Rufus Bryant Fields

Born June 10, 1850
Died July 24, 1939 in Birmingham, Kentucky

"Rufus Bryant Fields went by Bryant Fields, and in most legal documents signed his name R. B. Fields.  He worked in a number of occupations - he was a letter carrier, grocer, blacksmith, and carpenter.  I spoke with a man named Eathell Birdsong back in 2002 - he was 96 at the time.  He said that our Grandpa Fields (Bryant) was their letter carrier, and he was a Republican; there was a man that lived down the road who was a Democrat, and the two never got along.  Bryant and his wife were members of the church of Christ, and all their children were, too (the second son, Bill, was a member of the Presbyterian church when he died in 1934).

Laura Polka Freeland was sometimes called Peggy.  We don't know much about her.  She died mysteriously in 1919 and I have not been able to find a death certificate for her (which is odd, because by that point they were keeping them regularly - they had started the practice in 1911 in Kentucky).

Bryant and Laura were originally buried in the old Birmingham Cemetery (now Birmingham Island Cemetery) but when TVA created Kentucky Lake in the late 1930s and early 1940s, most of the graves were moved to "new" Birmingham Cemetery in Briensburg, KY.  There are now four generations of Fields buried there.

Grandpa Bryant Fields had a drinking problem as a young man - he was arrested at one point for giving alcohol to minors.  I've got the papers on that somewhere."

-Justin Richardson