The Rowan Tree   Roan-Rowan Family Stories Page 4

Excerpt from an article by Brenda Rowan Graves

From an interview recorded in 1995 by Brenda Rowan Graves with her brother George Washington Rowan who is the second son of Chester Newton and Nancy Rowan.

He recalls what he remembers as a child and what he and his family went through in those days.

George recalls that both Samaria Franklin Oliver (father to Nancy) and his family and George Washington Roan (father to Chester) and his family lived in Sand Valley.

He recalls as a child that he and his family would go up an old wagon road ,the old Sheffield Gap Road. Located now just off of highway 431. He remembers going up the hill and having to stop to let the mules rest and put big rocks behind the wagon wheel to keep the wagon from rolling backwards down the hill.

Grandmother Rowan (Sallie Sarah) lived in the homestead until it burned and daddy "Chester" rebuilt it in 1926.

When George was in his early school years Willie Bell (younger sister to Nancy) still lived at home with papa Samaria in the homestead with the rest of his youngest children and with grandma (Mary Adaline Atwood Oliver). Bill Champion is the last person to live in papa Samaria's, homestead

In the second house that George recalls living in, he was 13 and that would have been in 1935. He recalls that his father sold that house to his uncle Louis (brother to Nancy).

He remembers Willie Bell and himself going to Carlisle School and that they had to walk to school each day which is over four miles one way .

In the third house that George recalls living in there was a spring in the pasture. The family lived there until 1946, he remembers the house was a white weather board but now over the years it had changed it is now an old green siding.

The fourth house he recalls is the last house to belong to Chester and Nancy. They built this house together in 1946. It is the home where most of there children grew up and where they both lived until there deaths in 1974. This is the same house which papa Samaria shared with them after grandmother (Mary Adaline) pasted on. He lived there until he went into the nursing home where he died.

We noticed that the Attalla Water Plant is now the location where George, Brenda and there brother’s and sisters used to swim as children. And there use to be a second little water hole where George use to fish as a child.

Off of highway 431 is a beautiful spring where we would go to get fresh water. We stopped by there and now it is full of wood trash.

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