As I was pulling together information about her father
H.H. Freeman for last Wednesday's post, I realized that I hadn't looked at my maternal great grandmother Nannie Freeman Warren yet.
[Detail from "Colton's Alabama" by Joseph Hutchins Colton, published in New York by Colton and Co. c. 1861,
from the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library, available through Alabama Maps.]
Nannie was 12 when her family moved from Cotton Valley in Macon County, Alabama, to Johnson County, Texas in 1869 and that's where she's found in the next two U.S. Censuses, living with her parents.
Nannie's older sister Narcissa Freeman McBryde died in 1871, leaving a husband and two young sons and her younger sister Julia Green Freeman died at the age of 20 in 1881.
Nannie didn't marry until December 15, 1885, when she was 28 years old. Her husband , 31-year-old
James Chappell "J.C." Warren was a resident of Douglasville in Cass County, several hundred miles away from her home but probably knew each other because both their families had previously lived in Cotton Valley. He was the third son of
Martha Heath Hardy and
J.T.S. Warren.
[County map of the state of Texas. Showing also portions of the adjoining states and territories. (with) Plan of Galveston and vicinity. Copyright by S. Augustus Mitchell 1884. Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection]
[Locations of Douglas and Cleburne. Detail of above map.]
Nannie and J.C. set up housekeeping in Cleburne in Johnson County where their first child Mattie Lizzie was born in 1886 and died just short of her third birthday in 1889. In the following ten years three more children were born: Hill Freeman in 1891, my great grandfather
James Chappell Jr. in 1897 and their only daughter Mary Anna in 1899.
Here's the whole (surviving) family in the 1900 U.S. Census.
[Year: 1900; Census Place: Justice Precinct 1, Johnson, Texas; Roll: 1649; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 0053; FHL microfilm: 1241649. Enumeration District : 0053; Description: Justices Precincts 1 (pt) excluding Cleburne Town, all of Precinct north of the Cleburne and Glenrose and Cleburne and Alvarado public roads. Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls.]
By the 1910 U.S. Census enumeration, Nannie and J.C. had their two youngest children still at home* and J.C. Jr. was farming with his father.
[Year: 1910; Census Place: Justice Precinct 1, Johnson, Texas; Roll: T624_1569; Page: 17B; Enumeration District: 0042; FHL microfilm: 1375582. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]
A 1917 Cleburne city directory lists the four Warrens living on W. Chambers.
[Cleburne, Texas, City Directory, 1917. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:
Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]
Both of their sons served in the U.S. Navy during World War I. Hill Freeman ended up living in Connecticut for the rest of his life while my grandfather returned to Texas and resumed farming with his father.
[Year: 1920; Census Place: Cleburne, Johnson, Texas; Roll: T625_1822; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 34; Image: 49.Enumeration District : 0034; Description: Justice Precinct 1 (part) excluding Cleburne City, beginning at intersection of Cleburne - Grand view dirt road with corporate limits of Cleburne City, thence with the Watt's Chapel and Antioch road to Turkey Creek. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]
On August 23, 1923, James Chappell Warren, Jr., died of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix and Nannie was the source of the information on his death certificate. Less than a year later on February 14, 1924, J.C. succumbed to lobar pneumonia following influenza and once again Nannie provided the information for his death record.
Six years later Nannie was living with her daughter Mary, her husband A. Harolld Nance and their
19-month-old daughter Mary Hal in Justice Township in
Young County, about 100 miles northwest of Johnson County, which is where she died on April 6, 1934.
[Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Death Certificates, 1903–1982. iArchives, Orem, Utah.]
In death she joined her parents, several brothers and sisters, her husband and two of her children in the Cleburne City Cemetery (formerly known as the Confederate Memorial Park) which is now called the Cleburne Memorial Cemetery.
From what I've been told my father had very little, if any, contact with his father's people, including his grandmother Nannie who died when he was nearly 11.
*Their oldest son Henry H. but always known as Hill Freeman Warren was probably away studying medicine at Vanderbilt University by then.
© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.
