Shakin' the Family Tree

Sepia Saturday: Louise Herrington and sister Florence

2012-11-21T16:16:51Z

A photo of my paternal grandmother, Addie Louise Herrington (left) and her sister Florence.

Florence was the only daughter of the five born to Jasper Monroe Herrington and Julia Ann Callaway who *was not* a twin.

Photo circa 1925

This is a Sepia Saturday post. Head over there for a look at other wonderful old photos.

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Matrilineal Monday: Julia Ann Callaway McBrayer Herrington

2012-09-03T03:31:22Z

She died nearly 7 years before I was born, so I never knew my paternal great-grandmother.

According to what my dad and his sister have told me, if I had only known her at the end of her life, I really wouldn't have known her at all. At the end of her life, Julia Ann Callaway McBrayer Herrington lived with her daughter, Addie Louise Herrington Burris, in the house at 8th and Crittenden in Arkadelphia. The place my dad called home.

Seen from the eyes of children, as my dad and aunt were when their grandmother died, Grandma Herrington had changed. Now, she had a sharp tongue and shrill disposition.

Not like the grandmother of their memories when they were younger.

And not like the memories of my grandmother, Louise Herrington Burris.

I don't have Julia Ann's death certificate. The State of Arkansas couldn't find it for me. So I don't know her official cause of death.

I do know that she died on Wednesday, 12 Dec 1951, at her daughter Inez's house, while my grandparents were on an errand. I don't know if her death was expected, but I also don't have the impression that she was on death's door when my grandparents took her to stay with Inez that day.

Maybe Julia decided, as I know of many others who have, to take her leave while the person who cared for her was away.

Maybe she didn't want my grandmother to see her die.

I can only speculate about Julia Ann's early life.

She was the daughter of my primo brick wall ancestors, Mary C Dunn, and Allen Mason Lowery "Mace" Callaway.

According to the historic records I've accumulated, Julia Ann was the only living child that Mary and Mace had in the 11 years of their marriage prior to Mace's death. She was only 4 years old when her father died, so I wonder how much of him she remembered. I wonder if surely, she knew where he was buried. (I haven't found his grave.)

Julia Ann couldn't have known her father as the man he was before he served in the Civil War. Neither could her mother have known *that* man, as Mary and Mace didn't marry until 1866.

In the 1880 census, Julia Ann was living with her mother, new step-father, David Andrew Williams, and her step-sister, Mary Etta Williams in Clark County.

I know nothing about how the two girls - 4 years apart in age, with Mary Etta the eldest - got along.

In 1881, the girls got a new brother, Rubin Ned Williams. Almost a year to the day afterward, they got another baby brother, William Andrew Williams.

A few years after Willie's birth, David Andrew Williams fell ill with an unknown disease that caused wasting of muscles and a great deal of pain. He died on 23 Jan 1888, when Julia Ann was 14 years old, and her little brothers were 6 and 5.

Her mother did not marry again.

On 13 Dec 1891, Julia Ann Callaway married for the first time to Robert Bruce McBrayer.

Robert's family would have been well known to Julia Ann and her mother. They lived in the DeGray community of Clark County, and both families attended the same church.

Julia Ann and Robert McBrayer had 8 children together, including a set of twin daughters and a child who was stillborn. Robert McBrayer died of "kidney trouble" on 1 Jun 1905 at the age of 34, leaving 32 year old Julia Ann with 7 children, the oldest of whom was 13.

I think Julia Ann must have mourned him. She did not remarry for over 2 years.

On 19 Oct 1907, Julia Ann McBrayer married a widower with 5 children. He was Jasper Monroe Herrington, and he and Julia Ann had 6 children together, including two sets of twins, one of whom was my grandmother. They lived in DeGray in what has been described to me as a dog-trot house with three bedrooms.

Altogether, Jasper and Julia Ann had 18 living children. That boggles my mind.

And as I listened to my grandmother, it was clear to me that Jasper and Julia Ann did not do "his" and "hers." All the kids were their kids - no favoritism, and no step-this and half-that.

Julia Ann Callaway and Jasper Monroe Herrington, in one of the only photos I have of her without a child on her lap

From left: Julia Ann, son Larkin Wellington McBrayer, grandson Robert McBrayer, and mother Mary C Dunn Callaway Williams.
Photo circa 1926/27. Julia's mother, Mary, was probably already blind.

Julia Ann's mother, Mary Dunn Callaway Herrington, died at Julia Ann's home on 9 Apr 1929. According to her obituary, Mary Williams had been blind for 7 years before her death, and unable to leave the house for the previous 2 years.

At least 4 of Julia Ann's children were still living at home at the time of Mary's death, including my grandmother. Jasper died in 1943, 8 years before Julia Ann's death.

Julia Ann learned much about loss from a very early age. Perhaps she was responsible - at least in part - for the attitude about death that I saw in my grandmother.

We live, we love, we lose. We remember and reminisce, and we go on.

It's the cycle of life.

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Now I know where I get it...

2012-04-22T14:34:01Z

Spent some time in the 1940 census yesterday, looking in Clark County, AR for my dad when he was a wee thing...

Found him, there on line 20.

Grandma gave the information to the census enumerator.

Granddaddy worked an average of 48 hours a week as the assistant postmaster, and made $2,000 a year - today's equivalent is $32,770.29.

He was supporting a wife and three kids, and almost exactly a year later, their last child, a daughter, was born.

I also found some Callaways not far from there and was able at last to connect Joe E Callaway to his parents.

Wonder if Grandma knew her second cousin was living a few streets over?

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Mystery Monday: John Wesley S Herrington and Maggie Kendrick

2012-01-22T21:37:00Z

With another nod to my genealogy induced ADD, I'll bring you a double mystery.

One can probably be solved, and the other, most likely not.

I got a contact last week from a cousin several times removed who is researching our Herringtons. He and I share a great-grandfather, Jasper Monroe Herrington, but we are descended from different wives.

True to form after that series of emails, I leapt away from research on my elusive Duncans, and jumped right back on our Herringtons. (My Duncans, however, are brick wall lightweights when compared to my great-great grandmother Mary C Dunn.)

I think my cousin and I are the only ones researching our Herringtons (the ones in Arkansas who are descended from Madison Monroe Herrington) in a serious way, because there are *major* omissions and inaccuracies in a whole bunch of Ancestry family trees on them.

Like when and where did John Wesley S Herrington (son of Madison Monroe and Julia Ann Holt) die? A bunch of folks say in April 1967 in Camden, Benton Co., TN.

But that SSDI record does not convince me. Because I think John W S Herrington died in Hot Spring Co., AR, sometime between the 1910 census and the remarriage of his widow, Margaret Emaline "Maggie" Kendrick on 25 Apr 1912.

I think there is a grave, badly maintained, or not even marked, somewhere in Hot Spring County for him.

That mystery can probably be solved.

But then, there's Maggie.

John W S Herrington and Maggie Kendrick married on 21 May 1899 in Hot Spring County. He was 20 years old and she was 16. She was the daughter of James J Kendrick and Elizabeth Stanley.

By the 1910 census - taken in Hot Spring County - they had four children. That census record showed that mercifully, all the children born to Maggie Kendrick were still alive. Their youngest daughter, Opal Mae, was four months old at the time of the census.

Mrs. Maggie Herrington married Sandford Ramey Bashaw on 25 Apr 1912 in Hot Spring County. In the 1920 census in Hot Spring County, Opal Mae's surname - spelled Herington on the form - was crossed out and she had become a Bashaw.

She had four younger siblings in that census, including her four month old half-brother, Oscar Kendrick Bashaw.

I moved on to 1930 - and found Sandford Bashaw with three of his four children in Holtville, Imperial Co., CA, working on a fruit farm.

And no Maggie in sight.

The form said Sandford was married, but there was no wife in his home at the time of the census.

And I couldn't find Maggie Bashaw that year to save my life. So I went back to marriage records.

Mrs. Maggie Bashaw married James W Bledsoe on Christmas Eve in 1923, in Saline County, AR. Her youngest child, Oscar, was four years old.

At the 1930 census, Oscar was 10 and living with his dad in California. His mother was living in Benton, AR, making crates at a factory.

I wondered how Maggie bore it - being separated from all of her children. Two of her first four children - James Monroe and Opal Mae Herrington, lived to be adults. I can't find any death information about the middle Herrington children, Eliot and Gillis, who were born in 1904 and 1907, respectively.

All four of Maggie's children by Sandford Bashaw died in California between 1962 and 1992. Their Social Security numbers were issued to them by the State of California, before 1951. That sounds to me as if there was a tear in the family fabric that went beyond the divorce between Maggie and Sandford Bashaw.

Maggie Kendrick Herrington Bashaw Bledsoe died on 19 May 1966, and is buried with her final husband in Old Rosemont Cemetery in Benton, Saline Co., AR.

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Another Herrington photo...

2012-01-20T20:29:34Z

For my new found cousin, Bob. (Actually, he newly found me.)

Having trouble sending photo files to him by email.

So Bob, just right click and save.

This photo is undated, and is a picture of Isabelle Jane Herrington and Benjamin Thomas Herrington, younger siblings of Jasper Monroe Herrington.

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Connecting more dots...

2011-10-29T15:23:46Z

I met my second cousin yesterday.

He and his wife traveled from Texas for a reunion of his leg of the Burris family that will be held in Fort Smith this weekend.

He wanted to see St. Joe Cemetery, where his grandfather, Walter Monroe Burris, is buried with a whole bunch of our Burris clan. He also wanted to see the old homeplace where our ancestor, James Littleton Burris, built the cabin that housed so many Burris descendants.

We decided to rendezvous at a gas station at the Atkins exit off Interstate 40.

I called Dad as we left the gas station so he could meet us at the cemetery.

I had to call when we left, because within 10 minutes, we all lost all cell phone signals as we headed up into the modest mountains of rural Pope County.

As we gathered outside the cemetery gates, we had a discussion about how we were related.

My second cousin (sorry, guys but the family tree software says Carl is my second cousin, and Dad's first cousin, once removed) descends from James Littleton Burris and Elizabeth Adeline Ashmore like this:

James and Adeline Burris
George Washington (Sr) and Mary M (Wharton) Burris
Walter Monroe and Grace (Bowden) Burris
Cecil Blain and Arlie Ann (Fridell) Burris
Carl

For my dad, it goes like this:
James and Adeline Burris
George Washington (Sr) and Mary M (Wharton) Burris
George Washington (Jr) and Addie Louise (Herrington) Burris
Dad

G W (Jr) and Walter were brothers.

The old cabin that was the original homeplace was demolished in the mid 1960s and there is not even a footprint left. The old well, dug by hand, is still there, but covered.

We went on to Dad's house - just across the road - and this time, I was all ears as Dad and Carl started swapping the details of the stories they heard.

We used to grow our own wheat. Dad's dad told him about how they used to get the wheat ready to take into Atkins to the mill, and would load the wagon the night before and put it in the barn. Then, they'd get up before sunup the next morning and make the trip into Atkins to the mill. They got back home after dark.

Apparently, that trip got *really* old and my ancestors decided to have their own mill - in the barn. Carl's dad told him about how that mill was built - with leather bearings, no less (James Burris was a tanner) - and used a mule or a horse to go round and round to grind the wheat.

And wouldn't I love to have a photo or a piece of a millstone?

Carl hadn't realized that after the 1838 migration of our Burris and Ashmore ancestors from Lawrence Co., TN, where young James Burris and Adeline Ashmore walked most of the trip and fell in love, they had not immediately married.

They were married on 12 Nov 1840. I always figured it was because Adeline was only 15 during the trip, but something Carl told us made me wonder if it wasn't for a more practical consideration.

Carl said not long after the large ox-drawn wagon party - of not only our Burrises and Ashmores, but a whole bunch of their neighbors - got to Center Valley, 20 year old James Burris took off with a gun and an ax, to go find him some land and build a home.

By the time he had been gone for about three months with no word to the folks back in Center Valley, they began to fear he was dead.

Then, the sigh of relief - James came back. And the homeplace was built, and another move undertaken, this time to the fertile land next to Isabell Creek, where most of James and Adeline's 10 children were born. (The first died - most likely stillborn - and was buried in the first grave in Old Baptist Cemetery in Center Valley.)

We swapped photos during our visit, and Carl had a real gem.

Walter Monroe Burris and first wife, Grace Bowden, undated family photo

We have scant few photos of Walter, and none as a young man. To see Grace's image was very precious.

This journey through my family's history is a real delight.

To meet a cousin who shares much of my history - he at age 82, my dad at 75, and me at age 53...

Well, that's just beyond words.

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Random musings...

2011-07-10T16:13:16Z

I got a contact about my post on the very old Freeman place from a descendant of William Aflred Freeman.

She was excited to see the photos, which I invited her to copy for her own use. And she also gave me some more information about Freeman descendants.

Which I have dutifully researched and added to my GEDCOM.

We aren't cousins, but I keep up with the ones who married into my family anyway.

Because you just never can tell when someone might need some information.

I've spent some time this morning working on another family tree I manage for a dear friend.

Right now, I'm messing with Joseph Wesley Roach, born 16 Dec 1884 in Missouri and died 4 Jan 1978 in Randolph Co., AR.

My friend's mother is a Randolph County Roach. I know Joseph Wesley figures into her line of Roaches somehow - there were quite a few who stopped off in Missouri on their way south from Illinois to Randolph County. He named his sons some of the favored male Roach names - Jesse, James, Arthur.

I just can't find his parents.

Yet.

I'd love to be graving.

But it is just too fricking hot.

Every day, I get my Weather Channel text advising of dangerous heat indices. Not that I need the official notice.

We have reached that time in Arkansas summer where you can step outside your front door and feel that the air has mass from the combination of temperature and humidity. The cottage has not received any measurable rainfall since June 28.

I've been looking back at the family photos I have of ancestral homeplaces. Thinking about how it was that they tried to beat the heat of Arkansas summers before the days of air conditioning.

Like the Williams' home in Russellville.

Or the Herrington homeplace in Clark County.

In the two photos above, you can see 1) the shed behind the house, and 2) part of the covered front porch of the house.

The Williams home also had covered porches.

Did they sleep on them in the summertime?

More things that make me say, hmmmm...

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