Harry Lee Rowland was born in 1900 in Oliver Springs, Roane Co., Tennessee, to John Woods Rowland and Anna Lou Whitus Rowland. (1) (For more details on Harry’s life, please read his bio here.) He married Lula Kathryn Branham on 21 September 1921 in Harriman; Lula was the daughter of Jesse Powers Branham and his wife, Laura Ann Thrasher Branham, and was born in Clinton County, Kentucky in 1900. (Read her bio here.) (2, 3)
In the 1920 census, Harry and Lula lived only two blocks from each other in the working-class neighborhood along the Emory River in Harriman. It’s quite possible they first met in the neighborhood or at the Harriman Hosiery Mill, where they both worked. The couple welcomed their first child, Robert, the following year, with two other sons soon after: Edwin (nicknamed Buddy) and Glenn. (4)
On 23 March 1929, Harriman was hit by a flash flood that killed 20 residents. At least one of the families whose homes were literally swept away by the flood lived on Carter Street, one block from where Harry’s parents lived from 1930 through 1946. Harry and Lula almost certainly witnessed first-hand the deluge of rain and destructive floodwaters, and may well have personally known some of the victims and survivors. (5)
Two months before the 1930 census, tragedy struck their small family when son Buddy died six weeks after contracting whooping cough, complicated by measles and then pneumonia. With no antibiotics available at that time, there was little that doctors could do to save his life. (6)
Beginning in July 1933, a number of workers at the Harriman Hosiery Mill went on a year-long strike that, over time, deeply divided the town and especially affected mill workers. While we haven’t yet found documentation as to whether Harry was a union member, at the very least he would have known those who were. When the strike eventually ended in July 1934, many of the strikers were left unemployed. (7)
By the following year, Harry, Lula, and their two boys were living in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where their son Glenn was enrolled in school; they probably were drawn to the area by one of the hosiery or textile mills in the town where Harry could find work. (8) Within five years, they had moved again, this time to Hendersonville, North Carolina, some 185 miles away. According to the census enumeration, Harry was a hosiery mill fixer (mechanic) but had been out of work for over a month; Lula was working full-time at the mill as a looper and son Robert had just begun work there as well. They lived at 110 North King Street, several blocks from Grey Hosiery Mill at Fourth and Grove Streets, which may well have been where they worked. (9)
Two years later, Harry and Lula had moved yet again, this time back to Tennessee where they lived south of Crossville, Cumberland County, in the Vandever community where Lula’s parents had purchased land several years earlier and were enumerated in the 1940 census. Harry and Lula’s son, Glenn, recalled that they had built their home with the help of relatives because the family had little money. (10)
After World War II, Harry and Lula moved back to Harriman, where Harry once again got a job at the hosiery mill where he was working when his first grandchild was born. He passed away suddenly in February 1956 of a heart attack. (11)
Lula returned to Cumberland County for a few years and was living there when she married John Scarbro (or Scarbrough) in 1959. (12) The couple divorced not long afterwards and she subsequently married Willie Jones in 1964 in Harriman. (13) She continued to live in Harriman until 1971, when she moved back to Cumberland County yet again to live on the property of her nephew, Clayton Smith, son of her much-loved sister Lena. She was living there when she died suddenly in 1972. Both she and Harry are buried in Willow Park Cemetery in Harriman.
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Harry Lee Rowland (b. 9 Dec 1900, Oliver Springs, Roane Co., TN – d. 3 Feb 1956, Harriman, Roane Co., TN)
m. 3 Sep 1921, Harriman, Roane Co., TN
Lula Kathryn Branham (b. 13 Jan 1900, Clinton Co., KY — d. 31 May 1972, Crossville, Cumberland Co., TN); m2. 31 Oct 1959 John Ray Scarbrough; m3. 5 Nov 1964, Willie Lee Jones
Children:
i. Robert Lee Rowland (b. 13 Apr 1922, Harriman, Roane Co., TN — d. 24 Apr 1960, Aurora, DuPage Co., IL); m. Garnelle Mayton (divorced, no issue) (4, 14)
ii. Edwin Earl “Buddy” Rowland (b. 19 Jun 1923, Harriman, Roane Co., TN — d. 5 Feb 1930, Harriman, Roane Co., TN) (4)
iii. Glenn Elvin Rowland (b. 1925 — d. private) (4)
Sources:
- Tennessee Department of Public Health, delayed birth certificate, no. #D-148936 (1942), Harry Rowland, Division of Vital Statistics, Nashville, Tennessee.
- Roane County, Tennessee, Marriage Records, 1920-1931, page 100, Harry Rowland and Lula Branham entry, 1921.
- Kentucky State Board of Health, delayed birth certificate no. 168267 (1942), Lula Kathryn Branham, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Frankfort.
- Tennessee State Board of Health, birth certificate, district #741, file #50 (1922), Robert Lee Rowland, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville, Tennessee; Tennessee State Board of Health, death certificate, file #3998 (1930), Edwin Earl Rolland, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville, Tennessee; Tennessee State Board of Health, birth certificate, file #667 (1925), Glenn Elvin Roland, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville, Tennessee.
- “Stories of Heroism Arise From Choas [sic] of Flood at Harriman,” Kyle C. Moore, Knoxville, The Knoxville Journal, Monday, 25 Mar 1929, pp 1, 11.
- Edwin Earl Rolland, death certificate.
- Harriman Hosiery Mills Strike of 1933-34, Patrick D. Reagan, Tennessee Encyclopedia, https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/harriman-hosiery-mills-strike-of-1933-34/, Tennessee Historical Society, 8 Oct 2017, accessed 14 Aug 2021.
- School photograph of Glenn Rowland, 1935/6, Mt. Airy, NC, school not identified, copy in possession of Donna Rowland Gough.
- Harry Roland household, 1940 U.S. census of population, Henderson Co NC, Hendersonville P.O, Enumeration District 45-15, Supervisor District 11, sheet 7A, 22 Apr 1940, dwelling #166, 110 [North] King Street, ll. 35-38, Ancestry online, image 14 of 29, accessed 30 Aug 2021; “Grey Hosiery Mill,” Hendersonville Historic Preservation Commission, http://www.hendersonvillehpc.org/structures/national-register-listings/grey-hosiery-mill/, accessed 30 Aug 2021.
- World War II Draft Cards, 1940-1947, digital images, Ancestry.com, accessed 9 Nov 2012, Harry Lee Rowland, serial #T83, order #T10,488, Cumberland County, Tennessee; 1940 U.S. census, Cumberland County, Tennessee, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 18-10, sheet 4-B, dwelling #58, J.P. Branham, accessed via Ancestry.com 10 Dec 2012; 1940 Census Enumeration District Descriptions, National Archives Catalog, Tennessee, Cumberland County, ED 18-7–ED 18-12, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5880840, accessed 30 Aug 2021; phone interview with Glenn Rowland, July 1983; notes from conversations with Lula Rowland, compiled 30 Aug 2021 by Donna Rowland Gough.
- Harry Rowland, death certificate.
- Cumberland County, Tennessee, Marriage Record Book, 1958-1961, Lula Katheryn Rowland and John Ray Scarbro entry, file #2788, page 318, 1959, digital images, Ancestry.com, accessed 8 Nov 2021.
- Roane County, Tennessee, Marriage Record Book, 1962-1968, Lulu Rowland and Willie Lee Jones entry, file #129, page 65, 1964, digital images, Ancestry.com, accessed 8 Nov 2021.
- Illinois Department of Public Health, death certificate, file #18834 (1960), Bureau of Statistics, Springfield, Illinois; Roane County, Tennessee, Marriage Bonds, 1939-1955, Robert Rowland and Garnelle Ellis entry, file #112, page 451, County Court Clerk, Rockwood, Tennessee.
(© 2021, DONNA ROWLAND GOUGH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)