Eva Caroline
Smith
Born Mar 31,
1889 – Died Dec 4, 1988
Md September
6, 1908
Jasper
Newton Cox
May 10, 1884
– September 21, 1974
My grandmother, Eva
Caroline Smith, was born in Select, Ohio County, Kentucky, in 1889, the third
daughter and fifth child in a family of nine children. Her parents were James Thomas Smith and Sarah
Sanders. Her paternal grandparents were
Thomas Smith, (Jr.) and Catherine "Kitty" Ann Jenkins; her maternal
grandparents were Charles Sanders and Fidella Porter - all of Ohio County,
Kentucky. Eva Caroline Smith had four
brothers and four sisters. She was the
fifth child and third daughter born to her parents.
In 1908 at her parent's
home at age 19, she married Jasper Newton Cox, 24, who only months before had
been discharged from the Army after serving five years. They had grown up together in the same town,
being neighbors, and attended the Select School together. The first date they ever had was to go to
church. "Newton didn't have his own buggy, and always hired one to go
courting in. It seemed like he always
picked the wildest horse he could get at the livery stable," she told
me. "And so," she said, “they had been married 66 years when he
died in 1974 at the age of 90.
Newton and Eva Cox
had three children, Gilbert Owen who married Frances Altman;
March 10, 1977 tape: Grandmother: “Yes, I had a sewing machine. The
first one I had came from Sears and Roebuck.
We were living on a farm in Kentucky.
Eula Mae was a baby. I was so
proud of that machine.”
Every year, her
birthday on March 31 was a big event and everyone who could, came to help her
celebrate it. As long as she lived in
her own home, it was celebrated there; after she moved to Tyler to live with
her youngest daughter, it was celebrated at my aunt's home. All her children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren tried to come, if possible.
In 1988 she reached a milestone and celebrated her 99th birthday. Her three daughters gave a party for her at
Darrell's home, and as always there were flowers, a beautiful cake with
candles, and punch. We all called on her
to make a wish, to which she promptly stated,
"I hope you all live to be a hundred.
You deserve it."
A wonderful story
teller, Eva Cox recounted spell-binding stories of family happenings and
day-to-day living in an era that is gone forever. As her oldest granddaughter, I visited her
frequently to collect her life history. Though it was hard times, she made even
the Depression years seem exciting! She
left a legacy - her life history, preserved on cassette tapes over a 17-year
period, which will ultimately become the basis for my book about her life, her
parents, brothers and sisters, and her grandparents, one of whom was a Civil
War soldier. He was Thomas Smith, who
fought on the Union side, and was captured by a group of Confederates on New
Year's Day near Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1862. He never returned home from the war.
While Eva Cox did not
make much history herself, she lived through some of the most momentous years
in recorded history. Seventeen
presidents of the United States were inaugurated after her birth. Several have sent her greetings, including
one on her 99th birthday
from President and Mrs. Reagan. Numerous
wars have been fought, won and lost.
My grandmother's
early Kentucky tales recall the family smokehouse, making syrup and soap,
moving from their old log house to a new two-story log house built by her
father when she was five, home chores, her brothers and sisters, play parties,
church activities, and her courtship and marriage. Her tales filled many pleasurable hours for
our family members while sitting out on the back porch, or after a special
Sunday dinner while sitting around her dining table.
She told many
stories to her grandchildren when they were young. I asked her once if the stories were true,
and she chuckled and said, "Some
were, but some I made up." All
of the stories, though, were very entertaining.
When she was trying to get us to take a nap, we lay on the bed and she
played little games with us, which we will always remember. Her favorite songs were "My Old Kentucky
Home," "Little Brown Church in
the Wildwood" and "Sweet Hour of Prayer." When
she lived in Kentucky, she and her sisters and families attended the old Bald
Knob Church.
Every year everyone
in the family who was home went over to her house to watch the Kentucky Derby
with her. My grandmother always tried to
watch it, and when they played "My
Old Kentucky Home" before the
race started, one time she rose from her chair and stood with her hand on her
heart. She said there was no other song
like that one; it always reminded her of her home and native state, and so it
was another of her favorites.
~~.~~
Eva Caroline Smith
Mar 31, 1889 – December 4, 1988
Darrell left me her copy of Grandmother's "Day
Book" that was written by her own mother, Sarah (Sanders) Smith, for each
of her children. (She died a year later, November 20, 1931). It was a long, thin, gray, canvass-covered
ledger book...100 pages. At the end
Sarah Smith wrote:
"June
18, in the year 1930" -- below this
date she wrote these words:
"Mrs.
Eva C. Cox, My Daughter, this Book is written in Rememberance
of
your Mother. With lots of love. Mrs. Sarah Smith."
What a great thing for her to do and she must have worked
diligently a little bit each day to make one of these for each of her eight
living children. It must have helped to
pass lonely days, and she realized how valuable it would be for each of her
children to have - "lest they forget."
She wanted them to know where their roots were. She was undoubtedly a very smart and
intelligent woman, with great common sense.
She was still telling her life stories to me, even six
months before her death. She had a
wonderful recall and memory, and a dry wit, coupled with a soft-spoken voice
that had just a hint of a Kentucky
brogue. She almost made it to her 100th
birthday; she was ill for about four months and died at the age of 99 years,
eight months and six days.
My mother, Frankie
Cox and my grandmother, Eva Cox
~~.~~
Her obituary which appeared in the Tyler Morning Telegraph on Monday, December 5, 1988 is quoted here:
"Mrs. E. C. Cox Services
Tuesday"
Services of Mrs. Eva Caroline Cox, 99, Tyler
Burial will be in Rose Hill Cemetery
in Tyler Tyler
She was born March 31, 1889 in Cromwell ,
Kentucky Texas since 1919, living in New Summerfield
for 40 years and Tyler
Survivors
include three daughters, Mrs. Darrell Appl, Tyler, Mrs. Eula Mae Smith, Leoti , Kansas , and Mrs.
Retha Green, Corpus Christi
Interment will be in Rose
Hill Cemetery
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