By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER
It’s Sunday afternoon and local Maris Wiser just returned from services at Marple Plains Baptist Church near the state park. As she closes her eyes for a little nap, the phone rings. It’s her grandson, Scott Fruehauf. He’s headed out to haul cattle and wants to know if she’d like to come along for the ride.
“I’d love to, but I can’t today,” the 91-year-old Wiser tells him. “I’m working at the funeral home this afternoon.”
It’s just a typical day for the Lynchburg matriarch and social butterfly. When she’s not working at the Jennings-Moore Funeral Home here in Lynchburg, she’s visiting with friends, cooking little surprises for loved ones, or front and center at local events like the recent Lawn Sessions concert. There’s nothing elderly about this senior citizen.
Descendant of a founding family
A native of Lincoln County, Marie Wiser moved to Lynchburg over 70 years ago — more than enough time to be considered a local. She married Charles Richardson straight out of high school and arrived in Moore County as the bride of her second husband, former mayor David Cunningham. They built the house she now lives in on Church Street. Though she’d eventually move through life with two other husbands – Bill Clark, and Horace Wiser – she and this home have remained constant throughout.
Marie is the daughter of Presley Groce and Trixie Bean Groce. The Beans are a founding family here in Moore County. In 1870 locals elected one of her descendants, Connor Bean, as a member of the 37th Tennessee General Assembly. In fact, he voted on the bill that created Moore County. The Beans hail from the Hurdlow part of Moore County near the Franklin County and Lincoln County lines. Roads like Little Bean Hollow are named in their honor.
Connor would go on to become the first Moore County Justice of the Peace as well as a member of the first Moore County Court. One of his sons, James Jackson Bean, also became a prominent lawyer and politician in Moore County. He also co-owned and served as editor for one of Lynchburg’s first newspapers, The Lynchburg Falcon. Her grandfather, Melvin Alvis Bean served three terms as Moore County Sheriff — including during Prohibition days here in Lynchburg.
Her earliest memories of Lynchburg involve coming to Farmer’s Bank with her father to visit, Uncle Tom Motlow – the Jack Daniel heir who ran the bank.
“He wasn’t my uncle, but everyone called him Uncle Tom back then,” she says.
Thriving at 90 years old
Marie’s fourth husband, Horace, died over 10 years ago, but this widow’s no shrinking flower. She still lives independently and thrives at 90 years old. If there’s something going on in Lynchburg from live music at Company Distilling to Frontier Days to a VIP event up on Barbecue Hill, you can bet Marie Wiser will not only be there, but locals will buzz around her like bees to a flower.
“I’ve got a lot of friends in this town, and I’ll tell you what, if you don’t have friends. You don’t have anything,” she says. “My daddy always told me that there are three things money can’t buy: health, love, and friends. He was right.”
She attended the funeral of a close friend, Virginia Amacher, on the Friday before our interview and says burying friends is one of the hardest parts of living to this age.
Often as women age and husbands die, widows can lose not only their life partner, but also their social network as married friends fade away. When we ask Marie about the tendency in society for women to become invisible once they’re past the marrying and child-rearing years, she is quick to correct us.”
“I’m not invisible!” she demands. And she’s right.
Not only is she the first face folks see when they attend funerals at Jennings-Moore Cortner Funeral Home, Marie still attends a weekly dinner of seven or eight local friends. The group travels to a rotating collection of restaurants both in Lynchburg and the surrounding counties. She also loves to host folks at her house with the promise of a freshly baked pound cake. In fact, she baked four of them just last week and delivered them to various friends and shut-ins around town.
“I enjoy having company,” she says. “If my front door is open, you can always just come on in. But what I really like to do is do things for other people, you know my mother was always like that.”
Deep Lynchburg roots
Marie takes a lot of pride in her Lynchburg roots and the legacy of Jack Daniel’s Distillery. The centerpiece of her home is a horseshoe-shaped bar packed with hundreds of collector’s bottles of whiskey. On the back wall sits photos of every master distiller from founder Jack Daniel to current day Master Distiller Chris Fletcher plus a bonus autographed photo of former Jack Daniel Master Taster Jeff Norman, a close friend.
In fact, the Wiser’s Friday night afterparty during the Jack Daniel’s Barbecue once existed as the place to be. Teams from Texas to Canada would come straight from dinner at Barbecue Hill and pile into the Church Street house while Horace tended bar and Marie made sure everyone got a bowl of her homemade chili.
“The last two years we threw the party there were over 125 people here,” she says.
Marie’s home is filled with family photos from Connor Bean to her grandchildren. There are antiques and artifacts from a lifetime of Lynchburg living. There are also souvenirs and photos of her adventures spread around. In one, she and close friend, Jean Dennis, can be seen raising their arms in pure bliss as they zipline across the Royal Gorge Bridge in Canon City, Colorado back in 2019. It’s America’s highest zipline and soars 1,200 feet above the roaring Arkansas River. That was just six years ago when she was 84 years old.
“My daughter called me that day and asked me what I was up to. When I told her I was at the zipline place, she said, ‘Well, I better not catch you on that thing,’ and I told her, ‘You won’t because I just got off of it. It was fantastic.’”
When we ask Marie what lessons 90 years have brought her, she’s quick to answer.
“Always, always, be yourself. That’s the main thing,” she says. “I don’t ever think I’m better than anybody else. But I’m as good as you are. What you get is what you see.”
She also says that the point is just to love folks without being concerned about what you might get back in return.
“Money will not buy friends,” she says. “You need to show up for people. It doesn’t matter if they give it back. I don’t care about that. That’s just who I am. If my front door is open, come on in. If I’m cooking, we’ll eat. If not, we’ll just have a bologna sandwich.”•
About The Lynchburg Times
The Lynchburg Times is an independent, woman-owned newspaper rooted in the heart of southern middle Tennessee. Led by a Tulane-educated journalist with over two decades of experience covering this region, we shine a light on the people, politics, and cultural pulse of a changing South. From breaking news to slow storytelling, we believe local journalism should inform, empower, and preserve what makes this place unique. Supported by readers and community partners, we’re proud to be part of the new Southern narrative – one story at a time. [Support us here.]