Sepia Saturday: Uncle Renza

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo is of sisters and their dogs on the steps of a mansion. About 1935, someone snapped a picture of my mother and her brother and their dog Fritz on the front steps of someone’s home which was anything but a mansion. The smiling gentleman was their grandfather’s brother known among family as “Uncle Renza.”

"Uncle Renza" (1871-1947)
my mother Mary Eleanor Davis and her brother Orvin Jr.
and of course, Fritz

Apparently Uncle Renza was an object of pity. He seemed to be poor. My mother thought maybe he was divorced. He would show up and then disappear. But those are the recollections of a child. Just what was Uncle Renza’s story?

He was born Lorenza Ridell McKinley Davis in 1871, the thirteenth of fifteen children of Mitchell and Martha Willson Davis of Rockingham County, Virginia. He obtained a sixth grade education, which was the typical length of education in rural parts of the state at that time. In August 1892, he married Chillis/Chelie Ann Shiflett of Greene County.

By 1900, Lorenza and Chelie or Anne or Anna, whatever she went by, were the parents of four children under the age of six. As was typical of women of the time, Anne took care of the household in their rented home in Augusta County while her husband worked as a farm laborer, likely on someone else’s farm.

Company houses at the logging camp near Boyer
photo courtesy Cass Scenic Railroad State Park
cassrailroad.com

Apparently there was more opportunity in the remote Pocahontas County in West Virginia. The steam railroad had finally reached those mountains, enabling the growth of commercial timbering. By 1910, the Davis family had moved into a rental home in Boyer Village, a logging camp in the Green Bank district where Lorenza and most of his neighbors were employed by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Mill.

In the census record for that year, Lorenza and Anne could boast that all six of six children were still living. But something must have happened to the family after 1910. Lorenza and Anne are nowhere to be found in either the 1920 or 1930 census. None of the usual creative spellings and combinations have produced a hit. Maybe it was true – maybe they divorced and maybe Anne remarried. Nevertheless, that does not explain Lorenza’s disappearance.

Most of their children did not show up in 1920 or 1930 either. Those that did were married but apparently did not take their parents in.

Incorrect information on the children’s later marriage and death records led me to search using the names “Lorenzo McKinley” and “Alonzo Davis.” Still nothing.

Death Certificate for Chelie Anne Shiflett Davis

Virginia death records recently released on Ancestry.com provided a few answers while sparking new questions. Anne’s whereabouts were confirmed: at least by 1939 and in failing health, she moved to Covington, Virginia, likely near, if not with, her daughter Bessie Weiford who was the informant on Anne’s death certificate. The answer to the question of whether she and Uncle Renza were divorced seems to be “No.”

However, in the 1940 census, Uncle Renza claimed he was Single. Yet at his death in 1947, he was a widower according to his death certificate.

For a few years at least, Uncle Renza seemed to be getting by. He owned his home, but it was valued at only $100 while his neighbors’ homes were valued between $1200 and $6000. At age 69, he was still employed - as a laborer for a private family. That probably translates as “handyman.” He was already past the age of normal working years, so there is no telling how much longer he was able to work.

As meager as Uncle Renza’s life seems to have been, his circumstances must have taken a grim turn. The informant at his death was not one of his children, not a sister or brother, not even a family friend.  It was the Department of Public Welfare in Fairfax, Virginia.

Death Certificate for Lorenza Ridell McKinley Davis

Whether he had been a long-time recipient of public assistance or had merely fallen on hard times in his declining years is not known. At any rate, my mother’s recollections of a “poor uncle” must have been right.

Why don’t you and your sister take the dog for a walk to the Sepia Saturday mansion?

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.