For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
My grandmother Pearl’s older brother, Hugh Marion Reed was born April 23, 1876, in Lebanon, Marion County, Kentucky. His family moved to Indianapolis and he grew up there. His later years were spent in Los Angeles, California.
His older siblings George and Sarah were in Indianapolis by 1887. His mother, Anna, and the rest of the family were there by 1892. That would make Hugh between 11 and 16 when he moved to Indiana.He finished the eighth grade and worked as a laborer for several years before enlisting in the US Army at age 22. He was discharged on November 13, 1898 in Willets Pointe, Queens, New York and joined the US Navy a month later. He worked as a Coal Passer on the USS Newark. The Newark saw action in South America and Asia. In 1900, Hugh was in China. He left the Navy the following year in Boston, Massachusetts. He returned to Indianapolis, Indiana and resumed life as a civilian.
In 1906 he married Blanche Celeste Young. The occupation listed on the marriage license was janitor. Their oldest daughter Anna Roberta was born in 1907. Hugh junior was born in 1910. Theresa Pearl was born in 1913 and Thomas Perry, the youngest, was born in 1916.
I could not find a death record for him or any member of his family. Then, I got a phone call from my cousin’s husband Eric, (a fellow researcher and a very good one!). He told me to check my messages on Ancestry.com and waited while I did. Now, he never calls so I knew this had to be big. It was. He had found Hugh’s death record and the reason we couldn’t find him. Hugh’s name on the death record was listed as Hugh Reed Averette. The family had moved to California, changed their name and decided to fade into the white population by “passing”. Averit was the last name of Hugh, Minnie, Clarence and my grandmother Pearl’s birth father – Buford Averit, a doctor with an office in nearby Bradfordsville Kentucky. As far as I know they never shared a house and there are no family stories that he supported his children or made life easier for Anna. In fact, I know nothing about the nature of their relationship except that they had 4 children together. Hugh was the first of the children. There are no contemporary records that prove this relationship, but DNA matches between me and descendants of Buford’s siblings provide proof in addition to family memories.
Hugh Reed Averette died on November 13, 1951.
More About Hugh
Hugh Marion Reed Averette – Navy Experience
Oct. 29, 1905 – A Walk Into the Country, A New Aqueduct And A New Post Office
Must be nice to learn so much about your family in pictures.
I don’t know that I learn so much through the photos, but it’s nice to have the photos when I do learn the stories and facts.
wow! so many of the questions i had were answered as i kept reading ~ like what Hugh did when he left the armed forces. & very interesting about them moving to california and passing as white ~ do know if anyone else in our family attempted to pass?
Yes, One of my grandmother’s nephews passed for white. I do get emails from the descendants when they start doing genealogy research and run into information they didn’t expect in census records. I am always happy to share information and everyone except one, has been open to the new information. Which is hard to deny when family photos match and DNA matches and also indicates African ancestry. Those who attempted succeeded as shown by their descendants having no clue.
Hugh was well-traveled for the late 19th century! I’m fascinated by the passing story. I’m glad that you and your cousin’s husband finally tracked this family down.
Many of my ancestors were from Indiana. The death records seem very complete there. It would have startled me to no find them for an entire family.
It wasn’t a surprise that we couldn’t find any of them there since they moved to California and changed their surname!
My whole family was moving around both sides of 1900. I’m so glad he tracked Hugh down!
How interesting to consider the family members who passed for white to be accepted easier for jobs, education and other opportunities in our skewed culture of America! I’ve learned a phrase which is hard for me to use when considering all the slave holding ancestors of mine, “to venerate them” – though of course they caused so much suffering of so many black people. I can’t forgive them, but can honor that their existence had some meaning that was more positive than slavery, and know that I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them.
I wouldn’t be here if is wasn’t for some other slave holders, but I don’t honor them. They didn’t honor the women they enslaved and who bore their children nor take responsibility for those children who they held in slavery. In Buford Averitts case, it was after slavery.
Sometimes those who passed actually did not do better than those that didn’t. So many things are involved in family dynamics. Thinking of the cases I know of, they definitely did not do better. But people do what they think they need to do.
I continue to be amazed at everything you have learned about your ancestors. It’s sad to contemplate what happened to family relationships when one member of the family decided to pass for white. Did your grandmother have a relationship with her brother later in life? Would she have talked about it if she had?
Without DNA records, how could one ever find someone who had chaged their name as Hugh did?
My grandmother was in Detroit and Hugh was in California. Everyone seemed to know he was in California and probably knew or suspected he was passing. I don’t know if they exchanged letters. I haven’t found any.
We didn’t find them through DNA. Even with the name change, he was using ‘Reed’ as his middle name, so searching for Hugh Reed turned him up in death records with Averette as his last name. Then it was a process of going back through records in California and finding Blanche and the children.
The DNA helps prove relationship between the various branches of the family. Not just those that passed, but other lines that drifted apart and as descendants we no longer know each other.