Just another Family story 

Here’s a few random thoughts about our cousin Bruce Overton, who died about 10 days ago at age 87. His father was Dr. John Overton, Grandmother Williams’ brother, who practiced medicine in Nashville and died a couple of years before we were born. Bruce had three siblings – Elizabeth Cravens, who is 90 and lives in Tuscaloosa; Alice Figuers, who died in 2009 at age 91 or 92; and John Overton, a public health officer in South Carolina, who died some time ago. I think Bruce was the youngest child. I remember my father used to talk about “Aunt Alice”, who was Bruce’s mother and lived in Nashville to a ripe old age. I never knew Bruce, but it sounds as though he was a “character”. He was an architect who moved to Dyersburg in his late ‘50s or early ‘60s and lived there the rest of his life. There were two friends of his from Dyersburg who spoke at the graveside service last Wednesday and told a number of stories. They emphasized his strong religious ties to the local Cumberland Presbyterian Church and said he sang in the choir. One speaker, who also sang in the choir, said he had some trouble getting around and several times dropped his sheet music as he was entering the choir gallery. What followed was a string of expletives rarely heard in church! The speaker also said he exercised at the local track for a number of years, always walking counterclockwise even though everyone else walked clockwise. Once he even decided to go for a walk on the track while a track meet was taking place! It was a pleasant reunion of relatives I rarely see at his graveside service on Wednesday.