52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Week 18 Mary Eliza Bailey Watkins
Mary Eliza Bailey is my great grandmother on my paternal
mother’s side of the family. Mary was
born about May 1876 in Macon, Hale County, Alabama to Prince Bailey (1851-1930)
and Adeline King (1852-1931). Both of
Mary’s parents appear from the records to have been born in Alabama. Prince Bailey’s parents are recorded as being
born in South Carolina. Mary’s siblings
listed in 1870 are all sisters, Caroline (1871), Lena (1879), Margaret (1883)
and Anna (1885). Mary was one of the
middle sisters. The family lived in Beat
8, Macon, Hale County, Alabama in 1880 and her father, Prince worked as a
laborer.
So far on this journey, this is the first picture found from
this generation and was taken in Indiana, Pennsylvania during the late 1930’s.
Mary met and married Wesley Watkins on 8 December 1892. She appears to have been fourteen years old
and in my mind very young to get married in our times. By the 1900 census great grandmother Mary was
married to Wesley, living in Gallion, Hale County, Alabama and had the
following children: Lula, Smith, Floyd, Oather/Otis, Wesley and Lillie
Mae. She would have one more child in
1916, my grandmother Lois. I find it
exciting that I met all of my uncles and aunts with the exception of Lula (must
find out what happened with her).
Mary’s husband Wesley worked as a coalminer and followed the
coalmining industry to Ernest, Pennsylvania by the 1930’s. One of her younger sons, Otis remembered
growing up in Demopolis that is 9.72 miles from Gallion (Hale County) in Walker
County. Walker County was once ranked as
the leading producer of coal in the country.
Our family verbal history is that Mary’s father, Prince Bailey was from
Mississippi and sure enough I did find a record from Clarke County, Mississippi
that supports him living there and working as a labor in the household of a
Margaret Bailey.
The life of a coalmining wife was surrounded with concern
and worry of men going into the mines and possibly not surviving the
workday. The mining companies provided
separate house for different groups of people yet underground in the mines the
men took the same risk and endured the same hazards. I’ve heard that Mary participated in
bootlegging yet I’ve found no proof of the story. Mary lost her husband in 1929 in Ernest Pennsylvania
to a heart attack. By the 1930 Census,
she was living with her youngest daughter, Lois who was expecting her first
child, my father. Mary died in
Pennsylvania about 1953 after a brief illness.
It is fit to write about Mary Eliza Bailey Watkins on this
eve of Mother’s Day. The journey will
continue with hope and plans to learn more about my great grandmother.
