The children of Jasper and Annie Hall included, from left to right, Sherman, Big John, Sarah Meadows, Jim, Rachel Webb, Bob, Lulu Campbell, and Carter. The identity of the child is unknown. This photo was made before 1950.
The children of Jasper and Annie Gipson Hall
Since Robert Jasper “Bob” Hall was born in 1904 as the youngest child of Jasper Hall and Anna Rosinda Gipson, nearly all of his siblings were dead before I ever saw them. The only ones I remember are Sherman and Sarah. Robert Jasper was 22 years younger than his oldest sibling, Rachel, and that, combined with the fact that his father, Jasper, died in 1904, has greatly complicated the research.
The children of Jasper Hall and Anna Rosinda Gipson were:
1. Rachel A. Hall, born 22 Feb 1882 (Gladys Hall) or 1888 (gravestone), probably in Pickens County. She married Lee Webb between 1920 and 1930, and died 23 May 1950 at 62 or 68 years old (Who the heck is Gladys Hall? See the index).
In the 1900 census for the Talking Rock District of Pickens County, Rachel is listed as Rachel Hall, daughter, and her daughter, Maud (Maude on the gravestone), is listed as Maud Hall, daughter, born February that year. Maude was mentally retarded.
The 1910 census for the Oostanaula District of Gordon County lists Rachel Itson with two grandchildren, Maud 7, and Grady 2. Their father never appears in the records with her and it is not known if they ever married.
What about Maude? The records are confusing. She is listed as a daughter of Rachel's father Jasper Hall in the 1900 census, but an Itson after 1910. Grady, however, was not born until 1908. Is Maude the elder Itson’s child? There are no Itsons listed in the 1900 census in Georgia, and none in 1910 that fit, but given the poor nature of some texts and some interpretations of them, they still might be there.
Rachel, Maude, and Grady are living with her brothers Sherman, Carter, and Bob in the 1920 Plainville census, but Rachel is without a husband.
In the 1930 census, she has married R. Lee Webb, with “Maudie,” but Grady is not with them. He has married a woman named Willie B. and is living in GMD 956 in Bartow County (this district is just east of Adairsville and includes Folsom and Pleasant Valley). He is living one house away from his uncle Carter Hall and his family in the 1930 census at one end of the “Cartersville & Pleasant Valley Road” (I believe this may be “Hallville”). Grady Itson died 21 February 1985 in Bartow County at age 76. Maude, who apparently never married, died in 1962. Her grave marker says she was born in 1901, but that conflicts with the census records. She is buried next to Rachel in the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church Cemetery adjacent to Bethel T. and Gladys Hall Smith, and Robert Jasper and Pearl Grace Hall.
In 1930, Rachel and Lee are living next door to Jim (James) Hall and Annie Buttrum on Trimble Hollow Road in Lily Pond, Gordon County, with John 7, Fannie Lou 20 months (looks like 1-8/12), and Clarence four months, plus Maudie Itson, 29, along “Bob H.” Hall 25 (Robert J. or Papa Hall who was 26 (He was born in February and the census was taken in April).
I know nothing else of Rachel.
2. Walter Hall, born1884, probably in Pickens County. Walter is not listed in the 1900 census or any others, and must have died. His nephew still living did not remember any mention of him.
3. John Hall, born 1886, in what looks like February in the 1900 census, probably in Pickens County. He was called “Big John.” He was a farmer and worked in a sawmill. According to family sources, he was close to 80 when he died, but I can find no certain death record for him. He married tree times. His first wife was a woman whose name is not presently known, but I think she was called Eddie Lee, and they had a son, Grover L., whom Papa Hall was friends with. He later married a woman named McIntyre or McEntyre, and finally Pearl Meadows or Medders, and they had Gordon Lee, Betty Earl, another girl, and Bradley Starter. Grover was born 9 April 1906 and died on 20 March 1982 just before his 76th birthday. He had a son by his first wife who became known as "Chain Gang Bill."
According to his nephew still living, Jim got up one morning and built a fire in the stove, got his wife up to fix his breakfast, and went back to bed as he always did. When she went in to tell him his breakfast was ready, he had died of a massive heart attack.
Big John kept a red metal can on the back of the kitchen wood stove. Everyone thought it was kerosene that he used to start a fire, but it was moonshine. He would take a drink first thing in the morning, then build a fire. He would take a drink at night, too, right before he went to bed, but he never drank otherwise.. He was never known to be sick a day in his life.
According to a family story, when he was very young, Bradley “Coobie” Starter was known for taking off his shoes on his way to school and going to school barefoot. He hid them in a bush by the road. When he was confronted about it, he said he did it because, “I don’t like shoes.”
4. Alexander "Elic" or "Elis" Hall was born 27 August 1887, probably in Pickens County. He may have been named for his mother’s brother, Alexander Gipson. He married Ida Hollingsworth, date unknown, and died 19 January 1944 in Plainville. His death certificate lists his age as 53 at time of death, but he was 56. Ida was born in Alabama on 12 April 1886 and died 31 December 1978 at the age of 92, according to death and SS records. Her father was born in Tennessee and her mother in Alabama.
In the 1910 census for the Oostanaula District, Alex, 20, and Ida, 21, have two children, Mary 1, and Marvin, three months. Alex cannot read or write.
In 1920, they have moved to the Watters District (Shannon) in Northeast Floyd County, Georgia. “Alexander” is 32 in this census and Ida is 33. Their children are Zula M. Hall (Mary) 11, Marvin C. Hall 9, Eva V. Hall 6, and Charles E. Hall, 2 years, 11 months.
In 1930, they are still in the Watters District. Alex Hall is listed as 50, but this appears to be a misreading. Ida is 44, and they have four children: Marien (Marvin S.) 19, Eva 16, “Jean” a male same age as Charles E. (Eugene?), and Hugh, 8. I believe Hugh is the Hugh W. Hall listed in the death records as passing on 09 April 1951 at 30 years of age. I believe this Hugh Hall is the one my mother was referring to when she told me as a young child that “Hugh Hall has died.” I walked with her from our home Rush Chapel Road above Shannon to the “stripéd store” on Highway 53 on the long straightaway. Papa Hall failed to pick us up, however (his car may have broken down), and we had to walk home. It was a hot day, and at my very young age, it was an ordeal since my mother had to carry my sister, who was 17 months old. It is a distance of a little over a mile one way, but at age 3 or so, that is infinity.
One of Alex’s son, who I have yet to determine, had two unusual nicknames: “Preacher” and “Satan.” He was called Satan Bill because he was really mean to his wife, Alice Kinsey, and beat her and his kids. One day he was caught beating his wife in a ditch on the side of the road. That night a cross was burned in his yard and he was warned never to beat her again. He didn’t. According to his grandson, he and Alice had three boys. One was George Arvil “Jabbo” Hall, who died in 2007 at 70, and one had the nickname “Nig.” He got killed when he was young, about 18. A woman shot him in the back seat of a car in Texas. They had four other children, whom I have omitted because I do not know if they still live.
Bill worked for the Plainville Brick Company until it closed, when he retired. He lived on Brickyard Hill, on the right going south on old Plainville Road. He worked at night at Trend Mills in his old age.
The “Preacher” nickname may have reflected his behavior after the cross-burning, especially in his old age. “I loved my pawpaw,” one of his grandaughters-in-law told me. She remembers sleeping in his storm shelter as a child.
Alice died in 1998. She was 77 or 78.
5. Lillie Hall, born 1890, probably in Pickens County. She is listed in the 1900 census, but does not appear in any other records. She may have married or died before 1910.
6. Sarah Lee Hall, born July 1892, in Pickens or Gordon County. She died 16 April 1984 in Gordon County, age 92 (death certificate no. 012393).
In the 1910 census at Oostanaula, she is living with Annie and most of the family. She is 17 in this census, which was taken in April (this census listed age based on the last birthday before the census).
In the 1920 Plainville census, she has married John O. D. Meadows, 39 (born 1881), and their children are Floyd O. 16, and Pearl A. Meadows 12, and Dewey Hall, 8, a stepson. His nephew still living said they had two other sons, Richard and Ellis. Both Richard and Ellis served in the Navy in the Korean Conflict.
John Meadows was born in Georgia, but his father was born in Ireland. His mother, Charlotte E. Jones, 60, is living with them in this census. Charlotte’s mother was born in Georgia, but her father was born in Virginia. Intriguingly, they are living next door to an Edward Gibson (28, born in Texas of parents born in Georgia) and his wife, Ruthie, and four houses down from Robert A. Hall, 35, born in Georgia of parents born in Georgia, his wife Alice L. (born in Georgia of parents born in Georgia), Joseph two months(?), a stepson Leroy Foster 5, and a brother John W. Hall, 33. Robert and John W. are the children of George W. Hall. Jasper Hall, Papa Hall's father, is said to have had a brother named George Washington Hall. A George W. Hall married Eda Elizabeth Gipson in 1883 in Gilmer County. Eda Elizabeth was the aunt of Anna Rosinda Gipson, Jasper's wife.
A search did not find John and Sarah or any of the children in the 1930 census.
Dewey is a curiosity. He is listed as a John Meadows' stepson, but Sarah is not known to have married anyone before John. She would have been 16 when Dewey was born in 1912. It is possible that she married after 1910 when she is living with Annie & etc., but why is he named Hall? Is he illegitimate? He doesn’t appear in the 1930 census records. He was said to have been “slow.”
“But Dewey was smarter than most people gave him credit for,” his nephew still living told me.
Once Dewey bought two mules, one of which would bite you on the butt if you turned away from it. He told that mule, if you keep biting me, I’m going to bite you back. One day, the mule bit him, and Dewey chomped down on his ear. The mule “took him around the barn two or three times, hanging onto that mule’s ear, and when he turned it loose, that mule didn’t bite nobody else.” Dewey had brought blood.
On time, Dry Creek north of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church on Mosteller Mill Road in Bartow County flooded and threatened their house. They moved in temporarily with Bob. They waded the creek, with their shoes strung over their shoulders.
According to her nephew still living, Sarah made quilts up until she could not sew any more. Sarah used to watch my Papa Hall’s kids when he needed a babysitter. She would put the irons by the fire and the kids would iron her quilt pieces for her.
John acted like a real old man when others could see him, walking with a cane, but was spry and would twirl the cane when no one could see him.
When he was 80, his brother Carter’s youngest son who was “always trying to get something on people,” asked John, who had quit smoking, “Uncle John, how long did it get until you got to where you didn’t want a cigarette any more?”
John replied, “Well, son, I can’t tell you because I ain’t got there yet.”
The nephew then asked the same thing of “a little snookie.”
Jim’s answer was the same, but he added, “But it’s like a cigarette. It don’t last a minute and then it is gone.”
When Sarah got real old, and unable to take care of herself, she lived with Papa Hall's son Bud. She later asked to go to a nursing home.
When Ellis went in the Navy, he got paid in silver dollars, and sent two home to his parents. According to his nephew still living, Uncle John could not wait to get to the store to spend his, but Sarah kept hers. She said time and again that that silver dollar would buy the hose she would be buried in. A niece by marriage wanted to buy her silver dollar, but she refused for that reason. When she was dying, she got the silver dollar out and gave it to her niece to buy a pair of hose. She said, “Now, I give you that silver dollar to buy hose with, but if you take it and put a dollar back, I still bought my hose with that silver dollar.”
Her nephew still living said she was a good woman, but she had her ways. She wanted everything done her way.“She was like all of us Halls; she was a little stubborn.”
In her old age, Sarah had a drawer in which she kept only things that she wanted to be buried in.
7. Sherman Marion Hall, known as "Sherm," was born 13 August 1893, probably in Pickens County. He married Lillie Mae Harris, date unknown. His WWI draft registration card lists his birth year as 1895. He was probably born in Pickens County.He died 14 January 1975 at age 81 in Floyd County (he was living in Bartow). His obituary was published 15 January 1975 in the Bartow Herald.
After the family moved to Gordon County sometime between 1900 and Jasper’s death in 1904, Annie became the head of household and was listed as such in the 1910 census. After she died 23 December 1919, Sherm became head-of-household.
In the 1920 census, he is listed as head in a household that includes Carter, James (Jim), Robert J., and Rachel, Maude, and Grady Itson.
By the 1930 census, he has married Lillie. She was born 24 December 1903 in Gordon County and died 13 February 1971 atthe age of 67. Her father was Tom H. Harris and her mother was Para Lee ?. They had four children, some of whose names I know, but I do not know who among them is still living, so I have omitted them.
Sherm and his family once lived in an old weathered farm house on Pleasant Valley Road (on the left going east) in an open field. The field is not far after the road tops the ridge beyond I-75, and has been replaced with one of a couple of brick homes that belong to descendants of Elijah Sparks, whom several family members either worked for or rented from. My recollection is that he and his family also lived in the first house on the left on Holcomb Road in Pleasant Valley, just beyond the church, a house that was rented by several Halls. Her nephew still living could not remember Sherman living there, however.
Sherm actually looked a little like General Sherman in his old age. He was wizened, although pretty short. He shaved only once a week, on Saturday night. I have never heard anyone say why he is named Sherman, which had to be an unusual choice for a Southern boy. I remember his wife, Lillie Mae, as a friendly woman, and I think she was as short as he was. I also remember wondering as a boy at the house they lived in, which I think only had two rooms, because it was bleak looking, uninsulated, and had no indoor plumbing.
One day when Sherm was living in the house on Pleasant Valley Road, Papa Hall confused him while they were pulling timbers out of the woods. Papa had a horse that was smaller than Sherm’s, but his horse pulled timbers out of the woods and Sherm’s larger horses wouldn’t pull. Papa Hall had to go back and get Sherm.
“Papa had hollered at the large horses and they wouldn’t pull. Mules don’t care, but horses balk when they are hollered at,” his nephew still living said.
Later, Papa, who lived nearby, could hear Uncle Sherm “holler at them horses all day long, but daddy would keep plowing and never said a word,” according to his nephew still living.
8. Lula Bell Hall was born either 2 March 1896 or 3 May 1897 (the 1900 Pickens census says March 1895), probably in Pickens County. She married Emozar Haywood Campbell when she was very young (a family web page says they married in Gordon County on 21 March 1910, so she was 12-14. She died 8 February 1966 in Bartow County at the age of 69-71. Her obit in the Bartow Herald, 10 February 1966, says her father was named Joseph and not Jasper.
In the 1910 Oostanaula District census, she is living with Emozar in the household of John A. Dowdy. They are six houses from Annie, Sherm, and the rest. She is listed as 15 and he is 21.
In 1920, she is living in Plainville with Emozar, and in 1930, they hae three children: Jewel (Inez) 9, Claude W. 7, and a sibling still alive.
Emozar’s parents were John C. Campbell 1866-1934, and Linda D. Crump 1867-1948, according to a family webpage.
I know nothing else about her.
9. Carter V. Hall, or “Cart” was born May1898, probably in Pickens County. He married Daisy M. Reese (born 1903 and died 14 June 1974 at about age 71). Carter died in 1952 at about 54 years of age. Both are buried in the East View Cemetery, Adairsville. I couldn’t find his obit.
They had a son named Carter W., whom I met in Adairsville. He was called "C. W." He lived on Pleasant Valley Road for many years, a short distance from town. Carter W. Hall was born 4 January 1928 and died 9 January 2005 at the age of 79.
In the 1910 census for Oostanaula, Carter V. Hall is living with Annie, and in 1920 he is living with Sherman.
In the 1930 census, he has married and moved to GMD 936. Carter is listed as 31, Daisy 27, and they have two children: Fain 5, and Carter W. “C. W.” 2.
Paul Fain was born 26 December 1924 and died 28 August 1973. He is buried near the rest of the family. His grave has a military marker that says “World War II/ SK3 U. S. Navy.” He was called “Big Fain.”
Carter and Daisy also had a child die at birth, Edith, born and died 5 January 1924, although her foot marker near their graves says “Sister.”
10. Ruby Hall, born January 1900, probably in Pickens County. She is not listed with the family in 1910 and may have died young. Her nephew still living did not know anything about her.
11. James Clarence “Jim” Hall was born in 1902, either in Pickens or Gordon County. I don’t know when he died, but I think he was still alive in my lifetime.
In the 1910 census, he is living with his mother Annie, and in 1920, he is living with his brother Sherman et. al.
In 1930, he has married Annie M. Buttrum, older sister of Gladys Hall's mother Pearl Grace Buttrum, and is living on Trimble Hollow Road in the Lily Pond District of Gordon County. As noted elsewhere, in 1930, Jim Hall, 28, and Annie Buttrum, 17, plus a son John 7, Fannie Lou 20 months, and Clarence four months, Lee and Rachel Webb, and Robert Jasper Hall are all living together on Trimble Hollow Road nine doors down from the Buttrum family. Also, Lewis Campbell and Mamie Buttrum Campbell, Annie’s sister, are living next door to the Halls, right next door to two Trimble families. The Trimble house sits immediately east of 1-75 on Trimble Hollow Road near Adairsville, Georgia.
Annie’s birthday was 29 September 1912, so if John is her son as the census says, she got pregnant when she was 9! If he is not her child, as this suggests, is he a child by a previous marriage? Or is his age simply listed wrong, which is not uncommon in the census records. However, there are two death certificates in the records for John Halls that suggest his age is correct:
•John W. Hall, died 31 July 1981 at age 59 (born about 1922). He died in Floyd County, but was a resident of Gordon. The death certificate no. is 032333.
•John J. Hall, died 26 October 1987 at age 65 (born about 1922). He died in Bartow County, and was a resident of Bartow County. His death certificate no. is 037948 . I suspect this is John above.
I met “Aunt Annie” once or twice, when she was well on in years. She lived in “Hallville,” which is an area just south of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church on Pleasant ValleyRoad. She was living in a mobile home just down Mostellers Mill Road on the right. After her husband Jim Hall died, she had a husband named Wesley, whom I remember, who was much younger than she was.
She, Jim, and Grandma (Fannie Mae Carnes) Buttrum, once lived in a two-story ramshackle house a short distance down on the left. I remember it from the 1950s. It was reduced to a one-story afterwards, but it now gone. This is the house at which my father made Grandma Buttrum laugh out loud (See the chapter on “George W. Buttrum and Fannie Mae Carnes”). Charles and his wife once lived for a time in a trailer across the road on this same property Annie did. I think most of that property belonged to Roy and Sadie Hall, both deceased. Roy is a son of Jim and Annie. There is a death certificate for a Roy Hall, 49, died 30 November 1983 in Bartow County.
Other children included Melvin and Clarence, but I think there are more. Melvin married a Redd (her name started with an L.).
12. Robert Jasper Hall, born 1904. For more on him, see the page on Bob and Pearl.
According to Gladys Hall, there was a child born between Jim and Bob that died. Gladys is also the only source of information on Walter, Lillie, and Ruby. Gladys had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Hall and Smith families and her information has proven to be remarkably accurate.
