Family Story

Martha Bass was my great great grandmother.  She was born in 1849.  No one knows for sure when she died because she disappeared one day.
She lived in the small rural community of Bunker Hill in Giles County.  Her first husband was William Watson.  They had four children.  One was Sarah Olivia Watson, my great grandmother.  After he died she remarried and had another child.
Martha and her second husband lived on a farm and raised produce to sell.  They had a hired hand to help on the farm.  According to most stories he was black but one family member always said he was Native American.
One day Martha and the hired hand took a horse and wagon to town, Pulaski, the closest city.  As the story goes, they sold all the produce then both of them and the horse and wagon disappeared.  It's not clear if they even started the trip home.
Of course there is the theory that someone saw them during the day making money selling produce and after the day's work robbed them, killed them and drove away with the horse and wagon.  They probably weren't even missed until they didn't return home.  I know inquiries were made because according to the story someone saw them  boarding a train in another small community.  Whatever happened they were never seen or heard from again.
The robbery theory would be the logical one.  But ever being the romantic I have another theory.
Martha couldn't have had a easy life raising five children on a farm, barely making a living.  Her first husband's obituary says he led a wayward life until just before he died when he found Jesus.  Perhaps her second husband wasn't much better.  She found solace, love and understanding with the hired hand.  Of course at the time, around 1900, they would have had a hard time as a racially mixed couple.
I like to think they loved each other so much they decided to take the produce money and run.  They escaped by taking the train and starting over in a new safe place.  Of course you have to think of her five children she left behind but they all survived and led productive lives.  Maybe leaving them was the price she paid for escaping her life there.
They loved each other, they ran away and they lived happily ever after.
That's just my theory.  It may be far from the truth but if I had written the story that's the way I would have written it.