Growing Up Southern August 17, 2017

I remember his picture hanging in my grandmother’s house, actually her second husband’s house. Her first had died when Mother was three.

I didn’t think much about ancestors as a kid. How many do? When her husband died, my father built a house for “Mama Rogers.” She brought the photograph with her and lived next door to us until she died.

Nobody wanted the old photograph. They put in behind the sugar barrel in our grocery store, and it stayed there for 15 years ago. Nobody wanted it.

Then I got married to a woman who appreciated such things. We took the picture and still have it.

Great Grandpa is leaving the house today. It’s time. I’ve had him for nearly 40 years. I even became interested and researched his life as best I could.

His name was William Coats, Reverend William Coats, they called him in his obituary. He was born 28 May 1829 in Tennessee somewhere. He traveled from Shelby with his father Sanders Coats to what was then Bradley, now Cleveland County. He married Anna Elizabeth (Ryburn) on 27 May 1855. He died 18 September 1897 and is buried in Friendship Cemetery. He served the CSA in Co D., 26th Arkansas Infantry.

That unit marched around a lot. From Cleveland County, Arkansas the boys somehow got to Northwest, Arkansas and were held in reserve at the Battle of Prairie Grove. They saw action at a skirmish near Greenwood, at Devil’s Backbone. Then they came back and took part, as I understand it, at Jenkin’s Ferry.

His daughter married a man whose father served in a Union Cavalry regiment. When I asked my grandmother once if that wasn’t odd, she said, “Why no, Papa was a Democrat and Mr. Harris was a Republican.” I guess that explained it all. She also told me how Great-grandpa Coats had told her that the most danger he encountered was getting home after the war. Roving bands he called “graylegs” preyed on men traveling. Returning home after the war was hard. Some things never change.

He died suddenly of a heart attack. His obituary stated that he always wanted to be a preacher but couldn’t afford to because of the pressures of supporting a family. He had married, as noted earlier, Elizabeth Ryburn, now a well-respected name in the county.

His obit said further that he was well-respected in the community and “never took part in a neighborhood brawl.” Don’t ask. I sometime wonder if that was a sort of coded message referring to the KKK. As Hemingway said, “It’s pretty to think so.”

I finally contacted a distant cousin who still bears the Coats name. He seemed delighted to have the photograph and has sons to pass it on to. I’ll hand Great Grandpa Coats over to him today. I think he’ll like his new home.