Day Three

Richard beat me to the punch tonight, writing a note to the family. I'll post his note and add a few thoughts.
Dear ones
Bonnie, Jackie, Bob and I took off Sat am, drove to Mt Pleasant to look in the cemetery there for Reese of Benj Porter. There were only 2-3 dozen in the county. We found a ton of Porter headstones but no Reese or Benj. We drove on and stayed in West Memphis, AR. It's been very cool. Did not get over 50 all day today. Bob left his hooded jacket in the motel last night (gloves also). Luckily he brought another jacket and some long johns. We drove down Elvis Presley Blvd this morning to show Graceland to Bonnie. We'd seen it. We didn't take the tour. We drove on to Town Creek, AL where Dr. Reese Porter lived and practiced medicine. Again too many cemeteries. We knew where his farm had been but it's only a trailer house and a field of maize now. We are in Fayetteville, TN now and have made arrangements to go to the Porter/Sandifer cemetery to clean up the headstones of Mary Bowen Porter, widow of Wm Porter II and a GGGGGGGrandmother of ours. She died in 1820 and is buried next to two of her sons and their families. The other brothers came on to Mt Pleasant in 1843 when Texas was an independent republic. Tomorrow after we visit this cemetery we are going up to Lynchburg to tour the Jack Daniels distillery. We'll try to make it on to Gastonia, NC to visit the Kings Mtn Battlefield on the border of NC/SC. It was the last pivotal battle of the Rev War and was actually the end. It was American revolutionaries and American Tories (loyalists to the crown). Our people were involved in this battle and Mary Bowen Porter drew a Federal allotment for knitting warm wool socks for the soldiers.More later.Richard

We weaved (wove) back and forth across Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Tennessee today, crossing the state lines often and one time in the middle of a little hamlet. Even the little abandoned towns have more personality than all the LBS** towns in North Central Texas and New Mexico. As we traveled, Bonnie learned a bit more about knitting and I finished a ruched scarf. I brought our mother's journals along with us to read aloud. I had asked her to write her story for us about 20 years ago. I bought her a box of legal pads and a box of #2 pencils (that's what she wanted). She had a remarkable memory and filled details about her life, growing up in Texas, her marriage to our daddy, the births of her children. Bob remembers much more about the early days since he lived it; Richard and I had just heard the stories on the most part. It's such a gift to have these memories. She left us quite a legacy.

This is a wonderful trip. I thank God for my family, for my wonderful brothers and Bonnie.
More tomorrow. Good night, J

**Little-bitty-shitty