Excerpt from The People of Shrock Mississippi 1895 - 1922

Edited by Duncan C. Covington, an Attala County native son, the book identified in the title of this post contains the names of hundreds of residents and former residents of Attala County, Mississippi and the surrounding area and chronicles the details of various events in their lives. I am including in the post here today a copy of one particular article published in the November 22, 1922 edition of Kosciusko's newspaper, the Star Herald. The article identifies students who were named to the Midway School's Honor Roll.

First Grade - Norma Stephens, Blanche Shrock, Eunice Caldwell, Mart Baldridge, Joe Mabry, Alice Baldridge, Walter Jones
Second Grade - W. C. Mabry, R.C. Jones, Herbert Harmon, Morris McDaniel
Third Grade - Leonard Porter, Myrtice Harmond, Estell Stevens, Ethel May Stevens
Fourth Grade - Elmer Caldwell, Buena McDaniel
Sixth Grade - A.B. Cochran, Thelma Jones, Anna Jones, Lucille Simpson
Seventh Grade - Laura Branch, Inez McDaniel, Clarence Porter
Eighth Grade - Charles Shrock, P.J. McDonald, Percy May, Joe Wyatt, Eva McDaniel
Ninth Grade - Lelia Porter

Included  among the names above are several of my own relatives, including my grandmother, Lelia Porter (Branch), two of her brothers, Leonard Porter and Clarence Porter, and her future sister-in-law, Laura Branch (Jones).

Porter Family in Mississippi - Part 1

As a descendant of the Porter family in Mississippi that migrated first from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, through Alabama, and finally to the Mississippi Territory, I have found my own Porter family's history very difficult to trace.  My paternal grandmother, Lelia Porter Branch, first told me when I was young, that her father, John James (J.J.) Porter, was "Black Dutch" from Pennsylvania and that he was descended from one of three brothers who arrived in the Mississippi Territory about 1800.  She did not know the name of the brother from whom her father descended.  In my research, I have found that what my grandmother told me was fairly accurate, since early territorial census records show Landlot, Shadrack, and John Porter living in Adams County, Mississippi.  Available land records establish that Landlot (Lancelot) acquired land in the Mississippi Territory in late 1804, with Shad (Shadrack) Porter witnessing the transaction.  

No. 1914, Claimant: Lancelot Porter, 24 September 1804. Witness: Reuben Mayfield, 22 January 1805. Certificate D-161 issued 16 December 1806, Miss Ter., Adams Co., Homochitto River. Purchased from Thomas  Aldridge the right of preference as claim by ad Aldridge in Feb 1803, when he cleared a parcel of land, made a brush fence and planted corn, also peach trees and in 1804 Lancelot Porter settled sd place and cleared 3 acres and is now living on it.Miss Ter., Adams Co.// Thos. Aldridge, of sd county, for $500 in hand paid by Lancelot Porter, of sd county, sells all right of occupancy on land on south side of Homochitto River, on June 1804. Wit: Hiram Downs, John Scarlett, and Shad Porter, proved before the Board, 10 Sept 1805.

Armed with this early census and land ownership information, I began a research saga that extended to several counties in Mississippi, and one that is still ongoing.  During the next few weeks, I plan to post what I know about various Porter families that lived in Adams, Attala, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Hinds Counties. 

Author's Note:  If you are descended from Landlot, Shadrack, or John Porter who settled in the early Mississippi Territory and have stories or photos that you would like to share here on this blog, please contact me.

Claudia Baldridge Branch and Her Only Son

Pictured here are my paternal great-grandmother, Claudia Baldridge Branch, born September 9, 1879, and her only son, Clark Commander Branch, who was born on August 9, 1899. In addition to Clark, Claudia and Edward Arthur Branch had four daughters, Ezma, Catherine, Laura, and Stella. I have previously written posts here about both the Branch family and the Baldridge families.

This photograph, taken around 1951 in front of our house in the Mississippi Delta, is the only one of just Clark and his mother that I know exists. At the time, Grandma Claudie, as she was known to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, was living in Goodman, Mississippi. and was likely visiting our family at the time.

Although I was too young to know the value of asking Grandma Claudie questions about her family and her life before she died in 1964, I have always thought she must have been pretty proud of her son. After she lost her husband when Clark was only 15 years old, as the only son, he became the primary breadwinner for the family, and a farmer like most of his own ancestors. And during his life, it was evident to me that Clark's sisters, too, admired and respected him, not only for his role as a father figure growing up, but for the honest, hardworking, and loyal man he became as an adult.

Clark Commander Branch died on January 19, 1979, in Jackson, Mississippi, of complications from heart disease, the same disease that had caused his mother's death. He is buried in Hillcrest Cemetery, Holmes County, Mississippi, next to his wife of 56 years, Lelia Porter Branch, and near Claudia, his beloved mother.

Goodbye Delta, Hello Big City

This post is dedicated to my grandparents, pictured below. They were among the many survivors of life in the Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression in Mississippi.

Clark and Lelia Branch, circa 1945 In 1955, my life, along with the lives of my grandparents, parents, and two siblings would change forever. It was the year they "sold the family farm." In July of that year, we left the only home I could remember and moved to the big city, at least it was a big city to a nine-year old child born on a farm in the Mississippi Delta. We had always lived with my grandparents, or my grandparents lived with my parents. Which of these two situations was true was not really important to me as a child, and since my father was an only child, it seemed logical to me at the time.

As I look back on my parents and my grandparents living arrangement, my parents must have moved into my grandparent's house in the Mississippi Delta the year that I was born. They had married in Mississippi but had lived out-of-state during the first few months of their marriage. Although I was too young to remember specific details about any division of household duties, it is likely that my mother was not the "mistress of her own domain" or the "only cook in the kitchen" until I was in sixth grade, when my grandparents moved into a different house. For the first time since late in the year they were married, my parents were alone in their own home with only their children.

The move from the farm to the "big city" was precipitated by my grandfather's age and health, along with the simple fact that farming was not making the kind of living that it once had. My grandfather raised cotton in the Mississippi Delta, beginning after his move from Attala County in the depression years and continuing until the move to the city in 1955. Cotton was "king," and the entire Delta economy around 1950 revolved around planting, "hoeing" or "chopping" and the fall "picking." We could see the cotton gin in the distance from our yard.

My grandfather also raised soybeans that he sold to the local farmers' coop and corn and sugar cane. The corn was taken to the gristmill for milling into cornmeal, and the sugar cane was used for making syrup. We also had a number of animals that were raised for milk and butter and for meat. And the large vegetable garden and small fruit orchard cared for by my mother and grandmother produced enough fresh vegetables, fruits, and potatoes for our family all year. My mother became a "canning" expert. This farm had enabled my grandparents to make it through the depression years.

The fact that my father did not become a farmer, but opted for a job in a small town nearby, allowed our family to live modestly, but comfortably, in the post World War II years. Their lifestyle was dramatically improved from the depression years my grandparents saw as a young married couple raising a child and what my parents experienced as children growing up during that time in Mississippi. My father's job "in town" enabled our family to have some of the comfort items they did not have during the depression years, including a newly remodeled house with electricity and running water, along with a new car, and later one of the first television sets.

My father's job move from the small town near where we lived to the big city was actually the final decision maker to leave the Delta in 1955. Farm life for my grandparents, as well as my parents, quickly became a thing of the past, leaving behind memories of some difficult years, but taking with them pleasant memories of family and longtime business and personal friendships.

An era had come to an end, and all our lives, particularly the lives of my grandparents, would never be the same.