Tennessee

 Memphis is one of my favorite cities to visit in America. I love blues music and like to walk down Beale Street and listen to the surrounding musical accompaniment. 

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I remember visiting the city once during the Liberty Bowl, a college football bowl game played in December. The west side of Beale Street was overtaken by South Carolina fans and the east side filled with Houston supporters. 

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There is nothing better than eating sloppy, juicy ribs at the Blues City Café. 

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A friend and I attended a Memphis Grizzlies NBA game at FedEx Forum. We bought the cheapest seats possible and ended up in the last row in the upper deck. A young African-American woman with high-heeled boots slowly made her way up the aisle, looking at people as she ascended. She stopped at us. 

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“Do you two want to be a part of our promotion by Ashley Furniture? Two fans from the upper level get to move down to the courtside area.” 

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The woman I was with immediately said, “Yes!”

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“OK…I will come get you when it is time.”

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She came back, made us put on extra-large Ashley Furniture T-shirts, and walked us down to the lower level. During a media timeout, the arena announcer introduced the promotion while everyone watched us on the big screens as we were escorted to our new seats. 

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Later in the game, it was Kiss-Cam time. 

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“Oh my…that camera is pointed right at us,” I grumbled. 

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Yes…again we appeared on the screen and then kissed for the camera audience. 

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After the game we walked back to the parking garage and a man shouted, “Hey! It’s the people that were on the big screen!”

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I am the family historian and keep all of the records. 

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My mother’s father’s side of the family came to America in the late 1700s and early 1800s and settled in Tennessee. They had the last name of Stewart, and there is a town and a county in Tennessee named after them.

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In 2013, I traveled to Stewart County in search of more information about my ancestors. 

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On June 29, I walked into the Stewart County Public Library in Dover, and met my cousin for the first time, who happened to be the county’s Genealogist. 

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She told me the location of Stewart Cemetery, located in the deep forests of the Land Between the Lakes. I drove out there on a small gravel road. When the road turned to mud, I parked the car and hiked two miles to the cemetery. 

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It was an interesting, almost spooky experience. The thick forest made for dim lighting, and of course, visiting a graveyard in a swampy area only adds to the mood. 

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Most of my ancestors fought for Tennessee during the American Civil War, and many did not survive.

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The original gravestones were illegible, and some had been replaced by modern markers, which told of the sacrifices they made to defend their home. 

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Samuel Stewart died at the very beginning of the war in 1861. 

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Private Christopher C. Stewart served in Company D of the 50th Tennessee Infantry, Confederate States of America, and died in 1862. 

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Those were the only readable graves. 

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While in Tennessee, my cousin told me one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. 

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My family’s homestead was on the Cumberland River in what is now on the eastern side of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. During the early days of the American Civil War, one of my grandfathers was captured by Union forces, becoming a prisoner of war. 

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As a ferry transported him north on the Cumberland River to a prisoner of war camp, they passed by his home. 

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He died in the camp. 

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That was the last time he ever saw home. 

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