Marriage Record from Floyd County, Georgia Marriages, Book E, Page 460
Burial in Old Providence Cemetery, Forney, Cherokee County, Alabama
FindAGrave Memorial # 79168560
John Thomas Allred 1872-1932
by Melvin Alred
Lineage: John Thomas, Lewis Patterson, John James, John, Elias, Thomas, Solomon born 1680 Lancashire, England
I may have told you about Charlie and John Thomas Allred relocating from Rome, Georgia, to Lincoln, Alabama, and about John’s returning back to Rome two years later. That’s where this story begins.
John located in a community in Floyd County, Georgia, called Booger Hollow where he farmed for ten years. The land was hilly and rocky and dotted with open-pit bauxite mines. In 1920, after ten years of struggling with the rocky land, John purchased a farm just across the state line in Cherokee County, Alabama, now County Road 16. The property consisted of 160 acres with a beautiful white house on a hill and a spring-fed creek flowing through the farm.
By this time, John had eleven children—seven boys and four girls. Three of the oldest sons were employed and decided to not make the move to Cherokee County, Alabama. Lewis Victor, born November 21, 1895, was operating a trolley in Rome, Georgia, for Georgia Power. Lester Lee, born October 21, 1897, was delivering kerosene and gasoline in Rome. The deliveries were made in ten-gallon cans on a one-horse wagon. James Roscoe, born September 6, 1899, was employed in Atlanta with the water department. When Claude Thomas, the youngest son, saw his older brothers and father loading the wagons and rounding up the livestock, he remembered the story about his brother, Dallas, walking all the way to Lincoln, Alabama, on the 1910 move. He ran to his father begging him to ride on the wagon with him. Claude told me years later that he was so afraid he would have to walk that he refused to get off the wagon during the twelve-hour trip.
Moving with John Thomas, born April 17, 1872, was his wife, Olie Ander Estes Allred, born November 10, 1876, along with eight of his children: Dallas Eugene, born August 3, 1901; Ada Estell, born November 16, 1903; Charlie Daniel, born February 12, 1906; Dovie Rovine, born February 14, 1908; Robert Cecil, born June 12, 1910; Claude Thomas, born July 15, 1913; Dora Novela, born January 18, 1916; and Olie Ruth, born April 2, 1918.
In 1923, John built a house on the farm for his mother Mary Wood Allred, and his sister, Ada Allred, after the death of his father, Lewis Patterson Allred, born April 4, 1852. On Easter Sunday 1932, all eleven of his children, spouses and seven grandchildren gathered at the farm for dinner. The family must have known John Thomas was in poor health as he passed three months later on July 4, 1932. Inquiring as to the cause of his death, I was told three different stories. One was he never recovered from a farm accident. Another was he drank too much. The third story was that, after the farm accident, John drank to relieve the pain. Upon
getting a copy of his death certificate, I confirmed the third “was the rest of the story.”