The photograph that should have been
There were five Cottrell sisters who grew to adulthood.
Ten children in all were born to Martin Gilbert Cottrell and Martha H. “Mattie” (Johnson) Cottrell, great grandparents of The Legal Genealogist. Two — a daughter Willie and a son Sammie — died as children.1
But, in addition to the three sons (John, Gilbert and my grandfather, the baby, Clay) who lived to reach majority, there were five daughters who grew to adulthood as well.
Yet there are only four in this precious family photograph, dated — we believe — from about 1910.
At the top, from left to right, are Theo Cottrell Hodges and Maude Cottrell Gottlieb. At the bottom, from left to right, Addie Cottrell Harris and Nettie Cottrell Holly.
The one missing: the one born 140 years ago yesterday, on 6 November 1875, probably in Clay County, Texas. Her name was Effalie.2
She was the oldest of the Cottrell children, and appears for the first time in the records in the 1880 U.S. census in her parents’ household. She was shown as M.E. Cottrell, age four, with her brother John, age 3, shown as J.W. and sister Nettie, age 1, shown as N.H.3
She appears again in the marriage records of Wichita County, Texas, on 5 May 1898, when she and Hinton Snoddy, a Tennessee native, were united in matrimony by county judge J. H. Barwise.4
And then she was gone.
In 1900, Hinton Snoddy was listed in the Wichita County census as a 30-year-old widower living with his mother and siblings.5 He went on to remarry and had two children, Nannie and Marguerita.6 He died in October 1932 in Burkburnett, Wichita County.7
Of Effalie, little else is known.
What made her laugh. What care she took of a houseful of younger brothers and sisters. What her life in rough-and-tumble-before-the-turn-of-the-century Texas was like. What made her say yes when Hinton Snoddy asked her to marry him. What she thought of being presented with a baby brother — my grandfather Clay — just two weeks before she herself became a bride. What her dreams were for children of her own.
All we know is what has been passed down in oral family history: that she contracted typhoid and died within weeks of her marriage.8
From that, we can surmise that — not long after that spring wedding in 1898 — Effalie began to suffer poor appetite, headaches, generalized aches and pains, fever, and lethargy. The disease typically ran its course in four stages of roughly a week each… and, left untreated, typhoid kills 10-30% of the time.9
As it did there, in Wichita County, Texas, in the spring or early summer of 1898.
Leaving only a name behind… and a photograph of four sisters… when there should have been a photograph of five.
SOURCES
- Interview with Opal Robertson Cottrell (Kents Store, VA), by granddaughter Bobette Richardson, 1980s; copy of notes privately held by Judy G. Russell. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- 1880 U.S. census, Clay County, TX, population schedule, Precinct 4, enumeration district (ED) 164, p. 492(B) (stamped), dwelling 17, family 17, M.G. Cottrell household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Oct 2011); citing National Archive microfilm publication T9, roll 1296. ↩
- Wichita County, Texas, Marriage Book 2: 29, Hinton Snoddy and Effalie Cottrell, 1898, marriage license and return; County Clerk’s Office, Wichita Falls. ↩
- 1900 U.S. census, Wichita County, TX, population schedule, Justice Precinct 6, enumeration district (ED) 127, p. 241(B) (stamped), sheet 8(B), dwelling 157, family 157, Hinton Snoddy household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 Oct 2011); citing National Archive microfilm publication T623, roll 1679. ↩
- 1920 U.S. census, Wichita County, Texas, Burkburnett, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 197, p. 156(A) (stamped), dwelling 67, family 82, Hinton Snoddy household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 Nov 2015); citing National Archive microfilm publication T625, roll 1859. ↩
- Texas Department of Health, death certif. no. 44707, “Henton” Snoddy (1932); Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- Interview with Opal Robertson Cottrell, by granddaughter Bobette Richardson, 1980s. ↩
- Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “Typhoid fever,” rev. 5 Nov 2015. ↩
I see a family resemblance between you and Maude Cottrell. Does anyone else see this resemblance?
Since I consider Maude to be gorgeous, I appreciate reading this!!
Beautifully written and very touching. This is a great example of using evidence–and absence–to paint an engaging family story. Thanks once again!
Thanks for the kind words!
Beautifully told, Judy. It makes my heart ache. I’ve found some examples of that sort of thing in my family, too. My grandfather died suddenly at age 39 in 19, leaving my grandmother a widow with young children still at home. I know something of what her life was like, and the changes it made in their lives, in the rural great basin just as the farmers’ depression was leading into the Great Depression. But I know little about what my grandfather was like– just enough to wish I could have known him.
And there was another missing person in that family. Not long after their father’s death, one of the older boys, about 20, decided to go looking for a job. He packed a bag and hopped a train to go live with relatives while he looked for work. He never got there, and was never seen or heard from again. It haunted the family for all their lives. After my mother died, my dad, at age 73, drove a total of 2500 miles from place to place talking to people and looking at old records and newspapers trying to find some clue. He came home dispirited. He knew it was a long shot, but I think hope made him optimistic, that his brother had not died in an accident or waylaid, but perhaps just kept going to establish a new life somewhere.
And I confess that as I continue poking at that generation, I keep hoping I’ll stumble across some bit of info that will reveal what happened to him. My grandmother, in her declining years, still grieved at not knowing what had happened to her missing son.
Missing year: my grandfather died in 1929. Mind racing ahead of fingers.
Fingers crossed for you, to find your missing as well.