Category Archives: Allen

A Transcribed Interview with Stella Brown McCall – Part 1

African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, Allen, Biography, memories, Montgomery Alabama, One Place Study,
Margaret McCall Thomas Ward

This is partial transcription of a very long interview that my cousin Margaret McCall made with her Aunt Stella Brown McCall in 1986. Margaret was Mary McCall’s granddaughter. Mary McCall was Eliza Williams Allen and Milton Saffold’s daughter. Stella Brown McCall was married to Margaret’s father’s brother. Margaret’s father was James McCall and his brother was Roscoe McCall. Louise was Stella and Roscoe’s daughter. Joe was Margaret and Stella’s cousin.

Part 1

Margaret: I’m doing family history now and I’m on the McCall side. And I want to learn as much as I can because there are some gaps in things that I have been able to find.
Stella: Well, I don’t know too much about the…
Louise: She doesn’t know about the McCall side because she’s given me all the memories of her side. I have all those you know…
Margaret: On the Brown side?
Stella: Yes.
Louise: Oh yes.
Margaret: But it’s the McCall side I’m interested in.
Louise: Mother you can tell her one thing I remember you told me about the McCall side, you told me that Daddy, that Daddy’s father was a jailor
Stella: He worked at the jail, the Montgomery jail down in Montgomery.
Louise: and they used to have him…he was the whipper and, you know, he was supposed to whip the prisoners, you know the black prisoners. And he would pretend that he was whipping them and you know, make them yell and he would make the whip sound. Isn’t that interesting? I can just picture that.
Stella: Well he had to pose to keep from whipping the prisoners.
Louise: Oh and mother you can also tell her about how Daddy was getting that man out of Montgomery for looking at the white girl. And then they were going to hang him and Daddy had to take him out on that lonely road and get him out of town. And …
Stella: they got stopped on the road.
Louise: The police, the posse, don’t they call it a posse? Or whatever.
Stella: Yes.
Louise: came after him and then when they shined the light on Daddy. They were in a field and they saw that it was Mr., your grandfather McCall’s son and they said “Oh Rossie…”
Stella: Because his father, not cutting you off, Ross’s own, father had worked at the jail and had charge of the colored prisoners. They would have him punish the colored prisoners and he never punished not one. Because he could do it like he wanted to do it. He just posed… Had a whipping place and made the noise like he was whipping them but he didn’t touch a one of them.
Margaret: So this incident of Uncle Ross in the field, what happened?
Stella: They stopped him, right at that field.
Louise: No mother, start with how they were standing outside the drugstore… he and that other one, that Watkins boy and the white girl came by and she told her boyfriend that they had, that this Watkins fellow had winked at her and that started a riot in the city.
Stella: Winked at her.
Margaret: Is that right?
Stella: A riot.
Margaret: Well, how did Uncle Ross get him out of the city?
Stella: Out of the city?
Margaret: You said that they were in the field and the police came and said…
Stella: Now all before this started, Ross had a friend out in the country. This man was a good friend of his and they would go hunting out there. And that’s why he knew the man… his name… I can’t think of his name… what was his name…anyway, well he had a home down in the country and he would go down there every summer you know, just take a week off and hunt and…
Louise: A good place to hide out.
Stella: To hide out. Yes.
Margaret: That’s all?
Stella: And there was a railroad train coming out of Montgomery going on to Atlanta and Ross got this man out of Montgomery and had this porter on this train to stop at this little station down there in the country and nobody would ever think a train would stop there and he stopped just like he got him to do and he put this man on this train in the back and had a place for him to stay and stay shut up and he did that until he got to Atlanta and he was safe.
Margaret: And did he stay in Atlanta or did he leave Atlanta?
Stella: Oh he left Atlanta. We didn’t hear any more of him. But Ross saved his life! They were going to lynch him uh huh, oh yes. Ross had some narrow escapes in that time.
Margaret: He did?
Stella:Yes, because you see this one was taking him for that and that one was taking him for this and it was terrible.

Stella McCall and Roscoe Jr.

Margaret: Now tell me, you and Uncle Roscoe married in Montgomery?
Stella: Montgomery, yes I married in Montgomery,
Margaret: Where did Uncle Roscoe go to school?
Stella: At State Normal School in Montgomery. And he went to the senior class and some girl got him in trouble and he had to jump out and go and that’s why he didn’t get his papers, you know.
Margaret: How did she get him in trouble?
Stella: Well she was… I guess something was wrong with her…. pregnant. That’s why he had to leave Montgomery. He left Montgomery.
Margaret: And where did he go?
Stella: Where did he go? New York.
Louise: Who are you talking about Daddy?
Stella: And then later he came on down.
Louise: Married you.
Stella: yes came back. Stayed away a long time though. I didn’t hardly…I was his little sister’s dearest friend and I didn’t know anything about him. Nothing. I’d heard of him because he was my brother, he was the age of my oldest brother Scott.
Joe: Was Jeanette your friend?
Louise: Um hum. Jeanette was your friend.
Stella: Jeanette was my best friend all the way from the first grade. And I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know there was a brother because he was away. Finished the senior class and everything and gone. Got in trouble and gone.
Margaret: Where did you go to school?
Stella: Same place he did – State.
Margaret: You went to State?
Stella: Yes, same thing. Same school but many years later, you know.
Margaret: Afterwards.
Stella: Now I was Jeanette, his sister’s age, his baby sister. And I didn’t know anything about him (laughs) he came on the scene later. And we were swept away (laughs again. He’d come to the house everyday..
Margaret: Uncle Ross would come to the house everyday, uh?
Stella: Everyday. Every evening. I can see him coming now.(laughs) Well, and that went on so far and we decided to marry.
Margaret: How did you happen to leave Montgomery?
Stella: Oh people were leaving Montgomery like mad at that time.
Margaret: Why?
Stella: There was kind of a thing going then, getting out of the South. That’s when all this uproar started down there. Started changing schools and everything and getting the different things in order for the blacks to go to one school and the whites to another school and they had to fight that and different things and it made an uproar in the city. And then many many of the… all the important families in the city just packed up and said they were going to leave the city and that’s what was happening.

Roscoe McCall holding Roscoe Jr & Louise. Detroit 1921.

Margaret: When you were going to school, where did you go before Normal?
Stella: One school for me. One school for him. Same school.
Margaret: What was that?
Stella: State.
Margaret: No, but before State Normal for your early education where did you go?
Stella: The only education they had from the cradle to the top floor.
Margaret: Oh, State went all the way.
Stella: Yes, they had buildings on the big grounds and the grammar school buildings were around on the circle ad then the juniors and then the seniors.
Margaret: Now was it integrated then or was it all black or…
Stella: All Black
Margaret:All Black
Stella: All black.
Margaret: Okay, what about the teachers. Who were the teachers?
Stella: White. They started off with all white. Now I remember when I was down in the grades there was one teacher that they had kept, teacher name of Mrs. Foster and she was an excellent first grade teacher. And they kept her. But then later on they started putting the white people in and they’d keep them in, then they’d kick about it and then had to give them recognition you know and finally they got the school like they wanted it and then they… it was a black school. Had it turned black, see, but in the beginning it had all white teachers. Yes because when Ross was there now he graduated, well I’d say, a good eight or ten years before I was in there and he had a teacher that I remember a Mrs. Stuart. She had been teaching there from the beginning and she was there until the end. She was from up North. They brought those teachers down from the north. That’s the way they did. The whole school was white but then finally turned right back because they were fighting it so. They wanted colored teachers in there.
Margaret: Who are they who were fighting?
Stella: The people.
Margaret: The black people?
Stella: Yes, that’s who fought. They had… I can remember the teachers, they were crazy about Ross. He was always such a good friend to them. (laugh) Getting in with everybody. He always was on the good side. Yes, Ross was a sight.
Joe: You remember…one day…he was the first one I ever did see ride a motorcycle.
Louise: That’s right. You know everything.
Stella: Nobody had a motorcycle in the city but Ross.
Louise: You remember that?
Joe: First time I ever remember seeing him.
Margaret: Where was this, Montgomery. He had a motorcycle?

Stella: He used to ride that motorcycle out to my house everyday and ride it back downtown to the drugstore where he was working. They had opened up a drugstore.
Margaret: Who had opened up a drugstore?
Stella:Mr. Tulane, his uncle and they all were working in it It was a nice big, good business and everybody would be so congenial and everything when you would go in. You remember the drugstore? You used to hang out around the drugstore every Sunday. You could find anybody you wanted at the drugstore (laughs) when you’d court.

Backyard Photos – Theodore St. Detroit, Michigan

Allen, Grahams

While going through my grandmother’s photographs awhile ago I noticed that they had photos of people lined up in the backyard.  When I looked closer I found some of the relatives I had not realized we had pictures of.  One lingering question is why was cousin Alphonso the only relative I met?

"theodore backyard"
May 1940. My grandparents, Mershell and Fannie Graham, with unidentified visitors.

"theodore backyard alphonso"
Summer 1960

Left to right:  Abbie Allen Brown, Mershell Graham (my grandfather), Alphonso Brown(Abbie’s son), me, Doris Graham Cleage (my mother)  Back – Fannie (my grandmother)  Henry Cleage (my uncle & step-father).  Abbie was my 2 x great aunt and Dock & Eliza’s daughter.

"theodore backyard roscoe and stella"
“Stella + Ros 1960 Our back yard. On visit from Chicago.”

Left to right: Roscoe, Fannie, Stella, Abbie. Roscoe McCall was Mary Allen McCall’s son. Stella was his wife. Mary was Eliza’s daughter.

"theodore backyard bobbie visits"
 “Right to left:  Bobbie, unintelligible name, Mrs. Bishop, Daisy, Fan, Alice, Abbie.  Taken by John Wesley Allen.  Our back yard.  9-21-61.  Daisy passed 11 – 24-61.  Her last picture.”

John Wesley Allen was Ransom Allen’s son.  Ransom was Eliza and Dock’s son.  Abbie was Dock and Eliza’s daughter.  Alice was my grandmother Fannie’s youngest sister.  Daisy was my grandmother’s sister. Bobbie was John’s wife.

"theodore backyard Rance and Bobbie Allen visit."
Same day as above with John Wesley Allen on the right.

"Theodore backyard Ruth Pope visits from Chicago. 1963."
“Alice , Abbie , Ruth , Mother, Daddy. Ruth Pope age 15”

Ruth is Beulah Allen Pope’s granddaughter and Robert Pope’s daughter. Abbie and Beulah were Dock and Eliza’s daughters.  Robert Pope, Fannie and Alice were Dock & Eliza’s grandchildren. Ruth is Eliza’s great granddaughter.  August 1963.

Dock Allen’s Story

Allen, Biography,

Dock Allen’s Story
As told to me in a phone conversation with my cousin Jacqui Vincent

Dock Allen was a white man’s son but not the one he ran away from.  His owner was a mean man who kept vicious dogs so that the slaves would be afraid to run.  Dock decided he was going to escape anyway but he did some things to throw the dogs off of his track. He walked through a wet field of wild ramps. He rubbed himself with them, poured the water on himself and practically rolled around in the field so the onion smell would hide his own.

Further along he came to a farm.  By that time he was very tired so he climbed up into the hay loft and covered himself with hay.  The tracking dogs came and he could feel their breath as they walked over him, but they didn’t find him because of the onion odor.  Eventually they left.

This was the same place where Eliza lived.  Later he decided to give himself up and the white people at the house send a message his master.  When he came to get Dock he said that no one had ever out smarted his dogs and that any man who was smart enough to do that deserved to be free and he freed him.  Dock stayed on that place and married Eliza.

Doc Allen in the record.

I found Dock Allen in in the 1867 voter registration database living in Montgomery, AL.  He appears with his family in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 census in Montgomery.  According to the records he was a carpenter born in Georgia.  He owned his own home.  In the 1900 census he and Eliza had been married 40 years which puts the beginning around 1860.

I have three addresses for him, 237 Clay street, 216 Holt street and finally 444 S. Ripley street where he lived for the five years before he died March 29, 1909 of “inflammatory bowels” after being ill for several weeks.  His mother is listed as Matilda Brewster on his death certificate.  No father is listed. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery.

I would like to find information about a runaway matching his description in the Dallas/Lowndes county area around 1860.  Probably that will have to wait until I am able to go to Alabama and do some research there.

Eliza and the people in her life – A Chart

Allen, Biography, Eliza, ,

Before I continue with the story of Eliza’s husband, Dock Allen and the rest of her children, I thought that a chart might make the story more understandable.

Eliza is in the largest photo towards the center of the chart.  Her mother is Annie Williams.  Both were enslaved by Edmund and Jane Harrison of Lowndes and Montgomery Alabama.  Later, I hypothesize, Eliza went with the Harrison’s daughter, Martha when she was married to Milton Saffold.  Milton and Martha (she and her children are in the violet boxes) had three sons and then Martha died.  Eliza had a daughter, Mary with Milton.  Later Milton married Georgia Whitting (She and her sons are in the green boxes).  Oral history says that Eliza and Mary were freed soon after this.  Eliza later married Dock Allen, a free man and a carpenter.  They had 8 children that survived to adulthood (blue boxes).  Around 1874 Milton Saffold had a relationship with Clara Bolten (peach boxes) and they had two children together.  Clara had a third daughter with an Irwin.  Milton Saffold went to California and died there in 1879.

Anna’s Last Card

Allen,

Anna was born in 1869, Eliza’s third daughter and her second one with Dock Allen.  In the 1870 census Anna is listed as one year old.  In the 1880 census she is listed as eleven years old and at school.  By the 1900 census she was no longer living at home and according to oral history had moved to Chicago where she passed for white, got a job as a bank teller and eventually married the bank manager, a widower with children.  The last postcard she sent to my grandmother, Fannie, was sent January, 17, 1945.  She was 76 years old.  I found this card in my grandmother’s well used and well worn Bible along with swatches of hair, church cards and inspirational verses clipped from newspapers.

The postcard reads:

1st/17/45

Dear Fannie,

Many thanks for your xmas card.  hope this find your mother much better.  We are having so much snow and ice I am afraid to go out.  I guess Detroit is getting it’s share also.  With love to all aunt a.

It is addressed to

Mrs. Fannie Graham
6638 Theadore 
Detroit, Mich

My grandmother, Fannie wrote all over everything.  She has written on this card in the same way.  At the top next to the date it says Last time!
 Around the address area she wrote Mom died 3/28/54.  Daisy died 11-24-61.
Aunt Beulah died 4/27/1962
Frank Elkins Sr. died 5/2/62
Bud died 5/21/60.
Abbie died 4/8/66

Who’s who
Fannie Graham – my maternal grandmother
Mom – Fannie’s mother and Anna’s younger sister – Jennie V. Turner
Daisy – Fannie’s younger sister
Aunt Beulah – Anna and Jennie’s sister.
Frank Elkins Sr – Fannie’s daughter Mary’s father-in-law
Bud – Bud Elkins, Fannie’s son-in-law.
Abbie – Anna and Jennie’s sister who lived with Fannie for many years before her death.

Part 4 – Eliza’s Daughters by My Mother Doris Graham Cleage

African-American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research, Allen, Biography, memories, Montgomery Alabama, One Place Study, , , ,

My mother wrote this as part of her family history memories for my sister and me in 1980.  I am putting the whole piece here then I will reprint each sister’s section with the new information I found and corrections that needed to be made after I found descendants for most of them.  My mother’s grandmother was Jennie Virginia Allen Graham.  The women she writes about are her grandmother’s sisters, her great aunts.  When “grandmother” is mentioned that is Jennie Virginia.

Willie holding grandson Conrad, daughter Naomi looking on.

Now a word about her sisters….Aunt Willie was the oldest….married well…Victor Tulane (Tuskegee trustee and owner of a general store and many houses).  He was not what you’d call a “faithful” husband, but Aunt Willie (the family said)  looked the other way because he always took such good care of his wife and only child, a daughter Naomi, who was sent to Howard, married a doctor and went to live the high life in New York.  Aunt Willie had a beautiful apartment over the store.  Always had a maid and never worked.  She was living like this when Grandmother was a struggling widow. She was the last sister to leave Montgomery.  She died in New York.  Her son-in-law had died, left her daughter wealthy with apartments in NY paid for, insurance, money for the education of the four children in the bank, etc.  I remember shoes hand made in Italy being in the boxes of impossible things she sent mother.  They were always distant “rich relations”.  Don’t remember even seeing any of the children except one young woman who came to Detroit briefly, stayed with Margaret McCall.  Saw Aunt Willie once.  She and Aunt Abbie came to visit us when I was small.  Don’t remember her saying much or ever smiling while Aunt Abbie was as you remember her, friendly.

Abbie Allen Brown

Aunt Abbie married a Mississippi Riverboat gambler, swarthy and handsome and no good, who stayed home on two visits long enough to give her two sons and then sent her trunks of fine clothes to wear or sell to take care of herself and the boys.  Whenever she talked about him she sounded like she hated him.  She resented the lack of money.  Said once the oldest boy Earl (named for his father) screamed for days with toothache and she could not take him to the dentist who didn’t want any fancy clothes or jewelry.  She resented raising the children alone. I got the feeling she hated them and they hated her and she resented him being off having a good time while she stayed home with the problems.  She talked about him In a completely different way than she talked about her Jewish policeman who bought her a house on Ripley St. and spent much time there, for whom she loved to cook and keep house.

She came to live with Mother to take care of Daddy (!) so Mother could come to Springfield and help me when Kris was born.  In later years when they lived on Fairfield, Mother and Daddy used to argue about this and they would call me in to referee.  He’d say he took Aunt Abbie in out of the goodness of his heart like all the rest of her family, and that she was not supposed to stay on them forever but was to go live with Aunt Margaret.  Mother would say Aunt Abbie came to take care of him because (here she would make a mouth at me) he could not take care of himself and work even tho he could cook better than she and do everything else in the house too.  I think we are always angered at the way men can say this is the limit.  I can’t or I won’t do this or that and we seem to have lives where you do what is to be done since you have no one who will hear you if you say you can’t or won’t…hold my hand Charlie Brown!  And that he knew very well she was going to live with them and visit Margaret occasionally.  Mother was right.  He said Aunt Abbie came to have cataracts operated and to be taken care of.  He was wrong.  Her eye operations came years later.  He said to me once that he had always taken care of Mother’s people and she would have nothing to do with his.  I know how Grandmother depended on him to fix things around their house and he was most agreeable and I always thought he loved it.  They made over him when he came with his box of tools.  I was always there as helper, but he got very tired and mistreated about having both Alice and Aunt Abbie to take care of.  He didn’t like either one.  But I never could get him to send them to a nursing or residence home to live.  He always said what would people say if I did that.  When people talk like that I give up because they are obviously making the choice they prefer.

Back to Aunt Abbie.  She loved to cook and do everything else about the house.  Mother would not let her do anything except clean her own room and do her own washing and ironing and Mother hated everything about housekeeping except cooking, but she said her husband expected her to take care of him and his house and (she didn’t say this) she’d be damned if she’d let anyone else do it as long as she could.  I couldn’t talk to her about it.

Aunt Anna was the sister who went to Chicago, got a job as teller in a bank, married the bank manager who was a widower with children.  He knew she was black but no one else in his family ever did. I’ve often wondered what they did for birth control.  They were young when they married.  He was well to do.  She used to write Mother and Mother would write back c/o general post office.  Said she loved him but felt very lonely all the time not to be able to see her family and knew the children would have nothing to do with her if they knew.  She was supposed to look like Margaret McCall.  She got sick.  Wrote Mother she was not to live long.  That there might be no more letters.  That she would dearly love to die with her family He had died years before…had left his money to her…had asked her to promise to stay near the children to pass so they would not be embarrassed…and leave the money to them.  She promised and told mother she had made her bed and would lie in it to the end but would surely see them in Heaven.  Mother was the only one she wrote to.  The rest would not answer letters.  That was the last letter.

Mary Allen McCall

Aunt Mary married someone named James McCall whom I never knew.  Also never heard anyone say who he was or what he did.  As I write this it strikes me that the men these sisters married were for the most part very shadowy creatures.  I’ve seen a picture even of only one.  Strange.  Aunt Mary looked rather like Aunt Abbie but was quiet and rather grim, I thought.  Lived with Aunt Margaret and her son Uncle Jim all her life as far as I know.  I think Aunt Mary helped with money although I don’t know where she got it.  Uncle Jim, her son, was blind.  There were two children, Margaret and Victoria, and no help from the state.  He caned chairs and wrote poetry for a living.  I think they were very poor but did better when the state helped blind people  And they got enough money from somewhere to buy the Detroit Tribune and make money.

Beulah Allen Pope and son Robert Pope

Aunt Beulah who looked something like Grandmother, I’ve heard, married someone named Pope and went to Milwaukee.  Don’t know what he did or what she was like.  Never saw her.  Sent one son through dental school  Robert Pope.  Very handsome, his twin sister, a beauty married well, had one child the one who kept pushing me around when they came to visit us.  I must have been about four,  so was he, and he wanted to follow MV everywhere and not let me come.  I went anyway.  I remember him banging my head against the wall beside the stairs.  Strange.  He especially hated me because I could cut up my own meat and his mother wouldn’t even let him try.  Ha ha!!!  Another son of Aunt Beulah was a teacher who married had one daughter who wrote once to Mother and Daddy about family history.  Wonder what she got together.  I keep hoping to find someone who has already done all the hard work.  Back to Aunt Beulah, who was considered the least beautiful of the sisters.  Her son Robert built her a beautiful home and stayed there with her until she died not too long ago.  Ten or twelve years.  They all spoke of her with envy.

A brief explanation for Eliza’s Story

Allen, Eliza,

I just wanted to clarify a few things in the last post before moving on.  Mary McCall’s daughter, Alma Otilla “Tillie” owned a three story brownstone in Chicago.  She and her husband, Joseph Howard, lived in one unit and relatives lived in the other ones.  In 1933, When Sayde visited her sister Blanch in Chicago,  Mary McCall (Eliza’s oldest daughter) was 87.  Mattie (Sayde’s mother and Mary’s half sister) was 59, Victoria (Mary McCall’s grandaughter) was 18,  Sadye was 16 and Margaret(Mary’s grandaughter) was 15.

Mary Allen McCall was born in 1856 in Alabama, probably Lowndes or Dallas County where her mother, Eliza was the slave of Milton Saffold.  Milton Saffold’s wife, Martha Harrison Saffold died in 1856 after the birth of her third son. Mary Allen McCall did live in Mississippi for a short time, but as an adult with one of her daughters between the death of her husband in Montgomery and the family’s move to Detroit, Michigan.  By 1933 she was living in Detroit.

I hope that isn’t too confusing.  I do have a chart showing all these various relationships but before I post that I would like to go back to my mother”s writings and then show what she got right in her memories of her great aunts and how I eventually met people from all branches of Eliza’s children and found more photographs and more stories.

Finding Eliza part 3

Allen, Eliza, , , , ,
Mattie Saffold Harris with family. Sayde little girl, front. Her mother, Mattie, is on the far right.
Mary Allen McCall on left. Granddaguthers Victoria and Margaret, front.

This is an email conversation that took place between Janis M. and me. We shared a cousin, Margaret McCall. It was from information that Janis gave me from her mother that let me piece together the story of Eliza and her first daughter, Mary.  It was so exciting to have the story unfold through her mother’s memories and the records I found online and things my mother had told me. Both Margaret and Janis’ mother Sayde have died.  It was really one of those strange happenings where people are in the right place at the right time and can share the important information. Margaret and Sadye were related through the daughters Milton Saffold had with their grandmothers during and soon after slave times.

Date:    Thu, 16 Oct 2003
Hi Janis,

You talked to my sister, Pearl, recently in Chicago at a book signing and gave her a chart.  Have you ever been in touch with Margaret or Victoria?  I can fill in the missing information for you from Mary McCall’s side.  This past year I’ve been doing some research for Margaret about Milton Saffold.  I found he married the daughter of Col. Edmund Harrison, who was the owner of Eliza Harrison who was Mary’s mother.  Eliza’s mother was also named Annie and I remember my great-great aunt Abbie, who was Mary McCall’s half sister, saying that Annie was African but I can’t find a record yet of anyone before the 1870 census.  Margaret and I have been trying to find some records to place Eliza and Annie on the Harrison plantation.  I was wondering, after seeing your chart, if maybe they, or Eliza went with Harrison’s daughter (Eliza was also his daughter) when she married Saffold.  Do you have access to any records from slave times for the Saffolds?

Eliza married Dock Allen and they raised 9 children.  How do you know about Mary being a Saffold?  Margaret said it was all very hush hush when she was growing up and it’s making it very hard to find information now.

Let me know if you want more complete info for Mary and descendants.  I’m so glad you saw Pearl!  I will pass on any information you send me to Margaret.  Right now I’m at my daughter’s in Seattle helping her with her newborn twins and most of my information is back in Michigan but I’ve got all the basic info on Dock Allen and Eliza.  Looking forward to hearing from you.
Kristin

Date:    Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:45:31 EDT
Hi, Kristin:
Wow,   I will have to contact my cousin in Birmingham.  He is the family historian and if any information is forthcoming about the Saffolds it would be from him.  I only know that Milton Saffold was my maternal grandmother’s father.  Seems the judge “traveled” a lot!   Will send my cousin your email and hopefully he can help us out.

Milton Saffold. Mattie’s family photos.

As it is late, I will have to take in all that you have written tomorrow.
Janis

Date:    Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:58:25 EDT
Kristin:
Forgot to tell you that I talked to Pearl at a reading in Bowie, Maryland.   No, I haven’t talked to any other member of your family.  My mother, Sadye Harris James told me that you have a relative who lives near me in a neighborhood called Kettering.  She is the daughter of Hugo Howard.  If this is accurate, I would like to contact her. My Mom got this information from Margaret Ward this past August.   Until then I never knew that Milton Saffold had any children other than Mattie (my grandmother), and Frank.  I look forward to you filling in the blanks in my chart.
Janis

Date:    Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:09:29 -0700 (PDT)
Janis,
That would be great if your cousin can give me some more information.  I’ll get the information I have together and email it later today. I’ll also check with another cousin of mine who grew up in Chicago and might know about the daughter of Hugo Howard and let you know.
Kris

James and Margaret McCall visit his sister Tillie Howard in Chicago.

Date:    Sat, 18 Oct 2003 10:03:20 EDT
Hi Kristin,
I spoke with my mother, Sadye Harris James, the last surviving child of Mattie Saffold Harris.   Mom told me that in l933 she visited her sister Blanche in Chicago.   Blanche was living in an apartment building owned by Tillie and her husband Dr. Howard.   Tillie and her husband lived in a unit of the building.  Blanche told my mother that Tillie’s mother, Mary McCall, was visiting from Mississippi, and that she looked like their mother, Mattie.  She was described as a little “white lady” dressed in a long white old-fashioned looking dress.  (My mother only saw her from a distance).    When Sadye returned home to Birmingham, she told her mother about  Mary McCall.  Mattie said she knew about a Mary McCall, and that she was her half sister.  Mattie decided to visit Mary in Chicago and confirmed that indeed she was Mary Saffold McCall.

This seems to be in conflict with your information. According to your records, Mary McCall  was the child of Eliza Harrison and Dock Allen.  Perhaps Milton Saffold fathered Mary and  Dock Allen reared her as his own.  By the way, Mattie was born in Selma, Alabama.
Janis

Date:    Wed, 29 Oct 2003 22:05:05 -0800 (PST)
Hi Janis,
Today I decided to look for Eliza in the 1860 census as a free person in Dallas county.  I searched by her first name since I have looked in Montgomery and Lowndes county before with various last names.  I found a 25 year old Eliza Williams with a 3 year old Mary Williams in Dallas county living with a 27 year old woman named Nancy Morgan and several of her children.  All are listed as white.  But Williams is the last name of Anne, Eliza’s mother and they are the right ages.  It wouldn’t be the first time family members were listed in the census as white.

Now I need to find out who Nancy Morgan is and connect her with the Saffolds or Harrisons.  Another day.  Nancy Morgan appears in the 1860, 1870 and 1880 census.  She is listed as single in the first two but always has another child or two and in the last one she’s listed as widowed.  She doesn’t have any occupation listed.  Eliza Williams isn’t listed again as Eliza Williams but appears as Eliza Allen with her husband, Dock Allen.  Her mother, Annie Williams lived with them in 1870 and with Mary McCall in 1880.

Anyway, I’m going to bed.  Just wanted to share that.
Kris

2005 – Janis taped an interview with her mother Sayde.  In it she talked about her mother and Mary McCall being half sisters and their meeting in Chicago.

Mary Allen McCall
Mattie Saffold Harris

“Sadye: Okay.  It was the summer of 1933 when Walter, my brother and I drove in his V-8 Ford (It was red) to Cincinnati where he married Edna Gaither and from that we went to Chicago to visit Blanche, my sister, and there she said to me, “Sayde, there’s a little old lady up on the third floor and she sits on the back porch and I think she looks a lot like Mama. And I’d like for you to meet her.”  So I went out in the backyard and looked up on the 3rd floor and there she sat in her long white dress and white hair, but I don’t remember ever being introduced to her.  However her granddaughters Margaret and Victoria McCall, they came to visit their Aunt Tillie Howard and I got to meet them, but I never did meet Miss Marry Saffold McCall.  No her name was not McCall….her name was McCall.  So Mama went up to Chicago, not just to see this woman that was one of the highlights of her visit to Blanch.  I don’t think it was that summer, but may have been the next summer.  And they had quite a delightful celebration because they were half sisters.  And I remember Mama telling me she had a half sister named Mary in Mississippi.  And I could not understand a half sister in Mississippi, but as time progressed I realized that her father, Judge Saffold, made visitations involving his work as a circuit court judge and this took him to a part of Mississippi.  Now who the mother was of Mary, I have no idea.  Perhaps Victoria or Margaret will have some information as to who was the mother of Mary.”

I still haven’t found out who Nancy Morgan is.  I did find a marriage certificate between a Nancy Wiggins and an Isom Morgan in Dallas County.  William Wiggins was the overseer of Edmund Harrison in the 1850 census but I haven’t found any records connecting William with Nancy yet.

When I attended cousin Victoria McCall Davenport’s 90th birthday celebration  in Detroit she told me that her grandmother Mary told her she was about 10 at freedom.  This fits in with the child Mary in the 1860 census.

Six Degrees of Separation – Slavery

Allen, Cleages, Grahams

Today  I was reading  Nolichucky Roots  She was writing about the degrees of separation between her and her ancestors who where slave owners.  It got me thinking about how many degrees of separation there are between me and my ancestors who were enslaved.  I have always felt that it wasn’t as long ago as some feel.  It turns out I am one degree from slavery 6 different ways.

  • My paternal grandfather, Albert born 1884 TN knew his parents, Lewis & Celia (Rice) Cleage born about 1852 & 1855 in TN into slavery.  One degree.    (photo 1 & 2 – Albert & Celia)
  • My paternal grandmother, Pearl born 1886, knew her mother Anna Allen Reed who was born about 1849 in KY into slavery. (photo 3 Pearl)
  •  My maternal grandfather, Mershell born 1889 AL, knew his parents William & Mary (Jackson) Graham b. Al, 1851 & 1852. One degree. (photo 4)
  • My maternal grandmother, Fannie born 1888 AL, knew her father, Howard Turner, who was born about 1863, AL into slavery.  One degree.(photo 5 – Fannie)
  • My maternal great-grandmother, Jennie born 1866  knew her parents, Dock & Eliza (Williams) Allen born in Ga & AL about 1839 into slavery.  One degree. (photo 6 – Jennie, 7- Eliza, 8-Dock)
  • My maternal grandmother’s first cousin, James born 1880 AL, knew his parents Edward & Mary (Allen) McCall born 1842 & 1856 AL who were born into slavery.  One degree.(photo 9 James, 10- Mary).