General Notes

Amy was always a hard charging kind of a person and very imaginative. She sent  son Ricky to a masquerade party at Jane's house as the boy with green hair.

She was working when she met Ross near Camp Rucker and continued to work while he went overseas during WWII and even during Ricky's early years. When she unexpectedly became pregnant with Alan and then Kevin she stayed home with the boys. Later she went to work in Ross's office.

The glimmer left the marriage sometime in the 70's when both drank too much. While it was Ross who went to the dry out hospitals several times, it was Amy who died of cirrhosis of the liver.

In 1933, Sallie remarried, this time to a distant in-law, Curtis Pennington, the brother of her deceased husband's brother's wife, Lillian Pennington.

Since Curt moved into the house Sallie and the girls had purchased with the Carnation Settlement money, there can be little denial that Curt benefited from marrying a woman with a home and some modest means, especially during the Depression. Melba seems never to have harbored any kind of grudge in that regard but Amy did. The settlement had established a trust for each of the girls to do with as they wished at the appropriate time. Amy used hers to attend Blue Mountain College and Mississippi State and to purchase a car at the appropriate time. In due course, the car was purchased and Curt took a liking to it and, in Amy's view, gave short shrift to the driving training Curt was to give them, hustling them out of the driver's seat in short order so that he could take of the driving of the beloved car.

In 1936, Tupelo was hit by a tornado which old-timers still refer to as the Great Tornado of '36. Magazine Street, where they lived, is only one block south of Main Street (Now Highway 278) on which ever object appears completely flattened in the panoramic photo taken by the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The tornado destroyed the house Sallie had built on the hill and carried Amy away. Sallie and Melba were convinced that she had been killed when another relative announced that he had just left the train station where numerous victims had been boarded onto a train for Memphis and treatment. Fortunately, he recognized Amy and passed the information on. Amy's injuries included a thumb, which many thought she would lose, but the doctors felt that a thumb was so vital that muscles were transferred from other fingers to her thumb, even though the movement would be somewhat unusual, awkward and noticeable even to the untrained. Infection and dangerous swelling were prevented by applying leeches to her wounds. Throughout the rest of her life her thumb movement, instead of being an out and in movement, was one which brought her thumb toward the fingers from under her palm.[AmyMcLain.FTW]

In 1933, Sallie remarried, this time to a distant in-law, Curtis Pennington, the brother of her deceased husband's brother's wife, Lillian Pennington.

Since Curt moved into the house Sallie and the girls had purchased with the Carnation Settlement money, there can be little denial that Curt benefited from marrying a woman with a home and some modest means, especially during the Depression. Melba seems never to have harbored any kind of grudge in that regard but Amy did. The settlement had established a trust for each of the girls to do with as they wished at the appropriate time. Amy used hers to attend Blue Mountain College and Mississippi State and to purchase a car at the appropriate time. In due course, the car was purchased and Curt took a liking to it and, in Amy's view, gave short shrift to the driving training Curt was to give them, hustling them out of the driver's seat in short order so that he could take of the driving of the beloved car.

In 1936, Tupelo was hit by a tornado which old-timers still refer to as the Great Tornado of '36. It destroyed the house Sallie had built on the hill and carried Amy away. Sallie and Melba were convinced that she had been killed when another relative announced that he had just left the train station where numerous victims had been boarded onto a train for Memphis and treatment. Fortunately, he recognized Amy and passed the information on. Amy's injuries included a thumb, which many thought she would lose, but the doctors felt that a thumb was so vital that muscles were transferred from other fingers to her thumb, even though the movement would be somewhat unusual, awkward and noticeable even to the untrained. Infection and dangerous swelling were prevented by applying leeches to her wounds. Throughout the rest of her life her thumb movement, instead of being an out and in movement, was one which brought her thumb toward the fingers from under her palm.

After she graduated from Mississippi State, Amy went on for more advanced training at the Norwood Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. From there she went to Enterprise, Alabama to work in the Gibson's Hospital. A gregarious and dramatic person, Amy was popular with fellow staff members.