Old Notebook
  A few old pictures, some cracked and broken, some with notes on the back 
partially readable, a couple were picture post cards addressed to Miss Addie 
Dobbs and a few stories that I only remember fragments of. Is this all that is 
left of my grandmother Ada Ethel Dobbs Collier. It could have been, there was 
no gravestone, and no book written about her, my Mother, Willyne Collier Layne 
was the last one that remembered her. She died in 1929 when Mother was 15 years 
old, but her memories were kept alive in stories.  

 The stories Mother told were not elaborate or long-winded but just every day 
things told with love.  She did have a way of adding the special little details 
in her stories that kept the listener interested. The weather was many times 
the start of the story. It had been raining for several days when we started 
out and Dad was worried the creek was out. Cars with air conditioners and 
heaters insulate us from the weather but making a trip in a wagon 
pulled by a team of horses, kept you very much in touch.

  Mother told us how she liked to hear her own Mother sing and play the organ. 
This was just about all I had until a few of years ago I met my second cousin, 
Diane Dobbs Wilson. She gave me a copy of a diary written between 1891 and 1909 
by Mother's grand Aunt Elizabeth J. 'Rudolph' McSpadden. Most of the entries 
were simple act of life in a turn of last century home. She told of setting 
hens, quilting, spinning, cooking and births and deaths.  The entry for July 
17, 1895 "Went to Ida and Addie's birthday dinner, they are 16 years old". This 
was my grandmother Addie and her twin sister Ida. Then, February 3, 1900 
sandwiched in between having a picture taken and news of her grandsons birth, 
the entry Mack Dobbs got them an organ. Was this the organ Mother so loved to 
hear her Mother play? I like to think so.

 I am not the storyteller my Mother was but I would like to add a few things to 
her story and share some of the family pictures with you.

Thurman Dwight Lane
4th son of Luther and Willyne 'Collier' Layne


The person responsible for this work is my Mother Sarah Willyne 'Collier' Layne 
who shared the stories.

 I can not name all the people who have helped me on this wonderful Odyssey. 
One person I must mention is Harriet D. 'Brantley' Lane who shared so much of 
her research on the Lane/Layne part of my family. Harriet has spent many years 
interviewing and researching and shared her hard earned work selflessly. Thank 
you. Dwight Lane