Bonus: James Priestley Breeden and Ida Eugenia Reed (children of couples 9 and 10)

[Mom's paternal grandmother's parents]

[Sarah Obeira Breeden > James Priestley Breeden and Ida Eugenia Reed]

James Priestley Breeden
Birth: 28 September 1875 Erin, Houston, Tennessee, United States
Death: 31 DEC 1926, Weakley, Tennessee, United States

Ida Eugenia Reed
Birth: 9 June 1877, Dresden, Weakley, Tennessee, United States
Death: 07 Aril 1953, Water Valley, Graves, Kentucky, United States

(Original notes composed by Linda Shanklin Jackson)

JP was  really good-natured and easy-going.  He was quite a large man, as well.  Ida was tall and thin-- a good-looking woman. She was also very talented and had a cultural bent.  She was very active in the community.  At the Weakly County Musical Convention, held May 4-5, 1895, with Chapel Hill Church.  Miss Ida Reed (18) gave the keynote address written by T.E. Sawyer, and participated in the program. She sang a solo "Give Freely Give",  in a duet with a quartet chorus "Good Bye Old Home", and "The Tinmaker" in a quartet. 

...( you could give a few quotes...how clear did your copy come through?   It is small print but actually it would be nice to transcribe the whole keynote address..just to imagine her presenting it..

James Priestly and Ida Eugenia were married 16 January 1896 in the parlor at Ida's home in Ruthville, Weakley, TN.

They had six children. Sarah Obeira (1898-1971), Lena (1899-1919), Gertrude (1902-1903), Joseph Linzie (1904-1972), Ralph Edward (1911-1978), and Mattie Elizabeth (1917-2005).  Lena died tragically of pneumonia as a newlywed.

The Breeden Children and others: Frank__, Oberia, Lena, Linzie, Roy, Ralph Breeden, Roy Ray Oscar Jess Atkinson. (NOTE: Need help with the caption here.)

                In the words of her own sister, Mag ( Margaret Louiza Reed) Hall, who was 10 years younger, " Ida was the most wonderful person in the world!"  Helen, Mag's daughter, told me that Grandfather Priestley was a big man and he had a beard.  He was a big tease.  She said all the kids would go down to their house at night and JP would tell them ghost stories, so that they went 'goosepimples all over'.  He was quite a story teller, and they would sit around eating popcorn.  He would scare them so much that they didn't want to go back home!

                Armed with a friendly attitude, JP was always carrying bums and salesmen home with him for Ida to cook for - she just put her food out and everyone sat at her table at one time or another.  J.P. and Cecil Hall (his brother-in-law) ran a store.  Cecil also worked on the railroad, as a second job.  J.P. had diabetes, the complications of a heart condition,  which was probably not helped by the fact that he 'could eat a half of a coconut cake in one sitting."  Not a great combination.  He died at 51 years of age, New Year's Eve (31 December 1926).  The day he was buried was the coldest, rainest day.  The wagons kept getting stuck in the mud.

                After J.P. died , Ida was only able to keep the 'homeplace' (Weakley County 17th District, on Ridgeway School Road, which has been renamed Country Club Road, Fulton, Tennessee) for six years because she couldn't pay the mortgage.  This was when Mattie Elizabeth was 15.  After that Ida started doing practical nursing, staying in homes with small babies for a fee.  She lived with Ralph and Helen (her son's family) for awhile, then with Mattie and Claude.  Mattie said when she came to live with them she was 52 and 'just fit right in'.  She also said that when she came to stay with them, she was 52, but looked older then, than when she later died at age 76.  She also stayed with Everett and Obeira alot.  She was really a hard working woman.  She died of cancer.