I recently found more really old family photos, thanks to my 12-year-old self and my grandmother, Elizabeth Castellaw Williams (1915-1998).
I got my first taste of genealogy from “Granny,” as we called her, one summer when I was about 12. I was spending a week with my grandparents near the Holly Grove community in Haywood County when a heated argument broke out between them.
I was hiding behind the well house in their backyard, surrounded by irises, which gave me a perfect view of Granny standing on the landing at the back door. She had her hands on her hips, a tissue in one hand and sweat on her forehead. “Daddy Bo,” Jesse Lloyd “Bo” Williams (1910-2008), stood below her, looking like he was ready to explode but not quite sure how.
Some pretty ugly accusations flew back and forth. Granny threatened to throw Daddy Bo out, take “Poppa’s land” and make sure he did not send her to Bolivar. In our family stories, Bolivar meant the place in Haywood County that everyone feared: the state mental hospital.
Daddy Bo stood there for a minute, at a rare loss for words. Then he shook his head and walked away.
I would eventually understand that they were a passionate couple. They could have a heated argument one minute, with him living in a trailer in the back, then sit beside each other holding hands the next. You could usually tell the status of their relationship by the location of his recliner. If it sat in the den, things were fine. If he had moved it into the kitchen so he could watch wrestling alone, something had happened.
One never knows what really goes on inside a marriage, but I know this much: theirs was never boring.
Anyway, Daddy Bo left and spent the rest of the day at the barn. I guess Granny needed an ally, so she started talking to me about the past, her parents, her siblings and things that had happened years earlier.
She pulled out old albums and envelopes stuffed with papers and photos. Then she began telling me stories that involved sex, death, land stealing, arson and scariest of all Western State Mental Hospital in Bolivar, Tennessee.
I felt terrified and excited at the same time.
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Joe Williamson (1858-1909) and daughters
Janie Williamson Williams (1887-1914), Jessie, Nannie, Jo and Mai
As Granny told the stories, I decided I needed a way to remember who was in the pictures. She picked up a pen and started writing on the first photo. I stopped her after that one, found some paper and drew outlines of the people in each picture. Then she identified them for me.
Since I showed so much interest, Granny told me she would give me the photos when she died.
True to her word, when Granny died in 1998, an envelope marked “Give to Scott Williams” sat among the things in the chest she kept in the guest bedroom. Along with the old photos she had shown me that day, she had added a few others. And there with the photos were the drawings I had made of many of the photos.
Robert Edward “Bob” Castellaw (1868-1954), Zula Zera Watridge Castellaw (1875-1940) and their children, around 1908.
Back row, l to r: Bob, Isaac and Daniel, front row, l to r: Brant, Rob, Zula and Irene. Ruby and Elizabeth had not yet been born.
This photo remains in remarkably good shape considering it was taken more than 100 years ago.
- Robert Edward “Bob” Castellaw, my great-grandfather
2. Zula Zera Watridge Castellaw, my great-grandmother
4. Zula Zera Watridge Castellaw, my great-grandmother
If I had not created these drawings with my grandmother that day, the identity of some of these ancestors may have been lost. I guess in some ways, this blog is a lot like those drawings. Hopefully, getting as much information about my ancestors compiled into one place will be helpful for my own descendants.
For more of my genealogy research, visit rscottwilliams.info.
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