Finding the Evans Brothers

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 32  (Aug 9 - 15 )
Prompt: At the Library
#52ancestors

Librarians and in particular, genealogy librarians and staff can be your most valuable resource.  I'm a librarian and I still rely on librarians and reference staff to get me over brick walls. I have a brick wall that I have worked on for over 40 years.  In 2011, I found a clue that may someday help me break that wall down.                                                                                                                                       

I was hanging around the reference desk at the Dallas library, explaining my brick wall to  Sammie Lee. She asked me several questions about what resources that I had used up to that point. Then she casually said, you know you can search the census on Ancestry.com by first names only. That idea had not occurred to me before. I spent hours searching by using first names, birthdates, and birth location. 

This brick wall concerns 3 brothers, John William Evans, James Thomas Evans, and J.M. Evans.  Searching for the first name John or James would give me too many results to be useful.  J.M. Evans would have to be the one to search.  All of the records that can be connected to John or James only used the initials for J.M., however there are some records for a Jeptha Evans in the same area.  A search for Jeptha produced no likely candidates in the 1870 or 1860 census in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi or in the state of Mississippi.  The 1860 Monroe County, MS census has an Evans family with initials that many of the Evans researchers believe is this family. I have always been uncomfortable with accepting it because the boy's ages seem too different than what is known from other records. Also, the later verified records all indicate they were born in Mississippi. There is some DNA connections to this family but the connection is still unclear to me. This J. L. Evans  may be James Larkin Evans who died in the civil war which would fit the family story of the 3 boys being  orphaned as teenagers.  For many years, I recorded it and continued to search for verification.

 

1860 Monroe County, MS

 

It has generally been accepted that J. M. was Jeptha, however my research indicates that the J.M Evans connected to the other 2 brothers may not be named Jeptha.  His name could be Jeremiah, often listed as Jerry. Tracking J.M. through his marriages and census records, below are names in the census records.

        1880 JereMia (indexed as Jerekia) Tallahatchie Co, MS where 2 brothers are living. age                 28 with wife and children

1900 Jerry M. Evans, Brazoria, TX with 2nd wife and children

 1910 Jess M. or Jep M. Evans;  Calhoun Co., MS with 2nd wife and granddaughter, age 58

Died 1914-1915 buried in Tallahatchie Co., MS

Searching the 1870 census gave no conclusive results, but one possibility. The1860 census was a different story.  Adams County, MS produced a record with 3 boys with the right ages but the wrong last name.   They were living with Eliza Flynn and listed with the Flynn last name.

It is obviously a blended family. There is a John, age 12 and John, age 4.  There is a Mary, age 6 and Mary, age 2.  If this is the correct boys, then they were orphaned prior to their teenage years. Eliza Flynn may be their Father's sister with her married name or their Mother's sister.

 

1860 Adams County, MS 

There are other connections to the Flynn family although none of the names match these names.  For more information about the Flynn connections, check my blog post at: https://lelasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/12/3-evans-brothers.html

I spent a week in Adams County researching in the courthouse, the Episcopal and Catholic Churches. Unfortunately, I didn't find land records or probate records that would collaborate my hypothesis that the Flynn boys are actually the Evans boys. In early 2012, my blog details research into an Evans family in Adams County, but I found no links from them to these 3 brothers.  There is more research to do in Adams County.

What do you think?  Am I on the right track?

 

 

 

Logging Teams

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 30  (July 25- Aug 1)
Prompt: Teams
#52ancestors

This is a picture of a log team in Mississippi, probably around Sunflower, MS.  Ira Lee Evans had several logging camps and teams of mules before "The Great Depression".  He lost most of his business during the depression.  

The team driver pictured is Cushfoot. I don't know if that is his real name or a nickname or even if it is spelled correctly but he worked for Ira Evans for a number of years hauling logs.

 

Ira's oldest son remembered Cushfoot because he was always kind to him even though as he recalled he was mostly in the way when he did get to go to the logging camp. Son enjoyed riding the mules and in the wagons while he was still too young to do any actual work. 

 Ira eventually moved his family to Oregon where there were still logging jobs to be had.

Identity of Eliza Flynn

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 26  (June 28- July 4)
Prompt: Identity
#52ancestors

I wrote about the Evans brothers who possibly were living with Eliza Flynn on the 1860 Adams County, MS census in my blog post of Aug 12, 2022.  Who was Eliza Flynn?

Eliza Flynn was born in Ireland in 1830 and was living in Adams County, Mississippi by 1860. The 1860 census doesn't asked for marriage status or relationship to others in the household, but it shows Eliza with 8 children from ages 6 months to 12 years old. She has no occupation listed nor any personal or real estate.  It looks like a blended family since there are two children named Mary and two children named John. That would indicate that Eliza had lost her spouse, and some of those children had lost both their parents.  Eliza was possibly caring for her brother or sister's children as well as her own.  Eliza had a great many stressors in her life. Since she was born in Ireland, it is likely that she did not have much if any family support near her. Besides taking care of 8 children alone, she was likely dealing with grief and a lack of money.

There is not another Eliza Flynn listed in the Adams County census for 1860, so it is likely the following information is about the same Eliza Flynn.

There was a resolution presented at the May 28th, 1867 Natchez City Council meeting, asking the city to provide $25.00 for the immediate needs of a certain lunatic, Eliza Flynn. It passed with the request that her friends take steps at the current probate session to have her placed in the state asylum.

On May 30th of 1867, there is a court hearing with a petition asking the court to declare Eliza Flynn insane. The testimonies of her neighbors state that she had not been able to govern herself since 1862.  The petition states that she is without any relatives.  There is no mention of any children in the documents, nor does it mention how the judge ruled. It is likely that neighbors or relatives have taken over the care of the children by this time.

The Natchez Democrat newspaper on June 6th, 1867 published a notice that Eliza Flynn had been placed on the Quitman to go to the insane asylum in Jackson. 

In 1870, Eliza Flynn was listed in the Insane Asylum in Jackson, Mississippi, however her age is listed as 52 born in Pennsylvania when it should have been closer to 40 and born in Ireland.  Was this a mistake or is this a different Eliza Flynn?  There is also a Bridget  Flynn listed in the asylum. Her age is 42 and born in Ireland. Was there a mistake made in the census records which switched Bridget and Eliza's information?

I have found no other information on Eliza Flynn. She is not in the asylum in 1880, nor apparent in the census anywhere else. I haven't found a death record, marriage record or burial record for her after 1870.

I haven't found any of the 8 children in the 1870 census, but they could be under the last name of the family they are living with or just not in the census at all.  The 1870 census in Mississippi is known for missing a large number of families that were living there. During the chaos of the reconstruction, there were many families who refused to have any dealings with the government or "carpet baggers". Most of the children's names are very common so it is almost impossible to search for them by their first names of John, James, Mary, or Sarah.  I have searched for Jerry and Henry but haven't found any person the right age with the right name in Mississippi. The search is also complicated by the large number of people who are only listed by their initials and last names in this census.

I am puzzled about Eliza's identity and her relationship with the 8 children in her household in 1860.  I have a hypothesis about the identity of some of the children in my August 12, 2022 blog post, if you are intrigued with this mystery. 

General Quitman Ship: Could this be the ship that Eliza was placed on?

From Mother to Daughter

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 20  (May 17 - 23)

Prompt: Textile

#52ancestors

 In years past our ancestors didn't have time for the creative activities that we do now. Their lives were taken up with more practical endeavors. They did manage to use their creativity in creating some of the practical items needed by their families. They sewed  the clothes their families wore, often copying patterns from New York or Paris if they were from the city or needed a party or church dress.  Clothes for daily wear were practical and sometimes they only had a few outfits depending on their circumstances. The cloth scraps were used to make beautiful quilts that often commemorated an event or family. 

My mother had a red velvet quilt with blue velvet pieces that was made from the scraps of material left from making her wedding dress and bride's maid dresses.  The quilt was used on my parents bed for many years. It kept my brothers warm when they slept on an enclosed porch and it was used for picnics and other occasions. Overtime it became faded and worn and was folded and put away.

My Great Grandmother, Sarah Violet Herndon Sample pieced a wedding ring quilt before 1932 .  My Grandmother, Gladys Mamie Sample McCarley, quilted it sometime in the 1970s. After my daughter was born in 1978, she gifted it to Katharine Meghan.  Gladys was her mother's first and only daughter, my mother, Gwonda Jane McCarley was her first daughter and I was my mother's first daughter. Katharine (Katy) is my first daughter.  This quilt has passed through 4 generations of daughters to the 5th generation daughter.

Fortune: Ira Lee Evans

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 10 (March 15-21)

Prompt: Fortune
#52ancestors

The American Heritage Dictionary has one definition of fortune as the turns of luck in the course of one's life. As I research our families, it is not uncommon to see that turn of luck.

Ira Lee Evans had a turn of luck during the great depression.  Before the great depression, he was a successful logging camp owner with several camps, mule teams and trucks which hauled logs to the sawmill near Sumner, Mississippi.  Below is a picture of some of the mule teams with a driver named "Cushfoot".  That was a nickname, but he was remembered with fondness by Ira's son, John.  John remembered him as being kind to him as a young boy who was probably in the way most of the time. 

By the time the depression was over, Ira had to sell the logging camps but there was little money left after paying his employees and bills. He moved his family to Holmes County where he worked as a logger again.  A turn of luck again and he was able to buy some land with a house and a store on it in Sharkey County.  It was a fun time as other family members lived near by and they worked and played together. After the hay bales were picked up from the railroad platform, they often had dances on the platform with adults and kids alike having fun.

They had not lived in Sharkey County too long when there was a big flood. The family loaded up in Uncle Bill’s old truck and headed for higher ground. For seven days they stayed in a train on a railroad siding before they could go back to the big house. The flood caused the next turn of luck as they lost everything in the house and started over with repairing the house.

In his later years, Mr. Ira began running a ferry across the Sunflower River not too far from Anguilla. There were no bridges near there for years. The ferry ran on cables across the river and his grandchildren remember going with him across the river as he transported cars across. It didn’t seem like work since he fished with them between cars.  After he retired, his grandson still operated the ferry when visiting because the new operator, Mr. Hall, lived just across the river and let him use the levers to move the ferry across the river. Between trips they still fished and built a 2 x 4 wired cage that rested in the river. When they caught a catfish, it would go in the cage, where Ira fed them with dog food. When it was time to eat, there was always fresh catfish to be had when the cage was pulled out of the river. 

A turn of luck, fortune, moved through out Mr. Ira’s life, changing his and his family’s life for bad and good.  Through out it all, he moved forward providing a stable rock for his family.

                                                     

In the Kitchen

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 5 (Feb 1-7)
Prompt: In the Kitchen
#52ancestors

This week I’m writing about my grandchildren’s ancestors again.

Far away from home when we first married, my new husband was longing for home cooking. I knew how to cook but to him home cooking was Japanese food, along with southern Mississippi.  So, trying to be a good wife, I decided to learn to cook the foods that he missed.  I called my mother-in-law to get her recipes, but she cooked like my mother. A little bit of this and a smidgen of that mixed in with ingredients that I had never heard of. Not to mention I was trying to create a dish that I had never tasted.  It was trial and error at its best. I would try. He would taste it and tell me that it wasn’t quite like his mother's but good, just needed a little more of something. No matter how bad it was, he ate it and tried to help me get it right the next time.

After he got out of the Navy the first time, we lived with my mother-in-law for about a month while we painted my parent’s house before moving into it.  During that time and for a long time after we moved out, she taught me to cook my husband’s favorite foods.

One of my favorite memories was when she was teaching me to cook sukiyaki.  It isn’t a hard meal, and it is generally cooked family style. She used an electric fry pan in the center of the dining room table and as the slivers of meat and vegetables cooked, we would use chop sticks to move them from the pan to our plates. Sounds simple but it wasn’t. It took several hours prior to the meal to prepare the beef strips and all the vegetables and yam noodles. Each piece had to be cut in a very precise manner, the same size and with the ends cut at the perfect angle.  As we were cutting the vegetables, I started getting in a hurry and my vegetables were not the perfect uniform shape.  Before I realized what had happened, Mom reached out and smacked my hands with her chopsticks.  I think she was more shocked than I was when she realized what she had done. I had to duck my head to hide my smile at her shocked expression. That is when I knew she thought of me as her daughter. She was so used to handling her two boys that it was an automatic reaction to my carelessness.

Several years later, I was checking my mother’s recipes. I found some written in my Dad’s Mother’s handwriting. Recipes like minced meat pie and rhubarb pie. My Mother told me that her mother-in-law gave her the recipes to make sure she could cook my Dad’s favorites.  I guess my experiences learning to cook Japanese were not much different than what every new wife goes through.

Oh, and by the way, my husband is now a pretty good cook himself and his sushi rolls are tighter than mine.

Grace Truman Jordan Evans

  

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 3 (Jan 18-24)
Prompt: Namesake
#52ancestors

 

Grace Truman Jordan

 Grace Truman Jordan was born on April 6, 1909 to William and Minnie Lee Jordan.  There was a mystery pertaining to Minnie Lee’s parents. The only record I could find for years was the 1880 census record where M. L. Dottry, was living with her parents,  T  and J Dottery.  For years that is all we knew about her parents.  It seemed easy to assume that Grace Truman Jordan’s name might be the clue needed to find her grandparents. Surely, she was named after her grandfather, T Dottery, making his given name, Truman.

 Alas, that proved to be wrong, her grandfather’s name turned out to be Thomas G. Dottery, which is another story. Where did the name Truman come from?  It seemed like it should be a surname passed down. Could she have been a distant relative to Harry S Truman? That proved to be wrong, too. 

 In the 1850s, Sallie Rochester Ford published a serial story in the Christian Repository owned by her husband, Reverend Samuel Ford titled, Grace Truman, or Love and Principal.  The serial was published as a book in 1857 and republished multiple times[1].  The 1886 edition included an afterword in which “Ford noted that the work was semi-autobiographical and referenced her own personal and public struggle as she converted from Presbyterianism to the Baptist movement[2].” This book was influential in Baptist circles for many years.

 The two sides of the character, Grace Truman, spoke to many of the faithful Baptist women of the last half of the 1800s and early 1900s.  While Grace Truman was the epitome of the faithful, submissive, devoted wife, she was also a fierce warrior of her faith.  She reflected a strength that appealed to many women of that time. The book, Grace Truman, must have made an impression on Minnie Lee Dottery Jordan for her to have named her daughter, Grace Truman.  In fact, there were many girls named Grace Truman after different editions of the book were published. A search of the first name “Grace Truman” with no other information gives over 4 million results in Ancestry.com and 1,184 results in the family trees. 

Grace Truman Evans with niece, Christine and sons, John (Son) and Ed

 Grace Truman Jordan’s namesake was not another relative but a fictional character, a woman of faith. It gives an insight into the character and faith of her mother, Minnie Lee Dottery Jordan.

---

[1]Sallie Rochester Ford.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Rochester_Ford

[2] Sallie Rochester Ford: fiction, faith, and femininity: nineteenth-century Baptists offered two general, and different,  cultural messages to women within the church regarding social expectations. - Free Online Library (thefreelibrary.com). https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sallie+Rochester+Ford:+fiction,+faith,+and+femininity:...-a0138811971

Japanese Language

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 46 (Nov. 11-17)
Prompt: Different Language
#52ancestors

 This week I am not writing about my ancestors, but about my grandchildren’s ancestors.

 As I sat at the dining room table with my mother in law and her friends, I let the conversation wash over me as I cut vegetables in the precise manner for sukiyaki. I didn’t understand what they were saying so it was easy to zone out.  Suddenly, my mother in law turned to me and asked me a question in Japanese, and I answered in English.  I don’t know what she asked me, but my answer satisfied her, and she turned back to the conversation. Neither she nor her friends ever realized the question was in Japanese.  I knew by the tone that it was a question and replied, "I don't know".

 My father-in-law met and married Asa (Smoky) Inage while he was in the army and stationed in Japan.  He had gone to Japanese language classes and he frequented areas outside of the military base and tourist areas.  They moved to the United States when my husband, Robert, was about 4 years old.  At the time he spoke Japanese and very little English.  Once Robert started to school, he learned English rapidly and mostly forgot the Japanese that he once knew. 

Robert in a cornfield in Japan

Robert did remember a few words. He had a Japanese pet name for me, but he refused to tell me what it meant.  I knew whatever it meant; it wasn’t flattering.  Eventually I became so annoyed, that I started threatening to ask his mother if he did not tell me.  He would just laugh saying, “You wouldn’t dare”. 

One day, we were gathered around that same dining room table, when I ask Mom what “ketzu magare” meant. She started giggling and covered her mouth with her hand. My father-in-law laughed out loud. I waited, while my husband blushed. Eventually, while  turning just a little red, Dad told me that it meant “dumb head”.  I did not believe  that for one minute. I still don’t know what it really means. The spelling is probably very wrong as the Japanese translators online won't tell me either.  

 Smoky taught our daughter the Japanese word for bathroom (benjo), because it was more polite to use in public. We use a few other Japanese words, like hashi (chopstick).  Once when I was singing “London Bridges” to our young daughter, Robert started singing along with us in Japanese. He was just as surprised as we were because he didn’t know the song until he started singing it.

 I wish now that we had learned more while we had the chance.

Mr. Ira

 #52ancestors
Week 43: Oct 21-27
Prompt: Quite the Character

 Everyone in that part of the country called him Mr. Ira and he was quite a character.

 I met Mr. Ira just a few days after I married his grandson. We were on our monumental trip from Texas to Norfolk, Virginia where my new husband would be stationed on the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Independence. We stopped over in Memphis to see his Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, and Granddad.  We were only able to stay one night, but when we left in the wee hours of the morning he was awake to tell us good-bye.  

 Over the years I heard many stories during reunions that showed what a special man he was. One memory that several of the cousins experienced was him teaching them to drive.  When my husband was about 14, he was visiting Granddad. His parents had gone to town and Robert asked to walk down to the corner store to get a soda.  Now this was out in the country and several miles away, so Granddad told him to take his truck. When Robert protested that he didn’t know how to drive, Granddad told him, “It’s easy, just keep it in the middle of the road. If you see anyone coming, just wiggle the wheel back and forth and they will get out of your way.”   That is the way Mr. Ira drove and everyone knew to get out of his way in that part of the county.

 The smell of WD-40 brings back a special memory for Robert. He remembers as a kid sitting on the porch with his Granddad while he dosed his arthritis with WD-40.  He took the big metal can with the screw top and would tip it over to pour the lubricant into his palm, then he would pull up the legs of his overalls and rub the WD-40 into his knees, then elbows, and use the last for his hands. He swore by it. Since he lived until 95 years old, there is a good chance he was right.

 Not too long after his oldest son came back from the war, he and his younger brother Ed were walking down to the river near their house.  They were messing around as young men do sometimes and Son (that is what everyone called John) took aim and fired a shot in the top of the door of the outhouse. Granddad came boiling out of the outhouse, holding his pants up with one hand and threatening to whoop the two boys.  They took off for the river and didn’t come back until they figured he had cooled off.

 On our last trip to see Granddad Ira, our daughter was about 2 years old. We stayed a week and every morning and late afternoon; we spent time with Granddad at the nursing home.  Between those times, we explored Memphis and the surrounding area. Granddad enticed Katy to come to him with chocolates he kept hidden in his top drawer. He was diabetic and wasn’t supposed to have candy, but he and Katy became fast friends sharing the chocolate.

One morning we mentioned our planned trip to the Memphis zoo. He told us about the two black bears that he raised from the time they were cubs. Their mother had died and when he found them, he took them home. They were so cute and fun as babies but then they got too big. They were becoming a danger to be around, so he donated them to the fledgling Memphis zoo.  He was as amazed as we were when we came back that afternoon.  We had a conversation with one of the zookeepers at the bear habitat that told us that the black bears they had were descendants of two black bears that were donated to the zoo years before.  

 Mr. Ira had 2 boys and 6 girls. His brother, Bill, had 7 boys and 1 girl. The cousins laughed when they told how about every other year, they would go to Uncle Ira’s house for a few days and when they went home, they had a new brother.  The next year their cousins would come to visit them for a few days and when they went home, they had a new sister.  The two sets of cousins were very close and had lots of adventures together.

 On one of those adventures, Granddad Ira took the two sets of cousins hunting. There was an area that was fenced on both sides but rather long.  The deer could jump the fence and grazed in the area often.  On this particular trip, a group of the cousins gathered at one end and some including Granddad were at the other end.  The cousins started walking toward the others hoping to scare a deer into the other’s view and they did.  One deer came loping straight toward their sight.  Granddad shot the deer and went to cut its throat to get it ready to butcher.  He slung one leg over the deer and lifted its head by the antlers.  Only his bullet had hit the deer right between the antlers and only stunned it.  When he lifted the head, the deer jumped up.  Granddad was riding the deer around the field, screaming, and yelling as the deer bucked to get him off.  They eventually parted ways. The deer jumped the fence and got away. Although Granddad was tough as nails, he refused to do it again for the ones who missed seeing it.

Ira Lee Evans
1886 Sumner, Tallahatchie County, MS
1981 Cordova, Shelby County, TN

Update: This post was mentioned in Amy Johnson Crow's newsletter date Oct 27, 2020. 

The Digital Library on American Slavery

The Race and Slavery Petitions Project was designed to locate, collect, organize, and publish all extant legislative petitions relevant to slavery, and a selected group of county court petitions from the fifteen former slaveholding states and the District of Columbia, during the period from the American Revolution through the Civil War. Try this resource at: http://library.uncg.edu/slavery/help.aspx

Found this record pertaining to the Evans family in Adams county, MS. Not my family but all signs indicated they were for a time.

PAR Number 21084916 (Petition Analysis Record)
State: Mississippi Year: 1849
Location: Adams Location Type: County

Abstract: In May 1840, the Planters Bank of the State of Mississippi recovered a judgment against Eliza, Robert and Thomas Evans for $2274.45, which was levied on three slaves. The slaves were scheduled to be sold, but the Evanses did not deliver them up for sale; another judgment issued and was levied on a tract of land. The petitioners, as assignees of the bank, are owed "the balance of said judgment" and since the bank has been dissolved, they ask that "the property levied on, or so much thereof as is necessary to pay the balance of said judgment" be sold.

Cathedral Church in Natchez, MS

Last month I dragged my husband to Natchez, MS in search of his Evans ancestors.  I was particularly interested in searching the Cathedral Church records to see if the Robert Evans mentioned in my last post was the father of the three Evans boys.  That date fit in with what I expected for the parents of John William Evans and his two brothers, James Thomas and Jeptha M.  Evans.   I set up an appointment for Thursday with the volunteer archivist of the church.  The Cathedral Church has a rich history and is one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. 

Anne was wonderful, sharing her knowledge of the history of Natchez as well as helping me find the records of the Evans children baptized at the church. Unfortunately the children listed as Robert C. Evans children were not John, James, and Jeptha.  Robert C. Evans' children were baptized after his death along with his sister, Eliza. Eliza's baptismal record mentioned that she had been previously baptized at the Episcopal Church.  

On Friday, while I was plowing through the deed records at the courthouse, Robert used his smart phone to find the address to the Episcopal Church (4 blocks from the courthouse) and called them to see what kind of records they had and if we could see them.  The church was closing at 4:00pm so we left the courthouse for the church.  The secretary at the church had already pulled the record book with the years we needed when we arrived.  She was so helpful. We found John Evans born on January 22, 1857 with parents, Robert and Margaret Evans.  Our John William, according to the census records was born in December 1857.  Maybe?  There was also a birth for Thomas Evans with the same parents, born December 19, 1855. (Could this be James Thomas Evans?) We also found the marriage record for Robert Evans and Margaret Ferguson.   Unfortunately the marriage was after the probable birth year of Jeptha in 1851.   

All together we found three different Robert Evans in Adams County – none who fit.  However I still have hopes for Thomas L. Evans who was the brother of Robert C. Evans and Eliza Evans.