Uncovering My Roots

My parents separated when I was very young and I saw my father only once or twice before he died. My mother never spoke about him, so I grew up with little knowledge of my father or his family. After my mother's death in 1963, I went to college in Baltimore and focused my life around my older sisters and my mother's family. Twenty years later, as I neared my forties, I began to ponder my paternal lineage and decided to find out more about my father's family.

I began my search in Pinewood, South Carolina, my father's birthplace, where I talked with his first-cousin, Ruby White Ragin, a retired school teacher. She was 68 years old and a wealth of family information. Her vivid recollections of names and events sent me to the County Courthouse where I was overwhelmed by the abundance of information I found! As I perused dusty, leather-bound ledgers and Red-rope folders, my family's history unfolded before me.

The records began with my great-grandfather Stephen Francis White who settled in Pinewood, South Carolina after spending some years working in Wilmington, NC. The records did not reveal either his birthplace or date, but family lore was that he always said, "Give me 1846 for my birth date." Around 1870, Stephen married Judith Brown and together they produced eight children. Two of their daughters died before reaching adulthood but their six surviving sons and daughters gave them 37 grandchildren.

In 1883, Stephen purchased 75 acres of land for $250. In 1888, he purchased 50 acres of land, half of a former plantation known as Spring Grove, for $1,200. As the years passed, he occasionally mortgaged already owned land and gambled on the success of his next cotton crop to pay off the loan. Judging from the records, he paid his debts on time because by 1900, he had purchased over 1,300 acres of land in the area of Pinewood and Rimini.

Stephen and Judith sent their eldest son William, and daughters Emma, Rebecca and Sarah to Allen University in Columbia, SC. After graduation, Emma and William became a schoolteachers. Stephen was especially close to his son Abie, who had remained at home with his father and took on the larger burdens of successful farm management. In his will, Stephen rewarded Abie with a larger share of family property.

Although Stephen Francis White never learned to read or write (on all 12 property deeds as well as his will, his mark --a broad X -- appears) it is quite evident that he was a very intelligent man since he became extremely prosperous in a time when success came hard to a black man. As his children came of age and married, he gave various tracts of land to them. Before his death in 1919, Stephen had over $8,000 in cash in the bank. His will -- written by his friend Casper Coppin, a highly respected professor at Allen University in Columbia, SC -- bequeathed his land to his children. The will also stipulated that the land could not be sold until after his wife's death, and that during her lifetime, the income from crops and rentals was to be given to her. Thus, annually, from 1919 until Judith's death in 1933, the executors of his estate, filed with the courts reports outlining the activities of the estate during the preceding year. These detailed documents provided a vivid window into my great-grandmother's life during her final years.

Cousin Ruby took me to the family's area of the cemetery of Mt. Hope A.M.E. Church in Pinewood, SC and showed me a high, granite obelisk which marked Stephen Francis White's resting place. Other family markers surrounded it.

Stephen and Judith's son, William, my grandfather, was appointed postmaster during Reconstruction, and set up the delivery route in the Pinewood/Rimini area. The original post office still serves the residents of that area today. Brother William, as he was called, delivered the mail in a horse and buggy with a fur throw spread about him for warmth during cold weather.

William married Minnie Ida Singleton, one of his former students and a graduate of Allen University, in 1910. Their large house became home to many students who wanted to attend school, but lived too far away to walk there each day. Five of William and Minnie's seven children survived; my father was their oldest. Despite his family's attempts to wed him to the well-educated daughter of a prestigious, race-conscious family, he married my mother Roberta Bracey, the daughter of an illiterate laundress and blacksmith. I was the fourth of their five children..

I was so intrigued by the information I discovered during my trip to South Carolina, that in 1985, I spearheaded a three-day reunion in Sumter, SC where more than 200 of Stephan and Judith White's descendants gathered and exchanged photographs and stories. At that reunion, our family's oldest living relative, Ransom (Gussie) White, told the group that he could now die in peace, knowing that our family's history would not be forgotten.