Family Tree

      If you're driving up Interstate 65 from Alabama into Tennessee look to your left at the ten mile marker.  You'll see a couple of stores, a service station and a few other buildings.  This little village is Bunker Hill.  It's not a town, it's really just a place.  This is where my grandmother's family roots are.
     In the spring at mile marker eleven you'll see buttercups blooming on the side of the interstate.  They used to be in my great aunts front yard when her house sat where you're driving now.  At mile marker twelve you'll see an old secluded house sitting off the road.  This is the house that my great grandparents were living in when they died in 1947.
    I have a lot of history in this area thanks to my grandmother.  To tell you about it I'm going to go back and start in 1813. 
      William Watson, born in 1775 married Mary Brown.  On September 27, 1813 they became the proud parents of twin boys, Larken Watson and Henry Watson.  The twins grew to manhood and married.
       It's not known who Larken married but in 1840 he had a daughter, Elzira Watson.  Elzira married Elijah Wilson (E.W.) Holt.  In 1860 they had a bouncing baby boy, Yancey Elijah Holt.
      Henry Watson, the other twin, married Margaret Osborne.  They had a son William O. Watson.  William was a scoundrel.  This handsome man, whose picture has hung in my grandmother's and mother's houses and in mine until I gave it to my son, seemed to pack a lot of living into his short thirty years.  He married Martha Bass.  They had a beautiful daughter, Sarah Olivia Watson. 
      Beautiful Sarah Olivia grew up and married Elijah Wilson Holt, once the bouncing baby boy.  They knew each other all their lives and had a long marriage that produced nine children, one of which was my grandmother, Sallie Holt.
       My grandmother Sallie married Henry Lee Taylor and they had a daughter Sara Jane Taylor who married my father Julius Hart.  So here I am.
      In case you haven't been able to follow this let me simplify it from where I started.  William Watson begot twins Larken Watson and Henry Watson. 
      Larken Watson begot Elzira Watson who begot Yancey Elijah Holt who begot Sallie Holt who begot Sara Jane Taylor who begot me.
      Henry Watson begot William O. Watson who begot Sarah Olivia Watson who begot Sallie Holt who begot Sara Jane Taylor who begot me.
      To make a long family tree short.....my great grandparents were third cousins and my great-great-great grandfathers were twin brothers, Larken and Henry.
      Maybe this explains the handsome men and beautiful women in my family.

Uncle Leon

      A couple of weeks ago my cousin, Rachel, was filling me in on our Uncle Leon.  She likes to collect pictures and history of our family.  She had pictures that people said were Leon but she didn't know for sure if it was actually him or not.  But she said another cousin gave her a picture his father had of Leon.  It was an identification badge with his picture and his signature so she knew for sure this was Leon.   He looked like her father and another one of our uncles, who were his brothers.
     The reason she didn't know if the other pictures were of Leon or not is because we have never met him.  Growing up he was this mysterious uncle who left home and lived in the far away land of Texas.  I always had theories about why he left.  One was that he loved a beautiful girl but couldn't marry her for whatever reason so he packed up and left brokenhearted.   The other was that in the heat of a fight he had killed a man and had to get out of town fast.  I'm afraid the real reason for his departure was far more mundane.
     He left Giles County in the early 1930's with several other young men.  Since this would have been the time of the Great Depression I'm assuming he left because of the prospect of a job in Texas.  It even could have been with one of the government programs established at that time to give young men a chance to work.  He ended up in Fort Worth, liked it and decided to stay.
     He did come home occasionally, would stay for a week or two then leave quietly early one morning without a word of good bye.  The last time he came home was around 1940 which was before Rachel or I were born.  Over the years he kept in touch with our Aunt Delia, one of his sisters.
     He never married or had children.  In 1976 he was found wandering around the streets.  He had suffered a stroke.  The only reason the police knew who he was is that he had a letter from Aunt Delia in his pocket.  She was contacted and went to stay with him and stayed with him until his death shortly after that.
      His body was brought back and he was buried in Pulaski.  After 40 years Uncle Leon finally came home.