MORNINGS ON MAPLE STREET VOLUME TWO
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Ruth Barnhill, Page Two

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Ruth Barnhill. This and photo below provided by family.

Ruth Barnhill was born in South Carolina on October 10, 1893. According to the census, she was the third child of at least 10 children born to William and Annie Barnhill, who were married about 1882. Both her father and her mother are listed in the 1900 census, but her mother is listed as a widow in the 1910 census, so it's possible that her father may have already died when Ruth was photographed in 1908.

Based on the census, the girl standing next to Ruth was indeed her sister Emma, as Hine claimed, and the little boy was her brother Jerry. The identity of the woman sitting on the porch is not clear.
 
According to South Carolina marriage records, Ruth married John F. McDowell, in Dillon, on March 15, 1916. They had 10 children, though three of them died shortly after birth. Ruth and her family do not appear in the 1920 and 1930 censuses. I located several of her children after finding her North Carolina death record and her obituary. Her younger brother Jerry (in the photo), died in Baltimore, Maryland in 1991, at the age of 89. I could find no further records for her sister Emma, and none of the descendants I talked to had any recollection of her.
 
Ruth Barnhill McDowell died on September 1, 1979, at the age of 85. Her husband, John, died in 1954. Her mother, Annie, died in 1964, at the age of 108. I interviewed Ruth's daughter, Geneva McKeithan, and Ruth's grandson, Bobby Lee McDowell.

Edited interview with Geneva McKeithan (GM), daughter of Ruth Barnhill. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on September 28, 2009.

JM: When were you born?

GM: 1930. I was the last child.

JM: How many children did your mother have?

GM: She had 10, but three of them died shortly after birth.

JM: Where were you born?

GM: My oldest brother tells me I was born in Robertson County (North Carolina), but as far back as I can remember, I was raised in Hoke County (North Carolina), on the outskirts of the town of Rockfish.

JM: What was your father's name, and what did he do for a living?

GM: His full name was John Fuller McDowell. He was a farmer. We lived on a farm, tobacco and cotton. When my parents got married, they moved around a lot from farm to farm. Then my daddy bought the farm when I was about three years old.

JM: What did you do on the farm?

GM: I picked cotton, drove the tractor, just about everything, but I didn't work like the older children did.

JM: Did your mother work?

GM: She stayed home.

JM: Did you live on that farm the whole time you were growing up?

GM: Yes I did, and my mother lived there until my father died. Then she sold it.

JM: When you were young, your family had to face the Depression.

GM: Yes, but I didn't know it.

JM: And right after that, there was WWII.

GM: So many years have passed since Mom watched three of her boys go to war. She really worried about them. I would return home from school and see that she had been crying a lot because there was no letter in the mail that day. And then maybe the next day she would be all smiles because there was a letter. She would be waiting for the first child to get home to read it to her. She sure would light up after that. Over the years, she saw her boys return and others go, but finally they were all home again. There are just three of us left now: me, my sister Erlie, and Jack.

JM: What was your mother like?

GM: She was a fine lady. She wasn't too strict with me. That might have been because I was the youngest. I never heard any of my brothers and sisters say anything bad about her. All I've got are good memories of my mother. She sewed a lot. She made our clothes.

JM: How tall was she?

DM: A little over four feet, only about 4' 4", I think. I was taller than she was when I was in my teens.

JM: She lived a long time.

GM: Her mother lived even longer than she did. Her name was Annie Barnhill. She was 108 when she died. I've got her obituary hanging in my bedroom.

JM: Who died first, your mother or your grandmother?

GM: My grandmother.

JM: Did she live her last years with your mother?

GM: She lived in Baltimore with her son Jerry for the last 20 years of her life. She stayed with us on the farm in the summer.

JM: What do you think about the fact that your mother was photographed as a child laborer, and that the picture is in the Library of Congress?

GM: I think it's great. I think something was accomplished during that time that wouldn't have been accomplished if those pictures hadn't been taken. I remember my mother talking about working in a cotton mill, like 10 or 12 hours a day, or at night.

JM: Did she say anything bad about it?

GM: She didn't complain about it, she just talked about it. It was just a way of life. I think she must have been doing it when she was very young, because she didn't have any schooling. My dad went to school for several years, but my mother never went to school. She couldn't read or write. My grandmother worked in the mill, too. My granddaddy died when the children were very young. So they all had to go into the mill to work so that they could make a living. When her youngest brother, Jerry, was just a small boy, they would take him to the mill and keep him there while they worked.

JM: In the picture, there is a woman that might have been your grandmother.

DM: Yes, I was thinking that, too, but it's not plain enough for me to really see it.

JM: There's also a little boy in the picture.

DM: Me and my sister talked about that. He had to be one of the younger boys. I would say it was my Uncle Jerry, because he was the last child born to Grandma.

JM: The picture was taken in 1908. In the 1900 census, there is a three-year-old boy named Erlie. He would have been 11 years old when the picture was taken. So it wasn't him. There's also a boy named Albert listed, who was less than one year old. He would have been about eight years old when the picture was taken, so he also would have been too old to be the boy.

DM: And Uncle Jerry was born after he was.

JM: Are any of your mother's sisters and brothers still living?

DM: No, they've all passed away.

JM: Was your mother in good health up until she died?

DM: She was. After my father died, in 1954, she lived by herself for many years. She even raised one of her grandsons, Bobby Lee McDowell. He got married and had a family of his own when she died. The last year, we had to put my mother in the nursing home because she came down with dementia.

JM: She died 30 years ago this month, Sept 6, 1979. She was photographed 101 years ago.

DM: I'll never stop missing my mother. I could always talk to her. I still miss my daddy, too. Mom loved her husband and children through good times and bad. Mom and Dad raised us to have great respect and love for other people and a deep faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

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Ruth Barnhill McDowell, with daughter Geneva McKeithen, a granddaughter and a great-grandson.

Interview with Ruth's grandson, Bobby Lee McDowell, and more photos

joe@sevensteeples.com 

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