Sunday, August 27, 2017

Charles Brumfield's Obituary, Is it Accurate?

Recently I found this obituary for Charles Brumfield. 
Does it give the correct date of death?

Charles Brumfield
Born 1 Jan 1796, York, SC
Son of John B. Brumfield & Margaret Kelly
My 3rd great granduncle



Died at his residence in Yazoo county, on 29th July 1870 Charles Brumfield, a native of York District, South Carolina, for the last 60 years a resident of this state and for the last 40 years of Yazoo county, where he has reared a large and respectable family – a man of the strictest integrity – just and true in all the relations of life.

Source: Obituary. (Jackson, MS: The Semi-Weekly Clarion, 19 Aug 1870) 3; digital image, Newspapers.com: accessed July 2017.



I do not have a death certificate for Charles but I believe this obituary is accurate. It was created at the place and time of his death & not many years later. However, there are many people who use another date for his death.

Printed Genealogies.  Before discovering this obituary I had read about Charles Brumfield in printed genealogies. Those books agree on his death date as 7 August 1870. However, and this is important, those books had no sources. If those books had sources for this date I would go to those sources to try and discover why the 7 August date was used. Perhaps his will was probated on that date.

Find A Grave has two dates for Charles Broomfield, Memorial# 68935036. It uses the 7 August 1870 date in the description but the photo of the tombstone shows 7 September 1870. I believe the tombstone was placed at a later date. It does not look like an old stone. Again, I wonder at the source of this information.

Online Trees also use the 7 August 1870 date for the death of Charles Brumfield. Their only source is other online trees. No primary sources.


Opinion please. 
I’d like to hear what you think about the death date of Charles.


Sunday, August 20, 2017

Forget Me Not: T M Brumfield, 'Crosses the River'

Thomas Meredith Brumfield

13 Jan 1837 MS - 20 Nov 1923 MS
Son of Charles Brumfield & Harriet Knight
My 1st cousin, 4x removed



Another Pioneer ‘Crosses the River’
Tom Brumfield, 
Veteran of the Civil War, Passes Away near Concord


One by one the pioneers of Yazoo County are answering the call of another land. On November 20, Tom Brumfield, who was one of the few Confederate veterans that had stood the winter’s cold and the summer’s heat for 87 years, all of which were spent in this county, passed to his reward. He was born near Dover and after his marriage bought a farm and settled near Concord church, where he and his family became part of the institution, attending the services and giving their names for its support. When the call came for the defence of the principals for which the south contended Mr. Brumfield was young and his soul became fired with the justice of the cause, so he, like the true southerner that he was, enlisted and took his stand with the Confederate army. Mr. Brumfield was injured in a railroad wreck which made him practically an invalid for the past 60 years, but his spirit never failed and he stuck to his post and worked until death claimed him. Besides his wife he is survived by six children, all of whom are grown and settled in life. They are Mrs. Mollie Compton, of Belzoni, Mrs. E. S. Manor, of Yazoo City, Route One, Willie Brumfield, who makes his home in the delta, and Tom, Joe and Todd, whom live near Anding. The funeral, which took place at Concord church on Nov. 21, was largely attended.

from:  
Another Pioneer ‘Crosses the River’ (1923, Dec. 28). The Yazoo Herald, p. 4. Retrieved March 7, 2017. Yazoo City, MS. Tom Broomfield.




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Thursday, August 17, 2017

Newspaper Subscription for Thomas Brumfield in 1908

Finding our family in newspapers is a treat. We might find a birth, wedding or death announcement. Newspaper articles might give us dates, names of family members and interesting details on everyday life. This short piece tells me that Thomas Brumfield enjoyed reading his newspaper.


Thomas Meredith Brumfield
13 Jan 1837 MS - 20 Nov 1923 MS
Son of Charles Brumfield & Harriet Knight
my 1st cousin 4x removed



 In renewing his subscription Monday for another year to the Herald, Mr. Tom Brumfield, one of the county’s oldest citizens, and one of the South’s brave defenders during the war, said that he was getting old, having celebrated his 71st birthday Jan 13, and that if he was not here next year to renew, to please continue sending the paper to his wife and little daughter; that himself and family appreciated its weekly visits and never wanted to be without the Herald. Mr. Brumfield may rest assured that the present owner of the paper will see to it that his wishes are carried out, and we thank him for his words of appreciation.



Fortunately Thomas was able to read his local newspaper for many years to come, having lived to the age of 86.

Watch for the post of his obituary in the same newspaper.

Source: (Yazoo City, MS: The Yazoo Herald, 31 Jan 1908)1; digital image, Newspapers.com: accessed July 2017.


Sunday, August 13, 2017

Forget Me Not: Jeptha Alford in MS & LA; Teacher, Doctor, Politician

Jeptha J. Alford, MD

2 Aug 1830 MS - 21 Nov 1914 LA
my 2nd great grand uncle




Died
On Nov. 21st 1914, at his home in Washington Parish, Dr. Jeptha J. Alford. Born on the 2nd of Aug. 1830 just above the State Line near his home where he died, being 84 years and three months old. The long active and useful life of the above, the great services to his fellowman, the value of his influence and the example his life has been to the community in which he lived, the importance of his acts to his country and state entitles him to more than a mere passing notice among the list of the dead.

            Beginning life at a time when the opportunities for acquiring an education was quite limited compared to the present time, he by diligent study in the country schools acquired sufficient education to teach school and in 1853 and 1854 he taught school in the Parish of St. Helena teaching and studying for his chosen profession which was Medicine. It was during the time he was teaching that he took part in his first political campaign, and showed his great ability as an orator and stump speaker. It was in 1814 when the great wave of Know Nothingism or “Sons of the Sires” swept over the country he canvassed that Parish for that party, and it defeated the Democratic Parish.

            Graduating in Medicine from old Louisiana Medical College in 1856, he began his remarkable career as a practicing physician and of his works as a doctor, a volume might be written. It was at a time when there were few doctors, and the territory in which he practiced was more than forty miles in circumference, and during the sickly season, which was in the late summer months, when there was a great deal of fever, he could for weeks at a time only get a few hours rest, and only his strong vigorous constitution enabled him to do this work. It was as practicing physician that he first displayed the charitableness of heart, that unselfish devotion to the task of relieving the needy that was characteristic of his whole life. No trips were too long, no night too dark of cold to prevent him from visiting the suffering tho [sic] he knew there was no possibility of his receiving any compensation for his service. During the Civil war he remained at home and administered to the families of the absent soldiers free of charge often compounding his own medicine. And could we but know in this long practice of forty years the homes he has visited, or estimate the thousands of suffering he has relieved, we might form some opinion of the great benefit he has been to his fellow man.

            Of a cheerful and lively nature, he carried this jovial personality of his into the sick room, and he often said that he cured more patients with his laugh than he did with his drugs. Tho [sic] great as was his work among the people as a doctor the most lasting benefit to his country will be his influence he has left upon the succeeding generation, by temperance. In 1850 when the “Sons of Temperance” was organized in the country to fight the evil of intemperance he enlisted under their banner, and for sixty years he has constantly and on all occasions pointed to the great evil of strong drink.

            Scientists tell us that if the light of a very distant star was to be shut out that the world would be hundreds of years missing its light. How much longer will a light that has shone from a life in the world that has shone on the lives of his fellows and influenced their character, be transmitted along the rolling years of time. Dr. Alford with his fellow co-workers, Wyatt Smith [Jeptha’s uncle], G. C. Fortinberry and Judge T. E. Tate and others have left their influence for good on the community in which they lived, that can never be lost. There is an incident in the death of Judge Tate and Dr. Alford that is remarkable.

            They had been close bosom friends for seventy years, had been workers together in temperance campaigns, and on every subject that had for its object the up-building of the moral force of the country and strange it is that their lives should go out at almost the same time, only twelve hours apart.

            That the life of Dr. Alford showed that he was fully aware of the needs of his country to make it great and prosperous was attested by his constant and zealous advocacy of the education of its boys and girls and he will be remembered for the earnest and strenuous efforts he made to install into the minds of the youth of the country a love of knowledge. He knows that no country could be great or happy without education.

            While not a politician in the sence [sic] the word is generally used, he took a deep interest in all the public questions and in all he showed an unapproachable honesty of purpose and consistency in his beliefs. In 1888 he was elected to the lower House of the Legislature, and served during the term as chairman of the committee on Education. It was during this term of the Legislature that there came before it a question that created more excitement and aroused the political elements of the state as it had not been done since the days of reconstruction. It was the Louisiana State Lottery Co., asking to have their franchise renewed. It was in vain that this well organized corporation tried all of its seduction and blandishments to swerve him from the path he considered his duty or to compromise him on his pronounced opposition to gambling.

            With this term in the Legislature the only other office he held was Superintendent of Education for Washington Parish.

            There was another trait in his character that deserves mention. In his long and intimate knowledge of the lives and habits of the people, and the conditions on the farm he saw how much drudgery, how much unrequited toil was performed by Louisiana women on the farm, and he deeply sympathized with them and if he could have been instrumental in relieving them of their burdens he would have considered it the greatest achievement of his life. While he so highly appreciated the happiness of congenial domestic life his own was unfortunate.

            He was married on the 7th of April [no year given] to Miss Fannie Roberts to whom
he was deeply devoted. She died in August 1861, leaving 2 children, a son and a daughter. The daughter died at the age of 2 years, about the time of her mother’s death. His son, the only child still lives. In April 1872 he married Miss Corinne Edwards of Tangipahoa Parish and she only lived four months after their marriage. Thus his home was always an asylum for the poor and distressed, his light hearted talk, his merry laugh cheered all around him. In silence he bore his own deep sorrow, nor complained of the fate that deprived him of the domestic happiness he always hoped for.


            He was laid to rest in the Silver Springs Cemetery near where he was born, in the presence of a large crowd of relatives and friends, on Sunday, Nov. 22nd. Burial services were conducted by Rev. J. N. Fortinberry.



Source: Died (Franklinton, LA: The Era-Leader, 10 December 1914)4; digital image, Newspapers.com: accessed 26 May 2017.


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