Thomas Newell Lindley was a very industrious and versatile man. He had a store on Marietta Street where he sold shoes, dry goods, groceries, gents’ furnishings, farm implements, hardware and feed. Farmers brought butter, eggs, and chickens to the store to barter for coffee, sugar, lard, salt and other items.
Walter (Soup) Turner came to work for his uncle when he was in knee britches. Soon, Mr. Tom was affectionately called Uncle Tom by all the townspeople.
He kept a big box of flat chocolate drops behind the counter. If the Center was pink when you bit into the piece, he would give you an extra piece. Broadus Hogue remembered that Uncle Tom gave him the only candy that he had during the depression.
Mr. Walter Rice came in his buggy to trade and frequently his daughter, Little Alice, came with him. Uncle Tom patted her on the head as they came into the store. Then he finished waiting on his other customer. When he finished, he asked “How are you, Alice?”. She replied, “I am all right but I don’t have any candy.”. He had been too busy to give her the usual stick of peppermint.
Gladys Hardy remembers that he rolled oranges across Marietta Street to her as she walked from Hill Road to school. She had been instructed not to cross the street.
He had a book store in the 1920’s. He sold school books because the state did not furnish any textbooks. You could buy second hand books from a friend or go to Tom Lindley’s store to purchase them.
In 1901, he took over Uriah Matthew’s undertaking business. So, Tom began to sell burial cases and robes. Uriah was the first Undertaker in Powder Springs.
All the undertaker did in those days was to furnish the coffin and a quilt to cover it as it was carried to the church or cemetery. A neighbor furnished the wagon. Friends dug the grave, lowered the casket and filled the grave after the preacher said the benediction. Sometimes he didn’t furnish the quilt as the relatives preferred to use one of their own.
He was a descendant of Thomas Lindley who was born in Ireland in 1706 and died in Alamance County, North Carolina in 1781. By 1840 his grandfather Jonathan Lindley had settled here in Springville. Mr. Tom’s father was Jonathan P. Lindley, Jr., born in 1832. His mother was Asenith Newell. His father died in 1864 in the Civil War.
Asenith Lindley lived in a log cabin near Noses Creek with her five children. Yankee soldiers fired shrapnel into her cabin, as she sat rocking her baby, Thomas Newell in her arms. The shrapnel splintered the log and a fragment entered one of the baby’s eyes, leaving it closed.
She stored her dry wood under the cabin floor. One day she spied a Yankee’s blue uniform through the crack in the floor. She walked quietly over to the wood burning stove and picked up the black iron kettle. She carried the steaming hot water over and poured it through the crack on the Yankee soldier’s back. Her cored wood was left alone.
Thomas Newell Lindley married Jennie Strickland of Austell. They had two sons, Frank Pickens and Robert.
Dr. Frank P. Lindley, beloved family physicians in Powder Springs, married Faye Barnes of Austell. Their children were Frank P. Jr., Hazel and Jack.
Robert (Bob) Lindley, a Texaco oil distributor for Cobb county, married Lois Bookout of Powder Springs.
Uncle Tom’s family knew and served faithfully every family in the area. They were loved and respected.
This information was collected by Sarah Francis Miller and published in the Powder Springs Enterprise in 1988. The log with the bullet still lodged in it, is on display at the museum. A Lindley family history and genealogy research compiled by Loren Baker is on file in the Reach Room.