| Notes |
- All of the following are from notes and records of Ruth Lammon Bruner Winecoff, courtesy of her son Granger:
Aunt of James E. Moore, Jr.
"Ruth -
Her mother: Beatrice Leonia Bailey Lammon
Her father: Daniel McColskey Lammon
Her sisters: Inez and Jewett
Her brother: D.C.
"Ruth was named from Ruth of the Bible and from Beatrice, her own mother.
"She was born in Bonifay, Holmes County, Florida, Aug. 2, 1901, where her father was in partnership in the sawmill and monument business. Then, at the age of three weeks, the family moved by horse and buggy to Brewton, Alabama, while their furniture was shipped by railroad. Her father went to work as a "lumber tallier.
"Her mother taught kindergarten school until 1907, when they moved to a farm that Grandma Bailey (Josephene) gave Beatrice as her inheritance in Wicksburg, Alabama (7 miles from Slocomb).
"In the winter of 1907 my mother's father and sister, Inez, and myself, moved from Castleberry, Alabama, to Wicksburg, Alabama, a small crossroad village. We came by train to Slocomb, Alabama, and were met by my Grandmother Bailey's team of horses and carried out to her Plantation about 8 miles north of that sawmill town. We spent several weeks with her while my Grandmother Bailey and father got things in shape for us to move into a log house with stick-in dirt chimney. The house had 3 rooms and a small piazza (porch), Within 2 years we had one of the finest houses in the community - a two story home our father built." (Quote from Ruth). Until she was nine years old Ruth had not been to school except to visit. She then went to live with Grandma Lammon and Grandpa to attend 9 mo. of her first school in Brewton, Alabama, (Brewton Collegiate Institute). She remembers her first school as having colonial columns and all the "expensive homes She entered the second grade but, when May came, went to Wicksburg and went to the 7th grade there in 1917. She began the 8th grade in Dothan, Alabama, and moved to Graceville during World War I and finished 8th grade. Moved to Brunswick, Georgia, where Papa (her father) worked in shipyard during wartime. Ruth took her first job in Brunswick at age 14 selling hats - her first week she earned $3.50, the next week $7.50, and the next, $10.00. She worked there 8 weeks. She then went to work in a jewelry shop and stayed 1-1/2 days. Ten days later she found a job again, selling hats, and a hat trimmer from Baltimore came in and taught Ruth for 3 months how to make hats. The War ended on Nov. 11th so the family moved back to Graceville. Papa bought a farm in the Graceville, Florida, area and sold the Alabama farm. Since there was no transportation to schools, Ruth went to Hartford to stay with Grandpa and Grandma Lammon (her father's parents.) She was there only two weeks when Grandma got burned. Back to Graceville she went and attended school a little that year. Her appendix ruptured and it had to be
removed. The family then moved to Columbus, Georgia, for a year where Ruth and Inez worked in a cotton mill. Ruth ran the machines and sat reading Public Library books. She read every book the library had by Augusta J. Evans, one of her favorite authors and the author of the novel, "Inez". She then went to Dothan and entered the10th grade and completed it and part of the 11th grade at Slocomb. Ruth then journeyed to Hartford and worked for a lady who owned a hat shop, for one year without pay - for experience. The owner of the shop decided to sell Ruth half interest in the hat shop, so when Ruth was only 20 she borrowed money to go into business. She went to Atlanta, Georgia, for six weeks of training under a hat trimmer there. After she dissolved [the] partnership in Hartford. She moved to Slocomb and opened her own hat shop while living with Grandma Bailey. She was there from 1921 - 1925. She moved to Graceville and opened a hat and dress shop in 1926.
On March 31, 1928 she married Addis Lee Bruner of Cottonwood, Alabama, in Dothan, Alabama. (A judge married them, with Inez as only family witness). She kept the shop in operation in Graceville until 1938. In 1928 she gave birth to a premature baby boy (a six month term baby) who died. In 1932 (July 18) Ruell Granger Bruner was born in Graceville. He was named for his Grandmother Bruner who had been a Granger). In 1938 Ruth opened her own dress shop in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. Addis was still farming and the depression years had been hard on him. In 1944 she divorced Addis. She bought half interest in the DeFuniak Hotel (DeFuniak Springs, Florida) in 1944 and the next year bought the other half interest and continued to operate the dress shop, too. In 1946 she sold the dress shop and the following year she bought the Monroe Inn in Tallahassee.
In 1948 she married C.L. Winecoff and divorced him the next year. After he licked his problem of drinking they remarried in 1956. In 1951 she sold the Monroe Inn to Jewett and moved back to the DeFuniak Hotel. In 1951 she bought a restaurant in Niceville and operated it a year. In 1954 she bought the Walton Hotel and operated it until Feb. 1959, when it was demolished. Her son Granger used lumber and brick from it to construct the new Colonial Inn restaurant and lounge in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. In 1954 the Lammon sisters had jointly bought Silver Sands Cottages in Destin, Florida, and then sold Jewett their interest. Ruth built two rental houses in Destin in the late 1950's.
Ruth's eyes had been impaired in the early months of her life when measles settled in them and left them extremely weak. It did not stop her from reading - an avid reader, she still delights in reading anything she can get her hands on, especially history. Talented with her hands, she can create flower arrangements or tables of food that rival the most experienced florist and caterer. She is a Bible student among other things. A story about Ruth, written by Ruth while in grammar school.
RUTH, A SCOTCH LASSIE
Ruth, a Scotch lassie, entered this world
In the county site of Holmes County
In the Land of Flowers.
This event, of which I had nothing to do,
Occurred in the sultry month of August
And in the year President McKinley was assassinated.
"Being the first granddaughter on both sides, so much love was lavished on her as any one baby could well get along with. And by some quaint ancestral notions missed what most babies get, such as catnip teas, toddies, sugar tits and pacifiers. Her name is Ruth Beatrice, this last in honor of her mother and the former from the Biblical story (and as it is said, it is all in a name). From her youth up she has been building a foundation that will enable her to make her life worth while. As "lives of great men all remind us that we too can make our lives sublime."
*When Ruth meets Boaz she will ask, "Why have you found grace in my eyes".
Some lines of poetry written by Ruth in her childhood:
"Love is like an onion
We taste it with delight
But when it is gone we
Wonder what made us bite."
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1901 - 1979 (78 years)
