Lulu Dollar Eldreth

It is no surprise to anyone who has read my blog that I thought a lot of my great grandmother, Sophia Dollar Friddle.  She was a unique force within our family long after her death.  Mom Friddle, as she was called, had a great deal to do with the person that my mother became, and therefore the person I am today.   However, the woman who helped to shape the woman that my great grandmother was is in her own way shrouded in mystery.

Alexander Monroe Dollar married Sarah E. Pearce (according to their marriage record) on 9 Jun 1887 in Johnson Co., TN.  According to her death certificate, she was born in Washington Co., VA.  My best guess would be in the Abingdon or Damascus area since it is so close in location to Laurel Bloomery, Johnson Co., TN which was where Alexander Monroe Dollar lived.  Monroe Dollar had been married to Elizabeth Pennington for around 25 years before her death between 1883-1887.  They had had four children and had moved their family from Ashe Co., NC to Johnson Co., TN sometime after the 1880 census.  Elizabeth probably died sometime after the move to TN and likely died of some sort of illness – as she was probably in her early to mid 40’s.  Sarah or Lulu as she was called was a 19 year old young woman when she married Alexander Monroe Dollar.  He was at least 49 years of age when he married Lulu.  I’ve never been able to find a census record for her before she is recorded with Monroe Dollar in 1900.  I’ve no idea who her parents were or where she was from beyond the mention of her birthplace in her death certificate.  However, it wasn’t unusual for a young woman to marry a much older man – especially in the years following the Civil War in the south. 

Monroe Dollar’s oldest son, John Dula Dollar married Buena Vista Bailey on 21 Apr 1889 in Johnson Co., TN.  She was about 17 years old and by October the following year, she had her first child, Claude Elmer Dollar…daughter Bessie Dozier Margaret Elizabeth Dollar followed 10 months later and the youngest, Sophia was born in January of 1894.  According to Lulu, Sophie (Mom Friddle) was born near midnight and it was a difficult birth.  No one was quite sure if the birth occurred before midnight or after midnight – so Mom Friddle always went by what Lulu had told her.  When Mom Friddle was about 10 weeks old, Buena Vista died at the young age of 21.  At 29 years old, John Dula was left with three children under the age of 4.  The children were left with their step grandmother and grandfather.  At 26 years old, Lulu had the care of three young children including a baby. When John remarried a few years later (1897), he took the older two children to live with him – but left the youngest with her step grandmother.

David Carl Friddle & Sophia Vestelle Friddle - 22 Dec 1908 - Johnson Co., TN

Lulu was the only mother that my great grandmother ever knew.  There are things that I know that she did well…but she didn’t prepare her granddaughter too well in the female arts.  When she was 14, Mom Friddle married, ill prepared for being wife and mother.  She didn’t know how to cook, clean, or sew.  As my Grandma Cappy said – Mom Friddle grew up like “topsy!”  For all her faults, Lulu did give Mom Friddle the affection, love, and care that a child needed.  When Monroe Dollar died in 1908 – John was making noises about bringing Mom Friddle to live with he and his second wife, Cleopatria Gentry.  Lulu informed her granddaughter that all she would be doing is washing diapers and taking care of her younger siblings…and strongly encouraged her to marry to escape that fate.  (That is a another story for another time. )  So, after Mom Friddle married, Lulu herself married a widower a few months later.  She deeded the house to her daughter in law (Sarah Margaret Simmons Dollar – wife of Roby Dollar) and left for Ashe Co., NC to live with her new husband, William Eldreth. 

Once again, Lulu married a much older man.  William Eldreth was nearly 20 years older than she.  William died in 1924 and once again, Lulu was left as a widow.  She is recorded with a grandson on the 1930 census and he is listed as the informant on her death record. 

Mom Friddle went back to Tennessee and North Carolina to visit family.  A great deal of time was spent with her sister, Bessie, in Ashe Co., NC.  In addition, Mom Friddle spent a lot time visiting the step grandmother who raised her.  When Lulu died in 1955, it must have been a big blow to Mom Friddle.  She had lost her beloved husband in January of that year – and now the woman who raised her.  The step grandmother was the only mother that Mom Friddle ever knew.  Even though – I’ve never found who her family was, where she grew up or what shaped her life, Lulu has always been someone that I wanted to know more about because she was very important to my great grandmother – and therefor important to me!  

My Pennington Line

My Pennington line comes through Elizabeth Pennington, daughter of Levi Pennington and Elizabeth Henson.  She married Alexander Monroe Dollar on 17 Jan 1857 and they had four children:

• Amanda Jane Dollar b. 6 Apr 1858 Creston, Ashe Co., NC d. 01 Nov 1938 Ashe Co., NC
• John Dula Dollar b. 3 Oct 1863 Creston, Ashe Co., NC d. 6 Dec 1933 Atlanta, Fulton Co., GA
• Emeline Caroline Dollar b. 15 Mar 1866 Ashe Co., NC d. 10 Dec 1954 Burdine, Letcher Co., KY
• Roby Smith Dollar b. 18 Apr 1868 Creston, Ashe Co., NC d. 21 Apr 1944 Mountain City, Johnson Co., TN

Amanda Jane Dollar married William Davis Lyall on 3 Aug 1881 in Ashe Co., NC and had 10 children.  I know that my grandmother corresponded by letter with at least one of her Lyall cousins – Ennis.  I’ve read references to her in my grandmother’s diary’s.  Amanda never left Ashe Co., NC for Laurel Bloomery, Johnson Co., TN – she was recorded with her uncle (Larkin Pennington) in the 1880 census and is married by 1881. She is buried with her husband at the William M. Lyall Family Cemetery, Ashe Co., NC.

Amanda Dollar and William Davis Lyall

John Dula Dollar is my great great grandfather.  My great grandmother probably didn’t know her father terribly well.  When she was a baby, her mother died a few months after her birth, and her father left his three oldest children with his father and step mother while he worked.  A few years later, he married Cleopatra Gentry and took the two oldest children to live with him, leaving my great grandmother to live with her grandparents.    John had three children with his first wife, Buena Vista Bailey and seven children with his second wife.  I know that during his lifetime, he worked in a lumber mill with his father and brother, probably worked as a miner in Colorado (he is recorded there in 1920 with his family) and was also known as a shoemaker, carpenter, and store operator.  I suppose he did just about anything to support his large family.

Emeline Caroline married a man, Caleb Wills Noland who lived nearby on 27 Oct 1881 in Johnson Co., TN when she was 15 years old.  She and her husband had nine known children and to this day, I know very little about some of her children.  She was the longest lived of the Dollar siblings living to almost 89 years old.  During her lifetime, she can be found in Tennessee, McDowell Co., WV, Wise Co., VA and she dies in Letcher Co., KY.  It is no wonder that her family has been hard to piece together.

John Dula Dollar family - abt 1895

The youngest of the Dollar siblings is Roby Smith Dollar.  Roby also married a local neighbor woman named Sarah Margaret Simmons.  The Dollars and Simmons family can be found close together in the census records.  Only Roby stayed in the Johnson Co., TN area for the remainder of his life.  Roby primarily worked as a lumberman and carpenter.  There are parts of the Wesley Methodist Church in Shingletown that he built and are still in evidence today.  He and his wife Sarah aka Maggie had 10 daughters.  All lived to be old women.  He used say that he would never be poor because he had his “10 Dollars!”  On 19 Feb 1912, Maggie died of pneumonia leaving Roby with his 10 daughters and the youngest was only 6 months old.  Life took most of Roby’s daughters away through marriage, work and different opportunities.   His daughter Eva lived with him for a time because she herself was disabled and had a difficult time with sight.  She is buried next to him at the Mountain View Cemetery in Mountain City, TN.  One of his daughters came back home with her husband and stayed to take care of her father and she lived to be almost 100 years old. 

Roby Dollar family in 1905

I have often wondered if Elizabeth Pennington was sickly during her life.  It is odd in that era to have only four children and spaced so far apart in age.   I know that she moved with her husband over to Laurel Bloomery but probably died within a few years after the move.  She was probably around my age of 45 when she died.  The path my Dollars took over to Laurel Bloomery was because of the Pennington family.  Elizabeth Pennington’s uncle, Andrew Pennington, lived over in Laurel Bloomery…specifically in Shingletown.  At the time, Alexander Monroe Dollar, found a better way to support his family by working as a lumberman – so they moved over the mountain to Tennessee.   The Dollars and Penningtons came from Ashe Co., NC – but my particular branch through my great grandmother came out of little house in a holler in LaurelBloomery.