The Honorable Anthony Andrew “Andy” Jackson was born to Dr. William and Mrs. Margaret Jackson on February 9, 1950. Andy had six sisters and was the only boy. As a child, he liked spending time with his Grandpa Jackson and he loved Camp Marymount in Fairview, Tennessee.
When Andy was only twelve years old, he was sent to Marmion Academy, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Aurora, Illinois. When he completed his time at Marmion, whose motto was Credere Deo Luctari Pro Eo (To believe in God and strive for Him) he was sent to New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico. Andy decided not to stay in military school and returned home to Dickson, Tennessee to finish high school.
After graduating high school in Dickson, Andy attended Middle Tennessee State University where he would meet his wonderful wife Elaine, and graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree. After graduation, it was Andy’s intention to raise a cattle and horses.
Andy’s Mother, Margaret, was not satisfied with this outcome for her son and made sure that he went back to school and got his law degree. So in 1973, Andy and Elaine moved to Birmingham Alabama where he would attend Cumberland School of Law. Although never very fond of school, Andy did well, was a member of Phi Alpha Delta, and obtained his Proctor in Admiralty [Law] along with his doctorate of Juris Prudence. And, even thirty years later at his own daughter’s law school graduation, people remembered Andy’s “game feeds” which he would put on each year for faculty and students.
Andy loved the outdoors. He particularly enjoyed deep-sea fishing and hunting with his friends in the mountains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Andy was an excellent marksman earning him numerous Burkett’s World Hunting Records. He was also pleased to have caught world record permit and tarpon and to have been admitted to Pope & Young. Andy was also a pilot, a would-be harpooner and one of the best story and joke tellers you’ve ever heard.
After law school, Andy was admitted to the Tennessee and Missouri Bar and obtained a prestigious clerkship with the Honorable James Meredith, Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Missouri. Andy and Elaine lived in St. Louis during the pendency of his clerkship but decided to return to Tennessee upon its completion.
Andy and Elaine moved to Tuckahoe Farm in Charlotte, Tennessee and began raising quarter horses and limousine cattle. At Tuckahoe, Andy raised champion bird dogs, futurity winning quarter horses and high-quality limousine cattle. Andy was President of the Tennessee and Southeastern United States Limousine Breeders Associations and also a member of the Tennessee Agriculture Hall of Fame.
Andy and Elaine had two children – Kelly and Sally. They had intended to settle in to life on the farm and Andy’s legal practice until in 1982 Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander appointed Andy to be Judge of the Juvenile and Probate Court of Dickson County. Andy, “the Judge” as he was known by many after his appointment, served in his capacity as Juvenile and Probate Judge for Dickson County for thirty-three years. In those thirty-three years there is no doubt that Andy changed hundreds of lives for the better, saved people from terrible fates and made sure that there were clear and inevitable consequences for those that doubted his resolve when it came to the best interests of children.
Andy was fiercely intelligent and independent – both as a man and as a Judge. Even when public opinion weighed heavily against his decisions, he always followed the law and abided by his oath as a lawyer and as a Judge.
When asked what he was most proud of Andy said it was his children, being an Eagle Scout and maintaining the lowest truancy rate in the entire State of Tennessee for more than twenty years in a row. Andy knew what a blessing an education could be and he wasn’t going to let the future of Dickson County’s children suffer because of ineffectual parents or indifferent bureaucrats. Andy saw himself as a “backstop” for the children in his Court and he was an excellent one.
Andy loved music and could recall where he was and who he was with the first time he heard his favorite songs. He loved horses and dogs, even though he tried not to let on that he did. He was a pilot and a cowboy. He enjoyed teaching kids how to hunt and fish and have fun. Andy was impatient, mercurial and stubborn but he was also imperturbable, kind and infinitely generous. Andy helped people throughout his life without saying a word to anyone and was the most loyal of friends.
While serving as Juvenile and Probate Court Judge, Andy was a member of the committee that authored the little changed Juvenile Court Rules for the State of Tennessee, served for multiple years on the Executive Committee for the Juvenile Court Judges Association of Tennessee and also served as its President. Andy was also a Commissioned Colonel Aide de Camp to the Governor of Tennessee and an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel Aide de Camp in the Alabama State Militia.
Andy is survived by his wife, Elaine Lannom Jackson, his sisters Maureen Dickson and Jane Daniel, by his daughters Kelly Jackson Smith and Sally Rebecca Ryan (husband Patrick Ryan), and his grandchildren Evelyn, Michael and Catherine.
Visitation with the family will be held from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM on September 13, 2024 at the Clement Railroad Museum in Dickson, Tennessee with a Memorial Mass to follow at St. Christopher’s beginning at 2:00 PM. https://taylorsince1909.com
In lieu of flowers please send donations to the Andy Jackson Memorial Fund for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital: https://tinyurl.com/AAJMemorial
“Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”
Ernest Hemingway
For more obituaries visit https://dicksoncountysource.com/obituaries/
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