Josie was born in the mountains of Cowee in Macon County, NC. Her parents lived in several places while she was growing up, all in the western NC mountains. At one point they lived on the Cherokee Reservation & her father Reuben worked as the manager of the general store. Most men worked farms then and he was no exception, but he was literate and also taught music classes and sketched horses. Sarah, Josie's mother, was said to have looked Cherokee, being short next to her very tall husband who was over six feet.
Josie's mother Sarah died of what might have been a heat stroke at Hannah's Spring in southern Madison County, NC in 1882 when Josie was 14, & afterward her father reputedly told his children he didn't care if they stayed or went, so the children walked all the way back to Cowee in Macon County on foot. Her father Reuben evidently stayed in Madison County, he remarried in 1885 to Ellender Sade Shelton Gillespie, a local fiery daughter of Buffer Jim Shelton & divorced mother of several children by different fathers who were all raised by other people. Sade already had a son who may have been by Reuben because he was born about the time his wife Sarah died and Reuben was later listed as his father. Josie's brother Jim returned to Madison County and started working for John Rinehart on Meadow Fork Creek & he married John's daughter Cordelia in 1887. Pretty much all the Lindsey family moved to Madison County where her older sister Mary took up with the married and much older John Rinehart about 1888, & then her oldest sister Harriet married a local man Erastus Pulaski Russell about 1891.
Jose never married, she was said to be independent, strong-willed, irritating & outspoken. As an example, when Josie was young she gave birth to a set of twins alone under a building or shed without telling anyone; they did not survive and their burial location is unknown. Their father was said to have been John Wesley Fowler, son of Nancy Jane Rinehart Fowler & James McClure Fowler. Like many unwed mothers, Josie didn't even tell anyone she was pregnant. (related by Bertha Russell Tucker to J Richard Gosnell)
A descendant of her sister Harriet Russell wrote in a blog that Josie had been injured in the head by a fall from a horse when she was about 6 yrs old, it changed her behavior and made her quick to anger and prone to blurting out things.
Josie moved to Spartanburg, SC in the late 1890's / early 1900's with her family and worked in the cotton mills as a spinner for many years, she was living at Spartan Mill in Spartanburg in 1910-1920 with her siblings, by 1930 she & her widowed oldest sister Harriet Russell were living in Union, Union County, SC one county to the east of Spartanburg & still working in the textile mills. (Mill families often moved from mill to mill or street to street, they would often switch houses at the same mill, being recorded in consecutive city directories on different addresses but within the same block of mill houses. They would also leave the mills to go back to their mountain home until their money ran out and then return to the booming textile mills. Most of the younger mill workers stayed in the cities to work while the oldsters preferred going back to their mountains.)
Josie moved back to Madison County, NC by 1937 where she was living at the Marshall County Home, also known as the "poor house". Her nephew Rev. Garfield Lindsey then took her into his home at Spring Creek and she died at their home. It was not easy for Garfield. Josie was said to have made his wife Mary chastise Josie for making Garfield's life so miserable, but her admonishments did not change Josie's behavior. According to his great-great nephew Richard Gosnell, Garfield built himself a small room behind their house to get some peace from Josie. Josie, like many old-timers, dipped snuff, and she did not use spittoons, she spit tobacco out all over the walls in his house, & when told by her niece Althea Lindsey Cummings Martin that she was worrying Garfield & should stop, she said, "Oh, I'm not worrying him."
When Josie died on a Tuesday afternoon "of old age and meanness" *, the last of her immediate family, like many poor folks she wasn't taken to a mortuary so she wasn't embalmed, they probably went to Newport, TN to buy a casket. (Poor people often buried their own dead in store-bought caskets or homemade caskets, it was about this time that laws began being passed that required a dead body to be handled with a concern for safety so funeral homes began to proliferate.) Her funeral was held on Thursday morning. No death certificate was ever filed for her. They had a visitation for the family the night before the funeral & Jim Rhinehart her nephew was sitting on a hassock & fell off & everybody started laughing so loud they disturbed sick Garfield in his bedroom upstairs & he came downstairs & called them down about it. Garfield was not well, he had stomach cancer for 10-15 yrs before he died & lived 2 1/2 yrs after his aunt.
* as related to me by J Richard Gosnell
--Jeni
Josie had a younger sister named Nancy Clementine Lindsey who was last seen in Big Stone Gap, VA in 1903 by Rob Russell, Josie's nephew, he said he saw her and spoke to her and Clementine had a young daughter with her, but nobody in the family ever heard from her or saw her again. Josie also had a younger brother named William, he is said to have died in the 1890's, but where or under what circumstances I don't know.
Josie also had 2 surviving half-brothers by her father's 2nd marriage who lived in Canton, NC, after her father Reuben died in 1911, they did not keep in contact with their half siblings. They didn't come to her funeral. But "several hundred" other people did show up. - as related by J Richard Gosnell
Josie's mother Sarah died of what might have been a heat stroke at Hannah's Spring in southern Madison County, NC in 1882 when Josie was 14, & afterward her father reputedly told his children he didn't care if they stayed or went, so the children walked all the way back to Cowee in Macon County on foot. Her father Reuben evidently stayed in Madison County, he remarried in 1885 to Ellender Sade Shelton Gillespie, a local fiery daughter of Buffer Jim Shelton & divorced mother of several children by different fathers who were all raised by other people. Sade already had a son who may have been by Reuben because he was born about the time his wife Sarah died and Reuben was later listed as his father. Josie's brother Jim returned to Madison County and started working for John Rinehart on Meadow Fork Creek & he married John's daughter Cordelia in 1887. Pretty much all the Lindsey family moved to Madison County where her older sister Mary took up with the married and much older John Rinehart about 1888, & then her oldest sister Harriet married a local man Erastus Pulaski Russell about 1891.
Jose never married, she was said to be independent, strong-willed, irritating & outspoken. As an example, when Josie was young she gave birth to a set of twins alone under a building or shed without telling anyone; they did not survive and their burial location is unknown. Their father was said to have been John Wesley Fowler, son of Nancy Jane Rinehart Fowler & James McClure Fowler. Like many unwed mothers, Josie didn't even tell anyone she was pregnant. (related by Bertha Russell Tucker to J Richard Gosnell)
A descendant of her sister Harriet Russell wrote in a blog that Josie had been injured in the head by a fall from a horse when she was about 6 yrs old, it changed her behavior and made her quick to anger and prone to blurting out things.
Josie moved to Spartanburg, SC in the late 1890's / early 1900's with her family and worked in the cotton mills as a spinner for many years, she was living at Spartan Mill in Spartanburg in 1910-1920 with her siblings, by 1930 she & her widowed oldest sister Harriet Russell were living in Union, Union County, SC one county to the east of Spartanburg & still working in the textile mills. (Mill families often moved from mill to mill or street to street, they would often switch houses at the same mill, being recorded in consecutive city directories on different addresses but within the same block of mill houses. They would also leave the mills to go back to their mountain home until their money ran out and then return to the booming textile mills. Most of the younger mill workers stayed in the cities to work while the oldsters preferred going back to their mountains.)
Josie moved back to Madison County, NC by 1937 where she was living at the Marshall County Home, also known as the "poor house". Her nephew Rev. Garfield Lindsey then took her into his home at Spring Creek and she died at their home. It was not easy for Garfield. Josie was said to have made his wife Mary chastise Josie for making Garfield's life so miserable, but her admonishments did not change Josie's behavior. According to his great-great nephew Richard Gosnell, Garfield built himself a small room behind their house to get some peace from Josie. Josie, like many old-timers, dipped snuff, and she did not use spittoons, she spit tobacco out all over the walls in his house, & when told by her niece Althea Lindsey Cummings Martin that she was worrying Garfield & should stop, she said, "Oh, I'm not worrying him."
When Josie died on a Tuesday afternoon "of old age and meanness" *, the last of her immediate family, like many poor folks she wasn't taken to a mortuary so she wasn't embalmed, they probably went to Newport, TN to buy a casket. (Poor people often buried their own dead in store-bought caskets or homemade caskets, it was about this time that laws began being passed that required a dead body to be handled with a concern for safety so funeral homes began to proliferate.) Her funeral was held on Thursday morning. No death certificate was ever filed for her. They had a visitation for the family the night before the funeral & Jim Rhinehart her nephew was sitting on a hassock & fell off & everybody started laughing so loud they disturbed sick Garfield in his bedroom upstairs & he came downstairs & called them down about it. Garfield was not well, he had stomach cancer for 10-15 yrs before he died & lived 2 1/2 yrs after his aunt.
* as related to me by J Richard Gosnell
--Jeni
Josie had a younger sister named Nancy Clementine Lindsey who was last seen in Big Stone Gap, VA in 1903 by Rob Russell, Josie's nephew, he said he saw her and spoke to her and Clementine had a young daughter with her, but nobody in the family ever heard from her or saw her again. Josie also had a younger brother named William, he is said to have died in the 1890's, but where or under what circumstances I don't know.
Josie also had 2 surviving half-brothers by her father's 2nd marriage who lived in Canton, NC, after her father Reuben died in 1911, they did not keep in contact with their half siblings. They didn't come to her funeral. But "several hundred" other people did show up. - as related by J Richard Gosnell
Josie was born in the mountains of Cowee in Macon County, NC. Her parents lived in several places while she was growing up, all in the western NC mountains. At one point they lived on the Cherokee Reservation & her father Reuben worked as the manager of the general store. Most men worked farms then and he was no exception, but he was literate and also taught music classes and sketched horses. Sarah, Josie's mother, was said to have looked Cherokee, being short next to her very tall husband who was over six feet.
Josie's mother Sarah died of what might have been a heat stroke at Hannah's Spring in southern Madison County, NC in 1882 when Josie was 14, & afterward her father reputedly told his children he didn't care if they stayed or went, so the children walked all the way back to Cowee in Macon County on foot. Her father Reuben evidently stayed in Madison County, he remarried in 1885 to Ellender Sade Shelton Gillespie, a local fiery daughter of Buffer Jim Shelton & divorced mother of several children by different fathers who were all raised by other people. Sade already had a son who may have been by Reuben because he was born about the time his wife Sarah died and Reuben was later listed as his father. Josie's brother Jim returned to Madison County and started working for John Rinehart on Meadow Fork Creek & he married John's daughter Cordelia in 1887. Pretty much all the Lindsey family moved to Madison County where her older sister Mary took up with the married and much older John Rinehart about 1888, & then her oldest sister Harriet married a local man Erastus Pulaski Russell about 1891.
Jose never married, she was said to be independent, strong-willed, irritating & outspoken. As an example, when Josie was young she gave birth to a set of twins alone under a building or shed without telling anyone; they did not survive and their burial location is unknown. Their father was said to have been John Wesley Fowler, son of Nancy Jane Rinehart Fowler & James McClure Fowler. Like many unwed mothers, Josie didn't even tell anyone she was pregnant. (related by Bertha Russell Tucker to J Richard Gosnell)
A descendant of her sister Harriet Russell wrote in a blog that Josie had been injured in the head by a fall from a horse when she was about 6 yrs old, it changed her behavior and made her quick to anger and prone to blurting out things.
Josie moved to Spartanburg, SC in the late 1890's / early 1900's with her family and worked in the cotton mills as a spinner for many years, she was living at Spartan Mill in Spartanburg in 1910-1920 with her siblings, by 1930 she & her widowed oldest sister Harriet Russell were living in Union, Union County, SC one county to the east of Spartanburg & still working in the textile mills. (Mill families often moved from mill to mill or street to street, they would often switch houses at the same mill, being recorded in consecutive city directories on different addresses but within the same block of mill houses. They would also leave the mills to go back to their mountain home until their money ran out and then return to the booming textile mills. Most of the younger mill workers stayed in the cities to work while the oldsters preferred going back to their mountains.)
Josie moved back to Madison County, NC by 1937 where she was living at the Marshall County Home, also known as the "poor house". Her nephew Rev. Garfield Lindsey then took her into his home at Spring Creek and she died at their home. It was not easy for Garfield. Josie was said to have made his wife Mary chastise Josie for making Garfield's life so miserable, but her admonishments did not change Josie's behavior. According to his great-great nephew Richard Gosnell, Garfield built himself a small room behind their house to get some peace from Josie. Josie, like many old-timers, dipped snuff, and she did not use spittoons, she spit tobacco out all over the walls in his house, & when told by her niece Althea Lindsey Cummings Martin that she was worrying Garfield & should stop, she said, "Oh, I'm not worrying him."
When Josie died on a Tuesday afternoon "of old age and meanness" *, the last of her immediate family, like many poor folks she wasn't taken to a mortuary so she wasn't embalmed, they probably went to Newport, TN to buy a casket. (Poor people often buried their own dead in store-bought caskets or homemade caskets, it was about this time that laws began being passed that required a dead body to be handled with a concern for safety so funeral homes began to proliferate.) Her funeral was held on Thursday morning. No death certificate was ever filed for her. They had a visitation for the family the night before the funeral & Jim Rhinehart her nephew was sitting on a hassock & fell off & everybody started laughing so loud they disturbed sick Garfield in his bedroom upstairs & he came downstairs & called them down about it. Garfield was not well, he had stomach cancer for 10-15 yrs before he died & lived 2 1/2 yrs after his aunt.
* as related to me by J Richard Gosnell
--Jeni
Josie had a younger sister named Nancy Clementine Lindsey who was last seen in Big Stone Gap, VA in 1903 by Rob Russell, Josie's nephew, he said he saw her and spoke to her and Clementine had a young daughter with her, but nobody in the family ever heard from her or saw her again. Josie also had a younger brother named William, he is said to have died in the 1890's, but where or under what circumstances I don't know.
Josie also had 2 surviving half-brothers by her father's 2nd marriage who lived in Canton, NC, after her father Reuben died in 1911, they did not keep in contact with their half siblings. They didn't come to her funeral. But "several hundred" other people did show up. - as related by J Richard Gosnell
Josie's mother Sarah died of what might have been a heat stroke at Hannah's Spring in southern Madison County, NC in 1882 when Josie was 14, & afterward her father reputedly told his children he didn't care if they stayed or went, so the children walked all the way back to Cowee in Macon County on foot. Her father Reuben evidently stayed in Madison County, he remarried in 1885 to Ellender Sade Shelton Gillespie, a local fiery daughter of Buffer Jim Shelton & divorced mother of several children by different fathers who were all raised by other people. Sade already had a son who may have been by Reuben because he was born about the time his wife Sarah died and Reuben was later listed as his father. Josie's brother Jim returned to Madison County and started working for John Rinehart on Meadow Fork Creek & he married John's daughter Cordelia in 1887. Pretty much all the Lindsey family moved to Madison County where her older sister Mary took up with the married and much older John Rinehart about 1888, & then her oldest sister Harriet married a local man Erastus Pulaski Russell about 1891.
Jose never married, she was said to be independent, strong-willed, irritating & outspoken. As an example, when Josie was young she gave birth to a set of twins alone under a building or shed without telling anyone; they did not survive and their burial location is unknown. Their father was said to have been John Wesley Fowler, son of Nancy Jane Rinehart Fowler & James McClure Fowler. Like many unwed mothers, Josie didn't even tell anyone she was pregnant. (related by Bertha Russell Tucker to J Richard Gosnell)
A descendant of her sister Harriet Russell wrote in a blog that Josie had been injured in the head by a fall from a horse when she was about 6 yrs old, it changed her behavior and made her quick to anger and prone to blurting out things.
Josie moved to Spartanburg, SC in the late 1890's / early 1900's with her family and worked in the cotton mills as a spinner for many years, she was living at Spartan Mill in Spartanburg in 1910-1920 with her siblings, by 1930 she & her widowed oldest sister Harriet Russell were living in Union, Union County, SC one county to the east of Spartanburg & still working in the textile mills. (Mill families often moved from mill to mill or street to street, they would often switch houses at the same mill, being recorded in consecutive city directories on different addresses but within the same block of mill houses. They would also leave the mills to go back to their mountain home until their money ran out and then return to the booming textile mills. Most of the younger mill workers stayed in the cities to work while the oldsters preferred going back to their mountains.)
Josie moved back to Madison County, NC by 1937 where she was living at the Marshall County Home, also known as the "poor house". Her nephew Rev. Garfield Lindsey then took her into his home at Spring Creek and she died at their home. It was not easy for Garfield. Josie was said to have made his wife Mary chastise Josie for making Garfield's life so miserable, but her admonishments did not change Josie's behavior. According to his great-great nephew Richard Gosnell, Garfield built himself a small room behind their house to get some peace from Josie. Josie, like many old-timers, dipped snuff, and she did not use spittoons, she spit tobacco out all over the walls in his house, & when told by her niece Althea Lindsey Cummings Martin that she was worrying Garfield & should stop, she said, "Oh, I'm not worrying him."
When Josie died on a Tuesday afternoon "of old age and meanness" *, the last of her immediate family, like many poor folks she wasn't taken to a mortuary so she wasn't embalmed, they probably went to Newport, TN to buy a casket. (Poor people often buried their own dead in store-bought caskets or homemade caskets, it was about this time that laws began being passed that required a dead body to be handled with a concern for safety so funeral homes began to proliferate.) Her funeral was held on Thursday morning. No death certificate was ever filed for her. They had a visitation for the family the night before the funeral & Jim Rhinehart her nephew was sitting on a hassock & fell off & everybody started laughing so loud they disturbed sick Garfield in his bedroom upstairs & he came downstairs & called them down about it. Garfield was not well, he had stomach cancer for 10-15 yrs before he died & lived 2 1/2 yrs after his aunt.
* as related to me by J Richard Gosnell
--Jeni
Josie had a younger sister named Nancy Clementine Lindsey who was last seen in Big Stone Gap, VA in 1903 by Rob Russell, Josie's nephew, he said he saw her and spoke to her and Clementine had a young daughter with her, but nobody in the family ever heard from her or saw her again. Josie also had a younger brother named William, he is said to have died in the 1890's, but where or under what circumstances I don't know.
Josie also had 2 surviving half-brothers by her father's 2nd marriage who lived in Canton, NC, after her father Reuben died in 1911, they did not keep in contact with their half siblings. They didn't come to her funeral. But "several hundred" other people did show up. - as related by J Richard Gosnell
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