The following story was written by Muriel Vaughn about her husband, Alvin Vaughn, but was not discovered by her daughters until after Mrs. Vaughn had died. She had not told the girls that she had written the story, but Mrs. Vaughn knew that following her death, the story would eventually be discovered by her daughters because of the place she chose to hide the story. Here are selections from what Mrs. Vaughn wrote about the life of her husband:

“Alvin Hardy Vaughn was born March 27, 1912, to John Calvin and Mary Etta Keisling Vaughn; the seventh child in a family of ten children. He was reared on a farm in Alpine, Tennessee, in Overton County. Being a member of a family of 12 he had to work and share his part of the work load. Papa Vaughn, Alvin’s father, worked away from home, logging and floating a raft load of logs down the Obey river for fifty cent a day. Mother Vaughn, Alvin’s mother, took all the children to the fields to work. She put the baby in a wash tub in the fence corner while they worked. When the corn was laid by and the garden began to produce vegetables, Mother Vaughn and all the children began the job of canning and preserving food for the winter months. They always canned 500 quart jars of blackberries and around 1500 quart jars of other fruit and vegetables. Of course it was the boys’ lot to keep plenty of stove wood and fire wood to cook with and keep them warm in the winter. It was always Alvin’s job to feed the pigs and baby calves.

On Sunday mornings Papa Vaughn got the old buck board wagon and mules ready to carry all the family to Sunday School and once a month they had church. Papa and Nanna Vaughn always insisted on their children going to school although they had to walk four miles a day to and from school. When the snow was too deep for them to walk, Papa Vaughn would hitch a mule to a log and drag a path to school for the children to walk in.

Alvin’s first remembrance of Christmas was that they only got a stick of candy and an orange. One Christmas, Papa Vaughn came home with a stalk of bananas and hid them thinking they would be safe until Christmas, but an older brother, Clyde, found them and ate everyone of them before Christmas.

When Alvin entered high school, he began studying Agriculture. He also enjoyed playing basketball and baseball. He and the neighbor boys, Guy and Larry Copeland, were always together. If he did not stay at the Copeland’s, Larry and Guy came home with him. Very often they only had bread and milk to eat and sometimes not too much bread. Alvin considered Mr. Abe and Mrs. Nannie Copeland’s home as his second earthly home.

Alvin never had a suit of clothes to wear until he graduated from high school. His mother sold enough chickens and had Mr. Copeland, who ran a little country store, order him a suit for the sum of $20.00. Alvin always wore his four older brother’s hand-me-downs to school.

Alvin went to Alpine High School for three years for 1926 to 1929. The summer of 1929, Alvin was hired to teach school at Hickory Flat for $50.00 a month. He was 18 years old and had not graduated from high school nor did he have a college education. He taught there for 3 years and returned to Alpine High School for his senior year when he was 21 years old. He graduated in 1933. The summer after graduation from high school, his father let him use a pair of mules to help dig the basement to the Alpine Presbyterian church. He made $3.00 a day of which he had to give his father $2.00 for the use of the mules, leaving him a $1.00 per day. Alvin had the sum of $90.00 to start to college. Out of that money, he bought a suitcase for $1.25, 3 pairs of blue jeans, 3 shirts, 3 pair of underwear, 3 pair of socks and 1 pair of hobnail shoes. As Alvin left to register for college his father told him, “I have nothing to help you with, but you are not worth the salt that goes in your bread if you haven’t got the backbone to make it on your own.” With these words ringing in his ears, he took his packed suitcase and walked down to where Larry and Guy Copeland were waiting for him. Larry drove Alvin and Guy to Cookeville, Tennessee which was about 30 miles from home and left them at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, better know at T.P.I. or Tech. Alvin went to the office to register and ask for work to pay for his room and meals. He was assigned to the cafeteria to wash dishes for his meals. He met Coach Putty Overall who knew two of Alvin’s older brothers and knew of Alvin’s ability as a good basketball player. Coach Overall soon became Alvin’s best friend and helped him work his way through college. Since Alvin was majoring in Agriculture, he also worked in the dairy barns for any added expenses he had.

During the summer of 1937, Alvin played baseball with the Nashville Vols and had the opportunity to play with the famous Babe Ruth who gave Alvin his baseball glove. However, a terrible case of homesickness influenced a decision to leave professional baseball, and on his way home, Alvin threw the glove away along the side of the road. Since I was living in Cookeville around this time, I often attended basketball games at Tech and admired Alvin, who, by then, was playing basketball there. He was also working in Rex Vaughn’s grocery store, to help pay his way through college. After doing the grocery shopping for my parents, Alvin carried the groceries to my car and it was love at first sight. He got my phone number and called me for a date. After dating for a while, he asked me to marry him. He was always a very practical person and said,” Honey, I have nothing to offer you financially so I must finish school and work a year to get myself out of debt and get us started.”

Alvin obtained a master’s decree in agriculture at the University of Tennessee, and in July 1938, the Overton County Board of Education hired him as the Vocational Agriculture teacher at Hilham where he boarded at Mr. and Mrs. Millard Gibbon’s home. His salary was $150.00 per month even though there was no building for this class. The response to the need for the Agriculture building by the people of the community in Hilham was wonderful. Men that had sawmills gave lumber, others furnished nails, windows, secondhand roofing and others gave of their time to erect the building. The students that registered for Agriculture worked during class time on the building. Alvin always worked and directed the workers. The building was completed before cold weather, and someone gave a second-handed pot bellied stove to heat the building. The State and County Board of Education began getting some of the much needed tools and equipment for the department. Soon the Agriculture department was well underway, and Alvin began evening schools at the Agriculture building and then in outlying farm areas for adult farmers. He taught them newer farming methods that had been tried out and proven at the University Of Tennessee Experiment Stations.

Alvin and I were married November 17, 1939. Alvin asked for the day off on Friday to get married, and his principal asked him if he couldn’t wait and get married on Saturday so he would not miss a day of school. Alvin laughed and said, “Not on your life, because I am getting married today.” We were married at the First Baptist Church in Cookeville. My father and Alvin’s brothers, Clyde and Rex, were at the church with us. When we came back from our honeymoon to the Smoky Mountains, we moved into a house in Hilham Alvin had rented for us. Alvin enjoyed the friendship of the entire community of Hilham and worked untiringly for the good of all.

Since we did not have electricity after we first married, we used a wood cook stove. If any new bride has never cooked on a wood cook stove, she has missed something. Many times I would get the bread or biscuits ready to bake, only to find the fire had gone out. I had many burned fingers and burned food as well as some partly raw food. It was quite an experience along with a lot of laughs. Alvin was always such a jolly person and took all my blunders and mistakes in good fun. He would open his big blue eyes and smile saying,”Honey, do you think you will ever learn to cook and keep the fire going at the same time?” He and the men of the community set to work trying to secure an electric line to be run into the little community. Within the next year we were fortunate because the power lines were completed and had electricity to many of the homes in Hilham.

In September 1940, our first baby daughter was born, a little girl we named Marjorie. We were so thankful for her and asked God for the ability to raise her to become a good Christian woman.

Alvin loved the good earth, so we went partners with his sister, Mazie and her husband, and purchased an adjoining farm to Papa Vaughn’s farm in Alpine. His sister and husband moved to the farm to operate it. We purchased ten purebred Hereford cows and were on our way to becoming farmers. Of course we only had $1,500.00 to pay down on our part of the farm, but with Alvin’s wise management, we soon were out of debt. We lived in Hilham three years and Alvin taught Agriculture. Most every evening and sometimes at midnight, we would hear a knock on our door. Some farmer had come for help because he would have a sick animal or was in need of a veterinarian. Of course there were no veterinarians in any one of the adjoining counties, and the Agriculture teacher was the next best thing. Alvin would go to do what he could to help the farmer, and I would usually go along to hold the lantern and assist my husband in any way possible. Alvin would say, “Honey, if you are to be a good Agriculture teacher and part-time farmer’s wife, you are to learn all there is to know about every phase of it and learn to be my right hand as well as my left hand. Many nights, the baby and I have sit bundled up in the corner of a stable holding the lantern for Alvin and sterilizing his equipment while he would doctor a cow for milk fever, help deliver a calf, or a litter of pigs, or get a green apple out of a calf’s throat when it was choked.

The next year the Overton County Board of Education moved Alvin to Rickman, Tennessee to teach Agriculture. We could not find an empty house in Rickman to live in, so we moved to Livingston. Alvin drove the nine miles to Rickman each day. In August of 1942, our second baby daughter was born whom we named Mary Alcie. The Lady Ann Hospital in Livingston had closed since all the doctors were being called into service during the war. We called for Dr. Nevans who was leaving the next day for war, but he did not make it in time, so Alvin delivered his own baby daughter, something he was very proud of even though she was not a boy. He was rather shaky at times since this was his wife and daughter and not a cow and calf.

In the early part of 1942 we traded our half of the farm to Alvin’s father for the old family farm which has been in the family for over 100 years. Alvin’s mother was born and reared there. Of course we did not have the money to pay for the balance of the farm, so we made Papa Vaughn a note for the remaining amount. We moved our cattle over on our newly purchased farm. In buying the family farm, part of the agreement was that Papa and Nanna Vaughn were given permission to live in the old family home as long as they lived. In addition to the family home, there was a small three room house on farm that Papa had stored corn in at one time. Due to the war, Alvin could not get anyone to care for the cattle, so we decided to undertake the task of turning this small dwelling into a home. The first of September 1942, when Mary Alcie was only 3 weeks old, we began work on what was once a little corn crib. We swept and cleaned it out, put heavy building paper on the inside walls, and then papered over that. We put heavy linoleum over the cracks in the floors and moved in. There was a spring that ran from a cave in the side of the mountain on the farm, so Alvin soon piped water into the house and put in a sink. We cooked on an oil stove and had a warm morning heater in the kitchen for heat and a fireplace in the living room for heat and used oil lamps. We also had a battery radio which Alvin had given me as a wedding present. Alvin drove the thirty miles a day from the farm to Rickman and back to teach Agriculture. He would come home from school and work three to four hours on the farm, and then drive out in the county at night to teach an evening school for adult farmers. With the cattle underway, Alvin started in the hog business in order to help get our farm paid for. Each lot of hogs and calves that were sold went to pay on our note for the farm. We never cashed a check, but would just endorse it and give it to Papa Vaughn as payment on our debt. Those were the lean years for us, but very happy ones. Alvin was always happy when he was out on the farm. Alvin taught Agriculture in Rickman and we lived in the little house and managed the farm. He never saw an idle moment. Through God’s blessing we managed to get the farm paid off by 1945. And on Christmas day, 1945, our twin daughters were born whom we named Joyce and Jean. Now we had four girls to be raised as farmers.

Alvin taught two to three evening schools each year to adult farmers, and often had requests from other parts of the county for an adult evening school. He did much more than he was physically able to do, but with God’s help, he would keep going. He was transferred to Livingston Academy in 1945, and in 1950, we purchased a home on Windle Street in Livingston. Marvin Norrod was hired to oversee the running of the farm and caring for the livestock. We moved our church membership to First Baptist Church of Livingston where Alvin became a deacon and taught the men’s Bible class.

The next few years were exciting, seeing our cattle and hog business grow. Our four daughters enjoyed living in town and making many new friends. Alvin and I continued our work in the church and the community. In 1955, his father died and his mother did not want to live in the big house on the farm by herself. She eventually went to live with her daughter, Mazie. In 1956, Marvin Norrod left to return to his own farm, so we sold our house in Livingston in order to move back to the farm. The big house was empty so we moved into what has become known as the Home Place. In 1958, Alvin suffered his first heart. After seeing his x-rays, his doctors in Nashville knew from the scar tissue that he had probably had more less serious heart attacks earlier. Following that heart attack in 1958, the Overton County School board voted not to allow Alvin come back that year to teach due to the numbers of days he had missed. His health insurance was also dropped. Our only income was from the farm, since I had left my job at the mayor’s office to take care of Alvin. Alvin’s heart specialist told him he would have to be a gentleman farmer, so the girls and I did most of the work with Alvin telling us what to do. However, in spite of our best efforts, on October 25, 1959, Alvin suffered a fatal heart attack. Marjorie was a student at U.T., Mary Alcie was a senior in high school, and Joyce and Jean were in the 8th grade. I had gone to the barn with Alvin to check on a cow that had a new calf. Alvin was working with the calf when he had chest pains. He sat down on a bale of hay and said, “Muriel, I love you, but I’m dying, please take care of my girls.” He fell over dead in my arms. I lay him down on the hay and ran to the house to call the doctor. I sent Mary Alcie back to the barn to stay with her father. News spread quickly in the community and many neighbors, family, friends and our pastor, Bro. Clarence Stewart came to the farm. Alvin’s funeral was scheduled for First Baptist Church, but at the last minute, it was changed to be at Livingston Academy since they knew our little church would not hold the people that came to the funeral. The pastor that married us, Bro. J. Harold Stephens, and Bro. Clarence Stewart held the service. I received many letters, cards and calls, but this one sums up Alvin’s life best of all. It was sent in behalf of the members of the Tennessee Vocational Agricultural Teachers’ Association and said in part: “By his death we have lost a beloved and esteemed leader whose progressive ideas, inspiration, and untiring efforts have helped to make our profession what it is today. His kindly understanding of his students, his fatherly advice to them, his sincere interest in their physical and spiritual well-being and the Christian example set before them will continue to influence all who knew him. His understanding of human nature, his friendliness with young and old, his genuine interest in church life and his sincere interest in his vocation endeared him to a wide circle of acquaintances, extending far beyond the realm of his local community. One of his major objectives was to improve the living conditions and standards of the farm people in his area through education. His contribution in this field of endeavor was great.”

Although being involved in each of his daughters’ wedding would have been very special to him, sadly, Alvin Vaughn did not live long enough to get to escort any of his daughters down the aisle. However, the story of the dress that each wore is an interesting one. The year was 1961 when the oldest of the four Vaughn girls, Marjorie, was planning her wedding. For that special day, Muriel Vaughn took all four daughters to Cain Sloan in Nashville to shop for a wedding gown. And with the purchase of this dress, Muriel made it clear to the girls that it was the one and only gown she could afford to buy, and that all four daughters would wear the dress at each of their individual weddings. At that particular time, Cain Sloan offered a personal shopper service to their customers, and an employee by the name of Miss Lewis was well acquainted with the Vaughn family. She had assisted not only Muriel Vaughn as a personal shopper at Cain Sloan, but her mother, Mrs. DuBois, was one of her special customers too. Mary Alcie described the dress that was bought that day as being a “winter dress with long sleeves, but it has been worn during the summer months too. It is silk with pretty lace and very tiny pearls over the bodice and lower part of the dress. The back of the dress is just as pretty as the front, and the 30 tiny silk-covered buttons with loops added to the old fashioned or heirloom look.” On December 27, 1961 Marjorie was the first to wear the dress. Jean, who was second, was married on May 21, 1966, and Mary Alcie was third when she wore the dress on November 23, 1968. On August 27, 1977, Joyce made the fourth daughter to wear the dress. But the wearing of the beautiful wedding dress didn’t end there. Jean’s daughter, Lynette, got married wearing the gown on May 27, 1989. The sixth to wear the dress was Natalie Kelly, daughter of Mary Alcie. Her wedding day was June 25, 2005.

Even though the dress has been worn by six different brides, the only changes made since its purchase in1961 was having it hemmed for Natalie. Mary Alcie remembers how, as Natalie was being fitted in a tailoring shop in Cary, NC, some older ladies came in the shop and raved about how beautiful the dress was.

Although their father wasn’t physically with them on each of their wedding days, he did accompany Muriel and the girls on shopping trips to Nashville for special occasions such as when one of the girls was a participant in the Strawberry Festival held in Livingston in the 1950s. Mary Alcie recalled how he always wore a suit and a hat on these shopping trips, and while the girls tried on dresses, he sat in a nearby chair holding his hat. Mary said, “If Daddy had been living when we went to Nashville to buy a wedding gown, that would have been a big event for him. He loved his girls and was so proud of each one.”

The dress has been cleaned and pressed and put away for the time being, but will, more than likely, make an appearance once again when one of the Vaughn great-granddaughters marries. And should that be the case, the dress that was so carefully chosen so long ago will once more take part in an event that has become a wonderful family tradition.