And You Thought Your Life Is Hard

When Ol' Br'er was just a little cub, the common expression for having a hard time was, "Has a tough row to hoe." These days, youngsters have the expression "First-World Problems," usually reserved for times when someone is lamenting about some minor inconvenience that is been blown way out of proportion. Both came to Br'er's mind recently as he went down the research rabbit hole.

I have shared before Br'er's obsession with linking infants' Find A Grave memorials to their parents. When he comes across an infant effectively orphaned in the records, he drives himself (further) insane trying to find the parents and link them all together.

So, when someone clued him in on an unmarked infant's grave in an abandoned family cemetery in a wooded rural area, he was off and running. Or hopping. Or scampering. 

The grave is only recorded because the cemetery is named on the infant's death certificate, and someone researching the family found it and created a Find A Grave memorial for the child.

In a quirk, the father was linked. But no mother. At least her name is on the child's death certificate, perhaps she could be found. As it turned out, she could. Just not easily or directly. And the whole story left Ol' Br'er a little stunned, awed, and more than a little depressed.

To roll back to the beginning: The infant was born in January 1936. She lived a mere three months to the day, dying in March from, basically, influenza. Her father followed her to the grave just short of two years later, in November of 1937. That alone was tragic enough.

Pulling together the rest of the family information revealed that she had a younger sister, born in late March 1937. 

But what about the mother? 

Well, it took a bit more sleuthing to find her. She had already married again by 1940, though no marriage record showed in searches. Her new surname only came up because she was living with her parents in 1950. Knowing the name allowed her to be found back in the 1940 Census living with her new husband. That meant that she had to have married him less than two years after the death of her first husband.

At that point, her story came into stark focus. And Ol' Br'er was reminded of having a tough row to how.

This woman was born in 1917. She was married by the time she was 18 years old (maybe 17 years old). And before she was 19, she had given birth to and lost a child. Before she was 21 years old, she had given birth to a second daughter (who survived and lived a long life!) and had been widowed.

Imagine for a moment being a widowed mother of an 8-month-old child in the rural south at the height of the Great Depression. Talk about a tough situation! A person could be forgiven for questioning her motives for marrying her second husband. It would not be unimaginable for someone in her situation to marry simply for some measure of security. Ol' Br'er wants to think it was a marriage of mutual affection rather than convenience. And, considering that it produced several children, it probably was. Or at least it became one over time.

Yes, she definitely had a tough row to hoe. Her life in comparison to most of ours definitely makes our complaints look like first-world problems.

Ol' Br'er is left wondering why she never had her first child's grave marked, even in later years. She was not the first to leave a child's grave unmarked, nor will she be the last. And, if she somehow forgot that child or where it was laid to rest, well, she would not be the first parent to do that either, whether it be due to trauma, time, or failing memory. 

More's the pity. 

The Unicorn Might Have a Name!

Some time back, Ol' Br'er was clued in on a lone headstone that no one had ever recorded or researched before. It was his second Cemetery Unicorn - a cemetery that is not listed on Find A Grave. And anyone who has spent any amount of time researching genealogy, graveyards, and cemeteries can tell you how rare it is to find such a thing.

Much as he tried, Ol' Br'er could not find anything more than what he could read on the headstone: Mr. and Mrs. Knox and Child. He searched the Knox family in the area, but all the names he could find had marked graves elsewhere. It was a real stumper!

Well, the thought of this lone marker haunted Ol' Br'er. He recently dusted off his research hat and restarted his attempts to find the names of this family.

This time the results were . . . mixed.

Initially, he found the same lack of results from his original efforts. The only Knoxes appearing in Census records could be quickly and easily dismissed as not being the correct person. They either appeared in the 1850 Census or later or could be identified as buried elsewhere. Or were too old to have a child in the late 1840s.

It was while he researched one of these dead-ends - one John A P Knox - that a possible, even probable, break came up. John A P Knox died in 1833 (possibly 1832). At least he will was probated in 1833. 

Now, at first, Ol' Br'er thought that the mysterious grave might be that of John A P Knox, his wife, Elizabeth Denham, and their child. Birth years for the couple remain a mystery. But, as they married on 18 July 1816, it is entirely possible that they had a child in the mid-1840s and died shortly thereafter. Neither immediately appeared in later Census records. 

Only that proved to be impossible when John A P Knox's will turned up. The notes on the estate paperwork folder cite that he died in 1833. It also has a notation as a question that one of the heirs at law (that was a new term for Ol' Br'er!), John D Reed, married Knox's widow. Looking forward to the 1850 through 1870 Censuses, there is an Elizabeth/Eliza Reed with a William (A or A P) Reed in the correct county. Further, her birth year calculates out to be about 1800, so all the dates are plausible. Digging more, Eliza Knox married John L Reed (Reid) in 1839. William A P Reed was born in 1841. And, if there needed to be a bow wrapping up this portion of the puzzle, there is a Cornelia Knox living with Eliza and William in the 1870 Census. More on Cornelia later.

Back to John A P Knox's will, there are what appear to be children noted: Frances (Knox) Swift, Ephraim M Knox, and Andrew Knox. Obviously, our mystery family cannot be Frances since she married a man named Swift. That leaves us with two possibilities: Ephraim and Andrew. Another important fact to note is that Andrew is specifically stated to be a minor, that his bequeathment be held until he comes of age. So it is reasonable to speculate that Andrew is younger than 16 or 17. Probably younger than that, say around the age of 10, give or take. So he had to be born somewhere around 1820-1827.

Following the trail for Ephraim rapidly finds that he married Mary Allen in 1841 before moving to Alabama, back to Georgia, then ultimately to Texas, where he died in 1880. Clearly not our mystery Knox man! But! The story his records began to tell pulled Ol' Br'er further down the rabbit hole. 

First off, he and his wife, Mary, had two daughters: Mary L (b 1846) and Cornelia A (b 1854). Yup. The same Cornelia who was living with her paternal grandmother back in Georgia on the 1870 Census. By the 1880 Census, Mary L had married James Constantine. The couple a least five children and were living in Louisiana. And who should be living with them? Why sister Cornelia, of course. 

Cornelia herself married, in her late 20s, Elisha Wimbeck Lacy (now there is a name!). The couple had at least two children. This seems to have curtailed Cornelia's wanderlust as she remained in Louisiana until her death in 1921.

Sadly, Ephraim was made a widower before 1860. Mary died (Br'er could find nothing on where, when, or why). Following his mother's example, Ephraim married a second time. This time in 1865, to Sarah Elizabeth (Fewell) Jacobs, herself the widow of Claiborn Jacobs and mother of his two children James B and Mary A E. Both of these children appear in Ephraim's household on the 1870 Census, so that confirms the relationship.

James B Jacobs revealed a pattern, a mystery, and possibly a scandal! 

Born in 1857, James married Josephine King in 1877, and the two "got busy," as the kids say these days. The couple had at least nine children between 1878 and 1896. Josephine died in 1903. James married again in 1907, this time to Viola.

Viola fascinated Ol' Br'er. She was born in Mississippi in 1857 to O W and Roxy Wiley. She married John Thomas Partin in 1887, with that union producing only one known child, a daughter, Bertie, born in 1889. John Thomas Partin died in 1904. And as we already know, Viola married widower James B Jacobs in 1907. 

However! That may not be Viola's whole story. There is an 1881 marriage record back in Mississippi between Hiram Trevilion and - you guessed it! - Viola Miley! Could it be that Viola married a third time (or first time!) and kept it secret for some reason? Was she widowed? Or worse, divorced? 

So Ol' Br'er started digging for Hiram. Assuming a birth year of 1860± ten years came up with nothing. So Br'er tried with a birth year of 1850± ten years. Only one Hiram Trevilion came up. And Ol' Br'er could not decide if he wanted the story he found to be true or not.

Hiram appears in the 1850 age zero (born less than a year before the census was enumerated), 1860, 1880, and 1900 Census records. Starting with the 1880 Census, he appears with a wife, Alice, and children (Houston, Jennie, and Clara in 1880). According to the 1900 Census, Alice gave birth to four children with three living. And most interestingly, Hiram, a reverend, and Alice have been married for 28 years. This means they were married in 1872. 

1872. Yet there is a marriage record to Viola Wiley dated 1881. A marriage that, based on later records, never happened.

What? The? . . . 

Now, Ol' Br'er cannot say for certain what the true story is. But! A story that fits the available documentation is this. Hiram Trevilion marries a young woman, Alice, in 1872, and the two grow a family over the ensuing years. After nine years of marriage, Hiram has a wandering eye (and a fixed lust) and illegally marries another young woman, Viola Wiley, in 1881. He is a bigamist! The truth comes out, and this second marriage is either annulled or deemed to have never happened. Viola gets shipped out to Texas to be away from the scandal. It is there that she marries John Thomas Partin as "Miss" in 1887.

Was Viola duped? Was Hiram a bigamist? It damned sure looks that way! Lord knows that he would not be the first preacher to commit adultery and bigamy. SCANDAL!

Back to Andrew, though, and the original target of Ol' Br'er's research. There are property tax records for Andrew P Knox in the correct county in 1842, 1844, and 1845. Recalling that Andrew could not receive his inheritance until he "came of age" and using 18 as a nominal age of adulthood, that would make him born about 1824. Possibly later if he inherited sooner. Factoring in that the Knox in question died in 1847 with a wife and child, and the nominal minimum marriage age in most places of 18-21, we again get a birth year in the mid-1820s. And recall that the household of John L Reed/Reid - the second husband of his apparent mother - has an extra male age 15-19 on the 1840 Census not accounted for by a corresponding male in John Reed's household in the 1830 Census. Finally, include the facts that no Andrew Knox appears in the 1850 or later Censuses nor are there property tax records for him after 1845, and a compelling case can be made that Ol' Br'er's unicorn grave is:

• Andrew P Knox, son of John A P Knox and Elizabeth (Denham) Knox
• Andrew was born c. 1824/5
• Andrew married an unknown woman c. 1845/6
• Andrew fathered at least one child (probably only one child)
• Andrew passed away along with his wife and child due to an unknown cause sometime in 1847

Can Ol' Br'er claim he has proven anything? No. At least not to any standard acceptable to serious genealogists.

Is there a snowball's chance in Hell that Br'er's theory can ever be proven? Hell, no!

Is the evidence clear and compelling enough for Ol' Br'er to deem his itch scratched? Oh, yes!