According to family historian, Arthurine Hunter Thomas, the Hunters came to Alabama from the Carolinas. We are the descendants of William Hunter (1870-1950) and Frances Lewis Hunter. Our knowledge of William’s parents and grandparents is limited. He had a brother named Alec. Their mother died when they were young. They lived with their grandmother for a short while. Their father eventually moved with his sons (Alec, and William) to Hayneville, Alabama (Lowndes County). Heretofore, their father had to go to different counties to work and often had to leave his sons with their grandmother or a caretaker in his absence.
We do not have exact dates of the marriage of William Hunter and Frances Lewis Hunter. We do know, however, that their first child, John William Hunter, was born in 1891. John had eight siblings (Ed Hunter, Beatrice Hunter Moncrease, Osander Hunter, Fannie Hunter Ross, Lucille Hunter Richardson, I.C. Hunter, Percy Hunter and Rose Bud Hunter Grimes) who lived to adulthood. Polly Hunter, John’s ninth sibling, died in her infancy. All of the aforementioned people are deceased. William and Frances Hunter lived in Lowndes County, Alabama.
John W. Hunter married Katie Davidson in 1912. John had one son, Laurence David Hunter (1911-1999), from a previous marriage prior to his marriage to Katie. Similarly, Katie had been previously married and had one son, Colvin Shanks (1904-1997), when she married John W. Hunter. John and Katie Hunter had the following children together:
- James Otis Hunter 1913 (deceased)
- Arthurine Hunter – 1915 (deceased)
- Sadie Hunter – 1917 (deceased)
- Fannie Hunter – 1919 (died in infancy)
- Earcie Hunter – 1921 (deceased)
- John W. Hunter, Jr. – 1922 (deceased)
- Margaret Hunter – 1925 (deceased)
- Daniel C. Hunter – 1926
- Julia Hunter – 1931
- Andrew Hunter – 1934
John and Katie lived in Evergreen, Alabama early in their marriage, but raised all of their children in Lowndes County, Alabama. John put God first in his life and was a devoted husband and father. He owned a restaurant in Fort Deposit, Alabama at one point in his life. In fact some of his children worked in his “café”. John Hunter, Sr. also known as “Papa” by his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren was very independent. He always had a plentiful garden on his farm and he owned a blacksmith shop until his death in 1973. What’s more, John valued education and did whatever it took to make sure that his children received a good education.
