If It Weren’t for the Women (Part 2)

Two weeks ago, I shared the stories of four women representing four different generations across four different branches of my mother’s family and pondered the goodness and grace of God that is evident in their lives. Today I’m moving over to my father’s side where we find even more inspiring women without whom I literally wouldn’t be here and see even more examples of God’s sovereign hand and sustaining grace.

Mary Jane Seagle Whitman Eanes

As I did last time, I’ll start with the woman furthest up the tree of whom I have a photograph, Mary Jane Seagle Whitman Eanes, my 3^rd-great-grandmother whose life was marked by cross-country travel and periods of deep loss. Mary was born in southwestern Virginia, and although her Civil War pension file states she lived in Virginia all her life, the record of her first marriage is in western North Carolina in 1857, and a few years later she, her husband, and her newborn daughter Florence are found living in Texas.[i] Her first husband became a casualty of the Civil War, and sometime between 1860 and 1865 (likely during or just after the war), Mary journeyed across the war-torn South from Texas back to Virginia.[ii] There, as a war widow in her late 20s or early 30s, she married my 3^rd-great-grandfather James Eanes and went on to have two sons with him, James Wilson and William Henry.[iii]

Mary became a widow for the second time in 1887 when her husband James died from Bright’s Disease, and she suffered grief once again when William Henry was injured in a lumber accident in 1901 and soon after died of tuberculosis.[iv] Her granddaughter, who remembered her as “a hard working poor old woman” who “knitted me a pair of wool stockings for Sunday,” recalled the time of injury: “Granny was out in the road crying and daddy [James Wilson] said, ‘He ain’t dead’. Granny said, ‘No, but he’s gonna die’.”[v] While we only know the names of three of Mary’s children, census records suggest that she gave birth to at least one, if not two, other children who also preceded her in death.[vi] As Mary aged, she lived with her surviving son (my great-great-grandfather) and his family before eventually moving to Tennessee with Florence where she stayed until her death in 1919, almost exactly a year after the end of World War I.[vii] Nearly one hundred years later, my parents and I would take a detour during one of our cross-Tennessee trips back East and find her grave, next to Florence’s, in Lenoir City, Tennessee.

Mollie Kirby Eanes with husband James Wilson and six of their nine children.

When Mary lived with her son’s family, the woman who would have helped oversee her care was her daughter-in-law Mollie/Molly Kirby Eanes, my great-great-grandmother. I’ve always felt a special connection to Mollie because we share a birthday week (perhaps day), and her daughter’s home, where she lived until her death in 1957, is the location of our Eanes family reunions.[viii] Mollie was born in the late 1860s or early 1870s in Virginia, the daughter of a Civil War veteran. Unlike her mother-in-law, Mollie did live her entire life in the same region of the state where she was born.[ix] After marrying James Wilson Eanes, also the child of a veteran, she gave birth to five sons and four daughters over the course of twenty-five years (1890-1915), and apart from two boys in a row, each birth alternated in gender. Remarkably, all nine children survived to adulthood, although seven years before her death Mollie suffered the traumatic grief of one son’s death on her own bed in their four-room house. The death was ruled a suicide but believed by the family to be murder.

As a sharecropper’s wife, Mollie worked hard to care for her family through several moves around southwestern Virginia, often rising to use her wood-burning stove for baking biscuits and cooking gravy to accompany the possum, groundhog, rabbit, or other meat that her husband had hunted and cooked that morning. A quiet but feisty woman who chewed snuff and took no flack, Mollie was known to “slowly say, ‘Nooow Jim’ to calm [her husband] down” when he got agitated over so-called “hypocrites” at the church where he was Sunday School Superintendent. Mollie passed her quiet nature and work ethic on to her children, involving them in gardening, drying, pickling, and otherwise preparing their food. She kept her children in line with firm discipline, and they solidly felt her love despite her not being “overly affectionate.” Her grandchildren loved her as well, referring to her as “Biggie Mommy” or “Biggie” as opposed to their own mother who was just “Mommy.”

Karolina [Volpez?] Kailing

Staying in the same generation but moving to another branch of my father’s family tree, we meet Karolina [Volpez?] Kailing. As you can tell by the brackets and question mark, I have yet to determine exactly what Karolina’s maiden name was and consequently don’t know the exact names of her parents, although I do have a photo of them. What I do know is that Karolina was the most recent woman in my family tree to immigrate to the United States, traveling from what is now Romania in 1907.[x] She was born in 1883 in Kissebes (again in what is now Romania) and was Hungarian (Magyar) by ethnicity and Catholic by religion.[xi]

By 1904 she was with the ethnically-German, religiously-Lutheran Samuel Kailing in another part of modern-day Romania where the two baptized their son Rudolph in the Protestant church.[xii] Two years later, another son was born, but tragically he died from pneumonia at five months old.[xiii] Three months after burying their infant son, Karolina was left with her surviving son as Samuel ventured ahead of her to America, leaving the mining community of Romania to work in the mines of West Virginia.[xiv] Seven months later, in November 1907, still less than a year after burying her son, Karolina left his grave behind, took three-year-old Rudolph, boarded the Carpathia (the ship that years later would rescue survivors from the Titanic), and made the three-week journey across the ocean to join Samuel.[xv]

Once in West Virginia, Karolina went on to have five more children with Samuel—three sons then two daughters, with one son (my great-grandfather Ernest) being named after his brother whose body lay buried in Europe. Karolina transitioned with Samuel as he left the mines for other pursuits and eventually opened the successful Kailing Grocery in McDowell County. She lived with her three unmarried children until her death in 1939, four months before Samuel’s.[xvi]

Beulah Mae Collette Kailing

Karolina only lived to be 55, but that was long enough to see her son Ernest marry a McDowell County girl, Beulah Mae Collette. Known to me as “Grandmother,” Beulah Mae was the great-grandmother whom I knew 2^nd-longest of the four, and my soft voice, slow eating, and middle name (Collette) come from her. I always remember her as being sweet and happy, with a snarky streak that would come out every once in a while. By her kind eyes, warm smile, and soft, joyous laugh, you’d never know all the trials she endured throughout her life.

Beulah’s story is like many others, characterized by a roller-coaster of joys and sorrows. She was born in 1915, the second of nine children, only eight of whom survived to adulthood.[xvii] When she was 14 years old, her father, Carrick Augustus Collette, died in a state hospital of pulmonary tuberculosis.[xviii] This loss, combined with the concurrent onset of the Great Depression likely meant she took on a greater load of responsibility helping her mother Bessie care for her younger siblings, the youngest of whom was only 4 at the time. At age 18, she was in a chapter of happiness as she married Ernest and gave birth to my grandmother within the year.[xix] Tragedy would soon strike again, though, when her second daughter was born prematurely and died after eleven hours.[xx] When her living daughter was eleven, Beulah found joy again at the birth of a third girl, and the family of four enjoyed life in the county in which all of them were born as they lived next to the railroad and above the Kailing Grocery that Ernest managed.

My "Grandmother"

The next landmark of her life mixed sorrow with joy. Shortly after finding out she was to be a grandmother, Beulah’s husband died at the age of 49 from a heart attack.[xxi] The birth of her grandson helped her through the grief, and after closing the family store, she moved to be closer to her daughter’s family and busied herself with earning her GED, being involved in her church, and caring for her mother as well as her daughter and grandsons after her son-in-law also passed away at a young age. Beulah’s life was blessed with friendships, too, including one with Frances Paulette Smith (remember her from Part 1?) whose granddaughter would go on to marry Beulah’s own grandson and later give birth to me!

Whether they lived and died in the same state, traveled halfway across the country and back, or journeyed to the other side of the world, these women with their unique stories and unique personalities remind us once again of the creativity of God and the power of His sustenance that is evidenced in their strength, perseverance, dedication, and love. He protected them, provided for them, carried them through overwhelming sorrows, and lavished them with undeserved joys, just as He does with you and me. And what about you? Can you trace the thread of grace through your own family’s story? It’s there for you to find, if only you’ll take the time to see it.      

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[i] “Alabama, Texas and Virginia, U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958,” database and images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1677/images/31867_B034435-00020?pId=524959 : accessed 17 March 2021); pension form no. 3 application of widow Mary J. Eanes, service of James Eanes (21^st Virginia Cavalry, Company K, Civil War); citing “Confederate Pension Rolls, Veterans, and Widows,” Collection CP-5_155, Roll 155, “Smyth County (surnames E-Si),” Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. Ashe County, North Carolina, Marriage Register, 1853-1904, Clark S Whitman—Mary J Seagle, 9th December 1857; digital image, Ancestry.com, “North Carolina, U.S., Marriage Records, 1741-2011” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60548/images/42091_327586-00154?pId=13297351 : accessed 17 March 2021). 1860 U.S. Census, Hunt County, Texas, population schedule, Timber Creek, Precinct no. 2, p. 1 (penned), dwelling 3, family 3, C S Whitman family; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4297440_00031?pId=35039212 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Family History Library microfilm 805298 and NARA microfilm publication M653.

[ii] The fate of Mary’s first husband is mentioned in Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[iii] Wythe County, Virginia, Marriage License, 1865, James Eanes—Mary Whitman, 24th October 1865; digital image [PDF], Ancestry.com, “Source Document-Marriage Certificate-James Eanes and Mary Whitman-4 Oct 1865 [sic]” shared by greanes 19 Nov 2020 (accessed 17 March 2021). Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[iv] “Alabama, Texas and Virginia, U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958,” Mary J. Eanes, service of James Eanes. Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[v] Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[vi]1900 U.S. Census, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, Blue Spring Precinct, Enumeration District 87, p. 11A-B (penned), p. 155A-B (stamped), dwelling 177, family 179, James W Eanes family; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4117934_00699?pId=72438073 ; https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4117934_00700?pId=72438073 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Family History Library microfilm 1241728 and NARA microfilm publication T623. 1910 U.S. Census, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, St. Clair, Enumeration District 93, p. 11 (penned), p. 217A (stamped), dwelling 163, family 163, James W Eanes family; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/4454881_00438?pId=180094674 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Family History Library microfilm 1375662 and NARA microfilm publication T624.

[vii] Ibid. Tennessee State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, certificate of death no. 171 [stamped] (1919), Mary Eans; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Tennessee, U.S., Death Records, 1908-1965” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2376/images/33113_257794-01119?pId=613904 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Tennessee State Library and Archives, “Tennessee Death Records, 1908-1958,” microfilm roll 101.

[viii] Virginia Department of Health, certificate of death no. 22622 (1957), Mollie Kirby Eanes; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Richmond; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Virginia, U.S., Death Records, 1912-2014,” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9278/images/43006_172028004349_0151-00100?pId=2027519 : accessed 16 March 2021).

[ix] The remaining information and quotations about Mollie Kirby come from “James Wilson Eanes-1Nov2007.doc” written and sent to me by Greg Eanes based on his notes from several interviews with children and grandchildren of James Wilson and Molly Kirby Eanes.

[x] “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Line 3, Page 22, Karolina Kailing, Arrival 20 November 1907 on Carpathia; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYT715_1045-0040?pId=4005798616 ; https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYT715_1045-0041?pId=4005798616 : accessed 20 March 2021), citing NARA microfilm publication T715, 1897-1957.

[xi] Ibid. West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 7920 (1939), Mrs. Samuel Kailing (Caroline); Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1046405&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xii] Petrosani, Hunedoara, Romania, Protestant (evangelisch) Baptism Register, 1892-1911, Rudolph Kailing, 3 May 1904; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions, 1607-1914” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5412/images/44050_petros%5E09-00119?pId=991129 : accessed 4 January 2020).

[xiii] Petrosani, Hunedoara, Romania, Protestant (evangelisch) Baptism Register, 1892-1911, Ernst Kailing, 8 September 1906; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions, 1607-1914”  (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5412/images/44050_petros%5E09-00144?pId=991243 : accessed 6 Oct 2020). Petrosani, Hunedoara, Romania, Protestant (evangelisch) Death Register, 1892-1914, Ernst Kailing, 13 January 1907; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions, 1607-1914” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5412/images/44050_petros%5E11-00042?pId=1026417 : accessed 21 December 2020).

[xiv] New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957; Samuel Keiling, Arrival 27 April 1907; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYT715_877-0076?pId=4041031225 : accessed 30 November 2020).

[xv] “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists […],” Karolina Kailing, Arrival 20 November 1907, Ancestry.com.

[xvi] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 7920 (1939), Mrs. Samuel Kailing (Caroline).

[xvii] McDowell County, West Virginia, Register of Births, 1915, Beulah Mae Collette, 16th June 1915 (p. 32); digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http:/15/www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=2039213&Type=Birth : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xviii] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 16229 (1929), C. A. Collette; Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1047683&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xix] McDowell County, West Virginia, Marriage License, 1933, Ernest S Kailing—Beulah M Collette, 1^st August 1933; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History  (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=11416774&Type=Marriage : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xx] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 3626 (1938), Baby Girl Kailing (Janice Earnestine Kailing); Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1299172&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xxi] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 012482 (1960), Ernest Samuel Kailing; Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1007616&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).