Cemetery Crawl with My Mom...

My mom wanted to put out some flowers and clean up tombstones today. I helped her. We went out to the combined Glendale, Hillcrest and Oddfellows where there are a lot of folks from Granny Wallace's side of the family, the Nerrens and Allbritons are buried. 

The stones for Granny's parents and brother Doug were coated with some kind of a fungus and a bit of mildew. We got it pretty clean but we plan to return with some heavier equipment. This will include a trimer as there is a thorny tree that has a nice spray of honeysuckle grown up between the parents headstones. 

Meet John Quilla Nerren. They called him Quiller. 

The name Quiller derives from his Great great grandfather Aqullia Nerren who was born in 1780 in Abbieville County South Carolina and died in Lafayette County Mississippi in 1848. The 1840 census shows Aqullia in Hardeman Tenn with a household of "6 free white people and  9 slaves."   Aqullia's son John was born in Yallobusha County Miss in 1803. He married Elizabeth Mooney probably in Tennessee .Apparently John made it to Angelina County and was murdered (the name of the murderer is unknown but history records him as hung the next day) at Marion's Ferry in 1852. .All Nerren's in Angelina county are descended from John and Elizabeth. They had  11 kids and the son George Washington Nerren is Quiller's father. 

Quiller married Eliza Lydia Albritton. They are Granny's parents. Quiller was a grave digger for Gipson's Funeral Home here in Lufkin. He knew everyone. After retirement he sat on the street corner in downtown Lufkin, catty cornered across from the Perry building in front of what was then the Lufkin National Bank and hollered at every one who passed. I guess everyone needs a hobby and seems like my place downtown is going to be the alley by the Angelina Hotel.  

The headstone says Liza but my mother reports all called her Lydia, her first name. 

At Thanksgiving my mother made a jello banana strawberry pineapple dessert in this bowl, given to her by Granny before she passed that had belonged to Lydia. Quiller ate out of this bowl and I do too. 

Quiller passed in 1946 and Lydia passed in 1936. My mother never knew either. 

There is some more work to do on the headstones and I have more photos. Here is the info on Nerren descendants taken from find a grave web site:

John Nerren was murdered at Marion's Ferry about 1852, shortly after he arrived in the late 1840's. The man who murdered him was found hung the following day. John and his wife, Elizabeth Mooney had 11 children, only two were born in Texas. All of the Nerrens in Angelina County are descendants of John and Elizabeth Mooney Nerren. Their children were: William C. Nerren b. 1824 in Tennessee; John M. Nerren b. 1827 in Tennessee; Sarah Nerren b. in 1829 in Tennessee m. Thomas Hubbard on 30 Dec 1850;Lorenzo Dow Nerren b. 1832 in Tennessee d. in 1915 in Angelina County, Texas; James Bolden Nerren b. 1835 in Miss. d. 1892 in Brookland, Texas; Benjamin Franklin Nerren b. in 1839 in Mississippi, d. in Lufkin, Texas in 1930; Eliza Jane Nerren b. 1842 in Mississippi, d. ca 1878 in Angelina County, m. Oliver Perry Reynolds; George Washington Nerren b. 1844 in Mississippi d. bef. 1900, probably in Angelina County, Texas; Mary A. Nerren b. 1847 in Texas, and sister S. Margaret Nerren b. 1849 in Texas, both married Hosea Penn Traweek.