dee_burris: (Default)
This post is not a fond remembrance of my great great grandmother. I can't remember a woman who died 45 years before I was born.



Her grandson, Jo Duffie Williams, was 10 years old when she died. I don't know - and he didn't ever say - if he attended her funeral, held in Sardis, MS.
For years, I wondered where she was buried. Her death certificate gave me the answer, and I created a memorial page for her on Find a Grave.

I made a request for a photo of the stone.

Just a little over two years after I created the memorial, another Find a Grave volunteer got the photo.


Here Lies With Hope in Jesus Christ Her Saviour
Emily Conner Meek Webb
4-12-1838
4-27-1913


Not only that, but after I thanked him, Larry Hart emailed me all the shots he had taken to get a photo he felt best captured the inscription on the stone which has fallen into the ground after nearly a century. In one of them, you can see that he had to kneel on the grass to get his shots.

He gave me his written permission to use the photos in any way I wished.
The stone is interesting.

The family Bible and her death certificate give Mary Emily Conner's date of birth as 12 Apr 1837. The stone says 1838.

And since her first name isn't on the stone, I wonder if she was called Emily all her life.

This Sentimental Sunday, I am thinking of the great great grandmother I never knew, and a man who knelt patiently in the grass one autumn day to provide her granddaughter a photo of her grave.
dee_burris: (Default)
The person who emailed me answered my reply. She is interested in John Webb (some folks say his middle initial was L). I have a date of birth of 10 Sep 1798 in Tennessee, but no date of death. His wife, Sarah "Sally" Waters, died in 1882 and was buried in Fairplay Cemetery, Benton, Saline Co., AR

And that's all I know.

And that's all I know about what she wants to know.

Webbs are collateral members of my family tree. There have been scattered intermarriages of Webbs with my Stricklands and McCarleys - sisters of John Webb.

So now, I'm taking a look at the Webb family. There appears to be evidence of a large, well established family in Grant County made up of the children and grandchildren of John Webb.

It would be nice to have specifics about what my correspondent wants to know.

But I am intrigued anyway...
dee_burris: (Default)
Browsing the 1940 census, and found my great-great grandparents, Jo and Maxie Williams, living at 2310 S Ringo in Little Rock.

This house...
Photobucket

With them was a 76 year old widow, Belle Webb.

Grandma Maxie said Belle was living there on 1 Apr 1935. So Belle was a long time lodger.

I looked in the 1940 Polks Directory for Little Rock. Belle Webb, widow of John T., was listed at 2310 S Ringo.

Now I am very curious.

Maxie's mother, Mary Emily Conner, married Samuel Webb, just two weeks after she divorced Maxie's father in 1871.

I'll have to look for the connection to John T Webb...
dee_burris: (Default)
There supposedly is a book about three Brannon brothers who came to the United States from Ireland. One of them was George. The book is said to document George's marriage to a Cherokee woman named Alkerny, meaning "Acorn Eyes."

I haven't seen the book, nor can I find the entire title of it. (Everyone just keeps writing that it's the book about the Brannons.) People who say they have knowledge of copies of it state that it was published in 1960 by the Lincoln, AR press.

The elusive book supposedly also states that the Brannons moved to Tennessee after the War of 1812. Since John was born in Tennessee in 1808, I have to wonder if someone has mixed up their Brannons.

So I don't know about the three brothers from Ireland. But I do know about John Brannon, born 15 Sep 1808, in Tennessee - probably Monroe County. His father was George Edward Brannon.


John Brannon married Nancy Webb, daughter of Judge Larkin Webb and his wife Sarah Bray, in 1829 in Monroe County. Sometime between the 1850 and 1860 censuses, John Brannon "removed" his family to northwest Arkansas, to Washington County.

Photobucket

John Brannon 1808-1889


Photobucket

Nancy Webb Brannon 1813-1910


John and Nancy had two sons, Benjamin (born 25 Apr 1830) and James L (born 26 Jun 1835).

Although the two brothers had no other siblings, when they married and began raising their own families in Benton County, AR, together they gave their parents 18 grandchildren.



Both brothers served in the Civil War, along with their father, fighting for the Union in the 1st Arkansas Cavalry. By 23 Nov 1863, James Brannon was discharged from service due to deafness and lung problems caused by the war. He was 28 years old.

James returned home to northwest Arkansas to his wife, Nancy Ann Philpott, and their children. Prior to his service in the war, he and Nancy had three children - John William, Benjamin, and Taylor Curtis Brannon. Between 1867 and 1871, they added four more children to the family - Margaret, James Munsey, Levada M and Floyd Philpott Brannon.

Photobucket

Nancy Ann Philpott Brannon 1835-1920



James was a physician and merchant in Mason Valley in Benton County, AR. James died in 1902 in Mason Valley, and was buried in Coffelt Cemetery, as are his parents. Nancy died in 1920 in Marion County, OR and is buried in Salem Pioneer Cemetery, in Salem Co., OR.
dee_burris: (Default)
One of them was Mary Emily Conner, and like the proverbial chip off the old block, her daughter, Maxie Leah Meek, followed in her footsteps.

Mary Emily Conner was born in Hernando, DeSoto County, MS on 12 Apr 1837. I do not yet know who her parents were, but I continue to look.

The day after her nineteenth birthday, Mary married James Alexander Meek, son of Jefferson John and Henrietta Ann "Hettie" (Donahoo) Meek. The Meeks were a large and well-heeled family, but that was not why Mary remembered her wedding day for the rest of her life. In 1910, she recounted how her grandfather-in-law, Alexander Meek, stole her thunder.

A ridiculous figure in a black velvet coat, with knee britches, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes, wearing a dusty wig and ill fitted false teeth carved of wood, he played his violin and carried on like an Irishman. From the attention given him, you would have thought him the center of attention instead of the bride. Upon this spoiled day my marriage began. Like all the Meeks, he lived forever and buried his wives. At the last reunion of Revolutionary Veterans in North Mississippi, only three veterans attended; two more carried to the reunion but old Alexander walked and danced the whole afternoon. Source: Guy Meek of Anne Arundel County, Maryland : descendants, intermarriages and neighbors, Vol 2. (1660-2004) by Melton P Meek, at page 405. Digitized at this website.

James Alexander and Mary Emily Meek separated before the birth of their youngest child, Maxie Leah, on 10 Feb 1869. Mary was now functionally the single mother of two children, having lost a daughter, Hettie Ann Elizabeth, before her first birthday in 1868.

The 1870 census found Mary and her children, William Thaddeus and Maxie Leah, in Grenada Co., MS, running a store where she employed a clerk. ...from being able to read French, M E Meek Webb learned how to make hats from a French fashion magazine. This was also how she made her living after the Civil War. She also manufactured cosmetics, a business carried on...for years. The factory was moved to Chicago and discontinued during the Depression. (See the same source cited above, at page 570.)

Photobucket
Mary Emily (Conner) Meek Webb, in 1873


Mary and James Meek divorced on 10 Oct 1871. Sixteen days later, Mary married Samuel Webb, and at some point during the 1870's, the couple moved, with William and Maxie, to Russellville, Pope Co., AR. The 1880 census for Russellville says Samuel's occupation was "confectioner."

Samuel Webb died on 28 Nov 1882 in Russellville, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery there. Although her children continued to live in Pope County, Mary returned to Mississippi about 1912, living in Sardis in Panola County, until her death on 27 Apr 1913.

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Dee Burris Blakley

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