By Rodger D Walling
Dr. John Henry Walling, the son of Thomas and Elisabeth Walling, was born March 30, 1840, in Whitesburg, Alabama, near Ditto Landing in Madison County. John was from a pioneering farm family from South Carolina and Tennessee that settled in North Alabama about 1817. Several of his ancestors had served in the American Revolution and the war of 1812. John Walling served in the Civil War as a dispatch bearer and medical corpsman from 1862-1863. Later, he served additional active duty.
John married Elender Andertine, and Alabama native, on August 13, 1858, in Marion County. Seven children were born to this marriage, only two survived to adulthood. Edmonia was born May 8, 1867, and died March 5, 1893. She married John V Lawrence and to the writer’s knowledge, had three children: Manuel, Mary(married Henry Blair), and Lonnie(married Rosco Holmes of Vinemont, a businessman of Holmes’s Gap). The second child, Eugene Walling, married Maude Drake, a Georgia native, March 18, 1898. To this union was born nine Children: Harold, Helen, Marguerite, Clara, Edward, Julious Eric, Claude, Frank, and Lamar. Eugene was a farmer and served as Vinemont’s constable. Eugene died March 18, 1952. Today, John’s Descendents continue to live on the Walling homeplace in Vinemont.
Following the Civil War, John Walling served as postmaster at Gandy’s Cove in Morgan County. He attended medical training in Illinois and passed the Cullman County Medical Board Examination prior to his completion of medical training. In the 1880s, he moved to Pinnacle(Vinemont) and established a physician, surgeon, and pharmacy office between Holmes’s Gap and Flint Creek communities. According to research, Dr. Walling rendered medical treatment, surgical procedures, and delivered babies to families in Vinemont and southern Morgan County for over fifty years. He, along with several other local physicians, was responsible for examining soldiers departing and returning from active military duty in Europe during World War I. Dr. Walling’s greatest medical expertise was demonstrated in the care he gave his wife, Elender, who was chronically ill and bed-ridden for nine years prior to her death on August 7, 1922.
Dr. Walling was a servant to his community. He was a Christian, a Mason, he served as treasurer to the Cullman County Medical Society, and, as a Cullman County delegate to the Alabama State Medical Association. He provided much free medical care to those individuals who were unable to pay for his medical services. He and his daughter-in-law, Maude, donated land on which the Vinemont Church of Christ was constructed.
Dr. Walling died at Vinemont on April 30, 1935, of chronic nephritis at the age of ninety-five years. His funeral service was delayed by the sudden death of his daughter-in-law, Maude, who died May 1, 1935. A double funeral service, attended by an extremely large group of friends and neighbors, was conducted by C.C. Scheuing at Mt. Zion Church in Vinemont. As he requested, his family laid him to rest in Mt. Zion Cemetery beneath the Southern magnolias by the side of his beloved wife, Elender.
Service records compiled by Glenda Todd and used with her permission. This and other information about the history of the First and the men who fought with the unit
can be found in her book, First Alabama Cavalry, USA: Homage to Patriotism.