Cousin Mary Denman Hankins has written several books about her family, and here are some excerpts about the Cox side. (Here's a link to her books' website where you can get info to purchase also)
SAMUEL MARION COX
Samuel Marion Cox, or "Papa," as we always called him, was born on September 23, 1877, in Cherokee County, Georgia, where he lived for most of his life.
He and his young wife, Mary Isa, moved to the Sequatchie Valley of Tennessee soon after they married. However, they returned to Georgia about a year later because Papa’s parents kept urging them to do so. At first they moved into a house on the Carpenter farm where their first three children—Clinton, James, and Lela Emaline—were born. Then in 1906, the farm on which they settled for the rest of their lives became available. The owner of the farm who sold it to them was an uncle of Mama Cox. Here they lived for more than sixty years. After their deaths, one of Cora Lou’s sons, Sam Bishop, bought the farm, remodeled the house, and began a Christmas tree farm. He and his wife, Candie, sold the farm to Lesley Cox, one of Glenn’s sons in 2001. Since that date, the farm has again been in the Cox name. . . .
MARY ISA CLINE
Mary Isa Cline was born on August 3, 1880, and died on June 22, 1968. She married Sam Cox while she was still in her teens. They soon began their family of ten children. Mama was a tiny woman who was always busy. She had long brown hair, which she always kept brushed back into a bun on the back of her head. Usually, Mama wore long dresses of cotton print, most of which she had made herself. Also, she wore a bibbed apron almost all of the time. When she went outside to work, she always put on a cotton print sunbonnet, to protect her face from the sun. Of course, on Sundays, she wore more subdued colors in her "church clothes."
If Mama ever sat down to chat when visitors were there, she was busily doing something with her hands—darning socks, tatting lace, embroidering linens, quilting squares, shelling beans or peas, peeling fruits, etc. The only exception to this I can remember was on a rare visit to our home in Kelso, Tennessee, when Mother insisted that she just sit! Mama awoke when the roosters crowed before dawn. Whenever we were visiting there, she would usually go out to the chicken yard before dawn, catch a couple of squawking chickens to prepare and fry, then go to the smokehouse to get sausage or country ham. By the time we awoke and got downstairs, aromas of fried country ham and freshly-perked coffee filling the air made us aware that a delicious breakfast would soon be ready. Mama would usually be kneading her biscuit dough, and rolling out the biscuits as we headed for the kitchen. After hurrying through the hall and dining room, we would then sit around the blazing fire in the large stone fireplace—or on the wooden benches on each side of the long harvest table in the large kitchen. There we would wait for the hot, fluffy biscuits to bake while Mama related the community’s recent happenings and gossip to Mother and Daddy. At breakfast, along with the meats, eggs, and grits, she always had sorghum molasses to go with the biscuits. Papa made the molasses every fall. There also was a choice of honey from his bee hives, or jam, jelly, or preserves which Mama had made from the fruits on the farm or the wild blackberries which were plentiful in the summertime.
LELA EMALINE COX (Note: This is Glenn Cox's sister)
Most of what I know about her early years has been told to me by her younger sisters. Some of these tales go through her teenage years to shortly after her marriage. I enjoyed hearing these stories, as I hope you will like reading them. Other stories are memories I have of Mother in our home.
Mother lived in the Sardis community, about three miles from the academy and school. There were no school buses in those days, so all the children in her family had the long trek across fields and on red, dusty roads to school and back every day that schools were in session – unless by chance they had a ride in a wagon pulled by horses. The younger children, of course, were going to school at the time automobiles were becoming more common, so occasionally they could use the new means of transportation. They had to leave for school very early in the mornings and were late getting home, after the weary trudge from Waleska. Daddy had to go on foot to visit Mother much of the time when he was courting her, too.
When Lela and Odessa were teenagers, during the Roaring Twenties and slightly earlier, shortbobbed hair became fashionable, along with the short chemise dresses. Mother and Odessa decided they would cut their hair to be stylish. After they finished and donned their new chemise dresses, they went downstairs. When Papa saw them, he was furious! Lela and Odessa were punished by having to stay home for some time for cutting their hair without his permission!
Mother met Daddy at Reinhardt College, where he became smitten with her dark beauty, and they soon began their courtship. In the Sardis community where Mother lived, the boys did not like for outsiders—and Dad was one—to come in to date the girls who lived in their area. Therefore, some of the boys did not appreciate Hoyle coming to Lela’s house, especially since they were seeking Lela’s affection themselves. One night a group of these boys planned to string a rope, with lanterns hanging from it, across the road leading to the Cox house, by tying the rope to two trees. They thought this would impede Hoyle’s progress to see Lela, but she somehow heard about the plan and informed Hoyle about it. He foiled their attempt by arriving at her house much earlier, before they had begun their prank!
After finishing school at Reinhardt, Dad went to our church denomination’s school, Bethel College, in McKenzie, Tennessee. Mother boarded in a home in a different community not far from Sardis, and taught school. But, they did not like being separated by distance, and before too long, he went back home, and he and Mother were soon married. . . .
Dad married Mother on June 21, 1926. Shortly before this, Papa had had an accident on his horse and had broken his leg. He had returned home from the hospital, but was still in bed recuperating from the accident at the time. Since Papa ruled the roost in his home, he ordered that the parlor of the house be made into a bedroom for Mother and Daddy after their wedding.
He said they could stay there until they could afford a place of their own. On the wedding day, Odessa made pies, Mama killed some chickens, and together they prepared a wedding feast to celebrate the wedding of Hoyle and Lela. During that first year they also lived with Daddy’s parents for a few months, and then they found a house of their own in Waleska, where they moved before the birth of Carolyn a year later. Daddy was preaching at a few small churches in the area by then. They lived in Waleska until they moved to Oliver Springs, Tennessee, where I was born.
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THE COX REUNION, 1978
Sam Bishop, Aunt Cora Lou's son, had bought the old Cox home place, renovated it, and moved into it after my grandfather’s death. He and his wife, Candie, decided to have a Cox reunion in early September of 1978. ...
It had been years since the last Cox reunion, and I had not attended one since 1950, just after I graduated college. Years had also rolled by since I had been inside the old home place. The only times I had seen most of the Coxes were in 1968 at Mama Cox's funeral, 1972 at Mother's death, and in 1973 at Papa Cox's funeral. It was a joy to see first cousins with their children and spouses, my aunts and uncles, as well as my brothers and sisters. ... I did not know it at the time, but it was the last time I would ever see Aunt Eleanor Cox or Uncle Glenn Cox.
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LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
This is a touching love story heard at our 2005 family reunion, related to me by daughter, Susan. She was talking with Uncle LeRol, who had pulled a picture of his wife, Aunt Cora Lou, from his pocket to show Susan. He carries her picture with him since her death in January of 2004. This is what he told Susan that day.
Cora Lou was teaching school near where LeRol Bishop lived when he was a young man. LeRol had seen the young teacher in their community and thought she was beautiful. In fact, he had walked into the school yard a few times, and had slipped up to her classroom windows, peeked inside, and watched her teach. Shortly thereafter he was invited to a party, and some of his friends urged him to ask Catherine Cox as his date, the youngest daughter of Sam and Isa Cox, who was about his age. However, ever since he had seen Catherine’s older sister, Cora Lou, he already knew that she was the one he would like to invite. LeRol was five years younger than she, however, so he wondered whether or not she would attend it with him. He finally gained enough courage to invite Cora Lou to be his date for the party, and to his delight, she accepted the invitation.
That was the beginning of a lifelong romance. From that first date, LeRol knew that he wanted to marry Cora Lou. They dated for four-and-a-half years. On February 7, 1942, they were married in Nelson, Georgia. Their romance lasted almost sixty-two years, until Cora Lou’s death on January 4, 2004, at the age of eighty-seven.