Grandmother Pearl's sister, Aunt Faye was very talented in her own right as a concert pianist. When the family moved away from West Virginia, taking young John Wesley with them, they bought 300 acres of prime Mississippi bottom land. Now granddad being such a famous character with the newspapers, having informed them about the Hatfield's and the McCoys, he found himself in a revolutionary hotbed of rural dissent in Okolona, Mississippi.

In the decades before, there had been a famous newspaper published for farmers in this small town. It led farmers to unite against something or other. I guess economic fluctuations were a major problem for farmers. Anyway, with the revolutionary power generated by this Okolona newspaper, the Federal government decided to subsidize farms to make things more stable for the farmer, so economic fluctuations didn't hurt them that much.

I don't think granddaddy James Darnell did much writing that I know of, but he strung barbed wire and raised John and some dairy cows. Oh, yes, that picture above is of Aunt Faye, made famous by Al Capp as Sadie Hawkins. She had a hawk like nose. She also was a very accomplished concert pianist. She played her baby grand piano faster and more accurate than any famous pianists I heard during my college career. What a waste in rural Mississippi!
Loved Aunt Faye is on the right. You can see her hawkish nose. That is our beloved Auntie Annie, Granny Pearl's best friend. She was no kin, but she took a major roll in raising John, and never married, devoting her life to Daddy John Wesley. As American as apple pie.
That's Aunt Faye after having some work done, in the silk dress with the orchid. She was being solicitous to casually dressed John Wesley. One book said she took John out behind the wood shed for photos, because she treasured her beautiful brick house, built with the money sent to her by Pearl's estate for John Wesley implying she was concerned that the house would be taken away from her. I guess she was showing off her skills as a manipulator, because she has the kittens for youthful John to abuse, so she could keep the house for herself. Bad, bad little boy didn't deserve a house, I guess. How clever!

When I met her, I was in college some 40 years later, her beautiful brick home was frozen in the 1920's, never having recieved any more funds for John's care after this photo. There was the baby grand piano in the large living room and a bright red velvet 1920's couch straight out of an old movie. I guess she was not as clever as she thought. She was a brilliant pianist and it is ashamed that talent went to waste, when her sister, Pearl, did well even though she wasn't half as talented or accomplished as Faye. Faye never even had any children of her own but she kept her house spotless, but John Wesley never learned to play the piano. True love is always stronger than a broom.