OUR FOREBEARS:
GREEN AND REBECCA HOWARD

To the younger generations, Green and Rebecca Howard are shadows of a distant past. To their grandchildren, they are a blurred memory.

Historical records paint a sketchy picture of a man and woman who were born during slavery, got married during Reconstruction and had eight children. Census records from 1900 show that Green was born in April 1852 and Rebecca in March 1855. Green’s parents were both from Georgia, and he was born there. Rebecca’s father was from Georgia and her mother was from South Carolina. She, too, was born in Georgia. 

Maude Wingfield was Green’s great niece. Her grandmother Cora was his sister. “We called him Uncle Green,” as she recalled, although she was young (she was born in 1915) and didn’t remember much about him.

We do not know how Green and Rebecca met. We do know that they got married in Bibb County, GA, on May 30, 1883, according to their marriage certificate. And when the Census was taken in June 1900, they both told the census-taker that they had been married for 17 years.

Their first child, a daughter, was born in 1886 and they named her Elizabeth, perhaps after a mother or aunt or grandmother. For the next 14 years, until 1900, they would have seven more children, all born in the area of Bolingbroke. The Census lists the area as the Bentons militia district, which is near Bolingbroke. 

The 1900 Census showed that they had eight children, with seven living. The names of only six of those children, however, were listed. There is no indication of whom the seventh child was or where he or she was living at the time. We can only presume that the eighth child died. The Census records for 1890 cannot be checked because most of it was lost in a fire.

Green was 48 years old and Rebecca, 45. They lived on a rented farm with their children in Bolingbroke, Monroe County, GA – possibly as sharecroppers. He could neither read nor write, but Rebecca could do both.

Bolingbroke was apparently a farming community with fewer that 100 people in 1895. It had a post office and railroad service, according to the website roadsidethoughts.com, which got its information from the 1890 Census. Other towns in the area, which would be home to Green and Rebecca as well as their offsprings, were Rutland, Wellston, Avondale (near the family church), Walden and Skipperton.

Their children were identified in the 1900 Census as:

-Elizabeth, age 14, born April 1886. She could read and write, and had attended school for three months the previous year.

-Gussie (known as Guss), 12, born February 1888. He could read and write.

-Floyd, 10, born December 1889. He could read but not write.

-Walter, 8, born October 1891.

-Alonzo, 6, born October 1893.

-Airena (known as Irene), 3, born August 1896.

There’s no indication if the school-age children had been in school the year before.

The couple’s last son, Obie, had not yet been born. The April 27, 1910, census lists him as 8 years old, indicating that he was born in 1901 or 1902. Obie’s children gave his birthdate as June 30, 1900.

It’s important to note that the Census records – including other historical records – of Black people are prone to be both inaccurate and incomplete. Names are spelled in different ways by different Census takers, birthdates can change, and ages are often off the mark. But these records are as close as we can come to connecting to the history of our African American ancestors.  

As for Green and Rebecca, they brought up their children in the church, Mount Zion Baptist Church in south Bibb County, GA. Green was a deacon in the church, and Rebecca was the mother of the church, as their grandchildren recalled.

An early photo of Mount Zion Baptist Church, the Howard Family’s place of worship.

Green was described by his children to their children as a hard worker, a quality that carried over into his offsprings.

“The had a pretty good life living on the farm until his mother died and all the older kids left home,” Gussie Clark said of her father Guss.

Rebecca apparently died after her last child Obie was born, between 1900 and 1905. Green married a woman named Cheney Nixon on March 16, 1905, and she is listed in the 1910 Census. (The spelling of her first name changed pretty often in the Census and other records.) 

Some of Green’s children described her alternately as a mean woman and a good woman to her stepchildren.

Obie told his children that although he missed his real mother, his stepmother was good to him. Irene told a different story to one of her daughters:

“My mother was always telling me about her stepmother, how mean she was to her,” said Gladys Riggin, Irene’s daughter. “She didn’t get any love at all.”

Gussie said her father blamed his stepmother for driving Floyd away from home. “Their stepmother was mean to them,” Gussie said. “Father said the watermelon man was coming by (one day) and (Floyd) jumped on the truck and ran away. My father cried and cried. He didn’t want him to go away.”

By 1910, the family had moved to Houston County to the small farming community of Wellston, according to the Census. It was renamed Warner Robins after an air depot was built there in 1942, according to wikipedia. The base was first named the Wellston Army Air Force Base, then Warner Robins Army Air Depot. Most people today know it as Robins Air Force Base, where several members of the Howard family would eventually be employed.

By 1910, Green and Cheney were living there with only four of their children. Green was 58 years old and Cheney was 43. He was listed as a laborer who did odd jobs.

The census listed the children as:

-Lonzie (Alonzo), 15, who did farm labor, was out of work for 12 weeks the year before and attended school.

-Rena (Irene), 13, who could read but not write, and attended school.

-Obie, 8, who attended school.

-Farel Robert, Green’s 4-year-old step-grandson, described as a mulatto.

Green and Cheney’s marriage was the second for both of them. The Census showed that they rented a house. There is no indication that he was farming, but more than likely he was a farmer. During this period in American history, many people – Black and white – were farmers and many could not read or write. 

The Census-taker was told that he was able to read but not write, while Cheney could neither read nor write. Her father was born in Georgia, her mother in Florida, and she in Georgia. Cheney was not working.

Cheney said that she had had seven children and three were still living. She died in 1927.

As the children got older, some started to leave home, either getting married, moving out or heading north. It was that kind of time in America, when Black folks fresh off the farm felt that they could find better opportunities in the northern cities of Detroit, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. Historians call this period the Black Migration.

By 1920, the couple had moved again, but apparently did not stray far from the Macon area. According to the 1920 census, they were living in the town of Rutland in Bibb County, where he was a farmer. Their neighbors were also farmers.

The Census-taker listed those living in the household as:

Green Howard, age 65.

Cheany Howard, 68.

Robert Howard, 13.

O.B. Howard, 19.

Pearlie (daughter, born in 1915), 5.

In the 1920s, Guss moved to Detroit to find a job in the Ford Motor Co. plant. He was living in Savannah, GA, at the time with his family. He moved to the city and later returned to get his family.

His children recalled that Green came to Detroit to stay, alternating between the households of Guss, Walter and Elizabeth. 

According to the 1930 Census, he was living with his son Walter, wife Ida and nephew Willis Chattman. Green was 75 years old and was a widower. 

Jeannette Davis, Guss’ daughter, recalled him staying first with Elizabeth, then Guss and his large family, and then Walter and Ida. She was about 8 years old.

She related the following  anecdote during a conversation with Corine Howard, conducted by Jeannette’s son John Davis in Atlanta in 2008.

“My grandfather lived with us for a while. Uncle Walter sent for him,” she said. “He stayed with Uncle Walter for a while, too. My mother had to go off somewhere. My dad was working like he always does. My mother told grandfather, ‘I got to go, leaving the children here. You make them mind.’

“It gave grandfather the opportunity to whup us if we acted up. Here I am thinking ‘I’m smart, he old, he can’t do nothing. … In our bedroom the bed was up against the wall. (She was on the bed and began singing a children’s rhyme about an old man who “couldn’t do nothing’). I kept talking about this old man, this old man. And he got tired of me saying that. 

“I thought because he was old, he couldn’t do nothing. He got down on his knees. I thought he couldn’t’ do that. And he had a switch or something. I couldn’t get away because the bed was against the wall. And he had that switch – whoop, whoop – and I was trapped. So when she got home, he told my mother about it. She said, ‘Well I told you to make them mind, so you didn’t do a thing I didn’t tell you to.’ I learned then that you can’t think because a person’s old they can’t do nothing. … I was wrong. I thought I could get away with something.”

The Rev. Walter L. Howard Sr., Guss’ son, said his grandfather didn’t like the bitter Detroit winters. 

Guss “did have his father come and live with us for a few months,” said Rev. Howard, “but his father didn’t like it here ‘up north,’ so he finally went back home to Georgia.”

Jeannette said in the video and in an interview for “Generations,” the 1988 family reunion newspaper, that Green died in Detroit. 

“Grandfather Howard was a kind man, at the same time he believed in discipline,” said Jeannette.

___________________

Read this account of Rebecca and Green written by Green and Rebecca’s  great-granddaughter Sherry L. Howard in her blog “Auction Finds” in 2010.