To the Editor:

First, let me thank you on the behalf of my family members for the article on our Uncle Ed Mauney, Union County historian. Uncle Ed was indeed a brilliant man and quite a character! He was one of the first, if not the first, to own a motorcycle in Union County. He was one of the first, if not the first, Union Countian to fly an airplane. He was quite a marksman with a flintlock rifle, a surveyor, musician, accountant, photographer, antique collector, historian, writer, and he did beautiful calligraphy and woodwork.

Uncle Ed once said to me, "I have seen England but never set foot there." He then related that he was on the way to England in WWI when the convoy stopped just off the coast of England. Later the announcement was made that the war had ended. Without docking in England his ship sailed on to France where he did some duty before coming back home.

However, with all due respect, my grandmother, Theodocia Carroll Mauney, died in 1963, not 1973. Uncle Ed also had another sister, Alice Mauney Byers, a schoolteacher. She was my mother. Uncle Ed did not die in 1977. He died in 1979.

Uncle Ed did not own a collection of Stradivarius violins. Strads are worth millions each. Jack Benny had a small collection, but not Uncle Ed. Ed did own some old fiddles. One was made by Ernie Hodges, a noted fiddle-maker. Hodges and Uncle Ed were good friends and he told me stories about Hodges cutting the wood for his fiddle.

Uncle Ed owned more flintlock rifles and pistols than he did fiddles. He once owned the rifle that Cecil Lance's forefather carried in the Civil War. He eventually traded it to Cecil for a fiddle.

Uncle Ed's house still stands at the end of Mauney Street. As Uncle Ed's collection of interesting things grew, he would add another room to the house. Ed's Uncle Homer Carroll, a very eccentric colorful character and my great uncle, once said, "Ed's house is the only one in Blairsville constructed entirely of side rooms."

Thanks! Don Byers Blairsville resident