Mary Rowlett
by Barbara Jefferson-BonnerFamily Historian, 1998
Mary Rowlett was born May, 1825, in the State of Virginia. To begin a new life, Mary traveled through many States. She began in Virginia. By 1843 she was in Carthage, Leake County, Mississippi. This is where she gave birth to her first son.
In 1870, Grandma Mary was a 40-year old widow. Slavery was no longer a way of life. No other plantation name had been recorded for Mary, nor a first name for her husband, although it is revealed that she was married. Mary was the head of the house with three young children to raise. She had given birth to six children. By the time her youngest child, Jane, was born in 1863, her oldest child, Lewis, was already married with a family of his own.
In 1880, Mary was a 50-year old retired widow. She, her daughter Jane and Jane's child, a 17-year old, lived in the home of Mary's fifth son, Julius, and his wife, Joanna Gray.
By 1900, Mary was 70+ living in the home of Jane. Jane was a 37-year old single mother of one child. Jefferson, her son, was 20, single and still living at home.
There are no known family members alive who remember Mr. Rowlett or if any of his sons were named for him. There are no records reflecting the death of Grandma Mary, but it is well known that her children took very good care of her.
Grandma Mary is my ascending grandmother, through my mother.