Beyond Fiction

Today, I continue my posts featuring my Stevenson ancestors by sharing with you my knowledge of my maternal great-grandfather, Emmit Johnson Stevenson.

As usual, I have based the birth date upon the records I have been able to find, namely the death certificate and such. Sometimes you have to go with what you have!

BIRTH

I am not totally share about the middle name. I know this is what is in my old database but I have no source for it. I know, I should have been sourcing as I go and that is what I am doing now!

Emmit was born on February 4, 1863 in Anderson Co., South Carolina. This is according to the dates on his tombstone and according to the death record I found while searching the Family Search Labs site. Looking at the Census records I have this would match up pretty good. According to the death record I found, Emmit’s parents were Elbert Johnson Stevenson and Elmira Brown. According to my research, his mother’s name was actually Elmina Catherine Brown.

MARRIAGE

According to a letter that my Aunt Juanita shared with me, Emmit Stevenson and Nettie Freeman were married on July 20, 1881. This letter was written by Gladys, the wife of Ben Stevenson, one of Emmit and Nettie’s children. I’ve not found the actual marriage license for this but I hope to make a trip to South Carolina and look for this soon!

CHILDREN

• Elbert Jackson Stevenson
• Foster Lee Stevenson
• Charles Stevenson
• Raymond Stevenson
• Mollie Louise Stevenson
• Jeff Oliver Stevenson
• Hubbard Barnes Stevenson
• Winnie Ida Stevenson
• Willard Leslie Stevenson
• Ben Tillman Stevenson

DEATH

Emmit Stevenson died on February 11, 1928 in Bartow, Polk Co., Florida. This is according to the death record I found while searching the Family Search Labs site. I still have to try to find a copy of the death certificate, if possible, so that I can verify everything. I did do a search through the census and found that two of his children were living in Bartow in 1930 so it is very possible he was just visiting family when he died in 1928. Of course, he could have also been scouting out a place to move his family there also.

SUMMARY

As you can tell, I don’t have a ton of information on Emmit Stevenson. I do have the letter my Aunt Juanita shared with me and I will try to post that later. It will give you a lot of information about Emmit and Nettie Stevenson. It seems he was a very decent man and was very involved in his community. He was also a hard worker and, according to the letter I read, was one who ruled his household. When he set rules, they were followed!

I hope you have enjoyed this little post. If you have anything you would like to add, please feel free to contact me or just leave it in a reply!

Thanks,

Ken

Today I’m happy to start what I hope will be a long string of messages to showcase my research on my Stevenson side. In the process of sharing it here I will also be able to enter everything into my database and source it. It’s something I’ve been needing to do for a long time and now I have no excuse not to as I have to re-enter everything into my database anyway!

So, I will naturally start with my maternal grandmother, Winnie Ida Stevenson. I featured a picture of her on my Wordless Wednesday and Tell Me Thursday posts this week. Unfortunately, I really don’t have a lot of information on Grandma Winnie. I will try to give you what I do know.

BIRTH

I don’t have a birth certificate for Winnie so I have to take the information found in her death certificate to give her birth date. According to the death certificate I was able to obtain from the Harrison County Courthouse in Texas, her birth date is April 15, 1903 and she was born in Marion Co., Texas. This is the same date given on her tombstone. Her parents were Emmit Johnson Stevenson and Nettie (may be Gennet) Eudora Freeman.

MARRIAGE

For many years I had no idea of when my grandmother and grandfather were married. No one knew! None of my aunts and uncles, my mother, no one! I searched the courthouses around where they lived at the time they were probably married, including Harrison, Marion, Cass, and Gregg County in Texas. I could not find anything. I finally took a leap of faith one day and posted a request on RAOGK to see if someone would look for the record in Shreveport, Louisiana. Voila! I was rewarded with a scan of the marriage license. According to that license, George Charles Forbes and Winnie Ida Stevenson were united in marriage on January 31, 1922! Isn’t it wonderful when you are able to find something that you thought you would never find and all it took was to ASK?

CHILDREN

• Juanita Eudora Delcinia Forbes
• Adelaide Raymond Forbes
• Van Ellen Wayne Forbes
• George Charles Forbes, Jr.
• Calvin James Forbes
• Patricia Ann Forbes
• Jerry Don Forbes
• Winnie Ruth Forbes

DEATH

Winnie Ida (Stevenson) Forbes died on February 2, 1940. According to the death certificate the cause of death was Labor Pneumonia and Asthenia. She was laid to rest at Pope City Cemetery on February 3, 1940. At the time of her death, my mother had just turned 6 years old!

SUMMARY

I’m not really sure what happened after my grandmother’s death. All I know for sure is that my grandfather was left with 8 children ranging in age from 17 years to 4 months! My Aunt Juanita took on most of the responsibilities for raising the younger children. At the same time, most of the Stevenson family relocated to several different places. A few stuck around Northeast Texas but most of them moved to Florida and one moved to Idaho. With all the relocations, most of the family lost touch with the Stevenson relatives.

Fortunately, my Aunt Juanita was able to stay in touch with quite a few of them. She introduced me to a couple of them and I was able to gather some information from them. Unfortunately, my Aunt Juanita passed away on July 1, 2008. I really miss her and all the knowledge she was able to share with me!

It’s no surprise that I don’t have a lot of information on my grandmother. She died at a young age, a lot of her children, including my mother, don’t even remember her and she left little behind to reveal anything about her! I look forward to learning more about her as time goes on.

Thanks for stopping by to read my post.

Ken

Wow! It seems like I chose the right path to take when I chose to go with my Stevenson side first. I was playing around again last night and came upon a great discovery!

I was on the Family Search Labs site and was just typing names in again. I do that sometimes when I am bored! I typed in my great-grandmother’s name, Eudora Stevenson, and was going through the results when I came upon a death record for my great-grandfather, Emmit Stevenson. I knew his death date and I have a picture of his tombstone but I have never found his death record.

Surprisingly, his death record is not in Texas!

I figured that is where it would be as he had been living in Texas for at least 20 years or more before he died. I went to all the surrounding counties by where he lived and searched through the court houses looking for his death certificate and never found it! So, I gave up hope on finding it!

So, where did the record I found last night say he died? In Florida! That’s right, in Florida! I knew he had died on February 11, 1928 because that is what was on his tombstone. The record I found last night has that same date and has his birth date, which is right also! It also lists his parents names and they are correct. It’s just a transcript of the death certificate so I will have to see about how I can go about getting a copy of it.

Isn’t it interesting how we are able to find things sometimes. I had no idea what I was looking for. I was just bored and was typing in stuff and made a great discovery!

Now to try to figure out what he was doing in Florida!

Until next time,

Ken