Momma Said

My mother talked a lot. She talked to me a lot. I realized this when I pass by certain houses and I know who lived there when my mother was a child. 

I know who she went to prom with, that she grew up on Ludlow Street and that the hill that the Quenby Mall was built on, now full of government offices, was once called Red Hill and was covered in houses.

Momma came of age in the 1950's. She was a bobby sockers who wore poodle skirts and black and white shoes called Saddle Oxfords. She loved Elvis and Fats Domino and could do The Twist. I loved it when Momma would be twisting and my Grandma, her Momma, would come out of the kitchen and start doing the Charleston, the dance of her own era.

Because of my Mom's love of Rock and Roll, I know the words, by heart, of dozens and dozens of songs that came out years before I was born.

Both of my biological parents were born in 1939. I had found them both in the 1940 census when I started building my family tree. 

Here's my mother in 1940.  One year old, she was the youngest of four. My mother's name was Nancy Joyce, but she went by Joyce. Lewis D. was Uncle Doug, Walter was Walter Kenneth, or Uncle Kent and Sylvia my dear Aunt Sissy. The oldest, Uncle Doug, is the only sibling left.  Their parents were Lewis Theodore  and Maude Mauldin Davis, 28 and 30 here. I remember clearly that my grandmother had issues with being just a little older than her husband.

This is my Dad's family in 1940. I knew he grew up in Aquadale, in the southern part of the county. And here he is, a baby, with his parents in Tyson township, which includes Aquadale. Dad was the oldest of three. His brother Leon, and sister, Mildred, had not yet been born. Uncle Leon, the middle child, is the only one left of his family. 

A few years before he passed away last year, my Dad drove around with me and my brother, Vincent, showing us various places he had lived, in Aquadale, Cottonville and even across the river into Anson County, where his cousins and his cousins widow still live. He even lived for a few years in Cabbarrus County where his mother was born. 

My parents met at the YMCA in Albemarle. My mother lived nearby and was there, hanging out with her friend, Virginia or "Jenny '. My Dad drove up with his cousin, Edgar, who was like a brother to him and the rest is history. Edgar married Jenny and Dad married Mom. Thirteen months after the wedding, here I came. So did War. Dad was drafted in the Korean War.

And there I am, circa late 1960.

My parents were young when they married and still young when they had me. The military suited my Dad and he stayed in it through the Vietnam War. The marriage crumbled, they divorced and both would remarry. My mother once, my Dad thrice.

My mother and I lived with her parents for a number of years and then she started dating the boy down the street. He had been to old for her when she was single before, but at 26, the 5 year age difference didn't matter. I lived with my mother and 'Daddy' growing up, and his family became mine too. 

This is Daddy in 1940. He lived in an area north of Albemarle, surrounded by family at the time. Daddy, Robert was 5 years old here, born in 1935. Daddy (not to be confused with Dad), was an only child. Grandma, Hattie, had been married before, to a McSwain, who had served in WWII. He died of mustard gas poisoning. She would later remarry to Will, a man eleven years her junior, which isn't reflected on this census correctly, as she was actually 39 when her only son was born. 

Living with them was Daddy's grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Thompson, aged 72, which surprised me for reasons I will get into later. Next door was a brother to Will and on the other side were sisters, so they were living in a family group at this time.

Hattie, born in 1898, was almost in an entirely different generation than my other grandparents. She had been a "bloomer girl" and had the pictures to prove it. Grandma was smart and funny, loving and industrious. I don't believe that there was anything she couldn't do.

She was a stay at home Mom, but suplimented the family income by sewing for friends and neighbors. Her edible yard was a virtual Garden of Eden to me as a child. She had flower gardens, vegetable gardens, and green gardens in the fall with cabbage, spinach, Kressie Greens, turnips and rutabagas. Her trees almost all had a purpose from pecan to persimmon to plum to pomegranates. If it could 'grow around here's, she had planted it, and what a green thumb. Up the hill grew corn and potatoes and yams, intermixed with beans and peas of 6 or 7 varieties. She grew cucumbers, tomatoes, onion s peppers,  lettuce, carrots, squash, yams, cantaloupe and watermelon. A creek ran across the backyard between the main garden and the grassy area. Two bridges ran across, and sunflowers lined one bank. Cherry tomatoes lined the other and we referred to them as 'Tommy toes'.

As the land rose from the creek up to the top of a hill, a cluster of tall, white barked trees, with yellow leaves in fall, grew at the crest of the hill. A smaller red maple grew in front of them. Although they took up space that could have yeilded more edible treasures, Grandma loved her aesthetics and beauty. Those trees were going nowhere.

I'm not sure if they were Aspens, or Sycamores or Birch, but there were none nearby like them and I don't believe that they were native. Grandma may have planted them years before. 

To the north of the first bridge the creek grew wider, and a little island sat in the middle. In summer, the island was covered with tiger lilies and the bank was lined with weeping willows. It was a beautiful melody of shapes and colors. 

To the south of the second bridge were the fruit trees, plum and fig, apple and persimmon, lining the bank next to the green garden. The green garden grew in fall and held cabbage and onions, spinach and Kressie, turnips and rutabagas. Some variety of goard grew along a small fence and would be used as bird feeders later on.

Between the two bridges there were tall red flowers with large dark leaves on the house side of the creek. In front of them grew the tommy toes and peppers, and a few herbs like dill and thyme. On the other side of the bank in front of the vegetable garden, grew the sunflowers, all in a row. 

The creek was a magical place in itself. Teaming with life, there were minnows and tadpoles and crawdads, or fresh water shrimp, had dug holes all in the banks. Some of those holes may have held snakes as well, but I never dared checking. 

The creek would occasionally yield treasures, especially after a rain, lots of marbles that I still have, sometimes little metal trucks or army men, lost by some boy upstream.

As important as edible plants we're, there was always room for flowers. Roses were front and center in front of the house, which was simple and adoened with only the roses and a few large oaks, down the sides of the house is where beauty came to life from spring to fall with daffodils, then dutch irises, to tulips and gladiolus and lilies, finishing off with spider lilies just before the first freeze.

Despite all of the colorful queens, my favorite was a humble sweet bubby, that wasn't bold or brilliant in color, but sweet in scent, reminescent of apples. There were also a few shrubs in the front that only presented their worth in winter, with red berries. 

But of all the flowers, the one that resigned was an enormous blue hydrangea that was hidden behind the house and only visible to family and visiting friends. It must have been 13 feet tall and nearly as wide. I often wonder if it's still there.

So Gramma had a green thumb, but that's not all she could do. I mentioned she could sew, and was an artisan in that craft. She also quilted, family heirlooms now, that have stood the test of time. Still, my stomach yearns for her homemade biscuits, pies and puddings. Grandma could cook! Not only that, but she taught Daddy, her only child. Good thing too, because it was he who taught Momma.

Momma was the youngest of four, as I have mentioned, but she also had a working mother. There was a lady that you could call a Nanny or a housekeeper, who stayed with them for a very long time named Louise. Louise was still living when I was small, my mother would visit her and I have memories of her, but although my maternal grandmother could cook too, and did so very well, she didn't have the time to teach my mother.

I've said alot about my grandmother, but not much about my grandfather. Grandpa and Grandma, as they would say in the Bible were 'unequally yoked'. They were not equally talented or evenly matched. Not in the manner of believer and nonbeliever, but in the matter of intelligence, ability and socially. Grandpa was a nice enough fellow, and kind. He just was from a another time and place, you might say, just one county over. Grandpa was from Montgomery County, which may not sound like anything to anyone else, but for those who know, it was a much more rural area. His family was one of many who were displaced, or driven from their property, by the building of the dams along the Yadkin/PeeDee River during the early part of the 20th century.

The Thompsons had lived within sight of the Swift Island Bridge for generations,and the Swift Island before that. They spoke a dialect that had came, I suppose, from old Scotch-Irish settlers generations before them and found its longevity in these isolated, backwoods farm families. Yes, it was English, but with inflections and words I had never heard. Granpa, who mind you, I didn't meet until I was five, used the word 'hope' in a strange way. He would ask you to 'Hope' him do something, when he actually meant Help. It was only recently that I learned that the word was actually "Holp" instead of Hope and was a Middle English word of ancient origins. The word Help was a variation of Holp, or another tense of it, so help had actually derived from help. Grandpa was using an historic, nearly extinct dialect and I didn't know it. 

He also changed anything that ended in 'a' or the 'uh' sound to 'er', especially in names. He had a niece named Edna. I was an adult before I knew her name was Edna. I thought her name was Abner, because that is what it sounded like he called her. He corrupted nearly every name he heard, and many more modern names that had not been in common use when he was a boy, he could barely pronounce at all. For instance, 'Eric' became 'Erk" and even older names he knew, he would add letters to that did not exist. An example was the name 'Nancy', which he pronounced 'Naintcy'. Where did that 't' come from? Another word it took me until adulthood to decipher was "Arsh Taters". I knew they were potatoes, but I thought the word he was corrupting was 'Ash', so I called them Ash Potatoes. One day, someone asked me, "Do you mean Irish Potatoes?' My embarrassment was all because of Grandpa's mispronounciation.

Another thing that bothered me about Grandpa was his lack of manners. Grandma had explained that his oldest sister raised him because his parents had died when he was young, his oldest sister, Esther, having been only about 13 at the time. He 'had no raisin'" in other words. When he ate, he ate like a pig at a trough, everything mixed together and food running out the sides of his mouth. It was disgusting and turned my stomach. I hated holiday dinners with him, which were far too often, as daddy was an only child, and they 'had no one else' to celebrate with. 

Name:	Willia Thompson[William Thompson]
Age:	36
Estimated Birth Year:	abt 1904
Gender:	Male
Race:	White
Birthplace:	North Carolina
Marital Status:	Married
Relation to Head of House:	Head
Home in 1940:	West and North Albemarle, Stanly, North Carolina
Map of Home in 1940:
Street:	Oak Street
House Number:	707
Farm:	No
Inferred Residence in 1935:	West and North Albemarle, Stanly, North Carolina
Residence in 1935:	West and North Albemarle
Resident on farm in 1935:	No
Sheet Number:	12A
Number of Household in Order of Visitation:	204
Occupation:	Spin Doffer
House Owned or Rented:	Rented
Value of Home or Monthly Rental if Rented:	3
Attended School or College:	No
Highest Grade Completed:	Elementary school, 3rd grade
Hours Worked Week Prior to Census:	40
Class of Worker:	Wage or salary worker in private work
Weeks Worked in 1939:	50
Income:	700
Income Other Sources:	No
Neighbors:
Household Members (Name) Age Relationship Willia Thompson 36 Head Hatt Thompson 40 Wife Robert Thompson 5 Son Thomas J Thompson 72 Father

So, imagine my surprise when I saw in the 1940 census, that his father, Thomas Jefferson Thompson, was alive at 72, and living with them when Daddy was a little boy. So, apparently, in his time and mode, the father did not participate in the 'raising' of the children, teaching them how to speak or how to use eating utensils or manners, the mother did. Fathers tended the farm. He had grown-up without a mother, but his father saw him well into adulthood. Or maybe his coarse and common ways of doing things was just the 'way they did it', back then. 

Recently, the 1950 census began to become available. This was something I did not readily use, because the questions I am now trying to answer are much further back than that. However, I thought it might be interesting to find my immediate family in the 1950 census. I certainly got a laugh when I found my mother.

Name:	Nancy J Davis
Age:	44
Birth Date:	abt 1906
Gender:	Female
Race:	White
Birth Place:	North Carolina
Marital Status:	Never Married (Single)
Relation to Head of House:	Daughter
Residence Date:	1950
Home in 1950:	Albemarle, Stanly, North Carolina, USA
Street Name:	Ludlow
Dwelling Number:	157
Farm:	No
Acres:	No
Household Members (Name) Age Relationship Lewis T Davis 37 Head Maude M Davis 40 Wife Douglas L Davis 16 Son Kenneth W Davis 14 Son Sylvia J Davis 12 Daughter Nancy J Davis 44 Daughter

My mother was born in 1939, therefore, would have been turning 11 that year. She was the youngest of the four children in the family, however, the transcribers deemed her 44, older than her parents, but they were living on Ludlow Street, just like she had often told me. 

Name:	Robert W Thompson
Age:	15
Birth Date:	abt 1935
Gender:	Male
Race:	White
Birth Place:	North Carolina
Marital Status:	Never Married (Single)
Relation to Head of House:	Son
Residence Date:	1950
Home in 1950:	Albemarle, Stanly, North Carolina, USA
Street Name:	Watts
House Number:	410
Dwelling Number:	135
Farm:	No
Acres:	No
Occupation:	Paper Boy
Industry:	Newspaper
Occupation Category:	Other
Worked Last Week:	Yes
Worker Class:	Private
Household Members (Name) Age Relationship William B Thompson 45 Head Hattie H Thompson 49 Wife Robert W Thompson 15 Son

I found a pleasant surprise when looking for Daddy, my step-father. His family was living on Watts Street, no surprise, and something else that I had heard, but Daddy, at 15, was working as a paperboy. This was something I never heard him ever mention, that he had delivered newspapers as a young teen. I was not surprised to see that he was working and contributing to the family income, however. That was his work ethic.

Name:	Milton E Lambert[]
Age:	6
Birth Date:	abt 1944
Gender:	Male
Race:	White
Birth Place:	North Carolina
Marital Status:	Never Married (Single)
Relation to Head of House:	Son
Residence Date:	1950
Home in 1950:	Tyson, Stanly, North Carolina, USA
Street Name:	Going From Cottonville Toward Ansonville
Dwelling Number:	19
Farm:	Yes
Household Members (Name) Age Relationship Berley Lambert 34 Head Berthy Lambert 34 Wife Milton E Lambert 6 Son Leon D Lambert 8 Son Mildred O Lambert 5 Daughter

I got more than one surprise when finding my Dad in 1950, not from the information itself, but from the level of errors in the form or transcription. First he was living on a street with no name, in the country in Tyson Township, leading from Cottonville to Ansonville, which was no surprise. His name, however, was not Milton, it was Melvin. He was the oldest of three, which was correct, but his age would have been 10, as he was born in 1939, like my mother, but in December, so he had not turned 11 yet. 

Ten years later,  I would arrive, and I wonder if I appear in the 1960 census of Phoenixville, PA, where I was born as my Dad, who was in the Army, was stationed at Valley Forge, PA. 

When we are young, we often ignore the small facts and anecdotes our parents and grandparents might tell us about their childhoods and their families and all that came before us, and by the time we are old enough to realize how important this information is, it's too late and all we have are memories. 

I'm so glad my Momma liked to talk. 

I miss you Momma.

Struck By Lightning

Sarah Jane Hildreth, daughter of Berry Grove and Colon C. Teal Hildreth, has a story of her own. While brief and simple, she was one the growing number of women I keep coming across, who belonged to a group I have come to call ,"The Women Who didn't exist, (except that they did)."

Sarah, sometimes called Sallie, was born around 1853 in Anson County, North Carolina. She's shown as a 7 year old in the 1860 census, living with her parents, Berry and Coley, sandwiched in between two other Hildreth households, her extended family. 

Ten years later, she's gained a little brother, Ebben, but her father is nowhere to be found. His military records from the Civil War revealed he spent most of the war AWOL, so he could have been still in hiding somewhere,  afraid of prosecution. He could have also went West, as many war-scarted vets did. They're still living next to Ann Pilcher Hildreth, widow of Elijah Hildreth, Berry's brother, who did die during the war. They were probably still farming on the land left by her grandfather Hildreth, (I'm leaning towards Reuben), who was deceased before 1860, and grandmother, Mary, deceased before 1870. 

In 1880, Berry Hildreth has shone back up, living in White Store Township, but Colon C Teal Hildreth is still living in Gulledges with her two children, Sarah, and "Deberry", who has to be Ebben, as the age is right and this Deberry didn't exist 10 years prior. Also in the home is a 20 year old James Cox, said to be a cousin, but I have not yet deciphered where he fits in. Lastly, Sarah is now a grown woman, and gives her marital status as a widow. She has a 4 year old son named Frank.

Twenty years is a long time in the span of the life of a family and the twenty years between 1880 and the turn of the century saw a lot of change in the life of Sarah Jane Hildreth. First, her mother, Colon, seems to have passed away,  and Sarah went from being a young woman to a middle -aged one. She also had a daughter, Mary, father unknown. I believe she never married. Ebben did marry, to a Caroline Burr, and became the father of 10 to 12 children. 

One of the biggest changes was that Berry and both of his children had moved south of the border, the North/South Carolina border, that is, to an area in the Courthouse district of Chesterfield County, SC.

It wasn't a big move at all, the counties border, and Courthouse sat just below the state line.

So in 1900, we find Sarah Jane, at around 40, living in Courthouse  District, Chesterfield County SC. She's farming, with help from her son Frank, now 23, and her daughter, Mary, 17. Also living with her was her father, Berry Grove Hildreth, 65,   and a 21 year old 'servant' named Simeon Townsley, who probably helped on the farm. Sallie reported being the mother of two children, with two living. She gave her marital status as single. Nothing out of the ordinary, 

except for one small detail. 

While Berry and Sallie were given a "W" under race for white, Simeon Townsley, and Sallies children, Frank and Mary, were given a "B" for black. In the wounded years following the Civil War, Sarah Jane Hildreth, had had not one, but two mixed race children, and possibly three. 

The father of her children was unknown, she likely never told, as any relationship between a white woman and a man of color could get someone killed. In modern times, racism towards interracial relationships has been swept under the rug, the relationships are not only accepted, but common. This was not the case in 1877.

This status placed Sarah into that category of Women who didn't exist, women with European heritage who had children of a darker hue in the 19th century or before. But they did exist, although  they were rare, well, maybe not so rare in a small corner of Montgomery County. I keep running into them, however, mostly quite accidentally. 

In 1910, Frank, now 30, is head of household and Sallie is 49. They live on Church Street and Frank is still farming. This time Sallie reported being the mother of 3 with two living. She also gave her marital status as married, for a span of 3 years, but no husband was living with them. Mary was also missing, but as she had two living, Mary had probably gotten married, but to whom, I don't know. 

Frank, himself, married in 1912 to Miss Savannah Evans. He was 33, and she, but 15. I hope Frank, in his few short years of marriage, found happiness, because it was brief and he was struck down in the prime of life, literally.

On May 19, 1915, Frank was out in the fields tending his cotton, when a storm started brewing and he was struck by lightening and killed immediately. He was 39 years old. 

He was buried at the Chesterfield Community Cemetery, in the town of Chesterfield, his name given as Franklin Hildreth and date of birth given as August, 1876.

CLIPPED FROM

The Chesterfield Advertiser

Chesterfield, South Carolina

20 Jul 1916, Thu  •  Page 1

He had a respectible estate for his station in life and a T.R. Eddins, no apparent relation, was appointed as the Executor. Names mentioned in the estate records as purchasers of property were Sallie Hildreth, Savannah Hildreth and Mary Simms or Simmons.

Sarah Jane Hildreth survived her son by three years. On June 11, 1918, she fell dead immediately. The cause given was apoplexy, or a cerebral hemorrahage or stroke. She was 65 years old. Her father was named as Berry Hildreth and her mother was unnamed. No informant was given,either, so we don't know who supplied the information. 

Tombstone of Sarah Jane Hildreth from Find-a-Grave.

Sallie was buried with her son at the Chesterfield Community Cemetery.

Frank and Savannah had one child.  Her name was Carolease and she was born on January 4, 1914. She was 16 months old when Frank died.  Savannah, still in her teens when she was widowed, quickly remarried to Robert T. Falkner (1890-1968). Carolease was raised as a Faulkner and Savannah had no more children.

Name:	Rev Robert Faulkner[Rev Robert Fenlkner]
Age:	38
Birth Year:	abt 1882
Birthplace:	South Carolina
Home in 1920:	Mercer, Mercer, Pennsylvania
Street:	Otter St
House Number:	401
Residence Date:	1920
Race:	Black[White]
Gender:	Male
Relation to Head of House:	Head
Marital Status:	Married
Spouse's Name:	Robert Faulkner
Father's Birthplace:	South Carolina
Mother's Birthplace:	South Carolina
Able to Speak English:	Yes
Occupation:	Pastor
Industry:	Zion
Employment Field:	Wage or Salary
Home Owned or Rented:	Rented
Able to read:	Yes
Able to Write:	Yes
Neighbors:
Household Members Age Relationship Robert Faulkner 38 Head Robert Faulkner 24 Wife Carlese Faulkner 6 Daughter

Robert was a minister and the family was very mobile. In 1920, they were living in Mercer, Pennsylvania.

1926 Greenville, PA

1930  Alliquippa, Beaver, PA

1935  Concord, North Carolina

1940  Pensacola, Florida

1950  York, South Carolina

1966  New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina was the final stop for Savannah and Rev. Faulkner, here, they retired.

Rev. Robert Fulton Faulkner died two years after his retirement on October 10, 1968. He was 77 years old and was buried at the Evergreen Cemetery.

Carolease Faulkner graduated high school in Pennsylvania, but grew up all over the country. She seems to have called North Carolina home.  

In 1935, she was a student at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. In the above City Directory of Salisbury, she's at the bottom of the clip as a student.

She was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Carolease sought a career in education,  teaching at Virginia State College, and returning to Livingston College as a member of the faculty in the 1940's

Here, she met the debonair and charismatic Dr. Benjamin Hargrave, who was also a member of the faculty. Carolease is top right in the above photo.

Ben is bottom right in the above photo. 

Benjamin Hargrave, Jr. was born on December, 18, 1918 in Wakefield, Virginia to Benjamin Hargrave,Sr. and Laura Blow Hargrave. During his boyhood, his family moved to Westfield, Union County, New Jersey. He attended Springfield College in Massachusetts and began his career as an athletic director.

He enlisted in WWII at West Point and served as an airman.  He met and married Carolease Faulkner while both were teaching at Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC. Thereafter, the couple moved to Oakland, California and Ben received his Master's Degree from San Francisco State University in 1951.

Ben and Carolease were community activists and involved in numerous organizations and in the state government of California. Ben would retire from teaching and become an Education Consultant.

The couple would remain in California, and never had any children, but spent their entire lives working with and for, the benefit of children. That's Ben, above, later in life, on the right, next to one of his own teachers as a boy, and paying tribute to her influence.

Livingstone College in Salisbury , NC.

Carolease Faulkner Hargrave, biological daughter of Franklin Hildreth, retired from Alameda High School in 1973, having spent her entire career as an educator and inspiring a multitude of young minds along the way. She had been both a student and a faculty member of Livingstone College.

Carolease passed away on July 3, 1980, in Oakland, Alameda County, California, at the age of 66, survived by her husband and mother.

Savannah Evans Hildreth Faulkner outlived her second husband by 30 years, and her only child by 11. She passed away on December 18, 1991, survived only by her son-in-law, Benjamin Hargrave. She was 94 years old.

Benjamin Hargrave was the last surviving member of the family and lived another 10 years after Savannah, passing away in 2001 at the age of 82.

His membership in organizations, and contributions to the community was so great, I've had to divide his obituary in half. 

The magnitude of the diversity in the life of Carolease Hargrave has made me stop and think, "What If?" 

She was born in January of 1914. She came of age in the Roaring Twenties. She entered college and began her career as an African American educator during the Great Depression. 

What if Frank Hildreth had not been struck by lightening in 1915?  What if his oh-so-young wife, Savannah, had continued to have children and they continued to try to operate that meagar cotton farm through the Depression? Carolease could have been the oldest of 8, 10, 12 children, working her fingers to the bone in a cotton field or cotton mill, instead of  attending college and joining sororities.

Her chances of graduating high school would have been slim to none and her chances of attending college even less. Fortunately for her, she was raised as the single child of an educated, well-traveled minister, instead of one of a dozen children of a struggling cotton farmer.

This amazing union of two foresightful educators had a positive and influential effect on numerous North Carolina and California African -Americans, which would not have likely happened had Franklin Hildreth, grandson of Civil War vet, Berry Grove Hildreth and son of an unknown African American man in an illegal relationship with a white woman, Sarah Jane Hildreth, not been killed by lightening.