Br'er Graveyard Rabbit

Monday, March 21, 2022

Missed it by THAT much!

Would you believe that I dare you to read that title again without hearing Don Adams' voice in your head. Don "Agent 86 of CONTROL" Adams.

Anyone who has spent much time wandering through active cemeteries has almost certainly come across at least one headstone where the first two numbers of the death century were pre-carved as "19". Many people born in the early years of the 20th century were so confident that they would die before the year 2000 that they left only the decade and year numbers to be added to their headstone only to find themselves still around in the year 2000 and later! This necessitated crossing out the "19" and replacing it with "20".

Such cases never fail to make me chuckle. Among other things, I hear the negotiations with the stone carver. ""I'm sorry, Mrs. Seward, but we will have to charge extra to fix the date. Yes, I understand that it is not wrong. But, we did not make a mistake. We carved the stone precisely to your orders, as you can see here on the original paperwork. And it has been over 25 years since we carved and set it. You cannot possibly expect us to call this 'fixing a mistake.'"

Doris, on the other hand, clearly had other plans. I mean, you cannot fault her for expecting to live past 83 years (82 to be pedantic since her 83rd birthday would not come until much later in the year 2000). She simply did not make it, passing away 23 Sep 1999 a mere 100 days from being able to use the '20' year prefix.

Missed it by that much!

I was curious enough that I was compelled to see what else I could dig up on her (if you will pardon the pun). Frankly, I was not expecting to find as much detail as I did!

Would you believe that right off the bat, I found photos! (Sorry. Not sorry for another Agent 86 crack!)

Doris in High School, 1934

Doris as a university student, 1937

Doris, again at University, but now as faculty, ca 1957.

Imagine my surprise when I also found an obituary. And not a basic, one-inch column version either.

I think it safe to say Doris was a most accomplished woman. More remarkedly so considering the expectations society held for women of the time.

A detail from the obituary that raises more questions comes from the 3rd from the last paragraph. "Interment will be at the Columbarium." This seems to imply that the marker is, in fact, a cenotaph.

Unfortunately, I can only speculate on this point. You see, the marker and columbarium are in Indiana, and I have not been there in person.

I suppose an explanation is in order. I saw Doris's marker on the internet. The humor of the year change has not been missed by others. Someone had shared the photo, and it went viral. I will not be shocked in the least if anyone reading this drivel has not seen the image before.

So, clearly, I have to confess that this excursion was entirely virtual. However, that doesn't make it any less interesting. At least to me.

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

A Century Late and a Fortune Short - Updated!

There is an old expression about being "a day late and a dollar short." In essence, this means arriving after a deal is done and with insufficient resources.

Well, based on the little data available, Ol' Br'er is showing up about a century too late to even have a chance of finding any answers.

As has been told all too often, one thing Br'er likes to do is check back in on cemeteries and graves to either confirm or add GPS coordinates for them and to perhaps update the description of and/or directions to the site.

Being one of 'those people' who utterly loathe waste and inefficiency, Br'er does a good bit of research before setting out. He first finds all the cemeteries in a given area and then examines each to determine if they are good candidates for a visit. Some of the things he considers are:

Are there any photo requests that have not been flagged as having a problem?
How many memorials are registered (Is this a candidate for a full audit of all memorials in the cemetery?)
Does it appear that there are unphotographed markers?
Do the GPS Coordinates (if recorded) look correct using Google Maps Satellite View? Or do they appear incorrect?
If there are no coordinates given, are there good directions?
Is the cemetery visible in Google Maps Street View?
Are there any relatives in the cemetery?
How accessible is the cemetery? (i.e., Can you drive to it? Is it a hike to access it? Do you need permission to be on the property?
How old is the cemetery?

Taking everything into account, he makes a plan for the most efficient route to visit the sites in order of priority.

Two tiny cemeteries piqued his interest. One was a single grave (to be discussed later). The other?

Schroeder Cemetery

One marked grave flanked by four unknowns. All soldiers. The oddest part is the location. These are just a few feet from the rear wall of a church. Indeed, there is only just enough space to accommodate a grave between headstone and wall! Obviously, these graves pre-date the structure. At least this part of it.

A name, a unit, and CSA. Not much information. Who was John? When was he born? When did he die? Did he leave a family? The only other fact that could be gleaned from the headstone is that it was placed no sooner than the late 1920s.

How can this be determined? Two things: First, it has the Southern Cross of Honor. That was not created until 1895. Second, the stone is obviously issued by the Veterans Administration. These were not provided for Confederate Veterans until the late 1920s.

Finding out more and updating his memorial would be a good thing. And probably a challenge.

Game on, Skippy!

You would think someone like Ol' Br'er would know better than to accept such fool dares.

Hours upon hours later, almost no results.

Four images related to the military records.

Well, that confirms the unit details. And that the headstone was ordered in 1929.

This places him on the unit roster and in New Orleans in 1861. If only his address were legible!

Not certain what can be gleaned from this page, but it was in the soldier's file.

More confirmation, this is the man!

But that is the end of the factual data. From here, it becomes speculation.

Census records list 7 men named John Schroeder living in Louisiana in 1860, born between 1820 and 1837 inclusive. 6 have a birthplace of Germany (or a German city). Of these 6, 2 are married with children. These 2 married men are not as likely to be this John Schroeder, given the lack of evidence that he left a family. 1 (the only one born in 1837) gives his birthplace as New Orleans.

I believe this last man is this John Schroeder. In 1850 he was 23 years old and living in the household of P and Sophie Schroeder, who appear to be his parents. And as a young man of 24 years, he is the most likely to join the Confederate Army.

Sadly, there, the trail ends. It would have been nice to connect him back to his family.

Update!

I threw the challenge of tracking down additional details about John to the Brain Trust (i.e., other genealogy researchers on the net), and they came through.

I was able, with some excellent suggestions, to find additional records that shed more light on John.

First among these was to look for a City Directory for New Orleans. In the days before Telephone Directories, City Directories were the resource to locate someone in a city or town. Name, address, occupation (and in the days of segregation, race), and other data were published for everyone in town. This suggestion led me to an 1861 City Directory for New Orleans. There were several Schroeders listed, at least two of these with the name John. Intriguingly, one of the John Schroeders is listed as a Tin Smith.

Oooh! The Unit Roll remarks sure look like it reads "Tin Smith!"

Second, additional eyes on looking the street name came up with a couple of suggestions. These allowed me to determine the street to be Casa Calvo. Unfortunately, none of the Schroeders lived on this street or anything like it.

Damn!

Then I stumbled across a notation in the City Directory that Casa Calvo (or at least a portion of it) had been renamed Royal St. And, there is a John Schroeder is living at 632 Royal St. Damned if the unit roll address number does not look to be 632.

With this data in hand, I returned to the census records. Infuriatingly, there are no addresses on the census. But it does have Ward listed.

Back to the research! I find a couple of New Orleans maps from 1860/1861, one using color coding to identify the dozen or so Wards. I cross-check all the references, and 632 Royal St is in Ward 5.

So now it is back to the 1860 Census. Putting all these new pieces together, I find one - ONE - John Schroeder living in New Orleans in Ward 5, born in Germany in 1825. Ok, his occupation is listed as "Segar Dealer," but people can and do change jobs. Still, this seems to be the only census where I can find him enumerated.

More digging reveals an immigration record for Johann Schroeder, born in Bremen, Germany, in 1825, arriving in New Orleans in 1854. Many immigrants swapped Johann for John, so that fits. The years fit. Everything fits.

I do believe that this is our man.

Johann Schroeder: Born 1825 in Bremen, Germany. Immigrates to the United States in 1854 (aboard the ship Jhoanna no less), arriving in New Orleans. Works at a minimum of two professions, "Segar Dealer" (Cigar) and "Tin Smith." before joining Company F, Orleans Fire Regiment, Louisiana Militia, Confederate States of America in 1861. By 1864 he finds himself in Winterville, Clarke County, Georgia (a few miles east of Athens). Sadly, he dies here and is buried alongside four soldiers whose names are lost to time.

We can only speculate on his reasons to leave his home and move to America. Was he speaking adventure? Fleeing the law? Did he hope to strike it rich? Had he gotten a girl pregnant and was skipping out on his responsibility (or an irate father)? Was he an orphan? Did he leave family behind? There is no way to know now. Whatever his plans, hopes, or dreams may have been, he took them with him to the grave when he left this mortal world sometime before his 40th birthday.

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Down the Research Rabbit Hole

I have said before that old Br'er not only scampers around the headstones in person but also online. Sometimes that is the only option available. Much as he might prefer to go where the graves is, when they are several hundred miles away, going there just ain't an option. So he is left with researching the family tree and when the folks is buried all on the webs.

Such was the case recently. Pushing out on some distant cousin lines ended up revealing an interesting story, and one, I daresay would have been utterly lost to history had Br'er not stumbled over it and pulled all the parts together.

It all started when Ancestry (an online genealogy research service for anyone who has been living in a cave or the deep Amazon basin for the past 10 years or so). One of the 'features' of the service is what they call "Hints." Essentially what happens is that certain algorithms and searches are automatically executed by the site for each person you have in your family tree. Potential records - census, tax, birth/death/marriage, and other resources - that may match the person are presented for you to review. These may or may not actually match your entry, so you need to evaluate each one carefully. Part of the background algorithms factor in what other people have selected and applied to what may be the same person in their tree. All too often, those trees are horribly wrong.

For women particularly, these hints can present a challenge. A significant number come up with her married name when you may not have a marriage and spouse in her tree. For example, you have Mary Smith in your tree, and hints start coming in for Jane Jones. Sometimes you can quickly determine that the hint is just plain wrong. Other times, though, you have to really dig in to figure out if the hint is or is not correct for your person. In this example, you find a marriage license with Mary Jane Smith, daughter of Sam and Lisa Smith (the parents of your Mary Smith), marrying John Jones and appearing in later census records as Jane Jones. Bingo! The hint was correct.

So much for the necessary background.

I was working down a branch because a name fascinated me: James Leonidas Lanham. Who names a child Leonidas? Granted, he was born in 1850 when 'classic' names were still popular, even among those of more modest backgrounds. Nevertheless, I was hoping there might be a family story about the name either for him or, if the name was handed down, for a descendant. Short version - neither happened.

But looking at one of his sons, I saw several hints for wives with the same first but different last names. Thinking 'that can't be right,' I start delving deeper. He first appears with a wife on the 1920 census along with a daughter and step-daughter.

Well! That explains that! His wife was either a widow or divorced. Both options are intriguing, considering her age and the period. She was only 31 in 1920, already married twice, and having two children. If widowed, there has to be a story there (if I can find it). If divorced, then there has to be a story there (if I can find it). That her daughter by the first husband is in the household with her second husband speaks to both of them being upstanding people.

Continuing my digging, I slowly start piecing the puzzle together. Very slowly.

The woman was born Carrie Elizabeth Helmick in 1888. As anyone who has done family research learns the hard way, the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire. So she doesn't show up until the 1900 census in her parent's home, age 12.

Carrie appears in the 1910 census, still in her parent's household. But now she is a widow! And with a one-year-old daughter to boot! That is a lot of changes in a decade.

While that answers the question of whether she was widowed or divorced, it raises the question of who was her husband? What happened to him?

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Oh, Captain! My Captain!

A preface: The phrase from Jurassic Park was "Life finds a way." The phrase from The Warren is "Life gets in the way."

This entry was started more than six months ago. It was shunted aside and left unfinished for too numerous to mention. I am in a "get things done" mode these days, so I am going back and either completing or deleting anything I started and left unfinished.

Fortunately, this was mostly done, so it was really just a matter of adding the photos and touching up the text.

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Poetry is, by and large, not my thing. So it is more than a little noteworthy when I reference someone like Walt Whitman. Be properly impressed.

I have a friendly competition with someone I have never met to see who can locate and photograph cemeteries in the counties where many of my ancestors resided. He is also aware of my efforts to clean select (Read: Interesting yet abandoned and hopefully historical) to properly clean headstones.

A few weeks ago, he suggested a stone that needs cleaning. Badly. And he was right.

Like so many other soldiers of the Revolution, Philp Tigner was awarded land on the frontier of Georgia. Finding details of that service is rather frustrating. While I am sure there are more details somewhere in a book on a research shelf, the best data readily available online comes from the Sons of the American Revolution organization's Patriot Research System; "He served in the Virginia Troops and also was Captain of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion of Georgia Troops."

Was that to indicate that his service in the Georgia Troops was during the revolution? Or after? The database does not make that clear. The answer is probably in that book on a shelf somewhere. Then again, it may not be. This could be one of those things lost to history. Try as I might, I could not readily locate anything specific about his service.

What is clear is that he fathered some 13 children with two wives (Sarah Forbish and Nancy Hall). It is worth noting that there are probably a few additional children not recorded as they did not survive. The children, by and large, were born about every year. Except that there are a few substantial gaps between some of them. Having almost all one's children survive into adulthood in the late 18th to early 19th centuries would be close to a biblical miracle. I would not be at all shocked if the actual number of children was closer to 16 or 17. Or even more. But those names and dates would only be recorded in the family bible if they were recorded at all.

I muse about possible additional children in defiance of a letter in 1881 by one of Philip's sons, Young Fletcher Tigner, when Young Fletcher was about 78 years old, to one of his own grandsons relating some family history. In the letter, Young Fletcher names all 12 of his siblings and half-siblings, and names two who died in infancy. So that, at least, comports with the norm of families losing infants at the time. Still, there remain those nasty gaps between births - some a decade or so before Young Fletcher was born. And I know all too well how not every family story is passed along, so it may be that Young Fletcher only passed on what he was told. Or what he remembered. Or maybe he had it all correct. Who can truly say?

After passing away in 1819, Philip was laid to rest on his farmland, as was the custom of the time. Well, more a necessity than a custom back then. There were few alternatives. And the alternatives that were available were often impractical due to distance and the difficulty of travel in the area. Yes, there was the occasional graveyard at a church. But there were few churches, and they may be a good distance away. Transporting a corpse wasn't the greatest idea. And delaying burial was unwise. Trebly so in warmer months.

So it was that most people were interred on family land relatively quickly.

It is worth noting that the records indicate that Philip was, in fact, considered a Reverend (probably a Methodist) and had played a sufficient part in founding a church that bore his name! Tigner Church. The church building no longer survives, and the congregation was merged with another church which was later merged with yet another church in the ensuing decades. I presume that the original Tigner Church either had no graveyard or, if it did, Philip or his family opted to not lay his to rest there.

Hot weather was not a problem when Philip passed. Heat is seldom an issue in January in the South. Then again, dirt roads are less than conducive to wagon traffic in the winter.

Whether by his wish or out of sheer necessity, Philip was buried on his land and a stacked rock false tomb erected over the grave. More than a century later, when such a thing became available, the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a marker at the grave. Apparently, this was later stolen or vandalized (destroyed), and some decades later a Veteran's Administration issued headstone was erected in front of the false tomb. It is this latest marker that we planned on cleaning.

The site has only one obvious and certain grave - Philip's. But there are several highly probable additional graves visible. Some with, some without what may be a fieldstone marking its location. Again, logic would dictate that other family are also interred there. At least the second wife, if not both wives. (The gravesites of the wives and many of the children are not known. His first wife, Sarah, is almost certainly not here since she and Philip lived many miles away in Green County at the time of her death.) And perhaps unrecorded children or other family. Past estimates number additional possible graves around 10. Sadly, Census records of the time list only the head of the household, so we have no way of knowing who these people might be.

Yeah. I think we can all agree that this one needs some cleaning.

You can see how wooded and wet the area is. This does nothing to enhance the looks of the headstone. I have to wonder if the stacked stones remotely resemble their original placement or they have shifted over the decades. Though at this point I can legitimately say centuries since it has been more than

two hundred years since Phillip passed away.

The staining on the headstone ran deep. Even after thorough scrubbing and a couple of treatments, stains remain. It will take time for the D/2 to work its magic. Still, I think it is safe to say we made a distinct improvement.

Better, yes. But still a long way to go. The plan is to give the D/2 a few months to work before returning and checking the results. Next spring, we will return and decide if a second treatment is warranted.

We opted to leave the false tomb untouched.

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Let Me Ask Grandma

You know you are dealing with an almost forgotten cemetery when the individual trying to tell you about it needs to go back and check with Grandma for details.

And you know someone is in bad shape when they turn to ol' Br'er for help. Talk about going to a dry well.

I suppose some kind of explanation is warranted. If not, then I failed to pique your curiosity.

I was contacted by someone in the Social Media wasteland who was impressed by my ability to find cemetery data relatively quickly. I would not say my skills are that good, but, on the other hand, a few decades as an IT analyst may have paid off.

Nah!

Anyhoo, the person recalled a cemetery from her childhood. Unfortunately, the area is under development, and she was concerned that it may be destroyed.

Ok. A noble effort.

The first thing was to see if the cemetery appears in FindAGrave. Short answer: It did not. At least where she thought it was located. But it has been decades since she was there. Her memory was fuzzy. Thus the statement, "Let me ask Grandma."

I cast a wider search net to see if the cemetery might not be exactly where her memory placed it. I found one, 13 graves (actually 11 - there are two duplicates recorded) not too far away. It was not the one she was remembering. But as I soon learned, it has one of my 1st cousins 5x removed with her husband and some descendants. This I file away as somewhere to visit the next time I am in the area.

Once we had a more precise location, I rechecked and confirmed that it was not recorded. My contact also went to it and photographed the markers. That allowed us to search FindAGrave for their individual memorials.

Nada.

What we have here is a missing, almost forgotten cemetery and a number of unrecorded graves.

Before taking any other steps, I built out a family tree to see if I could link the names on the headstones. Was this a family cemetery? Was it a church cemetery? (Ok, church graveyard for the pedants in the crowd.)

I learned that there are two primary and two secondary families involved. Specifically, there are three Middlebrooks sisters buried there, two with their husbands and one child of one sister. The two husbands are Hollis and Montgomery. Additionally, there is an infant Montgomery. Lastly, there are two grandchildren.

I named the cemetery Hollis - Middlebrooks for the two primary families. Hollis came first because that was the first name I came across and because it is the name that appears the most on the headstones. Middlebrooks came second. In retrospect, I think this was a Middlebrooks family cemetery, and the husbands just ended up there. More on that later.

Until I had done all this research, I was considering just passing the information along and seeing if someone more local might be interested in picking up the torch. But now I was hooked. I had to see it through.

Recall the second cemetery I noticed earlier on? The one with one of my distant cousins? While I cannot prove anything, it appears that her husband is a first cousin to the Hollis I am researching!

Unfortunately, the location is almost an hour away from the warren. This is going to take the better part of the day. I make certain to take all my cemetery excursion tools with me, including my ground probe.

Oh, yes. I am compelled to take up this one myself! I have too much invested at this point!

Once I arrive, I let my contact know I am there and starting on the research, and she joins me in a few minutes.

The first thing we do is walk the perimeter to ensure it encompasses all the graves. There is one fieldstone that is not marked with a grave flag outside the line. I probe around it and the probe easily sinks several feet down. This is a good sign that the soil has been disturbed to that depth. Undisturbed soil - soil that has never been dug up - has much greater resistance. The probe seldom goes in more than a few inches. So we secretly move the flag a few feet out so that the probable grave falls within the overall cemetery perimeter.

After creating the cemetery record in FindAGrave, I begin adding each grave, linking families, adding more photographs, and setting GPS locations for each one.

Good thing I reserved substantial time for the effort!

B. M. Hollis was where I started my research and why I (almost certainly incorrectly) first named the cemetery Hollis. Would you believe his name was Bartley? Most likely Bartley Martin Hollis.

T.C. Hollis turned out to be Talithia C. (Middlebrooks) Hollis, 1st wife of Bartley (he married a few years after her death and fathered several more children with her). She was the first Middlebrooks I noticed but should not have been, as I will explain later. No clue as to what the 'C' stands for!

As best I can uncover, little Isaac S. Hollis was the only son of Bartley and Talithia. That had to be soul-crushing for them.

Permelia, here, should have been the first Middlebrooks I noticed. But I was not paying close attention and missed the obvious appearance of her name on the headstone. She is a sister to Talithia.

Permethia's husband - Bluford Terrell Mongomery. So help me, his name was Bluford. It appears that way on many records with it clearly spelled out. No chance for mistaken handwriting!

I am confident in saying that I don't think I shall ever encounter a living Bluford!

Little Hale passed at a mere 9 months and 9 days old. He was a son to Marcus Judson Hollis and his wife, Laura Felix (Haile) Hollis. Seriously, all the records list her name as Felix. It may have been Felicia, but it was not recorded that way so far as I could find. Marcus and Felix are buried in the nearby Rutledge City Cemetery.

Marcus was a son of Bartley M Hollis through his second wife, Mary Ann (Gresham) Hollis, making Hale one of Bartley's grandchildren.

Speaking of grandchildren, Little Pearl Stanton is another of Bartley M and Talithia's through their daughter, Ollie Jane Hollis.

Ollie Jane married Isaac Anderson Stanton. There is a marker next to their graves in Circle View Cemetery in nearby Social Circle. It reads, "In memory of Little Pearl Stanton Age 1 year." That FindAGrave memorial gives her dates as Dec 1878 - 9 December 1879.

I am convinced that the Circle View stone is a cenotaph, and Pearl's actual grave is here. Her parents passed away in the early 1930s (Isaac in 1931 and Ollie Jane in 1934) - more than 50 years after Pearl passed away. Circle View lists only about two dozen or so graves dating from 1879 or earlier, and the cemetery is several miles from where Isaac and Ollie lived at the time. It would make no sense for them to take an infant daughter that far for burial where there was an existing family cemetery much closer. Further, looking at the two stones, the one here is clearly of the right look for the period, whereas the Circle View stone looks much newer in style.

My theory is that they wanted something closer to their gravesites to remember their infant daughter lost a half-century earlier.

Oh! The Circle View record mentions a Middlebrook Family Association. Put a pin in that for later!

The following two graves are less certain. I have to speculate on who they are based on what I could make out on the stones and what I could learn building the family tree.

First up was a child's grave. My ugly boot in the lower left-hand corner gives something for scale (I did not have a banana. Sorry. Internet joke there.).

I could just make out what appeared to be a J or T and F Montgomery. Looking at the family tree, I found Talulah F Montgomery, born about 1863. She was a daughter of Bluford and Permelia and only appears in one record - the 1870 US Census, where her age is listed as 7. That page was enumerated on 1 June 1870, so the odds favor her being born between June 2 and December, 31 1862. That is a 7 month period vs. the alternative period of January 1 and June 1, 1863 - a 5 month period. The age recorded on the census is "as of last birthday," so she had to be born in one of those two periods (Ok. Was probably born in one of those two periods, assuming whoever answered the census did not screw up. Like that would ever happen.)

Perhaps someone will clean the stones with D/2 one day, and more can be learned from the stone.

Second up was an adult's grave. The top slab was leaning next to the false tomb base.

There is clearly a lot on the stone, but all I could make out was the beginning, "Sacred to the memory of Martha Jane Roberts." But, again, D/2 might reveal more.

But I had Martha Jane in the tree already. She was born Martha Jane Middlebrooks in 1829, a sister to Talithia and Permelia.

Martha Jane married Silas Robertson in 1851 and had at least (probably only) one child, a son William Franklin Robertson in 1854. She passed away before 24 Aug 1859, though the exact date remains a mystery. I know she passed away before 24 Aug 1859 because of her father's will. That is the date he signed it (he lived until 1861). In the will, he names William Franklin Robertson as a grandson receiving the share of the estate that would have gone to his deceased daughter, Martha Jane Robertson.

This will was that of Isaac S. Middlebrooks. He was the father of Martha Jane, Permelia, and Talithia. All the evidence now leads me to speculate that he and his wife, Olly (Phillips) Middlebrooks, are in two of the 20 unmarked graves here. That makes the most sense when you consider three sisters are buried here. If I had to bet, I would place my money there.

I mentioned earlier that I found that there is a Middlebrook Family Association. And it appears to be active. I have dropped a message to several listed association contacts sharing what I have found. No replies yet, but it has only been a few hours.

Still, I cannot imagine they will be anything less than ecstatic at all the new data.

I can't believe how much time I have sunk into this. And I am not even related to them!

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

I'm Not Dead Yet or The Lost Weekend

Ok. So it has been a bit since I posted anything here. But in my defense, The Universe did make a valiant attempt to add me to a cemetery, though. The week of Thanksgiving, I came down with the Rona virus. I spent three weeks fending off a fever that spiked over 103 off and on the entire time. It wasn't until almost Christmas that I started to feel anything resembling normal.

Now that the New Year has started, here I am slapped right in the face with a case of a grave that piques my curiosity.

At the end of the 1890s, a company tried to start a community on the land where old Br'er's warren sits. Sadly, it failed and was almost totally vanished by 1930. There is virtually nothing remaining of it except part of the name of a few streets. I only learned about the failed community relatively recently. There is very little documentation of or even reference to it anywhere.

So you can imagine my shock where I saw the community name in an obituary last week! I think it is possibly the only reference to it in the major local paper the entire time it existed!

Naturally, I had to investigate!

As the man said, "Be careful what you start. It may be a dragon that ends up consuming you." I pulled the dragon's tail, and it woke up.

Meet Vesti. Or Vasti. It appears as each spelling on different documents. I suspect it was intended to be Vesta. That was a common enough name in the 19th century. And all things considered, if that is the case, it is a minor miracle that it came through spelled that close to the original.

Montreal Station. That is what caught my attention. The notices were from 1930.

We will get back to Vesti herself later. First, I learned some details that bear on the whole story.

Obviously, we are talking about Georgia with all the history that comes with it. The first death notice not only gave me the Montreal Station reference but the Hanley name as well. I had a memory that it was a Black funeral home. Keep in mind that Segregation was still the law at the time. And I had visited Anderson Cemetery before and knew it to be a Black cemetery dating to the early part of the 20th century.

Checking Anderson Cemetery in Find A Grave, I find multiple Fowlers. And Vesti is missing her birth details. Not even a birth year. When was Vesti born? And where? Is she related to these other Fowlers?

My task was clear. What wasn't clear was where I would end up and what I would learn.

It wasn't long before I realized that I needed to build a Fowler tree if I were to have any hope at success.

If you have never tried to research a Black family's genealogy, then you cannot fully appreciate what I found. Recall that prior to Emancipation, anyone in slavery was property. Chattle. There was no difference between a slave and a horse or cow in the official documentation. Not until the 1870 US Census were Blacks counted as people unless they were free.

If you can get anyone much beyond that 1870 date, then you have done something.

I done something!

I quickly learned that Vesti was born in May of 1890 to Mason and Lucy Fowler. And I realized that she was one of eight surviving of the nine children her mother had born as of the 1900 Census.

This alone is a better than average result researching a single Black woman born in the 19th century in the deep south. But this is just a start! I also found her Death Certificate (where I first discovered her parents' names and confirmed her grave location).

Having a person and parents in hand was the point where I started the tree in earnest. The 1900 Census indicated that Mason was born about 1860 and Lucy about 1863, both in Georgia (hardly a surprise). What more could I glean about them?

As it turned out, quite a bit!

Beyond finding the couple and their children in the 1880 Census, and the couple alone in the 1870 Census, I found their marriage record from 18 Dec 1879.

But wait! There is more!

Now I had two named families to trace; Fowler and Wood. Let's stay on the Fowler line for the moment.

Not unsurprisingly, Mason first appears in the records in the 1870 Census at age 11. Ah, ha! He was born in 1859, not 1860!

Side note: I think it is an almost 100% probability that the death record, death certificate, or obituary for anyone born in the 19th century will be disproven by census records. I am shocked if the year is only off by one.

The 1870 Census gave me Mason's parents! James (born about 1833) and Elizabeth (Born about 1834). I was surprised to see that Elizabeth gave her birth state as South Carolina. Even assuming she was born in South Carolina, close to the Georgia border, she still made a significant journey to end up in the area in Georgia where she and James could meet. Did she relocate before or after Emancipation? Was her migration her choice? Or was she sold? Did her owner move and take her with him? Or something else?

Regretfully, I cannot find anything that sheds light on that question.

Still, I did manage to find another rarish record. I found James and Elizabeth's marriage record from 14 May 1869! So now I had her maiden name, too. Great?

Alas, this was as far back as I could trace either James or Elizabeth. Still, this is a much better than expected result. And I did manage to identify four of Mason's siblings. Perhaps they, too, had remained in the area, leaving records behind.

I tried to align their details with the 1860 Slave Schedule to see if the data might indicate where the Fowler and Hollingsworth name might have originated (i.e., did they adopt their former owner's surname after Emancipation as many freed slaves did?) But, unfortunately, that led to a dead-end. Either there were no results, or there were too many possibilities.

I leave Mason's siblings aside for the moment and return to his wife, Lucy. Can I trace her line?

Maybe.

Lucy and Mason married in 1879 and appear without other family members on the 1880 Census. Searching for Lucy Wood does return a family in Georgia on the 1870 Census. I cannot confirm that this is our Lucy. However, it is the only Lucy Wood of the correct age and race coming up in Georgia, and the location is not terribly far from where she and Mason married and lived, so it may be her.

Assuming for the moment that this is our Lucy, we have intriguing new data. The 1870 Census has a seven year old Black girl, apparently the daughter of Jefferson (age 50) and Melissa Wood (age 45), along with several siblings and one very interesting woman: Mary Jennings, age 80, born in Virginia.

If the typical pattern applies here, Mary is most likely Melissa's mother, thus Jefferson's mother-in-law and Lucy's maternal grandmother. If, and this is a big 'if,' this is Lucy and her family, then Mary is Vesti's great-grandmother and was born in Virginia ca. 1790. Tracing a Black family to the 18th century is akin to finding a seven-leaf clover; it is possible but exceedingly rare. I only wish I could confirm this relationship.

At this point, I started fleshing out Vasti's siblings. That ended up being the frustrating exercise I fully anticipated when I started. It seems they scattered to the four winds. One brother may - and I emphasize "may" - have married in Missouri unusual - but understandable - circumstances. I present to you the court order involved. Judge for yourself.

I cannot stop imagining the bride's father with a pistol in his pocket. I found a divorce record from Detroit two years later that would seem to state that she divorced him for abuse and desertion.

Gee. Who would have predicted that?

Closer to home, I found one of Vasti's brothers did remain in the general area, marry, father several children, and, sadly, lose two of those children at or before birth.

One already had a Find A Grave memorial, but the other did not. Yes, I corrected that oversight and submitted updates to link all the parents and children, dates, locations, marriages, etc., that I could identify.

Alas, Elmer and his wife, Nannie Lou (George - I cannot locate her grave - she appears to have passed in the 1920s) lost at least a third daughter, Odessa. Odessa accounts for several firsts in my research.

First off, this is the first time I have encountered someone in a sanitarium. No, Odessa was not insane. A sanitarium at the time equates to what would be a long-term health care facility today. There was no cure for Tuberculosis at that time. The best that could be done for a patient was to mitigate the symptoms and make the person as comfortable as possible.

On another side note, the Battle Hill Sanitarium was located near the "new" and "fashionable" West View Cemetery near Atlanta. I am sure that having a cemetery so close by was a great comfort to patients with a terminal disease.

Second, never before have I encountered a death certificate where the deceased's details were supplied by the hospital from its records.

Third, and most interestingly, the burial location is a first for me. I initially read it as "Emory View." That name made no sense to me. Nor could I locate any reference to such a cemetery. Only after I enlarged the image was I aware that it read "Emory Univ." Emory University is a (mostly) medical school near Atlanta. It was a moment of clarity. Emory is always in need of cadavers for the medical students, and the costs of burying someone during the Depression had to be financially crippling to a Black family in the south. So, if there was a plan to bury Odessa at Chestnut Hill (as was initially entered), it is entirely understandable if that changed to donating her body to science.

By this point, I had spent the better part of two or three days at the computer, poring over online records, building the tree. I needed a break and fresh air. What better excuse to go roam about a cemetery? Off to Anderson Cemetery! Are there Fowler headstones to find?

Oy! Let me answer that question simply by saying, "Damned if I know. Maybe?"

Expectations collided with reality. And expectations lost.

I had been to Anderson Cemetery before and remembered it as about half an acre of moderately maintained grounds. But, I had not really explored it before. It turned out to be closer to three acres of mostly abandoned and grown chaos.

This is Anderson Cemetery as I recalled it.