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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 328
Edith Woodward Price Interviews April and Sept. 2005 Edith Woodward's Family Edith Woodward was born in 1924. Her mother was Ruby Eslick, who was born July 24, 1898, in Lincoln County, Tennessee. Ruby died in 1945, just a few years after they left Pond Beat. Edith said her father, Lee Walston Woodward, was born about the same year as her mother. He was born in the area that was known as Pond Beat prior to the government purchase of the land. Her paternal grandparents were John Woodward and Sally Bell Woodward. Her Grandfather John Woodward is buried “up on top of the mountain” in Woodward Cemetery on Redstone Arsenal. The people who lived there in pre-arsenal days called that mountain Bell Mountain. This is a fact to remember when talking with the generation who lived in Pond Beat. Where They Lived Two properties will be discussed here. The first is the property owned by Edith's mother, who had both a home and a store. Edith's parents lived in a house by the store and then later lived in the “homeplace,” which Edith called her Grandfather John's house. The House by the Store [Owned by Lee's wife, Ruby Eslick Woodward]. Before moving to the Woodward homeplace to live, Lee Woodward and his wife Ruby lived in a house west of the store on Parcel D-174. Ruby ran the store and Lee farmed. She sold the property, which included the house and store, to A.C. Turner, who owned the property at the time of sale to the government. A discussion of the store is presented in the interview of Gene Neal, who lived with his Grandfather Turner. Edith was very young when she left that residence and had waning interest in describing it. She was not pressed to do so since the researcher could already picture the store and house, based on Gene Neal's interview. The one remembrance volunteered by both Neal and Edith Woodward was of the times when high water came up to Parcel D-174. Edith said, “The house wasn't far from the store, but sometimes when the water got up so bad, we went from the house to the store in a boat. The house was on higher ground; the store was on stilts. Sometimes the water got so high we couldn't get to Huntsville. That was seldom, but it happened.” The Woodward “Homeplace.” Edith said when her grandfather died, he left his property to several of his children. One of his sons had been killed in World War I. Her father bought out the others and became the owner of the property. She said her Uncle Jack lived close to the river on “our” property. The house he lived in was not large. 328 - (4361)