Mary Boone (Billingsley) Tong (1891 - 1977)

Born 18 Nov 1891 in Lynchburg, Moore, Tennessee, United States

Ancestors

Died 24 Aug 1977 at age 85 in Tullahoma, Tennessee, United States

Biography

Mary Boone (Boonie) was born to John Calvin and Jessie Boone Morgan Billingsly on November 18, 1891 in Bedford County, Tennessee. Mary Boone had two younger sisters, Maude Cayce and John C. John Calvin Billingsly died in 1899 or 1900 around the time when John C. was born. One would have to believe that John Calvin wanted a son so badly that he named his daughter after himself or he died before the birth of his daughter and she was named after him. After the death of John Calvin, Jessie and her family moved in with her father, Henry Bradshaw Morgan, and his family in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Boonie continued to live in her grandfather’s home until her marriage to Earnest Andrew Tong on June 6, 1920. Mr. Tong was a veteran of WWI who had a lot of hearing damage

In 1926 after the death of her brother, Henry Bryant Morgan’s wife, Boonie began raising Henry’s son; Henry Bryant Morgan, Jr. Mary Boone helped her mother run a boarding house in Tullahoma, Tennessee and then Harlan, Kentucky. She was also a millenary while in Harlan. Sometime after Bryant graduated from high school, Mary Boone and her family returned to Tullahoma, Tennessee.

I remember visiting Boonie & Tong in Tullahoma during my younger childhood. Tong took me fishing and he loved to whittle pieces of cedar; he had a big wooden box in the garage full of cedar pieces. The train ran across the street in front of their house; lots of trains day and night. I remember riding my red scooter up and down the sidewalk; I still have the scooter. One time I found a $20 bill on the sidewalk. Somehow I didn’t end up with the money, lol. When Boonie died she left us her house and furniture (most of it). We divided up the furniture; we still have some pieces we use. Most of it had been painted white and it had to be stripped.

Boonie was one of the nicest, sweetest people you would ever meet. She passed away in August 1977.

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Sources

"The Billingsley Family in America", Harry Alexander Davis, 1936 Tuttle Antiquarinan Books, Rutland, VT, p 400-401 [1]

"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K7TQ-21C : accessed 28 April 2016), Earnest A Tongue, Harlan, Magisterial District 1, Harlan, Kentucky, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 48-1, sheet 4B, family 87, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 1313.

Email, Dell Morgan <bryantmorgan comcast.net>, Knoxville TN, 18 NOV 2015

Daves-Culbertson Funeral Home Records, Volume 3, Page 191, #202, compiled by O B Wilkerson, Tullahoma TN, 1993

Fax, Bryant-Rees-Morgan families, Bill Hix, Atlanta, GA, 28 Mar 2000.