General Notes

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I grew up in the home of my GGrandparents, William W. "Uncle Billy" Ham.
(He was no Junior, by the way.  His father was Phillip Jefferson Ham.)
and Frances Miriam "Fannie" Ham.  Grandaddy Ham owned Ham Insurance
Agency, later Ham & Marsh, now Marsh, and was city clerk of Elba for 22
years.  I have a gold key to the city he gave me when I was seven or
eight years old.  He had cataracts and went blind in his late 50's and
early 60's but chain-smoked unfiltered Camel's in good health until
Granny died, then went to bed and never got up again.  Granny fell and
broke her hip while tending her flower beds in 1953 or 54.  An operation
was unsuccessful and she later had a stroke and was paralyzed, couldn't
move or talk.  She lived that way for 5 years. Written by Rick Boswell
and sent to me, Ron Bridges, on 29 April 2002 via e-mail.
"Uncle Billy", as he was called in his later years, was a fine
gentleman admired and loved by all. He grew up at Ham Community a few
miles north of Elba near the Elba-Brantley highway. There was a Ham
church and a Ham school. He attended Auburn Technical Institute and was
an excellent mathematician. He owned a mercantile store in Elba in the
late 1800 early 1900 era, then started Ham Insurance Agency, which later
became Ham and Marsh, and is now Marsh Insurance Agency. He also served
as City Clerk of Elba for 22 years.
He married Frances Miriam Rushing, fathered 3 daughters and raised
Lucille Rushing who married Dr. Blue. His grown children and their
husbands lived with he and Fannie from time to time, as did some of his
grandchildren, and it was often said that they raised their children,
their grandchildren, and their great grandchildren.
Afflicted with cataracts in his fifties, he had several operations
but was virtually blind from his middle fifties on.
In his youth he loved to hunt and to fish and was an excellent quail
and turkey hunter.
The home he built two blocks from the Courthouse Square in Elba was
moved to the Boswell farm in Pike County in the late 1970's and the
Peoples Bank now occupies the old property in Elba.