Blown Away But Not Forgotten

 

Albert Kennedy (1857-1928) and Martha “Sissie” Ealy Kennedy (1865-1895)

While home in Mississippi during the Christmas holiday, I had to make some time to drive out to Lena, Mississippi, my father’s hometown, to find the grave of his grandmother, Martha Ealy Kennedy. An elderly relative recently confirmed for me that she was also known as “Sissie”. Indeed, the FindAGrave website had an entry for her with a picture of her stone that was in Harmony Baptist Church Cemetery, Leake County, Mississippi. I was stunned. I didn’t know it existed.  I had to find it and see it for myself. I have walked Harmony Cemetery many times, but I never saw it. This time, I found it! 

After marrying my great-grandfather Albert Kennedy on December 28, 1881, Grandma Sissie had five children: Dora (1882-1940), Will (1884-1977), Robert "Rob" (1885-1977), Hulen “Newt” (1888-1970), and Wilson Kennedy (1891-1988). However, she died shortly after Uncle Wilson was born. When I was a teenager, my grandma Willie Ealy Collier, my father’s adoptive mother who was a double first cousin to his natural father Hulen Kennedy, first told me the story about Grandma Sissie. She was her aunt – her father Paul Ealy’s sister – who was blown away by a tornado. I had always ascertained that this sad and tragic day occurred "around 1895". My cousin Mavis here in D.C. remembers her father, Uncle Wilson Kennedy, talk about how his mother was found miles away from home in a ditch. Therefore, I always noted that Grandma Sissie died “around 1895,” because Grandpa Albert had remarried on July 19, 1896, ironically to a lady whose official name was Sissie Walker.  Her gravestone confirmed that 1895 was indeed the tragic year.

I can’t even imagine how my grandfather Hulen, his brothers, and their big sister Dora felt to lose their mother so suddenly and tragically on that stormy day in 1895. I am sure that Grandpa Albert was distraught to have his wife of 14 years taken away forever within minutes.  Then, to find her body miles away from home lying in a ditch must have added more “rubbing alcohol” to the open wounds. Grandma Sissie was laid to rest on top of Harmony Hill, as it was called, in Harmony Cemetery next to the church.  Words can’t express the joy in finding her grave with a nice headstone that withheld the test of time.  I don’t know the exact date in 1895 when that dreadful tornado hit the Lena community. Maybe one day, I will find some type of documentation that confirms it. Nevertheless, Grandma Sissie is being remembered. She is not forgotten.

R.I.P. Grandma Martha “Sissie” Ealy Kennedy

The inscription says, “She was the sunshine of our home.”

Daughter of Robert “Big Bob” Ealy and Jane Parrott Ealy

My grandfather Hulen "Newt" Kennedy - my father had recently placed those beautiful flowers on his grave earlier this year.

The African Americans, Many Rivers to Cross – Episode 4: Gone to Oklahoma

Last night, the fourth episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross aired on PBS.  This episode, entitled Making a Way Out of No Way (1897-1940), highlighted the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from around 1910 to 1970.  This mass relocation became known as the Great Migration. African Americans left the South in droves, removing themselves from the harsh and racist climate of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Texas.  Even in my own family, my maternal grandmother, Minnie Davis Reed, who was the youngest child of nine children born to John Hector Davis and Mary Danner Davis, had six of her own siblings to relocate to Chicago Illinois, Evanston Illinois, and Benton Harbor Michigan. Grandma Minnie and her brother, Uncle Fred Douglas Davis, were the only two to remain in the South. They both opted to live their last years in Memphis, Tennessee, just 35 miles north of their hometown of Como, Mississippi.

Conditions were so volatile in my home state of Mississippi, that from 1910 to 1920, the state experienced the largest migration of its African-American citizens to northern states than any of the ten southern states.  Sources note that of the approximately 473,000 African Americans that left the South in that decade alone, nearly 130,000 were from Mississippi.  From 1940 to 1960, about a million other Mississippians, nearly 75 percent of them African-American, departed the state permanently.  Many of them relocated to Chicago and Detroit, especially.  So many Mississippians had moved to Chicago that I often heard the city being called “New Mississippi.”  Chicago’s African-American population tremendously grew from 40,000 in 1910 to over 230,000 in 1930.

However, little is spoken about a small sector of the migrating African-American population who chose to go west to Oklahoma during the 1889 Land Rush of Oklahoma, occurring about 20 years before the start of the Great Migration.  On March 3, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison announced that the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement at noon on April 22nd. Anyone could join the race for the land, but jumping the gun was not permitted. During those 7 weeks after Harrison’s announcement, over 50,000 land-hungry Americans quickly began to gather around the borders of Oklahoma to take advantage of the new land.  By nightfall on April 22, they had staked thousands of claims either on town lots or quarter section farm plots. The towns of Norman, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, Guthrie, and others sprung into being almost overnight.  This is considered to be the largest land rush in American history, and within a month after April 22, five banks and six newspapers were established. By 1900, African-American farmers owned about 1.5 million acres of land in the Oklahoma territory. A number of African-American towns in Oklahoma were also established, such as Boley, Langston, Lincoln, Taft, etc.

One of those many land-hungry settlers in 1889 was my great-grandmother’s second oldest brother, Mack Danner (1859-c.1910).  Whether or not Uncle Mack was one of those 50,000+ who setup a tent on the border the night before April 22 is a matter of speculation, but he, his wife Annie, and their children had settled near Guthrie, Oklahoma sometime between 1889 and 1892. This was evident from the 1900 Logan County, Oklahoma census. Their son, Alexander (Alex) Danner, was born in Panola County (Como), Mississippi in Jan. 1889, but their next child, Laura Danner, was born in Oklahoma in May 1892.

1900 Logan County, Oklahoma census

The census-taker erroneously spelled the family’s last name as “McDanna”. Also, it was noted in this census that Uncle Mack Danner owned land.

I have been fortunate to meet and get to know a number of Uncle Mack Danner’s descendants after learning of their existence. The family had settled in Omaha, Nebraska by 1918. One of those descendants is my cousin, the late Dorothy Danner West, a granddaughter of Uncle Mack Danner, who shared the following photos of the family that were taken in Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Uncle Mack Danner (1859-c.1910)

Picture taken before 1910 in Guthrie, Oklahoma

Uncle Mack Danner’s wife Annie McGee Danner and their 10 children

Guthrie, Oklahoma

Two of Uncle Mack Danner’s sons who were killed in Oklahoma by a man who feared for his life from the two brothers

Uncle Mack Danner’s son, Alex Danner, who was the last child born in Mississippi in Jan. 1889 before the family moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma

Uncle Mack Danner’s daughter, Laura Danner Lowe, and her son, Artis Lowe. She was their first child who was born in Oklahoma in May 1892.

Uncle Mack Danner’s in-laws, Mack Henry McGee & Julia Hinkles McGee, who accompanied them to Oklahoma from Panola County, Mississippi

Omaha Sen. Edward R. Danner, youngest son of Mack and Annie Danner, was the lone African-American legislator in the Nebraska Unicameral during the U.S. Civil Rights era of the 1960’s.

Pictures by the late Dorothy Danner West

The African American Blogging Circle is a group of genealogy bloggers who are sharing their family stories, seen through their own personal lens, from the PBS series, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.  Click here for a list of the participating bloggers and check out their stories.

Watch Episode 4

The African Americans, Many Rivers to Cross – Episode 2: The Second Middle Passage

Last night, the second episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross aired on PBS.  This episode, entitled “The Age of Slavery,” chronicled major events and activities that occurred after the American Revolution which greatly affected the lives of free and enslaved African Americans. One of those major activities was the invention of the cotton gin. By April 1793, an inventor named Eli Whitney developed the cotton gin; it was a machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber. 

Hence, in 1793, the “Curse of the Cotton Gin” began.  Although it spurned a great economic boom in the South, I call it a “curse” because its invention resulted in the displacement of around 1 million enslaved African Americans in the Upper South to points southward.  Enslaved labor was needed for this booming industry. Thus, the Second Middle Passage began. More family separations occurred. More tears were shed. More blood flowed from feet and toes as a million enslaved people were sold away, transferred, or taken down south to work laboriously in those hot, infamous cotton fields. In many cases, these dreadful journeys were “walking journeys”. Imagine being forced to walk for weeks from Nash County, North Carolina to Leake County, Mississippi. That was the “walking journey” my great-great-grandfather Robert “Big Bob” Ealy had to take.

Once the million tired souls arrived at their Deep South destinations, the following is what many of them had to endure in those hot, infamous cotton fields, especially if they labored on large plantations.  Observing enslaved people in the cotton field on a large plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, Frederick Olmstead provided the following description of this extensive, back-weakening labor:

“We found in the field thirty ploughs, moving together, turning the earth from the cotton plants, and from thirty to forty hoers, the latter mainly women, with a black driver walking about among them with a whip, which he often cracked at them, sometimes allowing the lash to fall lightly upon their shoulders. He was constantly urging them also with his voice. All worked very steadily, and though the presence of a stranger on the plantation must have been a most unusual occurrence, I saw none raise or turn their heads to look at me. Each gang was attended by a "water-toter," that of the hoe-gang being a straight, sprightly, plump little black girl, whose picture, as she stood balancing the bucket upon her head, shading her bright eyes with one hand, and holding out a calabash with the other to maintain her poise, would have been a worthy study for Murillo.” [Frederick Law Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom (New York: De Capo Press, Inc., 1953), 432.]

Anyone researching Mississippi ancestors will immediately notice much evidence of the Second Middle Passage in their family trees.  In 1870, most of the older former slaves in Mississippi, as well as other Deep South states, were not born in Mississippi.  This is quite evident from the 1870 census.  Let me show you want I mean. 

I took a snapshot of the Lena community of Leake County, Mississippi, where Grandpa “Big Bob” Ealy remained after gaining his freedom. I wanted to see the birthplaces that were reported for many of his neighbors, who were enslaved just five years prior.  Only a few were born in Mississippi.  The following transcription just shows the oldest people in the household. I recorded these African-American households from pages 313-319.

House #	Names	Ages	Birthplace
802	Henson, Jeff	65	Kentucky
807	Henson, David	50	Tennessee
“	-------, Mina	45	Virginia
808	Hanson, Stephan	40	Alabama
“	------, Easter	33	Tennessee
809	Henson, Hannah	33	Mississippi
811	Anderson, Charlotte	40	Alabama
815	Ratliff, Samuel	35	Mississippi
“	------, Kitty	35	Mississippi
	------, Lydia	60	Georgia
816	Cherry, R.S.	75	South Carolina
“	------, Jane	70	Virginia
“	Harris, Emaline	50	Virginia
817	Dew, Benjamin	50	South Carolina
“	------, Eliza	48	Georgia
823	Simms, Scott	30	Mississippi
“	------, Lucilia	26	Virginia
832	Fickland, William	20	Mississippi
“	------, Jane	17	Alabama
“	------, Ann	60	Virginia
833	Turner, G.W.	50	Alabama
838	Mann, Tony	21	Mississippi
“	------, Hannah	23	Tennessee
839	Harris, Eliza	30	Virginia
“	Delvin, John W.	25	South Carolina
843	Parrott, John Armstead	32	Virginia
“	------, Jane	26	Mississippi
844	Reid, Rachel	36	North Carolina
845	Pettigrew, Mariah	45	Virginia
857	Wright, Hiram	57	Tennessee
“	------, Judy	55	Tennessee
	------, Mary	33	Tennessee
859	Ely, Robert    (“Big Bob” Ealy)	51	North Carolina
“	------, Jane	48	Virginia
863	Lindsey, Allen	25	Mississippi
“	------, Jane	27	Virginia
883	Hill, James	65	South Carolina
“	-----, Amanda	40	Virginia
“	Jones, Cutz	65	Virginia
885	Rice, Andrew	23	Mississippi
“	-----, Frances	25	Alabama
886	Kennedy, Nancy	45	Alabama
“	------, Malissa	25	Alabama
887	Washington, George	50	Georgia
“	------, Harriett	40	Georgia
	------, Charles	21	Alabama
	------, Jacob	19	Alabama
	------, Daniel	17	Alabama
	------, Edmond	12	Mississippi
888	Beaman, Jacob	60	North Carolina
“	------, Violet	50	North Carolina
889	Luckett, Calvin	65	Georgia
“	------, Nelly	75	Virginia

Source: 1870 Leake County, Mississippi Census, Pages: 313B – 319A; Image: 118 -129

Just within that small area containing the African-American households that were closest to Grandpa Big Bob’s house, the 1870 census-taker recorded Virginia as the birthplace for most of the older adults.  Alabama was second.  Even Grandpa Big Bob’s wife, Grandma Jane, had come from Virginia.  Her enslaver, William Parrott, had moved to Leake County, Mississippi shortly before 1840, transporting her and the rest of his slaves with him from Lunenburg County, Virginia.  I cannot even begin to fathom how tiresome all of their journeys were.  And for most of them, that journey was undoubtedly a sad one, as many of them left behind parents, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, etc. whom they never laid eyes on ever again.  Oh, how far we have come!

The African American Blogging Circle is a group of genealogy bloggers who are sharing their family stories, seen through their own personal lens, from the PBS series, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.  Click here for a list of the participating bloggers and check out their stories.

Watch Episode 2