A memory from The Bridge
With help from a Clinton attorney, Betsy Robinson found calm in her new home
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A young Betsy Robinson wore her cowgirl hat and rode her bicycle in the shadow of the construction of the old green bridge spanning the Clinch River in Clinton.
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Demolition of the old Lewallen Bridge is underway as work crews dismantle the steel spans of the bridge.
It won’t be long now.
With the completion of the new bridge across the Clinch River connecting Clinton proper to South Clinton along US 25W …
With the demolition of the old bridge …
All that will be left of “The Green Bridge” will be old photographs and memories.
Betsy Robinson holds some of those memories.
More than memories of a landmark though. She has fond memories of the man the bridge is named after.
Robinson was born in Spring City and moved to Clinton when she was a child, attending Clinton City Schools starting in the second grade.
Her family lived on Laurel Avenue in Knoxville before she and her mother moved to Clinton. In Knoxville she attended Bill Morris Academy in first grade.
“I really enjoyed going to that school,” Robinson remembered.
The move to Clinton happened after her parents divorced.
Her father, Charlie Porter, was a mail carrier for Southern Railway, though “mail” is a lose term. Robinson said her father carried “instructions and documents” from Knoxville to Atlanta.
Those “instructions and documents” had something to do with the war effort.
“There was a war (World War II) going on then,” Robinson said. “He kept a pouch locked in a room in the house and nobody was allowed to go in there.”
It was because of Charlie Porter’s job the family moved to Knoxville.
And it was because of her parent’s divorce she and her mother moved to Clinton.
Betsy Robinson’s link with the Lewallen Bridge began at this time.
When Robinson and her mother moved to Clinton her mother took back her maiden name. She also wanted her daughter, Betsy, to adopt her maiden name — to go from Betsy Porter to Betsy Robinson.
But there were some issues with Betsy Porter/Robinson enrolling in school because of the name change.
It was all very confusing for young Betsy.
“There was a lot of shifting and moving,” Robinson said, then added, “And divorcing … It was a confusing time for me.”
A Clinton attorney, W. Buford Lewallen, took care of the matter for Betsy and her mother.
“He was a very kind man,” Robinson said. “I was a young girl, I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t understand what was happening.
“Buford Lewallen took care of us, though. I could understand that.
“We had moved to a house in Anderson Heights,” Robinson said. “I remember someone gave me a brand new Schwinn bicycle and during that time I rode that bike all over the place.”
She particularly enjoyed riding her bike along Riverside Drive in Clinton. The road was straight and flat and she watched as The Green Bridge was being built.
That bridge would be named after the attorney who would later serve as the Judge of Trial Justice and Juvenile Courts of Anderson County, W. Buford Lewallen.
The old bridge is being dismantled now. It is being taken down bit by bit.
But the new bridge will carry the name, “Hon. Buford Lewallen Bridge.”
“One thing I like about the new bridge is that they kept the name,” Robinson said.