This was my paternal grandmother whom I visited as a child, but didn't know she was my grandmother at the time. Years later, at age 38, I began peppering my mother with questions about her. Also, I met a cousin that knew her as his aunt and from the two of them, this is what I have learned about her:

She was born Mattie or Martha Gibson. I have found two middle names for her: Louise and Clair. She tended to be eccentric and had a flair for the dramatic so she may have added names to her documents.

She was born (no records of a delayed birth or any birth records could be located for her) on Halloween of either 1897 or 1898 to Samuel Marion Gibson and Georgia Emma Kinsey in Culleoka in Maury County, Tennessee. She was the 6th child (3rd daughter) out of nine children born to this union.

Not much is known of her youth, except that when she was older, the family relocated to Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee. Mattie as she was known to all, loved to write poetry. She wrote a poem titled Wipe My Weeping Eyes. Later, a Mr. Francis Flood wrote a melody to it and it was listed in the ASCAP archives that it was played only once in January 1978 and earned only royalties that one time. Subsequently, Mattie joined ASCAP and attended their annual awards banquet in Nashville. She was very proud to be a member of ASCAP.

She married a Charles Nathan Brinkley and had five children with him (two girls and three boys in that order). For whatever reason, she walked out on her husband and left him with the five kids. No one in the family can understand WHY she did that. She then married Brawner "Elkin" Wooten, who owned the local pool hall in Gallatin. There was no issue from this second marriage. I found an inscription in his Bible in which she wrote that he was very good to her and that she loved him very much.

After Elkin's death, she rented her upstairs bedrooms to tenants. She admitted to a relative that she would snoop through the tenants' things while they were absent from the house at work.

One time, she sideswiped a car in the town square of Gallatin and became so flustered that she left her car door open, the engine running, and proceeded to enter the drugstore, sit down at the soda fountain, and consumed a beverage of some sort.

I now realize that she may have suffered with BiPolar Disorder that was inherited through the Kinsey line as my mother and others always used the word "eccentric" in describing her.

She played the piano and was a huge cat lover. She was known for her baking skills. One of her descendants regaled me with tales of his weekend and summer visits with his "Aunt Mat" when he was a child and he stated that she was a "real hoot" and tons of fun. It was obvious that she loved entertaining the younger ones.