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Sarah Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bacon

Sarah Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bacon

Female 1861 - 1946  (85 years)

 

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Bio of Lizzie Bacon

Biography written by her Granddaughter, Ann Richmond Sewell

Sarah Elizabeth ("Lizzie") Bacon

Sarah Elizabeth Bacon Richmond (1861-1946), mother of Arch, Gus, Albert and Clarence Richmond Sr., and grandmother of Ann Richmond Sewell, was the oldest girl among the nine children in the Bacon family, who lived near Cleveland, TN. Her mother (born Mary Anne Trewhitt) was sick a lot and on "Lizzie," as she was called, fell the job of raising her younger brothers and sisters.

She met Jacob Rogers Richmond about the time she quit school at 16, but they weren't married until her 21st birthday. On that day, April 30, 1882, they eloped. Her youngest sister, Rosa, was 8 years old at the time. Her mother died 4 years later. Her father Frank (Benjamin Franklin) Bacon moved west to Kansas and Missouri, remarried in 1994, and had one more son.

At age 4 she learned to read the newspaper that papered the walls of their log cabin with the help of her Aunt Rebecca Trewhitt, a school teacher living with her family. Aunt Rebecca taught in a little log school house not far from their own. She only taught the beginning principles of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Lizzie "graduated" in only a few months from her aunt's school, and when 6 years old, she had to walk 2 1/2 miles to Ragsdale school. She had to go through dark woods, across a stream, through fields and under a bluff where she heard panthers and wildcats scream. Many times her father carried her and her sister Alice, 3 years younger, on his back through woods to their school early, returning home to work all day on the farm.

The school master was a very ill-tempered man who beat his own children nearly to death. So her father made her and Alice quit this school and go to the Academy in Tasso, a community north of Cleveland, where they stayed in a two story dormitory which had two teachers. They went one term, then because her mother couldn't do without both girls, or they couldn't afford for two to go, she stayed home and Alice went.

Later when the Waterville school was built closer to their home, Lizzie went there, but had to quit at age 16 to care for 5 children younger than Alice, the youngest of which were twin girls. Only one of the twins survived, named Rosa. The school's chief recreation were spelling bees. Lizzie almost always won first place in them.

She loved to read all her life. Since she lived next door to me in Cleveland when I was a girl, I could see her at night from my upstairs bedroom window, reading her Bible by her fireplace. Her Grandmother, Elizabeth Keebler Bacon bought it in 1832 for $2.50. She gave that Bible to me. She subscribed to magazines that I enjoyed reading with her. I don't remember Grandfather Jacob Richmond. He died in 1927 when I was only 3 years.

Grandmother's chief heat was a fireplace in her living room which contained her bed. The fireplace burned wood, kept in a "woodhouse" behind her house. She also had a wood burning cook stove in the kitchen. For washing clothes, I remember a black kettle in the backyard under which she had a fire to heat the water. Scrubbing clothes on a scrub board and wringing them out by hand was the process of washing, done outdoors. In later years, she had a gas cook stove in the kitchen, a washer on the back porch, and a living room and guest bedroom gas heater. Downstairs heat reached the upstairs rooms.

She walked with a limp, having broken a hip before I knew her, and the doctor didn't set it right. In spite of this, she walked to stores at a shopping center called "Five Points," about a half mile, up and downhill, never asking for a ride. She also walked to Eastside church, a couple of blocks away.

Lizzie's oldest three sons, Arch, Gus, and Albert, were not able to complete a high school education. But Lizzie insisted the family move to town so Clarence could finish high school, where he was salutatorian. Albert died at 23 of epileptic seizure. Gus and Arch both settled in Atlanta, Georgia. Clarence served in WWI, and wrote a well-regarded war memoir. He then married Edith Hutcheson in 1923, and remained in Cleveland.

Ann Richmond Sewell; 
Searcy, Arkansas



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