Carrie Brooks Stover (1852-1916) My Great Grandmother on my Father’s Side

Carrie Brooks Stover Pattillo

Carrie was a middle child of David Lincoln Stover (See my first blog post dated June 28, 2013) and Joanna Gaines (see August 5, 2017). She had an older sister Sarah and an older brother William. She also had one younger brother David and two younger sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Carrie was born in Elizabethton, Tennessee on July 18^th in 1852. She was born into a family of relative wealth compared to the neighboring families listed on the census. She grew up on a tobacco farm in a family that owned several slaves. Carter County is a beautiful area in Appalachia where dogwoods bloom in spring and native rhododendrons in summer. It has a mild climate year round. The population of Elizabethton was 737 in 1890 so would have been even smaller during Carrie’s childhood. When she was six years old her father David died and two years later eleven year old William also died.

Dogwood blooming in Elizabethton in 2012

Even though her father died when she was very young, he made provisions in his will that his children were to be educated – most likely by a private, family tutor. This would have been somewhat uncommon at that time.

Carrie is important because she was my initial lead to the Stover branch of our family. When I first started doing research on our family Mom and I visited Dad’s cousin Elma and her daughter Laine. Elma shared a letter from her mother Jo Pattillo in which Carrie was mentioned. I followed that lead to discover who Carrie’s parents and siblings were. Partly because of their connection to the family of President Abraham Lincoln it was relatively easy to follow the Stover line back several generations to Christian Stover (1750-1816). I learned of the Drake line, another branch on our tree, at the same time, but it took several more years of searching to find anything about Carrie’s maternal grandparents – the Gaines’s.

Doe River in Elizabethton, Tennessee

Carrie appeared on the 1860 census along with her mother Joanna who was 35 and a widow, her sisters Sarah 11, Mary 6, and Elizabeth 2 and her brother David 4. The family was still in Elizabethton living next door to Carrie’s aunt, uncle and their children – Carrie’s cousins. This was her father’s younger brother Samuel Murray Stover who was a physician. His wife Caroline “Carrie” Brooks was a cousin of Carrie’s mother Joanna. Samuel and Carrie had four children at that time – 3 girls and one son. Almena was closest to Carrie in age so they were probably best friends. It seems pretty obvious that Joanna named Carrie after her cousin Caroline.

Carrie had another aunt and uncle who also lived in Elizabethton, Daniel Stover and Mary Johnson. They had three children – 2 girls and a son.  Carrie’s grandparents, William and Sarah Stover also lived nearby in Elizabethton, so even though her father had died Elizabeth grew up surrounded by family and lots of cousins. Her uncle Daniel was her father’s brother and was the census taker for all three census areas where the family lived. Her maternal grandparents Hiram and Hulda Gaines both died in South Carolina in 1829, so Carrie never knew them.

When the 1870 census was taken Carrie was 17, her older sister Sarah 21, younger sister Mary 15 and brother David 14. At that time Ruth McCloud age 70, Carrie Cox 13, and Louisa Nave 15 were part of the household. Louisa was a family servant. Ruth McCloud was Carrie’s grandaunt and her grandmother’s sister. Elizabeth’s Uncle Samuel and his wife “Carrie” had moved to Bristol which is in the adjacent county to the north, Sullivan County, so they were still nearby but not right next door. The East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad built a bridge over the Watauga River to Bristol in 1855. During the Civil Was the Union soldiers threatened to burn the bridge to disrupt the flow of confederate supplies but it was too heavily guarded, so they burned a different bridge instead. I don’t know who Carrie Cox was or how she may have been related to the family.

Cover Bridge over the Doe River in Elizabethton

The Civil War was fought in the years between these two censuses and Carrie must have felt the strife of the war on a very personal level because while her Uncle Samuel Murray and grandparents supported the Confederate Army her Uncle Daniel fought for the Union Army. I have no records that indicate what side Carrie’s mother supported though it is very likely that she too was a Confederate sympathizer because she was born in South Carolina – the first state that seceded from the United States when war broke out.

Sometime after the war, when Carrie was a teenager, her sister Elizabeth must have died because she did not appear on the 1870 census with the rest of the family. I have not been able to find any records for Elizabeth Stover yet. In November of 1870 Carrie’s oldest sister Sarah married Winfield Scott Tipton, and six years later her younger sister Mary married William Cameron.

Carrie cropped from a studio family portrait

According to Mary Wallace who corresponded with me, a descendant of Carrie’s sister Sarah, the family migrated to Texas in 1877.  They would have suffered financial losses after the war and likely anticipated more opportunities in the west.

Two years after moving to Texas, when Carrie was twenty-six she married James William Pattillo on April 5, 1879. They were married in Tarrant County, Texas and lived in the town of Handley, which is now a historic district. For a long time I assumed that James and Carrie had met in Tennessee and made the decision to migrate to Texas together, but since they were married in Texas it is more likely that they met there after migrating independently – Carrie with her mother and siblings, and I believe James came alone – his father and brother Robert remained in Virginia. But three of Robert’s children followed James to Los Angeles.

Handley, Texas 2017. The top part indicates that
Handley is a Historic district

Carrie and James appeared on the 1880 Tarrant County census that was taken on the 22^nd of September. Their newborn son Wirt W., who had been born May 23rd, was listed on the census as was Carrie’s mother Joanna. On September 18, 1882 another son was born and was named after his grandfather James. H. Pattillo. Sadly, James H. died 13 months later on November 11, 1883.

A third son was born on January 31^st, 1884 but did not survive long enough to be given a name. All three of these children are buried together in the Handley Pioneer Cemetery. I visited the cemetery in spring of 2017 and had a new headstone made for the three boys because the original headstones were only barely legible.

This is the headstone I had made by Worthington Monuments
for James and Carries first 3 children

On February 22, 1885 Carrie gave birth to a girl and named her Jo. Jo’s granddaughter Laine shared that she’d heard a story that Carrie and William did not expect Jo to survive so they did not bother to give her a full first or middle name. Fortunately, they were mistaken – Jo lived to be 73. She married twice and had five children.

Mary and Jo Pattillo.

A second daughter Mary was born in 1887 in Texas. Shortly after Mary’s birth Carrie and James decided to continue moving west. Carrie’s sister Sarah and mother remained in Shackelford County Texas permanently, but she and James moved to Los Angles, California where they appeared on the 1900 census. The 1890 census was destroyed but I know they were in California by 1890 because my grandfather Lewis Wood Pattillo was born in Los Angeles on March 18, 1890.  After Lewis, Carrie gave birth to twins Maude and Ruby in 1893, and her youngest, Elmer in 1895. Elmer lived to adulthood (see my July 4, 2016 blog post).

Maude and Ruby. This photo and several others were shared
by Maude's granddaughter Joyce.

Two of Carrie's grandchildren Edward and Elma at their
home in Los Angeles

I inherited a small snapshot of the Carrie and James Pattillo family from my paternal grandparents, Lewis and Anna Pattillo. Based on the ages of the children I believe it was taken in 1902 when the family was living in Los Angeles. I particularly like this photo because it is informal. It shows the family gathered on the front porch of their home. The two oldest children, Jo and Mary have bicycles. James is seated in a chair while Carrie stands behind him. Her hair is pinned up as it is in every photo I have of her. The two older girls also have their hair up. Lewis has his thumbs tucked into his vest. Everyone is dressed up and James has a tie on. Maybe they were headed to church or possibly celebrating a family birthday.

Left - Mary on bike, twins Maude & Ruby, Jo standing with
bike, James seated, Elmer standing by James, Carrie and
Lewis standing behind James. 1902 Los Angeles

Carrie and her family were still living in Los Angeles at 1170 West 37^th Place when the 1910 census was taken. In 2017 Google earth shows a house at that address that has rather bizarre architecture. If it is the same house William and Carrie lived in I suspect it has undergone a few misguided renovations. On the 1910 census it shows that William was not working at that time. Their two eldest daughters Jo and Mary were both working as exchange operators for the Telephone Company, and Lewis was listed as a cement contractor. The three youngest were in school.

In 1911 and 1912 Carrie saw three of her children get married. Jo and my grandfather Lewis were both married in 1911, and Maude got married in 1912. Carrie died on January 22, 1916 from pulmonary tuberculosis. She was 63.  At the time of her death she was living at 6124 Mineral Avenue in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. I have been unable to find this location using Google. According to her death certificate her body was cremated. According to the FindAGrave website Carrie's ashes were interred at the Los Angeles County Crematorium. Maude's granddaughter Joyce visited there in 2018 but was unable to confirm the burial.

Carrie was a petite woman with brown hair and brown eyes. Her son-in-law Otto Baty who married her daughter Maude said of Carrie, “She was the sweetest woman he had ever met”. Jo’s granddaughter Laine heard that Carrie suffered from diabetes and that caused her to have very large babies and that is why so many of James and Carrie’s children did not survive to adulthood. Carrie gave birth to at least ten children of which six lived to adulthood.

Carrie on left, Ruby holding the family cat on right

During her lifetime Carrie was impacted by at least three major events – the Civil War, a massive wave to migration to the west and World War I. These things no doubt changed her life profoundly. Carrie was born the same year that the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was published. She lived through the Civil War that followed and witnessed the end of slavery. By the end of her lifetime two film companies merged to create Paramount Pictures in 1916 – quite a range of events for a lifetime.  She and her family made two major geographical moves – first to Texas and then on to California. Each move was an effort to improve their lives – to find places where their children could find work, have careers, buy homes and raise their own families.

Carrie's death certificate I obtained in Los Angeles in 2016

Sources Include: Several US censuses, Carrie & James marriage license, information from Elma, Laine and Joyce, Carrie's death certificate, "Carter County and Its People: 1796-1996", and visits to Elizabethton, TN and Handley, TX.