In July 1971, I turned 6 years old. That year was filled with many changes for me. One was moving to a new house. For the first time, I entered the old Burl Warwick farmhouse, which my father had just rented from Jack Warwick.

I have a picture, taken years later by Jack’s daughter, Connie Buckner, of the east elevation of that house. I still remember, though I was so young, how I felt the first time our car pulled up between the two box elder trees on that side of the house. Immediately, I felt this was the right place for me. Perhaps it was because the house we had just moved from had no trees in the yard at all.

I remember Jack Warwick telling me that when he was young, he used to “chin” himself on a certain branch of one of the box elders, which he pointed out. For a brief instant, I thought, “How’d he ever get up there to ‘chin’ on that tree?” I realized, of course, that the tree was younger and shorter when Jack was a boy.

I spent many days and evenings playing under those trees. I can remember family outings and many of the cars parked under those trees during the years we lived there.

One thing I remember about those trees is comical. I was getting to the age when my fears of “things that go bump in the night” were diminishing. Imagine my horror when I found a wrinkled creature lying dead beneath the largest box elder tree!

I went screaming into the house, where Mother was cooking supper. “I’ve found a dead monster!” I yelled. Mother thought I was crazy, so I practically dragged her out into the yard to see what I had seen.

It turned out to be a dead baby bird. I had never seen a bird without feathers before, and the poor, bony thing looked treacherous as it lay there dead, exactly like some evil creature on “The Twilight Zone” or “Star Trek.” I next did what any young Christian boy should do: I buried the baby bird in the soft dirt floor of the woodshed.

There was yet another tree on the Warwick property. It was a gigantic oak at the fork where the old spring branch joined Bull Run Creek. I once visited Jack, and we talked about the oak. I still have, in the back of an old math book, the calculations Jack made to determine the circumference, diameter and radius of that tree.

I frequently pass that wonderful property we once rented and so enjoyed. The house burned years ago, and both the box elders and the old oak tree are gone. But they will forever live in my memory.

The Maynardville community lost another tree during the school system’s fall break this year. Many former students will remember the huge elm tree that shaded the Maynardville Elementary School playground for what was likely a century.

It seems that, in 2025, some dead branches had to be trimmed from the tree. This year, the tree began its descent into death, and for the safety of the children who were fortunate enough to play beneath the old elm, it had to be cut down.

I talked with the men tasked with removing the tree. Based on their best estimate, the tree was probably around 123 years old. If that estimate is correct, the tree began its life in 1903. This would have been 20 years before the original Horace Maynard High School was constructed in 1923.

The steps to the 1923 Horace Maynard High School still exist on Main Street, now leading up to the war memorials. The oldest memorial stood directly in front of the doors to the original high school. The building served as both a high school and an elementary school when it first opened. It ceased serving as a high school when the new Horace Maynard High School opened in 1950, but it continued to serve as Maynardville Elementary School until the new elementary school was constructed in 1960. The building was demolished during the 1960s, as those who remember it say it had fallen into a sad state of disrepair.

Only God Himself can know how many students played beneath that wonderful old elm tree during the century it shaded the school grounds. I remember that when I played at Maynardville Elementary, the tree was tall enough that we tried to swing high enough to touch its lower branches and leaves with our feet.

Many grieved the loss of the tree. One of Union County’s current teachers told me she received her first proposal under that tree — when she was in kindergarten! I believe she chased her suitor away. (It is amazing how wise kindergarten girls can be!)

The historic tree was loved enough to make it onto Facebook. Many expressed their feelings about its loss and shared memories of its heyday and what it meant to their lives. Childhood is sweeter for those of us who shared friendships and joys with schoolmates ’neath the old elm tree.

There is hope for new generations. Still on the Maynardville Elementary School playground stands a pin oak. The pin oak has many years to go before it comes close to rivaling its recently departed elm neighbor. But if our ancestors could talk, they would tell of a time when they played around a much smaller elm tree.

All that remains of the once-beautiful elm tree is its stump. Even a stump has a use, as Shel Silverstein so beautifully wrote in one of his best-loved books, “The Giving Tree.”

“I am sorry,” sighed the tree. “I wish that I could give you something ... but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry ...”

“I don’t need very much now,” said the boy, “just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired.”

“Well,” said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could, “well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.”

And the boy did. And the tree was happy.

Source: “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein, retrieved Oct. 26, 2026.

Thank you, dear friend, for the memories.

“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.”

— Job 14:7-9 (KJV)

Answer to Question of the Week No. 97

How do you know you’re over 50? (Answer: You have upstairs ibuprofen and downstairs ibuprofen.)

Question of the Week No. 97

What’s another way you know you are over 50? (See the next “Mincey’s Musings” in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.)