52 Ancestors – On Their Shoulders

I’ve decided to do Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. A lot of prompts this year seem to bring to mind things that come to mind from the research I have done. And seeing as I mostly do research on other people’s ancestors I plan to focus most of my posts on other people’s ancestors.

Aberdeen Butler was a man who was born about 1820-1825 in Georgia. His mother’s name was Amy. He had at least two siblings, Prince, and Venus. The family was enslaved in Florida by several families both in Georgia and Florida, largely by William B Nuttall (1802-1836) and his wife Mary Savage’s second husband George Noble Jones (1811-1876). But enough about them.

The Butler family lived on El Destino Plantation in Jefferson County, Florida. It is/was southeast Capitola, Florida, near the end of the Hall Branch stream, which is likely a branch of the Saint Marks River basin (the main house was located at about this location 30.432300814492574, -84.06455189709206).

Aberdeen worked in the mill on the plantation. We know this because of the extensive plantation records that George Nobel Jones kept. These records are on FamilySearch and on the Florida Memory website run by the archives of the state of Florida In this record we see a moment in Aberdeen’s life that makes me admire him.

A few women on the plantation had left and were found in Tallahassee. One of those women was Venus, Aberdeen’s sister. It is not fully clear from the records exactly why the women left, but it was likely because of abuse from the overseer. The overseer had found the women and when they were brought back to the plantation he said he went to put them in the plantation prison. And that’s when he said Aberdeen took an axe and was going to go after him, but a driver named Prince stopped him. The overseer and a neighbor both wrote to Jones telling him their side of things. Aberdeen was not seriously punished for this. The reason we know this is because he went on to live till the 1910s.

Aberdeen married Martha Evans had several children. They were: Whatley 1851, Mina 1852, Mary 1853, Ben 1858, Daphne 1860, Stephen 1862, and Venus 1864. While Aberdeen never, that we know of, owned his own home, he worked hard on the farm he rented and raised all of his children to adulthood. His wife Martha died some time between 1880 and before the 1900 Census date. Aberdeen lived a long life. He likely died between 1910 and before the 1920 Census. He would have been close to 90 years old when he died.

His life was filled with hardship. He even risked his life to try to protect his family. He survived and his family thrived even among the circumstances that the post Reconstruction South brought. I admire him because regardless of his circumstances he was willing to risk it all to save a loved one. May we all have that courage in the face of whatever is placed against us in this world.

Research Notes:
You can find all research notes on Aberdeen here at his WikiTree profile. Special thanks to those who improved the bio and added sources. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Butler-25971

Jennie (Shingledecker) Mohney
Fresh Start

I’ll be following the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompts this year from Amy Johnson Crow’s website (Find the description and how to sign up to get the prompts HERE). The first prompt is Fresh Start. I’ve chosen my great grandmother Jennie (Shingledecker) Mohney to write about for fresh start.

Jennie was born in 1890 in Schoolcraft, Michigan. Her parents were William and Nettie Mae Shingledecker. She was the 2nd child of four. She married John Ray Mohney when she was 18 years old. They had their first child before the end of that year. By the 1920 Census the family had moved to South Dakota and included 4 more children. Jennie was still in South Dakota during the South Dakota state census of 1925 and she had 3 more children by that date.

Things were not going great in the family as her husband had taken on a mistress. He had two children with the woman while still living with Jennie. Things must have come to light sometime in 1925 or early 1926 because Jennie was back in Michigan with the birth of her youngest daughter, Beatrice (my grandmother).

From her son Carl’s obituary I found out that John Ray actually moved the family back to Michigan, but then ended up leaving the family (to go back to his mistress). It must have been difficult to lose her husband that way. One way that she made it work was to tell people that her husband had died. All records I’ve found so far show Jennie as a widow. These include census records from 1930 and 1940 as well as marriage records for her children.

Jennie wasn’t alone in handling this fresh start. Her older children definitely helped out. Not only did she have her oldest daughters to help out, it seems she fostered a spirit of working hard in her children. In her son Carl’s obituary it notes that he taught his children “”The Mohney Way”: value hard work and do things right the first time.” I imagine that was more something he learned from his mother, Jennie, as she was the one who raised Carl alone for most of his childhood. While I get calling it the Mohney Way because his last name was Mohney, but I would have called it the Shingledecker Way, as his mom was the one who taught him hard work and sticking with those who matter most.

I don’t know much about her life overall, but I know Jennie was a hard worker. She raised 9 children who all grew to be hard working adults. She spent her later years with her children’s families, including visiting her daughter May’s family home in Charlevoix, Michigan.

Jennie (Shingledecker) Mohney was a hard working woman who raised 9 children. I am grateful for her determination to care for her children even through the heartache of losing her husband the way she did. I’m glad my grandmother had such a strong woman role model in her life because she ended up making a good impression on my mother who made a good impression on me. I am forever grateful for her. She truly made the most of her fresh start away from her husband.

Category: 52 Ancestors

Aberdeen Butler – An Ancestor I Admire

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Fresh Start