Anna Letitia Hearne (1865-1952)

My Maternal Great Grandmother

Anna Leticia Hearne, the daughter of Simpson Columbus Hearne and Francis Christiana Carlton was born in Palmetto, Georgia in January of 1865 (or as she loved to say in “the yeaah of the surrenda”). As a young child her family moved to Opelika, Alabama and then on to Paris, Tennessee.  She studied music at Peabody College in Nashville and later earned money teaching piano lessons. 

In 1886 at the age of 21 she married a doctor, Charles Weldon Rodgers, who had graduated from Vanderbilt College. Her father gave them a home on a farm in Como Tennessee as a wedding gift and her husband set up his medical practice there.  She had known her husband since childhood referring to him as “Cousin Charley” until they married after which point he became “Dr. Rodgers” because she felt “his position called for respect.”

[Photo: Anna Letitia Hearne]

Anna gave birth to eight of children, two of whom did not live to adulthood, in the Como farm house her father had given her. Her family called her Mimi. 

In the 1900 census two servants, a 30 year old farm laborer named Jim and a 25 year old cook named Mattie lived with the family. In the 1910 census the servants were gone but her 81 year old mother-in-law, Martha (a three time widow) had moved in with the family. 

[Photo: The family home in Como Tennessee taken by my mother in the 1980s]

Anna’s oldest child, Mary Alice, was born in 1888.  After finishing high school she left home to work her way through college and eventually became a librarian at the state Library of North Carolina. There she met and became engaged to Howard Tillitt but later broke up the engagement saying he was better suited for her younger sister, Rosa Judson.  Alice introduced the two of them and lived just long enough to attend their wedding.  She had been in bad health for several years. She died at the home of her parents at the age of 33 on October 24, 1921 of unknown causes. Her obituary described her as being sweet and lovable.

In 1890 Anna gave birth to a son, Harry Parker. Harry died of cholera several weeks before his first birthday.

Anna’s second oldest daughter, Rosa Judson, was born in 1893 and was named after her two aunts, Rosa Charlton and Effie Judson.  Rosa was my grandmother and her story is told elsewhere in this website.

[Photo: Alice Rodgers (1888-1921]

Anna’s son, Carlton Hearne, was born in 1897 and named for Anna’s parents.  Anna liked to call him her gypsy boy because of his thick black hair and eyebrows. He was her favorite child. Hearne wanted to be a doctor just like his father but first worked to assist in getting his younger brothers an education. He graduated from Georgetown College in Kentucky, spent one year at the University of Pennsylvania and then went on to Louisville School of Medicine in 1925. 

He worked long hours to fund his education and even sold his blood to pay for educational expenses. He was an intern at City Hospital in charge of the ambulance and also worked as night superintendent of the receiving ward.  He’d study long into the night and then call his fiancée who would take him for long rides to help him relax. 

During his senior year he received a job offer from Witt’s Hospital at Duke University and his dream of being a doctor would be realized when he graduated in June.   Six months after graduation in January of 1929, at the age of 21, he was struck down by acute hepatitis complicated by pneumonia and tragically died.  His fiancée had been very devoted to him and continued to send flowers to his grave long after he passed. 

{Photo: Rosa and Howard in 1921]

[Photo: Rosa, Howard and Bettie Anna in 1927]

Rosa got a job teaching 5th grade at the elementary school where she continued to work until she gave birth to their only child, Bettie Anna (my mother) in 1927.  Rosa wanted more children but her husband, who was 10 years older than she was, felt he was too old to have any more. 

[Photo: Rosa with Bettie Anna in 1828]

Anna’s son, Charles Weldon Jr was born in 1899.  He moved to Louisville Kentucky where his Uncle Robert Hearne got him a job working for the L&N Railroad.  He was married to Bessie Rice in the 1920s.  Bessie had a child that didn’t survive and couldn’t have anymore.  After her death in 1968 he remarried Estelle Barnes.  Estelle said he was very difficult to live with.  They were divorced, remarried and then separated again.  In the end she came back to take care of him when he was dying of prostate cancer. He died in a nursing home at the age of 80 in 1979 without ever having had any children.  !

[Photo: Weldon at Grove High School in Paris, Tennessee in 1921]

Anna’s son, William Gordon, was born in 1902.  According to his widow, Leila Owen, when Gordon finished high school his parents gave him a new suit of clothes and from then on he was on his own. He and his older brother Hearne had planned to become doctors and go into practice together. They agreed that Gordon would put Hearne through medical school and when Hearne became a doctor he in turn would  pay for Gordon’s medical education. When Gordon was at Georgetown College working on his undergraduate degree, he slept in an overnight parking garage and waited on tables for his meals. He delivered newspapers and worked in a greenhouse for his tuition and books. 

When his brother died, the dream of being a doctor died with him.  He got a job working at Proctor and Gamble and worked a grueling seven day a week pace for ten years, while at the same time working as a co-owner of a miniature golf course.  The work overload caught up to him and he had a mental and physical breakdown and moved in with his sister, Rosa, to recover.  

[Photo: Gordon at Grove High School in Paris, Tennessee in 1921]

When Gordon felt better he used the money he had saved to buy a hardware store in Canton, North Carolina.  Rosa introduced him to a teacher, Leila Owen. Leila was the daughter of missionary parents in China.  The Owen family lived in China during the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising against foreigners during which 200 Western missionaries and 32,000 Chinese Christians were brutally killed. At one point Leila and her family were evacuated to an American Consulate river boat for safety.   When her parents returned to America they were destitute and weakened by health issues and did not live long.  Gordon and Leila were married in 1934 and had two children, Rebecca Hearne and William Gordon Jr (“Buddy”).

Gordon was a generous man with a big heart and was always there to support other members of his family – he helped pay for his brother Hearne’s medical school tuition, his widowed mother’s living expenses, his sister Rosa’s new home, and his brother Douglas’s medical and living expenses.   Gordon sold his hardware store in 1962 when it became apparent his son had no interest in the business. He died five years later of pneumonia complicated by emphysema in 1967 (he had been a heavy smoker most of his life). Leila moved to Newport News, Virginia to be closer to her children and died there at the age of 90.

[Photo: Leila Owen, wife of Gordon Rodgers, from her college yearbook ]

Anna’s last son, Robert Douglas, was born in 1905.  He was badly burned as a toddler and did not walk until he was four years old. At the age of 19, he left home to work for the L&N railroad like his brother Weldon.  He did not keep the job for long and worked for a while for Greyhound Corporation.  His brother, Gordon tried to set him up in business three times – a traveling grocery, a chicken business and a greenhouse – but still Douglas struggled.  At one point he worked in a liquor store but quit after he was shot twice in robberies. 

He married Ruth Maureen Boyd in 1928 and they had a child that did not survive. They were not able to have any other children of their own, but they kept foster children from time to time. Maureen had a “nervous condition” and the foster care agency decided she was too unbalanced to keep the children.  At some point she attempted suicide by shooting herself.  As a result she lost an eye and from then on she wore an eye patch. Douglas relied on his brother Gordon’s financial support to make ends meet for most of his life.  After Gordon died my mother also sent him money to help him. Douglas died in 1982 of leukemia in Louisville Kentucky. Maureen died at the age of 92 in a nursing home in 2001.

[Photo: The only photo I found of them was their gravestone with sad blank space that will never contain a third name]

Anna’s last child, a daughter named Charlotte, was born in 1908. I found a brief article in the “Parisian” a Paris Tennessee newspaper that reported on June 25, 1920: “Little Miss Charlotte is seriously ill at the home of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. C.W. Rodgers.” Five days later her obituary appeared. After a three week illness twelve year old Charlotte died of “fever.” Her heart wrenching last words were spoken to her mother: “Oh mother, if I must go I want you to come with me." She was buried next to her infant brother Harry.

[Photo: Charlotte and Harry on a shared tombstone in Maplewood Cemetery in Paris Tennessee]

 In 1929, in the same year that Anna lost her son Hearne, her husband was struck down with bronchial pneumonia with complications due to an enlarged prostate and died.  She was quick to react. Within a month she sold the farm, auctioned “her household furnishings, farm implementation and one horse” and moved in with her daughter Rosa Judson and son-in-law in the small mountain town of Andrews North Carolina. She had approached her three sons as well but they all three had been unable or unwilling to take her in.

Anna was a tiny woman but had the reputation of being a “firecracker.”  She had her own bedroom on the first floor but felt the space was too small to accommodate her needs.  Without seeking anyone’s approval she brought in a contractor to tear down walls. Her daughter and son-in-law were stunned when they came home to view the damage but had no choice but to complete the construction because of the advanced nature of the project.  Later, another room with a bath was added to the first floor at Anna’s insistence because she wanted the maid to live close to her instead of on the second floor.  The maid wanted no part of it and refused to move.

[Photo: Ad for Sale of Anna’s household goods after the death of her husband]

Her son Gordon, perhaps to assuage his guilt for having refused her request for housing, sent her money every month to help with her support.  Anna kept this revenue source a secret from her daughter, Rosa, and deposited it into her own personal savings account without saying a word.

As an adult she wore size two shoes and her granddaughter, Bettie Anna, fell in love with her “satin shoes with the velvet bows and kitten heels” and was disappointed at the age of ten to realize her feet would not fit in them. Bettie Anna nicknamed her grandmother “Pudge” for reasons unknown, and the nickname stuck. Anna tried to teach her granddaughter to play the piano, but she was too strict (“your arms must stay in a fixed position and no melodies until you learn the etudes”). Her short lived  lessons were not enjoyed by either party.

Anna kept a radio in her room and loved to listen to soap operas.  She particularly loved the book “Gone with the Wind” and when the film was announced, there was endless discussion in the household about the book and who would be selected to play what role.  When the film was released in 1939 the family made a 110 mile pilgrimage over winding country roads to Ashville North Carolina to see the movie at a cost of 25 cents per adult and 10 cents per child.

The family’s fortunes changed in 1940 when her son-in-law Howard died suddenly of a heart attack.  Rosa went back to school to finish her master’s degree at Peabody College and then relocated to Statesville, North Carolina in 1943 for employment.  Their grand home in Andrews was sold and the family moved into a small two bedroom apartment.

Four years later, in 1947, Rosa got a great job opportunity in Durham North Carolina and purchased a home there.   Brother Gordon, sent his sister $4,000 (in cash in $500 increments in an envelope through the US mail with a 3 cent stamp!) to assist with the $8,000 purchase price. 

Around 1950 Anna had a series of strokes and when her mind wasn’t clear she often spoke to her deceased son Hearne. She died in 1952 at the age of 87 of cardiovascular disease.  She was laid to rest in the Hearne Family plot in Maplewood Cemetery in Paris with her parents, her husband and four of her children.

[Photo: Anna second from the right in 1948 at her granddaughter Bettie Anna’s high school graduation. Others in the picture left to right my mother, her Aunt Bess, her Aunt Gid, and my grandmother]