Wild and Crazy Stories

When I returned to Tennessee in 2004, it was not for a week. This time I was going to stay and dig deep into Judy Garland’s family history. Her father, Frank Gumm, was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and lived there until 1910 or so. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Frank never lost his connections to Murfreesboro. He visited the town numerous times, bringing his wife and three little girls back to meet the relatives and see where he had grown up. Yes, Judy Garland, Baby Frances Gumm visited Murfreesboro. In fact, she sang there at the age of two and a half.

C.B. Arnette

When I arrived in Murfreesboro this time, I settled with my computer and three cats in the Knights Inn, a small hotel on the highway just down the road from the old part of town. My acquaintance, C.B. Arnette, a man in his eighties who once ran an auction house, was known by everyone and knew everyone, had offered to help me find an apartment and find my way around.

A day or so after arriving, C.B. came over to my motel and said, “I’d like to take you for a ride.” After a big breakfast where I learned that people in Tennessee ate grits and gravy for breakfast, we headed out in C.B.’s truck on one of the highways leading out of town. Suddenly, C.B. swerved and we were riding across a field. Whoa!

Less than ten years ago, you could go to Murfreesboro and, with a little help, find areas that had not changed in 100 or even 200 years. Since then, much of the land has been sold; old roads are gone and so are many of the ancient trees and houses. In any case, C.B. was taking me into the past.

We arrived at a grove of trees and an ancient log cabin that likely had stood there since about 1810. My companion was looking for historic doors, furniture etc. The owner of the property had passed away and, soon, the land would be turned into high rise apartments for the students of MTSU.

While we were there, another gentleman pulled up and said he had been promised the old cherry tree; its wood was worth a fortune, but scavengers taken it already. This was my first touch with the past. I could feel it, smell it, touch it. But it was not the last adventure of the day.

Soon, C.B. and I were back on the road. After many miles; once again, he turned off the main road onto land that had no road. It was a shock to my city mind. As we bounced up and down on the furrows of land, I asked him what we were going to see. He said there was a piece of property for sale and he wanted to check on it. Shortly, we pulled up before an ancient iron gate held by two stone pillars. It looked like something from old England, like Miss Havisham’s property in Great Expectations. There was a plaque at the entrance.

“Get out and read what it says,” C.B. told me. I did. The plaque on the stone pillar read:

“This property has been in three states, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. The topmost log on the house was placed there by Andrew Jackson.” 

My mind was blown. Yes, before Tennessee was Tennessee – we are talking before 1793- it was the Southeast Territory, held first by Virginia, and then North Carolina. So, Andrew Jackson had been here. Wow! Andrew Jackson was here in Rutherford County and also in Knoxville. Likely, Judy Garland’s great, great, great grandfathers had met him. There weren’t that many people in Rutherford County back then.

The property came with quite a bit of land, a huge log house, some smaller buildings and a church. Driving onto the land, I asked C.B. if I could get out and look into the house. I climbed up onto the porch and looked in the windows. I couldn’t see much. There was no way to get down, no stairs or railing, so while attempting to ease myself off the porch, I fell head first into some stickery bushes. This was rattlesnake territory and I was terrified. There I was, stuck head-first in the bushes at an odd angle, my heart pounding and I could not move. I just prayed there were no snakes nearby. Obviously, I lived!

The view from my apartment.

During the next week, C.B. introduced me to a friend of his who had an apartment building. He said his friend owed him a favor and thus I was able to rent an apartment, despite the three cats. We were ensconced on the edge of town on land that had once been a small estate. Another wards, atmosphere. Now I was ready to get to work.

In October, Curry came for a visit. You may recall that she is a distance cousin of Judy Garland’s and had done years of research of her own, thus giving me a head start. After her arrival, she spent the early morning hours comparing old maps of Murfreesboro to the maps of today and trying to find the family’s old farms. It was not an easy task, but it was still possible because at that point there had only been a few changes to the land.

Early land Curry and I discovered.

One afternoon Curry and I went hunting for Rev. Henry Hartwell Marable’s property. He was the great, great, great grandfather of Judy Garland, the first relative on Frank Gumm’s maternal side to arrive in Rutherford County. Apparently, he had a tremendous voice because until his death at 83, he was a well-known preacher.

Curry and I drove around looking at this and that area. There was one huge tract of land we thought might be part of the old estate. It was becoming more real now. But Curry wanted to see where the house had been, or see if there was another way in. We stopped on a small lane, before a piece of property with a wide green lawn and a pond and got out to go look at it. All of a sudden a woman showed up. “Who are you?” she demanded. “I was just about ready to get my shotgun.”

With Curry on another adventure in
the area known as Christiana / Old
Millersburg. That's Dr. Lyons'
property. You will read about it
in Part2 - where Rollie and his wife
stay on Christmas.

Well, yes, we were in the south. Explaining what we were doing, the woman was very nice to us and suggested people we might contact. However, we learned, they don’t mess around in the south!

In the future, I would meet many wonderful, generous people who were happy to share some of their Tennessee heritage. You see, the names of the people in the town of Murfreesboro then, were the same names there 150-200 years ago and so I was speaking to the descendants of the people who were there with the Gumms, Baughs and Marables.

Coming in December – It seems time that I speak some about the Civil War and there is no better time than Christmas. I did not know it when I first traveled to Rutherford County, but Murfreesboro was the site of one of the worst battles and most significant battles of the Civil War, and it all took place only days after Christmas.