He paid all heirs for their part of his father's old homestead, and lived on it, in the same house his father built when he settled there. He also kept the taxes paid on the balance of his father's headright of land, and saved each of his sisters a home.

He farmed for a living, and worked very hard; was a good manager and financier. He craved so much for his children to obtain a good education, that he would not keep them from school to help in the crop. He and my mother also, were too self-sacrificing for their children, but we honor them more today for it. No children ever had a happier and more peaceful home than we had. We had no fears of inviting our associates home with us, for we knew they would be made welcome, and we were free to entertain them. They wanted us to have pleasure, but always taught us to do right, for which I am very thankful.

His home was always home for all the preachers, it mattered not of what denomination. And it had always been a stopping place for travelers during his father's lifetime, as they had settled on the old Cherokee Trace [land map], over which they had moved from Shelby County, when my father was only six years old; being one of the first roads made in all the country, there was a good deal of travel over it, in wagons and horseback, and the country being very thinly settled, they would stop at my grandfathers to spend the night. And it never ceased as long as people traveled by private conveyance. After the country settled up thickly, they would send them from each side on to my father's to spend the night, and he would take them in regardless of whether or not they had money to pay for their lodging, and more often, they did not have it, or said they did not. In my childhood, I can remember of whole wagon loads of men, women and children driving up away late in the night for supper and lodging. My mother would never throw out anything left from supper; she would say -- "Somebody may come hungry before morning." Oft-times she would have to cook more supper after they got there. If they had gotten pay for it, it would not have been so bad, but I am thankful that I can truthfully say, they were not of the kind who worshipped the dollar; they chose rather to have a clear conscience and practise the "Golden Rule", also to fulfill the Scripture of -- "I was a stranger and ye took me in". Not only in this instance did they practice the "Golden Rule", but in all others during their lifetime.

A few years later, his two younger sisters -- Sarah and Cora -- were left widows, and he helped them as he had before, got schools for them and assisted them otherwise.

Not many years after this his children, one by one, began to marry and leave the dear old home -- I being the oldest, was the first. In 1890, Henry Clay Tittle and I were married. The next older sister, Ionia, and Charley Watts were married in 1894. In 1897, sister Sudie and Millidge Davis were married. My sister Della and James Bennett Jones were married in 1907. In April of the same year (1907), my sister Cora and Hugh Hicks were married. My older brother, Benjamin was married to Miss Vena Cowley in 1914. Thus all except the baby boy (Willie) had flown from that dear old home nest.