John Oden (left) and brother Lt. Dempsey Oden

Capt. John Oden, photo in possession of Alex Luttrell, Madison, AL.

Old picture post card showing the mill pond at Oden's Mill, Odena. Photo is made looking west to east. The Odena Road is in the trees to the right on the hillside (hidden by the trees) and the mill stood at the right side of the dam just out of view.
It was the basis for the setting of the novel "The Music of Falling Water" by Julia Oliver.

The 1891 reunion of Company K, 10th Alabama, at the Odena plantation, Section 13 Township 21 Range 3 East. Capt. John L. ("Piney") Oden, with cane, front row center. A 33rd-degree Mason, he is supposed to have selected the site and design of the house with meticulous care, as well as the site (Section 7) for the church and cemetery, though he never attended church. Also in the photo is Mary J. Hubbard French, daughter of Capt. Oden's first cousin Louisa Oden (Mrs. Calvin C. Hubbard), and husband Benjamin Downs French (1839-1899), uncle of Emily Amanda Ogletree, Mrs. James T. Sanford of Odena. Odena was later known as the Oden-Sanford farm.

It was the basis for the setting of the novel "Goodbye to the Buttermilk Sky" by Julia Oliver, as well as "The Music of Falling Water," also by Julia Oliver, who was Capt. Oden's great-granddaughter.

One of the few things saved when the house later burned was the old mantle clock presented to him on this day in 1891, commonly called a kitchen shelf clock. It is preserved at Pennywinkle Farm today. Inside the clock were two dates, that of patent and the date of manufacture (Oct. 11, 1885).
The Sanfords rebuilt the ground floor and preserved the three cellar rooms which remained in the Sanford-Isbell family for 77 years. After the death of Doris Sanford Isbell, a legal dispute among the heirs led to its sale on the court house steps by order of Judge Hollingsworth and it was demolished in 2013.

Contrary to superstitious stories told about the "Odena curse" (of which there were many ridiculous and even slanderous stories propagated about Odena), the patent date in the clock was NOT Sept. 17, the date that Rex A. Sanford was fatally wounded, and the day that Capt. John Oden lay on the battlefield at Antietam, nor was it Sept. 18, the day that Rex A. Sanford died, although the second date in the clock indeed was Oct. 11, the day that his son Rex Turner Sanford died.