Part 13 (2/2)

Now that I had found myself a real live Belleville-ian, I asked a ton of questions.

Mr. Turnbull was mighty old but he told me he knew Nanny when he was a little kid or maybe just her legend, because even Duane (who looked to be in his late sixties) chimed in and said, ”Oh, yeah, we've all heard the stories about Mae. She's famous 'round these parts. Quite a character. She even named herself 'The Belle of Belleville.' She was already married to Big Bill Creighton, a railroad man, when she took up with Herman Melton. She was purty much older than he was, an' she was teachin' him the piano.”

Another old man piped up saying, ”I think she taught him more than how to tickle the ivories!” They all howled.

Mr. Turnbull took up the story again. ”Anyhow, there was some sort of scandal, and Mae divorced Mr. Creighton and hightailed it out of town with Herman. They wound up in Texas. The story goes that Herman's mother hunted them down and dragged poor Herman back to Belleville by the ear, an' that was the end of that.” Mr. Turnbull punctuated the moment by spitting out a stream of chewing tobacco.

After the laughter died down, they went on to talk about Nanny's father, F.C. Jones. ”He practically owned this town, including the sawmill and the cotton mill. His house is right there yonder.” He pointed to a lovely white clapboard house at the end of the main road. ”That house there, with the brick. The brick's new, but that's the very house that F.C. Jones built. Yep, Mae was raised with a silver spoon in her mouth all right, but then F.C. lost everything in the crash.”

F.C. Jones's house, where Nanny was born

No wonder Nanny never lost her bloodl.u.s.t for money, marrying time and time again hoping to land a gold mine. Never happened.

When I told them that Nanny wound up having six husbands-as far as we knew-and that when she died at eighty-one she was dating a forty-year-old jazz musician from Redondo Beach, California, they didn't seem surprised.

Mr. Turnbull pulled me aside and asked me if I was related to ”that gal on TV, Carol Burnett, 'cause I know Mae is related to her and some Meltons, too.” I told him, yes, I'm her daughter. A few minutes later Duane joined us, saying, ”Hey, did you know that the Meltons and the Joneses are related to Carol Burnett?” To which Mr. Turnbull replied, ”Who's that?” and winked at me, never giving it away. I gave his arm a conspiratorial squeeze and bid them thanks and good-bye.

As it was Sat.u.r.day the hall of records was closed, but the cemetery was right around the corner and ”some of them Joneses and Meltons are buried there.” So off I went.

It was a beautiful spot, and generations of local families are buried there. I paced up and down the rows of markers, some so old they were unreadable. A gravedigger was working on a new grave, so I didn't disturb him. I couldn't find a Melton or a Jones, so I got back in the car, prepared to head back out of town. The gravedigger waved at me, so I stopped and rolled down my window to say h.e.l.lo. ”What are you doing here, young lady?” I told him I was looking for some family and mentioned their names. He said, ”I know where they are, but it's not here. They're in another cemetery 'bout three miles up the road.” I hesitated for a moment and he said, ”Just follow me!” and jumped in his truck heading through town and up the most beautiful hill, surrounded by big land with homes set back off the road, cows, etc. The sun was about an hour away from setting, so the light was absolutely gorgeous, everything looking magical.

He took me to a cemetery at the top of a hill overlooking a valley and the hill we'd just crossed. He got out of his truck and introduced himself: Logan White. When I told him F.C. Jones was my great-great-grandfather, he turned me around and had me look out over that incredible view. ”See that valley? Remember that hill we just went over? Well, that's called Jones Hill, named after F.C. He owned just about all this land between here and Belleville.” I told him I wished that land was still in the family!

Logan had a great scratchy personality (comes with the job, I suppose) and we found Henry Melton's grave immediately. Henry had been the rich one, and I gathered that Nanny's ”boy toy,” Herman, may have been a bit of a ne'er-do-well, as Mr. Turnbull told me that when they were kids Herman gave him and his brother some homemade wine that he remembers to this day.

”That good?” I asked him.

”Nope. My head hurt so much the next day I couldn't put my hat on!”

We hunted around for Herman's grave to no avail. But F.C. Jones was there. Plain as day. Born 1854. Died 1933. Next to his grave was the headstone belonging to Hubert O. Jones, son of F.C. and Dora Jones, who died when he was fourteen, playing baseball. The baseball had hit him hard in the chest and he dropped dead on the spot. F.C. had run out to the field, picked up his son, and cried out to the crowd, ”I'll give all my money to anyone who can bring him back!” His heart was broken. The inscription on Hubert's headstone read:

Remember friends as you pa.s.s by

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so you shall be

Prepare in life for eternity

Then Logan asked me if I was related to you, and when I told him yes, he said that his wife had written a letter to you years ago, talking about the family, and that you had written her back a real nice note. He told me about the Jones legacy, how the town folded in the crash along with F.C., how Mae is famous to this day, and on and on.

Mr. Turnbull encouraged me to retire to Belleville, but not to live there now when I'm so young. There's no money to be made there. But it's a nice town, he said. And I know that to be true. All the folks I talked to, including the mayor (Mayor Kenny) and his wife, Mary, were so open and free with information and stories, telling them like only southerners can, and especially Hill People.

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