Donna – Page 4 – Gough Family Genealogy

October 27, 2021November 12, 2021

Bio of Lula Branham Rowland

Lula Kathryn Branham was the second of Jesse Powers Branham and Laura Ann Thrasher’s three daughters and their fourth child. She was born on 13 January 1900 in Clinton County, Kentucky, and died 73 years later in Cumberland County, Tennessee. (1) This short bio is a continuing work in progress, with some research still to do, so it will be updated from time to time. (For more details on the family, please see the Harry Rowland and Lula Branham family page.)

Lula was born probably at the family’s farmhouse near the village of Shipley, five miles southwest from Albany, Clinton County’s county seat and its largest town, with 234 residents. (2) Six years later, Lula entered first grade at the Willen School, a one-room schoolhouse in Shipley on what is now Willen School Road. The caption on a 1906 photo of the school’s student body published in the local newspaper indicates that several of Lula’s siblings and cousins also attended in various different grades. (3)

October 20, 2021November 14, 2021

Bio of John Woods Rowland

John Woods Rowland was the third son and seventh child of William M. Rowland and Elizabeth C. Brown, who lived in Rutherford County their entire lives. John was born in 1859 in the rural southwest corner of the county, not far from the village of Rockvale. (1) During his long lifetime, he experienced the upheavals caused by three wars and two national financial collapses by the time he died in 1946 in the town of Harriman in eastern Tennessee’s Roane County. (2)

As a child, John experienced the hardships of the Civil War first-hand. In 1862, Union and Confederate battle lines moved across the county several times before the Union finally defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Stones River (31 December 1862-2 January 1863) and garrisoned a military force at the county seat of Murfreesboro.

October 17, 2021November 14, 2021

Bio of Harry Rowland

Harry Lee Rowland was the third son and fourth child of John Woods Rowland and Anna Lou Whitus. He was born in 1900 in Oliver Springs, Roane County, Tennessee, and died 55 years later in nearby Harriman. (1) His life was marked by financial setbacks, many caused by the Great Depression, and frequent moves from town to town.

Harry’s birthplace of Oliver Springs was (and still is) tiny, with fewer than 700 residents in 1900. (2) At the time the Rowlands lived there, wealthy visitors came to the area and stayed at the town’s resort hotel, built on top of mineral springs, in order to bathe and drink the waters. After the hotel burned in 1905, its owner chose not to rebuild as the structure had been under-insured. Over time, Oliver Springs and the area around it became dependent on the coal industry for jobs, with the first mine opening in 1904. (3)