On This Day

My great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis died on this day in 1950.

 

Mary Frances Jollett Davis
10 Jan 1870 - 22 Feb 1950

 

 Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Flower Power

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

Look at all those flower-print dresses in this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt.

This photo of my great-grandmother and her sisters taken at one of the Jollett reunions is certainly a good match.

  

Jollett Sisters 1939
Laura Sullivan, Victoria Breeden, Sallie Clift, Mary Fances Davis,
Emma Coleman seated

And this one too.

 

Jollett Sisters 1934 at the latest
Vic, Sallie, Mary Frances, Leanna, Laura, Emma
(hard to see the print but it's there!)

One hold-out though was Emma Jollett Coleman, the oldest sister. According to family legend, she followed the Dunkard faith and always dressed in dark clothing.

ALWAYS? Where did that story come from? Ever since I was a child, I pictured Emma as some old serious and gloomy person who was not much fun.

However, several photos of Emma in light-colored print dresses have altered my view.

 

1929
Mary Frances Jollett Davis
Jack and Emma Jollett Coleman

4 Generations 1923 Jollett Reunion
Emma Jollett Coleman, James Franklin Jollett
Minnie Coleman Maiden, Virginia Maiden

And Emma was smiling. Even in her dark dresses.

No one would ever accuse my grandmother of being “gloomy” due to how she dressed. In the 1960s she rocked the flowery moo-moo.

 

My grandparents Orvin and Lucille Davis
one of Grandma's MANY moo-moos

My mother and I also did our part to rock another trend of the decade: floral-print Villager a-line skirts with pin tuck blouses. Villager was pricey. Because Momma was such a skilled seamstress, we both could dress to impress in our floral pastel Villager knock-offs.

 

Mary Slade and moi at the Manassas Battlefield 1967

At our wedding in 1973, the hubster and I were right in style, but I thought my aunt was really a showstopper in a floral print gown. She was definitely bold and ahead of her time.

At Sepia Saturday, everyone is dressed and ready to impress with delightful old photos and stories.

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

52 Ancestors - FIRE: Family Heirlooms

I come from a sentimental family that likes to save old things and repeat old stories. With that in mind, I am repeating bits and pieces of stories from my blog about some of our family heirlooms, all related to this week’s theme.

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away?

FIREPLACE GRATE

This fireplace grate belonged to my great-grandmother Mary Sudie Eppard Rucker. I am trying to imagine the day in 1958 when my grandmother and her sister and brothers stood around picking over their freshly-deceased mother’s dishes, jewelry, furniture and whatever else. My grandmother inherited many fine items, but did she really want Sudie Rucker’s fireplace grate?

I guess she did. Or maybe it was my mother who wanted it. My sister insists it was in our fireplace when we lived in Cradock and that it followed us to “the new house” in 1971.

A little over 50 years after Sudie Rucker’s fireplace grate came home with us, my sister and I stood staring at it, debating who would get it. Throwing it away was not an option - it had age, it had family history even if we didn’t know what that history was. I’m pretty sure I grunted and said, “What am I going to do with it?” But my sister had a vision for it.

 

Fireplace grate has become a planter in my yard.

FIREPLACE CHAIR

I got the fireplace grate – my sister got this chair.

 

The Jollett fireside chair

It is a fireside chair from my great-grandfather’s boyhood home in Greene County, Virginia. That dates this chair to the late 1830s-early 1840s IF it were new then. I can imagine young James Franklin Jollett sitting in that chair while tending the fire under the watchful eyes of his parents Fielding and Mary Ann. Maybe Mary Ann took a rest now and then while stirring the stew.

While the seat and back are normal size for an adult, the short legs make it look like a child’s chair. I suppose children liked the chair because it did not require climbing; they could easily plop down with both feet firmly on the floor. 

THE MAJESTIC LID LIFTER

This basket of antique kitchen tools has been on display in my kitchen for many years. Egg beaters, potato mashers, wooden spoons, and pastry cutters conjure up images of “woman’s work” and what my great-grandmother’s everyday life was like. I bet in her day Mary Frances Jollett Davis had all the modern conveniences.

She probably had a wood-burning stove like this one, a Majestic:

 

image from Google Images

I’m only guessing about the stove, but I have Mary Frances’ Majestic lid lifter that was used to lift the stove plates which covered the holes in her range top. 

The word MAJESTIC stretches across the flat part
but I could not get a good picture of it.

With this simple tool, she could lift the plate to stoke the fire or stir the ashes with the flat end. Admittedly it is not very glamorous or particularly valuable, but certainly it was important to keep it handy and not lose it.    

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

52 Ancestors - NEARLY FORGOTTEN: My Grandfather's Brother

When I opened up the Davis family bible that my cousin sent me, this slip of paper made me gasp:

Someone carefully wrote out in pencil the names and birth dates of my great-grandparents Walter and Mary Frances “Mollie” Davis and their children, some of them anyway. The last 2 are not listed for some odd reason.

What took me by surprise was not the missing children nor the misspelling of "Violetta" but the addition of Elsworth O. Davis, a child I had never heard of.

My grandfather Orvin Davis had spoken of his precious baby sister Josy who died when she was just 2 years old. Her picture was always on my grandparents’ mantel in their living room.

 

Josy Davis and Orvin Davis
probably 1903

I knew about a brother Kenneth because he shares a tombstone with Josy in the Coverstone Cemetery in Shenandoah, Virginia.

 

at Coverstone Cemetery
Shenandoah, Page Co, VA

But Elsworth? Nope. Not even a tombstone for him. As important as family was to my grandaunts Violetta and Velma, they never spoke of Elsworth. Maybe it was because he was the first child and none of the other children ever knew him since he died before they were even born.

Mary Frances made sure her children sat for professional portraits.

Millard, Orvin, Josy

Violetta and Velma
portraits on opalotype

Unfortunately, Kenneth did not live long enough for that. He was just 12 days old when he died of jaundice. However, Elsworth lived 18 months (27 Mar 1892 - 28 Sep 1893).

But maybe he sat for a portrait. Could this unidentified cutie be little Elsworth? 

I certainly hope so.

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: S is for Singer

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for Singer sewing machine which belonged to my great-grandmother. Since Mary Frances Jollett Davis was my mother’s favorite grandmother, she always intended to do something special with it. As it turns out, she never did, and so the sewing machine sat in the garage for years while other things just got piled on top.

Singer that belonged to my great-grandmother
Mary Frances Jollett Davis

Now I have it. For a time, the Singer was just a home to piles of “stuff” in my house too. Like mother, like daughter. However, I finally got around to redoing the room over the garage as my “Gene Cave,” in other words, the room where I have my computer for genealogy research and blogging. The sewing machine serves as a table prominently placed under all the photos of grandparents and great grandparents.

Look closely at how beautiful these old machines were and ARE. The base is like decorative scrollwork in iron.

Notice the intricate patterns in the face plate:

According to a “Machine Dating” chart online, Mary Frances’s machine was built about 1923. It’s called a “Red Head” or “Red Eye” machine because of the beautiful red and gold ornamentation.

Mary Frances must have eased and pushed and shoved a lot of fabric through here over the years to wear away the finish. Most of these models did not have a reverse. I guess hers didn't either. So far, I don’t see any reverse button that I’m familiar with on modern sewing machines.

I wonder what she was making with this last spool of thread.

I hope that one day one of my daughters will be thrilled to own her great-great-grandmother’s Singer treadle sewing machine. And then maybe one day one of my grandbabies will look at that machine and proclaim, “I think it was my great-great-GREAT-grandmother’s sewing machine. I remember seeing that thing in my grandmother’s gene cave under the pictures of all those old people.”

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: K is for Kitchen Tools

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for kitchen tools.

Most of these tools came from my great-grandmother
Mary Frances Jollett Davis

This basket of antique kitchen tools has been a faithful member of my kitchen décor for many years. Sometime in the 1980s my grandaunt Violetta Davis Ryan asked me to select items that I would like to inherit from her. My reply was not to get the most expensive or valuable pieces but the everyday. Of course, I received both, but these kitchen tools, most of which came from my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis, are among my favorite things. These tools conjure up images of “woman’s work” and what my great-grandmother’s everyday life was like.  

Egg beaters - These still work easily, but you’d have to crank a long time to conjure up a meringue.

Potato mashers - I believe the red one was my mother’s. In my mind’s eye I can see my mother at the stove mashing potatoes with a red-handled masher.

Meat tenderizer? - I am only guessing. It’s a solid hunk of wood, heavy too.

Rolling pin and pastry cutter -

I cannot remember the last time I saw “rolling pin” or “pastry cutter” on any bride’s gift registry. I own both and actually use them. I can picture Mary Frances right now combining the flour and shortening with her pastry cutter, chilling the dough, patting it into a proper circle, and dusting it with flour before rolling out a perfect crust. Judging by recipes penciled on scraps of paper and backs of envelopes, Mary Frances must have preferred creamy, pudding-like pies whereas I’m a fruit pie girl.

Other tools -

I guess these tongs carried ice although most had a stationary handle whereas the chain makes this handle flexible. Maybe it was used for hay bales.

The scale was likely from my great-grandfather’s store.

The lifter is from a Majestic wood-burning stove. It was used to lift the stove plates that covered the holes in the range top.  With this simple tool, Mary Frances could lift the plate to stoke the fire or stir the ashes with the flat end. Not very glamorous or particularly valuable, but certainly it was important to keep it handy and not let it get lost.

Ball jars

When Barry and I married, we moved into a basement apartment in Violetta’s apartment building. Just off the kitchen was an enclosed backdoor entrance plus a storage room. That is where I found dozens of old blue Ball jars, still filled with the harvests from MANY years past. 

I asked Violetta about them, and she was surprised. She said, “Well, they must be Momma’s jars. You can have ‘em.”  Of course, the gross part was cleaning them. It was 1973, and Mary Frances had died in 1950, so the contents were at least 23 years old, if not older. Ever since then I have used those jars as canisters. 

I never knew my great-grandmother, but I rather like having this connection to her.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved. 

A to Z April Challenge: C is for Corner Cupboard

When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!) With this challenge I begin my book of Heirlooms.

is for the Corner Cupboard that once belonged to my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis. Corner furniture was popular in the 19^th century, probably because it saved space in the room. The purpose of cupboards was storage. In the kitchen they held dishes and cookware. In a hallway they might have held bed linens.

Since Mary Frances’s cabinet is a simple one-piece construction with flat panel doors top and bottom, I conclude that it was likely intended strictly for storage rather than display. Anyone wishing to show off fine china and crystal would have had a cabinet with a glass door on top. Despite any intentions suggested by the solid door, the other pretties I have inherited are on display with the door open.

When or how Mary Frances acquired this pine cabinet is not known. However, it is certainly old enough to have been one of her original pieces of furniture when she and Walter Davis married in 1890. Most likely she used it in the dining room of their home in Shenandoah. When she went to live with her daughter Violetta, the cabinet went with her.

Violetta’s living room is where I remember seeing the cabinet and feeling sorry that she could do no better than all that old furniture. Oh my, how my views have changed over the years.

When Violetta died, my mother and my cousin Bobbie were tasked with disposing of Violetta’s things. Each was free to claim what she wanted either for herself or on behalf of other family members. If there was something they both wanted, they drew names. Of course, Momma and Bobbie both wanted the cabinet, but Momma was the lucky draw that day.

When our parents died and my sister and I went through the same process, I said I would fight her for the corner cabinet. Fortunately, we didn’t have to fight. We made sure that for every item one of us claimed, the other took something of comparable size and value. Momma’s Empire-style sideboard was my sister’s choice. There is nothing “second place” about it!

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Not Your Cup of Tea?

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a familiar scene: a married couple enjoying their afternoon tea in the garden. Tea. In a teacup. So refined. So genteel. But I have to wonder - do people use teacups anymore? In my house, mugs are the receptacle of choice. That seems to be the trend among my family and friends as well.

Teacups, dark pink lemonade glass, china trivet

However, I do have a small teacup collection, not of my making, though. Most of the teacups had belonged to my grandmother, but others came from my grandaunts Violetta Davis Ryan and Velma Davis Woodring. The teacups are displayed in a beautiful pine corner cabinet that had belonged to my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis. I must admit, they are quite lovely.

 

Mary Frances's corner cabinet
filled with heirloom china

Demitasse set belonging to my great grandmother
Mary Sudie Eppard Rucker
The cups are marked "Bavaria."

I always thought such delicate teacups were just for show, jewelry for the house, not something one would ever actually drink from.

Then several years ago I attended a meeting in the home of an elderly lady who served tea in a variety of lovely floral teacups that looked much like my grandmother’s.

The thin china kept the tea piping hot - not tongue-scalding hot, mind you, just good and hot. The gentle clink as I rested the cup in the saucer was a pleasant sound that doesn’t come with everyday mugs, that’s for sure. Ah yes, this is the allure of fine china.

Coffee and tea at a meeting today are more likely to be served in a Styrofoam cup. At today’s bridal shower or baby shower, hostesses proudly set out matching paper plates, cups, and napkins coordinated with appropriately colored plastic forks. Pretty enough. But this ol’ dinosaur drags out the Jeanette Shell Pink milk glass snack sets that my family has entertained with for generations.  

 

Shell pink milk glass by Jeanette
Depression glass

I mourn the passing of the fondness for fine china and crystal. Don’t get me started on silver!

Grab a cup of tea and join us at Sepia Saturday.

Wendy

© 2018, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.