| 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.
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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.
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1904 - 1977 (72 years)
