In 1918 and 1919 thirty-seven young women, friends and neighbors of my grandmother Fannie Mae Turner were members and guests of the Edelweiss Club in Montgomery, Alabama. These are snapshots from their lives, place and times.

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How many among the Edelweiss members and guests were married? Twenty-eight were married. Of these, five got divorced. Nine never married. Before I counted them up, I thought there would be more who never married. Here are some of the marriage announcements from local newspapers. There seven weddings mentioned below.

They moved to Chicago and remained together. They had no children.

This marriage ended in divorce after several years. He went back to Texas and married someone else. She remained single and described herself as a widow on future censuses.

This couple moved to Chicago. They had two sons. Both of the couple died young. She died of TB and he died several years later.

My grandparents stayed together. They had four children. Both sons died in childhood.

They remained together, relocated to Detroit and had five daughters.

This surprise marriage ended in separation and divorce. She went to Montgomery to teach and then to Detroit, where she died young. He remained on his farm. Messalaine is “a soft lightweight silk dress fabric with a satin weave”.

They lived in New York City and had four children. Unfortunately Dr. Vincent died young and left Naomi a well provided for widow.

At last! A description of the food served! More about planked mackeral here https://us.gozney.com/blogs/recipes/cedar-plank-mackerel-recipe

In 1918 and 1919 thirty-seven young women, friends and neighbors of my grandmother Fannie Mae Turner were members of the Edelweiss Club in Montgomery, Alabama. These are snapshots from their lives, place and times.

Effie May Todd was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1893. She was the fourth of the five children of Frank and Mattie (Coleman) Todd. Although her parents had been born into slavery, both were literate by 1900. All of the children attended school.

In 1902 Effie’s father left his job as a janitor at the Capital and became a mailman, riding out into the rural areas of Montgomery County to deliver mail.

Effie graduated from State Normal high school in 1907. The following year her mother Mattie died. Effie was 14. Two years later, in 1910, The oldest brother, Henry was married and in his own home. Beatrice and Annie, were both teaching. Effie and Frank were both attending school. The house was paid for without a mortgage.

Frank Todd died in 1913.

Effie started teaching in 1914 and taught at Booker T. Washington until she married Arthur Chisholm in 1919 and they moved to Detroit. Effie’s niece Cozette moved with them.

Time for another luncheon suggestion. Today I needed a “Q”. Quince came to mind immediately. I searched for it on Newspapers.com for Montgomery and voila, several recipes appeared. There was one for pie and several for jellies but I thought the quince honey on rolls sounds quite delicious. They give a complete luncheon menu. I’m not sure if It would have been served at an Edelweiss meeting, but it might have been. A surprise for me, as I went googling quince is that I have a quince bush in my yard. I don’t think it bears fruit, but I’ll have to go check. It does have lovely red blooms in the late winter.

There is a bit of room left so I will give you the outline of Effie Todd Chisholm’s life. She remained in Detroit for the rest of her life. Eventually she divorced her husband. She and Mary Monroe shared a home on Scotten Ave., right down the street from my Cleage family until her death from pneumonia in 1939 at 46. She didn’t have any children, although she raised her niece until she died of tuberculous at 17. She taught and was active in several clubs.

In 1918 and 1919 thirty-seven young women, friends and neighbors of my grandmother Fannie Mae Turner were members of the Edelweiss Club in Montgomery, Alabama. These are snapshots from their lives, place and times.

I first “met” Ophelia Peterson in the Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery. My daughter Ife and I were walking around looking for my uncle Victor Tulane’s grave. We went by it several times but missed it because there was an upright gravestone saying “Ophelia M. Peterson” so we passed by without looking at the flat, cement slab, which was the grave we were looking for. I had no idea who she was until I began to investigate the Edelweiss Club.

Ophelia Mamie Peterson was born in 1871, although it says 1899 on her grave stone. In each census, her birth date dropped a few years. In 1880 it was 1871, by 1950 it was 1895. She was 93 when she died.

Back to the beginning. Ophelia was born in Tuskegee, Macon County Alabama. In 1880 she lived with her mother Harriet Cumming and younger brother, Egbert Peterson. She was nine years old and attending school. Her mother was a cook.

Ophelia was active in the local Colored Temperance Society. She graduated with the 12th class of Tuskegee Normal School in 1893. She and her mother moved to Montgomery where Ophelia taught school until 1908. After that she worked as a sick nurse, going to people’s homes to care for them during serious illnesses.

Ophelia was very involved in her community. She was a frequent guest at the Edelweiss Club and hosted Mary Church Terrell when she was in town to do war work among the African American troops at Camp Sheridan. As a member of The Tuskegee Club she hosted several meetings. She owned her home free of mortgage.

In 1964 Ophelia Peterson died at home. She was 93 years old. I could not find the relationship between Ophelia and the two survivors mentioned in her obituary. She never married and had no children. Her mother and siblings were dead. Perhaps they were cousins.

In 1918 and 1919 thirty-seven young women, friends and neighbors of my grandmother Fannie Mae Turner were members of the Edelweiss Club in Montgomery, Alabama. These are snapshots from their lives, place and times.

Gabriella Snow Kelly was not a member of the Edelweiss Club. Her younger sister Alice Snow was. Both were teachers. Gabriella Kelly is here because I needed a “K” . I did a bit of research on her and decided to share it in the research form, along with her obituary which gives us an overview of her life.

Research for Gabriella Snow Kelly

I found that the Mrs. Kelly whose husband, James Henry Kelly, died in Detroit in 1918 and mentioned by my grandfather Mershell in his letter of proposal to my grandmother Fannie Turner, was Gabriella Snow, club member Alice Snow’s older sister. She had married several years earlier and she and her husband relocated to Detroit.  According to his death certificate, her husband died of a syphilitic heart attack, probably sudden and certainly fatal. His wife took his body back to Montgomery for burial and never re-married. She taught and died many years later and is buried with him in Oakwood Cemetery.

I also spent quite a bit of time trying to find their house, which, according to the census records, was at 128 Morgan Avenue. I found a Morgan St. way over west along the railroad tracks. And also found a Morgan Avenue in a modern map, where Amanda is located on the 1910 Montgomery map.  I surmise that the family lived to the west of the Centennial Community, in the West Montgomery African Community.  

Ah ha! I just found the family in the 1910 census and they are living at 128 Amanda! So they do live right near to Edgar Spiegnar, a couple of blocks from Lowndes Adams family home. (These were both friends of my grandfather) I thought she was the most westerly member until I found Jessie Lee Freeman living several block further west, a few blocks East of my grandfather Mershell’s good friend Lowndes Adam’s family home.

A woman named “Alice Larkins” first appears in the 1850 census as an infant, along with her mother “Mary Larkins” and siblings.  Alice Snow was named after her mother, Alice Larkins. If this is the Alice Larkins who was Alice Snow’s mother, that would make her another descendant of a free-before-the-Civil-war woman.   Alice Snow’s father, Abram Snow, was a carpenter. He died in 1909 at the age of 64.