Cora told her children only a scant few facts about her childhood. She said she was from Augusta, Georgia, and was born on December 27, 1888. She was a twin with a brother and had an older sister. She said her parents died from some sort of illness. Some family stories say scarlet fever, but there is no proof of that. She never gave her children the names of her parents or siblings, and she really didn't tell them much more than that.
In fact, we don't even have verifiable proof that her name was actually Cora Lee Burnette. It's possible that Burnette was the name of the family who took her in, or perhaps even the name of a church or someone else connected to her childhood. Her first name could have been spelled differently, too—Cara, Coralee, or something else entirely.
We've always speculated about what happened to Cora and her siblings. Maybe they went to live with relatives we simply haven't been able to identify. Her older sister may have been old enough to leave home, find work, and eventually marry. Cora and her twin brother may have been separated and sent to different families. He could have ended up working as a farmhand somewhere. The possibilities are endless, but we'll probably never know unless something turns up.
I have scoured records for Augusta, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, orphan records, and just about every kind of school, employment, and census record I could think of. So far, I've found absolutely nothing.
What I do know is that Cora eventually made her way to Statesville, North Carolina. She worked in textiles and was also a seamstress. I believe she may have lived as a boarder in the Bloomfield Mill settlement. She was a very devout woman and probably would not have lived in a boarding house with men there, unless they were married.
She eventually met my great-grandfather, Alvin Everette Cook Sr. I don't know exactly how they met, but I strongly suspect it had something to do with the mill.
Alvin had a background in textiles, worked around the train yard at what is now the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer, and also worked as a carriage repairman and maker for J.O. White and Sons in Salisbury. It's entirely possible that he met Cora in Bloomfield Mill Village while making a delivery or picking up bales of cotton to take back to the Salisbury Cotton Mill.
We'll never know for sure. Cora never talked to her children about her courtship with Alvin.
The first record I have been able to find of Cora is her marriage to Alvin Cook in 1918 in Iredell County, North Carolina. They were married in Bloomfield Township by Rev. C.S. Cashwell, who I suspect may have been her minister at Front Street Baptist Church.
I have a copy of their marriage license, complete with their ages and signatures. Cora listed her parents as deceased. Alvin was 35, and Cora was 28 when they married. Considering the time period, they were somewhat older than what we might expect for a couple marrying for the first time.
But there's an interesting little wrinkle in all of this.
Their daughter, Sylvia, was born in 1917—before Cora and Alvin were legally married. From what I've learned through a deep dive into the mill villages last spring, it wasn't necessarily unusual for couples in those communities to consider themselves married and begin having children before they officially went through the legal process. So, it's entirely possible that Cora and Alvin were already together and considered themselves married long before that marriage license was signed.
I've also spent a lot of time thinking about the names Cora and Alvin gave their children.
Families often named children after relatives, and my grandfather was named after his father. I've wondered if Grand Uncle Paul might have been named after Cora's twin brother—or possibly her father. My Grand Aunts Sylvia and Evelyn could have been named after Cora's mother and older sister. Aunt Carrie was named after an aunt who died at a young age.
Those names have always felt significant to me.
I've run every one of those names through Google, Ancestry, and FamilySearch, trying to find a connection. So far, I've gotten absolutely nothing. Still, I can't shake the feeling that those names may hold a clue.
I recently spent nearly two weeks—about eight hours a day—chasing every lead I could find on Cora.
I started by looking at close family members who matched only to me, my mother, and my Grand A
unt Evelyn's granddaughter. Unfortunately, a lot of people either never filled out their family trees or had their entire trees set to private.
I was lucky enough to find a couple of people with enormous family trees, though. I started triangulating relationships and found some useful information. Of course, no one had Cora in their tree. I wasn't even completely sure how we were related, but by following four different people, I became convinced that somewhere in those lines, there had to be a connection—at the very least to one of Cora's direct relatives, and possibly to her brother or sister.
I also contacted the Iredell County Library to see if they might have employment records or anything else that could shed some light on Cora's life. I haven't heard back yet.
I contacted Wake Forest University to see if they might have any of Rev. Cashwell's church records, hoping Cora may have appeared in a church directory or other record. I haven't heard back from them either.
Finally, I contacted Landis Baptist Church to see if they had any records on Cora. The church secretary was kind enough to get back to me, but unfortunately, they don't have records that go back far enough to cover the years I need.
So, for now, whatever secrets Cora carried with her are still very well hidden.
I have a feeling that Cora's childhood was probably incredibly traumatic. If she really was separated from her parents and siblings at a young age, she may have carried that pain with her for the rest of her life. Maybe she wouldn't talk about them because she couldn't. Maybe it hurt too much.
I wish I could go back in time and sit down with her for just one afternoon. I would have so many questions.
Who were your parents, Grandma Cora?
What was your brother's name?
What was your sister's name?
What happened to all of you?
And most importantly…where did you come from?
For now, the search continues.
I still believe there's something out there that will eventually lead me to her family. Maybe it's sitting in a dusty courthouse box, an old church register, a forgotten newspaper, a mill record, or a family tree that someone hasn't looked at in a hundred years.
I hope someday I can come back and update this with some very good news.
Until then, Grandma Cora remains one of my biggest mysteries.
