Joseph Franklin Evans

THE EVANS FAMILY IN ANDERSON COUNTY

by Ethel Evans Walczyk

Grandpa (Peter) Evans lived on a farm in Anderson County. Part of the land (where the barn was located) was in Union County.

The house was a large frame house that had a porch all the way across the front with steps on either end. There was a banister all across the front. There were two doors and two windows on the front and window on either side looking into the two large rooms in the front. You could go upstairs from the front living room (which was also used as a bedroom). Upstairs over the living room was a big loom which we used to play on. We never used it much but Grandma and Grandpa did. On the back of the living room and kitchen was an "L" shaped porch. Behind the two bedrooms was the combination kitchen dining room with a cook stove. There was a fireplace between the two bedrooms. There was a cellar where we kept potatoes and canned goods. We had a garden in the front of the house next to the road.

There was also a store there where Grandpa and Daddy (Joe Evans) kept their wheat and corn. They would put the wheat in great big boxes (about ten feet square). They stored the wheat, oats and other small grains until the thrashers could come by to thrash them. The men could do all of the work in a day so my Mother, Flossie and all of us girls would cook for them. After all of the grain was thrashed, he would take it to the mill at Loyston to be ground (he would grind the corn at home in a hand grinder). He would bring the flour back in big canvas like sacks. A lot of the neighbors would come by and borrow the flour.

The road in front of the house went to Ivory Bluffs School where we went to the first through the fourth grades. Later they built Melbourne School where my brothers Olen and Oscar drove a hack to pick up all the children to take them to school.

We all worked in the fields except Flossie. She stayed in the house and helped my mother do the cooking and housekeeping. Mother would have her call us in for dinner.

Sometimes we would pick blackberrys and put them in crates. Papa would take them to Knoxville and sell them. Sometimes Oscar and Moss would go with him.

When I was born, we were living on Mill Creek. I'm not sure where it is, but Papa and Effie (Joe's second wife) took me up there once. Flossie was real little so Papa would take her with him when he was teaching school. She would take her dolls and play while he was teaching.

There was a spring-house with rocks in it up above our house where Mother would keep her milk and butter. The spring water would run through and keep them cold. Sometimes when it would rain the water would come up so high she would have to move things out. The spring had a deep place in it. Once I was riding a horse and he bent over to take a drink and I almost fell in to it.

Just across the ridge was Andersonville and not too far away was Big Ridge and Loyston where Grandma and Grandpa were buried. Later they moved the bodies to New Loyston Cemetery.

There was a log house down from Papa's house toward Ivory Bluff. Sometimes my daddy would store corn in it other times the children would play there. Occasionally they would rent it out, but it was in pretty bad condition. Once we rented it to a Holiness preacher. We helped him clean it up and pasted newspaper on the walls (for insulation). We listened to him preach but mother said it wasn't her kind.

Grandpa built another house on the other side of the ridge of our 105 acres past the log cabin. It wasn't a log house but a frame house. The lumber for the house was cut from trees on the farm. Sawmill people would bring a sawmill to the farm and cut the lumber on site. Papa rented this house, also.

All of the men in Grandpa Peter Evans family were Methodist. Papa and all of the women were Baptist. Grandma (Maggie) Evans taught Sunday school at Byron's Fork Baptist Church.

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email address:

rpevans@att.net

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Copyright ? 2015 Ron Evans