John Solomon Causey, son of James O ‘Jim’ Causey and Mildred Elizabeth Malloy, was born on 23 May 1882 in Fayette County, Alabama. He married Lilly Adeline Mozingo, daughter of Jackson Mozingo and Nancy Elizabeth Shuttlesworth, 3 October 1905 in Fayette County, Alabama, at the home of Jackson and Elizabeth Mozingo.
She was born November 15, 1881 in Fayette County, Alabama. He died on 11 June 1947 in Marion County Alabama at age 65, and was buried in White Springs Cemetery, southeast of Winfield, Alabama. Lilly Adeline Mozingo Causey died Christmas day 1962 and is also buried at White Springs Cemetery beside her husband.
John and Lilly Causey lived their whole life in and around White Springs United Methodist Church, just down the road from Jackson Mozingo, my great grandfather, who lived on County Road 24, RFD No. 1, Glenn Allen, Alabama. I never knew my grandfather John Solomon Causey. I’ve often wondered what he would have taught me if he had lived a few more years.
Grandpa Causey, farmed all his life and died on a hot summer day in the middle of June 1947. He’d been plowing all that morning in the hot humid Alabama sun. Before dinner, (back then Dinner was what we now call lunch), he squatted down under the shade of an old oak tree in the middle of the field. He never got back up. His plowing was finished. I was just short of 11 months old when He died June 11, 1947 near Glenn Allen, Marion Co, Alabama. My grandmother Lilly A. Mozingo Causey spent the next 15 years living with her baby boy Clifton, my father.
John S. Causey and Lilly Adeline Mozingo raised seven sons. The oldest was Leander Carles “Carlos” Causey, b. 1906. My earliest memory of Uncle Carl is at Texas, not the state, but a big white farmhouse set just off old highway US 78 between Glenn Allen and Eldridge, Alabama. An old mill dam still holds water just east of the house. It must have been about 1950 or so when they moved to Ty Ty, Georgia near Tifton, where Uncle Kimbrough had already moved.
There were Causeys already living in the area, distant cousins dating back to the Causey families from Craven County, North Carolina. My father, Clifton Tilford Causey, tried to visit Uncle Carl at least every couple of years. Charles and Ralph and I are close to the same age. We had corncob wars with hay-bale forts in the loft of the old barn there near TyTy. We try to stay in touch but not like when the seven brothers were alive. When researching World War II and the Causey family, I discovered on Uncle Carl’s Draft Registration Card what I had been searching for, My grandfather John S. Causey’s middle name:
The second born child of John S. and Lilly Causey was Clovis Alfred Causey, b. 29 December 1908. He married Justina Kirkley 8 June 1930. They had one child Paul Ray Causey, b. 1932. By 1950 my father, Clifton Tilford Causey and Uncle Clovis lived next door in Glenn Allen, Alabama. They both worked in the coal mines, a most dangerous and unhealthy occupation. My father died at the age of 40 and Uncle Clovis died in 1970 both suffering from Black Lung. Paul Ray Causey married Joyce Wideman and had two sons. Michael their first born and I communicate occasionally as we are both retired soldiers and educators.
The Third son of seven was Clarence Jackson Causey, b. 1911 down on Sugar Creek near Glenn Allen in Fayette County, Alabama. He was raised working on the farm amongst a large family of Causeys and Mozingo’s. He met Clara King sometime around 1930. By the mid-1930s the depression was hitting families hard. Of course in the rural south the cash crop being cotton really didn’t affect the daily routine of the yeoman farmers. The coal mines slowed down and many closed. Clarence and Clara headed for greener pastures sometime before 1941. Clarence was working in Gary, Indiana for U.S. Steel company from about 1941 until he retired and moved back to Brilliant, Marion County, Alabama in say 1972. I remember their home at 1814 East 28th Avenue, Gary, Indiana.
Clarence Causey suffered tuberculosis early in the 1940s. Lobes of his left lung were removed and as he aged he walked with a slight slump toward his left side. I suppose due to his health US Steel moved him to the water pump control unit. He worked there for the next 30 years. I asked him once what he did there in the pump room. He just said, “I watch water pressure gauges all day.” During World War II, Clarence Causey was a member of the Indiana Guard Reserve.
Due to his Tuberculosis surgery he was 4F for the draft but served as best he could on the home-front.
Uncle Clarence and Aunt Clara had no children. Aunt Clara had complications from a pregnancy early in their marriage and could no long have children. Yet they did have many children. All the nieces and nephews looked forward to Christmas each year because Uncle Clarence and Aunt Clara would be coming around that time with gifts. The Causey family has always been close. Clarence and Clara Causey were apt to visit many of the six brothers and other southern folks on their way to their favorite motel just across the bridge in Destin, Florida for vacation each year. They also visited their aunts and uncles. I remember Uncle Clarence talking about their visits to his Uncle Fayette White out in Texas in the 1950s and ‘60s. Fayette White had married the youngest daughter of Great-Grandpa Jim O. Causey, Darthula. She had died in Tuscola, Texas in 1921 but faithful Uncle Clarence still went to Texas to see Uncle Fayette.
Uncle Clarence passed away 30 August 1983. He rests beside his lovely wife of 40 years, Clara Lee King who stayed with us for 22 more years and went to be with our Lord 7 February 2005. They are buried in our home cemetery, White Springs United Methodist Church cemetery, Hubbertsville, Fayette County, Alabama.
Esker Cullen Causey, b. 11 April 1914 near Glenn Allen, Alabama. He married Viola Evelyne Ward b. 24 October 1902 in Winfield, Alabama. Uncle Cullen died 3 January 1984, in Kokomo, Indiana. Aunt Evelyne died on the 16th of February 1990. She and Uncle Cullen are buried in Crown Point Cemetery, Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana. They had gotten married around 1935 and were then living in Fayette County, Alabama. Ivan Hill Causey, their first and only child, was born 29 August 1938. In 1940 they were living two houses down from my maternal grandfather Will Beasley and family in Winfield, Alabama. Sometime after 1940. I don’t know what year they moved to Indiana. Uncle Jack Causey, (Arlander (Orlando) Jackson Causey, son of Jim O. Causey), had moved to southern Indiana and may have prompted Uncle Cullen’s move there. In fact, Joe D. Causey, one of Uncle Jack’s younger sons is buried in Crown Point cemetery where Uncle Cullen and Aunt Evelyene are buried. I know they were living in Windfall, Indiana, a tiny suburb of Kokomo, and growing tomatoes as a cash crop in the early 1950s.
Clifford Kimbrough Causey b. 15 July 1917 near Glenn Allen, Fayette County, Alabama. I haven’t found a date for his marriage to Miss Lorene Franks, b. 13 July 1922. Uncle Kimbrew died young as did Uncle Clayton and my father Clifton Tilford. Uncle Kimbrew died 21 August 1968 at aged 51. Aunt Lorene past away 2 Jan 1993. They were a handsome and loving couple. They are buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery, Tifton, Tift County, Georgia.
My memories of visiting Uncle “Kimbrew” and Aunt Lorene are happy ones. They lived in the “Cotton Mill Village”. The village consisted of about 40 modest individual homes in rows close to the mill. Large outdoor community toilets were behind these homes. I can’t remember if at the time they were plumbed for indoor water. It was a modest life but better than most of us had. We drew our water from the well and used the pot on cold nights or traipsed to the single seater which was always at a distance from the house.
Uncle Kimbrue and Aunt Lorene had two sons, Billy Wayne and Charles Kenneth “Kenny”. When we were in our younger adolescence Billy Wayne and Kenny were like older brothers us, that is my sister Linda Faye and me. Billy was the mature one. Kenny was always cracking his heavily freckled face with a big lovely smile, usually after some prank he had pulled on one of us. None of us ever thought of ourselves as poor. Not many people had more and many had less. We had lots of love in our big Causey family. Sadly, we lost Kenny too soon on 7 Jun 2004. He was 61.
Clayton Woodville Causey, b. 5 January 1920 in the home of John S. and Lilly Mozingo Causey a few miles south of Winfield, Alabama near White Springs Methodist Church. He grew up farming and married a girl from Guin, Alabama, about 6 miles west of Winfield, on the 9th Day of January 1940. Azalee Parr was a twin, her brother was Bazlee. They were children of Gurly Parr and Lettie Reese Parr. I remember Mr. Gurly Parr well. He had lived in our house in Glenn Allen after we move to Rock City, Alabama.
Clayton Woodville Causey served on the USS Lang (DD-399), a Benham-class destroyer, in the United States Navy during World War II. I don’t know when he was assigned to this ship nor when he was drafted. I know he served from 28 February 1945 until 16 October 1945 when she (USS Lang) was decommissioned. During 1945, “She returned to Leyte Gulf 16 January 1945 to escort a resupply echelon to Lingayen, patrolled the entrance to Lingayen until 28 January, then sailed to train in the Solomons for the Okinawa assault. Departing Ulithi 27 March as flagship for ComDesDiv 4, Lang screened the transports of TF 53 to Okinawa. Under air attack from 12 April to 29 April, Lang again incurred no damage and accounted for another kamikaze. From 29 April to 17 May she screened three escort carriers providing direct air support for Okinawa operations, and then screened other flight operations near Okinawa to 11 June. Lang departed the Pacific battle zones in June and arrived in San Francisco 3 July for repairs. Enroute to New York she rescued two downed pilots 25 August. She decommissioned 16 October 1945.” (Text taken from: Naval History and Heritage Command, Lang I (DD-399), https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/l/lang-dd-399-i.html ).
Uncle Clayton and Gurly Parr’s daughter Azalee lived in the big house behind us there in Glenn Allen. They had only one child, Margaret. She and I were the same age within a few months. We played together many hours when we were three to five years old. It must have been about 1955 that they moved to Indiana, close to Uncle Clarence who lived in Gary. As I recall they lived in a town called Portage, Indiana, just east of Gary. I had just gotten back from my first tour in Vietnam when my mother Edna Lucille Beasley Causey told me that Uncle Clayton was suffering from a brain tumor. He died 13 December 1971. My cousin John Blair commented that our Aunt, “Azillee told us that Clayton died on the operating table during open heart surgery.” Aunt Azalee survived him another 14 years. She passed away 13 Dec 1985 at age 64. They are both buried at White Springs Cemetery, Hubbertville, Fayette County, Alabama.
This chapter has been about my Grandparents and my six uncles and their families. The next chapter is about my father, mother, sister, and some about me, Windle Ray Causey.
Leave a Reply