DAVIDSON COUNTY, TN - BIOGRAPHIES - Micah S. Combs
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from Tennessee: The Volunteer State 1769-1923, Nashville, 1923, II: 320-21.

Micah S. Combs
For fifty years Micah S. Combs has been identified with the M.S. Combs & 
Company undertaking business of Nashville and for twenty-seven years he has 
been pastor of the Bellevue Christian church there. He is a descendent of one 
of the oldest and most honored families of Nashville and was born in that city 
on the 23d of May, 1856. On the paternal side he is of English descent, 
members of the Combs family having come to Virginia in the early colonial 
days. Some of his ancestors made guns for use of the Continental army during 
the Revolutionary war. His grandfather, James W. Combs, was one of the most 
prominent attorneys of his day. He lived at pulski, Tennessee, and was widely 
known throughout the state. Aaron V. Brown and Neil S. Brown read law in his 
office and they later became governors of the state. His son M.S. Combs, 
deceased, was the father of Micah S., whose name introduces this review, and 
was a native of Giles county, Tennessee. His parents located in Giles county 
in the early part of the nineteenth century. He established the present 
undertaking business at Nashville in 1872 and was activiely associated with it 
until his demise. In July, 1853, at Nashville, was celebrated his marriage to 
Miss Georgiana Jackson, who was born in that city in 1832. Six generations of 
the Jackson family have lived in Nashville, the first members locating there 
in 1804. The grandmother of Mrs. Combs was a Clay and a first cousin of Henry 
Clay. The Jacksons are also of English descent. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. 
Combs eleven children were born, four sons and seven daughters, Micah S., 
being the second in order of birth. He and one sister, Mrs. D. F. Allen of 
Nashville, are now the only members of the family living.
In the acquirement of his academic education Micah S. Combs attended private 
school of Nashville, later entered the Hughes-Minn Academy, the Montgomery 
Bell Academy, Crockers School, and subsequently became a student at Manchester 
College, Manchester. There he received a three-year literary college course, 
and after leaving that institution entered his father's undertaking business, 
with which he has since been identified. For over fifty years he has been a 
prime factor in the continued success of M.S. Combs & Company and since 1910 
he has been sole owner and manager of the company. The M.S. Cobms & Company 
undertaking establishment is the oldest of its kind in Nashville. It built the 
first chapel, etc., in the city in 1850 and Mr. Combs received the first 
embalmer's license ever issued in the state of Tennessee. He is cognizant of 
the many niceties of his profession and the success he has achieved is well 
merited. He has been pastor of the Bellevue Chrich church for a period of 
twenty-seven years and has been an edler in the Seventeenth Street Christian 
church for some time. He is a man of high intellectual attainments and is the 
author of a book of poems which was published under the title of "Poems" in 
1919, by the McQuiddey Printing Company of Nashville.
On the 21st of November, 1878, at Nashville, was celebrated the marriage of 
Mr. Combs and Miss Maggie E. Averitt, a daughter of Peter Averitt of 
Hartsville. They have become parents of six children: George, who died at the 
age of twenty-nine years; Joe C., who married Miss Bertha Owens of Atlanta, 
Georgia, and is living in Nashville, where he is associated with his father in 
the undertaking business; Leila, the wife of O. L. Quillan of Nashville; 
Mallie, the wife of Paul E. Shaklett of Chattanooga; Elizabeth, the wife of 
Lackam E. Crouch, a prominent attorney of Nashville; and Marguerite Harrison. 
Mr. and Mrs. Combs have twelve grandchildren living and two deceased. They are 
as follows: George Combs, Mrs. Joe Soule of Nashville, Margaret Agnes 
Shaklett, Joe Shaklett of Chattanooga, O. L. Quillan, Jr., Laurie and Earl 
Quillan, Dorothy, Margaret and Mary Elizabeth Crouch, Francis Guy Harrison and 
C. B. Harrison, Jr.
Mr. Combs has always given his political allegiance to the democratic party 
and the principles for which it stands. Although he has never sought nor 
desired public preferment, he is ever cognizant of the duties and 
responsibilities as well as the privileges of citizenship, and his influence 
has ever been on the side of advancement and improvement. Fraternally he is a 
Scottist Rite Mason and holds membership in Phoenix Lodge, No. 131, F.&A.M., 
of Nashville; Trinity Consistory, No. 2; Al Menah Temple of the Mystic Shrine; 
and he is chaplain of the blue lodge at Nashville. Mr. Combs likewise holds 
membershp in Osceola Tribe, No. 41, of Red Men at Nashville. For years he has 
been an active member of the Kiwanis Club and along strictly business lines he 
is identified with the Tennessee Funeral Directors Association. Mr. Combs is a 
close student of the living questions and issues of the day, and his opinions, 
publicly and privately expressed, carry considerable weight and influence. He 
is one of the best known and most popular men in the city, respected and 
honored for his conservative methods and sound business judgment. He has met 
the obligations of life with the confidence and courage that come of conscious 
personal ability, right conception of things and an habitual regard for what 
is best in the exercise of human activities.

[Note by electronic transcriber Raymond F. Person, Jr.: His full name was 
Micah Sterling Combs.]