Cousin Fannie

Reverend James A. Alcorn is listed as the “famous evangelist and singer” of Collierville, Tennessee—the “famous cousin” of Fannie Phillips House. Not only did this lend some credibility to my theories about Rev. Alcorn’s family history, but it was also the first (and only) time I had heard that he was a singer or that he was “famous”!

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One important note: in the Mamie House Brown book, she reports that Fanny’s parents were Harriet and Fenner Phillips, but that no one could remember what Harriet’s maiden name was before marrying Fenner. I will defer to Fannies actual descendants regarding her parentage but will share my theory (as it is only a theory) again here. I think it’s possible that Harriet (Phillips) is the oldest daughter, and Fanny is the youngest daughter of Nancy.  The last will and testament of James Howze--who was an uncle of Isham Howze--tells us that he enslaved a woman named Nancy and her nine children, all listed by name. I have included a transcript of that portion of James Howzes' will along with the estimated birth years of Nancy's children.

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Andrew (1828)

Harriett (1830)

Charlotte (1831-2)

Peter (1834)

Sam (1836)

Jack (1838)

Cynda (1840)

Matilda (1842)

Fanny (1844)

 

Since enslaved families were often separated, sold away, and in the case of the white Howze’s slaves, passed around among family members, it seems possible that during some portion of her childhood, Fanny was raised by her older sister Harriett and maybe considered Harriet as a mother figure. It’s also possible that she was the child of Harriet and the grandchild of Nancy. I could not find proof either way, so this is my best guess.

 

Oddly, Fanny’s husband was named “George House”, but I could not find any plausible connection between George and the other Black Howzes related to Rev. Alcorn. It could be a coincidence, as “House” was a common last name given to formerly enslaved individuals. Despite the similar surname, I believe the familial relationship with Rev. Alcorn is through Fanny rather than George, as it is stated in the Mamie House Brown book cited above.

 

Here's what Mrs. Florence Jones Conner wrote about her grandmother in the book by Mamie House Brown:

 

"Fannie Phillips House, daughter of Harriet and Fenner Phillips was the wife of George House. They were the parents of four sons and one daughter.

Fannie is believed to have been born around 1847. She passed in 1928. She spent all of her life in Marshall County. As a slave, she served as cook and nurse. Some of her favorite foods were ash cakes and hot water corn bread cooked on the huge fire place.

 

Fannie continued as a practical nurse all of her active days. She loved growing flowers and gardening. She mastered the quilt piecing art. She could cut the pattern of any quilt she saw.

 

She was an ironing specialist when men wore the white starched shirts and women starched everything they wore, even their underwear. She taught the writer how to sprinkle and roll the starched clothes.

 

Grandma Fannie was a lover of poetry and recited poems in the later years of her life. She was a great storyteller. The “Early Family History” [section of this same book] was given to us through the stories she told her granddaughter, Florence, whom she reared.

 

She was a well organized housekeeper, a place for everything, and you better not move anything out of place. She was loving and kind and a dedicated nurse ready to answer every call in time of need. Grandma Fannie had three brothers, Robert, Asbury, and Fenner Phillips, one sister Arbella Phillips. They were very talented singers and musicians.

 

She reared three of her grandchildren who were children of her only daughter, Georganna House Jones. The children were Kench Jones, “Buddy House”, Felbert Jones, “Babe House”, both passed in early life; one granddaughter, Florence Jones Conner, present age 95."

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One of the many fascinating things about this rich description of Fannie is that she was known to be a cook and a nurse. It’s possible that her interest and abilities at nursing developed out of necessity both for herself and for the care of her enslavers. In all of his journals, Isham Howze describes in sometimes gruesome detail, his many ailments and various attempted remedies.

 

On Monday April 4, 1853, he wrote:

 

"Night of nights this has been to me. Misery, bodily beyond description. I went to bed about 11 o’clock in great pain and am yet in pain, but thank God, I now experience some little relaxation. I have not slept a moment, nor do I expect to sleep any. Piles, spasmodic pains in my body—the left side—up to my shoulder and down to my foot. I have used morphine, both ways till I can hardly keep still, and my hand almost refuses to hold anything I attempt to grasp, and I tremble so badly that I must quit writing."

 

Isham tells of bleeding from his bladder for over a decade, piles, and “disordered bowels”. He says the doctors told him that his “nervous system is deranged”. While morphine and laudanum seem to be his drugs of choice, other times he speaks of quinine for chills, and of various home remedies such as using “an injection made from boiling red oak bark in water”, applying a paste of mustard to the skin, bathing feet in hot water with hot blankets on his head and hot iron on his feet, consuming camphor, jimsonweed, and potash.

 

Isham’s frequent descriptions of various “chills” and illnesses are not just his own. Very often he writes a line or two about which of the family members and “servants” are sick. Here are some excerpts from his journals:

 

"June 30, 1852 - Son Adrian, and servants Nathan and Fanny, who have all been sick recently, are now able to be up and are out in the field at work; but another of the servants, Aggy, is laid up. So much sickness in this busy time makes against me very much indeed."

 

"Thursday, July 8, 1852 - Was very sick last evening. So was my son William. He is yet in bed, but I am up, though extremely feeble, and in great pain. Too weak to sit up long, and too weak to write anymore. (Noon). Have had a little rest upon my lounge, and am up again feeling somewhat better. Son William has had another chill and has been very sick for some two or three hours past. Servant Fanny has come in from the fields sick. Thus, it goes, one after another, up and down - sick, and none well long at a time."

 

"Friday morning, April 1, 1853 - Sons William and James have chills. Gracious Goodness! Will the chills never be done? And it may be added, Servant Fanny is sick also. I am glad there are enough well ones to wait upon the sick."

 

"Sunday, April 3, 1853 - There are four of my children out of the seven who are taking quinine to keep off chills. And some of the servants are sick also."

 

"Feb 17, 1854 - Susan is very sick today cold and some fever. Fanny has had a chill."

 

"Feb 19, 1854 -  The Lord’s day, morning. Cold, raining. Susan in bed, my wife in bed, Fanny in bed. I would be in bed If I could, but I must if possible, keep up. Wm and Henry gone to Shelby, Ady gone to his grandpa’s, Jerry gone to Chulahoma."

 

"Feb 19, 1854 -  My son Wm was sick, some short time since, because of overwork, in making new fence. Fanny is sick from a similar cause—pulling up old cotton stalks. My wife is also sick from other expectations, cleaning up the yard and ironing clothes."

 

"Feb 20, 1854  – Monday. Cold, has been raining, yet cloudy near sunset. Wife much better. Fanny, I hope, is doing well. Dr. Wilson has been to see them. Prescribed for Fanny –says she has pleurisy, gave wife nothing."

 

The woman I believe to be Fanny’s grandmother, Dilcy, apparently suffered from Asthma for much of her life. Whether or not my theory is correct about Dilcy being Fanny’s grandmother, they did live together for many years both enslaved by Isham Howze. He makes note of Dilcy’s disease a few times in his diary:

 

"October 3, 1853 - Sent Dilcy, yesterday, had her usual complaint, asthma, more than usual for an old woman! While she is an expense to me, she is much afflicted—and has felt little pleasure of her life. She has had this disease ever since I have known her—at least 35 years. She never will get over it, for she is very old – over 70 years I reckon. I pray that the Lord may take compassion upon her and save her soul. IF she can go to heaven, when she dies, she need not care much about her present condition, for her ___ is well-nigh now. Little has been given to her, in this life, and but little will be required (Luke 12:48)"

 

"January 8, 1857 - Old woman Dilcy is bad off with her Asthma."

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The image below is a receipt from 1832 for payment to Dr. J. J. Todd by Isham R. Howze (guardian of Susan B. Howze his niece). Susan is a child and Isham is managing her affairs and finances because her parents are deceased. Susan inherited from her parents, several slaves--one of whom was named Dilcy. According to these papers, Isham paid Dr. J J Todd for visiting and treating, and later for meds for Dilcy.

 

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Here is a transcript of the receipt:

 

"Isham R. Howze to J. J. Todd 1831 March 14 - For visit to Dilcey. Calomel and __ : 1.00. March 25 - for visit and cathartic pills 2.00. Aug 5 - for visit and emetic 4/6 .75 Received of Isham R. Howze, Guardian for Susan B. Howze two dollars and seventy-five cents in full of the above account. March 31, 1832. J. J. Todd"

 

There were also several doctors who were close friends, neighbors, and relatives of Isham and Elizabeth. Doctor Thomas Todd was the family physician for a time, but several of Elizbeth’s own brothers became doctors as well.

 

In August on 1856, we learn from Isham’s journals that his servant Charlotte—who I believe is Fanny’s sister—and Cathy “Mr. Wilson’s girl” were both at his home and sick. Cathy, he says, is there “in Fanny’s place, who is at Dr. Wilson’s”. Dr. Wilson is one of Elizabeth’s brothers.

 

Fanny likely would have had many interactions with physicians during her time enslaved by Isham’s family. We cannot know if she was included in conversations about medications or other medical issues, but from the journals we know she received medical care, that she was also tasked with assisting the white Howzes when they were ill, and that she spent time at Dr. Wilson’s home where she may have witnessed him receiving and treating patients from his home.

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You can read another lengthy excerpt from Mamie House Brown’s book about her family on the North Mississippi Reconstruction page on this website. The excerpt was written by Mrs. Florence Connor, granddaughter of Fanny. When Mrs. Florence Connor wrote the excerpt in 1989, she was 95 years old and in it she shares information and memories shared with her by her grandmother about her early life experiences. To read the excerpt and to learn more about the context and realities of life in North Mississippi after the Civil War and during Reconstruction, click here.

 

Early Family Life, by Mrs. Florence Conner

 

Early Houses

 

"The early houses were built of logs with dirt chimneys and some dirt kitchen floors with huge fireplaces that was used for cooking. The cooking utensils were all made of cast iron. The large cast iron skillet with legs was used for baking on the wood fire. Ash cakes and hot water corn bread were favorite food.

 

The inside walls were kept white, with a mixture made from white clay found in the nearby ditches. This clay was mixed with flour and boiled with a little blueing added for whiteness. This mixture was applied with a cloth that gave the walls a plastered like look, and also gave a pleasant fresh odor.

 

The bare floors were cleaned with mops made by putting a crocus sack on a hoe. The cleansers used were ashes and sand. Everyone used the common kitchen towel and common water bucket with a dipper or gourd. They made their own soap from a lye made from hickory ashes and unused fats from the kitchen. This soap was used to treat skin rashes.

 

Early Beds

 

The beds were made with a layer of slats on the rails, a mattress made of shucks from the corn. The hard end of the shuck was cut off and the shucks were split with a fork. Some mattresses were made of grass. The grass would be gathered in the fall and dried so as to have fresh beds for Christmas. I visited the home of John Wesley in Bristol, England in 1985, where the Wesleyan Museum is housed and found this same type of bed used in the 1700s in England.

 

The early families raised chickens, hogs, and green vegetables. The food consisted of cornbread, bacon, salt herring, wild meats by hunting and fishing. The vegetables were preserved by drying, such as beans, peas and okra. Cabbages were pickled. Meats were preserved by salting. Walnuts, hickory nuts, plums, wild grapes and muscadines were plentiful.

 

Florence remembers her grandmother telling how hearty the men ate. One lady offered a hog-head to a visitor and he ate the whole head.

 

The slaves worshiped in their homes with their heads covered with a wash pot as they prayed and sang the old Negro spirituals. Some of the slaves were well treated by their masters especially the house servants and those with rare abilities.

 

Amusements and Early Life

 

They would go to church on Sunday, and tie the fodder they had gathered form the corn blades into bundles on Sunday evening. The men would jump ropes, while the women picked lice out of each others heads. The slaves were great dancers and horse riders.

 

Wash days were very time consuming. The water was drawn from wells, cisterns, springs, and sometimes ponds. The water was heated in a large wash pot. The clothes were washing on a wash board, then boiled. A jimson-weed leaf and peach tree leaves were used in the boiled clothes for bleaching. These leaves were also used to treat fevers. Ironing was done by heating the irons on the fire place or outdoors.

 

Near each home was a barn where the animals were kept and pen for the hogs. There were no outdoor restrooms. These conditions were breeding places for flies and contaminated water from wells, cisterns and springs which cause Typhoid fever epidemics that caused many to lose their lives. Their homes were unscreened. The food was also exposed to flies.

 

The ladies enjoyed quilt making and often gave quilting parties. Some were very skilled in this art. Sheets were made from yellow domestic with a seam in the middle. Only one sheet was used to each bed.

 

The only way to travel until the early 1900s was by horse wagon, buggy or train. The aristocrats had surries, a two seated buggy. The roads were all dirt and during rainy seasons they were almost impossible to travel.

 

Education

 

Some of the early slaves were taught to read by their master’s children. These slaves became the early teachers of the one-room community school, that was also used as the Church. Many of the Negroes educated in the North returned South as teachers. The Northern missionaries through the Freedman’s Aid Society built Rust College in 1866 at Holly Springs in Marshall County and many other colleges throughout the South. Many of the first teachers were ministers that taught during the week and preached on Sunday. However, Rust College did not attract rural Marshall County until the middle 1920s. The first presidents and faculty were Northern whites that were not familiar with the rural problems. Rust College was unable to meet the needs of the rural people until Dr. L. M. McCoy, a Black president that was reared on the farm because president in 1924.

 

The Mississippi Industrial College (M.I.) was established by the C.M.E. Church in the early 1900s. This college was able to better meet the needs of rural Marshall County.

 

The State Normal Institute was built and operated by the State of Mississippi in the later 1800s for educating Blacks with free tuition. The courses offered were equivalent to that of high schools. Summer Normals were held each summer for in-service teachers to renew their license and to offer new teachers the opportunity to earn a license. This continued until the early 1930s."

 

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