An update to the Notable Relations section about my direct ancestor William Hunter Cavendish and the part he played in establishing government in what would become West Virginia.
Tag: greenbrier county wv
Matriarch Monday
Monday is all about honoring female ancestors who showed strength and perseverance in the face of adversity. Today’s Matriarch is my maternal Great Grandmother Lucy Bell Brown.
Early Years
Lucy was born on Feb 6, 1897 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia to James C. Brown and Laura Hanshew. She was the 3rd of 4 children. When Lucy was young her parents divorced. Records are scarce on Lucy’s childhood but family stories indicate she was “adopted” out to a couple to be raised after her parents separated.
Lucy found love with a man named Archie Jamison. The couple married in 1914 in Nicholas County, West Virginia. Four children, Steward, Orelo, Archie, and Juanita, were born to the couple between 1915 and 1921. The 1920 census shows the family living in Richwood, Nicholas County, West Virginia and Archie is reported as being a cook in a restaurant.
During August of 1921 the town of Richwood experienced a massive fire which destroyed blocks of the town. According to accounts of the event it appears the fire stopped blocks from where the young family of six lived during the period.
September 1, 1923 tragedy struck when Archie Sr. was killed after being hit by a train. Lucy was left a young widow with 4 young children.
A Second Chance at Love
In 1926 Lucy wed for the second time to Dallas Finley Shuck in Nicholas County, West Virginia. Over the next decade the couple would have 6 children, Dallas, Mary, Elden, Wilson, Laura, and Jeannetta, bringing their family to size to 12. Her husband, known as Finley, supported the family working in the coal mines.
Duty Calls Her Sons to War
Adversity was not behind her as Lucy settled into her life as a coal miner’s wife. Life was a daily struggle in the poverty stricken mining communities. Even opportunity was a double edged sword when three of her sons enlisted in the military and all three were sent to the Korean War at the same time.
Lost in the Woods
At some point Lucy began to develop dementia. I can only wonder if its onset helped lead to one occasion where Lucy became the star of the local news. She was 78 years old when while out squirrel hunting with her husband she became lost in the woods in October of 1975. Rescue parties were formed, and searchers looked for her all night long before she was found the next morning. Apparently, between her faithful hounds and trusty shotgun she was unfazed by her ordeal and planned to continue hunting. Lucy yet again faced adversity and somehow managed to handle a situation that would have devastated a lesser person.
Lucy and Finley celebrated over 55 years of marriage before Finley passed. They had buried 3 children by his death in 1982. By the time he passed she was suffering pretty heavily with dementia.
1984 saw the death of another of Lucy’s children when Steward died.
I have hazy personal memories of when Uncle Steward died. As was still the custom in that area at the time, they had the funeral at home. A downstairs room was used to set up the body and afterwards it would be buried in the family cemetery across the road.
I don’t know if Lucy was ever truly aware of the fact that it was her son they had set up in the parlor. I remember conversations of her being upset telling people to get the body out of the parlor before Finley got home from work. Finley was two years dead and that body was her son. Perhaps dementia was fates way of sparing her even more grief in life.
Final Years
Lucy lived out the final years of her life in the house of her daughter, Mary, in the same little area known as Hell’s Half Acre where she had lived a majority of her life. She died in 1989. Her funeral was held in the White Oak Methodist Church on the same road she had lived and she is buried in the P.A. Shuck Cemetery next to Finley.
Matriarch Monday
If fathers are the foundation on which a family is built then it’s the mothers that are the backbone which keep it standing. History is full of strong matriarchs who kept the home fires burning through adversity and hardships. Though they are frequently lost to history, matriarchs play a huge part in any families’ heritage.
Virginia Osborn, also known as Jennie, or Mother Brown late in life, was likely born on Oct 15, 1839 in what was at the time Greenbrier County, Virginia[1]
Jennie Osborn is pictured here, sitting in the middle wearing black, surrounded by some of her female descendants
.
Jennie grew up in a time of turmoil for the young American county, and Greenbrier County sits on the dividing line between southern sympathizers who felt compassion for the southern cause and northern unionist who felt loyalty to the fledgling country.
The year of 1860 found young Jennie married to a man by the name of David Fox[2] but the union was not one fated to stand the test of time
War broke out in the United States in 1861. Virginia was a state of divided loyalties which led to the formation of West Virginia in 1863. Greenbrier became part of the new state but many of its native sons felt the call to join their southern brothers and quickly joined the Confederate forces.
David Fox marched off to war[3], leaving a young bride and child behind. David Fox was ultimately taken prisoner and held at Johnson’s Island before being returned to the south in a prisoner exchange. After being returned to the south he was sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi where he died on Dec. 31, 1862[4].
Jennie Osborn Fox was left a widow with a young child to care for in an area that was still in the midst of a bloody civil war. Jennie did what many women of her day did under her circumstances, she remarried. As luck would have it Tinsley Brown was a neighbor man nearly twice her age that had also recently lost his spouse and was trying to raise kids on his own. Tinsley Brown and Jennie Fox married on Mar 3, 1864.[5]
Life would once again throw a curve ball at Jennie only 18 year later when once again she was left a widow when Tinsley died on May 26, 1882.[6] The couple had 9 children in their blended family; the youngest was only 2 when his father died.
Jennie was 42 the second time she found herself a widow. Tinsley left her with a farm and she continued to live on and work the land he left her as she raised her family. She never remarried and continued farming while raising her children, and later several grandchildren until she was in her nineties.
According to Jennie’s obituary she was 105 when she died on Jan 31, 1937.[7] Historic documents place her age more accurately at 97 at the time of her death.
During her life Jennie had a lot of amazing and adverse times.
- She buried 2 husbands (Confederate Widow)
- She buried 3 children (mother to 9 all who survived to adulthood)
- Lived in the middle of a war torn region (Lived during the Civil War and WWI)
- Witnessed the rise and fall of the Confederacy
- Celebrated the creation of a new state
- Experienced the marvel of the creation of things such as the automobile and electricity
- Lived through southern reconstruction and the great depression
Virginia Jane “Jennie” Osborn Fox Brown was my Great-great-great grandmother.
[1] (Ancestry.com, US Federal Census Year: 1850; Census Place: District 18, Greenbrier, Virginia; Roll: M432_947; Page: 311B; Image: 309 , 2009)
[2] (Ancestry.com, West Virginia, Marriages Index, 1785-1971, 2011)
[3] (Ancestry.com, U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865, 2011)
[4] (Findagrave.com, 2006 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13180392&ref=acom)
[5] (Ancestry.com, Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp. Virginia Marriages, 1851-1929 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. )
[6] (Ancestry.com. West Virginia, Deaths Index, 1853-1973 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:”West Virginia Deaths, 1853–1970.” Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah. From originals housed in county courthouses throughout West Virginia. “Death Records.”2011)
[7] (Ancestry.com. West Virginia, Deaths Index, 1853-1973 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:”West Virginia Deaths, 1853–1970.” Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah. From originals housed in county courthouses throughout West Virginia. “Death Records.”2011)
Dusty Roots & Forgotten Treasures 