Laura was the daughter of Milton and Matilda Grissom Gregory. She was born 7-8-1860 and died 7-15-1920.

LANSFORD (KENNY) AND LAURA GREGORY KEMP HOME
Minnie Moore, granddaughter of Kenny and Tennie Winkler Kemp
provided this picture and much of this information.

Pictured in about 1910 are Kenny and Laura Gregory Kemp with their house in the
background. Kenny built this house in about 1905. As of October 2003, it was still
standing but has been abandoned. It is located on Towtown Branch Road about one-
quarter mile west of the intersection of the Dickerson Hollow Lane and the Stone
Branch Road and west of Pleasant Shade about one and one-half miles.

Kenny was first married to Tennie Winkler, daughter of Alfred and Elizabeth Winkler.
They had one daughter, Maude Elizabeth who married Howard Gregory. After Tennie's
death, he married Laura Udora Gregory but they had no children. After Laura's death
in 1920, Kenny sold his property to John and Melissa Smith Oldham and it remained
in their family until the early 1950s.

The wooden box beside of Laura was the mailbox and the "A" frame in the extreme
right of the picture appears to be a stile used for crossing the fence.
_______________________________________________________________________________
This Story By Tom Dickerson

I have a story about Kenny and Jim Dickerson. They were first cousins through their mothers,
Juda and Rebecca Grinad (Granade) Dickerson, wife of Lanson Dickerson.

First, I will preface this story with a comment about Jim Dickerson. He was a noted "fist and skull" fighter
(he was reputed to have had about 30 fights) and was not hesitant to tell a man he was going to get a
"whipping" if he thought it was appropriate. One of his fights resulted in his being excluded from Mt.
Tabor Baptist Church but that is another story.

This story, however, did not end in a fight. Kenny lived downstream from Jim. During a flood, the branch
was swollen to the extent that it washed away a number of fence posts that Jim had stacked on his property
near the branch. The posts came to rest on Kenny's property and after locating them, Jim explained to Kenny
what had happened and said that he would soon retrieve his posts. But Kenny's response was that the posts
were on his property and consequently they belonged to him. (I don't know Kenny's side of the story. Perhaps
he also had posts stacked along the branch and thought they were all his.) Since Jim couldn't prove that the
posts were his, he said, "Confound," (this was one of his words of exclamation when he was surprised or
puzzled) Kenny, you have a whipping waiting for you! The fight did not occur at that point but remained and
open issue for some period of time. The story goes that Kenny would go to considerable effort to avoid Jim,
and if he saw Jim approaching him in the road he would move into the fields or woods so as not to have to
pass close to him. This dispute continued between the two men for some length of time and was finally
resolved when Jim's mule fell into a sinkhole.

The news of this event spread quickly and a number of the neighbors assembled at the site to try to rescue
the unharmed animal. I suppose that Kenny decided this would be a good time to try to rectify their
differences, so upon his arrival and after surveying the situation he said, "Jim, we've got to get some ropes
around that mule to pull him out"! (This may have been quite a dangerous undertaking since the mule was
probably struggling to try to get out on his own and could easily have badly injured Kenny in the process.)
Without further ado, Kenny climbed down into the pit, put the terrified mule into a sling, and the mule was
hauled to the surface. Upon seeing the mule safe and sound, Kenny went home. When asked by someone
in the crowd if Kenny still had a whipping coming, Jim replied, "When he needs me I'll be there". So this
event ended the hard feelings between the two men and they lived as good neighbors from that time.