Joseph "Landrum" Hamrick and Martha Jane "Mattie" Davis Hamrick

Martha Jane "Mattie Davis was born Aug 22, 1874, and died Apr 11, 1943. She was 68. (Her parents were:  George Davis, Jr. 1849-1929 and Jane Bridges  1847-1926) She married Joseph Landrum Hamrick, who was born Dec 3, 1866, and died May 23, 1936. He was 69. He was the son of Robert Benson Hamrick (1828-1905) and Emiline Horne Hamrick (1824-1918) of Rutherford County, (NC).

   In addition to farming, Landrum operated a country store in the Walls Community. Later, encouraged by his family, they moved to the High Shoals Community and Landrum worked as time keeper in the mill and operated a store in Henrietta. They were members of the High Shoals Baptist Church. Both are buried in the Walls Baptist Church Cemetery.

   Note by the compiler: Although I cannot remember seeing Aunt Mattie, I have very vivid memories of her funeral. It was the first that I ever played for. Just 13 years old at the time, I remember that someone came to the car when we arrived at Walls Church and asked my mother if her son could play the piano for the funeral. Although frightened by the experience, I did, and I have never forgotten, "O, Come angel band, come and around me stand. O, bear me away on your snowy wings, to my immortal home." I had never heard the hymn before and had to sight read it, an unnerving experience for a young musician.

Excerpt from book: Davis Diggings by: Ray D. Shytle of Mount Ulla, NC (photo from Ray's book also)

Grandpa Landrum Eating Wormy Peaches!

by: Mallie H. Kimbrell

 Grandpa came over that day we were all down in the field pulling fodder, getting the sorghum cane ready to cut down to carry to the mill. Well, he came to the house where I was, I guess at lunchtime and he told me, "Let's go down... Don't you have a peach tree down there in the middle of the cane patch that's got peaches on it?" I said, "Yeah, Grandpa, there's a peach tree down there, and the peaches are beginning to get ripe too." He said, "Well I like peaches, so, let's go down and get some of them." So, I went with Grandpa Landrum. The peach tree had not been sprayed, so, almost every one of them (peaches) had worms in 'em. We picked off the ones that looked ripe, you know, ripe enough to eat. Well of course, when a worm got in a peach, it got ripe faster. It turned and started getting bad, ...when a worm was in there. The ones that didn't have worms in them was still green, so we got the wormy peaches off. And I would hunt a spot on the peach that looked like there wasn't a worm there and I would bite off some of it. Grandpa, he didn't look for no worms. He just bit into the peach and started eating. ...and I watched it, I was amazed because I was very particular about what went in my mouth.
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