Martin Van Buren Ayers, born in 1883 in Campbell County, TN, was the fifth child but oldest son of William Reilly (Black Bill) Ayers.  As such, he grew up knowing hard work on the family farm. Eventually though, as a young man Martin made his way off the farm to find different work.

The exact year is not known, but before 1910, Martin ventured to the nearest small town of LaFollette. There he got a job as a carpenter at the LaFollette Iron Furnace. In 1910, at age 27, he was living in a boarding house in LaFollette with five other borders.  Also about this same time he was involved with a woman named Susan Archer and she had an out-of- wedlock child named Minnie. For whatever reasons, life and work in town must not have suited him very well, because not long after that he was back farming in Stinking Creek.

Martin was a medium sized person, about 5 ft 9 in tall, weighing about 155 lbs, with brown hair and

brown eyes. In 1912, he married Hannah Mae Depew whose father had married Martin’s sister Florence in 1907 and moved next door.  Hannah was 18 and 11 years younger.  They had four children: Ira, Rose, Mary and Addison. Martin was a quiet person, and he had a stern temperament. All the children had to work hard and obey.

In 1915, after renting a farm on Walnut Mountain for a couple of years, Martin and his brother, Matthew, bought the 107.5 acre property. Matthew took 54 acres and Martin took about 42 acres after selling 11 acres to a neighbor. Matthew was later killed by a timber cutting accident around 1918 and their sister Betty inherited his land.

The original log house on Martin’s farm was located close to the spring near the road. This is probably where the oldest children were born. His Father-in-Law, Bill Depew, helped him build a new house with sawed lumber farther up the hill. This new house had a kitchen, living room and a bedroom, and of course a path out the back door. In addition to working on his farm, Martin also worked for a time at a sawmill in the Stinking Creek area. Most of the time Martin’s family subsisted on animals raised and crops produced on the farm.  Whenever shoes, clothing, or something from the store needed to be bought, Martin would raise the cash by selling pigs or maybe selling corn to the mill to be ground into cornmeal.

Tragically, Hannah contacted tuberculosis and died in 1926 at only age 32, leaving Martin with 4 children between 7 and 12 years old. Ira, the oldest, had to drop out of school to take care of the younger children while his father continued to work the farm. In addition, Martin’s mother Malinda had died just a year before. It was a difficult time, but fortunately his sister Betty, who lived in an old log home nearby, helped out some with food preparation and became like a second mom to the children.

Martin’s father, “Black Bill”, and his second wife, Lizzie Gross, had moved to her house in LaFollette on Rose Hill. That house was near where Eullalia Hatmaker lived. So, they introduced Martin to Eullalia whom he dated awhile before asking her to marry him and move up to Walnut Mountain on the farm.  She was 19 and 27 years younger, so it was not an easy decision for her, but she eventually agreed and they were married in 1929.  Martin proceeded to have five more children with Eullalia by 1941: Aileen, Bill, Hannie, Tom and Geneva.

Aileen says that sometime before she was born, Martin was struck by lightening. It tore off his clothes and shoes and he was burned badly. They wrapped him in a white sheet and packed him in cold mud and he came out of it seemingly unharmed. The lightening also set the house on fire.

Aileen also tells the story that her dad used to ride his horse over the mountains to LaFollette. On one occasion, he went to purchase some goods, and tied his horse up at the edge of town. While he was shopping, the horse got loose and headed back toward home. Along the way, someone caught the horse and removed his saddle and bridle, but the horse once again broke for home. When the horse arrived back at the homestead without rider and saddle, the family thought something bad had happened to Martin. Neighbors gathered with lanterns to go out hunting for him, but just then Martin arrived by foot much to everyone’s relief.

Youngest son, Tom, grew up on the farm working beside his father.  He said once they had an old mule named “John” that was a good work mule. But old John had a major attitude problem and wouldn’t let Tom or anybody else ride him.

Tom also liked to tell stories about his Dad being hard of hearing and making lots of bobbles guessing what people said. One time they were working in the field when a jet flew over and made a loud noise. Tom told his father that it was just a jet breaking the sound barrier. His dad replied “What was it doing making sand bags”.

As Martin and Eullalia got older, Aileen and her husband, Gene Huckelby, bought the old homestead

to get them to move off the mountain down to LaFollette.  So in August 1954, Martin finally moved to town again after farming on the mountain for 43 years.  They moved into a house on Andy Baird Drive that Eullalia had inherited from her Uncle. They later added indoor plumbing to their new residence, and lived there very comfortably in their declining years..

Martin fought tuberculosis for a number of years, but eventually died of pneumonia in 1967 at age 84. He was buried in Hall Cemetery off Stinking Creek Road next to his first wife Hannah.  Eullalia also lived to age 84 before dying in 1994.  She is buried in the Baird Cemetery next door to the their old house in LaFollette.  Her faithful son, Tom, who never married and died in late 2008, is buried beside her.