Sassygenealogist: The Fifth of June

The fifth of June. June the fifth. I love those words….I love this day. It’s a wonderful day, and it’s also a very significant day in history. Here’s a very brief list of some important events that have happened on June 5th:

· In 1934 Bill Moyers (news journalist) was born.

· In 1944 the Allied Powers were planning to invade Normandy (D-Day), but had to wait till the next day because of bad weather.

· In 1949 Ken Follett (author) was born.

· In 1968 Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot in California, but didn’t die until the next day.

· This very day, Queen Elizabeth of England is concluding her 60^th Diamond Jubilee.

· And in nineteen hundred and something - I was born! J

Interestingly enough, this was also a big day in my own family’s history. On 5 June 1823, my great-great grandmother, Julia Elizabeth Lee Shrewsbury, was born in Kentucky. She chose the fifth of June to marry Charles Jones Love in 1839. She married him in Nashville, Davidson Co., TN, when she was only sixteen years old.

Her mother, Elizabeth Dibrell Shrewsbury, had moved her family to Nashville after the death of her husband, Drewry Shrewsbury, in 1833. I’m not sure of the year that she moved. However, her son, attorney Albert Gallatin Shrewsbury, had already made the move to that city. Julia must have met her future husband in Nashville soon afterwards. Charles had been born around 1821 in Virginia, but through the many purchases of land in Tennessee by his father, Col. Charles Jones Love, Sr., the young Charles had also moved to Nashville. I’ve always wondered how and when Julia and Charles met. She was so young, and he was only a couple of years older. Perhaps they waited until her 16^th birthday to wed. I can only hope that it was a marriage of ‘true love.’

The whole family, including Julia and Charles Love, would end up in Henderson County, TN. Although Julia and Charles haven’t been found in a census of 1850, Julia’s mother, Elizabeth, was residing with her son, Albert, in 1850. Albert would go on to become a state representative for Henderson County and was a presidential elector for Winfield Scott on the Whig ticket in 1852. Scott lost the election to Democrat Franklin Pierce.

Charles and Julia eventually ended up in Dyer County, TN at their home called “Love’s Landing.” It was on the banks of the Mississippi River, near the small town of Ayers. I’ve never been able to prove the exact dates of death for either Charles or Julia. Family lore has it that they were buried in the Love Family Cemetery on their land, which eventually was overtaken by the Mighty Mississippi. I hope one day to prove their deaths. In the meantime, I’m happy to share a most significant date with them.

The fifth of June…what a beautiful day! J