“I wish she could have looked down through the years and generations to see the family that exists today because of her.”
This an additional post in our series that started in 2021, where we shared artwork and writeups of the creative process, from our Linked Descendants’ working group members. Expressing what we know in visual, rather than written terms, allows for increased awareness, deeper insight, and further integration of the new and/or more difficult truths around our ancestors and overall family histories.
Patricia Lowther generously shares her collage Fact or Fiction with us below, and tells us about its creation and the meaning behind it.
My collage, Fact or Fiction, was inspired by remembered bits and pieces of oral history heard from my mother and my aunt. Putting it together turned out to be a very personal experience. Following the journey of my great grandmother, Lydia, from Virginia to South Carolina, giving names to all but one of her enslaved children, and showing pictures of two of her children and five of her grandchildren, brought me closer to her and them. Sitting in front of her little wooden house in the only picture I have of her, she probably felt very small and insignificant living in a world that only included the village of Edgefield, South Carolina. I wish she could have looked down through the years and generations to see the family that exists today because of her.
It made me feel fulfilled putting together those scraps of paper and pictures, and writing about her and her children. It was just another way in which the value and importance of her life could be expressed and shared.
“Grandma Lydia came to Edgefield from Virginia with the Penn family when she was 3 years old.”
Countless times over the years my mother, Rebecca, uttered these words. Her sister, Lydia Lucille, added: Grandma Liddy came from Reedville, Virginia. Any search for my enslaved great grandmother had to start with the White enslaver family who owned her. While doing research on her own family a genealogy friend and mentor called me one day to share a very exciting piece of news. She had found a reference to a Penn family in Henry County, Virginia who had two sons who went to South Carolina. While the two sons were not named, I had a feeling this was the Penn family I was looking for. The sons’ parents were Greenville Penn and Anna Leath. However the two sons, George Leif and Edmund Penn, were named in another document about the Penns as moving to Edgefield. So part of my mother’s saying turned out to be true. We were likely enslaved by a Penn family who moved to Edgefield, South Carolina.
But what about Lydia? While I have never found any documentation to prove how Lydia came into the possession of George L. Penn, I did find a child named Lydia valued at $220, listed as the child of Permelia, in an estate inventory of Greenville Penn, George’s father. Is this my great grandmother and her mother? Did Greenville give her to either of his sons when they left for South Carolina? Was she willed, deeded, given as a wedding present or bought from from their father? These questions remain unanswered. But in 1848, Lydia, three young children, and an infant were named as collateral in a loan that George and Edmund were seeking. In the 1870 census, Lydia is found in the household of George L. Penn along with four of her children.
“Papa worked in the Penn Drug Store.”
More research into the Penn family of Henry County, Virginia revealed that some of them were merchants and a small community thrived around the Penn store. Following family tradition, when George and Edmund Penn moved to Edgefield about 1830, they opened a store. William Penn, George’s son, operated the store into the early part of the 19th century. The Penns were well-respected. It seems they contributed much to the community of Edgefield as I found in this article on the history of Edgefield. My grandfather, Thomas, worked in the store with William Penn when my mother was a little girl. One of his jobs was to make ice cream for the store. She recalled that he often brought home delicious leftovers for her and her sister, Margaret.
“Grandma Liddy had nine children, Ellen was the oldest and Tom, my father, was the youngest. None of them were ever sold off.”
A call from another genealogist friend telling me to look at a Freedman’s Bank record she had found, was like winning the lottery. The young girl who was applying for the bank account had not only named Lydia as her grandmother, but eight of Lydia’s children. But only eight? My mother said there were nine. Was she mistaken? A look at the 1860 slave schedule for George Penn shows nine enslaved children, who I think were probably Lydia’s. There is a 4-year-old male child listed along with a 2-year-old male. In 1870, the one male, my grandfather, now listed as Thomas Gordon, is 12 years old. There is no mention of the other male child. Extensive searches have not revealed any trace of the 4-year-old who would have been 14 years old in 1870.
“She (Grandma Lydia) stayed with them all her life.”
The 1870 census was a tremendous find for me. Here was my great grandmother, Lydia, still living with George L. Penn’s family. Not only did I find her but also my grandfather, Tom, as a 12-year old along with three of his sisters, Kitty, Rebecca, and Margaret. In an 1890 Edgefield census, Lydia, her daughter Margaret and granddaughter Emma are living on the property of W.H. Brunson. His wife Fanny (Penn) Brunson is George L Penn’s daughter. When she died in 1896, “Grandma Liddy (Lydia) Penn” and her son were noted as mourners at Fanny’s funeral.
When I finished the collage, I couldn’t help but smile. Most of what my mother and her sister said was fact. Reedville, Virginia seems to be part of the fiction. And it turns out that Sarah is the oldest child of the nine, not Ellen. The smile came thinking of how each little bit of information came together to represent hours and hours spent online, hours spent in various Virginia and South Carolina libraries, archives, with help from genealogist friends, trips made to counties in Virginia, and countless trips to South Carolina. I look at it often and as we know all too well, this search for our ancestors is a never ending process.
Author: Patricia Lowther is a South Carolinian who has been researching her Edgefield, South Carolina families for over 20 years. She’s been a member of the Northern Virginia CTTT chapter for several years, and through them was introduced to the Linked Descendants working group. She began her career as an English as a Second Language teacher while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey. After living and teaching in Southern Africa, she now resides in Northern Virginia.
You can read Pat’s story about her experience at a stamp show here: “Enslaved Ancestors Still For Sale After 167 Years”
©2023, Patricia Lowther. All rights reserved.
Pat, I remember when we did the collage-making activity, and the richness of the stories that emerged was like magic. Thank you for sharing both the history you have learned and your experience of filling out the collage – more magic. Thank you for the work you do to rebuild our collective American history. Prinny.