| Sources |
- [S104] Cocke County, Tennessee, and its People, Cocke County Heritage Book Committee, (Walsworth Publishing, 1992), 165.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 17 Mar 2005.
Ethel Woody Moore obituary
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 18 May 2012.
Audrey's lilies extend their reach from Fairlawn to City Park
Audrey and Luther Woody stand one of their flower beds at their home off Fairlawn. The landscaping is beautiful and represents a couple of decades work. But now the property is for sale.
Author: David Popiel
County students celebrated the end of the school year last Thursday and got a blast of warm weather in our hometown, already hosting the late spring arrival of tourists by cars, motorcycles and bicycles.
Perhaps you saw Audrey Woody's classified ad in the Plain Talk recently for her lily sale. It went well. Earlier in the month, she and husband, Luther, donated hundreds of lilies she valued at more than $11,000.Because she has purchased so many different varieties of lilies over the years,she is well acquainted with prices. Some individual plants sell for $50 to $100 each.
Newport Parks and Recreation Dept. workers at the tennis courts including David Hopkins, Bobby Hembree, Jeff Eslinger, and Mark Hill helped plant them all. The crew had just come over from the new walkway along the Pigeon River, when I arrived. Audrey and the men had planted hundreds of lilies at the steps beside the bridge, near Fay Fish's Modern Woodmen business. Audrey and I also visited the new lily bed behind the City Hall building where some roses were already in place. On the Pigeon River that sunny day, a couple of men were fishing in a small boat. The lilies at City Park include Red Volunteer, and Brocade Gown. Tim Dockery gets a thumbs up for his emphasis on park and river walk beautification.
Nest of birds on a front porch
Audrey looked familiar to me and she reminded me that many years ago I went to her Fairlawn home in the community behind Chip Oury's Bargain Barn off Highway 25E. A bird had built a nest in a hanging plant on her front porch and was raising a batch of babies. During our visit I got to know more about her and her family, the Lunsfords from Del Rio. Her parents were Ance and Ethel Lunsford who died in 1975 and 1993 respectively. Ance did carpenter work in Newport and from time to time worked with Jack Cody, Cody Builders. During this time in the Ance family's life they lived off Martini Street where Reece and Gladys Webb were neighbors. Of the children, most well-known to me is Ernie Lunsford and his wife, Marjorie Lunsford, who just retired after a long and important career as nurse practitioner with Rural Medical Services at Grassy Fork clinic. Lee Lunsford is the oldest and Marilyn of Louisiana the youngest. Other children are Clinton of Michigan and Edna. Audrey explained that Ernie was 16 when he went to Michigan to work for Chrysler Corporation but later became a truck driver and did this the rest of his workdays. Audrey and Luther followed him, as did Marilyn and Clinton. Audrey and Luther didn't realize they would spend the next 43 years there but not in automotive industries. Luther was a baker for Farm Crest operating dough preparation equipment. Audrey did work for printing companies, but not as a printer. By June 1994 they were back in Newport and retired. A cousin, Iris Seay Queener also worked in the bakery. Cousin Lacy Woody was in Detroit too where he taught school and is retired in Knoxville. Clinton, 84, is still in Michigan.
One of their ways to occupy time was improving their home and landscape but they chose not to do vegetable gardening and instead focused on lilies. As she said, you can buy and grow vegetables anywhere but you can't find and buy registered lilies everywhere. "We have 215 different kinds." Of these, 85 percent have come from Oak's Lily Farm, Knoxville.She has driven as many as 200 miles to find rare varieties such as the orchid color double Music of the Master. Alongside the tall purple larkspur, the earlier bloomers were blasting into colors, the yellows were first to open, Red, purple and pink poppies are in bloom. They and neighbors will enjoy lily blooms until frost.
But time to leave the flower beds
Luther will be 90 this coming January and Audrey is 80 but you would never know it from her high energy level. They attend Grace Baptist Church and have a son, Bob Woody, who is a minister at Pueblo Baptist Church in Colorado. You also know some of the Woodys' neighbors near Fairlawn to include Janet, the widow of J. L. Overholt, Chad and Amy Burchett, and former Cocke County Sheriff Tom O'Dell.
Some of you old timers will know the Luther Woody family from the Midway Road area. His father was D. C. Woody, who married the former Mary Seay. They had 11 children and the other surviving one is a sister,Claraene Pack, who was married to the late Frank Pack. To make things more confusing to you genealogists, Audrey surmises there are four different sets of the Woody family. Audrey met and married Luther on December 24, 1949 and Eulas Maddron married them. As a young man, Luther didn't mind hard work and in Del Rio that meant logging. Luther helped Chan Hahn cut firewood and log for a living.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 12 Oct 2012.
Sunday school conventions continue to lure singers
Audrey Woody shares this rare photo from October 1948 made at the Piney Grove Church in the mountains near Del Rio. The Piney Grove quartet often sang at the Sunday School Conventions and singing conventions. From left are Harrison Messer, who sang tenor; Leesta Messer, soprano; Audrey's uncle, Oscar Lunsford; and her father, Ance Lunsford, who had a strong bass voice.
Author: David Popiel
Mid October has been rather mild with leaf color still deepening as residents of our hometown still await a major frost or hard freeze that may not arrive until late November. But keep your scraper handy.
You noticed the announcement of the upcoming Big Creek Sunday School Convention to be at Mt. Zion Church in Grassy Fork. I got a call from Iva Lee Rathbone to please put it in the Plain Talk again as the dates were wrong in the first publication. By chance on Thursday I got a call from Audrey (Lunsford) Woody, who happened to have a very old photo related to Sunday School conventions or Gospel singing conventions in the mountains. At Luther and Audrey's home, which by the way is still for sale, she pulled out a photo from October 1948 featuring the Piney Grove quartet. Also what interested me was this photo was made by Preston Moore, because Audrey, as a 16 year old, recalled that Preston was there at the church making photos with his large flash bulb camera. Bill Murr is still pastor of the Piney Grove church, which is the largest in the circuit, said Audrey.
Her mother, Ethel Carlisle Lunsford and father, Ance Lunsford, attended the church and he sang bass in the quartet. She was happy to share this unique photo as it also gives a little publicity to the upcoming convention at Mt. Zion church in Grassy Fork, and Iva Lee will be glad of this. Going back 64 years, Audrey still recalls some of the singers at the popular Piney Grove convention. One group was the Haze Moore family. Many of you will recall that Roy D. Brown and his brother, Buck, and sisters Edith and Betty also sang during that era for many years afterwards. "They would stay until 10 p.m. singing," said Audrey. She was so proud of her father's voice and the Piney Grove quartet. We reminisced a little and Audrey said one of the original small one-room church buildings was bought by Hubert Hill. Today there is the new brick church plus the older frame one. Audrey plans to attend Saturday, Oct. 20, after lunch "to see how different the music is today."
Luther Woody's family was raised nearby at John's Creek but the Woodys were Church of God members and attended the Church of God at Tom's Creek off Blue Mill Road. Luther turns 90 on January 27, 2013. One of the favorite things he and his father, Cleave Woody, did in September and Oct. was dig ginseng, and it was easier to spot because of its bright red berries. They would rise at 4 a.m. and walk to Bull Mountain to gather the wild root. Audrey hopes this old photo will bring back memories for some and prompt others to attend the singing convention on October 19 & 20.
POW Cureton to be honored soon
We have been visiting and talking with World War II prisoner of war George Junior Cureton, who will be 88 on tax day in April 2013. You recall he talked some about the six months he spent in a German POW camp near Munich towards the end of the war, as allies were bombing Germany. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died just days before George was released from prison and FDR's vice-president, Harry Truman, became president. Were George and other POWs even aware of this as they cleaned the Munich streets of bombed buildings and bodies?
There was a bit of good luck for him and more to come. One of the allied bombers dropped a bomb that landed in his prison camp, "just the other side of the wall." The bomb did not explode, and, if it had, chances are George and many other Americans would have been killed. They rejoiced in late April when American troops liberated them from prison: A late birthday present, as George turned 20 on April 15, 1945. The former POWs were taken by truck to France for a few weeks. From there he went to New York via ship and eventually returned to Newport later in 1945. Imagine the rejoicing at the various Sunday School and Gospel singing conventions after the ward ended.
My fellow Kiwanian Dale Brown, commander of the Newport AMVETS post told me last week that during the upcoming Veterans Day ceremony at CCHS, George would be honored and given medals he earned during the war.
A return to a familiar area
George has always been a hard worker and spent many years at Stokely's cannery handling case goods and doing "a little bit of everything." Another job he liked was driving a furniture delivery truck for a Morristown furniture manufacturer. And, what he really seemed to enjoy was farm work. Two jobs he especially recalled were as a dairy hand for Allen Thomas and Harold Huff. I featured both of these men during my years covering the farm scene in the 1970s with the help of then extension agent Raymond Sutton.
That afternoon of my Oct. visit the family was packing up to move in with Mrs. George (Judy) Cureton's relatives at Allen's Chapel. This is not far from where he worked for Harold Huff. I also learned a bit more about George's wife of the past 34 years. She is the daughter of Ralph and Georgia Hazelwood of Irish Cut. Both are deceased. She is one of seven children. Some of you old timers from the Rhyne Lumber Company and Wood Products era might recall that Ralph worked at these plants. I left George thinking how difficult or impossible it is for any of us who were not serving during WW II to have any understanding of the magnitude of the war and the disruption it caused, particularly the memory scars.
|
Search | Advanced Search
1932 - (92 years)
, d. 11 Aug 1993 (Age 85 years) 