The last photograph I took of Mother Dear, on 6 June 2000, her 90th birthday. She passed away seven months later on 15 January 2001.
Rest in peace, Hattie Mae Henderson Ricks.
Category Archives: Paternal Kin
In memoriam: Brent Aldridge Oldham.
My cousin Brent Aldridge Oldham, an esteemed pediatrician in Seattle, Washington, passed away on 22 December 2015. Born in Washington DC in 1950, he was the son of the late M. Brent and Virginia Aldridge Oldham. His grandfather Zebedee Aldridge was my great-grandfather James T. Aldrich‘s brother.
His family has created a fine tribute to his life and memory.
Born this day: 1 January.
Name — Susan Casey Lewis.
Birth — 1 January 1787, Wayne County, North Carolina.
Parents — Micajah Casey and Sarah Herring Casey.
Spouse — Urban Lewis.
Death — 10 October 1860, Wayne County, North Carolina.
Relationship to me — Paternal great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.
[Hat tip to Hollie Ann Henke, relativityitsallrelative.com.]
Emancipation Day.
Goldsboro Daily Argus, 31 December 1905.
For decades, on January 1, African-American communities formally celebrated the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1905, under the leadership, in part, of William S. Hagans and Mack D. Coley, the “Educational, Agricultural and Industrial mass meeting” of Wayne County’s “colored citizens” issued an eight-point pledge:
(1) to be respectable;
(2) to endorse state policy to give all children, regardless of color, an education;
(3) to urge school attendance;
(4) to encourage teachers not only to teach, but to pay home visits and preach every manner of virtue and home improvement;
(5) to disapprove of shiftlessness;
(6) to condemn crime and encourage law-abiding conduct;
(7) to suggest that farmers carry insurance and to educate them; and
(8) to become more united as a race, to organize to buy land, and to help one another retire mortgages.
In remembrance.
I was on vacation, marveling at the Alhambra and Mezquita, dawdling over tapas, when I received the email. “I wish there was a better way to share the news …,” it began. And then the incomprehensible: news that a cousin had passed suddenly in a tragic accident. He wanted no announcements, no services, no fuss. But for this tiny memorial to our collaboration and friendship, not even six years old, I am doing my best to honor his wishes.
DNA definites, no. 22: my great-uncle!?!
Sometimes you get questions answered that you never knew to ask. My mysterious estimated 1st-2nd cousin at Ancestry turns out to be my paternal grandmother’s half-brother — 52 years her junior, two years older than I. Best DNA reward ever!
An Artis founding story.
A cousin sent me this undated letter a few days ago, asking if I knew anything about it. She is descended from my great-great-great-grandfather Adam Artis‘ brother Richard Artis. Her Richard is not one of the Richards listed to in the document. (There were several contemporaneous Richard Artises just in the Wayne-Greene-Wilson County corner, none of whom I can link to one another.) The family history recounted in the letter smacks of the apocryphal, but it is interesting, and I will try to follow up on it.
New Head of Negro Medical Men.
Indianapolis News, 18 September 1908.
Dr. Joseph H. Ward elected as the first president of the newly organized association of Indiana Negro Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists.
C.D. Sauls, influential colored man of Snow Hill, invests.
In 1897, cousin Cain D. Sauls was one of two African-American members of a five-man delegation that traveled eastern North Carolina advocating for the “Snow Hill Railroad.”
Goldsboro Weekly Argus, 15 April 1897.
A little over a year later, North Carolina’s secretary of state approved the incorporation of the Great Eastern Railway Company, which planned to build and operate a 130+ mile railroad passing through Johnston, Wayne, Greene, Pitt, Beaufort and Hyde Counties. Among the 25 stockholders incorporating the railroad? C.D. Sauls!
Raleigh Morning Post, 15 October 1898.
Signature Saturday, no. 7: John Henry Henderson’s sons and grandsons.
John Henry Henderson (1861-1924) was the youngest of James Henderson‘s sons to reach adulthood. He married Sarah Simmons, daughter of Bryant and Elizabeth Wynn Simmons, in 1886 near Dudley, Wayne County. Census records suggest that Sarah gave birth to as many as twelve children, but only three survived — Frances “Frankie,” Charles Henry and John Henry. I have found no record of John H. Henderson’s signature, but here are those of his sons and grandsons.
John and Sarah Simmons Henderson, perhaps the 1910s.
Charles H. Henderson, born about 1893, is something of a mystery. In 1900, he appears as “Charley” in the census of Dudley, Wayne County, with father John, mother Sarah and sister Frankie. There’s some uncertainty about the children’s identification, but this is a photo John and Sarah circa 1895. My best guess is that the image depicts Frankie and Charley.
Charles was not living in his parents’ home in 1910, however. Nor can I find him elsewhere. In 1917, however, he registered for the World War I draft in Richmond, Virginia. He reported that he was born 21 July 1893 in Dudley; resided at 114 E. Leigh Street, Richmond; and worked as a self-employed barber. He was of medium height with a slender build, brown hair and eyes and was slightly bald. (His signature is from this draft card.) In the 1920 census of Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia, at 614 Baker Street, in Lee Ward, Charles H. Henderson, 32, and wife Maria R., 32, with Maria’s parents Henry and Mary B. Stockes, sharing a household headed by Eddie Seigel. Charles worked as a barber and was recorded as being born in Virginia. (This and his age — he was actually about 27 — are erroneous.) It’s the last record I have for Charles Henderson.
Eight years after Charles was born, Sarah Simmons Henderson gave birth to her last child, son Henry Lee (1901-1942). Henry married Christine Lenora Aldridge while both were still in their teens. I’ve written of their sons here, and samples of their signatures (all from World War II draft cards) are shown below Henry’s.
Henry Lee Henderson, perhaps the very early 1940s.
On Christmas Day 1911, Frances Ann “Frankie” Henderson (1891-1985) married her first cousin, Israel Henderson Wynn (1890-1967), son of Washington “Frank” and Hepsey Henderson Wynn. I have no sample of Frankie’s handwriting, and Israel was unable to read or write. (At least, as a young man.) He signed his World War I draft registration card with an X.
Frankie and Israel (called “H”) had at least 11 children, including sons John Franklin (1915-1981), George Roosevelt (1918-1986), Henderson B. (1924-1981), and Lawrence (1925-??), whose World War II draft card marks or signatures are shown:
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 