Mississippi Research Trip to Attala and Holmes Counties - Part I

Late last month, we made a trip to Attala and Holmes County, Mississippi, to conduct some interviews and on-site research for the book I am writing about Tillman Branch. The trip was a successful one, and I had the opportunity to meet up with some folks I already knew (including a few relatives) and to make the acquaintance of others I had never met. Most of the roads we traveled, with the exception of a few country lanes, were familiar to me, since my family spent many weekends visiting relatives in these counties during my growing up years. The hilly, wooded countryside is still just as green and lush as in years past, and the open fields filled with horses, cows, and newly baled hay, showcase the spectacular labor of many farmers who still own land passed down through several generations. We saw a number of trucks laden with logs, an indication that raising and selling timber is still among the money-making crops in this area.

We spent our first two nights of the trip in Kosciusko at the Maple Terrace Inn, a stately Queen Anne mansion, now a delightful bed and breakfast owned by a local optometrist and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. Routt. It was a repeat visit for us, since we had the pleasure of staying at the inn a few years ago.  Located on a residential street, and quite near the Attala County Library, the five bedroom house was built before the turn of the century by one of the town's early postmasters. Local legend says the house has its own resident ghost, believed by many townspeople to be that of a former owner, Frank Olive.

Our stay at the Maple Terrace Inn was a comfortable one that included a real southern breakfast, including biscuits and grits, prepared each morning by a lovely woman named Pamela.  Our visit to Kosciusko included a trip to the library to visit Ann Breedlove, the library's research genealogist and a long-time acquaintance of mine, and a drive around the quaint, brightly painted town square. Kosciusko has been designated a "Main Street U.S.A." city and was included a few years ago on a list entitled "Best 100 Small Towns to Live" in the U. S. The architecture of Kosciusko's residences, courthouse, and its old churches, along with its location on the Natchez Trace Parkway, maintained by the National Park Service, make Kosciusko a must-see Mississippi historic destination. Our trip would not have been complete without a meal at a highly-recommended local eatery across from the courthouse named Rib Alley and getting a photo of the Attala County Courthouse, one of Mississippi's beautiful, historic structures.

Attala County Courthouse
Kosciusko, Mississippi

Our next stop after leaving Kosciusko was the town of Goodman, Mississippi, where Tillman Branch owned two business establishments, his second family lived, and where his children attended high school.  As we traveled out of Kosciusko on Highway 14, we passed by the community of Newport, where numerous members of the Branch family, including three sets of my paternal great-grandparents, grandparents, and my father lived during the past 150 plus years. Tillman Branch, a first cousin, once removed, of my paternal grandfather, Clark Commander Branch, was born and raised in the Newport community, and later lived there with his first wife and their four children. Just down the road from Newport is Seneasha Church and Cemetery, where Tillman Branch and his parents, Edward Tillman Branch and Artissa ("Nettie") Ousley Branch are buried. Other deceased Branch family members are also buried in Seneasha Cemetery, along with many allied family members having surnames of Ables, Burrell, Mabry, and Ousley.

After crossing the Attala-Holmes County line, near Big Black River, a dark, meandering river that empties into the Mississippi near Vicksburg, we arrived in the small town of Goodman. In the early 1900's, Goodman was the center of trade for residents of the nearby rural Attala County communities of Newport, Sallis, Shrock, and others. The First Methodist Church in Goodman, Mississippi, was where my paternal grandmother's funeral was held in 1991, and Hillcrest Cemetery, north of town, just off U.S. Highway 51, is where dozens of my Branch and Porter ancestors and their descendants are buried. While we were in town, we placed some fall silk flowers in the urn between my grandparents' headstones.

Grave Site of My Paternal Grandparents
Clark Commander Branch and Lelia Porter Branch,
Hillcrest Cemetery
Goodman, Mississippi

Our next stop was the Goodman Library, where I had an appointment to meet Mrs. Jennette Moore, the librarian. We arrived a few minutes early, so we passed the time driving around the residential streets near the library, looking for the old home where my great-aunt Stella Branch Young and her husband Woodard Young, lived until they died. My great-grandmother, Claudia Baldridge Branch, Stella's mother, lived in a small cypress house situated next-door to the Young residence. Based on family information, Claudia Baldridge Branch's house had been "imported" from the "country" setting where she previously lived, and set up next to the house belonging to her daughter and son-in-law. Aunt Stella's husband was a disabled World War I veteran, and many local residents still remember him and my Aunt Stella, who worked for the Goodman school cafeteria for over 20 years.

After Mrs. Moore arrived at the library, we met each other in person for the first time, and had a pleasant time getting acquainted. We also discussed plans for an open meeting with local residents later in the week, a meeting that Mrs. Moore had sent for publication in Lexington's Holmes County Herald and had advertised with flyers that she placed in local business establishments. The meeting's purpose was to draw in local people who might provide me with information about Tillman Branch, his life and his death, and who might provide old photos of the Goodman and Newport areas. Just before noon that same day, we visited the Senior Citizen Center where I talked to some older residents who knew Tillman Branch in the 1950's and early 1960's before he died. On Friday, I returned for the event, where Mrs. Moore introduced me to the former librarian, Mrs. Bobbie Nance. As it turned out, Mrs. Nance is a distant cousin of mine, one who is related through the husband of another paternal great aunt, Ezma Branch McDaniel.  For someone like me, with deep roots in Attala and Holmes Counties, I don't find this unusual at all. In fact, I was quite pleased to meet another cousin!

At Goodman Library
September 20, 2013

We left Goodman around noon, headed north to the railroad town of Durant, Mississippi, where I planned to take a photo of an old mural in the post office there, before driving over to Lexington, the county seat. As a matter of courtesy, I introduced myself to the Postmaster, explaining that I am writing a book and would like to include a snapshot in the book of the unique mural above the postal window. He was very friendly and quite helpful and readily gave me permission to photograph the beautiful, old oil-on-canvas mural that depicts farmers, highway surveyors, and railroad crews working side by side in this central Mississippi town. According to some research, he mural is the artistic work of Isidore Toberoff and was commissioned by the U. S. Treasury Section of Fine Arts. Entitled "Erosion, Reclamation and Conservation of the Soil," Toberoff completed the mural in 1942, the same year that he received a Pulitzer Prize in art.

Mural in Durant, Mississippi Post Office

Of note here is that Durant, Mississippi was named for Pierre Durant, a well-known French trapper and furrier who built a very nice house in the 1800s for his family on the banks of the Big Black River. After the treaties with the Choctaw Indians were signed, some members of Durant's family left the area with relatives who had tribal connections. Later, members of the Durant family settled in a part of what later became the state of Oklahoma. Ironically, a town in that area was also named for a Durant son, and today, Durant, Oklahoma, like Philadelphia, Mississippi, is home to many Choctaw descendants. Also, like Philadelphia, Durant, Oklahoma has a large hotel and casino, a place that is known simply as "Choctaw" to those who live in southeastern Oklahoma and adjoining areas of North Texas.

Our trip to Durant took on a different direction after I told the postmaster a little more about the book I am writing. When I told him I was interested in seeing the former locations of more than a dozen nightclubs that existed in the town before liquor became legal in Mississippi in 1966, he told me I needed to talk to a man named Sonny McCrory, who operated a business just south of the post office.

To Be Continued........

Ava Elliot Thornton

I first learned about Ava from her maternal grandmother, Ann Breedlove. If you have ever conducted family history research in the Kosciusko Library, it is likely that you have met Ann. She works in the library's great Genealogy Room. Ann and I communciate by emailing each other fairly often, and it was in one of her emails that I learned about Ava. She told me about Julie and Mark, her daughter and son-in-law, who had recently found out about a possible problem with Julie's pregnancy. Ann shared her concerns for her daughter and son-in-law and asked that I remember them in my prayers, and I promised to do so.

As Julie's pregnancy progressed, the doctor continued to monitor the baby's development very carefully, and in early Spring, Julie's doctor ran some more tests, and the couple's families continued to pray for a good report. In an email from Ann, she described how worried she was about Julie, her husband, and their extended families. Also awaiting the new baby's birth was four-year old Annelise. The results of those tests, Ann told me in a later email, that Julie and Mark had been told the baby girl Julie was carrying could possibly have Down Syndrome and a condition known as Cystic Hygroma. As a mother and a grandmother, I felt Ann's pain and shared her concerns.

In late Spring, Ann told me that her granddaughter, now named "Ava," would be delivered by C-Section on June 30, 2009. She also told me that Julie was scheduled to have a sonogram a few weeks before the scheduled birth.

On Thursday before Father's Day, Julie had a sonogram. The test showed that although Ava was a Down Syndrome baby, her overall health was good, and her heart was functioning in all chambers. At the time of the sonogram, Ava was said to have weighed slightly over over 7 lbs. Mark and Julie and their respective families were encouraged by the results that Ava was healthy.

On Saturday, June 20, 2009, Julie accompanied Mark, who writes for The Review, a newspaper in Laurel, Mississippi to the Mississippi Press Conference. The conference went well for Mark, who received 7 awards for his writing, and the newspaper received 17 awards, including one for "best small town newspaper." Julie and Mark were very happy. Late that afternoon, Julie realized she had not felt the baby move for several hours. Worried, she and Mark called the doctor, who told them to go to the hospital. At the hospital, she underwent testing, and the medical staff told Julie and Mark there was no heartbeat. It was just a few minutes before midnight when Julie called her mother to tell her about the baby.

Shortly after midnight, on Father's Day, Ava Eliot Thornton was delivered by C-Section, stillborn.

Ava was buried the following Thursday in Ann's family plot at the Kosciusko City Cemetery, beside the infant's maternal great-great-grandparents. Mark's best friend, Jim Truesdale, assisted by Rev. Marty Fields, Julie's and Mark's pastor at home, officiated at the gravesite service. Ava's funeral must have been truly heartfelt for Jim, since he and his wife had also suffered the loss of a stillborn child. Ann and Lane Townsend, her brother, sang "Farther Along," a song that Julie had requested.

Sometime during the week after Ava's funeral, I talked to Ann about writing this post about her granddaughter. Her response was that she would be honored if I did so. But it has taken me this long to write the post, primarily because it was a sad and painful task. When Ann told me that Mark had written Ava's obituary, it was beyond impossible for me to even imagine how he must have felt as he wrote the words that memorialized his own baby daughter's death.

Ava's obituary appeared in The Clarion Ledger, published on June 27, 2009, in Jackson, Mississippi, and in The Star Herald, Kosciusko's newspaper, on June 25th. A reprint of that obituary can be read below:

"Ava Eliot Thornton died Sunday, June 21, 2009, at South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel, MS.

She was a stillborn infant.

Though she never drew a breath, she had a tremendous impact on the lives of those who loved her and eagerly anticipated her arrival.

There was a graveside service Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 10 am at Kosciusko City Cemetery. Rev. Marty Fields, Jim Truesdell and Lane Townsend officiated the service. Jordan Funeral Home was in charge of the arrangements. Ava is survived by her parents, Mark and Julie Thornton, and sister, Annelise, all of Laurel; grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Wiley C. (Chuck) Thornton of Madison, Mr. and Mrs. Dwayne Breedlove of Conehatta and Ann Townsend Breedlove of Kosciusko; great-grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Townsend of Kosciusko; numerous aunts, uncles and other relatives.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Central Mississippi Down Syndrome Society, P.O. Box 2189 Brandon, MS 39043-2189; Ellisville State School, 1101 Highway 11 South Ellisville, MS 39437; St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105."

Froggie's Friday Book Review - "The People of Shrock, Mississippi - 1895 - 1922"

Duncan C. Covington's book entitled "The People of Shrock, Mississippi 1895 - 1922" as seen by writers of local newspapers, is a compilation of Covington family history information and community news. The book was published privately in College Station, Texas, in soft cover form. Duncan graciously provided me with my own personal copy of his book, and I have been amazed with the plethora of information about Attala County people and events contained within its 273 pages.

Included in the book are transcriptions of local newspaper articles about families who lived in or near the Shrock community between 1895 and 1922. These newsy articles chronicle significant events in the daily lives of the residents of this early Attala County community and provide information about birthdays, engagements, marriages, and deaths. Various community events are chronicled, as well, and allow the reader a microscopic look at the social and economic life in Attala County around the turn of the twentieth century and continuing on into pre-depression years.

Also included in his book is a history of Duncan's own Covington family, told in story and in photographs. While many of the wonderful, old photographs are copies made from originals, some were made from glass negatives owned by the Covington family and included in the family's extensive collection of family documents and memorabilia. The book's 49-page index contains a list of "the people of Shrock" named in the publication and is a treasure trove of information for family history researchers.

In summary, if you are searching for information about your ancestors who lived or passed through Attala County, Mississippi between 1895 and 1922, I highly recommend Duncan's book as an important addition to your genealogy toolbox. In keeping with his reputation of being a dedicated Attala County native son, Duncan has donated a copy of "The People of Shrock - 1895 - 1922" to the Attala County Library in Kosciusko, Mississippi, part of the Mid-Mississippi Regional Library System Library, where it can be found in the genealogy research room.