DeFord Bailey

1899
By this time Henry Bailey and Mary Reedy had married.

December 14 - DeFord was born near Bellwood, but just across the county line in Smith County, the only son of Henry and Mary Bailey.

1901
When Mary Bailey, DeFord's mother, died, his father's sister Barbara Lou Bailey began to take care of the small child DeFord, and continued to do so as long as she lived.

1902
Barbara Lou Bailey married Clark Odum. DeFord always called them his "momma and daddy."

At three years of age, DeFord contracted infantile paralysis (polio).

1908
Lewis Bailey, DeFord's grandfather, died following a hunting accident.

1909
DeFord saw his first train when Callie Bailey, Henry Bailey's new wife came to Lebanon to pick him up and carry him to Nashville on the train for a visit with them.

Clark Odum moved his family to Newsom's Station west of Nashville. He went to work for George S. Hunt, a white man in Nashville who had bought a farm there and wanted Odum to take care of it for him.

1915
George S. Hunt sold his farm in Newsom's Station and bought another one in Franklin in Williamson County south of Nashville. Clark Odum then moved to Hunt's new farm to operate it.

1917
When Hunt sold his farm in Franklin, the Odums moved to Thompson's Station, a few miles further south. Clark Odum went to work on a farm there for Ross Alexander, another white man. It was soon afterwards that DeFord became a house boy for Gus and Cora Watson, a white couple who had a store in this small town on the railroad line.

1918
His natural father, Henry Bailey, died in Evansville, Indiana and was carried to Nashville for burial.

There was a major train wreck in Nashville involving the Dixie Flyer, the train that DeFord and his foster sisters had listened to under a trestle in Newson's Station.

DeFord moved to Nashville. The Odums had moved there a few months earlier, but he had stayed in Thompson's Station to care for the Watsons during their bout with the deadly flu virus that hit the US that year.

Clark Odum had gone to work for a prominent white family, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Bradford, in Nashville and his family lived in a house on their property on Franklin Pike. Odum cared for their yard, grounds and garden. DeFord became a "houseboy" for them when he moved to Nashville to be with the Odums. After Mrs. Bradford heard him playing, she had him entertain at all of her parties.

1920-21
For a time he worked with a white youth named Orville Nugent at the Kings Pharmacy at Douglas Corner in south Nashville.

1921
The Pan American, a deluxe L & N passenger flyer began to run daily between Cinncinati and New York, stopping at Louisville, Nashville, and Birmingham.

1923
Barbara Lou Odum, DeFord's aunt and foster mother, died.

DeFord worked at the Starr Theater, a motion-picture house on Cedar Street.

He first started taking his harp out of his mouth while he was playing "Fox Chase."

For a time he worked at the Auto Laundry.

1924-25
He worked as an elevator operator at the Hitchcock Building in downtown Nashville. It was here where he met "Miss Maggie," a white woman who took him to play his harp at a dinner at the National Life Building.