The linked posting also provides a brief sketch, with documentation, of events in the life of Mary Ann’s father Ezekiel and of his father Samuel Kerr Green, which preceded her birth. As the posting indicates, on 13 June 1844 in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Samuel married Elvira Birdwell, the widow of James Madison Grammer. Samuel and Elvira then moved to Pointe Coupee Parish, where Elvira had inherited land from James M. Grammer. The 1850 federal census shows Samuel and Elvira with three of her siblings in the household: Clinton, Camilla, and Mary Ann Birdwell, the last two given the surname Green on this census. On 2 January 1853 in Pointe Coupee Parish, Ezekiel married Camilla — a younger sister of Samuel K. Green’s then wife.

Elvira then died at some point not long before 13 December 1855, and the land she and Samuel jointly owned in Pointe Coupee Parish was sold. In March 1856, Ezekiel filed suit against Samuel in Pointe Coupee Parish, claiming that his father had taken possession of a number of enslaved people left to Ezekiel by his mother, Samuel’s previous common-law wife Eliza Jane Smith, and was refusing to give these enslaved people to Ezekiel, with claims that Ezekiel was not his son.

The case ended up in the Louisiana Supreme Court with the court ruling that there was ample proof that Samuel had been considered married to Eliza Jane, even if a marriage document could not be produced, and that Ezekiel was their son, acknowledged by both until it became expedient for Samuel to deny paternity of Ezekiel to claim his property. Samuel then left for Texas and died in March 1860 at the home of his brother Benjamin S. Green in what was then Grimes County, and is now Waller County.

The Avoyelles (and Catahoula?) Parish Years, 1856-1862

As the linked posting concludes by stating, this father-son battle forms the immediate backdrop to the birth of Mary Ann Green in October 1861. The posting also notes that testimony in the lawsuit of Ezekiel against Samuel states that Ezekiel and Camilla had settled in Avoyelles Parish, which adjoins Pointe Coupee on the northwest, by 1856. By this point, Camilla’s older brother John B. Birdwell (1828-1918) had settled in Avoyelles Parish after marrying Mary Emily Brewster there on 5 April 1855.

On 19 December 1855, John Birdwell bought from Joseph J.B. Kirk, both living in Avoyelles Parish, 160 acres on the right bank of the Atchafalaya River near Simmesport, a town on that river in Avoyelles Parish of which John Birdwell’s father-in-law James Brewster was postmaster from 1844-1859.[1] John and his wife Mary Emily Brewster appear in a 3 October 1856 record in Avoyelles Parish in which Mary Emily and her sister Martha Jane, wife of David Frisby Thomas, renounced rights to a tract of land and sixteen enslaved persons in Avoyelles Parish that had formerly belonged to their father James Brewster and had been sold at a sheriff’s sale to Henderson Taylor on 6 March 1843. Both Mary Emily and Martha Jane signed this renunciation of ownership at their father’s house in Simmesport on 3 October 1856, with John B. Birdwell and David Frisby Thomas also signing.[2]

On 27 September 1859, for $2,500, Ezekiel S. Green bought 199.48 acres in Avoyelles Parish.[3] The land Ezekiel purchased was in section 35, township 1, range 7 east. He bought it from Isaac Martin and Isaac’s wife Sarah Ann Wilson, who had inherited 20 acres included in the tract from her previous husband, Ludsen Wilson. The conveyance record notes that Ezekiel S. Green and Isaac Martin lived in Avoyelles Parish. Isaac Martin, Sarah Ann Wilson, and Ezekiel S. Green all signed, with Philip J. Chandler and Barton T. Kirk witnessing.

On 18 March 1858, the Louisiana legislature had granted Isaac Martin permission to establish a ferry in Avoyelles Parish at the junction of Old River and the Atchafalaya — that is, at or very close to Simmesport.[4] In buying the 199.48 acres in September 1859, Ezekiel also purchased a share in Martin’s ferry business, a detail mentioned in the January 1862 conveyance (discussed below) in which he and wife Camilla sold most of the land to Simpson Ridley Stribling.

Around the same time that Ezekiel bought land in Avoyelles Parish in September 1859, he also purchased 38 7/12 acres in Catahoula Parish at the federal land office in Monroe, Louisiana.[5] On 28 March 1859, Ezekiel bought lot 4, the northwest ¼ of the southwest ¼ of section 20, township 6, range 3 east in Catahoula Parish, paying $48.40 for this tract. A patent and receipt issued to Ezekiel S. Green on the day of purchase state that he was a resident of Catahoula Parish. A certificate for the land was issued to him on 7 December 1859. This land was on Lake Catahoula just above where Little River flows into that lake in what would become LaSalle Parish in 1910. I have not been able to find how or whether Ezekiel disposed of this land. If he did live in Catahoula (later LaSalle) Parish, both adjoining Avoyelles on the north, it appears to me from the other records I’m citing here that he had moved to Avoyelles Parish by September 1859.[6]

A note about why Ezekiel may have been purchasing land in Catahoula and Avoyelles Parishes in 1859: he filed his lawsuit against his father in Pointe Coupee Parish on 5 March 1856. After the Pointe Coupee court ruled in Ezekiel’s favor, Samuel K. Green appealed the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court. That court handed down its ruling upholding the Pointe Coupee judgment on 14 January 1859.[7] In March 1859, Ezekiel then bought land in Catahoula Parish, and in September 1859 in Avoyelles Parish. From March 1856 up to January 1859, he was embroiled in a legal battle with his father that tied up his resources. His legal victory in that lawsuit freed him to begin buying property — and he now had use of the enslaved persons left to him by his mother, whom Samuel had claimed for his own until the case was finally resolved.

As the previous posting notes, E.S. Green is enumerated at Marksville, the parish seat of Avoyelles Parish, on the 1860 federal census, but this census listing throws some unexpected wrinkles into the documentation of his family’s years in that parish. It gives his wife’s name as Mary Ann and not Camilla, and lists the couple with children who never appear in any records of Ezekiel S. Green’s family. The census listing does state that Ezekiel was a “lumbering keeper,” which fits his occupation as a sawmill owner and lumber merchant through much of the rest of his adult life.

On 30 January 1862, for $2,820, Ezekiel and wife Camilla sold to Simpson Ridley Stribling, both parties of Avoyelles Parish, the 179.48 acres from the 199.48 they had purchased from Isaac Martin in September 1859.[8] A digital copy of this conveyance record is at this previous posting. Camilla renounced her dower in this land, and she and Ezekiel both signed the conveyance along with Simpson R. Stribling with Thomas B. Martin and David Brannan witnessing. As I noted previously, the conveyance record states that in buying the tract from Isaac Martin, Ezekiel had also bought rights to a share in Martin’s ferry business, and he was selling these along with the land to Stribling.

Move to Angelina County, Texas, 1863

After this land sale, Ezekiel and Camilla and their family disappear from Avoyelles Parish records and I find no trace of them in other parishes in which Green family members lived, including Pointe Coupee and Natchitoches. As a previous posting indicates, it appears that after selling their land in Avoyelles Parish, the family relocated to Angelina County, Texas, where Ezekiel bought 480 acres for $2,400 on 28 February 1863 from B.F. and Susan W. Duren.[9] The deed states that the land was about five miles west of the town of Homer. This land is now part of the city of Lufkin, the county seat of Angelina County. A digital copy of this deed is at the posting I’ve just linked, along with a discussion of details of the deed.

Since I’m telling Ezekiel and Camilla’s story as background to the story of their daughter Mary Ann on whom this and my previous posting focus, note that if Mary Ann was born, as I think she was, on 11 October 1861, she would have been an infant when her parents left Louisiana for Angelina County, Texas. As a previous posting states, it seems to me very likely that Ezekiel relocated his family to Angelina County, Texas, with the intention of owning and operating a lumber mill there. I deduce this from the 20 January and 4 September 1865 deeds in which Ezekiel and Camilla sold the 480 acres they had bought in Angelina County, with the first deed noting that there was a “steem mill” on the 240 acres Ezekiel and Camilla sold in January 1865.

Angelina is in the Piney Woods section of east Texas, an area that is prime timber land, which has many lumber mills today. Homer, the town to which the Greens moved in Angelina County, was founded by Dr. William Washington (W.W.) Manning in 1854 and named after his former place of residence in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. Manning was a druggist and also a sawmill owner, who founded a sawmill at Homer on arriving there and was instrumental in having the county seat moved to Homer in 1856. At the time the Greens settled in Homer, the majority of Angelina County’s lawyers, doctors, and other professional people lived there.[10] As this previous posting notes, E.S. Green was taxed in Angelina County in 1864 and 1865 for 480 acres of land. The 1860 tax list states that E.S. Green held ten enslaved people in Angelina County, valued at $6,000.

On 20 January and 4 September 1865, Ezekiel and Camilla sold the 480 acres they had acquired in Angelina County, selling the land in two installments, half of the tract with each land sale. The buyer of the entire tract was Edward Pugh. In both instances, Camilla signed the deed along with Ezekiel and relinquished her right to the land.[11] Digital copies of these deeds are at this previous posting. The deeds note that 320 acres of the 480-acre tract that the Greens had bought from the Durens had been patented by Samuel Cole (1799-1862). From the Texas Forestry Museum’s helpful sawmill database, we learn the following:[12]

Samuel Cole owned a steam sawmill, valued at $5000, in Angelina County during the census year ending June 1, 1860. He employed eight workers, paid $300 per month in total wages, and produced 1,200,000 feet of lumber (valued at $10,000) during the year.

The 1860 federal census shows Samuel Cole living at Homer in Angelina County three households from Benjamin Franklin and Susan W. Duren. Cole died at Homer 4 January 1862, and at that point or prior to his death, the Durens acquired his land and sawmill operation, then sold the properties to Ezekiel S. Green and wife Camilla in February 1863.[13]

Ezekiel S. Green Returns to Natchitoches Parish and Marries Hannah Birdwell Harville, 1867

The 4 September 1865 deed record, with Camilla signing to relinquish her dower interest in the land she and Ezekiel were selling in Angelina County, is the last record I’ve found of Camilla Birdwell Green. On 11 December 1867, Ezekiel was back in Louisiana marrying Camilla’s sister Hannah Birdwell, the widow of Hardin Harville, in Natchitoches Parish.[14] Camilla had died between 4 September 1865 and the December 1867 date. I have no indication of where she died. Mary Ann would have been six years old when her father remarried her aunt Hannah, and only four or five when she lost her mother Camilla. Her life up to this point had involved being relocated as an infant from Louisiana to Texas, losing her mother, and then returning to Louisiana to be raised by her aunt who was now her stepmother.

It seems apparent that Ezekiel married Hannah Birdwell Harville to give his two young daughters Rosa and Mary Ann a mother after their birth mother had died. Hannah was also, it should be noted, a widow who had been left abundant resources by her previous husband. Hardin Harville died in Natchitoches Parish in May 1860, aged 51. The date of death appears in his succession file, which shows that he died with numerous tracts of land in Natchitoches Parish, all in range 9 of township 12.[15] In addition to the tracts of land that appear in the 23 August 1860 inventory of Hardin Harville’s estate in Natchitoches Parish (it was filed on the 28^th), the inventory done by Abraham M. Lisso and Daniel F. McGinnis in presence of J.H. Cunningham and Waddy Thompson Wilkerson shows enslaved persons Mat, George, Isaac, Tom, Marie, Isabella, Allen, Frisby, Ben, Vean, Bob, Willis, Minerva, Phillis, Harriet, Perry, Meal, Milly, Mina, Jennett, and Bose. The entire estate was appraised at $18,772, with the land accounting for $2,832.76 and the enslaved persons for $14,925. 

Hannah gave oath as administratrix of Hardin Harville’s estate on 5 September 1860, and on the same day, she gave bond for the administration in the amount of $23,500 with A.M. Lisso and F. Vienne. On 8 October 1860, she appears as head of her household in Natchitoches Parish with $2,800 real worth and $17,670 personal worth.[16] Hannah is listed as a planter, aged 35, born in Alabama. In the household along with her are her six sons by Hardin Harville. Hannah Harville also appears on the 1860 federal slave schedule in Natchitoches Parish owning eighteen enslaved people.[17] In marrying this widowed sister of his deceased wife Camilla in order to give his daughters Rosa and Mary Ann a mother, Ezekiel S. Green was also marrying a woman of considerable means.

Ezekiel’s December 1867 marriage to Hannah joined his household with two daughters to hers with six sons, though, as we’ll see in a moment, it’s not clear from the scant documentation we have that Ezekiel and Hannah continued raising her sons after they married. Filed in Hardin Hardin’s succession papers is a petition dated 23 February 1869 by Hannah, now the wife of E.S. Green, both he and she living in Natchitoches Parish, to sell a horse, ten head of cattle, and 1,416 acres of land belonging to the estate of Hardin Harville. A description of the land in the succession file, evidently for advertisement and with no date, states that the land was situated near Springville, a now defunct community that fell into Red River Parish when that parish was created from Natchitoches and several other parishes in 1871. The succession file has a receipt dated 27 February 1869 for advertisement of the sale in the Red River News, as well as a plat showing that most of the land being offered for sale was in range 9 west, townships 12-13. A sale account in the succession file shows that the property was sold on 27 March 1869 for a total amount of $815.

As the previous posting states, the 1870 federal census shows Ezekiel and Hannah living at Coushatta in Natchitoches Parish.[18] The census gives Ezekiel’s name as Edward. His daughters Rosa and Mary Ann are in the household, along with Ezekiel and Hannah’s son Raleigh, aged 2, and a John whose surname is indicated as Green, aged 14, whom I cannot place and who could be Hannah’s son John William Birdwell Harville. Both Raleigh Green and John W.B. Harville died young. Also in the household is a Joseph Harville who is probably Hannah’s son Joseph Clark Harville, though his age, 22, does not match the age of Hannah’s son Joseph, who was born 1 December 1851. And Hannah’s son Joseph is enumerated on the 1870 census in Baton Rouge, aged 18 and a cadet at the state university.[19]

Where Hannah’s other Harville sons are on this 1870 census, I have no idea. James and Hardin may well have died between 1860 and 1870, and John appears to have died between 1870 and 1880. A biography of Hannah’s son Joseph Clark Harville states that he began working on his own at age 16 — in 1867, the year his mother married Ezekiel S. Green — then spent three years doing farm labor and went to Louisiana State University for a term.[20] I do not find Hannah’s two youngest Harville sons, who definitely lived past 1870, on this census: Thomas Dewitt and Hampton Turner Harville.

And then something happened, it seems, and Hannah ended her marriage to Ezekiel S. Green between 16 June 1870, when she and Ezekiel were enumerated on the census together in Natchitoches Parish, and 13 January 1876, when Ezekiel married again to Mary Ann Wester in Red River Parish. I have not found a divorce record. My information that Ezekiel and Hannah divorced is from descendants of her Harville sons, who tell me that Hannah initiated the divorce, which was considered quite a scandal, and older family members who shared that information would not talk about the reason(s) for Hannah’s decision to end this marriage. The implication in letters these Harville descendants sent me about these happenings was that Ezekiel did something or several things that caused Hannah to request that the marriage be dissolved.

Hannah then left for Texas with her sons by Hardin Harville and by 1880 was living in Bell County, where she was enumerated on the census of that year as Hannah Green.[21] The previously cited biography of Hannah’s son Joseph Clark Harville states that she spent her latter years with his family at Belton, Texas, where she’s buried along with Joseph and his family in North Belton cemetery, with her tombstone giving her name as Hannah (no surname) and stating that she was the mother of J.C. Harville.[22]

Hannah died in Bell County on 17 October 1910, with her name given in Bell County’s Register of Deaths as Mrs. Henrie Green and on her death certificate as Hanna Green.[23] A death notice in the Austin American-Statesman on 25 October 1910 states that Hannah died at the home of her son J.C. (Joseph Clark) Harville at Summers Mill (about five miles southeast of Belton) in Bell County.[24]

Among the gaps in my information about the dissolution of the marriage of Ezekiel S. Green to Hannah Birdwell (Harville) is information about how this divorce affected Ezekiel’s daughters by Camilla, Rosa and Mary Ann. I have to assume that this event must have been more than a little difficult for them. Rosa was 16 in 1870 and Mary Ann 9. When their father married a third time in January 1876, Rosa was 22 and Mary Ann not yet 15. I have to think that losing a stepmother who was also their aunt, when both girls were still so young, was like losing their mother Camilla all over again. And I wonder what the relationship of Rosa and Mary Ann was to their father after his marriage to Hannah Birdwell (Harville) ended in the early to mid-1870s and he married a third time to a much younger wife.

Ezekiel Marries Mary Ann Wester, 1876

As I’ve stated previously, on 13 January 1876 in Red River Parish, Ezekiel S. Green married Mary Ann Wester, daughter of Daniel Campbell Wester and Mary Ann Nobles.[25] If Ezekiel was born in 1824 or 1825, as he states in his March 1856 legal complaint in Pointe Coupee Parish against his father Samuel, then he’d have been 51 or 52 when he married Mary Ann. She was 19. Ezekiel’s daughter Mary Ann was not yet 15 when the marriage occurred, as I’ve just noted. With this marriage, she was being given a stepmother only several years older than she herself was. Mary Ann’s sister Rosa had married several months before her father married Mary Ann Wester: on 5 October 1875 in Red River Parish, Rosa F. Green married Alsa Harris Holley, son of Zachariah Holley and Margaret Sowell of Holley Springs.

Mary Ann Green Marries Alexander Cobb Lindsey, 1876

On 2 November 1876 in Red River Parish, ten months following her father’s marriage in January 1876 to Mary Ann Wester, Mary Ann Green married Alexander Cobb Lindsey.[26] A digital copy of their marriage record is at this previous posting, which discusses the marriage document in detail. The posting I’ve just linked also discusses in detail Mary Ann’s life as Alec Lindsey’s wife.

Mollie’s Final Years and Death

As the posting preceding the current posting states, on 18 October 1938 the Shreveport Journal printed an article noting that “Granny Lindsey” had just celebrated her 78^th birthday at the home of her son Clarence Lindsey at Methvin in Red River Parish. A digital copy of the article is at the posting I’ve just linked, along with a discussion of its incorrect (as I have concluded) information about when and where Mary Ann was born. I’m pointing to this article again now because it states that Mary Ann was in declining health and often bedridden at this point in her life, and was then living with her son Clarence Edgerton Lindsey at Methvin. The birthday article says that Mary Ann busied herself while sick by piecing quilt tops and in the previous year, she had pieced fifteen quilt tops.

In February 1987, I interviewed Mary Ann’s granddaughter Lucy Mae Lindsey Parker (1908-1992) of Coushatta, a daughter of Samuel Mark Lindsey and Ava Frances Nix. Lucy remembered her grandmother Mollie well, and spoke to me about Mollie’s final sickness and death. She indicated that, for some period of time prior to her death, Mollie became weak and “took to the bed,” as the old Southern saying has it, where she spent her time piecing quilts and appearing happy as she worked with her needle and hummed hymns. According to Lucy Mae, her grandmother loved dolls, and for that reason, Alec bought a large doll that Mollie kept next to her in her sickbed, propped against a pillow next to her as she sat leaning against her own pillow doing her quilt piecing. Lucy Mae said that Mollie’s hair remained, up to the time of her death, as blond as it had been when she was a young girl. 

Mary Ann Green Lindsey’s death certificate, of which the previous posting provides a digital image, states that she had suffered from chronic bronchitis for forty years prior to her death and that this was the cause of her death, with malnutrition as a complicating factor. My uncle Henry Carlton Lindsey (1918-1988), who also remembered his grandparents Alec and Mollie well, thought that the malnutrition had to do with his grandmother’s waning appetite in the final months of her life. After she took to her bed, she simply had little desire to eat and she ate little in her final days. The medical information on Mollie’s death certificate was supplied by the attending physician Walter Benjamin Hunter, a cousin of Alec Lindsey whose grandmother Margaret Lindsey Hunter was Alec’s aunt.

Digital copies of obituaries of Mary Ann Green Lindsey that appeared in the Shreveport Journal and the Coushatta Citizen are found at this previous posting.[27] The Shreveport Journal obituary states that her funeral had been held Sunday, 28 June 1942, at the Methodist church in Coushatta. She was survived by husband Alexander L. Lindsey of Coushatta, sons Clarence Lindsey of Saline, Robert Lindsey of Ringgold, B.D. Lindsey of Little Rock, Arkansas, Sam Lindsey of Coushatta, Ed Lindsey of Jefferson, Texas, and Emmett Lindsey of Baton Rouge, and by daughters Mrs. L.A. Jones of Kilgore, Texas, Mrs. J.M. Griffin of Shreveport, and Mrs. G.A. Morgan of Doyline.

The Coushatta Citizen obituary indicates that Mollie’s funeral was held on the 27^th and not the 28^th at Armistead Chapel Methodist church outside Coushatta, and notes that she was buried in the cemetery of that church. Alec would be buried in the same cemetery when he followed Mary Ann in death on 22 January 1947, and his parents Mark Jefferson Lindsey and Mary Ann Harrison are buried in the same cemetery of this church that the Lindsey family attended. This obituary lists Mollie’s children as sons Sam of Coushatta, Dennis of Little Rock, Arkansas, E.E. of Jefferson, Texas, Clarence of Chestnut, Robert of Hall Summitt, A.B. of Coushatta, and Emmett of New Orleans, and daughters Mrs. F. Jones of Longview, Texas, Mrs. Emma Rutledge of Minden, and Mrs. Cumalie Griffith of Shreveport, along with 50 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. The same page of the newspaper has a card of thanks from the Lindsey family for the kindness shown by friends during the illness of their mother and grandmother.

Another obituary appeared in the Shreveport Journal the day after Mary Ann Green Lindsey died on 26 June 1942 (see the digital image at the head of this posting).[28] This obituary states that Mollie died at Coushatta at the home of her oldest son Sam and that she had lived at Urbana, Arkansas, a piece of information I’ve seen no place else. Urbana is in Union County, Arkansas, to which Alec and Mary Ann’s son Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, my grandfather, moved his family from Red River Parish in the 1920s, so if Mollie was at some point staying in Urbana, Arkansas, she’d likely have been staying with the family of my grandparents.

Family Stories about Mollie (and Alec)

Because my father Benjamin Dennis Lindsey Jr., his brother Carlton (mentioned above), and their sister Helen Blanche were all adults when their grandparents Alec and Mollie Green Lindsey died, they remembered their grandfather and grandmother well and told interesting stories about both Alec and Mollie. Alec was, they said, something of a pill — and other of his grandchildren have passed on similar memories of him. He was high-tempered, stubborn, volatile, more than a little vain, proud, opinionated, and eccentric — and at the same time, he had a passionate dedication to seeing that the people both white and Black whom he doctored as a country doctor in rural Red River Parish be given good medical care and, insofar as possible, relieved of suffering.

If Alec was, in short, something of a pill, he was unfortunately Mollie’s pill to live with! Marilyn Lindsey Cope, a daughter of Alec and Mollie’s grandson Walter Alexander Lindsey (whose father was John Wesley Lindsey) has told me a story her father told her about dinnertime at the table of Alec and Mollie. One of Alec’s eccentricities was that he refused to eat what Mollie had cooked for his dinner unless each item was served to him individually. There was a time for corn, one for carrots, another for potatoes or okra, and one for chicken: these items were not to be served in a jumble on his plate, but one by one. So dinner involved a succession of instances in which Alec turned to Mollie and said, “I believe it’s time for my next serving, Mrs. Lindsey,” and up she had to get to trot to the kitchen and fetch the carrots that followed the corn, then the potatoes or okra that followed the carrots, and so on.

All the stories my father and his siblings and their parents or other family elders told me spoke about Mollie in glowing terms. They were downright hagiographical. When Alec flew off the handle, I was told, it was only quiet-spoken and gentle Mollie who could rein him in. All she had to do was raise her index finger and say softly, “That’s quite enough, Alec,” and he subsided. I heard this story both from my father and his siblings and again from their cousin Lucy Mae Lindsey Parker when I interviewed her in February 1987.

My father and his siblings remembered their grandmother Mollie as a woman of strong character and faith, who was unfailingly kind and gentle. A story my father told me — his parents told it to him — was about how she reacted when brought news that her son John Wesley Lindsey had been killed in a workplace accident at Haynesville, Louisiana, on 21 April 1922. She received the news with stoic sadness, stating that she had feared something of this sort might happen, and she could only accept God’s will.

Even Mollie’s daughters-in-law spoke with admiration of Mollie’s strength of character and kindness. My grandmother Vallie Snead Lindsey was not fond of her father-in-law Alec Lindsey, but spoke frequently about the deep faith and kindness of her mother-in-law Mollie. In a memoir of his grandparents that he published in 1982, my father’s brother Carlton Lindsey has the following to say about his grandmother:[29]

We all loved and respected Mollie Green Lindsey, our grandmother. She was an angel on earth, as she is now in heaven. She was a picture of peace, tranquility, and composure on all occasions. She had such grace and good will toward others that they felt good and at ease. When she read the bible and discussed it, I understood and believed because I knew that she lived it.

In a previous posting, I cite an essay written by another grandchild of Alec and Mollie, their granddaughter Mary Lou Lindsey Prothro (1917-2002), daughter of Aaron Bloomer Lindsey and Grace Lee Adkins.[30] In this essay, Mary Lou tells a number of colorful stories about her grandparents Alec and Mollie. One story focuses on Alec’s impetuous decision to study medicine. As she tells the story, it appears that, typically, Alec consulted no one prior to making the shocking announcement that he intended to head off from Red River Parish to Memphis and go to medical school in the fall of 1889 — leaving his long-suffering wife Mollie to run the family farm and manage six children, five of them teens.

This sudden announcement understandably made Mollie distraught, and according to Mary Lou, for the rest of his life, Alec was fond of saying to people, “I left Mollie standing on the front steps, waving and crying, and when I came back she was waving and smiling.”

Mary Lou’s essay also speaks of a medicine Alec prescribed for almost anything that ailed a body, a medicine his grandchildren feared being given, which they called “Grandpaw pills,” which had a strong purgative effect. A previous posting has discussed this medicine, which was apparently sold under the brand name of Nalther tablets, and which were a compound of capsicum, spearmint, rhubarb, senna, and aloe that the FDA judged eventually to be therapeutically useless. Senna is a powerful purgative. My mother and her sisters spoke with dread of a nostrum they were given each spring when they were children, a medicine called Black Draught, which was senna-based and “cleared” the patient out very effectively.

As Mary Lou suggests, the blackberry wine that Mollie made each summer for therapeutic purposes may have had more healing effect for dysentery or the flu than Alec’s “Grandpaw pills.” As her essay states, as a devout Methodist, Mollie had no qualms about taking alcoholic beverages, and she also put up peaches in brandy each summer. If Alec did not get to the brandy prior to Christmas, their sons got a small dram of peach brandy on Christmas day and the peaches were served to grandchildren. Mary Lou remembered them as very tasty and a bit warming. 

Another story Mary Lou Lindsey Prothro recounts: after Alec had practiced medicine a few years in Red River Parish as an “eclectic” doctor who had done some medical study but did not complete a degree, Louisiana passed a law requiring all doctors to take a qualifying exam and pay a fee to be licensed. With his typical stubbornness, Alec refused to take the exam or pay the fee and ended up in jail as a result. Mollie went to visit her jailed husband, and he asked her, “Well, Mollie, what do you think I should do? Spend thirty days in jail or pay the money?” Mollie’s reply: “Just sit in jail, Alec, all they are after is your money.”[31] As I read this story, I have to wonder if having her high-tempered and demanding little husband in jail for a month was a vacation for long-beleaguered Mollie.

At the funeral of my grandfather Benjamin Dennis Lindsey in February 1976, his brother Clarence told me another story about his mother, which I had not previously heard. He told me that my grandfather decided one day to go to town (that is, Coushatta). He tried hitching up a belligerent horse to the buggy he intended to take to town. Repeatedly, he would start climbing into the buggy and the horse would buck and throw him to the ground. He finally succeeded in getting the horse gentled enough to allow him to take horse and buggy to town. According to Clarence, as this little drama ensued, Mollie sat watching on the porch, sewing quietly and peeking up from underneath her sunbonnet. That evening when Dennis complained at supper that his back hurt but he had no idea why, Mollie smiled but kept what she knew to herself to avoid embarrassing her son by telling him what she’d seen transpire with the refractory horse earlier in the day.

The pictures I have of Mary Ann Green Lindsey, which are available digitally at this previous posting, do make me wonder about the difficult life journey she had. Her expression in each picture is not merely stoical but grim, the expression of a woman inured to suffering. When I put the pieces of her life story together — losing a mother at a very young age, being moved hither and yon, having an aunt replace her mother as a stepmother and then losing that second mother, marrying very young soon after her father had remarried to a third wife only a few years older than Mollie, bearing and raising twelve children, living with a man known for his cantankerous and high-tempered ways — I see a story of long suffering that would require considerable strength of character to endure.

---

[1] Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, Conveyance Bk. AA, p. 43. 

[2] Ibid., p. 534. On James Brewster as Simmesport’s postmaster, see Corinne L. Saucier, A History of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana (Gretna: Pelican, 1943), p. 119. It appears that James Brewster had died in Avoyelles Parish prior to 26 August 1859, when a court order was given for a family meeting that was then held on 7 September 1859 to determine the status of James’s minor children sons and James: see Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, Family Meeting Bk. B, pp. 54-5. This document names Thomas Mills as the grandfather of the minors. On 14 February 1862, Amos Fisher filed a petition for James’s minor children to be assigned tutorship. William A. Stewart was appointed tutor of Young and James Brewster, minors. This document names James’s wife as Esther Miles or Mills, and notes that she was also deceased: see Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, Probate Bk. C, p. 182.

[3] Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, Conveyance Bk. DD, p. 661.

[4] Louisiana Legislature, Acts 1858, #155, in Acts Passed by the Fourth Legislature of the State of Louisiana at its First Session, etc. (Baton Rouge: J.M. Taylor, 1858), pp. 108-9.

[5] Louisiana State Volume Patent Bk. 1200, p. 69, #19863.

[6] There is no comprehensive vendor-vendee index to Catahoula Parish conveyances in the collection of records of that parish available digitally at FamilySearch. Some Catahoula conveyance books have an index of sorts. Most do not. I have gone through the conveyance books up to 1880, insofar as possible, to see if I can spot a record showing Ezekiel S. Green disposing of the land he bought there in 1859, but find no record.

[7] E.S. Green v. S.K. Green, in Louisiana Reports, Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, vol. 4, A.N. Ogden, reporter (New Orleans: Price Current, 1850), p. 39; Louisiana Supreme Court Docket #5483.

[8] Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, Conveyance Bk. FF, pp. 676-7.

[9] Angelina County, Texas, Deed Bk. E, pp. 334-5.

[10] Bob Bowman, “Lufkin: A Century of Locomotives, Sawmills, and Industry,” East Texas Historical Journal 19, 2 (1981), pp. 4-5; Effie Mattox Boon, “The History of Angelina County” (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1937); and “Homer Cemetery” at Texas Historical Markers site, transcribing the inscription on the historic marker at Homer cemetery.

[11] Angelina County, Texas, Deed Bk. E, pp. 548-9; and Deed Bk. F, pp. 618-9.

[12] “Sawmill Database, Angelina County: Samuel Cole,” at website of Texas Forestry Museum, Lufkin, Texas.

[13] 1860 federal census, Angelina County, Texas, district 2, Homer, p. 100 (dwelling 243/family 237 and dwelling 246/family 240; 27 June). Samuel Cole died testate in Angelina County with a will recorded in Angelina County, Texas, Will Bk. A, pp. 9-11, dated 6 November 1861, probated 27 January 1862.

[14] Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Marriage Bk. 5, p. 76. Hannah Birdwell married Hardin Harville in Natchitoches Parish on 25 November 1845. The marriage contract is in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Conveyance Bk. 37, p. 114, #1998. It notes that Hardin Harville was a resident of DeSoto Parish at the time of the marriage.

[15] Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, succession file #1153; Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Succession Bk. 32, pp. 25-8. The succession records show Hannah petitioning as Hardin Harville’s widow on 16 August 1860 for administration of his estate; Hannah was appointed administratrix on 8 September 1860. An order to inventory was given on 22 August.

[16] 1860 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Natchitoches post office (dwelling/family 1177; 8 October).

[17] 1860 federal slave schedule, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 191, 6-10 October. Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Natchitoches Parish (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Mills Historical Press, 1985), p. 8, states that Hannah Harville appears in an 1862 Natchitoches Parish tax list for slaveholders who paid taxes on more than 10 enslaved persons in the parish.

[18] 1870 federal census, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, Coushatta Chute, ward 1, p. 307 (dwelling 97/family 93, 16 June).

[19] 1870 federal census, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, ward 1, Baton Rouge post office, p. 23B (l. 34, 20^th June).

[20] Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell, and Coryell Counties, Texas (Chicago: Lewis, 1893), pp. 387-388.

[21] 1880 federal, Bell County, Texas, district 2, p. 301 (ED 2; dwelling/family 68; 3-4 June).

[22] Memorial and Biographical History of McLennan, Falls, Bell, and Coryell Counties, Texas. pp. 387-388; and Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah Birdwell Harville, North Belton cemetery, Belton, Bell County, Texas, created by Mary Jane (Meroney) Taylor, with a tombstone photo by Frank Irons Sr.

[23] Bell County, Texas, Register of Deaths, Bk. 2, p. 40, #24; and Texas Department of Health, Texas Death Certificates, Bell County 1910, #8750.

[24] “Mrs. Hannah Green,” Austin American-Statesman (25 October 1910), p. 3, col. 4.

[25] Hunting for Bears, Red River Parish, Louisiana, Marriage Records 1871-1900 (Hammond, Louisiana: Dorothy and Nicholas Murray, 1992); in Ancestry database Louisiana, U.S. Compiled Marriage Index, 1718-1925.

[26] Red River Parish, Louisiana, Marriage Bk. A, p. 310.

[27] “Mrs. Mary Ann Lindsey,” Shreveport Journal (8 July 1942), p. 16, col. 2; “Funeral Services for Mrs. A.L. Lindsey Held Saturday,,” Coushatta Citizen (3 July 1942).

[28] “Mrs. A.L. Lindsey Rites at Coushatta Sunday Afternoon,” Shreveport Journal (27 June 1942), p. 5, col. 4.

[29] Henry Carlton Lindsey, Mark Lindsey Heritage (Brownwood, Texas, 1982), p. 62.

[30] Mary Lou Lindsey Prothro, “The Lindseys of Red River Parish,” in Red River Parish: Our Heritage, ed. Red River Parish Heritage Society (Bossier City, Louisiana: Everett, 1989) p. 310.

[31] Mary Lou’s story gives Alexander Cobb Lindsey the nickname Alex, but the nickname I heard always as a child was Alec.