{"id":1080,"date":"2020-09-18T06:30:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T11:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/?p=1080"},"modified":"2020-09-18T06:30:51","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T11:30:51","slug":"characters-of-greenfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/characters-of-greenfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Characters of Greenfield"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Characters of Greenfield
by Joe Stout<\/big><\/small><\/small>

<\/big><\/big><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
MR. CLAUDE<\/big><\/div>\n
Mr. Claude Moseley was another of those beloved \u201ccharacters\u201d of Greenfield.\u00a0 He was the owner of E.N.J. Brock Co., a hardware, appliance, and general merchandise store on the corner of Broad and N. Second St.\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Claude was one of those people that could make a point with a short dry humor statement.

In times past, for many years, most of the businessmen of Greenfield extended credit.\u00a0 There were many grocery stores and most of them did extend credit.\u00a0 There were a few stores that were what we termed \u201cCash and Carry.\u201d\u00a0 Those stores were able to sell for a little less because there was a certain amount of loss by those extending credit, plus having your capital tied up.

The following incidents have been told over the years relating to Mr. Claude.:

A customer was buying toilet paper one time and made the remark that the paper felt a little thin to her.\u00a0 Mr. Claude replied, \u201cYou can double it.\u201d

Another customer, that had evidently been a little slow in paying his bill, came in to buy a can of paint.\u00a0 He asked Mr. Claude how much it was if he paid cash.\u00a0 Mr. Claude answered, \u201cOne dollar and ninety-five cents.\u201d\u00a0 He then asked Mr. Claude how much it would be on credit.\u00a0 Mr. Claude answered, \u201cOne dollar and seventy-five cents.\u201d\u00a0 The customer then wanted to know why it was cheaper if he bought it on credit.\u00a0 Mr. Claude said, \u201cI don\u2019t want your bill to be any larger than necessary.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Constables are an elected office in Weakley County from each District.\u00a0\u00a0 Constables are not paid any salary but are paid fees for serving warrants etc.\u00a0 It was also a practice in years gone by for constables to try to collect debts to businesses for a fee.\u00a0 One year a newly elected constable went to Mr. Claude and offered to take his old past due accounts and try to collect them.\u00a0 Mr. Claude went to his account book and flipped to the constables name and said \u201cYou can start with this one.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Mr. Claude did not get in any hurry on anything, even his speech.\u00a0 One day a customer asked the price of an article.\u00a0 He replied, \u201cOne dollar\u201d —- The man said \u201cI\u2019ll take it\u201d —- Mr. Claud,\u201dAnd\u00a0 twenty-five cents.\u201d

He was also part owner of M&B Motor Co., the Ford dealer in Greenfield.\u00a0 He took a car from the lot to make a trip to Dresden and parked on the court square.\u00a0 After his business at the courthouse was finished he got in a car and the key would not work.\u00a0 He then had a mechanic install a new ignition lock and drove back to Greenfield.\u00a0 Upon arriving at the Ford dealership, Lloyd Stout, who worked there as a mechanic asked him if he had traded cars.\u00a0 It seems that Mr. Claude had entered the wrong car upon leaving the courthouse.\u00a0 It had also been reported stolen by the owner.


\n
OLD LIZ AND PEWTER

<\/big><\/div>\n\u00a0Peter B. Mosley was one of the earliest settlers of the Meridian, Jonesboro area and a large landowner.\u00a0 There is an old Mosley graveyard about a mile and a half west of Meridian Church.

One of his descendants and namesake, Peter (Pete)B. Mosley was the Greenfield\u00a0 Night Marshall in the 1930’s and 1940’s.\u00a0 It was his job to patrol the business district after all of them had closed up for the night and also to assist the Town Marshall, John Holder, during the day if he needed any help.

The County Jail was in Dresden but Greenfield had a “Calaboose” which was located on South Second Street just around the corner of “Soup Street.” One of the sayings of Marshall Holder was, “I’ll put you in thar”, meaning you would be locked up in the “Calaboose.”

Most of the duties of the Town Marshall’s in those days was to handle altercations between people and to lock up those that had tipped the bottle a little too much.\u00a0 Occasional break?ins happened in the business district but burglary of homes was almost unheard of.\u00a0 It was 1960 before I knew what a locked door was.

One Saturday “Pete” was attempting to lock up Cecil White and it became a physical “wrestling match.”\u00a0 As he was wrestling him to the ground Cecil started biting on Pete’s ear and almost chewed it off.\u00a0 Pete carried a badly mangled ear to his grave.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
In the late 30’s or early 40’s Pete had a 1932 Chevrolet.\u00a0 This was a big old box type car.\u00a0 Pete called his car “Old Liz.”\u00a0 Don Grooms and some other kids decided to play a prank on Pete and they took some fresh “cow manure” and put in the drivers seat.\u00a0 Not realizing it was there Pete sat down in it and when he realized what had happened he remarked, “somebody put “cow MANURE” in Old Liz or the “REAR END” on that cow must have been pretty high.”(These are not the actual words he used but you can use your imagination.)

There was also a colorful African American man around Greenfield in those days known as Pewter.\u00a0 His real name was Newman Viney (Viny, Vinny, Vinney).\u00a0 There was probably not 10 people that ever knew his real name.\u00a0 Pewter was also probably part Indian.\u00a0 He was a small man and always wore a red bandana around his neck held together with a small cow-horn tip.\u00a0 He also most always wore cowboy boots.\u00a0 Pewter\u2019s common usage of speech was always prefaced with \u201cyes sir Mr.\u201d, or \u201cno sir Mr.\u201d

There are four crossings of the railroad in Greenfield.\u00a0 One of the most used crossings is the one that was just north of the old depot which is the highway coming in from Dresden.

One day Pete was making this crossing and Pewter was riding on the running board of Pete\u2019s car, OLD LIZ.\u00a0 As they approached the rail road tracks Pete asked \u201cis there anything coming Pewter?\u201d\u00a0 Pewter replied \u201cno sir, ain\u2019t nothing comin but a freight train, Mr. Moseley.\u201d\u00a0 Well, Pete proceeded on across the tracks and the freight train caught the rear end of \u201cOld Liz\u201d and spun them around.\u00a0\u00a0 Neither Pete nor Pewter were hurt but they sure were shook up.

Even to this day if you are riding in a car crossing the railroad tracks in Greenfield and the driver asks\u00a0 \u201cis anything coming\u201d, you may get the reply, \u201c nothing but a freight train Mr. Moseley.\u201d

Just a little more of the way it used to be in Greenfield……Joe Stout

<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Characters of Greenfieldby Joe Stout \u00a0 MR. CLAUDE Mr. Claude Moseley was another of those beloved \u201ccharacters\u201d of Greenfield.\u00a0 He was the owner of E.N.J. Brock Co., a hardware, appliance, and general merchandise store on the corner of Broad and N. Second St.\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Claude was one of those people that could make a point Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-gutenberg.php","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"full","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"MaryCarol","author_link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/author\/marycarol\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Uncategorized<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020 6:30 am","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020 6:30 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}