Picture of & letter written by Mary Smith Tillett

Here is a transcription of a letter written by our great-grandmother a century ago. It was addressed to Miss Nellie Cannon in Abilene, Texas, who later became Nellie Parramore, mother of Nellie Sellers. The Tillett and Parramore families were apparently very close! Nellie Sellers transcribed the letter; later on her daughter shared it with Sandra, who shared it with our mother Ione. Ione jotted on it that as children they called Mrs. Parramore "Aunt Nellie."

Mary Tillett, or Mamie as she was called by her husband, was in her late thirties and away from her four "dear children." Poppa Henry, the youngest, would have been only two-and-a-half years old then. (I don't know what kind of ailment put her in the hospital.) Oh, and the reference to war evidently refers to the Spanish-American War:

Galveston, Texas
March 8th, 1898

My dear daughter:

Your nice letter came yesterday & I am so delighted that you came out so well in your examination. I do feel hurt tho' because Sam is not next to you (I mean because he is not second best). Yesterday I came to stay at the St. Mary's Infirmary because I could not like the Sealy Hospital. They are not prepared for private patients-____. I do not like to have ____ (that is the nurses and all do not) except Dr. Paine & he didn't want me to come here, but I came anyhow. He is a fine old gentleman, but he has a head as hard as a rock. I wish you could walk into my pretty room with its large east window & elegant furniture tho' simple after all. The Sisters of Charity do all the nursing & oh they are so gentle and kind. My meals are beautifully served in lovely china. I can look down on a pretty yard with green grass, trees, and pretty flowers growing in it. Among other things there are such handsome palms with leaves as long as a parasol. The day we got to Galveston we went out for a sail on a real sailboat. It would roll & dip about on the waves & I was so 'fraid it would turn over, but it didn't. How I did wish for you all & the dear children. We also viewed the big gun & I talked with one of Uncle Sam's soldiers a little. He was mighty proud of his blue coat & gun & I told him if we did have war I expected they'd be in front of the whole crowd of runners except me, for on such occasions as fire etc. I generally lead everything as a person "of fleetfootedness." Enough of foolishness for one letter. Tell your dear mother that her fame as a cakemaker has spread abroad in the land & is fully established at Sealy Hospital. All who tasted it praised it greatly. Here I waited to listen to a voice oh so sweet! chanting somewhere, I suppose over in the Chapel. I can't hear the words but the sweet rich melody rises & sweeps over the air like great billows of melody. For fear of tiring you, I will stop. Any time you can write, any of you, I shall be grateful. Give my love to all the friends and kiss the little ones for their homesick mother. With love for you all I am as ever

Yours, Mary Tillett -

Mississippi & Alabama coast travel nostalgia

Does anyone besides me fondly remember eating at the Friendship House Restaurant, on the way to Gulf Shores?

This is the only image I could find on line.  If you ignore the artsy woman with dog, it does look vaguely like I remember.  I didn't know it was a motel, too.  Wonder what happened to the restaurant.

This is kind of funny, but do y'all remember how everyone got excited about eating the free crackers (& butter) that most restaurants provided when you sat down?

In Gulf Shores in the early days, I loved The Dunes restaurant.  I have a black and white picture of the front of it somewhere, if it didn't get torn up by the non-archivally safe album it was in.  Jumbo fried shrimp---yum.

And does anyone remember how we used to have to use dirty, un-air-conditioned "filling station" bathrooms when traveling?  But then we could get a soft drink (in a glass bottle), from the vending machine.  What a treat!  I can still taste the Nehi grape, for some reason, and the occasional Barq's root beer!

Historic Abilene buildings

The City of Abilene, Texas, has some photos of historic buildings & historic sites on their website, including two Texas Pacific Railroad buildings and the Elks Club, which is presumably the one to which our great-grandfather David Graham Hill belonged:

http://www.abilenetx.com/About/tpdepot.htm

Tillett - Wyche - Smith family history in North Carolina & my visit there

On Mother's Day, I was in Charlotte, North Carolina! While there I looked for Reverend John Tillett's grave at Elmwood Cemetery, but I couldn't find it. The place is huge, and I haven't located any directions to his grave.

I used the inspiration of a national genealogy meeting in Raleigh to make a six-day visit to the state...to see a few of the places the Tilletts and Wyches lived, and also to consider whether I might want to move there. I took the train and rented a car; just attended about a day & a half of the conference.

I do love the scenery in the Piedmont region: endless green hills and forests. And I like the fact that the state has actually put money into the passenger train system!

I started out in Richmond County east of Charlotte on Saturday, May 9th. [Ione's notes had indicated that Richmond Co., Virginia, was the Covingtons' location after Maryland but that was an error.] I found and took pictures of the graves of Elizabeth J. Wyche Tillett and her daughter Laura Tillett in Rockingham.

Then I located the old church which the Covingtons attended in the late 1700's (Cartledge Creek Baptist)--- according to a library book I'd consulted [A History of Richmond County by J.E. & I.C. Huneycutt, 1976]---and took a look at the Blewett Falls area of the Pee Dee River, with two old Blewett graves. William Blewett came from England in the early 1700's, having obtained one of the earliest land grants in the area and is probably one of our ancestors through Winifred Stone Covington, widow of Henry Covington who died in the War of 1812. A dam was built at Blewett Falls about a hundred years ago, so there is more of a lake with a spillway than a waterfall.

Another day I stopped in the town of Burlington, formerly Company Shops, from which some of the Tillett letters were written. The town is in the Greensboro vicinity and was established by the North Carolina Railroad as their maintenance site. Next I found the historic marker for the Bingham School for boys in Mebane, formerly Mebaneville, where Gus Tillett attended secondary school. (Happened to find out at the conference this is pronounced "Mebbin.") I made a swing through Pittsboro in Chatham County, where he was born and where there is now an organic grocery co-operative...Didn't ever make it to Chapel Hill to see the university.

Tuesday I found our ancestor James Wyche's grave in the woods of Granville County, about 40 miles north of Raleigh, thanks to the directions someone had put on line; although it took a while since the headstones aren't visible from the road. (He died in Raleigh at the age of 59, in 1845.) Then I took pictures of a house that may have been theirs; I so much wanted to find the "old Tar River plantation home," established in 1825 after the Wyches moved from Brunswick County, Va. If it was the right house it's been drastically remodeled as a hunting lodge.

I believe their plantation must have been a tobacco plantation, as this area was big in tobacco and James was part-owner of a tobacco warehouse. There used to be an old mill on their land, but I didn't know where to look for the ruins. James and Pamela Evans Wyche had 14 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood; all of their children (two daughters and eleven sons) attended college. Elizabeth J. W. Tillett later returned to the Tar River home to have at least two or three of her babies. She had been about seven years old when they moved here.

John and Elizabeth Tillett had nine children, six of whom lived to adulthood: Jimmy, Laura, Jeannette, Wilbur, Charlie, and Gus. During the War Between the States the eldest, James Wyche Tillett, was away serving in the Confederate Army. Elizabeth died during this period, when Gus was about two; the next year John Tillett married Elizabeth's widowed sister, Louisa Young Wyche (Speed). All of the Tilletts attended college, as well, although the war prevented James from finishing his formal education.

After I came back to Florida I realized there was a Smith plantation and graveyard in Granville County, also (Mary Benjamin Smith Tillett's forebears on her father's side); I hadn't remembered that during the trip. They were farther north. The other Smith ancestors (her mother's side) were located in Caswell County,* farther west along the Va. state line.

In Raleigh I found the 1862 Raleigh & Gaston/ Seaboard RR building, which has been preserved, and took a lot of pictures inside the State Capitol (1840). James Wyche was involved with both of these entities, as railroad president and legislator, although he died before the RR building was built.

*In reviewing online Smith information, it appears that the Samuel H. Smiths may have lived in the Raleigh area for a few years, as Wake County is supposed to be where Anne William Smith was born and where her parents married...There sure was a lot of intermarrying among that clan. It looks like, in marrying Benjamin Men Smith, Anne married her father's first cousin. Many of the Smiths moved to Dallas County, Arkansas, probably during the 1840's.

Quotation from Wilbur F. Tillett

Wilbur F. Tillett (1854-1936) was one of Henry Augustus (Gus) Tillett's older brothers.  He was a minister and Dean of the School of Religion at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.  A book published in 1949, Wilbur Fisk Tillett: Christian Educator, describes his life and views on various Christian doctrines.

The following passage is taken from 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South, by John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed (1996).  I was delighted to find it but haven't been able to determine the original source from which the Tillett quotation is taken.  This is found in item number 944 of the Reeds' book, The Southern lady. 

Wilbur Fisk Tillett wrote in 1891 that "American civilization has nowhere produced a purer and loftier type of refined and cultured womanhood than existed in the South before the war....In native womanly modesty, in neatness, grace, and beauty of person, in ease and freedom without boldness of manner, in refined and cultivated minds, in gifts and qualities that shone brilliantly in the social circle, in spotless purity of thought and character, in laudable pride of family and devotion to home, kindred, and loved ones---these were the qualities for which Southern women were noted and in which they excelled."