Cousin Issie - Mrs. Butler lived with my grandparents, James Preston and Emma Jackson during the 1960's.

Mrs. Butler was a very interesting, intelligent, and elegant person. I would come to visit my grandparents for a couple of weeks during the summer when I was in elementary school. For several years Mrs. Butler lived with them. Though she was already in her 90"s, her mind was sharp as a tack. There wasn't a day go by while I was there, that she wouldn't have something to say about some historical event that happened on the date we were in. She would say, "Today is November 6, on November 6th, (and give the year) this happened (and tell what happened)." She was very interesting to listen to. Being young at the time, I didn't appreciate how much of an interesting person she was. I thought it was somewhat interesting, but I'd love to talk to her now. Lots of things I'd like to talk to her about. Every morning she would get up and come to the kitchen where my grandmother would have her breakfast ready, sit down and have her breakfast while listening to her 'preachers' on the radio, Oliver B. Green, J. Harold Smith, Harold Sitler, and E. J. Daniels. Upon finishing her breakfast she would then remain at the table while having her 'totty' of whiskey, water, and honey. She said that kept her blood thin. She was usually at the table for about 3 hours.

Another interesting thing about Mrs. Butler, I've been told she was Cas Walker's accountant. Cas was a very successful grocer in the Knoxville area. He later branched out into Pennington Gap, VA with a store. Cas was a very colorful and creative businessman. His business plan for locations for his grocery stores was to build them on the right side of the road headed out of town, then, people could stop and shop on their way home from work. Oh, by the way, Cas is the person who gets credit for discovering Dolly Parton and putting her on his "Farm and Home Hour", a local TV show that came on from 7-8 am that had local entertainment, some local news, and lots of his advertisements for his stores. I wonder if Mrs. Butler had a hand in helping Cas with some of the things he was up to?

Jerry Cox