"Loudon, February 10, 1943. "Uncle Bush" Breazeale, who heard his own funeral preached five years ago, is dead. He died peacefully last night at the cabin in the hills near Kingston, where he had lived alone most of his 78 years. Quinn's Funeral Home at Loudon, which gave its service for the funeral on Sunday, June 28, 1938, today said that burial will be at Cave Creek Cemetery. It is at his own request that no funeral is being held, that the burial is in his own casket and that the body will lie in state for an hour at the cemetery before interment."
      The old fox hunter had planned a quiet service five years ago. "Just wanted to hear what the preacher has to say about me while I am alive," he had explained to A. Summers, at that time editor of the Roane County Banner. A small item in the Banner was picked up by an A. P. reporter and the story went round the world on wires.
      Instead of the few Uncle Bush had expected, cars jammed Dogwood Lane and a crowd estimated at 8 ,000 spread in all directions from the little church in the glade by the stream. Traffic officers were called out but could do little with the throng. Some women fainted in the crush. When the hearse arrived, his fox hunting friends, acting as his pall bearers, had some difficulty opening the way for the "corpse" to walk to his place beside his hand-hewn, hand-polished, and flower-decked casket.
      It was a hot day as Reverend Charles Jackson preached the sermon with many words of fullsome praise for the old man who was held in high esteem by all who knew him. Uncle Bush mopped his brow, fanned himself gently, stirring his white hair and whiskers, and thoroughly enjoyed the unique ceremony. The "Friendly Eight Octette" sang his favorite hymn, "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand", as the solemn "ashes to ashes" were intoned and the service ended.
      Afterwards Uncle Bush shook hands with thousands and signed his mark, a scrawled "x", on hundreds of cards and books. "Folks, I'm tellin' ya, this business of having your funeral before you die beats sparkin' in a buggy, " he chuckled. Someone asked him why he had never married and he explained that he couldn't get the woman he wanted and wouldn't have the women he could get.
      Then Uncle Bush went back to his hillside cabin and to his almost constant companion for seventeen years - "Mule" - just a mule he had taught to do tricks as a colt - "a heap smarter than most folks you meet," he said. But the excitement was not completely over. Letters poured in from many of the states and several foreign countries. One girl in Germany wanted Bush to write to her. When Uncle Bush made one of his infrequent visits to Knoxville, he would drop by the News-Sentinel office to again express his appreciation and to show his fan mail.
      Felix was an uncle to the late Martin Littleton, famous New York Lawyer, and of Mrs. Rachael Vanderbilt Morgan. His father, D. W. Breazeale, married Sarah Littleton.

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