PAUL IVERSON CANADY

By Hoyt Canady Jr.

As I listened to and applauded a country music band at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, I thought I had come full circle with my youth and the days when I knew my grandfather, Paul Iverson Canady. As we clapped in time to the music, I felt as though he probably was observing the whole scene, smiling and saying, "I told you so."

It is not that my granddad bequeathed to me an appreciation of country music. What there is of that came much later, long after he was gone. When I knew him during my teens, country music...along with the Friday Night Fights...was one of his few entertainment pleasures, one that we at times only grudgingly allowed him to enjoy. Perhaps we all were born in Renfro Valley after all.

Paul Iverson Canady (Uncle P.I., as many in the family knew him) was born on December 3, 1877, in Pembroke, Georgia, the sixth of nine children born to Susan Bacon Canady and William Ervine Canady. He was born in the final year of Reconstruction, a time when Civil War and its aftermath had left much of the South in economic chaos with a future of only hard work and little promise of success for many.

The jobs he held throughout his life reflected the hard work: Fireman, policeman, shipyard worker, and during the Great Depression, a fruit picker in the orange groves of Florida. During the work in Florida, he suffered a bad fall that injured his back, and he said years later he could tell what the weather was going to be by how his back felt.

There were other scars of his hard life as well. Maggie and Mabel, two of his six children, died as young women, and Elizabeth died in infancy. Evelyn, Hoyt and Cora survived him. His wife, Callie Lou Chitty, whom he married in November 1906, died in 1947, preceding his own death in 1960 by almost 13 years.

I always thought the hard life had given him a toughness and sense of defiance few close to him could really understand. Certainly the toughness, and at times loneliness, was there. He could take a joke but resented teasing, whether he or anyone close to him was the object. And there are probably grudges he carried with him through most of his life. It was not unusual for him to forget his short, lean frame and, even at age 75, proclaim he could lick any man in the house.

But the toughness was mostly an outer shell. It masked a big heart that loaned an extra dollar when the weekly allowance ran out too early or was always willing to listen when it seemed no one else would. It was holding the hand of this gentle man that I learned to walk the city streets in Savannah, watched bonfires and shot firecrackers on New Year's Eve, saw St. Patrick's Day parades, observed passenger trains backing into Union Station and rode streetcars to places I've long ago forgotten. It was in his back yard garden that I learned as much about plant life as I did in College Botany.

It was also in his garden that as children my sisters and I acquired our first tastes and appreciation of vegetables, including, for one of us at least, a diet of raw radishes.

His politics was that of the Southern Democrat in the political arena of the 20th century South. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman probably were his favorites, although he never made idols out of anyone. He told me once that he wanted to vote for Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 because he liked him better that Democrat Adlai Stevenson. But remembering the party of Lincoln and Grant born during the crisis leading up to the Civil War, he said he simply could not vote for men who stole chickens, burned farmhouses and condemned Confederate money.

In his later years, he enjoyed talking about family and looked forward most to visits with his brother, Albert, and sisters, Julia, Susie, Hettie, and Telie, talking about old times and wondering where they had gone. He would be quite at home at our family reunions, talking about family, smoking his big cigar and drinking a tall, cold one.

Paul Iverson and Callie Lou Chitty Canady had six children:

1. Margaret Jessie b. 10/15/1907    d. 8/19/1923

2. Evelyn Lillian b. 11/29/1908 d. 3/18/1994 m. Albert Vernon McMakin
        Robert Benjamin McMakin b. 6/27/1937
        John Hoyt Vernon McMakin b. 7/6/1943 m. Joy
                  Debra McMakin m. Ray Trexner
                            Casey Lorrain Trexner
                            Dustin Trexner
                  Bobbie Joe McMakin m. Charles Roof
                            Charles Roof, Jr.
                            Blake Roof 
                  Ricky Albert McMakin M. Melissa
                            Ricky Albert McMakin, Jr.
                            John Hunter McMakin
                            Samuel Hayden McMakin
        James Daniel McMakin b. 11/10/1946
        Lura Elizabeth McMakin b. 9/2/1939 m. Larry L. Hunnicutt
                  Larry Linwood Hunnicutt, Jr.
                  Joel Hunnicutt m. Susan
                            Marie Sara Hunnicutt
                            Emmy Susan Hunnicutt
                  Daniel Hunnicutt m. Carolyn Tucker
                            Maxwell Tucker Hunnicutt b. 6/12/89 
                            William Iverson Hunnicutt
                            Elizabeth Grace Hunnicutt
                  Evelyn Mamie Hunnicutt
   
3. Mabel Susan b. 10/29/1011 d. 12/27/1932

4. Hoyt Paul b. 7/1/1917 m. Annie Alberta Cobb 9/1/1941
        Hoyt Paul Canady, Jr. b.10/29/1943 m. Marilyn Loyd
                  Hoyt Paul Canady, III b. 2/21/1976
                  Emily Suzanne Canady b. 1/19/1989
        Mabel Alberta Canady b. 8/6/1945 m. Joseph M. Lane, Jr.
                  Joseph M. Lane, III, b. 7/30/1969 m. Susan B. Grant
                            John Thomas Iverson Lane b. 4/9/1996
                  James Michael Lane b. 01/8/1971
        Patricia Anne Canady b. 6/29/1948 m. David Jerre Rosser
                  Janice C. Jendrensky-Rosser b. 6/7/1969 d. 2/12/1972
                  Kevin Barbour Rosser
                  foster son: Stephen Riddenhouer
                  step-daughter: Barbara Rosser m. Joseph R. Hyde, III
                                                Susannah Maria Hyde 11/28/1995
                  step-daughter: Jennifer Claire Rosser m. Ashoka Achuthan
                                                Arman Achuthan
                  step-son: Michael J. Rosser m. Jane Brooks
                                                William Joseph Rosser b. 4/9/96

5. Elizabeth b. 6/9/1921 d. 7/4/1921

6. Cora Agnes b. 6/23/1922 m. James Thomas King
        James Thomas Kings, Jr. b. 3/22/1946
        Margaret Leslie b. 3/15/1947 

Paul Canady is buried in Hopeful Cemetery beside his daughter, Mabel. On the other side of Mabel is buried Paul's wife, Callie Lou Chitty. Granddaddy's favorite hymn was Sweet Bye and Bye. I heard him sing it many, many times as I was growing up. He believed every word of that hymn. On December 3, 1960 he went to his Sweet Bye and Bye, and today is joined by his wife, daughters, parents and siblings along with our other ancestors in that great cloud of witnesses, to which the Bible refers.

Thanks to Hoyt Canady, Jr. for the information contained herein.