The Lost Generation

The Lost Generation, also called the Generation of 1914, was born at the intersection of the premodern and modern worlds. Their lives were more media-saturated and consumerist than any prior generation by a significant margin, but they could easily recall their childhood days, during which electricity, flight, and automobiles were genuinely alien things. Many men of this era served in or otherwise witnessed the First World War, an industrialized conflict galling in its meaninglessness, preceding the disorienting aftermath of mass death, influenza, urban modernity, and the Roaring Twenties.

FREDERICK ERNEST BELL. 1892–1973.     My paternal great²-grandfather. Fred Bell, known to his descendants as “Pop Bell”, was a travelling fertilizer salesman born in rural Henderson County, Tennessee, on September 10^th, 1892, the younger son of Samuel David Bell (1855–1928) and Frances Nancy Teague (1853–1895); each was the second spouse of the other, and Pop hence had eleven half-siblings, five paternal and six maternal. Though he grew up in Henderson County, he crossed the very nearby county line into Madison County and lived in Beech Bluff in early adulthood and remained there for the rest of his life; he was married to Hattie May by Rev. N. O. Stone at home in Beech Bluff at 3 o’clock on November 15^th, 1914, and was married to her for the rest of his life. Together, they raised two children in Beech Bluff: Ed (1916) and Kitty (1918).

Later joined in his work by his son Ed, Pop was a travelling fertilizer salesman for Federal Chemical Company; his territory was in Corinth, Mississippi, as well as Alabama and elsewhere, and he frequently received postcards from the friends he made there. He left on Monday mornings in a car and was out for a week. He sometimes took fishing poles on a rack on the side of his vehicle and fished for crappie. Pop was known to always keep a nice car—a black 1952 Chevrolet; a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door hard-top that was black and yellow; and a baby-blue 1962 Bel Air with a blue interior. He was regarded by friends and family as sterner than his wife: quiet, gentle, very polite, and courteous, always opening the door for his wife. They both enjoyed life and were very hard workers, as per their grandchildren. He and his wife both wore hats; Pop smoked kit cigarettes, but later in life was a connoisseur of pipes, of which he assembled a good collection that was burned in a house fire after his death. Like many men of his time and place, Pop played cards in his spare time, including pinochle. He passed away in Beech Bluff on October 5^th, 1973, aged 81.

HOMER GREEN BLANKENSHIP. 1886–1961.     My paternal great²-grandfather. Homer Blankenship, known to his descendants as “Papa Blankenship”, was a West Tennessean livestock trader born in White Fern on July 23^rd, 1886, the second of the four children of William Floyd Blankenship (1859–1922) and Sarah Adeline Thomas (1860–1935). He lived in Beech Bluff and traded livestock for a living as well as maintaining a personal farm; he owned a mule barn in Arkansas and one locally in Beech Bluff. Homer married Maude Bowman in a ceremony solemnized by Rev. C. N. Mattock on February 17^th, 1906, and he had three children with her—Merdie Wilma (c. 1907–1909), Curtis Orbra (1908–1993), and Rafe Elco (1910–1983). Merdie died in childhood after eating a banana; Rafe Blankenship’s children, who told me this, also advised me that childhood deaths of obscure causes were often attributed to the last thing they ate.

Homer was a member of the Maple Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church and Woodmen of the World at a time when the latter comprised life-insurance, sick benefits, parades/drill teams, and a local social network typical of rural fraternal life. He eventually retired from the livestock trade, but continued the supervision of his farm until his stroke of paralysis on December 10^th, 1950, at age sixty-four. For the final decade of his life, he was often confined to bed in increasingly poor condition. Many of his descendants primarily remember him this way; still, he was fondly recalled by his grandchildren, who often saw him sitting under a single oak tree in his front yard in a sweater and feeding robins with ground corn. He was a “colorful character” who “never met a stranger”, gregarious and outgoing; he gave local kids nickels to spend at the general store. Bill Blankenship described him as “calm” and “gentle” as well as a fun and cordial storyteller. Details he remembered were Homer’s preference for L&M cigarettes and his wearing of a .32 automatic pistol under his left arm, probably a Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless, as a relic of cash-and-carry trade where men routinely handled money and traveled.

During the final eighteen months of his life, Homer’s condition was critical. He had a hospital bed at home and was treated by Dr. Huntsman of White Fern. After five days of hospitalization at Lexington–Henderson County Hospital, he died on January 2^nd, 1961. His long period of limited physical activity and decline upset Rafe Blankenship, who admitted to his daughter that he wished never to die in such a way. However, Rafe did encourage his children to view Homer as he was lying in repose after his death as a way to accept his passing.

MAUDE ANN BOWMAN. 1889–1977.     My paternal great²-grandmother. Maude Bowman Blankenship, known to her descendants as “Mama Blankenship”, was the quiet, industrious mother to the Blankenship family of Beech Bluff. Born in Hardeman County, Tennessee, to James Thomas Bowman (1862–1949) and his first wife, Laura Ann Evans (1866–1912), as the third of their nine children, she spent most of her life in Beech Bluff, where she was married to Homer Blankenship by Rev. C. N. Mattock on February 17^th, 1906. There, she and Homer had Merdie Wilma (c. 1907–1909), Curtis Orbra (1908–1993), and Rafe Elco (1910–1983). Merdie died in childhood after eating a banana; Rafe Blankenship’s children, who told me this, also advised me that childhood deaths of obscure causes were often attributed to the last thing they ate.

Maude’s lifestyle was frugal and technologically conservative. She always walked, never obtaining a driver’s license; never had a television, instead listening to radio shows on a radio with a four-foot antenna; didn’t have running water until Homer installed it for her; and used and heated her house with a wood-burning stove. Her hobbies included gardening and canning vegetables: she made a superb corn on the cob, farmed tomatoes and juiced them into quart jars, and cultivated green beans. She wore hats, liked to sew, preferred Clove and Beech-Nut chewing gum, worked in the local school cafeteria serving foods such as rice and oysters, and excelled at cooking. Her grandchildren recalled her as calm, polite, and quiet, neither talkative nor outgoing. She passed away on Monday, July 4^th, 1977, in the company of Rafe and Curtis; her grandchildren remember her death-day as a Sunday, however, so it is possible she was ailing the previous day.

HATTIE LOU MAY. 1892–1986.     My paternal great²-grandmother. Hattie Lou May Bell was known to her descendants as “Mom Bell”; it is as Mom that she was most remembered by the time I researched her, and so it is as this that she is primarily remembered. Born in rural Madison County, Tennessee, to mule-and-buggy mail carrier James Alexander May (1864–1929) and Mary Calvin “Callie” Adams (1862–1939), as the second of their six children, she lived her whole life in Madison County, where she was married to Fred Bell by Rev. N. O. Stone at home in Beech Bluff at 3 o’clock on November 15^th, 1914. Together, they had two children, Ed (1916) and Kitty (1918), who likewise lived in Beech Bluff. Described by their grandchildren as “the perfect couple”, “Mom and Pop” were inseparable and affectionate for their fifty-eight years of marriage.

Mom’s lifestyle was not as premodern as that of Mama Blankenship; though she, too, never obtained a driver’s license, she did own a car, and rode along with Pop on his travels as a salesman. The two were avid fishers, and their garage was home to about twenty fishing poles, some of them twenty feet or longer. They enjoyed eating them, too. Mom was a proficient cook, especially known for her so-called “corn lightbread”, a light, moist, cake-like cornbread. She was a connoisseur of grape wine and kept a shot of it at her bedside for consumption each night—when Ed took her wine away from her during a visit to Ed’s house, she literally had Kitty get her to take her home; she especially enjoyed Mogen David wine from her grandson Bill Blankenship. In her staunchly individual nature, she was described as a “firecracker” by her granddaughter Nancy Blankenship, and was talkative and very opinionated about people. Nonetheless, she was a devout Christian who studied the Bible, a hard worker, and a caring friend. Her insistence on staying with her children in old age put off Kitty, who wished not to repeat the same with her own children; Mom died in Beech Bluff on March 4^th, 1986, aged 93.