A repost of my blog on the 2014 anniversary of her birth! She was born 194 years ago this year.
Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell Bass
Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell was born on
21 Feb 1825 in Perry, Alabama, where her father had received a land grant from his service in the War of 1812.
She met and married (at age 14) Richard Bass (later to be called Col. following the Civil War) in her home town, (see Here for more on him) but they started a migration to Texas, stopping along the way for several years. By the time she was in a census at age 25, she had a daughter, Julia (9) born in Alabama, and a son, James (7) born in Louisiana, and daughter, Ellen (5) also born in Louisiana. That census of 1850 showed the family living in Union Parish, LA.
In the 1860 census the family lived in Walker County, Texas, with a 5 month old baby Elizabeth, who was born in Texas. Ellen is no longer listed, and another daughter, Nancy C. is 6 years old, born in Louisiana. There's a cousin living with the family as well, whose name is Emily W. Traylor.
What is interesting about both the Union Parish LA census and especially the Walker County, Texas census, is the listing of various relatives along the same road...all farmers at this time. I'm pretty sure her parents lived on the next farm, but her younger brother who was a physician is also in the neighborhood.
My great grandmother, Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass Rogers was born in 1861. (More about her HERE)
Mary Ann Powell Bass died on 12 Oct 1871. If the Ancestry.com family tree is to be believed, she had 4 more children before her death at age 46. (Editor's note: only 3 more children were born to Mae...see correction of Bass family published soon.)
- Here's her headstone in the Old Waverly Cemetery.,Walker Co., Tex
Her parents were buried nearby, James Moore Powell (27 Feb 1791 Bertie County, NC - 27 Feb 1868, Walker County, TX)
and Nancy Jones Traylor Powell (16 May 1804, Oglethorpe County, Georgia - 27 Jun 1881 in Old Waverly, Walker, Texas)
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| James Moore Powell (1791-1868) |
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| Nancy Jones Traylor Powell 1804-1881 |
So your grandmother was about ten when her mother died. And there were at least 4 younger children (if they all survived). I hope the relatives strung along that same road were able to help out. The questions I wonder about are, what did she die of? Childbirth? Pneumonia? Consumption? Did the husband marry again? Did the rest of the children live to grow up? I'm assuming that missing daughter died. It's so hard to fill in the blanks before death certificates or records. I hope she wasn't just all tired out for most of her life - moving, giving birth, caring for those children.
ReplyDeleteI see it was your great grandmother that was 10.
ReplyDeleteI think there are more questions than answers for this family. I was glad that Nancy Jones Traylor Powell, my great grandmother's own grandmother, lived longer than her mother. Since they were all buried in the same cemetery, I imagine that the households were supporting each other.
ReplyDeleteI did see somewhere that she was called Mae, rather than Mary Ann Bass.
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