I’ve written about my great-great grandfather Isaac Pittman before, but today I want to focus on his children.
The week 13 prompt for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “Nearly Forgotten,” and he had three children who fit that description.
I found the first two on the U.S. Census for 1900. Isaac and Mosella Elizabeth are shown living in Baldwin County, Alabama, with their seven children. Mary Elizabeth, my great-grandmother, is the oldest. She’s followed by Grover Cleveland, Nancy Charity, Medrick, Thomas E., and Isaac Junior, and baby Ruth E.
I had heard mention of all except the two youngest. The census collected month and year of birth that time around, and it shows that Isaac was born in June 1896 and Ruth was born in March 1899.
By 1910, little Ruth is gone, Isaac’s age is listed as 13, and there’s a new little brother, Charlie, age 10.
That 1900 Census is the only official record I’ve ever found of Ruth. There is a second record – a handwritten list that was folded inside my great-grandmother’s Bible. My cousin Cassandra graciously took photos of the paper and emailed to me. It has the whole family’s names and birthdates on it. That’s the only reason that I know Ruth’s name was really Ruthia, which was Isaac Pittman’s paternal grandmother’s name, and she was born on March 3, 1899. I don’t know when she died or why.
I know Isaac Junior died on the 28th of January in 1911 at age 15, but I have only seen an index, so I don’t know the cause of death. We have the two census records and the Bible record, and that’s all. My mother is still amazed that her grandmother never mentioned losing these two siblings.
And then there’s W.O. Pittman. He exists only in that handwritten list in Mary Elizabeth’s Bible. According to that paper, he was born on December 5th, 1880. That’s eight months and four days after Mosella Elizabeth Thompson married Isaac Pittman at her father’s home in Baldwin County. I think he was a boy, named after Mosella’s father, William Origen (and this is one of the reasons I think William Origen is her father’s full name; most records list him as simply Origen). I feel like the baby was born a little premature and probably didn’t live long, but that’s just my speculation. I’ve searched for records, but so far, I haven’t found anything. Thanks to my grandmother’s copy of her parents’ Bible record, he now lives in my memory.
Pages from Mollie Pittman Stevens’ Bible.
Rhyme Schemes and Daydreams 