body of the First Baptist Church of Enterprise convey to his family their love, respect, and admiration and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Ed Lammon's memory be honored by having an Adult Sunday School Class bear his Christian name, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we seek as a church to continue the work to which Ed had committed his life and resources. This being done the 1st day of May, 1982, Jerry W. Byrd, Chairman of Deacons Maxie Searcy, Vice Chairman John Moates, Secretary

The following note from son, Elmer:
Daddy had an extraordinary amount of mechanical ability and ingenuity. He could fix almost any mechanical device. At various times, he was an auto mechanic and accumulated a mechanic's uniform from every car dealer in Enterprise. I think he had a low tolerance for supervision, would get unhappy and change jobs. Unafraid to ?take a swing? at a new venture, but lacking the capital and business skills to succeed, he started several small businesses that failed: a stock car racing venture in Montgomery, an electric motor rewinding shop, a poolroom, an ice cream parlor, "Ed's Big Cone". (The racing venture ended with the whole family being chased out of the race track one night when there wasn't enough "gate" to pay the prize money.) I remember that he decided against a McDonalds franchise in Enterprise because he would have had to pay 5 or 6 % of sales to the parent company. Finally, in about 1952, in a move that put me all the way through college, he and mother started ?Lammons Café?. It was named that until Daddy bought a new sign with shimmering sequins on it (a new development at the time), for which the signmaker charged by the letter. They changed the name to "Ed's Restaurant" and joked about it, although I never could figure why he didn't give her some credit in the name of the business. He kept the books, paid all the bills and taxes, fixed everything that needed fixing. He opened every morning for breakfast and stayed until Mama came in later. He cut all the meat, including grinding the hamburger meat, went to Panama City every week or two to pick up fresh shrimp and fish. Mama always said she couldn't have done it without Daddy's support. They were a good team. Daddy always had a quick temper and was hard to deal with, for me, anyway, and for Ann, too, I know. As children, we were afraid of him. When I got old enough to drive, I knew that, before asking for permission to use the car, it was very important to try to find him in a good mood. It seemed to me like he was almost never in a good mood, and when permission was given, it was given grudgingly. Maybe this is something all boys go through but I don't think so. Anyway, he sort of mellowed later in life, and his main job, it seemed, at Ed's Restaurant was to sit out front and drink coffee and talk and joke with the regular customers. They claimed to have solved many of the world's problems at the coffee table!

James married Donnie B Beagles on 6 Feb 1936 in Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, United States. Donnie (daughter of Hiram B Beagles and Callie A Benefield) was born on 20 Oct 1913 in Samson, Geneva County, Alabama, United States; died on 19 Jul 1995 in Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, United States; was buried on 21 Jul 1995 in Meadowlawn Cemetery, Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, United States. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Lena Giardina on 15 Dec 1928 in Pensacola, Escambia, Florida. Lena was born on 14 Feb 1913 in Pensacola, Escambia County, Florida; died on 8 May 1987 in Orlando, Orange County, Florida; was buried in Orlando, Orange County, Florida. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Alma Lois White. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Cynthia married Russell Earl Hippensteel on 31 Aug 1850 in Pensacola, Escambia County, Florida. Russell was born on 29 Mar 1928 in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois; died on 9 Nov 2010 in Simpsonville, Greenville County, South Carolina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Joseph married Agnes Arabella Wishum on 30 Apr 1935. Agnes was born on 20 Nov 1908; died on 28 Jan 1997. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Marjorie Eloise Daughtry on 23 Dec 1943 in Andalusia, Covington County, AL, US. Marjorie was born on 10 Apr 1919. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The following from James William Hardwick, cousin:
"One day Billy and I were playing across the street from his home and down the street a short distance. Clyde came out the door and yelled, "Billy, come quick. Mary Keith is dying." We hurried back to the house and I saw Uncle Herbert holding Mary's eyelid open, looking into her eye. She and I had played together about as much as Billy and I had before her death."

Nell married Cecil Kyle Rigby on 14 Mar 1948 in Andalusia, Covington County, Alabama, US. Cecil was born on 12 Jan 1916; died on 17 Sep 1999. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Charles married Lilla Rebecca Everage on 27 Nov 1954 in Andalusia, Covington County, Alabama, US. Lilla was born on 7 Aug 1925; died on 29 Jun 1993. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Obituary

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/montgomeryadvertiser/obituary.aspx?pid=173197080

HAPONSKI, Catherine Lammon, a lifetime resident of Montgomery, AL, died Saturday, November 15, 2014, two days before her 86th birthday. Preceded in death by her husband of 43 years, James A. Haponski; her parents, Otis and Laura Belle Lammon; her two siblings, Doyle and Bertram Lammon; and her sister-in-law, Doris Lammon; she is survived by her son Mike Haponski; her sisters-in-law, Margaret Lammon and Alice Cawley; her brothers-in-law, William Haponski (Sandra) and Donald Haponski (Marcelle). Her Visitation will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2014, at 1 PM at Leak Memory Chapel, followed by her Graveside Service at 2 PM in Greenwood Cemetery, with Minister Paul Lammon officiating. Having worked for many years in Montgomery, Mrs. Haponski was most proud of her years working with Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers. After retiring, she cherished her time with friends and family, and enjoyed needlepoint, ceramics, and art.
- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/montgomeryadvertiser/obituary.aspx?pid=173197080#sthash.fDpXQTh6.dpuf

Elmer married Barbara Jean Crawford [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ann married William Wayne Frazier [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ann married Robert Edward Day [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ann married Lewis Mack Chancy [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

JOSEPH LAMMON OBITUARY

Joseph Ed Lammon, DVM, age 77, of Enterprise, Alabama, passed away Monday, July 25, 2022 at his home.

Memorial services will be held at 2:00PM, Thursday, July 28, 2022 at Searcy Funeral Home and Crematory Chapel. The family will receive friends at the funeral home from 1:00PM until service time. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Dr. Betty Cully Scholarship Fund, c/o EOCC Foundation, PO Box 1300, Enterprise, AL 36331 at Enterprise State Community College (donations may be made online by clicking here).

Survivors include his wife, Roberta Guy Lammon, Enterprise, AL; daughter, Jill Boozer (Micah), Enterprise, AL; son, Ed Lammon (Hilary), Chattanooga, TN; four grandchildren, Will Lammon, Brooke Lammon, Brodie Boozer, and Leela Boozer; sister, Ann Day, Enterprise, AL.

A man who touched countless lives - especially in and around his hometown of Enterprise, Alabama - Eddie rarely let his presence go unnoticed in any room he entered. He will always be remembered as a loving husband, a caring father, an avid outdoorsman and a true friend. He could tell stories with the best of them - so much so that, even if you'd heard him spin the same yarn a thousand times before, you'd never stop him from telling it again, gladly welcoming each retelling. His laugh was infectious - which is good news, as he never stopped telling jokes and amusing himself (and usually others, too).

To plant Memorial Trees in memory of Joseph Ed Lammon, DVM, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.

Published by Searcy Funeral Home and Crematory - Enterprise on Jul. 25, 2022.

Joseph married Roberta Allen Guy [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Gloria Faye FIELDS died on the day my (REFields Jr.) sister Shirley was born, the day after Christmas. Mother was in the hospital giving birth to Shirley and was unable to be there at the death of my older sister or to attend her funeral. The inscription on Gloria's tombstone reads, "Our first joy, our first sorrow. Darling, we miss you."
Gloria is buried in a plot with my brother who died at birth, Martin Marion Fields, my grandmother Blanche Marion Bonner Giardina Nelson Sullivan, and her second husband Bernard Nelson.

Shirley married LeRoy RossPensacola, Escambia County, Florida. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Died at birth. Buried in St Johns Cemetery, Pensacola FL with his sister, Gloria Faye Fields and his grandmother Blanche Marion Bonner Giardina Nelson Sullivan

Keith married Lydia Randolph [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Keith married Ponayota Rose Doufexis [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Chatham Morgan. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Ethan Stephens. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Travis Jennings. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]