The Steele Lions Club

Kids who grow up in Steele now probably can't imagine the social life of the 1960's there.  One aspect of that life that somehow disappeared was the Steele Lions Club.  This group of men certainly enjoyed meeting every month at the Steele Cafe, but they did a lot of good things with their time together and they even included their wives a couple of times each year.

My dad always had a camera ready, so I'd love to share some photos from that time and hopefully fill in a few names that I can't recall from faces I remember well.  (So ashamed that I can't do it myself.)  

Annual Barbecue at Steele Park - across from the Durward Hollingsworth home

1st photo: Hoyt Hammond, Cecil Qualls, ???, Rev. J.C. Willingham, Ben Burttram,Tom Wood, Jimmy Countryman    

                        

2nd photo: Dean Plemons (in blue), Clyde Morrow, Rev. I.C Welborn, ???, Howard Owen -- ???, Jane Bearden,  ???, ???        

Widows Honored at Christmas & Womanless Wedding

1st photo:  Pauline Beason, ???, Polly Morrow, Maggie Pope, ???                                                            

                                                                                    

2nd photo: Ben Burttram, ?, Wayne Wood, Ed Sykes, Burt Brock, boys?, Buddy McHugh, Tommy Sykes,?, Ted Hunter, ?, Mr. Springfield, Buster Latimer, Charles Beaird, ? Bobby Jack Morrow, Jimmy Countryman, Clyde Morrow, Tim Hollingsworth (deciphered some from other photos)

Union Soldiers near Steele

 Today I spoke to the Genealogical Group connected to the St. Clair Historical Society.  Since it's hard for many people to make the meetings, I thought I'd share a brief summary of the story that I presented:

The story really begins with Rev. John Jackson Brasher, a strictly abolitionist Methodist minister who served as a state representative from Blount County.  He voted against secession in the Secession Convention of 1861 and threatened that Blount County might attempt to secede from Alabama as Winston County tried to do.  Rev. Brasher would have been one of the few ministers in the area and almost certainly would have preached at any Methodist churches around, probably including Deerman's Chapel.  

Local lore says that Rev. Brasher took men to Horse Pens 40 and helped them hide from the Home Guard.  The men could have been attempting to avoid Confederate service, but some had already joined the Confederate forces, deserted, and found their way home, presenting the need to hide.

I've been collecting information about many families from the area for years and I was vaguely aware that there were some men in the area who had fought for the Union during the civil war, but an email question caused me to look at their records from a different approach.  

On October 5, 1863, 3 men from this area enlisted in Company K 3rd Tennessee Cavalry (Union) in Nashville.  Family stories state that they travelled by night, sometimes walking backward so that their footprints would lead in the opposite direction from their actual destination.  A week later, another man from this area enlisted, followed by about 21 men from the Steele area in two groups over the next 3 months.  In total, there were at least 25 men from the Deerman's Chapel / Crawford's Cove area who travelled north to Nashville and enlisted in the Union army in the same company.  I've been able to identify 25 of them by name and I know their family connections.

Company K 3rd Tennessee Cavalry was charged with disrupting the railroad lines used by the Confederate army for moving supplies through North Alabama and Tennessee.  In September 1864, ,they fought  General Forrest's men at Sulphur Trestle (near Athens, Alabama).  Most of the company was then captured and taken to prisons run by the Confederates at Cahaba Prison (near Selma) and Andersonville in Georgia.  

Cahaba Prison consisted of an old cotton warehouse on the banks of the Alabama River.  When the river flooded, there was about 2 feet of water in their living space, so they had no dry place to stand or sleep.  They didn't have enough of anything there:  food, room to sleep, warmth, clothing, etc.  Although pneumonia and dysentery killed many prisoners, Cahaba seems to have had a lower prison death rate than other Civil War prisons.  The men from Company K were there for 5-6 months before the war began to draw to a close.  

On March 6, 1865, these men from our area were brought out of the area and travelled to Vicksburg, Mississippi to prepare to be paroled.  They waited there for more than a month and were then moved to Memphis, Tennessee where on April 26, 1865 they were among the 1700-2000 men who boarded the ill-fated steamboat named the Sultana.  That night, about 2:00 a.m., the boiler exploded and those who weren't killed were thrown into the icy floodwaters of the Mississippi River.  Many of the men were so weakened by the war, imprisonment, hard travel to Memphis, and illness that they were not able to swim or float until they could be rescued.. Others clung to boards or limbs, finally hanging onto trees along the shoreline until rescuers came.  

Here's a list of the soldiers that I have confirmed as being from the Steele area and who enlisted in Company K 3rd Tennessee Cavalry.  You might be related!

James D. Baggett                        Solomon Deerman                    Chris A. Reynolds

William H. Baggett                    William W. Deerman                 James P. Smith

James M. Battles                        Carroll Johns                              Malone Smith

Russell L. Battles                        Jesse C.M. Johns                        King S. Steele

William F. Battles                        Wiley Johns                                Russell W. Thompson

Richard F. Bellew                        Benjamin F. Mauldin                Harris T. Tramel

William Bellew                            George W. Mauldin                   James F. Tramel

Robert D. Cox                               James H. Mauldin

Lewis A. Deerman                        John W. Ramsey

Each of them has their own story, which we discussed at the meeting, but there's not room here to relate them all.  If you have questions let me know, as I have quite a bit more information about these men.  

 My Dad wrote this several years ago and of course we treasure it even more since he's not here to tell us these things.  I sure do miss him.  I thought it would be good to share this with you at Christmas so that you could glimpse what Christmas was like for many people in Steele & Chandler Mountain 70 or 80 years ago.  

“CHRISTMAS”

Changes “Then to Now” 1932-2012

 Now that I seem to have more time to reminisce the days gone by, I was recently thinking about the differences in Christmases of my childhood as compared to today.  In that day our family consisted of a Dad, Mother and 4 children.  I had an older sister and have an older brother and younger sister.

Our home was a 40 acre, two horse farm on Chandler Mountain (before the tractor), Dad and Mother had acquired after coming from North Georgia to Alabama in 1924.  The farm was our only source of a living.  Most of the crops were used by the family each year with a little cotton being our only cash crop.  Each farm was given a cotton allotment in acreage.  In about 1938 The Government Administration measured our cotton acreage and told my Dad we had two rows of cotton too much and He would have to plow it up or he could not get a certificate to sell the cotton we produced.  

If it sounds like a meager living, it was.  But just think, no fuel bill, we cut our own wood for heat and for cooking.  No electric bills, we used kerosene (obtained by selling eggs, chickens or butter to the rolling store) for the lamps and lanterns, no TVs, no telephones, no appliance repairs, you see power was not run to the Mountain until about 1938. Transportation was limited on the mountain as of this time since the number of automobiles could probably be counted on one hand. Most relied on Horses or Mules and wagons. There was one thing present  in our home long before we were born and that was a Bible.  That is the one thing that has not changed and never will.  In Its pages It relates that once a Baby was born, a very special Baby, and He shall be called “Jesus” The Christ Child, The Son of God.  That account was in the Bible long ago and you can still find it there today, still the favorite reading of all time.   For many years now Christ’s Birthday is celebrated as “Christmas”.   To try to change it to a Holiday, changes nothing at all.  God sent His Son. 

I guess my earliest accounting of the commercial side of  “Christmas” thanks to Sears & Roebuck,  and Co. was when they, along with J C Penny’s, Montgomery Wards and National Bellas Hess mailed the yearly Christmas Catalogs .  This was the beginning of the wishing.  I could relate the pictures of electric Trains to the ole Steam engines we would hear as they passed through Steele.

Remember (no TV).  Our Christmas trees were small pines.  We would collect foil from Gold Tip chewing gum wrappers and discarded cigarette packages throughout the year and gather sweet gum balls and sycamore balls covering them with the foil as our tree ornaments.  Small pine cones were also used.  We did have an old battery AM radio and listened to them reading the cards to Santa in  which most ended with a request for” lots of fruits, nuts, and candy”, about what we had on Christmas morning.

 Once at school age we really became excited.  A cedar tree was located for our Christmas Tree.  Our teacher brought real glass ornaments the first I had ever seen besides the pictures in the catalogs.  The  balls were blue, green and red, the most brilliant I can ever remember seeing.  One year our teacher  let three or four boys out of school long enough to go to Jake Creek and locate some holly bushes  with red berries and gather some for decorating our room.  Somebody also climbed some trees with  mistletoe with white berries and we carried it all back to our class room.  Around the first of December each class would draw names and exchange small gifts on the day school dismissed for  Christmas break.  Boys usually received things like pocket combs, a new wood pencil, small mesh  bag with marbles or a multi-colored sponge ball, while the girls received pencils, hair clasps, handkerchiefs, crayons, etc.  No one left without a gift, our teacher always had an extra or two.  Insignificant  you think but after 80 years I still recall the Joy and excitement the same as if yesterday. 

We moved to Steele in about 1944.  I guess that put me at age 12.  Things were a little different and  more convenient.  Walking to the store a new experience.  As I stated earlier Dad lived to be 85 and never owned an automobile.   During the mid to late 1940's I ventured out on a new experience by  walking out to highway 11 at Steele Station Rd. to catch a Greyhound Bus on its scheduled  route from Birmingham to Chattanooga.  When it stopped in Attalla at Walker Drug Store I exited. Due to age and lack of money, this excursion wasn’t so much for shopping as it was the Joy and  excitement of touring the 5 & 10 cent stores   both in Attalla and Gadsden.  As I recall in Attalla there was Elmores and Woolworths.  When I was  finished there I caught one of the city busses running between Attalla and Gadsden every few minutes and had a bus stop in every block.  In Gadsden there was Grants, Kress, Woolworths, and  McClellans.  Today they are all gone.  The streets were busy and the air filled with sounds of the Salvation Army Bell Ringers and outdoor Joyful music and vocal  “Merry Christmas” expressions both in and outside stores.  Before the Mall most of the shoppers were downtown. Today, Nelson’s Variety Store is located where McClellans  stood.  Much of their merchandise reminds me of that from the earlier days.  I still try to visit them once each Christmas Season.  They were the last to stock the old style ribbon candy. Hope you noticed I did not see any cell phones or video games on my tour, to name just a couple things. 

I just wanted to remind you that its still Christmas, the Birthday of Christ and once was celebrated in a much simpler, more meaningful way. I am just grateful for having been a part of such a time.

Chances are you will never experience most of this occurrence.

 Well it’s about time I to get a bus back to Attalla. the Southbound Greyhound will be coming through  soon on its trip through Steele, bound for Birmingham, meanwhile to you and yours, “A Blessed Merry Christmas”

 

                                                                                                   Buel Plemons

                                                                                                   Steele,Alabama

I thought you might like to hear about a fun experience that Mary Beard Gilliland and I shared a few weeks ago.  I arrived late to the memorial / decoration service and spoke with Mary just as she was leaving the cemetery in Steele.  She and Lee had found a rectangular tombstone lying flat on the ground near her Frazier relatives' graves and she was concerned that she was omitting placing flowers on a grave that she "should" have been remembering as she had promised to family members in the past.  When the stone was found, there was no engraving but Lee managed to flip it over and found that there was an inscription on the bottom side:  "Frank E. Whitney 1908."

We both wondered how long the stone had been in this position and who Mr. Frank might have been.  There were a couple of similar stones nearby, but I noted that the surnames weren't the same.  Later that day I looked in the records that I have on my computer and found that I did indeed have a record of this grave (thank you, Dad, for good record-keeping) and then I realized that in my database of  over 35,000 people connected with Steele I didn't have a single other person with the name Whitney.

That made me wonder who this person could be and why he was buried at the cemetery in Steele.  I decided to dig a little bit and see if I could figure it out.  The first thing I noticed was that there was only one date: 1908.  Usually when there's a stone with just the one date, I would guess that there is an infant under a year old buried there, or possibly a stillborn baby.  I decided to look for any marriages in St. Clair County with the name Whitney during the years just before 1908.  I only found a couple, which makes sense because the name Whitney is not common in our area.  This made the next few steps much easier.

One marriage that seemed promising was for Benjamin F. Whitney and Mary L. Womack on October 29, 1899.  It seemed possible that a couple would have a child 9 years after their marriage so I began to try to find out more about Benjamin and Mary.  I found that Benjamin was born in West Virginia and his wife, Mary, was born in Alabama.  His full name was Benjamin Frederick and her name was Mary Lou.  In the 1900 census they were living in West Virginia with his parents where he was a teacher.  I stopped to think about Mary Lou marrying in Alabama and moving such a far distance from her family in 1899-1900.  I also wondered why in the world Benjamin came to Alabama to start with.  I found that Benjamin's father was Silas Porter Whitney who was the leader for the Adventist Christian Church in West Virginia and a very well-known and well-educated man.

By 1910, Benjamin and Mary Lou were living in the Atlanta area where they had two sons, Fred (born about 1903) and Clarence (born about 1905).  They would later have two more children, Grady (born about 1911) and Thelma (born about 1914).  I noticed that there seemed to be a gap in the birth dates of the children where little Frank would fit, but I still couldn't figure out how he came to be buried in our cemetery and I didn't know how to be sure he was really the son of these Whitneys.

Finally, I decided to look into Mary Lou's family.  The story is getting long, so I'll leave out a few steps.  I came to the conclusion that Mary Lou must be the daughter of Thomas Womack and his wife, Cynthia Payne Womack.  I called Mary Gilliland to see if she happened to remember the names on the tombstones close to baby Frank.  She offered to check the cemetery and found that the two stones by Frank E. Whitney which looked very similar to his were none other than Thomas and Cynthia.  So finally, we have Frank E. Whitney placed and according to all the research that I've done he is the grandson of the Womacks that he is buried beside.

That may not mean much to you, but to me there is something very satisfying about assuring that baby Frank will be remembered for who he was.  Thanks, Mary, for an entertaining mystery -- and he's not related to the Fraziers so you're off the hook for decoration!

Drama in School

Since our daughter is grown, it has been a while since we've had the chance to attend a school play.  I remember the "drama" of middle-school girls, but that's not what I'm remembering fondly in her case (or in mine).  I lovingly remember those days on the old stage at Steele School.  That gym/auditorium was the place for everything from PTA Christmas programs to end-of-school plays for 9th graders to musicals and other entertainment performed by civic organizations like the Lions Club.  In my case, those piano recitals were a vital part of my up-bringing as well and most of those were held at the old gym too and of course there was graduation when one was ready to move on to higher things.

I don't know about you, but I can picture the footlights that didn't seem to work too well except to blind the people on stage.  The curtains were great for hiding during practices.  I knew where every light switch and floor crack was.

I recall being hit in the head with a baton while practicing for a gala majorette routine performed to "Winchester Cathedral" in third grade, I believe.  I can still quote most of Luke 2 due to being asked to read that chapter for the PTA meeting when I was still in second grade.  It's always amazing to me that Miss French took every single person in her class home, two at a time, and sewed angel costumes out of white sheets so that we could perform "The Littlest Angel."  The horror of being required to accept a kiss from "Don Quixote" Dale Stracener in the fourth grade play is also part of my psyche to this day and then in fifth grade I had to recite this memorable line in our hillbilly play: "There's more tears than 'taters in that 'tater salad Ma's makin'."  What in the world kept me from Hollywood?

In our ninth grade play I had the part of the mother in the program.  I was so disappointed that I didn't get one of the more interesting roles, but looking back I can probably understand.

At any rate, I thought that I'd post one of the pictures from an operetta that occurred in the mid-1950's.  I'm not sure about the year of this photo but I have another one from 1954 that is labelled "Dedication of School Bldg" so I'm sure it's sometime after that.  The extravaganza in this picture was called "America: Yesterday & Today."  Written on the back is a note that says "entire cast of 150" which had to have been most of the children in the school.  Also on the back is written "Heads are bowed as they sing 'America' - the last verse as a prayer."  Try getting away with that in school now!  There are only two people identified  on the reverse side of the photo.  Since heads are bowed it may be hard to determine who the others are unless some of you recall your own participation.  "The Spirit of New America" was Fay Kilgore and I believe that she was the taller young lady in the center of the picture to the left of the flag.  "Patriotism" was portrayed by Vona Barron and I suppose she would be the girl to the right of the flag in the center of the picture.

Memories anyone?

It's been a while and I've had a lot going on, but I thought folks might be interested in another family who lived in Steele about 100 years ago.  There's an interesting connection to someone whose name might be familiar to you, but I'll save that for the end of the story.

James Benjamin Stovall was a Presbyterian minister and his family lived in Steele at the time of the 1900 census.  He was originally from Odenville and was married to Effie Elizabeth Fowler.  By 1910 the family had moved to Brent in Bibb County where J.B. continued to minister and to teach.  Education and ministry would be continuing areas of focus for this family, as seen in the lives of his daughters in particular.

There were six children in the family:
Samuel Drewry Stovall  1897 - 1961
Chamintney (Mittie) E. Stovall 1899 - 1979
Zeila Jeanette Stovall  1901 - 1993
Willard Isadora Stovall  1905 - 1994
Katyleene Stovall  1908 - 2007
Ada Ruth Stovall 1913 - 2008

All of the children were born in St. Clair County and the two oldest stated on records that they were born in Steele.  In 1917 at age 49, J.B. was thrown from a wagon in which he was riding and he was instantly killed.  As you can see from the ages of his children, this left Effie with young children at home and no income.  Records from the same year indicate that Samuel Drewry Stovall was working as a gatehouseman at a TCI mine in Wylam.  He would continue to work for the company as a clerk, timekeeper, and accountant even after moving to Russellville.

Somehow in a day when a college education was terribly out of reach for most people in Alabama, Effie was able to see that all five of her daughters attended college.  Mittie and Zeila went to Maryville College in Tennessee.  Willard, Katyleene, and Ruth attended the University of Montevallo.  Mittie, a teacher, would marry Ralph Cage Thomas, who became Superintendent of Education in Franklin County.  Zeila, a music teacher, married Frank Pettus Steele from St. Clair County, who sold hardware in Tuscaloosa.  Willard was a welfare worker and married Thomas P. Lee and moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas where he worked for the soil conservation service.  Katyleene married Ralph Jones Kendall, an episcopal minister from Chicago.  They lived in Eutaw, Alabama.  And finally Ada Ruth remained unmarried and taught home economics.  J.B. and Effie, along with some of their children, are buried at Liberty Cemetery in Odenville.

Now for the "celebrity" connection:  Recently I came across a letter that Mrs. Vivian Qualls had received, thanking her for the autographed copy of her Steele History.  The writer mentioned that Steele was important to him because it was his mother's birthplace.  The letter was written by Joab Thomas, president of Penn State University, North Carolina State University, and the University of Alabama.  He was the son of Mittie Stovall Thomas.  Some of you may have known about this already, but I had no clue.  It's just another one of those interesting things you find when you dig up old roots.

Willard

Katyleene

Ada Ruth

I recently received quite a few old photos and it reminded me once again about how important it is to label them CAREFULLY with names.  It breaks my heart to find a wonderful old photo and then have no clue about the names of the people shown.  Some of the pictures were stuck into a photo album with dots of glue.  Even though the albums are beginning to fall apart it is hard to remove the photographs without damaging them.  Sometimes the glue covered information on the back of the picture which might have provided clues to the people or occasion which is represented.  Some pictures had names written in ballpoint pen over the bodies of the people in the picture.  I appreciate the effort at naming, but now we aren't able to look at the clothing and since the names were usually only first names, I still have a hard time figuring them out.  The best examples I have are listed on a separate card and kept with the photo.  I plan to lay out the photo and the listing together and scan them as one file.  That way the photo is not covered or disfigured but the names are easy to associate with faces.

I decided to post a couple today.  One of them is not so old (only about 60 years) and I know many of the names but I will let you have the fun of remembering them and commenting here.  The date on the picture says May 1957 but comparing it to another that's labelled 1955 I believe that one of them is wrong.

The second photo is much older and the only person that I have a clue about is the one with a slight check-mark over her head.  I believe that she is Eunice Modena Beason Buffington, the mother of Vivian Qualls and Madolyn Burttram.  If so, then that would date the photo to around 1900.  I believe that the writing on the back says "S School Group" which could be Singing School or Sunday School.  It might say "A School Group."  I'm guessing that the best chance of identifying one or more of these people would be that someone else has a copy of the photo and it's labelled.  

Now it's time to send me some names!  I'll do my best to label (CAREFULLY) the photos that I have.   You'll have to be responsible for labeling your own, but please do.