A century of stories

Close-knit communities have their own unique stories to tell of people, places and events, and thanks to the efforts of Judy Franklin Hudson, a small sampling of these stories of the small town of Greenback are now preserved.

Franklin’s book, “The Greenback I Remember … A Century of Stories of a Unique Tennessee Town from 1900 to 2000,” was hot off the press when she held her initial book signing and sale July 12 at the Greenback Heritage Center, where she volunteers. In a few short hours, more than 125 copies were sold, old friends were greeted and new friends made as Hudson smiled, chatted and inscribed each book with her name and a short personalization.

An official book signing and sale will be held from 4:30-7 p.m. Friday, July 22, at the Greenback Corner Market and Deli, 6525 US Highway 411 South, Greenback. The cost is $20, and all proceeds are being donated to the Greenback Historical Society, which published the book, and the Greenback Heritage Museum.

Telling the tales

Hudson, who said, “I’ve only been in Greenback 74 years,” said her family moved to Greenback from Alcoa when she was about a year old and began dairy farming. Even though she and her husband, Greenback native Ronald Hudson, purchased a home in the Lanier community about eight miles away after their marriage, “We do everything in Greenback,” she said, including having careers teaching at Greenback School and attending the Presbyterian church in town.

As a volunteer with the Greenback Heritage Museum, Hudson found a plethora of stories as she perused the written materials in the museum during times when no visitors were present.

“I thought, you know, I have time to sit here and do this, but other people, they drop in but they don’t get the whole story,” Hudson said. “They don’t know what all is here, and the only way we can get that out to them is to put it in something they can put in their hands and carry out the door with them. So that’s why I wrote the book, to get some of these stories down before the next generation forgets there was a Greenback. It’s such a different place now from what it used to be.”

In addition to using donated materials found in the museum such as scrapbooks, newspaper articles that date from 1917 and other written reminiscences, letters, etc., Hudson recounts stories she and others, including her husband and her late father-in-law, Shag Hudson, both described as “born storytellers,” have told about Greenback and the people who lived there. She interviewed several people, one of whom was the late Frank Brannon.

“Frank Brannon’s story is so typical of Greenback and what it was like to grow up in the mid-1900s,” Hudson said. He agreed to do an interview, which Hudson transcribed and gave to him to proof. “He made some changes and it was finalized. A week later, he had a heart attack and died. That just really touched me. I was so glad, before he was gone, that I got it down. We’re all going to be gone soon and nobody’s going to remember this stuff and what it was like to grow up in Greenback if we don’t get it down.”

‘Fun stories’

The book, 103 pages, is divided into five sections: What Happened Here, Keeping the Peace, Our Institutions, Greenback’s People, and Our Stories. Each section has a sprinkling of photographs. On the front cover is a photo of the Merchants and Farmers Bank and the Greenback Post Office around 1945, and the back, a photo of two warehouse buildings across from the L&N Depot used by McCall Hardware.

Hudson said one of the stories that she particularly liked happened in 1924 and concerned the town’s blacksmith.

“Mr. Clarence Long, who was the blacksmith here in town, once shod a zebra,” she said. “When the circus came through town, he actually put shoes on a zebra. That’s what I enjoyed learning about the most. Most of these stories I’ve known forever and I’ve heard them over and over, but that was a new one on me.”

The book ends with some stories from the late Fred Fipps.

“You can’t tell about Greenback and not tell a Fred Fipps story,” Hudson said. “He was Greenback’s greatest storyteller.”

The stories in the book are from 1900 up to about 2000 and range from Halloween pranks to colorful characters and even a story of why Greenback, which was once in Blount County, shifted to Loudon County. The book is not intended to be a history book. As Hudson writes, its purpose is to amuse, entertain and give others food for thought as well as to preserve the stories that make the people of Greenback who they are.

“Don’t expect a lot of historical facts,” the author said. “It’s just a lot of fun stories.”