Douglas E Stratton: A Bachelor by Law

If you go far out enough in Powhatan County, and drive south on route 13, you'll eventually hit the town of Macon right before the road curves sharp west. Well, today it's not really a town. It's just a Macon sign, a curve in the road, and a stop sign. But in the 1800s, there was a tavern, a post office, and a town store. It was the administrative center for the western portion of the county. And it was there that the patriarch of the Stratton family, David Stratton, ran a tavern, was Constable, and the town postmaster. After him, his daughter Louisa Catherine and his son Douglas also ran the post office. The Strattons were faithful members of Peterville Baptist Church and after the fall of the institution of slavery, the African Americans who had once been owned by the Stratton family went on to found Pine Hill Baptist Church.

As any small town, there were no true secrets in Macon. Especially if you were a Stratton. That was all too true for David's son Douglas who was kicked out of his church, never married, and moved north to New York. But after a while, even country "secrets" start to be hidden.

Well, that is until your third-great nephew goes digging into the family history a century later!

So what happens when you're David Stratton's son and there's something you're trying to keep secret? What would make Douglas E Stratton a life-long bachelor, by law?

1. Douglas' early life

Douglas E Stratton was born 24 Mar 1852 in Powhatan County, Virginia to David Stratton and Jordenia E Hopkins. He was their youngest child, and just a few years younger than my 2x great grandmother Edmonia Harriet Stratton.

Before Douglas was born, several of his older half-brothers moved to Alabama and later to Kentucky. His father was 64 when he was born, so he even had nieces and nephews who were older than him! When Douglas was nine years old, the Civil War began and just one week after his 11th birthday, his brother David Creath Stratton died in the war - just missing his 21st birthday. On the 4th of July, in 1867, his older brother Robert was murdered in his sleep in his home in Gainsville, Alabama. Weeks before Douglas turned 16, he lost his mother Jordenia on 2 Mar 1868. That's a lot of loss for the youngest in the family.

Douglas never even met his grandparents. His paternal grandfather - John Stratton - fought for Powhatan County during the Revolution. His maternal grandmother - Mary H Martin - was of proud French Huguenot stock, descending from John Martin who settled Manakin in 1700.

2. Bachelorhood

After Douglas' mother passed away, he and his father David were living in 1870 with Douglas' sister Emily and her husband Francis Bishop Hague. The following year, on 24 Apr 1871, David Stratton passed away and the next record we have of Douglas comes from the minute book of Peterville Baptist Church.

Just months after David Stratton passed away, Peterville Baptist Church appointed a commission to find Douglas E Stratton. On 23 Jun 1871, he was called a "habitual absentee" from church and Deacon Bagby was appointed to look into his "spiritual state." In July 1871, Deacon James D Bagby "reported he had not seen Brother Douglas Stratton." In April 1872, Deacon Bagby was "appointed and directed to cite Brother Douglas Stratton to attend at next church meeting to show cause why he should not be dealt with for habitual absence from church meetings."

By May 1872, "E. Douglas Stratton was excluded for want of Christian character."

During the 1870s, Douglas served as the postmaster of Macon and by 1800, he was listed as a carpenter. In 1880, Douglas was living with his niece Alice Elizabeth Hague and her husband Walter Henry Harris.

3. The mystery years

We have no census records for Douglas until 1920. He's missing in both the 1900 and 1910 census. Where was he? I'm not quite sure! But, he shows up in other sorts of records just as mysteriously!

4. Secrets revealed

On 3 Jan 1898, a curious record was produced in Powhatan County. A Suvella Stratton married William Henry Brown at Mt. Pero Baptist Church. Suvella lists her father as Douglas Stratton and her mother as Nancy Jackson. Could this be our Douglas Stratton? What's so curious about this record?

Both Suvella and William are listed as "colored." What's more, Mt. Pero is a historically black church founded by previously enslaved members of Peterville Baptist Church. As soon as they were married, Suvella and William moved north and by 1900 were living in Pleasantville, New Jersey.

When Suvella applied for her social security in 1940, she lists her father as "Dove Stratton" and her mother as "Nancy Bromsted." Douglas to Dove. Jackson to Bromsted. Perhaps this is a different person all together, you might say. Why even assume her father is our Douglas?

5. The plot thickens

In 1920, we finally find Douglas again living in Macon. He's listed as single, and living with him is a single "mulatto" woman named Maria Wells listed as his servant with an 11 year old daughter Valeria Edith Wells.

What's more, on 4 Jun 1926, Douglas sold Maria Wells six acres of land (with its buildings, a cow named Bell, a wagon, and farming implements) for ten dollars.

On 30 Oct 1926, Maria Wells passed away. Her death certificate lists her as a single "domestic." She's shown as being buried at Pine Hill (shown in the first photo above) in Macon. And who's the informant? Douglas Stratton of Macon, Virginia. Douglas E Stratton is also a witness to her will she wrote just before her death.

By 1930, Douglas is again living by himself and is a 76 year old single farmer.

The last document we have for Douglas is what appears to be his death certificate from New York City. The parent names add up, but there's no clear evidence it's the same Douglas E Stratton. It doesn't even list his state of birth. He's listed as an 80 year old widowed salesman. He died at a historic hospital, House of Calvary, devoted to offering hospice and palliative care. The back of the document lists the informant as his daughter, Elizabeth Hash.

6. Bachelor by Law

So far, we have random loosely-connected stories for Douglas E Stratton. We have a "colored" woman listing him as her father. We see him intimately connected to Maria Wells, a "mulatto" woman and we see he's a life-long bachelor. And don't forget, there's the gossip of a small town! A living Stratton cousin of mine remembers being told that Douglas was involved with black women and even had children. Children! So far, we only know of one!...right?

Well, more than the paper trail of Suvella Stratton Brown, there is DNA evidence connecting Suvella to the Stratton family. Several descendants of Suvella match my father and aunt as second to third cousins - sharing between 186 cM and 221 cM of DNA with them. More than simply sharing this DNA in common, all of their shared DNA matches are descended from either David Stratton or his father John Stratton. And then I saw a photo of Suvella.

The photo on the left is my great-grandmother Mary Susan Wooldridge. The photo on the right is Suvella Stratton. These two are first cousins, but they could have passed for sisters! The one on the left was white; the one on the right was called "colored," "black," and "negro."

Douglas Stratton could never have married Suvella's mother Nancy. Since a 1691 law, interracial couples could not remain in Virginia. Anti-miscegenation laws prevented marriage between people of different colors in the state of Virginia - even "illicit cohabitation" - until Loving v. Virginia in 1967. So whether Douglas and Nancy had a long-standing relationship or not in 1876 when Suvella was born, it would be another 91 years before that relationship would have even been legal in the state.

That Douglas and Maria Wells were close cannot be dismissed. He sold land to her, he witnessed her will, she lived with him. But whether she was actually his servant or if that was just a cover can only be surmised. I have yet to find a link between Maria's children and the Stratton family. But, we do have reason to conclude that Suvella was truly Douglas' daughter.

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My great-grandmother would have been ten years old when her first cousin Suvella married William Henry Brown and moved to New Jersey. It's likely she never met her, but she had to have known her uncle Douglas. If only I could have asked her about his life and what she knew about him. Did everyone gossip about her bachelor uncle? Did he ever get in trouble with the law for breaking cohabitation laws?

Douglas E Stratton may have been a bachelor, but probably not by choice. He was a bachelor by law.

This post was inspired by the week 10 prompt "Bachelor Uncle" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Powhatan History is in Your Hands

Powhatan County has a rich and long history that deserves to be preserved. And while organizations and politicians make it their business to discuss the preservation of buildings and monuments, the citizens of Powhatan County have a duty to protect something that transcends politics: the county's records. But remarkably few know that much of the county's history is held within one small room at the Powhatan Courthouse.

Just as you enter the Powhatan County Courthouse, on the right, is the Circuit Court Clerk's Office. Many know the clerk's office for being where you go for passports, marriage licenses, and land plat information. Fewer could tell you that this office holds hundreds of years of Powhatan history in the record room. Less visible than monuments and buildings - but older than any of them - are the wills and deeds, the marriage licenses and minute books, the order books and chancery records that lay mostly forgotten.

So why should you care about some old dusty records at the courthouse? The answer is closer to home than you might think.

As of February 2019, an estimated 26 million people have tested their DNA with in-home DNA testing companies including AncestryDNA, 23andme, MyHeritage, and FamilyTreeDNA. What drives so many people to have their DNA tested? For some, it's to discover their ethnic origins through these companies' increasingly specific ethnicity estimates. For others, it's to find long lost family, or for adoptees to discover their birth family. And for the growing community interested in their genealogy and family history, DNA testing provides a living record that proves vital to their research.

It's likely that if you're reading this, you - or one of your close family members - have already been DNA tested. And after seeing your ethnicity estimate, you'll notice a long list of all the other people in the database that match you as a cousin. The first question for most people is, "How on earth am I related to all these strangers!?" To figure this out, you need records. You need a paper trail to follow. But what happens if these records are lost, forgotten, or - even worse - destroyed because there's no room to store them? This is a risk Powhatan faces if more residents do not push for the preservation of their records.

If your ancestors lived in Powhatan, do you know where they lived? Do you know how they obtained their property? Was your grandmother left something in her parents' wills? When did your great-grandparents marry and which pastor performed the marriage? How old were your ancestors when they married? Do you have a Revolutionary War patriot that served from Powhatan? All of these are questions you can answer at the Circuit Court Clerk's Office. And once you discover you have a deep-rooted connection to Powhatan's history, you'll realize just how important it is to preserve that history.

The preservation and digitization (making digital copies by scanning and photographing) of Powhatan County records is vital to the preservation of Powhatan County history itself. But this takes awareness, it takes funding, and it takes citizen involvement. So what are you willing to do to preserve our history - the history of ALL of the citizens of Powhatan County?

To learn more about the Clerk's Office and how you can help preserve Powhatan history, visit http://powhatanclerksoffice.net/.

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What have you discovered at the courthouse? Have you helped preserve or digitize records at your local courthouse?

This post was inspired by the week 9 prompt "At the Courthouse" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

A Wooldridge Family Photo

There is power in seeing the faces of your ancestors.

There is power in this encounter. An encounter with people who lived and loved and hoped and struggled just as we do. An encounter with art - in a photograph - showing a moment in the life of our loved ones.

So let's take a look at a moment in the life of Leroy Samuel Wooldridge - from about 1912 - in Powhatan County, Virginia. A moment special enough for him and his family to be cherished for generations to come.

The Family Photo

The first time I saw a photo of Leroy Samuel Wooldridge was probably in 2014. I started delving deeper into my family history, and I found that someone had posted a copy of a family photo on Ancestry. It shows Leroy with four of his eight children, along with two of their spouses and five of his grandchildren. It's a stunning photograph - albeit a tad grainy and not amazingly clear. My guess is that it's from about 1912. 

There's a lot to love in this photo. First off, Leroy looks like Colonel Sanders from KFC! Amazing. Then there's the fashion: big dresses, cool ties, big hair. I love that my great-grandmother Mary Susan is sitting front and center. And can we notice the smiles? Only two of them are smiling - one is my Mary Susan, who has a youthful joy about her in the photo, too.  It feels so very characteristic of her descendants - we have a habit of standing out in a crowd!

I then found another version of the photo, but this time the family posed in front of a house. Instead of standing in the back, Leroy sits front and center with arms crossed - enthroned as the pater familias of the Wooldridge clan in Powhatan County. Mary Susan is standing behind Leroy this time. Together, these two photos are the only photos I have of my great-grandmother from before her marriage in 1913.

The photo in front of the house comes from a book that includes the Wooldridge family. The author even helped to identify the different people in the photo, which was an added bonus.

The Family

The Wooldridge family has deep roots in Chesterfield County, Virginia. They're known for being some of the earliest and most successful coal miners in the county. They were also instrumental in the founding of what is now the town of Midlothian. I grew up 10 minutes from the area where my Wooldridge family would have run the mines. Growing up, not only did I know nothing of my family's connection to the area, I never even knew there had been mines there!

This is one of those cool - history-comes-to-life-when-its-relevant - type of stories! Genealogy has this sort of effect on us, doesn't it? When we know we have a personal connection to history, it comes to life before us. And we care! History stops being about dates and it becomes about us and the people that made us who we are.

So back to my story! Leroy Samuel Wooldridge was born on 3 Feb 1839 to John M Wooldridge and Mary Susan Beazley. He was the middle child, the second of three sons. Leroy moved to neighboring Powhatan, while his older brother Chamberlayne eventually moved to Paducah, Kentucky and his younger brother Henry Clay stayed in Chesterfield.

Leroy married Edmonia Stratton after fighting in the Civil War in 1867. Edmonia passed in 1905, and Leroy lived until 1918. The longest living of their children was my Mary Susan who lived until 1988. Over the years, the Wooldridge cousins have lost touch, but through the power of genealogy we are coming back together again!

A copied photo is a beloved photo

Soon after I found the first photo of Leroy and his family, my cousin Veronica connected me to two women with a DNA connection to our family but who weren't sure how they connected. (The whole story will have to wait for another post...but trust me, it's an amazing story!) Well, long story short, they turned out to be descended from one of Leroy's daughters, Rosa Lee. 

Later that year, we had a big Southern-style reunion for everyone to get to meet in person and share in the joy of new connections. As we were enjoying some amazing Southern food overlooking a lake in Powhatan, some of my new cousins brought out a box of old photos. They pulled out a particularly old one, framed, and asked me if I might know who the people were. HA! Did I ever! 

It was the exact same photo I had seen online the year before...but this time it was a fuller picture, not accidentally cutting out one of the grandchildren. I was able to share who everyone was in the photo...and as I did, I could feel my connection to my cousins. I could point to my great-grandmother and then point to her sister Rosa Lee and say, "you're from her!"

My cousin Veronica and I posed with their copy of the photo - both of us in disbelief to be holding another copy of our family photo! A few months later, I found *another* copy of the photo in a box of photos at my aunt Patsy's house. My great-grandmother and her siblings must have loved this old photo. Different branches of the family all had a copy. A copied photo is a beloved photo! 

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This Wooldridge family photo has proven to be a bit of glue for my extended Wooldridge family. It's been like one of those best friend heart necklaces, where each person gets half of the heart. By each of the different lines descending from Leroy and Edmonia having a copy of this family photo, we can identify the other as being part of us. We each share something we never knew the other had too.

Do you have a cherished old family photo? Has a photo helped to connect your family?

This post was inspired by the week 8 prompt "Family Photo" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

Mimi & Pop

When I was about 11 years old - give or take a year - I interviewed my great-grandmother about her husband, my great-grandfather. We called her "Mimi," and though I never met him, everyone called him "Pop." That interview was the first time I took action to learn my family history. 

Twenty years later, I'm still trying to gather the pieces of the story of Mimi and Pop. Faded with time, jumbled with other memories, and discolored by different perspectives, their story has been passed down through their children - my grandmother "Memaw," and her brother, my great-uncle Sam - and my mom.

So let's discover Mimi and Pop - the beautiful couple from Petersburg, Virginia - and how their love has endured the test of time.

Gertlie Edgerton

Mimi was born Gertlie Edgerton on 8 Jun 1914 in Petersburg, Virginia. Sometimes, she was called Gertie or Gertie Lee, but she insisted that her name was actually Gertlie. Her father, Riley Ralph Edgerton, had moved to Virginia with his parents from Lake County, Indiana when he was between 10 and 15 years old. Her mother, Lillian Dee Emory, was a native of Prince George County, Virginia. Mimi had two older brothers, an older half-brother, and a little sister. The Edgertons lived in Petersburg and Riley worked as a refrigeration engineer. He was something of an inventor, always taking things apart and making new and interesting things.

After the 8th grade, Mimi had to leave school to support the family. Her father Riley was sick and out of work, so she took a job at a local dime store. By the time she met Pop, she was making more than he was! My great-uncle Sam says he thinks she was making about $10 a week. 

Now, my Mimi was a pretty lady. I mean, look at her! Gorgeous! As a young woman, people tried to persuade her to enter the Miss America pageant, but New Jersey was just too far from Petersburg. But soon enough, a dapper young man managed to steal her attention.

Samuel Franklin Brooks

Pop was born Samuel Franklin Brooks on 11 Feb 1913 in Halifax County, Virginia. His parents James Gordon Brooks and Lena Belle Adams were natives of the county too, but when he was very small, the family moved to Petersburg. It was sometime after his sister Arline was born in late 1916, that the family decided to pack up and take the dusty route north to the big city. Pop insisted that though he was not much more than three years old, he could remember the trip. It took them three days to travel from Halifax to Petersburg by horse-drawn wagon, and they kept getting stuck in the sandy roads.

The Brooks family always kept a connection to South Boston - in Halifax County - but Pop's immediate family stayed in Petersburg. 

Street gangs and pool halls

Pop had a group of guys he'd hang around in Petersburg. They'd spend time in the pool hall and probably get into a bit of mischief. We're not sure how exactly Mimi met Pop but we're guessing it had something to do with the pool hall or this group of guys that hung around the streets of Petersburg. Pop was a character, and she was a beautiful girl, so I can't imagine it took long for their eyes to catch. And the rest was history! 

A life together

They married on 24 Feb 1934 in Petersburg and began a life together. Pop worked as a sign painter and Mimi gave birth to my grandmother at the home of Pop's parents. After a few years, they moved to Richmond, had a son, and the United States entered World War II. Pop served all over Europe, and at one time was feared to be a prisoner of war. He was wounded and taken in by a group of nuns - possibly in Germany - and set on his way without a helmet so he couldn't so easily get back into combat. He never reported his injury though, so he went without a Purple Heart.

It's hard not to be drawn into the love these two had for one another. I don't know what they were like later in life as a couple, but you can see they were smitten with each other as youth.

Old photographs tell a story words never can. Personality, spunk, humor, and spirit get captured in that one moment for all to see and remember. I see my aunt Judy in both Mimi and Pop - eerily so really. She looked just like them. Beautiful like both of them. I wonder how much of Mimi and Pop has trickled down to me, too!

Later in life, after raising their two children, Mimi and Pop also helped to raise my mom after her parents' divorce. Pop painted not only for his profession, but also as his passion. He painted beautiful scenes from photographs - and I'm blessed to have a painting of his in my living room. My mom remembers him with a collection of religious texts from different faiths, all of which he could proudly say he'd read. Pop passed away in 1981.

My reflections

I was only 12 years old when Mimi passed away. In her last few years, I was able to spend some time with her at her home where my mom had lived, and later in the retirement home. I remember the bowl of strawberry candies, the egg-shaped glass containers with colored sand and nature scenes, the paintings by Pop, and all the fancy furniture. 

My aunt Judy took care of Mimi in her later years. She loved the beach and they'd goof off on the board walk, Judy pushing Mimi and the two of them carrying on like young girls. We'd go to Piccadilly together in Richmond - that smorgasbord of southern cafeteria-style dining. She always had her hair and nails done, and she always kept her spunk. For Y2K (when 1999 turned to 2000), my cousin Marty and I spent the night at her apartment. That was her last New Year's Eve.

The more I see photos of Mimi and Pop, the more I realize how much I favor that side of my family. My Memaw looks just like Mimi - her mom...and my mom looks JUST like Memaw. And I look just like my mom. So it was a special treat to join the Mayflower Society through Mimi's Edgerton family in 2017.

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When I asked my Memaw and great-uncle Sam how their parents met, neither were quite sure. It reminded me how easy it is to take our family stories for granted. We never ask our parents how they met, because we never really imagine them apart. And by the time we think to ask family members about their lives, or think about these family mysteries, they've passed on along with our opportunity to ask.

Mimi and Pop shared a love that started in Petersburg, endured war, and found new roots in Richmond. They had two children, four grandchildren, and Mimi lived long enough to know her great-grandchildren. So however it was that Pop swept Mimi off her feet, or whatever Mimi did to stop Pop in his tracks, I sure am grateful for their love!

Whose love story inspires you? Do you know how your parents or grandparents met?

This post was inspired by the week 7 prompt "Love" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

My ancestors - and your ancestors - deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!