History Mystery

This is a rewrite.

 History Mystery
(Will the Real Sally Barnes Please Stand Up?)

By Jerri Schlenker

In February 2008 I began exploring the life of a Lewis County citizen.  Was it by intelligent design that I started this exploration during black history month since the lady I was and still am researching was Sally Barnes, an African American woman born 1858 into slavery in Carter County? Sally lived to be 110 years of age, living the last half of her centenarian life in Lewis County.  She is buried in the Green Cemetery in St. Paul, Kentucky.  

I’ve been asked so many times what perked my interest in this.  I had heard bits and pieces about this lady at a young age and was completely captivated by what I heard and by the fact that my family actually knew someone who had been a slave.  In my mind she was a living legend.  Then at age 8 I had the opportunity to meet Sally.  She was 103, living in Lewis County with Benjamin and Ted Bonzo.  On the day I saw her on the Bonzo farm she was in the kitchen, mopping the floor, at age 103.

Now as is the case, life takes over.  There are school years, marriage and raising a family. Then after everyone that could have given you the most factual records has died, you start thinking back on memories and start asking questions that you should have asked just years earlier before that aunt or uncle with all the information passed away.  This is my first attempt at genealogy; but I’m finding that this is how it works for many.

Considering Sally’s life was unique on several fronts, I thought this research would be relatively easy.  Not so.  The story I was uncovering would take several twists and turns, only one of which I am relating here.

One of my first finds was Sally’s obituary in the 1969 Lewis County Herald.  I’m pleased it was front-page news.  It stated that Sally had worked at the St. Charles Hotel in Vanceburg in her early years, that her father had been Peter Barnes, and that her last known whereabouts was in Weirton, WV.  These aspects of her life were unknown to me.  The obituary also said that she lived with the Bonzos and had belonged to the Mars Hill Church of Christ.  Those facts I could correlate into my own Sally Barnes’s life. 

In searching through census reports I could only find Sally listed in Carter County once – in 1910.  However, the name Sally Barnes would appear in the 1880, 1900, 1910 and 1920 censuses in Lewis County.  In all cases the birth date was given in the 1870’s, or in one Vanceburg census as unknown.  Were these one in the same or two different people?  I was to find a granddaughter to what I will call the Vanceburg Sally as opposed to the Olive Hill/St. Paul Sally. The granddaughter was also searching for information on her grandmother.  She knew very little about her grandmother other than she died sometime in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s.  I have just recently found a 1929 short obituary for this Sally Barnes, stating she died in Weirton and that her body would be brought back to Vanceburg for burial.  I have yet to find the grave in the Woodlawn Cemetery or record of it where she was supposedly buried.

Were the lives of two different Sally Barnes getting confused? The Sally Barnes I originally started researching died in 1969.  I have her death certificate and have visited her grave. Her parents were given as William and Susan Barnes.  The parents of the Vanceburg Sally were Peter and Lizzie Barnes. There are yet major serendipitous events in the lives of both Sally Barnes.  They both had lived in Lewis County.  They both were African American.  Neither married.  They both had brothers named Sam.  Both had daughters named Nellie; both believed to have been fathered by a white man.  I was told that both Nellies had visited Iowa sometime in the late 1950’s.  Secondary synchronicities were that they were both well liked and known for their cooking.  If they were indeed two different individuals was there some connection between them?  The St. Paul Sally was born on the Erwin Plantation in Olive Hill, Kentucky.  The slave record census of 1860 listed two female slaves, age 4.  Could there be some significance there – perhaps a twin?  My research goes on. 

At this point I have been given many heart-felt fond recollections of Sally providing much to write about, which makes it all worthwhile.  I have been writing brief accounts of her life in what I call Sally Shorts.   I will give one here as told to me by one former Lewis County citizen.

   
Lady in Pink - A Sally Short
 
I was recently privileged to find another person who had done some research into Sally's life.  He thought so highly of "Miss Sally" as he called her that he worked her character into a novel he had written, dedicating three pages at different points in the story to her.  The book is "Isle of Regret" by Karl Combs, and is a very interesting historical fiction love story.  I eagerly scanned the book for Sally.  Not readily finding her I settled into the pages and couldn't put it down until the end.  

Mr. Combs, as a boy, attended the church where Sally was a member.  He called her a sweetheart.  He said he never saw her in any other shoes except house slippers.  In your nineties you definitely deserve comfortable shoes.  She always wore the same pink dress to church.  I would like to think that pink was her favorite color.  Pink represents modesty, shyness and gentleness; and she was certainly that.