The Life of Frances Ozella Texas Stevens (McCarter)
On 15 Nov 1849, Frances Ozella Texas McCarter was born to parents Marshal Stevens and Elizabeth Lundy Huff in Harris County, Georgia. Frances Ozella was born in the same year as legendary Native American chief, Crazy Horse. American writer Edgar Allen Poe died in this same year.
In 1851, when F
rances was about 2 years old the first Singer sewing machine was made.
On 04 Mar 1861 when Frances was 11 years old, Abraham Lincoln was sworn is as President of the United States.
On 12 April of the same year, the Civil War began.
On 29 June 1861, when Frances was age 11, the beloved English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning died.
On 18 Feb 1864, when Frances was only 14 years old Alexander H. McCarter, the future husband of both Frances and her sister Martha enlisted as a confederate soldier in the Civil War.
On 09 Apr 1865, when Frances was 15 years of age General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to General Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Grant allows Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permits soldiers to keep horses and mules.
On 14 Apr 1865, The Stars and Stripes was ceremoniously raised over Fort Sumter. That night, President Lincoln and his wife Mary saw the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater. At 10:13 p.m., during the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the head. Doctors attend to the president in the theater then move him to a house across the street. He never regains consciousness.
On 14 Apr 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died at 7:22 in the morning. Vice President Andrew Johnson assumes the presidency. On 01 May 1865 Alexander Hamilton McCarter was paroled from military service as a confederate soldier at Greensboro, North Carolina.
On 06 Dec 1865, when Frances was 16 years old, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, is finally ratified and slavery is abolished. The war and the abolishment of slavery had a huge impact on the finances of Marshal Stevens, the father of Frances. In 1860 Marshal Stevens had a real estate value of $4000.00 and his personal estate (including slaves owned) was valued at $10,500.00. In 1870, while the real estate value of Marshal Stevens increased by $400.00, his personal estate value was reduced to $575.00, a loss of almost $10,000.00.
On 26 Aug 1866, when Frances was almost 17 years old, her older sister, Martha Burchet Stevens (age 19), married Alexander Hamilton McCarter (age 21).
On 23 Jul 1867, when Frances was 17 years old, her sister Martha and Martha's husband Alexander McCarter were blessed with a baby girl whom they named Annie Ozella McCarter. I am sure Frances Ozella Texas Stevens felt honored that they chose a part of her name for their new baby girl.
1867 was also the year that the typewriter was invented.
On 10 Jun 1870, at the age of 20, Frances lost her beloved sister Martha. Martha died after having been married to Alexander McCarter for almost four years and giving birth to two children from this marriage. Martha's daughter was three years old and her son was 11 months old at the time of her death. Just one day before Martha's death the wonderful English novelist, Charles Dickens died.
In the 1870 Harris County, Georgia census, Frances age 21, is still living in the home of her parents. Living right next door is her newly widowed brother-in-law Alexander McCarter and his two children Annie Ozella McCarter and George Stevens McCarter. Also living in Alexander's home is Permelia J. McCarter, mother of Alexander and grandmother of his children. Alexander's wife Martha, sister to Frances had died only about a month and a half before the 1870 census was enumerated.
On 27 Dec 1871, at age 22, Frances Ozella Texas Stevens married her brother-in-law, Alexander McCarter.
In Nov 1872, at age 23, only slightly over a year since her marriage to Alexander McCarter, Frances gave birth to a precious baby girl who would die within a month of her birth.
In 1876, when Frances was 27 years old, the very first telephone message was sent.
On 19 Dec 1878, at age 29, Frances gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, William Marvin McCarter.
In 1880, Frances age 31; Alexander and their sweet baby William Marvin (Will) are living in Harris County, Georgia. They are still living next door to the parents of Frances; Marshal Stevens and Elizabeth L. Huff. The 1880 census indicates that the two children born of Martha (sister to Frances) and Alexander McCarter are living in the home of their Stevens grandparents instead of in the home of their aunt now turned stepmother, Frances and their father Alexander McCarter.
1880 was the year that Thomas Edison patented his incandescent lamp.
1882 was the year of the deaths of American poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
On 01 Oct 1884, at age 34, Frances gave birth to her third child, another baby girl who died on the same day of her birth.
On 04 Jan 1886 Frances, age 36 and Alexander welcomed the birth of their third baby girl, with skepticism to be sure, having lost both of their infant girls who were born in the years before. Permelia Elizabeth (Bessie) McCarter, who was named for both of her grandmothers. (Permelia Jane Hendry McCarter and Elizabeth Lundy Huff Stevens) would finally be a daughter who would live a long life. (She lived to be 72 years old) 1886 was also the year that Americans lost the great poet Emily Dickinson.
In the will of Marshal Stevens, written on 03 Jan 1888 when Frances was 38 years old, there is mention of Frances and her husband Alexander McCarter.
"Item 7th I give and bequeath to my daughter F. O. T . McCarter nee Stevens all of lot No. (15) fifteen in the 2nd Dist. of Originally Troup now Harris County, the above described land I give to my said daughter absolutely for her sole use and her use only."
On 6 Oct. 1888 at age 38, Frances lost her beloved father, Marshal Stevens. The year 1888 was also the year of the death of the talented author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott.
The year 1891 is the year in which the invention of an item would change the way we change our clothes. The zipper was invented by a lover of gadgets and machines, Whitcomb L. Judson.
At some time between 6 Oct 1888 and 20 Apr 1893, Frances and her immediate family gathered at the home of her mother in Harris County, Georgia. It was a huge gathering, likely for a special occasion. A large group family photo was made with the mother of Frances, Elizabeth Lundy Huff Stevens in the center of the photo, sitting in a wheel chair, blanket in her lap, with her family gathered all around.
On 20 Apr 1893, when Frances was age 43, her mother Elizabeth Lundy Huff Stevens took her last breath of life, surely leaving a huge void in the lives of all those who gathered around her for the treasured Stevens family photograph.
Just three years later, on 10 Mar 1896, when Frances was age 46, her husband Alexander McCarter died prematurely at age 51 leaving Frances to care for her 17 year old son William Marvin and ten year old daughter "Bessie" alone. By then both parents of Frances had passed away.
On 20 Feb 1898 when Frances was 48 years old, the son of Frances and Alexander McCarter, William Marvin McCarter married Lula Jack (Jackie Swanson) at the age of 19. Family members recall this marriage as a marriage of true love.
On 11 Apr 1899 at age 49, Frances became a grandmother for the first time when her granddaughter Johnnie Eloise McCarter was born to her son William and his wife Jackie.
On 07 Jun 1900 at age 50 Frances is living in the home of her son William Marvin McCarter and his wife Jackie, along with her granddaughter Johnnie and her own daughter Bessie. They are living in the White Sulphur Springs community of Meriwether County, Georgia.
This is the last true record that I have of Frances.
In 1905, her son William Marvin McCarter died at the young age of 26. Family lore tells that he was afflicted with diabetes. As of yet I have no proof of this. If Frances Ozella was still living at this time her grief must have been unsurmountable.
In 1910 in Harris County, Georgia census, the widow of William Marvin McCarter is married to Jesse Charlie Harrington and living next door to the Will H. Stevens and Ham Stevens families. Will H. Stevens was the older brother of Frances Ozella Texas Stevens.
As of today, 11 Nov 2004 I have not found Frances Ozella Texas Stevens McCarter in the 1910 census. It does not mean she is not there, I just have not found her. She was still young in 1900, a 50 year old widow who may have remarried which would make my search for her post 1900 a bit more challenging. I have no death record for Frances at this time.
Update
July 16, 2005
On a recent trip to Georgia, I visited the past home of the parents of Frances Ozella Texas Stevens and the church cemetery in which numerous members of her family are buried.
I still have no death date nor burial location for Frances. I have searched every known possibility for her in the 1910 census. I searched the households of each of her siblings and any other known relatives. She was not there.
The following is a list of her siblings and their location in 1910.
Mary Ann Isabel Stevens Dunn was no longer alive in the 1910 census. She died in 1907. Her husband, Waters Brisco Dunn died several years before. I did not find Frances living in the home of any of Mary Ann Isabel's Dunn descendants.
William Huff Stevens was still living in Harris County, Georgia in 1910, likely in the same vicinity as the family home. The next household is that of his son Harris Stevens. Frances is listed in neither of these homes in 1910.
Nancy Virginia Stevens Jenkins lived with her husband in Warm Springs, Georgia in 1910. Frances was not listed among their household members.
Martha Burchett Stevens McCarter died in 1870.
By 1910 Narcissa Emily Stevens Hatchet had returned to Georgia from her recent home in Texas where she had moved with her now deceased husband, Willliam Hatchet, MD. She was living in the same household as her sister Sophronia Thermuthis Stevens Slaughter whose husband was also deceased. They were living in Chipley, Harris County, Georgia. Frances was not living with them.
In 1910, George Stevens McCarter, the nephew or stepson of Frances (depends on how you look at it) was still living near the Stevens family home in Harris County, Georgia. Frances was not living in his household.
In 1910, stepdaughter/niece Annie Ozella McCarter Haughton was married and living in Louisiana with her husband and family.
Daughter Permelia Elizabeth (Bessie) McCarter Harrington married in 1908. Frances was not a member of their household in 1910.
As mentioned above, son William Marvin McCarter died in 1905. By the 1910 census his widow, Lula Jack Swanson had remarried and was living with her new husband, Jessie Charlie Harrington, in the area of the Stevens family home in Harris County, Georgia.
1920 Census
By 1920 William Huff Stevens was an elderly man and living in the home of his son Harris Stevens. His wife was deceased.
Sophronia T. Stevens Slaughter was living with an unmarried niece with the surname Dunn.
Nancy Virgina Stevens Jenkins died in 1918.
Narcissa Stevens Hatchet died in 1916.
I have concluded that it all likelihood Frances Ozella Texas Stevens McCarter had passed away by the 1910 census. There is still a possibility that she had remarried and I just can not locate her.
In Bethlehem Baptist Church cemetery in Harris County, Georgia, there is a grave that is marked with only a rock at its head, located beside the grave of Alexander H. McCarter, husband of Frances Ozella. I have a strong sense this could be her grave. Alexander's grave is marked only with a Confederate Veteran marker.
I will continue my search until I can put Frances to rest.