Meeting Grandma Prater: The Fleming's of Brownsville,Tennessee

Edith Fleming-Prater 1922

I remember the day that I met my husbands paternal Great Grandmother, Edith Elizabeth Fleming Prater. He had always spoke of her, saying that she had this tiny voice. It was soft, yet high pitched. Making her sound very young. He told me that when he and his sisters went to  grandma Prater's house as children, there were never any other children or family around. No cousins, aunts or uncles. It was so strange. Different than most families. Already the curiosity about grandma Prater's family history was brewing. Where was her family?  It was Thanksgiving day that year and my father in law had brought her home from the nursing home to spend the day with the family. I approached the woman in the wheelchair with caution. Looking back, I think I was a bit nervous. When she spoke, I noticed her  very tiny voice. It was my children's first time meeting her also. She seemed fascinated with my son, who was just a little boy back then. She hugged him and started to cry when she heard his name. He is the 4th generation of the family name, Charles. I could see that she had a very special bond with her grandson, Charles, ( my father in law) who she raised as her son. Meeting her that day only made me more curious to find out all about her history. And so the questions began..

Edith was born in November of 1904 in  Memphis,Tennessee to  Robert Fleming and Jennie King. As far as I know she only had one sibling, a sister named Vivian. I began searching for her in the census records and was surprised that I found her so easily. For every census year up to 1930, I found Edith living with her grandparents, Emmet and Elizabeth Fleming and her father Robert Fleming. It appeared that she was raised by her grandparents. Her mother, Jennie was no where to be found in the census. I wondered where she was? After the death of Edith's grandmother, Elizabeth. Edith and her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. According to the story my Father in law told me, Grandma Prater (Edith) was expecting. Being an unwed mother, she was being sent away to stay with relatives in Buffalo New York. The picture shown above was taken when she was getting ready to leave. I wonder who lived in New York..Another clue to figure out. After her daughter, Mary Louise was born, Edith came back to Cincinnati, Ohio. It was there that she met Albert Thomas Prater. They were married in 1925. He was from Newman, Georgia. His parents were Israel Prater and Cornelia Huggins. Thomas had three sisters, Lola, Ida Belle and Sarah.

Edith and Thomas moved to Minneapolis, Mn about 1946 with their young grandson Charles.Thomas opened a grocery store called Prater's Grocery. The family lived in the back of the store. They later moved to a house in south Minneapolis. Years later Thomas and Edith both worked for the U.S. Navy department. Thomas died in 1977 and Edith died in 1990.


Looking For the Fleming Family:

As I continued to trace the history of Grandma Edith Prater. I started searching for her father Robert. I found him living in Brownsville, Haywood county, Tennessee. As I sifted through census records, and went back further. I found Robert along with his parents and siblings. By the time that I reached the 1870 census I felt like I found gold! There was Robert's father, Emmet, his parents Thomas and Harriet Fleming and a load of brothers and sisters and their families. A whole page of Flemings!  Peter and Melissa Austin were living next door. I had heard the name "Austin" before. I have a hunch that Melissa was Thomas and Harriett's daughter. From 1870-1940 they stayed in the same place. Brownsville, Tennessee. According to the  census, they were all farmers. I wondered how life was for them. So this was Grandma Prater's family. Now I have to try to put the families together and find out who they were. along with locating the slave owner..more to come.

1870 Census- Brownsville,Haywood co, TN

Robert Fleming-Father of Edith Fleming Prater

Denise 

© 2014 Denise Muhammad 

The Notebook: A Gift Of History

My ancestors on my husbands side of the family have been poking me for quite some time. Their voice is loud and clear. It's time to share their story. And so we begin..

My husband has witnessed first hand my obsession with genealogy and my excitement as I have connected with new found relatives over the years. So I guess that I shouldn't have been surprised when he asked me one day, when was I going to find someone on his side of the family? I chuckled as I realized that he was interested in his ancestors after all..I took that as my cue to start digging into his past. His request was to find out something about his paternal grandfather who he knew absolutely nothing about.

I'll begin with my husband's father, Charles Emmit McKinney. He was an interesting individual, to say the least. Although I had known my father-in-law for years. I never asked him about his family. All I knew is that he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Edith Elizabeth FLEMING-PRATER, whom he affectionately called "Mom" and her husband Albert Thomas PRATER.

Charles Emmet McKinney

One day when he came to visit. I began to question him on his family. He told me that they were all from Tennessee and had migrated to Cincinnati, Ohio. He told me bits and pieces about his family. Most of which my husband didn't even know. I was amazed!  I was even more surprised when a few days later my husband came home with a notebook that his father instructed him to give to me. I opened it and there it was. He had written his family history, beginning with his great grandmother. There were Birth and death dates, Stories, pictures. My father-in Law passed away not long after this. How glad I am that we have this history to share. Glad that I was moved on that day to ask him the questions. What he left, a notebook written in his handwriting are puzzle pieces to the past. If I had of never asked him, I probably would not have known.

Charles was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 18, 1940 to Charles William McKinney and Mary Louise Fleming. His parents; who married as young teenagers, didn't stay together long. He described his parents as people who loved to party. His grandmother disapproving of this, took young Charles and moved to Minneapolis, Mn in the 1940's. Charles loved to sing and was a popular teen singer around Minneapolis in the 1950's. He was a member of  two bands. The five Velvetones and Little Charles  And The Big M's.

Now we come to Charles' father. Charles William Mckinney. I call him the mystery man. I don't have any pictures of him. What I know about him is written on one page, contained in the notebook that my father-in law wrote. He is describes his father as a man small in stature that liked to sing and wanted to be a prize fighter. He looked like he was mixed, part negro and Asian with curly hair. Charles William was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in about 1920. His mother was a light skinned woman known only as Mrs. Hunt. He had a sister named Christine and a brother named J.D. Charles is listed in the1940 census in Cincinnati,Ohio living with his wife Mary Louise and her parents.

What ever happened to Charles W. Mckinney? the answer to that question remains to be found. I am sure that he is out there somewhere, along with a whole family waiting to be found. In the meantime, I will continue to put this puzzle together..tracing the ancestors one leaf at a time.

 


Denise









© 2013 Denise Muhammad

Protecting The Past and Hiding Ancestors

My Grandmother, Margaret w/ her husband Don James and mother Mary B.Doyle (Carr)

In a recent conversation with my my mother, as we sat looking over tons of pictures and talking about family. I was reminded of just how secretive we can be when it comes to our ancestors. Maybe a better word would be "Hoarder". Holding on to information and pictures like our ancestors only belong to us.  Maybe we feel that not sharing is like holding on to a little piece of those who have passed on.

I think it's pretty amazing that from two individuals come a whole nation! If my ancestors as a couple have 10, 15 or 25 children. WE, the descendants of them are ALL forever interlocked by blood. We are family.

I shared with my mother my thoughts on our emotional need, the feeling of not wanting to share. We can't take any of  it with us. What happens to our family tree and our pictures when were gone? doesn't someone have to carry on and continue to tell the story of our ancestors ? Ancestor hunting is big work. I can't imagine that I would find all there is to know about every single ancestor all by myself..although I try. :-)

Families should work together. Imagine how much we could do if we just had unity.

It takes a village.


Denise

The Kitchen Table Talks

My grandmother Margaret w/her children, Richard, Gloria Jean and Shirley.

Growing up, I remember my mother's kitchen. In my house, like many other families that I know. The kitchen was the heart of the home. A place where mom made great meals and taught her daughters how to cook. A place where we prayed together, laughed and cried together. It was a warm special place. When my grandmother came to visit, which was very often. She and mom would sit at the kitchen table and talk for hours, which seemed like an eternity to my sisters and I. They always drank tea..Grandma, always liked black tea with lemon, and absolutely no sugar! As the years went by, It was my sister and I who fixed the tea for the both of them. Funny how I remember those details after all these years.

Grandma would talk about her family... Mama and Papa, as she called them. Her childhood, her ancestors, my mother's father and his family, the Bannarn's. It was always about family history, working hard and being proud of who you are. I'm sure they talked about other things, however this is the part of the conversation that I absorbed, for some reason. Listening to them tell theses stories about the ancestors..they were like characters in a book to me.They stood out among all else.When I think back, she was the true historian. She always thought it was important and wanted us to know all about our family. This burning desire to know who and where we come from, the sacrifices they made and the struggles they endured lives in so many of us in my family.

I never knew my grandfather, nor his parents..but I somehow feel that I did..for they live on and are given life through the stories of my grandmother, passed on to my mother, passed on to me.




Denise

© 2013 Denise Muhammad