As I'm sitting here working on a short comment on Tom Russell's article on William Simkins, I see (Presley v. State, 30 S.W.2d 231 (Tenn. 1930)) that the Confederate Memorial Park in Shelby County, Tennessee, was the scene of an assault by one J.D. Presley (then 34 years old) on his estranged wife and another man, who were "standing near or against an ornamental cannon." J.D. was convicted of attempted murder, though that was overturned on appeal. Could that J.D. be Elvis Presley's grandfather, Jesse D. Presley (who was born in 1896)? (The opinion talks about J.D. Presley's brother Herman and I haven't seen any reference to Elvis having a great-uncle Herman, so perhaps there's just an unusual coincidence in name and birth-year.)
It looks like the park was "Confederate Park" in Memphis (which is in Shelby County). I've put a picture of the park, which overlooks the Mississippi River, from wikipedia above. Now, about that cannon. It's not the one where the assault took place, because the original cannons were melted down during World War II. I've got to add that vignette to my Russell paper, as an example of how monuments are re-purposed. After the war six twentieth-century cannons were added. They might serve as a nice reminder of the sacrifices made on the homefront during WWII. Alas, the replacement cannons were removed recently, too.
Want to see a picture of one of the original cannons? Take a look at this article, third photograph down.
Al,
I did a quick search of the 1900 census and found at least 6 Jesse Presleys born around 1896 in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. So it may be Elvis' grandfather, but it appears to have been a somewhat common name at the time.
Thanks for this, Tanya. Data's always helpful! That's a lot of Jesse Presleys. I forget, does the 1900 census list middle initials? I guess another way at this would be through the 1930 census.
Following up on all this: a friend who's a music historian at the University of Mississippi dug around in the census records and concluded that Elvis' grandfather JD Presley didn't have a brother named Herman. So the JD Presley in this case is very likely not Elvis' grandfather.