Henderson

Family ties, no. 9: just fanning him and fanning him and fanning him.

Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of African-American migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the ninth in a series of excerpts and adaptations of interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adoptive daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)

——

Here, we read my grandmother’s recounting of the escape from Wilson of her sister Mamie Henderson Holt to Greensboro, North Carolina, at the age of 15. Mamie’s first child, John Holt, was born 4 December 1923 — 100 years ago today! — and before long she brought her baby to Wilson, to 303 Elba Street, to meet his family. His 13 year-old aunt was overjoyed, but the difficult, distrustful relationship between Mamie and “Papa” Jesse Jacobs soon brought the visit to an abrupt end.

“Papa closed up the davenport on John. Just by it — he was grunting or groaning for breath or something. I went out to see what it was, coming from out of the kitchen and dining room where he was in that room across the hall on that open couch. That’s where Papa was looking his old shoes or something to put on, and he went there and turned up the end of that thing.  If he had shut him up in there, it’d a killed him, but he just turned up the end of it.  And he didn’t see his shoes, so he come on out. And we heard this noise – ‘nyyyaaa-nya, nyyyaaa-nya.’ And we looked in and saw that thing turned up, and Mamie run in there and grabbed him, she grabbed up John and, oh, she was shaking and shaking and shaking, crying, and I was crying ‘cause I thought he had killed him. So we had him up by the arms, just holding him, just fanning him and fanning him and fanning him, and I was just scared he was gon die. You never know.

“I know he didn’t mean to do it, turn up the bed not thinking ‘bout the child. And then not used to a child being there before he pulled the bed down. And so after that, Mamie said, ‘Let me get out of here.’  ‘Cause you know Mamie and Papa didn’t get along – and she said that he was trying to kill her child. Papa, well, he didn’t know what he’d done. And he was sorry. He said he was so sorry it happened, he wouldn’t hurt that child for nothing in the world. And he was just crazy ‘bout John.

“But Mamie left there that night, honey. She left there with that baby, and she said, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back here.’ So I got after Papa ‘bout it. And he said he didn’t know the baby was in there. He wouldn’t hurt that baby for nothing. And so Annie Bell [Jacobs Gay, his daughter], she heard about it, and she come over there and laid Papa out. He said he didn’t know the child was there. He said, ‘Well, y’all ought to have taken up the bed when you got out.’ But the child was in there still sleep.  ‘But take him up and put him in another room.’ Not put him in that thing so he couldn’t get out.

“So Mamie left there and went on back to Greensboro, and she didn’t never like Papa after that. She didn’t like him no how. She just felt like he did it for meanness, but he didn’t. Then Mamie said, well, she know he was getting old, and so she forgive him ‘cause things like that happen. But at that time, it was just, she never did like him much no how, but look like that just knocked the …. But she said, ‘I’m not gon fault him for doing that. I don’t think he would have did it to the child. He might would do something to me, but….'”

Baby John, circa early 1925, no worse for the wear. That’s my grandmother in the corner.

Papa Jacobs died in 1926, and John Holt lived 90 more years, passing away in New York City in March 2016.

Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved. Photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Research tip: the fallibility of records.

A caution: even “official records” may contain erroneous information. Late into the twentieth century, birthdates could be guesstimates; parentage c0uld reflect informal adoptions, rather biological fact; names, both first and last, could shift or change, and spellings fell to the whim or talents of the inscriber. Oral history can be helpful when sifting through competing versions of facts to arrive at (or get reasonably close to) truth.

Here’s an example:

The “true facts” — Jesse Henderson was the son of Loudie Henderson and Joseph Buckner Martin. He was born about 1893 near Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, and moved to Wilson as a teenager. There, he was nicknamed “Jack” by Jefferson D. Farrior to distinguish him from Jesse A. Jacobs Jr., the uncle with whom he lived and worked at Farrior’s livery stable.

On 3 Dec 1914, Solomon Ward applied for a marriage license for Jesse Henderson of Wilson, age 21, colored, son of Jesse Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, both dead, and Pauline Artis of Wilson, age 18, colored, daughter of Alice Artis.  They were married later that day.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs was Jesse Henderson’s maternal aunt. She and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. were Jesse Henderson’s foster parents and were very much alive in 1914.

In November 1936, Jesse Henderson, using the name Jack, applied for a Social Security number.

By reporting his first name as “Jack” rather than Jesse to the Social Security Administration, Jesse Henderson essentially effectuated a name change. (It was so effective that few of his descendants would remember the name he was given at birth. He was Jesse in the 1910 and 1920 censuses and when he registered for the World War I draft, but Jack in the 1930 census and thereafter.)

The names Jack provided for his parents on this application are both inaccurate and puzzling. Lewis Henderson was, in fact, his grandfather. “Ludy” (or Loudie) was his mother’s first name, but she was Loudie Henderson, not Jacobs. As noted above, Jacobs was the surname of the uncle and aunt who reared him after Loudie died in childbirth.

In a further inaccuracy, note Jack’s birthdate: 16 Sept 1892. The 1900 census lists Jack Henderson’s birth month and year as February 1892, and his draft registration card only as 1893, month and day unknown.

Finally, when Jack Henderson died in 1970, one of his daughters provided information for his death certificate, naming his parents as an unknown father and “Lucy (?) Henderson” (and his birthdate as 21 April 1898.)

“Lucy” certainly was Loudie. My grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks remembered her great-grandmother’s name variously as “Loudie” or “Lucy,” but a church record and a single census entry, in 1880, confirm that it was Loudie. God only knows Jack’s birthday, but the year was probably 1892 or 1893, as reflected in the 1900 census and on his Social Security application.

How the Hendersons came to Wilson.

My paternal grandmother’s family arrived in Wilson circa 1905 from southern Wayne County, North Carolina. Jesse and Sarah Henderson Jacobs came first, and Sarah’s teenaged nephew Jesse “Jack” Henderson arrived a few years later. My grandmother Hattie Mae Henderson was born in Dudley in June 1910. In six months or so, her 19 year-old mother Bessie Henderson was dead.

Said my grandmother:

“I thought of many times I wondered what my mama looked like. Bessie. And how old was she, or whatever. Looked at Jack, and I said, they say he was 17 years old when he come to Wilson. From down there in Dudley, down there in Wayne County.

“My mama was helping Grandpa, Grandpa Lewis [Henderson.]  The pig got out of the pasture and, instead of going all the way down to where the gate opened, she run him back in there, to try to coax him in there. They picked him up. They picked him up and put him over the fence. And when they picked him up, and put him over the fence, she had the heavy part, I reckon, or something, and she felt a pain, a sharp pain, and so then she started spitting blood. Down in the country, they ain’t had no doctor or nothing, they just thought she was gon be all right. And I don’t think they even took her to the doctor. Well, she would have had to go to Goldsboro or Mount Olive, one, and doctors was scarce at that time, too, even if it was where you had to go a long ways to get them. Or go to a hospital and stay. And so she died. She didn’t never get over it. You never know what you’ll come to.

“But I don’t remember ever staying down there. ‘Cause they brought me up to Wilson to live with Mama and Papa [Sarah and Jesse Jacobs]. I stayed with them after Bessie died. I don’t remember Bessie. But my sister Mamie says she remembers her.”

At left, the only known photograph of Bessie Henderson (1891-1911). At right, a colorized version, which highlights surprising details of the backdrop. Does anyone recognize these trees and white ducks from an early twentieth-century Goldsboro or Mount Olive photography studio?

Adapted from interviews of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson, 1996 and 1998, all rights reserved; photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Election Day 2023.

I don’t know if my grandmother voted during her decades in Wilson. Given the barriers facing African-Americans in the 1950s and the resulting very low numbers of Black registered voters, I’m inclined to believe she did not. Within months of migrating to Philadelphia, however, Hattie Henderson Ricks was on the rolls.

Get to the polls today, folks. It’s a precious right.

Snaps, no. 108: Joyce Henderson Boyd.

Joyce Lorine Henderson Boyd (1922-2004).

——

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 318 Pender Street, Jack Henderson, truck driver, 38; wife Pauline, 31, and children Bessie, 12, Alic, 10, Joice, 8, Mildred, 6, and Archy, 4, listed in the household of mother-in-law Alic Artis, 49, private cook, paying $18/month rent.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender Street, Alice Artis, 56; daughter Pauline Henderson, 39, household servant; granddaughters Bessie L., 23, hotel elevator girl, Alice, 20, household servant, Joyce, 18, household servant, Mildred, 16, and Doris, 10; and grandson Robert [Bobby], 4.

In the 1950 census of Washington, D.C.: at 1864 California Street, Joyce L. Henderson, 27, apartment building elevator operator, born in North Carolina, was a lodger in the home of Eunice M. Moore, a beautician, also born in N.C.

Photo courtesy of R.B.T. 

Happy birthday to a daughter of East Wilson!

My uncles moved North; my father and his sister cast their lots in Wilson. Both had two daughters, born in age-matched pairs. Monica Ellis Barnes was born exactly nine months before I was and was my very first bestie. Here we are, with her little sister, in front of their house on Faison Street. Happy milestone birthday, cousin! May it be filled with laughter and all the love your heart can hold!

Lane Street Project: in memory of Jesse Henderson Jr. (1928-1929).

I’ve spoken of the database I am developing of likely burials in Vick, Odd Fellows, and Rountree Cemeteries. My spreadsheet draws upon death certificates, obituaries, and other sources — most distressingly imprecise. The term “Rountree Cemetery” on these documents may refer to Vick, Odd Fellows, or Rountree. Some documents broadly refer only to burial in Wilson. However, in the absence of official burial records for any of the cemeteries, we make do.

This series honors the men, women, and children who never had grave markers, or whose stones have been lost or stolen or destroyed. Graves believed to be in Vick Cemetery, which the City of Wilson stripped of remaining markers in 1996, will be identified with a Vick Cemetery logo.

——

Jessie Henderson Jr. died 15 April 1929 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 5 months old; was born in Wilson to Jessie Henderson of Dudley, N.C., and Pauline Artis of Johnston County, N.C.; lived at 318 Pender Street; and was buried Rountrees Cemetery [likely Vick Cemetery] by C.E. Artis.

The obituary of Pauline Artis Henderson.

Wilson Daily Times, 20 June 1950.

——

In the 1900 census of Ingrams, Johnston County: widower farmer Archie Artis, 78; daughters Bathanie, 32, and Alice E., 22; and granddaughters Victoria, 13, Effie, 10, and Pollie, 1.

On 3 Dec 1914, Solomon Ward applied for a marriage license for Jesse Henderson of Wilson, age 21, son of Jesse Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, both dead, and Pauline Artis of Wilson, age 18, daughter of Alice Artis.  On the same day, Fred M. Davis, Baptist minister, performed the ceremony at his residence before Mary Barnes, Annie Hines, and Willie Cromartie, all of Wilson.  [Jesse and Sarah Henderson Jacobs, who were very much alive, reared Jesse, who was the son of Sarah’s sister.]

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 217 Pender Street, Jesse Henderson with wife Pauline, daughter Bessie, and mother-in-law Alice Artis.  Jesse worked as a truck driver for a woodyard. Alice was a cook for a private family.

In the 1928 Wilson city directory: Jack Henderson, a driver, and wife Pauline, were listed at 318 Pender Street.

Jessie Henderson Jr. died 15 April 1929 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 5 months old; was born in Wilson to Jessie Henderson Sr. of Dudley, N.C., and Pauline Artis of Johnson County, N.C.; and lived at 318 Pender Street. Pauline Henderson was informant.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 318 Pender Street, Jack Henderson, 38, wife Pauline, 31, and children Bessie, 12, Alic, 10, Joice, 7, Mildred, 6, and Archy, 4, mother-in-law Alic Artis, 49, paying $18/month rent. Alice worked as a cook for a private family, and Jack as a truck driver.

Archie Henderson died 11 May 1930 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 4 years old; was born in Wilson to Jessie Henderson of Wayne County, N.C., and Pauline Artis of Johnson [sic] County, N.C.; and lived at 318 Pender Street. Alice Artis was informant.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender Street, Alice Artis, 56, widow [in fact, she was not married]; Pauline Henderson, 39, widow [in fact, she was separated]; and grandchildren Bessie, 23, Alice, 20, Joyce, 18, Mildred, 16, Doris, 10, and Robert [Bobby], 4.