Lottie Belle, the scholar

Lottie Belle Lovett Thead

A couple of years ago, the four of them--my daughters, grown young women, so I won't call them "girls"--happened to be together in the same place at the same time. One of them was about to go to Oklahoma City for summer work. It seemed like a good time for some reforging of bonds, so we all tagged along with her and made it a family vacation of sorts: after we helped her get settled into her temporary apartment, we went to the bombing memorial in the city; did an amusement park;

dropped by the Museum of Natural History in Norman http://samnoblemuseum.ou.edu/; and, on the last leg of the trip back, dug for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/ 

Didn't find any, by the way. I thought about it later and wondered if I'd have actually bought one--maybe a little tiny one--if there were any offered in the gift shop there; and I decided that, no, even though we had no luck that day, I would only want one of the diamonds IF I DUG IT OUT MYSELF.

Otherwise, there'd be no fun in it.

This thought's been plaguing me just lately. My intention for doing the genealogy blogs was to provide information, documents, photos that hadn't been seen or known about, so that other family members would have them to show their own kids. As I said at the very first of all this, it's not good for me to be the only one (or only one of a handful of people) who has these papers.

But what if the fun is gone by my posting them? Are you like me: one of those people who want to dig up the diamond on their own?

This has made me pause every time I write another entry.

Some months back I made a decision not to bring the information completely up to the present. I intend to stop somewhere around maybe about 1910 or 1920. This way, you'll still be able to trace down people; and, if you happen to have older family members who might be just aching to tell their stories, it would be an incentive to take your iPhone or other equipment and record them!

I promised last time to tell you about Lottie Belle Lovett. Just to remind you who she was:
Lottie was the daughter of John Oscar Lovett and Mattie Nelson White.

As I pointed out last time ("Roots"), John Oscar had been married once before, to Lillian Denton, in 1889. She died in 1890, and so did an infant son. I don't know all the circumstances of those deaths, but Mattie White also died, in 1894, probably in childbirth herself, leaving Lottie.

 

In 1900 John Oscar was living in Beat 3 of Lauderdale County with Lottie, age 8; his 63-year-old mother Lucy; and his 52-year-old uncle Jasper Lovett.

1900 Lauderdale MS

[A caveat here: The person who wrote the 1900 census didn't use great penmanship. On one website I'm a member of, a transcriber indexed his name as "Joker." I somehow don't think that was accurate. There is a Jasper Lovett, by the way, in Rankin County in 1880.]

By 1910 John Oscar was married to Mildred Elizabeth Brown; they were shown as residing in "Daleville" district.

1910 Lauderdale MS, Daleville, April 15

Lottie was 18 by then. Interestingly, on the 15th of April of 1910, she was shown as a household member, and she's ALSO listed on the 23rd as "niece" in the household of William and Beulah Davis in Meridian.

1910 Lauderdale MS, Meridian, April 23

Actually, she lived with the Davis relatives and attended school in Meridian, and the other family--her father, stepmother and half-siblings--were in Daleville. In the Davis household Mary Ann White, William Davis' mother-in-law, is also listed; she was the mother of Mattie Nelson White Lovett, John Oscar Lovett's second wife and Lottie's mother. This would make Beulah Davis Lottie's aunt. Notice that Beulah's listed as a "dressmaker;" her niece Lottie's skills as a seamstress also came to be widely known. Robbie and Edwin Thead said she could look at a dress in a shop window, go home, and make it without a pattern. In later years she taught sewing at the Seventh-Day Adventist school in Meridian. [For another take on how families hand down skills and expertise to their descendants, for fun go read my post about my "carpenter" ancestors. https://allthingsalawine.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-carpenters.html ]

Here are pages from the "Kaldron", a yearbook recording student activities at Meridian High School.

 

 

 

Other Meridian HS students from that year

Lottie married Clarence Edd Thead and had six children: Beulah Louise, Martha Nelson (named after Lottie's mother), Mary Edna, Clarence Edwin, Jimmie Lee, and William "Billy" Davis. (Note that the census here shows "Edward" instead of "Edwin," and that Billy hadn't yet been born.)

1930 Lauderdale MS

Martha and Jimmie died in infancy and are buried in Lauderdale County.

 

I'm including some snaps from findagrave.com, because I always find it sad that children who die young are often forgotten.

And this is where I'll let descendants of the Lottie and Clarence Edd family begin searching for your own diamonds.

I'll be posting again quite soon with information about James Denton Thead and HIS descendants. Come back in a day or two and read on!

Ælfwine