PART ONE

This portion or part of the “LADIES OF THE LAKE STORY” begins with my father, John Setters, borrowing John William’s two mules, “Della” and “Pete”,

so, John could plow the little area shown behind his three sons for the family garden.

We just show the picture to identify the location. The little boys, John’s sons, have nothing to do with what you will be reading about, not now, anyway, later they will. Right behind James, the little guy on the right, (that’s me, your author) I have a question for you. you know what a “furrow” is? Well, when you are using a plow like the one shown below, which our father was, he was using the plow to make a ditch and “turn” the dirt to one side.

To guide the mules, he could use the long leather straps, hooked onto the device in the mouths of Della and Pete, or just gently say “Gee” if he wanted them to bear to the left or “haw’ if Dad wanted them to bear a little to the right. Each knew what “Gee and Haw” meant. And usually, you had to tell it to Della, and say her name. But it took a lot of training by Mr. Williams, to get the two mules to understand what you wanted them to do.

Usually, this procedure would leave a little ditch at the edge of the garden and, depending on the skill of the person, using the plow, be pretty straight.

This little ditch is what is called a “Furrow”. One cool windy day Jim was using the metal frame of a front car seat that someone had discarded to lay on top of the furrow around the garden to lay down in the furrow to stay out of the wind.

He used his hands to widen the furrow and pretty soon had dug out a comfortable space. This gave him incentive to make the hole bigger, and pretty soon he had dug out a space big enough to ward off the wind. The more he dug into the ground, the bigger the hole became. Pretty soon he had enough space to crawl in.

The more he dug, the bigger the space. He got out of his makeshift little cave, went to the shed and got the shovel and things began to get serious. Jim soon dug a sizable hole. Right beside the garden and the home-made gravestones

Snooky, came home, and saw what Jim had been doing and joined in the digging. Harold soon joined them, and pretty soon the “little hole” was bigger, enough that they could, and did, build a fire in it

But there was no roof on the big hole. With the added “boy” power, that was soon taken care of, and now the big hole at the edge of the old not used anymore Winters Cemetery had a roof.

The total cemetery now includes the gravestones of Leander and Louisa Setters and their son and our grandfather, and my namesake, and grandfather James Madison Setters. Thanks to Jim, me, and Raymond moving the gravestones more than half a century later.

The Setters boys had a big covered, perhaps 8 feet by 8 feet hole in the ground with a roughed in roof. But the big hole was cold and damp, so “let’s build a fireplace.”

The hole became full of smoke, and a piece of tin was found, rolled up and they had a chimney. “All of this was taking place without the knowledge of Esther, their mother.

Her boys were busy digging in the dirt. “And no harm could come of that.” And, she could see them, anyway. What was not seen then, but in the future, did became a problem.

PART TWO

BUDDY SELLICK ALERTS JIM. RAYMOND AND JAY

TO A BIG RATTLESNAKE

One would think that just one nickel coin would never justify a six mile walk in the hill country of Tennessee just to buy some candy to share among four boys, but that just goes to show you the power of five cents way back in 1940, just eighteen years short of a century ago in that state, in those hills.

Four wars, fourteen Presidents, and a whole host of important people have graced our United States, but only a few people have ever seen a full-grown rattle snake. One of the many reasons they have not, is because they did not have their thumbs in their mouths.

In the summer of 1940, Four Tennessee boys, me included, and my brother, Raymond, Jay and Buddy Sellick, walked a three-mile round trip, just to spend a nickel at “Slick” Zimmerle’s little grocery store at Grays Point Road and Eatons Creek Road just outside Nashville, Tennessee. The City and County were separated back then.

On the way back to our homes we took a shortcut through Oleece Conchin’s place. Which also would have us walking through the woods, and in the woods is where the rattlesnakes live. Oleece also had a few plum trees, and all four of us did like his plums. After leaving his plum orchard we entered our “shortcut” through the dense forest/woods. We called them the woods. There was a path, because a lot of people used the shortcuts. Only a few hillbillies had cars. We were doing okay until Buddy Sellick yanked his thumb-which he constantly sucked on-out of his mouth and yelled Snake! Then and only then, did we older boys, including Buddy’s eleven-year-old brother, Jay see this big Rattle Snake, that we three, all had just walked over. Of course, we two brothers wanted to kill the Rattler, but Jay wanted to pick up the thing with a forked limb and take it home with us. Jay, who was more nature minded than Raymond and I, won out. We three older boys of course, had sharp pocketknives and set about to cut a strong forked limb.

Our trek through the woods finally ended with the rattlesnake very unhappy and trying to get off the forked limb and we ended up near that big hole that we Setters brothers had dug. Harold found a big bucket that had an attached lid, so into the bucket we dumped the snake. He, she, it, was never free. Esther, our mother, still was unaware of what was going on. Jay finally took the snake home and tried to make a rattlesnake belt out of the snakeskin, and did, and wore the belt to school. The teachers objected to the smell of it and made him take it off and throw it away.

Esther learned about that big hole in the ground and made we three brothers fill it in. She did that after Jay formed a skeleton Club, and we boys discussed digging a tunnel to the Winters graves. Jay’s dad helped Jay build a little club house up behind the Sellick home and we all began collecting animal bones.

Oh, back to Buddy Sellick and his thumb sucking. Buddy, his name was really Russell, as a teenager, was an outstanding student at the Cumberland High School in Bordeaux, a community just across the Cumberland River from Nashville. We know very little about Bud at Jordonia grade school, where we all, from Little Marrowbone attended, but Buddy was an outstanding student at Cumberland. Mrs. Sellick wrote about him in a letter to Vickey Setters, Raymond’s wife, in December of 1950. While Buddy was still a student there.

Mrs. Sellick wrote the letter in long hand, so I had my daughter, Carol, as my technical advisor, convert Mrs. Sellick’s letter content to our story. Betty, is Mrs. Sellick’s given name, and has a beautiful handwriting style and needs little, if any help, in reading, but I had Carol do the conversion anyway. Now, any error can be blamed on my computer. Betty’s story about the Sellick family moving to Spicewood hollow from Milwaukee and building their big cabin is beautifully written; it’s just the part about my dad that I object to. You’ll be reading about that, if you haven’t already. None of us had a camera in the woods with us, so I don’t have a picture of her. (It turns out when Jay skinned her, Jay found some unhatched eggs inside her. Jay tried, in vain, to hatch them.

But here is a picture of her she appeared You can get a good version of what Jay, and I and Raymond failed to see and stepped right over the top of her. She may have been hard to see though because of the leaves and other debris in the path. Little Buddy was busy with his thumb in his mouth and had no problem.

Below, is Carol’s conversion of Betty’s letter to Vickey in 1950 when Buddy grew into being a teen-ager and was a student at Cumberland High School.

“Bud is the big wheel over at Cumberland. He’s president of the senior class, editor of the Pow Wow (school paper) and President of the Beta Club. There are only 15 members in the Beta Club because you have to be a Junior or Senior, with a total average of over 90% in all subjects. Bud’s first six weeks report card for his Senior year was 96, 96, 96, 96, 96! He says the needle got stuck on that record.

They’re starting rehearsals on the senior play – Bud has a good comic role. He had his picture and write up in High School Highlights in the Banner as “Cumberland’s Outstanding Student” and again when they chose a leader from each school as president of Youth, Inc. He had his picture with Mayor Cummings too. Regular little publicity hound – ‘Little” six-footer!

He says he got his long legs from chasing you and Harold and Monk and Jay up and down hills – got his cheerleader voice from yelling “Wait for me!” probably! Gosh, what a merry chase you had that little 4-year-old on! He knows every hill and hollow within 5 miles of home. And I guess his job with Tennessee Department of Conservation is the natural result of that. He’s practically an authority on trees, plants, rocks, birds and animals in Tennessee. He works as a tourist guide and instructor at Chickasaw – and last year he taught woods and wildlife classes at You Inc. camp. I can’t imagine Bud away from the hills – the minute he gets out of school he lights out into the woods.”

Buddy, whose given name is Russell Ames Sellick, as a self-taught Pilot, then, flew over those woods and took the picture below. Bud did this fly over in about 1975, right after Jim and Dana had Raymond Proctor build their little house, and the first phase of the Setters Lake.

“Bud”, died at 2:00 PM, September 16, 2018, but had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for five years. “Bud” was a Korean War Veteran of the Navy.

The new owner of Setters Lake is Jennifer Patten, and it looks a little different. The improvements Jennifer had done were done very well and were very pleasing to Jim and Dana before Dana’s death in 2020.

 

 

A picture from a satellite of the Setters Lake.

1. 1974 Jim and Dana had Raymond Proctor (now-deceased) build their small home.
2. 1982 Jim and Dana had Tommy Fortner, a contractor with whom they attended Church, build Mabel’s apartment, and the pavilion.
3. 1982 Jim and Dana moved Mabel to Nashville, and into the apartment where she died, after being hospitaled, on December 6^th, 1982.
4. Mabel died just two days before Marty Robbins, the country western music singer, who died, at the same hospital, the St Thomas, in Nashville, from the same cause, a heart attack.
5. Country Music Singer, Auto Race Car Driver, Marty Robbins began writing songs while in the United States Navy during World War II. He signed with Columbia Records after the war and had his first number one country single with “I’ll Go on Alone” in 1953.
6. Over the course of his career, he would have 15 more Number 1 songs on the Country Music sales charts, with several of them also reaching the Top Ten on the Pop Music sales charts. His most famous songs include “A White Sport Coat (And A Pink Carnation),” “El Paso,” “Devil Woman,” “Don’t Worry,” and “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife.” In 1965, he became interested in stock car racing and from 1966 to 1982 he competed in 35 NASCAR Winston Cup races. He had 6 top ten finishes, with his best effort being a fifth-place finish in the 1974 Motor state 400 at Michigan Speedway. On October 11, 1982, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and his last NASCAR race was in the Atlanta Journal 500 on November 7, 1982. He died of a heart attack just one month later.
7. Mabel was cremated and buried in Mulvane, Kansas. Marty was buried in Nashville, at Woodlawn, joining, among others, George Jones, and Tammy Wynette.
8. Dana died, after suffering a massive stroke, May 17, 2020, after they sold the lake and home to Jennifer Patten, the present owner.

Jim Setters, your Author, spent enough time with Marty to accept his personal side and was very happy with what he, Jim, found, and why Marty was “The Marty Robbins”.

Marty was with us to be filmed during the big truck show at Chicago .

Jim and his Advertising Agency Partner, Pat Thompson, was the advertising agency for ATA, the American Trucking Association, and the Nashville Ford Truck Dealers.

But one day, we had Marty at The Centennial Park, doing some photo work, filming Ford Pickups, when Marty noticed what appeared to be a family group, trying to include the Majestic Building, The Parthenon, into their camera lens as a background.

Marty suggested that we walk over to the family and help them. The expression on their faces as they began to recognize who was taking their pictures was something to behold. You could see their lips say Marty Robbins in total disbelief. Marty joined the family group and then totally ignored why we were at the Centennial Park to begin with.

That was the kind of a person Marty Robbins was. Marty was a competitor, but a nice one.

Mabel, my wife’s mother, could not have chosen a nicer guy to share the heart ward with, at the St. Thomas hospital, in Nashville, the first week of December, in 1982, just forty years ago, as of this writing.