Clarah Anne Smith Quessenberry — Anne — is Jim’s mother, youngest child of W.M. Smith Sr. and Clarah Anne Hamilton. She grew up in the 1903 house on Pope’s Walnut Camp. After the war she and James Harrell Quessenberry Sr. lived in a portion of that house with her brothers and their wives. In 1956 they built 3343 Highway 163, west of 163, across Pope Creek — parcel 002-00834-000.
She was the woman who first put the craft of cooking in Jim’s hands. When he was in a serious car accident that required a year-long recovery, Anne was his constant caretaker — and it was during that bedbound year that she taught him the full art of Southern cooking.
Her line that the four siblings “grew up and made their homes in Birdeye throughout” is literal: one ridge, one creek, four houses. Maurice Jr. at 3335. The Quessenberrys at 3343. J.H. and Winnie Bob on that same west row. Elizabeth and Jimmie Johnston next to them. The 1903 house stayed the family seat.
