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We drove to the Ten Mile store on County Road K,
as directed and headed down county road AA two miles. Seeing nothing we continued several more
miles to the end of the pavement where we turned around, not wanting to get
into a mud situation as we had the previous day. On the way back to Ten Mile we passed the
Bethel Christian Church where some people were sitting on the porch. We passed and then decided to return and ask
them about the old Anabel station. There
we met, among others, Ralph Klusman who knew all about the station having been
moved to Ten Mile, and knew where it was.
We also met Merlyn Amidei and her husband. The Church, it turns out, is the property of
the Macon Historical Society and they were there for a Memorial Day
observance. Merlyn explained she had a
friend who knew all about our ancestor, Thomas Hart Benton Stasey, the
bushwhacker.
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Merlyn has written two books on the history of Macon
County and they are available at the Historical Society Museum. Ralph gave us a tour of the church. While we were admiring it a group of singers
appeared, called the Nelson family, consisting of three girls, ages roughly six
to sixteen, a boy about twelve and their mother. They sang two old mountain gospel songs and
the sound, in the curved-ceiling room, was ethereal. One song was the tune from “Oh Brother Where
Art Thou,” “Come on Down.” After they
sang we went back outside and made a donation to the Society to a woman who, it
turned out, had been the one Becky Grady had left Aunt Donna’s to see the
previous day. Merlyn, it turned out, had
heard of Stasey from Aunt Donna. They
all knew Aunt Donna and told us to go by the Macon Museum. Ralph said it’s open Thursday through Sunday
but he also gave us the name and number of someone who would be glad to pop
over and show it to us any other time (Ruth Master, 660-676-7027).Ralph gave us directions to
where the station was now located, back down the road to the approximate place
McEwen had directed us, but with some more explicit directions on exactly where
to look. We proceeded back and met the
Guttmans. Mr. Guttman is a retired
minister. We told him why we were there
and he advised us the station had been torn down because it was in such bad
shape. They were afraid to leave it standing.
He pointed to a broken structure beside the house and said that was all
that was left. We took pictures and were
about to leave when his wife, Nancy Guttman, gave us the contact information for
a lady who had been by a few years before looking for the station. She had taken pictures and might be willing
to share them with us. We intend
contacting her.
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| The picture at left is displayed in the Macon Historical Society. It shows two people standing in front of the Anabel station, the one owned for a time by Thomas A. Stasey. The caption says, "(Left) Marion Powell, (RT) Lee Imler, 1936, Anabel Station."
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