mtaggart
Isaiah grew up and married Sarah Jane Adams on 28th of January 1877 in neighboring Campbell County, Georgia. Just months before, in October of 1876, Isaiah’s sister, Elizabeth, married his wife’s brother, Henry J. Adams.
Isaiah and Sally (Sarah) moved to Alabama about 1898 and purchased land. In 1900, he and his family were living in Cullman County and Isaiah was farming. Isaiah and Sally had a large family, totaling ten children in all.
By 1900, two of Isaiah and Sally’s children had married and they had become grandparents. Their home was still full with six of their own children, their youngest being 3 years old. Their oldest son John Franklin Cook lived just down the road and farmed as well. Their married daughter Dora Elizabeth and her husband Fernando Edwards were living in Blount County, Alabama with their small son.
Isaiah died on 15 February 1904 when he was 49 years old, leaving his wife Sallie with four small children at home to care for, the youngest only one-year-old.
In 1907, Isaiah’s oldest son, John F. petitioned the court to be appointed as guardian for his younger siblings, Burton Monroe, Velma, George T., Willie and G. F. Cook, who were all minors and still living at home. After presenting a bond of $2,000, he was appointed the guardian on the 3rd of December 1907. It was very short lived however, as on December 30, just 27 days later, he resigned as guardian, indicating that he had received one of the assets of the estate but nothing belonging to the estate of the minors and that he had not exercised any control over the estate or performed any of the duties of guardian. I have not been able to find any additional information to this date, but there obviously is a story behind this and I would really like to find more so I know the “rest of the story.”
Shortly after, Sallie loaded up her kids and moved to the beautiful rolling hills of Stout’s Mountain where she farmed and remained the rest of her life. In her final years, she lived with her son Joe and his wife. Sallie died May 8, 1947 and was buried next to Isaiah in Fairview West Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery in Hanceville, Cullman County, Alabama.
Copyright © Michelle G. Taggart 2016, All rights reserved
Michelle, there are lots of interesting things in this family story. One thing that pops out to me is that Sally & Isaiah were grandparents when they were in their early 40s. Probably not that unusual then but unusual for today. Also I admire women who became widows when they had young children and who stayed strong. Rather than marrying again, Sally kept her family together & took care of them.
What stood out to me, was how many years Sally was a widow. 43 to be exact. That's a really long time. It must have been difficult to raise those children by herself. It sounds like the family was close so I would expect her oldest children helped her out.
Isn't it sad? I can't imagine being able to do all that she needed to do, but I figure she must have been one strong lady!
Being young grandparents struck me too Colleen! So many of the women back then were such "survivors" and just kept going despite such hard circumstances.