Autobiography of John Bateman Rushing

John Bateman Rushing (21 Apr 1845- 24 Apr 1936) was born in Decatur County, Tennessee. He and part of his family moved to Texas before the Civil War. He lived in Nacogdoches County, Texas and is buried there in the Bethel Cemetery. This autobiography was obtained from Judie Hughes from her web site www.family-forest.com/181.htm

Appleby, Texas, April 21, 1930

This being my 85th birthday and my children having requested that I give them for scrap-book purposes and as a family memorial a sketch of my ancestors, as well as of my own life, also the lives of various people of pioneer days. I have decided to do so, or at least do the best I can in this regard. I was born in Decatur county, Tennessee, in the year 1845. My father, Asa Rushing, was born in Anson county, North Carolina, December 25, 1801. Grandfather Jason Rushing was also born in North Carolina, but the date is forgotten. My great-grandfather came from England in colonial days to a free country where he could worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and where there was none to molest or make afraid under their own vine and fig tree, so to speak. There were two brothers, Mark and Solomon. One of them was my paternal ancestor, but I do not know which one, but from the history that I have been able to gather on the subject, I am persuaded that it was Mark, because of the fact that there are several of that name in the Rushing family. The two men had sixteen children, thirty-two in all, and I believe mostly sons. Thus it may be seen that the Rushings had a fairly good start in an early day. My grandfather, Jason Rushing, had twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. My father, Asa Rushing, had ten children, four sons and six daughters. Of this large family, I am the youngest. I have in my own immediate family, seven children, four sons and three daughters.

I will first give a sketch of the early life of my father. He was married to Nancy G. Hendricks in 1825 and at that date Tennessee was considered a new country. It was way out west, so to speak, and so they decided to move there and build up with the country. My father had a good horse and a one-horse wagon. So the couple put all their earthly possessions in that wagon, hitched up and moved. It is a part of our family history that my mother did most of the driving, because the roads were very rough, thus through the vast wilderness they made their way to their new home. Others who traveled with them traveled in a similar way. In fact, in that day and time there were very few wagons. The country was thinly settled and land was cheap. Arriving in the locality where they decided to locate, they stopped, pitched camp and went to work. In the new country, they were happy beyond measure.

In this connection I will tell this story; a story that my dear mother used to tell me about her girlhood days. In that day there were no cotton gins. The only way to separate the seed from the lint was to pick the seed out with their fingers. The good housewives would then card the lint into rolls with the old fashioned hand cards, and spin it into thread on the old fashioned spinning wheel. Then warp it and harness it up in the old fashioned loom, and weave it into cloth. They would then cut out the garments and sew them together by hand. The custom to get the seed and lint separated was to give an old time party well mixed with work and fun. Some good mother would invite the young people to come together for that purpose. After the work was finished, they would spend the remainder of the night in fun and frolic. The first step taken was for the young men to select a girl, one each, as partners, to be in the work and in the fun. The hostess would then ask each youngster to slip off his left shoe and she would take it and fill it with cotton in the seed. The couple would have to pick out enough lint to fill the shoe before they could take part in the fun. The girl who had a partner with a number eleven shoe had a hard time. The social gatherings were sources of much pleasure in pioneer days.

My father and mother were charter members of New Hope church, the first Baptist church organized in that part of the country. My father died in 1850, leaving mother to care for the children. Her main thoughts were to plant in their hearts a Christian spirit and this she did by precept and example. A few years after the death of my father, my oldest brother, Green Rushing, married and moved to Texas. He was so well pleased with the new country that he at once got busy writing to us in Tennessee what a delightful place it was and that all that a home would cost would be just to file on the 160 acres of land, have it surveyed and then send the field notes to Austin and get a patent to it. The total cost being seven dollars and fifty cents, and the best land could be bought for fifty cents an acre. So it just seemed to us that the honey pond and fritter tree was surely in Texas.

We loaded our household effects on a wagon and moved to Texas in 1857. We came down the Mississippi river in a steam boat, having traveled the same way down the Tennessee and Ohio rivers to get to the Mississippi river. We came down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red river, and then up that river to Shreveport, then on ox wagons to Texas. This being the only way of transportation in pioneer days. We crossed the Sabine river at Logansport into Shelby county, and that county was my home until the Civil War. After crossing the Sabine river, and getting into the promised land, our attention was first attracted to the thinly settled condition of the country, it being several miles from one settlement to another. When we came to a house, it was just a small log house, often not having but one door, a stick and dirt chimney, and more often a dirt floor. The house was covered with long boards having rib poles to hold the boards on to keep the wind from blowing them off. Wild animals and birds were in abundance. One could often count fifteen to twenty deer in a bunch. There were wolves, some panthers, an occasional bear, plenty of wildcats and various other kinds of wild animals. The woods were full of turkeys, squirrels, quail and other game which made the matter of living very easy. The streams were full of fish of various kinds, and the woods were full of various kinds of snakes. We had no matches in those days and so when fire went out, we took a piece of flint and steel of some kind, piled a quantity of dry shavings mixed with powder and holding the flint in one hand, over the pile struck the flint with the piece of steel. The spark fell into the shavings and powder, and produced a flash which caught the shavings, and we had a fire. Most boys and men always carried their flint and steel in their pockets. Hogs got fat in the woods on the mast. The creeks and branches had cane breaks on them, which made it easy for cattle to live on the open range winter and summer. We always had plenty of meat, but had no cans in which to place the lard. We raised large gourds. Some of these gourds would hold half a bushel of shelled corn. We let these great gourds dry, then cleaned them, and used them for various purposes. We used smaller gourds for drinking purposes.

In those days we had no free schools, nor public money. The school houses were few and far apart, and when you came to one, it was just a plain little log house like those in which the people lived. It had puncheon floor, if any floor at all, the puncheon floor being made of logs split half and half, laid flat side up, which was smoothed down with a broadaxe and footadze. The same kind of log was used for seats, turned flat side up with two holes forced in each end, into which long pegs were inserted and which answered the purpose of logs. The benches had no backs. The school house had one door, and it was in the side of the house, and on the opposite side a crooked log was so placed as to make a window or opening for light. A slab was used for a writing table. This was the school outfit we had in the good old days. There were no pen points or pencils. We wrote with goose quill pens and the teacher was supposed to know how to make these pens. The teacher always carried his chair with him, and if any of the pupils wanted to know about a word or anything, they would have to walk across the house and ask him. Most teachers had a long switch handy, and if the pupils did not obey him, he would not hesitate to use it. If he caught any of the pupils acting contrary to the rules, he would pitch the switch to them, and make them bring it to him, and they either got a good lecture, or a licking. I have often seen as many as six or seven bringing the switch to the teacher. During these exciting times, the school was at ease. The teacher required the pupils to spell out loud while they were getting their lessons. If they should calm down he would rap the floor and say "Spell Out," and if that did not get a move on them, he would say "Louder, Louder," with a vim in his voice. On a calm day one could here the school spelling half a mile away. Often on our way to school we would have to shy around wild cattle or hogs. Children had to walk from one to five miles to school in the old days. If anyone should happen to pass by the school house and holler "School Butter", every boy and sometimes the teacher, would just drop everything and take after him and catch him; and then make him treat or take a dunking in the creek. It was the rule on the last day of school if anybody could get to the school before the teacher got there in the morning, to shut the door and bar the teacher out, unless he would agree to treat the school. If the teacher refused, then the boys just picked him up and started to the creek to give him a dunking. Sometimes he would contend that he would not treat, but when they came to the water he would generally agree to treat. As a rule, the teacher, on the last day would always treat the school, and he always kept order until the hour for the treating came. He would then say the children were under their parents and he expected them to take control. I regret to say it, but in those days whiskey was drunk in public and sold in many places. Sometimes young men would drink to much and the sober boys would take candy. If any misunderstanding or fights came up the parents were expected take control as they were always present at the jollifications. The old Blue Black Speller, Kirkhams Grammar, Smileys Arithmetic, and McGuffeys Readers were the principle books used in pioneer school days.

The only way to get lumber was to saw it by hand, using what is known, or was known, as a whipsaw. Just cut a log about eight feet in length, roll one end on a slide and drag it to the place where it was to be used, then stand the log on end in a sort of frame, then begin to saw it. It took two men all day to saw off only a few planks. Later on, the old water mill saw outfit was installed, using the sash saw sawing up and down. The first steam sawmill erected in Nacogdoches County was put up in the Fifties. It was brought out from Shreveport on ox wagons. I saw it as it passed through Shelby County.

We had no oil lamps to make us lights. We had grease lamps made out of clay, also tallow candles and torch lights. A buggy was as wonderful to use in those days as an airplane is to us in these modern days. Ox wagons, carts and slides were different methods of transportation, and there were only a few horse wagons in use. Riding horseback was the most common method of traveling from place to place. In those days the girls could all ride horseback and in this way the young people always took their pleasure.

We raised corn, cotton, oats and some wheat. There were no threshers to thresh the wheat, and the only way to thresh it was to place it in a clean spot and beat it out with flails. Sometimes we would pile it in a circle on the ground and trample it with horses. We would take pitchforks and turn it over until it was all beaten out. The we would take the straw off and fan it with sheets. One man would take a half bushel of the grain and stand on a box and two men with a sheet, one at each end would fan, and thus separate the chaff from the grain. The women would then take the wheat and wash and dry it, and it was then ready for the mill. The miller would grind it and run it through a hand-bolting chest. The flour would come out first, the shorts next and the bran last. These were the good old times that we hear people talk about.

The women wore cotton homespun dresses and home-made bonnets. The men wore dark dyed pants and straw or wool hats. The rich men had bee-gum hats, but the girls in their home spun dresses looked just as sweet as they do now with all the artificial work and paint, and starch and powder that they can put on. We all wore home made shoes. We tanned our leather in troughs and made the shoes at home. One pair each year was all the shoes a child got. When we went to church we rode horseback, went in ox-carts, or walked. I can say with all my heart that the old pioneer preacher always had a message worth while, for his congregation. As a rule he always had good attention.

There was not a cook stove in all the country. Our mothers used the old pot-rack that hung in the chimney. They hung the pot on it and then built the fire under it. The old skillet, the oven, and the frying pan were the main cooking utensils. We had the johnnycake in the ashes which was a great rarity. There were only a few mills in the country and often we would have to go twenty miles to mill and even then have to let the corn stay there two weeks in order to get it ground into meal. So it happened that in order to get meal, we would sometimes have to use the "gritter," as it was called. We just soaked the corn in water so it would not come off the cob so easy while being gritted, as it was called. Sometimes we would borrow meal from a neighbor and when people lived as near to each other as eight miles away, they were neighbors. When building or raising our houses, log houses, we would ask hands to help us, who lived as far as eight miles away. Many of the settlers would have to go fifteen miles to mail their letters, or to get the mail.

We now come to my early manhood and the war between the states. The war started in 1861 and the boys began to enlist in several of the companies. So I was enthused and desired to join the army of the Confederacy. On the 28th day of January, 1862, I enlisted as a volunteer at old Buena Vista, in Shelby county, in Captain Amerson's company, and was sworn into service by O. M. Roberts, he being our colonel. We were sworn in for twelve months, but in July we were re-organized and sworn in for three years, or during the war. At that time, A. B. Johnston was elected our captain. We were in Roberts' regiment, Randle's Brigade and Walker's Division. We were known as "Walker's Greyhounds" on account of the many long, forced marches we had to take. Our military service was confined to the territory west of the Mississippi River, and called the Trans-Mississippi Department, and after the Confederate states were cut asunder by the gunboats taking possession of the Mississippi River, General E. Kirby Smith became head of the Trans-Mississippi Department, subject to the orders of President Jeff Davis, of the Confederacy. Shreveport was headquarters for this department. We had many hardships of various kinds. We had no tents for shelter. We just had to take all kinds of weather as it came, rain, hail, sleet or snow, storm or sunshine. Our only house was what we called a "Doghouse," just tie strings to the four corners of, and the middle of, a blanket, stretch it over a pole, tuck it to the ground, then dig a ditch around it with a butcher knife. Two men could get on their knees, crawl in and sleep as snug as two rats. Our battles in the Civil war, west of the Mississippi River, were all fought in the open field. Our mothers and sisters at home furnished with what clothes and blankets we used. The sutler, as we called him, would make trips at different times in a wagon from our homes to where we were camped and it might be in Louisiana, or Arkansas, or even in Missouri, he would come to us just the same. We were always glad to see him, for in addition to the blankets and clothes he also brought the dear sweet letters from home and the loved ones. During all these hardships I was not sick a single day, and never took a dose of medicine during the war. One of my brothers was severely wounded at the battle of Pleasant Hill, and I was detailed to go to the hospital at Mansfield and nurse and wait on him, and other wounded soldiers. I stayed there forty-seven days. The only time I was absent from the command during the war. After Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, we were marched to Texas and were disbanded at Hempstead, about May 20, 1865. We then returned to our dilapidated homes to meet our loved ones. We had lost the cause for which we had fought and suffered so much. We were an over-powered people, and had to submit to the victors. However, in the face of all this, we were glad the war was over, and that we were at home again.

So we just started life over again as from the start. Everything was torn up and run down. There was no money in the country. Foodstuff and plow tools were awfully scarce. We had to patch old implements and get along the best way we could. Many of us would plow all day, then bell or hobble our horse, or horses, and turn them out to grass. Next morning we would listen to hear the bell, then go and drive the horse up, hitch him to the plow and work again all day as before. I used to work for the blacksmith in order to get my plow fixed, and for the shoemaker to get my shoes. From the time I came home until my crop was harvested in the autumn I had only $1.50 and my mother gave me the money I had. I made a good crop. Cotton brought a good price and when I sold it the man who bought it paid me in gold. It was the prettiest money I have ever seen, or ever expect to see again. It was all my own, for I had done without the things that I had needed so badly and I want to say just here that my experience that year taught me a great lesson, and that was to do without things until I was able to pay for them in the autumn, and through my long life, I have never contracted for more than I could pay for at harvest time.

Everybody seemed to be happy after so many hardships, from a religious and neighborly point of view, but from a political viewpoint everything was hard and disagreeable. As a conquered people, we were not considered as citizens. We were disfranchised and placed under military law. A company of federal soldiers were stationed at each county seat to keep order. At one time there was but one citizen officer in Nacogdoches County. Nobody was able to qualify for a long time. Young people wanting to get married had to go to some other county that was fortunate enough to have a man to get qualified for county clerk. Reconstruction days were so hard we could not vote and elect our officers. The federal government appointed them for us, out of what we called "scallawags" and "carpetbaggers". It was to relive the intolerable situation that the Ku Klux sprang into existence and ultimately put the scallawags out of the country, even to our governor, who was E. J. Davis. In order to become citizens again, we began to take certain oaths. The last one was called the iron clad, or amnesty oath. I did not see how we could swallow such a big one, but others swallowed it and so did I. After this we were allowed to vote again, but at the same time, federal officers stood at the polls with six-shooters and shotguns to watch us vote and disqualify us if we had not fully complied with all the ironclad requirements. By and by the federal officers gave way to the civil authorities and state government. Then we had real peace, more enduring and more satisfactory.

During these trying times our schools had all run down for want of money. Teachers were scarce and salaries small. Teachers taught without a certificate and salaries so small that men who were qualified for teaching could not afford to do so. The consequence was that boys and girls who grew up during this period had a very poor opportunity to get an education. Under such circumstances I gave up the idea of trying to get an education and began to plan for future life. I decided to be a farmer and in order to do this I must have a home. So I began to look around and hunt for a girl that would accept my proposition. I was lucky enough, for it seemed to me that I found the identical girl for which I was looking, and to her I made known my plans and proposition. She accepted them, and so on December 4, 1867 was happily married to Miss Sallie Stack at Shady Grove in Nacogdoches county, Texas. The ceremony was said by Rev. Joe S. Lambert, a pioneer Baptist preacher. So the real work of a lifetime had started.

At that time lumber was so scarce and had to be hauled so far that it was well nigh impossible to get enough with which to build a house. We bought a piece of land and laid our plans, and these plans called for a log house. We went to the woods and pitched into cutting the logs. We split the logs for the walls and hewed them, making a smooth surface or face. Then we covered the house with boards which were "rived", or split near at hand with an old fashioned froe. Long ceiling boards were split for lining the cracks. Then we hewed out puncheons for the floor. These puncheons were smoothed with a footadze so the floor was as smooth as a plank floor. The door shutters had wooden hinges. So the house was finished and not a foot of lumber was used. At that time, it was some distance to a house, and at night we could hear the howl of wolves and an occasional scream of a panther, but they did not worry us nor mar our happiness in the least, for we were in our own home and it was our castle.

The first meal l in our new home was dinner. I was busy in the yard when wife came and said dinner was ready. She had prepared the best dinner she could for the occasion. The table cloth was as white as snow. The knives forks and spoons were perfectly bright. My plate was at one end of the table and her plate was at the other end. We took our seats and now comes the first step in a Christian home. She looked across the table with a reverential and Godly smile and said, "Please return thanks". I asked to be excused for I felt so unworthy, for I was not a professed Christian. She was. I did feel so thankful for her and the home, and the meal she had prepared with her own sweet hands. So it put new thoughts in my mind and heart. I remembered my mothers faithfulness as a Christian soldier and how her home was always open to the preachers and others, and how the preacher would lay his hand on my head and speak kind, good words to me hoping I would grow up to manhood and make a good and useful man, like bread cast upon the water, to be gathered up after many days. So these thoughts and many others came to me and seemed to say "Yes, now is the time", and the harvest is ripe. I could see myself just like God seeing me. So I began to yield. So home building was our first thought. We began to read the Bible a great deal, and to talk about religion and go to church, and think and pray. But in the face of all this I felt so unworthy that I was persuaded in my own mind to wait longer and get better. So I waited and waited for more than a year trying to get good, but all my efforts were failures. At least all hope seemed to be lost. So one day I took my old shotgun and told my wife I was going down on the creek hunting. But my mind was bent on more serious business. I was hunting for the Lord. At last when far down in the creek bottom, I just stopped submitted my case to the Lord saying, "yes, Lord I am lost. And it is just but lost or saved, live or die, sink or swim, take me just as I am. I give to thee my heart, my life, my soul, mind and strength, as a living sacrifice unto thee. I will serve thee and thee alone, the balance of my life. So sweet peace came to my soul and I arose from the place with a new life, a new heart and a new tongue with peace and joy ringing in my soul and from that moment to this, my life has been given to the Lord. So on the following Saturday I went to old Hopewell Church at Cross Roads, which was the fourth day of December, 1870, told the story of the cross and was received for baptism, and was received for baptism, and was baptized on Sunday the 5th. We thought of Abraham when he first came to the Promised land. His first step was to erect an alter to the Lord. Our early life and pioneer days now comes to a close.

Hard times are not entirely gone, but the country is in better shape than it was years ago. Improvements of various kinds are showing up. But at the close of the period just mentioned, our family life had just begun, for our home had been blessed with a dear little son, and we felt the great responsibility that rested on us. As the years passed seven children came to bless our home, four boys and three girls. First, we wanted to keep the home lights burning. We wanted to set precept and good example, spiritually speaking before them, and raise them in the way that they should go, so when older they would not depart from it., and then to educate them for the work of life as best we could. We felt so thankful that the Lord had blessed us so much during all these long years. We lived to see them all grown, and become Christians, and all of them married to good, Christian companions, all established in business, and in homes of their own. The boys all holding diplomas in their profession. So as the years went on, these children passed out from the parental roof, and wife and I were left at home alone. The work of life seemed to be finished and now the children began to look after us. Then the shadow of sorrow came. The mother's health began to fail, and so we concluded to sell the dear old home where we had lived for more than forty years, and raised our dear children, where we had experienced so many joys, and the trials incident to pioneer life, but our greatest trial was when dear mother's health began to give way. So we moved to Appleby, where she could have better medical attention, and be handier to the children, but in spite of all that mortal hands and loving hearts could do, the dear wife and mother gradually grew weaker, but her constitution was so strong that she held up for ten years, and at last on the 25th day of February, 1919, quietly went to sleep. Her gentle spirit passing on to the glory world. All the children were present when the end came, and so this was the saddest day of our lives, but the Lord's will be done, and we must all be submissive to that great Power above. We all felt so thankful for the good care of the doctors, friends and neighbors, for their love and sympathy in our trouble and sorrow.

We now wish to revert back to the pioneer days at Shady Grove. I will first name some of the settlers and the place on which they lived. Alfred Wallace built on what is now known as the old Rushing place, 200 yards south of the present cemetery, at a spring, in the year 1839. Tim Fuller, Bill Arnold, and others lived there. James Walling settled on what was known as the Felix Shirley place. William Summers, Davis King and Claiborne Weaver, preceded Shirley. John Reid settled the place where George Strahan now lives, in the year 1845. Larkin Chapman lived there for many years. James Bradshaw settled just in front of where Mrs. Layton now lives, about the year 1845. William Stone settled on the creek bank northeast of where Dave Strahan now lives in the year 1842. Brimbery, Malone and Stewart lived there about the same date. Old grandfather Strahan lived on what is now known as the Shadden place, Elijah Stack came about the year 1842. A little log house was built in what is now the yard of the Rushing place. In this little house was heard the first sermon ever preached in Shady Grove settlement. The first school was taught in that house. The writer is indebted to his old time friend Sam Reid, for these dates, as Mr. Reid lived in the Shady Grove community since 1845. In 1847, William Summers gave a deed to a small parcel of land to the community to be used for church and school grounds. A little log house was built and a Methodist church organized shortly afterward, I think in 1847.

We now come to the date of our own observation. I first visited Shady Grove community in 1866, and will mention some of those that were living there at that time: Rev. J. R. Cox, John Strahan, Claborn Weaver, Larkin Chatman, Bill Tynes, Sam Reid, Eleck Reid, Dave Strahan, Nancy Strahan, John L. Thrift, Bill Duke, Rev. Louis Chandler, James H. Green, Frank Inghram, Mrs. Gaughf, Mrs. Ross, and just a little later two boys got married and became permanent citizens, they were J. S. Day and J. B. Rushing. As the years passed by many others moved in. Those were reconstruction days just after the Civil War. At that time there was trouble and confusion concerning the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags, but later this trouble all passed away and everybody seemed to be happy. For more than forty years not a single case came before the Courts from this Community.

A Methodist Church was organized there in about 1847. A Baptist Church was organized in 1888, and in 1889 a Union house was built and the two churches worshipped in the same house dividing the time equally, each having his own time. The two worked peaceably together helping each other in their revival meetings. Brotherly love surely did exist there. More Preachers, School Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, and other business boys and girls have gone out from this community than any other in the county. God has surely blessed the good old community. I have been away from there for twenty years and improvements have been made. But when I go back there I can look back with pleasure and remember the merry happy days and hours I have spent there in the services of the Lord and especially the great revivals we had during those years when God so gloriously saved our children.

I will now give a more complete record of my ancestors. My Great Grandfather Rushing was born in England, date not known. Grandfather Jason Rushing and Grandmother Alice Rushing were born in Anson county North Carolina the dates forgotten. My uncles and aunts as follows: Malica Rushing born June 5th, 1798, Lucie Rushing born March 3, 1880, Asa Rushing born December 25th, 1801, Nancy Rushing born October 8th, 1803, Joel Rushing born September 5th, 1805, Mary Rushing born February 7th, 1808, Matilda Rushing born December 14, 1809, Barsheba Rushing born March 3, 1812, W. G. Rushing born January 18, 1814, Abel Rushing born February 6, 1816, G. B. Rushing born August 5, 1818, Elijah Rushing born September 8, 1820.

My father's family as follows: Asa Rushing, born December 25, 1801, Mother, Nancy G. Rushing born March 2, 1803. Asa Rushing and Nancy G. Hendrick were married December 1st, 1825. The children are as follows: Green Berry Rushing born August 22, 1826, Elizabeth C. Rushing born February 18, 1828. Sallie E. Rushing born September 15, 1829, Mary Ann Rushing born September 21, 1831, Pheriba Jane Rushing born July 31, 1833, Tempy Alice Rushing born Mary 27, 1835, William Henry Rushing born August 5, 1837, Rosana M. Rushing born September 23, 1839, Elijah J. Rushing born December 27, 1841, John Bateman Rushing born April 21, 1845. The deaths of brothers and sisters are as follows: G. B. Rushing died November 20, 1905, Elizabeth C. Deese died March 17, 1911, Sallie Elender Rushing died in 1847, Mary Ann Emerson died in 1857, Jane Lacy died May 14, 1919, Tempy Alice Welch died May 22, 1866, W. H. Rushing died October 12, 1922, Rosanna M. Robertson died in 1893, E. J. Rushing died March 21, 1916. J. B. Rushing still living this the 21st of June 1930.

My father died October 15, 1851, a victim of the Flu. Mother died April 22, 1875 from a stroke of paralysis. My personal family are as follows: W. H. Rushing born February 10, 1869, and was married to Miss Nannie K. Bryan June 3, 1900. Nettie Rushing born December 25, 1870 and was married to D. L. Campbell December 2, 1886. Allie Rushing was born May the 18th, 1874, and married M. S. Dale October 17, 1890. Tennessee Rushing was born September 21, 1876 and married to R. C. White November 27, 1898. J. G. Rushing was born September 22, 1879 was married to Miss Jim Gholston June 12, 1906. A. E. Rushing was born August 3, 1882 and married to Miss Kate Tower October 22, 1908. A. O. Rushing born April 5, 1885 was married to Miss Lelah V. Gunn July 29, 1915.

Deaths in the family are as follows: Mother Rushing died Feb. 25, 1910, age 69 years and 15 days, J. G. Rushing died Jan. 25, 1921, age 41 years 4 months 3 days. A. O. Rushing, Jr. Grandson of J. B. Rushing born Aug. 5, 1922, died Jan. 9, 1928. R. C. White died Dec. 26, 1927, age 58 years lacking one day. M. S. Dale died December 30, 1929 age 60 years three months and 8 days.

I will now say the Hendricks on my mother's side of the family were of German decent and came to this country in former days. They were large in body with big heads and feet. I will close this history by saying May God Bless You All, is my Prayer.

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