COUSIN MARY LIN CH MCKNIGHT'S MEMORIES
OF HER GRANDMOTHER

The following is from  handwritten notes  found in an old dresser that  Henrietta Louise Linch Freeman   purchased from her first cousin, once removed,  Mary McKnight's estate. 

Mary Fluellen Linch ( born January 23, 1880 and died November 20, 1971 ) was the wife of Carl Cameron McKnight. They had no children.

Memory paints a romantic picture of my Grandmother Tench's  ( Martha Elanor Gray - born October 18, 1815 and died November 08, 1890 ) Coweta County home. Coming from the less primitive social life of South Carolina ( Abbeville area ), she strove to create a home setting similar to her old home. The result was a colonial home large and airy of rooms with a stair case going up from the front hall. From the back veranda you mounted another stair to two rooms interconnected with the other four upper rooms. Still another stair case brought you, with surprise, through a door into the dining room. Under this last stair was a little closet that was never bare of gingerbread or cookies. I can smell the alluring spicy smell still.

Across the road in front of the house was a majestic grove of chestnuts and oaks. The home was situated upon a hill, at whose feet ran a little stream, and at but one other place have I heard the Thrush, Feral Gardens, and mocking birds songs ring with a deep throated reverberation as tall trees make a vaulted roof to raft it back.

I save the gardens, vegetables and flowers for the last because they were the best loved. The vegetable garden so different from ours today, boasted well tended walks bordered with thyme, sweet marjorie, sage, hohound, and cat nip. The big bed of blooming asparagus and the patch of celery adjoining were of interest, as were the yellow and red June apples, the green grapes and mogual  plums, and the several varieties of figs and pears etc.

The central  walk in the flower garden was made of white rocks with white sand in the entrance and all the walks were bordered with lavender or rose-rosemary with an inner circle of jonquils, daffodils, small sweet yellow narcissi and better and eggs. One walk wound around to the summer house twined with a glowing cross vine there traversed a sunny spot where flamed the Lankocler rose that Great Great Grandfather Fluellen  ( Thomas Fluellen ) had brought to America.

By the fence Holly-Hocks stood stiffly-at attention as though waiting marching orders,  snapdragons, made merry with pretty by night, and columbines.

Oh! the exotic thrill of the perfume of the first little white roman hyacinth."

There was a hallowed spot, a stones throw from the back steps, where slept my sainted Grandmothers Mother  ( Elvira Flannagan Gray ) and her own young husband  ( John Henry Tench ). Encircling the sacred spot was an ivy covered rock wall. ( Tench Cemetery ).

In the parlor stood a Fischer Spinnet piano, the first piano in the county ( Coweta County, GA ). Scalloped covers over chairs and a friendly looking horse hair davenport that the look of invitation was deceptive, for no sooner did a child accept a seat than he found vindictive little pricks in bare legs. The curtains were brought back by large opalescent glass much like those we use today. The personality of the house owner is inevitably woven into this comer of the house.

My Grandmother was very hospitable and humanitarian Once during the war ( War Between the States )  a company of soldiers asked for food and she said " I have only meat and bread, and Captain said that is sufficient, so three women fried six hams and still other women cooked accompaniment of biscuits.

One summer the Negro children were stricken by an epidemic of scarlet fever. My Grandmother converted the big airy upper rooms into a hospital for 32 little suffers and so successful were her ministrations that there were no fatalities except among the children left in the quarters with their parents.

Another instance of her resourcefulness was demonstrated when a soldier boy of sixteen staggered from his horse, fainted at her feet.  She discovered that the blood was gushing out as his heart beat so she and her daughter Mrs. Smith ( Elizabeth Susan Emily Tench ), for six hours took turns pressing upon the wound so it couldn't bleed until a doctor arrived. The lad stayed three months with her convalescing.

The notes added in parentheses are by Al Franklin.

My first cousin, twice removed, Mary McKnight was an educated lady and her writing shows her eloquence and the definite love of her Grandmother.