UNCLE TOM & AUNT HARRIETT ISBELL

Toomstone Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriett Isbell

We call them "Uncle Tom & Aunt Harriett" because that's the way we've always heard them referred too. They are the couple who adopted my grandmother, Jessie Mae Ervin Joines and her brother David F Ervin. This photo was taken at the Sunset Cemetery in Englewood, Tennessee within a couple of miles of where they lived when they died.

Mildred said Uncle Tom Isbell donated the land for the Sunset Cemetery and also had the concrete steps built for the First Baptist Church in Englewood. She said he didn't want them to fall down the old wooden steps when they were carrying him up in his funeral.

As far back as I can remember this picture was hanging in the living room of Ross & Jessie Joines home. Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriett had a peddler who came by their house on a regular basis and after you purchased a certain amount of product you would recieve a free gift from the peddler..... this was their gift. It was aquired by the Isbells sometime before 1932 and I suspect quite a while before. It now hangs in the home of one of the family members. (this is a cell phone image of the picture and part of the beautiful frame is cut off and you can see reflections in the glass)

Comment:

This is a picture that hung in the living room of the Ross Joines family home for as long as I can remember. This photograph does not do it justice for it is very beautiful. It must be nearly a hundred years old.

After Grandma had her first stroke she was never allowed by the daughters to be independent again. She spent a few days in Sweetwater hospital where someone always stayed with her. It was arranged on the last night of her stay for my Mother, Tommie, and me to spend the night with her at the hospital.

During that time the other sisters, with the exception of Harriette, who was not told about it, spent the night taking everything in the house except Mother's and my personal belongings. When we returned to the house the following morning there was not even a television left. Aunt Hariette was understandably very upset and often cried about not getting any of Grandma's things, but Mother and I took it in stride. It was at that time that Mildred got this picture.

Grandma was then taken out of the hospital to Alabama where she spent the rest of her life living with Jean and Don. When she got to the point that she had to be put into hospice care she was brought back to Tennessee and was never left alone until she died.

Barbara Jean Cornett

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