Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Part 1: Elma Rose McLemore chronology (courtesy of Rudy H. Leverett, Wilma Moore Dyar and supporting documentation)

Background:

1830s -- John McLemore emigrates to the Piney Woods from South Carolina. He builds a log cabin along what is now Hwy. 11 in what became Eastabuchie, Mississippi, more or less on the border of Jones and Forrest counties. Our family calls this property the "Old Place."

October 5, 1963 -- Major Amos McLemore, John McLemore's son, is murdered by Confederate deserter Newt Knight while McLemore is back in Jones County from the front in order to collect Confederate deserters. Maj. McLemore's widow (and cousin), Rosa Lavinia McLemore, is left to raise 5 children under age 12 on her own during the remainder of the Civil War and Reconstruction. She never remarries. Her eldest son, John C. McLemore, dies unmarried at age 34 on April 3, 1888. His grave marker reads "How many hopes lie bured here."

Elma Rose McLemore

September 18, 1907. Born to Walter Scott "Bud" McLemore (son of Maj. Amos McLemore) and Mary Etta Lee McLemore on the "Old Place." Youngest of eight children.

December 27, 1923. Described as a "pretty" blonde with a bob, Elma elopes with J.D. (Jefferson Donald) Moore in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Walter Scott, her father, swears out a warrant for J.D. Moore's arrest for alleged abduction. Law enforcement in four states becomes involved, and the matter makes local front-page headlines for two days. One or two of Elma's brothers depart for Baton Rouge upon learning the couple is there. Family members later said that Elma wasn't in love with J.D. and had eloped with him to make J.D.'s brother Walter jealous after Walter dropped her. Elma leaves Moore about six weeks later and ultimately divorces him.

October 5, 1924. Gives birth to Wilma Jefferson Moore.

1925.  Is seeing J. Emmett Bethea, a pharmacist in Hattiesburg. Bethea is 12 years older than Elma. He lives with his parents and grown siblings, and his family is reasonably well to do.

June 7, 1926. Gives birth to Jimmie French Moore, idolized by his siblings. Jimmie enters the U.S. Navy at age 15. Presumably while in the military, he is diagnosed with what was then called manic depression and receives electroconvulsive therapy. While in the military he tries to persuade his mother to live a respectable life, offering to buy her a house if she does. In 1948, he buys her a house at 606 N. 25th Avenue in Hattiesburg. He commits suicide on April 29, 1950 after being put off a train for drunkenness in Trinidad, Colorado. He had just been accepted to medical school.

February 1, 1927. Marries William Wallace.

February 16, 1927. Walter Scott "Bud" McLemore, Elma's father and Major Amos McLemore's son, dies at age 54.

November 26, 1927. Gives birth to Harold Hugh Wallace. By no later than May 1928 William Wallace has deserted Elma, who has taken up with D.W. Holmes, a Hattiesburg lawyer who later becomes the Forrest County Attorney.

February 23, 1929. Gives birth to Shirley Irene Wallace. Shirley is killed by a drunk driver at the Old Place on December 17, 1937. The driver is sent to the penitentiary. Elma eventually signs a petition for the driver's pardon and release.

May 12, 1933. Marries Rudis Henry Liverett in Petal, Mississippi. Liverett deserts Elma after sixteen days of life together at the Old Place. Wilma Jefferson Moore's recollection of that event: "I was also there the night 'he' skipped out. She kept sobbing, she was hysterical -- she fainted several times. That night lives in my memory! The hallway was filled with people -- several holding kerosene lamps. My uncles (Mother's brothers) getting their guns together. They went out after him -- they were going to kill him. His family had gotten him out of town. They soon moved away. My Aunt Inez (wife of Amos, Mother's brother) always took charge if anyone in the family was hurt or sick because she had the 'big' doctor book and was very smart. She was bathing Mother's face and bringing her around when she would just faint away. Someone stood by her holding a lamp. Everyone was out in the hall -- all members of the family, children and adults. I recognized that my mother was hurt beyond repair. I learned to hate that night. I was nine years old."




1 comment:

  1. My God, to see it all spelled out is really something. I get a lump in my throat when I think about Jimmie.

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