HAPPINESS You may go out in the world and search with all your might, But each time you grasp at Happiness, she will vanish from your sight; But take up again your life task, and meet it best you can, And if the burden’s heavy, bear it bravely like a man, And sweet Happiness not found in the gilded halls of beauty, You will find by your own fireside, sitting hand in hand with Duty. By Clara Jane Cox Epperson

Seated: Nancy Draper Cox, postmaster of Gainesboro during the Civil War; wife of Robert Ananius Cox. Children: L to R: Cora Cox Lucas, concert pianist; James N. Cox, co-founder of Gainesboro Telephone Co. and Clara Cox Epperson, poet laureate for the state of Tennessee, 1890. Picture from the book Jackson County Tennessee 1801 - 2001, Bicentennial Pictorial History, Jackson County Historical Society, pg. 151.

Clara Jane Cox Epperson

b. 4 May 1869, Gainesboro, TN
d. 10 June 1937, TN
Husband: John Ananius Epperson
Father: Robert Alexander Cox, (1832 - 1892), Lawyer at Gainesboro, TN
Mother: Nancy Joseph Draper (1834 - 1908),
d/o James Draper & Jane Moore Fitzgerald
Buried: Cookeville City Cemetery, Putnam Co., TN
She was a descendant of David Cox who gave the land
which was used to lay off the town of Gainesboro, TN.
See Clara Jane Cox Epperson Story
and Verse and Prose of Clara Cox Epperson