Fifth Generation

Parthenia Elizabeth Lomax was born on April 2, 1882 in Linden, Perry County, Tennessee and died March 17 1965 in Trenton, Gibson County, Tennessee. She was the daughter of James Russell Lomax and Mary Jane Richardson bith of Perry County, Tennessee.

Her father was a farmer and she was raised among her many cousins.  She was the eldest of ten children. She had four sisters: Ethel, Minnie, Matilda, Annie, and and five brothers: John Franklin, Jospeh Elsberry, Henry Thomas, Ellis, and Jacob Earl. Ellis was born in 1898 and died at the age of two.

“Partheny”, as she was known, married William Albert Burns on May 3, 1902 when she was 20 years old. Her first daughter, Ila Ruth, was born a year later in 1903. Unfortunately, Ila died when she was only a month old. Parthenia Burns waited two years before having Olive Pearl.  In 1907 she had Lena Irene, my great grandmother. Two years later she had Lora Mae and then after moving to Gibason County, Tennessee in 1912 had Hattie Lugenia, known as Lugenia. It seemed like they were trying to have a son. Two years later she had Russell Albert Burns. Finally, she took a break from having children. She didn’t have Mary and William Wallace until 1921 and 1923.

I don’t know much about her right now, but I hope to remedy that soon. I think the family’s strawberry red or even red hair and huge sparkling blue eyes come from her.  The traits from Parthenia Lomax and Albert Burns appear to be very dominant in my family.

I do not know much about Parthenia Lomax, but I do know a lot about her family tree which is very old.

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William Albert Burns was born on 25 February 1884 in Linden, Perry, Tennessee. He died on March 11, 1971 in Jackson, Tennessee. His mother was Sallie Burns who married a John French in 1872, but were mysteriously no longer living together by 1880. We don’t know who Albert Burns’ father was. Sallie was the daughter of Guilford Burns and a woman named Tabitha.

Albert Burns grew up in Perry County, Tennessee on farms. He was a farmer all of his life. He had two four sisters, Laura, Alice, Nancy, and Virginia, and two brothers, George and Oscar. All but Nancy and Virginia went by Burns. Nancy and Virginia had French as their last name.

When he was 18 years old he married Parthenia Lomax also of Perry County, Tennessee. The next year their first child, Ila Ruth, was born. She died a month later.  He continues to farm in Perry County until around 1910 when the family moved to Gibson County, Tennessee.

He and Parthenia had the following children:
1. Ila Ruth Burns 1903-1903
2. Olive Pearl 1905-2000 married Stylon Dodson Proctor
3. Lena Irene 1907-1968 (my great grandmother)
4. Lora Mae 1909-1951 married Jesse Hillard Bell
5. Hattie Lugenia 1912-2002 married Richard Calvin Dycas
6. Russell Albert 1914-1976 married Thelma Warren
7. Mary Ruth 1921- married William Mayes
8. William Wallace 1923-1995 married Lila Palmer

William Albert Burns was known as Papa Burns to his grandchildren and great grandchildren. Since he died in 1971, my mother and grandfather have many great memories of Papa Burns, (that I wish they would tell me more of:-)

Here is one story shared by my grandfather, James Etheridge:

Papa was a farmer all his life and I best remember him when he lived about five miles west of Trenton, Gibson County Tennessee.   Papa had always farmed with two mules and a plow and the maximum land that he could farm this way with help was 40 acres.  When Uncle Wallace was in his late teens, Papa decided that to expand the farm, they needed to buy a tractor which Wallace would drive.  Some time after the tractor was bought, Papa decided that he should learn how to use it on the farm and to use it to pull his wagon into Trenton to pick up supplies.  He and Wallace went out into the pasture, took the tractor which was a Model H John Deere.  This machine used a hand lever as a clutch.  Papa was shown where the brakes were, (each rear wheel had a separate brake pedal which were joined as one with a metal bar that locked the two pedals together.  Wallace then pushed the hand clutch in  and stepped off the rear of the tractor.  Around the pasture went Papa and as he came around where Wallace was he began to say Whoa and of course the tractor kept going.  No amount of whoa’s would stop the machine.  Wallace then ran, jumped on the rear of the tractor and pulled the clutch, stopping the machine.  Papa got off the tractor and never set foot on it again.  He never learned to drive nor ever had a car.  He would hook up his team of mules to the wagon and make the 5 mile trip into town for his supplies.  He knew that he could stop that team when and wherever he wanted.

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