Digging Up Your Family

Elizabeth McPeak Obituary

Knowing I need to do more work on my Brewer and McPeak families, I decided to start several weeks ago by searching for the death date of my 4th great-grandmother Elizabeth McPeak. She was the wife of William Brewer, and mother to my 3rd great-grandmother Frances Elizabeth Brewer, wife of Joseph M Bondurant.

I found her obituary!

From the Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), December 21, 1893:

After a Long Life.

Paducah, Ky., Dec. 20. – (Special.) --

Mrs. Elizabeth Brewer died to-night at the age of eighty-five years. She leaves three children, Mrs. J.K. Bondurant, of this city; Mrs. Bettie Bondurant, of Memphis and Mr. Mark Brewer, of this county.

Mrs. JK Bondurant is Mary Jane Brewer, married to James Knox Polk Bondurant.

Mrs. Bettie Bondurant is Frances Elizabeth Brewer, married to Joseph M Bondurant. She also went by the name Fanny/Fannie.

Mr. Mark Brewer is James M Brewer, who I have as going by the name “Mac”.

The Bondurant Brothers’ Deaths

One of the most searched phrases that lead people to my blog is “how did Forrest Bondurant die?”  And now I can tell you!  Below, as found on Ancestry, are the death certificates for both Forrest and Howard. 

James Forrest Bondurant died on December 4, 1965 in Roanoke, Virginia.  His cause of death was “fractures of legs, internal injuries, shock”, and “hepatitis, from multiple transfusions” after “lumber on truck slipped, caught him”.

Benjamin Howard Bondurant died on November 2, 1968 in Martinsville, Henry County, Virginia.  His cause of death was “acute myocardial infarction due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with congestive heart failure (marked)”, as well as “right pleural effusion and uremia”.

Wedding of Minnie Virginia Richards and James Paul Stalls, Sr

I honestly thought I had already transcribed this article describing (in great detail) the wedding of my great-grandparents Minnie Virginia Richards and James Paul Stalls, Sr. Apparently I had not, so here it is!

(I actually wish that a photo of the wedding party were included with the article.  If anyone is researching any members of the bridal party, and happens to have photos of a stranger’s wedding, please contact me!  PLEASE!)

Published in the Commercial Appeal, Tuesday July 28, 1914:

WEDDINGS

RICHARDS-STALLS

The McLemore Avenue Christian Church was the scene of a very pretty wedding last evening at 8:30 o’clock when Miss Minnie Virginia Richards became the bride of J. Paul Stalls, the Rev. Milo Atkinson officiating in the presence of a large gathering of friends and relatives.

For the occasion the church was prettily decorated with a profusion of plams (sic),ferns and garlands of southern smilax, caught with graceful bows of pink tulle. Electric lights shone through the ferns and palms and lighted tapers glowed through the white shades of the candelabra.

A beautiful programme of wedding music was rendered by Enoch Walton, who presided at the organ, assisted by Mrs. C. W. Parke, soprano, and Mrs. S. H. Lambert, violinist. The Bridal Chorus from “Lohengrin” was used as the processional, with Mendelssohn’s wedding march as the recessional, and during the ceremony Mr. Walton softly played “To a Wild Rose.

The specially selected programme included the following numbers:

Organ-Pilgrim’s Chorus from “Tannhauser”………………..Wagner

Voice-“The Rosary”………………………………………………………..Nevin

Organ-Andante in G………………………………………………………Batiste

Voice-“All For You”………………………………………...….…D’Hardelot

Organ-“Evensong”………...…………………………………………….Batiste

Voice-“Because”…….…………………………………………..…D’Hardelot

Organ-“Spring Song”……………………………………….….Mendelssohn

Violin-“Evening Star”………………………………………..……..…Wagner

Organ-Humoresque……………………………………………..….……Dvorak

Voice-“O, Promise Me”…………………………………………….De Koven

Organ-(a) Bridal Chorus from “Lohengrin”……………….…Wagner

          (b) “To a Wild Rose”…………………………………..MacDowell

Voice-“At Dawning”

Organ-(a) Wedding March…………………………………..Mendelssohn

          (b) March from “Tannhauser”……………………………Wagner

The bride, who was given in marriage by her father, Jerome Richards, was gowned in a robe of white duchess satin with draperies of Chantilly lace, with she wore a filmy veil of tulle, falling from a Juliet cap and caught with orange blossoms. She carried a shower bouquet of Bride roses and valley lilies and wore as her only ornament a diamond and pearl pendant: the gift of the groom.

Miss Zella Smith of Meridian, Miss., acted as maid of honor, gowned in pink crepe de chine with a draped cape and carrying a French basket filled with Bride roses.

Misses Annie Sites, Katherine Lawless and Dorothy and Laura Richards served as bridesmaids, gowned in pink crepe de chine and lace and carrying French baskets filled with pink Killarney roses.

Little Misses Alice Rogers and Ruth Frances Parke acted as flower girls, wearing dainty frocks of lace over pink satin and carrying small baskets filled with pink rose petals, while Master Clifton Drane Bondurant served as ringbearer, wearing an Oliver Twist suit of white and pink and carrying the ring in the heart of a lily.

The groom was attended by W. Franklin Robinson as best man, Robert Love and Clarence Banning as groomsmen and Earle F. French and Lin Sheffer as ushers.

Following the ceremony an informal reception for the immediate relatives and members of the bridal party was held at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Richards, on Lucy Avenue, where the decorations were of pink and white, carried out in garden flowers, ferns, and palms.

A cordial welcome was extended to the guests by Mr. and Mrs. Richards, the latter gowned in black crepe de chine and lace, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Curtius, the latter gowned in hand-embroidered voile.

Many handsome presents attested the popularity of the young couple, who left last evening for New Orleans, en route to New York and points along the Great Lakes. For traveling the bride was gowned in a tailored suit of blue serge, with a hat of white straw.

After the middle of September Mr. and Mrs. Stalls will be at home to their friends with the parents of the bride, Mr. and Mrs. Richards, on Lucy Avenue.

We Don’t Lay Down For Nobody

Ed Bondurant made up some postcards to send out inviting Bondurant descendants to the Bondurant Family Association Annual meeting at the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving this year.  Unfortunately, the only Bondurants I know are in the BFA and my own family.  However, I figure by posting it here I may be able to let other Bondurant folks know what’s up! 

BFA website: www.bondurant-family.org

BFA on Facebook: www.facebook.com/#!/groups/142740453048/

Bondurant School of High Performance Driving website:  www.bondurant.com

For the Forrest Bondurant Fans

One of the most popular searches that brings people to my blog is Forrest Bondurant.  And who can blame you?  Tom Hardy certain did a good job characterizing a brooding, bad boy Forrest in the movie Lawless.  So, I figured I  would throw a few goodies out there for all of the Forrest Bondurant fans.

 Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 4, 1931

Deputy-Sheriff Charged With Taking Bribe

Officer and Two Alleged Moonshiners Must Face Trial at Rocky Mount

ROCKY MOUNT, VA., Feb. 3 – (AP) –A deputy sheriff and two alleged violators of the prohibition law, indicted on charges growing out of an alleged act of bribery, will be tried [in] Court.

Deputy Sheriff H.T. Abshire was indicted yesterday by a Franklin County grand jury on a charge of accepting a bribe, while Jack and Forrest Bondurant were indicted on a charge of attempting to bribe officers and with transporting liquor.

The grand jury also indicted Deputy Sheriff C.L. Rakes on a charge of malicious shooting in connection with the wounding of Jack and Forrest Bondurant on December 19, when an automobile driven by Forrest Bondurant is alleged to have carried 150 gallons of liquor.

Deputy Sheriff Abshire provided bond and the bond provided by Deputy Sheriff Rakes shortly after the shooting was continued.

Forrest Bondurant is in a Roanoke hospital with a wound alleged to have been inflicted by Officer Rakes when Rakes and Abshire halted two automobiles driven by the Bondurant brothers at Magpie Creek Bridge on the Redford-Rocky Mount Road.  Jack Bondurant was in the hospital several weeks.  Officers contended the shooting occurred after the brothers objected to having their car searched and drew guns.

County authorities charge that an offer of $75 was made to the two officers to let the loaded car pass.

Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 31, 1935

Church-Goers Fear to Pass Filling Station

Franklin Supervisor Testifies of Bad Reputation of Business Place

[I removed the first first section because it did not pertain to the Bondurants]

Aged Supervisor Testifies

The filling station, R.A. Sink, for 32 years a member of the Franklin Board of Supervisors, said, was operated at Burnt Chimney by Jack, Forrest and Howard Bondurant – the first two of whom a deceased deputy sheriff, C.L. Rakes, and alleged co-conspirator, shot at a liquor blockade.  Shooting at the station made people “afraid to pass by that gas station to go to church,” the aged supervisor, bearded and slightly deaf, said.

He characterized the reputation of the brothers, who were Government witnesses, as “bad,” speaking of their truthfulness, but said he was talking chiefly about a statement R.L. Minnix, grandfather of the wife of one of the Bondurants, made before his death, that they were “the toughest mess that ever struck our section.”

[I removed the last section because it did not pertain to the Bondurants]

A Word About Family Lore (with examples)

For the past several days I have been going through a lot of stuff trying to figure out what to write next about Timothy Demonbreun.  However, putting all of the information together is kind of difficult.  There is the problem of trying to separate fact from fiction, along with having to accept some things as definite fact, even though I cannot see the documentation (I am assuming that others who have written about him have seen it, so that’s where trust comes in on matters such as that).  There are so many fantastic stories about Timothy’s life, and I will share them all…along with letting my readers know which stories I do not have sources for and what stories have been passed down through the Demonbreun descendants for about two centuries now (my hope, as always, is that someone will present a source, a document, anything!).  I do, however, want to point out that most stories started somehow.  Here are a few family stories I have heard about my ancestors, either stories passed down or stories I have read online…along with the facts:

1.  Lore:  Spencer DeMumbrie was from France.  Fact:  Spencer DeMumbrie was born in Tennessee.  This one is kind of amusing because I can only speculate as to where this story came from.  On the death certificate for Minnie DeMumbrie, Spencer’s daughter, it has him as having been born in France.  Since Minnie’s son was the informant I can only assume that Minnie had told people her father was French, rather than descended from French-Canadians.  My Granddaddy even referred to her as his “French grandmother” (even though, in reality, he could have called both grandmothers French…his other grandmother Annie Bondurant was descended from the French Huguenot Jean Pierre Bondurant).

2.  Lore:  James Anderson Proctor’s first wife Paralee was a gypsy.  Fact:  James Anderson Proctor, the husband of my 3rd great-grandmother Amanda Summers, was married first to a woman named Paralee.  However, when I found the marriage record I also found that Paralee’s full maiden name was Delilah Paralee Duffel.  This means that Paralee was Amanda’s aunt through her mother Emily Jane Duffel.  And now, if anyone ever decides to start searching for Paralee again (I think everyone kind of gave up trying to find her when she “disappeared” after the 1850 census), they will now know what happened to her.  And it also answers everyone’s question as to where JA’s wife came from (because no one could figure out her maiden name, I guess).

3.  Lore:  The Para family had their surname changed to Para when they arrived at Ellis Island from Italy.  Fact:  That never happened.  What is known is that if their name was changed once they arrived in America, they would have done it themselves, and it would have been well after they arrived.  And there is still no proof that it was ever anything different.  Prior to boarding the ship in Italy their information and documentation would have been checked by Italian officials.  Once they arrived they would have had to present the documentation to officials that were either from Italy themselves, or fluent in Italian.  The records and names would have to match up, otherwise they wouldn’t be permitted to enter the country.  When filing for citizenship they would have had the option to change their last name if they so chose.  So far, I know they wouldn’t have come through Ellis Island, anyway.  The patriarch of the family Giacomo Para (Anglicized to Jacob Para) arrived in America about 1876 or 1877, sixteen or seventeen years prior to the opening of Ellis Island.  Before that he would have arrived through Castle Gardens in New York, if that’s even where he entered the country.  There is no record of him at Castle Gardens, either.  So there is no telling what location he came through.  I haven’t found his wife and children yet, either.  So back to the name:  If the surname was changed then I don’t have a clue what it was originally.  And apparently no one else does, either.  While I did find record of a Giacomo Para entering through California, he was much too young, he immigrated much too late and he stayed in California. 

4.  Lore:  Elizabeth Bennett was 115/116 years of age when she died.  Fact:  Um, no one really knows the truth here.  She is another mystery that everyone hopes to someday unravel.  She will be getting her own post, but you will meet her soon anyway, as she is a key player in the story of Timothy Demonbreun.  Anyway, if you are to believe her headstone, erected by her son Jean Baptiste, she was born July 24, 1740 and died February 7, 1856.  In 1850 she claimed her age as 105, putting her birth year about 1745.  However, she gave birth to her last child in 1795, making her age at this birth either 50 or 55.  Sigh.  I’m not saying it’s impossible.  Just improbable

5.  Lore:  There really is no lore for this particular example, about Elizabeth Freeland.  Just a jumble of information about her.  Fact:  In 1850, the first time Elizabeth shows up on a census record, Elizabeth is shown as being 37 years of age, born about 1813 in Alabama.  In 1860, however, she is 56 years of age, having been born in 1804 in Louisiana.  I do know that she married Peter McQueen in 1820 in Louisiana, so I greatly doubt she was born in 1813.  I mean, her first child Louisa was born in 1821, which would have meant that Elizabeth was a mere 8-years-old.  Unfortunately, her marriage records to Peter McQueen and Claiborn Perry don’t mention her age, or her place of birth, for that matter.  I know her brother was residing in Alabama when he died, but he also had land in Mississippi (which is where she was living when she divorced Peter and married Claiborn).

These are just a few examples of family stories and misinformation.  I just felt it was important to get this out there prior to continuing Timothy Demonbreun’s story.  Because, as you’ll see, his life was pretty wacky.

Finally A Photograph Of Annie Bondurant!

After hoping and hoping and hoping, I am thrilled to say that today my mom and I got to see a picture of Mary J “Annie” Bondurant, my second great-grandmother, for the first time.  A distant cousin, Joanne Stephens, through marriage (through the Curtius family, Annie’s second husband’s family) found a photo and emailed it to my mother.

 

Written on the back is:

left to right-

Frank, Myself, Minnie

Mrs Richards Minnie’s Mother

lady who was a visitor from

Brownsville Tenn,

My dear son Paul.

front-

Baby Paul, 6 years old.

Household

Kitten

Made June 3rd 1923-

For Nellie & Joe, Ed. as Nellie knows these people-

So the people in the photo are:

Frank Curtius-Annie’s second husband

Mary J “Annie” Bondurant-my 2nd great-grandmother

Minnie Virginia Richards-my great-grandmother and Annie’s daughter-in-law

Minnie DeMumbrie-my 2nd great-grandmother and Minnie Virginia Richards’ mother

I’m not sure who the woman from Brownsville, Tennessee is, but she is a relative of some sort, I’m sure

James Paul Stalls, Sr-my great-grandfather, Annie’s son and Minnie Virginia Richards’ husband (first husband)

James Paul Stalls, Jr-my Granddaddy, Annie’s grandson, J. Paul and Minnie Virginia’s son, my mom’s daddy!

What I Have Been Doing Lately

1.  I had purchased several hundred photos on eBay that all turned out to be a family collection.  After hunting around for a while I finally found the family to which they belong.  I scanned roughly 70 of the photographs and mailed those off to the family on Tuesday.  In the coming weeks I will scan the rest of them so I can get those mailed off, too.  I am extremely happy that I found the family, and I am extremely happy that they are getting their precious heirlooms back.  I had started a blog regarding the photos just in case I wasn’t able to find family.  I will be keeping it going so you can check it out here.

 

2.  My mom and I went up to Tennessee to visit with family again.  After picking up Great-Aunt Kat we drove up to Clarksville to visit Grandmother and Granddaddy’s graves.  Then we drove down to Hurricane Mills (our usual spot) and visited with Donny and Bobbie.  We didn’t stay long because Bobbie wasn’t feeling well (luckily she is feeling much better now).  While there we had decided that instead of buying Nan Nan’s fried pies from Cissie Lynn’s store, we would go to Nan Nan’s store and buy them directly from her.  After driving out of our way (you can tell from the start of this that it ended badly) we got to the location only to find out that the location was moved.  The sign (of which I wish I had taken a photo) gave the address of the new location and said to stop in and visit.  So we drove even further out of the way.  Come to find out the new location was the original location:  the owner’s home.  She (I assume Nan Nan, but it might just be named Nan Nan by using her grandmother’s recipe or something) was not pleased to see us.  She seemed to be miffed that we pulled into her driveway.  After telling us she didn’t really have many pies to sell I asked her if she took credit cards.  No, she said, she didn’t even take them at the other location.  By now I was angry.  Their website (which is just their Facebook page from what I can tell) didn’t have the new address listed which caused the looooong drive.  They also didn’t have payment options on the page, so I didn’t know I should have stopped for cash.  But in the end, you know what?  Her attitude ruined the entire thing anyway.  Had she been more pleasant I may have considered driving out to an ATM and getting cash just to buy a fried pie.  Will I ever purchase another Nan Nan’s Homemade Fried Pie again?  Nope.  (I just checked out the Facebook page, and they now have that they don’t accept credit cards and failed to use spell check…ok, that’s just me being bitter and mean)

 

3.  A couple of weeks ago my mom and I got to meet new cousins who live here in Georgia:  Valerie Craft and her mom Ruby!  Valerie has the genealogy blog Begin With Craft, which is chock-full of great information and research tips.  Due to the shared Craft surname we think that may be how we are related.  Through DNA Valerie’s father matches up to Great-Aunt Kat an estimated 4th cousin.  That means to find out how they are related we would need to go back to, at the very least, Prestly Ezekiel Craft’s father.  I think it has been figured out that his name was John Craft (don’t hold me to that because I am not positive).  Kat’s Craft family goes back:

Henry Corbit Craft (1895 TN-1971 TN)

John Craft (1859 TN-1936 TN)

Thomas Craft  (abt 1810 NC-aft 1880 TN)

Prestly Ezekiel Craft (abt 1786 NC-btwn 1850 and 1860 TN)

Several people have that Prestly married his wife Mary Thaxton in Surry County, North Carolina.  I guess I will have to look into that more.

 

4.  My mom and I are getting ready for the Bondurant Family Association Annual Meeting next week.  I’m pretty excited about it!

 

5.  I recently applied to go back to school.  I have thought about it for a while, and now with the imminent closing of the Georgia Archives to the public I decided to just do it!  I applied to American Public University online school for history.  Who knows, maybe I will eventually become an archivist!

 

6.  In my genealogy research I am currently working on (ready for this?  It’s like it is never-ending!):

-Who are Peter McQueen’s parents?  It really is driving me crazy not knowing.  The earliest I can find him is on an 1818 bill of sale for a slave named Daniel.  Peter doesn’t appear on any census record (by name at least) until 1840, though. 

-What happened to Spencer DeMumbrie?  When and where did he die?  Where is he buried?  Why is he being difficult?

-Why am I unable to locate James Franklin Stalls’s grave in Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah, McCracken County, Kentucky?  His obituary says he is there, but there is no record of him as being buried there. 

-Is the research I did on Brett’s Murphy family correct?  It seems perfectly logical to me, but I was presented with something extremely different that is completely illogical to me.

-The Craft line (as mentioned above).

-The search for Eppy Willhite Craft’s death record.  I will have to write a whole post for this fun headache.  Let’s just say that no one is actually sure of her first name anymore, and her death cannot be found (and she had to have died unless she’s still alive at the ripe old age of about 150 years-old…which you never know, I guess).

-William Glenn Cathey:  where are you buried exactly?

-Amanda Summers: when, where and how did you die and where are you buried?  Oh, and who exactly is Lizzie’s father?  Or do you not even know?

-And let’s just say many other research subjects, such as who are the parents of John B Smith?  Where exactly was Elizabeth Brownlee from?  Where is the Stalls family from?  And many, many more questions. 

 

I’m going to go watch movies now!

Bondurant Family Association Annual Reunion 2012

This year the Bondurant Family Association Annual Meeting will be held October 19th and 20th, 2012 in Bedford, Virginia.  If you are a Bondurant or Bondurant descendent you can find more information about the reunion at the Bondurant Family Association website, as well as apply for membership.

The Bondurant Family Association also has a Facebook page here.

Hope to see you there!

Are the Bondurants Real?

I have noticed that since the release of the movie Lawless I have had a fair amount of people landing on my blog after searching for terms such as “were the Bondurants real?” or “is the story of the Bondurants true?”. 

Well, the second question I can kind of answer.  And my kind of answer is yes.  Not only are there news articles concerning events (according to Matt Bondurant, on The Daily Beast…I haven’t yet seen them), but the book The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935 by T. Keister Greer (look to the right, it’s listed on my sidebar) documents everything that went on.  Matt Bondurant did put some imagination into his book The Wettest County in the World (the book that the movie is based on), but quite frankly he wasn’t there, so the romance had to be fabricated.

As for the first question “were the Bondurants real?” the answer is an emphatic YES!  The brothers, along with their siblings, are my great-grandfather James Paul Stalls, Sr’s third cousins.  Their father is my gg-grandmother Mary J “Annie” Bondurant’s second cousin.  And just so you know the names were not made up I offer you two census records.

The first is the 1920 census enumerated in Snow Creek, Franklin County, Virginia. It lists Granville Bondurant as head of household, followed by his wife Elizabeth.  The children are listed as: Eva S, B Howard, Lawson B, J Forrest, Eddie T, Clarence, Mary V and A Jackson.  The three depicted in the movie are Howard, Forrest and Jack, or as it says on the census record Jackson.

The second is the 1940 census enumerated in Snow Creek, Franklin County, Virginia. Jack is listed as Andrew J Bondurant, head of household.  Bertha his wife is listed.  And her name really was Bertha Minnix prior to marriage.  The children listed are : Andrew J Jr, Emmie L, Betty L, Bobby J and Granville F.

So there you have it!  Yes, the Bondurants really do exist!

For more information about the Bondurant Family history visit the Bondurant Family Association website.  And if you’re a Bondurant or Bondurant descendent you should join the association.  I’m a member!