[Gutenberg 15872] • The Memories of Fifty Years / Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest

William Henry Sparks (1800-1882) was the author of The Memories of Fifty Years (1870). "My earliest memories are connected with the first settlement of Middle Georgia, where I was born. My grandparents on the mother's side, were natives of North Carolina; and, I believe, of Anson county. My grandfather, Colonel David Love, was an active partisan officer in the service of the Continental Congress. He died before I was born; but my grandmother lived until I was seventeen years of age. As her oldest grandchild, I spent much of my time, in early boyhood, at her home near the head of Shoulderbone Creek in the county of Green. She was a little, fussy, Irish woman, a Presbyterian in religion, and a very strict observer of all the duties imposed upon her sect, especially in keeping holy the Sabbath day. All her children were grown up, married, and, in the language of the time, "gone away. ""