Thursday, January 30, 2014

Mother of the Oldest Grandchild


How many families have siblings who race to see who will give their parents the first grandchild?

I don’t know if that was the case for Will and Cassie Davis’ daughters—their lone son, the baby of the family, was out of the running from the start—but from my vantage point, ’way on the far side of the finish line, I can see the oldest daughter did not win the First Grandchild prize.

The oldest Davis daughter, Lummie, as we’ve already seen, had her sights set on world travel and adventure. Perhaps because she was career-minded, even in such an era as the turn of the last century, she didn’t have her first—and only—child until she was forty years of age.

Though Chevis, whom we’ve just finished discussing, was seven years younger than Lummie, she had her first child a full fifteen years before Lummie’s daughter was born.

But that wasn’t the eldest Davis grandchild.

The daughter who presented Will and Cassie with their first grandchild was their second-born daughter, Mabel.

The youngest of the Davis girls to have married, Mabel made that commitment at the age of eighteen. Her beau was a civil engineer from the state of Virginia named LeRoy Okeson Hines. According to Tennessee State records—and, of course, the Davis family Bible—the two exchanged their vows on October 28, 1906.

A little over a year later, on November 17, 1907, Stella Mabel Hines heralded the start of a new generation for the Davis family of Erwin, Tennessee—nearly seven and a half years before the arrival of the next grandchild.

Much as I had first found out about my grand-aunt Chevis, I first knew these details about Mabel and her husband and daughter from the Davis family Bible. Once again, just as had happened when I asked about Chevis, my family was at a loss as to how to explain what happened to Mabel’s husband—and even her daughter.

The only difference in this case was that I did get to meet Aunt Mabel, myself. Although she morphed into that fuzzy stuff that childhood memories are made of, at least she had a place in the panorama of recollections I had of family members from long ago. I can remember her face, and remember those few visits she had made to our home, from my youngest years.

It feels very different to be able to write about a family member I have actually “known”—though what can a child of that age really know about life? After years of research, trying to find what became of her fractured family, I find I really knew very little about even this relative whom I had actually met.

6 comments:

  1. It seems like Leroy ended up in Arlington National Cemetery. He was an civil engineer in an army unit.

    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=49204576

    Perhaps your birth date for him is slightly off?

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    1. Yes, LeRoy was buried at Arlington. That's part of the story that doesn't seem to match what I'd heard from family--another caution to watch out for taking all family stories at face value.

      If the birth date is off, I'd be most likely to suspect Cassie's sometimes-amiss record keeping--but in this case, it may have more to do with some confusing reporting on other military paperwork, leading to an error in transcription at Find a Grave. I believe the 1882 date is the correct one. Iggy, I believe you can view his paperwork for burial via Ancestry.com, and you'll see what I mean. I would have been confused, too :)

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  2. Sometimes connections are lost through the generations. You can only do your best to put the story together:)

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    1. That may be so, Far Side, but I am loving what I am finding in my aunt's papers about her aunt, now that I have these items. It's interesting to see what relatives decide to keep about their relatives!

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  3. Hi Jackie, I am Marsha Chitwood and am the granddaughter of Mary Chevis Davis Chitwood. H. M. Chitwood was my father. Chevis was the younger of the three daughters. I can fill in quite a lot of this story.

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    1. Hi, Marsha! Thanks so much for reaching out. I do remember my mother telling me stories of Aunt Chevis and would love to hear more, so I'm glad we are making the connection. You can always connect with me via email, which address starts the same as the name of this blog: afamilytapestry (at) gmail (dot) com.

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