Hopson Cemetery

In 1998, Mother and I visited several members of extended family lines (Ritters) in Washburn, TN, and they were very helpful in telling us details and stories of family history. They also showed us where specific cemeteries were for our Rucker, Kitts, and Hopson families, and that same year, we went to the Hopson Cemetery for a reunion.

My great-great grandfather, David Ross Hopson, was born December 25, 1825, in Dutch Valley to Carolyn (Lively) and Jesse Hopson. David’s father Jesse was born in 1800 in Wake County, North Carolina, to Sara (Bunch, daughter of Ann and Martin Bunch) and Harrod Hopson. Harrod, the son of Richard Hopson, was born in North Carolina in 1778 and died before 1870 in Claiborne County. Sara divorced Harrod in 1835, and he later married Prudence (Henderson) Cunningham, the daughter of Elizabeth (Maples) and Isaac Henderson.

Oral history states that the Hopsons were traveling in a covered wagon with all their belongings, looking for a place to start a living but not knowing where to stop, when the old man Hopson died of pneumonia fever. His wife buried him and never continued their intended journey, settling nearby the cemetery that became the Hopson Cemetery we know today.

Hopson Family

This photo includes my grandmother Margaret Jane Hopson (seated far right) and her parents William and Mary (Rucker) Hopson (seated far left). Standing in the back on the left are Mamaw's sister Eliza, her brother Greenlee and his wife, holding their youngest child. Greenlee's other two children are also in the picture, but I don't know who the rest are. Can anyone identify them? (Note what appears to be a little stuffed poodle held by Greenlee's son. I wonder whether this is a photo made on the day of a family trip to the Stylesville fair, as described in the blog post about Mamaw's memories of Indiana.)

William Harrell Hopson was born February 22, 1862, to Eliza Jane (Rosenbalm) and David Ross Hopson in the Dutch Valley area of Washburn, Grainger County, Tennessee. Mary Isabell Rucker was born April 13, 1868, to Minerva (Jordan) and Samuel Rucker also at Washburn.

Mary and William were married about 1883 at Washburn and lived and farmed at Powder Springs, Tennessee, and about six miles from Amo, Indiana for several years. Willaim Harrell Hopson died June 10, 1921, at Powder Springs, and Mary died September 30, at Luttrell. Both are buried in the Hopson Cemetery, which is in an area called Oakman, near Washburn, Grainger County, Tennessee. .

Rucker Farm

My beautiful great-grandmother Mary Isabell (Rucker) Hopson (left) was born April 13, 1868 to Minerva (Jordan) and Samuel Rucker at Washburn, Grainger County, Tennessee. Minervia's mother was a Harvey. Minervia had a brother named Jack Jordan.

Mary Rucker Hopson is shown here at her brother's farm with her sister-in-law Mary, who married Dewitt Rucker (Mary Rucker Hopson's brother). Confused?

According to oral history, Mary's father Samuel Rucker put wood in the fireplace, then lay down on a sheep skin rug, and called, "Minervia!" but by the time she got to him, he was dead.

My mother, Wanda Lee (Kitts) Loveday was with her grandmother Mary Rucker Hopson, who was in the bedroom cutting out material for an apron when she just fell over. My grandmother and Gladys Merritt (Chet Atkins’ mother’s sister) were in the garden picking greens, when Mother went out to tell them about her grandmother Mary falling. Mary died that day, on Mother’s sixth birthday, September 30, 1930.

Margaret Jane (Hopson) Kitts' brother Greenlee

My mother's mother's family lived in Indiana for several years, but they eventually settled back near Washburn, TN, when Indiana began the practice of embalming the dead. My grandmother's father, William Hopson, wanted no part of that, and it wasn’t the norm yet in Tennessee! Mamaw said she was so sad and disgusted to come back to the hills, partly because she couldn’t stand up on the rough terrain and was constantly ruining her pretty stockings! She had also left behind a serious boyfriend, Gilbert Rhea, who was studying to become a doctor and wanted to come get her when he finished school.

Mamaw’s older brother Greenlee Hopson and his family continued to live in Indiana even after his parents and two sisters returned to Tennessee. Greenlee was a dapper young man who served as the local postman with his horse and buggy in his younger years.

Margaret Jane (Hopson) Kitts' school days

My grandmother, Margaret Jane (Hopson) Kitts (center of circle), was a delightful lady with a twinkle in her eyes. She enjoyed telling stories from her childhood, which was spent divided between Tennessee and Indiana. When she was quite small, her family moved to Indiana but came back to Tennessee for a while before her father, William Hopson, sold their Washburn farm and went to a rented farm in Indiana, where her father's sister America Melvina and her husband Eli Sevier Branson also lived and farmed in or near Jamestown.

There in Indiana, Mamaw enjoyed things like taking her doll on Saturdays and riding with her friend Ruth Woods and Ruth’s older brother Arthur in his car, the first in the area, to the town of Amo. Mamaw was always on the move and enjoyed going to church, school, etc., but a few of the services of town, such as peddlers and the physician Dr. Enoch Idle came to them by horse! Sometimes she would take a buggy and her mid-sized, feisty pony, Nell, and drive herself to town. It was that little mare’s colt that was later gored to death by their oxen Berry and Ben at her ill Uncle Jess Hopson’s home, when the community gathered there to get his wood in before winter after he’d had a stroke and was partially paralyzed.