G.G.G.G.G.Grandma

That’s five greats, for those that were counting.  Her name was Hannah Howell, and she was my mom’s great great great grandmother, my great great great great grandmother, and James’ great great great great great grandmother. 

When I was in high school one of the things that I remember my grandpa doing was working on our genealogy.  He did it in the beginning of the internet phase and most of his work was done via the mail because there wasn’t much out there on the net yet.  He’d write to different places like the bureau of the census, the archives of various states, the Mormon library in Salt Lake City (they study genealogy and have the most extensive archives), relatives that he knew about, and things like that.  He had a lot of information, but nothing like what my mom has now thanks to ancestry (dot) com.  I did a project for one of my history teachers, Mr. Twiss, and my brother Richie helped me draw out a huge poster size family tree with all of the information that Grandpa had. 

So today after my doctor visit (which went great, btw, and thanks for the prayers!  I’m San Francisco bound come Thursday!) my mom and I decided to head to the outlets up I-75.  I’d never been before and wanted to see what they had.  On the way up there we passed a sign for Rome, GA and my mom said, “My great aunt always said that she was from Rome Georgia.” 

The next sign that we passed was for Summerville, GA and my mom pulled a Susan Walker from Miracle on 34th Street and screamed, “Stop!  Stop!  Summerville, GA!”  Although I didn’t stop right then, we did decide that we’d look around for a little bit (I didn’t have a lot of energy so there really wasn’t going to be a lot of shopping) and after some lunch if there was time we’d drive by. 

We got directions from one of the nice ladies in one of the stores and she wrote ‘drive down this road (forever) and turn right.’  She even put forever in there.  Great.  But we did.  And it was forever.  But it was really pretty so it was OK with us. 

We made it to Summerville and that’s when she said, “OK- it’s not really Summerville, it’s Trion.”  So after a visit to the Summerville Chamber of Commerce we followed some directions and made a few turns to find ourselves on a narrow country road looking for an old cemetery.  Believe it or not there were quite a few cemeteries on this road, but we were looking for the Howell Cemetery.  It was our third one. 

One of the first tombstones that mom found was of her 3rd great grandmother, Hannah Howell.  And we found a few others, too.  She was loving it.  She was so happy. 

I must admit, it was pretty cool.  She died over 116 years ago and some of the others died even before that. 

The inscription on the tomb stone read “Hannah Howell, June 16, 1803 – June 28, 1891.”  Hannah Howell was the mother of Vina Jane Howell, who married James J Taylor in 1852.  James served in the 21st Georgia Infantry Co K and was killed May 16, 1864 at the battle of Drewry’s Bluff in Virginia.  Their daughter Lizzie had a daughter named Anne who was my grandfather’s mother. 

My mother told me that her grandmother, Anne, once told her that Lizzie hated Lincoln.  When my mother asked why, her grandmother said, “Because he killed her daddy.” 

Here are shots of both me and my mom sitting next to Hannah.  It’s difficult to see the inscription, but we could see it in person if we looked at an angle. 

Below is another tombstone that we found.  On the left it reads, “Lecta A., wife of T. G. Howell, born Sept. 14, 1841, died July 18, 1899.”  On the right it reads, “Thomas G Howell, born Jan. 9, 1834, died Jan. 11, 1911.”  Thomas G was the brother of Vina Jane and was the only one of the Howell brothers to survive the Civil War. 

My mom and aunts used to always think that they were Yankees, and it wasn’t until Grandpa started tracing the family tree that they realized they were Georgia Crackers!

It was a pretty cool day and something that I’ll remember for a long time to come.  Isn’t it funny how just a sign on the road can make the day turn into an adventure?