(adjective) to be deeply curious about the roots and branches of your family tree.
Sometimes when I want to feel like I’m really doing something, but don’t actually have the time, mental energy, or focus to actually do the thing, I buy books about the thing. How many of you all do that, too? It's not the worst habit in the world - I still feel connected to whatever the thing is (genealogy - it's genealogy, y'all), and since I’m often buying reference material, when I’m ready to dig into a topic, I already have some of the resources I need.
What do you do when you find out that the records of a Georgia school that several of your maternal cousins attended are actually located in a building just a few minutes from where you go to work every day in Philadelphia?
Excited to give a new presentation on September 23rd, called Colleges, Clubs, & Cotton Fields: Researching Black Women, 1900-1950. It's a hybrid program, so if you'd like to join from the comfort of your own home, you can - visit https://www.kinseekers.org/.
I love a good postscript to a story, and thanks to local historian Steve Brown of the Monroe Museum in Monroe, Georgia, I’ve got one to add to the story of Beuna Nell Crew.
In mid-July of 1938, Beuna Nell Crew had just graduated from Spelman College with a degree in Biology. She had also just lost her father to tuberculosis a couple of weeks ago. Her brother, Lamar, had been married for a year and a half, and, with his wife Annie, had a son who had recently passed his first birthday.
Sometimes I go weeks or even months without putting a new post up on this blog. Sometimes that’s because I’m just very busy at work and/or with my other responsibilities and don’t have the time or mental energy to write and illustrate a new entry. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing genealogy! So what are some of the things I might be up to? Here’s a list, along with some hopefully helpful suggestions if you want to do the same or learn more:
If you’ve read my last couple of posts, you already know that 1936 was a difficult year for my distant cousin Beuna Nell Crew, niece of my 2x great-grandmother Scoatney (Scott) Cooper. Her mother, Lula (Scott) Crew, died suddenly of a heart attack just two weeks into the year. And it seems that Beuna then – in what was her junior year - temporarily dropped out of Spelman College, likely to go home to Lithonia, GA to assist with all that needed to be done.
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| Funeral notice for Lula (Scott) Crew, Beuna Nell Crew's mother. Atlanta Constitution, 15 January 1936, p. 20. Accessed via Internet Archive (archive.org). |
On June 1st, 1921, having recently recovered from
a serious illness, my 2x great aunt Lula (Scott) Crew wrote in a letter to her
alma mater, Spelman College, “I had no strength to speak of my little daughter
of whom I have planned to enter Spelman as soon as she is old enough but my
thots were of her.”
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| Courtesy of Spelman College Archives. |
Twelve years later, in 1933, her plans came to fruition.
In my last post, I mentioned that my 2x great-grandaunt, Lula (Scott) Crew - sister of my 2x-great grandmother Scoatney (Scott) Cooper - was an educator until her death in 1936. What I didn’t mention was that she actually died at work.
The Spelman Messenger, where I believe I first saw her death reported, gave no indication of how Lula had passed away. Instead, it focused on her contributions to not only their school community but also to the Georgia communities in which she had taught and served. “In the death of Mrs. Henry Crew (Lula Scott Crew),” they wrote, “at Lithonia, Georigia, on January 14, 1936, Spelman College has lost one of its most loyal and representative alumnae.” They continued:
I’ve added some books to my bookshelf, y’all!
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| My recent acquisitions. |
