The Kidd Family of Coffee County (Part 2)

[This is a continuation of an earlier post you can read here]

Mary Elinda [Kidd] said "If the whole world turned against her, she would still do the same thing, because she knew it was true!" Some two years later, on 3 Nov 1903, her two daughters, "Maude Rebecca and Cora Alma" were also baptized members of the L.D.S. Church.

After the baptism of Mary Elinda, many Elders came to their home, it sort of became a home away from home. Finally the L.D.S. Mission President got permission to hold conference in the Baptist Church Building, this church was at that time inactive.

No meetings were being held there, occasionally someone would start a community Sunday School, and so it was named "New Hope". The land for this Church Building had been donated to the Separatist Baptist Church by Rebecca Adaline Lones the mother of George Washington Kidd.

The L.D.S conference came and all the Elders (missionaries) within walking distance came (the traveled without purse or scrip), some came by train to Manchester and walked from the train station to the New Hope church building. It was a very successful conference among the Elders, and also several converts that had traveled many miles by wagon and team to be there.

After the conference was over, and the Elders went their separate ways, there was a type written note left on the Church door, with a bunch of willows neatly tied and set on each side of the door.

The note read, "We forbid and more Mormon Elders coming into this community!", signed K. K. Klan. It did not alarm the Kidd family, however, George Washington did take precautionary measures, and told the man in the local community, who owned the only typewriter around, that "if anyone came to molest the Elders while at his place, they better prepare their burial box before they came!"

The family was never bothered again by the K. K. Klan, however, the stores within the Manchester, Tennessee also other community areas refused to sell groceries, clothing and other goods to the Kidd family.

[The response of the merchants proved too much and the family decided to move west, first to Utah, but the eventually settled in Idaho.]

The Kidd Family of Coffee County (Part 1)

In Ragsdale, a small community in Coffee County, Tennessee lived the family of George Washington Kidd and Mary Elinda Elizabeth Morrow. What follows is an excerpt of a biography based on the memories of two of their children.

Late one Autumn [1900] on a Saturday evening, as the last rays of sun reflected the shadow of the old oak tree across from their front porch, George Washington [Kidd] looked up and said to his son Henry Mike Lee, "Yonder, come two Mormon preachers, if they act like gentlemen I'll treat them as such"

These two missionaries [I haven't figured out who yet] had traveled all day without food, no one would give them food or shelter, they were tired, hungry and foot weary, they wore long black coats and derby hats.

George Washington Kidd, greeted them with a friendly hand, they said they were representing the Latter-day Church, better known as the Mormon Church, and requested lodging till Monday, as they did not like to travel on the Sabbath.

The response from George Washington was: "I wouldn't turn a yellar dog away from my home, let alone people asking for food, or a place to sleep!"

Then he quoted from the Bible "Neglect not to entertain strangers, for in doing so you might entertain Angels." They were informed to stay away from the women, his wife would bring them food, and they could wash up in the creek, then bed down in the barn.

In the course of conversation on that Sunday evening, it came up about Indians, and how they ever got to the American continent. This had always been a puzzle for George Washington, one of the missionaries said, "we have a book that will tell you all about it," and the handed him a Book of Mormon.

George Washington said, "I don't want your Mormon Bible!"  They responded and explained that the book contained the history he had asked to read, and they would pick it up the next they were ever in the community again.

On Monday, George Washington and his wife, immediately began to read the book, they compared it with their Bible, and tried to condemn the book. They more they read it, the more they were convinced it was true. They discussed the book with their neighbors and relative, also the ministers, only to be made fun of.

A few months later, in the spring, Mary Elinda on 18 May 1901, was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [by Alma Olsen and confirmed the same day by Charles Edmun Napper]. She was baptized among deep hatred and bitterness: because of her faith in the L.D.S. Church, she said that depress feeling inside of her for so many years was finally gone.

(To be continued...)