Image Workshop - Documentation and Download Option(s)
 1931-1940 |
File Identification:Outlaw-194 | Date Scanned:December 31, 2007 | Source of Scanned Image:Skeeter Parker | |
| Original Source of Image:Nashville Herald | Digital Archiver:W.H. Outlaw Jr. | Image Restorer: | ||
| Original Image Size: | Scan Resolution (dpi) (Reduced files=200 dpi):300 | Exact Date of Original Image:Sept 7, 1932 | ||
| Estimated Date of Original Image: | Basis for Date Estimate: | Unreduced File Size(px): | ||
| Location:Della Sutton Farms, near Lenox, GA | Background:- | Activity:- | ||
| Unreduced File Size(MB): | Reduced File Size (px): | Reduced File Size (KB):pdf-~800 | ||
| Information with Photo: | ||||
| Subjects:The murder of my grandmother Della S. Outlaw (= Della Sutton, Della Outlaw) as presented in four articles in the Nashville Herald. Fragments of letters from Granny Della to my father in the preceding year and narrative puts the times in context. Among the names mentioned are my aunt Lena B. Rowan (=Lena Rowan), a neighbor, Luther Akins, my maternal grandmother Addie F. Watson (=Addie Watson), my mother, A. Christine Watson (=Christine Watson, later Christine Outlaw), my father, W.H. Outlaw, my uncle Buren P. Outlaw (= Buren Outlaw). | ||||
| Comments:Some random thoughts are recorded in this section. Some other comments are found at http://www.southernmatters.com/sugarcane/ The second article discusses the removal of Price from Berrien County because of fear of violence. There are mistakes in any oral history, I\'m sure. . . . a little added, a little taken away. Two bits stand out in my mind. Apparently the sheriff on visiting the scene was convinced that Granny Della had been murdered by Price. The story goes that he offered to leave long enough for the family to kill Price. Obviously, that didn\'t happen for whatever reason. Good, I guess, but there is satisfaction in doing things personally instead of outsourcing. Other aspects of the oral history fit the newspaper accounts better. Daddy was home from Berry College where he had just finished his freshman year, but was afraid--with reason--to spend the night at Granny Della\'s with Price around. (Price particularly hated Daddy and had gone into Daddy\'s room with a hatchet to kill him one night--more elsewhere; the two farms near Lenox and the farm near Nashville were Granny Della\'s, as discussed later. Granny Della and Price lived on one of the farms near Lenox.) So, Daddy went over to a neighbor\'s to spend the night (Drawdy???). When Daddy got to the scene the next morning, I have been told, he had to be physically restrained. He was set on killing Price himself then and there. I understand that he would quieten down and then go into another rage. (I wouldn\'t be different, so I won\'t be hypocritical.) On the three occasions that I saw Daddy angry in my lifetime, he was not hostage to reason. I suppose when one displays anger only every couple of decades, he\'s obliged to do a fine job of it. Granny Della grew up on what-is-now my farm and it joins the Mark Watson homeplace (now split among Larry Watson, Virginia Bailey, and me). Granny Watson moved to the Mark Watson homeplace about 1917 and lived there or briefly on the adjacent farm that was also owned by Grandpa Sam the rest of her life (til 1985). So, Granny Della and Granny Watson were neighbors until Granny Della moved off to Lenox (sometime after marrying Price, who had a store there). Simpler times: Granny Watson and other ladies prepared Granny Della for burial; Granny Watson discussed it with me once, but I can\'t recall details: history lost. Sketches from my memory include laying Granny Della out, washing her body, and references to trauma. I do recall Granny Watson\'s and Aunt Lena\'s undiluted hatred of Price. Granny Watson\'s hatred was more on the surface and akin to a memory; Aunt Lena\'s was woven into the fabric of her being, undiminished by time. Price died within four months of the murder. Daddy told me that he got sick in prison and was chained to the bed and left to die. This account matches an old hand-written note, probably written by Carolyn, that I found in clearing the personal property of the estates: \"A prisoner from Milledgeville was transferred to [the] chain gang in Nashville. He ran the road machine + stopped for road machine [???] at M.A. Watson\'s for dinner. He told Mark that Jim Price confessed to killing Della + he died of pneumonia in prison. They just tied him to the bed + let him die (62 or 63)\" Note that the road scrapers were run by \"trustees (sic),\" prisoners that worked unsupervised, not only on the roads, but as court-house janitors and so forth. Daddy died in 1986 and never was reconciled to his mother\'s murder 54 years earlier. He took the burden of boundless enmity to his grave. Unquestionably, his circumstances (death of this father, murder of his mother, poverty) left an indelible mark on his psyche and though apparently extroverted, he regrettably answered only to himself. To reveal the obvious, the three elements of crime are ability, opportunity, and motivation. Clearly, Price had the ability and opportunity. The motivation is that he wanted Granny Della to sign all of her property over to him. They had been married about ten years and with Daddy getting older, Price apparently predicted that Daddy and Uncle Buren were going to be the heirs. I understand that Price harassed Granny Della about this matter during the final 18 months of her life. Times were hard, more than I can really imagine. Letters from Granny Della to Daddy (he was at Berry College) have been compiled--see Supplemental Image A. These letters to Daddy show that she was worn down, took a lot of pleasure in Uncle Buren, and missed Daddy tremendously. In other news, to add temporal context to the times, another front page article (01-23-1933) discussed malaria, which had affected citizens of Berrien County for several years. Malaria has pretty much been eliminated from our lives, making it easy to forget that it is largely responsible for 20% child mortality suffered in some areas of Africa, that it kills one million people a year and sickens 500 million. Indeed, worldwide, it is surpassed only by tobacco as the leading cause of non-viral deaths. (A little closer to home, my father-in-law (J.E. Norton) had malaria during WWII and the chair of my reading committee, Dr. C.C. Black, contracted it during his travels.) Another article (09-08-1932) discusses the killing of a mad dog on the Luther Akins place (see Akins-001), which was hard by the Watson farms. This article reminded me that sometime in her youth, Mama was bitten by a dog. The dog was killed and its head, packed in ice, was shipped to Atlanta for diagnosis. I think, but lack confidence, that Mama underwent the regimen of abdominal shots. I do wish I had paid more attention and remembered better. (Special thanks to Skeeter Parker, Nashville, GA, for retrieval of the article through his use of the index of the newspaper that he created. The pdfs was assembled on v. 7 and can\'t be read on lower versions of Acrobat. On my monitor, the main image is most comfortable to read at 200%.) ******************************** The remainder of this Comment is a post-script that relates directly to the purpose of this page, but more too. Rather than summarize, I simply transcribe to leave out one layer of interpretation, with minor editing in brackets as usual. I found it among the estates of my parents and sister. I believe that it was written by Carolyn in 1977. I feel sure that it was written as Daddy told it, but possibly it was written following a conversation between Daddy and someone else. Note that Helen Rowan Rhodes was a sometime source for Carolyn on old family matters. (Helen is Aunt Lena¡Çs 4th child, but she seemed to have better preserved her memory, possibly because of greater interest.) It is also possible that Aubrey Sutton was a source, as he visited Daddy regularly and they enjoyed reminiscing more than any two I¡Çve seen before or since. Possibly, their motive was to educate me, and I was enthralled, but only put the essence in permanent memory. The top of the page simply gives the names (¡ÈDella Sutton was the daughter of J.S. Sutton (Buck) and Susie Connell Sutton.¡É Then, their burial at Empire was noted, followed by a list of their children and respective sites of interment (Jerry S. {Bethlehem Cemetery}, M. Newt Sutton {Adel Cemetery}, George Sutton {Oaky Grove}, Belle {d. May, 1932, Bethlehem}, Della Sutton (6-22-1891 to 9-7-1932, Empire}), Ellen {died 1961, out from Monticello, GA}, Noah {died 1936}). ¡ÈJ.S. Sutton and Susan Connell Sutton reared their family on the present W.H. Outlaw Farm about three miles east of Nashville. The house burned about 1929-1930 [a little more about this fire, including the date, will be posted later]. The present well (1977) served this house.¡É [ I don¡Çt know exactly where the old house was, but it was very near the present one. During Christmas, 1980, I cleaned up the old smokehouse, which was located about 25 feet due west from my metal agricultural-storage building. The smoke house will be in the background of images yet to be posted. It was approximately 9¡Ç wide and 15¡Ç long with the long axis more-or-less parallel to my metal building. Some of the logs had been charred; I believe the charring was all on the west side, consistent with what I have indicated. My guess is that, although the well is old, the curbing was replaced later. It was in this well that Daddy suspended milk in to keep it cool for his daughters.] Anyhow, here goes: ¡ÈAfter Lucious Outlaw married Della Sutton [Daddy¡Çs parents] he bought the farm from her father, J.S. Buck Sutton for $2000, according to records in the clerk¡Çs office [I have an abstract of this transaction, to be posted]. J.S. Sutton wanted a larger farm, more and better land. J.S. purchased the land presently belonging to Evelyn Sutton Bennett and Aubrey Sutton in Berrien County, West Berrien Community (1977, present). He moved his family (second wife and all the children but Della who was married) to the new farm. ¡ÈGranny Sue (as she is called) died by the fire in the house that burned 1929 or 1930 on the present W.H. Outlaw place. She was forty-one. [N.B. To avoid losing the thread, this death was in 1909, long before the most of this account.] ¡ÈLater J.S. (Buck) married Liza Sirmans Sutton from Clinch County. They had a baby that died during a night¡½cause unknown. ¡ÈGranny Liza and the heirs (except Della who was married) remained on the new farm mentioned above after J.S. (Buck) died. ¡ÈAbout 1926, fall of the year, Della Sutton Outlaw (then a Price) bought her daddy¡Çs place from the heirs¡½except for a portion near where Wayne Sutton [Aubrey Sutton¡Çs son] now lives. Later, they sold this portion to her. [By way of brief summary, this transaction gave her the old home place¡½the bulk of my farm¡½and the two farms near Lenox.] ¡ÈAbout 1920 or 1921¡½about 2 or 3 years after Lucious died¡½Della married James D. Price (Jim). He was brother to Mrs. John May (Mattie). (John and Sirman [sic?] May were brothers.) [As a little boy, I made my way over to Sermon¡Çs country store, about a mile from the farm and collected unflattering accounts of my family from him to the chagrin of my mother. I was about 10, Sermon was about 80. His store was pretty quiet so we had long hours, interrupted if Uncle Joe came over drinking or if Mark Sutton dropped in.] ¡ÈAt first, Della, Jim Price, Buren [Daddy¡Çs brother], and W.H. lived with Lena [Daddy¡Çs older half sister] and Cornelius Rowan¡½where Della, Buren, and W.H. were living when they married. ¡ÈWhen Lucious died, Della, Lena, and the boys (Buren and W.H.) moved in with Lucious¡Ç brother Joe. [At that time, Uncle Joe was prosperous¡½See Outlaw-058, 059¡½before alcoholism set in.] They rented the farm. When Lena married Cornelius Rowan they all moved back to the farm inherited by Lena through her mother. [¡ÈThe farm¡É here refers to the L.G. Outlaw Place on the Homerville Hiway, occupied in 2008 by my first cousin Frances Rowan Griffin and husband, George.] [Lena¡Çs mother was the daughter of Stephen M. Lewis from whom gGrandpa Sam Watson bought part of my farm in 1905 and from whom gGrandpa Buck Sutton bought the other part of my farm in 1885.] ¡ÈIn a very short time, Della + Jim (also Buren and W.H.) moved across the creek [Ten Mile Creek] and lived with John Brantley and his wife, who was the daughter of Jim Price. In two or three months, they moved into a house on Lena¡Çs place¡½originally build when Lucious lived there [see Outlaw-054]. ¡ÈLater, they moved to the present farm of W.H. Outlaw. They lived there in the house that burned until 1924. (Burned 1929 or 1930). In 1924, Della, Jim Price, Buren, + W.H. moved to Lenox to operate a General Merchandise Store bought by Jim Price and Newt Sutton. (The store was bought with Della¡Çs money.) They lived in the back of the store. Della sold the store in 1926 to her brother Newt¡½who owned half of it. [I believe that it was in a back room of this store that Daddy lived by himself for a while when he was in high school in Lenox after Jim Price tried to kill him. Later Daddy moved back to Deep Ditch and lived some with Uncle Joe and some with Aunt Lena, who signed his report cards. See below. As is well known, he graduated from Nashville High School. See Outlaw-152.] She used this money to buy her daddy¡Çs farm in the West Berrien Community. (Then, called the Jordan Community.) ¡ÈDella, Jim Price, Buren + W.H. moved to the farm [again, ¡Èthe farm¡É in this instance refers to the ones near Lenox, not the W.H. Outlaw Farm] in 1926; they lived there until 1932. In August 1931, W.H. entered Berry College. W.H. should have been in eight grade; he stayed out of school, farmed + stumped the field in from of Aubrey Sutton¡Çs present house. W.H. then went to Eldorado in the eight and ninth grade. Then he went to Lenox in the tenth grade (Eldorado only went through ninth grade). In the eleventh grade, W.H. went to live with Lena and attended school. [Overall, I remember that Daddy quit school three times before he managed to finish high school.] ¡ÈLater Della and Jim Price bought the merchandise in the store once owned by Newt and Della¡½from Newt. W.H. was to help run the store. Jim wouldn¡Çt work but would come in and take all the money from the cash drawer, making it impossible to pay the bills. W.H. quit and went to school; so Jim closed the store and moved the merchandise to a new tenant house¡½stored it there. Later auctioned it off in Nashville¡½piece by piece getting a pretty good profit from it. ¡ÈSept 7, 1932, Jim Price choked Della to death. She was forty-one. ¡ÈThat night Jerry May and his mother Mrs. Mattie May (Jerry was nephew to Jim Price) visited with Della and Jim until about 11:30. Buren was at some of the Suttons; W.H. had gone with Emett Young to see an [African-American] man who had supposedly borrowed Emett¡Çs wagon, the horse ran away and tore up the wagon; Emett claimed he wanted to ask the [man] about his wagon. The trip to the [man¡Çs] was about two miles; they left about dark, Emett kept talking to the [man] and laughing until about midnight. [A sentence of unsubstantiated conjecture is deleted indicating essentially that Daddy was uneasy about the overall situation of this trip, and so forth. Like me, though, Daddy was a high-anxiety person, but I would want you to refer to this trait as ¡Èalert.¡É] ¡ÈOn the way back, W.H. decided to stop at Noah¡Çs house for the night rather than continue on home. Norman Eason [who married Aunt Susie] was also spending the night there. Paul and Hazel Sutton [Noah¡Çs children] were small children. They lived on an adjoining farm. [The theme of these sentences is the essence of what I know I remember¡½that Daddy did not spend the night with Della and Jim. However, points in the previous paragraph have to be reconciled. Daddy was concerned: he had indicated to me that that he was afraid to go to sleep with Jim Price in the house, with good reason, as mentioned, Jim had come into his room when he was 12 with a hatchet and Daddy escaped through a shutter-type wooden ¡Èwindow.¡É By this time, of course, Daddy lived at Berry College and was home visiting. I remember well that he indicated that he was out with friends the evening before her murder and I thought he spent the night with them. There¡Çs more, also along the lines of conjecture.] ¡ÈAbout daybreak (Sept 7) Jim Price started ringing the dinner meal [should read: dinner bell] as a distress signal. Carlos Roland (married to Nora May, Jim¡Çs niece) was the first there; Norman Eason was the second there; W.H. was the third there. (Norman left on horse; W.H. ran.) Jim was driving around the magnolia tree acting funny [this tree was directly across the road from the house]. He was in his new Ford Roadster¡½paid for by his $12 monthly Vet check. [I have heard this same account from Helen.] He said to W.H., ¡ÆWhat in the world are we going to do, Miss Della died of a spell.¡Ç (Always called her Miss Della; she called him Mr. Price.) Jerry Sutton, her brother, spoke up and said ¡ÆI know what we are going to do. We¡Çre having an inquest.¡Ç Wesley Griner, Dr. P.A. Schuman [sic] + Dr. P.H. Askew Sr. were at the inquest. It was determined by them that she met death by strangulation [but see newspaper accounts] at the hands of an unknown party. Many people gathered there. Jim Price said no one had been there but the two of them (he + Della) during the night. [This appears to be at variance with what I know that I remember being told¡½that he made up several stories one after another, one about an intruder. Of course, he may have said one thing at one time and another thing at another time, so it is not necessary to conclude that either account is wrong.] Wesley was Deputy Sheriff. ¡ÈA coroner¡Çs jury ordered that Jim Price be held for investigation. He was jailed. ¡ÈThe crowd wanted to lynch him but Jerry Sutton said, ¡ÆNo, we don¡Çt want his blood on our hands, we can get rid of him other ways.¡Ç The Deputy Sheriff told them if they wanted him from the jail to throw a 38 [0.38 caliber pistol] in his side and he would turn him over to them. [This generally matches what I remember well, except I thought the sheriff was a Luke and the offer (in this account, simply to leave) came at the site of the murder, not after he was jailed. Of course, both may be true and the newspaper accounts do indicate that there was a mob mentality.] |
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