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

Mollie heads west. (And a legacy takes root.)

It never occurred to me to wonder “Why Greensboro?” We grew up regularly rolling 125 miles into the North Carolina Piedmont to visit my grandmother’s sister and the four nieces who lived nearby. Beyond my first cousins, their children were the closest kin we had in age, and we were always excited about a trip to see “Aint” Mamie Henderson Holt. It was not until I began interviewing Mother Dear in the 1990s that I learned that Aunt Mamie had not been the first Henderson to settle in Greensboro.

That pioneer had been Julia “Mollie” Henderson Hall Holt, daughter of James and Louisa Armwood Henderson, half-sister of Lewis Henderson, aunt of “Mama” Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver.

An introduction: Aint Mollie didn’t have long hair, but it was nice. And curly. And it was thin. And she had that, she wasn’t real light-complected, she was kind of olive-colored. But she was a small-sized woman. She was tall, not like Mama. She wasn’t fat. And she seemed to be real nice.

Mollie was born about 1872 and appears (as “Julia”) in the 1880 census of Wayne County, North Carolina in her parents’ household. Only two years older than Sarah, they were more like sisters or cousins than aunt/niece. In 1889, Mollie married Alex Hall in Wayne County. The couples’ two daughters, Lula and Sadie, were born about 1891 and 1895, respectively, but I have found none of them in the 1900 census. At some point in those decades, Mollie left southern Wayne County, headed west. Before 1902 — and with or without Alex — she was in Guilford County. There (or somewhere near there) on 24 June 1902, she met and married Walter Holt, born about 1875 in Alamance County to William and Margaret Isley Holt. (Julian, North Carolina, by the way, lies a couple of hundred feet inside southeast Guilford County from the Randolph County line. Traveling to Asheboro to marry was probably easier and more convenient than going to Greensboro. How and why Mollie went from rural Wayne County to this equally rural location remains a mystery.)

By 1910, Walter and Mollie and her daughters (known henceforth as Holts) were in Greensboro, living in the Wilmington Street home that my grandmother knew.

Here’s what my grandmother said:

And Bazel’s – Mamie’s Bazel, his uncle Walter Holt married Aint Mollie. They didn’t never have no children, but she had two girls before they got married – Sadie and Julia [sic, Lula.] Yeah, them was the girls. Two girls. Sadie died. Julia, too, I believe. I think both of ‘ems dead. Sadie didn’t have no children of her own, but she raised a child. She took somebody’s child and raised. She had a husband, too. What was his name? I remember seeing him once or twice. I don’t believe Julia ever got married, I don’t think. At least she didn’t say nothing ‘bout it. They were older than me. And I think Mama said that Mollie was older than she was, but I reckon they was ‘long there together. Nancy was older than both of them, and A’nt Ella was the youngest one. She and Mama always were together, ‘cause they all played “sisters.” But Sarah was really Mollie and Nancy and Ella’s neice. Their brother Lewis’ child.

Another time:

She had two daughters, Sadie and Julia. I think that’s what it was. Sadie’s the one stayed in the house on the corner from where we were staying, right there on Wilmington Street. The other one – where’d the other one stay? She was married and stayed in Virginia somewhere. Yeah, Julia. Sadie’s sister. Cousin Mollie, A’nt Molly’s daughter Julia. She had a daughter. Julia was light-complected, but she wasn’t real fair. She had a light complexion. And I didn’t know her husband. I don’t know if I ever seen him. But this child that she took and raised, I want to say took and raised up, she was real dark. They all left and come up to Virginia, I believe it was, Norfolk or somewhere. I know Sadie died in Greensboro, but…. A’nt Mollie, she died there, and I think her husband, I think he left. At least, he was running – he was a fireman on the train, that was his job. He was running between Winston-Salem and somewhere in, I don’t know…. Some part of Virginia or something. He was a tall, brown-skinned man. He was a nice-looking man.

Here is Sadie’s first marriage license. She married Ashley Whitfield of Johnston County in Greensboro a few months after the census above was taken. She used the maiden name Holt and noted that her birth father, Alex Hall, was dead. Her stepfather Walter Holt signed the license as a witness to the ceremony.

In the 1920 census, Walter Holt, age 38, foreman for Southern Rail Road, headed a household that included wife Mollie, 39; nephews Bazel, 23, and William, 20; niece Novella, 18; a boarded named Mildred Smith; and “step daughter” Sadie Holt, who described herself as a widow. I have not found a death certificate for Ashley Whitfield. I did find this though:

Greensboro Patriot, 16 May 1918.

Just over ten years after her first marriage — but having only aged four years — Sadie married Henry Farrow of Pittsboro. Again, she acknowledged her father Alex Hall, but used the surname Holt. (Never mind Whitfield.) Sister Lula Holt and a Jack Ross applied for the license, and Lula signed her name with an X, just as her mother had done. (Why hadn’t she gone to school?)

Some time in the fall or winter of 1922, Mama Sarah left Jesse Jacobs. She and her girls Mamie and Hattie took a train from Wilson to Greensboro to live with Aint Mollie until they got settled. While Sarah worked in a small restaurant, my 12 year-old grandmother enrolled in a Greensboro elementary school. (It was the last stretch of formal education she would have.) In early February 1923, they finally got their own place. But Papa Jesse soon arrived in Greensboro to beg Mama back and, ill and struggling financially, she agreed to go. Aunt Mamie, however, had different plans.

Again, in my grandmother’s words:

We moved in this house, and we hadn’t been in there but ‘bout a week, and Mamie wouldn’t come. She stayed over there with Aint Mollie. And Sadie. And so when she come over one day, and Mama didn’t feel like going to the restaurant where she had over there, and so I sat there looking out the window, and I said, “Mama, here come Mamie with a suitcase.” And I’d went over to the house that day, too. And I thought it was, they played cards then. [Inaudible.] So I went over there to Sadie’s house, and so I said to ‘em, I said, “What, y’all having a party tonight?” And didn’t know Mamie was getting married that night. Mamie didn’t even tell me. And so they said, “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we gon play some cards.” And they wanted to get rid of me. Because they hadn’t told us nothing ‘bout it. Sadie went with Mamie to the courthouse to get the license and everything, and so Mamie didn’t want to come back to Wilson ‘cause Papa wasn’t good to her.

And again:

So they all got married that night and that’s when Mamie come, the next day, with a suitcase. And I told Mama, “Hmm. Is that a suitcase?” And I believe Sadie was with her. Yeah. And so she come to get her clothes. And Mama told her that, “If you don’t go back, I’ll put the law on you and make you go back ‘cause you underage.” And that’s how come Mamie didn’t let her know nothing ‘bout nothing. And, now, she’d just met Bazel, and he told her, “Well, we’ll get married if you want to stay here. We’ll get married.” And so he married her. That night. But I didn’t know they was getting married that night, and so I fussed her out and, “How come you didn’t let me know where I could have stayed to the wedding? I wanted to see you get married.” “Well, it wont no wedding – we was just getting married! Getting that old piece of paper.”

And another time:

But Mamie was up to Sadie’s house, Aint Mollie’s daughter. She stayed up there, ‘cause they all stayed up there and played cards. And she hadn’t seen Bazel but two weeks before they got married. So I went over there that evening after something from the café where Mama was, and I told her that Mama wanted her to come home. So she said, “Well, I’ll be over there tomorrow.” And so the house was all clean, Sadie’s house was all cleaned up, and tables sitting all around the room. Well, they played cards all the time, so I didn’t think nothing ‘bout it, and so they had to wait ‘til I left so Mamie and Bazel could get married. Went and got the license and everything. And didn’t tell me a word about it. And they were getting married that night. So I come on home. I run all the way from over there to Bragg Street. And come home. Didn’t think nothing about it. And so Mama, she didn’t go to the café, the people she had working in there, they was gon open up the café. ‘Cause it wasn’t nowhere but right down the street there, from ‘round the corner. So I stayed there with Mama fixing some breakfast. And so she said she wasn’t hungry, but I said she need to eat something. Well, anyway, she ate a little bit. And I looked out the window, and Mamie was coming with a suitcase. And I said to Mama, “Mamie’s coming up, and she’s got a suitcase! I wonder where she’s going.” Didn’t know she was coming to get her clothes. So she came on in, and she told Mama that she had got married last night and was coming to get her clothes. And Mama told her she ought not to let her have them. “You didn’t tell me nothing ‘bout it. If you was gon get married, and you’d a told me, [you could have] got married and had a little social or something.” And Mama was mad with her because she got married. So Mamie just got her clothes. Some of ‘em. And crammed ‘em in a suitcase and went back over ….

Here’s the license. And, look, sure enough, the marriage took place at Henry (and Sadie) Farrow’s house. And even Aunt Mollie was there, for she is listed an an official witness. Mamie was not 19. She was 15 and, indeed, underage. And Jesse and Sarah Jacobs were not, of course, Mamie’s parents, but her great-aunt and -uncle. (When she reported her mother dead, was Aunt Mamie thinking of Bessie, or convincing the register of deeds that she was free to marry of her own volition?)

Mother Dear returned to Wilson with Sarah and Jesse Jacobs, and Aunt Mamie remained in Greensboro with her new husband, who was Mollie Holt’s nephew by marriage. And that’s how she got there — and stayed.

My last sighting of Mollie Henderson Hall Holt is in the 1928 Greensboro city directory. (The “c” is for “colored.”):

The following year, Sadie Hall Holt Whitfield Farrow died of tuberculosis. She was 38 years old. (Not 29.) Walter Holt was the informant on her death certificate and named himself as her father. Otherwise, he correctly identified her birthplace as Mount Olive (in Wayne County), her mother’s maiden name as Henderson, and her mother’s birthplace as Clinton (or, in any case, Sampson County.) I strongly suspect that Mollie was dead by then, but I have not found evidence.

By 1929, Aunt Mamie’s three oldest children had been born. The Holt branch of the Henderson family had taken root in Greensboro. It still flourishes there, but also in New Jersey and New York and Pennsylvania and Georgia and Texas.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Doctor slain.

March 1968. I was not quite four. I had a baby sister who’d just come through a terrible bout with meningitis. My world was 1400 and 1401 Carolina Street and kindergarten and, at the outer edges, my grandmothers’ houses in Newport News and Philadelphia. In six months, I’d be gazing adoringly at “beautiful singer-actress” Diahann Carroll on a black and white small-screen. Right then, though, if you’d said, “Your great-grandfather died,” I would have looked at you blankly. If you’d said, “Mother Dear’s daddy died,” I might have creased my forehead, sad for her. But I didn’t know my great-grandfather. Didn’t know I had one. And had I picked up this Jet, which was delivered to our house, and been able to read — which I couldn’t just then — this would not have resonated either:

James Thomas Aldrich (born Aldridge) was killed 10 February 1968. After a funeral service in Saint Louis, his body was returned to North Carolina for a second service and burial in Dudley in the family cemetery he established.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs, Vocation

Leaves post.

Jet magazine, 28 September 1961.

Jet magazine was founded in 1951. In 1955, its graphic coverage of Emmett Till’s murder catapulted its readership, and the magazine became known for chronicling the Civil Rights Movement. All this came swaddled in heavy layers of Negro firsts, Negro Hollywood, and general Negro bougie news. I’m sure my grandmother was reading Jet — and probably subscribing to it — by 1961. What did she think when she saw her father, whom she only met once, lauded in its pages?

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Nuptials discovered. (And a little Misinformation Monday, no. 11.)

My grandmother’s birthday was Saturday, June 6. It would have been her 105th. My cousin D.D., her sister’s great-granddaughter, sent me a photo of a photo via text message — Mother Dear and her husband, Jonah Ricks, my step-grandfather. I’d never seen this particular image, but I recognized it as having been taken in Greensboro, North Carolina, at her niece L.’s wedding in 1963.

… Or was it?

I found their marriage license today. So, first, I had to pick my jaw up. I knew they’d wed in August 1958, but had never been able to find a record in Wilson. Because they married in Guilford County. In Greensboro. I immediately thought about this little snapshot. This wasn’t taken in 1963! Mother Dear and Granddaddy Ricks had traveled to her sister’s for the ceremony, and this photo was taken on their wedding day. Why hadn’t I registered the boutonniere, the corsage, the beringed left hand held high?

Then I got around to looking at the rest of the license.

First, there’s the matter of my grandmother’s name. In that era, legal names were somewhat fluid, and changing them did not necessarily involve legal drama. Bessie Henderson bore my grandmother before North Carolina required birth certificates. Bessie named the baby Hattie Mae and gave her her last name. Bessie died less than a year later, and little Hattie went to live with her great-aunt and Uncle, Sarah and Jesse Jacobs. She called them Mama and Papa and became known as Hattie Jacobs. Only after Sarah’s death in 1938 did my grandmother learn that she had never been formally adopted. (And as a consequence, she was forced out of the house on Elba Street by Jesse Jacobs’ children.) She immediately changed her name to Hattie Mae Henderson. I was surprised then to see her name listed as “Hattie Jacobs Henderson” some 20 years after she dropped the appellation.

Mother Dear also listed Jesse and Sarah Jacobs as her parents on the license. Here is an example of the way documents may reflect social and familial realities, rather than legal or genetic ones. Curiously, though, there is a hint to Mother Dear’s paternity in the license, though inexplicably placed. Mama Sarah was born Sarah Daisy Henderson. Her first husband was Jesse Jacobs and her second Joseph Silver. She was not an Aldridge. But my grandmother’s birth father was. Why did my grandmother report Sarah’s name this way? Maybe Mr. Ricks gave the information and got his facts twisted?

Last, the witnesses. I recognize James Beasley — he married my cousin Doris Holt — but who were the others? Friends of my great-aunt Mamie Henderson Holt, perhaps?

Education, Newspaper Articles, Paternal Kin

Special courses in surgery and medicine.

Indiana Medical Journal, volume 21, July 1902.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Daniel’s wife.

Who was Daniel Artis‘ wife? Or, in any case, the mother(s) of his children Clara Artis Edwards, Henry Artis, Loderick Artis, Prior Ann Artis Sauls Thompson and Mariah Artis Swinson?

That Daniel appears in the 1850 and 1860 censuses without family suggests that he was married to an enslaved woman who lived apart from him with their children, but identifying evidence is scanty:

I have found no records for Clara Artis Edwards that indicate her mother’s name.
When Henry Artis married Lena Edmundson in Greene County in 1903, he listed his parents as Daniel Artis and Eliza Artis. Henry Edwards (Clara Artis’ husband) and Marcellus Artis (Lodrick Artis’ son) were witnesses. Though his age is off by about ten years, this appears to be the right Henry. Daniel Artis registered his two-year marriage to Eliza Faircloth in 1866. Was Eliza really Henry’s mother? Or his step-mother?
Ditto for Loderick Artis, except: in Baalam Speight’s pension file, there is an affidavit from Lewis Harper. Harper asserted that he was Loderick Artis’ brother.
Nothing for Prior Ann.
When Mariah Artis married Jesse Swinson in Greene County in 1879, she listed Ruthy Edmundson as her mother and noted that she was living. (Is this the Ruth Edmundson, age 59, wife of Samuel Edmundson, listed in the 1880 census of Bull Head, Greene County?) Mariah’s death certificate lists her mother as unknown.
In the 1880 census of Bull Head, Greene County, Mariah Sauls, age 60, is listed as either Mariah Sauls Edwards or her husband Timothy Edwards’ grandmother. As Mariah Edwards was Prior Ann’s daughter, was Mariah Sauls Prior Ann’s mother?

DNA, Paternal Kin

DNAnigma, no. 17: Aldridge-Balkcum?

Ohhh, a thing is brewing with my Aldridge-Balkcums. A couple of days ago I got a message from a woman who administers her uncle’s 23andme account. J. told me that her uncle, M.R., matches me and R.L. on chromosome 20. R.L. is a known cousin who’s descended from Robert and Mary Eliza Balkcum via their daughter Amelia Aldridge Brewington. She and my father (who’s descended from son John W. Aldridge) are third cousins. I was mystified at first, as I didn’t see any other matches to dozen-plus other Aldridge-Balkcums at 23andme. Then, R.L.’s daughter B.J. steered me over to GEDmatch. There, in small doses, M.R. and his son J.R. match (and triangulate with) me; my father; his half-first cousin J.H.; R.L.; and A.S., who’s descended from Amanda Aldridge Artis.

M.R.’s roots are primarily in Ohio, but he has a few western North Carolina Piedmont and Virginia lines. What in the world is the connection???

Births Deaths Marriages, Letters, Paternal Kin

Dr. Du Bois sends regrets.

Special thanks to cousin A.W.P., granddaughter of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Ward, for bringing this to my attention:

Yes.

Births Deaths Marriages, Migration, Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Virginia

Never too late.

As I’ve written about here, visits to Norfolk, Virginia, to spend time with cousin Tilithia at her cafe were highlights of my grandmother’s childhood. They later lost contact, however, and it was not until I connected with B.J., a descendant of Tilithia’s sister Mattie Brewington Braswell, that I learned that Tilithia lived until 1965. I wish Mother Dear had known that.

In my earlier post, I mentioned that Tilithia was married to railroad fireman Walter Godbold during the years after World War I that my grandmother visited. “Her marriage to Godbold did not last,” I noted, “and the 1930 census found him back in Rocky Mount NC (described as divorced) and her still in Norfolk, holding herself out to be a widow while maintaining the little restaurant at 426 Brambleton Avenue.”

Ancestry.com’s Virginia Divorce Records database shed some light on this fractured set-up:

Yes. Apparently, Tilithia and Walter — married in 1921 and separated in early 1926 — stayed married for nearly 40 more years. Only in 1963 did Tilithia receive the divorce she finally filed for (and Walter contested.) Grounds: desertion. Walter was not new to that game, though he turned the tables in his go-round with Tilithia. Here’s the divorce record noting the dissolution of a previous marriage to a woman from his hometown, granted seven months before he married Tilithia:

And what could have led an 84 year-old woman to seek a divorce from a man she probably had not seen in decades? A third shot at love. Less than a month after her marriage to Godbold was dissolved, Tilithia married John Carter Dabney, a retiree nearly twenty years her junior.

This union, if happy, did not last long. A year and-a-half later, on 21 November 1965, Tilithia Brewington King Godbold Dabney passed away. Her heart failed, but presumably did not break.

DNA, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

New Ancestor Discovery, no. 1: Stephen Nathaniel Grant.

I don’t know. Am I?

Ancestry.com’s New Ancestor Discovery “is a suggestion that points you to a potential new ancestor or relative—someone that may not be in your family tree previously. This beta launch is our first step toward an entirely new way to make discoveries, and a way to expand how we do family history.”

Ancestry’s bio of this NAD (it’s based on a compilation of 143 user family trees, and so may be way inaccurate): Stephen Nathaniel Grant was born on November 27, 1820, in Natchitoches, Louisiana, to Stephen Grant and Marie Louise Saidec. He married Marie Celine Armand on February 6, 1840, in Natchitoches, Louisiana. On September 4, 1862, he married Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Armand in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He lived in Natchitoches, Louisiana, from 1850 to 1865 and moved to Calcasieu, Louisiana, sometime between 1865 and 1870. Stephen died on June 3, 1878, in Vernon County, Louisiana, at the age of 57, and was buried in Leesville, Louisiana.

At first glance, I’m puzzled. Natchitoches? All my roots lie north of South Carolina and east of the Appalachians. “Grant,” though. That stirs an antenna.

My great-grandmother Bessie Henderson‘s putative father was Joseph Buckner Martin (1868-1928). Buck’s parents were Lewis H. Martin (1836-1912) and Mary “Polly” Ann Price (1836-1902). Lewis H. Martin was the son of Waitman G. Martin (1810-1866) and Eliza Lewis (1813-??). Waitman G. Martin was the son of Lewis Martin (1779-1820?) and Charity Grant (1788-1864?).

Charity Grant was my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Is Ancestry picking up a connection this distant? It has matched me to collateral Price and Lewis descendants. Maybe Grant then.

I know very little about Charity Grant. Unsourced internet information asserts that she was born 7 October 1788 in Wayne County to Ephraim Grant (1765-1864) and Nancy Kinchen. The date of her marriage to Lewis Martin is unknown; their other children were Lavinia G. Martin (1812-1899), Abraham George Martin (1815-1862) and Henderson Napoleon Martin (1821-1877). (Henderson Martin married Bethany Lewis, daughter of Urban and Susan Casey Lewis, and sister of Waitman’s wife Eliza Lewis.) Charity allegedly died in 1864 in Onslow County. There’s a lot about this I don’t trust though. I consulted Marty Grant’s website, http://www.martygrant.com, which contains the most detailed accounting of the evidence regarding early Wayne County Grants available. He lists a daughter Charity for Ephraim and Nancy, but notes that she was born in 1824 and married Martin Johnston. The only other early reference that I have for Charity is Michael Grant’s 1818 Wayne County estate record, which mentions Charity Martin as the purchaser of “7 bus. & 3 Pecks corn” at his estate sale. (It also lists Elisha, John and Stephen Grant among Michael’s creditors.) Michael Grant was a close neighbor of William and Elisha Grant in the 1790 Wayne County census. Marty Grant conjectures the three as brothers and Charity as William’s daughter.

I dug a little deeper on Stephen Nathaniel Grant. (Meaning, I tried to make sense of the mish-mash of information in the trees of his descendants on Ancestry.) With no attribution, all seem to agree that Stephen’s father was also named Stephen Grant, born 1770 in Tolland, Connecticut, died 1821 in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. Stephen Sr.’s father is also uniformly listed as Ephraim Grant, born 1726 in Tolland, Connecticut.

These Stephens and Ephraims stretching from New England through North Carolina to Louisiana are intriguing, but what’s my link?

Ancestry.com assigned Stephen N. Grant to me as a New Ancestor Discovery on the basis of a DNA Circle. “Using DNA evidence and family trees, we’ve created a DNA Circle of probable descendants of Stephen Nathaniel Grant. You match 2 of 5 members. … Because of this, there is a good chance (up to 70%) you could be either a descendant or relative of Stephen Nathaniel Grant.” (There’s a lot of wiggle room there, notice.)

Here are the five people in Stephen Grant’s DNA Circle by Ancestry user name:

M.G. — a “very high confidence” DNA match — 20-30 centiMorgans, meh — estimated in the 4th to 6th cousin range; descends from Stephen via daughter Louisa O. Grant Simmons.
D.E. — not a DNA match; also descends from Stephen via daughter Louisa.
kehokk — not a DNA match; also descends via daughter Louisa.
J.F. — an “extremely high confidence” DNA match — more than 30 cM — estimated in the 4th to 6th cousin range; descends from Stephen via daughter Elizabeth Grant Bolton. J.F.’s cousin administers this account and knows little about this line.
AnthonyQuinn1987 — not a DNA match; also descends via daughter Elizabeth Grant Bolton; J.F. and AnthonyQuinn1987 also share (1) Wiley Hunt (1798, Georgia-1880, Louisiana) and Susan Alford Hunt (1812, North Carolina-1880, Louisiana); (2) John Alexander Brown (1819, South Carolina-1881, Louisiana) and Anny Harris Brown (1828, Georgia-1911, Louisiana); and (3) John F. Bolton (1815, Tennessee-1883, Louisiana) and Mary Ann Goodman Bolton (1818, Alabama-1897, Louisiana) as common ancestors.

For now, I have no idea how I relate to M.G. or J.F. (especially at the predicted closeness), or if Stephen Grant was closely related to Charity Grant, or if Grant is a red herring and some other common ancestor ties me to these two.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Category Archives: Paternal Kin