52 Ancestors 52 Weeks: #7 Mary Vick

I love mysteries and by researching my family history, I have found lots of mysteries. One in particular is connected to my great-great grandmother Mary Vick. 

Mary was born around 1865 in Wayne County, North Carolina.  Her parents were Easter and Thomas (Tom) Vick and Mary had nine siblings: Sam, Cora, Emma, John T., Susan, Charlie, Willie, Fannie and Lela.

She never married but she had children; her only daughter, Hattie Vick Fuller (1880-1916) was raised by Mary’s mother, Easter.  Hattie’s father was Amos Newsome.  Mary’s  two sons were raised by their father’s family but we only know the name of one son, Richard Edmundson (1882-1926). The second son; I know nothing about. I don’t even know his name but I do know that family history says he met an ugly fate; he was lynched. Unfortunately, no one alive knows when or where he was murdered.

Just like her second son, Mary has been an enigma to me.  I say that because she left her 3 children when they were toddlers. To me, Mary was so different from most African American women of her time. Abandoning your child is not a trait that you hear about in our family, nor in women during that time period. 

Sadly there are no pictures of Mary and the only records I have related to her are two census.  On the 1870 census Mary was a toddler living with her parents, her brother Samuel and her sister Cora in Wayne County, North Carolina.[1]  
 

 1870 Census: Nahunta, Wayne, North Carolina

 

The next and last time we find Mary was on the 1880 census. She’s 15 years old and her family was still living in the Nahunta area of Wayne County, North Carolina.  Mary was the oldest daughter and the second oldest child.[2] 

 

 1880 Census Place: Nahunta, Wayne, North Carolina

 

After her children’s birth in the 1880s, Mary disappeared.  My question is what became of Mary and why did she leave her children? Did she marry and have more children or did she suffer a horrible fate like her son?

At a family reunion a cousin once said that during the reconstruction time  that flyers were posted proclaiming that the “West” was the place to be and the flyers read “The land of milk and honey where money indeed grow on trees.” I always wondered if my relatives who disappeared, like Mary were one of those folks who went in search of the land of milk and honey and money growing trees.

Until this mystery is solved, the search for Mary continues.

 

 

                              

 

 

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[1] Year: 1870; Census Place: Nahunta, Wayne, North Carolina; Roll: M593_1165; Page: 176A; Image: 355; Family History Library Film: 552664.

[2] Year: 1880; Census Place: Nahunta, Wayne, North Carolina; Roll: 986; Family History Film: 1254986; Page: 658D; Enumeration District: 301; Image: 0902.

52 Ancestor 52 Weeks: #6 Mary Verneace Fuller Becton

Today marks my Mom’s 89^th birthday. My brothers and I are so bless to still have her with us. Although this birthday will be mark with sadness because my sister passed away this past August, I know Mom is happy to celebrate her birthday.

Mom was born and raised in Fremont, North Carolina to Lester and Classie Pate Fuller aka Dafull and Mafull.

Mom and Mafull

Mafull did not allow my Mom to have a lot of idle time, instead she made Mom read the bible or “her lesson” aka homework.  Mafull's persistence paid off because Mom was promoted twice: in her primer class (kindergarten) and in first grade.  Ironically, another teacher wanted to promote her a third time but Mafull said no.

Her 9^th grade graduating class had 22 students.

Her high school graduating class had 13 members. That's her in the second row, second from the right.

In 2002, the remaining classmates met at a birthday party for Mrs. Annie Frances Wilder Henderson. Seating from the left are Mrs. Annie and Mom. Standing is Mrs. Mary Jane Ray Jackson. 

The picture on the left is Mom (far right) with some classmates on the grounds of Winston Salem Teachers College, now know as, Winston-Salem State University. The picture on the right is Mom (second from the right) with her friends in Fremont.

After high school, Mom went to Winston Salem Teachers College (Winston Salem State University) where she stayed for 3 years.  Because her boyfriend returned from the “War,” she left school and they got married in South Carolina, that boyfriend was Sylvester Artis.

Although the marriage ended in divorce, Mom and Sylvester had 4 children:  LaVonchia, Mercedes Avatna, Dwight Sylvester and Michael Owen.

Mom (left  and lower right), Mom with LaVonchia, Mercedes and Dwight.

In 1964, Mom married her second husband, my father, Robert Lee Becton.
This was taken right after they got married in Rockville, Maryland.

Mom submitted her DNA to Ancestry.com and 23andme. Below are her results.

My mom’s 23andme ancestry results

 

Mom’s Ancestry.com results

23andme provided some unexpected results such as the countries of origin.  Besides Africa and Ireland, Mom shares DNA with people from Jamaica and Brazil.  During the 1700s, the Carolinas were importing slaves from the Caribbean and Africa.

23andme - Country's of Ancestry Results

Happy Birthday Mom!

52 Ancestor Challenge #2 Sarah McCall Wood(s) Pate

For my second challenge, I’m sticking with my Pate Family. My maternal great-grandmother Sarah McCall Pate was born around 1872 to Classie Green and Mike Wood(s).  Her parents weren’t married which was probably because her father was Irish and a well known storekeeper in the Goldsboro area. But sometime after Sarah was born, her mother married a McCall. 

The Green family was from Pitt County, North Carolina but Sarah and her brothers were raised in Greene and Wayne counties.  In 1880, 8 year old Sarah and her brothers, Alexander, John and David, are living with their mother in the Nahunta section of Wayne County, North Carolina.  Their mother, Classie was described as a cook but there is no husband listed.

 

John Pate was Sarah’s second husband; all that is known about her first husband is that a child, Roscoe was born from that union.  On Sarah’s marriage license to John Pate, her last name isn’t McCall or Woods. In fact, her last name is illegible because it appears to be “Best” or “Burt.” Discovering her last name and her first husband may never happen but we do know that Sarah’s family lived in Greene County which records were destroyed in the late 1890s and this is the period where Sarah married and had her son.

 

Surprisingly on the 1900 Census, Sarah and John Pate are living in Nahunta and their neighbors are two Becton brothers one of which was my paternal great-grandfather Will Becton. 

We don’t have any pictures of Sarah and her daughter, my grandmother, Classie Pate Fuller aka “Mafull,” was about 8 years old when her mother died, so Mafull could not provide us with a lot of stories about Sarah. 

 

This is a picture that we have of Mafull as a young pre-teen girl. Photo courtesy of Mary Becton; all rights reserved.

There’s not much documentation on Sarah but there are a few stories about her, such as when she was born her father wanted to raise her by himself; however, her mother Classie said no and that’s when Classie and Mike’s relationship ended. I’ve never heard of stories where single, white men took their black babies and raised them as their own.

Sarah was described as a short, fat, very light skin woman who pressed her hair with an iron.  I don’t know if Sarah had green or hazel color eyes like my grandmother but Mafull once said, “my mother was short and fat and I’m going to be short and fat.” Poor Mafull, she just didn’t want to stop eating. LOL!

For many years, my mom had one item belonging to Sarah, a piece of hair.  We kept that piece of hair until the 1990s and for some reason, it was thrown out.  Ironically, my mom kept 3 family members hair: Sarah, Mafull and LaVonchia (my oldest sister) and all three pieces of hair resembled: straight and auburn that curled liked an “S”.  I don’t know why the hair was kept.

I’ve never found Sarah’s death certificate but Mafull said that Sarah was sick and she once ask Mafull to empty the slop bucket.  The slop bucket was full of blood.  Sarah died soon after this incident. It’s possible that Sarah died of ovarian cancer; she was buried at the Fremont Cemetery in Wayne County, North Carolina.  Sarah was 37 years old. 

Her descendants included Roscoe who married 3 times but never became a father. Roscoe  lived to be 78 years old.  Johnnie died at 44; he and his wife had 5 children.  Moses Eddie who married twice and had 6 children, lived to be 90 years old.  Her only daughter, Classie Pate Fuller who died in 1969, had one child, Mary Verneace Becton. I have many questions regarding Sarah but my immediate goal is to find out who was her first husband; where did she grow up; why did she marry John Pate, a man who was old enough to be her father; and what cause her death. 

In Search of John Pate

Welcome to my Inaugural Blog!

In Amy Johnson Crow’s recent blog, she challenged other researchers to write or blog about an ancestor each week for 52 weeks. The Challenge is  called 52 Ancestors. I’ll accept that challenge but it might turn out to be an ancestor per month or bi-weekly but I’ll do my best because I certainly have 52 ancestors who have a story tell.

 First up for me is John Pate, my great-grandfather.

My journey started with researching John Pate, my maternal great-grandfather. My mom’s first cousin, Clara Pate McClain, told her that John Pate was from India, not Africa. I told mom, “you guys are confused,” but the more they talked about John who died before either one was born, the more I became fascinated. So that’s how my quest began, at the foot of my elders trying to make sense out of the stories that have been passed down to me. You see my mom, Mary Verneace Fuller Artis Becton, raised me in the old fashion way, “children are seen and not heard and sometimes not seen.” So I listened while she and her family and friends talked about the old days.

According to the 1870 census, John Pate was born in 1843 in North Carolina. Hmmm, don’t sound like India too me. He was 27 years old living in the Nahunta section of Wayne County, North Carolina with his first wife Vinnie/Viny Pate who was 25 years old, their 5 year old son Daniel, 2 year old Rufus and their 8 month old baby named John.

 1870 Census Place: Nahunta, Wayne, North Carolina; Roll: M593_1165; Page: 169B; Image: 342; Family History Library Film: 552664.

Ten years later, John and his family are living in the Bull Head section of Green County, North Carolina. John is listed as 40 years old not 37 and his occupation is a farmer.  Viney is 39 years old, Daniel is 15, Rufus is 13, John is 10, Robert is 5, Wyatt is 3, and Lou (probably Liza) is 8 months old.  There is another person listed with the family, Caldoia who is 8 years old but there is no description of her relationship with the family. I've never heard of Caldoia, perhaps she was a relative or neighbor's child who was visiting the family.

1880 Census Place: Bull Head, Greene, North Carolina; Roll: 965; Family History Film: 1254965; Pages: 2D; Enumeration District: 062; Image: 0258.

By 1895, Viney is deceased and on April 2, 1895 John Pate marries Sarah Burt (perhaps Best) in Wayne County, North Carolina.  On their marriage license, John is listed as a 51 year old colored man (not Indian) who was the son of Dave Smith and Hannah Best. His new wife, Sarah is listed as a 26 year old colored female whose father was named Mike Wood. Her mother’s name is not provided.

On the 1900 census, 54 year old John and 29 year old Sarah are living in the Nahunta section of Wayne County, NC. The children listed are 15 year old Smithy, 13 year old Hannah, 10 year old Oscar, 3 year old John (This John or Johnnie was cousin Clara’s father.) and 10 month old Moses. Everyone in the house is listed as being born in North Carolina, not India.  John and Sarah stated that they were married for 5 years and Sarah was the mother of 3 children with 2 living.  This is confusing because Sarah is the mother of the three youngest children. On this particular census everyone provides their birth month and year. John was born in 1846 and Sarah born in 1870. The son listed as Oscar on this census has always been called him Roscoe. The two older girls were Viney’s daughters. This is the last census that John and Sarah appear on because they are both dead by 1903 and 1909 respectively. John and Sarah had one more child who was born in 1901, Classie Virginia Pate; she was my grandmother.

1900 Census Place: Nahunta, Wayne, North Carolina; Roll: 1223; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 0107; FHL microfilm: 1241223.

Unfortunately, North Carolina did not record birth and deaths until 1913 and therefore, vital information is lost. But I like this census for many reasons: first, it provides the birth years; second, it stated that John had a middle name that began with the letter “P”; next, the census tells you how many children a female has had and how many of those children are alive. You also find out how many times the adults have been married.

Besides family history, we don’t have much information on John P. Pate. He wasn’t a soldier, he didn’t own land and unfortunately, he lived in Greene County, NC whose courthouse burned down in the late 1800s; therefore, I could not find a cohabitation record for John and Vinnie.  Family history said that John’s family name was Bhess and that he came from a village in India. Well his mother’s name is listed on his marriage license to Sarah as “Hannah Best,” so that’s where the “Bhess” name came from.  Oral history also said that John was a house slave, perhaps he was but what we do know is that John’s sons by Viney: John (the first son named John), Robert and Wyatt left NC before 1901 and never returned. No one knows what became of them, although family history said that they moved out West and returned for their father’s funeral in 1903.

My quest is to find out John P. Pate’s ethnicity. Was he half Native American, full Native American or half white? I also want to know where did his folks come from. I know that John is buried in the Union Grove cemetery located in Eureka, North Carolina. I also want to know what became of his sons, John, Robert and Wyatt? Did they have children?

What’s my plan for this blog? To share stories that I find and ancestors that I meet. I also plan on using this blog as a sounding board for my research analysis.

Happy Hunting!

Sources:
"United States Census, 1870," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MWD4-QZ9 : accessed 21 Jan 2014), John Pate, North Carolina, United States; citing p. , family 210, NARA microfilm publication M593, FHL microfilm 000552664.

"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MC6Y-TDR : accessed 21 Jan 2014), John Pate, Bull Head, Greene, North Carolina, United States; citing sheet 2D, family 0, NARA microfilm publication T9-0965

"United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MSB1-9TF : accessed 21 Jan 2014), John Pate in household of John P Pate, Nahunta Township (part of) Eureka town, Wayne, North Carolina, United States; citing sheet , family 38, NARA microfilm publication T623, FHL microfilm 1241223.