|
Stories and drawings
copyright © 2005
by JoAnn Huskey.
All rights reserved.
|
These “sketches” are pages from an as-yet-unpublished book on Rutherford county and its people by JoAnn Atkinson Prewitt Huskey. They are stories, profiles, tales and anecdotes of her Cliffside kin and their neighbors and friends.
 |
| JoAnn Huskey |
Although JoAnn was born in Cherokee county, South Carolina, she spent so much time in Cliffside while growing up that she feels she deserves at least Honorary Cliffside Native status. Her parents, Ernest and Malleree Atkinson Prewitt, both lived in Cliffside during the 1920s and 1930s. When they moved to Forest City in 1935, they left many relatives behind in Cliffside, whom JoAnn visited at every opportunity.
JoAnn grew up with a brother and two sisters on the “mill hill” surrounding Florence Mill in Forest City. She married Roy Huskey and they had two children, Rick and Sherry. Roy, a Rutherford County Deputy Sheriff, was killed in the line of duty in 1979. Sherry is a veterinarian, practicing in Charlotte and living in nearby Matthews, North Carolina, with JoAnn's two grandsons, Jordan and Jesse. Rick is a civil engineer, living in Atlanta with his wife, Jan.
When her mother, along with her Aunt Nell Atkinson Hill Israel, died in 1994 from injuries suffered in an automobile accident on Caroleen's Broad River Bridge, JoAnn was in the process of writing her mother's life story for her grandchildren. While talking with other family members to gain information she needed to complete it, she realized that there were many family stories.
When her Uncle Ferrell Atkinson suggested that she make her mother's story into a family story or history, his daughter, Joyce Atkinson Hunter, agreed to help with the genealogy and dates if JoAnn would write the stories. Thus, they embarked on a lifetime undertaking to record the genealogy and preserve the memories and stories of the family.
While some of the stories presented here are JoAnn's own, most of them are from the memories and stories that others shared with her. She retired from First Charter Bank in 2001 and now devotes her time to researching and writing, working with the Genealogical Society of Old Tryon County, painting and doing crafts, and visiting with her Grandsons.
|
