Spring 2009 Issue of Itawamba Settlers Quarterly Nearing Completion

I have nearly finished the Spring 2009 issue of Itawamba Settlers quarterly magazine. I hope this issue proves to be interesting. Included in this edition are abstracts from Itawamba County Board of Police minutes from 1866, abstracts from 1911 editions of The Itawamba County News, a feature article about Itawamba County absentee landowner Dr. Stephen Duncan of Natchez, part two of slave data abstracts from early Itawamba County records, obituaries, a feature article about George Benich's War of 1812 pension and bounty land records, a biography of early Itawamba County clergyman Lee Compere, a missionary from England who came to the county from Jamaica and the Creek Nation in Georgia and Alabama, and much more devoted entirely to Itawamba County, Mississippi history and genealogy. The magazine should be printed within the next two weeks and mailed to the 2009 society membership and subscribing libraries during March.
 

Basketball Friends: 1923

Pictured are Itawamba Agricultural High School students James Marvin Ferguson (left) and Stoessle K. Cooper. This photograph was taken during 1923 on the school campus. Notice how the two young men wrote their initials and arrows on the basketball.
 

Hallways of Memories

Yesterday I attended a presentation by fellow society member Terry Thornton at the old Fulton Grammar School on South Cummings Street in Fulton. It had been years since I had walked the halls of my childhood school. A few years back the old abandoned school was restored. This is one building I am glad that has not been demolished. Lots of memories for thousands of people are in the halls of this old building. The creaky oiled wooden floors, classrooms with high ceilings and steam heat radiators and large windows are almost like they were from a different era and different time.The visit brought back childhood memories of shooting marbles, playing on the swings and see saws, that syrup-looking paper glue in the bottle with the rubber stopper, the Weekly Reader and morning walks to the cafeteria for a nickel box of chocolate milk.
 

An Operetta in Two Acts: 1924

On Monday evening, April 7, 1924, the students of Itawamba Agricultural High School presented Love Pirates of Hawaii (large resolution full program), an operetta in two acts published in 1918 by Otis M. Carrington. The operetta was held in the school's auditorium in the two-story school building.

Starring students Fannie Crouch, Eva Lou Fears, Fleeta Wiginton and Maurine Gaither, the operetta also featured Benford Raden, Henry Bourland and Alvis Grissom. The chorus of Hawaiian girls were Pansy Rutledge, Bernice Fikes, Ozella Houston, Mamie Birdsong, Oleta Addington, Utrinka Collum, Mabra Brook, Tula Brassfield, Rivers Christian, Eloise Birdsong, Beatrice Franks and Ruth Boren. The chorus of pirates included Stanley Sheffield, Rolen Cooper, Willie Davis, Stoessle Cooper, Guy Graham, Marvin Ferguson, and Theron Marlin.
 

Itawamba County, Mississippi Slave Data Published and Available Online

Located within many record groups in the county courthouse here in Mississippi are references to the slave inhabitants of the county spanning the years 1836 through 1865. These records documenting slaves are found within such record groups as warranty deeds, mortgages, deeds of trust, wills and probate records.

Over the past twenty-five years while researching these records, every time I came across a reference to slaves, I would copy the document and file it away. Over the years my file continued to grow and it was this year I finally decided to publish the information I had compiled over the years. The end result of this compiled research is the publication Itawamba County, Mississippi Slave Data - 1837-1864 (Adobe PDF file, approx. 500 kb). In this 47-page volume approximately 400 slave residents of Itawamba County, Mississippi are documented from such sources as old warranty deeds, gift deeds, property schedules, wills, trust deeds and probate records. Covering the years 1837 through 1864, this is not a complete documentation – only documentation of what I have found in researching the records of the county. The book is fully indexed by the slave’s given name and associated surnames. Also included in an appendix is a concise history of early Itawamba County, Mississippi I wrote several years ago.

I have decided to make this publication available online on my website and also through the local historical society’s website. The book is in Adobe PDF format which makes it easily searchable. Researching slave ancestry can be challenging for even the most experienced researcher as the records are found within various county documents, and it was for this reason I decided to make the publication available online. If this little volume helps but only one person with their family research, I will consider the project well worth the effort.
 

A Taste of Mardi Gras

This afternoon, Terry Thornton from over at Hill Country of Monroe County paid me a welcomed visit at my office, bringing me a beautiful and tasty King Cake, freshly prepared by his wife Betty. I must say the cake tasted every bit as good as it looked! What better treat is there than to get a fresh-baked King Cake the day before Mardi Gras?
 

Voices from the Past

Old family letters can provide a plethora of valuable information. These documents, simply put, are voices from the past. I’ve often wondered how those in the future will research the records we leave? Letter writing is practically a lost art in this day and age of computers. With lightening-fast correspondence via email, hardly anyone writes letters any more. And most of those emails are discarded after awhile.

Old letters need to be preserved and what better way to do this than to photograph and transcribe these voices from the past. Many years ago my elderly uncle Samuel Feemster Riley gave me an old family trunk. In this trunk were literally hundreds of old family letters. Reading these old letters is like enjoying a documentary of everyday life during a different age and time. Seventy-four of these old letters were written by my uncle and his brother during their military service during World War I. After reading these fascinating bits of correspondence I transcribed each and every one of the letters back during 2001. This collection covering the years 1917-1919 offer a rare glimpse into the lives of this family. This cumulative collection of letters tell the story of two young brothers going off to war, leaving their family farm in northeastern Mississippi, and how their absence affected their family. These letters produce the story of love, fear, homesickness, hope and challenge.

During 1918 my homesick uncle wrote home: “The bluebirds and field larks are singing. Just like plow time and you know it makes me homesick to see and hear that and still have to stay here.” Upon learning he may be sent to the battle front in Europe he wrote: “I want you all to be as reconciled as you can for this is a time when we all need our courage to go through these awful times… I am counting on coming back to home and friends, to spend the rest of my days a free man…” Amid the letters of fear and reconciliation are letters of hope. He wrote in another letter, “ This spring weather certainly makes me want to get between the plough and hope before this spring is over I can help finish the crop that is started.”

During May of 1918, he learned he was soon to leave his country headed for the battlefront in Europe. On this occasion he wrote his mother a personal note: “I know this is the hardest time of your life and I realize it is nature for us all to be grieved about parting but we must look at it in a brighter way. I know one thing and that is your prayers have been for me all these years of my life and especially since I have been in the army and I feel grateful to my Maker for having such a mother. I firmly believe that the One that does all things well will guide me through this safely. That I may return home again to be with my loved ones again.”

My young uncle and his brother enjoyed their family pets, consisting of cats and dogs. Merle wrote home inquiring about his dogs and cats: “Tell Wallace that I will reward him well for seeing after Little Barb, Little Lead and Big Lead and Snoop and Bobtail.”

Later he was being sent to Camp Mills on Long Island in New York. The young Mississippi farm boy who had never been away from home, wrote home about his train trip north and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time: “I will try to tell you a little about my trip. I sure did enjoy it. I never done as much waving in my life as I done on my way here. I waved my old hat, my handkerchief and hand and the people would wave at us just the same …. We woke up in New York hollowing and waving….. We went under the Brooklyn Bridge. I also saw the Statue of Liberty which I have read about but did not know that I would see it. If you could have seen me on the upper deck of that ship waving my old hat you would have thought I was very well satisfied..”

At the closing of the war my uncle wrote to the homefolks in Mississippi one last time, writing: “I will sure be proud to put my foot on good old U.S. soil once more and better still at home again.”

These seventy-four letters are more than just letters. This collection includes voices from the past – voices from another era and another time.

To view my transcriptions of these old family letters, visit Voices from the Past…