Most of the court cases I've came across, while perusing the Superior Court records of the reconstruction years of Stanly County, involving the birth of a child outside the bonds of Holy Matrimony, have fallen into a set number of categories. First there are the cohabitating couples, who just hadn't bothered to get married. Second, there were the mistresses of a married man, who sometimes had multiple children over a lengthy period of time, and depended on this man for roof and survival, despite his having a legal wife and family with whom he lived. Third, and perhaps the most common were the careless teens, giving way to adolescent overdrive. Fourth were the desperate lasses, who surrendered their virtual for the promise of a ring. Fifth were the situations, that would be a criminal act this day and time, of the young and innocent, who were beguiled and seduced into a situation or relationship they knew nothing about aforehand, by an older and more experienced man. Sixth were the women who ran a 'bawdy house', a place of alcohol, carousing and sin, that would sometimes result in children.
The experience of one Miss Blanch Carpenter was one that I haven't came across very often, and thankful for that.
Blanch Carpenter vs Fred Lilly
On October 10, 1892, Miss Blanch Carpenter, a single woman of about 23 years old, was brought to court on charges of Bastardy. She named one Fred Lilly as the father of her child, and this is where the story begins.
Blanche Carpenter was born in Anson County, North Carolina, on the southside of the Rock River. She was the daughter of Henry Franklin Carpenter and his wife Harriett Cauble, who both came from Stanly County families. Blanche Isabell Carpenter was their oldest child. Franklin Carpenter was the son of Williamson Carpenter and wife, Sarah McIntyre, from old Tyson area Rocky River families and her mother was the daughter of Franklin Cauble and Elizabeth Milton, daughter of John Milton II, solidly Stanly County families. Her family is shown in Wadesboro, in Gulledge District in 1860, when she was two, and in Ansonville, Anson County, in 1870, after her father, and her grandfather, returned from the War.
They must have moved back up to Norwood, where her parents were from, around 1890. In 1880, Blanche is shown with three younger siblings. She was 12. In 1890, she would have been around 22, and a young woman looking for socialization and romance.
I had never heard of a "Cotton-Picking" as a social event, but apparently, it was a thing. From what I can gather from newspapers of the time, the Victorian era through the turn-of-the-century, a Cotton Picking was an event similar to what I have heard of, a "Barn-Raising", where neighbors would come together and get a chore done or a barn built, for an individual, and afterwards have a celebration with music, dancing, food and fun. It was an all-out social event, probably one of the few ways young people got to carouse and fellowship with other singles.
In the community of "Lowder", there were so many going on in October, a scarcity of workers was noted.
One particular event, held at the home of Harris Mauldin, had more than a passing significance in the life of Blanche Carpenter.
Harris Mauldin's part in the event, from what I can tell, was just the fact that he was the host and the benefactor of the Cotton-picking event. Harris was further known as Ervin Harris Mauldin and being a Mauldin, was of course a member of my family tree. The son of Marion Patterson Mauldin and Martha Rummage Mauldin, Harris was a contemporary of the parties involved, born in 1866, all that generation that were born in the years of reconstruction and devastation after the War. He would have been a young father with a fledging farm and family, with a scattering of very young children in 1892. He had married his wife, Mary Arannah Brown on February 28, 1889 and by the date of the cotton-picking, in a very rapid succession had welcomed Ida Doskie, Phronie Esther and John Caldwell, a newborn, they called "Carlie".
To envision the scenario, the community of younger people must have come together, and helped Harris, who had no children or others old enough to help, and harvested his cotton crop as a large group. Afterwards, they had a party with music and dancing, and moonshiine, no doubt. There was a young man of the neighborhood there, yet unmarried, of the generation of Harris and Blanche. I will mention him only by his last name, although it was easy to identify who he was by name, age and location. I am not protecting the guilty, but his descendants, as they most likely have no idea of the charactor of their ancestor, but just his statistics and deeds of later life, if that.
Mr. Lilly, who would later have a foggy recall of the night, suggesting a deep inebriation, caught young Blanche, unawares, away from the crowd, behind a corn crib and had "with force and malice", overcame her and "begat child" upon her body. Blanche does not state what she did after that, but it seems like she made it home to her family and must have informed them. Her father would pull up stakes just a few weeks later, perhaps in shame or possbily considered the area unsafe for his family as Blanche testified that it was "two or three weeks before we moved."
There doesn't appear to have been any charges brought against Mr. Lilly for rape, only for bastardy, later, when it was known that the event had created a child and Blanche was pregnant. Blanche had known ,"no man before or since" that night. She had been a virgin and in one instance, a drunken man had overpowered her and impregnated her. In the society of the time, it was on her to bear the burden and shame of the attack.
The perpetrator of this terrible deed was made to simply make small payments of $25 each to her over the course of the first few years of the childs life.
What happened to the parties after that? The man, as many I've seen did, didn't marry the woman he "ruilned", as was the terminology of the day. He went to a county a significant distance away, where he met and married a different girl around Christmastime just one year after he was taken to court. He would acquire the career of saleman and his wife would have a moderate-sized family for the time. He became a respected member of the community and lived to be a septigenarian. I wonder if his night of drunkened sinfulness would ever cross his mind. Did he ever do anything like that again? Was he overprotective of his own daughter?
The child born of the cotton-picking attack was a boy. Blanche named him Grover Cleveland, for the President. He was born February 15, 1893.
In the beginning, it appears as if Mr. Lilly had accepted the lad as his own, as he bore the name. In the above 1900 cenus record, Cleveland's first, his grandparents are the heads of household, followed by his aunt, Sarah, his uncles, Enoch S. and Dr. Franklin, still minors. Gilliam, an older son and uncle, is listed next, followed by Mary, who was his wife, not a sister, as he married Mary Honeycutt in 1894. Next, barely legible, is Blanche, ending the page.
On the following page, in the same household, is 6 year old Cleve F. Lilly, grandson, who would turn out to be Grover Cleveland Carpenter.
Henry Franklin Carpenter, Blanche's father, would pass away sometime in the next decade, as her mother is found living with her brother, Gilliam, and his family, in the 1910 census, as a widow. It is unknown where he was buried. After this, it appears as if the Blanche and her son split ways, at least for the sake of finances.
Blanche had moved to Albemarle and was boarding with a Thompson family while working in the Cotton Mill as a cone winder.
Cleve, who also bore the name Frederick Cleveland in his earlier years and later stuck with Grover Cleveland, was still in the company of his grandmother, Henrietta, or "Hettie" Carpenter, who was living in the home with her younger son, Dock Franklin Carpenter. In this year, 1910, Hettie reported being the mother of 7 children, with 4 living, those four being Gilliam, Dock, Blanche and Winny, who married F. Crump Duke. Of the three deceased, one would have been Sallie, and another Enoch S. Carpenter, and perhaps an Aaron. Cleve is seen as Fred C. Carpenter in this document.
On August 31, 1912, 21-year-old Cleve, whose name is shown as "C. C. Carpenter", in another of its many renditions, in the document, married 18-year-old Beulah Luther. Cleve gave his grandparents, Frank and Harriett Carpenter, as his parents. Beulah was the daughter of John and Dora Luther of Stanly County.
By 1920, Cleve and Beulah had started their family with a passion, having 4 children in eight years. Blanche was now living with her only child, and they were living in Norwood, Stanly County, working in a textile mill, which, other than farming, was the premier occupation of the majority of persons in this region, avoiding only the professionals, merchants and clergy.
Blanche's life had been hard and deleterious to her health.
She left her earthly body on December 30. 1922, just two years after the above census. She died of Apoplexy at the age of 53 and was buried in the Norwood Cemetery. Her son was the informant on her death certificate. Was she a broken woman, or had she just been overworked?
Cleveland Carpenter, the child of the unfortunate event at the Cotton-picking at Harris Mauldins, moved his family to the town of Thomasville, in Davidson County, NC, after he buried his mother. Oddly, in 1930, Cleve is seen with no occupation, while his wife Beulah, worked in a Cotton Mill and his oldest son, James, 16, worked in a furniture plant, an industry Thomasville would become known for. Cleve must have stayed with the younger children, who ranged in age from 5 to 14.
Tragedy was not finished with the Carpenter family, when in 1935, Cleve lost his first wife to a brain tumor at age 38. He brought her home to Norwood to bury with family, although she died in Thomasville.
Cleve remained in Davidson County and did eventually remarry, on April 22, 1947, twelve years after Beulah died. His wife was a younger woman named Rosalie Martin, originally from Virginia.
Grover Cleveland Frederick Carpenter would remain in Thomasville, Davidson County, NC for the rest of his life. He worked in textiles until his premature death at age 60 from an illness. His wife was the informant on his death certificate and did not know the names of his parents. The date was August 19th, 1953. He was returned home to Norwood for burial.
Cleve left seven children: James Cleveland, Henry Franklin (for his grandfather), Margaret Esther, Macie Blanch (for Cleve's mother, Carrie Beulah (for her mother), Walter Gray and Charles Richard, and several step-children. There were many grandchildren as well. Perhaps one day one of them will take a DNA test trying to solve a mystery and this will help them to discover a lost branch of their family tree.
Now, I will try to complete the story with that of her younger 3 children, beginning with her son Stephen. Unlike the rest of her 6 children, Steve, as pppppP.o have been known, took the name of his father, Doc Crump, instead of that of his mother, Zilphia Cochran. Zilphia was 46 before she ever married, that I can tell, when she married Ben Davis. Ben, who was in his early 60's at the time, had been married and like Zilphia, had adult children. They had no children of their own.
Like his mother, Steve did not show up in the 1870 census. He first appears in an 1878 marriage record to Cornelia "Nelie" Howell. I know, the transcribed version shows his wife as "Candia Harvell", but the actual document is old and faded and the handwriting nominally legible, so I don't blame the transcriber for having a hard time. What the actual document does give me clearly, however, is the parents of the the two newlyweds, and the brides parents, with her as a child, did appear in the 1870 census, and in later records as well.
She was the daughter of Freeman Howell, not Harvell, and his wife, Francis "Fanny" Colson Howell. The daughter to fit the correct age to be "Candia" was Cornelia, age 7, his oldest. And while this transcription was also off by running the r and the n together to make 'Comelia' instead of Cornelia, a look at the actual document clearly read Cornelia to me. And that also makes sense when we move on to the 1880 census, where Steve and Nealie now have two children.
While Freeman Howell lived in Ansonville, just 6 miles south of the Stanly County - Anson County border, in 1870, by 1880, he had moved to Tyson Township in Stanly where Steven Crump lived. And again, what I read in the actual document as "Nely", short for Cornelia, the transcriber gives her the nickname, 'Neby'. I only hope I have briefly pulled the name of poor, young Cornelia Howell Crump out the dirt, for she didn't live long.
Steve appears to have been a tenant farmer on the property of D. R. Dunlap. Like Freeman Howell, David Richard Dunlap lived in Ansonville, Anson County in 1870 and had moved to Tyson Township in Stanly County by 1880. David, however, returned to Ansonville and lived there for the remainder of his like with his wife, Eugenia. His mother was a Crump, there may have been some connection between her family and Doc Crump, the father of Steven, as far a Doc's origins.
As for Doc, he had his wife, Elenor aka 'Ellen', set up household in the Big Lick community of Stanly County. Again, as in the case with her daughter, Dilsie, whose father was Harry Randle, husband of Celia Easley, Zilphia had had a child with a married man.
The marriage certificate of Steve and Isabelle gives her parents as Henry and Charlotte Spruell. It can be assumed that Cornelia, Steve's first wife, had died, before he married Isabell in 1883.
Spruell is not a local family name. It is unknown from whence they came, but they were in Tyson by 1880, and there is Isabell at 14, their oldest child.
Twenty years later, they are still in Stanly County, NC, but there is no sign of Isabell.
Name:
Henry Spruell
Side:
Union
Regiment State/Origin:
U.S. Colored Troops
Regiment:
35th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry
Company:
F
Rank In:
Private
Rank Out:
Musician
Film Number:
M589 roll 82
Memorial:
Part of the African American Civil War Memorial
Plaque Number:
C-51
Displayed As:
Henry Spruell
I did find a Henry Spruell who was a musician in the Civil War. I can't be sure if it's the same Henry Spruell, but it's quite interesting. Several of Henry and Charlotte's children married locally. Wincy married Will Gain in Montgomery County in 1902, James married Lucy Christian in Stanly in 1902, Joe married Annie Jones in 1905 and Francis Sms in 1909, both in Stanly; Emma married John Snuggs in 1903 in Stanly. Bessie, the youngest, was the last to marry, in 1919, to James J. Jones and her address given was in Badin, in Stanly County, however, I can't locate her, or any of the family in 1910 or 1920, with any certainty. They simply disappear.
Steve Crump, himself, died in January of 1926, in the Sheets Community of Richmond County, near Anson. He was 70 years old. I can't find any trace of children born to him and Isabell Spruell, or what became of his two children, Eliza and Walter, with Cornelia Howell. Perhaps he lost his entire famly to thyphoid or another deadly disease prevelent in those days of limited and little medical treatment and bad nutrition.
Name:
Steven Crump
Gender:
Male
Race:
Colored (Black)
Age:
70y
Marital status:
Single
Birth Date:
1856
Birth Place:
Anson Co.
Death Date:
25 Jan 1926
Death Place:
Sheets, Richmond, North Carolina
Burial Date:
26 Jan 1926
Cemetery:
Stanback Cemetery
Reference ID:
fn 998 cn cn 218
FHL Film Number:
4216608
Calvin Cochran 1861-1910
Calvin Cochran, the youngest son of Zilphia Cochran, was born either in Stanly County or Montgomery County. He was born at the very start of the Civil War and was freed as a young child. In records, he comes across as having been a forceful man, a strong man. He was a landowner and challenged a document of inheirtance in court. Calvin paved the way.
Calvin first appears in the census living in Montgomery County, living with the Nelson Christian family and working as a goldminer. This was hard work, and many a young man, both black and white, lost their lives in this occupation at the time. Several others in the Cochran family may have as well, as they dispapear from record after 1870, after working in the mines. But Calvin survived and maybe this is how he bought his land, by earning the money as a miner.
Cavins father was William "Buck" Howell, possibly related to Freeman Howell, whose daughter married Steve (Cochran) Crump, Calvin's half-brother. Little is known about him, as he was most likely, also a slave and there were several Howell families in the Stanly/ Montgomery/ Anson County area who owned a few slaves.
Name:
Calvin Cocheran
Age:
19
Birth Date:
Abt 1861
Birthplace:
North Carolina
Home in 1880:
Pee Dee, Montgomery, North Carolina, USA
Dwelling Number:
134
Race:
Black
Gender:
Male
Marital Status:
Single
Father's Birthplace:
North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace:
North Carolina
Occupation:
Farm Laborer
Cannot Read:
Yes
Cannot Write:
Yes
Neighbors:
Household Members:
1
By 1880, young Calvin, who had been working in the gold mines at 9 and 10 years old, was now working as Farm Labor, along with his older brother "Bill", or William M. Cochran, for Mr. Culpepper Watkins in the PeeDee Community, where his mother had spent a portion of her life.
In 1887, Calvin has apparently moved to Stanly County where he married Miss Mary Ella Threadgill, age 18, on January 30th of that year. Both parties were said to live in Stanly County, although Threadgill was an Anson County name and Calvin had been living in Montgomery . The groom was 25, the son of Buck Howell and Zelphia Davis, as Zilphia had now married Ben Davis, father noted as deceased and mother living. The bride was the daughter of Simon and Jane Threadgill, with the father living and the mother deceased. The wedding was performed by J. M. Redwine, Justice of the Peace, at the home of Sidney Threadgill in Tyson Township. Witensses were what looks like "ZyZy" Davis, W. M. Reap, and "Johas" Drake, with a 'his mark" in the middle and the handwriting matching that of Mr. Redwine. The other two signatures were their own, and I wonder if the first was that of Zilphia, attempting to sign her own name. It would tickle me to know that she could, as I feel I have gotten to know her in a way.
The Threadgill family was a very interesting one. Sidney Threadgill, at whose home the ceremony took place, was Mary Ella's grandfather. She was living wtih him in 1880. Her mother, Jane Crump Threadgill. had passed on and her father, Simon, had moved to New Jersey. Simon was the son of Sidney Threadgill and Nancy Mauney Threadgill, no doubts with ties to the businessmen brothers, Ephraim and Valentine Mauney, who had married into my Davis family, and who had business exploits in both Stanly and Rowan Counties, but I've found records of them in Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Cumberland, Iredell and even into South Carolina, so they were men of means and influence.
Sidney Threadgill was also a landowner, and held a sizable estate in the Cottonville Community, impressive, considering the challenges afforded African Americans at the time. Calvin married well.
By 1900, Calvin and Ella had been married for 13 years, were living in Cottonville, and were the parents of 2 sons. Mary Ella was noted as having given birth to two children, with 2 living, so although there was a large age gap between the boys, aparently these two were her only ones.
The two sons of Calvin and Ella were Levander "Lee" Cochran , born around 1888 and Ernest "Dock" Cochran, born in 1896. The 1900 census captured the family on June 23 of that year, and they were living in the neighborhood of Julia Sibley Davis, widow of Benjamin Franklin Davis, the brother of my 2nd Great grandfather, Hawk. This tells me they lived in the southernmost part of the county, near the Rocky River.
Ella's grandfather, Sidney Threadgill, raised her, and treated her as a daughter, while her father, Simon, worked as a Teamster in New Jersey, lived in the community of Cottonville, just a hair north, and upon his arrival into old age, had acquired a substantial amount of property, through hard work, fortuity, and savvy business dealings.
The will of Sidney Threadgill mentions two tracts of land, 'The Floyd Tract' and ' The Crump Tract'. Later papers in the Probate stage refers to the Crump tract as " the old Crump Quarters', which means Sidney Threadgill serendipously ended up owning the old slave Quarters area of the enormous Crump Plantation of Stephen Crump, King of Cottonville Cotton.
A little bit about Mary Ella's grandfather, Sidney; Sidney Threadgill was born about 1826 and was the son of a James Crump and Susan Threadgill. Born into slavery, Sidney's father most likely worked the land that Sidney later owned himself, a clasic and deserving bit of irony.
Sidney wrote his will on June 20, 1899, at the age of 73. Medical conditions were probably coming upon him that led him to know the end was nigh, as his will was probated the next year. I have not looked into the realtions of Sidney Threadgill so closely to know how allof the people mentinoed in his will and probate papers are interrealted, however, I did discover Sindney's family is a little confusing. For one, his marriages.
In 1870, his first census, Sidney shows up with a wife named Sarah, about his own age, his daughters, Eliza Jane, his son, Simon, his daughter Alice and 8 month old 'Ellen', who I believe is Mary Ella, his granddaughter, a 25 year old Daniel and a 12 year old, Jane. (another Jane). He mentions Daniel Crump in his will. Maybe this Daniel is Daniel Crump, and perhaps these other two children are Sarah's children. The '2' in the age of Daniel is a typo, alook at the actual document shows 25, which is accurate for this to be Daniel C. Crump, husband of Calvin Cochran's sister, Harriett. Daniel C. Crump died in 1916 and his parents are listed as Doc and Sarah Crump. Doc's wife in the 1870 and 1880 census records and following records is named Elendar or Ellen, for short. Doc Crump was also the father of Harriett and Calvin's half-brother, Stephen Cochran/Crump by their mother, Zilphia Cochran. The entanglement of these two families is massive.
I wonder if Sidney's wife Sarah, who shows up in both the 1870 and 1880 cenesu with his, is also Sarah Crump, mother of Daniel, as Daniel is somehow an heir of Sidney Threadgill. She was not his first wife, as Simon, his oldest son, gives his mother in his documents as Nancy Mauney., and we will get back to that in a minute.
It is interesting to note the neighbors listed in the 1880 census with Sindeney, Sarah and Mary Ella. Heading the page is Dennis Davis, age 81 and his wife Mary, 40 and their children. I know Dennis to have been a slave of my ancestor, Job Davis and to be buried in the old family cememtery. Next up is Hampton Aldridge, aka Caleb Hampton or C. H. Aldridge, brother of my 2nd Great Grandmother, Francis Julina Aldrdige Davis. Then comes Sidney, a couple of families of black Crumps, followed by the whiite families of William and John Aldridge, John being Julina's younger brother.
This puts Sidney in the vicinity of present day Aldridge Road, and on what was known as the "Floyd tract, as C. H. Aldridge's mother-in-law-law, Sarah Floyd, lived with them.
Sidney Threadgill, age 65, married Martha Davis West, 40, on May 2, 1894. Martha was a widow, and the daughter of Dennis and Mary Davis, who were neighbors of Sidney Threadgill. Sidney gave his parents as James Crump and Susie Threadgill.
Then, on June 4, 1895, just 13 months later, Sidney Threadgill, age 68, (a few years off, but close enough, this was NOT Sidney Threadgill, Jr., son of his brother John), married Nancy Zinc, 65, daughter of Harry Randle and Celia Easley.
This couple has been named quite frequently in this narravitve, of the study of the family of Ben Davis and wife, Ziphia Cochran Davis, as their daughter, Judith, had married into the Davis family, and Harry Randle, had strayed from the bonds of matriomony, and had fathered a daughter, Disley Cochran, by Zilphia. So Dilsey and Calvin Cochran, were half-siblings. as was Dilsey and Nancy.
So, Sidney Threadgill married Nancy after he married Martha, YET, in his will and subsequent probate papers, his widow is Martha, not Nancy. Nancy, and this story, has a life of it's own. In a bit of a peak behind the curtain though, Sidney had been in a relationship with Nancy many years before. Did he committ bigamy, or was he just trying to correct a situation from decades prior, and inadvertently gotten it backwards, committing bigamy by igornance in the process?
The Will of Sidney Threadgill, again, written June 20, 1899, began, " I, Sidney Threadgill of Cottonville". He left to his son Simon, father of Mary Ella, who lived in New Jersey, 45 acres of a 55 acres tract, know as the 'Floid Tract'. He left Daniel Crump, whom I believe may have been his stepson, the remaining 10 acres of that tract. He left his wife Martha Threadgill, 25 acres of the 65 acres known as the Crump tract., and at the death or marriage of Martha, this tract to be divided between Simon, his daughter "Lizer Jane" Lilly, (Eliza Jane Threadgill Lilly), and Ella Cochran, his granddaughter whom he raised.
To Ella, alone, he left 26 acres of the Crump tract, to Maggie Colson, 4 acres of it, to Calla Thread gill, who was actually his nephew, Clavin Coley Threadgilll, son of John, 4 acres, and to Sidney Threadgill, Jr., his nephew and son of JOhn, he left 4 acres, the balnace of the 63 acre tract.
George Crump was his executor, and it was singed, Sidney Threadgill of Cottonville.
Calvin Cochran must have died shortly after the 1900 census. He wasn't mentioned in the division of the estate of Sidney Threadgill, although the spouses of the other female heirs were. Ella is found by 1910, living in the town of Albemarle, with ther two sons, Levander aka "Lee", and Earnest. She was living on Furniture Factory Street, which is no longer a street name in Albemarle. A look at the 1908 and 1922 Sanborn maps that mentioned a Furniture Factory located Northeast of the Courthouse, just beyond the town boundaries. Lee, 22. worked for the Railroad, Earnest, only 13, worked as Farm labor. Ella was working as a servant to a private family. Most of their neighbors were white and worked either at the Furniture Facotory or in a Knitting Mill, probably Lillian Knitting Mill.
Lillian Knitting Mill in Albemarle, from th estanly County Musuem collection
The next year, 1911, Ella, now 40, married Daniel Lee. In 1920, she put several properties up for sale in conjunction with her youngest son, Earnest and his wife Lillilan. Not mentioned was oldest son, Lee. Lee must have died young, prior to 1920, perhaps in a railroad incident. No more is known.
Earnest had married his cousin, Lillian Threadgill, in 1917. Lilly was the daughter of Calvin Coley Threadgill, who was Ella's first cousin, and his wife Hannah. That made Earnest and Lilly second cousins.
The 1920 census shows Ella and Daniel living on PeeDee and Yadkin Avenue in Albemarle with two of his children from another marriage, Gaines and Dashia. Daniel and Gaines are working as laborers in a Cotton Mill while both Ella and her stepdaughter, Dashia, jus 15, seem to be working for Privae famileis, probably as miads. The census calls it 'Work Women'.
Ernest Cochran and his wife, Lillian, show up in the City Directories of Winston-Salem, NC for awhile, with Earnest working first for RJR Tobacco and later as a bricklayer. They then moved to High Point and later,to Greensboro.
Dan and Ella remained in Albemarle until their death, but by 1930, they had moved to an area the census called 'South Albemarle', that was probably the area of town tha came to be known as Kingivlle, named after Dr. O. D. King. All of thier neighbors were now black, whereas before, most of thier neighbors had been white. Dan was still working in the mill and Ella was working as an Ironer at a Laundry.
Mary Ella Threadgill Cochran died on June 28, 1939 at the age of 63. She was buried at Cottonville. Her second husband, Daniel Lee, preceded her in death, having passed later in 1930, after the cencus.
Earnest Cochran, the last survivng member of the family, died January 2, 1943, at age 45. His tombstone called him Reverend. He is buried in Jamestown, Guilford County, NC.
