Ghost Jamboree Honors Your Ancestors
The Stories That Connect Us!
Adrian Foushee Honors His Paternal Grandfather
Jeff Foushee
His occupations included farmer, mine worker, sawmill laborer, mechanic, restauranteur and policeman. Born April 1, 1888, near Glendon, Moore County, North Carolina, Jeff Foushee farmed throughout his life, vegetables, chickens and hogs, for subsistence and also commercially. In 1909, he married, Mattie Dorsett, his uncle’s niece. Together for 23 years, they had ten children. Miner was listed as the 1920 census occupation. Coal and industrial minerals had been profitably mined, but it was waning by this time. By 1930, the family had moved across the northern county line into Chatham County. In 1933, Mattie died in Gulf Township, Chatham County due to a pulmonary event. By 1935, Jeff relocated the family farther north to Orange County, North Carolina.
Living in Carrboro, next to the college town of Chapel Hill, there were more opportunities. It’s not clear which job came first, car mechanic at the Strowd Motor Company Garage or laboring in the local lumber yards (something he would be followed into by three sons). On October 8, 1938, Jeff remarried, to Mary (Gunn) Barnett (her second marriage also), however, on the 28 of November, she passed due to apoplexy (a stroke). Also, it’s not clear if Jeff opened his café before or after Mary’s death, but he and his children would manage it into the 1960s. Jeff remained single for over 20 years, marrying one more time, to Ella Mae Hartman, who being 24 years younger, survived him.
Jeff’s most notable occupation would be policeman. Standing over six feet and weighing over 225 pounds, in 1949, at the age of 61, Jeff Foushee and Nathaniel “Bud” Hopkins became the first African-American officers of Orange County. They were hired as part-time patrolmen only, on duty from 7:30 to 11pm, to “handle the tough, unpredictable Negro section of Carrboro where even the bravest men fear to tread”. Both were temporarily deputized in prior unrests. After the race-riot of August 1937, a report included a recommendation for the hiring of Negro police. And, although the county hired one additional officer within one year, it was 12 years before the Board of Alderman approved the hire of Negroes. It was said Foushee and Hopkins were respected men in both the Negro and White communities. Even so, they were only to patrol the Negro communities and could only detain a person if they were also Negro. It’s said that the area was so segregated that when a motorist stopped for directions, the officers could not assist, as they were not familiar with the White neighborhoods.
My grandfather died on September 20, 1966, two days after my second birthday. I have no personal memories of him, but I have stories about him, not just from family but those from family friends and neighbors speaking of his resolution, strength, and kindness.
Adrian Foushee
August 23, 2020
Helen Yeo Honors Her Maternal Great Aunt
Emma Scholl
Emma Scholl 12/7/1875 – 1/3/1955
I am an only child whose parents were both raised by single mothers during the 1930’s Depression, so family history was seldom discussed. We lived in Los Angeles, and when I was about 3 years old, an older lady came to stay with us and shared my bedroom. She had fluffy white hair, wore dresses that looked like sweaters, and she arrived with lots of stuff. My Dad, Mom, and Mom’s only sibling all called her Aunt Emma. She and I ate oatmeal and a poached egg many mornings for breakfast, but she would never eat dessert after dinner. She would do puzzles with me or play jacks and card games. She eventually moved to a room in a big old house near Alvarado and Hoover Streets – the first v-shaped corner I had ever seen. My Mom and I went to see Aunt Emma once a week, and she always gave me a dime and a cookie. We continued our visits after she moved into a nursing home where she died, shortly after my eighth birthday.
Through the years I learned that Aunt Emma was born in Charleston, Indiana; she was the older sister and only sibling of my maternal grandfather. She liked music, never married, but had a career in New York as the secretary for the executive officer of the Shrine Organization. The brass bell I rang to call my Mom when I was homesick was originally purchased by Aunt Emma for the Shriner to summon her services. I learned to type on the 1917, Underwood typewriter which was left from Aunt Emma’s career. The ‘good’ dishes and silverware that we used for holidays, as well as the Queen’s Chair, were also part of Aunt Emma’s stuff that she brought to our house. Aunt Emma had been a slender, active, insulin dependent diabetic; so when I had my first job as a counselor at a camp for diabetic children, I learned much about her former eating habits. Eventually, I had a career in Dietetics and Health Education stemming from these early beginnings. Lastly, Aunt Emma kept the Scholl family history, as recorded in the family Bible. She was the only ‘Scholl’ I ever met. However, now I have the Scholl Family Bible, with tattered cover, broken bindings and faded entries of many ancestors.
Addendum - Any recommendations for a new home for the Bible are gladly accepted.
Thank you for inviting me to share my story.
Helen Yeo
Picture: Emma Scholl with Anna Jean Scholl
Barbara Chamberlain Honors Her Father
Walter Mayer
Southern California Genealogical Society
Southern California Genealogy Jamboree
