Both of my great-grandparents on my paternal side died before my father was born, and sadly, I can’t recall my grandmother ever talking about her family. This is surprising today since her early life seems filled with grief and hardship, but life in the early twentieth century could be cruel, and sadness was something to be endured, without complaint.

Jasper C Frederick was born on 8 August 1871 in Warsaw, Duplin County, North Carolina, the second child of Mary West and John Christoper C. Frederick. John was a Confederate soldier and served as a corporal with Company A  of the 38th Infantry Regiment of North Carolina. He enlisted in 1861 and mustered out at Appomattox, 9 April 1865. Mary and John were probably married shortly after the end of the Civil War and had a daughter, Emma, about 1867.

Mary’s father, Daniel West, made a deed on 12 December 1869 giving her 60 acres on Stuart Creek. Mary died shortly after Jasper’s birth because Daniel made another deed in February 1872 placing the land in a trust for Emma and Jasper Frederick. He specified that the trust be managed by his son, Joshua J. West, and was only to benefit Emma and Jasper. Daniel may have been concerned for the financial security of his grandchildren because shortly after the deed was recorded, John Frederick married his cousin, Mary Frederick on 24 February 1872. The deed made in 1869 was not registered until 1875. The 1872 trust may have resulted in some litigation between Daniel West and John Frederick compelling the late registration of the 1869 deed and overturning the 1872 trust.

Young Jasper was living with his West grandparents at the time of the 1880 census and may have spent much of his childhood with them. On 21 September 1892, just after Jasper’s 21st birthday, John and Jasper jointly sold the 60 acres for $3000. Per the terms of the 1872 trust all proceeds were to benefit Emma and Jasper. Since only Jasper is listed on the deed, Emma must have died prior to 1892, and probably prior to the 1880 census since she is also not listed there.

On 11 January 1893, Mr. J.C. Frederick attended the wedding of Zachariah M. Curtis and Mary E Dunn. Other guests included niece and nephews of the groom, Nettie Curtis and her brothers. A newspaper clipping of the event reveals that guests enjoyed a “choice and bounteous feast”, midnight dessert and partied until dawn.” Just over a month later, Jasper and Nettie married February 21, 1893 in Mecklenburg County, Nettie’s home.

Nettie’s father William Carter Curtis, had fought in the Civil War. He lost an arm at Gettysburg and family lore says he had to cut off his own injured arm when it became infected on the way home from Gettysburg. He suffered pain from the injury for the rest of his life. Curtis was highly regarded in Mecklenburg where he published a local newspaper and served as county clerk for many years. After the war the family joined cousins in Marshall, Texas, but soon returned home to Virginia. It seems likely that Curtis and John C.C. Frederick were connected, perhaps having met during the war years. Both men named a son Jasper and a daughter Emma. And Curtis named a son, Christopher C. Curtis, perhaps for his friend John Christopher C. Frederick.

The young couple settled in Manchester, just outside of Richmond. Manchester was growing rapidly after the war, providing jobs and affordable homes to a population displaced by the emancipation of slaves and a new industrial economy. Jasper was working as a laborer for the railroad, but had been unemployed for four months of the previous year. The couple had three daughters, Brenda, Elaine and Ardelle when the census taker recorded the household in 1900. Two more daughters were added to Jasper and Nettie’s family, Mary Belle in 1901 and Audrey in 1902.

Living next door to the young family were two of Nettie’s five surviving brothers, Chesley and Thorpe. Both listed their occupation as “compositor”, another term for photographer. Chesley Curtis and his wife Mattie also had three young children. This was probably a lively family life for the two young families living together in such close association. Sadly, Mattie died in 1908 giving birth to her sixth child. Mother and daughter were buried together in Maury Cemetery.

City directories indicate the family settled at 1019 Taylor Street in Richmond and that Jasper worked as a fireman, machinist or engineer in the years between 1900 and 1910.

Tragedy struck the family in January, 1910. Nettie gave birth to a sixth daughter, Eunice, on 10 January, 1910. Eunice died the next day of “accidental suffocation.” Nettie died an agonizing death two days later, on 13 January 1910, from “septic peritonitis resulting from ruptured gall bladder during or just before labor”. Curiously, Eunice was buried at Oakwood Cemetery and Nettie was buried at Riverview. There was no mention of baby Eunice in Nettie’s obituary.

“Maternal mortality is the result of any number of complications that beset pregnant women worldwide. The most common direct causes of maternal death are severe bleeding (25%), infection (15%), unsafe abortion (13%), eclampsia (pregnancyinduced hypertension, often accompanied by seizures, 12%), and obstructed labor (8%). Maternal mortality ratios were over 600 until the early 1930s, when decline commenced.” Some contemporary writers theorize that the high death rates in the first thirty years of the turn of the century were the result of the transition of labor management from midwives to inexperienced physicians. A ruptured gall bladder during pregnancy is extremely rare and it could be that Nettie Frederick died of eclampsia or infection at the hands of an inexperienced physician.

Eunice’s death must have posed a dilemma for the doctor who signed the death certificate. There is a mostly illegible annotation along the side of the certificate. It appears to state that the certificate was signed after consultation. The accidental suffocation of a day old infant raises many questions and leaves a mystery for this family. Additional research such as checking coroner’s records and Richmond court cases could reveal further information. Eunice’s death certificate incorrectly identifies her mother as Mary Williams, a bizarre mistake when better information was readily available. This may further indicate official discomfort with the death.

Jasper had five daughters and decided he needed the help of a wife quickly because he next married Sudie Bruce Mitchell in Wayne County, North Carolina on 25 February 1910. Jasper probably regretted this hasty marriage. Directory listings show separate residences for the couple in 1916 – 1919, the year Sudie (also known as Susie or Sarah) died. Her death certificate shows a cause of death as “atypical pellagra”. This condition is a basic niacin deficiency, but without the typical skin lesions. Pellagra was very common in the rural south among poor people in the early twentieth century. The most common cause was a lack of fresh vegetables and meats, although pellagra is also common among alcoholics. Pellagra is classically described by “the three Ds”: diarrhea, dermatitis and dementia. Sadie’s condition would have made life with her very challenging for Jasper and his daughters as she could have had an array of  emotional disturbances including restlessness, a desire to quarrel and many other unpleasant symptoms.

The girls may have been close to their maternal grandmother, Azelia Curtis. Brenda, Elaine and Ardelle were living with her in Boynton, Mecklenburg County, when the 1910 census was recorded the summer following their mother’s death. There is no record of Jasper, Mary Belle or Audrey in the 1910 census. Perhaps Jasper had left the girls with relatives while he settled in with his new wife and life. Azelia, 69 years old, may have not been up to the care of all five girls.
Jasper Frederick died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 8 November 1920 in Richmond, Virginia. He  was 49 years old and may have been ill for years before his death. TB can linger and cause wasting of the body over a long period of time. A research report on TB in Virginia notes, Few diseases influenced American life as much as TB…” In 1915, the newly founded Virginia State Tuberculosis Commission noted with alarm its estimation that more than twice as many people in the state died of TB as from typhoid, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and malaria combined.”

By now Jasper had three grandchildren but it is unlikely he saw them as by 1920 people were concerned about catching TB, an incurable disease. Many patients were sent to sanitariums in the mountains, but the address provided on Jasper’s death certificate indicates he may have been residing in a private care home.

Jasper’s daughter, Ardelle, provided the customary details for Jasper’s death certificate. She gave his birthday as 8 August 1872, but Jasper was almost certainly born a year earlier as his mother was dead by February 1872 when his grandfather recorded a deed gifting property to Jasper and his sister Emma. It is fairly common for the bereaved to make errors when reporting information or for clerks to record information incorrectly.

Ardelle recorded that Jasper was a painter for the Burton Systems, and that he was married. She didn’t know his mother’s name, but knew that Jasper was born in Warsaw, North Carolina, son of J.C. Frederick. Jasper was buried in Riverview Cemetery and no obituary or funeral notice has been found. The Burton System did outdoor advertising (billboards) in Richmond. There are indications Jasper’s daughters were fond of him. Ardelle handled the death arrangements and named a son Richard Frederick. Elaine named a son Jasper Frederick.

Jasper Frederick’s relatively short life reflected may of the changes that happened as the South struggled to recover following the war. The son of a comfortable farming family, Jasper inherited a relatively valuable piece of farmland from his grandfather. He made a choice to sell the property, and like so many others of his generation, leave farming for more urban opportunities. He worked in manufacturing jobs and appears to have successfully supported a family of five daughters. Jasper suffered the tragic loss of a young wife following childbirth and the mysterious death of an infant daughter. Childbirth even at the turn of the century was especially fraught with danger and his loss was not uncommon. Oldest daughter Brenda died two years after her father’s death from an undiagnosed illness, bringing more sadness to the family. Jasper’s own death from tuberculosis was very common. The new residential closeness of cities made the spread of communicable disease much easier than in rural communities. Pellagra was also endemic in the postwar South and the disease wreaked havoc on families, including the Frederick family.

Surviving daughters Elaine, Ardelle, Mary Belle and Audrey settled in or near Richmond where they raised their families and enjoyed comfortable lives, always maintaining warm connections with their sisters.

Children of Jasper C Frederick and Nettie James Curtis

• Brenda May Frederick. 2 May 1895 – 28 April 1922. Married Raymond Thigpen 17 May 1917 in Lenoir, NC. One child: Barbara E. Thigpen.
• Elaine Doreen Frederick, 18 March 1896 – 22 January 1981. Married Leroy O’Rork ca 1921. Four children: Jasper Frederick, Mary Jane, Doris Elaine and Leroy Morton.
• Ardelle Curtis Frederick, 12 September 1897 – 8 September 1965. Marriage ca 1917 to Douglas Thaw. Two children: Douglas Jr and Richard Frederick.
• Mary Belle Frederick, 17 January 1901 – 19 December 1979. Married 1: Raymond Harris Sykes, 1 Feb 1919. Three children: Thomas Leonard, Robert Kenneth and Arielle Jean. Married 2: Whit M. Roudabush, 24 March 1951.
• Lillian Audrey Frederick. 1 September 1902 7 November 1979. Married Walter Ernest Stewart ca 1919. Four children: Audrey Anita, Ernestine, Carolyn, Patricia.
• Eunice.10 January 1910 – 11 January 1910