When I asked my dad if he had met Mayor Crump he shared some stories -- but what if I hadn't asked?

    I mentioned in my previous post on the Faulkner-Francisco controversy that one of the problems of documenting or collaborating the Francisco accounts is that some of the best sources have been dead for five to 10 years.
    My father, Sidney Hurdle, was truly a font of historical information. He could place every member of our large and extended family in their exact and proper place and he could do the same with quite a few Marshall County families. He died last March.
    I'm not sure why -- perhaps because I had been reading his biography -- but one day I asked Dad if he had ever met Memphis political boss E.H. "Ed" Crump, who was born in Holly Springs. Dad's response was that he had met him once, in Ed Rather's office in the First State Bank. [ADDENDUM 5/1: Ed Rather was Ed Crump's grand-nephew].
    The Crump-Dancy feud over the clearing of a cemetery plot is something of a legend in Holly Springs. Crump had sent down a crew to clean up around his mother's grave, and in the process they cut down plants and a tree Mr. Dancy had planted in his family's cemetery plots. People didn't make many phone calls back then, but I think a furious exchange of letters took place. Mr. Crump finally came down to apologize to Mr. Dancy and to seek to make amends.
    I don't know whether Mr. Rather asked my dad to come by or whether the meeting was happenstance. It's quite possible that Mr. Dancy was in the office, too. I just can't remember.
    Dad told me that Crump met my grandfather, Jesse Hurdle, twice, almost 10 years apart. On seeing him for the second time 10 years later Crump immediately greeted my grandfather by name, asked about his wife Lucy, and clearly had not forgotten a thing about him. My grandfather was amazed and mightily impressed.
    One interesting fact about Crump is that he is always referred to as mayor of Memphis but was not actually mayor after 1915. He was impeached and removed from office for failing to enforce prohibition laws by Nashville politicians eager to reduce his political power. Instead his political power increased. He was elected Shelby County trustee and earned $50,000 per year in fees -- or roughly a million a year in today's money. For the next 40 years he would hand-pick almost every mayor. Wyeth Chandler, who left office in 1982, was the son of Crump man Walter Chandler.
    There really is no point or moral to this story other than I never would have heard about my father or grandfather meeting Crump if I had never asked. In the past couple of days I've talked to a lot of friends and heard some wonderful stories, but I'm afraid a lot of information has gone to the grave.

Article to claim Faulkner ledgers story a fabrication; but Holly Springs connection is remembered

The name "Ludie," etched into a
 glass pane at the McCarroll Place,
 which has been owned by the
Francisco family for many years.

    There is an interesting article in The Awl on a claim made and accepted by many in recent years that William Faulkner's writing was heavily influenced by his friendship with the Francisco family in Holly Springs.
    This theory was outlined in the book "Ledgers of History: William Faulkner, an Almost Forgotten Friendship, and an Antebellum Plantation Diary," by Emory University professor Sally Wolff-King. King recounts claims by Edgar Wiggin Francisco III that Faulkner was a hunting buddy of his father's and that he was fascinated by old, detailed plantation ledgers in the family's possession. A window pane in the home, which had been etched with a diamond by an earlier young resident of the house also was said to have caught Faulkner's eye and was later used as a detail in his writing.
    The Awl story says the Francisco claim simply doesn't hold water and cites work by Jack Elliott, a former archivist with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and a seasoned analyst of historical documents. Elliott has written an article to be released soon, called "Confabulations of History: William Faulkner, Edgar Francisco, and a Friendship that Never Was." The article has undergone peer review and will appear later this year in the Journal of Mississippi History.
    I don't have a dog in this hunt. I will share that in the early- to mid-1970s I served as a Pilgrimage guide when the McCarroll Place, owned by the Francisco family, was still on tour. The glass etched with Ludie Baugh's name was pointed out to us and it was stated then that Faulkner was a friend of the Franciscos and that he later incorporated the etched glass detail into one or more literary works.
    I called Bobby Mitchell, my high school history teacher and a true history buff, and asked him what he knew of the Faulkner connection. He told me that he had heard of the Francisco-Faulkner connection all of his life as it pertained to the etched glass. I would say Bobby is about 75, so his memory does go back further than mine.
    There seem to be claims by some that there is no evidence that Faulkner ever even spent time in Holly Springs or drew any stories from the town. Mitchell said this wasn't the case, citing a story about Robert McDermont, who was the owner of the cafe at the depot and had a reputation for being extremely cheap. Customers sitting around the cafe would often joke about him slicing a certain piece of lunch meat so thin you could see through it. Robert's son, Tippy McDermont, carried the book "The Reivers" around with him with a passage highlighted in which Faulkner also describes someone cutting a piece of lunchmeat so thin you could see through it, in such a fashion that the person described is clearly inspired by Robert McDermont. Tippy was clearly sure that Faulkner had picked up the story while sitting at the Depot Cafe, as he would share it with anyone willing to listen or look.
    Mitchell told me that he had heard many times that Faulkner had attended a party given by the Johnson family at the Walter Place in the 1930s. He told me that L.A. "Gus" Smith, Jr. was friends with Faulkner and that he had asked Gus's son, Gus III or Little Gus, whether he was there. Little Gus said he believed so, but had no details as to the other guests. My father was Gus Smith's law partner before he became a judge and he never mentioned the Walter Place party, but I'm not sure he would.
    Finally, Mitchell told me that he believed one of Faulkner's step-daughters, a Franklin, had attended the Mississippi Synodical College in Holly Springs. This would have given him ample reason to visit the town on occasion.
    I decided to contact another source, who told me that if I quoted her by name she would kill me. She echoed doubts raised by Dr. Hubert McAlexander, a Holly Springs native, Faulkner scholar, and University of Georgia English professor. Said my friend: "It would amaze me if Edgar and Faulkner were friends. He was just not the type that you would expect to hang out with a bohemian like Faulkner. He was a meek, mild little man; and Miss Ruth, she’s not the type that I would expect to allow any carrying-ons in that house."
    My friend described Francisco as being absent-minded as well as meek. It was said that he once drove to Memphis in his car, and unable to remember where he parked it, returned by train.
    With that said, my friend went on to say that Faulkner was known to have regularly visited Holly Springs, and she had heard years later that he dated a local girl, whom she cited by name. One of the characters in Sanctuary was said to have been inspired by a Holly Springs attorney. I'll omit his name as I have no idea how he was portrayed in the book. My friend remembers reading the book as a teen back in the day and being aware of the local connection at the time: "The book was considered kind of racy, and Mrs. Lizzie Craft (the librarian) wouldn't let us check it out, so we had to get it through other means."
    My friend did tell me that she had heard that Henry Fort Gholson used to go hunting with Faulkner. I called my friend Harris Gholson, who confirmed the friendship and passed me on to his older sister, Bea Greene, who said she remembers her father hunting a number of times with Faulkner and her parents getting together with the Faulkners for dinner. They first met in the mid- to late-1950s while Faulkner's nephew, Jimmy Faulkner, was building their house. She knew absolutely nothing of the Francisco friendship, however.
    There is really no hard evidence as to any of this, and some of the best sources have died in the past five to 10 years. The Francisco claims could be a complete fabrication. But there certainly is a long connection between Faulkner and Holly Springs, and insofar as the story of the etched glass is concerned, many of us have heard of it all our lives.