Member since:
August 21, 2007

Disappearing Act

March 29, 2008 03:37 PM EDT

views: 108 | rating: 10/10 (35 votes) | comments: 34

I have been neglecting usual activity as of late consumed with making events of the past reappear, or at least some record of them. My newest hobby, genealogy, has taken over. I have stacks of copies of data, such as censuses, obituaries, and death reports along with handwritten notes on envelopes or whatever paper was available at the time, all in a very disorganized manner.

It all started out as a writing project. I wanted to write something about a lady I had met when I was eight. She was someone I had heard bits and pieces about from various family members; of course, the family members who knew the most are now no longer around to ask. If only I had started this hunt earlier.

It started out all about Sally. No one even knew Sally's last name. She didn't really need a last name to be a legend, somewhat like Madonna or Cher. The plantation she was born on was called The Erwin Plantation. The edge of what used to be this 2400-2700 acre estate is within walking distance of where we live. At the beginning of my research I only had the backdrop of the fact that Sally had been born into slavery somewhere in our area and the recollection and the impact of having had met her when I was only a child. I had also heard about a sister named Nell. When my aunt, now dead, talked of her she always talked of both Sally and Nell.

As I've attempted to dig into the past I have found two aspects of Sally's life, basically the first half-century and the last half century. Sally lived to be 110 years old. Also, in wanting to offer a tribute to Sally's life, I have unburied a few soap operas bubbling beneath the surface of what would appear otherwise to be quite ordinary existences. I will save those for future writing.

One of my first significant moments was to find out Sally's last name – Barnes. She even had a middle name – Ann. Sally never married. I was going under the assumption that it might be Erwin considering that was the name of the family in which she was born a slave to. I also found a history of the Erwin's in which a brief mention of the slaves was made. In it Sally's mother was listed as Nell, along with the amazing Ripley's Believe It or Not lore that Nell had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. It was also noted that the slaves chose to stay with the Erwin's after the Civil War, two of which attended to Elizabeth Erwin, the original slave owner, until her death in 1895. I was inclined to believe that one was Nell, Sally's mother; but all the old-timers that I interviewed were to say that Sally lived with the Bonzos. So, why would Sally not have been with Nell as well? I have not actually made a Bonzo-Erwin connection, except for the fact that the Bonzos once lived as neighbors to the Erwin Estate. It was on the Bonzo farm in Lewis County that I met Sally as a child. She was 103 at the time and mopping the floor. A man who will be 100 this May told me the only thing he remembered was that Sally's mother died when she was young, and she went to live with the Bonzos. This made sense when I put together some other findings.

Now, was there another Nell? This same centurion that knew of Sally's mother knew nothing of a sister Nell. Nor did Sally's obituary mention anything about a sister Nell; but it did name her father as being Peter Barnes along with two brothers Sam and Perry. I was later to find they lived in Lewis County, KY where the Bonzos went to live in 1903 after leaving Carter County, KY. Lewis County lies next to Carter County. Also, Peter had a wife, Lizzie. A new wife would add support to the probability of the death of Sally's mother Nell. On the 1910 census, however, there was a child Nell listed, along with Sally, the only time; thus far, I have found Sally listed on a census. She seemed to flit around quite a bit, caring for families and cooking after children were born. I have several accounts of that. Still no one knew of a child Nell. The next time I see Nell's name mentioned is in a couple of obituaries, those of Sam and Perry, listing Nell as Nell Williams, one of which specifically said she was the daughter of Sally.

Now, I have come to the proverbial stone wall (I will use stone rather than brick since it's more fitting with Sally's time.) the phrase that is quite commonly used by genealogists. What happened to Nell? Where did she live? In one obituary, she was said to have lived in the Steubenville, OH, and Weirton, WV area in 1949. Who was her father? I only have speculations regarding paternal connections at this point.

Right now, I would like to have some conclusive evidence of Nell and hopefully descendants I could actually talk to, and tell them what I know about their grandmother, and how Sally touched lives in such a positive way as to evoke fond memories one hundred and fifty years later.

Jerri