Uncle Pete and Aunt Nancy

Back to the newspapers…

Uncle Pete was my mother’s brother. He and his family lived far away in Florida, and we saw them once a year when they visited Grandma, who was Pete’s mother.

Pete and his older brother Jim were college-educated, unlike the two girls in the family. He spoke over our heads. Perhaps it was on purpose.

These images are from GenealogyBank.

The engagement was announced in the Knoxville News-Sentinel on February 1, 1953.

Franklin-Packett

MR. and MRS. JAMES A. FRANKLIN of Fort Myers, Fla., announce the engagement of their daughter, Nancy Jean, to Cecil P. Packett, son of Mrs. James A. Packett of Lenoir City.

The bride-to-be was graduated in December from U-T, where she was a member of Kappa Delta sorority.

Mr. Packett served three years with the Navy and will receive his degree in journalism from U-T in March. He is a staff member of the Orange and White, student newspaper, and a member of the Publications Council, All Students Council and Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

The wedding will take place at 7 p.m. March 27, at First Baptist Church of Fort Myers.

Leslie pointed out that Uncle Pete was in the Navy and probably went to college on the GI Bill. Interesting to think that he earned the right to go to college, and the girls could not.

They were married on March 27, 1953. They honeymooned in Havana, Cuba, back when Americans could go to Cuba.

‘OLD GRADS’ GET TOGETHER — Mr. an Mrs. Cecil Paul Packett, who were married March 27 at Fort Myers, Fla., are pictured at Hotel Nacional, Havana, Cuba, where they are spending their honeymoon. The bride was Miss Nancy Franklin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James A. Franklin of Fort Myers. She and Mr. Packett met during student days at U-T, where both were graduated. Mr. Packett, son of Mrs. James A. Packett of Lenoir City, will take his bride to Paris, Tenn., to live. He is with The Paris Post-Intelligence.

 

I lost track of Uncle Pete and Aunt Nancy after Grandma died. I saw them one more time at Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary in 1992. They have both since passed away.

Good night, friends. We are thinking of you.

The Lacy

I went to the Lacy Hotel last week. Only it’s not a hotel any more. It’s a gift, antique, and home furnishing shop. 

I wasn’t shopping. I have a #CousinNotCousin whose grandmother and aunt worked at the Lacy, back in the day when it was an actual hotel. They cooked there for many years, and their cooking was legendary. One friend said she could still taste the rolls, warm from the oven, even though the Lacy as a hotel has been out of business for many years. 

It opened during the 1920s. It was a place where you could get a meal, book a room, or attend a meeting. Ladies’ society clubs met there. Men’s business groups met there. Families went for a meal. 

My family went the same places over and over, and the Lacy wasn’t one of them. I don’t know why. 

So that made my visit extra-interesting. My goal was to snap a few shots for my #CousinNotCousin Beth in Illinois. The Lacy was so beautiful that I got carried away. 

Walk straight through the front door to the room behind, turn around, and you see this room…

Then across the room at a diagonal to the doorway beyond which is the old dining room. 

I made myself stop taking photos of the stairs. It was an unusual layout. 

There are 6 rooms upstairs. Nooks and crannies are full of wonderful things. 

T

I’m rather astonished that a gift shop is alive and well in my hometown. 

I bought some mulling spices and also a heritage book “Windows to the Past”, which was published in 1982 as part of Lenoir City’s Diamond Jubilee. 

I got the book with the thought that I would send it to Beth in Illinois as a token of remembrance from the Lacy. Much later, I was looking through it, and I saw a photo of the graduating class of 1938. Y’all? There was my mother. 

I hope Beth enjoys her mulling spices. 

Another Gold Mine, Another Closet, Another Mystery

Another Family Bible has popped up.

(All photos are downloaded from correspondence on the internet. I don’t actually have the Bible in hand.)

This one is reported by my brother to have belonged to our grandfather James Packett.

But his name is not in it.

Yet my mother told my brother that this was her father’s Bible.

There are some names.

Miss Helen Wood

957 Lee Ave.

Knoxville, Tenn.

Helen Wood and

Claude Davis

were married Jan. 12, 1929

But who are they?

I found Helen Davis, married, on the 1930 census and living with her mother Mabel Philips and her step-father Dewey Philips, but her husband is not in the home.

I also found in a 1930 Knoxville City Directory that Dewey Philips worked for a construction company as a foreman, and he was living at 957 Lee. Claude Davis is in the same directory, and he also works for the same construction company and lives at the same address.

But who are they?

I scrinched my eyes up, all squinty-like, and I imagined that I could see the imprints of a writing utensil coming through the paper from the other side. So I asked, and was told, yes, there is writing, but not like any other writing that’s ever been seen in a Family Bible.

The last names have been erased.

I imagined that the erased names are both “Woods”. The handwriting is the same as the top part of the previous page.

So I look for James and Susan Woods and I find them in 1920, both in their late sixties, with several children, including Hellen, age 8, and 2 younger children. They are listed as the children of James and Susan, which, on Susan’s part, is physically not possible.

And on a census previous to that, James and Susan have a large family including a daughter named Mabel. Let’s imagine that Mabel was not married to Helen’s father, since everyone has the same last name of Woods.

There’s also written in pencil “Mrs. Mabel Phillips, 957 Lee, Knoxville, Tenn.”.

I also found death certs for James and Susan Woods.At this moment I have only downloaded the death cert for James Woods, and not just because I’m lazy, but because I’m busy, and just today have two great missing pieces of the Bateson puzzle which will amaze and astound you.

The informant is son-in-law Dewey Phillips.

There is no known histoy of Woods people marrying my mother’s people,

So whose Bible is this and why did my mother have it?

Pete Packett’s Papers: A Letter from Alvis Lee Packett, October 28, 1966

 

 

Oct. 28^th, 1966

5325 Rosebay Road Knoxville

Tenn 37918

 

Mr Pete Packett

Fort Myers Fla

 

Dear Mr. Packett:

 

Glad to hear from you

but I don’t believe that

I can be of very much help

to you.  My grandfather Packett

name was Vincent

he was born around 1835

some where in North Carolina

he had two brothers one

was John and the other

Gaines  John went out to

Kansas around 1866

some where west of Topeka

on a homestead of 160 acres

Gaines was a widower

had one sone 5 or 6 ears

older than me.  he moved

to Knoxville from Union

County in 1890 and I never

heard from him any more

My father sold out in

Union County in 1900

We left Knoxville April 5^th

1900 for Joplin Mo in

4 or 5 days he landed a job for

both of us on a farm about

2 miles south of Galena Kans

We worked arout 20 day and

he bough a lease on 40 acres

in Oklahoma now about ½

mile from Mo line and ½

mile from the Kanses line.

I cut wood and plowed

corn for the neightbors

that summer.

In Dec he sold the lease

on the 40 acres and bought

a Farm in McDonald Co

Mo.  In 1903 I got married

and I went to Pittsburg Kans

and landed a job on the

Kansas City Southern

Knocking fires on the Pit as

I wanted a job of fireing

That is where I met

Harry Truman as he wear

working in the Razorback

Gang unloading a car of sand

at the sand house and I found

out that they were a job on the

pit that Knight for him to see

his foreman and get transferd

to the Pit and get a job of

Fireing that would be a better job than the

Razorback Gang.

he said we are moving to

Kansas city just as soon

as we well out in Lamar

Mo. and I am going to school

and and I will get in with

the Jews and I will have it made.

So read Matt 18:7 and you

will see what he is going to

get for fireing Gen

McAuther

I stayed in Pittsburg around

a year and I found out that

it wear a better job on

the M. K. and T. at Parsons

Kansas

and I went their and I

got out Fireing – 1906

In 1908 my mother waear

dying with a cancer

and I quit and went and

stayed with her.  After her

death I moved to Pasco

Wash. on the Northern

Pacific and I finished up

at Yakima Wash.  I had made

up my mind to come back

hear  I had sold my home

in Pasco, so I still had one

in Yakima Instead of staying

in a hotel at Pasco  So I

went to Yakima and taken

a switch engine in the

Yakima Yard so one day I

had no Fireman and the

Round house Foreman put

out an Englisman to my

Fireman and I had heard

my grandfather say that

the Packetts came to N.C.

From England and if he ever

knew any Packetts in

England  he said yes, that

he taken a paper from his

hometown and he saw

quite often about a

write up about them

in a bout 2 weeks he came

with a paper and it had

a write up about a Packett

had a fight and they had

fined him so much —  not so good

I have a cousin that

lives in Lakeland Fla

the last I heard from him

his name is Eston he is

66 this year

I came back hear to get

out of the winters out

their the coldest I have

seen wear 40 below.

About 10 below hear and

I do not last very long

I have a dandy little Farm

hear in Knoxville 7 11/100

acres.  I would like to sell

and get a way from

Knoxville but my Battle

Ax do not want to leave

Knoxville as we are going

to have hard times

in the near Future

and they are a possibility

of having it with the

negros.  I am enclosing

Washington Vision he had

at Vally Forge in 1777

It do not look very good

If you are ever up

hear and can look me up

I am still in good shape

and also if you can write I

would be glad to hear

from you.

With my Friendly greetings

and my best of wishes to you

I am Sincerely Yours

Alvis Lee Packett

P.S.  over

I would be glad if you

could subscribe for

the Destiny $3.00 a

year as they identify

the English as the house

of Israel see Jer 31:34-37

not the Jews  Read John

8:42-44 verse

Family records my mother

was a Bridges and

her mother wear a

Brantley  Both familys

wear from North Carolina

But I don’t know what Part

of North Carolina.

I have a International

Atlas of the World 1941 Edition

where I looked up the Kansa

Map.  Topeka is in Shawnee

Co and Wabaunssee co is

the first county west

With my best of wishes

and Frindly Greeting

Yours Respectiful

A. L. Packett

 

Pete Packett’s Papers: A Letter from Eston P. Packett, 1966

                                                                                November 16, 1966

Mr. Pete Packett

% Fort Myers News-Press

Fort Myers, Fla.

Dear Mr. Packett:

Received your letter and hope I can be of some help.

I knew your father and mother; they lived across the street from

my family when their first child was born.  They were living

with your Grandmother Webb.

Your dad came to see me in Knoxville about 1940.  Some of you

were in the service then.  He was pastor of a church in Lenoir

City at that time.

My father was Issac Henry Packett and my grandfather was Vinsent Packett.

Alvis Lee Packett’s father was Harbison Packett.  All

of this family was born and raised in Union County, Tenn.

My sister, Mrs. Della Morrell, who lives in Sevierville, Tenn.

has the old family bible with the records in it.  You can write

her:  Route 3 Sevierville, Tenn. 37862.

I have three children, all living in Lakeland, Fla.  My son Jack

Packett is with Publix – buyer for Gourmet Food and candy.  He

lives at 510 Lone Palm Drive.  My two daughters are Mrs. Roy Essary,

(Betty) and Mrs. Stephen Stith, (Barbara).

I hope this helps you in your search.  My sister probably can

give you additional information.

PS  My father, Issac Packett had only one brother, who was

Harbison Packett – A.L.Packett’s father.  Issac Packett

died in Knoxville, Tenn. in 1938.  I do not know who

John and Gaines Packett were.

Sincerely,

Eston P. Packett

2180 Colonial Ave.

Lakeland, Fla. 33801

And the first child that was born to my grandparents James and Ruth Packett?  That was my mother, Uncle Pete’s sister.

From Uncle Pete Packett

 

 

 

Letters

From my mother, Nov. 1, 1966:

“Well, little Mandy and I went last Wednesday to see Lonie Rodgers

to see if she knew any about the Packetts.  She was Grandma Packett’s

neice (sic).  Grandma Packett was a Rodgers….  I don’t know if you remember

Bob Yearout here.  Well they are related to the Webbs.  I knew that but

didn’t know how much.  They said my grand mother’s name was Rodie

Webb, which I always thought was Sarah.  I didn’t know my Grand-

father’s name but they said it was Cart.  Mrs. Yearout told me Sunday

night at church they were going to Wildwood Springs soon to see his

sister and she would know something.  I think he knows what he is

talking about because when I was very small we lived in Wildwood

Springs.  My father had a country store there and my mother owned

two houses.  I very well remember when they sold them…  My father

was Dr. L. D. Webb.  My mother Henry Etta Collins.”

Uncle Pete went on a letter-writing campaign in 1966.  This letter from his mother, who is my grandmother, shows how little she knew for certain about her grandparents.  Her father’s father was Lynch Webb, and his wife was Sarah Couch Webb.

“Little Mandy” is Amanda Packett.  “Grandma Packett” is my grandfather’s mother, Lily Rogers Packett.  “Lonie Rodgers” married Sam Rodgers/Rogers, the nephew of Lily Rogers Packett.

****

(More from Uncle Pete)

Henry Etta or Henrietta Collins Webb died May 3, 1934.  Lynch Delisha

Webb died when my mother was about 12 or 13, about 1906 or 1907.

My father’s parents were William Packett, who died about 1906 also,

and is believed to be buried in Dalton, GA, and Esther Lily Rogers

or Rodgers Packett, died in the early 1930s, and buried in Lenoir

City.

I also can recall as a child going to Wildwood Springs Cemetery with

mother and dad to trim up and decorate Grandfather Webb’s grave in

Wildwood Springs.  (My note:  no one knows today where his grave is, although I can find a death certificate.)

My father, James Packett, was born in Loudon County, TN Sept. 5, 1891,

and mother Ruth Jeanette Webb in Blount County, TN, March 25, 1894.

Letter from Mrs. (Douglas) Marie Hurst, Sevierville, TN, Jan. 8, 1967:

“I am Mrs. Marie Hurst, daught of Della P. Morell.  I am sending her

dad’s birth: Isaac Henry Packett, March 27, 1860.”

*****
Jan. 20, 1967 (More from Marie Hurst)

My grandmother’s maiden name is Mary Catherine Allbright, July 3, 1868,

at Union County.  Her dad’s name was Jasper Allbright, her mother’s

was Betty Wilson before her marriage to Jasper.

The rest of the births in the old Bible are grandmothers and grand-

father’s children.

Della Packett Morell, August 19, 1888

Leonard V. Packett, Dec. 18, 1889 (deceased)

Cora Lee Packett, Oct. 9, 1891 (deceased)

Martha E. Packett, March 11, 1894

Edgbert Packett, Oct. 23, 1897

Esten P. Packett, Oct. 28, 1900 – this is Betty Essary’s dad.  (Handwritten:  Cousin of Alvis Lee Packett of Knoxville.)

*****
More letters to follow!

 

 

Photos From A Christmas Card

Who are these people? Is that you, BigSis? And you, Uncle Pete?

I didn’t send any Christmas cards this year.  None.  At all.  Y’all know where to find me.

I did, however, receive two cards, which is just fine with me.

One of them was from my cousin.  She included four photos in the card.  One of them I had seen before, but these three I had not.

Thank you, Cousin, for the photos from the past!

Here’s my mom in a rare snowy setting. This is perhaps at the house on Hill Street, next door to Miss Willie’s house.

This looks like my mother and my BigBroBob at the house on Wilson Street. I’m guessing this photo was taken about 1946.

And if you don’t have a scanner, get one now and start sharing your photos before they are lost.  Sugar is pretty sure when his kids come to clean out his house someday in the far, far future, they are just going to have a construction dumpster pulled into the yard.

Mama’s Got A Brand New Bag, Part Two

A few years ago I knitted a drawstring bag in cotton.  In my mind, it took large amounts of planning and executing.  I found an image of a sailboat design that I knitted into each side.  The final product would be awesome.

The final product was awful.

It looked like a drawstring sad sack.

Sometimes things just don’t work out.

One day I was admiring a bookbag.  And suddenly I realized what my sad sack bag was lacking.  I redesigned the strap, in my mind, and I knew that it could work.

I gathered 3 skeins of 100% wool, and I cast on with 2 strands, with ever-so-large circular needles, 20 stitches, and knitted in garter stitch for 21 ridges.  I picked up 20 stitches on each side, making a total of 80 stitches on the circular.  I added a strand of novelty eyelash yarn and knitted round and round until I ran out of eyelash yarn.  When I ran out of the main wool, I added in another skein and knitted until the whole contraption was as long as the length from my elbow to my fingertips, about 18 inches.  I knitted the next round with 8 buttonholes spaced evenly, knitted 2 more rounds, and bound off.

I knitted an I-cord with two double-pointed needles until the I-cord was about 3 yards long.

Then I put both into an old pillowcase, tied it shut, and ran it through two cycles in the washing machine.

I threaded the cord through the buttonholes, and here’s the part that made the backpack part workable.  I poked a hole with a knitting needle through two corners of the base, and threaded an end of the I-cord through each hole, and tied the cord off inside in a supersized overhand knot.  You’ve seen a backpack before.  You know what I’m talking about.

On the front, I tied an overhand knot to keep the cord from sliding out of place.

And there you have it.  Some of the gray parts are really gray, and maybe I’ll get better pictures someday.

Until then, use your imagination.

Willie May Pierce Packett And Her Baby Lucile

Once, back in the day, BigBroBob went to see Mom when she was in the nursing home.  His visits weren’t just visits, they were events.  He knew all the residents, and they loved his visits.

On his last visit with Mom, which he didn’t know would be his last, he had his notebook and did an interview.

Mom told him some stuff that, when he shared with me, I had never heard before.

It seems that her mother had been engaged before she married James Packett.  She broke off the engagement when she learned that her fiance had gotten another woman with child.

But that wasn’t all.  It seems that James Packett was married before, but his wife and baby had died.  I thought that meant that his first wife died in childbirth.

*****

I’ve been browsing the death records of Loudon County in 1908.  There were many deaths from tuberculosis, heart problems, accidents, cancer.  One of the more bizarre causes of death was pellegra.  I couldn’t remember what that meant, but I did remember in health class many, many years ago, we were learning about diseases caused from nutritional issues, like scurvy, rickets, and pellegra.  Sugar looked it up after I told him about it, and he said it was caused by a niacin deficiency.  I looked it up, too, and the photos I saw looked like a horrible way to go.  Here’s a quote from the article I read:

In the early 1900s, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in the American South. Pellagra deaths in South Carolina numbered 1,306 during the first ten months of 1915; 100,000 Southerners were affected in 1916.

*****

All this made me curious to know more about the causes of death during this time frame.  While randomly scrolling through the death records of Loudon County, I found a death certificate for Lucile Packett whose father was James Packett and mother was Willie Pierce Packett.  I didn’t connect that he was my grandfather.  At first glance, I thought that it was his grandfather James and grandmother Millie.

When I enlarged the certificate, I found that Lucile was the baby, and she died from “hermorrhage from the lungs following pertussis”.

Little Lucile.

And this made me curious to find out what happened to her mother, who clearly did not die in childbirth, at least not with this child.

Willie May Pierce Packett.

Tuberculosis.

*****

Willie May and Lucile are buried at Pleasant Hill Church Cemetery.  I went there once maybe ten years ago to see if I could find their gravestones, and of course, I could not, because I have that issue about not being able to see things that are right there in front of me.

James went on to marry my grandmother, and if not for that, and some other factors, I wouldn’t be here today, and BigBroBob wouldn’t have been able to interview Mom.

And as grateful as I am to be here today, I still feel bad that Willie May and Lucile are buried in a different graveyard than my grandfather.

Good night, and sleep well.

Lillie Packett, Provided By Tim

Here’s a family sketch regarding Lillie Rogers Packett and her husband John William.  This is a scan of a copy of an email that Tim Packett sent me on March 20, 2000.  The world had not ended because of Y2K, fortunately, and we had found each other, so to speak, through the magic of email.

 

I’ve extracted my favorite part of the email.  It’s about Lillie Rogers.

*****

Lillie, who went by Lila in the later census reports was a widow in 1910, and living with her son and daughter-in-law Joseph ad Bessie in 1920.  I do not have the death date or info on John William.  Do you?  He is not buried with Lillie in the City Cemetery and records just state “Lillie w/o J.W.”.  None of my family contacts know what happened to him or where he ended up.  Some seem to think he went to Alabama or Georgia.

Family legend has it that during one of their many legendary fights, John threatened to leave and never come back.  Lillie supposedly replied, “You’ve got diamonds on your back.  The farther you go, the better they shine!”  He supposedly left that day and they didn’t hear from him again.  How much of this is true or just embellishments I can’t say.  Perhaps you know the true story?

Also Lillie is listed as a Rogers until later in funeral home records of some of her children, and she is listed as Lillie Simpson.  Do you know anything about that or is it just misreported?

She was living with my father’s family when she died, and he and his siblings have all kinds of memories of her, none of which seem to be very good.  They all say she was a very hard woman who could curse like a sailor and had all the children very afraid of her.  She did fascinate them when they had catfish for dinner.  She could put fish in her mouth, chew on one side while working bones out the other, talk, and drink without ever getting choked!  Isn’t it weird what small children remember?  They also said that she would sit on the porch and if someone came walking down Bon Street she would holler into the house to my grandfather, who was a Primitive Baptist Minister, and ask, “Hey, Pug, who th’ hell is that bastard walking down th’ road?”  My father, who was only four, remembers his older siblings grabbing him and running for cover!  They say as she grew older she had a large goiter on the side of her neck that had hairs growing out of it, which made her even scarier.  My father said that after she died there was one of her trunks in the attic full of old clothes and mementos, and the kids were afraid of it, too.  He said that they would scare him by saying Granny Packett is waiting for you in there!  It must have been awful being the youngest in the family.

*****

So choose your email words with care, because you just might end up someday on someone’s blog…