North Carolina, Oral History, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Was it that long?

They are now swaddled in acid-free paper in an acid-free box: three coils of plaited hair. Two are narrow as fettucine (and nearly as flat after all this time), tapering through a curl to nothing; the first a deep, deep brown, the other sandy. The third braid is twice as long as the others and, at its thickest, the breadth of an infant’s forearm. If I place the cut end at the nape of my neck, the tip unfurls heavily to the seat behind me.

No visit to my grandmother was complete without her lifting a small green leatherette suitcase from atop a chifforobe in her bedroom. Underneath packets of photographs, which I also had to examine, she eased out the plastic bags preserving the hair cut from her own head (the great thick braid); her mother Bessie‘s (the thin dark brown one); and her mother’s first cousin, her namesake Hattie Mae (the blondeish plait.) Hattie Mae died in 1908 at the age of 13. Bessie died in 1911 at the age of 19. Her own hair she cut in the late 1950s, after enduring years of headaches from the relentless pressure it exerted when coiled atop her head. It was only the second time she’d cut it.

And so Mama was working at the factory, and I used to go up there and look at her. And so that’s when I first cut my hair. I went there, and the lady was asking Mama at the table where she worked to, and she didn’t say nothing to me, but she said, “Unh, who is that child with all of that long hair?” And she took one of my plaits and held it up. I had it in three plaits. I’ll never forget it. I had one down here used to come here. Yeah, it come down to below the shoulder. Like I plait it up, and it be from there. Two plaits here and then this one down across. And I always put that one behind my ear. ‘Cause I didn’t like it parted in the middle. Seem like it just wasn’t right in the middle. So I asked Mama ‘bout cutting my hair, could I cut my hair. ‘Cause everybody: “How come you don’t cut your hair? ‘Cause you’d look pretty in a bob.” I don’t know. I just wasn’t half combing it. And it was nappy. Like I’d go to try to comb it, and knots would be in there. And then I’d get mad with it. Then I’d take the scissors and clip that little piece off. And then all that other part would come off. And so I wondered, “Mama, could – ” “It’s your head. It’s your hair. I don’t care if you cut it off.” And so one day, a fellow stayed up there on Vick Street was a barber downtown, a colored fellow, Charlie Barnes or whatever his name is. So he passed there one day, and I asked him, “Would you cut my hair for me?” And he said, “Yeah.” Said, “You come on down to the shop.” And I said, “Where is the shop?” And he went on and tried to tell me, and then he stopped there one day, and he told me, he said, “You say you want to get your hair cut?” He said, “You got too pretty a hair to cut.” And I said, “Yeah, but I can’t half comb it.” He said, “Well, anytime you want to come on down there, I’ll cut it for you, if it’s all right with your mama. You ask your mama?” I said, “Yeah, she allowed me to cut it.” So sho ‘nough, I went around there one Saturday morning, went down there. And so, he turned around and cut off my plaits on both sides ‘cause I had two plaits there. He cut them off, and then he put some kind of stuff on it and then somehow fluffed it all up. Awww, I thought I was something. I reckon I was ‘bout 12, 13 years old. After then I cut it off in a boyish bob.

I got a plait of Hattie Mae’s hair and a plait of my mama’s, Bessie’s hair, and then mine. I was looking at that the other day, and I looked at it, and I said, “Huh, it was that long?” Rudy, Rudy Farmer took that picture. ‘Cause I – He saw my hair. I was standing there with my housecoat on. I still got that thing now. And: “Goodness! I didn’t know your hair was that long!” We were staying on Reid Street. And he said, “I’d sure like to have a picture of that.” And I said, “Well, you got a Kodak?” And he said, “Yeah! You’d let me take a picture?” I said, “Yeah.” And so he went home and got it and took a picture of it. I was standing up in one and sitting down in one.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Oral History, Photographs

She was smart, and she was musical.

FINALS AT COLORED SCHOOL.

Statesville Colored Graded School Closed Tuesday Night with a Very Creditable Performance.

The closing exercises of the Statesville graded school were held Tuesday night in the new building. Before the exercises began at 8.30, a representative of this paper had the pleasure of looking thru the building and inspecting the most creditable exhibits of the work accomplished by the pupils of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades. The exhibit showed surprising skill in drawing, sewing, fancy needle work and other forms of handiwork.

When the exercises began, the auditorium and two adjoining school rooms were filled, and the good order maintained was a noticeable feature. The opening chorus and duet by members of the graduating class were much appreciated by the audience.

“Resolved: That girls are more expensive to raise than boys,” was the subject of the debate discussed in an interesting manner by Eugene Harris and Harry Chambers, on the affirmative, and Guy B.Golden and Jettie M. Davidson, on the negative.

GRADUATING EXERCISES.

Class History. Buster B. Leach

Class Prophecy. Annie B. Headen

Class Poem. Willie D. Spann

Solo — ‘Be Still, O Heart.’ Thomas R. Hampton

Class Will. Maurie Dobbins

Valedictory. Louise Colvert

Class Song – ‘Fealty’

CLASS ROLL.

Mary Louise Colvert, Maurie Catherine Dobbins, Lillian Gennetta Moore, Willie DeEtte Spann, Buster Brown Leach, Annie Bell Headen, Thomas Richard Hampton, Eloise Earnestine Bailey.

Class Motto – We Learn Not for School, But for Life.

The colored people of Statesville take great pride in their school. They have a modern school building, steam heated and supplied with the latest equipment, something which very few towns and cities of the State have provided for its colored population. C.W. Foushee, the principal, has proven himself to be a good school man. He is assisted by eight teachers.

— Statesville The Landmark, 7 June 1923.

Louise went up to New Jersey and finished high school. They didn’t have a black high school in Statesville. They just had tenth grade. And she went to Jersey and finished high school in Jersey and then took a course in teacher’s education somewhere. I don’t know whether it was Winston-Salem or Salisbury. And then she taught at – Louise played an organ, I mean, she could play the piano. Yeah, she was just as smart as she could be. And she not only could teach, but she was musical. And she had heard she could get a job anywhere because she could do that. And I know Golar used to teach school, but Louise would do her commencement exercise for her. She would, Louise would do that, and they would have concerts. Not concerts, but the whole county would compete. And Golar’s thing would always bring a group of children, ‘cause Louise would teach them, you know. I don’t know, I can’t remember the name of that place. But she had a school out there. Williams Grove. And Louise used to do all the playing for that school, and they would ask her to prepare them for the thing. They had these county somethings. But it involved the whole county. The schools were all over Iredell County. And they would come together, and they would, it would be a big march, and then they would meet somewhere in particular, and then they would compete with the groups of singers and everything like that. And, child, when Louise started that stuff, when she started teaching, she had groups singing – young people and the older people, and then Golar would take her to her school and get her to teach her children.

Happy birthday, Aunt Louise.

Mary Louise Colvert Renwick (6 October 1906-15 September 1989)

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DNA, Maternal Kin, Photographs, Virginia

DNAnigma, no. 9: John Allen’s haplogroup.

John Allen resembled his mother Mary Brown Allen in the fullness of his face, in his heavy brow, and in the shape of his wide, straight mouth. Where her skin was a smooth walnut-brown, however, his was the creamy pale yellow of a pat of butter. Of his father, we know nothing at all except this: he was white. This conclusion, which has long rested on family lore, physical appearance and common-sense conjecture, has been confirmed in the Y-DNA haplogroup of his male descendants. The DNA of my uncle, son of John Allen’s son John Jr., yielded haplotype R1b1b2a1a1. R1b is the most common haplogroup in western Europe and is particularly prevalent in men whose ancestors lived in modern-day England, Ireland and France. Y-DNA is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son. (In other words, my grandfather and his brothers, then their sons, then the sons of those sons, inherited. By my count, seven of my great-grandfather’s patrilineal descendants survive. Their ages range from 10 to 81.) It does not recombine, and thus Y-DNA changes only by chance mutation at each generation. For this reason, it is useful in making connections among the male descendants of a common ancestor. Additional testing may help solve the mystery of John Allen’s paternity. [Update here.]

Photograph in the collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Oral History, Paternal Kin

Two sisters.

We would visit A’nt Nancy in Goldsboro. Her oldest daughter married the undertaker, Jim Guess. And her youngest daughter, me and her was the same age. Bessie Lee. And Mama used to go over there to see A’nt Ella. And A’nt Ella stayed up there on that other little street back there, but her and Nancy were sisters. Two sisters. So, I said, ‘I’m going over there, and they all never come and see me or nothing.’ So I stopped going, and after Mama died, I just forgot about it. ‘Cause they ain’t never bothered nothing about it. And then too, they seemed like they were cool. They wasn’t friendly enough. Like to say, if you’re family and have something to talk about, or go talk about anything, just make up something to say. Act like you like ‘em whether you did or not, while they was around. So I stopped going over there. ‘Cause Bessie Lee …. Let’s see, the last time I was over there, she had gone some place and so I didn’t get to see her that time. So I said, she didn’t never want to come to Wilson to see me, and I had always asked her ‘bout coming to Wilson, and she said she was coming over there sometime, but she never did. So I just stopped going to Goldsboro, too. I don’t know what happened to them.

Nancy, born about 1865, and Louella Henderson, born about 1876, were daughters of James and Louisa Armwood Henderson. In 1881, Nancy married Isham Smith, freeborn son of Milly Smith and her enslaved husband Peter Ward. They settled in the Harrell Town section of Goldsboro, where Isham worked as a wagon driver and then an undertaker. Their children were: Annie Smith Guess (1883), Oscar Smith (1884), Furney Smith (1886), Ernest Smith (1888), Elouise Marie Smith (1890), Johnnie Smith (1891), Mary E. Smith Southerland (1894), James Smith (1896), Willie Smith (1899), Effie May Smith Stanfield (1904), and Bessie Lee Smith (1911). (Was Bessie really a daughter? Or a granddaughter?) Isham died in 1914, and Nancy married Patrick Diggs four years later. After Patrick’s death, Nancy restored her first husband’s surname. She died in Goldsboro in 1944 after suffering a fractured pelvis from a fall from her bed.

Louella Henderson is more difficult to trace. My grandmother recalled that Ella was married twice, the first time to a King, and moved from Goldsboro to a city in the North Carolina Piedmont, perhaps Gastonia. Wayne County census records reveal an Adam and Ella King, but their marriage license lists Ella’s maiden name as Herring. An Ella Wilson witnessed Nancy Henderson Smith’s second marriage, but the Ella Wilson (wife of Ed) listed in the 1930 census is much too young. Though she must have lived into the 1920s at least, I can find no certain trace of Ella after the 1880 census. [Update here.]

[P.S. The continuing connection between Nancy Henderson Smith and her siblings’ families is evidenced by the frequency with which her son-in-law James Guess was called upon to handle their funerals. Nonetheless, knowledge of the connection seems to have dropped off sharply after her death. I have met only one person — my grandmother — who knew that undertaker James Guess (whom people had heard of) had married into the family or that any Smiths in Goldsboro were their kin. And I’ve been unable to locate any Smith descendants.]

Maternal Kin, Oral History, Virginia

Mystery sister.

In the early 1940s, my uncle recently said, a mysterious woman appeared at his grandparents’ house. My uncle alone was there because he stayed with them sometimes during the school year; his aunt Marion was his teacher. In the manner of the day, no one bothered to introduce a child to an adult, but he gathered that the woman was Papa Allen’s sister. This was a surprise to him, as he had not known his grandfather to have any such relatives. The woman looked much like Papa, with very light skin. He never saw her again, and whether she ever returned he cannot say.

Who was this woman? She was not Emma Allen Whirley, John Allen‘s younger half-sister, who was not light-skinned and probably was dead by 1940. Could she have been Nannie, the 5 year-old listed in Graham and Mary Allen‘s household in the 1880 census of Charles City County? Nannie’s birth predated Graham and Mary’s marriage, and it is not clear which is her parent. Her pale skin suggests that Mary was her mother, and her father was, perhaps, the same white man that begot John. No other record of her has been found. She may have been the mother of Junius and Milton Allen, the grandsons recorded with Graham and Mary in the 1900 census, but I suspect that they were born to Emma before her marriage. Otherwise, if Nannie is the woman who appeared on Marshall Avenue just before the outbreak of World War II, she has eluded detection in the record.

DNA, Paternal Kin

DNAnigma, no. 8: the Quester.

I’ll call him “Eric.” He rides the top of my list at Ancestry DNA, and at 23andme is my closest match beyond those relatives I consider my immediate family. He is an adoptee, born out West in 1980. He tested to find clues to his parentage and to his ethnic background, and I was the first blood relative he’s ever “met.”

Ancestry estimated our relationship at 3rd cousins, and I encouraged him to test with 23andme, which posited 2nd to 3rd cousins (2.43% shared DNA across 6 segments.) More critically, 23andme revealed that my connection to Eric is through my father, with whom he is an estimated 1st to 2nd cousin, sharing 6.76% across 18 segments! (He and my sister share 3.3% across 7). A 1st or 2nd cousin of my dad, who is 79 years old? How in the world???

Common matches between Eric and my father allowed me to focus on my grandmother’s side as the link. My grandmother had one known sibling. (Well, maybe, two, as I’ve recently learned of a possible half-brother who’s only a few years older than I am. I’m not including him as a possibility for now.) Her half-sister M., with whom she shared a mother, was born in 1907. Full first cousins share, on average, 12.5% DNA, so my father and M.’s children would share about half that. In other words, those cousins would share with my father the approximate percentage of DNA that my father shares with Eric. The male cousins were too old to have been Eric’s father (and, if they were, Eric would share only about 3% with my father.) Thus, they are eliminated as Eric’s father or grandfather. And I can eliminate the female cousins on the ground that he does not share their haplogroup, which is H3.

Arriving at this point, I was momentarily stumped. And then I remembered that uncles and great-great-nephews also share roughly 6.25% DNA. (And constitute a relationship that makes more sense given Eric and my father’s relative ages.) This train of thought, I think — and without going into requisite detail — will ultimately lead us to the truth.

Births Deaths Marriages, Enslaved People, Free People of Color, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

The estate of Solomon Williams.

Vicey Artis, a free woman of color, and Solomon Williams, a slave, had eleven children together – Zilpha Artis Wilson, Adam Toussaint Artis, Jane Artis Artis, Loumiza Artis Artis, Charity Artis, Lewis Artis, Jonah Williams, Jethro Artis, Jesse Artis, Richard Artis and Delilah Williams Exum — before they were able to marry legally. On 31 August 1866, they registered their 35-year cohabitation in Wayne County. Vicey died soon after, but Solomon lived until 1883. The document above, found among Solomon’s estate papers, names son Jonah as administrator and lists his and Vicey’s six surviving children and the heirs of their deceased children.

Little is known about Solomon. He was born about 1800. A few slaveowning Williams families lived in Vicey Artis’ vicinity in Greene County, but there is no evidence to link Solomon to them. He appears in the 1870 and 1880 censuses of Nahunta township, Wayne County, heading households comprised of his daughters and their children, and is recorded as father on the marriage licenses of daughter Lomisy (Loumiza) Williams and son Adam Artis and the death certificates of children Jonah Williams, Richard Artis and Delila Exum.

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, North Carolina

North Carolina death certificates: COLVERT.

North Carolina did not require death certificates until 1914. The following abstracts record the deaths of several generations of Colverts.

Lew Colvert. Died 27 Mar 1915, Statesville, of cerebral paralysis. Resided near Center Street, Statesville. Black. Aged about 40. Married. “Laborer for city driving team mules.” Born in Iredell County NC to unknown father and Rebecca Colvert of Iredell County NC. Buried colored cemetery; J.W. Nicholson & Co., undertaker. Informant, L.W. Colvert.

A Runaway and a Driver Hurt

Wednesday afternoon Mr. Isidore Wallace’s team was being driven from the depot with a load of roots and herbs. Just as the wagon turned into Front street from Center a sack of herbs fell off the wagon and struck one of the horses. This frightened them and they ran away, colliding with an electric lightpole on the sidewalk. The colored driver, Lou Colvert, was thrown off and a wheel passed over his head, inflicting a severe but not serious injury. One of the horses broke loose from the wagon and the other ran on to the stables. The wagon was slightly damaged.

— Statesville Semi-Weekly Landmark, 11 Oct 1895.

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Becky Colvert. Died 26 May 1915, Statesville, of general paresis. Widow. Born 1839. Resided Harrison Street. Born to Jerry Gray and Lettie Gray, both of Iredell County. Buried Zion Hill cemetery; J.W. Nicholson, undertaker. Informant, John Colvert.

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Selma Eugenia Colvert. Died 7 Oct 1916 of exhaustion from severe burns. Single. Born 25 Aug 1889 to John Colvert of Iredell County and Adaline Hampton of Wilkes County. Informant, John Colvert.

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John Colvert. Died 6 Oct 1921, Statesville, of endarteritis. Black. Married to Adline Colvert. Age 71. Worked as laborer/teamster driving team. Born Iredell County to Walker Colvert and Elvira Gray, both of Iredell County. Married to Adline Colvert. Teamster laborer, driving team. Buried “colored cemetery,” 9 Oct. Informant, Adline Colvert.

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Frances Josephine Bradshaw. Died 6 November 1925, Statesville, of colitis. Colored. Minor. Born 12 May 1924, Statesville, to Will Bradshaw of Rowan County and Golar Colvert of Iredell County. Informant, Will Bradshaw.

Me: Now, who was it that you were telling me that — was it William Bradshaw’s sister? What was it about, something about — there was a baby that couldn’t eat certain things.

My grandmother: Oh, yes. His sister…. Oh, she was the prettiest thing I ever saw in my life. Like a doll. Oh, she was a beautiful child. And had this curly black hair just like Papa’s. She was such a pretty little girl.

Me: And who fed her something that she wasn’t supposed to have?

My grandmother: You see, Golar, Mat and Walker’s mother was different from our mother.

Me: Right.

My grandmother: And they would always go out in the country to visit these people. You know. And Golar took her children and went out, you know. To visit. And she, I don’t know what was wrong with the child that she couldn’t eat any, certain things she couldn’t eat. And string beans was one of them. And when she gave her some string beans, and it just … just killed her. And, ahhh, that child suffered. My God, that child suffered. I can remember that evening. I can remember so well seeing that child. She just suffered. [Pants heavily.] It was, I mean, that’s just the way she was breathing and everything. So one morning after she had been sick, her daddy came over there, he said, “You all better come over to the house if you want to see the baby, ‘cause she is dying.” I said, “You are crazy.”

My mother: What’d she have, Mama?

My grandmother: I don’t know what she had. Don’t know what she had. But they say whatever it was – it just tore her intestines. … And little William. William, he just grieved over that, he just grieved for that child. William. We were just so sorry for that child. And then on top of that, then his mother died. It was just awful.

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Laura Colbert. Died 21 April 1926, Statesville, of mitral insufficiency. Widow of Louis Colbert. Age 66. Cook. Father, Noahie Sharpe of Iredell County. Mother, unknown. Informant, Adgie Colbert.

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Lon Walker Colvert. Died 23 Oct 1930, Statesville, of encephalitis and catarrh pneumonia in Statesville NC. Clinical test done by C.R. Nicholson, MD. Born 10 Jun 1875 to John Colvert and Harriet Nicholson. Buried 24 Oct 1930 at Union Grove.

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Adeline Hampton Colvert. Died 4 March 1940, Statesville, of uremia. Resided 623 Harrison Street. Negro. Widow of John Walker Colvert. Born 12 July 1864, Wilkesboro NC to Horace Hampton and Myra [last name unknown], both of Wilkes County. Buried Greenwood cemetery. Informant, Lillie Colvert.

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George Randolph Colvert. Died 31 Jan 1959, Statesville NC. Resided 423 Harrison Street. Laborer. Never married. Born 9 April 1917 to [illegible] Summers (name blacked out) and Lillie Mae Colvert. Buried Belmont cemetery. Informant, Lillie Mae Colvert.

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Ida Mae Stockton. Died 23 August 1967, Statesville, of cerebral hemorrhage. Resided 403 Harrison. Widow of Eugene Stockton. Born 27 June 1891, Iredell County, to John W. Colvert and Adline Hampton. Buried Belmont cemetery. Informant, Lillie M. Ramseur.

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Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Monthly Archives: October 2013