Jerry and Linda Butler

For Christmas, 1913, a Bible was given to them with the following inscription: "From Rev. & Mrs. R. A. Wood. To Uncle Thos & Aunt Lizza Inman. Dec 25-1913."

Eliza recorded the number of times she read it over the years: (in her own words and spelling)

" E. E. Inman has
read this Booke thruo
15 tims
Since 1910 to 1918 16
tenn times this the
March the 3 the 3 1919 I have
reade thru 19 times from first
to the last
I have rede
thruo this Booke this 1920
21 times this is 1921 I hav gon thru
23 tims

26 times "

Her daughter, Nora T. Inman, added the following when she mailed it to her cousin and close friend, Elmer McDaniel and his wife Martha, in Tennessee for them to read:

"This is her own handwriting. I would not take anything for it. This was big print, that Bro. Wood got for her so she could see it. Now, this 26 times means this particular book--I don't know how many times she had read other ones thro' before she got this one--My own record is not too bad--I have read O. T. [Old Testament] thro' 5 times that I kept account--and the N. T. [New Testament]--31 times.
Please be sure to return this to me--as, I just wouldn't take anything for it--but tho't you & Martha would love to see it--
Nora"

Eliza Emaline Hoover was married and widowed three times, all three husbands being Confederate veterans of the Civil War. She was only 15 and required her parents permission when she was married the first time, to Robert Washington Cox. They had 2 children (Betty Ann Cox and William Washington Cox) before he was killed while home on leave from the Civil War. She was remarried at age 26 to Thomas Jefferson Culp I, whose first wife, Sally Buchanan, had died leaving him with a young son (James Monroe Culp). The 1870 Marshall County, Mississippi Census shows Eliza age 25, and her son Will Cox age 7, and Thomas's son Monroe Culp age 1, living in the household of a single woman named Lucille Cook age 25, while Thomas age 26, was still living in his father's household; he other child, Betty Ann Cox, had died at 11 months of age. This census was about a month after Thomas and Eliza were married, so we assume these living conditions were temporary. Thomas had been discharged from the Confederate Army because of illness, but lived several more years. They had a daughter, Alice Culp, and were expecting their second child, but Thomas died 5 months before this child, Thomas Jefferson Culp, II was born. Eliza at age 33 and with 4 young children, was married for the third time to Thomas Reedus Inman, also a Confederate Veteran, who already had 5 children by a previous marriage (John F. Inman, Nettie F. Inman, Savaner Bird Inman, Thomas Osro Inman and Walter Van Inman). Thomas Reedus and Eliza, known as "Ma and Pa Inman" to all the family, had only one child together, Nora T. Inman, who was my maternal grandmother. She was born prematurely - so small she could be held in the palm of one hand - and was only 4' - 9" tall when grown. One of Pa Inman's children, Savaner Bird Inman, later married the son of Ma Inman, William Washington Cox! It was the second marriage for both of them. They had no children together, but both had children by previous marriages. No wonder my mother said she never knew how she was related to most of the family--they all just called each other "cousin". Ma Inman is said to have raised or helped to raise 16 or 17 children, including some neices and nephews.
William W. Harris, 1999