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Roxy Remembers ...
By Harriet Whipkey
Roxy Gay Williams Ellyson will be one hundred and five years old on October 1, 2005. The Gilmer County native was born about five miles above the mouth of Sinking Creek, at what is known as Salt Block Run, in a four-room log cabin, the remains of which are still standing. She was one of eight children born to Ira and Laura Isabelle Williams.
Roxy was a one-room school teacher for seven years, spending much of those years boarding with various families in Gilmer County. She shares a memory of life with one of those families. "When I started teaching the second year at Gluck Run, I boarded at a little old log house down at the mouth of the run with Frank and Alice Snider. He'd been the jailer for awhile in Glenville and got in a fight with one of the inmates and broke his arm. The old man carried his arm up like this . . . " she demonstrates, crooking her arm and holding it up at shoulder level. "Well, they had chickensâthey had a trapdoor for the chickens to go in and outâand every night, that old man would say, 'Alice, I'm a-gonna go and stop up the chickens.' I thought it was funny he'd say that every night."
Roxy married Avon Ellyson on February 24, 1924, and gave up teaching to become a full-time wife and mother. Five children were born to Roxy and Avon: Rosa Belle, Neva Lynn, Mary Jo, Hale and Gail.
The family lived in Tanner for about thirty years and Roxy relates that "Tanner used to be a thriving place. There were three good stores. There was Lucy Lowe's, Audrey Cunningham's, and Riddle's." The Riddle store housed the post office as well. "Mrs. Cunningham always kept such nice material. I did all the sewing for the girls then. We never thought of buying them a dress." She even made uniforms for her daughters when they joined the Girl Scouts but says, "I never got too good at making shirts for the boys." Roxy did some hand sewing but often went to either her mother's or to Avon's mother's since both of them had treadle machines. Some time in 1926, to her joy, Roxy got her own treadle sewing machine.
Although Roxy and Avon moved from the Tanner community in 1962, Roxy never misses a Tanner school alumni meeting and attended the high school's forty-sixth reunion on May 28, 2005. "I had a lot of people come up to me. I didn't know them, but they knew me." But Roxy's one hundred and four years are telling on her. She says, "I don't think I was ever as tired in my life. I was really glad to get home."
Roxy has never lived any place outside of Gilmer County, but she did take one memorable trip out West in 1958. "I went to Idaho while Gail was in the Navy and stationed there." Neva Lynn's husband, Earl "Tex" Gainer, drove. "There's some beautiful country out there. There's a long ways where the country is just flat and hardly any trees at all. Now, I missed the trees." It was on that trip that Roxy fell in love with sunflowers. "Through Kansas, the roads were lined with sunflowers. I love all flowers, but those were just beautiful."
Roxy had always been an avid reader and says, "Losing my eyesight was one of the worst things to happen to me." About five years ago, at a C.E.O.S. meeting, she punched her daughter Rosa Belle and said, "Something's wrong with my eye." Rosa Belle tried to reassure her. "I think it will settle down." But it didn't, and sadly, the doctors have done all they can do.
Look for more of Roxy's life story in this month's issue of Goldenseal. She will be at the Towne Bookstore, Main Street, Glenville, from 10 a.m. till noon on Saturday, October 1st, to personally autograph copies. Drop in and say, "Happy Birthday" to this remarkable Gilmer County lady. She loves company but jokes, "I'm not much fun since I can't hear so good and my eyesight is bad."
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