So much we don’t know
She is far more of a mystery than it seems she should be, having lived into the 20th century.
Born in North Carolina, likely Burke County, 183 years ago today, Martha Louisa (Baker) Cottrell was The Legal Genealogist‘s second great grandmother.
Her oldest son Martin Gilbert Cottrell (1855-1946) was my great grandfather; his youngest son, her youngest grandson, was my grandfather Clay Rex Cottrell (1898-1970).
And while I have loads of individual facts about the life of this woman, called Louisa, I know nothing really about her.
About who she was.
About what she liked.
About the kind of person she came to be.
Or even, for certain, what she looked like.
We think the photo shown here today may be a photo of Louisa, surrounded towards the end of her life by children and grandchildren — it comes to us from a Cottrell cousin and so could well be a Cottrell family group. But we’re not sure; it may be of someone else altogether.
So… what do we know about Louisa?
Her birth on 9 May 1832 seems pretty well established, from Louisa’s own statement in an 1897 pension application.1 Although she said she was born in Cherokee County, North Carolina,2 her parents were in Burke County in 18303 and her father, Martin Baker, was included on a jury list in Yancey County — created from Burke in 18334 — as late as 1834.5
We can follow her parents as they trekked ever westward, first to Cherokee County in 1840,6 then to Pulaski County, Kentucky, by 1850,7 then to Louisa County, Iowa, by 1852.8
Finally, it was on south to Texas — the last move — and we can place the Bakers in what was then Navarro but became Parker County by early 1854.9
There the Bakers acquired a neighbor — one George W. Cottrell, who served as a chain carrier on Baker land claims10 and for whose own land claim the Bakers carried the chains.11
And they soon acquired a son-in-law, though exactly when and where is in question. George married Louisa perhaps in 1854 in Johnson County, Texas.12 Or maybe 1853 in Parker County.13 Or maybe 1854 in Parker County.14 Or maybe 1855 in Johnson County.15 Sometime around then somewhere around there, anyway.
We can track Louisa forward in the census records too: still in Parker County in 1880, with George and several of their children (they had at least five);16 in Wichita County by 1900, as a widow in the household of daughter Mary (Cottrell) Green;17 and still with the Greens in 1910.18
The story rolls to an end in January 1913. Louisa’s death was reported in the local newspaper:
Mrs. Louisa Cottrell, 82 years old, died last Friday at 2:30 a.m., and was buried Saturday at 3 p.m. Funeral services were conducted by Rev. M.L. Blankenship assisted by Rev. H.B. Johnson. She leaves two sons and two daughters, nine grand children and five great grand children. She had been an invalid thirty years. She was a member of the Baptist church nearly sixty-eight years.19
And that’s it.
Sad, isn’t it?
There is so very much about this woman we don’t know, not even what the condition was that left her invalided those 30 years.
We don’t know if she liked the color red. If she liked or even approved of her sons-in-law. Was she a good cook? Did she like to read — even could she read?
At this point I’d even settle for knowing if her grandchildren called her Granny. Or Grandma. Or Grams. I just hope she was enough of a pushover that they didn’t have to call her Mrs. Cottrell.
I hope they brought her flowers in the spring, even if Mother’s Day wasn’t a holiday in her lifetime.
I hope she knew how to laugh…
SOURCES
- Declaration of claimant, 21 Jan 1897, widow’s pension application no. 13773 (Rejected), for service of George W. Cottrell of Texas; Mexican War Pension Files; Records of the Bureau of Pensions and its Predecessors 1805-1935; Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15; National Archives, Washington, D.C. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- 1830 U.S. census, Burke County, North Carolina, p. 198 (stamped), line 3, Martain Baker household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Jul 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M19, roll 118. ↩
- See David Leroy Corbitt, The Formation of the North Carolina Counties 1663-1943 (Raleigh : Division of
Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1987), 42-48. ↩ - Minute Book, 1834-1844, Yancey County, North Carolina, Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Minutes of December Term 1834; call no. C.R.107.301.1; North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh. ↩
- 1840 U.S. census, Cherokee County, North Carolina, population schedule, p. 239 (stamped), line 8, Martin Baker household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Jul 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M704, roll 357. ↩
- 1850 U.S. census, Pulaski County, Kentucky, population schedule, Division 2, p. 111 (stamped), dwelling/family 528, Martin Baker household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Jul 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M432, roll 217. ↩
- 1852 Iowa State Census, Louisa County, Columbus City, p. 1, line 24, Martin Baker household; State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines; FHL microfilm 1022204. ↩
- See And see “Parker County,” Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook: accessed 8 May 2015.) ↩
- Texas General Land Office, vol. 33, p. 272, Charles Baker, 8 Dec 1863, 160 acres. ↩
- Texas General Land Office, vol. 17, p. 224, G W Cotrell, 10 Dec 1863, 160 acres. ↩
- Survivor’s Claim, 23 March 1887, Pension application no. 7890 (Rejected), for service of George W. Cotrell of Texas; Mexican War Pension Files; RG-15; NA-Washington, D.C. ↩
- Ibid., Survivor’s Brief, 17 February 1890. ↩
- Declaration of claimant, 21 Jan 1897, widow’s pension application no. 13773 (Rejected), for service of George W. Cottrell of Texas; Mexican War Pension Files; RG-15; NA-Washington, D.C. ↩
- See Weldon Hudson, Marriage Records of Johnson County, Tx. (Cleburne : Johnson Co. Historical Soc., 2002). ↩
- 1880 U.S. census, Parker County, Texas, Justice Precinct 6, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 139, p. 458(B) (stamped), dwelling/family 10, George W Cotrell household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 May 2015); citing National Archive microfilm publication T9, roll 1232. ↩
- 1900 U.S. census, Wichita County, Texas, Justice Precinct 6, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 127, p. 243(A) (stamped), dwelling/family 189, Louisa “Catrell”; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 May 2015); citing National Archive microfilm publication T623, roll 1679. ↩
- 1910 U.S. census, Wichita County, Texas, Justice Precinct 2, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 228, p. 10(B) (stamped), dwelling 179, family 182, Louisa Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 May 2015); citing National Archive microfilm publication T624, roll 1597. ↩
- “Iowa Park Notes,” Wichita Falls (Tex.) Daily Times, 24 Jan 1913. ↩
Awww! I hope Mrs. Cottrell had happy times, too. It’s impossible to not wonder wistfully about our ancestors, especially in the families to whom we feel closest.
Life was so hard in those days, without all the conveniences we take for granted. Just the thought of raising a lot of children without indoor plumbing/running water makes me shudder, and I think of it when I’m changing my grands’ dirty (disposable) diapers or when they’ve passed around a bug and there is a lot of laundry to be washed after they’ve all thrown up. Or, even when they come in hot ‘n sweaty from playing, in need of being popped into the tub so they can go to bed clean and sweet – and so I can get the shower I need afterward!
As a young girl, I asked my mother what they did “in the olden days” when women had periods; and she said, “My mother kept rags that were used for that purpose, and we had to wash them out, afterward.”!!!
Just the idea of a wagon train full of women traveling across the bleak frontier with all the heat and all the dust raised by the horses and oxen, with all the babies and little children and then “Mother Nature’s little gift” in the midst of it all makes me want to cry for those poor women!
I hope there was love and tenderness between Louisa and her George and between the majority of our ancestors, instead of just marriages of convenience because there was no one else around when women needed husbands to provide for them or men were “ready to settle down” or needed a women to raise their children left when their first wives died in childbirth. I fear that many of our ancestors spent their lives with spouses whom they did not love, but had to sleep with, work with, bear children by, and bear all the indignities that come from being trapped in a loveless marriage with someone they might not even like.
It’s a treasure when we know little details about their lives…
Hard to imagine what life was really like back then — thank heavens!! I don’t know how our mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers managed.
Judy, I can relate to how sad, difficult, and frustrating it can be when we are unable to find much information about members of our families. I was raised in a foster home from the age of seven and have been chasing my elusive birth family for quite some time, since I started genealogy by obtaining my paternal grandmother’s death certificate. I did oonnect with one cousin who found me, but other than that, I’ve been unable to locate any more relatives. But I just keep on digging and searching, with hope that some information will eventually jump into my tree. Thank you for your taking the time to enlighten us with your wonderful blog. Louise
Thanks for the kind words, Louise, and the very best of luck to you in your family search!
A beautiful and thoughtful post, Judy. I am lucky to have known not only my grandmother (b. 1889), but most of her siblings, and even some of the generation before (and all the cousins and aunts and uncles). I grew up in that extended family, who loved telling stories and often talked about their experiences. I have a vivid picture of what their lives were like from those stories. Still, it was not until I began my own genealogical ramblings, after her death, that I learned much about my grandmother’s childhood. She never spoke of it, and though she often mentioned her deceased husband, and occasionally her mother, she never talked about her father, nor did any of the rest of the family. I learned that her mother had died in childbirth when she was ten. Shortly thereafter her father remarried a much younger woman, who didn’t want to take on his first family. So the children were dispersed. All of them dropped out of school (some later picked up an education; my intelligent grandmother ended with the 3rd grade) and working as laborers and household help to survive. My grandmother married at 18; to all accounts a happy marriage until my grandfather died suddenly at the age of 39. I know a lot about that period, but I do not know the details of her early life. I have no way of finding out, but I ache for the motherless child she was, and cherish my memories of the woman who was my grandmother, whose farmhouse in the foothills of southern Oregon was the center of all our lives. I wonder, if I’d asked, if she would have felt comfortable talking about what it felt like. I kind of suspect not, because no one ever did.
Your grandmother’s story is heartbreaking, Annie — but what a strong woman she must have been.
My 4x grandparents were Charles and Catherine Evans Baker in Burke Co., NC. I wonder if there might be some relation to Louisa’s Martin Baker. My Charles had several children not named in his Rev. war pension records.
If memory serves me, this Charles was a Marylander, no? If that’s right, then he’s in a different Baker line. Martin’s father David Baker was born in Culpeper County, VA, in 1749, and he was the son of Thomas and Dorothy (Davenport) Baker.