Favorite Photo 2/52

 The second prompt for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is "Favorite Photo".  Below is one of my favorite photos.  It is of my younger sister, Amanda Jolene Curran, my great-grandmother Troy Waller Bussey, and myself.  I love how we are all smiling.  

I love that I had the chance to be with my great-grandmother when I was a child, I know that everyone is not afforded that opportunity.  I remember spending the night with her and her taking me on the bus in Atlanta.  I remember the smell of bacon and eggs cooking and biscuits baking in the morning when I stayed with her. I remember her telling me stories about people in our family.  I remember her hugging me and letting me sit in the chair with her.  I'm so blessed to have these wonderful memories.  

Alice Lawrence--1/52

 The first prompt for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is "I'd Like to Meet".  

I would like to meet all of my ancestors honestly.  I'd like to meet every single one of them to understand each life, each circumstance, and each personality; but of course, that's not what this prompt is about.  I need to choose one.  I would choose to meet Alice Lawrence.   

Why Alice?  I just don't know much about her to start with.  I mean is Lawrence even her last name?  I'd want to know the circumstances around her mother.  Who is her father?  How did she meet John Ledbetter?  How did she end up with two kids with him but no record of her at all?  What was her life like?  Was she happy with John?  I know they weren't married and they were very young but did she feel loved by him?  We all know what young love can feel like.  How did she die?  There is family lore that she died of pneumonia in a rainstorm next to a water well.  I mean, that sounds pretty specific to be only a story.  Some part of that had to be true, right?  Why can't I find her grave?  Why can't I find anything other than a single entry on a census?  

What do I know for certain about Alice Lawrence often called Ledbetter? 

I believe she was born around 1852 in North Carolina.  She is found in the 1860 Census to be listed as 8 years old on 5 July 1860.  She is living with who we believe to be her mother Elizabeth Lawrence (Laurence), her sisters Ella, Florance, and Iola.  They are in the household of P. Bronson and Anna M. Bronson, whom we know to be Philo and Anna Marie Bronson nee Satterwhite. 

Year: 1860; Census Place: Valley, Rabun, Georgia; Roll: M653_134; Page: 528; Family History Library Film: 803134 

Description 

City: Valley 

Source Information 

Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. 
Original data:1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. accessed 11 March 2022 

This is it.  I have found no other contemporary records for Alice Lawrence.  

We know that she gave birth to Lou Ella Ledbetter 10 Dec 1872.  We also know that she gave birth to Eugene Bartow Ledbetter 7 Apr 1875.  We have been told she had these children with a John Ledbetter.  We have no documentation to prove any of this.  We know that Alice must have died sometime after Eugene’s birth because Eugene and Lou Ella are in the household of their grandmother, Elizabeth Lawrence in 1880, without their mother.  

 

One potential John Ledbetter that may be the father of Lou Ella and Eugene Ledbetter was born Mar 1858 making him about 6 years younger than Alice if the census data is correct.  He would have been 14 years old when Lou Ella was born.   

Here is a copy of a tintype photo that has who I've always been told is Alice holding a baby Luella.

Also, there is this charcoal drawing that is of the same woman, Alice Lawrence.

I know Alice Lawrence existed and she had two children. I would surely like to meet her and hear her story.