Search
Print
Anna 'Kathryn' Hutcheson

Anna 'Kathryn' Hutcheson

Female 1882 - 1971  (88 years)

 

Letter about several Hutcheson family members

From Ann Richmond Sewell to her cousin Helen Coffman Baaso about some of their aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Aug 16, 2001
Dear Helen,

I've enjoyed a copy Clarence gave me of yours and Archie' s family memories so much. I am sorry I didn't know the Coffmans that lived in Detroit very well. Our family made one car trip there and I remember the stairs that went up in front, down in back. I don't know if I met you. I remember Archie's piano playing at family reunions in Tenn. The Hutcheson sisters were the most INDOMITABLE women I ever knew!

Your story would make a good movie or book. Other than my mother Edith Kuykendall Hutcheson Richmond, the Hutcheson I knew best was Aunt Kathryn Little since she lived closest to us. (Her sisters called her Katy, not Kate.) You may know all that I write about her, but maybe some of our families don't. I'll give my daughter, Mary Ann Sniff in Calif, a copy of this as well as your family memories. Clarence gave me some of Mother's pictures this week including several of Aunt Kathryn's children Fredanna and Don when small. Aunt K. had another daughter Jean later and closer to my age. Her children seem to have vanished from the earth. No one knows of any descendants. Clarence once saw Fredanna's only son Jack English, about Clarence's age, in a Chattanooga hospital. Aunt Kathryn more or less adopted him after his parents divorce. All 3 of her children made bad marriages, although "preachers kids".

I never met Don or Fredanna, altho' Mother (Edith) knew them well and lived with them in Cleveland where Katy's husband Fred preached. I believe Mother (Edith) spent summers there when not teaching at Rogersville, TN. Aunt Kathryn first introduced Mother (Edith) to my dad Clarence Richmond when he came home from WWI. Aunt K. was such an affectionate person that my Dad Clarence said his mother, a somewhat rigid, unemotional woman, thought Aunt K. had her eyes on my good-looking Dad Clarence in uniform for herself although she was married. Dad said his mother got the wrong impression, of course. Mother and Dad were married in their home in 1923 after they moved to Montgomery for Fred' s preaching job.

As a girl I remember hearing of Uncle Fred's death in Ala. but don't remember ever seeing him. Aunt Kathryn inherited a big house that belonged to husband Fred's family at Pikeville, Tenn. in Sequatchie Valley (not Sequachee). It was located behind the county courthouse and had an iron fence around it. Sequatchie Valley ,especially Cold Springs on the Sequatchie River, had been home to Hutchesons for generations. Once at a family reunion at Cold Springs I saw the house where my mother Edith was born, and swam in the river where she was baptized. My grandfather L. T. Hutcheson long before moved to Spencer, bought a store with money from his farm, to put his children in Burritt College. But his brother, Campbell I think, had a fine house at Cold Springs. Uncle John (L.T.s oldest son) preached at a country church then we had outdoor dinner at great-uncle Campbell's.

Aunt Kathryn and teenage Jean, the only child still at home, moved to Pikeville after husband Fred's death, and Aunt K. got a job in a courthouse office. She improved the old 2-story house gradually and our family spent lots of happy times visiting there. I was surprised Jean had taken dancing lessons in Montgomery. Aunt K. bragged of Jean's popularity with boys. Unlike her tiny mother, Jean was tall like her dad but had her mother's vivacious personality. She wasn't interested in school or music, just acting and dancing. She didn't go to a Christian college. She got a job when she and her mother moved back to Montgomery where Fredanna and Don lived. Aunt Kathryn was a much loved librarian for years in the early days of Alabama Christian College which has a bust a sculptor made of her for their library, I think.

My dad loved Aunt K. and her cooking. She'd invite us for a fried chicken breakfast with hot biscuits and gravy he loved. We'd leave home before sunrise, cross Hiawassee River on a ferry with fog on the river, climb the beautiful mountain looking down on Pikeville, and be there with big appetites. She and sister Mattie tried to outdo each other cooking at reunions. My husband Ed's first teaching job was in Pikeville high school. He taught 2 yrs. there and was teaching there when I met him in Nashville. He knew Aunt K. before he knew me, also Aunt Mattie in Algood where he preached while finishing Tenn. Tech. They left him with a good impression of my family I'm glad to say. I'm enclosing a chart a grandson made that shows Ed was a 3rd cousin of Mother's through the Kuykendalls, although we didn't know it when we married. I've been surprised at how many traits he had similar to my Mother. They both were good at public speaking. Mother won medals for that as a student. They both loved music and growing flowers. Once I asked Aunt K. why she, sister Mary and your mother Fanny were so tiny while my mother and Aunt Mattie were larger built. Aunt K. said there were large people on the Kuykendall side. I remember my Grandfather L.T. Hutcheson as being a very small man when we visited him and "Miss Alma," his 2nd wife, near Sparta. I would guess his first wife Olive Irene Kuykendall was as tall or taller than he, but they are seated in the only picture I have of both of them.

Aunt Kathryn not only took daughter Fredanna's son Jack to rear, but when Uncle L.T . Jr's wife was killed in a fall, leaving him with a little girl, Aunt K. also took Betty "under her wing." Fortunately she had a big house. I remember Uncle L.T Jr. being charged with his wife's murder. Police said he hit her since they fought a lot, but he said she fell while chasing him out to the car. He was acquitted. I remember Mother, Dad and Aunt Kathryn giving Uncle moral support in Chattanooga during the trial. It was very scary. Betty stayed with Aunt K until after Uncle L. T .married again.

L. T. Jr had 2 sons by his 2nd marriage. I remember riding the Lookout Mt. cable car to their house overlooking Chattanooga when in high school. I still wear a towel shampoo jacket that his wife Rosebud made me. She died of cancer. Betty still lives in Chattanooga and Clarence visits her sometime. She lost her 2nd husband not long ago and has no children of her own, only step-children. She's has a hard life, is lonesome since her dad died, so we correspond some. Her husband was a fine photographer who made many good pictures of Mother in her 90's when they visited her in Searcy. Maybe Clarence will give her your family history. She'd enjoy it, I think.

I wish I had happy memories of Uncle John H in Nashville, as I do of Aunt Kathryn. He had a daughter Olive (named for her grandmother) slightly older than I, as well as other children close to Nancy and Clarence's ages.

I visited Olive several times and remember how her father who required them to call him "father", never " daddy ," ruled his family with an iron hand. Altho' they lived in the city he had goats for milk. They raised their own chickens and vegetables. I was upset once when visiting to find he let them eat only 2 meals a day, saying it was better for one's health. It' s strange every one of the family but Paul has died of cancer. He didn't let the boys have toy guns. My husband and Olive went to Lipscomb's high school together. Ed said he felt sorry for Olive. Her dad made her wear thick long stockings to school, anklets being too sexy. He thought it sinful for women to cut their hair, so Olive never did. She was one of the sweetest persons I ever knew, but he allowed her no social contact. She never married until she went west in middle-age.

My experiences with Uncle John H fit the impression Mother gave me about her father's (L. T.) rule over his family. His children called him "Pa." Since John was the oldest boy he was probably most influenced by his father. When our grandmother Olive Irene H died leaving baby L. T. Jr. to rear, Mother thought her dad bent his rules a lot. Maybe that accounts for L. T. Jr .being a little on the "wild" side when young. I think being tried for murder put the fear of God into him. He'd been irreligious before that. I had more contact with Uncle L. T. than his brothers since he lived close by. I can't remember ever meeting David, but must have on that Detroit trip we made as children. To me, the outstanding trait of Uncle L. T. was his love of music. When he visited Mother in Searcy, he wanted me to play for him. I remember the last time they were here, he and his 3rd wife sat crying while I played hymns they requested. He insisted on sending me copies of cassettes of music he loved, He was a very emotional man, soft-spoken. But he could sell anything,(even a snow cone to an Eskimo), the reason being his earnestness, so deeply feeling what he said was true. He sold Mother many Electrolux vacuum cleaners and for years after hearing his sales pitch I thought there was no other worth looking at. He was small like his father. John was a larger man.

All the Hutcheson family were good with their hands, some at painting, mechanical repairs, sewing, cooking, playing piano, etc. I heard someone say they never knew a Kuykendall not good with his/her hands. Elam Kuykendall taught printing and ran the print shop at Lipscomb when I was a student. Maybe the Hutchesons inherited those talents from their mother's family. A cousin Fanny Kuykendall was a great portrait painter and painted large pictures of Ed's grandfather and grandmother, E.G.Sewell and Lucy Kuykendall Sewell. Ed told me to give the pictures to Lipscomb after he died, and they are hanging now in that library. John H. Jr. was head of their Art department until he died.

Our younger son is named Richmond Kuykendall (called Kirk) Sewell. He has the right name as he's very good with his hands, a graduate of a school of photography as well as Harding. I have many beautiful framed pictures he's taken. He can fix anything from cars to computers. He loves growing flowers and a garden, even cooking. He lives in Springfield, IL. His daughter Elizabeth graduated from Harding last Dec., and is now teaching music and Spanish at a Christian school in Monroe, LA, where Aunt Mattie's daughter Martha Walker and husband live.

As you know my grandmother Olive Irene Kuykendall Hutcheson died at 48 yrs. from typhoid. Mother Edith said she always blamed herself for her mother's death because her mother nursed her through typhoid before she got it herself. She remembers her mother hand sewing by her bed, licking the thread to put it through the needle's eye, getting her germs that way. Not only did Olive ( I didn't know she was called "Ollie" until I read your notes) die prematurely, but her mother died when Olive was 6 months old. I think Mother said her mother was reared by Kuykendall grandparents.

Clarence brought me an old obituary of Mother's grandmother's death that must have been passed on from her mother to some family member. It is so old it's impossible to copy it, but I'll write below what it says for you to add to your precious memories, if you haven't seen it.

OBITUARY FOR MARY ANN METHENY KUYKENDALL
from the January 1861 "Gospel Advocate"

Dear Brethren: It becomes my painful duty to communicate the sad intelligence of the departure of a much loved and lamented sister, Mary Ann Metheny, wife of J. E. Kuykendall. She died on the 28th of Oct. 1860, in the 22nd year of her age, leaving behind her an affectionate husband and an infant daughter, Olive Irene, besides a large circle of friends and relatives to mourn their irreporable loss.

In her youth she was early taught to reverence the doctrines of the Baptist church, but in April 1859 she resolved to lay aside the doctrines and traditions of men and take the Bible as her only rule of faith and practice. She united with the church at Smyma, in which she remained a devoted member until her death"

W.Y. Kuykendall, Cookeville, TN, Nov. 24, 1860

Ann Sewell

People mentioned in this letter

(I've hyperlinked people who are featured in the letter. few names are here just to fill out the chart.)

Mary Ann Matheny (1839-1860) - (Olive Kuykendall Hutcheson's mother), who married James Edward Kuykendall(1838-1871) at age 18, and died of typhoid fever three years later, when Olive was only eight months old.

Leander Travis Hutcheson (1854 - 1934)
m. Olive Irene Kuykendall (1860 - 1908) (Mary Matheny's granddaughter)
: ├─ Anna Kathryn (Kate) Hutcheson (1882-1971)
: │ m. Fred Marion Little (1881-1942)
: │ ├─ Fredanna Little (1905-1998)
: │ ├─ Don Carlos Little (1907-1971)
: │ └─ Kathryn Jean Little (1922-1988)
: ├─ Mary Lista Hutcheson (1884-1984)
: │ m. Hubert Coffman (1884-1961)
: │ └─ Evalyn and Carlos
: ├─ Mattie Irene Hutcheson (1887-1971)
: │ └─ Hubert, Elizabeth, and Martha
: ├─ Fannie Charlotte Hutcheson (1890-1988)
: │ m. Arch Coffman (1888-1927)
: │ ├─ Helen Fay Coffman (1914-2012) (Recipient of the letter)
: │ │ m. Olaf Randall (Randy) Baaso (1914-2002)
: │ ├─Archie Coffman (1921-2010) (the piano player)
: │ └─ also Oliver, Hannah, John, Gordon, and Edith
: ├─ John Campbell Hutcheson (1892-1981)
: │ m. Laura Overhulls (1895-1986)
: │ ├─ Olive Irene Hutcheson (1920-1995)
: │ ├─ Paul Hutcheson (1928-)
: │ └─ also John and Ruth
: ├─ Edith Kuykendall Hutcheson (1898-1996)
: │ m. Clarence Lester Richmond (1895-1981)
: │ ├─ Ann Frances Richmond (1924-)
: │ │ m. Edward Granville Sewell (1919-1987)
: │ │ ├─ Mary Ann Sewell (1946-)
: │ │ ├─ Richmond Kuykendall Sewell (1953-)
: │ │ └─ also Granville
: │ ├─ Clarence Lester Richmond (1928-)
: │ │ m. Valle Beth Horton (1929-)
: │ │ ├─ Robin Richmond (1953-) (me; I produced the family tree that Ann mentioned)
: │ │ └─ also Beth, Melanie, and Charlie
: │ └─ also Nancy and Joe Robin
: ├─ James David Hutcheson (1900-1985) (Whom Ann said she had never met)
: │ m. Golie Martin (1904-1983)
: │ └─ Roy and Pat
: ├─ Leander Travis Hutcheson (L.T. Jr) (1904-1999)
: │ m. Altha Inez Rickets (1908-1936) (Of whom L.T.Jr was accused of murdering)
: │ :└─ Betty Carolyn
: │ m. Rosebud McBroom (1908-1947)
: │ :└─ Leander Travis III (Travis) and Victor Lawrence (Larry)
: │ m. Betty Koon (1923-1998)
: │  └─ Mary, Martha, James, and John
: └─ also Pearly and Clemma
m. Alma Freiley (1877-1935)

Follow-up

The children of L.T. Sr and Olive
  1. Pearly was mentally handicapped; she died in an institution in 1933
  2. Katy died in Pikeville, TN
  3. Mary and Hubert settled near Denver
  4. Mattie and Will lived in Cookeville, TN
  5. Fannie and Arch lived in the Detroit area.
  6. John and Laura lived in Nashville
  7. Clemma died at age 14 from a fall after being tripped at school in Spencer, TN.
  8. Edith and Clarence lived in Cleveland, TN. After he died, she moved to Searcy, AR, and died in a nursing home in Tulsa, OK, near her son Clarence.
  9. Dave and Golie lived in the Detroit area.
  10. L.T. Jr lived for a while in Chattanooga. In about 1950, he moved to Birmingham, AL.
Grandchildren of L.T. Sr and Olive who are still alive
  • Edith's daughter (who wrote the letter) Ann Richmond Sewell is 96; she lives in Searcy, AR
  • Ann's brother (my father), Clarence Richmond Jr is 92; he retired to Searcy
  • John's son Paul Hutcheson is 92; He spent most of his adult live in Murphreesboro, TN, and now lives with his daughter near Huntsville, Alabama
  • Fannie's daughter Edith Coffman Schoenberg is 93; she spent most of her life in Detroit, and now lives in Florida
  • L.T. Jr's six younger children, Travis (78), Larry (75), Mary(70), Martha (68), James (66), John (64)
Betty Carolyn Hutcheson Alexandander (L.T. Jr's oldest) died just over a week ago, on May 31, 2020.

Ann noted that Aunt Kathryn's three children, Fredanna, Don, and Jean "seem to have vanished from the earth". But they reappeared, as it were, when Jean's daughter Kerry Kilbourne Thompson happened upon this website in 2018 and contacted me.

Finally, Don Baaso, a son of Helen Coffman Baaso, the recipient of the letter, sent it to me for posting on this website.

Robin Richmond
Cleveland, Ohio
9 June 2020



Warning: Undefined variable $allow_media_add in /homepages/12/d484092304/htdocs/www/family/showmedialib.php on line 640
Linked to
AlbumsHutcheson, through about 1980




Home Page |  What's New |  Surnames |  Photos |  Histories |  Documents |  Cemeteries |  Places |  Dates |  Sources