The Franklin Fifteen: An Introduction (Part 3, 1900-1910)
September 24, 2019
The William and Annie Franklin family entered the new century with three children. To support his family William worked as a farmer and at this time the couple could afford for Annie to stay at home and look after their three children who were William Jr. (age 9), Rosa (age 4) and Minnie (age 1).[1] On 30 August 1900 the family of five became a family of six as the couple welcomed a baby boy who they named Fred.[2] Nearly five years would pass before the couple would welcome another child.
William and Annie's eighth child, a girl who they named Marie Franklin, arrived on 24 March 1905.[3] The families happiness at welcoming another healthy child into the world would have been short lived, however, as August approached. A newspaper article published in Kentucky included these orders that were published in Cairo on 21 August 1905. "The City of Cairo, Illinois, is here by declared to be quarantined against all places north, south, east and west."[4] The article would further go on to state that anyone wishing to enter the city would need a special permit. Why would a city that was reliant on the transportation of goods and people for survival close it's doors? The answer was simple, Yellow Fever.
Before August of 1905 immigrants from Italy were unloading a shipment of bananas in New Orleans. In the course of their job they were bitten by mosquitoes and infected with Yellow Fever. This would be the last major Yellow Fever outbreak in the United States and it would not end until October of 1905. Cairo, Illinois is over eight hours away from New Orleans, Louisiana, however, being that the cities are connected by the Mississippi river it is easy to see why officials in Cairo would have been concerned. Annie had already lost three children in a short period of time so news of a potentially deadly epidemic would most likely have been terrifying for the young mother. By the end of October the threat was over and life returned to normal in Cairo.
On 8 February 1906 another child joined the Franklin family who they named Bertha Franklin.[5] Less than a year later the tenth child in the Franklin family arrived on 3 January 1907. This would be the third girl born in a row and they named her Pearl Franklin.[6] A year and twenty-seven days later Lucille Franklin joined the family on 30 January 1908.[7] (Lucille would go on to live to the age of one hundred and ten. To hear more about her click on the link for the podcast on the left side of this blog.) The Franklin family now consisted of ten people and eight of them were children between the ages of eighteen and zero. William Franklin, as well as William Henry Franklin, now worked at a at the Box Mill in Cairo, Illinois owned by the Chicago Mill and Lumbar Company. There he would have made, "paper, corrugated paperboard, and boxes."[8]
With the memory of the potential risk of a Yellow Fever outbreak in Cairo still fresh in everyone's minds, a new threat appeared only a year after Lucille Franklin's birth. Although Illinois was a free state after the emancipation proclamation, Cairo, Illinois acted very much like a southern state. One resident proclaimed in 1883, "They
[African Americans] are the most impudent irrational, unruly race that ever
walked the globe, I do believe. … Yesterday morning [they] demanded that their
school children be entered right with the white ones."[9] If Cairo's geography is what made it an important city, racism is what most definitely killed it, and it has left it a virtual ghost town today. The Franklin family would have witnessed this racism first hand and later the violence it created. "Out
of a population of 13,000 in 1900, 5,000 of the inhabitants of Cairo were [African American]. Of the 100,000 [African Americans] in the State of Illinois,
5 percent [were] massed in this one little
town.”[10]
Things came to head in Cairo in November of 1909 when violence finally broke out. One newspaper article stated, "Will James, the negro suspected of being the murderer of Miss
Annie Pelley, was lynched at Cairo Illinois, Thursday night by a mob. He was strung up to the public arch, the rope broke, and at least 500 shots were poured into his body."[11] The arch the article refers to once stood at the intersection of Commercial Avenue and eighth street, and bore the name Hustler's Arch. (The image above depicts the arch) This arch is something the Franklin family would have seen often as it was a little more than a mile from their home. How much would they have heard that night? 
*Dear readers, I apologize for the strange font problems on this blog post. I think it is a coding error as nothing I have done has fixed the problem. I apologize again.
- 1900 United States Census, Alexander County, Illinois, population schedule, Cache, p. 1, sheet 1A, dwelling 12, family 12, William Franklin family; image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 26 September 2019); citing FHL microfilm 1240236.
- Social Security Administration, "United States Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014" database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com accessed 18 September 2019), entry for Fred Franklin, 1980, SS no 336-05-6072.
- Social Security Administration, "United States Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014" database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com accessed 18 September 2019), entry for Marie Gregston, 1989, SS no 357-09-2626.
- "People at Cairo Badly Frightened," The Paducah Sun (Paducah, Kentucky), 22 August 1905, p. 4, column 4.
- Ancestry, Find A Grave, database with images (http://www.findagrave.com: accessed 26 September 2019), memorial 129050728, Berta Torrence Weyermann (1906-1970), Sunset Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Affton, St. Louis, Missouri.
- Social Security Administration, "United States Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014" database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com accessed 18 September 2019), entry for Pearl F. Bevill, 1998, SS no 490-24-9397.
- Personal knowledge as family members had the opportunity to meet and talk with her.
- 1910 United States Census, Alexander County, Illinois, population shceulde, Cairo Ward 7, p. 227, sheet 10A, ED 15, dwelling 195, family 20, William Franklin family; image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com: accessed 26 September 2019); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 230
- Rittenhouse, Isabella Maud Maud. New York: The Macdmillan Company, 1939, p. 175.
- Clanahan, W.L, “Cairo’s Negroes.; Former Resident Says They Are Spoiled by Coddling and Are a Menace,” The New York Times (New York, NY), Nov. 19, 1909, p. unknown.
- “Blood Mad Mob Wreaks Vengeance on Murderers Black Slayer of Girl and White Wife Murderer Lynched,” Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, NM), Nov. 12, 1909, p. 1.
4 comments
Thanks for sharing! I like how you mixed historical events with your own family story post, it adds a lot of context. I'm also glad you mentioned Lucille in this post because I've been waiting in excitement for when she would be born because I think she is so fun! The story about Will James is so sad and heartbreaking, I've never heard that story before so thank you for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine the worry about yellow fever, especially with very young children at home. And then mob violence to boot. Shelby you are an expert storyteller.
ReplyDeleteThis was quite an intense post, but I enjoyed it a lot. First of all I am wildly impressed that Lucille lived so long, she must have taken quite good care of herself. Then I think it is so interesting, as someone whose family never touched the South, to think about how they experienced the tumult of the segregationist and civil rights era. I am sure it is comforting to have known your ancestors well enough to suspect their behavior during that time, but what a question to ponder about our family.
ReplyDeleteShe attributed her longevity to hard work and drinking a beer every day but Sunday.
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