The Mystery that Started It All (part 3)

Note:  This is a continuation from previous posts.  To start back at part 1, click here.

The Old Seaboard Air Line Railway on the corner of Deadwyler Street and North Oliver Street in Elberton, GA.  Directly across North Oliver Street (to the left of the building in this photo) was where the Parham boarding house was once located.

As a preteen or very young teenager, my grandmother was sent by her mother and stepfather to live with her paternal grandmother in Elberton, Georgia.  Grandma Eva’s father, James David Parham, had passed away from a gastric hemorrhage caused by a peptic ulcer in 1937, when my Grandma was only nine years old.  Her mother, my great-grandmother, who I always knew as “Grandma Bobo” (Annie Mae Jones Parham Bobo) had remarried Snow Robert Bobo just shy of a year later on September 19, 1938.

The story that has always been told through the family is that Grandma Eva's older brother (James David Parham, Jr.) joined the military, and that shortly thereafter Grandma Eva was sent to live with her grandmother.  However, I have had some difficulty making that timeline work, as my records show that James joined the Navy in June 1944, which would have been well after Grandma Eva moved to Elberton.  At any rate, at some point between 1940 and 1943, Grandma Eva ended up living with her Grandma Parham in Elberton, Georgia.

Grandma Parham (Martha Alma “Martie” Bobo Parham) owned and ran a boarding house at 149 N. Oliver Street in Elberton, Georgia.  Her daughter, my grandmother's Aunt Frances (Frances L. Parham Roberts) and her son, my grandmother's Uncle Hubert (Hubert Bulah Parham) also lived in the boarding house with her, at least as of the 1940 census.  Grandma Parham had been left widowed when Grandpa Parham (Early Artis Parham) passed away in February 1940.  Uncle Hubert enlisted in the Navy in February 1942, and Grandma Parham may have been left needing additional help to run the boarding house.

This is not a time in Grandma Eva's life that she looked back on fondly.  She was somewhere between twelve and fifteen years old when she moved to Elberton.  In her adulthood, on the rare occasion that she spoke of the boarding house, she described her experience as as being "worked like a slave" and having to do all of the cleaning and most of the cooking for the boarders.  My family and I do not believe that she was attending school while she was in Elberton, and we know that she never finished high school.  She likely moved to Elberton and immediately began working at the boarding house full-time.  I do not know exactly when Grandma Eva went to live with Grandma Parham, but I know for sure that it was sometime after the 1940 census (where she is listed as living in Hartwell with her mother, stepfather and brother) and prior to November 1943.

1940 Census for Hart County, Georgia - Bobo/Parham Family

1940 Census for Elbert County, Georgia - Parham Family

And how do I know that it was prior to November 1943?  Well...I know that because of what was in the Magical Cedar Chest.  The documents that my mother called me over to see were the photo of my grandmother's baby that I shared in part 2, and a marriage certificate.

For all these years, my grandmother had held on to one 8x10 photo - probably the only photo that had ever existed (I learned later that my great-aunt also had another copy of the same photo) - of the baby that she had lost, and a handwritten marriage certificate, filled out by the preacher on the day that she said her vows.

I finally had their names.  Well...sort of.

On the back of the photo was written one word:  Bonnie.  My parents had been right about the baby's name.  But what was her father's name - what was her last name??

SERIOUSLY????  "Prv. G.W. Bryant of Elberton, Georgia."  The pastor just HAD to use the man's initials - on his marriage certificate???  *insert scream of frustration here*  Well, at least I had that much.  In fact, I now knew a lot more than I had known before.  I now knew:  (1) he was in the military (the rank of private meant either Army or Marines), (2) his last name was Bryant, and his initials were G.W., (3) he had married my grandmother on November 27, 1943, when she was just fifteen years old.  I also knew that they were married by Rev. S.S. Williams at 227 N. Oliver Street, just a block away from the boarding house where she lived, most likely at the pastor's residence.

I imagine that my young Grandma was so unhappy living and working at the boarding house with her aunt and her grandmother that when a handsome young soldier - possibly home on leave for Thanksgiving - took interest in her and swept her off her feet, she jumped at the chance to escape from what she believed was her prison.  They were so very young!  I later learned that Pvt. G.W. Bryant was himself only eighteen at the time of their marriage.

And the baby - my aunt, whose existence I was never even aware of until I was nineteen years old.  Her name was Bonnie Bryant.  I immediately went to Ancestry and performed a search - and finally hit paydirt.

There is a wonderful site called Find A Grave (www.findagrave.com), and Ancestry immediately pulled up an index to a Find A Grave memorial for Bonnie Rose Bryant.  Bonnie Rose.  "Beautiful rose."  My heart broke once again for my grandmother, who had been forced to bury her beautiful rose way too soon.

I saw her birth date and gasped.

My Grandma Eva had married my Granddaddy on December 23, 1949.  Nine months and one week later, my dad had been born - on September 30, 1950.  On what would have been his sister's fourth birthday.  Oh, what a day of mixed emotions that must have been for my grandmother!  As she held her precious new baby in her arms, her mind had to be drawn to the one she had lost just three years earlier.  Every year on my father's birthday, my grandmother must have silently added four years to his age.  Bonnie would have been ___ years old today.

I clicked on "View Record" and saw Bonnie's headstone.

Photo courtesy of Theron Rogers, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44203723

As my dad had originally told me, she was buried in Elberton, in Elmhurst Cemetery.  I knew that I would have to go to visit her grave very soon.

In the meantime, I wanted to know what had happened to Bonnie to cause her to die at such a young age, just two days shy of ten months old.  I drafted up a letter to the Elbert County Probate Court requesting a copy of the death certificate and had my dad sign it as next of kin.  I was ultimately after two pieces of information:  (1) G.W. Bryant's full name, and (2) Bonnie's cause of death.  I waited anxiously for the several weeks that it took to receive the certificate.  When it finally arrived, I got the answer to one of my questions.

Primary Cause of Death: Choleroforma Diarrhea
Contributory Cause: not known.

I have searched the internet for the meaning of "Choleroforma Diarrhea," but I have come up empty.  However, there is a bacteria group called coliform which can cause severe diarrhea.  It can be found in well water, which wouldn't at all have been unusual in small-town Elberton, Georgia in the 1940s.  So it appears that Bonnie may have died from something similar to E. coli or dysentery.  Who knows how long baby Bonnie suffered before finally succumbing to the illness!  It must have been absolute torture for Grandma Eva.  I have reason to believe that she may have been alone, with no one to turn to for help.  Family lore says that her husband left her before the baby died.  Some evidence suggests that he may have even been long gone before Bonnie was born.

Grave of Bonnie Rose Bryant, photo courtesy of Bobbie Bobo Bailey (my grandmother's half-sister)

And yet again, on Bonnie's death certificate, her father is listed as "G.W. Bryant."  In fact, my grandmother is listed as the informant on the death certificate as "Mrs. G.W. Bryant."  I have a great-uncle on my granddaddy's side who was James Edward Powell, Jr., but for his whole life he was always called "J.E."  I imagine it must have been the same for G.W. - his initials were his name, as far as anyone was concerned.  But I still wanted to know who he was.

Online research wasn't getting me any further in my search.  I had a possible suspect, but no solid evidence to prove that he was the man who married my grandmother and then left her and his child.  So...recently, I made the trip to Elberton, and I took my mother with me.  My dad had hoped to make the trip, but health issues prevented it.  So we took LOTS of photos.

Our first stop was the Elbert County Probate Court.  My goal there was to obtain three documents:  (1) the official, recorded marriage license for the marriage of G.W. Bryant and Eva Parham; (2) the official, recorded marriage license for the marriage of Everett Powell and Eva Parham (my grandparents); and (3) Bonnie Rose Bryant's birth certificate.  When we arrived and told the registrar, Cindie Floyd, our story and what we were pursuing, she was EXTREMELY helpful.  She pointed us to the marriage record books in the back, where my mom and I immediately dug in and began our search.  It didn't take long before we located the first marriage record.

*Sigh.*  Pvt. G.W. Bryant, age 18.  Well, it was worth a shot.  In the meantime, Cindie came back and asked us about the birth record that we needed.  I gave her a copy of the death certificate that I had printed out before we left Greenville - the one that, as it turns out, she had actually obtained for me when I had mailed in the letter last year - so that she would have all of the vital information that she needed to look up the birth certificate.  She said that because my dad, who was Bonnie's next of kin, wasn't with us, she would need to call the Probate Judge (who was on vacation that week) to obtain permission to give us the birth certificate.  She came back a few minutes later to let us know that she had been granted permission.  *WHEW!*  As we chatted, we expressed our frustration that all of the documents we had obtained thus far only had Bonnie's father's initials.  She very casually responded, "Oh, his full name is on the birth certificate.  It's George Warren."  I had to fight back tears.

George Warren Bryant.  I finally had a full name for the mystery man who had been such a part of my grandmother's life.  They had married in November 1943.  Bonnie was born in September 1946.  That means that they were married - that he was actually present - until at least December of 1945, for just over two years.  But a couple of items on the birth certificate concerned me, as they seemed to suggest that George Warren Bryant was not present when his daughter was born.

First of all, my grandmother's address on the birth certificate is listed as 149 North Oliver Street.  Back at the boarding house.  I know how my grandmother felt about that boarding house, and I don't think that anything could have caused her to move back there - unless she had no choice.  Unless she was alone.  Secondly, while George Warren's name is listed as the father on the birth certificate - take a look at his place of birth.  Unknown.  It is likely that George Warren Bryant knew where he was born.  Had he been there with his wife and newborn daughter, he could have easily provided this information for the birth certificate.

Of course, this is pure hypothesis on my part.  But I believe it is compelling, and we know that George Warren was absent by the time his daughter died.

After solving the mystery of George Warren Bryant's full name, my mom and I turned back to the marriage books to try to locate the marriage record for my grandmother and granddad.  The story that my granddad always told was that he and my grandmother had to search all over the place to locate a preacher to marry them.  It was two days before Christmas 1949, and they finally went to Preacher J.C. West's house and were married.

When I told this story to the other (very helpful) registrar at the Probate Court, Mary West, she smiled.  She was familiar with Preacher West, and even told us where his house had been located - at the back of the property where Concord United Methodist Church sat.  Concord Methodist is located on Harmony Road, which is the road that leads out of Elberton toward Hartwell.  We had actually passed it on our way into town.  The church's fellowship hall sat on the property where Preacher West's house was and where my grandparents had been married.  The church sits up on a hill, with a cemetery that stretches alongside and in front of the church building.  It also happens to be the final resting place for the "G.W. Bryant" that I had long suspected was my grandmother's ex-husband.

As Mary from the Probate Court also informed us, Preacher West's daughter Julia was the Elbert County Probate Judge for a while in those days.  Sure enough, when I took a look at Bonnie's birth and death certificates, I saw that they were both signed by Julia W. West.

Despite an exhaustive search in which we came across many other marriages performed by Preacher West, my mom and I were unable to locate the marriage certificate for my grandparents.

After grabbing a bite to eat, my mom and I headed to the Elbert County Courthouse, which is a separate building from where the Probate Court is located.  The courthouse was erected in 1894 and is an absolutely gorgeous old building.

Elbert County Courthouse, 12 S. Oliver St., Elberton, GA

My goal in going to the courthouse was to obtain a copy of the divorce record between my Grandma Eva and George Warren Bryant.  When we walked into the Clerk of Court's office, we were shown to a small iron vault containing many old court record books.  Some of these books dated back to the early 1800s.  When we narrowed down which book should contain the divorce decree, it was nowhere to be found.  It contained many others, but not the one we were looking for.  We were informed by the young lady working in the Clerk's office that the petition for divorce would have had to be filed in the county where the defendant lived.  In other words, if my grandmother had been the one to file for divorce against G.W., and G.W. was living in another county, those records would be held in that county's courthouse, so there is definitely more research to be done before giving up on that search.  Still, I couldn't help but wonder - could it be that they never legally divorced?  We hadn't been able to find a marriage record for my grandparents, after all.

We left the courthouse and headed toward the county cemetery - Elmhurst Cemetery, where Bonnie is buried.  Y'all, that place is massive.  It is a beautiful and peaceful cemetery, with granite headstone markers dotting the landscape.  Elberton, Georgia is, after all, the "Granite Capital of the World."

Elmhurst Cemetery, Elberton, Georgia

It was 97 degrees out in the hot Georgia sun, and I wondered if we would ever be able to find Bonnie's grave.  However, I had printed out the Find A Grave page, with photos, before leaving my house.  My mom and I had a short de-briefing where we studied the size and shape of the headstone, and then we attempted to divide and conquer.  Within about twenty minutes, we had found her.

Her headstone is small and almost the entire top half is covered with lichen.  It is the first grave beside one of the cemetery through-roads, on the right-hand side of the cemetery as you enter from North Oliver Street.  Bonnie's plot has bricks in a perimeter around it, with an empty gravesite to the right.  My mom and I wondered if maybe my grandmother had purchased both plots, intending to one day be buried beside her daughter.  Placing a call to the city's offices to inquire about the cemetery records is still on my to-do list.

My mom made the comment while we were at the cemetery that she wished that we had brought a rose with us to place on Bonnie's grave.  I am sure that we were the first people to visit her grave in quite a while, and it may be a long time before anyone visits again.  It is likely that those of us who were connected to my Grandma Eva are the only ones who even know who this baby was, or that she existed at all.

As we got back in my car to leave, we decided that there was one more place that we had to visit on our way out of town.  Even though we have no irrefutable evidence that he was the man we were looking for, there is an awful lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the G.W. Bryant buried in the Concord United Methodist Church cemetery was, in fact, my grandmother's first husband and Bonnie's father.  He was the right age, being born on February 23, 1925.  He was in the military, enlisting in the U.S. Army on June 10, 1943.  His enlistment records show his Civil Occupation as "Farm hands, general farms," and Bonnie's birth certificate lists her father's occupation as "Farmer."  He was released from the Army on October 31, 1945, so he would have been back home just a couple of months prior to Bonnie's conception.

And the most compelling thing, at least in my mind, is that even his very gravestone names him as "G.W. Bryant."

So we decided to pay him a visit.

Reverend G.W. Bryant and his much younger wife, Emily

It would be so easy for me to be filled with anger toward this man, who caused my sweet Grandma Eva so much pain and heartache.  But instead, I was only filled with sadness when standing beside his grave.  It struck both my mom and me as incredibly sad that G.W.'s parents and younger brother are also buried at this cemetery, just a few feet away, while his young daughter is buried alone, all the way across town.  Did he even know of her existence?  Did his family?  Did he ever wonder what had happened to the young bride that he had left behind?  Was he just a scared kid who didn't feel ready to become a father so soon after returning home from war?

Oh yes, I still have many, many questions.  But I feel that this journey has brought me so much closer to my Grandma Eva.  I miss her more now than ever, but at the same time, I can relate to her as so much more than just "Grandma."  She was also a (very) young bride and a mother, facing and overcoming obstacles that no one should have to face, much less at such a young age.  She overcame it all with grace and ultimately decided to give love one more chance - with another young soldier, no less - and I am so glad that she did!

And about that marriage certificate - my mom texted me later in the afternoon on the same day that we returned from Elberton.  As it turns out, my grandparents' marriage was recorded in Hart County, Georgia, which is why we were unable to locate the record at the Elberton Probate Court.  How did she make this determination, you ask?  Well, she found their marriage certificate - hidden away in the Magic Cedar Chest!

For part 4, click here.