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It has been told down through the family that Mack Duff Ragland, Sr., who built the Taylor (MS) General Store around 1909, was standing in front of the store with several gentlemen when the train stopped. Several people got off the train, one of whom was Dorothy Treloar (1888-1970), who lived about 10 miles west of Taylor. Duff said, "Guys, I am going to marry that lady." The details are unknown how he managed it, or how long it took him, but he married her on September 30, 1913 and they were married until he died in 1929 at the age of 42.They had three children.
In early 1996, my father Buster Treloar, was talking on the phone to his first cousin Mack Duff Ragland, Jr. who commented that he hated that his mother, Dorothy Treloar Ragland, was buried in Dallas, where she had lived the latter years of her life with her son and Mack Duff’s brother, Bonner.
Buster responded, "Mack, you take care of the paperwork, etc. and I'll go to Dallas and bring her back to Orwood Cemetery and bury her next to her husband, your dad." Mack Duff took care of the paperwork to move the body across state lines and Buster and wife Lavonia drove to Dallas, TX in late March. They arrived late Thursday afternoon and stopped by the Restland Memorial Park to talk to management about picking up Aunt Dorothy the next morning. The guy said, "Are you going to move her on that?" while looking suspiciously at the small four- wheeler trailer behind the truck. Buster replied, “Of course!” The guy said, “Well you had better air up those tires because the casket and vault are very heavy.”
Buster and Lavonia arrived at 8:00 the next morning and the guy hoisted the vault with the casket and Aunt Dorothy in it onto the trailer. The tires collapsed from the weight of the load. Luckily the cemetery had an air compressor to put additional air in the tires. Buster and Lavonia headed east across I-20 from Dallas towards Jackson, MS. Late that afternoon somewhere in rural Louisiana, the ball came off the trailer hitch, and had the chains not been secured, Aunt Dorothy would have taken a swim in the Louisiana Bayou! They had just passed an exit, so Lavonia stayed with the trailer and Aunt Dorothy on the side of the interstate while Buster drove into the small town to find a new ball. He pulled up in front of what appeared to be the town's only store with a lot of trucks parked out front. He entered and asked if there was a place he could buy a 2" ball. Everyone said no, that everything was closed for the weekend. He left the store and was headed back to the interstate when God placed a train crossing the road so that he had to stop. In front of him was a truck with what appeared to have a 2" ball on the back of it. Buster walked up to the truck, tapped on the driver’s window, and asked if he could buy the 2" ball off his truck and explained what had happened. The farmer said that was not a 2" ball but he had one at his farm, which was close. Buster followed him to his farm and offered to pay for the 2" ball. The guy declined and said that he would follow him back to the interstate to help. They drove back to Lavonia and Aunt Dorothy and put the 2" ball on the truck, re-hitched the trailer, and they were back on the road. Buster again offered the guy money and he said, "No, this is worth seeing just so I can tell people about it!” Buster and Lavonia arrived at their home in north Mississippi around ten that night and pulled the trailer into the drive through carport, where Aunt Dorothy rested until Monday when they could dig her grave at Orwood Cemetery in Lafayette County, MS and rebury her. She rests there today and for eternity.
Months later Buster and Lavonia drove back to Louisiana to give the Good Samaritan a hand crocheted afghan Lavonia had made for him. He said that he had told that story a lot of times and people could not believe it.
Five years later Mack Duff Jr. died and was buried next to his mother, father and his first wife, Lorayne Scott. Mack Duff bequeathed money to Sand Springs Presbyterian Church (Orwood) to install a fence around the cemetery and help build the Buster Treloar Fellowship Hall, located next to the church. It was Mack Duff’s way of repaying the crazy Treloars for their kind deed to return his mother to her rightful place next to her husband and the community where she grew up.
