A Washington Weekend: Family, Photos, and Old Family Homes

In my last post, I mentioned that I needed to plan a trip back down to Washington, DC to return some family history materials that had been loaned to me for digitization. Well, last weekend, we made it happen!

And who do I mean by “we?” Well, it wasn’t just me and the cousins I’d hung out with on my last visit (Barney, Shelia, and LaVerne) – it turned into a bit of a family affair. Not only did my mom come down with me, but my Aunt Sandra joined us, driving down from NY to Philly and then completing the ride with us. 

My mom and my aunt, on a bench in a park by their old stomping grounds in DC.

 

Mystery Monday: Seeking Philip and Susie Sheppard in the 1940 Census

This past summer, I poked around in my research related to the ancestry of my maternal grandfather, Louis Shepherd, as I prepped to see some of my family at an upcoming reunion. Louis’s father is currently a mystery to the family, but I’ve been learning more and more about his mother, Katherine Shepperd’s, people over the years. Still, it’s not voluminous, and there are lots of holes.

One such hole was a seemingly simple one, regarding Katherine’s paternal uncle, Phillip Sheppard, and his wife Susie (née Blackston/Blackson). I just wanted to find them listed in the 1940 U.S. Census. I had them in 1920 and 1930, and had recently found them in 1950. Why couldn’t I find them in 1940?

1920: Phillip and Susie Sheppard on Fennimore's Bridge Road in New Castle County, DE. 1920 Census. National Archives and Records Administration, via FamilySearch.org.

Finding Gilbert Wilkerson: My 3x Great-Grandfather

We all know we “come from people,” but to learn their names and to begin to imagine their lives is a powerful thing. They become real.

I’m excited to have one more name to speak aloud, one more life story to dig into: my newest 3x great-grandparent, Gilbert Wilkerson.

The Fish Are Biting!

In genealogy circles, family history blogs are sometimes known as "cousin bait." It's a term I'm not necessarily in love with, because I think of my blog first and foremost as a way to *share* information, not solicit it, but even I have to admit, there's truth in the idea! Heck, I want people to reach out to me when they have information or stories I'm missing! I want this blog to allow me to connect with folks, whether they're family or they just love genealogy and history.


Well guess what? That's exactly what's happened recently!

 

Cooper-Cummings 2016 Family Reunion in Photos

My first cousin once removed (aka, my mom's first cousin) and several generations of his family. Courtesy of L. Whaley.

This time last week, I was in a car somewhere between North Carolina and Philly, on my way home from the Cooper-Cummings Family Reunion in Augusta, Georgia. (Why North Carolina, then? It's a long drive - we did it in two days. We're not road warriors, lol!)

Mapping a Migration: Settling - and Clustering - in DC

Last week I introduced Operation DC with a map plotting the basics of my family's (great-grandparents, grandparents, their in-laws) migration to DC - who came, from where, and when. In that post, I also mentioned that I'd been compiling a list of family residences in DC, the goal being to get a better understanding of the neighborhoods in which they live and the institutions they might have interacted with (aside from the ones I already knew about), and hopefully opening the door to more resources.

So, my fun with maps continues, with a map of DC homes (1908-1964) for the Cooper, Shepherd, Petite, Watkins, Reid, Reeves and Ferguson families:

Some notes on the creation of this map:

• Addresses were pulled from City Directories, Deeds, Draft Registration Cards, Newspaper Articles (including obituaries and marriage license application announcements), and Social Security Number applications.
• The map was created using Google's My Maps function
• Each individual, family or married couple (depending on what they were at the time) has their points plotted in a different color, on a different layer of the map
• You can't actually see all the points on the map, because some are stacked on top of each other, as multiple couples lived in the same buildings, sometimes at the same time, sometimes over time

This last note above actually points to the coolest thing about all of this for me: seeing how families clustered together and supported each other through shared housing. Notice the clusters on this map, circled below:

The cluster to the left is a group of homes the Petites lived in, including my great-grandmother Katherine Shepherd's aunt Eleanor (Allen/Ellis) Petite and her son Fred Petite, as well as Katherine herself and her son, my grandfather Louis Shepherd. This is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood.

The cluster in the center represents homes of the Coopers (my grandmother Elnora's family) as well as the homes their children and spouses (Fergusons, Reeveses, and Shepherds) would move into. This is in the Capitol Hill and Eastern Market neighborhoods.

On the right is a cluster of homes the Reid and Watkins families lived in. My grandfather Louis' second wife Doris was born a Reid; Doris' mother Cornelia was born a Watkins. These homes are roughly in the Capitol Heights, Grant Park, and Capitol View neighborhoods.

(Other markers generally represent either residences when a person or family first arrived in DC, or later homes of children after they married spouses and established themselves in the later half of the roughly 60-year period I'm researching.)

But actually, you need to drill down further to really see the clusters, and because of the stacked data points, a map isn't the best way to see it. So, I created a series of visuals:

Homes Owned by Noah and Nancy (Thomas) Cooper

(I don't have all dates of residence for all families, so you can see that a few of the years are approximate, and my research focus ends in 1964, so even if I have records of residence after that year, they aren't included here.)

This shows the two homes purchased by my great-grandparents in Washington, DC. According to Nancy's obituary, the family migrated up from Georgia in 1934, and city directories show Noah's early DC jobs were as a janitor, so it's notable that they were able to purchase two houses in about 10 years. My guess is that Noah sold his portion of the land inherited from his mother, but I haven't yet researched this.

Eleanor and Katherine, Sticking Together

When my great-grandmother moved to DC, she was just a teenager, maybe 16 years old, and she moved into the household of her maternal aunt Eleanor Petite, Eleanor's husband, Oswald, and their son Frederick. In 1922, Katherine gave birth to my grandfather Louis, while still living with the Petites, and in 1923, Oswald Petite passed away. It was now a household of two women and their sons. Katherine was briefly married in 1927, but within 2 years, she and Louis were back to living with Eleanor and Fred. In all, they shared at least 4 homes together between 1918 and 1933, when Eleanor passed away.

Watkins Neighbors or Housemates?

Meanwhile, my step-great-grandmother Cornelia (Watkins) Reid and her siblings, plus spouses, were living as either neighbors, or perhaps housemates (depending on whether the Blaine Street addresses are actually a case of an information collector getting their info wrong).

This doesn't cover all of the examples of family clustering or house sharing, but I'll end with two of my favorites before your eyes glaze over, if they haven't already:

The Girl and Boy Next Door

On the left is my grandfather Louis Shepherd. On the right, in the household of Noah and Nancy Cooper, is his future wife, Elnora. I've written more about them here.

And, new to me:

Share a House, Share a Life?

Yes, future husband and wife Fred Petite and Annice Gray lived in the same house at different times! Fred's mom Eleanor purchased 813 22nd Street NW from Annice's father and family in 1924. Censuses show the Grays (including Annice) living there at least from 1910-1920.  City Directories show that the Petites didn't move in immediately, but they're living there in 1930, according to that year's Census. By 1936, Fred and Annice are married. I want to know the story there!

-----------------------
My next steps will involve researching the neighborhoods in which my family lived to see what adds to my understanding of their stories. I'll also be researching the institutions - churches, schools, businesses, etc - with which they were affiliated. This'll take a while, but there will be posts along the way.

And now that I've written this up, I've got a family reunion to head to!

Genealogical Serendipity: Is This How Katherine Met Ivan?

As you know, I've started on a research project called Operation DC. My goal: to build up my contextual understanding of Washington, DC between 1900 and 1964 so that I can find records about - and ultimately better understand - the lives of my grandparents, great-grandparents and associated relatives who were born in or moved to DC during that time.

To that end, I picked up this little stack of books from the library on Wednesday...

(Book list at bottom of page)

...and started reading The Guide to Black Washington: Places and Events of Historical and Cultural Significance in the Nation's Capital. And that's when I found what may turn out to be a very useful little gem:

“By the 1920s and 1930s the National Theater was a focal point of antisegregation protest in Washington. The arrival of Marc Connelly’s successful Broadway production, The Green Pastures, starring the distinguished black actor Richard B. Harrison as “de Lawd,” threw the black community into turmoil.”

Why does this matter to me?

Well, my great-grandmother Katherine Shepherd married a man named Ivan Lewis Gittens Sharpe, in 1957, in New York City. Ivan was an actor (though how steadily, I don't know). And can you guess the name of one of the plays in which he performed? Yes, The Green Pastures. In fact, here's a review of his acting in this play that appeared in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on December 10, 1932:

Accessed  on the Old Fulton New York Post Cards website.

I've always wondered how Katherine and Ivan met. Well, I know that Katherine was living in DC until sometime between 1940 and 1957, when she moved to New York. My assumption was that they met there. But this snippet of text from The Black Guide to Washington makes me wonder: Did Katherine meet Ivan in DC while he was performing in The Green Pastures? To get closer to an answer, I'd need to know:

• When exactly did The Green Pastures come to DC?
• Was Ivan Sharpe performing in the play at that time?
• And, if possible, what was the cast up to in DC?
• Basically, is it likely that he and Katherine crossed paths?

So many questions! You can bet I will be researching this as Operation DC continues!


P.S. Here's the book list!

Evelyn, Douglas E. and Paul Dickson. On This Spot: Pinpointing the Past in Washington, D.C. Washington, DC: Farragut Publishing Company, 1992.

Fitzpatrick, Sandra, and Maria R. Goodwin. The Guide to Black Washington: Places and Events of Historical and Cultural Significance in the Nation's Capital. New York: Hippocrene, 2001.

Gardullo, Paul. The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2009.

Stewart, Allison. First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 2013.

Willis, Deborah, and Jane Lusaka. Visual Journal: Harlem and D.C. in the Thirties and Forties. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1996.

Mapping a Migration: Coopers, Shepherds and Other Relations

In just over a week, I'm headed down to Georgia with my mom for her maternal family's biennial reunion. This year is extra special, because the Cooper-Cummings are gathering in Augusta, GA, and will have the opportunity to see our ancestral land - including land the family used to farm, land the family still owns, and even an old family cemetery. I am very excited!

I love going to these reunions anyway because not only are they a chance for me to meet distant relatives and learn more about family history, they're also a chance for all of my mom's siblings - the Shepherds - to get together and talk about their father's history. All of which means I need to be prepared 1) to ask the right questions to push my research along, and 2) to share what I've found since the last reunion.

All of this has prompted me to start a focused research project that I'm calling Operation DC. Washington, DC is where my grandparents Elnora Cooper and Louis Shepherd met, it's where my grandfather married the only maternal grandmother I was able to know (Doris Reid), where the Coopers migrated from Georgia, where my great-grandmother Katherine Shepherd moved from New Jersey to live with her aunt, and where my mom and her siblings were raised. There's quite a lot of my family history in that city!

For Step 1, I thought I'd focus on the who, what, when, and where of their lives in DC, with an eye towards the "where" especially. I've spent the past week or so recording and organizing every known address I've found from the time the first relative moved to the city until the year the last of my mom's siblings was born (1964). We're talking census records, city directories, deeds, and more!

The first result of that is this map, which is a simple visual of when people arrived in Washington, DC, and from where. It's not necessarily new information, but it's helpful - at least for me - to see it mapped out.



Clicking on a red marker will tell you the family or individual, their starting point, and a little about life at home. Clicking on the green line will tell you when (sometimes approximately) they arrived in DC and what they were up to after they arrived.

A few things:

• The Coopers, Shepherds, and Allens/Ellises are my starting families - I am biologically descended from them, the Coopers through my mother's mother, the Shepherds and Allens/Ellises through my mother's father.
• The Ferguson, Petite, Reeves, and Reid/Watkins families married into the above families.
• With the possible exception of Oswald Petite, everyone came from a farming family and had done some work on a farm or in a farming household.
• Members of each family had arrived in DC by the 1930s, putting them firmly in the Great Migration, which saw millions of African Americans move from the rural South to the urban North (and West and Midwest) during roughly the first half of the 20th Century.

As I continue with Operation DC, I'm looking forward to learning more about their schools, communities, jobs, and all of the other things that made up the context of their daily lives, especially given how different DC must have been from the farming communities where so many of them were raised! This is gonna take a while, but stay tuned as I use maps, timelines, photos and more to dig into these stories.

 And, as always, please share if you know something I don't!

Photo Friday: Bowling Highliners, 1957-1958

This Photo Friday, it's another photoset taken from my Grandma Doris' albums, which I am slowly (s-l-o-w-l-y) in the process of digitizing. These were taken about 6 years before this set of bowling photos, and look to be from an end-of-season banquet and awards ceremony, probably in Washington, DC or Maryland.

That's my Grandma second from left, pictured with (L-R) Roland Stribling, J. Gray, Cecilia Petty, and Joe Franklin.

In addition to the original photo above, Grandma Doris also had an article from a bowling newsletter (from whichever association this event was held for), that described the bowling season a bit:

It reads, in part:

After thirty-three weeks of excitement and close competition another most successful season of bowling has been concluded, To add to the interest in the league of twelve teams only three games in the won column separated the first and seventh place teams when the final results were determined.

Trophies were presented to each member of the teams that finished in the first three positions. The champion Highliners (shown above left to right) Roland Stribling, Doris Mathis, John Gray, Cecilia Petty, Capt. and Joseph Franklin, League President.

The climax of the season was a banquet paid for with league funds. Each member and his or her guest had an abundance and variety of foods and beverages to choose from and dancing to the accompaniment of a 5-piece band.

To round out this set, here's a glamour shot of my grandmother, with all her trophies from the evening:

I love the glamour of these photos - the floor-length gown, the gloves - and it's a feature of many of the photos I've come across in her albums. She was never rich - she made many of her own dresses - and she wasn't part of Washington, DC's African American elite, but the circle she was a part of and the era in which she did all of this socializing provided her with opportunities to doll up, opportunities she certainly made the best of!

(Doris Shepherd was a fixture of DC's bowling world for decades. Click "bowling" in the word cloud to the right to see related posts.)

Mystery Monday: Who Is Liontly Banks?

For the past few weeks, I’ve been reading a really interesting book by Bill Bryson called One Summer: America, 1927. In it, Bryson – who is seriously my favorite non-fiction author anywhere ever – basically presents a snapshot of the United States in the Summer of 1927 highlighting not just significant people and events but also the sometimes surprising connections between them. Imagine, in this one summer:

• Charles Lindbergh made the first successful non-stop flight across the Atlantic between New York and Paris,
• Babe Ruth hit his 60^th home run and set a record that wouldn’t be broken until 1961,
• Carving began on Mount Rushmore,
• Prohibition – and bootlegging, and organized crime – were running full steam ahead,
• Television as we know it was publically debuted,
• Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were sentenced to death and executed for a robbery and murders they almost certainly did not commit, sparking protests and riots around the world,
• The first feature-length talking movie was released in theaters,
• Finance officials from Europe and the US met and made a decision that would lead to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression,
• and so much more!

It was a pretty significant summer - especially in retrospect - and the book really is fascinating. In fact, it made me wonder, what was my family up to in 1927?

At the same time, on Sunday evening, I realized that I haven’t written a Mystery Monday post in a while, despite having many mysteries in my genealogical files. And, because the first person I think of when I think “mystery” is my maternal great-grandmother Katherine, I turned to her files. Well, guess what she was up to in the summer of 1927? Getting hitched!

And therein lies the mystery. We know the name of her husband – Liontly Banks – but that’s pretty much all we know about him! Who the heck was he??

Okay, let’s start at the beginning. We know that Katherine Shepherd and Liontly T. Banks were married on July 5, 1927 by the Reverend John C. Mosley. The marriage was solemnized at 413 21^st NW in Washington, DC, the home that Katherine and her son Louis had lived in with Katherine’s aunt Eleanor (Allen) Petite and her family since at least 1920. Here’s the record:

Liontly is listed as being “of Washington, DC” and he is 34 years old. The document also says this is his first marriage. That’s not a ton to go on, but thankfully there’s a pretty robust collection of extant city directories for DC. Looking through those, we find the couple in 1929. Only. He’s listed as Lionly (minus the “t”) and their residence is 1318 22^nd Street NW, Apartment 4. He is working as a waiter.

By 1930, Katherine’s back to living with her aunt Eleanor Petite, according both to the city directory and the census. Though her last name is Banks, she’s listed as single. She lives with Eleanor until Eleanor passes in 1933.

1930 Census for Katherine (Shepherd) Banks in Washington, DC.

As for Liontly, where does he go after 1929? And where was he before 1927? Darned if I know. There’s a Linley Banks in the city directory for 1927 (the year they got married) and he’s a waiter, but we can’t be sure it’s him. He’s living at 2619 K Street NW. In 1924, there’s a Leontly Banks living at 505 S Street NW. He’s a tailor. Is this him? Can’t say for sure! And there’s a Loney Banks in 1930 living at 1512 Caroline NW and working as a waiter, but, again, can we be sure it’s him? No. There is no listing of him in other years in DC directories that I have found.

 

The only other document I have – and I’m not certain this is him – is a 1918 World War I Draft Registration Card for a Liontly Banks. His home address is Charles City, VA; he’s a machinist’s helper working in Newport News, VA; and his nearest relative is his mother, Mattie Banks. He’s also 37 years old, which would make him 46 when he marries in 1927, as opposed to the 34 which is written on his marriage document above. So, inconsistent. Just to be safe, I searched multiple census years for a Mattie Banks in or near VA with a son named Liontly (or a similar name) with no luck.

My last clue is the 1940 Census. It lists Katherine Banks and her son Louis Shepherd as boarders in a home in Southeast DC. She is listed as widowed.

I wrote a few years ago to the DC Department of Health to see if they had a record of his death between 1928 and 1930. Nope! They suggested I check Maryland and Virginia as well. Maryland’s records are online up to 1944. No Liontly (or variation) Banks. I still need to check VA.

So, in summary

• 1881: Born? Uncertain identity.
• 1893: Born?
• 1918: Liontly Banks (37, machinist’s helper) in VA. Uncertain identity.
• 1924: Leontly Banks (tailor) in SW DC. Uncertain identity.
• 1927: Linley Banks (waiter) in NW DC. Uncertain identity.
• 1927: Liontly Banks (34 yrs) marries Katherine Shepherd in NW DC.
• 1929: Lionly (waiter) and Cath Banks in NW DC.
• 1930: Wife Katherine is no longer living with him. No sign of him in city directories
• 1940: Is deceased?

It’s possible that Katherine was something called a “grass widow,” a new term I learned at last month’s genealogy conference that refers to a woman whose husband has abandoned her. They often said they were widowed to avoid the embarrassment of abandonment or divorce. Perhaps Liontly lived a long life somewhere where I just haven’t found him yet.

Who knows? But, I’ll keep searching!

Ideas, suggestions, etc? Let me know in the comments!

Photo Friday: Bowling Tournament, Minneapolis 1964

In between my active research, my major genealogy project is to digitize my late Grandma Doris (Reid / Mathis / Shepherd)'s photo albums. We brought 29 of them home after cleaning out her apartment in April 2015 and I have  S-L-O-W-L-Y been going through and scanning images. They are such an interesting look into her life, her family, some of my biological grandmother's family (the Coopers), the world of bowling, Washington, DC, and several decades that I didn't get to experience (namely, the 50s - early 80s). As I go through this process, I'll be using the Photo Friday heading to post some of my favorite photos, starting today!

This is my Grandma Doris (far right) posing with members of her Washington, DC bowling team at a Women's International Bowling Congress competition in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1964. Two things: 1) I love the jaunty set of her hat, 2) She is one pretty lady!

And here is another team from Washington, DC - they probably all bowled together frequently back at home. Check out the lady in the shades - she is too cool for school!

If you didn't already know, bowling was one of Grandma Doris' passions, so there are A LOT of bowling photos in these albums. Be warned :) And click "bowling" in the word cloud to the right if you'd like to see related posts.

Meanwhile, On the Other Side of My Family

I've been focusing quite a bit on my dad's side of the family and their Alabama stories, but something exciting recently happened on my mom's side of the family: her brother, who sent his DNA for some genetic genealogy testing, got his result back!

Take a look:

This is a map of AncestryDNA's "Ethnic Estimate" for my uncle. Essentially, they compared his DNA to that of several thousand other people native to various regions of the world, to find out with whom he had the most in common. His results show (surprise, surprise) that the vast majority of his DNA ties him to people from West and Central Africa. Here's a more specific breakdown:

AncestryDNA gets a little more specific in the overviews that they provide of each region, in terms of the particular ethnic/cultural groups you might be related to. For my uncle, this meant a possible connection to the Bamileke and Bamum peoples in Cameroon/Congo,  the Akan and Ashanti in Ivory Coast/Ghana, the Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo in Nigeria, and the Wolof, Fula, Serer and Mandinka in Senegal. However, the site is very clear that "while a prediction of genetic ethnicity from this region suggests a connection to the groups occupying this location, it is not conclusive evidence of membership to any particular tribe or ethnic group."

Overall, the general breakdown of regions makes a lot of sense when you think about the history of the slave trade between Africa and the Americas. Most enslaved Africans came from the region between Senegal and Angola, and so you can expect to find ancestry from those regions in many, if not most, African Americans who are descended from enslaved people. (Click here for a map that shows the general flow of enslaved peoples from Africa to the Americas between 1500 and 1900.)

Similarly, it's not surprising that my uncle has trace amounts of European ancestry: another legacy of slavery and the unequal balance of power that persisted afterwards is that many children were born to black mothers and white fathers. Sometimes these relationships were consensual. Quite often, they were not, or were only marginally so.

If you're interested in reading more about the Atlantic Slave Trade, some resources I've used in my other life as an educator in African American institutions include:

• The Understanding Slavery Initiative: http://www.understandingslavery.com/
• The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: http://www.slavevoyages.org/
• The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition: http://glc.yale.edu/outreach/teacher-programs/glc-online-teaching-resources/featured-topics
• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery
• The International Slavery Museum: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/

Okay, okay, okay, you're probably thinking, but did the DNA test connect you to any family?

Well, yes and no. One of the key reasons for taking the test was to see if we could find out who the father of my grandfather, Louis Shepherd, was. This would be my uncle's paternal grandfather. AncestryDNA's closest matches for my uncle are guesstimated as being anywhere from 4th - 6th cousins, meaning their closest shared relative would be anywhere from a 3x Great Grandparent (a great-great-great-grandparent) to a 5x Great Grandparent. And they could be related through either branch of my uncle's tree.

My next step is to connect his DNA results to my tree so that Ancestry can do its own matching and hopefully provide some hints. Once my southern sojourn is over - the countdown has begun - I'll dig in and get to work!

Talented Tuesday: Louis Shepherd, Bowler!

Today’s post is inspired by the Talented Tuesday genealogy blog prompt over at Geneabloggers.

Most stories you find on here about bowling are going to be about my Grandma Doris, who spent most of her life outside of work bowling, thinking about bowling, organizing bowling events, teaching kids how to bowl, or traveling to bowling tournaments. But, her husband, my Granddad Louis, was also a bowler.
 

 

He played on a men's team in Washington, DC that also included my Uncle Valton Reeves (the brother of the husband of Granddad's first wife Elnora Cooper's sister Lila Cooper - I know!). He wasn’t as deeply involved in the sport as Grandma Doris was, but their shared love of bowling was one of the lynchpins of their relationship. Together, they often drove here and there across the country to tournaments, taking the youngest two children (my mom and aunt) with them. And the kids remember more than a few evenings where they were responsible for dinner while Mama and Dad were at a bowling event.

Apparently Granddad had some success, too! Check out this picture of him (center) holding a trophy at one of his competitions.

I wish I had more details for this picture – where and when it was taken, for example, though I’d guess this is the 1960s – but this is a case of what you see is what you get. In any case, a tip of the hat to Louis Shepherd, bowling trophy winner!

A Sad Farewell for Rose (Allen or Ellis) Sheppard

One of the tough things about genealogy is that sometimes you find out about sad things that happened to people that you care about. Happily, sometimes you find out that things turn out all right in the end, but other times that sad note is the one your research ends on. And even though you may have never met these people personally, you can’t help but imagine what they and the people around them must have felt when tragedy struck.

Such is the case with my great-great-grandmother Rose Anne (Allen) Sheppard, her husband Samuel, and their daughter Katherine.

Possibly an image of Rose, found with Katherine's papers.

Rose is one of those people for whom I wish I had more records. Between state and federal census records, I’ve been able to find out about her life in 1905, 1910, and 1915. The 1913 Salem, NJ Farm Directory gives me a little detail as well. Between them, they tell me that she was the wife of a farm laborer in Salem County, New Jersey. Given that the major local crops were corn and potatoes – Salem produced 939,775 bushels of corn, 1,303,088 of white potatoes, and 459,592 of sweet potatoes in 1910 – Samuel probably came home exhausted from back-breaking labor. Rose herself sometimes did housework “out,” meaning as a domestic, which is not surprising given the types of jobs available for black women in her era. Overall, the family was probably poor but not destitute – they never owned their own home or farm, according to the records, but they did own a Bell telephone in 1913, and Samuel always seemed to be employed.

They probably also valued education; while the 1905 NJ Census says that neither Samuel nor Rose could read or write, both the 1910 Federal Census and 1915 NJ Census say they can. They either already knew how in 1905 and the information was incorrect, or they put in the effort and learned. And Katherine was in school when she was 7 and when she was 12.

Rose had been born somewhere in Virginia, but how, when or why she arrived in New Jersey, I do not know. We don’t have her birth certificate. Records suggest that she married Samuel around 1905, but we don’t have their marriage record either. The records are pointing more and more firmly towards her having had at least 2 sisters and 1 brother; one sister, Bertha, was close by, also in Salem County, and another, Eleanor, wasn’t too far away, in Washington, DC. But, we can’t find the siblings living together in 1900, nor have I found any vital or census records of their parents – they exist as ghosts on their daughters’ paperwork at this point. And Rose herself was proving difficult to find after 1915. By 1920, her daughter Katherine had moved to Washington, DC.

So what had happened? Two guesses came to mind: 1) She had died sometime soon after 1915, or 2) She and Samuel had separated or gotten divorced, and perhaps she had remarried. Sadly, my first guess was true.

On July 26, 1916, this notice appeared in the local newspaper, the Salem Standard and Jerseyman:

 

From the Salem County Historical Society clippings file.

As you can see, Rose passed away on July 16, 1916, when she was just 34 years old. What happened? This is where it gets heartbreaking. Here is a copy of her Certificate of Death:

Note: This document gives her parents' surname as Ellis. Other documents suggest her maiden name was Allen.

Rose was 7 months pregnant when she died. In fact complications from her pregnancy may have led to her death. For two weeks before she died, she had been attended to by a doctor due to uremia, who noted that Rose had albuminuria. According to the National Kidney Foundation, albuminuria is when you have too much protein in your urine; it generally signals that your kidneys are damaged. The condition is linked to kidney disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and also smoking.  

Uremia, according to WebMD, is “a serious complication of chronic kidney disease and acute kidney injury…It occurs when urea and other waste products build up in the body because the kidneys are unable to eliminate them. These substances can become poisonous (toxic) to the body if they reach high levels.”  Unfortunately, pregnancy puts an increased strain on the kidneys; if Rose’s kidneys had been struggling along due to diabetes or hypertension, her pregnancy may have been the thing that pushed them over the edge.

Some of the symptoms she might have experienced include: nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, weight loss, confusion, seizures, abnormal bleeding, and shortness of breath. How horrible for Rose to have experienced any of this! How horrible for Samuel and Katherine to have witnessed her going through this, especially with Katherine being 12 or 13 at the time. Imagine them worrying about their wife and mother and about the baby she was carrying, and then having to bury them both.

Rose’s death certificate says that she was laid to rest in the cemetery of Mt. Pisgah, an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Salem. While other headstones do exist, there is no tombstone for Rose, and no formal records of interments at the cemetery.

What happens next for the family? In September of 1918, Samuel registers for the “Old Man’s Draft” for World War I. Luckily, the war ends on November 11th that same year; no records yet found suggest he was called to serve. As for Katherine, a handwritten note among family papers states that she moved to Washington, DC on Christmas Eve. She would live there for at least the next 22 years, most of that time with her aunt Eleanor. But why did she leave her father behind, or why did he send her away? Did he think she would be better off with his wife’s family? Was their relationship strained by sadness (or something else)? We may never know. We do know she kept up with her cousins in Salem, the Kilsons, and that her son, my grandfather Louis, knew and told stories about them to his children. But what about Samuel, Louis’s grandfather, Katherine’s dad, and my great-great-grandfather? I’ve got a record request out – if we’re lucky, we’ll learn more soon.

And hopefully his story, though of course it inevitably ends, has a happier ending than that of his wife Rose. May they both rest in peace.

Photo Friday: Columbia Hospital for Women

My maternal grandfather, Louis Allen Shepherd, was born at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, DC on December 29, 1922. 

 

Here's a photo of the hospital, located at 2425 L Street NW, taken sometime between 1909 and 1932:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection.

The building still stands and, having been renovated to house condos, is now known as the Columbia Residences:

From Wikipedia, uploaded by AgnosticPreachersKid, used per Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 3.0.

According to Wikipedia, Al Gore, Duke Ellington and Katherine Heigl were also born here. Interesting!

The Genetic Genealogy Hunt Has Started!

Exciting News: My maternal uncle (one of my mom's brothers) has ordered a DNA kit! This means we are about to start walking down the genetic genealogy path to see who his father's father - my maternal great-grandfather - is!

My maternal grandfather, Louis Allen Shepherd, with his mother Katherine Sheppard/Shepherd.

 

If you've been reading this blog, you know that we don't have any documents that say who my grandfather Louis Allen Shepherd's dad was. And his children don't remember him ever discussing it, or giving any indication that he even knew. So as I've been doing my genealogical research, it's been a question we come back to with each new document we find. 

The KKK in Salem County, New Jersey

This past Friday, my mom and I took a trip down to Salem, New Jersey, the old stomping ground of my great-grandmother Katherine Jane Shepherd, her parents Rose and Samuel, and her probable cousins, the Kilsons. There was plenty of interesting information, but definitely the most compelling thing for me was a folder of newspaper clippings related to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Salem County.

Made in America, Born in the USA

My great-grandmother Katherine (Shepherd, then Banks) Sharpe spent the last two decades and change of her life living in the Bronx, in New York City. For some of that time, one of my mother’s brothers lived there with her, and one of his clear memories from that time is her telling him the story of where she came from. As the story goes, she was born in...Italy! She was supposed to come over on the Titanic, but her mother stopped her from going at the time, saying she was too young to travel so far by herself.

The RMS Titanic docked in Southampton, England before her 1912 maiden voyage.

 

Katherine Jane Sheppard/Shepherd: A Timeline

Many of my posts here on KINterested so far have touched on the life of my maternal great-grandmother, Katherine Jane Sheppard/ Shepherd (my mother’s father’s mother). However, I haven’t given a full outline of her life yet! This post is meant to correct that. 

Mystery Monday Update 2: Women, Who Art Ye?

This time last week I was planning a series of quick trips down to South Jersey to dig deeper into my Shepherd/Kilson research. These are the families that I am related to through my mother’s father, Louis Shepherd, and my goal was to continue chipping away at the mystery of how exactly his mother, my great-grandmother Katherine Shepherd, was related to the Kilsons. You can read my original Mystery Monday post here and an update here. Long story short, Katherine’s mother was one of three women - Rose Sheppard, Bertha Kilson and Eleanor Petite - who were probably sisters, but there wasn’t much solid evidence of this at the beginning of this journey.

Well, good news! I found another piece of the puzzle! Here is the obituary for Bertha Kilson’s daughter, Eleanor, published in the October 25, 1968 edition of the Salem Standard and Jerseyman: