A Family Interrupted - 1880 to Present
A Brief Synopsis:
1880 Federal Census - Hannah Kelly Hilson is born in 1865 to Richard and Mariah Kelly. Both parents were born into Mississippi slavery in 1850. Hannah and three siblings are listed on this census: Grant, Tamar, and Napoleon** (Napoleon would grow up to marry Lou Ada Buie. He is our Aunt Carrie Kees' grandfather).
1900 – Hannah 38 yrs. old is married to Eli Hilson, Jr. They have ten children: Abe, 19 yrs; Luna, 18 yrs; Luella 15 yrs; Julia 14 yrs; Willie 12 yrs; Harvey 10 yrs; Lewis 8 yrs; Arbella 6 yrs; Letha 4 yrs; Minerva 3 yrs.
1903 – Hannah is widowed after the murder of her husband, Eli, Jr. by the K.K.K. She had just delivered her 11th child. She lost the family's 74 acres of land through foreclosure and was eventually forced off the land. How she was able to make a living after Eli's death begins a mystery.
The older children, Abe, Luna, and Luella young adults at the time probably supported Hannah and the younger siblings for awhile but soon married. They eventually were scattered assumingly among existing family and friends.
Searching For Eli and Hannah's Children
Family lore says that Hannah and the infant baby died shortly after Eli’s death. One story was that she and possibly the youngest child was found frozen to death sometime between 1903-1910. We may never know her exact cause of death as Mississippi by law was not required to record births and deaths until November 1912. Few counties kept records and those that did were sporadic and incomplete.
Eli and Hannah with their children were last seen on the 1900 Federal census. I could find no records for ABE, LUNA (Lena?), JULIA*, ARBELLA, or LEWIS.* Census records were found for the following:
LUELLA
1910 –In Lincoln County married to Thomas Rucks with four daughters: Lillian, Florence, Eunice, Lela. Luella’s sister Zena Hilson a.k.a. Julia was also listed. She was 12 years old.
1920 - Luella and Tom still in Lincoln County with children: Lillie, Florence, Eunice; Lela, Jack, Fibbie (Phoebe); Rosa, and James. Zena age 22 yrs now. is not listed.
1930 – Luella and Tom with children: Johnnie (Jack); Lucretia, a.k.a Fibbie/Phoebe; Rosa, James, Eli, and Lucy
1941 –Luella and Tom are listed on marriage certificates for two of their children Eli and Florence married in the same year. They are now living in Amite County, MS.
1947 –– Luella dies in Champaign, IL November 26th. Have no death date for Tom.
WILLIE (William) - Derived from abbreviated info (Ancestry.com)
Unknown year - Married to Charlotte Byrd in Mississippi. They have five children: John Henry (1916-1976); Izena (1920-1995); Elizabeth (1922-1994); Stillborn daughter (1925); Willie Jr. (1927-2005). The oldest three children were born in Shaw Sunflower County, Mississippi. Willie was residing in Bolivar County, MS between 1917-1918 according to his WW1 draft registration form. Willie left Mississippi and ended up in Gary, Indiana. He was in Gary when he was drafted in 1942. He passed away in Gary Indiana, date unknown.
HARVEY: Believed to have died in Lincoln or Pike County according to a Lincoln County newspaper obituary -article not available – date unknown
JULIA, a.k.a. ZENA) as previously stated was found in the 1910 census at the age of 12 in the household of her sister, Luella. I could find her listed nowhere else but her brother, William named one of his daughter’s Izena possibly to honor her.
LETHA & MANERVA
1910 - Both sisters are living in the home of Emmanuel and Annie Williams, Washington County, MS. Letha is 10 yrs and Minerva is 6 yrs. The couple are aged (76 yrs and 60 yrs respectively). The girls are listed as orphans. (This is the last mention of Letha).
MANERVA:
1920 –Divorced and living in the home of Emmanuel and Annie Williams as a boarder. She has three children (Mary, Charlie, and Daniel). Also listed is 100 year old Mariah Kelly, mother-in-law to Emmanuel. This makes Annie, Hannah's sister.
1930 –Living in the home of John and Mary Williams, possibly son of Emmanuel and Annie (Sunflower, MS) as a boarder and farm laborer. No children are mentioned.
1940 –Still living in the home of John and Mary Williams as a lodger in Sunflower, MS
1990- Dies in Chicago. Children: Mary Lee Burns, Daniel Williams also died in the Chicago area.
LEWIS a.k.a. Hilson Lowry/Buster Lowry:
What's In A Name?
The life story of Lewis already sad by many accounts (father murdered, mother possibly frozen to death, siblings scattered and unaccounted for most of his life), grows sadder. In 2014 , his daughter, Fanny reads, Linda Rudd’s blog post and discovers that something she has written about the murder of Eli Hilson sounds familiar to her own family story. She reaches out to Linda, who starts unwinding this riveting tale of human suffering and endurance.
Our cousin, Franklin Carter Smith, the genealogist is also a Hilson family descendant. He uses his expertise to do some research and was able to put to rest some of the questions Fanny’s now deceased father, Buster would never answer. On rare occasions when he would talk about his childhood it sounded like a far-fetched tale. Here’s what Fanny was told:
After the death of Buster's parents in Lincoln County, he was taken by an older sister to Jackson, Mississippi where at the age of five he lived in the governor’s house. Fanny didn’t know the name of the sister. Apparently, she worked for the governor for a number of years and at some point left her brother there. The story goes that her father was adopted by the governor and changed his name to Buster Lowry. Her father kept that name until he enlisted in the army, completed his service and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. It was there he met and married her mother, Mary Smith Crum. They had eleven children and at the time of Fanny’s inquiry she was one of three still living.
I heard Henry Louis Gates say on the PBS show, Finding Your Roots, that family stories are a bit like the game, Telephone. By the time it gets to you very little is true. Fortunately for Fanny, enough of this story was factual to make research possible. Franklin and I compared notes and came up with the following:
Buster Hilson we believe is the son, Lewis shown on the 1900 Federal census. He was not born in 1896, the date he used all his life but in 1894. Remember, Mississippi did not keep records of births and deaths until 1912. If information was not recorded in a family bible or the county clerk’s office, you had to rely on a mid-wife’s or older family member’s best guess!
[In some of Daddy A.J. Harris’s papers, I found a letter dated in the 1940s. It was from a relative in Mississippi asking him to send, her age! By that she meant look in the family bible and see what was written as her date of birth. She needed proof to apply for old age pension. Mississippi is not known for good record keeping and especially for black people it is hard to verify vital statistics.]
A 1910 census search found a 14 year old black teen living in the home of Webster Buie, a wealthy white family in Jackson, Mississippi. His name is Hilson Lowry and he is listed as a servant of the household doing primarily yard work. The governor of Mississippi at the time was Edmond Neal (1908-1912). Coincidently, former governor, Robert Lowry died in Jackson the very same year.
Hilson Lowry may have been named for the previous governor, a good friend. Interestingly, one of Fanny’s brothers was named Robert Lowry. Fanny’s father did not live in the governor’s mansion as she was told but with a prominent white family, the Webster Buies of Jackson. The Buies lived at 628 N. State Street. Webster Buie was a capitalist and financier who inherited the home from his uncle, Civil War Major Reuben Webster Millsaps. The major amassed a fortune after the Civil War.
Seven years later, Hilson Lowry, now called Buster Lowry, signs his WWI draft registration card on June 5, 1917 from Memphis, Tennessee. He apparently stayed with the Buie family until the time he decided to join the army. He is single and gives Brookhaven as his birth place. The next document we find is a marriage certificate to Mary Crum in Cincinnati. After service he moves north working blue class jobs and this is where he establishes a home for his wife and children. The next time he is required to fill out a draft card it was for WWII. He is 45 years old. I thought this unusual but the draft age was between 21 and 45 years. I do not believe he served in this second war. After working hard to care for his family he died January 14, 1971.
This ends my research to date of Eli and Hannah's children. The Hilson Family is very large and their members host a Family Reunion every couple of years. They have a very intricate family website that I've visited a few times and although I'm invited to each reunion have not yet made the trip. Fannie has attended two of them. Some of you may recall another Hilson relative, the mother of Oma Kay Presley who was born deaf and was quite a character. He and his mother lived in Memphis. I met his mother, Cousin Tennie Mae Hilson Presley in the late 1980s and found her to be delightful. Fanny and I recently connected a couple of years ago. We talk regularly She is nearly 80 and a retired school teacher but still very feisty. Together we talk about our family, faith, and how proud we are to come from such resilient family stock!
Meet Cousin Fanny Lowry Early
Buster's Daughter
Love to All,
Your Family Griot, Carolyn Harris Betts
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