Part 4 The continued saga of Anna Eliza Blount's Life
Anna Eliza Blount Kline
And Her Swamp Land Patent
We continue the story of Anna Eliza Blount Kline which revealed the saga of a well-educated pioneer woman who traveled from Obion County, Kentucky to Cheatham County, Tennessee, and how she arrived at New Madrid, Missouri in 1867. We continue the story of her life in New Madrid.
Starting in 1886, Anna lost her husband, her half-brother Edward Jones in 1887, an aunt in 1890, her mother in 1892, a son in 1894, another aunt, Martha Tickell-Montgomery-Pierce in 1898, and her Uncle Madison on 25 December 1903. This period of her life must have been difficult for her. After the death of her Uncle Madison, Anna moved in with her daughter and son-in-law down the road to their house, which sat on her Swamp Land Patent. Madison Tickell’s daughter Mary Eliza “Mollie” Tickell-Hunter moved back to her father’s house after his death and the recent separation from her husband, Clay Hunter. As Anna and Mollie were very close, I am sure it was a comfort to them at that time to live close to each other again, particularly in that sad time in both of their lives.
Anna and Mollie attended the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also known as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and often entertained their grandchildren with tales of what they saw and did at the World’s Fair. Organizers of the fair erected nearly 1,500 buildings, including several grand “palaces” across 1,200 acres of a newly redesigned Forest Park. That magnificent fairground equated America’s expansion westward since the Louisiana Purchase with the nation’s cultural and economic progress. One excited writer noted in the World’s Fair Bulletin, the Exposition’s official journal:
“The heroes of Homer’s Iliad were engaged in petty achievements when compared with the work of the men who wrestled a vast wilderness from savages and wild beasts and made it the seat of twenty grand commonwealths in a single century.”
Attendees from across the globe experienced the highest achievements in technology, fine arts, manufacturing, science, civics, foreign policy, and education. The World’s Fair boasted extravagant exhibits from fifty foreign countries and forty-three of what was then forty-five states. Festival Hall, in the center of the Colonnade of States overlooking the Hall, was the jewel of the fair.
This was all before television, telephones and before planes flew. Electricity was new and one of the exciting and beautiful Palaces, along with other industries of the day displayed this new technology. Of direct importance to us today, there were more new American foods invented and introduced at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri than during any other single event in history. The list includes the hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy, and the ice cream cone, to name just a few. This last item listed, the ice cream cone, related to a story my father told us hundreds of times. Reportedly, his Grandma Anna and Mollie Tickell Hunter were on the train home to Morehouse when the train served dessert in an ice cream cone. He told the story that she said, “Pond my word Mollie, do they think our stomachs are like goats? This cone is made of cardboard, my stomach will not digest it.” For some reason, this story made an impression on my father. He remembers the tales of grand palaces and other things she told too, but he most remembered her telling of eating her first ice cream cone. This tale was just one of many stories my dad told of Anna and trips she took with her cousin Mollie. I am inserting three photos of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and World’s Fair to show the magical atmosphere created by the St. Louis World’s Fair.
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