Winnie Lee and Maggie Mae Blackstock at Northwest High School

This photo was made just a few weeks before they both died in the same drowning accident. Winnie was 19 years old. Maggie Mae was the daughter of Pierce B. Blackstock and Berta Lee Montgomery Blackstock. The accident also took the lives of Maggie Mae's two other sisters, Annie Laura and Willodean and my Aunt Audrey, sister of Winnie. Also involved in the accident and killed at the same time was Nolan Posey and John Spradlin. Thurston Smith was the only person that escaped from that watery grave. The car belonged to John Spradlin. It happened at the Davis Mill pond on the Dime Road just after you cross the bridge. You can no long cross the bridge because of the Bear Creek Lake. My aunt Winnie was driving the car that plunged backwards into the pond as she attempted to shift the gears to get up the hill in front of her. Photo courtesy of Joann Holdbrooks.