The oldest daughter of James and Sarah Jackson was Myrtle Louise, born March 1, 1889 in Greene County, Tennessee. From the very beginning, Myrtle knew only a hard life. Born into a large family with meager resources, she was raised under far different circumstances than her Great-Great-Grandfather, William Jackson, who just four generations earlier was a wealthy land holder and slaver owner.
By age 12, Myrtle was turned out to work as a live-in servant to a local merchant in the Greeneville area. If there was any compensation at all, no doubt it was passed on to her father and mother. The family she lived with was John and Elizabeth Burkey who had two very young children. Myrtle years later recounted that the family treated her poorly and didn’t feed her very much. She had dark hair and light blue eyes and must have been very attractive as a teenager. She certainly caught the attention of a local young farmer named Tom Derrie. She and Tom were married in August of 1904 when she was just 15 years old and he was 6 years older. Ten months later they had their first child whom they named Lillian Mae.
Then shortly thereafter, as mentioned previously, Myrtle’s brothers moved to Campbell County to work as coal miners. Her father and mother joined them as did Myrtle and Tom, who also found work as a coal miner. They moved to a home in Jacksboro and their second child, Alma Bernice, was born in November 1909. Their third child, Melda, born in January 1912 only lived for five weeks before dying of Whooping Cough. They continued to have another 8 children, but only son Alvin (called Bud), and daughters, Helen and Veatta lived to adulthood. The others were tragically lost at young ages. Also, tragically, Tom Derrie lost his lower left leg in a coal crusher machine accident around 1915. These unfortunate events had a terrible and lasting effect on the family. Myrtle and Tom’s difficult life in the years following the accident can be reviewed in the story about Thomas Derrie which can be found in the Derrie chapter of this family history. Myrtle died on February 9,1956 from a heart attack at age 66 and is buried with Tom in the Jacksboro Cemetery.
My mother, Helen Derrie Ayers, loved her mother very much, and often told me sad stories of her hard life. One story was that Myrtle had to feed her family only biscuits and gravy nearly every meal when there was no money for other food. Living 500 miles away, we didn’t get to see her very often. The times we did see her was on summer vacations when our family jumped in our old car and trekked to Tennessee to visit all the relatives. Then we’d only see her a few days. I believe there was just a single occasion when Myrtle visited Maryland, and that was when she came along with her daughter Lillian’s family in June of 1955. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough contact with her for me to have many memories. The few that I have are of a small sweet woman with gray hair who seemed to me to be very caring. I also remember some unpleasant habits like her using snuff, now called smokeless tobacco, and drinking a little to much. Once at her house I woke up one morning and couldn’t find my shoes. It turned out that Grandma had gotten a little tipsy and stolen them from me to wear while cooking breakfast. She thought it was funny, but I didn’t at the time.
I was only 13 when Grandma died. The strongest memory that I have is of my mother crying during the entire long drive to Tennessee for the funeral. I wish there were more memories of Grandma Myrtle, but we barely knew her.
