I recently wrote about the photos of my third-great-grandparents that Diane Lyle sent me.
She also sent photos of several relatives who sit a little farther out on the branches of my family tree. I had already included many of them in my ancestry charts, but photographs put faces with the names.
I think when you look at these five photos together, they capture rural life in West Tennessee in the 1930s and 1940s. The houses remind me of my grandparents’ houses which makes sense because these were their friends and family members. Their houses were built for function rather than show and were heated by fireplaces or stoves. These were places where families lived their lives alongside their fields they farmed, the animals they raised and the woods where they hunted.
The clothes the women are wearing in the photos also tell a story: cotton dresses with small floral patterns, checks, dots, collars, buttons, belts and mid-calf skirts, all practical, washable and modest but still carefully chosen or sewn to look respectable. The older women are wearing loose, patterned “good dresses” saved for visiting, church or photographs, while the younger women show more 1940s style, waved hair and all.
The men dressed and styled their hair with care, and posed in front of their homes and farms presenting themselves with pride.
I have added the photos to the Lovelace and Cobb pages on HaywoodCountyLine.com, but I wanted to share them here as well.
Ed and Pearl Lovelace Patterson
Eva Pearl Lovelace Patterson (1889-1951) was the sister of my great-grandfather, James Luther “Jim” Lovelace (1885-1968). This photo shows Pearl and her husband, Edward Mansfield Patterson (1880-1944), on Poplar Corner Road in Haywood County, Tennessee, where my grandfather also grew up and lived his entire life. Pearl and Ed had five children: Irene Patterson (1906-unknown), Nancy Helen Patterson Cobb (1910-2008), Homer Edward Patterson (1912-2006), Viola Patterson Rosson (1918-2008) and Richard Hess Patterson (1915-1916), who died as an infant of bronchitus.
Will and Martha Adeline “Pat” Cobb Mann in 1949
Martha Adeline “Pat” Cobb Mann (1868-1964) and William Bryant Mann (1871-1949) were the parents of Hattie Mae Mann Jacocks (c. 1896-1939) and Sallie “Bett” Mann. Pat was the sister of my second great-grandmother, Mary Etta Cobb Brantley (1871-1935). Another family connection: Robert Green Marbury (1809-1904), my third great-grandfather, was the justice of the peace who married Pat and Will in 1896.
Pat and Will also raised Will’s nephew, Sidney Johnston Outlaw (1915-1988). Sidney’s parents, William Price “Bill” Outlaw (1862-1917) and Leanna Catherine Mann Outlaw (1875-1917), died one day apart of measles and left seven children. Leanna was Will’s sister. She died when Sidney was two years old, and the rest of the children went to live with various relatives.
Nora Cobb Gordon, Pat Cobb Mann and her daughter, Sallie Bett Mann, in 1958
Nora Cobb Gordon (1879-1970) was a sister of my second-great-grandmother, Mary Etta Cobb Brantley, and Pat Cobb Mann. Nora and her husband, Walter Louie Gordon (1877-1952), were also married by third-great-grandfather, Robert Green Marbury. Nora and Walter had three sons: Thomas George Gordon (1901-1966), Louis Clarence Gordon and William Adelbert Gordon (1912-1969).
Top row, l to r: Irene Patterson and Bethie Lovelace; Middle row, l to r: Blanche Lovelace and Helen Patterson; Bottom row, l to r: Myrtle White and Ebbie Lee Lovelace.
These girls were all cousins and granddaughters of my third great-grandparents Charles Buchanan “Charlie B.” Lovelace (1857-1938) and Nancy Jane Yelverton Lovelace (1861-1936). Blanche Lovelace, the little girl in the middle row on the left, was the sister of my grandfather, Guy Lovelace. They may have been standing at Charlie and Nancy Jane’s farm when someone took this photo. If the location matches the spot I suspect, the pond still sits there today.
My grandfather eventually purchased that same farm and raised his own family there, including my mother. Today, my aunt and uncle, Bill and Sandra Lovelace, own it.
Alice Lovelace White
Alice Florence Lovelace White (1896-1979) was another sister of my great-grandfather, Jim Lovelace. She married Egbert Oscar White (1875-1948), the widower of her sister, Addie Angeline Lovelace White (1878-1913) who died at age 35.
According to family history, Addie asked Alice on her deathbed to marry Oscar and take care of her children: Odie Thomas “O.T.” White (1900-1989), Chester Aubrey White (1903-1971), Myrtle Lee White Kail (1906-1995) and Oscar “Dock” McDonald White (1909-2005).
Odie Thomas “O.T.” White’s general store on Poplar Corner Road in Brownsville many years after his death.
After Alice and Oscar married, they had Carl Odel White (1918-2001), whose photo appears below.
Myrtle Lee White Kail and Carl Odel White
Myrtle Lee White Kail and Carl Odel White had the same father, and their mothers were sisters. That made them both half siblings and cousins.
These photos are also a reminder of how quickly nuclear families expand, grow apart and lose connection. These were my grandfather’s aunts, uncles and cousins, yet I never heard of them until I began researching my ancestry.
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