Franklin-Grundy County TN Archives Biographies.....Mooney, John And Sarah Ann April 6, 1874 - April 12, 1963
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Donald Hill hilldonl@bellsouth.net September 19, 2012, 4:13 pm

Source: Personal memory and census records
Author: Donald Hill

JOHN SAMUEL MOONEY 
Richard Mooney (see http://files.usgwarchives.org/tn/franklin/bios/MOONEY.pdf) 
was born about1847 and died in 1920. He met and courted Catherine Sutherland, 
who was born on February 16, 1857, in North Carolina and died on February 4, 
1936, in Sewanee, Tennessee. At the time of their marriage, on August 29, 
1872, Catherine was newly arrived by wagon from North Carolina. In the 
marriage, their first child, born April 6, 1874, was named John Samuel, who 
grew up, first in a log house on the campus of the University of the South, 
commonly known as Sewanee, and later, on the north side of Sewanee Mountain 
(about 35.2174N, 85.911W). On that site, Richard built terraced walls of 
stones and made level ground by filling the spaces with dirt, leaves, and 
rotting logs. In these tiny fields, he planted a variety of vegetables, which 
he used to feed his family and to obtain small amounts of cash when he sold 
the excess to the residents of Sewanee. Many of the religious figures and 
staff members at the university made enough money to purchase fruits and 
vegetables, which were prepared by their servants. In contrast, Richard and 
Catherine were poor. John had to quit school after the third grade in order to 
help his family survive. 
John was short, thin, and dark. He described himself as one-fourth Indian, 
indicating that one of his parents, either Richard Mooney or Catherine 
Sutherland, had a parent who was full-blooded Indian. He had been bald since, 
as a child, he fell into the fireplace and burned his scalp. He later 
developed skin cancers on the dome of his head. The cancers were cured after 
several surgeries, but depressions remained where the cancer had eaten into 
his skull. His curved nose was a prominent feature, and his hands were 
leathery from working on the University Farm in Sewanee. He worked six days a 
week and preached on Sunday. 
After his marriage, John lived in Roark’s Cove for several years before moving 
to the University Farm in Sewanee. For nearly a half-century, he worked for 
the University. The farm was a showplace with numerous flowers and a garden, 
carefully laid out, where vegetables were grown to feed the students at the 
University. In the fall, he slaughtered beef and pork. About 1950, the farm 
closed, and he moved to Midway, where he continued to grow vegetables and 
flowers. 
SARAH ANN HEAD MOONEY
John’s wife, Sarah Ann Head, was born in Marion County on June 27, 1879, to 
William Charles Head, Sr. (1856-1911) and Sarah Jane Davis (1856-1929). Sarah 
and John were married on December 27, 1895, in Marion County. Sarah Ann Head 
Mooney was much the opposite of John. She had blue eyes and fair skin. She was 
tall and large, but not obese; she worked too hard to gain weight. Her thin 
grey hair hung to her waist when it was not tightly coiled into a bun so tight 
that her eyes narrowed. As was common in those days, she did not cut her hair 
and never wore makeup, jewelry, or clothes with bright colors. Her dresses 
swept the floor as she walked. The Church of the Nazarene, where John 
preached, did not encourage bodily adornment and frowned on women who cut 
their hair and painted their faces. 
Ordinarily, as a stern ‘chairman of the board,’ Sarah Ann gave all the orders 
in the house. Except on Sunday, everyone had to work, and all visitors to her 
home were fed. On Sundays, there could be more than a dozen. Breakfast at her 
house was a treat. She made biscuits two inches high, and, to go on them, she 
had ice-cold butter and a choice of honey, molasses, syrup, or jelly. She had 
a great love for flowers. To those who expressed an interest in her plants, 
she gave seeds or cuttings so that they could have their own. Sarah Ann worked 
in the cannery on the University Farm, processing the vegetables grown by her 
husband. Along with her daughters and daughters-in-law, she made mattress 
covers by the hundreds for the University dormitories. 
Sarah Ann was constantly concerned about poor people. She asked friends for 
old skirts and trousers, from which she and her daughters made quilts and, for 
needy boys, jackets, trousers, and shirts. Flour and feed sacks were used to 
make clothing for girls and diapers for babies. From Mrs. Eggleston at 
Magnolia Hall, she obtained bacon drippings, which were distributed by a 
daughter-in-law to hungry people, who used the fat to make gravy and to season 
beans and potatoes, and, with lye added, to make soap.
Sarah Ann had a great love for children. After hers married and left home, 
they visited often. Grandchildren, who called her ‘Nannie,’ were a delight. 
She had appropriate techniques for keeping them occupied and quiet. One ploy 
was used at bedtime to encourage children to sleep. A grandson described this 
by writing the following:
Twas on a cold and wintry night, 'twas Christmas Eve, I think,
I climbed in bed a Nannie's house with that one last drink.
I did not aim to go to sleep, e'en with the water downed.
My mother was not with me, though she slept not far around.
I cried, I moaned, I bawled, I sobbed. I could not be appeased,
til loving Nannie brought to me the flashlight and the keys!
His grandmother pointed out that the house was locked and that he could have 
the responsibility of keeping the keys. The flashlight could be used if there 
was any prospect that a "booger" had entered the house. She also noted that, 
should a "booger" appear, her false teeth, which she kept in a glass by the 
side of her bed, would bite him.
Sarah Ann had shortcomings, one of which was that she liked to complain. When 
asked how she was, her reply could be: “I am not well at all. I have heart 
trouble and kidney disease. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t 
get my breath. I came near to dying. John slept right on. If I had died, he 
wouldn’t have known about it until morning.” She did not let her children 
forget that he “went down through the Valley of the Shadow of Death to bring 
them into the world.”
As she aged, Sarah Ann attended church less often. She ‘just wasn’t able to 
sit through the sermon.’ She also became a bit frantic. On several occasions, 
when John was admitted to the hospital with an attack of asthma, she called 
her children to tell them that he was dying. By the time they arrived, 
however, John had recovered and was ready to go home. Sarah Ann dealt with 
such ordeals by going to bed for several days. The children were invited to 
visit her ‘for the last time.’ She was in her glory when they all assembled by 
her bedside.
Sarah Ann died on her 89th birthday in 1967. She and John are buried in the 
Eastern Star Cemetery in Sewanee.
CHILDREN
Children of John Mooney and Sarah Ann Head were Bessie Ethel (1895-1980), who 
married Luther Tucker (1887-1961); George (1897-1901); Frank (1899-1903); an 
infant, born and died in 1902; Bertha Olivia (1905-1950), who married James 
Bransford Hill (1893-1972); Nellie Lee (1908-1936), who married Sam Tucker 
(1893-1960); Paul Wesley (1911-2004), who married Georgia Goodman (1914-
aft2011); Silas Pittman (1916-1968), who married Beulah (Bill) Waldman (1916-
?) and Mary Kessler (1928-2001); and Alice Frances (1919-2007), who married 
Ward Goodman (1920-aft2011). From this list, it is obvious that John and Sarah 
Ann knew tragedy. Three children, born between Bessie and Bertha, had died, 
one at birth and two under the age of five. Further, Nellie died young, 
leaving a husband and young son, and Bertha died at age 45, being survived by 
a husband and five children. 
VIGNETTES
Robins
As a teenager, John Mooney went hunting on a snowy winter day. His family was 
near starvation, having used up their food stores and money. Game was scarce. 
The population of rabbits and squirrels had been thinned nearly to extinction. 
He trudged through the snow with a 12-gauge shotgun, stopping occasionally to 
listen for the chatter of a squirrel. As dusk approached and with nothing in 
his game bag, he came to a small grove of cedar trees. He pushed ahead, 
looking forward to shelter from the bitter north wind that swept through 
Roark's Cove and became even colder as it advanced up the side of the 
mountain. As he approached the cedars, he noticed a stir in the leaves under 
the trees, where snow had not collected, and stopped. His keen eyes saw the 
leaves moving, but, in the dim light, he could not see what was stirring them. 
Rabbits would never make such a commotion, and, if it were squirrels, he could 
surely see their bushy tails. He dropped behind a rock to watch. 
Soon he determined that the leaves were being disturbed by a flock of robins, 
whose colors matched those of the background. Since most of the soil was 
covered with snow, these hungry birds were scratching in the leaves to find 
bits of food. John raised the gun and fired. As the sound of the shot echoed 
off the cliffs and smoke from the powder burned his eyes, the leaves, lifted 
into the air by the blast, settled quietly. No bird flew away. Confused, he 
reloaded the gun and walked to the trees, expecting to kill one or two more as 
they took flight, but none flew. John surveyed the scene. Thirty-two birds 
were dead; not one had survived. At least one pellet in the shotgun shell had 
found a vital spot in each bird. Thankful for his good fortune, he loaded the 
birds into his game bag and returned home. He and his mother plucked and 
dressed the birds and cooked them for supper.
Salvation
As a youth, John Mooney learned to hunt squirrels and rabbits, some of which 
were dressed and sold. In his early years, John enjoyed being in the woods 
alone. He was shy and did not particularly like the company of people. The 
reason for this was that he stuttered. It was especially difficult for him to 
start a sentence. 
"Wha, wha, why do I, I, I ta, ta, talk this way?" he asked.
"Come on, John. Spit it out," he heard a hundred times.
A few years after killing the robins, John had another hunting adventure. Now 
married, he hunted to feed his growing family. Especially in the fall, tasty 
squirrel meat could be added to their diet, which consisted mostly of 
vegetables. One could go into the woods with a dog trained to hunt these wary 
creatures. The hunter wandered through the woods, following the dog racing 
ahead. When the dog spotted a squirrel, he would chase it up a tree and bark 
until the hunter arrived. Then a life-or-death game would take place. The 
squirrel would position himself on the side of the tree away from the hunter 
and move so that he stayed out of the hunter's sight as the hunter slowly and 
quietly circled the tree. If the squirrel became confused and allowed himself 
into the hunter's view, the boom of a shotgun would mean his end.
On one such occasion, John circled a tree and tossed a branch into the leaves 
on the other side. The squirrel, startled, backed into John's view. To get a 
clearer shot, John, with his eyes fixed on the squirrel, stepped backwards and 
fell into a hole, leaving his gun at the base of the tree. He dropped ten feet 
down, into a pit lined with moss-covered limestone. His head banged against 
the side, and he saw stars. As his vision cleared, he assessed his situation. 
There were no outcroppings or branches to grasp. His fingers could only tear 
the wet, slick moss from the rock. He tried placing his feet on opposite sides 
of the hole, but he could climb only a foot or so before he slid back to the 
bottom. His gun was not available, and, even if he had it, shots would not 
likely bring anyone to his aid. His dog stayed quietly near the tree.
"Heh, heh, help!" he yelled repeatedly. An hour later, he was near despair.
"Why not give up?" he thought. "I'll die here. My body will never be found."
A greater fear took hold. Not only would he die here, he would be lost 
eternally. He had seldom thought about God and had attended only a few brush 
arbor meetings. For the first time in his life, he tried to pray. The only 
words that he could muster were: "O God, puh, puh, please save me!"
He sighed, and a transforming feeling of peace flowed from his head, through 
his body, and down to his toes.
"HELP, HELP, HELP," he roared.
"John, is that you? You are scaring every squirrel on the mountain."
"Get me out of here, Mr. Garner!"
"Well, I do declare. Here, take hold of this stick. I can pull you out. Are 
you all right?"
"Well, I hit my head, but I think its okay. I thought I was a goner."
"Well, you're lucky that I happened to be out this way. I've never hunted in 
this part of the woods before and I don't know why I came over this way. Why 
don't you take these two squirrels home? They'll taste good tonight."
"I don't know how to thank you."
"It's all right, John. Come to see us."
John never stuttered again.
A few weeks later, John heard the call of God. Gathering the last of the fall 
crops, he remembered the words of Jeremiah: "The harvest is past, the summer 
has ended, and we are not saved." He knelt beside a rock in a weedy field 
beside his home. This time, the words came freely, as did the tears. "Father, 
forgive me! Take my sins away; I want to serve you."
Returning to his home, he announced, "Mama, I've been praying! I've been 
saved! We're going to go to church on Sunday."
Sarah Ann dropped her colander of green beans. "Well, I never . . . John, you 
have been acting different lately, since you fell in that hole. I thought you 
had hurt your head. Now look what you made me do. I can't finish canning these 
beans with you going on so. But praise the Lord; you needed to have him work 
on you. Bessie needs to go to church, and I do too. I've been feeling mighty 
bad since we lost Frank and George and the other baby. It sure hurt me to put 
them all in the ground. Maybe God is calling both of us."
For years, he would take visitors to the rock where he prayed. On many 
evenings, he could be found there with his head bowed.
John first attended a Pentecostal church, but he couldn't catch on to speaking 
in tongues. He and Sarah Ann then joined the Nazarene church, where they found 
a home. After he was "sanctified" while praying again at his rock, John lost 
his shyness and felt the call to preach. To conduct his first revival, he 
walked twelve miles over washed-out wagon roads to a little log church in Lost 
Cove. 
Preaching
For many years, John preached in small country churches and served as pastor 
at several, including the Chapman's Chapel Nazarene Church, where he attended 
most of his adult life. At Chapman’s Chapel, and at other churches, his tenure 
as pastor was short. Many church members did not appreciate his strong sermons 
on salvation, and he apparently preferred to serve as a visiting preacher. He 
walked, sometimes twenty miles round-trip, to preach. 
Daily, in the fields, he thanked the Lord for every little breeze and for each 
cloud that shielded him from the sun. He had reason to be thankful for these 
blessings; he wore long underwear all through the year.
Not everyone respected John as a preacher. In Roark's Cove, he visited with a 
man who gave him a sack of roasting ears for his growing family. On the way to 
the foot of the mountain, however, he was accosted by a farmer on horseback 
who accused John of stealing the corn from his field. John denied it, but the 
farmer dismounted, proclaiming, "I'm gonna whup you good!" John replied that 
he was agreeable but that he thought that they ought to pray about it first. 
The farmer backed off saying, "Well, I can't whup you and God too. Go on home!"
On a follow-up trip to Lost Cove, he strode into the little glen to speak on a 
Sunday night. After the service, he waited for someone to ask him to spend the 
night, for it was too dark to walk back through the woods. Finally, a man he 
didn't know well asked him to stay at his house, and, reluctant to decline the 
offer, John agreed. His bed that night had a wooden frame and a corn shuck 
mattress; underneath was a smelly, noisy box of goslings. The baby geese kept 
him awake most of the night. At daybreak, John crept out of the house without 
breakfast and without saying goodbye. After that, he didn't preach in Lost 
Cove at night.
Although he brought the teachings of Christ to many people, he had a blind 
spot in regard to race. Although he had Indian blood, he would, if asked, say 
that black people were inferior. He also held an apocalyptic theology. During 
the 1956 Mideast war, he asserted that the end of the world would come if the 
nation of Israel were destroyed.
Asthma
Asthma, aggravated by the pollen and dust in the fields and woods, was a 
lifelong companion for John. He wheezed and coughed and gasped for breath, 
except when he was preaching and the adrenaline was flowing. When his disease 
was particularly troublesome, he preached, in church, in his garden, or on his 
porch, with an audience or without. 
On a Sunday morning, John preached at the Wilder’s Chapel Congregational 
Methodist Church. Sitting in the front pew, he wheezed with asthma. He pulled 
a spray from his pocket and pumped medicine into his mouth but continued to 
wheeze loud enough to be heard in the back of the church. When Sunday school 
was over and two songs were sung, the preacher, George Rollins, stepped into 
the pulpit and announced that we were glad to have Brother Mooney with us and 
that he was asking him to preach at this time. John stood up straight and went 
forward. He opened his Bible and gasped out in a broken sentence that he was 
going to read from Matthew. For a moment the room was filled with the noise of 
wheezing. Brother Rollins bowed his head and prayed. 
John began to read, and the sound of the words took the place of the wheezing. 
He read clearly and preached for over an hour without wheezing. On the way 
home, he was asked how he could stop his asthma long enough to preach. He 
responded by saying that he never had asthma while he was preaching. 
Drought
During an extended dry period, the leaders of the church at Wilder’s Chapel 
asked John to come the next Sunday and pray for rain. There was concern that 
such a request might be inappropriate. Further, if it didn’t rain, John would 
be ridiculed, and folks who thought little of the church would scoff and move 
even farther away from God. The community, which had its share of drinking, 
fighting, cursing, and gambling, would be an even worse place to live. His 
response was that he would come, but folks should bring their umbrellas to 
church.
On Sunday, three ragged umbrellas were placed behind the pew nearest the door. 
Most people were too poor to have an umbrella. 
Songs were sung. A few members used songbooks, all of which had lost their 
covers; others sang from memory.
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine . . ."
"Showers, showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need . . ."
For an hour and a half, John preached on Abraham's faith. At one o'clock, 
dinner ‘on the ground’ was served. After the dishes were collected, and the 
sheets covering the ground were folded, it was time for church to resume.
"All right, everybody who believes it is going to rain if we pray get back in 
the church," John shouted. "Come on, but only if you have faith." About twenty 
people responded. An equal number stayed outside. 
Inside, the men took turns praying. "Lord, have mercy. The earth is cracking 
open!" The creek behind the church building was dry, and there were long 
cracks in the dry sediment. 
Soon, dust billowed through the open door. Coming in also were those who had 
stayed outside. There was a cooling breeze and the sky to the west turned 
bluish-black. The sun, which had shown through the dusty air, became hidden. 
Soon, tree branches were waving, and the door slammed. Those who were praying 
did not notice until large drops of rain splattered on the roof and on the 
ground outside, for a moment raising more dust. Some drops came through the 
open windows. 
The women shouted, cried, and laughed. One man walked up and down the aisle, 
waving his handkerchief. In a short while, the pounding rain was louder than 
the shouting. John called for everyone to come kneel at the altar and offer a 
prayer of thanksgiving. After thirty minutes, as the prayer lost its 
intensity, people returned to the pews, absent in thought.
When the rain let up, the sun was low over the western horizon. The clouds to 
the east were purple, trimmed in bright orange. 
Death
For 56 years, John spoke in Nazarene and other churches in the counties of 
Franklin, Grundy, and Marion, and he preached on April 12, 1963, the day God 
called him home. An especially vicious attack of asthma had placed him in the 
hospital, where he sat up in bed and preached to the nurses and orderlies. His 
subject was, "Choose you this day whom you will serve." At the end of his 
sermon, he slumped in the bed, exhausted. His last words were, "Jesus, I come 
to thee." His funeral was held at Chapman’s Chapel, where he had served as 
pastor. The presiding minister quoted, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the 
upright, for the end of that man is peace."
A granddaughter wrote the following poem:
His shoulders were stooped and his walk was slow.
You could see it was hard for him to go.
But in his eyes shone a heavenly light 
that never dimmed but remained bright.
His hands were all wrinkled and callused and old,
but his handshake so gentle and warm - never cold.
His life an example of God's love to all.
This wonderful man stood to me ten feet tall.
And when he spoke of his Savior in a voice soft and low,
his words filled my heart with a heavenly glow.
He always said proudly, "I'm just waiting to go
to that mansion in Heaven where my Jesus, I know
will welcome me warmly and there I shall rest
in a home he has built there for the happy and blest.
When his time arrived, his Savior said, "Come."
He smiled his last smile and said, "I'm just going home."
His death like his life, an example to see.
And his last words, "Jesus, I come to thee."


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