The Exums of Madison County, Tennessee

Joe began his collection of family genealogical material while he was in Junior High School with a single sheet of paper he kept in a cigar box that showed his immediate family. Over the years, different family members were added to his box.

With his interest in his family growing with the years, Joe started clipping out obituaries, birth announcements, wedding announcements and any type of articles pertaining to relatives. Over the years, two shoeboxes were added to the collection.

In 1987 Joe purchased an IBM Jr. computer and a Family Roots genealogical program The boxes went into the computer and the collection grew. By 2020 there were over 2,000 names in the collection.

COVID-19 came along and with it a quarantine. Martha Jane had died recently, and Joe was home alone in the house the two of them built in 1969. His son suggested that he use the solitude and the information he already had to write a book about his ancestors.

Joe accepted the challenge and started to work immediately writing his first book for publication - a book about two brothers who came to Madison County, Tennessee in the early 1830s and their Exum descendants who had lived in the county over the decades.

Joe Hardeman Exum, Sr. was born in Madison County, Tennessee on July 14, 1927, to Queete and Raymond Exum, both natives of the area. Joe was educated in the local schools, graduating from Jackson (TN) Senior High School. Immediately after graduating, he volunteered for the Navy during WWII. At the end of the war, he was discharged after a short period of service. After the war, he attended Union University in Jackson, Tennessee and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where he received B.S.E.E. and M.S. degrees. After college he returned to Madison County where he was employed by the local utility as an engineer. He remained at the utility, working his way up through the ranks, until he retired in 1990 as General Manager of the electric, gas, water, and wastewater utilities. Joe married Martha Jane Jacobs of Humboldt, Tennessee, in 1953 and they remained married for 66 years until her death in 2019. Their family consists of a daughter, a son, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. In Joe's retirement, he has remained active at church, Rotary Club, men's bridge club, men's coffee club, traveling with family and, finally, writing about his ancestors and the rest of their descendants.