BANKS Summer—Fall 2011
Plan to attend the
76th Reunion of the Thomas Marion Banks Family Sat., Oct. 8 Cemetery Cleanup Sun., Oct. 9 Family Reunion (details enclosed)
Remembering Mary Ophelia Banks Anderson Mary Ophelia was the first born of Thomas Marion and Georgia DeLura. Born September 3, 1885—on a Thursday—it was a joyous day in the Banks household for it was also the first wedding anniversary of her parents who were married September 3, 1884. And little did she know that 31 years later that date would become her own wedding date, for on September 3, 1916, she married Thomas E. Anderson. Reverend John Wise, who also served as Banks County School Superintendent, performed the wedding ceremony. And again, the coincidences would continue, for 23 years after her own marriage, Reverend Wise would officiate at the wedding of her first born, Thomas E. Anderson, Jr., to Evelyn Hill. Mary Ophelia‟s name was derived, in part, from her grandmother Mary Yarborough, and in part from the uncommon name of Ophelia, the young noblewoman in William Shakespear‟s tragedy “Hamlet.” . Obviously Georgia DeLura had been influenced by the works of the masterful 17 th century writer. The name Ophelia—a mouthful of syllables for young brothers and sisters that would follow—was shortened to “Phee,” and to a cadre of nieces and nephews in the decades after, she became Aunt Phee. Educated in the Stephens County schools, she received a teaching certificate from the finishing school located in Hiawassee, Ga. Upon INSIDE THIS ISSUE graduation, she taught elementary Ophelia Banks Anderson P.2 school in Banks County until she married, a period of about twelve years. continued “What fascinated me most about Mother, was her ability to remember,” Tom E. recalled. “She knew the books of the Bible in sequence, she recited the alphabet backRAFE BANKS P.3 wards, and she had memorized many passages from the works of Shakespeare. And beHistorical novel by Charles Banks P.4 ing the first of ten children, she was a great cook, always knowing when to add a pinch of spice to create that special flavor—banana pudding was among her favorites, calling on a Family News & In Memoriam P.5 recipe passed from many generations. A teacher, her pronunciations were impeccable. She was often teased over the way she pronounced sausage—sah‟sage instead The 23rd biennial reunion of P.6 of the traditional Southern verbiage saw‟sage. Bed linens were boiled in a wrought iron descendants of pot over an open fire, using homemade lye soap. Cousin Tom Banks always commented Ralph and Rachel Jones Banks on the fresh smelling linens when their family visited from Birmingham. And Susie, Ophelia‟s youngest, remembered how her mother could recite from the Book of ProvContact me with your news!! erbs. Quilting was a favorite pastime and Ophelia would invite neighbors in for a Donna Banks Dodd “quilting” and they would all pitch in, using scraps of cloth salvaged from old clothing . 3425 Spinnaker Way All of the children had a quilt especially made for them, and Susie had doll dresses made Acworth, GA 30102 from quilting scraps.” donnabdodd@yahoo.com Ophelia and Thomas E. Anderson resided in Banks County where he was a farmer and merchant. They later moved to Gainesville, Ga., and remained there until his death. Thomas Edward Anderson was born in Banks County, September 12, 1864, and
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died April 27, 1942. Mary Ophelia died October 28, 1957. They are buried in the church cemetery, Damascus Baptist Church, Banks County, Ga. [From information contributed by Tom E. Anderson, Jr. (1918 – 2003) prior to his death]
PHOTO 1928 — (back row) Ophelia Banks Anderson, Thomas E. Anderson, Bertie Banks Dixon, and Bud Banks (front row) Harry Anderson, Bill K. Anderson, Tom E. Anderson, and Mary ―Suzie‖ Anderson
PHOTO 1963—Jacquin and Harry Anderson with daughter Shelly and cat. (Back yard at Dixon’s house)
PHOTO 1964—Willard Dixon, Mary ―Suzie‖ Anderson, Evelyn and Tom E. Anderson
Bob King remembers Aunt Phee During the war, in about 1943 or „44, when I was nine or ten years old, there was a shortage of teachers in Florida, so my mother, Martha or “Bossie,” asked Aunt “Phee” to come live with us for a year and help her. Mom was principal and teacher of 4th, 5th and 6th grades in a rural school, and Aunt „Phee‟ was needed to teach 1st, 2nd ands 3d grades, all in one room. We lived in a small house in which the kitchen window looked out at a big field. We had a young filly that my dad and I (?) were training, but she was only about half “broke.” One Saturday, I decided to ride the filly in their field next to the house, and she ran away with me and ran under our clothes line, which jerked me out of the saddle. Mom and Aunt „Phee‟ saw it, ran outside and determined that I was not seriously injured. Then Mom caught the filly and said, ”I„ll teach you, you #@#@#,” so she hiked up her dress and climbed into the saddle. Of course, the filly was scared to death, so she ran away with Mom, too. Aunt „Phee‟ exclaimed, “I can not bear to see Bossie killed,” so she ran into the house and peaked out the window. Mom was screaming, “Woah, Blackie, woah! Woah, Blackie, woah!” Finally, she got the filly stopped, so she dismounted and said, “Well, I guess I taught YOU a thing or two.!”
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from Viola Byrum’s branch: Gabriel Zane Schumm married Laura Beth Alexander on Sat., Aug. 13, 2011 at the First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, Florida. Gabe is the son of Connie Hatch Jahnke, of North Palm Beach, FL. Laura is the daughter of Darin & Roxanne Alexander of Lake Worth, FL. Gabe's great-grandmother was Viola Banks Byrum, and his grandmother was Elizabeth "Betty" Byrum Hatch Allen.
Howard Norman, 79, died April 7, 2011, in Atlanta, GA with his family by his side, succumbing to a 12-year battle with cancer. Howard was born January 26, 1932, in Evansville, Indiana to Cordelia and Homer Norman. Howard was preceded in death by his sister, Nancy, and his brothers, Junior, Maurice, Cliff, and Dee. Howard was a devoted father and loving husband to his spouse, life partner, and soul-mate, Annette. Annette and Howard married the day they graduated from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. They then began their life's mission together which included raising their four children, Sherry, Tim, Donna and Dana. While raising a family and pastoring Gateway Baptist Church in Evansville, Howard graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. Howard later pastored Bouldercrest Baptist Church in Atlanta, after which he became a successful businessman. Howard taught at DeKalb College and Brenau College. He also prepared students for the Georgia Real Estate LiAnnette (Banks) Norman & Howard Norman cense exam. In addiat the 2010 Banks Reunion tion to his immediate family, Howard is survived by his daughters-in-law, Halliday and Lincy. He is also survived by his seven grandchildren: Tom, Ben, Annelise, Chris, Leila, Georgia and Will.
Arlice W. Callahan, 88, of Woodmere Drive, passed away on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at Cannon Memorial Hospital in Pickens. Born in Mt. Airy, NC, he was the son of the late John Hugh and Florence Cliffton Callahan. He retired from McAfee Upholstery after 40 years of service and was a member of Lee Road Baptist Church where he was a member of the Roy McGaffic Sunday School Class and Joy Club. He is survived by his daughters: Debra (Kenneth) Belcher of Greer and Donna Lindley of Pickens; sister: Pansy Renegar of Charlotte, NC; 4 grandchildren: April Haywald, Erin Desai, Dustin Atkins and Dorn Barker; 4 great-grandchildren: Kasey Haywald, Kade Haywald, Kiley Barker and Reid Barker. He was predeceased by his first wife, Agnes Davis Callahan and his second wife, Irene Davis Callahan; sonin-law, Larry Lindley; 4 sisters: Hattie, Lillie, Annie and Viola; 4 brothers: George, Oscar, Will and Charlie.
Arlice and Irene Callahan 2005
Arlice and Mother were married 17 years – a long time for someone who remarried at 70 like she did. He was wonderful and I miss him. Jenny Davis Gallaher
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Banks family enjoys reunion at Coldwater Methodist Church ELBERT COUNTY — The 23rd biennial reunion of descendants of Ralph and Rachel Jones Banks took place June 10-11 in Elbert County. A buffet dinner took place at McIntosh Coffee Shoppe in downtown Elberton on June 10. President George Banks and his wife, Norma, greeted family and guests. The Rev. Rebecca Dixon, the family chaplain, gave the invocation. George Banks presided over the he Saturday session at Coldwater United Methodist Church. The Rev. Allen Carmichael, the church‟s pastor, gave the invocation. Clyde Adams gave the welcome. John Sheftall gave the response and recognized guests from five states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
The Rev. Dixon gave the memorial service for family members who died since the last reunion: Howard Norman, Kevin Gerald Banks, Dorothy Martin, Walter Lee Mason, Sallie Mae Harbin, Wilbur Jones, Marion McFarlin, Cora Graham, Jean Malcolm and Mary Durham Telford. The president‟s duties for the “little reunion,” to be at the Banks United Methodist Church in Oxford, N.C., on May 19, 2012, will be shared by a steering committee of family members: George Banks, John Sheftall, H. Banks Edwards, Ed Jackson, Joe Scherberger and Thomas Dixon. The group sang “Church in the Wildwood,” “Amazing Grace” and “America,” accompanied on the piano by the Rev. Dixon. Historian John Sheffield gave an update on the publication of the fourth edition of “Banks of Elbert” family history with a possible publication date of 2015. The history will be in two volumes. Coldwater United Methodist Church ladies served lunch. After lunch, the group was invited to tour the ancestral home at Coldwater Plantation, where Ralph and Rachel Jones Banks raised their family of 14 children. The Ralph Banks family gave the property to build Coldwater United Methodist Church, and a monument stands in the church yard in memory of the family. Present owners of the plantation are Mark and Suzanne Bryan, who served afternoon tea under the great oak trees in the back yard. Guests toured the house, built in the late 1700s and under renovation, and visited graves of family members on the property.
Email message from Thomas Dixon: We had a great time at the Banks Family reunion and if you were not there we missed you. We plan to travel to Grandville County, North Carolina next year and be a part of the 250th celebration of Banks Chapel United Methodist Church which is on land given by our Thomas Banks of Coldwater. Look forward to seeing and hearing from you. Your cousin, Thomas Dixon
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The Banks family has a proud heritage that dates back to circa 1665 in King and Queen County, Va.; enough so that I wanted to know more than just the dates of birth and death of our ancestors. Selfishly, I wanted to know how their lives were lived and sense some of the struggles they may have endured. I wanted to take the journey from Granville County to Elbert County; to listen in on the conversation between Rafe and Rafe, Jr. as Rafe withheld his consent for his son to marry Elizabeth Maxwell; or how Russell, at the age of 44, spent his first day as a Private in the Army of the Confederacy. Rafe became my way to live the lives of these ancestors and sense their emotions and challenges. So, within the bounds of known history I have attempted to create a life that they might have lived If you care to have a copy, send me your email address and I will return a copy of the manuscript as an attachment in Microsoft Word. Cousin Charles Banks—email address: cbanks@perigee.net Excerpts from the novel:
Rafe Banks Preface At some point in each lifetime we pause to reflect upon the past, only to discover that death or failed memories have severed the umbilical cord to our roots. Those are the moments, those twenty-twenty hindsight moments we realize we have failed in our obligation to be good stewards of one of our greatest assets: The connection to our heritage. In the following pages, the author has attempted to take the facts, as they are known from family Bibles and dusty basements of county courthouses, and weave them into a tapestry that symbolizes a time in the lives of our early ancestors. Between the date of birth and the date of death there lived a life; and that life was filled with trials and tribulations, happiness and sadness, successes and failures, just as you might expect in an ordinary 21st century life. As you walk through the pages of the past, experience a slice of history as it might have been.
Chapter ONE Sunrise was nothing less than dazzling as pale yellow burned away the remnants of lingering night. As if on cue the distant horizon suddenly transformed itself into the likeness of a giant sunflower awakening from its nocturnal sleep. . It was late November— Tuesday, the 22nd—the sky was pale blue, and even though it was the cusp of winter the temperature was moderate. But in spite of its stately beginning the day would end like no other, for a caravan stood ready to embark on a journey of some three hundred miles—a journey that would lead across the French Broad River, across the great Savannah, to begin life anew in the fertile lands of Georgia. Carefully packed in the wagons were enough provisions to sustain Thomas Banks, his son Rafe, and seven slaves through the winter and into spring. There were barrels of wheat, peas, beans, oats and corn. There were casks of vinegar and salad oil, slabs of bacon, salt, cheese, sugar, coffee, spices, dried fruit, and a cask of peach brandy. Clothing included Monmouth caps, to fend off the cold, white shirt collars, waistcoats, suits, several pairs of Irish stockings, extra shoes, a pair of garters each for Thomas and Rafe, and the traditional three-corner hat. Other items included an assortment of bottles, spoons, iron ax, kettles, bells, blankets, combs, scissors, hammers, horseshoes, locks, keys, hinges, knives, pewter bowls, swords, a pair of matched flintlock muskets and pistols, lamp oil and candles, and a chamber pot. In the way of implements there were plows, plowshares, all forms of saws, a saw blade and a length of leather strap, once attached to a water wheel would turn the blade of a ripsaw. And the journey could not proceed without cows for fresh milk, butter and cheese. Mules were needed to pull the wagons and till the soil once they reached their destination, and hogs and chickens to help ease the pangs of empty stomachs, and a dog named Spot. Thomas Banks, born in 1709, had migrated from Caroline County, Virginia, to Granville County, North Carolina in 1762 where he accumulated an estate of some 1,500 acres of prime land near the settlement of Oxford. Thomas had taken as his wife Sarah Chandler in 1743 and by her fathered three children. Sarah died quite young, however, and he took as his second wife, Betty White. Thomas and Betty had six children, the eldest, Rafe, being born in 1757. But twenty years later, Thomas would again face life without a wife at
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his side. Betty, wrought with fever, surrounded by her husband and children, surrendered her life into the hands of the Almighty. A score of years passed and Rafe, now in his thirty-first year of age and having served as a Captain in the North Carolina Militia, was filled with wanderlust. Tales of rich Georgia lands and access to the seaport in Savannah had made their way to Granville County by travelers bound for Virginia and Maryland. Crops of cotton and tobacco, planted and harvested by slave labor, were hauled by wagon to Savannah and sold to eager merchants who, in turn, readied them for shipment to European ports. Rafe had convinced his father to sell his 1,500 acres and join with him. Together they would begin life anew on Georgia’s virgin lands; but Rafe also had an ulterior motive. Thomas, now in his 78th year, had outlived two wives, and was keen on taking yet another, a widow by name of Susannah Priddy Hurt, whom Rafe felt was too young for his aged father. Or, from a different point of view, Rafe felt his father was well past the age of taking a young wife. ____________________ Although sparsely populated—56,100 after the 1780 census was completed—Georgia was the largest state east of the Mississippi in terms of land area. It contained 56,930 square miles and over 100 miles of shoreline along the Atlantic Ocean. But other than the Savannah seaport, much of the vast land area in the west was yet to be explored. Having served in the Revolutionary War, Rafe had received a patent for 500 acres, which he was prepared to claim in Wilkes County. The provisions having been sorted and packed, equipment and supplies carefully inventoried, the wagon train was ready to embark. A guide and two riders had been engaged: Amos McQuay, Jason Diggs and Abner Bledsoe. McQuay, an experienced wagon master had led wagons from Maryland and Virginia across the great Savannah no less than six times. Diggs and Bledsoe were experienced out-riders and had ridden with McQuay. Their job was to keep the wagons taut and the livestock reined in. Although the route McQuay had chosen would take them well south of the Cherokee Indians in the southern Appalachian Mountains, they would pass just a few miles north of the Catawba’s whose encampment was spread along the river that bore the Indian’s name—the Catawba River. Entrusted with Rafe, his father, Thomas, seven adult slaves and a child—Isaiah & Toluca and five-year old daughter, Hannah, Levi & Blossom, Lett Peter, and Johnston & Fanny—McQuay’s dusty boot found its way into a stirrup and he mounted his horse. Handling a team of two mules, Rafe and Thomas seated themselves in the lead wagon, with Spot positioned between them. Isaiah drove the second team, and perched on the back of his wagon were Toluca and Hannah, who had honey-colored skin. A white man, the former owner of Toluca, had fathered her before Isaiah claimed her as his wife. Levi and Blossom were assigned the third team. Lett Peter rode alone in the fourth wagon, and Johnston and Fanny, whose long-bed wagon carried the heaviest load, required two teams of mules. Some of the livestock was tied to the wagons and some were allowed to trail behind to be herded by the two out-riders. ―We’s ready, Masa Rafe,‖ said Isaiah, who, by virtue of his 6’3‖ height and 225 pounds, was the de facto slave foreman. Rafe signaled McQuay with his three-cornered hat, snapped the reins, the leather harness stretched against the tongue, and the spoke wheels began to turn. . The journey had begun, and by McQuay’s best judgment it would take the better part of a month, what with the loaded wagons, the livestock and other animals that had to be tended to along the way.
Excerpt from Chapter Twenty-Six
Much has happened in the lives of Thomas Marion and Georgia DeLura in the decade since Rev. Thomas Wells officiated at their wedding. With their tenth anniversary just days away, they have parented five healthy children, although having sadly buried one. Ophelia had turned nine, Groves six, along with Viola, John Allen, and Russell Marion, who at the age of ten-months showed a propensity of walking early. The farm on New Hope Road has provided most of the needs of Bud’s young family. Wheat and corn harvested from his fields are ground at the gristmill on Leatherwood Creek. Milk, chickens, and eggs plentiful, and hogs and cattle slaughtered to provide the family with meat. Coffee, salt, sugar and other essentials are purchased at the General Store in Toccoa. And with the textile mills that have sprung up along the railroad, cotton has begun to fetch a favorable price, 15-cents a pound. Thanks to the warmth of an early spring, and early planting, Bud has already begun to pick the twenty acres he devoted to cotton. Expecting to produce about 10 bales, Bud estimated his earnings from Crawford’s Gin at $750. The rest of the acreage, other than a garden that produced a cornucopia of vegetables, has been devoted to wheat and corn. Wheat fetches $1.06 a bushel, corn 43-cents. Anticipating their upcoming anniversary, Bud hitched the mules to the wagon and set out for Toccoa. Georgia DeLura, the ―Madam‖ as Bud referred to her, had prepared a list of necessities, and earlier, Bud had traced Groves’ foot on a piece of paper and planned to buy him shoes. Toccoa, about an hour’s ride away, had become an important coaling station for the railroad. Settled in the late eighteenth century as ―Dry Pond,‖ Toccoa had grown into a convenient stop for the steam engines to replenish their water and coal as they made their run between Charlotte and Atlanta. It was mid-morning when Bud reached the General Store; having passed the Atlanta-bound locomotive as it pulled away from the water tank. For copies of his complete manuscript, please contact Charles Banks at cbanks@perigee.net
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