Description of Broadus R. Connell by his son JC

He was about 6’1”. He had a normal Caucasian face, straight nose. I guess he was a pretty handsome
fella’. He told me one time he went to a square dance out here. He was havin’ a lot of fun and he was
dancing with these girls and all. Got ready to leave, and this girl was waitin’ there and he picked up 2
kids. He had Roddy and Norman picked him up and went with him. I guess Mama was there too.
He was a frank fellow. I never heard him swear or curse. Only one time. He was doing something, he  hit his hand with a hammer or something… Anyway. He really hit his hand. I think I would’ve said a lot more than he did. You never heard a swear word from him.

He could do most anything. He could butcher a cow, take it and hung it in a freezer locker down town and made hamburger out of a lot of it. We used to ride to town on the wagon without a body on it. Just sit on the tongue. The tongue is the one that goes all the way through and all the way out the front. We’d go to town and I’d be sitting up there to ride down there. He owned a store, 2 houses, you know where the creek is, over by the mill – little store restaurant there. Well he owned one store there and two houses right there.

He sold those to pay for Norman’s tuition to Clemson. So Norman graduated from Clemson. Ivy got a year or two years and he went to OCS. He was an officer. And the 505th airborne infantry division. I’ve got two pictures of him. One where he was a Sargent and when he was 2nd lieutenant. Dad worked all the time, but he liked to read the paper and joke. He was just an ordinary guy. Liked to fox hunt. He would take the dogs. A lot of mornings he’d get up and go and go fox hunting. He’d leave the dogs and come back home and go to work. And the dogs would come in and Mom always fixed some cornbread. And something else she’d put on cornbread to feed the dogs. That was the most things he do was fox hunt with some of the guys. They would go out. Said they were fox hunting one night they got this tree of ‘coons. And somebody was going to go up and try to knock him out. There was an old grey-headed man standing there looking up and that coon jumped right out on top of that guy’s head. He probably thought that was sand. You know white beard shinin’, probably thought that was sand and He was surprised I guess. Just a little hunting things. Dad watched his money and he took care of our family well.

Click to get audio from interview

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From an interview of JC Connell  by Katie on 2/10/2015
Thanks again to Mary Ann for transcribing this interview!

Grandma Izzy's Professional Career

Just the other day, I realized that I knew that Grandma Izzy taught school right before she married Granddad and that she was teaching school after her children were grown, but I didn't know about the years in between. I asked Mom and here's the gist of what she told me about Grandma's teaching years:

She was pregnant at least once while teaching, probably with Uncle Bob.

Mom doesn't remember Grandma working while the kids were small.

Grandma taught early morning seminary for church in their home when the kids were small, giving them breakfast before the seminary students came.

When Aunt Lois was 3 or 4 Grandma started working at a preschool, which she signed Aunt Lois up for. When Aunt Lois started kindergarten, Grandma started teaching kindergarten, and continued to teach it for many years.

After a while, Grandma needed a change, so she started teaching 4th grade. She taught that for a few years, and was so good at teaching the kids to read that she was asked to transfer to the middle school to help some 6th graders who'd never learned to read. She succeeded, and kept teaching at the middle school for many years after, transferring to 7th grade at one point.

Grandma also taught seminary for many, many years. As mentioned earlier, she taught seminary when her kids were younger. She taught again when Uncle Bob started 9th grade and continued until Aunt Lois was done with high school.

Mom said that Grandma taught for a total of something like 17 years. She finally retired a few months after Granddad retired.

1986-87 school portrait

Granddad JC and vehicles

From an interview with Granddad JC:

My Dad and his dad both had cars, Model Ts, way back. They parked it at the old mulberry tree back at his house and uh we'd go out and play in it. See, our house was right over here, and we had a road that came and our driveway went straight up to our house, on the right side. That's where they had the barns, and the car shed, and the corral, and the pump. That was all on the far side--the east of the house. We had barn full of corn, and full of fodder and hay, and the stables.

I learned to drive on that little A Model convertible. They had a beautiful buggy and a horse when I was a little baby. They were going to church and I wanted to go but they wouldn't let me go. They'd keep me at home. I remember raising Sam because they wouldn't let me go to church. It was a real nice black buggy, then they started getting cars. He used to work on the roads here. He ran the road machines--my dad. That was the last job he had. First they had a tractor, like a D8, big tractor, pulling the road machine with a blade and Dad would drive the tractor. He had a prisoner that would operate the road machine that turned the blades and worked the sides of the roads.

They did all the roads back here, they were mostly--why, McRae road was a dirt road back then! Yep.

Izzy: They were terrible dirt roads!

JC: They were muddy, slick. I remember one time I was working for quality cleaners on a delivery truck. We got down to the country--paint hill, I think they called it that, with the red clay and all. We turned the corner and had to go up just a little incline and dad gummit the back end of the car started to slide over because of the crown in the road and it was so slick and all. It started sliding over I jumped out and took the side of the car--we had like a station wagon; they called it a suburban, the back doors would open up like that. Anyway, I took the side of it and I pushed it into the center of the road. I was about 14. I kept it from sliding into the ditch. That was really an experience!

Quincy Campbell's livelihood

Thanks to Laura for getting this information and typing it up!


Quincy Routillous Campbell owned a prosperous construction company in Charlotte that did so well that he could afford to send his daughter Grace to college (Mary Baldwin College). 

When he was an older man, the depression hit. Although the pressure was immense, he refused to foreclose on any homes, which eventually led him to declare bankruptcy.

When people asked why he would do this, he simply answered that he couldn’t turn people out of their homes. He deliberately gave up his status as a wealthy business owner to make sure he watched over his neighbor! What an example of selflessness and Southern Gentlemanly kindness.

Granddad JC and time with cousins

Here's Granddad JC talking about his time with cousins

It was a stupid thing. I was wanting to go to visit my cousins in North Carolina. But I was the only one wanting to do it. I don’t know what happened, but I put on a raincoat, I was barefooted and was wearing short pants and all.

I went down to Aunt Docia’s. She lived on Fair Street on the corner right there by the school and she was a nurse. And I was going to see if she was going to North Carolina – I might have asked her for money to ride the bus up there. I dunno, it was crazy--it never materialized – she said oh yeah, so she put me in a car and brought me back home. <chuckles> so this was the end of my trip to North Carolina.

My cousins always came down here. We all had so much fun. When they came down here we all got out of the beds and let the older people use on the beds and we slept the floor. That was fun. We’d sleep there and then get up in the morning and we’d go out and play, hide in the hay stack and all this stuff. That was fun. All this was open land around here – farmland. We played like Blind Man Buff or you cover your head and everyone goes and hide and you go out and try to find them. Mostly Red Rover Red Rover. You ever play that? <chuckles> We’d do that. Crazy.

They’d come at Christmas time; maybe Thanksgiving. Not really other times.

In the wintertime, we’d set trout lines down right down there in the pond and catch catfish. And we’d have catfish stew. Every-well we'd need some more so we would go down there and run the line.

Somebody said they were down there runnin' the trout line and they got the boat on top of a stump when there was an alligator, comin' around there. It was on the stump, so they couldn't move the boat to get away from the alligator! They must've hit it on the head with a paddle or something to get away; I dunno exactly how they got away.

That was over at Aunt Julia’s over the top of the hill up there. It’s all grown up now. The house is gone now, I don't know what happened.

Yeah, those were fun times. Fun times for the kids.

Aunt Docia on right as a recent nursing school grad

Note: I assume that the cousins in NC were Cora Lawrence (nee Connell)'s children. Does anyone know?

Great Aunt Bea

Becky here. As I gazed out the window today past my Christmas tree looking out over the freshly-fallen snow, I remembered some Christmas decorations that we used to put out every year as young kids: some crocheted snowflakes. I remembered hearing a story about a great aunt who made hundreds (?) of them, and each one of them was different. It made me want to know more of the story.

First I called Katie, hoping that there was a blogpost already written about this great aunt. Then I called Dad to see what he could remember.

The crafter was Great-great Aunt Bea (Dora Bedah Henize); Great Grandma Lucy's sister. Aunt Bea could do just about any craft, but she was exceptional at crocheting. She and Uncle Paul had no children of their own and she didn't work outside the home, so she focused much of her energy on her garden. She had a yard that was the envy of the neighborhood with spectacular flowers and impressive vegetables. Dad recalls tomatoes that were the size of grapefruit!

Dad remembers going over to Aunt Bea's house and playing with her amazing antique toys, particularly the brass elephants and the Mickey Mouse Airplane

Aunt Peggy's most vivid memory of visiting Aunt Bea was eating corn on the cob off of Aunt Bea's crystal corn holder dishes. Her dishes were perfect for smothering the cob with butter! Aunt Bea made Barbie doll clothes for all of the nieces and great-nieces. Aunt Peggy's dolls were no exception. When Aunt Bea went walking in her yard with Aunt Peggy, she would often pick a beautiful small bouquet for her.

Aunt Bea also made afghans for her sisters.

After such a talented and beautiful life, Aunt Bea started showing signs of dementia and Alzheimers. At first, it was mild. She started saving the weeds and pulling up flowers. One time she suffered a nasty cold, and when she recovered from the cold she sadly forgot how to walk.

The part of the story that I have loved over the years is that despite not remembering much of her life that she was still able to make something so beautiful and intricate as those snowflakes. She could make several in a day.