My great-grandfather James Wilson Newton was the son of Andrew Jackson Newton and Martha Howell Newton. He married Mary Alice Little 16 February 1893 in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. James "Jim" and Mary Alice had 10 boys and 4 girls.

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Memories of a granddaughter, Beatrice James Bennett:

James Wilson "Jim" Newton – what can I cay about him? He was my Papa Newton. I was his oldest granddaughter and he always called me Sis. Papa was the kind of man that his handshake was as good as a signed contract. I never knew him to have an enemy; he had many friends. He was a farmer and raised the largest watermelons in Tallahatchie County. Every Sunday afternoon he would load up the car with melons and have a son drive him to his many friends' homes and give them watermelons. In all the years I knew him, I never knew him to sell a watermelon or anything from the garden. He gave them away.

One of my loving memories of him was in 1945 before my first child was born. I was having morning sickness. Papa walked a mile to Sumner and bought a small piece of steak. He washed the back eye of Grandma's wood-burning cook stove. Grandma grumbled a little. She was cooking dinner and didn't want her stove greased up. Papa rubbed on some lard, there was no cooking oil back then, and he put the steak on that eye and cooked it real slow. When it was as done as he thought it should be, he cut open one of Grandma's large, light and fluffy biscuits and put the steak in it. He brought it to me with a cold coke and said, "Sis, eat this and you'll be fine." I did, and he was right.

Papa Newton was an old fashioned country gentleman. He was honest, true-blue, and a hard worker. He was my PAPA NEWTON.