31 Days in the Moment - Uncle Bobby Joe, Part 1

26 October 2014

Today brought lots of interesting things in the evening. I am working with one of my paternal cousins on our family history and she has started sending me files regarding our Uncle Bobby Joe.

Bobby Joe Gunter was born 14 September 1938, in Anderson, South Carolina, to Andrew James Gunter and Evelyn Floree Fowler Gunter. He was my daddy's oldest, and only, brother.

I never got to know this uncle as he died a little more than two years before I was born. He died in a streetcar accident while stationed in Germany with the US Army.

Wedding Wednesday: Marriage Record Found! - J A Gunter and Francis Burden

Geneabloggers has different genealogy blogging prompts for each day of the week, several for each day, actually! One of Wednesday's prompts is Wedding Wednesday.

I just found something that I wasn't even looking for, so certainly never expected to find. I have searched for years for any information regarding the wedding of my paternal grandparents, Papa James and Granny Evelyn Gunter. No luck. But, I did find the record that shows when Papa Gunter's grandparents were married! They were married 18 September 1870. They were John Allen and Frances Burden Gunter, the in-laws of Annie, the namesake of this blog.

Here is the record that I found showing when Papa John and Granny Frances Gunter were married:

Marriage license of J. A. Gunter and Frances Burden

Papa's daddy, Big Papa was born 16 August 1871. Big Papa Andrew Jackson and Big Mama Annie Black Gunter were married in 1900, in time for the 1900 census to have them in the same household.



"Georgia, County Marriages, 1785-1950," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KXV4-9LL : accessed 11 Jun 2013), J A Gunter and Frances Burden, 1870.

Happy Birthday, Granny!

Today would be the ninety-second birthday of my granny, Evelyn Floree Fowler Gunter. She was born 14 April 1921.

Granny experienced the Great Depression in ways that many of us might never understand. Her story about the chicken dinner still makes me both tearful and angry for her. She grew up, got married, had babies, lost a baby, had good times and bad times. She lost her daddy in 1936 while she was only fifteen years old; he was only forty-four years old. She lost her mama in 1954. The majority of her family, including her two year old brother, was lost to influenza.

She was a great cook and made beautiful quilts and canned all sorts of things. I especially loved her apple butter. One discussion that I remember having with Granny was about quilting. She did everything by hand. I used a rotary cutter and a sewing machine. To this day, I can hear her quite clearly saying "That's not quilting!" Here is a section of a quilt that she made for our oldest son when he was a little boy.

I sure miss my granny and her bluntness. She wasn't the least bit afraid to speak her mind. You never had to wonder where you stood with her; she'd let you know straight out where you stood. She meant what she said when she said it, as one man that refused to leave her house found out one day. She told him to leave and he wouldn't. She said if he didn't, she'd shoot him. He didn't, she did. Question answered. Any doubts that she meant it were dealt with head-on. It wasn't a serious injury to him, but enough to get the point across. I don't think that he had any doubts about her meaning anything after that day.

All that spunk, banana pudding, and hugs, too. What more could anyone want?

I wish that I could be more like Granny.

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: G is for Grandma Spence and Granny Gunter

I could have chosen to write about the surname Gunter today since it is "G" day. But, April is the birthday month for our grandmothers. Both of mine and one of David's were born in April. I was struggling with what to write today and saw this on Pinterest. It is the inspiration for today's post:

                     

                                 Source: fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net via MryJhnsn on Pinterest

                                                                                                                         

My grandma and granny were two of the most beautiful people that I have known. They were completely different in their way of seeing things, but a great deal alike in their love for their grandchildren. Being born in 1917 and 1921 respectively, they lived through the Great Depression. They knew what it was like to do without and to be hungry. Childhood was hard. One endured a dinner visit at her aunt's home during the Depression, having to watch her cousins eat fried chicken and not being allowed to have any herself because Auntie "only had enough for her own children." Both would give the shirts off of their backs if they thought you needed it. Both lived with tremendous heartache, one having her baby beaten out of her and later losing a son as he served in the US Army in Germany, and the other burying a toddler who died of an infection caused by inhaling an orange seed and mourning the loss of a murdered son and daughter-in-law.

Grandma McClendon, David's grandma, was born in 1910 and was from a family of 12 children. She lost her husband at an early age. She was left to raise three children the oldest of which was 17, and the youngest was 9 years old, while being confined to a wheelchair. Through strong will and determination, she learned to walk again. She outlived two of her children, one of which died in infancy. The hospital nurse held Grandma's legs together as the baby's head was crowning while they waited to switch her from the labor room to the delivery room. Her baby girl died at three days old. The other, her oldest son, died in her front yard. She was a very kind woman and an excellent cook, just like my Granny. I never heard her say an unkind word about anybody, though I heard people being unkind in regards to her. These women suffered much and loved deeply. We were blessed to have them in our lives for as long as we did. Happy birthday to all of our April grandmas!  


We should all have one person who knows how to bless us despite the evidence, Grandmother was that person to me. ~Phyllis Theroux (Quote Garden, 2012)

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2013: D is for Death Certificates

One of the documents of use to a family historian is a death certificate. It is a primary document for the death itself and burial location, but is also a secondary document for other events such as the decedent's birth, names of decedent's parents, and locations of these births. If we're lucky, it also lists an actual cause of death, which can be a history lesson in itself. Some of the causes of death are now obsolete terms and, in most cases, nowadays the cause is more detailed than "old age".

The cause of death can also perhaps answer questions about the lifestyle of the decedent. Some health issues are caused by not only a lack of a nutrient, but in some cases by an overabundance of a nutrient. In my ancestry, one of the great-grandfathers died of pellagra. I had never heard of this "disease" before I saw it on his death certificate, so I did a search. What I found is that pellagra is a niacin deficiency common in corn-based diets that can be fought with adequate fruit and vegetable intake. The native Americans used lime which made the niacin more accessible to the body therefore reducing the likelihood of developing pellagra.



I also know that alcoholism is a common occurrence in my Gunter ancestry and alcohol is generally corn-based. Knowing our family history and the cause of death being pellagra, it leads me to wonder a couple of things. Did Big Papa basically die of alcoholism or could it have been the other common trait in my ancestry, which was poverty? Lack of access to healthy foods obviously leads to vitamin deficiencies. He was a textile worker and they generally earn next to nothing. Another grandpa who was a mill worker during this time frame made less than $600 a year. Big Papa had a wife and six children to feed, so I can't imagine that $600 went very far at all.

Often, answers to questions bring even more questions. Be sure to closely investigate all of the possible sources of information during your genealogy adventure. Sometimes what appears as one thing may really be telling you something entirely different from what it appears.  

Reference:

Wikipedia contributors, "Pellagra," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pellagra&oldid=543694616 (accessed April 4, 2013).

Fearless Females: March 16 - Lunch, Anyone?

Please visit Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month at The Accidental Genealogist. 

March 16 — If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) or any famous female who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?

If I could have lunch with any female relative, it would be with my Grandma Spence and my Granny Gunter. I cannot pick just one. These two women were big parts of my life well into my adulthood. Grandma Maggie Pressley Spence passed away on 18 April 1993 and Granny Evelyn Floree Fowler Gunter died 25 March 2010. I miss them both so very much.

   These two women were as opposite as could be in many ways. Grandma was gentle and soft-spoken, and Granny was blunt and abrasive. Grandma helped me in my Christian walk and gave me a love for words and learning. Granny taught me to stand my ground and to appreciate things handmade. They were both the same in that each had a heart of gold and would do anything that they could for someone, especially a grandchild. I was blessed to be loved by two such strong women.
I would want us to eat at Granny’s house because that gal could put on a fine feast, country-style. I loved Granny’s cooking. Grandma was too sick to do much cooking by the time I was old enough to appreciate all that went into putting on a meal. I would help Granny get the meal ready and make sure that Grandma was comfortable.

Then, I would sit down to enjoy a feast of thanksgiving with these two women that I loved most in this world! We would have turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, macaroni pie, sliced tomatoes, pumpkin pie, banana pudding, and lots of other things.

And love, a heaping side order of love.

Fearless Females: March 3 - Name - Susie Annie Gunter

Please visit Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month at The Accidental Genealogist.

March 3 — Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree. 

My daddy had a grandmother named Annie Black Gunter, the one this blog is named after. He called her “Big Mama”. Annie had a sister named Susie. My daddy wanted me to be named after both his grandmother and his aunt. He really loved both of them very much. Susie Annie was what I started out to be. My final name was Suzanne.

For years I was glad that Suzanne was chosen instead of Susie Annie, but the more I work on the family history, the more I like Susie Annie. I think that it would have been a cool name. As it was, I had no middle name and got lots of grief about that. No one believed that I had no middle name. They figured that it was really something stupid and I was just too embarrassed to share it with them.

The name that stands out to me the most of my female ancestors is Philadelphia Isabella. She was my maternal-grandmother’s paternal grandmother. I often thought that if I had another daughter, I would name her Delphia or Bella – maybe both!- after this great-great-grandmother. I can still hope for a grandchild to carry her name.

I don’t have any pictures of Annie, though I did see one when I was a child. But, I do have one of Philadelphia.