Shakin' the Family Tree

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Julia Ann's mother, Mary Dunn Callaway Williams, 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.

I have three photographs of Eada Belle Parrish.

This was taken around 1889.


I think this one may have been sometime after that.


I expect this one was taken, with husband Fred Chapin, not long before his death in 1938.

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Eada Belle Parrish was born on 13 Jul 1856 in Macomb in McDonough County, IL, to Benjamin Abraham Yeager Parrish and Minerva Ann Hamilton. She was the seventh of eight children I have documented.

I think she may have been a favored little sister for her older brother, Daniel Broder Parrish. When he married and began his family, he named one of his daughters for Eada.

Eada's father, Benjamin, was originally from Kentucky. When and why he removed to Illinois is something I don't yet know. But between the births of Daniel in 1848 and John in 1851, the family relocated. The 1850 census found them in Clark County, IN.

After Eada's mother died in 1865 in McDonough Co., IL, Benjamin Parrish remarried to Melvina Crume. They had three children in Illinois.

Benjamin Parrish moved his family back to Kentucky. In the 1880 census, he and Melvina were in Grayson Co., KY, and by the time of Benjamin's death in 1904, the family was in Butler Co., KY.

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Some of the extended family must have made a pit stop in Missouri on the back to Kentucky. One of Eada's older brothers, Henry Clay Parrish, died there in 1894 in Vernon County.

And that's where Eada married Fred Chapin on Christmas Eve, 1885.

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I can only account for two children born to Eada and Fred Chapin.

I wouldn't be able to account for one of them had it not been for a helpful email contact from another Parrish/Chapin researcher.

I knew that Hattie Belle Chapin was their daughter.

What I didn't know was that Hattie had a sister, Ruth, who died before the 1900 census. Since the 1890 census got either burned or waterlogged in a 1921 fire at the National Archives, I don't know when Ruth was born.

But now I do know why Hattie named her first daughter Ruth.

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By 1900, Fred, Eada and Hattie had moved to Little Rock, Pulaski Co., AR from Bourbon Co., KS.

The next year, Hattie married Victor Claude Balding. Both families lived near each other, as census records show them both in Ward 5 in Little Rock through 1920.

Eada was widowed by Fred's death in 1938. She died on 2 Dec 1944 in Little Rock.

Eada is buried beside Fred in Oakland Cemetery in Little Rock, Pulaski Co., AR.

My direct line of Chapins in this generation are quite frustrating to track. This generation seems to be the most nomadic of the bunch, and Essie was no exception. I imagine she, as did her siblings, got their wanderlust from their father, who moved their family from New York westward between the 1880 federal census and the 1885 Kansas State Census.

She was born in Olean, Cattaraugus County, New York, in August 1870, and was the ninth of ten children born to Nathaniel Foster Chapin and Elizabeth Harris.

Apparently, Essie's first marriage to Joseph Shepherd occurred in 1889 in Kansas (if anyone knows of a way to get a definitive marriage date other than me traveling to Kansas to do so, please let me know). They had a daughter, Broshia S Shepherd (born 27 Jan 1890), and then Joseph died.

With the help of another Chapin descendant from this line, I was able to puzzle through the birth and actual surname of Essie's second child, Elbert Carr, as well as get some further information on her second, third and fourth marriages to Elbert C Carr, Joseph H Lebolt and Daniel J Finn, respectively. According to that cousin:

Essie Chapin married Elbert Carr in Oregon, because she was pregnant with his son, Elbert. Broshia was her child by Joseph Shephard. Thus, Elbert was named after his father and Broshia and Elbert were half brother and sister. I don't know what happened to Elbert Carr, but Essie did marry LeBolt - his family were jewelers and silversmiths in the Chicago area. Essie and Dan Finn were married later. Ward Finn was not Essie's natural child, he was adopted by her. They moved to Altoona, Pa. because Essie’s family (the Chapins) were carpenters and owned lumber mills. As the Pennsylvania Railroad expanded, the Chapins had contracts to mill lumber for railroad ties. Altoona, Pa was (a "boom town" at one time) one of the fastest growing cities in the USA in the late 1800's because of the Pennsylvania Railroad expansion. Of course, Altoona became a repressed city when the railroads failed. The Chapins moved around a great deal because they followed the railroad business.

After the birth of Elbert, Jr., Essie moved back to Bourbon Co., KS for a while - she was there for the 1895 Kansas State Census, and the 1900 Federal Census. By 1910, she had relocated with her children to Altoona, PA., where she lived out the remainder of her life.

Oddly, when she died on 14 Dec 1948, she was buried as Essie Lebolt Finn.

Essie is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Altoona, Blair Co., PA.