Census Sunday: The Colemans

In my study of the 1940 census, I have completed parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and the great aunts and uncles on both sides of my family.  So I’m on to the great-greats, starting with the sisters and brothers of my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis.

Mary Frances’s oldest sister Emma Jollett Coleman and her husband Andrew Jackson “Jack” Coleman should have been easy to find in the census.  They lived in Shenandoah, Page County, Virginia for most of their adult lives.  They both had simple, straight-forward and common-enough names.  But Ancestry has them indexed under CALEman.  FamilySearch got the name right.

Click to enlarge
Jack and Emma, Shenandoah, Page County, Virginia

Aunt Emma and Uncle Jack were enumerated for the very last time on April 30, 1940.  She was 77 and he was 81.  Not surprisingly, Jack was not employed and had no income recorded for 1939.  Neither was looking for work either.  However, Jack claimed to have had OTHER means of income.  The code #8 suggests his income was from agriculture.  I wonder if he owned land and was leasing it out for pasture or possibly for crops. 

They owned their home valued at $3000.  In each previous census, they lived at North Second Street.  However, this time it appears they lived on North Denver.  I find it hard to believe they would have sold their home and bought a new one at that stage of life.  

The census taker visited both of those streets on the same day.  My guess is she made a mistake, not clearly delineating where one street ended and the next began.  Had the enumerator provided house numbers, it might have been easy to determine whether my theory is correct.

Back row:  Jack Coleman, daughters Mattie Escue and Reba Morris
Front row: Reba's son Jimmy and Emma Coleman

I don't know much about Emma and Jack except that he was the designated prayer-deliverer at the Jollett reunions.  He was notorious for being long-winded, prompting many of the men to say, "Hurry up, Jack.  The food is getting cold."

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: C

is for Coleman.  My great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis’s sister Emma Jollett married Andrew Jackson “Jack” Coleman in 1880.  They had 5 children, including one set of twins:

Mattie Coleman (12 Mar 1882 Greene Co, VA – 10 Feb 1978 Page Co, VA)

John Franklin Coleman (9 Jul 1883 Page Co, VA  - )

Minnie Coleman (May 1888 Page Co, VA – Jan 1981 Arlington, VA)

Russell Coleman (29 Jul 1896 Page Co, VA - )

Reba Hildred Coleman (29 Jul 1896 – 12 Jan 1994 Chesapeake, VA)

Standing: Mattie, Minnie, John
Seated: Jack holding Russell, Emma holding Reba

Jack Coleman was known for his often long-winded prayers before the meal at the annual family reunions.  Invariably someone would have to interrupt to remind him the food was getting cold.

Mary Frances Jollett Davis
Jack and Emma Coleman

What else do I know about the Colemans?  Very little.  I don’t remember ever knowing the boys, but I have vague memories of Mattie and Minnie, and stronger memories of Reba.  Mattie became a teacher, a stern one at that, and was always called “Miss Mattie.”  My cousin insists Mattie and Reba were terrible gossips.  Minnie, on the other hand, was very sweet.  Her husband was a minister and president of Shenandoah College (now University).

Left:  Reba Coleman (Morris)

Center: Russell Coleman and John Coleman (seated)

Top right:  Minnie Coleman (Maiden)

Bottom right:  Mattie Coleman (Escue)

To “C” what others have thought of, Carry yourself over to the A to Z Challenge.

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy: Week 5 Life Experiences

This is Week 5 of Amy Coffin’s Abundant Genealogy series.   I started to skip this week because I haven’t been able to think of a good answer.  But I’m determined to stick with it, so I am offering a not-so-good answer.


Life Experiences: Sometimes the challenges in life provide the best learning experiences. Can you find an example of this in your own family tree? Which brick wall ancestor are you most thankful for, and how did that person shape your family history experience?

Ida Mary Davis was my great grandfather Walter Davis’s sister.  She was born to Mitchell and Martha Ann Wilson Davis 25 Jun 1869.  She married William Layton Morris December 12, 1890.  They had two sons:  Lionel born in 1891 and Mitchell 1893.  In 1895 at the age of 21, Layton Morris was struck with Bright’s disease and died.

In the 1900 Rockingham County, Virginia census, I don’t know where Ida was, but evidently she was unable to take care of her sons on her own.  I found Lionel living with his grandmother Martha Davis.  At the opposite side of the county, Mitchell was living with the other grandmother, Nancy Morris. 

In 1910, Mitchell was still with his grandmother Nancy Morris, now in Washington DC.  She was running a boarding house and Mitchell was an apprentice carpenter. Ida Mary’s mother had died, so Lionel came to live with her in Elkton where she and a daughter Dorothy were renting a house on Ward Avenue (apparently this road no longer exists, at least not on Google Maps).  Lionel helped out by taking odd jobs.  Ida Mary was earning a living as a washer woman.

Washer woman.  Washer woman.

I can’t get that word out of my mind.  No honest work is unworthy, but what difficult work that had to be.  In 1910 there was no laundry detergent.  Ida Mary probably grated soap flakes from some hand-made bar of hard soap.  I wonder if she was able to afford a “modern” washing machine like this one:

Image from Google Images

or if she simply had a tub and washboard like this:

Image from Google Images

I wonder if she suffered from washer woman syndrome.  (I didn’t know there was such a syndrome!)  It’s a form of tendonitis caused by the repetition of hand movements like wringing out wet clothes, pinching and squeezing.  Washer woman syndrome is also called Mommy Thumb, Mother’s Wrist, and of course, more scientific terms like radial styloid tenosynovitis and De Quervain’s Syndrome in honor of the doctor who first identified it.

But back to the question about lessons learned from life experiences.  I don’t know if Ida Mary was proud of being an independent woman who eked out a living washing other people’s clothes or if she was bitter at being widowed at such a young age forced to leave her children with grandparents.  I don’t know if she viewed her own life as any harder than anyone else’s.  But as I sit in my very comfortable home able to play around with my genealogy and blog thanks to early retirement, I am glad not to be her. 

Sepia Saturday: Mother and Child

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday challenge is a simple photo of mother and child.  If there’s a prize for “the most similar photo,” then I should win!

Just look.  Little boys are on the left and the mothers are on the right.  Both women are wearing a hat. 

This is my maternal grandfather’s cousin Reba Coleman Morris (1896-1994) and one of her sons, but I’m not sure which.  I’ll guess it’s James Mitchell Morris, Jr. who was born in 1924.  Reba’s son Maxon lived only a year, but this child appears older than that. 

Most of my grandparents’ cousins are only vague memories, but Reba is vivid because of one questionable decision she made.  One of our relatives in Shenandoah, Virginia, had died.  It was a 4-hour drive to Shenandoah for the funeral, so Reba asked if she could ride with my parents.  Sure, come on.  The morning of the funeral, Reba announced she was going to the beauty parlor to get a permanent.  I don't know if she didn't think about the time required for a perm or if she didn't care, but as you can no doubt guess, she missed the funeral.  Grandma was furious and fussed about Reba for months afterwards and then forever.  “Going all that way just to get your hair done. Hrmph.”

It’s so ridiculous – what can you do but laugh?