The Pettus Family of Holmes County, Mississippi

A few months ago on Attala County Memories, I wrote a post about the Pettus family that migrated from Norwich, England to Virginia. Although I did include some information in that post about my maternal grandmother, Rosa Mae Pettus Netherland, who lived in Holmes County, Mississippi, I did not include anything about other Pettus family members who lived in Mississippi.


My Grandmother, Mother, and Me, Lexington, MS
Photographed by my father in late 1946

The fact is that I knew very little growing up about this side of my family. One reason for this was that my Pettus great-grandparents died when I was very young, and my mother and her mother seemed to known very little about the family's history. But thanks to two of my readers, Robby Pettus and R. E. Harthcock, newly discovered cousins in Mississippi, I now have some of that information. Interestingly, Robby's great-grandfather and mine were brothers.

Based on available family information, the Pettus family in Mississippi may have migrated from Virginia, via South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama . Verified information about my branch of the Pettus family, however, begins in 1830, when William Spencer Pettus, was born in Holmes County, Mississipi, on June 30th of that year. On an unverified date in 1867, William Spencer married Martha M. Thomas, in Holmes County. The daughter of Patrick Boyd Thomas, Sr. and Mary Frances, whose surname is unknown, Martha M. Thomas was born on October 30, 1847. According to the 1870 U. S. Census taken in Holmes County, Mississippi, William Spencer and Martha M. Thomas were living near Tchula, Mississippi. In 1880, the U. S. Census taken that year listed the family, now with three children, as residents of Beat 4, Holmes County, Mississippi. William's occupation was shown as "carpenter."

The marriage of William Spencer and Mary M. Thomas Pettus ultimately produced seven children. Their oldest child, John Dabney Pettus, was born in 1881 in Holmes County. When he was about 27 years old, John Dabney Pettus married Evie Lena McLean on November 2, 1907, also in Holmes County. Evie McLean, the daughter of Edward Dudley McLean and Adeline Cecilia Ferrell, was born on February 24, 1890, in Attala County, Mississippi. John Dabney Pettus died in 1909, and Evie McLean Pettus did on February 26, 1960 in Holmes County. During their marriage, Evie gave birth to 2 children, John Pettus and Charley Pettus.

Another of their sons, William Elza Pettus, my maternal great-grandfather, was born on June 1, 1876 in Holmes County. I was able to locate William Elza on census records only once, in 1900, when he was shown as a "Boarder" in the Thornton, Mississippi home of Molly Malone, a widowed mother of three children. Later that year, William Elza Pettus married Lucy Lula Trigleth in Holmes County. Lucy Lula was born in 1881 near Brozville, Holmes County, Mississippi, and was the daughter of George Walter Trigleth, Sr. and Susan Elizabeth Elviney Coggins. Lucy died in 1951 and was buried in Coxburg Cemetery in Holmes County. William Elza Pettus died the next year, on December 15, 1952, and was buried along with other Pettus relatives in Holmes County. During their marriage, William Elza Pettus and Lucy Lula Trigleth had four children, Mary Sue, William O., Rosa Mae, and Eloise.

Their oldest child, Mary Sue Pettus was born on September 9, 1903 in Holmes County. Mary Pettus married Robert Autry Chisolm on December 29, 1920, also in Holmes County. On January 19, 1961, Mary Sue Pettus Chisolm died, and she is buried in Coxburg Cemetery, Coxburg, Holmes County, MS.

William O. Pettus, the couple's only son, was born on October 17, 1904, in Holmes County, MS, and died on January 12, 1968, also in Holmes County, MS.

Rosa Mae Pettus, my maternal grandmother, was born on August 18, 1908, in Holmes County. She married Ralph Ernest Netherland, my grandfather, and they divorced around 1940, when my mother was 14 years old and her brother was around 10. A few years later, Rosa Mae remarried, but she became a widow in the early 1950's. After her second husband's death, Rosa Mae moved from Holmes County to Jackson, where she worked as a nurse at St. Dominic's Hospital until she retired. After Rosa Mae retired, she settled near Yazoo City and lived there until her death on January 4, 1986. My grandmother is buried in Coxburg Cemetery, Coxburg, Holmes County, MS, just miles from where she was born, grew up, and married my grandfather.

The couple's youngest child, Eloise Pettus, was born on August 18, 1910 in Holmes County. She married Joseph Elijah Gilmore about 1929, also in Holmes County. Eloise (pronounced "Eloyce") died on November 12, 1996 and is buried in Holmes County, as well.

In addition to John Dabney Pettus and William Elza Pettus, William Spencer Pettus and Mary Frances Thomas Pettus had five other children, Mansfield, born about 1868, James, born June 1870, Alice born circa 1875, Tildon, born June 1878, and Elmer, born on June 16, 1880. Elmer died on October 10, 1934. Like their brothers, John Dabney Pettus and William Elza Pettus, all five of these children were born in Holmes County, Mississippi.

According to my new cousins, most of our Pettus ancestors are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Holmes County, Mississippi. Others are buried in Coxburg Cemetery and in nearby cemeteries. Later this spring, I plan to post pictures of their gravestones on Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek, my cemetery blog, and I hope you will stop by.

Netherland Family Reunion - Coxburg, Mississippi, Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Netherland Family Annual Reunion will be this Sunday, August 31, 2008, at the Coxburg Community Center, Coxburg, Mississippi. But my mother and father will not be attending this year. My mother and father have always enjoyed meeting up with my mother's Netherland family relatives each year who come from several states and from as far away as New York City. Each person or couple attending the reunion bring a covered dish and share an afternoon together catching up on the latest family happenings since the past year. My mother's mind and her memory are miraculous, but her mobility is limited by osteoarthritis to such an extent this year that she and my father have decided they will not drive to Coxburg for the reunion. Her decision marks a specific point in her life, and in that of her family, because this was the once a year trip that symbolized the tie to her Netherland family and her roots in Holmes County, Mississippi.
My mother's father was Ralph Ernest Netherland, and her mother was Rosa Mae Pettus. Rosa Mae was born in 1908, and she was not even 18 years old when she married, Ralph, who was twenty-three years her senior. They had two children, my mother, who was born on October 8, 1926, and her only sibling, a brother, Reuben Netherland, born four years later.
Ralph Ernest Netherland was one of nine children born to William Bailey Netherland and Martha Elizabeth Garrard. According to the U. S. Census Record of 1850, William Bailey Netherland was born in Scotland. This explains the red hair that was so prominent on the Netherland side of the family.
Rosa Mae Pettus was born in Holmes County, Mississippi, the daughter of William Elza Pettus and Lucy Lula Trigleth. Ralph and Rosa Mae were divorced when my mother was 14 years old. A divorce in 1940 was almost unheard of and must have been traumatic for all family members involved, especially two children who were about 10 and 14 years of age. Rosa Mae Pettus Netherland remarried a few years later, and that husband died about 1953. Ralph Netherland never remarried and died in 1959 of stomach cancer. I saw him only once as a child just before he died of stomach cancer. Ironically, 6 of the 9 children, including Ralph, who were born to William Bailey Netherland and Martha Elizabeth Garrard, died of stomach cancer. A few died during their young adult years.
The stomach cancer information was unknown to many Netherland family members, including my mother, until a book entitled The Neatherlin, Leatherlin Connections and their Allied Families, was written by Gena Ayres Walls, who lives with her husband, a Netherland descendant, near Houston, Texas. Gena has written a genealogy column for her local newspaper for a number of years, and she used her very good research skills, coupled with her writing experience to compile the Netherland book. The book is complete with photocopies of actual documents, including death certificates for some of the family members who died of stomach cancer. Publication of the book was funded, in part, by Clarence Netherland, one of my mother's distant cousins.
I met Clarence Netherland because of the book. I discovered a copy of the Netherland book in the Erikkson Public Library in Dallas, Texas, where it had been donated by Clarence, and I later contacted him and asked if I could buy a copy of the book. Clarence owned Netherland Engineering in Dallas, Texas, until his death earlier this year. I purchased a copy of the book for my mother, and it was one of only three copies remaining at the time.
Now a quick plug for the Erikkson Public Library: it has one of the best, if not THE best genealogy collections of a modern public library, with almost an entire floor devoted to books, microfilm, and other types of publications. A bank of computers is available to access other documents contained in online collections. Paid staff, as well as many volunteers from the very active Dallas County Historical Society are on hand daily to assist researchers.
It makes me sad that my mother will be unable to attend the reunion this year. But time goes on, people get older, and things change.