Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Dawn Trivette Peters was raised in the Poga community of Carter County, the daughter of Linzy and Mary Jane Trivette. Dawn died Jan. 18, 2023, at the age of 77.

Jackie, who died Dec. 14, 2024, was the youngest of 12 children of Dan and Fronia Peters of Stoney Creek. He was a graduate of East Tennessee State University and had worked at Great Lakes Carbon, United Data Services and Sprint, where he was a computer programmer/analyst.

Dawn and Jackie were married for 60 years, and they enjoyed many hobbies together, including genealogy, gardening and traveling; as Jackie put it, they liked to “keep the roads hot.” Together they were the authors of the book Images of America: Carter County. Also, Dawn was the co-author of the book Carter County and Its People.

They were the parents of two children, a son, Danny of Lexington, Ky., and a daughter, Deanne of Knoxville.

Dawn served as president of the Watauga Historical Association and was a leader in the restoration and maintenance of the historic Green Hill Cemetery in Elizabethton.

They took special pride in their local history knowledge and loved to share it with other people looking for their roots in the area.

What Dawn enjoyed, Jackie also liked doing. They were not only joined in marriage but their heartstrings were knit together, in that what one enjoyed, the other did too. They not only enjoyed genealogy, but they enjoyed birdwatching, collecting books and antiques, as well as gardening and traveling.

Many will remember Dawn as Carter County’s historian, joining the ranks of local historians Robert Nave, Frank Merritt and Dan Crowe, who in the past explored and wrote about local history.

Dawn and Jackie enjoyed helping people trace their family roots. Both shared a passion for the preservation of Carter County history and the genealogy of the people. Dawn especially enjoyed visiting local cemeteries and looking at headstones. I visited a couple of cemeteries with the couple, and Dawn would get so excited reading things written on the headstones. Often, she would make notes: “Jackie, we need to come back later and fill this grave,” or “This headstone needs a good cleaning; we must do that.”

In an article I did in 2023, Lisa Germaine, a good friend of Dawn and Jackie and who had worked closely with Dawn researching local history as well as shared their love for local history, shared that Dawn and Jackie had traveled to most cemeteries in the county. “There is probably not a cemetery in Carter County they had not visited, as she helped families with researching their family roots,” shared Lisa.

“She enjoyed researching family histories and uncovering unique stories that could only be found on grave markers and headstones in cemeteries. She was a storehouse of information on local history,” said Lisa.

Lisa noted that one of Dawn’s favorite projects was the restoration and maintenance of the historic Green Hill Cemetery off W. Elk Avenue, where many of Elizabethton’s early leaders are buried.

Dawn and Jackie took special pride in their knowledge of local history and enjoyed sharing it with others looking for their roots in Carter County history. They shared a passion for the preservation of local history and the people who settled and lived here. They not only were knowledgeable about the history of local families, but worked diligently to preserve the region’s cemeteries by getting out and mowing and weeding them, cleaning headstones and extending favors to families, such as reading family letters.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “To forget one’s ancestors is to be a book without a source, a tree without a root.” Dawn and Jackie Peters, through their genealogy research and traipsing through Carter County cemeteries, brought history to life for many local families and reminded us of what a rich heritage we have.

Just as Jackie and Dawn were one in life, so are they in death. Their ashes were interred together in the Ritchie Family Cemetery on Stoney Creek this past Sunday afternoon. As per their wishes, they were laid to rest together in a simple graveside service surrounded by family and friends.