Timeline Tuesday: Steve Evans / Theodore Johnson

If you’ve been reading KINterested over the past two months, you know that during my time in the South (I’ve been wintering in the awesome city of New Orleans) I’ve been exploring the lives of my Evans and Harris family ancestors in Alabama. One person whose life I’ve been particularly digging into is that of my great-grandfather Theodore Johnson, my father’s mother’s father, who was born Steve Evans and later changed his name. You can find posts here and here and here.

I promised at the end of that series that I would post a timeline of what I currently know about him. Then, on a research trip to Alabama, I was (amazingly!) able to meet the granddaughter of one of Steve/Theodore’s sisters! Through my conversations with her, I can now flesh in a little bit more of his timeline. I’ll continue to update this post with information and links to other posts that touch on specific moments in his life as I learn and write more.

1913, April 15 – Steve is born in rural Montgomery County, Alabama to James Steven

Evans and Laura Ann (Scruggs) Evans. He will be one of about 14 siblings. (I’m still learning birth dates and birth order.)

1918, September: His parents James Steven and Laura Ann are still living in

Montgomery County, Alabama, where his dad is a farm laborer working for a farmer named L.D. Zuber.

Between 1918 and 1920: When Steve is between 5 and 7 years old, his mother passes

away. As I learned it, Laura Ann was kicked in the stomach while chasing a pig or hog that had gotten loose on the family farm. She was pregnant at the time, and unfortunately the injury was so bad that neither she nor the baby survived.

(The story dates this as happening closer to 1914, but Steve’s father’s World War II Draft Registration Card states that Laura Ann is still alive in September 1918. I do not yet have a certificate of death or other record to confirm a date.)

October 1920: Steve is 7 years old when his dad remarries. While his dad and step-

mother now live in Jefferson County where his dad is mining coal, Steve doesn’t appear in the 1920 Census in their household, so it’s not clear if he’s living with them or with someone else. Perhaps he’s with family, either back in Montgomery County or in another home in Jefferson County.

1930: Steve, about 17 years old now, and his also teenage brother Henry, are living in the

household of their older sister Janie Mae and her family in Majestic, Jefferson County, Alabama. Steve is listed as being able to read and write, but he’s not in school – he’s working as a coal miner, as are most of the other men living in this community.

Steve’s father and his third wife Florence (I don’t know what happened to Ella) are also living in Jefferson County, but his dad is no longer farming or mining, he is a Methodist minister. Family lore says that he traveled often throughout the state and was rarely home, which may explain why Steve and Henry are living with Janie Mae.

1933, August 15: Steve marries Beatrice Harris, who lives in Majestic with her mother,

sister and son, Robert. Like Steve, Beatrice was also born in Montgomery, and again like Steve, her family had also made a break from farming by 1920. Both families were probably affected by the devastation of cotton crops in Alabama by the boll weevil during the 19-teens. Montgomery County was hard hit and families who could sought out other work, including in the cities (like Beatrice’s dad who took work in the city of Montgomery) and in the coal mines of Jefferson County (like Steve’s dad).

1930s: Steve and Beatrice grow their family. Their oldest daughter is named after Steve’s

mother, Laura Ann. Their first few children are born in Alabama, but their last girls, born 1938 and 1940, will be born in Ohio.

Steve’s siblings are also getting married between the 1920s and 1940s. Some stay in Jefferson County, some move back to (or never left) Montgomery, and some eventually travel to Detroit, Michigan.

1930s: According to family lore, Steve gets into a fight with a white man and kills him

(in self defense, as the story is told). The local Ku Klux Klan immediately sets out after Steve and he flees to Ohio, changing his name to Theodore Johnson in the process. He will take years to return to Alabama to visit, and only does so with assistance from his brother, under cover of darkness and a veil of secrecy, fearing continued harassment from the KKK.

1937, July: Steve, now Theodore, has put his Alabama coal mining experience to use by

finding work with the Powhatan Mining Company, in Powhatan Point, Ohio.

Early 1940s: Theodore and Beatrice separate and divorce, temporarily throwing

Beatrice’s life and that of their children into financial turmoil. The children are split up between family and the state (one daughter lives with Beatrice’s sister Lillian in Kewanee, Illinois, another daughter and son spend time with Beatrice’s mother and step-father back in Alabama, at one point some are temporarily put into an orphanage) until Beatrice is able to get back on her feet.

1941, Spring: After a major labor agreement between the United Mine Workers

Association (a union for coal miners) and various coal mining companies expires at the end of March, hundreds of Ohio Coal Miner go on strike. They are back at work by the end of April. However, during the time that they are out, they – including Theodore Johnson – apply for unemployment benefits. Their claims are approved at first, but the coal mining companies protest. So begins a long court case that makes it to the Ohio Supreme Court and eventually ends in May 1946 with the coal miners (including Theodore Johnson) losing their final appeal.

1940s: Theodore moves to West Virginia and probably continues to work as a coal miner

until retirement. He becomes involved with another woman, to whom several additional children are born.

1950s and 60s: Theodore becomes a grandfather many times over, as his children marry

and expand their families.

1963?: According to family lore, Theodore’s father James Steven Evans passes away in

Alabama.

1986, October 26: Theodore passes away in West Virginia. He is laid to rest at Restlawn

Memorial Gardens, in Bluewell, WV. 

Photo Friday: New Castle, Alabama

Before I boarded my train back from Birmingham to New Orleans, my newfound Evans Family cousin scooped me up from my hotel and took me on a whirlwind tour of one of the coal mining communities where our shared ancestors had lived in the early-to-mid 1900s.

New Castle, north of Birmingham, along the L&N Railroad. Image Credit below.

New Castle, Alabama is located about 10 miles north of Birmingham and, since about 1870, has housed various coal mining operations that included company-owned homes, stores, schools, and churches for the miners and their families. The mines are no longer in operation today, and the houses are now owned by individuals, including some that are still in the hands of Evans relatives. 

Here’s a look at some of what I saw:

 New Castle Road is the main road through town and connected the community to other coal towns to the southwest and northeast.

Overlooking a portion of New Castle from one of the highest points. The area has been mostly reclaimed by woods now, but you would have seen large machines, great coal heaps, and many more houses and other buildings back in the day.

The New Castle Post Office, this used to be a gathering place for the community, where both mail and hot pieces of news were picked up.

One of the original camp houses (from my cousin's early years). Time, weather and abandonment have taken their toll.

Mt. Joy Baptist Church, which sits at the top of a hill overlooking the community. This was one of two black churches in the community. My great-grandfather Theodore Johnson (Steve Evans)'s sister, Sarah, lived on the same hill, and her husband, Archie, lived across the street. She was, I was told, an eclectic woman!

Eastern Star Missionary Baptist Church, the other black church serving New Castle. Several family members were ministers, but they were Methodist and did not preach here.

One of the Evans Family houses, my great-grandfather's sister Janie Mae and her daughter Veola had it built.

Another of the Evans Family homes, still showing some of the bones of the original camp house.

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad (LNRR) tracks through New Castle. These and smaller spurs throughout the area moved people and coal to and from the mining towns to Birmingham with its coke and steel plants, south through Montgomery and Mobile to Mississippi and New Orleans, and north to Nashville, Louisville and Cincinnati, where they could connect to other points. 

My cousin also took me to the Evans Family plot in New Castle cemetery - I think I'll post those as my next photo Friday. Getting to see, stand on and walk the land where my ancestors and their families lived and hung out was an awesome, awesome experience and I'm grateful to my cousin for being so excited to make it happen.I can't wait to visit again and see the other towns we're connected to - Bradford, Majestic and Dixiana, I'm looking at you!

Map Credit: This image was modified from a map in "The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide" by Marjorie Longenecker White, published by the Birmingham Historical Society in 1981.

Wedding Wednesday: Solomon Harris and Ardenia Jackson

After all that research in Alabama, I had to take a breather, but I’m easing back into organizing and writing things up. If you read my last post, you know that the greatest find of my trip was actual living family members, but I also found some pretty neat documents. Here’s one of them:

This is the marriage record for my paternal great-great-grandparents, Solomon Harris and Ardenia Jackson (written here as Adelia).  They are the parents of my dad’s mom’s mom, Beatrice Harris. If their names sound familiar, it’s because last August I posted that a basic record about their marriage had been placed online at FamilySearch.org. Well, I used that information on my trip to find their marriage application, license and return at the Montgomery County Probate Office in Alabama. That’s what you see above.

After I visited the Probate Court, I spent some time at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, also in Montgomery, and something told me to look up marriage records there, too. Thank goodness for that feeling, because look what they had that the Probate Office didn't!

This beautiful baby right here is a copy of the certificate that apparently would have been given directly to the couple to take to their pastor of choice, who would sign and return it to them upon completing the ceremony. They would then have taken it back to the courthouse to be officially registered.

Solomon and Ardenia were married on the 3^rd of December in 1914. While the first record above states Solomon was 21 and Ardenia was 18 when they married, other records that state that both Solomon and Ardenia were born in the summer of 1897, making them each actually just 17. The ceremony took place in Madison Park, in Montgomery, AL and was conducted by a Reverend P.J Minefield. According to the marriage license application (in the first document above), Ardenia was Baptist, while Solomon has no religion listed, so it’s likely Rev. Minefield was a Baptist minister. However, I haven’t yet been able to find anything on him.

Something did come up when I looked up Madison Park in Montgomery County, Alabama: the History page for the Madison Park Community Reunion. If this is in fact the Madison Park where they were married, then they celebrated their union in a town that had been founded about 30 years earlier by former slaves in order to “have a future for themselves and their families.” According to the website,

 “They worked their own land; built houses, established a school and houses of worship…. [T]he community established farms and produces row crops and table vegetables. They built grist mills, saw mills, two syrup mills, a cotton gin, grocery stores, a park and a gravel pit. The community for all practical purposes was a self-sufficient community.”

You can read more here.

This was a place designed so that African Americans, so recently out of slavery and facing hostility and abuse from a region not willing to give up the racism or economics of slavery, could feel safe and make their own way in the world. I don’t know if Solomon and Ardenia actually lived in this community or had some other tie that led them to be married there, or if this is even the same Madison Park (though I couldn’t find any others) but if they did live there, how cool! (And yes, I sent the group an email to see if I can find anything more!)

Solomon and Ardenia brought two daughters into the world together, Beatrice in 1915 and Lillian in 1917. In fact, another of my cool finds from the trip to Alabama were Beatrice and Lillian’s listings in the Montgomery County Register of Births. (This was a real case of serendipity, because there are only 2 registers and 10 years worth of birth records available at the Probate Office, 1908-1912 and 1913-1917. I found 4 people!)

Here’s Beatrice:

(Left Side)

(Right Side)

And here’s Lillian:

(Left Side)

(Right Side)

Among other things, these records tell us that this was the first marriage for both Ardenia and Solomon, that they are living in Beat 18 of Montgomery County in 1915, and that both are working as farm laborers in 1915 and 1917. But by 1918, Solomon is working for the Winter Loeb Grocery Company, and it looks like they are living in the city of Montgomery itself, instead of on the farmland surrounding it. This may have been due to a devastating infestation of boll weevils that hit Alabama's cotton crops starting in 1892 and covering the entire state by 1916. Crops were destroyed year after year, farmers were forced to sell land, and sharecroppers and tenant farmers were pushed off or left the land in search of better opportunities. But through that challenge, or whatever caused them to move, Solomon and Ardenia were still together.

Solomon Harris' World War I Draft Registration Card, 1918

Unfortunately, this is the last record that I have been able to find for Solomon. We know from Ardenia’s obituary that Solomon passes away before her, and we know that by 1930 Ardenia and her teenage daughters are living together in Jefferson County, where Ardenia makes her living operating a boarding house. Finally, we know that she remarries in 1935 and moves north to Kewanee, Illinois in the 1940s. I can’t find anyone in this family in the 1920 census, so that gap between 1918 and 1930 unfortunately can’t be filled right now.

But at least we're able to capture a few snapshots of their life together - their union, hard work, children, change. Perhaps with time, luck, and more research, we'll be able to flesh this out further.

Do you know something I don't about Solomon and Ardenia? Please share!

When the Shaky Leaf Leads to a Living Branch: Alabama Recap

So, I just got back two nights ago from spending two weeks in Alabama. Family, the most amazing thing happened while I was there: I met real, live, actual relatives of my great-grandfather, Steve Evans / Theodore Johnson!!

Main entrance of the Birmingham Public Library, my first research stop.

I thought I was going to be spending all my time on documents and photos, in archives, libraries and county courthouses between Birmingham and Montgomery. And that is pretty much what happened...until two days before I left.

That's when I updated my family tree on Ancestry.com and got one of those shaky leaf hints they are always talking about in their commercials. (This is NOT a commercial. Those ads make genealogy look like a walk in the park where you barely put in any effort and your whole ancestry unfurls in front of you like a red carpet. FALSE FALSE FALSE. But, I digress.) That hint directed me to another user's tree that shared individuals with mine. I clicked on the username to get more info, but it said that this person hadn't logged in in over a year. Still, I figured I'd reach out, so I sent a message and went to bed.

Alabama Department of Archives and History, in Montgomery.

The very next day, you all, there was an email in my inbox! It was the great-granddaughter of Steve Evans' sister Janie Mae (who I've mentioned in my previous posts about reconstructing Steve's life) and she was absolutely interested in connecting! And, she'd already filled in her mother, who was raised by Janie Mae, and had included some of her mother's memories in the email. How awesome! Then, her mother sent me an email with even more information, and an open invitation to talk!

I was in an archive in Montgomery when I got the first email. There was some mime-screaming. And some chair dancing. And a VERY excited call to my grandmother, Steve Evans' daughter. I wrote back, and then finished my research and headed back to Birmingham, since my trip was wrapping up.

As we exchanged emails, it came out that I was in Birmingham, and guess what? So was the cousin who was raised by Janie Mae! And she sure enough made sure that we met up both my last night in Birmingham and the very next morning - she literally dropped me off at the train station.

Headed towards the former coal camps of New Castle, Alabama.

But, man, what we did in between is what was awesome. We shared photos of our branches of the family and put pieces of the family story together based on her memories and stories (some passed down by Janie Mae, who was her grandmother), the documents I'd collected, and the stories I'd heard from my Grandma and her cousins in Illinois (which I haven't shared on here yet, but will!).  She introduced me to a few of her grandkids, fed me, and took me out to New Castle, one of the coal mining camps where the family lived. SHE TOOK ME TO THE FAMILY CEMETERY. (Yes, I know all caps is yelling.) Her hospitality, warmth, and excitement seriously meant the world to me. I can't believe these two branches of the family have the opportunity to link up again.

I'm excited to share what I've learned, but bear with me, b/c I need to organize the info before I can write about it! I'm also very excited to continue to get to know Janie Mae's descendents, and of course, for them to be in touch with Steve's other descendants (and Marshall Evans' descendants as well). Who knows, maybe there'll be a reunion in our family future?

But, as a start, my Grandma now has her cousins' info and a picture of her aunt. And I've got two new Facebook friends :)

Note: We did a lot of talking and looking at photos, and yet, somehow we managed to forget to take a picture together! Next time!

Finding Theodore Johnson, Part 3: Making Sense of Other Censuses

Note: See Part 1 here, and Part 2 here or, even better, start with this Wedding Wednesday. If not, you’ve been warned, you are jumping into the middle of a tornado of information!

Where things stand now, we believe that my great-grandfather Theodore Johnson changed his name from Steve Evans after an incident in Alabama, and that his parents were Steve and Laura Ann Evans (nee Scruggs, Strug, Screws, or something similar). I have Steve Jr.’s marriage record to my great-grandmother Beatrice Harris, and I am pretty certain that I have found him in the 1930 Census living in Majestic, Jefferson County, Alabama (near Birmingham), the same community as his future wife. Steve and Laura Ann have been named as the parents of several children on marriage and death records from 1933 – 1945, but they haven’t been found living together on any documents after 1918.

I don’t know yet what happens to Laura after 1918, but I do know what Steve Sr. is up to.

Steve Sr. appears as "Stephens Evans." Clearly the page was not scanned evenly when the original record was microfilmed, as the lines containing his and his wife's information appear super tiny!

The 1920 Census shows us that he’s living in Majestic, Jefferson County, AL, near Birmingham – the same community Beatrice and “our” Steve Jr. are living in ten years later. Steve Sr. is living in Majestic with a new wife whose name is obscured, but is short and starts with “El”. How do we know it’s our Steve Sr? The children: There’s an Anna June, whose name is new, but there are a Thomas and a Henry. Thomas’s age matched the Thomas whose death certificate lists Steve and Laura Ann as his parents (pictured in my previous post), and that Henry? Yep, same one who keeps popping up!

If we go back to the records, we find that Steve Sr. married a woman named Ella Smith in October of 1920 in Birmingham, so that’s how she ends up in the household. However, this doesn’t last long – I don’t know if they divorced or if something happened to Ella, but in January of 1924, Steve marries a woman named Florance Donovan. And it’s this family that we find in 1930:

Interestingly, Steve Sr.’s son and “our” Steve’s brother, Henry, is also listed as living in this household, even though we already know he’s listed in his sister Janie Mae’s home. Both homes are located in Jefferson County – he may have been traveling back and forth between the households for any number of reasons. Census takers were supposed to report who was residing in the home on April 1^st of the Census Year, regardless of who was in the house on the day he or she actually came to visit, but different census takers did different things and it’s not unusual to see a person listed in two different households. In fact, check this out:

Steve Sr and Florence are actually listed twice in 1930, this second time with her daughter and granddaughter, as well as a boarder. Now they are in Majestic, so perhaps they had recently moved? In fact, maybe this is why we find Steve and Henry living in Janie’s home – maybe things were in flux at their own? And maybe this is why we find Marshall Evans living as a boarder in the house of my great-grandmother Beatrice, her sister Lillian and their mother Ardenia that year as well, and why there’s a Thomas Evans living as a boarder in that same community who seems to be “our” Thomas. Of course, by this time, Marshall is 19 and Thomas is 22, so both are of an age to be striking out on their own anyway.

So, what does all this tell us about our Steve Evans, Jr./Theodore Johnson? Well, it confirms that we’re following “our” Steve Sr through 1920 and 1930, and thus locates our Steve Jr.’s probable family as definitely being in Majestic, Jefferson County, AL. This makes it even more likely that the Steve Jr. we previously located in Majestic in 1930 is the correct one – not only is he near his future wife, he’s also near his father and several siblings.

But there are quite a few questions still on the table. You might be wondering, for example, why we don’t just get his birth certificate to clear things up. Well, we tried. My grandmother – Steve Jr / Theodore Johnson’s daughter – wrote to the Alabama Department of Public Health and received a letter back stating that they could not find a Steve Evans born to Steve and Laura Ann Evans between 1909 and 1919 in Montgomery County. It’s possible that the doctor or midwife who attended the birth simply didn’t report it – Alabama didn’t require registration of births until 1908 and compliance was spotty for several years. It’s also possible his birth was registered not in Montgomery County, but in a nearby county. Perhaps he filed a delayed birth certificate himself, when he was older. I’ll be exploring possibilities when I take my trip to Alabama in a few weeks, but I wish this was a cut and dry easy answer!

Other questions I have:

·         Why doesn’t Steve Jr appear in the 1920 Census? Steve Sr is, as are Thomas and Henry, so where is he?

·         Where is Marshall Evans before 1930? If he was born about 1911, shouldn’t he be around in 1920? One of Lillian Harris’ grandchildren told me that Marshall’s first name may actually have been William – is he the William Evans, born in 1913, for whom Steve and Laura Ann appear as parents on his marriage record? Or is there some other explanation?

·         In fact, where do the other children mentioned in Steve and Laura Ann’s household in 1910 – Jennette, Sarah and Jessie – go later on? Same for Anna Jane/June, who appears in 1920.

·         What happens to Laura Ann between 1918 and 1920? I haven’t found a likely marriage or death record yet.

I hope to make some progress with at least one or two of these questions when I head to Alabama. We’ll see what happens! In the meantime, my next post will be a simple timeline summarizing what I currently believe to be true about Steve / Theodore's significant life events.

Finding Theodore Johnson, Part 2: Using Family to Connect Theodore to Steve

Note: See Part 1 here, or, even better, start with this Wedding Wednesday.

So, per the above linked posts, I’ve been sleuthing off and on for years to connect Theodore Johnson, my great-grandfather, with Steve Evans, my great-grandfather. Same person, different names at different points in his life. Seriously, read the posts linked above if you haven’t already.

Okay. Records created around Theodore Johnson’s death give Steve and Laura Ann Evans as his parents (making him originally a Jr.) and give Montgomery, Alabama as his birthplace.* The informant was his son, Theodric Johnson. So, let’s find Steve and Laura in the records!

Here is the front of a World War I Draft Registration Card dated 1918 for a Steven Evans, born in August of 1878. He’s living in the city of Montgomery, in Montgomery County, Alabama as a farm laborer, and his nearest relative is none other than a Laura A Evans, his wife. So far, so good.

Where else do Steve and Laura Ann Evans come up in the records?

In 1910, there are a Stephens (sic) and Laura A. Evans living in Dooley, Montgomery County, AL. He is 28, she is 25 and they are both listed as farm laborers. There are 5 children listed in the household; unfortunately Steve Jr. is not one of them, even though he should have been 5 or 6 years old at the time. And the Census Enumerator (the person who collected the info) marked that Laura was the mother of 5 children, all 5 of whom were living, which doesn’t seem to leave room for a child who is living elsewhere. Still, census takers often got things wrong, so we can’t just discard this household. In any case, the living children are daughters Jennie M. (9), Jennette (8) and Sarah (7), and sons Thomas? (10) and Jessie (2).

After 1910, I can’t find the two of them in a Census record together, but this isn’t the last place they show up as a pair. In 1933, they are listed as the parents of Thomas Evans in Ancestry.com’s Alabama Deaths and Burials Index, 1881-1974.

This index, through FamilySearch.org, was compiled by volunteers who pulled info from original Alabama records. (Note: I am unsure if this is the Thomas from the 1910 Census, as the age doesn’t match up, but you can also see that his age was edited on the original census record above. Age is often imprecise - if you do the math on Steve Sr.'s ages above, you'll see that it is off by 7-8 years between the two documents, but the other info makes me more confident that both documents are for the same man.)

We also find Steve and Laura Ann mentioned in four marriage records for their children:

• Henry Evans to Annie Ruth Oliver in 1936
• William Evans to Anna Belle Oliver in 1937 (mmhmm, two more brothers to two more sisters!)
• Janie Mae Evans to Cleve Blackman in 1940
• Janie Mae Dyle to James Smith in 1945

(Let’s note the different ways Laura Ann’s maiden name is spelled: Screws, Strug, and Scruggs. Let’s also note that, hey! we have a maiden name for her now!)

Are your eyes crossing yet? I hope not, because there’s more to add!

Remember the 1930 Census record that shows a Steve Evans, Jr. living not too far from Beatrice? Here it is again:

He’s in a household with a Janie M. Baker and her husband, James. He’s listed as James’ brother-in-law, meaning Janie M.’s brother. I’m almost certain he’s our Steve, because – you guessed it! - Janie M. Baker was originally Janie Mae Evans (or, as the 1910 Census above listed her, Jennie M. Evans). Note: I have official records for each of her marriages, but I'll share those another day to keep this post manageable.

I’m also pretty certain that’s our Steve because, as I’ve mentioned in the previous posts, there’s a Henry Evans in Janie Mae and James’ household (directly below Steve) who is also listed as James’ brother-in-law, meaning he is another of Janie’s brothers. This makes this the same Henry Evans as the one with Steve and Laura Ann as his parents on the marriage record above. And, as I told you, my Grandma told me that her dad Steve Evans/Theodore Johnson had a brother named Steve.

Okay, that’s A LOT for one post, so I’m going to let us both catch our breath. But essentially what I've tried to do here is identify Steve Sr. and Laura Ann Evans as a family unit and start to build a case for Steve/Theodore's relationship with them, mostly through their other children. I’ll pick this up next time by following our Steve/Theodore's dad forward through a few documents and discussing several of the "plot holes" I still have in my Steve Evans/Theodore Johnson timeline. 

*You might be asking yourself, "Why didn't she just apply for his birth certificate?" We did! And when I discuss my lingering questions in the next post, I'll include the results of this search and my thoughts.

Finding Theodore Johnson, Part 1

Recently I started to explore the story of my great-grandfather Theodore Johnson on this blog, starting with a Wedding Wednesday post on his marriage to my great-grandmother Beatrice Harris. If you read that post, you know that there’s something of a mystery surrounding my GG Theodore, including the fact that he changed his name to Theodore Johnson from Steve Evans, and, of course, centered on the question of why. But the name change in and of itself makes tracking him over time quite the interesting task, and that’s what I’m going to focus on in the new few posts.

As I previously said, GG Theodore’s daughter, my grandmother, is the one who confirmed that he had changed his name from Steve Evans to Theodore Johnson. She also told me that he had two brothers, and that their names were Henry and Marshall Evans.

Pause. Wait, no, FULL STOP. Where have we seen the name Marshall Evans before?

1930 Federal Census, Unincorporated Town of Majestic, Jefferson County, Alabama.

That’s right! He was one of the boarders living with Beatrice, her sister Lillian, and their mom Ardenia in 1930! And I said that was important before, right? That’s because one of the other things my Grandma told me is that two sisters married two brothers…Theodore and Beatrice, and Marshall and Lillian! Another post for another day…

Anyway, my grandmother also provided me with a page from her father’s funeral program. I’ve recently found the longer obituary, of which the biographical text from the funeral program was a snippet, published in the Bluefield (West Virginia) Daily Telegraph on October 29, 1986, as well as a notice of his passing published the day before.

From these documents, what we know about Theodore Johnson so far is that:

• He passed on October 26, 1986
• He lived in West Virginia for many years before his passing.
• He was a retired coal miner and a member of the United Mine Workers of America
• He was born in Montgomery, Alabama
• He was the son of Steve and Laura Ann Evans

And, from the marriage record, what we know about Steve Evans is that:

• He married Beatrice Harris on August 15, 1933
• The marriage was in Birmingham, Alabama

I was able to get copies of two additional documents for Theodore Johnson: his Certificate of Death and his Application for a Social Security Number. The former confirmed information mentioned above, and also provided a birth date. The latter provided a different birth date and added the following:

• He was born on April 15, 1915 or 1914 (Note: Beatrice Harris, his wife and my great-grandmother, was born on April 14, 1915. This is too similar to seem like a coincidence. Was this really his birthdate, or is it tied to his new identity? I don’t have any documents from his early years that specify a date, so I can’t say for sure.)
• He was living in Powhatan Point, Ohio and working for the Powhatan Mining Co. on July 27, 1937.
• He was probably not literate – his application is “signed” with an “X” and two witnesses signed to confirm that it was indeed “His Mark”

 

One thing I should also be able to get from this document is the name of his parents, as told by him in 1937, but unfortunately the Social Security Administration redacted (blacked out) this info when I requested the document several years ago, for privacy reasons. However, now that it has been over 100 years since his birth, I should hopefully be able to get a non-redacted copy. And really, it’s this information about his parents that I’m most interested in, as that will help connect Steve Evans to Theodore Johnson through a paper trail, using information Theodore himself provided. (He obviously isn’t the one who provided the info for the documents created relating to his death.)

Finally, we know that our teenage Beatrice Harris was living in a community called Majestic, near Birmingham in Jefferson County, Alabama, and so, too, was a teenager named Steve Evans, Jr, in a household with a woman named Janie M. Baker and another teenager named Henry Evans, among other folks. (Remember, my Grandma said her dad had a brother named Henry, and that documents mentioned above say Theodore Johnson’s dad was also Steve Evans, making Steve/Theodore technically a junior.)

Just from the paragraph above, you can begin to see how it’s possible to start pulling these identities together. My next post (posts?) will focus on drawing the link between the family of Theodore Johnson and the family of Steve Evans to show how I’m tracking Steve/Theodore through time. And because I know this is confusing(!!), I’ll end this series with a timeline of where he was and what he was up to, as I’ve done for others, to the best of my knowledge.

I know this was a longer read than usual – thanks for sticking with it!