Lula (Scott) Crew: A Timeline

Lula (Scott) Crew is the half-sister of my 2x Great-Grandmother, Scoatney (Scott) Cooper. They share a father, Solomon Scott, from two different moments in his life; Lula is nearly 20 years younger than Scoatney. The defining theme of her life seems to be education: seeking it for herself, encouraging it for her children, and supporting it for her community.

This post will be updated as I find and/or write more about her life.

 

Spelman students ca. 1897. Could Lula - who attended from 1897-1902 - be in this photo? *Citation below.

Schooling Sunday: Beuna Nell Crew, Second Gen Spelman Grad

On June 1^st, 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.” 

Courtesy of Spelman College Archives.

Twelve years later, in 1933, her plans came to fruition. 

Working Wednesday: James and Daniel Scott at the Farlinger Apartments and Café

From 1903 to 1906, my 2x great-granduncle Daniel Scott (younger brother of my 3x great-grandmother Scoatney (Scott) Cooper), appears in Atlanta city directories as a waiter at a place called The Farlinger, or the Farlinger Café. Just a few years later, Daniel’s brother James Solomon Scott also turns up at the Farlinger, appearing as a janitor in city directories for 1909, 1912, 1913, and 1915. The 1910 U.S. Census shows him living at the Farlinger and working as a building janitor. So, what is this place and what can we find out about it?

 

Hitting the Genealogical Jackpot: Jilson Littlejohn and the Federal Writers' Project

Writing my last post on DNA testing results made me realize that I hadn’t shared one of my most exciting finds on this blog! So here I am, fixing that.

I found a WPA Federal Writers’ Project interview with one of my ancestors' brothers!!!!!

Whew, okay. Honestly, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I was to find what I am about to describe to you. It’s like hitting the jackpot, winning the lottery, finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But let me back up a step.

Working Wednesday: Two Scott Brothers at the Arlington Hotel

Advertisement for the Arlington Hotel, found in the Atlanta City Directory for 1896, p.9. Archive.org.

 

One of the things I find enthralling about family history research is trying to picture what my ancestors everyday lives looked like, going beyond the dates and pedigree charts to try to see the world they walked through. So when I discovered that two of my maternal great-great-grandmother Scoatney Scott’s  brothers, James Solomon Scott and Daniel Scott, worked at the Arlington Hotel in Atlanta in the mid-1890s, you know what I had to do! Down the rabbit hole I went, and here’s what I’ve found so far.

A Wild Ride With the Scotts Through Atlanta City Directories!

The process of writing a blog post often forces me to go back through my research to double-check my research steps, assumptions, and conclusions. If I’m going to be wrong publicly, I’d at least like to be wrong earnestly! Sometimes a new idea will occur to me, and I’ll test it out, or I’ll try an unlikely path, just to be sure.  Often this all lands me right back where I was, but, sometimes, fascinating things pop up. And that’s what happened when I was preparing to write my post on the probable death of my 4x great-grandfather, Solomon Scott.

To Spelman, With Love: A Lula Scott Crew Update

Fam, I’ve been holding out on you. I got something really, really cool – actually, something pretty darn amazing – in my email over a year ago, and I am only just getting to write about it. But now that I’ve had some brain space to pick up my research and writing again – taking vacation days is so necessary if you can, y’all! – I am so excited to loop you in. 

The Writing Lesson, by Morris Shulman. Citation Below.

 

The Education of Lula A. Scott - Part 2

Once upon a time, in 1897, a woman named Lula A. Scott began her studies at Spelman Seminary. She was the younger half-sister of my 2x Great-Grandmother, Scoatney Scott. Perhaps she looked like, or was even one of, the young ladies in this photo, published in 1897.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. (1897). Students of Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-7120-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

I ended my last post on Lula Scott’s education by asking if she’d made it through her studies, earning her degree. Well, good news: she did! 

The Education of Lula A. Scott - Part I

Sydney Borden Scott wasn’t the only one of my 2x Great-Grandmother’s siblings to receive a strong academic education. While Borden (as he called himself) was starting his fourth year in the Academic Course at Atlanta Baptist College, his sister Lula was beginning her first year at Spelman Seminary!

Lula Scott was born about 1882 in Georgia, likely in either Washington or Hancock Counties. She was about 2 years younger than Borden and about 22 years younger than Scoatney, her half-sister (they shared the same father, but had different mothers). And within just a few years of her brother starting his education in Atlanta, Lula followed in his footsteps.

The Education of Borden Scott: Atlanta Baptist College

Hey Cooper Cummings Family! If you attended our Virtual Family Reunion, you heard the 5-second synopsis of Sydney Borden Scott’s time at Atlanta Baptist College - this blog post fills in the details (as best I understand them).

Sydney Borden Scott, or Borden, as he seems to have preferred, was the younger half-brother of my 2x great-grandmother Scoatney Scott Cooper. She was born in the early years of the Civil War, he about 20 years later. Both seem to have been the children of cotton country, and of the people whose unpaid labor had made that crop so profitable. But whereas she remained in rural Georgia, marrying, having children and even owning land, he left on a path that took him through Atlanta, Georgia all the way to Chicago, Illinois, and to a career as a physician and postal clerk. She planted her roots more deeply, while he, in a sense, uprooted his. 

Work and War on the Road to Portland

I began and ended one of my recent posts with the question: How did Masonia Scott Worthen, sister of my 2x Great-Grandmother Scoatney Scott Cooper, end up moving all the way from Georgia to Portland, Oregon in the early 1900s?