Sixty-fifth Wedding Anniversity of Tera & Faye McEwen, Coosa, alabama http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/coosa/bios/tfmcewen.txt ================================================================================ USGENWEB NOTICE: All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. This file was contributed and copyrighted by: Ronald D. Bridges ================================================================================ November 1998 Sixty-fifth Wedding Anniversity of Tera & Faye McEwen - Coosa Co., AL Month of Celebrating of Coosa County Couple Mr. and Mrs. Terah Anderson McEwen will celebrate their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary on August 8th. Mr. McEwen will celebrate his ninetieth birthday August 4th and August 6th there will be a McEwen family reunion at Sears Chapel on the Rockford Highway following the Sears Chapel annual reunion. This will not only be a reunion but a day everyone wishing their best to Mr. McEwen on turning ninety this year. The McEwen’s family reunions were held at their home for years until the family outgrew the home. I had a wonderful visit with Mr. and Mrs. McEwen this past week. It was truly a pleasure. They were so open, young at heart and neither on lacked a good sense of humor. We talked about all the upcoming events this month. We talked about their anniversary and I asked them how they met. Mr. McEwen said he had a cute little story on that. He was working at Wallsboro and she was teaching close by a Titus. Mrs. McEwen taught school for thirty-five years in the surrounding area. They were having a lot of square dancing around Wallsboro back then and he was invited to go. He said he thought she was a right cute little red headed gal when she walked in there and so she kind of latched on to him and he kind of gave in. Now, Mrs. McEwen said from then on every time she opened her door he was right there and it was him that did the latching. We all got to laughing on who was the latcher and who was the latchee. The main thing is eventually the both agreed to latching permanently. He was leaving for Missouri on a construction job on a Saturday so he stopped in Rockford that Friday on the way home from work for a marriage license and then went on to her home and from there they went to Weogufka where a preacher married them. They stopped in Sylacauga and spent their honeymoon night at the Knight Hotel. He worked in Missouri about a year and they came back to settle down at the McEwen home place. Mrs. McEwen was formerly Faye Beth Harmon also born here in Coosa County. They belong to Andrews Chapel in Hanover. Although they have no children, they have many nieces and nephews. They showed me around their home. It was lovely filled with treasures and memories from long ago. Mr. and Mrs. McEwen had many prized posses- sions. She had among them a pair of beautiful framed pictures her Grandmother had given her. There was a large picture of his family which must have been almost a hundred hears old because he wasn't even born then. There was also a glass encased pocket watch passed from his grandfather to his father and on to him. Mrs. McEwen was kind enough to bring out an old hair chair used by Mr. McEwen and still in good condition which had been handed all the way down from his grandfather. They don’t make furniture like that anymore. Mrs. McEwen had several beautiful handstitched pictures she had made. He showed me his 1994 plaque from the Cattleman’s Association. She had lovely vases of all shapes and sizes. Their home was filled with history including a large photograph of Mr. McEwen’s great grandfather Adams on his mother’s side, dressed in his full uniform from the civil war days. Unfortunately he never returned from that was just like so many others. You would never know from talking with Mr. McEwen he was about to be ninety. He remembered well his life growing up as a young adult. We has a great time talking about some of those years. He said he was happy then and still is He is the oldest McEwen living in his family. He was born there at the home place in Hanover which is now about 100 years old. The first house burned down some time after his parent moved there. It was a two story house. All the community worked together with them to rebuild another house. More was added to it as the years passed. He was the youngest thirteen children born to Mr. and Mrs. William Powell McEwen. Three children died in infancy from pneumonia which was not unusual in those days. Most people who know him well refer to him as Ted or T. When he was a child almost every Sunday eight or ten boys gathered around for a good game of shooting marbles or playing a good old fashioned base ball game. He did a lot of mule riding in those days and had a lot of fun swimming his horses in Hatchett Creek. Some of his closest friends in his younger years were Dark Thompson, Granham Arnold and Archie Dobson. He started to school when he was five at the old log school house in Hanover which of course has long, long been gone. He related a time when he was around fifteen and George McDonald was Probate Judge in Rockford. The county had received some money, enough to build a road and a bridge across Hatchett Creek. His father took him with him to help build the bridge which paid fifty cents a day. They left out at four in the morning and got home around six at night. He said that’s how he got started off working and he still thinks about that a lot today. Another thing he remembers will is his cousin owning a Ford business in Rockford when he was about nineteen and the first Ford car that came with a rumble seat and gear shift he bought. He said he was sporting that car around with rumble seat and all the girls didn’t want to ride in the front, they wanted to ride in the rumble seat. Mrs. McEwen added, "he had that same car when we met and he thought he was some sport." We all had a big laugh about it. He said he had a lot of fun back then and still enjoys life now. A few years later after working along with his father and others helping build Hatchett Bridge he began doing construction work which took him out of state sometimes. Over the years he was a member of the Masonic Lodge in Hanover until the members dwindled down to too few. He later spent most of his time raising cattle and farming on their one hundred and seventy-six acres. He drove the Sylacauga bus a couple of years which mainly carried mill workers to their jobs. Some ofthe senior citizens may remember him from that. For the past twenty years he’s been a cattleman checking on his cattle twice a day. In 1994 he was selected as Cattleman of the year by the Coosa County Cattleman’s Association. He’s their oldest member. My visit with them just flew by, I hated to leave. They were so nice and made me fell so much at home. I could see from my visit with them why their marriage has lasted sixty-five years. They still had sparkles in their eyes when telling how they met and lived over the years. (1) (1) Sharron T. Ward, "Month of Celebrating for Coosa County Couple," The Coosa County News, 3 Aug 1995, pp. 1 and 3. Note: Tera Anderson McEwen (b. 4 Aug 1905 in Hanover, Coosa Co., AL & d. 6 Dec 1995 in Coosa Co., AL) married Faye Beth Harmon on 8 Aug 1930 in Weogufka, Coosa Co., AL. He is buried in Andrew's Chapel Methodist Church Cemetery, Coosa Co., AL.