Their Ten Children in Summary
Martha Jane Burdine
Martha Jane was the older daughter of Elizabeth Payne and her first husband, Samuel Burdine, who died during the Civil War. Martha was born in Springdale in 1860. After her mother married Anderson Payne she lived in his household until her marriage. Though she was Anderson’s step-daughter, he raised her as his daughter, and though she was a half-sister to his children, she was a full sister in their eyes and affections. She was loved by all, and an active part of the Payne family in Claiborne county throughout her life.
In an age of nicknames, she was always called “Martha Jane.” She married W.G. “Bill” Yoakum. When he became Clerk of Court for Claiborne County, they moved to Tazewell where they reared a family of three sons and two daughters.
Ellon Burdine
Ellon was the younger of Elizabeth and Samuel Burdine’s two daughters. Born in 1862, she would have been only two years old when her mother took her and her older sister, Martha Jane, to live with their paternal grandparents, Henry and Betsey Sewell Burdine in Russell County, Virginia. Her mother, of course, met and married Anderson Payne in Russell County when Ellon was three.
When Anderson and Elizabeth left Virginia to live on the Burdine Farm in Springdale in Claiborne County, they left Ellon with her Burdine grandparents. The reason remains a mystery.
Mary Elizabeth Payne
Mary Elizabeth, the first child Anderson and Elizabeth had together, was always called “Mollie.” Mollie first married Burnside Yoakum, from the very prominent Lone Mountain Yoakum family living on Bear Creek at the foot of Lone Mountain. This was just one of many marriages between a Yoakum and a Payne or a Yoakum and a Jennings in Lone Mountain.
When Mollie and Burnside’s first child, Eva, was only three weeks old, Burnsides was involved in a politically motivated shooting. Before she was two, he died of tuberculosis while awaiting his trial.
After five years of widowhood, Mollie married again, this time to the handsome young Hugh Hodges, also from a prominent Lone Mountain family. This, also, was one of many times a Hodges married a Payne or a Jennings in Claiborne County.
Before 1910, Mollie and Hugh moved to Knoxville where their three children, Robert, Mattie, and William were reared.
Mollie remained very close to her parents and siblings, traveling back home for frequent visits. She, Hugh, and their two sons are buried in the Payne Cemetery at Lone Mountain.
Henry Enoch Payne
It is said that Elizabeth always doted on her son, Henry. Perhaps it was because he was her first boy after four girls or, perhaps, it was because he was rather sickly as a child. Whatever the case, Henry was an individualist all his life. He married Ella Hickey when he was thirty-one – quite a late marriage in those days – and they had five sons and one daughter.
Most of us who heard about Henry from our parents refer to him as “Midler.” Midler was known far and wide for his many eccentricities and exploits – exploits which, often, did not endear him to his family. No question, though; Midler left some great stories.
Midler and Ella and several of their children are buried in the Payne Cemetery.
Eliza Ann Payne
Eliza married Frank Jennings, who was a Lone Mountain farmer and long-time Deputy Sheriff of Claiborne County. They had nine children, though two died in infancy.
One of the most interesting things about Eliza and Frank is that they married each other’s youngest siblings. Eliza’s brother Byrd Payne married Frank’s sister A Jennings. A and Byrd’s children and Eliza and Frank’s children – Dona, Burn, Clay, Lucy, Mattie, Eva, and Herman – were double-first cousins and extremely close friends.
Dona Jennings married the brother-n-law of her Uncle Lafayette Payne.
Laura Mandy Payne
In 1897 at the age of twenty-two, Laura Payne married a young man from Knoxville, Allen May Goodwin. They lived in a house on Cornelia Street in Knoxville, and had three daughters and a son. Laura’s first child, Alta, was born on her birthday. A second daughter, Daisy, died of tuberculosis when she was only eighteen. Within the net year, Allen Goodwin deserted his family. Laura went to work in a knitting mill to support the family. Eventually she had to sue Allen in absentia to get clear title to their marital home.
Laura probably never knew what became of, Allen, but thanks to information now available, his whereabouts are no longer a mystery.
Laura stayed close to her family in Lone Mountain, and particularly to her older sister Mollie who also lived in Knoxville. Laura was the last of Anderson and Elizabeth Payne’s daughters to die. She succumbed to Cardio Renal disease in 1944, and was buried in the Payne Cemetery in Lone Mountain. The only sibling who survived her was her brother, Bob.
Robert Wesley and Lafayette Greene Payne
Bob Payne and Lafayette Payne were twins, born in 1876, the tenth year of their parents’ marriage. They built the big brick Payne Brothers’ Store and brought the Ford Business to Lone Mountain in 1919. They did so much together in their early adulthood that it is difficult to speak of them separately.
Fate
Fate first married Daisy Yoakum who died after only thirteen months of marriage. He then married Martha Alice “Mattie” Livesay. Fate and Mattie lived across Lone Mounain Road from the big brick Payne Brothers’ Store, just before the road makes its bend toward Bear Creek. They had four daughters – Mildred, Beatrice, Vivien (died at birth), and Lucile; and three sons, Lafayette Glen and Al George (twins), and John Howard, known throughout life as “John Tom.”
Fate was very civic minded, and unlike the rest of the Paynes was a staunch Republican. He served one term as Claiborne County Sheriff, and three terms as a circuit court judge. Fate’s was pivotal in getting the Lone Mountain road paved. He also led the way for Claiborne County to participate with other counties in three states in paving what was then called The Buffalo Trail. This partially paved road stretched from Asheville, North Carolina; through Tazewell, Tennessee; through Middlesboro to Corbin, Kentucky. It exponentially increased commerce in East Tennessee, a lasting legacy that benefited countless people who would never know Fate Payne’s name.
It was a terrible loss to Claiborne County when Fate fell ill at only forty-eight years of age. Bob took him to see a specialist in Richmond, Virginia where he was diagnosed with Glioma, a fast-growing brain tumor. Fate underwent very risky brain surgery to remove it, but he did not survive. Bob was with him throughout, and accompanied his body back to Lone Mountain.
Bob
Bob, officially referred to as R.W. Payne in the papers – and he was in the papers a lot – and his wife Mattie, built their Lone Mountain home in 1901. It was a showplace they initially referred to as “Bonny Pines.” They had six children, Frank, Ethel, Owen, Robert, John Paul, and Helen.
Bob was very influential in the local Democrat Party and had extensive connections with the FDR administration during the New Deal. He was one of the main reasons Claiborne County got the CCC, WPA, TVA, and other New Deal agencies into Claiborne County at a very early stage. He also did extensive charitable work, especially in the cause of polio and other crippling diseases of children. At the time of the stroke that was the precursor to his death five weeks later, he was was working on a charity benefit. His daughter, Ethel, took over in his stead.
Byrd Maynard Payne
Byrd Payne, the baby of the family, was a very impetuous young man, running off to join the army so he could fight in the Spanish American War with Teddy Roosevelt. One problem, he fudged on his age, and ended up getting kicked out and sent back home; so, he got married instead. In late 1899 he married A. Jennings, from one of Lone Mountain’s pioneer families.
Byrd and A lived in Springdale at first, and they started their family immediately. Irene was born in September of 1900, followed by Paul in 1902. A was pregnant with Clarence, when two-year-old Paul died. He was one of the first burials in the Payne Cemetery. Seven more children followed, Margaret, Tip, Sally, Anne, Jim, Kathleen and Roger.
In 1909, Byrd and A moved to New Tazewell where Byrd was starting a branch of the :Payne Brothers’ Store. The night before the grand opening, however, the store burned to the ground, probably due to arson. Byrd lost everything he had. His brothers, Bob and Fate, offered him a job as manager of the Payne Brothers’ Store in Lone Mountain where he worked for the rest of his life. This arrangement likely freed them up to pursue their other businesses and civic work.
In later years, A Payne observed that Byrd was never the same after losing his own business. His youngest son, my father, Roger, described him as affectionate and easy going. He kept a guitar leaning near the sofa in the living room, and he loved to pick a tune after Sunday dinner, just before lying down on that sofa and taking a nap.
