My father’s second older brother Jesse A. Henderson passed away 11 years ago.
Tag Archives: funeral program
Funeral Program Friday: Hattie Mae Holt Crawford.
Remembering my father’s first cousin, Hattie Mae.
Funeral Program Friday: Catherine Aldridge Davis.
Catherine Aldridge Davis, the last surviving of John and Louvicey Artis Aldridge‘s children, died at age 108.
Funeral Program Friday: Doris Holt Beasley.
Every big family has the sweetest one. That would have been “Dot.”
Remembering my father’s first cousin, Doris “Dot” Holt Beasley (1932-2010).
Funeral Program Friday: Marion Allen Christian.
Remembering my mother’s elder sister, my aunt, the Reverend Marion Allen Christian (2 June 1932-13 February 2011).
Funeral Program Friday: Fannie Aldridge Randolph.
For reasons that aren’t clear to me, the Aldridges that my grandmother was closest to in her adult life were two of her father’s first cousins, daughters of Matthew W. Aldridge, Fannie Aldridge Randolph and Mamie Aldridge Abrams Rochelle. They grew up in Goldsboro, not Dudley, and both migrated North before 1930, so I am guessing that she met them after she moved to Philadelphia in 1958.
I wish I’d probed these relationships more. Mother Dear and Cousin Fannie lived a short bus ride apart in West Philadelphia and saw each often enough that I recall visiting her house on Filbert Street and seeing her at my grandmother’s on Wyalusing during our short summer stays. I never met Cousin Mamie, but know that my grandmother visited her in Union, South Carolina, and took at least one sightseeing trip (“excursion,” as she called them) with her.
Fannie B. Aldridge left Goldsboro for Philadelphia shortly after the 1910 census was recorded. In 1913, she married Virginia-born Elisha Randolph (1875-1940) and, by 1917, when he registered for the draft, had settled into the rowhouse in the 5800 block of Filbert Street in which she would remain the rest of her life.
Here is a bad partial copy of a photograph of Matthew Aldridge’s daughters. Fannie is at right, standing behind one of her nieces. The boy in the middle, I believe, was Elijah Randolph, her only child. Her sisters Daisy Aldridge Williams and Mamie are left and center.
And here’s Cousin Fannie as I vaguely remember her. This Polaroid dates from about 1973 and was taken in my grandmother’s kitchen. (That’s Mother Dear at right.)
Funeral Program Friday: Bessie Henderson Smith.
Bessie, aged about 12.
Jack Henderson named his first child, born 24 September 1917, after his sister Bessie Lee Henderson. In the early years of World War II, she and her only child moved from Wilson to Baltimore, where she lived for 54 years.
Cousin Bessie, right, with her sister Alice Henderson Mabin on the porch of their sister Mildred Henderson Hall in Wilson, 1986.
Cousin Bessie is buried in Rest Haven cemetery, Wilson NC.
Funeral Program Friday: Bettie Aldridge Saunders.
Betty Cecilia Aldridge Saunders was born in Dudley, Wayne County, North Carolina, the second daughter among John and Ora Bell Mozingo Aldridge‘s 11 children. She died in 1990 and was buried in the cemetery of the church to which Aldridges have belonged since the 1870s.
L. to R.: Horace “Snook” Henderson, Cecilia A. Saunders, William Saunders, Catherine Aldridge Davis, Frances Henderson Taylor, Carrie Lee Henderson Hill, ??, Johnnie “Dink” Henderson, Annabelle Henderson. Dudley NC, 1970s. Snook, Frances and Dink were Cecilia’s first cousins. Their mother, Nora Aldridge Henderson, was a sister of Catherine A. Davis and Cecilia’s father Johnnie Aldridge. Carrie was the Hendersons’ cousin on their father’s side.
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(The first of an occasional spotlight on these funeral staples.)
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 