yesterday's tennessee

SANDY SCHOOL (circa 1912-1914)

scanned image provided by Jerry Cary

This picture was sent to me by R. L. Roberts, Jr. I believe he had the fifth row reversed, I'm not sure. I showed the picture to several of Clem Todd's folk and they believe the one R. L. ‘s mother is calling Jesse Small is actually Clem Todd. The original caption with what we believe to be the reversed order is:
Fifth: Lovie McDaniel, Clem Todd, Mellie McDaniel, Jesse Small, Annie Rush

We have our Todd Family reunion at Natchez Trace on the 4th Sunday in July every year. Aunt Lola Azbill who is Clem Todd's sister is still living and I'm sure she can verify this for me.

The picture has four of Rufus Lacurgas and Mary Webb Todd's children. Will, Clem, Floyd and Chalmer are brothers. Clem is my grandfather, father of my mother Pauline Todd who married Elvin Cary in 1938. Elsie and Vinnie Todd are sisters, daughters of James Reed and Ollie May Wilson Todd. James R. Todd was a nephew of R.L. Todd.

I thought maybe this picture would go good with the School Pictures on the Henderson County History Page. R. L. Roberts died before he had a chance to get the article he referred to to the Lexington Progress. I received this picture from him a couple of days before he died. Stella Wilson in third row is R.L.'s mother. She was the daughter of W. R. Wilson from Wildersville.

Thanks,
Jerry Cary

* * * * *

Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 16:40:51 EDT
From: RobertsUCC@aol.com
To: jecary@bellsouth.net
Subject: TODD Fam

All your materials are very helpful. I could never get the Todds straight, but never worked on them much. I have [a picture] of Sandy School's 2nd bldg, not the one Charlie and Jean live in now, but the one which replace the first log structure. My mother is in the picture, including the whole school with some extras, young kids who were not old enough to attend school, just came to get their picture made. After 75 years, I showed her an enlarge print of the picture and she named every one, only the first name of Floyd Todd she did not remember and Vinnie Todd McDaniel told me what his name is. Vinnie and Elsie are also in the picture, too young to go to school. . . .

I have sent the picture to Jean and Charlie and Harry D. Kiser, another cousin who's dad is in the picture, for help in identifying, as I am not sure that I have matched each name with the right person because of the irregular arrangement of the rows. I will send you a copy for help also, as I want to send it and an article about Sandy School to the Lexington paper and want the names to be correct. Give me you mailing address and I will send machine copies of above picture.

I will study your charting and think together we should have a good end product. I know Bobby Pinkley, feel like kin to him. We lived on adjoining farm to the Pinkley family at Clarksburg. So, members of our families have always been close.

I do not know about the killing. I never heard of Covey (as we called him) being involved in anything like that, but of course, things like that sometimes are kept quiet. Covey was a good Christian man as far as I know, at least a faithful church member in his later years.

I do know of another happening. Robert Lovell, my grandmother Roberts' brother, and Pat Azbill had a fight at Stray Leaf church house and both seemed all right, but during the night Pat died. Uncle Bob fled to Okla Territory and live there for the rest of his life, never returning except under cover once to see my grandmother. I visited his grave in Broken Bow, OK, Summer ‘97. Fights were very common in my boyhood days, happened nearly every Sat. sometimes on the main highway going town in Clarksburg. Too much booze probably the cause of most.

Enough for now.

Thanks again; will keep in touch.
R. L. Roberts