Amanda (Spence) Bullard, was born about 1831 in the area which comprise 
Stewart and Randolph Counties of Georgia, the first of six children of 
James and Elizabeth (Hilliard) Spence. On 29 October 1848 in Stewart 
County, she married Stephen Alfred Bullard and bore five children. By 
1860, they were living in Coweta County, Georgia, near Stephen's 
parents. A Confederate soldier, Stephen died on 6 July 1862 under 
unexplained circumstances, reportedly in a train incident while 
returning to his unit after home-leave. Widowed Amanda never remarried, 
and she and her children relocated to Pike County, Alabama near her 
Grandfather, William Hilliard. The twelve years of Reconstruction in 
Alabama resulted in extreme and bitter suffering, so her son, James 
and his wife, Tempe, with her daughter, Lizzie and son-in-law Bud 
Whittenton, migrated for a new start in the fertile farm lands of 
Central Texas. In the winter of 1877, Amanda and her two youngest 
children, Sara and Alfred Davis, and her married son William traveled 
by train to Waco, Texas, then by covered wagon thru snow, to settle 
with the others in the Blue Ridge community of Hamilton County. She 
purchased land adjoining the Whittenton's and began to farm cotton 
and corn. In the Spring, her daughter-in-law Cora and young grandson, 
Johnny, joined them. Amanda was lovingly called "Fat-Grandma" by her 
great-grandchildren to distinguish her from their other grandmothers. 
She died on 24 December 1913, and is buried in the Whittenton Cemetery 
near Blue Ridge in Hamilton County. Indicative of her devotion to her 
children, her marker reads "Our Dear Mother". 

Source: Great-Great Grandson Gerry Gieger - Everman, TX, Summer, 1998
Posted: 23 September 1998