Unzipping My Genes

The Mystery that Started It All (part 4)

2022-06-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

James, Annie, and Eva Parham

Note: This is a continuation from previous posts. To start back at part 1, click here.

It has been almost four years since I wrote my last blog post about my Grandma Eva's mystery life before she married my grandfather. So for those of us (myself included) who need a brief recap, here goes...

The family story, and the starting point for my research, was that at a young age Grandma Eva was sent away from her home in Hartwell, Georgia to live with her grandmother Parham and work at the boarding house that Grandma Parham owned and ran in Elberton, Georgia. While she was in Elberton, Eva met and married a young man and they had a baby together. My parents thought the baby's name was Bonnie. No one knew the name of Bonnie's father. Eva's husband left her at some point, and afterward Bonnie got very sick. Eva had no one to help her with getting medical care for Bonnie, and Bonnie eventually died and was buried in Elberton.

Well, that's part of the family story. I will now share... (in my best Paul Harvey voice) the rest of the story.

According to the one and only marriage record I have been able to locate for them, my great-grandmother, Annie Mae Jones, married James David Parham on February 25, 1926. James was 20, and Annie was 19. Their first child, James David Parham, Jr., was born on May 17, 1926.

Wait...what???

Hmmm...interesting. This would mean that Annie was about 5-6 months pregnant with James Jr. when she and James got married. Oops. In the marriage record that I located, James is misnamed as "J.V." Parham, but there is so much other correct information in the record (Annie's name and birth place, James's birth year and birth place, James's parents' names, Annie's parents' names, etc.) that I am willing to accept that this is a (mostly) accurate record. And in this record, James's and Annie's marriage date is listed as February 25, 1926 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

Marriage record for "J.V." Parham [sic] and Annie Mae Jones, as found on familysearch.org.
Click on the image to enlarge.

I have no idea why two people who lived and grew up in Georgia would travel to Virginia to get married, unless it had something to do with Annie's pregnancy. That is a mystery I will have to chase down on another day. At any rate, James and Annie got married, and their son James Jr. was born a few months later. Then, on June 1, 1928, their daughter (and my grandma) Eva was born.

Eva Alma Parham and doll, ca. 1928

Unfortunately, James Parham died tragically on November 10, 1937, when James Jr. was eleven and Eva was nine. James's death certificate lists his cause of death as "gastric hemorrhage from peptic ulcer," with a contributory cause of "chronic sepsis from low grade osteomyelitis and cellulitis." In layman's terms, this means he had (1) a hole in his stomach (peptic ulcer), (2) internal gastrointestinal bleeding from that hole (gastric hemorrhage), (3) inflammation from infection in his bones (osteomyelitis), (4) a serious bacterial skin infection, usually located in the arms or legs (cellulitis), and finally (5) his body's response to these infections was causing it to attack and damage its own tissues (chronic sepsis). In short, James Parham died a very painful and ugly death. I do not know how long he was sick before his death, but it is likely that his children witnessed their father suffering terribly.

James David Parham Death Certificate
Date of Death: November 10, 1937
Click on the image to enlarge.

After James's death, Eva's mother, Annie Mae Jones Parham, remarried only ten months later to a man who - according to family stories - she had dated prior to marrying James. According to Grandma Eva, her stepdaddy was (to put it lightly) not at all fond of the children that Annie Mae had with her first husband. By Grandma Eva's telling, her stepfather couldn't wait to be rid of her and James Jr.

Snow and Annie Mae Bobo
Date unknown

Before I go any further, let me just say this - I never knew my Grandma Eva's stepfather, Snow Robert Bobo. He died from a self-inflicted shotgun wound at the age of 73 in March 1977, when my mother was about 3 months pregnant with me. It is not my goal to re-open old wounds or to smear the names of family members who are no longer here to defend themselves. It is, however, my goal to find out the truth of what happened so many years ago, and to understand, as best I can, my Grandma Eva and the tragedies that she experienced at such a young age. So I'll just say that most of the family stories that I have been told throughout my lifetime do not at all paint Snow Bobo in a flattering light - and I'll leave it at that.

As of the census of 1940 (taken in the month of April), Grandma Eva was living in Hartwell, Georgia with her mother (Annie), stepfather (Snow), and brother (James Jr.).

1940 US Census, Hart County, Georgia

However, by at least November 1943, she was living in Elberton, Georgia, and working in her Grandmother Parham's boarding house. On the twenty-seventh of that same month, at age fifteen, she married Private G.W. Bryant.

I have often wondered what event prompted Snow and Annie to send Eva away to Elberton, and when exactly that may have occurred. While there is no way to know for sure, I do have a theory. There are a few "big" life events that happened in the Parham/Bobo family between the 1940 census date and Eva's marriage to G.W. Bryant in November 1943. On February 3, 1942, Eva's paternal uncle, Hubert Bulah Parham, left his mother and the Parham boarding house to enlist in the Navy. This may have left Grandmother Parham needing help at the boarding house to fill the void that Uncle Hubert left. On February 18, 1943, Eva's maternal grandmother and namesake, Eva Annie Clark Jones, died. I don't personally believe that this would have had anything to do with Eva being sent to Elberton. But there is one even more significant family event that happened between April 1940 and November 1943 - an event that I believe may have been the biggest catalyst for young Eva being sent off to live with her grandmother to work at the boarding house in Elberton. On August 28, 1941, my great-aunt, my grandmother's half-sister, Robbie Ann ("Bobbie") Bobo was born. Annie and Snow now had a child of their very own.

If Eva was sent away following Bobbie's birth, that means that she was removed from school and essentially became a maid in the boarding house at the young age of thirteen. James Jr. then enlisted in the Navy on June 10, 1944, less than a month after he turned eighteen. As I said in a previous post, the family story is that Eva left for Elberton shortly after James Jr. joined the military. The story goes that Snow told Annie, "you've gotten rid of the one child, now get rid of the other one," and so Eva was sent to the boarding house in Elberton. However, as I also said in the previous post, this timeline doesn't work. Eva was in Elberton and already married to Private G.W. Bryant before James joined the Navy in June 1944.

Whatever the choices and events were that led up to this move for Eva, it proved to be the beginning of an extremely painful chapter of her life.

More on the new information I have uncovered about that in the next post.

Grandma Betty

2022-05-18T00:31:00.009-04:00

Grandma Betty and me
Christmas 1977

I have struggled a lot with how to start this blog post. First, I realize it has been over two years since I have written a post. Since my last post about my maternal grandfather's death, the world has completely turned upside down - in more ways than one. Because of the pandemic, I am now primarily working from home, and I have been relocated by the law firm where I work from their Spartanburg office to their Greenville office. This means that on days when I do have to go into the office, my commute is now about 20-25 minutes versus the 35-40 minutes that it was for almost nine years. That extra 10-15 minutes makes a huge difference!

But even more recently, the life of every single member of the Foster side of my family was rocked to the core when we - somewhat suddenly - lost our matriarch, my Grandma Betty, on March 9, 2022. My last living grandparent is now gone.

When I was just five years old in March 1983, my parents brought my baby sister home from the hospital. My dad got out of the car and carried my newborn sister in his arms, wrapped in a pink blanket. In my mom's arms, also wrapped in a pink blanket, was a newborn-style baby doll, handmade especially for me by my Grandma Betty. My Grandma wanted to make sure that I didn't feel left out when the new baby came home. When my mom fed the baby, I fed my baby doll. When my mom rocked the baby, I rocked my baby doll. I believe she even had little tiny diapers that I could change when my mom had to change my baby sister.

Having been born in late 1977, I was most definitely a child of the '80s. In the early to mid-1980s, Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were All. The. Rage. Saturday morning cartoons were interspersed with commercials telling every young girl that she just HAD to have one. However, my parents were a young couple with two very young girls, and Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were expensive. Again, not wanting me to be left out, my grandma made me my own homemade "Cabbage Patch" doll with long yellow yarn for hair, pulled up in a ponytail with a braid around the base. She wore a yellow dress with a sheer fabric overlay with tiny white polka-dots. She had dimples on her chin, knees and elbows, and little individual fingers and toes. She even had a little sewn-on belly button and a butt crack! I did eventually get my Cabbage Patch Kid doll - in fact, I eventually had about 4 or 5 of them. But I no longer own those dolls. Yet today, at 44 years old, I still own - and treasure - that homemade doll with the yellow yarn for hair.

Handmade "cabbage patch" doll
Made by Betty Foster

Grandma Betty became "Grandma" Betty with my birth in September 1977, when she was only 44 years old - the same age I am now. I obviously never knew her as anything but a grandmother, but it seemed to me that she was born for that role. She loved her six granddaughters and five grandsons fiercely, and we absolutely adored her. She always - ALWAYS - had a cake or cookies or some other form of sweet treat in a jar or platter on her kitchen counter, and her grandkids knew that we were welcome to help ourselves any time we wanted. She made the BEST macaroni and cheese ON THE PLANET (don't even try to argue with me on this), and despite years of trying to duplicate it with her exact instructions, I never could. At least, not until I purchased the ingredients and went to her house and had her make it herself in front of me while I took detailed notes. Now I am one of only 2-3 people who can make it exactly like hers.

Sleepovers at Grandma and Pa-Pa's house were the best. When I was young and my Pa-Pa was still working as a carpenter, he would come home from work, bathe, and then we would all sit down for supper to enjoy one of Grandma's amazing home-cooked meals. During the day, Grandma worked as a seamstress out of their house. If she was keeping one of us grandkids, we would play in the floor of her sewing room while she worked, or take her huge cookie tin full of buttons, or the OTHER huge cookie tin full of crayons, and go in the living room to make various masterpieces. And inevitably, before the day was done, she would somehow find time to make something for us - whether it was a dress-up outfit, a new dress for one of our dolls, a blanket, or a new outfit for us to wear.

My husband Mathew and I on our wedding day,
wrapped in the quilt Grandma Betty gave me as a wedding gift.

Grandma could make absolutely anything with a sewing machine. My sister and I each got a handmade quilt from her as a wedding gift, and most of her grandchildren got at least one quilt for some occasion throughout their lifetimes. As a matter of fact, we had the chapel where her funeral was held decorated with all of the quilts we could put our hands on that she had made throughout her lifetime. We also had her casket draped with one of her quilts. It was an absolutely beautiful display:

Memorial photos taken by one of her granddaughters
(Either Nikki Haley or Jill Green - sorry ladies, I can't remember which one of you sent them!)

Grandma made wedding dresses for both of her daughters and most of her granddaughters, as well as several nieces, one daughter-in-law, and even the former high school girlfriend of one of her sons. There were literally HUNDREDS of brides over the years in the Greater Greenville area who got married in a dress made or altered by my Grandma. She also made dresses for bridesmaids, pageant queens, cheerleaders, and high school prom-goers. For my senior prom, I picked my ideal dress out from a photo in a magazine, and Grandma made it - no pattern needed.

Grandma was also an amazing cook. She made nearly everything from scratch. She taught me how to cook starting at age 12, when I asked her to sit down and tell me how to make each of my favorite dishes of hers (including her macaroni and cheese). I wrote down every word. A few days later, while my mom and dad were at work, I decided that I was going to make our family's supper for that night. I can't remember what all I made, but I know Grandma's macaroni and cheese was on the menu. The only problem was that Grandma had misspoken when telling me what kind of milk to use - instead of saying evaporated milk, she had accidentally said condensed milk, and I was too inexperienced to know that this was WRONG! Needless to say, my first home-cooked meal was quite an unforgettable one!

There were many, many times after that when I cooked dinner while my parents were working. I would usually end up completely wrecking my mom's kitchen, but after that first misstep I believe the meals were usually pretty good! I would call Grandma and have her walk me through the recipe steps over the phone while I was in the kitchen working. As a matter of fact, I even continued to do this into my adulthood when trying something new. Grandma taught me how to make and can jelly, marmalade and apple butter, over the phone - as recently as about ten years ago!

Grandma always seemed invincible to me. In fact, when my paternal Granddaddy, Everett Powell, began getting senile and somewhat cantankerous toward the end of his life, there was one day when my mom, Grandma, and I were commisserating about the trials and tribulations of caring for the aging. Grandma could sympathize because she had cared for her own father, my Great-Grandpa Earl Garrett who also became EXTREMELY cantankerous at the end of his life, until he passed away in 2001. I turned to Grandma and told her that she was never, ever, EVER allowed to become old and decrepit! She got quite a laugh out of that and told me that she would do her best. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

Grandma entered assisted living in January 2022 after two years of living by herself after my Pa-Pa's death. She had fallen several times at home in the preceding months and the family became afraid for her safety. After having several episodes with TIAs (aka "mini-strokes"), her memory wasn't what it used to be and she would tell you the same thing 4-5 times (at least) in the same conversation. She had difficulty walking because her knees were in terrible shape, and I think sometimes they just gave out on her. She had trouble standing from a sitting position on the bed or sofa, and would frequently end up in the floor and unable to get up on her own. Nevertheless, I somehow still expected her to live forever.

On February 27, 2022, Grandma Betty celebrated her 89th birthday. Several family members visited her at the assisted living center and had an impromptu birthday party for her, complete with cake and ice cream.

Sometime in the middle of the night that night, Grandma got up to go to the bathroom and fell. She hit her head pretty badly on something on the way down. She was rushed to the hospital, where it was determined that she had a bleed on her brain, and she was in critical condition. As if that weren't bad enough, she also had a blood clot in her leg, and she tested positive for COVID. Her heart rate and oxygen saturation rate had both dropped to dangerous levels, and it was suspected that the resulting oxygen deprivation had caused some damage to her brain. After a couple of days in the hospital, Grandma was sent home on hospice care.

On Sunday afternoon, March 6 (my sister's birthday), I went to visit Grandma for what I knew would probably be the last time. My Aunt Sharon was at the house sitting with her that day. When I walked in, Grandma was sleeping in the hospice bed and Sharon was on the couch reading. Don Williams was serenading Grandma from an Amazon Echo mounted above her bed by my Uncle Randy. I chatted with Sharon for a few minutes, then went to the bed to talk to my Grandma. The black wig she had worn all of my life was gone, and her stark white hair stuck out underneath the knitted cap that Sharon had made her. She snored like a chainsaw, sleeping heavily from the morphine she had taken earlier that morning. She would have been embarrassed.

Sharon was concerned that Grandma had missed her last dose of morphine and would wake up in pain, so she came over to attempt to wake her. She didn't have much luck, and it took several attempts from both of us over about a 15-20 minute period to finally get her awake. Even then, she wouldn't stay awake for long. However, I was able to communicate with her some, and eventually I started getting a response. I teased her about looking like a "thug" every time the knit cap would get knocked sideways from her scratching at her scalp or slumping over in the bed. I eventually got her to laugh. I asked her if she knew who I was, and she turned to look at me. Her mouth formed the "M," and she murmured something vaguely resembling "Melanie." I knew that she recognized me.

Sharon told me that if there was anything in particular of Grandma's that I wanted, to go ahead and get it. I told Sharon that because Grandma had taught me to cook from such a young age, the only thing I was interested in getting was a cast-iron frying pan if she had one (and I knew she very likely did, like any good Southern cook). Sharon told me to go ahead and look in the kitchen cabinet and to take it if I could find it. I did. I came back to Grandma's bedside, and she was awake. I asked her if she was going to turn me over her knee for making all that noise and banging around in her kitchen. She laughed. I held her hand and told her that I loved her. She didn't respond.

I sat back down on the couch and chatted with Sharon for a few more minutes before I needed to head home. As I said before, I knew that this would very likely be goodbye. I went back to Grandma's bedside, and she was still awake. I took her hand again and told her I loved her. She turned her head toward me and said very clearly, "I love you, too." I broke down.

"Say it again, Grandma. I love you!"

"I love you, too."

I gave her a kiss and left. They were the last words she ever said to me.

The following Wednesday morning, March 9, Grandma took a turn for the worse. I got a call at work that she had become almost non-responsive and had lost her ability to swallow. The hospice nurse advised the family to stop giving food and water (due to the choking hazard) and to only give swabs of water on/in her mouth to keep her mouth from drying out. We knew her time was very short.

That evening after I got off work at 5:00, I went to meet a friend at a Greenville Swamp Rabbits hockey game. The Swamp Rabbits were doing a promotion they called "Waggin' Wednesday," where people were invited to bring their dogs to the game and there were activities involving the dogs around the arena and during the breaks between periods. My family told me to go ahead with my plans and that they would keep me updated about any changes. Just before the game started, while my friend and I were walking around the arena petting the dogs, my phone rang. I looked down and saw my dad's name, and I knew. My dad doesn't usually call me unless something is wrong. Grandma Betty had passed away about fifteen minutes earlier.

As I had done for my Pa-Pa Vealon, I also created a memorial video for Grandma's funeral, to be shown during her visitation. It was truly a labor of love, but it still doesn't come anywhere near showing what an amazing person she was. Nevertheless, it can be viewed by clicking the below link:

Grandma Betty's obituary can be found here.

As I said at the beginning, I have really struggled with this post. I have still not fully grasped that she is gone, even after creating her memorial video, attending her funeral, and now writing this blog. I still feel like I can just pick up the phone and call my Grandma if I have a cooking question, or if I find something interesting in her family history that I want to share or ask her about. Then I catch myself and remember that she isn't there anymore to answer my call. However, since the day after the funeral, there has been a mated cardinal couple that frequents my backyard, and I see them nearly every time I walk out on my back deck. I know that my Grandma Betty and Pa-Pa Vealon are together once more, still keeping an eye on their oldest grandchild.

Pa-Pa Vealon

2020-01-24T20:04:00.000-05:00

Elbert Vealon Foster
June 16, 1930 - January 14, 2020

This past Tuesday, January 21, my family and I celebrated the life and mourned the death of my maternal grandfather, Elbert Vealon Foster (or Elbert Veland Foster, or Vealon Elbert Foster, depending on which document you are looking at). He had fought cancer successfully twice before, but this most recent diagnosis (sadly and ironically delivered to him on his last birthday - June 16, 2019) took him from us.

My Grandma and Pa-Pa celebrated their final wedding anniversary on October 27, 2019 - 68 years after their wedding day. Their love story is an amazing one that I have never seen before or since. They fell in love from the very moment they met. He stole her away from his best friend and well... sort of... stalked her, coming from Easley to drive by her house in Greenville (about a 20-30 minute drive nowadays). They were married at ages 21 (him) and 18 (her), and he devoted his entire life to looking after and taking care of her. They had four children together (including my mother) and currently have a total of 25 biological descendants.

His obituary from Thomas McAfee Funeral Home can be found here: Vealon Foster Obituary

The last act of love that I was able to give the man who became a grandfather upon my birth was to prepare a video/photo tribute to him, to be shown at the visitation prior to his funeral. That tribute can be viewed by clicking the below link:

Rest in peace, Pa-Pa. We will miss you. Until we meet again...

The Tragic Story of the Storays

2019-07-07T20:30:00.000-04:00

In my recent research on the Garrett family, I came across a family situation that quite literally brought me to tears. It is truly one of the saddest family stories I have run across in ten years of research. It all started with my research on the descendants of my 2nd great-grandparents, Nelson Alvis Garrett and Mamie Elizabeth Henderson. This includes my great-grandfather, Luther Earl ("L.E.") Garrett, his siblings and each of their families. Grandpa Garrett had a younger brother named William Rufus Garrett. "Uncle Rufus" died at age 59 on September 20, 1973, four years to the day before I was born. From what I have heard from several family members, he was a rather - ahem - unsavory character. Apparently Uncle Rufus was quite a drinker, which contributed to several amusing (and some not-so-amusing) family stories. We'll talk about Uncle Rufus later, but this particular post isn't about him - it is about his daughter and grandchildren.

Uncle Rufus had five children, the oldest of which was Betty Jane Garrett. Betty Jane, or "Jane," as she was apparently known, was a first-cousin to my grandmother, Betty Louise Garrett. However, due to Uncle Rufus's drinking, my grandmother doesn't remember having much contact with their family and knows very little about them. Jane, born in October 1936, was three years younger than my grandmother. She married a man named Walter Hugh Storay, who served in the Navy during WWII. Jane and Walter had six children together, and she died in November 2006. It was Jane's obituary that initially piqued my curiosity and prompted me to dive further into researching this family.

Obituary of Jane Garrett Storay, The Greenville News, Greenville, SC, November 9, 2006

Hang on just a minute - this woman died in 2006 at age 70, and she was preceded in death by four sons? What in the world is going on here???

That is precisely what I wanted to find out. So I immediately started digging into this family's history, and what I found absolutely broke my heart.

Betty Jane Garrett and William "Walter" Hugh Storay, Jr. got married on March 17, 1953, when Jane was only 16 years old and Walter was 24. She gave birth to their first child - a daughter, Jackie, the following year, at age 17. The next year, on September 18, 1955, Jane and Walter welcomed their first son into the world. Along with his one-year-old sister, William Hugh Storay, III must have been the joy of his parents' lives. Unfortunately, this young family's happiness was short-lived and turned to heartbreak a mere four months later on January 17, 1956.

Obituary of W.H. Storay III, The Greenville News, Greenville, SC, January 18, 1956

William Hugh Storay, III Death Certificate

Cause of death - Aspiration of vomitus. This sweet, 4-month-old baby boy died in his crib overnight from choking on his own vomit, while his unsuspecting parents were probably asleep in their own bed. Can you even imagine the horror of this young (only 19 at the time of his death) mother waking up to find her baby dead? What a horrifically tragic event!

But life goes on, as it tends to do, and in April 1957 Betty Jane gave birth to their second son, Ronald Dale Storay, followed two years later by the birth of their second daughter, Deborah Loraine Storay, and yet another year later by the birth of their third son, Daniel Keith Storay. After the tragic loss of baby Hugh, I can just imagine these young parents getting up multiple times throughout the night to check on their four children. I can also imagine that they kept a very careful watch on each of them for any sign of illness or injury.

In the summer of 1961, Jane became pregnant with her and Walter's sixth child. However, tragedy waited around the corner once again for this young family. I don't know the circumstances that alerted Jane and Walter that there was a problem with their young son, but 4-year-old Ronnie became sick around October 1961. He had surgery one month later in November 1961, and the findings were devastating. Massive brain stem tumor. As the baby in Jane's belly continued to develop and grow, the toddler to whom she had given birth four years earlier continued to deteriorate. I cannot begin to imagine the mixed emotions that Jane must have had when she gave birth to Timothy Dale Storay on February 12, 1962. Her young son, Ronnie, died the very next day, in the early morning hours of February 13.

Obituary of Ronald Dale Storay, The Greenville News, Greenville, SC, February 14, 1962
Note: there is an error in this story - there were only 2 surviving brothers, Danny and Timothy Dale.

Ronald Dale Storay Death Certificate

I don't know if Timothy Dale Storay was born at home or in the hospital. If he was born in the hospital, it is an almost certainty that Jane was still in the hospital after giving birth and was unable to be with young Ronnie when he died.

Timothy Dale Storay - called by the middle name "Dale" that he shared with his deceased brother - was the last child born to Jane and Walter. They were both still young when he was born - Jane was 25, and Walter was 33. I don't know if they made a deliberate decision not to have any more children; I can only speculate about that. But I do know that the tempest of emotions surrounding the death of their second son, coupled with the birth of their last, must have been unbearable.

Unfortunately, the tragic story of the Storay family is still not over. Young Dale, the son who was born one day before his older brother died, was diagnosed with leukemia at the tender age of 2 years old. After the horror they must have faced during Ronnie's illness and ultimate death, I cannot even begin to imagine what this family must have gone through after receiving yet another shocking cancer diagnosis.

According to his death certificate, Dale fought the disease for 18 months, and his tiny 3-year-old body must have just been worn out. He finally succumbed to a cardiac arrest, due to the leukemia, on December 20, 1965, just five days before Christmas and two months shy of his fourth birthday.

Obituary of Timothy Dale Storay, The Greenville News, Greenville, SC, December 21, 1965

Timothy Dale Storay Death Certificate

One baby dead at 4 months old. Another at 4 years old. Yet another, born just one day before his brother's death, dead at 3 years old. One child gone from what could be called a freak accident, and two more taken by cancer.

But even still, this family's suffering wasn't over.

After little Dale's death, I can imagine that Walter and Jane must have hugged their three surviving children just a little tighter, and spoiled them just a little more. Big sister Jackie was eleven, Debbie was six, and the one remaining son - now the baby of the family - Danny, was five. Life moved on once again. There were Christmases and birthday celebrations, high school graduations, and family vacations. There were some losses, too - Jane lost both of her parents, my 2nd great-uncle Rufus and his wife Ella Frances Julian, in less than a year's span between 1973-1974. But those would not compare with the next loss that was coming.

Below are the only news stories I could find relating to the death of Danny Storay. His obituary and the original stories about the crime are not currently available (some online newspapers have gaps in their coverage dates). But it is clear from what I did find that he was murdered in the most horrible fashion, and it is questionable as to whether the person or persons responsible ever even paid the price for their crime.

The Index-Journal, Greenwood, South Carolina, January 31, 1983

The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, May 31, 1984

Meanwhile, the Storay family mourned the loss of their very last living son.

This family went through so much heartbreak and tragedy. Jane and Walter Storay buried four of their six children. But before Betty Jane Garrett could depart this earth, there was one more heartbreak in store for her. Seven months before Jane herself died, she lost her husband of 53 years, who had endured all of this tragedy by her side.

Walter Hugh Storay Obituary, The Greenville News, Greenville, SC, April 20, 2006

In my years of doing family history research, the stories I have come across that are full of tragedy and sadness drastically outnumber the stories that are uplifting and joyful. Digging up the evidence of lives that have been cut way too short can be very emotional and difficult, but these are the precise stories that are crying out the most to be told. Because these people, especially the babies, occupied this earth for such an incredibly short time and left no offspring, there are precious few records evidencing that they ever even existed. Without someone to tell their stories, they could very easily be completely erased from history once those who knew and loved them are gone. These precious lives deserve to be honored and remembered, even if the process of telling of their stories does bring me to tears.

What happened to John Powell? Part 3 - GUEST BLOG!

2019-07-04T15:02:00.000-04:00

South Carolina State Archives

Note: This is a continuation from a previous post. To start back at part 1, click here.

Long overdue...

You know, when I started this blog a year ago, I had the best of intentions. First, I planned to write a post every week. Then, after the first few posts, I realized that the level of research involved wouldn't allow for that. I needed more time to be able to do the proper amount of research to develop a good story - you know, one that people might actually want to read. I don't want to bore you folks to death with a bunch of dry, boring lists of names and dates, after all. So then I thought maybe I could do a post once per month. But alas - life got in the way, as it often does, and my genealogy research, which I consider to be my "me" time, all too often got shoved to the back burner.

I work in a law firm. Have I ever told you guys that? The job that I do is sort of a hybrid between legal assistant, paralegal, and receptionist. This is because I work in the smallest of my firm's eight offices, and I am currently the only support staff person in our office. That means that I am the only person doing all of the administrative work for the three very, very busy attorneys in our office. Unfortunately, this also means that I don't get the luxury of taking many days off to do genealogy research. And when you work for a law firm, if the office is closed for a holiday, that means the courts and any other government buildings are closed, too.

However...in exploring ways to do further research on my second great-grandfather, John Powell (and in large part thanks to this blog post), I discovered that the older records for patients at the State Hospital for Insane are held at the South Carolina State Archives. And then I made the best discovery of all: the State Archives is open on Saturdays.

What?!? How did I not know this????

Well, of course, I had to get down there immediately. So I texted my favorite research partner - my mom, Susan Foster Powell.

God bless her, maybe one of these days she'll actually get to help me research her own family. But, like the good sport that she is, she agreed to an early-morning road trip (on a Saturday, of all days) from Greenville to Columbia. We left Greenville at around 6:45 a.m. on Saturday, May 30, in order to get to the archives around the time they opened and take full advantage of our time there.

I'll let my mom tell you about our findings in her own words (with just a few interjections and record insertions denoted by brackets [ ] from yours, truly):

* * * * *

March 31, 2019

I spent a fun, fascinating and eye-opening day yesterday with Melanie at the South Carolina Archives in Columbia. We went with the intention of researching three very specific family genealogy records - John Powell, Henry Powell and Frank Bell. John and Henry were brothers. John was Mike’s great grandfather on his dad’s side, his father’s father’s father. Frank Bell was Mike's father’s mother’s father.

[I'll help y'all out with following that - here's a snip from my tree showing where these folks fit in:

See those folks highlighted in yellow in the top right? Those two, plus John's brother Henry, are who we went to research.]

All three died at the state hospital in Columbia – yes, The South Carolina Hospital for The Insane, also known as The South Carolina Lunatic Hospital. Quite a surprise to find in your family tree!

What we knew from their death certificates before we went:

John died in October 1922 of Huntington’s Chorea;
Henry died on September 9, 1920 of Huntington’s Chorea;
Frank Bell died in May 1922 of Cerebral Arteriosclerosis.

The State Hospital records also added to our research:

John was 51 when he was admitted with Huntington’s and it was noted that he inherited it from his mother, Martha Stone Powell.
Henry was admitted on June 24, 1915 at the age of 46 and was released at some point and then readmitted on April 27, 1917 with intemperance and Huntington’s.
Frank Bell was admitted at age 67 with Bright’s Disease and Pellagra.

Notes:

Huntington’s Chorea, a/k/a Huntington’s Disease, is a neurological disease that affects brain cells. It causes delusions, psychotic episodes and suicidal depression. John and Henry had another brother who committed suicide by throwing himself off of something (building, cliff, ??) onto rocks below. We believe that he also had Huntington’s.
Cerebral Arteriosclerosis - a very basic definition is the thickening of the arteries, resulting in the restriction of blood flow to the brain. This restriction results in strokes, confusion, and can cause symptom-free mini-strokes.
Intemperance - alcoholism.
[Bright's Disease - a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanied by high blood pressure and heart disease.]
Pellagra - the deficiency of nicotronic acid (tryptophan) in the diet. Characterized by dermatitis, diarrhea, and mental disturbance. Pellagra has been linked to a diet over-dependent on corn as a staple food. [How sad that these people were committed to a mental hospital, when a simple turkey dinner and better nutrition potentially could have cured them!]

Death Book - October 1922 - The State Hospital for the Insane (click to enlarge)
John Powell

[Transcription of Line 14: Date of Death - October 22, 1922; No. - 21814; Name of Patient - Powell, John; Sex - M; Color - W; Age - 51; Nat. - [blank]; Civ. Cond. - Div.; Date of Admission - Jan 25, 1918; Duration of Hospital Residence - 4 yrs 8 m. 27 days; Duration of insanity - [blank]; Diagnosis - deterioration, not insane - slight mental; Cause of Death - Huntington's Chorea; No. for Year - 219; Disposition of Remains - Shipped to Bath, SC]

Death Book - September 1920 - The State Hospital for the Insane (click to enlarge)
Henry Powell

[Transcription of Line 4: Date of Death - Sept. 9, 1920; No. - 21026; Name of Patient - Powell, Henry; Sex - M; Color - W; Age - 50; Nat. - [internal notation, not relevant]; Civ. Cond. - Sg.; Date of Admission - Apr. 27, 1917; Duration of Hospital Residence - 3 yrs 5 m. 13 days; Duration of insanity - [blank]; Diagnosis - Psy c Huntington's Chorea; Cause of Death - Huntington's Chorea; No. for Year - 226; Disposition of Remains - Shipped to Graniteville, SC]

Death Book - May 1922 - The State Hospital for the Insane (click to enlarge)
Frank L. Bell

[Transcription of Line 21: Date of Death - May 26, 1922; No. - 25196; Name of Patient - Bell, Frank L.; Sex - M; Color - W; Age - 69; Nat. - [internal notation, not relevant]; Civ. Cond. - M.; Date of Admission - Aug. 1, 1921; Duration of Hospital Residence - 4 mos. 20 days; Duration of insanity - [blank]; Diagnosis - Psy. C Cerebral arterio scler.; Cause of Death - Cerebral arterio sclerosis; No. for Year - 112; Disposition of Remains - Delivered to family - Columbia, S.C.]

All of these men had neurological diseases that in the early 1900’s would have justified having a judge commit them to the State Hospital for the Insane. Treatment or management of the symptoms was not possible during this era. In that era of medicine, there were both medical and social stigmas attached to the symptoms produced by these diseases. Dementia, depression, stroke, etc. were much more of a mystery at that time than they are now.

The most eye-opening and thought-provoking thing we did was go through the admittance journals for the hospital. In order to find the patient numbers for each man we were researching, we had to go to the page containing their admittance date in the journals. These records showed the date admitted and the patient number assigned, along with the diagnosis for committal - they were referred to as "inmates" in several government records, including the census records. Some of the most common diagnoses were epilepsy and depression, but a few were really notable. One woman was committed because she threw a temper tantrum when her husband left her. Another woman was committed for “female problems” - maybe intense PMS?? [We have since learned that, unfortunately, it was common practice for a husband to have his wife committed for "female problems" when he simply wanted out of the marriage without the stigma of divorce. Just have her locked up and move on, right?]

The State Hospital for the Insane Admission Book, John Powell, left page (click to enlarge)

The State Hospital for the Insane Admission Book, John Powell, right page (click to enlarge)

[Transcription of Line 10, if read straight across both pages: Date of Admission - January 25; No. - 21814; Name of Patient - Powell, John; Pay or Beneficiary - M; Sex - W; Color - [blank]; Age - 47; Nat. - S.C.; Nat. of Parents - P. ?, Mt. ?; Civil Cond. - Sep.; Occupation - Cotton Mill Laborer; Religion - M; Heredity - Pt. [blank], Mt. mother; No. Adm. - [blank]; No. Attack - [blank]; Physical Condition on Admission - [blank]; Alleged Cause - Inherited; Duration on Adm. - +; Diagnosis - Psychosis with Huntington's Chorea; Revised Diagnosis - [blank]; Residence - Aiken; Judge - W.M. Scott; No. for Year - 55; Results - [blank]]

The State Hospital for the Insane Admission Book, Henry Powell, left page (click to enlarge)

The State Hospital for the Insane Admission Book, Henry Powell, right page (click to enlarge)

[Transcription of Line 25 (2nd up from the bottom), if read straight across both pages: Date of Admission - April 27; No. - 21026; Name of Patient - Powell, Henry; Pay or Beneficiary - B; Sex - M; Color - W; Age - 47; Nat. - S.C.; Nat. of Parents - P. [blank], Mt. [blank]; Civil Cond. - Sg; Occupation - None; Religion - B; Heredity - Pt. [blank], Mt. [blank]; No. Adm. - 2; No. Attack - ?; Physical Condition on Admission - [blank]; Alleged Cause - Intemperance; Duration on Adm. - 6 yrs; Diagnosis - Huntington's Chorea; Revised Diagnosis - [blank]; Residence - Aiken; Judge - G.R. Webb; No. for Year - 298; Results - [blank]

Note: as noted above, this was Henry's second admission to the hospital.]

The State Hospital for the Insane Admission Book, Frank L. Bell, left page (click to enlarge)

The State Hospital for the Insane Admission Book, Frank L. Bell, right page (click to enlarge)

[Transcription of Line 1, if read straight across both pages: Date of Admission - Aug. 1; No. - 25196; Name of Patient - Bell, Frank L.; Pay or Beneficiary - [blank]; Sex - M; Color - W; Age - 67; Nat. - Ga.; Nat. of Parents - P. x, Mt. x; Civil Cond. - M; Occupation - Farmer; Religion - M; Heredity - Pt. none, Mt. none; No. Adm. - 1; No. Attack - [blank]; Physical Condition on Admission - [blank]; Alleged Cause - cerebral arterio sclerosis - Bright's disease - pellagra?; Duration on Adm. - 2 days; Diagnosis - Psychosis - Cerebral Arterio Sclerosis; Revised Diagnosis - [blank]; Residence - Richland; Judge - S.D. Ballenger; No. for Year - 603; Results - [blank]]

The most gut-wrenching was a very brief entry:

Baby Graham----insane

This one almost took my breath—just a date and 3 words. Was Graham a first or last name? How could anyone declare a baby insane? Did he have Down Syndrome? Spina bifida? It must have been something obvious. I don’t judge the parents, 100+ years ago it would have been excruciatingly emotional to have a baby born with a medical condition and no hope of medical help. Most likely the expectation from the medical community and society was to put that child away and move on.

* * * * *

Okay, breaking away from my mom's narrative for just a moment, I want to add that we also took a look at the staff meeting books from the hospital. These are the books from where the hospital staff would meet periodically (once per week or so) to discuss the patients - new intakes, updates with treatment plans, etc. We were able to locate the meeting books containing the entries for all three men, including both of Henry's admissions.

John Powell's admission:

Patient Book with entry for John Powell (click to enlarge)

Line 6: 34; 55; Powell, John; W; [blank]; Jan. 25; Feb. 27; Psych with Huntington's Chorea; Horger (doctor's name, maybe?)

Henry Powell's first admission:

Patient Book with entry for Henry Powell (click to enlarge)

Last entry:

First Presentation - Dr. M____lyn [indiscernible]

Powell, Henry

Admitted June 24, 1915

Diagnosis: unclassified organic nervous disease, and Huntington's Chorea suggested

Henry Powell's second admission:

Patient Book with entry for Henry Powell (click to enlarge)

Last entry:

First Presentation Dr. McElroy

Powell, Henry 47 S. Aiken

Admitted Apr 27, 1917 2nd

Diagnosis Huntington's Chorea

Duration 6 years

Etiology Heredity

Frank Bell's admission:

Patient Book with entry for Frank Bell (click to enlarge)

Last entry: Frank Bell adm. Aug 1 - 1921 by Dr. Boone

Diagnosis: Psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis

Age 67

Now, back to my mom's narrative:

* * * * *

Henry Addington Pardon

[For the background information about this story, see this blog post.]

We also researched the Governor’s pardon for Henry Addington, the murderer of my second great-uncle, Jacob Black.

We were able to see and photograph the original pardon certificate signed by then-Governor Ransome J. Williams dated April 4, 1945. Henry Addington served 5 years of a lifetime sentence.

Henry Addington pardon certificate (click to enlarge)

We requested more information and went through two boxes - one box from the Governor’s office and one from the Pickens County Court. The Governor’s file would have contained a copy of the pardon certificate and any supporting documentation, i.e., letters from community leaders, petitions from attorneys, etc. The second box contained the actual trial documents from Pickens county. Both boxes were missing any documentation on the trial or pardon for Addington. We may have to plan a field trip to the Pickens County Courthouse.

On the way back, we stopped in Simpsonville at the Unity Baptist Church where we visited the cemetery. It was quite the experience to visit the graves of my great-grandparents, Nelson and Mamie Garrett, and my 2x great-grandparents, John B. and Polly Ann Garrett. It seems that half of my family tree resides now in that cemetery - Henderson, Brashier, Nabors, Barbrey and lots of Garretts!

[So my sweet mom got to research some of her own family that day, after all!]

What happened to John Powell? Part 2

2019-03-12T14:31:00.000-04:00

Note: This is a continuation from a previous post. To start back at part 1, click here.

On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, I had taken the day off work to take my husband for some medical tests. When the tests were finished, we were at CVS waiting for a prescription to be filled when my Apple Watch buzzed to alert me to a new e-mail. The first thing I saw on the screen was a name - John Powell. JOHN POWELL?? I immediately pulled my phone out of my purse to read the full e-mail:

Melanie:

Your Michael Everett Powell showed up yesterday as a Y-DNA match for me. We have a genetic distance of 0. That means we match all 37 markers and likely have a Most Recent Common Ancestor in the last several generations.

Can you tell me what you know about Michael's ancestors?

My family tree is public at both Family Finder and Ancestry:

a. Family Finder: [url removed for privacy]
b. Ancestry: [url removed for privacy]

For the family trees above, you, of course, will want to follow the paternal line.
I look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
John Powell

Oh, my gosh! How exciting!! This meant that my father's Y-DNA results had come in, even though I had not yet received an e-mail from Family Tree DNA stating so. It also meant that my dad had at least one Y-DNA match who was previously unknown to me - a match who was not Jack, Jimmy, or Nicholas Powell. I immediately attempted to access the family tree links that John sent me, but the websites didn't want to load correctly on my phone's browser. I knew I would have to investigate further when I got home, but I was way too excited to wait until then to respond.

Hi John,

Thank you so much for writing! Michael Powell is my father. His father was Everett Powell, and Everett’s father was James Edward Powell, born in 1891 in Aiken, South Carolina. We believe James’ father’s name was John Powell, but after almost 10 years of family history research, I have very little information on him. It appears that he married Hattie Gregory in about 1890, fathered James, and then disappeared. I wrote a blog post about him here: https://unzippingmygenes.blogspot.com/2019/01/john-powell.html?m=1

You will also see more info on my blog about my tree. I will write back shortly when I get to my computer to send more info and tree links, but I am sitting at CVS right now waiting for a prescription and was too excited after receiving your email to wait to respond.

Thank you!
Melanie (Powell) Nowend

When I got home from the pharmacy, I had yet another e-mail from John. That e-mail helped to make several of the pieces fall together and busted through the brick wall that for years had been firmly lodged on my family tree in the position of my 2nd great-grandfather. I now finally had answers to some, but not all, of the questions that had plagued me for so many years.

Oh, yeaaaaah!

John provided lots of valuable information about other connections he had made in the Powell family line. He apparently had already reached out to several other Y-DNA matches (who, as it turns out, were also matches to my dad) and had gathered a wealth of information from those matches and from others researching their Powell lineage. He generously shared that information with me, and also encouraged me to join the Powell DNA Project on Family Tree DNA. John also gave me the name and e-mail address of another researcher who could share even more information with me.

But the most valuable piece of information that John shared with me was a name. A pair of names, actually. John wrote that he suspected that we connected via the Charles Powell family of Edgefield, South Carolina. Charles Powell's wife was Ellen Johnson.

Charles Powell and Ellen Johnson. I immediately recognized the names. In fact, I already had a LOT of information about this family. I had researched them extensively. Charles and Ellen Powell were the paternal grandparents of John Powell #1.

John Powell #1 was my 2nd great-grandfather, after all. I had been searching for him for years, and he was right under my nose the whole time. I had initially thought that he couldn't be my ancestor, because it appeared that he was married to another woman, Belle, in another part of the state around the time of his marriage to my 2nd great-grandmother and his son's birth. However, I have since discovered that there were several flaws in my research. The John Powell who was married to Belle in Saluda, SC is a completely different John Powell (we'll call him "John Powell #2") than my John Powell #1.

John Powell #1 was listed as an inmate in the State Hospital for Insane in Columbia, South Carolina at the time of the 1920 census. Sadly, his brother, Henry, was also an inmate at the same time.

1920 US Census, South Carolina, Richland, Columbia Ward 4, District 0090

John Powell #1 had been an inmate in the state hospital since at least January 1918, and he remained there until his death from Huntington's Chorea on October 22, 1922.

Meanwhile, John Powell #2, who was married to Leila Belle Williamson was alive and well in the 1930 census in Saluda, South Carolina - eight years after John Powell #1 died. Therefore, John Powell #2 (John R. Powell - and yes, that is, in fact, the letter "R") could not be the same John Powell as John Powell #1.

1930 Census, Dist. 016, Ridge Spring, Saluda, South Carolina

Same Name Confusion

Early in my genealogical journey, I made several mistakes that many beginning genealogists make:

I assumed that because the names, ages, and locations were similar or the same across different documents, they must all refer to the same person.
I accepted the transcribed record as fact without investigating and questioning further.
WORST OF ALL - I adopted "facts" from others' online family trees without researching them for myself and finding the documentation and citing the sources to back up the claims.

A combination of these three errors caused me to miss what had been right under my nose for years. As I stated in my previous post, there were MANY men named John Powell in South Carolina during this time period. Since receiving the initial e-mail from the currently-living John Powell, I have gone back and done extensive research on six men, all named John Powell, all living in South Carolina in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, yet all completely separate individuals with different family lines. Two were married to women nicknamed "Belle" (Leila Belle Williamson, listed above and married to John Powell #2; and Rosabelle Thornal, married to John A. Powell ("John Powell #3") and living in Columbia, South Carolina). Two lived some portion of their lives in Columbia, South Carolina (John Powell #1, who died at the State Hospital in Columbia, and John Powell #3, who lived in Columbia for much, if not all, of his life). One is a John A. Powell (#3), and one is a John R. Powell (#2); however, because the above 1930 census record was mis-transcribed as "John A. Powell," the records of these two men are often combined as if they are the same person. Upon further investigation of the full 1930 Saluda census record, it can be noted that the census-taker often wrote his Rs with a large flourish on the left-hand side, causing it to look like a letter "A":

1930 Census, Dist. 016, Ridge Spring, Saluda, South Carolina
This is a sample from the same page as the previous clipping, showing Raymond Jordan and Labrew Raiford. Note how the census-taker wrote the letter "R" in both instances.

Further, because John Powell #1 was hospitalized and died in Columbia, SC, he is often confused with John Powell #3 who resided in Columbia with his wife and daughter. And because both John Powell #2 and John Powell #3 have wives named "Belle," their records are often combined.

Is your head spinning yet??

Because of all of this same-name confusion, many (almost all) of the family trees on both Ancestry and Family Search have inaccuracies regarding each of these men. Long ago, when I first began searching for my John Powell, I took several of those inaccuracies as gospel and dismissed the evidence of the very ancestor that I was searching for. Thankfully, DNA was able to help me wade through some of the insanity.

However, several questions still remain. I now know that John Powell #1 is my John Powell, and that, sadly, my 2nd great-grandfather died in 1922 in the State Hospital for Insane. At least one, possibly two, of his brothers also had the same disease he had. Thankfully, it does not appear that this disease was passed through the family line, although at least one of my grandfather's siblings had Parkinson's, which is a related disease. But where was John Powell in 1900 when his wife, Hattie, and son, James Edward, were living with Hattie's mother? Hattie apparently told the census-taker that she was married and had been for 10 years. So where was her husband? And what were the circumstances which led Hattie and John to divorce? Was it related to John's illness? Hattie is remarried to John Preston Hatcher in the 1910 census (while John Powell was still living), so there should be a divorce record. Alas, it is likely going to take a trip to the Aiken and/or Edgefield County courthouse to obtain these answers. But until that is a possibility, I will continue my online research to attempt to fill out this branch of my family tree.

More on that to come...

For part 3, click here.

What happened to John Powell? Part 1

2019-01-13T16:35:00.001-05:00

In genealogy circles, they are referred to as "Brick Walls" - genealogical puzzles that refuse to be solved, no matter how much research you do. I have one that has plagued me for several years now - my 2nd great-grandfather on my Powell line. He married my 2nd great-grandmother, Hattie Gregory, sometime around 1890, fathered my great-grandfather, James Edward Powell, who was born in 1891, and then seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

He never appears in a census record with Hattie and James Edward - thanks, in large part, to the almost complete destruction of the 1890 US census records. Hattie and her son (listed as "Edward") appear in the 1900 census living with her widowed mother, Lavinia Lybrand Gregory. The census taker notates Hattie as having been married for 10 years, but there is no husband listed living with her.

1900 Census, District 025, Gregg, Aiken, South Carolina

By the following census in 1910, Hattie has been remarried for 2 years to John Preston Hatcher, and they have a 3-month-old daughter, Francis Cornelia Hatcher. Hattie's mother, Lavinia (or "Vincie") is still living with Hattie and her family.

1910 Census, District 0023, Wards, Aiken, South Carolina

Hattie's son, James Edward, is a newlywed living with his new wife, my great-grandmother, Lois Bell Powell.

1910 Census, District 0007, Gregg, Aiken, South Carolina

I have no birth records for my great-grandfather James Edward that might lead to information about his father. I have no marriage record for the marriage of Hattie and James' father. I have no hint at all of his existence, except, of course, MY existence, and his name written in two places - (1) my Grandma Eva's family Bible, and (2) on my great-grandfather's death certificate. John Powell. And let me just tell you how many John Powells there were around in those days...

I have researched several of the John Powells from the area of Aiken and Edgefield, South Carolina, where Hattie and James Edward Powell lived. There is one John Powell - we'll call him John Powell #1 - who was an extremely interesting prospect. He was committed to the state hospital in Columbia, South Carolina and was enumerated there on the 1920 census, listed as "inmate" and "divorced." Hmmm...sounds promising. Being an inmate at the state hospital would certainly explain why he wasn't around to be enumerated with his family. However, my John Powell is missing at least as early as the 1900 census, and the census where John Powell #1 is listed as an inmate is a full 20 years later. Still, the idea is certainly worth pursuing. When I began researching John Powell #1's family and background, I found that he had a horrible disease called Huntington's Chorea, and that at least one of his brothers also had this disease. In fact, they were both committed to the state hospital at the same time, and the disease was the ultimate cause of death for both. There was also another brother who committed suicide at age 45, which leads me to suspect that he may have also had the disease.

This would make for quite an interesting family story. But, alas, it was not to be. After hours of research, I ultimately discovered that John Powell #1 was happily married to another woman elsewhere in the state around the same time that my John Powell married Hattie and fathered James Edward.

Bam. Another brick wall thrown up in front of me.

So...what now? I have pursued many, many, many other avenues for trying to hunt down John Powell, but EVERY SINGLE ONE of them has been met with the same result - a brick wall, thrown up right in my face at every turn. Due to the nature of my job, my options are limited with taking time off to travel to the lower part of the state to search courthouse records (although that is my plan in the near future, as soon as I can work out the logistics). In the meantime, though, there is one more option...

Ah, yes - DNA. First, a short biology lesson. I know, I know...but bear with me here. I promise it will be short and painless.

Okay, so as humans, we have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Pairs 1-22 are comprised of a random combination of the DNA that we received from our mother and father - 50% inherited from each. When a parent passes DNA on to their children in chromosomes 1-22, that DNA goes through a process called recombination whereby it essentially scrambles itself up. We'll look at that process in a later post. But for now, let's focus on the last pair of chromosomes, the 23rd pair, which determines our sex. Females have two "X" chromosomes, while males have both an "X" and a "Y" chromosome. Below is a succinct explanation of the inheritance patterns of X- and Y-DNA from http://www.genie1.com.au/blog/63-x-dna by Louise Coakley:

Take a closer look at that Y-DNA that the male child inherited from his father. The father passed his entire Y chromosome to his son, intact and unchanged. Do y'all realize what that means?? Every male child in your (and my) family inherited his father's Y-chromosome, and his father inherited his grandfather's Y-chromosome, his grandfather inherited his great-grandfather's Y-chromosome, and so on and so forth. The Y-chromosome is passed down through the male lines of families for hundreds of years with little to no mutation.

So, back to my current brick wall. How exactly does this help me with regard to finding my 2nd great-grandfather, John Powell? Well, it means that there is still a huge, intact piece of my 2nd great-grandfather John Powell's DNA walking around this earth today. In fact, there are several. Each of these pieces lives within a surviving male of the Powell family line.

John Powell passed his Y-chromosome on to my great-grandfather James Edward Powell, who in turn passed it on to each of his sons - James Edward Powell, Jr., Eldridge Cecil Powell, Everett Frank Powell (my grandfather), and Albert Harold Powell. Each of these men, if he had a son, also passed down an exact copy of that same Y-chromosome. However, there were only a total of three boys born to these men* - James ("Jimmy") Powell, son of my great-uncle Eldridge, Jack Powell, son of my great-uncle Albert, and my dad, Michael ("Mike") Powell, son of my grandfather Everett Powell. Jimmy Powell also has a son, Nicholas, who carries that same Y-chromosome. That's it - only four men that are known to me to carry the Powell Y-chromosome.

*James Edward Powell did have two other grandsons, but they are the sons of his daughter Ellie Lois Powell Barnes. Because they were born to a female descendant, they would have inherited the Y chromosome of their father, Frank Leroy Barnes, and not that of James Edward Powell.

But does this mean that these four men are the only ones to carry the Powell Y-chromosome? If so, what's the point? After all, I already know about them, and they don't really help at all in the search for John Powell. However, didn't John Powell have to inherit his Y-chromosome from somewhere - namely, from his father, who is currently unknown to me? And didn't this unknown father inherit the Powell Y-chromosome from his (also unknown) father? Also, what if John Powell had brothers? Or other sons? Wouldn't they have carried the same Y-chromosome that he had? And if those brothers or sons had sons, who also had sons, who also had sons? Wouldn't that mean that there are also other, unknown (to me) copies of that same Y-chromosome walking the earth today?

Enter the Y-DNA test from Family Tree DNA. This type of specialized DNA test is a bit pricier than the more common autosomal DNA test (offered by Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andMe, and Family Tree DNA). Currently, Family Tree DNA is the only company that offers a test for the Y-chromosome (and also for mitochondrial DNA, but that's for another post and another time). Until recently, this test has been out of my price range. However, FTDNA had a sweet Christmas/year-end sale, and my precious husband, who knows how important this is to me, gifted me with the funds to purchase one at the sale price. In addition, my dad agreed to be the test subject.

So last weekend, I went to my parents' house and administered the Y-DNA test (which is painless and consists only of a couple of cheek swabs) to my dad. I mailed it in to Family Tree DNA on Monday, January 7. So now, I wait. And wait. It can take 6-8 weeks for the results of a DNA test to come in, so I am forced - very much against my will - to be patient. But when the results do finally arrive, if there are any matches at all aside from Jimmy, Jack, or Nicholas Powell, then I have found a direct lead to solving the mystery of who John Powell was and what ultimately happened to him. After 10+ years of family history research, that is definitely worth waiting for.

To be continued...

For Part 2, click here.

The Murder of Jacob Black

2018-09-08T22:31:00.001-04:00

The Jacob Riley Black family
Back row (left to right): Ella Mae, Jacob Riley, Lang G., Roy Kilby, Cecil Banks, James Leland, William Thomas
Middle row (left to right): Ruth, Eunice Fae, Wade Dewitt, Evelyn Kate
Front row (left to right): Doris, J.C., Riley Ray

For today's post, I'd like to investigate an incident that took place over 78 years ago, not to a direct ancestor of mine, but to his brother. That distant uncle's name is Jacob Riley Black. On February 19, 1940, Jacob Black was murdered. Or was he?

My 3rd great-grandparents, Riley and Elvina Mauldin Black, were the parents of fifteen children - five girls and ten boys. One of those children was my second great-grandfather, Andrew Paul Black, whose history I will explore in a later post. However, great-great-grandpa Andrew Paul ("Paul") had a brother named Jacob. That makes Jacob my third great-uncle, or the uncle of my great-grandmother, Myrlie Catherine Black Foster.

If this is confusing to you, join the club. Even after doing genealogy research for over ten years, I still have to draw myself a diagram sometimes. Hopefully, the below pedigree chart will make the family relationships a little easier to understand (click the photo to enlarge):

See my 2nd great-grandfather, Andrew Paul Black, there toward the right? One of his brothers was named Jacob. Below is where Jacob falls in my family tree:

Okay, so now that we hopefully have that down, let's talk about Jacob. As you can see from the above photograph, Jacob and his wife, like Jacob's parents, took the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing very seriously. They had a total of 8 boys and 4 girls. I haven't yet researched the families of each of Jacob's and Paul's siblings, but if each one of them procreated this much, then my 3rd great-grandparents Riley and Elvina ("Vina") Black very likely have hundreds, maybe even thousands of descendants in the Greenville/Pickens/Anderson, South Carolina area. But I digress...

Jacob Riley Black was born in South Carolina on April 4, 1884, the fifth child born to Riley and Vina. Because of the fire and resulting water damage that ultimately caused nearly all of the 1890 US Census records to be destroyed, the 1900 census is the first census record where Jacob appears. He is 16 years old, and his name is misspelled as "Jabos." In 1900, he was living in Liberty Township, in Pickens County, with his parents and ten siblings. Jacob, along with each of his brothers aged 10 or older, has his occupation listed as "farm laborer." It is therefore a safe assumption that Jacob and his brothers were raised to work on the family farm from a very young age.

The Riley Black family in the 1900 United States Federal Census, District 115, Liberty, Pickens, South Carolina

In the next census record in 1910, Jacob is married and has his own family. According to the 1910 census, Jacob married Ella Mae ("Mae") Kilby in 1906 at age 22. At first, it appears that Jacob may have been a bit of a scoundrel, as the 1910 census states that Jacob and Mae have been married for four years, yet there is a five-year-old son (Cecil) listed living with them. That makes Cecil's birth year 1905, a full year prior to Jacob's and Mae's wedding. Even worse, Cecil's Social Security record and death records state that he was actually born even earlier in 1903. However, before we all begin clutching our pearls, let's take a closer look at the records. It is quite possible that either the census enumerator or the person who was the informant on behalf of the family for the 1910 census (which could have been Jacob, Mae, or a neighbor or another family member) made an error with regard to Mae and Jacob's marriage date. I have thus far been unable to locate a marriage record for Jacob and Mae, so this is difficult to determine with certainty, but the 1930 census for this family does shed further light on this issue (see below). Nevertheless, in addition to Cecil, in 1910 Jacob and Mae also have two other sons - Leland, age 3, and Roy, age 1. This young couple, like so many others of that time, has also suffered the tragedy of having lost a child. The circumstances of the child's death are not given, but the 1910 census record does state that Mae has given birth to four children, with only three surviving. This is yet another reason why it is likely that the marriage date is incorrect - Mae would have had to have given birth to four children within four years' time. While that is certainly not impossible, together with Cecil's age, it is far more likely that Jacob and Mae have been married for longer than four years at this point.

The 1910 census also shows that Jacob is renting and working a farm right next door to his mother and father-in-law, James and Laura Kilby, in Liberty (Pickens County), South Carolina.

1910 US Federal Census, District 141, Liberty, Pickens County, South Carolina
Jacob and Mae are living beside Mae's parents, James and Laura Kilby.

By 1920, Jacob is renting and working a farm in Anderson County, very close to his sister-in-law's parents (and my 3rd great-grandparents), William Jefferson ("Bud") King and Carrie Zora Young King. (See the chart below the census record for a diagram of that relationship.) Ten years earlier in the 1910 census, Bud and Carrie King are listed only a few pages away from the Black family, also in District 141 in Liberty, Pickens County. It is unlikely (but not impossible) that both families with no direct blood relationship would have moved together from Pickens to Anderson. So what in the world is going on here?

I have taken a look at the enumeration maps for Pickens and Anderson countries from this time period, and both of these enumeration districts (141 in Pickens and 33 in Anderson) are very close to the county line separating these two counties. I therefore believe that Jacob and his family were living on the same farm in 1920 as they were in 1910, but that the county lines had changed around them, giving the appearance that they had moved from one county to another.

1920 US Federal Census, District 33, Brushy Creek, Anderson County, South Carolina
Jacob and Mae are living very nearby William and Carrie King.

My relationship to William "Bud" and Carrie King - click the photo to enlarge

In the 1930 census, the family is still living in Brushy Creek, Anderson County, on what I believe is the same farm where they have lived for at least the past 20 years. This census record also gives the ages of Jacob (listed as "Jack") and Mae at the time of their marriage - 19 and 16, respectively. This means that Jacob and Mae were likely married in 1903. Jacob would have turned 19 on April 4, 1903, and Mae would have turned 16 on May 19, 1903. However, my records show that their son Cecil was born on May 24, 1903. That only gives a 5-day window for the marriage to take place between Mae's 16th birthday and Cecil's birth. Even if Mae's age at the time of marriage is incorrect in the 1930 census, Jacob had just turned 19 a little over one month prior to Mae's 16th birthday. So in order for Cecil to not have been at least conceived prior to their marriage, both Jacob's and Mae's ages at marriage would have to be incorrect. You can grab those pearls now - it seems there may have been a bit of a scandal, after all!

1930 US Federal Census, District 0014, Brushy Creek, Anderson County, South Carolina

The 1930 census was the very last census in which Jacob Black was enumerated. By the time the 1940 census was taken, Jacob was gone.

Sometime prior to April 1, 1935, the Jacob Black family relocated to Pickens County, where Jacob was born and raised. All those years of hard work on someone else's land finally paid off, and Jacob bought his own farm in the Croswell area of Easley in Pickens County. He must have taken a lot of pride in finally working his own land, and was very protective of what was his.

On the evening of February 19, 1940 at around 5:00, approximately one hour before sunset, Jacob went into the woods on his property with an axe. The family may have needed wood to burn to keep warm during the cool February night. Mae remained in the house with the four children still living at home - Wade, age 19, J.C., age 16, Ray, age 14, and Doris, age 10. While he was chopping wood, Jacob encountered his friend and neighbor, Henry Addington. Henry was younger, age 37 (the same age as Jacob's eldest son Cecil) to Jacob's age 56. Henry was also outside working, repairing a fence on his property. His 16-year-old son, Henry Jr., was helping him, or was at least working outside somewhere nearby.

Henry apparently approached Jacob regarding his choice of timber, claiming that Jacob was cutting wood on his (Henry's) land. Jacob disagreed, and insisted on continuing to cut his timber. There is no evidence as to how long the argument lasted, but it escalated dramatically. The discussion got more and more heated, until, according to eyewitness testimony, Jacob charged at Henry Addington with his axe. Addington ran away and leaped over his fence - begging the question as to just whose property he was on prior to leaping the fence. Nevertheless, he ran and grabbed his shotgun before turning back to face his attacker. He may have had the shotgun nearby and already loaded to protect himself from animal attacks. He was working out in the woods, after all.

Addington quickly discharged two shotgun shells full of buckshot at Jacob Black. Jacob was hit in the face and back. And just like that, Jacob Black's life abruptly came to an end. The farmer, husband, and father of twelve had died instantly from his wounds. His youngest child was just ten years old.

The sheriff was called to the scene, and Addington immediately claimed that the shooting was in self-defense. After all, Jacob Black had come after him with an axe, right? Nevertheless, Henry Addington was immediately taken to the Pickens County jail.

The story of the shooting ran on the front page of The Greenville News the following day, below the fold and nestled in among stories about the war in Europe. Still, this was very big news for this area and time period.

The Greenville News front page, February 20, 1940
Just to the right and below center - "Jake R. Black of Easley is Fatally Shot."

The newspaper story of the shooting, enlarged. Blurry, but still fairly readable.

The Easley Progress, February 22, 1940

Amid the media hype, Jacob was buried on Wednesday, February 21, at the Zion United Methodist Church cemetery in Pickens, South Carolina.

Jacob Black Obituary, The Greenville News, February 21, 1940

The shooting and Jacob's death were apparently the talk of the town. A coroner's inquest was held just 2 1/2 weeks after the funeral on Saturday, March 9. The inquest was originally scheduled to be held at the City Council's chambers at City Hall, but there were so many spectators (around 500) that the inquest had to be moved to a nearby school auditorium. Apparently, the Black family, with all of those many descendants, showed up in droves. The coroner's jury returned a verdict that Henry Addington was responsible for the death of Jacob Black, and that he should be put on trial for murder. From the Easley Progress:

The coroner's jury, after hearing one eyewitness to the shooting, Ellison Richey, and a statement prepared by Dr. N.C. Brackett, said Black came to his death from gunshot wounds at the hands of Henry Addington.

Mr. Richey was the only witness testifying besides Dr. Brackett.

Mr. Richey said that Addington shot Black following an argument between the two on land boundaries. He said that Addington charged Black with having cut some timber on his (Addington's) land.

Addington was not present for the inquest. The shooting occurred on February 19.

Dr. Brackett's statement, which was read at the inquest, said Black's death "was due to gunshot wounds in the head." Black, however, suffered five buckshots in the back; one in the neck and two in the head. The shots in the head entered through his face, the statement said.

Addington has been held in the Pickens county jail since the shooting.

The Easley Progress, March 14, 1940

The Greenville News article on the inquest reads almost identically, but adds the additional tidbit that Addington had not yet made bond.

However, by the time the enumeration date for the 1940 census rolled around on April 9, Henry was back at home comfortably with his family - and just five residences away from the children that he had made orphans and the woman that he had made a widow.

The 1940 US Federal Census, District 39-1, Croswell, Pickens, South Carolina

Oh, there was a trial. According to my grandfather, who vividly remembers this incident from his childhood, the trial was a huge spectacle and lasted for several weeks. Henry Addington was ultimately found guilty of the murder of Jacob Black. I wish I could tell you that I had seen the court records and that I know what the smoking gun was that caused the jury to return a guilty verdict. But I haven't. I do hope to one day get down to the Pickens County courthouse to dig up the records, but that would require a day off from my job in Spartanburg, and that isn't a reality right now. But hopefully someday soon.

So why on earth would the jury have found Henry Addington guilty of murder, when he was clearly only defending himself after being threatened by an axe-wielding madman? Well, was he? Let's take a closer look at what we know about what happened:

First, despite the varying (and incorrect) ages given by the newspaper articles, there was a fairly significant age gap between Jacob and Henry. I have checked the census records for both men going back to their childhoods, and I feel confident in saying that Jacob was 56, and Henry was 37 - young enough to be Jacob's son. It is unlikely, although not impossible, that Jacob, who had been a hard laborer for his entire life, would have been able to keep up with the much-younger Henry if Henry had been running away from him at a full sprint. Remember, Jacob was also running while allegedly carrying the extra weight of an axe.

Second, take another look at the Greenville News article above about the murder (the one below the full newspaper page). The eyewitness, Ellison Richey, said that Henry had leaped over a fence - one that he was admittedly building or repairing on his property, so it is likely that he was over his own property line and trespassing on Jacob's land when the argument commenced. Jacob was defending, and chasing Henry off of, his own property.

Third, Richey also said that Addington had run about 50 yards to fetch his shotgun. FIFTY YARDS. That's half the length of a football field. I have a hard time believing that Jacob was continuing to pursue Henry on a chase of that length, especially after Henry had leaped back over his fence onto his own property. Nowhere in any of the stories is there an eyewitness account of Jacob pursuing Henry by jumping over the fence after him.

Last, back to the newspaper articles. Did you happen to notice what they said about Jacob's cause of death? Allow me to refresh your memory:

Dr. Brackett's statement, which was read at the inquest, said Black's death "was due to gunshot wounds in the head." Black, however, suffered five buckshots in the back; one in the neck and two in the head. The shots in the head entered through his face, the statement said.

(Emphasis mine.) Jacob was actually shot in the back more than he was shot in the head or face. Now, I realize that buckshot scatters after exiting the gun. And I realize that a gunshot blast has some serious force behind it, and that it's possible that the first blast spun Jacob around. However, I find it hard to believe that Jacob could have suffered more shots in the back of his body than in the front if he was still charging at Addington with an axe. It seems much more likely to me that Jacob was fleeing from the gun-wielding Addington, and that Addington still gunned him down in cold blooded revenge.

So was this actually a murder? Or was it simply a case of a man defending himself against another man with some serious anger issues? We may never know. Or maybe we will. If and when I am ever able to get my hands on the court records, I will write an update to this story. But until then, I am left wondering and drawing my own conclusions. For now, I am inclined to believe that Addington was fleeing in self-defense, but ultimately decided to turn around and commit a revenge killing. In my opinion, Henry could have easily made the choice to remain on his own property after fleeing, rather than grabbing a shotgun and going back after Jacob and killing him. Henry could have made the choice to allow Jacob to live out the remainder of his life with his family. But instead, he made a very different choice that altered the lives of everyone involved in this situation.

The jury, however, did hear all of the evidence, and they returned a guilty verdict. They decided that Henry had committed a murder, not a killing in self-defense. However, it seems that later, at least eleven of them had a change of heart:

The Greenville News, April 5, 1945

Henry Addington was granted a full pardon and released from prison in April 1945 after serving only five years of a life sentence for murder. He died at age 61 on January 17, 1964, having spent the last nineteen years of his life as a free man.

William Henry and Nancy Jane Knight Davis

2018-07-22T16:35:00.001-04:00

"Aunt Marthie" - Martha Jane Davis
(1918-2003)

My 2nd great-aunt (through my maternal line), Martha Jane Davis, was a high school English teacher at Wren High School in Anderson, South Carolina for many years, as well as a family historian. "Aunt Marthie," as she was called, was the sister of my great-grandmother, Ruth Beatrice Davis Garrett. Aunt Marthie's research, along with the research of my maternal grandfather's sister, Margaret Foster Limbaugh, has provided the basis for much of what I know about my mother's side of my family tree.

I have a collection of stories that Aunt Marthie wrote about her parents and grandparents. I would like to share here one of her stories about her maternal grandparents, William Henry Davis and Nancy Jane Knight Davis, with my notes interjected throughout in italics. Unless in italics or otherwise notated, the following words are exclusively those of Martha Jane Davis.

Nancy Jane Knight was born on May 7, 1843, the first child of Sophia Burns and Matthew [Mathew] D. Knight of Laurens County, South Carolina. She had three sisters: Mary, Mattie, and Susan.

Nancy Jane's father died when she was young [Mathew Knight died in 1856 at age 41, when Nancy was just 13 years old.] and she and her sister had to leave school and help on the farm. Nancy Jane told of learning to blow into a bottle to call the field hand home.

She loved to read and throughout her long life, she read everything she could.

Nancy Jane married William Henry Davis in the early Eighteen Sixtys. He volunteered into the Confederate Army and she got a job in the mill at Conestee until he returned home. After the war was over, he returned home and they raised a family of two sons and five daughters: Louis Pinckney, [George] Washington [George Washington Davis is my second great-grandfather], Mary Ellen, Malinda Emma, Corrie Lee, Annie Louida, and Minnie Leida.

1900 Census, Austin Township, Greenville County, South Carolina

Nancy Jane lived with her children after the death of William in 1907. She lived to be ninety-five years old and died of blood poisoning from a wound on her foot where a brick had fallen on it. She died on June 6, 1937. She is buried beside William Henry at the cemetery at Conestee, S.C. [Nancy Jane Knight Davis is buried at Conestee Community Cemetery in Greenville, South Carolina.]

Obituary of Nancy J. Knight Davis, The Greenville News, June 8, 1937

*****

Memories of Grandmother Davis . . . . . . . . Martha Davis
From memories of the many conversations at the feet of this writer's Grandmother, facts about the life of William Henry and Nancy Jane Davis stand out.

At the age of seventeen Nancy Jane Knight, who was born May 7, 1843, in Laurens County, South Carolina, became the bride of William Henry Davis. Nancy Jane was one of the four daughters of Matthew and Sophia Burns Knight.

Already war was imminent and soon the young groom had to leave his bride and go fight for the Confederacy. [If Nancy was seventeen when she and Bill married, then they were married in 1860 or early 1861. The Civil War began in April 1861.] Both he and his brother, Louis Pinckney Davis, were in the [cavalry]. A love for their country and fighting blood surged through their veins. Like the Nixons, the Rileys, and the Davises who fought in the Revolutionary War winning land grant after land grant, these two were volunteers. And like the fun loving Bucky Nixon who cared less for the land grants than he did dancing the "flamingo," these two young gallants felt the war could be won in a few months. [I have not yet been able to locate the families referenced here.]

"When the initial volley of shots was fired at the First Battle of Manasses, my hair literally stood on end," wrote Bill or Mr. Davis as his wife so fondly called him. [The First Battle of Manasses, or the Battle of Bull Run, was fought on July 21, 1861.] A few months into the Forty-fifth South Carolina [cavalry] was enough. [I have thus far been unable to find any evidence to support that a forty-fifth SC Cavalry existed.] Bill and Pink gave two Virginia soldiers ten dollars and their horses to get out of the [cavalry] and become foot soldiers. They neither liked the idea of listening to hungry horses chomp their bits all night or to eat horse hair in their food. For the rest of the war, they fought with Jackson and Lee. [This means that Bill and Pinckney, upon trading their horses, became members of the Army of Northern Virginia, even though they were both from South Carolina. This is consistent with the battles in which they fought, as described in Aunt Martha's stories.] Bill wept the day Stonewall Jackson was killed and to his dying day, he maintained that the south would have won the war had that brave general not been killed. [General Stonewall Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men in the left arm on May 2, 1863. After an unsuccessful arm amputation, Gen. Jackson died of pneumonia on May 10, 1863.]

It was always Pink who found food for the hungry soldiers. Many were the times he raided farm smoke houses and bee hives to give a much [needed] meal to the hungry soldiers. Even after taking hives filled with manure, he didn't stop until he found the ones with honey. Somehow Pink always found a way to appease the officers, especially when he had a slice of golden Virginia ham.

The war dragged on. Letters were fewer and far apart: Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and Antietam, which Bill mentioned were like places out of Nancy Jane's old geography book. [The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 22, 1862; the Battle of Chancellorsville was fought on April 30, 1863; the Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1-3, 1863.] She read the letters wondering if the war would ever end. For her times were not easy. Her clothes were wearing thin. Shoes were a prized possession to be wrapped carefully and brought out only on Sunday. She would walk barefoot until she came in sight of the church, then wipe her feet and put on her shoes. Even though she lived on a farm, food was not abundant. Seeds were scarce and there was not a horse to be found in any stable. The white powdery growth on the fodder was used for soda; sweet potatoes were dried and boiled for coffee; and soil from the smoke house was boiled to get salt for food.

Nancy Jane found work in the cotton mill at Reedy River. [I have had some difficulty verifying this fact, as the cotton mills at Reedy River in Greenville County, SC were founded after the Civil War was over.] Work had always been a part of her life and this was nothing new. Many were the times she walked from Reedy River to Laurens, a feat unheard of today. However, this did not [seem] difficult for a woman who had been the boy of the family after the death of her father when she was only ten years old. [As noted above, my research indicates that Nancy's father died when she was thirteen.] Her mother, Sophia, had been given only two acres of land at Little Knob when she married Matthew Knight against the wishes of her parents. [Little Knob is a small peak located in Laurens County, South Carolina.] Life for the Knight family was not an easy one and freedom of the slaves meant little to them. Although Grandmother recalled that all the slaves on the Burns Plantation remained loyal even after the war.

In the early summer of 1865, a tiny bit of a girl was working in the dirty oil lit mill at Reedy River. As she placed a heavy bobbin on the frame, she could hear voices above the clatter of the spinning. Something unusual was happening. "They are coming, Nance. There's a whole band of Lee's men coming around the bend." Nancy couldn't see immediately; people were milling around and the sun was glinting off the bright rail along the steps. Anyway, why had she bothered to go outside, her Bill would not be returning. He had given his life for a lost cause, she thought bitterly as she recalled the notice of Bill's death after the blowup of Petersburg. His whole regiment had been wiped out.

She was lost in her thoughts. Life for her would not be easy. A glint of stubbornness always came into Grandmother's dark eyes as she recalled a moment that lived forever in her memory. "I just stood there looking at that ragged band -- barefooted and half starved -- without really seeing. The voices stopped momentarily, and I looked up to see a tall boy with a man's face staring. No, it couldn't be, but it was Bill. He was smiling as those astonishingly grey eyes searched my face. How? I asked, disbelieving. They said you'd been killed." He brushed back his long, uneven hair and lifted [her] high in his arms.

"It's over, Nance. It could have been the Davis luck when my entire regiment except six were killed in that blowup. Grant's men had all the land mined. We had gone for water when it happened. Blood ran out of my ears and eyes, the shock was so great. What a day -- dry -- dry -- dry. The dust was intolerable. The roar was equal to that of Gettysburg. A cloud of white smoke, rising hundreds of feet into the air covered the entire line. Guns and men were carried up. Burnside and his men crowded into the crater surrounding us. 'What are we going to do?' the men asked. 'Do? Hell, we're going to fight,' I told them and fight we did. Bayonets clashed, for there was no time to reload rifles. Luckily for us most of the Northern forces were freed slaves who knew little about fighting. They kept shouting, 'Remember Fort Pillars and no headquarters.' [This is likely a reference to the Battle of Fort Pillow/Fort Pillow massacre, which took place on April 12, 1864. The phrase "no quarter" is essentially the equivalent to "take no prisoners." The Fort Pillow massacre was a slaughter of surrendering African-American Union troops by Confederate Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his men.] We would fight and then retreat with the enemy in hot pursuit." Grandmother recalled Bill's exact words. "We made a stand at every favorable point until we were no longer pursued. Tired and hungry, we lay on wet leaves near a little stream awaiting help to arrive. Burnside's Negroes might have captured a few guns and many of our already wounded men, but they lost three to four times as many as we did in the battle that followed. Fighting never stopped. Grant hung around Richmond literally starving us out. Even salt pork and hard tack were scarce. Last winter, we just huddled in our dugout for warmth." [The preceding paragraph is a very accurate and vivid description of what was known as the Battle of the Crater, which took place on July 30, 1864.]

One of Bill's narrowest escapes came while he and five other water carriers fought for their lives. While he was stabbing one man, he looked up to see another negro ready to lower the butt of his gun. A gold watch hung from a chain around the negro's neck. Bill grabbed the watch, severing the man's neck. That day, June 15, 1864, was a day Bill never forgot.

Neither did he forget his feeling of pride at being one of the best sharpshooters of the war. Three battalions of those southern men were reduced to forty by the end of the war.

Grandfather always recalled that final march to Appomattox on April 12, 1865. They sang as they marched along but when the order came to stack their arms, tears flowed freely. Many of the men buried their riles in the mud rather than surrender them to those Yankees.

Perhaps one of the most vivid descriptions of the final march of the Army of Northern Virginia was given by General Joshua Chamberlain, who received the formal surrender on behalf of General Grant.

Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond . . . .

Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugles sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry" -- the marching salute. General John B. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, -- honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet, nor roll of drum; not a cheer nor word, nor whisper of vainglorying, nor motion or man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, a breath-holding, as if it were passing of the dead.

Life in the postwar South was difficult. Grandfather and Grandmother farmed until he became a wagon master making the trip from Fork Shoals to Greenville twice a week. Old settlers watched for this tall slender wagon master as he urged his horses to their destination. It was he who invented the two lines for horses. The trip required two days and in bad weather, they spent the night at Antioch Christian Church.

Bill always said no Confederate Soldier could go to Heaven, but the most wonderful thing Grandmother remembered was that he was saved a short time before his death. Her prayers as she taught her Sunday School Class for twenty-five years were answered when her husband surrendered his life to Christ. She loved her [B]ible, and God blessed her with good eyesight and the ability to read it and the Greenville News every day.

Written by Martha Jane Davis, daughter of George Washington Davis and Lucy Belle Friddle Davis.

My DNA Story

2018-07-21T15:04:00.007-04:00

My Ancestry DNA Ethnicity Estimate.

For Christmas 2017, my parents gave me the gift of an autosomal DNA test kit. I was THRILLED! I won't lie, though - it wasn't a huge surprise. Since my parents aren't quite as well-versed in genealogy and DNA testing as I am (which isn't even very much), my mom had previously contacted me to find out which DNA testing company I would be most interested in testing with. Being just a little OCD (okay, a lot OCD - stop laughing, mom!), I had jumped right in to researching which kit would work best for the results I was hoping to get from it.

My ultimate overall goal was to maximize my DNA cousin matches, as I have a 2nd great-grandfather who has, thus far, been for me what genealogists refer to as a "brick wall." This simply means that I have not been able to find much information about him at all, despite MANY hours of research. As I travel back in time through the branches of my family tree, it's as if a brick wall has been built where he appears - my research stops at him and can go no further.

I promise I'll get into those details in a later post, but for now, the point is - I wanted to get as many DNA matches as possible, with the hope of having someone match me who is also descended either from this 2nd great-grandfather or from an ancestor preceding him. That way, I might have a chance of tracking him down or, at the very least, continuing to research that branch of my family tree.

With that in mind, here are the criteria on which I based my choice:

Ethnicity estimate and matching. This was an absolute must. The four largest DNA testing companies - Ancestry, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, and My Heritage - all offer this service, but some of the smaller testing companies offer only the ethnicity estimate.
Database size. I wanted to test with a company that had a lot of users, therefore maximizing my potential cousin matches and giving me the most bang for my parents' bucks. Ancestry DNA has the largest database, currently at over 9 million users. 23andMe boasts 5 million users, and Family Tree DNA has a very respectable 1 million users. Relative newcomer to the DNA party, My Heritage, has quickly grown to almost 1.5 million users. (Source: The DNA Geek)
Transferability. I wanted to test with a company that would allow me to transfer my DNA data to other DNA databases - again, in order to maximize my matches. Luckily, all of the four large testing companies named above allow for the download of your "raw" DNA data from their sites. However, only two of the four (Family Tree DNA and My Heritage) will allow you to upload data from other testing sites. In order to jump into the Ancestry or 23andMe match "pools," you must take either an Ancestry or 23andMe DNA test and then submit that test to its respective company.
Health Analysis. I wanted to be aware of what health issues might potentially be lurking in my genes, since I am reaching the age that some of the more concerning problems (like breast cancer) might start to surface. Currently, 23andMe is the only testing company that provides a health analysis report, although there have been recent rumors that My Heritage may soon offer this service, as well.
Cost. Even though I wasn't personally paying for the test, I still wanted to minimize the out-of-pocket cost, while still achieving my desired results. Luckily, it was Christmastime, and there were lots of sales available!

Ultimately, I chose to test with Ancestry DNA so that I could take advantage of their enormous match database. I would also be able to transfer my results to both Family Tree DNA and My Heritage, and Ancestry was running a sweet Black Friday sale. So that checked off four of my five criteria above. But this meant that I would have to wait until I could test with 23andMe in order to obtain the health analysis, right? Well...not so fast!

As it turns out, there are several other sites out there that offer varying types of analysis tools for your DNA data. One of those sites, Promethease, will allow you to upload your raw DNA data file (downloaded from your chosen testing site) and will, for around $12, generate an individualized DNA report that will tell you the health conditions for which you might have an increased or decreased risk. It may also contain some fun tidbits, like whether or not you carry the marker for blue eyes, or whether you have an increased sense of taste for bitterness!

It was amazing how accurate my Promethease report was. I won't get into all of that here (this is being published for all the world to see, after all), but suffice it to say that there were many items that were spot-on with my family's medical history. Nothing too alarming, but definitely some things to take into consideration as I get older.

Another site that offers many extremely useful DNA analysis tools is GEDMatch. GEDMatch will allow you to upload your raw DNA data from any of the four major DNA testing sites (and some others), and they provide powerful tools to assist with analyzing your matches. One of the greatest benefits to GEDMatch is that it allows you to test with any company, yet still be able to match with those Ancestry or 23andMe users who have also uploaded their data to GEDMatch and with whom you would not otherwise be able to match - that is, unless you had tested directly with the same company. GEDMatch also offers a chromosome browser (as do several of the testing sites, but not Ancestry), which can be useful for helping determine which part of your DNA came from which ancestor. This is helpful when you have a DNA match but are unable to determine who your common ancestor might be.

A final DNA site that I utilized was DNA Painter. This takes the data from the chromosome browser one step further and allows you to "paint" your chromosomes for a more visual representation of the portions of DNA that you share with your matches.

I am still searching for that elusive 2nd great-grandfather, but I am hopeful that by using these tools to analyze my matches, I will locate him one day and eventually be able to further my research on that branch of the family tree.

How about you? Have you taken a DNA test? If so, please comment below and share your thoughts!

The Mystery that Started It All (part 3)

2018-07-14T23:20:00.001-04:00

Note: This is a continuation from previous posts. To start back at part 1, click here.

The Old Seaboard Air Line Railway on the corner of Deadwyler Street and North Oliver Street in Elberton, GA. Directly across North Oliver Street (to the left of the building in this photo) was where the Parham boarding house was once located.

As a preteen or very young teenager, my grandmother was sent by her mother and stepfather to live with her paternal grandmother in Elberton, Georgia. Grandma Eva’s father, James David Parham, had passed away from a gastric hemorrhage caused by a peptic ulcer in 1937, when my Grandma was only nine years old. Her mother, my great-grandmother, who I always knew as “Grandma Bobo” (Annie Mae Jones Parham Bobo) had remarried Snow Robert Bobo just shy of a year later on September 19, 1938.

The story that has always been told through the family is that Grandma Eva's older brother (James David Parham, Jr.) joined the military, and that shortly thereafter Grandma Eva was sent to live with her grandmother. However, I have had some difficulty making that timeline work, as my records show that James joined the Navy in June 1944, which would have been well after Grandma Eva moved to Elberton. At any rate, at some point between 1940 and 1943, Grandma Eva ended up living with her Grandma Parham in Elberton, Georgia.

Grandma Parham (Martha Alma “Martie” Bobo Parham) owned and ran a boarding house at 149 N. Oliver Street in Elberton, Georgia. Her daughter, my grandmother's Aunt Frances (Frances L. Parham Roberts) and her son, my grandmother's Uncle Hubert (Hubert Bulah Parham) also lived in the boarding house with her, at least as of the 1940 census. Grandma Parham had been left widowed when Grandpa Parham (Early Artis Parham) passed away in February 1940. Uncle Hubert enlisted in the Navy in February 1942, and Grandma Parham may have been left needing additional help to run the boarding house.

This is not a time in Grandma Eva's life that she looked back on fondly. She was somewhere between twelve and fifteen years old when she moved to Elberton. In her adulthood, on the rare occasion that she spoke of the boarding house, she described her experience as as being "worked like a slave" and having to do all of the cleaning and most of the cooking for the boarders. My family and I do not believe that she was attending school while she was in Elberton, and we know that she never finished high school. She likely moved to Elberton and immediately began working at the boarding house full-time. I do not know exactly when Grandma Eva went to live with Grandma Parham, but I know for sure that it was sometime after the 1940 census (where she is listed as living in Hartwell with her mother, stepfather and brother) and prior to November 1943.

1940 Census for Hart County, Georgia - Bobo/Parham Family

1940 Census for Elbert County, Georgia - Parham Family

And how do I know that it was prior to November 1943? Well...I know that because of what was in the Magical Cedar Chest. The documents that my mother called me over to see were the photo of my grandmother's baby that I shared in part 2, and a marriage certificate.

For all these years, my grandmother had held on to one 8x10 photo - probably the only photo that had ever existed (I learned later that my great-aunt also had another copy of the same photo) - of the baby that she had lost, and a handwritten marriage certificate, filled out by the preacher on the day that she said her vows.

I finally had their names. Well...sort of.

On the back of the photo was written one word: Bonnie. My parents had been right about the baby's name. But what was her father's name - what was her last name??

SERIOUSLY???? "Prv. G.W. Bryant of Elberton, Georgia." The pastor just HAD to use the man's initials - on his marriage certificate??? *insert scream of frustration here* Well, at least I had that much. In fact, I now knew a lot more than I had known before. I now knew: (1) he was in the military (the rank of private meant either Army or Marines), (2) his last name was Bryant, and his initials were G.W., (3) he had married my grandmother on November 27, 1943, when she was just fifteen years old. I also knew that they were married by Rev. S.S. Williams at 227 N. Oliver Street, just a block away from the boarding house where she lived, most likely at the pastor's residence.

I imagine that my young Grandma was so unhappy living and working at the boarding house with her aunt and her grandmother that when a handsome young soldier - possibly home on leave for Thanksgiving - took interest in her and swept her off her feet, she jumped at the chance to escape from what she believed was her prison. They were so very young! I later learned that Pvt. G.W. Bryant was himself only eighteen at the time of their marriage.

And the baby - my aunt, whose existence I was never even aware of until I was nineteen years old. Her name was Bonnie Bryant. I immediately went to Ancestry and performed a search - and finally hit paydirt.

There is a wonderful site called Find A Grave (www.findagrave.com), and Ancestry immediately pulled up an index to a Find A Grave memorial for Bonnie Rose Bryant. Bonnie Rose. "Beautiful rose." My heart broke once again for my grandmother, who had been forced to bury her beautiful rose way too soon.

I saw her birth date and gasped.

My Grandma Eva had married my Granddaddy on December 23, 1949. Nine months and one week later, my dad had been born - on September 30, 1950. On what would have been his sister's fourth birthday. Oh, what a day of mixed emotions that must have been for my grandmother! As she held her precious new baby in her arms, her mind had to be drawn to the one she had lost just three years earlier. Every year on my father's birthday, my grandmother must have silently added four years to his age. Bonnie would have been ___ years old today.

I clicked on "View Record" and saw Bonnie's headstone.

Photo courtesy of Theron Rogers, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44203723

As my dad had originally told me, she was buried in Elberton, in Elmhurst Cemetery. I knew that I would have to go to visit her grave very soon.

In the meantime, I wanted to know what had happened to Bonnie to cause her to die at such a young age, just two days shy of ten months old. I drafted up a letter to the Elbert County Probate Court requesting a copy of the death certificate and had my dad sign it as next of kin. I was ultimately after two pieces of information: (1) G.W. Bryant's full name, and (2) Bonnie's cause of death. I waited anxiously for the several weeks that it took to receive the certificate. When it finally arrived, I got the answer to one of my questions.

Primary Cause of Death: Choleroforma Diarrhea
Contributory Cause: not known.

I have searched the internet for the meaning of "Choleroforma Diarrhea," but I have come up empty. However, there is a bacteria group called coliform which can cause severe diarrhea. It can be found in well water, which wouldn't at all have been unusual in small-town Elberton, Georgia in the 1940s. So it appears that Bonnie may have died from something similar to E. coli or dysentery. Who knows how long baby Bonnie suffered before finally succumbing to the illness! It must have been absolute torture for Grandma Eva. I have reason to believe that she may have been alone, with no one to turn to for help. Family lore says that her husband left her before the baby died. Some evidence suggests that he may have even been long gone before Bonnie was born.

Grave of Bonnie Rose Bryant, photo courtesy of Bobbie Bobo Bailey (my grandmother's half-sister)

And yet again, on Bonnie's death certificate, her father is listed as "G.W. Bryant." In fact, my grandmother is listed as the informant on the death certificate as "Mrs. G.W. Bryant." I have a great-uncle on my granddaddy's side who was James Edward Powell, Jr., but for his whole life he was always called "J.E." I imagine it must have been the same for G.W. - his initials were his name, as far as anyone was concerned. But I still wanted to know who he was.

Online research wasn't getting me any further in my search. I had a possible suspect, but no solid evidence to prove that he was the man who married my grandmother and then left her and his child. So...recently, I made the trip to Elberton, and I took my mother with me. My dad had hoped to make the trip, but health issues prevented it. So we took LOTS of photos.

Our first stop was the Elbert County Probate Court. My goal there was to obtain three documents: (1) the official, recorded marriage license for the marriage of G.W. Bryant and Eva Parham; (2) the official, recorded marriage license for the marriage of Everett Powell and Eva Parham (my grandparents); and (3) Bonnie Rose Bryant's birth certificate. When we arrived and told the registrar, Cindie Floyd, our story and what we were pursuing, she was EXTREMELY helpful. She pointed us to the marriage record books in the back, where my mom and I immediately dug in and began our search. It didn't take long before we located the first marriage record.

*Sigh.* Pvt. G.W. Bryant, age 18. Well, it was worth a shot. In the meantime, Cindie came back and asked us about the birth record that we needed. I gave her a copy of the death certificate that I had printed out before we left Greenville - the one that, as it turns out, she had actually obtained for me when I had mailed in the letter last year - so that she would have all of the vital information that she needed to look up the birth certificate. She said that because my dad, who was Bonnie's next of kin, wasn't with us, she would need to call the Probate Judge (who was on vacation that week) to obtain permission to give us the birth certificate. She came back a few minutes later to let us know that she had been granted permission. *WHEW!* As we chatted, we expressed our frustration that all of the documents we had obtained thus far only had Bonnie's father's initials. She very casually responded, "Oh, his full name is on the birth certificate. It's George Warren." I had to fight back tears.

George Warren Bryant. I finally had a full name for the mystery man who had been such a part of my grandmother's life. They had married in November 1943. Bonnie was born in September 1946. That means that they were married - that he was actually present - until at least December of 1945, for just over two years. But a couple of items on the birth certificate concerned me, as they seemed to suggest that George Warren Bryant was not present when his daughter was born.

First of all, my grandmother's address on the birth certificate is listed as 149 North Oliver Street. Back at the boarding house. I know how my grandmother felt about that boarding house, and I don't think that anything could have caused her to move back there - unless she had no choice. Unless she was alone. Secondly, while George Warren's name is listed as the father on the birth certificate - take a look at his place of birth. Unknown. It is likely that George Warren Bryant knew where he was born. Had he been there with his wife and newborn daughter, he could have easily provided this information for the birth certificate.

Of course, this is pure hypothesis on my part. But I believe it is compelling, and we know that George Warren was absent by the time his daughter died.

After solving the mystery of George Warren Bryant's full name, my mom and I turned back to the marriage books to try to locate the marriage record for my grandmother and granddad. The story that my granddad always told was that he and my grandmother had to search all over the place to locate a preacher to marry them. It was two days before Christmas 1949, and they finally went to Preacher J.C. West's house and were married.

When I told this story to the other (very helpful) registrar at the Probate Court, Mary West, she smiled. She was familiar with Preacher West, and even told us where his house had been located - at the back of the property where Concord United Methodist Church sat. Concord Methodist is located on Harmony Road, which is the road that leads out of Elberton toward Hartwell. We had actually passed it on our way into town. The church's fellowship hall sat on the property where Preacher West's house was and where my grandparents had been married. The church sits up on a hill, with a cemetery that stretches alongside and in front of the church building. It also happens to be the final resting place for the "G.W. Bryant" that I had long suspected was my grandmother's ex-husband.

As Mary from the Probate Court also informed us, Preacher West's daughter Julia was the Elbert County Probate Judge for a while in those days. Sure enough, when I took a look at Bonnie's birth and death certificates, I saw that they were both signed by Julia W. West.

Despite an exhaustive search in which we came across many other marriages performed by Preacher West, my mom and I were unable to locate the marriage certificate for my grandparents.

After grabbing a bite to eat, my mom and I headed to the Elbert County Courthouse, which is a separate building from where the Probate Court is located. The courthouse was erected in 1894 and is an absolutely gorgeous old building.

Elbert County Courthouse, 12 S. Oliver St., Elberton, GA

My goal in going to the courthouse was to obtain a copy of the divorce record between my Grandma Eva and George Warren Bryant. When we walked into the Clerk of Court's office, we were shown to a small iron vault containing many old court record books. Some of these books dated back to the early 1800s. When we narrowed down which book should contain the divorce decree, it was nowhere to be found. It contained many others, but not the one we were looking for. We were informed by the young lady working in the Clerk's office that the petition for divorce would have had to be filed in the county where the defendant lived. In other words, if my grandmother had been the one to file for divorce against G.W., and G.W. was living in another county, those records would be held in that county's courthouse, so there is definitely more research to be done before giving up on that search. Still, I couldn't help but wonder - could it be that they never legally divorced? We hadn't been able to find a marriage record for my grandparents, after all.

We left the courthouse and headed toward the county cemetery - Elmhurst Cemetery, where Bonnie is buried. Y'all, that place is massive. It is a beautiful and peaceful cemetery, with granite headstone markers dotting the landscape. Elberton, Georgia is, after all, the "Granite Capital of the World."

Elmhurst Cemetery, Elberton, Georgia

It was 97 degrees out in the hot Georgia sun, and I wondered if we would ever be able to find Bonnie's grave. However, I had printed out the Find A Grave page, with photos, before leaving my house. My mom and I had a short de-briefing where we studied the size and shape of the headstone, and then we attempted to divide and conquer. Within about twenty minutes, we had found her.

Her headstone is small and almost the entire top half is covered with lichen. It is the first grave beside one of the cemetery through-roads, on the right-hand side of the cemetery as you enter from North Oliver Street. Bonnie's plot has bricks in a perimeter around it, with an empty gravesite to the right. My mom and I wondered if maybe my grandmother had purchased both plots, intending to one day be buried beside her daughter. Placing a call to the city's offices to inquire about the cemetery records is still on my to-do list.

My mom made the comment while we were at the cemetery that she wished that we had brought a rose with us to place on Bonnie's grave. I am sure that we were the first people to visit her grave in quite a while, and it may be a long time before anyone visits again. It is likely that those of us who were connected to my Grandma Eva are the only ones who even know who this baby was, or that she existed at all.

As we got back in my car to leave, we decided that there was one more place that we had to visit on our way out of town. Even though we have no irrefutable evidence that he was the man we were looking for, there is an awful lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the G.W. Bryant buried in the Concord United Methodist Church cemetery was, in fact, my grandmother's first husband and Bonnie's father. He was the right age, being born on February 23, 1925. He was in the military, enlisting in the U.S. Army on June 10, 1943. His enlistment records show his Civil Occupation as "Farm hands, general farms," and Bonnie's birth certificate lists her father's occupation as "Farmer." He was released from the Army on October 31, 1945, so he would have been back home just a couple of months prior to Bonnie's conception.

And the most compelling thing, at least in my mind, is that even his very gravestone names him as "G.W. Bryant."

So we decided to pay him a visit.

Reverend G.W. Bryant and his much younger wife, Emily

It would be so easy for me to be filled with anger toward this man, who caused my sweet Grandma Eva so much pain and heartache. But instead, I was only filled with sadness when standing beside his grave. It struck both my mom and me as incredibly sad that G.W.'s parents and younger brother are also buried at this cemetery, just a few feet away, while his young daughter is buried alone, all the way across town. Did he even know of her existence? Did his family? Did he ever wonder what had happened to the young bride that he had left behind? Was he just a scared kid who didn't feel ready to become a father so soon after returning home from war?

Oh yes, I still have many, many questions. But I feel that this journey has brought me so much closer to my Grandma Eva. I miss her more now than ever, but at the same time, I can relate to her as so much more than just "Grandma." She was also a (very) young bride and a mother, facing and overcoming obstacles that no one should have to face, much less at such a young age. She overcame it all with grace and ultimately decided to give love one more chance - with another young soldier, no less - and I am so glad that she did!

And about that marriage certificate - my mom texted me later in the afternoon on the same day that we returned from Elberton. As it turns out, my grandparents' marriage was recorded in Hart County, Georgia, which is why we were unable to locate the record at the Elberton Probate Court. How did she make this determination, you ask? Well, she found their marriage certificate - hidden away in the Magic Cedar Chest!

For part 4, click here.

The Mystery that Started It All (part 2)

2018-07-10T22:41:00.000-04:00

Bonnie Rose Bryant, 9/30/46 - 7/28/47

Note: This is a continuation from a previous post. For part 1, click here.

For most of my life, I lived right next door to my paternal grandparents. My parents bought the house I grew up in when my mom was pregnant with my sister and I was barely five years old. When I was in elementary school, I would walk the block and a half home from school straight to my grandparents' house to stay. Even when I started middle school and became older and more trustworthy, I would first check in with Grandma (and get a snack, because, well ... she was my sweet southern Grandma and that's what sweet southern grandmas do!) before going next door to my house to do homework and chores until my parents got home from work. But I almost always stopped in at Grandma's house first.

I saw her nearly every day of my life. And now - now that she was gone, I learned that she had an entire other life before me, my sister, my dad, my Aunt Cynthia, and my Granddad. Oh, what I would give to have been able to ask her about it while she was alive! Of course, my Granddad knew about my grandmother's previous marriage and child. But my dad didn't know of his older half-sister's existence until well into his adulthood - sometime after he and my mom were married. My Aunt Cynthia found out from a cousin who mentioned it one day, assuming that Cynthia already knew. When Cynthia went back and asked her mother about it, Grandma confirmed that yes, she did have an older sister that had died as a baby. But I don't think she got much more information than that. I'm pretty sure my Granddad didn't even know a whole lot about what had happened. My poor Grandma just couldn't bear to talk about that chapter of her life - it was much too painful, even more so than the intense physical pain that she endured on a daily basis. On the rare occasion that the subject was ever broached, her response was, "We don't talk about that." So they didn't.

You know that verse in the Bible at the end of the Christmas story? "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) That is exactly how I picture my Grandma, keeping all of these things - the agony and hopelessness that she had endured while watching her baby suffer from an illness that eventually took her life, the pain and heartache of being abandoned and left alone as a very young wife and mother - all of these things she kept in her heart and pondered them, alone, sharing her thoughts with no one.

This, folks, is the mystery that started it all. I wanted to know more. Who was this baby? What was her name? How old was she? What had caused her to die? When was she born? When did she die? Who was this jerk that had run off and left my poor Grandma with a sick baby? Or was that even what had happened? What was his name? How did they meet? My curiosity about this chapter of my Grandma Eva's life was the catalyst that launched me into my ~~obsession with~~ passion for genealogy. I wanted to know the whole story. I would give anything in the world to be able to sit down with my Grandma Eva just one more time, for so many reasons. But this is probably the first thing I would ask her about.

If you have looked at the photo at the top of this post, then you know that I have discovered the answers to some of those questions. But many of them still remain.

From what I gathered from my initial interrogation of my parents, they thought the baby's name was Bonnie and that she was buried somewhere in Elberton, Georgia. Several years passed before I really had the opportunity to put any time into gathering more information (I did have to finish college, after all), but I eventually joined Ancestry.com and started digging. And came up with...nothing.

Sigh. Well, I suppose that's only fair. I mean, what exactly did I have to go on, anyway? Her name might have been Bonnie, I had no idea what her last name was, she was born and died sometime prior to December 1949 when my grandparents were married, she was buried somewhere in Elberton, and her mother's maiden name was Eva Alma Parham. But even a search for a birth record with my Grandma's name on it came up empty. Apparently Elbert County, Georgia didn't have their records online yet (and still don't).

So...I waited. I continued my genealogy quest through the other branches of my family tree, but occasionally I would go back and run a few searches hoping...just maybe I would find something this time. But alas, still nothing.

Everett Frank Powell and Melanie Elisha Powell

And then... in February 2014, we lost my Granddaddy. His health had been failing, and dementia had been slowly taking him away from us for years before his physical death. He lived in the home that he had shared with my Grandma for so many years, next door to my parents, until we were afraid that he was going to seriously harm himself or burn down the house - or both. So about a year before his death, my family moved him into a nursing facility in Easley, South Carolina where he could receive full-time care and supervision. While walking around the nursing home on the afternoon of Friday, February 21, he fell and broke his hip. He was immediately transported to the hospital, where he was treated for pain until the doctors made the decision as to what treatment plan to pursue. On the morning of February 22, the doctors performed surgery for the broken hip, which they said he came through with flying colors. That is, right up until he got to recovery.

While my grandfather was in the recovery room after his surgery, he suddenly aspirated and choked, causing him to go into afib - atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular heart rhythm. The doctors were able to correct the rhythm, but he was put on a ventilator and a feeding tube was inserted - basically, he was on life support. If my memory is correct, I believe that he was kept in a medically-induced coma. After a couple of days, he appeared to be doing better, and the ventilator was removed on Tuesday, February 25.

On Wednesday morning, February 26, 2014, I was at my job in Spartanburg County when I received a call from my fiancée, Mathew. My Granddaddy had suddenly "thrown" a blood clot and had completely stopped breathing. He was gone. Mathew told me that he was coming to pick me up from work to take me to be with my family at the hospital. Then a few minutes later, I got a call from my mom - amazingly, they had found a very faint pulse and been able to revive my Granddaddy, but he wouldn't last long. When Mathew arrived to get me, we went straight to the hospital, traveling faster than we probably should have been. The rest of my family - my mom and dad, my sister and brother-in-law and their two boys, and my Aunt Cynthia - were already there in the waiting room. Two of the pastors from our church were also there and were in the room with my grandfather. I was the last family member to arrive - they had waited for me to get there before turning off the life support. I went back to the recovery room to see my Granddaddy. After a few minutes and a prayer by one of the pastors, the doctors turned off the machines that were keeping him alive. This time, I got the chance to say goodbye. I was holding his hand when he took his last breath.

Granddaddy with me and my newborn sister

In the months after my grandfather's passing, my parents undertook the task of cleaning out the house that my grandparents had shared. One particular item that had always been a bit of a mystery to me was my Grandma's large "Cedar Chest." It was always called the Cedar Chest, these two words always being said together as if they were the item's proper name. I knew that the Cedar Chest contained unimaginable treasures. As a kid, I had a weird obsession with John F. Kennedy (and still do, really). Upon request, my Grandma would periodically pull out and show me the copies of the Life Magazines and The Greenville News from November 23, 1963 that she had safely stored away - the large headline read "JFK IS ASSASSINATED." I would pore over them until she safely stored them away again in her magical Cedar Chest. But I was never allowed to look in or go through the Cedar Chest by myself. Only Grandma could access the special treasures that it contained.

So I got very excited one afternoon when my parents called me up after going through some items at my grandparents' house.

"Melanie, you may want to come over here and take a look at these things. We found some documents in your Grandma's Cedar Chest that you are going to want to see."

To be continued...

For part 3, click here.

The Mystery that Started It All (part 1)

2018-07-08T17:13:00.002-04:00

Eva Alma Parham

On August 17, 1996, when I was eighteen years old, I experienced my first significant loss of a family member. I say "significant," not because any losses before this were inconsequential, but because up to this point in my life, I had never really lost someone close to me. My great-grandmother, "Grandma Bobo" (Annie Mae Jones Parham Bobo), had passed away in 1990 when I was in middle school, but she had lived in Georgia and my family had never been particularly close with her. We had visited her a few times, and she had visited us a few times, but she wasn't a significant presence in my life. There were also a few great-aunts and great-uncles, and one great-grandfather, that had passed away throughout my childhood, but again - no one who had been present in my life on a regular basis.

But this. This was SIGNIFICANT.

I had just moved into my college dorm room the day before. It was the start of my sophomore year at Winthrop University, and I had spent the entire day working with the Baptist Student Union to help freshmen students move in. Two full days of hauling televisions, boxes, loft beds and suitcases up several flights of dormitory stairs in the August heat of South Carolina. I was EXHAUSTED. But I was also excited because I had plans to go to a concert that night with several of my friends. I had retired to my room to shower and get dressed, and I was almost ready to leave to meet up with my friends when someone knocked on my door. I looked out the peep hole and saw my mom and her parents - my Grandma and PaPa Foster. What in the world?!? What are they doing here? Don't they know I'm about to go out? Something is wrong.

My first thought was that something had happened to my great-grandmother, Ruth Garrett. Grandma Garrett had just turned 87 years old in July, and her health had been fading. It didn't otherwise make sense to me that my grandparents had made the 2-hour drive from Greenville to Rock Hill to see me, unannounced. Looking back on it now, I realize that it didn't make sense at all that my grandmother would have traveled that far to tell me that her mother had passed away - I'm sure she would have had more important immediate needs to attend to, let alone the emotions she would have been dealing with. But this was the thought process that went through my mind - all within the time that it took me to turn the doorknob and open the door.

I said hi, gave hugs and welcomed them in to my room. I may have even mentioned that I was about to leave. But the serious look on my mom's face told me that something was going on. I don't remember her exact words to me, but I'm sure they were something to the effect of "Melanie, we came to take you home. Your Grandma Eva passed away this morning."

The rest of that day is a bit of a blur that I remember only in snapshots. I remember wearing the denim dress that I had put on for the concert and hugging my teddy bear - the one with the giant feet that my high school best friend had given me for my birthday. I remember sitting on my dorm room bed crying, my mom sitting beside me with her arm around me. I remember staring out the window of the car on the drive home, still hugging that teddy bear, my mom sitting in the back seat with me while my grandfather drove. I remember pulling into my parents' driveway and my dad meeting us in the yard, grabbing me and hugging me. I remember sitting in my grandparents' living room - in the very chair where she passed - while my mom and Granddaddy sat at the kitchen table talking. I remember my Aunt Cynthia finally arriving after a friend drove her down from her home in Graham, North Carolina - she nearly fell out of the car and stumbled across the front yard, practically falling into my dad's arms. I remember that my mom had rearranged the furniture in her living room sometime between my departure the day before and my sudden re-arrival - and I. did. not. like. it. It didn't feel like home. Nothing felt the same anymore.

Most of all, I remember the intense disbelief - I had just seen my Grandma the day before! She couldn't possibly be dead! My grandparents had lived next door to me for almost my entire life, and I saw them every day. She had come outside in the driveway in her nightgown to see me off early on the morning of the 16th while we were loading up the rented cargo van to move me out. I had told her I loved her, playfully fussed at her for coming out in her nightgown, and told her to go back inside. Little did I know, it would be the last time I would ever see her.

Grandma Eva and me, c. 1978

My Grandma Eva seemed to be made of titanium (and I think some parts of her actually were). She was one heck of a tough lady. She lived most of her life in intense pain from rheumatoid arthritis. She had endured multiple joint replacements - both knees and a wrist, and her hands were twisted and gnarled from the arthritis. She wore leather, laced-up braces on her wrists for as long as I could remember. She walked slowly, in a shuffle, because she had trouble bending her knees. She was a beloved cafeteria lady at the local middle school, but had been forced into early retirement due to her limited mobility. But she never complained. NEVER. She had more of a right to feel sorry for herself than anyone I have ever known - for more reasons than I was even aware of at the time - but she never, ever did. She did her best not to let her limitations keep her from enjoying life and doing the things that she wanted to do. Perhaps it's the passage of time blurring my memories, but even when she had a heart attack a few years prior to her death, I don't remember much changing once she had fully recovered. She hosted "Sunday dinner" at her house every Sunday after church. She and my mom split the cooking duties, but we always had to have Grandma Eva's macaroni and cheese and fried okra. She was an avid Atlanta Braves fan, and she and my Granddaddy took my sister and me to several games. They would travel with the senior group from church, and even took a trip once to Disney World. I visited Nashville, Tennessee with them several times while my Aunt Cynthia was in graduate school there. Every Christmas, Grandma would go on a cooking spree - making candies, "peanut butter crunch" and fudge for us to enjoy. She simply insisted on doing what she wanted, when and how she wanted, as much as she possibly could.

On the morning of August 17, 1996, my Grandma Eva and my Granddaddy had gotten up and gone through their normal Saturday morning routine. My Granddad went to meet his buddies for coffee at the local Krispy Kreme and then to walk laps around the local mall, the way he had every Saturday morning for years. My dad had gone in to wrap up some paperwork in the office at the exterminating company where he had worked for many years, and where my Granddad had worked before him. My parents were a one-car family, so my mom had driven him to the office that morning and then come back home. My mom and my 13-year-old sister were in our house, cleaning and rearranging furniture. My Aunt Sharon and cousin Jill had just left after a brief visit, and my mom and sister had made plans to meet them for lunch later. When a dear church friend, Laura Daugherty, stopped by my grandparents' house to visit and deliver some vegetables from her garden and couldn't get anyone to come to the door after several tries, she went next door to speak to my mother. The two of them walked across the yard to my grandparents' house and could see through the window where my Grandma was sitting in her normal spot in her chair in the living room. The front door was locked. From the angle where they were looking through the window, her legs were all that could be seen. My grandmother took medication to help her sleep at night, so they assumed that she had fallen asleep in her chair and wasn't waking up to the knocking on the door. My Granddaddy was unreachable - this was in the days prior to anyone and everyone carrying a cell phone. My mom didn't have a key to my grandparents' house, but my dad did. My mom and sister quickly drove to the office and told my dad he had to come home immediately. When they arrived back home and my dad unlocked the door, my younger sister ran into the house before anyone could stop her. There, she found my Grandma, slumped in her chair with her nitroglycerin pills spilled in her lap. She was gone, having died suddenly at age 68 from her second heart attack.

* * * * * * * * * *

When I came home for Christmas break the following December, we went as a family to place flowers on my Grandma's grave. As we were getting back in the car at the cemetery, my dad mumbled something to my mom about "where the baby is buried down in Georgia."

"What baby?" I asked from the back seat.

"Your Grandma's baby."

"Grandma's baby? I didn't know she had another baby besides you and Aunt Cynthia. Was this after Cynthia was born?"

"No, this was the baby she had with her first husband."

"FIRST husband?!?"

"Yes. Your Grandma was married before your Granddaddy. She had a baby that got very sick and eventually died when she couldn't get anyone to help her. She was alone because her husband had left her."

Say WHAT?!?!?!?

Apparently, I still had a lot to learn about my Grandma Eva.

To be continued...

For part 2, click here.

Introductions

2018-07-07T20:30:00.001-04:00

For my very first blog post, I thought it would only be appropriate to introduce you to some of the people who helped to make me who I am - literally. Meet my ancestors (and a few cousins and aunts and uncles). Well, some of them, at least. The background image of this blog consists of a photo collage of many of the people who made me...me. All four of my grandparents, who I was so incredibly blessed to have with me until my adulthood, are captured in these photos. Many of my great-grandparents are here, and their parents and grandparents. Oh, sure - I never even met many of them. The majority of the people in these photos were long gone before I was even a twinkle in my parents' eyes. But without them, I would not be who I am today. I wouldn't be anybody at all! They were and are resilient, strong, hard-working southern folks. So it is my desire to remember and to honor them - to tell their stories so that they become much more than names, dates and records in my family tree. That will all unfold eventually, but for now, please allow me to make some brief introductions:

Meet my ancestors. Well, some of them, at least.

Top row, left to right:

My 2nd great-grandparents Columbus Cromwell Foster and Tecora Savilla Bryant Foster holding their sons Columbus Ransom Foster (my great-grandfather) & William Kenneth Foster.
My great-grandparents Ruth Beatrice Davis and Luther Earl Garrett with their three oldest children - Luther Earl Garrett, Jr., Betty Louise Garrett (my maternal grandmother), and Carroll Charlie Garrett.
Four generations of Parham men - standing in the back from left to right: James Jackson Parham, Jr., Early Artis Parham, and James David Parham (my great-grandfather). The young boy standing in front is James David Parham, Jr., my paternal grandmother's older brother.
My 3rd great-grandmother, Elvina Mauldin Black.
My maternal grandfather, Vealon Elbert Foster, and his older sister Margaret Florine Foster (later Limbaugh). "Aunt Margaret" was also a family historian, and her work was a springboard for a lot of my research.

Middle row, left to right:

My paternal grandfather, Everett Frank "Pee Wee" Powell, with one of his older brothers, James Edward "J.E." Powell, Jr. and their father (my great-grandfather) James Edward Powell.
My 3rd great-grandparents, Allen Aaron Jones and Corel Cymbaline Martin Jones. They were ages 19 and 17 when they got married. Judging by how young they look in this picture (and the absence of children), I believe this may have been their wedding photo.
My 2nd great-grandfather, George Washington Davis. "Grandpa Davis" owned a large dairy farm in Piedmont, South Carolina.
This beautiful lady is my precious maternal grandmother, Betty Louise Garrett Foster.
Sitting on top of the car are my great-grandmother, Annie Mae Jones Parham, an unidentified family friend, and my precious paternal grandmother, Eva Alma Parham, in a bonnet. The license plate on the front of the car says 1929.

Bottom row, left to right:

William Jefferson King, my 3rd great-grandfather.
My father's older half-sister, Bonnie Rose Bryant, who died in infancy in Elberton, Georgia. I never knew about Bonnie's existence until after my grandmother's death in 1996.
My great-grandmother, Lois W. Bell Powell, who died at age 32 during childbirth after already having given birth to seven children.
My precious paternal grandmother (again), Eva Alma Parham Powell.
My 2nd great-grandparents, Andrew Paul Black and Elvie Lenora King Black.

More on these folks will come later, I promise!