Who Was Clemmie Gum?



Land near the old Baugh farm in Old Millersburg



     Clemmie Gum(m) was born Clementine W. Baugh on April 25, 1857. Although she would one day give birth to a boy named Frank Avent Gumm, and come to be known as Judy Garland’s grandmother, back in the 1850s she was just a little Southern girl, growing up on a farm. 

     Early in my research, I realized that if I was truly to know who Judy Garland’s father was, I needed to know about his mother. For a while it seemed her history had been lost to time. But Clemmie was born before the Civil War and died in the 19^th century, long before Judy was born; she seemed of another time and not at all connected to the Gumm/Garland family.

     So who was Clemmie Gumm? When I began my research, I pictured Clemmie as the sweet, sainted mother who died too young. Frank was eight when she died. I wondered if Judy reminded him of his mother. Yet as time went on, I found that Clemmie was far from perfect and often not at all likeable. 



Joseph Lawrence Baugh,
Clemmie's oldest brother.
Joe was someone she
later relied on when
in trouble.



     Clemmie was the youngest child of Mary Ann and John Baugh’s brood of eleven. Her oldest sister, Caledonia, died as a child. By the time Clemmie was born, her oldest brother, Joe, was already married and several other sibblings were courting. Her closest sibling, Charlie, was six years her senior. For the first five years of her life, she was the baby of the house.

      The real surprise about Clemmie was that she was crippled. This information came to me through an 1893 court case regarding her mother’s will. In her testimony Clemmie, “Mrs. Gum,” refers to herself as “afflicted.” A doctor also testified to the fact that she was born with this condition. It was also stated that her disability hindered her from doing much in the way of physical work or staying on her feet. Whether this “affliction” was a kind of scoliosis or a complete inability to walk is unknown.



Clemmie Baugh Gum's eldest sister, Bettie
Baugh White. Taken at the end of the war,
you can see the pain and hardship she has
suffered. Bettie seems to have been
protective of Clemmie.
(courtesy White Family,  Vol 1)



     Often, during my research, I wondered about Clemmie’s appearance.  Was she fair with light, golden hair and blue eyes or was she dark-haired with dark eyes? Studying the features of her siblings, half were fair and the other half dark. As of yet, no pictures of her have been found.

     Clemmie’s parents had come to Tennessee from Virginia when they were quite young. Her father worked hard to earn money to purchase land and slaves. At the time of her birth, the family owned approximately 300 acres of land and 32 slaves. A good portion of these persons were children of the original African-Americans the family had purchased at auction or through other members of the family. After the war, a few of these persons stayed on with the family.



Clemmie could have been
a little girl, very much like
this child. (Taken Oaklands
House Museum Civil War
Reinactment 2005 (c)
Michelle Russell)



   Clemmie was five years old when the Civil War broke out. The family was living in Old Millersburg at the time, a small community, just southwest of Murfreesboro, nestled among the hills. During the early part of the war, Clemmie’s elder sister, Mattie, died after giving birth to a baby. Clemmie’s mother, Mary Ann took the baby and Mattie’s son, Rollie Howland, into their home. The baby died, but Rollie, who was about three at the time, remained with them until he was sixteen Clemmie and Rollie grew up like brother and sister. She called him “Buddy” and he called her “Sister Clemmie.” However, as the years passed, it seems Clemmie grew to resent Buddy. He was very smart and her mother loved to brag about him. This irked Clemmie no end. She  found fault with Rollie often enough and seems to have been quite jealous of him. 



     While there are no eye-witness records of what the Baugh family experienced during the war,  there are enough records about the small area they lived in to imagine what they experienced. I was also able to find peole whose great grandparents had lived there during the war and who shared with me stories handed down through the generations.



One battle was fought just outside the Baugh home.
The children must have been terrified. (Photo taken
Oaklands House Museum reinactment.
(c) Michelle
Russell



     When the war began, the women bid their men folks goodbye, imagining that they would back in a few months, claiming victory against the Union. Although a few men remained behind, the women were basically in charge of the children, slaves and the farms. Eventually, the battles of the war moved west to Tennessee. The Union realized that Tennessee was a key state because the railroad ran through it, carrying goods from north to south and east to west. In 1862, one of the largest and most important battles of the war was fought in Rutherford County. After that, the Yankees never left. Yet, even before this, both Union and Confederate troops rode out to local farms and took whatever goods they could find. Frequently, families found they were short of food. Young Clemmie must have known a great deal of hardship as a young child.

    Clemmie was eight at the conclusion of the war. When she was ten, her father purchased a large house in Murfreesboro for them to live in. When she was thirteen, he died suddenly. A few years later, Mary Ann Baugh took daughter Clemmie and grandson Rollie to stay on her deceased father, Benjamin Marable’s farm. It was here that Clemmie met Will T. Gum, the man she was to marry.

  

    Will T. Gum must have been a handsome young man. He and Clemmie put their dreams together. Because of her disability, it seems Clemmie’s family assumed she would never marry. In addition, the question remain as to whether Will Gum married Clemmie for her money, hoping to have an easy life. In the long run, their life was quite difficult. But that story is for another time. It is told in my book, “From Tennessee to Oz, Part 2.”

     With all the difficult times that Will Gum had, and all the apparent gossip about him, Clemmie would never say a bad thing about her husband. She always stood up for him. Her gratitude to him for loving and marrying her was great and she was forever faithful to him.

     During the eight years of their marriage, Will and Clemmie had six children. Their first child, a girl, died at birth. She was followed by one girl and four boys: Mary, Robert Emmett, Frank Avent, William Wade and Allie Richardson. No doubt, the birth of all these healthy babies, considering Clemmie’s condition, was looked on with great surprise by some of her siblings and others. Clemmie maintained a rather feisty attitude toward anyone who had anything to say against she or her husband.

    Clemmie’s mother, Mary Ann Marable Baugh, with whom they lived (the same house her father bought after the war), died in 1892, at the age of seventy-nine. Following her death, the family went to live in a small three-room building which Mary Ann had willed to Clemmie. Will was not able to support them and three years later, on October 28, 1895, at the age of thirty-eight, Clemmie Baugh Gum died.

     During the years of my research, I worked very hard to try to find the cause of Clemmie Gum's death. I thought perhaps the descendants of the doctor who treated the family might have left some records but received no answer to my quiry. There were not notations as to the cause of her death in the family Bible either. I learned that many funeral homes kept records that included 'cause of death.' There was one big funeral home which would have handled Clemmie, but which had been split between the two owners. I tracked the information given on them and finally found a phone number for them. I held out hope that at last I would find an answer, but alas I was told that in 1960 all their records had been burnt. All that history was lost!

     Meanwhile, I learned that cemeteries also sometimes had notations. Again, I learned there had been a fire and all the original records were gone. So many dead ends. Rutherford County had not required death records until 1913; it was rare to find any record for cause of death. Some of the main causes at this time were: influenza, tuberculosis and diseases of the stomach. It is anyone’s guess as to why she died.

     Hard as I tried to like Clemmie, I found that she was not always likeable. I found her to be jealous, somewhat selfish and, as her mother grew older, mean to her. Her disability and the frustration and pain she had may have caused some of this behavior. Clemmie lived a good, but sad life, and as we know, gave birth to a young man with a great sense of humor and a beautiful voice. Knowing what a likeable young man Frank Gumm was, and what a beautiful voice and great sense of humor he had, we can only guess that some of these qualities came from his mother, Clemmie W. Gum. 



In my next blog, I will introduce you to the Baugh family, and give some hint as to the excitement that kept me on this journey of discovery for eight years.





Frank Avent Gumm in Grand Rapids,
Minnesota when he was about
thirty-two years old.
(courtesy Judy Garland Museum)

Visit Catsong Publishing