The Children of Emma Vining Richardson Williams

Emma Vining was born on October 1, 19886 in St. Helena, Louisiana to Allen Vining and Rosa Hart Vining. Emma Vining died in Amite, Louisiana in 1864. Allen and Rosa had three daughters together: Judy, Emma, and Bernice. 

In the years that followed the death of Rosa, Allen later married Pheoby Self of St. Helena, Louisiana, and as a result of their union, they had several children together.  According to the 1900 United States Federal Census, Emma was living with her paternal grandmother Martha Green Vining, aunt Elizabeth Vining, and her sisters Bernice and and Judy. Judy was eleven and Emma was thirteen at the time. Also living in the house was a 10 year-old girl named Mamie. I recall talking several years back to a cousin named Sandra Brown, who is a descendant of Bernice lineage. Her grandmother told her that Mamie was her sister. Consequently,  Allen and Rosa may have had four daughters.

Emma's grandmother Martha Green was married to Frank Vining in 1874 in St. Helena, Louisiana. Their children were: Allen, Julia, Caleb, Sarah, and Frank Vining. 

Emma's first husband was Thomas Richardson. The couple had four children: Josephine, Alexander, Rosabel and Alma "Mandy" Richardson. After she and Thomas divorced she later married Jim Williams they had four children: Ethel, Jimmy, Arthur, and  Victoria "Dot" Williams. 

It was after reading a comment from one of our younger family members, who stated that she she was unaware that Grandma Emma had other children from a second marriage, that I decided to write and post this blog. "Several members of our family have passed away, " including my mother Isabell Harrell Cook, Cousin Earl Lee Richardson, Sr., Cousin Nathaniel Richardson, and Jo-Ann Lewis Frazier who recounted and shared the Richardson and Williams family history. Our history must be preserved and passed on to the generations, as exemplified by the character of Kunta Kinte in the 1977 television series Roots. 

We are blessed to have images of six of her eight children. If anyone has a photograph of Grandpa Emma, Grandpa Thomas and Jim Williams,  Arthur and Dot, please share with me so I can share it with others. Please don't just hold on to it for yourself, share it with the family. 

Finding My Enslaved Ancestors in the Inventory Records of the Slaveholder

Slavery Inventory of Jesse and Martha Vining
Dr. Antoinette Harrell ancestors, Courtesy of the St. Helena Parish Clerk's Office

It's very hard for me to comprehend why African American History is still a subject that most people do not like to talk about in Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes in 2020. My genealogy adventure has taken me down many dusty roads and busy interstate to learn about my direct family history. While driving down the dusty, lonely roads, my mind seems to drift off in a time and period. Looking on both sides of the road and looking at the trees and old wooden building is now falling. 

I can almost feel the stories that these trees and lonely roads want to tell me—driving on the land where formerly enslaved people of St. Helena Parish once worked from sun up to sun down in the blistering summer heat and the cold winter whispering days. Somehow I feel like Alex Haley felt when he went to Gambia, Africa tracing the "Roots" of Kunta Kinte. Kunta Kinte was born in 1750 in Gambia and kidnapped and sold into slavery in America. Kunta Kinte died in 1822.

My Richardson, Vining, and Bates family research ties to St. Helena Parish. There is something that pulls at me always to research their history. "Who was the first person in my family that touch the soil of America?" I know I had to search the Clerk's office records until I could find them. The painstaking research wasn't easy; I realized that. The pain causes the tears to stream down my face until I could see a

Dr. Antoinette Harrell
St. Helena Parish Clerk's Office

clearing. 

After going inside the vault and looking at the many files that seem to be at least fifteen feet tall, I look up and down, and somehow, I knew I would find them because they wanted to be found. The first slave records I found were Carrie and her child Thomas who was owned by Benjamin and Celia Bankston Richardson. I was looking at their names in this cursive writing, and a deep saddest hit my heart. "'I realized that on this day," my Carrie and her child was being sold. Who are the other people listed on the inventory? "Could this be people that are related to Carrie?

Soon afterward, I started looking at my Vining family and found that they were owned by Jesse and Martha Vining in St. Helena. I discovered my ancestors; One Negro named Frank age 18 of yellow color valued at $700.00, One negriss named Thursday age 20 years old and her child valued at $700.00, one negro woman named Judia age 25 years value at $600.00, and one negro man named Ben age 22 years old, yellow color valued at $700.00.

I'm so grateful to Alex Haley for the book called "Roots" and teaching African-Americans like me who are thirsty for knowledge of self and the history of family history. I feel enriched knowing that I have studied my own 

New Found Relatives in My Family Tree

Mayor Rochell Bates and Dr. Antoinette Harrell
Photo Credit: Walter C. Black, Sr.

I moved back to the Parish, where my ancestral lived in 2005. I was happy with the move; after all, I didn't have to travel from New Orleans two to three times a week to conduct my maternal and paternal genealogy research in Amite County, Mississippi or St. Helena Parish, Louisiana. I focus my attention and research energy, mostly on my maternal side of the family, until 2019. It was after the death of my father that I decided to look deeper into his family tree. My father's mother's name was Mary McKay, was born to Charlie and Florence William McKay in 1904 in Pike, Mississippi.

Florence's parents were Alexander and Rebecca Ann Williams. Rebecca was born around 1857 in Mississippi. According to the 1910 United States Federal Census, she was listed as a mulatto. Rebecca was able to read and write. She and Alexander had nine children. 

Rochell Bates is the mayor of Kentwood, La., and the principal of Kentwood Magnet High School. I would have never imagined that there could be any relations to us at all. Well, I was in for a surprise. I found his Sim Bates on in a family tree where my Rebecca was found. I wanted to look a little deeper into the Bates family lineage. 

I learned from Rochell that the Bates started somewhere in Amite County, Mississippi. I started looking for the first white Bates in Amite County, Mississippi and found a man named Richard Bates, who owned hundred and six enslaved people. Richard was born in 1796 in Barnwall, South Carolina, and died in 1867 in Amite, Mississippi. I would like to know the names of everyone he owned on the plantation.

Mayor Bates and I were just and surprised to learn that we are related. Sometimes you never know who you are related to. There is more to come to this story. 

A History Road Trip with Family

Bernard mailing his African Ancestry DNA in
Virginia

When my youngest son Bernard was a child, we visited many, archives, libraries, and museums.  By the time he turned twelve years old, he had traveled to twenty-two states. Tasting different food and meeting new people along the way. Sometimes we flew, and for the most part we would drive so that we could stop and visit some of the major attractions. 

With a big smile and his luggage packed he was all ready to travel on our summer adventure.  We made plans to take a road trip for two weeks driving up the East Coast and ending up in Washington, D.C, at the National Archives.  He was too young to go into the National Archives, so my ex-husband took him around College Park while I did some genealogy research.  I don't know how much of the history lessons he was retained at that time. I know I had to teach and expose him.

It was one of the best summer vacations we can remember. We purchased a map for him to follow along. We packed books and some of his favorite things he enjoyed playing with and hit the road headed  east.  During that time they didn't have a GPS to guide us on our trip. We made sure to purcahse postcards in each state to send back to the family at home. 

Reading records 

Years later we took another road trip with Moussa Albaka, a well known Tuareg silversmith to meet other Tuareg people from Niger, Africa who moved to Greensboro, North Carolina.  We're welcome with big smiles and hugs by the Tuareg people. We had dinner and wonderful conversation before head to the Atlantic ocean so that Bernard could take his African Ancestry DNA test.

He faced the ocean and imagined the ships coming to the Americas with his ancestors on it. We held each other in hopes that he will find out where in Africa his paternal ancestors come from. Six weeks later he finds out that his paternal lineage connected him to Nigeria, West Africa. 

Learning about our family history had taken us many beautiful places to meet some wonderful people and new family members along the way. As I write this blogpost, I can't help but think about the time Bernard and I drove to Chicago to visit our Harrell family member with my Uncle Raymond.  Bernard has just met his 3rd maternal cousins. He met cousins that his maternal grandmother hasn't met. I was happy that we took this trip that summer.

Uncle Raymond played one of his old-time gospel songs again and again. It seems like he played that song from the time we left Louisiana to we arrived in Chicago. Bernard asked him why did he keep playing the same song over and over again?  During our stay in Chicago, Uncle Raymond wanted us to meet the descendants of my great-uncle Warner Harrell.  So the three of us drove up to Wisconsin and met new family, and we really enjoyed our visit with cousin Dan Harrell and his family.

One week the white lines on the highway were calling me again. I asked Bernard if he wanted to go and visit the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee? He said yes and was eager to go. We packed our luggage on a sunny Friday afternoon and drove the five-hour trip. We went west to visit Alex Haley House Museum in Henning, Tennessee first.  We took the guided tour and took pictures before traveling back to Memphis to get dinner and checking in the hotel. 

The next morning after breakfast we headed to the National Civil Rights Museum and spent the day touring the Museum. What better way to teach a child about the history? He had a lot of questions to ask about the Civil Rights Movement.  I hope when he becomes a father, he'll take road trips with his children and teach them their history. One thing for sure the road trip we took by driving meant that we could stop all along the highway and get some good tasting food and site see. 

I hope he holds these memories dear to his heart like I hold them in my heart. This was our time spent together. Now that he is an adult we haven't taken a road trip and just because he is all grown-up, doesn't mean we shouldn't.  My grandchildren are taking road trips with me now.   They'll soon  become teenagers and they will have other plans. But the beautiful and sweet memories I hope will never be forgotten. 

I enjoyed taking him places with me and having him to be a part of the many events we went to. The only thing I regret is I wish that we could have had more time in his formative years. The time went by quickly that once little boy is now twenty-five years old. 

I want to make it a family tradition that we all take a road trip to visit museums, antique shops, fun attractions, and enjoy family time spent together. 

The Theodore and Gladys Chapman Dunn Family Reunion

Theodore and Gladys Chapman Dunn

This years Dunn family reunion was organized by Paulette Gilmore Sims, the daughter of the late Charlie Gilmore and Ruby Lee Dunn Gilmore. Paulette and her committee organized a one day event that displayed family photographs, the Dunn History, a slideshow presentation and family fun. This years theme was " We Are Our Brother's Keeper".  The reunion was held as Jellystone Park in Robert, Louisiana. 

Theodore Dunn was born in 1906 in Amite County, Mississippi to Hezekiah and Gertrude Atkins Jackson Dunn. According to the oral history of his oldest son Leon Dunn, Sr.,  his father Theodore moved his family to Kentwood, Louisiana in the 1940s. 

Theodore was killed in a truck accident in 1957 in Easlyville, Louisiana. He was a farmer and logger by occupation. He worked hard to save money to purchase the land that is still in the Dunn family today.  To their union of Theodore and Gladys Dunn, eight children was born; Leon Dunn, Sr., Willie Mae Dunn Williams, Gertrude Dunn Perry,  Gena Mae Dunn Chapman, Will Henry Dunn, Charlie Dunn, Theodore Dunn, and Ruby Lee Dunn Gilmore.  Three of their offsprings has passed away: Gertrude Dunn Perry, Charlie Dunn, and Gena Mae Dunn Chapman.

Leon Dunn, Ruby Lee Dunn Gilmore, Theodore Dunn

Hezekiah Dunn and Gertrude was the parents of Bernice Dunn Hampton, Elouise Dunn Collins, Everlee Dunn Clark, Leon Dunn, Theodore Dunn and Otis Dunn.  Gertrude has children by her first husband. The children ware Rufus Jackson and Laura Jackson Banks according to the Dunn Family tree that was complied in 2009. Hezekiah was known by family members as Hizzie.  Leon said that his father Theodore passed down a lot of oral history to him about the Dunn family. He also said his father Theodore told him that that Hezekiah was of Indian descent. 

Hezekiah is the son of Andrew Dunn, no one knew the name of Hezekiah's mother. I checked U. S. census to see if I could locate her. Andrew was listed as a widower. Hezekiah's brother and sisters were listed as Maggie, Malinda, Mary, and Madison. 

Well over a hundred descendants of Theodore and Gladys attend this years family reunion. Lot of home cooked food, homemade ice cream and prizes was given out.  Everyone was so happy to see each other and to meet new family members. Two of Theodore's brother and sister offsprings also was present.

Elouise Dunn Collis and Odis Dunn offsprings express their desire to learn more about their family history. There were discussions of organizing an upcoming event of all eight branches of Hezekiah and Gertrude Dunn.

Looking at the younger generation work to make this years family reunion a success was beautiful.  Some of the family was reflecting on the days when the family reunions was held in grandma Gladys front yard under the two oak trees in Kentwood, La.

Now the younger generation are stepping up to the task and organizing the family reunions to keep the family together. It was so good to see family respecting and sharing love with each other.

Photo Credits
Walter C. Blacks, Sr.