JOE LARKIN SUMMERS FAMILY
The patriarch of the Summers tribe, Larkin Joe Summers migrated from his birth site in Newberry, SC, after having served as a Confederate soldier in the 1st S. C. Infantry Regiment, to Aurora in Etowah County, Alabama. After living there approximately ten years he moved on to Hartselle, Morgan County, (late 1870's/1880's), where he lived for the balance of his life. A kind and friendly man, and known by most as Joe Summers, lived a useful life and would have probably lived to be 100, if he hadn't fallen and broken a hip while playing with the neighborhood kids. He died at 91, of pneumonia contacted while in bed after surgery on the hip.
He and two of his children are buried in the Hartselle City Cemetery. His youngest son Ed (nmi) and his youngest daughter Lula Mae, the wife of Samuel Allie Blair was the mother of four daughters. All four graduated from Morgan County High School in Hartselle: Sarah (Class of 1928), wife of Dr. Dan Ramey, Aline (Class of 1931). wife of Dr. John Larry, Elizabeth (Class of 1936), wife of Guy D. Roberts, and Hal Jean (Class of 1941), wife of Macon Hardwick.
Joe Summers married Susan Robinson of Lake City, Florida, in 1873, while there visiting his mother, who was there with an older brother. This marriage produced a total of six children: three boys, Jack, Will and Ed, and three girls Estelle, Carrie, and Lula Mae, five are shown in this picture.
Will Summers' first business in Hartselle was a livery stable located on the SW corner of Hickory and Railroad Streets. The fire that in 1916, destroyed fourteen downtown buildings, started in the hay loft of this building.
The oldest son Jack left town after a dispute, and the family didn't know where he was until they later found out he had become rich after striking black gold as a wildcatter in Oklahoma.
Ed was the only son to serve in W.W.I., and after seeing Paris, he wasn't content with the quite life of Hartselle, upon his return home, so he spent 18 months in New Orleans, (the nearest thing to Paris in this part of the world). Ed married Bessie Will Brindley in 1921, and had two sons: Edward Weaver Summers and Douglas Darwin Summers. Edward (born 3/23/1922). married another Hartselle native, Bevelye Wray Barclift, (born 2/26/1924), and this union produced three children all of which attended Hartselle schools and the First United Methodist Church. Wray Douglas graduated from MCHS in the Class of 1964, Ronald Edward in the Class of 1966, and Sally Lee in the Class of 1972. All of Bevelye's children loved music almost as much as she did.
Douglas Darwin Summers died six weeks after returning home from W.W.II., service in the Pacific theater where he contacted a severe case of Malaria
Joe Summers (Civil War), Ed (WWI), and Douglas (see photos) are all buried on the same lot in the Hartselle City Cemetery). Bevelye Barclift Summers died, 8/11/93, and is buried on a nearby lot with her grandfather P. W. Williams, one of Hartselle's early good merchants and a super salesman.
