Happy Birthday Sadie Mae Taylor Fitzpatrick. You would be 103!

Happy Birthday Granny. I love you so much and we all miss you.

Granny was a character, she was a very loving person but then on the opposite hand she would grab up a fly swatter and get you or pinch a plug out of you if you did not act right. She did not play.

If Granny were alive she would be here living in my home today and we would be getting ready to celebrate her 103 birthday. No doubt in my mind she would be cantankerous but I would not care. I would love her anyway. I was with her from birth until I was 13 and she left going to her new home. Heaven. I do not know if they celebrate in Heaven birthday’s but I bet she is having a better time than she would be here on earth.

I love you and miss you and here are some pictures in your honor.

Happy Birthday Granny!!!

Sadie was 6 months old here. I have this picture and it is printed on cardboard. I keep it put up in a closet because I do not want it to fade. I need to get someone to do a drawing of this picture or portrait so I can keep it forever.

Here is where I inherited my love for the beach, especially Panama City Beach, FL and the water minus the bathing cap! Do they make those anymore? She has her Brownie camera in her hand ready to snap.

She and Pop always participated in fun things. Our town Piedmont, AL had a Bicentennial in the 60?s and we all had these neat dresses to wear. Granny made ours. I still have her sewing machine.

She did not mind being in photo’s. This one was with her daughter Aunt Marion of course me.

She loved being in her “bed clothes” as much as I do now. Those are my favorite things to wear daily.

She knew about kids. I did not inherit that from her. All I know how to do is look at them.

She was very stylish! This is one of my favorite pictures. Granny holding her baby..me with Pop and Mother. She even had her nails painted. She was something else.

It did not do a bit of good to say “Say Cheese and DONT BLINK!” Granny would blink everytime!

Here she is with Pop, me, and her son Uncle Joke. Someone must have slipped up on her and took this because this time she did not blink.

She loved to travel. Notice the Brownie camera . I wish I had that camera today. Pop worked at Goodyear in Gadsden, AL sometimes on the second shift. He would call home collect and tell Granny he had a weeks vacation to be ready when he got home at Midnight that we , notice I said WE were leaving out at midnight headed to Panama City Beach FL for a week. There have been many a nights I have slept in the back seat of the car headed to the beach. We usually went two or three times a year. She never fussed about having to get up and get ready. She would put the newspaper down or book she was reading and go pack and be ready to head out when he got home. Back there there were no interstates. You would either go down Highway 231 or 331. I would wake up and say “Are we there yet?” They would laugh and Pop would say “No but we are in Opp, Alabama.. That is POP spelled wrong.” I would laugh and go back to sleep. I had a great time with them.

Happy 103 Sadie Mae Taylor Fitzpatrick, a country woman from Piedmont, Alabama. There is never a day that has gone by in my life that I have not thought about you. You had to be the greatest Grandmother on earth. I sure wish you were still here today sitting here on my couch being cantankerous. I’d bake you a cake, make you homemade vanilla icecream and let you eat it with your saltine crackers until your head hurt and you had to tie a rag around it!

Granny would make homemade vanilla ice cream in one of those freezers you had to turn. She loved to eat it with saltine crackers and we’d look and she would have a rag tied around her head. She would be eating it so fast her temperature would drop and she’d get a “cream” freeze as she called it.

Gosh I love that woman!

In the top left you will see my Grandmother Mother and Grandfather known as Pop and Granny. Sadie Mae Taylor Fitzpatrick and Lee Roy Fitzpatrick on their wedding day June 29, 1929. I am not sure where they were married but I would say Alabama. I will have to ask their daughter, Aunt Janice.

No one on the face of the earth but me will know what they meant to me. They basically raised me from birth until I was 13 and Granny passed away and then two years later Pop lost his life in a car wreck in Florida.

I am so thankful for their wedding day. If it had not been for that I would not be here today.

Happy Anniversary Pop and Granny, I love you and know you are happy in your new home together! There is never a day that passes that I do not think about you both.

I carry on all kinds of things here and on Facebook, and a lot is fun and some is serious. This story about what I am going to tell you is the truth.

My brother David was stationed in the Coast Guard in Florida. Chatahoochee, FL to be exact. He met his wife and married. He saw these clocks and started them . I wanted one really bad. I was doing ceramics at that time and we agreed to swap a clock for some Masonic coffee cups. That was ok by me.

David made me this clock I want to say in the early 80?s to middle 80?s. He then with his wife moved to Nags Head, NC and then on to Hawaii with his wife and two little girls where he passed away on a ship January 1990.

DAVID IS KEEPING THIS CLOCK RUNNING. We forget about the batteries in the clock. Reason being they rarely run down. Now if you have a clock running on batteries don’t you think at least once a year you will have to change it? I think it is two AA batteries that it requires. I won’t dare touch it until I have to. Gary and I can’t remember the last time we have changed them. It is heavy and difficult to hang back up on the wall so I know both would remember because it takes both of us to do it.

I would say since I have had the clock in the middle 80?s I may have changed the batteries three times. I don’t care if the hands get bent, scuffed up or what I am not making one change to David’s clock. He is taking care of it for me.

I have said the next time I have to change them out I am going to record it somewhere just to see how many years before we do it again. I know it has to have been at least 6 years since we changed it or maybe longer.

Thank you David for being the keeper of my clock and keeping it running. It is one of the favorite things I have in our home. Knowing you made it and taking care of it means everything.

NOW tomorrow if the clock quits working. NO ONE WILL EVER BELIEVE IT when I post it.

David Patrick Epps. Your brother Tommy, Sisters, Chris and Karen have a heavy place in our hearts for you. We sure miss you “Egg”!!! I know Guilda and the girls do also.

Services for Violet White Fitzpatrick, 83, of Piedmont will be 6 p.m. today at Hughes Street Congregational Holiness Church with Rev. Haywardf Clark officiating. Burial will be Wednesday in Goshen Cemetery with Thompson Funeral Home in Charge. The Family will receive friends at the church 10 a.m. until service time.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick died Sunday at her home. June 13, 2004.

Survivors include her husband, Rufus C. Fitzpatrick; two daughters, Sandra Ford and Ginger Blythe and her husband Ricky, all of Piedmont, two sons and their wives, Ronald and Sue Fitzpatrick of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Carlton and Theresa Fitzpatrick of Brunswick, GA ; a brother and his wife J.D. and Eloise White of Piedmont, 10 grandchildren Mike Fitzpatrick and his wife, Valorie, Karen Mattox and her husband, Ron, Tony Ford, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Rachel Fitzpatrick, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Carissa Lloyd and her husband, Bob, Melanie Troxell and her husband, Mike,Marion Blythe and Brandy Barber, nine great-grandchildren and her caregivers, Pat Morrison and Frances Murphy.

Pallbearers will be Mike Fitzpatrick, Tony Ford, Matt Ford, Derek McFry, Art Ingram and Hank Douthit. Honorary pallbearers will be granddaughters.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick, a Piedmont native and lifelong resident, was a member of Hughes Street Congregational Holiness Church where she played the mandolin for 69 years. She was a homemaker and seamstress. She was preceded in death by two sisters, Frances Duncan and Helen White, a granddaughter, Rhonda Ford McFry and her parents, Dewey and Grace White.

I have a request.  I started researching our family tree over 24 years ago. Aunt Margaret had a big box of pictures and one was of this heavy lady, but attractive. I was looking at the picture and Aunt Margaret stated that she was Uncle George Rice Vanzant’s wife Maggie Evans who was an actress of sorts back long ago.

Uncle George was a stage hand. I have various pictures of him with other workers. He even makes reference he was in one play.

George came back to Anniston, AL where he died many years ago. I have often wondered if he had a wife. Today I found the information I had been looking for. 

George Rice Vanzant was married to Margaret Evans. 1930 he was 36 and Margaret was 34. They were living in Manhattan, NY with her two children from a previous marriage and her father who was from Germany.  The children are Chester Evans age 14 and Richard J. Evans age 12 and John Reinhardt age 68.

Margaret’s first husband and the father of her two sons was Earnest Evans.

Anyone have any information on this group please contact me at SadieMaesAttic@aol.com

THANKS AND HAPPY HUNTING!

I am going through all my notes trying to get them all put here on the web site. There are boxes full of papers so be patient.

I found this legal pad sheet. I believe it was sent to my by Signe Cowan.

It was taken from her husbands Family Bible.

Marriage Certificate:

George Rice Vanzant to Hannah Slater (  1st Marriage)

North Providence Delaware County , Pennsylvania

September 7, 1856

Signed, James. W. Dale 

George Rice Vanzant to Ann Crowther Kay ( 2nd Marriage)

Upland Delaware Co. Pennsylvania

October 15, 1868

Minister H.E. Gilroy, Chester PA

Family Record :

Father  George Rice Vanzant    Place of  Birth, Upper Darby, Delaware Co. Pennsylvania. Date of Birth January 22, 1834, Date of Marriage September 7th, 1856 , Date of Death January 9th, 1918.

Mother: Hannah Vanzant, Place of Birth, Philadelphia County, PA, Date of Birth January 5, 1836, Date of Death April 30th 1867

Children: George Albert, Born Upland Del. Co Pa, December 7th 1857 , Died October 13, 1911

Annetta, Born Upland Del. Co. Pa, January 13, 1859, Died October 21, 1931

Abram Williams, Born Upland Del. Co. Pa January 1st, 1862, died March 31, 1863

Harry , Born Upland, Del Co. Pa, October 20th, 1866, Died January 28, 1837

Father: George Rice Vanzant, Info Same as above, married Ann Crowther Kay, October 15, 1868. Ann was born in Lancashire, England December 8, 1834 and Died December 1, 1897

Children of this union, Willis K Vanzant ( My Gr grandfather). He was born October 10, 1869 in Upland Delaware Co, Pa and died January 21, 1939.

Hannah Born in Upland, Del Co Pa July 25th 1871. She had been married twice. OnceJune 20, 1899  and the second January 18, 1906 to Frederick A. Cowan and she died Nov 1955.

Abraham Vanzant was born Feb 18, 1810. He married October 30, 1829 and Died January 10, 1888 age 77 years.

Mary Ann Vanzant wife was born March 1, 1811  Her maiden name was Verlinden or Verlenden.

She died February 27, 1894 age 83

Sarah Vanzant born August 15, 1830

John Vanzant born December 11, 1831

George Rice Vanzant born January 22, 1834

Mary Ann Vanzant born January 22, 1836

Elizabeth Vanzant born November 26, 1837

Jane Vanzant born July 25, 1840

Abram Rowland Vanzant born January 18, 1843

Louisa Vanzant born March 28, 1845

Emaline Vanzant November 1, 1848

This was copied from Grandpa Vanzant’s Family Bible.

I knew this day was coming and I debated as to where I should post about it or just not think about it. Then today Aunt Jan mentioned it so I felt I would say something.

Granny, Oh How I Miss You!

Sadie Mae Taylor Fitzpatrick. Granny as I knew her, my mother. Well not in the sense she birthed me but she had me from birth till she died and I was 13 and she was just 59. 

Granny was just an average woman, not beautiful as you see in the magazines today, the models, but beautiful to me. She was a holiness woman and back in the 50?s and 60?s they did not concentrate too much on makeup. They did not even wear makeup. Granny did. She would slip and put a tiny bit of rouge on her cheeks to make them blush, comb a little bit of Maybelline on her eyebrows that came in the red slide out box with the brush that you wet and applied mascara. Well she did not wear mascara but she barely put a tiny bit of tint on her brows. She would then take out that pretty little gold compact that she had that I still have and dab as she called it a tiny bit of powder on her face, then a tiny bit of lipstick and off we would go. I can still smell her lipstick. It totally looks and smells different today than it did back then. No gloss just flat, even the top of the lipstick was flat and you rolled it out usually in its gold case and painted away. I watched her get ready all the time. I loved her so much I barely could stand to be out of her sight.

She worked outside of her home. Pop worked at Goodyear and she had a job as a sales clerk at Mr. McNew’s store called Dubar’s Jewelry in our little town of Piedmont, AL. I cut my teeth on the glass counters. I stayed down there with her as much as I could. If I were not in school you can bet I went to the jewelry store to see Granny. We talked about everything on the planet and on Saturday’s she sent me to John Barnett’s across the street from Dubar’s to get a hamburger, fries and coke. When I finished she gave me a $1.00 in change to go to the “picture show.” That was what we called the movies. It cost 10 cents to get in and the extra was for Charm suckers, popcorn, coke, Milk Duds, Black Cows or anything my little heart desired.  It usually was a double feature and when it was over Granny was standing out the outside of the theatre waiting to walk home with me. We lived two blocks from town. At night I would lay my head in her lap and she would rub and scratch my ears until I was so sleepy I could not see. She would be reading the funny papers (comics) as she called it while we were watching Gunsmoke.  She taught me to write my first word before I started to school. I remember it being ALL. If Miss America would happen to be on we would be watching that with a chart she drew off at work for us to rate the contestants. I can still hear her say she would give anything to dance with Lawrence Welk. To this day I still love that show. Pop liked Norma Zimmer a lot and the Lennon Sisters, Granny loved Lawrence. That was her man. I can still see her reading my Nancy Drew books. Lord help if she got to it before I did. I would have to wait until she finished it before I could start. She loved to read.  I can still hear the paper rattling after I went to bed only to get up the next morning and on the coffee table was the biggest bowl which was my Easter basket packed full of goodies. I still remember the time we went to Sears in Anniston to pay on her bill and hear her tell me to go to the toy department to pick out one thing and swing by the candy counter and get us some Bridge Mix and cashew nuts. I can still hear her laughing so hard she cried when I asked her did they take prisoners out of prison to shoot on Gunsmoke. When she quit laughing and crying she told me “No honey, they use blanks.”

I can still remember the time we were at their farm outside of town where we lived during the week and I watched her bring a baby calf in the world like it was nothing. I saw her wring chickens neck and they end up on the table on Sunday. I remember her teaching me how to make bisquits. To this day I still make them  like Granny. I can still taste the cake batter she would turn her back and let me shovel it out of the bowl with a big spoon and she would turn around and I would have the evidence all over my face and she would just laugh. I can still hear her cooking Sunday morning breakfast, listening to gospel music on the radio, shouting “Praise the Lord , Hallellujah.” I still remember the times she and I would be at home and Pop at work in the evenings and the phone ring and it be a collect call from him telling her to be ready when he got home at 11pm that we were leaving for a weeks vacation in Panama City Beach, Florida.  I still remember when things happened in our family she would “take to the bed” with a washcloth on her head crying and praying.

I remember the time we were robbing bees and one got up under her hat and stung her in top of the head and her eyes swelled shut. Or the time she walked a week on a broken foot that she got when she was milking her cows and one popped her in the face with her tail and granny popped her good on the back end. The cow stepped back and landed right on Granny’s foot and broke it. She taught me how to milk a cow. Let me just say in this day and time we would have to drink water. I always squirted mine outside of the bucket and got in trouble. She was teaching me to churn until I got the brilliant idea of straddling the churn. That was my end of butter making.

I do have one not so good memory. January 7, 1968. I was standing on the corner of Dubar’s Jewelry store getting ready to go to church with Mr. Mc and his girls. Granny and Pop passed by and she never looked my way. It was not like she did not see me, she could not see me. She was seeing something else. I have often wondered if she knew she was dying and could not say anything. She and Pop were on their way to the Congregational Holiness Church. They had not been there long when she got sick and had to leave to go to the little hospital we had in our town.

Mr. McNew, his daughter and I left to go to their church where Mother, Daddy, Granny’s two daughters and their family were attending. They did not know I was there. I was sitting in the back and noticed one of the deacons come up and say something to my family and they got up and left. I don’t know what I thought but I stayed where I was. Then the pastor got up and announced that Mrs. Sadie Fitzpatrick had just died and if anyone wanted to leave please feel free to do so. All I remember was standing up and screaming at the top of my lungs and running out of the church and running down the highway before a member caught up with me. The preacher did not even realize I was there.

So far the death of my beloved Granny has been the absolute hardest thing that I have ever experienced in my life. Just right now going over it in this post brings back tremendous pain and heartache. I loved her so much and she loved me. I know one day I will see her but to be truthful I hope it is a very long time. I want to be here until I am over 100. I dont think that is asking to much do you???

Granny, Oh How I Miss You, If you were still here today cantankerous as you would be at 102 I would have you here with me and Gary. I would be letting you put your head in my lap and rubbing your ears and reading Nancy Drew to you while feeding you Bridge Mix. You would be a sight but I would love you better than snuff as you used to say

As long as I can remember I was called “Tiss” by my cousin Johnny. He had a tiny speech impediment. As kids growing up he would entertain us with his adventures . He told us tall tales and had us believing every one of them. He was the “story teller” of the family. He did not lie he would just make up stories and make us think they were the gospel. Like the time he bought a pair of those xray glasses out of the back of an old detective magazine. When we would come in the room he would say he could see us without any clothes on. He would sit there and grin. I was horrified. I asked once if I could see them and he said no that they were specially made to the specifications of his eyes and only they would work on him.  I would come in the room covering my body parts with my hands the best I could so he would not see me!

In the first grade we went to the hospital together to have out tonsils out. I would cry when it was time to get a shot and he would say “Dont cry Tiss, It only will hurt 15 minutes.” Somehow that made it better.

Johnny had the best collection ever of comic books. I spent many times reading the Adventure of Archie, Veronica and Jughead and then see what Superman was up to. Aunt Margaret did not know what comic books were worth later on and I must say I am sorry to say that she had a cleaning out of the house and they went to the garbage. He kept them in the dining room in the bottom of an old china cabinet she had. She probably threw away “most a million dollars.”

He had a monkey. So Michael Jackson, you had nothing on him. He wanted a horse and Big Daddy bought him a horse.  He and I got a baby chicken one Easter. Mine did not live to long and his lived and was one old mean rooster named Chickadee. You would get out of the car and be walking to the porch at Big Mama and Big Daddy’s house where Johnny lived with his mother and daddy, and that chicken would come out of nowhere and jump up on your back and peck the devil out of you. I hated that thing. I am not sure whatever happened to Chickadee. Do you eat roosters? Aunt Margaret made some great friend chicken and a washtub full of her famous potato salad.

In the 50′s we made out TV debut. Aunt Margaret took up to WTBS in Atlanta to be on the Popeye Club with Officer Don. Gosh we had a blast. I remember us looking up and seeing the glass box type room where the parents were sitting watching below at the children. We dreamed about being movie stars and we thought since we had been on TV we were.

Johnny was the most awesome baseball player. He would play ball at the “Y” in Piedmont. When he came up to bat they just stood there and did nothing, just watched. Pitcher would pitch the ball and he would knock it out of sight. You would hear the bat cracking , the crowd hollering and all of us cupping our hands over our eyes to keep the ballpark lights out of the way so we could watch it dissappear. I know in the Mill Village , where the workers at the Standard Coosa Thatcher cotton mill lived, there had to be many houses with the metal roofs dented. He could knock a baseball several blocks away. Up in the air and out of site. He got a letter from the Braves in Atlanta in the 60′s I think it probably was stating they would like to talk to him about playing for the Braves when he graduated. He quit school at 16 and went to work. There went the baseball dream.

Then in 1960 he and I were in a Tom Thumb Wedding. We felt like royalty all dressed up in bridesmaid dresses and him in a suit.

 His birthday was today. This is the first time in a very long time that I did not buy a Halloween birthday card to mail to him. If I had I would have had to sent it to Heaven.  Johnny is not even thinking about his birthday today. He is having a far more better time. I do miss him and I love him.  Happy Birthday Johnny!  October 28, 1953-December 16, 2009.

Love, Tiss

That is Johnny standing next to me while I am blowing out the candles on a cake.

We sure were enjoying Big Daddy’s old rocker.

Mother getting ready to cut the cake and Johnny surely giving it the eye.. He wanted some cake!

We were so cute.. Our clothes almost matched.

I bet he is thinking about those glasses he is going to get in the future!  Look at that little devilish look on his face.

Chris and Johnny in the Tom Thumb Wedding.

This is Johnny. I was on the day we buried his mother’s ashes.

I hope you enjoy this story. It was written by Mr. Elton Camp.  You may read more stories by Mr. Camp here http://www.scribd.com/Elton45623287 

The Scattering

Viola Hyatt, the Alabama Axe Murderess

By

Elton Camp

(Note:  This is a partly fictionalized account of actual murders that took place in Alabama about fifty years ago.  I changed the names of the victims since I’m unsure if they have living descendents and don’t want to embarrass anyone.  Viola Hyatt is dead and left no descendents.  Since nobody else is depicted in an unfavorable light, the actual names appear.  There seems no reason to detract from their “fifteen minutes of fame” generated by the notorious case.  Much of it follows what was widely reported to have occurred, but several portions are fabricated and only speculation on my part.  Part of the dialogue is actual, but some is added for dramatic effect and interest. This story, as you can surmise from its title, is violent, gruesome and unfit to be read by children.  It’s something that occurred a short distance from where I attended undergraduate school and I remember it well.)

            Almost all babies are cute, but even as an infant, Viola Hyatt wasn’t.  A chubby, red-faced, fussy baby, she grew into an obese youngster whose features, even charitably, could only be described as plain.   Her long, black hair was coarse and resisted attempts to keep it groomed.  Her skin, studded with moles and blemishes, was equally unattractive.  Clear, blue eyes were her best feature, but they were marred by frequent redness due to infected lids. 

            Her family was desperately poor.  Mr. Hyatt eked out a living as a hog farmer on a small spot of inherited land near the community of White Plains in east central Alabama.  Their house, a shack of four rooms, was unpainted.  Its left wall was noticeably off of vertical and the roof sagged in the center.  Most would have been afraid to live there, but the Hyatts had no choice.  Ironically, locals called the community “the Garden Spot of the World.” 

            Stranded on an isolated farm, Viola had little chance to interact with other children, but when she did, her sullen demeanor and sudden outbursts of explosive rage caused her to be disliked. 

            “Viola’s mean and ugly,” a girl her age said in a mocking voice to the other children at a family gathering.  “It’s no wonder nobody likes her or wants to play with her.”  The others added their own disparaging remarks.  They didn’t care that Viola was hearing every word.  The taunts were like stabs into her heart, but she maintained a stoic expression and made no reply. 

            The two-dozen pigs her family kept in an enclosure between the house and barn only added to the misery.  Especially in the hottest days of summer, they produced a stench that could be tasted as well as smelled.  Viola hated the hogs, both for their odious odor, and for the hard work required in feeding and cleaning up after them.  Yet, the income they generated was essential to the family’s survival. 

            “When’s it going to be time to kill hogs?” she demanded of her father as soon as they began to approach market size.  “I want to watch when you do it and if you’ll let me, I’ll help with it.”

            “It’ll be a while yet and you can’t do nothing.  That’s not a fit work for a girl your age,” he responded.  “You’re only in the seventh grade.  Go on in the house and help your mother cook supper.”

            Mrs. Hyatt was a slightly built woman, entirely different from her daughter in appearance.  Her long, blond hair was silken; she spent an hour each evening carefully brushing it. She had fair skin and pleasing facial features.  In her youth, she had been a beauty, but penury and sickness had taken their toll.   She coughed deeply even as she lit yet another cigarette.  The woman bitterly resented her lot in life. 

            “I don’t know why God is punishing me by sending me a husband like your paw and girl like you,” she complained to her daughter.  “I ain’t done nothing to deserve it, far as I can see.  He can’t make a proper living and you’re ugly as hell.  When I think of the men I might have married, it just makes me sick to my stomach.  Some day you’re going to come home from school and find me gone.  I don’t know why I’ve put up with the two of you as long as I have.  There’s plenty of men with money that’d be glad to have me.”

            Viola had heard it all before, over and over.  When she was younger, she often cried herself to sleep at night because of her mother’s cruel words, but she had no more tears to shed.  A consuming hatred filled her soul. 

            “I don’t care if you leave.  I hope you die!” the child spit out as she ran out of the room and slammed the door behind her.  Two years later, Viola’s wish was suddenly fulfilled. 

            Mr. Hyatt was ill prepared to function as a single parent to an adolescent girl, but he did the best he could.  Over time, Viola learned to cook reasonably well and to keep the house as clean as its condition permitted.  He continued to refuse to allow her to help process the hogs. 

            “You’ve seen how I do hit,” he said.  “Most don’t cut them up with an axe like I do, but that’s the way my father learned me.  It’s no work for a girl, even one as big and strong as you’ve got.”

            The tall, powerfully built Viola, due to strenuous farm work in addition to household chores, had developed considerable strength, especially in her arms and hands.   Over the years, her dislike of the hogs had only grown. 

            “Things like them don’t deserve to live,” she told her father.  “The dirty, stinking varmints lay around and expect to be waited on and fed.  Sometimes they even bite me when I pour their slop into the trough.  I’m glad when they finally have to pay for their keep.”

            That fall, she sat at the grindstone sharpening her father’s axe.  Sparks flew as the rough stone honed the blade.  She felt the edge with satisfaction at a job well done.  It was razor-sharp and ready for use.  Viola imagined, with pleasure, the hard steel slicing through the warm flesh of the hogs. 

            Saturday morning, Mr. Hyatt was jerked awake by a loud squeal followed by silence.  “Something’s bothering the hogs,” he thought.  Customers would be expecting their usual meat deliveries soon, so he got up to investigate.  When he reached the hog pen, he made an astonishing discovery. 

            The largest hog lay on its side in a pool of blood, its head almost severed from its body.  Viola, covered with gore, had forced another animal into a corner of the pen and was already swinging the axe downward with violent fury.  The hog died instantly. 

            “Daughter, what are you doing?” he demanded.  “I told you I’d take care of butchering the hogs.”  She turned to face him, with a strange look.  Blood dripped from her face and ran down her dress to its hem. 

            “You’re getting old, Paw.  It’s time you had some help,” was all she said. 

            After that, Viola not only killed the hogs, but also chopped them into salable parts.  She learned quickly and did expert work so that he no longer objected when hog killing time came around.  By the time she was eighteen, she did all the butchering.  He only had to market the pork. 

            Ready to take advantage of an opportunity to increase his income, Mr. Hyatt made what he considered to be a cagey deal with two men.  Brothers in their forties, they worked with the construction company building the new road to Jacksonville. 

            “Since we live at Rabbittville, we need a place to park our trailer for a couple of years,” Rufus, who was the older of the two, explained.  “We’ll pay you rent for a space and if your daughter wants to cook for us, that’ll be extra money.  My brother, Randall, and me will split the cost so it’ll work out good for you and for us.”

            The deal was made and the men moved the small trailer to a level spot about fifty feet behind the Hyatt house.  The extra money was a windfall for the father and daughter, although it greatly increased her workload.  Viola was strong and didn’t object.  Rufus and Randall, however, had in mind a modification to its terms.  “Viola ain’t very good looking,” Randall remarked, “but she’s better than nothing.”  Rufus winked in agreement. 

            “You can meet us one at a time at the barn or take us both on at once here in the trailer,” the two informed Viola.  “Of course, there’ll be a little something extra in it for you.”  Over the following weeks, the two gradually began to treat her with contempt and to criticize everything she did. 

            “You’re lucky we have anything to do with an ugly old thing like you,” Rufus sneered.  “Really, you ought to be paying us.”  Randall smirked in agreement. 

            When her father comprehended the situation, he reacted with outrage.  “You men leave my daughter alone,” he ordered.  “I didn’t agree to nothing like this.”

            “Don’t try to tell us what to do you old billy goat,” Rufus replied.  He struck the elderly man a stunning blow to his midsection and followed it with a fist to his jaw.  He dropped to the ground, moaning in pain.  Viola watched from a distance, an angry scowl on her face.  For some months, Viola silently submitted to their verbal and physical abuse, but with growing rage. 

            The brothers became particularly mean when they were drinking which was often.  “Be down at the barn in about ten minutes,” Rufus ordered with a drunken slur to his voice after he had wolfed down the supper Viola had prepared.  “We got a busy day tomorrow and need to get to bed early.  Randall will be down afterwards.  Hurry up there, woman.” 

            Viola complied with their demands once again.  Afterward, she had a simple request.  “I’ll need to use your car Saturday to go to the grocery store.  Our old truck won’t start.” 

            “Hell no, you ain’t using it,” Rufus stormed.  “The more we do for you, the more you expect.  You can hoof it or hitch your way into town.” 

            Viola had had all she was going to take.  Early the next morning, June 27, 1959, she loaded her father’s shotgun, walked to the trailer, and knocked loudly.  “Get up you two bastards.  I have something to settle with you.”

            “What do you mean waking us up this early?” Rufus demanded as he opened the door and stared out groggily.  “Get gone and call us when you have breakfast ready.” 

            Suddenly, the man spotted the leveled shotgun.   He yelled in fear, “What do you think you’re doing, Viola!  Randall, get in here.  We got trouble.”  He slammed the trailer door and locked it.  Seconds later, a blast from the weapon ripped several holes through the flimsy barrier.  Viola jerked it open and blasted Rufus full in the face as he backed away in abject terror.  Randall emerged from the bedroom to receive a similar shot to his face.  Both men lay dead, pools of blood rapidly expanding on the floor. 

            Calmly and deliberately, Viola took the car keys from an end table beside the couch.  After returning the shotgun to the rack in her living room, she cranked the 1957 Ford Galaxy and drove it as close to the trailer door as the rough terrain would allow.  After raising the trunk lid, she dragged Randall into the yard, but found it too difficult to heft his limp body into the car’s trunk.  Viola knew just what to do.  She went to the barn, selected a double-edged axe, clunked it into a metal wheelbarrow, and rolled it alongside the man.  With powerful strokes, she severed his arms and legs.  It was then easier to load him into the wheelbarrow for transport to the waiting vehicle.  His brother met a similar fate.

            “Paw, go back into the house,” she ordered when she saw her father, aroused by the gunshots, appear on the back porch.  “I’ll take care of this.”  Shaken, but not knowing what else to do, he meekly obeyed. 

            Viola used the phone in the mens’ trailer to call the Ace Construction Company.  “Rufus and Randall told me to call them in sick.  They both came down with something and won’t be at work for around a week.” 

            She slammed the trunk and then hurriedly buried the bloody axe in a field a few yards from the trailer.   The essentials cared for, Viola quietly made her way to a spot concealed in the midst of a cluster of pine trees.  Standing alongside a small, rectangular pile of dirt with a fieldstone at each end, she whispered, “I made them pay for what they did to you, just like I promised when I put you here.” 

With the protection provided by nightfall, she proceeded to carry out a plan she had worked out in her mind. 

Easing away in the sedan so as not to draw attention, she commenced a nightlong drive from White Plains toward Gadsden, eventually passing through three counties, Calhoun, Etowah, and Cleburne.  She threw out two legs in some brush beside a road in Etowah County.  Viola drove through the Talladega National Forest into Cleburne County and tossed two legs into the Tallapoosa River.  An arm she slung into a roadside tangle of briars where a horrified blackberry picker found it.  Later, another arm was found about a mile away, several miles from where the legs were found. Miss Hyatt told authorities that she discarded two arms on Sadler Mountain near Piedmont, Alabama although they were never located.  O.T. Holladay found one torso on June 28th in a dirt driveway alongside an abandoned shack just off Hwy 11 near Attalla.  The other was discovered about ten miles away by a rural housewife in the woods near her house on June 29^th.  The entire area was thrown into panic as all speculated as to what kind of deranged man could do such a thing.  For the first time, people began to keep their house doors locked. 

Police, unable to identify the battered remains, named them Mr. X and Mr. Y.  When the bodies were delivered to a funeral home in Gadsden, the owner balked.  “You can’t bring something in such bad shape inside.  Nobody’s ever gonna want to use this place again.” 

When the state toxocologist arrived, he finally agreed to perform the autopsies in the parking lot despite the blazing summer temperature and scorching sun.   The chief of police, who had furnished security, gratefully treated the man to a spaghetti meal at locally popular Tony’s Place.  “Not eating, chief?” the official asked as he cut a meatball in half and popped it into his mouth.  The man made a halfhearted reply and pushed the food around on his plate as he tried to drive from his mind the horrific images and odors of the day. 

“There’s not a lot to go on,” commented the sketch artist as he attempted to create what he thought the men looked like based on photographs.  The resulting line drawings were distributed across north Alabama.  The bodies were buried and then dug up a few days later when no progress was being made on the case.  For seventeen days, the police were stymied with dozens of tips and fruitless leads.

“Look at this,” the sheriff said to one of his deputies.  “Ace Construction says two of their men have disappeared and can’t be located.  Here’s where they were living.”  Sirens sounding and light flashing, they rushed to the Hyatt farm on a moonless night.  The search for evidence continued all night and into the next day. 

            That Viola’s role would be uncovered was inevitable.  Her incriminating phone call, blood and hair in the trunk of the mens’ car, the damaged trailer door, and bloodstains in and in front of the trailer showed her guilt.  Discovery of the axe under recently disturbed dirt removed any doubt.  All were shocked that a woman could commit such a heinous crime. 

Authorities initially took both Viola and her father into custody, but soon released him when it became clear that he had nothing to do with the murder.  They questioned her for six hours before she broke down and began to relate what happened. 

At the behest of her court-appointed attorneys, R.A. Norred and John Phillips, she was transferred from Calhoun County Jail in Anniston to Brice Mental Hospital in Tuscaloosa for evaluation to determine sanity.  They explained, “She appears to be unable to understand the nature of the charge and proceedings to be had against her and she appears to be unable to cooperate and assist in preparation of her defense.” 

Circuit Solicitor R. Clarence Williams didn’t object to the procedure, so Circuit Judge Leslie Longshore ordered the examination.  Dr. J.S. Tarwater, director of Brice, replied to a reporter’s phone call, “She was admitted just before noon and will probably stay three weeks to a month.”  He was overly optimistic.  After five months examination, the mental hospital returned her to Anniston with the finding that she was presently sane and they believed she was sane at the time of the murders. 

“Here she is,” shouted a reporter as the sheriff’s cruiser pulled in front of the jail.  Viola emerged on the crisp fall day, wearing a blue coat that extended below her dress.  Although her hair was unkept and she wore no makeup, she paused, a half smile on her face, and turned toward photographers as flashbulbs went off in rapid succession.  “Viola, how’d you like Brice?” a newsman called out.  “The food wasn’t bad, but too many crazy people there,” she quipped.  “How about you, Viola?  Are you crazy?” he returned.  “They say I’m not, but I could have told them that without spending all that time and money,” she retorted with a grin.  Over the next few days, she agreed to a number of interviews, including one with a minister who came to offer spiritual aid. 

Her attorney commented, “She’s willing to talk to anybody but us.”  Norred rightly complained, “It’s the first time I’ve had a client who won’t tell me what happened.  I’ve had them lie to me before, but, but she talks until I ask her the facts about what happened then she won’t talk.”  When he attempted to interview her immediately after he was appointed, she wouldn’t sit down and stood for two hours.  “How are you going to justify a killing when your client won’t give a reason?” Norred added in exasperation.  “All she would say was that she had the best reason in the world.  I never did learn what that reason was.  She didn’t deny that sexual abuse was involved, but she indicated that was not the main reason.  She said it was worse than that.”  The attorneys had little option but to base the case on a challenge of the sanity ruling and lined up witnesses.  Viola wouldn’t agree to an examination by an independent psychiatrist. 

Trial was set in March term of circuit court.  People commenced to gather at the courthouse over an hour before the proceedings were to begin.  Soon all the seats in the courtroom and its balcony were filled and people stood around the walls and in the back.  “I’ve never seen a crowd like that,” a guard reported to Judge Longshore.  “It’s got to be against fire regulations.”  The judge replied, “Don’t let any more come inside.  They’ll have to wait downstairs in the lobby or just go home.  Tell them I said so.” 

A roar of excitement arouse from the spectators as they caught sight of Viola being escorted across a skywalk from the jail to the courtroom.  Several reporters leaped to their feet and called out as they pointed cameras in her direction.  Viola looked straight ahead and seemed not to notice them as she entered and made her way to the defense table where she seated herself between her attorneys.   She wore a charcoal dress, gold colored earrings, red high heel shoes, hose with seams, and far too much bright red lipstick.  In her right hand, she held an unopened pack of Camel cigarettes.  Her 72-year-old father, in dress trousers and a long sleeve white shirt, sat near the bench with his head down and appeared calm.  She looked in his direction, but said nothing.

Jury selection proceeded at a slow pace, interrupted at intervals by groans and catcalls from the spectators.  “Any more of that and I’ll order the courtroom cleared,” the judge declared with a sharp rap of his gavel.  The crowd remained quiet.  They’d come for a spectacle and didn’t intend to miss out on it.

After the jury of twelve, all males, was selected, the judge ordered a recess that continued for an hour before the judge reconvened the court and announced that an agreement had been reached in the case.  The spectators moaned in surprise and disappointment.  They had wanted to hear the gory details of the case discussed and hoped that Viola herself might testify.  The judge ignored the disturbance.  The woman had changed her plea to guilty.  The State was willing to settle for a life sentence so the attorneys accepted the offer to eliminate the possibility of the electric chair.  She, however, made the final decision. “We had hinted around at the possibility of an agreement for some time,” one of her attorneys later recalled.  About two weeks before the trial date, they asked her if she would accept it if they could get her life and she agreed. 

When she told her father she intended to accept the deal, he “guessed that it was the best thing to do,” Norred said.  The attorneys felt that her having cut up the bodies would have had a strong effect on the jurors.  “If we were just concerned with the shooting, there would have been some danger as far as the State was concerned,” Norred added. 

As Viola left the courtroom to return to her cell, she stopped and spoke quietly to her father.  When she moved on, a reporter asked Hyatt if he felt the deal was the right thing to do.  “They told me not to tell nothing,” he replied sharply, “So you can go your way and I’ll go mine.” 

            “I never would have believed that Viola could do such a thing,” a relative avowed.  She never had much to say and always did what she was told. She went to church regular and was a hard worker.”

            A chant about an earlier axe murderess, Lizzie Borden, was revised and used for a short time.

                        Viola Hyatt took an axe

                                    And gave her lover forty whacks.

                                    When she saw what she had done,

                        She gave his brother forty-one.

Will the full details of what happened ever be known?  Attorney John Phillips speculated, “Unless she changes, she will take it to the grave with her.”  So it proved to be.

On April 15, 1970, after decades at Julia Tutwiller Prison for Women, The State Pardons and Parole Board unanimously voted to parole Viola.  She returned to her family’s farm where she lived quietly and in isolation until her death in a hospital in nearby Jacksonville in 1992.  She never discussed her experience, even with family, and refused to grant interviews.