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Smith, Jewell Ellen, 1915-1998

"Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt"

And on last Sunday, we laid
him to rest beside Mama in the graveyard at New Springs Church,
where he had been a member over sixty-one years.
This week when we went through Pa's personal effects, we
found a lengthy letter, the last one he had received from your
own dear father. It must have been written just shortly before
Uncle Dave's death. So I am sending it back to you all, knowing
you will treasure it. Parts of the letter are so unusual that I
made a copy for my own children to have in years to come.
I have always regretted that I never knew your father. I
still have hopes that someday I will have the pleasure of meeting
all of you kind kinspeople in Arkansas. Would that the distance
between us were not so great.

Aunt Vic took off her eyeglasses and rubbed her eyes. "And then
Cuddin Lucy just goes on to describe Uncle Lige's funeral,
and she mentions a lot of our relatives back there-most of them
folks I've never heard of. Here, Nannie, you read Pa's letter."
Mama took the yellowed, brittle pages. They rattled as she
unfolded them.


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