Cousin Shaw said We're Related on Both Sides

29 Nov 2013 - If I had been right-thinking, that would have been enough to send me searching. Mom and Dad had gone down to a reunion in Georgia, and when I got home from Archaeology Field School in Minnesota, Mom told me those words. I was thinking that Mom meant Daddy's Walker and Simpkins lines, but she actually meant a connection to her side of the family as well! It was 1981 and I wasn't asking the questions. I wasn't asking the ancestors to guide me. Thirty-two years have passed and I'm still stumped.

Once I finally restarted my search in earnest, it was 1995. I still hadn't been down home to Calhoun Falls. My cousins and I have joked that if we looked long enough and deep enough this small town in Abbeville Co, South Carolina ultimately would yield one set of grandparents for everyone. Everyone we knew came from Calhoun Falls. We thought it a bit scary that my parents were both born in Calhoun Falls. My Gram, Mom's Mom and my heart, assured me that my parents weren't related because her side of the family was from the Flatwoods and Daddy's family were Millwood People. Mind you that these two neighborhoods are not at all far apart.

Calhoun Falls has never been that big:  1,759 residents in 1930, and only 897 in 1920, It's never gone over 2,500. And you know you've arrived down home when folks ask, "Who are your people?" and they they know who you're talking about even though those you name joined the ancestors more than 50 years ago.

Calhoun Falls is so small that one year I got a phone call from Mrs. Eades who told me that Ron Hunter had told her to call me to help her find out more about her ancestors. As I listened intently and took notes, once we finally arrived at the end of the conversation, I told her that I'd of course look for some information, but I hope she could tell me who Ron was. I sometimes think that was the way our ancestors chose to work, their way of intercession. Ron had met my paternal line Cousin LaRusha and maternal line Cousin Inez at a COG Holiness convention and he'd met Mrs. Eades. When I finally talked with him, it turned out that our common relative was none other that Cousin Shaw. That is how my ancestors send me echoes. They are real. They send us to find information and ask us to find the missing connections.

Cousin Shaw was Floree Simpkins Shaw. Her grandfather was my great-grandfather, Edmond

Simpkins, born 1838 SC. She explained when I was 13 that he had 22 children by 3 different women. I first found him in a slave ledger of James Edward Calhoun listed as part of the "Edgefield Gang." Calhoun had acquired my family, both the Walkers and Simpkins, through his marriage to Mariah Simkins of Edgefield County, SC in 1839. I've heard some other stories about my great grandfather Edmond, but I haven't been able to verify them. I speak them now because I continue to seek evidence to support them. Ms. Mamie Magnolia Isom was born in 1900 and joined the ancestors in 2004. She told my cousin William that she had attended a school for "Colored" children built by Edmond Simpkins. She said the school had been burned down by white folks twice, but after Grandpa Edmond rebuilt it the third time, they let it stand. This makes sense to me because he was a farmer and a blacksmith so he might have invested in education. His daughter, Carrie Simpkins Guinn, was listed as a school teacher on the 1910 census. I've not found any proof of the school except for Ms. Isom's recollection.

Anyway, it's 29 Dec 2016, and I should have published this long ago. I've got to put all of these drafts out into the universe so that perhaps I'll get some hints from the ancestors. Cousin Shaw's mother was Harriet Allen (b. ca 1869 SC) born to Whitfield Allen (b. ca 1844 SC) and Georgianna Williams (b. ca 1854 SC). Somehow either the Allen or Williams line connects to my Foote or Lee lines.

They Were Smiling, too.

Sylvia Lee Easley
15 Feb. 1903 SC - 3 July 2004 NY

For weeks I've been asking my ancestors what they would send to me for the AAGSAR Blogfest. I kept smiling as I thought about Aunt Sylvia and Gram. Those sisters could fuss, but never really stayed mad at each other. They embodied the stubborn nature of the Lees, and that feisty nature isn't such a bad thing. I think if Gram had kept arguing with "Aunt Sivey" a bit more, it might have staved off the Alzheimer's. Throughout this Christmas season, the sisters probably have been going and back and forth over this and that up in Heaven, just to make sure their descendants down here were laughing and smiling together. I think they were smiling, too.

Lucille Lee Stokes
20 Jan. 1905 SC - 6 Dec. 2006 NY

The two sisters were just about inseparable here on earth. They both fibbed about their ages, but I'm reasonably sure of 1903 and 1905. They were the babies, the youngest of 10 known and named. Gram thought her Mom might have had a set of triplets who didn't live, but we don't have any proof. Their mom, Grandma Leah Foote Lee passed in 1908 and their Dad, Grandpa David Lee in 1911. Raised by their older siblings, Uncle General and Aunt Georgie, they were tough, proud women. Aunt Sylvia and Uncle General moved to Buffalo in 1923. Aunt Sylvia married Uncle Ernest Easley in 1924, and Gram moved up to Buffalo with Mom that same year. Of course they lived together, or down the street, or a few blocks away from each other throughout their lives. Many friends and family members have stories of coaxing 90+ year old independently stubborn Gram into the car as they found her walking up the hill on West Ferry, going to see her "little sister" in the nursing home. They spent just about one hundred years together on this earth.

Mom is Gram's only child, but her first cousins Mary, Ernest, Dorothy, Edward, Eleanor, David, and Lucille Easley were her sisters and brothers. She was living with them on the 1925 NYS census and the 1930 Federal census. After church this Christmas Eve, Mom and I ran by Cousin Dorothy's. They're the only two remaining. For three hours we sat laughing as they talked about the old times. I heard some stories for the first time, and still feel a twinge pulling at my heart strings for the stories I've missed because those who knew them best are already in Heaven.

Oh they had me rolling. Christmas 1950 and Aunt Sylvia is cooking dinner. Cousin Mary calls Cousin Dorothy into the bathroom, exclaiming that something is definitely wrong. "See, they didn't tell us anything about babies," Cousin Dorothy tells me. "I look down and tell Mary, That's a head! Close your legs! I run out and tell Momma that she needs to take Mary to the hospital because the babies are coming." Aunt Sylvia told them that Cousin Mary couldn't have the twins because she was cooking dinner. Of course, Gram had to chime in, telling her to shut up and take Cousin Mary on to the hospital. She would finish the dinner. I'll bet that set off a fussing period between the two. Mom and Cousin Dorothy laughed about Gram's biscuits. Imagine, remembering biscuits some 60+ years later! Aunt Sylvia's kids liked flat biscuits, but Gram made big fluffy biscuits. Cousin Dorothy had to "pull out the cotton in Aunt Lucille's biscuits." Yes Mom, I, too, wish Keith and Zion's mom, Cousin Eleanor had written the stories. Gram, Aunt Sylvia, and all the rest of the Easley kids were probably smiling, too.

Lucille Easley
29 Jan. 1934 - 5 Feb. 2002

Megan

New Years Eve afternoon brought Little Edward and his daughter Megan over to sit and chat. Each time Mom sees Megan, she exclaims, "Oh you look just like your grandmother Lucille. You know she was named after my mother." So fun to sit and laugh and create new memories as Mom recalls stories of downed Christmas trees at lively family parties of days gone by - days long before Megan, Edward, or I were born!

Georgie Stokes Walker & Danica

Habari gani? Imani. Mom and I went over to Keith and Antoniette's to celebrate the last day of Kwanzaa. Faith in our God, our family's past, and in its future. There, Mom held Danica. That initial wave of tears welled up and subsided because Lee women don't often let them fall. But in that moment, I could feel her wish that they were with us, celebrating. I'm sure Cousin Eleanor was smiling down at her granddaughter, Jackie, a beautiful new mother, and her precious great granddaughter. 

Jade, Adia, Alicia,
Maya, Asma

Hope and happiness rang strong as I watched the children of our extended family teach us of the Nguzo Saba. I'm sure that Cousin Mary, Mom's closest age-mate sister-cousin, watched and smiled down on her daughter Sylvia, granddaughters Adia and Asma, and great-grands, Maya, Alicia, and Jade. I know Gram and Aunt Sylvia had to smile as Danica, and sister-cousins Jackie and Asma spoke and lit the candle for Imani.

Asma, Jackie, Danica, &
Antoniette

And so we usher in a New Year. Sometimes, our ancestors just may be nudging us to tell a story as it is happening, just as Luckie Daniels has nudged us to take our research to the net through blogging. 

In about a hundred years, may the family historians of our African American Genealogy and Slave Ancestral Research Community savor the juices of the sweet stories we found of the past and shared of our present. Welcome to the "New Kids on the Blog." 

If we leave them this record, I'm sure they will be smiling, too.

One Love,
Nsoni

Ancestral Echoes

As I was working on my second, still unpublished entry, I was doing a little bit of online research on the history of Calhoun Falls. At the same time, I felt drawn to revisit some census records I have been accumulating for the ancestors of two of my DNA cousins. Virgil popped up matching us on 23andMe like we should have been running into him at the Foote Family Reunions all these years. In researching his ancestral Boyds living in Tippah Co, Mississippi, I happened to meet Karmella, also a Boyd descendant. We're all DNA cousins. Their Boyds were listed as born in 1840s South Carolina according to the 1880 census in MS. My great-great grandmother was Jamima Boyd, born about 1840 SC. She married Isaac Foote Jr. and she died way too young, just like her middle daughter, my great grandmother Leah Foote Lee. 

I feel our Boyd ancestors are sending this echo. That's how I describe it when I'm drawn. In 1870 I like to think of my ancestors living in a family compound. Sons are listed with their parents and the wives and children of Isaac Jr and the first Wade in homes next door. By 1880 "Mima" appears to have died. Her maiden name was found on the Death Certificate of her daughter, Emeline Foote Rollinson.

1870 SC - Foote Family

1880 SC Isaac Foote Jr's Household

It is as if in those quiet moments that someone whispers in my ear to go check. I'm supposed to be staying focused as I take a few minutes away from school work. No, I am called to check in on my ancestors who are ever with me. I greet them on the 1880 census. Bena Kale, people of old, my ancestors. In one household I greet Ancestor Andy, his wife, and children. Are you Grandma Jamima's brother? I know Virgil is your descendant. 

1880 MS Households of Franklin Boyd and Van and Ivey Boyd Rogan

Just as I know Karmella descends from the household above him, with Ancestor Ivey Boyd and her husband and children. Above them I wonder if I am greeting my possible great great great grandfather, Franklin Boyd, aged 73.

1880 MS Andy Boyd's Household

My ancestors, I really should be planning for school tomorrow. Let me leave you and find that tiny bit of information on when Calhoun Falls was incorporated. As I depart, I see that I'm still being called when Sharon Morgan posts a link on OBA about Educable Children Records for Mississippi. I take that path for just a second and note that I will need to return...

Google: "Calhoun Falls" history. There it is, 1891, right in this article: http://www.independentmail.com/news/2007/jun/03/culture-change-after-mill-closes/. The first street was Cox Avenue? It was named after Judge WF Cox of Anderson. Where did I just see the name Cox?

1880 MS Household Leonard and Fibie Boyd Cox

Two houses down on the 1880 census page from Ancestor Andy is the household of Leonard Cox, born ca 1855 MS to South Carolina-born parents, and his wife Fibie, born ca 1856 South Carolina. A quick look over on ancestry.com and the ancestral echo rings loudly, telling me that I must keep looking.

This Ancestral Echo is telling me that I must clarify what is in front of me so that I can find and reclaim our connections for Andy, Ivey, Fibie, and Jamima; for Virgil Karmella, and me.