If there is a person in our family tree that most everyone has heard about, it is Hayden Wells Church. He heard the missionaries preach the gospel in Tennessee and went to Nauvoo, Illinois to meet Joseph Smith and was baptized by him. Hayden Wells Church served 3 missions and died on his last mission in the home of his family in Tennessee. He is buried in the family cemetery there. There is another blogger that I have been following for awhile who has written a lot about the Church Family in Tennessee. He is called the Amateur Mormon Historian. He has written about many members of the Church Family and about their history in Tennessee. The writer has also visited the location where the Church family home used to be.
The Church home was in Shady Grove, Tennessee. There is an interesting story connected to the house. After the Church family sold it, and after being owned by several different people over the years and then abandoned in the 1950's, it was finally bought by Minnie Pearl. Many of you may not know who Minnie Pearl is so I will explain that she was a entertainer who performed at the Grand Ole Oprey in Nashville and appeared regularly on a television show called Hee Haw. Click for more on Minnie Pearl. She was creating a tourist attraction to go with her stories of her hometown she told on stage. The town she talked about was called "Grinders Switch" and she wanted to include the log home in her fictitious town. She bought the home and had it disassembled log by log and moved near Centerville, Tennessee where "Grinders Switch" was to be located. The house was never reassembled and sat deteriorating until nothing useable remained. If you would like to read the entire account go here and here.
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| Abraham Church home in Shady Grove, Tennessee Written on the back of the picture: "Dad's (Robert Robbins Church) cousin sent this to me. He thought a lot of them." |
Thaks for the shout-out. Do you have the original photograph of the homes?
ReplyDeleteI have the original of the picture I posted on my blog. I don't have pictures of the ones you posted although I had seen those before in the Hayden Wells Church book.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to track down the originals for a whole bunch of pictures including the one you have here. I'd love to use them in a book I'm working on, but in order to do that I need the permission of the owner of the original. In this photograph's case, that would be you. Do you have others? Perhaps one of Haden Wells Church?
ReplyDeleteNo, I did not take the picture and I don't know who took it. It was in my grandma's things. On the back it said that a cousin had sent it to her. The only pictures I have of HW Church are from books. I am going to a Church family reunion Saturday though, and maybe I can find out who took the picture. Also any pictures of HWC. Sorry.
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ReplyDeleteMy grandmother was Ophelia Church Twomey. She went to be with our Lord in Nov 12. I know that Abraham was a grandfather of my grandmother, not sure if it was a great or great great. I am very interested in finding out more about Abraham and Hayden. My aunt has the mantle from the old house and and I am very interested in finding out if there was ANYTHING left of it. I know that I have read where it sat rotting. I also have a shotgun that was passed down to me that was supposedly used in the massacre. I have nothing to prove it except hand me down stories. I do know that it is definatly of the same period and that it has been in the family forever. Thus the reason to get any kind of info about the history. My email is ivie7363@gmail.com Thanks!
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