Emily Hudson was born and reared in Franklin, Tennessee. Her mother, Alice Wallace was one of the first RN's hired at Williamson County Hospital. Her career in nursing lasted 50 years and included responsibility for building and staffing the Outpatient Wing at Williamson Medical Center. When she retired several years ago, all the nurses at the hospital wore black arm bands to rue her departure. Emily's mother was not a native Williamson Countian. She was the former Alice L'Esperance of Martha's Vineyard Island off the coast of Massachusetts. She and Emily's father met during WWII. She says Marvin picked her up in Boston after 5 years of war service and brought her to Williamson County where they married. She had never even seen a pig, and they moved to Flat Creek where there were plenty.

Her father was Marvin Wallace. When the family moved from Flat Creek to town, Marvin worked for and the family lived beside Jumbo Little, a founding member of the Lions Club of Franklin. Emily and Jumbo renewed their friendship in the Lions Club thirty five years later. Emily's father was on the USS Quincy during WW11 when the ship went down in Guadalcanal, near Solomon Islands. He was injured and suffered for years with back pain; his brother J.D. was also on the ship and did not survive. Emily's recollections of discipline and caretaking are of her father, who stayed home with them and did an excellent job of teaching the value of work. He was well known in Franklin and after the children were all grown became the caretaker at Mt. Hope cemetery, the same job that Emily's Grandfather had had before him. Emily had two brothers growing up. Her younger brother, Bill Wallace, lives on a farm at Arno Rd and I-840 today. Her older brother was living in Anchorage Alaska and was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 1984. Emily has two nephews and two nieces that are like her own children. They kept Devon, Emily's daughter from growing up "like an only child." Devon is a graduate of BGA and Lambuth University in Jackson, TN.

Emily grew up and graduated from Franklin High School. She has had an interesting career life, such as working for Genesco, as a Customs Clearance Agent, Governor Alexander's Better Schools Program, United Press International's Trouble Shooter, and of course, where she has been for the last 18 years, which is a MetLife Financial Advisor. Her education beyond high school has been career oriented. She is a Belmont University Graduate of the Executive Certificate in Financial Planning. She has also taken special courses in life, disability and business at David Lipscomb. These were all insurance and investment related courses. Emily says it was "pretty tough" taking those courses at Belmont while still trying to work. Her love of the job is the people and successfully avoiding taxation, providing growth and, of course, protection products for the families she represents. She says that most of her clients are on the conservative side.

Emily was married for 16 years, but is no longer, and has her only daughter, Devon. Devon is 29 years old and lives with her husband, Jason Morris, in Thompson's Station. Jason, like Devon, grew up in Franklin, but they did not know each other in high school. Years later, Emily says that Devon was over at one of the Franklin Parks with her cousins playing ball and became bored and wandered off to the playground and met Jason, and the two of them ended up getting married...

For hobbies and personal interests, Emily says that she is a gardener. Some friends have property down on the Tennessee River and she goes down and has a garden that covers 3/4 of an acre. Each year she puts up all the squash, tomatoes and other things she grows.

Emily also has a horse. She does not ride her horse as much now as she has in the past. Her horse is a little walking mare named "Littlebit." It was given to her by her father years ago. Littlebit is now about 16 years old, but Emily says that she still can "get on down the road." Williamson County has become too urbanized for much riding on the road now. She keeps Littlebit at her mother's home on Arno Road. Since she herself does not own a horse trailer, she usually does not ride anymore unless a friend with a horse trailer goes with her.

Emily says that when she and her husband were divorced quite a few years ago that she started her whole life over and became "pretty independent." She has learned to be self reliant and is happy to be so.

Emily has been a member of Lions since 1990. She held a number of offices including President in 1997. Now she is the liaison for those Franklin residents that need help buying their glasses. She is usually the first and only Lions Club contact with most of these people and is amazed by how many of the family names or even addresses she recognizes from her childhood. Her parents worked in care-providing and so does she, through her association with the club and her job at MetLife. It is her job to contact the eye care clinic, and forward on the request for help. The clinics that aid our club do not want direct control over who is helped. They prefer arms length transactions. Her work schedule now prohibits her from making all the meetings. She travels to a lot of her clients. That suits her fine, she likes the freedom of being outdoors much of the day and away from the office.

When she joined Lions she was looking for a conservative civic club. The Lions Club was very different when she joined it back in 1990. There was only one woman in the club then. But Emily wanted to be around people she knew. At that time Jumbo Little, Bob Sewell, Wayne Sims, Robert and Wilson Herbert, Colonel Hensley William, Paul Pigg, and Steve Lawrence were there. All of them were people she knew and looked up to. And, she says, "a lot of them were Methodists." It seemed like a good fit for her. She says it was and is a working club that does what it sets out to do, take care of those living in darkness or despairing because they cannot afford what is required for them to see.

She relates the following incident. "I took my mom to one of the Lions Club meetings. They were talking about a child they were going to help. My mom asked if she could speak. She said that she had been born with one lazy eye that wanted to turn in. Her aunt took her to see someone in Lions Club and they arranged for her to see a physician in Philadelphia. My mother was the oldest of eight girls and one boy and there was very little money in that family. Those were the "Depression Days". There certainly was not enough money for an expensive eye surgery. Through the Lions, she ended up with more than one surgical procedure that corrected her problem. She graduated as the valedictorian of both her high school and college classes. That early experience had a lot to do with my mother selecting a career in medicine. When she finished telling of her early experience there was not a dry eye in the house. It was an incredible story and one I did not know."

Emily is a member of the Methodist Church. She is Vice Chair of the Board of Pensions for the Tennessee Conference. She has previously served for 8 years as Chairman of the Health Committee of the same TN Conference. She has been quite active at the State Conference level.

Emily has been awarded the National Service Award many times honoring her record of retaining the clients she has developed. The award is made to life insurance agents across the industry that show that capability. To qualify for that award each year, you must retain a lapse rate of less than five percent, a good indication of doing the right job for the right reasons. Over 18 years that is a record she is extremely proud of.

Emily still maintains a very close relationship to her daughter. Devon has started a special events business out of her garage. She arranges flowers for weddings, anniversary parties, etc...

Emily expresses some concern about the Lions Club in recent years. She says that she wants the club to survive. "What we do as Lions is very worthwhile. Even though I'm not able to attend Regularly, my desire is that we survive."

We are happy to feature her as Lion of the Week

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