S. R. Lee

BEECHVILLE: THEN, NOW AND IN BETWEEN

S. R. Lee's history of northern Williamson County, Tennessee, is now available! This history covers the neighborhood where Hillsboro Pike crosses the Little Harpeth River from the geologic age to 2006.

"Beechville's twelve to fifteen square miles are filled with high wooded ridges sheltering wildlife, valleys watered by streams both constant and seasonal, pastures feeding livestock and, in the modern day, subdivisions. The stream-filled valleys have in the past supported cultivated fields of barley, wheat, alfalfa, sorghum, tobacco, corn, and beans. In the last half century the spread of houses has filled these fields and driven hunters from the wooded hills."

"This varied terrain in a small space found prosperous and poor families living as neighbors. All endured spring floods and summer droughts. All climbed the hills, forded the streams, and worked the fields. Today the streams and high hills of Beechville are blessed with much open land and are most noted for their serene beatuy."

Beechville: Then, Now and In Between contains the stories of families, beginning with the early settlers and continuing to the present and includes the history of area schools, churches, and farms. This 306-page volume of Beechville history can be purchased at Landmark Booksellers in downtown Franklin, Tennessee.



Where Hillsboro Road crosses the Little Harpeth River


Following are two poems from Beechville: Then, Now and In Between:

McCutchen Graveyard

Ancient midden
            somewhat like a barrow
            diagonal ridge
            dips to an end in mid-field.

A good farmer would know
            soil,
            direction of drainage
            what the plow revealed
            what the fence post displaced

We have every reason to imagine
            he knew
            and made

Those choices:
            a grave above flood line
            good underground drainage
            land unsuitable for crops

Or, the ancients of the place,
            did they call him
            through the soles of his boots.
            his horses’ hooves,
            the slight shell crunch under the grass?

 

First Dead


Here we settle new land
    build and plow,
    hopeful for children, farms,

mark fields,
    plant first crops,
    shape tools for harvesting,

build the first log room,
    plan for additions,

join neighbors
    to cut roads through the wooded land,
    to build a school, a church,

work with diligence,
    plan a strong family,
    a strong neigborhood.

A young wife grows round,
    a man fashions a cradle.

This baby interrupts our family,
    our incompleted community.

We must find a place
    to put her grave.

BUY THE BOOK AT LANDMARK BOOKSELLERS, FRANKLIN TN

S.R. Lee has spent her lifetime in Middle Tennessee. She and her husband live on the family farm where their daughter trains horses. They have been fortunate in their travels which occasionally show up in Lee's poems.

Lee writes fiction, short non-fiction, and poetry. She took the Woodland Award for Best Poet in the Cookeville Creative Writers’ Contest, May 2000, and has read at the Southern Writers Festival, Nashville. She was contributing editor of The Poets of St. Paul’s, an anthology of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. Lee has a Christmas carol published by Oxford University Press. She served as text editor of the Williamson County Bibliography, on the website of the Williamson County Public Library, Local Authors' Collection. She has also worked on extensive “family lore” documents for other people and has prepared an anthology of historical articles on Beechville, the former name of the community in which she lives.

Lee's book, Granny Lindy, was published in early 2005. Set in the Upper Cumberland Plateau, Granny Lindy is a family document which clusters all the family and its folklore around the strong personality of one of its loved, strong members.

Lee's book, Beechville: Then, Now, and In Between, was published in the fall of 2006.

S. R. Lee

Booksigning

Harpeth Presbyterian Church
Brentwood, Tennessee
October 28, 2006

S. R. Lee signs books
for over 200 guests.

Harpeth Presbyterian Church
Where Hillsboro Road crosses the Little Harpeth River

TO ORDER: Contact the Heritage Foundation
of Franklin and Williamson County,
510 Columbia Avenue, Franklin TN 37064,
or contact S.R. Lee.
Also available at Landmark Booksellers
in downtown Franklin, Tennessee.