JONES COUNTY, GA - BIOS Bessie Simmons Family ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Tom Roberts BESSIE LEE SIMMONS (ROBERTS) EARLY LIFE My grandmother Bessie Simmons was born, most likely in a farmhouse, in northwest Jones Co, GA on December 13, 1887. Her father James Madison Simmons owned a farm in Jones County at the time, and her mother Nancy Jane Newby Simmons ran the household and had lot of babies. My grandmother was the seventh of eleven children born to her mother. In addition, Bessie Simmons had five half brothers and sisters by James' first wife Sarah Jane Jenkins. There certainly was a house full of children in, I suspect, a small farmhouse. In 1889 my grandmother's family moved from Georgia to Attala Co, MS most likely for better farmland. Eight years later in 1897, Nancy Simmons17 died in Mississippi do to complications from childbirth. The next year James Simmons married Annie Murphy Holly.17 Sometimes in 1901 my grandmother and her younger sister Eula and maybe her brothers George and Joseph moved back to Jones Co, GA to live with their Aunt Jo and Uncle Dock Hardin.35 My grandmother later told her daughter Martha that her new stepmother could not handle all of the children.35 Another reason may have been that her father could no longer support such a large family as evidence that he claimed to be in indigent in his confederate pension application39 filed in 1903. Aunt Jo was one of my grandmother's mothers, Nancy, younger sisters. This must have been a traumatic experience for a young girl of thirteen to both lose her mother and move in with a new family that she hardly new. The house in which her Aunt Jo lived is still located in northwestern Jones County near East Juliette. A picture of the house as it is today is shown on the next page. My grandmother stopped going to school at the end of the eighth grade35 because during the early 1900's this part of Jones County had no high schools. According Lizze Ida Russell Green a niece of Bessie Simmons the nearest high school was located in Gray some twenty miles away. Mrs. Green was born in 1904 and raised near Aunt Jo's house. Even though my grandmother only attended eight years of school she was very bright lady according to her daughter Martha. Aunt Jo and her husband Uncle Dock raised my grandmother and her sister Eula during their teenage years. The girls most likely worked on Uncle Dock's farm until they married. "Marriage Record Book" Jones Co, GA Book H 1898 - 1909 p 354 After my grandmother's marriage on December 13, 1908, her twenty-first birthday, to Zephaniah T. Roberts she moved to Jasper Co, GA and lived on her father-in-law's farm. Zephaniah and Bessie Roberts taken about 1910 Bessie and Zephaniah Roberts most likely taken in the 1910's Bessie Simmons Roberts and her sister Eula most likely taken in the 1920's While living on the farm she bore four of her five children and must of helped with the farm chores. Bessie Roberts' last child Martha Lois was born in the house on Mangam Street in Monticello.35 My grandparents most likely grew cotton on the farm as well as food crops. In the late 1910's and early 1920's cotton prices sank very low and the farmers had a hard time making any money. When the boll weevil infestation hit in the late 1910's, a lot of Georgia farmers quit farming and left for jobs in the cities. In fact, the population of Jasper County dropped from around 17,000 in 1920 to only around 8600 in 1930 while Monticello's population dropped only slightly to around 1600 [1910- 20 census]. In 1917 farmers planted 5.7 million acres cotton in Georgia compared to only 1.5 million acres in 2000. In 2000 only 3.0 million acres of Georgia were used as crop farmland. Much of the cotton farmland has been converted to pine forests over the years. In Jasper County in 1911 farmers harvested 32,000 bales of cotton versus only 8472 and 3207 bales in 1920 and 1927 due to the effect of the boil weevil.60,61 Most likely because of these problems, my grandfather's converted from cotton sometimes before 1920 to pine trees. He had a crop of trees cut at least once in the 1930's [Jasper County Deed Books]. In 1921 his father died, the family left the farm and my grandfather purchased a three-room home in the Washington Park area of Monticello. The next year he purchased another much larger home on Mangam Street [Jasper County Deed Book W p 57 and S p 452]. The family moved into this latter home sometimes before it was purchased. In addition, in 1921 he started his new job as manager and part owner of Farmers Milling Company in Monticello.61 The depression had a severe effect on this area of Georgia, which was already suffering from the effects of the boll weevil infestation. Many people left the farm for cities like Atlanta and points north to find work. My grandparents survived the bad times with little problems since he made his living in the food business, and they grew many of their own vegetables on the lot next to their home.61 MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOME FOR THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS She lived in this home on Mangam Street from 1922 until 1960. The name of the street changed to South Street sometimes after my grandfather purchased the home. The house sat on rock pillows about three feet off the ground and back from the street around a hundred feet. Several large oak and pecan trees in the front yard guarded the house from the afternoon sun. The wooden frame house had not been painted in many years when I first remember seeing it in the early fifties. During a hard rain storm the house became very noisy because the roof was covered with a sheet metal most likely tin. Across much of the front of the house stood a long narrow porch with a large swing on the right side and several rocking chairs facing the street. I spent many hours as a child in that swing. There were two front doors, the main one on the right side of a room that projected outward in the middle of the porch and the other on the left side. The front door on the right side of the house led to a foyer/hall with rooms off both sides. On the right side of the foyer were two large combination sitting rooms and bedrooms. Each room had a large wood burning pot belled stove used for heat in the winter, two double beds with feather mattresses, and several chairs around the stove. We would sit around the stove in the winter or on the porch in the summer and talk. The double bed size mattresses were imprinted on both sides where people had slept over the years. The family used the front room as a living room before her husband Zeph died. Bessie Mama, the name her grand children called her, slept in the back room on the right in the bed closest to the stove. They added a bathroom at the end of the hall sometimes after 1922. The house had no hot water heater so before we took a bath Bessie Mama boiled water on the stove and poured it into the bathtub. On the front left side of the hall were three rooms rented to Mrs. Clay and her son during the 1950's for what I remember as six dollars a month. She first rented the rooms after her husband died around 1945 for some extra money and for company. During the 1920's and 30's her mother-in-law, Mattie Simmons Roberts, slept in the first room off the left side of the hall. On the other side of this room was a second bathroom and another bedroom in which daughters Sarah and Evelyn slept as children. My father Durward Roberts slept in the bedroom with his grandmother and Jabus and Martha in the back bedroom along with their parents. When my father left to go to Atlanta, Jabus moved in with his grandmother and when he left home Martha moved into her bedroom.35 The dining room rested off the back left of the long hall and contained a large oval table capable of seating ten or more people for dinner. When the crowd during a family visit was larger than the table could seat then us boys would eat in the kitchen. That was fine with me because we were closer to seconds. The kitchen was attached to the back of the dinning room, and someone added it after the house was built. On the right side of the kitchen a door led to the outside. Next to the door was a large wood-burning stove with eyes on the top for cooking and an oven for baking. Bessie Mama served many a good meal from that new kitchen. Several smaller buildings rested behind the house including an outhouse, an old kitchen, a smoke house and a garage. The original kitchen was separate from the house because of fear of fires, and there was no bathroom at the time the house was constructed. My father sold her house in January 1969 for $3,500 [Jasper Co. Deed Book B-11 p362], and someone torn it down in 1994. Next door and to the right of the house resided a field that was over grown with weeds and blackberry bushes during the fifties. I picked blackberries in the field as a child and Bessie Mama would make a tasty pie from the berries. During the 1920's and 30's her husband and children tended to a large vegetable garden in the field. Someone would pick the vegetables each morning, and Bessie Mama would cook them for lunch. My grandparents, also, raised chickens and pigs, which they slaughtered for meat. They smoked the pig in the smoke house in the back yard. They always had a cow for milk, cream and butter. During certain times from the 1920's to the 1940's she had a maid who helped her run the household. The maid worked for one dollar a week and left over food. The left over food fed her entire family. The maid also took laundry home to wash for extra money.35 FAMILY AND HER ADULT LIFE My grandparents raised their five children first on the farm and then in this home. The first one born was Evelyn in 1909, followed second by Sarah in 1911, Durward in 1915, Jabus in 1917, and Martha in 1922. They named Jabus after his father's brother who was killed in 1918 in World War I and Martha for her grandmother. Bessie Roberts was a loving nurturing mother to each of her children. All of them received good grades in school except my father. The names of each of the four children appeared in the Monticello News paper during the 1920's and the 1930's as being on the honor roll in most years from first grade through their senior year in high school. The three girls graduated from college and the two boys from business school. Her grandchildren called her Bessie Mama. She picked up this name from her oldest grandchild John Adams. He heard his mother call her Mama and his grandfather call her Bessie and he then put them together and called her Bessie Mama. She was a homemaker and noted cook. I remember visiting her many times as a child and enjoyed eating her fantastic food, swinging on her front porch and playing with my toy trucks in the sand in her front yard. She learned to cook on a wood-burning stove and would never switch to an electric stove. My father bought her an electric mini stove once but she would only boil water on it. She sure knew how to prepare a meal on her wood stove for a large number of kinfolks. Her very rich food included fried chicken, creamed potatoes, butter beans, home made rolls and others. I can still taste it. Her cooking was so good my Uncle Herschel Hatcher used to say, "you could smell her cooking when you crossed the Jasper County line." Bessie Mama was devoted to her husband even called him Daddy or Mr. Roberts but not Zeph. She always had a big lunch waiting for him. She never knew how much lunch to serve because he might bring home friends or customers without notice.35 I bet nobody turned down one of her meals. My grandmother, like many ladies of her time, did not drive and rarely left her home. She did not get involved in much outside the home except for the PTA. In 1928/9 she was a grade mother for the sixth grade36 and became a member of the Philathea Class at least in the mid 1930's. This group of mothers helped the community.37 She had her groceries delivered rather going to get them. Her mother-in-law Mattie, who lived with Bessie Mama's family, would not stay home by herself, therefore this is one of the reasons my grandmother could not leave the house very often. If my grandmother did leave the house Aunt Vallie or someone else had to stay with grandmother Mattie.35 I remember her as friendly but somewhat shy lady and we talked at length during my visits when I was in my early to mid teens. I can still see her sitting in a chair on the front porch with a wooden handled fan trying to keep cool in the hot Georgia summers. She grew to around five feet three inches tall always wore a long dress with her long gray hair folded up on top of her head. As a young woman she was a pretty lady with red hair and fair skin like many of her descendants. Sometimes in the early to mid 1950's my father determined that his Mother did not have enough money saved to live on for the rest of her life. Bessie Mama lived very simply, but the money her husband left in his will was running out. Therefore, my father and his brother Jabus alternated each year supporting her for the rest of her life, while her daughter Martha took care of her other needs. In the 1951 her Uncle Dock died. Aunt Jo had no children of her own so she came to live with my grandmother off and on over the next few years. Aunt Jo also lived with other relatives in Jones County. Bessie Mama's children did not want her to help take care of with Aunt Jo because she and Uncle Dock had a reputation of looking for handouts. Taking care of Aunt Jo was hard on Bessie Mama, but I guess she felt an obligation because Aunt Jo had cared for her as a teenager. I can still see Aunt Jo sitting on Bessie Mama's front porch crocheting. Aunt Jo died in 1956. Bessie Mama with her children and their spouses - back row Agnes, Jabus, Eliza, Durward; front Martha, Herschel, and Evelyn on her front steps in the summer of 1959 and with Durward at her 81st birthday party LIFE IN ATLANTA In the early 1960's Bessie Mama could no longer take care of herself and moved to a senior citizens resistance in Decatur, GA near the home of her youngest daughter. She did not want to leave Monticello, but she had no choice since she was not eating properly. Several senior citizens lived in this resistance because they all needed a little help but could otherwise do for themselves. She had a bedroom and could socialize in the large living room with the other people living there. When my wife and I visited my in- laws in Atlanta we would always go visit Bessie Mama and take her for a ride usually to Stone Mountain. In the mid 1960's Stone Mountain was only a rock coming out from the ground not much of a park. If you asked Bessie Mama how she felt she would never tell you I am doing well but instead talk about her latest aches or pains. After a series of falls and mini strokes in the mid 1960's she moved into a nursing home. By the late 1960's she became very frail and no longer knew who we were. She out lived her oldest two daughters, died on February 22, 1970 and her family buried beside her husband at West View Cemetery in Monticello, GA. Monticello News February, 1970