Hadley Journal Collection

1 Introduction to Hadley Journal Collection In 2015, Betty Ann Hadley of Nashville, TN donated a number of family items to the Archives Department at the Nashville Public Library. The donation included 11 handwritten journals by her mother, Elizabeth Lois Meguiar Hadley, several yearbooks from Isaac Litton High School and Goodlettsville High School, and several color slides of historic houses in the Inglewood/East Nashville area. Betty Hadley was a respected and beloved teacher at both Litton and Goodlettsville high schools, retiring from Litton in 1983. Her only sibling, Albert Hadley, Jr, became a renowned interior designer in New York City. The journals of their mother, Elizabeth Lois Meguiar Hadley, who was born in 1894, paint a rich description of life in the Nashville and Springfield area from her childhood through the World War II years. Many historical events occurred in the time period Hadley records, including both World War I and II. Her access to family letters and documents allowed her to record how, for example, the Civil War affected the prewar and postwar lives of regular citizens. A number of her ancestors fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and the descriptions of Union soldiers in Tennessee are decidedly Southern; she states how these perceptions of “Yankees” are passed along through generations, noting that “prejudice is like a poison, and it is so easily instilled into the hearts of children.” The letters of her paternal grandfather, William “Buck” Meguiar, are particularly affecting. Kept by her father in his trunk, the letters depict some of the aftermath of the Civil War but primarily demonstrate the perennial hopes of parents for their children, the offered advice, and, in one letter, instructions on how to trade mules. The descriptions of daily life in her maternal grandparents’ home Maple Bluff, located about 7 miles southeast of Springfield in Robertson County, mention “servants,” including the “Negro Mammy, Susan.” It is fair to assume, given the era, that the more accurate word is slaves, especially since she also notes that after the Civil War, “some of the Negroes remained loyal to their masters” and Susan was one of them. There are other references to African-Americans in the journal that are often stereotypical and derogatory in their description and are likely to be offensive to contemporary readers. Of special note, particularly in regards to Nashville history, is the description of Vaucluse, the mansion built by Dr. John Livingston Hadley in the early 1800s in the area that became known as “Hadley’s Bend.” Albert Livingston Hadley, husband of Elizabeth Lois Meguiar, and father to Betty Ann and Albert Hadley, Jr, was a descendent of the original Hadley family. 2 The latter half of the journals is primarily dedicated to letters from Albert Hadley during his service in World War II. The letters describe his training in the states, his ocean journey to England, his service role abroad, and his on-leave trips into London. Although he contracts pneumonia in England, he is eventually returned to convalesce in hospitals in Memphis and in Kentucky, where his family is finally able to see him again. The journals have, for the most part, been faithfully transcribed as written. In some instances, minor editing has been performed to clarify spelling or meaning, but only where it has been absolutely necessary. In short, the journals reveal the lives of an extended family deeply rooted in middle Tennessee and how the enormous cultural, political, and historic shifts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries affected their lives and dreams. Additional Hadley Resources at Nashville Public Library The Nashville Public Library is also home to the Albert Hadley Interior Design Collection, a generous gift from Mr. Hadley that includes his personal and professional book collections as well as scrapbooks and original interior design sketches. Mr. Hadley had a long and legendary career as a designer and decorator of high-profile projects in New York City, including the Mayor’s Gracie Mansion and the Astor Library. He also designed the Vice Presidential Residence of fellow Tennessean Albert Gore during his tenure in the White House. Albert Hadley died in 2012 at the age of 91. 3 Garnered Memories By Lois Meguiar Hadley (Volume I) My Earliest Recollections I was born in a small cottage in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee. I am the second daughter of Alexander Franklin and Maggie Hilliard Meguiar. My sister, three years my senior, was given the name, Mary Rebecca. Mary was for father’s only sister, Mary Belle, who died when she was nineteen years old, and Rebecca was for father’s mother, whose name was Rebecca Ann Williams. Evidently no name had been selected for another daughter, so my mother’s youngest sister, Addie, took it upon herself to name me; Aunt Addie chose the name, Elizabeth Lois, the Elizabeth being for her mother, whose full name was Elizabeth Ophelia Stanfield Hilliard, and the Lois was a part of her father’s only sister’s name, as she thought. Really, the aunt’s name was Ruth Lewis Hilliard Mangrum but Aunt Addie had always thought it was Lois instead of Lewis. I’ve always been rather grateful that she was mistaken in the name, since I much prefer to be called Lois. Then too, I was pleased when I learned that one of the great women of the Bible, Timothy’s Grandmother, was named Lois. The name has never been one of the more popular girls’ names, since it is rather unusual to find another called Lois. My memories of my first few years of life are very few. I was taught to call my sister “Sister,” and my earliest recollections are of us playing together in the shade of the trees of our yard. I must have been two and a half or three years old when my father talked of moving his family to Kansas to live. Because I did not want to leave my Aunt Mollie Webb (my mother’s sister, who lived across the street from us), I remember standing by my high chair and stomping my foot and saying, “I not doin’ a ‘tep.” Not because of my determined remark but for other reasons we did not move to Kansas. Another incident that made a lasting impression on my childish mind was a visit from the County Health Agent. Because of a scare of a smallpox epidemic the health department required all children to be vaccinated. My mother did not want my sister and me vaccinated, so when she saw the health officer coming she hid us in a darkened room and would not answer his knock on the door. I kept as quiet as my little shaking body would permit. Finally after much pounding on 4 the door, the agent decided no one was at home and departed. But until the day I finally had to be vaccinated I had a great horror of whatever the word meant. I remember one of my grandparents, Grandma Hilliard, my mother’s mother, just one picture in my memory remains. She came to visit us, and I remember her as a very pretty woman with white hair and a sweet face. She was dressed in black and was wearing a black tight-fitting little hat or bonnet that had a black veil fitted over it, and the veil hung to her waist in the back. At the throat of her dress she was wearing a gold pin with my grandfather’s picture in it. Then, I did not realize that she was dressed in mourning for her husband who had been dead only a few years. Since her husband’s death she had lived with her different children, and she had come at this time to make us a visit. It was only a short time after this visit that she died of a paralytic stroke at the home of her daughter, Laura Bridges, in Springfield, Tennessee. Both of my father’s parents had been dead for many years. During my first few years of life we did not own our home, but lived in rented ones. Finally my father bought a little home on West Seymour Ave., in East Nashville, where we lived until I was almost eight years old. It was located next to a strip of ground that was covered with lovely shade trees, and we called it, “The Park.” My sister, and a cousin, Blanche Johns, and I spent many happy days playing in the park. Blanche was one of three children and the only daughter of my mother’s sister, Ida Johns, who died when Blanche was small. Blanche spent a good many summer vacations with us, and she and I were very congenial, and we played dolls and “ladies” day in and day out. Another cousin, Ruth Hilliard, lived with us. She was the daughter of my mother’s brother Ben, whose wife had died, and he let mother take Ruth to live with us. Uncle Ben had two other children, Robert Lyle, who died when he was quite young, and B.G., who was younger than Ruth. Ruth was ten years my senior and I always looked upon her as an older sister. We four girls grew up like sisters, and I was the youngest. Ruth went to Spout Spring Public School, which was a three-classroom frame building, located on Eastland Avenue about a mile or more from where we lived. She graduated from this school while we were living on Seymour Avenue. Sister started to school there and when I was old enough to go to school I went there too.

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