June 1907 - August 1989
Married: Ruth Swain of Gladeville, October 29, 1927
Daughter: Edna T. Word
Grandchildren: Stanley and Stacey Word
Great grandchildren: Montana and Bode Word
Aubrey Towns was the oldest son of Daniel and Callie Towns and siblings Earle and Sarah of Gladeville. They grew up on a small farm on the outskirts of Gladeville raising a vegetable garden. He attended Gladeville School which was 1st grade through high school. He was a member of the Gladeville Baptist Church. He was a member of the Wilson County Farm Bureau, Wilson County Livestock Assoc. and Wilson County Co-op.
After he married Ruth in 1927, he opened a barber shop on the crossroads in middle of Gladeville. After his daughter, Edna, was old enough at the beginning of World War II, he purchased the old bank building down to the corner and built a feed store on the corner of Gladeville Road and Stewarts Ferry. He would cut hair on weekends and worked at Vultee Aircraft Manufacturing during the weekdays during World War II. They also had a farm on Central Pike during this time. They lived in the old bank building with a grocery store downstairs, barber shop next door and a feed store on the corner lot. Ruth operated the store. He would pick up feed to sell to farmers in the Gladeville area after he got off work. He would always ask local farmers what type of feed they needed to make sure it was available at his store. They bought another farm property located on Stewarts Ferry in 1950. He sold the farm on Central Pike.
He joined the National Poland China Association in 1950 and the National Polled Hereford Association in 1952. He showed hogs and cattle during the early 1950’s. He had a prize-winning Poland China sow in 1954. His passion grew for building his stock of Polled Hereford cattle.
While still running a barber shop and store up till late 1950’s, he sold the farm on Stewarts Ferry and purchased another large farm property located 3 ½ miles up the road from their current property in 1960. This is when he started focusing in on building his Polled Hereford cattle herd. He began traveling around going to sales and selecting top breeding animals to build his herd. He wanted to be able to provide good breeding stock to local farmers in Wilson and surrounding counties.
In 1974, he had the opportunity to travel on the Leadership Advanced Tour that visited several large farms and farm cooperatives in different states that was sponsored by Tennessee Farmers Coop. From this tour, he gained knowledge of new methods and technology used with growing of crops, hay, and livestock. When he returned home, his hay fields were re-seeded with different grasses and a different regiment was used in feeding weaned calves to obtain better weight yields.
In the 1970’s, he got his 2 grandsons involved in showing cattle through 4-H and FFA shows and fairs. This provided a greater opportunity for him to show off the type of breeding stock he was producing on the Towns farm. Several Champion prizes were won by his heifers and bulls shown at these events. More people began to travel to the farm to purchase breeding stock, mainly bulls, from all over middle Tennessee and Kentucky. He believed it took hard work and a desire to achieve your dreams. He even let Fred Laine bring small groups of FFA members out to the farm to train them on judging beef cattle for the state fair competition.
He served as a county commissioner for 8 years in 1970’s representing the Gladeville area. He served on the Tax Rate and Budget Committee during this time. He became very interested in seeing a building built on the new fair grounds for showing livestock and becoming an attraction for cattle association shows.
