Edith Hunter Sims (1908-1996)

 

About 1979. Edith Hunter Sims (1908-1996). According to my genealogy software we are 1/2 first cousins, twice removed. At the time we met, in the 1970s Edith and her first cousin Eric "Joe" Hunter were the only living grandchildren of our ancestor Jason Henderson Hunter (abt 1817 - abt 1885), who was mine and my generation of Hunter first cousins great great grandfather.

For a few years she and her Joe came to the Hunter Reunions in Marietta and the bigger Hunter Reunion in Blairsville. Then she brought her two sons. One son was a big game hunter and owned a chain of saloons across the Southern United States. I think he told me his restaurants were decorated with his hunting trophies, such as deer heads, elk heads, and whatever. The other son was one of the founders and vice president of Holiday Inn. He lived in Memphis, and later retired and moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and bought his own bank.

One time Edith and her two sons were here the day before the Reunion and they wanted me to drive them around in their plush rented car and visit my uncles. At one uncle's house, who lived in an average income house, after we had a cordial visit, back in the car, the son who owned the bank reach for his beer, found it was warm, he lowered the window and toss the can onto my uncle's front lawn. That said a lot of how he probably felt about us.

A few years later Edith had a stroke and was blinded. When I was with Anna on a business trip to Memphis I drove to Jonesboro, Arkansas, and looked up her grave. She is in a big plot with the rest of her family and parents. I looked for Jason's grave in the same huge graveyard but could not find it.

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