Aunt Sara was born at her grandfather Nicholas' home while her parents were living in Silver Creek at the Robert Harris house they rented. She spoke often of attending Columbia University one summer and of her cousin, Maggie Tucker Yarborough, who was Dean of Women there. Aunt Sara graduated from Belmont College in Nashville.

Aunt Sara was named for her paternal grandmother, Sallie E. (Bryant) Andrews. They called her Aunt Sallie. She died in 1928 and Sallie's husband, and Aunt Sara's grandfather, Nicholas died in 1934.

Aunt Sara: My [maternal] grandmother had a fever and died when my mother was 5. My grandfather Orlando Simpson's sister came and lived with them until she got married and left. My grandfather's second wife Olive was an ordinance at the Presbyterian church. She went to the Presbyterian church and Orlando went to the Baptist church. But she never joined the Baptist church because she felt she had been baptized a Presbyterian. But she thought it was best for everybody. But she was a faithful member of the church. She didn't join the church but she played the organ. And she was a delightful person. and we loved her very much. They had three girls and there were no boys in the family and they wanted a boy and the last child was a boy.

Aunt Sara's father died when she was seventeen and she never married. She was engaged to a farmer once. She saved almost every penny she made and was proud to say almost 20 years before she died that she soon would have close to $1,000,000 in savings and it was all invested in municipal bonds (the only thing she would ever invest in). The bonds were never found upon her death. She also always told her nieces and nephews that she was leaving everything to the Methodist Church, but failed to do this before she died.

Tom Tichenor worked as a puppeteer at the Nashville Public Library before landing a job in New York as a puppeteer. He was a close friend of Aunt Sara's and she may have even been in love with him but it is unknown whether the feelings were mutual.

THE STORY OF SARA JO
Once upon a time, in a little house carpeted in dark red, and comforted by vines of ivy, morning glories and honeysuckle, there lived a little lady mouse named Sara Jo. She made certain her house was neat and tidy at all times - except Christmas time when wrappings and ribbons were strewn from ceiling to floor. But the garden was her pride and joy. She carefully tended the bleeding hearts and columbine, pansies bright and eglantine.

More than flowers Sara Jo loved books. And more than books she loved the creatures that peopled her world. Every mouse needs a purpose in life, and this mouse wondered how to combine her loves. Finally an idea came to her. She would open a library there in the meadow. This was to be no ordinary library. It must be a special library, one that did not speak in whispers, but one that sang a song of friendliness. And sure enough it was. It had cheerful colors and atmosphere, and decorations that were oh so dear. Most of all it had Sara Jo.

At first it was a very small library. The caring rabbits and squirrels brought their tiny boys and girls. Then the patrons began to grow, and Sara Jo added a puppet show. The little ones came through rain and snow. In no time at all she had to add a new room. And then another one. It seemed that before Sara Jo could turn around and take a book off the shelf for a little one, the little one was grown up, and there was a new little one waiting with outstretched paws.

Those first books were now tired and worn, and out of print - but who wants to part with old friends? Somehow the books were aware that they were not to be thrown away, for priceless was their heritage.

On came the new books - more and more published each year; brilliantly colored, if sometimes wild; most often raucous instead of just bringing a smile. But these were the times and one must keep pace. Although Dulac is delicious, Wild Things have their place. Strangely enough, Beatrix Potter held her own. So did the Brothers Grimm, and questions by phone.

"What is good is good," said Sara Jo. And with her track record she should know.

The summers came and the winters went. The leaves kept turning and the energy spent. So it was till one day when the lilacs were in bloom. Sara Jo stopped shelving books and took stock of the room. How long had she looked at everything there? She slowly turned and noticed a chair. "The chair, the chair - good grief, it's chrome! It's time this mouse picked up and went home!

So with great reluctance she called in Ms. Possum. "It's yours. Please help it grow and blossom."

Sara Jo went home but all was not over. "These years to come are years of clover." She embroidered a motto in French knots and floss to express her feelings. It said: TO RETIRE IS NOT TO EXPIRE." It's for all to see, but mostly it's a reminder for me. My career may be over, but my living has just begun. At last I have time to get out and run!"

Sure enough, she's on the go from morn till night.

Sara Jo loves books. Sara Jo loves eating. But most of all: Sara Jo loves greeting.
Tom Tichenor - April 1975

FEBRUARY 2001 - Special Feature in WNBA

Nashvillians who grew up in the 1950's and 60's probably remember Sara Andrews as the enthusiastic lady who presided over the large Children's Room on the bottom floor of the old Carnegie Library. They certainly remember that exciting place filled with children's books, shadow boxes by Hazel Hansen, and dioramas and drawings by Tom Tichnor. Sara would always point out to newcomers the little "Mouse's House" at the base of one of the bookcases. On Saturdays and later on Friday evenings, huge crowds of children contended for a good seat at Tom's weekly marionette shows. First Poindexter the dog puppet would appear on top of the stage and talk to the children before a show such as "The Three Billy Goats Gruff."

Sara enjoyed her work immensely! She told me once that she loves best children, books, and plants, in that order. She was and still is very knowledgeable about children's books and their authors, having met many of them at library association conferences as well as on their visits to the Nashville Public Library. One of her favorite authors was Tasha Tudor, whom she knew personally, and whose delicate drawings and quaint stories she adored.

A visit to Sara's backyard in the spring or summer would reveal her third love. She had a veritable green thumb and always had beautiful flowers. She would root cuttings people gave her and have healthy plants in no time.

Sara was born in Lewisburg, Tennessee, in Marshall County. With her one brother, she grew up there, eventually coming to Nashville to attend college at Ward-Belmont. She then attended Peabody College while working part-time at the Nashville Public Library, serving at many of the branches. Afterward she went full time at the old Carnegie Library downtown.

At one point she took a leave of absence to tour Europe, and on her return spent a summer attending Columbia University Library School. She shared an apartment on Riverside Drive with three new friends with whom she kept in contact through the years. Her trip and her time in New York City made a memorable experience for her.

She returned to her job as director of children's services at NPL. She and her mother lived on Lealand Lane near Glendale where she continued to live until recently. After a nighttime fall she realized she should not live alone and moved to the family farm in Lewisburg, where she lives with her brother and his family.

Sara treasures the many friends, both adults and children, that she made during her years at the NPL. Her entire career was there, where she knew as friends four directors as well as many other people associated with the library. Marshall Stuart, retired director, remains a close friend.

Early in 1966 the Ben West Library (the mayor also hailed from Lewisburg) opened and replaced the Carnegie library. Sara was very proud of the new Children's Room, of which she had been instrumental in planning. The Story Room, abode of the Rainbow Fairy and the Lollipop Princess, was special. it had a fireplace, a secret door, and beautiful carpeting. Sara insisted there be restrooms for children in the new Children's Room. The signs said Little Women and Little men. She often used the titles of children's books in ingenious ways in the Room.

Sara was active in many organizations around Nashville, both professional and otherwise. She was one of the 45 women who formed the Nashville chapter of WNBA on April 15, 1955. She was active all through the years and attended meetings until a few years ago when her hearing impairment began keeping her from enjoying them. She remains interested in the progress of the new library downtown, especially the children's department. #

Aunt Sara was well known and well liked in Nashville. She was featured as "woman of the month or day" several times on local radio such as WLAC. Her only brother had a very strong attachment to her and appeared to place her and his mother above any person or thing in his life.

Aunt Sara said that her cousin through Anna Lou Andrews Tindell, Catherine Cheek Ellington, married Buford Ellington from Lewisburg and Governor of Tennessee who was a friend of President Lyndon Johnson.

Her Brother's Recollections:
"Aunt Sara retired in 1974. She had more friends than I did. I ran around with school buddies all my life, with Dap, Leo Bolster, all those boys. [In the past he had mentioned a friend, Billy Lynch, who was at Father Ryan.] I knew about as many Catholic boys… "

While very young (probably just over a year old) on a Sunday afternoon car ride in Aunt Sara's car with his father, Aunt Sara and his grandmother, nephew Bill Andrews opened the back door and fell from the moving car in Nashville. He had stitches which left a long scar on the back of his head that was visible through Bill's life.

Aunt Sara's nephew John recalls that early in their second semester at Father Ryan High School while living with his brother Bill at Blair House near St. Thomas Hospital, Aunt Sara visited them once and brought bananas. They were so starved that they gobbled them down and early that spring they left Blair House and lived with their Aunt Sara and Grandmother for the rest of that semester before moving to Ganger's house on Tyne that fall. John remembers the applesause pie that they loved and getting to know Mary Kathryn Frazier next door on Lealand Lane. Mary Kathryn was John's age and at St. Bernard's Academy. Later both John and Mary Kathryn were editors-in-chief of their high school newspapers. She was John's first date and they double-dated with her brother George to a fall mixer at Father Ryan their sophomore year. She was more interested in John's brother Bill who began dating her the spring of that year. Bill gently broke the news to John that Mary Kathryn liked him when he and John went for a walk to the hills together behind the Tyne Blvd. House. While he was on leave from the Army, John visited Mary Kathryn and her boy friend at Vanderbilt University for lunch where Mary Kathryn was in the nursing program after transferring from St. Mary of the Woods in Indiana after her freshman year. The following Christmas Mary Kathryn's mother invited John to visit Mary Kathryn in the hospital, but John got the impression that there was nothing serious and he didn't take time from his short visit to see her. The following March, John's mother informed him at Ft. Riley, Kansas that Mary Kathryn had died of cancer at 20 years old. John later stayed with his Aunt Sara while he was building the house on Cotton Lane. John had unexpectedly bumped into and then dated a couple of times Karen Riordan, who was Aunt Sara and Grandmother's neighbor, and who had given John a white horse when he stayed home with his grandmother rather than going to the circus at six years old in the 1950s. Karen's brother asked John to prepare a will for him that he wanted Dr. and Mrs. Frazier to witness at their house.

NEPHEW BILL:
We were just joking about obsessions and Aunt Sara's china dolls came up. They were probably worth thousands of dollars. I wonder what happened to them.

AUNT SARA ABOUT HER BROTHER:
My brother growing up always had the best disposition. We were all very close together. I saw somebody Sunday and he said "Sara, I haven't seen you for years, but he has. And he said, "how's Willy?" Everybody called him Willy, the boys here that knew him. He said, "every time I go by Oakland, I say to this friend who's with me, "that's where Willy lived." Yes, my brother was a good student. He went to Lewisburg, I don't think he ever went to a public school; he went to a private school, Price-Webb, and I did too. I was quite a bit older and I had two or three years in the public school. And after my father died, he was eight and I was sixteen, we moved to Pulaski which was close by, and I went to high school there and he went to the grade school there and it was right after my father died and we were all sad, but we had more friends there and I run into them all the time now.

SPEAKING WITH NIECE JOAN ANDREWS:
Joan: Aunt Sara, were you already working at the library when Daddy went into the Army.
SJA: Oh, I knew nothing about libraries when I was down in Lewisburg. They didn't even have a library. But, when I came to Nashville I had a friend who finished high school when I did and she was going to be a Liberian and she influenced me I think. She was Mr. P.D. Houston's niece, one of the rich men here in Nashville, a banker, so Mary Lydia said I'm going to be a Liberian. I said, "I bet I'd like that. And I went to library school and Mary Lidia did too. And she became a Liberian at Randolph Macon later.
SJA: When we bought this house [Lealand] it didn't have a tree in the front yard. 1953. This is John before he had his teeth straightened, school picture. He wouldn't want to see it because he had his teeth straightened and he wouldn't want Susan [his wife] to see it. He had to have quite a bit of work done on his dentures. Joan's husband, Chris: you can see Johnny's [John's son] face in him.
SJA: You know, this film is on my eye. I'm going to have cataract surgery on one, then I've got to have the other one in two or three months. [Looking at flowers on the side of the house] My mother planted all of these.
SJA: I've been blessed, I really have. I've never seen such friends. The blacks and the whites both help me. This Ulysses mows my grass. Ulysses. He's the one who always bows to you. He's so nice. He's just a lovely person.

AUNT SARA'S LAST YEARS ON THE FARM:
Aunt Sara lived with Dad and Mom on the farm in Lewisburg beginning in 1999 and Mom, in her eighties, prepared meals for Aunt Sara and took care of her after she was unable to care for her self. Mom saw this as a penance. Aunt Sara fell and had to have hip surgery on February 18, 2002 and resided in Oakwood Hall nursing home in Lewisburg for 20 days and then moved into the Chalet on the Lewisburg farm with her niece, Susan Brindle, caring for her thereafter.

DEED FROM WILLIAM L. ANDREWS, JR., TO SARA ANDREWS
B00K 4589 PAGE 174; MAP 132-1 PAR. 166

For and in consideration of the love and affection which I have for my sister, the grantee herein, by her agreeing to assume and pay a certain purchase money note as described hereinafter, I, William L. Andrews, Jr., have this day bargained and sold and do by these presents transfer and convey unto, Sara Andrews, a single person, her heirs and assigns, forever, in fee simple, my one-half (1/2) undivided interest, in and to the hereinafter described real estate, lying and being in Davidson County, Tennessee, being bounded and described as follows:

The same being Lot No. 172 on the plan of Rolling Meadows, as of record in Book 1424, Pages 98 & 99, in the Register's Office of Davidson County, Tennessee.

Said lot is further described as fronting 100 feet on the Easterly side of Lealand Lane, and runs back 244.2 feet on the Northetiy line and 236 feet on the Southerly line to a dead line, measuring 100.5 feet thereon.

The above described property having been coveyed to Stella V. Andrews, by a deed from Joseph L. Safley and wife, of record in Book 2204, Page 373, Register's Office of Davidson County, Tennessee, and which was owned by the said Stella V. Andrews at the time of her death, intestate, on June 7, 1970. The said Stella V. Andrews leaving as her sole heirs at law, the grantee and the grantor named herein.

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD said real estate unto the said Sara Andrews, her heirs and assigns, forever.

And I covenant with the said grantee herein that I am lawfully seized and possessed of said interest; that I have a good and lawful right to make this conveyance and that the same is free and unencumbered, except for a certain purchase money note secured by a Trust Deed recorded in Book ____, Page ___, in the Register's Office of Davidson, County, Tennessee, and said note being presently owned by Guaranty Mortgage Company of Nashville, Tennessee, to which lien this property is sold.

I hereby swear or affirm that the actual consideration or true value for this transfer, whichever Is greater, is $10,000.00. Affiant Sara Andrews Subscribed and sworn to before me this 3rd day of April, 1972

Deputy Register: J Head
Book 4589 Page 175

And I further covenant and bind myself my heirs and representatives to forever warrant and defend the title thereto against all the lawful claims and demands of all persons whomsoever.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my signature this the 23rd day of October, 1971.

William L. Andrews Jr.

STATE OF TENNESSEE)
COUNTY OF MARSHALL)

Personally appeared before me John L. Wallace, a Notary Public, in and for the State and County aforesaid, the with-in named bargainor, William L. Andrews, Jr., with whom I am personally acquainted and who acknowledged before me that he executed the foregoing instrument for the purposes therein contained.

Witness my hand and official seal in Lewisburg, Marshall County, Tennessee, on this the day of October, 1971.

John L. Wallace
NOTARY PUBLIC

Prepared by John L. Wallace, Atty., Lewisburg, Tennessee.
My Commission Expires: 7/16/1973

JUNE 21, 1997 COMPLETE INTERVIEW WITH SARA J. ANDREWS:
Chris Bell: You say you've lived longer than anyone else in the family. How old will you be?

SJA: 89 years only on Sunday. I'm having trouble with my hips. I drove myself to the doctor on Thursday and I don't think it got set right and my hip, I need a hip replacement, but I think I'm too old to have it.

CRB: What is your most memorable experience?

SJA: I had a beautiful childhood. I was saddened by my father's death when I was 16 and I had a long illness when I was, I guess I was in first grade in school. I had a fever and my grandparents came down from Illinois because they thought I was going to die. What they did is hold a mirror over my mouth to see if I was breathing and they would put a needle – they had a nurse from St. Thomas come down, and they put a needle in there and if it closed up, I was living I guess. And while my grandfather Orlando and his wife were there thinking that i was going to die, I came out of the coma and I said I want a drink of water out of Grandpa's well.

Joan Andrews Bell: Which grandpa's well?

SJA: That was the house on Franklin Road, the two story white house, no not in Silver Creek, the one with Andrews-Liggett cemetery on it, Nicholas' well. It was beautiful. It used to be kind of on a hill, but they've done something with the highway and they kept it up beautifully. And they had a big house. It was kind of L-shaped. The front of it had a parlor and a hall that went through there connected to a room they called a family room and my grandparents had a big bed in there. That's where, they had a fireplace and they'd keep warm by the fireplace. And that's where a stairway that went up from their family room and the girls would sleep up there at night.

But when I was little, there one time by myself, they let me sleep in the same room where they slept. They also had this, they called it a lounge bed. I have it, used as a twin bed, and had the ______ like it and I sleep on it now.

But the boys, the house was like an L, and that went from the family room to the dining room and the kitchen, and then they had a veranda that came all the way around here, and a veranda that came all the way around the front of the house, and the boys went up there to their quarters in a stairway that left the hall in the back and they had like a dormitory style…

CRB: Which boys were they?

SJA: Well I say boys. My grandfather and grandmother lost their first boy and his name was Jones. And I think my grandfather's mother was named Lucy. His father, someone in the family was named Jones. Jones and Lucy were Andrews. But they had their first child, Jones was just an infant and died from a childhood disease. Little Jones. We always got to his little marker at the grave and put some flowers or something, but you can hardly read it. I can't tell.

Joan: Where is he buried?

SJA: Andrews-Liggett. It's a little tiny marker.

Joan: Then how many other children did they have?

SJA: They had, I believe they had five, but they must have had six because my father was the oldest and Aunt Myrtle was second, Uncle Bryant was next, no, I don't know the order really. There was Aunt Lou and Kenneth and Bryant and William, my father, William Lafayette Andrews. There were five left I think, and they lost Jones, the first one. And that's Aunt Lou's daughter-in-law who came today. If Jones had lived they would have had six. This paper tells about Tennessee Andrews. Her husband was named William Vaughn. And I've got something out of a book that I can show you.

CRB: Who was your great-grandfather?

SJA: I think his name was Jones and his wife was named Lucy I believe.

My grandfather Orlando Simpson had a brother named Leandra. They were twins. One of them got lost one time, wondered away from home or something. They lived in Illinois and a country place, and they were afraid some animal had hurt the child. And they found him two days later in a trunk of a tree. He crawled up there and was asleep. But my grandmother died when my mother was five years old. She was the next to the youngest of four little girls. And my grandfather was father and mother to both of them. That was Orlando Simpson. But his sister came and stayed with them and helped take care of them, but she found someone and married and left, so he needed somebody. He found the loveliest young lady. She was 21 and he was 43 and they were married and then his second wife was Clara Olive.

Joan: Are you named After her?

SJA: My own grandmother is Sara Josephine. Then my other grandmother that I was named for, wait a minute, was Sara Elizabeth. They called her Sallie. My mother's own mother, the one who died was Sara Josephine. My name is Sara Josephine. She had a fever and died when my mother was five, and she had one sister younger and then she had two sisters older, and we were very close to them. We loved them dearly. And when he met his second wife, she was ordinance at the church, I don't know whether she was when she met him or not. I doubt that she was because she went to the Presbyterian church and my grandfather went to the Baptist church. But she became very active but she never joined the church because she thought she had been baptized in the Presbyterian church. So she was a faithful member of him and his church, but she didn't join the church but she played the organ. And she was a delightful person. Her name was Clara Elizabeth. She had three girls and they wanted a boy – no boys in the family at all, and the last child was a boy. And he's Orlando, Jr. and he died this past year. He was about the age of my brother. That was his second wife and she was only 21 when they married and he was 42. My mother was from the first marriage, next to the baby and her name was Stella Viola and I used to call her star for Stella.

My brother growing up always had the best disposition. We were all very close together. I saw somebody Sunday and he said "Sara, I haven't seen you for years, but he has. And he said, "how's Willy?" Everybody called him Willy, the boys here that knew him. He said, "every time I go by Oakland, I say to this friend who's with me, "that's where Willy lived." Yes, my brother was a good student. He went to Lewisburg, I don't think he ever went to a public school; he went to a private school, Price-Webb, and I did too. I was quite a bit older and I had two or three years in the public school. And after my father died, he was eight and I was sixteen, we moved to Pulaski which was close by, and I went to high school there and he went to the grade school there and it was right after my father died and we were all sad, but we had more friends there and I run into them all the time now.

CRB: How did your father purchase the farm and why.

SJA: His health wasn't good, he worked very hard, and he didn't take enough time off to enjoy life really, but every year my mother would go early and take us on the train to Illinois and my grandfather said I'm so glad to see you that I cry for joy when I see you and I cry in sadness when you leave. But my mother was so close to her father and her half sisters and brother and own sisters too, and so my father would come up and stay maybe a week or two weeks and bring us home. And the first car we had was a Ford. And he didn't take enough time off, but this farm was put up for sale. It was called the Khurcheville home. It was not the house that they have there now. It was a house that had a veranda along the front of it and more attractive than this house. This one was kind of quickly built I think. But it was well built, this other one. And he bought that house in August 1924 and he had, he kept losing weight and looked bad and he died three days before Christmas the year he bought it. And he was the director of the bank there, Peoples and Union. He had several stores. They were stores out in the country at first and then he had one on First Avenue or Second Avenue, I think it's called First Avenue, and then he bought this building on the square and it was a grocery store, and when he sold it to the bank just before he died I guess, then the bank later, there were two stores that he owned, and one of them was a drug store and that's where Winston Rutledge's father was the druggist, owned the drug store, I mean he owned the business, rented it. But the bank decided they'd build a new building across the alley. There was a alleyway there, and that's where Peoples and Union downtown is on the square. There's a picture of my father in the bank's board room. About 33 people have lived on that farm. What he'd do is let them plant any crops or anything like that, anything they wanted to do. My mother built a silo for one of them I think. But I guess they paid enough to pay the taxes but that's about all. His sister, Aunt Myrtle, was the oldest one. Her son is dying over at St. Thomas now. They called the family this morning at 4: 30:

CRB: That's Paul Harris?

SJA: They called the family at 4:30 this morning and they all came down. Be he and his mother and all except his sister, she married young, she never lived on the farm. But all the rest of them lived on the farm. Then Aunt Lou, the one whose daughter-in-law came this afternoon, lived on the farm. And then Uncle Kenneth, who is Martha's father, lived in the little house that they remodeled, the little log house where Milton used to live, later the black man lived there. And it was the cutest little house. It was one of the oldest houses in Marshall County. But I have the most wonderful memories, and that's the greatest place to have them. But this house, someone in Lewisburg, was a historian, he said, "Sara, what happened to the house? It should have been restored. It was the oldest." Part of it is in this house out at Tyne. It's gone now. It was brought down here. I didn't know anything about it. They just went on and did it. I would have done something about it. But my Uncle Kenneth, it was during the depression, he didn't have work, so he had a wife and daughter, that's Aunt Conslo and her daughter Martha, whose husband is dying now of cancer. And they lived, wanted to know if they could come out there, they said now we can't do much for you, we can paint it clean it up and do things like that, but we can't pay rent. We said, well, that's all right. So they lived out there for quite some while. And she was a friend in high school of the Murray's and all those people who were quite well to do in town. And they'd go out there and visit them. And my aunt was a marvelous cook. And they enjoyed it. It was fun to go to the country. It was only a mile and a half from town. And next to us were the Ewings who have that beautiful home, you know, the Ewing home. The family who lived in that house, I was sorry for them, they has about eight children, seven or eight, big family, and they couldn't support them, and they had to sell the house. And my father just happened to be there at the auction sell and he thought if he bought it he might get a horse and ride around and his health would return, but it didn't, because that was in the summer, in August and he died Christmas. Kind of sad. And the people who bought it were named McCords. Now the farm was formerly know as the Kershival farm, and the Kurshival house is in town, that beautiful house that David likes so much next to Prince McBride. That was the Kershival home. But this was the Kershival Farm and they lived there, at that was the house, it might have burned is the reason they built the new house there. I can't remember. But as a child I remember seeing that house going to my grandfather's down at leap(?), you know, on Franklin Road. But I don't know what happened, but I wish we had restored that house. They had it looking so good. But they didn't have the comforts of life, but they managed fine, enjoyed it and didn't have to pay rent. They weren't out on the street, so we've kept it in the family all these years, but I don't know of anybody who paid anything, they just lived in that one house over and over, it that other little house, but they've always enjoyed it, but not many of them lived there at the same time.

Joan: Aunt Sara, were you able to talk to your father before he died, when he knew he was going to die. Daddy says he remember his saying, take care of your mother and your sister to him.

SJA: I didn't know he was as sick as he was, but he died on the 21st and was buried on the 23rd of December, just before Christmas. He taught me how to drive a car. What I think he intended is for us to pass it on to any of the Andrews descendants, you know. He had a son and a daughter, that was all. Then of course, William and i inherited the farm, and my mother, and when she died, it was owned by the two of us. I would like to leave it in trust fund for everybody, but not to be sold. Now, when Betty came down, she wanted to will some of it to her church, and my mother said, "I really wouldn't want a church in my front yard. And she wouldn't sign the papers. I think it made betty unhappy about that. She said, now I belong to another church, but I wouldn't want my church built in the front year.

CRB: But do you remember your father telling you any last words?

SJA: 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 have 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 wisher 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.

CRB: He must have been like that as a little boy too.

SJA: he was, he was. He was kind of stubborn, one time he got angry on his little tricycle, I still have his little tricycle, it's wooden, and he'd get up and just stomp it like this. He'd jump up and down on it because it wouldn't go the way he wanted it to. But anyway, I've had a good life. I think the war hurt us a lot. It changed our whole lives. We were so concerned about him. He was so unhappy in the service. He didn't like it. But he was chosen by a professor at Vanderbilt to go and be in his group. He took all the Vanderbilt boys that he knew, it was the medical corps. And he chose him, and he was the first one, his number was the first one called in the war. 158. 158 all over the United States were called in. Boy, it killed my mother almost to see him have to go in the war. But he's always been to private schools and made good grades. He went to Duncan which is a private boys school here, a very fine one. Then he went to Vanderbilt and then to law school. He was in law school at Vanderbilt, but then the war came along and they closed the law school because it didn't have enough in school to continue. And he had to go to UT and get his law degree from UT.

Joan: Aunt Sara, were you already working at the library when Daddy went into the Army.

SJA: Oh, I knew nothing about libraries when I was down in Lewisburg. They didn't even have a library. But, when I came to Nashville I had a friend who finished high school when I did and she was going to be a Liberian and she influenced me I think. She was Mr. P.D. Houston's niece, one of the rich men here in Nashville, a banker, so Mary Lydia said I'm going to be a Liberian. I said, "I bet I'd like that. And I went to library school and Mary Lidia did too. And she became a Liberian at Randolph Macon later.

SJA: (Looking at painting) That shows children first, then books and then flowers.

Joan: That's what you love.

SJA: 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 [Daddy didn't know this.] 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.

SJA: (Looking at photo of Harris House). That was built by a man by the name of Harris I believe. And he was a blond man who designed it. And my father had a store a Bryant Station I believe. And then he bought this store at Silver Creek. It was down in the corner of the yard and it was quite a little community. And they has a spur track, a railroad track that came from Columbia to Lewisburg and they would drop off the mail and they had a little track that would run to the store. See, my brother never lived there. I was born when they lived there. I wasn't born in that house, I was born at my grandmother's over on Franklin Road. But, they stored their Christmas toys in that house, and I got lost one day and my mother thought I might be kidnapped, they didn't kidnap much then, but she couldn't find me, and I had gone up there and gone to sleep where the dolls were. I always loved dolls. And they found me there safe, but they thought I might have wondered away and got hit. They didn't have many cars then either. [Looking at a Calendar with t picture of the house that said, "Robert Harris House, built for his bride between 1880 and 1890. Put on the National Register January 27, 1983."]

SJA: When we bought this house [Lealand] it didn't have a tree in the front yard. 1953. This is John before he had his teeth straightened, school picture. He wouldn't want to see it because he had his teeth straightened and he wouldn't want Susan [his wife] to see it. He had to have quite a bit of work done on his dentures. [Chris – you can see Johnny's face in him.]

SJA: You know, this film is on my eye. I'm going to have cataract surgery on one, then I've got to have the other one in two or three months. [Looking at flowers on the side of the house] My mother planted all of these. When the boys were little, we were looking at the Hydrangeas and they were blue.

CRB: You know, Dave Brindle wants to clear some of the trees away from the fields, to get more field for the cows and the horses, and Susan and the girls they put up such a fuss. They want to save all those maples and big cedars.

SJA: My father went up to visit a cousin of his in Illinois and Maryland. So he invited my father up to visit him and his wife. They were Harris'. Some of Paul's background. So when my father he fell in love with my mother. He may have made two trips. But when the time came for the World's Fair, they went to the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1905. They got married not too long after that, I can't remember. And they had a home garden wedding. And she had a first cousin who married the same day. And they were like sisters, like you and Susan. And they were double cousins. My mother's cousin married their, well, I don't know who it works. But anyway, she went to New Mexico and lived. Her name was, I can't think of it now – it was a very prominent name up there. But we enjoyed them so much later. They've always lived out west. They've never lived here. They married in August, I think it was August. My mother was born the 15th of August and my father, I can't remember. I have it written down. He died when he was 43 and my mother was a widow from the time she was 39 on. She never remarried because she was afraid she might marry someone who wouldn't be good to us. Wouldn't accept us.

We lived on Verona Avenue in Lewisburg.

My grandfather was Nicholas Green Andrews, his father, I think it was his father, William Vaughn Andrews. Now I can't think how Lucy and Jones came in there, because they named their first child Jones and I think it's in that paper I have though. It's in a book.

SJA; I've been blessed, I really have. I've never seen such friends. The blacks and the whites both help me. This Ulysses mows my grass. Ulysses. He's the one who always bows to you,. He's so nice. He's just a lovely person.

SARA AND HER BROTHER:
When they started having children, W.L Andrews, Jr. asked his wife if they would never lock any of their children in a closet. Apparently this had happened to him when he was young after his father died. HIs aunt, Anna Lou Andrews Hendrix , talked to his wife a lot after they moved to the farm and she told Betty in 1953 that Sara had put a needle thru the palm of her brother's hand when he was a child and that she, Aunt Lou, didn't feel the same about Sara after that. These things may have caused him to be afraid to confront his mother and sister and defend his wife when they said things about her in front of her children and did things to her.

NEPHEW'S REFLECTIONS:
I don't think they were any more [prejudiced] than anyone else who was native-born white in the South during their time. It was part of the culture. Aunt Sara, for example, didn't like the civil rights workers down in Mississippi in 1964 and when they went missing, I can remember her saying that they had been stirring up trouble and that they were probably hiding out in the Bahamas enjoying all their publicity. When they showed up dead after being executed by the KKK (I'm talking about Cheney, Goodwin and Schwartzer (spelling?)), she seemed genuinely embarrassed and she actually admitted that she was angry at how they were treated. She knew I was big on civil rights and from that time on (I never heard her say this before), she kept telling me how many black friends she had and that she went to the funeral of the man who did her lawn. It's like she was trying to prove to me that she wasn't a racist. But that was after 1964. Before that, she seemed to be resentful of the civil rights movement. When we lived with her and grandmother in the spring of 1962, I can remember some of her comments on the blacks who tried to integrate the lunch counters at Woolworth in downtown Nashville. She seemed pretty hostile to them at the time - but so were most whites. It was a different world then.

Niece's recollections:

One time Susan had talked to her father about putting the farm in her mother's name also because if he died Aunt Sara would get the whole thing. So after Susan built the Chalet on the farm, she told Daddy that not also putting the farm in Mama's name wasn't a fair thing to do to her mother. This was after her father had collapsed at Mass while playing the organ. So her father said that the farm had been left to him and Aunt Sara by his father and Aunt Sara would have to agree to any change. Susan told Daddy that when they moved to the farm, it looked like a trash farm because it had all those barns around the house and the upstairs had corsets and snake skins and it was real messy. There were chicken coops, the smoke house, the kitchen of the original house that had burned down that was used as a garage and old barns. She told Daddy that every night and all day long while Daddy was at school, Mama would pull up all those bushes that had stalks like trees and red berries. She would pull them up by their roots. And every night when everyone got home from school, they would have a bonfire. And now it looks like a park and that Mama made it look like that.

FROM "THE ARROWHEAD FIELD" BY NEPHEW 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 denuncations. 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.

January 1947 was a good month in the history of my family. My little brother John was born on the same day that Dad received word of his passing the bar exam. This was also the month that we moved into a home of our own on Stokes Lane. The house, in the Belmont area of South Nashville, was a convenient five minute walk to Christ the King Catholic Church where Mom attended daily mass with her children and about six blocks from Grandmother and Aunt Sara. During the three years we lived in our little yellow-stone home on Stokes Lane, two additional children were born to my parents. By the end of the decade, I was one of four children. My sister Joan was born in 1948 and my sister Susan was born the next year.

#####
Joan and Susan, recall their Aunt Sara telling them that their mother had died at sea during her trip to Europe with her mother, Jessica Early ("Ganger"), in 1954 for the cannonization of Pope Pius X. The children recall their father having to take all scapulars and all religious articles from them and brief them on what not to say before visiting their Aunt Sara and Grandmother.

Aunt Sara, sitting on one recliner and Grandmother on another, called Joan and Susan over to her chair and showed them a picture of an ocean liner in the newspaper, saying, "look your mother's ship sank and your mother's 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 that what Susan had said about Aunt Sara was a lie, that it never happened. Susan was so shocked that Daddy called her a liar than 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, so he was unaware that the children didn't have the same things.

AUNT SARA'S NEPHEW:
When I read [our] family histories, 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.

You know, I don't think I ever really asked Daddy about his side [of the family], at least not back in the '80s. He never talked with interest about his family with me--not the way Mama did of her side. And I don't think I was as interested as a result... I think I assumed Daddy's family were simply country folk without occasion or inclination to reflect on where they came from or came to be where they were.

I didn't think it out, honestly. I loved Daddy very much, so I don't see it as a lack of interest in me. I just assumed that all his ancestors were like Grandmother or Aunt Sara. And since Daddy didn't even talk with me about his mother or sister, questions never occurred to me to ask.

It's sad really. That's why I was asking .. if Daddy ever talked about his father or Grandfather...the men who raised him. I never heard more than, "My father died when I was eight." There's much about Daddy that I'm just now learning from you.. My questions prompted by snippets of what I pick up since his death. Ironic that I always found Daddy so accessible, but now can't ask so many question that matter to me now that I too am a father...

Since becoming a father myself, and especially these days in dealing with my brothers and sisters, I've been thinking long about "sins of the father." In philosophy there's a concept Nietzsche called "eternal return," and Freud had a concept called "repetition compulsion." ... The very simple and awful fact [is] that we repeat in our life the things we cannot make right with ourselves. It's significant to me that the old exposition above says, "a people past feeling." It's not about unfeeling people, but those who, conceivably, felt too much. This may seem trivial, but I believe it's those of us who haven't a balance in feeling that risk becoming callous. I once heard a brilliant director instructing a young actor in how to play a villain. After many retakes and in frustration the young actor shouted, "Maybe I am just too young to have experienced real evil." The director looked at the actor for a while without words and then finally nodded saying, "Son, to play a villain you don't tap experiences of evil, you reach into your experience of pain. Monsters are not born, they are made. Within the bleakest hearts, you find shattered hope, misguided love, disappointed expectations. "In hearts, it's the victim that is father to the villain... I teach my children how to love and respect and share, not by what I preach, but by how I love and share and respect. No matter how compelling my words or how beautiful the philosophy I share with [my children], I believe (and fear) my children learn most about how to treat others by how I treat my brothers and sisters. I know my children are aware of our problems sharing the farm...

I would love to feel faith in my family. I'd love to feel when I visit we can just enjoy each other. Truly enjoy in the spirit of asking nothing of each other but being together. That we can try not to ask for more than love offers: acceptance and non-judgment. ... We should never ask for more acceptance for one sibling than for another; We should never be asked to take sides or to view another as evil, not brothers or sisters, not our father or mother, and not even Aunt Sara. It's a lack of charity that not only makes us wrong but also makes us ugly. It may not seem to matter at all, but I think the way we dealt with Aunt Sara and treated her is the clearest failing of our family. It showed us at our worst. Our faith at its weakest. Aunt Sara was difficult, of course. She was the most [____] and fearful person I've met. But none of us was able to give her what she needed to turn from resentment to love. We only fed the resentment. To say she stole from you is to get something terribly wrong: We shouldn't covet what we haven't been offered...

I know we believe very different things, and I know that to tell you my beliefs in a fully authentic conversation would lead to a meltdown that neither of us could withstand. I know the burden of tolerance is upon me, but that too is part of my faith: acting with humility. Trying to avoid participation in evil through fear, hate and harm by allowing that I haven't got the only truth. Mine isn't the only way to be good. I would never act upon my fears in a way that would negate your choice.

NEPHEW BILL'S LETTER TO HIS SISTER, COPYING HIS SIBLINGS AND THEIR SPOUSES:
26 June 1992

Dear Susan,

The day before yesterday I called Action Properties and placed the Santa Fe farm on the market. I'm hoping that it will sell soon because I believe such would relieve Dad of much anxiety. I have never seen him appear more nervous. He told me the other day that he has had a knot in his stomach since the well drilling began. The state is considering building a 4-lane expressway from Saturn to 1-40 West which has been surveyed to run right through the Santa Fe farm; however, with the state in such financial straights now, I don't know what will come of this. A planning meeting is scheduled in late July, I am told.

I was really excited when I heard from you that Chris and Joan were coming down and building their home here. I believed that a deposit of $30,000 would make a $30,000 mortgage manageable and I felt that, if things got financially difficult, then we could sell the Santa Fe farm in tracts and in leisure to help them out.

I am concerned with the way things are going - both the lack of information we are getting and the increasing burden on our parents. I realize now that Chris' move to Tennessee is not imminent, that he doesn't have $30,000 for a down payment, that the house costs keep climbing, that Dad has sealed the mortgage with the security of the Lewisburg farm, and that Aunt Sara (she owns 50% of the Lewisburg farm) is upset about being left out of the decision-making. She was in tears the other day when she was talking to Claudia.

Most of all I am concerned about the conspicuous lack of input which the rest of the family has. If you and Dave, Joan and Chris, Miriam and John, or David and Judy are not moving down immediately to assume responsibility for the project, our parents are going to be under some real pressure. Our family has expanded and I would really like to know how Dave feels about this project. Judy, Chris, John L., and Claudia are also family members and I think a project of this size ought to be discussed by all members. How do they feel about this? When we used to talk about the possibility of a small cottage for family visits, we were taking about a cottage we the children would build to benefit our parents. I never anticipated building a house for our visits and then handing our parents the bill.

I am also concerned about the haste with which the project is being driven. Do you remember how we bought the Boston farm before we sold Tyne and the problems and anxieties experienced by this haste? We are still seeing the repercussions of that decision. Because Dad is assuming financial responsibility for the new house, he is under pressure to sell the Santa re farm ASAP. When we tried to sell this farm in 1985, we had it on the market for over a year and never got so much as a nibble - until we sold the house alone. The post-Saturn speculation has made things worse today. Farms all over Maury County are up for sale with few buyers.

Most important, I don't want you, Joan and Miriam to delude yourselves into thinking that, in the event none of you move back to Tennessee, Dad and Mom can move into the new home. Daddy told me that if none of us move into the house or couldn't pay the installments, he would rent the house out. For a couple who prides their privacy as much as our parents do, this would be unfortunate.

The bulk of the family has been excluded from the decision-making process and I think we all have some valuable insights to make on plans which will impact on all of us. I hope your husbands are as enthusiastic about the project as you, Joan and Miriam appear to be. I am concerned that the new house might end up being a visitor's "cottage" where the Brindles, the Lademans, the Bells and the Andrews may wish to stay several times during the year when we have family reunions. If this ends up being the case, it would be smarter, cheaper, more convenient, and less stressful to Mom and Dad if we just rented a room at the Henry Horton Inn whenever we visited and then let Mom and Dad foot the bill.

Brother Bill
cc:
John
Joan and Chris
Dave and Judy
Miriam and John

THE WRATH OF ANGELS by James Risen, Judy Thomas 1988 Political Science – Page 188

Joan Andrews grew up in rural Tennessee, steeped in a Catholicism that was totally out of place not only in the Southern Bible Belt, but also within her own family. She was the product of a wartime marriage between a devout Irish Catholic woman from Detroit and a laconic, irreligious Methodist from Nashville, a marriage greeted with thinly disguised rage by her father's anti-Catholic mother and sister.

William and Elizabeth Andrews met and fell in love while both were stationed at an Army hospital in Arkansas during World War II. After they married and left the Army, they moved back to Nashville, where Elizabeth found herself surrounded by strange and hostile relatives, pressuring her to renounce her church; in defense, she pressured William to convert to Catholicism. Caught in the middle, William resented his wife's attempts to convert him and was confounded by the fact that religion had become such weight on his marriage; their relationship began to founder. Nonetheless, they began to have children in quick succession, which created new tensions when it came time to baptize them as Catholics.

As the children grew, their Aunt Sara bitterly took to lecturing the children that their mother had forced their father to have such a large family – they eventually had six children- because of her Catholic beliefs. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Elizabeth Andrews decided she had to break free to save herself. In 1951, she piled her four young children into a car and headed north, leaving William and his family far behind. She settled in a small lakeside village in Canada, and there she raised her children by herself for nearly three years, until her estranged husband pleaded with her to come back.

William had fixed up an old Tennessee farm to serve as his family's new home, far from the turmoil with his relatives. When he told Elizabeth that religion would never again come between them, she agreed to return, and the two fell in love for a second time. On the farm, Elizabeth Andrews was finally free to bring devout Catholicism into their family life, and her husband no longer challenged her on it. Elizabeth would sit and read Bible stories and say a fervent rosary with her children each night.

Joan began to fight similar battles over religion at school, where the Andrews children were the only Catholics. William Andrews was now their principal, but that did not provide enough protection from the rural Protestant children who taunted Joan and her siblings because of their Catholicism. That only led Joan into an early defense of the church, similar to her mother's reaction to attack, and into repeated schoolyard fights. Her mother's miscarriage of a seventh child – and the way her mother involved her children to help her deal with the personal loss – had a profound impact on Andrews's attitude toward abortion.

Joan was twelve in 1960 when her mother, at home on the farm, miscarried what would have been another son. When Joan and the other children came home from school on the day of her miscarriage, Elizabeth Andrews allowed each of her small children to see and even hold the three- or four month-old fetus as it lay in the holy water in which it had just been blessed and baptized by a local priest. Together, the family named him John Mary Joel Andrews.

The next day, the family placed the fetus in a can, along with a lock of hair from each Andrews child, and then, following a funeral, buried the unborn child on a farmland plot blessed by the priest.

Joan's religious fervor soon began to match her mother's... but Joan knew a secret about herself: that her love for the church was not matched by a willingness to accept a vow of obedience to it. Behind a quite façade, Joan had a rebellious heart. "I just knew, even then at fourteen or fifteen, I couldn't take that vow."

....Andrews headed to St. Louis University after high school, in 1966. She participated in a few anti-war demonstrations but quickly dropped out and returned home to be with her parents when her brother was drafted, an event that sparked in Andrews a personal turmoil about the war and a world that would allow it to happen.... Except for Viet Nam and the threat to her brother, the outside world had never really intruded, but Roe felt like a personal violation...In 1974, Joan and her Sister Susan, who had left the convent, followed one of their brothers and moved to Delaware. In Delaware, Susan was raped and became pregnant; she planned to give birth until she suffered a miscarriage, Finally, in 1979, [Joan's] younger sister Miriam, then a student at St. Louis University, called Joan in Delaware to tell her about Sam Lee's first sit-ins… Andrews decided to move to St. Louis to live with Miriam...

By 1988... Joan had transcended St. Louis. She was now the movement's first martyr – "Saint Joan" – the star subject of countless radio and television appeals nationwide by Evangelicals like Pat Robinson, D. James Kennedy, and James Dobson. Andrews had become the movement's "prisoner of conscience," [subjected to some of the harshest prison conditions ever faced by an anti-abortion activist...sentenced to five years in a Florida state prison, she protested her sentence by refusing to cooperate with the system; she sat down in the courtroom at her sentencing, and from that moment on, guards had to carry her everywhere.

Her vow of total non-cooperation earned her twenty months in solitary confinement on the punishment block of the Broward Correctional Institution for Women. In solitary, she spent her days pacing – three steps across, two steps to the side, three steps back – around the perimeter of her cell. Her window was painted out, her cell closed off by a solid metal door with one slot for food and one for eyes. .. Except for brief exercise periods, she stayed in her cell twenty-four hours a day.

While in solitary confinement, she was denied church services, denied almost all visitors, and forced to endure, on at least one occasion, a full-body search by a male and female guard working together…

Worn by a life of protest, Andrews was still attractive in a rough-hewn, mid-American sort of way. She was a slight wisp of a woman, with a quiet, plaintive voice and a remarkable sense of modesty about her plight. She repeatedly insisted that she did not think of herself as a martyr, and she urged her supporters to "focus on the babies." But her willingness to endure such treatment, her show of self-abnegation, and her wholesome appearance combined to increase her standing as a martyr figure… Ultimately, her case did more than all of [John Cavanaugh] O'Keefe's pamphlets and Ryan's rescues to shine a national spotlight on the new wave of anti-abortion activism that was building in the mid-1980s.

Aunt Sara's handwritten letter:

Dear S____,

Your wedding invitation came as a great surprise. I can only say I hope you and _____ genuinely love each other enough to make a very happy marriage. Of course, I have great concern for you two! I hope (you and _____) have given much, much serious thought to your decision. It is so serious and will demand much love, responsibility, sacrifice and cooperation. A beautiful marriage where there is love and consideration for each other is the greatest joy of life. The fact you are Roman Catholic and _____ is Lutheran does not disturb me anymore than if you both were of the same religious background. I have seen so many heartaches in marriages where there is too much religion (dogma) and not enough Christianity (golden rule and fairness).

I hope _____ is a very strong, stable person. I still believe the man should be the head (with heart too) and the woman should be the heart of the home. I have seen very many men destroyed because they were allowed little authority and very little consideration in important decisions. Under such conditions no marriage can be successful and happy. Even divorces among couples of Roman Catholic tradition are not uncommon now.

I am sorry I do not know _____. I really am concerned about his future happiness. Please, please be understanding and fair, _____! I do hope you love him enough so you will not make for him rules you can not live by. _____, it was such a very short time ago you tried to convince me you were in love with a man in Memphis. To me marriage is so serious and permanent - not easy to change as in friendships and jobs. So many people and often young children are tragically effected. _____, I do wish you stability in your thinking! It seems not many today can or do assume the responsibility (emotionally and financially) for a large family and it is so sad to have children in a home where they are neglected and maladjusted in so many ways. All children have a right to be born in a home of love and harmony. Couples are selfish who think otherwise!

Thanks for the invitation and I appreciate your informative note.

I wish the best for you and ____.

With love,
Aunt Sara
February 16, 1980

AUNT SARA'S TIMELINE

Birth
June 22, 1908 • Lewisburg, Tennessee at her grandfather Nicholas' home. [Brotehr Bill -I don't think they were born in hospitals then I guess.] [5/22/08 per E. Early Bible]
9 pounds, born at 3:20 a.m. Aunt Sara was born at her grandfather Nicholas' house at the time she and her parents were living in Silver Creek at the Harris house they rented.

1908
Cradle Roll Record
June 28, 1908 • Baptist Church, Lewisburg, Tennessee
Enrolled by Mrs. C.A. Ladd. Always spelled her name Sara.

1910 (2)
Residence
1910 • Civil District 3, Marshall, Tennessee
1910 Federal Census. Sara Josephine Andrews has a photo upon the back of which she has written, "Nolan Lee Simpson at 5 months and Orlando, his father, Fairfield, Illinois." She also has a photo labeled, "Peggy, our maid."

1915 (7)
Childhood Illness
1915 maybe • Marshall County, Tennessee
I came out of the coma when I was about in first grade] and I said I want a drink of water out of Grandpa's well. Nicholas' well. It was beautiful. It used to be kind of on a hill, but they've done something with the highway and they kept it up beautifully

1916 (8)
Brother's birth
October 4, 1916 • Lewisburg TN - Dad requested of Mom that they never lock their children in a closet. Apparently this had happened to him when he was young after his father died. His aunt, Anna Lou Andrews Hendrix, talked to his wife a lot after they moved to the farm and she told Mom in 1953 that Sara had put a needle thru the palm of her brother's [Dad] hand when her was a child and that she didn't feel the same about his sister after that. These things may have caused him to be afraid to confront his mother and sister

1916 (8)
Birth of brother 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).

1920 (12)
Residence
1920 • Lewisburg, Tennessee
1920 Census- Comments about Growing up with Sister Sara: JEA; Did you and Aunt Sara have many mutual friends?. WLA: No.. JEA: Did you play together much?. WLA: No, she was an adult as far as I was concerned at that age.

1924 (16)
Father's Death
December 21, 1924 • Lewisburg, Marshall County, Tennessee
Her father died when she was seventeen and she never married. She was engaged to farmer once. She saved almost every penny she made and was proud to say that she had saved well over $1,000,000. She was well known and well liked in Nashville

1924 (16)
Death of father William Lafayette (known as W.L. or Will) Andrews Sr.(1881–1924)
December 21, 1924 • Lewisburg, Tennessee at Doctor Wheat's hospital

1925 (17)
High School in Pulaski
1925 about • Pulaski, Tennessee

1928 (20)
Sara Andrews Harpeth Hall 1927
Graduation
1928 • Nashville, Tennessee
Harpeth Hall Academy

1930 (22)
Education
1930 about • Columbia University, Nashville, Tennessee.
Sara would always tell her nephews and nieces that she attended Columbia University, but it is unknown whether this was only for a summer, or for how long. Her relative, Margaret Tucker, was at the time or had been Dean of Women at Columbia University.

1930 (22)
Education
1930 about • Nashville, Tennessee - Graduated from Belmont College, Nashville and summer study at Columbia University where her cousin, Maggie Yarborough was Dean of Women. Aunt Saralater headed the children's section of then Nashville Public Library, a position she retained until retirement in 1973.

1930 (22)
Residence
1930 • Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee
1930 Federal Census

1931 (23)
Occupation
1931 About • Nashville, Tennessee
Librarian, Nashville Public Library [job she held her entire life]. It is unknown whether she started in the Children's Department but during the 1950s, 60 and 70s until her retirement, that is the department in which she worked.

1933 (25)
Residence
1933 • Nashville, Davidson Co., TN

1934 (26)
Passport
July 30, 1934 • From Harve (France?) to New York
U.S. Passport # 139182 issued July 30, 1934

1935 (27)
Residence
1935 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee - 2404 Oakland Avenue
Asst. Public Library

1936 (28)
Social Security Number
December 23, 1936 • Nashville, Tennessee; issued on December 23, 1936
#409-10-3670

1938 (30)
Residence
1938 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Asst. Nashville Public Library - r 2404 Oakland Ave.

1939 (31)
Residence
1939 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Asst. Nashville Public Library - r 2404 Oakland Ave.

1940 (32)
Residence
1940 • 2404 Oakland Avenue, Nashville Tennessee 37212

1944 (36)
Only Sibling's Wedding
November 25, 1944 • Stuttgart, Arkansas

1944 (36)
Residence
1944 • Nashville, Davidson Co., TN

1946 (38)
Brother and his Wife move in with Aunt Sara and grandmother
September 1946 • Nashville, Tennessee
Oakland Avenue

1946 (38)
Residence
1946 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
2404 Oakland Avenue

1947 (39)
Residence
1947 • Nashville, Davidson Co., TN
Librarian, Public Library residence 2404 Oakland Avenue

1948 (40)
Residence
1948 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Librarian, Nashville Public Library home 2404 Oakland Avenue

1950 (42)
Residence
1950 • Nashville, Davidson Co., TN

1951 (43)
Residence
1951 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Department Head, Nashville Public Library residence 2404 Oakland Avenue

1953 (45)
Residence
1953 • Nashville, Tennessee
Moved from home on Oakland Avenue to new home purchased at 4110 Lealand Lane, Nashville. Aunt Sara and Grandmother (Stella) would play Canasta as often as they could and seemed to love the game.

1954 (46)
Religion - Methodist
1954 • Nashville, TN - Bill: 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.

1955 (47)
Nephews and Nieces
1955 • Nashville, Tennessee - Nieces Joan and Susan recall their Aunt Sara telling them that their mother had died at sea during her trip to Rome with her mother Jessica in 1955 for the canonization of Pope Pius X. The children recall their father having to take scapulars & religious things off of the children before visiting their Aunt Sara and grandmother.

1956 (48)
Residence
1956 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Department Manager, Nashville Public Library residence 4110 Lealand Lane

1959 (51)
Residence
1959 • Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee
Librarian, Nashville Public Library residence 4110 Lealand Lane

1960 (52)
Relative of Gov Buford Ellington's Wife
1960 about • Nashville, Tennessee
Aunt Sara was a good friend of Governor Burford Ellington's wife and said she is related to us. He married Catherine Ann Cheek, and moved to Cheek's native Marshall County, Tennessee, where he opened a store in the Verona community.

1960 (52)
Finances
1960 • Nashville, Tennessee - While in her 50s or 60s said had saved $1M & didn't want Catholic Church to get any of it and told her nephews and nieces that this is the reason she was leaving nothing to them. She later told her nephew John that she would never invest in anything other than tax free municipal bonds, but none were found in her home or banks after her death.

1970 (61)
Death of Mother
June 7, 1970

1970 (61)
Death of mother Stella Viola Simpson(1883–1970)
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

1971 (63)
Property
October 23, 1971 • Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, USA
4110 Lealand Lane - receipt of brother's 1/2 interest

1973 (65)
Retirement
1973 • Nashville, Tennessee
Retired as Head of the Children's Department of The Nashville Public Library

1985 (77)
Residence
1985 • 4110 Lealand Lane, Nashville, Tennessee

1990 (82)
Residence
1990 • 4110 Lealand Lane, Nashville, Tennessee

1992 (84)
Great Niece Sara Bridget Lademan
October 1992 • Annapolis, Maryland - Only niece named after her Sara Bridget was named after her great aunt, Sara Josephine Andrews, at the time the Lademans were attempting to build a house on the farm jointly owned by Briget's great Aunt Sara and her grandfather William L. Andrews.

1997 (88)
June 21, 1997 • Nashville, Tennessee
4110 Lealand lane by Joan and Chris Bell

1997 (89)
Cataract Surgery
1997 • Nashville Tennessee
SJA: You know, this film is on my eye. I'm going to have cataract surgery on one, then I've got to have the other one in two or three months. [Looking at flowers on the side of the house] My mother planted all of these.

1998 (90)
Aunt Sara and her Father's Farm
1998 • Lewisburg, TN- BILL: Dad has sealed the mortgage with the security of the Lewisburg farm, and Aunt Sara (she owns 50% of the Lewisburg farm) is upset about being left out of the decision-making. She was in tears the other day when she was talking to Claudia. I never anticipated building a house for our visits and then handing our parents the bill.

1999 (91)
Residence
1999 • Lewisburg Tennessee
After a fall at her home on Lealand Lane in Nashville, she moved to the farm and lived with her brother and his wife Betty for the last years of her life.

2002
Tennessee Tucker's farm - birth of Harris children (Aunt Sara Jo Andrews handwriting)
Photographs Found in her Lealand Lane Home

2002 • Nashville, Tennessee
Sara Josephine Andrews has a photo upon the back of which she has written, Nolan Lee Simpson at 5 months and Orlando, his father, Fairfield, Illinois. She also has a photo labeled, Peggy, our maid.

2002 (93)
Death
June 12, 2002 • Lewisburg, Marshall County, Tennessee
at Chalet on farm her father had left to her and her brother in 1924. [Rm 62 Lewisburg Hosp. per B Early Bible]

2002
Burial
June 14, 2002 • Lot 442, Space 1, Woodmont Cemetery (Did not want burial in Andrews/ Liggett Cemetery- having to drive thru barnyard

2002
Probate
2002 • Nashville, Tennessee - Aunt Sara had saved conspicuously and was very sparing when serving food or meals to her nieces and nephews during her life. She was required to pay over a half million dollars to the federal government in estate taxes, which could have been avoided by gifting but during her life she had made small, interest-free loans to her nieces and nephews, but had never given them anything

2007
Estate Planning - Aunt Sara died intestate.
2007 about • Lewisburg, Tennessee - Several years after the probate of her estate, her nephew Bill turned over Aunt Sara's estate documents to his brother John who found a holographic (hand written) will in her handwriting. Through their childhood and adult life Sara told her nieces and nephews that she was leaving nothing to them when she died because they were Catholics.

Attitude toward Sister-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.

Description
5'4" height, light brown hair, blue eyes

Ancestors from Virginia
Sara J Andrews - My grandfather said the Andrews family in Middle Tennessee came from Virginia - 3 brothers, 1 settled in Williamson County (our line), 1 Davidson County, 1 in Alabama (Roy Andrews line)

Grandfather Simpson's Family
Sara's Brother: Orlando, Jr. was my hero." Sara's Nephew David: "Funny, thinking back on those trips to Fairfield, IL.
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.

Hobbies and Collections
WXA: We were just joking about obsessions and Aunt Sara's china dolls came up. They were probably worth thousands of dollars. I wonder what happened to them.

Personality
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.

Engagement
Aunt Sara often told her nephews and nieces when they were children, possibly because of slight embarrassment about never marrying, that she was once engaged to a farmer, but she never mentioned a name, or where or when this was.

Social Status
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.

Miriam's wedding invitation to Aunt Sara_Page_1
Only Sibling's Family

It is recalled that Aunt Sara and Grandmother never attended any weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations or any milestone events in the lives of their nephews and nieces and only visited their home & farm when their mother was in Europe in 1954

Occupation
Enrolled in private schools. Aunt Sara graduated from Belmont Methodist College and later headed the children's section of the Nashville Public Library, a position she retained until retirement in 1973.

Occupation
Children's librarian at the Nashville Public Library all of her work career retiring in the late 1960s. She was very fond of a Tom Tichner who was a pupetier in New York for a while. 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.

Social Security Number
409-10-3670

INTERVIEW WITH NIECE JOAN ANDREWS 11/22/2012 THANKSGIVING:

Boat sinking – Oh, that was in '53? '53 was the Holy Year? Mama left. I was five, Susan was four. I remember that very vividly. We had taken turns. Once in a while you boys would be with Grandmother and Aunt Sara in Nashville at their house, for maybe a week or a few days, I can't remember. And then it would be our turn. And I know we had done that a couple of times at least. But it all started one day. One day we were taken to a store and Aunt Sara; I wanted to ride one of those horses that go up and down, and she said ok; we had also asked for some candy. And Aunt Sara said you can only choose one. So Susan chose the candy and I chose to ride the horse. And so of course afterwards I wanted some candy so I was being grumpy. And so I remember thinking that's unfair, the horse ride's so short. I deserved the candy. So I was just being a bratty kid. I didn't say anything to Aunt Sara, but I remember thinking that to myself. And so that same night, it was pouring down rain and it was late, and I remember Aunt Sara, we were sitting and playing and Aunt Sara showed us a newspaper with a picture on it of a sinking ship. And she said, oh, your mother died today. She was drowned. Her ship went down. She showed us the ship. And Susan started crying and we both ran into the bedroom, the one we were staying in. And I remember telling Susan, I wasn't sure, I remember my own emotions, I didn't know for sure it wasn't true, but I remember I knew she was capable, I thought she was capable of doing this out of meanness, so I told Susan she's lying. That mama's ok. That Mama didn't die. She's just lying to us you know. But I remember to myself, I wasn't sure. We waited, and we packed up all our stuff including some of the toys, Aunt Sara's toys, [laughing] I remember doing that, I don't know what we had in our bag, but when they weren't looking we snuck out and we were going to go back to the farm. And again we were going the wrong way. We were going down that big hill by their house on Lealand Lane and I don't know how long we were walking but finally a car pulled up next to us and pulled us in. They just brought us back home. Maybe Daddy did it. Was Daddy there then? Maybe Daddy did. Maybe they called Daddy or something. I don't know how long we were gone. He must have come up from the farm then. He didn't remember because a few years before his memory wasn't that good, no, no, we told him then what happened, and he said you never have to go back. He believed us. But I remember years later, even after Aunt Sara had died, Susan mentioned it, about family healing, we need to heal, we need ask forgiveness, we need to all the things in our lives. Long before Daddy's stroke. And she mentioned that about Aunt Sara, because she was just trying to tell things about being honest in our lives, about how things happened. I think she was taking to Daddy about how he should have protected Mama and he should have protected us. I don't think it is good to rehash those things, but I think something had come up not related to that I think and an so she brought that up. Susan does have a need to rehash things, especially if she thinks people have the wrong impression of it. And Daddy said that could never be true, that never happened you know. So Susan just realized he was told that a long time ago, but he forgot. He said that never could have happened, he did say that, but then I remember when Susan was taking care of Aunt Sara, remember when Mama took care of Aunt Sara for what maybe two or three years, when she was getting elderly, then Susan took it over because Mama couldn't do it anymore, so Susan started taking care of Aunt Sara at the Chalet, and one day maybe about a month before Aunt Sara died, she said, you know, she was very grateful, Aunt Sara, She had an antagonism toward Susan. I know she liked me, and never was antagonistic toward me, but she was very antagonistic toward Susan because she would always speak up. I remember when I was a kid, I'd know, don't say anything when she'd say something mean about Mama. You know, she made Daddy marry her, and all this stuff she said. I never said anything. Susan always would speak up. She said Mama's not that way. Mama's a good mama. My mother's a good mother. And she's always respond. She'd always speak up. I never would. So she was antagonized maybe by her personality or maybe because she spoke up. So anyway, right this period when Susan took care of her toward the end of her life, she was so grateful. She'd say this is so wonderful, Susan would show her photographs of the kids, and took care of her. She said, this is the happiest time of my life. She said, we have such a wonderful relationship. The kids are so wonderful. She said I always wished I had this relationship with all of you. I really love you and I wish and I wish I had had this relationship, but your mother never let me be close, always told you bad things about me and never let us be close. And Susan said, no Aunt Sara. No Mama really wanted us to be closer and loves you and always did. But it doesn't matter. Then past doesn't matter. Al that matters is that we're close now and we all love each other, and anything that did happen, I don't think she brought it up at that point. She said, you know, we don't have to worry about the past. We just love each other, everything's so good now. God's so good to us all, and we are all so blessed. And Aunt Sara said, oh no, no, your mother really, really never ever let us be close, never let you kids come visit me. So she said, no, no, our mother always would tell us, be good, be kind, just love Aunt Sara and Grandmother. She always said nice things. She said [emphatically], oh, no, she never let you kids come and visit us, never let us be close. And then Susan said, Aunt Sara, remember that time I was four years old and Joan was five and you told us our mother had died and you showed us a boat sinking? And Aunt Sara said, how dare you say that. It never happened. You remember that's the night we ran away, it was pouring rain and went down the hill. She said, Aunt Sara, that's child abuse. And Aunt Sara's face all of a sudden kind of went. And Susan said but all of that doesn't matter. It's the past. We all make mistakes. The main thing is that we forgive each other, and love each other, and then it's ok. And from then on there was something that changed in Aunt Sara. She became like a different person. She became not just, oh this is nice that we're close. She became very loving. In fact, I think that brought her to the point when she died about a month later, she kept calling Susan Betty, Oh Betty I love you. You do so much for me. When Mama took care of her for two years, she never thanked Mama once. She was irritated when she was around. But after that I think she had a change of heart toward Mama. She forgave Mama for any anger she had toward her. Whatever. And when she was dying on her bed, Oh Betty I love you. You've done so much for me. I love you. She kept calling her Betty. And then she died you know.

Susan Catherine Andrews' recollections:

Grandmother ( was sitting on one recliner and Aunt Sara on another, Aunt Sara called them over to her chair and showed them a picture of an oceanliner in the newspaper, saying, "look your mother's ship sank and your mother's 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 that what Susan had said about Aunt Sara was a lie, that it never happened. Susan was so shocked that Daddy called her a lier than 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, so he was unaware that the children didn't have the same things.

1/23/03 - Susan mentioned to her 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 if not every afternoon. Susan also told her sister-in-law, Susan Sullivan Andrews, that a couple weeks earlier her father had taken her into his bedroom to show her some checks for $10,000 or more each that her husband John had sent to his parents in payment of their loan to him to buy the old Hillsboro farm. Her father said that her mother had never cashed the checks even though the early payments had been directly to Peoples and Union Bank who tracked the loan payments and even though John had always balanced his bank account and all checks had cleared. 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 Brindle told her sister-in-law, Susan Sullivan Andrews while staying with her in Pennsylvania during her preparation in January 2003 for the birth of her son, Patrick Sullivan Andrews, about working at Delaware Park during the 1970s; about how she met her husband, David Brindle.

At Lake House in Canada one summer, Susan's mother and the other children were looking into a large tub containing sand and turtle eggs gathered from the beach which were hatching. All of a sudden they looked out and Susan was floating face down in the water. Susan's mother rushed out and saved her from drowning. Later in the upstairs of Lake House, Susan was carrying a large, metal tub while her brother John was lying on the floor. Susan tripped and broke-off John's eye tooth half way down. Later her Uncle Ted was throwing a clam to his son Jammie while both were in the water and John popped up between them just in time for the clam to hit him in the mouth, breaking off the other eye-tooth and an adjacent tooth. John now had three teeth half-broken, the adjacent tooth later dying during orthodontic work.

At Lake-House, John and Bill built a boat from a ladder by tying innertubes under it. They drifted out too far and started crying for help. Little Susan walked out on her tip-toes and rescued them.

At one point on the back lawn at Lake House, Susan was holding up a dead animal or something saying, "Look, Mommy, look Mommy." Her mother had just given her a sandwich and was distracted with something, so responded instinctively by saying, "yes, eat it!" Susan keep repeating herself and her mother kept saying, "yes, eat it." She had it in her mouth just about to bite when her mother looked up and screamed.
One early morning in the dark and pouring rain their mother took everyone to Mass at St. Gregory's Church in Detroit. John saw a prayer book at the back of mass and asked for it. It cost $.25. His mother said to him, "Pray of it and I'm sure we'll be able to get it later." As they walked out of the church, John saw $0.25 in the mud and was able to go back and buy it. Susan was very popular after high school and dated quite a bit. She dated some of the nicest boys in the world, but also some of the worse. One of the nicest was Tom Berens. Tom was a Glenmary seminarian who was sent from Cincinnati to Lewisburg after receiving an electrical engineering degree from the University of Cincinnati. Tom was struggling with whether he had a vocation or not and finally called from Cincinnati to tell Susan that he was meeting with Fr. Frank Ruff, the President of Glenmary, to tell him he was leaving the seminary. He talked to Susan's father who said Susan wasn't home but failed to tell him that Susan was at Bill and Claudia's so that he could call her there. Bill and Claudia were concerned that Tom was merely stringing Susan along and they had a long talk with her. Susan then wrote a negative letter to Tom which he got after he had talked to Father Ruff but before he left to propose to Susan. Ultimately he never came down to Tennessee. Tom continued to see the family for years after that. While in Saudi Arabia several years after that, Susan's brother John brought a letter to the Dhahran Airport and asked someone to mail it for him when he arrived in New York. This person asked John to sit down and talk awhile before his non-stop, Pan Am flight left. It turned out that he worked for Procter & Gamble in the same area as did Tom Berens and had just engineered the opening of a soap plant in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Tom at the time was in South America doing the same thing. Tom rose up the executive ranks at Procter and Gamble. In 1971, Susan's brother John bought a 2 1/2 acre lot in South Nashville off of Granny White Pike for $9,000.00. Without John asking her, Susan worked very hard clearing the lot while John was in graduate school in St. Louis. Susan joined the Carmelite monastery in St. Louis as a novice while her brother John was working on his M.B.A. at St. Louis University. A very good person by the name of Bob Rider, who lived on the monastery grounds and whose sister was a carmelite nun there, would drove down to Nashville with John on the weekends to help him put up fencing for the cattle on the Old Hillsboro Farm. Bob Quatman, who was dating Susan at St. Louis University and had left his job as an electrical engineer at Emerson Electric for the MBA program, was replacing the gaskets on the engine to Susan's brothers Bill and John's Volkswagen bug in their Lewis Hall dorm room. It was final exam time and Bob had been given a take-home exam by a professor in one of his classes who had been a Nazi fighter pilot during WWII. John had this same professor for an undergraduate economics class and since he was majoring in economics and felt sorry for Bob who was spending so much time on the engine, he volunteered to coach Bob through the exam. John ended up having the same exam as an in-class exam and got an "A" on it. Others in the class had done very poorly on the exam so the professor allowed everyone but John to retake the exam. John, who had never done anything like this before in his life, felt very bad about this afterwards. Susan's fellow Carmelite novice, Germaine, left the order a month or so before Susan, and Susan asked John to call Germaine to see how she was doing. John was asked to dinner at Germaine's house, after which she showed him the facilities in her community. They bumped into Claudia Sainz (who was an intern at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and a former classmate of Germaine's) and Claudia's sister Beverly [Cont'd Mary Andrews] at a gym where they were working out. When Bill returned home from Barcelona Spain (he had been working on his Ph.D. at the University of Barcelona), he visited John in Delaware on his way home and John talked him into driving to Dallas with him to see Claudia. Bill ended up moving to Dallas and teaching at a junior college there. After they were married and Claudia finished her residency in Dallas, Bill and Claudia signed up for a year in Columbia, South American with the American Medical Missions Board. Earlier after finishing his MBA at St. Louis University, John had started in a management training program with Crown Zellerbach Corporation's corrogated container division in St. Louis and was transferred to its Newark, Delaware plant nine months latter, in March 1974, as assistant controller. Joan, Susan and Miriam stayed with John during the summer of his first year in Delaware and worked at the race track (Miriam as a jockey). Joan and Miriam returned home after the summer while Susan stayed in Delaware. When they heard that Susan had been abused by a person at the Delaware race track, Bill and Claudia immediately returned home after only six months in Columbia, South America and began living on the Old Hillsboro Farm. Bill started working for the Herald Tribune and Claudia at the Pediatric Clinic in Columbia. John left his job in Delaware a short while later to return home after about two years in Delaware. At this point the entire family was back in Tennessee. While Susan's sister Joan was in prison in Florida as a result of her pro-life work, Susan worked tirelessly and constantly toward getting her out of prison.

Susan recalls being in the back yard 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 knotthead 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's memories of Lake House in Canada were the water and the wind blowing against the water at night. She remembers the well, in the shape of a hand pump. Her mother had a garden that a farmer tilled for her and Susan was out there with her mother eating a sandwich. Susan was playing in dirt and found a grub, called to her mother, "look." Her mother said eat it every time she said, "look mama." Just as Susan was about to put the grub into her mouth, her mother screamed and Susan dropped it. She remembers really feeling bad when Bill and John burned Gampa's bus. She remembers us getting into trouble, and she remembers crying and hearing the fire engines and hearing us cry or get scolded by Uncle Ted. She remembers us hiding. She also remembers Uncle Ted taking her out on his motor boat on a place in Detroit like Old Hickory Lake in Nashville. Only Susan Jamie and Uncle Ted were there. Susan thinks she fell into the water and couldn't breath and she remembers being afraid of water after that. Susan remembers floating on the water head down and being able to hear things such as the sound of the water but being unable to do anything. She remembers she and Joan getting lost and a policeman bringing them home. The man sat on a store counter and gave them an ice cream cone. Joan kept saying 2850 Oakman Blvd, over and over, but he couldn't understand her since she spoke so fast. The policeman put her on the counter at the restaurant and then Susan told Joan that she could find the way to the school where there mother had gone to take up Bill and John to school (St. Bridget's). In Canada they got lost and mounted police brought them back. When Susan and Joan were 4 and 5 and their mother has taken a ship to Europe with their grandmother, Aunt Sara told them that their mother was dead; that she had drowned. Up until 4 or 5 years ago Joan and Susan had never talked about this. One time Susan had talked to her father about putting the farm in her mother's name also because if he died Aunt Sara would get the whole thing. So after she built the chalet, Susan told daddy it wasn't a fair thing to do to her mother. This was after her father had collapsed at mass while playing the organ. So her father said that the farm had nothing to do with her mother. That his father had given it to him and his sister and it had nothing to do with mama. Susan told Daddy that when they moved to the farm, it looked like a trash farm because it had all those barns around the house and the upstairs had corsets and snake skins and it was real messy. There were chicken coops, the smoke house, the kitchen of the original house that had burned down that was used as a garage and old barns. She told daddy every night and all day long when daddy was at school, Mama would pull up all those bushes that had stalks like trees and red berries. She would pull them up by their roots. And every night when everyone got home from school, they would have a bond fire. And now it looks like a park and that Mama made it look like that. How can you say it has nothing to do with Mama? Aunt Sara has never lived there one day in her life. To prove her point, Susan said she had never told anyone this before, but Aunt Sara really hated Mama. ( Susan felt that her grandmother had talked Aunt Sara into hating Mama). Susan's father said that wasn't true. To prove it, she told him that when she was 4 years old and Joan 5, when Daddy brought them to Aunt Sara's house, and Daddy left 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 grandmother sitting on one recliner and Aunt Sara on another, Aunt Sara called them over to her chair and showed them a picture of an oceanliner in the newspaper. She said look your mother's ship sank and your mother's 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 that's a lie, that never happened. Susan was so shocked that he called her a lier than 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," and Joan told Susan things about that weekend that she didn't even remember. Susan asked how did you know that Aunt Sara was lying. She said I didn't, but I knew how much she 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's memory of her brother Bill is playing in the Bill's barn, Bill saying Teddy could do anything. She remembers that John pulled out Teddy's eye to prove that he wasn't real. Bill said that Teddy was so incredible that he didn't need an eye to see. Bill told the story that he had really been reincarnated. That he was a civil war soldier and that his grave was that big monument in Columbia. The other children wanted to believe him because he was such a great storyteller. Latter they found out that it was a monument to a dead horse. At school a needle broke off in Chairs March's arm as he was getting a shot and Bill, who was trying to act so tough, keeled over and fainted.
Susan remembers John as the peacemaker and always trying to look out for everyone. But that Bill and John would always try to leave her. She remember her father spanking John often, and the time their dog Bo Bo wouldn't let daddy spank John and chased Daddy into the house. Daddy had given John a spanking for breaking something and John said thank you. Daddy thought John was being sarcastic, and was angrily going to spank him again, but really their mother had always thought the kids to be respectful and to always say thank you As he started to spank again, Bo Bo started growling at Daddy and chased him into the house before he could spank John. Susan remembers John digging a pig-pin and the post hold digger cutting off the tip of her finger and John carrying her home. This happened the night Kennedy was inaugurated and Susan got to sit up and watch tv and soak her finger in coal oil.

She remembers that Joan would get into a fight and mama would separate Susan and Joan and Susan would pretend she was going to touch her things and this make Joan so mad.

When Mama would separate the children, she would put the girls in the front yard and the boys in the back with a rope on the ground separating them. So the girls had very little land to play on while the boys had all the rest of the farm. She remembers the rules Mama had written in cardboard in pencil. She drew a hand and foot etc. to say not touching, no hitting, etc.

Joan beat up Ralph Fuller at Belfast School in 3rd grade, Mrs. Orr's class, in the long hallway. Joan would always protect Susan. Ralph was kept back a couple of years so was a big, tall guy. One day after school in the long hallway Ralph starting pulling Susan's hair and making her cry. Gail Hobby went and got Joan who came running down the hallway at full speed with her hand stretched out in a fist hitting Ralph's noise and knocking him down with a bloody nose. Gail Hobby started running through the school yelling, "Joan Andrews beat up Ralph Fuller. By next day it was all over school. So Ralph's reply to that was Gail Hobby's too skinny, Kathy Beach is too fat and Joan Andrews is just right and he started liking Joan and gave her perfume for Christmas. Joan was so embarrassed, but he never picked on Joan or Susan again.

Susan remembers Joan had David and Miriam in her holy club. In high school she would take David to school dances and Susan's friends dancing with him.
Susan always thought of Miriam as their age. They were like triplets. Miriam always had bad dreams, one where her mouth was too little and she couldn't talk, etc.
Susan remembers how Daddy would get mad and squeeze our arms if we would try ot 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.

1/23/03 - Susan mentioned that her mother collected bottles to earn money to buy a piano for her husband when the children were very young 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 latter she told him that she saw him get off the bus and asked him why he 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 every afternoon.

Susan also told her sister-in-law, Susan Sullivan Andrews, that a couple weeks earlier her father had taken her into his bedroom and shown her some checks for $10,000 or more each that her husband John had sent to his parents in payment of their loan to him to buy the old Hillsboro farm. Her father said that her mother had never cashed the checks even though the early payments had been directly to Peoples and Union Bank who tracked the loan payments and event though John had always balanced his bank account and all checks had cleared.

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.

On February 16, 2004 while driving John to the airport following construction work on the Robinson Road bridge, Bill mentioned to John that Susan kept saying that Daddy and Mama had given Bill and Claudia the Santa Fe farm and that they hadn't paid for it. John mentioned to bill that Susan and David Brindle had yelled at John 20 years or so ago, both accusing John of not paying for the Old Hillsboro farm and of Bill and Claudia getting the Santa Fe farm free whale they had been given nothing and David Brindle adding derogatorily that John was just like his mother. John also mentioned that in 2003, Daddy had taken Susan Brindle into the back bedroom of the Lewisburg farm and showed her several $10,000 checks that John had written to his father in payment of the Old Hillsboro farm, saying that they had never cashed the checks. Susan Brindle told John's wife who in turn told John and that following Summer John's mother gave the checks to John. John and his wife Sue then went to Norma Aldredge at Peoples and Union Bank in Lewisburg to see if these uncashed checks were still in this account or if the account had been closed and the funds eschewed to the state. Norma spent a lot of time investigating and reported that it was so long ago and that because of the bank's merger, they had not record of the account. John then went through his old records and found that the account had been closed and that he had endorsed his Vulcan Material Company paycheck over to his father to replaced these checks. He then remembered that he had written these checks to his father before he went to Saudi Arabia because his father kept asking for payments on the Old Hillsboro farm because he was using this to pay for the Santa Fe farm. John went to Saudi Arabia because his father kept asking for the money even thought he had made advance payments. He wrote the checks to his father to relieve his mind that payment was forthcoming. When he got to Saudi, however, he found it difficult making deposits into the account and wanted to close the account because of its expense and told his father not to cash those check and instead he would endorse each of his pay checks over to his father. In the summer of 2003, however, John's father surprised him by detailing how he had paid for the Santa Fe farm from proceeds for the sale of the Peoples and Union Bank Building and from the sale of his bank stock, so apparently he didn't need John's payments on the Old Hillsboro farm to pay for the Santa Fe Farm.

After Bill dropped John off at the airport it occurred to John that Daddy had told Susan that Bill and Claudia hadn't paid for the Santa Fe Farm and John hadn't paid for the Old Hillsboro farm because he wanted people to think he was very generous with his children because he probably felt guilty that he hadn't been able to do anything for his children. Susan had asked recently if Daddy would deed the Chalet and 30 acres to her, but Mama said that he wouldn't do this or deed the land under John and Miriam's house, but that he was softening up. Apparently he had a difficult time relinquishing control of money and assets. This may have been why he refused to sign a will that the children agreed to have prepared for their parents so that the farm wouldn't have to be sold, or if sold, a great deal would have to go to the government.

Her father died when she was seventeen and she never married. She was engaged to farmer once. She saved almost every penny she made and was proud to say that she had saved well over $1,000,000. She was well known and well liked in Nashville, being featured as "woman of the month or day" on local radio several times. Her only brother had a very strong attachment to her and appeared to place her and his mother above any person or thing in his life. He appeared to have somewhat of a fear of the world and asked his wife either before or just after they were married that they never put their children in a closet. Sarah's nieces, Joan and Susan, recall their Aunt Sara telling them that their mother had died at sea during her trip to Europe with her mother, Jessica Early, in 1954 for the canonization of Pope Pius X. The children recall their father having to take all scapulars and all religious articles from them and brief them on what not to say before visiting their Aunt Sara and Grandmother. Sarah lived with her brother and his wife on the farm in Lewisburg beginning in 1999. Sarah's sister-in-law, Betty, while in her eighties, prepared meals for Sarah and took care of her when she moved in to the farm after she was unable to care for her self. Betty saw this as a penance. Sarah fell and had to have hip surgery on February 18, 2002 and resided in Oakwood Hall nursing home in Lewisburg for 20 days and then moved into the Chalet on the Lewisburg, Tennessee farm with her niece, Susan Brindle, caring for her thereafter. It is thought that a cousin of Sarah's married Buford Ellington, Governor of Tennessee who was a friend of President Lyndon Johnson. Sara was named for her grandmother, Sara Bryant. They called Sara Bryant Aunt Sallie. She died in 1928 and Sallie's husband Nicholas died in 1934. WLA-Aunt Sara retired in 1974. Aunt Sara had more friends than I did. I ran around with school buddies all my life, with Dap, Leo Bolster, all those boys. [In the past he had mentioned a Billy Lynch who was at Father Ryan.] I knew about as many Catholic boys… Her nephew, John Andrews, recalls he and his brother Bill living with their Aunt Sara and their grandmother for a portion of a semester during the spring of their freshman year at Father Ryan High School (and remembering the apple sauce pie that they loved) and getting to know Mary Kathryn Frazier next door on Lealand Lane who was John's age and at St. Bernard's Academy. [Lather both John and Mary Kathryn were editors-in-chief of their high school newspapers. She was John's first date and they double-dated with her brother George to a fall mixer at Father Ryan their sophomore year. She was more interested in John's brother Bill who begin dating her the spring of that year. Bill gently broke the news to John that Mary Kathryn liked him when he and John went for a walk to the hills together behind the Tyne Blvd. House. While he was on leave from the Army, John visited Mary Kathryn and her boy friend at Vanderbilt University for lunch where Mary Kathryn was in the nursing program after transferring from St. Mary of the Woods in Indiana after her freshman year. The following Christmas Mary Kathryn's mother invited John to visit Mary Kathryn in the hospital, but John got the impression that there was nothing serious and he didn't take time from his short visit to see her. The following March, John's mother informed him at Ft. Riley, Kansas that Mary Kathryn had died of cancer at 20 years old. John later stayed with his Aunt Sara while he was building the house on Cotton Lane. John had unexpectedly bumped into and then dated a couple of times Karen Riordan, who was Aunt Sara and Grandmother's neighbor, and who had given John a white horse when he stayed home with his grandmother rather than going to the circus at six years old in the 1950s. Karen's brother asked John to prepare a will for him that he wanted Dr. and Mrs. Frazier to witness at their house.]

Although I've often witnessed emotion in my dad, I've seldom seen the kind of affective disdain he reserved for McCarthy. Dad regarded the Wisconsin Republican as a self-promoting, headline-grabbing demagogue whose shoddy investigations were matched by what Dad regarded as a dangerous disregard for constitutional rights. Dad was still a liberal back in those days, not yet jettisoning his high enthusiasm for New Deal activism or the crusading idealism of his student days at Vanderbilt University.

Mom was in Europe at the time. She and my grandmother had left the week before on the Queen Mary to tour Europe and, the highlight for her, to have an audience with the Pope. The occasion was the canonization of Pope Pius X. My parents could not have been more different where religion was concerned. Dad is a native Tennessean who was raised Methodist but who discovered Emersonian transcendentalism in college and, to this day, carries on a lively flirtation with the Unitarian take on the world. My mother is a devout Irish Catholic of the pre-Vatican II school, believing in the efficacy of Lourdes water, festooning the old farmhouse walls with reproduced Renaissance iconography of Jesus and Mary, and lamenting the absence of a resident priest in Lewisburg so she can attend daily mass.

In fact, it was primarily the religious conflict between them that occasioned my parents' two-year separation and it was Dad's willingness to tactfully live with what he regarded as Mom's religious eccentricities that led to their reconciliation. It is one of the curious ironies in my family's life that Dad attends Sunday mass with Mom while my mother proudly considers him a convert to the faith, ignoring the fact that he has yet to embrace wholeheartedly the idea of Christ's divinity. To see them today holding hands and laughing together through sixty years of marriage is somewhat miraculous in itself. As the oldest of six children, I am the only one who can remember the traumatic and contentious early years when my parents fought their religious wars without taking prisoners.

[After the army], Dad reapplied to Vanderbilt only to discover that in the dislocation of war the law school was temporarily closed. He decided to finish his last [semester] at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and rented a room for us in a spacious private home that before the war was a Catholic retreat house. There were only two rooms available for rent and the other one went to a first year law student who lived with his new bride. Like Dad, he was a veteran taking advantage of a very generous GI Bill to pay for tuition, books and living assistance. I was only two months old at the time of our move to Tennessee and, of course, have no recollection of the eight months we lived in Knoxville. Mom's prodigious affection for photography, however, gives me a visual record of that time and, as always the case with the first-born, most of the pictures were of me. While Dad was in class, Mom carried me on walks into the fields behind our house to experience nature. On weekends there were picnics with cows grazing in the background. One photograph on the front porch swing shows me offering a graham cracker to my mother. Tom this day I still am in the habit of dunking graham crackers into milk. We lived in this bucolic setting of Knoxville until Dad got his law degree. In a graduation photograph with Dad in cap and gown holding me and with Mom's hand on her husband's arm, my parents looked happy and contented.

It was obviously a time of optimism with the war over, couples getting married, a baby boom beginning, and feverish spending after four years of national thrift and rationing. A photograph of the University of Tennessee's incoming class of 1946 reveals something of this optimism in the expressions of male students registering for courses in coats and ties. Their dress and demeanor reflects a class of men who were older, more conservative and more serious than the typical incoming class of college students. They were, like my Dad, veterans returning to school on the GI Bill. This was the so-called greatest generation, young men who didn't complain about tough course loads and intimidating professors because life was now gravy for them. Just months earlier they were sleeping in fox holes, experiencing combat, and distant from families they loved.

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.

January 1947 was a good month in the history of my family. My little brother John was born on the [second day of Dad's bar exam]. This was also the month that we moved into a home of our own on Stokes lane. The house, in the Belmont area of South Nashville, was a convenient five minute walk to Christ the King Catholic Church where Mom attended daily mass with her children and about six blocks from Grandmother and Aunt Sara. During the three years we lived in our little yellow-stone home on Stokes Lane, two additional children were born to my parents. By the end of the decade, I was one of four children. My sister Joan was born in 1948 and my sister Susan was born the next year.

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.

From: Andrews, William X.
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 10:13 AM
To: Andrews, John (DC)

I don't think they were any more [prejudiced] than anyone else who was native-born white in the South during their time. It was part of the culture. Aunt Sara, for example, didn't like the civil rights workers down in Miss in 1964 and when they went missing, I can remember her saying that they had been stirring up trouble and that they were probably hiding out in the Bahamas enjoying all their publicity. When they showed up dead after being executed by the KKK (I'm talking about Cheney, Goodwin and Schwartzer (spelling?), she seemed genuinely embarrassed and she actually admitted that she was angry at how they were treated. She knew I was big on civil rights and from that time on (I never heard her say this before), she kept telling me how many black friends she had and that she went to the funeral the man who did her lawn. It's like she was trying to prove to me that she wasn't a racist. But that was after 1964. Before that, she seemed to be resentful of the civil rights movement. When we lived with her and grandmother in the spring of 1962, I can remember some of her comments on the blacks who tried to integrate the lunch counters at Woolworth in downtown Nashville. She seemed pretty hostile to them at the time - but so were most whites. It was a different world then. I better get back to work now. Take care. PS: I think you're right about Susan. I know that I didn't clean anything out of the Chalet when the Henson's moved in except for the heavy stuff (frig, oven, etc) and bags of clothing that were already bundled up in big black garbage bags (most of them Brindle clothing and blankets). Bill

February 19, 1971, Fairfield, Illinois
Orlndo F. Simpson
R#5
Fairfield, Ill 62837

Miss Sara Andrews
4110 Lealand Lane
Nashville, Tenn 37204

Dear Sara: -
I am sorry that I have waited so long to answer your nice letter and birthday card.
I do very little writing, not even to Nolan. I leave that to his mother. He is in Fort Gordon, Georgia in radio school. He should graduate in March and then we don't know where after that.

We had 3 to 4 inches of snow over last week end, and it drifted 4 feet deep across our road. Had to wait for a bulldozer to clear it out. Such storms make it hard for me to feed my cattle. I haul hay out in the fields on a box on a tractor and almost get stuck in drifts sometimes.

I'm afraid I can't help your cousin very much on the family tree. I am sending you a copy of some material which I got together years ago, but I can't explain the difference in spelling - (Pilkinton and Pinkletom). You can keep this copy for yourself if you like. I wish I knew more about our family in Tennessee. I've heard dad say that some of his folks came over the Blue Ridge mts.

Well it is raining here to-day and it is about mail time so I had better put this in the box.
Bye now
Orlando

January 21, 1971 Letter to Sara J. Andrews
Lewisburg, Tenn
January 21, 1971

Dear Sara,
I was surprised but glad to hear from you. Glad in deed that you are well. Haven't been too well lately but believe I am feeling better now.

I share with you concern for Kenneth. He has been going down for the last year + half to two years. Hope they can get him built up with the trans-fusions and get him on the mend. Fell like maybe they can.

As to Janie Belle's letter, 3, 4, or 5 years ago she came up here and got Grandpa Pilkinton's Bible, carried it to Florida and had the records in it xeroxed or photostatic copies made (of Bible, just the pages of records) Then mailed them back to me. I was going to copy them for you but decided it was too much as I have a hard time reading the hand writing of that period. I is better than mine- just differant style. You will have to come and read it. You know Uncle Larkin Pilkinton was your great, great grandfather as well as mine. Sarah Pilhinton married Green _________ Tidwell, my great grandfather. Elizabeth Pilkinton married Thomas Puchett. Martha Pilkinton married John Puchett. I don't see where any Pilkinton girl married a Simpson. But I have heard Grandma (Mildred Tidwll Harris) say she and Cousin Orlado Simpson were half first cousins. So you and I are just cousins on my mother's and your father's side, of course, and 1/2 third cousins on your mather's and my father's side. It looks like one of the Pilkintons would have had to marry a Simpson.

I have always thought it was through the Puchetts. Didn't a Puchett raise your mother and three sisters when their mother died?
I imagine Earl Puchett who bought Milky Way Farm and big house and lived on the way to Fairfield was one of them. His father, one generation of them, are buried down there, between Bryant Station and Smyrna Church. He put some new markers to their graves a few years ago. You better write to Orlando and see if he doesn't have an old Bible with source records that would tell us what we would like to know.

How about Tidwells. There was Mildred, my grandmother, Uncle Jim, Uncle Joe and Uncle Rich. Uncle Jim had 4 or 5 children. Jim lived in Birmingham; Louis lived in Houston, Texas; Joe, little Joe, or Joe Dick lived in Birmingham; Claire (Mrs. Newt Foster) live in Culleoka and Sally Woods. Sally is the only one still living. You may see the records in Maury County History that was published 3 or 4 years ago. I don't guess you can tell Jamie Belle any more than she already knows. She wrote me last Summer about that one that lived in Illinois. Wanted to know if some of my folks didn't live up there. I answered her and told her yes but he (Lina Harris) was an awful rich man and that he had cancer. Grand-ma or Auntie (Gertrude Harris) gave Lina, Grandpa Tidwell's Bible. But the didn't remember it and couldn't find it so that information is lost. Some people care for family history or genealogy, some don't. I do on our side.

I have found out a little more about Andrews kin since I have been going to Murfreesboro. Have stopped and talked to our cousin Tom Floyd (in Eagle ville) several times but more about that some other time.

Look after Kenneth.
Bye now.
David

P.S. Elgie has the shingles. He has been pretty miserable. Another P.S. Friday morning- Grandpa Tidwell's middle name was Beery or Berry, I think. I have it here somewhere. Let me know how Kenneth is doing in a few days?

Letter from Orlando's Wife Edna to Sara Josephine Andrews:
Fairfield, Ill
Jan 3, 1978

Dear Sara:

Thanks for the nice Christmas card.

We were rather busy over the holidays with get-togethers with both relations and friends. Larry came home Christmas Eve from Wisconsin but he was sick with a cold and spent the first few days in bed. He went back yesterday afternoon. He called today saying he made the trip ok and the roads weren't bad at all. He is now working for Bucyrus-Erie in the Computer department.

Norma Lee and Edward Koontz moved this fall to a place near Kentucky Lake. Francis and Lora also have a mobile home there too but they kept their place here too and spend time at both place.

Darrel Koontz also moved to the northeastern part of the state near where Dale lives. I bet Maud and Melba sure do miss them.

Olive said they were snow bound for two weeks after she had snow at that time too but only some snowflakes for Christmas Day.

Orlando has been having trouble with his right leg. He hasn't been to a Dr. but may have to go.

We had open house for my Mothers 100th birthday. One hundred fourteen signed the register. That was on Sunday before Jeanes death. Then my brother in Searcy, Ark died the 30th of November so there has been so much going on since the 20th of November.

We got this information on the Wrights from Elsie Wright Carter. I hope it is what you wanted.

Best wishes for the New Year.

As ever,

Edna