We finish up our look at local poets with a poem from 1917 that was published in the Hartsville Vidette and by a man who was talented in more than rhyming words.
Mr. Irby Campbell Pullias was a well respected educator, minister and writer.
But, his family’s history is even more impressive!
Irby’s grandfather was Greek and as a young man served as a Cossack cavalryman in the Russian Army. In the service of the Czar he lost an eye…thus ending his career. He immigrated to the United States and got a job on a steamboat on the Cumberland River.
There he became friends with a fellow from Hartsville, who invited him to spend the weekend with his family here…and there he met the fellow’s sister!
The couple married and the Pullias family became a part of our local history.
Irby was a Church of Christ minister as well as a teacher and later the principal of Trousdale County High School.
Irby began preaching at age 17, the same year he wrote this poem.
Praises to Trousdale
Come muse why not at once,
Back up in old Trousdale,
Under her glowing boughs,
There by her trickling streams,
Back up in bright Trousdale,
The dearest place on earth,
To all that live up there,
All my thought, all my plea,
Back up in dear Trousdale,
I think of her Hartsville,
Oh, that grand old sweet spot!
When there, we all are glee,
Back up in sweet Trousdale,
Trousdale you are the land,
The heart of the Great Plan,
How dear, how great to me,
Irby Pullias would leave Hartsville to teach in Fayetteville, Tennessee, where he later ran for mayor and served in that position.
Success ran in the family!
Irby’s brother, Athens Clay Pullias, was the President of David Lipscomb University…brother Earl was a college professor, teaching first at Pepperdine College and later at The University of Southern California.
The Pullias family lived on Highway 231 in the Rocky Creek community of Trousdale County. There are no members of the family living here today, but the family’s contribution to our local and state and nation’s history is significant…and it includes a poem to our small county!
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