Paternal Ancestor: J.C. Woolf

J.C.Woolf

The photo above is our paternal ancestor J.C. Woolf who built his house and named it "Oak Grove Farm". (This is the farm where I was born, and where I lived with my parents and my older brother before going away to college in South Carolina .)

This picture is of the backyard of the house as seen from the back porch which he is facing. In the shadow to the left behind him was the shed where we stored wood for our very large "Home Comfort"cooking stove,  as well as a bin of corncobs (from the mule feed trough) that we used to start the fires in our three coal burning fireplaces in the winter time.

To his immediate left and behind the fence was the building where we put the white potatoes and the sweet potatoes harvested from our garden. Next to it was the smaller building known as the "outhouse" with the needed collection of newspapers and Sears catalogs. Whoever chose this location for the outhouse did not remember that the back of the outhouse faced northwest,  an unmistakable fact on windy winter days. Sufficient to say, it was NOT a place to linger.

J.C. Woolf  and his wife were childless. However, they adopted my grandfather, Jack Burns, after his mother, sister to the wife of J.C. Woolf, died soon after his childbirth.

This is from my brother's research:
"Jackson Burns, Buried Carmel Cem. Mother died when he was 18 days old. Was adopted Jan. 18th, 1883 and raised by his uncle and aunt, Joseph Carlton and Jane Ingram (Naugher) Woolf. Jane Woolf was a sister to his mother Margaret Ann Naugher. Was baptized at Carmel Church by the Rev. John C. Du Bose, May 27th, 1883. He farmed and on Nov. 7, 1908 he and his uncle Joseph Woolf went into the general merchandising business in Spring Garden, AL. This business, known as "Woolf and Burns" would continue until the death of his son, Robert Allison (Allie) Burns in 1962."

 The father (Wiley Burnes)  of my grandfather (Jack Burns)  married again and had other children and eventually moved to Rome Georgia. For reasons not clear, my grandfather, Jack Burns, no longer had the name of "Burnes" which was the spelling used by his father and his descendants.

J.C. Woolf bought a store in the nearby settlement of Spring Garden (formerly know as Ambersonville). My grandfather Jack Burns worked in this store and eventually the name was changed to Woolf and Burns Store. Eventually Jack Burns owned the store.

During my years on the farm, this store was owned by my uncle Allie Burns,  my father's brother, who inherited it from his father Jack Burns. Uncle Allie also owned a cotton gin which my father ran for him during ginning season. Uncle Allie had no children.

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