The Elbows

Judy Borden, in her book, refers to where the highway makes a ninety degree turn to the east and goes for about a half mile before making a ninety degree turn south as the elbows. Between the elbows is as close as Plantersville had to a Main Street. The house I lived in for much of my youth was located on this elbow.

My memory is fuzzy so hope you can assist me. In my memory there was a large tree where the highway turned east in front of the Price/Coggin house. I remember, or think I do, people knocking on our door in the middle of the night with blood on their faces asking to borrow the telephone. When was this tree removed?

Just west of the first elbow was the Repult house; I recall it as being large; when was it torn down? At the edge of Earl Kelly’s property was a house. At one point children about my age lived there and I think we played together. I seem to remember the grandmother falling off the porch one afternoon and dying. When was this house torn down?

In our pasture just east of the tree was evidence of a former building. I thought I was told that it had been a service station. Did the Repults have a station or store there?

Across from our house was the post office which had previously been a drug store. What year was the post office moved from near the railroad? East of the road that ran next to the post office and led to Aunt Johnnie’s house were trees among which cotton bales were sometimes placed; early in this blog I posted a picture of me and my cousins and Dot on one of these bales on Thanksgiving Day 1944. I think Roy Partlow bought and sold cotton; is that correct?

Until the mid 1940s, there was a pasture between us and the Joe Partlow place; Doc Smith built the building in 1946 or 7; Roy Partlow operated the store nearest us and at one time Leighton Gray operated the other one. Was Leighton related in some way to Doc Smith? I have a neighbor here in Clinton who is a cousin of Leighton’s but he doesn’t know a lot about him.

Then there was Charlie Monts’s store which I think at one time had a barber shop and a beauty shop. Across from the store was the Mabry place. In my memory the house was vacant but still had furniture inside; behind the house was Mabry Lake where Doris took us fishing and occasionally we would cut across the Mabry place on our way to school.

There were woods east of Monts’s store with a path that we took to walk to Aunt Grace’s house.

The highway then turned south and went just past the high school before becoming a gravel road.

Please correct and add to my memories.

Note:
Charlotte Diggs: "You referred to Leighton Gray and Doc Smith. They were brothers-in-law. Doc was married to Oda Gray Smith. Miss Oda is still alive and resides in a nursing home in New Albany. The Grays were from the New Albany area. Miss Oda should be approaching or past 100 now. There were several siblings in the Gray family and I will ask Mama about their names and where they might be at this time."

George: That fits as my neighbor, Brother Jimmy, is from New Albany or near there.


Besides the barber/beauty shop, which I don't remember, Dr. Cantrell had his practice on the east side.
Also, Harve Mitchel had a store east of the Monts' store. I know these two businesses were there when I was 5 and on up, don't know how long.

Sandra and Tommy

I may be wrongt about the barber and beauty shops; I thought that George Perry Partlow had a barber shop and that Butch's mother had her beauty shop there, but I might be wrong. I'm not sure they existed at the same time; one may have replaced the other.

In an earlier post, Jack Price mentioned Harve Mitchell's store. When was it moved? I don't remember a store other than Mr. Charlie's until the one was built next to our house.

George: My neighbor, Jimmy McCaleb, is a former missionary and is Leighton and Mrs. Oda's first cousin. He did not know Mrs. Oda was still living. I think he said that his mother and their mother were sisters. Although Brother Jimmy is around eighty years old, he still goes on mission trips abroad. He has a sister who lives near the hospital in Tupelo.