Author: Jim Daniel

DOVIE LOUISE STONE

Dovie Louise Stone was born in 1905 in Crockett County, Tennessee, the daughter of WILLIAM FERN STONE and MOSE LEE WEBB STONE and was my mother. DOVIE STONE CATES died 26 April 1926 in Reno, Texas, outside of Paris, Texas. She married BRODIE FRANCIS CATES on 16 July 1922, son of TOLBERT FANNING CATES and MELISSA ELLA FAULKNER. Their only child was RACHEL LOUISE CATES or me who was born 22 June 1924.

Her father died on 29 August 1921 at Halls, Lauderdale County, Tennessee and was buried at Cypress Church Cemetery in Crockett County, Tennessee. The cause of his death was tuberculosis.

Shortly after Dovie married Brodie Cates, my grandmother Stone took her younger three children and moved to East Texas at Reno… next to her sister, Aunt Tint Permenter. This was where my mother went when she was dying. They left my mother in Tennessee with my Dad and cousins.

After I was born sometime, my mother and dad went to Memphis where she was diagnosed as also having tuberculosis. She wanted to be with her mother, so Dad took us to Reno, Texas outside of Paris, Texas where she died and was buried in Union Grove Cemetery next to the Church. Her sister Mary Stone Carpenter born in 1917 and died in 1934 with tuberculosis also was buried next to her. Her brother ELVIS STONE placed a tombstone at their graves with Heading of STONE SISTERS. Underneath is MARY CARPENTER, Born 1917, Died 1934. DOVIE CATES, Born 1905, Died 1926. Dad bought and placed a tombstone at my grandfather Stone’s grave at Cypress Cemetery, Crockett County, Tennessee which was an agreement he and Uncle Elvis made.

MARY hemmorhaged before she knew she had tuberculosis and was placed in a Tubercular Sanitarium for a year before she died. She never believed she could live and although told to rest each day, she would cry and cry and beg not to be made to rest as she would go like her mother and father. The doctors also told her not to marry but she did and broke down again. I only saw her once when I was six or seven years old when she came with my grandmother to Tennessee. She had been the youngest patient in the Sanitarium according to the family.

Back to my mother, everyone without exception said “I look just like her and also have her build. They all say she worshipped me and carried me on a pillar for six months as I was a preemie and was so tiny weighing two and half pounds when I was born.

The Cates Family did not seem to know much about her or her family. They did say she was starving for oysters before I was born and they were out of season but they finally found one can and while she offered them some of them, no one had the heart to take a single one.

I asked my two Uncles over and over to tell me about my mother. They were younger and had to quit school at an early age to make a living for the family. They could not remember anything as she married when she was seventeen and they left Tennessee. She was dead at 2l.

However, I met them in Tennessee on a Home Visit from the Convent and Uncle Elvis surprised me by saying “Could your mother ever play the organ!” I almost fell off my chair and said “What?, I did not think you could remember her?” He said it just came to me. Dad pulled an organ into the house one day and two weeks later she was playing Hymns for all of us to sing as we stood around the organ. It was also on this trip that I introduced them to one of my half brothers. Uncle Elvis told him that he wanted him to know that my Dad was one of the finest men that ever lived. I thought that was a real compliment to Dad coming from his in-law.

Uncle Elvis Stone was born 12 August 1912, the youngest boy of the family in Crockett County, Tennessee and died 7 April 1997 in Sayre, Oklahoma and married JEAN EMMONS , daughter of ELMER EMMONS and LULA ROBBIRDS on 24 July 1945 in Amarrilla, Texas, He always said he was going to wait until he was old enough to have common sense. Jean is supposedly part Indian. They have one son (who is still living at this writing.) He is my only first Cousin and lives in Oklahoma.

A Permenter cousin said Uncle Elvis kept the whole family “going” during the Depression and that they all lived off what he made.

Uncle Elvis was the first member of the family that I saw when I was young and when I was a teenager. He wrote me in Memphis and said he was expecting to have to go to the Army or War as it was in 1942 and that he was leaving his “Life Insurance to me.” He came to Tennessee and took me everywhere with him. When he went back to Texas, he took me with him for a visit but he was turned down by the Army for “health reasons.”

After he married, he and Jean lived in Sayre, Oklahoma where he built a big ranch house and had many pecan trees. He used to send me a shoe box of shelled pecans (which he had shelled) for Christmas each year.

When asked why I did not hear from them in early years, the family said “they knew the Cates’ were raising me and they did not want to interfere.”

WILLIAM FERN STONE

WILLIAM FERN STONE, father of DOVIE STONE was born July. 1881 and died 29 August 1921 in Lauderdale County, Tennessee and married MOSE LEE WEBB, daughter of JAMES THOMAS WEBB and MARY L. McMILLAN.

William Fern Stone died also of tuberculosis. I also remember my Aunts on the Cates side saying some of his brothers or family in Lauderdale County had died of this disease.

Uncle Herschell told me that he was gone one night when they were small children and some black boys came into their yard and were fooling around. My grandmother became frightened and blocked all the doors with furniture. When Fern came home, he asked why she had done the blocking. He went after the boys and Uncle Hershell said he did not know what happened but the boys never came back.

Uncle Herschell also said my grandfather used to plow with a loaded gun on each hip. When he would come to the end of a row, he would look in all directions before going the other direction plowing. I am sure this action was not uncommon at that time as the South was still experiencing the Reconstruction Days.

Both of his boys say that he never had less than 4 harmonicas in his pocket and they would hear him coming home from a long ways as he would be playing one. I had the opportunity in 1970’s to meet the daughter of his sister, Vandalia Stone Perry. She had married THOMAS GREEN PERRY. I called before going to see her when I was on a Home Visit. Her name was SHIRLOTTE PERRY CARTER. As soon as she opened the door, she stepped back and looked at me saying,”yes, you are one of us.” Shirlotte took me to the Young Cemetery at Gadsden, Tennessee where my great grandfather is buried and other Stone Family members. He had on his tombstone, THOMAS J. STONE, CSA.

MOSE LEE WEBB

As stated, MOSE LEE WEBB married WILLIAM FERN STONE. She was daughter of JAMES THOMAS (TOM) WEBB and MARY L. MCMILLAN born 1885 in Crockett County and died 19 January 1932 at Reno, Texas. She married 2) J.E. Winters in Paris, Texas.

I remember seeing her once when about 7 years old when she came to see me in Tennessee. She was ill but her dying wish was to see me. I can’t remember what she looked like, only sitting in her lap. It was quite late when we arrived where she was staying with her sister. I understand she came when I was living with my grandmother Cates, but I do not remember it. She had to go back before planned to Texas as she got worse healthwise and supposedly died not too long after returning. She too had tuberculosis.

Mose married J. E. WINTERS who lived next door and who lost his wife with cancer. Mr. Winters had several boys. According to her stepson, whom I met on a Business Trip to Dallas, she went over and helped with their family care every day after their mother died and then eventually married his father. He said “she was the best woman in the world after my own mother. She had long black hair that she could sit on and was dark complected.” She took after the McMillans with that description. This stepson and his wife treated my cousin and I to a REAL HOME COOKED FARMERS BREAKFAST.

Her sister, TINT said my grandmother was the best cook in the world. She never measured any ingredients but the final product would be perfect while Aunt Tint would measure exactly and the product would be a flop. I saw a pile of bricks that was once a chimney to the house she lived in.

My grandmother played the guitar and the boys said she used to sit on the front porch and play.

THOMAS JEFFERSON STONE

THOMAS J. STONE was born in 1847 in North Carolina and died 3 February 1907 in Alamo, Tennessee. He is buried in Young Cemetery, Gadsden, Tennessee where his marker has “THOMAS J. STONE, CSA”. He married ANNE ELIZABETH PIERCE on 20 December 1871 in Madison County, Tennessee. Not much is known about him except Census Records and an Application of ANNE E. STONE for Pension Benefits for service in the Civil War.

Thomas J. Stone is listed in Household of Thomas Pearce in 1870 in Madison County, Tennessee. Thomas Pearce is supposed to have come from Franklin County, North Carolina which is next to Nash County, North Carolina. Anne E. Stone gave Nash County as the birthplace of Thomas J. Stone. Washington and Elias Stone also migrated from Franklin County to Nash County.

Thomas J. Stone, according to Pension Application Questions served in Junior Reserves and North Carolina does not have records of Junior Reserves or Militia . He apparently served to the end of the War under General Johnston’s Army who surrendered in Greensboro, North Carolina. She states that some people called him Ditomus Thomas, maybe he gave that as his name. She also said he had a brother, John still living in Nashville, Nash County, North Carolina as of 1921. One of his Army buddies, S. Creth Edwards who certified his services lived close to Elias Stone according to another Stone Researcher and he may be his father. Researchers and I are still trying to prove this fact. Elias Stone was son of MERRITT STONE who married KARUMHAPPUCH “HAPPY” STALLINGS, born abt. 1766 in Bute County, North Carolina and died abt. 1827 in Franklin County, Tennessee. Merritt died in 1805.

ANNE ELIZABETH PIERCE

Some of the Pearces’ changed the spelling of their name when they moved West. She is given as born in North Carolina. My stepmother’s sister-in-law said her family used to live close to the Stones. She was small but could still see her sitting in the corner smoking her pipe. Uncle Herschell said she did smoke a pipe, she even had 3 of them and all made out of different material and different. He chuckled and said “she lived to be a ripe old age too”.

According to Pension Application when she filed it, she was almost blind then and that was in 1921.

That is all the information I have on her.

Rachel Louise Cates
AKA Sister Mary Francis Cates