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George Washington Sims
 1892 - 1931

   


George Washington Sims
(1892 - 1931)

        
Born Birth Location Death Death Location
Mar 31, 1892 Georgiana, Bulter County, AL Oct 6, 1931 Georgiana, Butler County, AL,7 of heart attack resulting from morphine overdose; buried Bay Minette, Baldwin County, AL
       
       
Father        
Robert Sims        
         
Mother        
Martha Coleman        
         
See Marriages and Children of George Washington Sims 1892 - 1931
 

    Chronology of George Washington Sims by Michael Vaughn Sims
    Download this chronology as a Word document
 
1892 Born - March 31, 1892, Georgiana, Bulter County, AL; son of Robert Sims and Martha Coleman
1900
1900 U. S. Census, Starlington, Butler County, Alabama
Name   Rel. Race Gen Birth
Mon		 Birth
Yr		 Age Marital Status # Child #Child
living		 Occup Birth Place Birth Place
Father		 Birth Place
Mother
Sims Viola Head W F   1877 23 S     Farmer AL AL AL
  Wm H Bro W M Jun 1879 20 S     Farm Labour AL AL AL
  Susie Sis W F May 1886 14 S     Farm Labour AL AL AL
  Elizabeth Sis W F   1889 11 S       AL AL AL
  Lee Andrew Bro W M   18?? 9 S       AL AL AL
  George Bro W M   1893 7 S       AL AL AL
1910
1910 U. S. Census, Stockton and Deans, Baldwin County, Alabama
Name   Rel. Race Gen Age Yrs
Marr		 #
Child
Born		 #
Child
Living		 Occup. Lang.
Spoke		 Birth Place Birth Place Fath Birth Place Moth
Philips George W Head W M 39 M2 2     Farmer English AL AL AL
  Susie Wife W F 24 M1 1 1 1   English AL AL AL
  Addie A Dau W F 16         English AL AL AL
  Ella M Dau W F 11         English AL AL AL
  Clara(?) Dau W F 10         English AL AL AL
  Emma(?) Dau W F 7           AL AL AL
  Clarence Son W M 4           AL AL AL
  Martha Dau W F 1           AL AL AL
  George Bro-in-law W M 18       Laborer / Home Farm English AL AL AL
  Served in the U. S. Navy during World War I; F2C US NAVY1
  Suffered an injury to foot or leg while aboard ship; fell into or through some hole or hatch in deck; injury, or possible blood-poisoning from injury figured into the cause of his eventual death2
1922 Bought first car - 19223
1924
 		 Married Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie Mae” Epperson (b. Sept. 5, 1897, Comer, Barbour Co., AL; dau. of John Lemuel Epperson and Jane Lamar Vaughn) - December 18, 1924
  George Sims worked as crane operator of bridge-building crew for the L&N Railroad; including one period at Corbin, Kentucky.4 The family lived in a company-owned camp car, which was hauled over a territory from Bay St. Louis, MS to Louisville, KY. They were stationed for a time near Louisville, KY, beside the Cumberland Rive, where George’s job was to use a crane to remove rocks from the side of the mountains and place them in the river bed to prevent water from washing the railroad tracks away.5
  Lizzie Mae said she only heard George raise his voice once during the time they were married. One day when he was chopping wood, Ezell picked up a snake by the tail. George swung the axe around and knocked the snake out of Ezell’s hand and yelled at Ezell for picking up the snake.6
1931
 		 Died - October 6, 1931, Georgiana, Butler County, AL,7 of heart attack resulting from morphine overdose; buried Bay Minette, Baldwin County, AL
       One story relates that George Sims was persistently troubled by an injury to his foot which he incurred in WWI; morphine given to alleviate pain in foot. Another story says that he suffered from severe indigestion on the evening prior to his death, and for this he was given morphine. The family was camped in L&N camp car at Georgiana, Butler County, AL, at the time of his death.8
       The day prior to his death, George Sims and his children visited his half-brother Nap Sims in Butler County, where they all went into a field and picked sugarcane. That evening, George sat and peeled sugarcane for the children. The next morning the children were awakened by their mother who told them that their father was dead.9
   
From “L&N:” Its First 100 Years
(John E. Tilford; Newcomen Society of North America; New York; 1951)
p. 15
The L& N’s southernmost terminal did not long remain at Montgomery. . . . In that fiscal year [1880] the L & N secured control of the Mobile & Montgomery Railway, 180 miles; leased the New Orleans, Mobile & Texas Railroad, 141 miles; purchased the Pensacola Railroad, 45 miles; and acquired a majority of the capital stock of the 508-mile long Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway.
p. 16
The 141-mile line from Mobile to New Orleans follows the Gulf Coast, much of the roadbed between the two cities is supported by piling and there are nine miles of bridges and trestles alone - - which carry it across bays, bayous, inlets, marshes, streams, and rivers. A considerable portion of the original line had to be rebuilt within a few years after completion because of the destructive activities of the teredo navalis, a sort of seagoing cousin of the termite which thrives on a diet of untreated timber.
pp. 17-18
During the period 1879-1881, lines were acquired in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. . . . In April 1886, a start was made from Corbin, Kentucky, toward the coal field of Eastern Kentucky. This became the Cumberland Valley Division, the southern branch, eighty-seven miles, having been completed to Norton, Virginia in May 1891.
p. 21
A major contribution to this greater efficiency of operation in the L&N was the extensive double-tracking that occurred after the First World War. Outstanding was the fifty-five mile second track laid down between Winchester and Sinks, Kentucky, whose completion, in February 1928, gave the Road a low-grade, double-tracked line all the way from the Harlan coal field to the Cincinnati Gateway, a distance of 255 miles. . . . Another addition to the System in the late ‘20s was the Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis Railway, with a 137-mile line between Louisville and Henderson, Kentucky, paralleling the Ohio River.
From The Louisville & Nashville Railroad 1850-1963.
Kincaid Herr; Public Relation Department , L&N; Louisville, KY, 1964
p. 388
  L& N acquired the Bay Minette and Fort Morgan Railroad in 1905
p. 248
  photograph of the C& O Bridge (Cincinnati at the Ohio River), completed 1929
  photograph of the Henderson , Kentucky bridge, completed 1932
  photograph of the Tennessee River Bridge (Danville, TN), completed Nov. 1932
p. 235
  photograph of the Rigolets Bridge (30 mi. east of New Orleans), completed June 1925
  Chef Menteur Bridge (19 mi. east of New Orleans), completed Feb. 1926  
Construction of the bridges just mentioned occurred at a time when the L&N was rebuilding a number of bridges between Nashville and Louisville in order to permit the use of heavier motive power and trains, and while it was also engaged in the re-construction of its Tennessee River Bridge at Knoxville, its Licking River Bridge between Newport and Covington, and its Alabama Bridge north of Montgomery
         
1 Grave marker of George W. Sims; Bay Minette Cemetery, Baldwin County, AL.
2 John Earl Sims; 2005.
3 Robert Elwood Sims; 2005.
4 Robert Elwood Sims.
5 John Earl Sims; 2005.
6 John Earl Sims; 2005.
7 Maida Grace Epperson Hayslett.
8 Robert Elwood Sims.
9 John Earl Sims; 2005.
   
 
May 13, 2007