Julia, oh Julia

Sooooooooo. I found Julia Ownbey Searcy, FINALLY. Okay, those at Familysearch.org I give total credit to. I thank the good Lord for those people who tirelessly input old-timey records into files for us regular folks to use in our family research. Anyway, let me tell you what I know now about Grandma Julia.

After Taylor was killed, I had speculated that either she drank herself into a nuthouse or two, she remarried. Grandma Julia liked to imbibe, yes. But she did not go insane from it. She did marry a gentleman by the name of Adolphus who was nearly 30 years older than her. Julia became Julia Searcy Brown. They had three more children together, Dan, Lula and Wilbert. I cannot find much on the boys, but I did find a little bit of information on Lula.

On a few records, I saw that Dan and Lula had the name of Searcy. Now, I don't know if these children were born out of wedlock or if the transcriber just automatically assumed these were Taylor's children. For the record, Taylor had been dead a few years after they were born, so they were definitely Adolphus'. Floyd and his brothers had siblings much younger than they were.

Fast forward: Adolphus dies in 1918 and leaves Julia with four minor children. I am almost positive that Floyd, Joe, Luther and Andy helped their mother take care of the younger ones. I am not sure if Julia was left with land or a house, as I haven't ever found evidence of a will yet. I'm not even sure if all of them moved into one of her older children's house.

I haven't been able to locate the 1920 or 1930 census yet, but I am curious to know where Julia and her youngest kids eventually ended up.

I know she is still alive in the 1940 census in Limestone, Buncombe, NC. She is living close to her older children, most especially to Floyd and his wife Maggie and their children. I assume all of Julia's children live pretty close to each other at this point in time. During the 1940 census, Julia is about 70 years old and probably one of the best story-tellers in Booger Holler. [Just my opinion.]

At some point [I have no dates to accurately prove this], Julia marries a man by the name of James "Jim" Henderson. The only thing I know about Jim is that he was born about 1871, which would make him about a year younger than Julia. It almost makes me wonder if they knew each other for a long time before getting married.

She is now Julia Searcy Brown Henderson. No wonder I couldn't find any more records for her. Women are so hard to find sometimes.

This is what we know thus far: Taylor was killed in a logging accident [not sure where and what year], Julia is left with four young sons to raise and basically cannot afford to raise them alone. She marries a much older man whom she has three more children by, he passes away in 1918 and she is left to raise three more young children. Some time later, she marries for a third time.

Julia finally passes away in 1957, at the ripe old age of 87. God bless her.



Poor Grandma Julia. She had a helluva life and a helluva legacy. Shine on, you country gal.