Jesse & Etta Mae  

Jesse Griffith was born on the 9th day of July in 1909 in Logan County, Arkansas. He was one of 8 children born to Samuel and Mary Griffith. He finished 2nd grade and worked in the coal mines of Logan County and as a carpenter. He was brought up in the Church of Christ and he along with his siblings were all musically inclined. He worked on one of the first roads to Petite Jean Mountain and that is the time he met and married Etta Mae Curtis. They married on February 10th, 1928. He worked in a stove factory in 1930 in Pope County after marrying Etta Mae.

He built their first cabin around Greasy Valley in Logan County. His children say he was very clean man and expected cleanliness about him and his household. He could be loving at times, but at other times very stern. He took his family to Church and read his Bible. He held various jobs and once owned and operated a cotton farm in Desha County, Arkansas where the children were raised. Jesse lost the cotton farm and had to move around looking for work, including leaving town for several weeks at a time to work for food for the family. He suffered a heart attack in 1955 and wasn't able to work the last year of his life. He died at home one year later on December 18th, 1956 in Winchester, Arkansas.

Etta Mae Curtis was born to John Henry Curtis and Sarah Bethena Helton on the 24th day of May in 1906. She was born in Pope County also in Arkansas. Etta Mae attended school up until the 6th grade. Family says that she and her family were of the Baptist faith. She was one of 4 children, and she was the youngest.

Etta Mae had one child, a son, born out of wedlock. Her children tell she was raped by a man in the area who was later ran out of town by lots of the town folk. She was 15 years old at the time as she passed this on to her children later in life. But according to records, the son is recorded as being born 1927, making Etta Mae 21 years old at the time. Maybe that is what they told the son later after Etta Mae married, because she was married at the age of 21 and there is no child shown on the 1930 census. Family tell that the son, Archie, lived with his aunt Zalen, and his grandmother Bethena, until he was about 5 years old or so, and then he lived with Etta and Jesse. Some say his grandmother hid him till he was older, being that Etta was not married till she was 21 years old.

Etta Mae gave birth to 13 children in all, and suffered several miscarriages and lost one child from illness at the age of 2. Etta was a hard worker, and a great cook. She became very independent when she was left alone with her children as Jesse traveled around looking for work. Her children say she could be hard at times too on them. After Jesse died, Etta Mae moved around with the children that were still at home, to other places where her older married children lived nearby to help. Times were  hard with Etta Mae not working and still trying to provide for her children.

As all the children left home, Etta took up being a grandmother and good one. She became very lonely at times when family was near her. She often complained in letters home how lonely she was. She played the game "Wahoo" and she played it well. She took up dipping snuff and she watched television wrestling. She still enjoyed her children and grandchildren playing and singing and she was a talker. She continued to cook for family and made the best biscuits and chocolate gravy ever!

Etta developed cancer of the colon and it eventually took her life in 1977. She died in the hospital on January 31, 1977 when she was 70 years old.

 Photos of Jesse and Etta          

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