MEMORIAL OBITUARY
June 9, 1970
Entered into Eternal Rest June 7, 1970
ANDREWS, Mrs. Stella Simpson

- Of 4110 Lealand Lane, Sunday afternoon, June 7, 1970, at the residence. Survived by daughter, Miss Sara J. Andrews; son, William L. Andrews, both of Nashville; sisters, Mrs. Melvin Ford, Elgin, Ill,. Mrs. Loren Witter, brother Orlando Simpson, both of Fairfield, Ill.; six grandchildren. Remains were in the Rose Room of Woodlawn Funeral Home on Thompson lane. Funeral services 2 p.m. Tuesday, Chapel of Roses, with Rev. Earl C. Parker officiating. Internment Woodlawn Memorial park. Active pallbearers: J. B. Thompson, Bunyan B. Brock [neighbor], Clark Noe, and nephews. Arrangements by Woodlawn Funeral Home, 291-4754.

It is recalled that Stella's mother died when Stella was very young and her father raised her and her three sisters before getting married again not too long after his first wife's death. They were so young that they did not know their real mother very well and they were crazy about their new mother. She was a wonderful woman according to her step-grandson, William Lafayette Andrews, Jr.

The 1900 Federal Census shows that Stella's step-mother was 22 years old in 1900, 25 years younger than her father and only five years her senior. Stella's sister Clara and Clara's step-mother were the same age per the 1900 Census.

Name: Stella V Simpson
Residence: Barnhill Township, Wayne, Illinois
Birth date: Aug 1883
Birth place: Illinois
Relationship to head-of-household: Daughter
Father name: Orlando Simpson
Father birth place: Illinois
Mother name: Sarah O Simpson
Mother birth place: Illinois
Race or color (expanded): White
Head-of-household name: Orlando Simpson
Gender: Female
Marital status: Single
Enumeration district: 0093
Sheet number & letter: 6A
Household id: 107
Reference number: 36
GSU film number: 1240350
Image number: 00000545
Collection: 1900 United States Census

It is not known how much education Stella had, but it may not have been much since her mother died when she was young. It is not known how Stella's natural mother died; however, her early death may be why Stella also appeared to have such a harsh personality, seeming to her grandchildren to be unable to smile or laugh, ever. She spoke very poor English, using such things as double-negatives in expressing herself. She did not speak often in the presence of her grandchildren and her inability to smile may have expressed her dissatisfaction with her daughter-in-law, a devout, orthodox Catholic.

Orlando and his new wife did not have the second set of four children until much later and these four children were much closer in age to Stella's daughter Sarah Josephine Andrews. Sara Andrews was consequently very close to them since they were her age.

Stella died of old age in 1970 after having been comatose for many months. She was at home until she died, in a baby bed lying in a fetal position, almost completely emaciated.

From: David Andrews
To: Andrews, John (DC)
Sent: Tue Aug 16 23:34:54 2011
Subject: Aunt Lou Obit
I don't remember Grandmother very well. Perhaps mostly from the silent home movies; she always seemed to be listening more than talking. Maybe Aunt Sara spoke for her. I do remember her bedridden. I remember being scared by how fragile she was then.

Daughter Sara Josephine Andrews: "Mama was born on August 15, 1883. I used to call her 'Star' for Stella. My mother and father married in Illinois. He went to the World's fair at St. Louis to visit a cousin of his and he met her. They married in 1905. Then we went to Chicago for the World's fair, that was in 1931. I was born three years after they married. "

Sara Josephine Andrews' Letter of May 14, 1965:
... my mother, who is from Illinois, was devoted to the Andrews family but she has been unable to give me information beyond three generations...
... My mother hasn't been well and my responsibilities both at home and the library have increased. I haven't had an opportunity to travel much recently.

JEA – How did your father and mother meet?

WLA – Well, the Harris' had a cousin, Riggs Harris, and he moved up to southern Illinois. And so my father was visiting him and their farm was about maybe 2 or 3 miles from Orlando Simpson's farm – maybe not that far. And he met them that way. Riggs Harris, the grandmother lived right down there you know when you go toward the interstate (on highway 50) and go past the, you know that road (on the left just after the Ezell Curve) that goes off to that cemetery (the Bryant Cemetery) on the other side there (left side), when you go over the hill there, that first house way over there, I mean it's just after you get out of the hill and the woods, you can see the two houses there. The one way down and that first one was cousin Mildred's. I call her cousin Mildred, Mildred Harris. That would be Paul's grandmother or great grandmother. So Riggs Harris was related to them.

JEA – Then did they go together to the 1900 World's Fair in St. Louis? (I think Aunt Sara told me this.)

WLA – I don't remember. It seems to me that some of the Simpsons originally came from Cullyoka. I may be wrong about this. You know, the old Sunny Webb school used to be at Cullyoka. Sonnie Webb started the Webb School at Bell Buckle and his daughter married Mr. Price and they started the Price-Webb school up here, that's where Sara and I went to school, first started to school and I went through the 4th grade I think before the school burned. Sara was named for her (Sara Bryant). They called her Aunt Sallie. She died in 1928 and Nicholas died in 1934.

Simpson-Andrews Wedding
At the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Orlando Simpson, six miles southeast of this city, Sunday night last, occurred a very pretty wedding ceremony, by which Miss Stella V. Simpson and Mr. William L. Andrews were made husband and wife. Mr. Simpson's commodious country residence was handsomely decorated for the occasion. Illuminated Chinese lanterns lighted the porches and yard, and evergreens and flowers were tastefully arranged in the different rooms. In the east room a beautiful floral arch had been constructed of cut flowers. Added to these decorations were the pleasant faces of a hundred or more of the neighbors and close friends of the bride. The ceremony was performed by Rev. J. G. Tucker, of this city, at a little after nine o'clock. When the minister and the writer arrived, after driving from this city through the rain, the house was found crowded with as bright and gay and intelligent looking a crowd of young people as can be found in any community.

Soon after the arrival of the minister, Miss Nellie Carter took her seat at the organ and commenced the wedding march, to the sweet strains of which the wedding party entered the room. The minister came first, followed by Mr. James Dickey and Miss C. M. Caldwell, attendants, who took their station to the right and left of the floral arch. They were followed by the bride and groom, who took their places immediately beneath the arch, and as the music ceased the minister, in a very impressive manner, pronounced the ceremony which united two happy hearts.

After the ceremony and congratulations, refreshments were served, consisting of fruit and splendid cake and coffee, and later the guests united in rendering sacred songs, so that the evening passed all too swiftly.

The bride, who is the third daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, is a beautiful and highly accomplished young lady, and the groom is prosperous young merchant of Bryant Station, Tennessee, where the newly wedded couple will make their home. They left for their home , Wednesday of this week, followed by the congratulations and best wishes of a large cle of friends.

Wedding Party
Berlin, Sept. 16 - On Thursday evening the hospitable country home of Mr. and Mrs. Nick Andrews on the Franklin Pike was thrown open to forty invited guests to welcome the wife of their son, William, who arrived with his bride on the 6 o"clock train from Fairfield, Illinois, where they were united in marriage Sunday evening September 16. At 9 o'clock an elegant menu was served. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were the recipients of numerous and costly presents and their many friends wish them a joyous and prosperous wedded life.

Aunt Sara talks about her Mother after her Father's Death:
"Of course he didn't have an awful lot. At that time it was a great deal. But he invested it well and he had some life insurance, so we never suffered, and then we had taken Uncle Kenneth and Aunt Conslo in about four times, to live with us at different places."

"Yes, he was a good business man. My mother didn't know how to write a check when he died, and he taught her, showed her something about it when he found out he was sick. But Leonard Cathy was president of the bank and they would help her oh so much. They were wonderful. And we knew everybody in Lewisburg. And he was a very active member in the church. And when he would want to give something, when they needed something, the church, he would call an usher over and wisper in his ear what he would give, and there was some others who were very prominent, who would stand up and say I'll give so and so, and they never paid. And my father thought that was wrong. He would quietly give, but didn't want to be acknowledged for it. Yes, that church is still there in Lewisburg. It's on the street that goes right off of the square. It's across from a funeral home now. It's a Methodist church, and your father taught Sunday school classes there for awhile. He did that after he came back to the farm and Betty didn't come down and he taught classes there. He had a lot of friends. He's not very assertive, your father, he's just peaceful and tries to get along with everybody. Two or three of the members said, I wish he'd be more assertive. But he wanted the peace."

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
In Loving Memory
__________
Of My Dear Husband, W. L. Andrews,
Who Departed this Life Dec. 21, 1924

"Dearest Husband thou has left us,
And our hearts are sad and lone,
For without your cheering presence,
Home no more is "Home Sweet Home."

How we miss your dear sweet presence,
And your works of love and cheer,
And the day hung heavy o'er us,
And the future looks so drear.

Yes we miss you in the morning,
When the day is young and fair,
Miss the sound of voice and footstep,
O, we miss you everywhere.

And when comes the noontime,
And the sun is shining clear,
Then we miss you too dear husband,
And the noon time is so drear.

Then when fall the evening shadow,
And we gather as of yore,
Round the place you loved to linger,
In the days that's gone before.

How we miss you then my husband,
None oh, none can ever know,
Only those who know the sorrow,
And have felt the heavy blow.

Yes we miss you, sadly miss you,
And the grief is hard to bear,
But we've one more tie in heaven,
For we know you're waiting there.

So I'll trust in God dear husband,
And will try to do my best,
Try to point your orphan boy,
To the home of peace and rest.

So farewell dear husband,
Till the cares of life are past,
Till we cross death's chilly waters,
And are anchored safe at last.

Then we hope to meet you yonder,
In that bright Celestial Home.
Where they know not pain nor sorrow,
And where death can never come.

You must watch and wait our coming,
Till we reach the blistful shore,
Then to greet and welcome,
Where we'll meet to part no more.

And O husband hover over us,
As life's lonely way we go.
Be, oh, be, our Guardian Angel,
If the dear Lord wills it so.

His wife.

Kenneth & Conslo Andrews told Stella's daughter-in-law Betty that Betty's husband always contributed one-third to every major purchase by his mother & sister Stella & Sara. He had apparently paid one-third for the house they purchased on Lealand Lane in Nashville in the 1950s and after Stella died in 1972, he deeded his one-half interest in the house to Sara w/o consideration w/o telling his wife.

Grandson Bill Andrews:
Dad was born in 1916 to William Lafayette Andrews and Stella Simpson in the small rural town of Lewisburg, about fifty miles south of Nashville. Named after his father, Dad was southern to the core, educated in private schools and raised under a chivalric ethic that esteemed civility and courteousness, reserve and restraint. By the time of my father's birth, Grandfather Andrews, a graduate of Macon Business College, was already a prominent entrepreneur who owned two general stores. Soon he would open a bank and buy up prime real estate on the Lewisburg Square. He was a hardworking, fastidious and socially conservative teetotaler who died in 1924 in his early forties. No one knows for sure the cause of death but his extremely jaundiced appearance during his last days suggests a form of hepatitis. Dad lost his father at the tender age of eight and was raised thereafter by his mother and a sister, my Aunt Sara, who was eight years his senior. More so than Dad, it was Aunt Sara who acquired my grandfather's conspicuous talent for moneymaking through scrupulous frugality. Two years ago, Aunt Sara died, one month shy of ninety-four. To the end she reminisced about her wealthy friends in the Junior league and the prominent social elites of Nashville with whom she associated as a young woman in the twenties.

Left with a small fortune in savings and investments, my widowed paternal grandmother abandoned the small town of Lewisburg and moved to Nashville with her two children whom she enrolled in private schools. Aunt Sara graduated from Belmont Methodist College and later headed the children's section of then Nashville Public Library, a position she retained until retirement in 1973.

GRANDSON BILL: Daddy was a stranger to me too but I never got the impression that he didn't have a good job. I just don't think Daddy liked the law and that this was something that Aunt Sarah and Grandmother wanted him to be for the status. I don't think they really knew Daddy very well because they always blamed Mom and having so many children for forcing Daddy out of law - but Dad himself didn't like the adversarial relationships that often are at the heart of the legal profession. I know he loved legal theory and I can remember when he took you (John) and me to the Marshall County courthouse in that case where the father of our piano teacher (Ms Coffee?) was robbed. He loved the law but probably lacked the self-confidence to make a success of it with a jury. I can remember how shy he seemed at times - especially around strangers. Anyway, even though he was a stranger to me in Feb of 1953 when I saw him on my return from Florida with Ganger, it didn't take long for me to warm up to him. Remember his conversations with Mr McGoo who lived under the hood of the car? And I loved the talks we had about astronomy and the cosmos. He once told me about his idea of God (the Jeffersonian view of Deism) and I made the mistake of telling the girls who told Mom and I can remember another round of yelling and arguing. I felt bad at the time because I thought I was the cause of it. I think it was around that time that Mom decided that she wanted us going to Catholic schools. All of my boys go to church occasionally but none of them are what I would call devout. They're more like me and I'm more like Dad that way. I'm a Catholic because I want to be and hope that the church has the truth - but, like Unamuno the Christian existentialist, my heart tells me to believe in Christ but my mind tells me that there's probably no life after death - unless God makes no exception for animals and plant life in heaven. I want my boys to have faith and to be practicing Catholics but I'm a terrible role model for them.

When Stella's son William L Andrews, Jr. was asked what memories he had of his mother, he said he recalled many things but was unable to mention anything in particular. He did say that he had to have a couple of operations when he was little and that his mother accompanied him to St. Thomas hospital in Nashville, but that his father was busy at the store and did not accompany him. He had to have a hernia operation when he was about four years old and then he had a glandular problem that also required an operation. This was when he was five or six and he had to learn to walk over again. He recalls having a sheepskin rug that he learned to walk on. Dr. Logan in Lewisburg, Tennessee was his doctor who thought he had Hodgkin disease. Another of his later doctors, Dr. Zukos, thought that it could not have been Hodgkin disease because "he would no longer be with us if it was."

Stella's granddaughter, Susan, recalls Anna Lou Andrews Hendrix, Stella's sister-in-law, telling her that Stella's husband was Stella's cousin. When he visited his cousin, Riggs Harris in Fairfield, Illinois, where Stella also lived, he met Stella for the first time. Apparently she was taken by him because, after he returned to Tennessee, Stella packed up her bags and took the train and followed him to Tennessee and they eventually married. Anna Lou Andrews Bascum also also told Susan that her brother, W.L. Andrews, was a workaholic.

Susan felt that her grandmother had talked Aunt Sara into hating her mother. Susan's father said that wasn't true. To prove it, Susan told him that when she was 4 years old and her sister Joan 5, her father left their brothers, Bill and John, there for a week and then Susan and Joan there for another week. One night when Joan and Susan were playing on floor and their grandmother was sitting on one recliner and their Aunt Sara on another, Aunt Sara called them over to her chair and showed them a picture of an ocean liner in the newspaper. She said look your mother's ship sank and your mother is dead. Joan grabbed Susan's hand and pulled her into the bedroom as Susan was crying and told Susan that Aunt Sara was lying, that she hated Mama and Mama wasn't dead.

Susan: When my parents, William and Elizabeth, were married my mother's name was not added to the deed because, sadly, my mother was not accepted by my grandmother and Aunt Sara. My mother was from the North and was a Catholic. For those reasons grandmother and Aunt Sara treated my mother poorly and unfairly. This was the source of a painful family history that affected the decisions concerning the property.

On March 10, 2007, Stella' grandson David asked his mother what it was like when she first met Stella, her future mother-in-law. Betty said that this was at Stuttgart, Arkansas and Betty told Stella that she and Andy were serious about each other, to which Stella immediately responded, "I'm not worried about you - Andy is like that with many girls." David then asked what her first impression of Grandmother and Aunt Sara was. She said she broke the engagement off right away. She felt that they possessed him.

David then asked his mother about the circumstances of her leaving Atlanta with the children for Detroit and how long his parents were separated. Betty told him that his father wanted to quit his job in Atlanta with AT&T and that they had agreed that Betty and the children would stay in Detroit while her husband fixed the bathroom at the farm, but that it took much longer than expected.

Stella's son William L. Andrews asked his wife, Betty Jane Early, either during their engagement or shortly after they were married if they would never lock their children into closets when they were bad. Apparently this had happened to him.

On one occasion Stella, her daughter Sara, and her son and his children were visiting Anna Lou and Uncle Bascum. Stella and Sara were vigorously deriding William L. Andrews' wife in front of her children while William L. Andrews said nothing in her defense (as was his non-confrontational nature). His daughter Susan, who was only about six or younger, got up, walked out and sat on the front porch. Anna Lou came out, put her arms around Susan and said, "Don't pay any attention to what your aunt and grandmother say. Your mother is a good woman."

Anna Lou was ill when her husband died in 1957 or 1958 and her niece-in-law, Elizabeth Jane Early Andrews, stayed with her on her farm during this period. Her husband, William L. Andrews, would drop his wife off at Anna Lou's farm on his way to take his children to school at St. Catherine's in Columbia and then pick her up after school. Anna Lou moved into Lewisburg shortly after this and lived near Hardison School until her death.

Grandson Bill:
With a law degree under his belt in September of 1946, Dad moved Mom and me to Nashville where he planned to study for the bar exam and look for a house. As was typical across the country, housing was in short supply after the war and we were forced to live with Grandmother Andrews and Aunt Sara for several months. Dad could not practice law until after he took the bar exam so he worked in management for Southern Bell at the company's Nashville office. Mom was pregnant with a second child, Dad was studying and working, and tensions began to grow between Mom and her in-laws.

Aunt Sara and Grandmother to an extent exhibited the stereotypical Southern WASP prejudice against Catholics. To make matters worse, Mom was a strong-willed Northerner who seldom let slights or barbs go unanswered. Aunt Sara and Grandmother let Mom know that they disapproved of her being pregnant again when Dad had not yet obtained a position in a Nashville law firm. They not only communicated their dissatisfactions to Dad, but in the subsequent decades they would also tell me and my siblings repeatedly that it was my mother who stifled Dad's ambitions and saddled him with too many children. The friction never ended. My earliest memories of Aunt Sara coalesced around the toy drawer she opened for me and her animated denunciations of my mother. Into adulthood I got along well with my aunt and grandmother because I generally didn't come to Mom's defense and simply remained silent during their denunciations. My more undiplomatic sisters, however, were much more willing to defend Mom and, in consequence, always remained emotionally at arms length from Aunt Sara and Grandmother.

Because we were so close in age – only fourteen months apart – we were never lonely. Mom remained home to dote on us and Dad continued to work in management at Southern Bell. He never practiced law. To this day Mom claims that it was because Dad did not like the contentious nature of law practice and even Dad admits that his distaste for law stemmed much from its proclivity to win cases rather than seek truth. To this day, I don't believe Dad regrets his decision to eschew law as a career.

Our little home on Stokes Lane was a protective wonderland for me and my three siblings. We enjoyed a tree-shaded fenced-in back yard that we called "Never-Never Land." It was a perfect life for children growing up and we were never in want for attention and adulation from our parents. There was stress whenever we visited Grandmother and Aunt Sara but it was not because we were sucked into the verbal crucible of denunciations against our mother. We were too young at that time. However, as the oldest of four children, I can remember by 1949 that Dad would often have to endure the diatribes against Mom – her Catholicism, her affection for having many children, and her hard headed unwillingness to take advice. By the end of 1949 I can remember that after our weekly visits to Grandmother and Aunt Sara, loud and animated arguments would ensue at home. Mom refused to accompany us on these visits and Dad was torn between loyalty to his family and loyalty to his wife. We felt loved but we could also sense the tensions aroused by the animosities of our mother and her in-laws.

Grandson Bill was baptized at Jesu Church in Detroit by Fr. D'Haene who his mother had for philosophy at the University of Detroit. Aunt Sara and Grandmother came up and stayed a couple of days but left before the baptism and took Bills crib back with them to ensure that Daddy and his family would return to Nashville. Daddy stayed for the baptism.

September 8, 2008
Betty told her son John that the reason he was baptized almost 3 months after his birth is that at the time of John's birth they were living with Grandmother and Aunt Sara in their basement on Oakland Avenue and they expected to move into their home on Stokes Lane at any time, but that was delayed because of legal problems in taking possession of the house. Because there was so much hostility toward Catholicism by Aunt Sara and Grandmother at the time, Betty wanted to wait for the baptism until they were away from Aunt Sara and Grandmother in their own home on Stokes Lane. Betty said that her husband was present only at Bill's baptism in Detroit and was not at John, Joan and Susan's baptism because he had begun to side with Grandmother and Aunt Sara after Bill's baptism. On the way to St. Cecilia's church to get permission to have Bill baptized at Jesu Church, her husband asked her if she would like him to become a Catholic and of course she said yes, but didn't pursue it right away because she didn't realize that his attitude would change. Betty's father was present at each baptism except Susan's. Betty and her mother took Susan to Christ the King Church with the other children and Fr. Leopard sent someone across the street to Berry's grocery store and the 17 year old Berry son stood in for Gampa as Susan's Godfather.

Mom felt that Dad had an obsession about his mother and sister and was crazy about them. After he died she began to realize that this obsession was probably the result of a need for security and he saw them as his security in life. But then Mom felt that when his mother died and finally when his sister died, he for the first time looked upon Mom as his wife.

Mom thought Sara was a better person than her mother and that her mother's influence caused Sara to be the way she was.

On October 11, 2006, Betty told her son John that when she found out that she was expecting John, she told Stella and Stella started screaming at her. She said that it's awful to say but unfortunately she was happy to tell her this because she knew what her reaction would be and she said that God punished her for it later.

Stella's sisters-in-law Consulo and Anna Lou told Betty that Stella and her husband fought like cats and dogs. He had made a trip up to Fairfield, Illinois, came back to TN and wasn't about to get married. Consulo said she came down and they got married in the same dress she wore down. When her husband died, she asked, well what's going to happen to me now, not knowing that she was left much money. Her husband had always raced around, running from one place to another to serve a customer. Anna Lou Andrews Bascum told Betty that when Stella's son William L. was little, his mother always wanted him on her lap and was constantly hugging him. He had to sit in the front seat of the car with her.

When grandson John Andrews started high school, he and his brother Bill (who had spent his first year of high school at Marshall County High School) enrolled at Father Ryan High School in Nashville. They lived at a boarding house, Blair House, in Nashville near St. Thomas Hospital the first semester and first half of the second semester, which was just a few blocks from Father Ryan. This was very difficult. The boys recall having a 25 cent tuna sandwich for lunch each day and 5 cent Crystal hamburgers for dinner.

Their Aunt Sara visited them at the boarding house early the second semester and brought bananas. (John recalls them gobbling them up they were so hungry.) Then by Spring their grandmother and Aunt Sara allowed the boys to stay at their house at 4110 Lealand Lane in Nashville. John recalls telling his mother that he would prefer not going to Father Ryan that next year, but he changed his mind later. He recalls going out into the woods on the farm on Sunday afternoons before returning to Nashville with Louise Gillespie and sitting in a tree to ponder and soak up the farm before leaving. The next school year, Betty and all of the children except Joan moved to the house Betty's mother had given her at 1003 Tyne Boulevard in Nashville. Joan elected to stay with her father in Lewisburg while he continued teaching at Belfast. Then the following year, Betty's husband left the farm and his job in Belfast and moved to Nashville with the rest of the family. The first year he renewed his teaching credentials by taking courses at Peabody College and then began teaching at Lipscomb School on Concord Road in Brentwood. When John bought the farm in Williamson County in 1972 with a partial loan from his mother from the proceeds from the sale of the Tyne house, her husband retired from teaching at age 52 and the family moved back to the Lewisburg farm. After not having worked as a nurse for twenty or so years, Betty then returned to nursing, initially working at nursing homes and then at Lewisburg Community Hospital on Ellington Parkway near the farm.

Granddaughter Joan: "I recall staying at Grandmother's and Aunt Sara's for two weeks while Mama was in Europe with Ganger and Aunt Sara holding up a newspaper article showing an ocean liner sinking while at sea saying that your mother was on that ship and she's dead. I recall trying to convince Susan Aunt Sara was lying & running away with her that night."

When Joan & Susan were playing on the floor one night, grandmother sitting on one recliner & Aunt Sara on another, Aunt Sara called them over and showed them a picture of an ocean liner in the newspaper, saying look your mother's ship sank & she is dead. Joan grabbed Susan's hand and pulled her into the bedroom as Susan was crying and ... told Susan that Aunt Sara was lying, that she hates Mama and Mama wasn't dead. So, years later, Daddy told Susan what Susan had said about Aunt Sara was a lie, that it never happened. Susan was so shocked that Daddy called her a liar that Susan said, "Daddy why do you choose to believe Aunt Sara instead of us? You've never stuck up for Mama and act as if Mama is wrong. If you don't believe me, ask Joan. She was older at five and she'll tell you." Joan and Susan had never talked about it. It was raining the night Aunt Sara said this and Susan remembers everything about it. Joan said, "Come on, we'll run away." They took some toys they had been playing with and an umbrella. A couple days later after telling Daddy this many years after it happened, Susan picked Joan up at airport and said, "Joan do you remember? Daddy says I am lying." Joan replied, "Of course I remember." Then Joan told Susan things about that weekend that she didn't even remember. Susan asked how did you know that Aunt Sara was lying. Joan said, "I didn't, but I knew how much Aunt Sara hated Mama and just hoped she was lying." Joan said that Daddy never asked her about this as Susan had asked him to do. Susan remembers how Daddy would get mad and squeeze the children's arms if they would try to defend Mama from the bad things Aunt Sara and Grandmother had said. Susan recalls her father asking her in adulthood why his children always took that smelly jug of milk with them to school at St. Catherine's in Columbia, Tennessee. He appeared shocked when Susan responded that it was because that was all they had to eat. Susan's mother had always tried to keep expenses down for her husband so that he would not so adamantly object to having children and always gave him everything he liked, especially sweets, even though the children didn't have the same things.

1/23/03-Susan mentioned to sister-in-law, Susan Sullivan Andrews, that her mother collected bottles to earn money to buy a piano for her husband when the children were very young on Stokes Lane in Nashville. Susan also mentioned that one late afternoon while her mother was out with the children pushing a stroller, her mother saw her father get off a bus and get into a car with his mother and sister. When he got home a couple of hours later she told him that she saw him get off the bus and asked him why he had said he was going to work late. According to Susan, her father got very mad and accused her mother of spying on him, and told her it was none of her business. Apparently he had done this frequently ... Susan said that her mother always told the children that their father was a saint. She also said that her mother told her that the girls were responsible for the boy's souls.

Susan recalls being in the back year at Gampa's and Ganger's house in Detroit when Bill came out and said our Daddy is here. Susan replied, "of course he's here." Bill said, no our real Daddy. Susan said, Gampa is our real daddy. Right after this a tall, skinny man came out and hugged her and Susan was stiff and didn't know what to think. This is the first she remembers of her father.

Susan also remembers the first day at the farm as her sister Joan spent hours chasing all of the chickens all over the yard and then put them all into the car because she wanted to bring them back to Detroit with her. Her parents asked her why she had done this and told her that the family was not going back to Canada or Detroit. One of Susan's first memories of the farm that first week or month was a windy stormy night when the corn had to be harvested and put into the barn before the rain. The corn was in the field beyond the corn field and arrowhead field near the high field in the field with the sink hole in it. The corn was huge. The boys form the black tenant family who lived on the farm, Harvey and Howard, were out there, but not Milton. The tractor lights were on against the wind and the oncoming rain and it was beautiful, but Susan was afraid she would get lost in the rows of corn if she let go of her mother's apron. She also remembers a chicken named Knott head that would always run into fences. Susan thinks he was mentally ill and that he was the one who fell into the pond and got frozen. Joan carried him around in her pocket for two days and he recovered but was never the same again. She remembers Suzie her cow who fell into the sink whole to the side of the house and Daddy pulling her out with the tractor. She never seemed to grow more after that.

Susan remembers how Daddy would get mad and squeeze our arms if we would try to defend Mama from the bad things Aunt Sara and Grandmother had said.

Susan recalls her father asking her in adulthood why his children always took that smelly jug of milk with them to school at St. Catherine's in Columbia, Tennessee. He appeared shocked when Susan responded that it was because that was all they had to eat. Susan's mother had always tried to keep expenses down for her husband so that he would not so adamantly object to having children and always gave him everything he liked, especially sweets, so he was unaware that the children didn't have the same things.

SON'S SEPARATION
These days it seems to me that I'm hearing for the first time about the marriage that Miriam and I came from, while you guys came from an earlier relationship. The same couple, but a different idea of their marriage.

Mama is telling (somewhat tentatively and with some revision) things that you may have heard before, but that I never considered. I always thought for instance that Lake House was one summer and the separation--once I realized it was that--a part of that summer. Two years seems a pretty serious separation in comparison.

I never heard Daddy talk about his life during the separation; What he thought and how he came to the new understanding. It had to be a re-defining time, and he must have had to basically tell his mother and sister that they would be excluded from his new life for the most part. I have a sense that Daddy knew Aunt Sara had serious failings, at least in our eyes, and he never tried to alter my impressions, many that I inferred from Mama's behavior or from what she said outright.

When I went to UTK in the Fall of '77, I asked Daddy for books to read that he had liked, and the only one he could find was If Winter Comes. The protagonist right away struck me as like Daddy. The antagonist was the wife in the book, and I saw her as more like Aunt Sara than Mama, but Mama didn't fit the heroine for me either. I saw it as an odd, incomplete and idealized identification for Daddy with some of his life and maybe the separation, and it was the closest thing to an explanation I ever got from Daddy.

GRANDSON BILL:
All of our children, the thirty-eight grandchildren, have I believe fond memories of Dad. I want
them all to have likewise positive memories of Mom... Although Ganger obviously showed favoritism to her grandchildren, I never ever really remember Ganger ever saying anything mean or hurtful about her grandchildren either individually or collectively. Grandmother Andrews may have been rather cold and aloof but, again, I don't recall her being mean.

YOUNGEST GRANDSON:
My brothers and sisters and I were raised with something akin to scorn for material possessions. At least we were taught to see others who accumulated and valued property and wealth as misguided and perhaps even anti-spiritual. This most verbally came from my mother, but my father too by example showed us that a spare existence makes its own provisions. Both my parents felt that owning our house and our farm was a great wealth that was far more connected to the spiritual than the material.

Looking back at my parents' lives and what is happening now, I see that so much of what we valued came from those who came before my parents. While my father and mother lived a very simple existence to provide for us, our farm and the Nashville house were gifts handed down to my parents. What this means is that we were never shown how to earn directly in relation to what we had. Though my parents were both educated, and both earned wages in stages of their lives, my parents pretty much lived in subsistence on what they'd inherited, earning only enough to pay for taxes and a second-hand car beyond our food, clothing and electricity. At some point back in time, the land we loved so much had been earned by a relative. When I read the family histories that my bother John has been sharing, I'm made aware of how much we received from our ancestors. How hard some worked in schools, in medicine, in business to earn the material properties that became our farm(s). The odd thing is that there's no connection at all to these benefactors in terms of gratitude or respect-no love. In some cases, such as Aunt Sara, these are the very people for whom we feel scorn. And yet we accept or feel entitled to what they left us. To me, this seems a great sin. To ask for or take from others without love. And I believe this kind of taking leads to a dishonorable way of giving: To give in guilt or pity or in expectation and manipulation, rather then in the openness of love. So, while we're not alone in this at all, I think we only obtusely appreciate what we have. Deep down there's great insecurity about what is and is not ours.

This might mean nothing, really, except I believe my siblings are (as my parents were) largely unconscious of the incongruity between what we do and what we have; between what we deserve and what we expect; between what belongs to us and what obliges us.

We confuse ourselves and even love with the things we've been given. ...I simply don't have the luxury of putting time into talking with my family, let alone plotting. I've found it much more healthy to put my spiritual energy into being clear about my desires-trying to be honest with myself about what of my desire comes from fear and greed, vs. what is from love and acceptance. ... Openly. If I haven't felt listened to, I also haven't allowed my sense of fairness to go underground...

I fear the bitterness that comes from having my father revised as just a weaker, stingier version of my mother (As though it was only Aunt Sara's bad influence that kept him from oneness with my mother and sainthood). This view of my father loses exactly the soul that I loved and trusted for fastidiously not favoring one child over another. Because this impartiality was my father's way throughout his life and at the core of what he felt best about himself. Even if he did fail in ways. Even if he did at times reveal a stronger emotional connection to a child, he would never have allowed that to come out in the way he gifted. His spiritual battle was as all spiritual battles should be: with himself. His battle was to fight for honesty and constancy starting with himself.

My brothers and sisters and I were .. close... We were wonderful and quirky children, and we loved each other all the more for the wonder and difference we shared. ..I know now with considerable remorse that nothing ever given me has been free. I miss the Santa Fe farm, but I could let go of it if I could feel payments ... ended with my forfeiting the land there that my Dad once told me would be my 1/6th of that farm... But it all comes down, it turns out, to equity ... tied to promises made by my parents and compensation for promises broken by my father and Aunt Sara...

In so many ways, Mama, [your letter] seemed to miss the point of all our lives: Yours as a mother intensely concerned with meeting the needs of your children and meting out your life-time's resources; Daddy's, as the person in my life who felt closest to me in terms of understanding, acceptance and even spirituality... And the point of my life too seemed missed, because so much of the best of my life was... to write [the above] purposefully in the opposite direction from animosity.

There are things that I haven't recognized until lately, perhaps because there's a part of me that also thinks like you..., but in seeing Daddy's fairness as more like God's. The truth is that you, Mama, are all that's left of the way we were raised. .. Even though I've wanted to be with you more and to take care of you by sharing time and the responsibility of being with you with my siblings, that too was not meant to be. ...Nothing can take away from the love that was Daddy's acceptance and kindness; Nothing can take from the intensity that was your way of giving an edge to all that we had growing up, to push all experiences past the ordinary toward the miraculous. I love both you and Daddy beyond any money or even beyond any part of the farm. Because of what you have already given. It's funny but I have thought for so long that the only stories you read or told [us] growing up were those of the saints or of God. But since being a parent, one of my greatest pleasures is reading to [my children]. And it's amazing how many stories I remember you reading to me through my children. And just stories. Not only the religious ones. Cowboys and houses and tugboats and hosts and monkeys.... It's through remembering these stories that had no overt spiritual lessons that I realize you must have loved not just teaching me about God, but just being with me when I was little. I don't know how to explain it completely, but I think that maybe it's good that Daddy died before you. This is where I feel it is all good...especially you. More than the conversion that I know means a lot to you, I see Daddy's leaving it all to you as his life's act of faith. It's this I want to accept and find good.

STELLA'S SON:

Mrs W.L. Andrews
4110 LeaLand Lane
Nashville 4, Tenn.
Tuseday 6-11-63

Dear Mama -
Sorry I haven't written before this - I've intended to write and call all the week-end but something kept coming up. The boys and I may be down this Saturday - if not we'll be down the next Saturday. I am not quite through with my final report but should be by Thursday.

I went up to the Tax Equalization Board, Monday a week ago - I explained the situation and they were all very nice and understanding but they didn't change the assessment- I saw Ralph Whitsell yesterday and he said that that didn't mean they would not lower it later. He said he would do what he could next year, but might not be able to this year. The bank has already moved into their new building.

We are enjoying the farm - the boys are pretty restless but I believe they are beginning to calm down a little bit - I am going to start a Correspondence Course at Peabody next week - it will take a little longer but I can do my work here on the farm and I believe that this will be better for all of us than being in Nashville this summer. I have been taking the children to the Recreation Center for swimming this week and I am hoping that they will meet some nice people there and get weaned a little bit from the city.

I'll see you either this week-end or the next - Take care of yourselves-

Lots of love,
Will

We had dental appointments yesterday. David was given a certificate for bravery beyond the call of duty which entitles him to an ice cream cone - He had Two Cavities.

The first memory John has of his father is on Stokes Lane in Nashville with his father in his fedora hat, suit and overcoat looking at a baseball game on television as he was about to walk out the door for work on a Saturday. John then remembers a little of Atlanta after his father was transferred there by AT&T, especially the neighbors Mary and Terry Moore. He remembers vividly taking the train from Atlanta to Detroit when his parents separated and the pleasant rocking back and forth that night as he was sleeping in his berth.

He has many wonderful memories of living with his grandparents in Detroit for three years between 1950 and August of 1953 and the lake house cottage in Canada that his grandfather bought for them. He recalls his special admiration for his grandfather, his quiet manner and special presence in his life, the Michigan Drilling Company lab in the garage adjacent to the house, and how much he missed his grandfather and Detroit when the family moved back to his father's farm in Tennessee, which he also loved very much.

After Atlanta, John must have forgotten what his father looked like because the next time he saw him three years later while swimming next to his cousin Cathy Watts, John had to ask her, "who is than man kissing my mother?"

John recalls his grandfather giving his father a large and beautiful maroon Packard automobile to drive his family back to the farm in Tennessee, how his father made the children put their dog out and leave it on the side of the road as punishment for their fighting in the car, staying at a "tepee" hotel that night, arriving in Columbia Tennessee where Bill and John were to attend the Catholic School there, climbing on the deer statute down from the square on West Seventh Street, and then arriving at the farm just after dark, getting up at the crack of dawn, and the excitement of seeing the many chickens, milking cows, and sheep in the many fields as they explored the farm and barns for the first time, assigning ownership of the barns between themselves. He recalls Bill putting their collie dog [who had earlier wondered into their possession and who they loved very much], on the electric fence and it running off screeching and never seeing him again. He remembers several years later his father having Milton, their black sharecropper, take their new collie dog who had also wondered into their possession, out to the woods just beyond the spring with all four children in tow, tying the dog to a tree with the children all crying, and then shooting at the dog with his shotgun, only to sever [deliberately?] the rope allowing the dog to run off howling. It is not recalled why his father had Milton do this.

John recalls the first crystal radio his father built for him in a plastic sandwich box which received only WSM or WJJM. He recalls the subsequent "one tube" radio his father built for him, which he would stare at in the dark of the night watching the vacuum tube glow and play the only music it would receive, country music, which John did not like that much. Later his Aunt Sara and Grandmother gave John one of their old radios (an early battery operated model) off of which he loved to take the back so that he could watch the many tubes glow all together in the dark of the night. While John was in eighth grade, his father "jerry-rigged" a AM carrier wave transmitter on the Halliburton short wave receiver he had given him and John loved to sit by for hours listening to Radio Moscow, Vatican Radio, etc. This transmitter carried the transmitted signal along the telephone lines. John and his fellow Belfast School companions used this transmitter to start radio station WBES broadcasting music programs each morning before school from a vacant classroom. Students lined up at the door with their transistor radios to their ears and people at the country store in town also picked up the signal. All of this caused John to develop a great interest in electronics, just as Michigan Drilling Company had caused him to develop an interest in engineering.

The first time John felt close to his father was during his sophomore year of college at Saint Louis University in 1966. Just days after the start of the semester, at 5:00 one morning, his father knocked on the door to the dorm room which he shared with Bill to tell John that he had received a draft notice from the Army. He had traveled all night via train from Nashville to St. Louis and his train had derailed about 50 miles or so outside of St. Louis at Bellville, Illinois. He was bused the rest of the way to St. Louis. As he was leaving after the weekend visit, John could see his father through the rear window as he got into a cab in front of St. Francis Xavier Church on campus to return to the farm, and John's eyes welled up as he experienced more emotion than he had ever felt for his father.

The first year the family was together on the farm, W.L. Andrews attended farm school at night under the G.I. Bill and brought Bill and John to and from first grade at St. Catherine's School in Columbia during the day. Wheat was harvested from the "Corn Field" and oats from the field nearest town the following summer. This was the last time these crops were grown on the farm, corn and hay being grown thereafter. In the fall of 1955, W.L. Andrews began teaching 7th and 12th grades at Santa Fe School in Santa Fe, Tennessee. In September of 1959, he began teaching 7th and 8th grades and was Principal at Belfast School in Belfast, Tennessee, seven miles from the farm. Then in 1962, he took education classes at Peabody College in Nashville for a year and began teaching at Lipscomb School on Concord Road in Brentwood, Tennessee that following fall before retiring in 1972.

All of the children grew extremely close to their father in later years after high school. He had an easy-going nature and everyone he met appeared to love and admire him. As an example, Walter Bussart who was in St. John's Parish in Lewisburg, had unsuccessfully run for Governor and represented the plaintiffs in their obviously unjustified medical malpractice lawsuit against William L. Andrews' daughter-in-law, Claudia Andrews, walked up to William L. Andrews in the courtroom, shook his hand and said that he was sorry to have to meet under the circumstances. This was at a time when Bill and Claudia's son Willy was seriously ill and very likely in need of a liver transplant.

William L. Andrews, Jr. had to have a couple of operations when he was little. His mother accompanied him to St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, but his father was busy at the store and unable to accompany him. (His father had stores in Silver Creek, in Verona and in Lewisburg on the square where Peopes and Union Bank and Rutledge Pharmacy were during the 1950s and 60s.) He had to have a hernia operation when he was about four years old and then at five or six he had a glandular problem that also required an operation. As a result he had to learn to walk over again. He recalls having a sheepskin rug that he learned to walk on. Dr. Logan in Lewisburg, Tennessee was his doctor who thought he had Hodgkin disease. Another of his later doctors, Dr. Zukos, thought that it could not have been Hodgkin disease because "he would no longer be with us if it was." He attended Price Webb School in Lewisburg through 3rd grade when the school burned down. After his father died his family moved to Pulaski where he attended Massey School for 4th grade. It was there that he recalls seeing a black man hanging by the neck from the chandelier of the court house. The family then moved to Nashville and for two years he attended Peabody Demonstration School where the old gym on the Vanderbilt Campus is. The family then moved to Oakland Avenue in Nashville and he had to transfer to Calvert School for part of the 7th grade and then Clement School for 8th Grade. He then attended Hume Fogg High School for a year and 1/2 where he was vice-president of the Astronomy. The famous Dina Shore was a member and she went on to be a famous singer and television personality. He then attended Duncan School on the Vanderbilt campus for his junior and senior years of high school.

ARTICLE IN THE TENNESSEAN A YEAR AFTER WLA WENT INTO SERVICE:
Lt. Andrews heads Medical Detachment:
Lt. William L. Andrews, son of W. L. Andrews, 2404 Oakland Avenue, is now commanding officer of the medical detachment at the Stuttgart Army Air Field, Stuttgart, Arkansas. Lt. Andrews was the first Vanderbilt University student to be called into service in 1941. He had completed his four year academic course and was a second year law student at the time. Andrews attended Officer's Candidate School at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania and was commissioned 1st Lieutenant there. He received his earlier training at Camp Lee, Virginia and Camp Barkley, Texas. Born in Lewisburg, Tennessee, Andrews came to Nashville with his parents [Note -his father was actually dead at this time] as a boy and had lived here since. He is expected home on a visit soon.

"The first time I found out that I was going to be drafted, the Tennessean found me in the moot court room at Vanderbilt, got me up there and took an awful picture of me in moot court with a cigarette hanging from my mouth. Then we went to lunch and the Nashville Banner came down where we ate lunch (a pharmacy at the corner of where Vanderbilt goes up to the law school with one of those lunch places in back)and took a picture also. The reporter who came down was from Lewisburg. I knew him and so it was a nice article. I was surprised. I think this was the first I had heard about being drafted and both papers printed an article that night. There were 20 boards in Nashville and each one of them had a number 158, but I was the only one of those 20 who was called into service because the rest of them were married or had some other reason for deferment. The thing was, even though I had number 158, I had already started the new semester. The drawing was in October 1940, I think, but they didn't – I had started back to school before they called me and they let me finish that whole semester, which took me down to June. And so, I didn't really go in until July 16th. That ended my second year. I would have gone in in January. I got to Ft. Oglethorpe and that's where we were sworn in on July 17th. I was in five months before Pearl Harbor. When they got a call from wherever they needed somebody they went down the list. They got two calls-One of us went to coast artillery and the next one they sent to medical replacement training. So a whole bunch of Vanderbilt people were on that because they all had been deferred until June. I got to Stuttgart in the fall of 1942 after I finished OCS in June 1942 at Carlisle Barracks and after a couple of detours. I first went to Columbus, Ohio for almost three months doing the same thing in the medical department. I went down to Maxwell Field, Alabama for about 2 or 3 weeks after OCS, but another OCS candidate, who was at OCS at the same time I was, had worked under the general of the Eastern Flying Training Command at Maxwell Field and had been his sergeant, so when we got out, they sent me down there, but the general realized that his own sergeant had been commissioned and was there, so they sent me back up to Columbus, Ohio. Then that field went over to the 1st Air Force. Columbus, Ohio was a glider school. See, I was in the Air Force all the time. All of us were Air Force from then on. Maxwell Field was Air Force, so my first assignment was Air Force. Pilot training was a couple of years later. That was just before I met Mama. From Stuttgart, I went to San Antonio where we got our radio, Morris Code, to prepare for flight training, and then they sent me to Ft. Stockton, Texas for my actual flight training. I washed out because we had an Army test pilot who was giving us our test and I misunderstood him. You couldn't ask him to repeat because only he could talk; you were in the front cockpit, he's behind you. He told me to fly at a certain angle. I thought I was going at a pretty steep angle, but I thought you weren't supposed to question, so I didn't. But I guess I lucked out, because I met Mama then when they sent me back to Stuttgart. I thought too that I was getting out of Stuttgart for good. I thought that after I did wash out, well they'll send me someplace else. They sent me right back to Stuttgart because I was just on temporary assignment down there while I was in training. You had three different stages down there. Advanced flying. That was primary school. I got 41 solo hours. That's almost two days solo. Uncle Ted was an actual pilot at that time. I didn't know Uncle Ted at that time. He flew Cardinal Spellman to Rome. I found out all about that later."

"I had to stay down in Atlanta several months before I could find a place to live and you all still lived on Stokes Lane, and I'd come home every weekend. Every now and then, Betty would come down and we'd look for a place. I think you stayed over with Grandmother and Aunt Sara. But I was having dinner one night with a fellow and he later became mayor of Atlanta or governor of Georgia. We didn't notice while we were talking, but everyone had left the restaurant. Some man had died and they came in with a stretcher to take him out and everyone stopped eating but us. No one told us. I was there only a year – 1950. We were there when the war broke out – Truman's War I guess you'd call it. We left in April. You all went to Detroit and I came on down to the farm here. 1st of April, 1951. I had to wait a couple of months to finish my job there."

GRANDSON Bill:
… As a sage once said "God is in His heaven and all is well on earth." All is well, that is, except death, memory loss and unwanted pregnancies. One of the great advantages of being alive is knowing that we're not dead yet. No matter how you slice it, death is a bummer. Fortunately, I still have both of my parents who, although in their eighties, appear healthy, contented and sharp as nails. For this I have much to be thankful. In fact, except for a brief stint in Vietnam long ago, I have been fortunately spared visceral acquaintance with death. It's a blessing. However, that said, I know what awaits all of us mortals. I personally have problems with those theologians who tell us that we can't appreciate life without death, peace without war, good without evil, or pleasure without pain. I have a pretty good imagination and I can appreciate all these things without experiencing them in the flesh. I can see it all in a Tarantino flick. I've never gotten a handle on pain. As a child observing my Dad using a hammer in some carpentry task, he would frequently smash his thumb (he's no Bob Vila). In these instances, he would never utter a word. He simply turned white and keeled over in a dead faint. My brother John is the same way. I've never heard either use a dirty or profane word – not once. Not even hell or damn. They just faint. Whenever I smash my thumb, fall off my horse or walk into those iron statues in front of the college library, I yell out all the cuss words I can think of. It seems to help a little – but only a little. When as a child I experienced pain, Mom would tell me to offer up my suffering to God and to "pray for the poor souls in Purgatory." This never made sense to me. I could care less about souls in Purgatory. I just wanted immediate relief for myself.

GRANDMOTHER'S (STELLA) TIMELINE
Birth
August 15, 1883 • Fairfield, Illinois, (youngest daughter of Orlando's first wife, Josephine Wright)
Daughter Sara: "Mama was born on August 15, 1883. I used to call her 'Star' for Stella."

1886 (2)
Birth of sister Judith Alta Simpson(1886–1961)
April 12, 1886 • Fairfiled, Illinois

1890 (6)
Death of Mother
June 21, 1890
It is not known how Stella's natural mother died.

1890 (7)
Death of mother Josephine Hannah Wright(1852–1890)
June 21, 1890 • Wayne County, Barnhill Township, Illinois

1890 (7)
Education
1890 • Fairfield, Wayne County, Illinois - She apparently had little formal education. Spoke extremely poor English like a pioneer woman.

1900 (17)
Meeting Future Husband
1900 (believed) • Fairfield, Illinois - Anna Lou Andrews Bascum, Stella's sister-in-law, said that Stella's husband was Stella's cousin. When he visited his cousin, Riggs Harris in Fairfiled, Illinois, where Stella also lived, he met Stella for the first time. Apparently
Apparently she was taken by him because, after he returned to Tennessee , Stella packed up her bags and took the train and followed him to Tennessee and they eventually married. Anna Lou Andrews Bascum also told Susan that her brother Will was a workaholic

1900 (17)
Residence
1900 • ED 93 Barnhill Township, Wayne, Illinois, United States
1900 Federal Census shows that Stella's father's second wife and her step-mother was 22 years old in 1900, 25 years younger than her father and only five years her senior. Stella's sister Clara and Clara's step-mother were the same age per the 1900 Census.

1902 (18)
Birth of half-sister Hazel L. Simpson(1902–) 1902 • Illinois

1904 (20)
Birth of half-sister Emma Winifred Simpson(1904–) 1904 • Illinois

1905 (22)
Marriage
September 10, 1905 • Wayne County, Illinois
William Lafayette (known as W.L. or Will) Andrews Sr. (1881–1924)

1905 (22)
Residence
1905 • Silver Creek, TN - Robert Harris House
Robert Harris House, Silver Creek, TN Limestone Avenue, Lewisburg, TN; 1925-Pulaski, TN: 1926 through 1950 - 2404 Oakland Avenue, Nashville 37212; 1950 until death in 1970 -4110 Lealand Lane, Nashville 37220 (lived with her daughter Sara all of Sara life

1906 (23)
Birth of half-sister Leona A. Simpson (1906–1992)
September 6, 1906 • Wayne County, Illinois

1906 (23)
Married Life
1906 • Lewisburg, TN -Consulo and Aunt Lou told Betty Andrews that Stella and her husband fought like cats and dogs. He had made a trip up to Fairfield, Illinois, came back to TN and wasn't about to get married. Consulo said she came down and got married in the same dress she wore down. When her husband died, she asked, well what's going to happen to me now, not knowing that she was left much money. Her husband had always raced around, running from one place to another to serve a customer.

1908 (24)
Birth of daughter Sara Josephine "Sara Jo" Andrews(1908–2002)
June 22, 1908 • Lewisburg, Tennessee at her grandfather Nicholas' home. [Brother Bill -I don't think they were born in hospitals then I guess.] [5/22/08 per E. Early Bible]

1909 (26)
Birth of First Child -Sara
1909 • Lewisburg - Stella and Sara were very close, Sara never marrying. Daughter Sara: "I used to call her 'Star' for Stella. Sister-in-law Anna Lou told daughter-in-law Betty that when Stella's son William L. was little, his mother always wanted him on her lap and was constantly hugging him. He had to sit in the front seat of the car with her.

1910 (27)
Residence
1910 • Civil District 3, Marshall, Tennessee
1910 Federal Census

1911 (27)
Birth of half-brother Orlando F. Simpson(1911–1996)
11 January 1911 • Fairfield, Illinois (Morman records have birth date of January 11, 1911)

1916 (33)
Birth of son William Lafayette Andrews Jr.(1916–2005)
4 Oct 1916 • At his parents' home on Limestone Avenue in Lewisburg, Tennessee. He was always called "William" by his mother and sister, and "Andy" by his wife (from their Army days).

1916 (33)
Son's Birth
1916 • Betty felt that her husband had an obsession about his mother and sister and was crazy about them. After he died she began top realize that this obsession was probably the result of a need for security & he saw them as his security in life. But then Betty felt that when his mother died and when his sister died, he for the first time looked upon Betty as his wife.

1920 (37)
Residence
1920 • Lewisburg, Tennessee
1920 Census

1924 (41)
Death of husband William Lafayette (known as W.L. or Will) Andrews Sr.(1881–1924)
December 21, 1924 • Lewisburg, Tennessee at Doctor Wheat's hospital

1924 (41)
Husband's Death
December 1924 • Lewisburg, Marshall County, Tennessee

1925 (42)
Residence
1925 • Pulaski, Giles, Tennessee, USA
Her sister-in-law Annie Lou Bascum told Stella's daughter-in-law Betty that when Betty's husband was little, Stella always wanted him on her lap and was constantly hugging him. He had to sit in the front seat of the car with her.

1926 (43)
Residence
1926 • Nashville, Davidson Co., TN
Grandson Bill: After her husband's death, left with a small fortune in savings and investments, my widowed paternal grandmother abandoned the small town of Lewisburg and moved to Nashville with her two children whom she enrolled in private schools.

1930 (47)
Residence
1930 • Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee
1930 Census

1935 (52)
Death of father Orlando Frank Simpson(1853–1935)
October 30, 1935 • Fairfield, Illinois

1935 (52)
Residence
1935 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee -2404 Oakland Avenue
Widow, Wm L.

1938 (55)
Residence
1938 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Wid Wm L - home 2404 oakland Ave

1939 (56)
Residence
1939 • 2404 Oakland, Nashville, Tennessee

1940 (57)
Residence
1940 • 2404 Oakland Avenue, Nashville, TN

1942 (59)
Residence
1942 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee (District 7)
2404 Oakland Avenue, Nashville

1943 (60)
Residence
1943 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
2404 Oakland Avenue

1944 (61)
Only Son's Wedding
November 25, 1944 • Stuttgart, Arkansas

1944 (61)
Residence
1944 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Wid Wm L home 2404 Oakland Avenue

1946 (63)
Son's Family Moves In After Law School
September 1946 • Nashville, Tennessee
Oakland Avenue

1946 (63)
Birth of Grandchildren
1946 • Nashville-On October 11, 2006, Stella's daughter-in-law Elizabeth Jane Early Andrews told her son John that when she found out that she was expecting John, she told Stella and Stella started screaming at her. She said that it's awful to say but unfortunately she was happy to tell her this because she knew what her reaction would be and she said that God punished her for it later.

1946 (63)
Residence
1946 • Nashville, Tennessee
2404 Oakland Avenue, Nashville, Wid. WL Andrews

1947 (64)
Interference in Only Son's Life
1947 • Betty thought Aunt Sara was a better person than than her mother and that her mother's influence caused Sara to be the way she way. Aunt Sara and grandmother not only communicated their dissatisfaction with Mom to Dad, but in the subsequent decades they would also tell me and my siblings repeatedly that it was my mother who stifled Dad's ambitions and saddled him with too many children. The friction never ended.

1947 (64)
Prejudices
1947 • Nashville - Grandson Bill: Aunt Sara & Grandmother to an extent exhibited the stereotypical Southern WASP prejudice against Catholics. To make matters worse, Mom was a strong-willed Northerner who seldom let slights or barbs go unanswered. Aunt Sara & Grandmother let Mom know they disapproved of her being pregnant again when Dad hadn't yet obtained a law position.

1947 (64)
Residence
1947 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Wid. Wm L. home - 2404 Oakland Avenue

1948 (64)
Death of sister Clara L. Simpson(1878–1948)
August 14, 1948 • UNION County, ROAD DIST NO 5 UNION

1948 (65)
Residence
1948 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Wid. W.L. Home 2404 Oakland Ave.

1949 (66)
Visits by Grandchildren
1949 • I remember that after our weekly visits to Grandmother & Aunt Sara, loud & animated arguments would ensue at home. Mom refused to accompany us on visits & Dad was torn between loyalty to his family & loyalty to his wife. There was stress whenever we visited Grandmother & Aunt Sara but it was not because we were sucked into the verbal crucible of denunciations against our mother. I remember by 1949 Dad would often endure the diatribes against Mom – her Catholicism, her affection for having many children.

1950 (67)
Residence
1950 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
2404 Oakland Avenue Wid WL Andrews

1951 (68)
Residence
1951 • Nashville, Tennessee
2404 Oakland Avenue, Nashville

1953 (70)
Move from Oakland Avenue to 4110 Lealand Lane
1953 • Nashville, Tennessee
SJA: When we bought this house [Lealand] it didn't have a tree in the front yard. 1953.

1956 (73)
Residence
1956 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
4110 Lealand Lane - Aunt Sara and Grandmother (Stella) would play Canasta as often as they could and seemed to love the game.

1959 (76)
Residence
1959 • Nashville, Tennessee
4110 Lealand lane

1960 (77)
Residence
1960 • Nashville, Tennessee
4110 Lealand lane

1961 (77)
Death of sister Judith Alta Simpson(1886–1961)
August 8, 1961 • Fairfield, Illinois

1963 (80
Sale of Peoples and Union Bank Building 1963 about

1970 (86)
Death
June 7, 1970 • Nashville, TN - Grandson David: I don't remember Grandmother very well. Perhaps mostly from the silent home movies, she always seemed to be listening more than talking. Maybe Aunt Sara spoke for her. I do remember her bedridden. I remember being scared by by how fragile she was then.. Death Residence Localities ZIP Code: 37204 Localities: Melrose, Davidson, Tennessee Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee

1970
Burial
June 9, 1970 • Lot 442, Space 4, Terrace Garden, Woodlawn Cemetery, Thompson Lane in Nashville, TN

Newspaper Articles
Various Dates
Newspaper Article: Mrs. W. L. Andrews and children returned to her home in Lewisburg, Tenn. this morning after visiting Mrs. Chas. Samford.

Daughter-in-law
Various Dates
After Stella & Sara were deriding granddaughter/niece Susan's mother Susan went out to their porch and Anna Lou Andrews who came out, put her arms around Susan and said, don't pay any attention to your aunt and grandmother. Your mother is a good woman.

Grandson Bill's Memories
My earliest memories of Aunt Sara coalesced around the toy drawer she opened for me and her animated denunciations of my mother. Into adulthood I got along well with my aunt and grandmother because I generally didn't come to Mom's defense and simply
remained silent during their denunciations. My more undiplomatic sisters, however, were much more willing to defend Mom and, in consequence, always remained emotionally at arms length from Aunt Sara and Grandmother.

Biography
Grandchildren
Grandson David: Orlando and his family clearly loved Daddy, and me by extension. It's only now that I see the smiles and attention so clearly as more than the kind of bounded affection we experienced with Aunt Sara and Grandmother.

Social Security Number
410-74-6064 Stella ANDREWS Birth Date: 15 Aug 1883 Death Date: Jun 1970 Social Security Number: 410-74-6064 State or Territory Where Number Was Issued: Tennessee

Personality
Grandson William X. Andrews: Grandmother Andrews may have been rather cold & aloof but, again I don't recall her being mean. Response by John E. Andrews: I think most of us were hurt by Grandmother from time to time. I don't remember Grandmother ever saying anything nice & I don't recall her smiling very often. For me, most of what she said was intended to be hurtful. But I do recall that she didn't speak nearly as often as Aunt Sara and her English was very poor, like a pioneer woman.

Grandmother Stella's Reaction to expecting grandson John

On October 11, 2006, Stella's daughter-in-law Elizabeth Jane Early Andrews told her son John that when she found out that she was expecting John, she told Stella and Stella started screaming at her. She said that it's awful to say but unfortunately she was happy to tell her this because she knew what her reaction would be and she said that God punished her for it later.

Returning from Knoxville to Nashville after receiving law Degree:

Mama: And he passed his bar exam on first try. And he took his bar exam on Thursday and Friday and John was born on the morning

Daddy: Friday morning at 9:00.

Mama: … on the morning when he took the second day of his bar exam.

Daddy: I was taking the bar exam when they notified me.

Mama: They brought a note into him saying, baby boy…

Daddy: It was on the seventeenth of January. The bar exam was six hours. Three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. Of each day on the sixteenth and seventeenth. And I just started.. I took Mama to the hospital, what time was it? Early morning about midnight or a little after.

Mama: Midnight. And he …

Daddy: You know, I didn't know. I had the Bar exam. I had to go on and take it.

Mama: When they brought in the note and that was when John was born.

David: So how long did you stay in Knoxville then?

Daddy: Well, back then about three days.

Daddy. Oh, Knoxville. I thought you said hospital. Oh, I graduated in August 1946, I forget the exact date, the end of the summer term.

David: And then did you go to Georgia?

Daddy: And then I went back to Nashville and I went to work with, let's see, oh, I went back to Vanderbilt because there were a lot of courses I didn't get that I thought I could use while studying for the bar exam. See, the bar exam was in January and this was in August so I went back to Vanderbilt and audited, sat in law courses just to get them. I wasn't getting any credit for them.

Mama: I'll let Daddy talk now. I'll get dinner.

Daddy: And then I, we bought our house in November on Stokes Lane and, of course, we didn't get possession until the next March. We had a legal problem over it. And so I took the bar exam in January and Ii went with the telephone company in, I don't know what the date was but it was soon. It was probably the latter part of March, wasn't it. Yes, because the telephone strike was in April and I went and I had been with them only about 5 or 6 weeks, and then we got possession of the house in March and I was already with the Telephone company. I don't know, I must have gone with them in early February. I know, it was right after the Bar exam. See I went

Mama: Daddy paid an extravagant price for our house, stone home with a basement and it was a beautiful little home. Eleven thousand dollars. A big price then.

Daddy: Eleven five.

Mama: One thousand dollar down payment.

Daddy: No, no. I paid.. I forget now. Maybe you're right. I guess it was. I guess it was.

David: How long did you stay in Nashville? When did you move back to the farm.

Daddy: We were there three years and then I was transferred to Atlanta and then down there a year.

Mama: Kind of deciding to come back to the farm.

Daddy: Joan was born in 1948 and Susan in '49 and we had four children and the farm was in the family so I wasn't real happy with my work there so mostly, I just wanted to come back to the farm.

Mama: well, that was kind of a dream to come back to the farm, Lewisburg.

Daddy: So I left there in April. I came back here in April 1951. And we got the house ready for Mama and the kids.

Dad's attachment to his mother and sister

Betty felt that he had an obsession about his mother and sister and was crazy about them. After he died she began top realize that this obsession was probably the result of a need for security and he saw them as his security in life. But then Betty felt that when his mother died and again later when his sister died, he for the first time looked upon Betty as his wife.

His Aunt Lou told W.L Andrews' wife Betty that when he was little, his mother always wanted him on her lap and was constantly hugging him. He had to sit in the front seat of the car with her.

His son John could see this insecurity in his father in that he almost always discouraged him from endeavors he was enthusiastic about and, although he loved people, he just preferred everyone staying on the farm contentedly. When his sons went out to get jobs bailing hay during high school he offered to pay them not to work, probably encouraged by his wife who wanted her children to enjoy childhood as much as possible without working. John detected a fear of the world in his father and a need for the security of the farm his father left him. He worried so much about finances that he would turn off the hot water to cut his children's showers short.