Family Quilts

March is Women's History Month and my cousin, Sara Campbell (Remembering Those Who Came Before Us) challenged me to post 31 mini blogs about our female ancestors. Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist has compiled some prompts to make blogging about female ancestors a little easier.


March 6 — Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.)

Dutch Doll Quilt made by Gladys

When my grandma Gladys died in 1984, she left a legacy of quilts. My mama received  a few of them which she put back for her grandchildren. As the children became adults, married, had children of their own, she gave them one of her mother's handmade quilts. The picture shows Grandma's Dutch Doll quilt which my older daughter--her great-granddaughter--now has; hopefully to be passed down to her children.

When I was a child, Grandma often had a quilt in a frame in the winter when cold weather kept her out of the garden. In warmer weather she preferred to be outside, wearing a bonnet not unlike the dolls in the quilt, and tending to her beloved dahlias and gladiolas. 

Library of Congress digital collection. No known restrictions.

The quilt frame was made up of four long, flat boards held together at the corners. The unfinished quilt was put into the frame so she and anyone who wanted to help, could add the quilting stitches from the outside edge in. As she worked, the finished parts of the quilt would be rolled up, putting the unfinished sections in reach. This process was repeated until the quilting was finished. Grandma would then take the quilt out of the frame and add binding to the edge. Like the frame in the picture, Grandma's hung from the ceiling on strips of cloth, either old sheets or perhaps pieces leftover from muslin she used for backing. When she wasn't working on the current project, she would wind the strips around the ends of the boards to raise the quilt up to the ceiling and out of the way.  

My grandmother has been gone for more than 30 years, but her quilts keep her memory alive. My children never met her but they know who she is by the handwork she left behind.  

Lost Recipes

March is Women's History Month and my cousin, Sara Campbell (Remembering Those Who Came Before Us) challenged me to post 31 mini blogs about our female ancestors. Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist has compiled some prompts to make blogging about female ancestors a little easier.

March 7 — Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen. Why is this dish your favorite? If you don’t have one that’s been passed down, describe a favorite holiday or other meal you shared with your family.

You may have noticed that I'm not following Lisa Alzo's Fearless Females Blogging Prompts exactly. I feel more inspired by looking at the options and picking one that appeals to me. For this blog, I'm going back to an earlier suggestion. 

 The women in my family are good cooks, at least all of the ones I've known personally and at whose table I've been fortunate to sit. When I began to think about the recipes I could include here, it occurred to me that none of the food I remember so well from my childhood have what most think of as a traditional recipe...words written down on a piece of paper or a note card. They were passed on as the younger generation stood at the elbow of the ones that came before them and watched. 

My mama's food was the first Southern cooking I can remember. She made white meal corn bread for supper almost every day with coarse ground corn meal and buttermilk. During the summer, she canned (later froze) vegetable soup using what was ripe and picked from our garden that day. Mixing and matching as the different crops ripened on their own schedules, no two batches were likely to be exactly the same in a season. The recipe started with a tomato base with corn, okra, black-eyed and purple hull peas, butter beans, green beans, cabbage, potatoes and any other odd vegetables thrown in as they were ready. During the canning years, everything was stirred together in large pans to heat and blanch, then poured into hot jars before going into the pressure canner. I remember distinctly the whistle of the pressure valve as it jiggled atop the canner, releasing steam so that we didn't all die in an explosion; a common childhood fear at the time.

Cornbread with beans

My maternal grandma Gladys will always be associated in my mind with crackling cornbread. In the years when I was a young child, the family would "butcher a hog" in the fall that had been fattened up over the spring and summer for this purpose. I vaguely remember my mama going over to help but don't recall being there myself. Cracklings are made from pork fat back or skin with the hair scraped off that has been thoroughly cooked to render the lard. Usually the pork was put in a black pot resembling a Halloween cauldron and cooked over an open fire outside. When the lard is strained the bits that remain are the cracklings. I didn't care much for the skin, but the smaller pieces that my grandma stirred into her cornbread and served along with a pork tenderloin roast were pretty tasty. 

My aunt, Myrtle Uptain Kilgore, sister of my paternal grandmother Delia Uptain Brewer, made "cat head" biscuits. At least, that's what I remember my daddy calling them. My siblings and I would sometimes spend a week or so with Aunt Myrt in the summers when we were out of school. Being something of a "lie-abed," I never actually saw her make them. They would simply be waiting for me when I finally got up, sitting on a plate next to a jar of Golden Eagle Syrup. If there wasn't syrup, there would be a mound of sugar with a pat of butter she had churned on the plate next to the biscuit, or maybe canned peaches. I've thought about Aunt Myrt's biscuits over the years. I think she must have made the dough but instead of rolling it out and using a round cutter, she pinched off pieces of dough and rolled it between her hands to form the biscuits. Maybe she put them in a round cake pan or a cast iron skillet, all touching, because they were more trapezoid shaped than round like we see today when they came out of the oven. 

I don't cook today like my ancestors did, though I still love cornbread (I haven't had cracklings in decades) and homemade vegetable soup. What I wouldn't give for a cat head biscuit!

My Mother Joyce

March is Women's History Month and my cousin, Sara Campbell (Remembering Those Who Came Before Us) challenged me to post 31 mini blogs about our female ancestors. Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist has compiled some prompts to make blogging about female ancestors a little easier.

March 5 — How did they meet? You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents?

My parents Joyce and Charles met and married in 1957. She was 20 and he was 24. I'm not exactly sure how they met, but I know they were both living in Birmingham at the time. Joyce graduated from Cullman High School in 1956. In her senior year book, her plans were to work as a telephone operator. She moved to Birmingham after graduation and went to work for Ma Bell.

Charles grew up in Jasper, Walker County, Alabama. He got into a wee bit o' trouble with the law when he was 17. As sometimes happened at that time, he was given the choice of the military or jail. He served in the Korean War. When he was discharged, he returned to Alabama. He was working as a mechanic for Hayes Aircraft when I was born and for several years afterwards.

They eloped to Tupelo, Lee County, Mississippi (I'm seeing a pattern here). My aunt Francis went along as the matron of honor and witness. The picture at the top of this blog is the two of them  in front of the church where they were married. Not being familiar with Tupelo, they drove around looking for a church where they might be able to persuade the minister to conduct the ceremony. They got lucky. The church custodian acted as the second witness.  

Gladys Girstle Guthery (1908-1984)

March is Women's History Month and my cousin, Sara Campbell (Remembering Those Who Came Before Us) challenged me to post 31 mini blogs about our female ancestors. Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist has compiled some prompts to make blogging about female ancestors a little easier.

March 4 — Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.

I'm a little behind on posting as I was out-of-town over the weekend but I plan to catch up. 

Marriage License for Juston and Gladys

My maternal grandparents, Gladys Guthery and Juston Eady eloped. The story I was told was that Gladys ran away from home and Juston's mother hid her in the smokehouse until Juston could make the arrangements for them to travel to Tennessee. They were married 23 Mar 1925 in Lawrence County, Tennessee. 

Juston was 20 years old and Gladys was a few months shy of her 17th birthday. Juston's cousin C.W. Methvin signed the bond with him and likely drove them from Cullman County, Alabama where they all lived, north the 100 miles or so to Lawrenceburg. 

They had 11 children -- 4 boys and 7 girls. All but two survived to adulthood.

Caroline Charity Luker Brewer Stutts (1850-1920)

March is Women's History Month and my cousin, Sara Campbell (Remembering Those Who Came Before Us) challenged me to post 31 mini blogs about our female ancestors. Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist has compiled some prompts to make blogging about female ancestors a little easier.

March 1 — Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.

  

When I became serious about genealogy 10 years or so ago, one of the first female ancestors I wanted to learn more about was Caroline Charity Luker. Caroline was my second great grandmother, wife of William “Bill” Brewer, in my direct paternal line. She first appears in the U.S. Census in 1850 as a 2-year-old living in the household of her parents Obidiah and Malinda Luker in District 1, Lawrence County, Tennessee. She is one of three children; William J., 7, and Mary E., 3, being the other two.

Caroline and William were married 2 Oct 1870 in Wayne County, Tennessee by Justice of the Peace Hollis. The first clue that something disastrous might have happened to them surfaced as I searched for their family in the 1880 census with no luck. As I dug more into Tennessee records hoping to find out what happened to them, I found a marriage record for Caroline Brewer and W.T. Stutts, married in Wayne County on 22 Jan 1877. If this Caroline was my ancestor, her marriage to William Brewer was short-lived.

Knowing that my Brewer ancestors eventually settled in Limestone County, Alabama, I widened my search for Caroline Stutts to include the states neighboring Tennessee. I found a Caroline and Thomas Stutts and three children living in Beat 3, Lauderdale County, Alabama in the 1880 census. Considering the ages of the children and she and Thomas’ marriage date, I found it likely that the two older children, boys named Millard and Henry, were the issue of William Brewer. I knew Millard Brewer was the name of my great grandfather, so that information seemed to match which helped me identify this couple and their children as my family.

But what happened to Caroline’s first husband, William Brewer? It took me a while but eventually I learned through a newspaper article from the 14 July 1874 edition of the Nashville Union and American that William was murdered, right in front of Caroline. According to the article, William and Caroline were returning to the house after working in the potato patch when they were confronted by James J. Bromley, their landlord. Bromley emptied both barrels of his shotgun, killing William instantly. Based on guardianship records for the family, I think Caroline was probably pregnant at the time of William’s death, though that child didn’t survive. Bromley fled the scene and was believed to have absconded to Arkansas.

Caroline did more than simply grieve for William, she sued the Bromley family for what we would now consider wrongful death. The lawsuit stretched out for years, but eventually she and the Bromley family settled. She received deed to a parcel of land that she sold which probably financed the family's move to Alabama.

Caroline died 24 March 1920 in Athens, Limestone County, Alabama. She was 70 years old, though the death certificate gives her age as 80; cause of death: cirrhosis of the liver. I wondered if Caroline dealt with the trauma of William’s death by drinking. She wouldn’t be the only person in my family to use alcohol to self-medicate. Her place of burial is given as Isoms Chapel on 24 March 1920 which is the same date as her death. I think it is not likely she was buried on the same day she died. I haven’t been able to connect the informant, George Miller, to Caroline, so I don’t know if he was a relative or a family friend. Tom Stutts is listed as her husband, but no other information about him is given.  

I visited Athens and Isoms Chapel Cemetery in 2013 and Caroline isn’t there. Her son Henry (1873-1908) is buried there, but there is no headstone for Caroline. I checked with church officials to see if she is in an unmarked grave but the church has no record of her being there at all. I would like to determine where Caroline is buried and whether she was estranged from her family when she died.

There is much I admire about Caroline. She watched her husband die of violence right in front of her, lost a child but picked up the pieces and sued the family she felt had wronged her and her sons. She married again and had other children, but I wonder if it all got the better of her in the end. 

Welcome to My Blog!

You may have arrived here by accident or you may have gotten here through a search engine. Regardless, I'm happy you're here. If you are curious about the title, it is based on a quote from George Bernard Shaw's Immaturity: "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."

Let me introduce myself. I'm Teresa Brewer Devine, an amateur genealogist and my family's historian. I've been researching my father's Brewer line and my mother's Eady line for several years. I've had some success. I've been accepted as a member into the United Daughters of the Confederacy based on the service of my paternal 2nd great-grandfather, John Augustus Travis Uptain. I've submitted an application to the Daughters of the American Revolution on the service of George Uptain, John AT's grandfather. I'm waiting (not very patiently!) to find out if I will be accepted.

Both sides of my family have been in Alabama for quite a few generations. My mother's Speegle and Lentz ancestors arrived before statehood in 1819. My father's ancestors arrived later, about 1840. Mostly, they settled in Cullman, Limestone and Walker counties. They came to Alabama by traveling from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, through the Carolinas, westward through Tennessee or southerly into Georgia before settling down in Alabama. I was born and grew up in Cullman County.

Many made their way to America from England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany, and I'm trying to track down an alleged "French Connection." The men supported their families by farming the land they received through land grants and outright purchases and, when called upon, the women did, too.

My family has served our country in most of its wars, from the Revolution up to and including Iraq and Afghanistan. Brother fought brother in the War Between the States.

This blog gives me an outlet to talk about my family,  the places that mattered to them, their experiences and lives. If any of the names or places I write about are familiar to you or you are curious about them, let me know.  I hope this also serves as "cousin bait."