Decatur Co. TN
From Lillye Younger, The History of Decatur County Past and Present (Southhaven, MS: Carter Printing Company, 1978).
Special thanks to Constance Collett for permission to make these web pages.In Memory of Lillye Washburn Younger 1912-1998.
Thanks to www.tnyesterday.com for contributing this transcription.
Eliza Ann Gullege Maxwell
Born Eliza Ann Gullege in Decatur County August 22, 1870, she was the oldest of seven children. The family lived on a small farm arid the children had to walk 2-1/2 miles to school.
In 1889 she married Will Maxwell and they had five children, four girls, Mrs. Jessie Gibson, Mrs. Lessie Quinn, Mrs. Ona Still and Mrs. Alta Taylor and one son, Carl Maxwell.
Times were very hard and Mrs. Maxwell experienced many hardships in her younger life. She recalled cooking on a fireplace before stoves were available. Also making snow white lye soap in an ash hopper.
She had a big loom and each winter would spin thread and make it into cloth. From the cloth she made blankets, sheets, bedspreads and clothings for the family. She dyed the cloth in hues of blue, yellow and green for dresses.
Public work was an unheard of thing in those early days but Mrs. Maxwell had plenty to do inside the home.
She became a Christian at the age of 14 and was a faithful servant of Gods.
She was able to keep house for herself and her afflicted sister until the age of 92. She then entered Decatur County Nursing Home in Parsons with her sister. She enjoyed the home very much and had many visitors.
Her husband died, quite suddenly in 1940.
Mrs. Maxwell was a woman who was always prepared and that proved true even to death. A few years prior to her death she picked out her burial things at Parsons Funeral Home from Arthur Tolley and also bought a monument.
She died at the age of 98 and was laid to rest by her husband at the Suttles Cemetery in the northern end of Decatur County.
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