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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 105
researcher in Atlanta traced the Pitchford family back into France where they were mentioned as crossing to Britain during the Norman Invasion. Mabren was born in Alabama in 1890. He had dark hair and eyes. He liked to smoke a cigar. At first Bernice could not remember him working, but later she remembered that earlier in his life he'd been a photographer and had owned a studio near Morgan City. The first photos he took were tintypes. He owned a dry goods store in Huntsville. Emma Horton Langford (see interview) said her family sent to the Fowler and Chaney Store to buy dry goods. Mac Chaney said: Once around 1950 Uncle Mabren brought us home from Huntsville to Brownsboro. He got to the road that turned off Highway 72 East, where Madison County High School now sits, when we told him to turn left. Now, Uncle Mabren was advanced in years by our standards and was about ready for the pine box. Overweight and smoking a big and stinking cigar, he drove a big Cadillac. There were no ditches along the cotton fields. However, the intersection had wide, grassy shoulders. Uncle Mabren missed the road by about ten feet and kept going until he got back on the road. He grumped out an, “Oomph,” straightened up and drove us on home to Brownsboro Road. M.G. got rich by buying land when it was cheap. He also gambled. Hosea said: “He went down to Cotton Row behind Big Spring where they bid on cotton. M.G. won some and lost some. He had ample money, so when he lost, he took it in stride.” Hosea said one of the parcels of land M.G. lost in a card game was the place where he was born. In earlier years, Hosea's father had managed that land. It is located where what is now called Johnson Road intersects with Triana Boulevard. This area was called Chelsey??"it was across from Chaney Grove. In remembering Chaney Grove, Hosea said he went to Joe Davis School, in the mill area on Triana. Hosea recalled action by himself and two other boys that he said would have had them arrested in today's day and age. Hosea explained. The teacher at Joe Davis said in class (undoubtedly science class) that she wished she had a skeleton. Since their teacher wanted a skeleton, Hosea, his brother Mac, and another boy went “down below” Johnson Road and dug up one. Forty or fifty years ago, there was a grocery store there in Chelsey, across from Chaney Grove. The boys got the skeleton as far as the grocery store. Hosea said they were pretty tired, and they didn't get it any further. The adults took over. They were made to take the skeleton back to the cemetery and bury it in its resting place. 105 - (4138)