Fifth Generation

10. Joseph Magruder Tucker was born on June 14, 1883 and died on August 23, 1951. On November 29, 1906 he married Ida Pope Majors. He was the son of William Tucker and Annie Elizabeth Watkins.

I don’t know much about Joseph Tucker’s childhood. I know he attended school, but I don’t know if he went to college. He probably helped his father run his grocery store in Ripley, TN. I have seen this area before. I don’t know what it is like today. The Tucker grocery was nearby Berg and Shafer which might still be in business. The daughter of the owner was Betty Berg, my grandmother’s best friend. They were Jewish and are among the prominent familes of Ripley. I have stayed at Miss Betty’s house which is above the business. The Tucker’s lived in another home which we have a picture of. Joseph, who was known as Joe Tucker married Ida Pope Majors when he was 23. They quickly had 6 children. In 1910 he worked as a mail carrier according to the census. At some point they lived with his brother-in-law in Arkansas, probably to help with his business and then after the brother died, Joe and his small family returned to Ripley where he ran his own business. He either ran or helped run a Lumber Mill and later owned a car lot. My grandmother told me how her father gave her a car when she was only 14 years old. His wife became very ill around 1919 and had to be hospitalized. She gave birth to her youngest child, Frances in 1920. Ida Majors Tucker spent the rest of her life in a hospital. The newspapers of Lauderdale County record that Joe and family went to visit Ida often. He hired a Mrs. Harris to take care of the children in her absence. She died in 1925. Joe Tucker was said to have a great sense of humor. He did a lot of work in his community and became mayor of Ripley, TN. During WWII all five of his sons served in the war doing different kind of work. He died in 1951

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11. Ida Pope Majors was born in Ripley, TN on January 4, 1885. She died on April 11, 1925 in Bolivar, Hardeman, Tennessee. She is the daughter of Marshall Daniel Majors and Ida May Landrum.

Ida’s mother died when she was young and she was raised by her Aunt Minnie Bacon. I still have an original letter written by her to her Aunt in 1898. She wrote well and was well educated. I think she might have learned a little Latin. She lived on her father’s berry farm outside of Ripley, TN and would help pick the berries for supper. She had pets and loved her pet chicken Henry. She had quite an amazing sense of humor and was full of imagination. I don’t know much about her older teen years but I know she attended school. She married Joe Tucker when she was 21 and my family still has a copy of their wedding invitation. She was close to her family and had her brothers live with her or she and her husband would live with them. She had her six children quickly. By the sixth she became so ill that she was put in a hospital. As doctors were unfamiliar with women’s health, she was treated as insane. We still don’t know the full nature of her problem. Joe Tucker tried desperately to help her and probably on the advice of doctors she was put in an insane asylum which was a normal thing to do to women at the time. In the Lauderdale County paper there are reports of other women who were sent to “Bolivar” because they were “ill”. There she contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of 40.

My grandmother doesn’t remember her much, but kept a picture of her on her wall. Once when she thought she was dying she kept looking at the picture of her mother and saying first that she would soon meet her mother, and then to her dad’s picture she said, “I will see Daddy again!” Of course she was fine, but I have never seen someone so excited to die. She had a close family and she is the last one left. She can’t wait to see them on the other side and finally get to know her beautiful witty mother, Ida Majors.

The children of Joseph Magruder Tucker and Ida Pope Majors

1. Joseph Magruder Tucker Jr. 1907-1987 Married Agnes Foust

2. Landrum Sylvanus Tucker 1910- 1986 Married Helen Roberts

3. Marshall Majors Tucker 1912-1992 Married Justine Perkins

4. John Randolph Tucker 1915- 1989 Married Cornelia Helen Hill

5. Matthew Tucker 1919-1996 Married Jean Smith

6. Frances Tucker 1920- Married Lt Col Charles Henry Lee Sr.