The Tennessee Valley Authority, Family Removal and Population Readjustment Case Files, 1934-1953 on Ancestry.com make for emotional reading – all of those people, families, houses, farms, and communities relocated. So many people had lived in the same place for their whole life, relocation was going to be hard.
I’m sure the workers meant well, but it is heartbreaking to read the descriptions – were the people educated? Were they proud housekeepers? Were they healthy? The most important questions were also asked – how do you feel about relocation and where will you go?
If there were any wealthy people relocated I haven’t found them yet.
I’m still searching and putting the pieces together, but I had to share the one item I found that made my day – a photograph of Harless’s Store!
Harless’s Store in the Friendship Community of Sullivan County, Tennessee was owned by Martin Alexander Harless and it was in the way of the reservoir.
Martin Alexander Harless was the great-grandson of Abraham Harless who in turn is the 4th great-grandfather of my husband and the reason I began this whole project in the first place.
I do not know if Martin moved the store “to land just outside the reservoir” as he planned, but in 1950 he had reportedly “removed his house intact to land which he owned and which TVA did not acquire, located above pool level on Sharp’s Creek, in the Friendship community.” Hopefully, he was also able to remove the store.
