A life sketch by James Monroe Chaffin, youngest son of Elizabeth and Abner Chaffin

2. Louisa “Liza” Chaffin Loftis was born in December of 1841 and married Labin Jasper Loftis. Thus enters the Loftis/Chaffin Cousins Connection as Labin was a brother to Sarah Elizabeth who had married Francis Marion and migrated to Moline, Kansas. Labin Jasper Loftis grew up in Jackson County on Morrison’s Creek, a tributary to Roaring River located some four miles or so upstream from the confluence of the Roaring River into the Cumberland River. In 1874 Labin and Louisa headed west toward California. When the wagons were checked for durability in Joplin Missouri, Labin was turned away as his wagon was not properly equipped for the balance of the journey. They took a house and stayed in Missouri for about a year, probably visiting with a number of the Chaffin and Loftis families in the “west” already. It was during this time that Joshua Lawson Chaffin, Louisa’s younger brother, died at Louisa’s home. He had fallen ill while further west in Iowa and had stopped there while trying to return home to Abner and Elizabeth in Tennessee.
Labin and Louisa were unhappy in Missouri, as had been Louisa’s parents, and subsequently returned to Tennessee in early 1876 with 15 cents to their name and several sick children. When their 8th child, a baby girl, was born in May of that year they decided to name her “Tennessee May” in honor of their safe return to Middle Tennessee. Tennessee May is undoubtedly the baby referred to in the following letter as growing and being fat. Unfortunately, little Tennessee May died in infancy and is buried in the Gallatin Cemetery.
The following letters are in the possession of Geraldine Chaffin Collins who is a descendent of James Monroe Chaffin, Abner and Elizabeth’s youngest son. They include a Letter from Labin (or later Laborn) Jasper Loftis and Louisa Chaffin Loftis to Mrs. Elizabeth Chaffin; written by Labin to his mother-in-law
From L. J. Loftis & liza Loftis
To Mrs. Elizabeth Chaffin
this July the 23 1876

Der mother I seate my self to let you no that we are all on foot
But we are not all well. I have ben sick a bout 2 weeks. I have got about well I think
Louisa hade a harde chil yesterday. She feels tolable well today. My crop looks well but is needing rain myty bad. The Negros is steeling my corn, beans and potatoes & steel my wood out of the yard. I have fell out with town. I am going to the country next year. A man can’t raze nothing here for the Negros. You said liza mite come up & help yew dry apples. Send her word when is the best time to come & I will bring he up. Our baby is pretty & grows fast. I have been trying to rent me a farm. They are hard to get with a house on them. If I can’t rent here I would rent up there if I could get a farm. John if you no of a place to rent send me word

Labin was probably writing because, as he notes, Louisa is ill. Elizabeth Chaffin was 57 years of age at this writing. In 1880 Labin went to Texas to work but Lousia stayed home declaring that she had “done about all the traveling she intended to do.”
Eventually Labin and Lousia ended up on Charlotte Avenue and 1st Street in Nashville. (Although he expresses his love and desire for the country it was the city that offered him work; since he followed the finish carpentry trade.) There Labin worked for the L & N Railroad, building wooden passenger cars, a primary means of transportation at that time. (Picture page 192 of the Loftis Manuscript)
As to Louisa, her daughter later was to write, “Louisa Chaffin Loftis was always a busy woman. She never sat down with idle hands. She made it a habit to try to piece a quilt piece each night after supper through the winter, then in the summer she would make those blocks into quilts thereby always having plenty of cover for her family and some to spare. If there was sickness in the neighborhood she was ready and helped in any way she could. She was a really good nurse and sometimes a doctor. Once a family who had just moved into the neighborhood had a child to die unexpectedly and an Elder from the church came to see her. Lousia was at the wash tub and when he told her she rolled down her sleeves took off her apron and went to give aid and comfort. She loved to go to Church.”
3. Martha Chaffin Brown was born in June of 1843 and married James H. Brown a widower with a large family. Howard’s first wife was Mary “Polly” Chaffin, a double first cousin to Martha, being the daughter of William and Barbara Young Chaffin (She a sister to Elizabeth, he Abner’s brother). Martha had stayed home to help Elizabeth raise her younger brothers and sisters and her brother William Jasper’s orphaned children, and now again at age 45 this strong and giving woman undertook to raise yet a second family which was not her own.
Included with the above letter from Labin is a single sheet of paper written front to back with the letter from 17 year old Mary “Polly” Loftis, the daughter of Labin and Lousia, to her aunt Martha. A second letter on the back was to her uncle James Monroe, the youngest son of Elizabeth and Abner 2nd only one year Polly’s senior.


Gallatin Sumner County Tenn.
July 23 1876

Miss Martha Chaffin
Dear Aunt.
I now seat my self to drop you a few lines to let you know that I am well I hope this may reach you and you all well and doing well. I would like to see you all and bee there to eat apples and help dry them You might all come to see us when you can Tell uncle John I think he might come to see us. You wanted to know if we went to church. We go to Sunday School every Sunday and have preaching once in while there was preaching this morning and there is going to be preaching to night and its time I was fixing to go so I close for this time.

Polly E. Loftis

When this letter was written, Martha was 33 years old and still unmarried, living at home with her widowed mother.