Today has been a McWilliams day. I’ve been stuck on Eugene for a very long time. Eugene (b. 1867) was my gg-grandfather, married to Anna Harriss (b. 1870). Anna died of TB in 1908 and their children, Una, Rebecca and my great-grandfather, Joel George, moved in with their maternal grandparents, George and Ada. Eugene vanished. Family story says that Joel used to sit on the front porch every day waiting for his father to come home, he never did. I don’t think he left town and I’ve heard the kids saw him on the streetcar one day. I also know he was a rice broker and hung out at the old cotton exchange. I found a Eugene as a boarder in the 1920 census with Clara and Eula, his sisters. I ordered a death certificate for the only Eugene McWilliams I could find. He was widowed and a rice broker. Absolutely no other information, not even a birth date, only age. No family members, nada. To add to the mystery, there is no burial place, but only “remains shipped to Clinton, LA”. We have, that I know, no relations in or to Clinton! More research on the sisters shows neither married. Their father, JR (b. 1842) died in 1847 and I found his grave in Shubuta, MS. The mother, Eugenia, shows up in San Antonio Texas in the 1910 census, as a lodger with Clara, a music teacher! Why San Antonio?? The mother has no record I can find after that. Two McWilliams show up in New Orleans, on Magazine Street, in the 1930 census. No first names, the birth dates and places coincide, both are female and one is a music teacher. Nothing after that and no death record at the LA archives database.
Next to-do will have to be a trip to Shubuta…..