Taken from Raymonds Ancestry.com bio:
My name is Raymond Burton Dale, the grandson of Minnie Anna Brunson Knight. I was in the basement of the Coffee County Alabama Courthouse, many years back, looking at old family records when I ran up on the marriage record of Ma's mother and father.
At that moment, I felt the warm touch on my shoulder of one of the kindest and most gentile of person's I have ever encountered. I knew at once it was the spiritual presence of Ma's mother who had died of a fever at Nine Mile Plantation in 1898. There was a flood from the Pea River that year that caused the privy to run into the well.
D. D. Knight was so emotionally struck down by her death, he moved to his home in Elba a block from his sheriff's office and put his Nine Mile Plantation home out to rent thereafter. He never lived in the old place again, and a couple of years later married Mollie Blue, his second wife and Ma's stepmother.
He was happy again in the second marriage and Mollie later became very sick. When Mollie lay dying in the house many years later, her last request was for a glass of buttermilk. Van, ma"s mammy, only allowed DD Knight into the kitchen but once a week to wind the clock and roast his coffee. She was a Geechie and liked her coffee high roasted and he liked coffee medium roasted. So once a week only he was allowed in her kitchen.
She would wind the clock too tightly also and it was very expensive to repair. It was the only time he broke Van's rule on the kitchen and when she refused to open the churn before the butter came, he pushed his way into the kitchen and took a glass of the milk upstairs to Miss Mollie. She took only but a sip or two and died, as my grandmother related this story. Van was a caution and not only did she rule her kitchen as high as any African Queen her kingdom, she had six husbands and a child from each of them. One husband cut her throat with a razor one time and Ma had to hold the wound together while Dr. Seth Blue sewed the throat back together. Van survived the incident and lived on for many years after. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba, and Anna is buried in Woodland Grove North of Elba.Van's father, Ransam, in 1865 died under torture at the hands of the Ward Gang rather than reveal where the family money lay buried. Our cousin, Robert Peter Brooks was killed shortly after in a gun battle with the Ward gang, and his deputies caught the gang, strung them up without a trial and buried them in shallow graves for their crimes. Uncle Jim Brunson sold Nine Mile Plantation to his wife in 1927 when DD Knight passed away to his wife Ruby Houf Knight of Houf Plantation in Glen Allen, Mississippi. Jim died in 1946 and is buried there. When Ma died, she was cremated and her ashes scattered at Layton's Park which later became a portion of The Port of Palm Beach. I will always treasure the memory of when the spirit of Ma's mother gently touched me on the shoulder in the basement of the Coffee County Courthouse.
My name is Raymond Burton Dale, the grandson of Minnie Anna Brunson Knight. I was in the basement of the Coffee County Alabama Courthouse, many years back, looking at old family records when I ran up on the marriage record of Ma's mother and father.
At that moment, I felt the warm touch on my shoulder of one of the kindest and most gentile of person's I have ever encountered. I knew at once it was the spiritual presence of Ma's mother who had died of a fever at Nine Mile Plantation in 1898. There was a flood from the Pea River that year that caused the privy to run into the well.
D. D. Knight was so emotionally struck down by her death, he moved to his home in Elba a block from his sheriff's office and put his Nine Mile Plantation home out to rent thereafter. He never lived in the old place again, and a couple of years later married Mollie Blue, his second wife and Ma's stepmother.
He was happy again in the second marriage and Mollie later became very sick. When Mollie lay dying in the house many years later, her last request was for a glass of buttermilk. Van, ma"s mammy, only allowed DD Knight into the kitchen but once a week to wind the clock and roast his coffee. She was a Geechie and liked her coffee high roasted and he liked coffee medium roasted. So once a week only he was allowed in her kitchen.
She would wind the clock too tightly also and it was very expensive to repair. It was the only time he broke Van's rule on the kitchen and when she refused to open the churn before the butter came, he pushed his way into the kitchen and took a glass of the milk upstairs to Miss Mollie. She took only but a sip or two and died, as my grandmother related this story. Van was a caution and not only did she rule her kitchen as high as any African Queen her kingdom, she had six husbands and a child from each of them. One husband cut her throat with a razor one time and Ma had to hold the wound together while Dr. Seth Blue sewed the throat back together. Van survived the incident and lived on for many years after. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba, and Anna is buried in Woodland Grove North of Elba.Van's father, Ransam, in 1865 died under torture at the hands of the Ward Gang rather than reveal where the family money lay buried. Our cousin, Robert Peter Brooks was killed shortly after in a gun battle with the Ward gang, and his deputies caught the gang, strung them up without a trial and buried them in shallow graves for their crimes. Uncle Jim Brunson sold Nine Mile Plantation to his wife in 1927 when DD Knight passed away to his wife Ruby Houf Knight of Houf Plantation in Glen Allen, Mississippi. Jim died in 1946 and is buried there. When Ma died, she was cremated and her ashes scattered at Layton's Park which later became a portion of The Port of Palm Beach. I will always treasure the memory of when the spirit of Ma's mother gently touched me on the shoulder in the basement of the Coffee County Courthouse.
Taken from Raymonds Ancestry.com bio:
My name is Raymond Burton Dale, the grandson of Minnie Anna Brunson Knight. I was in the basement of the Coffee County Alabama Courthouse, many years back, looking at old family records when I ran up on the marriage record of Ma's mother and father.
At that moment, I felt the warm touch on my shoulder of one of the kindest and most gentile of person's I have ever encountered. I knew at once it was the spiritual presence of Ma's mother who had died of a fever at Nine Mile Plantation in 1898. There was a flood from the Pea River that year that caused the privy to run into the well.
D. D. Knight was so emotionally struck down by her death, he moved to his home in Elba a block from his sheriff's office and put his Nine Mile Plantation home out to rent thereafter. He never lived in the old place again, and a couple of years later married Mollie Blue, his second wife and Ma's stepmother.
He was happy again in the second marriage and Mollie later became very sick. When Mollie lay dying in the house many years later, her last request was for a glass of buttermilk. Van, ma"s mammy, only allowed DD Knight into the kitchen but once a week to wind the clock and roast his coffee. She was a Geechie and liked her coffee high roasted and he liked coffee medium roasted. So once a week only he was allowed in her kitchen.
She would wind the clock too tightly also and it was very expensive to repair. It was the only time he broke Van's rule on the kitchen and when she refused to open the churn before the butter came, he pushed his way into the kitchen and took a glass of the milk upstairs to Miss Mollie. She took only but a sip or two and died, as my grandmother related this story. Van was a caution and not only did she rule her kitchen as high as any African Queen her kingdom, she had six husbands and a child from each of them. One husband cut her throat with a razor one time and Ma had to hold the wound together while Dr. Seth Blue sewed the throat back together. Van survived the incident and lived on for many years after. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba, and Anna is buried in Woodland Grove North of Elba.Van's father, Ransam, in 1865 died under torture at the hands of the Ward Gang rather than reveal where the family money lay buried. Our cousin, Robert Peter Brooks was killed shortly after in a gun battle with the Ward gang, and his deputies caught the gang, strung them up without a trial and buried them in shallow graves for their crimes. Uncle Jim Brunson sold Nine Mile Plantation to his wife in 1927 when DD Knight passed away to his wife Ruby Houf Knight of Houf Plantation in Glen Allen, Mississippi. Jim died in 1946 and is buried there. When Ma died, she was cremated and her ashes scattered at Layton's Park which later became a portion of The Port of Palm Beach. I will always treasure the memory of when the spirit of Ma's mother gently touched me on the shoulder in the basement of the Coffee County Courthouse.
My name is Raymond Burton Dale, the grandson of Minnie Anna Brunson Knight. I was in the basement of the Coffee County Alabama Courthouse, many years back, looking at old family records when I ran up on the marriage record of Ma's mother and father.
At that moment, I felt the warm touch on my shoulder of one of the kindest and most gentile of person's I have ever encountered. I knew at once it was the spiritual presence of Ma's mother who had died of a fever at Nine Mile Plantation in 1898. There was a flood from the Pea River that year that caused the privy to run into the well.
D. D. Knight was so emotionally struck down by her death, he moved to his home in Elba a block from his sheriff's office and put his Nine Mile Plantation home out to rent thereafter. He never lived in the old place again, and a couple of years later married Mollie Blue, his second wife and Ma's stepmother.
He was happy again in the second marriage and Mollie later became very sick. When Mollie lay dying in the house many years later, her last request was for a glass of buttermilk. Van, ma"s mammy, only allowed DD Knight into the kitchen but once a week to wind the clock and roast his coffee. She was a Geechie and liked her coffee high roasted and he liked coffee medium roasted. So once a week only he was allowed in her kitchen.
She would wind the clock too tightly also and it was very expensive to repair. It was the only time he broke Van's rule on the kitchen and when she refused to open the churn before the butter came, he pushed his way into the kitchen and took a glass of the milk upstairs to Miss Mollie. She took only but a sip or two and died, as my grandmother related this story. Van was a caution and not only did she rule her kitchen as high as any African Queen her kingdom, she had six husbands and a child from each of them. One husband cut her throat with a razor one time and Ma had to hold the wound together while Dr. Seth Blue sewed the throat back together. Van survived the incident and lived on for many years after. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba, and Anna is buried in Woodland Grove North of Elba.Van's father, Ransam, in 1865 died under torture at the hands of the Ward Gang rather than reveal where the family money lay buried. Our cousin, Robert Peter Brooks was killed shortly after in a gun battle with the Ward gang, and his deputies caught the gang, strung them up without a trial and buried them in shallow graves for their crimes. Uncle Jim Brunson sold Nine Mile Plantation to his wife in 1927 when DD Knight passed away to his wife Ruby Houf Knight of Houf Plantation in Glen Allen, Mississippi. Jim died in 1946 and is buried there. When Ma died, she was cremated and her ashes scattered at Layton's Park which later became a portion of The Port of Palm Beach. I will always treasure the memory of when the spirit of Ma's mother gently touched me on the shoulder in the basement of the Coffee County Courthouse.
Gravesite Details
Buried in mausoleum in southeast corner of cemetery. Unmarked.
Family Members
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