They Lost their Home to Fire

In addition to keeping an eye out for stories from LDS history in Tennessee, I like to keep my eyes open for stories from within my own Stake. Often I will meet people from all over the Stake and I get  to tell people who live near where the story happened about the rich history around them. One such story I'll quote here.


President James W Grant [1879-1938] of the Middle Tennessee Conference writing from White Oak, Tenn July 28, [1905] says Elder [Amasa Henry] Pierce [1882-1959, of Fruita, UT] and myself have met with good success in holding meetings having held seven this week. Being close to the line in Maury County we visited the Saints in the Greenfield Bend on Duck River. After a very successful cottage meeting held at Bro. Joel Love's [1839-1917] we were invited to spend the night with Gabriel [Thomas] Greenfield [1874-1954]. We went to bed at half past ten and to our surprise were awakened from our midnight slumber by the house burning, set on fire by miscreants who wanted to burn up the Mormon elders. We managed to save most of the things in the bedroom but I had to go without hat or umbrella the next morning on account of it. Mr. Greenfield's wife [Minnie Lucretia Love, 1878-1955, daughter of Joel Love] is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and they have taken care of many of our Elders. Their loss will be hard on them and to make it worse they had but two weeks before buried one of their little boys Andrew Jackson Greenfield [9 Sep 1903 - 3 Jul 1905]

There is so much here, from the death of a 22 month old boy, to the complete destruction of the home, to seeing the pain of families who would with other families become part of the future Hampshire Branch, and later the modern Columbia 1st Ward. Plus, I know people who live in Greenfield Bend today, and some of them are related to the Love family. I know they will appreciate this look into the past. Gabriel joined the LDS Church himself seven years later on July 10th, 1912.